Kingsmill

Cut Carbon using your loaf – Kingsmill’s story

If you’ve ever baked bread from scratch you’ll know that it’s an energy-intensive process. Scale that up dramatically, and you have the operations of Allied Bakeries, the company behind our favourite crumpets, buns and breads.

Operating out of ten bakeries across the UK, Allied Bakeries began tracking the carbon life cycles of three of their biggest-selling Kingsmill brands in 2008. 

Working with the Carbon Trust, they started auditing the emissions produced by farm machinery, out-buildings, pesticides, fertilisers and water, before moving into the factories to measure manufacturing: from milling, dividing and proving to baking, cooling, slicing and packaging.  But it didn’t stop there.  After they had analysed supplier and distribution transport emissions, they ran a survey of 1,000 consumers exploring what they do with their daily bread once it’s bought.  Whether feeding the birds or fuelling  families, clear energy hotspots were identified:

• A third of pre-packaged sliced bread is blasted at home: 85% goes in the toaster and 15% under the grill.
• 20% of Kingsmill bread goes straight into the freezer and 8% in the fridge.
• Around a fifth of our bread isn’t eaten, half handed to birds and other wildlife, and the other half going to landfill or incineration.

These ‘bread behaviours’ were factored into final footprint calculations to create the first ever set of carbon labels for loaves. The differences between the product footprints went right down to the grain, with Great Everyday White pushed up by its white flour (1.28kg CO2 per 800g loaf), and Tasty Wholemeal by the type of wheat used (1.27kg CO2).

No-one is suggesting we give up on our toast. Instead, Allied Bakeries is investigating a range of carbon-saving measures, from more energy-efficient machinery and insulation at plants, to electronic tagging of the 800,000 plastic delivery baskets which go walkabout each year. In the meantime, they’re heavily promoting the carbon footprinted line, to try to convince more of us to rise to switch to a brand that carries the Carbon Reduction Label.