By piloting the Field to Market/SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) Platform Equivalency Module with US farmers, Barry Callebaut and Unilever will benefit from a streamlined sustainability assessment, providing greater efficiency in measuring and assessing the sustainability performance of their supply chains, in commodities including sugar.
With the ability to verify the sustainability performance of their key sourcing regions, they can also identify improvements that will benefit the entire food and agriculture value chain.
The two companies believe it will also lead to a better alignment between the foremost agricultural sustainability initiatives worldwide.
“This new approach between Field to Market and SAI Platform allowed us to partner with our supply chain to engage participating sugar beet farmers in our Fieldprint Project in Minnesota and North Dakota and achieve FSA Silver level verification,” said Kevin Ogorzalek, sustainable sourcing manager at Barry Callebaut. “These new developments make it simpler for us to collect sustainability data and assess the performance of sugar we source in the United States.”
FSA Bronze
The joint Equivalency Module allows participating farmers utilizing the Fieldprint Platform’s outcomes-based, metrics-driven approach to measure environmental sustainability to reach FSA Bronze by confirming that they comply with all local, state and federal laws and regulations relevant for their farming operation. Farmers can pursue additional levels of performance to qualify for FSA Silver or FSA Gold through their responses to 14 additional questions.
“It’s exciting to see Field to Market and SAI Platform bringing their partnership to life through this solution which streamlines sustainability assessment across global supply chains” said Stefani Millie Grant, senior manager for external affairs and sustainability, Unilever and chair of Field to Market’s Board of Directors. “By utilizing the Equivalency Module in our North Dakota Wheat Fieldprint Project, Unilever is better able to assess and characterize the sustainability performance of a key ingredient of our Knorr pasta and identify opportunities for continuous improvement through Field to Market’s outcomes-based approach to advancing sustainable agriculture.”