Green innovation from field to fork

The 2010 Wal-Mart Green Business Summit provided a great perspective on how some of Canada’s leading corporations engage in green innovation. In the past, we described the sustainability initiatives from other major brands. This week, we focus on Heinz Canada.

Heinz ties its initiatives to a core brand value: ‘field to fork’.

Peter Luik, President / CEO of Heinz Canada spoke at the Green Business Summit about three areas Heinz focuses on to build a holistic, sustainable agriculture program:

1. Improved agriculture techniques
2. Locally sourced tomatoes
3. Geography-specific Heinz seed varieties

Althought brevity doesn’t allow an indepth analysis of each area, suffice it to say the above all contribute significantly to reducing waste, water, energy and GHG’s. But does that help the brand?

Food grower, or food processor?

Luik pointed out that Heinz buys 40% of all processing tomatoes for its Canadian operation in Canada. Indeed, Heinz prides itself on buying 98% of its tomatoes within 100 miles of individual processing plants.

The company has also spent 40 years creating non-genetically modified seeds that grow tomatoes better suited to our climate – they’re disease resistant, use less water, taste better, remain ripe longer and produce higher field yields.

In the past 10 years, Heinz has helped 50% of Canadian growers switch to drip irrigation, leading to 35% reductions in water usage.

Measures like these have enabled growers to double crop yields in the past 20 years. In fact, Heinz’s Canadian operation now rivals California in output.

Impressive statistics if your business is growing food. But how does it elevate Heinz’s core brand as a food processor?

There seems to be a green communication (or even green innovation) gap somewhere between field and fork.

Fortunately, where there’s a disconnect, there’s an opportunity.

Building the green innovation brand

In 2010, ‘locally grown’ has tremendous cachet. As do the concepts of reducing pesticide and water waste. Doubling food productivity resonates well in a world looking for food security.

Heinz is performing admirably in each area.

It might do even better if it created a simple, clean link between these consumer priorities and the products it offers for sale. In other words, Heinz could make the ‘field’ part of its sustainability more visible at the consumer ‘fork’ stage.

As Henry John Heinz said, “To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.” Giving consumers insight into the workings of a forward-thinking company seems simple enough. Heinz has much to gain from doing it uncommonly well.

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