Premier Foods case study: Water

The Business Board Action Plan identifies 3 key pressures in the Tamar, these are nutrient management, soil health and habitat loss. These will be targeted via collective action towards best practice supported by the Business Board and their work with primary producers.

This is one of the sourcing areas that sits under the Courtauld 2025 Water Ambition. Premier Foods also sits on the Courtauld 2025 Water Oversights Panel to govern the project development process and monitor progress.

Work has already begun on River Lyd sub-catchment. Working together to implement a natural capital approach, the Board and their partners have started to map the sub-catchment and identify possible areas of improvement. A mapping exercise identified 240 dominant lans owners in total. Of these, 111 have been engaged so far by the business board.

So far, the Board has assessed the level of water quality risks across the catchment. A combined risk map was created to highlight areas of the catchment that receive high risk scores for multiple risk factors. Farms within high-risk areas are more likely to experience environmental degredation and may be more vulnerable to future environment changes. Of the 111 known producers, 17% are in high-risk areas, 63% in medium-risk areas and 20% in low-risk areas. For the known producers that fall in high risk areas, phosphate loading is the most dominant factor.

Going forward, Premier Foods and other members of the Board will support local business to implement measures on the ground to reduce risk and improve water resilience. This could be achieved by engaging producers, selecting appropriate measures, targeting interventions, or assessing costs/benefits. Proposed measures include:

• Planting of native broadleaved woodland in targeted, strategic locations to reduce the risk of pollution transfer to watercourse by intercepting surface water runoff.
• Using vegetation to buffer field margins and riparian corridors to reduce pollutant loss from agricultural fields by intercepting surface water runoff and to allow a settling out of soils and nutrients.
• Promoting improved soil management to facilitate the movement and storage of water.

The ambition is to roll this approach out on a wider scale; Tamar-wide and south west region-wide to support collaboration between businesses, suppliers and other local stakeholders.

View Ambition 2025 Progress Report 2019