Sustainability at KoRo

The supply chain, also called value chain, includes all the steps that a product goes through until it reaches the end customer. In every step of procurement, processing, production, and sale, the product goes from retailer to retailer, which involves costs as well as transport emissions, increased lack of transparency, and a possible change in packaging. We at KoRo want to shorten supply chains wherever possible and thus save transport emissions, packaging and costs. You can find out how we approach the topic and what challenges arise here.

We want to make the packaging process as easy as possible for our manufacturers and producers, and ideally save steps in the supply chain, such as repackaging. That's why we keep our labels as simple as possible. The countries where our products are made vary regularly, depending on where our suppliers source the products from. Changing a label is not that easy and not as flexible with our current software. However, you can view information about the origin and, where applicable, the organic certification of the products on our website.

We ourselves only carry out limited checks on suppliers or manufacturers. We have official audits carried out by specially trained third parties experts. We only visit manufacturers ourselves to have personal discussions with them and when necessary (e.g. quality control). External partners carry out official food safety checks for us. We primarily work with suppliers who meet the GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) standard. If a product is certified "organic", the manufacturers are usually inspected on site by inspection bodies once a year. In Germany, these inspection bodies are private companies that are approved by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) and monitored by the control authorities of the federal states. The same applies to Fairtrade certification: “The certification company FLOCERT checks on site whether producers and traders comply with Fairtrade standards and meet social, economic and ecological standards. It also checks whether the producer organisations are paid the set minimum price and the Fairtrade premium. FLOCERT is an independent certification company and subsidiary of Fairtrade International.” We want to further expand the proportion of organic and Fairtrade products in our range in the future.

We work with several hundred suppliers worldwide and do not have 100% insight into their supply chains and therefore into the producers' pay. In general, however, we ask all potential suppliers whether they and their sub-suppliers meet the minimum labour standards and core labour standards of the ILO (International Labor Organization). In the future, we will also introduce a Code of Conduct for suppliers and partners in which our expectations and standards are clearly formulated. In this, we also appeal to partners to pay all their employees fairly (at least the minimum wage). In complying with this, we rely primarily on trust and honesty. There are also external control bodies (such as Fairtrade) with whom we will expand our cooperation.

We want to offer you a wide range of products and therefore also import goods with longer transport routes. Our range selection depends to a large extent on your demand. However, we also try to offer you alternatives with short transport routes. Whether this is possible depends on the product and its suppliers. For us, quality and good taste are our top priority. To guarantee this for you, we sometimes have to resort to imports from more distant countries. There are also products that simply cannot be grown in the EU, mangos or coconuts, for example.

In order to keep the CO₂ footprint of our products as low as possible, we are working on shortening our supply chains (more on this here) and avoiding transport by plane by using alternative import routes.

Our priority is that the products arrive safely to you. The packaging must protect the food well; in technical jargon, this is known as "optimal barrier properties". If this is not the case, the product will expire more quickly and, in the worst case, you would have to throw it away. The goal is therefore to optimise our packaging for the highest level of food safety and an extension of the minimum shelf life. In many cases, only plastic packaging meets this requirement. Nuts, for example, are very greasy and would quickly grease through and damage paper packaging, resulting in food waste. Contrary to its bad reputation, plastic is not necessarily the least sustainable packaging option. Above all, we do not want to use packaging just because it looks "green". This is often composite packaging, such as paper-aluminium packaging. On the outside, this packaging looks like paper and easily recyclable, but in reality, such composite materials are very difficult to recycle! Since not all of our packaging can currently be recycled and we are aware of the impact of incorrectly disposed plastic and the energy required to produce it, we are continuously working to improve the recyclability and circularity of our packaging. Our shipping packaging (boxes, filling material and parcel tape) is already completely paper-based. A large proportion of the boxes and filling material is made from recycled fibres and can in turn be recycled.

Our product packaging is not made from recycled materials. As a food company, as you can imagine, we are subject to strict guidelines regarding the hygiene and safety of packaging. We are not allowed to simply choose to use recycled plastic waste for packaging that comes into contact with food; there are strict guidelines for such packaging at EU level. Not all manufacturers can or want to comply with these and therefore resort to packaging with a barrier between the recycled material and the food. This barrier protects the food from contamination, but has the disadvantage that it makes the packaging more difficult to recycle, which limits its ecological benefits. The EU directive was renewed in 2022 to improve the recycling of plastics in the food sector. There are now over 200 officially approved manufacturing processes for recycled plastics in food packaging. This directive aims to increase the reusability of recycled plastics in the food sector and combines food safety with ecological benefits. Although the market for suitable recycled plastics is not yet mature, it is expected that more packaging materials will meet the strict requirements in the food sector in the future. We are already looking for more sustainable packaging and are testing various alternatives that are more recyclable, but we have not yet found the perfect material that meets our sustainability criteria as well as important points such as food safety.

Currently, around 30% of our packaging is made of monomaterial, which is basically recyclable. However, we are cautious about claims such as "recyclable packaging" because we have only received statements about the recyclability of this packaging from the manufacturers and not through certification from independent third parties. We aim to be able to independently prove such claims. We are currently working on improving the recyclability and circularity of our packaging in general and having this certified. That sounds easier than it is, because in order for our packaging to meet the high standards of food safety, we have to work with stable materials. Both the elasticity for transport that takes up as little space as possible and the rigidity for product security must be equally present in order to guarantee the longevity of our packaging and the foods it protects.

Answering this question is not that easy – if not impossible. Each of these materials has advantages and disadvantages: paper is easy to recycle, but does not always have a sufficiently strong protective barrier for food or, to counteract this, is used as a composite, which in turn is not easy to recycle; plastic packaging, on the other hand, is very light and saves transport costs; glass causes significantly more transport costs than plastic or paper, but can be more ecologically sensible due to its long service life and good recyclability; the production of aluminium cans requires a lot of energy, but their recyclability is better. An important rule when it comes to sustainable packaging is that composite materials (e.g. composites made of paper and aluminium or paper and plastic such as Tetra Paks) are very difficult to recycle because the materials are bonded together. Packaging made of mono-materials is always easier to recycle. It is also important that the packaging protects the food optimally. After all, what is the point of packaging that generates low CO2 emissions during production and transport if the food is not properly protected from external influences? The result would be food waste. We therefore weigh up all possible packaging options for each product and make decisions taking into account all relevant factors (including quality retention, food safety, costs and sustainability).

We know that you are taking a certain risk when you buy products from us in bulk that you don't yet know whether you will like. That's why we offer you a selection of our products or unusual snacks in small formats. We are not dogmatic about our packaging sizes and want to give you access to our products and the KoRo brand even if you don't want to buy bulk packs.

No, we work with a total of several hundred suppliers in Germany, Europe and also outside Europe. Where the products come from or were manufactured can be seen in the product information on the website.

The countries of manufacture vary depending on the product. We source the products from all over the world and buy where our requirements for quality, taste, price and sustainability are best met. The exact processes of product production vary depending on the manufacturer. The exact specifications for origin and production can be viewed on the respective product detail page on our website.

No. Even though a large part of our products are already organically grown or organically certified, part of our portfolio is not. You can find out which products are specifically organically certified on our website by entering “organic” in the search field or clicking on one of the tabs, e.g. For example, if you select “breakfast” and then filter by “organic” in the properties, you will see all the organic products in this category.

The main reason for this is simply the taste: We tested both conventional and organic nuts for the nut butters that we offer in conventional quality and sometimes we were more impressed with the taste of the conventional products. With almonds, for example, conventional almonds have a much milder taste because they are grown outside of Europe. In the European growing areas (Italy, Portugal, Spain), the proportion of bitter almonds is higher, due to the traces of hydrogen cyanide they contain. Another reason for not offering all of our nut butters in organic quality is the significant price difference. As long as we remain competitive with organic products, we will include them in the shop. This varies greatly from product to product. We want to offer high-quality food for every budget – that’s why we use the conventional and therefore cheaper option for some products.

We know that many potential customers are hesitant to order bulk packs online without being able to test the products first. We therefore wanted to create an opportunity to get to know KoRo offline (often in smaller formats) in retail stores. Smaller packs and snacks as well as our own creations such as the date-hazelnut cream are ideal for this. Our customers can first test what KoRo is all about in a small format before ordering bulk packs online.

We don't want to dictate to anyone what they buy or how they eat. Our range therefore includes a wide range of vegan and non-vegan products. Our goal is to offer high-quality products at fair prices.