ADM has won the Environmental Initiatives category of the 2022 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards for expanding its regenerative agriculture programs. Granted by a judging panel of renowned environmental and energy industry experts, the award recognizes programs or initiatives that push the frontier on environmental leadership.

ADM’s project, “Providing Economic and Sustainable Solutions Through Regenerative Agriculture,” expands on ADM’s long-term commitment to support growers in their transition to regenerative agriculture. In 2022, ADM launched a number of projects and partnerships, including with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), US Department of Agriculture, PepsiCo, and the Farmers Business Network, that equip farmers with financial, technical and educational resources to support regenerative farming.

Commenting on the development, Alison Taylor, chief sustainability officer at ADM said, “ADM is uniquely positioned to partner with growers and customers alike to create value for participants across the value chains in which we operate while helping secure a more sustainable future. We’re proud to continue to expand our partnership with growers, providing valuable support to enhance farm-level sustainability and helping their businesses grow and succeed while simultaneously advancing Scope 3 emissions goals for both ADM and our customers.”

ADM’s regenerative agriculture programs not only support farm economics, but also reduce supply chain impacts and protect local biodiversity. Their initiative has covered four continents to date and is expected to expand its reach further in the coming years. It’s engaged with growers to implement regenerative growing practices on more than 600,000 acres. In 2023, ADM plans to continue expansion in North America to cover one million acres by enrolling over 1,000 growers in regenerative programs. This project will also drive carbon reduction and sequestration of 300,000 MT of CO2e, making a significant contribution to ADM’s commitment to curbing emissions.

About ADM

ADM unlocks the power of nature to enrich the quality of life. As a premier global human and animal nutrition company, ADM delivers solutions today with an eye to the future – leading the way to a new future of plant-based consumer and industrial solutions to replace petroleum-based products. They’re also an agricultural supply chain manager and processor, providing food security by connecting local needs with global capabilities. Sustainability is one of their key values and they work to scale across entire value chains to help decarbonize our industry and safeguard our planet. From the seed of the idea to the outcome of the solution, ADM gives customers an edge in solving the nutritional and sustainability challenges of today and tomorrow.

Learn more at www.adm.com 

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Lausanne company Beelong has made it easier than ever for shoppers to make informed and environmentally sound decisions about the foods they buy. Their system, run by 15 staff members, has already analysed more than 150,000 food products and categorised them based on their eco credentials. Now Beelong’s carefully developed Eco-score, based on the environmental impact of food, has been applied to over 2,000 Coop products online, and will soon also be available on food packaging in store.

The Beelong Eco-score – developed by the Vaud startup of the same name – evaluates the impact of products on the environment. By using a uniform set of criteria, the classification system is designed to simplify the shopping process for eco-conscious consumers who want to make the best possible choices for the planet. Now available on more than 2,000 own-brand goods on the Coop website, consumers can use the simple scale, which runs from a maximum of A+ to a low of E-, to make informed purchasing decisions. 

Previously, the implementation of eco labels in supermarkets has been hampered by a lack of reliable information. “There’s a lot of information available on food products, but it’s not displayed in a uniform way,” says cofounder Charlotte de La Baume. “With different labels for each product, it has historically been very difficult to compare them. The Beelong Eco-score makes it possible to compare all food products on the same basis, while enhancing existing labels.” Beelong’s joint cofounder Mathias Faigaux added: “Because Beelong evaluates all products using the same scale regardless of their category, our system enables the comparison of both similar products with one another, and the comparison of products from totally different categories.”

Analysing multiple criteria 

Using a reliable and stringent method of analysis – which is constantly evolving and updated by Beelong’s experts in real time – the Eco-score evaluates multiple criteria related to a food’s ingredients: from the carbon emitted in their cultivation and transport to a crop’s water usage. Other criteria include the quality of the soil a crop is grown in and/or the welfare of animals involved in its manufacture, alongside many more. Further criteria are then applied to the finished product – these vary from the impact of the packaging to the sustainability policy of the processing company.

A turning point for Beelong

The introduction of the Eco-score at Coop brings Beelong new visibility, a boost for the Swiss company founded in Lausanne eight years ago. Beelong is already well established with professionals in the Swiss catering and food ecosystem; the company works with around sixty partner brands, including Hero, Narimpex  and Ditzler, as well as with several hundred private and public restaurants. It also advises private companies, municipalities, cantons and the federal government on the development of sustainable food strategies. 

Visit the Beelong website to find out more, and view the Eco-scores currently online at coop.ch. 

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Valley Partner PowerAPI, a tech-enabled hospitality startup, has raised $5.5 million (CHF 5.25 million) in a seed round led by Prediction Capital. The team is now building its most sought-after feature, ‘Intelligence’, which will push smart notifications & actionable insights to allow F&B merchants to seamlessly manage their business based on their tech stack, goals & growth plans.

The backstory

Launched in 2019, PowerAPI co-founders Andrea Tassistro and Edouard Thimon, who have been lifelong friends since secondary school, noticed the increasing demand for digital tools leading merchants to use an average of 18 apps & softwares to manage their business. These tools are all independent, leaving managers with the challenge of decentralised operations and fragmented data across their systems. The solution was to build a single operating system and unified API.

Merchants must first connect their systems and tools through a click-and-connect Integration Hub, where over +250 integrations are now available. This data, centralised and presented on an analytics dashboard, equips them with precise insights to seamlessly manage their entire operations from reviews to orders, reservations, suppliers, stocks, marketing and much more. The new Intelligence feature offers a new way of making informed decisions, decreasing admin time, and increasing revenues, through actionable insights and notifications.

Next steps

The funding received will enable the company to further develop its technology and IT team, and to start the implementation of machine learning algorithms to provide merchants with intelligent push notifications & actions to reduce inefficiencies and improve their processes. Businesses that use analytics can boost their profits by 8% to 10%, but only 12% of companies currently leverage the power of data. PowerAPI hopes that with the new Intelligence feature, more merchants will now be able to do so.

Andrea Tassistro, Founder & CEO, said: “By opening our API we provide any software, platform, or marketplace with a fully integrated, automated, and now Intelligent, infrastructure. This fulfills our mission to empower restaurants and merchants with a single tool and interface to manage their entire tech stack, operations and marketing seamlessly.”

Find out more in our feature article or visit the PowerAPI website.

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