SUPPLY CHAIN reducing your actual emissions or Sharing insights up the chain buying carbon offsets.” James said another element of their In terms of their own business, the business strategy was to share Maddens were able to identify both consumer insights with their customers short‑term and long‑term methods of – restaurants and other foodservice reducing emissions. operators – to derive maximum value for the entire supply chain. “Straightaway, we switched to renewable energyforour electricity,” James said. “We’re looking beyond ‘how can we sell a kilo of meat to a restaurant?’ to ‘how “We also identified that we could use can we help deliver more bums on more efficient refrigerants and delivery restaurant seats and more people who vehicles, which we’re in the process of will pay a premium for those seats?’,” switching over to now.” he said. Long‑term goals “We want to share our market insights In the long‑term, Flinders + Co aims to with our customers and demonstrate encourage their suppliers to reduce that they also need to be thinking about emissions by sending price signals these things – sustainable, ethical, “back down the supply chain”. environmental – because it’s what consumers want.” “We can’t solve the carbon puzzle on‑farm, but we can How producers can get involved James’ advice for producers is to be try to provide an incentive open to the idea of becoming carbon for producers to do it,” neutral and to do plenty of research. James said. “Some people in the industry have said to us ‘you’re not really carbon neutral, “In fact, we’ve already had one of our you’re just paying to offset it’,” he said. suppliers start the process of becoming “Our response is ‘yeah you’re right, but if carbon neutral, after seeing us do it. we wait for the perfect solution to come We’ve said ‘that’s great – if you do that along we’ll wait forever, so we might as we will be able to pay you a premium well get started’. because we won’t have to offset your product’. “The biggest thing producers can do is be open to it – think about it, read “We’ve also had a large agricultural about it, talk to their processors about it. company in Queensland approach us, Going carbon neutral saying ‘we’re interested in becoming “Smaller steps are probably easier than carbon neutral and we’re keen to work big steps, and it might just be a long The business engaged the Carbon with you’. series of small steps that get producers Reduction Institute to calculate its ready to hit the ground running when carbon footprint. “We’re happy to hear from any potential those premiums are there.” ■ suppliers who are carbon neutral “The consultants analysed our already or are actively working to wholesaling business in Melbourne, as reduce emissions.” James Madden well as each supplier’s carbon footprint E: james@flinders.co on a per‑kilogram‑of‑meat basis,” For now, Flinders + Co is investing James said. in carbon offset projects to offset their suppliers’ emissions, including “Once we measured it, the next step purchasing offsets from one of their was reducing our carbon footprint suppliers, Greenham Tasmania to zero. You can do that in two ways: (page 40). 39