McCain Foods

Stakeholder engagement
The company’s stakeholder engagement activities cover nature, nutrition, and social areas.

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 Global Sustainability Strategy. Furthermore, it has group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain and reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, it has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 3 emissions.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company discloses quantitative evidence on optimising the use of fertilisers in its production.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is committed to reducing plastic use and actively engages in activities aimed at transitioning to sustainable packaging. Additionally, it transparently discloses quantitative data, providing information on its progress in reducing plastic use and adopting sustainable packaging.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses its commitment to have 100% of potato acres at onboarding level of regenerative agricultural practices, and to have 50% of McCain potato acres at beginner level of regenerative agricultural practices, by 2030. Also, it reports progress against the targets and describes related activities.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses its commitment to reduce sodium by 15% in potatoes and appetizers by 2025. It also provides data on the reduction of sodium across its portfolio. Additionally, the company states that it has eliminated the use of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils from the cooking procedures of its product portfolio globally.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses it has adopted the Nutri-score in Europe, the Health Star Rating in Australia and a front-of-pack energy logo in India. Furthermore, it discloses the percentage of products for which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that all of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognized food safety scheme. Additionally, the company discloses that 95%, of its ingredient suppliers are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company demonstrates support for farmers’ income resilience through launching voluntary six-year regenerative agriculture contracts in France, guaranteeing farmers long-term revenues and enabling them to invest in the transition to regenerative agriculture. Additionally, it describes its Campo Vivo project in Colombia which empowers smallholder farmers through technical assistance, commercial support and training, with a goal to facilitate their market access and support the farmers to achieve higher and more stable incomes for example through branded consumer products.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. It also has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns about bribery and corruption, and has formalized its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to the health and safety of workers and expects its business relationships to do the same. It describes its methodology for determining a living wage in various operating regions. The company has set a target to increase the proportion of women in 40% of global leadership roles by 2026 and reports that 30% of its board members are women.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and provides a case study illustrating how it has addressed a salient human rights risk issue. It engages with stakeholders potentially affected by its activities and has indicated that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to both all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in nature-related objectives and social issues. While stating that the board of directors has the expertise in sustainability and climate, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose whether its highest governance body has specific expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics including nutrition, water, soil health, social inclusion, ecosystem conversion and biodiversity.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of associations of which it is a member, however, it has an opportunity to disclose a complete list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions in which it operates. Furthermore, it could disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it could 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 its materiality assessment.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and report progress against these targets. Additionally, the company can reduce its scope 3 GHG emissions and report progress against these targets. Furthermore, there is an opportunity for the company to align its scope 3 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against it.

Food loss and waste
The company has set an intensity based FLW reduction target and reports progress against this target. However, it has an opportunity to set an absolute or percentage-based target, as well as report progress against this target. While the company has set FLW reduction targets, it has an opportunity to align its target(s) with SDG12.3 (50% reduction by 2030).

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity 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.

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 demonstrate how it identifies living income benchmarks and assesses living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Forced labour
While the company does not allow suppliers to retain workers’ personal documents and restrict workers’ freedom of movement, it has an opportunity to disclose similar commitments for its operations. Furthermore, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees or related costs in its value chain. To conclude, the company has an opportunity to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Act ethically
While the company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, it could formalize this stance in a public policy document and describe the process for identifying risks and impacts related to bribery and corruption in its own operations. Although the company makes political contributions after approval from the President and CEO, it has an opportunity to clarify if these are exceptional cases and to disclose the criteria used for such contributions. Additionally, the company could disclose its lobbying expenditures and specify that it requires third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships, it could disclose the specific methods used for this monitoring. Although the company pays its employees a minimum wage, it has the opportunity to set a time-bound target for paying a living wage. The company could also require its suppliers to pay a living wage and disclose how it supports this. While committed to diversity, the company could formally commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Although the median and mean gender pay gap is disclosed for its UK operation, the company has not provided evidence that it discloses the ratio of basic salary and remuneration between women and men across all employee categories, by significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to specific workers’ rights, but could strengthen this by referencing all ILO fundamental rights at work for both its operations and its suppliers. While the company conducts a materiality risk assessment and addresses modern slavery risks in its operations and supply chain, it has an opportunity to describe its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, extending beyond modern slavery risks. The company could also disclose its method for assessing what it considers to be its salient human rights issues, as well as the results of its human rights risk assessments. Although the company addresses modern slavery risks across its global supply chain, it has not provided evidence that it has a system to prevent, mitigate, or remediate all its salient human rights issues.