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Sustainability

Our commitment to sustainability drives us to continuously improve our environmental performance from ‘farm to fork’. Here are just a few of the things we’re doing as a business to help the planet and future generations.

  1. Energy

    We are actively working to reduce our energy usage. All our buildings now have smart meters installed and we are moving towards electric or hybrid company vehicles with onsite charging points.

    LED lighting has been introduced in our factories, an onsite chiller facility was built to cut down on transport and we are working on several other projects to reduce the amount of electricity used on site including solar panels.

    We aim to reduce energy and water usage by 5% per year every year. In 2020 we installed a sludge and caking machine that cleans all of the waste water that we produce at the Redgrave factory, this has reduced the amount of HGV lorries on the road by 32 journeys per week and creates green energy.

  2. Recycling

    Under 10% of waste is sent to landfill. A large percentage of the packaging that our products come in can be recycled such as the cardboard cartons, sleeves and the foil trays inside the cartons.

    The clear film, sachets and trays are not currently recycled but they are made up of 30-75% recycled material, this is a positive way to use up recycled material which is not suitable for further recycling. It is very difficult to find an alternative material that is both recyclable and gives our products the shelf life that consumers expect from fresh products. We have moved to linerless labels on our fresh duck portion products which has reduced our carbon footprint and saved over 24 tonnes of waste material per year.

    We are looking at ways to use less packaging including moving to linerless labels rather than sleeves.

  3. Environment

    Farming is at the heart of what we do, and we take care to protect and enhance the environment on our land.

    Over the past year we have planted 1800 metres of hedge rows on our farmland, creating a haven for wildlife, a shelter for livestock and crop protection and pollination. One of farms houses a willow tree coppice, where the trees are used to make cricket bats! Working with local nature groups we have established and protected a Lapwing Habitat on one of our farms and working with the Woodland Trust plan to establish even more woodland and nature habitats on our land.

  4. Community

    We have been farming and processing ducks in East Anglia for over 50 years and supporting the local community is very important to us.

    At Christmas time we donate whole turkeys and turkey crowns to foodbanks and community centres all over Suffolk and Norfolk. We work closely with Fareshare and in 2021 donated 41.4 tonnes of meat to them which equates to 98,664 meals benefitting 893 different charities. We sponsor a selection of local sports teams and regularly donate hampers and voucher prizes to community events.

    Every year staff nominate different charities to support, this year staff are fundraising for the Salvation Army and Yana (rural mental health charity). Staff organise various fundraising activities from bake sales to sponsored runs. As a business we support local charities The Suffolk foundation, Just 42 and Inspire Counselling in Ipswich. Further affield we provide funding for One More Child, Place of Grace (a children’s charity in Bangkok), Mission without Borders (helping the crisis in Ukraine) and Compassion UK, sponsoring young people in deprived countries,

    Finally we have made improvements to the villages where our main sites are located, including modifying the Redgrave village pond to stop it flooding.