M Dias Branco

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy. Furthermore, it reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company is dedicated to reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions, and it has set a time-bound target to achieve this reduction. Additionally, the company consistently reports on its progress towards these targets.

Food loss and waste
The company shares its FLW reduction targets and provides updates on its progress towards achieving them. These targets are in alignment with the SDG 12.3 goal of reducing FLW by 50% by the year 2030.

Water withdrawal
The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data and a privacy statement on the use of personal data. Also, it discloses a policy on bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contractual agreements with business relationships. Furthermore, it has a grievance mechanism allowing stakeholders to raise related concerns.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain. Also, it reports the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group and covered by collective bargaining agreements. Furthermore, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and a target to achieve 40% women in senior leadership roles by 2030. Lastly, the company has 33.3% women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Furthermore, it could disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, it could provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets and report any (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the chance to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. To further demonstrate its commitment, the company can disclose a time-bound target for reducing scope 3 emissions and report progress against these targets. By doing so, the company’s scope 3 emissions targets can be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory as well.

Animal welfare
The company has an opportunity to set animal welfare targets applicable to all species, geographies and products.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, as well as report progress against this target.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. Currently, the company discloses reduction targets related to water consumption, absolute water use, and water intensity. However, it is also important for the company to disclose a target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and regularly report progress against it. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to collaborate with suppliers and engage them in efforts to reduce water withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company provides examples of reformulated products. However, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the presence of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in its entire portfolio. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to adopt a nutrient profiling system and set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products, aligning with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to adopt front-of-pack labels or any other consumer- facing nutrition labels that support consumers with making healthier food choices. Additionally, it can disclose the percentage of products for which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate that 100% of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme/certification programme or other widely recognised (industry-specific) certification. Additionally, the company can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of workforce nutrition programmes.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions. Also, it could adopt procurement practices and develop supply chain relationships that improve farmers’ income resilience.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain such as a prohibition to pay recruitment fees, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company has an opportunity to recognise and assess the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups.

Land rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights. Furthermore, it could describe a process at its operations and supply chain level to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to set a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it sources. Also, it could disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company states that it has an integrity program for possible acts of corruption and conducts integrity due diligence to prevent corruption risks involving the third party. However, it has an opportunity to disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption. Furthermore, although the company prohibits making any political donations, it could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and state that it does not make political contributions and divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards.

Additionally, the company could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage. It could also describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates and how it works to support its suppliers in paying a living wage although it expects suppliers to pay a legal wage.

Furthermore, the company could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work although it has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights.

Additionally, it could describe a comprehensive process for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain, and its salient human rights issues. It could further specify what it considers to be salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered such as geographical, economic and social factors, and how it acts to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues through a global system.