Go find out why we do what we do

Trying to do the right thing

We strive to do business in a more enlightened way, where we take responsibility for the impact of our business on society and the environment, and move these impacts from negative to neutral, or better still, positive. It’s part of our quest to become a truly sustainable business, where we have a positive effect on the world around us.

Sustainable ingredients

We take our food seriously at Class Catering, so not only do we want it to taste great, but we also want to make sure we buy it from suppliers that look after both their workers and the environment. We go about it in a number of different ways:

• We learn as much as we can about our ingredients - how they are grown, the challenges for our suppliers, and how we can help them.
• We have our own set of minimum standards covering all relevant environment and social issues for suppliers that are not covered by existing certification schemes.
• We favour suppliers certified by independent environmental and social organisations (such as the Rainforest Alliance), and pay a premium for certified fruit.
• We work on sustainability issues in partnership with our suppliers for particularly troublesome issues.

Of course, we cannot promise that our suppliers are perfect. We're certainly not perfect, so we can't expect them to be either. But we do ask that they abide by fair, minimum standards, and work to improve their social and environmental performance year on year. Our strategy is to work with people who are the most committed to making real improvements and then we will help them get there. Achieving our goals is going to be a long journey but every small positive change is a step in the right direction. 

Sustainable packaging

We aim to make our packaging as sustainable as possible. To make this happen we try to do four things:

• To use as little material as possible per pack.
• To use as much recycled or renewable material as possible.
• To produce materials and pack formats that are easy to recycle.
• To produce packaging that has a low carbon footprint.

We've done lots to make our packaging better. We've been pioneering the use of food grade recycled plastic in our bottles, all our cardboard containers are now made from 100% Forest Stewardship Council certified material.

To make sure we are always improving, our team continues to assess all our packaging against our four goals. There is always more work to do, so we will keep pushing on. If you've got any ideas about how we can improve our packaging, then please let us know at enquiry@classcatering.co.uk

Sustainable production

We are looking at our whole business and asking ourselves one simple question – how and where can we use less? We think it’s a great question as not only does it help to reduce our environmental impact, but it also means that we are forced to be that little bit more creative, and ultimately that we spend less money too. All good.

We work with our suppliers on water and energy efficiency, reduced waste production and recycling. We have seen some great results, from reductions of electricity and gas usage over the last couple of years, and our suppliers have more than halved the waste they send to landfill.

We use green energy for the office and we give our employees a small helping hand to use green energy at home. We offer the tax-free cycle to work scheme, lots of bike racks, and some showers

We use hybrid cars for when a bike or the train won’t suffice. Only travelling when we have to, using the train, and keeping air travel to a minimum.

Composting all our organic waste in the office and lots of recycling.

Deliveries

We consider our everyday activities and our impact on the environment, consolidating deliveries to reduce CO2.

Vending machines

We use schemes such as Vendaids, recycled vending machines scheme, to reducing manufacturing by utilise refurbishing machines for re use.