Salus Sustainability Report 2021 - Report - Page 17
We live sustainably
We live sustainably
An interview with...
So raw material quality is especially important for Salus. But
how do you reconcile economy, ecology, and social aspects
when procuring your raw materials?
...
Dr Johannes Niebler,
Head of the Salus Research & Development Department
Herbal remedies for medicinal purposes have a long tradition,
and Salus is one of the pioneers in herbal medicine. How do
you still come up with new products?
J. Niebler: Nature offers a rich inventory of plants that can
be used for medicinal purposes. In product development, we
constantly find new substances, but also successfully use triedand-tested products for new and optimised formulations. Salus
has a long history of focusing on a mix of well-known local plants
of top quality and innovative, carefully researched and especially
potent novel plant materials. For example we use extracts from
ashwagandha and curcuma which in India have long been known
to have healing properties, but also a local plant like milk thistle,
to create complex formulations using modern extraction tech
nology to achieve the highest efficacy. And in the end, we want
the product to taste really good, so that people will actually like
to take it on a regular basis. Most of the time, the problem we are
faced with is that there are so many exciting and promising ideas
and approaches that we really have to consider carefully which
one we would like to pursue. Our work never gets boring.
J. Niebler: As a company, we have an important responsibility
towards our employees, nature, and society as a whole. With this
in mind, we assess each and every raw material on an individual
and holistic basis. Each raw material and each country of origin
is different. Let’s take bitter melon as an example, a raw material
used in our tablets and teas. What we often find is that the produce available in the market is contaminated with pesticides. As
a result, we often had problems sourcing this material. We now
try to grow it on our own at our trial cultivation site in Bergham,
Germany. After gathering some experience with this raw material,
we came to the conclusion that the climate here in Germany is
not ideal for cultivation. However, we managed to find a partner
organisation in India which now runs an organic bitter melon
cultivation site for our company. By signing purchase commitment agreements, we make sure that the growers will be paid a
pre-defined, fair price for a certain quantity, which allows them to
plan accordingly. And for us, on the other side, such a partnership
means that we can ensure that this raw material is available to us
at the exact same quality.
This sounds like an interesting project. Which role does sustain
ability play for product development?
J. Niebler: We try to make development as a whole, i.e. our
processes as such, more sustainable. Let me give you an example:
When cutting a raw material, we have different types of cuts,
such as rough cuts, fine cuts, and powder. If cutting produces a
lot of powder, for example, the material is not suitable for tea
production, and our department will try to find different uses.
After all, this is still the same high-quality raw material — just in
a different form. Some of the powders are then used for making
extracts, for example, that are used in our capsules. Other powders go into tinctures.
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What are the biggest sustainability challenges you are working
on?
J. Niebler: Our biggest challenge is that we use numerous raw
materials, but some in only very small quantities. We are a
medium-sized company, and, unfortunately, cannot run dedicated
projects such as the bitter melon cultivation for each and every
of the more than 200 raw materials we use. This is why we have
long-term partnerships with our raw material providers that are
based on mutual trust and shared values regarding cultivation.
In the next few years, controlling the compliance with social
standards across the entire supply chain will be one of the key
challenges that we will be working on in order to continuously
improve our performance. I think that we have already achieved
quite a lot in this regard, especially when we decided to start our
own cultivation projects.
And what about packaging?
J. Niebler: This is a crucial topic! But there are many aspects to
be considered when it comes to sustainability. For our tonic
bottles, for example, we made the conscious decision to use
glass, because it can be recycled and provides the best-possible
protection for our product. However, we have to admit that glass
is fairly heavy to transport, which in turn produces additional
emissions. Another example would be the fact that our tea is individually packaged. At first, it may not be obvious why individual
packaging makes sense for us. However, we have to consider that
our customers normally do not drink the entire box at once, but
would still like their tea to be fresh and delicious after six months.
So if the packaging does not act as a barrier and customers throw
it out instead of drinking it as a result, way more resources are
wasted compared to packaging it individually in the first place.
Still, we want our individual packaging to be as sustainable as possible. In addition to paper as a packaging material, we also need a
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material that acts as a barrier and helps retain active ingredients
and flavour. We are currently testing new approaches and hope
to be able to optimise our individual packaging from an ecolog
ical point of view. We recently started our own sustainability
department, which will focus on numbers behind these kinds of
trade-offs and support us when deciding which packaging makes
the most sense ecologically speaking, but, at the same time,
offers maximum product protection.
And what is your personal sustainability goal for 2021?
J. Niebler: I plan to use an electric scooter for short distances to
allow for emission-free and economical transportation — I really
look forward to making that purchase soon..
