As a large Australian company that employs more than 200 people and has been operating for more than 20 years, Bakers Maison takes corporate social responsibility extremely seriously.

Our long-standing commitment to corporate social responsibility starts with green initiatives and responsible environmental management practices and policies and extends to human rights, ethical sourcing, animal welfare and adhering to mandated standards around producing packaging, country of origin labelling, and genetically modified foods. Continue reading to find out more about corporate social responsibility at Bakers Maison.

As a leader in the foodservice industry, everything that Bakers Maison does as a company is guided by our unwavering, company wide commitment to impacting our environment as little as possible with our operations.

As well as large-scale responsible environmental management practices such as converting to renewable energy resources, reducing energy consumption and emissions, and reducing the amount of water we use, internally we focus on the small things that reduce our impact on the environment. This includes less paper, enviro pens, electronic approval forms, a herb and vegetable garden in the carpark, biodegradable bags, and electric cars for staff.

Bakers Maison guides all 200 plus staff members on how to work in ways that reduce their environmental footprint by adopting waste reducing practices and using eco-friendly materials. Our environmental policy extends to encouraging and helping all staff to adopt simple environmentally aware practices outside of work, from conserving water and electricity to minimising food wastage.

We implement our environmental policy through responsible environmental management practices, which guide everything we do at Bakers Maison. From the production of our products through to how we source and manage our energy consumption, at Bakers Maison we work hard to ensure that our business operations have as little impact as possible on the environment.

We are constantly assessing and investing in strategies to minimise our carbon footprint, including converting all 12 of our ovens from electricity to gas, replacing factory lighting with LED lights, and converting refrigerant gas from R22 to ammonia gas. We also have installed 1,900m2 of solar panels on the roof of our facility in order to generate our own electricity supply. These panels generate 200kVA of renewable energy, target the energy intensive process of cooling hot baked goods, and provide 15 per cent of the energy we use to produce our products.

And speaking of our products, Bakers Maison’s range of breads and pastries are snap frozen products. This means they benefit the environment by reducing food wastage due to their longer shelf life.

Ethical sourcing governs all purchasing decisions that we make at Bakers Maison. While Bakers Maison doesn’t grow or raise the food we serve, we have a responsibility to choose suppliers who treat animals well. We comply with Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines and are very selective when it comes to which suppliers we choose to partner with. For example, we source all shelled eggs and egg products exclusively from cage-free producers.

Across our business and our sourcing of the ingredients used to produce our variety of traditional French style breads, pastries and sweets, we strictly adhere to best practices in ethical sourcing. Ensuring animal welfare best practice requires vigilance across all levels of the supply chain, and ethical sourcing can add additional costs to a business like ours. But we wouldn’t have it any other way, and wherever possible we will make further changes to improve animal welfare.

Food scientists have been modifying the genetic make-up of plants and animals for generations in order to transfer desired characteristics (such as resistance to disease, higher yield, and higher quality) between living organisms.

The use of these genetically modified foods, or GM foods, in the food production and foodservice industries in Australia is governed by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). Bakers Maison adheres to and abides by all FSANZ regulations regarding the use of GM foods, as outlined under Standard 1.5.2 – Food produced using Gene Technology in the Food Standards Code.

Treating people, both our employees, our external partners and our customers, with respect and dignity and operating ethically are core values at Bakers Maison. We are committed to working with our external partners to promote human rights and ethical sourcing in our supply chain. We work hard at ensuring that human rights are respected, understood and upheld throughout our supply chain.

Bakers Maison considers the social and environmental practices of suppliers before we choose to engage with them. We are committed to responsible sourcing of products and have a very stringent selection process that dictates who we will and won’t work with.

Today consumers have a strong desire to know where their food comes from. Bakers Maison has been a staunch supporter of the popular Australian Made campaign and the instantly recognisable, green and gold Australian Made, Australian Grown logo since we launched our business in 1998. We proudly comply with all Country of Origin labelling requirements, as mandated by the Australian Government.

At Bakers Maison we understand the benefits of sourcing and utilising local products wherever possible for the creation of our selection of quality breads, pastries and sweets, and the positive impact doing so has for our customers. Almost all of our ingredients are sourced from top quality, ethical Australian suppliers; the few that aren’t, are flown in from New Zealand.