As part of our responsibility strategy, we establish partnerships with different institutions to identify and address challenges of social cohesion in the countries where we do business. The priority areas we have defined are healthy eating and lifestyles, promoting reading habits, and social inclusion.
Between 2015 and 2020, Biedronka supported the Zielona Kraina (Green Earth) programme in collaboration with Green Factory and Instytut Żywności i Żywienia (Polish National Food and Nutrition Institute), bringing together more than 30,000 students in a total of 1,517 workshops. In line with the school programmes and eating patterns recommended by experts, the initiative aims at educating children about healthy eating habits.
In Portugal, and since 2016, the Group has taken part in the Eco-Schools’ programme Alimentação Saudável e Sustentável (Healthy and Sustainable Food), promoted by ABAE – Associação Bandeira Azul da Europa (European Blue Flag Association), aimed at raising awareness among students about topics such as food, nutrition and the sustainability of agrifood production.
The participating teams receive financial donations, and the winning schools receive prizes. Young people respond to challenges such as healthier food choices, how to reuse part of usually discarded food and the Mediterranean diet as seen through artistic expression.
In 2021, Ara joined the Misión Nutrición (Mission Nutrition), a campaign to fight malnutrition, a public health problem aggravated by the lack of quality information on healthy eating habits. Misión Nutrición assesses the nutritional needs in various regions and identifies the foods sold at Ara that can meet those needs.
Ara is also part of the Gran Alianza por la Nutrición en Colombia (Colombia’s Grand Alliance for Nutrition), led by the Office of the First Lady, which aims to fight food insecurity and improve the nutritional status of the population.
In 2021, and for the fourth year running, Pingo Doce joined the World Bike Tour. This event raises awareness of the need for regular physical activity, healthy habits, sustainable transport, and renewable energies.
The event took place in Lisbon and was attended by around 1,900 cycle tourists, including children who also in a healthy eating workshop. Pingo Doce also offered 100 entries to employees and customers.
Learn more about Ara’s involvement in Misión Nutrición and the impact it hopes to have on Colombian families.
Promoting children’s literature is one of the areas on which the Group focuses as a way to encourage family reading habits from an early age, helping to develop child literacy and contributing to more informed societies.
Pingo Doce and Biedronka organise children’s literature competitions that promote new authors and illustrators every year. The winners of the two stages of the competition – writing and illustration – are guaranteed publication of their work, and the book is sold exclusively in the banners’ stores.
In Pingo Doce Children’s Literature Prize and Biedronka Piorko Prize, each winner receives a cash prize of around 25,000 euros. The Biedronka Children’s Literature Prize has been sponsored by the Children’s Ombudsman in Poland since the first edition in 2015. Since the prizes were created, more than 135,000 prize-winning books have been sold in Portugal and more than 350,000 in Poland.
Books are also sold at very affordable prices. Between 2005 and 2021, Pingo Doce launched more than 440 exclusive titles and helped more than 2 million books reach the hands of Portuguese families.
In 2021, Biedronka launched the book Protect endangered species about endangered native species in Poland. The initiative helped raise over 328,000 euros for Salamander (Polish Society for Nature Conservation), which focuses its efforts on the conservation of species such as the European bison, the wolf, the lynx, the hedgehog, the pygmy-owl and the porpoise – the heroes of the story.
The book launched by Biedronka in late 2020 sold 276,000 copies and generated 501,000 euros in meals for disadvantaged children supported by the NGO Polish Humanitarian Action.
Pingo Doce donated more than 98,000 euros to LPN (Portuguese League for Nature Protection) in 2021. The money was raised in 2020 with the sale of about 197,000 copies of the book. LPN involved over 660 students from 18 schools in education and environmental awareness.
This campaign was launched in 2021 and starred eight soft toy animals in addition to the book. More than 110,000 euros were raised, half of which used for collecting marine litter. The other half was donated to the environmental education project “In Search of the Usual Suspects”, promoted by ABAE (European Blue Flag Association), which encompasses around 2,000 schools.
To foster social entrepreneurship and the financial sustainability of third-sector organisations, Pingo Doce sells products developed by institutions that are dedicated to fighting social exclusion. Since 2011, the company has actively supported CEERDL – Centro de Educação Especial Rainha Dona Leonor, a cooperative that provides services to improve the quality of life of 500 people with a disability or mental illness.
This successful partnership has led to increased production which, in turn, has helped to improve social services and to integrate people with disabilities. Pingo Doce buys about 60,000 mono-lily bouquets from CEERDL every year, which accounts for around 22% of CEERDL’s flower farming revenue.
In another type of initiative, in 2021 Hebe donated 33,000 units of cosmetic products to 1,300 women from 53 institutions that assist single mothers. This initiative results from a partnership with the Torf Corporation (a Polish cosmetics manufacturer) and the Veritas Foundation, which supports people in a position of economic vulnerability.
