Corporate social responsibility
CSR portrait n°23 : Aroha Sourcing
It is estimated that, one in ten people get ill after eating contaminated food each year worldwide. Although efforts to trace products have increased, the globalisation of the food supply chain makes this process more complex. Some companies decided to set up at their scale a transparency plan to ensure the quality of their products to final consumers.
"Aroha is a human and entrepreneurial adventure. Aroha means “Love, passion” in Maori but for me it means an encounter with countries that I felt a great deal of affection for and where I meet great hearted people"
- Anthony Verdugo, CEO of Aroha Sourcing
1 - Can you explain your activity in a few words?
Aroha is a company specialized in botanical sourcing of conventional and organic plant raw materials (mains categories are spices, tea, fruits and nuts). The company is operating in Vietnam. We are setting up the distribution channels between our industrial European clients and our Vietnamese producers. One of Aroha’s core missions is to ensure the highest product quality and traceability for our final consumers.
Our keys values are sharing, respect, durability focus on the traceability, quality and ‘’locality’’ to destination of food business, nutraceutical and cosmetic.
The journey started in 2017 with the Organic Cinnamon supply chain and 6 years later we are a team of 5 people working on multiple botanical products.
Aroha is always growing, and we daily develop long term partnership with key actors of the supply chain in Europe and US.
2 - Did you ever set up a CSR project either on environment or social issues in your company in Vietnam?
Our company has a strong environmental and social mission. We are deeply involved in the agriculture field in Vietnam working with all the authorities.
On the production chain, we decided to comply with CSR certifications For Life (Ecocert) to certify our commitment on getting the highest transparency and traceability possible all along the value chain and to unsure the best product quality for our final consumers. We also pay great attention to the suppliers and producers we are working with as we focus on building long-term and transparent business relationships. This is, for us, a real added value and a strong way to implement impactful sustainable practices in the deals with our partners.
In terms of social commitment and community building we started to work 2 years ago on a partnership with an NGO to help vulnerable families upstream with a long-term project.
For our employees and in our office, we have also set up CSR practices in order to save energy, consumption of goods etc. with a lot of actions.
More personally, I try to daily support our team and take care of them as I consider them as my family.
Did you know?
The Ecocert group is the world's leading specialist in the certification of sustainable practices, with nearly 30 years' experience in auditing and certifying organic products in France and in more than 130 countries. Certification by Ecocert consists of assessing the compliance of a product, service or system with the environmental and social requirements specified in a standard. Different certifications can be obtained, such as For Life, which assesses a a corporation’s CSR commitment in insuring a fair remuneration of producers, good working conditions and and the preservation of biodiversity with sustainable agricultural practices.
Aroha, in addition to being certified organic for a large majority of our products for the EU and American market, is also certified for Life for 3 products: cinnamon, star anise and benzoin. This allows us to provide our end customers with total transparency on all our supply chain.
3 - What type of advice you could share to other companies in Vietnam to launch such CSR project?
My three main advices are:
- Be pragmatic and look for solutions collectively with all the stakeholders to involve everyone in the process
- Stay humble and focus on the contribution you can bring by doing the good around you. You will certainly not change the face of the world, but you can change things at your scale.
- Develop a long-term vision in your business partnerships in order to implement sustainable actions together with your partners and ensure a lasting impact.
