Chapter 1: About Fairfood

Chapter 1: About Fairfood

Annual report 2020

MISSION, VISION

OUR VISION

At Fairfood, we strive for a world in which we all get to enjoy good food. Good means that value was distributed along the supply chain proportionally – that everyone gets their fair share. Good also means that the food is being produced responsibly, with respect to people, planet and animals. Ultimately, we strive for food chains that bring prosperity to all.

OUR MISSION

We offer innovative solutions that enable agri-food businesses to improve their responsible business practices. Open and attainable solutions that are designed to democratise the world of food. We actively engage all supply chain actors involved – from farmer to retailer and consumer – aiming to contribute to the socio-economic prosperity of farmers and food workers. Fairfood believes in partnerships to jointly accelerate the change towards a sustainable food system.

Fairfood and the SDG’s

Fairfood is contributing to SDG’s 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 3 (good health and well-being), 8 (decent work and economic growth), 10 (reduced inequalities) and 12 (responsible consumption and production).

OUR STRATEGY: A NEW APPROACH FOR A DIGITAL ERA

In 2020, we celebrated our 20th birthday. This was also the year in which we introduced our strategic plan for 2020-2023. Whereas 20 years ago, we were founded as a campaigning organisation, we saw good reason to adjust our strategic approach by incorporating innovation right at the very heart of Fairfood. Today, we are both identifying problems in the system that delivers us our daily meal and developing innovative solutions that help remedy these problems.

Moving beyond campaigning, our strategy became more pragmatic and constructive. It now focuses on different stakeholders in our food supply chains; we build inclusive solutions that contribute to the prosperity of farmers and food workers, we work with the private sector to improve their socio-economic impact, and we continue to engage consumers by telling the true story.

Using technology as a catalyst for good while working towards that same vision since day 1: a world in which we all get to enjoy truly good food.

TEAM

Midhun P Jayan

Midhun P Jayan

Frontend architect

Shyno MD

Shyno MD

Mobile app developer

Mariëtte Swart

Mariëtte Swart

Supervisory Board

Josje Spierings

Josje Spierings

Project manager

Give Josje a call if you have a super complex project that needs managing, or if you need a speed course data governance.

Pieter Goudswaard

Pieter Goudswaard

Supervisory Board

Peter van der Linde

Peter van der Linde

Partnership director

Would you like to partner up with Fairfood? Peter is your man! He’s responsible for creating and executing our partnership strategy.

Amruthesh KS

Amruthesh KS

Senior backend developer

Wiard Gorter

Wiard Gorter

Supervisory Board

Marten van Gils

Marten van Gils

Tech director

Marten has been the spiritual father of all our innovations since 2016, which is why we officially named him our director of digital innovations in 2020.

Hedwig Bruggeman

Hedwig Bruggeman

Supervisory Board

John Cherek

John Cherek

Programme manager value chain innovation

John knows the value chains behind our food inside out and uses innovation to build connections where he finds them missing.

Adaku Omidosu

Adaku Omidosu

Innovation and partnership manager

A shout-out to the bright minds over at CIED, who make our wildest tech plans become a reality: Akash Mathew, Anto Varghese, Sankaran Namboodiri, Sreenath T M, Gogul Chalil Vengara, Adarsh V, Tanneru Sai Ganesh, Jayesh J, Gopika M, Sudeesh.

With a special thanks to Jessie Breslau, Mariana Broitman, Aswini Harinath, Viënca Simmons and Laura Turqueto. Without these talented and dedicated volunteers and interns, 2020 would not have been the same.

THE FAIRFOOD BOARDS

Our Supervisory Board monitors management and financial matters, oversees the implementation of the annual plans and critically scrutinises the organisation’s work methods. Board members offer guidance where and when necessary, and share their expertise on legal questions, accounting, marketing, digitalisation, management and other strategic issues. The Board also regularly evaluates its own activities to adjust where necessary. The Board meets four times a year, and on a yearly basis discuss specific themes such as integrity or impact management more in-depth. The members do not receive any remuneration for serving on the Board.

Board members receive all relevant information on the organisation’s financial status, the progress in reaching our goals and any other developments by means of a quarterly report provided by the management. They appoint the organisation’s director, review and evaluate the director’s accomplishments, and conduct an appraisal interview with the director at least once a year.

Each Board member is appointed for a period of three years, which may be extended to a maximum of nine years. The Board appoints a Chair, Vice Chair and a Secretary from among its members. Our Supervisory Board currently consists of the following experts: Jolande Sap, Maxine Tillij, Hedwig Bruggeman, Pieter Goudswaard and Peter van der Linde. 

Our Advisory Board consists of a group of people specialised in different fields of work. When needed, they share their expertise on marketing, management, finance, international development and lobby with the Fairfood team. The Board members support Fairfood’s management on a need’s basis and with the development of the strategic plans. 

The following professionals make up our Advisory Board: Guus Loomans, Pierre-Louis van Hedel, Gerrit Bruggeman, Niels Penninx en Martijn Smelt.

INCLUSION AND INTEGRITY

It’s actually quite simple: in order for us to do a proper job at bettering the food system, we need to be aware of different perspectives. We simply cannot succeed if we don’t keep the value ‘inclusivity’ right at the very core of our work. To us, diversity and inclusion in our team, day-to-day work and solutions isn’t a choice; it’s essential.

Fairfood actively works on safeguarding and improving the integrity and equality within our company. We therefore wrote a Code of Conduct on Integrity. To this end, we appointed an integrity officer and internal and external confidants. Together, we want to ensure that the integrity of Fairfood is guaranteed, especially when we continue to grow in the years to come.

Fairfood is a member of Partos, the trade association for development cooperation. That means that we comply with Partos’ Code of Conduct. We’ve expanded this code with our own values: inclusivity, peacefulness, fairness, sustainability and compassion. Values that guide us in our work and determine our working atmosphere.

We continue to ask ourselves questions like: are we doing justice to the people and organisations we work with? But also, regarding our own organisation: when is something unjust? And what do we do when we encounter such injustices, say abuse of power, financial violations and discrimination? Of course, it all starts with prevention, but in the case of inappropriate behaviour, we report, carefully examine, sanction if needed, and take measures to care for the affected.

Our Code of Conduct on Integrity applies to anyone who works for Fairfood, as an employee, trainee, volunteer, hired consultant or agency worker, or member of the Supervisory Board or Advisory Board.

It seems you also care about the people behind our food.

Stay up-to-date on socio-economic progress in our food system with Fairfood's bi-monthly newsletter!

Stay up-to-date on socio-economic progress in the global food system through our bi-monthly newsletter.