At Food Lover’s Market, the Earth Lovers initiative is more than just a sustainability strategy; it is a journey and the core philosophy of how we conduct our daily business. This initiative represents Food Lover’s Market’s commitment to conscious capitalism and sustainability, built around five core pillars to positively impact the world, our people, and the communities we serve. Our goal is to become a truly values-driven, purpose–led business filled with exceptional people working daily to make things better for each other.
What are the 5 pillars of Earth Lovers?
Our Family
- Building a conscious leadership culture.
- Addressing inequality through business initiatives.
- Fostering unity, inspiration, and connection among colleagues.
- Empowering colleagues through our development ethos “Same Faces, Higher Places.”
- Love My Journey
Our Suppliers
- Growing suppliers and producers that align with company values.
- Expanding the range of fair trade, organic, free-range, and sustainably sourced products.
- Supporti
ng local social and environmental entrepreneurs through our ‘Seeds of Change’ supplier development program. - Ensuring loyalty to long-time suppliers and partners.
Our Customers
- Offering the best in fresh through a whole shopping experience.
- Ensuring value, quality, and choice in products.
- Creating a theatre of food shopping experience.
- Maintaining long-standing relationships with customers.
- Promoting health through the You First brand, ensuring access to high-quality health foods.
Our World
- Tackling environmental challenges through business operations.
- Prioritising sustainable seafood sourcing.
- Implementing energy-saving initiatives.
- Solar energy projects.
- Reducing waste in landfills and improving recycling opportunities.
- Engaging in projects like FLM x Y-Waste Compost to transform food waste into nutrient-rich soil.
- Striving to offer a plastic-free shopping experience as the first retailer to offer paper bags and paper straws in South Africa.
- Water-saving initiatives and reducing our carbon footprint
Our Communities
- The core focus is to assist in eradicating hunger through the power of our business. We do this through our year-round partnership with FoodForwardSA, and an annual month-long fundraising and awareness campaign during World Hunger Month.
- Supporting local child-centric organisations through feeding schemes and donations.
- Partnering with organisations like Sporting Chance to bring social change and life skills education
A word from Andrew Millson, Group HR and Sustainability Executive
“It is worth noting that we don’t see Earth Lovers as a sustainability strategy. It is quite simply the way we do business. It’s how we show up for work every single day, seven days a week.
It’s the way we treat our colleagues around us, it’s how we think about the planet, it’s how we enfold our retail arms around the communities we serve. Most importantly, it’s a philosophy about how we see ourselves in the world. It’s about using our influence as individuals, as teams as a business, to shine a light on the social and environmental challenges that we face in this incredible country that we call home, and then doing all we can to fix those challenges.”
Ultimately, its about falling in love with ourselves, each other and the planet so that we can reimagine a more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible.
Learn more about Earth Lovers
To learn more about our Earth Lovers initiatives, you can click on the pillars above. You can also read the Earth Lovers Sustainability Report 2023.
If you’d like to get involved or reach out to the team at Food Lover’s Market, you can reach us on earthlovers@fvc.co.za.
