Our Suppliers
As British farming’s biggest single direct customer, we’re proud of the relationships we have with farmers across the UK. We work closely with farmers to ensure we can take the whole crop wherever possible. This approach produces stronger relationships, more consistent supply, reduces waste and increases yield.
From beef cattle, sheep and pigs to egg farmers, potato growers and carrot producers, we’ve worked with farmers for generations, supporting the industry and bringing in great quality products for customers.
2,700
We deal directly with over 2,700 British farmers.
No. 1
We are British farming’s biggest single direct customer.
Elite Beef
We work transparently with our farmers and livestock supply chain to share knowledge and good practice. We have our own integrated Dairy Beef Supply Chain with over 16,000 calves on the ground going through our dedicated supply chain partners, with full traceability from rearer to finisher.
Established in 2013, Elite Beef is an integrated beef scheme with the aim to supply consistent high-quality beef to our customers, while maintaining extremely high welfare standards and sustainable methods.
The scheme offers suppliers stability, security and profitability for their businesses, with the opportunity to become part of an elite group of beef finishers.
Elite Beef produces uniform carcasses with weight, conformation and fat cover that suit consumer demands and provides us with full traceability from birth to slaughter.
Key Points
- More sustainable than traditional methods
- High welfare
- Traceability from birth
- Uniform carcass quality
- Year round availability
Sustainability in our supply chain
We work hard with farming groups in our supply chain to manage the sustainability of the farmed environment, from water pollution risk to carbon emissions.
We are supporting farms supplying us on a journey to meet our ambition to have a Net Zero Carbon direct British agricultural supply chain by 2030.
We have four main initiatives:
Efficiency through measurement and action plans
We have emissions baselined around 17% of beef and 20% of lamb and pork volumes coming directly from UK farms into our manufacturing business. All farms have action plans, supported by experts (from vets to agronomists) to help improve their emissions footprint by increasing efficiencies on farm, and to enhance opportunities to store more carbon through improving soil health, and planting trees and hedgerows.
Education and skills
We are founding members of the School of Sustainable Food and Farming at Harper Adams University, alongside the NFU and McDonalds. The School was set up to provide consistent messages, training, research and skills for current and future generations of farmers in meeting the climate change crisis.
Innovation
We are supporting innovations in the sector to help game-change products and systems – from feeding waste from our factories to insect larvae for use as a soya supplement in laying hen diets, to researching the efficacy of seaweed as a feed additive to reduce methane emissions in cattle.
Incentives
We pay incentives to farmers who do more to lower their carbon footprint - from finishing stock more quickly through our dairy beef programme, to producing a ‘carbon neutral’ egg on farm.
We recognise the importance of working collaboratively with suppliers and partners to achieve these ambitions, playing our part in helping to tackle the global climate change crisis.