Environment

With our headquarters nestled among a rural Aberdeenshire estate, it’s our intention to have as little impact on the nature around us as possible.

And this has always been our way.

Forty years ahead of modern legislation protecting waterways from livestock, Glenbervie led the way, fencing off their water ways from cattle and sheep, allowing fish in the river to spawn and reproduce without diffused pollution from the estate.

Following the government’s Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS), we continue to show progressive improvements and it’s not just the world on our doorstep we strive to protect. Since 2012, we’ve been a member of the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – an organisation aimed at reducing deforestation overseas caused by the production of palm oil. While some manufacturers are stripping palm oil from their recipes to elude the connection with deforestation, we realise that overseas economies will suffer if the use of palm oil suddenly stops.

Our membership continues to help minimise the negative impact of palm cultivation on the environment and communities in producing regions.

We also manufacture UTZ and Fairtrade-certified products, supporting each organisation in their plans to improve sustainable sourcing globally.

Tracking environmental efforts throughout our supply chain, we formally screen all our suppliers, including points on social and environmental performance in our policies.

We use third-party risk assessment tools such as SEDEX - a membership organisation which is driving sustainable improvements in global supply chains.

Renewable energy We’re proud to have been the first company in the UK to use an industrial biomass plant to generate power to produce food and two onsite wind turbines have been powering parts of our manufacturing processes since 2014. This year, we moved to 100% renewable electricity sources, taking 75% from Glenbervie Wind and the remainder from an offshore Danish wind farm.

Plastic crack down We’re taking action to cut down how much singleuse plastic is used in our processes and packaging.

Our most significant changes have been on two of our top branded products.

Our range of dessert toppings were previously sold in plastic bottles, wrapped in a printed plastic sleeve, both items coming from two separate suppliers.

By moving from the plastic wrap to a stick-on label, we’ve removed around 3.2tonnes of plastic waste each year and reduced the number of deliveries being made to our site to produce this product. We’ve also switched the black plastic bottle tops to white, to improve their chances of getting picked up by infrared equipment within recycling plants.

We’re in the process of changing the packaging of our ready-to-use UHT products, moving to a 78% plant-based material. The new format contains more recycled material and reduces our carbon footprint on the production of this product by 11%.

We’ve also changed the supply of our pallet wrap to a more environmentally-friendly material which sees a further plastic reduction of 65% on one production line alone.

Waste not, want not In Glenbervie, we treat all liquid waste from our manufacturing processes, returning it to the river Bervie at the same quality - monitored by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). Any remaining solid waste is put to good use by Glenbervie Home Farm which is located on the estate alongside our headquarters.

We use steam generated from our biomass boiler to power our UHT plant resulting in high volumes of wastewater – over 150,000litres a day across both sites – so it’s important we get our waste management right.

Award-winning sustainability Our efforts to preserve the environment were recognised by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) earlier this year when Macphie was named Pizza Hut Restaurant’s Sustainable Supplier of the Year. Judges were said to be impressed with our forwardthinking mindset and use of renewable energy in our production processes, also commenting on our work to make our packaging more environmentally friendly.

The annual awards recognise suppliers for outstanding performance in support of Pizza Hut’s business. This is the first year Pizza Hut has introduced a sustainability award which aims to celebrate

In 2019, we installed a wastewater treatment plant on our second site in Tannochside, to improve the quality of any liquid waste leaving these premises.

Initial tests show the water is 10 times cleaner than previous results.

companies demonstrating a commitment to being a responsible business. Other nominees included Britvic, KK Foods, Lakeland Dairies and Beacon Foods. Macphie Commercial Director Warren Wells said, “We’re delighted to win this award and it’s great to see sustainability securing its place on the business agenda.

“Every day, our employees are working to produce products used by chefs and bakers around the world. This doesn’t happen in isolation and we recognise the impact our business has on the people and places around us.”