OUR COMMITMENTS
Our sustainable business model
Caring is one of the cornerstones of our Corporate Social Responsibility policy. It enables us to meet the challenges of our industry, such as the well-being of all, caring nutrition, sustainable farming, and reducing our environmental footprint through recyclable materials, fighting food waste and shrinking the footprint of our plants.
Caring is developing ever-healthier products for our consumers, while showing the greatest respect for nature and our ecosystem of employees, partners and suppliers.
Caring is also about supporting our usual charitable initiatives in a sustainable way with NGOs that assist people in need in France and the United States.
We believe that a leader must show the way, and that collective strength allows us to go further. That’s why we lean on the historical commitments of our brands to nourish and enrich our thinking about an ambitious sustainable development strategy able to meet the challenges ahead and serve our ambition for growth.
And because doing what’s right is not always easy, it’s the path to progress we have chosen to take, one step at a time, a transparent approach for and with our stakeholders.
Now more than ever, we are committed to the path of healthy snacks.
Because when you thrive, we thrive.
Mouna Hamida, Corporate Communications and CSR Director
Jérémy Mailly, Vice President – Human Resources, Communications & CSR
MOM is committed to the development
and well-being of all
SAFETY FIRST is the keystone of our
well-being pillar.
Providing our employees with a safe environment is our priority everyday. To that end, we have considerably strengthened our safety procedures over the last two years at our four production sites in France and the U.S. We have trained all our managers in safety management and safety leadership using the DuPont Sustainable Solutions method.
Each year, we bring all our safety managers together for an annual safety seminar and we hold events to raise awareness and inform all our teams during safety week. As a result of these efforts, our safety indicators have trended up across the company over the past several years.
Our partnerships, a reflection of our commitment to well-being and development
Official partnership with Sport dans la Ville in France
We believe in the importance of the personal development and professional integration of youth. Since 2018, we have been fighting for equal opportunity and the integration of thousands of kids from priority neighborhoods through our partnership with Sport dans la Ville, a French-based NGO that uses sports activities to assist the personal development and professional and social integration of youths in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
We support all the NGO’s projects and activities, through a sponsorship program that allows MOM employees to contribute to the success of the kids in the program.
Pom’Potes® brand’s partnership with Unis-Cité
This approach is also followed by our flagship Pom’Potes® brand, which has launched multiple initiatives to promote the well-being of kids through campaigns to encourage them to play outdoors. We partner with two NGOs that focus on child development through play. In 2019, we created the “Everybody outside” program in partnership with Unis-Cité, and in 2021, we began supporting the ColoSolidaire NGO as well.
Please go to our brand website for more information.
GoGo squeeZ® brand partnerships in the United States
GoGo squeeZ® has looked to its national partners to establish key initiatives aimed at providing fun and safe access to the outdoors for kids to engage in active and healthy lifestyles.
In an unsettling trend, kids across the United States are spending considerably less time outdoors and engaging less with recreational youth sports than older generations. To help address this issue, GoGo squeeZ® launched the Fun Comes First initiative in 2020 aimed at reimagining youth sports and inspiring kids to stay in the game, by reinforcing what’s most important to them: FUN! The initiative – formed in partnership with U.S. Soccer, U.S. Women’s National Team superstar Alex Morgan, and Laureus Sport For Good USA – is committed to deploying critical funds and developing tangible resources to keep youth sports safe and fun for kids across the country.
Through GoGo squeeZ’s partnership with the National Park Foundation, the company serves as a key sponsor of NPF’s Youth Education & Engagement initiative, which includes their Open Outdoors for Kids program. With this initiative, GoGo squeeZ and NPF are making educational experiences in national parks more accessible to all kids, with a specific focus on children who live in under-resourced populations and communities of color in both urban and rural settings across the country. GoGo squeeZ’s donation will help create pathways for more than 15,000 kids to enjoy parks, introducing them to real-world, vibrant laboratories that provide immersive and inclusive educational opportunities.
Charitable donations lie
at the heart of
our well-being mission
We care about making healthy snacks accessible to all. In 2020, against the backdrop of the global health crisis, we delivered over 80 metric tons of products to French hospitals, retirement homes and charitable organizations that help people in need in France.
Over 30,000 people benefited from our support through the donations. In the United States, we delivered nearly one million product portions to U.S. hospitals, schools and organizations that help disadvantaged populations.
The economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic left many households across the United States struggling to put food on the table for their families – many for the first time. As many parents rely on schools to provide their kids with the proper nourishment they need, school breakfast and lunch programs were not available as most classrooms converted to virtual learning. As a response to this increased demand for food assistance, GoGo squeeZ® stepped up their donation program to help during these challenging times, with a commitment to continue addressing this issue long after the pandemic subsided. Through a national partnership with Feeding America® and hundreds of other nonprofits – Including hospitals, schools, food banks and other local community organizations – GoGo squeeZ® donated nearly 6 million pouches across the country in 2020, and has committed to donating millions more per year going forward.
Quality of work life drives our Human Resources policy
MOM is also proud to offer a dedicated Quality of Work Life program at all its sites in France and the United States.
In France, the program’s actions are based on the four cornerstones of management, working conditions, work-life balance, and internal relations quality. For example, a solidarity-based concierge service was set up at our Dardilly site, near Lyon in 2019. In the U.S., a series of workshops have been regularly offered to employees since 2018, to raise awareness about well-being. The workshops teach nutrition, health, physical exercise, and personal development theory and practice.
MOM is also proud to offer a dedicated Quality of Work Life program at all its sites in France and the United States.
MOM is also proud to offer a dedicated Quality of Work Life program at all its sites in France and the United States.
MOM is committed to caring nutrition
Nutri-Score labeling
To encourage French consumers to make healthy buying choices, we committed to displaying the Nutri-Score label on the packaging of all the products in our portfolio as early as January 2018. Nearly 80% of our SKUs have a Nutri-Score A-rating.
Please see our press release for more information.
Commitment to the EU Pledge communications charter
In 2019, we decided to join the EU Pledge, a European communications charter aimed at encouraging food companies to be more responsible when advertising their products to children and to help parents make the right diet and lifestyle choices for their kids.
Our commitment in France and the United States to international experts
We regularly share our knowledge with the scientific and medical community through various nutrition and dietitian congresses in the French-speaking world, such as the Journées Francophones de la Nutrition, the Club Européen des Diététiciens de l’Enfance and the Association française des Diététiciens Nutritionnistes. In 2019, for example, we developed a brochure aimed at French healthcare professionals about the nutritional benefits of serving fruit to kids at snack time and at breakfast.
Further, our nutritional strategy is supported by a committee of experts. In particular, we mandated France’s INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) agronomy research institute to gain a better understanding of how transformation processes can impact the health potential of fruit. In 2019, we led a scientific test with Adam Drewnowski, a globally recognized expert in public health and nutrition, showing that the nutritional profile of our products ranked among the best compared to other kids’ snacks in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
All of these initiatives have helped to expand our expertise and optimize our recipes further.
Offering families and kids a choice of balanced food is of the utmost importance to us.
In 2020, in the U.S., we launched GoGo squeeZ happy tummieZ®, a product containing plant-based prebiotic fibers specially designed for young kids. Prebiotic fiber is food source for good bacteria that occurs naturally in the intestine and helps nourish these bacteria so they remain strong and support overall well-being.
Working with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, a gastroenterologist and intestinal health expert, we created educational content about children’s digestive health and the benefits of prebiotic fibers. To help parents adopt healthy eating habits for their kids, we worked with dietitian Kacie Barnes, who offered healthy snack ideas for picky eaters.
We continue to work with a network of health experts to provide families and kids with advice and key information to preserve their health and to feel happier every day.
The approach to improving our recipes
Alongside our efforts to optimize our recipes, we are committed to converting all our SKU fruit recipes into recipes with no sugar added. In France, we moved from less than 40% of our product volumes with no added sugar in 2015 to 70% today. Our goal is to achieve 100% by 2025.
Nutri-Score labeling is fully in sync with our nutrition strategy. It will enable consumers to more easily assess the nutritional quality of our products and to compare them with other snack time offerings. It will also help guide our recipe improvement efforts by offering ever healthier products.
Céline Richonnet, Corporate Nutrition Director.
MOM is committed to sustainable farming
The origin of
our raw materials
For MOM, product quality starts with procuring raw materials. That’s why as early as 2010, we decided to become full players in France’s apple growing industry by helping several farmers near Materne’s historical site in Picardie select apple tree varieties that were adapted to Picardie’s soil and climate, and that would produce apples ideal for making sauces. We manage the harvest alongside them, making use of local pickers. We handle the storage of the apples after harvesting. Since 2012, MOM has made sauces from conventional apples wholly grown in France. This commitment has extended to AB-certified (organically farmed) ranges for the Materne® and Pom’Potes® brands, with the share of French-grown organic apples now accounting for 100% of the supply as of 2021.
Our commitment to championing sustainable farming
For several years now, we have contributed to the development of sustainable farming practices by testing pilot methods in our Picardie apple orchards and then extending those methods to our other partnering orchards.
In addition to being fully of French origin since 2019, our conventional apples come from orchards certified as Vergers Ecoresponsable, a commitment by orchard growers to adhere to a charter requiring the use of environmentally and biodiversity friendly production methods.
In 2016, MOM signed a partnership with France’s Agricultural Biodiversity Observatory (Observatoire Agricole de la Biodiversité) to measure the impact of actions taken to promote biodiversity in our orchards.
In the United States, GoGo squeeZ® started a partnership with the West Michigan Research Station at the end of 2020. Through this partnership we will aid in the research and development of sustainable farming practices. This initiative will help provide our Michigan apple growers with a local resource in the areas of sustainability, land and water conservation and environmental stewardship.
Our commitments to MOM's suppliers
Getting our entire supply chain on the path to sustainability is a priority for us. In November 2020, we deployed a Sustainable Purchasing Charter that guarantees equitable treatment and impartial selection of suppliers.
Along with our suppliers, we identify mutual benefits in the area of sustainability and, in return, we ask them to comply with all laws and regulations in force, as well as uphold the most stringent business ethics standards and guarantee sustainable management of the supply chain.
A commitment that has extended to AB-certified (organically farmed) ranges for the Materne® and Pom’Potes® brands, with the share of French-grown organic apples now accounting for 100% of the supply since 2021.
MOM is committed to reducing
its environmental footprint
The recyclability of our Pom'Potes® pouches in France and
reduced plastic for our GoGo squeeZ® pouches in the United States.
In line with our mission to champion practical and on-the-go healthy snacks, we believe it’s vital to limit the environmental footprint of our packaging. To that end, we launched a research program in 2016 to make pouches fully recyclable. In 2020, that research resulted in viable recyclability solution for all the Pom’Potes® pouches made at our Boué plant in Picardie. Beginning in 2022, all Pom’Potes® pouches on the market will be recyclable.
This project reduces total pouch packaging weight at the source by 20%, with 40% less plastic in the cap design. The reduction of plastic at the source also applies to the GoGo squeeZ® pouches produced at our plants in Traverse City, Michigan and Nampa, Idaho in the American market.
Reducing the environmental footprint of our production plants
At our U.S. and French production sites, MOM has deployed programs to cut water consumption and energy use, as well as action plans to reduce our loss of apple raw materials.
La lutte contre le gaspillage alimentaire
Through our partnership with Too Good To Go, we plan to fight food waste at every step in our fruit sauce production process.
As grocery products, our sauces benefit from a long shelf life and are sold in single-serving portions, a signature feature of our company for over 20 years and a major advantage in the fight against food waste.
In 2021, to meet the key challenge targeted by the Best Before Dates Pact, we are raising awareness among French consumers about the meaning of the Best Before Date on the packs of our Pom’Potes® and Materne® brands, and on the associated websites.
Beginning in 2022, the Pom’Potes® pouches and caps will be made with polyethylene, which will make them 100% recyclable within the existing recycling industry.
Our brands
Materne – Pom’Potes – GoGosqueeZ – Confipote – Mont Blanc – Récré O’lé – Gloria
