Regenerative agriculture remains a relatively niche concept among US consumers, but new research suggests awareness is increasing quickly – which is piquing retailer interest and creating new market opportunities for CPG brands using regeneratively sourced ingredients.
According to a new survey by the regenerative agriculture nonprofit Kiss the Ground, one in four Americans has heard the term “regenerative agriculture,” while the share of consumers who correctly understand what it means has nearly doubled over the past year from 7% to 13%.
While those numbers show regenerative agriculture is still far from mainstream, they also point to growing consumer interest that retailers and brands increasingly are trying to meet. But scaling the movement to meet the moment presents challenges, including limited supply, evolving certification standards and the cost of transitioning farmland.
In this episode of FoodNavigator-USA’s Soup-To-Nuts podcast, Kiss the Ground CEO Evan Harrison and FOND Regenerative Founder Alysa Seeland discuss what rising consumer awareness means for manufacturers, retailers and farmers, and what still must happen before regenerative agriculture can move beyond an emerging market opportunity.
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The slow and steady rise of regenerative agriculture
The rapid increase in consumer awareness and understanding of regenerative agriculture is promising, but it also underscores the amount of consumer education still needed to grow the market, support farmers transitioning to regenerative practices and justify manufacturers’ investment in regenerative products. That’s where Harrison said Kiss the Ground can help.
“Our mission is to bring consumer demand to the tipping point for support of regeneratively sourced products,” he said.
He explained that three years ago when Kiss the Ground first commissioned its annual survey about consumers’ understanding of regen ag, only 4% of the US population understood the term.
“We said, ‘Okay, we’ve got a job to do here.’ So we started creating content across platforms daily, because to reach audiences today and stay top of mind you have to show up daily and meet people where they are in their journey,” he explained.
In addition to honing its storytelling approach, Kiss the Ground partnered with 25 companies who care deeply about sourcing ingredients from farmers practicing regenerative agriculture, and who wanted to “responsibly talk to their audiences about regenerative practices. And the health benefits that has,” he explained.
Those shifts directly correlated with consumer understanding jumping from 4% to 7% in the first year and then to 13% in the next 12 months, he said.
“It is a very encouraging sign, and now we are focused on activating that audience, and the consumers are showing up. The consumers want to find those regenerative products and now the pipeline is changing. There are 200 SKUs or so in the marketplace,” he said.
What is driving consumer interest in regen ag?
Harrison attributes growing interest to several overlapping trends, including increased consumer attention to ingredient quality, gut health and food as medicine.
Kiss The Ground’s survey found 72% of shoppers look for health benefits and 76% look for food freshness as top purchase drivers – “significantly outranking broader environmental concerns,” which was cited by only a third of participants.
Health benefits are at the foundation of FOND Regenerative
Consumer focus on health as a primary driver for purchasing regeneratively produced food rings true for Seeland, who said she founded FOND Regenerative, which makes bone broth, after a health crisis in 2015 “led her from the grocery store and down to the farmers’ market.”
She explained that FOND Regenerative was regenerative before there was a definition, but she liked the idea of restoring the land and measuring how nutrient density was impacted by soil health.
“The messaging in the beginning was really ‘pasture raised,’ ‘100% grass fed’ and ‘grass finished,’” but then Seeland said she saw the soil health in the fields improving from the organic inputs from the animals, which reinforced her dedication to regenerative agriculture.
“I love the work that Kiss the Ground is doing because I firmly believe if you can’t explain it to a toddler, people aren’t going to understand it, and we really enjoy partnering” to help more people understand regen ag, she said.
Certification builds consumer and retailer confidence as awareness grows
Health may be the initial hook for many consumers, but as regenerative agriculture moves beyond a niche audience, brands must demonstrate that their claims are credible, which is why Seeland says she works with verified regenerative US farms and her bone broth is certified regenerative by Land to Market.
She explains on her company website that “in an era where greenwashing is prevalent and regulations are slow, FOND’s Land to Market Verification provides customers with assurance and ecological impact verification that their purchases are healing not only people, but the pastures our products come from.”
FOND’s commitment to certified regenerative agriculture also offers reassurance to retailers that want to offer regeneratively sourced products – like Whole Foods Market and Albertsons, both of which proactively reached out to Seeland about stocking FOND’s products on their shelves.
Seeland explains that Whole Foods approached her about creating the first Regenerative Organic Certified bone broth, which she is helping to make a “dramatic system change.”
She said sales of the SKUs she sells at the retailer are up ten times year-over-year and sales of the company’s bone broth are up 48% in a category that is declining, which she said is “amazing.”
Albertsons also approached FOND about stocking the company’s regenerative certified beef tallow products, which Seeland said “have done very well,” and importantly reinforce the movement of regeneratively produced foods from niche in the natural channel to the mainstream at mass retailers.
To reinforce that transition, Seeland says companies need to offer regeneratively produced products that consumers can afford. She added they also need to help farmers cover the cost of transitioning to regenerative practices to ensure a stable, sufficient supply to meet rising consumer demand.
Harrison echoed her sentiment – stressing the movement is on the right track, but needs additional support from across the supply chain.
“It feels to me like we are gaining momentum from every facet – the conscious consumer that is researching … to the farmer who is signing up for a grant or just throwing their hat in the ring” and transitioning to regenerative agriculture, he said. “It just leaves me incredibly hopeful.”
