Supplier Opportunity
SASB: FB-FR-430a.3
GRI: 2-6, 3-3, 204-1
UN SDGs: 2, 5
S
Published: Oct. 16, 2024
At a Glance
- Walmart is committed to sourcing locally, supporting supplier inclusion, and improving market access for smallholder farmers and small producers.
- Building on a strong legacy of hundreds of billions of dollars spent in support of U.S. manufacturing, Walmart has sourced an incremental $99.5 billion in products supporting American jobs since FY2021.
- Our U.S. businesses sourced more than $13 billion in goods and services from diverse suppliers in FY2024.
- In 2023, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation announced a goal to fund projects in India designed to help build capacity and advance the economic livelihoods of one million smallholder farmers by 2028, with at least 50% women.
Through sourcing, Walmart intends to serve our customers around the world while promoting inclusive economic growth and development. We aim to create economic opportunities for the people who work throughout our supply chains—our suppliers, the people they employ, and their communities.
Goal |
Metrics |
FY2022 |
FY2023 |
FY2024 |
| By the end of FY2031, purchase an incremental (over FY2021) $350 billion in products supporting American jobs | Incremental cumulative total purchases | $12 billion | $47 billion | $99.5 billion |
| Number of diverse suppliers to our U.S. businesses — goods and services1 | ~ 2,600 | ~ 2,400 | ~ 2,400 | |
| Amount sourced from diverse suppliers to our U.S. businesses — goods and services |
> $13.3 billion | > $13 billion | > $13.7 billion | Fund projects in India designed to help build capacity and advance the economic livelihoods of 1 million smallholder farmers by 2028 | Number of people who could be reached by grants made | 277,000 |
| Number of micro-, small- and medium- enterprises trained through the Vriddhi Supplier Development Program | >50,000 |
The core of our business is bringing quality, affordable food and other products to our hundreds of millions of customers around the world. The purchase orders we place to procure those products can have a profound and positive effect. Strategically sourcing products from a mix of suppliers supports the economic inclusion of suppliers who might not otherwise be able to bring their products to market, helps existing suppliers to grow, and stimulates job growth in the markets in which the products are made. These strategies enhance Walmart’s ability to offer an assortment of unique and hard-to-find products to our customers and supports surety and resilience.
Programs and initiatives designed to support supplier opportunity and our business include:
- U.S. Manufacturing: Investments to strengthen American manufacturing, support small businesses, create new jobs, and provide more value to our customers and communities.
- Supplier Inclusion: Source from and build the capacity of diverse suppliers, including suppliers owned and/or operated by veterans, people with disabilities, a members of the LGBTQ+ community, women, and people of color.
- Make in India: Building on a foundation of over $30 billion in exports and the successful Vriddhi program, we seek to triple exports of goods from India (2022-2027).
- Market Access for Smallholder Farmers and Small Producers: In Central America, India, and Mexico, we source directly from smallholders and/or small producers and invest through philanthropy in facilitating market access and building capacity of smallholders across the sector.
Through sourcing, Walmart aims not only to serve our customers but also to provide opportunities for the economic growth and development of people who work throughout our supply chains — our suppliers, the people they employ, and their communities.
U.S. Manufacturing
By sourcing products made, grown, or assembled in the U.S., we seek to support business ecosystems across America and promote supply chain surety and resilience.
U.S.-Sourced Products
Walmart has a long history of supporting products made in, grown in, or sourced from America. More than 70% of Walmart U.S.’s total product spend in FY2024 was on items our suppliers reported were made, grown, or assembled in the United States. Building on the successful completion of a goal to invest an incremental $250 billion over our FY2013 purchases on products made, grown, or assembled in the United States before 2023, we currently have a goal to invest an incremental $350 billion (over our FY2021 purchases) by the end of FY2031. As of the end of FY2024, we have increased cumulative U.S. receipts by $99.5 billion towards that goal. We expect our efforts will catalyze substantial local economic activity, including supporting more than 750,000 new jobs.2
Walmart’s annual Open Call event is one way we identify new suppliers of products made, grown, or assembled in the U.S. At our 10th annual event in October 2023, more than 700 small and medium-sized enterprise owners from across the country pitched their products to Walmart U.S. and Sam's Club merchants. As of April 2024, more than 30% of their pitches resulted in a deal for businesses to sell their items to Walmart customers through placement on Walmart or Sam’s Club shelves, online at Walmart.com, or on Walmart’s Marketplace.
Walmart also invests directly in local production, including through a new case-ready beef facility and a milk processing facility, both set to open in 2025, that we anticipate would create a joint 1,000 jobs.
For more information on how we support US manufacturing, visit our Jobs in U.S. Manufacturing Portal.
American Lighthouses
To support our own sourcing and the growth of U.S. manufacturing more broadly, Walmart launched a collaborative initiative called "American Lighthouses" in 2021 to identify and overcome top-down barriers to U.S. production. Through this initiative, we aim to foster collaborative ecosystems among local supplier communities with support from civil society, academia, government, and local economic development groups. Our focus is on five key supply chains: textiles, pharmaceutical and medical supplies, food processing, plastics, and motors and metals. Key workstreams include:
- Textiles: We formed a Textiles Lighthouse Advisory Board, comprising of experts from multiple fields and industries, to guide Walmart’s efforts to strengthen U.S. textiles manufacturing, create American jobs and bolster the domestic textiles supply chain, including through boosting circularity in U.S. manufacturing.
- Pharmaceutical/Medical Supplies: Walmart joined the Alliance for Building Better Medicine, an initiative that seeks to create a pharmaceutical research, development, and manufacturing hub in the Richmond/Petersburg area of Virginia.
- Food Production and Processing: Seeking to spur the indoor vertical farming industry in the United States, in January 2022 Walmart entered into a sourcing agreement with Plenty to source leafy greens for Walmart's California stores. Walmart also made an equity investment in Plenty, making Walmart the first large U.S. retailer to significantly invest in vertical farming.
Walmart's Supplier Inclusion Program helps Walmart diversify and enhance our product offering to better meet customer needs while helping to foster inclusion for all suppliers. Diverse companies are defined as those at least 51% owned, managed and controlled by racial and ethnic minorities, women, veterans, members of the LGBTQ+ community, or people with disabilities, helping put them on a footing to effectively work with us while at the same time growing their businesses. In FY2024, our U.S. businesses sourced approximately $13.7 billion in goods and services from more than 2,400 diverse suppliers.
Efforts to support inclusive sourcing include:
- Certification Programs: To help reduce barriers to seeking voluntary certification, Walmart has provided limited-term funds to certain certifying agencies, allowing small and medium-sized business, including existing and prospective Walmart suppliers, affordable access to that certification process.
- Flagship Events: Nearly 50% of business owners invited to Open Call in 2023 self-identified as diverse-owned.
- Product Discovery: We built upon our Open Call concept by expanding our partnership with RangeMe/ECRM to launch a submission link on our Supplier Inclusion webpage. The link which can be found in a variety of places on Walmart’s website, allows suppliers to propose new products for sale at Walmart by submitting their products for review to our merchants and to receive real-time feedback through the technology-driven platform.
- Access to Capital: As a means of supporting suppliers—including diverse suppliers—we seek to create opportunities to improve access to capital. In 2023, Walmart and Citi introduced Bridge built by Citi to Walmart suppliers, a platform designed to improve access to capital for Walmart’s U.S. small and medium-sized and diverse suppliers through a network of over 70 lenders, of which 30% are minority owned banks and community development financial institutions funds. Through a single loan request form, Walmart suppliers can interact with a broad group of lenders located across the United States. Once a request is submitted, the platform seamlessly connects suppliers with multiple potential lenders that can evaluate their requests.
Walmart’s Annual Open Call
Walmart’s annual Open Call event helps Walmart identify new suppliers and innovative products to serve the needs of our diverse customer base—including diverse suppliers. One example is beyondGreen, a minority and U.S.-owned business, which was identified through Open Call and supplies our Great Value brand 100% commercially compostable cutlery.
Read more: Innovation in Private Brands
Walmart has sourced goods from India for more than 20 years, helping suppliers build capacity and exporting over $30 billion in products.
Building on this foundation, Walmart seeks to increase its annual exports of goods from India to $10 billion per year by the end of 2027. To meet this target and strengthen the Indian manufacturing sector, Walmart and Flipkart are investing in supplier capacity, including through Flipkart’s Samarth initiative, which helps micro-, small- and medium-enterprises (MSMEs) register for and succeed in online sales. In the past year, the initiative has registered a 300% growth in sellers registered under the initiative focused on artisans, weavers, and small entrepreneurs.
Additionally, Walmart’s Vriddhi Supplier Development Program, launched in 2019, aims to support 50,000 of India’s MSMEs by providing them free training, mentoring, and digital tools to help them grow, scale and integrate into domestic supply chains. Together with our program partner, Swasti, Walmart Vriddhi provides a learning platform that includes market access and onboarding with Flipkart Marketplace. In February 2024, Walmart Vriddhi celebrated the graduation of more than 50,000 MSMEs from the program.
Through sourcing and philanthropy, we aim to help connect smallholder farmers and small producers to domestic markets while strengthening their capacity and resilience.
Sourcing from Smallholders and Small Producers
Our small farmer development programs have been a transformative catalyst for both local farmers and agricultural development in Mexico and Central America. Over the past 13 years, Walmart Mexico’s Small Farmers program has channeled 131,000 tons of food, equivalent to 2.5 billion pesos, and has helped develop more than 30 agribusinesses. We have goals to provide tools and training to 50,000 farmers, digitally train 25,000 farmers, and create 10,000 jobs for young women and men.
Read more: 2023 Walmart Mexico and Central America Annual Report.
Local Sourcing in Mexico and Central America
Local sourcing is a key part of our strategy in the markets where we do business. For example, over 90% of merchandise sold in Mexico is purchased within the country and approximately 85% of merchandise sold in Central America is purchased in the region.
Philanthropic Investments to Build Smallholder Capacity
Walmart complements our sourcing from small producers with philanthropic programs to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Since 2017, the Walmart Foundation has awarded grants of over $100 million to benefit smallholders in India, Mexico, and Central America. These grants are expected to reach over 1.3 million smallholder farmers, including at least 50% women.3 These grant programs aim to enhance farmer livelihoods and value chains, encourage the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices, unlock access to finance, grow formal market linkages, strengthen Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), and empower women farmers in FPOs.
India
In 2023, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation announced a goal to fund projects in India designed to help build capacity and advance the economic livelihoods of one million smallholder farmers by 2028, with at least 50% women. Since making this commitment, the Walmart Foundation has made grants designed to reach 277,000 people, of whom 47% are expected to be women.
This work builds on over $39 million invested by Walmart Foundation in grants to strengthen smallholder farmer livelihoods in India between FY2019 and FY2023. According to an impact study conducted by Sambodhi, an India-based impact measurement firm, women farmers under Walmart Foundation’s Market Access Program showed greater participation, awareness, and decision-making as FPO office bearers.
Central America and Mexico
The Walmart Foundation has invested over $45 million in grants to strengthen smallholder farmer livelihoods in Mexico and Central America between FY2017 and FY2024. Recent investments to build smallholder and small producer capacity include grants to:
- International Development Enterprises, which seeks to increase the productivity, income, and resilience of 2,500 smallholder farmers in Honduras, with a focus on the role women play as impact multipliers in their communities.
- Mercy Corps, which is working to catalyze resilient and improved livelihoods for 25,000 smallholder farmers (20% women) in Central America and Mexico by accelerating access to inclusive fintech, agricultural, and climate-smart tech solutions.
- Pro Mujer, which aims to improve women smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in Southeast Mexico by facilitating understanding of how agriculture, entrepreneurship, and gender intersect to provide equitable entrepreneurial opportunities for women and strengthen gender in the agricultural sector.
Read more: Seeding advancement of women in smallholder farming: insights from the Market Access portfolio , People in Supply Chains at Walmart.org
- Systemic societal disparities can inhibit the development of a broad and diverse supplier ecosystem, despite efforts from Walmart and others to enhance capacity, market readiness, and inclusion.
- Smallholders face substantial barriers to growth, such as limited access to inputs, technical assistance, and finance.
- Walmart’s size and scale can create challenges for small, diverse, and local suppliers to be qualified to meet our and our customers’ needs.
1. Walmart’s Supplier Inclusion Program provides U.S. privately held companies that are 51% or more owned, managed and controlled by a woman, minority, veteran, disabled veteran, person with a disability or a member of the LGBTQ+ community equal footing to effectively work with us while at the same time growing their own business.
2. Per Boston Consulting Group using data from the Economic Policy Institute and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
3. Figures for smallholder engagements are reported by grantee organizations. Farmers may benefit from more than one investment or program. Each engagement will be included in calculating total reach.
