About Planet Organic

We believe in health for our communities: our community of customers, the local neighbourhoods surrounding our stores, the teams who work in our stores and the people behind the products that sit on our shelves. A healthy planet is just as high up on our priorities list.

To us, health means providing organic, natural and sustainable products that you can trust, advice and guidance from trained experts, and acting sustainably and ethically as a business. 

Our mission

At Planet Organic, we strive to be more than just a shop. We want to do more for our customers, neighbourhoods, employees, suppliers and the planet than simply buying and selling products. We believe in promoting health in our communities through organic, natural and sustainable products, and acting sustainably and ethically as a business.   

We care deeply about the communities we are a part of. Our goal is to promote health within our communities and to be ethical in our treatment of both people and the planet.   Being part of a community also means being part of conversations, listening and using the views of those we serve to improve what we do.

Healthy planet 

Organic

So why organic and natural? Put simply, we believe organic is the most sustainable way to farm and we believe organic, natural food and products are the best for our health.

When we opened in 1995, we were the first shop to be certified by the Soil Association and we continue to work closely with them to certify that our fresh produce, our Planet Organic brand products, all of the food cooked in our kitchens, our juices, smoothies and coffees made in store are organic and natural. The Soil Association also helped us develop the training our new starters complete when they join the business.

Organic agriculture boils down to respecting our soil – the resource we cannot feed ourselves without. The goal of organic agriculture is not to produce more. The goal is to improve soil health, produce more nutritious food, increase biodiversity, protect wildlife and steer clear of the harmful pesticides that undermine these goals.

Sustainable

We recognise that there’s always work to do on the journey to becoming more sustainable and are constantly looking for more innovative, greener ways to do things. We’ve made some significant changes over the years too, which we’re proud of.

We became the first zero edible food waste business in 2018 by redistributing leftover food to the community through Olio and Too Good To Go. Any food waste that’s inedible is composted and used by regenerative agriculture farms around London.

In 2014, we launched our Unpackaged range of refillable organic essentials in Muswell Hill and now have Unpackaged stations in the majority of our stores. In 2019, we opened a plastic free and refillable beauty installation in Muswell Hill to reduce and reuse toiletry  packaging. 

Packaging and waste is an area we continue to innovate in. All of our takeaway food containers, juice and coffee cups are compostable, and we have specific bins in store in which to dispose of these. In 2019, we re-launched our range of store cupboard essentials in home compostable packaging and we have unpackaged essentials in most of our stores. When listing new products, our buyers press suppliers on packaging, always encouraging more sustainable options.

Our online orders are delivered across the UK in cardboard boxes made from 75% recycled fibres and padded out with recycled scrunched paper and compostable air pockets. Chilled products are kept cool with biodegradeable plant gel ice packs.

Health for our community of customers

Our standards

We started out in 1995 as a health food shop, the only certified organic shop in London, and are now the largest chain of Soil Association certified organic shops in the UK. We believe that natural is better for us and for the environment, so we have never sold food which contains artificial sweeteners, flavours, colours, preservatives, or any genetically modified food and products. Our buyers scrupulously check the ingredients lists and origins of every product on our shelves so that you don’t have to.

Our kitchens are Soil Association certified organic which means that everything served from our food, coffee, juice, smoothies and bakery counters is made using only the best organic ingredients.

We only source meat and eggs from British organic farms (with the exception of wild game which cannot be certified organic as it is wild) and our fruit, vegetables and dairy are always certified organic. 

All of our fish is sustainably sourced and falls under the Marine Conservation Society’s ‘Fish to Eat’ list. We frequently review our range to ensure it meets the highest level of sustainability and seasonality and always consider the catch method, location and

We pride ourselves on catering for a huge range of dietary requirements from vegan to gluten-free, vegetarian to dairy-free, so we mark all of our products with symbols in store and online for easy shopping. 

Over the years, we’ve incorporated non-organic products into our range to keep up with demand from our customers and to ensure we can continue to provide the widest range of natural products on the market. This doesn’t mean we’re any less rigorous with our sourcing, and never stock products containing artificial ingredients.

Advice

Selling products to support healthy living isn’t enough. Our teams are trained to give unbiased advice on whatever you’d like help with, from which supplement to take or which products suit your dietary requirements. Our Health and Bodycare department will always have a trained advisor on hand to help you with any queries and many of our team members are qualified nutritionists and naturopaths.

Events

We want to spark up conversations, debate and to encourage learning, which is why we host events for anyone to attend to learn from our suppliers, brands and industry experts. We host events in store and over on our Instagram, so that everyone can make it.

Support for our community of brands

Finding fledging new brands or innovative products only available overseas is what makes us tick. Our buyers help brands at the beginning of their journey and support founders through from concept to scaling up, and continue to support well after the products have landed on our shelves.

Back in March 2021, Planet Organic acquired As Nature Intended

Health in our local neighbourhoods and communities

Supporting local causes

Each of the local communities around our stores are a hive of schools, clubs, networks and culture. To be a part of the community means to support where we can. We sponsor a diverse collection of community projects that share our vision of healthy communities, from kids football clubs to cycling groups, and the Lexi Cinema in Queen’s Park, to name a few.  

Supporting our internal Planet Organic community

Learning and Development

Before getting to work on the shop floor, all new members of the team begin with a comprehensive introduction to food and nutrition. Initially, we teach the fundamentals of organic agriculture, natural products, dietary requirements and health trends. Team members then continue with training during their first three months with us to continue deepening their product knowledge. It’s really important to us that our team members are able to give the best, specialist advice to our customers.

Everyone has the opportunity to visit suppliers, from kefir-makers to apple-growers, beekeepers to kombucha-brewers, to develop their knowledge and to meet the faces behind the labels. We host regular training sessions with brands to continue learning and development and enable our teams to best advise our customers.

We support the development of everyone who works here with a large proportion of team members progressing to store management and head office roles.

Discrimination trained staff

We welcome everyone into our stores and our online community and relish the diversity of customers we meet daily: it’s what brings our community to life. We are not perfect, but we continue to learn from our mistakes to improve what we do.

Our team members and head office have all completed training on diversity and discrimination, and we will continue to train all new starters to ensure our values are being followed across the board.

If you're interested in working for Planet organic check our roles and vacancies