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N&B: Supporting sustainable supply chains and its local community

Driven by their ambition to help both the planet and its people, which has been the company’s philosophy since its inception in 1989, N&B have brought all farming, extraction, R&D and production back to their home in Salento in Southern Italy. This allows them to most effectively care for employees, create local jobs and support their local community, and protect their surrounding environment.

Sustainable sourcing

N&B source their main ingredients – like aloe vera, olive oil, wine extract, wheat germ oil and tobacco– from the Naturalis Bio Farm in Salento. These powerful beauty ingredients are indigenous to the Mediterranean and growing them locally not only cuts transport emissions from farm to factory, but also adds to local biodiversity. N&B also apply other techniques, from organic certified farming to the proliferation of bees, from collecting rainwater for irrigation to using organic compost, to enhance the sustainability of their production processes. These all take place within a radius of 3km and are managed by a team of local young people. As a result, N&B are able to guarantee 100% Made in Italy and 100% Made in Salento (Apulia) sustainable production process for the development of private label projects.

Contributing to the local community

Aloe vera is the single most important plant for N&B as its unique beneficial properties, maximised by the influence of the Ionian and Adriatic seas, and some specific production techniques developed by the company, are core to the effectiveness of many products. N&B have collaborated with the City Council to have their home city of Martano designated as the ‘City of Aloe’. The 3,500 plants that have been planted prominently all around the city as part of the programme have even become a tourist attraction, which further supports the local economy.

Environment as a measure of business success

Care for its community and other stakeholders, positive environmental impact, and giving back to Italy and the Mediterranean are N&B’s key broad measures of success.

More specifically, the company tracks progress through key performance indicators including the number of hectares of certified organic cultivation, reduced Co2 emissions, the number of local people employed, and tons of pure aloe vera gel extracted. Regularly tracking these KPIs enables N&B to know to what extent its efforts to protect the planet and its people remain on track – and the numbers have gone up year on year.

N&B still has big ambitions. Through a new programme, ‘Aloe for the future’, it aims to provide more local jobs within organic farming, and to generally help encourage agriculture as an attractive career choice for young people. The goals is to create the “Salento Aloe District”, a network of companies and start-ups focusing on the organic farming of aloe vera, based in Salento and providing job opportunities for local community.

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