Sameer Vaswani chats to podcast host Yiuwin Tsang about how running a successful confectionery manufacturing operation in Lagos, Nigeria led him to want to disrupt the chocolate industry and take on the big brands. B Corp certified Prodigy Snacks was born in 2018 with the mission to reinvent chocolate to be less damaging to our bodies, and to the environment. Join Sameer as he talks about learning leadership lessons, being planet conscious, and creating tasty, healthy, sustainable chocolate.
Sameer is the Co-founder of Prodigy Snacks. He originally started his career as a chef opening his first restaurant at the age of 25. Five years later, without any manufacturing experience, he relocated to West Africa to start a confectionery manufacturing business producing biscuits, candies, gums and chocolate. After twelve successful years, he sold the business to a multinational before moving back to London in 2016 to start Prodigy because he wanted to effect industry change.
Sameer continues to tackle the issues in the world of chocolate: health, sustainability, and ethics.
Sameer Vaswani chats to podcast host Yiuwin Tsang about how running a successful confectionery manufacturing operation in Lagos, Nigeria led him to want to disrupt the chocolate industry and take on the big brands. B Corp certified Prodigy Snacks was born in 2018 with the mission to reinvent chocolate to be less damaging to our bodies, and to the environment. Join Sameer as he talks about learning leadership lessons, being planet conscious, and creating tasty, healthy, sustainable chocolate.
Sameer is the Co-founder of Prodigy Snacks. He originally started his career as a chef opening his first restaurant at the age of 25. Five years later, without any manufacturing experience, he relocated to West Africa to start a confectionery manufacturing business producing biscuits, candies, gums and chocolate. After twelve successful years, he sold the business to a multinational before moving back to London in 2016 to start Prodigy because he wanted to effect industry change.
Sameer continues to tackle the issues in the world of chocolate: health, sustainability, and ethics.
I'm your host, Yiuwin Tsang. And I'm joined by our guest Sameer Vaswani. Sameer started his career as a chef opening his first restaurant at the age of 25. Five years later, without any manufacturing experience, he relocated to West Africa to start a confectionery manufacturing business, producing biscuits, candies, gums, and chocolate. After twelve successful years, he sold the business to a multinational before moving back to London in 2016, because he wanted to affect industry change. By this point in his life, he had his own kids and wanted to give them better choices. Seeing a gap in the chocolate market, he sought to disrupt the industry by taking on the big brands. Prodigy Snacks was therefore born in 2018 with the mission to reinvent chocolate to be less damaging to our bodies and to the environment. Sameer continues to tackle the issues in the world of chocolate: health, sustainability, and ethics. Sameer, I wanna start with your move to Lagos setting up a confectionery manufacturing business over there and that was back in 2002, which is twenty years ago. The world's quite different back then to how it is now. Why that particular area of the world? What were the circumstances behind your move there and what was your situation in life there?
Sameer Vaswani:Yeah, I was born in Nigeria. My father was actually, born in Hong Kong, raised in Hong Kong, but in the late sixties, he went off to Nigeria. That country had just recently become independent so he went down, set up a trading business over there, market stall kind thing, really humble beginnings. And yeah, I was born there in the early seventies. Left when I was a kid, went back to Hong Kong and grew up there. And then, you know, moved here for uni, set up a restaurant, became a chef, ran a restaurant for a few years. The restaurant didn't do well financially, so had to shut that down and found myself in a little bit of limbo and so decided to try Lagos. Went down there, had a look around, wanted to do something in food. At the time the government was very pro industry delivering a lot of incentives to people or companies who wanted to get into manufacturing. They wanted to build their manufacturing sort of base. So yeah, I had a look around, saw the importance really, and the popularity of the biscuit category and decided to set up a manufacturing operation that started out with biscuits. And yeah, that's how I ended up in sunny, Nigeria.
Yiuwin Tsang:Fantastic. I mean, that's quite a journey to take really from Hong Kong into London, having formative years at a university in London and then launching the restaurant and what was it that took you towards that food space. I was brought in a Chinese takeaway in a coal mining village and it's not an easy industry to get stuck into. It's certainly not as glamorous as you see on the TVs and things like this. There's some very long hours and there's some tight margins as well. So what drew you into the culinary industry in the first place?
Sameer Vaswani:You know, that's a really good question because I actually don't know myself. You know, as I said, we grew up in Hong Kong, as a teenager, there was all these legal dramas on, on TV, that drove me to wanna be a lawyer, so I studied law at university. But you know, my family were, I guess always foodies. My mom was a great cook. She used to have these little events at home where she would literally turn the apartment into a restaurant complete with tables, chairs, dining cloths and just churn out this amazing food and I guess that was part of it. When I used to come home from school age, sort of 12, 14, I would go straight to the kitchen, whip myself up a gourmet sandwich really and yeah, I just had a love of food from early childhood. And then yeah, when I came to London, got my degree, at that point also the restaurant industry in London was kind of mushrooming and blooming. I wanted to be part of the scene. You know, chefs were becoming these TV personalities. So that also influenced my desire to get into the world of cheffing and restauranting. So trained as a chef in a couple of hotels, worked in a really local thai restaurant back in Hong Kong, back in the day. Got my stripes as a chef, ran that restaurant, put it together. We ran it for about four or five years. It taught me a lot. It taught me about just having so many inputs to deliver one product, you know, in any one dish, you've got your protein, you've got your vegetable, you've got your sauce, you've got your seasoning, then, of course, I add on top of it, the drinks and bar operation, and the wine and spirits and glasses and ice and mixers, and so many different inputs that go into a restaurant and essentially, you know, delivering one output. So when I moved to Nigeria or let's be honest, when my father said, look, you gotta come down to Lagos and do something and make something of your life. I just said, look, I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to give it a shot, but it's got to be something creative. It's got to be something in food and at least give me that open area and I'll be happy to try something out. And that's how I ended up being in the food industry. From law to food.
Yiuwin Tsang:Fantastic. I think hearing you talk about it and talking about all the different component parts of running a restaurant, successful or not, you know, it's a world apart from cooking a gourmet sandwich in the kitchen, as you say, there's so many variables that you have to manage, you've gotta be across so many different things and the other part that comes out from your story is with any restaurant, big or small, there are human parts to this as well. You know, there's your front of house, there's your sous chefs. There's your, you know, waiters and waitresses and things like this. And there's this whole kind of mixer of things that you need to do as a chef, as a restauranter much like any business really isn't there so many different parts. So many founders out there that I'm sure that you've met across the businesses that you run, some of the investments that you might have made before as well, is this capability to spin these different plates to, you know, to coin another phrase in there, but to do it in such a way that you can still derive pleasure from it. That you can still enjoy it, I think is one of the key things. And again, from the story that you're telling me, it comes through to me. So let's move on to your time in Lagos then. What did you learn about running a business in Nigeria. What the key takeaways that you took from your experience over there?
Sameer Vaswani:Well, I got chucked into the deep end, literally parachuted into this bustling mad city that is Lagos so driven by commerce and trade and hustle, you know, and I just got my stripes, it was sink or swim really. And in the beginning, yeah, there were a few days where I did sink, but ultimately learn learned to swim I was 23 when I first opened the restaurant, and I just learned about, I dunno, I just learned about patience, perseverance and that was a real highway to maturity again, thrown in the deep end of how to lead a team or at least try to motivate a team and keep it all together. You know, the restaurant business is so much about discipline. You've got to show up every single day and produce the same dish over and over again, with the same ingredients in precisely the same fashion. A lot of discipline involved and trying to maintain that discipline amongst a team of young people, basically in their twenties. So that was a real shocker for me and looking back, ironically, that really put me in good stead for my journey in Lagos and Nigeria. I learned about being a better leader and also learning that being a leader is actually so much about human psychology rather than any sort of mega business or entrepreneurship skills. That was the biggest challenge I found was managing the team at the factory, keeping them motivated, learning what makes them tick, solving disputes. The amount of times I got into, he said, she said conversations and trying to decipher, you know, the truth and trying to figure out who's actually telling the truth and who's not exaggerating. These were all these fundamental skills learn how to scale a business, how to understand a P and L, how to interpret a balance sheet, learning about the concepts of EBITDA, you know, net profit, profit after tax, bank financing, working capital finance, and also being a fully self-sufficient business because when you run a business in a country like that you have to be completely independent. You you've got to be self-sufficient very little is outsourced. Of course, you buy your ingredients or you buy your raw materials from various suppliers, but from storage receiving those raw materials, planning, production, actual production itself, packaging again, finished good storage, marketing, distribution sales, down to managing the security guard at your gate., you know, everything is in house, dealing with the unions that was a huge challenge. Just trying to understand the psyche. There was this big fear when the workforce became unionised, but actually, you know what, it's not that, you know, bigger deal again. It's about human psychology, right? It's about treating your workforce fairly and they then have a voice and they come to you to say, well, this needs to change and that needs to change and actually a lot of the demands are perfectly reasonable. It's about keeping that communication channel open, and solving problems really. That was the one big thing that I are really left Nigeria with is crisis management and because every day, there was some kind of crisis. Power, for example, every business or every person or private home has to basically generate their own power. Government supplied electricity, of course it existed, but it would exist sometimes only five, six hours a day. The rest of the time you've got to have your own generator and generate your own power. So, yeah, very, very complex out there, but yet very exciting, and a real steep learning curve, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
Yiuwin Tsang:It sounds really exciting. I got anxious just listening to you talking about it. My knowledge of the Nigerian commerce and the economy over there is really limited, but I would imagine that the support that you get in the UK is significantly higher than what you get in Lagos in the sense that, you've got things like, you know, Chambers of Commerce, you've got, local authorities, you've got different grants and things like this. And as you say, stable and reliable power supply. In the UK, I think entrepreneurs, founders, we mustn't forget how privileged we are and how, you know, fortunate we are that we operate in an economy and in a country which supports businesses to grow and founders to work in this sort of way. And as you've highlighted in your story, just then it's not like that all around the world and one thing I wanted to explore a little bit more with you, how big did the operation in Nigeria get? How big did your factory get? Cause you touched a little bit there about culture and about this human connection with the different people that go in there and I just wanna go backwards to the way that you talked about when you are creating a dish or serving a dish in a restaurant. I often say when we're cooking dinner at home, she will like throw different ingredients in try different things and every time I'm just, no, just get a basic, get it so you can make it exactly the same. Doesn't matter if it tastes good or bad, just get it exactly the same. And then we'll change it after that. And that's my methodology. And you can do that in a kitchen. You can do that in a chef's kitchen to a degree. Applying the same principles on a scale, much larger in manufacturing is a challenge in itself and in order to achieve that, you need a good team, you need good people who will, you know, do what you ask of them and follow your lead on that. So I just wanted to touch back on that cultural bit. How big did your team get in the factory, in the business, over in Lagos?
Sameer Vaswani:So we started in 2002, we started with one manufacturing line producing biscuits. and you know we turned the industry on its head. And we created some really, really good products and created a household brand, so that business kind of mushroomed quite quickly. And we made a lot of mistakes, so no question about it. But ultimately we grew to, you know, we had three different production sites. It was a total of what I would say, 400,000 square feet worth of Production and ancillary space. We ended up with maybe over there it's a combination of, of expatriate workforce. Again, because of the lack I mean, classic kind of developing nation problems, right. Education, not brilliant. So therefore there's a lack of white collar skills. So we ended up importing, a lot of managers, I should say, the accountants, the finance people, the senior production managers, the quality control people, they were largely, expatriates. So we ended up with about 30 expatriates who were sort of middle to senior management level in terms of ancillary support staff doing factory products and stuff. I think we ended up with, with a close 1500 people...
Yiuwin Tsang:with 1500.
Sameer Vaswani:Yeah.
Yiuwin Tsang:That's pretty much, I mean, that must have made you, certainly locally, one of the larger employers in the area and that in itself, I find really inspiring, you know, in the sense that countries, governments all around the world. They look for entrepreneurs and founders who can create jobs, who can create wealth, who can help distribute that wealth. And again, it's great to hear that you've been able to find that balance between the white collar skills by importing that skill, as you say, and, but also still providing opportunities for local people as well. And what would you say were the differences, given your experiences of working around the world, what would you think were the differences in terms of way that you did business and how it affected local communities?
Sameer Vaswani:You know, very little engagement between the brand, and the consumer and the community. The distribution network and the wholesalers and the distributors, they were the key to being a success in that market. If you could get those guys to buy into your product give them a solid commercial return by distributing and wholesaling your product, then you had a successful product. Of course the consumer also had to like the product, uh, and the brand and so on. But in terms of engagement with the community, there was very little between brand or business and consumer. But to your point about employing in local communities, I mean, that's something that, you know, looking back, I thought, I think we did pretty well, we established ourselves in a particular industrial area, which had a lot of local residential communities. We interacted with them, you know, we provided training. We donated to local infrastructure projects. We helped with local schools. We used to invite local school children to come and look around our factories and provide them with education on the process and, and how products are made and just by the sheer volume of people we employed in the local district it was a great relationship between us and our local community, the products themselves as well. You know, I tell this story about. Before I set up the manufacturing business out there, biscuits. Uh, I'm sorry to have to say this, but, but locally produced biscuits were akin to a dog biscuit. I mean, they had been so cost engineered, and they were just 80% flour, very little fat content and very little nutritional value, low in calories because they were, you know, largely flour and for a low income community in Lagos or even across the country that just seemed absurd, right? You're trying to deliver a cheap food that is accessible to the masses, which was inherently such a popular product category. And yet, the biscuits being produced were like I say, void of any nutritional value, because everything was stuck in a particular price point. So, you know, a little bit of detail that the local currency in Nigeria is, is the Naira. Okay? And they had five Naira notes, uh, and then they had 10 Naira notes and there were no coins. There was no change. So if you wanted to buy something. The price point had to be either five or 10. And when we joined the industry biscuits were sold for five naira per packet. There was a 30 gram packet. There was no more than four or five biscuits in that pack and you had to buy it for five bucks. Uh, now that problem was entrenched for probably 15 years. And nobody was able to break that price barrier. You can imagine going from five to 10 is a hundred percent inflation, which, for basic commodity or a basic snack item like biscuits, I mean the consumers just wouldn't have accepted it. But no one thought about adding a bit of value and then increasing the price point. I mean, such a simple idea. So we came along and we said, you know what? We've got to break this pricepoint barrier rather than delivering these low quality cost engineered products. Let's add some value. Let's up the fat content. Let's up sugar. Let's give it some nutritional value, increase the calorie count, and also give more, instead of 30 grams, let's give 45 grams. And let's package it up nicely, make it look like a bit more of a premium product, and then we can justify charging 10 bucks for it. And that's exactly what we did. And we completely changed the industry and we broke that price barrier and gave the community an added value product. We then diversified into confectionery. We became the only local chocolate manufacturer in the entire West African region. I mean, I don't need to tell you that West Africa is famous for growing cacao but the average Nigerian kid had never tasted chocolate in their life. I mean, how absurd is that? The only chocolate available there was imported, your Snickers your Mars, your whatever. But even those were just not accessible to average, you know, Nigerian kid. So I was just like, this is bonkers and we, again, created this very, cost effective chocolate. I mean to be frank with you, it wasn't legally defined as chocolate because it was largely vegetable oils and sugar and cocoa powder, and a bit of vanilla and salt, a very simple product. It was liquid chocolate as it were. Again, because there's no cold distribution, so you know, 40 degree heat is your average temperature in a regular day in Nigeria. So cold distribution did not exist due to the power issues as well. You couldn't sell a molded chocolate cuz it would just melt. So we created this sort of liquid chocolate in a tube, sold it for again five bucks local currency to make it accessible and the average child would just tear open the tube, tuck it down and we brought chocolate to the nation really. And looking back again, those products packed with sugar, packed with palm oil, packed with not very good ingredients which is what has led me to do what I'm doing today. But at the time just changing the industry the way we did, I felt really, you know, engaged with our community and actually added value to the local community.
Yiuwin Tsang:I can hear it in the way that you're talking about it. You were twelve years out there, right. Twelve years running this and we both know that any business that employs local people, you know, it becomes part of that community or after twelve years in one way or another, be that in a, in a positive sense or in a negative sense and in a negative sense. And it wouldn't last twelve years, that's the long and the short of it, you know? So, again, it's speaks volumes to me in terms of this level of engagement. And also, it's really interesting to hear about how the local community actually helped shape the products and the product development directions that you went in the manufacturing when you diversified from biscuits into confectionery. 12 years is a long time to spend anywhere, how did you find the experience of running and growing a business in West Africa changed you, from that 23 year old, who's running a restaurant in London to successful manufacturing business who clearly broke some barriers whilst you're out there. How do you think it changed you over that time?
Sameer Vaswani:Changed me a lot. Like I said, I grew up a lot, made a ton of mistakes, learnt from those mistakes. There was some harrowing dark days because it's such a tough environment. The corruption was just a different level sometimes. And I'm not just talking commercial corruption, it's systemic over there. The police, the tax man, you know, local authority. I mean, that was the hardest thing for me. You know, I now fully understand why, for example, blackmail is a crime because the way it makes you feel as a human and the impact on your psyche, when you are threatened with that kind of you know, if you don't do this, I will do that. Those were some really dark times. But, you know it builds character, I guess. My dad used to say, if you can run a successful business in Nigeria, you can run a successful business anywhere in the world. And he was right. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but yeah and I learned about food processing. I learned about highly processed ingredients. I learned about E numbers. I learned about emulsifiers and, and chemicals. I visited sugar refineries, which was absolutely shocking for me. Um, flour mills, I learned about pollution from the industry, impact on the environment, the pollution of plastic disposal. I learned that plastic was made from fossil fuels and oil, which I never knew growing up. Every home or business, like I said, had to generate their own power and generators were all powered by diesel, right? Nigeria is famous for its oil and we used to have all these diesel generators, but Nigeria also had truckloads of natural gas, which is a much cleaner fuel, a much more efficient fuel and again, I quickly learned that and the infrastructure began to emerge of distribution of natural gas. And we were one of the first businesses to migrate from diesel powered generators to gas powered generators, which at the time people were like, are you nuts? I mean like the level of investment required in a gas generator versus a diesel generator was tenfold. But for me it was just a no brainer. Right? I mean, driving through Lagos, all you'd see is clouds of black smoke, you know, coming up into the atmosphere from all these diesel generators. And I was like, It's much more efficient. It's a cleaner fuel it's even more cost effective, but yes, okay. huge capital outlay at the beginning, but in the long run, the payback is a no brainer. So. again, we were the first SMEs to invest in gas generators out there, and the whole experience just changed my psyche. Right. It changed my psyche as a foodie. It changed my psyche as a parent. It shaped how I'd end up nurturing my kids and, and their nutrition, which is, a huge thing for me, right. Nutrition for kids and what we put into our bodies. And of course it just shaped all my business goals to what they are today
Yiuwin Tsang:Goodness and thank you very much for sharing that I would love to just unpack a little bit more. Some of it sounds like it was pretty harrowing in terms of the experience that you had, you know, with the corruption, I imagine with crime and things like that over there and I'm pretty sure your Dad was right if you can launch, run and grow a business in Nigeria then, and overcome the obstacles that are in your path in order to do so over there, you're well set for doing it anywhere around the world and again, it is quite interesting. A good mentor talked to me about a time that he spent working for a big software company internationally. And his job was to set up offices around the world for this software company and he said that the point that broke him was the point that he said I've had enough of this was when he was having to do deals with the Russian mafia in order to get office premises set up for this company. He said this isn't safe meeting people with briefcases full of money and things like this to try and make things happen. And so on that side, it sounds like that was quite an experience for you and then on the other side of it, the environmental impact side of it. Again, this is really, really interesting because again, it comes back to me about this point of us being quite privileged, where we are, we're lucky to have big open spaces and even in London and places like this, we don't have the visible smog that you see in Hong Kong and China and Indian places like that, that is really, right in your face just the damage that we are doing. At the time that you had in Nigeria, you were seeing this on a day to day basis, you did see this and that kind of impact, and that's helped shape what you do and how you do it as well. Was there anything, I mean, we talked a bit about that environmental impact side of things, you talked a little bit about the corruption and the difficulty from a, I guess from a administrative perspective of running a business over there and again It's hard enough running a business, as it is, let alone with the weight of difficult, let's say, legislation that might come over you, but what were the positive parts of your experience over in Nigeria? What were the things that you wish that perhaps you saw in West Africa that you wish were replicated or you could see in the UK?
Sameer Vaswani:One thing I'll say was the food and drug administration out there. The US FDA, for example, the equivalent of that in Nigeria was called NAFDAC and one thing they did super well albeit under-staffed, under-resourced and inundated with companies setting up brands and producing local food and beverage items was they had a really strong process of approving any product produced by a local manufacturer before you were allowed to sell that product into the market. You had to supply your documentation. You had to specify the ingredients that you were using. You had to provide all the documentations certificate of analysis around the ingredients that you were using and the packaging, you know, everything, and then NAFDAC would take samples of those products, inspect your manufacturing facility, make sure it was all done under clean and hygiene standards, that your workers were looked after, that they were provided uniforms, that they had the normal break times and so on and so forth. And then went through a four to six week lab testing process to make sure that those products were essentially fit for human consumption. Sometimes it was frustrating because obviously it took time and there were delays and it was quite bureaucratic. And you had to jump over the bureaucracy. But when I came back to London and set up my food business here, that was a stark surprise for me. When , in the UK, you can set up a product, you can start producing and that's it. You put it out into the market and job done. There's of course factories are regulated and factories have to undergo their, you know, whether it's BRC Certification or SaltAS Certification and all of that, but there's no vetting of ingredients as such. You know, we now live in a world of health and wellness and all kinds of new ingredients are being used in all kinds of products, but none of those ingredients have been vetted. There's been no process to look at those. Do they deliver what some brands promise that they deliver. Do they have the characteristics or nutritional value that some brands claim that they do? And that for me was a surprise that this highly regulated UK society that we all live in, how is it so easy to just produce a product and get it out there without any kind of government license authority, vetting process.
Yiuwin Tsang:That is interesting. Cause I didn't realise that because as you say, there's a lot of brands that go out there who make big claims, who make big promises with the ingredients and the impacts of their ingredients and I guess what you're saying there is that there's nothing currently which really tests the provenance of those claims that really from a consumer perspective gives us that reassurance really that these ingredients are what the manufacturers say there they are and do what they say that they do. That's really surprising
Sameer Vaswani:Yeah, there's trading standards, right? There's the organisations do exist that are designed, set up to police what food manufacturers and beverage manufacturers are doing, of course, but that is after the fact, right? When your product is in the market and you get I suppose big enough to attract some attention, then they'll come and check you out and vet your product. But by that time, you've already launched your product. It's already out in the market. Hundreds of thousands of people have already consumed it and that's a fundamental difference. You know, Nigeria, you could not sell your product until it was approved by the local food and drug authority. And you had a registration number that you needed to print on your packaging, and that was your stamp of approval. There would be regular checks every year. They would come back, check your facility, check your manufacturing facilities, everything still up to standard. Has anything changed? Have you changed ingredients in your product? Yes. Every year you would, get inspected and the regulation was there, but at least it was done at the beginning, right before you were able to launch a product into the market that would being consumed by humans and kids.
Yiuwin Tsang:So then that poses another challenge from your perspective, I guess, moving into, time and launching a product in the UK, this provenance was set in Nigeria from a consumer perspective and come from the market's perspective, your product wouldn't be on the shelf if it didn't contain the ingredients you say it contains, if it didn't do the things you say it does. So that in itself presents a problem. I guess when you were launching your product in the UK what can you do to underline the provenance to underline the benefits and to, I suppose, overcome a degree of cynicism or skepticism that might be present in the market because there isn't this official stamp to say that, you know, these ingredients are exactly as the manufacturers say they are during that initial phase. As you say, once you're established and you've got trading standards, you've got Sales Goods Act and all the rest of it, that kind of protect you as a consumer, but during the launch phase and this is I guess, where you see so many products that are coming onto the market that have that tiny bit of shelf space in your local super market, or they're just doing direct to consumer sales, whatever might be there, isn't that protection in place and as I say, from a founder's perspective consumers in the UK, I imagine are relatively sophisticated, they perhaps are more discerning. I think, typically British, maybe they are a little bit skeptical so you identified this difference between trading in Nigeria versus trading in the UK. I'm sure that there have been founders who perhaps take advantage of the fact that there is this lax, you know, legislation that's in place. But how did you approach that? What did you do with Prodigy in terms of building that trust with the consumer?
Sameer Vaswani:Well, this is it right? This is the whole fundamental premise behind the Prodigy business. I believe we're being very authentic and authenticity for us is key. So we list out, of course, all our ingredients and when we don't use anything that doesn't need to be there. We don't use refined sugar. We use other natural sugars like coconut sugar, superfood sweeteners, like lacuma and everything is there on our site, in our communications. Our supply chain is fully vetted. We have all the information from our suppliers to demonstrate that these are the ingredients, these are the nutritional values. This is the composition. We're fully plastic free. We use compostible materials. We publish the information on our website surrounding the compostible materials, where it comes from, how it should be disposed the fact that it does actually biodegrade. We have that information from our suppliers, child labor, for example, we all know that that's a burning issue in the cacao industry. It's predominant in Africa, unfortunately in all the cacao that emanates from the West African region, that's where the issue of child labour is most rampant. That's not to say that in South American cacao it completely does not exist. I'm sure it does exist, but I believe on a much lower and much reduced scale, so we just stay away from African cacao. You can do as much diligence as you want, but you're never gonna be a hundred percent certain that your cacao if it comes from Africa is free from child labour. To take the most amount of risk out of it. We just stayed away from African cacao and we were only focused on South American cacao, Peruvian and Dominican Republic. There are ingredients. We, we only use ingredients that need to be there. You know, chocolate or normal chocolate contains 50 to 60% refined sugar, and ingredients like palm oil ingredients, like glucose syrup, ingredients, like high fructose corn syrup, soya lecithins things like that. I mean, these are all designed to cost engineer, the product, which I don't disagree with. Right. I mean, commerce is commerce, business is business, and, and companies need to make profits. So I'm not against cost engineering, but when those ingredients have zero nutritional value and have a detrimental impact to our environment, why do they need to be there? Why does glucose need to exist in a chocolate product? I mean, it's got no place there it's adds no value, nutritional or otherwise. So what's the point of it being there. So we've stripped all of that out. The number one ingredient on our ingredient list is cacao butter, which is a genuine chocolate ingredient. So that's what you need to make chocolate.
Yiuwin Tsang:So it sounds like this whole thing about overcoming any kind of skepticism of the market for certainly for founders who are looking to launch a product in a market, in a space which doesn't have that kind of regulation in place, or certainly in the early stages of, then it sounds like this effort to be wholly transparent, but also making sure that the ingredients in the instance of fast moving consumer goods. So in ingredients that you use have got that level of provenance as well, and having that zero risk part is really interesting that you said about, using cacao from other parts of the world where there isn't the risk of having child labour production is minimised if not eradicated by using cacao from different regions. That is super, super interesting and certainly good advice there as well, in terms of that transparency in terms of living by your values, you know, not putting stuff in there and it's really nice to hear as well, that whole point around not just thinking the impact there has on the product or the damage that it does to the individuals from an ingredients perspective, but also the considerations about the production, the impact of production of including these ingredients, what kind of effect does it have on, on the planet?
Sameer Vaswani:Yeah, that's why we're plant based. It's all about the impact on our environment. We're certainly not, under the illusion that we have no carbon footprint, you've got to be basically, you know, living life in a heart to have absolute zero carbon footprint in life. So we're under no illusion that we do have a carbon footprint, but again, we offset it. We take measures to reduce our carbon footprint, you know, we're certified carbon neutral. We have worked with a very solid partner in achieving that certification and doing the, the analysis on what our existing carbon footprint is, which by the way, is, low anyway, because we are plastic free and because we use only plant based ingredients. And because we use British manufacturers, to close the loop on that one, if cacao was able to be produced in the UK, that would be amazing, but unfortunately it's not And some ingredients have to be imported internationally. And, and that's where some of our carbon footprint comes from. But we've taken the steps to be certified carbon neutral. We've taken the steps to offset whatever carbon footprint we have and yeah, that's really important to us and, as you say, we're looking to live by our values and stand by our values. Thanks so much Sameer from Prodigy Snacks. What an inspiring story. And so good to hear about the difference you are making in the world of chocolate. Now, I really fancy some chocolate now, and it also has to be plant-based and wrapped in non-plastic.