By working with its network of growers and the Stewardship Index of Specialty Crops (SISC), Del Monte Foods, Inc. is cultivating a culture of transparency to provide greater insight into the care, sustainable farming practices, and rigorous quality control that go into its products — from farm to table.
Through sophisticated software and collaboration with SISC, Del Monte Foods is continuously striving to gain deeper insights about how its fruits, vegetables, and tomatoes are grown. The company encourages its network of U.S.-based, multi-generational, family-owned growers to leverage technology and programs that advance consumer knowledge, build trust, and make their communities enriching places to live and work. Central to its engagement with growers is the company’s use of CropTrak™ software, which enables Del Monte Foods and its network of growers to track various data, including traceability, sustainability, and customer audit information, in one central repository, facilitating more dynamic feedback loops with operations and partners.
New SISC Stewardship Calculator Establishes Benchmark for Sustainability Practices
Further advancing sustainable agriculture practices, the SISC Steering Committee, of which Del Monte Foods is a member, has partnered with CropTrak™ to develop a new Stewardship Calculator to help growers measure and benchmark their sustainable farming practices. The SISC Stewardship Calculator, which will be publicly available later this Spring, will empower growers, packers/shippers, processors, grower groups, brands and retailers at every stage in their sustainability journey to develop a baseline for the environmental impacts of vegetable, fruit or nut production. As a result, more specific sustainability improvement opportunities can be identified, measured and tracked.
“The new SISC Stewardship Calculator on CropTrak™ is an exciting tool to help growers and their supply chain partners collaborate to measure sustainability impacts on-farm. This helps SISC achieve its mission of supporting a single yardstick to measure sustainability outcomes for buyers, reduce reporting redundancy for growers, and at the same time help growers with tracking year-over-year performance to continuously improve their farming and management practices,” said Alison Edwards, Director SISC. “We appreciate Del Monte Foods’ leadership and collaboration on this initiative.”
The new Stewardship Calculator will be able to track on-farm water, energy/GHG, fertilizer use efficiency and soil organic matter, as well as biodiversity, food waste and irrigation efficiency. These SISC metrics help inform sustainability reporting, as well as improve production plans and sustainability management practices.
The Stewardship Calculator will support Del Monte Foods in its mission to strengthen sustainable agricultural practices across its operations and network of U.S.-based growers. With modules on cover cropping, diverse crop rotations and precise use of inputs, growers can increase water efficiency, reduce inputs and produce more nutritious and high-quality foods that nourish people and the planet. Having a complete picture of growers’ sustainable practices will support sustainability goals throughout the agricultural supply chain.
“Consumers want to know even more about where their food comes from and what sustainable practices are used on the journey from the farm to their table,” said Molly Laverty, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Senior Manager at Del Monte Foods. “The enhanced visibility and metrics from the new Stewardship Calculator will help provide opportunities for our growers and customers to share their insights, resulting in even greater transparency and sustainable impact metrics to nourish earth’s goodness for generations to come.”
Learn more about Del Monte Foods’ work to create a transparent food chain, and our commitment to growing good through our comprehensive Environmental, Social & Governance efforts.
