BioGaia works with external suppliers for production, packaging, culture manufacture and analysis services in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Spain and the USA. Sustainability aspects such as quality, safety and environmental impact are followed up through periodic audits and are also handled in the ongoing dialogue.

Having long-standing close relationships with a relatively small number of suppliers enables greater insight which reduces sustainability risks in BioGaia’s value chain. It also promotes opportunities for collaboration on improvements. In the process of carrying out the life-cycle assessment, a number of opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were identified. These will be investigated further in 2021.

BioGaia’s distributors are key players in ensuring that the company’s products comply with legislation and regulations in their respective markets and that they are distributed and marketed responsibly and in line with BioGaia’s values. In 2020, BioGaia developed a process for further evaluating new distributors’ sustainability performance.

A Supplier Code of Conduct specifies BioGaia’s minimum requirements within areas such as human rights, working conditions, environment, business ethics and anti-corruption. At the end of 2020 all (100%) prioritised suppliers had signed the Code of Conduct. A similar Code of Conduct for distribution partners was introduced in 2018 and at the end of 2020, 90% (85%) had signed this. The ambition is that the remaining distributors will have signed or presented their own equivalent by the end of 2021.

BioGaia has built a unique network of international researchers with whom the company collaborates to conduct research. BioGaia’s policies for ethical research are stipulated in the company’s Code of Conduct and research partners are encouraged to apply the highest ethical standards in all pre-clinical and clinical research. Specific requirements are stipulated in the research contracts. BioGaia encourages transparent results from researchers. The studies must be registered on a public website such as ClinicalTrials.gov prior to study start.