Sustainable Foods Summit Focuses on Supply Chain Issues

The summit will give case studies of companies who have successfully and legitimately met the sustainability challenges. Leading companies dealing in fair trade, organic and other eco-labelled foods will be featured.

31 Mar 2010 --- Sustainable supply chains are the focus of the second edition of the Sustainable Foods Summit (www.sustainablefoodssummit.com), taking place in Amsterdam on 10-11th June 2010. Key topics on the summit agenda include sustainability initiatives, fair trade & eco-labelling update, ethical marketing best practices and sustainable sourcing & packaging. The summit aims to bring together some of the leading organisations involved in sustainability and eco-labelling in the food industry.

With fair trade intricately linked to ethical sourcing of agricultural crops, fair trade is a key theme of this new summit. The Fair Trade Potential & Case Studies session critically reviews the most popular fair trade labelling schemes and assesses the future growth potential of this emerging industry. Ian Bretman, vice-chair of the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation (FLO), will give an update on the international Fairtrade certification system. Details will also be given of other fair trade labelling schemes, such as Ecocert Fairtrade and Fair for Life by Institute of Marketecology (IMO). Other papers in this session will review fairtrade pricing mechanisms, ethical partnerships and the impact of fair trade on marginalised producers.

The summit will give case studies of companies who have successfully and legitimately met the sustainability challenges. Leading companies dealing in fair trade, organic and other eco-labelled foods will be featured. Alter Eco, one of the pioneering fair trade companies, will state how it has developed an international presence by developing strong networks. Altramercato, the largest chain of fair trade shops in Europe, will share its experiences on developing and managing a chain of ethical retailers.

The summit also looks at how organic food pioneers are adapting to changing market conditions. With the global organic food industry affected by the economic slowdown, market leaders are adopting ‘Organic Plus Strategies’ whereby they go beyond organic and undertake sustainability initiatives. Some organic food companies are offsetting carbon emissions and becoming carbon neutral. Others, such as Followfish, are integrating traceability into organic production methods. Juerg Knoll, co-founder and managing director of Followfish, will state how it has set up the first-ever tracking system for sustainable seafood.

Volkert Engelsmann, CEO of the Dutch organic trading company EOSTA, will show how the pioneering ‘Sustainable Flower’ navigation system communicates sustainability aspects of organic products to consumers. The scheme was officially launched by the Dutch agricultural minister last month. It enables consumers to measure the environmental footprint of products as well as trace the product origins.

Other papers in the Ethical Marketing Best-Practices session will cover marketing communications for sustainable products, the potential of social media and targeting LOHAS consumers. Craig Sams, founder of Green & Black’s, will explain how he developed a niche organic chocolate into a global brand. Co-op Switzerland will outline some of its sustainability initiatives that have made it one of Europe’s foremost ethical retailers.

The final session of the summit is titled Sustainable Sourcing & Packaging. The German retailer Tchibo will state how it implements sourcing projects for commodities in developing countries. With criticism of the success of palm oil and soya roundtables, Dr. Helen van Hoeven from WWF will look at the future role and practicality of sourcing roundtables. Innovations in sustainable packaging for food & beverage products and case studies will cap up the summit.