Stephen Smith @ Onda
Regenerative, Slow-Infusion Hemp Medicine
Stephen Smith is the founder and CEO at Onda. Onda is supporting regenerative agriculture with its whole plant and full spectrum hemp products that include oils, tinctures, capsules, and topicals.
The Brand
Onda Wellness produces nutrient-dense, slow-infusion hemp and herbal plant medicine from regenerative food farms. Their products help alleviate anxiety and calm the mind, enhance sleep, and support immunity. Onda can be found at select retailers as well as on their website.
An Inspired Journey
When you listen to Stephen’s story, it’s easy to connect the dots between a thesis paper in high school on hemp, a string of jobs in biodynamic farming, and Onda. To Stephen, however, it was destiny that paved the journey to where his heart and soul belongs.
From learning about the interconnectedness of living systems with David Mahaffey, the founding winemaker of the original Olivia Brion estate vineyard, to selling craft spirits distilled at Jack Rabbit Hill, the first biodynamic certified farm in Colorado, to moving cows on a 90,000 acre cattle ranch, his agricultural journey informed a passion for site-specific ingredients, holistic land management, and regenerative agriculture models – and led him to Onda.
“My grandmother used to introduce me as the grandson who doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. But I remind myself, it was all connected – every one of those farm jobs gave me the confidence, the knowledge, to be a foundational brick in Onda. So don’t give up kids. Trust yourself.” – Stephen
(Stephen chatting with his Grandma ⬇️ 😂)
“Running in hot sand, uphill, both ways”
Just because you follow your passion doesn’t make it easy. In 2016, when Stephen launched Onda with $1,000 and a few product formulas, hemp and cannabis businesses faced heavy regulations and lacked access to basic business services. Then the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp-derived CBD, but the regulatory environment still presents many challenges today. Onda has been undeservingly banned from Venmo & PayPal, prevented from acquiring traditional business credit, had to use offshore banking services, and is not allowed to engage in certain kinds of internet-based advertising. Onda has persisted through it all with creativity and grit, doing what is needed to get clean regenerative hemp medicine to customers.
The 2018 Farm Bill created a hemp boom that quickly went bust. Even as acreage grew, Stephen was frustrated by the fact that the vast majority of this new hemp acreage was being grown in degenerative, monocrop systems and destined for heavily processed, cheap products. Onda is committed to doing it differently. Stephen works with Cate Havstad and Chris Casad of Casad Family Farms, where they’re planting hemp into a rich polyculture of carrots, potatoes, pollinator crops, herbs and more, that’s fully integrated with managed grazing. And while hemp only accounts for small percentage of their acreage, it’s turned out to be a financial and ecological bumper crop for their farms – proving that a high-value medicine crop can be integrated with food and livestock.
“We started with an herbalist apothecary mindset, soaking hemp and oil and pressing it into a jar. Most others came in from the pharmaceutical side, with CO2 extractions, isolates, broad spectrum. Unlike other CBD products, ours is whole hemp plant medicine that’s green, super rich in phytonutrients, chlorophyll, polyphenols, fatty acid. We’re like fresh squeezed orange juice and other brands are like Emergen-C or Tang – over processed, stripped of nutrients, individual isolations from monocrops.” – Stephen
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A Different Growth Trajectory
Stephen acknowledges that their growth trajectory has been far from conventional, particularly due to the immense list of restraining factors listed above. Onda wasn’t just pioneering a new market, it was navigating a legal minefield. All while producing a product with the highest regenerative integrity and purest form of processing.
Unlike wine or potato chips, Onda has had to educate consumers about the benefits of CBD. Customer commitment and referrals are essential, as is rewarding loyalty through subscription plans and discounts.
“For years we were so excited about Onda being a mechanism for change, supporting and interacting with regenerative food systems. Consumers want products that help them sleep better, reduce anxiety and help them relax. But why not offer those things and support regenerative ag at the same time? It’s okay to lead with your ethos, your mission, but not if you forget your product goals in the process.” – Stephen
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Our Path to 50% Market Share 4 Regen
As COVID-19 showed us, change in our culture and behaviors rarely happens without trauma. While it might seem extreme, Stephen believes having systems collapse, infrastructure fail, and supply chains crumble might position biodynamic foods as the viable solution to this fragile “house of cards” that we’ve built. He hopes that it doesn't have to come to this, and he believes consumers can lead a revolution before then.
“When people start feeling better and happier from a more nutrient-dense diet and healthy, clean soil, maybe they’ll be more willing to have one less $20 apple martini, to pivot their budgets to access healthy food. Maybe they’ll support and vote for the transition to regenerative ag, incentivizing farmers to transition their practices because consumers are voting for it. It’s a snowball.” – Stephen
You can check out the full episode with Stephen from Onda HERE.
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This ReGen Recap was produced with support from Kristina Tober