What is Life’s a Beach?
Life’s a Beach is a charity set up by kitchen retailer ProCook, to support the eradication of single use plastics from British beaches and the promotion of reusable products.
The plastic pollution crisis is worse than ever, with single use plastics making up an average of 49% of beach litter. Life’s a Beach is dedicated to education and raising awareness of the plastic pollution to encourage everyone to make positive changes towards sustainability.
“It is vitally important that companies take responsibility to ensure that they are doing everything to protect the environment whilst working towards a more sustainable future.”
Daniel O’Neill
Life’s a Beach is primarily funded via the sales of the sustainable Life’s a Beach, reusable product range. 10% of all sales goes directly towards funding our charitable works. You can learn more about the product range here.
What We Do:
Life’s a Beach focuses its energy into three key missions.
Beach Cleans: To remove waste from our beautiful UK beaches and waterways.
Education: To educate and reach out to younger generations about plastic pollution.
Sustainable Products: To encourage reusable alternatives to single use plastic
Who We Are:
Our team is made up of a small team dedicated to sustainability and preserving our amazing planet, by concentrating our efforts on one very important problem, we believe we can make a real difference.
Daniel O’Neill, Founder
Founder and CEO of ProCook, Daniel O’Neill created the now leading kitchenware brand over 25 years ago. He launched Life’s a Beach in 2018 and has since been a leading advocate of the charity, raising awareness of the need to reduce the single use plastics littering Britain’s beaches.
Alongside Life’s a Beach, Daniel has remained at the forefront of ProCook’s sustainability movement, championing initiatives such as the removal of single use plastic within product packaging, carbon neutral delivery and a partnership with the Woodland Trust.
Sophie Chappell, Charity Manager
Beginning her career in Canary Wharf, Sophie organised events for the world’s top banks. However, it didn’t take long for her to realise this wasn’t what she wanted her life’s focus to be. In an about turn she switched from the world of banking to non-profit work, focusing on the environment so that she had a career she felt was making a positive impact.
Sophie joined the world of trees at the Arboricultural Association charity, where she headed up events and outreach to promote the benefits of trees. After several years enjoying this industry, Sophie joined Life’s a Beach in 2022 to focus on helping the environment in another way. Trading trees for beaches, she hopes to keep building upon the work Life’s a Beach does to clean up UK beaches and fight the plastic pollution crisis.
Mike Mellor, Trustee
Mike Mellor was the founder of successful Gloucestershire business Space Group, a highly respected local business that undertook large catering fit-outs all over the country for their blue-chip client base. Space were pioneers in introducing sustainability, waste management and energy efficiency into commercial kitchen design and Mike has always had an interest in the environment. After 16 year’s at the helm, Mike sold the business in 2016 and now spends his time on projects that he is passionate about. As a lifelong cyclist and bike lover, he invested in Hardwicke based bicycle business, Quella Bicycle Ltd and took a chairman’s role in the team in 2017, the company’s bikes are a thing of beauty, and the business has thrived over the last five years as cycling has boomed.
As a keen environmentalist, Mike was delighted to help on a voluntary basis when asked to be a trustee of Life’s A Beach by his old friend Daniel O’Neill, ProCook’s founder and CEO. Mike plays a very active role in supporting the charity and helping us with strategy and direction.
Sarah Savery-Smith, Trustee
Sarah was appointed Brand Director for ProCook in 2017, having been Brand Manager and subsequently Head of Brand since 2013. Sarah has worked for ProCook since 2007. Prior to joining ProCook, Sarah launched and developed a fashion accessory business employing outworkers over a 12 year period, supplying premium retailers from Scotland down to London and Paris.
Following a passion for gardening, Sarah then retrained as a Garden Designer at Pershore Horticultural College and set up as a business designing over 50 gardens. Gardening still plays an important role in her life and encouraging nature is at the forefront of that passion.
Sarah did a degree in Environmental Science BSC Hons at Plymouth graduating in 1987 and has always held strong beliefs about stewardship of the environment and how important it is that everyone should play a role in looking after our planet. She is delighted to be a part of the charity and to help in its growth and success.
