⚡️ Meet the Knowvember Brands: Rubies in the Rubble
The Knowvember Campaign x Following the Footprints
As part of our partnership with the Knowvember campaign, we’re profiling each of the seven founding brand partners. Taking a stance for climate transparency, each brand knows and shows the climate footprints of their products - making it easier than ever for consumers to make informed and climate conscious choices.
⚡️ BRAND: Rubies in the Rubble
Mission: Condiments. But Gooder. Rubies in the Rubble make award-winning condiments, made gooder by using delicious ingredients that would otherwise go to waste. Tasting great? Good. Fighting food waste too? Gooder. Our ketchups and relishes are made with fresh fruit & veg sourced directly from farms, whilst our mayo’s are made with aquafaba, a plant-based alternative to eggs that is usually thrown away. Condiments are a fantastic way of preserving produce by extending their shelf-life with vinegars and sugars. In other words, less waste, more taste.
Targets: Our long-term ambition is to reach net-zero, by cutting the production of carbon where we can and off-setting where we aren’t able to reduce the carbon footprint. We have committed to being Carbon Neutral before the end of this year. We are coming to the end of completing a comprehensive life cycle analysis of all our condiments from farm to fork. Having full visibility over our emissions across our supply chain will lay the groundwork to forecast meaningful reduction targets in 2022 and identify the areas to work on reducing our carbon to have maximum impact.
⚡️ Can you describe one way you've reduced your product carbon footprint?
We are always looking to ways we can reduce the impact of our products and try out innovative solutions to environmental problems; from utilising food surplus to packaging innovation. For example we offer ceramically printed Glass Bottles that customers can fill with ketchup, and then pop in the wash to be reused again and again. They are used in foodservice and zero-waste retail shops. It reduces carbon as we provide customers with a 10L bulk format packaging which has a lower carbon footprint than the glass bottles, as well as reducing unnecessary wastage.
⚡️ What steps will you have to take to achieve the target you mention above?
The majority of our emissions sit in scope 3, which makes reduction more complicated as it's not in our direct control. Through the Life Cycle Assessment, we started engaging with all your 3rd parties to understand their energy usage, and shared our Net Zero ambitions with them, so we can work together over the coming years to make greener choices.
Alongside building collaborative Net Zero strategies with our partners, we're exploring off-setting with credible groups alike Soil Heroes, that focus on investing in our food system, through working directly with farmers to embed regenerative farming practices and capture more carbon in their soil.
⚡️ Part of your mission is to tackle food waste. How are you achieving this?
Currently, more than 40% of the food produce goes to waste, and this makes up a huge slice of global carbon emissions. We simply can’t stomach this – and Rubies in the Rubble is our response.
Our award-winning products are made of fruit and veg which would otherwise be wasted due to shape, size or colour. We provide people tangible and easy solutions to food waste through our products and saving 294 tonnes CO2e and 351 tonnes of produce from going to landfill.
At the same time, we use our platform to shine a light on the wider global issue of food sustainability, conveying our message to consume less, think more, and be proud of it.
⚡️ Why do you feel like it was important for you to join the Knowvember movement?
In the 2021 report, the IPCC stated that “every choice matters” in respect to carbon emissions, and right now the climate is front of mind for many people when choosing how we consume. It’s important that we can give consumers the ability to shop according to their values, so they can be empowered to reduce their own footprint if they choose to.
Knowvember is all about being transparent with your carbon emissions, and we have always believed our customers have the rights to know what they are buying into, and carbon transparency is an extension of this.
Carbon transparency is important to give consumers visibility over personal consumption and climate impact, but also to us as a brand, encouraging us to reflect and learn on how we can reduce our own emissions. Our commitment to improving the environmental is one of the reasons we are a certified B corp brand; when it came to assessing our social and environmental impact, they left no stone unturned!
Learn more about the Knowvember campaign at www.know-vember.com.
