Sustainability Farming

AUSTRIA JUICE‘s
Sustainability Criteria

Agricultural raw materials are considered to meet our sustainability criteria when they comply with the sustainability requirements of the Sustainable Juice Covenant. This includes FSA verification with at least Bronze status or an equivalent recognized standard at farm level, as well as recognized social standards for fruit storage and processing. All our Austria Juice factories that supply customers adhere to SMETA requirements.

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Farm Sustainability Assessment

The Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) is a standardized method for verifying agricultural practices against defined environmental and social criteria. Developed by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI), it helps industrial refiners evaluate and document sustainability-related practices across the agricultural supply chain.

The third-party verification process consists of two steps:

1) Self-Assessment Questionnaire

Farmers complete a detailed questionnaire with 112 questions.

Topics include:

Soil & Nutrient Management
Crop Protection
Plant Material
Biodiversity
Water & Waste Management
Air Quality and Emissions
Labour Conditions

2) External Verification

Audits verify the information provided in the Self-Assessment Questionnaire through on-site inspections, ensuring transparency and compliance with sustainability standards.

Austria Juice regularly conducts internal audits and reviews company-level data for accuracy.
A selection of farmers undergoes on-site inspections by a third party every three years.

Out of the current 2,900 farmers within Austria Juice's Farm Management Group, a significant number have achieved Silver to Gold status in their FSA verifications. Our current verification can be found in the SAI section here.

SMETA Audit

SEDEX (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) is a global platform that supports ethical and responsible business practices in supply chains. Each of our production sites completes and regularly updates a Supplier Assessment Questionnaire, providing transparency on topics such as working conditions, safety and environmental practices.

To ensure these principles are applied in practice, every customer-facing production site is subject to a SMETA audit (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit):

Conducted by independent third-party auditors.
Covers key areas like labour standards, health and safety, environmental management and business ethics.
Takes place at least every three years.

This combination of self-assessment and third-party audits helps us continuously improve our ethical and operational practices.