A recent survey by Lumina Intelligence found that less than a third of British consumers (27%) felt that food and drink manufacturers were doing enough to reduce their carbon emissions – 44% said they weren’t doing enough, while 30% said they weren’t sure.
Interesting, only 35% said a food or drink manufacturer’s work on environment, social and governance (ESG) influenced their buying decision. While 31% disagreed with this statement, 30% said they didn’t feel either way about it.
From this analysis, consumers clearly have a low opinion of food manufacturers and their work in reducing their carbon footprint. With reports coming in every day of companies signing up to become B-Corp or pledging to reduce their emissions by 2030, a question comes to mind – are manufacturers clearly articulating and sharing with the public how they’re making efforts to be more sustainable?
Climate change is an unavoidable fact of life and manufacturers have a responsibility to make sure they are protecting the environment with the best of their ability, all while balancing the need to feed the nation.
It’s a responsibility to not only the planet, but the people living on it. Unpredictable weather has caused vegetable shortages on numerous occasions in the last 10 years alone – it’s hard to forget the media spread of front pages filled with images of empty shelves in supermarkets.
But it isn’t just a shortage in tomatoes and cucumbers that we have to worry about. The damage travels up the supply chain, endangering the livelihoods of farmers and workers globally.
Spilling the tea
Amélie Rey-Giraud – climate change manager at Finlays, a leading B2B supplier of tea, coffee and extracts to global brands – relates how climate change has become an immediate and existential threat to the tea and coffee industry.
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“What was once a seemingly distant issue is now critically impacting these crops, as tea and coffee plants are highly sensitive to temperature changes, rainfall variability, and shifting climate patterns,” said Rey-Giraud.
“With global surface temperatures now 1.09°C higher than pre-industrial levels [IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers*], erratic weather conditions are impacting traditional growing regions for these crops, affecting both the yield and quality.”
Despite these challenges, Rey-Giraud still thinks there is time to act: “For most tea and coffee manufacturers, the challenge resides in mitigating Scope 3 and FLAG [forest, land and agriculture] emissions, as these emissions often represent more than 70% of their total footprint. A collaborative approach across the supply chain to embrace innovation, adopt sustainable farming practices, and leverage technology is key to deliver a more resilient future.”
This collaboration needs to extend to suppliers, non-governmental organisations and customers in order to expand certified practices, implement projects that safeguard forest cover and shift towards the use of reusable energy sources.
The EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products goes a long way towards helping businesses cut down on their carbon usage, but as Finlays pointed out, it has also helped to address urgent issues in areas like the Mulanje region in Malawi where deforestation is leading to increased flooding that threatens tea farming communities.
“We are also enhancing farming practices across our operations and those of our suppliers,” Rey-Giraud continued. “For example, we have introduced sheep and cows for natural weed management, which helps reduce fertilizer use and fosters a more sustainable approach to cultivation.”
Closer to home, Finlays has come down hard on waste reduction, with a major focus on reducing packaging waste in particular. For instance, the tea firm’s our factory in South Elmsall has adopted a ‘zero loss’ mindset, systematically identifying and prioritising waste sources based on impact and ease of implementation, then applying root-cause analysis to reduce or eliminate waste over time.
According to the IPCC, food waste contributes to 8-10% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, 30% of total food produced is lost or wasted, often in the supply chain process or thrown away by consumers due to confusion over best-before dates.
Smart packaging
Alastair Hanlon, chief commercial officer at tech firm Pragmatic Semiconductor, extolled the benefits of smart packaging for food and drink to reduce waste. However, ensuring such a system requires consumers to understand and adopt it. As such, providing a smoother consumer experience is crucial.
“With just a single tap of a smartphone, FlexIC-based RFID (radio frequency identification) tags can give consumers key information on reuse or recycling, removing uncertainty and enabling more efficient post-use treatment,” Hanlon explained. “The packaging can also be tracked across multiple use cycles, providing data for incentive schemes or rewards.
“Consumers are already familiar with using their smartphones in this way, typically for mobile payments. This familiarity reduces barriers to adoption of this kind of technology. Brands will also have the opportunity to offer benefits, such as discounts or loyalty points, to consumers who support reuse, creating a fun and engaging experience.”
In the future, these tags could be integrated with low-cost sensors in food packaging to monitor temperature or test pH – technology already exists for simple tags that can detect the gases or odours that indicate deterioration. This would enable dynamic use-by dates that are dependent on condition, rather than a fixed point in time.
But these smart solutions also have application beyond the consumer journey,” Hanlon continued. “They can facilitate automated post-use sorting, allowing materials to be accurately and efficiently segregated and avoiding contamination of waste streams. This could completely transform the recycling process.
“Smart packaging could also provide businesses with accurate data to support sustainability reporting, improving transparency and traceability. For large organisations with a legal obligation to report to shareholders, understanding their footprint at an item level will revolutionise the accuracy of their reporting, while driving efficiency and impact at scale.”
Perhaps a review of your manufacturing process is needed to really identify areas in which you can cut down on energy usage?
Pumps facilitate vital processes such as cooling, heating, fluid transport and circulation within the factory, all while consuming a sizeable portion of industrial energy. But as Europump president Luboš Michlík explained, innovations in pump technology are helping industries cut down energy usage, reduce operational costs and minimise their carbon footprint.
“Industrial pumps represent a key opportunity for energy savings, given that they account for up to 20% of global electricity consumption,” said Michlík. “By embracing more efficient pump systems, manufacturers can drastically reduce energy consumption, making a major contribution to global sustainability efforts.”
Meat and poultry processor Pilgrims has been exploring ways to close the loop on materials and reduce its reliance on virgin plastics.
The manufacturer has partnered with Waitrose, WRAP, and food packaging firm Faerch to launch an initiative that turns recycled plastics collected from UK homes into ready-meal trays that meet food safety and quality standards.
“This initiative is a significant step forward – not only does it prove that recycled PET can meet the technical demands of food-grade packaging, but it also opens up the possibility for a UK-wide system where food trays are kept in circulation rather than ending up in lower-grade uses or landfill,” said Pilgrim’s Europe sustainability director Matt Dight.
“By keeping high-quality recycled PET in the packaging supply chain, we’re actively reducing the demand for virgin plastic, promoting true resource efficiency, and moving the industry closer to a circular economy. It’s an exciting project, and we believe it showcases a model that could lead to more sustainable packaging solutions across the food sector.”
Designing sustainability into packaging has also been a key focus for Pilgrim’s, with the development of a new tray that uses a dimpled design at the bottom that utilises the surface tension of any liquids to retain moisture. This removes the need for the absorbent pads that can be found in many other fresh meat packages which are not able to be recycled.
“We have successfully launched this design at our Bromborough site and are championing the move with all our customers where there is no impact to safety or quality which would remove 39m pads annually,” Dight concluded.
Tweaks to production
Making a major change to your packaging or production processes can be a costly procedure that many manufacturers can ill afford to make. Sometimes the best foot forward to evaluate your current system to see if some tweaks can make a difference.
KTC Edibles sales director Gary Lewis urged manufacturers aiming to cut Scope 3 emissions to look closely at the ingredients they are using.
There can be huge amounts of variation in the carbon footprint of individual commodities depending on where they come from and how they are grown.
“Currently, there simply isn’t enough transparency in the supply chain to make accurate calculations on many ingredients – so companies looking to calculate their Scope 3 emissions have to depend on industry average emissions factors,” he explained.
“Thankfully, supply chain transparency is increasing all the time, and in many commodities, it’s now possible to make informed sourcing decisions based on carbon footprints.
“For example, RSPO certified sustainable segregated palm oil has an average carbon footprint that is 35% lower than conventional palm oil – and switching can provide an immediate saving in terms of Scope 3.”
Across the Irish sea
Sometimes the best place to look for new ideas and inspiration is outside of one’s own borders, and what better place to explore than the UK’s closest neighbour, Ireland?
Origin Green is Ireland’s food and drink sustainability programme, led by Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board. The scheme brings together the entire food industry from farm to fork with the common goal of sustainable food production.
The programme enables Irish food and drink producers to set and achieve measurable sustainability targets, with a focus on improvement on an ongoing basis in order to build and protect the global reputation for Irish food.
Ryan George – sector manager for dairy at Bord Bia – explained that sustainability has come much more into focus in the 10 years since Origin Green was first introduced. Back then, it was a very niche subject that was only the focus of a couple of people within the business at best.
“Where I see it [Origin Green] being set apart, or a bit of a lightning rod, is in the sense that the scheme is national,” George added. “We as an organisation initially started out with a policy of ‘everyone get on board’ to a position we’re at now where if you aren’t on board or making an attempt to get an Origin Green plan written and verified, Bord Bia can no longer support you.”
Those that do get on board with Origin Green are given plenty of support to help their businesses grow sustainably, ranging from direct support from the likes of George and his team to being given access to a library of research materials and reports.
“I wouldn't claim that we have the best sustainability scheme, but I would certainly say the industry is wholeheartedly and holistically invested in it,” said George.
“It’s an evolving programme and sustainability is evolving. It's no longer a talk of carbon only, it’s a talk about the economic viability of food, localisation and about waste management. There's a lot more to it than just reducing carbon – albeit it's probably [still] the most talked about pillar or focus.”
The success of the programme really stems from its 10 years of learnings. Instead of merely resting on its laurels and letting the scheme carry on as it had been in 2014, Bord Bia has evolved it and moulded it to better suit the industry – and the planet.
What really sets Origin Green apart from similar schemes available to UK food and drink producers is its direct link to the Irish Government, giving it a greater level of ‘legitimacy’ in the eyes of the general public.
It should also be noted that when compared to a business achieving B-Corp status, obtaining a gold standard rating under Origin Green proves that your organisation is putting a great deal of effort into becoming more environmentally sustainable. Those who gain B-Corp can achieve this status by focusing on social performance, such as improving the welfare of employees (i.e. it’s not always environmentally focused).
It should also be mentioned that close to 100% of Irish dairy farmers are part of the Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme, almost guaranteeing that the milk used by Irish manufacturers comes from a sustainable source.
References
*Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This SPM provides a high-level summary of the understanding of the current state of the climate, including how it is changing and the role of human influence.
