(and What It Reveals About Their Operating Systems)
If you’re leading sustainability in a food or beverage company, you’ve probably noticed a shift in the last few years. Many of the sector’s most visible brands, from Tony’s Chocolonely to Ella’s Kitchen, have chosen to become certified B Corps. Certification serves as a framework for how companies structure decisions, manage performance, and verify results.
When I speak with clients about certification, their motivation is often reputation. And of course, the certification being widely recognised as a credible and independently verified standard helps leadership commit. It supports them in showing that their company’s values are real and that sustainability efforts go beyond reporting. But most of them don’t realise at first how much more they’re signing up for.
Once the process begins, they see that certification reshapes how the business operates. It clarifies responsibilities, exposes weak points in data flow, and often changes how decisions are made. In many ways, the reputation they wanted at the start becomes a by-product of a company that functions with more consistency and control.
How Certification Changes a Company’s Performance and Stability
Certified B Corps often report measurable improvements after completing the process, such as higher employee productivity, stronger sales compared with non-certified peers, and improved ability to attract and retain people, especially younger employees, who value the company’s social and environmental mission (Xiang et al. 2024).
At The Body Shop, for instance, in the certification preparation, the introduction of an open hiring policy led to a 60% drop in turnover. Savings from recruitment and background checks were reinvested in training and employee benefits. Other certified firms, such as those studied by TMI Consulting, described the process as improving recruitment. They found it easier to attract high-performing candidates and retain younger employees who value a company’s social and environmental purpose. (Finan, 2020)
Financially, certification also correlates with more stable structures. Studies show that certified purpose-driven companies tend to carry lower debt and demonstrate greater financial stability than their commercially focused counterparts (Moroz et al., 2018). This stability comes from clearer governance, a longer-term planning horizon, and a system that makes risk visible earlier.
Certification also brings a design discipline that standard management frameworks rarely provide. Where ISO standards focus on environmental management systems, the B Impact Assessment connects environmental performance directly to strategy (Attanasio et al., 2025). It helps leadership see how environmental choices affect cost, efficiency, and reputation, giving companies the structure to anticipate market shifts and respond to stakeholder expectations before they become risks.
Also, stakeholders can trace how resources are used and how the business creates value, reducing long-term operational and identity risk (Moroz & Gamble, 2021). That structure is what reduces long-term operational and identity risks, the same issues that often make sustainability difficult to manage once a company starts growing.
Taken together, these effects explain why more food and beverage brands are pursuing certification. They see it less as a management system that strengthens how their company runs.
Why So Many Food Brands Are Exploring B Corp Certification
Across Europe, food and beverage companies have been among the fastest to adopt B Corp certification. According to B Lab Europe, the sector now accounts for roughly 28% of all certified B Corps in 2025. The total number of certified companies across the EU has grown by more than 40% each year since 2020, being one of the strongest growth rates recorded among all industries (Asuene Blog, 2025).
That change embeds responsibility into governance. It makes sustainability part of how decisions are made, going beyond just how results are communicated.
The Regulatory Shift Behind the Momentum
Across Europe, new legislation is redefining what responsible business looks like. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Green Deal, and the ever-so-anticipated Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) might, or might not, turn sustainability into a legal expectation.
In 2025, we don’t yet know what will happen next, and that uncertainty represents a genuine business risk. From what we’re seeing at kindred consulting, the shift toward enforceable sustainability regulation is imminent.
Even if the EU does not decide to regulate responsible business action in this decade, these regulations may affect your business indirectly through international trade and supply-chain standards, as Asia begins aligning its regulatory environment that Europe was supposed to define. The result will be a tightening global framework that favours companies with verified systems already in place.
How Certification Aligns with Emerging Standards
Food and beverage companies that value both integrity and stability will need to demonstrate responsibility through measurable data, traceable decisions, and integrated governance. For mid-sized food and beverage companies, that alignment is an efficient way to future-proof compliance and build systems that can adapt as legislation evolves.
The new B Corp Standards, particularly the Environmental Stewardship & Circularity (ESC) topic, align directly with this anticipated regulatory direction. The framework reflects announced EU requirements on resource use, climate impact, and circularity, meaning that a certified B Corp already meets what might soon become mandatory (B Lab, 2025).
For many companies, that alignment is the reason behind the current momentum. Certification gives them the structure to operate confidently while the regulatory rules are still being written. And in a landscape where uncertainty itself has become a form of risk, that structure is starting to look less like an ethical choice and more like good governance.
What This Means for You
If you’re unsure where to begin, start with visibility. Every company already has fragments of a sustainability system, such as policies, metrics, supplier data, and perhaps a few board discussions. The challenge is seeing how those parts connect and whether they can stand up to verification.
That is what our B Corp Readiness Mapping Session is designed to reveal. In a one-hour working session, we look at how information travels between your business departments, where decisions are made, and how outcomes are reviewed.
The session will help you determine whether your company is ready to certify or whether it needs a bit more structure first. Most companies find that this exercise alone highlights the few changes that would make certification and compliance far easier to manage.
What Certification Actually Improves
Certification certainly adds new commitments, but they are rarely the ones your company might expect. Most are procedural and revolve around clearer ownership, regular review, and consistent data. Those adjustments create predictability. They give leadership a common view of progress and risk, and they make sustainability decisions easier to justify.
That is what B Corp ultimately delivers: a system that can be trusted to improve itself.
How kindred Works with Food and Beverage Companies
At kindred, I work with food and beverage companies that want a clear, credible structure suited to how their business already runs. We start by mapping how information moves through the company, who decides, and how accountability is shared.
From there, we build the processes and evidence needed for certification or recertification. The goal is always the same, to give you a system that works with the business, whether you are reporting to investors, preparing for an audit, or making sourcing decisions.
The Sustainability Systems Risk Review is a brief review that helps identify which parts of your system are stable and which need adjustment to keep decisions clear and reliable.
And if you’d like practical insight on building stronger sustainability systems, you can subscribe to our newsletter. It’s written for teams who want sustainability to work as part of daily management, strengthen control, and reduce risk across their operations.
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