How Julia Collins and Moonshot Snacks are Using the Power of Regenerative Agriculture to Tackle the Climate Crisis

Julia, welcome! For those who don’t know what regenerative agriculture is, could you just explain briefly what the thinking is behind it?

So, regenerative agriculture is a method of farming that helps to improve the health of the soil. And it’s called regenerative, because over time, over cycles of farming, what happens is that you actually improve rather than deplete. You regenerate, you heal. Some of the practices that are associated with regenerative agriculture are reducing tillage - less interruption of the soil. Improving biodiversity. Keeping roots in the ground year-round. Intercropping, cover cropping. And even some livestock integration to help promote that wonderful microbial activity in the soil, which is the source of life on the planet. Regenerative agriculture is a method of farming that helps to improve the health of soil and the relation to climate change is that at scale, regenerative agricultural practices can actually help draw down carbon and bury it in the soil.

Was that at the back of your mind when you thought about creating a regenerative agriculture-based snack brand?

Absolutely. I mean, there’s no silver bullet to the climate crisis. Everyone has to make that disclaimer. But you know, between 25 and 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are coming from our food system. There’s a tremendous opportunity there. Not just to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our food system, or decarbonize, but also to use the power of these magical robots called plants, to draw carbon down and store it in the soil And that is what’s been so exciting for me about this movement.

Very cool. So, what can you tell us today about Moonshot Snacks?

We’ve built the world’s first explicitly climate friendly snack brand. We went and found ingredients that are grown using these regenerative agricultural practices. We quantified and measured the greenhouse gas impact of every element of our company and product down to the seal on the package. And we’re bringing to market a product that’s not only absolutely delicious and organic and good for you, but also completely carbon neutral and climate friendly. And what we hope to do with Moonshot Snacks is to create a new category of food called ‘climate friendly food’. Because everybody has the right to take action on climate change. And we think with eight billion people eating every day, rethinking the way that we eat and rethinking our food choices is a great place to start.

Can you talk about the other part of it as well, which is the software tools you’re building to make this more of an open-source movement so other companies can benefit from it?

So, Planet FWD (the parent company of Moonshot Snacks) is building software that makes it easy for brands to understand how they rank in terms of climate friendliness. And then the tool also gives them recommendations for how to improve. Either by connecting them to alternative ingredients, alternative suppliers, alternative materials that are lower in terms of greenhouse gas impact or more beneficial according to other sustainability criteria. But the tool just makes it really easy for any brand to create their own climate friendly products or to improve the climate friendliness or overall sustainability of their existing products.

And you’ve really thought deeply on how to properly engage and incentivize the farmers you work with as well, correct?

Exactly. When we thought about how to source the product, we wanted to make sure that we were creating value and rewarding farmers who were using regenerative practices. And the best way for us to do that was to actually go and work directly with the farmer, because that de-risks the proposition for that farmer. So, ahead of the harvest, we said to our farmers, please set aside this many acres to plant this organic Edison wheat using your beautiful regenerative practices and we will buy it from you.

I think another thing is that in trying to make the product climate friendly, we wanted to reduce the food miles on it. Our wheat is grown by Dave and Serena in Skagit Valley in the state of Washington, and then it travels one mile to the mill. And then it travels 85 miles to be baked. And this is an 86-mile food supply chain, which is magnitudes shorter unfortunately than most food supply chains that you see for a given ingredient, which are sourced from all over the place. We intentionally tried to co-locate growing, processing, and then baking all in the same area to reduce the carbon impact.

And how about the packaging? How did you think about that as well?

That’s been the hardest part for us. We have a compostable box that’s printed with vegetable-based ink. The box itself is compostable, but the interior sleeve is recyclable but not compostable yet. We are committed to getting to compostable. The hardest part has been trying to find a reliable source where the carbon impact is not bigger. For example, our best source was coming from Malaysia, but by the time you source the product from Malaysia, ship it to Washington, now you’ve sort of undone the beneficial impact. Looking for domestic sources of compostable film that can be manufactured easily that’s what we’re working on now. But there’s so many great startups that are working on it, we’re confident that in the next few years we’ll move to totally compostable. Right now we’re recyclable and compostable.

The audacity of what you are trying to do is perfectly summed up in the name of your new venture, Moonshot snacks, right?

Right. We’re called Moonshot and we make snacks. And there’s a funny juxtaposition between moonshot and a snack, right? Something very audacious and something very simple. But with the name, we wanted to convey the sense of audacity and also the action of being lifted up. Shooting for something and going for something as opposed to staying in that paralyzed fear place. Frankly, when you do a lot of reading and research on climate change, it’s easy to go to that place.

I love how that framing of it helps us move beyond this fear state where we become paralyzed by the enormity of climate change and be able to get into the audacity of what we can do to tackle it, right?

Absolutely. Fear paralyzes you. It can stop you in your tracks. And then there’s this other thing, which is shame, which also blocks almost everything good. And the shame can come in from, how did this happen? How did we let this happen? What have I done wrong? And of course, it’s important to take ownership and responsibility. But I think moving beyond fear and shame into this place of audacious hope and action, for me, is a more powerful framework to bring to bear on this problem.