Sparking a chain reaction: how Ella’s Kitchen inspire their partners to B the change

The UK’s number one baby and toddler food brand are surveying their partners and suppliers using a tailored B Impact Assessment

B Lab UK
B Lab UK
Nov 7 · 6 min read

By Chris Jenkins, Sustainability Manager at Ella’s Kitchen

Chris Jenkins and Ella’s Kitchen CEO Mark Cuddigan at the 2017 Champions Retreat with B Lab founders, Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan and Andrew Kassoy

Ella’s Kitchen was founded by Ella’s Dad, Paul Lindley, in 2006 with a mission to improve children’s lives through developing healthy relationships with food. This has been our driving force since day one, and today it remains firmly at the heart of everything we do. Thirteen years on from Paul making squished smoothie fruits for his children at his kitchen table, we sell our organic food products in over 40 countries.

I joined Ella’s back in 2011 to work on The Good Stuff We Do because I wanted my work to make a positive difference in the world — and I haven’t been disappointed. My job is to continually ask — how can we increase our positive impact?

People are sometimes surprised to learn that we’re a small company; right now we have 79 employees. But we have a big value chain and — as the UK’s number 1 baby and toddler food brand — a big voice and we’ve realised that using our voice is one of the biggest ways we can increase our impact, particularly how we work with and influence our partners and suppliers across our value chain.

In 2016, we certified as a B Corporation. To become a ‘B Corp’ we had to go through a rigorous certification process which included completing the B Impact Assessment, a survey that looks at every aspect of your business's social and environmental performance.

We found the B Impact Assessment a really useful tool to measure and benchmark our own performance, it not only helped us see where we are doing really well but also where we needed to improve. So, we had an idea — wouldn’t it be great if we could get our partners and suppliers to complete it? As well as being a great way to measure the wider impact Ella’s are having, we believed it would also have a positive impact on our partners, as they, like Ella’s could review and benchmark their own organisation’s performance against others in their industry and sectors using the B Corp framework.

So last year we worked with B Lab (who run the B Corp certification) to create and launch a tailored version of the B Impact Assessment — which we named the Ella’s ‘B the Change survey’.

We developed and sent sector-specific versions of the survey to some of our key suppliers across our value chain, from our manufacturers to our logistics partners, to our marketing agencies. It includes questions on a whole range of issues — from their environmental management practices to employee benefits, to how they give back to society. We then tracked all their responses on a special dashboard and used the information and data provided by each partner to write a bespoke report card which highlighted areas where they’re doing well and opportunities where they could potentially improve their impact.

As well as giving us specific data, which we can use to measure our total impact, doing this has also had a positive impact on our partners and suppliers. We have received some amazing feedback from our partners about how Ella’s B the Change survey is being used within their organisations and influencing change.

What our partners say

“We found Ella’s B the Change survey really helpful and informative. As a direct result of taking part, we’ve become more aware of the impact we’re having as a business and have used the insights to make changes to our ethical trading, environmental and CSR policies. On top of this, we’re now also asking our interested parties to conform to our standards as part of our Business Management System. The survey gave us a chance to step back and consider our impact as a whole. Having reviewed our performance, we’re pleased to say that becoming a certified B Corp is something we’re committed to working towards” IT Service Partner

“We were already measuring some elements of our social and environmental impact, but Ella’s B the Change survey gave us the opportunity to see how we were performing across lots of different areas as well as benchmarking against manufacturers of a similar size, from our people to the community and the environment. As a result, we’re looking at both long and short-term improvements in the way we use renewable energy, how we work with local suppliers and how we report on our own impact.” Co-Manufacturing Partner

And it’s not just influencing behaviours, policies or strategies, some of our partners like our creative agency Havas London have gone further and become fully certified B Corps and others across our value chain are now on the journey.

Because of the successful trial, we are now rolling out our B the Change programme to nearly 40 of our partners and whilst we don’t expect every supplier to become a fully-fledged B Corp, we hope the Ella’s B the Change survey will get them thinking and doing business a little more like one. This could then have a massive impact on their organisation and the people who work there and help to make the world a better place.

Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop said: “If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.” And that’s very much the change we hope to have on our partners, even if we can influence just small changes across our value chain, we hope lots of these can add up to something big.

You can read about Ella’s Kitchen’s Good Stuff We Do on their website. If you’re interested in hearing more from Chris on how you can take a similar approach in your business, get in touch with him on LinkedIn.

Click to read Ella’s Kitchen 2018 social and environmental impact report

B Analytics is a platform for measuring, benchmarking and improving on your networks impact. Find out more here.


A first step for businesses interested in measuring their social and environmental impact is by using the free B Impact Assessment tool. Any company wishing to certify as a B Corp has its performance assessed by B Lab across all dimensions of its business. These companies are on a journey of continuous improvement to ensure business leverages its power to be a positive force in the world.


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Reinventing Business

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B Lab UK

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B Lab UK

Sharing stories about how B Corps are Reinventing Business

Reinventing Business

Sharing stories of how B Corps are reinventing business

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