Inspired by headline sponsor Weetabix’s Change For Better commitment, the Sustainability Award at the Weetabix Northamptonshire Food and Drink Awards is fast gaining momentum.
Change For Better created a framework by which Weetabix pledges to work on four key areas – sustainable ingredients, reducing packaging waste, efficient operations and health and wellbeing.
The awards category is designed to recognise and celebrate an individual, business or organisation for a product, drink, process or project which has made the most positive impact in sustainability across one or more of those areas, so acting as inspiration to others in the sector.
The Sustainability Award is also one of the awards, along with the F&B Achiever Award, for which All Things Business is the Media Partner.
Last year’s awards saw joint Gold Award winners in the Sustainability Award: Blue Skies in Pitsford and Re in Flore.
Blue Skies was founded in 1997 with a commitment to ‘adding value at source’. This means it aims to make the finished products, which include prepared fruit packs, juices and ice cream, close to where the fruit is grown, and by doing so return more value to the communities that produce the fruit, and ensure the products are created fresh from harvest.
Simon Derrick, from Blue Skies, said:
“Winning Gold in the Weetabix Sustainability Award has meant a huge amount to Blue Skies. It has helped us to further demonstrate the sustainability credentials of our business and we often use the winners logo in presentations and reports.”
Lindsay Singh, from Re, a zero waste and coffee shop that supplies more than 400 plastic-free products, food, household cleaning, sweets, snacks and personal care products, said:
“The awards have been a fantastic experience for us here at Re. The application made us really think about who we were and how we express it. The interview panel were kind and informed.
“The awards event itself was ridiculously fun and exciting. We met incredible people throughout the entire process Of course, winning a Gold was super-special, but the whole process was one which we found to be so affirming. For us, the best part has probably been the mentorship that we won, along with tangible visibility for our business. It has been a real confidence booster.”
Gold in the F&B Achiever Award went to Matt Fountain of Bewiched Coffee, which has coffee shops in Burton Latimer, Corby, Higham Ferrers, Kettering and Northampton, and on Moulton Park.
Matt said:
“We were very proud to have won Gold at last year’s awards in such a competitive field. We continue to strive to deliver something better within the coffee sector in terms of service, product and environment. Since winning the award our business has been focusing on going from strength to strength by continuing to expand organically and embracing business to business franchise opportunities with the capacity to reach a larger audience nationally.”
Ben Thomas, Managing Director of All Things Business, said:
“We are proud to sponsor these two awards. We are committed to becoming the greenest publisher in the UK and we take whatever steps we can to reduce our carbon footprint and do more to protect the environment.
“We’re looking forward to the awards night in October and seeing who is leading the way in the local food sector in terms of sustainability.”
Entries or nominations for this year’s awards will be closing soon and the finalists will be invited to the awards dinner on October 12 at The Derngate Theatre. For more information email sophie@themallowscompany.com or call 01933 664437 or find out more at
www.northamptonshirefoodanddrink.co.uk
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The full Weetabix Change For Better report is available to view/download at: www.weetabix. co.uk/sustainability
