In Baking & Snack’s study “The State of the Industry: Sustainability Commitment in US Wholesale Baking,” conducted by Cypress Research, survey respondents from baking, equipment and ingredient manufacturer companies were asked to weigh in on their company’s engagement with initiatives across environmental, social responsibility and governance priorities. These findings were reported in a webinar, “State of the Baking Industry: Sustainability and the Future of Baking” that is available on demand. 

Baking companies of all sizes were most aligned in prioritizing social responsibility initiatives, which include those foundational to business success — employee safety and fair employee wages — but also go beyond, such as charitable involvement; employee wellness; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); and workforce development. Social responsibility had the greatest percentage of professionals from all sectors reporting their companies had social assessment criteria: bakers at 62%, ingredient suppliers at 74% and equipment manufacturers at 50%. 

“When we think about the workforce gap every level of the industry is dealing with, these social responsibility programs can be a workforce retention strategy, especially with younger employees,” explained Marjorie Hellmer, president of Cypress Research. 

Overwhelmingly, the industry is participating in these initiatives or has plans to across all sectors. More than 50% of respondents reported company programming in place or one under development in every initiative, in many cases higher than 75%. Employee safety and fair employee wages were predictably the top two with more than 90% of all professionals reporting that their companies had a program in place or under development to address these issues. 

The gap persists, however, between companies that report programming in place or in development and those that include measurable initiative targets. For most social responsibility initiatives, less than 70% of respondents in every sector reported that their companies have formal, measurable targets to track impact. In fact, employee safety was the only initiative that broke this trend with 92% of bakers, 93% of ingredient suppliers and 71% of equipment suppliers reporting they have measurable targets for this initiative. The greatest opportunities exist to set targets for company initiatives related to contributions to positive community outcomes, volunteer work and accountability for sustainability-related actions of supply chain partners, Ms. Hellmer pointed out.