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Food makes us feel better. It brings communities together and allows us to connect with old and new people. Just as it can make us feel better, it can also make the world a better place. At Borges, we endeavour to make the world a better place with our sustainability practices. By investing in sustainable practices, we are able to continuously produce healthy and delicious products in cooperation with Mother Earth, whom graciously gives us our resources.
Making the world a better place is not an easy task, but it is an honour to be burdened with the responsibility to do so. Borges International Group is a leader in agricultural farm management, industrial processing and packaging, and commercialisation of its products. With its focus on responsible agriculture and healthy and sustainable products, Borges is able to give back to the environment for everything it has provided.
This becomes ever more important now that recent studies show that food production contributes around 37 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions [1]. The ways food is produced, packaged, distributed, and consumed has a great impact on our land and water systems. This is why we must direct our focus on environmental conservation and sustainable practices now more than ever.
Borges’ Environmental Commitments
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Borges’ products are sold all over the world, so it is only right that, with our 13 factories across 6 countries [2], we maintain environmental practices that both enrich the raw materials of our products and promote sustainability in the surrounding lands and fields where our produce grows bountiful.
Some of Borges’ admirable commitments to biodiversity can be seen in the way we manage our plantations and farms. Have a read below of the things Borges has invested in in order to produce not only top-notch and high-quality products, but also do it in such a way that will give back to Mother Earth: [3]
- Soil management – From the 2020-2021 report, Borges reports on the smart management of soil. Some practices Borges has done to keep the soils of their fields healthy for example, is by planting vegetation to increase organic matter in the soil and minimise compacting problems. This also minimises erosion within the fields after heavy rains through the use of water outlets and the cleaning of water drainages to make sure the plants do not get submerged.
- Solidarity with Bees – One of Borges’ biggest allies are also one of nature’s biggest producers of abundant crops around the world – bees. To date, there are only an estimated 37 percent of bees left in Europe and this is dire news for food producers and farmers. To counteract this, Borges has made it a point to encourage bee pollination to farm almond trees. By putting out hives that contain around 35,000 to 40,000 bees among the almond trees, we are able to bump up the bee population by up to 60,000 after the almond tree pollination season.
- Others – Other practices that Borges has partaken in in the past year include the following: (1) Produced no pesticide waste, (2) Lowered CO2 emissions according to ISO 14064, (3) Used pheromones instead to control pests as it is a more sustainable alternative, (4) Followed ESG policies and practices in the packaging of raw materials, and many more.
Making the World a Better Place – One Borges Product at a Time
Borges promotes a healthy lifestyle through their products and manufacturing and sourcing practices. They are an exponent of food sustainability: striking a balance between producing food for consumption, while ensuring future generations will still be able to enjoy and make use of the earth’s natural resources.
Hence, it makes sense that we choose food that are not just good for our bodies, but for the environment as well. Here at Borges, buying any product is already a step in the right direction when it comes to sustainable consumerism. When you buy Borges products, you not only help us with your purchase to expand our social responsibility practices to our environment, you also ensure that we are able to continue doing it for many years to come.
So, how exactly does your purchase help us with our sustainable development goals? We’re more than happy to discuss how!
Olive Products
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We pride ourselves in the way we source our olives and make sure that only the finest olives are selected for your farm to table experience. Our olives are sourced from Southern Spain, which is considered – to this day – the place from where the vast majority of the world’s best table olives are grown [4].
We use these high-quality olives to make our Whole Green Olives, Sliced Green Olives, Whole Black Olives, and Pitted Black Olives.
Aside from our delicious line of black and green olives, Borges cooking oils are also great products due to their versatility. We offer many different healthy cooking oil variants for almost every use in the kitchen, and we spare no expense in making sure our cooking oil products are not only made from the best quality ingredients but are also produced sustainably.
We make sure that our products contribute well to the effort of sustainability through the process of recycling – all Borges glass bottles contain up to 80% recycled glass in the case of green glasses [5]. Which means, we take great pride in not only the production and the outstanding quality of our Borges Extra Virgin Olive Oil, as an example.
As of 2020, we have also been running industrial tests to implement more sustainable packaging and materials, making sure to invest in recyclable packaging that are also easily compostable. [6]
Not only that, in 2022, Borges was also able to report a 35% decrease in its carbon footprint, thanks to the use of renewable electrical energy in the packaging phase of the Borges Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The company now intends to continue applying improvements to further reduce the carbon footprints of all of its products [7].
Alternative Milk
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The push for healthier alternatives to common foods has advanced to unprecedented levels in the last couple of years, and the movement to introduce alternative milk products has been at the forefront of this healthy living shift. At Borges, we not only make sure to deliver the best quality alternative milk drinks made with high-quality resources, we also make sure those resources are ethically-sourced.
Borges is part of organisations such as the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council (INC), Almendrave, as well as FRUCOM, the European federation for trade of dried fruit. [8] By working with these partners, we are able to manage our almond and walnut plantations in a way that follows the local objectives of responsible agriculture. [9] To date, we are now on track to expand our plantation by 1,000 hectares in the next three years to continue growing our nuts sustainably for the foreseeable future.
With every purchase of Borges Natura Nut Drink in Walnut, Almond, and Hazelnut flavours, you support Borges’ 2400 hectares of nut farms in Spain, USA, and Portugal [10], which all have a hand in making sure that our alternative milk nut drinks are unmatched around the world!
Despite having started 125 years ago, Borges continues to modernise and innovate its environmental commitments. After four generations of manufacturing and producing Mediterranean favourites, Borges continues to adopt a business model that not only has a positive impact on consumers, suppliers, and employees, but also the whole community. And we do this year on year through our healthy, high-quality products.
References:
[2] https://borges1896.com/app/uploads/2021/06/CT_BG_ENG_5_LQ.pdf
[4] https://borges1896.com/products/olives/
[6] https://borges-bain.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ResumenEj_RSC_BAIN_2020-2021_ENG.pdf
[8] https://borges-bain.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/RSC_BAIN_2020-2021_ENG.pdf
[9] https://borges-bain.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/RSC_BAIN_2020-2021_ENG.pdf