For the food
We know that our food is a big part of the environmental impact of our business and we’re doing everything we can to keep that impact as low as possible. From our famous Southern African PERi-PERi chillies, to our chicken and chips, we’re looking at making sure we’re sourcing our food responsibly and having a positive social impact wherever we can.
Our Food Policy Championing our chicken Sourcing our food from all the right places
Our food policy is a manifesto that covers everything from Sustainability to Health and Wellbeing. Everything we buy has to meet the incredibly high standards of responsible and ethical sourcing laid out in our food policy. We’re also working towards targets that will reduce salt, sugar and saturated fat in our food, so that it doesn’t impact healthy lifestyle choices.
Making a change
Plastics
If we want to combat food waste and give our customers the freshest food possible, we do need packaging. Our food policy clearly states that all packaging on new products must be widely recyclable, and we are working to increase the amount of recycled content in our packaging. Along with other ethical businesses, we’ve aligned our targets with the UK Plastics Pact.
Fair Trade
All our tea, coffee and chocolate is Fairtrade as a minimum, and we are working towards getting 100% of the sugar in our ingredients certified as Fairtrade. Our policy also encourages suppliers to source fairly traded and ethical ingredients as much as possible, we’d rather pay the premium to know they’re responsibly sourced.
Protecting the rainforest
While we’re trying to protect the rainforest by sourcing sustainably, we’re also using the power of our brand to help protect this vital natural resource. In 2017 we joined over 60 companies in signing a statement of support for the Cerrado Manifesto, a call to action to stop deforestation in a threatened and biologically important area of rainforest in Brazil.
As part of our mission to be palm oil free, we are in the process of removing it from all our ingredients. For the moment, it is sustainably sourced according to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Rainforest Alliance or equivalent.
Since the 31st December 2015 all our soy has been responsibly sourced under the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS), ProTerra or equivalent. This is not just the soy we use as an ingredient but also in our supply chain too, which means that we buy RTRS credits to cover the volumes of soy fed to our chickens.
Menu options for everyone
Our flame-grilled PERi-PERi Chicken is legendary, but that doesn’t mean our vegetarian friends or anyone looking to cut down on meat has to miss out on our PERi-PERi magic. We’ve revamped our vegetarian menu with loads of great options, from beanie burgers to supergreen wraps, and we’re continually experimenting with new vegetarian options.
Chickens are obviously a big part of what we do, and it’s important to us that we stand up for chicken welfare and try to raise standards across the food industry wherever possible. All of our chicken meets high standards of animal welfare, food safety and environmental protection.
Higher chicken welfare standards
We’re proud to say we’re raising our chickens in barns with facilities that are above regulations. All of our chickens:
- have access to natural light
- have pecking objects so that they can do what chickens like to do: peck!
- have perches, bales or bale-like objects so that they can play around and display natural behaviours
- are only given antibiotics when they’re ill, as prescribed by a registered vet. Routine use of antibiotics is completely banned
- are fed soy feed where we’ve bought RTRS credits to make sure that we’re supporting sustainable soy production and not contributing to deforestation
And we won’t stop there. We have partnered with Compassion in World Farming, FAI Farms and the Soil Association to introduce a new long-term chicken welfare policy. This will include a range of key welfare metrics so we can measure and track its progress to help drive real change in the chicken industry.
In May 2020 we signed the Better Chicken Commitment, which means that we pledge to fully implement higher standards of welfare for chickens in our supply chain by 2026. With this commitment, we are pledging to give chickens better lives, and we are working with suppliers and industry groups to:
- Make a 100% shift to a breed of chicken that is naturally slower growing. This breed is a stronger, healthier chicken that has already been proven to enjoy increased playing and jumping, which in the chicken industry is a true sign of health and wellbeing. These birds will be given more space in which to roam and live.
- Work in partnership with farmers to help deliver improved farming practices that add value to both the birds and the farms themselves.
- Invest in studies to advance understanding of how Nando’s can further reduce the impact of chicken feed on its carbon footprint.
Nando’s Better Chicken Commitment
Our food donation program
We’re conscious of avoiding food waste so at the end of every night, any cooked chicken that hasn’t been used is temperature-checked, frozen and given to one of the restaurant’s local charity partners. We have over 387 unique charity partners across the UK and Ireland, supporting all kinds of causes, including youth, homelessness, refugees, and women and family shelters. Each restaurant has a personal relationship with the charity they’re donating their chicken to and can see the impact it’s making in the community.
Watch the impact here.
Never wasteful
We’re conscious of the impact that meat has on the planet, so we are making sure our chickens are sustainably sourced and that we use the whole bird (wings, breast, leg and livers) rather than picking certain bits and wasting the rest. We even had a delicious gravy for Christmas made from our chicken bones, going to show that every part can be used responsibly.
We describe our food as modern Afro-Portuguese cuisine. It harks back to when Portuguese explorers brought their traditionally flame-grilled spatchcock chicken to Mozambique, and it mixed with African spices, chillies, lemons and garlic to create PERi-PERi chicken. Our founders then opened the first Nando’s in South Africa back in 1987 to celebrate this seriously delicious flavour sensation.
We’re always on the lookout for ways to introduce new foods and flavours from our heartland, so you’ll often see new and improved recipes on our menus, from seasonal specials to innovative additions that perfectly complement our chicken. To make all this happen, we aim to work with suppliers who share our ambition to protect the environment by reducing waste and sourcing sustainably.
Local is where it’s at
We like to source our ingredients locally where we can. We also buy our corn from the UK when it’s in season here. Our eggs are free range from British hens and our milk is organic British as well.
No one does beer quite like the British so it stands to reason we stock two local craft beers – an XPA from Hackney in East London and the Freedom Pilsner from Abbots Bromley. And our cider is made by Bensons, who select and press the finest Herefordshire cider apples. Cider apples are especially important for us because they help bees to flourish as well.
Celebrating the home of PERi-PERi
Here at Nando’s, we’re proud to be known for our PERi-PERi flavour. To make sure our flavour is always exceptional and always unique, we have our very own trademarked Birds Eye Chilli grown in the sun and soil of our Southern African homeland. Find out more about our family of farmers and how we get the best PERi-PERi from that little chilli here.
Getting the good stuff
With certain foods, we know we have to find it in the places that have the highest quality ingredients and from people who know how to do it properly.
We source our halloumi from its spiritual home in Cyprus, where it’s made from a combination of goat, sheep and cow’s milk from animals fed exclusively on grass.
Our green olives come from the sunny slopes of Greece where they grow fat and ripe in the warm Mediterranean climate. And our balsamic vinegar comes from a small, family-run business in Modena, Italy, where they’ve been perfecting the blending process over many, many years. Did we mention it’s the same balsamic used in the Royal Opera House and the House of Commons? Just saying…
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