WWF

Lidl International X WWF

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Company News

Lidl Targets 20% Increase in Plant-Based Sales by 2030 in Partnership with WWF

Lidl has announced new sustainability targets aimed at promoting plant-based eating across its 31 international markets. In collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the retailer has committed to increasing the proportion of plant-based foods sold by 20% by 2030, compared to 2023 levels. This initiative is part of Lidl’s broader effort to align its product offerings with the Planetary Health Diet (PHD) guidelines by 2050. Lidl’s strategy, dubbed “Conscious Nutrition,” includes using WWF’s Planet-Based Diets Retailer Methodology to evaluate and expand its product range. This methodology provides a framework for developing sustainable and health-focused food options, encompassing protein sources, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. The retailer plans to implement national targets across all its markets to support its international goal. Stefan Haensel, senior vice …

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supermarket shelf with meat

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Studies & Numbers

WWF-UK States Proportion of “Livestock-Based” Foods in Supermarkets is Almost Double Recommended Levels

Environmental charity WWF-UK has published its annual What’s in Store for the Planet report, which includes data on the lack of progress made by UK retailers towards sustainability targets. WWF-UK has developed a healthy, sustainable diet called Livewell, which it claims could deliver a 36% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 20% reduction in biodiversity loss by 2030 compared to the current average diet. Livewell has a 40:30:30 percentage split across livestock, seafood, and plant-based protein foods; it is also in line with government nutrition guidelines. This year, the number of retailers who supplied data on the breakdown of protein food sales increased from six to nine. However, the data indicates that 79% of total protein food sales are livestock-based on average, almost double …

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Planetary Health Diet

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Charity & Campaigns

Retailers Urged to Adopt 60/40 Protein Split to Drive Healthier, More Sustainable Diets

Three global organizations, ProVeg International, WWF, and the Green Protein Alliance, are urging retailers to set targets for a 60% plant and 40% animal protein split in their sales to support healthy, sustainable diets aligned with the Planetary Health Diet by EAT-Lancet. The Planetary Health Diet suggests that the split between plant-based and animal-based foods should be 70% plant to 30% animal when all food groups are included and 60% plant to 40% animal when just focusing on protein-source foods, including meat, eggs, fish, and legumes. The organizations highlight retailers as “pivotal” in enabling societies to transition to sustainable diets and setting industry standards for measuring and achieving protein rebalancing. They encourage retailers to track progress toward these protein split targets to promote a comprehensive shift …

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Sheep grazing in Wales

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Agriculture / Agribusiness

Head of WWF in Wales Warns of the “Inevitable Demise” of Welsh Animal Agriculture

Gareth Clubb, director of WWF Cymru, the Welsh arm of the environmental organization WWF, has written a blog post in the Welsh language under his social media name Naturiaethwr to warn the region’s farmers of the reality of the Welsh livestock industry: rising costs from energy to veterinary expenses, climate change, and declining consumer demand for animal meat. Clubb argues that people in the UK are reducing their meat and dairy consumption for health, ethical, and environmental reasons. This change in eating patterns threatens the country’s animal farming industry, particularly in Wales, where more than 90% of the land is dedicated to sheep and cattle farming. He highlights that 58% of the population has taken steps to reduce or stop eating meat, although some people are …

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40% of UK's arable land devoted to livestock feed

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Agriculture / Agribusiness

WWF Calls for UK Farmland to Feed People, Not Livestock

A report by conservation organisation WWF has claimed that two-fifths of the UK’s arable land is being used to grow crops to feed farmed animals. Half of the wheat grown in the country — enough to produce over ten billion loaves of bread — is fed to livestock in a process the organisation described as “inherently inefficient”. When the land used for raising and grazing livestock is also taken into account, 85% of the UK’s farmland is devoted to animal agriculture. This is despite the fact that only a third of calories consumed in the country comes from animal products. The solution According to WWF, Brits currently eat more animal protein than is recommended and should aim to replace some of this with plant-based foods. …

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Oceanium Kelp

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Agriculture / Agribusiness

Scottish Seaweed Specialist Oceanium to Receive WWF Investment in £2 Million Seed Funding

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) counts itself among a group of investors in Oceanium, a Scottish company specialising in the cultivation and processing of seaweed. The company has announced the first closing of its seed II round led by Green Angel Syndicate, raising around £2 million (equivalent to €2.3 million). “Oceanium’s groundbreaking expansion of cultivated algae processing capacity is an exciting step for the industry as a whole.” Oceanium plans to use the fresh capital to scale its proprietary biorefinery and processing model to market to the emerging sustainable algae farming industry. The company’s technical and innovative refining method has been developed to use marine algae for multiple applications such as plant-based food and sustainable packaging material as an alternative to plastic. WWF’s Paul Dobbins …

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Gastronomy & Food Service

Sodexo “Future 50 Foods” to Bring Sustainable Plant-Based Meals to 5000 Hospitals and Businesses

Global food services company Sodexo joined forces with Knorr Professional (Unilever) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to write the Future 50 Foods report which identified 50 healthy foods which offer a low environmental impact. Sodexo, the first global player to serve the Future 50 Foods on a large scale, will begin a roll out  of 40 plant-based recipes containing the 50 foods, to kitchens around the world.

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