Reflect on 2024 – and then set your focus points for this year

Here we are again, hopefully after some good R&R over Christmas, ready for another exciting year. But before we start anew, I think it’s important to spend a little time reflecting on the past.

In today’s challenging market, it’s easy to get head down into problems rather than taking a minute to celebrate successes and learn from areas we need to either improve in or pivot from. We need to ensure all our actions still point the business in the direction of our key goals.

Reflecting on 2024 – a year of growth during which we saved 230 tonnes of produce from going to waste – we’ve identified two key learnings to build on for an even bigger impact in 2025.

One focus was developing partnerships with schools and universities. This market is particularly exciting for Rubies as we were able to roll out our Educate for Change toolkits to schools – giving teachers fun bite-size lessons to educate kids about the impact of food waste on the environment. We’re already seeing excitement from students and teachers alike – food waste warriors in the making! Being able to engage and provide for our customers on a much deeper level was a great success and something we want to explore doing more of.

Another highlight was winning The Sunday Times Best Ketchup of the Year and earning another three-star Great Taste Award. This reaffirms our commitment to quality and flavour, rooted in our beginnings at Borough Market. By using surplus produce and perfecting recipes, we create products known for depth and flavour – a foundation we’ll continue to build on.

And lastly, we have an internal, commonly asked question when making decisions: ‘is it turning the dial?’ Though we ask it a lot, we still get excited by projects or opportunities that distract us from having a bigger impact in other areas. There wasn’t one particular example of this, but a lot of little projects and time spent in areas that potentially don’t ‘turn the dial’.

So, looking ahead to 2025, we are focused on learning to say no to some opportunities and questioning: ‘is it turning the dial?’. We will be ensuring never to compromise on quality and be working closely with more of our customers to provide not just condiments, but education and fun ways of reducing food waste too.

What will you be focusing on?