BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #204

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #204

Welcome to the Brand Secrets and Strategies podcast where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.

I’m your host Dan Lohman. This weekly show is dedicated to getting your brand on the shelf and keeping it there.

Get ready to learn actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

LETS ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES AND GET STARTED!

Dan: Birgit, thank you for coming on today. Can you please start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey to Patagonia?

Birgit: Great. Thanks, Dan, it's a pleasure to be here. Well, it's a long journey but here I am. I think really I grew up in a food environment. My grandfather was in coffee, my father was in global import/export. Conversation at the table is always around food and supply chains and what was happening in different parts of the world. How complete crops could be wiped out at a moments notice depending on weather and things like that. These things are just escalating now and so it was sort of natural for me to be in this food space.

I did foray into design, architectural design, and branding and started a variety of companies myself and started a food company. Then I was in discussion with Yvon Chouinard and Rose Marcario around eight or nine years ago. We started to discuss what a food company would look like for Patagonia. That was really the task given to me. I wrote the business plan and built it to what it is today, which is about 40 of our own branded skews and growing. Then, the build out of a broader marketplace to really highlight a special curation of people all moving down this road of regenerative, organic practices and regenerating our oceans and planet, in general.

Dan: Which is something that's so critically important. I'm such a fan of Patagonia, first of all. Let me back up a little bit. My daughter stole my Patagonia jacket years ago and I still haven't gotten over it. I’ve been in therapy the whole time. Just kidding. I've just been such a huge fan and a huge outdoor enthusiast. So, that's how I got to know the brand and the quality. The fact that you guys do not cut corners, period, ever. And that was something that I could always count on. So, the brand to me and everyone I know means quality, authenticity, integrity, and thought leadership. When you guys pivoted into food, I was absolutely thrilled because I knew you were going to do it right. So, when they came to you and said, "Hey, what would it look like if we had a food company?" what was behind that? Why were they thinking about food to begin with? Why was that important to them?

Birgit: Yeah, that's a really good question and a question we get often. We often are asked why an apparel company has gone into food. When you think about Patagonia, it's really an environmental company. We can be in a number of areas. Waste, water, food, apparel when you look at it as a broader entity like that.

Because we have touched agriculture for many, many years on the apparel side through wool, cotton, ulex, hemp, all of these things, we've been in tune with what the issues were surrounding chemical agriculture and the things that are really depleting our soils and health of the planet. In that discovery, we also learned that food as it relates to agriculture, agriculture as it relates to food is one of the biggest contributors to climate change and the issues we're facing. We really just couldn't stay away.

We really felt like there needed to be another avenue to look at these problems. Food touches everybody no matter what economic status, no matter who you are. It's an immediate global connection. Because that area is so fraught with destruction and depletion of soils and chemicals and residue that we see in our food now and things like that. We couldn't stay away, we needed to really build out this division called Patagonia Provisions, which was really going to be about rethinking our food system and looking deep into supply chain. How are we producing our food? How it affects health of people on the planet.

Everything we make as a company, as a food company has a very deep reason for being. Our buffalo is about conservation of he prairie. Making sure that we have that intact because it's such an incredibly important ecosystem. Our veg and our fruit products are really about regenerative organic agriculture making sure that our soils are at their healthiest ecosystem. Our fish and seafood products are really about regenerating our oceans and allowing wild populations of fish like salmon to rebound.

That's sort of all the reasons. There's many layers to this, as to why we felt food was going to be an important topic for us.

Dan: I'm glad you did. And from my perspective, the reason this matters is, as I like to say, this is what makes natural, natural. Disruptive companies like Patagonia that are mission-based, that are focused on the bigger picture, not on Wall Street or not are on the big ag. So, I remember back when I was going to grade school learning about the Dust Bowl and what happened, and the way that farmers destroyed the land, because they didn't use smart practices.

Birgit, I've had a lot of people on the podcast that have talked about how they're working to change that conversation. Some of them are partners in your marketplace like Numi, Lotus Foods, etc. They share how they are educating farmers in other countries to use organic practices, and much more. So, this is a common theme that I have woven through this podcast, because this story is so very important.

So, as you're deciding to get into this, why did you start with fish? How did you decide where you wanted to start and why?.

Birgit: Yeah, well we started with, there's so many areas that you could start. Yvon Chouinard is an avid fisherman and we've done a lot of work as a company, Patagonia has around ocean health. We decided that tackling ocean as the first topic was going to be, it's he way we wanted to go. Largely around salmon because that's in population a species that's very threatened.

With us thinking that we know better, thinking that we can go out and just take what we want, deplete the oceans of these species without thought to how they might rebound. Or if we're farming, how that might, you know, farming in the ocean how that might be affecting the wild populations and things like that.

We wanted to tell the story of how we could do that better by harvesting salmon in particular in rivers, in areas that are close to the rivers of origin with selective gear allowing for fish to be counted. Knowing what to take, therefore, and how many to let go up to the rivers to spawn. Versus harvesting out in the ocean where there's no visibility as to how many, what the population is like.

As a result, there's heavy depletion and we've seen in certain areas where they've just stopped salmon fishing because of that. We felt that there was a better way, a different way of doing this and we developed a criteria around it that's been peer reviewed and published now, to say look, let's take into consideration these other certifications that are out there. Let's take into consideration the things that the science, the biology, the conservation around this and build some extra criteria that we felt would allow for this species to rebound in a better way.

Salmon will do that. If you allow them to be functioning in this wild ocean ecosystem the way that they should, they will come back in abundance and we have the yields that we need to feed the planet by doing this. The issues come in when you start to build fish farms in the rivers because you get disease and overpopulation of these hatchery fish going into these systems and it causes unbelievable devastation for the wild populations.

As I was saying earlier, if you catch them out in the ocean then you can't count how many. There's many specific reasons to sort of start to point out what have we learned and what do we need to take forward into the future? Just because we can do certain things, going right back to even the chemical agricultural side of things. Just because we've figured out all these really cool things about how we can provide food for ourselves doesn't mean we necessarily should continue to go down those roads. We have to have this moment of evaluation that says, "What do we want to take into the future? What is working and is providing the food that we need in a natural way? In an organic way? In a regenerating way?"

Then, what is really the science telling us about how some of the things that we have come up with, how that is harming us. Harming the oceans, harming the soil. Those are hard decisions to make because there's a lot of money tied up in these innovations and things that we know about now. But, I do think we do need to take a hard look at ourselves and say, "What can we give up because there's a better path forward in doing something a little bit differently and not relying on well, this is the way we do it so this is the way we will just continue to do it going forward."

It's an evaluation moment. That's a long way of saying, you know, we started with salmon to start to bring in that thinking around how does one regenerate the ocean? How does we have these ecosystems intact?

Dan: I appreciate you saying that. One of the challenges that I find, and I was sharing with you before, is I think one of the things that we as an industry should do better, is to do a better job of celebrating why this matters. And what I mean by that, Birgit, is that, instead of just, "This is food," we should also educate people about where does the food come from? How's it sourced? Why does this, what is the origin of it? Why does organic really matter. I find that people don't understand where their food comes from, or why it matters. Let me back up.

Years ago, I remember hearing about how Kellogg's developed a way to bust apart the grain of wheat and put more of the vitamins and minerals that your body needed. While I don’t mean to pick on Kelloggs, I thought that was pretty creative. I've since had an opportunity to really dig into this and I know that there is a big difference between synthetic nutrients and healthy food.

I recently worked for a company that had Dr. Tieraona Low Dog and Dr. Weil as their advisors. I learned al lot about how the nutrients are metabolized into the body, and why food really matters. I find that few people really understand this or why this matters. I find that more people don't know where their food comes from.

So, when you're talking about the fact that you're trying to harvest salmon the way you do, I don't think a lot of people connect the dots. The concern that I have is that as an industry, we're not doing a good enough job, from my perspective, of helping consumers understand why there is so much mercury in tuna or why there are so many microplastics in other fish, why there's so many other issues, like you said, disease and overcrowding just to name a few. These are similar issues to we see in regular farming and ranching. We're going to get to regenerative organic agriculture in a bit. This is such an important message. So, how as a company, are you championing and communicating the value of what you're doing so that more people understand that?

Birgit: Yeah, it's a heavy list because it's about breaking down the science. Ultimately, science is our compass as our good friend, Kurt Beardslee says that wild fish conservancy is such a great way of looking at it. It's the barometer that guides us, right? This is a really important fact. If we then take that and we start to educate around the scientific findings that we know more now than ever before, then this really should be a path for the future for anybody interested in starting companies or pivoting their business is to really take a look at the science.

Then, understanding that as it relates to a certain topic. In this case, say the salmon or regenerative practices, and breaking it down so that people can understand. For instance to your example with tuna, why we need to eat lower on the food chain. If everybody is just eating tuna, then we deplete our oceans of this incredible being. We start to really disrupt the whole ecosystem by doing that.

Bringing in the idea of well, there's mackerel, and there's mussels and there's salmon if carefully managed that can be abundant for us. Bringing attention to that by creating products that are super delicious, super high quality and telling the story as to why we might want to pay attention to these tinned fish and smaller fish so that we take pressure off of the larger fish like tuna.

As the world's big fish disappear, we need to consider the little fish, or what we call the bait, that are far more plentiful, they don't have the high levels of toxins that concentrate in larger fish and they're excellent sources of protein and vitamin B12. They taste amazing if you put the right recipes to them. In the case of say mackerel, it's this really great meaty, not so fishy fish that is a tremendous culinary delight.

We've created three products with another one coming, different variations that you can put on. Have it with crackers or throw it on pasta. It becomes a main part of your meal and it takes pressure off of these bigger fish. Mussels, incredible source of protein that grows on ropes that creates an ecosystem for other fish community and you're not really depleting the ocean. They grow really quickly, you can harvest them and they just keep coming back. They're really abundant.

Educating people around that, telling them why. But ultimately with food, it has to taste delicious. You have to show them that, that there's a reason to go and buy it again. Not just because of the eco side of it, but because it's also really delicious. Let's fact it, we all want that, right? We're not going to buy something again if it isn't. I think just breaking things down to tangible reasons why and then producing product that really is high quality and tastes delicious is key to this kind of communication.

Dan: Thank you for saying that. I think that when we're having this conversation, one of the things, like you said, we need to communicate is the importance of the taste, and where I'm going to here is that if you eat a strawberry found in a produce section in a store, it doesn't taste anywhere near as good as an organic strawberry right out of the ground. A lot of people have never experienced that sensation. And then, if you take away the processed foods and the sugars and all that other junk we put in our bodies, it tastes even more sweet. It's even better. Having that conversation with customers, I think is how we change their understand of why this matters.

So, when you're talking about different kinds of fish, etc. and the way it's farmed, there's a big difference between salmon that's farm-raised and what you're talking about, your product specifically. Having customers experience that can be life-changing. My point is, having that experience and being able to share that experience brings us back to the fact that food is that major connector between people of all races, ethnicities, geographies, etc. So, when Patagonia was developing your food business, how are you connecting with the broader global community?.

Birgit: Yeah, we have Patagonia provisions in Japan. Patagonia as a whole is International. We have a really, wonderfully exploding provisions business in Japan telling the stories that are broader from a global perspective, but also what are the local things that are happening in Japan that are relevant to their food system.

We are working to expand into Europe and of course, we're all across the US. We do have conversations happening in South America, as well, because we've got a whole network of people and community down there. Like I said, it's such a universal topic that it really makes sense for us to hone in on the larger talking points around this. The reasons why and the connection globally that we're experience.

Also, to drill down into what is happening in each of these communities. What does food security look like for Japan being an island, for instance? What's going on in Europe? Those kinds of things you need to take in the cultural relevance, as well, as we plan this out. Absolutely, it's a global endeavor.

Dan: That's great. This is one of the reasons why I was so thrilled to have you on the podcast. A lot of people, as I was illustrating before, they don't necessarily know where their food comes from or the way their food is produced for example by big ag. They don't take into consideration the impact of that crop globally, etc. And that's one of the things that I think is so incredibly cool about what you are doing, because you're bridging that gap. You're taking your learnings from other communities, other experts, other countries, other ethnicities, and you're bringing that into the conversation.

Same as Patagonia itself, some of the initiatives that you have championed continue to set the bar really high. You are the standard that I believe every company should rise to.

So, we've talked a lot about fish and the oceans. Now tell me, let's talk about regenerative organic agriculture. I’m thrilled that you are championing this and take a leading role..

Birgit: Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. Regenerative organic is really a key focus for anything grown on land. It's incredibly important because ultimately soil at its highest bar of eco function can produce the yields of food that we need. It is super important in terms of nutrients. The best, you know, you talked about the strawberry and how the strawberry tastes so much better when it's grown in an organic situation.

Well, if you add regenerative practices meaning that you're allowing the soil ecosystem to function at its highest bar, you are actually drawing in higher content of nutrients, which has been proven out. Rodale Institute has this data now, as well, as many others who have been working on this science.

You get a higher nutrient level and you get incredible flavor because you're getting all the enzymes and polyphenols and things that are supposed to be existing in that thing that you're growing. Functioning as they should, and that comes through in flavor. What a great thing that flavor can be an indicator of health and of soil systems and also be such a pleasure to bring into your diet.

I think this idea of road to regenerative then for us became paramount. We decided to support building with other brands like Dr. Bronner's and Rodale Institute and other science folks setting up of this regenerative organic certified program. We started the regenerative organic alliance which set up this certification program. This is all about the health of the soil, so it's a trinity of soil health, animal welfare and social fairness.

Agricultural practices build soils instead of degrading them in this system by using chemicals or by even growing as a monoculture. A lot of organic right now, it's great that things are moving toward organic, but we have to be careful not to have it go down this road of just another monoculture. We need diversity, nature needs diversity for this soil health to be surviving.

By increasing soil organic matter, the diversity and number of soil microbes start to increase and the overall soil fertility starts to increase, which is really paramount to that function that I was talking about. Ecosystem that is intact but then can therefore provide for us.

On the animal welfare side, the animals are raised and handled for diary meat or fiber production because they must be treated humanely. That's a given. No KFOs. We really take into consideration that also animals as part of a regenerative system is important, as well because of the fertilizer aspect and all of these things. How do we handle that?

Then social fairness, farmers and workers must be treated fairly and paid a living wage. With farms in compliance with all sort of local and federal labor laws including house and safety guidelines, farms offer workers training and other opportunities to improve their social and economic positions. That trinity of soil health, animal welfare and social fairness really is the basis of regenerative, organic certified.

What Patagonia provisions is doing in terms of supporting this, as well, is to bring in so we create our products on this road to regenerative certified, but we are also now bringing in, widening our market place and bringing in partner products under other brands that are also dedicating to this movement. We have this aggregation, this community curation of folks all moving in the same direction toward regeneration and recognizing that there is a place beyond basic organic practices that will be super important for health of people and health of planet.

Dan: So very important. Thank you for sharing that. Back up a little bit. When you're talking about the quality and the flavors, one of the things that's coming to my mind is, when you talk to people that are wine connoisseurs, they talk about the flavors in the wine, the different aspects of the wine based upon the soil health and the air and the water, etc. That's kind of what we're talking about here. To your point, fresh organic does taste many, many, many times better. And if we get all those toxins out of our body, all the sugars, all the processed stuff, etc., then we can actually taste those differences.

I've had a lot of different people in the podcast that have talked about similar disruptive practices, for example, grass-fed milk, where they don't use any antibiotics or steroids on their cows. The cows are healthier and milk is amazing. We’ve also talked about organic chicken, organic plant-based products, etc. Pardon the expression but, healthy products on steroids. And I love the fact that you are doing this because so many people don't understand that there is an ecosystem for all that we eat and when we disrupt it, we take things out of the equation that are important, like you said, microbes.

So, before I hit the record button, I was talking to you about how, when I was talking to Jeff Moyer with Rodale Institute on the podcast, he was saying, this is back in the time where there was all the flooding, that had regenerative agriculture been in place, the crops and the farms would not have been as devastated, because they would have been able to maintain their nutrients more effectively, and they would not have been washed away. You were sharing some great insights around that. Could you please share that again?

Birgit: Sure. That is such a key element, I'm really glad you're bringing that up because like I was saying, soil at it's highest bar function, so that means the way that say Mother Nature intended it to be, right? Everything is in eco, everything is connected, right? Soil is this living being entity when it is cared for in the way that it was meant to. There are, you know, you've heard the expression there are more microbes in a teaspoon of soil than there are people in the planet when soil is at its highest bar.

If you treat it more like a living being entity rather than just a medium to put inputs in, it's a game changer in that you get this enzymes, phytonutrients, all these microbes kind of working together to create delicious food. You get a higher bar for nutrition and you also have a soil system that then holds onto water so that in times of drought where we have plenty, you know, with these extreme weather changes. This is going to be incredibly important for us to take note that in times of drought, soil at its highest bar function in these regenerative organic practices allows for the retention of water and therefore less harm when these drought moments come because there is water available to these plants.

The same thing happens in these extreme weather instances where there's lots of rains and flooding. Again, if the soil is intact, you're not just using this sort of surface level. There's better water infiltration so it can soak up the water instead of just pooling at the top, and flooding and then washing the top soil away. That's an incredibly important element to this, as well. If you allow this soil function to be intact, you really do mitigate these issues. You also have higher yields so the argument that we wouldn't have food in the future if we don't do these other things, it doesn't really fly anymore because you actually can have the yields.

You have pollinators existing which are responsible for a third of our food supply. If those end up going away because we've used too many chemicals in our system, that is a massive problem. A third of our food supply is reliant on pollinators. We have to pay attention to that. Then obviously, the farmers, the workers. They're not getting sick. We're allowing for diversity, we're allowing for natural systems to come into play here and not chemical systems. So key, so key.

All of that works together and you should look at it and say well why wouldn't we go down this road? Then it's okay, how do we help other people transition to this? How do we work with farmers? How do we build a certification? How do broaden our region in terms of education and support to start to move down this road?

Dan: Thank you for sharing that. I've shared with you before, when we were talking earlier, the example that I like to use a lot was bread. So, the idea being that, if I eat the generic bread, I'm hungry before I finish eating it. If I eat the best mainstream bread I might be satiated for three or four hours, but if I am what I eat and I eat the organic bread, then I may be satiated even longer because I get the nutrients that I need to fuel my body even longer. Therefore, I eat less of it and even though I'm paying a little bit more for it at the shelf, I'm eating less of it. Therefore it is cheaper in the long run. That is part of the conversation that I think is missing in this industry, one. I don’t think organic brands should ever have to apologize for the quality ingredients in the packages and when the industry chastises them - we’ll it’s an insult. The fact that organic costs more has more to do with our broken food system that layers on costs big brands avoid than the actual cost to produce the ingredients. I’m committed to change that. I’ll save that for another day.

And then two, back to our conversation about the supply chain. We make it very difficult for small brands to compete with big brands and store brands. There is a huge opportunity for us to help those brands thrive, innovate, champion important missions and be even more successful. The reason this matters is, like you said, there is an ecosystem, and it includes helping shoppers understand why your brand matters and true value of the quality ingredients in your package. As I shared before, I've had so many CEO’s and food entrepreneurs on this podcast that have shared similar bottlenecks and anecdotal stories, and here you are, wrapping it all together and driving that point home. So, thank you.

So, when you're talking about general agriculture, and you're talking about the importance of the microbes. That goes back to how well products thrive, how drought-resistant they are. As you mentioned, what also cleans up the water, and cleans up the soil. And where I'm going with this is the filtration that makes our system so much cleaner can regenerate itself, kind of like you're talking about the fish a minute ago, is that we've got to stop throwing so many pollutants into our food system.

So, back to if you are what you eat, one of the things, and I think I shared with you. When I talk on stage at industry events I frequently ask the audience about industry definitions and they have a hard time explaining which is better: organic, non-GMO, natural, clean label, etc. And if we, as an industry, have a hard time explaining that to ourselves, then we can understand why consumers are confused. So, how do we, or how do the brands in your community, your marketplace, etc., how do we help support that? How do we help better educate the end consumer?

I liken this to be the ripple in the pond. Natural is where the growth trends are born. How do we get that ripple to grow and grow and grow and become the tidal wave that ends up on a Kroger shelf, before it becomes a tsunami and ends up on a Walmart shelf? How do we help expand that ripple and help drive these learnings?.

Birgit: Yeah, it's really important to do that. This is why we believe in the collective action. We know that there's no time to lose here. Our mission statement is that we're in business to save our home planet. That's not something that we can do alone, and so we really feel that it's important to draw in other people. Everybody from the farmers, the ranchers, the producers that are thinking the same way we do. But also, other companies, small and large that are making efforts to go down this road because they do recognize that there's a different way of doing things that would be better for everybody.

That's why our method of doing what you're talking about is to build out a broader marketplace. As Yvon Chouinard says in our film on broken ground, all these people moving in the same direction you can't believe what we can accomplish. This is exactly what we're doing with this is to say who is small that's doing this that we can help nurture? Can we bring in a get it while you can product online as long as it's an example of how things can be done better and it's delicious and meets our quality standards and it's on the road to regeneration in whatever area whether it's soil or ocean?

Bring them in and help tell the story and then couple that with others that are more evergreen products that are out there, or companies that are a little bit larger and there's more of a consistent flow of that like Lotus Foods for instance. Great strides in doing things better. Well, let's put them in this mix, as well. All of the sudden you have this collective kind of moving together. There's just so much more power in that and people start to see that this isn't just one company raising their hand saying, "Okay, this is the only way."

We bring in this diversity in what we're offering of other folks, other ways of doing things that are all dedicated to this direction. Bringing them together and helping educate in this online community, for instance. Now, after COVID we'll go into more events like we always do and film making and sharing food and our stories and trade shows and things like that. But, for the moment this online community is really important and I think we'll be relevant going into the future now as everybody's so trained to purchase food online, now.

I think the most important thing here is this aggregation of folks together moving in this direction. Then we tell the stories through film, through emails, through newsletters and journals and all sorts of means of communication to bring in these did you know moments and look how this person is doing it, look how that person is doing it. All the while, nurturing these smaller businesses to help them grow so we create market pull for them.

Another aspect that we work on is evaluating are there other crops out there that we can bring into the mix. For instance, Kernza. We set up the supply chain for Kernza which is a perennial wheat that has a really giant root that draws down all sorts of carbon that holds onto nitrogen that would otherwise kind of flow into our water systems causing dead zones at the base of the river to the ocean. Bringing in something like that, that was developed by the Land Institute, so working with scientific communities like the Land Institute and Wes Jackson and his work to bring in an alternative crop to create a whole new supply chain around that.

Then, create a beer. Again, it goes to product that then could bring market pull to that and therefore scale something like that. Nothing like a beer to tell this story. Education around these products is really paramount. There's many, many stories like that within our little ecosystem of Patagonia provisions that help address what you're talking about.

Dan: So critically important. Thank you for sharing. And that's a great story too, because a lot of people don't think about how is this all connected? Why does this all matter? I am such a huge fan of you are doing. I love that you are taking the leadership role in this. Let me frame it this way.

One of the best things to come out of this pandemic, if you could think of a positive, is that it's exposed to so many of the failures, so many of the problems in our food system and our social net, etc. And what you are doing, from my perspective is you're helping to address that even before it was mainstream news, front-page news. That's critically important because these are the issues and the things that we need to be thinking about, to go back to your original point, your mission statement about saving the planet. How would you encourage other brands to get involved in that type of a community, your community, or group together to solve some of these bigger issues that are plaguing the country, plaguing the world?

.

Birgit: Yeah, I would say that the future lies in being innovative, in consulting with science, in really looking at what is the why? Why are you bringing out a certain product? How are you making that product? Getting in touch with the entire supply chain right down to the seed that it begins with. What kind of soil is it grown in? What are the conditions in the ocean? What are the harvesting methods?

This innovation and science is really the barometer, is really the compass for how anybody should be approaching certainly anything built within our food system. That is kind of a paramount basic place to begin. We look at ourselves as a center for innovation in food and we hope to build these examples so that other people also maybe can learn from them and take them on. That's a win for us. We don't hold things too close to say, "No, you can't have that information. That belongs to us." We want to be able to have other companies work with us or start to take on some of the things that we're innovating around like Kernza or things like new crops like bread fruit that address food security. Things like that.

For other brands, I mean, you just have to go to the fact that people are so much more educated now. Information is at our fingertips. We're online all the time, now. People are shopping their values more and more, so going to that place. Understanding that's where people are right now. They're focusing on health, they're focusing on food. They're more educated and they really prefer to shop their values.

Well, that's where companies should pivot their businesses toward this new way of being, a more educated way of being and then bring in the stories. There's nothing like just telling the truth about you know, if you're proud about something that you're making and you've examined it all the way down to who's growing it and how it's grown and all these other aspects we've been talking about, there's an endless amount of stories to tell and to talk about within that, right?

It used to be that we would, you know, marketing was so much about making stuff up. That just doesn't work anymore. That's surface and it's not meaningful. We're at a different place completely.

Dan: Thank you for sharing that. On that note, big companies spend most of their time talking at us instead of talking to us. And what's neat about natural, organic, this industry is that we're more closely tied to our end consumer. As you mentioned a minute ago, people shop their values. I don't have time to go work at a food bank or go to a different country and support some mission, etc. But if I can support a company that is doing that, that's really cool. That's great that I can feel good about the products that I'm purchasing, and at the same time, help someone that has, like you, the opportunity to do more good on my behalf, on the behalf of all of us, etc.

One of the things that you mentioned, the collaboration, it's a true partnership. And I want to highlight that, and celebrate that because a lot of people, like you said, the bigger companies, they want to keep everything close to their vests. They don't want to show their cards. But by you sharing these insights and bringing people in your community, and partnering with them, a true partnership, an authentic partnership, not only are you learning, as we mentioned a little bit ago about what's going on in Japan, different food systems, etc., but you're also celebrating the wisdom of the entire group, taking that into consideration, so we're all learning from each other. And as a result, as a collective, that's how we're making the big difference. That's the thing that I think I find so inspiring about what you guys are doing is the fact that you guys are taking the leadership role in this.

Now, conversely, the challenges in terms of fixing our food system again, we've got to make it easier for these plants to grow and thrive. And I believe that one of the ways that we do this is we help brands celebrate everything you just talked about in this story. What's the consumer like that buys your product? What is the mission behind it? How does it align with your consumer? And leverage that at retail, as opposed to the traditional strategy, which is broken, where everything's about how much money can you pay for slotting and promotions and stuff like that? How as a brand are you leveraging these strategies, these insights, this community, to combat some of that? And with your online profile, now you've got your own standalone marketplace, like you said. So, how are you combating, how are you helping brands compete more effectively and compete against the bigger brands that grow and scale?.

Birgit: Well, you know, it is so complex especially in food. You've got so many layers of brokers and distributors and grocery stores and lots of ways to sell things. At the end of the day, and that being the producer, you making like just a few little margin points. It's a rough business. One of the things I said early on was it's a high volume business because the margins are so low. Your takeaway is so low. How do you give back and all of that within that kind of model?

I think that's where ECOM is great. It's much more of a direct way to go out to us and help that side of the business. Just helps feed the rest of the business. With that said, you know, grocery stores exist and the system exists, the distribution that we also need to plan and it's part of the way we shop and we live and go to the market and all that. Making sure that we have deep relationships with the companies that we're working with to showcase our products and educating them, as well. Why are we making this product? Can we put all these products together to tell a story a little bit deeper?

As customers come in looking for food that does allow them to shop their values. Can we provide as much support as possible from an education point of view that goes with that? It's hard in a grocery store, for instance, when you've got this sea of products like yelling at you, right? There's just like buy me, buy me and there's all sorts of things and it becomes overwhelming and confusing.

What we try to do is build our products that sit in those shelves to be sort of, design them to be like a little bit of an oasis for the eye and then something that then your eye is attracted to and we tell the story of why we exist as they pick it up and look at the product. Tell the story as much as possible on the package.

It's an interesting thing. On our website, we have a much easier time of it because we can show little films, we can have deeper dialogues. We bring in essays from scientists or people within the supply chain to tell their story. It's much more of a community build that allows for a broader education through that ECOM side of things. It's just something that we are really a story telling company because we build films, we host events and things like that. That's sort of the way to really reach out to folks and bring in new community around this dialogue.

You have to just sort of understand who are we out in the grocery store and the market in general and then how can we build community in other ways. That's what ECOM, the digital world allows us to do.

Dan: So, thank you for sharing that. One of the things I was thinking about as you were saying that is that people look beyond the four corners of their package, meaning that they go to your website to do research and learn more about your products. And the fact you've got all that rich information there allows people to understand why this matters, the importance of regenerative organic food, etc. Like you said, the storytelling, so critically important. One of the things that I'm focused on is helping brands leverage that at retail. I’m working hard to change the paradigm in terms of the way brands get their products on store shelves. The current strategy is to squeeze as much margin out of a single item. This is the way retailers do things today. I’m working hard to teach brands how to leverage their story at retail and to focus on the shoppers market basket - the sum total of what shoppers spend at checkout when your brand is in their shopping basket. The point is that the consumer that buys your product is so much more valuable to retailers than the consumer that doesn't buy organic.

I love what you're sharing, and I love what you're talking about and the fact that you're building a marketplace community, because from my perspective, we need retailers to rethink the way they're doing things. We need for them to make it easier for brands like you to grow and thrive, so that we as a community can support all of the initiatives that you're championing, so that we can help you do more good for the planet. That's how we're going to fix things. So, thank you for sharing all that. Before I ask you if there's anything else you wanted to share, one of the things that I've been doing, Birgit, on the podcast is asking my guests, if you've got a bottleneck that you'd like me to help try to solve?

Birgit: Well, the bottlenecks for us are a little bit different. Exposure is always key, right? We want to make sure that as many people as possible know about this and can come to our website, patagoniaprovisions.com, and really see what we're doing. That's huge, right? If there was a bottleneck, it's that. It's growth.

It's so important, the mission is so important. We are at a moment in time where it's critical for people to understand this so the education is huge. What you're doing by exposing these stories is massive. What we're doing is trying to help build a place where people can come and learn more so that they can make these informed decisions about what they're buying. That's really critical.

As much as we can get this story, these stories, our story and others out there the better. That's just one of the biggest things. I think, for us, in terms of other bottlenecks because we go so deep we really work on supply chains. That's especially challenging when you invest in crops that are outside of the norm, like Kernza for our long root ale and our long root wet beers. Or bread fruit for new products that we're launching that are sort of going very deep in that story telling.

You know, both of those are examples of setting up a whole new supply chain right down to finding farmers to grow them and equipment to work with them and infrastructure, right? Infrastructure often needs to be different. Infrastructure is a big bottleneck, it's a big problem because the whole system is set up to deal with only a few crops. Therefore, all the things that we used to do, we used to have diversity and supply chain where you could handle a variety of different crops from milling and cleaning and doing all these things with a variety of different machinery.

And now, we don't have that. The equipment and processing needs can be very different and therefore investment needs to be made in these other areas. Those are other kinds of bottlenecks that you have to kind of look at not gauging your success on just the quarterly earnings, but what are the other things within your supply chain that you are helping unlock and grow in different ways and the impact that you're making for a better future. That has to be another measure of success.

Bottlenecks? There's a lot of different kinds of them, but just being conscious of what they are and mining into them, tackling them, understanding the issues around it and solving problems is key to unlocking all of those bottlenecks.

Dan: I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing that. Well, so exposure, your first bottleneck? This is exactly why I do this. I'm the only podcast that I know of that talks about brands this way, that goes deep into things like regenerative organic agriculture from the perspective of why it matters to shoppers and how to educate and leverage that story to help brands get their products onto more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers - including online.

The fact is that the shopper your brand attracts is far more valuable to the retailer than other brands and that needs to be the focus of your brand story. It's how do I help you inspire other brands? How do I help you inspire others in the world that are trying to make a sustainable difference? I am all in. I think that this is so very important that people begin to understand this.

Put another way, I am working to help solve the same issues as Patagonia but starting with the consumer first and working backward. Simple supply and demand. Helping organic brands grow and thrive by becoming more available on store shelves thus increasing consumer demand which creates more demand for organic ingredients which helps to provide companies like Patagonia more resources to support import causes like regenerative organic certification and much much more.

Again, back to the bread example. If you are what you eat, then what you eat matters. Nutrient rich foods sustain shoppers longer and thus are a better value over time. I believe that a CEO should not be a perpetual fundraiser. I believe that organic products should charge what the product's worth, and not be so focused on the margin or lowering the price, etc. The notion that price is the only thing that gets people to buy a product in retail is completely wrong. It's false. It’s a drug that a lot of retailers, distributors, and brokers are addicted to in terms of slotting, trade marketing as a profit center even though most promotions do nothing to grow sustainable sales, and some of the other fees, they charge make it extremely difficult for natural brands to grow and thrive. This is why over 80% of natural brands fail within the first year - I am committed to change that. Our food system is broken and natural brands are unfairly burdened by costs big brands avoid.

For example, in the 2016 Category Management Handbook, I was able to prove that organic products were driving sustainable sales across every category. But if you take away that small size of organic, from every category, then every category would be flat or declining. Big brands are struggling on shelf. It's the small disruptive brands that are driving sustainable sales, driving more customers into stores, and helping retailers remain relevant. Relevant meaning helping retailers keep customers coming in their stores again and again and again, and not inviting them to go shop online or shop at their competition? You can read the feature article on every podcast page.

In terms of the first piece, building that ecosystem to help these brands grow and thrive, that's why I'm such a fan of what you are doing. And the fact that you've got your own online community, that gives you an even better story. So now, trying to weed out some of the inefficiencies in your go-to-market strategies and in your promotional spending, that's one of the ways that hopefully I can help a lot of brands.

I was working with an organic energy bar recently who was told to get her finished product cost below 80¢ per unit to be able to sell her bar for $3.99 and pay the distributor, broker, retailer, and investors what they demanded. This will not give her enough runway to grow and scale without a lot of capital raises. Those costs get passed onto consumers and will make it nearly impossible for her to survive in a hyper competitive category. We need, as an industry, to fix this

As far as your supply chain part of your question. That goes back to fixing our food system - helping organic products get on more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers - basic supply and demand.

And so, from my standpoint, the way that we do that is we help give Patagonia Provisions, and all the other companies that you're talking about a better path forward to get your products into the hands of more shoppers. Let me rephrase it this way. For most of the organizations, the OTA, etc., they're focused on fixing organic from the farmer perspective. From my perspective, I'm focused on, how do we make it easier for the consumer to find and buy your products wherever they shop? How do we make it easier for brands like Patagonia Provisions to save our home planet? Does that help?.

Birgit: Yeah, that is massively important. Creating market pull, creating awareness. Create awareness then we create market pull that ripples down into the whole supply chain and allows farmers and ranchers and fishermen to know that there is a market for going, with these premium practices. I would say better practices, right? That people are educated around it, they want that, there's a desire for it. We create these forums for them to actually showcase them and their stories and then they are more likely to continue to go down the road of this regeneration path and high bar organics.

At the end of the day, that's what it is. It's about survival, right? If I know that there's a market for me, I'm growing something, I'm raising something, I'm fishing, if I make these extra practices, incorporate them into my system then I'll do it all day long. And, you know, if there's a premium attached to it, wow, even better. The ripple effect of that is really tremendous in doing what we need to do, which is to save our home planet by making sure that these actions are put into place.

This market pull, which is what we hope to really build with our marketplace, the online patagoniaprovisions.com, the broader community rippling through the entire food system to just have more and more people converting in that way. The other thing that we need to work on is policy. We need to make sure that we work on where do the subsidies go? We're subsidizing corn and soy and all these other crops that, that's why you can buy a bag of chips for three times less than it really should be, right? How do we start to shift things from a policy point of view to help fund organic conversion? To help bring in regenerative organic certified as a North star for the broader farming community and then policy that gets attached to it.

These are other systematic areas that we need to focus on so that we work on this supply side, but we also work on how the system is set up. You have to go into all different aspects of this.

Dan: This is where I say, amen. Thank you. I agree with you completely, and a lot of people don't realize that there are some farms, some crops that get subsidies whether they grow corps or not. Think about all the people that are getting bailout money for not producing because of whatever reason. And yet, that impacts all of us. That changes the dynamics of our food system. Big money has got to be taken out of the equation and small producers need a level playing field to complete on.

My challenge, like I said, Over 80% of natural brands fail within the first year. I'm committed to change that. And the way we do that is by having these conversations, by making it easier for you to get your products into more store shelves, and into the hands of more consumers, by making it easier for a customer to go up to the shelf and say, "You know what? I'm going to buy the regenerative organic product, even though it's a couple pennies more, because I know that it's going to give my body the nutrients that it needs and therefore I’ll need less of it." It's food as medicine”. It will fix so many problems including reducing our demand on healthcare, etc. Gary Hirshberg said on podcast episode 42 that it was cheeper to eat healthy than to pay a doctor to fix a problem caused by not eating the right foods. I could not agree more.

But long story short, I agree. I'm all in. And whatever I can do to help support you and your mission, to help get this in front of more people, to celebrate this more, let me know. Reach out to me. I'm just a huge fan of what you are doing. And more importantly, like I said earlier, you should be the norm, not the exception. And I love the leadership role, and the thought leadership that you're putting into this, and the forward-thinking solutions that you are championing in terms of bringing communities together, highlighting or shining a spotlight on all the inequities in our food system, and so many of the other aspects of our lives that need to be fixed. So, again, I cannot thank you enough for coming on today. Do you have any parting thoughts?

Birgit: Thanks, Dan. I really appreciate you focusing on that and highlighting our work. Like I said, it is a collective action and I think that we just need to change the paradigm a little bit and stop building products just on trend and stop green washing and start to look at the reason why something should exist.

Look at that science. Like I said, look at innovation. Look at real tangible reasons why you would want to bring a product to market and bring it out at the highest quality and support the people along the way that are creating this. That's how you will win. You will win because you are paying attention to that and you are producing something and showcasing something that is real.

People, like I said, our customers, our consumers, the community is really smart and they want to shop value. If we don't want to have that high rate of failure, we need to go to truth and real and something that stands for something. That's something that's really, really important. I also think that the things that keep me up at night would be things like making sure my kids inherit a healthy planet and that other people do and with a mission statement like we are in business to save our home planet. You can't help but think differently, a little outside the box asking why and how.

This focus is really key to differentiation and accomplishing something unique and powerful. One thing Yvon Chouinard often talks about, too, is this is our mission statement but other people can take that on, too. If you have that as a guiding force, because of the state we're in right now ... You know, if you look at Nathaniel Rich and the New York Times puts it so beautifully and so does Charles Massy in his book Call of the Reed Warbler, they both come at this really incredibly important concept for everybody which is we are the only species that is destroying the very ecosystem that was meant to support us.

If you look at that, you think you know, what? That's true. How can we do things better? Then you are helping to solve the problem. You're creating a better future for your kids and the next generations. You're putting something out there that's meaningful. I think you can't help but win.

Dan: Absolutely. Well, like you said, paying farmers a fair wage, paying your employees a fair wage, like you did when the pandemic started, even though they couldn't work. And some of many other things you do. Because it's right, not because of how it impacts the bottom line. Because it's right. And then, how can we help brands like you grow, thrive, scale, etc.? And the way I believe that we do that is by shining a spotlight on this, by celebrating what you're doing. And by challenging other brands to at least meet you where you're at, if not even do better. So, again, thank you so much for your time. I am so grateful that you were able to come on the podcast and share this. And let me know what I can do to help support you. I'm just a huge fan.

Birgit: Thanks, Dan. I so appreciate you being interested in this and showcasing what we're up to. Really appreciate it.

Dan: Thank you.

Patagonia patagonia.com

Patagonia Provisions patagoniaprovisions.com

Thanks again for joining us today. Make sure to stop over at brandsecretsandstrategies.com for the show notes along with more great brand building articles and resources. Check out my free course Turnkey Sales Story Strategies, your roadmap to success. You can find that on my website or at TurnkeySalesStoryStrategies.com/growsales. Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and recommend it to your friends and colleagues.

Sign up today on my website so you don’t miss out on actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

I appreciate all the positive feedback. Keep your suggestions coming.

Until next time, this is Dan Lohman with Brand Secrets and Strategies where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.