McKey, Kerry food companies back volunteer mangrove planting project

McKey is a manufacturer and supplier of frozen fully cooked chicken and fresh-frozen beef and pork products for global markets, while Kerry Ingredients provides food ingredients and flavour technologies to the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. 

Under this CSR (corporate social responsibility) project, volunteers have planted 6,200 mangrove trees in 1.24 rai (about 2,000 square metres) of land at Bangpu Nature Education Centre in Samut Prakan province. 

“Apart from producing high-quality and safe food products, CSR is our key strategic global platform,” said Sharin Baba, managing director of McKey Food Services Thailand. “We manage our environment through innovation and optimisation. 

“We are in the forefront of incorporating renewable and clean technologies and practices to reduce our environmental carbon footprint. We have also initiated schemes to reduce our water and power consumption and dramatically reduce pollutants released into the environment. 

“McKey has continuously conducted CSR activities with commitment of our employees. This year we embarked on a bigger tree-planting project from the year before. We have invited our key customer and partners to jointly plant 6,200 trees as part of campaign to green the Earth under the ‘Our Earth, Our Home’ project.”

Paul Potter, managing director of Kerry Ingredients Thailand, added that the Kerry Group had various improvement programmes in place with respect to energy utilisation, water intake, and effluent and waste management. 

“Our sustainability programme sets out our targets across these KPIs [key performance indicators]. Accredited environmental-management systems are progressively being established across all our group sites. To date all Kerry manufacturing sites have attained ISO 14001 accreditation. 

“Partnership is essential to addressing solutions for complex environmental challenges. Kerry works with governments, non-governmental organisations and customers to understand the environmental issues we face. We commit to the highest standards of business and ethical behaviour, to fulfilling our responsibilities to the communities we serve and to the creation of long-term value for all stakeholders on a socially and environmentally sustainable basis. 

“We are aware that mangrove forests play an important role in our ecosystem. This mangrove-tree-planting activity is successfully co-organised with McKey Food Services (Thailand) Ltd and our business partners from McThai Co Ltd, Technifood International Co Ltd, General Food Products Co Ltd, Unique Industrial Pack Co Ltd, National Starch & Chemical (Thailand) Ltd, Diversey Hygiene (Thailand) Co Ltd, Nedspice Processing Vietnam Ltd, Prima Ltd, Morakot Industries Public Co Ltd, Thai Containers Group Co Ltd, and Ecolab Co Ltd.”  

In this activity, McKey and Kerry say they have been honoured by the presence of Somlerk Buayai, the representative of the governor of Samut Prakan province, and the participation of top management from various leading companies. These are APMEA of Keystone Foods, McThai Co, Technifood International Co, General Food Products Co, Unique Industrial Pack Co, Prima, National Starch & Chemical (Thailand) Ltd, Morakot Industries, Thai Containers Group, Ecolab Co, and Diversey Hygiene (Thailand) Co.