Dannon Commitments to Sustainable Agriculture, More Natural Ingredients and Greater Transparency

Dannon has pledged to its farmers, retail customers and consumers to further improve sustainable agriculture practices for its milk supply, to increase transparency for its portfolio of products and evolve to more natural and fewer ingredients for flagship brands.

Dannon’s Pledge key components include:

– Commitment to offer products coming from a more sustainable agriculture by working with its dairy farmer partners and their suppliers to progressively implement the use of sustainable agriculture practices and technology that leads to better soil health, better water management, an increase in biodiversity, and a decrease in carbon emission.

– Commitment to bring all products from three flagship brands (Dannon, Oikos and Danimals) toward the use of fewer and more natural ingredients that are not synthetic and non-GMO. Importantly, Dannon also commits that for these brands the feed of its farmers’ cows will be non-GMO, within a transition period of 3 years. The ambition is to evolve the remaining brands over time.

– Ensuring full transparency for consumers, Dannon also commits to declare by December 2017 nationwide on label the presence of GMO ingredients in its products. In the meantime, if one state implements a GMO labeling requirement, since Dannon favors a nationwide labeling system, it will label the presence of GMOs nationwide according to the state requirements.

The first impact of these changes will be visible starting July 2016, when the company will move to more natural ingredients which do not contain genetically modified ingredients for its flagship brands Oikos, Danimals and Dannon. These brands represent 50 percent of the company’s current volume. For the company’s foundation ingredient – milk – Dannon is going one big step further. Starting in 2017 and completing the transformation by the end of 2018, Dannon will work with its farmer partners to ensure that the cows that supply Dannon’s milk for these flagship products will be fed non-GMO feed, a first for a leading non-organic yogurt maker. To further improve transparency, by December 2017, Dannon’s labels will note the presence of GMO ingredients in all products in which such ingredients remain. Looking further into the future, Dannon’s ambition is to also evolve the other brands in its portfolio, beyond Dannon, Oikos and Danimals, over time.

The broad pledge started with the relationships the company has forged with its dairy farmers. Dannon began to evolve its milk supply model in 2010 to work directly with the farms that provide its milk. “We created a new way to work with dairy farmers to improve our shared sustainability priorities,” said Mariano Lozano, President and CEO of The Dannon Company. “Our ambition is to produce healthy food that is affordable, creates economic and social value and nurtures natural ecosystems through sustainable agriculture. Although our journey is independent from that of our organic sister companies, we have learned a lot from and are inspired by Stonyfield and Happy Family.”

Dannon has already started work on the first phase of its commitment by encouraging practices, such as rotating crops, managing fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide application in the production of feed for a portion of the cows providing the company’s milk supply.