In 2017, married couple, James and Jo Hand, began working on GiKi Enterprise. This came after they realised that buying ethically sourced and sustainable products is an unnecessary hassle.
“We wanted to help people reduce the environmental impact of their food, whilst making it easy to find products that are healthier too,” says Jo. “We started our social enterprise because we believe that human impact on the planet is too great and we need to reduce it. We know many millions of people want to behave in a way that is not destructive to the environment and we want to help them do this.”
GiKi — which stands for ‘Get informed, Know your Impact’ — is a way for users to see exactly what impact their food has on the environment. Users need to download the app and scan the product’s barcode in order to see how their product ranks.
According to an article published by Forbes, the free mobile app ‘scores more than 280,000 products in supermarkets based on 13 areas: including carbon footprint, sustainable palm oil, responsible sourcing, organic, healthier options and recycling’.
Jo notes that the sustainability industry is a highly competitive one, however “after just over a year operating, [GiKi] has built the foundations to help people reduce their impact in a range of different ways, which are both empowering and liberating”.
By Jenna Cook
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