The journey towards an even more sustainable business continues - Greenfood’s sustainability report for 2020 is now available

Despite an ongoing pandemic, in 2020 Greenfood continued to step up its sustainability work. The Group reduced its use of plastics, developed a new AI platform to reduce food waste, and continued its transition to greener transport. All this is covered in the 2020 sustainability report.

Greenfood has now released its sustainability report for the 2020 financial year. In it, Greenfood sums up the past year and describes its progress and challenges. Some important activities and events from 2020 include:

Reduced food waste
It is not sustainable to produce food only to have it be thrown away. In Sweden alone, approximately one million tonnes of food are thrown away each year. To reduce food waste and food shrinkage, the Greenfood Group is investing in technological innovation and smart product development that use every part of the raw material. It is also engaged in collaborations with other actors.

• Greenfood’s foodtech company Picadeli has developed a new AI platform. The platform reduces food shrinkage in salad bars by creating automated order proposals for Picadeli customers. The new AI platform calculates order recommendations based on planograms, current inventory levels and sales history, as well as external factors such as weather forecasts and holidays.
  
  
• Greenfood reduces its food shrinkage by identifying foods that are at risk of being thrown away early in the product development phase and instead using these in its own production or in collaboration with others. For example, in 2020, 100 tonnes of fruit were saved in collaboration with Rescued Fruits, which makes juices from fruit and parts of fruit that would otherwise be thrown away.
  
  

Climate-friendly packaging and reduced plastic use
A package must protect food so that it can be transported, be safe to eat and stay fresh for as long as possible. Unfortunately, many packages are made of fossil-based plastic, and littering caused by plastic is a growing environmental problem.

• In 2020, Greenfood took important steps forward to minimise the environmental impact of its packaging by both reducing the amount of material used and increasing the proportion of renewable material.

• In 2020, Greenfood reduced its plastic use by 70 tonnes per year and reduced its use of non-recyclable materials by 88 tonnes per year
  

• During the year, Greenfood also worked out a new group-wide packaging policy that will be implemented in 2021. The purpose of the policy is to ensure that all of the Group’s companies actively work to minimise the environmental impact of their packaging.

Measuring Greenfood’s climate emissions

• In 2020, Greenfood took another important step in concretising its sustainability efforts by measuring the Group’s climate footprint in accordance with the guidelines of the GHG Protocol. This work now serves as a basis that allows Greenfood to focus on the areas where its climate impact is highest. The calculations will be made regularly and expanded for each year.
  

An increased proportion of green transport

• Transport accounts for a large part of the Group’s climate footprint, and the goal moving forward is to increase the proportion of green transport. In 2020, Greenfood’s Finnish company Satotukku shifted a third of the company’s transports to lorries powered by LNG, a liquefied natural gas that produces 20 per cent less emissions compared to fossil fuels.
  
  

A speech at the UN’s Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights

• The UN’s Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights brings together more than 2,000 participants worldwide. In 2020, the UN invited Greenfood to talk about human rights defenders and how cooperation between various actors is crucial in the important work of defending human rights.

Greenfood’s sustainability report for 2020 is available here.