Making the Dairy Sector more Sustainable

Interview with FrieslandCampina directors Sanne Griffioen-Roose (Director Farm Sustainability) and Harrie van Echteld (Technology Director)

I believe the world can be transformed for the better, and companies have an important role to play in achieving that transformation.,” says Sanne Griffioen-Roose, Director Farm Sustainability at FrieslandCampina. Her colleague Harrie van Echteld, Technology Director Global Supply Chain at the dairy cooperative, shares the same vision. Despite the leaders’ different roles, they both work daily on the sustainability strategy ‘from grass to glass’, demonstrating FrieslandCampina’s control over the entire chain. On September 25th, Sanne and Harrie invite the SINN network to FrieslandCampina’s visiting farm De Elihoeve, where they will show how FrieslandCampina is making its operations future-proof during an exclusive Vision Dinner.

In this interview, we speak with Sanne and Harrie about their leadership and motivation to promote sustainability within FrieslandCampina. We explore how they involve the 14,634-member dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in this strategy. What role does technology play? And what do they see as the biggest challenge for the future? Read the interview for insights and inspiration to drive your company’s sustainability efforts.

Meet Sanne

Sanne has a background in science. As a PhD candidate, she was affiliated with the Human Nutrition division of Wageningen University. After earning her PhD, she continued her research into nutrition and behavior at the university. Eleven years ago, she was offered a position at FrieslandCampina. She sees it as a great opportunity to gain experience in the business world. She describes herself as somewhat of an idealist and believes that: “There is simply enormous potential within the business world to make a positive impact.” 

Within FrieslandCampina, she grew from roles within Research & Development to roles that focus on everything the company does in the field of sustainability. She increasingly gained the intrinsic motivation to play a driving role from within. Thanks in part to various leadership programs, she developed herself into someone who co-directs at the top and brings about significant change.

Since 2022, she has been responsible for the sustainability of dairy farming as director of Farm Sustainability. This is a major focus, as almost half of our climate and nature iFrieslandCampina’s impact derives from the farm. “Making dairy farming more sustainable is not a walk in the park,” Sanne indicates, “but because there is such great potential to make a positive impact, I am pleased to work on this together with the team and the dairy farmers.”

Meet Harrie

Harrie has a 21-year career at FrieslandCampina. After studying mechanical engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology, he worked for some time as a technical manager before joining FrieslandCampina in 2003. “I have had the opportunity to perform many different roles, but they have always focused on building, renovating, and optimizing the supply chain.” He is enthusiastic about developing and implementing new technologies within the factories in the supply chain. Since 2023, he has been appointed as Technology t Director of the Global Supply Chain, a role that suits him perfectly.

Like Sanne, Harrie is closely connected to dairy farming, because he grew up on a farm that is now managed by his brother. “That means I can really empathize with the dairy farmers,” says Harrie. Empathizing with the farmers is of enormous value. As co-owners of the company through the cooperative, they have significant influence over the strategy.

What makes Harrie passionately dedicate himself to FrieslandCampina for 21 years? “That is because we are an honest company with honest products. We realise that producing products have a definite impact, but we will never hide this.” Secondly, it is great to see that everyone can make an impact within the company. From his role, which he describes as improving technology, he can make very direct choices that make the supply chain more sustainable. “Because we increasingly know where the highest emissions are in the chain, everyone can contribute to the strategy ‘from grass to glass’ in their own way. We talk about reducing tonnes of CO2: it really is important.”

“You have to do the right things”

When discussing sustainability, many people immediately envision green pictures or images of the planet. “When I talk about sustainability, I take the Sustainable Development Goals as a starting point,” says Sanne, “The SDGs are actually a blueprint to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity, addressing critical issues like nutrition, climate action, and education,. . “Look at the core of our company, dairy, it contains a huge number of nutrients that are valuable to people’s health.”

At the same time, we must not forget that producing dairy products leads to emissions. “We do not absolve ourselves of this negative impact. We work day in, day out to reduce this impact.” It is therefore important to look at the total picture of a company. And as a leader, Sanne explains, it is about making the right decisions at the right time. “Life isn’t always easy, but it’s okay for things to be challenging sometimes.”

We collaborate with farmers to achieve sustainability

It is important to realize that FrieslandCampina does not work on sustainability alone. The farmers are the owners of the company, “so we cannot tell them what to do”. “Although farmers are sometimes portrayed in a negative light.. says Harrie, “many of them are actually very much involved in the management and conservation of nature.” They know very well that it is their right to exist and that they cannot function without balance in nature. The role of the leaders within FrieslandCampina is to help and protect the dairy farmers. “I certainly feel responsible for that, says Harrie.”

Sanne explains that FrieslandCampina’s cooperative structure lends itself perfectly to collaboration. For example, there are annual meetings where dairy farmers meet each other and a main board that has a direct influence on the general day-to-day running of the company. “The cooperative and the company work in tandem,” says Sanne, “and the same applies to the theme of sustainability.” Through open dialogue, the course is shaped collaboratively. “You can’t just put the burden on the farmers, we as a company are also responsible for making choices in our business operations that make the sustainability of the farms financially possible.”

Sanne remarks it is a shame that the media sometimes creates an image that the farmers and FrieslandCampina are opposites. “That is not true. The farmers are FrieslandCampina.”

Technology and sustainability

As director of technology, it is partly up to Harrie to decide how the company uses its resources. “It is a balancing act between what is technically possible, where electricity is still available to actually implement technologies and the available resources.” In recent years there has been increasing attention to energy monitoring. Through this, FrieslandCampina aims to gain insight into which devices in factories consume a lot of energy, helping to identify potential savings.

Energy monitoring goes hand in hand with general efficiency improvements. Making factories more sustainable is achieved by improving the CO2 footprint on the one hand, and by reducing losses through general improvements on the other. “For example, it is a huge waste to lose a liter of milk when the carton tears or falls over during production,” Harrie explains, “and that is why we are also focusing on general improvements.”

Various excellence units within the company are committed to improving the supply chain. Technology plays an important role in this. For example, next-generation separation and preservation techniques, digitalization, but also smart planning tools. FrieslandCampina uses technology that is developed around us for this. Harrie explains: “We do research technology ourselves, but we develop applications of existing technology for the dairy chain.”

Challenges for the future

Sanne answers the question of what she sees as the biggest challenge for the future with the biodiversity theme. “Where climate has become a mature theme that companies are freeing up budget for, the question is how we ensure that the same wheel also turns for biodiversity.” Of course, we drive projects such as herb-rich grassland and hedge plants, but we are still far from the level we want to be. “How do we ensure that companies take action and can develop revenue models to move the sector towards a future-proof system?”

The biggest challenge according to Harrie lies further from this discussion. He sees a challenge in the availability of dairy and other food in countries in Africa and Asia. The Sustainable Development Goals, which both leaders are working on, are after all global goals. Both the affordability of dairy products is a concern, “while it is especially important in these countries that people have access to nutritious food and drinks”, but also the way of packaging remains an issue. “We have to make sure that our products reach these countries without too much packaging material, which has to be processed again after use,” says Harrie.

Flevum Vision Dinner at the show farm

On September 25th, Sanne and Harrie would like to welcome their peers to the Elihoeve, FrieslandCampina’s show farm in Snelrewaard. During this evening, they will discuss issues surrounding sustainability, technology, and supply chain. The dairy farmer will show his work and offer participants a unique insight into FrieslandCampina’s activities.

Author: Sanne Vos-Zwart

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