Throughout our company, we promote ethical business practices along our value chain through transparency, innovation, and collaboration with all our partners. We strive to conduct our business to ensure long-term profitability and fair trade. Continuous improvements make sure that our partners, our customers, our suppliers and we ourselves are compliant with international laws, anti-corruption rules, and local regulations. We believe that all parties must have a positive economic impact in the societies in which they operate.
We operate a global network of sales and service units and produce a range of products with manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, the United States of America, Iceland, Denmark, England, Brazil, Germany, and Slovakia.
The economic value generated by our operations in 2018 amounted to EUR 1,197.9 million, including sales and gains on sales of assets. Furthermore, we directly employed 5,794 full-time employees on average in 2018.
Our contribution to the societies in which we operate consist of many different elements, including salaries paid to employees and goods and services purchased from local suppliers.
Salaries paid during the year, excluding related expenses, amounted to EUR 343.6 million, or 28.7% of the economic value generated.
Through continuous innovation, implemented in close co-operation with its customers, Marel enables food processors to make the most of their raw materials. We visit plants and talk to the people working there to create technology that increases yield, reduces waste, and creates valuable by-products, while at the same time using less water, energy, and other resources. Stricter regulations and consumer demand for sustainability constantly challenge processors to produce more with less. Marel has taken steps to ensure that its solutions meet these challenges by making sustainability a permanent criterion for evaluating all of our new product developments.
The sustainability scorecard raises awareness and stimulates discussion amongst our innovation experts during the product development process, as they develop new solutions for food processors. Since we implemented the scorecard in January 2018, we have systematically considered a range of social and environmental factors during the innovation process.
By taking these steps today, we are ensuring our customers keep ahead of consumers’ growing demand for sustainably produced food.
Taxes paid by Marel in 2018 amounted to EUR 72.9 million (2017: 63.2 million) or 6.1% of the economic value generated.
Employment taxes represented 43.5% of the levies during the period, while 42.8% are corporate income taxes. In addition to the direct taxes, Marel collects and pays various state and local taxes and duties on behalf of the governments in which we operate.
Total taxes and duties collected in 2018 amounted to EUR 91.7 million (2017: 77.2 million).
In 2018, the total tax footprint amounted to EUR 164.6 million (2017: 140.4 million).
Innovation is the creation and delivery of new customer value in the marketplace. In our experience, innovation most often originates from partnerships between customers and our employees with the common aim of solving problems and improving processing in a new way.
We invested around EUR 74 million, or 6.2% of revenues, in creating and delivering new value for our customers through innovation in 2018. These innovative efforts represent a full range of endeavors: from breakthrough improvements in our products, to design upgrades and incremental additions to existing machines and systems. By working closely with our customers and employees, we are building durable equipment that remains competitive and meets the diverse needs of our customers.
We know that our company’s reputation is crucial to our success. Therefore, we take compliance with global anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws and regulations very seriously. The anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy adopted by Marel in January 2017 reinforces our commitment.
The policy applies to all employees, officers, and directors as well as any contractors, consultants, agents, and other business partners engaged in business on behalf of Marel. As an international company, we adhere to the anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws of all the countries in which we operate.