Soy

Introduction to the soy sustainability challenge

Soybeans are among the world’s most widely grown crops, used in both food and non-food products. While commonly seen in tofu, soy milk, and edamame, about 80% of global soy is used as animal feed—making it a hidden ingredient in many animal-based foods.

Major producers include the U.S. and South America. The UK imports over 3 million tonnes annually, with 77% coming from regions at high risk of deforestation like Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Soy farming has led to significant habitat loss, especially in the Amazon and Cerrado, a vital ecosystem for biodiversity and climate stability.

As a responsible UK retailer, we recognise the environmental challenges linked to soy production, including deforestation and biodiversity loss. While soy remains a key source of protein for animal feed, scalable alternatives are not yet widely available. That’s why we are actively exploring innovative solutions and collaborating with industry partners to drive progress toward more sustainable soy production and alternative feed systems. We aim to reduce our impact on nature and are committed to sourcing sustainable soy in a way that protects forests, respects local communities, and supports sustainable farming practices.

Our Commitment

At Lidl GB, we're committed to sourcing 100% of our critical raw materials from verified sustainable sources. In 2021, we set a clear goal: to source soy for our own-brand products from Deforestation and Conversion Free (DCF) sources by 2025, using a cut-off date of 2020.

Our commitment is aligned with the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) principles, and we follow their definition for deforestation- and conversion-free supply chains.

Transition plan

Transition plan to sourcing physically traceable soy in animal feed

The graphic outlines our transition plan moving from phase 1, RTRS certificates to phase 2, physically traceable soy to cover our soy footprint.

We have prioritised sectors that have the biggest soy footprint first such as poultry and eggs, with the plan to cover all key sectors by 2024.

Poultry
Pork
Dairy
Egg
Beef
Lamb
Seafood

Our approach

We are committed to protecting forests because of the critical role they play in climate regulation and storing billions of tonnes of carbon annually.

1. Sourcing sustainable soy

From 2018 to 2023, Lidl covered 100% of its soy footprint by purchasing RTRS certificates via the ‘Book and Claim Direct Trade’ model. However, this method lacks physical traceability and is broadly considered inadequate for demonstrating verified deforestation-free sourcing, especially under emerging legislation like the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

In 2021, the UK Soy Manifesto launched to drive industry-wide adoption of physically traceable, verified deforestation- and conversion-free (vDCF) soy. Lidl GB became a founding signatory and has since worked toward sourcing vDCF soy across all own-brand products, including both direct and embedded soy.

Lidl GB is committed to sourcing certified sustainable soy that is deforestation- and conversion-free (DCF).

Our key commitments:

By FY2024: All soy used directly in Vemondo Plant! range and meat/diary/yoghurt substitutes will come from low-risk regions and meet our sustainable certification standards.
By FY2025: Meat and sausage substitutes and soy drinks will be certified to Donau Soja/Europe Soya, ProTerra, ISCC+, RTRS, or organic.
Animal feed: Soy will be sourced from certified sustainable sources verified as DCF, using schemes such as Donau Soja, RTRS, ISCC+, or ProTerra.

More details on how we source sustainably across our products can be found in our deforestation policy, including a full list of accepted certifications and evidence we require our suppliers to provide during our commercial process.

2. Increasing transparency of soy within our supply chains

At Lidl, we believe that transparency is the first step toward sustainability. By increasing visibility across our soy supply chain, we can better understand where our soy comes from, how it's produced, and the impact it has on people and the planet.

Greater transparency helps us:

Identify and address deforestation risks in high-priority regions like the Cerrado and Amazon.
Engage more effectively with suppliers to promote responsible sourcing practices.
Support certified and deforestation-free soy, ensuring our products align with our environmental values.
Track progress toward our sustainability goals and report with confidence to our stakeholders.

Through collaboration, traceability, and data-driven action, we’re working to ensure that all soy used in our supply chain—whether directly or indirectly—is sourced in a way that protects nature and supports resilient farming communities.

Reducing our soy footprint

As part of our strategy we have also committed to reducing our overall soy footprint where possible. We have developed two approaches to supporting this commitment:

Firstly, we are engaging with our key strategic suppliers to find viable alternative proteins to be used in animal feed with the aim of reducing our reliance on soy and risk of contributing to rates of deforestation and land conversion.

Additionally, we offer a wide range of vegan and vegetarian meat alternatives from our Vemondo range in store for our customers so that we can promote sustainable, balanced diets. By supporting our customers towards a more plant-based diet we are able to gradually reduce the amount of soy used for animal feed.

Our soy footprint data

As part of our soy strategy, we have committed to collecting our soy footprint data annually. Each year we work with 3Keel (a third-party consultancy) and our suppliers to collect data on the amount of soy used within the Lidl GB supply chain and understand where it comes from. Our data collection is a requirement for all our Lidl GB fresh poultry, meat, dairy, eggs, and fish suppliers and those that use soy embedded in our products. We rely on our suppliers to provide us with this data and are working with them to improve the consistency and accuracy year on year.

To promote transparency and track progress towards our targets, we have committed to publicly reporting our soy footprint and where our soy comes from.

Our Footprint	2021	2022
Soy Footprint (tonnes)¹	114,522	140,997
% of footprint that is verified deforestation and conversion free (vDCF)²	12%	18%
% of footprint that is covered by certification³	100%	100%

% of where the soy in our supply chain is sourced from⁴	2021	2022
Europe	0.04%	0.00%
Argentina	0.25%	0.85%
Brazil	23.45%	22.65%
USA	0.60%	0.00%
India	0.58%	0.19%
Multi-origin (incl. South America) and origin not disclosed	75.08%	76.31%

Supplier Engagement⁵	2021	2022
% of our suppliers in scope with a deforestation policy for soy in place or in development	32%	65%
% of our suppliers in scope with an action plan to achieving deforestation free soy	15%	19%
% of our soy volume covered by UK Soy Manifesto signatories	56%	58%
% of our suppliers in scope that have been contacted to implement UK Soy Manifesto requirements⁶	24%	35%

UK MARKET REPORTING

For more information on the collective progress of all the UK Soy Manifesto signatories, please visit the UK Soy Manifesto website here.

For more information and reports on how the UK market is sourcing soy, please visit the 3Keel website here, where they publish reports annually.

HOW WE ARE SUPPORTING OUR SUPPLY CHAIN

We understand that we can’t achieve these commitments alone, and so we have taken actions to ensure our suppliers move towards vDCF soy with us:

We inform our suppliers that we require soy used in animal feed from specific FEFAC benchmarked certification, via our commercial contracts
We use CSR plans that we have in place with strategic suppliers to communicate and cascade the UK Soy Manifesto requirements
We are working with suppliers to source vDCF soy or on innovative trials to remove soy from the supply chain
As members of the Retail Soy Group, we have supported the development of e-learnings for capacity building across the supply chain. This e-learning can be accessed here.

¹Footprint covers Lidl GB suppliers

²Defined as soy that can be shown at the point of import to the UK to be legally produced and not linked to deforestation or conversion of land with a cut-off date latest January 2020

³Certifications schemes including Cargill Triple S, CRS (area mass balance and credits), ADM responsible Soybean Standard v2, Proterra (mass balance and segregated), RTRS (mass balance, regional mass balance and credits), VLOG, ISCC Plus, USSAP

⁴There is more work to be done to understand the origin of the soy in our supply chain. We are working with our suppliers towards reporting this data more precisely

⁵The supplier engagement programme is only applicable to Lidl GB suppliers that are in scope of the soy data collection

⁶We are currently working on a 2023 communication plan for our suppliers

WORKING WITH THE INDUSTRY

In addition to the above commitments, we support the following industry groups to accelerate progress:

Founding, member of the UK Roundtable for Sustainable Soy - The Roundtable brings together significant players in the UK soya market, providing a pre-competitive space for companies and industry associations to work together to achieve a shared goal of a secure, resilient, sustainable supply of soya to the UK.
Board member, Roundtable for Responsible Soy (RTRS) - The Roundtable on Responsible Soy is a civil organisation that promotes responsible production, processing and trading of soy on a group level.
Member, Retail Soy Group - The Retail Soy Group (RSG) is independent group of international retailers working collaboratively to find industry-wide solutions for soy used in their animal feed and food supply chains.

The Lidl Soy Initiative

In 2017 we set up the Lidl Soy Initiative, in order to play our part to promote more sustainable soy production across Brazil.

Selected farms in two regions, Maranhao and Piaui, were chosen as part of this initiative, to improve both social and environmental issues.

Working in partnership with the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) Lidl directly supports farmers through the RTRS certification scheme 'Direct Trade Book & Claim'.

SIGNATORY OF SUPPORT TO THE CERRADO MANIFESTO

In 2018, Lidl became a signatory to the Cerrado Manifesto, a call to action to halt deforestation and native vegetation loss in Brazil’s Cerrado. Signatories “commit to working with local and international stakeholders to halt deforestation and native vegetation loss in the Cerrado”.

Responsible and Sustainable Sourcing