An innovative sustainable sourcing programme, pioneered by some of the biggest names in the corporate world, is gathering momentum – and making a genuine difference to suppliers across the developing world.
Set up in 2006, the Programme for Responsible Sourcing (PROGRESS) – which is made up of some of the biggest FMCG companies in the world, including Mars, Unilever, Nestle and Kraft – aimed to take a more collaborative and efficient approach to supply chain management.
And as the group continues to grow, Andy Parton, vice president procurement, Mars, believes it’s an example of how a more co-ordinated approach can deliver results.
“We felt that there was a lot of work going on in the industry from a vendor assurance and food safety perspective which was not particularly efficient,” he tells Sustainable Sourcing. “Lots of us share the same suppliers and place very similar questionnaire and audit burdens on them.
“We felt that in order to move forward and speed up the level of assurance we had around sustainable sourcing it would be better if we pulled resources and pulled together to try and bring this forward more rapidly and effectively as a group.”
It certainly appears to have the desired effect, with both the companies involved and their suppliers feeling the benefits of an approach that could soon be rolled out across other industry sectors.
“It’s an example of a piece of FMCG collaboration that has been very successful in accelerating a very difficult and knotty problem where you’re trying to coordinate standards and specifications in a way that is often problematical,” says Parton.
“It’s also helping the suppliers because they don’t feel they have endless questionnaires, audits and approval processes to repeat for their customer base.”
Mars itself, last year, set an ambitious target of ensuring that all is cocoa is sourcing from 100% certified sources by 2020.
And Parton, again, believes that collaboration is the key if that target is to be hit.
“It’s a cooperative effort and we’re on track,” he says. “That said, making changes across the world is a journey and it takes time –but it’s one that we believe is worth taking and worth setting as of the top priorities for the business.”
