Food system actors in low and middle-income countries: a national benchmarking pilot

The Food Industry Benchmarking Toolkit was developed in 2021 by The Food Foundation and the World Benchmarking Alliance, in collaboration with the International Benchmarking Coalition.

It assists countries in undertaking a benchmarking of the governance, environmental, social and nutrition commitments of companies within the food sector at a national level. A national benchmarking pilot in 2021–23, funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, provided catalytic funding for low and middle-income countries to use the Toolkit to assess businesses across agricultural production, manufacturing and processing, retail and food services segments of the industry.

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Three countries have successfully undertaken a benchmarking process, which clearly demonstrates proof of concept. The results provide a baseline understanding of the food industry, using a consistent set of metrics, that have the potential to be used by civil society advocates and government in each of the countries to take a stronger stance in encouraging food companies to embed and disclose on economic, social, governance and nutrition indicators.

It has also provided insights and learnings into the benchmarking process that can be taken on board by other
countries that may wish to use the Toolkit to assess their own food industry.