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. It 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 added value and as little negative impact as possible. Working ethically and treating humans and animals with respect is an absolute requirement in everything we do. We are always looking for new markets or sales channels 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 achieve this, we are making active connections with existing and potential customers and consumers. We are in dialogue, and are entering into dialogue, with a variety of stakeholders; locally, so we know which themes are important at a local level and can collaborate on this; nationally, in order to be able to address and actualise major themes like climate and animal health; and internationally, in order to be able to discuss and solve the European, but also global, issues in a multilateral context
Sustainability
As chain coordinator, we are driving the transition to a more sustainable sector. We do this by working within our production chain to maximise the use of (alternative) raw materials, by-products and residual waste flows. At the same time, we are also making production processes more sustainable. In this way, we are turning our ambitions for a circular agricultural system into reality. We apply smart technologies in our companies and are developing innovative solutions to reduce emissions on veal farms. This enables us to contribute to the national climate objectives.
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
Although it sometimes seems like a matter of course, feed and food safety is an extremely important strategic pillar for us as producer. We are continuing to invest in quality assurance to guarantee this safety. Our unique quality system known as Safety Guard helps to guarantee the highest standards in terms of food safety within all production links. One of the things it does is monitor both public and private standards, as well as tracking and tracing of raw materials and products. We can therefore deliver high-quality, safe and nutritious protein-rich products that customers expect from us. In this way, we mitigate the risks of food safety violations and we can proactively remain at the cutting edge of developments.
Good employment practices
Our employees are precious to us. We want to offer an inclusive workplace. We believe it is important that our employees are given opportunities to develop themselves and that they are proud of their contribution to our organisation. Every employee deserves recognition for this. Good employment practices are not therefore limited to the people who have a permanent employment contract with the VanDrie Group. We also want temporary employees to feel at home within our company.
You can read more about the results in our five strategic pillars here.