"Our Asia Pacific strategy is all around value creation with our emerging and mature markets, and I'm pleased to say that we delivered our numbers across Asia Pacific, contributing significantly to the total EBIT for the Co-op," Swales said.
This was achieved amongst a backdrop of challenges including floods, typhoons, drought, fires and Covid-19, which had affected each market in different ways, Swales said.
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While Fonterra's Foodservice business felt the impact of Covid-19 in particular, its Consumer business managed to help fill the gap, as more people cooked from home - particularly in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, Swales said.
Fonterra's Asia Pacific's Ingredients business had also had a strong year delivering on budget, and this included its Quick Service Restaurant channel, which served global restaurant chains like McDonald's and Pizza Hut, Swales said.
Healthy Environment
Sustainability was key for Fonterra's strategy, and Swales said she was pleased with the co-op's achievements in this area.
"We decreased waste to landfill by 32 per cent across our 14 Asia Pacific manufacturing sites – beating our target of 17 per cent."
In Indonesia, Fonterra recently commissioned solar panels on top of its factory in Cikarang, where around 100 people worked to blend and pack Anlene, Anchor Boneeto and Anmum.
"This solar energy will help source around a quarter of the site's energy use from the sun and reduce energy costs by around 18 per cent"
Indonesia was the first of Fonterra's Asia Pacific markets to install these solar panels and Malaysia was up next, Swales said.
Healthy People
None of these achievements would be possible without Fonterra's Health People goal, Swales said.
"These results show how we've been able to adapt under really challenging conditions and change our ways of working, and the way we connect with each other to keep our business on track and we've shown what being Good Together really looks like."
Fonterra was also looking out for Asia Pacific communities, holding Covid-19 hygiene practice sessions for over 2000 local Sri Lankan children so they could return to school safely, Swales said.
Fonterra also donated essential nutrition to healthcare professionals looking after Covid-19 patients, with 74,000 cartons of Anlene UHT Movemax to hospitals in Bangkok, and Anlene Coffee to healthcare workers in Vietnam, along with Anchor Milk for care packs for disadvantaged people, Swales said.
"The team's really reaching out to each other and into their communities. I feel extremely proud of work that our people have done."
Also in today's interview: Swales took a look at Fonterra's latest results which were released last Friday.
