It’s Cool to Care: Millennials love brands with a purpose

Millenials are extremely aware of and expect a great deal in terms of corporate social responsibility efforts to improve their world. The trend is that when companies support social and environmental issues millenials react with increased trust in and loyalty to the brands. They are more likely to purchase products and services from those companies.

A bakery brand that is making inroads where social justice is concerned is Blue Ribbon bakeries under the Premier FMCG group. Blue Ribbon focuses on several issues which impact the local and global community.

The brand’s concern for the environment is displayed in their efforts to reduce energy consumption in their mills and warehouses by using energy efficient lighting, a specially designed water filtration system to reduce emissions from diesel forklifts.

Blue Ribbon feeds an average of about four thousand people every day by way of their corporate social investment initiatives such as Meals on Wheels and the Akani Diepsloot Foundation.

Blue Ribbon bakeries are committed to the protection of basic human rights such as education and special care for children through Premier’s school education programme for girls in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Premier provides a range of sanitary protection products to girls (who would miss around 50 days of school a year because they cannot afford sanitary products) and is in support of initiatives such as Caring4girls and Trek4Mandela.

Premier provides assistance by means of ad hoc donations. An example of this is in Philippi township in Cape Town at Philippi House in collaboration with Food Pods (a social enterprise that deals with food insecurity) where twenty one improvement projects have been identified which include the distribution of bread and vegetables to the community and employment of twelve people in Philippi.

With Millenials being the most influential generation of the times and that sets the tone for purchasing habits in markets across the globe, it is imperative that companies see to their needs and demands. Bakeries are catching on to the idea that a sense of responsibility towards their spheres of influence not only has great intrinsic rewards but financial rewards as well.