Healthy recipe box brand Mindful Chef has launched a regenerative farming program in partnership with its suppliers.
The initiative aims to draw down carbon emissions, help restore nature, and have a positive impact on the environment.
Food production is one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions and a leading cause of biodiversity loss, Mindful Chef (ranked in the top 3% of Food and Beverage B Corporations in the world) wanted to find a way to support its suppliers to reduce their impact on the environment.
As a result, the company — with guidance from regenerative farming experts Soil Heroes — is investing in its supply chain to support its farmers with peer-2-peer training sessions and financial support.
The aim is to adopt regenerative farm management techniques, reduce the C02 of crops, store carbon in the soil, enhance biodiversity and in turn, get Mindful Chef one step closer to its net zero target by 2030.
At its core, regenerative farming is about restoring soil health, putting back more into the land than is taken out, and farming in tune with nature rather than against it. The launch also supports Mindful Chef’s mission to make healthy eating easy as the farming methods help produce nutrient-dense crops and quality produce.
The first supplier to benefit from the program is Stourgarden. Founded in 1968, the Suffolk-based family-run farm has been growing onions for over three generations. It’s a longstanding supplier to Mindful Chef, with onions featured in over a million Mindful Chef boxes to date.
Co-founder Myles Hopper said: “This is just the start of the journey. Over time we hope to work with more suppliers on projects like these. We believe in making healthy eating easy and that starts from the ground up. Healthy soil means healthy crops and in turn, healthy food.
“By actively investing in our own supply chain and supporting suppliers like Stourgarden on their regenerative journey, we can enable people to eat more sustainably, while driving down agricultural emissions significantly. When we do that, we not only produce healthier crops, we also restore natural habitats, enhance biodiversity and draw down carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in the soil and keeping it there.”
Ed Pissarro, of Stourgarden, added: “I’m really excited about this partnership with Mindful Chef and Soil Heroes. My intention is to improve the quality of the final product and while doing that I want to protect the future of our soils and wider environment.”
