Time and distance

To me, holidays are taking time to sit down and reflect. At such a moment when I am not considering past or future, at least not further than our meal tonight, my son asks me: ‘Why do the beans we eat come all the way from Morocco?’. I look at him in silence.

I don’t have a good answer right away. I do have lots of questions, just like him. We have so many vegetables ourselves in the Netherlands: why do they make vegetables cover so much distance before they are on our plate? When the wheat comes from Ukraine and spices from India or South America, the distance covered by a gingerbread increases considerably. Do you ever contemplate as an entrepreneur how sustainable the ingredients are that you use in your production? What do you take into consideration in your purchases? Schemes such as IFS, BRC and audits of Risk Plaza take account of food safety and risks of fraud, not sustainability. Cost reduction is often considered more important. Only if it is an explicit part of your vision of corporate responsibility, the purchasing department will actually consider something like a CO2 footprint.

Local

If you do consider it, for instance by choosing raw materials from Europe. You also build in other certainties: Tanks to European guidelines there is less risk of fraud, fewer checks and additional research are required, there is more guarantee of constant quality. And a more sustainable end product.

Footprint

Government, producers, retailers, consumers: we are all responsible. I decide to start nearby. As a lab, too, I am going to make choices even more consciously for items with a lower CO2 footprint. Not only for myself and not our idealism. Just for my son, his friends, their children. For a liveable world, also after my time has come.

Pieter Vos
Director of Nutrilab