Czarnikow Group clinches Food & Beverage Award in SBR International Business Awards 2020

It was recognized for its sustainable end-to-end sugar trade programme, VIVE.

Czarnikow Group engages in the full value chain of a commodity and works in collaboration with stakeholders to deliver sustainable improvement and commercial advantage through its sustainability programme, VIVE.

The VIVE Programme is a voluntary sustainability programme made in collaboration by Czarnikow and Intellync. It aims to encourage supply chain participants to continuously improve their sustainable practices, while also gaining commercial advantage.

The project’s success was evidenced this month, when Czarnikow demonstrated its ability to facilitate the physical flow of a high volume of sustainable sugar, from the sourcing of raw product to the final delivery to end-users. Because of this collaborative trade, the company has won the Food & Beverage category in the Singapore Business Review’s International Business Awards.

Czarnikow’s Singapore office, now celebrating over 50 years in Singapore, was ideally positioned to use its strong relationships within Southeast Asia to enable trade and encourage sustainable development through collaboration.

The first of its kind, the sustainable trade moved 50,000 metric tonnes of VIVE Claim Level sugar, valued at almost US$16m in a cross-sector collaboration between the agriculture, manufacturing, shipping, trading, finance and food and beverage industries.

Although sustainable development has been happening within the sugar industry for several years, this trade marks a first in utilising a completely sustainable supply chain that has been verified at each stage of its progress. All participants involved have completed a VIVE assessment and achieved VIVE Claim Level in the relevant VIVE module, providing full traceability.

Participants in VIVE from all stages of the sugar supply chain were able to collaborate with Czarnikow to create this flow, resulting in a complex and ambitious partnership. The VIVE Claim Level sugar was sourced by Czarnikow from Santa Terezinha’s mills and supplying farms in Brazil, moved by The China Navigation Company Pte Ltd, financed by OCBC Bank under a sustainability linked loan facility, refined by Central Sugars Refinery Sdn Bhd refinery in Malaysia, and purchased by Fraser and Neave for manufacture into end product.

“We believe this partnership not only demonstrates Czarnikow and Intellync’s commitment to sustainability, but is also an extension of OCBC’s core belief that businesses can do well by doing good,” said Ng Chuey Peng, Managing Director and Head of Global Commodities Finance, OCBC Bank.

Czarnikow Singapore hopes to continue collaborations with all partners to complete more sustainable trades in future, following from the success of this first shipment. As long-standing partners, both CNCo and OCBC share Czarnikow’s vision to become leaders in sustainable supply chains.

Since VIVE’s launch in 2015, outside of Malaysia the programme has also built relationships at a regional level upstream in Thailand and downstream in Indonesia. Some of the largest sugar producers in Thailand have joined the programme, with VIVE participating mills producing over 1 million tonnes each year. Through Czarnikow’s strong presence in Asia and offices in Singapore, Bangkok and Guangzhou, the VIVE Programme has grown its reach across the region and now works with three of South East Asia’s largest sugar refining companies supplying sustainable sugar to a wide range of consumer goods groups. 

Watch the interview below to know more about their winning project: