As one of the country’s biggest players in agriculture, Del Monte Philippines has made promoting sustainability a key element of its plans, seeking to protect the environment while continuing to serve its customers and partners. Their initiatives include soil conservation, water management, using renewable energy, and reducing plastic packaging.
Why is it important for Del Monte Philippines to embrace environmental sustainability across its operations?
As a food company, our produce relies on responsible stewardship of nature to sustain our food supply. We continuously improve our agricultural practices and oversight of growers and communicate our environmental policy to our stakeholders. Ecologically-minded, efficient land use management is foundational to our sustainable agricultural practices, having been executed since 1926 by our farming pioneers who did not clear forests to establish pineapple fields.
What are Del Monte’s key environmental initiatives?
Our land-use practices have been focused on improving plantation yield through ecologically friendly land preparation, use of sustainable planting materials, plant disease management, sustainable chemical application, and efficient water sourcing and drainage. DMPI complies with environmental regulations and requirements of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources such as the Clean Air Act.
How do you ensure that the entire company is aligned with these commitments?
The company has an environmental policy that embodies its commitment to conduct its business in a manner beneficial to the environment and its stakeholders through ethical, responsible and sustainable business practices in support of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including climate action and responsible production. Our policy promotes our vision of “Nourishing Families. Enriching Lives. Every Day.” as well as our strategy to improve sustainability and our commitment to society and the environment, one of our corporate values. As one of the leaders in the food and beverage industry, we take an active role to conserve our natural resources.
Our policies include our commitment to environmental standards and sustainability objectives, statutory and regulatory compliance and continuous improvement of our quality system by adhering to the highest ethical standards within our operations and in dealing with our business partners.
Our plantation in the Philippines is Global Good Agricultural Practices certified. Our plantation and pack house for fresh fruits have been certified ISO 9001:2015 for growing, harvesting and packing of fresh fruits.
DMPI received a Philippine Good Agricultural Practices certificate issued by the Department of Agriculture. GLOBALGAP honored us with a Good Agricultural Practices Award in 2018 for demonstrating high standards and excellent implementation of GLOBALGAP principles on its farms.
How does the company ensure its environmental commitments are met?
We have undertaken initiatives to reduce process residues, strengthen energy conservation in worksites, and explore more efficient energy sources. DMPI’s close-to-a-century of growing and manufacturing attest to how it has achieved a sustainable environment and operations.
DMPI applies the principles of integrated pest management to minimize pesticides. We are working to be Rainforest Alliance-certified by FY2023. The company’s goal is to make its products and supply chain sustainable, promote human rights, preserve the environment, and mitigate climate change.
Some of the initiatives of the Cabuyao beverage bottling plant that have improved water management are the installation of an RO machine system; reducing backwashing activity from eight times a month to two times a month; optimization of rinsing time during CIP; installation of soft water line control timer for shutdown operation; and training for awareness on water treatment from third-party suppliers.
We are also working on a soil conservation project to maintain land productivity, mitigate topsoil loss, prevent soil erosion and reduce loss of soil nutrients. The company aims to reduce soil erosion to 10 metric tons per hectare per year; implement the Big Planting Materials program by phasing out the use of extra small seeds, plant big and regular planting materials, and target big planting materials to comprise 50% of total plantings; implementing a block layout system depending on topography and utilizes drone images for topography maps and hydrology analysis for a more precise design; and planting cover crops as ground covers along main road shoulders before the boundary canal.
DMPI’s drone program monitors the pineapple fields in Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental. These drone images display the land topography and assist in land preparation – planning of roads, canals, and ditches. The use of drone sensors produce a complete image of a field when planting is completed.
Finally, our learning management system, ONE DMU, provides various training and awareness courses for employees, which include soil management, manufacturing, environmental awareness and training, among others.
For more information, visit https://www.delmontephil.com/sustainability/sustainability-report to access Del Monte’s Sustainability Report.
Also see
- Cover story: The race towards more sustainable supply chains
- Interview: Working towards zero waste
- Spotlight: Jumpstarting the circular economy
- Spotlight: Moving ahead with net-zero logistics