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#61 - 🌿 How Gaia Herbs Invests In People To Regenerate Place + 📊 New Report On Big CPG Regen Programs

#61 - 🌿 How Gaia Herbs Invests In People To Regenerate Place + 📊 New Report On Big CPG Regen Programs

May 21, 2024

Weekly episodes, news, and insights from the world of regenerative CPG

Brought to you by The ReGen Brands Podcast

This Week’s Episode:

#72 - Alison Czeczuga & Zach West @ Gaia Herbs

Highlights:

🤯 Integrating regen into their 200+ SKUs
🚜 Their 250-acre Regenerative Organic Certified® farm
🧪 How Gaia’s herbs & botanicals become supplements
🧑‍🌾 Their legendary H-2A visa farmworker crew
🏠 Gaia’s new state-of-the-art farmworker housing
♻️ Upcycling their ‘herbal marc’ into compost
🤔 The challenges of producing fully ROC™ SKUs
🤝 Working with other brands on the Sustainable Herbs Program
🧘 Why tying regen to wellness is the winning strategy
🗣️ How they’re approaching messaging and label claims

“I think it has to do with linking regenerative to health and wellness, and why consumers should care. I think many people care about biodiversity and climate, but humans are ultimately selfish and care about their own health and wellness. So bringing that back of how this is impacting you, I think, will be essential. And investing in the infrastructure for this to happen. It's not going to happen without investing in farmers and investing in the land.“

Alison Czeczuga

“There's an old saying you are what you eat. We have an internal stomach and the plants actually have an external stomach. That's the soil. So it really is super critical to understand your soil, to know what's in it to make sure it is a fully functioning ecosystem. So making sure that that external stomach is fully functioning and complete is going to transfer to a healthy plant and then to a healthy consumer of that plant as well.”

Zach West

Recap:

Don’t have time for the full episode? 😵‍💫
Check out the recap! 🙃
Everything you need to know in less than 5 minutes. 🥳

Click Image For Recap

ReGen Brand News:

🔍 How Are The Top 100 Global CPGs Supporting Regenerative Agriculture (new report)

Of the Top 100 global CPG food companies, 68 were found to have specifically mentioned RA in public-facing documents, totaling 40.5M acres and >$3.2B of investment.

Credit: CREO Family Office Syndicate, Inc.

49 companies specifically listed the crops they plan to target within their RA programs, but only 20 paired the targets with a clear funding commitment.

Credit: CREO Family Office Syndicate, Inc.

🏃‍♂️ Quick Hits:

🫒 Big Picture Foods’ big move across aisles.

🥃 Dry Land Distillers produces spirits from place-appropriate grain crops grown with regenerative methods. In July 2024, they’ll be the first distillery to release a Regenerative Organic Certified® Straight Rye Whiskey.

🏆 Philosopher Foods won Naturally Bay Area’s Pitch Slam Grand Prize & People’s Choice Award.

🍚 Jasberry won NielsenIQ’s 2024 Founders Pitch Slam & Audience Choice Award.

🎧 PACHA’s Adam Hiner was featured on the Brands for a Better World Podcast.

🍞 Wildfarmed celebrates ‘life-changing’ bread range with escapist fantasy.

👕 H&M Studio’s mini summer capsule spotlights regenerative cotton.