Angel Hill Food Co.’s Big Carbon Kick Out initiative has recorded 181,136kg of CO₂e savings since June 2024, across 70,319 dishes sold. The initiative demonstrates how menu development and supplier partnerships can help reduce the carbon impact of food while keeping familiar dishes on the menu.
For World Sustainability Day, the results highlight a practical opportunity for contract catering: develop food that meets customer expectations, works in busy kitchens and supports customers’ environmental objectives. By rethinking the ingredients in everyday favourites, Angel Hill Food Co. is building lower-carbon options into its catering offer.
The Opportunity Starts with Familiar Food
The Big Carbon Kick Out initiative focuses on reducing food-related carbon emissions through product development and menu choices. The approach centres on dishes people already recognise, making it possible to explore different ingredient combinations while maintaining flavour, quality, consistency and value.
This matters in contract catering, where a product needs to work for customers and catering teams as well as meet its environmental aims. Recipes must be straightforward to prepare at scale, suit different catering settings and offer a viable option for everyday service.
In 2026 to date, Big Carbon Kick Out has recorded 66,974kg of CO₂e savings across 24,919 dishes sold. September accounted for 8,292kg of reported savings from 3,301 dishes.
Matt Vernon, Who Leads Big Carbon Kick Out, said:
Big Carbon Kick Out is about turning our sustainability ambitions into practical action through the food we serve every day. By working with our suppliers to rethink familiar dishes and develop products with a lower carbon impact, we can give customers more options to support their own sustainability goals while maintaining the flavour, quality and value they expect.
Since launching the initiative, we’ve recorded more than 181,000kg of CO₂e savings across over 70,000 dishes sold. That progress shows the potential of making changes that work in real catering environments. Our focus now is on building on that progress, developing products that customers want to choose and identifying opportunities to extend their impact across our operations.
The Angel Hill Burger Shows how Familiar Favourites can Change
Developed with Eat Curious and heritage butcher William White Meats Ltd, the Angel Hill Burger combines plant-based textured vegetable protein with British beef. It was developed through Angel Hill Food Co.’s Culinary Classroom chef programme, informed by consumer insight and designed for the Business, Industry and Education sectors.
The product gives catering teams another option for burger menus, using a blend of ingredients to reduce its reported carbon impact while retaining the familiarity customers expect.
Since its launch in September 2025, 82,686 burgers have been ordered, with reported savings of 95,916kg of CO₂e. In September 2026, 3,072 burgers were ordered, representing reported savings of 3,564kg of CO₂e.
A wider rollout across all sites is projected to deliver annual savings equivalent to one million miles driven by a car. This is a forecast based on adoption across the estate, separate from the savings recorded to date.
Thomas White, Director at William White Meats Ltd, said:
As a family-run butcher, this partnership allows us to stay true to our values while embracing innovation. It’s a new way to enjoy great British meat responsibly.
The partnership brings together butchery expertise and product development to create an option suited to commercial catering. Its projected impact also illustrates why adoption matters: the potential carbon saving depends on how widely the product is used.
Supplier Partnerships Help Turn Data into Decisions
Big Carbon Kick Out depends on collaboration with suppliers to develop products, understand their performance and assess opportunities for wider use. Angel Hill Food Co. also works with Saffron in relation to the Angel Hill Burger.
Clear, consistent measurement is essential when reporting environmental progress. The carbon savings for each product need to be assessed against a defined comparison, such as an existing recipe or equivalent product, using an agreed methodology. This allows Angel Hill Food Co. to explain what each figure represents and make informed decisions about future menu development.
Measuring Progress Through Everyday Choices
Big Carbon Kick Out demonstrates how sustainability can be built into the commercial decisions behind menu planning. The Angel Hill Burger and blended beef show how product development can create alternatives for familiar dishes, while the programme’s reported results provide a way to track progress.
For customers working towards their own environmental objectives, this offers a practical area for collaboration: identifying suitable products, understanding their carbon impact and considering where they can be introduced across catering operations.
This World Sustainability Day, the focus is on progress that can be put into practice.
The opportunity is to make lower-carbon choices part of the food people already enjoy, and to measure the difference those choices can make.
