Client Spotlight: Belvoir Farm
About Belvoir Farm
From its 1980s origins as a family business in rural Leicestershire, Belvoir Farm has grown to become one of the UK’s best loved premium soft drink brands. Now employing an 80-strong team, Belvoir Farm produces a range of cordials, botanical sodas and non-alcoholic cocktails, bursting with natural flavours.
What hasn’t changed during the brand’s evolution is its deep connection to the land and to the local community. ‘Crafted with Nature’ is the heart of the company’s values. This is epitomised by the Elderflower Harvest, held each May and June, when the Belvoir team and loyal local pickers come together to harvest the elderflowers used in their trademark cordial.
The company’s mission is to make quality soft drinks, with natural ingredients, that are refreshingly delicious and reassuringly real. In 2022, Belvoir Farm received industry recognition of their success, winning The Grocer’s Soft Drinks Brand of the Year award.
But, like all the best businesses, Belvoir Farm refuse to stand still, wanting to do even more for people and planet. This year, as they celebrate the brand’s 40th birthday, they are determined to become B Corp certified.
Why B Corp?
Belvoir Farm’s owner, Peverel Manners, and the team, were thinking seriously about B Corp before they met Catherine at a 2023 Bread & Jam event. They’d seen many of the peers they admired certifying and recognised that B Corp was being mentioned more frequently by retail buyers.
They were confident there was a lot they were already doing well. Belvoir Farm pays the real living wage and invests time and effort in creating a motivated and committed workforce. In recent years, they’ve also significantly reduced their carbon emissions by installing solar panels on the roof of their factory and send zero waste to landfill.
But they wanted to have their sustainability credentials independently verified, and also learn where and how they could do better. With a long list of questions to ask, they invited Catherine to visit Belvoir Farm to talk B Corp.
With support from The Good Crowd
Catherine explains:
“It was great to see firsthand how the business operates, the progress they’ve already made and their genuine focus on sustainability.”
“Then in January 2024 we kicked-off Belvoir’s B Corp journey. I spent time with a small and really enthusiastic team, headed up by HR manager Caroline, guiding them through The Good Crowd’s Discover process. This entails answering around 200 questions on the B impact assessment, across five categories (governance, workers, community, environment and customers). “
“Having collated and analysed responses, in March we presented back Belvoir’s current impact score. This highlighted where they are doing well. It also identified opportunities to improve further and reach the 80-point threshold to certify as a B Corp.”
“Since then, we’ve worked together to develop an improvement action plan that is very much aligned to their mission and values. Actions have been divided up among the team and we’ll soon be starting to look at a B Corp communications plan with the marketing team.”
Lessons learnt on their B Corp journey so far
Caroline Knight, Belvoir’s B Corp lead, told us:
“We wanted to become a B Corp because we’ve always been a business that tries to do the right thing. Understanding what we’re doing well, and where we can do better, is part of our brand’s DNA.”
“Catherine has made our B Corp journey so far really positive. It’s such a rigorous and complicated assessment and we definitely needed her expertise to interpret the questions, lead the process and advise us on how to improve.”
“We’ve already learnt a lot, and now have a really solid plan to have an even bigger impact. It’s going to be challenging, but the whole team is committed, and Catherine will be supporting us every step of the way.”
Martin Reynolds, Environment lead for Belvoir Farm, adds:
“Working towards B Corp certification has helped us to reflect on the progress we’ve made. It’s also given us a clear structure to look at how we can do even more in the future.
“We’ve now got an exciting list of initiatives planned to further reduce our impact on the environment, from installing rainwater harvesting to reducing packaging.”
Watch this space as Belvoir Farm’s B Corp journey continues over the coming months. And, if you’d like to talk to us about how The Good Crowd can help your business, please do get in touch.