 |
Charity needs to be sustainable
Interview with Ms. Vinita Bali, Managing Director, Britannia Industries
The Week, 6th June 10
For Vinita Bali, managing director of Britannia Industries, charity is a redundant term because it is a 'one-time' gesture and unsustainable. Instead of corporate social responsibility, she prefers 'corporate sustainable responsibility'. She believes that using the domain knowledge, scale and accessibility of her business to take up a larger social cause is the only way intervention can remain sustainable.
The larger cause that Bali wishes to address through Britannia is malnutrition. She has made a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a non-partisan group of global leaders initiated by former US president Bill Clinton to devise and implement innovative solutions to the world's pressing problems, to fortify biscuits manufactured by her company with micro-nutrients that would help fight malnutrition. Britannia was one of the two enterprises chosen from 1,400 businesses that had made commitments to the CGI. Bali's efforts to make her biscuits healthier-she cut trans-fats and added minerals and vitamins-have helped Britannia take its business to the next level.
Excerpts from an interview:
Did you conduct a study to conclude that iron is the element you should fortify your biscuits with?
We didn't have to study. It is so well known and well documented. A large part of our products are consumed in the kids' segment, though it doesn't mean adults cannot consume fortified products; of course, they can. We had to find a sweet spot. Many people say malnutrition is a very big problem; that it is intergenerational. They say that unless you improve the health of the mother, you cannot improve the health of the child. My attitude to most of these questions is, we can't boil the ocean. But we have got to make a start somewhere. A field study in Delhi showed that we are talking about children with haemoglobin levels as low as 7 and 8. Should I sit and theorise that? Part of the field study was about feeding them our fortified biscuits. In 30 days, the difference we saw was amazing. This gave us greater confidence.
Different populations require different levels of iron. How is this taken into account?
The fortified biscuits we distributed to school children in Hyderabad through the Nandi Foundation have high levels of fortification. Our market products are fortified to the extent of 20-25 per cent of daily requirement of iron. This is as specified by the World Health Organisation.
Are you looking at such initiatives bringing about policy changes on packaged food and nutrition?
I think there is a high level of awareness in the regulatory bodies in government, both of the problem and the solution. What matters is the will to convert it into real, solid action at the ground level. Some countries have done it through legislation. Take the example of iodised salt in India. Now, we don't hear about this problem called goitre.
What is the cost involved in this initiative?
We have been fortifying biscuits even before we made a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. We have been supplying biscuits that are protein-rich to the UN's World Food Programme. These biscuits are given to populations where food is hard to access-in a war zone or in a natural calamity. Our R&D only had to work on the taste aspect, because when you are adding higher levels of iron, you have to make sure it tastes well, is shelf-stable and is easily absorbed by the body.
You seem to have a different understanding of corporate social responsibility.
Our CSR means corporate sustainable responsibility. The reason why the word 'sustainable' is important is that it is not about doing a few things here and there. Unless we let it become part of the business model and the business is capable of sustaining it, it is not going to make any significant difference. We have a pretty aggressive plan in the company that says we have to make up through cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness the incremental money we spend on fortifying our products. We have actually worked a business model which says, if I am increasing my intrinsic cost of production, we have to find that money through cost-efficiency and effectiveness. The other good thing is that it galvanises the entire system towards making that happen.
So, charity is a redundant term in your business?
Oh, yes. We are not talking about charity. We believe that we have to use the domain knowledge, the scale and accessibility we have created in our business, to do something. Our products are available throughout India. And, by fortifying them, if we are making them accessible to a large mass of people, we are not solving India's malnutrition problem, but we are contributing to alleviating it.
| |
