Unilever launches first UK regenerative agriculture project

The project will initially trial the application of regenerative agriculture practices across mustard and mint farms around Norwich and Peterborough over four years

Unilever has launched its first regenerative agriculture project in the UK, working with farms that grow mustard seeds and mint leaves used in Colman’s products.

This is the latest regenerative agriculture project from Unilever, building on global programmes that have seen the adoption of Unilever’s Regenerative Agriculture Principles to grow ingredients in Hellmann’s and Knorr products in the United States, France, Spain, Argentina and Italy. Globally, Unilever has an ambitious roadmap in place to invest in regenerative agriculture practices on 1.5 million hectares of land and forests by 2030, helping to ensure food security and supply chain resilience through the supply of agricultural raw materials.

The project will initially trial the application of regenerative agriculture practices across mustard and mint farms around Norwich and Peterborough over four years, including mustard farms which have supplied Colman’s products for over 200 years, with the first crop of the programme due to be sown next month.

The project brings together Unilever and two farming cooperatives, the English Mustard Growers and Norfolk Mint Growers, with a group of technical and academic partners, Farmacy and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB). Designed to address the unique challenges and needs of these crops and landscapes, regenerative agriculture practices new to these farms will be trialled including the use of low carbon fertiliser, crop nutrition strategies, planting of cover and companion crops to reduce pesticide use, new digital water irrigation scheduling systems and reduced cultivation.