Translations

The LOUIS BONDUELLE FOUNDATION is helping to change eating habits over the long-term

7. Community involvement

Skills and technology transfer

Sector Food-processing

Year 2017

Country France

Transmitter

Context

A family-owned company created in 1853, Bonduelle is currently the world leader in the ready-to-eat vegetable sector. The group, for whom innovation and long-term vision is paramount, is diversifying its activities and geographical bases. Its vegetables, grown on over 95,000 hectares, are sold in 80 countries in all forms, a variety of brands, distribution circuits and using a variety of technologies: tins, frozen, pasteurised, dehydrated and fresh and ready to eat.

The Louis Bonduelle Foundation has contributed to a sustainable change in eating habits since 2004. It works internationally with a focus on lasting change and has demonstrated a desire to move beyond generic words and intentions by providing everyone with effective, practical and often innovative ways of incorporating vegetables into their diets.

Objectives

To achieve sustained progress in eating habits by ensuring that the benefits of vegetables serve the interests of society.

APPROACH

The Foundation's work is focused on three main areas.

Informing and raising awareness

The Foundation produces and distributes information that is capable of improving the perception of vegetables and daily habits. This can be accessed (by the general public, teachers, health professionals, journalists) interactively at the Foundation's website, www.fondation-louisbonduelle.org.

It has monographs, a scientific watch section, vegetable portraits, educational kits and games, practical advice and easy and inexpensive vegetable recipes as well as tips on how to make your own vegetable garden.

The foundation also participates in forums and events focused on health and nutrition.

In 2011, the Louis Bonduelle Foundation was launched in Canada. It has awarded over 40,000 Canadian dollars to some ten bodies in order to support them in their initiatives to encourage people to eat vegetables.

Supporting and fostering research

The Foundation encourages scientific research (clinical, sociological, epidemiological and agronomic) in order to further knowledge in the area of nutrition and nutritional behaviour.

In this context, it participated in the creation of the "Heart and Arteries" Foundation which develops research programmes on chronic pathologies such as cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes.

To this same end the Foundation rewards work on child obesity with the "ECOG (European Childhood Obesity Group) and Louis Bonduelle Research Prize".

It has also put in place the "Louis Bonduelle Research Prize" whose aim is to help a young researcher carry out their work with a grant of €10,000.

Acting in the field

The Foundation implements concrete actions, in line with current eating trends, in order to make vegetables more attractive to more people. These actions include calls for international projects which aim to support local initiatives in the area of nutrition education. Specifically, the action takes the form of financial aid.