Aviko aims for everyone to have a safe and healthy workplace. For us this begins with mental safety. An open culture in which you are allowed to, dare and can say what you want. This includes reporting unsafe situations that we then resolve together. This occurs in various forums, such as the safety platforms (integrated safety teams) at our locations with participants from the entire organisation. We record unsafe situations, near misses and accidents in order to learn from them and improve situations with a clear focus. We do this through evaluations on the shopfloor and in local management teams.

In 2022, we once again devoted a great deal of attention to improving our safety systems in a harmonised manner across all locations. Our production location in Steenderen took the crown with a successful ISO 45001 safety certification and an ISO 14001 certificate for environmental management. It is a great milestone and a best practice that we are going to follow up on throughout the company. In addition, we are actively working on Safety Dialogues. On one hand these dialogues help us as a company to reemphasise that we give safety the highest priority and on the other hand, they help us obtain feedback from colleagues about things that are going well, and areas that require improvement.

Derk-Jan Haverkamp - Corporate SHE Manager Aviko

Unfortunately, after two years of declining figures, the number of lost-time accidents rose from 33 in 2021 to 45 in 2022. This is disappointing; the goal is to achieve an annual reduction of at least 30%. In 2022, despite devoting a great deal of attention to making proper preparations for jobs and scheduled maintenance, we were confronted with a significant increase in lost-time accidents with limited injury. We took action focused on these incidents, whereby the introduction of our new Safety Rules provides support for taking a step back in case of uncertainty: “Stop, think & act”. The new rules were rolled out to all of our locations through means of discussions, toolboxes and videos. Aside from the lost-time accidents, we are also reviewing what is referred to as 'high risk incidents'. These are incidents that under just slightly different circumstances could have had a very different and serious outcome. We are analysing the lessons learned from these incidents and on this basis proactively take steps forward.

Aviko Rixona’s culture programme is a good example of our HR strategy ‘Strengthening our growing family by stimulating a great working environment and continuously developing our people, organisation and culture’. This is a long-term programme that consists of various initiatives relating to cooperation, leadership and company values. All Rixona colleagues are involved in this programme. The goal is to increase employee satisfaction and to further develop our people. There were various sessions facilitated by coaches; for example about DISC, a method that can be used to produce an analysis of someone’s personal communication and behavioural styles. This provides employees with greater insight into their own ways of working, as well as those of their colleagues. We are seeing that this is strengthening mutual cooperation. In addition, we have developed a programme for managers that enables them to better focus on culture as a means of safeguarding this goal over the long-term.

At Aviko, we consider sustainable employment and the vitality of our colleagues important, which is why we are investing in this. On average, our people have been working at Aviko for 13 years and we are proud of this. For employees with physically heavy work, for example, it is challenging to keep this up until they retire. On the basis of preventive medical research, we assessed the vitality of our colleagues and how we can improve on this. They participate in workshops on themes that require attention. In addition, they are provided with individual coaching to guide them in making behavioural changes, for example, in relation to exercise, nutrition, sleep and/or job satisfaction. Furthermore, we are constantly looking for ways in which we can lighten the work by making specific adjustments. In our Dutch Lomm and Cuijk plants, this pilot proved to be successful and we will be scaling it up to other locations. In addition, at the Lomm plant there is follow-up, with a new group of participants, to the preventive medical research conducted previously. Moreover, a vitality policy is being developed with various interventions, whereby attention is devoted to mental health, physical health, social context and the working environment.

Aviko considers diversity and inclusiveness important. For example, this way we connect customers, neighbourhood residents, consumers, chain partners and growers, and also stimulate diversity and inclusiveness on the shopfloor. We do not differentiate in terms of gender, cultural or religious background, competences, age and physical capacities.

For example, in 2022 Aviko started to employ a number of people with a distance from the job market at its location in Steenderen (Netherlands) in cooperation with the municipality of Bronckhorst. They are unpacking unmarketable, but already packaged frozen products, so that product, packaging materials and carboard are separated and can be processed correctly. Good for people, the environment, society and Aviko. This project was made possible in close cooperation with other parties, including the municipality. These employees are managed on a temporarily basis by a job coach from the municipality, and after a period of time by Aviko itself. The activities are carried out in a working environment specially set up for this purpose by Aviko. This way we create a better world together that is more meaningful for many.

At Aviko we consider it important for everyone to be able to start working with a solid base of knowledge, pride and confidence in his/her new position, regardless of his/her cultural background or targeted work location. This is why we are making use of an onboarding app at Aviko. With this practical app, we want to give our new colleagues a warm welcome in a fun and inspiring way. The app contains lots of general, interesting and useful information for new colleagues and is currently available in French, Dutch, German and English. This way all of our new colleagues will feel at home at Aviko from the very first day.

People all over the world are increasingly focusing on nutrition and health. This is increasing the number of informed consumers and is changing buying behaviour towards increasingly more sustainable and more plant-based nutrition. The majority of our products is plant-based: after all, they all revolve around the potato. The potato is also a good choice for plant-based alternatives. Our goal is to always be able to offer our customers a plant-based alternative, at the very least by 2025, and preferably earlier.

Some of our products, for example, contain egg, cheese and/or cream. We already have a plant-based alternative for 80% of our product groups. In 2022, we developed alternatives for the remaining 20%, that will be brought to market in 2023. By far the larger part (88%) of the total product volume now is plant-based and we are further expanding this. This represents a minor increase of 1% in comparison to last year. We are devoting effort to enticing our customers to switch over to plant-based alternatives in order to increase the percentage volume of plant-based products.

Aviko Rixona anticipated this with the development of Potato Cheezz. Potato Cheezz has been developed in cooperation with Cosun and looks like cheese, tastes like cheese, but is made from potatoes and has numerous positive properties. The product is salt-free, fat-free, lactose-free, does not contain any cholesterol, and instead contains more fibre and is 100% vegan. This way we convert the potato into a cost-effective, plant-based and more sustainable cheese alternative for the pizza industry, as a snack or as a meat substitute. Potato Cheezz has a significantly lower carbon footprint (less than 20% of ordinary cheese) and is healthier than regular cheese. Together with our strategic partner in Spain, Eurofrits, we developed a range of plant-based, healthier snacks with vegetable proteins and fibre as an alternative to animal proteins. The products were crowned with the ‘International Superior Taste Award’ certification, produced with 100% green energy and packaged in 100% bio-based materials. This way we use our food innovations to make the world a better place for everyone.

In 2022, we brought joy to over 2.5 billion tables by connecting people, cultures and tastes. Our target is to bring joy to 3 billion tables in 2025. We consider it important that everyone, no matter who you are or where you are, can find enjoyment at the table. Connecting people promotes understanding, trust and tolerance. This is why Aviko aims to actively encourage this connection, diversity and inclusiveness at the table. Together with our employees we implement this aim in various ways.

For example, for the past few years we have been on the road with the ‘Neighbourhood Table’ to bring people of various backgrounds together. We have since organised a ‘Neighbourhood Table’ more than 175 times. We are happy to be able to contribute to connecting people in the neighbourhood. We also had more than 2,500 people cook together with us, distributed across multiple online and offline cooking workshops. Last year we once again organised 'Planting Days' and 'Harvesting Days' to connect growers and customers. In addition, we used workshops to connect chefs from various countries with different backgrounds so as to enable them to cook together and learn from each other, with joy.

We consider it important that everyone, no matter who you are or where you are, can find enjoyment at the table. Unfortunately, joy at the table is not self-evident for everyone. This is why we regularly donate our products to foodbanks. In addition, Aviko has joined the 'Winter Collective'. This is an initiative of multiple food companies that support Dutch foodbanks with extra products for the considerable rise in families that are forced to call on foodbanks. In 2022, we decided to become even more actively involved in the foodbanks. Today, employees can do volunteer work for the foodbank with a small group of colleagues. This varies from supplying labour to contributing expertise to help improve the foodbank's operating processes. In addition, last year we donated money and products to restaurants and organisations that offer meals and assistance to refugees from Ukraine.