FAQ

Harmony is Mondelēz International’s European sustainable wheat sourcing program. Co-created along the wheat supply chain with farmers, cooperatives and millers, the Harmony program seeks the commitment of partner farmers to follow more sustainable practices to cultivate wheat. The Harmony farmers choose to conserve water, care for the soil, protect biodiversity and reduce carbon emissions, and stand to increase income by doing so. .

Created as the first program of its kind in 2008 with just a handful of farmers, it now collaborates with over 1,100 farmers across 7 European countries. The Harmony program is also helping Mondelēz International to deliver on its Snacking Made Right mission, to lead the future of snacking by offering snacks the right way for both people and planet, along with contributing to its global goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its whole value chain by 2050.

The program was set up more than 16 years ago in France by our employees who helped us create a vision that would improve our business, our biscuits, and our impact on the environment.

We know from life cycle analyses that most of the environmental impact of our products comes from the raw materials. Wheat is one of the largest food crops in the world, but wheat farming is particularly vulnerable to climate change. This is why we created this innovative wheat program, which combines partnership with farmers, cooperatives and millers, quality wheat cultivation and respect for local biodiversity.

As Europe’s largest biscuit baker (Nielsen data Sale Value 2023 – Europe), we can play a role in tackling challenges like climate change and resource shortages by promoting more sustainable farming practices and improving biodiversity in our supply chain. In doing so, we contribute to creating a fairer, more transparent, and integrated supply chain, in which good quality for consumers means a good impact on farmers and society.

With Regenerative Agriculture at its heart, a holistic approach to farming which aims to produce high quality crops while also restoring the natural rhythm of our surrounding ecosystem, the Harmony program is based on three key areas: the environment, the farmer community, and our consumers.

• Environment: The Harmony program aims to help mitigate climate change and reverse biodiversity losses by implementing a strengthened charter of farming practices. These practices will aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as taking the most ambitious approach to biodiversity protection in European wheat farming by widening action from Harmony plot to whole farms and from pollinators to overall wildlife. They will also aim to eliminate the most damaging pesticides.
• Farmers: To support Harmony farmers in their transition to Regenerative Agriculture, we created the Harmony Academy. The Academy provides farmers with a holistic package of digital and on the ground training. In addition, digital tools help farmers record farming practices, calculate environmental impact KPIs and improve the efficiency of reporting. These tools empower farmers to measure their own environmental impact, informing future decision making on farms.
• Consumers: To help consumers engage in sustainability and biodiversity protection, in 2023 we launched our first consumer initiative to help preserve the population of wild bees and drive positive business impact for our local biscuit brands. A separate pioneering program, run by Mondelēz International’s expert research team, will also aim to show the benefits of more sustainable practices on wheat quality.

The Harmony program is a partnership with farmers in order to grow wheat according to sustainable agricultural practices that are more respectful of the environment and local biodiversity. The good agricultural practices of the Harmony program cover every stage in the wheat life cycle and incorporates:

• Agricultural practices that are more environmentally friendly. Examples: Selecting plots for growing wheat based on previous cultivation, wheat varieties and tillage in order to ensure the quality of our wheat and limit the future use of treatments, in particular against Fusariosis; Adapting the date and density of sowings using decision-making tools to optimize growing conditions and limit the use of treatments.
• Specific Harmony requirements for local biodiversity. Our Harmony charter requires that each partner farmer sets up at least one action in favour of biodiversity. Example: Preserve local biodiversity by dedicating 3% of Harmony wheat plots to a flowered area to attract and feed pollinating insects.

At Mondelēz International, we want the wheat we grow under the Harmony Charter to be accessible to as many people as possible, while reducing the environmental footprint of our biscuits. We can achieve a stronger environmental impact by offering a more environmentally friendly wheat across all our products, rather than focusing on one small organic range.

The Harmony Charter represents a middle ground between conventional and organic agriculture. We promote the responsible use of pesticides by encouraging practices that prevent crop diseases, for example: diversifying crop rotations to cut the cycle of diseases, selecting wheat varieties that are resistant to diseases, and using digital tools to use pesticides only at the right moment with the right dose.

Compliance with the Harmony Charter is ensured via:

• Technical advice and training provided by storage bodies to farmers at each key stage of the wheat cultivation
• Tracking of every intervention conducted on a wheat plot via the crop sheets, which contain a statement of every treatment applied, the dose, and the reason why
• External audits are organized every year by independent and certified organizations (SGS and Bureau Veritas) for 10% of farmers and 100% of storage bodies/cooperatives and millers. The cooperatives themselves also conduct internal inspections of farmers.

Our supply policy completely excludes Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). As part of the Harmony program, we use around 30 different varieties of wheat, which enables us to create blends that are suitable for our various recipes. Our partner farmers are required to select certified or first-generation non-GMO wheat seeds that are recommended for their disease resistance and suitable for our biscuits’ production.

Our partner farmers receive a premium per ton of wheat produced to reward them for their compliance to a set of more sustainable wheat farming practices.

Harmony partner farmers are part of the Harmony journey not only for the premium but also because it:

• Promotes their industry and is a true co-partnership where the charter of farming practices is developed and reviewed with the wheat supply chain
• Allows them to know what they are growing their wheat for and where it goes i.e., a local Mondelēz biscuits plant close to their fields
• Boosts pride to participate in a sustainable program that provides wheat to manufacture consumers’ favourite biscuits

Harmony Ambition 2030 is the next phase of our Harmony program, focusing on making a lasting change across three key areas: the environment, the farmer community, and our consumers. With Regenerative Agriculture at its heart, a holistic approach to farming which aims to produce high quality crops while also restoring the natural rhythm of our surrounding ecosystem, this next chapter aims to mitigate climate change and reverse biodiversity losses, support all Harmony farmers in transitioning to regenerative practices, and invest in research looking to demonstrate that more sustainable wheat is also better-quality wheat (vs. conventional wheat).

Harmony Ambition 2030 is a key part of Mondelēz International’s long-term business growth ambition and mission to offer consumers the right snack, for the right moment, made the right way.

Our Harmony farmers grow wheat according to the sustainable agricultural practices developed in the Harmony Charter. Once harvested, the wheat is transported to storage locations and then to the mills. The miller grinds and processes the wheat into flour.

Our goal is to grow 100% of our wheat volume needed for our European biscuits production under this Regenerative Harmony Charter by 2030.

The purpose of the Harmony program is to give priority to environmental impact and local sourcing. We want to make sure that enough wheat, equivalent to our volume needs for all our European brands, is grown sustainably by the farmers we work with. During the production process, Harmony wheat flour and non-Harmony wheat flour can be mixed, especially in the event of climatic problems or changes in demand, which do not allow us to obtain the quantities of Harmony wheat for meet our production needs

Today, we can guarantee that 99% of the wheat volumes needed for our annual biscuit production in the EU are grown under the Harmony program (2023 figures). In 2023 alone, Harmony partner farmers grew ~57,000 hectares of Harmony wheat while ~401,000 tons of Harmony wheat were harvested for our European biscuit brands, including LU, Oro, LiGA, Opavia or Fontaneda.

Goal and reported information for wheat volume sourced under Harmony is partially based on a mass balance approach, which means that, for a minor portion of our wheat flour volume needed to produce products under our biscuit brands in Europe, the equivalent volume of wheat needed for that portion is grown under the Harmony program, but not used to produce our biscuits.

The Harmony program was developed together with NGOs, agronomists, environment specialists, farmers. Underpinned by a charter of 37 sustainable practices, the program seeks to:

• Minimize the usage of pesticides and fertilizers by encouraging the selection of resilient wheat varieties as well as crop rotation
• Reduce carbon emissions
• Preserve water
• Enhance local biodiversity
• Encourage reasoned treatment only as a last resort

Every year, our Harmony charter is reviewed to fuel a continuous improvement approach. Aim is to incorporate increasingly demanding practices to further reduce our environmental footprint while guaranteeing quality. Harmony has developed a strong and unique data reporting system on farming practices and ensures full traceability.

External audits are conducted every year among the Harmony partners to guarantee compliance with the Harmony charter. These audits are carried out by independent and certified organizations - SGS and Bureau Veritas - on 100% of mills, 100% of storage bodies and 10% of partner farmers. In 2023, over 270 audits were performed across Europe.

Click here to learn more on our Charter.

The Harmony program collaborates with more than 1,100 farmers in 7 countries across Europe: Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Poland, Italy, and Spain.

The farmers are located as close as possible to our biscuit factories to shorten transport time and limit the impact of our logistic on the environment.