Yorkshire Raw dog food manufacturer Naturaw has been awarded B-Corp certification.
The marque is an independent designation that shows a business is meeting high standards of verified performance across a number of criteria including governance, worker wellbeing, community support, environmental stewardship and creating value for customers.
Since 2006, more than 200,000 businesses worldwide have begun the B-Corp process with around 5,000 successfully certified to this date, 700 of which are in the UK. Naturaw has spent the last 18 months undergoing a rigorous audit from B-Lab, the nonprofit network that awards the certification, to ensure it meets the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.
Jess Warneken, who co-founded Naturaw in 2014, said: “With the greenwashing and marketing jargon commonplace today it can be difficult to work out the good from the bad, but B-Corp certification offers reassurance to the ever more conscious consumer that we aren’t full of hot air.
“The B-Corp audit really does look into everything with a fine tooth comb, from the British suppliers of our ingredients and the welfare standards they maintain, the sourcing and manufacture of our plastic-free packaging and the way we treat our staff, our customers and our community.”
Naturaw Director Chris Broadbent added: “Gaining this certification is not just a tick in a box, the process provides us with a clear roadmap for improvement around positive sustainable and social practices that we can implement to continually strive to be better.”
While naturaw claims to be the only raw pet food company in the world to be awarded the B-Corp certification to date, it is not the first in the UK pet care market as a whole.
Lily’s Kitchen achieved the status in 2015 and has retained the certification after its acquisition by Nestle Purina; Dutch organic pet food brand Yarrah, which set up a UK subsidiary earlier this year, has been a B-Corp brand since 2018; while natural pet food and treats company Scrumbles received its certification in 2019.
More recently, MPM, which owns the Applaws, Encore, Reveal, and Nature’s Calling brands, achieved B-Corp status last year; Edgard & Cooper became a B-Corp in March 2022; while the Professional Association of Canine Trainers (PACT) has also this year become the first animal welfare organisation to achieve Pending B-Corp status, an interim stage before full certification.
