How we raised our sustainability game in 2022

Welcome to our first ever sustainability report. It has been a really great year of learning about sustainability and importantly, taking action. 

Although we are only at the very start of our journey to becoming a sustainable organisation, there is a palpable buzz in the company and a bias for taking action to get things done. That energy has been contagious and amazing to witness.

The numbers on global warming are alarming and the food industry we operate in has a significant role to play in tackling global greenhouse emissions.

Vaclav Smil’s book Numbers Don’t Lie articulates the impact on food waste in a compelling way. In short, “The production of wasted food may be responsible for as much as 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.” 10 percent is enormous and largely preventable. 

Smil continues by saying, “Affluent countries need to produce considerably less food and consume it with considerably less waste.” That includes every element of the supply chain, from farm to fork. We know for sure that limiting food waste by means of using a meal kit that pre-portions food is a good way to start this and can make an impact. 

By no means do I claim that using our meal kits is enough – we as a company should hold ourselves much more accountable. Nor am I an expert in the area of sustainability. However, we have a team who are willing to make this change happen and I feel lucky to see the start of that happening. 

Here’s a summary of our major initiatives that we carried out during 2022, which we approach in more detail in the 2022’s sustainability report:

> We set an ambitious goal in 2022 to become B Corp-certified in 2023

> We started tracking our first set of meaningful sustainability measures – the next step is to hold ourselves accountable to improve them

> Hello Chef became a fairer place to work by rolling out a 5-day work week for the entire company

> We worked closely with our customers to design new product initiatives and collect feedback

> We published our first set of policies to set standards and hold ourselves accountable for our impact

Thank you for reading this, and we hope you find value in our 2022 Sustainability Report.

Ahmed

Ahmed Al Akber
CEO, Hello Chef
12th January, 2023