Eating our way to sustainability: Are European meat and dairy processors living up to our expectations?

In Europe, sustainability in the meat and dairy industry has emerged as an issue of great concern for society. Research and pressure centre on the agricultural component and little attention has been given to the processing industry despite the integral role it plays in the European meat and dairy supply chain. This thesis aims to fill this knowledge gap by identifying the current sustainability practices of the meat and dairy processors and comparing them to society’s expectations in order to identify potential areas of improvement. Text mining of sustainability reports and web content was used to ascertain the current practices and content analysis of websites was used to identify the current expectations of society. Interviews with industry were used to determine the applicability and feasibility of the suggestions. In Europe, there are some meat and dairy processors that do not visibly engage in any sustainability management. Based on the information from the companies that do engage in sustainability management the results for the two industries generally indicate homogeneity in sustainability topics, despite minor differences between meat and dairy processors and between mediums of communication. The research found that there is high involvement and wide coverage of environmental impacts within the processing plants and the challenge currently is to work with primary production, especially with greenhouse gas emissions, land use and biodiversity issues. Economic issues were found to be underrepresented and the corporation should go beyond the strict confines of financial aid to enhance its role in sharing value, supporting community and providing resilience to economic shocks. Most social issues are also comprehensively covered in the meat and dairy industries’ sustainability disclosures; although companies need to make sure that they have implemented zero- tolerance policies for corruption, anti-competitive behaviour and human rights abuse. Facilitating consumer access to affordable and nutritious food is identified as an area requiring improvement. As regards sourcing, it became clear that supply chain responsibility is being integrated into the three sustainability pillars. In this area there are opportunities for dairy processors to work more on animal health and welfare issues and for meat processors to collaborate more holistically with farmers. Interviews conducted with industry confirmed the feasibility of the suggestions, although it is relevant for each company to use the information in the thesis to benchmark their specific practices against societal expectations and industry practices. The research also found that the use of words, headings and themes by different bodies can vary considerably in terms of content and this complicates the task of working towards uniformity within and improvement of sustainability practices.