At a recent sustainability event in Beijing, a representative from Foshan Haitian Flavouring And Food Company Ltd. outlined the company's approach to embedding ESG principles across its supply chain. The company views sustainability as a core strategic priority, focusing not only on its own operations but, more broadly, on the entire supply chain ecosystem.
To bridge the gap between complex ESG frameworks like governance, risk management, and target-setting, and the practical understanding of supply chain partners, the company uses two tangible, everyday items: the Foshan Haitian bottle and the soy sauce itself. This approach transforms abstract concepts into actionable, visual steps.
For years, Foshan Haitian has applied the 5R principle (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Regenerate, Reject) to its green packaging design. A significant advancement came from aligning with the global "Golden Design Principles" promoted by the consumer goods industry. By 2025, four new product packaging designs were included in the CGF 2025 Golden Design Principles Case Collection, and the company joined the CGF's "Golden Design Principles Accelerator Area" to support industry-wide transformation, moving from a follower to a leader in this space.
The company's efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of plastic bottles are a collaborative effort with its supply chain. Instead of receiving finished bottles from suppliers, which are bulky and inefficient to transport, Foshan Haitian and its suppliers established a "factory-within-a-factory" model. Suppliers now deliver compact, high-density preforms, and the blow-molding process is completed at the company's Gaoming campus. This redesign significantly improves logistics efficiency and reduces transportation carbon emissions. This is complemented by a multi-modal transport strategy and the use of new energy heavy-duty trucks to further optimize carbon reduction across the logistics network.
On the recycling end, Foshan Haitian launched a systematic bottle collection program. In the first five months, 100,000 bottles were collected from collection points set up in factory and office areas with employee participation. These bottles are sent to specialized facilities, processed into fabric, and then made into work uniforms, aprons, and canvas bags. Roughly six bottles produce one apron, and eight bottles make one work uniform. Currently, over 3,000 employees at the Gaoming factory wear uniforms made from recycled bottles, with a total of 10,000 such uniforms deployed on the production line, now costing the same as standard uniforms. The company also partners with recyclers on a "Reshape Future" green packaging initiative, introducing a bottle-recycling points program for consumers to encourage green consumption habits, creating a closed loop that connects the factory, employees, and consumers.
In the realm of glass bottle upgrades, Foshan Haitian pursues a dual strategy of internal innovation and supply chain empowerment. The company actively redesigns molds to optimize bottle shapes, achieving weight reduction and lower carbon emissions through lightweight design. Concurrently, specialized carbon management and environmental protection teams are deployed to work with upstream packaging suppliers, providing full-process technical and management support to drive green upgrades across the entire packaging supply chain.
Beyond hardware improvements, Foshan Haitian uses the soy sauce itself as a vehicle to close the ESG value loop at the consumer level, addressing the core challenge of driving industry-wide ESG implementation. The company's underlying philosophy is to start with the end consumer's green demand and transmit it back through the entire value chain. This led to the pioneering launch of the industry's first carbon-reduced soy sauce products: Haitian Carbon-Reduced Organic Soy Sauce and Haitian Carbon-Reduced Gluten-Free Premium Soy Sauce. These products achieve full-chain carbon reduction through green procurement, AI-powered smart factories, green electricity, circular economy, and green packaging, with each bottle reducing carbon emissions by 240g and 165g, respectively. The 240g reduction is equivalent to the carbon emissions of an LED desk lamp running continuously for 40 hours. Each bottle features a unique carbon code that consumers can scan to view the product's full lifecycle carbon emission data, making the concept of green, low-carbon, and transparent consumption both visible and tangible.
The representative summarized the company's collaborative supply chain ESG strategy with a 16-character motto: educate with reason, motivate with emotion, empower with capability, and share the value. He emphasized that Foshan Haitian will continue to leverage its smart factory advantages, deepen green collaboration across its entire industrial chain, uphold its ecological commitment, and work with upstream and downstream partners to build a sustainable ecosystem.
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