Innovation

Toni Corp manufactures dairy products, has a food processing factory in the city of Guayaquil Ecuador, and distributes to a network of 112,000 points across the country. It produces dairy products like yogurt, cheese, flavored milk, oatmeal, etc. Their products are sold within all of Ecuador and exports to countries like the United States, Chile, Peru, and Colombia.

For this purpose, Toni has strategic partners from the dairy industry with around 3,000 farmers who provide around 220,000 liters of milk per day, which is necessary to meet their market demand.

That is why Toni has taken the initiative to make strategic alliances with its milk suppliers, carry out livestock sustainability strategies that minimize their impacts, and make the dairy industry sustainable while optimizing the resources which reduce their production costs.

"We need our farmers to be a strategic partner, so we include their operations as they would be ours, because our succeed highly depends of their production"

For this, sustainable livestock farming is focused on three main objectives:

- Production output

- Social outcomes

- Environmental outcomes

Within the production field, the sustainable livestock strategy is to train farmers to implement cost management systems for the farms, which allows better management of resources. Out of all these resources, the most important is the grass, because it is how the animal gets nutrients and is the highest cost of milk production (around 45 - 70% of the total cost). It is essential to optimize the cost of this resource through irrigation systems with new technology and electric fencing.

Within the social field, Toni aims for farmers have a good quality of life through the implementation of new milking technologies that minimize costs and guarantees milk safety. Complementarily to this, it seeks to manage the traceability of the milk from farm to factory, guaranteeing its quality through temperature control.

Within the environmental field, technical support is provided to farmers for the implementation of projects where they can manage waste from this industry with activities like the manufacturing of humus and production of organic compost, etc. In the same way, servo-pastoral systems for raising livestock are implemented by planting trees (around 20,000 per year), which minimizes the impact through the symbiosis between trees, cattle and grass. The trees provide a wind and sunlight barrier, which increases the availability of food for livestock.

Finally, one of the most important parts of this initiative is the implementation of the ISO 14064 certification in farms. This certificate states that the farm has a neutral carbon footprint through the implementation of all the previously described activities. Toni currently helped one farm with this certification.

Inspiration

This initiative was born in 2015 by the director of Toni Corp, a strategy also supported by Arca Continental, a company that is part of The Coca Cola Company.

This initiative was also promoted by Dr. José Lucas who leads the Livestock Development Management. Dr. Lucas has been in the organization for more than 20 years and is considered the founder in the development of sustainable livestock.

"Dr José Lucas has been a very important person for our history for many reasons, but one of them is because he had critical thinking about our farmers and he began an organizational culture where Toni treats their farmers as they were part of the company"

Additionally, Toni's livestock partners have an excellent relationship over several years with the company and are always open to engage in Toni's programs and initiatives. Due to Toni's experience and reputation, their livestock partners know that these initiatives are designed for mutual benefit.

Finally, thanks to the large network of contacts developed by Toni over the years, they try to find strategic alliances with prefectures and municipalities where the farms are located. This way, they are able develop these programs with government support, finding mutual benefit and growth for the economy in areas of influence.

Overall impact

Across the activities developed to implement Inclusive Livestock, Toni is aligned with the following Sustainable Development Goals:

SDG 10. Reduction of inequality

Part of the livestock program develops inclusion work in the areas of influence, where they search for the growth and development of small milk producers who have fewer resources to implement sustainable livestock practices. Through this initiative, small farmers benefit by increasing their investment capital and improving the quality of milk and production, and for Toni by having more strategic partners that allow them to grow constantly. To date, around 3,000 families have benefited from this program where they have increased their income by 50%.

SDG 13 Climate action

With the aim to implement neutral carbon footprint certifications in the livestock industry, and because this industry has one of the greatest environmental impacts, serious measures are being taken inside Toni's value chain to minimize the environmental impact. Currently, close to a quarter of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from the agriculture, forestry and livestock industry.

Business benefit

Sustainable livestock farming has economic benefit that is representative both for Toni and their farming partners. One of the most important benefits is the reduction in the cost of growing grass because of its large contribution to the overall cost of the production process. With the techniques implemented through this initiative, the cost of growing grass has been reduced. This directly affects the cost of milk production, which is now optimized and therefore minimizes the variable cost of Toni Corp's main processing costs.

"The main cost in livestock is the animal feeding, because it represents more than 60% of the cost, so we need to improve techniques that minimizes this cost"

Toni tries to create value for its livestock partners through these initiatives, since they are the main suppliers in their industry. Toni strives to increase the number of milk suppliers and minimize risks of production shortages that would negatively impact Toni's business.

Finally, Toni also seeks to increase sales through brand presence with these initiatives. These initiatives have allowed them to increase production to meet greater market demand.

Social and environmental benefit

Tonicorp's livestock development team has established progressive annual objectives, such as planting around 20,000 trees per year, managing livestock farm certifications with ISO 14064 and negative carbon print farms, and boosting livestock who are certified efficient for the sale of carbon footprint credits. This helps farms have the additional benefit of certifications and income from the sale of carbon credits at a national or international level. NGOs help to promote and receive environmental projects clearly with farmers, which makes livestock farming more efficient and sustainable.

They also work with technicians who are strategic allies by providing advisory services. All this goes with the help of the prefectures who jointly visit the farms with forest engineers where endemic trees are examined, and donations are made to the farmers in the commitment to the survival of trees.

As regards animal welfare, they are very concerned that the animal is treated well, that it does not suffer from hunger, is not mistreated, has water and good grass within reach, is provided rest through the planting of trees.

CO2 neutral negative farms are an example of how sustainability initiatives can be carried out even where least expected, and in this way transform society by generating social, environmental and financial value for those who are open to changing their way of thinking.

"If we achieve CO2 neutral footprint certification, we are measuring all kinds of pollution that our industry could generate like our methane expelled by the livestock, our combustion gases from our processes, etc. So, we are attacking all of this pollution trying to contribute for a better world and industry."

Interview

Jessica Salguero, Projects and Enviroment Coordinator