Reimagining food for people and the planet.
We're committed to delivering delicious, healthier and more sustainable food and drink that our customers can feel good about.
Our commitment is driven by the growing recognition of the importance of healthy and sustainable diets, and the calls for systemic change in the food system – ensuring that what we eat, and how it is produced, benefits both people and the planet.
We're leveraging our food travel expertise and taking an integrated people and planet approach to creating great-tasting, nutritious and more sustainable offerings. And, in partnership with our suppliers, we're committed to sourcing our products with due care for the environment and the people involved in their production and manufacture.
Our commitments
Commitment 1
Increasing healthy and sustainable choices
We are committed to increasing our offering of healthy and sustainable choices to customers to support their dietary needs and preferences.
Commitment 2
Sourcing sustainably
We are committed to sourcing our products responsibly and sustainably, with due care for the environment and the people involved in their production and manufacture.
Commitment 3
Supporting animal welfare
We are committed to working with our suppliers to maintain high standards of animal welfare across our global supply chains.
Targets
By 2025, at least 30% of meals offered by our own brands to be plant-based or vegetarian.
By 2025, 100% of our own brand units that serve coffee to offer non-dairy milk alternatives (40% in APAC and EEME).
By 2025, all contracted suppliers to sign-up to our Supplier Code of Conduct or provide their own of equal or better standard.
Targets
By 2025, 100% of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and fish/seafood for our own brands to come from sources certified against recognised sustainability standards.
Each year, continue to work to ensure our top 50 own brand products in each market are palm oil free, or using Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Certified Sustainable Palm Oil.
Targets
By 2025, 100% of eggs for our own brands to be from
cage-free sources.
By 2026, 100% chicken for our own brands in our European markets to be aligned with the standards of the European Chicken Commitment (ECC).
By 2030, 100% of eggs for our franchise brands to be from cage-free sources.
Exceeded target for plant-based and vegetarian choices for third year
We design our menus to include a range of plant-based, vegetarian and non-dairy options. Over the past few years, we've been making a concerted effort to increase these ranges and thereby working to reduce our reliance on animal-sourced foods.
By the end of 2024, 35% of meals offered by our own brand globally were plant-based or vegetarian, exceeding our target for a third consecutive year. In 10 of our markets, our offering is over 40%.
For our own brand units that serve coffee, by the end of 2024, 97% were offering non-dairy milk alternatives in our UK&I, North America and Continental Europe regions, with 39% in our APAC and EEME regions.
Launched new Responsible Marketing Principles
We recognise the importance of ensuring our marketing communications are transparent, truthful, ethical and legal. So, in 2024, we launched our new Responsible Marketing Principles, setting out our commitments and providing a global framework for our businesses to follow.
Covering key requirements, including marketing to children and teens and health and green claims, the principles are supported by detailed internal guidelines, checklists, and approval and compliance procedures.
All colleagues working in commercial, communications, business development, legal, marketing, recruitment and sustainability roles are required to complete responsible marketing e-learning during induction and biannually.
Launched our People and Planet Menu Framework
Our ‘People & Planet Menu Framework’ provides practical guidelines for integrating healthier and more sustainable food and drink options across our own brands. It covers all aspects from sourcing and recipe development, to cooking methods, menu design and customer communications.
The Framework draws on the latest nutritional recommendations and standards, as well as best practice from across our global business. For example, it includes guidelines on how to incorporate healthier ingredients into recipes, such as complex carbohydrates that are minimally processed with a lower glycaemic index, like whole grains. It also covers healthier cooking methods, such as steaming, stir-frying or grilling, instead of frying. And it reinforces best practice around portion control and seasonal ingredients.
Case studies
We're focused on increasing our range of healthier food and drink items, including nutritious, lower calorie, plant-based and non-dairy milk options which are better for people’s health and can also be lower-carbon options that contribute to our net zero ambition.
Our People & Planet Menu Framework (PPMF) draws on our breadth of knowledge and best practices from around our global business, supported by the latest nutritional recommendations and standards. The PPMF provides practical guidelines for embedding healthier and more sustainable food and drink options across our brands, structured around the three key areas of ingredients selection, recipe design and communications.
Our APAC markets are drawing on these insights to complete strategic menu reviews. In Singapore, for example, we developed and tested new recipes aligned with the PPMF, while in Thailand, these principles were further integrated into our Camden Food Co brand.
In Bahrain, we have embedded the PPMF into our new culinary strategy. We assess our menus and create new recipes that include healthier and more sustainable offers that retain profitability.
Read more in our 2024 Sustainability Report on pages 25-26.
We recognise that just making healthier and more sustainable options available isn’t enough. We also have a role to play in helping our customers make informed choices. We do this through a range of channels and methods, including menu descriptors and iconography, product labelling, and point-of-sale communications and marketing.
To help customers quickly find options to meet their health and wellness goals, we have developed our ‘A Better Choice’ icons. A Better Choice emphasises fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and a variety of protein foods such as seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds. We may also highlight items that are lower in added sugars, sodium, saturated fats, trans fats, and cholesterol.
We've introduced our A Better Choice range in Bahrain, Finland, Norway and Sweden, Thailand. This, paired with our continued rollout of nutrition labelling, aims to help customers make more informed choices.
In addition, we are helping our customers identify climate-smart choices by including carbon labelling on menus for selected brands in the UK and UAE.
Selecting and working in partnership with like-minded suppliers that are actively executing high standards of animal welfare is central to how we support animal welfare across our global supply chain.
By the end of 2024, 61% of our eggs sourced for our own brands Sixteen markets achieved 100%. In addition, 61% for our franchise brands were from cage-free sources.
Several markets are working to address challenges in securing cage-free eggs. In the UK, for instance, after conducting an independent farm-level audit to verify safety and welfare practices, we agreed a major deal with a local farm in 2023. As a result of this partnership, 100% of our own brand egg volumes in the UK are now cage-free.
In the Philippines, we have a long-standing partnership with a local pig farm to supply quality, local pork products to all SSP units at Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
Located within 65 kilometres of the airport, the 360-hectare farm follows rigorous animal welfare standards. Certified by the Bureau of Animal Industry, the farm operates in accordance with national animal welfare laws, applying high standards of animal husbandry and care. It has a state-of-the-art slaughterhouse and meat plant certified as Triple A facility by the National Meat Inspection Service.
Alongside its care for the welfare of its pig population, the farm also employs circular economy principles by growing its own animal feed, employing waste water filtration systems for irrigation and a biogas system to convert waste to electricity, fertiliser and waste water.