greggs bakers

GREGGS BAKERS COMMITS TO FAIRTRADE COCOA

The high street bakery Greggs has been a big hit with consumers in the UK for the past decade. Their colourful stores, irresistible pastries, and affordable prices won them a lot of fans. Recently, the company announced a sustainability plan encompassing all aspects of its business, including how it sources ingredients such as cocoa.

Greggs has made significant new commitments to sourcing chocolate from Fairtrade accredited suppliers as part of its sustainability plan, the ‘Greggs Pledge’. The company says this plan supports its commitment to sourcing sustainably and having a robust Responsible Sourcing Strategy in place by 2025.

Since 2005, Greggs has sourced all coffee beans and hot chocolate, among other ingredients from Fairtrade sources.

Greggs has now announced that it is going even further with its commitment by only purchasing chocolate from Fairtrade accredited suppliers for 100% of the products that it manufactures itself. In addition to cookies and caramel shortbread, Fairtrade chocolate is used in a variety of products, including chocolate brownies and milk chocolate cookies.

Fairtrade works with more than 1.7 million farmers and workers in 1,707 producer organisations to make trade fair, setting social, economic and environmental standards for companies and farmers across all stages of the supply chain.

Farmers participating in the Fairtrade scheme for cocoa look for the membership to provide a number of benefits, such as:

  1. Higher Income from a guaranteed minimum wage which is better than many other schemes. The higher income comprises benefits that can be exchanged for items and services, such as healthcare, or clean water.
  2. Guidance, training, and education in the field of environmental protection. Several of the elements are related to improving production, for example reducing soil erosion, while others provide an understanding and management of macro concerns, such as deforestation.
  3. To improve the status of women, who are often disadvantaged, by investing in women-specific projects and by supporting and promoting their causes

The Greggs Pledge, launched in February 2021, sets ten commitments to help make the world a better place by 2025. The commitments are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Greggs says that their guiding principle is and has always been that the company does the right thing by its employees, suppliers and the communities in which it operates.

Malcolm Copland, Commercial Director at Greggs said: ‘As a responsible business, we believe in doing the right thing and are incredibly proud to be a long-standing partner of Fairtrade. We are proud to have continued to increase our Fairtrade commitments over time…

It has been incredible to see the positive impact and difference we can make to producer communities. We look forward to building on this success further and doing our bit to help change the lives of the thousands of people involved.

Michael Gidney, CEO of the Fairtrade Foundation said:

It’s fantastic to see Greggs building on their already impressive Fairtrade portfolio by converting their chocolate couverture.

The move offers customers more options to do the right thing by farmers. Through choosing Fairtrade chocolate, cocoa producers can improve their household income, access training to adapt to climate change and participate in programmes that train women to be leaders and entrepreneurs.

The Group plans for all its chocolate used in products and across its supply chain to be 100 percent Fairtrade, by the end of 2021.

Author

  • Nick Baskett

    organisation:

    Nick Baskett is the editor in Chief at Bartalks. He holds a diploma from the Financial Times as a Non Executive Director and works as a consultant across multiple industries. Nick has owned multiple businesses, including an award-winning restaurant and coffee shop in North Macedonia.

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