my sustainability effort

as a small business owner

Sometimes, when I walk in nature, I can’t help but marvel at how beautiful Mother Earth is, whether it’s to do with the flowers, the lakes, the mountains or even the squirrels!

It is our duty to care for Mother Earth just as she has cared for us by providing us with the means to live.

With this in mind, I’m constantly on the look out for how to make my products more sustainable whilst being affordable.

As a small business, it’s not always easy to negotiate the volume discounts big companies get when making their products sustainable, however, this hasn’t deterred me from trying.

sourcing

I currently work with small business owners just like myself who work directly with small scale farmers to source the tea blends directly from them.

blending

All my teas, super food blends and seed mixes are free from preservatives, artificial flavourings and additives.

This is my personal opinion but I feel the reason we are falling more ill nowadays is because of the quality of food and drink that we are consuming. Processed foods, super-refined foods – look on the back of packaging of even supposedly “healthy” snacks and you’ll find a chemical or two. My ethos with Better Food Mood is to create blends that are pure and made from the natural ingredients that Mother Earth has provided to us in their purest form.

packaging

I’ve tried to keep the size of the packaging for my products as small as possible to minimise wastage.

Loose Leaf Teas

I’m so proud of my loose leaf teas because these are such a great way to reduce wastage whilst getting the real taste of the tea (without having any plastic floating around in the tea).

With loose leaf tea, there are no tea bags, hence there’s less packaging meaning less plastic and less paper helping the environment.

If you don’t have a teapot to brew loose leaf tea, you can buy a washable cloth tea bag. This way you have a tea bag and you can re-use the tea bag too! 🙂

Tea bags

Currently, my tea bags are made out of paper to keep them affordable.

I have recently introduced a wellness collection pouch which features several different herbal teas. These tea bags are plant-based and fully biodegradable within 6 months. They have no plastic in them as the tag is stuck onto the tea bag with ultrasonic waves (not glue!)

These tea bags can be thrown directly into the food bin. These are an alternative more expensive option but hopefully a first step to making the tea bags more sustainable.

I’m also excited to share that I’ll soon be introducing sachets that are biodegradable within 6 months too! This was such a challenge for me, however, if we persevere, we can prevail! These sachets will be biodegradable and can be thrown directly into the food bin too.

Keep watching this space.

Seed Mixes

I am proud to say that all the packaging for my seed mixes can now be recycled at store with other bags.

Some bags have stickers on them, please do remove these stickers so that these bags can be recycled.

Giving back to the community

As you may have read on my about me page, my reason for setting up Better Food Mood is to help those in vulnerable situations.

I am proud to now be supporting:

SUFRA (a food bank and they also organise community kitchens open to anyone suffering from financial difficulties or isolation – a way to keep mental health in check)

The Invisible Girl Project (rescues babies and girls from female gendercide / trafficking providing them with a safe home and education)

Pratham UK (provides girls with education and women with a second chance at life through training and employment opportunities)

How YOU can help Mother Earth?

Sustainability does not end with us as a company – you can also take steps to help the environment such as:

• If you love tea and drink it often, buy all the teas you need at the same time. This will reduce the carbon foot print as they’ll be posted out to you in one package with one shipping journey. Infact, if you shop products worth £20 or more in my shop, you even get free shipping! Save your bank balance and save the planet at the same time!
• When preparing your cup of tea, only boil the amount of water you need.
• For the tea bags, you can re-use them twice. You can also re-use loose leaf tea.
• Make an effort to throw the packaging in the right bin.