“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”

Robert Swan, Author

At Blendsmiths, we try to carry out best practices that have minimal impact on the environment and set a precedent for ourselves in continuing to always strive to do better for our planet, in all areas of our business. 

We are a small company, with big ambitions and no matter our size in the future, we believe there are no excuses for not putting procedures in place and looking at ways to carry out practices that align with the Blendsmiths ethos. 

When we started Blendsmiths, there were a couple of non-negotiables we wanted to implement across the business. One of them was to make sure we always considered the environment across our entire process and the people contributing to our supply chain.

in action

WE ARE A
GREEN
COMPANY

We are a 100% plastic free facility

Our delivery boxes are made from 70% recycled cardboard. Absolutely NO plastic is used on site which we are incredible proud of.

Our pouches are made from PE and can be widely recycled in the UK. The type of PE is Low density, meaning its less tough and easier to manufacture than HDPE (High density), this ensures waste is kept to a minimum during the production process.

The pouches are also made digitally which is a more environmentally friendly printing process, our printers are CO2 Neutral. Despite being recyclable, the material has a barrier coating on it (EVOH) which helps keep the food fresher for longer and reduces product waste.

Our retail packaging boxes are made from virgin board derived from wood pulp. This board comes from sustainable and renewable sources and is completely recyclable.  

Female Farmers

We promote gender equality and opportunity. 

In many of the countries our ingredients are cultivated, women have vastly unequal decision-making power, control over their own spending and access to education, finance, land and overall inputs.

Working with the International Cocoa Organisation and the Government’s Department for Family and Social Development, our partners field officers work tirelessly in the fight against bridging the gap and fighting for opportune recognition.

Good Health & Wellbeing

Life expectancy in developing countries remains low, compounded by poor nutrition and lack of access to healthcare.

This is not just unacceptable for the affected individuals and their families, but has a direct economic cost for the individual and the country.

Since 2016, our partners have continued to roll out a 'Healthy Living Campaign'. Encouraging employees to put their health first - increasingly, we see the impacts of poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles not just in rural communities but across both developed and developing nations.

Agriculture

Perhaps more than any other sector agriculture faces huge environmental challenges that are interlocked and complex.

At a global scale, supplier operations are at risk of huge climates changes, contributing to poor soil quality and water scarcity which in turn impacts global food security.

Continuing to support small holders with a crop diversification for improved income and food security. Just as a balanced diet is nutritionally diverse, a healthy livelihood shouldn’t be over reliant on one crop.

Encouraging farmers to diversify crops helps to stagger income.

Finanacial Management

Bypassing middle men to unlock mutual value. In addition to the Fairtrade premium and pre-financing from our partners, the farmers (and our suppliers) will benefit financially by eliminating the middlemen, whilst full traceability confers multiple benefits.

Our suppliers have set up education programmes helping farmers to count, financially negotiate and close deals appropriate towards the quality of their crop.

This in turn provides financial stability for them, their families and grows opportunity within the local community.

Farming Practices

Working with cooperatives simplifies logistics. avoiding collecting crops from individual farmers in rural locations, and peer-pressure helps to keep up good practices.

Cooperatives help our suppliers to understand where to focus investment, such as warehousing for crops.

For the farmers, they have greater negotiating power and benefit from group training.

The challenge now is reaching farmers who are not yet organised into farmer groups and have very low productivity, which some NGOs have rightly highlighted as a concern. 

Carbon Footprint

Fossil-fuelled growth, and the emission of greenhouse gases that accompanies it, has led the world to climate change that will have major consequences for millions of people and the natural world around us.

This is why the majority of our suppliers have called for tax on carbon. Commercial enterprises must be incentivised to decouple growth from carbon and there must be a higher cost to doing business as usual, if companies are unwilling to change.

Only then can we stimulate a concerted effort to increase fossil fuel efficiency and more crucially, encourage innovation into alternative energies and efficiency measures.

Cocoa Tracking

In an increasingly fast moving world, you would be forgiven for not taking a moment to think, where and how the delicious drink you are sipping came to be.

We should all want to learn how the cocoa or chocolate product we enjoy links back to the farming communities where it grows. We expect this story to be one of positive environmental stewardship and support for farmer livelihoods and rightly so.

The cocoa supply chain is long and highly complex which makes traceability a challenge no matter how direct the relationship is. When faced with a lack of basic infrastructure or internet connectivity, it becomes very difficult to gather the reliable and consistent data required to measure and assess whether social and environmental programmes are having the desired impact.

We have been working with an importer for the past 5 years who have developed an end-to-end traceability system which makes this possible. It tracks the cocoa at every stage in our direct supply chain, with the journey information recorded and uploaded into a centralised system.

With the rich data, we can better provide accurate sustainability claims. And traceability does not stop at the cocoa bean level. To give our customers (you guys) the assurance of knowing exactly where the cocoa in our chocolate blends have come from, we fully support this technology to produce high quality cocoa ingredients.

Our single origin cocoa from Ghana and blended cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire can be crafted from 100% traceable cocoa beans at the processing facilities. Through the digital sustainability platform, we can access insights on the environmental and social impact of these ingredients from data on carbon foot printing to information on specific community initiatives.