Foodservice Footprint IMG_2753 Get on your marks Event Reports

Get on your marks

Foodservice needs to start demanding more from ethical certification schemes – and it might even be time for a cull, according to speakers at the last Footprint Forum. By Amy Fetzer.

It’s not all rosy in the relationship between ethical marks and the foodservice sector. To date they have been easy bedfellows but now they need to challenge each other more. This was the key conclusion of December’s Footprint Forum entitled: “How ethical is your supply chain … really?” supported by Tate & Lyle Sugars.

Marking a seismic shift away from the endless circular debate (there are too many marks; what do they mean to consumers; how do we know they are trustworthy) towards action, the forum concluded that the solution to many of these problems would be a natural outcome of demanding more of ethical marks.

Natural selection

This is because the more that is demanded from ethical marks, the more rigorous and effective they will be. Few would disagree that the marketplace needs to be slimmed down.

The foodservice sector, for its part, needs to demand more detail from the marks on what difference they are making on the ground, backed up by facts, figures and case studies. Only then can firms translate this information to customers so they understand better why certification is valuable and what it means.

In turn, ethical schemes must challenge businesses by raising the bar and setting higher standards for product certification, so lifting standards along the supply chain.

Change from within

As Geraldine Gilbert, Forum for the Future’s principal sustainability adviser, pointed out: “No country has enough policy to fix problems in the supply chain.” But with pressure coming from the Sustainable Development Goals, which include a zero-hunger target among many others related to food and farming within the next 15 years, the impetus is finally there to move the debate forward.

The industry must work hard to transform itself from within. There might be no typical consumer, but Gilbert said that “civil society is beginning to find its voice” to challenge businesses on issues from smog in south-east Asia caused by forests burnt for palm oil, to extreme weather in Britain being linked to climate change. And companies need to have their supply chains in order.

Certification does work

Questions may linger over whether certification really does make things better, especially after the Rainforest Alliance (RA) hit the headlines last autumn when tea plantations in Assam, India, were found to be failing workers with abominable conditions, throwing the audit system into disrepute. Possibly in response to that, RA and the Sustainable Agriculture Network undertook detailed research recently to answer that very question.

The study found that certified farms apply more sustainable farm practices, and contribute to the protection of water sources and to healthier natural ecosystems – both on the farm and in the surrounding landscape. Sustainability practices also tend to improve over time and certification has tangible financial benefits for small-scale producers (but “not always in ways that are expected”).

Certification schemes “represent the people who don’t have a voice in parliament and media, we give a voice to producers and the rainforest”, James Bennett, the head of brand and out of home at the Fairtrade Foundation, told the forum.

Bennett shared stories of how the Fairtrade premium was helping farmers to invest in bugs to act as natural pest controllers in place of chemicals. Spare truck parts are also being bought so that Jamaican sugar cane gets to the mill sooner, leading to increases of 25% in production. And while the premium could not prevent the floods in Malawi, which displaced 300,000 people, it did stop the houses built with Fairtrade premium bricks from washing away.

Ethical reach

“The focus of this Footprint Forum gets to the heart of one of the most relevant issues in international development,” said Justine Greening, the secretary of state for international development. A truly ethical supply chain is one that is ethical all the way along, of course, and not just for developing- world products.

For smaller businesses, such as the handful of restaurants run by panellist Cyrus Todiwala, the chef patron of Café Spice Namaste, it’s easy to build trust within local supply chains as you develop personal relationships with your suppliers. However, the size and scale of much of the foodservice industry means you “lose the ability to look producers in the eye to know how an animal has been kept or workers treated”, he said.

Certification schemes are a way to bridge the gap between small and large scale, which global businesses, such as Fairtrade supporters Tate and Lyle Sugars, find invaluable.

But what happens when your product is not sugar, coffee, bananas or something else that fits into a certification scheme?

Unilever has committed to sourcing 100% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020, and it has developed its own sustainable agricultural standards, to be used in conjunction with Rainforest Alliance certification, to do so. This makes good business sense: for one, not all ingredients qualify to belong to certification schemes, and registration with several different schemes can be costly and time-consuming.

Others firms, such as BaxterStorey, try to be ethical across the whole of their supply chain by being aware of issues that affect suppliers wherever they are based, such as paying within 14 days. This can lead to benefits that are passed back up the supply chain.

Centralised and localised in one

Panellist Mike Hanson, BaxterStorey’s head of sustainable business, also highlighted that systems which combine centralised systems with local freedoms combine the benefits of both centralised and decentralised systems. This is because decentralised models allow firms to build personal relationships and a sense of community, while centralised buying can give them the power to manipulate the market.

An example is when BaxterStorey was struggling to find wholesalers who could supply British bacon. The caterer solved the problem by approaching two British pig farmers, explaining that if they moved into making bacon, BaxterStorey’s buying power would give them a guaranteed route to market.

Some, such as drinks-maker Innocent, use marks where appropriate but tend to focus on creating close relationships and their own ethical standards that suppliers must comply with. While this practice is understandable, it can lead to producers and suppliers having to juggle different requirements from multiple clients. This can be an issue with ethical marks too, as growers and sellers may have to pay and do the admin for several different marks.

A universal standard

With consumers and businesses overwhelmed by the number of ethical marks, the forum inspired Hanson to call for an industry standard or accreditation, such as ISO, BSI or a Which?-style report. Going further and deeper than the global sustainability standards NGO ISEAL, the new standard could be used by businesses and consumers to cut through the noise and concentrate on the best and most relevant ethical marks.

This call may soon be answered. To prevent consumer confusion over the plethora of environmental credentials, and to prevent companies that wish to market products in different markets being required to apply to multiple schemes, the EU Commission has launched a Single Market for Green Products initiative.

The aim is to set measurement standards across a range of issues, including product environmental footprints and principles for communicating environmental performance. The last consultation for the food-related environmental performance pilots closed a few weeks ago, and it will be interesting to see how the recommendations affect ethical marks and reverberate up the supply chain.

With the Sustainable Development Goals providing a structure and a focus towards creating truly ethical supply chains, Bennett said: “We in the foodservice industry are able to make a difference. We have something we can collaborate on: agreed goals that are going to change the world.” That is a hugely exciting prospect.