INFORMATION FOR MEDIA: AUGA group, AB introduces its five-year strategy: key aims include delivering organic food with no cost to nature and becoming a synonym for sustainability
AUGA group, AB (hereinafter the Company) has published its 2025 business strategy and reframed its vision and mission. The key aims of the Company include improving efficiency in existing business units, designing a sustainable organic food architecture, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In the newly introduced strategy, the Company formulates AUGA group, AB vision of becoming a synonym for sustainable food and lifestyle. The mission to deliver organic food with no cost to nature is also set out.
“On behalf on the whole Board, I am really thrilled with the AUGA group, AB strategy 2025. This is the result of coordinated work among the Management team and the Board members. The strategy puts forward a very ambitious goal that does not only seek to improve the efficiency of food production, but also aims at the creation of a new standard in sustainability in what is a relatively traditional business sector,” says Dalius Misiūnas, AUGA group, AB Chairman of the Board.
The key goal of AUGA group, AB innovation agenda is significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 (with up to 50% reductions targeted per crop growing and dairy production unit), ultimately turning the Company into a CO2eq neutral player in organic food by 2030.
Another important goal for the Company is improving efficiency in existing business units (crop growing, dairy, mushroom growing, and fast-moving consumer goods). This agenda will allow for the alignment of yield and cost structures between conventional and organic.
The Company aims to improve efficiency and reduce its impact on nature by building a new operational model, called Sustainable Organic Food Architecture (or SOFA). The new innovation scheme will enable the Company to address the most pressing technological bottlenecks in the world of food production whilst retaining scale, quality and yield productivity as it grows. Moreover, it will retain the synergies of AUGA group, AB previously used closed-loop sustainable farming model.
Key roles in the new business model are attributed to the following technologies and processes: biogas infrastructure, specialised feed technology, and regenerative crop-rotation.
Biogas cycle infrastructure will enable farm operations to run without fossil fuels. Manure in the cycle, in its secondary role, will be utilised both for fertilisation, and as a source for the production of biofuel. Specialised feed technology will reduce methane emissions from ruminants. Regenerative crop-rotation will see a share of cereal cultures substituted for leguminous grasses that have carbon sequestration and nitrogen fixation capabilities. This will not only reduce the absolute rate of emissions, but will also become an integral part of the Company’s livestock operations. The business model described in AUGA group, AB strategy will become a platform for engagement with key stakeholders.
The Company expects to gather around itself a community of consumers, farmers, lenders and shareholders that will express their preferences for a more sustainable life via their consumption and active engagement in the food value chain. By doing so, the Company will meet the rising demand for new standards in the food industry which are being driven by consumer needs.
“Certainly, the idea of what constitutes sustainable is different for every single group in the AUGA community. To consumers it is a more sustainable way to eat, to farmers a more sustainable way to work, and for lenders and shareholders it is a more sustainable way to invest and receive financial returns. The new face of AUGA group, AB will be an asset-light, agtech-driven company, based on a self-sufficient circular model, that presents the world with an opportunity to live more sustainably,” says Kęstutis Juščius, CEO of AUGA group, AB.
The publication of the Company’s strategy coincides with a recently released study called Decade to Deliver, a joint publication by the UN Global Compact voluntary business initiative and the consulting company Accenture. The study calls on businesses to create more ambitious action plans with the aim of mitigating climate change by 2030.
The independent Board, formed in 2019, is actively engaged in the implementation of good governance practices. The Company relies on a wide array of long-standing experience in the ranks of the Board, from finance and investment through to sustainability, energy, fast moving consumer goods and academia, especially when it comes to setting strategic directions.
AUGA group, AB strategy was published via the Nasdaq Vilnius stock exchange and on the Company’s web site: .
About AUGA group, AB:
AUGA group, AB is the largest vertically-integrated organic food company in Europe. The group of companies has developed a sustainable farming model on organically certified arable land. The model is based on new technologies, and specialises in crop, dairy and mushroom production. Using proprietary and contracted manufacturing as well as raw materials of its own production, the Company produces a wide range of organic food products for the end consumer as well as organic commodities. The group of companies employs over 1,200 people. AUGA group, AB is listed on the Nasdaq Vilnius and Warsaw stock exchanges. In 2019, the group’s revenue amounted to EUR 71 million.
