Food Safe Blog
At Food Safe, we are very passionate about all aspects of food safety training, risk management and internal auditing. Food Safe offers a range of services to businesses in the food and related products sector across New Zealand.
The Food Safe Blog attempts to offer tips and advice on Food Safety, Health and Safety, HACCP, Audit Training, Internal Auditing and Continuous Improvement. Please feel free to follow the Food Safe Blog and have the posts delivered directly to your inbox.
Food Safe's Business Beyond Commerce (Sustainability) Journey
Background
Until the 1980s, companies used the word sustainability to mean the ability to increase earnings steadily and grow.
The term sustainability became more widely used in its present sense since 1987, after a UN report by Norway’s prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who defined sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainability at Food Safe is bigger than a PR stunt or a green product line, it is more genuine than a heartfelt but occasional nod to ongoing efforts to save our planet or something we do just on Earth Day once a year!
Generally speaking a meaningful sustainability journey has four equal components:
Social, to address conditions that affect us all, including poverty, violence, injustice, education, public health, and labor and human rights
Economic, to help people and businesses meet their economic needs—for people: securing their basic needs; for businesses: turning a profit
Environmental, to protect and restore the planet where possible, by controlling climate change, preserving natural resources, and preventing waste
Cultural, to protect and value the diversity through which communities manifest their identity and cultivate traditions across generations
We aspire to hold true to all of these values in the context we operate and do it in our unique Food Safe way.
So, what does business beyond commerce mean at Food Safe?
For Food Safe, being sustainable and going beyond commerce is a continuous improvement journey where we earn our social licence to operate and grow!
We have taken our first steps and focused on the following specific elements for the road ahead:
- We aim for increasing value: financial, non-financial, solutions innovation, building intellectual property through capturable research and development aimed at providing our stakeholders increasing value.
- We aim to operate thoughtfully and engage meaningfully with our ecosystem: putting people at the core, manage how we use resources, minimise waste and connect meaningfully with our wider community including Māori, the tangata whenua or indigenous people of New Zealand.
- We minimise our impact: environmental, social, cultural, and on the ecosystem we belong to.
- We are transparent and accountable: to stakeholders and the ecosystem we bolong to.
The slides below explains our journey in more detail:
Are you a trainee or small business manager or owner and keen to start your own business beyond commerce journey?
Here are some links and a useful template below
Links for small and large companies:
Keen to know more?
Food Safe offers customised solutions in food safety training and auditing; to suit specific company needs. Call us on 0800 003 097 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for all food safety training needs.
Some steps and guidelines:
A useful template for small companies:
A useful ISO 14001 reference standard for larger companies:
Reporting guidance for companies:
