Social Responsibility

Packaging and Plastic

We’re very conscious of the packaging that our industry produces and because of that we have taken steps to ensure that we do our part to reuse, recycle and keep single-use plastics out of landfill.

We remove all our packaging from sites, whether this is from a full installation or a simple coffee bean refill this is our responsibility, which we take very seriously.

At our site in Selby, we have our own compacter which we use to bundle up plastic wraps and carboard packaging. The bundles are then taken to a recycling centre at a financial cost to the business.

We are currently working with new and existing customers to find alternative solutions to single-use cups, through providing reusable cups and by also reducing the price of beverages that are provided without a cup to encourage own cup vending.

Vehicular Impact

Within The Upton Group, we have around 40-50 cars in the fleet used to maintain and fill vending machines, as well as visiting and delivering coffee and catering supplies to our customers. In order to reduce our carbon footprint, we continually monitoring fuel usage and service routes, optimising the routes and the logistics to improve efficiency.

We are currently looking at moving into hybrid or electric vehicles for all our staff members and hope to eventually have a fully electric fleet in place by 2030.

Greener Office Spaces

Ongoing improvements across our sites has seen the replacement of old filament and tube lighting, for energy efficient LED fittings, reducing our energy usage and carbon footprint.

We have also made the business decision to combine two of our companies, York Emporium and Ebor Catering supplies, into one location, reducing our energy costs, fuel usage and carbon footprint. We can now share resources and distribution routes across the businesses to ensure we’re working efficiently and effectively.

Reusing Coffee Grounds

Across the group, we distribute over 100 tonnes of coffee beans every year, all of which is hand roasted at our York roastery. We’re keen to complete the circle and ensure that we’re keeping coffee grounds out of landfill. We are currently working with our customers to generate a not-for-profit collection service for used coffee grounds, which will then be turned into bio logs, providing clean-burning energy production to heat homes across the UK.

ISO 9001

In line with ISO9001 requirements, we are continually driving down our use of heating, electricity and fuel across the businesses. We strive to improve the efficiency of energy usage and to reduce our carbon footprint.