Arla Foods UK welcomes success of Courtauld Commitment 3

Arla Foods UK, the farmer-owned dairy company, welcomes Waste & Resource Action Programme’s (WRAP) results of Courtauld Commitment 3 (CC3), the food and drink industry’s ambitious approach to reduce food waste in the UK.

Tomas Pietrangeli, Managing Director at Arla Foods UK, said:

“Arla Foods UK proudly welcomes the successes evident in today’s CC3 results, in which we played a leading role but the work doesn’t stop there. As a founding signatory to last year’s Courtauld Commitment 2025 and our leading role in the Dairy Roadmap Plan, Arla’s commitment to environmental sustainability and efficiency is clear to see and we will build on the results we have achieved already.

Since 2005, Arla’s UK packaging carbon emissions have fallen over 25%, through light-weighting and the use of recycled materials. Arla has met it Dairy Roadmap target of incorporating 30% recycled plastic in our fresh milk bottles heading towards 50% by 2020

The slight increase in household food waste, from 7 million tonnes in 2012 to 7.3 million tonnes in 2015, highlights the need for the industry to adhere to further commitments to reduce food waste. Arla Foods has already made great strides in utilising surplus food in the supply chain including a total of 476 tonnes of product in 2016, which was enough to produce over a million meals.

Our business has set ourselves challenging targets and have deliberately stretched ourselves. Having a robust set of environment targets doesn’t just make ethical sense, it makes good business sense.”

CC3, of which Arla Foods UK was one of 50 voluntary signatories, challenged the food and drink industry to achieve three top line targets between 2012 and 2015:

• A reduction of food and packaging waste by 3% in manufacturing and retail
• Improvements on packaging design and recyclability in the grocery supply chain without increase carbon impact
• A reduction in household food and drink waste by 5%

Research out today from WRAP, the organisation which leads the scheme, indicates several successes in meeting these goals.

The industry met its 3% target in cutting ingredient, product and packaging waste in manufacturing and retail. This represents the equivalent of 219,000 tonnes of packaging, or 555,000 tonnes of CO2e saving over the lifetime of the commitment.

A 7% reduction in carbon emissions from packaging production also significantly exceeded CC3’s target of keeping carbon emissions from packaging level.

Arla Foods is a global dairy company and co-operative owned by 12,700 dairy farmers with circa 2,700 of whom are British.

Dating back to 1881, Arla’s purpose is to secure the highest value for its farmers’ milk, while creating opportunities for their growth. With production facilities in 11 countries and sales offices in a further 30, Arla is the world’s fifth largest dairy company and largest supplier of organic dairy products. Arla has a total of more than 18,000 colleagues and its products are sold under the well-known brands Arla®, Lurpak® and Castello® in more than 100 countries.

Arla Foods UK is the largest dairy company in the country and is home to leading dairy brands Anchor®, Cravendale, and Lactofree® with a turnover of €2.9 billion. As well as being a leading supplier of fresh milk, number one in butter, spreads and cream, Arla is the UK’s largest cheese manufacturer. It has also built the world’s largest fresh milk facility located at Aylesbury and has plans for it to be the first zero carbon site of its kind. The UK business has a team of approximately 3,500 colleagues located at its dairies, distribution centres and head office.