Mandate

Fairfood concentrates mainly on carrying out activities, developing partnerships , programmes and collaborations that relate to encouraging companies in the food and beverage industry to increase the sustainability of their products. To ensure the legitimacy of our work, we only focus on sustainability discourses, and participate primarily in joint actions that are supported by international conventions, agreements and norms. To this end, Fairfood’s entire sustainability agenda is based on such conventions, agreements and norms. For more information, see the Sustainability Agenda section.

Fairfood urges food companies to certify their products with reliable sustainability certification labels, or to show how the level of sustainability of their products is guaranteed in other ways. Fairfood may also recommend sustainability certifications, labels and initiatives (solutions), but does not implement or certify these initiatives. We place the final responsibility of increasing the sustainability of products directly on the food company.

We understand that sustainability is not a static goal but a dynamic spectrum that varies depending upon the exact product type.  Therefore, we strategically focus on the level of sustainability of a particular food product instead of on the companies themselves. Fairfood only approaches food companies who are the brand owners of a specific brand product and not the retailer. Unilever, for instance, is the owner of Magnum ice creams and can be the producer of house brand ice creams as well. However, we will only approach Unilever for its Magnum ice cream and approach the brand owner, a supermarket, for instance, for its private label brand ice creams.