Doing things properly is important to us and we think it makes buying a pack of your favourite KETTLE® even better.
Since we started making our chips over 30 years ago, we’ve gone above and beyond to make the most delicious snacks using 100% real food ingredients. We’re proud of that, but we’re also proud of the things we do at our Norfolk home, on the farms and in the community to minimise our environmental impact and maximise our positive contribution to our community.
When it comes to packaging, we’re committed to a move away from single use plastic. We’ve been looking into various options, including recyclable, biodegradable and compostable packaging, but we haven’t yet found the right solution. We’re continuously looking – it’s a priority for us.
We believe that retailers, manufacturers, the government and the waste management industry working together can find the best way forward.
We’re constantly working with our farmers to reduce our environmental impact, such as looking at ways of improving the number of potatoes we get from each harvest and exploring varieties with lower water needs.
Well, our water consumption has fallen by more than 30% over the last 10 years - we’ve even installed tanks for rain water harvesting.
Over the same period we have reduced the energy it takes to make one bag of chips by 25%. All of our electricity now comes from renewables and when needed we recycle heat from our frying process to warm staff facilities.
Wherever possible we use recyclable and recycled materials. Our cases are 100% recyclable and the board used contains at least 68% recycled paper and the remaining comes from sustainable, managed forests that are certified by the FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council) or PEFC™ (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification).
Cooking oil is sent for conversion into bio-diesel and potato chips that don’t make it into the bag are turned into animal feed. We take the soil from potatoes to be re-used in composting and other waste is recovered as energy after processing into fuel.
Making a positive contribution has been an important part of our philosophy since day one. We encourage our staff to highlight charities and community groups and apply for funding to back causes that they personally care about.
From supporting local football teams to buying a kayak for the sea scouts, we’re so proud of how involved our staff are in supporting our local community. Here are a few things we’re passionate about...
The Feed is a social enterprise based close to our factory in Norwich, which helps homeless and disadvantaged adults by giving them training in catering skills to increase their employability and self-confidence.
We partnered with them so we can really make a difference locally: from offering work experience and helping raise awareness of The Feed’s valuable work to a wider audience. Working with them on crowdfunding, we helped them to secure a market stall, and they soon went on to open up a community café, training centre and office on Norwich’s Prince of Wales Road. Today, they even run the Bistro at our Norwich factory, bringing their tasty food to our hungry employees.
For more information on how The Feed helps disadvantaged adults and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘feel-good food’, please visit their website.
