By far the biggest environmental impact of our operation is packaging and of this by far the biggest component is our D2 meat trays which our complete meals are packed into. With this in mind we have worked hard to ensure our meat trays are as environmentally friendly as possible. To do this we switched supplier from a foreign supplier to a local Gloucestershire company who have helped us to create a tray that is one of the most environmentally considerate on the market. Generally the trays are made using approx. 90% recycled content with a 10% virgin material capping layer. Of the 90% – 50% of this is Post consumer waste – predominately Bottle flake (i.e. recycled water/pop bottles ) the remaining 40% is post Industrial waste – predominately skeletal waste from the manufacture of PET/PE trays – This is good as PET/PE is then used up to make more trays. The trays themselves are also 100% recyclable.
Our frozen meals have to be sent to the customer in insulated packaging. Again we have introduced a much more environmental, 100% recyclable insulating material. Rather than using polyfoam boxes we are now using two different insulating materials. The first is a wool liner / blanket made from waste wool which is placed inside a recyclable cardboard box into which our frozen product is packed for distribution. We have two suppliers of these wool blankets Puffin Packaging and Woolcool. The second is an insulated blanket made from shredded recycled paper which is used in the same way as the wool liners, our supplier is Cotswold Packaging.
All the waste meat and vegetables from our manufacturing process as well as damaged product returned from customers is sent to a licenced anaerobic digestion (AD) plant to be converted into energy and organic fertiliser, we do this through the waste management company Olleco, see www.olleco.co.uk/food-waste-collections
We have introduced a government salary sacrifice scheme to encourage staff members to purchase electric vehicles.
We are fortunate to live and work in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Our aim is to keep it that way.