Powering The Planet With Plants: A Q&A With Allplants

To celebrate B Corp month this March, we chat with, Jonathan Petrides, the founder of plant-based ready meal leaders allplants. allplants' mission is simple: to inspire the planet to eat more plants. They truly believe that if we can change the way we eat, we can change the world.

Tell us about allplants! What inspired you to launch the company and were there any obstacles you had to overcome?
At allplants, we make chef-prepared, nutritionally balanced, flash-frozen ready meals. Each meal is plant-based, celebrating plants in all their glory (without any nasties!) . Why? Because it’s our mission to make it easy and exciting for people to eat more plants.

We’ve now cooked and served over 6 million meals and won a sweep of Great Taste awards… wow, we’ve come a long way since our supper clubs back in 2016. The last 6 years have been a ride of a lifetime. The idea for allplants came after I watched the Netflix documentary, Cowspiracy, and started eating vegetarian food to impress my then-girlfriend, now wife. As a Greek Cypriot, who was raised on halloumi and souvlaki, the idea of having a vegan diet was a shock to my family, let alone starting a vegan company. I knew to do this, we’d have to show that plant-based food can be as tasty, if not tastier than meat or dairy, otherwise, no one will make the switch. Overcoming the preconception that eating plant-based means going without, and living abstinent like a monk, was what I was obsessed with showing you can have it all — healthy, righteous, AND delicious.

You say your 'meals save the planet by their very nature' - what do you mean by that?
Great question, this really fires me up, and it’s one of the super motivating reasons that all of us at allplants spring out of bed every morning. We truly believe that if we can change the way we eat, we can change the world, because, for every plant-based day you enjoy, you’ll help the planet, too. Eating a 100% plant-based diet can reduce your diet-related carbon footprint by up to 85%. But it’s not about perfection, in fact, even small changes make a HUGE difference. Did you know swapping to one plant-based day a week is a reduction of 10% and a further 10% for every day of the week you manage to cut out meat and dairy? 

Congratulations on your B Corp certification! Can you tell us a bit more about how you ‘go beyond’ with your social and environmental progress?
As my brother & I founded allplants, we knew we wanted the business to be a force for good, so started on our B Corp application straight away. We became accredited in 2018, with a score of 82.6 (just above the ‘pass’ threshold of 80), and kept the philosophy alive in the business, so when we recertified last year, we achieved 101.3. Moving from “Good” to “Outstanding'' which puts allplants in the top 0.1% of all UK food businesses.

One of the ways we go beyond is through our (Not At) School Dinner initiative. Throughout term time, children from low-income families around the UK have the opportunity to access free school meals. However, this access is stopped throughout school holidays — resulting in 2.3 million children being at risk of going hungry. The impact holiday hunger can impose on children and their families is undoubtedly going to continue to increase, with the continuation of the cost of living crisis. The (Not At) School Dinner scheme was launched last year, to provide nutritious meals to those who need them the most. So far we’ve donated 12,000 meals, but there’s still so much more to do. We’ll keep the campaign going until we no longer have to. 

What’s next?!
The entire model of our business is designed to make eating plant-based food as easy (and tasty!)  as possible. Last year we launched into some supermarkets, including Ocado & Planet Organic, so customers can pick allplants up as part of their weekly shop. This has gone down a storm, so you'll see us bringing the delights of natural plants in all their glory to freezers in more supermarkets near you very soon! What I'm most excited about is our recipe and product development, plant-based is THE frontier of culinary invention and there are so many new flavors we cannot wait to launch very soon… but I can’t say much about that, the team won’t be happy if I ruin the surprise, so you’ll have to follow us on social media to see the launch announcements.

What do you love about Wolf & Badger?

Everything! Wolf & Badger is a truly admirable company as the first B Corp-certified marketplace in the UK, making moves & disrupting the fashion & retail world, it’s awesome to see. Often when new trailblazing companies are founded, their first hurdle is ‘I’ve got this product, but how do I find my customers in an ever-competitive world’ and Wolf & Badger provides a platform to solve just that. They’ve created a home for independent, sustainable, and ethical brands to thrive, envisioning the future & working towards a fair retail space for everyone.