The world is in an odd spot right now. It’s been slowly drifting that way since 2008 (arguably quite a bit longer).
I never wanted to be a businessman. My life up to my late 20’s was spent pretending to be a dragon as a puppeteer or tutoring the children of wealthy London families. Entrepreneurship was something that people who had wealthy parents did. People who’d had an education.
When it dawned on me and Ilias to try and sell some of his olive oil I never expected that I’d now be writing blogs about it to help push the SEO of our website… But here we are.
Now, why did I just write out that nostalgia fuelled first paragraph? For the word count? Well, yes. Partly. But also, because I think now, more than ever, in the turmoil and uncertainty of the world, I want to try and be better. Not a “better” businessman selling a “better” product but just a couple of blokes who like food and who like nature and who want to try and make that a thing.
‘Better’ for us started with making our business closed loop and zero waste and it has culminated in the Regenerative Certification we so proudly share on our bottles and tubs. This was the right thing to do, not as a business but as human beings.
We certainly aren’t the first to say that we grow with regenerative principles. There are more and more “regenerative” businesses popping up all over the place from regenerative cheese to furniture.
Currently, regenerative is a vague term that you can use as you like. There is an argument (albeit a daft one) that all farming is regenerative: ‘Farmers sow the crops that grow each year, regenerating crops from the ploughed fields or bare trees.’
But there’s a lot more to it than that. In mine and Ilias’ minds, farming needs a complete rethink. A revitalisation, a regeneration if you will. That starts with transparency and it starts by giving regenerative practices the respect they deserve.
To us, regenerative farming is about restoring the land, soil and ecosystem to a place where it can continue to be self-sustaining. Traditional monoculture farming methods drain nutrients from the soil and leave little space for wildlife and essential pollinators like bees. It’s not a claim that adds to a value proposition on the side of a pack.
At the moment anyone with a few nettles in the corner of their field can make claim to regenerative cultivation. We sought out one of the only Regenerative Certificators in Europe and asked them to visit us again and again until we got everything right.
Eventually we did. And now we have a big shiny badge. It’s very nice.
But what’s nicer is knowing that our grove is going to be a safe haven for millions of insects, plants, wildlife. It’s our little corner of the world that IS under control and that has some certainty, if only for now. And that’s priceless. Or badgeless if you like.