April 10, 2026
By: Kelli Barry
What You’ll Learn
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Sustainability is fundamentally about building resilient agrifood systems, ensuring food production remains reliable and viable across generations.
- The agrifood system is highly interconnected and a major contributor to global emissions, creating opportunities for impact across the full value chain—from agriculture to feed, processing, and distribution.
- Meaningful progress depends on responsible operations, strong partnerships, and continuous improvement, with feed and ingredient producers playing a critical role in driving system-wide efficiency and sustainability.
Food production has always been about the future.
For generations, agriculture has operated on a simple principle: ensuring that what we do today can continue to be done tomorrow. The ability to produce food reliably - year after year- depends on healthy ecosystems, efficient production systems, and strong partnerships across the entire food value chain.
Today, that principle is often discussed under the umbrella of sustainability. At its core, however, it is really about building resilient food systems that can continue supporting people, agriculture, and companion animals for generations to come.
As part of the broader agrifood system, companies across the value chain play an important role in supporting that long-term resilience.
Understanding the Agrifood System
The global food system, referred to as the “agrifood” system in Crumpler et. al., 2024, includes far more than farming alone. It encompasses the entire network involved in producing, processing, and delivering food products, including:- Crop production
- Ingredient production
- Feed manufacturing
- Livestock and aquaculture systems
- Companion animal nutrition
- Transportation and distribution
- Food processing
These emissions occur across the entire food value chain, from agricultural production and land use to manufacturing, processing, transportation, and retail. Understanding how these systems operate helps identify opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impacts while continuing to produce the food the world depends on.
Where Our Industry Fits
Feed manufacturers and ingredient suppliers play an important role within the agrifood system. Feed and ingredient production connects agricultural resources with livestock and aquaculture systems that produce food, while also supporting the nutrition and wellbeing of companion animals.Because feed production sits at the intersection of agriculture and food supply chains, improvements in areas such as:
- Ingredient sourcing
- Manufacturing efficiency
- Energy use
- Transportation logistics
- Supply chain transparency
While no single company can solve global challenges alone, businesses throughout agriculture and food supply chains can help drive meaningful progress through responsible operations and continuous improvement.
Our Approach to Responsible Production
Building resilient food systems requires thoughtful management of resources, collaboration across supply chains, and a commitment to continuous improvement. Our approach is guided by three key pillars.Environmental Responsibility
Responsible production begins with understanding and managing the environmental impacts of our operations. Our efforts focus on improving efficiency and transparency across our manufacturing processes and supply chains.
Key focus areas include:
- Measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions
- Improving energy efficiency in manufacturing operations
- Supporting responsible sourcing of agricultural ingredients
- Evaluating environmental impacts across product life cycles
Responsible Partnerships
Food production depends on strong partnerships across the entire value chain. Farmers, suppliers, manufacturers, and customers all play a role in improving how food is produced and delivered.
We work with partners throughout the industry to:
- Support responsible sourcing practices
- Promote transparency in supply chains
- Align with recognized industry standards
- Encourage continuous improvement in production systems
Continuous Improvement
Responsible production is an ongoing process of learning, measurement, and improvement. Our approach emphasizes:
- Data-driven decision making
- Evaluation of environmental performance
- Adoption of new technologies and practices
- Transparency in reporting progress
Looking Ahead
The global food system faces complex challenges, including population growth, changing resource availability, and evolving expectations around environmental stewardship. Addressing these challenges requires innovation and collaboration across the entire agrifood system. From the livestock and aquaculture systems that help feed the world to the companion animals that enrich our daily lives, every part of the value chain contributes to building systems that are productive, resilient, and capable of supporting future generations. By focusing on responsible production, strong partnerships, and continuous improvement, we aim to help ensure that the work we do today can continue to support these systems tomorrow.Interested in learning more? Check out these sources which were consulted during the creation of this blog post:
Crumpler, K., Wybieralska, A., Roffredi, L., Tanganelli, E., Angioni, C., Prosperi, P., Umulisa, V., Dahlet, G., Nelson, S., Rai, N., Schiettecatte, L.S., Salvatore, M., Wolf, J. & Bernoux, M. 2024. Agrifood systems in nationally determined contributions: Global analysis – Key findings. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd3210en