BFC are at the cutting edge of working for a more sustainable planet.

While our main focus is organic food and farming, we are campaigners and retailers of ethical and fair trade products as well as organic groceries. The company has what we term an organic supermarket with a Café, an expanding growing operation on 25 acres, from 2010, sited near Chew Magna, North Somerset All the produce is sold through our shop, our veg boxes and some restaurants. The shop has a strong local community following and provides a ones stop shop for those wishing to shop local, ethical and organic.

Business vision

The vision for BFC is:

to connect and enable people, and especially our local communities, to live sustainably in a more and more challenging world;

to share and celebrate our passion for food and community; and

to build a business which offers hope and solutions in ways that put people first.

Business aims

Five year Plan:
The Better Food Company continues to develop what we do now. We aim to expand to further sites if the opportunity arises and to build a brand for BFC which is tied into our mission statement. It is envisaged that BFC will become a retail-only company, with the farming and box scheme being taken over as part of a Community Farm project.

Business philosophies and beliefs

BFC believe it is vital that we use every opportunity to make connections with our food sources, to share our food with others and celebrate achievements and milestones.

In business, we work with our customers and suppliers as openly as possible, building long term relationships and commitment on a platform of trust and community.

Our staff are key to the success of the business and it's sense of community and spirit. We try to be fair open and inclusive, even if sometimes this means being tough.

Business mission

The Better Food Company exists to:

Make organic food available to all while being true to the needs of the farmer and the soil;

Provide a centre where food is at the heart of the community for celebration and unity;

Highlight the links between soil, plant, animal and man;

Provide everything possible to allow our customers to get what they need to live an environmentally friendly life, all in one journey;

Inform and include our children through our various schemes;

Campaign for a world where nobody is exploited, one in which we work in harmony with Nature and not against it;

Prove that being ethical is the best way to survive in this world.

Business Information

Date established:: 1992 as sole trader, 1998 as limited company
Contact details: Phil Haughton, Director phil.haughton@btinternet.com tel +44 (0)7967 396 894
Business structure Help Basic business structures under UK law include: sole trader, partnership, private company limited by shares, private company limited by guarantee, community interest company, public limited company, private unlimited company, and franchise.: Company limited by shares
Address of company headquarters: The Bristol Proving House, Sevier Street, Bristol, BS2 9LB
Countries of operations: UK
Countries where goods and/or services are sold: UK
Size of workforce: 48
Financial year Help The 12 months used as a company's accounting period. This may or may not be a calendar year.: 1st April to 31st March
Turnover (last financial year) Help Income that the business receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. Also known as total revenue, total sales or the top line.: GBP 1,600,000
Profit (last financial year) Help Gross profit is the total turnover minus cost of sales. Net profit is the turnover minus all expenses, including payroll and tax. Businesses are asked to state gross profit, net profit or both. This field can be left blank.: GBP 5,000
Details of owners: Phil Haughton 80%, Gerraldine Hill-Male (secretary) 10%. 6 Other small investors share the rest.
Directors' other business interests Help Businesses are asked to list other directorships held by their directors and company secretary: None.

Goods and Services

The Better Food Company is a provider of organically grown food products, including 2,500 grocery lines, and eco-friendly household goods, clothing, kitchenware, gifts and gardening tools. Having a total of 4,500 product lines under one roof makes them more easily accessible to consumers.

We provide a wholesale service, supplying restaurants, shops, other box schemes and Café.

For wholesale orders, we can be rather flexible and provide you with free delivery.

Within our large store we have a Café. This offers reasonably priced food, and organic fair trade coffee.

Fruit and vegetables are grown by the company at a site 10 miles from Bristol, close to Chew Magna, north Somerset, This new growing operation started in 2009 and will become a Community Farm, owned by its members, in 2010.

At the heart of our services we have a vegetable box scheme.

Business Responses

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Human Rights

In the areas of its proposed or current operations, does your company respect the human rights, land, culture and intellectual property of tribal and indigenous peoples?

Question developed with Survival International

Rationale for question

While a government holds primary responsibility for protecting and respecting the rights of its peoples, including tribal and indigenous populations, other institutions such as businesses, also bear responsibility.

International law, as set out in International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions 107 and 169, recognises the right of tribal and indigenous peoples to ownership of the lands that they have traditionally occupied and to the natural resources and intellectual property pertaining to those lands. However, in many countries, including those that have ratified one or both ILO Conventions, governments do not work to ensure that indigenous and tribal land rights are protected. Furthermore, tribal and indigenous peoples often find their other human rights, such as the right to take part in cultural life, consistently ignored or violated. Taken to its extreme, some tribal and indigenous peoples suffer forced displacement and subsequent confiscation of their land for commercial exploitation of natural resources, e.g. timber, oil, gold and diamonds. Even when indigenous populations are not expelled, they may still suffer as a result of environmental damage or by other social harm caused by commercial operations, potentially leading to the loss of their way of life. Acculturation generally leads to greater poverty, poorer health, more violence and disintegration of social life. In the case of isolated tribal people, contact with outsiders may to lead to devastatingly high death rates through the introduction of diseases to which they have no immunity. Operations on their land may also lead to violent conflicts with local people.

The United Nations (UN) makes the following recommendations to companies in its 'Commentary on the Norms on Transnational Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights' (Section E.10- Commentary c):

[Business enterprises] shall particularly respect the rights of indigenous peoples and similar communities to own, occupy, develop, control, protect and use their lands, other natural resources, and cultural and intellectual property. They shall also respect the principle of free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples and communities to be affected by their development projects...Further, they shall avoid endangering the health, environment, culture and institutions of indigenous peoples and communities in the context of projects, including road building in or near indigenous peoples and communities...

Any business operations that may affect tribal and indigenous peoples must take place in a transparent and consensual manner. Peoples affected should receive any appropriate compensation and/or profits, or otherwise benefit.

Finally, if the land concerned is occupied by isolated or 'uncontacted' tribal peoples, companies must respect that the land belongs to these people (who might chose to reject contact) and recognise that it should not be used for developments of any kind.

Defining Terms

In the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, 'tribal peoples' are peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations.

In the ILO Convention 169, 'indigenous peoples' are peoples in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present state boundaries and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.

Primary and Secondary answer requirements

ANSWERING YES

Companies must:

explain the impact of their operations on tribal and indigenous peoples;
describe any consultations and negotiations they have had with the communities; and
assess how their actions serve to uphold tribal and indigenous people's human rights, land, culture and intellectual property.

Companies may:

describe any measures they have taken to benefit tribal or indigenous peoples.

ANSWERING NO

Companies must:

explain the impact of their operations on tribal and indigenous peoples; and
explain why they do not or cannot answer YES to this question, listing the business reasons, any mitigating circumstances or other reasons that apply.

Companies may:

indicate any relevant practices and policies, even if they do not fully address the specifications for answering YES; and
mention any future intentions regarding this issue.

ANSWERING NOT APPLICABLE

Companies must:

confirm that they have no proposed or current operations that directly or indirectly affect tribal and indigenous peoples.

Companies may:

describe any relationship they have with tribal and indigenous peoples and the purpose it serves; and
describe any measures they have taken to benefit tribal and indigenous peoples.

DON'T KNOW is not a permissible answer to this question.

NO ANSWER YET is only permissible under extraordinary circumstances and then for only a limited period.

The Better Food Company

Not Applicable

The BFC is a local, community-focused business that does not operate with tribal or indigenous peoples.

However, it is our belief that, in so many ways, every one of us affects so many others around the world. Sustainability is at the heart of everything The Better Food Company is and does. If we do not respect and value all people, their history and their land then we are, likely as not, exploiting them. Exploitation is the opposite of sustainability.

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