Our commitment
We are committed to sourcing deforestation and conversion free own brand products, 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 2025 we sourced 0.1% of our beef from Brazil. We worked with our suppliers to identify beef processors in Brazil that 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 conversion of natural ecosystems in the Amazon and Cerrado.
Our progress – 2025
As part of our Plan For Better and our Forest Positive Coalition membership, we are committed to reporting transparently on our performance. 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. You can find our historic performance and our 2025 own supply performance below.
Total beef footprint (Calendar Year 2025): 77,169 tonnes
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
| % beef from low-risk origins, of which: | 99.9% | 99.9% | 99.9% | 99.9% | 97.0% |
| % beef from UK & Ireland | 96.0% | 98.3% | 98.4% | 98.4% | 96.6% |
| % beef from other low-risk origins (non-South American) | 3.9% | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.5% | 0.4% |
| % beef from medium/ high risk origins (Brazil) | 0.1% | 0.02% | 0.08% | 0.1% | 3% |
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 aligned our approach on beef sourcing across all cattle-derived products in our supply chains including leather used in our furniture and clothing. Alongside ensuring our leather sourcing is DCF, we have committed to sourcing 100% from Leather Working Group certified tanneries. In Financial Year 2025, 100% of our leather was sourced from tanneries which were at least certified to a bronze level by the Leather Working Group. Our 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 helped to 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 relevant 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
We support an initiative in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, facilitated by IPAM, with a £200,000 investment. The landscape initiative aims to establish regional 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 six 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.
The programme has so far delivered:
140 ha of forest restored
1 nursery to grow local plant varieties established
Landscape and forests assessments to analyse land use in 2 municipalities conducted
4,100 ha receiving incentives for conservation (payments to smallholders to protect forests and natural habitats)
80 farms are compliant with the Brazilian Forest Code. This covers 160,000 ha.
10 farms are RTRS certified and compliant with Brazilian Forest Code. This covers 15,000 of soy production preserves, 5,000 ha of forest and natural ecosystems
- Published guide on safeguarding human rights of indigenous people
- Embedded guidance in the goals of 5 municipalities and 4 farm level intervention plans