Coop Sweden has announced plans to place sustainability declarations on all its own-brand products, which consumers will be able to view by digitally scanning a product's barcode.
According to the retailer, the declaration will indicate a particular product's impact on the earth's resources, climate and society.
Testing of the initiative will begin during summer and autumn this year, and it is estimated that the initiative will be rolled out from the first quarter of 2021.
Embracing Sustainability
Commenting on the initiative, Magnus Johansson, CEO of Coop Sweden, said, “We want to move the food industry [forward] so that we become even more sustainable and we hope, of course, that the entire industry will follow us in this initiative”.
The declarations will be based on 10 parameters that call for sustainable development, and examine the entire supply chain, down to ingredient level.
The parameters were developed as part of the WWF's sustainable food chain initiative, which was launched in 2005 to address the major sustainability challenges in the food industry.
The data on which the calculations are based come from independent sources such as RISE, World Bank, WWF and BSCI.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Elizabeth Schroeder. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
