September 26, 2024 • 41 mins
Episode Summary:
In this episode of Regenerative By Design, host Joni sits down with Cate Havstad-Casad, master hat maker and founder of Range Revolution, a regenerative leather goods company. Cate shares her inspiring journey, starting with an apprenticeship as a Western hat maker and her transition into organic and biodynamic farming with her husband. Over the last decade, Cate has helped scale their farm to manage 400 acres, focusing on regenerative practices despite significant water challenges in the arid West.
Cate and Joni discuss the importance of design in influencing people’s actions and thinking. Cate emphasizes how her business, Range Revolution, pulls cattle hides destined for landfills back into the supply chain, supporting regenerative ranchers and promoting sustainable fashion. They also explore the complex value chain of leather production and the difficulties of creating a truly regenerative supply chain in the fashion industry.
The conversation also touches on the critical need for better marketing and education to bridge the gap between consumers and regenerative practices. Cate shares her thoughts on the power of fashion to lead cultural conversations and influence daily choices around sustainability.
If you're interested in sustainable fashion, regenerative agriculture, or how design can inspire meaningful change, this episode is packed with insights and inspiring stories.
Key Topics Covered:
- Cate’s journey into design, farming, and regenerative practices
- The role of Range Revolution in the regenerative leather industry
- The challenges of building a regenerative supply chain in fashion
- Marketing and education as essential tools for promoting regeneration
- The importance of fashion in driving cultural narratives around sustainability
Notable Quotes:
- “Design at its best inspires people to see, think, and act differently.” – Cate Havstad-Casad
- “Every day, we participate in agriculture by getting dressed.” – Cate Havstad-Casad
Where to Find Cate:
- Website: rangerevolution.com
- Instagram: @rangerevolution
- LinkedIn: Cate Havstad-Casad
Call to Action:
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate the podcast, share it with friends, and spread the word about the regenerative revolution. Let’s work together to inspire more people to embrace sustainable practices and support brands like Range Revolution, which is leading the charge in regenerative design.
Connect with Us:
Stay updated with the latest episodes and discussions on regenerative design by subscribing to the podcast and following us on social media.
Support the Show:
If you're passionate about regeneration, help us by sharing this episode and leaving a review to reach a broader audience!
Regenerative by Design is hosted by Snacktivist. Snacktivist creates baking mixes and finished products that are allergy-friendly, soil, water, and carbon-focused, all while radically impacting human nutrition by transforming staple foods into something more than just empty calories. Visit snacktivistfoods.com to learn more.
Funding for the Regenerative By Design Podcast was made possible by a grant/cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service. The podcast's contents are solely the authors' responsibility and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Joanne, hello, everyone. You arelistening to the regenerative by
(00:04):
design podcast where we will begetting to the root of health,
climate, economics and food. Iam your host. Joni quinwell
Moore, join me on this journeyas we explore the stories of
individuals and organizationswho are working to realign our
food system with both humanhealth and the health of our
planet. Welcome everybody to theregenerative by design podcast.
(00:25):
I am so thrilled to welcome myfriend, Kate huffstad, CAD today
to the show. Welcome Kate.
Hey, Joanie, I am excited to getto sit down with you.
Yeah, there's so much to talkabout. And you and I always have
literally no problem finding amillion things to discuss. But
today, I actually would love forour listeners to get to know you
(00:47):
a little bit better. I've hadthe pleasure of getting to know
you over the last couple ofyears and spend some great time
in person last year at aconference, and I just feel like
your story has so much value inthis regenerative by design
process that our listeners whohave followed this series we're
on, we're on season two ofregenerative by design, where
(01:08):
we're really just trying to digdeep into that design process,
like, how do we design a worldthat considers regenerative
thinking to be the coreoperating paradigm, And that
requires a different way ofthinking that affects not just,
you know, agriculture or justfood or just fibers or textiles,
but also, like business thinkingand contract contractual
(01:32):
community thinking. It's, it'sjust one of those things, and I
know that you you feel that waydeeply, and it's very much
reflected in your business. SoI'm just excited for you to tell
our listeners a little bit aboutyour history. About your history
and what you do today, and thenwe'll dig into that regenerative
story.
I love it. I mean, at theoutset, to like frame what I'm
(01:55):
working on. I believe thatdesign at its best can inspire
people to see differently, thinkdifferently, and thus act
differently. So at the outset,whether it's a product design, a
business design, a farm design,community, city planning,
(02:18):
design, if we do our jobs. Well,the outcome of this work can
inspire a different worldthrough people's change
directions, and we can get tolike how in a tactile way. I'm
trying to use design to do that,and I do it in a few different
(02:38):
mediums. So my design story, youknow, all start back in 2013 I
started apprenticing with acustom Western hat maker, and I
started learning to become ahat. Um, I think I can. It's,
(02:59):
it's been wonderful, and I'mhere in my hat shop with you
today. And I think now I'm about11 years into being a hat maker.
I think I can now call myself amaster Hatter. And so that was
the beginning of like, my designlife in that tactile form, but
at that same time, in 2013 iswhen I met my now husband on his
(03:24):
first farm, which was in Bend,Oregon, and he was farming
organically and biodynamically,and I had been introduced to
biodynamics years prior, and soI was really attracted to his
farm, the community that wasattracted to his farm, really
incredible. People were workingthere and volunteering there. So
(03:49):
starting in 2013 really like mylife in design, of like a
product designer, maker andfarmer really started in tandem.
So over the past decade, thoseare the two areas I've really
focused on. The farm has scaled.We started on just about three
(04:10):
acres of leased land, and wewere doing, you know, the
classic market gardening, threefarmers markets a week. We at
the highest point of output, had150 person CSA. Vegetable
Production was our focus, but wealways did a little bit of
wheat, and we scaled that. Sonow we manage about 400 acres of
(04:35):
farmland, and we've taken overand transitioned about 300 of
that acreage from conventionalto organic, regenerative. And in
the midst of all of that, youknow, we live in an arid region
in the West, our farm hasexperienced an 80% reduction in
(04:55):
irrigation waters. So you couldbe the. Best farmer with all the
regenerative and organicpractices, but if you lose 80%
of your essentially operatingcapital as a farm, which is your
water, you have to seriouslyrethink your entire model and
redesign so the farm itself isits own canvas in which this
(05:23):
work in design, you know, ismanifested. But these two
journeys have kind of like now,crossed over in what has been my
newest venture, which is rangerevolution. In essence, range
revolution is a regenerativeleather goods company that seeks
to pull some of the 5 millioncattle hides that are thrown
(05:45):
into the trash each year out ofthe trash, getting them back
into the supply chain andthereby also providing an
additional return to theregenerative ranchers and the
processors, aiming to make themmore financially resilient in
the process, while also usingthese tangible leather products
to reach a demographic of humansin the fashion sector who live
(06:09):
extremely detached from theunderstanding that everything we
wear and consume comes from thesoil, therefore every day, we
participate in agriculture bygetting dressed.
I love that. Yeah, it's like, sothat's full circle. Round. Yeah,
it's so wonderful. And,
(06:30):
you know, it's it, it
makes a lot of sense to me,especially with your background
in in custom path making like,you're already thinking through
the lens of like, fiber andvalue added products, um, and
you know, when you think aboutso many of the things that
happen at the agriculturallevel, in ranching and in
farming both, you see all thesevalue streams that could
(06:52):
generate revenue, and theydon't, because they lack value
chain partners, which, you know,for those of us who don't work
in this world, it's like theIt's the buildings or the
processes of the people or theorganizations that take a raw
good and turn it into somethingthat can be used, like leather,
and leather has a complicatedvalue chain. I mean, there's
just not there. We don't havethe infrastructure that we did
(07:14):
100 years ago for a number ofreasons and and I've really
appreciated the amount of, youknow, time and energy and
innovation, you know, focus thatyou and your team and people
that you collaborate with haveput into really trying to
understand and map out thatvalue chain for leather. And
that's been a big that's athat's a heavy lift. And
(07:36):
honestly, most of our audience,they're involved in regen in
some way, shape or form, andthey're, they're familiar with
the complexities the valuechain, but I don't think we go
there enough. Could you let usknow? Like, what does it take to
take a hide is, you know, at aslaughterhouse? I know that's
not a pretty word, but aprocessing facility, um, like,
what does it take to actuallyturn that into leather that can
(07:58):
be made into a handbag or a pairof shoes or jacket, yeah.
So let's start with maybe wherethe system is has been, and then
I'll talk about what we've beenbuilding. So a current commodity
leather supply chain, a lot ofhides that make up leather that
(08:19):
you can get on the commoditymarket right now, a lot of them
come from places like Brazil orNew Zealand, particularly the
Brazilian ones are a huge focusright now, because a lot of
those hides come from systemsthat lead to deforestation. So
it's a major focus. So say thatpride from Brazil, it might
(08:39):
travel to China for tanning andmanufacturing, and then from
China to Italy to be made intohandbag, and then from Italy to
its distribution center in, say,Los Angeles or New York or
whatever, you know, in total,and I ever tried my travel
25,000 miles around the globebefore finished product as a
person's hand? That is thecurrent globalized commodity
(09:05):
supply chain of leather,extremely opaque and extremely
opaque, I think, for a reason.Meanwhile, like as I mentioned,
in the United States, everyyear, we have 5 million cattle
hides going to the trash. Sowe've lost the systems for
aggregation. We have lost thetannery partners. We have lost
(09:29):
manufacturing, as we all know,here in the United States,
hugely. So to begin to do ourwork, one, because I'm working
with regenerative ranchers, Ihave to have the relationship
with the ranch to understand,okay, you know, are you
monitoring, what certification,or what monitoring protocol are
you using, so that we haverelative security, that indeed
(09:54):
what you say you're doing,you're doing right, actually,
regenerative. So you have tohave that relationship with. The
ranch. You have to have arelationship with the the
slaughterhouse, abattoir,whatever you're most comfortable
with. You have to know, or atleast, yeah, they have to be
able to pull those hides off ina way where you're going to
viable skin at the end of theprocess. They also have to be
(10:16):
willing to do the work of theinitial preservation, salting of
the pride to keep it in goodshape,
added work, heavy duty,industrial stuff. Yeah, this is
a, you know, a raw material rot,just like anything else. So it
has to be preserved. Thatslaughterhouse has to have the
capacity, infrastructure andwillingness to do that, knowing
(10:38):
that you are absolutely going toprovide the off take. Then it's
got to go to either stage onetannery or, like a vertically
integrated tannery that'll startwith, like the wet blue process,
and then move into a finishedtan. You know, just like
everything else, we've lost somany tanneries in the United
States, there's very few left.So we've been working with a
(11:00):
family tannery in Wisconsin, andthey do a vegetable tanning
process, which is the more ecofriendly tanning process. And
then we are just beginning arelationship with a tannery in
Lyon, Mexico, because what wereally trying to work on is this
ecosystem approach to the west,or would like to really focus on
(11:21):
the prides in the West. And whatmakes the most sense is to
aggregate from these westernstates and take everything down
to this tannery in Leon, Mexicofrom like, a streamlined
shipping perspective, yeah,because we I
mean, what people don'tunderstand often when they don't
work in these industries is thatin order to hit economies of
(11:43):
scale, we have to haveaggregation. And that's how
things used to work. I mean,community aggregation and
economic aggregation was very,very common and has become very,
very rare the last 5060, yearsand and it's why we've had, you
know, so few corporationsconsolidate and take over so
(12:05):
much of our criticalmanufacturing, and it's left
everybody else with a lack ofchannels to get through and
with. Without aggregation. It'snot financially feasible. So I
love the way that you guys arethinking about this. I mean,
ever since the first time Iheard the story, I was like, oh
my goodness, this is so, sofascinating, because that's how
(12:26):
we can compete. I mean, that'show, that's how things can
actually really get done, andit's a collaborative systems
level approach.
Well, think about this. We havea huge focus on creating a more
regenerative meat sector. Thisis currently how the meat sector
works for all these regenerativeranches. When we send our
steers, we raise, you know,cattle. When we send our steers
to slaughter, only 65% of thecarcass is getting utilized.
(12:50):
That means, wow, 35% of ourasset is going to the trash.
That is a no way regenerative,right? So, like Queen, we have
to work on the awful fat, thebones, the hides. I can't solve
all those. So I am focused onleather. And we have our
partners who are working on,off, take for awful bones, hot
(13:12):
for fat. Um, I
mean, the tallow movement ispicking up speed. So I feel like
there's innovators out there,which is great because that's
what it's going to take. Youdon't vertical integration is
enchanting from the outside, butit's like impossible to do. I
mean, if you were to, like,figure out how to vertically
integrate and turn all of thethings from your cattle that you
(13:36):
raise and have a value chain inplace for every single offtake,
it would be insanity. I don'teven know how you do that. So I
like an ecosystems approach. Ifwe have an ecosystem we've
talked about, right, anecosystem of businesses that I
think brings a diversity thatlends to resilience, I'll tell
you the, you know, the So, theheight aggregation system, it's,
(13:59):
we're, we're doing it right. Wedon't let perfect get in the way
of progress. So we are on theroad to what we aim to do, where
it's still vulnerable is therehas been really a couple of
bigger brands whose early oncommitments to these hides drove
a lot of the aggregation effortsin which we were able to jump
(14:22):
into with others. Yeah, butthose companies, their
commitments have wavered, andwhen you know management
changes, or a corporation issold to a different holding
company, if those commitments goaway, all of the other
businesses that are a part ofthat ecosystem, their
(14:43):
aggregation is then threatened.So I've been thinking a lot
about that in the last sixmonths and working on a B to B
supply chain opportunity thatmight help other mid sized
businesses like range revolutionget in on this. So we. Can have
more diversity of businessesaccessing the supply chain,
(15:04):
because it's just like anythingelse, if we have just a few
businesses supporting this onedrops out and the stool falls
over totally, Yep, yeah, andthat there's
a, I believe that there is areal need for digitized
aggregation tools to help umjust see things that are risk
(15:26):
and vulnerability, using thingslike AI and whatnot like to
rapidly think through scenarioslike, you know, you think about
strength in numbers, and youlose one critical member. Now,
everyone's back to the drawingboard of like Google and phone
calls and like thinking andreading articles instead of,
like, having a tool that canhelp us find, like, a potential
(15:47):
second, um, you know, secondentity that could fill a role
like that. Yeah, no, so it's um,those are the things that I've
been working on this year a lot,um, and how we can have
innovation brokerages that helpbring that together and foster
that conversation and foster,like, the contractual
(16:08):
relationships that help bringthose together. And so, like,
we're not constantly reinventingthe wheel, like good contracts
make good friends. And so, like,I've often wondered, like, okay,
there's, you know, this yearningto do more collaborative,
aggregative stuff. It'd be sonice if there were frameworks
that already had some greatcontractual things in place that
could be templatized and thenreplicated and shared. Be like,
(16:30):
okay, cool. You know this, thisaggregate worked really well,
and they used these types ofcontracts and to get it done.
Let's like, learn from that, andlet's use that same approach,
instead of everybody reinventingthe wheel every single time.
Yeah, it gets painful andexpensive, and the attorneys
love it, but sorry, attorneyslike startups don't have that
much money. Yeah, so it's good.So you guys are actively moving
(16:55):
leather through the supply chainright now.
Is that right? Yes. And in orderto, like, you know, really at
the get go, you know, createofftake for it. Range revolution
is a direct to consumer brandselling finished leather goods.
That's one, you know, leg of thestool is the direct to consumer
brand. We spent the first twoyears really heavy in r, d, as
(17:18):
far as you know, getting theleather to where we needed that
leather to be, and then startingto work on the design of the
collection. And now it's reallybeen this last year, brand
building, creating an E commerceapproach, and getting the brand
into people's hands and justbuilding brand awareness, I
(17:39):
think regenerative biggestchallenge right now, I'll just
speak from like a, you know,regenerative food systems,
regenerative agricultureperspective, is marketing right?
I think marketing getting on thesame page with the consumers, a
(17:59):
massive amount of education andand making the benefits that we
all know and understand tangibleand understood by the consumer
is one of the biggest lifts.Like, all this, yeah, the
technical supply chain stufflike, I have no doubt we can
(18:20):
solve that. But likeconsistently, what I see as the
biggest gap in all of this isthe marketing, which comes down
to the brands, which comes downto having companies who are
truly authentic in their supportof this work, and pouring
dollars into that, just pouringour efforts into the marketing,
(18:44):
yeah, yeah, and
that education piece is such abig deal. I mean, we learned
this the hard way, at snack tothis that we'd spent years
developing regenerative farmerconnected supply chains for for
the ingredients that had that asan option, we still had
ingredients in that product linethat had no regenerative supply
chain. So we couldn't be Roccertified, we couldn't be
(19:04):
regenerified certified, becausethose components didn't exist in
regenerative supply chains. Andthen we, you know, it under
review, with like, sproutsmarket, for example. She's like,
well, you guys aren't evenreally regenerative. And I'm
like, would you like us to calllike, the four farmers that are
part of the supply chain andtell them that right now,
because some of them have beendoing this for longer than
(19:25):
you've been alive, you know,like, and like, it's it was like
a it was like an earthquake forme that day, that day that that
buyer told me that changed thetrajectory of everything I'm
doing, yeah, because it was sorepresentative of the divide of
understanding that is out therethat they think that
regenerative is just simply averification, yeah, which
(19:47):
verifications are helpful andall but regeneration is a
process. It is a shift insystems, and it just it
literally changed the trajectoryof my professional life. Yeah,
yeah. No, I'm deeply. Pricetrading.
Oh, girl, I I can so relate, andI've sat in so many meetings,
and my heart is with you inthose moments when this is like,
(20:09):
yeah, your purpose and yourpassion, and you know the people
who you're working with and thegood work they're doing, and
then somebody who sits in anoffice who knows nothing about
this work just sticks thatstagger in you, and you're like,
oh God, the silos are so bad.
It's painful. It's painful. So Iagree with you on the marketing
need and that education need,yeah, it's a big deal. It's a
(20:31):
big deal. And it can't be justdone by one brand or one
verification. And I mean, theverifications that are out
there, I they're great people.They're doing good work. I I'm
personally appointed with mostof them, and I respect and
admire them, but to have a heromovement like one winner takes
all like, the essence ofregeneration is that it is
(20:52):
distributed, and that it iscommunity oriented, and that
there is diversity, because it'sgoing to be it's going to need
diversity to fit the needs oflike a diverse environment and a
diverse market. That buyer'scomment also reflects what I
hope is changing in that
the marketplace has to supporttransition, just the financing
(21:16):
and not punish it. And, yeah,right, and the financing has to
support the transition, andthat, I think, has been a
painful part of being the Spearof this movement, whether it's
snap, divest range, revolution,or whatever, when you fear of a
movement, you have to be sofreaking tough, because you're
(21:37):
going to encounter thosemovements on The path to people
having a more nuancedunderstanding of how we must
support transition,
yeah, yeah. And that's thething, it's like, you're like,
Okay, I've spent eight yearstrying to champion this
regenerative model, elevatingthese underutilized crops that
are essential to bringingregeneration to scale, to
(22:00):
fruition in when it comes to rowcropping. And I just, and then
they and they were like, andfurthermore, we can't even have
you on the shelf because youmentioned regen, and you're not
verified, which makes you agreen washer. And I just, that's
when I lost that. I was like,we're talking about how these
ingredients support regenerativeagriculture. But you know, and I
understand where those buyerswere coming from where they were
(22:21):
trying to set some standardsaround quality, but they
actually, in reality, theirpolicy is punishing early movers
that have been investing in thebuilding of this movement. And
to me, that was like crazy, andI know you are dealing with that
in the textile space as well,because leather cotton, you
(22:41):
know, regenerative cotton, is abig deal as well, and the lack
of transparency and traceabilitythrough all these supply chains
makes it very difficult to, youknow, have a provenance, intact
story about your sourcing. So I,you know, it's we, we could
unpack this all day. But youknow, where can people buy your
(23:02):
products? Can they buy a leatherjournal right now? Because I've
held and admired these leatherjournals for a long time. So
I'm holding a mic one of ourleather journals. This one was
actually made for the Old Saltcooperative, which is a
regenerative Montana meatcompany. It says on it, land is
(23:23):
kin. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah,all of our products are
available on our website,rangerevolution.com we are in.
We got our first three kind ofindependent boutique placements
this summer. And you know, we'rejust going to kind of continue
to seek out independentretailers to be in people who
(23:44):
know, you know, a sustainabilitystory, who admire heritage,
lifetime quality goods,
yeah, but you know, like, whatyou said in the regenerative it,
I'll just say in the retailspace. Leather is a sticky one,
because animal agricultureremains a sticky conversation.
(24:08):
And, you know, byproduct from ananimal agriculture model just
continue to be like a stickingpoint in a world that for the
last decade, sustainability andtextiles, ironically, has
equaled biosynthetic materialsthat are made of petroleum. And
(24:30):
it has been one of those momentswhere I'm sitting in the
meetings and we're talking aboutsustainability and textiles, and
they're showing me these all,you know, vegan materials. And
then when I ask what thiscompound name actually means?
Oh, it's a petrochemicalderivative. You know, you learn
(24:51):
that at this point in our fibersupply chain, 70% of the fibers
in our clothing are petroleum.Based. It's 70% it's the
magnitude of what we've lost,the magnitude of how plastic has
(25:13):
been so woven into our lives. Wedon't see it because it is
turned into beautiful textile.
Yeah. I mean, I'm sure thatthere's some of it woven into
this sweatshirt I'm wearing. Imean, I got it at the thrift
store. I have no idea where itcame from. And, you know, it's
like, it's everywhere, but what?Where's this gonna go when it
(25:33):
ends up in a dumpster somewhere,someday, like that, won't
biodegrade? Like, it's no to methat we're giving preferential
treatment for sustainability tothings made out of plastic.
And again, like I kind of hatebut I keep coming back here, but
it's marketing, right? Theplastic three has been fantastic
(25:55):
in their market, so we get asfantastic in our marketing, and
it does start with education. Itstarts with nuanced
conversation. And it really likein supporting the transition, we
cannot let a quest forperfection stop us in our
progress. This is a long timecoming of like losing these
(26:20):
supply chains that support thefarmers, losing our
understanding of how importantprovenance is, it's going to
take time and a lot of effort torekindle those connections and
help people see with a holisticlens again, how our everyday
choices and how we clotheourselves, how we eat, how it
(26:43):
creates the world that we livein? And that's to try and come
back to your thesis in thispodcast. How might design and
the products or the businessesthat we design help people to
see differently, thus thinkdifferently, thus differently.
(27:03):
It's, it's everything I returnto, yeah, yeah. I
love that, um, because it is.It's once we get the design
shifted, the design imperative,then suddenly change starts to
have a ripple effect. And it'slike starts to create more and
more regeneration, but withoutthat marketing effort, like a
(27:28):
like a broader collaborative andthere's some really fantastic
examples of people who have comeinto champion that group think,
like AC like Anthony corsero,like, where he's like, let's get
regen brands together. Let'sevangelize for regen brands.
Let's tell their stories. Let'screate a group momentum which is
so critical and so needed. Andcheers to you. AC. But we need
(27:50):
more. We need more of that. Andwe need those people to be more
capitalized and activated andhave more resources so we can
really put it on the map,because there's still a huge
disconnect in the public. Mostpeople don't know what
regenerative is, and if theywere to try to define it, they
try to define it by averification binary standard,
(28:11):
which won't ever work forregeneration. Regeneration, by
nature, is not binary. It's notchecklist driven. It is a
process of continuousimprovement and responsiveness
to nature, and that is a verydifferent thing. And I think
that's where we've had a lot oftrouble creating boundaries
around a definition.
Nor is it linear. As a landmanager, like right is some of
(28:35):
these meetings, you know, with,again, sustainability teams at
bigger corporations, they'reexpecting to see a trajectory
this line of improvement thatgoes straight up. When you look
at our farm, we do EOBmonitoring on our farm and
ranch, which is savoryInstitute's ecological outcome
Verification Program, when youlook at the trajectory of the
last five years of data, there'speaks, some valleys, peaks, so
(29:00):
valleys, peaks. It if you wereto look at the entire trend it
is going on. But you have tounderstand, oh, this summer, 80%
of irrigation water was removedfrom this field. It went from an
irrigated field to nonirrigated. That's what that
means. Oh, this summer,monitoring was done July 1,
(29:21):
which was two weeks after, therewas 116 degree stretch for two
weeks, things looked prettyright. So, like, how do you
account for ecosystem processesin Right? Like you said, like a
binary model, or a model thatjust is like, Oh, can you tell
me what the carbon number isthat you've sequestered.
(29:42):
Yeah. You're like, well, carbonintensity scoring is dependent
on water, plain and simple.Yeah, you know, I mean, it's
that's the driver of the system.
And can I tell you an example oflike, when I walk into meetings,
we talk about Regeneration, wetalk about soil health and.
Become this abstracted concept.When I walk into opportunities
(30:05):
to tell people about our work,what I often tell them about
first is this incredible soiltemperature probe slide. These
are friends of ours who managewith ballistic plan grazing
about three hours from us.They've been doing this for a
very long time. In 2021 theytook soil temperatures on
(30:26):
neighboring fields. One fieldthey had managed for 11 years
using holistic plan grazing onthat model, the soils had kind
of reached a level offunctionality, and they had
truly become problem soilsagain, the other parcel they'd
only managed for about four orfive years, so those soils were
still in process of healing,still fairly dysfunctional. The
(30:50):
ambient temperature on this daythat they took these soil
temperatures was 116 degrees,the temperature of the soils
that had only been managed forfive years by them, therefore
still fairly dysfunctional onthe path healing. That soil
temperature sat at 147 degrees.That other field that had been
(31:11):
managed by them for 11 years,where truly soil health had been
stored set at 89 degrees. Wow.That difference between a crop
surviving or not. That is thedifference between humanity
having food to eat or not, liketo me as a just a human being,
(31:31):
heat, wildfire, those are twoextremely tactile experiences
that I think the consumer, theaverage person can understand
what that temperature reallyfeels like. So like, instead of
going into the nuances of, like,how much water, more water we
can hold in our soils, or, youknow, the quality of the water
(31:53):
in the tributaries, or how muchsoil organic matter we've
increased on our property, thosebecome abstractions to the
average person, but the heatbuffering potential of help
they feel. Yeah, it's, it'ssomething that anyone of any
literacy level or, like culturalangle, or whatever you know,
(32:14):
like, you could explain that to
five year olds. You're like,this is really hot from around
the
world, from around the world,city or rural, and that would be
meaningful. I think that'sreally powerful. Kate, like, the
first time I ever really heardand saw data sets about this,
you know, pertaining to the soiltemperatures, was Ray Archuleta
(32:36):
and Gabe Brown in two differentpresentations like but within a
month of each other, and I waslike, I'd heard it, I'd read
about it, but like, when I sawtheir slides, it just struck me
with such an incredibly deeptakeaway. Um, but I have never
really done a lot of pushing onthat from, like, a thinking
(32:57):
about it from a marketingperspective, which I think is
absolutely critical, becausewater carbon, carbon gets all
the attention. It's like, youknow, because it has a
monetizable market, waterscarcity and water infiltration
is a big topic, and people kindof relate to it. But why aren't
we talking about soiltemperatures? Yeah, I
(33:18):
Yep. I just had a call withsomebody yesterday, and I was
like, this is where it's landedthe most when I'm, you know, in
London at a fashion conference,and I'm trying to connect with
that fashion person, whereagriculture has just not been a
part of their
urban likely, completely notpart of a humanized ag system in
their mind, you know, like theydon't know the people behind
(33:38):
that. It's different when youdon't have a real like person to
person, humanized relationship,it's like, that's a
divide, yeah, and it's it iswhy, as frustrating as it's been
to enter the fashion sector inthis way, I felt very compelled
that it's an area that needs ourfocus. Because I've spent the
(33:59):
past 12 years in in food systemsand and I know how to
communicate to the foodconsumer. There's still so much
work to be done in the foodsector, but what I started to
see quite clearly is there's agiant population of the world
where, if we can't reach themthrough the food on their plate.
(34:22):
Style and fashion has a way ofleading cultural narratives that
I think is hugely impactful inour Zeitgeist. And we are just
at the beginning of where Ithink the food movement was, you
know, 20 years ago, as organicstarted to really become a part
(34:42):
of the vernacular. Farm to Tablestarted to become a part of the
vernacular. I think we're justat the nascent phase in that, in
textiles and in fashion. So likewe were talking about earlier,
God, you have to be so freakingtough and really rooted in
purpose to be at the tip of thespear of something. Um, and you
have to be flexible tounderstand, you know, what your
(35:04):
ultimate mission is, and perhapshow you think you're going to
accomplish that change. It mightchange and look different. It
might become a totally differentiteration than what you thought
would be at the outset. What Iknow I need, what I know I need
to do, what I want to do is Iwant to create a cultural
conversation which helps theaverage fashion consumer think
(35:27):
about how every day they wake upand they get dressed, they are
voting for the form ofagriculture or support of the
petroleum industry. And howmight we get up and think about
the clothing that we put on orthe bag that we carry with us,
and What world are we voting for
as we do that styling, that'ssuch a good point. And when you
(35:47):
think about that, just the uniteconomics of food and style too,
there's better margins. So Ifeel like there's a different
approach to cost of goods soldin the equations of goods, or
because you're going to use themtime and time again, they're
usually not $2 like, if you'retrying to talk about the, you
know, worth of, like, a pound offlour, for example, you know,
(36:11):
people, it's they buy it andthey eat it, and it's gone
where, if you're talking aboutbuying a an item that you're
going to have for a long time,like a journal, you're going to
have that for a while. You're ahat, you're going to have that
for a while, maybe a lifetime.Even it's just, there's a lot of
advantages to innovating andeducating around what
(36:31):
regeneration stands for in thatvertical, because it just is.
The unit economics make it moreapproachable, I think, for a
variety of reasons, and also thepermanence gives it a great
place to tell a story. Like, ifyou have a code on the inside of
a jacket, I mean that that canbe interpreted and learned from
day after day after day, yearafter year, where it's like,
(36:51):
where are you going to put acoat on a tomato? You know? I
mean, like, so it's like, atotally different deal. So I
love it. And one of my dearest,closest friends, who's like a
brother to me. He's a mover,shaker in the fashion world and
modeling. And I keep tellinghim, I'm like, Oh my gosh, and
he's a, he's a country boy fromOregon, so he gets it. He's a
(37:12):
cowboy. And I'm like, we have,how do we get, like, the big,
mega fashion industry alignedwith this? Like, you know, next
time you're, you know, in thisgroup, like, let's, let's create
it, let's make it cool. Andthat's the thing is, fashion is
cool, and, you know, theclothing industry is cool, and
(37:32):
it's a great place to redefinethe narrative of what rural food
and textile production is allabout and make it cool.
That's a totally differentAbsolutely, yep, I love it. We
got to make it we got to make itcool. We got to make it tangible
for people and and fun. This issomething I've been thinking a
(37:54):
lot about, like, our work isheavy day to day. Our work
systems can be heavy and kind ofdepressive, sometimes boring,
right?
But talking about a lot of timeswe focus on the like, the bad
stuff that we're battling. Butlike, I'm thinking a lot about
from the brand perspective, howdo we infuse this with beauty
(38:17):
and joy? Because honestly, theaverage fashion consumer is not
buying based on the altruism ofa sustainability if they're
buying it because it'sbeautiful, it's cool, it speaks
to something that is on trend orhas a heritage quality, and if
it is sustainable, that's thecherry on top at the end of the
(38:37):
purchase decision makingprocess. So we have to lead by
design. We can't rest on thealtruism of the movement. So in
that sense, it makes the projectvery fun for me, because I pull
in my design mind. I likecreating useful, functional,
beautiful things. And then, youknow, it is the Trojan horse by
(38:58):
which I get to do this othersupply chain
work. Yeah, that's a great,great, great analogy, and I
think it's a fantastic place tostop this session and give our
audience a little time toruminate on all of the things we
talked about today. Kate, thanksso much for taking the time out
of your busy schedule and andjust, you know, getting this
(39:20):
captured so it can be shared andlearned from and and hopefully
inspire more more designers outthere in the world of
regeneration. So I know people,I mean, we did mention where
they can find your products andbuy their products. If somebody
wants to reach out to you andlearn, you know, get to know
you. Ask you questions, like,where's the best place to engage
with you?
So, um, you know, I'm onLinkedIn, talking about various
(39:43):
business things. You can find meat cassad, and in that context,
you can follow us on Instagram.It's at range revolution, and
then also through our website,rangerevolution.com there is a
contact form we do. Um.Corporate gifting and white
labeling for other companies whoare looking to gift
(40:04):
regeneratively and to giftaccording to their values. And
yeah, I mean, we're alwayslooking for kind of mission
aligned partners in all of theways so you can come find them
wonderful. We'll make sure toput those in the show notes so
that people can follow your workand spread the word. And
speaking of that, if you'restill listening, please take a
(40:25):
minute to rate this podcast.Share it with your friends and
community. Share it on socialmedia that helps get the word
out and spread the passion forthis regenerative revolution and
range revolution is literallyleading the charge. So thanks so
much, Kate. It's been so fun,and thank you so much for
listening. This
episode of the regenerative bydesign podcast is brought to you
(40:47):
by snacktivist nation, elevatingclimate smart crops and
regenerative supply chainsthrough innovative products and
transparent market development.
Thank you for joining me on theregenerative by design podcast.
Please take a moment to reviewour channel on your favorite
podcasting service and sharethis session with your friends
and colleagues via LinkedIn,Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or
(41:10):
wherever you connect with yourcommunity.
You.
Joanne, hello, everyone. You arelistening to the regenerative by
(00:04):
design podcast where we will begetting to the root of health,
climate, economics and food. Iam your host. Joni quinwell
Moore, join me on this journeyas we explore the stories of
individuals and organizationswho are working to realign our
food system with both humanhealth and the health of our
planet. Welcome everybody to theregenerative by design podcast.
(00:25):
I am so thrilled to welcome myfriend, Kate huffstad, CAD today
to the show. Welcome Kate.
Hey, Joanie, I am excited to getto sit down with you.
Yeah, there's so much to talkabout. And you and I always have
literally no problem finding amillion things to discuss. But
today, I actually would love forour listeners to get to know you
(00:47):
a little bit better. I've hadthe pleasure of getting to know
you over the last couple ofyears and spend some great time
in person last year at aconference, and I just feel like
your story has so much value inthis regenerative by design
process that our listeners whohave followed this series we're
on, we're on season two ofregenerative by design, where
(01:08):
we're really just trying to digdeep into that design process,
like, how do we design a worldthat considers regenerative
thinking to be the coreoperating paradigm, And that
requires a different way ofthinking that affects not just,
you know, agriculture or justfood or just fibers or textiles,
but also, like business thinkingand contract contractual
(01:32):
community thinking. It's, it'sjust one of those things, and I
know that you you feel that waydeeply, and it's very much
reflected in your business. SoI'm just excited for you to tell
our listeners a little bit aboutyour history. About your history
and what you do today, and thenwe'll dig into that regenerative
story.
I love it. I mean, at theoutset, to like frame what I'm
(01:55):
working on. I believe thatdesign at its best can inspire
people to see differently, thinkdifferently, and thus act
differently. So at the outset,whether it's a product design, a
business design, a farm design,community, city planning,
(02:18):
design, if we do our jobs. Well,the outcome of this work can
inspire a different worldthrough people's change
directions, and we can get tolike how in a tactile way. I'm
trying to use design to do that,and I do it in a few different
(02:38):
mediums. So my design story, youknow, all start back in 2013 I
started apprenticing with acustom Western hat maker, and I
started learning to become ahat. Um, I think I can. It's,
(02:59):
it's been wonderful, and I'mhere in my hat shop with you
today. And I think now I'm about11 years into being a hat maker.
I think I can now call myself amaster Hatter. And so that was
the beginning of like, my designlife in that tactile form, but
at that same time, in 2013 iswhen I met my now husband on his
(03:24):
first farm, which was in Bend,Oregon, and he was farming
organically and biodynamically,and I had been introduced to
biodynamics years prior, and soI was really attracted to his
farm, the community that wasattracted to his farm, really
incredible. People were workingthere and volunteering there. So
(03:49):
starting in 2013 really like mylife in design, of like a
product designer, maker andfarmer really started in tandem.
So over the past decade, thoseare the two areas I've really
focused on. The farm has scaled.We started on just about three
(04:10):
acres of leased land, and wewere doing, you know, the
classic market gardening, threefarmers markets a week. We at
the highest point of output, had150 person CSA. Vegetable
Production was our focus, but wealways did a little bit of
wheat, and we scaled that. Sonow we manage about 400 acres of
(04:35):
farmland, and we've taken overand transitioned about 300 of
that acreage from conventionalto organic, regenerative. And in
the midst of all of that, youknow, we live in an arid region
in the West, our farm hasexperienced an 80% reduction in
(04:55):
irrigation waters. So you couldbe the. Best farmer with all the
regenerative and organicpractices, but if you lose 80%
of your essentially operatingcapital as a farm, which is your
water, you have to seriouslyrethink your entire model and
redesign so the farm itself isits own canvas in which this
(05:23):
work in design, you know, ismanifested. But these two
journeys have kind of like now,crossed over in what has been my
newest venture, which is rangerevolution. In essence, range
revolution is a regenerativeleather goods company that seeks
to pull some of the 5 millioncattle hides that are thrown
(05:45):
into the trash each year out ofthe trash, getting them back
into the supply chain andthereby also providing an
additional return to theregenerative ranchers and the
processors, aiming to make themmore financially resilient in
the process, while also usingthese tangible leather products
to reach a demographic of humansin the fashion sector who live
(06:09):
extremely detached from theunderstanding that everything we
wear and consume comes from thesoil, therefore every day, we
participate in agriculture bygetting dressed.
I love that. Yeah, it's like, sothat's full circle. Round. Yeah,
it's so wonderful. And,
(06:30):
you know, it's it, it
makes a lot of sense to me,especially with your background
in in custom path making like,you're already thinking through
the lens of like, fiber andvalue added products, um, and
you know, when you think aboutso many of the things that
happen at the agriculturallevel, in ranching and in
farming both, you see all thesevalue streams that could
(06:52):
generate revenue, and theydon't, because they lack value
chain partners, which, you know,for those of us who don't work
in this world, it's like theIt's the buildings or the
processes of the people or theorganizations that take a raw
good and turn it into somethingthat can be used, like leather,
and leather has a complicatedvalue chain. I mean, there's
just not there. We don't havethe infrastructure that we did
(07:14):
100 years ago for a number ofreasons and and I've really
appreciated the amount of, youknow, time and energy and
innovation, you know, focus thatyou and your team and people
that you collaborate with haveput into really trying to
understand and map out thatvalue chain for leather. And
that's been a big that's athat's a heavy lift. And
(07:36):
honestly, most of our audience,they're involved in regen in
some way, shape or form, andthey're, they're familiar with
the complexities the valuechain, but I don't think we go
there enough. Could you let usknow? Like, what does it take to
take a hide is, you know, at aslaughterhouse? I know that's
not a pretty word, but aprocessing facility, um, like,
what does it take to actuallyturn that into leather that can
(07:58):
be made into a handbag or a pairof shoes or jacket, yeah.
So let's start with maybe wherethe system is has been, and then
I'll talk about what we've beenbuilding. So a current commodity
leather supply chain, a lot ofhides that make up leather that
(08:19):
you can get on the commoditymarket right now, a lot of them
come from places like Brazil orNew Zealand, particularly the
Brazilian ones are a huge focusright now, because a lot of
those hides come from systemsthat lead to deforestation. So
it's a major focus. So say thatpride from Brazil, it might
(08:39):
travel to China for tanning andmanufacturing, and then from
China to Italy to be made intohandbag, and then from Italy to
its distribution center in, say,Los Angeles or New York or
whatever, you know, in total,and I ever tried my travel
25,000 miles around the globebefore finished product as a
person's hand? That is thecurrent globalized commodity
(09:05):
supply chain of leather,extremely opaque and extremely
opaque, I think, for a reason.Meanwhile, like as I mentioned,
in the United States, everyyear, we have 5 million cattle
hides going to the trash. Sowe've lost the systems for
aggregation. We have lost thetannery partners. We have lost
(09:29):
manufacturing, as we all know,here in the United States,
hugely. So to begin to do ourwork, one, because I'm working
with regenerative ranchers, Ihave to have the relationship
with the ranch to understand,okay, you know, are you
monitoring, what certification,or what monitoring protocol are
you using, so that we haverelative security, that indeed
(09:54):
what you say you're doing,you're doing right, actually,
regenerative. So you have tohave that relationship with. The
ranch. You have to have arelationship with the the
slaughterhouse, abattoir,whatever you're most comfortable
with. You have to know, or atleast, yeah, they have to be
able to pull those hides off ina way where you're going to
viable skin at the end of theprocess. They also have to be
(10:16):
willing to do the work of theinitial preservation, salting of
the pride to keep it in goodshape,
added work, heavy duty,industrial stuff. Yeah, this is
a, you know, a raw material rot,just like anything else. So it
has to be preserved. Thatslaughterhouse has to have the
capacity, infrastructure andwillingness to do that, knowing
(10:38):
that you are absolutely going toprovide the off take. Then it's
got to go to either stage onetannery or, like a vertically
integrated tannery that'll startwith, like the wet blue process,
and then move into a finishedtan. You know, just like
everything else, we've lost somany tanneries in the United
States, there's very few left.So we've been working with a
(11:00):
family tannery in Wisconsin, andthey do a vegetable tanning
process, which is the more ecofriendly tanning process. And
then we are just beginning arelationship with a tannery in
Lyon, Mexico, because what wereally trying to work on is this
ecosystem approach to the west,or would like to really focus on
(11:21):
the prides in the West. And whatmakes the most sense is to
aggregate from these westernstates and take everything down
to this tannery in Leon, Mexicofrom like, a streamlined
shipping perspective, yeah,because we I
mean, what people don'tunderstand often when they don't
work in these industries is thatin order to hit economies of
(11:43):
scale, we have to haveaggregation. And that's how
things used to work. I mean,community aggregation and
economic aggregation was very,very common and has become very,
very rare the last 5060, yearsand and it's why we've had, you
know, so few corporationsconsolidate and take over so
(12:05):
much of our criticalmanufacturing, and it's left
everybody else with a lack ofchannels to get through and
with. Without aggregation. It'snot financially feasible. So I
love the way that you guys arethinking about this. I mean,
ever since the first time Iheard the story, I was like, oh
my goodness, this is so, sofascinating, because that's how
(12:26):
we can compete. I mean, that'show, that's how things can
actually really get done, andit's a collaborative systems
level approach.
Well, think about this. We havea huge focus on creating a more
regenerative meat sector. Thisis currently how the meat sector
works for all these regenerativeranches. When we send our
steers, we raise, you know,cattle. When we send our steers
to slaughter, only 65% of thecarcass is getting utilized.
(12:50):
That means, wow, 35% of ourasset is going to the trash.
That is a no way regenerative,right? So, like Queen, we have
to work on the awful fat, thebones, the hides. I can't solve
all those. So I am focused onleather. And we have our
partners who are working on,off, take for awful bones, hot
(13:12):
for fat. Um, I
mean, the tallow movement ispicking up speed. So I feel like
there's innovators out there,which is great because that's
what it's going to take. Youdon't vertical integration is
enchanting from the outside, butit's like impossible to do. I
mean, if you were to, like,figure out how to vertically
integrate and turn all of thethings from your cattle that you
(13:36):
raise and have a value chain inplace for every single offtake,
it would be insanity. I don'teven know how you do that. So I
like an ecosystems approach. Ifwe have an ecosystem we've
talked about, right, anecosystem of businesses that I
think brings a diversity thatlends to resilience, I'll tell
you the, you know, the So, theheight aggregation system, it's,
(13:59):
we're, we're doing it right. Wedon't let perfect get in the way
of progress. So we are on theroad to what we aim to do, where
it's still vulnerable is therehas been really a couple of
bigger brands whose early oncommitments to these hides drove
a lot of the aggregation effortsin which we were able to jump
(14:22):
into with others. Yeah, butthose companies, their
commitments have wavered, andwhen you know management
changes, or a corporation issold to a different holding
company, if those commitments goaway, all of the other
businesses that are a part ofthat ecosystem, their
(14:43):
aggregation is then threatened.So I've been thinking a lot
about that in the last sixmonths and working on a B to B
supply chain opportunity thatmight help other mid sized
businesses like range revolutionget in on this. So we. Can have
more diversity of businessesaccessing the supply chain,
(15:04):
because it's just like anythingelse, if we have just a few
businesses supporting this onedrops out and the stool falls
over totally, Yep, yeah, andthat there's
a, I believe that there is areal need for digitized
aggregation tools to help umjust see things that are risk
(15:26):
and vulnerability, using thingslike AI and whatnot like to
rapidly think through scenarioslike, you know, you think about
strength in numbers, and youlose one critical member. Now,
everyone's back to the drawingboard of like Google and phone
calls and like thinking andreading articles instead of,
like, having a tool that canhelp us find, like, a potential
(15:47):
second, um, you know, secondentity that could fill a role
like that. Yeah, no, so it's um,those are the things that I've
been working on this year a lot,um, and how we can have
innovation brokerages that helpbring that together and foster
that conversation and foster,like, the contractual
(16:08):
relationships that help bringthose together. And so, like,
we're not constantly reinventingthe wheel, like good contracts
make good friends. And so, like,I've often wondered, like, okay,
there's, you know, this yearningto do more collaborative,
aggregative stuff. It'd be sonice if there were frameworks
that already had some greatcontractual things in place that
could be templatized and thenreplicated and shared. Be like,
(16:30):
okay, cool. You know this, thisaggregate worked really well,
and they used these types ofcontracts and to get it done.
Let's like, learn from that, andlet's use that same approach,
instead of everybody reinventingthe wheel every single time.
Yeah, it gets painful andexpensive, and the attorneys
love it, but sorry, attorneyslike startups don't have that
much money. Yeah, so it's good.So you guys are actively moving
(16:55):
leather through the supply chainright now.
Is that right? Yes. And in orderto, like, you know, really at
the get go, you know, createofftake for it. Range revolution
is a direct to consumer brandselling finished leather goods.
That's one, you know, leg of thestool is the direct to consumer
brand. We spent the first twoyears really heavy in r, d, as
(17:18):
far as you know, getting theleather to where we needed that
leather to be, and then startingto work on the design of the
collection. And now it's reallybeen this last year, brand
building, creating an E commerceapproach, and getting the brand
into people's hands and justbuilding brand awareness, I
(17:39):
think regenerative biggestchallenge right now, I'll just
speak from like a, you know,regenerative food systems,
regenerative agricultureperspective, is marketing right?
I think marketing getting on thesame page with the consumers, a
(17:59):
massive amount of education andand making the benefits that we
all know and understand tangibleand understood by the consumer
is one of the biggest lifts.Like, all this, yeah, the
technical supply chain stufflike, I have no doubt we can
(18:20):
solve that. But likeconsistently, what I see as the
biggest gap in all of this isthe marketing, which comes down
to the brands, which comes downto having companies who are
truly authentic in their supportof this work, and pouring
dollars into that, just pouringour efforts into the marketing,
(18:44):
yeah, yeah, and
that education piece is such abig deal. I mean, we learned
this the hard way, at snack tothis that we'd spent years
developing regenerative farmerconnected supply chains for for
the ingredients that had that asan option, we still had
ingredients in that product linethat had no regenerative supply
chain. So we couldn't be Roccertified, we couldn't be
(19:04):
regenerified certified, becausethose components didn't exist in
regenerative supply chains. Andthen we, you know, it under
review, with like, sproutsmarket, for example. She's like,
well, you guys aren't evenreally regenerative. And I'm
like, would you like us to calllike, the four farmers that are
part of the supply chain andtell them that right now,
because some of them have beendoing this for longer than
(19:25):
you've been alive, you know,like, and like, it's it was like
a it was like an earthquake forme that day, that day that that
buyer told me that changed thetrajectory of everything I'm
doing, yeah, because it was sorepresentative of the divide of
understanding that is out therethat they think that
regenerative is just simply averification, yeah, which
(19:47):
verifications are helpful andall but regeneration is a
process. It is a shift insystems, and it just it
literally changed the trajectoryof my professional life. Yeah,
yeah. No, I'm deeply. Pricetrading.
Oh, girl, I I can so relate, andI've sat in so many meetings,
and my heart is with you inthose moments when this is like,
(20:09):
yeah, your purpose and yourpassion, and you know the people
who you're working with and thegood work they're doing, and
then somebody who sits in anoffice who knows nothing about
this work just sticks thatstagger in you, and you're like,
oh God, the silos are so bad.
It's painful. It's painful. So Iagree with you on the marketing
need and that education need,yeah, it's a big deal. It's a
(20:31):
big deal. And it can't be justdone by one brand or one
verification. And I mean, theverifications that are out
there, I they're great people.They're doing good work. I I'm
personally appointed with mostof them, and I respect and
admire them, but to have a heromovement like one winner takes
all like, the essence ofregeneration is that it is
(20:52):
distributed, and that it iscommunity oriented, and that
there is diversity, because it'sgoing to be it's going to need
diversity to fit the needs oflike a diverse environment and a
diverse market. That buyer'scomment also reflects what I
hope is changing in that
the marketplace has to supporttransition, just the financing
(21:16):
and not punish it. And, yeah,right, and the financing has to
support the transition, andthat, I think, has been a
painful part of being the Spearof this movement, whether it's
snap, divest range, revolution,or whatever, when you fear of a
movement, you have to be sofreaking tough, because you're
(21:37):
going to encounter thosemovements on The path to people
having a more nuancedunderstanding of how we must
support transition,
yeah, yeah. And that's thething, it's like, you're like,
Okay, I've spent eight yearstrying to champion this
regenerative model, elevatingthese underutilized crops that
are essential to bringingregeneration to scale, to
(22:00):
fruition in when it comes to rowcropping. And I just, and then
they and they were like, andfurthermore, we can't even have
you on the shelf because youmentioned regen, and you're not
verified, which makes you agreen washer. And I just, that's
when I lost that. I was like,we're talking about how these
ingredients support regenerativeagriculture. But you know, and I
understand where those buyerswere coming from where they were
(22:21):
trying to set some standardsaround quality, but they
actually, in reality, theirpolicy is punishing early movers
that have been investing in thebuilding of this movement. And
to me, that was like crazy, andI know you are dealing with that
in the textile space as well,because leather cotton, you
(22:41):
know, regenerative cotton, is abig deal as well, and the lack
of transparency and traceabilitythrough all these supply chains
makes it very difficult to, youknow, have a provenance, intact
story about your sourcing. So I,you know, it's we, we could
unpack this all day. But youknow, where can people buy your
(23:02):
products? Can they buy a leatherjournal right now? Because I've
held and admired these leatherjournals for a long time. So
I'm holding a mic one of ourleather journals. This one was
actually made for the Old Saltcooperative, which is a
regenerative Montana meatcompany. It says on it, land is
(23:23):
kin. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah,all of our products are
available on our website,rangerevolution.com we are in.
We got our first three kind ofindependent boutique placements
this summer. And you know, we'rejust going to kind of continue
to seek out independentretailers to be in people who
(23:44):
know, you know, a sustainabilitystory, who admire heritage,
lifetime quality goods,
yeah, but you know, like, whatyou said in the regenerative it,
I'll just say in the retailspace. Leather is a sticky one,
because animal agricultureremains a sticky conversation.
(24:08):
And, you know, byproduct from ananimal agriculture model just
continue to be like a stickingpoint in a world that for the
last decade, sustainability andtextiles, ironically, has
equaled biosynthetic materialsthat are made of petroleum. And
(24:30):
it has been one of those momentswhere I'm sitting in the
meetings and we're talking aboutsustainability and textiles, and
they're showing me these all,you know, vegan materials. And
then when I ask what thiscompound name actually means?
Oh, it's a petrochemicalderivative. You know, you learn
(24:51):
that at this point in our fibersupply chain, 70% of the fibers
in our clothing are petroleum.Based. It's 70% it's the
magnitude of what we've lost,the magnitude of how plastic has
(25:13):
been so woven into our lives. Wedon't see it because it is
turned into beautiful textile.
Yeah. I mean, I'm sure thatthere's some of it woven into
this sweatshirt I'm wearing. Imean, I got it at the thrift
store. I have no idea where itcame from. And, you know, it's
like, it's everywhere, but what?Where's this gonna go when it
(25:33):
ends up in a dumpster somewhere,someday, like that, won't
biodegrade? Like, it's no to methat we're giving preferential
treatment for sustainability tothings made out of plastic.
And again, like I kind of hatebut I keep coming back here, but
it's marketing, right? Theplastic three has been fantastic
(25:55):
in their market, so we get asfantastic in our marketing, and
it does start with education. Itstarts with nuanced
conversation. And it really likein supporting the transition, we
cannot let a quest forperfection stop us in our
progress. This is a long timecoming of like losing these
(26:20):
supply chains that support thefarmers, losing our
understanding of how importantprovenance is, it's going to
take time and a lot of effort torekindle those connections and
help people see with a holisticlens again, how our everyday
choices and how we clotheourselves, how we eat, how it
(26:43):
creates the world that we livein? And that's to try and come
back to your thesis in thispodcast. How might design and
the products or the businessesthat we design help people to
see differently, thus thinkdifferently, thus differently.
(27:03):
It's, it's everything I returnto, yeah, yeah. I
love that, um, because it is.It's once we get the design
shifted, the design imperative,then suddenly change starts to
have a ripple effect. And it'slike starts to create more and
more regeneration, but withoutthat marketing effort, like a
(27:28):
like a broader collaborative andthere's some really fantastic
examples of people who have comeinto champion that group think,
like AC like Anthony corsero,like, where he's like, let's get
regen brands together. Let'sevangelize for regen brands.
Let's tell their stories. Let'screate a group momentum which is
so critical and so needed. Andcheers to you. AC. But we need
(27:50):
more. We need more of that. Andwe need those people to be more
capitalized and activated andhave more resources so we can
really put it on the map,because there's still a huge
disconnect in the public. Mostpeople don't know what
regenerative is, and if theywere to try to define it, they
try to define it by averification binary standard,
(28:11):
which won't ever work forregeneration. Regeneration, by
nature, is not binary. It's notchecklist driven. It is a
process of continuousimprovement and responsiveness
to nature, and that is a verydifferent thing. And I think
that's where we've had a lot oftrouble creating boundaries
around a definition.
Nor is it linear. As a landmanager, like right is some of
(28:35):
these meetings, you know, with,again, sustainability teams at
bigger corporations, they'reexpecting to see a trajectory
this line of improvement thatgoes straight up. When you look
at our farm, we do EOBmonitoring on our farm and
ranch, which is savoryInstitute's ecological outcome
Verification Program, when youlook at the trajectory of the
last five years of data, there'speaks, some valleys, peaks, so
(29:00):
valleys, peaks. It if you wereto look at the entire trend it
is going on. But you have tounderstand, oh, this summer, 80%
of irrigation water was removedfrom this field. It went from an
irrigated field to nonirrigated. That's what that
means. Oh, this summer,monitoring was done July 1,
(29:21):
which was two weeks after, therewas 116 degree stretch for two
weeks, things looked prettyright. So, like, how do you
account for ecosystem processesin Right? Like you said, like a
binary model, or a model thatjust is like, Oh, can you tell
me what the carbon number isthat you've sequestered.
(29:42):
Yeah. You're like, well, carbonintensity scoring is dependent
on water, plain and simple.Yeah, you know, I mean, it's
that's the driver of the system.
And can I tell you an example oflike, when I walk into meetings,
we talk about Regeneration, wetalk about soil health and.
Become this abstracted concept.When I walk into opportunities
(30:05):
to tell people about our work,what I often tell them about
first is this incredible soiltemperature probe slide. These
are friends of ours who managewith ballistic plan grazing
about three hours from us.They've been doing this for a
very long time. In 2021 theytook soil temperatures on
(30:26):
neighboring fields. One fieldthey had managed for 11 years
using holistic plan grazing onthat model, the soils had kind
of reached a level offunctionality, and they had
truly become problem soilsagain, the other parcel they'd
only managed for about four orfive years, so those soils were
still in process of healing,still fairly dysfunctional. The
(30:50):
ambient temperature on this daythat they took these soil
temperatures was 116 degrees,the temperature of the soils
that had only been managed forfive years by them, therefore
still fairly dysfunctional onthe path healing. That soil
temperature sat at 147 degrees.That other field that had been
(31:11):
managed by them for 11 years,where truly soil health had been
stored set at 89 degrees. Wow.That difference between a crop
surviving or not. That is thedifference between humanity
having food to eat or not, liketo me as a just a human being,
(31:31):
heat, wildfire, those are twoextremely tactile experiences
that I think the consumer, theaverage person can understand
what that temperature reallyfeels like. So like, instead of
going into the nuances of, like,how much water, more water we
can hold in our soils, or, youknow, the quality of the water
(31:53):
in the tributaries, or how muchsoil organic matter we've
increased on our property, thosebecome abstractions to the
average person, but the heatbuffering potential of help
they feel. Yeah, it's, it'ssomething that anyone of any
literacy level or, like culturalangle, or whatever you know,
(32:14):
like, you could explain that to
five year olds. You're like,this is really hot from around
the
world, from around the world,city or rural, and that would be
meaningful. I think that'sreally powerful. Kate, like, the
first time I ever really heardand saw data sets about this,
you know, pertaining to the soiltemperatures, was Ray Archuleta
(32:36):
and Gabe Brown in two differentpresentations like but within a
month of each other, and I waslike, I'd heard it, I'd read
about it, but like, when I sawtheir slides, it just struck me
with such an incredibly deeptakeaway. Um, but I have never
really done a lot of pushing onthat from, like, a thinking
(32:57):
about it from a marketingperspective, which I think is
absolutely critical, becausewater carbon, carbon gets all
the attention. It's like, youknow, because it has a
monetizable market, waterscarcity and water infiltration
is a big topic, and people kindof relate to it. But why aren't
we talking about soiltemperatures? Yeah, I
(33:18):
Yep. I just had a call withsomebody yesterday, and I was
like, this is where it's landedthe most when I'm, you know, in
London at a fashion conference,and I'm trying to connect with
that fashion person, whereagriculture has just not been a
part of their
urban likely, completely notpart of a humanized ag system in
their mind, you know, like theydon't know the people behind
(33:38):
that. It's different when youdon't have a real like person to
person, humanized relationship,it's like, that's a
divide, yeah, and it's it iswhy, as frustrating as it's been
to enter the fashion sector inthis way, I felt very compelled
that it's an area that needs ourfocus. Because I've spent the
(33:59):
past 12 years in in food systemsand and I know how to
communicate to the foodconsumer. There's still so much
work to be done in the foodsector, but what I started to
see quite clearly is there's agiant population of the world
where, if we can't reach themthrough the food on their plate.
(34:22):
Style and fashion has a way ofleading cultural narratives that
I think is hugely impactful inour Zeitgeist. And we are just
at the beginning of where Ithink the food movement was, you
know, 20 years ago, as organicstarted to really become a part
(34:42):
of the vernacular. Farm to Tablestarted to become a part of the
vernacular. I think we're justat the nascent phase in that, in
textiles and in fashion. So likewe were talking about earlier,
God, you have to be so freakingtough and really rooted in
purpose to be at the tip of thespear of something. Um, and you
have to be flexible tounderstand, you know, what your
(35:04):
ultimate mission is, and perhapshow you think you're going to
accomplish that change. It mightchange and look different. It
might become a totally differentiteration than what you thought
would be at the outset. What Iknow I need, what I know I need
to do, what I want to do is Iwant to create a cultural
conversation which helps theaverage fashion consumer think
(35:27):
about how every day they wake upand they get dressed, they are
voting for the form ofagriculture or support of the
petroleum industry. And howmight we get up and think about
the clothing that we put on orthe bag that we carry with us,
and What world are we voting for
as we do that styling, that'ssuch a good point. And when you
(35:47):
think about that, just the uniteconomics of food and style too,
there's better margins. So Ifeel like there's a different
approach to cost of goods soldin the equations of goods, or
because you're going to use themtime and time again, they're
usually not $2 like, if you'retrying to talk about the, you
know, worth of, like, a pound offlour, for example, you know,
(36:11):
people, it's they buy it andthey eat it, and it's gone
where, if you're talking aboutbuying a an item that you're
going to have for a long time,like a journal, you're going to
have that for a while. You're ahat, you're going to have that
for a while, maybe a lifetime.Even it's just, there's a lot of
advantages to innovating andeducating around what
(36:31):
regeneration stands for in thatvertical, because it just is.
The unit economics make it moreapproachable, I think, for a
variety of reasons, and also thepermanence gives it a great
place to tell a story. Like, ifyou have a code on the inside of
a jacket, I mean that that canbe interpreted and learned from
day after day after day, yearafter year, where it's like,
(36:51):
where are you going to put acoat on a tomato? You know? I
mean, like, so it's like, atotally different deal. So I
love it. And one of my dearest,closest friends, who's like a
brother to me. He's a mover,shaker in the fashion world and
modeling. And I keep tellinghim, I'm like, Oh my gosh, and
he's a, he's a country boy fromOregon, so he gets it. He's a
(37:12):
cowboy. And I'm like, we have,how do we get, like, the big,
mega fashion industry alignedwith this? Like, you know, next
time you're, you know, in thisgroup, like, let's, let's create
it, let's make it cool. Andthat's the thing is, fashion is
cool, and, you know, theclothing industry is cool, and
(37:32):
it's a great place to redefinethe narrative of what rural food
and textile production is allabout and make it cool.
That's a totally differentAbsolutely, yep, I love it. We
got to make it we got to make itcool. We got to make it tangible
for people and and fun. This issomething I've been thinking a
(37:54):
lot about, like, our work isheavy day to day. Our work
systems can be heavy and kind ofdepressive, sometimes boring,
right?
But talking about a lot of timeswe focus on the like, the bad
stuff that we're battling. Butlike, I'm thinking a lot about
from the brand perspective, howdo we infuse this with beauty
(38:17):
and joy? Because honestly, theaverage fashion consumer is not
buying based on the altruism ofa sustainability if they're
buying it because it'sbeautiful, it's cool, it speaks
to something that is on trend orhas a heritage quality, and if
it is sustainable, that's thecherry on top at the end of the
(38:37):
purchase decision makingprocess. So we have to lead by
design. We can't rest on thealtruism of the movement. So in
that sense, it makes the projectvery fun for me, because I pull
in my design mind. I likecreating useful, functional,
beautiful things. And then, youknow, it is the Trojan horse by
(38:58):
which I get to do this othersupply chain
work. Yeah, that's a great,great, great analogy, and I
think it's a fantastic place tostop this session and give our
audience a little time toruminate on all of the things we
talked about today. Kate, thanksso much for taking the time out
of your busy schedule and andjust, you know, getting this
(39:20):
captured so it can be shared andlearned from and and hopefully
inspire more more designers outthere in the world of
regeneration. So I know people,I mean, we did mention where
they can find your products andbuy their products. If somebody
wants to reach out to you andlearn, you know, get to know
you. Ask you questions, like,where's the best place to engage
with you?
So, um, you know, I'm onLinkedIn, talking about various
(39:43):
business things. You can find meat cassad, and in that context,
you can follow us on Instagram.It's at range revolution, and
then also through our website,rangerevolution.com there is a
contact form we do. Um.Corporate gifting and white
labeling for other companies whoare looking to gift
(40:04):
regeneratively and to giftaccording to their values. And
yeah, I mean, we're alwayslooking for kind of mission
aligned partners in all of theways so you can come find them
wonderful. We'll make sure toput those in the show notes so
that people can follow your workand spread the word. And
speaking of that, if you'restill listening, please take a
(40:25):
minute to rate this podcast.Share it with your friends and
community. Share it on socialmedia that helps get the word
out and spread the passion forthis regenerative revolution and
range revolution is literallyleading the charge. So thanks so
much, Kate. It's been so fun,and thank you so much for
listening. This
episode of the regenerative bydesign podcast is brought to you
(40:47):
by snacktivist nation, elevatingclimate smart crops and
regenerative supply chainsthrough innovative products and
transparent market development.
Thank you for joining me on theregenerative by design podcast.
Please take a moment to reviewour channel on your favorite
podcasting service and sharethis session with your friends
and colleagues via LinkedIn,Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or
(41:10):
wherever you connect with yourcommunity.
You.
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