Our suppliers
- At Castle Dairies, we use a UK supply base of raw material and ingredients suppliers to reduce our food miles.
- With nearly half of the food consumed in the UK being imported, it’s never been more important to support UK dairies and agriculture. We source 100% BRITISH MILK from Red Tractor Assurance Farms.
- As of 2020, we switched to using a 100% British grown and processed rapeseed oil, made with sustainable energy production, in all of our branded and retail own-label spreadable butters. The rapeseed oil is sourced entirely from UK-grown rapeseed crop and is GMO and Hexane free.
- We ensure that all of our raw materials come from Red Tractor Assured Farms in the UK. This scheme ensures that food and drink is responsibly sourced from British agriculture and also ensures 100% traceability throughout the food chain and also ensures that food is traceable, safe and farmed with care.
Water
- Throughout our business we use fresh potable water as an ingredient as well as the use of clean water for heating operations, cooling systems and to clean down site equipment. Our main water supply comes from Welsh Water and our quality team on site collects regular water samples to ensure that water quality is safe and of a good quality for our products.
- We have implemented a wastewater treatment system called DAF (dissolved air flotation ) which is a wastewater clarification process that removes residues in wastewater, such as solids, greases, and oils. These solids are captured and prevented from going down the drain. This water treatment process ensures good quality of wastewater going to local sewage and allows us to achieve a consistently cleaner discharge, ensuring an environmentally sustainable food production method.
We, at CASTLE DAIRIES, promote the use of sustainable and innovative water systems, such as the use of Ozonated water for disinfection purposes. This is gaining attention as a promising disinfection method in food processing, including dairy and butter manufacturing, due to its strong oxidative properties and minimal chemical residues. Unlike chlorine-based disinfectants, ozone decomposes into oxygen, leaving no harmful residues on equipment. Ozonated water is highly effective against living organisms in the environment, and it only uses cold water therefore it contributes to our sustainability targets to reduce energy consumption on site.
How Ozonated Water Works:
Ozone (O₃) is a powerful oxidizing agent that disrupts microbial cell walls and internal components, making it highly effective against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. When dissolved in water, it becomes ozonated water, which can be used to sanitize surfaces and equipment.
Waste reduction
We have been working hard to reduce our overall process waste over the next 5 years. As of March 2023, 100% of our waste from the butter making process (buttermilk and excess residue) is sent to anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion is a naturally occurring process where, in the absence of oxygen, bacteria breaks down organic materials and produces biogas. Anaerobic digestion systems capture the biogas which enables it to be used in a beneficial way e.g. an energy source. This is important as it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which would contribute to climate change if it was lost to the atmosphere.
Commitment to plastic reduction and packaging
One of our top priorities is sourcing from sustainable suppliers of packaging materials. Our spreadable tubs are fully recyclable, with their plastic content being reduced by 20% in weight since 2023.
We are continuously researching, trialling and testing more environmentally friendly materials that are viable for packaging our block butters, as our foil wrappers are not currently recyclable.
Our cardboard outer boxes are FSC Certified, sustainably sourced, 100% biodegradable and are made from recycled materials. We also recycle cardboard packaging across our all of our operations.
We are aiming to ensure that all of our packaging is fully recyclable by 2030.