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Growing regenerative foods is indeed a noble cause that benefits both planet and people, but making it a sustainable reality is also an overwhelming challenge. Farmers who depend on regenerative practices tend to not get a fair return on investment, and consumer awareness about this matter is almost non-existent. Ali Cox, Founder of Noble West, has dedicated herself to educating the public regarding the realities of regenerative farming and the plight of the farmers right now. Together with Corinna Bellizzi, she emphasizes how buyers can make informed food choices based on their core values and contribute to the mission of growing food responsibly. Ali also presents the benefits of hydroponics, seasonal eating, and regional eating, as well as the dangers of using non-sustainable food packaging.

 

About  Ali Cox

Ali Cox is an agriculture and food ingredient marketing visionary and founder of Noble West, an award-winning marketing consultancy that specializes in the entire agricultural ecosystem. From fresh produce and nuts to dairy and agTech, Noble West works in all aspects of agriculture.

As a fifth generation farmer, Cox returned home to California’s Central Valley in 2007 with the singular goal of making world-class marketing services available to the abundance of farmers and growers in the area. A fierce advocate for farmers, Ali’s blend of a deep personal connection to the land and business acumen has made her a highly sought after strategist by her clients. With an eye on the future of farming and the climate crisis, Cox regularly consults with her clients on upcycling, regenerative water use, and hydroponic & organic farming practices.

Cox was a walk-on rower at the University of San Diego and went on to win a Silver Medal in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. A Turlock native, she is a graduate of Turlock Senior High School and University of San Diego where she majored in Communications and minored in business. She happily purchased her childhood home where she resides with husband Tony and their two sons.

 

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicox

Guest Website: https://wearenoblewest.com

Guest Social: https://www.instagram.com/alicox.ceo

Additional Resources Mentioned:

How Regenerative Farming Can Solve Climate Chaos with Mark Easter

Biggby Coffee episode (in production now, no link or final title yet)

From Flood to Feast: How Regenerative Organic Farming Yields More Crop Per Drop

How Regeneration Can Change the Future of Farming and Wine Making with Carlo Mondavi

How Permaculture and Regeneration Can Lead to a better World with Starhawk

 

Show Notes:

Career Background - 02:04

I have read a bit about your history and heard you speak on other podcasts as well.

Farming Practices - 04:06

I think the challenge of a farmer is that they know their business very, very well.

Pricing And Profits - 09:59

In our last episode, we took a deep dive into the world of coffee.

Hydroponics - 16:23

Let's help people understand hydroponics for a moment, because they might have heard the term with regard to something like a tomato or perhaps.

Food Laws And Loss - 22:21

With your work specifically, you hone in on things like regenerative farming, upcycling and innovative water use techniques.

Tree Shakers - 26:23

I've seen footage of the shakers coming through to shake the apple trees and have the apples fall.

Excess Packaging - 30:55

I love everything we've talked about so far.

GMO Vs. Non-GMO - 39:14

I wonder where you stand with regard to this world of advocating for farmers and, let's say, the intersection of just the consumers' right to know something like GMOs.

Navigating Challenges - 40:41

What do you think the key challenges are presently that farmers are facing, and how does your company help them navigate these difficulties while staying competitive?

Value-Aligned Food Choices - 46:39

I wonder if, in this last section of our podcast episode together, you could perhaps share with us some closing thoughts

Episode Wrap-up - 50:49

To find out more about Ali Cox and her work with Noble West, see the links that we provide with the show notes on your favorite podcasting platform.

 

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Growing And Marketing Regenerative Foods With Ali Cox

Welcome to the show. In each episode, I invite you to care more about a specific issue so that we can create a better world together. As part of my commitment to creating a better, greener world, I'm planting a tree for each new subscriber on my website, CircleB.co. When you join, you'll be the first to hear about new episodes as they're published, exclusive promotions, and more. Join our circle by visiting CircleB.co.

We're going to deepen our understanding of what it takes to grow food responsibly as we connect with a five-generation farmer from Turlock, California. Ali Cox is an agricultural and food ingredient marketing visionary who founded Noble West, an award-winning marketing firm that specializes in the entire agricultural ecosystem. With an eye on the future of farming and the climate crisis, Cox regularly consults on upcycling projects, regenerative water use, and hydroponic and organic farming practices. With that, let me welcome her to the stage. Ali, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Corinna. It's lovely to be here.

Career Background

I have read a bit about your history and heard you speak on other podcasts as well. You've been an award-winning silver medalist in the Olympics in 2004. You've launched a marketing consultancy. You have a career path that has been, let's just say, unique. How did these experiences as both an athlete and a professional influencer influence your work, essentially, in this space of agriculture?

Everything you just said is right. I think that, like probably every woman, the onion just keeps getting bigger and bigger, the layers continue to peel. As a mom and as a primary contributor to purchasing products and goods for my home, it continues to build. I think my background and my childhood in agriculture have really set me up for a different way to approach food. That's why I started Noble West from my apartment in New York City after working in entertainment and sports and competing at the Olympics. To me, there was just a huge ocean of difference between what consumers understood about their food sources at scale and what farmers are receiving from a return on investment standpoint.

Also, from just like, honestly, consumer awareness, and we always say this is one of the only industries where farmers, I don’t want to say dislike their customers, but, quite frankly, are baffled in many ways because they’re not always getting all the information. That’s where I think being a farmer’s daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and farmer’s wife is super helpful from a connection standpoint and credibility to help farmers tell those stories better and educate consumers about their food sources.

Farming Practices

I think the challenge of a farmer is that they know their business very well. The consumer doesn’t necessarily understand what they’re asking for when they’re asking for something. I work in the health and nutrition space specifically to sell supplements. I often encounter people who think that organic means one thing and that non-GMO means something else. They don’t necessarily have a deep understanding of what each of these certifications can mean. We’re adding something else to that, this whole regenerative organic perspective. There are two certifications under this. You have ROC or regenerative organic certification and the Regen certification.

There will be confusion on the part of consumers who are really, they’re trying to put their health first, but they don’t really understand all the nuts and bolts twisted in the background to make something come to fruition on their plate. I think that ends up being a frustration of anybody who works in that supply field, whether it be for the food, the literal apple or tomato that ends up in your crisper drawer, or something that is combined ingredients, like a recipe in a box that you go ahead and make at home.

Value-Aligned Food Choices

I feel it. I hear it from my community. I have some friends in the Lenardini family who’ve talked to me about their frustrations around organic certification that are here on the Central Coast. I’m like, “I haven’t thought about it that way.” It’s interesting to hear their deeper perspective. I wonder, if you had to put your finger on it, what do you think would be the most frustrating for them if there is one thing?

I think that it all goes back to the fact that certifications are so great for so many reasons. They verify and provide the ability to scale certain practices. There are certain buyers. I think there are so many great reasons for certifications. What I often see happen in the agriculture industry is we get so committed to making those incredible on-farm changes that are very expensive, but they’re typically made on a hope and a dream. That’s why an assumption that a consumer is going to care about it or a market will be there or a buyer will be there. That’s where I find so many farmers struggling because they will go through the organic transition or certification, or they will go through the regenerative certification, and then be like, “I’ve just doubled my operational costs on the farm. What’s in it for me?”

To me, it’s the most heartbreaking thing. That’s where I just find that consumers climate-related farming practices are a very distant fourth when it comes to consumer appetite and how consumers make choices in the stores, online, and all the other places where they’re getting their consumers. I think it’s super important to Corinna and me that we put a pin in that we’re talking about food at scale. We’re not talking about the farmer’s market or your CSA. This is not a neighborhood approach.

Climate-related farming practices are a very distant fourth when it comes to consumer appetite and how they make choices in stores.

This is the food system because I think we’re both really committed to seeing improvements with our climate through agricultural practices. This is where consumers make their choices based on the availability of the food, the price of the food, and the taste. Distant fourth is how it’s grown and the farming practices or the climate-related practices. It’s just been proven that climate-forward messaging on packaging and in marketing doesn’t really work.

It’s a guilt-driven purchase and I’ve seen that data from General Mills, like from large-scale initiatives. That’s where I just think about educating people on the term regenerative, even if you just ask people on the street in an average town what regenerative means or in a big city. Sometimes, I think people think it’s medicinal, which, you could argue, is medicinal. I think there’s just a lot to be desired in how we are marketing it.

Language also changes. The buzz on the street used to be sustainable. You'd say sustainable ag, but there's even some eschewing of that term.

You ask a conventional farmer what sustainable means, and they’re like, it means that we’re able to sustain our business and stay in business. It’s that we’re not selling to a housing developer. You can definitely see how confusing it gets. That is what drives me every day. How can we help our clients get a better return on investment for their food products?

With our ROC-certified clients, the amount of cost and care that goes into every single product is incredibly pointed, and it is so intentional. If they do not get the ROI, and, obviously, these folks are doing or their retail partners are, the Whole Foods, Wegmans, Sprouts, Nugget, or really more of an Erewhon, like a higher end. Also, of course the Thrive and eCommerce retailers. If they don't get that ROI, they're going to be out of business. It's sad that I feel very responsible for telling them to provide access points to continue to farm in the way they want to.

Pricing And Profits

In our last episode, we took a deep dive into the world of coffee. For example, the founders of Big B Coffee are working to create a system beyond fair trade because trade is such a massive issue in the coffee world, as it is in the cacao world. This reminds me of something that I saw just a couple of weeks ago at Costco. I found a regenerative organic certified cacao powder, and it was a sizable bag for only $20. I’m looking at this and going, “How is this possible?”

Something along the way has to be broken for this to be here at this price because I know what it costs to buy cacao, and to do so from a regenerative organic certified farm just seemed very suspect to me. I haven’t dug deeper into it. When you come from a world where you see the cost of pulling these marketing projects together, then you start to see that, in many cases, we’ve been conditioned to pay an unfairly low price for some of the foods or the treats that we’ve come to rely on, whether it be a favorite chocolate bar or that cup of coffee.

It really almost gets into your psyche and under your skin and makes you think more deeply about the true cost of food. What is the true cost of running a farm? What is the true cost of putting that food on your plate when it’s not subsidized by government and taxes? The things that are most subsidized are corn and soy.

Not surprisingly, these ingredients end up in almost every food that we find on the shelf that’s packaged. This is a problem, and I feel like it’s something that even on the farmer’s side is confronted because they, I’ve heard from several, that, because of the water restriction that we see in California, especially in the last few drought seasons, they have to make choices about what they grow and how they grow it on the land that they have.

For sure.

They’ll also see something like, “If you’re only going to plant this many acres, then we’re going to reduce your water allotment.” They’re caught in this quandary where they’re not getting enough water to grow the yield that makes sense from a financial perspective on the land they can plant for that water allotment. They want to go down in their, let’s say, growing field capacity for just a little bit or for that season, given the water allotment.

They’re being told, “We’ll further titrate down the water we allot you, restricting then their ability to remain profitable in business. I think so few people really understand that it’s something that we almost need to talk about more. I’m not sure that that’s necessarily from someone in your seat, but I’d just love to know from your perspective if this is something that’s even coming up in conversation as farmers are looking to say, how do I communicate about my farm in a better way so that I can make the profits I need to stay in business and grow?

Sure. My answer to you is yes. And because I would be happy to talk about everything you just mentioned, I can talk about it from a personal standpoint as far as following land and really, really decreasing our rotational crops, decreasing our row crops. Produce is really something, produce and fresh veggies are something that really becomes compromised because, like you mentioned, Corinna, those permanent crops in drought years will get the water.

There are millions of dollars tied up in orchards, vineyards, and groves where there have been investments in ag technology, drip irrigation, trees, nursery costs, and pruning costs. We keep going through that laundry list. We work very, very deeply in the California rice industry. Noble West has for, I don't know, 11 or 12 years. I would argue we probably market about 40% of the California rice industry along with our clients. The truth is, to get super granular, in the last drought, basically all of the rice fields that were West of I-5 did not have water.

East of I-5 did, and it was along the river. What is typically like a 1 million-acre crop was 700, 500, 400. It was a huge drop in production. That meant, frankly, in California, we grow short-grain and medium-grain rice. It's used for sake and for sushi rice. That’s the primary reason, different Asian cuisines. That is a place where the price of rice skyrocketed, like the per-pound price increased, but the volume decreased. It totally affected the global price of rice.

Quite frankly, it opened up a huge market for Australia and different countries that are experimenting with short-grain rice to come in. What was a very domestically protected crop, with tons of exports even to Japan because we just have so much more acreage, is now competing globally. I would argue if we really want to talk about climate, we could talk about cargo ships and the amount of pollution they put into the world. I just really believe in seasonal eating. I believe in regional eating.

That's one of the reasons why I am so pro-hydroponic, which, I would argue, to some of my fifth-generation farming ancestors, would kind of blow their minds. I think there should be hydroponics in every climate. I think that we should all have the biodiversity and availability of nutrients, even if you live in a snowy area. I would rather see more hydroponics at scale than, frankly, trucks crossing mountain regions.

Hydroponics

Let's help people understand hydroponics for a moment because they might have heard the term with regard to something like a tomato.

Cannabis.

They’ve heard it with regard to cannabis, growing your weed. You don’t have to have an incredibly large system in order to operate this way, or you can operate in a greenhouse capacity with a vertical farm. Vertical farming uses this technology. It’s very water-wise. It uses a fraction of the water because the water can be reused and recirculated so much. There are some that are even integrating aquaponics when they’re doing home systems. They have essentially fish-feeding fertilizer to the plants that they’re growing. I’ve seen some quite creative walls of these.

I personally have a Watex wall myself, which uses soil, but which is very water-wise because it’s drip irrigation, and only the top set is irrigated, and they water those below them just via drip. It’s a really smart use of water and soil. I grow my different greens and herbs along those lines, but I’m not growing a large amount of food to feed a community.

I love it, though. You're doing it. Good for you. I couldn’t even imagine wrapping my arms around that.

You have two children. I have two boys, too. They keep you busy. When you work and you're in a space where you own your own business and having to spend all this time marketing and networking, going on podcasts.

Saving the world from our food, it's very busy. No, but hydroponics is something that we have worked on a project in Tennessee. To your point, it is very water-wise. It's also like the amount of the input. Since it is a climate, it's really like a very protective, climate-controlled growing environment. From pesticide use, there's none that there's barely any fertilizers. It's also very labor-friendly because there's a lot of robots. It is a huge investment, but it is truly like the bio like the bioavailability just skyrockets, especially in places like Canada, which is very hydroponic friendly. The Middle East is growing in places where fresh produce is valued as part of their food system. A lot of those places are really a delicacy.

 

I went to Iceland. I work with Vaxa Technologies and we grow algae in a vertical capacity, but they also get almost all of their produce, at least insofar as greens and things along those greens, tomatoes, things like that, are all grown vertical farms, aquaponics or in some greenhouse system. That's because everything has to be imported otherwise. If all of your food essentially has to be imported, you have to be really careful and you have to create resources that are going to be backyard oriented or the prices just get really untenable. These solutions can work in concert with growing grains like rice and larger fields because you can't really do that in an aquaponic system.

It's just not quite scalable enough. If we look at something like rice, I have interviewed the founders of Lotus Foods, who talked about more crop per drop and regenerative organic certification processes for rice farmers and small crop holders around the world. Are they able to integrate some of these systems to California rice or is it just not the same varietal and therefore wouldn't work the same?

I love Lotus Foods. It's a great brand. Most California rice is grown in a rice paddy, where there is, I don't know, 2 to 3 feet of water. I would argue there are, and I have to say the California rice industry has done a great job talking about the environmental benefits of improving the aquifer, just like wildlife and how it's like a mating area for birds and whatnot. I would argue it is regenerative in many ways. It's also a very low-input crop. As far as I think Lotus is, are they primarily growing their crop in Thailand, if I recall?

They work to re-market essentially and source different growers, like small crop farmers. A lot of the farmers they work with are smaller crop. They've been advocating for them and involved them in creating regenerative organic certification processes, because otherwise you wouldn't have any small crop farmers able to participate in that world.

A lot of times within rice, particularly, I think we're down this rice rabbit hole. I'm sure you didn't think we were going here.

No, but it's good. It's a good example.  I think most cultures eat rice, so it's important.

Every culture. That's one of the reasons why rice and beans and we market beans, too. I always think that's fun. What I was going to say is, I think that the Lumbergs have done a great job championing like California rice. I believe they are Roxette certified, but they do have regenerative branding. They've done a great job of championing and educating consumers. We need leaders within each commodity type who are actually educating the consumers. I believe it's the brand shop and the mills job or the packers job. That's where so much of so much of the, but I think the rice industry is where most people are being educated, which I really commend them for.

Food Laws And Loss

With your work specifically, you hone in on things like regenerative farming, upcycling and innovative water use techniques. Some of that could be the hydroponics. If I look at upcycling, I've seen a few companies, in particular out of Washington, that are very focused on creating new uses for foods that would otherwise be rejected. I think some of them are a little silly, like dried fruit from Ugly Fruit. I'm like, isn't that always what was used for dried fruit?

No, I'm going to jump in. The answer is no. No, there isn't. The Ugly Fruit company is a great brand. They're based in King's Farmersville outside of Fresno. It's a great story. I think they are on Thrive and Amazon. The Ugly Fruit company is they are taking waste and that would because, honestly, the founder was a truck driver and he was the one hauling away the waste.

He's like, “This is crazy.” That's part of the reason why he decided to build that brand. I think traditionally, probably when I like, I remember drying fruit myself on racks and dehydrating tomatoes and whatnot, and you were taking the less pleasant looking, the less pleasant looking produce. I just don't even see that so many of our clients are working with labor contractors and whatnot.

I don't even see the interest in actually liking what our work and upcycling are doing, which is honestly encouraging farmers to go for that last harvest. Oftentimes, the food law, the difference between food loss and food waste, is very intentional to me. That's where I think there's the food loss. Back to water, like the ground's been paid for, the insurance has been paid for, the seed, and all the farming practices they've been irrigated.

Just to leave imperfect fruit is something that 1) Breeds disease for trees or permanent crops, but then 2) Just leaves a lot there. What has happened is oftentimes, the farmers haven't been incentivized properly, and they can't actually afford the labor to go through and pick it again. That's when it gets left behind. We've been working with a client of ours based in Fresno, California, called Sierra Agra. They are creating a new marketplace and just a better path where a farmer is compensated for the grade-outs and culls that would have either gone to silage or rotted. They are actually making a profit, a lot of profit. I should be careful with that word.

 

They're being compensated for that product. It's being upcycled into juices, essences, purees, fragrances, oils, and aseptic. The fact of the matter is these products are wonderful, and they are competing with some mainstream products as well. It is a way for brands that want to have ingredients that are upcycled to have this.

It makes sense to me. Just to give people a quick summary, let's say you have an apple orchard and the apples are all mostly ripe around the same time. They come through and they're picked. Some fruit isn't ripe and doesn't come off with shaking or whatever they do to get the apples to fall. It's essentially left there to rot because it's not worth it to come back through with all the laborers to resolve that. That fruit would end up falling. Is that essentially what we're talking about here?

Yeah, and I think apples are still handpicked.

Are they still handpicked?

Stone fruit, so citrus.

Tree Shakers

I've seen footage of the shakers coming through to shake the apple trees and have the apples fall. Maybe that's a regionally used technology.

I don't know, but if we want to talk about that, how gross is that? That means you basically have apples that are picked raw. They are more durable, and they're not so, and then they're going to.

They go in cold storage.

All months, they're pumped with ethylene so that they don't ripen or ripen all at one time. This is part of the problem.

That is part of the problem. Traditionally, I think the bulk of growers are growing in and procuring the apples that way, and then they are in cold storage for nine months.

It's gross, it's just gross. We have a harvesting business for almonds and walnuts, and there's a shake. Back to regenerative, it's not necessarily terribly regenerative. You have to get the crop off of the tree. There is a wonderful brand called the Burroughs, like the Burroughs Family Farm. They are probably the largest acreage for ROC-certified almonds, and they're doing off-ground harvesting. They're actually harvesting instead of the shaker shaking into the ground, and they join the ground. They are actually shaking off-ground with pistachios. I always like to give them a shoutout because if regenerative agriculture is something that you are passionate about supporting, they're the best of the best.

What is the company name again?

It's called the Burroughs Family Farm.

The Burroughs Family Farm.

Almond butter, and they do host a lot of regenerative continuing education programs and colleges. They have open houses and invite people to their farm all the time, but that is where they have overnight. This was about three years ago when they decided to go ROC certified. They've always been organic, but ROC-certified overnight became like sheepherders. That is a place where, and so when you see their price point for some of their products, you're going to be like, "Oh my goodness, that's quite pricey." If you think about it, they're also managing herds, so they are running herds and managing livestock in their orchards for a more regenerative farming experience.

Those are part of the stories that I think consumers need to understand because once you hear the amount of painstaking innovation and effort that goes into it, you're like, "You know what?" If you mention how little we pay for food in the United States for a developed country, we pay the least per person than most developed countries. I just don't think we're used to it, and I don't see consumers making food decisions that are value-aligned with a lot of their other choices.

People pay the least amount per person in the United States for food than most developed countries. A lot of consumers are not making food decisions that are value-aligned with a lot of their other choices.

I think part of the problem is, too, especially young single people tend to eat out a lot, and how many restaurants do you know that are taking the extra time to really be farm-to-table or to really care about the regenerative organic story? There are the higher-end ones, but most are not telling that story. They're more concerned with what the food tastes like and, at the end of the day, ensuring that they can remain profitable because restauranting is such a tough business.

I know that for myself, I utilize a CSA. I get mine from Santa Cruz Permaculture. They run classes on regenerative organic and help people understand what it takes to grow foods in a variety of capacities. It also limits me on what vegetables I can get during what seasons, so it keeps me focused, like you just shared earlier, on using food that is seasonally available.

Excess Packaging

I'm getting the last of my peaches at the farmers' markets. I know those are out of season, and the same is true with plums and things like that. I have to embrace the winter fruits that I don't love quite so much or just use frozen berries. This is something that I love; I will spend more on great food because it's a total body experience. When you have great food, it's good for you and better for the planet. I love everything we've talked about so far. I wanted to give people another example that I think you might have some experience with, specifically the berries I just mentioned.

I think one of the problems we face when procuring fresh foods that we love is that they often come with a lot of excess packaging. In the case of berries, this is the real problem. If you're trying to get out of the world of plastics, the only way that you're getting berries is either picking them yourself, which, if you're going to a farmers' market, they might actually have them in a paper carton or something of that sort, or you're getting them in plastic clamshells. All the Driscolls and everybody else around the globe, they ship that product from Mexico up north and from Watsonville to stores all over the United States, including all the way to Hawaii. This is how they're packaged. You have to accept it, or perhaps you go to the frozen aisle and buy them in a big bag.

Everything in the berry space is essentially packaged in plastic in this day and age, so for those more concerned with that, it makes it tough. I think it also is tough from the grower's perspective because they just want to make sure that their product gets to the end user in a capacity that isn't spoiled. It has to ventilate well because otherwise, berries can rot and they'll get moldy and things like that. It has to protect them, and doing these two things when you're talking large shipments and refrigerated trucks can be a challenge. I wonder if you work on projects like this or have any visibility into what decisions are being made in the backroom.

I would also just want to advocate for that. The Driscolls of the world and the grower-packer-shippers as the food safety criteria that is required.

That just got a big sigh out of me.

That is the antithesis of what we're trying to do. Even if you are a well-intentioned, well-meaning grower-packer-shipper, who cares about what they're doing and is using low till and driving slow in the field, doing all the right things. When you get down to the food safety side, you will go out of business if you are not using plastic at this point in scale. It is just such a bummer. I think that's why we're advocating for locally-grown food. Hydroponics is hydroponically grown berries are delicious, and you can avoid the whole clamshell situation.

 

I have. I didn't know you could grow them hydroponically, frankly.

Oh my gosh.

I've grown raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. I could see the strawberries, but I'm talking about the vining or caning berries more.

I'm not sure about that, but I was just asked to work on a strawberry project in Calgary. They're growing berries, which was fun. I think this is where, again, it's those value-aligned decisions. In the case of what's better for the planet, better for me, I think you're right on. It's a frozen berry. That is honestly grown. It's typically harvested, washed, and flash-frozen within typically like 6 or 7 hours.

At their peak ripeness.

Exactly. I know that in my household, that's what we do because my kids will actually eat berries year-round, and so that's what we do. I think that it's really about that value-aligned decision. I think we could also, Corinna, call out the whole recycling industry, which has really just ruined everything we've been taught.

It really makes me want to cry most days. It really does.

It's cringeworthy. Frankly, it's just really controlling, where we're basically being lied to about what's recyclable and what's not. You have grower-packer-shippers who are doing everything they can to educate you to take off the sticker. It's only recyclable if you remove the sticker, and they're buying certain stickers. That way, their packaging is recyclable. There is so much legwork that goes into that. I think it's really just about eating regionally, eating seasonally, and making sure that your decisions align with your values. If you're somebody that is very climate-focused, this is a decision. Unless it's grown hydroponically, you're not supposed to have a salad in the middle of winter.

I'm with you. I will say you have me thinking about the peeling of the stickers. I have just been reading this book by Mark Easter. I'm going to show it on screen. He was a recent guest on the podcast called The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos. It's also available as an audiobook, narrated by the author, and in it, he tells a story of a farmer who is using compost to help along his fruit trees and peaches. I think that’s chapter 5, called Steve's Peaches.

It's a grower in California, and so he's going through, and he's getting mad because he notices all the plastic stickers that have come along with the produce because the stickers on produce are made of plastic. They're not compostable, but people don't peel them off when they put the waste in their compost bin, and so it ends up in the compost, and the product is then used commercially.

I was unaware of that. I thought these things must be biodegradable. Since then, I have started to peel the stickers off each time and throw them in the garbage. Awareness is important, but again, the responsibility is in my hands when it really should be that the stickers we use are biodegradable. If they go on a food product, that would be better for us, too. That would be introducing fewer microplastics into our environment, especially if these things end up being composted into fields that are used to grow food again. It's a frustration point, right, like we are in the food industry.

It's also the opportunity for innovation. This goes actually back to food safety, Corinna. This is where, and I'm telling you, I worked on the sticker line at Turok Fruit Company when I was a child. I know exactly about the sticker line; every melon has a sticker. This is ripe for innovation in many cases. Couldn’t it be like a beet-based sticker or a stamp or something?

Transparency and traceability are also utilized in most products. Fresh fruit is just so far behind the game. I think that's what we're getting to: fresh produce is doing everything it can to remain profitable, and food safety remains within their certifications and requirements. The industry just has not evolved fast enough, and it's IFPA week in Atlanta. Those are some of the trends I’m looking forward to following. What is the innovation in fresh produce with branding?

Fresh produce is doing everything to remain profitable, and food safety remains within its certifications and requirements. However, the industry just has not evolved fast enough.

Is the IFPA like the International Fresh Produce Association?

Flower.

I guessed it.

I think this goes back to education, though. If we're talking about an old industry that thinks they're going to educate consumers by putting a sticker on their produce, I just think it's passé. There are a million other ways that this could be done. There are QR codes in grocery stores. There are a million other ways. But I think the food safety side of it is part of the problem.

 

GMO Vs. Non-GMO

I wonder where you stand with regard to this world of advocating for farmers and, let's say, the intersection of just the consumers' right to know something like GMOs. Do you have a particular perspective when it comes to that, or do you have a purview of how farmers specifically see genetically modified versus non-GMO options?

Obviously, I believe in non-GMO. I'm feeding a family also, but I think what's important to say is that if we want American farmers to be competitive here in the United States, they need an equal playing field. The truth is, if you buy international produce or international foods, you can't control all the ingredients in them. That's where I think the government should actually step in. I'm saying this more as a whole food-eating experience, not necessarily an ingredient. We could argue that that's another episode. We could argue that a couple of different ways, but I think that's where farmers just need an equal playing field. If we're importing food and fruits grown by any old standard, and sure, this is USDA certified and whatnot, that's where I just don't think it's fair at all.

Navigating Challenges

Understood. What do you think are the key challenges farmers are facing presently, and how does your company help them navigate these difficulties while staying competitive?

I think working with their mill, their processing plants, their grower packer shipper, whatever label they're selling their crop under, understanding what they're doing and where their focuses are, and then somehow challenging and just staying abreast of what's happening and what's needed in order to market the crop. I think so many farmers are like, "Okay, it's on the track. I got it out of the field. I'm done," especially if they don't own a mill and they're not vertically integrated. They don’t need, that’s it. They're just going to sit there and wait for the check or not sit there. They’re going to wait for the check.

That's where I just ask lots of questions. How is the product being marketed? How are they opening up new revenue cycles? Are they doing any innovation? Are they doing product innovation? Do you align with the long-term vision of whatever you're selling? Is this the right contract? Are you getting the value you need out of your contract based on your growing processes? Those are just where I think dynamic, well-informed business conversations are really critical.

What I've found working in the health space, with regard to sales and marketing, is that companies are often already doing things they're just not communicating about. They're already doing a lot that's good and right, but they're not bringing it forward in their messaging, or they're not sure how to bring the message forward or how to speak about the things that they're doing to be 10% or 20% better than their closest competitor. I imagine that you would spend a fair amount of time in that space, but then also in helping them identify how they can competitively stand up on their own two feet in a challenging marketplace.

I think that the value in this is what we do in the West. The value in telling that story, especially if you are a food manufacturer, processor, or packer shipper, is understanding how to tell it. You are absolutely right, and I'm glad you mentioned it. In California, it is such a rigorous place to farm. It's typically like you are doing most things right by ESG standards. Understanding your end customer, whether it's your grocery retailer, a brand, or whomever that end customer is, I will guarantee you, if they are a Fortune 500 food company, they are talking about their ESG goals and food supply requirements.

That's where, if we could actually just package it up with a nice little bow, talk about your solar installation, your socially responsible practices, your zero-waste water efficiencies and recycling plant that you just installed, your electric forklifts, your new packaging, all of the things, your on-farm practices, package that up in a little marketing bow, you will get more ROI.

You will be doing better than your competitors. That's where our clients, who are probably more innovative and future-focused and future-thinking, are like, "Okay, we've got to get a bigger return back to our growers or our family or whomever it is because if we don’t, we're just not being competitive." What got us here is not going to get us there. The tides have turned, and I think there's just more of a microscope. There's a lot of complaining about ESG from the food side, but I think it's good. I think it's an opportunity for us to get a bigger return on investment because the end brand is actually doing the legwork and the heavy lifting, shouting from the rooftops in their investor reports, in their C-suite claims, and that is where I think there's actually an opportunity for AG.

You mentioned a few things. I want to clarify. ESG means Environmental Sustainability Goals. People in the world of business running businesses that are working to be sustainable have often heard this, but not necessarily the end-users. You've also mentioned mills a couple of times, and I think I want to help people understand if they're hearing this and they don't understand all of the frames that we're talking about.

You have growers, but sometimes they aren't completely vertically integrated. They might not process the food to its final package, which means they're growing wheat, but they're not milling it down to flour that is then packaged and sold. They're selling it into, let's say, a commodity marketplace that is then being processed and sold under something else.

You've also mentioned packers and growers as being two separate entities. I know often, even within the fruit world, you have your grower, but then it is packaged and labeled by somebody else and sold under a particular brand. Some of those brands are growing their own brand, like Dole, they grow and package their own, and the same with Driscoll's berries, but that may not be the case for everybody.

Driscoll's does grow a lot. They have a lot of their own acreage, but they also probably have a couple hundred contract growers. That is something that I think in order to sustain, that's common practice.

It's complicated, and this is how we need humanity.

Thirty-three percent of like, what, climate pollution? It's crazy.

A lot of that is transportation. A lot of it is methane, and there's fertilizers and runoff, and how much fertilizer we throw on the land, sometimes in excess of what's needed. It's a deep conversation that will only get deeper as our understanding grows. At this point in the conversation, I like to ask my guests to either package for me some closing thoughts that they'd like our audience to leave with or if there's a question that I haven't asked that you perhaps wish I had, you could also ask and answer that.

Episode Wrap-up

Thank you. I think the biggest thing I would love for your audience to just think about, maybe, is how they make value-aligned food choices based on the choices they make when they're sitting in a restaurant and purchasing food for their family. I understand that, and I think your example of the frozen berry versus the berry that's grown in Mexico or wherever is perfectly on point is how we, in our day-to-day, make decisions that align with what we really want for this world.

Everyone must learn how to make value-aligned food choices based on the choices they make when they are sitting in a restaurant and purchasing food for their family.

I think that's a beautiful thought to end this conversation on. Frankly, if we could all be a little bit more intentional in our choices when it comes to the things that we buy, especially when we put them in or on our bodies, this is an important thing. It affects the health of our families. It affects our personal health. That would be wonderful. I know a lot of people are strapped for cash, and they're making decisions that don't necessarily always 100% align.

I frankly made the choice to transition to almost completely plant-based eating. I will still consume some animal products from time to time, including the thyroid medication that I take every day because it is from porcine thyroid, and nothing else works for me. It's just what I’ve got to take. I say, even if that was the case, and because that's the case, I'm not likely to ever be a full vegan. It's just the medical realities of now.

I think you should give yourself a little grace there.

That, too, and my reasons for switching to almost completely plant-based are really not 100% on the ethical side, though I have massive issues with how we traditionally farm animals. They're on that earth-first perspective because I understand the environmental cost. Essentially, if you cut out the pig or the cow, you can eat the primary food as opposed to eat the secondary food of the animal, and that's where my head is at in terms of the environmental cost of growing a lot of these food sources.

People can make these choices. Frankly, if they're choosing berries, for example, and they love that as their fruit, you can get a really great tasting, fully nutritious berry that's less expensive and organic from the frozen aisle over the produce aisle almost any time of year. That's something I advocate for constantly because I also have young boys, and guess what? They will eat frozen berries all day long if I let them.

I know. That's great.

Thank you so much for joining me, Ali. This has been so much fun.

Thank you, Corinna.

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