farming champions

fruitful farming

Farmers are an underrated bunch. While we're busily spending our days in PowerPoint presentations and double checking there isn't a word that rhymes with orange, they're out there feeding the entire world (which is an even tougher job than you'd think). That's why we want to do everything we can to understand the challenges they face and figure out ways we can help. We're working with our farmers to make sure our ingredients are grown in a way that’s good for them and good for the planet they’re grown on.

Right now, we’re working on projects to help reduce inequality, reduce carbon emissions and support biodiversity so we can work with our farmers towards all our ingredients being responsibly grown.

journey to 100% responsibly grown

Working with our farmers to ensure that the delicious ingredients we source is done in a way that helps to respect human rights, reduce carbon emissions and promote biodiversity. Here’s the journey we are on to make sure the ingredients we source are responsibly grown

find out more about our farmer innovation fund

2007

We kick things off by buying all of our bananas from Rainforest Alliance certified farms (which we still do today). That means 5% of our ingredients are now sustainably sourced.

2009

We start a project to support our mango farmers who are already experiencing the impact of climate change. Faced with droughts and erratic monsoons, we support a five-step programme that helps them make their mango trees more resilient to extreme weather.

2010

We start working with our strawberry farmers in Spain to see if we can reduce the amount of water needed to grow our strawberries. In 2015 alone, we save 1.7 billion litres of water and The Guardian decide to give us a Sustainable Business Award. Find out the full story here.

2016

After years of using our own sustainability standards, we team up with the SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) and over a hundred other brands to commit to meeting the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) standard. Find out more just below.

2017

We launch our FITR programme. Not only does the acronym have a nice ring to it, it helps our scouting team find out if new ingredients can be sustainably sourced or not. Find out more about our FITR programme here.

2018

We start working with some of our Indian mango farmers to help them reach the SAI-FSA standard. It leads to a 48% increase in their yields and an 80% reduction in chemical costs. Result.

2020

A whopping 82% of our ingredients are now verified as sustainably sourced against the SAI-FSA standard. We pat ourselves on the backs, then get to work on the final 18%.

2023

We’re committed to sourcing all our ingredients sustainably, and we're very close to having 100% of them verified. Once we get there, we’ll work hard to make sure every new ingredient we bring into our supply chain meets the same standards.

how we hit farming sustainability standards

We like to get up close and personal with our farmers. Nothing beats a good natter over a cup of tea, so we regularly meet up with them, independent auditors and people from global sustainability organisations to chat about how we can grow our ingredients in the most sustainable way.

Since we developed our own sustainability standards back in 2007, the number of brands and retailers using standards, certification schemes and labelling schemes has grown to the point where the burden on some suppliers is too much. To sort this out, we teamed up with the SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) Platform and over a hundred other brands to commit to meeting the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) standard. We've developed three pathways with our suppliers, which help them to meet the FSA standard through implementation, equivalency with other formally approved standards such as Rainforest Alliance, or a sustainability-driven project. If you get as fired up about sustainability standards in agriculture as we do, you can read more about the initiative here.

investing in the future of farming

Hitting sustainability standards is just one piece of the sustainable farming puzzle. We're also investing in other areas to help reduce inequality, increase biodiversity and tackle the big issue of climate change.

reducing inequality

We've teamed up with Emerging Leaders (a charity who specialise in unlocking human potential) to help support and empower farmers in more vulnerable communities. We've boosted the incomes of over 8,000 farmers in the last few years, and by 2030 we'll be investing in improving 20,000 farming livelihoods.

find out more.

championing biodiversity

Bees are great. And we’re not just talking about their knees. If it wasn’t for these little flying pollinators, growing the fruit that’s crushed into our drinks would be tricky. So we're investing in a few new projects that aim to support the world's pollinators by building bee hotels, creating wildlife corridors and reducing the use of pesticides. We'll be testing everything out across 1,000 hectares of land, then once we have a good idea of what's working and what's not, we'll roll it out on a bigger scale.

cutting carbon

Growing, squashing and transporting our ingredients is where 57% of our carbon footprint comes from. We're working on ways to cut carbon from our farms, and every other part of our business too.

find out more.

sourcing stories

Strawberries that save water in Spain. Apples that help build bee hotels. Coconuts that support small growers through a pandemic. Find out how we sustainably source our fruit and learn some exciting technical terms along the way.