Behind the B - What makes Scrumbles a B Corp
It's B Corp Month! A time to celebrate all the companies using business as a force of good and to raise awareness about them. The theme this year is "Behind the B". Essentially encouraging us and our fellow B Corps to uncover what makes us better for people and the planet.
What better opportunity to reflect on our B Corp journey so far, and delve into exactly what helped us certify as the 2nd ever Pet Food B Corp in the world?
Our B Corp Journey
We certified as a B Corp back in 2019, just 6 months after launching. To date, it's still one of our proudest achievements, especially as we were the 2nd EVER pet food company to pass their rigorous process and certify.
We were also honoured with the Best For The World: Governance award, spotlighting us as one of the overall leaders within the Impact Area.
Our B Impact Score
To certify as a B Corp, businesses are evaluated on differing aspects of their business. This includes; Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. As an example for Governance, this refers to "a company's overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency." A score is then given for each Impact Area, which are added up to give an overall score.
As a small family business, we don't yet have all the infrastructure in place to be able to monitor our impact as rigorously as we'd like. However, as we grow this is an area we can't wait to develop and share the findings with you.
What makes us a B Corp?
We've covered our overall score, but let's delve a little deeper into what precisely makes us worthy of the B Corp status. We've split these up into four categories:
1. Our Team
As a family-run business, our team really feels (and literally is) an extension of our real family (Aneisha, Jack, Smudge & Boo). Without a happy and motivated team, delivering thousands of meals to hungry cats and doggies would be impossible. Therefore we have several schemes and incentives in place to help us achieve our mission!
Firstly, we're an accredited Living Wage employer. Living Wage is the only UK wage rate based on actual living cost, taking into account everyday needs like dentist or vet trips. This lies in contrast to the Minimum Wage and National Living Wage.
Secondly, we provide plenty of opportunities for all Scrumblees to excel in areas where they have an interest. Whether that's sending them off on a negotiation course, as we did for our Commercial Executive, Jordan or coding courses like we did for our Ops Manager, Rene. As well as encouraging and facilitating our team to be fit and active, with semi-flexible working hours to allow for boxercise, spinning, or some peaceful meditation.
Thirdly, all our team members have an allowance per year for volunteering days. This gives them the time to support charities of their choice. A scheme that has seen us provide educational talks at schools, run after-work community basketball sessions and help prepare healthy meals for community members in need.
On top of this, we also have a Shares Incentive Plan in place, so our team are not just employees, but part-owners too!
2. Our Ingredients
As a pet food business, catering to four-legged friends that need meat to thrive, means our ingredients have the largest impact on our overall environmental sustainability. Despite this, we've managed to minimise our impact with some nifty tricks and changes.
We're the only mainstream pet food company in the UK to commit (from the very start) to a totally pollo-pescatarian diet. This means we only use chicken, duck, turkey, or fish in our pet food recipes. Never any red meat, or dairy, which we all know have significantly higher GHG emissions. As shown by this graph produced by Our World in Data. We're also able to use meat that's not "aesthetic" enough for the human food supply chain, therefore preventing food waste too.
Where possible, i.e for doggy treats, we've launched innovative 100% plant-based versions. Like our Training Dog Treats, Gnashers Dental Bones. Completely avoiding any meat whatsoever!
Finally, we've kept provenance and locality front of mind when choosing ingredients. All of the poultry we use is British and Free Run, and all the fish we use is from local waters and ASC or MSC certified.
3. Our Packaging
It's not just what goes into our grub that matters, it's also what it's served in and how it can be disposed of that counts. That's why we've developed our packaging to be either compostable or recyclable to avoid ending up in landfills. We're proud to say we've only got one component of our packaging left until we're 100% there (the pesky films on our wet food).
Our range of dry dog food and dry cat food recipes comes in 100% recyclable Mono Pe bags. Our wet food in white PP5 recyclable trays, FSC recyclable cardboard sleeves and box. And finally, our tasty treats are packed into 100% home-compostable bags - making them guilt-free for your pet and the planet! We've gone into extra detail about all our packaging materials here.
4. Our Community
Last, but certainly not least, our commitment to our community is the final area of our overall sustainability.
We closely support several cat and dog charities, like All Dogs Matter, providing food and monetary donations to support their incredible work rescuing and rehoming vulnerable floods. As well as the Holly, a well-being trauma support dog who tours the country bringing a smile to the face of anyone she meets along the way.
As a member of 1% for Planet, we've also committed to giving back 1% of our sales to environmental causes. Last year this meant donating to Rewilding Britain, supporting their project releasing beavers back into nature. A massive thank you to all our customers who we couldn't do this without! Here's one of the happy chappies that's now free to roam and gnaw their way around Scotland thanks to you:
We hope you've enjoyed coming behind the scenes and uncovering what makes us a B Corp. We're amongst some inspirational companies, so do make sure to check out some of our fav fellow B Corp brands too.
