Fonterra showcases sustainability at China International Import Expo

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Fonterra's China team has been busy this month with a giant trade fair for importers in Shanghai.

The China International Import Expo (CIIE) is a huge event, attended by nearly half a million people.

It is so large, the physical footprint of the exhibition is half the size of Wellington's CBD - or the same as 36 rugby fields next to each other.

The CIIE was held earlier this month with around 3000 companies exhibiting, representing 127 countries.

It was great exposure for the co-op, Fonterra's Greater China chief executive Teh-han Chow said.

"It drew a lot of good media attention, which was wonderful for us because we were able to talk to the media about what we were doing. We got over six thousand news reports in that week-long expo," Chow told The Country Sport Breakfast's Brian Kelly.

In terms of media coverage at the event, Fonterra ranked first among the food and agriculture companies and fifteenth out of all the companies that attended.

"That was pretty good - that's against a lot of other Fortune 500 companies who were at the expo," Chow said.

Chow was personally interviewed by dozens of media agencies, including CGTN.

He said much of the discussion was around sustainability, which fit in well with Fonterra's business strategy.

Sustainability had also been on China's political agenda recently, Chow said.

"So this pretty much matched our goals of being able to talk about sustainability more at CIIE, take the lead and to be seen as a good example in the dairy industry."

One of the highlights at Fonterra's booth was the launch of an awareness campaign on packaging recyclability.

The campaign was a joint effort between Fonterra, its logistics partner C&D Group, Recycling Co. Ltd, and KenGee R&D Centre.

"They are able to recycle the boxes that our milk product comes in, into different things – like park benches and garbage cans," Chow said.

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The project came from Fonterra's collaboration with China Environment Protection Foundation in April 2021.

The partnership aimed to establish China's first environment protection fund solely for the bakery industry, Chow said.

"Since then, we've promoted sustainable packaging materials with baking chains and we've delivered 77 thousand environmentally-friendly cake boxes to consumers.

"So we're doing a lot in this space to promote and raise awareness of sustainability."

Another sustainability collaboration was with China's top cheese producer Cheerston, which signed a two-year Grass-Fed agreement with Fonterra, Chow said.

"This means that they'll be able to use the Grass-fed claim on their products and talk about the benefits of grass-fed."

Also in today's interview: Chow talked about other highlights at Fonterra's CIIE booth, including new products, live streaming events, food trials and a cheese-stretching contest.