Wild Pantry Named Sustainability Award Finalist at The Guide Liverpool Heroes 2026
Updated: Sep 28
We’re Alice and Daniel, two local foodies who started Wild Pantry after discovering fermented foods through our own healthscare.
Just over a year later, our Liverpool fermentary has made more than 12,000 bottles and jars of Water Kefir and fermented foods, with gut health and nature at the heart of how we do it.
Organic ingredients, local wherever the seasons allow, natural, low-energy fermentation and never plastic, for our food and drink.
Now we’re one of just four finalists for The Guide Liverpool Heroes 2026 Sustainability Award.
If you believe local food can be better for people and kinder to the world around us, we’d love your support.
It starts with what goes into the jar
We choose organic ingredients wherever we can.
For us, that means supporting farming without synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, with practices that can support soil health and biodiversity.
We also try to buy close to home when the seasons allow it.
For much of the year, around 87% of the ingredients in our PowerKraut are grown within just 5km of where we ferment it.
Cabbage, beetroot, carrots and other vegetables can travel a surprisingly short distance before reaching our production space.
That percentage changes through the year as crops and availability change. We’d rather be open about that than pretend every ingredient can always come from down the road.
When local produce is available and right for our ferments, that’s where we want to buy it.
More than 12,000 glass bottles and jars
Packaging has been another big decision for us.
Glass costs us more, but we’ve stuck with it.
Every bottle of Wild Pantry Water Kefir and every jar of our fermented food is packed in glass, with aluminium caps or lids.
Glass can be reused at home and recycled without the material losing its quality.
And there’s now a pretty big number behind that decision.
More than 12,000 bottles and jars of Wild Pantry ferments have gone out so far without us using a single plastic bottle or jar to store our food and drink.
As we grow, that number grows with us.
Fermentation itself is pretty simple
There’s another part of the story that is easy to overlook.
The way we make our food.
Fermentation has been used to make and preserve food for thousands of years. And compared with many forms of food production, it doesn’t ask for much.
Our vegetable ferments don’t need cooking or energy-heavy processing.
Vegetables, salt, naturally occurring microorganisms and time do most of the work.
The fermentation process also helps preserve fresh produce and extend its life.
It’s an old way of making and preserving food that needs little energy and puts less demand on the environment.
And we think there’s something pretty great about using that process to make food today.
Thinking about the journey too
Making the food is only part of it. We also have to get it to you.
For our local deliveries across Liverpool and Wirral, we group orders together and deliver them ourselves on planned routes rather than sending each order separately.
When we launched national jar delivery this year, the delivery partner we chose mattered too.
We wanted a courier making serious moves towards greener delivery, including the use of electric vehicles.
There are still emissions involved in getting a box from our fridge to your door. We’re not going to pretend otherwise.
But where we have a choice, we want to make a better one.
We’re still only two people
This is the part that sometimes gets lost as Wild Pantry grows, It’s still Alice and me.
We make the ferments. We fill the bottles and jars. We pack the orders. We source the ingredients. We deliver locally. We stand behind the stall at markets. And we make most of the decisions about what Wild Pantry becomes next.
That gives us a lot to juggle, but it also means the choices behind the business are very personal to us.
We can ask where something came from.
We can question whether there’s a better material.
We can choose the local supplier.
We can change something when we find a better way.
And we can keep improving as Wild Pantry grows.
Being named one of four finalists for the Sustainability Award feels like a lovely bit of recognition that those small choices are adding up.
We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported us so far.
And now we need your help.
The Sustainability Award is decided by public vote, so if you believe Wild Pantry deserves your support, we’d love you to cast your vote for us.
Vote for Wild Pantry in The Guide Liverpool Heroes 2026 Sustainability Award:
Thank you for backing our little fermentary.
Daniel
co-founder
Comments