Ethical retailer of the week: Meridian Foods

Meridian Foods produces seeds and nuts spreads, sauces and oils, which are vegetarian, free from trans-fats, additives or preservatives and mostly organic.

The company, based in Corwen, Denbighshire, has been manufacturing organic and healthy food for almost 30 years.

It has a line of products made out from nuts and seeds, valuable source of cholesterol-free protein, B vitamins and energy. The company makes spreads, butters and bars with cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, as well as pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds coming from various countries.

It also produces pestos, sauces, oils, molasses and syrups and has proudly become palm-oil free from January 2013, as a way to stop contributing to deforestation and loss of habitats for primates in south-east Asia and Africa.

Darren Robinson, groups sales manager at Meridian said, “We’ve been producing nut butters at our factory in North Wales for over 30 years and although we’ve never been a big user of palm oil, we wanted to be the first to completely turn our back on this ingredient. Most of our lines are simply 100% nuts while other Meridian products contain very high percentages of nuts with just a pinch of sea salt.”

The company used to buy sustainable palm oil but later realised that consumers were more likely to choose products completely free from that ingredient, therefore decided to make its butters ‘primate-friendly’.

Meridian Foods also started supporting the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and adopted eight orphaned orang-utans, which had been displaced by palm oil plantations.

The company’s organic almond butter also won the Soil Association’s Organic Food Awards 2012.

www.meridianfoods.co.uk

Further reading:

Ethical retailer of the week: U- Konserve

Ethical retailer of the week: Ethical Pets

Ethical retailer of the week: Albert Bartlett

Ethical retailer of the week: Jāsön

Ethical retailer of the week: Pachamama Knitwear