ENVIRONMENT

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), approximately one-third of worldwide food is lost or wasted at some point in the food supply chain. Inefficiencies in the food supply chain and consumption also have a significant impact on the environment. Therefore, reducing food loss and waste can help against malnutrition and climate change.

In our company, the reduction of food waste is a long-term strategic goal of sustainability.

Our main directions in this goal are:

• We emphasize on prevention, as the benefits of avoiding food waste outweigh dealing with it at a later stage (eg. waste management). As far our company is concerned, the use of modern technology equipment, application and digital tools contributes to the better organization, demand planning and coordination of the production, purchase and sales departments, so that there is a balance of sales forecasting with raw materials demands and production of the respective end products.

• We educate “our people”, our employees and their families about the need to reduce food waste. As part of our food waste strategy, the company educates the employees about food waste reduction through emails and newsletters. In addition, to inform the family members of our employees, actions are organized, such as kid’s participation in an event with the interactive fairytale “The Dinosayr” through which they had the opportunity to easy learn the concept of food waste.

• We create awareness to our consumer about the reduction of food waste. Our company’s social media is a very useful information tool to avoid food waste. In addition, many recipes and cooking tips are posted on our company’s website in which the consumer will find various tips using the products and avoiding food waste.

• Management of Products which are near to expiring date. In our company, we strongly believe that donation of close to the end shelf life products reduce food waste. We have created the “NO FOOD WASTE» team which is responsible for managing products that are close to expiration. More specifically, the products that are close to end of shelf life are monitored, measured and distributed free to the company’s staff or donated to non- profit organizations.

•  Production and Use of biogas. The last solution for a product that cannot be consumed for any reason is to end up, not in the waste, but in the biogas production unit. Biogas is an innovative investment with the aim of both environmental and energy benefit by installing an anaerobic wastewater treatment system to the use of the by-products which come up from the production procedure. It is a unit which all liquid waste from company’s facilities is anaerobically treatment and biogas is produced. Biogas is used as an energy source replacing much of the conventional fossil fuels.The biogas amount which is produced during the last three years in our facility is significant, contributing both to waste management and to the production of “green” energy by reducing carbon footprint.