Stakeholders

Our engagement in communities includes ongoing investment in social and economic development through financial and product donations and employee volunteering. In 2013, the level of support we provided increased to $3.41 million which includes 23,000 employee volunteering hours globally.

We collaborate with 40 community partners in Israel, supporting a range of social causes with a focus on employment for diverse populations and women’s empowerment. Our active partnerships include:

• Yedid – The association for community empowerment: We support employment courses for women that have left the job market and need guidance and training to rebuild their careers.
• Be-Atzmi: We support training for disadvantaged populations from diverse backgrounds to help them integrate into the job market.  
• Kav Mashve: We support counseling projects for young adults from the Arab population.
• Elem (Youth in Distress): We support an employment project for young adults in peripheral areas.
• Economic Empowerment for Women (EEW): We support employment projects for women from the Jewish and Arab populations.
• The Abraham Fund: We support employment training and community leadership programs for women from the Arab communities around our factories in the northern periphery.

See also the section on “Diversity in everything we do” for more initiatives supporting diversity in employment and education.

Our cash and product donations and employee volunteering efforts also support the work of organizations throughout Israel that advance social causes such as accessibility for persons with disabilities, shelters for disadvantaged youth and socio-economic development in peripheral cities.

Supporting education in Strauss Coffee Romania: In 2013, we partnered with two social organizations, World Vision and School of Values, to launch a three year program of non-formal education for 100 young people from disadvantaged communities. The program includes factory visits to expose students to different types of roles in industry.  

Leap to Industry: Strauss’s factory in Upper Nazareth invests in youth employability and participated, for the second year in the “Leap to Industry” program, that encourages disadvantaged teens to learn about industry and develop skills to help them secure a job when they graduate from high school. The factory hired twelfth grade students from local technical schools to work in the factory two days a week and during holidays while completing their high school studies. Working on the production floor, students gain professional skills in a real factory environment and gain confidence in their ability to contribute in a meaningful job in the future.

Window to the Future: Strauss Israel’s dairy plant in Achihud in Israel has participated in the Window to the Future program since 2011. This program enables youth from underprivileged communities to learn about the job market and the challenges and opportunities of having a job. Teens joining the program are between the ages of 16 and 18 and have dropped out of every other educational structure. By working with Strauss team members, these young people gain a unique opportunity to experience work first-hand and receive personal coaching and assistance. More than 15 individuals have participated in this program since we started in 2011.

Aiming for Success:   Strauss Water once again supported Aiming for Success, a program that supports young adults in developing career paths. We partnered with a local community organization to support a group of young 19 adults from the Ethiopian community in Israel to help them acquire tools to guide them through the first steps of deciding on academic studies and seeking employment. 20 managers at Strauss Water participated in delivering courses and providing mentorship for the students. 

In Israel, hundreds of thousands tons of food are wasted every year. This includes products that have reached their sell-by date, food that is not suitable for marketing (but is suitable for eating) for various reasons, and excess or unmarketable agricultural produce. Over 1.8 million people in Israel suffer from food insecurity and are desperately in need of that same food that goes to waste every day.

Leket Israel National Food Bank and Latet – Israeli Humanitarian Aid, are the two leading non-profit food banks in Israel. We prefer that the food waste we generate is put to productive use, rather than clogging up our landfills. Therefore, we donate unsalable food to Leket and Latet for distribution to those in need. Both Latet and Leket Israel conform to the highest standards of food safety when salvaging and redistributing our products. In 2013, we donated 600 tons of unsalable food items to Leket Israel and to Latet, thereby diverting waste from landfill and more importantly, providing nutritious and delicious food to thousands of Israelis who are unable to meet their food needs without support.