LA DORIA PRESENTS SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2022

Angri (SA), May 22, 2023 – La Doria, a leading Group in the production of tomato derivatives, sauces, legumes and fruit juices under the Large-Scale Retail brand, a company whose share capital is 65 percent owned by investment companies of the Investindustrial VII L.P fund and by some members of the Ferraioli family for the remaining 35 percent, has published its Sustainability Report 2022.
The document was created with the aim of illustrating and reporting the Group’s achievements in 2022 from the perspective of Sustainability applied to four areas: the environment, supply chain, community and people. In what was certainly a complex and challenging year, in which the Group surpassed one billion in sales, La Doria has in fact been able to integrate and combine sustainability practices with its medium- and long-term strategies, within a broader frame of reference represented by the 17 SDGs (The Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations to help build a better future). Through its focus in every area of its operations, the company is already contributing to the achievement of sixteen SDGs.
“The year 2022 was marked by some major difficulties, from rising raw material costs to high energy prices with all its natural consequences. However, our company has shown incredible resilience, reaching ambitious goals without at the same time leaving behind our Sustainability principles and objectives,” said La Doria Group CEO Antonio Ferraioli “This extraordinary achievement makes us proud and proud, but also aware of how sustainable our growth must be and of our responsibility towards the Earth, the Supply Chain, the Communities and territories of reference and the People who choose every day to dedicate their work to our company. We are happy with the results achieved in 2022, but we are convinced that there is always room for improvement, which is why we have already planned numerous initiatives and activities for 2023 that will help further consolidate our culture of sustainability.”

Environment

Aware of the importance of the Earth as a fundamental resource for everyone’s life, La Doria has always placed great emphasis on environmental protection. The Group’s fight against Climate Change begins with the management of its production facilities, from a point of view of process efficiency and optimization. In 2022, the company reduced CO2 emissions by 10.8 percent through thermal and energy recovery. To mitigate the impacts associated with energy consumption, over time La Doria has reduced power consumption from the grid in favor of self-generated energy. For this reason, over the years the company has installed two photovoltaic plants in the Sarno and Fisciano plants, thus increasing the use of renewable energy, and two high-efficiency cogeneration plants in those of Angri and Parma, thanks to which the Group is able to meet a total of about 44% of the energy needs required for production. This percentage is set to increase in the coming months, thanks to the construction of two more photovoltaic plants. In 2023, La Doria approved the €38 million Investment Plan for the current year, which allocates about €7 million to projects in ESG activities that will enable the company to further reduce annual emissions by 1,000 tons CO2. Environmental sustainability also means utmost attention to waste and wastefulness. Regarding the first aspect, the main way the company treats the waste it produces is through recovery: in fact, in 2022, La Doria recovered 98 percent of the waste it produced. As far as waste is concerned, the Group addresses this issue in several ways: from constant support to farmers-in optimizing resources in the fields through the use of new technologies to reduce water consumption and pesticides-to the choice of giving a second life to some by-products of processing, which are placed in other markets or reused in other production processes (in 2022, for example, 6,120,116 kg of tomato and fruit peels and 551,900 kg of fruit stones were reused). Finally, the company contributes to the fight against waste through the donation of some products to charitable organizations, which help to manage surpluses, prevent food loss and waste at the source, and move from the linear economy to the circular economy. During 2022, La Doria donated 1,693,017 products worth 584,899 euros to charity, 73 percent of which was donated to the Food Bank. For a company that produces food products, a very important aspect is Packaging, which is also responsible for a significant environmental impact. For this reason the Group, is committed to increasing the use of packaging made using renewable sources or recycled material, reducing the volumes of superfluous packaging and to self-produce a significant amount of packaging, so as to limit the costs and impacts related to transportation and to avoid the storage of large amounts of packaging: last year La Doria self-produced 98.8% of its tinplate box requirements. In order to further reduce its impact on the environment and contribute to the fight against Climate Change, in 2022 La Doria quantified its indirect emissions related to the value chain in order to be able to submit, in 2023, its CO2 emission reduction targets for validation to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the initiative promoted by the UN Global Compact (UNGC), the World Resource Institute (WRI), the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and WWF to support companies in reducing their carbon footprint. These targets will lead the Group to reduce 10-year CO2 equivalent emissions by 48 percent from 2021 levels. In addition, in the coming months La Doria will formalize its adherence to the UN Global Compact, the world’s most important initiative for business sustainability, based on ten universal principles related to human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption.

Supply Chain

In this area, the work conducted by the Group in recent years in the responsible management of the Supply Chain emerges strongly. Respect for proper working conditions and workers’ rights are requirements that the La Doria Group demands of all its suppliers and that it verifies right from the supplier selection phase. As proof of this commitment, in 2022 the company obtained Social Footprint certification for the tomato supply chain, the first certification that assesses the social footprint of a product through the analysis of the organization, people and supply chain. To obtain the certification, the Group mapped all suppliers of fresh tomatoes, packaging and ingredients and calculated the social footprint on certain aspects related to worker protection. In addition, the Group conducts constant and increasing supplier audits through an ethical risk monitoring system in the tomato and legume supply chain. In the last two years, 53 Ethics Audits were conducted in the field by the company, customers and third parties.

Community and Territory

Community for La Doria means contributing to local growth and strengthening ties with the territory. In fact, the value generated by the Group is largely redistributed in the reference territory in which it operates, mainly Southern Italy, through job creation and the use of a high percentage of local suppliers. In particular, 57 percent of the expenditure on raw materials comes from local suppliers, and 78 percent of that on services also comes from local suppliers. The company’s rootedness in the reference territory is also demonstrated by the initiatives launched to create job opportunities for young people: this is the case of the “Rosso d’Estate” project, thanks to which participants have the chance to acquire some basic skills about the world of work and benefit from work experience during the tomato campaign in the summer months as well as concrete opportunities for the most deserving to be placed in the company. Since the project began in 2010, 330 young people have been hired, including 66 with permanent contracts. The Group is also very active in fostering the right to study and from the point of view of education, as demonstrated by its collaboration with the Department of Economics, Management and Institutions of the Federico II University of Naples, the awarding of Scholarships to the children of employees (a project launched in 2015 and which to date has seen the disbursement of about 200. 000 euros) and to young people in the area, and the project-scheduled for 2023-“Adopt a School,” which will allow a school/college or university to access a selection of online courses with a focus on “non-cognitive skills,” digital skills and sustainability.

People

A company’s ability to be competitive in the market and continue to grow necessarily passes through the development of its people, who are the pillars of the entire company. For this reason, La Doria in 2022 provided a total of nearly 17,000 hours of training to its approximately 800 employees in Italy. In addition, in order to concretely convey the Group’s closeness and gratitude to its resources, the company decided to support employees in a period characterized by sharp increases in the cost of living through the disbursement of an economic contribution worth 600 euros net disbursed at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. In the coming months, a number of initiatives and activities are planned aimed at further increasing the inclusiveness of the work environment in order to build a corporate culture based on respect and Diversity. In particular, in the coming months the company will subscribe to the United Nations Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs), which is a set of principles established to offer guidance to businesses from a Gender Equality perspective.

For more information:

La Doria Press Office

Patrizia Lepere, Corporate Affairs & Communication Manager

Tel +39 081 5166260 – Mob 340/9673931

Ad Hoc Communication Advisors

Giorgio Zambeletti – Email: giorgio.zambeletti@ahca.it

Ivan Barbieri – Mob: 3351415581 – e-mail: ivan.barbieri@ahca.it

Sara Mastrorocco – Mob: 3351415590 – e-mail: sara.mastrorocco@ahca.it

Beatrice Cuccirelli – Mob: 3351415587 – e-mail: beatrice.cuccirelli@ahca.it

La Doria Spa

La Doria Spa, a company whose share capital is 65 percent owned by investment companies of the Investindustrial VII L.P fund and by some members of the Ferraioli family for the remaining 35 percent, is Europe’s leading producer of preserved legumes, peeled tomatoes and tomato pulp in the retail channel and among the leading Italian producers of fruit juices and drinks. The Company is also the leading producer in Europe of ready-made sauces under the brand name of retail chains (private labels). The 2022 turnover was 1.018 billion euros of which more than 97 percent was generated through the private labels segment with leading domestic and international retailers.