In 2021, 27 companies representing nearly 60% of all UK soy bought every year, signed the UK Soy Manifesto, an industry commitment to ensure all soy imported to the UK is deforestation and conversion-free by 2025 (with a latest cut-off date of January 2020). Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Nestlé and Danone were all part of the initial signatory group.
Trase was part of the working group for the establishment of the Manifesto and Trase data was used both to support its development and as an evidence base of UK soy deforestation exposure in company signatory engagement.
Trase also supported the development of the Manifesto’s monitoring, reporting and verification system, helping to provide a benchmark for overall impact of the Manifesto, identify hotspots of greatest risk of deforestation and conversion where on the ground support is most needed, and support engagement with other countries to promote landscape-scale zero-deforestation.
In the UK context, the Manifesto is a key instrument for driving up ambition around soy-related deforestation and conversion across the industry with signatories including meat producers, consumer goods manufacturers, grocery retailers and food service companies. As of 2025, the Manifesto had 50 industry signatories from across the UK, and is working with industry-group supporters such as the UK animal feed industry association AIC to develop and roll out national standards.
Trase has proved invaluable to the development of the UK Soy Manifesto and wider work of Efeca, providing clear, science-based evidence and analysis to catalyse cross sector collaboration on deforestation linked to forest risk commodities.
Jonathan Gorman, Technical Director, Efeca