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At our vast orchards in Australia and the USA (California), we implement the latest agronomy practices. We incorporate high levels of mechanisation to ensure we produce excellent yields of quality, flavoursome almonds with the best environmental footprint.
Around 4 million trees planted across 13 orchards in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, grow Non Pareil, Carmel and Price almond varieties. In California, USA, we produce mainly Non Pareil and Carmel varieties, but also Sonora, Buttes and Monterrey varieties.
Sensors in our almond trees are combined with data from tree trunks, drip line flow, soil and weather predictions to track growth and identify issues quickly. The system helps anticipate and plan irrigation requirements.
Our presence in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres allows to constantly deliver new season almonds to our global customers.
We provide customised snacking and ingredient formats for natural and blanched almonds. Using state-of-the-art technology, we offer whole, sliced, diced, slivered, meal and split formats, retaining their rich flavour and nutritional value. Through our facilities across three continents, customers can enjoy a reliable supply of tailored solutions from whole nuts to ingredients.
Our USA operations are fully integrated following the acquisition of Hughson Nut Inc. in 2019. We offer steam sterilisation and pasteurisation through our processing plants in California, and are equipped to complete orders to customer specifications and ensure product safety.
Our BRC-certified processing facility near Mildura in Northern Victoria, Australia, ensures single-point control of almond quality, traceability and safety from orchard to customer.
Our blanching and ingredient processing facility in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, conforms to the world’s highest food safety and quality standards. Roasting is undertaken on variable capacity lines capable of processing different grades of almonds with consistent flavour, aroma and texture.
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How do you differentiate between the environmental impacts of organizations across different geographies, local conditions, products, local regulations etc.?
For several years, ofi has been working towards assessing the true value (cost or benefits) of some of our operations on the ground. Our latest case study on Natural Capital Valuation: Assessing Natural Capital costs in coffee operations, delves into year-on-year monetary impact of our select coffee growing operations in five origins.
Globally, an estimated 12.5 million to 25 million smallholder farmers depend on the coffee industry for their livelihoods, according to figures from Fairtrade1 and the FAO2. However, the majority of these farmers face significant challenges including limited access to formal agronomy training, inadequate resources, small farm sizes and insecure land tenure. These factors often hinder the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, which are crucial for preserving Natural Capital over the medium and long term. As a result, coffee production often imposes a cost on nature in the form of GHG emissions, degradation of soil structure and fertility, depletion of ground and surface water, and loss of natural ecosystem services critical to agricultural production.
To address these challenges, we employ Natural Capital valuation techniques, which leverage environmental economics to assign a monetary value (US$) to our impacts and dependencies, encompassing carbon emissions, water usage and ecosystem services. Quantifying Natural Capital in this way enables us to assess and mitigate risks while fostering investments that promote a positive impact on landscapes and ecosystem.
We evaluated twenty AtSource+ coffee farmer groups sourced from five different origins3 to assess their GHG emissions and water use related Natural Capital Costs (NCC). Reporting on the NCC is based on each metric tonne of product which makes the cost intensities very sensitive/ dependent on farm level yields. Thus, understanding the underlying yield dynamics is also crucial for interpreting these NCC footprints effectively.
The combined expertise of our local sustainability teams with partners such as Funcafé, TechnoServe, Côte d’Ivoire's National Nutrition program, USAID (United States Agency for International Development), and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) delivers solutions to improve access to clean water, healthcare services and supplies, and nutritious food.
Initiatives range from using geo-location to identify and screen for infant malnutrition in farming communities in Côte d'Ivoire - where one in five children experience stunted growth and development - to fortifying key staples with vitamins and minerals in our processing facilities.
Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems (CLMRS) have become increasingly valuable in helping us understand and tailor our interventions. They help us identify children at risk of, or in a situation of child labour, so that we can engage with families to improve and enable school attendance through training and facilitation of necessary certificates for example.
Drawing on best practices by the Fair Labor Association and the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), CLMRS has been scaled up to cover all nine of our direct cocoa sourcing countries, coffee in Guatemala, cashew in Nigeria and 100% of our hazelnut sustainability programmes in Turkey. To date, our CLMRS systems covers over 260,000 farmer households.
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