Nourishing the world – how do we achieve our mission
As producers of fresh produce, we are utterly dependent on the earth. The only way to continue doing what we do is if the natural world is stable and healthy.
Our value lies in the environment and the people who make our company what it is. These are our collaborators, their families, local communities, and every other employee who wears our logo.
As a result, we recognise that part of our job – arguably, one of the most fundamental elements – is to support the planet and our people. We need to help our current systems (social, production and environmental) operate sustainably. This way, and only this way, can we ensure that our company continues to thrive.
Our moral ethos is deeply entrenched within our company values. In everything that we do, we make sure that our actions are nourishing the world. But what do we mean by this?
Education Initiatives
We know that our young people are the future. We must give them the support, opportunities and guidance that they need to live successful and happy lives in the future.
Last year, we launched our Nourishing Education For Our Children campaign. This campaign helped promote healthy eating habits in children encouraged by hosting talks on nutrition at schools located in the communities that work with our Coliman Companies.
Our team hosted four virtual talks, teaching children about different healthy dishes, the importance of drinking water, and the nutritional value of bananas. These talks alone positively impact 125 children.
We also held a fun “I’m a banana lover” contest for the community schools to take part in. All of the children at these schools were invited to participate in the competition. They could enter by creating a drawing or video explaining bananas’ nutritional benefits and why we celebrate “Banana Lovers’ day”.
In total, 124 children entered our contest, and the kids all had a lot of fun taking part!
Scholarships form another vital part of our charitable education work. Last year we awarded 59 scholarships to children and young people.
We are immensely proud of this work. We know that this support will go a long way towards promoting the value of education, reducing school desertion rates, and reducing the education gap in the communities we work with.
Health Initiatives
As we all know, last year, the world saw a health crisis on an unprecedented scale.
So, we wanted to focus our efforts on supporting some of the most vulnerable communities.
Throughout last year, we held a wide range of activities, which encouraged people to take better care of themselves, and spread illness prevention awareness. Through this knowledge, our collaborators were able to take better care of the well-being of themselves and their families.
During 2020, we hosted 43 health awareness talks and seven community activities.
We also donated COVID-19 Sanitary Contingency Fairtrade Emergency Kits – containing antibacterial gels, masks, Vitamin C and Zinc tablets – to 264 of our collaborators.
In addition to helping our communities combat COVID-19, we also hosted a range of health events, which focused on improving the well-being of the individual attendees.
The Health Train was another one of 2020s most successful health campaigns. We provided our collaborators with many health prevention services, which helped them proactively detect any chronic-degenerative diseases. These included cervix cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, hypertension, HIV and heart diseases.
We provided a range of vital services, including measuring glucose levels, artery pressure, triglycerides and cholesterol, and conducting pap tests and breast examinations. Through this campaign, we proactively detected 79 health complications in our collaborators. These individuals then received specialist advice on how they could take care of their health.
In total, 2,467 beneficiaries were positively impacted by last year’s health campaigns.
Community Outreach Initiatives
We work closely with our workers, their families, and their neighbours to ensure that we can nourish the local community.
Last year’s One Kilo To Nourish Smiles campaign was hugely successful. All 9 of the companies within the AGGALL-Coliman Group took part to support food banks and help get food to hundreds of vulnerable families across Mexico.
Last year, we collected 8,788.83 kg of non-perishable foods for these food banks, distributed to elders, community kitchens and families who temporarily ran out of income.
We also believe in the importance of small acts of kindness. Our annual One Child One Toy campaign is a brilliant example of the power that generosity can have. We use donations from our collaborators to buy a toy for the children in our most vulnerable communities for their celebration of The 3 Kings Day. This year, 569 children received a toy!
Environmental Initiatives
We apply eco-conscious initiatives across the AGGALL-Coliman Group and encourage our collaborators to adopt the most environmentally friendly approach possible.
We encourage everyone in our team to adopt ‘Green Initiatives’ in their own lives and then recommend their ideas to the rest of our community so that we can all build on each other’s innovation.
We stand as an innovative company, which is always looking ahead. So, throughout 2020, we prioritised our commitment to sustainability across our development strategies. A great example of this is our use of solar energy. We installed 760 solar panels across one of our distribution centres and warehouses in Sonora so that our collaborators can optimize this abundant natural resource.
As Jorge Aguilar Jr., the CEO of Coliman Group, put it:
“Our mission is to nourish the world, and when we talk about nourishing, we don’t just think about food; nourishing is filling with life. That is why we take care of our land, flora and fauna of our fields and, even more carefully, our people.”
As you can see, we achieve this core mission in a wide range of different ways.
To date, Coliman Grupo has been recognised by Mexican Center for Philanthropy for these efforts. The company has also been the recipient of the Mexico Agri-food National Award in 2014 by the President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto. In 2015, Coliman was recognised by the Mexican Department of Labor as a Child Labor Free company.
**Figures taken from the 2020 Corporate & Social Responsibility report created by Grupo Coliman.
