While debate continues to rage over what He Waka Eke Noa will look like, farmers in New Zealand need only look to the United Kingdom to see how Tesco’s zero-carbon moves are changing farm practices and supply chain expectations.
Alice Ritchie, a Kiwi and Tesco agricultural sustainability manager for the UK’s largest food retailer, told Farmers Weekly the company has been watching developments here with interest, given NZ farmers supply over a third of the company’s lamb, making it NZ’s single largest UK lamb purchaser.
Tesco has set an ambitious goal to be net carbon zero for its own operations by 2035 and has committed to a net zero carbon emissions from its supply chain and products by 2050.
This has initiated widespread audits of food sources and practices in its complex global supply chain.
Given NZ lamb’s sizable contribution to chiller space and its place among the big four emitting products of red meat, milk, poultry and pork, it will be the first in NZ to feel the weight of retailer expectations on how farmgate emissions are managed down.
“We have been very much focused on the UK, but we have to consider our complete supply chain, not just what is produced within the UK border,” Ritchie said.
In the UK, she said, Tesco’s signals to farmers and processors have possibly been more pertinent than the British government’s signals on GHG reductions in farming.
“The context is so different [in the UK] for agriculture. It is less than 10% of total gas emissions and 0.5% of GDP, but the government has been quite holistic in its approach offering subsidies and incentives to change to lower emitting, nature-positive practices.”
That includes restoring hedgerows, planting trees, and encouraging biodiversity areas are based on subsidies that reflect conservation efforts rather than planted acreage.
“We are starting to see farms running more mixed systems and more of a shift to regenerative practices, which a lot of people call a ‘New Zealand system’.”
Tesco oversees sustainable farmer groups for most main protein and produce types in the UK. It also has a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund aiming to halve the environmental impact of the average UK shopping basket, working in regions both in the UK and offshore.
Ritchie herself spends portions of her week gumboot clad, meeting farmer groups and suppliers around the UK.
“Tesco Dairy farmers have known their carbon footprint for 15 years, and there is support for specific on-farm practices, with all farms scored on a sustainability scorecard for a number of environmental outcomes.”
Tellingly, she said having a government-endorsed scheme mapping out carbon reductions is an ideal scenario for many retailers, rather than having to try to manage a mix of carbon certification schemes.
“We want to be able to say there is a very comprehensive, certified scheme there for the entire industry, knowing we can continue to purchase NZ produce, knowing it is a similar environmental standard to the UK farmers have to supply to.”
She points to Ireland’s Origin Green programme as an example of a well-embedded, nationally accepted scheme that gives Tesco confidence in buying Irish produce.
Tesco is also mapping biodiversity hotspots of supplier farm sources, and NZ, with its huge mix of flora and fauna, will be well in its spotlight.
She said Tesco is aware of how changes at farm level can take time and is supportive of a need to transition, particularly in an environment of increasing farm costs.
She acknowledges Tesco does carry enough weight to influence change, pointing to a mandate to remove soy feed sourced from deforested areas from pig and poultry feed inputs.
“But a programme like HWEN means we can be pretty well assured lamb from NZ is on the same track to lower carbon farming.”
She said it is far preferable to separate certification schemes or net-zero claims that can carry implications for advertising claims, and at about £22,000 (about $42,500) per product for a full life-cycle analysis, can be expensive to validate.
“So having an overarching policy would make life simpler, especially if NZ farmers can track how this policy impacts on their on-farm carbon footprint. Accurate on-farm data is critical for companies with supply chains as diverse and wide-reaching as Tesco’s, so having that kind of consistency and regular measurement carries a lot of weight.”
“Carbon leakage”, the risk that food companies will buy product off countries not pursuing lower carbon farming, is a challenge to the global supply chain.
But Ritchie maintains sustainability and zero carbon are rapidly becoming embedded in the right to operate, regardless of the food’s source.
As the UK struggles under a soaring cost of living, she acknowledges the pressure food retailers face as they jockey for market share with price-sensitive shoppers.
However, this is not deterring the lower carbon goals.
“Lower carbon goals bring innovation to operations and to farming, for example regenerative practices using less fuel and fertiliser. It’s how much we can embed sustainability in.”
Meantime sustainability, after price, is second on consumers’ “must have” list and there is a growing assumption zero carbon and sustainability are simply part of doing business, not an offering to charge a premium on.
