We strive to include sustainability as one of the criteria determining the products and suppliers we select. This can sometimes be difficult, given that we source some 60,000 products, both food and non-food, from all around the world and from over 2,000 suppliers, both for our food retail and foodservice activities. We strive within the existing framework of legislation and regulations to maintain a balance between people, the environment and our business activities. This can mean difficult decisions for our purchasers, who have to consider the issues involved from several different perspectives. Child labour, carbon dioxide emissions, food miles, the political climate and environmental pollution are just a few examples of issues on which it is not always easy to form an unequivocal view. In 2008 we started working on a policy to guide our purchasing activities and the suppliers we use in our organisation in this respect. We have now completed this process for various groups of items within our product range.
As part of our efforts to ensure a balance and recognise all the aspects involved we always try to identify better alternatives. Sligro Food Group is not seeking, however, to operate as a ‘moral police force’ by imposing all its choices on its customers. Indeed, our customers would not accept that from us.
We have decided in 2009 to structure our group-wide purchasing policy more explicitly so that, alongside transparency, our purchasers also have specific guidelines on what we consider constitutes socially responsible purchasing.