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"A shift to sustainability is not only a positive move, it also opens doors to business opportunities," says Rizwan Ahmed, MD, IFFCO " | |
| Staff Writer |
Home-grown UAE brand that was established in the Arab region since 1975, IFFCO brands NOOR, Tiffany, Rahma, London Dairy, Hayat Al Baker, are today household names, known for its quality products. Should one check their vision and mission, it is clear that IFFCO is no stranger to Sustainable Packaging. “Our products are part of consumers’ daily lives. What affects them affects us. Protecting the environment is an extension of caring for our consumers.” And it is on this sustainable note that we contacted Rizwan Ahmed, Executive Director for IFFCO.
Rizwan Ahmed is like the eagle with a sharp eye for his target [Read: Sustainable products] and the finesse of one who only plays to win. Rizwan has been instrumental in the development, growth and evolution of the sustainable vision for IFFCO.
In this exclusive interview with Thirty to Net Zero, Rizwan Ahmed shares with us the core values in practice at IFFCO as they too face the uphill struggle to ensure that their consumers and customers have only the best of the sustainable products on shelves. Designing, decision making and the ability to give to the world something sustainable every day can only be the hallmark of a modern-day industry leader.
Read on to learn more of Rizwan Ahmed’s thoughts as he carefully delineates the sustainable packaging process from design to the end-user and shares with us the adversities and opportunities on the way and tells us more about the reuse–recycle method being an effective way of staying ahead in the climate cycle.
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Q: IFFCO is an old player in the food industry with exciting plans for the future. Please tell us about your initiatives around sustainable packaging.
A: Shifting towards sustainable packaging is essential when looking at sustainability from a holistic view. At IFFCO we constantly look for innovation as part of our two core values of excellence and entrepreneurship. We acknowledge the role that we hold to strategically influence healthier and more sustainable societies and ways of working, better environmental protection, and economic values through our food products and services. Our processing sites are working diligently, putting forth new innovations and technologies while actively searching for ways to create more sustainable packaging solutions.
We believe in the hierarchy of the right decisions for packaging solutions. First, we need to design and source in a way that we avoid excessive packaging and minimize raw material use, which is in other words to AVOID & REDUCE as the first priority. There are a number of initiatives to reduce the use of raw materials that we have implemented. A good example of that would be the work we have done at the Emirate Refining Company (ERCO), one of our UAE-based production sites. One of our initiatives was rethinking our 20-litre jars. The new design helped us to increase transportation load ability by 19%, which meant that it would take only 81 trucks instead of 100 to carry the same amount of products. This translates that there are now 19% fewer trucks on the roads for that stream, which would otherwise emit 19% more greenhouse gas emissions into the air for no real reason. The next step after AVOID & REDUCE excessive material use is to consider REUSE, which should ideally start with reusing production waste right away at the site. At Emirates Polymers (Empol), our plastic packaging production facility, we do reuse production waste of the plastic material back into the same process, so that the material goes to the product and is not wasted. Though the best future scenario for the broad industry, retail and the consumer from a sustainability point of view would be to choose REUSE or REFILL of consumer packaging. Only then comes RECYCLE, where we are building a roadmap to shift our packaging portfolio to more recyclable materials. And of course, composting or incinerating, in other words burning valuable natural resources to recuperate energy, are valid only if all the previous solutions are not feasible. We as the private sector, society, municipalities and consumers should altogether make our effort to minimize landfilling waste down to zero.
Q: The bigger the brand, the easier it is to circumvent procedure. How does IFFCO invest in its Service Quality and Sustainability?
A: Our business is broadly segmented as Oils & Fats, Culinary, Agri Business, Beauty, and more. Supported by over 80 operations in 46 countries, our products are available in over 100 markets. IFFCO has developed leading FMCG brands including London Dairy, Tiffany, Noor, Hayat, Rahma, Allegro, Savannah, Al Baker, Al Khazna, and others.
We offer unmatched value to our consumers, reaching markets across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latina America and USA. The core principles and pillars on which the IFFCO brand has been built are reflected in our vision statement to be the "Preferred provider of sustainable value-added products and services to everyone, everywhere and every day. " Hence, we want to create products and services that not only our customers and consumers enjoy because of their consistent world-class quality and taste, but also contribute to fast progress in sustainability impacts. Quality and sustainability are two important ingredients in the making of our products and services and our investments are therefore targeted to ensure these two indispensable aspects are always part of our strategy, targets, and action plan of the IFFCO group. We invest in research & development and technologies that will help us in delivering our vision statement.
Q: How does IFFCO inspire other organizations when it comes to reducing their carbon footprints?
A: By excelling at everything we do, we inspire our customers, suppliers and employees to achieve excellence. We have built the roadmap for our own operations and energy consumption decarbonization, which means a serious focus on renewable energy share growth. Already in place are our facilities in Spain and Pakistan while more locations are coming soon. Not only that, but energy efficiency interventions and other measures are being taken. The next step is to build joint roadmaps with our suppliers to go for more climate-efficient solutions across the whole value chain. This implies raising awareness, working much closer and transparently and introducing changes together.
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Q: Paper has become dear and with biodegradable plastic already being dearer the equation brings the sustainability of sustainable packaging under question. How does one ensure that the company still builds on its eco-friendly principles when the key to sustainability is now under threat?
A: That’s a million-dollar question of how to pursue steadily environmental programs under the pressures of the current day. Let us start with the paper. We are faced with a choice between solving only short-term urgencies or long-term tasks that can help us gain a competitive advantage to be better and faster in sustainability than others. In essence, we want to be the preferred partner for the best and most sustainable upstream and downstream players in the value chain, so that we are able to succeed in the “climate race”. If we are not able to stay consistent and keep long-term ambitions critical in any short-term decisions, then the market playground for such companies will continue to shrink.
Now let’s take a closer look at biodegradable plastics. This is not a solution that you can consider sustainable: it is designed to degrade after one cycle of processing and the material cannot be used again. Experts verify that economy has to shift from a linear model (procure natural resources – process – sell – waste/degrade) to a circular economy model, where you take natural resources once and then collect and use as many cycles as possible.
If your collection and recycling are efficient and plastics or other materials don’t leak out of the systems, the number of cycles will be equivalent to how many times fewer resources you take from nature. Thus, in this case, the strategic direction should be to switch to easily recyclable plastics and to use recycled material in your packaging.
Q: Are you taking any specific steps to ensure that the food products are procured from sustainable sources?
A: 100%. If we take the oils product category as one of the core categories for us, IFFCO started the journey in 2019. Today traceability to mill, which is our immediate supplier in the value chain is up to 100% and traceability to plantation further upstream of our supply chain is up to 57%. A robust project has been held during the last 10 months to cover 477 GPS spots at 1,490 sources of raw materials, including smallholders – farmers – to identify hot spot areas for potential deforestation, peat and fire risks to build the roadmaps for mitigating those. Another stream is of course our internal target to source certified oil and grow that share in our intake. In general food and beverage companies will increasingly need to account for their indirect contribution to global social and environmental challenges, demonstrating management strategies to mitigate their impact.
Q: Globally which are the top 3 companies that inspire sustainability according to you?
A: Among global players, I would name Nestle and Olam and when we think of the MENA region it is definitively Majid Al Futtaim. They are far ahead of the other players in terms of Sustainability.
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Q: Reuse and Recycle may not always be an option in the food industry. How does one circumvent the problem?
A: Reuse and refill should still stay the ambition and we are interested to test options together with major retailers. If not possible to reuse or refill, then recycling comes as a solution.
If it is still not present in the market, a business player should identify priority (“green category”) materials, that are recyclable as such and move actively towards those. During the next 12 months, we are doing this analysis for mid-term and long-term planning for our packaging portfolio to become more and more sustainable. The climate efficiency of various options should be also considered.
Q: Can we improve the perception of sustainability? How will IFFCO lead from the front?
A: A shift to sustainability is not only a positive move, but it also opens doors to business opportunities. Any business is critically dependent on natural resources and such an ability is compromised if essential resources are depleted. In addition to natural resources, we also need social and economic resources not only to survive but sustain or even better thrive. Thus, sustainability aims to maintain an ecological, social, and economic balance while pursuing current business goals. I believe, by improving the perception you mean first of all raising awareness. Communication is key in this journey and when you are a consumer goods producer, you need to engage your consumers as your partners, which will accelerate your shift to a more sustainable portfolio. The effort should be communicating the benefits of sustainable options for nature and communities, educating individuals on how to differentiate between sustainable or not, certifying products and labelling them to make the choice in a store easier. Retail also has a vital role to play in this, of course.
Q: How do you see IFFCO changing the sustainability angle of the food industry for the better?
A: We are an international group and a key player in the region, we cannot, but should drive the sustainability journey together with our customers, retail, and consumers.
Q: How do you see yourself taking the IFFCO legacy forward? Tell us a little bit about your favourite book or quote.
A: I will start with a quote someone said, ''We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." We at IFFCO believe we should make sure that the company, everyone and everything, that the company operations do, have an impact, sustain long, and will be thriving. The Middle East and other regions we operate in, like Africa and more are those areas that feel the consequences of climate change, and water scarcity issues even more than others and we should partner with all interested parties to secure these are good places to live and nature and communities will be only benefiting from businesses operating here.