Nature
We’re committed to having a positive impact on nature across our value chain through regenerative agriculture. This burgeoning and wide-reaching approach aims to restore and improve the health of the land and waterways, while reducing the environmental impacts of farming. Focus areas for us include a sourcing strategy in line with these principles; respecting biodiversity and ensuring the ingredients we use are sustainable and affordable.
We’re also taking steps to help nature flourish in and around our manufacturing sites.
Sustainable ingredients
Understanding the fruit juice value chain is fundamental to our business meeting its sustainability commitments. In recent years, adverse weather conditions, low harvest yields and citrus greening disease have all contributed to higher costs and challenges in sourcing stable, sustainable supplies of our key ingredients globally.
The juice procurement team regularly visits key regions and suppliers to review the value chain, onboard new factories, ensure quality compliance and gather market insights.
In August, Helen White, our Group Supplier and Material Assurance Manager, and Nadine Wuntke, our Procurement Manager of Agricultural Ingredients for Great Britain and Ireland, visited four factories in Vietnam and Thailand. There they saw manufacturing sites, farms and orchards for pineapple and passion fruit crops, both providing key juices used across our markets.
Nadine explains: “With Britvic giving me the opportunity to visit our manufacturers and their farmers, it allows us to gather insight and knowledge that can only be learned when speaking to people on the ground and seeing the crop conditions first hand.
This information is of great value to us as it helps us understand the challenges each crop faces and plan to ensure we can offer quality juice for years to come.”
Biodiversity
Protecting biodiversity is fundamental to our business and the communities where we operate.
Britvic in Ireland became a member of the All Ireland Pollinator Plan in 2023, rolling out a roadmap for managing our site landscapes to support pollinating insects, which are in dramatic decline across Ireland. At our Ballygowan production facility in Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, the team continues to take action to help nature flourish. The site boasts over 40 acres of protected land, and celebrated World Bee Day in May with the proud announcement that it had become an official area of conservation for the native Irish honeybee which plays a critical role in the pollination of plants and crops.
We’re also continuing to make an impact across Healthier People and Healthier Planet, with a rewilding project on our 160-acre site of solar panels in Northamptonshire, Great Britain.
We’ve planted, sowed and installed a variety of assets to help the natural habitat thrive. Working closely with an ecological contractor, the biodiversity plan introduced bat boxes, fence gates for small mammals such as foxes and badgers to move freely, log piles around seasonal ponds to encourage reptiles to take refuge, with grasses, wildflowers, hedges, shrubs and trees including oak, wild cherry, birch and hornbeam taking root.
To help make sure our future sourcing strategies are deforestation free, we have also carried out risk assessments on key commodities. In Europe, we’re committed to ensuring that we meet the requirements of the European Union Deforestation Regulation.
None of our finished products are listed within Annex I of the Regulation, so our drinks are not in scope. However, given the global nature of our operations, we’re working to ensure that commodities such as cocoa, coffee and soy included in some of our drinks are deforestation free by the end of 2025.
All the paper and cardboard packaging materials we use are already 100% Forest Stewardship Alliance certified.
