QUEEN’S AWARD FOR SUSTAINABILITY

In 2017, we turned 21 years old, and we received a birthday present to remember – the Queen’s Award for sustainability.

Every year on her own birthday, April 21st Her Majesty the Queen makes a limited number of awards on the recommendation of the Prime Minister and her research and assessment team. These Awards for Enterprise are the UK’s most prestigious business accolades.

Over the past two decades, we have gone from making sea salt in a pan on our AGA to supplying the Olympics, Obama and more than a handful of the world’s top fifty restaurants. We have grown slowly and sustainably, and in a time of political uncertainty surrounding environmental issues, we are so proud to receive royal recognition of the care our business and team are taking of the environment and each other.

At our core, we believe that very small changes add up to much bigger things, and that we can each do something to improve sustainability and business performance. We have a ‘good ideas bonus’ – where employees receive a bonus in exchange for innovative ideas on how business performance can be improved. A recent idea included removing a pump where gravity could do the work (the pump had been recommended by a chemical engineer.) Sounds obvious but only one person (Tom) thought of it and we are glad he did!

Making sea salt means we have a lot of clean distilled water leftover. We sell it for uses as varied as Venus fly-trap food and fuel for model steam trains.

On-site we simply re-use things where we can – making signs out of old equipment and using a cheerful old telephone box to grow chilli and tomato plants. Last year we planted a wildflower meadow in front of our Saltcote to encourage wildlife, and we use our own solar energy that we generate on site everyday.

Huge congratulations go to all of our team. We have bought a new flagpole and will be proudly flying the Queen’s flag for the next five years.

Here’s how we celebrated the award:

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