Corporate Social Responsibility - ESG
Responsible business practices
Being a listed family-run company, it goes without saying for us that we take responsibility for our employees, workers across our value chain and environment, with a constant focus on sustainable growth and future generations. This is conditional on us generating acceptable financial returns, because without financial returns we will not be able to invest in sustainability.
Sustainability news
Vision
Sligro Food Group’s added value is not only expressed in terms of our financial performance; our integrated vision of entrepreneurship also extends to environmental, social and governance aspects. Our aim is to contribute to the health and well-being of stakeholders up and down our value chain by creating value with respect to ESG topics that are material for us. As a major player in the foodservice market in the Netherlands and Belgium, we believe that we can help food professionals get ahead when it comes to sustainability as well.
Policy
The OECD guidelines are a natural reference for our international sustainability policy. Additionally, we draw inspiration from the societal impact we are able to make through our product range and the solutions we offer, as well as through our employees and our investments. We make that difference not by being a frontrunner in all domains, but rather by making carefully considered choices that are aligned with our stakeholders’ expectations.
As a centrally managed organisation, we pursue a single sustainability policy for the whole Group. While our key focus areas cover all our activities in both the Netherlands and Belgium, we also align policy implementation with local circumstances or regulations where necessary. We share our sustainability policy with our subsidiaries, and also put it on their agendas. They subsequently pursue the policy targeting focus areas that are relevant both to them and to us.
Sustainability topics
Our double materiality assessment identified 14 sustainability topics that are material for Sligro Food Group. In line with our strategy, we have defined policies, targets and actions for each of these sustainability topics
Annual Report
For many years now, we have adopted an integrated approach in our financial and sustainability reporting, as this is consistent with our vision of sustainability. Since we are a listed company, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) became applicable to us as of the 2024 financial year. The CSRD not only sets out the sustainability topics to be reported on but also the manner and the format in which the reporting must take place.
Download here the Annual Report
Environment
The material sustainability topics relating to environment are closely linked to our strategic efforts to decarbonise our activities. These efforts are focused not only on cutting our greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonising vehicles, but also on reducing waste and offering more sustainable alternatives in our product range.
Social
The Group’s activities also involve impacts on a social level. This comes to the fore in the material sustainability topics we have identified with respect to jobs and the working conditions of both our own workforce and workers across our value chain, but also with respect to food safety and consumer health and nutrition. Our efforts in this domain are centred on diversity, good working conditions for workers across our value chain, and reducing the sugar, salt and saturated fat content in our Exclusive Brand products.
Governance
Governance is important at Sligro Food Group, something which can be seen in our material topic of business conduct. Business conduct is primarily determined by the culture within our business. We also focus on promoting and ensuring the conduct we want to see across our organisation, both through our policies and through more concrete means such as our code of conduct, whistleblower scheme and e-learning modules.