Food Miles

 

What we’re doing to reduce our food miles


All food goes on a journey. We’re making sure ours has the lowest carbon footprint possible. 

 

 

What are food miles? 


How far did your dinner have to travel to get to your plate? The distance – and how it gets transported – all add up to its ‘food miles’. 

 

 

The journey of our cacao and chocolate 


Cacao is at the heart of what we do, and it can only be grown in tropical climates in a region about 20 degrees north and south of the equator known as the Cacao Belt. So we use sea freight to import it to the UK, as it has the lowest carbon footprint of any form of transport.  Once it’s arrived in the UK, we make all our chocolate here and deliver it in our own liveried lorries, each expertly packed by our factory team to carry as much as possible.  
We’ve also started planning more efficient delivery routes to reduce emissions. We keep our cafés’ carbon footprint smaller by sourcing everything they need through our central distribution centre, except for milk. That means they only need one delivery each from us, not many from lots of different suppliers. 

 

How to Reduce Food Miles 


• Keep packaging lightweight and minimal to reduce weight and volume during transit
• Pack transport lorries for efficiency, ensuring they can carry as much as possible
• Plan the most efficient delivery routes to reduce food miles and carbon emissions
• Choose your shipping method – sea freight has a 50 times smaller carbon footprint than air freight