If you regularly eat bread or other bakery products, chances are you’ve tasted the work of Dossche Mills. It’s one of the largest mills in Europe and an important producer of high-quality flour for bakeries and the food industry. The family-run business has been around for over 150 years and is as committed to sustainable growth as ever.
Today, this translates into an ambitious goal: achieving a 50% CO2 reduction in the production of their flour by 2030. “Most of our carbon footprint comes from how wheat is cultivated,” says sustainability manager Laura Jonckheere. “Through the Terah Footprint Program, we’re reducing that impact by promoting more regenerative practices.”
Helping customers make the case for sustainability
When Dossche Mills officially launched Terah in 2024, it quickly became clear that understanding their B2B customers, mainly bakers and food manufacturers, would be key to success. What are their viewpoints on the topic? What efforts have they already made, and what do they need?
The company also realised that while upstream innovation (improving how wheat is grown) remained essential to achieve their goal, downstream adoption (getting customers and consumers on board) was just as critical. “We noticed that a fair share of our customers – especially those in the early stage of their sustainability journey – were looking for insights and arguments to shape their approach,” says Marloes Vandersteene, customer care director. “They need the right information and tools to turn sustainable bread – and other food products – into business success.”
To answer these questions, Dossche Mills partnered with boobook. The goal? To find out whether there’s a market for sustainable flour and bread, whether consumers are willing to pay for it, and how best to communicate its value to them.
Using insights across the value chain to drive market adoption
To gather input from both Dossche Mills’ customers and end consumers, the process was divided into two phases.
- In-depth qualitative interviews with B2B customers shed light on the market potential among professional clients. The conversations explored their mindset, barriers to adoption, and what they needed from Dossche Mills to build a case for sustainable flour and bread.
- A representative sample of just over a thousand consumers took part in an online survey to unlock insights into their attitudes towards sustainable bread, including their willingness to pay for it and the types of messaging that resonate most.
Aligning perspectives, inside and out
Getting everyone on the same page is essential when launching a sustainable product, and that’s exactly where the strength of this research lies for Dossche Mills.
“The B2B phase did reveal new insights, but above all, it confirmed what we already sensed but couldn’t yet formalise,” says Stephanie Van Laere, market development manager sustainability. “By sharing these insights with our management and sales team we’ve created a shared understanding of what matters most to our customers.”
The B2C insights proved just as impactful in shaping client interactions. “It’s a very valuable tool in our conversations with customers. It brings clarity, sparks meaningful discussions, and gets them thinking. They actively engage with the findings,” Stephanie adds. “Our sales team is so enthusiastic about how the results support client conversations that they’re already asking to repeat the study for other product categories.”
Strength in numbers: sustainability demands solid data
Dossche Mills invests heavily in its Terah Footprint Program. Market validation gives those efforts all the more weight. “We put so much into developing regenerative agriculture practices because we believe in their potential,” says Laura. “Now we can also demonstrate there’s a real market for it. The numbers show that consumers embrace the concept. We understand how willing they are to pay for it, how price-sensitive they are, and where the optimal price point lies.”
“Storytelling matters in sustainability communication,” Stephanie adds, “but data is just as important. When you’re talking to customers who already have a sustainability mindset, a good story is often enough. But those who still need convincing require more. When larger industrial bakeries need to make a case for sustainable bread, the numbers really help.”
Striking a chord with the right messaging
While pricing was the main focus when listening to consumers, special attention was also given to messaging. After all, sustainability is a broad concept, ranging from CO₂ reduction and biodiversity to regenerative farming and fair value sharing across the supply chain. This helped uncover what sustainability means to consumers today, and what drives them to act.
Dossche Mills now knows which angles resonate most and has actionable messaging guidelines at its fingertips, to use internally and to share with their customers. This gives everyone involved the tools to successfully position sustainable bread in the market.
An external partner builds trust
Those with a more sceptical mindset find data-backed insights more persuasive. “Both we and our customers can now easily counter many objections”, explains Stephanie. “Because boobook gathered input from a large and representative group of people, we can transparently show that we didn’t only include the sustainability-minded or those with higher incomes who can easily afford to pay more for sustainable bread. Even if you correct for potential bias, knowing that people don’t always act as they say they will, the numbers remain convincing. And that’s powerful.”
For Dossche Mills, working with an external, independent partner like boobook boosted the trustworthiness of the findings. In a market where sustainability claims are increasingly met with scepticism, having a credible partner who can present the results with clarity and authority makes all the difference.
Press pause and listen
Developing a sustainable product like Terah often starts with major investments, in R&D and beyond. And although it’s tempting to race ahead to market, it pays to pause and listen carefully. Understanding both customers and consumers helps you position your product in the smartest way possible, in terms of both pricing and messaging.
That’s exactly why Dossche Mills is now also listening to German consumers. Following a major acquisition, the company wants to understand how they view sustainable bread, recognising that attitudes and mindsets can differ significantly from one market to another.
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