Being sustainable

We sure aren't perfect but we're trying to do the right thing.
It might make us sound like a Miss World contestant, but here at innocent, we want to leave things a little bit better than we find them. We strive to do business in a more enlightened way, where we take responsibility for the impact of our business on society and the environment, aiming to move these impacts from negative to neutral or (better still) positive. It's part of our quest to become a truly sustainable business where we have a net positive effect on the wonderful world around us. Below you can see our strategy for doing so as well as our performance to date:

ingredients Sustainable Ingredients

Fruit is at the heart of our business, so we take it pretty seriously. Not only do we want it to taste great, we also want to make sure we buy it from suppliers who look after both their workers and the environment.

Our fruit comes from all over the world, from thousands of different farms of all types and sizes - large plantations, co-operative groups, tiny family farms and even from the Amazon rainforest. This means that while there is definitely no 'one size fits all' approach to buying responsibly, the following are all really important to the way we buy:

  • Firstly, we learn as much as we can about our ingredients - how they are grown, the challenges for our suppliers, and how we can help them
  • We have our own set of minimum standards covering all relevant environment and social issues for suppliers that are not covered by existing certification schemes
  • We favour suppliers certified by independent environmental and social organizations (such as the Rainforest Alliance), and pay a premium for certified fruit
  • We work on sustainability issues in partnership with our suppliers for particularly troublesome issues

Of course, we can't promise our suppliers are perfect. We're certainly not perfect, so we can't expect them to be either. But we do ask that they abide by fair, minimum standards, and work to improve their social and environmental performance year on year. Our strategy is to work with people who are the most committed to making real improvements and that we will, in turn, help them get there. Achieving our goals is going to be a long journey, and probably one that will never end, but every small positive change is a step in the right direction.

Thirsty berries case study

read about our thirsty berries water saving project in Spain

We buy some of our strawberries that go into our smoothies from the south of Spain. Whilst this area has a great climate for growing berries, strawberries can be rather thirsty fruit. Since the available water supply is under considerable stress from the combination of increased agricultural production and housing developments, thirsty berries are only adding to this issue. Water supply in this area is particularly important given its proximity to the Donana National Park (a key stopover wetland for 6 million migratory birds who make their way from Northern Europe to Southern Africa every year).Back in 2010, we started a project alongside our supplier and Unilever to map the water footprint of a number of our strawberry farms. The footprint will show exactly how much water each farm has used across the entire season (from planting through to end of harvest). The season finished at the end of June 2011, and we’re now in the process of analysing the water data to identify opportunities to improve the water efficiency of the farms. We will then hold workshops with our farmers on how to implement these methods, as well as sharing the data with the WWF to input into current water management planning for the entire region.

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