Air-freighted food off the menu at Greene King pubs

One of the UK's biggest pub companies is removing air-freighted fresh fruit and vegetables from its menus in a bid to improve sustainability across the business.

Greene King has told Pub & Bar that it will achieve zero air-freighted items across all menus at 1,600 managed pubs from autumn/winter 2025.

Fresh fruit and vegetable produce is one of the more complex supply chains and the company’s third largest buying category by spend.

Annually, Greene King uses over 9m kg of fresh produce. The top three highest quantity of products used are potatoes (2m kg), lettuce and cucumber.

"This is a good example of our menu development team and supply chain team working together with suppliers to reduce our carbon footprint through using different ingredients or ensuring produce is transported by an alternative method to airfreight," says Greene King’s chief operating officer Clair Preston-Beer. "Our menus feature pub classics and contemporary dishes, and they evolve to meet changing customers tastes and make the most of the ingredients available to us in the best ways. We continue to look at our daily operations, working with our suppliers and offering our customers sustainable choices as we progress towards net zero."

No more winging it

In collaboration with its supplier, future airfreight has been removed by working with food development teams to create menus which do not feature ingredients that can only be air freighted and by liaising with producers to source alternative sea or road transport.

For example, it has sourced herbs, including basil and chives, through British suppliers or by road freight, as opposed to supplying air-freighted produce. Other menu items are substituted periodically if there is no alternative to airfreight, such as tenderstem broccoli to purple sprouting broccoli, and some fruits such as pomegranates, passion fruit and strawberries.

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