The ReGen Brands Weekly - Volume 23

This Week’s Episode:

Highlights:

• 🦋 The abundant biodiversity in the vineyard

• 🥇 Being 1 of 4 farms that is Regenerative Organic Certified® Gold

• 💰 Why “there’s no mission without margin”

• 🤯 Their regenerative transformation since 2016

• 🍷 The Euro trip that inspired Craig’s career in wine

• 💫 Using natural yeast and tripling their YAN

• ☝️ Why no-till is the most important practice to scale regen

• 🚚 How selling adult beverages is different than other CPG

• 👍 Why we have to plant things where they want to grow

• ⚡ Wine’s unique ability to lead the regen transition

Recap:

• Don’t have time for the full episode? 😵‍💫 

• Check out the recap! 🙃 

• Everything you need to know (+ funny GIFs) in less than 5 minutes. 🥳

Let’s Regenerate America (on its b-day week)!

🇺🇸 Kiss The Ground’s Regenerate American campaign is picking up steam!

🫵 Now they need our help, so let’s take action!

✍️ For these proposals to make it into the final Farm Bill, we need more bipartisan support – that is why we are calling on organizations, businesses, farms, and nonprofits that care about supporting farmers in their efforts to regenerate land to please consider signing and sharing the following sign-on letters:

1️⃣ Training for Regenerative Agriculture in NRCS programs (TRAIN Act) sign-on letter: This will help get NRCS and technical service providers more up-to-speed on how to regenerate farmland.

2️⃣ Farmer to Farmer Soil Health Networks sign-on letter: This will provide much-needed funding for peer learning opportunities – the ways farmers learn best!

3️⃣ Soil Health and Regenerative Agriculture Equipment (SHARE Act) sign-on letter: producers can’t transition without access to equipment like roller crimpers, no-till drills, and mobile fencing – this program would also allow for equipment sharing.

As the Senate and House Ag Committees begin to put pen to paper and write the next Farm Bill, join us in acting today to build a better food and agriculture system for the future!

It only took me 72 seconds to sign all 3!!

ReGen Brand News:

🍨 America’s First Regenerative Organic Ice Cream Hits Freezers Across The Country

“I just felt that, yes, while ice cream is a really competitive category, no one had combined sustainability and taste successfully, and that alone would be a distinguishing factor for us.”

🍺 The Patagonia Provisions partner beer program has launched!

🤝 Check out the full list of brewing partners here

🎧 Listen to GM, Paul Lightfoot, discuss the program in Episode #22

➡️ More on the program from American Craft Beer, Washington Beer Blog, Men’s Journal, & Brewbound

🍔 Akua Partners with Nickelodeon to Launch Kid-Friendly SpongeBob Kelp Patties

Akua’s collaboration with the popular TV show is aligned with Nickelodeon’s Operation Sea Change – a newly launched ocean sustainability initiative. By combining SpongeBob’s popularity as an ocean-based cartoon character with Akua’s commitment to regenerative ocean-farmed foods, the partnership aims to make such products more accessible to children.

You can still invest in AKUA for as little as $100!

👏 Little Sesame has been selected to participate in Whole Foods’ 2023 LEAP Program

🍷 Terrazas de los Andes Achieves Regenerative Organic Certified® Status

❤️ Bonterra Organic Estates Honors Former CEO and Visionary Winemaker Paul Dolan with the 'Paul Dolan Block' at Butler Ranch

🕺 But wait, there’s more!

➡️ True farm to table experience in San Juan Capistrano

Cool write-up on the Ecology Center which is a 28-acre Regenerative Organic Certified farm and education center that hosts a variety of events and programs.

I’ve been fortunate to share a meal there and it is a breathtaking place with amazing food.

AC’s Insights:

🌎 Quantis, Regrow, and General Mills team up to Enhance Scope 3 Emissions Reporting.

My Thoughts: I found this article interesting & informative. Large brands with regenerative agriculture programs are going to be VERY focused on Scope 3 Emissions moving forward. Reducing Scope 3 emissions (mainly emissions upstream coming from the farming of their raw ingredients) will be the key to any significant reduction in emissions and any real progress towards sustainability goals.

We need to understand what the big players are focused on to reverse engineer how that can be used to help emerging brands, what it means for exit scenarios & valuations, and how it will affect the broader landscape. Many times, I find this “Scope 3” conversation to be techy, boring, and hard to understand. This article did a nice job breaking it down into something understandable and informative.

TL;DR Highlights:

Problem:

General Mills presented Quantis and Regrow with three challenges in tracking emissions across its supply chain:

1. General Mills desired a dynamic and accurate greenhouse gas inventory that reflected changing farmer practices in its supply sheds, particularly the adoption of regenerative agricultural systems.

2. General Mills wanted to proactively align with forthcoming reporting guidance for the industry.

3. The team wanted to ensure the strategy was dynamic and scalable to accommodate a variety of supply chains across crops and regions, and accelerate regenerative agriculture systems.

Solution:

Quantis generated custom datasets for General Mills by integrating Regrow’s raw data and emissions calculations into Quantis’ full-scale environmental impact assessments. Specifically, Regrow monitored cropping adoption rates, tillage trends, fertilizer application, and yield for acreage within the selected regions as inputs that Quantis then used to calculate emissions across all life cycle stages.

Quantis developed these datasets using the World Food Lifecycle Database methodology, which is compliant with the forthcoming GHGP Land Sector Removals Guidance. The new datasets will be integrated into General Mills’s annual sustainability reporting as they are methodologically consistent with previous footprints performed by Quantis.

Results:

Moving forward, General Mills will be able to update Quantis-generated datasets with sourcing volume data that is matched to annual farm-level emissions data from Regrow, tracking changes in their supply chain over time. This will lead to a more representative baseline, which empowers General Mills to more credibly make claims about reductions in the supply chain.

The project resulted in a new methodology for quantifying emissions and impact in climate-related efforts for organizations similar to General Mills. The solution also provides a potential pathway to account for carbon reductions and removals in an inventory assessment where supply shed traceability is known. (They created something that other food companies can use.)

Fun Stuff:

🤩 Peace, Love, & Artisan Tropic Cassava Strips

😋 My nephew Gus is ready to taste-test any regen snacks!