How Nestlé Is Setting The Pace For Sustainability Efforts (Part One Of Two)
By Isaac Fletcher, contributing writer, Food Online
Nestlé, the world's-largest food and beverage company, is playing a significant role in addressing global food and sustainability issues such as poverty, food waste, and climate change
With concerns over health and sustainability ever increasing, it is becoming more and more important for food producers to have open conversations with consumers in an effort to tackle some of the global food-related issues faced today.
In an interview conducted by The Washington Post, Nestlé’s vice president and global head of operations, José Lopez, discussed some of the current major issues faced by food producers and the role these companies must take to overcome them. With regard to Nestlé’s position on sustainability, Lopez states, “Sustainability is not only making sure that our business model is able to survive, but that we live in a society that is in harmony with what we want our business to be in the future.” Lopez underscores the importance of understanding what consumers need, and demand, from the companies that serve them, explaining, “You have to be relevant, you have to be in tune with what society needs, so that your business can continue to work over the long run.”
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Long-term thinking and planning is clearly important for any successful business, and Lopez contends that firms should not make long-term decisions based on short-term financial reports. “To change your decision-making on the numbers you’re going to have to give each quarter — when it takes years to put products in place, build factors, find distribution, and bring forward a brand — doesn’t make sense,” say Lopez.
Sustainability efforts have undoubtedly been shaped by advancements in technology. Lopez elaborates, “[Technology] has a big and positive impact. Society now demands more transparency because we’re able to provide more transparency. Corporations have received a renewed mandate by society. We have to take responsibility for things that in the past we didn’t feel we had the legitimacy to.” Looking toward the future, Nestlé realizes that there is still more that big food companies can do, “We know how to achieve sustainable farming, we know how to achieve sustainable harvesting of many of our ingredients, but when you look around, you realize that this is just a drop in the ocean. So the question is, "How can we scale this up?”
In part two of How Nestlé Is Setting The Pace For Sustainability Efforts, Nestlé’s approach to some of the toughest issues facing the food industry today — how food companies begin to feed a growing population with rife hunger and poverty, what companies are doing and can do to mitigate the changing narrative on sustainability and health, and the responsibilities these companies have to consumers — will be examined. Stay tuned.