Healthy snack food business graze supplies customers through home-delivered snack boxes, as well as through large and small retailers. Its products are all plant-based, with ingredients from nature that are nutritionally balanced, with health benefits such as added fibre and plant protein.

As part of graze’s commitments to ‘caring for people and our planet’, they asked 3Keel to conduct a cradle-to-grave carbon footprint for the entire product range. This scope encompassed everything: all raw materials (such as cashew nuts, oats and corn chips), its two production sites, every packaging format and downstream activities including home deliveries to customers and disposal of packaging.

The headline results showed that graze snacks are relatively low impact, mainly due to sourcing plant-based ingredients containing low impact raw materials such as oats, peas, and beans. Furthermore, as an ambient product served ready to eat, with no further food preparation required, the supply chain and downstream impacts are minimal.

The carbon footprint was the first stage of work, which led to investigations into eight key raw materials, as well as conversations with major tier 1 suppliers to understand their sustainability priorities. 3Keel then worked closely with the graze team to develop eleven actions to reduce the overall footprint, leading to a 15% reduction target in emissions in the near term.

We also conducted a detailed, comparative analysis of the plastic punnet that has been used historically, compared to a pulp-based alternative that is being brought on stream. The good news is that our assessment found the pulp format to be lower carbon, as well as eliminating a major single use plastic from their portfolio.

Ruvan Mendis, graze’s then COO, said: “The 3Keel team have significantly accelerated our journey to drive down the carbon footprint of our entire value chain. Their baseline assessment was clear and easy to understand, and gave us some unexpected results on where to focus attention. Their subsequent well-informed support on developing a carbon reduction plan gives us clear direction for the next steps on our carbon journey.”