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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4986f600-ec33-11e5-bb79-2303682345...
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THE MONDAY INTERVIEW
Adam Thomson
The head of the French foodmaker says the discipline of rock climbing improves his judgment
Emmanuel Faber does not like the way the global food industry is going. He considers a major risk the fact that just one of thousands
of species of plant accounts for 40 per cent of North Americas tomato consumption, even though management books teach that
standardisation equals efficiency.
He rejects the textbook strategy of using size to squeeze more profit from small-scale producers. If your assumption is that by growing
and growing, you will be able to hit your small suppliers even harder...ultimately, that is a dead end, he says.
Neither of these opinions would seem misplaced at a meeting of slow-food proponents celebrating local
produce or a rally against Big Business. But as chief executive of Danone, the worlds biggest yoghurt maker, Mr Faber is striking out
over terrain rarely visited by his peers.
Then again, Mr Faber does not entirely fit the executive stereotype. On a spring afternoon, he sits in a small room at Danones Paris
headquarters wearing jeans and a white shirt open at the neck. His fingertips are covered in plasters, the consequence of a recent
rock-climbing trip in the French Alps.
As Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur and Nobel Peace laureate, who has worked with Danone on social
investment projects, says: I was surprised to see a person like him in a big multinational company.
Danones corporate social responsibility programme was well under way by October 2014 when Mr Faber, who had been at the
company for 17 years, took over the top executive role from Franck Riboud, long-time chief executive and chairman, and son of the
founder.
But as only the third chief executive of the group in 60 years the other two were Ribouds he appears determined to help define his
leadership by pushing deeper. He talks about reforestation in Kenya, one of dozens of projects that have sprung from the Danone
Ecosystem Fund, the 100m fund that Danone shareholders created in 2009 out of group profits.
Recycling is a second big theme for Danone. We need one day to recycle more plastics than we are producing, he says. He advocates
multiple supply models, from contracts with big agro-business to small-scale farmers, to protect local production and community: Big
4/4/2016 11:52
Emmanuel Faber, Danone CEO: on the alert for blind spots - FT.com
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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4986f600-ec33-11e5-bb79-2303682345...
4/4/2016 11:52
Emmanuel Faber, Danone CEO: on the alert for blind spots - FT.com
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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4986f600-ec33-11e5-bb79-2303682345...
company jumped 10 per cent one day this month when a blog suggested that a deal with a European buyer was in the offing.
You are badly informed, he responds to questions about this, adding only: We dont need to go for a major acquisition to do what we
want to do.
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4/4/2016 11:52