Sustainability Award
‘Healthy People, Healthy Planet’ Sustainability Award
Sustainability solutions, to help you be more sustainable & profitable
We are thrilled to announce our newest award, an end-to end sustainability assessment developed in partnership with Sustainable Kitchen Consultants (SKC), covering all 3 pillars of sustainability: People, Planet, Profit
This is the only sustainability assessment that considers human health to be as important as planetary and environmental health, which aligns with the Free From Food Awards’ central tenet of benefitting the free from and allergic consumer.
The Healthy People, Healthy Planet approach is far more than a carbon assessment, and considers all aspects that should be incorporated into a sustainability strategy.
This is your opportunity to shine a spotlight on all the great things you and your brand are doing to produce sustainable products, and achieve an additional Free From Awards Sustainability Award accreditation!
Furthermore, SKC have a range of great services to improve sustainability, designed to help you advance your sustainable sourcing and recipes and train your teams in sustainability relating to food sector businesses, with discounts for all FFA entrants.
Why enter?
“In the long term, brands and products with strong sustainability credentials can win favour with consumers. A gluten-/wheat-free product being more sustainable than a standard equivalent would prompt over a quarter of consumers to buy it. Furthermore, sustainable packaging would encourage 23% of buyers to purchase a product.” 2023 Mintel UK Attitudes towards Gluten/Wheat-Free Food Market Report
How to enter
The Entry Process
To submit your product for the Sustainability Award you will need to:
1. Enter it into one of the main categories of the Free From Awards 2024 cycle (opening 3rd January 2024) where it will be assessed as a standard entry.
The cost to enter your product into the main categories of the Free From Awards are detailed on the Free From Awards 2024 page.
2. Complete a sustainability questionnaire designed to capture information about the credentials of your business and your food product, covering:
- your business operations
- your food product
- your ingredients suppliers
The cost to enter the Sustainability Award, per product, is £75.
The Judging Process
Both your sustainability answers and your FFA product entry form will be assessed by the SKC team, after which both SKC and FFA teams will agree a final score for your product, a little like an MOT – although in this case there is no pass or fail; instead you’re assessed against a target ‘Healthy People, Healthy Planet’ benchmark, and provided with helpful advisories on how you could improve. Details below.
The Results Process
The results will be announced at the Presentation Party in June 2024. All products that pass the sustainability MOT will receive the ‘Healthy People, Healthy Planet’ logo, to be used on the product, or in accordance with our logo guidelines.
Should you wish to work further with the Sustainable Kitchen Consultants, you will be able to take advantage of their discount offer to all FFA entrants. Details will be sent to all entrants into the Sustainability Award once the entry window is closed, but broadly their services include:
- Sustainable ingredient sourcing
- Recipe development (Healthy, sustainable, free-from experts)
- Sustainability training
- ‘Healthy People, Healthy Planet’ Accreditation and QR codes
The Judging Process – detail
The assessment questionnaire is designed to capture information about the sustainability credentials of your business and your food product.
Your answers will be reviewed and assessed by the SKC team. They may need to ask you further questions and will do so via your email address.
The SKC team will identify areas where your business could focus its attention on improving its sustainability credentials, for the business operations, or for the products.
Remember, there is no such thing as perfect, and we have co-developed this process with SKC to be used as much as a guide to help you identify areas for improving your sustainability credentials, as well as to reward businesses who are doing great things to ensure their business and products are as sustainable as possible at this current time. We’re all on a continuous journey to ensure our businesses are sustainable, and we are excited to be able to help your business in this way.
The SKC team is founded by CEO Julie Cleijne – with extensive experience:
- Sustainability & Nutrition trained Chef
- IEMA Sustainability Practitioner
- MBA Innovation in Sustainable Food & Agriculture
- Specialist in Sustainable diets, low-waste, seasonal, low-carbon, healthy, plant based & free from
- Sustainability, Healthy & Free From Consultant
- Great Taste Award Judge
- Free From Awards Judge
- British Leeks Ambassador
- Sustainability Training, Auditing, Mentoring
- Recipe developer
- Keynote Speaker
- Value from food waste specialist
- 25 years Programme Management, Management Consultancy, Corporate Strategy experience
- Consultant to Soil Association & Pasture for Life Assurance (PFLA)
The extended SKC team are a collective of nutritionally trained chefs, specialists in low-carbon, low waste, plant-based & free from cooking, providing recipe development & NPD expertise, with over 45 years collective experience in foodservice businesses in London, New York, Spain, Australia & South Africa.
Their assessment will identify areas where your business could focus its attention on improving its sustainability credentials, for the business operations, or for the products, and whether you meet the ‘Healthy People, Healthy Planet’ target benchmark and you will receive a full summary report (the advisories).