Waitrose has announced the winners of its of second ‘Waitrose Way Awards’, which celebrate suppliers' 'outstanding initiatives to enhance the sustainability of their businesses.
The winners, selected from more than 150 entries, all highlighted the important role their business plays in safeguarding the future of the environment and the food industry.
This year’s awards were held at the new Leckford Farm Shop at the Leckford Estate, the Waitrose farm in Hampshire, and the 15 winners were presented with a sustainably-sourced, British Oak award by Waitrose managing director, Mark Price.
Quentin Clark, head of sustainability and ethical sourcing at Waitrose said, “These awards are a fantastic way of celebrating the hard work that our suppliers have been doing to improve the sustainability of their businesses and ultimately the Waitrose business as a whole. It was hard to pick the winners from such a high standard of applicants and we are delighted that so many suppliers share the same goals that we do.”
Suppliers were invited to enter the awards under the categories of Treading lightly, Championing British, Living well and Treating people fairly - which are the four core principles of the supermarket’s CSR policy, ‘The Waitrose way’.
This year, four awards for building and development suppliers were also introduced - Treading lightly for carbon, waste and water and also for an award for Responsible Development Innovation.
Winners:
Dalehead Foods for their focus on long term relationships with British arable farmers in order to ensure crops, animal feed and British pork production remain sustainable.
Jordans and Ryvita for sourcing 80 per cent of their ingredients from 79 British farmers, all of whom work to ‘Conservation Grade’ standard.
Dalehead Foods for their ‘Equipped for Life’ initiative to improve the health and well being of their employees and raising the awareness of their Occupational Health team
Innocent for teaming up with WWF UK to drive a sustainable nutrition campaign and setting up the Innocent Foundation.
Moy Park for an energy saving of 11,200 CO2e and £2m in 2012 compared to 2011 .
Unilever for their compressed versions of aerosol deodorant cans, reducing the carbon footprint by 25 per cent.
Moy Park for diverting over 96 per cent of waste from landfill across all UK processing sites, with the long term aim of diverting 100 per cent of waste.
Fresh Olive Company for working with WasteSolve to divert 100 per cent of their waste from landfill and ensuring that all waste produced is recovered for positive use such as renewable energy.
Produce World for pioneering the use of drip irrigation in the UK, resulting in a 40-50 per cent reduction in water used.
Walker & Son Bakery for its exemplary outreach work into the local community, working with schools, disadvantaged young people and charities, offering volunteering and work placements and a range of benefits for Walkers employees.
Café Direct for reinvesting 50 per cent of its profits to its Producer Partnership Programme, which has enabled 91 projects over the last three years and benefitted an average of 17,000 smallholder farmers.
Carter Retail Equipment Ltd for developing an innovative, low carbon refrigeration system which resulted in a 32 per cent reduction in overall carbon emissions and 16 per cent energy saving in a year.
F & R Cawley Ltd for working with Waitrose to achieve the zero waste to landfill target and for using anaerobic digestion and in vessel composting to turn food waste into electricity and liquid soil conditioner. This has saved over 8,000 tonnes of CO2 and produced almost two million KW of electricity.
Emerson Retail Solutions UK for using EcoMESH, a unique mesh and water spray system to improve the performance of air cooled chillers, dry coolers and refrigeration plant. This reduced energy consumption by up to 44 per cent and consumes 10-25 per cent less water than other systems.
Edge Lighting Services Ltd for developing LED lighting that was suitable for Waitrose branches, resulting in a 42 per cent reduction in energy consumption at each branch. After an initial trial, it is now in all new branches and gradually being rolled out to all existing branches.
© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Ellen Lunney
