On the occasion of the world milk summit, the Agrial cooperative and the industrial company Savencia announced that they had entered into a partnership on October 17. The object? Decarbonization of dairy production. Agrial has 3,800 cooperators, among whom 1,300 deliver their milk to Savencia, the giant known in particular for the Caprice of the Gods or the Saint Moret: the partnership concerns the latter. First step, these producers must have carried out a carbon assessment (following the Cap’2ER level 1 method) and have committed to the process by 2026.
Savencia will invest around 4 million euros per year
Agrial, which prides itself on being the first French cooperative certified by the SBTi, the flagship label for the decarbonization of corporations, hopes to reduce the carbon footprint of all of its activities by 35% by 2035. In addition to its dairy activity, the cooperative is known for brands like Florette or Breizh Cola. For its part, Savencia indicates that it wants to reduce the carbon intensity of its scope 3, which therefore includes its milk supply, by 22.5% by the end of the decade. This partnership lays a first brick. Savencia could invest around 4 million euros per year there.
Indeed, depending on the practices deployed, producers will be able to receive up to 4.5 euros per tonne of milk delivered, i.e. a bonus of around 1% of the price currently paid. The average producer can therefore hope to collect up to €3,500 per year, which seems very low in view of the practices to be deployed – knowing that a third of the sum is dedicated solely to carrying out the carbon assessments of the farms.
“Each lever combines economic efficiency and carbon”reassures Pascal Le Brun, milk producer and vice-president of Agrial, who nevertheless emphasizes that it will be necessary “to seek a price increase to go further”. It remains to be seen what will happen to producers who do not take the plunge.
“Being low carbon will become a prerequisite”
“These 4.5 euros per tonne, we must integrate it into the negotiations with all our customers, underlines Sophie Godet-Morisseau, director of dairy resources at Savencia. The transition is costly, this amount corresponds to the share we take in the value chain. This project allows us to meet the demands of our customers, while being low-carbon will become a prerequisite for commercial negotiations tomorrow, with players like Carrefour or Nestlé waiting for us on the subject.”
The project and the premium level are very close to what Sodiaal, the first French dairy cooperative, announced a few months ago. The bar is therefore lower than what good students can achieve in this area, such as Bel or Danone. The first city, for example, set up a premium of 10 euros per tonne for the sole integration of an additive, Bovaer, into the cows’ ration in order to reduce methane emissions from their burps.
Last June, Antoine de Saint-Affrique indicated that Danone invested 28 million euros since 2018 to reduce the carbon impact of its agricultural upstream in France, its 1,300 milk producers in the first place – a smaller envelope, however, than that initially planned under Emmanuel Faber. Conversely, an actor like Lactalis is still not out of the woods on the subject. He should do it at the end of the year.
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
