McCain Foods’ 2022 Sustainability Report Spotlights Key Progress & Opportunity for Sustainable, Regenerative Food Production

January 25, 2023

McCain Foods Limited released its Sustainability Report, underpinning its commitment to producing delicious, planet-friendly food.

The report includes the organization’s sustainability results from the past fiscal year, demonstrating how McCain is responding to the challenges faced by climate change, its priority on enhancing soil health and its farming partners’ transition to more regenerative practices. Vital strategic investments have also enabled the growth of plant-forward product innovations. This year, the report is reinforced by a strengthened approach aligning with the Global Reporting Initiative standard.

McCain’s continued focus on innovation in agriculture reinforces the company’s role as a global leader in food production. Working with its farmer partners, McCain has accelerated its regenerative agriculture ambition by providing technical assistance and financing opportunities that can help tackle the escalating impacts of climate change on yields and crop quality and, notably, launched its second Farm of the Future in South Africa. McCain has also achieved its water-efficiency target, three years ahead of schedule, made marked improvements in CO₂ emissions reductions and enhanced its usage of renewable electricity. The business has also made significant contributions to support the communities where it functions through donations and volunteering.

These milestones illustrate the significant progress McCain is making to adopt smart and sustainable farming practices, make its operations more resource-efficient, produce planet-friendly food that people enjoy and build thriving communities in the areas where McCain operates.

“Environmental and social stewardship is part of our DNA at McCain,” said Max Koeune, President and CEO of McCain Foods. “The escalating climate and nature crises illustrate the fragility of our global food system with wide-reaching impact on consumers, growers, the land and communities. We believe agriculture can and must be transformed to safeguard our future and we are encouraged by the progress we are seeing in our sustainability journey. While much work remains, we are determined to advance on our commitments.”

McCain’s Sustainability Report highlights include:

• Smart and Sustainable Farming

In the past year, McCain launched Farm of Future Africa, which it will test regenerative farming in a Southern Hemisphere environment. The first crop of potatoes has been planted at the farm in Lichtenburg, South Africa. McCain has also implemented its Regenerative Agriculture Framework to support farmers and measure the adoption of regenerative farming practices in priority regions, established financing partnerships for regenerative farming in France and Canada, achieved an 8% reduction in CO₂ emissions per tonne from potato farming, storage and freight and improved water-use efficiency by 11% in water-stressed regions.

• Resource-Efficient Operations

McCain’s use of renewable electricity is now up to 18.5% of its total electricity use with absolute CO₂ emissions reduced by 6% from 2017 (Scope 1 and 2) and a 17% reduction in CO₂ per tonne of product produced. Also, 98% of McCain’s paper packaging and 90% of its plastic packaging is now designed for recycling.

• Good Food

In 2022, McCain developed strategic partnerships with plant-forward food producers Strong Roots and The Simple Root while strengthening its partnership with innovative vertical farm GoodLeaf. All of McCain’s facilities are now GFSI certified, there has been noted sodium reduction and artificial ingredients removed from key products and McCain has achieved 100% voluntary implementation of Nutriscore in France, Belgium and Germany and Health Star Rating in Australia. 

• Thriving Communities

Over the course of 2022, McCain donated the equivalent of 10.9 million meals to food banks and NGOs, supported more than 1,200 staff in 19 countries by providing 6,432 volunteer hours and reached 2,921 new beneficiaries through community projects and partnerships.  

“We have made marked improvements through action and collaboration and will continue to embrace climatic challenges as opportunities to innovate and make meaningful change to the food system,” said Charlie Angelakos, Vice President, Global External Affairs and Sustainability at McCain Foods.

To learn more about McCain’s sustainability strategy including its commitments, progress and results, visit here.

About McCain Foods (Canada)

McCain Foods (Canada) is the Canadian division of McCain Foods Limited, an international leader in the frozen food industry. McCain Foods is the world’s largest manufacturer of prepared potato specialties, and also produces other quality products such as appetizers, vegetables and desserts that can be found in restaurants and retail stores in more than 160 countries around the world.