Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2007

CEO's Review:
Responsible Operations

Bearing economic, social and environmental responsibility is a very important competitive factor for Vaasan & Vaasan Oy. The company's values are driven by sustainable development and a far-reaching vision. Social responsibility is a part of everyday operations at Vaasan & Vaasan Oy. Responsibility is integrated into all work and management, and it extends right across our organisation, spanning production, product development, sales, marketing and financial management. The basis of our operations is in high-quality products that meet the consumers' needs, in new products, and in customer-orientation. Vaasan & Vaasan Oy actively develops the know-how of its personnel, as well as their safety and well-being at work.

The bakery sector is the most labour-intensive area of the food industry. At Vaasan & Vaasan Oy, we bear our social responsibility by focusing on developing staff well-being and competence through small-team work and training. Last year, we continued our efforts for increasing the participation of staff in developing our operations. In Finnish industry, we are pioneers of the use of small-team work, which we extended last year to apply to all units.

Vaasan & Vaasan Oy pays particular attention to promoting healthier diets and especially through awareness of the health benefits of wholegrain fibre. Grain products, particularly fibre-rich breads, form an essential part of any healthy diet. The VAASAN Fitness Spurt project ended in the autumn 2007 after several years of activity. This joint project of Vaasan & Vaasan Oy, the Finnish Diabetes Association and Finnish Athletics encouraged Finns to pay attention to their ways of life and to look after their state of health. This charity project raised funds for the battle against type 2 diabetes and increased people's awareness of the disease. With the funds raised, the Finnish Diabetes Association published its most extensive report yet on type 2 diabetes and ways of preventing it at the beginning of 2008.

Improvements are continuously made in Vaasan & Vaasan Oy to reduce emissions and material losses in baking processes. Loss reduction is one basis of performance-related pay for production personnel. One of the company's most significant environmental actions in 2007 was to replace fuel oil with liquefied gas at the Kuopio bakery. We also began to deliver biowaste from the Joutseno bake-off production unit into ethanol production.

This, the fifth social responsibility report of Vaasan & Vaasan Oy, follows GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) guidelines where applicable. Socially responsible operations and related reporting will continue to form an essential part of our future operations.  

For further information, please contact:
Kalle Tanhuanpää
CEO, the Vaasan & Vaasan Group
Tel. +358 204 46 2003
e-mail: kalle.tanhuanpaa@vaasan.com