Purchase 100% sustainably-sourced Heinz ketchup tomatoes by 2025.

75%

Sustainable Agriculture

As a food and beverage company, we recognize the importance of sustainable agriculture in our products. Through the work of our experienced agronomists and procurement teams, we are proud to work with our suppliers to advance sustainable agriculture practices, knowing that the ingredients we source are integral to our business and to the well-being of our consumers and communities in which we operate.

At Kraft Heinz, we have a long history of working with growers to promote sustainable agricultural practices. We support a wide variety of sustainable agricultural practices that maintain soil health to ensure the production of food for generations to come. We also adopt next generation seed breeding within HeinzSeed. Tomato plants grown from our own seeds are known for their disease resistance and reliable high yields. With their firmness, enhanced color and viscosity, they also need less water, use optimal pesticides and fertilizers, and ultimately, require less land to produce.

Through research in our laboratories and with experienced agronomist teams on the ground, we strive to stay at the forefront of sustainable agriculture, applying what we learn through trials and demonstrations. The Kraft Heinz Sustainable Agriculture Practices Manual forms the foundation of our engagement strategy with growers, as we work towards our 2025 goal to source 100 percent of tomatoes for Heinz tomato ketchup sustainably.

We continue to dig deep in our roots to use 150 years of forward-looking, responsible agricultural and human rights practices to build on our legacy with our farmers. We are committed to further building on our strong sustainability heritage, as Henry J. Heinz (founder of the H.J. Heinz Company) famously noted, “Protect the consumer by owning the product all the way from the soil to the table.”

Sustainable Agricultural Practices Manual

Sustainable farming practices do more than save important natural resources. They also have the potential to considerably increase crop yields and provide growers and their families with greater economic opportunity. Kraft Heinz has taken significant steps to strengthen our Sustainable Agriculture Practices Manual (SAPM) and is working in partnership with growers to implement those practices.

We have introduced our updated manual to suppliers and growers in both Spain and California, key growing regions for Heinz tomatoes. To reduce the burden on growers, allowing them to focus on the continuous improvement philosophy we promote, we elected to benchmark our SAPM to SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA), the recognized industry tool for assessing on-farm sustainability. We achieved an equivalent performance level of FSA Silver. This enables growers to demonstrate compliance with our requirements through adoption of the FSA itself, or though other benchmarked standards that meet the minimum performance level of FSA Silver.

In 2022, we canvassed our suppliers to map any pre-existing voluntary sustainability standards that their growers used in their daily practices. We found that 56 percent of our Heinz ketchup tomato volumes were already sustainably produced. Building on this with further FSA audits, we completed the year with 75 percent sustainably sourced Heinz ketchup tomatoes and are well on track towards our 2025 target of 100 percent. We will continue to roll out audits and verification to ensure supplier compliance with these standards. We are also actively working with suppliers of navy beans and other crops and brands to expand the scope of our sustainable agricultural program.

Building the Regenerative Capacity of Agriculture Through a Global, Farmer-Centered, Industry-led Initiative

The long-term resilience of agriculture arguably now depends on how quickly we can develop regenerative systems that benefit soil health, biodiversity, water supply, climate resilience, and grower livelihoods. Kraft Heinz is a founding member of SAI Platform’s new Regenerative Agriculture Program along with approximately 30 companies from across the agricultural value chain. The purpose of the program is to build industry alignment, reduce duplication, and amplify impact through the creation of a universal framework with locally implementable indicators, to ensure accessibility and applicability of regenerative agriculture principles, practices and most importantly, positive outcomes on farms. The program will work to scientifically validate regenerative principles, engage with farmers, and develop a mechanism for corporations to verify and communicate regenerative impacts to external stakeholders.

Throughout 2022, Kraft Heinz Director of Agricultural Sustainability, Martina Henry, co-chaired the Regenerative Agriculture Program Steering Committee and, along with the group of Founding Members and the SAI Platform Secretariat, worked to engage relevant industry stakeholders and other SAI Platform members and working groups.

“As we develop and define new regenerative agriculture approaches, it is the farmer’s inherent knowledge of the land, its constraints and opportunities, that is critical to ensuring successful social and environmental outcomes based on solid economic foundations.”

– Martina Henry, Director, Agriculture Sustainability, Kraft Heinz and SAI Platform Regenerative Agriculture Program Steering Committee member

FSA 3.0 Benchmark Equivalence for Sustainable Agriculture Practices Manual

Our Sustainable Agricultural Practices Manual is benchmarked against SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) 3.0 and received ‘Silver Level equivalence.’ This was the first sustainability program successfully benchmarked against the updated FSA 3.0 which was released in April 2021.

We believe this benchmark will help us and our suppliers in our journey towards purchasing 100 percent sustainably sourced Heinz ketchup tomatoes by 2025. It provides a pathway for growers to demonstrate compliance with our requirements, while also offering a single, industry-aligned tool that reduces duplication and audit fatigue. This allows growers to focus on improving their operations and continuing to grow the quality, sustainable ingredients we rely on to produce our brands.

“FSA 3.0 marks a step up in the benchmarking program’s integrity, yet it is even more straightforward and easier to get started. It is great to see The Kraft Heinz Company getting the most out of their membership with Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform by using the FSA to refine, communicate and scale their program. We congratulate them on this achievement!”

– Joe Rushton, FSA Director at SAI Platform

Key Sustainable Agriculture Initiatives

ESG Education in Egypt

We take our responsibility to educate our partners about sustainability very seriously. This commitment is especially important in developing markets such as Egypt, where we have direct contracts with growers and the level of knowledge about sustainable agriculture is developing.

In 2022, Egyptian growers were immersed into sustainable farming methods during on-site educational events focused on the topics of climate change, and health and safety. Tangible, real-world case studies grew their awareness of how they can positively impact climate change and worker well-being in their daily work. Another important topic in the events was increasing the growers' knowledge about tomato diseases and the safe and sustainable use of pesticides. The events enhanced the growers’ sense of being part of a bigger goal, in which we all aim to do the right thing.

Introducing Assan Foods to the Kraft Heinz Sustainable Way of Working

Following the acquisition of Turkish entity Assan Foods by Kraft Heinz, we undertook assessments to support the integration of the business and alignment with Kraft Heinz ESG priorities, including our Sustainable Agricultural Practices Manual. We commissioned a local supply chain and sustainable agriculture expert to undertake an extensive six-month study of the Turkish tomato industry which analyzed the nature of the supply chain and the relative maturity of growers in terms of sustainable farming, human rights, and climate resiliency. The findings have been used to inform our ongoing engagement and support strategies to address identified gaps and build a more equitable, climate-resilient, and sustainable supply of tomatoes in Turkey. To further support growers, we commissioned the translation of the FSA from English into Turkish, which is now available and open-sourced on SAI Platform’s website for all FSA users.

Partnership with the reNature Foundation: Save our Soils Program

During 2022, we commissioned specialist consultancy organization reNature to support our efforts to gain an understanding of the potential for carbon sequestration in our tomato supply chain. At the end of the year, we further cemented this partnership with reNature, with a focus on helping us engage our direct tomato grower base in Brazil to advance our sustainable sourcing and decarbonization objectives, including building capacity in our local agronomy team and growers and exploring innovative techniques to build climate resiliency. This project will commence in 2023 and we look forward to sharing insights and updates on progress we make in future reports.

Supporting Farm Resilience in California

As part of our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement on farms, in 2021 we introduced a pilot cover crop program with our California tomato growers. The objective of the pilot is to incentivize the adoption of cover crops as a practice that can help promote soil health, enhance water holding capacity, reduce reliance on chemical inputs, and support biodiversity while increasing yields. In 2022, we expanded this pilot as part of a broader soil health program which we estimate to be double the size of our 2021 reach.

Supplier Spotlight

At Kraft Heinz, we recognize that we cannot succeed in our ESG journey alone. Therefore, we are committed to bringing bold, innovative, and like-minded partners ‘Together at the Table’ to help lead the way, like Woolf Farming. In 2022, this innovative agricultural company from California’s fertile Central Valley achieved a 100 percent Gold result on their Kraft Heinz FSA audit.

Woolf Farming: Farming with a Commitment to Sustainability

In 1974 Jack Woolf founded Woolf Farming. Now, three generations later, Woolf is still committed to producing more high-quality crops with fewer resources while improving the land they farm. The family-owned and operated farm, together with their partners, sustainably grow and processes specialty crops, delivering almonds, pistachios, tomatoes, cotton, garlic, wheat, and more to the food chain.

Woolf Farming is highly committed to sustainable farming practices. As stewards of land in California’s Central Valley, they take their obligation to sustainably manage the region’s natural resources very seriously. That is why Woolf saw the urgency to certify as a B Corporation, which means they adhere to exceptionally high standards of social commitment, environmental performance, operational transparency, and legal accountability.

The desire to be early adopters of technology and innovation allows Woolf to maximize both quality and yield, while also enhancing the value of their natural resources. Combined with ongoing investment in land, water, infrastructure, and processing, this has enabled Woolf Farming to grow and prosper.

“We’re proud of our long-term relationship with Kraft Heinz. Together we’ve taken constructive steps to improve our farming practices and the quality of our goods. For example, they have supported our use of cover crops to improve water penetration, and reduce the need for fertilizers while improving overall soil health. My hope is to pass this strategic collaboration, while improving our family’s land, on to our next generation. We look forward to building on this legacy of sustainability and trust.”

– Stuart Woolf, CEO, Woolf Farming