Sustainable development is one of the trade marks of Bonduelle, world leader for tinned vegetables. Through the years the group extended and internationalised further. Today Bonduelle grow 10,000 HA of vegetables all over the world. They drew up a charter of delivery in 1996 signed by 3,500 agriculturists. In order to have similar activities and to guarantee unique social responsibility Bonduelle have accepted the international reference table GRI. At the end of October Bonduelle received classification B+ for this.
Jean-Bernard Bonduelle, director external relationships and sustainable development, mentioned that Bonduelle will continue the research in the framework of sustainable development. The group will therefore in the next three years, decrease the use of phytosanitary means by 20%. The research in the use of environment friendly plant protection means has lead the group amongst other things, to a return to mechanical weeding.
An example of this is the establishment of eight farms in Picardy, where vegetables such as French beans, peas and carrots are being grown on open ground. The vegetables are going to the factory in Estrees. For a period of six years this ambitious program has been run in cooperation with various agricultural institutes, the regional advisory council, INRA, FREDON and UNILET. According to the director is, thanks to the change of agricultural methods, the use of phytosanitary means has already decreased by 40%. In addition, after three years of research of temporarily naturalized plants, disease and destroyers of vegetables, the TFI (treatment frequency index) decreased by 20% and with this is twenty five percent less than the regional average.
Another project by Bonduelle in the area of sustainable development is the decrease in the use of energy. In this way a further 10% of the industrial production cost can be saved. A program named L'Usine sobre has been put together and in cooperation with research centre Mines, in Paris and on the basis of the EMR method, research is being done into how Bonduelle can save energy. Bonduelle expect the use of energy to decrease by 20 to 30 percent as a result. This is far more than the 7 percent, which is the aim of most industries.
