A Letter from Leadership

Sir Kensington’s wasn’t founded on a social mission. We didn’t know much about business back in 2010 and, if we’re being honest, we just wanted to create a ketchup that tasted like real food. We did know, however, that we wanted to run a company that behaved in line with our values. But the more we learned about food and business, the more the inherent tension between these two worlds revealed itself.

Being a responsible business isn’t just about touting the convenient, feel-good halo of being a tasty natural foods brand. The world is in an increasingly urgent environmental crisis and capitalism’s effects continue to wreak havoc on vulnerable people and resources. As part of that same capitalist system, we know that Sir Kensington’s has an unavoidable effect on the world and people around us. And, as our business grows, our impact grows along with it. This is not a simple story of good versus evil, but one of fundamental paradox.

We began with a deep love of food and have now been on a ten-year journey that has solidified our belief that when business is done right, it has the power to change society for the better. Over the years, we have identified the two critical, interlocking components that now inform our company strategy:

On one hand, we have purpose, with a lowercase p, which addresses the question of utility – what is the value proposition of our products? Why does the world need another mayo on the shelf?

On the other hand, there’s Purpose, with a capital P, which is our existential reason for being, our acknowledgment of how the world is changing, and our responsibility for positive impact. It’s what drives us and what we want to leave behind.

One without the other is hollow. Only with both can we create something of lasting impact and value, for our eaters and the world. That’s why, at Sir Kensington’s, we’ve got an ambitious mission to reimagine ordinary and overlooked food with fearless integrity and charm. Sure, condiments have long been overlooked on the plate, but the people that serve as the backbone of the food system continue to be underserved and overworked. We have a role to play in leaving the world of food better than we found it – to us, that also means bringing integrity and charm to extraordinary and overlooked communities. In our home New York City community, we do this by creating economic opportunity through food.

That all sounds well and good, but why are we only now publishing our first official report? Candidly, it wasn’t until 2017 that we started looking earnestly into our key impact areas. We took the B Corp impact assessment and failed the first time. We worked really hard to make meaningful improvements to how we run our business and, in 2018, we became a Certified B Corp. This set-in motion our commitment to consistently incorporate social and environmental impact into our decision-making because we consider it important not only to society and our stakeholders, but also to the success and profitability of our business.

Enter 2020. Between a global pandemic, pivotal awakening to the realities of systemic racism, and a seemingly ceaseless flow of natural disasters, this was a year unlike any we’ve experienced while in business. 2020 tested our mission and our values, and put our commitments to our stakeholders in hyper-focus. We needed to prove to not only our eaters, but also ourselves that the impact work we’ve done wasn’t just an exercise, program or pat on the back. We know there are limits to what mayonnaise can do during times like this, but we also know we needed to step up to the plate from our place of economic privilege. 2020 made us consider what ways we could, as a condiments company, support our communities and those in the food system most vulnerable to the insecurity that the virus, systemic racism and natural disasters continue to cause and compound.

During the summer of 2020, we publicly announced our first-ever impact targets and took a critical first step in inviting speculation about our efforts. This Integrity Report is the natural next step forward. We’re excited to continue the dialogue with our stakeholders about our key focus areas, and the topics that still leave us completely dumb-founded on how to tackle.

2020 now marks both ten years since our founding and the baseline year for data that we will look to for year-over-year comparability. As you read on, you’ll see we already have some checks in the win column, as well as some humbling losses that are helping us to strengthen our efforts moving forward. Notably, we achieved our initial goal around team performance incentives, but fell short of our target for post-consumer recycled content in our fiber packaging. We also continued to work on values-led sourcing across our portfolio of ingredients, champion sustainable agriculture practices, transform our company around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) values, advance our B Corp assessment score, deepen our community partnerships, and much more. Who knew that when you picked up that jar of mayo, you’d be helping underwrite progress in the food industry? We certainly had no idea when we cooked up our first batch of ketchup.

We are incredibly proud of these things, and of how they set us apart, but we are under no illusions that what we’ve done is enough. We hope this report helps to address some of our biggest harms on the planet, signals that we’re not messing around, and shows we have the courage to publicly hold ourselves accountable for continuous improvement. We hope other companies that have been working behind-the-scenes on their sustainability efforts will be inspired to do so, too – even on the pieces that don’t feel all sunshine and roses.

Looking ahead, we know we’re going to face some challenges and we pledge to being open about those in the years to come. We hope you’ll come along for the ride and keep asking us the tough questions – heck, we’ll take a high five occasionally, too.

In the name of good food, good business and business that does good,

Shout Out to Our Stakeholders

We surveyed our key stakeholders – meaning our eaters, our team, our upstream suppliers and our impact partners – to see how they feel about our impact work.

This is the percentage of respondents that agreed with each statement.

Maintaining Our Eater-Focus

We engaged with our eaters through our Taste Buds community to gauge their general understanding of our impact strategy and figure out where we still need to add another dollop of education.

• 72% of eaters felt we have a ‘very strong’ impact strategy.
• ~25% of eater believed that, in general, companies’ impact strategies are just marketing.
• Eaters’ sentiment improved ~45%, on average, after reviewing our new impact website.

Highlighting Our Team

We believe our secret ingredient is people, and our team has an incredibly strong sense of who we are and our purpose for being.

• 95% of team members say impact is either sometimes or always a consideration in decision-making.
• 73% believe we are proactively managing our social and environmental performance.
• 100% are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with our impact work.

Getting To Know Our Upstream Suppliers

Even though we’re still a relatively small business, we have a pretty complex supply chain. In 2020, we engaged with our most significant suppliers, our co-packers, to inform this inaugural Integrity Report.

• 82% of co-packers are interested in strengthening how they manage social and environmental impacts.
• 87.5% said they at least sometimes research their social and environmental impacts.

Working With Our Impact Partners

We affectionately refer to our non-profit community partners – the amazing organizations through which we support underserved communities – as our Impact Partners.

• 100% say that strong values and an impact strategy is ‘very important’ in selecting a corporate partner.
• 100% were aware of our existing impact strategy.

Our Key Focus Areas

If you were to pluck most big food and beverage companies off the planet, the world might be a better place. We are determined to become a business that, if Sir Kensington’s ever ceased to exist, the opposite would be true. To do that, we started by systematically accounting for our key risks and opportunities, considering overlooked people and resources, and targeting opportunities to improve the system.

The result is a short-list of environmental, social and economic topics that help us stay focused on where we can drive the most change. This is not meant to be exhaustive like your mom’s packing lists and is meant to be reviewed and updated regularly.

Our Key Focus Areas:

We contribute to these impacts both directly and indirectly – and at multiple points across our value chain.

Growing

Genetically modified crops, caged hens, hidden sugars, exploitation of farmers and more have turned food into a super confusing, guilt-inducing, oddly-politicized minefield.

Our sourcing choices have a direct impact on the land where our ingredients are grown and harvested. While the spices, flavors (like seaweed and wine), and sweeteners we use pack a big punch on taste, we rely most on oil, eggs, and tomatoes to make our products great, and that’s where we can make the biggest difference. We pride ourselves on sourcing the highest quality, most humane, naturally-occurring ingredients possible, even when we don't get credit for it.

Ingredients a toddler can read

GMO Knock Out – Genetically modified ingredients have been on the no-no list since Sir Kensington’s very beginning, but we know there’s a pretty hot debate out there about GMOs. Our view is that we simply don’t know enough yet about how introducing foreign plant genetics could adversely affect farmers and ecosystems.

Eggcellent Choice My Friend – Because 100% of our eggs are Certified Humane® Free Range (and now Certified Organic, too!), our hens spend plenty of time outdoors so they can bask in the sun and feast their beaks on earth’s big bounty. Using a universal animal welfare standard means our hens are living their best lives, and more humane treatment of animals also leads to more dignified and safer jobs for farmers.

We’re Going Organic (or We’re Going Home) – In 2020, we set a goal to double our volume of organic ingredients and get to 31% by 2023. We didn’t know how we would get there and, if we’re being honest, we still don’t completely know.

Good Fat is Back in Business – We use a surprisingly large amount of oil in our product formulations, but we use 100% un-blended oil that has higher levels of monounsaturated fatty acid (aka one of the “good” fats).

What to Know Before Picking Up our Avocado Oil Mayo – Avocado oil is one of our highest risk ingredients because of the known human rights and deforestation risks in the Mexican State of Michoacán where fresh avocados are sourced. To be frank, we don’t know that these things are happening in our supply chain specifically, but we don’t like that we can’t be sure they’re not happening.

Making

If we don’t think we can make something better, we don’t make it at all.

To make a good product, we need a kick-ass team of product developers, researchers, and innovators to come up with recipes that bring our ingredients to life. Our supply chain partners then take that special sauce and turn it into actual Special Sauce. We think hard about who we choose to partner with and consider not only the impact our team has at HQ, but also the impacts stemming from where our products are made and how they’re packaged.

We’re people people

Our team is what makes what we make special, but we are far from our goals in representation on the team and in leadership.

• 36% of team members are from historically underrepresented groups.
• 67% of team members identify as women.
• 50% of team members are younger than 30 or older than 50.
• 17% of team members identify as Black, Indigenous, or Persons of Color (BIPOC).

Our Carbon Footprint

The vast majority of our emissions are Scope 3 and out of our direct control. Imagine ordering a juicy burger on a sesame seed bun and only getting one single sesame seed…that’s what would happen if we only reported Scope 1 and Scope 2.

Our Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Practice – We view DEI as the most material aspect of our social and economic performance. We know there’s a lot we all have to learn, and we’re doing our homework – from Lunch and Learns, to a survey on belonging, to a structured hiring rubric, to employee DEI sub-teams, to tracking diversity among our suppliers.

Stewardship in our office…and in areas we can’t control – We do our best to walk the sustainability talk at our headquarters, but the space within our four walls accounts for very little of our total energy, carbon and water footprint. We have a long way to go to fully understand our Scope 3 emissions, but in 2020, we took a first step by assessing our co-packers’ footprints.

We’re picky about packaging – We think long and hard about the materials we use, how we use them, and what will happen to them once they’re no longer needed. The hard reality is that every material has its pros and cons. Whether you’re looking at glass, cardboard, aluminum, or plastic, there’s no such thing as perfect packaging.

If you can’t reuse, recycle – Sourcing recycled content, particularly post-consumer recycled (PCR) content, is an important part of our packaging strategy and, in 2020, we set two PCR-related packaging targets.

The Facts and The Fun Side – Our packaging is what people see the most and the labels we put on our jars and bottles is how we connect with our eaters most directly. All those certifications we’ve talked about live and breathe on the labels you see, from how a product was sourced to how it should be disposed.

Sharing

We believe we have a responsibility to bring integrity and charm to these extraordinary and overlooked communities by creating economic opportunity through food.

To us, this means sharing the wealth to defend the dignity of food and the jobs that enable it: through community volunteerism and philanthropic giving, through investment in our team’s benefits and professional development, through compensation for typically-overlooked culinary enthusiasts, and through sourcing with business partners that share our mission of a just, sustainable food system.

Our Giving Budget

As a small and growing company, reserving a fixed charitable giving budget year-over-year is challenging, so our giving percentage changes year-to-year.

NYC’s Extraordinary and Overlooked – We’re honored to work with non-profits who share our mission to lift up the New York City-area food community and better the lives of the most disadvantaged communities in our own city and for those in rural areas where we source and produce our products.

We Show Up for Our Neighbors – We use our time and dollars, as well as our platform, to bring our trademark integrity and charm to marginalized groups in NYC’s food system, including women of low socioeconomic status, refugees, low-income and POC of youth and from underserved communities.

Cultural Appreciation through Culinary Adventure – Inspired by NYC’s diverse food scene, our Everything Sauces seek to honor the distinct culinary cultures that have changed the way our city thinks about food. But, we know this is tricky territory for us to wander into.

A Culture That Cares – When people are supported and provided opportunities for development, the magic they can cook up is endless. That’s why we have learning budgets for forward-thinking educational programs; offer generous vacation, parental leave, and benefits; and do our best to provide the necessary tools to make sure the whole team feels supported through the pandemic.

Where Impact Is Everyone’s Job – Each and every Sir Kensington’s team member was held accountable for helping us manage our social and environmental impact over the course of the past year.