Responsible procurement

The transparency of our procurement and supply chain, together with the proactive approach followed by our partners, helps make our operations more responsible and accountable. We have set high standards to our entire supply chain to ensure the high quality of Vaasan products. Whether it is about product safety or production conditions, we expect all of Vaasan’s raw material producers and suppliers to have ethical and responsible practices, in accordance with our principles.

Our goal is to make sure that our products are produced in socially acceptable working conditions. To ensure this, we have created basic requirements to our procurement, which we use to evaluate and choose suppliers.

As Vaasan Ltd merged with Lantmännen Unibake, we also streamlined our responsible procurement practices, including the Lantmännen Supplier Code of Conduct. Read more about Lantmännen Unibake’s responsible procurement principles here.

Procurement contracts improve transparency

The procurement contracts we sign with suppliers of raw materials, other materials, and services that we buy cover not only issues related to product quality and safety, but also requirements covering responsible operating practices. Suppliers provide detailed information about the raw material, which is a prerequisite for approval.

General terms of purchase_Vaasan Ltd_Jan 1 2014

Responsible procurement requires knowledge about production conditions

Responsibility in our supply chain also means that we systematically gather information prior to raw material supplier selection and approval. We regularly evaluate food safety risks and carry out audits at the production facilities of our suppliers. We expect that the raw materials and packaging materials we use a traceable. We only use raw materials whose origin is known. We expect the same from our suppliers.

Supplier requirements state the basic requirements we have defined to the raw materials we use. For example, we do not accept genetically engineered or irradiated raw materials.

Lantmännen Unibake’s responsible palm oil policy

Lantmännen Unibake published an updated palm oil policy on September 18, 2015. With the new policy, all Vaasan units also aim at only using responsibly produced and procured palm oil. Read the Lantmännen Unibake palm oil policy here. Lantmännen Cerealia has a similar palm oil policy: the goal is to not use palm oil at all, but when it is not possible, only responsibly produced, segregated sustainable palm oil is used.

For Vaasan, this new policy means that from January 2017 onwards, all our production units fulfill RSPO’s requirements for the use of sustainable segregated palm oil. During 2016, all Vaasan bakeries will switch to not using palm oil at all or only using segregated sustainable palm oil. The same is required from all Vaasan suppliers. In order to reach this goal, a separate palm oil project has been started at Vaasan.

The necessary changes and external RSPO audits for palm oil certification will be executed in production facilities by the end of 2016. We are currently sending all Vaasan traded goods and raw material suppliers information about our palm oil policy goals, and expect that our supply chain will comply with the same requirements of certified palm oil.

For more information on responsible palm oil http://www.rspo.org.