A Force for Good & Heartfelt Happiness

At the Popcorn kitchen we strive for our business to be a bustling force for good, determined that our Making People Happy commitment extends to both our tight knit communities and the wider environment.  

For some while we’ve been mulling over how to put our best foot forward, from minimising our impact on the wider environment, to meeting and exceeding high ethical standards whilst providing support and encouragement to other like-minded SMEs on a similar voyage of discovery.  

We thought long and hard about how best we could best capture this positive intent and turn it into something truly tangible and having surveyed the ethical food & drink landscape and talking to leading edge industry experts (Thank you Andy Hawkins) came to the conclusion that B Corp was the perfect accreditation pathway for us to follow.

One clear benefit associated with becoming a B Corp custodian is the fact that we will be stringently and independently assessed to rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, which will demand complete transparency and accountability. A thorough, far-reaching B-Corp agenda will also help shape our governance, the ways we support our workers, our customers, our business community and the wider environment.
 

Key Popcorn Bites for 2023:

• 2% of bottom-line revenue given to good causes
• 33 Tonnes of Estimates carbon sequestered
• Our impact on the wider environment, ably supported by Reewild resulted in:
  the planting of 1,347 trees
• Supporting 5 meaningful environmental project supports
• Using our Sedex membership, to create and maintain ethical supply chains.

Packaging Responsibly

• All are cardboard is FSC certified and uses recyclable material.
• Our ribbons on our Christmas Stocking are made from re-cycled plastic bottles. 
• All our plastic bottles are reuseable or recyclable kerb-side.
• Our film is recyclable code 5 so recyclable in stores,  we continue to seek a kerb-side solution as film technologies improve.

Our Reewild Alliance

With the help of Reewild, we have supported reforestation efforts across the world. We have chosen to invest in several Eden Reforestation projects, an NGO dedicated to improving livelihoods and protecting endangered landscapes on a massive scale.

The trees we have planted will do their bit to help reverse climate change, tackle global deforestation, whilst replacing habitat loss for endangered species. As Eden Reforestation follow a people-first approach, we are also giving back to the local communities that are most impacted by the ensuing climate crisis.

The success of each project and the communities’ success are inextricably entwined.

We support projects in Brazil, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, and the Philippines.

Over the course of 2024 we have lots of environmental initiatives getting underway, whose progress we will report back on at the end of the year:

• Renewable energy and biodiversity restoration projects – Gold standard accredited.
• New initiatives that will remove a further 55 tonnes of carbon 
• Moving to a sustainable 30% recycled PET on our giant bottle by using recycled plastic that reduces our carbon intensity
• Measuring our Popcorn Kitchen Carbon footprint both as a total business and within the life cycle of each product means we can hone in on specific areas to further reduce our carbon intensity

Social Responsibility 

We are working with some amazing partners, providing fabulous Popcorn to support those who are less fortunate than ourselves:  

Working with Tom and the team is great,
every pack donated is distributed around the UK

Julain and the amazing team at Crisis, support to end homelessness
and at Christmas create lovely hampers for their clients 

Touch of Sparkle provide care packs for those going through Chemotherapy. 

A dear friend to Louise (our Founder) received one of these packs, it brought her so much happiness at a very sad time. Working with Melanie and the team at this charity to bring a little Popcorn Happiness

Finally, where our Founder lives: 

Olney is Kind is a non-profit Community Interest Company (CIC), working to help Olney become a kinder and more inclusive town by supporting the wellbeing of our local residents.

Ethical Trading 

Popcorn Kitchen uses its Sedex membership as a force for good. Sedex insists that its member suppliers maintain essential data on all their ethical and responsible practices, information that can be freely shared amongst its customers. These telling reports cover labour standards, health and safety, business ethics and the wider environment.

All of our suppliers are sent an ethical questionnaire every 2 years and those with the highest turnover are visited to ensure that all our raw materials continue to be sourced from best-in-class, reputable companies.

*This is just an estimate, and not a number used in our Beyond Value Chain Mitigation reporting. We have used open-source calculations to say that each tree planted sequesters 25kg of CO2 per year. Each tree will absorb 1 tonne of CO2 over its lifetime.