You can tell a good story only if you know the main characters. That’s why it’s important as a sustainable entrepreneur to be well aware of who and what you are working with. Where do your ingredients come from, how were they produced and by whom? Japanese chefs like to say: ‘80% of cooking takes place outside the kitchen’. In other words, they give credit to all the work done by fishers, farmers, growers as well as the soy sauce makers and their knife sharpeners. The same is true of a bakery: everyone along the chain contributes to the bread or pastries that you sell. That is why it is important to get to know your suppliers’ story. Plunge into the philosophy of the farmer, check where your ingredients are grown and find out how they end up at your bakery. Once you can tell the entire story from field to bakery and know every step in the cycle, you have full control over the quality. Therefore, at Debic we attach great importance to traceability and transparency: we always know where our milk comes from and how the dairy farmers work. Thus, we can be confident in letting you work with our products.

In order to enhance traceability and transparency, including towards your customers, it is useful to choose producers whose background you are familiar with. At Debic, for example, we work closely with our dairy farmers. We know the farmers and their cows. We know where these animals live, what they eat and that they are given as few antibiotics as possible. Every three days, the milk given by these cows is picked up from our members with milk trucks and processed at one of our 65 production sites worldwide. We know who provides our products and how these are processed: this allows us to guarantee the quality and to tell all about our product range. Make use of this sort of knowledge and share the story of transparency in your own supply chain.