Ballymaloe Foods is all about family, food and a passion for bringing the best ingredients and taste to our customers, in the most sustainable way possible. We’re committed to very high standards in food production and integrity in business. We’re proud to be a trusted brand and we strive every day to bring our ethos of hard work, dedication and Ballymaloe warmth to everything we do.
Sustainability is key to Ballymaloe Foods’ values and continued success. Since the start of Ballymaloe Foods, our founder Yasmin Hyde has always had a focus on sustainability. The ethos of protecting the environment and supporting local producers has been central to Ballymaloe Foods since day one.
Ballymaloe Foods, along with the other Ballymaloe companies, are the proud sponsors of Birdwatch Ireland’s National Garden Bird Survey, the most popular of its citizen science initiatives. The garden survey is a key indicator of how birds are faring within our environment and plays a vital role in the work of Birdwatch Ireland.
“I think it’s very important that one has a good reputation for not spoiling the Earth and for doing your best. We can all make improvements and we need to keep trying to do that”
Yasmin Hyde
- Ballymaloe Food’s Owner
To further our commitment to sustainability we are proud members of Bord Bia’s Origin Green programme. We go above and beyond to ensure that we are operating as sustainable as possible. We have put in place and met ambitious sustainability targets.
In 2024, we began our third 5-year sustainability plan with Origin Green – continuing to try and manage our carbon footprint and the impact that we have on the environment.
Year on year, we aim to meet and exceed our targets that range from energy efficiency, biodiversity enhancement, waste reduction, community engagement, health and nutrition and employee wellness. These targets ensure we are performing as sustainably as possible.
We are currently working with Enterprise Ireland as part of their Green Start Programme, which involves reducing our carbon footprint by assessing the life cycles of our existing packaging and investigating greener alternates. All our packaging is recyclable, and we use recycled content in our packaging when possible. In the last 5 years we have contacted all of our suppliers to encourage them to reduce unnecessary packaging sent with raw materials.
In 2024, we made significant strides in sustainable packaging and sourcing. The company transitioned from virgin plastic to 100% recycled plastic for our Mayo bottles, replacing 428 kg of virgin plastic—the equivalent of 13,792 bottles. We also launched a packaging project and training initiative to explore alternative, more sustainable packaging solutions. Efforts to reduce environmental impact continued with the minimization of cardboard dyes on outer boxes. We uphold a sustainable sourcing policy and require all suppliers to provide sustainability certification, reinforcing their commitment to responsible and environmentally conscious practices.
In 2022, we made substantial improvements to our production processes and upgraded our machinery, resulting in a total energy reduction of 128,248kWh—the equivalent of avoiding approximately 43.2 tonnes of CO₂-eq emissions in 2023. Additionally, we currently only purchase our electricity from suppliers that generate electricity renewably for our factory. Our Sustainability team is committed to building on this progress, with several ongoing projects aimed at further reducing our environmental impact.
Ballymaloe Foods is an active participant in the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, committed to protecting bees and supporting biodiversity. The company enhances its office surroundings with pollinator-friendly planting. It also sponsors and maintains the L-2998-0 roundabout and a planted area at the entrance to Courtstown Park in Little Island (planted by our own staff), which feature a range of bee-friendly plants. Additionally, Ballymaloe Foods sponsored the publishing of the Farming for Nature Handbook, supporting sustainable farming and nature conservation. We also sponsor educational programmes on Biodiversity, including 50% sponsorship of upskilling the tour guide at Ballymaloe House in rewilding.
Ballymaloe Foods is actively engaged in a range of sustainability initiatives. As a member of the Too Good To Go scheme, we support reducing food waste through consumer awareness and redistribution efforts. We collaborate with suppliers to minimize input packaging wherever possible, contributing to waste reduction at the source. In partnership with FoodCloud, we have helped redistribute 20.7 tonnes of surplus food to date, equivalent to approximately 63.4 tonnes of CO₂-eq emissions avoided and around 3.7 million meals. Additionally, we participate in the “Look-Smell-Taste” initiative, which encourages consumers to use their senses to assess food quality, aiming to reduce unnecessary food waste.
At Ballymaloe Foods we try to act with care and responsibility at all times. To this end, we work with FoodCloud to donate surplus stock and we also donate an allocation of non surplus stock to them each month. Their hard work to help fight food poverty and food waste in Ireland is a mission we truly believe in.
Our grandfather, Ivan Allen, was a farmer who had concerns over what effect the introduction of newer and bigger farm machinery might have on native Irish birds, such as Cranes, who nested in the fields. He would regularly walk in front of the combine harvesters to alert the birds to the machinery and give them time to escape. To honour his care for the birds, we are one of the main sponsors of Birdwatch Ireland’s Garden Survey.
In Ireland, we are so lucky to have many exceptional growers and producers of fresh food and drink on our proverbial doorstep. Where possible, we buy local first, and Irish raw materials. Our beetroot is grown in East Cork by Jason Bryan, who we have supported to set up and manage the growing and picking of beetroot for us.
We also ensure that we investigate our supplier’s ethics and sustainability credentials. We use sustainability as a key metric when choosing a supplier and ask all suppliers to fill out our sustainability questionnaire and furnish any sustainability credentials they may have.
For our two products that use animal produce – our Mayo and Smoked Bacon Pasta Sauce – we are determined to use free-range and Irish animal produce only. We work with Darren Allen at Ballymaloe Farm to rear rare-breed free-range Irish pigs, and source free-range eggs for our Ballymaloe Mayo from nest box in Co.Monaghan.
