In Indonesia, Guardian worked with Save The Children Indonesia in the WASH project, which is the construction of clean water facility to provide clean water access to vulnerable communities in Desa Ciapus, a village within the Bandung city. The construction of the water facility – completed in late 2022 – could benefit over 230 families in the Ciapus village. It is expected to offer those in the village a stable and reliable access to clean water, giving them a better and healthier life for many generations to come.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Guardian Indonesia: Building Clean Water Facility in Rural Village

In 2022, yuu partnered with The Conservancy Association and The Conservancy Association Centre for Heritage in Hong Kong to raise awareness for nature as well as cultural conservation.&nbsp;&nbsp;

yuu organised two Lai Chi Wo eco-heritage tours, during which over 70 yuu members and yuu team members covered a wide range of conservation activities that included a visit to the UNESCO-awarded Hakka village built over 300 years ago and learning about the rich biodiversity of the fung shui woods and mangrove forest. Through the immersive farming experience, they removed invasive weeds and watered the soil, and the volunteers grew an appreciation for the way our food is produced.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“Volunteering in this Lai Chi Wo eco-heritage tour is a great way to get involved in local environmental and cultural conservation. It was a great opportunity for me to get hands-on eco-farming experience and to feel closer to nature. The visit to the Hakka village is a great cultural encounter,” Julianna Chau, a yuu team member, said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

yuu: Organising Organic Farming Experience

Since October 2022, 7CAFÉ has switched to using 100% of our Arabica coffee beans that are certified by Rainforest Alliance, an international organisation that promotes sustainable agriculture and forestry.&nbsp;&nbsp;

We have also started offering oat milk as a dairy-free alternative at 7-Eleven. Oat milk emits significantly less greenhouse gases than conventional dairy milk. Our team has also found ways to reduce environmental impact by sourcing paper cups and lids that are made with more environmentally friendly materials. The new coffee cup lids are made from bagasse, which is 100% biodegradable, and the paper cups are made with trees that were grown on plantations which do not contribute to deforestation.&nbsp;&nbsp;

7-Eleven Hong Kong: 7CAFÉ Launching Sustainable Coffee Beans 

We believe mental well-being is just as important as physical. To that end, Mannings Hong Kong has partnered with two local health tech start-ups to bring technological innovation and wellness together for our team members.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In October 2022, Mannings held our first DFI Wellness Day in our Hong Kong offices in support of Jardines Mental Wellness Month. As many as 300 team members participated in trying out two new homegrown health scan technologies: Gense Mediscan (body scan) and PanopticAI facial scan. Both technologies, which are non-invasive and require no physical contact, instantly analyse their health conditions like stress level, blood pressure as well as saturation of oxygen and overall health of the vital organs. The success of DFI Wellness Day has also inspired Mannings to partner with Hong Kong Broadband Network to offer PanopticAI scans to their team members.&nbsp;

Mannings Hong Kong: Boosting Team Members’ Well-being Through Innovation 

In our commitment to bringing high quality food to our customers, we have improved our selection of vitamin supplements. Mannings’ Own Brand vitamins range now has over 50 SKUs and encompasses five major categories, including Vitamin C and Immunity, Multivitamins, Probiotics, Kids, and Bones and Joints. To ensure product quality, they were sourced from reliable manufacturers in Germany, Spain, the US, Australia and New Zealand with GMP certification.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

We have also made tremendous improvement on our vitamin products. As our customers become increasingly health conscious, we introduced the second generation of low-sugar vitamin gummies in China in 2021. Replacing white sugar with xylitol, a sweetener with lower calories than white sugar, the vitamin gummies came in four SKUs (Vitamin C, multi-vitamin, DHA algal oil and milk calcium). Shortly after the launch, we sold almost 80,000 units of products within six months. In 2022, our team continued to develop and launch the third generation with two extra SKUs: Blueberry Lutein Ester Gummies and Sodium Hyaluronate Gummies.&nbsp;

Recognising our innovative efforts, these low-sugar vitamin gummies received the Top 10 Product Innovation Award for snackable health supplements at the Annual Conference of Guangdong Chain Store and Franchise Association, the largest trade organisation in the Guangdong Province.&nbsp;

Ｍannings: Mannings Own Brand Health and Beauty Products

We recognise that all of these CSR initiatives would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the support and contribution of our team members. To show our gratitude for their participation, we launched the Caring Passionately Award, which was named after one of our core values – Caring Passionately – in 2022. The goal of the award was to appreciate and recognise those who went above and beyond the call of duty with kindness, care and empathy in the workplace.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Take Stephen Yu, a store manager at Wellcome Chuk Yuen Store, as an example. During the pandemic, he received a phone call from an elderly customer asking for help because he had tested positive for COVID-19. Since he lived alone, he had trouble securing groceries and other daily necessities. Not only did Stephen help order the items in store, he even delivered the products to his home. His act of kindness not only helped a customer that was desperately in need, but also defined what it means to be a part of the community.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Similarly, when an NGO referred a new team member to join the 7-Eleven store managed by Mei Chun Wong, the assistant manager was quick to embrace him. Even though the team member had received prior training, it took him time to adapt to a new environment. But Chun was patient and kind, explaining the “ins” and “outs” tirelessly until the team member fully understood them. After months of guidance by Chun, he could clean the store, check the product expiration dates and organise the shelves independently.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, the week before Christmas 2021 saw such heavy rain that one of our Giant stores was severely flooded. At one point, water reached almost four feet high on the ground floor and around 400 customers sought shelter in our store. S. Santhanam Sundram, the store manager, quickly brought all customers to the second floor to ensure their safety. He even provided food and drinks for them as they waited for the rescue squad, which arrived the next morning.&nbsp;

These are just a few shining examples of our team members stepping up, unprompted to help support those less fortunate than themselves.&nbsp;&nbsp;

DFI Retail Group: Launching the Caring Passionately Award

DFI has partnered with animal welfare charity Humane Society International to improve animal welfare standards for its own brand cage-free eggs and provide more information about egg choices to its customers. In the communities the Group serves across Asia, many of its customers survive on tight budgets, with a lot of them living at or below the poverty line. Feeding their families cost-effectively is a top priority, and the lowest-cost protein available is eggs. Unfortunately, the lowest-cost eggs are mass produced by hens kept in tight cages, which isn’t a pleasant way for them to live. This poses a dilemma for the company: how to bring the most affordable protein to the customers while also trying to reduce harm to hens? The answer is to move its own brand eggs away from caged to cage-free by lowering the price of the cage-free eggs, making them more affordable.

Our Journey Towards Own Brand Cage-free Eggs

Meat production is a major contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions and land degradation. We’re trying to nudge people in the direction of consuming more plant-based foods.

7-Eleven Hong Kong has launched its own brand of plant-based ready-to-eat products, while the Group’s supermarkets offer more and more vegan meat substitutes from brands such as Beyond Meat, OmniFoods and Meat Zero. Other vegan options include our Better for You range, which features a range of nut milks, from oat to cashew; and IKEA’s plant-based food range, such as its plant balls.

IKEA restaurants and food markets in the region also offer more than 10 sustainably sourced food options and more than 20 alternatives to meat and dairy, from plant-based milk in coffee to MSC certified salmon.

Plant-based Products Protect Land Welfare

We can make a difference to the health of the oceans with products such as our Meadows sustainable seafood range, which we launched in August 2021. This sustainable canned tuna programme is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), meaning that we meet international best practices for sustainable fishing.

Protecting sea life

Beauty products can also include ingredients that harm animals, and here we’re making changes, with ranges at Guardian stores in Singapore and Malaysia that meet the growing consumer demand for clean beauty products.

None of our own brand health and beauty products are tested on animals unless required by national regulations, while we’re also putting policies in place to ensure endangered animals aren’t used in our own brand, white label and non-trade products.

Our Commitment to Clean Beauty

One important way we can look after people is by supplying them with healthier food. We try to source Meadows brand products with lower salt, natural colourings and lower sugar. We also recently launched the Nature’s Heart range of healthy nuts which are packed following a stringent quality system that ensures suppliers meet global food safety standards, pass quality assurance requirements and submit to regular product testing and factory audits. We also submit all our products for verification by third-party labs to ensure they contain what the product label says they do.

We are working to make our products better and better by listening to our customers,” says Nicholas Martin, Group Head of Food Safety and Regulatory Affairs. “We did this not only to meet customer expectations, but also because we believe this is the right thing to do.”

Healthy Food, Healthy People

We try to care for the well-being of our own team members, but also of the people employed by our suppliers. We’ve worked with 124 of our own-brand suppliers to set standards ensuring that they offer legal wages and safe working conditions, and guarantee they will not use children or forced labour.

Starting from January 2021, all our new suppliers in countries considered high risk for human rights violations must pass ethical audits to demonstrate they meet international labour requirements. We plan to work closely with our existing suppliers to develop ethical sourcing guidelines and encourage them to participate in ethical audits.

Improving Workers' Welfare

To consumers, the fresher the food, the better the quality. Taking advantage of available space, DFI built a vertical farm in its Malaysian Distribution Centre with partner Sustenir Agriculture. The farm grows the highest quality vegetables, free from pesticides, environmental pollution and heavy metals. Vertical farms use 95% less water than traditional farms and ease the burden on arable land. The leafy greens go from farm to store within 24 hours, which preserves their freshness and nutrition. Compared to imported produce, they generate 92% less carbon emissions while maintaining their nutritional quality. In Singapore, small-scale vertical farms in CS Fresh supermarkets showcase the sustainable concept of farm to shelf, so customers can see the benefits up close.

DFI Retail Group: Local Farming for Low-mileage Vegetables

Every year, we host an award presentation to honour the team members who have helped create value beyond our business. In Hong Kong alone, over 800 team members across different banners and functions, including those in the front line and at store support centres, received Long Service Awards in 2022.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Similarly, in Singapore, around 360 team members received the award across various business units. Over a third of them had been with the company for a decade or more and two for half a century! We firmly believe that their long tenure is a testament to the positive workplace culture DFI has worked so hard to cultivate.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jennifer, one of the frontline team members who has been with DFI for 50 years, shared, “We work as a team like family; we treat customers as family and we work together. We smile, we talk, we mix around, we greet each other – that’s the reason I have been here for 50 years!”&nbsp;

DFI Retail Group: Presenting Long Service Awards to Team Members

Committed to helping lift the local economy, IKEA Indonesia has started the programme “Teras Indonesia,” which offers free exhibition space at all of the seven stores around the country to over 900 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to promote their brands.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Local businesses can apply to set up pop-up stores within the IKEA outlet to sell their wares. The IKEA team will also lend their expertise to help the business owners make their store display more compelling to customers. The space can also be used for organising other community activities, such as workshops, seminars and talk shows, reinforcing IKEA’s mission of “creating a better everyday life for the many people”.

IKEA Indonesia: Supporting the Local Community

Our buying choices can make a tremendous difference. Through them, we try to promote animal welfare, provide healthier food, support the protection of workers and stock products that put less pressure on the environment.

Sourcing Responsibly

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