APC Action Plan

Background

Valcorp Fine Foods is a supplier of Lavazza coffee, LaZuppa microwave soup, LaGina tomato and Sirena tuna and LaBella drinking chocolate products for the retail and food service sector throughout Australia and New Zealand. Valcorp and its subsidiaries are comprehensively committed to reducing the companies’ impact on the environment.

Valcorp Fine Foods was established in 1994 and is a privately owned family business.

The LaGina and LaZuppa brand is wholly owned by Valcorp, whilst the Sirena brand is partly owned. Valcorp is the distributor for Australia and New Zealand for the Lavazza brand. Valcorp provides marketing and distribution representation for these brands.

Valcorp brands are sold through various distribution channels both in Australia and New Zealand, including retail grocery, and food service. Approximately 85% of the company’s products are sold through supermarkets, while 15% are sold through delicatessens, food service outlets and other distributors. Valcorp has close to 1,800 restaurant and café customers within the food service market segment in Australia.

Valcorp Commitment to the Environment

We recognize that our business has an effect on the environment and have made commitments to sustainable development, environmental conservation and prevention of pollution.

We endeavour to achieve the following:

• Comply with relevant environmental legislation and codes of practice in Australia.
• Conserve natural resources by initiating better management of energy and water usage and waste production, ensuring our waste to landfill is reduced and our recycled matter is increased.
• Provide training and create an environment that encourages sustainability for our employees to work in an environmentally responsible manner.
• Engage with our principals and stakeholders on our environmental initiatives
• Measure our environmental performance on a regular basis and continue to improve our environmental standards.
• To optimise packaging to achieve resource efficiency and reduce environment impact without compromising the product safety by using SPG.
• Work in association with our suppliers and contractors in developing a green supply chain for all goods and services provided, including paper sourced from sustainable forests, eco friendly inks and sustainable waste management practitioners.
• Preferentially select contract manufacturers and service providers who are able to demonstrate their environmental responsibility
• Design energy and resource efficiency into new warehouses and office buildings.
• Communicate the policy and these objectives to our employees, contractors, vendors, suppliers and the public in order to enhance the awareness of these groups to our commitment to responsible environmental management

Environment Achievements to Date

Valcorp has been a NPC signatory since 2003. In the last seven years we have some significant achievements, including:

• Adopting and implementing the Environment code of practice.
• A steady improvement with the product to packaging ratio from 0.229 to 0.113.
• Introduced paper and waste recycling at all sites.
• Increased the use of recyclable material in packaging to 85%
• Replaced polystyrene take away cup with recyclable paper cups.
• Replaced PVC lids with PP lid for take away coffee cup.
• Introduced "keep cups" in offices and to our coffee customers.

Applying the Sustainable Packaging Guidelines

A sustainability team was formed and a schedule was established in early 2011. This team will endeavour to apply the sustainable packaging guidelines.

Schedule for review:

The Valcorp team believes that concentrating on one brand every 12 months will enable us to analyse the packaging thoroughly and efficiently.

Each year we will review according to the schedule and any change of packaging will be fully documented. Valcorp will also conduct a general packaging review on each brand every year to ensure packaging is efficient and as sustainable as possible.

Establishment of the team and the packaging group

Valcorp sustainability team has 3 main packaging groups in the primary packaging category. They are metal can, rigid plastic and foil pouches. We have also decided to review the packaging according to the brand.

Sustainability packaging Team:

Packaging review template

This template covers all areas of the guidelines, which consist of all the key questions of the SPG. This will help in documentation, decision making, data collection and information for each SKU.

All new and old packaging will be reviewed through the same process by using the SPG template.

Engaging with Suppliers

Valcorp does not manufacture its products or its packaging hence the involvement of suppliers is vital.

Valcorp will initially provide information on SPG to relevant suppliers to help them have a clear understanding of the requirement by the APC to ensure they work closely with us.

The packaging review template will be reviewed and answered concurrently with our suppliers to ensure all the questions are checked and answered to the best of our ability.

Improvement and future action

With the implementation of SPG we have identified areas that we can incorporate some SPG into our procurement policies.

We also identified need to educate our procurement team and in addition our marketing and sales team to be more aware of the APC’s requirements and benefits.

Valcorp products are mainly manufactured oversea hence the need to communicate and educate suppliers is vital, as environmental awareness varies from country to country.

We will continue reviewing and improving the SPG table as we gain more understanding.

Review all brands against SPG according to our schedule.

Endeavour to have our entire product range enclosed with a recycling logo or littering information to consumer.

To incorporate recycling, material information and littering instruction on our website.

References

Australian Packaging Covenant sustainable packaging guidelines.
1 July 2010 www.packagingcovenant.org.au

Australian Council of Recyclers (ACOR)
2006 www.acor.org.au

Keeping Australia Beautiful (KAB)
2008 www.kab.org.au

Australian Standard 14021

ACCC Green Marketing Standard