Shawn Linehan
Since launching in 2015, New Barn Organics has been centered on making meals higher by way of its dairy-free, regenerative merchandise, together with almond milks, coconut milks, and pasture raised eggs. One notable latest milestone for the corporate is the introduction of Regenerative Natural Licensed almond milk, tapping California-based Burroughs Household Farms, the primary Regenerative Natural almond farm within the nation.
Regenerative Natural is a brand new certification for meals, fiber, and private care substances that mixes rigorous requirements in animal welfare, social fairness and natural sustainability below one umbrella, based by main sustainability centered organisations together with Dr. Bronner’s, Patagonia, and Rodale. Michael Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner’s evocatively described the certification to me as form of just like the maxim from Lord of the Rings: “one ring to rule all of them.”
I just lately spoke with Ted Robb, the co-founder of New Barn Organics, to debate the launch of their latest merchandise and the significance of this certification. As a second era pure merchandise entrepreneur, Robb shared his insights and experience on regenerative agriculture, New Barn Natural’s journey to launching the primary of its type Regenerative Natural Licensed almond milk, and the state of the meals business.
Christopher Marquis: Inform us a bit about New Barn Organics, your preliminary imaginative and prescient when beginning the model, and the way you all first began exploring regenerative merchandise.
Ted Robb, Co Founder and CEO of New Barn Organics
Ted Robb: New Barn Organics is a purpose-driven model and has been from the start. Due to this dedication to one thing extra profound, we intention to make choices for the long run and to perform one thing extra than simply producing earnings.
We outline our goal as follows: Our deepest want is to make merchandise that deliver extra consciousness and consciousness to the meals system, keep a deep reverence for nature all through their lifecycle, and enhance the well being of our clients.
Given this purpose for existence, regenerative agriculture has all the time been an essential north star for the model. It strikes us from simply sustaining to thriving on the farming degree. We’ve had ambitions from the begin to help regenerative strategies, and we’ve all the time sought suppliers who have been deeply dedicated to sustainable practices on their farms. We’re so glad to see the validation of regenerative ag beginning to present up within the market.
Christopher Marquis: When you all began out as an unbiased model, you joined forces with NestFresh in 2021. How has that formed the New Barn Organics enterprise, and the way has it helped you evolve and increase the model and its product choices?
Ted Robb: Truthfully, it’s been some of the essential choices we ever made, because it allowed the mission and imaginative and prescient of New Barn Organics to proceed flourishing. It isn’t simple to launch and construct a meals model, particularly one with nationwide ambitions; becoming a member of NestFresh gave New Barn Organics a well-capitalized companion who shares the will to construct a profitable and enduring enterprise. And extra importantly, they share our dedication to supporting regenerative natural agriculture.
On the product assortment aspect, becoming a member of NestFresh has been extra about refinement and focus. We realized lots about doing an excessive amount of within the first few years of constructing New Barn. Candidly, we tried to do too many issues directly, creating loads of pleasure and an unlimited quantity of stress and challenges. Becoming a member of a bigger firm has been useful as a result of you’ll be able to’t do it all of sudden such as you suppose you’ll be able to as an bold startup. NestFresh would somewhat see us do a couple of issues nicely, as an alternative of taking over too many tasks directly. Becoming a member of this group has given us extra of a deal with studying who our core shoppers are and what they actually need, then doing our greatest to ship on these expectations.
We’ve labored to outline a stable base of merchandise we all know customers need: almond milk, coconut milk, and pasture-raised eggs. These are “important” gadgets that almost all US households now eat recurrently. We’re proud to supply them merchandise which might be each premium in high quality and comparatively accessibly priced. Like a mainstream model we’re conveniently present in grocery shops, however our product expertise and substances are extra in keeping with what you’d discover at a farmers market or smaller native store. We really feel this positioning will serve the model nicely in the long term, and we’re assured that now we have the correct companion to assist help us in that path.
Christopher Marquis: Burroughs Household Farms is the primary regenerative almond farm. What was the method like figuring out a farm to supply regenerative almonds from to provide New Barn’s Regenerative Natural Licensed almond milks, and the way did you all work collectively on these merchandise?
Ted Robb: We realized concerning the Burroughs a couple of years in the past, however the timing wasn’t fairly proper as we had just lately switched all of our almond sourcing to European suppliers. On the time, we have been buying solely dry-farmed natural almonds. We felt this was probably the most accountable ingredient we might select for our merchandise. Dry-farmed almond timber are watered just for the primary yr or so, then irrigated solely with rainwater after that. The yields are decrease for the farmer, however the taste is extra intense, and water utilization is dramatically decrease per acre. California almond growers don’t usually apply dry-farming at any form of scale.
Then in 2021 after we joined NestFresh, the group began down the street of including Regenerative Natural Licensed® pasture eggs to the New Barn Organics model. We labored very carefully with our associates on the Regenerative Natural Alliance, and realized lots about how the usual for ROC merchandise was evolving. Throughout that point, we re-connected with the Burroughs and realized we shared core values and a dedication to regenerative natural agriculture. The partnership got here collectively shortly, as a result of they’d been engaged on attaining ROC certification for his or her almonds simply as we had been on our eggs. This created the best state of affairs as a result of we belief their intention 100% as farmers, and we will keep centered on making merchandise, which is what we do finest. The method of coming collectively has been fantastic and we’re delighted to know that we will work with their household for the long-haul.
Christopher Marquis: What sort of practices are being carried out to satisfy the Regenerative Natural Certification on the farms?
Ted Robb: The Burroughs observe a foundational set of practices that construct a wholesome ecosystem and enrich the soil. They by no means spray any poisonous chemical substances and use no-till practices. Utilizing sheep to graze weeds and fertilize the almond orchards, they work with nature to keep up a pure concord between the soil and the timber.
By conserving the bottom lined all yr lengthy, the farm’s soil is enriched and guarded by a mix of canopy crops specifically chosen for optimum soil well being. A mix of mustard, rye, and different grasses cowl the bottom throughout your entire farm, fixing carbon and nitrogen into the earth whereas locking water into the soil beneath.
To advertise biodiversity and produce pollinators to the farm, hedgerows of native crops and wildflowers are planted on the borders of the almond orchards. A various mix of types equivalent to coyotebrush, white sage, and California wildrose take turns blooming all yr lengthy. The hedgerows entice native pollinators, and so they present a secure haven for a lot of hen species who name this lovely farm their residence.
The Burroughs additionally imagine within the significance of taking excellent care of the individuals who work on their land. The farm’s employees are paid a dwelling wage, and are supplied the flexibility to take part in a 401K program by way of the farm. They’re additionally supplied with housing or different monetary help as wanted, and lots of have labored on the farm wherever between 10–30 years. Workers additionally obtain baskets filled with farm merchandise to take residence to their households.
Christopher Marquis: Criticism of almond milk is heavy use of water. Are you able to talk about the way you deal with that problem and the way your water use compares to different almond farms?
Ted Robb: That is all the time an essential matter and one we’re extremely obsessed with. We’re additionally regularly studying concerning the realities of water utilization towards the backdrop of a altering local weather.
The reality is that almost all crops use plenty of water, not simply almonds. Nonetheless, almonds are distinctive as a result of they’re common and grown in excessive concentrations in California, the place water challenges are all the time obvious.
At their origin, almonds are a desert crop from the Center East and Southwestern Asia. For hundreds of years, almonds have been grown with out a lot water aside from rainfall. It wasn’t till industrial farming got here alongside and demanded larger yields that we began seeing irrigated almonds. For instance, almonds in California weren’t generally irrigated till the Nineteen Thirties. It’s additionally essential to notice that larger planting density, chemical pesticide software, and quite a few different ecological challenges additionally got here with the commercial type of farming.
Now we anticipate low cost almonds, produced in huge portions on the farming and provide aspect, and sometimes misplaced vilification of the water utilization on the buyer demand aspect.
What’s thrilling is that regenerative natural farming meaningfully addresses almost each “downside” that comes with conventionally farmed almonds. Water demand goes down dramatically with more healthy soil that continues to be lined and might retain moisture all through all seasons. Mix that with extra superior micro irrigation methods, and you’ve got a a lot decrease water footprint than what’s generally represented within the media.
You may see this example enjoying out in California at the moment. This winter introduced document rainfall and now snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the meanwhile, California has an excessive amount of water. Almond farms that don’t keep cowl crops, or regenerative farming strategies, have been flooding and seeing vital runoff of their orchards. On a regenerative natural farm, equivalent to Burroughs’, that very same water is getting “banked” into the wealthy soil. This implies the soil will stay moist longer as temperatures rise in the summertime months, and fewer water might be wanted all through the rising season. That very same more healthy soil will even present a extra substantial base for your entire ecosystem of pollinators, animals, and employees who enter the orchard all year long. True regenerative farming means all methods are working collectively to create year-over-year enchancment.
As a result of that is our first yr of working with the Burroughs, it’s laborious to say precisely how a lot our water footprint has modified for New Barn Organics by shifting to regenerative natural sourcing. We have been utilizing completely dry-farmed almonds up up to now, and it’s seemingly that our water utilization really went up. That stated, we’re assured that we now have a long-term companion who shares our want to study and regularly enhance our information about how we’re utilizing water for almonds.
It’s additionally price noting the Burroughs’ have began a multi-year examine to grasp higher how a lot water their soil holds. They use superior know-how, equivalent to GPS water meters on every tree, to ship correct information throughout the orchard. It will assist all of us have a transparent image of precisely how a lot water is getting used or, importantly, saved system-wide.
We’re dedicated to investing within the partnership in any approach that may assist us present extra transparency to our clients. They wish to find out about our practices, and so will we. All of it goes again to being goal pushed as a model and bringing extra consciousness and consciousness to the meals system.
Christopher Marquis: Are you able to share any challenges you all have needed to overcome in creating and bringing to market regenerative merchandise?
Ted Robb: Essentially the most appreciable problem we’ve confronted up to now has been succinctly explaining what regenerative natural farming means. Persons are busy, a lot of our tradition will get distilled into sound bytes. We’re engaged on extensively interconnected methods, and determining the right way to match that into an elevator pitch could be difficult. We’re grateful for shops like this one, which might be bringing consciousness to the bigger regenerative agriculture story.
Christopher Marquis: You’ve been immersed within the meals business to your complete life. How do you see the business evolving to be extra sustainable, and what does the long run appear to be, notably because it pertains to eggs and plant-based milks?
Ted Robb: Over the previous few years, I have been fairly disheartened concerning the state of the meals business on this nation. As a tradition, we’re so collectively obsessive about prices and efficiencies that we regularly lose sight of the enjoyment and love that is inherent in meals. We additionally are inclined to chase tendencies and shallow aesthetics. Recently, there’s additionally been a bent to reward greenwashing as an alternative of wanting deeper into the story of the place merchandise come from.
The stress positioned on the meals system all through COVID additionally introduced loads of harsh realities concerning the provide chain out into the open. Labor shortages, inflation, and the over proliferation of private-label merchandise are only a few examples. We have now reached some extent the place scale and consolidation drive most shoppers’ selections. The previous couple of years have worn us out, making comfort and value our major focus; and that is in the end not a great factor. Meals is not nearly energy, {dollars}, or model positioning – it is important to being alive. It ought to nourish your curiosity and connection to how your meals was grown and who it was produced by.
On the constructive aspect, every consolidation cycle will in the end result in a renaissance. That is beginning now with the regenerative natural motion. Individuals need wonderful meals, and so they wish to know it isn’t harming individuals, animals, or the planet. Since regenerative natural builds on the well-established requirements of the Nationwide Natural Program, now we have a possibility as an business to redefine what “natural” means. It will not be simple, however in the end, the primary rules behind natural and regenerative farming strategies will deliver extra consciousness and consciousness to our meals system. That is very true for our youngest generations, who’ve been uncovered to challenges for many of their lives. I’ve hope due to them – they get it and can pressure adjustments and readability when their buying energy comes of age.
