Our sustainability approach

Materiality Matrix

The materiality matrix has been updated in 2019; this has been done by a materiality assessment process in which the following steps were carried out.

Method of materiality assessment

At the start of the materiality assessment, the most important stakeholders for Farm Frites were identified and assigned a weight based on their relevance to the company in terms of power, urgency and legitimacy. Next, the material topics of the food industry were analysed to uncover industry-specific trends. This analysis is complemented by an overview of material issues found in the following existing standards and ratings: Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and CDP. Based on the findings from these frameworks and peers, and a review of the internal documentation, a longlist of material topics was composed.

The analysis of the impact on society is considered when the longlist of material topics is constructed and pruned into the definite shortlist. To determine whether a topic is included in the longlist and should be promoted to the shortlist later, it is assessed whether Farm Frites’ environmental, social, or economic impact on these topics is considered as high, medium, low, or having no impact. To define the business impact on each of the issues, an interactive workshop was organised. Managers from different departments such as finance, marketing, operations, and sustainability participated in the workshop.

In the final stage, a materiality matrix was created, based on the quantitative stakeholder rankings of material issues and the business impact of these issues. Following qualitative inputs, including an identification of hygiene factors and ESG industry trends, final adjustments were made to the matrix in order to reflect enough focus and forward-looking reflection.

Figure 1 – Materiality Matrix: The three core focus areas are circled. On the horizontal axis, you can determine the business impact of the topics and on the vertical axis importance to stakeholders is projected.

Sustainability strategy of Farm Frites

The framework below shows the sustainability vision and the objectives on the three core sustainability focus topics.

Value creation model

Our value creation model is called “Farm to Fork” and begins with the cultivation of our main raw material – potatoes. Subsequently, value is added by potato processing, packaging of finished products, worldwide distribution, community involvement and cooperation with customers. In this process, we use the following kinds of inputs: financial, natural, human, manufactured, social and intellectual.