Food is more than just food when it’s fortified with nutrients that billions would otherwise lack.
Global business magazine Fortune has recognised Nestlé as one of 50 companies changing the world; ranked 5 in the second annual Change the World List released this week.
Nestlé isn’t perfect—it’s the world’s leading seller of bottled water, for one thing—but the 150-year old Swiss company does get a lot of things right and has pioneered the Creating Shared Value approach.
Nestlé sources locally, boosting developing economies and the livelihood of smallholder farmers in more than 50 countries. It has worked to purge slavery and child labour from its supply chains. In its 16-year quest to become a ‘Nutrition, Health and Wellness’ company, it has made concerted progress: cutting fat, sugar and sodium from thousands of products, while fortifying many others—192 billion servings worth in 2015—with essential minerals and nutrients that are in especially short supply in low-and middle-income countries. Such efforts are research-based and tailored to the needs and tastes of each market—Nestlé deploys iron-enhanced soup cubes in much of Africa to fight anaemia, for example. And, with research partners, it’s working to bring nutrition benefits to the food chain more widely by developing bio-fortified crops (think pro-vitamin maize). Given the reach of the world’s largest food and beverage company, all this—which Nestlé tracks in its annual ‘Creating Shared Value’ report (351 pages in 2015)—makes a difference.
A Founding Member of the Shared Value Project, Nestlé Australia demonstrates this approach locally through their various brands such as Uncle Toby’s. Learn more about shared value at Nestlé Australia here.
Fortune Change the World List
The Change the World list recognises companies that have had a positive social impact through activities that are part of their core business strategy. The 2016 list also includes National Australia Bank, the first Australian company to ever make the list, also a Founding Member of the Shared Value Project.