Alara was founded in 1975 by Alex Smith with £2 he picked up in the street. £2 was what it costs to get a van into New Covent Garden, from where he would recover discarded fruit and vegetables to sell in a squatting shop. The shop became one of the country’s first wholefood stores. And it was where Alara began to experiment with its first muesli recipe. In 1988, Alara became the first cereal company in the world to be certified organic. In 1996, it was the first certified gluten free company in the UK. In 2008, it was declared first certified zero waste food manufacturer in the country. In 2018, it phased out plastic and all its products turned plastic free. And in 2021, Alara became the first cereal brand on Earth to manufacture net zero carbon cereals.