Sara Roberts - The Woman Dedicated to Changing the World
With a never-ending desire to practice and showcase her commitment to support others and bring impact, Sara Roberts brings forth a solution for preventive healthcare through Healthy Nibbles, an innovative initiative to provide healthy nutrition integrated with sustainability and social impact. Additionally, she is a global concept advisor for the International WELL Building Institute, Bcorp CEO ambassador, and an ambassador to Women’s Enterprise Scotland, where she spends her time offering her valuable advice, and wisdom through years of reputable experience.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START HEALTHY NIBBLES?
It was a combination of a few different things. The first one being around 10 years ago when my father was battling cancer. During the last few days of his life having spent every second I possibly could with him, there was an instance when I visited the vending machine in the hospital at 3 am.
As you can guess, there was nothing healthy available and the ironic thing was that the vending machine was right next to a poster talking about the dangers of diabetes and obesity. Having gone through that painful experience, I learnt that cancer and many other diseases are cause-and-effect illnesses.
Unfortunately, as a society, we are eating ourselves into these traps and increasing our overall risk with unhealthy and ultra-processed foods.
Further down the road once I had gotten back into the workplace, I found that environment to be fuelled by coffee and cake. The ability to perform at a higher level cannot be sustained on lack of sleep lack of good nutrition, and a small amount of exercise.
So, it was a combination of these experiences and realisations that brought forth the inception of Healthy Nibbles.
HOW FAR ALONG ARE YOU IN YOUR JOURNEY NOW?
We have been in business for 6 years now. In some respects, it feels like we are just getting started but at the same time, I am proud to say that together with my team, we have paved the way and built strong, solid foundations throughout the years.
This is my philosophy – to build your foundation and to take your time to focus on that. Unfortunately, being in such a fast-paced world, we sometimes get caught up in trying to be the best in the shortest amount of time that we forget to foster and identify our company culture, and what this could involve (such as sustainability and impact in my case); so, we took time to work on this.
We have launched a suite of services and products, and next year, we have even more exciting plans; so, in that regard, we are still in that product-launch phase. Additionally, we are about to go through our Series-A funding in the next few months.
CERTIFIED AS A B CORPORATION
CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING CERTIFIED AS A B CORPORATION. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS?
I wanted to ensure Healthy Nibbles made a true impact. Having lived in Africa for 10 years, I witnessed an unjust environment where extreme poverty and extreme wealth lived side by side. So, when I decided to come back home, I promised that my next business would create impact. It made me realise that true impact is made when you understand where you are, your sphere and power of influence.
So, when Healthy Nibbles came into existence, we wanted to align with the values of what B Corporations stood for. It was a tough certification to achieve because you have to provide detailed evidence of the business’ impact, identifying and analysing every detail.
Going through this experience made us truly appreciate how to measure our own influence, how we can encourage our supply chain to think about sustainability, and how we can use the tools and resources we have on hand to help our surrounding communities.
CHALLENGES
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES YOU FACED IN YOUR JOURNEY?
SMEs, at large, need to be careful to ensure we are not greenwashing our audience through our blogs or website content without backing it up. True transparency is the game-changer here.
Additionally, when it comes to our carbon emissions, we need to understand the overall reality of our situation. A lot of companies think we can offset our emissions with tree planting, but what we need to realise is that whilst tree planting is one way to save our environment, it will realistically take 20-30 years to actually counter those emissions.
There are a lot of challenges surrounding the meaning of net zero and how we can approach this concept and practice. Because of this, one of the roles we are recruiting for after the funding round is a sustainability and social impact officer.
This is not just because of the B Corp certification, but because of our commitment to sustainability and impact and being held accountable for our actions.
SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR STAKEHOLDERS
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST TAKE-AWAY? DO YOU HAVE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS OR SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR STAKEHOLDERS, INVESTORS, CUSTOMERS, SUPPLIERS AND ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS?
Unity is key; it is important to have your team on board. Knowing the importance of continual progression; a book close to our hearts is Atomic Habits, demonstrating the power of daily incremental changes.
At Healthy Nibbles, we have made it a point to understand what works for our business, knowing what areas of influence we have, and what type of impact we can make. We have a programme called “One Small Thing” where employees can take an hour away from the business each month in order to help somebody.
A lot of companies align support to a charity however at Healthy Nibbles, we encourage our employees to help someone in their social circle or a charity – something that is unique to them. Through this, we empower our employees and show them they have the power and influence to truly make an impact in someone’s life.
Ultimately it is about knowing your starting point, understanding your position, knowing your strengths and understanding your community.
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We have tremendous respect for Sara Roberts and her mission for preventive healthcare and wellbeing through her company. With her passion to create impact and her wisdom to understand her power to do so, we look forward to seeing Healthy Nibbles grow.