Sourcing Deforestation Free Beef

Our commitment  

At COP26 in November 2021, we committed to ensuring our own brand product supply chains would be Deforestation and Conversion Free (DCF) by 2025, with a cut-off date of 2020. This includes our beef supply chains. Our risk level on beef is low as the majority (98%) of our beef is sourced from the UK and Ireland. UK and Ireland are defined as negligible risk for deforestation and conversion in the CGF-Forest Positive Coalition methodology.

In 2024 we sourced 0.02% of our beef from Brazil. We have worked hard with our suppliers to identify beef processors in Brazil who have full traceability of beef supply chains in Brazil. This applies to direct and indirect farms and means that all cattle can be traced back to birth farm. The meatpackers we source from have satellite monitoring systems to source beef that is deforestation and conversion free with a 2020 cut-off date. This level of traceability significantly reduces the risk of cattle laundering and of the beef we source being linked to the destruction of ecosystems in the Amazon and Cerrado.  

Our progress – 2024

As part of our Plan for Better, we have committed to reporting transparently on our performance. We report on our total beef footprint which constitutes We report on our total beef footprint which constitutes 99.8% of our total tonnage for cattle-derived products, the remaining tonnage of leather products is separately reported, see below for more details.  You can find our historic performance here and our 2024 Own Supply Performance below.

Total beef footprint (CY 2024): 68,178 tonnes 

To calculate our beef footprint across all product categories, we look at the amount of beef ingredients in our own band products and how many of those products we sell each year.

In 2023, we have aligned our approach on beef sourcing to all cattle-derived products in our supply chains including leather used in our furniture and clothing. Alongside ensuring our leather sourcing is DCF by 2025, we have committed to sourcing 100% from Leather Working Group certified tanneries by 2023 and 100% Gold Leather Working Group certified tanneries by 2025. In FY 2024, 98.9% of our leather was sourced from tanneries sourced to a minimum of bronze level by the Leather Working Group. Following the introduction of the EUDR, we will continue to work to improve traceability to country of origin to understand the proportion of our volumes that are from high-risk countries. Our new sourcing policy on leather can be found here.

Supplier and meatpacker engagement  

As members of the Forest Positive Coalition, led by the Consumer Goods Forum, we have helped develop a roadmap of action on beef, which outlines best practice for any supply chain actor in Brazilian beef supply chains. As a Coalition, we have also published Guidance for Forest Positive Suppliers of Cattle Products, which details how meatpackers can adopt sourcing practices that will drive forward a more sustainable beef industry in Brazil. Through the coalition we have informed and engaged the largest UK and Brazilian meatpackers currently in our supply chain.

We are also engaging our direct suppliers on their own commitments to source DCF beef from Brazil, and their efforts in cascading the commitments up the supply chain to their suppliers.

Commitment to human rights

We are committed to respecting human rights across our value chain to ensure the people who make or grow our products are not being exploited or exposed to unsafe working conditions - and ensure our businesses’ transition to Net Zero is just and equitable for the communities we source from.    

Our Group-wide Ethical Sourcing Policy sets out the standards we require of all our suppliers. These are based on internationally recognised codes of labour practice, including the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) Base Code, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) core conventions, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have long-standing procedures to ensure that these standards are met.   

Our code of conduct for Ethical Sourcing stipulates that suppliers must have documented all legal and / or customary rights in relation to land and water use of their operations. When land or water rights have been relinquished by Indigenous People or Local Communities to the benefit of the supplier, the supplier shall ensure that the decision was reached through a process of Free, Prior & Informed Consent in line with national legislation. If any land or water rights claim is brought against the supplier through judicial or non-judicial processes, the supplier shall engage in good faith to resolve the conflict and should keep Sainsbury's informed at all stages of the claim.   

Further information about how we champion human rights can be found on our website.

Support for legislation and industry collaboration  

We believe appropriate legislation in producing and consuming countries is critical to enable better protection of forests and natural ecosystems. We support the introduction of Due Diligence legislation by the UK Government that will ban the sale of products linked to illegal deforestation, including cattle-driven deforestation, and help bring clear expectations on supply chain traceability to all supply chain actors.

In 2020 we also co-signed a letter to Brazilian legislature against proposed legislation that would endanger the Amazon forest and further erode trust that products from Brazil have been produced responsibly, linked below.

We were also one of the first companies to sign a Statement of Support for the Cerrado Manifesto in 2017; a call from various businesses whose products use soy and meat from these regions to tackle deforestation in our collective supply chains and support habitat protection.

As a member of the CGF Forest Positive Coalition of Action, we are actively involved in driving collaborative effort to eliminate cattle-driven deforestation and conversion and drive forward efforts to protect forests and natural ecosystems.

In 2020, the CGF launched the Forest Positive Coalition of Action, comprised of 18 member companies committed to moving efficiently and quickly toward a forest positive future. With a collective market value of USD 1.8 trillion (GBP 1.3 trillion), these member companies are in a leading position to leverage collective action and accelerate systemic efforts to remove deforestation, forest degradation and conversion from key commodity supply chains. In 2020, the focus was on developing and committing to the Coalition’s Charter and driving stakeholder engagement through Commodity Working Groups.

Our aim in participating in the implementation of these roadmaps is to drive collaborative efforts to accelerate the removal of commodity-driven deforestation and human rights abuses from individual supply chains and drive transformational change in key commodity landscapes. The latest public beef roadmap we have committed to can be found here.

Landscape initiatives – Mato Grosso in Brazil   

In 2023 and 2024, we are supporting an initiative in the Mato Grosso state of Brazil, facilitated by IPAM, with a £200,000 investment. The landscape initiative aims to set up regional level structures and interventions to enable transformation of soy and cattle producing landscapes.  This initiative mirrors the state government strategy, to Protect, Conserve and Include (PCI) people and nature at a local level. The project will support farmers across 6 regions in the state through a variety of local actions such as payments for ecosystem services, pathways to certification, smallholder action plans, safeguards for indigenous communities and ecosystem restoration. We are supporting this project alongside other CGF Forest Positive Coalition members Nestlé and Jerónimo Martins.