An online grocery store in Singapore, Sasha’s Fine Foods, is best known for its ethically sourced and sustainable meats, seafood and organic produce that are free from nasties. But did you know that this ethical fine foods company is notably eco-friendly? In fact, Sasha’s Fine Foods is one of the first (if not, the first) in the country to have a carbon-neutral delivery fleet! Founder Sasha Conlan tells us more.
How is Sasha’s Fine Foods’ fleet carbon neutral?
We calculated the carbon footprint impact of the delivery fleet over the course of a year. We then invested in gold-standard carbon-offsetting global projects to remove the same amount of carbon. These projects are also helping to bring clean power and electricity to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them. In the future, the team plans to make the projects even more specific to Southeast Asia.
We’re doing two things with our carbon-reduction programme. Firstly, we’re reviewing every step in our supply chain to reduce our carbon footprint, especially with our international flights. Secondly, wherever possible we’re looking to offer customers the choice to shop local, whether that’s within Singapore, or just over the border in Malaysia.
What about New Zealand and Australia?
The team has managed to remove 90 percent of our carbon footprint from our New Zealand shipments. Previously, all our New Zealand products arrived via air freight. By introducing a slightly more complicated forecasting and ordering process, we’re now able to move all but 10 percent of products to sea freight (with no impact on quality). Using industry-standard calculators, built in part by our freight forwarders, we can calculate the carbon reduction over the course of a year.
We will take the learnings from the New Zealand carbon-reduction project and see what from Australia can be shipped by sea, again without any impact on quality. We hope to take a similar amount of carbon out of our supply chain.
Tell us more about Sasha’s Fine Food’s green efforts.
Before social distancing took place, we delivered in plastic crates. Our delivery team would bring the crates into the kitchen and unpack the items for our customers. Because of COVID, we’re now using 100 percent biodegradable delivery bags for the groceries. When social distancing restrictions are lifted, we will resume this personalised level of service.
While many forms for degradable plastics are not recyclable, the biodegradable bags we use are fully recyclable. They degrade when exposed to the elements like sunlight, heat, and micro-organisms. The degradation process doesn’t release methane or create microplastics either. For more information about Sasha’s Fine Foods’ eco-friendly efforts, check out sashasfinefoods.com/pages/our-eco-journey.
How do you choose your farmers and producers?
We ask new farmers and producers 50 questions specifically around trust and farm practices during our vetting process. If we’re not satisfied with the responses, then we don’t work with them; it’s as simple as that. This is followed up (when the borders reopen!) with me personally visiting the farms and talking to the farmers.
Our sustainable, ethical and traceable products are free from nasties. “Nasties” is an overarching term for a number of shortcuts or methods of unsustainable intensification in the food chain. This can include farmers injecting animals with antibiotics even when the animals aren’t ill, or adding growth hormones to speed things up. We only want to bring in pure food that doesn’t come with unknown risks or poor animal husbandry.
Shop the full range of ethical and sustainable meats, fresh veggies and more at online grocery store, sashasfinefoods.com.
Liked this story on Sasha’s Fine Foods’ carbon neutral efforts? Read more in our Dining pages!
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