Kent Retailer of the Year 2021: Foodari Home Delivery
Traceable, Reliable, Sustainable Quality
Foodari has been devoted to sourcing and supplying outstanding fresh produce for 15 years. In a marketplace full of customers, growers and producers all working to exacting standards in challenging times, we stand out through our strong relationships across the supply chain.
We respond to food and buying trends as well as social and economic change. Today we are an agile and resilient business who have evolved and diversified to incorporate three divisions:
- Foodari Foodservice & Catering including restaurants, hotels, pubs, visitor attractions, schools and universities
- Foodari Source & Supply - sourcing Kentish, British and international produce through our in house retail and import team
- Foodari Home Delivery - supporting local growers, and serving local communities
Threaded through our three divisions is a commitment to provenance and traceability, impeccable customer service, and a commitment to leveraging cross-division benefits to support our customers. This means that a small household in Canterbury, a Michelin-starred chef in London, a catering manager running a busy venue, or a retailer looking for new product lines, can all expect quality fresh produce that is traceable, reliably picked and delivered, and sustainably and responsibly sourced.
Sustainability
Foodari is working hard to be a truly sustainable supplier, who our customers can trust to work in an environmentally friendly way wherever possible. We are also ensuring that we make a positive social impact by working with local charities through donations, partnerships and supplying surplus product.
Like most businesses we have more work to do but our approach is to continuously improve, innovate and work differently to become greener, and to be a true force for good in Kent.
Here’s a few examples of what we’re doing:
Nature-friendly
We work with growers and producers who have green, wildlife-friendly and sustainable principles too. Here’s some great examples:
- Our wonderful apple and strawberry suppliers at Newlands are LEAF-assured (Linking Environment & Farming), working to build robust ecosystems on their farm near Faversham.
- Growers supplying to Provenance Potatoes use both field margins and wildflower planting for winter bird food sources and nectar to encourage biodiversity on their farms.
- Oakdene, berry-growers extraordinaire, use the Cool Farm Tool to monitor greenhouse gases, water and biodiversity.
- The brilliant team at Betts Farm, who supply many of our salad leaves, are also wildlife friendly, including the planting of wildflower meadows for insects and bees, and putting up nesting boxes for birds. They have also invested in solar power and other new technology to improve the energy-efficiency of their operations.
Plastic & Recycling
We estimate around 80% of our produce comes to us in re-useable or recyclable boxes and pallets and we’re encouraging our suppliers to help us get this nearer to 100%. We’re really close to our home delivery fruit and veg boxes being completely plastic-free. For example, out of the 24 varieties in our current Medium Fruit & Veg Box (Nov 2020), just two products have plastic packaging – grape and cherry tomato punnets. This is essential to prevent damage to the fruit. We hope to ensure PET-free punnets via our suppliers soon.
We’re delighted to support packaging innovation from our local suppliers – such as Woodlands in Chartham, who supply eggs to us in plastic egg boxes made entirely from recycled plastic bottles retrieved from the sea – eggs-cellent work!
And there is more…we are thrilled that our strawberry growers, Fiona and Hugh Boucher, are going to be supplying their lovely strawberries in compostable punnets this year.
It is not just about local sourcing where traceability, provenance and being kind to the environment is important. We have just heard the fabulous news that our main pineapple grower is now completely carbon neutral. Put simply, that means we work hard to ensure the farming process adds no net greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.
