A few themes we explore in this session:
- What are some of the biggest obstacles that regenerative producers face in accessing the global market?
- How can suppliers that source ingredients from regions and communities where they don’t reside ensure that they are not being extractive and are injecting resources back into the local economies and communities where the ingredients are being produced?
- How can ingredient suppliers and brands meet smaller scale regenerative suppliers in the middle to overcome obstacles of scalability, transparency, and consistency?
Ethical sourcing is doing the right thing for the consumer by bringing products of integrity, made of nutrient-dense ingredients to market. From the farmer’s perspective, it’s creating demand for all the different crops that crop rotation and a regenerative environment creates.
Within that regenerative program, quinoa gets rotationally cropped with Lupini beans. So we have to create a market for Lupini beans, we have to provide and guarantee that market for farmers to engage in the regenerative organic program.
If we’re shifting into the paradigm of regenerative, it’s a much more receptive type of action. It’s a process that involves a lot of listening. It’s a process that involves a lot of sensitivity to the ecosystem, to the people, to the place. Ultimately I think what we’re exploring with the regenerative paradigm of business and sourcing is ‘how are we uplifting and creating potential within communities and within ecosystems?
