The United Nations Foundation is assisting in supporting the Agriculture Innovation Mission (AIM) for Climate initiative, led by the United States and the UAE, with the goal of increasing support for innovation in climate-smart agriculture and food systems over five years from 2021 to 2025.
There is no doubt that the UAE is a frontrunner in the battle of tackling global food issues. And one of the companies that align its vision with the country and with the UN is IFFCO. As a multinational group headquartered in the UAE, which manufactures and markets a well-integrated range of food and non-food products, IFFCO is pacesetting the industry in the region with its sustainable R&D and manufacturing productivity.
As the Executive Director at IFFCO, Rizwan Ahmed explains, “Our deep understanding of consumer needs allows us to create new products which meet our consumer's future needs through innovative technologies, allowing us to build a new portfolio providing more sustainable products.”
IFFCO has a wide reach of 95 operations in 49 countries across 5 continents, providing differentiated, good quality, products to its customers. Being a customer-centric company, it has demonstrated its values through various aspects.
IFFCO is firmly pursuing sustainable strategies and is inspired by the goal of “handing over this thriving planet to the next generation”.
Dina Epifanova, Head of Sustainability at IFFCO elaborates on the aim of the company’s 10 sustainable programmes. She says, “Our aim for the future is that our value chains are fully transparent starting from seeding and growing the plants in the farm going down to waste circular at the end of the process.”
For instance, one of its market-leading products, olive oil, is produced in one of the biggest olive farms worldwide named Zitouna in southern Tunisia. Currently, 30 per cent of the plantation of Zitouna is purely organic, and photovoltaic infrastructure is installed to provide clean energy for production.
IFFCO’s innovative Customer Engagement Center established in Dubai is considered distinctive in the city, and offers a great environment for co-creation, leading to better products for its hospitality customers.
Being a responsible global group, IFFCO is dedicated to maintaining close contact with its customers with continuous innovation, new product categories manufacturing, and usage and waste consumption. For example, every bottle of olive oil IFFCO produced can be sourced by its customers, tracking the production process with the QR code printed on the bottle from seeding to the very last stage- “from farm to plate”.
As Ahmed affirms, IFFCO will take it upon itself to innovate and fulfill customers' needs in the future to achieve sustainability. “IFFCO’s large portfolio will bring joy and happiness to our consumers and customers’ life, to celebrate every moment every day to the fullest,” he says.
