How the maker of Grape-Nuts and Weetabix upped its sustainability game

When Trellis assessed food industry leaders and laggards in 2021, Post Holdings featured in the second category. Back then, the maker of food service products (Michael Foods), breakfast cereals (Grape-Nuts, Weetabix) and pet foods (Rachael Ray Nutrish) hadn’t set emission targets and wasn’t fully disclosing emissions. 

A lot has changed since at the St. Louis, Missouri-based company, which employs 13,000 people and reported sales of $8.2 billion in 2025. Trellis checked in with Nick Martin, Post’s vice president of corporate sustainability, to learn more.

Why Post set emission targets

Multiple factors combined around 2021 to motivate the company to publicly commit to reductions. Investors were asking questions, for one. So, too, were big retailers such as Tesco and Walmart, many of which have targets and count a portion of Post’s emissions in their Scope 3 inventory.

“We jumped out as one of the few large food and beverage companies that didn’t have a target,” said Martin. “We didn’t show very well in the ratings and rankings, so we were automatically perceived as not doing anything.”

Now, the company is committed to a 30 percent cut in combined emissions from company operations (Scope 1) and purchased electricity (Scope 2) by 2030, measured against a 2020 baseline. It’s roughly halfway to that target, thanks in large part to a 26 percent drop in Scope 2 emissions. One key factor has been the addition of low-carbon sources to the grid in Missouri, which is home to many of the company’s facilities.

The bulk of Post’s emissions — 90 percent of the 2024 total — come from indirect (Scope 3) sources, principally the ingredients it sources. Like a growing number of companies, Post bases its target for this scope on an intensity measure: emissions scaled by either net sales or mass of product. Although the company aims to cut emission intensity by 30 percent by 2030, it hasn’t decided on which of the two metrics it will use to assess progress. 

What it decides will matter: Sales-based intensity is down 29 percent, but the mass-based alternative is up 7 percent, according to Post’s most recent data.

How structure shapes strategy

The current arrangement allows subsidiaries a relatively high degree of flexibility. Each is committed to working toward the top-level targets and aware of emissions from specific sites, which leaders from the subsidiaries discuss at monthly meetings of the company’s Operations Council. Individual brands, however, are not explicitly required to achieve the same reductions.

Post is unusual among large food brands in that it is structured as a holding company with those multiple subsidiaries. The challenge of figuring out how best to craft sustainability strategy within this structure was what attracted Martin in 2022. “There weren’t a lot of role models to try to mirror,” he said.

That freed him to aim higher. Last year, Weetabix, a UK subsidiary, had its near and long-term emission goals validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). These include a 39 percent cut in land-based emissions by 2033 and reaching net zero across its value chain by 2050. 

One reason why Weetabix is able to commit to larger cuts is an unusually close relationship with its wheat suppliers. Wheat is sourced from a “Growers Group” of 120 farmers that operate within 50 miles of a central England factory. That reduces the barriers to trying out low-carbon farming methods, such as reduced use of nitrogen fertilizer.

“I would argue it’s a leading model for how you build a sustainable approach to engaging your supply chain,” said Martin.

SBTi: not a good fit

Weetabix’s adoption of an SBTi target was designed as a pilot exercise for Post. In the end, though, the experience didn’t prompt Martin to ask other subsidiaries to try it.

One frustration was that Weetabix was forced to restart the validation process a couple of times after making acquisitions. Perhaps more importantly, Martin felt the subsidiary already had a strong sustainability strategy, and achieving SBTi validation distracted the team from implementing it. 

The SBTi listing does help meet requests from retailers for such an approval, Martin offered. Still, he concluded, “at the end of the day, I don’t know that we would say it was a good return on the time and investment.”

A counter-argument — which Martin also acknowledged — is that the SBTi pushed Weetabix to adopt more ambitious goals. Post Holdings’ commitments, while meaningful, would likely not be approved by the SBTi as being in line with limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius. General Mills and Kraft Heinz, rival companies with SBTi-approved targets, have, for example, committed to absolute Scope 3 cuts and to reaching net zero by 2050.

“For companies that are going to reduce their Scope 3 absolute emissions by 50-plus percent — how are you going to do that and grow your company?” asked Martin. “That’s really, really difficult.”