West’s food and drink producers leading way to a greener future
The Westcountry is going green - more and more firms in the food and drink sector are winning eco-awards or finding new ways of cleaning up their environmental act – although Covid is severely hampering some of the best intentions. Martin Hesp reports on how the region is leading the way in the green revolution...
JANUARY is the period when we begin to think about new beginnings. While Mother Nature is revealing her first flowers of the year in the form of Westcountry snowdrops, green-shoots are beginning to grow and flourish everywhere, including in the world of food and drink.
And green-shoots could be a precise description, because more and more producers in this region are looking for new ways of making their wares ‘green’ or eco-friendly.
In fact, some would argue the greater South West is the region leading the charge when it comes to ensuring a greener future for the food we eat. Take Westaways, the Newton Abbot sausage company as just one example – we have covered Charles Baughan’s remarkable story before in these pages, but now he has been rewarded for his pioneering approach to eco-friendly packaging by gaining major national acclaim.
Westaways won the prestigious Innovation of the Year at the 2020 UK Packaging Awards for being the first meat production company to switch to 100 percent compostable packaging – and that was in a competition where it was up against giant corporations such as Dyson. Now the Devon firm has been shortlisted as one of five finalists – including four Goliaths of pork, beef and poultry processing in the UK – for the Meat, Poultry and Seafood Manufacturing Company of the Year in the Food Manufacturer Excellence Awards, to be announced in February.
Last month Exeter-based Two Drifters Rum reached the finals of the Drinks Business Green Awards after being shortlisted for the gold-standard Green Company of the Year award.
Another Devon company, Blue Goose Coffee, is making big waves in the world of hot drinks for the way it utilises eco-friendly compostable Nespresso style pods.
Down in Cornwall the ever-thoughtful Trewithen Dairy has multiple “green” projects as part of its pioneering plans. For months now the dairy has been rolling out refillable milk stations across the South West in a bid to reduce plastic use across the business. Trewithen Dairy’s self-serve scheme offers customers the chance to pour semiskimmed milk into glass bottles and enjoy the taste of fresh milk produced from Cornish farms.
“We invested in the technology as a way to offer people quality, affordable, high-welfare produce while reducing the amount of single-use plastic being created,” said a spokesman who told the WMN the company will be announcing plans to invest in eco-friendly regenerative farming later this year.
At the other end of the region in Gloucestershire, Matthews Cotswold Flour is also spending time and money in helping grain farmers to produce more environmentally-friendly cereal crops.
“Right across the South West producers are starting to think in ways that will help protect the planet from some of our worst consumer excesses,” says Hayley Reynolds, of RAW Food and Drink PR. “Not a week goes by without some company or other approaching us to help tell their ‘green’ stories. Singleuse plastic is a big one – everyone who reads the Western Morning News will know that plastic waste is an enormous problem around the region’s coastlines.
“Sometimes the stories are not quite so easy to tell – which is why, for example, we commissioned a suite of photographs to be taken on Dartmoor of the new Nature Fresh style of clingfilm. It’s the eco-friendly wrapping Westaways use in their sausage packs.”
Ruth Huxley, founder of Truro’s Great Cornish Food Store and expert on all things food and drink west of the Tamar, believes it is the form production takes which really allows the region to claim green credentials.
“By that I mean things like extensive production of milk, beef and lamb from grass-fed animals – something which we are really good at here in the South West,” said Ruth.
But she adds that the coronavirus pandemic has set the green revolution back. “Self-service or refill stations and refillable glass milk bottles were being developed in response to the demand for less plastic, particularly single use plastic. However, one of the curious impacts of Covid is that initiatives like that have taken a back seat while people are so anxious about any potential for contamination.
“At the store, for example, we used to display bread and cakes for people to serve themselves with tongs and pop into a compostable or recyclable brown paper bag – it was really light on packaging and people liked it. Now we have everything wrapped. The irony is that in many cases the same people, who only a year ago were demanding that we remove plastic, now – understandably – want the reassurance that their shopping has not been breathed on or touched by humans.
“At the beginning of 2019 part of our strategy for the year ahead was to create a comprehensive range of lines for a new self-service station within the store – but that was shelved for obvious reasons. The extent to which interest in that kind of concept will return is unknown right now, but I suspect it will take a while.
“Nevertheless, there are other ways in which buying from a local shop rather than the supermarket can be an eco-choice, aside from the question of food-miles,” says an optimistic Ruth.
“Buying fresh produce from a real person behind a counter means you can buy the exact amount you need, so it does reduce waste. It’s very useful for smaller households. Fruit and veg is much more likely to come in a paper bag rather than a fully enclosed rigid plastic container – and a quick wash will ensure things like fruit are safe to eat.
“Another thing to consider is the source of the energy used to make the product. A number of food producers are using solar or wind power now and there will be some interesting stories to be told around that in the near future. For example, there’s a distillery being set up using geothermal energy in Cornwall – although it’s still in the development stages.”
The Great Cornish Food Store is careful when it comes to waste. “We generate very little here because there’s a strong connection between our kitchen and the rest of the store. They will always be looking out for products we have in plentiful supply – or if we have an oversupply they’ll have recipes at the ready to turn those excess raw ingredients into something stunning.
“This is replicated when you have a well connected local supply chain, with real people talking to each other and developing ideas together,” says Ruth. “I’ve seen how one producer’s waste material can become another’s raw ingredient. Chefs or food processors will utilise a crop that doesn’t make the grade for retail.”
So, while there are green-shoots, the Westcountry is yet to be completely blanketed by environmentally friendly food and drink initiatives…
“Only this week I was involved with an hour long Zoom call that proved just how difficult taking the eco-friendly route can be,” commented Greg Parsons, who is a founder director of the South West Food Hub and who also runs the award-winning Sharpham Dairy, a company which is renowned for its green credentials.
“It is really important that we encourage and support our agrifood sector to work towards ‘net zero’ at a pace that they can manage. Many primary producers already do a fantastic job and most want to do more but struggle through knowhow, focus or resources, or a combination thereof.
“We at the South West Food Hub are working with Defra to set realistic standards and expectations when it comes to public sector supply and we hope to help and support producers to get fit and ready for the future.
“Certainly, by designing a system aimed at making it easier for local farmers, growers and producers to supply local schools, hospitals etc, you are reducing food-miles and so on.
“So essentially we are making public procurement more eco-friendly –
but in some ways it is like a relay race that can go wrong.
“The problem is you can have some stakeholders who are amazingly advanced when it comes to green credentials, while others will be far behind and our ambition is that everyone sets out on the journey to ‘net zero’ and that buyers in the public sector will be able to make informed decisions about how they want to buy their food.
“And, of course, we also have Covid and Brexit in the present mix,” says Greg. “So, yes… while I’m pleased the WMN is featuring an article about green-shoots appearing across the region, we must put intelligent thought into the detail of how an integrated green revolution can work.
“We have the opportunity to do it now in the unique times we live in – but we should pull together and ensure we’re all singing from the same hymn book, as we already rely too heavily on imported foods.
“If we push producers too far, too fast, they will exit and leave us with an even worse food security issue.”
‘Buying fresh produce from a real person behind a counter means you can buy the exact amount you need’