Best Ethical Food Brands in the UK

Suma Wholefoods Organic Red Split Lentils, Green Lentils & Split Peas

How the Throne Standard is calculated for food and supplements

Pack: Food 1.0.0 · Standard 2.2.0 (draft) · Engine: Declaration · Status: Experimental, scores not yet published

Food and supplements are scored on their full ingredient declaration, read against a versioned list of processing markers.

The calculation

Product value = 100 if every declared ingredient passes the list; 0 if any ingredient fails; otherwise unresolved

A product passes when its complete declaration contains none of the flagged markers: artificial colours and flavours, non-nutritive sweeteners, hydrogenated oils, added nitrites and nitrates, and flavour enhancers. Supplements also flag fillers and coatings such as magnesium stearate and titanium dioxide.

The full declaration for the exact product is read and each name is normalised (case, synonyms, Latin names, footnote marks, bracketed common names, "may contain" lists).

A name that is not on the list leaves the product unresolved. An unread or incomplete declaration is a gap, never a fail.

The share of individual ingredients that pass is shown beside each product as an unscored detail, so a near miss is visible.

Nutrition and health claims are never scored. This is a processing measure, not a nutrition score.

Bands (the same in every category)
Value	Band
100	5/5
90 to below 100	4/5
60 to below 90	3/5
40 to below 60	2/5
0 to below 40	1/5

All arithmetic is exact (fractions, never rounded floating point). Nothing is rounded before the band test, and each band includes its lower bound. Values are shown cut to two decimals, never rounded up, so 89.996 shows as 89.99 and is 3/5.

A worked example with a real declaration and today's result

Organic Oatcakes Traditional, Clearspring
Step	Result
Declared ingredients	Oatmeal (86%), olive oil, sea salt, raising agent: sodium bicarbonate
Normalised	oatmeal; olive oil; sea salt; sodium bicarbonate
List decisions	none of the four names is yet on the versioned list
Product value	unresolved: the permitted-name list is not complete
When the list is complete	100 if no name is a flagged marker, otherwise 0

From products to a brand result

Each parent product counts once. Sizes add no votes; variants with different complete declarations each count once and the parent takes their mean.

The brand value is the plain mean of the unrounded product values, never weighted by price or sales. One result per category; never one overall brand score.

A headline band needs at least 70% of eligible products assessed. Below that the result is shown as Partial, with no badge.

Only a verified complete catalogue (a Census) can reach 5/5. Partial and sample results are capped at 4/5, and a Partial result shows its possible range, from every unresolved item at 0 to every unresolved item at 100.

Unknown is never a fail. A missing, unread or conflicting record lowers coverage and is shown as a gap.

Evidence we use

The ingredient declaration for the exact product from the brand page or label. Every record keeps its source address, exact locator, capture date and a SHA-256 hash of what we read. Evidence older than two years is re-checked before it supports a high level.

Why scores are not shown yet

Before any score in this category is published, the complete, versioned ingredient list this category depends on is not finished; no verified product has yet been confirmed at 5/5 with published evidence; the calibration run has not been reviewed and signed off; we have not yet shown that scores separate stronger from weaker products. Until then we show the evidence we have found, not a score.

Best Ethical Food Brands in the UK

The reports

Vorrei Organic Italian Borlotti & Cannellini (Alce Nero)

Suma Wholefoods Organic Red Split Lentils, Green Lentils & Split Peas

Essential Trading Organic Lentils, Chickpeas & Split Peas

Biona Organic Organic Lentils & Chickpeas

Hodmedod’s British Chickpeas & Green Lentils

Food and Forest Organic Raw Almonds (Guara, Andalucia)

Tropical Wholefoods Fairtrade Organic Cashew Nuts

Cajuu Single-Origin Tanzanian Roasted Cashews

Liberation Foods Organic Cashews

Tropical Wholefoods Fairtrade Organic Brazil Nuts

Hodmedod’s PI’Y Brazil Nuts (Kayapo Solidarity Trading)

Sungleam Organic Organic Macadamias

Equal Exchange Organic Fairtrade Brazil Nuts

BanyanTree Foods Pure Black Lentils

Organic Swaad Brown Chick Peas (Kala Chana) 1kg

Yellow Petite Split Lentils 500g

Sainsbury’s Fairtrade Cashew Nuts 300g

Tesco Organic Fair Trade Cashew Nuts 150G

Organic Cashew Nuts, 150g bag

Tesco Organic Fair Trade Brazil Nuts 150G