Catalysts: Building a Climate-Friendly Food Brand

‍Introducing our new webinar series Catalysts. If you’re a food and beverage operator looking to lead on sustainability, this series will uncover key learnings, milestones and ways to win on climate. 

Our first session focused on food brands - we explored innovation and communications strategies to meet the needs of conscious consumers, the opportunity gap for food brands to meet those needs, and how to begin your brand's climate-friendly food journey.

Read on to learn from climate-friendly food experts, Kayalin Akens-Irby and Rachel Stoczko, as they unraveled the recipe for all food brands, regardless of size, to build a sustainable and impactful food brand.

‍The following is an abridged Q+A from the Catalysts webinar recording, some answers may be modified for clarity. Moderated by Lauren Gibbons, Head of Partnerships at Planet FWD. 

‍Q&A:

[fs-toc-h2]Question: 

Kayalin, tell us about the consumer demand we're seeing. What are the expectations for brands to communicate their climate impact?

[fs-toc-h2]Answer: 

From my background in ESG and time in this space, I feel like we've finally kind of hit this pivotal moment where what is best for the planet is also what's best for business.

As millennials and Gen Z have started to hold a much larger percentage of the purchasing power, a lot of new trends have resulted from that. Climate change is obviously one of the most, if not the most pressing issue of our generation. And people are increasingly looking for brands that align their identities and values.

‍46% of consumers today actually believe that businesses and private businesses, brands are the ones that are most responsible for solving the climate crisis, which is pretty significant, more so than even the government. 

Nielsen IQ and McKinsey recently came out with a study evaluating retail trends over the last five years. Overall across all categories, companies with ESG-related claims grew 8% more year over year than products without.

That’s a pretty significant delta for brands that are effectively messaging and communicating around the sustainability actions they're taking and translating that to their brand identity.

Some of the things that are driving that growth are retailers' actions within the market. One thing that's interesting about the food system is that it's all interconnected. So when we think about climate action, when we think about emissions reduction and achieving net zero in the food system, every single player in the space is each other's Scope 3 footprint.

For retailers, your Scope 3 footprint is all of the brands that you carry. If you are a brand, your Scope 3 footprint is all of the ingredient suppliers that you source from. And on it goes.‍

[fs-toc-h2]Question: 

Rachel, as someone who was really influential in building Moonshot, which was recently acquired by Patagonia Provisions, can you tell us about how your team built the brand with climate at the forefront? 

[fs-toc-h2]Answer: 

From day one, we designed Moonshot with the planet in mind. We sourced regeneratively grown organic wheat. We developed a micro supply chain. We neutralized any emissions we couldn't reduce. In setting out to build the most climate-friendly brand in the world, we realized very quickly that existing supply chains weren't going to work for us. So we built our own and it was really difficult. We also wanted to be able to quantify the impact from this brand new supply chain, which was even more challenging.

That's actually why we built Planet FWD - to make it easier, not only for us, but for all food and beverage brands to measure their baseline footprint, identify reductions, opportunities, and then communicate that climate story to all of their stakeholders. 

[fs-toc-h2]Question: 

How did Moonshot then use Planet FWD’s platform?

[fs-toc-h2]Answer: Rachel 

By building our own solution, we were able to quantify our climate impacts, and we found that the climate-friendly practices that we were employing led us to a 28% lower footprint when compared to industry standards. So right off the bat, we were starting at a much lower baseline than the average box of crackers that you might pull off the grocery shelf. It also really allowed us to make sure that we were truly neutralizing the remaining carbon footprint that we couldn't reduce.

[fs-toc-h2]Question: 

Kayalin, we've heard about Moonshot building a climate-friendly brand. Can you talk us through how  brands are actually doing this work? What are the steps? What are the inputs to get started on measuring their footprint and making a reduction plan?

[fs-toc-h2]Answer: Kayalin 

It’s really a holistic strategy as we talked about. The baseline and the starting point for any effective product-level climate strategy for a consumer company is a life cycle assessment.

Whatever the sustainability strategy is for your business a life cycle assessment - or LCA - is the one that's going to be most impactful for driving emissions reductions through your product’s supply chain. An LCA was once a scientific and rigorous thing that only happened in research institutions.

Now, Planet FWD is using that same scientific rigor to turn this into a business tool as a way to measure the environmental impact of the entire lifecycle of your products. It encompasses your ingredients, your packaging, your manufacturing, your distribution, everything through the end of life - what happens to your product after it leaves the hands of your consumers. This gives you a super clear picture as to what is making up the environmental impact of your business and products.

[fs-toc-h2]Question: 

Rachel, can you talk us through some of the do’s and don'ts of how brands should be thinking about consumer education and how brands can reduce their risk of greenwashing?

[fs-toc-h2]Answer:

There are a couple of do’s to really avoid that greenwashing risk. First and foremost, seek certification from a credible third party. 

You want to make sure that you're working with a scientifically rigorous solution to perform your climate assessments that align to global standards like ISO, GHG protocols and IPCC. 

Avoid using vague or subjective terms. We're seeing a lot of these “eco-friendly” or “green” claims. Those leave you wide open for scrutiny and invite skepticism. The FTC Green Guides specifically worn against environmental certifications or seals that don't clearly convey the basis for that certification.

You also don't want to go it alone. It's too easy to appear untrustworthy to consumers. In fact, 67% of grocery shoppers report being very likely or likely to stop buying from brands if they're caught greenwashing.

And lastly, don't make claims if you can't quantify it. We see brands fall into this trap a lot, so when in doubt, calculate, and over communicate. 

[fs-toc-h2]Lauren:

I want to close with this idea of loyalty. We talked about one of the primary outcomes we see from a robust climate strategy being repeat purchase. These insights from our partners at Nielsen IQ and McKinsey show that brands with over 50% of sales from products with ESG-related claims, achieve repeat rates of up to 34%. So I think this insight really brings home the point of what we're seeing in the market that eaters of climate friendly brands will become loyal repeat purchasers. 

If you’re interested in learning more you can watch the full webinar here - or visit http://go.planetfwd.com/catalysts. 

Meet your panelists: 

Kayalin Akens-Irby, the Head of Growth at Planet FWD, is an impact-oriented strategist with a background in tech, investment, and policy. She has dedicated her career to reshaping the business landscape and guiding sustainable growth for food and beverage brands. 

Rachel Stoczko, the Marketing and Communications Lead for Planet FWD, specializes in communications and PR for impact-oriented brands, particularly in the intersection of food and technology. She brings her insights from working  with Moonshot and dozens of other climate-friendly food brands to play.