Responsibility

Reducing our environmental impact

We are continuously striving to reduce our impact on the environment, including our carbon footprint, by significantly cutting our general waste, food waste and offering alternate sustainable packaging options to our customers. Since 2017, we have achieved our zero waste to landfill commitment; while between 2019-2020, we reduced our electricity usage by 8.5% and our gas usage by 4.5%, and are focused on reducing this further.

In 2020, we have reduced our general waste by 21%, while food waste has been reduced by 39%, both of which continue to take priority for us. We are members of WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) and have made it easier for all of our staff to segregate food waste from general waste by investment in infrastructure. In addition, we regularly work with FareShare in its goal to fight hunger and combat food waste, and we support Company Shop, the UK’s leading redistributor of surplus food and household products, donating all surplus product to food banks across the UK.

BBF is also committed to sustainable manufacturing and just one initiative we have adopted is halting the use of black plastic, which is harder to recycle, while also offering customers plastic-free alternatives for packaging.

Ethical sourcing and supply chain promise

We’re are members of SEDEX, to ensure we proactively source products and services ethically and sustainably, throughout each tier of our supply chain; while we work with Stronger Together, to ensure we’re doing everything we can to tackle modern slavery in supply chains.

We also encourage and offer segregated sustainable (SG) palm oil to our customers, in addition to palm oil-free options, as well as Fair Trade ingredients, including cocoa.

Regular charitable donations/commitments

Every year we support our chosen charities local to each of the communities in which we operate, making donations while also running fundraisers throughout the year. In addition, we support MacMillan, and make regular charitable donations to various other organisations such as Crisis, including a recent donation of 5,000 individually wrapped cake bars for London’s homeless community, the NHS, which we recently donated 25,000 cakes to as a thank you to our local NHS heroes, and FareShare.

Apprenticeship programs

Supporting and developing the next generation of the baking industry is incredibly important to us, which is why we offer a range of apprenticeship programs across various areas of the business. We currently have 24 colleagues on apprenticeship programs across nine departments, including operations, procurement, accounting, technical, learning and development, supply chain, engineering and NPD.