Our friends, LittlePod, are celebrating after being named amongst the first-ever winners of the King’s Award for Enterprise (Sustainable Development).
Since the natural ingredients company’s launch in 2010, it has used its Campaign for Real Vanilla to support farmers in the Equatorial regions, helping communities to sustainably farm the fragile rainforests that surround them, whilst encouraging consumers to purchase the precious crops that are grown there.
Led by Managing Director and founder Janet Sawyer MBE BEM, LittlePod are previous winners of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Sustainable Development), receiving the UK’s most prestigious business accolade in 2018.
LittlePod was amongst 148 businesses and organisations across the UK to be recognised with a King’s Award, becoming one of the first to receive the newly renamed honour.
“This is a momentous occasion and a red-letter day in the history of LittlePod,” said Ms Sawyer, who was awarded an MBE in 2020 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of her company’s continuing contribution to international trade, exports and sustainability. “It is a great honour to receive the King’s Award and is a testament to LittlePodders both here and abroad, who support our campaign for REAL vanilla as 97% of vanillin sold in the West is artificial.”
Sustainable story
In 2014 LittlePod began a collaborative project with their vanilla farmer in Indonesia.
The LittlePod community orchard pioneered the idea that vanilla cultivation could ensure a multifaceted income stream for the farmers by growing vanilla in a polyculture system rather than the monoculture system practised at the time.
The benefits aren’t just for the farmers who depend on this high-value commodity but also for the environment; soil preservation, forest regeneration and biodiversity.
Congratulations
Henley Bridge MD Tracey Hughes commented: “Huge congratulations to everyone at LittlePod on this fantastic achievement. We’re proud to work with brands who take their environmental and sustainability commitments so seriously.”
