Danone goes local with Alpro in Grocer Gold supply chain winner

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Winner: Alpro British Oats - Danone

Danone’s transformational project has fundamentally rewired the sourcing and production of Alpro’s oat drinks in the UK.

Through its Alpro British Oats initiative, Danone moved away from imported oat ingredients and built a domestic supply chain based around 100% British-grown oats, processed and manufactured in the UK.

Backed by a multimillion-pound investment at Alpro’s Kettering site, the project brought sourcing, milling and production much closer together, with most of the Alpro UK brand’s oats now sourced within an 80-mile radius of local milling partner Navara Oat Mill.

Judges were impressed by the way the project “hit all key sustainability metrics”.

With demand for oat drinks continuing to grow, Danone says localising sourcing and production has improved traceability, strengthened security of supply and reduced exposure to global disruption – while creating new opportunities for British agriculture.

Working alongside Navara Oat Mill and Frontier Agriculture, the business has established a reliable route to market for British oat growers, creating long-term demand and helping strengthen resilience throughout the supply chain. The initiative also gives farmers new opportunities to diversify the use of their crops within a fast-growing category.

The investment also builds on previous upgrades at the Kettering facility, where new technology has enabled a more efficient oat flour-based production process and the capacity to produce up to 58 million litres of British oat drinks annually.

Sustainability gains were particularly noteworthy. A comparative lifecycle analysis found the move to local sourcing and new production methods had cut carbon footprint by an average of 25%, reduced land use by 20% and lowered water use by 70% compared with Alpro’s previous oat drink recipes.

“Alpro British Oats was designed to deliver value across the supply chain”, said Danone. It supports British farmers and processors, improves resilience and traceability for retailers and offers consumers a more locally sourced product with a significantly lower environmental footprint.