What do you do at Able & Cole?
I’m now managing director, but I’ve been at Abel & Cole for 16 years this year, working my way up through the company; I started in the customer service team in 2006.
What are you most proud of?
I’ve championed us being people-focused – we introduced paid miscarriage leave last year. We’ve also introduced no-meeting week, meditation sessions for whole business, an in-house mind clinic and group mindfulness sessions. Tell us about any new initiatives this year.
We’ve launched the One Box: One Portion scheme that will see a portion of fruit or veg donated to charities helping with food poverty for every fruit and veg box sold. This will see over 1.43 million portions donated in 2022.
More from Small Business
Are you carbon neutral?
Currently we are but there is a road map to becoming carbon net zero by 2030. We have worked with environmental consultants Green Element on it. We are also developing a recycling services trial to ensure we recycle anything sent to a customer they cannot easily recycle, e.g. collecting flexible plastics (bread bags/ food seal bags).
What’s the background on Abel & Cole?
Abel & Cole was founded in 1988, with Keith Abel going door to door with bags of spuds explaining the difference between organic and non-organic. Nowadays there’s a whole lot more than just spuds on offer. We’ll also deliver a range of sustainable household staples, everything from cupboard essentials to skincare and cleaning products. Everything is sustainably sourced. Abel & Cole is now run by the family-owned food business William Jackson Food Group.