Mindful Chef

How ethical is Mindful Chef?

Mindful Chef is a healthy recipe box company owned by Nestlé S.A. which has not achieved The GOOD Shopping Guide’s ethical benchmark on our Ethical Recipe Boxes Ratings Table and therefore cannot be classed as an ethical company based on its current practices and policies.

We recommend consumers consult our Ethical Recipe Boxes Ratings Table to find companies above the benchmark with Ethical Accreditation.

What does Mindful Chef do?

Mindful Chef is a UK-based healthy recipe box company founded in 2015 by three school friends: Giles Humphries, Myles Hopper, and Robert Grieg-Gran. The company specializes in nutritionally-balanced meals with gluten-free, dairy-free ingredients and no refined carbohydrates, delivered weekly across the UK. Mindful Chef is a certified B Corporation operating the “One Feeds Two” initiative, donating a school meal to a child in poverty for every meal sold. The company became the official nutrition partner of the English Institute of Sport and partnered with the British Heart Foundation. In November 2020, Nestlé S.A. acquired a majority stake in Mindful Chef.

Why does Mindful Chef fail to meet the benchmark?

With a score of just 33 out of 100, Mindful Chef represents the poorest ethical performer in the recipe box sector. The company’s catastrophically below-benchmark performance stems from extraordinarily serious public record criticisms of its parent company Nestlé, alongside bottom ratings for animal welfare, political donations, genetic modification, and organic certification.

Nestlé’s public record criticisms are so serious that Mindful Chef receives two separate bottom ratings for this criterion. The irony of a B Corporation founded on mindfulness and social responsibility being owned by one of the world’s most criticized corporations represents a fundamental contradiction.

Nestlé’s most notorious controversy involves aggressive marketing of baby formula in developing countries, sparking the 1977 Nestlé boycott that continues today. During the 1970s, Nestlé deployed salespeople dressed as nurses to promote formula over breastfeeding, contributing to infant illness and death. Despite commitments to follow the WHO Code adopted in 1981, monitoring organizations continue to document violations. The ongoing boycott coordinated by the International Baby Food Action Network remains active.

In 2021, eight former child slaves filed a lawsuit accusing Nestlé of “aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of thousands of children on cocoa farms” in Ivory Coast. Evidence includes children as young as six forced to work 80-100 hours per week with no pay, subjected to beatings. Nestlé promised to eliminate child labour by 2005, then 2020, but violations continue.

Nestlé has also been widely criticized for extracting millions of gallons of water from drought-stricken regions including California, Michigan, and Pakistan, selling it back to communities at profit while those communities face water restrictions.

Mindful Chef receives bottom ratings for animal welfare and political donations through Nestlé’s practices. The company also lacks GMO-free policies despite positioning itself as health-focused, and has not achieved organic certification despite marketing sustainably-sourced ingredients. The UK household food waste sector faces significant challenges, making ethical sourcing essential.

What does Mindful Chef do well?

Mindful Chef maintains good environmental reporting and avoids involvement in nuclear power, fossil fuels, and armaments. However, these baseline expectations are vastly overshadowed by severe ethical failures. Mindful Chef’s own initiatives including B Corporation certification and charitable programmes cannot compensate for its parent company’s fundamental ethical violations.

What can Mindful Chef do to improve?

The overwhelming priority is addressing Nestlé’s catastrophic public record criticisms. The baby formula scandal, child slavery, and water privatization represent some of the most serious corporate human rights violations in modern business history. The profound contradiction between Mindful Chef’s stated values and Nestlé’s documented practices represents a fundamental ethical crisis that undermines the brand’s entire value proposition.

Mindful Chef must address bottom ratings for animal welfare and political donations, implement comprehensive GMO-free policies with verification, and pursue organic certification. The company should secure independent verification for all vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free claims.

Consumers seeking ethical recipe box options should consult companies above the benchmark on our Ethical Recipe Boxes Ratings Table, particularly those with Ethical Accreditation. Find out more about how we rate brands on ethical criteria.