In recognition of Earth Day, we’ve been speaking to entrepreneurs who have used their education to make a difference. These individuals have created start-ups that solve a business problem in a sustainable way.

Charlotte de la Baume is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Beelong, a Swiss FoodTech company with a mission to promote transparency in the food market and communicate the impact of food on the planet.

Founded in 2014 with business partner Mathias Faigaux, Beelong began specialising in food sustainability and environmental data analyses.

The company develops unique tools, processes and skills to collect, organise, assess, improve and communicate environmental information based on real food products.

Among other indicators is the development of the ECO-SCORE® method which is the reference in Switzerland for both professionals and retailers. It is communicated in online shops, printed on product packaging, and displayed on restaurant menus.

The aim is to provide the food industry, retailers and restaurants with a wide range of environmental indicators, as well as appropriate tools and consulting. The company employs 20 FTE and plans to expand soon to Germany, Austria and Australia.

Armed with a Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality Management, EHL Hospitality Business School and through Beelong, Charlotte is working to ensure Switzerland’s food sector becomes more ethical, responsible and accountable.

What inspired you to start this business and tackle this issue?

During my studies in hospitality, I was taught how to prepare meals, handle a budget, source products, take care of the customer experience. But, at the time we were hardly talking about sustainability, even less in the restaurant industry. However, food is accountable for about a third of environmental impact (CO2 emissions, biodiversity loss, water pollution,) and professionals around the world hardly have access to relevant environmental information when composing menus and choosing everyday food products.

This is how it all started, with the idea to provide a simple information to kitchen chefs about any product’s sustainability, and enable them to make the best possible choices, aligned with their budget.

After digging into the topic and talking to dozens of professionals, I realised how complex it is and the urgent need for more transparency from the food industry, as well as the enormous potential in terms of impact!

How has your business school experience helped you become an entrepreneur?

EHL’s business school enabled me to become a Swiss army knife!

Without being an expert in either life cycle assessment, finance, marketing nor human resources, I learnt to be versatile and hands on. Choosing wisely the priorities, work hard but in a network, bootstrapping and coming with creative business models (among which some succeeded and other failed,) and learning from failures has been a key factor for growth until today.

What challenges have you encountered while integrating sustainability into your business operations, and how have you overcome them?

One of the biggest challenges as an entrepreneur in the food sector is that sustainability is rarely a priority, which leads to low willingness to pay for tools and services. It is always a matter of “how will the investment be worth it in terms of ROI”, which is very hard to demonstrate with numbers. One of the ways we found to overcome this has been to strengthen our relationships with local authorities, in order to further encourage potential customers and/or finance part of our services.

Also, the B2B sector proved itself more favourable to begin with. This also led to work a lot on our processes and focus on the essential. We also tested multiple business models and still have today several business models supporting the company.

“EHL’s business school enabled me to become a Swiss army knife!”

– Charlotte de la Baume, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Beelong.

Also, sustainable food is a complex topic with fragmented knowledge among the population, and a lot of clichés and preconceived ideas that are often linked with personal values, different cultures and lifestyles. This is harder to sell a product when you have first to explain to your customer why he needs it!

As a sustainable-focused entrepreneur, how do you navigate the balance between profitability and purpose?

For us one of the biggest challenges is the pricing of our products and services. We constantly have to find the right price so that our tools are accessible to SMEs, whereas only a handful of bigger customers actually support

financially our activities. But in terms of mission, it is important to be able to support SMEs as well.

Also, the food industry involves multiple stakeholders, and we are often asked a multitude of different things that deviate from our original business models. We had to learn to say no sometimes, in order to keep our resources focused for the sake of profitability, even when we would love to be able to answer any sustainable food related inquiries.

Today I am proud to run a profitable company in this sector, but this comes at the cost of keeping a close eye on expenses which isn’t always comfortable.

Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the future of your sustainable business?

Our current focus is on helping more and more food companies to display a relevant environmental information on their products, which would enable millions of consumers to adopt more sustainable shopping practices. Our ECO-SCORE® method has recently been adopted by a major B2C retailer in Switzerland, as well as by all B2B biggest Swiss retailers.

I now aspire to more support from consumers and governments on this topic to give the sustainable food topic the importance our planet deserves!

What advice would you give to other sustainable business founders?

Always adopt a pragmatic approach: test your business model a lot, and avoid all biases linked to personal interests or personal values of your potential customers. Before investing many resources on a specific product or service, fine tune the pitching deck, work on an MVP and sell it prior to the full development! You will find the means to deliver afterwards!

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