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Safety in procurement
from Sustainability Report 2020
by Sigma
Our responsibility with clients and consumers begins at the procurement of our raw materials.
Certified supply chain Continuous improvement
We require our suppliers to have a GFSI-endorsed certification to ensure the quality and safety of the value chain. To this end, for over 10 years we have been working with our suppliers to offer them access to affordable training and audits to help them get certified. We continually implement new measures and practices designed to comply with our zerotolerance protocol to ensure the highest safety and quality in the inputs we acquire, based on scientific methods and leveraging modern technologies.
In 2020 our Operational Unit in Europe implemented the Guardian project, a new initiative to assess and continue to strengthen the quality and safety practices of more than 300 of our suppliers, including, among other aspects, animal welfare practices.
Sigma's Sustainability Report 2020 Commitment to animal welfare
Contributing to animal welfare in our supply chain is part of our commitment to sustainable development.
Our Organizational Unit in Europe has developed and implemented meat supplier selection procedures that contribute to traceability and animal welfare practices, while also strictly adhering to regulations and best practices in food quality and safety. Certain aspects of the Animal Welfare Protocol of our Organizational Unit in Europe are stricter than current regulations.
In the latter part of 2020, we began deploying the Animal Welfare Protocol in Europe and asked our suppliers to sign their commitment to comply with the protocol. Furthermore, we are planning to include an audit program conducted by internal and external examiners. We have also hired Bureau Veritas as an independent auditor to verify the implementation of the protocol in order to improve suppliers' performance and strengthen stakeholders' most relevant matters.
As part of our commitment, we are considering ending the business relationship with suppliers who are not striving for continuous improvement and advancing adherence to the protocol.
We started applying the protocol with our pork meat suppliers, which constitute the majority of our suppliers. Our goal is to extend the protocol to poultry suppliers by 2022.
