Dive Brief:

• Nestlé is investing to grow more wheat using regenerative agriculture practices for its DiGiorno pizza brand, the food and beverage giant announced Thursday.
• The company, along with suppliers ADM and Ardent Mills, will provide technical and financial support for wheat farmers to improve soil health and biodiversity through practices like planting cover crops or reducing tillage and pesticide use.
• The investment will bring climate-smart practices to more than 100,000 acres of farmland, nearly double the amount required to make DiGiorno’s pizza dough. The company aims to source half of its key ingredients through regenerative agriculture methods by 2030.

Dive Insight:

Nearly two-thirds of Nestlé's emissions stem from sourcing its ingredients, and regenerative agriculture has become a centerpiece of the food and beverage giant's efforts to hit net-zero by 2050.

But deploying regenerative agriculture practices has been easier said than done — Nestlé sourced just 6.8% of key ingredients with climate-smart practices in 2022, according to its latest environmental, social and governance report.

Part of the problem is that there's no real definition of regenerative agriculture, nor is there a standard method for farmers to verify whether changes to production practices are actually helping the climate.

Additionally, Nestlé has pre-arranged volume commitments in many areas, making it harder to convince suppliers to adopt climate-smart practices. Flavor also complicates regenerative agriculture methods, as regions grow varieties of crops that can taste different and impact recipes, according to the ESG report.

Despite headwinds, Nestlé's work in regenerative agriculture has yielded progress, its ESG report shows. The company saved around 6.4 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2022 compared to a business-as-usual scenario, with ingredient sourcing driving nearly 70% of that reduction.

With ingredients making up most of its emissions, Nestlé has heavily invested to advance regenerative agriculture, even opening its own agricultural sciences institute in May to inform sustainable sourcing plans.

In addition to work within its wheat supply chain, Nestlé is also advancing efforts to verify outcomes of climate-smart practices for tomatoes. The company is working with nonprofit Leading Harvest to certify farming methods of tomato suppliers.

“Many tomato farmers in our supply chain have already been doing the work to implement regenerative farming practices in their fields and they’ve made great progress so far,” Emily Johannes, Nestlé USA head of diverse and sustainable sourcing, said in a statement. “We are now working to verify these efforts throughout the supply chain in a way that is effective and efficient for our brands and the farmers.