#86 - Ryan Pintado-Vertner @ Smoketown - How Do We Unlock Massive Demand For Regenerative?

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #86 - How Do We Unlock Massive Demand For Regenerative? - (RECAP LINK)

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with AI and is not 100% accurate.

Kyle Krull - 00:00:13
Welcome to the ReGen Brands Podcast. This is a place for brands, retailers, investors, and other food system stakeholders to learn about the consumer brand supporting regenerative agriculture and how they're changing the world. This is your host, Kyle, joined by my cohost AC, who's gonna take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:34
On this episode, we have Ryan Pintado-Vertner, who is the founder and CEO at Smoketown. Smoketown is a boutique brand consultancy that helps visionaries, mission driven brands, and nonprofits maximize their growth and positive impact without one compromising the other. They use empathy to solve complex marketing challenges for their clients who are creating more justice, generosity, equity, and regeneration in the world. Smoketown is supporting regenerative agriculture with their recently released white paper, unlocking demand for regenerative, a crowdsourced blueprint for accelerating consumer demand for regenerative agriculture. Now it will come as no surprise to anyone who has listened to this show before to hear that we are convicted in our belief that we absolutely need to figure out how to improve our ability to increase consumer awareness and demand for regenerative products. Well, Ryan shares that conviction with us, and this white paper was his attempt to explore that concept and share his findings with the community. And, boy, did he deliver.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:01:25
This white paper is full of really insightful takeaways and recommended actions to take. And Ryan is here with us today to break it all down. You'll also learn about his background as an activist and big CPG brand builder, his previous work at Smoketown with Mission Driven Brands, and his regen awakening that led him to producing this blueprint for driving change. Join us as we break down how the regenerative community can increase consumer empathy, refine the messaging frame, double down on loyalty and share of wallet, and boldly collaborate for big awareness. This one was legit, folks. Let's go. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the ReGen Brands Podcast.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:02:06
Very excited today to have our friend, Ryan, from Smoketown joining us. So welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:02:21
I can't believe I'm here. I'm I'm like, you know, how's it going? Like, long time listener, first time caller, or whatever. I mean, I I can't even believe it.

Kyle Krull - 00:02:33
That's fantastic to hear, man. This is an exciting episode for us because typically, as you know, we are with brands or it's just AC and I. And this will be an interesting episode for us to have sort of like a high level topic to discuss in detail with a 3rd party that isn't a brand. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how this, episode evolves.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:02:53
Yeah. And the the context there for those that that don't know, but if you're if you're following us, you should know at this point. But, Ryan produced a white paper called unlocking demand for regenerative, a crowdsource blue blueprint for accelerating consumer demand for regenerative agriculture. So we wanted to have him on to talk about all the things that were included in the white paper, some of the feedback he's gotten since then. So we will dive into all of that fun stuff. But before we do, let's let the audience meet Ryan, the the human being, the the the person, the legend himself. So, Ryan, please share a little bit about, like, your personal journey and kinda your work in CPG and and what smoke time is and all that good

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:03:31
stuff. Yeah. For sure. For sure. I appreciate that. Again, like, I I I'm sincerely honored to to get a chance to be here, for real. And yeah. So my quick story is, you know, the the first half of my adult life, I was an activist that that that that led me to the nonprofit world. I there's this quote that Martin Luther King Junior has that really spoke to me when I was young. He said, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Mhmm. And when I heard that, I felt like, okay. That's actually what I'm about.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:03:55
Like, I I wanna be part of bending the moral arc of the universe towards justice. And then, frankly, I burned down on nonprofit life. You know, I I I I led a nonprofit for a stretch, and I I just got I I just hit a wall, which is pretty common in that space actually. Like, burnout is a real thing. And, along that path, like, I discovered that you can do good and and do well at the same time by building social enterprises. Mhmm. And, so that led me to get an MBA. That led me to discover consumer packaged goods. I literally didn't know what CPG meant.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:04:31
Like, I I was sitting in a class at at UC Berkeley, and they kept throwing CPG around, bro. And I had to, like, I had to Google it or or whatever we did in the 19, you know, 100. So I I discovered CPG. I actually felt kinda fell in love with it and then did this crazy pivot where I went into big CPG for, like, 14 years, which, you know, no one who knew me coming up in the nonprofit world recognized me. They were like Yeah. He works at Clorox. Like, you know, I don't know what happened to him. You know?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:05:10
And, however, like, I I happened to land a Clorox in a window that was an incredible blessing for me. Like, they were they were probably I mean, it sounds like self I don't know. Whatever the term is, like, it's easy for me to say that they were great because I was there. Right? So that, you know, I I recognize a certain level of self interest in that. But I think kind of objectively, Clorox was at its prime in that window that I was there. They were just, like, 90th percentile on a whole bunch of stuff.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:05:39
So I learned a tremendous amount, and and yet and and that after I left there, I went to another couple of big CPG companies. But the truth is that, you know, that that call was still deep, you know, in me. Like, that sense that I should be bending the moral arc of the universe was still kind of fundamentally how I was wired. And so Smoketown, came about, in 2018. So what's that? 6 years, and some change on on our way to 7, I guess.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:06:17
But that 6 year window has been an interesting 6 years. Listen.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:06:24
Like, what it it was like, one thing that I would not advise is to is to go out on your own for the first time in your whole life Yeah. And a year and a half later, have the entire economy shut down. I mean Yeah. My my wife, Lisa, god bless her. Like, she had to scrape me up off the floor in in 2020. I mean, that was it was wild. And and yet, like, we, you know, we bounced back.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:06:39
Like, we we actually came back stronger than than I expected. And and the whole premise behind Smoketown is that there are best in class practices for how to build a brand, how to create demand, how to how to build brand equity, which ultimately is what creates brand value. Mhmm. There's a playbook for that that, and yet there's also some things that start ups and early stage brands do amazingly well that big CPG can't figure out. And so my goal was to try to bring the best of what I was trained to do, shed the stuff that doesn't work, and learn and lean in from and and learn from start ups. And so I I cut my teeth that way.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:07:31
You know, the team, you know, like, we built a bit of a team around us in the core of what of what Smoketown does. I mean, folks can go to our website if they wanna learn more, of course. But the core of what Smoketown does is we help, mission driven brands make better marketing and innovation decisions because we we because those decisions are grounded in consumer empathy. That's that's our language for understanding consumer behavior and and really being dialed into who and what consumers, are motivated by. So, that's what we do. There there's a whole range of services that we have that that, you know, again, the website speaks to, but it it basically comes down to, solving complex marketing challenges, in a whole range of ways and and and in a way that's customized to what each each, individual brand needs.

Kyle Krull - 00:08:25
Oh, yeah. I'm I'm really curious. Like, it sounds like you you've created this playbook based on your experience at big CPG. And without spending too much time there, like, what were you doing at Clorox and those other big CPG companies, and and what did what did you decide were, like, the key elements of that playbook? You know, are you running a power eye? You know, are you going, you know, shotgun? You know, what what what's the playbook actually look like?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:08:49
You just went up in my head. I I I totally like, I I I recognize I'm on a foot like, I'm talking to people who know football immediately when they start throwing stuff around, and I'm like, I don't know. But I'll I'll answer the question and then and it's from my marketing nerd brain There you go. With which is so my my role in those, companies was always in brand management. So I was Okay. At the hub of the wheel of, you know, managing demand creation and and and usually having some level of responsibility for the p and l, in addition to, so out of 14 years, I think that 8 of the 14 years, I had some level of direct responsibility for innovation strategy and innovation execution. So really, like, could cut my teeth on innovation for a long time. Mhmm.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:09:32
And I'd say the the single most important thing that I learned, that and that I've applied as core as core to Smoketown's practice is the idea that you have to understand the consumer problem that you solve. Like, deep understanding and reverence and respect and care for who your consumer is, who you serve, what is the job that you do in their lives. Every single decision is better because of that. Every single line of the p and l is improved when you have that depth of understanding because it just makes decision making better. So, you know, there's a lot more that I could go into, but I'd say the the the cornerstone that that distinguishes Smoketown as a as a brand consultancy from from others is our absolute commitment to understanding who is the consumer that we serve and and and making decisions from that place.

Kyle Krull - 00:10:36
I love that. And that feels so, intuitive, and it also seems so like I've never heard somebody say that out loud in CPG, like, focusing on empathy. Right?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:10:45
Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:10:45
Yeah. So that's really, really awesome, Andy. I'm excited to get further into the episode and talk about how we can apply those tactics to the regenerative movement as a whole.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:10:54
Yeah. Yeah. I was Yeah. I was having a lightning rod moment to both of the major takeaways of consumer empathy and, like, really focusing on the problem and saying, like, we're not doing that very well as a as a movement. And, individually, the brands that are doing really well are doing that really well individually. Right. So there there's a mix there's a mix bag there individually, but, collectively, you know, like, we need to massively uplevel both of those things as a as a community.

Kyle Krull - 00:11:21
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanna take it.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:11:23
So it sounds like we we

Kyle Krull - 00:11:24
got a brief overview of act 1, Brian's time in activism, act 2, time in big CPG, and then the the beginning of act 3 with Smoketown. And I'm curious, you know, right now, you're really focusing on this regenerative innovation or regenerative start up kind of portion of CPG. Right? When did regenerative kinda hit your radar, and why did that become important to you?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:11:46
Yeah. So just before COVID, I so it would have been, like, 2019, very close to when I started Smoketown, to begin with. I was invited to be part of the first advisory board and then eventually the the sort of operating board of a regenerative focused fund. It it it was eventually called Flock. It was a fun folk raised by Mark Retzlaff, who was the founder of Horizon Dairy. He and a and a handful by the folks who I was getting to know at the time invited me to be part of that effort. And, you know, we spent a couple of years trying to pull that off and eventually, you know, merged into another effort. But the that was a an incredible sort of drink from the fire hose learning opportunity for me. You know?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:12:28
Like, we were we were at the table or I should say I was at the table with folks who who knew this space exceedingly well. Mhmm. That led to the chance to be an adviser on Trailhead with Trailhead Capital. So, you know, they're they're an investor in this space. I know you guys know them. That that gave me another opportunity to continue to to learn and cut my teeth.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:12:55
I I had the opportunity to meet Julia Collins with Planet Forward and and Moon Shot, who's a genius and and became a friend and kind of was my guiding, another person who sort of helped guide me into the space. And then I would say, all of that led to me deciding that I wanna build a practice here. But the the the the the real light bulb moment though, I'd say was about a year ago. I prior to that, I saw it as something important. I saw it as something that I wanted to be part of. But then, like, this this thing happened where I was reading a lot.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:13:34
I was listening to a bunch of y'all's podcast. I was I was sort of consuming a ton of content alongside kinda deepening my own spiritual practice. And this like, I woke up one morning, and it was like, all of these things are the same thing. Like, we like, the the the bigger picture for what regeneration actually means and stands stands for was so closely aligned to where my spiritual practice was leading, which was also closely tied into that whole idea of bending the moral arc of the universe towards justice because, you know, you care about justice because you care about people. And, so it all just kinda started to come together and I realized, oh, okay. What's actually happening here is I figured out that this is the next phase of my life.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:14:24
Like, this is not just something kinda dope that's happening in the in the in the food space that I wanna be a part of. No. This is actually this is actually what I'm about. So, you know, next thing I know, we got, like, 4 backyard chickens. You know, we're we're, like you know, we're we're rotational, you know, cropping in our our ridiculously small garden. You know?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:14:43
I'm I'm growing hairy vetch for those who are like, we're gonna nerd out on this. So but it just became not just a thing that's interesting, but it it really became the thing. Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 00:15:05
Man, I love that. And I think what I love most about it is, Justin Mayer is the founder of Kettle and Fire. He talks about regenerative and how it's it's rooted in, like, a foundational truth.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:15:15
Yeah. And when

Kyle Krull - 00:15:16
you truly start to understand that, it's like, woah. K. This really does make sense at, like, a a deeper level. To your point, then it kind of aligns with truths in other capacities as well. Exactly. Unlike and I don't mean to, like, totally throw any specific industry under the bus, but unlike, like, lab grown meat. Like, okay. I can I can kinda see some of the benefits there, but, like, is that really the right thing? Whereas when you truly understand regenerative value, like, yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:15:33
This is what we need to be doing. And then as you were saying as it's like, man, you know, you're reading. You're on your own spiritual path. You had the light bulb moment. It's like, how do we get everybody else to have the light bulb moment? Right?

Kyle Krull - 00:15:45
And I think that's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode, which is super exciting.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:15:52
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But I will say, though, like, it's the fact that so many people have some version of that light bulb moment, though, is extremely promising. Like, that that suggests that we're we're we're talking about something that's operating at a different wavelength. Right?

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:09
Yeah.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:16:10
And it's one of the reasons why I think the demand potential here is extraordinary.

Kyle Krull - 00:16:15
Totally. Because once you once you understand it, there's no going back. I call it it's just like I call it the vampire. You know, once you get bit, like, you're you're there for life. It's like you you can't change. You know? So, yeah, you're you're in.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:28
The, there's like a I was watching a YouTube video where Matthew McConaughey was getting interviewed, and he was talking about we have to live life looking forward, and it's a mystery. But when we look back, it's a science. It's really easy to say, oh, I did that. I went here, like, blah blah blah. This makes sense. And Right. It's kinda funny, like, the 3 people on this call, how we all got here, because I know all of our stories, obviously.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:44
It's very easy to look back and say, it's a science. You know? But I know while we were all in it, it was a mystery. Right? As we're, like, moving moving forward, living life. So just Yeah. Interesting takeaway there. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:55
Ron, I want to kinda move into the white paper by maybe sharing, like, why did you decide to do a white paper? I mean, you and I had some preliminary discussions. We had a really good chat at expo in March. Yeah. And my my takeaways from the you know, before you you did the white paper, we're like, this guy just wants to be of service. Like, he he really wants to be helpful to this work in some capacity where he can use his unique experience and skill set.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:17:20
But what was the journey like from, like, the inspiration to the execution?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:17:33
First of all, thank you for for that. I I I think that is that is sincerely where I was coming from. It was how do I is there a way for me to learn and serve in the same motion? And the the the inspiration, though, for it was with everything that I was reading and seeing, including, by the way, listening to a whole bunch of y'all's podcast, was it felt like there were lessons being learned and things being observed kind of in pockets and silos, and there wasn't a lot of capacity for sharing across. Mhmm. And Yeah. What in fact, you guys reached exactly the same conclusion Yep. In an episode that I that in an episode that I started, AC knows this story.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:18:17
Like, I I started that episode. I forget which episode it was. It was one of the first ones where it was just the 2 of you, and you didn't have a guest. And I didn't finish that episode, though. And so and it was toward towards the end where you had exactly the same, like, revelation that, oh, man. We need people to talk to each other.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:18:37
And so I had that, you know, idea, you know, kind of in parallel, and one thing led to another. And, I I I brought a team member on to help sort of help write the white paper, and she's like, you know, you know, AC and Kyle literally say that this exact thing should happen in episode in episode such and such and such. And I was like, Oh, no. Am I ripping them off? Like, I don't intend to. And so, anyway, like, it it's a it's a funny story for just how, like, lots of things came together where I think multiple folks had a recognition that that through like, not not because there's not sincere interest in collaboration and and sharing.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:19:11
It's just like people are at capacity. You know? You've got all of these folks who are leading emerging brands and and figuring things out, with scrappy teams. They just don't have the capacity to share. And so the the spirit of the white paper was how can we how can I take the burden off of a lot of folks, listen, you know, very intentionally, distill that down into a document, and then we release that as a bit of collective wisdom?

Kyle Krull - 00:19:57
Love that, man. And I think you did. And I think you nailed it.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:20:01
Yeah. I

Kyle Krull - 00:20:01
remember I was

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:20:02
Thank you.

Kyle Krull - 00:20:02
I was reading

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:20:05
the I

Kyle Krull - 00:20:05
was reading the smoke down white paper on my phone in I can't remember what airport, in preparation for the town hall. And I was like, man, this a this is really good. There's some really killer insights in here. I'm curious from your perspective throughout that process. You know, you had listened to a bunch of the episodes. You had done quite a bit of your own research. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:20:19
Was there, like, a specific or 2 or 3 or light bulb moments for you where you really said, like, woah. This is, like, a really deep theme I'm noticing across the board. What what was the, like, the interview experience like for you and what and what were those moments?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:20:39
Yeah. One thing that I had kind of a strong hypothesis about or sort of suspicion around is that consumers like, let me take a step back. So most regen brands talk about regenerative as, like, through the lens of sustainability. They they talk about it through the lens of restoring something that's broken or or improving something that that, you know, or, like, you know, investing in climate, that tends to be the the frame. Mhmm. And that's fine. But I've had enough experience in focus groups with consumers and and, you know, digesting consumer research that people are just not that altruistic. You know?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:21:14
The the the that that tends not maybe 10%, you know, 3 5%, 7% of the US population is sincerely making decisions from that place. And even there, I'd be sort of somewhat skeptical of it. I just was like, I'm not sure that that's gonna be the way this scales. And after the conversations that I had, we interviewed about, you know, 30 people across 18 companies. It turned out that I wasn't the only one having that observation. You know, lots of people, even though they're currently anchored in sustainability as the story, and and and many, if not most of folks engaged in this space, sustainability is fundamental to why they care about it.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:21:56
That's what brought them to it. There would there's a lot of folks who are like, but I'm not sure that that takes us from today's level of awareness and demand to what needs to be true. You know, I mean, if you believe, project drawdown, like, they think I I think their estimate is something like 40% of arable land needs to be managed regeneratively in order for it to be the carbon sink that we need for it to to get to numbers like that. It's not the the collective wisdom was it's probably not through that lens. So that's just one example of of sort of an observation that I had early on or something that I just kinda wondered about that over the course of multiple conversations became an insight, but then translated into the paper.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:22:52
Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, I think our stance at this point is is is there's 2 really important things we need to do. Like, there's 2 really important bridges we need to cross. One is the bridge from altruism to self interest, right, as a movement, and the next is the bridge from, defining to marketing. Right?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:23:12
Mhmm. Those those are 2

Anthony Corsaro - 00:23:13
very different activities. And so right now, we're relying on altruism to drive change, and we're trying to fight over the definition, and we need to rely on self interest to drive change and really focus on marketing and driving awareness and and true demand versus defining. I think those are deeply underpinned in the findings of of the report, which just just to clarify for the listeners, like, what Ryan did was he interviewed 20 plus people, mainly brands, but some other regenerative kind of NGOs and influencers on the state of affairs and developed what I thought was a very interesting kind of methodology to the report was it was really truly a blue a blueprint with, recommendations. It wasn't just research and findings. And to to just come back for one thing before we go really into the depth of the report, what we were talking about earlier, which is, like, we have reached the same conclusion, and that's why we're doing the work that we're doing, why we published state of return of CPG report, because we had all these insights from the podcast that were disparate and only accessible if you listen to 70 hours of podcast. But we have to get them into the right medium where we filter and synthesize into actually kind of actionable insights. However, we've only been able to do that at really a high level across, like, all regen brands. Like, that was the state of regenerative CPG report.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:24:21
And so what this white paper did was it did that same sort of methodology, but specifically about the marketing and demand driving function, which is, like, our goal across the board, whether that's us doing it or other people doing it or doing it in collaboration. It's like, we have to reach that level of research insight creation and then dissemination to the community and then activation. I don't know where all those words just came from, but I think that sounds quite good, actually. So, hopefully, that makes sense to people. But there was this just beautiful kind of natural, ebb and flow where you were able to support what we do, and we were able to support what you do in a very natural and kind of cohesive and additive way. For sure. Just wanna recognize that.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:25:10
For sure. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I I feel the same. Cool.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:14
Well, before we dive too too far into the, the actual report, I would just wanna share you know, I think it was Expo West. That's the most recent one with the one prior. AC and I were sitting next to each other during a Nielsen panel, and they shared these are, like, the top 10 consumer you know, the things consumers care about that drive purchase behavior. And I'm pretty sure the top hierarchy

Anthony Corsaro - 00:25:34
of needs, but for consumers.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:35
Yeah. Basically. Basically. And I think it was and this goes back to your point, Ryan, about how, like, sustainability is not the leading thing. Right? That's not the one. I'm pretty sure the top 3 were taste, price, and convenience.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:25:46
Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:46
And number 8 was sustainability.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:25:49
Yeah. And that tends to be yeah. I've seen probably a dozen studies that all reach some version of that same conclusion, at least in food and beverage.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:58
And what I love about these different sources coming to the same conclusion is it feels like it's really validating. Right? You're doing a qualitative interview work and soliciting feedback qualitatively to come up with a quantitative answer. And then with somebody like Nielsen, who's, like, just pure quantitative, comes up with that same answer, it really feels like it's rooted in truth.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:26:18
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

Kyle Krull - 00:26:21
Okay. Well, let's dive into the actual report. So we talked about some of your moments when you were soliciting the interviews and and getting the feedback. AC did a really good job of breaking down the methodology. Is there anything AC missed in what you all put into the report itself?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:26:37
No. I think he distilled it. The I I think he he definitely framed it up. I mean, it's probably worth throwing out a few of the of the folks who we talk to or just sort of the companies that they represent it so that people have an appreciation for who the report attempts to to reflect voices from. So we talked with, you know, Ryland, cofounder at Kiss the Ground. We talked with the the marketing leads at, at Simply, at Lundberg Family Farm, at Applegate. So it's it's a mix of startups who are grinding it out and and at the at the bleeding edge of it with a couple of OGs who have been doing this for a while and maybe even have, you know, reached a certain level of scale close to a tipping point, along with a a couple of sort of, like, key industry stakeholders who who, while they don't own a brand per se, are incredibly important and and and influential in how we think about the consumer interface with Regen. And and so I'm I'm I feel completely, frankly, appreciative of of AC for opening a bunch of doors to to introduce me to folks who who would have other otherwise been like, who's this dude? You know? Like and and why is he asking me like, why does someone ask me a bunch of questions?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:27:49
I think it was, it was it was a good partnership in that respect.

Kyle Krull - 00:27:56
Yeah. AC's got a killer region network, man. He, he knows everybody. I'll be like, hey, man. I just I just talked to this person. He's like, yeah. Yeah. I know. I'm talking, like, 6 months ago. I'm like, give him a bath. Whatever. Exactly. But so we we already discussed that one of the key, like, biggest takeaways from the white paper was the need for collaboration.

Kyle Krull - 00:28:07
We already talked about why a lot of these brands are not collaborating. But, Ryan, from your perspective, tell us why collaboration among these various stakeholders can be such an unlock for the movement as a whole.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:28:23
For sure. I think that what was a broadly felt sentiment is, wow, do we have a lot of work to do? There there was a a lot of folks who were in this work or in this space would would refer back to organic as, like, a bit of a analog. Right? Or so what what happened with it, and and where do we need to do better, and and where where are we doing worse? And one of the things when you look back, you know, with, you know, hindsight 2020 or as AC put earlier, like, you look back and everything looks like science. It it it took decades to reach the level of scale that we are today. And what some folks who were sort of, like, present for that for that movement would would say is that collaboration earlier would have been helpful to accelerate that pace.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:29:03
Mhmm. And so so I think that that the first observation from folks is this is a heavy lift, and we and we have an actual clock. Like, we we we don't get to just have this take as long as it happens to take. Like, we're we're actually under the gun here when you look at it from a climate standpoint. So that was the first piece. And then the second piece, I would say, and this very much reminds me of my of my nonprofit days.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:29:34
When you when people and, Kyle, you spoke to this in the way that that, Kettle and Fire's founder talks about it. When people are coming to the space, because there's so many layers of truth embedded in the idea of regeneration Mhmm. The mindset and the openness tends to be collaborative and and positive. You know, that there's, obviously, like, there's a limit to that and and there's plenty of drama. But it reminds me a lot of the nonprofit space, I guess, is my point, where you have people with good intention aiming at something much bigger than themselves and recognizing that they can only accomplish that thing that's bigger than themselves if they find allies. So I I think that that is the the core of of what I I came away feeling so inspired by in terms of the collaborative potential here.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:30:27
Now what it actually takes to unlock that collaboration, considering busy schedules, stressed out leaders, you know, meaningful disagreements, philosophical and otherwise. I'm not saying it's gonna be like a walk in the park and and y'all have built, you know, a a set of of of institutions that are gonna help navigate that. But at a minimum, the intention and the possibility is there, which I think is beautiful.

Kyle Krull - 00:31:06
Mhmm. Totally agree. Ace, you go ahead.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:31:09
Yeah. I mean, I think one thing we've been sort of disappointed by is since we've been doing this work, it's almost felt like the, the desire to have that collaboration was not there or was actively being worked against. I think we're I think we're hitting a tipping point there, which is exciting. I'm gonna try and break something down here that I don't know if I'm gonna explain really well, so just bear with me here for a second.

Kyle Krull - 00:31:34
Just hold on tight. Hold on for the ride. Here we go.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:31:38
It it corresponds to the need for collaboration and also the theories of change that you presented. So so Ryan presented 4 theories of change to open the white paper, which were the farmer led theory, the electric car theory, the consumer led theory, and the cocreation theory, which we're not gonna we're not gonna dive into all of them. People can read the white paper if they wanna get the full scoop. But the main takeaway there is that there's this continuum of the need for consumer demand across those 4 offered pathways. And you reached the same conclusion that we have, which is consumer demand is not a silver bullet, but it is an essential piece to some degree. To that degree, we probably don't know exactly what the number is, but, like, we have to do that to some degree to solve for this thing. And I think one of the challenge if you believe that to be a truth and you believe that the collaboration needs to happen that I'm wrestling with, I think that we're wrestling with, and and this is the way I've been kinda stating the work that we do to people.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:32:20
It's there's there's 2 parallel paths. There's 2 parallel races being run at once. 1 is the collective path, and 1 is the individual path. And on the collective path, we have to unite and collaborate to go figure out how to market regenerative as this collective thing and figure out what the ceiling for that is in terms of awareness and demand. Right? Mhmm. Collective, that that's that's, like, collective task.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:32:52
On an individual perspective, like, brands have to use regenerative to hitch their marketing wagons to things that actually drive purchase, which aren't regenerative. It's the outcomes of regenerative Mhmm. Which that's that's a little bit different in execution, and we have to do both at the same time. And I think that's sometimes just difficult and confusing, and I and I hope I'm articulating that well enough to be understood, but I find that to be a a big point of opportunity, but also where some of the friction comes

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:33:24
Right. Right. And and part of the challenge that we heard, especially from the earlier stage founders, is they feel like today, they have to do both.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:33:34
Yeah. No doubt.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:33:35
And on a shoestring budget with, you know, while raising money and managing cash flow and building a supply chain, which y'all's, state of the industry, you know, maps out quite quite, admirably. Right? So so I think that that is very real and getting a bit more intentional and organized around okay. Yo. We over here are gonna handle this part of it. Yeah. And y'all can handle this part of it rather than everyone thinking that they have to do everything.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:34:00
I I believe it'll ultimately be if we can pull that off, it'll ultimately be a huge relief, particularly for those early and middle stage, companies that just frankly didn't have the capacity to do that first part of what you described, AC, anyway.

Kyle Krull - 00:34:24
Yeah. No doubt. You know, we talked about this a lot on a ton of episodes, but it's just it's so hard to be a start up CPG company, period.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:34:32
Yeah. Exactly.

Kyle Krull - 00:34:33
Stack on top of that, all of the challenges to be a regenerative startup CPG brand, and it just is exponentially more difficult. Right? So, Ryan, to your point, like, these these folks don't have the number 1 bandwidth, let alone everything else. Like, there's there's a ton of problems that movement in totality hasn't been able to solve. Like, how can we expect any individual brand to solve these problems, you know, in a silo? Yeah. So I think this has been a really great kind of overview to, like, the power of collaboration and why it's so critical for this particular group of constituents, and how it can really move the needle. Because if we can figure out how to get these brands to collaborate and increase the consumer demand that he was just talking about, like, that is a an actionable way for people to vote with their dollar, which translates to more arable land converting to these regenerative practices that have the benefits we wanna have with the climate.

Kyle Krull - 00:35:07
Yep. In addition to increasing biodiversity and human health and all the other cascading benefits that come from implementing regenerative practices. Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:35:32
We set this thing up pretty magically, you know, but let's let's get into the real nitty gritty here. And as we've said, the the layout of the white paper was really a blueprint. So you were offering kinda actions to be taken. And there were 4 key elements, Ryan, that you listed in the white paper. The first one was increase consumer empathy. The second was refine the messaging frame. The third one was double down on loyalty and share of wallet, and the 4th one was boldly collaborate for big awareness.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:35:53
So we know people can go read the full white paper, and we encourage them to do so. But for the sake of just basic understanding for the podcast, let's have you kind of describe each of those for a few minutes and some of the action steps that you presented, and then we'll riff

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:36:15
on each one, and and we'll go through all 4. Yeah. Perfect. So first one, to increase consumer empathy. The the consensus view here is that we, as a movement, don't really have a deep enough understanding of consumer motivations, behaviors, attitudes when it comes to regenerative. And, therefore, we don't actually know what combination of messages and and what what approach to storytelling is likely to increase a consumer's interest and and actually move them through the full purchase funnel. Mhmm. A lot of folks are doing great work experimenting here, so I don't mean to suggest that nothing has been figured out over the course of experimentation. Obviously, it has. But I think that the the the collective perception is, gosh, we would be climbing learning curves faster and getting to better marketing sooner if we had a deeper understanding.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:37:01
And then the second sort of part of that is that among folks who have done primary consumer research, and there are a handful, they're not necessarily sharing the results of that research broadly. Mhmm. Which is, to be clear, totally normal in the world of of consumer research. You treat consumer research like it's it's proprietary. But in this case, we actually are all better off if we if we collectivize that knowledge because the every brand can climb its learning curve more efficiently and and build this space better together. So that that's the big observation, and therefore, the the recommended actions here were about, hey. If you've done a study, figure out how to share that study's findings.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:37:46
There's there's organized ways to do that that we're trying to help create. There's more informal and disorganized ways to do that, but that's the first piece of it. And then the second big big action, which I know y'all have a ton of interest in is we just need to do more primary consumer research. We need we need to deepen our empathy and somebody gotta write that check and and figure out how to how to make that happen and and and and do that in a way that that supports the whole. Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 00:38:25
I think you're spot on. And I think it's really important to talk about the importance of the consumer empathy here because there are so many different value propositions you can hone in on and so many different stories you can tell as a regenerative brand. You can talk about how you're returning, you know, endangered bird species to land or how you're increasing microbiome in the soil

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:38:42
Yeah. Or Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:38:43
You know, how farmers are being treated better. Like, there's so many given these you can say, but to your point Exactly. If those stories aren't the hook that they're gonna get consumers to purchase the product, you're telling the wrong story. Right? So that's the importance of this research piece is, like, we gotta make sure we're telling the right story.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:38:58
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:38:59
Yeah. It's like we need to research the research that already exists. Right? Yeah. And then we need to do a lot more research to hit a certain level of research that does not exist yet. And I think there's a really interesting theme here that I don't know what the solution is for, but you basically have, like, brand led research and you have non brand led research. Right? Which most of the research has come or that's been shared publicly from kiss the ground, the certifiers. Like, Regenify just came out with something. Purdue University, we're gonna do some research. So that's it's really not coming from a brand perspective. Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:39:26
And so making sure that the research done by those folks is actionable to brands and representative

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:39:37
of what

Anthony Corsaro - 00:39:37
brands really need, I think, is important. And then finding a way to transparently and equitably and safely share what the brands are doing with other brands in some sort of cooperative fashion, I think, is also a huge unlock, but it gets a little bit more competitive and and hard to engineer.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:39:56
Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I think that I I totally agree that there is this interesting potential division of labor where if you have some institutions that have resources and and capacity to execute research on behalf of a broader, group, that that actually feels like a pretty smart way to approach it as long as those folks who are coordinating the research have their feet on the ground and their ear to the ground to understand the questions that need to be answered in order for it to be actionable by the brands. Because it would be a real shame if, you know, half a $1,000,000 is invested across multiple organizations, and suddenly we have a ton more insight, but it's asking questions and structured in a way that brands can't really make use of it, you know, that that would be wasted resources. So figuring out how to sync those up, I think, is a huge opportunity.

Kyle Krull - 00:40:50
Totally. And it's worth mentioning some of the complexity here. Right? There are various for profit entities and nonprofit entities existing in the same space, all of whom can and should benefit from this sort of research being done. And this is part of why it's so hard to collaborate in today's space.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:41:06
Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 00:41:06
Because everybody's trying to capture share of wallet or defend their market share or their ideology or their certification or their brand or their category. So it gets sticky, and it's not perfect and it's not and and I can't blame any of these entities for trying to protect their business. You know, like, I get it.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:41:20
Right. Yep.

Kyle Krull - 00:41:21
But that's part of why this is so difficult. So to your point, both of your points is, like, coming up with some sort of mechanism to disseminate this information equitably across all the shareholders is really, really important. Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:41:33
Amen. Cool. For sure. I feel like we tackle I feel like we tackle that one well. Anything else to add on on number 1? No.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:41:39
I think we got it. Yeah. I think we got it. So so the second element is refining the messaging frame. Mhmm. The the core idea here, I actually spoke to it, a little bit earlier in in in the podcast, that the the consensus view is that while sustainability focused messaging has its place and it it it it it's going to be effective for some consumers and and and at certain levels of the of kind of the journey, it's probably not the messaging that's gonna scale this to the level that we all believe needs and should be scaled. And the reason for that comes down to the fact that of of what Kyle described a a few moments ago. In in food and beverage categories, purchase intent comes down to taste, health, price, convenience in some order.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:42:35
Mhmm.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:42:35
And to the degree that, regenerative can align itself with one of those, it's going to scale more effectively. The good news is that there's a ton of evidence that in fact, it regenerative practices are a can be linked to, better nutrition outcomes and eventually, hopefully, better taste outcomes. There's certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence that that there's a taste connection, but there's a lot of of actual hard fact, like, real science that demonstrates that healthy soil produces healthier food. And as we have, folks in the ecosystem like Edacious and Bionutrient Food Association who are who are who are drawing the linkage between regenerative and and healthier soil and better nutrition outcomes, It feels like we're on a path to actually unlock what I think it's what what a lot of the folks who I spoke with would would, spoke with would see as the holy grail. Like, the unlock is to be able to to speak to all of those things. Now to be clear, it's it's quite complicated. Like, they're in terms of the action steps here, there's some there's sort of low hanging fruit that I can speak to.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:43:50
But then the the bigger unlock of, like, a brand being able to make brand specific claims tied to its practices is got it's gotta be data driven. The Nutrient Density Alliance has done an amazing job of articulating what that actually requires and looks like. We we can't we have to take seriously the litigation environment that we're in. Like, there's class action lawyers just waiting for an excuse, you know, to sue a brand and and shake them down for, for a settlement. So we have to be careful here. And having said that, there's a consumers intuitively understand that healthy soil produces healthier food. That's not an uphill battle.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:44:29
That that's not a that that that's not a difficult thing to to sell. And there's some low hanging fruit ways that we can leverage that insight, to to set the table for regen scaling better in the future.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:44:54
This is gonna be a race on who can talk first because Kyle and I both had 47 thoughts.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:45:00
Kyle, you you go first, buddy.

Kyle Krull - 00:45:02
I was I mean, I'm gonna take it kinda to big CPG, which is a weird place for me to go. But I'm curious, you know, let's say all the data that you just talked about is done. You know, the the brand's got all the right information. They can back up their claims. You know, one of the things that we deal with the kettle on fire, like, we can't even say because of USDA and FDA regulations, we can't say good source of collagen on our box. We're legally not allowed to print that.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:45:23
So

Kyle Krull - 00:45:23
I'm curious, Ryan, from your experience working with big CPG, what sort of structure like, how do you make sure that the claims you're making are even allowed to be made in the places you're making them?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:45:34
Yeah. You know, rather than answering that question directly, I'm gonna refer to the report, the white paper that that Tina Owens wrote with Nutrien Entity Alliance. Mhmm. It I think they released it in January of 2024, and it would be dope if you, like, linked it to well, it's it's linked in the actual white paper, and then you guys can link it in the show notes. Yeah. It's a clinic on exactly how that should be done. Like, how do you align the right departments internally? Like, what what's the research you need to do? What do you need to think about upstream? What do you need to think about downstream? They crush it. But way better than how I can answer that question.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:11
The Okay. Where we're at tactically with nutrient density to me feels like the analogy of when your NBA team sucks and you're tanking for the number one pick. And you know the the guy there is, like, the top prospect, you're gonna get the number one pick, and they're really good. So it's very black and white. We're gonna tank. We suck. We're gonna get the the number one pick. Nutrient density for soil health is, like, we can prove it.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:27
We're gonna put it on all this food. People are gonna buy it because it's healthier. But there's so much gray along the way, like, to get that person to become the next LeBron James, to get nutrient density to become our LeBron James. Like, there's a lot of ambiguity there. And I think one thing that just needs to be acknowledged is, yes, the nutrient density alliance put out that killer white paper. We love Tina. We love Mary Purdy, who's now kinda leading things over there, and we're gonna work with them. We we're talking about working with them on some stuff.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:53
But we're still just such a long way from it actually being really actionable for for brands at a palatable, investment of cost and time. Like, yes, they've published in that white paper what the path is, but there's a reason why I haven't seen next to anybody working on it. And it has to do with time and budget and regulatory constraints that we've all talked about. So, yes, hopeful. Yes. I think it can work.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:47:19
Let's be let's be very real about those real constraints and try and figure out how we can solve for those as a as a group. So the the nutrient density thing is very helpful, but

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:47:39
Yeah. Sure. Let me let me make an an analogy because I I think that there's a lot of what you just said that I agree with. And yet, I believe that there's that there is in fact low hanging fruit. So let's look at Yeah. Probiotics as a parallel. It it it that's a parallel that I go into more in-depth, that I go into more depth on in the white paper itself. It's very interesting to sort of look at how probiotics scaled and and compare that to what what we should learn from it. But with probiotics, there is a there is a broad conversation in the media among influencers, among nutritionists, etcetera, that there's a relationship between the gut microbiome and general health.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:48:05
Mhmm. There's a relationship between the gut microbiome and immunity. There's a right? So that's there's a conversation happening there that some brands are participating in, but it's also just sort of it's just happening in the space because it's been nurtured and cultivated over time, which is very different than a specific brand making a claim that their unique strain of probiotics are going to make your immune system stronger. Mhmm. But the brand that has probiotics in it is without question benefiting from that broader conversation that is teaching consumers that there's a relationship between the gut microbiome and and health.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:48:46
Right? Mhmm. So, similarly, my point of view after having really sort of talked with a bunch of folks and thought about this is that our goal should be that there's a broad pervasive conversation happening that teaches consumers the relationship between soil health and food nutrition.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:49:17
Mhmm.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:49:17
That should be as commonly understood as the relationship between gut health and and and brain health or whatever. That if if you establish that, you're essentially fertilizing the ground so that when a brand comes along and drops a seed that says, our practices improve soil health, Without even that brand having to make the direct connection to better nutrient density outcomes, you've laid the groundwork for people being able to reach that conclusion on their own. As as that research, you know, sort of gets established to to to get to the point where Wimby is in fact the next LeBron. Right? Like to Yeah. Try to get my way back to your analysis.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:50:01
I like it.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:50:01
I like it. That that's that's the opportunity. How do we create

Kyle Krull - 00:50:06
Yeah.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:50:07
That kind of a groundswell understanding among tens of millions of households that there's a relationship between soil health and nutrient and nutrient density?

Kyle Krull - 00:50:17
Brian, I love everything you just said for so many reasons. I'm also gonna take this moment to say I'm not gonna do an analogy because you

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:50:22
2 do really good ones, so I'm

Kyle Krull - 00:50:24
not gonna try to stack a third on there. But in particular, I love the way you talked about the the probiotic element for for two reasons. I mean, number 1, regen and soil health is, like, you know, like, the plant's gut is essentially the soil. So you're essentially saying and we we all on this call know this, but if we can get that link just to cross over for the consumer to understand that, like, oh, wait. Like, a plant's gut is soil microbiome. I have a microbiome. I need to take care of that. That's an unlock to make people understand this a lot faster. Right?

Kyle Krull - 00:50:47
Part 2, I've been selling natural foods for more than 12 years, and I very specifically remember selling probiotic brands before the cultural zeitgeist moment when that was a regular conversation and after. Now we see prebiotic soda commercials during the Super Bowl. Right?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:51:09
Exactly. So I

Kyle Krull - 00:51:10
think it's a really, really great kind of parallel to point to. And then it begs the question for me is, like, okay. Like, how do we get that cultural zeitgeist moment to take place so we can cross that threshold so that these brands aren't doing this in the silo, and instead they're working as part of this greater movement. Right? And we'll continue to have this conversation, but that feels like, okay. That's the moment we need to have as a culture. But bringing it back to the elements, let's jump into number 3, which is the Before

Anthony Corsaro - 00:51:35
we go to 3, I'll add one one last thing because I think it's I'm gonna talk politics, which is certainly we're in a very divisive time, but I think the lesson is worthy of of just mentioning. And we just went really down the rabbit hole of, like, refining the messaging frame we believe is gonna come down to nutrient density as a key tool. But I wanna go back to the overall macro of, like, we need to tell a different story here, which was the original premise of, like, we can't lead with sustainability. And I think it's really interesting what I, you know, what I've been watching over Trump winning the election is, like, his alignment with RFK and the Maha movement and all that. Mhmm. And how I I think you see the conservatives have really gotten behind that whether whether it's real or not, we'll we'll find out. But that's a that's a group that did not get behind climate change.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:52:17
They did not get behind food and ag change for the for the sake of altruistic climate benefit. Right? Because the message was help us save the planet, help us not have the world end. And instead now the message that, like, Maha and the other people involved there are really taking is you're poisoning our children.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:52:37
Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:52:37
That's self interest versus altruism. And so whatever emotion that all that inspires, I think it's just a really good illustration of refining the messaging frame is essential, and it goes back to that key theme of moving from the altruistic benefit to the self interest benefit.

Kyle Krull - 00:52:52
And just to say it out loud, for those who are not yet familiar with the Maha movement, that is the make America healthy again movement, which I agree. You know, it's it's, it's gonna be really interesting to see how this plays out over the next 4 years. And I think the way you frame that up, like, in my mind, like, the whole left and right thing is, like, right is what's what's in it for me? How do I take care of myself? Whereas left is how do we take care of all? Right?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:53:15
Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 00:53:15
And I think to your point, if we can link that self interest to regenerative agriculture, like, man, the power that could unlock is massive.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:53:24
Yeah. What I'll say is it'll it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Yeah. Leave it at that. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:53:34
Yeah. Well, let's go to let's go to element number 3. Element number 3 was double down on loyalty and share of wallet. Break that one down for us, Ryan.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:53:43
Yeah. For sure. So one of the things that we heard as a truism was that it is often the case that investments in marketing messaging that talked about regeneratives that that talked about regenerative generally and especially that talked about its sustainability benefits. When delivered to consumers who don't know what regenerative is, that advertising tends to have lower ROAS, lower performance across a number of metrics compared to core brand message, activations and executions. Yeah. And which which is unfortunately leading some brands to feel either a bit fatalistic, like, I gotta take one for the team, you know, and and spend money on this on this upper funnel messaging even though I know it's not working that well, but it's it's to it's for the good of everyone, or they just stop spending on it altogether, because it's it's not a good use of of capital. But then the the inverse thing, what we heard is that the inverse is also true though. That if you if you introduce if you talk about regenerative to consumers who who have already purchased your brand or to consumers who have who have exhibited in some other way, a curiosity about regen or they're kinda regen adjacent, let's say, then that actually is quite effective as an investment tactic.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:54:51
And that that from a marketing nerd standpoint, we think of that as as as middle funnel investment as opposed to upper funnel investment. So thinking about this from the vantage point of of the brands themselves, the the consensus view was, well, if some dollars can be moved down funnel into into mid funnel tactics, and that's where we choose to talk about regenerative more intentionally, the ROI on that investment is likely to be better. And by the way, another component of that is there's a lot regenerative has very low household penetration right now. I think we can all agree that that is a fact. Right? Yep.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:55:48
However, if you take this the the household penetration of each of those small brands and they cross promote so incredibly well that Kettle and Fire, you know, buyers are also buying Lundberg Farms, who are also buying Simply, etcetera. That actually becomes a huge value unlock for each of those individual brands to maximize the revenue being generated, maximize the share of wallet amongst that relatively low sample size of people who are buying it. So the combination of those two things basically boils down to, hey. There's a lot of value to be created in maximizing our communication and maximizing our level of trial and and and purchase amongst people who have already started to show an interest in regenerative.

Kyle Krull - 00:56:44
I love that. I mean, I really think about the power in the second piece you mentioned in, you know, consumer x has, you know, 3 favorite regenerative brands, but they don't know that there's another 20 that exist. Right? So they have the understanding. They have the commitment. They're willing to pay the premium. Like, how do we get them to understand that there are I mean, essentially every category you purchase food today, you can find a regenerative brand.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:57:06
Exactly. You

Kyle Krull - 00:57:06
know, it's just they are it's harder to find. Right? So I love that collective effort, that collaborative spirit of, like, how do we kinda spread the wealth? And it just gives me really excited. I didn't have any of these questions. I just got pumped about it.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:57:19
I try and think about this one slicing the funnel in half. Right? And so if the top

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:57:23
of the

Anthony Corsaro - 00:57:24
funnel is awareness and the bottom of funnel is actual demand or purchase. Right? Like, tactically, the stuff that lives at that bottom of the funnel, we can help through the coalition and through the coalition brands working together to cross promote like what you guys were just talking about. That awareness thing is more challenging because of the lack of marketing budget, like you alluded to a second ago, Ryan. And so to me, when I look at that, I I moderated a conversation at RFSI Europe last year between a guy from Danone and, Josephine from Omi, a small emerging brand in France. And they were really talking like, we need the big brands to drive awareness because they have the budget, they have the eyeballs, they have all the the slots at retail, and then the the emerging brands can kinda uphold the integrity and and drive purchase and create these very loyal customers. I think that's true to some degree, but then we risk kind of the greenwashing that I think some of the larger multinational have with Regen. So the unlock for me is we've had this conversation, the light bulb moment for me has been retailers.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:58:15
Retailers have to play a major key role in that in that top level awareness. Because if you go to Whole Foods right now and you look at any of the regenerative brands, they're talking about region as a small insignia on the front of pack or as a small paragraph on the back of pack or maybe think about that square footage if that becomes some sort of more better articulated and activated, execution at all the Sprouts across the country, at all the home food the country, at all the NCG and infra stores across the country. Like, these brands can't go buy billboards in those towns, but we can work with the retailers to create mini billboards in the stores.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:58:59
Right.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:59:00
And I think that's gotta be the key unlock to the high level awareness is, like, the retailers gotta get onboarded support these these things, which then, obviously, the the purchasing demands right there next to it because the products on the shelf down the aisle after you see the the awareness driving sign or whatever. So we're obviously working on that too, but that was just a new, like, reframe and, like, an underpinning of, like, the absolute necessity of retailer engagement in that part of the work that was that was helpful for me that I wanted

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 00:59:27
to share. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with that. And I think we not only do retailers need to play that role, there's evidence that when they've chosen to play that role on other things in the past, they crush it. I mean, I I remember when Yep. Whole Foods this is over a decade ago. When Whole Foods made the decision that you're gonna understand who the farmer is that you bought this produce from, and we're gonna drive a linkage between, you know, the like, we're gonna be more transparent about our supply chain, and we're gonna make you think about where your food was grown and and local and sourcing is gonna be important to us. It changed what the produce section looked like. There was signage everywhere, and I bet money that if you did, like, a pre and post consumer survey for people who shop at Whole Foods, you know, like, 2 years before they rolled that out to 2 years after they rolled that out, the level of consumer understanding around sourcing its importance, like, who are the farmers?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:00:10
Should I know the farmers? Is was probably meaningfully different. And that's just because they can execute really well when they make a decision that something's important to their business interest and also important to the broader mission that, you know, that that they intend to serve. So I I hope and not just hope. Like, I wanna be part of conversations that, you know, help retailers like Whole Foods see that they have a tremendous opportunity here that's that's gonna be a combination of self interest and and altruism that that's a tremendous unlock for this movement. Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 01:01:01
I couldn't agree more. And I'm also shocked that the last person to join in this conversation talking about the retailer case. It's been like I thought I've had for numerous, numerous years. But I I I take it back to the non GMO projects. You know, I remember when Whole Foods implemented the non GMO project tag bid, and you had that bright orange tag in the middle of every single grocery shelf. And this goes directly back to what we just talked about with somebody who might buy a regenerative brand, lumber rice, for example, and they see a regenerative tag bib right there. And then as they walk the store, that same bib reiterates, like, oh, this product is also has these attributes.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:01:35
It

Kyle Krull - 01:01:35
makes it that much easier to find instead of what's happening today to AC's point where you've gotta look package by package, SKU by SKU to look for a tiny little bug callout to determine whether or not this is actually regenerative or not, whether or not it's more nutrient dense or not or it impacts the climate in a positive way or not. It's just way too hard for the consumer to, number 1, understand and, number 2, to find the products that are supporting these sorts of farmers and brands. Yep. Thank you. Let's jump into number 4. Boldly collaborate for big awareness. I think we just kind of hit the the the tail end of a conversation with a like a convert, man.

Kyle Krull - 01:02:04
I just completely lost my train

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:02:11
of thought.

Kyle Krull - 01:02:11
It's just gone. So we just finished the we wrapped up a piece of the conversation about, like, a bold collaboration with Whole Foods and what that might look like for regenerative brands. But what are some of the other sort of collaborative efforts you mentioned in this bold, big awareness category, Ryan?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:02:28
Yeah. Yeah. So the the big idea here is that we recognize that there's there's widespread recognition. You know, consensus view is that household awareness of of regenerative is very low. There's some scary high estimates out there that we just you know, most people who we talked with do not believe is true. The the truth is probably somewhere close to what kiss the ground found, which is, like, around 4%. And what that means is we've got a huge hill to climb with awareness. If we if we need to get it to a level, to to the level necessary, that's gonna drive demand like what we've been describing, and yet it's unrealistic to expect any individual brand to pull that off on their own. So the the the core insight here is that when we choose to collaborate, one of the places where we collaborate, the intention should be explicitly about increasing consumer demand.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:03:13
Like, that collaboration has gotta be focused on how we're going to, I'm I'm sorry. Like, how we're going to increase consumer awareness specifically. If if we're saying that individual brands can't necessarily, handle the upper funnel, you know, in in investment load, then that should be absorbed by big collaborative efforts that that move the needle in in in a significant way. So there's there are retailer specific ideas tied to that. Some of the ideas that we talk about in the white paper are, you know, building a a multiyear, multichannel national advertising campaign that would be, you know, collectively funded and and centrally managed along the lines of what various trade associations have executed, like like the got milk campaign from the dairy industry or, you know, we can rattle off of a whole host of other examples of that. Frankly, I think what Kiss the Ground has been doing is is pretty close to to to building that kind of a multichannel, you know, sustained effort to to to drive, top top top of mind awareness.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:04:21
Then there's some other ideas. I mean, one of the other ideas was really focused on on converting the health care industry to tie this back to the probiotic conversation we were having earlier. I mean, if if the science is there, what an what a tremendous shift it would be to have more nutritionists, more functional medicine experts, more, you know, insurance, you know, health insurers, more hospitals, advocating for regenerative food, choosing to buy regenerative food, because they recognize the health benefits associated with it.

Kyle Krull - 01:05:15
I love that idea. I love all of those ideas. And what what immediately came to mind for me, and this is it's strange because this is not at all my my wheelhouse. It's like, you know, the influencer push. If there's an influencer who is maybe 250 k, 300 k per post, instead of one of these brands trying to to foot that whole budget, can we split that and maybe send that retailer into a store and, hey, like, do a regenerative shop? You know, hit every aisle. Pull all the regenerative brands off. That way, to your point, Brian, you were disseminating that spend with a a more influential figure that it would typically be out of budget for an individual brand.

Kyle Krull - 01:05:41
And I think, whether or not that would work, I don't know. I'm, again, not a marketing guy. I'm a sales guy, But it seems like plausibly could be a good play. But I'm curious to get your perspective. You mentioned a couple other examples. What are some of, like, lower end potentially feasible today for a collective of, let's call it, 31 different regenerative brands?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:06:06
Like, what should they do

Kyle Krull - 01:06:09
together to try to raise raise awareness in some of those bold campaigns?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:06:14
Yeah. Well, I I'll I'll I'll answer it this way, and I'm not gonna share ideas that came out of that town hall, but I had the chance to be part of y'all's town hall a little while ago. And, I mean, how many ideas got generated on this specific topic? I mean, literally, I think this one had 40, 50 different discrete ways of potentially of of that of that community, potentially collaborating on something that's big and bigger, let's call it. Like, maybe it's not at the at the scale of a, you know, $50,000,000 national advertising campaign. But but certainly, you know, there there's some some big opportunities for how those those folks can collaborate. And I and I actually think one of the ideas that that I remember being talked about in that space, just to build on on what you just said, Kyle, because I think it is literally doable right now, is, hey.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:06:55
Who's an influencer that none of us individually could afford to hire? Mhmm. Who actually cares about regenerative? And if we each put a little bit of money into a bug into a bucket, suddenly we can afford that influencer. And and and they become an ally for for the movement, and and and you amortize their cost, and the benefit associated with that cost across multiple brands. That's that that is a concrete, and it seems to me very doable kind of a of an execution for someone like y'all to coordinate.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:07:39
Yeah. I agree. I think the challenge there is if you really wanna have all 31 brands involved in something like that, getting that one influencer to convert out to 31 points of purchase, I think is challenging ecommerce wise, especially with different categories, different products, different price points. But there's there's ways that that can be handled. I mean, the the big takeaway here for me is, like, what has what has been accomplished in our space in this vein today? It's it's 2 things. It's 2 documentaries. It's kiss the ground and common ground. Like, there's tons of other stuff that's been done.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:08:06
It's been very beneficial, but really a big bold collaboration that drove a shit ton of high level awareness. That's it. It's those two things. Those are both digital. So I think we need to start with something that's a human being experience in person to complement what's been accomplished by those 2 digital and then follow something digital after we can nail some sort of human kind of event. 5 senses engaging specific experience.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:08:36
Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:08:36
What that is, I don't know. Yeah. And who pays for it, who organizes it, or all the the things that we all know need to kinda be figured out. But, I would love to see us start there because I also think if we can figure that out, we will be able to collaborate on the rest of it. Like, that's the test. Like, that's the test for collaboration amongst this group that we're asking from our collaboration amongst. If we can prove we can do that, then all bets are off if if we can do the rest of it. I think that's it's an easy yes after that Mhmm. Mhmm. At least in theory.

Kyle Krull - 01:09:07
Yeah. Ryan, I wanna pick your brain on another marketing concept. You know, from a sales perspective, when we explore a new opportunity, there's okay. We gotta factor in a few things to determine whether or not we wanna pay for the slotting and do the trade promotions to ensure that this is gonna have the right payoff. Right? It's really quantitative. It's it's simple to I shouldn't say simple, but it's it's it's really reasonable to do all this math. Right? If you if you're anticipating x y z velocity over y period of time, you can afford z slotting.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:09:36
Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 01:09:36
Are there specific marketing guardrails like that we should quantify or kind of put any potential initiatives through, like, that rigorous math to say, like, hey. This is what you wanna be looking for as you start to develop these campaigns. Mhmm. So, like, audience is that scope. Is that, you know, cost? Like, I I have no idea. Again, sales guy, not a marketing

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:09:56
guy. Yeah. Yeah. I I one of the most important parts of building a marketing plan is being very explicit about the objective that you're trying to like, the the what you what it is that you're trying to accomplish and to choose the right set of KPIs to tie to those objectives. So the in in upper funnel kind of awareness driving campaign, like like the like what we've been talking about now, is gonna be measured against a different set of of of KPIs than what would be true if it was further down in the funnel. So I think the the the broad answer to that question is it depends. And and what what I think the the the movements opportune or what what a brand's opportunity is and as as and and you guys as as stewards of of the coalition is to be really invest a lot of rigor in defining the right set of objectives. Getting alignment to the right set of of objectives so that once you tie so so that you can tie KPIs to those, that everyone then feels like they're aligned to. Where a lot of of not not just collaborative efforts, but just sort of brand led efforts go sideways, is there wasn't sufficient clarity on what the true objectives are, what the realistic objectives were, which leads to disagreement, in in how to interpret the data on the back end.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:11:35
Yeah. There's some good shit right there that I just wrote down that I'm not gonna share, but that work I'm gonna do as we move forward. Well, man, this has been super, super fun, super enlightening. Can't wait to share this with our audience. I'm gonna wrap I'm gonna wrap with our typical last question, which I think is inclusive of a couple other questions that people are probably asking at this point in the the episode, Ryan, which is, 1, the regular question, how do we get regen brands to 50% market share by 2050? And I think what will be included in your answer is, like, what is the feedback when you've gotten to this report, and and what do we do next with the information that you've shared with the community?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:12:10
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I knew this I knew this question was coming.

Kyle Krull - 01:12:18
Well, preps.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:12:19
Yeah. I'm gonna be a broken record here. What it looks like to achieve that level of market share is that collaboration has to be our superpower. We have to figure out a couple of huge and impactful ways to to, put our to pool our resources, to accomplish things bigger than what any individual brand or or or stakeholder could have pulled off on their own. Without that, there's no scenario in which we get even remotely close to to that kind of market share is is my broad answer to that. And I I think that, you know, the the the the maybe more specific answer or the answer that's tied to what what the wait what the white paper has found and kind of what what the feedback to to it has been so far, is that, there there's there's a lot of energy around, a few different pieces of it in particular, I would say. One is on that consumer insights part. I think that that that feels like a very tangible or what I'm hearing is that that feels like a very tangible and concrete way to operate in a collective and collaborative manner without a lot of incremental effort. Like, if I've already conducted a study, it's not that much effort to figure out how to share all or part of that with a broader community, particularly if there's a third party like us or you guys kind of, like, helping to hold that space or broker that that, that approach.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:13:44
So I'd say there there's consumer research is is is a a key part of it. I think the second piece that's, gotten a lot of positive feedback and where it feels like there's some low hanging fruit in energy is how to how to cross promote and and build sort of, like, many, many coalitions within, the the region brand space in in a more intentional way. Like, there are a number of brands who are natural partners, not just because they're regenerative or not just because they share the same certification, but because they share a use case. They they share they probably already, you know, share some consumer households or or overlap in recipes or or whatever it is. Like, there there's an awful lot of just very obvious ways for small smaller scale collaborations to be scaled up and and have and have big impact. So I think that's a second place where there's been quite a lot of energy.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:14:54
And then the third is, I'm gonna bring it back to that conversation that we had earlier. I get it that it's gonna be hard. I get it that the level of of data and and and and science that's gonna be necessary to unlock nutrient claims is a heavy lift, and it is also the the holy grail. Like, that figuring out how to think outside the box to get that done in a reasonable on a reasonable time frame and in a way that's at that that's exit that that's, what's the word? That's actionable. Even if it's just with one crop type. I mean, like, let's just solve this for milk or I mean, like, what whatever.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:15:30
Like, it that is a tremendous opportunity that would be the short path to that kind of 50% market share, number that you that that you called out.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:15:52
Mhmm.

Kyle Krull - 01:15:52
Totally agree with that. Especially the the last piece you mentioned. Like, I love Daisy's analogy. Like, so if we have the number one pick, like, how do we build the team around that pick to to have the highest likelihood of success not for the individual, but for the collective. Right?

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:16:06
Exactly.

Kyle Krull - 01:16:08
Remind

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:16:09
me Exactly.

Kyle Krull - 01:16:09
Thank you so much for the time, for the energy, for the effort. So much gratitude. You know, we we we appreciate your time and everything you're doing for the movement and your willingness to take your expertise and kinda share that amongst, you know, everybody in this space. It's really awesome. For anybody who wants to learn more about Ryan or the white paper, go to we are smoketown.com. Check it out. It's it's a phenomenal read.

Kyle Krull - 01:16:30
I'll let you just get a really high level summary, so I don't know if you're gonna wanna read it, but, you know, just in case. But just wanna say thanks, man. That. Really appreciate the conversation today.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:16:41
Yeah. Thank you for having me. I I like I said, I'm a huge fan of what you guys are doing. I've been listening to this, for for I can't I I don't even know how long. I'm I don't I went for it feels like for years, but then I'm like, how many years has it actually been? Like, I I'm I'm just I'm a huge fan. Thank you for the grace that you've extended for for welcoming me into this space and for then, of being a collaborator. Thank you.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:17:07
You're a legend, brother. Appreciate you, man.

Ryan Pintado-Vertner - 01:17:09
Thanks. Appreciate it.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:17:13
For transcripts, show notes, and more information on this episode, check out our website regen-brands.com. That is regen-brands.com. You can also check out our YouTube channel, ReGen Brands, for all of our episodes with both video and audio. The best way to support our work is to give us a 5 star rating on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe to future episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can also subscribe to our newsletter, the Regen Brands Weekly, and follow our Regen Brands LinkedIn page to stay in the know of all the latest news, insights, and perspectives from the world of regenerative CPG. Thanks so much for tuning in to the ReGen Brands Podcast. We hope you learned something new in this episode, and it empowers you to use your voice, your time, your talent, and your dollars to help us build a better and more regenerative food system. Love you guys.