Brf - Sustainability Issue

BRF (Brazilian Foods) is one of the world´s biggest producers of refrigerated and frozen protein foods, such as meat, dairy, margarine, pasta or pizza. The company was created in 2009, when two big Brazilian food companies, Sadia and Perdigao, merged1.

With more than 100.000 employees BRF carries on 49 factories in Brazil, nine industrial units in Argentina, two in Europe and several commercial offices abroad, the company exports their products to more than 110 countries all over the world.

In 2014 BRF is ranked in the top 100 of the most innovative companies in the world (Forbes Magazine2) as well as in the top 100 of the most sustainable companies (Corporate Knights3).

BRF decisively incorporated sustainability issues in their mission, vision and values. The core values are mainstreamed through the company’s practice, as it strongly relies on its sustainability strategy, established in 2011. Six priorities, divided into groups, are set as pillars of the company’s development and used as basis of analysis and planning since. The priorities are:

Sustainability with focus on continuous improvement, leveraging sustainability in the value chain, promoting sustainable consumption, engagement with stakeholders, enhancing human capital and adaptation to climate change.

The utilization of sustainability during the course of business practice is constantly evaluated both, internally and externally. The stakeholders are included into the priority setting and evaluation directly or indirectly. The secondary sources, such as benchmarking other companies or external commitments are also relied on. The evaluations as well as the expectations for the following period are included into annual reports.

The company demonstrates its responsibility towards society through careful selection and training of suppliers as well as during the hiring process, where certain standards have to be met. Over the course of hiring, the documents such as “Code of Ethics” and “Suppliers...