Our Grown for Good standard has been specifically designed for the herbs and spices sector and focuses on building resilient production systems through regenerative agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and water conservation.
Learn MorePurpose-led Performance is one of the guiding principles for how we conduct business globally. Our responsibility as a leader in the global food industry is to ensure our investments have tangible benefits, especially for farmers and customers, which we see most clearly in our own supply chain. We work to eliminate intermediaries so we can establish direct relationships with our suppliers and farmers. We also work with farmers and suppliers to implement risk oversight initiatives and promote our commitment to sustainable sourcing.
McCormick’s steadfast commitment to creating a sustainable supply chain for all our stakeholders is secured by the principles outlined in our Sustainable Agriculture Policy, which ensures the agricultural raw materials in our products are produced responsibly through enhancing the environmental and social sustainability of our agricultural supply chain partners and local impacted communities.
For the last 25 years we have been working with our joint venture company, AVT McCormick, on the backwards integration of our red pepper supply chain. With the announcement of our sustainable sourcing goal in 2017, we began the process of expanding training to third-party verified sustainability standards and this year achieved our 2025 volume target, four years ahead of schedule.
McCormick has committed to sourcing all herbs and spices in its portfolio sustainably, beginning with the top five branded iconic ingredients (black pepper, cinnamon, oregano, red pepper and vanilla) by 2025.
Many of our purpose efforts are taking place on the ground in the farming communities where we source our five iconic ingredients. These herbs and spices are significant drivers of our business, which is why we see the opportunity to make the most impact in our supply chain.
We are currently fully focused on sustainably sourcing all five of our branded iconic products by 2025. However, as we begin to reach our targets, additional focus will be given to the next seven ingredients on our priority list: turmeric, cumin, celery seed, dill seed, ginger, sage, cardamom, cloves and thyme.
In addition to our five iconic ingredients, palm oil, rice, soy and wheat are four agricultural commodities our organization produces or sources that are most significant to our business by revenue. Thus, we continue to pursue ways to source these raw materials in a less resource-intensive, sustainable manner.
Palm Oil
McCormick does not produce or use significant volumes of palm oil; however, due to our 2017 acquisition of the French’s Food Company, we use palm oil in the production of specific French’s products. Despite the relatively low volumes of palm oil we use, we identified it as a priority raw material due to its potential impact on deforestation. As part of our Purpose-led Performance program, a cross-functional task force on palm oil sustainability carries out an annual palm oil supply chain assessment and reviews progress towards a 2025 commitment roadmap. The roadmap captures McCormick’s global uses of palm oil along with the availability of sustainable palm oil to help prioritize its use.
To mitigate the use of palm oil in our products, McCormick has joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) program, an organization that implements global standards for sustainable palm oil. In 2020, we met our 2025 goal to sustainability source 100% of the palm oil within our supply chain through the RSPO. Additionally, we’re working with other organizations, like the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) to establish programs and processes to reduce risk surrounding palm oil and its sustainable production.
Soy
We have named soy a priority ingredient due to its association with deforestation risks. Our risk around deforestation related to soy is very low as a large majority of our soy is sourced in North America. Our Global Supplier Code of Conduct covers our first-tier suppliers and requires our suppliers to be responsible for any deforestation and environmental impacts as well as the impacts of their own suppliers. Additionally, our supplier code of conduct allows us to audit our suppliers and inspect records related to their own upstream suppliers.
McCormick implements regenerative agricultural practice which is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It promotes practices focusing on topsoil regeneration, increasing above and belowground biodiversity while maximizing water efficiency, enhancing the ecosystem and carbon sequestering. The overall objective is to strengthen the health and vitality of topsoil to improve farm resilience to climate change. As with all our farm and farming community programs, the first step was to conduct a baseline study of soil health. In 2020 we began rolling out soil testing on farms growing our top-five branded iconic raw materials, expanding it to other commodities in 2021. The results of the testing enabled us to identify areas for improvement in soil health and provide recommendations to suppliers and farmers on inputs and practices. As these are implemented, we will be tracking impact both on yield and ongoing soil health improvements.
McCormick has committed to ambitious goals to reduce our GHG emissions, in an effort to combat climate change. These include targets for scope 3 emissions, including the impact of agricultural activities in our supply chains. We have therefore partnered with Winrock Solutions to adapt existing carbon calculator tools for McCormick supply chains, which will measure the positive impact our sustainable sourcing programs have on GHG emissions reduction.
In honor of the 2021 World Environment Day theme, "Ecosystem Restoration," employees globally were invited to help combat deforestation and sponsor a tree in Madagascar, where 80% of the world’s supply of vanilla is produced. Deforestation has impacted over 94% of Madagascar forest lands which provide critical shade cover for growing vanilla. To help, McCormick employees opted in to have the company plant one tree per employee, a total of 13,000 trees around the Marojejy National Park of Madagascar to increase impact and support the livelihoods of farmers and communities in Madagascar. In collaboration with USAID, McCormick has supported the planting of 200,000 trees in this region to date.
McCormick is working to integrate mobile technology and digital solutions into our supply chains. McCormick partnered with FarmForce in 2015 to provide the farmers growing our five iconic ingredients with digital capabilities to document and track the farm output. FarmForce is a cloud-based mobile and web platform that helps to increase farmer engagement and traceability. FarmForce connects suppliers to smallholder farmers who can track activities at the farm level. This creates a two-way dialogue to increase transparency and allows suppliers to help farmers address issues like pest management and disease control. Over 12,000 farms have been mapped to this day using FarmForce, enabling McCormick to track deforestation and to ensure no farms are in protected areas. FarmForce can also support compliance activities such as Rainforest Alliance certification, and McCormick has been working to create customized KPIs to track the impact of its community initiatives.