Innovation is one of our greatest corporate capabilities, being one of the main growth drivers of all our businesses and a fundamental part of our work culture, recognized as highly innovative by Great Culture to Innovate. With the support of a global science network for our corporate innovation ecosystem, we invest close to 1% of our annual sales in the different aspects necessary to deepen our corporate capacity in research, development and innovation, cementing the competitiveness of our businesses with differentiated, high-impact products, services and solutions throughout the value chain. Today we have 16 patent families, 30 granted and 25 more applications pending thanks to more than 78 highly trained people who are exclusively dedicated to deepening our scientific knowledge and its application in solutions for various industries.

We consolidated the open innovation model with the launch of albora®, the corporate venture capital fund that seeks to accelerate the capture of knowledge in business through investment, collaborations or partnerships with startups and research centers worldwide. Together with Eatable Adventures, under a global call for solving specific business challenges in food technologies in the first call, we received more than 100 applications, 67% of which were international. The 8 most powerful options were selected, accelerating the technology appropriation and growth opportunities in our businesses. The second call, currently underway, is focused on finding solutions for the circularity of our packaging and materials, and traceability. We hope it will be as successful and profitable for businesses as the first one was.  Learn more here

To enhance product innovation, we integrate technical expertise, customer-centric design, agile methodologies and permanent collaboration of interdisciplinary teams to create valuable products in record time, supported by a collaborative model developed in-house called FAST and by a cross-cutting team, which ensures compliance with quality, safety and service, substantially reducing development and time to market, achieving a share of product innovation in sales of 26% in 2020 (products launched in the last 3 years) in Team Foods. 

Under this same model, and with the consolidation of a team dedicated exclusively to leading and accelerating the entry into new categories, we finished the year with a portfolio of 11 products with 15 references of the Dagusto® brand in the frozen bakery and doughs categories, and two vegetable drinks with Jappi® oatmeal and coconut. The frozen bakery line alone took approximately 45 days from conceptualization to launch, demonstrating the power implementing the minimum viable product philosophy, which is a source of learning, inspiration and interaction with our consumers to develop valuable products.

At BredenMaster we transformed the operation for the sale of products at room temperature with modified atmosphere technology (ATM) for the end customer, developing a new sales channel in the midst of the pandemic, and Kardámili® -our premium olive oil brand in Chile- introduced new formats and presentations, expanding its offer to consumers. In addition, as a strategy to reach residential complexes in times of mandatory quarantine, nine Mobile-Breden’s were deployed so that our consumers could have reliable, timely and safe access to their favorite products. In our International Businesses, the pandemic definitely forced us to transform the way we did our work - when everyone else was trying to keep their distance, we were trying to stay close to our customers! Through live broadcasting workshops, discussions, trainings and the development of graphic material to share with our clients, we were able to maintain the closeness in the virtual world. We boosted our business by entering new categories to get closer to more consumers, strengthening our communication strategy and seeking to be as efficient as possible in our operation.

At Team Solutions we continued to deepen our knowledge in lipids through applied research to launch more than 12 technological solutions in five categories. In Colombia alone we supported more than 50 brands in 2020, identifying lipid solutions tailored to each of our clients' products! At Team Solutions we will continue to accompany our customers by understanding consumer behaviour and choices amidst the pandemic and identifying the best way to innovate in their products, always taking into account the needs, functions and properties that consumers are looking for today.

The way we expanded our production capabilities through allied manufacturers to ensure agility in product innovation was also a huge challenge that we worked on in 2020, developing new category projects by successfully integrating all the work axes - development, production, supply and logistics to support business needs. This development, in line with our corporate purpose and connected to the pillars of health and nutrition and sustainability to achieve cleaner labels and environmentally friendly packaging, allowed us to generate a differential in the market, exploring and understanding how the market works with last-mile players and also in catalog sales. In the last three years, sales in new channels have grown more than 1145%, a trend that accelerated significantly in the last year. Through exploration and collaboration initiatives with our partners, we have come to identify new opportunities through real-time data analysis. All these efforts and learnings contribute to the further positioning of our brands to increase visibility and gain the trust of more and more online customers in the categories of the basic food basket.

We will seek to open the categories of interest in digital marketplaces during 2021 since these channels have served to experiment the launch of new categories, validating hypotheses and learning before entering the modern and traditional sales channels.

With new communication channels such as social networks and websites, we are also conquering new audiences and consumers with relevant content for everyday life, while ensuring the responsible treatment of their personal data.

During 2020, our campaigns reached an average of 8.8 million people per brand, showing our ads 233 million times to our audiences, made up of a community of 220 thousand followers on social networks. Olivetto® , for example, strengthened its positioning strategy as the brand that celebrates everyday food, registering around 25,000 monthly visits to its website, reaching an audience of around 270,000 people in its digital ecosystem. A study conducted by Dataplus found that Olivetto® is the #1 brand in awareness, preference and purchase intention in Colombia. Gourmet® turned Frito Experto into the second best-selling reference in its portfolio in record time thanks to a powerful 360° communication campaign. Likewise, with the launch of our own sales channels for the Vidalia®, Jappi®, Dagusto® y Olivetto® brands which closed the year with more than 16 thousand user registrations, we continued to find new ways to get to know our consumers through the digital universe, understand their needs and develop innovative solutions.

Through ReINNventar we encourage and recognize innovation in processes as well as products, services and business models, annually receiving applications from the projects, initiatives and products considered most innovative for their impact on the environment, people, growth and digital effort to continue transforming our value chain. In 2019 alone we estimated savings of COP$2 billion pesos from process innovations! 32 of the 62 projects submitted in the first round were pre-selected, and then the eight finalists presented their initiatives to the entire organization to define the winning projects by vote. Take a look at some of this year's projects in the following video.

Undoubtedly the main lesson that this year left us is that despite the adversities and the situation experienced by Covid-19 worldwide, innovation must continue and is a source of constant growth, showing us that our creativity, passion and ability to execute allow us to transform ourselves even in the most difficult situations in order to move forward.

Aware of the major problems we face today as humanity associated with health, nutrition, eating habits and lifestyles, our corporate purpose of nurturing a better tomorrow inspires us to design products, services and solutions that, in line with the scientific consensus and international recommendations, favor proper nutrition and the well-being of consumers, allowing us to anticipate new legislation related to food labeling and marketing, among others.

In Chile, BredenMaster's Home Bakery line is a line of six types of breads completely free of advisory seals to accompany the different moments of consumption, ensuring quality products, flavor and presentation, in compliance with the recommended parameters of sodium, sugars and fats by Chilean legislation. In Colombia, we participated from the beginning in the self-regulation commitment for frontal labeling to provide clear, accurate, complete and comparable information to our consumers, including GDA nutritional batteries in 82% of the consumer product portfolio, 28% more than four years ago. Campi® renewed its brand image and labels to communicate clearer, cleaner and more accurate information to consumers, who are increasingly interested in knowing the ingredients and components of their food. With the NIK Nutritional Index Knowledge tool developed by Team Solutions, which allows us to analyze how nutritious a product is, what type of seals its label would have and how consumers would be impacted by the appearance of these seals, we are also helping our clients to adjust and improve the nutritional profiles of their products. By the end of 2020, more than 25 brands already had the support of Team Solutions working to eliminate frontal advisory seals, through technological solutions developed from lipids and fats. Our efforts, however, are not limited only in communication, but in continuous development to improve formulations with the elimination and replacement of inputs and ingredients with more natural and better quality alternatives.

In 2020, we took important steps in Colombia, bringing to the market the new line of spreads of our Campi® brand, which, thanks to SaltyGood technology, now has up to 50% less sodium than its previous formulation, while maintaining the delicious flavor that identifies it, using natural flavors and colors. We also reduced the sodium content and eliminated partial hydrogenated fats (source of trans fatty acids) from several margarines for the Bakery business as part of the alignment to our internal nutrition and health parameters. On the other hand, we developed a new special oil for frying, Gourmet® Frito Experto, which achieves superior performance as it resists higher temperatures to guarantee crispy, golden and delicious frying without using artificial antioxidants such as TBHQ, which we also eliminated from Olivetto®'s entire line of frying oils. The Jappi® brand launched the first non-dairy oatmeal drink on the market in Colombia, which has an important nutritional contribution for our consumers, since in addition to the benefits of oats, it provides minerals such as calcium and is a good source of fiber, thus becoming a unique product in its category. Thus, we offer products that provide nutrients necessary for the proper functioning of our body, which responds to the second focus of our nutrition and health strategy. Finally, in the area of functional benefits, under the Vidalia® brand, we complemented the portfolio with two gluten-free functional breads that contribute to digestive health by being a source of prebiotic fiber and a delicious dark chocolate rich in natural antioxidants, which help protect us from free radicals. These efforts led by Team Foods are in line with its vision of transforming food by offering health, nutrition and sustainability to improve the quality of life of the communities we serve.

Committed to the environment, and aware of the responsibility we have as producers in the food industry for our materials, packaging and containers, during 2020 we worked on different fronts to address this priority, knowing that there is much to do so we are constantly looking for alternatives, knowledge and opportunities for our products to be accompanied by high quality packaging that ensure the quality and safety of our products, are differential in design, communication and functionality, and at the same time, have the least possible impact on the environment.

In 2020, we launched the first bottle for the oil sector made of 100% post-consumer recycled material, becoming pioneers in this type of application and contributing to the environment. By 2021, we will avoid consuming more than 200 TON of virgin PET resin! We also made progress in strengthening the artwork development process with the objective of having packaging with clear, precise information adequately supported in an agile and safe manner.

Kardámili achieved 75% recyclability of its bottle, and BredenMaster is currently working to develop a materials and packaging strategy to accompany the products to the final consumer, taking into account that its sales before the pandemic were mainly in bulk. The presentations, designs, marketing and materials are all being reviewed and adjusted with the objective of certifying the packaging as 100% recyclable in the short term. We ensured that 100% of our margarine brands in Mexico, La Torre, Jacinta, Buttery, Delabuena, and La Cleta and Team Solutions products are packaged in 100% certified recycled cardboard boxes, allowing us to explore new communication alternatives to engage our customers and consumers to achieve their final recycling. On the Colombian Caribbean coast, we also launched ready-to-sell (RTS) soaps of the Oro® brand, discontinuing the sale of three references wrapped in plastic packaging. With this measure, we were able not only to contribute to the environment by preventing more than 848 thousand plastic wrappers from being put on the market, but also to generate greater brand recall and a better display in the traditional channel. We will continue working so that our packaging not only accompanies our products, but also plays a leading role in their success as levers of differentiation and relevance.

These initiatives also contribute to compliance with our legal obligations related to extended producer responsibility (EPR), which are currently being regulated in Colombia and Chile. In Colombia, we joined the Visión 30|30 collective through which we are working with more than 270 companies to strengthen the country's installed capacity for materials recovery and thus significantly increase recycling rates of materials and packaging. In Mexico, we are working hand in hand with businesses and their customers to anticipate potential obligations on this front, carrying out a complete diagnosis of our purchased materials and packaging placed on the market, understanding what alternatives currently exist to promote the use of post-consumer waste and how to raise awareness among our customers and consumers on this front. The second albora® call, which was launched at the end of 2020, seeks precisely to identify opportunities at a global level that will allow us to improve the circularity of our materials and packaging by solving specific challenges in each of our businesses.

Finally, the program to close the used cooking oil (UCO) cycle, created in 2015, continued to strengthen in Colombia, maintaining its leadership in the collection of this waste in industrial accounts and retailers and expanding its reach to the final consumer, reaching residential complexes. Through a strategic alliance with D1 supermarkets in Bogota, we currently have 280 collection points set up so that citizens can take their UCO in a closed plastic container to prevent it from being disposed of inadequately through drains that affect the water and sewage system and contaminate water sources. With the participation of 11 volunteers in the Manos Verdes Volunteering Program, we reached more than 400 people in Bogota, Barranquilla and Cali, finding that 67% of the people surveyed at the beginning did not know how to correctly dispose of the UCO, presenting a clear opportunity for future education.

¿Did you know that one liter of oil contaminates up to one thousand liters of water?

This program generates a double impact, since the UCO collected is used for the production of biodiesel, avoiding greater carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere compared to the use of traditional fossil fuels. In 2020, 717,680kg of UCO were collected from more than 2,463 locations, avoiding the contamination of more than 780 million liters of water and avoiding the emission of 1.7 million kg of CO2 into the atmosphere, equivalent to the emissions of driving 372 cars constantly for a full year. In total, Team Foods’ circular economy program has saved more than three million liters of water since it started in 2016, seeking that not a single drop of oil contaminates water or people's health.