Mindful Chef has claimed a category first by introducing carbon labels to its recipe kits.
The labels – which rolled out this week – were created in partnership with independent climate action solutions provider Climate Partner to enable customers to select recipes that were in line with the WWF’s target of reducing dietary-related emissions, it said.
Each of the brand’s existing recipes has been put through a full life-cycle assessment, measuring greenhouse gases and the corresponding carbon footprint.
This ‘cradle to grave’ approach helped ensure that Mindful Chef had accounted for “every aspect of its business model including growing, packing, transporting, storing, cooking and disposing of products”, it said.
As a result, recipes that had been assessed as producing carbon emissions of less than 1.6kg now featured a green ‘low carbon impact’ label, which “would enable consumers to make more informed choices about how to reduce their individual carbon footprint and fight climate change”, it added.
The move comes as part of the brand’s mission to become net zero by 2030.
Mindful Chef would seek to “continually challenge itself and bring more recipes to the low carbon range in coming months”, it said.
This would help it “identify where meaningful steps can and must be taken to help accelerate the transition toward a sustainable food future”, it added.
Mindful Chef sustainability manager Emma Detain said: “We know that food production and food waste is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions globally.
“Our low carbon range, on average, emits 20% less carbon than the average UK dinner. Putting this into practice, if everyone in the UK swapped one dinner a week for a low carbon recipe, it would save over 1.5 million tonnes of CO2e per year.”
Climate Partner sustainability consultant Efua Mercer added: “By benchmarking individual recipes to a meal that is consistent with limiting global warming to below two degrees, we can tangibly see what the goal looks like.
“It’s this type of practical initiative that will truly help us all move the needle when it comes to getting the UK to net zero.”
The move comes after Nestlé last year acquired a majority stake in the business for an undisclosed sum.
Mindful Chef CEO Tim Lee last November told The Grocer turnover had surged to £50m during the coronavirus crisis, with sales of its meal kits soaring 425% year on year.
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