Our market-leading supply chain

Compass buys directly from growers and producers to maintain a robust supply chain, complete traceability and supplier due diligence.

Our purchasers

Our professional purchasing team in the UK and Ireland offers a world-class supply chain with unrivalled health and safety. Our purchasers are responsible for selecting, auditing and approving each and every one of our suppliers. They are passionate about sourcing and delivering superior food and they have enough resources to offer our clients quality at great value for money.

Our suppliers

Compass works directly with over 4,000 suppliers within the UK and many more around the world. They are chosen after a rigorous selection process to ensure they can provide the right quality products for the right price. Then they are audited to ensure they meet health and safety, social, ethical and environmental standards. All our clients can be confident that they are using approved suppliers.

Our distributors

We use Brakes and 3663 to deliver our food.  Both Brakes and 3663 have ISO 14001 which is the highest environmental accreditation.

But just because Brakes or 3663's name is on the delivery van, it does not mean that it is their food in there too. They are delivering our suppliers' products to units, along with their own.

We use these distributors for the following reasons:

• It is much cheaper and easier to manage fewer, larger deliveries, meaning that the service our clients receive will be much better
• Our suppliers make one delivery to our distributors, Brakes and 3663. Brakes and 3663 then make one delivery to each of our clients - with all the other products they have ordered. This decreases the number of food miles travelled and reduces our impact on the environment
• 30% of Brakes and 3663 vehicles use bio-diesel fuels.

Our supply chain
 
We know that there are a lot of misconceptions about our supply chain. Because we use Brakes and 3663 as our distributors, many people believe that all our produce is sourced by them too. This simply is not true, Compass personally sources all our produce from specialist suppliers across the country.

This model allows us to achieve the following:

• Our purchasing team deals directly with our suppliers. They know each others' businesses and have developed relationships that give our clients the right service 99% of the time
• It is easier for us to support smaller producers. For example, we work with more than 23 regional cheese makers and supply over 30 different British regional cheeses
• We can trace our produce from field to fork. In some cases, we can even trace our produce back to the exact row in the field
• Our Quality Assurance team checks the produce that arrives every day to ensure it meets Compass specifications.