Supplier Spotlight

Suma is an IPS, a workers’ cooperative collectively owned and managed by its workers. Since first becoming established in the 1970s, the cooperative has founded its operations on a commitment to ethical trading and environmentally sound practice.

As the cooperative and its business have grown, so has the demand for resources and energy but Suma has never lost sight of its original principles.

Their aim for their brand range is that:

Suma Brand Products should:
      1.    Have spotless ethical credentials
      2.    Be healthy and wholesome
      3.    Be competitive on price with the whole grocery market
      4.    Be vegetarian
      5.    Be ethical alternatives to mainstream market products

Packaging for Suma Brand Products should where possible:
      1.    Be minimal
      2.    Be recycled, biodegradable or recyclable
            3.         Be familiar to UK consumers
            4.         Be robust and applicable to the product

A recent repackaging exercise led to developments that could fundamentally change recycling in flexible food packaging. “We discovered, through one of our commercial partners, that the same technology that can recycle plastic bottles into more plastic bottles could conceivably be applied to flexible food packaging2 like bags of fruit or nuts” says Andrew Mackintosh Suma’s PR manager “not only is the carbon footprint of the process lower than any other packaging medium, but it also means that the packaging itself is 100% recyclable”.

Britain creates over 3 million tonnes of plastic waste each year with an estimated 56% of all plastics waste being used packaging, three-quarters of which is from households. It is estimated that only 7% of total plastic waste is currently being recycled.

From April 2010 the full range of Sumas packaged dried fruit, nuts, seeds, beans, pulses and snacks are in this recycled and fully recyclable packaging, representing over 250 product lines.

“Our customers trust us to make ethical decisions on their behalf” said Mackintosh “and we are confident that this form of packaging has the potential to make a great deal of difference environmentally”

How Pollen Organics true taste came to be...

It all started in the family kitchen with an aga and Christianne’s dream of making food that would help other busy people to prepare delicious, easy meals with true tasting products they can trust.

Some years later the dream came true and Richard Pollen soon became fully involved in running the business with Christianne as it expanded beyond the confines of the kitchen. Having built up his own successful marketing and public relations agency, his sales and marketing skills, in particular, came into force.

From that point on, the Pollen business grew and grew – starting with a stall at local farmers markets and then into farm shops, delis and good food stores, online sites and selected supermarkets across the entire UK.

At the beginning of 2009, a new branding was launched under the banner ‘dedicated to true taste’ which has helped the business achieve further growth and provide the impetus to expand into export markets.

Pollen now holds 27 national food awards for quality and taste across its current range and is constantly developing new recipes to excite and entice the palates of those who enjoy the true taste of real food.

View there products on our site:

Visit their website: http://www.pollenorganics.com

Kitchen Garden Foods

At KITCHEN GARDEN FOODS we have been making top quality jams, chutneys, marmalades and condiments under the KITCHEN GARDEN label since 1989 when Barbara Moinet cooked up her firs tbatch of Blackberry and Apple Jam in the kitchen of her Gloucestershire cottage.

The small town of Stroud on the edge of the Cotswold Hills, where the company is now based, has a long and honourable tradition of artisan manufacturing – cloth, beer, walking sticks – to name but a few. The old stone-built mills which cluster around the canal, railway, the river Frome and its tributaries, are a reminder of the hard work and determination which helped to build this part of Gloucestershire (known as the Five Valleys) and give it the character which is still in evidence today.

In the building that was formerly the Stroud Brewery, where Kitchen Garden is now based, you will find a hive of activity. You will know when you’ve arrived – not from the heady mix of malt and hops from the old days, but equally tantalising – the delicious aroma of soft fruit and spices.

Still true to our founding principles, we have never felt the need to change our production methods nor compromise on quality. Everything sold under the Kitchen Garden label is made in the Cotswolds by our team of talented and enthusiastic cooks and they do it just the way it always has been done.

View there products on our site:

Visit their website: http://www.kitchengardenpreserves.co.uk