For a long time customers have been picking goods off the supermarket shelves based on price, with cheaper products ending up in shopping baskets with no questions asked on whether the ingredients used were sustainably sourced or not.
Not sourcing sustainable materials may lead to lower priced items which the market traditionally demanded but at what cost to the planet?
Greenpeace exposed the plight faced by orangutans due to excessive deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations. In Indonesia forests are disappearing at the rate of one football pitch every 25 seconds, with over 100,000 orangutans having lost their lives in the past sixteen years. This shocking news has led to consumers waking up to the fact that we can no longer accept goods made with unsustainable ingredients, and shoppers are actively seeking food and drink products that offer supply chain transparency.
At Appy Kids Co we pride ourselves on our clean history of always sourcing sustainable ingredients from reputable farmers across the globe. From start-up stage it has been our brand’s priority to cultivate close relationships with fair trade and certified farms to make certain that every step of our production process is ethical.
We believe in supporting the local communities where our partners live and work, so we provide on-going training for labourers as well as ensuring that their families are well looked after and given fair opportunities for a better future.
We have become experts in locating sustainable and natural ingredients not only to be used in our own products, but for our private label clients too. From the stevia and organic ingredients we use in children’s products that are grown in sunny Turkey, to Red Tractor approved milk produced on British soil, we only ever purchase raw materials from well researched suppliers.
In fact, we are so strict on who we accept as our partners that we regularly visit the farms to ensure that they are compliant with every aspect of our tight guidelines – from safeguarding the workers and their rights, to securing animal welfare, and protecting the environment.
The food and drink industry has a duty of care towards our world, and the use of sustainably sourced ingredients has to be considered a must for today’s manufacturers. With our and extensive connections finding trustworthy suppliers is no longer a daunting process, and will help businesses who may have struggled in the past to make better choices that will benefit us all.
Sources:
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/press-releases/household-brands-fail-act-dirty-palm-oil-1-football-pitch-rainforest-lost-every-25-seconds/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/10/palm-oil-orangutans-multinationals-promises-deforestation