TESCO has cancelled its contract with the world’s biggest meat exporter after Greenpeace claimed beef sold in the supermarket could be from cattle raised on illegally deforested areas of the Amazon.
The environmental charity claims to have tracked cattle from illegal farms in the Brazilian rainforest to slaughter houses and processing plants used by the exporter JBS.
Volunteers in the UK then checked supermarkets and found serial numbers on more than 100 tins of beef chunks, mince and corned beef that show the product came from the same processing plant.
Sarah Shoraka, Greenpeace Forests Campaigner, said consumers would be appalled to think the tins of beef they are buying could be from farms responsible for destroying the Amazon.
JBS has written to Greenpeace and and its own customers, acknowledging its commitment to end the purchase of cattle from deforested land had faced "questions" but saying the company remained "fully committed" to finding meat from farms that are not involved in illegal activities.
Cattle farming is still the biggest cause of deforestation in the Amazon, driving climate change and loss of species.
"Tesco is driving this problem through its beef sourcing," she said.
In response, Tesco say they have now cancelled their contract with JBS.
“We started to cut back our supplies from JBS a year ago and have now ceased sourcing any canned beef products from JBS. Ethics and sustainability remain an important part of our dialogue with suppliers,” said a spokesman.
Ms Shoraka said: "We last met with Tesco over this issue on April 3 - we were very clear at that meeting about what we knew about their connection to JBS. They made no mention at the time of having taken any action or intending to take any, and they have not been in touch with us in the intervening two months to inform us of any action," she said.
"If what they say is true and they have decided to cut ties with JBS, that is great news for the Amazon, but before we could be satisfied this is the case, we'd want to know when they communicated this decision to JBS and why they failed to inform us of the move."
JBS told customers in its letter: "First and foremost, JBS remains fully committed to sourcing livestock from farms that are not involved in any illegal activities, including illegal deforestation, the invasion of indigenous lands or the use of any form of slavery.
"We accomplish these objectives through a monitoring system and control procedures over our supply base.
"JBS is proud to be part of a joint effort with NGOs, government, and other companies that has resulted in meaningful progress in protecting the Amazon through declining rates of deforestation."
- Louise Gray
Source: www.independent.ie
TESCO OF FENG SHUI AIMS FOR FAR EAST - express.co.uk
New Trend Lifestyle Group is hoping to raise 1.5million to fund a string of high street Feng Shui consultancies across China after building up a small chain of seven outlets in Singapore.
The company, which last year made profits of 1.4million on turnover of 6.1million, provides a range of services to customers including Citibank and Standard Chartered in the far east.
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Finance director Lawrence Cheung said Feng Shui is about harnessing wind and water into basic energy flows to ensure good health and good wealth.
It has 1.3billion followers in China, where it is seen as essential to success when launching new ventures, opening a new office or even naming a child.
Each new outlet will include a Feng Shui master to help customers.
At the moment, Cheung said, Feng Shui masters tend to be sole traders, rather like plumbers in this country, but NTL is planning to bring the reassurance of a brand to the market.
We want to be the Tesco of Feng Shui, he said.
NTL is planning 300 new outlets in China. Some will be franchised, while others will be run directly by the company itself. It is looking to open 50 shops in the next three years for an average investment of 100,000 each.
Cheung said: As Donald Trump once said, I dont believe in Feng Shui, but it has made me a lot of money.
NTL is planning to float towards the end of this month on a date decided using Feng Shui.
Source: www.express.co.uk
Holmfirth Tesco gets backing from 72%, survey reveals - Huddersfield Examiner
Source: www.examiner.co.uk
Tesco contract creates jobs at Whitby Seafoods (From York Press) - The Press in York
Tesco contract creates jobs at Whitby Seafoods
11:19am Wednesday 6th June 2012 in Business news 
WHITBY Seafoods has recruited 11 new staff after increasing sales of its products nationally through supermarket giant Tesco.
The company, which employs 140 people in Whitby, announced in September that it was to supply its Whitby Scampi nationally through Tesco, after investing millions of pounds in upgrading its production facilities.
Laura Whittle, marketing and sales director for Whitby Seafoods, said that sales through Tesco have now increased from £750,000 to more than £2 million in the last year.
During this year alone, five more of their products have been listed nationally with the supermarket.
In total, the company has grown turnover from £25 million to £32 million in the last year, during which it also bought Rockall Seafoods in County Down, Ireland.
Laura said: “Ever since our products first went into local Tesco stores, we’ve seen a huge increase in sales, and that’s thanks to the support from the Tesco Local Sourcing Team. We knew that we had the capacity for a larger distribution but we didn’t know how to go about it.
“We’ve worked closely with Local Sourcing Team to build brand awareness through local marketing and on-shelf promotions and developing a gradual growth strategy.”
Whitby Seafoods was founded in 1985 by Graham Whittle, Laura’s father, from the assets of the Whitby Shellfish company.
It began supplying its Whitby breaded scampi to 20 Tesco stores locally in 2008 and within four years three of its lines were being sold in more than 700 Tesco stores across the UK.
Now the business will be featured in Tesco’s latest lorry marketing campaign, in which delivery lorries feature a map of the UK made up of a variety of local products.
Laura said: “Whitby scampi is such an iconic local product so it’s the ultimate reward to have our Whitby Seafoods featured on the new local Tesco lorries – it just shows how much we’ve grown in the last few years.”
Source: www.yorkpress.co.uk
Fish Heads Turned Into Electricity Cut Wal-Mart's Bills - Businessweek
Fish heads and chicken fat are being turned into electricity by the U.K.’s largest retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) (WMT) that ship food waste to power plants to reduce garbage-removal fees.
Tesco Plc (TSCO), Britain’s biggest supermarket chain, along with Marks & Spencer Group Plc (MKS), John Lewis Partnership Plc’s Waitrose, William Morrison Supermarkets Plc (MRW) and J Sainsbury Plc are testing how meat and fish, cooking oils and leftover sandwiches can lower energy bills and landfill costs when they’re transported to plants for converting into power.
Companies around the world have invested about $18.2 billion in waste-to-energy assets in the past five years, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Waste Management Inc. (WM) (WM), North America’s biggest trash hauler, purchased stakes in eight companies developing systems to convert rubbish into electricity, fuel and chemicals. In Brazil, cities are building incinerators that burn trash to produce electricity.
Bioenergy can provide at least 8 percent of the U.K.’s demand by 2020, valued at about $13 billion at today’s oil prices, the government forecasts. Supermarkets are motivated by a landfill tax that makes it increasingly costly to bury waste. The tax starting in April was 64 pounds ($98) a ton and is set to increase by 8 pounds a year.
“Diverting food waste from landfill to anaerobic digestion is a no-brainer for the supermarkets -- landfill charges and energy costs are only getting more expensive,” said Niamh McSherry, a food retail analyst at Berenberg Bank.
Gutting Catfish
Anaerobic digestion breaks down organic material in the absence of oxygen to make a biogas that can be burned to generate power. Electricity from this process currently costs about $142.80 a megawatt-hour, according to data from the London-based researcher Bloomberg New Energy Finance. This compares to coal-fired power that costs $78 a megawatt-hour.
Developers of bioenergy plants set to benefit from the emerging industry include Kedco Plc (KED), Enviroparks Ltd., GWE Biogas Ltd. and Biffa Group Ltd., which is processing Sainsbury’s waste for the next two years, and Biogen Ltd., which already processes food from Waitrose stores.
Waste-to-power projects in the U.K. benefit from state subsidies under the government’s Renewable Obligation program that requires utilities to buy increasing amounts of electricity from clean energy sources.
State Subsidies
Renewable Obligation Certificates are awarded to generators of renewable power with one being issued for every megawatt-hour produced. Utilities are required to hold increasing amounts of ROCs or pay a penalty and different technologies receive different numbers of ROCs. Anaerobic digestion is currently eligible for two.
Refineries and airlines also are pioneering energy-from- garbage projects. Neste Oil Oyj (NES1V) is making diesel for cars and trucks using fat from gutting pangasius, an Asian catfish. Airlines including Air France-KLM (AF) Group and Deutsche Lufthansa AG (LHA) have started flying planes on used cooking oil.
Wal-Mart’s Asda unit sends old lamb chops to moldy bread to bioenergy sites. About 2,500 homes are powered by Sainsbury’s unsold meals and rotting vegetables. Waitrose chickens are kept warm in solar huts as Tesco examines how fat from rotisseries can produce electricity.
Waitrose sends all “unavoidable” food waste, packaged or unpackaged, raw or cooked, to anaerobic digestion facilities to make biogas used to generate power for the National Grid.
Zero Waste Plan
Tesco is saving 200 million pounds on its energy bills every year through low carbon and energy-efficient technologies introduced since 2006. Marks & Spencer saved more than 70 million pounds last year. Asda expects to save about 800 million pounds by 2020 by implementing energy-saving measures.
Morrison’s, as part of its plan for zero waste to go to landfills by 2013, sends trash to bioenergy plants. Marks & Spencer sends 89 percent of its food waste, including salads and sandwiches, to similar facilities as it strives to become carbon-neutral in the U.K. and Ireland this year.
“Anaerobic digestion saves the food retailers money and allows them to demonstrate their ‘green credentials’ to the government and consumers,” McSherry said in London.
The DECC estimates that anaerobic digestion facilities and plants using wood chips, food waste and agricultural residues to produce heat and power could account for 8 to 11 percent of the U.K.’s primary energy demand within eight years.
Rothschild’s RIT Capital
Sainsbury (SBRY)’s, the U.K.’s third-largest supermarket after Tesco and Asda, in February invested in Tamar Energy Ltd., which plans to build 40 plants within five years that will use waste to generate electricity. The business is backed by financier Jacob Rothschild’s RIT Capital Partners Plc investment trust and the Duchy of Cornwall estate held by Prince Charles, heir to Britain’s throne.
Anaerobic digestion is not the only renewable energy source that U.K. food retailers are using to chop bills and cut emissions as Britain seeks to get 15 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2020.
Sainsbury’s, trying to reduce emissions by 30 percent by 2020, has installed about 7 megawatts of solar panels on its stores, which combined is probably larger than any single solar farm in the U.K., Neil Sachdev, property director for the retailer, said by e-mail. One store also uses geothermal power.
Both Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer also source electricity directly from renewable energy generators including land-based wind farms, biomass facilities and hydropower. Sainsbury’s currently gets more than 4 percent from renewables, with plans to boost this past 10 percent by 2013.
Wood-Chip Power
Waitrose in March opened a store on the Isle of Wight powered by wood chips. It’s seeking to install as many as 150 similar energy centers by 2020 and plans to open its second in Bracknell this month. Wind turbines and solar panels already provide heat and light for chicken huts at its Leckford Estate in Hampshire. Sainsbury’s sends all bread waste for processing into animal feed.
Tesco, seeking to cut store emissions in half by 2020 from 2006 levels, is testing the potential of clean-energy technologies such as sun-powered lights in car parks at six zero-carbon stores in the U.K., Ireland, Thailand and the Czech Republic. Many of its stores now use energy-saving lights.
“A modern brand is a sustainable brand,” said Lucy Neville Rolfe, executive director in corporate and legal affairs at Tesco. “Reducing energy tends to save money.”
Morrison’s said it opened its “greenest” store last October in Peterborough. The store is testing solar panels, more efficient lighting and air-source pumps that use outside oxygen for heating.
“Reducing energy consumption and sustainably managing waste is just good business,” Bob Gordon, head of environment at the British Retail Consortium, said. “U.K. retailers are saving literally hundreds of millions of pounds per year through their sustainability agendas.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Louise Downing in London at ldowning4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
Source: www.businessweek.com
Tesco supplier accused of contributing to Amazon rainforest destruction - The Guardian
British consumers are unwittingly contributing to the devastation of the Amazon rainforest by buying meat products from Tesco, according to Greenpeace.
The environmental group says in a report that canned beef from the supermarket chain has been found to contain meat from ranches that have been carved out of the lands of indigenous peoples, and farms the Brazilian government believes have been sited in illegally deforested lands.
The allegations stem from an 18-month investigation carried out by Greenpeace into the practices of JBS, a big Brazilian supplier of meat and cattle byproducts. The campaigning group claims it unearthed evidence of serious violations of the company's own ethical code, and those of companies it supplies, including Tesco.
Sarah Shoraka, forests campaigner at Greenpeace, said: "Beef farming is the biggest cause of Amazon destruction. Tesco is driving this problem through its beef sourcing. Tesco canned beef supply comes from illegal farms that destroy the Amazon and occupy indigenous people's land. Tesco's supplier JBS refuses to tackle the problem. Tesco needs to take the bull by the horns and stop selling beef that destroys the Amazon."
In response, Tesco said it had begun to terminate its contracts with JBS more than a year ago, but certain products could still be within its supply chain because of the time needed to end the agreements. The company added: "We are committed to tackling rainforest deforestation, including working with other consumer goods companies (through the Consumer Goods Forum) to help end deforestation by 2020.
"The vast majority of the beef we sell, including all fresh beef, is sourced from the UK and Ireland. Canned beef products sourced from Brazil account for less than 1% of total beef sales. We started to cut back our supplies from JBS a year ago and have now ceased sourcing any canned beef products from JBS. Ethics and sustainability remain an important part of our dialogue with suppliers."
Cattle ranches are the leading source of rainforest destruction in the Amazon, as ranchers chop down trees to make room for herds often many thousands strong. These herds have to be moved frequently as the rainforest soil is soon exhausted by their intensive grazing, leading to a pattern of deforestation that threatens one of the world's most important ecosystems.
Much of the beef, leather and other byproducts are sold in the west, often passing through a long supply chain and rebranded many times, so it is all but impossible for consumers to tell where their purchases originated.
The Greenpeace report claims direct links between the widespread destruction of the Amazon for cattle ranches and the sale of products from those ranches in the UK and other countries.
JBS, the focus of the Greenpeace study, is one of the world's biggest food suppliers. It is accused of a series of major violations of its own ethical pledges, including failing to monitor sites and taking products from sites suspected to be illegal or within indigenous areas. Few western consumers will be familiar with the company, but its clients have included many of the world's biggest food brands.
It is understood that several have ceased – or begun to review – their relationships with JBS following warnings from campaigners that the company's practices may violate their policies on ethical sourcing. Companies to have reviewed arrangements are understood to include the retailers Sainsbury's, Asda and Ikea, the footwear company Clarks and food firm Prince's.
Greenpeace's latest investigations follow a groundbreaking study in 2009 that for the first time established a clear chain of responsibility stretching from Amazonian ranches on land cleared illegally to western companies including luxury brands, supermarkets and a variety of "household name" firms using everything from leather, beef and other cattle byproducts to paper packaging.
After that report, a wide range of multinational companies pledged to re-examine their supply chains to ensure no material from illegally cleared forests in the Amazon reached their customers. As part of that effort, the Brazilian companies most heavily involved in the Amazon trade also vowed to clean up their supply chains, going further than the minimum required by Brazilian law.
But this latest study alleges that in the past three years JBS has failed to live up to its pledges. According to evidence amassed by Greenpeace, the company bought animals from at least five farms accused by the Brazilian government of illegal deforestation, between June and December 2011.
According to tThe report says JBS has also failed to monitor its indirect suppliers – contrary to a promise it made after Greenpeace's 2009 investigation – so many of its suppliers are taking goods that do not meet the standard of sourcing JBS and its customers have committed to.
Audits that the company claims to have undertaken have not been made available, and where the company has collected data on the whereabouts of its suppliers' farms – which should in theory show that they are in legal areas – the data has been incomplete, giving just one GPS reference when in fact several are needed to establish the borders of the properties involved. JBS has also, Greenpeace alleges, failed to present evidence that its suppliers are registered with Brazil's environmental authorities.
Greenpeace said it had traced beef from questionable farms from the sources through JBS's processing facilities and from there into cans sold in the UK by Tesco and in the Netherlands.
JBS, whose motto is "In God we trust, Nature we respect" said: "JBS as a leading meatpacking company with relevant operations in Brazil is proud of its track record in leading sustainable initiatives in all its activities. We continue to proactively liaise with NGOs, customers and stakeholders in general towards providing healthy products for a growing global population while forwarding the most sustainable practices."
It said it had written to Greenpeace and its own customers taking issue with the Greenpeace report.
Source: oneworldgroup.org
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