To achieve greater sustainability, we seek to reduce and mitigate our environmental footprint throughout our operations, and this year, we are proud to have further reduced our energy consumption across our sites (to 254,856,747 kWh, down from 260,235,458 kWh). All of our manufacturing sites (excluding Knighton Foods) are accredited to ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems to drive efficiency further.

We have reduced our overall CO2 emissions this year by a further 5.1% which is a 39.8% decrease against our baseline figure of 103,102 tonnes CO2 (year ended 31 December 2008) when we first started to collect emissions data on a like-for-like basis, and this has been adjusted for site disposals.

The main changes implemented in the last 12 months were at our Lifton Devon creamery, home of Ambrosia. The site has benefitted from the first full year running of natural gas to fuel the boilers which emit around 25% less CO2 per kWh than the previously used heavy fuel oil and, in addition, we installed a new and more efficient can retort system.

We have a zero waste to landfill policy and, as a priority, we work with our waste partner to recycle wherever we can. This year, 43,333 tonnes have been recycled and the rest (1,625 tonnes) sent to incineration facilities to generate energy.

We have met and exceeded our previous target to reduce water use by 25% (against a 2007 baseline when we started measuring) by 2020. The Courtauld 2025 Water Stewardship Steering Group, of which our Group Environmental Manager is the Co-Chair, is now looking at setting a new target. Our annual non-ingredient water usage has increased this year due to leaks, but we have immediately taken action to fix the issues. Premier Foods is committed to supporting the Courtauld 2025 Water Ambition and playing its part to improve the quality and availability of water in key areas of the UK where ingredients are sourced to produce food and drink (see case study).

Our products are packaged in a way that balances the need to ensure food safety, preserve freshness and taste, prevent food waste, provide convenience, and share important information with consumers. We continue to work hard to optimise our packaging and to reduce its environmental impact; using materials from certified sustainable sources wherever possible, increasing our use of recycled materials, and increasing the recyclability of our packaging. The chart below illustrates the split in our use of packaging materials by volume weight and their respective recyclability rates. All the corrugated paper or carton board we use within our packaging is from Forestry Stewardship Council (‘FSC’) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certified sources and is fully recyclable. In total, 95% of our packaging, by weight, is recyclable (both widely recycled and check locally) using OPRL guidelines.

Our packaging portfolio is made up of a variety of materials like glass, cardboard and plastic to ensure that our products are kept fresh and arrive safely with consumers. Plastic currently represents just 12% of our packaging portfolio and we are adopting a recycle, reduce and remove strategy to make further improvements. We support a vision for a circular plastics economy, where plastic is valued and kept in the economy, but out of the environment. That’s why, in April 2018, we signed up as a founding member of the UK Plastics Pact and pledged to work with governments, businesses, local authorities, NGOs and citizens to help transform the UK plastics packaging sector by 2025.

Our dedication to improve the environmental impact of our plastic packaging predates the launch of the UK Plastics Pact. Our journey started four years ago to remove unnecessary plastic materials from our packaging, whilst always following the Packaging Essential Requirements legislation. In the last 24 months, we have removed 500 tonnes of hard-to-recycle or problematic plastics from our portfolio. Our work here has focused on removing polystyrene and black plastic trays and pots across a variety of brands. Our Mr Kipling six flatpack slices have changed to a clear RPET material so they can be easily recycled and by Christmas 2019, our popular mince pies were in clear trays, over 200 million of them!

With our approach to improve the recyclability of plastic packaging across our portfolio, we are focusing on using new and alternative recyclable materials across our brands. Through this process, we have found instances where a change would mean increasing the overall weight of the packaging, as there is not always a lighter-weight recyclable alternative available. Therefore, the current KPI to remove an additional 500 tonnes of packaging from our portfolio is no longer aligned with our broader recyclability and circular economy commitment, so we have chosen to no longer measure this. Instead, we will continue working on increasing the percentage of recycled content in our packaging to foster a circular economy as per our UK Plastics Pact commitment. To date, we have achieved 81% recyclability of our plastic packaging, which is an increase from 69% in the last 12 months.

This progress has been possible because we have instituted a new cross-functional Plastics Steering Group which is systematically reviewing the recyclability and volume of plastics used within our packaging, to identify where we can make improvements. Where an alternative packaging material is available, is deemed suitable and is more sustainable for the environment, we will look to remove plastic. There are more than 40 projects within the programme, including: recyclability, PVC removal, headroom reduction, inclusion of recycled content and packaging weight reduction. Plastics remains a complex issue and so we have been working with our suppliers, customers and peers this year to deepen our understanding and make improvements on plastics use.

We recognise that key to a circular economy is creating a market for more recycled content and help consumers to physically recycle material which is recyclable. On both points, we are making progress. Overall, 17% of our plastic packaging across our portfolio now has a recycled material content to help create a market-pull for recycled polymers, whilst remaining in compliance with food safety standards. All of our UK packaging is compliant with OPRL guidelines to ensure that our consumers can easily understand how to dispose of our packaging. We have this year also joined the Citizen Collaborative Action Group of WRAP’s UK Plastics Pact to support its campaigns. We have actively participated in the Clear on Plastics campaign which aims to cut through the confusion on plastic packaging and give UK citizens clear, evidence-based information, which allows them to make their own informed choices.

The UN has a number of sustainability goals (SDGs) and SDG 12 seeks to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” The third target under this goal (Target 12.3) calls for cutting in half per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reducing food losses along production and supply chains (including postharvest losses) by 2030. In our commitment to support this, we have signed up to WRAP and IGD’s initiative Target, Measure, Act. We share the ambition to halve food waste globally by 2030 and are a member of Champions 12.3, a coalition of executives from governments, businesses, international organisations, research institutions, farmer groups, and civil society dedicated to inspiring ambition, mobilising action, and accelerating progress toward achieving SDG Target 12.3 by 2030. At Premier Foods, we are working to monitor, report and reduce our food surplus in line with this and are proud of our record of sending 0% to landfill since 2013 and are working to move our waste up the food waste hierarchy.

Our total food production for this period was 347,168 tonnes. We have measured our overall food waste to be 7,791 tonnes, which equates to 2.24% of food produced (on a calendar year basis, as reported with Champions 12.3). The waste can be created by many different issues, such as not meeting quality standards, production over-runs, short shelf life of warehouse stock and floor waste during the packing process. The split of disposal of our 7,791 tonnes of waste is between anaerobic digestion and land injection of on-site effluent plant waste as fertiliser. Working on redistributing more of our surplus stock, we are proud to partner with Company Shop and support those most in need within our communities. Company Shop takes our edible but damaged and therefore unsaleable food and sells it to community members in need, at a discounted price. Profits are used to help fund activities and workshops for the local community which take place at Community Shop centres and include, for example, cookery lessons, craft sessions, lunch clubs and CV writing workshops.

This year, we strengthened our partnership with Company Shop and met our target to double the number of our manufacturing sites partnered with them, from three to six. With the Harnessing Harder to Reach Surplus initiative, Company Shop have been able to help us identify surplus stock created on our production lines. An example of this work is on our surplus OXO cubes, which are now repackaged and labelled before being sold to the members-only shops.

We redistributed around 1.5 million units via Company Shop to their members. These equate to 455 tonnes of food waste, or the equivalent of 1 million meals, which is an uplift of 49% compared with the previous year. This is also estimated to save 1,821 tonnes of CO2 emissions.