East Anglia: Vegetable supplier Produce World reaps two awards

Vegetable supplier Produce World, which operates across East Anglia, has scooped two awards at this year’s Waitrose Way Awards.

The company struck gold for its entry into the Treading Lightly - Water category, and a highly commended award for its entry into the Championing British category.

Its pioneering use of drip irrigation in the UK, which has resulted in a 40-50% reduction in water used.

The highly commended award recognised the innovative work that Produce World is doing through its Soil-for-life project.

The Waitrose Way Awards celebrate suppliers’ outstanding initiatives to enhance the sustainability of their businesses and, ultimately, the food that ends up on consumers’ plates. This is the second year that these awards have taken place and winners were selected from over 150 entries.

This year’s awards were held at the new Leckford Farm Shop at the Leckford Estate, the Waitrose farm in Hampshire, and the 15 winners were presented with a sustainably-sourced, British Oak award by Waitrose managing director, Mark Price.

Suppliers were invited to enter the awards under the categories of Treading lightly, Championing British, Living well and Treating people fairly - which are the four core principles of the supermarket’s CSR policy, ‘The Waitrose way’. This year, four awards for building and development suppliers were also introduced - Treading lightly for carbon, waste and water and also for an award for Responsible Development Innovation.

Quentin Clark, head of sustainability and ethical sourcing at Waitrose said: “These awards are a fantastic way of celebrating the hard work that our suppliers have been doing to improve the sustainability of their businesses and ultimately the Waitrose business as a whole. It was hard to pick the winners from such a high standard of applicants and we are delighted that so many suppliers share the same goals that we do.”