CSR

Ever since it was founded back in 1995, Fossa Eugenia’s goal has been to lead the way in quality. We have made a great deal of progress over the years in terms of reliable quality, environmental protection, food-safe products, and providing a safe and pleasant working environment for the employees who work with our growers to achieve these goals.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming more and more important worldwide, and producing and marketing fresh fruit and vegetables as sustainably as possible is our ultimate objective.

CSR implementation and the Self-Declaration

In 2014 Fossa Eugenia drafted the first Self-Declaration ISO26000. With this self-declaration, the organisation supported and elaborated on the choices made with respect to its social responsibility. The self-declaration, priorities matrix, stakeholder analysis, and action plan will be assessed and revised annually.

In general it’s true to say that our growers’ union and its stakeholders have increased their awareness both of CSR issues and the concrete interpretation of these. The growers are closely involved in this. Concrete successes in the past two years include:

• All affiliated growers are certified according to the GlobalG.A.P. GFS and GRASP standards. Through continuous internal and external audits over recent years, engagement with and implementation of employee welfare and safety have improved among our growers, the environmental impact of our cultivation has decreased, and the food safety of our products has increased. Improvement measures arising from audits, complaints, and various other sources are continuously implemented by both the growers and our organisation.
• The production of organic vegetables, strawberries, and herbs is increasing annually.
• Certification according to PlanetProof / Beter voor Natuur en Boer / Leaf Marque is mandatory for all members.
• We communicate our CSR efforts with our customers, including various European retail chains. This is reflected, among other things, in our involvement in sector-wide initiatives to calculate the CO₂ footprint of our products, and in our participation in Sedex, ECOVADIS and SBTi.

The Self-Declaration is annually recognised by NEN (the Dutch standardisation institute) as being complete and in compliance with the ISO26000 standard. This will be confirmed by publication on the platform set up for this purpose (https://www.nen.nl/Normontwikkeling/Publicatieplatform-ISO-26000.htm). The current Self-Declaration can also be downloaded from the Fossa Eugenia website.