Shaping a sustainable soy supply chain for Albert Heijn's chicken products

Albert Heijn and the soy chain  

The Dutch retailer Albert Heijn has committed to reduce their carbon emissions of the entire supply chain by 45% in 2030 compared to 2018. Therefore, Albert Heijn identified 4 major environmental hotspots in its food system. One of them was the production of animal feed, a driver of emissions in the livestock value chains. For example, in 2022 the animal feed of Albert Heijn's ‘Beter Voor Natuur & Boer’ poultry products was responsible for 77% of the average product carbon footprint.

Albert Heijn's poultry supplier and processor Plukon Food Group investigated how the carbon footprint of broiler chickens could be reduced. Conversations with the animal feed industry highlighted reducing the footprint of soybean meal, a primary chicken feed ingredient, as a key opportunity. Soy contributes significantly to the carbon footprint as it often originates from South America, where there is a high risk of land conversion like deforestation.

To develop a more sustainable supply chain, the whole supply chain worked together: retailer Albert Heijn, poultry supplier and processor Plukon Food Group, animal feed producer De Heus, and soy suppliers ADM and Bunge. They co-developed a sustainable soy supply chain designed to deliver significantly lower emissions of fresh and natural ‘Beter Voor Natuur & Boer’ chicken products. Organic chicken products were excluded.

Our team at Mérieux NutriSciences | Blonk provided strategic sustainability advice to the supply chain partners considering:

Reduction potential of soybean meal with a lower carbon footprint

Scenario analysis

We calculated that the carbon footprint reduction potential of fresh and natural ‘Beter Voor Natuur & Boer’ chicken products is 38% when using soybean meal with a lower carbon footprint (Figure 2). Organic chicken products were not in scope of the analysis.

This case demonstrates how collaboration across the entire supply chain and combining Chain of Custody systems with robust LCA analysis can potentially unlock real, measurable progress toward more sustainable food production. 

A closer look at the Chain of Custody and LCA

Chain of Custody is a key method in sustainability that tracks materials or products throughout the entire supply chain, from start to finish, in a transparent and verifiable manner. There are several ways to track materials and products as they move through the supply chain, these are known as Chain of Custody models. The ISO 22095 standard identifies 5 different Chain of Custody models, including Idendity Preserved, Segregated and Mass Balance.

A Mass Balance model works by mixing products that have certain specifications with conventional products, under controlled conditions. For example, fair-trade cocoa can be mixed with non-fair-trade cocoa. The final product may contain both types, but the certified portion can only be claimed on paper if it doesn’t exceed the amount originally added. Moreover, it needs to be tracked within a specific time and region. Although this process is mostly administrative, there is still a real connection between the records and the physical products. The products that have certain specifications are actually delivered within the agreed period. Importantly, no separate certificates are created or sold, the traceability stays within the supply chain.

Until now, the Chain of Custody Mass Balance model has not been allowed in LCA calculations because it doesn't track the actual physical flow of materials. The Mass Balance model allows the mixing of different materials. Instead of tracking the exact materials from input to final product, it uses a system of balancing quantities on paper, with no guarantee of physical presence of certain specifications. However, currently a specific ISO standard (ISO 14077.2) is being developed, to set detailed rules and guidance for Chain of Custody and LCA. Our LCA experts from Mérieux NutriSciences I Blonk also serve in this Technical Committee.   

Awaiting the release of a new ISO standard, we investigated options for Albert Heijn to apply a Mass Balance model under controlled conditions and at the same time meet the international LCA standards. 

First step towards a segregated supply chain

With the development of this Mass Balance system, under controlled conditions, all supply chain partners put the first steps towards a completely physically seperated supply chain for soybean meal with a lower carbon footprint (segregated Chain of Custody model).  This Mass Balance model let the supply chain partners manage soybean meal with a lower carbon footprint without full segregation, while building a system and trust to move later to a complete segregated Chain of Custody.

In a next step Albert Heijn will investigate the opportunities to scale up the application of lower carbon footprint soybean meal to other animal supply chains.

This case clearly shows that efforts across the whole supply chain can potentially bring significant results, and that together you can achieve more sustainable results than alone. 

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