We continued to hold regular talks with public and private benchmark institutions in the three countries where we do business to learn and share knowledge about food, nutrition and health.
In Portugal, Pingo Doce is an active member of APED (the Portuguese Association of Retailing Companies), participating in technical committees, including those dedicated to food quality, among others. Pingo Doce maintained several long-standing partnerships with organisations that aim at contributing to healthy eating, as a pillar of public health, such as the Portuguese Directorate-General for Health (within the framework of the National Programme for the Promotion of Healthy Eating1), the Portuguese Coeliac Association, and the Portuguese Nutrition Association. In the latter case, Pingo Doce sponsored the XXII Congress of Food and Nutrition.
Pingo Doce also collaborated with the University of Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico (School of Engineering and Technology) in the “Co-creation and TecInnov” workshop, which challenged students to find alternatives to carrageenan (E407) and processed Eucheuma seaweed (E407a), additives used as thickeners, stabilisers and gelling agents. Also within the scope of its relationship with the Academia, Pingo Doce participated in the Working Group to Support the Updating of the Food Composition Table (GTTCA – Grupo de Trabalho para Apoio à Atualização da Tabela da Composição de Alimentos), organised by the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute), for collaboration in the identification of food products and their nutritional profiles.
In Poland, the second edition of the Nutri-Score nutrition education campaign was held, after being presented on World Consumer Rights Day. As part of this initiative, which saw the participation of the National Consumer Federation, the Nutri-Score Coalition was formalised, a cooperation agreement between several retailers and food producers that use the voluntary Nutri-Score label on the packaging of their products (such as Biedronka, Carrefour, Auchan, Zabka, Nestlé and Danone).
Details about other partnerships involving Pingo Doce and Biedronka can be found on the Jerónimo Martins website2.
1 Available at www.alimentacaosaudavel.dgs.pt/
2 Available at https://www.jeronimomartins.com/en/responsibility/promoting-health-through-food/communication/