METRO Cash & Carry offers its customers a wide variety of proven environmentally friendly and socially responsible products throughout its whole food and non-food assortment. By that, we give our customers the opportunity of having an impact on environmental and working conditions along the entire value chain. For METRO Cash & Carry, the following areas are particularly relevant.
Ethical husbandry | animal protection
Meat and meat products as well as eggs rank among the most important and sensible product groups in our METRO Cash & Carry wholesale stores. Alongside absolute freshness and high quality, animal welfare is extremely important to us when selecting suppliers. Our customers are also placing increasing value on ethical husbandry. They want to know where the food we sell them comes from and what conditions it was produced under.
Sustainable fish
For our professional customers, fish is a highly essential and delicate product. Meanwhile fish is a fluctuant natural resource that has to be used sustainably. To ensure the long-term protection of fish stocks, METRO Cash & Carry has developed its Procurement Policy for Fish and Seafood. With this METRO Cash & Carry takes responsibility at various stages of the value chain and develops measures to promote responsible fishing in accordance with our customers’ needs, nature and people working in the seafood industry.
Sustainable palm oil
Palm oil is an ingredient of many products, e.g. sweets, bakery goods, margarine and cosmetics. It is extracted from oil palms that only grow in the tropics, where wrongly implemented cultivation can have negative side effects for local populations or the environment. Certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) is produced by palm oil plantations which have been independently audited and found to comply with the globally agreed environmental standards devised by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). These sustainability criteria relate to social, environmental and economic good practice.
As a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil RSPO, METRO Cash & Carry committed to integrating the organisation’s principles into their management system and communicating them to customers and suppliers. RSPO actively promotes sustainable cultivation methods and shows alternatives to the use of non-sustainable palm oil.
Working towards Zero Deforestation
One of the drivers of climate change is deforestation – the loss of natural forest and vegetation as a result of conversion to agriculture or other non-forest land use for instance. Deforestation is mainly driven by production of soy, palm, cattle and paper/wood.
METRO Cash & Carry trades products containing these commodities. Within the supply chains of these products where we are part of, we have taken actions to minimise and stop deforestation. With our paper and wood, updated palm oil and new soy sourcing policy and action plan, we continue to take action to work with our suppliers, the entire supply chain, other wholesalers/retailers and NGO’s towards zero deforestation. We are currently also working on a meat policy, that will be implemented later this year.
Health and nutrition policy
Every day METRO strives to empower its more than 24 million customers to make healthier choices for their businesses and families by offering a growing range of reformulated, ultra-fresh and organic oriented products, providing clear and easily accessible information about nutrients and ingredients, and by leveraging digital solutions. To achieve this goal, we have developed clear guidelines and targets.