Ludlow rum business sets ambitious target to help save one million endangered sea turtles
An award-winning Ludlow business, formed at the height of lockdown, has launched new products as it sets an ambitious environmental target – to help save one million sea turtles.
Lost Years Rum, which celebrated its second birthday last month, is a business with a difference as it ploughs profits into supporting sea turtle conservation.
Through its partnership with US charity SEE Turtles, every bottle of rum sold generates a donation to support community-based conservation.
The company, the creation of Lee and Trudy Smith, has helped save more than 50,000 baby sea turtles saved since Lost Years launched.
The family were inspired to launch the business on a trip to Jamaica as a result of Lee's love of rum and son Billy's fascination with seas turtles.
And now the family-run business has set its sights on helping more than one million of the endangered creatures.
"The charity we work with estimates just one in a thousand of these baby sea turtles are making it to adulthood," said Lee.
"When we learnt all this, we said we need to do something. We wanted to try and make a difference to these creatures which symbolic of our Blue Planet and the challenges and perils we face."
The business has proved a big success so far and this month the family launched a new Wandering Turtle range comprising two bold new flavours.
The first, a silver spiced rum made with single origin rum from Antigua, is flavoured with coconuts, blood orange, mandarins, limes, vanilla and exotic spices.
The second flavour combines golden rums from Jamaica, Venezuela, and Nicaragua with a unique blend of queen pineapples and tropical spices.
"We have won 16 awards with our rum, for its quality, since we started the brand," added Lee. "We received a Master Medal for one of our rums, of which only 12 were given out globally. Our little old brand is there next to some of the giants of rum world, getting recognised.
"We won an award in Spirits Business Magazine recently and, here were are, just this tiny little family-run business out of Ludlow. Customers have got behind us and we have got nice a little following now.
"We have started to get a lot of interest from overseas especially where there are sea turtles that nest, in countries such as Dubai and the UAE.
"We have big ambitions. We are at the start of our journey as a business but we want to help save one million sea turtles."