"We bring practitioniers, consumers and researchers closer together"

Thomas Paroubek has been working at Migros since 2003 and has been Head of the Sustainability & Quality Management since 2018. The retail company Migros and FiBL have been working together for over 40 years.

What connects you with FiBL?

Migros and FiBL can look back on many years of close collaboration. Since 2022, Migros has been represented on the FiBL Foundation Council by Rolf Bernhard, Head of Agronomy & Production Systems at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives. This cooperation allows us to bring processors, consumers and researchers closer together. After all, research is not an end in itself for Migros: we want to develop innovative solutions that help us move forward, improve the lives of our customers and make our value chain more sustainable. 

What have Migros and FiBL achieved together? Is there anything you are particularly proud of?

Over the past few years, we have been able to work with FiBL on around 20 research projects. These ranged from strategies for controlling bugs in pears to testing the effectiveness of medicinal plants in piglets and calves as an alternative to antibiotics. We are especially happy when the results of research projects are subsequently implemented in our value chain. This was the case, for example, with the Migros programme for more sustainable pome fruit, which was scientifically supported by FiBL. It laid the foundation for the "Fruit Sustainability" industry solution, which is now being implemented in the majority of Swiss pome fruit cultivation.

What topics will you be focusing on more in your collaboration with FiBL in the future?

Migros has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in its product range to net zero by 2050, and by 30 per cent by 2030. In this respect, we are currently working very intensively on issues directly related to climate protection, for example: How can we further reduce CO2 emissions from organic farming? How can organic farming contribute to the necessary transformation of the food system as a whole? And how can we prepare agriculture for the inevitable consequences of climate change, which are already being felt today and will be increasingly felt in the future? We will certainly not run out of topics and I am glad to have FiBL at our side as a strong, reliable partner.