Goedhart Bakery Kitchen is the largest ‘to-go’ sandwich producer in the Netherlands. Sustainability had been on the agenda for some time, but questions from customers, investors and new legislation were increasing rapidly and landed in different parts of the organisation. The ambition was clear: be a responsible organisation, stay relevant in a changing market and translate intrinsic motivation into a structured and credible approach. The challenge? Turning this momentum into one coherent strategy and making it part of everyday decision-making across the business.That’s where we came in.

We stepped in as sustainability project manager, bringing vision, structure and content. Sustainability is now organised in one place, with a clear roadmap, governance and an engaged cross-functional team.Together with Goedhart, we chose the B Corp framework as the backbone for their sustainability journey — covering environment, social and governance, and connecting it directly to the way the business operates.The result is not a strategy on paper, but a programme that lives throughout the organisation: from procurement and product development to HR, operations and the executive team.

It’s difficult to capture everything in a few lines (because a lot happened), but here’s a glimpse of what we've done and what we're doing:

• Developed Goedhart’s sustainability strategy and translated it into a concrete roadmap.
• Set up an ESG governance with interdisciplinary working groups, involving procurement, quality, product development, commercial, operations, HR and the full executive team.
• Calculated the full Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and guiding the SBTi commitment.
• Wrote key policies, including human rights, stakeholder engagement, responsible marketing & communication, diversity & inclusion and lobbying.
• Safeguarded substantiated sustainability claims in external communications, including the new website.
• Executed an employee engagement survey to identify insights per production location.
• Performing the human rights assessment, including the position of agency workers.
• Established clear and credible sustainability reporting for the shareholder and investors.
• Aligning products and sourcing with upcoming legislation such as PPWR and EUDR.

Before this trajectory, sustainability-related topics were addressed in many places across the organisation. By taking on the role of sustainability project manager, there is now:– one clear point of contact– a consistent vision and storyline– continuous progress across themes– active engagement of teams and leadership.

We work side by side with Goedhart colleagues, because a sustainability program only works when it becomes part of daily practice. Through the interdisciplinary working groups, regular updates and close collaboration with the management team, knowledge is embedded in the organisation.This ensures that the program continues to grow — with increasing ownership from the teams themselves.