Sustainability
Sustainability at Cheffelo
At Cheffelo, we take pride in assuming responsibility for the impact of our activities on the environment, people, and society, all while upholding economic sustainability. Our sustainability efforts are guided by our Sustainability Policy which is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
You can read the Cheffelo Sustainability Report included in the 2023 Annual Report here
Sustainability work is divided into the five areas Food Waste, Food Products, Resource Consumption, Health and Social Responsibility.
All areas are linked to the UN’s Global Sustainability Goals.
Did you know that around 10% of all food made available to consumers in Europe end up as food waste?* At Cheffelo want to reduce that percentage!
Minimizing food waste is an integrated part of Cheffelo’s business model. All recipes are planned for optimal usage of all ingredients leaving very little food waste after the food has been prepared by our customers. Furthermore, we make sure to purchase our ingredients based on the customer’s orders so that we only order the amount we will send to our customers.
However, we cannot completely avoid excess food from production and therefore we donate any edible leftover food to local charities in Denmark and Sweden and sell it through Holdbart in Norway. Any inedible food gets sorted as organic waste and is used for biomass, which is used to produce biogas.
*https://food.ec.europa.eu/safety/food-waste_en
At Cheffelo, our core product is the recipes and the ingredients used to create these. Therefore, we are working closely with our suppliers to ensure the best quality ingredients for our customers.
We prioritize having close relationships with local suppliers where we can utilize the size of our business to design our ingredients according to our customers’ preferences and to continuously improve in relation to sustainability. One focus area in terms of sustainability is the source of protein in the recipes. Currently, we offer nutritious alternatives like fish and vegetarian proteins, which have a lower climate impact, but it is up to the customers to set their preferences.
Read more about our requirements for suppliers in our Supplier Code of Conduct: code-of-conduct-cheffelo-suppliers-last-updated-2023-09-27
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face today, and Cheffelo are committed to reduce our impact on the climate throughout our value chain. We are continuously working to reduce resource consumption through smart choices and efficient use of resources throughout the supply chain. In addition, our services enable households to minimize the climate impact of their daily dinners especially by eliminating food waste.
Cheffelo want to promote healthy eating behaviors among our customers by offering easy access to nutritious and well-balanced meals without the hassle of shopping and meal planning.
A nutritious and varied diet has a significant impact on public health, and as a provider of meal kit dinners we have a large potential to influence the health of our customers. We have a wide variety of nutritionally well-balanced dishes, which facilitate eating healthy and varied, even in a hectic lifestyle.
We work to enable and encourage healthy food and healthy eating behaviors and use applicable Nordic nutritional recommendations as guidelines for our nutrition work. New recipes are planned according to our nutritional guidelines, and menus are planned to have a good variety. We work specifically with some of the major public health nutrition challenges in the Scandinavian diet such as lowering the intake of salt and saturated fat and facilitating a higher intake of vegetables.
We all have a responsibility to contribute to the communities, where we operate, in a positive way. Cheffelo recognizes our responsibility and are continuously working on improving our efforts.
Combatting food waste is built into our business model, however, there are still occasions when our production facilities have perfectly edible leftover food that can be put to good use. In Helsingør, leftover food is donated to Røntofte Crisis Center. When there is food left over in Mölnlycke, it is collected and sent to Smyrna Church, which donates food to families in need. In our Norwegian operations, leftover food is sold at discount prices by Holdbart, ensuring food with a short expiration date is eaten and not discarded. Furthermore, excess edible food with very short expiration dates, which cannot be sold through Holdbart, is donated to Matsentralen in Oslo.
Cheffelo are committed to conducting business ethically and responsibly. Therefore, we have outlined the minimum standards we expect from our employees in our Cheffelo Code of Conduct to ensure that all workers are treated with respect and dignity, and that our products and services are produced in a sustainable and responsible manner.
The Cheffelo Code of Conduct includes our position on how we want to work with our People and how we want to conduct our Business. We expect all employees to comply with this code and report any concerns or actual cases of breach to us.
You can read the Cheffelo Code of Conduct here: code-of-conduct-cheffelo-last-updated-2023-09-27-1
Control
The Board of Directors has the overall responsibility for sustainability issues and works actively to ensure that the company maintains long-term and trusting relationships as well as good business ethics. The Board of Directors has delegated responsibility to the management team to establish policy documents and structures to ensure their compliance. In addition to governing policy documents, there are guidelines and routine documents and checklists that govern the operations within each area of responsibility.