Sustainability
Zvijezda works hard to reduce the negative impact on the environment and promote the sustainability of all aspects of its business.
Guided by the joint strategy of sustainable development of the Fortenova Group (one of whose members is Zvijezda), it continuously introduces innovative and environmentally friendly solutions, improves products and optimises production processes. Through a series of initiatives, it strives to increase energy efficiency, reduce environmental pollution and positively influence its customers, clients, business partners, employees and other stakeholders, ensuring a better future for our planet and community.
Zvijezda took a significant step towards sustainability by building a solar power plant with 2,808 panels on the roof of the factory in Žitnjak. This power plant, stretching across an area of 6,667.2 m2, covers up to 10% of Zvijezda’s total electricity consumption, simultaneously reducing CO2 emissions by 182 tonnes per year. The power plant has an installed capacity of 1.08 MWp, which corresponds to the average annual consumption of 380 households in Croatia. Responsible and sustainable energy management is the main backbone of the green transition and an important aspect of business in terms of energy cost management.
But this is just the beginning of the transformation. Like the entire Fortenova Group, Zvijezda is exploring opportunities for a rapid increase in the use of renewable energy, recognising its potential not only in strengthening its own competitiveness and innovation, but also in actively contributing to the fight against climate change.
By implementing green technologies, Zvijezda also contributes to the implementation of the UN’s global sustainable development goals – ensuring access to reliable, sustainable and modern energy for everyone, as well as promoting sustainable forms of consumption and production.
How do we develop recipes and products?
By following global trends, listening to the needs of the market, along with the omnipresent creativity and innovation of our expert multidisciplinary team, great effort is invested in the development of new products.
Behind every new product are days, months and years of painstaking efforts invested in the development, control, production and marketing brilliance of each product.
The beginning of every new product is precisely an idea. The idea stems from experience, knowledge, commitment and putting the needs of consumers first.
Starting from an idea, the Development Department, through various conceptual solutions and experiments on pilot plants, develops various recipes that lead us to proposals for new products that would further enrich our range of products.
Recipes are assessed by a multidisciplinary team of experts with great commitment and numerous criteria that lead us to a narrow selection of recipes. One of the key criteria is precisely the ability to recognise the right moment to choose a recipe and listen to our customers in order to launch the product on the market in a timely manner.
The recipes recognised by the multidisciplinary team continue to be developed in real industrial conditions through trial production. When the recipe passes all the tests and its quality is confirmed in the form of enrichment and brand maintenance, we devote ourselves to the development of the packaging and launching the product on the market.
Certifications
A standard for food manufacturers is the one that assesses a manufacturer’s ability to produce safe, authentic, quality products and manufacturing processes in accordance with legal requirements and customer specifications.
The process of hazard analysis and critical control points includes a whole series of preventive procedures with the aim of ensuring healthy food.
The quality management system demonstrates the ability to meet customer expectations and the organisation’s commitment to quality.
The environmental management system sets requirements for environmental management within the organisation’s operations.
The energy management system provides a practical way to improve the use of energy through the overall development of the organisation’s system.
The information security management system provides guidelines for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and continuous improvement of the organisation’s information security. .
There is also a system that monitors the trade exchange of RSPO certified palm oil products at the administrative level, throughout the entire supply chain.
Approval by the Jewish religious community confirms compliance with all requirements of the Kosher Law.
Approval by the Islamic community confirms compliance with the requirements of the Halal standard.
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Certification
In the Southeast Europe region, Zvijezda is one of the two largest and oldest regional manufacturers of edible oil, margarine and mayonnaise, as well as mayonnaise-based products and ketchup, and operates as part of Fortenova Group. Zvijezda, with over 100 years of tradition, is synonymous with quality, as regularly witnessed by consumer preferences in independent researches, with the products of these companies regularly stated as their first choice.
The market leadership status of the company goes hand in hand with the consumers’ trust in their technology procedures, the products’ health safety, traceability as well as the adherence to sustainability principles in the production and supply chain. This approach has been acknowledged by a number of certificates and quality designations held by Zvijezda.
One of those is the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificate issued by the international RSPO organisation, dedicated to promoting the growing and use of sustainable palm oil products.
The cultivation of oil palms significantly contributes to negative consequences for the environment and the society. The creation of plantations frequently requires the clearing of large areas of land, resulting in massive tropical deforestation. This process leads to a severe loss of biodiversity, including the extinction of numerous endangered species that lose their natural habitat. Furthermore, the burning of forests, which is frequently used as a means of land preparation, causes increased emissions of greenhouse gas, thus additionally exacerbating climate change.
Besides environmental, there are also significant social challenges. The cultivation of palm oil frequently leads to the forced displacement of indigenous communities, while poor working conditions and the exploitation of workers, including child labour, additionally emphasize the negative social impact related to this industry.
In order to prevent the occurrence of negative impacts on the environment and the society, the fundamental principles of the RSPO organisation include the respect for workers’ rights, ethical conduct, the responsible and sustainable use of land, occupational safety, climate change mitigation and the reduction of GHG emissions, the inclusion of small, local suppliers and transparency, and involve a large number of various stakeholders – from producers and manufacturers to retailers.
Being aware of the importance of such approach and the adverse consequences of palm oil cultivation, through its membership and annual recertification in the global RSPO initiative Zvijezda has opted to actively participate in and collaborate on the promotion and development of sustainable practices in procuring palm oil and have built the fundamental principles of that model into their corporate values. The dedication of Zvijezda to the RSPO initiative is visible through its increased use of sustainable palm oil in the production of industrial products, with the consumption of sustainable palm oil for those purposes having continuously grown (the consumption of that raw material was 2.5 times higher in 2024 in comparison to 2023).
Zvijezda has thus demonstrated its awareness of the importance of promoting sustainable operations in the palm oil supply chain, supporting an initiative striving to develop a palm oil production industry based on sustainability principles throughout the chain.
Quality above all
By recognising the quality of our products, consumers awarded us the first-ranked positions on the BRANDscore list. Our aspirations are to remain a recognisable brand among consumers through innovative processes by raising the quality of our products and developing new products.
Quality is a measurable and recognisable item in our business. Quality control consists of a set of procedures aimed at the quality of finished products through the control of cleanliness, incoming raw materials and finished products in accordance with legal regulations, but also prescribed criteria based on risk analysis.
In order to ensure the highest level of product quality, all raw materials are subject to microbiological, physical and chemical analyses and detailed checks of the documentation of our suppliers. At our five laboratories, we determine the efficiency of production processes and the quality of finished products through daily controls of samples from production and development, and through the preparation of samples, a series of different analyses and organoleptic evaluation.
Every year, our Quality Control Laboratory proves its competence with excellent results, by participating in inter-laboratory advanced tests.
The quality management system monitors activities and provides support to achieving all set quality goals and harmonising them with legal legislation within the framework of meeting all requirements of the norms incorporated into the operation of Zvijezda plus d.o.o.
Packaging development
In today’s world, when more and more consumers are turning to a healthy lifestyle and its ecological aspect, there is a need for greater innovation in terms of packaging and packaging materials.
By combining the health compliance and functionality of the packaging with the inevitable factor of recognition of the packaging, we aim our efforts at constant progress and following global trends in the development of the product packaging that we use. The selection of proper packaging is a key process in the development of a new product because it additionally ensures the quality of the end products.