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  4. Good for our future: The Nestlé Supplier Awards 2026

Good for our future: The Nestlé Supplier Awards 2026

More than 20 people dressed in evening wear gathered in front of a stage decorated for the Nestlé Supplier Awards.

From Nescafé and KitKat to Shreddies and Bakers, some of the country’s best-known products are made by Nestlé in Britain, thanks to our skilled teams who develop, make and deliver them. But we don’t do it alone. Our impact across manufacturing, agriculture, logistics and retail is made possible through our network of more than 2,000 domestic suppliers, whose people, expertise and innovative ideas help keep our business moving.

Many of those partners joined us at London’s Roundhouse on 8th October for the 2026 Nestlé Supplier Awards. It was a chance to recognise the work taking place across our supply chain, from sustainability and inclusion to marketing, logistics and packaging excellence.

That supply chain stretches across the nation, supporting our ten factories, four distribution centres, two research and development centres and three offices. Together our activity contributes £4.7 billion in gross value added to the UK economy and supports 42,000 jobs across the economy. 

The awards celebrated the organisations behind that impact, but we also wanted the event itself to reflect the positive difference that these partnerships can make. That meant thinking carefully about every detail of the evening, from where it was held and what was served on the table, to how the trophies themselves were created. 

Man standing in front of a podium, in the back a screen reads CEO's Supplier of the Year, Positive Difference Award

The Roundhouse is known as one of London’s most distinctive music venues, but its impact goes beyond the stage. During 2024 to 2025, it supported more than 11,000 young creatives through studios, training programmes and opportunities to build careers in the creative industries. Holding the awards there meant the evening could support that work too.

Food was provided by Clink Events, the social enterprise caterer run by The Clink Charity, which delivers hospitality training in prisons and helps people move into paid employment following their release. The charity trains around 800 people and delivers more than 25,000 hours of training each year, with profits from its events helping to fund its work.  

Guests could also enjoy beer from Toast Brewing, made using surplus bread that might otherwise go to waste. Since it began brewing in 2016, Toast has used the equivalent of 3.9 million slices of surplus bread. If those slices were stacked up, they’d reach more than five times the height of Mount Everest.  

Five women wearing green tops which read Felix on the front standing in front of an orange background.

Now onto the trophies themselves, each one was handcrafted by The Workshop Aberfeldy, a social enterprise offering practical training, work experience and employment opportunities to young people in Highland Perthshire. Since 2014, it has provided more than 20,000 hours of free training and work experience to 90 people in an area where rural location can limit employment and training opportunities.  

As well as celebrating our suppliers, the evening raised vital funds for our charity partner who is making a positive difference across the UK. An auction, raffle and ‘cocktail for a cause’ raised more than £16,700 for Felix, our corporate charity partner which rescues good food that might otherwise go to waste and redistributes it to community organisations supporting people across the UK.  

At the heart of the evening were the suppliers whose work makes an impact every day. Awards recognised achievement across sustainability, inclusion, technical and logistics excellence, and support for small and medium-sized businesses. This year’s winners were: 

  • CEO's Supplier of the Year Positive Difference Award: OpenMind
  • CEO's SME Supplier of the Year Positive Difference Award: Wrap and Pack
  • Good for the Future Sustainability Award: Wildfarmed
  • Good for the Future D&I Social Impact Award: EDF
  • Marketing Excellence Award: DS Smith
  • Technical & Logistics Excellence Award: Culina IPS
  • Direct Material Resource Achievement Award: First Milk
  • ‘Above and Beyond’ Individual Supplier Award: Michael Slee, Smurfit Westrock

The 2026 Supplier Awards gave us an opportunity to say thank you to the suppliers who work alongside us, challenge our thinking and help us find better ways of working. Through thoughtful choices in planning the event, we also aimed to create a positive impact beyond the evening itself. After more than 150 years as part of everyday life in Britain, partnerships like these will continue to be central to our future. 

A woman and a man congratulating another whilst stood on stage.
A photographer taking a picture of a table of around ten guests gathered together smiling.