Ahold Delhaize USA, General Mills Working to Lower Value Chain Emissions
Retail conglomerate Ahold Delhaize USA and CPG powerhouse General Mills have teamed up on an innovative approach to address scope 3 greenhouse-gas emissions within their shared value chain. Through co-investments in priority supply sheds – geographic growing regions from which key ingredients are sourced – the two companies will support farmers adopting regenerative farming practices. Relying on expertise from Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC), a nonprofit member-based consortium, farmers will receive technical and financial support to deploy such techniques as cover cropping and nutrient management, and a combination of field sampling and modeling will estimate net greenhouse-gas emissions.
“This relationship emphasizes how strategic collaboration is essential for addressing climate impacts and creating positive environmental outcomes,” noted Marc Stolzman, chief sustainability officer at Salisbury, N.C.-based Ahold Delhaize USA. “Ahold Delhaize USA looks forward to the learnings from this supply shed collaboration and using the findings to drive progress across the supply chain.”
By the end of next year, ESMC, together with local implementing partners, will help further regenerative agriculture management on more than 70,000 acres of farmland in Kansas and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The scale of this effort represents the approximate number of acres that General Mills engages to source such major ingredients as wheat and oats for its products sold at Ahold Delhaize USA banners.
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“In 2019, General Mills became one of the first companies to commit to helping advance regenerative agriculture,” said Mary Jane Melendez, chief sustainability and global impact officer at Minneapolis-based General Mills. “We champion a farmer-centered approach across key regions where the ingredients we source are grown, aiming to produce positive environmental, social and economic outcomes. Ahold Delhaize USA is a natural fit for collaboration with shared goals of creating a more healthy and resilient food system.”
ESMC will facilitate the program and oversee impact measurement. Greenhouse-gas reductions and soil carbon sequestration will be verified by an independent third-party verification organization, ensuring transparency and accountability. The collaboration is a continuation of General Mills and ESMC’s multi-year partnership, which kicked off in 2020 and involved rewarding farmers for positive environmental outcomes arising from regenerative agriculture.
“ESMC’s ongoing partnerships with General Mills and Ahold Delhaize USA continue to leverage our collective investments and generate shared outcomes,” observed Debbie Reed, executive director of Falls Church, Va.-based ESMC. “By creating opportunities for co-investing in regenerative agricultural solutions, producers win, corporations win and consumers win. These verified improvements in agricultural production systems increase on-farm resilience for producers and build resilience throughout the supply chain.”
This is Ahold Delhaize USA’s second farmland-focused scope 3 pilot this year, as well as its first collaboration to take a supply shed approach. This past June, the food retailer revealed a partnership with global snacking company Kellanova and North American agribusiness Bartlett to reduce scope 3 greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from wheat farming across the value chain, with the aim of improving farm and supply chain resiliency. The pilot program is using financial investments from the companies to support the implementation of regenerative agricultural practices among North Carolina wheat farmers. The wheat harvested and milled from these farms will be used in combination with conventionally grown wheat to manufacture Kellanova’s Cheez-It and Club crackers, which will be sold at Ahold Delhaize USA banners in 2025.
Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of Zaandam, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, is No. 11 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named the company one of its Retailers of the Century and one of its 10 Most Sustainable Grocers.
