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The food insights platform to help you address the nature and climate crisis

A representation of the Foodsteps dashboard showing the impact of a Broccoli and Leek soup, with low to very high rating scales.

Foodsteps gives your team the tools to make the right decisions about sustainability and decarbonisation.

Create lower carbon menus and recipes with precise impact data.

Input your recipes and ingredients for real-time impact calculations to help your chefs and culinary team create lower-impactful options.

Two avocados from different countries are shown to have different environmental impact ratings
Our partnership with Foodsteps gives us the tools to support our creative food teams to develop delicious low carbon menus and helps on our journey to net zero.

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Clare Clark

Head of Sustainability at CH&CO

Foodsteps helps us help our partner brands communicate their menu's impacts and celebrate the positive shifts.

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Peggy Chan and Joel Thomas

Executive Director and Director of Partnerships at Zero Foodprint Asia

Lettice Events: Communicating sustainable menus confidently with event caterers

"Our partnership with Foodsteps supports our reputation as the leading luxury sustainable caterer and we’ve had great feedback from our clients, who love learning about the carbon footprint of our dishes."

Holly Congdon

Director at Lettice Events

Coco di Mama: Educating quick service customers on low-carbon meals and alternatives

"We're really grateful to have a reliable set of carbon footprint data which helps us make even better decisions on our menu development to reduce our company's carbon impact, and help inform our customers how their everyday decisions can have a better impact."

Sara McKennedy

Commercial Brand Director - Coco di Mama

CH&CO: Developing low-carbon menus and engaging with key supply chain stakeholders

"Our partnership with Foodsteps gives us the tools to support our creative food teams to develop delicious low-carbon menus and helps on our journey to Net Zero."

Clare Clark

Head of Sustainability at CH&CO

FAQs

Want to talk to our team?

What is Foodsteps?

Foodsteps is a UK based start-up which offers data and communication solutions for food businesses looking to measure, reduce and communicate their food’s environmental impact.

How can Foodsteps help my business meet its climate goals?

The EAT-Lancet Commission set a global carbon budget for the food system (farm stage only) at 5 gigatonnes of CO2e per year. We have scaled this budget to include downstream impacts of the food system, such as processing, packaging, transport, retail, end-mile transport, home storage, cooking, and end-of-life disposal. Through this, we calculated a carbon intensity allowance of 1.85 kg CO2e / kg.

Look out for A-rated (or ‘Very Low’ impact) items which will help you to stay within the food carbon budget!

What data sources do Foodsteps use?

Our extensive database of peer-reviewed LCA studies is primarily sourced from the 2018 meta-analysis by Poore & Nemecek, which covers the impacts of many different ingredients from the farm stage up to the retail stage (including any processing, packaging, and transport in-between).

We have supplemented this with a wide range of data that is either publicly available or accessible to Foodsteps, using our links to academia, industry and research bodies. All data is recalculated and harmonised with our food impact database to ensure a consistent scope and specificity.


If the exact sourcing of food items is unknown, we use international trade data to map where food is typically sourced from over a year.


In order to achieve a cradle-to-grave (farm to end-of-life) assessment, Foodsteps has created our own unique models for the environmental impacts of post-retail stages. This includes the end-mile transport of food items (from the point of sale to consumption), the pre-preparation storage, cooking and post-preparation storage of food items, and the end-of-life disposal of any food that is wasted.

Does Foodsteps offer carbon labels?

Yes, we do. Our carbon labels display the carbon footprint per serving of each item, which refers to the greenhouse gas emissions released from farm to waste.

Food items are rated based on their carbon intensity (or carbon footprint per kilogram), from A ('Very Low' impact) to E ('Very High' impact). This rating is highlighted by a traffic light colour system.

Can every food business use the Foodsteps carbon label?

Our carbon labels are best suited for food service organisations, such as caterers, restaurants, and cafes. Sign up to the "Premium" plan to get access to our automatically generated carbon labels.

If your business doesn’t match this criterion (including takeaway-only restaurants, and food brands), contact us to discuss how we can make the carbon labels work for you.

Join the companies who already use Foodsteps@ to measure, report and reduce their environmental impact.

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