Procter & Gamble Co. will pass $1 billion in annual contracts with companies owned by minorities and women this year, but still must add more than $400 million in new spending next year to meet its goals.

That means P&G business units will be especially friendly to minority- and women-owned companies, Procter officials told a group of suppliers Tuesday.

"You're going to have folks bending over backward to reach the target," said Stew Atkinson, director of health care purchases at P&G.

One example is a new joint venture called Amantea that P&G is helping to create in the Cincinnati Empowerment Zone. A partnership between a larger corporation and an African-American entrepreneur, it eventually will distribute and make nonwoven materials used in P&G products such as Pampers and Always.

P&G did not provide further details on that partnership. The Empowerment Zone seeks to revive nine Cincinnati neighborhoods through new investment and jobs.

Last year, P&G announced it would award a contract to fill bottles of Olay Body Wash to a new venture called Valu-Pac, which is being formed in the Empowerment Zone by a Dayton, Ohio-based minority company.

That deal, which was to include a $30 million P&G investment, hasn't been made final.

Those projects show Procter is willing to invest to meet its goal of $1.5 billion annually in contracts with companies owned by minorities and women by 2005, said Keith Harrison, P&G's global product supply officer.

So it's putting the pressure on its largest suppliers to also be proactive. He said fewer than 20 companies nationally have reached the $1 billion level.

"You will be viewed as less competitive if you do not have a strong supplier diversity effort," Harrison said. "We're interested in direct results."

Source: The Cincinnati Enquirer