Our strategy
Our strategy is a fulfilment of our mission and helps to achieve our set ambitions. It takes into account the challenges both now and in the future, and determines the course our company will take from now until 2025. All our core activities are based on five strategic pillars.
Our market position
We want to supply our customers with quality products, with high nutritional value and as little negative impact as possible. That is why we are looking in a targeted way at how we can improve our chain and our products. We listen to demands and requirements from the market and society. Working ethically and treating humans and animals with respect is an absolute requirement for us in everything we do. We are entering into new partnerships and setting a new course. We are taking a new position, for example, in the food market with regard to raw dairy materials. We are always looking for new markets where we can be of added value with our products and can contribute to the demand for safe and nutritious animal proteins. In order to do this, we are making active connections with existing and potential customers and customers, and we are entering into dialogue with local stakeholders so we know which themes are important on a local level and we can optimally fulfil customer wishes. Our companies operate in a dynamic global market. Global economic and geopolitical developments are leading to more difficult sales and sometimes to the closing of markets. By entering into new markets, we are simultaneously spreading the risks across our sales channels.
Sustainability
As chain coordinator, we are driving the transition to a more sustainable sector. While on the one hand, we achieve this by focusing our production chain on obtaining the maximum value from the calf, by making our products more sustainable, by using alternative raw materials and by making optimal use of residual waste flows and residual heat in the food system, all of which are enabling us to fulfil the ambitions for a circular agricultural system, we also apply smart technologies and develop innovative solutions that reduce emissions in the calf husbandry, which is enabling us to contribute to the national climate objectives. In addition, we are investing in partnerships with knowledge partners and stakeholders in order to strengthen and innovate the chain and make it more sustainable. In this way, we are ensuring that we work in an increasingly efficient manner, reducing the impact on the environment and the surroundings and preventing waste.
Animal health and welfare
We are listening to the increasing global attention in society being devoted to improving animal welfare in animal protein chains. It is also our responsibility to guarantee the intrinsic value and needs of calves in our chain. We remain critical of our own practices and are continuously improving ourselves. Not only on our own, but also in collaboration with dairy and veal farmers and knowledge partners, we are searching for ways to improve animal health in general and reduce animal diseases. As a result of this, we can further reduce the use of antibiotics in our chain.
Food safety
We use our unique quality system, Safety Guard, to safeguard feed and food safety in each link of our production chain. The Safety Guard system also lays down the highest standards in terms of food safety, as a result of which our chain delivers high-quality, safe and nutritious protein-rich products that customers expect from us. With this system, we can trace every meat product that leaves our chain to the individual animal, the husbandry where it grew up and the feed that it received. In this way, we mitigate the risks of food safety violations and we can respond rapidly if there is a recall.
Good employment practices
Our employees are precious to us. We want to offer an inclusive workplace. We believe it is important that our employees have confidence in the people with whom they work, that they are given opportunities to develop themselves and that they are proud of their contribution within our organisation. Every employee deserves recognition for this. Good employment practices are not therefore limited to the people who have an employment contract with the VanDrie Group. We think it's important that temporary workers also feel at home within the VanDrie Group. We act proactively by training our employees so that in the future, they will still be able to supply products that comply with legislation and regulations and are in line with the wishes and needs in our sales markets.
You can read more about the results in our five strategic pillars here.