NEW YORK — With consumer awareness about how companies interact with the environment, economy and community on the rise, achieving B Corp status is a tangible way for a company to demonstrate its long-term commitment to sustainability and social change to stakeholders, consumers and employees.
B Corp certification through B Lab, a third-party, nonprofit governing body, requires companies to actively engage in continuous improvement in every part of their business.
While the B Corp journey requires significant time and resources, the ROI can be realized in the continuous improvement embedded in the assessment and in the ability to spot opportunities for innovation.
“There is an opportunity in every question to think about how you do things,” said Charles Negaro Jr., CEO of New Haven, CT-based Chabaso Bakery, which earned B Corp certification in October 2022. “There are questions I’d never thought of, and there’s a period of self-reflection, which is hard. It’s about being up for the challenge to evolve or change how you do things for the better.”
Being willing and able to view every aspect of the company through a lens of continuous improvement can pay off when it comes time for recertification, which is required every three years. The assessment constantly evolves, meaning benchmarks a company met the first time around won’t necessarily get it recertified in the future.
“One of the things I love about B Lab is that they consistently think about what it means to be a B Corp,” added Laura Gross, VP of marketing for New York City-based Partake Foods, an allergy-friendly brand of cookies and baking mixes which earned B Corp status in January. “And I think that’s one of the reasons the certification deserves and commands respect,” she added. “B Lab constantly challenges even what they think is the way certification should be looked at.”
Innovative programs and process improvements resulting from certification can directly impact a bakery’s bottom line in unexpected ways, such as in workforce recruitment.
“Attracting high-quality talent has always been a challenge and is increasingly more so,” Negaro said. “[When you’re B Corp certified], you attract people who want to work hard to make a difference and build something. We see this as reinforcing the pitch for folks to join our company and make an impact in the world.”
B Corp certification can also open doors to new business partnerships, such as the one between Partake and Ben & Jerry’s that took place earlier this year.
“Because we had achieved B Corp certification and met all of Ben & Jerry’s criteria, we were able to partner together,” Gross said. “Then, in a really dynamic way, they helped us improve our own operational processes.”
That business deal highlights another B Corp benefit: access to a global community of like-minded companies.
“B Corp has helped us think about, in terms of goodness, ‘Are we actually as good of a company as we like to think we are?’” shared Reed Immer, director of sales and marketing at Chabaso. “Often, when you go through this rigorous assessment, you realize there’s some great stuff you’ve been doing, but there’s also a lot more work you can be doing.”
That’s the real definition of innovation.
This story has been adapted from the 2023 New Products Annual issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
