“Behind every loaf, sandwich, cake or pastry is a village of farmers, millers, growers and producers.”
When it comes to baking, you’re only as good as the ingredients you work with.
And when it comes to sourcing the highest-quality ingredients and doing business in a sustainable way, we believe it's the people you work with that make the difference too.
Over the years, we’ve built an exceptional community of like-minded producers, suppliers and makers who take their craft as seriously as we take ours.
From the farmers who grow our wheat and the millers who ground our flour to the people who make our cheese, grow our vegetables, roast our coffee and more, we all share the same ambition: to make good food that does good too.
Collective change requires collaboration. Building a healthier, more sustainable food system isn’t about one organisation charging ahead and leaving everyone else to play catch up. Our food system is just that – a system - and to make it better, change has to happen across the entire supply chain.
By working together, partnering with and supporting like-minded people at every level in the food industry, we can create change at scale. Whether that’s regenerating the soil our produce is grown in, helping smaller producers or nourishing the communities we live in.
And that’s why when it comes to us finding the perfect partners, there really are no compromises.
Here are just a few of the brilliant people we work and share a philosophy with:
Natoora
Natoora grew from the seed of an idea that was planted when their founder, Franco Fubini, witnessed a lady trying to buy a peach in the frozen depths of a New York winter.
With a mission to replace a broken food system with a transparent, sustainable supply chain, Natoora only source fruit and vegetables when they’re in season, working with small-scale growers to support traditional growing methods and heritage varieties that might otherwise be lost.
As well as our seasonal soups and other fresh ingredients, today Natoora supply their radically fresh produce to restaurants across London, Paris, New York and Copenhagen as well as their own grocery stores and cafes.
“For us, it always comes back to flavour. If we taste something incredible, we’ll respond positively, and you’ll want that amazing peach again rather than one that tastes like cardboard…Behind properly flavourful food is good farming, better nutrition, better environmental impact and food that’s better for you and your health.”
Quicke’s Cheese
Rearing dairy cows and making cheese on their farm in Devon since 1540, traditional cheesemaking, sustainable farming and environmental stewardship are at the heart of Quicke’s.
The farm itself sequesters 84 per cent of its carbon and is aiming to be net zero by 2030. With woodland planted back in the 1880s, beautiful redwood trees help to remove some of the farm’s emissions, oak woodchips used for bedding the calves are then composted and put back into the soil and even the goats’ cheese is smoked with woodchips from the farm.
As well as producing the exceptional cheese which we use in many of our recipes, Mary Quicke and her family want to set an example and show that you can farm in a way that works for the planet, looks after the soil and, at the same time, produce delicious food.
“[Our farming cycle is all about] the relationship with the landscape, the environment, and with people. We’re integrated into the environment and we’re looking to see how we run the whole process in the least impactful way, that’s most in tune with nature. It’s honouring all the processes along the way; expressing what this land has to offer; having a conversation with where we are.”
Two Farmers
Having grown potatoes for other crisp makers for years, over a pint in their local pub one Friday afternoon, Mark Green and Sean Mason began to seriously wonder why they weren’t just doing it themselves.
They knew they had great soil, great potatoes and fantastic local ingredients in Herefordshire and they knew their sustainable way of farming could go even further. The Red Lion, where they first had that conversation, now only sells Two Farmers crisps and it’s this full circle concept that’s key to how the farm works.
By figuring out how everything on the farm can be used in a circular process, to create its own energy, create its own fertilisers, and add back to the ground what is taken out, Two Farmers want to make their whole operation sustainable from every angle they can.
Their crisp packet is a fine example of this. It took four years of uphill struggle and much hair-tearing to find compostable packaging and, at times, it felt impossible that there would be an alternative to a plastic bag. But they did it. It’s this level of care, attention to detail and determination to take the best, and not necessarily the easiest path, that we believe make their crisps taste all the more delicious.
“Everything comes back to the soil, whether that be growing great produce, looking after biodiversity, or our aim to become carbon neutral. The soil is the one thing we’re not making more of and if we don’t look after it, future generations will pay the price.”
To find out more about all the ways, big and small, that we’re making everything we do at GAIL’s more sustainable, you can read our full impact report. Read our full impact report here.