Sustainability@Soothys

How we see sustainability?

For Soothys sustainability means creating value for every stakeholder in the value chain. Our sustainability strategy starts from the farmer, environment, employees, community to the customer covering every stakeholder. We believe sustainability for companies need to be implemented with clear focus at every stage of the business. It becomes financially very difficult for small enterprises to commit to different sustainability initiatives but it’s a worth while effort to have it as part of its growth strategy. At Soothys sustainability has been on its strategy from day one with clear targets.

The following are the some of the key sustainability targets we have for 2024:

Collaborate with cocoa growers to improve cocoa produce for better income and recognition
Reduce its carbon foot print drastically through adoption of green energy for its operations
Implement zero wastage strategy
Create value for farmers, suppliers through making them close partners in our business
Create a healthy work environment for our employees to learn, perform and grow
Give back to the community to make it a better place to live
Diversity

Cocoa Farmers:

Soothys works with farmers of Andhra Pradesh to provide them better prices for their produce.
Soothys is creating farmer communities in areas to provide them training and know how of cocoa farming, world class fermentation, grading and drying practices.
Soothys intends to help new farmers to adopt cocoa cultivation with ease introducing new and high revenue variants of cocoa like Nacional and Porcelana.
By the end of 2026, Soothys will take Andhra Pradesh grown cocoa to world competitions bringing recognition and push for sustainable growth of this wonderful industry.
Soothys is currently investing in R&D to understand how each of the components of the cocoa fruit can be used for different purposes reducing wastage and increasing revenues for the farmers.

Reduce Carbon Footprint

By the end of 2024, all of our manufacturing facilities will be powered by solar energy reducing our carbon footprint. We would also be reducing our plastic usage to bare minimum implementing efficient recycling and waste management systems. All our transportation and delivery services will be managed through channels to reduce our carbon footprint using lean processes and electric vehicles. We have already moved to digital platform for most of paperwork requirements reducing the use of paper in our facilities. We also encourage our customers to return the packaging material used for the deliver of our products so that we reuse them.

Zero Waste Strategy

We will have zero wastage in our facilities utilizing every part of raw material we procure, process improvement on how we manufacture, how we deliver the products and waste management. Through efficient processes and tighter integration into our supply partners and farmers we will work towards reducing the waste to zero. We already have waste management process by working with the local municipality authorities to efficiently manager our waste through clear segregation of dry and wet wastage. Our Manufacturing processes are setup to cater to the dedicated requirements of our customers making sure we make fresh chocolate and confectionery on request reducing the inventory we hold to almost zero. We encourage our customers to return back the packaging material for reuse reducing the wastage at the customer end. This saves money for our customers through discount and helps us achieve our sustainability goals.

Creating value for our partners

We create value for every stakeholder in the value chain be it our suppliers or farmers or our customers. We procure our cocoa beans from farmers at a price more than the market price benefitting them financially. By the end of 2024 we would be sharing a part of profits with farmers to encourage them to grow cocoa and investing in adoption of best practices of cocoa farming.

Our procurement strategy will be to encourage budding businesses to become strong supply partners for us and other industries. We would be interested to work with women owned businesses by providing them opportunities to work with us. As strategy we will invest in interesting ideas which will be help our business and industry as such.

Employees

We believe employees are the pillars of the company which ensure the company performs consistently with the same quality. We invest in training our employees in latest technologies and methodologies in the chocolate making industries. We help our employees to chart out a clear growth plan for themselves to become successful professionals. Career growth is provided through training, transparent performance reviews and role progression initiatives. We are one of the few companies we recruit homemakers and train them in professional chocolate making methodologies giving them thorough knowledge of the industry. We maintain a transparent work environment where issues are discussed openly and solutions are applied as a team.

Give back to the community

Where ever we are we will create an impact for the community we are part of. We create opportunities for locals. We actively participate in the local activities contributing our efforts or financially. We would also be contributing to the growth of the community through education, employment opportunities, healthcare, sanitation etc. in the future.

Diversity

Diversity is an important topic at Soothys. Majority of our employees are women. We trust our employees to take the right decisions and when things go wrong we help them steer in the right direction as a team. We provide opportunities to potential employees with out seeing their religion, caste or creed or nationality. Growth opportunities are provided through transparent appraisal taking contributions of the employees to the company growth.

About Soothys?

Soothys is craft chocolate maker based out of Hyderabad, India. We bring the unique flavors of cocoa beans from Andhra Pradesh. We are known for creating confectionery with pure and natural ingredients. Soothys aspires to bring exceptional chocolate experience to its customers. Other than Artisanal chocolates Soothys also provides couverture chocolate products for fine baking industry.

you can reach us at: info@soothys.in