Meeting the demand for verified sourcing: how ADM uses ISCC PLUS in food and feed supply chains

In the first article of this series, we introduced ISCC PLUS as a solution for enabling sustainable and traceable food and feed supply chains. This article looks at how Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), one of the world’s leading agricultural supply chain originators and processors, is applying ISCC PLUS in this context. ADM offers one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of ingredients and solutions derived from nature.

As food and feed companies seek greater assurance around sourcing, emissions, and deforestation commitments, ADM uses ISCC PLUS to translate corporate sustainability ambitions into verifiable supply chain information.

Building the business case for ISCC PLUS: from biofuels to food and feed

ADM was not starting from scratch when introducing ISCC PLUS for food and feed in 2022. The company already had experience with sustainability assurance systems in energy supply chains, including ISCC certification for biofuels and its own Responsible Soybean Standard, aligned with the FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines.

Extending this experience into new value chains was a logical next step for a company as active in the food and feed market as ADM. By building on existing certification expertise and established supply chain processes, the company was able to apply the same principles of traceability and verification beyond the energy sector. Against this backdrop, ISCC PLUS provided a practical way to demonstrate responsible sourcing, strengthen transparency, and differentiate products in the food and feed market through third-party verification.

“As demand for responsibly sourced ingredients continues to grow, customers need trusted, credible ways to demonstrate progress. ISCC PLUS helps provide the transparency and third-party verification needed to support those sustainability commitments.”

Ana Yaluff

Senior Director, Sustainability- EMEA, LATAM & APAC

For ADM, ISCC PLUS supports a broader vision of transparent, resilient, and low-carbon supply chains. The company sees certification as one tool to help meet growing customer expectations while advancing its wider strategy to decarbonise agricultural supply chains.

Expanding ISCC PLUS certification in practice

Building on existing certification expertise and sourcing networks, ADM currently offers ISCC PLUS-certified materials to help customers meet evolving responsible sourcing goals. As awareness and demand continue to grow, the company also sees opportunities to proactively expand certification coverage to additional ingredients.

ADM describes the implementation process as smooth overall, supported by efficient planning and strong preparation by originators and farmers. At the same time, the company notes that farm-level requirements and data collection can be complex in practice, particularly for greenhouse gas and carbon intensity data or internal audit follow-up.

ADM sees value in further simplifying documentation requirements and clarifying data expectations. This feedback reflects the broader aim of the current review of the ISCC Principles 2–6: to improve clarity, practicality and usability for System Users while maintaining robust sustainability standards.

Supporting sustainability commitments with verified data

For ADM, one of the key benefits of ISCC PLUS is its ability to provide verified information that supports customer sustainability commitments.

The company highlights deforestation-free verification as a particularly important benefit of certification, and greenhouse gas (GHG) information as another growing area of focus. ADM notes that verified GHG data has become a standard customer request and increasingly influences purchasing decisions and product positioning. This focus is also reflected in ADM’s certification approach. Many of the company’s food and feed-related ISCC PLUS certificates include the GHG Emissions add-on, enabling the provision of verified emissions data along the supply chain.

Looking ahead: opportunities for wider adoption

As regulatory and market expectations evolve, ADM expects demand for both certified materials and verified sustainability data to continue to grow. The company sees opportunities for greater alignment of GHG methodologies across food and feed markets, helping make emissions reporting more practical and comparable throughout the value chain.

While certification systems are already well established in sectors such as biofuels, ADM further sees significant potential for wider adoption in food and feed markets to support the growing awareness of traceability, sourcing assurance, and verified sustainability data.

For ADM, this creates opportunities not only to expand certification coverage across additional ingredients but also to further strengthen sustainability efforts across the value chain.

Key takeaway for processors

ADM’s experience shows that implementing ISCC PLUS is ultimately an investment in transparency across the agricultural supply chain and in customer confidence.

"Like any robust certification system, ISCC PLUS relies on strong internal processes, clear chain-of-custody management and dedicated resources. That investment helps build the transparency and assurance that customers need to support their responsible sourcing goals."