October 3, 2024 • 42 mins
In this episode of Regenerative by Design, Joni is joined by Annigje and Sharif, founders of Springtail, to explore their groundbreaking work with the climate-resilient crop, sorghum. With their unique backgrounds in business, advertising, and agriculture, they share their journey of transitioning into regenerative agriculture and their focus on developing sustainable solutions for farmers. The conversation covers the many benefits of sorghum, including its ability to thrive in hot, dry conditions and its potential for both food and non-food applications.
Annigje and Sharif discuss the challenges they’ve encountered bringing this lesser-known crop to European markets, their circular economy approach, and how they are working to create value for farmers while promoting climate-smart farming practices. They also dive into the innovative ways they use sorghum to create products like pasta, pancake mixes, and bio-based materials. This episode highlights the importance of consumer education and collaboration across the supply chain to drive crop demand that contributes to a sustainable future.
Key Takeaways:
- Sorghum is a highly resilient crop that can grow in extreme climates with minimal inputs, making it valuable in the face of climate change.
- Annigje and Sharif focus on creating value for farmers by developing innovative sorghum-based food and non-food products.
- The circular economy approach to agriculture ensures that every part of the sorghum crop is used to maximize value.
- Challenges of introducing a lesser-known crop to market include scaling production and educating consumers about the benefits of sorghum.
- Springtail’s efforts focus on innovation, sustainability, and the potential of underutilized crops to drive long-term food system resilience.
Mentioned in This Episode:
- Springtail's work with climate-smart crops
- Sorghum's benefits for farmers and the environment
- Innovative products using sorghum, including pasta and pancake mixes
- The challenges and rewards of bringing new crops to market
Connect with Annigje and Sharif:
- LinkedIn: Springtail
- Website:Springtail.eu
- Annigje Jacobs https://www.linkedin.com/in/annigje-jacobs/
- Sherif Soubra https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherifsoubra/
Call to Action:
If you’re passionate about climate-smart crops, European agriculture, or sustainable innovation, please take a moment to share this episode on social media and leave a review. Stay tuned for more exciting episodes focused on regeneration and sustainability in agriculture!
Connect with Us:
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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. Visitsnacktivistfoods.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.
Hello everybody, and welcome toanother session of regenerative
(00:26):
by design. I'm thrilled with myguests today, who are calling in
all the way from Europe, andgoing to tell you about their
incredible story as innovatorsaround climate smart the climate
smart crop sorghum. So welcomeanahiya And Sharif and I would
love to just kick off thissession and have you tell us a
little bit about you and yourbackground. This is you. I know
(00:48):
you both have fantastic stories,so go ahead and let's start
there.
Thanks a lot. Yoni, we're superhappy to be here. My name is
Anna. I am Dutch. I'm a realcity girl, but at some point in
my life, I moved to France forlove. Was surrounded by
agricultural fields. Had twokids, and I thought, what are we
(01:11):
doing with the world? Beforethat, I'd been in advertising
for a long time, videoproduction, and then suddenly it
clicked. And I thought, Okay, wehave to, we have to change the
way we feed our kids and futuregenerations. Found out about a
venture building course in myhome country in Rotterdam, moved
(01:35):
back and learned all you canlearn in three months about
regenerative agriculture, whichat the time we thought was a
lot, but now we found thatthere's so much more to learn.
And that's where I met Sharif.Fantastic.
So I'm Sharif. I'm from Lebanon,and actually I moved to the
Netherlands in 2002 and at thattime, I used to be in a
(01:57):
different field. My backgroundis Business Administration.
Recently, my company, beforethis one, was a barbecue
company, the una grill, which isa product we developed and
launched worldwide. And youmight say, what does this have
to do with the current field I'min now? Actually, the barbecue
has a leather handle, and ourplant based clients used to say,
(02:22):
could we actually change leatherhandle to a plant based product?
So it was, for me, the firstventure to see what are the
possibilities. And I discoveredthe whole new world of
sustainable products fromagriculture. And that's the step
that brought me intoregenerative agriculture. So
cool,
because I feel like manyinnovators in this space. It was
(02:42):
a it was a crash course throughsupply chain that led them to
the discovery of thesustainability and the impact
that every little component thatwe consume has on the world. So
I love, I love how your storiesare like, quite different, and
then converge at this point ofyou know where sustainable
(03:03):
supply chains and the future offood intersect, and how did you
guys end up focusing on sorghum?For people who are listening in
the audience, if they'refamiliar with my work, they know
that I am a huge enthusiast forsorghum and millets in general,
which sorghum is considered amillet and and basically,
(03:25):
because the premise being thatthese are incredibly climate
smart, smart crops naturally. Imean, they grow very vigorously
in hot, dry conditions. Theythey require few fertilizers.
There are so many things thatmake crops like sorghum,
incredibly valuable for thefuture, but there's a relative
lack of innovation in actuallyusing these crops in human
(03:48):
products. So when I met both ofyou a couple of years ago now, I
was just so thrilled to hearthat you had decided to focus on
this and innovate in Europe. Soif you could tell our listeners
a little bit about what, how youcame together, how you decided
to focus on sorghum, and whatare you doing with sorghum?
We actually, during the course,we visited a lot of farmers, and
(04:13):
what we soon found out is oftenis a big issue, because everyone
talks about practices, but if noone wants to buy the harvest,
what is a farmer to do? Right?
And then the big problemeverywhere. I mean, people
forget about this. We get soenchanted by the farm and we
forget about the market.
(04:34):
That's actually where wethought, okay, we have
experience in we have acommercial background. So maybe
with this, offtake is actuallywhere our role in the system is,
what we then what might be goodto share a little bit about
Holland. Land here is extremelyexpensive, which means that
everyone is like, we're growingpotatoes, we're growing onions,
(04:56):
we're doing it superefficiently, super in.
Defensively, I must say, andgrains really are farmers don't
earn money with them. They oftenactually kind of lose money with
them, while we know that grainsare super good for the soil. So
we thought, let's make grainsmore profitable for farmers, but
(05:17):
then if we have the standardwheat, this is a very difficult
game to play. We thought wefind, let's say, a unique grain
in Holland, or a grain that isnot very well known, because
here we can really make adifference. We can campaign for
it. We can we can stand out. Sothat's why we picked sort of
(05:37):
also because we just thought itwas an amazingly beautiful crop,
I have to say this it is, and Iwould say we weren't attracted.
It was intuitively almost. Butthe more we found out about
sorghum, the more we were likebut this is such a special crop.
We met the breeder in Hollandwho took the crop from Africa in
(05:59):
Holland and was now crossbreeding to make it suitable for
the Dutch climate. So I thinkit's a little bit different from
the sorghum that you're growingin the states. The sorghum we
are working with is three and ahalf meters high, not trend
feet, but it's like twice mysize, and I'm pretty tall. And
then to use it for bio basedmaterials and the grains. But
(06:24):
the more we learned aboutsorghum, the more fascinated we
were by maybe that's, I think,
the fact that it's actually acrop that not only is the grain
of high value for nutrition andboth for human and animal feed.
And I know sometimes that can bea polarizing conversation, but
(06:44):
that is a component of it. Imean, you have to have a Grade A
and A Grade B channel for anycrop, in case the quality is not
quite perfect, but there's ahuge, huge potential for
sorghum, for all the othercomponents that because it grows
so much biomass every year,there is an incredible
innovation for fiber, forextruded fill, for bioreactor. I
(07:08):
mean, it's just crazy. So I loveI feel the same way, you guys, I
I feel like I've been studyingsorghum intensely for about a
decade, and I'm just scratchingthe surface. Every day I learn
something new, which blows meaway.
All materials is really part ofthe business model, revenue
model for the farmer. We'retrying to find channels how to
(07:31):
increase revenue for the farmer,and we're really trying to
explore the highestpolarizations possible, whether
in food or whether in non food.So it's
a really holistic model, whichis important, you know, when we
think about regeneration andwhat, what regenerative ag needs
to succeed, is really a shift inthinking around the value layers
(07:54):
that come off of productiveland. Bushels per acre of a
consumable item is just onevalue layer, like there's all
these different value layers.And I, I've always been so
intrigued since we first metthat you have a very holistic,
circular economy approach tothis. So I'd love to hear a
little bit more about that.
(08:15):
I think really, that's whatwe're trying to do, and to use
as much of the plant as we canto have the highest
valorization, while also keepingin mind that sorghum is good to
keep on the soil, right? Wedon't want to take everything
off the farm and then valorizeit outside. But what might be
interesting to mention is thatwe are actually working with
research institutes in Europe toto really look at the unique
(08:40):
characteristics of the grainswe're working with. So we have a
little bit of knowledge aboutsorghum in general, but this
specific, the three specificvarieties we are working with,
there's so much to discoverabout them. So both on a
nutritional level and on a I'mgonna say, fiber materials, more
materials, materials. So we'redoing studies looking into doing
(09:01):
studies with the TechnicalUniversity, like the density of
the material, all the what,really, what makes it unique,
and then based on that, to makeproducts with it. So we are
working with a food developerwho has turned it into pasta.
We've done pancake mix. Wehaven't the sorghum pasta.
(09:22):
Actually, I think it'savailable. Yeah, it's, it's for
sale now, the other products weare, we are testing positive
reactions so far. Yeah,wonderful, yeah. But the crop is
really unknown. I mean, we do
so much, a huge education gap.There's a big education gap,
and you mentioned circularity,and really this is the basis on
(09:44):
which we built our value chain.So we're really very aware of
the like we don't want waste,and we try to see, whatever
process we do, what can be therest streams? How can we
valorize the rest streams?Actually? Yeah. And we also look
at sorghum because we have threevarieties. So as anarchy said,
(10:05):
each variety could havedifferent properties. So we
don't just talk about sorghum ingeneral. Each variety. We have
to look at what is the qualityof the fiber, what is the
quality of the other components.And based on this, we can, we
can see which kind ofapplications are the most
suitable.
Yeah, let's talk about sorghumgenetic diversity for a second.
Because of, you know, all plantshave pretty incredible genetic
(10:27):
diversity, but I feel likesorghum in particular is like a
powerhouse of extreme diversitywithin just the genus sorghum.
And you know it, I had theopportunity to go to a sorghum
breeding facility in Texas lastyear, led by a gentleman named
Larry Richardson, who is ainternationally renowned sorghum
(10:49):
breeder, and he literally hadhundreds of varieties of sorghum
growing in their experimentalplots that didn't even resemble
each other. I mean, everythingfrom like sorghum kernels that
were larger than a P, um, toones that, have, you know,
really extreme characteristicswith antioxidants or nutritional
profiles. Um, I was absolutelyblown away. Some were like,
(11:13):
very, very short, maybe as like,as long as my to my waist, and
others were 20 feet tall, anddefinitely, like, twice our
height and so probably more likethe ones that you're growing in
the Netherlands. But, you know,I feel like, from a business
development perspective, sorghumholds a ton of utility there,
(11:33):
just for, like, future business,like, you could spend your whole
lifetime just innovating valuestream businesses from sorghum.
Yeah, which is what you guys aredoing. I love it.
This is something, I mean, it'salso in your regenerative
agriculture, you really want tobuild on the genome diversity
(11:54):
and diversity as bigger theme ingeneral. I mean, we're
discussing sorghum here, but Ithink we look we really try to
bring a lot of diversity ofdifferent grains, even the
products we think we think ofdeveloping. We really think of
integrating different varieties,different grains in them, so
that we kind of encouragediversity on the landscape, and
(12:17):
also diversity in your diets.100%
I mean, people forget that it'sdiversity on the plate that
actually ultimately drivesbiodiversity in the field. And
we have to restore that feedbackloop between market and farm and
farm and market, like in aintelligent way, so that, like
(12:37):
the farmers are responsive todemand and they, unfortunately,
that's why they just grow corn,soy and wheat and rice out here
in North America, anyways, likeit's a very limited picture,
actually, what they know,mostly, and we see that actually
bringing sorghum, especiallyhere in the Dutch Market, many
(12:59):
farmers are not aware of it,that the sorghum itself, as we
know, has a lot ofcharacteristics. One of them is
also the sowing period. So thesowing period is different than
others. And this is alsointeresting, because we've been
having seasons where rain isfalling quite a lot sowing
period of other grains. Andsince sorghum is sold a bit
(13:22):
later, it offers an opportunityof mitigation. So farmers, yeah,
in something Yes. So I'm gladyou
brought that up. We call thatrescue crop here. Um, and it,
and sorghum and millets ingeneral, can be an extremely
valuable rescue crop. Um, wheneverything else has been rained
out early in the spring? Um, Ilove that you're bringing that
(13:46):
up, because that's a reallycritical piece of the puzzle
when we're looking at overallfood system resiliency
and climate change. But what wesee happening because then like,
that makes sorghum interested inmore interesting for farmers,
but then, like, there's, we haveto move on, on all the fields,
right? We have to educate theconsumer. We have to make
(14:07):
products because we cannot. Imean, I think sorghum just
boiled is delicious, but, Imean, it just, it's easier when
we turn it into products
that people need innovation.That's how they'll discover it.
Yeah, exactly so.
But there's so much work to doon so many fields. Yeah, we
cannot say, Okay, we start withthe farmers, and then the rest
of the value chain will follow.No, we have to, everyone has to,
(14:30):
has to step forward and has totake a leap. Yeah. But the good
thing is, we've, we've startedthree years ago. Now we see more
and more people moving forward,we're talking to restaurants who
are interested, you know, so Sothings start moving, and that's
that's really motivating to tonotice that,
to that. I mean, even us, we arenew to this field. So even us,
(14:53):
we've been learning a lot thelast three years. Today is way,
way more than one when westarted. And it's been a big
learning curve for us, and nowwe feel like we understand it
much more, and we're ready totake steps further and to
actually move it more into themarket. But even for us, it's
been quite a learningexperience.
(15:16):
What have been some of thebiggest challenges so far?
We've had many, actually. Butthe thing that comes to mind is,
when you're starting somethinglike a new crop on the market,
you don't start with big volume.And when we're talking about
grains, grain specific scale iseverything exactly and
everything built on scale anduniformity. And you come here
(15:39):
with this different grain, whichhas a different size, which
needs different process, whichis smaller in quantity, and
suddenly everything changes,like machinery. For example.
We're talking about thevalorization of food and non
food, and maybe you want toharvest it in two different
parts. We don't have thismachinery. It grows and a half
(16:00):
meters high, you might not havethe machinery for it. So it's
all this, and at the same time,you cannot bring products that
are very expensive to themarket, because that's also
something that will not help themarketing of this crop. So
there's a challenge between allthese costs that are high and
people that have to invest theirtime professionals actually, to
(16:21):
kind of explore, what can we dowith this new crop and the
pricing and the costs that buildon small quantities.
Yeah, that's a that's a bigconsideration. And you know,
sorghum, in general, globally,is known as a very affordable
crop because it does growincredibly high yields and
requires very few inputs. So theunit economics at the farm level
(16:44):
are favorable, but it is as itnavigates the value chain that's
where that cost is accrued, eventhough, luckily, sorghum doesn't
need to be hold or have specialpolishing. It can be consumed as
just a whole clean grain, whichis fantastic. But you know, the
marketing and the innovationexpenses is, it's a large
(17:06):
upfront cost, and I know, in myexperience here, you know, with
my company sactivist, because wehave an entire line of products
developed from sorghum, rangingfrom Frozen ready to eat IQF all
the way through to pizza crustsand finished products, but we're
still stuck just selling afloured baking mix because there
(17:26):
was no capital available toscale innovation for the last
few years, nobody had anappetite. They would only invest
in scaling something that wasalready on the market, and so
it's completely hampered thatinnovation process. I don't have
you guys experienced that aswell. Just a minimal appetite
for innovation, or maybe that.It's a communication thing, I
(17:47):
know for us, here in the US, ifyou're a woman and you found a
company, it's an expectation youwill be just a brand. Like,
there's it. There's a realpushback, I feel like,
culturally, if you're aninnovation company, which is
more scientific and more leadingedge, they're kind of like, no,
no. Just go, go be a mom and gomake pancake mix for your kids.
(18:08):
So I don't know if you if youguys have experienced that tug
of war with culture in theNetherlands, or if that's more
of a US thing,
producing it here, and we'vebeen trying, actually, to
introduce it to the market, andwe've been kind of focusing on
chefs. We haven't started TPGproducts yet. We're brutal
(18:32):
business, and it brings its ownchallenges. Yeah,
I don't like it, yeah.
I mean, we come a bit from thisbackground, both of us, and we
know the challenges that comewith it, and it was a conscious
decision kind of start B to B aswell.
I think that's so smart. That'swhere the volume's at, too. And,
um, you know, like I know forus, like we ended up, you know,
(18:56):
just pausing our growth of ourCPG brand, because our passion
is around food service, but ittakes time to develop those
relationships like, but once youhave them, they're consistent,
they're reliable, and they're atscale. So it's like, it's like a
you had to be patient with thatbusiness model, but it's, I
think, has a lot more long termROI, and it has a lot more
(19:19):
utility when it comes to drivingdiscovery of underutilized crops
like you think about quinoa andhow quinoa was brought to the
market successfully. It was whenchefs started putting it on
people's plates, and then theywere like, Oh my gosh, I love
this. I would love to buy thisat home. So like, for the
longest time, I was reallyadamant about how food service
(19:40):
had to be the champion ofsorghum and millets first, and
that CPG should come second, andthen covid hit, and that's when
we had to change our businessmodel, because food service
disappeared overnight. But we'reback to only, you know, really,
only focusing on food service aswell here, domestically. Yeah.
Yeah,
(20:01):
quickly come back to your are wemaking moms pancake mixes? I do
think it's a very interestingtopic that you bring up.
Luckily, so far, we findourselves surrounded by people
who value, I would say,diversity as much as we do. So
(20:21):
that's great. And we are now. Weare building a achieve, a value
chain around a product, with afarmer, a Miller, a food maker,
a caterer, and us, and we arereally looking for the balance.
So when you look at us as agroup, there's women, there's
people who are not originallyborn in Holland, you know, we
(20:42):
don't, we don't all want this 32year old puppy of each other.
You know, we are actuallylooking for this, for this
diversity, because we feel that,in that way, you get the best
results and the most durable.Well,
how can we think outside of thebox without a diverse group of
people getting us there. Like,it's like, I think it's
(21:04):
essential for innovation withnew products, to bring
innovative, diverse people tothe table, to to look at things
differently. And it's justabsolutely critical. And it's,
it's actually hard sometimes,how, how, like, that can kind of
fall short. Like, people justhave this expectation. Like,
here in the United States, theylike the expectation on the
(21:27):
market is that if it's a sorghumbased product, it's only for
gluten free people. And I'mlike, no, no, no no. Like,
sorghum is fantastic blendedwith wheat. Like, as soon as we
bring in capital, like, we havea pasta product that is a wheat
sorghum hybrid. It's a milletsorghum wheat hybrid. We would
love to get it out into foodservice, you know. And it's to
(21:49):
me that those are the kind ofinnovations that we need to
break through the stigma thatall of these alternative crops
are only for people with aspecial diet, because that's not
the case like I really believethat sorghum needs to be
reintegrated back into justmainstream products like and
it's fascinating. There's a guyhere who's a real historian on
(22:09):
on millet history, millets,including sorghum, and has gone
back through a lot of theoriginal writings of the the
founding members of the UnitedStates, colonies, like, you
know, the early founding theycalled the founding fathers, and
when you read their agriculturaldiaries, there's a lot of
reference to sorghum, and theythey mixed it into their bread
flour. And so in colonialAmerica, it was a revered crop,
(22:32):
especially in the East Coast andthe south, where it's warmer.
And it's so weird to me that itfell out of favor when it was so
critical to early America, theearly American, you know,
heritage of like, whatagriculture was in the in the
early days,
there's a lot of knowledge lost,I imagine, yeah, a ton, the food
(22:54):
maker we are working with. He'sfrom Uganda, and he grew up with
sorghum, like his grandparentswould grow sorghum. He has these
stories. It's a crop that he heknows. He knows how it reacts,
how it works, yeah, exactly.That's a big,
I love that. Yeah, absolutely isa huge advantage.
(23:16):
I think there's quite anappetite, actually, for
innovation and that. I mean,everybody wants to kind of bring
something new, have a nice storyto tell, if they can make
something more nutritious, butat the same time, you see that
there is some kind of checklistthat people want to kind of be
(23:38):
checking. For example, they havelimits on how much pricey it can
be they have. They have certaintastes they want to have. So I
think it's really like workingtogether, this, this co creation
idea, even involving the farmerand bringing back the feedback
loop to the farmer to thegrowth. I think this is really
(23:59):
important as well, and productinnovation,
I agree. We have been callingthat model an innovation
brokerage. And it's anintentional like value chain
connection, where it's from germplasm and like seed genetics all
the way through the value chainto the end use. And like seeing
the whole process holistically,through that kind of innovation
(24:23):
brokerage concept. It's a lot ofthe work that we like to do as
well, and I totally agree thatit gives you, I feel like an
advantage in trying to do thingsthat are new and novel when you
approach it that way. I don'tknow if you guys have ever used
that term
(24:44):
for us. We like to bringsomething. We like the
innovation is a big inspirationfor us. Also, yeah,
yeah. It's, it
is the key. So how, as far as,like, you know, the the the
people who are buying theseproducts now or sampling them,
like the chefs. So far, what arethe responses that you're
seeing? Are people shocked whenthey try sorghum and they're
(25:05):
like, oh my gosh, where's thisbeen? Why? Why have I never
tried this? Is that what you'rehearing or, or what I would love
to hear more about, like, justthe response from people.
We've had the range of responsesand no responses. So sometimes,
initially, we would givesamples, and we would keep on
following and no responsewhatsoever. Other times, really,
(25:29):
I mean the product. They loveit. And for example, they would
create a dessert with it, andthen they would ask for more
than they would block theprogram and then put it on a
salad. For example, we've workedwith very different variety,
whether it's chefs that are morecreative, whether it's more
(25:51):
catering companies, but also,for example, staple foods, which
is more direction we're taking.So pastas, also bread, mix,
cereal. For breakfast with also,kind of sent samples to brewers
to see what kind of beers theycan come with sorghum. And we
(26:14):
had, we had quite enthusiasticresponses, not always
translating into big orders, butI think it's a good start, at
least,
yeah. And people, people lovethe taste, and people love the
story. And I think that that istwo things that that really make
the crop stand out. And, yeah, Ithink no negative responses. I
(26:38):
mean, sometimes people, theydidn't get back to us, but, but
also the tastings we did for forthe pasta or the or the pancake
mix, or we turn it into a salad,we had a great intern for a
while, who who made us recipesand presented them at, yeah,
which was, I would say, everyoneis, everyone loves it. No,
(27:02):
that's been
my experience too. We'verecently, yeah, been like, doing
some tastings with chefs. And wehear, and I'm sorry, Sheriff, we
hear, why haven't we tried thisbefore? Like, where has this
been? We hear that a lot.
But then what happens? I'mcurious. Yoni, then, then would
they order in the menu? Or whatwould
(27:28):
Yeah, so we have been focusingmore on, like large
organizations that manage many,many institutional kitchens like
college campuses and hospitalsand so, you know, we did like
the tastings. The chefs couldn'tbelieve it. They loved it. They
wanted to use it. The people incharge loved it. Want to use it.
(27:49):
And now we're just like in thatslow contract negotiation phase.
So our hopes is that by gettinginto some larger organizations
that we can secure, like, somereally good, larger volumes. And
so it's like, really narrowingour focus to those consumer
demographics. Like, for example,with the IQF sorghum, it's a
(28:12):
it's a whole cooked sorghum, andthen it's frozen, and it's
individual, quick frozen. Soit's like, almost like frozen
peas, like it. It's separate.And what the chefs are loving
about that is that they can justheat it and serve it, or they
can just thought and put it onsalads. It doesn't even require
heating. It's ready to eat. Sothose are the ones that we're
(28:34):
seeing a huge response for. Butagain, the time lag of getting
the contract actually solidifiedand executed has been painfully
slow, which you guys understandhow frustrating that can be, but
it's just bureaucracy. Maybe
it's also good to look at thingsin perspective. I mean,
(28:56):
introducing a new crop, I'mexpecting, expecting volumes
will be picking up in the firstyear, is also rushing things. I
think that way, yeah. I think, Ithink I mean, upon how the
medium term keeps and can cankind of build up the demand. I
think this is a more realisticway to look at things, yeah,
yeah. Well, because the thingis, is, like, we want it to be a
(29:18):
long term transition and andreally quick fads often really
quickly go away. And withsomething like this, it's like
it's going to be a permanentshift and a new normalcy. And I
agree with you that does take alittle time and patience to get
there, but it's it's worth it inthe long run.
And
(29:39):
another question for you, Yoni,I'm curious, because you're big
on the full of instead of thefree from. Not sure if I'm using
the exact right phrase, butyeah, that was right, great. I
wonder if that, if that'ssomething that resonates with
your audience, or if it's reallythe taste or or what you would
say is the most attractiveelement,
yeah. So I think, um. Um. One ofthe things we've struggled with
(30:02):
um in our early iterations isthat in the United States,
there's this real need to puteverything in a box of like,
it's free from gluten, or it'sfree from allergens, or it's
free from grains, or it's freefrom animal products. Like, it's
a very reductionistic consumernavigation pathway. Like, it's
very It's, um, I find it to bekind of a negative process. I
(30:24):
feel like it isolates innovationand makes it hard to think about
things in a holistic model.Like, what are the great
attributes? Like, why would youwant to eat it? It's delicious,
it's nutritious. It's got agreat climate story. Farmers
want to grow it. It'sbeneficial, and it has been hard
to really make movement forwardwith that narrative, especially
(30:48):
in the retail, which, again,we've moved away from retail.
But I would sit down withbuyers, and we would talk about
these ancient grains and whythey're so important for all
these things, and then at theend of the day, all they took
away from it is like, Oh, it's agluten free vegan company. I'm
like, No, we are not a glutenfree vegan company by a long
(31:09):
shot. However, if we're going tomake a product out of sorghum,
it may as well be gluten freeand vegan so that the maximum
amount of people can enjoy it. Ithink that being full of is so
much more than being free frompersonally, and so I've had a
personal frustration with themarket not being ready to accept
that story comes down to,
(31:34):
would you say the audiences,audiences you work with now that
they are more receptive to thismessage, And is that also
because they can then spreadthat to their Yeah, I
definitely feel like there'sbeen a huge shift in the last
year, um, like, especially inthe last year, where people are
just wanting to hear more aboutnutrient integrity, whether that
(31:57):
be nutrient density or, youknow, special compounds, like
sorghum is full of compoundsthat we know are beneficial to
the gut, for gut microbiome,those kind of conversations I
feel like are starting to beheard, and people are moving
away from that. What is it freeof? And instead thinking, why is
(32:17):
this good for me? And that isreally what needs to happen for
for adoption of all of theseopportunity cross crops, a they
need to be delicious. Peopleneed to discover them for
culinary use. But I think theyneed to understand that it's,
it's, it's a value to them todie, to diversify their diet,
(32:38):
regardless of special needs, of,you know, whatever, of special
dietary needs.
I think actually, we could alllearn from each other. I mean,
we follow, of course, what youdo in the universe. We enjoy a
lot your posts. But also, Imean, there's a lot of
creativity happening there, andyou are very active on promoting
(32:59):
sorghum. And, yeah, I mean, inEurope, we also try, in
different ways to and I thinkcollaboration between us, and
what we find here, what you findthere, is also quite because
it's the markets are asking forthe same things when I hear now,
yeah,
I think so too, yeah. And Iwould love to do more
collaboration. I mean, for me,honestly, it's, it's, um, it's
(33:22):
trying to figure out where thosepath of least resistance
initiatives lie. Like, where arethose things that people try and
have that aha moment, likechefs, and then they make that
commitment, like, I'm going tobe getting this on the plate,
and then how do we support themin telling that story? Like, I
feel like there's a reallystrong need for point of
(33:43):
consumption education. So ifsomebody's eating sorghum for
the first time at a restaurant,like I don't know how to do
this, but do we give them a QRcode that they can scan and
learn about it? Do they care?Are they going to take the time
to do that? Those are thosequestions I still have, and I'd
be curious to know, if you guyshave explored any of that,
maybe we are actually currentlyexploring. And I would say that,
(34:05):
like sorghum is one of the cropswe're looking at, but we're also
looking at other grains andthen. But the question is also,
what are what are you then? Whatis behind this QR code, right?
Do people, would they like tomeet the farmer around them that
is growing the crops? Would theylike to meet the guy who's
turning these local grains intopastas that they've never eaten
(34:26):
and that right bloat them? Wouldthey like to meet the miller
who, because of his strong male,is not losing all of the fibers
that the grain,
the missing middle no one evertells those stories like it's
sad to me, yeah.
So what is it that people wouldlike to know? And I think we've,
(34:47):
we've now seen kind of scan a QRcode and meet your farmer, but
there's so much more to tellabout a crop. There's so much
more about about a product,right? So, so we are not. It's
kind of playing with it. What dowe want to show do we want to,
as you said, all the increasednutritional values. Do we talk
about this? Yeah, so we'retesting this.
(35:09):
I know it's like hard to knowwhat the most important point
is. And I'm really glad that youmentioned the the humanization
of the value chain, because yes,there's this thing of like, Oh,
where did our food come from? Wewant to see a human who grew it
like, who's the farmer, who'sthe rancher, and then the whole
(35:29):
middle is like a missing,dehumanized, mechanistic realm.
But the reality is, is like,those are all people who are
business owners and dedicatedpeople who are touching your
food, and they are making itinto what it is when you consume
it, I get very frustrated thatwe don't give any attention to
that layer. It's completely,Yeah,
(35:51):
completely agree. It's, it's thepeople that we want to to show.
We want to show it's produced ona human scale, but also how
impactful the processing step isfor the end result. Because it
is not only the program that issuddenly going to end up as a
past hour, as a as another foodproduct. It's how you process
(36:12):
it. In the middle define so muchof of what it becomes, of the
quality of it. You can lose somuch during processing at the
same time, it can also add somuch. So we are, yeah, great,
and a lot of, a lot of the costis reflective of that value
chain, and it's, it'smeaningful,
(36:33):
and I would maybe add also, Imean, there's a lot of nice
stories that can be told and butit's also important to see what,
what is actually having effecton the end consumer. What would
help selling the product, beingaway, of course, from
greenwashing. But sometimes youwould wonder, I mean, is it, for
(36:55):
example, that if the if the ifthe consumer knows that this
product's coming from this farm,is this going to help the
growing the market, for thefarmer, because for the for the
product itself. And these are,these are things that we're
still trying to see, what, whatactually would work, what kind
of message,
(37:15):
big audience, right? Because, ofcourse, there are some people
interested in where their foodgrows, but maybe the majority of
the people they want to knowthat is good, small,
yeah, I think, I think theaverage person is, like, their
first level of interest is,obviously, it doesn't taste
good, and can I afford it? Butthen second is, is, is it good
(37:37):
for me? And then sourcing andimpact, whether that be social
or environmental, seems to befurther down as far as driving,
purchasing or driving, thedecision to try a product. So I
feel like the focus on nutritionand how it affects your body
here in the United States isprobably the most important
(38:00):
thing to lead with so far. I getreally excited about the climate
part of it, but the reality is,is that I think the vast
majority of consumers are kindof far removed from that.
At least here, it's too bad. Butfor
businesses, for example, a lotof businesses in Europe are
putting climate targets and COtwo reduction limits, and one of
(38:25):
the criteria they look at isactually, what is the footprint
of the product? Yeah, yep, ifyour customer is a business, I
think this aspect gains inimportance, and the more you
show them actually how howbetter this is or how it can
help with reducing thefootprint, the better it can be
(38:46):
such an important point, becausethat's a B to B sales
conversation, not necessarily Bto C, like the end end. Consumer
may not care a whole lot, butthe buyer who agreed to serve
that at their college campuscafeteria, that was likely their
decision. They were like, Great,this tastes good. I know with us
in our in our corporateinitiatives that we have, the
(39:11):
one that involves sorghum, itwas 100% because of a climate
initiative that they agreed todo. IQF sorghum. Yeah, so I that
I'm so glad you brought that upsherry.
And if that's the way in, then,then that's the way in, right?
We believe so much and in thecrops that, yeah, that then the
crop will do its own setting. Imean, if that's how people,
(39:35):
yeah, it's all good,
exactly. We have to be creativewhen creating a category around
underutilized crops, and I'mreally pleased to see that
there's just every week, I seemore and more momentum, there's
more awareness, and I'm seeingmore and more articles coming
from government, NGOs andprivate sector all together. So
(39:57):
it makes me feel confident thatthe future is going there and.
For those of us who are veryearly adopters, it's a little
bit rough because you're likethe point of the spear, but you
know it's I'm feeling hopefulthat we're getting closer every
day. So I Yeah, exactly so. Sofor both of you, for our
listeners who'd like to followup, they want to see where they
(40:20):
could get your products. Theywant to maybe engage with you
personally. How? How do theybest do that? As far as
websites, social media, etc,
I would say the best thing to dois to follow us on LinkedIn or
springtail, and we have a nicelogo that kind of you see a
crop, and then you see a plus.It was nature positivity. This
(40:44):
was kind of our generation.That's where we do most of our
updates. Look we visited thismill. This is what we learned
there. This is why processing isso important. Yeah, fun. I mean
things people make with sorghum.We will share other insights.
(41:04):
Great. Does springtail have awebsite? We do go to
springtel.eu springtel.eu We arequite ambitious in keeping it up
to date. But I have to say theLinkedIn like, there's so many
things that I'm I'm
totally in the same camp. That'swhere, like all the most up to
date stuff happens for for ustoo, is LinkedIn. That's great.
(41:29):
So for I will make sure to putthose links in the show notes so
that people can follow you andengage with you on LinkedIn and
also find your website. And thishas just been great you guys. I
you know, I am really pleasedyou took the time out of your
busy week on a Friday afternoon,and, yeah, it's just, it's just
been great to get an update.Honestly, I'm, I'm more excited
(41:50):
than I was before, to just keepup with what you guys are doing
and see how we can work togetherto just make sorghum and other
great climate smart crops thenorm. Thank you so much. You're
welcome. Thank you for joiningme. And for those of you
listening, please take a secondto review and to share. If
you're also passionate aboutinnovation, European markets and
(42:12):
climate, smart crops, just takea second to drop this link into
your favorite social medianetwork and thank you for
joining this
episode of the regenerative bydesign podcast is brought to you
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.
(42:35):
Please take a moment to reviewour channel on your favorite
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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.
Hello everybody, and welcome toanother session of regenerative
(00:26):
by design. I'm thrilled with myguests today, who are calling in
all the way from Europe, andgoing to tell you about their
incredible story as innovatorsaround climate smart the climate
smart crop sorghum. So welcomeanahiya And Sharif and I would
love to just kick off thissession and have you tell us a
little bit about you and yourbackground. This is you. I know
(00:48):
you both have fantastic stories,so go ahead and let's start
there.
Thanks a lot. Yoni, we're superhappy to be here. My name is
Anna. I am Dutch. I'm a realcity girl, but at some point in
my life, I moved to France forlove. Was surrounded by
agricultural fields. Had twokids, and I thought, what are we
(01:11):
doing with the world? Beforethat, I'd been in advertising
for a long time, videoproduction, and then suddenly it
clicked. And I thought, Okay, wehave to, we have to change the
way we feed our kids and futuregenerations. Found out about a
venture building course in myhome country in Rotterdam, moved
(01:35):
back and learned all you canlearn in three months about
regenerative agriculture, whichat the time we thought was a
lot, but now we found thatthere's so much more to learn.
And that's where I met Sharif.Fantastic.
So I'm Sharif. I'm from Lebanon,and actually I moved to the
Netherlands in 2002 and at thattime, I used to be in a
(01:57):
different field. My backgroundis Business Administration.
Recently, my company, beforethis one, was a barbecue
company, the una grill, which isa product we developed and
launched worldwide. And youmight say, what does this have
to do with the current field I'min now? Actually, the barbecue
has a leather handle, and ourplant based clients used to say,
(02:22):
could we actually change leatherhandle to a plant based product?
So it was, for me, the firstventure to see what are the
possibilities. And I discoveredthe whole new world of
sustainable products fromagriculture. And that's the step
that brought me intoregenerative agriculture. So
cool,
because I feel like manyinnovators in this space. It was
(02:42):
a it was a crash course throughsupply chain that led them to
the discovery of thesustainability and the impact
that every little component thatwe consume has on the world. So
I love, I love how your storiesare like, quite different, and
then converge at this point ofyou know where sustainable
(03:03):
supply chains and the future offood intersect, and how did you
guys end up focusing on sorghum?For people who are listening in
the audience, if they'refamiliar with my work, they know
that I am a huge enthusiast forsorghum and millets in general,
which sorghum is considered amillet and and basically,
(03:25):
because the premise being thatthese are incredibly climate
smart, smart crops naturally. Imean, they grow very vigorously
in hot, dry conditions. Theythey require few fertilizers.
There are so many things thatmake crops like sorghum,
incredibly valuable for thefuture, but there's a relative
lack of innovation in actuallyusing these crops in human
(03:48):
products. So when I met both ofyou a couple of years ago now, I
was just so thrilled to hearthat you had decided to focus on
this and innovate in Europe. Soif you could tell our listeners
a little bit about what, how youcame together, how you decided
to focus on sorghum, and whatare you doing with sorghum?
We actually, during the course,we visited a lot of farmers, and
(04:13):
what we soon found out is oftenis a big issue, because everyone
talks about practices, but if noone wants to buy the harvest,
what is a farmer to do? Right?
And then the big problemeverywhere. I mean, people
forget about this. We get soenchanted by the farm and we
forget about the market.
(04:34):
That's actually where wethought, okay, we have
experience in we have acommercial background. So maybe
with this, offtake is actuallywhere our role in the system is,
what we then what might be goodto share a little bit about
Holland. Land here is extremelyexpensive, which means that
everyone is like, we're growingpotatoes, we're growing onions,
(04:56):
we're doing it superefficiently, super in.
Defensively, I must say, andgrains really are farmers don't
earn money with them. They oftenactually kind of lose money with
them, while we know that grainsare super good for the soil. So
we thought, let's make grainsmore profitable for farmers, but
(05:17):
then if we have the standardwheat, this is a very difficult
game to play. We thought wefind, let's say, a unique grain
in Holland, or a grain that isnot very well known, because
here we can really make adifference. We can campaign for
it. We can we can stand out. Sothat's why we picked sort of
(05:37):
also because we just thought itwas an amazingly beautiful crop,
I have to say this it is, and Iwould say we weren't attracted.
It was intuitively almost. Butthe more we found out about
sorghum, the more we were likebut this is such a special crop.
We met the breeder in Hollandwho took the crop from Africa in
(05:59):
Holland and was now crossbreeding to make it suitable for
the Dutch climate. So I thinkit's a little bit different from
the sorghum that you're growingin the states. The sorghum we
are working with is three and ahalf meters high, not trend
feet, but it's like twice mysize, and I'm pretty tall. And
then to use it for bio basedmaterials and the grains. But
(06:24):
the more we learned aboutsorghum, the more fascinated we
were by maybe that's, I think,
the fact that it's actually acrop that not only is the grain
of high value for nutrition andboth for human and animal feed.
And I know sometimes that can bea polarizing conversation, but
(06:44):
that is a component of it. Imean, you have to have a Grade A
and A Grade B channel for anycrop, in case the quality is not
quite perfect, but there's ahuge, huge potential for
sorghum, for all the othercomponents that because it grows
so much biomass every year,there is an incredible
innovation for fiber, forextruded fill, for bioreactor. I
(07:08):
mean, it's just crazy. So I loveI feel the same way, you guys, I
I feel like I've been studyingsorghum intensely for about a
decade, and I'm just scratchingthe surface. Every day I learn
something new, which blows meaway.
All materials is really part ofthe business model, revenue
model for the farmer. We'retrying to find channels how to
(07:31):
increase revenue for the farmer,and we're really trying to
explore the highestpolarizations possible, whether
in food or whether in non food.So it's
a really holistic model, whichis important, you know, when we
think about regeneration andwhat, what regenerative ag needs
to succeed, is really a shift inthinking around the value layers
(07:54):
that come off of productiveland. Bushels per acre of a
consumable item is just onevalue layer, like there's all
these different value layers.And I, I've always been so
intrigued since we first metthat you have a very holistic,
circular economy approach tothis. So I'd love to hear a
little bit more about that.
(08:15):
I think really, that's whatwe're trying to do, and to use
as much of the plant as we canto have the highest
valorization, while also keepingin mind that sorghum is good to
keep on the soil, right? Wedon't want to take everything
off the farm and then valorizeit outside. But what might be
interesting to mention is thatwe are actually working with
research institutes in Europe toto really look at the unique
(08:40):
characteristics of the grainswe're working with. So we have a
little bit of knowledge aboutsorghum in general, but this
specific, the three specificvarieties we are working with,
there's so much to discoverabout them. So both on a
nutritional level and on a I'mgonna say, fiber materials, more
materials, materials. So we'redoing studies looking into doing
(09:01):
studies with the TechnicalUniversity, like the density of
the material, all the what,really, what makes it unique,
and then based on that, to makeproducts with it. So we are
working with a food developerwho has turned it into pasta.
We've done pancake mix. Wehaven't the sorghum pasta.
(09:22):
Actually, I think it'savailable. Yeah, it's, it's for
sale now, the other products weare, we are testing positive
reactions so far. Yeah,wonderful, yeah. But the crop is
really unknown. I mean, we do
so much, a huge education gap.There's a big education gap,
and you mentioned circularity,and really this is the basis on
(09:44):
which we built our value chain.So we're really very aware of
the like we don't want waste,and we try to see, whatever
process we do, what can be therest streams? How can we
valorize the rest streams?Actually? Yeah. And we also look
at sorghum because we have threevarieties. So as anarchy said,
(10:05):
each variety could havedifferent properties. So we
don't just talk about sorghum ingeneral. Each variety. We have
to look at what is the qualityof the fiber, what is the
quality of the other components.And based on this, we can, we
can see which kind ofapplications are the most
suitable.
Yeah, let's talk about sorghumgenetic diversity for a second.
Because of, you know, all plantshave pretty incredible genetic
(10:27):
diversity, but I feel likesorghum in particular is like a
powerhouse of extreme diversitywithin just the genus sorghum.
And you know it, I had theopportunity to go to a sorghum
breeding facility in Texas lastyear, led by a gentleman named
Larry Richardson, who is ainternationally renowned sorghum
(10:49):
breeder, and he literally hadhundreds of varieties of sorghum
growing in their experimentalplots that didn't even resemble
each other. I mean, everythingfrom like sorghum kernels that
were larger than a P, um, toones that, have, you know,
really extreme characteristicswith antioxidants or nutritional
profiles. Um, I was absolutelyblown away. Some were like,
(11:13):
very, very short, maybe as like,as long as my to my waist, and
others were 20 feet tall, anddefinitely, like, twice our
height and so probably more likethe ones that you're growing in
the Netherlands. But, you know,I feel like, from a business
development perspective, sorghumholds a ton of utility there,
(11:33):
just for, like, future business,like, you could spend your whole
lifetime just innovating valuestream businesses from sorghum.
Yeah, which is what you guys aredoing. I love it.
This is something, I mean, it'salso in your regenerative
agriculture, you really want tobuild on the genome diversity
(11:54):
and diversity as bigger theme ingeneral. I mean, we're
discussing sorghum here, but Ithink we look we really try to
bring a lot of diversity ofdifferent grains, even the
products we think we think ofdeveloping. We really think of
integrating different varieties,different grains in them, so
that we kind of encouragediversity on the landscape, and
(12:17):
also diversity in your diets.100%
I mean, people forget that it'sdiversity on the plate that
actually ultimately drivesbiodiversity in the field. And
we have to restore that feedbackloop between market and farm and
farm and market, like in aintelligent way, so that, like
(12:37):
the farmers are responsive todemand and they, unfortunately,
that's why they just grow corn,soy and wheat and rice out here
in North America, anyways, likeit's a very limited picture,
actually, what they know,mostly, and we see that actually
bringing sorghum, especiallyhere in the Dutch Market, many
(12:59):
farmers are not aware of it,that the sorghum itself, as we
know, has a lot ofcharacteristics. One of them is
also the sowing period. So thesowing period is different than
others. And this is alsointeresting, because we've been
having seasons where rain isfalling quite a lot sowing
period of other grains. Andsince sorghum is sold a bit
(13:22):
later, it offers an opportunityof mitigation. So farmers, yeah,
in something Yes. So I'm gladyou
brought that up. We call thatrescue crop here. Um, and it,
and sorghum and millets ingeneral, can be an extremely
valuable rescue crop. Um, wheneverything else has been rained
out early in the spring? Um, Ilove that you're bringing that
(13:46):
up, because that's a reallycritical piece of the puzzle
when we're looking at overallfood system resiliency
and climate change. But what wesee happening because then like,
that makes sorghum interested inmore interesting for farmers,
but then, like, there's, we haveto move on, on all the fields,
right? We have to educate theconsumer. We have to make
(14:07):
products because we cannot. Imean, I think sorghum just
boiled is delicious, but, Imean, it just, it's easier when
we turn it into products
that people need innovation.That's how they'll discover it.
Yeah, exactly so.
But there's so much work to doon so many fields. Yeah, we
cannot say, Okay, we start withthe farmers, and then the rest
of the value chain will follow.No, we have to, everyone has to,
(14:30):
has to step forward and has totake a leap. Yeah. But the good
thing is, we've, we've startedthree years ago. Now we see more
and more people moving forward,we're talking to restaurants who
are interested, you know, so Sothings start moving, and that's
that's really motivating to tonotice that,
to that. I mean, even us, we arenew to this field. So even us,
(14:53):
we've been learning a lot thelast three years. Today is way,
way more than one when westarted. And it's been a big
learning curve for us, and nowwe feel like we understand it
much more, and we're ready totake steps further and to
actually move it more into themarket. But even for us, it's
been quite a learningexperience.
(15:16):
What have been some of thebiggest challenges so far?
We've had many, actually. Butthe thing that comes to mind is,
when you're starting somethinglike a new crop on the market,
you don't start with big volume.And when we're talking about
grains, grain specific scale iseverything exactly and
everything built on scale anduniformity. And you come here
(15:39):
with this different grain, whichhas a different size, which
needs different process, whichis smaller in quantity, and
suddenly everything changes,like machinery. For example.
We're talking about thevalorization of food and non
food, and maybe you want toharvest it in two different
parts. We don't have thismachinery. It grows and a half
(16:00):
meters high, you might not havethe machinery for it. So it's
all this, and at the same time,you cannot bring products that
are very expensive to themarket, because that's also
something that will not help themarketing of this crop. So
there's a challenge between allthese costs that are high and
people that have to invest theirtime professionals actually, to
(16:21):
kind of explore, what can we dowith this new crop and the
pricing and the costs that buildon small quantities.
Yeah, that's a that's a bigconsideration. And you know,
sorghum, in general, globally,is known as a very affordable
crop because it does growincredibly high yields and
requires very few inputs. So theunit economics at the farm level
(16:44):
are favorable, but it is as itnavigates the value chain that's
where that cost is accrued, eventhough, luckily, sorghum doesn't
need to be hold or have specialpolishing. It can be consumed as
just a whole clean grain, whichis fantastic. But you know, the
marketing and the innovationexpenses is, it's a large
(17:06):
upfront cost, and I know, in myexperience here, you know, with
my company sactivist, because wehave an entire line of products
developed from sorghum, rangingfrom Frozen ready to eat IQF all
the way through to pizza crustsand finished products, but we're
still stuck just selling afloured baking mix because there
(17:26):
was no capital available toscale innovation for the last
few years, nobody had anappetite. They would only invest
in scaling something that wasalready on the market, and so
it's completely hampered thatinnovation process. I don't have
you guys experienced that aswell. Just a minimal appetite
for innovation, or maybe that.It's a communication thing, I
(17:47):
know for us, here in the US, ifyou're a woman and you found a
company, it's an expectation youwill be just a brand. Like,
there's it. There's a realpushback, I feel like,
culturally, if you're aninnovation company, which is
more scientific and more leadingedge, they're kind of like, no,
no. Just go, go be a mom and gomake pancake mix for your kids.
(18:08):
So I don't know if you if youguys have experienced that tug
of war with culture in theNetherlands, or if that's more
of a US thing,
producing it here, and we'vebeen trying, actually, to
introduce it to the market, andwe've been kind of focusing on
chefs. We haven't started TPGproducts yet. We're brutal
(18:32):
business, and it brings its ownchallenges. Yeah,
I don't like it, yeah.
I mean, we come a bit from thisbackground, both of us, and we
know the challenges that comewith it, and it was a conscious
decision kind of start B to B aswell.
I think that's so smart. That'swhere the volume's at, too. And,
um, you know, like I know forus, like we ended up, you know,
(18:56):
just pausing our growth of ourCPG brand, because our passion
is around food service, but ittakes time to develop those
relationships like, but once youhave them, they're consistent,
they're reliable, and they're atscale. So it's like, it's like a
you had to be patient with thatbusiness model, but it's, I
think, has a lot more long termROI, and it has a lot more
(19:19):
utility when it comes to drivingdiscovery of underutilized crops
like you think about quinoa andhow quinoa was brought to the
market successfully. It was whenchefs started putting it on
people's plates, and then theywere like, Oh my gosh, I love
this. I would love to buy thisat home. So like, for the
longest time, I was reallyadamant about how food service
(19:40):
had to be the champion ofsorghum and millets first, and
that CPG should come second, andthen covid hit, and that's when
we had to change our businessmodel, because food service
disappeared overnight. But we'reback to only, you know, really,
only focusing on food service aswell here, domestically. Yeah.
Yeah,
(20:01):
quickly come back to your are wemaking moms pancake mixes? I do
think it's a very interestingtopic that you bring up.
Luckily, so far, we findourselves surrounded by people
who value, I would say,diversity as much as we do. So
(20:21):
that's great. And we are now. Weare building a achieve, a value
chain around a product, with afarmer, a Miller, a food maker,
a caterer, and us, and we arereally looking for the balance.
So when you look at us as agroup, there's women, there's
people who are not originallyborn in Holland, you know, we
(20:42):
don't, we don't all want this 32year old puppy of each other.
You know, we are actuallylooking for this, for this
diversity, because we feel that,in that way, you get the best
results and the most durable.Well,
how can we think outside of thebox without a diverse group of
people getting us there. Like,it's like, I think it's
(21:04):
essential for innovation withnew products, to bring
innovative, diverse people tothe table, to to look at things
differently. And it's justabsolutely critical. And it's,
it's actually hard sometimes,how, how, like, that can kind of
fall short. Like, people justhave this expectation. Like,
here in the United States, theylike the expectation on the
(21:27):
market is that if it's a sorghumbased product, it's only for
gluten free people. And I'mlike, no, no, no no. Like,
sorghum is fantastic blendedwith wheat. Like, as soon as we
bring in capital, like, we havea pasta product that is a wheat
sorghum hybrid. It's a milletsorghum wheat hybrid. We would
love to get it out into foodservice, you know. And it's to
(21:49):
me that those are the kind ofinnovations that we need to
break through the stigma thatall of these alternative crops
are only for people with aspecial diet, because that's not
the case like I really believethat sorghum needs to be
reintegrated back into justmainstream products like and
it's fascinating. There's a guyhere who's a real historian on
(22:09):
on millet history, millets,including sorghum, and has gone
back through a lot of theoriginal writings of the the
founding members of the UnitedStates, colonies, like, you
know, the early founding theycalled the founding fathers, and
when you read their agriculturaldiaries, there's a lot of
reference to sorghum, and theythey mixed it into their bread
flour. And so in colonialAmerica, it was a revered crop,
(22:32):
especially in the East Coast andthe south, where it's warmer.
And it's so weird to me that itfell out of favor when it was so
critical to early America, theearly American, you know,
heritage of like, whatagriculture was in the in the
early days,
there's a lot of knowledge lost,I imagine, yeah, a ton, the food
(22:54):
maker we are working with. He'sfrom Uganda, and he grew up with
sorghum, like his grandparentswould grow sorghum. He has these
stories. It's a crop that he heknows. He knows how it reacts,
how it works, yeah, exactly.That's a big,
I love that. Yeah, absolutely isa huge advantage.
(23:16):
I think there's quite anappetite, actually, for
innovation and that. I mean,everybody wants to kind of bring
something new, have a nice storyto tell, if they can make
something more nutritious, butat the same time, you see that
there is some kind of checklistthat people want to kind of be
(23:38):
checking. For example, they havelimits on how much pricey it can
be they have. They have certaintastes they want to have. So I
think it's really like workingtogether, this, this co creation
idea, even involving the farmerand bringing back the feedback
loop to the farmer to thegrowth. I think this is really
(23:59):
important as well, and productinnovation,
I agree. We have been callingthat model an innovation
brokerage. And it's anintentional like value chain
connection, where it's from germplasm and like seed genetics all
the way through the value chainto the end use. And like seeing
the whole process holistically,through that kind of innovation
(24:23):
brokerage concept. It's a lot ofthe work that we like to do as
well, and I totally agree thatit gives you, I feel like an
advantage in trying to do thingsthat are new and novel when you
approach it that way. I don'tknow if you guys have ever used
that term
(24:44):
for us. We like to bringsomething. We like the
innovation is a big inspirationfor us. Also, yeah,
yeah. It's, it
is the key. So how, as far as,like, you know, the the the
people who are buying theseproducts now or sampling them,
like the chefs. So far, what arethe responses that you're
seeing? Are people shocked whenthey try sorghum and they're
(25:05):
like, oh my gosh, where's thisbeen? Why? Why have I never
tried this? Is that what you'rehearing or, or what I would love
to hear more about, like, justthe response from people.
We've had the range of responsesand no responses. So sometimes,
initially, we would givesamples, and we would keep on
following and no responsewhatsoever. Other times, really,
(25:29):
I mean the product. They loveit. And for example, they would
create a dessert with it, andthen they would ask for more
than they would block theprogram and then put it on a
salad. For example, we've workedwith very different variety,
whether it's chefs that are morecreative, whether it's more
(25:51):
catering companies, but also,for example, staple foods, which
is more direction we're taking.So pastas, also bread, mix,
cereal. For breakfast with also,kind of sent samples to brewers
to see what kind of beers theycan come with sorghum. And we
(26:14):
had, we had quite enthusiasticresponses, not always
translating into big orders, butI think it's a good start, at
least,
yeah. And people, people lovethe taste, and people love the
story. And I think that that istwo things that that really make
the crop stand out. And, yeah, Ithink no negative responses. I
(26:38):
mean, sometimes people, theydidn't get back to us, but, but
also the tastings we did for forthe pasta or the or the pancake
mix, or we turn it into a salad,we had a great intern for a
while, who who made us recipesand presented them at, yeah,
which was, I would say, everyoneis, everyone loves it. No,
(27:02):
that's been
my experience too. We'verecently, yeah, been like, doing
some tastings with chefs. And wehear, and I'm sorry, Sheriff, we
hear, why haven't we tried thisbefore? Like, where has this
been? We hear that a lot.
But then what happens? I'mcurious. Yoni, then, then would
they order in the menu? Or whatwould
(27:28):
Yeah, so we have been focusingmore on, like large
organizations that manage many,many institutional kitchens like
college campuses and hospitalsand so, you know, we did like
the tastings. The chefs couldn'tbelieve it. They loved it. They
wanted to use it. The people incharge loved it. Want to use it.
(27:49):
And now we're just like in thatslow contract negotiation phase.
So our hopes is that by gettinginto some larger organizations
that we can secure, like, somereally good, larger volumes. And
so it's like, really narrowingour focus to those consumer
demographics. Like, for example,with the IQF sorghum, it's a
(28:12):
it's a whole cooked sorghum, andthen it's frozen, and it's
individual, quick frozen. Soit's like, almost like frozen
peas, like it. It's separate.And what the chefs are loving
about that is that they can justheat it and serve it, or they
can just thought and put it onsalads. It doesn't even require
heating. It's ready to eat. Sothose are the ones that we're
(28:34):
seeing a huge response for. Butagain, the time lag of getting
the contract actually solidifiedand executed has been painfully
slow, which you guys understandhow frustrating that can be, but
it's just bureaucracy. Maybe
it's also good to look at thingsin perspective. I mean,
(28:56):
introducing a new crop, I'mexpecting, expecting volumes
will be picking up in the firstyear, is also rushing things. I
think that way, yeah. I think, Ithink I mean, upon how the
medium term keeps and can cankind of build up the demand. I
think this is a more realisticway to look at things, yeah,
yeah. Well, because the thingis, is, like, we want it to be a
(29:18):
long term transition and andreally quick fads often really
quickly go away. And withsomething like this, it's like
it's going to be a permanentshift and a new normalcy. And I
agree with you that does take alittle time and patience to get
there, but it's it's worth it inthe long run.
And
(29:39):
another question for you, Yoni,I'm curious, because you're big
on the full of instead of thefree from. Not sure if I'm using
the exact right phrase, butyeah, that was right, great. I
wonder if that, if that'ssomething that resonates with
your audience, or if it's reallythe taste or or what you would
say is the most attractiveelement,
yeah. So I think, um. Um. One ofthe things we've struggled with
(30:02):
um in our early iterations isthat in the United States,
there's this real need to puteverything in a box of like,
it's free from gluten, or it'sfree from allergens, or it's
free from grains, or it's freefrom animal products. Like, it's
a very reductionistic consumernavigation pathway. Like, it's
very It's, um, I find it to bekind of a negative process. I
(30:24):
feel like it isolates innovationand makes it hard to think about
things in a holistic model.Like, what are the great
attributes? Like, why would youwant to eat it? It's delicious,
it's nutritious. It's got agreat climate story. Farmers
want to grow it. It'sbeneficial, and it has been hard
to really make movement forwardwith that narrative, especially
(30:48):
in the retail, which, again,we've moved away from retail.
But I would sit down withbuyers, and we would talk about
these ancient grains and whythey're so important for all
these things, and then at theend of the day, all they took
away from it is like, Oh, it's agluten free vegan company. I'm
like, No, we are not a glutenfree vegan company by a long
(31:09):
shot. However, if we're going tomake a product out of sorghum,
it may as well be gluten freeand vegan so that the maximum
amount of people can enjoy it. Ithink that being full of is so
much more than being free frompersonally, and so I've had a
personal frustration with themarket not being ready to accept
that story comes down to,
(31:34):
would you say the audiences,audiences you work with now that
they are more receptive to thismessage, And is that also
because they can then spreadthat to their Yeah, I
definitely feel like there'sbeen a huge shift in the last
year, um, like, especially inthe last year, where people are
just wanting to hear more aboutnutrient integrity, whether that
(31:57):
be nutrient density or, youknow, special compounds, like
sorghum is full of compoundsthat we know are beneficial to
the gut, for gut microbiome,those kind of conversations I
feel like are starting to beheard, and people are moving
away from that. What is it freeof? And instead thinking, why is
(32:17):
this good for me? And that isreally what needs to happen for
for adoption of all of theseopportunity cross crops, a they
need to be delicious. Peopleneed to discover them for
culinary use. But I think theyneed to understand that it's,
it's, it's a value to them todie, to diversify their diet,
(32:38):
regardless of special needs, of,you know, whatever, of special
dietary needs.
I think actually, we could alllearn from each other. I mean,
we follow, of course, what youdo in the universe. We enjoy a
lot your posts. But also, Imean, there's a lot of
creativity happening there, andyou are very active on promoting
(32:59):
sorghum. And, yeah, I mean, inEurope, we also try, in
different ways to and I thinkcollaboration between us, and
what we find here, what you findthere, is also quite because
it's the markets are asking forthe same things when I hear now,
yeah,
I think so too, yeah. And Iwould love to do more
collaboration. I mean, for me,honestly, it's, it's, um, it's
(33:22):
trying to figure out where thosepath of least resistance
initiatives lie. Like, where arethose things that people try and
have that aha moment, likechefs, and then they make that
commitment, like, I'm going tobe getting this on the plate,
and then how do we support themin telling that story? Like, I
feel like there's a reallystrong need for point of
(33:43):
consumption education. So ifsomebody's eating sorghum for
the first time at a restaurant,like I don't know how to do
this, but do we give them a QRcode that they can scan and
learn about it? Do they care?Are they going to take the time
to do that? Those are thosequestions I still have, and I'd
be curious to know, if you guyshave explored any of that,
maybe we are actually currentlyexploring. And I would say that,
(34:05):
like sorghum is one of the cropswe're looking at, but we're also
looking at other grains andthen. But the question is also,
what are what are you then? Whatis behind this QR code, right?
Do people, would they like tomeet the farmer around them that
is growing the crops? Would theylike to meet the guy who's
turning these local grains intopastas that they've never eaten
(34:26):
and that right bloat them? Wouldthey like to meet the miller
who, because of his strong male,is not losing all of the fibers
that the grain,
the missing middle no one evertells those stories like it's
sad to me, yeah.
So what is it that people wouldlike to know? And I think we've,
(34:47):
we've now seen kind of scan a QRcode and meet your farmer, but
there's so much more to tellabout a crop. There's so much
more about about a product,right? So, so we are not. It's
kind of playing with it. What dowe want to show do we want to,
as you said, all the increasednutritional values. Do we talk
about this? Yeah, so we'retesting this.
(35:09):
I know it's like hard to knowwhat the most important point
is. And I'm really glad that youmentioned the the humanization
of the value chain, because yes,there's this thing of like, Oh,
where did our food come from? Wewant to see a human who grew it
like, who's the farmer, who'sthe rancher, and then the whole
(35:29):
middle is like a missing,dehumanized, mechanistic realm.
But the reality is, is like,those are all people who are
business owners and dedicatedpeople who are touching your
food, and they are making itinto what it is when you consume
it, I get very frustrated thatwe don't give any attention to
that layer. It's completely,Yeah,
(35:51):
completely agree. It's, it's thepeople that we want to to show.
We want to show it's produced ona human scale, but also how
impactful the processing step isfor the end result. Because it
is not only the program that issuddenly going to end up as a
past hour, as a as another foodproduct. It's how you process
(36:12):
it. In the middle define so muchof of what it becomes, of the
quality of it. You can lose somuch during processing at the
same time, it can also add somuch. So we are, yeah, great,
and a lot of, a lot of the costis reflective of that value
chain, and it's, it'smeaningful,
(36:33):
and I would maybe add also, Imean, there's a lot of nice
stories that can be told and butit's also important to see what,
what is actually having effecton the end consumer. What would
help selling the product, beingaway, of course, from
greenwashing. But sometimes youwould wonder, I mean, is it, for
(36:55):
example, that if the if the ifthe consumer knows that this
product's coming from this farm,is this going to help the
growing the market, for thefarmer, because for the for the
product itself. And these are,these are things that we're
still trying to see, what, whatactually would work, what kind
of message,
(37:15):
big audience, right? Because, ofcourse, there are some people
interested in where their foodgrows, but maybe the majority of
the people they want to knowthat is good, small,
yeah, I think, I think theaverage person is, like, their
first level of interest is,obviously, it doesn't taste
good, and can I afford it? Butthen second is, is, is it good
(37:37):
for me? And then sourcing andimpact, whether that be social
or environmental, seems to befurther down as far as driving,
purchasing or driving, thedecision to try a product. So I
feel like the focus on nutritionand how it affects your body
here in the United States isprobably the most important
(38:00):
thing to lead with so far. I getreally excited about the climate
part of it, but the reality is,is that I think the vast
majority of consumers are kindof far removed from that.
At least here, it's too bad. Butfor
businesses, for example, a lotof businesses in Europe are
putting climate targets and COtwo reduction limits, and one of
(38:25):
the criteria they look at isactually, what is the footprint
of the product? Yeah, yep, ifyour customer is a business, I
think this aspect gains inimportance, and the more you
show them actually how howbetter this is or how it can
help with reducing thefootprint, the better it can be
(38:46):
such an important point, becausethat's a B to B sales
conversation, not necessarily Bto C, like the end end. Consumer
may not care a whole lot, butthe buyer who agreed to serve
that at their college campuscafeteria, that was likely their
decision. They were like, Great,this tastes good. I know with us
in our in our corporateinitiatives that we have, the
(39:11):
one that involves sorghum, itwas 100% because of a climate
initiative that they agreed todo. IQF sorghum. Yeah, so I that
I'm so glad you brought that upsherry.
And if that's the way in, then,then that's the way in, right?
We believe so much and in thecrops that, yeah, that then the
crop will do its own setting. Imean, if that's how people,
(39:35):
yeah, it's all good,
exactly. We have to be creativewhen creating a category around
underutilized crops, and I'mreally pleased to see that
there's just every week, I seemore and more momentum, there's
more awareness, and I'm seeingmore and more articles coming
from government, NGOs andprivate sector all together. So
(39:57):
it makes me feel confident thatthe future is going there and.
For those of us who are veryearly adopters, it's a little
bit rough because you're likethe point of the spear, but you
know it's I'm feeling hopefulthat we're getting closer every
day. So I Yeah, exactly so. Sofor both of you, for our
listeners who'd like to followup, they want to see where they
(40:20):
could get your products. Theywant to maybe engage with you
personally. How? How do theybest do that? As far as
websites, social media, etc,
I would say the best thing to dois to follow us on LinkedIn or
springtail, and we have a nicelogo that kind of you see a
crop, and then you see a plus.It was nature positivity. This
(40:44):
was kind of our generation.That's where we do most of our
updates. Look we visited thismill. This is what we learned
there. This is why processing isso important. Yeah, fun. I mean
things people make with sorghum.We will share other insights.
(41:04):
Great. Does springtail have awebsite? We do go to
springtel.eu springtel.eu We arequite ambitious in keeping it up
to date. But I have to say theLinkedIn like, there's so many
things that I'm I'm
totally in the same camp. That'swhere, like all the most up to
date stuff happens for for ustoo, is LinkedIn. That's great.
(41:29):
So for I will make sure to putthose links in the show notes so
that people can follow you andengage with you on LinkedIn and
also find your website. And thishas just been great you guys. I
you know, I am really pleasedyou took the time out of your
busy week on a Friday afternoon,and, yeah, it's just, it's just
been great to get an update.Honestly, I'm, I'm more excited
(41:50):
than I was before, to just keepup with what you guys are doing
and see how we can work togetherto just make sorghum and other
great climate smart crops thenorm. Thank you so much. You're
welcome. Thank you for joiningme. And for those of you
listening, please take a secondto review and to share. If
you're also passionate aboutinnovation, European markets and
(42:12):
climate, smart crops, just takea second to drop this link into
your favorite social medianetwork and thank you for
joining this
episode of the regenerative bydesign podcast is brought to you
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.
(42:35):
Please take a moment to reviewour channel on your favorite
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