Case Study
Making Carbon Visible: How United Fresh Puts CO₂ Data on Every Invoice
United Fresh is a UK-wide foodservice supplier connecting national hotel groups, restaurant chains, and contract caterers with a network of nearly 80 regional, independent supply partners. Founded in 2007 with a mission to reduce food miles, the company has expanded well beyond fresh produce to offer meat, seafood, dairy, baked goods, and dry goods, all consolidated under a single invoice and supply management relationship. Clients are never more than 50 miles from a United Fresh supply partner. In fact, the average is only 29 delivery miles across the entire supply chain.
In 2025, United Fresh partnered with Klimato to bring carbon footprint data to every client invoice. The result is Footprints—a feature that makes Scope 3 emissions visible across every order, without adding complexity for clients.
CLIENT
United Fresh
INDUSTRY
Foodservice supplier
USES KLIMATO FOR
F&B Emissions Reporting (Scope 3, Category 1)
“Our aim is to make sustainability information approachable, trustworthy and genuinely useful. We believe that transparency builds understanding and trust. By making carbon data visible, we are taking a meaningful step toward a more responsible and collaborative food system.”
Christian Paynton, Founder at United Fresh
The Challenge
United Fresh's sustainability ambitions have always gone further than low food miles. As clients face growing expectations around Scope 3 emissions reporting—and as United Fresh positions itself as a sustainability leader in foodservice supply—the team needed a way to give clients reliable carbon data without creating additional burden on their side.
Their requirements were clear. They needed a methodology comprehensive enough to cover their full product range: not just fresh produce, but meat, dairy, seafood, and dry goods. They needed a solution that could work with their complex broker model, where supply data flows through multiple regional partners. And they needed carbon data that could be embedded directly into client invoices and scaled across their entire customer base.
They also wanted a genuine partner, not just a software vendor.
The Solution
United Fresh discovered Klimato at a client's sustainability event. The decision to move forward came down to methodology: Klimato's approach covered more relevant product categories than competing solutions, providing a comprehensive carbon footprint rather than a partial one. The team's ability to handle the complexity of United Fresh's broker model—mapping carbon data across a wide product range and diverse supplier network—was equally important.
The first output of the partnership is Footprints. From December 2025, every United Fresh client invoice displays the total CO₂e footprint of their order. The data is calculated using Klimato's verified lifecycle assessment methodology, accounting for emissions from farming and growing through to processing, packaging, and delivery.
For key clients, the data feeds into custom, interactive PowerBI dashboards—detailed reports that show emissions broken down by site, product category, and product code that pull in real-time purchasing data. Early client presentations have been extremely well received. The next phase will add line-by-line CO₂ breakdowns per order, giving site-level teams more granular data for their own sustainability reporting.
The Result
Carbon data on every invoice
From December 2025, every order United Fresh processes includes a CO₂ footprint figure, giving clients immediate, effortless visibility into their Scope 3 emissions.
Live reporting for key clients
Custom PowerBI dashboards powered by Klimato data allow clients to track their carbon footprint by site, category, and product line, in real time.
Since starting the collaboration, 168,614 invoices have been sent to supply partners featuring their carbon calculations represented in live carbon data.
A clear next step is already in development: line-by-line CO₂ breakdowns per invoice line, extending the data from order-level to product-level granularity.
“Footprints represents an important step in our sustainability journey at United Fresh. From the beginning, our aim was to create something that delivers real value for our clients, not just something that appears to make a difference. We needed a partner who could match that ambition with robust and credible data, and Klimato has been that partner.”
Christian Paynton, Founder at United Fresh
Conclusion
United Fresh's goal is to be the market leader in transparent sustainability data for foodservice supply. Footprints is a significant step in that direction, making Scope 3 data accessible for every client, on every order, with no additional work required on their side.
Klimato's verified, comprehensive carbon methodology makes this possible. As United Fresh builds out its sustainability program, the partnership will expand to include richer reporting, greater product-level detail, and broader coverage across its supply chain.
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