<aside> 🎙️ This recording is of a fireside chat held on March 15th, 2023, between Session # 1 hosts Kristen Winzent and Merrill Feather from The Regenerates, and Eva Goulbourne from Littlefoot Ventures.
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Why this is such an important moment for us to be bringing marketers into the fold to mitigate the climate crisis
How to shift the focus away from consumption toward engagement
Some of the practical barriers that brands and organizations typically face in this work
The importance of using precise language and avoiding phrases like “food waste” that frame food as valueless when in fact it’s our actions that do the wasting.
The main differences between working with larger legacy brands and smaller sustainability-focused startups. What’s the power there? What are the pitfalls?
Values and identity play a huge role in cultural trends. How can we possibly nail down these large concepts like "food" "climate" "carbon footprint", etc. in a way that is truly tangible?
Main strategies and solutions for avoiding wasted food
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_r3ByCbB_A
Eva Goulbourne: And I'm gonna let Merrill and Kristen introduce themselves here in a second, but, Well, actually, yeah, why don't you guys go first and
Merrill Feather: then I think, I think Kristen's also trying to turn off music over there, which is great. Oh, okay. I'm Merrill Feather. I know some of you. It's also nice to see lots of new faces online and in person.
And I am co-founder with Kristen of The Regenerates. We're a marketing consultancy focused on climate tech, broadly.
Kristen Winzent: I'm Kristen Winzent, for anyone here that I don't know already. Like Merrill said, we work at The Regenerates and we are marketers, storytellers, and folks who just generally decided to get activated around climate and see what we could do about it.
So I'm really excited for this event to come together. I think food for me at least, was a really early on, on-ramp into climate and so excited to talk about all this.
Eva Goulbourne: Thanks gals. And maybe no surprise then we'll talk a little bit how we sort of came up with this idea and collaboration together.
But I sort of want to give everybody a rundown of the experience that we're going to have. First, as I mentioned, we are joined by a gajillion folks virtually online. So the three of us are gonna sort of ground you in a few perspectives and, and observations and thoughts to help guide the conversation.
And then our virtual friends are going to break off into their own breakouts and then we are going to get to work in this room as well to solve world problems. No, the exact opposite actually. We, we're not gonna be doing that, which leads me to our sort of rules of engagement for today.
Let's leave our egos at the door. We are experts and we are totally novices in everything around us. And I, I personally feel really excited to learn from everybody today. So get curious. Assume we do not have the answers. And to that point too, we are not trying to solve world problems today. We're not trying to conclude. Knowing that this is a very challenging, complex set of topics that we're gonna address.
So don't worry, we are not going to be figuring it all out today. And so I think just being curious today, being open and dare I say, even having a little bit of fun
Kristen Winzent: And maybe leaving with a new friend.
Eva Goulbourne: Yes.
Merrill Feather: Yeah.
Kristen Winzent: I think one of our, my goals of doing this was really just to connect all of you with each other.
Merrill Feather: Yes.
Kristen Winzent: Cause often in consulting working you feel really lonely and isolating. More than anything we're really passionate about. Just making sure that the people who are passionate about climate solutions, know one another. If so, if I could just add one more goal. I love that. In friendship.
We all need friendship. Yeah.
Eva Goulbourne: Which leads us now, for a quick moment we're gonna have everybody in person with us right now look to their left and right to introduce themselves very quickly. Name, title org and where you're from and why you're here today. And then I think we're gonna have our colleagues on the line do the same thing in the chat so that we can just quickly spend some time getting to know each other.
But please know that we're gonna have ample time in our working groups to do that as well. But just want to give you all a second to say hey to everyone around you. So go for it.
That we have a lot to talk about. So don't worry, we just wanted to like wet the old whistle here. But we're gonna get started.
On a little bit of conversation, and what I would love to do with my colleagues here is ask even why are we here today? How did this even come about that these extraordinary humans are in this room at this moment.
Kristen Winzent: Yeah. I guess like a little bit of our backstory, so right around pandemic times, way back in the old world Merrill and I were both tech climate marketers who wanted to move in... we were just tech marketers who wanted to move into climate. And we're kind of on that like isolated journey to figure out how are we supposed to () it, super overwhelming, there's so many solutions, et cetera. And we ended up meeting by chance in an online community, like early-days-of-the-internet style.
And from there kind of just really enjoyed sharing notes with one another and passion ideas and stuff, and eventually started working together and we've been working together for three years now, I think it is. And throughout all of this, you know, just more and more, the magic that we keep seeing in this space is when we connect marketers with each other.
And sharing notes. And it sounds so counterintuitive because as people who work in marketing, we are, you know, in the seat of competition for business. And so it sounds kind of counterintuitive that we could actually do more via working together. But that is something that we really do believe and we've seen that magic happen not only between the two of us, but we've connected to other people that are on their job search together. They actually end up, you know, helping each other, encouraging each other, sharing notes and sharing job opportunities. We've had clients who work in similar spaces, like non-competitive, but similar spaces where we've said, "Hey, you know, like we did some consumer research but we couldn't afford to ask these five other questions."
And they're like, "Hey, we actually think that's interesting. Let's ask those questions." And just sharing those insights and kind of working within the ecosystem to actually help us all solve a problem that we are all passionate about. And then this quote actually came through our ether a couple weeks ago, and I think it's our, I think this is our spirit animal and it's by Lynn Margulis, who is an eco...
Merrill Feather: Evolutionary biologist.
Kristen Winzent: Evolutionary biologist who shared that "Life didn't take over the world by combat, but by networking." And so really that's kind of our dream of all this here. And I, when I said make a friend, I wasn't joking. Really, all of us are on kind of a bigger mission or pursuit, and these are the people around you who are also in that same pursuit.
So let's, let's dig in and work together.
Eva Goulbourne: And I think that's one, such a great quote and very accurate for what we're doing today. I'd love for you to share with us too. We could have had a conversation about anything. Why do you feel like this is a really critical moment for marketers in particular to insert themselves into the climate conversation?
Kristen Winzent: Yeah, do you...?
Merrill Feather: Yeah, I'm happy to to take that one. I think that this is a really interesting time , and I'll start it anchored in my experience as well where I think even just a couple of years ago, most of the conversations I was have, trying to, having, trying to figure out my way into contributing to this space were met with very quizzical looks of like, why? I don't know what to do with a marketer.
I don't know what you would do in this space or how you would help me. And I do see that tide changing, but I think it is ever more necessary because we've kind of gotten to that point where people are realizing more and more facts about what's happening doesn't, doesn't really get us over the hump in terms of getting people to engage and take action, right? People start to tune out the information. And so that's really where storytelling comes in. That's where values-based messaging, connecting with audience, those pieces are really important. And for those who may have watched the little video that we shared as part of the pre-read, Kristen and I- one of our other unlocks besides just kind of meeting with other marketers was diving into systems change and recognizing, you know, climate is a systems problem. And we got inspired by Donella Meadows who really says that one of the biggest levers for change in a system is the values at the base of that system, right?
So the norms, the values, the the expectations, you know, at the base of that. And that is very ripe territory for marketers to play, right? For brands to be telling stories. And I think the other piece that I'm just reflecting on now is a lot of what brought Kristen and me together originally was... felt more novel I think a couple of years ago. But this sense of like, guys, this doom and gloom story about climate that we read about in the headlines is not motivating me to get into this space. And in fact, I would say I had many rabbit hole nights of like, there's gotta be more story here.
Where, where are the bright spots? Where are the bright spots? And it's just, this is a marathon, not a sprint. And we don't scare people into working on something for a marathon, right? There's gotta be inspiration, and reality to it. Of course, pragmatism, this is not hand waving greenwashing, and we'll talk about greenwashing in a little bit.
But there's that fine line of what's the story that really activates people. And I think, that is marketer territory in my mind.
Kristen Winzent: When I think then about "why food?". Part of it is because it's easier to get people excited about than energy and electricity.
Merrill Feather: True.
Kristen Winzent: But in all seriousness, food is a really approachable area for people.
It is a space that is easier to tell a different story. It's a place where there is a lot of identity and history and shared culture. So it just is a right place to, no pun intended, a right place to. But we will talk about energy another time if anyone is also curious about that.
Merrill Feather: I also just wanna add, there are probably people in this room who have more experience in this space than we do, and so we're sharing our observations. But one of the things we're excited about is that you all are also here and we can share your observations. And so, you know, please don't, please don't take anything we are saying as trying to circumvent any other you know, other experience. We're really eager to hear it all.
Eva Goulbourne: Well, and I think maybe a question also for the two of you, since I am not a marketer and you know, very much a supporter to this system. I've always understood marketing to be so closely tied to consumption. You guide me towards purchase, you guide me towards product.
So on the one hand, yes, I love what you're saying, and then the consumer in me is like, "well, hold on". You've played this very specific role before. How are we changing the paradigm from consumption to what, it sounds like you're saying, is engagement in an entirely, almost like separate from the product itself?
Kristen Winzent: Mm-hmm. Well, I'm a brand marketer, so I also feel more liberty to never actually measure my stuff by actual consumption or purchase. But I think buried in one of the things that you just said was this idea of consumer -and that is something that marketers created, right? We made people... and created the habits of consumption over the last, since like the 1950s ish. And when I think too then about the fact that we actually need people to inhabit so many other identities when it comes to systems change, when it comes to culture change. And I find that to be a really inspiring place to start telling stories. We need people to step up and be community members. We need people to step up and be citizens. We need them to play a role in their office. There are so many other identities that people can inhabit that we can also help them see. And also, because I'm not necessarily a growth marketer so I do already kind of work in the realm of more of engagement and with that I start to think a lot about community building. Which I personally do think the more that we can help people feel a part of something related to climate, be that getting involved with a community group, getting involved with something at their office - that shared identity, that shared sense of belonging is also that like little hook to get them to keep doing something.
But when I think about engagement too, I start to think about the ways in which even a lot of modern brands have moved to trying to teach communities something, trying to teach their audience something, trying to create experiences for their audience. And I think all of those are very much aligned with some of the work that we need to happen with climate. And it's really like, how do we... to me, I think the challenge becomes "how do you get people to have fun doing some of these actions? How do you open their eyes to them not being kind of a bore? Or how do you help them take pride in some of these lifestyle changes? "So that's just kind of the way that I think about it. I actually don't measure my goals by growth.
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah. Well I see it and I didn't even know there were different types of marketers. So even I'm learning something. Everything that you're saying sounds ideal, very practical. What are some of the actual barriers? And it seems like in some of your work as well, can you give us some examples from actually, from some client work specifically where you've been like "total light bulb moment" or "total disaster moment"?
Kristen Winzent: Yeah. Well, also as the brand marketer, we work with a lot of startups and they always tell me they have no money for anything. So I think there's that first and foremost. Sure. Like obviously it's a business. Businesses can only do so much. So figuring out the right way to vouch for your programs and actual roles and metrics is always a challenge and a challenge for any brand marketer too.
But I think to that end, you see, I think this is where we talk a lot about greenwashing or inauthenticity with brands, with companies stepping into territory that's really just not theirs to talk about. And I think first and foremost, that has a lot more to do with, maybe not even the products sometimes, but actually the company's values.
You know, is this something that... My litmus test when I work on any brand project with the company is "is this something I can get the employees excited about?" Because if they're not excited about it, this is bullsh*t. Like we are presenting, it's not authentic, like it's not believable. And I always think of employees as the first and foremost brand ambassador for a company.
So that's kind of just like a snip test. I think companies don't look to see what their internal teams are passionate about first and foremost. And then with that too, I think companies tend to overcorrect to wanting to tell all of this story externally first versus building the story internally.
So that could be, you know, building and encouraging company or employee groups that are already wanting to do this stuff, they're passionate about this stuff, but also helping employees tell that story inside the business about why this should be a priority and how can we start telling those stories about it. Not just being a cost reduction, not just being a risk reduction, but it's an opportunity for us to grow. It's an opportunity for us to move into new products innovation, it's an opportunity for us to move into new audiences or reach new audiences or engage our existing audiences in any way. Like those are all really rich territory that marketers want to crack the code on.
And so, I think my cheat is always just look internally and see what is truly authentic to the business.
Merrill Feather: I was just going to add that I think I think there are kind of two different buckets of companies with marketing opportunities in this space at the grossest, highest level, right?
You either have a company that's sort of born green, where their business model is aligned to their impact model. And that can happen in shades of, you know, shades of gray too. But it's more ingrained in the DNA of the business model of the business. And then there are the companies that are maybe retrofitting right?
And I think the considerations there of what a company can realistically accomplish and talk about without greenwashing are pretty different or they just probably feel really differently to execute on as a company. But I certainly think that, that any lack of alignment between business model and impact model is a big obstacle.
Mm-hmm.
Eva Goulbourne: And do you think there's, in the sort of native green companies where it's very much part of the original, you know, brand value, the brand story, what are some of the sort of advantages in that space versus, or they may not have capacity versus what you're saying as the legacy brands?
Merrill Feather: I think they're... there's a common, again, kind of to Kristen's point about internal dynamics. There's a common language and assumption internally as a company that they will prioritize something, not just revenue at all costs. And so, it may also be actually the opportunity is the impact.
So they're so closely aligned that it's... this is such an obvious answer, to keep pushing on impact. I'm using that word very broadly. Yeah, of course. But so I think that's one advantage. It's kind of both cultural and business model oriented.
Eva Goulbourne: Yes. Yeah. I would love to be able to share.
Merrill Feather: Can we flip the mic? Can we flip the mic?
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah. Okay. The proverbial mic. Yes.
Merrill Feather: Yes.
Eva Goulbourne: That's was really getting my juices flowing.
Merrill Feather: Well I feel like that's teeing you up to one of the things we, main things we wanted to ask you about. So, by comparison, you know, where Kristen and I work a lot with earlier stage companies, Eva has done a lot of work with larger, Fortune 500 big companies, for example, Hellmanns, et cetera. And I think the dynamics there are pretty different. And I would love to hear you speak to what are some of the barriers and opportunities with those, with companies in that stage, from your point of view.
Eva Goulbourne: Thank you. And, you know, it's so interesting, we have a mix of, both online and in the room with us today, legacy brands and a lot of smaller CPGs and I have had the privilege of being able to work in sort of those different realms and holy sh*t, are they different. And in some ways you hope that they all ideally feed the same system. And that still is definitely some like course correcting that needs to have.
So I'd say on the one hand, in my work with, you know, a huge company like Hellmann's, everybody's like, "oh, great, you must have a gajillion billion dollars to do whatever you want." And in some ways, yes. Have you seen the last three Super Bowl commercials? Clearly they have a marketing budget that's like out of this world. And they have that, the brand loyalty, they're in every other home in America. Their market share, you know, nationally and internationally is sort of unparalleled and unrivaled. And on the back end they, you know, approached me and, and approached the "Make Taste, Not Waste" campaign that they did in this way of like, "oh, we should be doing something around purpose. How do we do this in a way that's authentic, that's, you know, credible. We wanna honor all the work that has been going on in this space before us. We wanna make sure that like our customers who definitely are not used to us talking about food waste in the home -you know, they just like want us on their sandwiches, how do we do that sort of authentically? And in a way where people are like, 'oh yeah, this is a perfect on-ramp to, of course, teach me how to use stuff in the home. I'm seeing a Hellman's Super Bowl commercial with Pete Davidson that's helping me, you know, think about my kitchen in a whole new way.'"
And so while on the one hand there's sort of a lot of power in their ability to just like be a brand of that size and access a lot of people, there's you know, the risk of greenwashing. And, you know a Hellmann's, how committed are they really to this work? And I think one of the things that validates even for me in what I do is being a technical strategist in a brand like that can help craft the message in a way that's as nuanced as a smaller brand and help to be like, Ooh, I don't know that, you know, like, we should be talking about those foods. It's actually these foods that, like by volume are more more wasted than others. So bringing a technical expertise that at least they were open to. And in turn, companies of that size have a ton of marketing dollars that they also put towards philanthropy. And most companies love putting, you know, the same dollars towards, you know, their local food bank or you know, whatever it is, which is great. But they are totally missing the opportunity on the strategy for putting those philanthropic dollars towards purpose, which in turn supports the marketing engine, which in turn supports the bottom line of the business.
And that's sort of I think where the power and the pitfall comes in, in terms of how they do it authentically. And to your point, employees make up companies, as in humans who wanna be part of something bigger than themselves. Especially, I don't know about you guys, completely traumatized by the past three years. Everybody has had an existential crisis living in a global pandemic. We don't want to be working in a cog, you know, as a cog in a wheel. And I think to your point, the employee engagement is more valuable than ever before.
Merrill Feather: Mm-hmm.
Eva Goulbourne: yeah.
Merrill Feather: I was gonna kind of, you were alluding to, you've even using the word authenticity a lot and I think, what I know of your work is that you often end up bridging that the marketing and storytelling with the technical expertise,
Eva Goulbourne: Yep.
Merrill Feather: On the sustainability side of things.
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah.
Merrill Feather: And so I'm wondering if you can speak- I know that there are people in this room, digital and virtual, who have, who are from both sides of that coin too. But I wonder if you can speak to the bridging of it, because I think there's magic in that, and I'm curious what you've seen work well and what you've seen trip people up. So that, because I think collectively, nobody wants to greenwash.
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah.
Merrill Feather: But it's often easier said than done. So, curious how you, what thoughts you have on that.
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah, I think that's a natural pitfall for any of these companies. And I think it also depends on where the storytellers sit. And it sort of speaks to, I know that there's marketing teams and that's like a pretty defined space that a lot of people operate in. But where the magic happens is the suppliers and the operations team learning from the marketing team and vice versa. And you know, the CFO or the person responsible for the dollars at the end of the day -understanding the value of knowing about like tax codes that help incentivize food recovery and food donation. And I think it's really important that where the magic comes from the system within from operations, supplier engagement. The marketing team is the one who gets to tell the fun, sexy story outwards but they have a lot to learn from their colleagues internally with how their business works. 'Cause they all speak different languages, and I think that's the exciting and accessible component of food too. And what we're sort of leaning our way towards food wastes today. 'Cause I happen to be running part of the show but I think food waste is a great example for us to see. It has implications for the CFO, it has implications for the brand and marketing teams, it has implications for research and development, for the ventures team. And so I think understanding that the solutions sit in multiple places and figuring out those ways for one person to be in charge, but to allow people to have that exchange is where it's like been the aha moments.
And that's really important.
Merrill Feather: Do you have any recommendations for marketers of questions they should ask sustainability counterparts to help them do their job better? Or help them minimize...
Eva Goulbourne: Ooh, yeah. That's such, that's such a good one. One, I think they have to get clear about "what are we asking our audience to do? What do we care about?" I come from the food waste world, but you know, sustainable fashion brands, wellness, to everybody sustainable means something different. So I think really pushing on what do we mean when we're using these terms and what are we asking for. I would also say making sure that again, there's a call to action, and the sustainability team -we're sort of using that in quotations- but that they have an input into where marketing dollars are going to, or at least like passing by certain things.
'Cause I've been in conversations where the brand team has gotten this like wild and crazy idea for this like awesome thing to do, and then I've been sitting with a sustainability team, like sweating bullets, being like "that is the most awkward, terrible thing. If we're trying to do something authentic to food waste, that would just be the weirdest thing possible."
And so I think being able to have that, yeah, where it's like "love the marketing ideas. Love it." and "this is weird..." And I think just being able to sort of play off the creativity coming from the marketing teams and then being like, "Hey, sustainability team, if we're focusing on asking people to get food out of a refrigerator from different parts of Manhattan, what are the risks to that? What are the opportunities for that?" And I think making sure that there's a vetting in terms of the application of certain marketing activations.
Merrill Feather: So I so appreciate the tone there and that was pretty fun.
Eva Goulbourne: Yes. Yeah.
Kristen Winzent: If I may though, to defend brand marketers, as the token brand person up here, one of the best dynamics I've had, not just in food but in some other organizations that I've worked with, with working with technical teams, is being that filter of "I hear, I hear you, what you're asking, but normal people don't say it like that, or, that's not... it doesn't make sense in normal language". And one of my... one, calling "consumers" is one of my pet peeves. Two, my second pet peeve is the phrase "food waste". Yes. Because it connotes something that has absolutely no value, and so you're then telling not only your customers, but everyone in the organization, "Hey, turn this thing that's trash into something valuable" versus "stop wasting food". Just don't waste food. It's just such a clearer thing and so I've had a great... and this has just been fun in us even prepping it. Yeah, that give and take of, I brought up some stupid solution and Eva was like, "don't say that". "Oh, okay, cool. I won't say that, but stop calling it, stop calling it food waste". It's just like that fun....
Eva Goulbourne: Don't remember that. I swear.
Kristen Winzent: It's just that fun like give and take too of, you have to build trust too -I think- between the roles of "I respect and understand, I'm going to come to you for your advice being the technical expert", and then I'll just be the technical expert on how people talk.
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah. And I, I think that that's- even that is a perfect example and reminds me too, of.. and sort of back to your question as well, imagery plays a really important role, the visuals. Every single person responds to visuals, whether you're a sustainability CSR person, whether you're head of ventures, whether you're a marketer.
And so even little things like for "food waste" versus, that totally does not valorize the gorgeous food that we are intending to save. Making sure that the images that you're posting are not images of trash. I will never be a part of a report or an article or something that if it's talking about food waste or the waste of valuable food, that it's a heaping pile of f*cking garbage. No, no, no, we are talking about gorgeous edible food that should be used in a completely different way. So I think even just like the visual, artistic aspect of things is really really important.
Kristen Winzent: Yeah. Yeah. Which brings me back to what we were talking about earlier, about everyone wants to jump to the big consumer flashy campaign, but this kind of internal storytelling and getting on the same page even internally is usually where the hardest work is.
Yeah. Because it happens so often, people... there's so much encoded with language, with words like sustainability that people often aren't talking about the same things. And so just building that internal story, building that internal clarity. When we talk about wasting food, how do we portray it? What is, what is wasted food to us? What is wasting food to us? What are the specific actions we're asking people to actually take?
Eva Goulbourne: Yeah. That reminds me of one other question that I think is gonna lead us into our our little discussion groups in a second too. On the one hand, marketing slash food slash climate shouldn't be that hard in that we're all eaters, you know, it's not a niche market in terms of what we're trying to do. But we're using climate change, we're using terms, you know, greenwashing, all of these things that are pretty big and heavy... how as marketers are we sort of expected to break those things down in a way that connects to the eater. See? I'm learning. Connects to the eater and so naturally can connect back to culture because everybody has a personal relationship with food that comes back to culture and I feel like that's a hotbed of opportunity that maybe we haven't uncovered yet.
Kristen Winzent: I agree. Yeah, and I think... did we, we sent the iceberg?
Merrill Feather: I think so? Yeah. Yeah. It was in the video.
Kristen Winzent: If you guys didn't see it, definitely check it out. It's completely changed my perception in the way in which I tell stories in this space where, you know, we try so hard to communicate all of these solutions and all these tasks and all these things, and all these actions and all this... "you guys gotta do this, you gotta stop doing that. Do this". And actually flipping it to really dig into what is the value system that all of these things talk about, is it actually just truly valuing your food? Is it actually about understanding how hard it is to grow food? Is it actually about knowing where your food came from and that not being an elitist thing?
All of those things are different, very different stories that can actually carry quite a few solutions. And you can focus on different calls to action, different solutions at different times, but you're really telling more of a values driven story about a mindset shift or a way of living instead.
And when you shift people and you help shift their mindset, you actually give them the capacity to do so many other actions , right? Like you don't have to give them a task list of things to do. They're out in the world, they're competent, they're conscious, they can figure it out on their own.
And so when I think about the climate space and like things that are fun territories for storytelling around food, I think a lot about like "grandma-core" right now, like Gen Z is obsessed with grandparents. And if you think back to how grandparents have always kind of cooked, like the grandma always being in there with whole foods, chopping them up. It doesn't have to be grandmas, it can also be grandpas. And that idea of snout-to-tail cooking, things that are more embedded in, even in immigrant communities, communities that still to this day do use every morsel of food that they have by necessity.
But, how can we not whitewash all of that? How can we actually instill pride in all of these things and even acknowledge the people who are already doing it? Because I think all of those things add up to making this not seem like alien habits, right? Until recently, I feel like we, we haven't been embracing food in this way, right? And so how can we even bring back some of those skills and knowledge and things and attribute them to the people that are still doing them. So, I don't know. I find I'm really inspired by grandma-core these days.
Eva Goulbourne: We expect all breakouts to be going into the importance of grandma-core (laughs). I think that's really important and sort of like back to identity and legacy, you know, those who have come before us and connection to roots, which arguably many people have felt disconnected from. Mm-hmm. So I'm looking forward to people sort of noodling on that a little. Should we shift? Maybe you wanna...?
Merrill Feather: Yeah, I was gonna say, I think that's a nice segue into kind of teeing up the primary discussion topic for breakout groups, which we also know that y'all are gonna talk about what's most interesting to you. So this is not a mandate, but, but we think a particularly interesting territory for discussion, which is, if you think of kind of what Kristen was just talking through about grandma-core as one example of, you know, of pretty much... .
Eva Goulbourne: I'm convinced she made that up...
Merrill Feather: Grandma-core, you know, obsession with grandmas, whatever it may be, but, but that storyline around what we value around food as the marketing or brand side of the equation. I'm now gonna tee Eva up to talk to us a little bit more about the technical side of the equation and what core pieces, or solutions I should say, within wasting less food we should be focused on.
And then the idea being that we can use the discussion today to think about how those things line up in interesting ways for marketers. And what folks might be inspired to do and think of as options for that. And I know also I would say at some point when you were saying " we are not growth marketers", there may very well be growth marketers in this room and I think it is fascinating to hear how folks with your discipline, with your skillset are interpreting what we're saying and thinking about how it may or may not apply to you. So I'm gonna seed that. And then Eva, would you talk us through solutions from food waste, more the technical side?
Eva Goulbourne: Definitely. My favorite thing. But before I do that too, the prompt that we really wanted to go with for this was how do we create the capacity for people slash eaters to play a different role in being a solution.
And one of the things that I've learned from this team up here is the reminder that consumers are not just consumers, they're people, they're eaters. And one of the things that has resonated from what you had shared previously, Kristen was the marketing team is also part of a neighborhood, a community. We're voters. We're, you know, we're part of, we're, some of us are heads of household, heads of family, and there is a role that we play in these other areas, but there seems to be this... the second that they walk into job to sell X product that identity is sort of taken away. So I think one of the things that we really wanted to do in the conversation as a general prompt is like, how do we apply this in a more natural, intuitive way no matter what role you play, no matter how big or small your organization is. We're sitting on so many different facets of our own identities and there's gotta be a better way for us to leverage them for this greater good.
So I'm sort of teeing us all up for that as we go into our breakouts in a moment. And again, because I'm partially in charge of this, we're gonna have to talk about food waste, but I'll tell you why it's really important. Okay. And I have some upcyclers in the room with us today and some other amazing food waste solutions.
But food waste is the number one solution to reduce the climate crisis and reduce global temperatures by two degrees. Okay? So if we're thinking about how we're prioritizing a topic around food, I'm gonna go with food waste on that, if we're talking about climate. So we're getting real about the climate impacts of food waste.
And even in the primer that we had sent out, you know, shared a few stats on that front, and also, by cost and volume cons... eaters, excuse me, not consumers, eaters waste the most food. So, naturally marketers have a really critical role to play as the conduit to storytelling in this cohort of people who are the worst offenders.
Of course, we don't wanna discourage, we don't wanna, you know, shame the eater, but at the same time, like clearly there is something there for the opportunity. So I think that's another thing to sort of tee up.
And then for those of you who are climate-curious and maybe don't know too much about the food waste world, I'll just finally mention there's three primary ways that we look at solutions to wasted food from the food recovery hierarchy. The first is we want to prevent food from going to waste altogether. We wanna avoid the dollar spent, the labor, the gas, the fertilizer, everything all together before we've even wasted food. So that's everything from, you know, wobbly, wonky, imperfect fruits and vegetables at the grocery store to smaller plates in buffets and tray-less dining at your local community college. And then even things like date labels, which mean not a damn thing. They're not federally regulated.
And one of the, you know, driving factors of eater food waste that's good.
Kristen Winzent: It's consumption.
Eva Goulbourne: That's Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So thinking about how we prevent food from being wasted altogether, I want people to, to the degree that it's of interest, explore that.
Food recovery is where we take beautiful, gorgeous, nutritious food, we turn it into other delicious products through value added processing perhaps, and or we donate it to organizations or sell it at cost at secondary resellers and whatnot.
And then finally, waste to energy. We have a few waste-to-energy solutions with us online and in person too of, "okay, we finally have gone through the value of food from, you know, humans down to eventually to animal feed and waste to energy. How do we create something valuable at the end of the day to make sure that this doesn't go to waste?" So recycling and waste to energy is sort of being our third general bucket. So just something to think about as we jump into our conversations in a moment.