Bord Bia has awarded 55 members of Origin Green, Ireland’s food and drink sustainability programme, with Gold Membership 2022 in recognition of their industry leading sustainability ambitions in 2021.

The 55 companies come from 18 counties and represent sectors such as seafood and aquaculture, dairy, meat, bakery, confectionary, beverages, horticulture and frozen foods. The annual Gold Member event, now in its third year, acknowledges the efforts of companies which have achieved exceptional annual performance on their sustainability targets in areas such as raw material sourcing; water and energy efficiency; waste reduction; packaging; and social sustainability, based on the assessment of its independent verification authority, Mabbett.

Since the establishment of the awards in 2020, 130 Irish food and drink companies have been awarded Gold Membership. The number of awardees has increased year-on-year, highlighting the meaningful focus that companies are giving to their sustainability efforts in response to the urgency of climate change and the need for sustainable food production.

This year, three companies are being recognised for their third consecutive year of Origin Green Gold Membership - Butler's Chocolates in Dublin, Norfish in Co. Donegal, and Slaney Foods in Wexford.

Speaking at the awards Michael Murphy, Interim CEO at Bord Bia, said: “As the world’s only national food and drink sustainability programme, Origin Green is instrumental in proving and improving sustainability across our industry and demonstrating this to customers around the world. It’s wonderful to see this acceleration of sustainability actions thrive across our food and drink sector, as we celebrate and recognise the exceptional sustainability results of our 55 Gold Members today.”

SUSTAINABILITY ACHIEVEMENTS

In Association with

Deirdre Ryan, Director of Origin Green and Sustainable Assurance at Bord Bia, explained “The aim of Origin Green and its members is to inspire the entire Irish food and drink industry towards sustainable production, and it gives me great pleasure to announce the new Gold Members for 2022. It is wonderful to see the range of awardees from all areas of the industry this year, as the assessment of Gold Membership allows smaller companies to be recognised alongside large organisations for the strength of their sustainability achievements.

“Since the inception of Gold Membership in 2020, it has strengthened the ambition of our members and encouraged Irish food and drink companies to increase their sustainability efforts in order differentiate themselves from the competition in the marketplace.”

NATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY MONITOR

Ten years since this world leading programme was launched, Origin Green holds the unique position of being the only sustainability programme globally to measure and monitor sustainability across the entire national food supply chain. Since its inception in 2012, Origin Green has grown to collaborate with 55,000 farms and over 300 leading Irish food and drink companies to prove and improve their sustainability practices to meet the evolving needs of global customers and consumers.

Read more about the Gold Members and view their case studies on origingreen.ie