As 2020 drew to a close, Nutreco announced the launch of a new soy sourcing policy, with the aim to simplify complex certification schemes for the procurement teams in Skretting and in our sister company, Trouw Nutrition. Forming part of Nutreco’s Sustainability RoadMap 2025, this policy also serves to facilitate the complete removal of deforestation from our supply chains by 2025.
Deforestation is one of the major sustainability challenges for the aquaculture and agriculture sectors. Soy and oil palm are major deforestation drivers, with over half a million hectares of rainforest, peatland and savannahs destroyed each year for the expansion of these crops.
High-quality soy protein is fed to farmed animals and fish to support growth and healthy development. Soybean meal, soy protein concentrates, and other vegetable proteins and oils, can replace from one-third to one-half of the fishmeal in feeds for many farmed fish species, reducing the need for marine ingredients from capture fisheries. Oil palm products are rarely used in aquaculture diets.
With this policy, our purchasing team has a tool to make it easier to do the right thing. Because ending deforestation is the right thing, and we don’t just talk, we actually act.
Annually, Nutreco buys around 1.5 million tonnes of soy ingredients and 80,000 tonnes of oil palm products. Certification schemes and standards are numerous, and provide a variety of deforestation assurances. At Nutreco, we realise that certification is not the only tool to ensure responsible use of natural resources. However, where independent certification is an option and available, it can be an effective tool to verify conformity to its principles where information is otherwise difficult to track and trace. Certifications are also continuously evolving to reflect increase knowledge and ambition levels.
To address the challenge of ensuring compliance with certifications, our procurement teams have developed this transparent policy, highlighting soy-producing regions on low and high risk of deforestation, and outlining the procurement requirements in areas of higher risk.
By the end of 2025, our ambition is to source soy and oil palm ingredients that are free from both legal and illegal deforestation, with the purpose of limiting our impact on biodiversity and climate change. This is defined as:
By the end of 2025, our ambition is to source soy and oil palm ingredients that are free from both legal and illegal deforestation.
To achieve deforestation-free soy and oil palm ingredients, all of these value chains will be employed throughout the implementation of our policy. In addition to the Nutreco Sustainability RoadMap deadline of 2025 for deforestation-free soy and oil palm ingredients, ambitious intermediate milestones have also been determined for Skretting. Further milestones for specific regions and/or species also continue to be evaluated. For the sourcing of all ingredients, our Nutreco Code of Conduct for Business Partners applies.
“Procurement is about buying the right product at the right time, price and place. When it comes to soy and oil palm, buying the right product is difficult, and I am excited that with this policy, our purchasing team has a tool to make it easier to do the right thing. Because ending deforestation is the right thing, and we don’t just talk, we actually act.” Robert van den Breemer, Skretting Procurement Director.
