To me, soap takes me back to memories of my Gran, who travelled extensively by boat and seemed to accumulate soaps wherever she went. Back then, soap was a bath-time staple, usually filled with natural goodness. But at some stage, soaps ran out of favour, something I discovered when I combed the supermarket shelves to find some after her stockpiles had dwindled!

The lack of availability of soap, and growth of synthetic and environmentally harmful products in plastic bottles, seemed at odds with global trends. People wanted to be more environmentally friendly and move away from harsh products and pollutants. I thought… surely if I’m looking for organic and natural soap, then so are others! And this is where it started.

Now living in South Warwickshire, I am the Founder and CEO of Little Soap Company. We started as a kitchen table business in 2008, inititally selling locally and small-scale. This quickly grew and within a couple of years gained attention from the big retailers, to today where we now have nationwide distribution across all the major retailers with our 3 ranges (Organic, Natural and our latest which won us the Queens Award for Enterprise a couple of weeks back, Eco Warrior).

The company really has been a rags to riches tale, having brought the first organic soap to supermarket shelves, and fast grew to become the first ethical natural soap in all the main Grocers, Chemists, and online retailers. We are now a certified B Corp business, putting planet and purpose before profit and just won a Queen’s Award for the innovation of our latest multi-award-winning Eco Warrior range, which replaces unnecessary plastic bottles, tubs, ports and tubes in the bathroom with bars.

My fight for sustainability and a better planet is unending, and I use my business to support initiatives that me and my team care deeply about. We have provided donations to Dogs for Good, the NHS, local hospitals, and GroceryAid.

Our latest charity product – which has just launched into Waitrose – donates 25p from every purchase to re-forestation projects in Sumatra through our partnership with the Sumatran Orangutan Society. We are championing sustainable palm oil, protecting orangutans, and supporting local economies.

But there is still SO much to do. As a business I believe we have a responsibility to constantly do better and help improve the world and continue to do this we shall.

We aim to educate more about the importance of challenger brands, the Better Business Act, the critical need for UK manufacturing, the need for businesses to genuinely balance people, profit, and planet at the heart of all they do. And most of all, the importance of kindness.