COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
In 2017, we invested 1.95 percent of consolidated net profits in social programs.
Saber Nutrir®
Through our Saber Nutrir® program, we promote access to a healthy, nutritious and adequate diet, thereby contributing to the integral development of increasingly more Mexicans.
Whether through our own programs or in conjunction with other institutions, we work to ensure the food security of the communities in which we operate. In 2017, Saber Nutrir® collaborated with associations like Pro Mazahua and Child Fund to multiply efforts and thus contribute to mitigating food security issues in rural communities.
Pro Mazahua
Since 2013, Saber Nutrir® and Pro Mazahua have joined forces to train the population in the construction of productive projects like cisterns, ecological stoves, chicken coops and micro tunnels, which enable Mazahua communities to have a supply of nutritious, varied and sufficient food all year round, both for their own consumption and for sale or exchange.
In the framework of this alliance, 891 productive projects have been completed over the last four years, benefiting 337 families in nineteen rural communities in Estado de México.
These projects have helped their beneficiaries to save an average of $145 pesos a week on the purchase of food and obtain weekly earnings of $405 pesos from the sale of products like vegetables, eggs, and chicken.
Based on annual monitoring and nutrition assessments of the 59 families and 76 children in the follow-up program, 89 percent of the children are stable, 4 percent have improved while 7 percent have worsened since last year’s assessment.
Child Fund
In September 2014, we began working on the integral care, development, and growth of the children of Tapachula, Chiapas, in alliance with Child Fund. The aim of the program is to improve child development and nutrition through early stimulation, the promotion of healthy lifestyles and proper eating habits. During 2017, 45 new families from three communities were incorporated into the initiative, bringing the number of benefiting families at year end to 119.
Each family benefits from its own vegetable plot and chicken coop. Quarterly egg production gives them an important source of protein and an additional income from the sale of surplus eggs.
Furthermore, with the aim of ensuring access to drinking water, we began the Secure Water project, through which we installed cisterns, water tanks, purifiers and biodigesters to the 119 families in the program.
The annual monitoring of nutritional oversight for this year provided care and supervision to 478 children, of whom 45 recovered from anemia and 25 improved their nutritional status.
Saber Nutrir Sponsors and Corporate Volunteering
Through the Sponsors program, the Group’s employees fund food supplements for children with serious malnutrition, enabling them to improve more rapidly.
In 2017, the Saber Nutrir Sponsors program added 113 sponsored children, ranging in age from one to fifteen years. Moreover, twelve children recovered from various degrees of malnutrition and improved their quality of life.
Through corporate volunteering, one hundred employees gave 450 hours of work to maintain nine micro tunnels, five chicken coops and five cisterns, to benefit Mazahua families in the Trampa Grande community, Estado de México.
Herdez Foundation
The Herdez Foundation contributes to the furthering of gastronomic research and education, as well as food development along four main lines of action: academic, editorial, professional practices and in-kind donations.
During 2017, the Herdez Foundation gave 85 courses in which we trained more than 4,900 people on matters concerning the conservation of our country’s gastronomic heritage.
Library and Editorial Program
Created in 1997, the Library of Mexican Gastronomy provides literary and audiovisual tools that enable the continued preservation and research into the culture of Mexican gastronomy. The library currently has a collection of 5,834 books.
2017 saw the beginnings of the project to form an Ibero American Cuisines Collection, whose main goal is to understand the culture, diversity and gastronomy tourism of Latin American and Caribbean countries. At year end, the collection amounted to 24 books from different countries, including Argentina, Chile, Cuba, and Peru, among others.
This year, a new book, El Nopal: Emblema Nacional, was added to the collection, Tonacayotl: Nuestro Sustento, available for download at http://biblioteca.herdez.com.mx. This work was presented at different fairs and exhibitions, such as the Traditional Cuisine Book Fair (Feria del Libro de Cocina Tradicional, FLICO), the International Book Fair of Guadalajara, and the First Colloquium, Documentary Heritage of the Library and Archives Network of Mexico City, (Patrimonio Documental de la Red de Bibliotecas y Archivos del Centro Histórico del a Ciudad de México), among others.
Food Development
The Herdez Foundation, in alliance with the Food Bank of Mexico, provides support to communities which are affected by natural disasters through in-kind donations in a monthly food donation program. During 2017, 425,654 cases of product were delivered, to the value of 1.9 million pesos.
In Grupo Herdez, we sympathize with the affected families and recognize the brave work of all the individuals and institutions who collaborated, in one way or another, to mitigate the damage caused by the September earthquakes across several Mexican states.
Once again, the Mexican people demonstrated the great power of teamwork. Grupo Herdez participated in this important work along three main lines of action:
- The donation of one hundred tons of product, such as tuna, juice, mayonnaise, jam, pasta and canned vegetables, and 19,000 liters of Nutrisa® brand bottled water.
- The donation of $9 million pesos to the Carlos Slim Foundation, in turn multiplied by five and channeled to the reconstruction of education and health centers.
- The participation of fifty Group employees as volunteers in the collection centers.
It should be highlighted that all these actions were carried out in coordination with civic organizations and government agencies.
