Greenvale AP has come top in sustainability of food production in a two-year study of 12 companies.
The Cambridge University Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) assessed five different areas of the UK food industry - strategy, corporate social responsibility, process control, lean manufacturing and sustainability - as part of its Competitive and Sustainable Food Manufacturing (CSFM) Project.
Greenvale was one of 12 key UK food businesses selected, including growers, wholesalers, food processing and supermarkets, for benchmarking against its sector and industry average.
The results ranked the potato supplier as by far the highest-scoring company in the research programme.
The researchers found its performance to be way above all sector and industry averages, always better than “very good”.
Greenvale was praised particularly for its “lean manufacturing”, or minimising waste, which in the past has been identified as one of the food industry's weakest areas.
The report also praised the firm for its intensive employee training programmes to achieve these results. Other “excellent” practices included an extended recycling regime and good energy-saving schemes, as well as packaging reduction programmes and the elimination of waste.
Greenvale was considered “excellent”, compared to both the industry and sector averages.
Trevor Dear, operations director at Greenvale AP, said: “Obviously, we are delighted with these results. In recent years, we have worked very hard to lead by example in agriculture and food production. But to know we are also setting a standard for the rest of the food industry - wholesalers, food processing, supermarkets and the like - is especially gratifying.”
No comments yet