Grandma’s Orchard to a B Corp: Maciek Kacprzyk, Karina Sudenyte and Flawsome!

For Maciek Kacprzyk, fruit juice brings back childhood memories. His grandmother had an orchard and made juice from its apples, pears and other produce. Years later, he and his partner Karina Sudenyte would turn that tradition into a business tackling food waste.

Students with a shared memory

The pair came from eastern Europe to study in Wales. They met at university and soon found they had something in common: both remembered making treats as children from the lumpy, misshapen produce grown in family gardens.

Four million apples

The turning point came when they read some shocking figures about food waste. One statistic stuck with them in particular: around four million apples were being thrown away every day. “We wanted to know what happened to those four million apples,” Kacprzyk said. They later learned that about a third of fruit and vegetables is wasted simply because of how it looks.

Their idea was to make fresh bottled juice from the fruit other people rejected. Sudenyte says they started while still at university, with very little money, and a small crowdfunding campaign helped them get going.

Working with farmers

At first, the founders considered collecting unsold food from supermarkets. They quickly decided this was too complicated and less efficient in terms of carbon. Instead, they went straight to farmers, offering 70% of the market price for produce that was too ugly to sell. That gave growers money for crops that would otherwise earn nothing.

Sourcing wasn’t easy. “The biggest challenge is the supply chain,” Kacprzyk admitted. Today, the company makes cold-pressed drinks from surplus and wonky fruit from farms across Europe. All of its apples come from within 30 miles of the factory where its apple juice is made.

A new name

The business was originally called Get Wonky. When supermarkets began promoting their own wonky fruit and veg ranges, the founders changed the name to Flawsome!. Recognition came quickly. In 2017, they won Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

Twins and a growing business

Running a start-up was demanding enough, but soon after starting the business, the couple also welcomed twin daughters. Sudenyte has described balancing her role as chief marketing officer with caring for the twins, often working into the evening.

One of the biggest hurdles was earning the trust of distributors and customers. Sudenyte found that letting people taste the drinks was the best way to explain what the company stood for. It took several years to win contracts with large distributors, which she counts as a major achievement.

Juices, cans and cartons

The range has grown well beyond bottled juice. It now covers cold-pressed and sparkling juices, health shots and children’s cartons, with no added sugar, sweeteners or artificial flavourings. Each drink contains at least two rescued fruits. The drinks are gently pasteurised, so they keep for ten months and don’t need refrigerating. The Wonky Fruit Water cartons for children came with a paper straw and wrapper, which the company says were the first of their kind in the UK.

Catering has become a key market. Through wholesaler DDC, the drinks reached Sodexo sites, with plans to supply schools in 2025. Sodexo describes Flawsome! as a small independent manufacturer and the UK’s only drinks business using 100% wonky fruit.

Impact beyond the bottle

Flawsome! is a certified B Corp. It gives 2% of its turnover, not just its profit, to charities around the world, and has helped food charity The Felix Project deliver millions of meals. By November 2024, it said it had saved 45 million pieces of wonky and surplus fruit. Its current website gives a target of 20,000 tonnes by 2028.

The lesson

Sudenyte’s advice for new founders is to “start with a clear mission”. She adds that relationships matter at every stage of a food and drink business, from suppliers to distributors. Flawsome! shows that a small company can create value from something others throw away, and that patience in building trust pays off.