At Coco, we’re committed to improving our environmental sustainability and having a positive impact on the communities in which our employees and customers live and work. We’ve made a commitment to be Net Zero by 2040.
The four pillars we focus on are: Our Partners, our Planet, our Plate, and our People.
Olio
From August 2023, we partnered up with Olio to eliminate food waste, where 95% off our unsold food items were picked up and shared amongst the local community. This includes hot food and fresh ingredients from our kitchens.
In the first 6 months, we have donated 8,023kg of edible food, fed 1,918 households and saved 18,465 meals. This doesn’t only help food waste, it also has a massive environmental impact equating to 33,447kg of CO2 emissions avoided, 5,793k l water saved and 113,718 car miles off the road. Our contribution is growing and we are very proud to be part of the food waste elimination movement.
The Felix Project
We are proud to have a long-standing partnership with The Felix Project, the UK food charity rescuing edible food waste & delivering it to vulnerable people suffering food poverty in London.
Here is how we support The Felix Project through a year-round partnership:
- We donate our surplus end of day food waste to The Felix Project
- Every year, at Christmas, we donate a percentage of every festive product sold across all our sites
- We plan volunteering days for all Coco di Mama employees
LGBTQ+
We’re also proud supporters of LGBTQ+ focused charities, like Not A Phase who are dedicated to awareness campaigning, social projects and funding new initiatives for the community. Last year, we donated 50p for all Good Carbs for Good Causes bundles sold between May and August 2023.
This year, we’re teaming up with the LGBTQ+ Community Centre, and we will be catering for some of their events across the summer months of 2024.
Responsible product sourcing
We’re committed to bringing our customers the best quality ingredients, as well as reducing environmental impact through responsible sourcing.
All of our suppliers have BRC accreditation or equivalent, to ensure the highest standards of food safety.
Local sourcing
The two main products (80% of our volume) we serve are coffee and pasta, both of which are sourced from within the UK to enable us to reduce our carboon footprint.
Our coffee is sourced and roasted locally in Hackney, London through Allpress. Our pasta and pasta sauces are also manufactured here in the UK on home turf.
Health
We’re passionate about delicious food and ensuring our menus can be enjoyed as part of a healthy, balanced diet.
We like to give our customers the choice of lighter options such as soups <250kcals, salads <300kcals, pasta <500kcals, and low-carb, high-protein dishes.
Planet-friendly choices
At Coco, we want to help everyone make informed planet-friendly choices. We have partnered with Food Steps to get into the full lifecycle assessment of our recipes and help you make informed choices about your next meal. You can now filter our menu and select dishes that have a very low or low carbon impact.
We’re very proud that over 50% of our menu choices are already Low or Very Low Carbon so you can eat guilt-free at Coco di Mama.
Animal welfare
We’re proud of our animal welfare programs and the journey we are on to improve animal care.
Consistent with our history of listening to customers and animal advocacy organisations and in addition to our own initiatives, Coco di Mama is committed to exclusively providing products that meet the standards set out in the Better Chicken Commitment/European Broiler Ask throughout our entire European Operations by 2026.
1. Comply with all EU animal welfare laws and regulations, regardless of the country of production.
2. Implement a maximum stocking density of 30kg/m2 or less. Thinning is discouraged and if practiced must be limited to one thin per flock.
3. Adopt breeds that demonstrate higher welfare outcomes: either the following breeds, Hubbard JA757, 787, 957, or 987, Rambler Ranger, Ranger Classic, and Ranger Gold, or others that meet the criteria of the RSPCA Broiler Breed Welfare Assessment Protocol.
4. Meet improved environmental standards including:
- At least 50 lux of light, including natural light.
- At least two metres of usable perch space, and two pecking substrates, per 1,000 birds.
- On air quality, at least the requirements of Annex 2.3 of the EU broiler directive, regardless of stocking density.
- No cages or multi-tier systems.
5. Adopt controlled atmospheric stunning using inert gas or multi-phase systems, or effective electrical stunning without live inversion.
6. Demonstrate compliance with the above standards via third-party auditing and annual public reporting on progress towards this commitment.
Coco di Mama remains committed to raising animal welfare standards, and is proud to be the first group (within Azzurri) in the UK and Europe to commit to bringing these important changes to fruition.
Award-winning
We’re proud to have won three QSR Media Awards for our Sustainability in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
They have given us these awards for our forward-thinking initiatives such as being the first high street brand to remove single-use plastic water bottles from our shelves, as well as our consistent approach to putting sustainability at the heart of what we do.
- Over 50% of our full menu is plant-based or vegetarian.
- Over 70% of our full menu is under 500kcals.
- Sustainable Sourcing is a big focus.
We are pro plant power!
We are delighted to offer a wide range of vegetarian and vegan options on our menu, all of which are helping to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions and water consumption compared to animal products. Over 50% of our full menu is vegetarian or plant-based.
We have become well known for the ‘UK’s first vegan bacon sandwich’.
No more plastic
We stock CANOwater to offer recycled, recyclable and sealable cans of spring water, as well as BottleUp, for reusable water bottles made entirely from sugarcane.
Reuse revolution
Reuse Revolution – 50p off with your own reusable drinks cup, free tap water refills in-store and reusable crockery for in-store customers.
We sell reusable coffee cups at not-for-profit prices and each purchase comes with a free coffee.
Pastraws
Since 2018, we’ve switched to Pasta Straws, which are completely compostable (and don’t taste of pasta, we promise) – helping to reduce 125,000 single-use plastic straws each year.
Holy cow, swapping is free
We don’t believe it should cost you any more to go plant-powered, so we’re one of the only food-to-go shops around to offer dairy-free alternatives in any menu dish at no extra cost to you.
So whether it’s for coffee, porridge or iced drinks, we’ve got you covered at Coco.
Our future plans
Continue to be a leader in vegan innovation to encourage more customers to go pro-plant power with tasty veggie and vegan meals.
La famiglia
People often refer to working at Coco like a large (lively) family.
We are a national living wage employer and offer generous employee benefits, including a free meals policy to all staff and employee assistance programmes. We offer flexible working contracts which suit our employees. Our strong training and development plan has meant that many of our general managers, operations managers and our Head of Operations have worked their way up through internal promotions within the company.
We are a very diverse company, with employees from across the globe, and a proud LGBTQ community. Our median gender pay gap across the Azzurri group is 0.1% which is way ahead of the industry average of 3.8%.