Avara has committed to eliminate deforestation in its soy supply chain by 2025, and this commitment is shared with our customers and publicly. To achieve this will require complete transparency throughout our soy supply chain back to original source. We have taken the following steps to date on this path:

• Since 2019 100% of our soy purchases have been certified as deforestation free, ahead of plan, and a leading position in the UK market. To put this in context 38% of Soy imported into the UK is currently not under any certification programme.  
• We are now working to have greater transparency down to a further level of detail in the supply chain - regional level - in 2021.
• We contributed to an independent survey by 3keel designed to give the most advanced understanding of current compliance within our supply chain earlier this year.

This position puts us at the forefront of UK soy purchasers, and we are committed to doing more in a short timeframe working with our customers and trading partners. Alongside this we use UK grown rapeseed and beans as alternative sources of proteins to reduce our reliance on  imported soymeal and continue to explore different diet formulas to reduce the footprint of our feed supply chain.  

We’re part of the SOS for the Cerrado Manifesto and sit on the Steering Group of this initiative because we want to work in partnership with all stakeholders to identify real, practical solutions which make positive impact. We welcome the government’s proposed legislation aimed at illegal deforestation as this is aligned with our objectives and represent an important step in achieving these.

You can learn more about Avara’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility activity by reading our Responsible Business Report 2020.