Re-Designing Supply Chains For Sustainability

SEBASTAPOL, CA – The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) today announced the release of guidelines aimed at supporting a new model for supply chains – one which helps capture market forces to reward this continually improved natural resource stewardship.  Funded by a CA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant, the Supply Chain Design project focused on creating a clear and safe way for farmers, and the supply chains of which they are a part, to understand, use, and share important on-farm stewardship data. In the end, the goal is to create a system that helps with both on-farm management and with communicating the value of that improved management throughout the supply chain.

SISC invited representative members of each node of a specialty crop supply chain, to collaborate in creating, testing, and finalizing this model. Together, the group created a practical, use-able supply chain model to illustrate best practices for sharing on farm stewardship information.  Project participants developed a set of guidelines for the most effective ways to collect, share, and compare performance metric data that results in whole supply chain collaboration towards real natural resource management improvements on the ground.  "As a grower and packer shipper, we really appreciated the opportunity to work with the whole supply chain to support cross supply chain collaboration towards continual sustainability goals.  These guidelines reflect that collaboration and offer real valuable guidance towards creating lasting stewardship through the work of the whole supply chain." Drew McDonald VP Quality & Food Safety, Church Brothers Farms.

The resulting publicly available guidelines provide 'best practices' for growers, packer/shippers, processors, distributors, and buyers/food companies on how to use performance metrics to support both continual improvement on the ground and reduce their supply chains overall environmental footprint. "These guidelines provide a whole supply chain perspective to sustainability programs.  The outcomes of this project are valuable for every buyer who is interested in working with their supply chains to reduce their footprint and create real natural resource management improvements on the ground." Jason Dye, Senior Manager, Category Development at Foodbuy.

Project Partners Include

•   Foodbuy/Compass Group
•   PRO*ACT
•   Rio Farms
•   D'Arrigo Brothers
•   Rio Farms/Gill Ranch Co
•   Willoughby Farms
•   Merrill Farms
•   Huntington Farms
•   Church Brothers Farms
•   Taylor Farms
•   USDA – Natural Resource Conservation Service
•   Sustainable Conservation
•   Western Growers Association
•   Natural Resources Defense Council
•   Resource Conservation District Santa Cruz County
•   Resource Conservation District Monterey County
•   Measure to Improve LLC

About SISC |

The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops is a multi-stakeholder-driven system for measuring sustainability performance throughout the specialty crop supply chain. SISC offers a suite of outcomes-based metrics, or measurements, enabling operators to benchmark and communicate their own performance. For more information, please visit www.stewardshipindex.org.

CONTACT: Alison Edwards aedwards@stewardshipindex.org

Source: The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops