ESG Development in Food & Beverage update

This week, we return to our ESG Development Heatmaps updates, focusing this time on the Mexican Food & Beverage sector. As we have done previously, we have focused only on (1) companies listed on the Mexican stock exchanges and (2) the materials publicly disclosed by those companies.

Food & Beverage

Source: Publicly available company materials.

What can we see in this heatmap?

1. Four companies updated their materiality analyses in 2021 (Arca Continental, Bafar, Coca-Cola FEMSA, and FEMSA).
2. Gruma presented its materiality analysis for the first time.
3. FEMSA presented clearly identified KPIs for all its material issues for the first time.
4. Two more companies formed ESG committees (Bachoco and Gruma).
5. Bafar, Cuervo, and Gruma mapped their contributions to the SDGs for the first time.
6. Coca-Cola FEMSA, Gruma, and Arca Continental are the first companies in this sector to align their reporting with TCFD standards.
7. Two companies aligned with CDP (Bafar and FEMSA).
8. Gruma became a UN Global Compact signatory.
9. Two new reports were published under the GRI methodology (Coca-Cola FEMSA and Gruma).
10. Arca Continental, Gruma, and Herdez reported SASB indicators, joining FEMSA (the only company to do so last year).

This was a year of good progress in this sector. Several companies that already had ESG strategies, upped their game (updating their materiality analyses, aligning with international initiatives, formalizing KPIs for their material issues, among others). Some companies which were lagging, started to formalize sustainability efforts. 73% of these companies have a formal materiality analysis now, 82% have formal ESG reporting.

Areas of opportunity naturally still exist, and there are still a few companies that are materially lagging their peers (possibly due to having low stock liquidity and therefore little pressure from investors).

I hope you found this interesting. As usual, if there is anything we can help you with, or if there is an ESG topic you would like to know more about, please let us know.

Best,

Marimar

CEO, Miranda ESG