Credibility in Carbon Neutral Food
3-min read
Over the next few weeks I’ll be digging into:
1. The need for more press around Ag’s carbon sink
2. The perils of making carbon claims in food and the dilemma in sourcing ingredients
3. Consumers coming back to real dairy; we’re shortchanging an important Reason-To-Believe: protein quality
ICYMI – last week I interviewed Neutral on the Future of Agriculture podcast. Neutral Foods says they are the first carbon neutral food company to launch in the U.S. They’re starting with dairy milk and have plans to expand to other animal-based products in the near future. I talked to the executives there about their operating model and farmer initiatives, and about filling the gap for carbon neutral options in consumer staples.
If you’re in ag and about to hit DELETE – hear me out. I know you are sick of climate change talk coming from people who have never fed anyone. The activists/foodies/thought leaders think the whole system is broken. It’s not. But turning away from the conversation is not helping, so listen to the podcast and come back to this post.
Thanks for listening. Here’s what we didn’t get to in the airing:
Credibility is at stake in aspiring to Net Zero/Carbon Negative/Carbon Neutral food claims. And that’s why what Neutral is doing is so important. They are creating a standard for carbon credibility in food that does not look down, threaten, or malign farming in America. It’s a value-add helping small to mid-size operators with no bs greenwashing on the consumer end.
This is so important right now because climate goals feel meaningless. Corporate food + ag decarbonization targets are de rigueur as sustainability has come to the fore of the entire supply chain. These targets are at best assumptive and remote. Coke pledges to reduce 25% GHG by 2030, PepsiCo promises Net Zero by 2040. Ingredient co Ingredion targets 25% reduction by 2030. The U.S. dairy industry overall pledges to reach neutrality by 2050.
Consumers (and therefore consumer brands) want to do something now. The best way the climate-conscious can engage in emissions reductions in food is through the purchases they make. (Voting for climate policy and being an activist does nothing materially for the environment – it’s a big money grab – and you can tell your niece I said so when you see her over the holidays).
What people can do today is make a purchase change at each grocery visit. That’s where brands like Neutral come in. Milk is a high household penetration product and a serious contributor to GHG. 1/3 of emissions globally come from the food supply chain and 2% in the U.S. is attributed to dairy.
Brands will tell the ag carbon sink story. The good news is that of the top 5 major contributors to GHG, agriculture is the ONLY one that can sequester carbon. Ag can be a carbon sink, and in dairy, the largest sources of carbon emissions are on the farm. So, on-farm practices have to be part of the solution.
Neutral is not telling producers to follow certain practices; instead they are quantifying what they are already doing and helping them with any plans to implement new initiatives, specifically those that are the largest contributors to dairy’s climate impact: enteric methane, manure management, and feed production.
Neutral has no proprietary implementations – others can do what they are doing. What is unique is their consumer product platform that returns dollars back into the system to support profitability. The goal is to get to a totally segregated supply chain and offer a price premium to farmers (they aren’t there yet).
Credibility
They say it right on the package: they aren’t operationally carbon neutral today.
Some on-farm solutions are immediately effective, but others are a long-term play. So, they purchase credits from within the industry (from anther dairy operation) to fill the gap, and their model has them reducing their reliance on off-sets at this pace:
o In 2022 by 4%
o In 2023 by 20%
o In 2024 by 1/3
Neutral is addressing what matters to consumers, what matters to dairy farmers, and is paving the way for credibility in carbon neutral food.
All my best,
Jennifer
The world’s largest food companies have gone backwards on net zero
An analysis by Just Food of some of the food majors’ progress on net zero shows the scale of challenge ahead.
