What if the snacks you ate at work didn’t simply style good, however helped combat local weather change, too? Three of The FruitGuys’ snack companions—The Gluten Free Brothers, Local weather Sweet, and BjornQorn—are making sustainable snacks that just do that.
All three of those eco-friendly manufacturers are working towards a waste-free, clean-energy future. Learn on to study extra about their snacks and tales, simply in time for Earth Month.
#1: The Gluten Free Brothers’ Bites
Michigan-based model The Gluten Free Brothers (The GFB) turned a Licensed B Corp in 2017 and began changing its manufacturing facility to a zero-waste facility. That meant upcycling or reusing 90 % of its waste, together with a tough byproduct: nut and seed butter buckets.
Each week, The GFB emptied dozens of industrial-sized buckets of peanut, almond, cashew, and sunflower seed butter to make its gluten-free bars and bites. These buckets could possibly be recycled, however cleansing them took a lot water that it felt wasteful. So, The GFB’s founders, brothers Marshall and Elliott Rader, acquired inventive and shaped a partnership with a neighborhood farmer.
“A hog farmer picks up the buckets and his hogs lick them out,” Marshall informed The FruitGuys. “Then, after they’re comparatively clear, they go to a develop home and are reused for rising hashish [a legal crop in Michigan] and different crops indoors.”
The brothers have adopted many new practices to maintain their firm’s snacks sustainable, and in 2022 they started powering their manufacturing facility with wind and photo voltaic vitality.
“We are saying our core goal right here is to complement the lives of our staff, our clients, and our planet,” Marshall mentioned.
Marshall and his brother Elliott each have celiac illness, which implies they’ll’t digest the protein in wheat, barley, or rye. The GFB makes snacks that they and different gluten-free people can take pleasure in. It makes use of complete substances and plant-based proteins to craft energy-boosting bars and bites which might be licensed gluten-free, non-GMO, and Kosher.
To have fun The GFB’s dedication to sustainability throughout Earth Month, The FruitGuys will add its Darkish Chocolate Coconut and Darkish Chocolate Peanut Butter bites to all of our Considerate Snack Containers in April 2024. They’re additionally out there by the case.
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#2 Local weather Sweet’s Fruit Chews
Local weather Sweet Co-founder Amy Keller
Like The GFB, Local weather Sweet is on a mission to cut back waste—however its aspirations transcend a single facility. Co-founder Amy Keller informed The FruitGuys that her firm rescues “completely imperfect” vegetables and fruit that might have gone to waste on farms and turns them into sweet.
In 2023, Local weather Sweet saved greater than 1 million items of produce from landfills. By rescuing that meals, the corporate additionally helped scale back the waste of different sources like land and water. Every 1 oz serving of Local weather Sweet’s chewy, zingy, sweet-tart FAVES fruit chews comes full of a serving of vegetables and fruit.
Amy and her co-founders, Dr. Sue Smalley and Kevin Wall (the founding father of Reside Earth), had been impressed to sort out the meals waste downside throughout a visit to the Svalbard International Seed Vault in Norway, which safeguards seeds from world wide. Amy remembers strolling immediately into the glacier, marveling on the partitions, ceilings, and flooring manufactured from ice whereas peering at cabinets lined in containers of seeds.
The Svalbard International Seed Vault
“We had been there to find out about meals safety. I witnessed the United Nations putting in turbines attributable to local weather change to maintain the glacier refrigerated for the entire backup seeds on the planet,” she mentioned. “On the journey, flying from Oslo, I used to be additionally studying the e book ‘Drawdown’ by Paul Hawken and realized that preventing meals waste is the No. 1 resolution to combat local weather change. That was a key second for us. … We felt we might construct an organization to create one thing out of the 25 % of produce that goes unharvested on farms.”
The founders wrote their marketing strategy on that journey. At first, they deliberate to show undesirable vegetables and fruit right into a nutrition-packed powder, however their imaginative and prescient advanced. Drawing on Amy’s household background within the sweet trade (her great-great-grandfather based Spangler Sweet Firm, the producer behind Dum Dums) they launched Local weather Sweet’s FAVES fruit chews in 2022.
Sustainability is the corporate’s high precedence in each space from its substances to its packaging, which is at all times both 100% recycled or plastic-free.
“It’s time for individuals to comprehend their energy to heal themselves and the planet via what we select to eat,” Amy informed The FruitGuys.
To assist Local weather Sweet’s mission, The FruitGuys will add its non-GMO Assorted FAVES fruit chews to all of our Considerate Snack Containers in April 2024, and provide them by the case for workplace celebrations. Every pack of FAVES consists of candies in 4 flavors: lemon, cherry, orange, and strawberry.
Need sustainable snacks?
#3 BjornQorn’s Popcorn
BjornQorn co-owners Bjorn Quenemoen, Stephanie Bauman, and Jamie O’Shea
BjornQorn co-owners Bjorn Quenemoen, Jamie O’Shea, and Stephanie Bauman pop their sustainable snacks with solar energy. Their ardour for popcorn started in 2002 when Bjorn began internet hosting popcorn events for his classmates at Bard School—together with his roommate, Jamie.
BjornQorn cooking with photo voltaic
Greater than a decade later, the buddies mixed Bjorn’s popcorn know-how with Jamie’s expertise artistry to create BjornQorn: non-GMO popcorn flavored with easy, whole-ingredient seasonings. From 2013–2017, they popped the entire model’s popcorn in a discipline utilizing a solar-powered kettle that Jamie developed.
Right now, BjornQorn remains to be dedicated to utilizing 100% renewable vitality to energy its manufacturing services.
BjornQorn’s solar-powered manufacturing facility
“The flexibility to make significant progress on local weather change is in all of our arms,” Co-owner Stephanie Bauman, the relationship-building knowledgeable at BjornQorn, informed The FruitGuys. “On June 25, 2020, BjornQorn joined the 100% Dedicated marketing campaign in partnership with The Local weather Actuality Venture. Our present photo voltaic electrical facility generates all of the vitality it must make our popcorn, and its manufacturing scales up as we develop.”
In 2022, BjornQorn took a step towards increasing its solar-powered operation by buying a beloved, defunct native curler rink known as Skate Time in Accord, NY.
Picture credit score Andrew Lipovsky
The rink consists of an 8,000-square-foot warehouse area excellent for popping popcorn. Filling the roof with photo voltaic panels will enable BjornQorn to extend its energy thirty-fold. To protect Skate Time’s native historical past, BjornQorn reopened the rink in March 2023. Beginning in August 2024, the ability will pull double-duty popping popcorn and internet hosting skaters.
“Photo voltaic panels aren’t simply nice for householders, however industrial services, too,” Stephanie mentioned. “Not solely do they assist an organization’s backside line in the long run, however their payoff charges are underneath ten years now. Future occupants of our area will get the identical nice profit and proceed that very same profit to the setting.”
This Earth Month, The FruitGuys will be part of BjornQorn’s celebration of solar energy by providing three flavors of its signature popcorn—Traditional, Spicy, and Cloudy (salty)—in our Considerate Snack Containers. To have fun Earth Month along with your staff, you may as well order BjornQorn by the case.
Need sustainable snacks?
The Energy of Sustainable Snacks
Celebrating Earth Month in your workplace by providing sustainable snacks is an effective way to assist eco-friendly corporations which might be doing good on the planet. By sharing their tales and missions along with your staff, you may as well unfold the phrase about urgent world points like meals waste and clear vitality. These discussions may even spark future options.
Plus, did we point out that the snacks style scrumptious? It’s a win-win-win.
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