Kerry Dairy Ireland's global and local support of social sustainability encouraged their surpassing of the target milestone by more than 100%.
Kerry Dairy Ireland has a longstanding tradition of community support, originating from its cooperative roots. In 2023, Kerry's commitment was demonstrated through various flagship programmes and local initiatives. The company partnered with NGOs like the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Concern Worldwide and contribute significantly to local causes and charities, via its MyCommunity programme, and initiatives such as Kerry Social Farming.
At a local level, Kerry’s MYCommunity programme, launched in 2020, set a site-level goal for support of local causes, with employees also receiving paid volunteering leave. In addition to this, initiatives such as Kerry Social Farming (KSC) have received support. KSC is a locally led, community-based, shared service that provides farming and social inclusion opportunities to people with physical and intellectual disabilities within their local communities. Through its on-farm sustainability programme Evolve, Kerry provides additional funding to KSC and promotes farmer engagement with the scheme.
Internationally, Kerry's Project ALIVE, a four-year partnership with Concern Worldwide, focuses on improving agricultural livelihoods in Kenya. The programme has trained over 4,400 farmers in climate resilience, agronomics, and pest management to date. In Burundi, Project Amata, undertaken with the WEP, has been designed to equip farmers to run a profitable enterprise and to work to improve food security. To date, a total of 364 farmers (123 womens and 241 men) have been enrolled and educated. The project has been established with a focus on educating local farmers and helping them to build a sustainable farming culture that will raise local incomes and feed children as well as enhance food security through improved food production and processing.
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