Your Frequently Asked Questions About the Food Made Good Standard

People care more than ever about sustainability. As a credible third-party certification, the Food Made Good Standard signals to your staff, suppliers and customers that yours is a progressive business, where doing the right thing for people and for the planet lies at the core of operations. This can boost brand reputation, increase customer loyalty and ease recruitment and retention challenges.  

And that’s not all. The Food Made Good Standard provides a tailored report to support your business in taking further steps forward on your sustainability journey. This gives you a ready-made action plan for embedding positive changes into your operations, building a thriving, future-fit business in the process.  

As you continue to work on your sustainability, you’re likely to see a positive impact on that all-important bottom line. Sustainable practices can help your business reduce costs through initiatives such as energy and water efficiency and by reducing food waste. At the same time, you can see increased revenue as more customers choose a brand they can trust to do the right thing. 

Achieving the Standard also gives you access to a valuable network and makes you part of a global movement for change. As part of the Food Made Good community, you can share, learn and collaborate with a network of like-minded professionals committed to creating a positive future. This includes access to new resources, toolkits and events – all developed to support the businesses with whom we work. 

You can read more about the business benefits of the Food Made Good Standard here. 

2. MY BUSINESS IS ALREADY SUPER SUSTAINABLE – WHY SHOULD I BOTHER TO GET CERTIFIED? 

We always say that sustainability is a journey, not a destination. There is always room to improve, always another step you can take to ensure that your business is better today than it was yesterday – for both people and planet – and better again tomorrow. The Standard is designed to encourage and support this culture of continuous improvement, helping even the most sustainable businesses to keep innovating and evolving. 

Furthermore, making unverified sustainability claims is trickier than ever. Today’s business environment is a minefield of potential greenwashing accusations, so having a credible, respected third-party accreditation that is based on transparent, measurable criteria allows you to share your progress with confidence – and provides you with a valuable marketing hook in the process. 

The Food Made Good Standard is available and applicable worldwide and is suitable for any type of hospitality business from high street to high end, including restaurants, hotels, inns, pubs, bars, catering companies and cafés. If you serve food, then Food Made Good is for you! 

That said, you do need to have been in operation for at least 12 months to be assessed. For newly opened businesses, we can offer a provisional Standard based on however many months you have been in operation, but we will require you to resubmit after 12 months. If you have yet to start trading, we can help you integrate sustainability into your whole business from the very beginning – see our Projects page for more information. 

4. WHAT DOES IT COST TO TAKE THE FOOD MADE GOOD STANDARD? 

To make sure that organisations of every size have access to the Standard, fees are on a scale and based on the annual sales figures of your business. Certification fees are paid annually, and are calculated based on your company’s total revenue shown on the most recent set of audited accounts. You can find a complete list of the pricing details here. Companies with more than £50 million in annual revenue should contact us directly for pricing information; if this applies to you, please email Will at will@thesra.org. 

5. HOW IS THE FOOD MADE GOOD STANDARD STRUCTURED?  

The assessment itself is divided into 12 sections, of which 10 contribute to your final rating. The ‘About Your Business’ and ‘Supplier Assurance’ sections do not score any points, but rather provide key data and context that allow us to better understand your operations and the answers you’ve supplied.    

The 10 impact areas in which points are assigned are divided into three pillars: Sourcing, Society and Environment. Below, you can see their associated contribution to your final score. 

Sourcing (40%) 

Society (30%) 

Environment (30%)  

The Standard is currently available for use in English, Spanish, Japanese and Traditional Chinese. We have plans to add more languages down the line, so watch this space! 

7. WHAT DOES THE PROCESS OF TAKING THE FOOD MADE GOOD STANDARD ENTAIL? 

The first step is to create an account for you and your business. We also take payment at this initial stage. Once we’ve kicked things off, you’ll work your way through the online question set at your own pace, uploading evidence where required. You can also divide the workload and delegate questions to relevant team members. (If you have any questions or need a helping hand, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team!) 

The Standard: 

There is no limit to the number of times you can modify your un-submitted assessment. This allows you to use the questionnaire to see what your likely impact and score will be, without having to undergo the full evaluation process. 

As soon as you submit your assessment, our evaluators will get to work. We’ll review your submission, checking the evidence and flagging any queries or additional information that we may need. Once you’ve fed back on our comments, answered our questions and provided further evidence where needed, we’ll do a final check and then issue your final report.  

This report includes your official score, as well as a personalised action plan outlining where you can go from here. If you've scored 50% or higher, you've achieved the Food Made Good Standard and are now an accredited business – so you'll also be awarded a logo with the number of stars you have achieved. Our Marketing & Communications team will be in touch within the next couple of weeks to explore how we can help you to spread the word! 

We deliberately designed the Food Made Good Standard to allow for the wide variations among hospitality businesses; for example, the platform includes tailored versions of the question set, so that a restaurant will be given different questions than a catering company. We also understand that managing a small business is very different from running a large-scale operation with multiple sites. Our assessment requirements adapt depending on the scale of your business, with more questions asked of larger organisations. 

Absolutely. The Food Made Good Standard is an invaluable tool for developing your sustainability strategy, measuring where you stand currently and providing expert feedback and strategic direction. Undertaking the Standard is an accomplishment in itself and already demonstrates a laudable commitment to building a more sustainable operation – plus, with the guidance provided by our team of consultants, you’ll be well on your way to earning a higher score in your next submission. 

10. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO COMPLETE THE FOOD MADE GOOD STANDARD?   

For the average restaurant, completing the Food Made Good Standard for the first time is a six-month process. With additional support from our team (in the form of our Supported and Facilitated Packages), it is completed within 16 weeks. Subsequent submissions take significantly less time, as much of your information is already pre-loaded into the platform. 

Yes, of course! You can create numerous users to make completing the Food Made Good assessment more manageable. You can also you can assign a person to a specific question, as long as they’re already a registered user on the platform. 

12. WHAT KIND OF EVIDENCE IS REQUIRED? 

Many of the questions through the assessment ask for required or optional evidence – things like written policies, third-party certifications, invoices and menus.

While not required to be able to submit, supplying the optional evidence is highly recommended. Providing as much relevant and verifiable evidence as you can will make a difference to your final score.

Our team of Sustainability Consultants takes care of all of our Food Made Good submissions. We have a personal and professional understanding of the nuances of the hospitality industry and we know that one size does not fit all; our evaluations add a human viewpoint to the results provided by the Standard tool itself. 

Once you’ve completed the Food Made Good assessment, your certificate is valid for two years, including continued subscription to the Food Made Good platform as well as access to our network, resources, events and more. Since it takes approximately six months to complete an assessment, we recommend starting your second assessment around 18 months after you receive your first certification to maintain a valid Standard on a continual basis.  

Absolutely! Our Marketing & Comms team is ready to help you craft meaningful communications about your achievement. From creative and collaborative social media content to support with copy and quotes for your website, newsletters and/or press releases, we can make sure that your customers, staff and stakeholders understand the value of this accomplishment and your commitment to sustainability moving forward. 

What are you waiting for? Sign up to the Food Made Good Standard here! Still have questions? We can help – just drop Will a line at will@thesra.org.