recyclable packaging and emissions reduced by 32% – Corriere.it

One billion euro of investments to support a sustainable business, -32% of greenhouse gas emissions and -24% of water consumption per ton of finished product compared to 2010, donations of 3.2 million euro and over 3,200 tons of products to express the concrete closeness to the communities. It’s still, 100% of Mulino Bianco breads, biscuits and snacks produced with renewable energy and 100% of the packaging of pasta, sauces, pestos, breads, biscuits and snacks designed for recycling. These are some of the numbers in Barilla’s new Sustainability Report, which in recent years has also invested in improving its products: compared to 2010, in fact, almost 500 have been reformulated, and 40 have been launched in 2022.

Agriculture, cultivation systems, transformation of raw material into finished product, packaging, distribution and consumption have evolved over time to respond to our increasingly pressing request for products that satisfy the emotion of taste, nutrition , of health, integrated with the ability to regenerate the planet’s resources,” he says Paolo Barilla, Vice President of the Barilla Group —. since 1877 that our work has been fueled by the desire to surpass ourselves, reaching the present day with the same spirit as the founders. This is the only certainty we have before us: a lot of passion and still a lot of work.

Sustainable agriculture, energy, community

The Parma group – which in 2022 had a turnover of 4,663 million euros (+18% compared to 2021), with an Ebitda reduced from 13% to 10% – has carried forward projects for the development of sustainable agriculture. In fact, the total of strategic raw materials (durum wheat, soft wheat, rye, tomato, basil, cocoa and vegetable oils) purchased responsibly equal to 67%. Over 9,000 companies are involved in sustainable agriculture projects, just as 93% of durum wheat is purchased from the local market and 47% through cultivation contracts. There was also a focus on energy, in a year that also forced Barilla to deal with price increases, especially gas: bread, biscuits, snacks from the Mulino Bianco brand are in fact made only with energy from sources renewables such as water, sun and wind. Furthermore, the trigeneration plants in the pasta factories allow for the self-production of electrical, thermal and cooling energy, and are already in operation in the plants in Parma, Marcianise (Caserta) and Muggia (Trieste). And in addition to investments for communities, Barilla supported the Civil Protection in Emilia-Romagna, financing reconstruction works in the areas affected by the flood.

The investment plan: one billion (half of which in Italy)

The new plan it foresees one billion euros of investments over the next five years, half of which in Italy, for the improvement of product quality and safety processes, the renewal of industrial assets, the adoption of new Industry 4.0 technologies, the upgrading of IT infrastructures, the increase in production capacity globally, and the innovation of products and in markets. The investments will also be aimed at reinforcing the company’s more than ten-year sustainability path, according to two guidelines: the continuous commitment to the sustainability of the agricultural supply chains and in particular of the Italian ones of durum wheat, basil, tomato and soft wheat, with over 10,000 farmers in partnership who act following models of sustainable agriculture; efforts to reduce the environmental impact and CO2 emissions, also through the installation of new renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic panels and cogeneration plants, at production sites in Italy. This report tells about us, our products, our people and our way of doing business – says Gianluca Di Tondo, CEO of the Barilla Group -. If we want to give our planet and all of us a future, we must do our part. Our company embarked on this path many years ago, with small steps that have helped us to achieve great results over time.