25 Hospitality CEOs Come Together to Build Resilient Supply Chains in the Face of Extreme Weather Disruption
- Supply chain leaders and regenerative producers joined hospitality and brewing operators at an event in London to discuss the increasing risks to business due to climate change
- The event highlighted the need for the hospitality and brewing industry to work together with their suppliers to reduce scope 3 emissions and build resilience
- New data from CGA shows that UK hospitality sales were 25.7% lower due to heavy rain and 8.2% lower due to extreme heat on like-for-like days between 2022 and 2023
Last night, Zero Carbon Forum, the not-for-profit that supports the hospitality and brewing sector on its net zero journey, hosted their bi-annual CEO/CFO Roundtable in London to discuss what action the sector can take individually and collectively to build resilience across the supply chain in the face of new climate-related risks.
25 C-suite executives attended the event to hear from Andrew Selley, CEO of Bidcorp UK, Pete Statham, Head of Sustainability and Government relations at Sysco GB, and regenerative farmer Andy Cato, co-founder of Wildfarmed alongside forum director Bob Gordon, and climate change expert Mike Berners-Lee.
Forum members shared their challenges and heard about solutions shaping the industry’s response to the impact of extreme weather events on their daily operations.
Our data shows that members are taking positive steps to reduce the carbon emissions within their direct control – scopes 1 and 2. However, 78% of the sector’s emissions are in the food and drink we serve. These scope 3 emissions are found within the supply chain. They cannot be tackled individually and the only way we will see meaningful reductions is to ensure the supply chain and our members work together. The first step is to bring them into the room to learn what is happening and what we need from each other. We’ve also shared our plans to lead the development of a common set of standards and expectations for operators to use with their suppliers. We’ve asked for feedback from suppliers on their barriers and what’s needed to meet the sector’s expectations. Mark Chapman, forum founder and CEO
Extreme weather plays havoc on supply chains – crop failures from heat or flooding affect the availability of core commodities and can often lead to lower-quality ingredients and increased costs.
Wet weather caused sugar beet failures in Europe and the UK, and droughts and floods impacted sugar cane production in Brazil and India leading to an 8.2% price increase of sugar-related products in 2024*.
Andy Cato from Wildfarmed shared his experience of developing farms that shun industrialised models and focus on regenerative principles. This approach encourages more carbon to be captured, the soil to be replenished, and biodiversity to thrive. In turn, the farms are more resilient.
Steve Holmes, CEO of Azzurri was recently interviewed by Bob Gordon, director of Zero Carbon Forum as part of a hospitality sustainability webinar series, where he confirmed their pizzas now taste better since using Wildfarmed flour.
As well as affecting supply chain reliability, new data from CGA commissioned by the forum shows the effects of extreme weather on hospitality sales.
On 18 February 2022, Storm Eunice hit the UK and sales were 25.7% lower than on the same day in 2023.
On 19 July 2022, the UK recorded 40-degree temperatures and sales were 8.2% lower than on the same day in 2023.
The data makes it clear that it’s critical for hospitality and brewing businesses that want to survive now and thrive in the future to join forces and urgently support actions that reduce carbon and support regeneration in order to build resilience. We've asked our members to support initiatives that prioritise supplier engagement so that we can rapidly reduce the negative impact of the sector and ensure we maintain a planet that we can eat, drink and brew beer on. Mark Chapman
*Data from the Foodservice Price Index, from Prestige Purchasing and CGA by NiQ, year-on-year food category price inflation, 2024.
About Zero Carbon Forum
The Zero Carbon Forum is a not-for-profit that provides the UK hospitality and brewing industry with a productive and action-oriented way to collaborate on their sustainability challenges, within their companies and across their supply chains.
The forum is supported by UKH, BBPI and BII, and a third of the UK hospitality and brewing industry are members. The forum allows operators to learn from each other, raise their ambition levels, and tackle the bigger challenges together.
Our Measure-Plan-Reduce-Comply framework helps members measure their emissions, get a plan of reduction actions to deliver individually and collectively, and to comply with investor and stakeholder expectations. They can view industry benchmarks to see how well they are performing against others, and we can uncover and collectively act on the challenges that the wider sector faces, for example, supply chain engagement and food innovation.
The forum has won various FoodService Footprint Awards in 2022, 2023 and 2024 for stakeholder engagement and energy efficiency initiatives.
