Our community involvement has transformed from a family legacy to the spirit pumping through an entire company. This is an obligation that is based on a long standing tradition of caring, concern and community involvement, values which were woven into the company fabric from day one. As a large corporation with a significant presence in the places we operate in, our community involvement serves as an economic and social booster in these areas. We are aware of having this influence and choose to position ourselves where we are most needed. Our main factories in Israel are scattered in the peripheral areas of the country and represent an important social and economic factor in the development of those areas.
Strauss Group recently redefined the focus of its community involvement and adjusted it to suit developing industry trends in the world.
We chose the subject diversity and inclusion as a concept that would light our way in our corporate responsibilities and be expressed in the social projects we will initiate in the future, while furthering the subject in additional circles.
Along with the new direction we run dozens of social projects in the following fields:
Culture, Education and Values
We believe that our spirit and cultural assets are what make our company richer and better. That is why we invest so heavily in this area – in order to provide more and more people with the option of developing skills and acquiring educational values, toward making our society stronger and healthier.
We work in a number of ways: providing scholarships to students throughout the country. Developing, supporting programs for teens that combine learning and educating about the period of the Holocaust, and Israeli innovation at the Yad Leyeled Museum. Management support and ongoing operation of the Beit Danny community center in Shcunat HaTikva – a place that is the meeting point for thousands of teenagers and adults living in the neighborhood. Monetary support for organizations working to promote music and the arts, and more.
Empowerment Through Sports
Sports and business have a lot of common ground. It is no wonder that the language of business often uses terms from the world of sports such as team work, friendship, tolerance and support, excellence, perseverance, aspiring to more, as well as the close connections between the effort and the reward. We believe that it is perfectly natural to use sports to further these values, as part of our aspiration to strengthen and empower the society we operate and live in.
For a number of years we have been active in the Elite Stars project in Nazareth, whose goal is to channel the teenagers’ free time into sports and other activities that will distance them from violence, drugs and wandering the streets. There are hundreds of teens involved in the project.
Food Products Contributions
At a time when many children are living below the poverty line - satiation is a basic and instinctive survival goal. As a leading food corporation, we see ourselves as the spearhead in this war and naturally provide food products to dozens of organizations on a daily basis. These products reach thousands of our needy throughout Israel. This is done through “A sandwich for every child every day” project, in which our employees prepare 450 sandwiches a day (130,000 per year), that are distributed to nurseries, schools and clubs in Carmiel and adjacent settlements. Collecting and packaging food baskets for Rosh Hashanah and Passover for thousands of needy families throughout the country, which is carried out by our employees and volunteers at food organizations. The company also helps dozens of non-profit organizations, institutions, soup kitchens, clubs for kids and many more on an ongoing basis.
Promoting Health, Nutrition and Quality of Life
As a food company we are aware of our great responsibility, and therefore dedicate our knowledge and professional expertise to the field of nutrition in activities focused on promoting healthy nutrition, expanding research on the subject and supplying the general public with vital information about smart nutrition. We do this within the framework of the Danone Institute that was established in Israel in 1998 by Strauss. Its purpose is to promote the nutrition and health of the citizens of Israel through supporting nutrition-related research and disseminating information about healthy nutrition to professionals and the public. Members of the institute include leading scientists in the food, nutrition and health sectors. Scholarship grants (totaling $80-90K for two years), go toward supporting the nutrition-related research of researchers from higher education institutions and hospitals.
Promoting a healthier way of life for children, through the Ministry of Education’s training program for educators that is conducted in coordination with the Ministry of Health. Interactive programs in coordination with the Ministry of Health that are intended to convey a message of a healthy lifestyle, smart nutrition and physical activity for children in grade one and two. Another area is partnership in a breakfast for children program in a south Tel Aviv neighborhood, where Strauss plans the menu and is responsible for the ongoing distribution and supply of the food. The company also took upon itself to research the influence of balanced nutrition on children’s’ achievements and their behavior. A special show was produced on the subject of health and nutrition along with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education that was presented to a mixture of kids from the project, and is presented today to kids throughout the country.
For the last five years we have supported a forum for the prevention of heart and blood vessel diseases whose purpose is to promote a healthy way of life that will help prevent heart and blood vessel diseases, and we contributed toward establishing a heart institute in a hospital in Nahariya. In addition to helping establish the institute and providing professional business and managerial knowledge to the hospital and institute, the company contributes to these organizations in an ongoing manner to promote the research and finance the acquisition of advanced equipment. The company also raises funding for research funds such as research support for finding cures for incurable diseases within the framework of the Tel Aviv University.
Children and Teens
We operate in different manners for children and teens, partly because they are the neediest in terms of protection and having a happy childhood and also due to our belief that investing in them will reverberate over a long period and provide them and the company, not only with a better present but also a better future.
We do this in the framework of assisting centers that are working to promote children and teens with various disabilities such as Beit Izi Shapira, Beit Noam, Beit Venezuala and more. Providing scholarships to students that help cancer stricken children complete their studies while hospitalized, handing out candies to hospitalized children in hospitals and more.
Equal Opportunity and Personal Growth
Our concern and love for people allows us to offer support and another chance to hundreds of children, both adults and teens that life has not been good to. We support empowerment for personal growth and act to restore peoples’ faith in themselves, in society and their fellowman, to allow them to blend in standard social circles. We also provide them with tools to develop and become equal and useful partners in society. We do this though a number of clubs throughout the country close to the sites we operate in. The program includes weekly meetings of the company’s employees with the children. Together they conduct activities in creation, art, sports and celebrating birthdays, providing these kids with a few hours of pleasure, human care and warmth that is so lacking in the their lives.
We make a point of adopting and taking teens that have escaped formal educational frameworks under our wing. The teens work in the factory in the morning hours, while being personally trained by one of the product line managers in the factory. In the afternoon and evenings they make up for lost study hours through the Hila project that provides teens with a better starting point in life. Occupying handicap teens in one of the logistic sites of the company. Financial help and a weekly supply of a variety of food products for the Beit Shanti boys, a loving house for teens that have escaped formal educational systems and their families. Integrating teens in business initiatives that allow them to mix in normal frameworks, that are both challenging and appealing. This requires taking personal and group responsibility, for solution-finding decision-making and empowerment toward being absorbed in the real world of business. Initiatives include Beit Susan – an occupational center for making glasswork and jewelry in Jerusalem, Kukiot, a bakery in Tel Aviv and the Elite Coffee chain of coffee shops in Or Yehuda, Bat Yam and Shderot, which are fully managed by teens. Integrating prisoners in the company’s sites within the framework of a project for rehabilitating prisoners. Our employees’ work in the Shlav School, a special education school in Beit Shemesh for children with behavioral disorders.
In The Field With Soldiers
Our connection with soldiers goes as far back as the country, and even further. We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments. We have adopted the Golani reconnaissance platoon for over 30 years and provide them with an ongoing variety of food products for their training or missions, and provide personal care packages for each soldier that completes the path. We have also adopted the Southern Shualei Shimshon troops from the Givati platoon with the goal of improving their service conditions and being there at the front to spoil them with our best products.
International Community Involvement
We have taken this social legacy that has proven itself in Israel to other countries we operate in and a range of Strauss supported activities can already be seen in Poland, Serbia and Brazil:
• Brazil
In Brazil we work to promote the subject of fair coffee trade.
• Poland
Poland is ranked among the lowest in the European Union for physical status. Through our Pedro Café coffee brand and the Pedro Cup events we work to promote awareness for a healthy and active lifestyle.
• Serbia
Strauss works in the Adriatic’s toward protection of mother and child. As part of its ongoing activities for the community, we have provided a financial contribution that will go toward acquiring new equipment for preparing milk based food for children suffering from high sensitivity such as premature babies and infants. The equipment that includes special sinks and tables will allow preparing 500 meals a day at the largest hospital in the Balkans, serving Serbia and its neighbors – Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Macedonia.
