Why Most Food Companies Are Getting Carbon Reporting Wrong

Stockholm, Tuesday 14 April 2026 | Food and beverage businesses are under more pressure than ever to act on emissions. CSRD compliance deadlines are real, science-based targets have been signed, and corporate clients and procurement teams are asking harder questions. And yet, despite genuine intent, many food companies find themselves stuck in reporting numbers they can't act on, or investing in reduction without knowing where the highest-impact opportunities are.

The reason is rarely a lack of ambition. Most of the time, it comes down to data quality.

When General Tools Don't Fit Food Operations

General carbon accounting platforms were built to serve hundreds of industries at once. That breadth comes with limitations. When a food manufacturer or contract caterer runs their operations through a horizontal platform, they typically get spend-based emissions estimates—calculations derived from financial data rather than the actual ingredients, inputs, and supply chain activity driving food emissions.

The numbers appear and a report gets generated. But ask the sustainability team which product lines, suppliers, or ingredients are driving the most emissions per euro of revenue, and the data won't tell them. Spend-based methodology lacks the granularity needed to answer that question.

That distinction, activity-based versus spend-based calculation, is the difference between data you can act on and data you can file away.

Many Companies Are Running to Stand Still

Across the food sector, companies have made public commitments: net zero targets, SBTi FLAG alignment, supply chain decarbonization roadmaps. Many of those commitments were made when the regulatory picture was still forming. Now, with CSRD in force and corporate clients demanding primary supplier data, the question has shifted from ‘what do we commit to’ to ‘how do we actually deliver’.

That shift is exposing a real gap. Large foodservice operators are already asking suppliers for primary emissions data—ingredient-level, SKU-level, verified data—and many suppliers don't yet have the tools to produce it. The expectation is running ahead of the infrastructure.

Companies that chose generic tools during the planning phase are now finding those platforms can't support the specificity that serious reduction requires.

Missing the Hotspots Is Expensive

For food businesses, emissions are rarely evenly distributed. A relatively small number of ingredients, suppliers, or menu categories typically drives a disproportionate share of total footprint. Identifying those hotspots—and understanding the emissions reduction per euro invested in changing them—is where meaningful progress happens.

Without activity-based data mapped at the SKU or ingredient level, that analysis isn't possible. Businesses end up making reduction investments based on intuition or broad category assumptions rather than evidence. Emissions may move or they may not, but either way, the business can't measure the outcome credibly enough to report on it.

As reporting standards tighten and greenwashing scrutiny increases, the credibility of a company's emissions claims depends entirely on the quality of the underlying data.

The Minimum May No Longer Be Enough

Many food companies have quietly accepted a version of carbon accounting that's cheap, fast to implement, and produces numbers suitable for a report. It meets the minimum. But it doesn't help the business reduce anything.

Regulatory requirements are increasing in specificity and client procurement standards are getting more rigorous. As 2030 SBTi interim targets approach, the gap between a credible reduction trajectory and a number on a slide deck becomes increasingly visible—to boards, to auditors, and to the market.

Food companies that invested in accurate data infrastructure early are in a structurally stronger position: able to identify where to act, demonstrate progress credibly, and respond to supplier data requests from enterprise clients rather than stalling on them.

Food Emissions Require Food-Specific Data

Reducing food emissions by 60% before 2050, the target required to meet the Paris Agreement, is a significant undertaking. It requires that the companies producing and serving food have access to data that's accurate enough to support real decisions, not estimates rounded to the nearest order of magnitude.

The food industry's supply chain differs fundamentally from other sectors. It involves hundreds of ingredient categories, international procurement, seasonal variation, processing and transport stages, and land-use emissions that general platforms weren't built to model. Accuracy here requires deep sector expertise alongside the right data infrastructure.

That doesn't mean waiting for perfect data before acting. Food companies at every stage need tools flexible enough to work with imperfect starting points, while rigorous enough that the numbers can be trusted. The businesses making that investment now will be best placed to demonstrate progress, and close the gap between what they've committed to and what they can actually deliver.

This is what Klimato was built for. We work with food businesses to measure, report, and reduce food emissions using verified, activity-based data built specifically for the complexity of food supply chains. If you're serious about reducing your food footprint, book a demo to see how it works in practice.

About Klimato
Klimato is a food emissions measurement and carbon accounting solution built for the food and beverage industry. We help food businesses—including contract caterers, hotel groups, restaurant groups, and food producers—measure, report, and reduce their food-related emissions using verified, activity-based data. Klimato works with leading companies including Hilton, Radisson Hotel Group, Accor, SSP, and The Restaurant Group.

Press Contact
Matilda Nilsson, Content Manager
matilda@klimato.com
+46706119696