our advocacy promise
Advocacy at Ella's Kitchen
Since Ella’s Kitchen was founded in 2006, we made a promise that we would always be a business that puts the future of little ones first.
We believed then what we still know to be true today: everyone – whether business, politician, charity, or campaigner - has a collective responsibility to work together and solve the challenges that little ones face. From working to end child poverty + food insecurity, improving childhood nutrition to joining together to tackle the climate crisis - we all need to put little futures first.
That’s why we became a B-Corp in 2016, and it’s why we’ve made it our mission to help every little one grow up happy, healthy + never hungry.
But we can’t realise this goal alone, which is why we use advocacy.
Advocacy means using our voice and influence as the UK’s number one baby and kids’ food brand to call for positive change that will make the UK a better place for little ones to grow up. Since day one, we’ve worked with independent experts, charities, campaign groups and the public to ask government and politicians to put little ones first when making decisions about the country.
And it works. In 2016, we led a group of little ones to the Department for Health to deliver our ‘Greener Paper’, as part of our Veg for Victory campaign. The Greener Paper outlined evidence from a report published in partnership with the British Nutrition Foundation that called for a change in NHS Guidance to promote the importance of veg in weaning. And by working with the experts, we managed to get that guidance changed – helping millions of parents + carers get the right advice on weaning, and ultimately helping more little ones grow up happier and healthier.
It's also why we launched our sensory food play campaign, #Eat.Play.Love in 2022 – asking government to support early years educators to incorporate sensory food play, an educational tool that can help little ones learn to love whole fruits and vegetables, into the early years curriculum. By working with early years and food experts, and engaging the public, we were able to send over 5000 letters to every MP in the country, drawing attention to the evidence and putting sensory food play on the political agenda.
And its why we’ve launched our latest campaign #5ForTheUnder5s – to ask political parties to adopt five commitments that will put the under-5s at the heart of policy this general election (you can read more about that campaign here: https://www.ellaskitchen.co.uk....
We’re super proud of the work we do to be a voice for the under-5s, and we are unwavering in our belief that its only by working together – as businesses, experts, charities, campaign groups and the general public, that we will achieve real, lasting, and positive change for our country and our children.
Our Advocacy Promise
As a business it’s important that when we call for change, we’re doing it only for the right reasons. That’s why we created our Advocacy Promise – a set of rules that everyone at Ella’s Kitchen will always follow, and that we expect the people we work with to follow too.
- Advocate for good, not for profit. This is the biggie! We’ll only ever campaign for change that is in the best interest of every little one. This means we don’t just look out for little ones that enjoy our products, but instead we advocate for the needs of every little one in the UK. This could be on important issues like child poverty + food insecurity, climate change and, of course, helping little ones eat and access more fruit + veg.
- Be evidence led. Everything we advocate for will be led by evidence from experts – so we can be sure what we are calling for will really create positive change.
- We’ll be open and honest about what we’re calling for. All the evidence we use to inform our advocacy, and our reasons for calling for change, will be outlined clearly and easily accessible so that you have all the information you need to decide whether to support, or not!
- We’ll lead by example. We know we’re not perfect, and at times there is more that we can do to help the causes we’re campaigning for. That’s why we work with independent experts and amazing charity partners like the RSPB and Action for Children – we learn from them every day and often find ways that we can improve our own practices. We also invest in community schemes that support the things we’re calling for. For example, when we called for sensory food play to be introduced to early years settings, we also took our own sensory truck on the road to deliver FREE sensory food play lessons to little ones across the country. And when we asked Government to consider how they end child poverty, we made financial donations to Action for Children and stock donations to local food banks. At every turn, we’ll always try our best to lead by example.
- We're not political. We act for little ones, not political parties. This means that we don’t support any one political party, but we will work with all the major parties to help create positive change.