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Safeway results - Nature
- Indicator 5.1
- Indicator 5.2
- Indicator 5.3
- Overall commentary and examples of good practice
- Supermarket comments
Indicator 5.1
Issue: Environmental issues within the supply chain
Indicator: Corporate commitment to addressing conservation issues within the supply chain
Safeway provides comprehensive training to its primary produce buyers, and technologists but no supplementary information was provided.
Safeway does not use GM ingredients or derivatives in any of its own-brand products.
Indicator 5.2
Issue: Environmental issues within the supply chain
Indicator: Producer suppliers with retailer-supported farm environment audits and/or plans
Safeway does not currently require its supplying producers to conduct a whole farm environmental audit, though it is actively trialling a number of approaches to whole-farm environmental audits such as LEAFMarque (see www.leafmarque.com/leaf ). There is currently no specific requirement for farm environment audit / plan. Safeway is a sponsor of LEAFMarque which can be applied to a range of enterprises including fresh produce, livestock and combinable crops and not all supplies. The company has taken positive steps to pilot LEAFMarque with livestock farmers.
The proportion of sales sourced from producer suppliers with farm environment audit / plans is not known for dairy or red meats, and is less than 5% for fresh produce.
Indicator 5.3
Issue: sustainable fisheries
Indicator chosen: Wild and farmed fish from sustainable sources
Safeway provided detailed information, but there was no indication of the frequency of audits.
More than 50% of cod and prawns are from sustainable sources; haddock 60%
Only one mitigation measure was cited to ensure that the bycatch of albatross is minimised
Overall commentary and examples of good practice
Examples of good practice
- Safeway is sponsoring the development of the LEAFMarque assurance scheme, a ‘green’ certification standard for horticulture farmers and is now looking to extend this to livestock farmers
- Safeway requires farmers supplying fresh fruit and vegetables, livestock, poultry and cereals to belong to a recognised assurance scheme (Assured Produce Scheme in the UK, EUREP for overseas) and farmed fish to come from accredited fish farms.
Areas for improvement
- A key area for improvement highlighted by the data included a misplaced reliance on farm assurance schemes (in particular those operating under the Little Red Tractor logo) to ensure environmental delivery. At the present time the environmental component of nearly all the assurance schemes is weak, and by and large relies on compliance with legislation. The horticulture scheme does encourage the farmer to look to conserve the environmental capital on the farm, but it is not a compulsory element of the scheme.
- Consumers need to be able to access information about the impacts of different production practices so that they can make a reasoned choice in favour of sustainable food products
- Work with suppliers towards long-term improvement of standards, and to provide support for the shift to more sustainable practices where appropriate.
Supermarket comments
“Safeway is committed to reducing the environmental impact of its sourcing operations through practical schemes that deliver benefits to Safeway, its supplying producers and the final consumer. Given the current concerns over the economic sustainability of primary producers, Safeway has decided to focus on the implementation of a range of cross-sectoral assurance schemes with international utility such as those benchmarked against EUREP which help spread best practice throughout the supply chain, whilst helping to build producers economic sustainability through access to key markets. Safeway is also represented on the Management Boards of a number of Assurance schemes including Assured Produce and Assured Chicken in the UK, and EUREP with a view to ensuring that the standards they set evolve to meet the requirements of the market, as well as being practical for producers to implement. That said, Safeway recognises the need to improve environmental standards in its supply chains, and the funding and trials of LEAFMarque are clear evidence of our commitment. What must be clearly understood, however, is the need to maintain our producers’ co-operation in implementing such initiatives as they will only succeed with their understanding and support.
Safeway also sells meat from both conventional feeding that may include GM feed or organic meats that are non-gm fed. Safeway is working with its primary meat suppliers to progress towards non-gm feeding wherever possible and has achieved this in farmed fish and broiler chicken production.
Audits for sustainable fish sourcing are conducted by our suppliers. As our submission to RTTT explained, the albatross by-catch issue is caused by long lining not being carried out at deep enough depths. Our specification specifies that depth of long lining must be below that to which the birds can dive.”
