Mantequerías Arias, the first Spanish cheese company to join the B Corp community (CSR-Good Government) :: CSR Commitment

Mantequerías Arias joins a growing community of companies, which includes more than 8,000 companies around the world, of which more than 270 are in our country, which seek with their performance to be the best for the world. That is, contributing to business success being measured not only by economic benefits, but also by the well-being of people, communities and the planet.

The B Corp standard measures management performance across the company and covers five key areas of impact: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. A distinction awarded by B Lab to leading companies in their social and environmental commitment after passing a rigorous evaluation process through which companies must provide evidence of their good practices and incorporate their legal commitment to social purpose in their statutes.

Along these lines, Mantequerías Arias’ commitment to social and environmental well-being framed in its Oxygen Corporate Social Responsibility Plan is notable. This plan contemplates four large interest groups that are in turn the four pillars on which it is structured: consumers, suppliers, employees and the environment.

Why are we B Corp?

Mantequerías Arias, as stated in its Oxygen program, is a B Corp because:

• It seeks to offer the best possible products from a nutritional and design point of view, which provide healthy and responsible pleasure. Like the development of the Positive Food concept, which is based on the fact that to have a good diet you do not have to give up pleasure, but rather have a varied and balanced diet, where cheese plays a fundamental role both from a nutritional and health point of view. satisfaction and pleasure.
• It provides quality service to its clients, which has been endorsed in 2023 by having obtained first position in the Supply Chain benchmarking ranking prepared annually by AECOC, and where the main distributors evaluate manufacturers in 8 major areas of their management: Ordering, delivery, support, documentation, billing, sharing systems, planning and reaction and collaboration.
• It promotes responsible purchases and collaborates with its raw material suppliers in the development of sustainable agricultural sectors with two fundamental pillars: the Responsible Purchasing Charter and the Charter of Good Animal Management Practices.
• It works to reduce as much as possible or eliminate the environmental footprint of its activity with increasingly demanding compliance objectives. A good example of this commitment is the achievement in 2023 of the first star in the AECOC Lean & Green Program for the reduction of greenhouse gases in its logistics processes by at least 20%.
• It promotes the well-being of its collaborators as much as possible with safety, equality, conciliation practices… Practices supported by certifications such as Top Employer, EFR, Distinctive of Equality in the Company (DIE), Great Place To Work (GPTW) or audits continuous improvements to the health and safety management model.
• And it takes care of its relationships with society and the communities in which it operates, focusing on the most disadvantaged groups of people and people with some type of disability, and it does so by collaborating with entities such as the Food Bank, Prodis Foundation, Down Syndrome or Red Cross, among others.

Belén Viloria, executive director of B Lab Spain, states: “We are delighted to welcome Mantequerías Arias to the B Corp community. This community works to reduce inequality, respect and regenerate the environment, strengthen communities and create high-quality jobs with dignity and purpose. Mantequerías Arias demonstrates with his example how these results can be achieved.”

For its part, Javier Roza, general director of Mantequerías Arias, assures: “At Mantequerías Arias we have been carrying out sustainable, transparent and responsible management for a long time, with the aim of generating a positive impact in all our activities, based on our commitment to people and the planet. For this reason, our management not only seeks the best for the company, but also for our employees, for our suppliers, for our clients, for the communities in which we work and for the environment. And as a result of this responsible management all these years, we now join the B Corp movement that brings together companies with a purpose. Mantequerías Arias is today a B Corp for everything we have been doing throughout our history.”