🛒 The Check-Out: Arthur Waley, Moving Mountains

+ more in our basket - from teapigs to tokens to tony's.

May 23, 2024

Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of brand x sustainability inspiration, and your discovery box of what the team is loving this week. It’s great to have you here.

If you’ve ever proclaimed that you’re a ‘veggie burger connoisseur’, join the club. Somewhere on the internet, that’s my bio on a very serious website about very serious climate things. So, here I am, standing before you today overjoyed to feature one of my favourite veggie burger brands - Moving Mountains. Ok, another fun fact. Somewhere else on the internet (deep in the Moving Mountains socials), there are at least 4 pictures of me eating their delicious products. That’s a story for another time.

After we chat to Arthur, we’ll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week. Let’s dig in…

> Brand Spotlight

🎙️ Behind the Brand: 6 questions with Arthur Waley, Supply Chain Manager at Moving Mountains.

👉 Hello! We’d love the non-LinkedIn lowdown of who you are, what gets you out of bed and how you got here.

I have always been deeply passionate about food; from farming/foraging and soil health to food science and art-like fine dining creations. In that infamous time that was lockdown; I took the plunge from being a meat-oriented cook to following a plant-based lifestyle ever since. From studying Biology at uni to volunteering at City Harvest London, it’s my enjoyment for problem-solving where I can make an impact that puts me in an Ops role at Moving Mountains.

👉 Now for Moving Mountains - tell us about your brand!

Moving Mountains is a British plant-based brand on a mission to create plant-based alternatives that never sacrifice taste. As a brand, we firmly believe that small acts move mountains. With each decision you make, you can have a huge impact on our planet. With collective action, we can make big changes.

👉 How does Moving Mountains think about sustainability? Are there any impact-related milestones or achievements you’re particularly proud of?

The Life Cycle Analysis reports we have done on our products are a testament to the impact you can have while not sacrificing all indulgence! These also highlight areas for improvement and I am proud to work for a brand that truly values this. Our new supplier partner also has their own renewable energy business, meaning the energy used to produce, freeze and store the new products uses only renewable energy.

👉 You’ve chosen to freeze your product - there are obvious pros and cons to this environmentally. How do you weigh that up as a team?

Being frozen is great as it means we have far less waste in both our supply chains and end users' home, as the shelf life is greatly improved. The controlled conditions also mean massively reduced contamination risk and better nutrient retention, which again reduces waste and is part of a more sustainable food system. This also means less packaging is required and we can use mostly recycled cardboard in many of our products. Having the whole supply chain at -20°C does use a bit more energy to maintain the product temperature, however this is countered by being able to ship things around in a much more efficient way.

👉 Ok, magic wand time; if we could grant you three wishes for the food industry, what would they be?

Full transparency for the environmental impact of what we buy.
For the impact of animal agriculture to be acknowledged.
Appropriate compensation for producers - food needs to be cheap as it’s a necessity, however the strain on our producers causes more exploitation of nature.

👉 Finally - We’d love some recommendations; one climate-related resource, one person to follow online and one consumer brand that’s killing it.

A Plastic Planet - Beginners guide to all things reduce, reuse and recycle.
One person to follow online - Oliva Cabane - landscapes for alt protein.
Consumer brand killing it - Wildfarmed.

A huge thanks to Arthur, and the Moving Mountains team, for taking the time to chat with us!

Check Out Moving Mountains

> In Our Basket

🔎 What we loved and consumed this week:

From Rosalin in Manchester: I’ve been loving the teapigs Cold Brew Tea recently, specifically the Peach and Mango flavor. As someone who always lets their tea go cold, they’re a game changer - AND teapigs is a B Corp!
From Lexi (newly!) in San Diego, CA: My local natural grocery store, Lazy Acres, has an EnviroTokens program. Per their site, the program “rewards customers who make the sustainable choice to reuse bags and keep single-use items out of local landfills. When you shop at Lazy Acres and bring your own reusable bags, we give you a 10¢ Envirotoken per bag” to donate to a hand-selected local nonprofit.
From Laura in Laura in Manchester: I’ve been eating Tony’s Chocolonely Littl’Bits…I love what the company stands for and it removes a fraction of the guilt of snacking on chocolate while sitting at my desk. Their impact report is the one I keep going back to for inspiration.

That’s it for today!

Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.
Hungry for more? You’ll see us on Monday! That’s when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.

Much love,

Team FTF