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Partner Highlight: HelloFresh

HelloFresh commits to furthering environmental and social impact efforts through employee gifting with Loop & Tie.

Loop and Tie

Loop and Tie,

HelloFresh is committed to disrupting the traditional food supply chain. With a focus on sustainability, their meals have a 31% lower life cycle carbon footprint compared to supermarket meals of the same portion size. They’re now expanding efforts to reduce their carbon footprint through internal employee programs and exploring new ways to support small businesses for a broader positive impact.

Enter: Loop & Tie, a gifting platform turning corporate gifting budgets into engines of social impact.

HelloFresh is the world’s leading meal kit provider, committed to delivering fresh, pre-portioned ingredients straight to customers’ doorsteps. Since its inception, HelloFresh has been driven by a mission to provide households with the ingredients and inspiration needed to enjoy home-cooked meals while reducing food waste. With a focus on sustainability, the company also prioritizes social impact efforts, responsible sourcing, and reducing food waste across its supply chain.

In 2023, the SVP of People, Ana Garcia, sought innovative ways to celebrate diversity, inclusion and belonging, express their mission of sustainability, and amplify giving. She issued a challenge to her teams to develop a program that would resonate with employees, keeping these goals in mind.

"Loop & Tie’s model is about more than just gifts, it’s about giving back to our communities and reinforcing our commitment to social good. Our employees appreciate how each aspect of this gifting program resonates with their personal values and helps them make a positive impact on the world."- Ana Garcia, SVP, People

Recognizing the importance of recognition and milestone gifting programs, Garcia and the HelloFresh team sought a program that could promote their inclusive work culture, increase employee satisfaction, and boost overall employee retention rates. Their vision was a program that elevated their employee appreciation gifts by integrating their values of delivering high quality experiences with social impact.

HelloFresh discovered Loop & Tie, a woman-owned carbon regenerative gifting platform that sources gifts from independent businesses, 73% of whom embody an aspect of social stewardship. Loop & Tie reimagines corporate gifting by enabling companies to send values-aligned gifts to their customers and employees. Their curation of gifts are from small businesses, many of which are owned by individuals from traditionally marginalized communities, are creating their artifacts from sustainable sources, or are giving back to a cause each time a gift is redeemed.

In addition to sourcing intentional impact-based gifts, Loop & Tie also offers the team at HelloFresh the ability to choose a gift from a curated collection. Each year, roughly $8.3 billion in unwanted corporate gifts is wasted. By offering the gift of choice, HelloFresh is able to maximize their gifting budgets and reduce the likelihood of unwanted gifts going to waste.

Loop & Tie’s carbon regenerative fulfillment practices continue to reinforce HelloFresh’s mission to reduce their global carbon footprint. Each time a gift is redeemed, Loop & Tie plants a tree through their reforestation initiatives. So far, with their partnership, HelloFresh has helped plant over 1,220 trees and sequestered nearly 19,000 lbs of carbon from the atmosphere.

Intentionality - at scale

This year, HelloFresh decided to explore a new approach to their end-of-year employee appreciation program that infused the missions of their seven Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) into the experience. Loop & Tie collaborated with the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team to partner with each ERG to source gifts that support their respective missions, ensuring that the offerings reflected the diverse and inclusive culture of HelloFresh. Employees have the option to choose a gift that resonates with their values, while also giving back to the communities that they would like to support. This, in turn, allows HelloFresh to extend its impact beyond its immediate workforce and contribute to communities in a meaningful way.

HelloFresh email to employees plus performance stats

By choosing gifts from these small businesses, HelloFresh directly supports these entrepreneurs, many of whom are dedicated to social good, fair trade practices, and environmentally friendly production methods. This partnership goes beyond corporate gifting to empower underrepresented groups in business and stimulate economic growth within these communities.

"Working with Loop & Tie to source this year’s employee appreciation gift with our ERGs has been such a powerful way to reinforce inclusivity and representation. We are thrilled to offer all of our employees an experience that fosters a meaningful connection as well as amplifies social impact in an incredibly intentional manner." - Kimberly Bedeau, Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Where gifting meets giving

The partnership with Loop & Tie offers HelloFresh employees a unique opportunity to participate in a gifting program. Through Loop & Tie’s platform, HelloFresh employees are also given the opportunity to ‘gift’ it forward to non-profits. By ‘gifting’ it forward employees can choose to send their gift as a cash donation to support a charitable organization instead of keeping it. HelloFresh has partnered with two specific nonprofits, Feeding America and No Kid Hungry, both of which are dedicated to addressing hunger and food insecurity in the U.S.

Thank you note from HelloFresh employee who chose to donate to Feeding America: “Thank you for the donation option! I love this.” Sarah chose to gift-it-forward to Feeding America to support their work in improving food security for those who need it.

Gifting-it-forward fosters a sense of pride among employees, knowing that their acts of generosity continue to address the systemic food scarcity within our nation.

“Partnering with Loop & Tie aligns with our sustainability mission at HelloFresh. By integrating a social impact component to our Employee Giving efforts, we are empowering our employees to directly support essential causes like food waste and food insecurity. This strategic and thoughtful initiative ties directly to our program pillars, including but not limited to reducing energy and carbon emissions. Together, we are driving meaningful change and fostering a culture of sustainability within our organization.” Jeff Yorzyk, Sr. Director of Sustainability

Feeding a culture of impact & positivity

The partnership between HelloFresh and Loop & Tie is a powerful example of how corporate gifting can go beyond the traditional and often transactional exchange of material items. In selecting vendors for employee gift giving, we included Loop & Tie as part of the slate of vendors evaluated due to our established relationship. However, it was their exceptional approach and product displayed throughout the process, demonstrating their capability and ultimately proving themselves to be the best fit based on our objectives. By being intentional with their vendor selection, HelloFresh is able to continue to advance their goals towards sustainability, supporting small businesses, and giving back to the community. HelloFresh will continue to create meaningful and impactful gifting programs that elevate their employees, small business owners, and communities alike. Through thoughtful collaboration, HelloFresh and Loop & Tie have shown that corporate social responsibility can be woven into every aspect of business, creating a ripple effect of positive change.