From Waste to Revenue: Nim’s Naturally’s Growing Green Journey

Nim's Naturally, located in Sittingbourne, is an award-winning producer of air-dried fruit and vegetable crisps. Its founder, Nimisha Raja MBE, has provided expert mentoring to our Food Accelerator businesses since 2022. Later that year, Nim's Naturally was awarded a grant through Growing Green to support the purchase of equipment to up-cycle food waste – creating new product lines, facilitating collaboration, and increasing revenue by 7-8%.

Finding Value in Waste: Nim’s Naturally’s Story

Contributing around a quarter of the UK’s total carbon emissions, the British food sector has a vital role to play in achieving net zero by 2040. But for small food and drink businesses, this responsibility can feel like it’s at odds with growing a young, often fragile, enterprise.

Growing Green was developed to address this tension – by supporting business growth through, rather than despite, a commitment to sustainability.

Growing Green provides ISEP-certified training to help local horticultural and plant-based food and drink businesses identify where unsustainable practices may be holding profits back. Participants can also apply for a £7,000 match-funded grant to put an innovative solution into practice.

Nim’s Naturally, an award-winning producer of air-dried fruit and vegetable crisps, is a powerful example of how tackling a sustainability challenge can lead to tangible commercial benefits – and how your business could do the same.

Many of Nim’s products have just one ingredient – like these apples, ready to be sliced, air-dried, packaged, and sent to retailers across the country.

The Cost of Waste: To Business and the Planet

Sustainability isn’t just about reducing emissions; it’s also about making the most of the resources we already have. Every year, the UK wastes 4.4 million tonnes of perfectly edible food. That’s responsible for around 12 million tonnes of carbon emissions – a staggering environmental cost for something entirely avoidable.

Even if you’re not persuaded by the environmental argument alone, the financial impact is hard to ignore. Throwing away edible food equates to roughly £17 billion in lost value annually. On top of that, local authorities spend £500 million each year to collect and process food waste from our homes, money that could be far better spent elsewhere.

Whichever way you look at it, food waste is a cost we can’t afford – for individuals, for businesses, and for the planet.

Growing Green sees this challenge as an opportunity, an opportunity to reduce emissions while reclaiming value. Nimisha Raja MBE, founder and CEO of Nim’s Naturally, recognised that opportunity when she applied for a Growing Green grant during the pilot phase in 2022. When we visited her Sittingbourne factory, she described the challenge her business was facing:

“One of the challenges we faced was having three containers of food waste from surplus fruit crisps. We didn’t want to start throwing anything away, but we also didn’t have the space to store our by-products and buying extra containers was costing me. I thought, if we could reduce all of that down into a powder or smaller pieces, that would be brilliant.”

As part of our Food Accelerator programme, we toured Nim’s Naturally’s factory in Sittingbourne. Nimisha Raja walked us through the production process, highlighting key steps with a strong focus on food safety and quality.

Reclaiming Value, Growing Revenue

To put this idea into action, Nimisha used her Growing Green grant to purchase a specialist food grinder that could turn surplus product into fruit powders:

“[The grinder we bought with the Growing Green grant] is a massive piece of equipment that turns dried fruit into powder. At first, it came with just one blade, but we later invested another £5,000 to get two additional blades to give us more flexibility by grinding the fruit and veg pieces into 5mm and 10mm sizes. Originally, we wanted to use the powders as a natural fruit sugar to sell in pouches. But since entering the cocktail market, we’ve also started using them to create cocktail rimming powders.”

This investment didn’t just solve the original problem of waste and storage – it opened up a whole new product category. Two and a half years on from the pilot, the impact on the business is clear:

“We’re working on a new product that needed some tomato, but whole tomatoes weren’t quite right. Once we tried them powdered, it was perfect. From there, we started thinking: what else could we powder? It’s opened up a whole new world of possibilities. At the moment, powders account for around 7–8% of our revenue but as some of our new products and other partnerships form, we are looking at the powders to be a very significant part of our business, which is substantial for a completely new product line that people aren’t used to yet.”

This is Growing Green in action:

• Identifying a sustainability challenge
• Developing an innovative solution
• Purchasing new equipment (with grant support)
• Unlocking commercial opportunities
• Diversifying products and increasing revenue
• Solving the sustainability problem at the core

Members of the cohort took full advantage of the visit, asking questions about Nimisha’s business journey, the equipment behind the scenes, and of course – sampling the end products!

Creating New Opportunities

Nimisha’s innovation didn’t go unnoticed. The reputation of her existing products, combined with her expanded manufacturing capabilities, attracted interest from major brands.

“It’s really opened up new opportunities for us. Just yesterday, we got sign-off from Zizzi Restaurants on a custom powder mix we created for them, which is brilliant. Without the grant, and without that kit, we wouldn’t be in the powder game or confident enough to say yes when people come to us with requests for specific blends, like tagine powders using tomatoes.”

She’s also supporting fellow founders through collaborative innovation:

“We’re also currently working with and hoping to supply another business which has gone through the Food Accelerator, Louisa Mitchell of Wildly Tasty, who is developing a new product which will include our powders. We have also just recently finished a project with Fermenti in using our 5mm and 10mm pieces of by-products to create a brand-new range of fermented snacks.”

Beyond new products and partnerships, Nimisha is paying it forward. She’s a long-time supporter of our Food Accelerator programme, hosting factory tours and attending in-person sessions to offer advice, feedback, and encouragement to the next generation of food and drink founders:

“What Growing Kent & Medway are doing with each new Food Accelerator cohort is honestly amazing. You’re giving businesses a really well-rounded experience—connecting them with experts, offering training across so many different aspects of running a business. I really wish I’d had something like this when I was starting out. It’s probably the best programme I’ve seen for start-ups and what they actually need.”

That spirit of collaboration is a defining feature of the Growing Green programme – and of Growing Kent & Medway more widely. Every event is a chance for like-minded, sustainability-focused food and drink businesses across the region to connect, collaborate, and strengthen the whole sector.

From start-up founder to factory host and mentor—Nimisha now stands where many in our cohort hope to be. Her story is a reminder that sustainable growth is possible with the right support.

Conclusion: Sustainability as an Opportunity

Nim’s Naturally shows us that sustainability doesn’t have to mean sacrifice. It can be an opportunity: to reduce waste, cut costs, diversify products, build connections, and grow your revenue. Nimisha summed up her experience of working with Growing Kent & Medway:

“Everything about Growing Kent & Medway has been brilliant, from the grant itself to the wider support available. There are people you can speak to if you need advice, and the whole programme is just so well thought out.”

There are just a few days left to apply and join a growing network of businesses using sustainability as a springboard for innovation. Ready to find your opportunity? Visit our website for eligibility and project ideas, or book a quick chat with Dr. Flora O’Brien, our project manager. We look forward to you joining our growing network, building a more sustainable and prosperous future for the growing sector.