Raising Awareness for Conscious Consumption
initiatives
Food waste reduction
“Unidos Contra o Desperdício”
Missão Continente joined the national civic movement “Unidos Contra o Desperdício” (united against waste), created to combat food waste. An increasingly urgent task:
Created in 2020 (on the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste), this movement plans a set of actions to impact and sensitise society about food waste.
Other founding entities:
AHRESP, APED, APLOG, Lisboa Capital Verde Europeia 2020, CAP, CIP, CNCDA, Zero Desperdício and Refood
By joining “Unidos Contra o Desperdício”, Missão Continente intends to contribute to the objectives described in the movement’s manifesto:
- Make it customary to reuse surplus food
- Alert society to the problems of loss and waste
- Encourage and facilitate leftovers donation
- Promote responsible consumption
Zer0% Waste fruit and vegetable box
To prevent stock breaks, Continente developed boxes with 5 kg of fruits and vegetables (at sale for only €0,50 / kg) which are close to exceeding the optimal consumption point.
40 tonnes
of fruits and vegetables / year
saved from waste
Avoid waste
of 1,000 tonnes of
fruits and vegetables
How does it work?
Fruits and vegetables from the Zer0% Waste box are carefully selected by the store’s employees.
Only products that still meet the brand’s quality and freshness standards (but are about to lose commercial value for aesthetic reasons) are “rescued”.
The boxes are put up for sale in the fresh products section, according to stock availability in each store.
Fighting waste on several fronts
Fruit salad ranges
We reduced the range of fruit salads from the supplier and reinforced the range made in our store.
Avoided waste:
Dehydrated fruit snacks
Created from the waste generated by the production of PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) apples and pears.
Avoided waste:
Natural juices
Made 100% from the squeezed juice of Alcobaça apples, with no added sugar or water.
Food surpluses donations
It’s a part of the daily routine at the Continente stores to reuse and redistribute food products:
- To social solidarity institutions and animal support associations
- To our employees in the social areas of stores and warehouses
Pink labels
A strategy implemented more than 10 years ago in the Continente stores. Pink labels are smart depreciation labels that communicate a price reduction on products nearing the expiration date. A system that avoids waste and, at the same time, offers an economic benefit to the customer.
“Banana Solteira” (single banana)
A project that results from the collaboration between Continente and Bagga. It makes possible to avoid the waste of bananas removed from the bunch and left lose in Continente stores.
Circular Economy: giving a new life to products
The purpose of Circular Economy is to fight waste by transforming end-of-life products through reuse, recovery and recycling.
Continente continues to promote the transformation of some fruit and vegetable surpluses, giving them a second life and adding value. The range of jams and chutneys, the Panana (banana cake) and the Bread Bear are examples of differentiating products, the first to be produced from surpluses in our stores.
Projeto LIFEFood Cycle: innovation to manage stock breaks
The LIFEFoodCycle project aims to develop a digital platform for managing donations and the selling (B2B) of store surpluses. The goal is to improve the sustainability of the food system and fight waste.
With the new platform, the Continente stores will be able to manage stock breaks in a digital way and:
Optimise donations to social solidarity institutions
Solidarity donations exist for over 20 years and take place all year round. All stores have a partnership with several local institutions of social or animal support for the donation of food surpluses. With this digital evolution, the LIFEFood Cycle will increase efficiency in the donation process and the total breakage reusable for the institutions.
Sell products to commercial partners (B2B)
The future platform will allow selling food products at risk of breakage, and which have lost commercial value, for a price expected to be lower than in physical stores.
A pioneering and innovative project at the European level...
- Developed in partnership with Phenix (anti-waste European start-up)
- 55% co-financed by the European Union’s LIFE programme (a European financing instrument for environment and climate action)
- Continente is the first brand to hold a digital platform for managing donations and selling surpluses
Continente Producers Club
The Continente Producers Club is a support structure for the Portuguese agricultural and farming production, created in 1998 to bring closer Sonae MC and national producers from north to South, Azores and Madeira.
Its mission is to promote national products according to high quality and safety standards while supporting producers in a consistent and structured way.
A partnership based on technical and scientific knowledge in which everyone wins:
- A guaranteed way for producers to sell their production
- A firm promotion of the national agricultural and farming sector, creating jobs, fostering regional development, encouraging ambitious projects that bring innovation and add economic and social value to the country
- Guaranteed offer of excellent national products aligned with the best practices and consumer trends
- Supporting local production and small-scale producers makes it possible to have a “Products of The Region” offer in Continente stores
Continente Producers Club in numbers
-
256 members producer organisations, single farmers and small family companies
-
11,000 indirect jobs
-
200,000 + hectares of national productive area
-
€350 M in purchases to national producers
-
= 206,000 tonnes
of national product
Helping national production in times of Covid-19
To support producers in selling out products in a time of emergency and decrease in activity, the Continente Producers Club took several measures.
The largest National Aquaculture Project
In partnership with a national aquaculture company, Sonae MC will trade more than 900 tonnes of sea bream from Algarve in the Continente stores — thus reinforcing the value proposition of fresh national fish. With an investment of €25 million until 2022, the largest National Aquaculture Project, located in open sea near the Armona Island (Olhão), is meant mostly for supplying Continente stores.
Portugal is one of the countries with highest fish consumption and each Portuguese consumes, on average, 57 Kg of fish per year. However:
- The national market still has low self-sufficiency (only 33%)
- 93% of aquaculture purchases are imported
Our investment in national aquaculture production will allow us to:
Aquaculture is a sustainable alternative
- Guarantees the stabilisation of wild stocks overexploitation
- Guarantees greater quality control on the produced fish
- Guarantees less environmental impact, comparing to other animal production sectors
- Guarantees constant improvement in production processes and resource efficiency
National fish as a priority
In 2010, Sonae MC was the first food retail group in the country to adopt a fish sustainability policy. We maintain the leadership and commitment to this policy, which establishes principles for the protection of fish species and stocks along the value chain.
We also pioneered the use of the Traffic Light System, a colour code which publicises the environmental impact of fisheries on commercialised species throughout the year.
