Animal nutrition and health company DSM has announced a new partnership which it said will see the full farm to fork environmental footprint of food products containing animal proteins.

The partnership will combine DSM’s Sustsell service, which captures farm level specific emissions data, with Sustained’s platform to deliver environmental life cycle assessments of consumer food products. 

The Sustained software as a service (SaaS) platform helps food brand owners and manufacturers to more accurately assess their environmental impact from a product.

The agreement between the companies is the first-of-its-kind in relation to sustainability data for farmers, processors, food manufacturers and retail brand owners.

According to DSM, the majority of consumers now consider sustainability as a primary driver in purchasing decisions.

Vice-president of Sustainability and Business Solutions at DSM-Firmenich, Animal Nutrition and Health, David Nickell said:

“Connecting Sustell to the broader data ecosystem through multiple partnerships is key to unlocking the value of sustainability for our customers and the value chain. Our partnership with Sustained underlines our commitment to making this possible.”

He added that the “accuracy” of the assessment for a product’s environmental impact from ‘farm to fork’ will help inform consumer choice and drive more sustainable production.

Co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Sustained, Carl Olivier said: “Until recently, full life cycle assessment for farm and food products has been an expensive, manual effort that exceeded the resource capacity of firms with hundreds or thousands of SKUs [scannable barcodes].

“With this partnership, we make data management from farm to fork easier to manage and maintain at scale, bringing greater transparency that empowers more sustainable food production and consumption.”