Building the first climate-friendly snack brand

About Moonshot

Julia Collins founded Moonshot, the first-ever climate-friendly snack brand, in 2019, on a mission to create a healthier planet for her son, Mosi. With over a decade of experience reimaging food systems, she set her sights on tackling the 34% of global emissions that come from food systems and land use. But when Julia set out to build Moonshot, she had no idea how challenging it would be to understand the impacts of her products on the planet. 

Goal

Julia set out to build her line of crackers with the planet in mind every step of the way. She sourced regenerative, organic wheat from Hedlin Farms, found recycled materials for her packaging and even designed a micro-supply chain, where the majority of her ingredients and production were within 100 miles. 

Realizing the need to quantify these choices, Julia wanted to be able to quickly measure the impacts of her sourcing decisions. Instead, she found time-consuming and expensive resources, something a new CPG brand couldn’t afford. She wanted to be able to pinpoint places where further emissions reductions were possible, but found data and methodologies that were outdated and irrelevant to its business. 

The Solution

Julia decided not to wait for the industry to catch up and built her own tools - Planet FWD. Filling the void by creating a decarbonization platform designed for the food and beverage industry, she built the tools she wished she had so that every consumer brand could understand its climate footprint. 

She designed the platform to solve all the challenges she faced building Moonshot - introducing product lifecycle assessments (LCAs) that reach all the way from the farm-level practices through the end of a product’s life. This allowed Moonshot and others to get the granular data needed to truly understand and reduce supply chain emissions. She also built the functionality for companywide-level carbon assessment, unlocking insights across all three scopes of greenhouse gas emissions. With corporate decarbonization, consumer companies could see the whole picture to make more informed decisions with relevant data. 

Planet FWD opened up a new avenue for food and beverage companies to dive into their supply chains, drive efficiencies while minimizing their footprint. And with firsthand experience growing a food brand, the team brought its insights into communicating results, and were then able to guide companies on how to share their results with all their stakeholders and increase education and action in this nascent space.

Results

With Planet FWD, Moonshot was finally able to quantify the impacts of its choices and its regenerative sourcing, which ultimately led to its partnership with Patagonia Provisions in March 2023. 

Moonshot ran LCAs on its own products and uncovered its carbon footprint was 29% lower compared to the industry standard for similar materials.

According to Planet FWD models, the regenerative wheat used in Moonshot crackers in 2021 actually removed approximately 1 metric ton CO2e from the atmosphere per year, which is equal to carbon sequestered by 1.2 acres of U.S. forests in the same period of time. And as a result, Moonshot’s regenerative wheat has 49% lower emissions than conventional wheat.  

By using a LEED-certified manufacturing facility that uses 100% renewable energy, Moonshot saved 41% emissions compared to producing with conventional energy sources.

Moonshot also sourced cartons made from 100% recycled materials and are recyclable and corrugated shipping boxes are made from a minimum of 50% recycled content. These recycled packaging choices made its packaging-related emissions 2% lower than than using virgin materials. 

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This data allowed Moonshot to transparently and credibly communicate its climate impacts, and its customers, retailers, and the press were quite interested. This interest led to incredible growth from its commercial launch in December 2020 until its partnership.

By the time Moonshot partnered with Patagonia Provisions, Moonshot was in more than 3,200 retail locations nationwide, including placement in Whole Foods, Sprouts, Raley’s, and over 50% of Target stores. The brand garnered top-tier coverage on The Today Show and in media outlets such as The New York Times, Forbes, Bon Appetit, The Kitchn, Refinery29, and Good Morning America. 

Moonshot is a shining example of the strong business outcomes that can result from designing with the planet in mind.

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