For the food

Our food policy is a manifesto that covers everything from Sustainability to Health and Wellbeing. Everything we buy has to meet the incredibly high standards of responsible and ethical sourcing laid out in our food policy. We’re also working towards targets that will reduce salt, sugar and saturated fat in our food, so that it doesn’t impact healthy lifestyle choices. 

Making a change

Plastics

If we want to combat food waste and give our customers the freshest food possible, we do need packaging. Our food policy clearly states that all packaging on new products must be widely recyclable, and we are working to increase the amount of recycled content in our packaging. Along with other ethical businesses, we’ve aligned our targets with the Plastics Pact.

Fair Trade

Our hot chocolate is Fairtrade certified and we are working towards getting 100% of the sugar in our ingredients certified as Fairtrade. As well as, working with coffee and tea suppliers who are engaging in programmes to ensure that they are trading fairly and making a positive impact to their communities. Our policy also encourages suppliers to source fairly traded and ethical ingredients as much as possible, we'd rather pay the premium to know they're responsibly sourced.

Protecting the rainforest

While we’re trying to protect the rainforest by sourcing sustainably, we’re also using the power of our brand to help protect this vital natural resource. In 2017 we joined over 60 companies in signing a statement of support for the Cerrado Manifesto, a call to action to stop deforestation in a threatened and biologically important area of rainforest in Brazil.

 As part of our mission to be palm oil free, we are in the process of removing it from all our ingredients. For the moment, it is sustainably sourced according to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Rainforest Alliance or equivalent. 

Since the 31st December 2015 all our soy has been responsibly sourced under the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS), ProTerra or equivalent. This is not just the soy we use as an ingredient but also in our supply chain too, which means that we buy RTRS credits to cover the volumes of soy based feed that is fed to our chickens.

Menu options for everyone

Our flame-grilled PERi-PERi Chicken is legendary, but that doesn’t mean our vegetarian friends, or anyone looking to cut down on meat has to miss out on our PERi-PERi magic. We’ve revamped our veggie menu with loads of great options, from beanie burgers to supergreen wraps, and we’re continually experimenting with new veggie and vegan options. 

We’re also conscious of the impact that meat has on the planet, so we make sure our chickens are sustainably sourced and that we use the whole bird (wings, breast, leg and livers) rather than just picking bits and wasting the rest. We even tried out a delicious gravy made from our chicken bones. 
 

Chickens are obviously a big part of what we do, and it’s important to us that we stand up for chicken welfare and try to raise standards across the food industry wherever possible. All of our chicken is from right here in Ireland and meets good standards of food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection. 

Higher chicken welfare standards 

We’re proud to say we’re raising our chickens in barns with facilities that are above regulations. All of our chickens:

• have access to natural light
• have pecking objects so that they can do what chickens like to do: peck!
• have perches, bales or bale-like objects so that they can play around and display natural behaviours
• are only given antibiotics when they’re ill, as prescribed by a registered vet. Routine use of antibiotics is completely banned
• have a soy-based diet where we’ve bought RTRS credits to make sure that we’re supporting sustainable soy production and not contributing to deforestation.

And we won’t stop there. We will keep looking for ways to reduce the environmental impact of our chicken while making sure welfare standards are high. 

Our food donation program

We’re conscious of avoiding food waste so at the end of every night, any cooked chicken that hasn’t been used is temperature-checked, frozen and given to one of the restaurant’s local charity partners. We have over 530 charity partners across Ireland and the UK, supporting all kinds of causes, including youth, homelessness, refugees, and women and family shelters. Each restaurant has a personal relationship with the charity they’re donating their chicken to and can see the impact it’s making in the community.

Watch the impact here.

Never wasteful

We’re conscious of the impact that meat has on the planet, so we are making sure our chickens are sustainably sourced and that we use the whole bird (wings, breast, leg and livers) rather than picking certain bits and wasting the rest. We even had a delicious gravy for Christmas made from our chicken bones, going to show that every part can be used responsibly.

We describe our food as modern Afro-Portuguese cuisine. It harks back to when Portuguese explorers brought their traditionally flame-grilled spatchcock chicken to Mozambique, and it mixed with African spices, chillies, lemons and garlic to create PERi-PERi chicken. Our founders then opened the first Nando’s in South Africa back in 1987 to celebrate this seriously delicious flavour sensation. 

We’re always on the lookout for ways to introduce new foods and flavours from our heartland, so you’ll often see new and improved recipes on our menus, from seasonal specials to innovative additions that perfectly complement our chicken. To make all this happen, we aim to work with suppliers who share our ambition to protect the environment by reducing waste and sourcing sustainably. 

Local is where it’s at

We like to source our ingredients locally where we can, so all of our chicken comes from right here in Ireland and the UK, and the same goes for the potatoes in our chips. Our mash is made from Irish potatoes, and our milk and cream is from Ireland and organic as well. 

We're pretty proud to represent Irish heritage, so that's why we stock two local heroes. A pale ale from Black's Kinsale and a cider from Tempted. Cider apples are especially important for us because they help bees to flourish as well.

Celebrating the home of PERi-PERi

Here at Nando’s, we’re proud to be known for our PERi-PERi flavour. To make sure our flavour is always exceptional and always unique, we have our very own trademarked Birds Eye Chilli grown in the sun and soil of our Southern African homeland. Find out more about our family of farmers and how we get the best PERi-PERi from that little chilli here. 

Getting the good stuff

With certain foods, we know we have to find it in the places that have the highest quality ingredients and from people who know how to do it properly.

We source our halloumi from its spiritual home in Cyprus, where it’s made from a combination of goat, sheep and cow’s milk from animals fed exclusively on grass.

Our green olives come from the sunny slopes of Greece where they grow fat and ripe in the warm Mediterranean climate. And our balsamic vinegar comes from a small, family-run business in Modena, Italy, where they’ve been perfecting the blending process over many, many years.

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