IZZY ASHMAN
IZZY ASHMAN
TITLE: SUSTAINABILITY MANAGER COMPANY: ASAHI UK INDUSTRY: FOOD AND DRINK
Izzy is developing Asahi’ s sustainability roadmap and accelerating implementation across the brewing supply chain.
“ Hop growers typically face different challenges to cereal farmers. Hops are long-lived perennials grown repeatedly on the same sites, and one persistent threat is Verticillium Wilt – a soil-borne disease that can increase with alleyway vegetation.
“ Growers therefore often maintain bare soil to limit disease risk and crop competition, despite negative impacts on soil health.” Breweries are also re-imagining traditional waste products such as spent grain, surplus yeast and wastewater to create digestate, biochar and circular soil enhancers, directly displacing higher-carbon inputs.
Landscape-based, not one-size-fits-all Industry leaders such as Diageo are abandoning rigid ingredient checklists in favour of tailored, region-specific approaches across its entire drinks portfolio. In the UK, this means implementing cover cropping, reducing mechanical soil manipulation and using crop rotations designed for local soil carbon and water-retention challenges.
“ Rather than applying one standard model, we take a landscape-based approach to regenerative agriculture, designing programmes around the unique environmental, climate and social challenges of each sourcing region,”
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