What we did and what we delivered

We are constantly broadening our supplier base for raw materials by trying to find suppliers close to our breweries. We have a number of programmes where we support local farmers in becoming a supplier to Heineken. In Africa, we use a fair amount of locally grown rice, maize and sorghum to brew our beers, mainly involving local smallholders (see also www.heinekeninternational.com under corporate responsibility).

In Greece we launched a programme to engage local farmers in barley farming. We have also established three-year contracts with individual barley farmers to help sustain our supply for the mid-term.

Across the business, we invested in programmes and technologies to increase efficiency in the use of the raw materials that we buy. Extract losses in our brewing and packaging processes are key performance indicators, and therefore a focus in the TPM improvement programmes of our breweries. A global hop programme has resulted in increased yield and efficiency in the use of hops.

Keeping barley farming a valuable proposition for farmers is vital. Our Skylark project was a quest for sustainable arable farming, which resulted in the definition of important sustainability indicators. In 2008, we summarised the key findings of the Skylark project and published these in an international brochure in English, Dutch and French, sharing our experiences to facilitate future expansion of the approach. We have also developed an audit tool/questionnaire that will be piloted with our principal suppliers of malted barley. This tool enables our malt suppliers to measure progress on sustainable development.

We have maintained our strict policy on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), which prohibits the use of genetically modified organisms in any of our raw materials. This policy is fully embedded in the recipes and specifications of our beers. All our breweries are subject to internal audits as are the suppliers that meet our stringent criteria. These suppliers are also subject to quality audits where, in the case of maize and rice, emphasis is placed on their management of GMO-free ingredients.

We performed spot checks in 2008 and all raw materials were in compliance with the EU Standards for non-GMO.

Spain