Resource efficiency project

Tackling waste is a key part of our ESG efforts in sustainable and responsible manufacturing. At our Poole Bakery, we’ve launched a comprehensive waste reduction initiative that has seen the amount of waste produced by the site drop from 11.7% to 9.4% – and counting.

The project kicked off using a factory model to identify waste across the end-to-end food manufacturing process. The analysis allowed us to set the scope of the project, including defining material waste, identifying and categorising waste, conducting a root cause analysis and establishing robust data collection, performance tracking, action planning and delivering sustainable, long-term solutions.

The key focus areas were overage product usage, quality loss and defects. The project revealed a varying quality of the waste, so we initially prioritised meat or valuable materials that have the biggest opportunity to reduce our environmental impact – for example, beef, due to its associated carbon emissions. The initiative has led to a 2.3% reduction in waste, putting us well on our way to achieving our aim of reducing waste at the site to less than 8%.

This project demonstrates how sustainability measures can boost cost savings and profitability, and enhance supply chain resilience and stakeholder confidence, so we plan to roll this initiative out to other sites in a phased approach.