Warburtons has decided to stop sourcing the majority of its flour from British farmers and will now source its flour through a Canadian and American deal with Frontier.
Warburtons have changed their grain trader contract but they will still get their wheat from Canada and the UK, as they did previously. They don’t buy any wheat from the USA.
Several posts on Facebook have claimed that the baked goods company Warburtons has decided to stop sourcing the majority of its flour from British farmers and instead has opted for a Candian/American deal with a company called Frontier.
This is incorrect. The way the company manages its contracts with farmers has changed, but it doesn’t source any wheat from the USA. Warburtons currently uses wheat from the UK and Canada, and this will continue even after the changes to their contracts.
The company has changed their supply partner from a co-operative called Openfield to a Lincolnshire-based company called Frontier. According to Farmers Weekly, the change will come into effect in July 2022.
But this won’t change what countries the wheat comes from. Warburtons told Full Fact it has and will continue to get its wheat from growers in the UK and Canada.
In a statement, Warburtons said: “Like most bakers, we use a blend of wheat because different varieties, grown in different countries, provide different attributes, such as protein levels, needed to make the perfect loaf. We also source wheat from Canada which, when blended together with our British wheat, gives us the perfect combination of qualities we look for in our bread.”
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the company doesn’t source its wheat from the USA, and although it has changed its supply contract, it gets its wheat from Canada and the UK.
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