21 Apr Happy Earth Day from Tribeca Oven
Here at Tribeca Oven, we know that sustainability is more important than ever. We also understand that eco-conscious products are a high priority for our customers, and we strive to be as transparent as possible about our sustainability efforts and actions. To celebrate Earth Day this year, we’d like to share those efforts with you!
Our main sustainability focus is on ingredients sourcing. We’re a clean brand, with no preservatives, artificial flavors or bioengineered ingredients in our wide range of products. Just as we take great care as we craft our breads, we also put a strong emphasis on responsible ingredient sourcing. As an industry leader, we believe that we can’t truly talk about quality without looking at the provenance of our primary ingredient: wheat.
We’ve been part of the Sustainable Wheat Initiative since 2018, reflecting the 2017 crop year. This program is a partnership with our wheat supplier and its farmers. What’s the initiative all about? It’s defined as “a network of wheat growers connected to the supply chain through diverse partnerships that promote continuous sustainable intensification through: collaboration, benchmarking farm operations, promoting continual improvement through analyses/insights/execution and communicating the facts.”
Put simply, we support a select group of farmers who have committed to developing and measuring sustainable wheat-growing practices. For many of these family-run farms, that means honoring the agricultural heritage and traditions of the past, while implementing new technologies and greener growing practices like no-tilling and wind power.
The program uses key sustainability benchmarks to measure, track and evaluate the performance
needed to meet the project’s goals across four key areas:
Land Use and Efficiency
Minimizing the amount of land used to reach the same or higher productivity.
Soil Loss and Carbon
Preserving and maintaining healthy soil, and reducing or minimizing erosion.
Energy Use & GHG Emissions
Reducing the amount of energy needed and GHG (greenhouse gasses) created in the farming process.
Water Use and Quality
Examining irrigation practices and water quality.
One of our main goals with this partnership is to further learn and understand which practices and technologies have the greatest environmental impact. The long-term purpose of the initiative is to increase natural resource management efficiency while improving profitability, and sharing what we’ve learned with our customers.
So far, the results of this partnership have been very positive! Farmers involved with the Sustainable Wheat Initiative use a variety of regenerative practices including rotating crops, adjusting planting times and no-till field management. We’re still compiling data from the last crop year, and the full sustainability report — with updated information and metrics for the program — will be released soon.
It’s been exciting and promising to see the farmers participating in this program apply key learnings to their farming, and to use those lessons to optimize sustainability practices for future success. We’ll continue to support these farmers as they work to improve those practices.
We cannot ignore the fact that, according to research published in March 2021, food systems contributed to 34% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions — and that 71% came from food-specific agriculture. This is why Tribeca Oven has an unwavering commitment to corporate social responsibility. To us, quality isn’t just about the products that we craft; it’s about the whole supply chain that we rely on to make them. We’re proud to support the Sustainable Wheat Initiative, and are open to your feedback as we continue on our sustainability journey.
For more on Tribeca Oven’s sustainability efforts, please visit our website.
No Comments