BCorp
What is BCorp?
BCorp companies meet the highest standard of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability but what does that all mean?
What are the commitments?
A BCorp Business is legally required to think about the impact of their decisions on the environment, people and suppliers.
What happens now?
A lot of emphasis of BCorp is placed in how a business can benefit the world to be a force for good. A Bcorp is independently assessed every 3 years to keep their Corp title and need to score at least 80 out of 200 points to qualify. We are striving to improve our score and ensure BCorp’s goals are considered in everything we do.
Our Mission
Provide good, honest, nourishing food, just like our Grandmothers made, which has been produced with ingredients sourced responsibly, ethically and as locally as possible. We are committed to our people, our suppliers, our customers and our environment. Through our social and environmental commitments, re-use and recycling of our packaging is one of our key priorities as well as food education.
This years highlights:
Becoming a BCorp!
The BigBeachClean 2021 took place between the 17-19th of September. This was the second year we supported this impactful initiative run by Clean Coasts.
More than 400 groups cleaned waterways and shores all around Ireland and retrieved a whopping 42 tonnes of marine litter. That's the same weight as 20 giraffes.
We took part in beach cleans in Schull and East Cork offering the volunteers a warming cup of soup after their beach cleans.
Thanks to everyone who got involved all around the country
Donating 100,000 tubs of soup to frontline staff during Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland and the UK. Share this video :
What we’ve done:
Packaging- We’ve reduced our packagings carbon footprint by changing where we source our Cully and Sully tubs from Greece to Clara in Ireland, Over the years we’ve made changes to our packaging (see packaging section)
Campaigns- We’ve run numerous campaigns to cultivate Food Education in workplaces and secondary schools with non for profit Grow It Yourself aka GIY. More recently we’ve supported Clean Coasts and the Big Beach Clean to take direct action on marine litter and encourage recycling.
We’ve supported local champions of beach cleans such as Clean Coasts Ballynamona.
What we Dream of
We’ve always had the environment and people in mind when doing business. We are at the beginning of our BCorp journey and know we’ve a lot more to do (which the BCorp assessment opened our eyes up to). We’ve now created a timeline of targets we want to achieve & sharing them with you so we’re held accountable. We want to build on the good things we do and ensure in 3 years time, and make sure we keep and improve on our BCorp status.
Doing more for people- This year we will launch a Focus Ireland national campaign with the aim of getting the nation to raise €10k which Cully and Sully will match.
What we’re working on:
Create an Environmental Management System:
- Measure Carbon Footprint
- Measure Water Footprint of Supply Chain
- Monitor, record and report energy usage
Environmental Assessment and Product Design:
- Life cycle assessment
- Reclamation programs for used products or parts
Ton Miles Reduction of distribution and supply chain-, currently this is not tracked, to firstly track and then reduce.
Local Purchasing and Hiring Policies
- Written Preference at production to purchase from local suppliers
- A ready-to-use list of preferred local suppliers at production
Packaging
We are always looking for better options for our soup, broth and meals packaging.
We’ve made changes to our packaging over the years to make it more recyclable and reduce the amount of plastic used.
Our soup tubs are made with 100% recyclable plastic called PP and currently, it is the best material we can use environmentally while maintaining food safety. We changed our broths from single-use plastic that is not readily recycled in Ireland to PP plastic which is 100% recyclable. We changed our pies from a black plastic tray, which sometimes is not recyclable to a 100% recyclable foil tray.
in 2019 we sponsored the Big Beach Clean Big Ireland Clean to try to raise awareness about the importance of recycling, disposing of waste properly and to take some direct action on marine litter. 2019 was the biggest beach clean in Ireland yet. 2019 saw over 300 clean-ups taking place around all of Ireland, engaging approximately 8,000 volunteers who removed at least 45 tonnes of marine of litter across the country.
on pack tub-aware messaging,
Our soup tubs are packed on a plastic tray to prevent them from damage between production and delivery to store shelves. Since Oct 2019 we use food-grade recycled PET trays (RPET).
Sourcing locally- Since 2018 we source our soup packaging from Clara, Ireland. Previously we had sourced packaging from Greece which had a bigger carbon footprint for the miles it travelled to Ireland. I have just been on the phone to the MD in Thrace this morning and he is going to send further details on some upgrades that they are looking at. They have committed to the circular economy, are a fully-fledged member if Repak (and pay the same extortionate fees). They generate their own electricity for part of the year from their on-site hydroelectric plant and they are about to make an investment in solar which would make them fully self-sufficient on electricity.
Ingredients
We source our ingredients locally when in season and from local suppliers who source from reputable growers when we cannot source seasonally in Ireland.
We are in the process of updating our local purchasing policy as you can see in our goals section.
People
- Service days for charities- Pink Ribbon runs, Down and Dirty Skib- these are all detailed in doing our bit.
- Wellbeing in work: lunch away from desk and together, Suggestion box
- Focus Ireland soup tub- we aim to help raise €10k nationwide for Focus Ireland this winter. We have committed to matching donations up to €10k.
- Front line staff
Planet
A company-wide recovery and recycling program- We are a member of Repak.
Utilize clean or low-emission vehicles (e.g. hybrid, LPG, electric) to transport and distribute products.
Purchase goods/supplies from environmentally certified businesses- our soup packaging suppliers are part of the circular economy and are fully certified Repak members. For material merchandise, we source from Grown who use 100% organic cotton, hemp and recycled materials and are certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard. They are also part of 1% for the planet www.grown.ie or Rashr who use material from marine plastic www.rahsr.come. Rashr are certified by the global recycled standard and Global Organic Textile Standard. Both companies are Irish.
No Food waste- In rare occasions, there can be Cully and Sully product in the supply chain that doesn’t have the shelf life fit for stores. We give any shorted date food to FoodCloud (link to their page). In the office, we regularly drop food to Simon a local housing unit and to Respond, a shelter support.
People
- Service days for charities- Pink Ribbon runs, Down and Dirty Skib- these are all detailed in doing our bit.
- Wellbeing in work: lunch away from desk and together, Suggestion box
- Focus Ireland soup tub- we aim to help raise €10k nationwide for Focus Ireland this winter. We have committed to matching donations up to €10k.
- Front line staff
