Today, HelloFresh, the UK’s number one recipe box company, announces its commitment to science-based emissions reductions targets within its 2022 non-financial report. The report demonstrates the company’s progress, globally, in further decreasing its environmental impact and presents new goals for further reducing carbon emissions and food waste by 2025.
Adam Park, UK CEO at HelloFresh, said: “We recognise the important contribution we can and must make in driving sustainable progress on environmental and social issues. Setting ourselves science-based targets means we are committed to doing our part for the environment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or less, which marks a big milestone for HelloFresh.”
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is a global body enabling businesses to set ambitious emission reductions targets in line with the latest climate science. HelloFresh will develop and validate its targets within the two-year time frame allocated to this process.
Further investments in green energy and own fleets to further reduce carbon emissions
Alongside the process of setting up the science-based targets, HelloFresh continues to follow its strategy of avoiding and reducing emissions by making operations more energy efficient and transitioning to renewable energy. The share of green energy consumed in HelloFresh’s distribution centres and offices in 2022 increased to 53%, from 50% in 2021 and 35% in 2020.
In the UK, HelloFresh has continually demonstrated its commitment to reducing its CO2 emissions, most recently announcing the trial launch of its own delivery fleet. The trial will reduce environmental impact by using its own refrigerated vehicles and reducing the need for insulating packaging. The fleet will also reduce van miles by removing its current third-party delivery partners, allowing meal-kits to go straight from distribution centres to customer doorsteps.
It’s not just delivery where sustainability is at the heart of operations, but also at its distribution centres. HelloFresh’s newest site, The Orchard, features a sustainable water-cooling system and the installation of EV charging points for employees, with these features supporting HelloFresh’s goal of reducing emissions in its distribution centres.
Ongoing efforts to reduce food waste
Reducing food waste continues to be an integral part of HelloFresh’s sustainability targets/ambition. In 2022, more than 12,040 tonnes of unsold edible food was donated to charities. HelloFresh UK continues to work with organisations such as the Felix Project to ensure communities in the surrounding areas of its distribution centres receive surplus food supply.
Ambitious targets set for 2025
Considering the rapid growth of the food solutions groups recently acquired ready-to-eat business vertical and the substantial difference in operations compared with the meal kit business, HelloFresh decided to establish separate environmental goals for these verticals:
Meal kit business:
- Reduce the emissions from the HelloFresh Group’s meal kit production facilities by 66% per euro of revenue from a 2019 baseline by the end of 2025.
- Reduce food waste from the HelloFresh Group’s meal kit production facilities by 52% per euro of revenue from a 2019 baseline by the end of 2025.
Other businesses, represented by ready-to-eat vertical:
- Reduce the emissions from HelloFresh’s other businesses’ production facilities by 30% per euro of revenue from a 2021 baseline by the end of 2025.
- Reduce food waste from HelloFresh’s other businesses’ production facilities by 56% per euro of revenue from a 2021 baseline by the end of 2025.
The HelloFresh non-financial report and the data included was audited by KPMG AG.
