
Our approach to sustainability

Our approach to sustainability
Today, we are finding ourselves up against a horde of unprecedented environmental threats. Never before in the history of our Planet have we been struck by such a drastic climate change as the one we are experiencing now, which has wreaked havoc in the space of just a few generations. The balance of nature has been broken, but hopefully we can still correct our mistakes as we go about our business, by offering solutions that not only make the most of the technological abilities available today, but also benefit from the change that can be driven by millions of small daily actions. Because the actions of every individual make the difference. Our future is in our hands, but so is our daily life, and they both depend largely on the products that end up in our shopping trolley. The Colussi Group has therefore decided to make its own contribution by choosing the pathway of innovation. This pathway of sustainability is based on shared values, starting from our own production and those of our raw material suppliers and ends with our customers, leading us to become collectively ever more effective. Every single one of us can do their bit. And together we can strengthen and promote the choices that drive us towards a more pleasant, safer world.
Our goal:
100% sustainability in all aspects of what we do
Product quality, taste and safety
We carefully select our raw materials, constantly checking their quality over time and ensuring the absolute compliance of each product in terms of hygiene and food safety. We control the entire process, from the raw materials to the packaged product, to ensure quality, goodness, and food safety, so honouring the commitment made to our consumers and customers. To do this, the Group constantly collaborates with its suppliers and carries out checks throughout the production chain, paying particular attention to all kinds of contamination.
Research and innovation
We aim to develop a suitable, innovative, prompt, and sustainable range of products that meets the consumer expectations we identify by observing the market, the reference context, and their lifestyles and needs. Colussi strives to understand the demands of its customers and to respond promptly and effectively to their expectations, also benefiting from the Group’s active collaboration with nutritionists, agronomists, doctors, chemists, economists, and information engineers, as well as its partnerships with the scientific and academic worlds.
Environmental sustainability
The Colussi Group encourages the protection and respect of the environment, as well as the correct, responsible use of energy and natural resources, seeing this approach as an undertaking of responsibility towards the community as a whole. It strives to constantly use resources in a more responsible way, helping to reduce wastage and limit the production of waste, improving the possibility of recovering the materials used – also by encouraging consumers to recycle – and reducing sources of pollution. In particular, the Group promotes environmental sustainability programmes that aim to reduce the quantity of packaging used, replace non-recyclable packaging with other, more eco-sustainable types, and promote the greater use of renewable energies.
Nutrition and healt
The Group promotes a healthy lifestyle and a varied, well-balanced diet for the wellness of its consumers: a concept of diet that focuses on achieving wellness and is designed to guarantee a sufficient quantity of energy and nutrients, avoiding nutritional deficiencies and excesses. To this end, it studies products that ensure excellent quality, first class organoleptic qualities and an outstanding nutritional profile, while promoting the traditional Mediterranean diet and the importance of physical activity.
Caring for people
The Colussi Group aims to ensure all its workers benefit from a working environment that promotes the wellbeing of everyone, proposing training and collaboration as essential tools for the success of the Group and the maintenance of high quality levels. Colussi aims to be a workplace in which each employee can contribute as effectively as possible to achieving the Group’s objectives. A workplace in full compliance with the principles of equality and equal opportunities that offers challenging objectives, responsibilities, and rewards, as part of a positive, motivational pathway that encourages everyone to play an active part in the company. As well as guaranteeing all its workers suitable working environments, the Group also constantly seeks to identify technological solutions that improve the working conditions.
SUSTAINABILITY ACTION AREAS
Towards more
sustainable packaging

Towards more
sustainable packaging
We are gradually introducing an even more eco-friendly packaging for our products, which can be managed within the organic waste chain or completely recycled, to reduce its environmental footprint.
We will be launching this on the Misura products first, halving the amount of plastic used and replacing it with compostable packaging materials derived from corn and cellulose. 100% biodegradable and compostable, it can be recycled in the organic waste collection and industrially processed to produce compost, a fertile topsoil that can be used as fertiliser.

Additionally, where possible, we will replace plastic with FSC® certified paper (Forest Stewardship Council®), that is, paper sourced from certified supply chains. The FSC certification guarantees that the product comes from responsibly managed forest sources.
Finally, by the end of 2020, all the products of the Group supplied in paper packaging will be FSC certified.
We use the energy supplied by nature

We use the energy supplied by nature
Recognising the importance of efficiently managing and monitoring the enormous energy requirements of a large production group like ours, with minimum impact on the Planet’s health, is a priority of the Group’s strategy which will guide the choices we make in the future. In fact, we already carried out several energy upgrading interventions a few years ago.
Today Colussi only uses electricity from renewable sources in all its production sites.
Download the Poster with information about the Regional Operational Programme of the European Regional Development Fund for 2014-2020
Poster

And we are studying how to reduce the sizes of our packaging (for the same amounts of product), with a view to consistently reducing the number of trucks in circulation. .
With regard to the emissions generated due to the use of natural gas, the Colussi Group has opted to help finance sustainable projects to compensate the amount of CO2 emitted, over the next few years. These choices enable the Group not only to reduce its CO2 emissions, but also its dependency on oil and the conflicts generated globally to enable its procurement.
We are also working on finding more efficient ways to transport goods: if our vehicles travel shorter distances, they will create less pollution. In the last few years, we have already modified our distribution network, reducing the distance travelled on the road by the Group’s vehicles by no less than 386,443 kilometres per year, while transporting the same volumes.
And we are studying how to reduce the sizes of our packaging (for the same amounts of product), with a view to consistently reducing the number of trucks in circulation. .
Agricultural supply chain
development

Agricultural supply chain
development
Since 2014, the Colussi Group has been working to identify agricultural supply chains that cultivate the most suitable varieties of wheat needed to make its products.
The careful management of this chain and its meticulous long-term monitoring are the most efficient ways of guaranteeing the quality and safety of the end product.
Managing the chain is also the best, most mutually beneficial way to involve a series of local partners in the business, and to keep the consumption of material and energy resources used in the primary part of the production under tight control.

We began with a chain in Umbria, and plan to extend it throughout Italy, especially to the areas nearest to our production sites.
The Umbrian supply chain project, together with the model the Group is fine-tuning, is being developed in close collaboration with a Team of Experts from the Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences at the University of Perugia.
The supply chain model enables the quality and safety of the product to be monitored, tracked, and checked, from the crops in the fields right through to the finished product.
Staff training

Staff training
We strive every day to make our workplaces a gym in which young talents can develop their strengths and a place where professionals with more expertise can continue to grow. With this in mind, over the last few years we have increased the quantity of training hours offered to our employees, focusing our resources on safety in the workplace, the implementation of soft skills and technical competences.
Engaging employees in sustainable behaviour
Engaging employees in sustainable behaviour

Efforts to adopt increasingly sustainable models must be made by everyone, at all organisational levels, and also with regard to aspects that may appear less significant, which can lead to great results if they succeed in changing how everyone behaves.
For this reason, we have begun monitoring and reducing the paper used in the company for photocopying and printing and are carefully managing the waste recycling process. We have also fitted our offices with water distribution points that filter and purify the water from the mains, in a bid to stop the consumption of plastic bottles.
No Hungry: our initiatives against food waste

No Hungry: our initiatives against food waste
Since 2017, the Colussi Group has been collaborating with Banco Alimentare, Italian food bank charity, to reduce food waste.
Until then, only part of our food waste was reused by people, while the majority was sent to farms for use as animal feed. In the first 5 months of 2020, we delivered 8.5 million meals to Banco Alimentare and our goal is to increase the amount of food sent to soup kitchens and people in need.
Sustainability report abstract

Sustainability report abstract
The Colussi Group reports, in compliance with international standards on sustainability reporting, the results achieved and future objectives. The Sustainability Report abstract is a transparent and shared account of our identity, of the contribution to economic and social development, of the relationship with the ecosystem and with local communities. A commitment that points the way towards the future we want.
Download the 2019 sustainability report abstract
2019 sustainability report abstract