Page 34 - Food&Drink August 2022 magazine

SUSTAINABILITY
Creating a culture of plan[e]t milk
Climate crises, a global pandemic, and rising inflation are key factors in corporate social responsibility (CSG) becoming table stakes for businesses. Vitasoy Australia managing director David Tyack explains how the company has embedded its mantra “Let’s Grow a Better World” into all its operations.
AS a business operating in today’s climate, we have wanted to better understand how the concept and importance of corporate responsibility has shifted over the years.
Internally, we have often noted or assumed that Australians’ expectations have evolved, demanding greater earnestness from large corporations in the sustainability space.
This has been one of many factors in influencing the shift towards our new business platform of “Let’s Grow a Better World”, something that we feel quite passionate about.
To further validate this platform and demonstrate its strength both socially and financially, we decided to find out exactly what Australians were thinking through a research survey.
CONSUMERS WANT BRANDS TO DO MORE
Our YouGov survey, accounting for a representative sample of 1038 Australian adults aged 18+, proved that corporate sustainability is not only important to consumers but is
strongly influencing their purchasing decisions.
We found that seven in ten
(69 per cent) Australians purposefully seek out brands or products that focus on sustainability, with one in five (18 per cent) saying that they always purchase the version of a product that is made sustainably.
LEFT: Vitasoy’s Wodonga plant produces around 60 million litres of plant-based milk each year.
BELOW LEFT: Vitasoy has an “Australian first” sourcing strategy for all the nuts, grains, and beans used to make its milks.
These findings not only provoked thought of what this means for Vitasoy, but also more broadly for the food and beverage manufacturing industry.
FUTUREPROOFING AUSTRALIAN FARMS Vitasoy Australia employs an “Australian first” sourcing strategy for all the nuts, grains, and beans used to make our range of soy, almond, oat, and rice milk. Consequently, we are tightly connected with regional farmers throughout Australia and therefore need to consider how we can play a role in giving Australians access to healthier, nutrient dense food.
We have experienced first-hand that sourcing local ingredients presents a host of advantages, but it also demands contingency planning for unforeseen circumstances. When Australia was experiencing severe drought in 2019, for example, Vitasoy Australia had several soybean
“ We are no longer satisfied with doing only the bare minimum required when it comes to a more sustainable approach to manufacturing, and instead see being a key leader as a competitive advantage.”
34 | Food&Drink business | August 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au
However, less than a third (32 per cent) of Australians currently believe that manufacturers of grocery items are doing enough to be sustainable, revealing a high level of dissatisfaction among consumers.
This dissatisfaction is set to grow with Gen Z believing that manufacturers are not doing enough to be sustainable more than any other generation
(52 per cent).
crops compromised forcing us to go far and wide for a short period to be able to deliver product to the marketplace.
We were fortunate to be able to rebound and recover from this due to having a strong and localised supply chain from farmers across New South Wales, Victoria, and southern Queensland.
However, it has highlighted resilient landscapes as being