Sustainable Food Laboratory

The Sustainable Food Lab has spawned a Brazilian counterpart. During the inaugural dinner, Monday 26, 2007, Tácito Nobre presented the Food Lab and its initiatives and Meire Ferreira, coordinator for Sustainability at Sadia, presented the existing Food Lab Business Coalition based in North America. Other people also presented including Gilberto Tomazoni, CEO of Sadia (pictured below).

As the only enterprise in Latin America from the food sector to join the Sustainable Food Laboratory, Sadia initiated the gathering of representatives from private enterprises, institutes, the government and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that take part in the food chain in Brazil in order to promote reflection on the Sustainability of the food productive chain. Sadia proposed setting up a permanent group for discussion and work in order to improve the food chain and to make it sustainable.

Initiating members of the new Brazilian consortium include Sadia, Carrefour, Rabobank, Unilever, Klabin, Adecoagro and Fazendas DaTerra, Nestlé, The Nature Conservancy and others. The Secretary from São Paulo Agriculture State and the Secretary from Ministry Agroenergy and Agriculture in Brazil were invited but were not able to attend. They have asked to be involved in the next steps.

“I think we will have a considerable adhesion,” Ferreira said. “The Brazilian version is an extension of the Food Lab.”

The attending members scheduled a follow up meeting, April 18, 2007 during the event of Global Feed and Food in São Paulo city.

Ferreira has been coordinating the effort to launch a Brazilian Business Coalition.

"I think the companies in Brazil need a safe place to talk about issues of interest to everyone. The dinner demonstrated this. It was clear that people want to reflect about sustainability challenges and our common responsibilities and don't have a structured place to talk about these things in business terms," she said.

In an email to Food Lab staff after the convening Ferreira wrote, “The feedback we received was very good and I feel inspired in my work to influence organizations for sustainability and promote stakeholder engagement. I am learning a lot with you all.”

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