4 Apr 2022
The theme of World Health Day this year is ‘Our planet, our health’. Once seen as separate issues, in fact, the way food is produced directly impacts both - and Puratos believes they are inexplicably linked. Afterall, how can we look after our planet if we don’t look after ourselves? It’s a relationship we’re working hard on improving. At Puratos, we want to move the planet forward by creating innovative food solutions for the health and well-being of people everywhere.
With this in mind, our promise to our customers, partners and employees is to reduce and optimize the use of environmental resources by developing and implementing sustainable solutions. From creating nutritious ingredients that improve health and well-being, to ensuring our production processes are optimized to minimize waste, every action we take is a step in the right direction. And to hold ourselves accountable, we have commitments and strategies in place that tackle a number of environmental challenges including responsible sourcing and reducing water, waste and energy.
What do our goals look like?
- To become carbon-neutral by 2025
- To become water-balanced by 2030
- To operate zero-waste-to-landfill, worldwide, by 2030
It looks ambitious, right? No matter how ambitious our future goals and hopes for the planet, Puratos will always put people first. With the population projected to reach almost 10bn by 2050 , we must all act immediately and do our part in reducing our environmental impact.
Taking care of each other
As we’ve established, the way food is produced has a significant impact on not only the health of the planet, but also the health of people. That’s why we make it our duty to provide the most nutritional and appealing products that don’t compromise on taste, texture or safety. So, what are we doing to help bakers, patissiers, chocolatiers and various food producers bring these products to market faster? Put simply, we increase the levels of power ingredients, like fruit, fiber, and wholegrains in our products as well as offering a wider variety of them for our customers to put in their products. We also strive to cut down the presence of ingredients, like salt, certain fats, and sugars in line with current regulations and consumer demand. In fact, in 2021 we removed over 10,000 tons of sugar and fat from our ingredients and added more than 16,000 tons of fruit and almost 42,000 tons of grains and seeds.
Plus, our very own source of global consumer research, Taste Tomorrow, lets us know exactly what people are looking for in foods to make healthier options more appealing. Think of us as the consumer’s voice and the customer’s guide.
A deeper dive into our sustainable promises:
Carbon - We’re proud to have succeeded in reducing our global CO2 emissions by 24% compared to business as usual (baseline: 2016). But in order to reach zero emissions and become carbon-neutral just three years from now, we’re now focused on improving our energy efficiency, renewable energy and carbon compensation. With these combinations in place, we’re on track to achieving our commitment.
Water - This is another challenge for the whole food industry, especially where harvesting is involved. We recently upgraded our wastewater treatment capacity, and we have reduced our global water consumption. Over the past 12 months, we also completed and commissioned a new anaerobic reactor in Belgium, built a full new wastewater treatment plant in Vietnam, and started the construction of another one in Indonesia. Water conservation is a responsibility we’re not taking lightly.
Waste - As well as reducing our own waste, we want to help everyone in our supply chain do the same. As such, we aim to have all our inbound and outbound packaging materials fully recyclable or reusable by 2025. And it doesn’t stop there, Puratos has also accepted the challenge of sourcing 100% of our cardboard and wooden packaging materials from sustainable forestry sources by 2025, in accordance with FSC and PEFC certifications.
