The mochi ice cream maker is emerging from a turbulent few years. But amid new leadership and operational changes, sustainability has remained at the heart of the B Corp. Sustainability chief Louisa Dodd argues that responsible sourcing should not be viewed as a ‘luxury’ but as a crucial part of creating a resilient supply chain.

For many businesses, an investment in making their operations more sustainable is an ambition that might be difficult to square with commercial reality. However, for Little Moons head of sustainability Louisa Dodd, they are becoming one and the same.

“The way we define impact is really important,” she says. “You can look at it through a social lens or an environmental lens. There can be really interesting niche projects, but actually you have to be quite choiceful about where you spend your energy.”

Dodd explains that while Little Moons has focused on ingredients that make up a significant share of its products, there are some initiatives which have progressed further than others. Its biggest example so far is mango.

Why mango became the starting point

Mango is the key ingredient in Little Moons’ bestselling Mango & Passionfruit Mochi Ice Cream. Last year, the company overhauled the way it buys the fruit, moving away from a chain of intermediaries to source directly from southern India.

Today, the mangoes come from a collective of 42 farmers working to the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) Silver standard. The framework independently assesses farms on issues ranging from soil management and pesticide use to worker welfare.

For Little Moons, the project also moves the business closer to one of its headline targets: sourcing 80 per cent of its ingredients by volume from farms meeting FSA Silver or an equivalent standard by 2030. The company says it has already reached 49 per cent.

Dodd, who has visited the farms herself, says the conversations with growers challenge assumptions about what sustainable farming means in practice.

“The farmers were saying it made them feel more resilient,” she says. “Reducing the amount of chemicals they use is often one of the most expensive parts of farming. They were also being trained to prune their crops properly, which improved yields.”

When asked whether sustainable farming, which often sees the growers get paid a premium, could be reflected in an increase price for Little Moons consumers, or result in lower profits for the brand, Dodd says the project also reflects what Little Moons calls its “triple bottom line” balancing commercial performance with benefits for people and the environment.

“It was good for our business because we had a more efficient and direct supply chain,” Dodd shares. “It was good for the farmers because they were being paid more and spending less on their farms. And it improved outcomes for people and the planet.”

Alongside sustainability benefits, the changes have also made things more efficient. By sourcing mango in large drums rather than smaller tubs, the business also reduced handling costs and, was able to simplify its logistics after internal taste tests showed the shipping on ambient fruit tasted better than transporting frozen.

The business has had its financial difficulties, reporting a pre-tax loss of £52.1m in 2024, which followed the closure of its Kettering factory and a costly manufacturing transition. Yet sustainability has never been an ‘expense’ Little Moons has been willing to cut. And for Dodd, that illustrates an important point.

“So far we have got countless examples of delivering a triple bottom line,” she says. “It hasn’t really cost money because we’ve spent years working with suppliers, finding efficiencies and making changes gradually.”

That does not mean every ingredient is straightforward. Different supply chains require different approaches, she notes. The mango project benefited from work previously carried out by Innocent Drinks, which had already helped the supplier introduce FSA standards. Other ingredients have required Little Moons to start almost from scratch.

Cocoa is a further example. The company sources its chocolate from Colombia through fellow B Corp Luker Chocolate and is now working to create what Dodd says will be the world’s first FSA-certified cocoa supply chain. Unlike Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance certification, which are strongly associated with cocoa production in West Africa, the FSA framework has not previously been applied to Colombian cocoa farms.

“It’s never been done before,” she says. “When people think about cocoa certifications, they think about Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance. But there are lots of places around the world growing cocoa. We should make sure they’re farming to good standards as well.”

The first audit has now been completed, with final certification results expected once assessments of participating farms have been confirmed in the coming weeks.

‘You can’t have easy wins indefinitely’

If mango has become Little Moons’ flagship sustainability story, sugar could prove to be the next test.

Earlier this summer, Dodd visited a sugar beet trial in Suffolk, where one of the company’s suppliers is comparing conventional farming with regenerative methods and integrated pest management. Three strips of land sit side by side, each managed differently, allowing researchers to measure everything from soil health and biodiversity to crop yields.

For Dodd, the visit reinforced that regenerative agriculture is about far more than carbon.

“We’ve been in a bit of a carbon tunnel vision,” she says. “Actually, we need to think more broadly about livelihoods, biodiversity and soil health.”

Interest in regenerative farming has grown rapidly across the food industry as businesses look beyond emissions targets alone. The approach centres on improving soil health through practices such as cover crops, reducing chemical inputs and encouraging biodiversity. While there is no single global definition, advocates argue healthier soils are better able to cope with drought and extreme weather, an increasingly pressing concern as climate change affects harvests around the world.

“The common challenge with regenerative farming is that it can reduce yields while you’re transitioning,” Dodd says. “But if we want farming that improves soil over time, that’s something every farmer can get behind.”

The visit also fits into Little Moons’ longer-term ambitions. Once it reaches its goal of sourcing 80 per cent of ingredients from farms meeting FSA Silver standards by 2030, Dodd expects the business to build on that foundation by working more closely with growers already meeting those standards to introduce regenerative practices.

Some supply chains, however, still have no recognised sustainability certification at all.

Mochi rice is one example. Mochi rice flour is central to the brand’s products, yet no sustainability certification currently exists for. Little Moons has spent the past two years working with growers in Thailand to establish one, verified by the Sustainable Rice Platform, with its first harvest now leaving port.

“We’re asking ourselves, ‘How do we start this from scratch?'” Dodd says.

The question of cost inevitably follows. Consumers often assume higher sustainability standards mean higher prices. Dodd argues the reality is more complicated.

In some cases, suppliers pay farmers a premium to adopt new farming methods. Those farmers, she says, often reduce their own costs by relying less on fertilisers and pesticides. Elsewhere, Little Moons has found savings by redesigning logistics, changing suppliers or buying ingredients in more efficient formats.

“So far, it hasn’t really cost money,” she says. “We’ve spent years working with suppliers, finding efficiencies and making changes gradually.”

That approach extends beyond ingredients. Rather than abandoning plastic packaging altogether, Little Moons has focused on using less of it. The business reduced the weight of its trays by around 10 per cent without affecting product performance and increased recycled content from 30 per cent to 80 per cent, cutting the packaging’s carbon footprint.

Dodd explains: “There’s a narrative that all plastic is bad. There’s still a lot we can do to improve the plastic we use.”

For Dodd, sustainability succeeds only when procurement teams and sustainability teams work towards the same goals. She credits the close relationship with Little Moons’ procurement function for avoiding the disconnect that often exists in large organisations, where buyers are rewarded solely for reducing costs.

“You have to deliver financial targets,” she says. “But you have to do that in conjunction with improving people and planet.”

That philosophy sits behind Little Moons’ support for the Better Business Act, a campaign calling for UK company law to place equal weight on shareholders, society and the environment.

“I think private business has a huge role to play,” Dodd says. “The default definition of what it means to be a business should be being purposeful.”

She is also realistic about how much remains to be done.

Little Moons still has work ahead to reduce energy use in its factory, move away from gas and increase the proportion of ingredients meeting its sustainable sourcing target. The company is preparing to recertify as a B Corp under tougher standards next year — a process that is expected to demand more than simply maintaining existing performance.

“There are many things we still need to do,” she says. “We’re certainly not perfect.”

For Dodd, that honesty matters as much as the milestones. Little Moons deliberately called its first sustainability publication an Impact Progress Report, rather than an impact report, because, she says, “we wanted to be transparent about where the gaps are.”

It is another sign that, for the frozen treat brand, sustainability isn’t a buzz-word or trend, but instead a slow, but determined operational change due to bring the best value and quality for its suppliers, products and consumers.

“We’re definitely progressing,” she says. “But we’re not perfect.”

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