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The businesses within our Grocery segment are highly dependent on agricultural commodities and supply chains to deliver both their leading brands and their ESG agenda.
A farmer growing Hom Mali rice for Westmill using the Sustainable Rice Platform Standard, Thailand.
The Grocery businesses have strong links to the global farming sector, sourcing products from crops grown on farms, tea gardens and smallholdings around the world. The approached they take reflect the complexity of supply chains and the nature of their operations.
As they adapt to the evolving regulatory ESG landscape, our Grocery businesses are broadening their approach to managing environmental and social risks, opportunities and impacts in agricultural supply chains. Recognising the critical need for collaboration across the industry, they are working with civil society partners and other industry players to help address supply chain issues.
To help assess environmental risks such as deforestation and biodiversity loss, our Grocery businesses are focusing on specific projects within their most important supply chains. They are also prioritising water reduction and yield increase for certain key commodities such as rice. Climate change is particularly impactful in the supply chains across the division, as extreme weather and natural disasters continue to affect the growth of healthy crops and the livelihoods of the communities that rely on them.
Several businesses leverage third-party certifications from organisations such as the Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Twinings is also actively involved in the International Cocoa Initiative, the World Cocoa Foundation, the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), the Sustainable Spices Initiative and the RSPO.
How our Grocery businesses approach responsible agriculture across some of their most material commodities is presented below.
Traditional rice-growing methods are water-intensive and release a significant amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accounting for an estimated 8% of global methane emissions. Westmill Foods, a UK based Grocery Group business and leading supplier of food products to the Indian, Chinese and Thai food service sectors, is a founding member of the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) and is committed to its standards.
The SRP is a multi-stakeholder partnership established by the United Nations Environment Programme. Through this partnership, Westmill Foods supports initiatives that aim to promote climate-smart agriculture, protect biodiversity, fight climate change and support smallholder farmers. By adopting SRP standards, Westmill helps produce high-quality rice while reducing environmental impact.
In Pakistan, where Westmill Foods sources basmati rice, the business is now in the sixth year of its collaborative project with Galaxy Rice, a key supplier in Pakistan, focused on equipping them with the tools and techniques needed to train their farmers on more sustainable farming methods in line with the SRP standard.
The programme aims to benefit both farmers and their communities, and covers topics such as water management, pesticide management and agribusiness techniques. In particular, it covers the use of water-saving technologies, including land laser levelling and alternate wetting and drying techniques which also help to reduce GHG emissions.
As of May 2025, the project included 1,200 farmers across 75km of land. In 2025, farmers within the programme have seen a 48% reduction in GHG emissions, a 30% reduction in water usage, a 9% increase in net yield and a 26% increase in net income compared to a set of non-SRP farmers.
Westmill has also completed the second year of a similar project working with its supplier Olam Agri to train smallholder Thai Hom Mali rice farmers located in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, on the SRP standards. In 2024, this project supported 800 farmers, and achieved a 56% reduction in fertiliser usage and a 12% increase in net income for farmers compared to 2022. Additionally, farmer groups in the project since 2023 achieved a 22% reduction in GHG emissions compared to 2022.
During 2025, Westmill purchased 67% of their basmati rice and 9% of Thai Hommali rice as SRP-certified rice from the projects mentioned above.
Twinings sources approximately 13,500 tonnes of tea and more than 180 herbal raw materials, including spices. It does not own any tea or herb estates, farms or gardens and is selective about who it sources from, purchasing tea only from Rainforest Alliance certified gardens across seven regions, China, Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Indonesia and Japan.
Its tea supply chain includes approximately 270,000 workers and smallholder farmers. Central to Twinings' responsible sourcing programme is Sourced with Care, which aims to drive positive change through empowering women, supporting incomes and improving living standards within these communities. Through this initiative, Twinings recognises and supports the vital contributions of people and communities in tea and herb production, through programmes which are designed to address issues identified through its Twinings Community Needs Assessment (TCNA) programme. The business also collaborates with key partners in the tea sector, such as the ETP, IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative and Rainforest Alliance.
Twinings publishes a sourcing map on its website detailing the tea gardens it buys from, as well as the countries from which it sources its key herbs, as part of its efforts to drive collaboration and greater transparency of reporting.
Twinings has achieved 100% traceability for all the tea it sources. For its 17 key herbs and spices1, it has 94% traceability by volume, back to farm or producer community. Across all herbs and spices sourced, Twinings has reached 85% traceability by volume.
AB World Foods and Westmill are members of the Sustainable Spice Initiative (SSI) and have committed to sourcing 25% of spices in their top three categories among spices, herbs and dehydrated vegetables from SSI-qualified certifications by 2025, rising to 50% by 2030.
Both businesses are making progress towards these targets. In 2025, Westmill sourced 42%of its top three spices (turmeric, chilli and cumin) from Rainforest Alliance-certified sources. AB World Foods sourced 22% of its top three products (coriander, paprika and kibbled onions) from SSI-certified sources. AB World Foods has also set a new target for three additional spices, and from 2025, in addition to the above, it will source 25% sustainably certified material for turmeric, chilli and cumin.
Since 2019, AB World Foods has been working on Project SPICE with partner GRAVIS, a community development organisation in Rajasthan, India, to support rural cumin and coriander farming communities. The project has delivered agronomy and business skills training to over 1,000 farmers, installed rainwater harvesting systems, and delivered wider social benefits to the farming communities including adolescent health education and women’s empowerment. In March 2025, Project SPICE won the Edie Sustainability Project of the Year Award, see more information in our case study.
1.The 17 key herbs and spices are: Apple, Blackberry Leaf, Camomile, Cardamon, Cinnamon, Ginger, Hibiscus, Lemongrass, Lemon Peel, Liquorice, Orange, Peppermint, Rosehip, Rooibos, Spearmint, Turmeric and Vanilla.
The Grocery businesses buy around 6% of the UK milling wheat crop which is a core ingredient for Allied Mills, Allied Bakeries, Jordans Dorset Ryvita (JDR), Silver Spoon and Westmill Foods. JDR also sources UK oats and rye.
Jordans Cereals, a premium cereal brand within our Grocery Group, sources some of its grains through the Jordans Farm Partnership, which covers its branded sales volume in the UK and France. This collaboration pays a premium to the farmers involved for their oats, wheat and barley in exchange for them managing at least 10% of their land for the benefit of wildlife. Since 1985, Jordans Cereals has worked with these farmers to promote biodiversity on their land.
Allied Mills ensures all the UK wheat it sources is Red Tractor or TASCC (Trade Assurance Scheme for Combinable Crops) assured. The business is currently five years into its Wheat Sustainability Supply Project, where select farmers adopt techniques that aim to improve soil health and support wildlife.
Silver Spoon, through Allied Mills, is working with four wheat farmers in partnership with Frontier, to source wheat grown using more regenerative agriculture practices. The initiative focuses on crop rotation, soil health, carbon footprint reduction and enhancing biodiversity. This wheat will be used in Allinson’s 1kg Strong White Flour from the autumn 2025 harvest.
Allied Mills and Silver Spoon are supporting nature-positive farming practices among wheat suppliers within their value chain, as part of Tesco’s Nature Programme. The retailer, which is a key customer of those businesses, established a partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), through which RSPB Farm Advisors deliver farm walks and advisory visits to growers supplying wheat to Allied Mills and Silver Spoon. These visits, coordinated in collaboration with Frontier, are designed to promote habitat interventions that support biodiversity and wildlife, while providing practical advice tailored to the needs of farmers. Potential outcomes include the development of habitat action plans, identifying key opportunities for habitat creation, and identifying relevant funding streams to implement work identified.
The Grocery Group makes products primarily derived from ingredients of plant origin, except for a small quantity of dairy products, eggs and honey. It believes in the importance of high animal health and welfare standards within agricultural systems and supports the principles in the Group’s Animal Welfare Position Statement.
The businesses are working towards sourcing 100% cage-free eggs by the end of 2025, please read more here.
George Weston Foods purchases ingredients derived from animals, including eggs, dairy products, pork and other meat. The business believes in maintaining and improving animal welfare and meeting relevant animal welfare standards, including the internationally recognised Five Domains. It is working towards sourcing 100% cage-free eggs by the end of 2025, please read more here.
George Weston Foods piggeries in Australia have been sow stall-free since 2010, with directly owned and supplier owned piggeries in Australia certified by the Australian Pork Industry Quality Assurance (APIQ) programme. For pork sourced by George Weston Foods from overseas, their suppliers in Europe and North America are required to undertake continuous improvement in animal welfare standards and meet all legal requirements.
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Through its Twinings Community Needs Assessment (TCNA) programme, Twinings identified that smallholder farmers in Kenya, especially women, often lack access to information on health, gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH), farming practices and income diversification. Many live in remote areas and juggle farm work with household responsibilities, leaving little time for formal training.
Radio provided the ideal solution. Research by BBC Media Action1 shows that it is the most trusted way to reach rural communities, with 95% of people having access at home and 70% listening daily.
In 2022, Twinings first partnered with the Lorna Young Foundation’s Farmer Voice Radio programme and local implementing partner, NOPE (National Organisation of Peer Educators) to launch an 18-month programme in Kenya.
More than 50 programmes were broadcast, designed by and for women, in local dialects. Episodes were aired twice a week and also uploaded to YouTube, reaching a regular listenership of more than 8,400 households with information on farming, health and gender equality.
Following this success, Twinings extended the series for a further 10 months with support and funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) under their Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) initiative. The additional funding enabled the expansion into two local language stations, with a focus on climate resilience, helping farmers adapt to irregular rainfall, drought and other threats that put tea production and livelihoods at risk.
Programmes were co-created with farmers and experts, covering a range of topics including soil health, fertiliser use, pest management, clean energy and income diversification. The topics were chosen by farmers, informed by lived experience and timed with seasonal issues. As the farmers shared their own knowledge and discussed challenges and solutions with experts, it helped ensure the content was engaging and relevant for the farming community who would listen to the programme either in their own homes or in communal listening sessions.
More than 30,000 people tuned in weekly, with over two-thirds of them women. Listeners reported adopting new practices to help mitigate climate change, improving tea yields and quality, and increasing their incomes. This feedback was corroborated by local tea factories. Farmers also reported reducing deforestation, where previously trees had been cut for timber to generate income. Beyond farming, the broadcasts inspired shifts in household decision-making, greater sharing of domestic responsibilities and stronger advocacy for women’s empowerment.
Building on its success in Kenya, Twinings launched a radio series in Nigeria in April 2024 for ginger and hibiscus farmers. Over 10 months, 64 episodes aired in local dialects across three radio stations, reaching an estimated 200,000 farmers in the Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa states in the north of the country.
Plans are now in place to take the programme to Sri Lanka, with the aim of providing 60,000 smallholder tea farmers with training on crop diversification, environmentally friendly farming techniques and gender equality.
By bringing vital knowledge to farmers in a format that works for them, Farmer Voice Radio is helping to build more resilient livelihoods and communities, and shaping a more sustainable future for tea.
A smallholder farmer in Twinings supply chain, Kenya
Since 2020, Allied Mills has partnered with Frontier Agriculture, an ABF joint venture, to deliver a five-year Wheat Sustainability Supply Project with a group of growers in south-east England. The initiative supports the adoption of more regenerative farming practices, such as crop rotation, minimal tillage and precision agriculture. All of these practices are aimed at improving soil health, supporting biodiversity and reducing GHG emissions. Participating farmers receive a premium for their more sustainably grown wheat.
Despite challenges from extreme weather and market volatility, including fertiliser price spikes linked to the war in Ukraine, the project has demonstrated measurable environmental benefits. Emissions from participating farms were found to be 17% lower than standard UK wheat emission factors, with lower nitrogen fertiliser use identified as the most significant driver of emissions reduction. Nitrogen fertiliser accounts for over 60% of milling wheat’s carbon footprint.
Building on this success, Allied Mills has committed to extending the trial through to 2029, with plans to expand into new regions including Manchester. The next phase will explore low-emission fertiliser technologies, nitrification inhibitors and enhanced nitrogen optimisation strategies to further reduce environmental impact while maintaining crop quality and yield.
Allied Bakeries is also championing more sustainable sourcing by using LEAF Marque certified wheat for two of its Allinson’s lines, The Champion Wholemeal and Scandalous Seeds. This partnership began in February 2025 and operates on a mass balance basis.
The on-pack copy states:
“Allinson’s is proud to support farms independently certified by LEAF, helping to deliver environmental benefits such as nurturing the soil and sustaining habitats for wildlife. We do this by sourcing wheat from LEAF Marque farms, following a mass balance approach to cover 100% of the wholemeal wheat flour needed to make these loaves.”
A farm in south-east England that has participated in the Wheat Sustainability Supply Project
The Jordans Farm Partnership (JFP) is a UK programme built through a partnership between Jordans, The Wildlife Trust, Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF), and the UK oat farms that Jordans partner with (JFP Farmers). Through this programme, the JFP Farmers are supported as they grow oats that meet the JFP Standard for use in certain Jordans Cereals. It is a working collaboration where each partner brings a different area of expertise to shape the JFP, including habitat creation and restoration knowledge from The Wildlife Trusts, insights on more sustainable farming practices from LEAF, and on-the-ground experiences of their own unique farming model from the JFP Farmers.
Every one of the JFP Farmers agrees that their farm will meet the JFP Standard. The JFP Standard includes a requirement that JFP Farmers receive LEAF Marque certification. As of 2025, all JFP farms are certified to LEAF Marque Standard Version 16.1.
In addition, the JFP Farmers are required to meet additional criteria on wildlife and habitat provision that are specific to the JFP. Specifically, each JFP Farmer works with a dedicated wildlife advisor from their local Wildlife Trust to make sure that at least 10% of their land is managed for wildlife on their farm (the average for the year 2023-2024 was 30%). By working with the JFP Farmers, The Wildlife Trusts and LEAF, the JFP has managed 4,320 hectares for wildlife since 2015.
As part of the Jordans oat sourcing process, it follows an industry-standard mass balance approach. As a result, the Jordans products may contain a mix of JFP and non-JFP oats. Rather than diverting resources to build a costly system to segregate the JFP oats, it believes its resources are best invested in the JFP, to support JFP Farmers and help them to protect wildlife habitats.
For more information refer to Jordans website.
A Jordans Farm Partnership farm in Hampshire, UK
Since 2019, AB World Foods has funded Project SPICE with partner GRAVIS, a community development organisation in Rajasthan, India, to support the livelihoods of rural cumin and coriander farming communities. In its first three years, the project organised 1,000 farmers from two districts in Jodhpur into 50 Farmer Interest Groups (FIG). It delivered focused agronomy and business skills training, created 30 model farms, and supported women within the community, raised awareness of the importance of girls’ education, and delivered water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) training. Two formal Farmer Producer Organisations were also established and approved by the Indian Government, providing the structure needed for longevity of the farmer collectives.
Launched in January 2023, SPICE II has continued to support farming communities, with an additional focus on building climate resilience. During the three-year project, AB World Foods has funded the installation of 50 ‘taankas’ (drinking water storage tanks), 50 bio-sand water filters, and 50 ‘khadins’ (drainage dykes) for those families identified by the FIG as most in need.
By July 2025, these had all been constructed, providing much better access to safe drinking water and resulting in household savings. Soil moisture levels on farms have also improved, with initial indications showing more than a 20% increase in yield and an almost 30% reduction in irrigation water. The impact this project is having on the daily lives of farmers involved is tangible and feedback has been positive, with farmers sharing that by having taankas installed in their homes, they no longer have to walk over 10km each day to fetch water.
SPICE II also aims to address broader social and community health issues, with sessions on adolescent health that include topics such as personal hygiene and menstruation, balanced diets, and understanding gender and gender discrimination.
The project is also mobilising women farmers into 50 Women Self-Help Groups, with the aim of creating informal associations to help them find solutions to some socio-economic problems through dedicated empowerment training activities, including financial literacy and business skills. As of 2025, 40 SHGs have been formed, including an additional group solely for younger women.
Another focus of SPICE II has been to work with farmers to grow integrated pest management (IPM) grade cumin. As part of this effort, project farmers have been linked to one of AB World Foods’ key spice suppliers in the region, which already runs its own integration programme with the farmers, educating on programmes to improve yield, minimise waste and support sustainable agriculture. In 2025, over 15 tonnes of cumin met IPM standards, with 10 tonnes procured for the AB World Foods supply chain via its strategic spice supplier in the region, up from just over one tonne in 2024.
In March 2025, Project SPICE won the Edie Sustainability Project of the Year Award, with the judges commenting:
“This project shows the measurable positive impact of providing long-term support to smallholder farmers and their communities. AB World Foods recorded impressive increases in crop yield and results in terms of water management which is vital in water scarce areas. The project also demonstrates enhanced climate resilience – something not strategically prioritised or measured by many businesses.”
A farmer who has worked with the SPICE II programme on pest management, India
