Delicious choc giveaway for Eco-Friendly Card Company’s celebrations at Autumn Fair
Thirty years of greeting cards chock-full of goodness are being celebrated at the upcoming Autumn Fair where the Eco-Friendly Card Company has Champagne chocs to give away.
The first 30 customers to place an order on stand 6C02 will receive a special treat of a box of the delicious organic chocolates from award-winning artisan maker Cocoa Loco at the show, which runs over 3-6 September at Birmingham’s NEC.
Having set up the business as Glebe Cottage Studio, founder Scott Morrish was soon joined by wife Susanna and they immediately made an environmental commitment, choosing only to use recycled envelopes for their photographic card range.
“That was against a background where the idea of being green was often seen as a bit left-field,” Sue said. “It was pretty hard to find suppliers to work with then, fortunately that, like so many things, has changed over the last 30 years.
“Just think, when we first started out, we had to use pay phones to contact the office, you always needed to have a good stack of A-Z maps and change to pay for parking and, when you answered the phone, it was as just as likely to be a squeaking fax noise on the line as much as a person.
“We used to wrap all our cards ourselves at the kitchen table in the evenings – we quickly got used to multi-tasking!”
Art student and photographer Scott established the company in 1993 in the garden of his parents’ house, the original Glebe Cottage, as a way of funding a new darkroom in his shed, and produced his first four cards with support from the Prince’s Trust youth business scheme. Once Sue joined him, she would drive around Devon’s narrow lanes visiting indie retailers to sell the cards from the cardboard box in the back.
And the passion for independent retail kindled 30 years ago remains to this day with the publisher still choosing not to supply supermarkets or take part in brokerage.
The eco-friendly publisher has a whole host of firsts to its name, including being the first DTR publisher to become FSC-certified in its own right, and the first to use compostable bags for cards way back in 2006.
It has won a host of leading eco-awards, scooped the trophy for best bespoke calendars in The Calies, and published Christmas cards for King Charles III when he was still Prince Of Wales.
However, it’s not any of these milestones that the publisher is most proud, as Susanna explained: “The thing I value the most from over the last 30 years is our relationships with our independent retail customers, many of whom have been with us from the start.
“It’s their support that’s enabled us to thrive over all this time and I’m really looking forward to catching up with customers old and new at Autumn Fair.”
The publisher has a long-standing licensing relationship with The Wildlife Trusts and will be launching a brand-new collection of 24 designs of greeting cards at the show, showcasing the very best of British wildlife, with every product featuring interesting text about the species depicted.
Like all cards from The Eco-friendly Card Co, they’re printed on 100% recycled FSC board that’s been carbon-balanced with The World Land Trust, and the publisher’s environmental commitments include exclusive use of alcohol-free print technology, 100% recycled board and envelope paper, green energy, and UK manufacture, plus it now offers card clasps or compostable bags, and a calendar with an extended fold-over cover so it doesn’t need packaging,
The new collection can be ordered at the show alongside the publisher’s other photographic and art ranges from contemporary artists – with the first 30 customers who place an order receiving a box of celebratory champagne chocolates from Cocoa Loco, and other retailers will be able to benefit from a 20% discount on orders with the choc makers.
Sue added: “We chose Cocoa Loco champagne chocolates to give away due to the way they create their products. They’re committed to using organic and fairtrade ingredients, as well as compostable packaging – and, of course, they taste delicious!”
