Sustainability, Inflation, Looking Ahead - an Interview with Julie DiNatale

Episode Transcript

 

 Julie Dinatale  00:18

Hi, everybody. Welcome to this edition of CPG insiders. I'm your host, Mark Young with co host Justin Girouard. And, Justin, we're going to have an expert on today. And we're going to talk about sustainability.

 

Justin Girouard  00:34

Yes, yeah, it really excited me. It's a huge movement, as we know, going on right now, not just within consumers. But on the on the product side. This is this is a huge movement consumers are looking for it. Brands are looking for how can they get deeper into sustainability. And as we know, retailers are really looking for it right now.

 

Mark Young  00:53

And it's funny, because when we, when we look at statistics, and in fact, I sent you some this morning.

 

Justin Girouard  00:59

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  01:00

And you probably read those.

 

Justin Girouard  01:01

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  01:02

 I'm assuming you read them, I sent them to you. One of the things that that jumps out at me is the behavior that people claim they have and the behavior that they really have is not the same thing.

 

Justin Girouard  01:17

I mean, that's normal.

 

Mark Young  01:20

But the gap is huge.

 

Justin Girouard  01:22

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mark Young  01:23

So when we interview people, for like, in studies, we see that, you know, like 60 to 80% of people say yes, I would love to buy a eco friendly or sustainable product or a product with you know, less packaging, whatever the case is, they claim they would like to buy that. But then we look at their shopping cart of those same people. And we see that their decision making was much less than what they claim they claim somewhat of a moral high ground, but it didn't translate.

 

David Biernbaum  01:59

Yep.

 

Mark Young  02:00

So one of the things that before we get started, one of the things that I want our people to know when we're talking about sustainability. One is sustainability is good from a standpoint of it's the right thing to do. Yeah, let's not fill landfills up. Let's not right, let's not try to kill everybody off with glyphosate or whatever the case is. But at the same point, we need to find ways of communicating this message to the consumers in a fashion that is more than just saying sustainably made or, or eco friendly package. That's not enough. We have to go past that. And we can talk about that more. So let's get on with our guests. Our guest is Julie Deena Dinatale I gotta write Dinatale. She is with us called Truterra, which is really part of Land O Lakes is Land O Lakes like the parent company of us?

 

Julie Dinatale  02:58

Yeah, Trueterra, Yep, Trueterra is the stainability business of Land O Lakes

 

Mark Young  03:03

So tell us a little bit about Land O Lakes and Truterra. Land O Lakes is obviously everybody knows who Land O Lakes is. Everybody's got Land O Lakes butter. Tell us more about the company because it's a lot more than just some butter.

 

Julie Dinatale  03:15

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, thank you for having me. This is really excited I'm anxious to talk some more on this topic and have this conversation. So Land O Lakes is a cooperative system working with farmers and farmer communities throughout the existent agricultural and food system. We have four main business units and many people are familiar with our butter and our other dairy food ingredients with cheeses and we are a major dairy ingredient supplier to some of the largest CPGs in the world. We also have an animal nutrition division called Purina that is feed for, you know, mainly for animals that don't live in your house. So horses and cattle and

 

Mark Young  03:16

So you are not the Purina home brand?

 

Julie Dinatale  03:27

We're not the Nestle Purina that is for pet that's called Nestle Purina Petcare, which we actually work very closely with with that group at Nestle Purina but that is...

 

Mark Young  04:16

You guys make the Purina monkey Chow, not the dog chow.

 

Julie Dinatale  04:19

Yeah, I'm a fan of the horse chow as a horse owner myself. But you know, Purina, senior horse chow is, you know, keeps a lot of old horses going for many, many years passed what the husband's would like, let's put it that way.

 

Mark Young  04:34

Already planning on buying me some?

 

Justin Girouard  04:36

Obviously.

 

Julie Dinatale  04:36

Yes. So Winfield United is our crop inputs and insights division, where we're helping farmers directly that are on the farm through our affiliate network of cooperatives. So we work with another 1000 AG. cooperatives throughout North America and working with open field or row crop um, and some other crops as well. So that's that's where we're providing agronomic insights, helping with efficient nutrient management and essentially, you know, the access we have it through Terra being the sustainability, fourth business unit Atlanta lakes. We work with our United are Winfield United Partners to help promote and encourage stewardship, conservation AG and regenerative agriculture.

 

Mark Young  05:30

So when we look at Land O Lakes, the business itself, we're not talking about just this one giant, buttery conglomerate, we're talking about a co op, of potentially family farms, farms all over the country, that you're actually helping not only them become sustainable from their practices, but also helping them stay in business, I'm assuming.

 

Julie Dinatale  05:55

Yeah. So you know, the whole mission of our division at Truterra is farmer first and helping with moving more of agriculture, both in the crop side and the dairy side and livestock side into practices that makes sense not only for the environment, but as important for the resiliency of our food system and the profitability of our of our farmers, we really need that to be the whole ecosystem of the projects and changes. But it's not something that just happens overnight. I mean, there's, there's costs involved, there's education that's needed. And that's what Tutera is been built for. And we've been doing this since 2018. To support these projects, and not only bring sustainability to our own family of products, but we work with CPG partners and helping them make interventions or insetting. changes or some of the lingo there to their own supply chains.

 

Mark Young  07:06

Where's the biggest challenges for you? Is it? Is it changing the mindset of the farmer? Is it funding the technology and getting return on investment on making these changes? Where's what's where's the biggest roadblocks?

 

Julie Dinatale  07:21

Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's the farming systems are built for efficiency and productivity. And it's important to understand that changing everything in one season with the capital costs, and without the education of what are the right cover crops to use, what is the right equipment that I need? How do I manage my in season nitrogen plan? I think it's a lot of I think there's willingness at the farm gate, I think we have the right talent, working throughout our cooperative system with both the livestock operations and the cropping operations. But it's, it's it's overhead, it's capital, and it's, you know, on average, it might cost 60 to $70 an acre to make these practice changes. And that's not taken lightly. And it's careful consideration. And it's a new way of doing things in in operations that are highly efficient, and don't want to have any risk with their cash crop. So we work to educate them, and to bring them along and support them. And we we consider our CPG, you know, Partners. Truly partners and collaborators, because we are working to support their supply chain and change it to regenerative agriculture.

 

Justin Girouard  08:50

And as we know, right now, supply chain is a huge issue. across every...

 

Mark Young  08:55

....every client we have complaining about their supply chain, right down to I can't get a plastic cap to put on my product, whatever the case is.

 

Justin Girouard  09:04

It is unbelievable. So when when we're looking at some of the current challenges that we're facing, do you have any sense of in your space, what does the future look like? What's what's coming here? What do ya what where, where are we going?

 

Julie Dinatale  09:22

Well, I mean, many of your listeners probably know the major CPGs have made these climate claim commitments, whether they're aligned to the science based target initiative. They're looking at their their greenhouse gas accounting balance sheet, and connecting farmers with the understanding that regenerative AG and these conservation practices, you know, I'm just going to keep picking on cover cropping and no till eventually, within, you know, two or three years with the right support the right education, actually, then change their soils to Higher Performers. So, you know, we have companies that have made commitments to their stakeholders, and we have farmers that are willing to make these changes with the right support and the right platforms and the right information feeding back to them. And I think, you know, to answer your question, the business case for the farmer and the business case for the downstream partner, the CPG. Makes sense. It just takes some time and support. And, you know, there's, there's a scalability that is happening now. Right, right, you know, every season. But I have confidence that, you know, with the farmer being incentivized with the, there's some grants coming out from the USDA, hopefully this fall, to jumpstart this even further, that we'll be able to integrate these improved advanced conservation practices, with the support of scientific rigor and Environmental Modeling, that will give us not only more reason to feel that the right thing is being done, but truly bring more resiliency in the farming system and the supply chains for our CPGs. So just nobody's...

 

Mark Young  11:24

There's a lot more science involved here, then planting some crops, and I own some cows, there's way more way more involved here.

 

Julie Dinatale  11:32

Yeah, and I just would say, you know, nobody is up at night more caring about their animals or their soils than farmers and their trusted advisors, which are our cooperative system, you know, agronomists and seed seed specialist and nitrogen management specialists, etc. So it truly is, is at the heart of their livelihood, to protect their, their land and their animals.

 

Mark Young  12:06

So we're heading a lot of we're running into a lot of headwinds right now. And those headwinds are at a very rapidly increasing cost of living, rapidly growing fuel prices. And we on our end, and I'm gonna guess you do are now starting to see consumers at the shelf starting to make decisions on do I spend a little more money for this product? Or do I put gas in the car? How is that affecting your efforts? Is that slowing your efforts down? Is it making is it making it more challenging for you? How is this current run in the economy altering your business?

 

Julie Dinatale  12:48

 Yeah. So as we look at, you know, the CPGs, and where they're made commitments to reduce the carbon emissions from their supply chains, as you know, that is something that they can't completely go back on is the pace, possibly going to slow down because of the you know, commodity prices and inflation, that's yet to be determined. It has not even before we've had this run up and fuel prices and other commodity prices hadn't quite yet been, and you mentioned it earlier, tied together with, you know, as a consumer willing to spend X dollars more, and how many X dollars more for a sustainably sourced product. But what we do know is that the awareness is there and the tying into the investment stakeholders, to NGO groups to aligning to science based target initiatives, which is a is a major global organization, commitments have been made. And companies have milestones, and ultimately goals to become, you know, carbon neutral, so to speak. So that's not going away. You know, are we seeing everyone running to the grocery store ready to spend more and more and more? No, I think we're in the middle of trying to sort that through. But there are, there are consumers and there are brands that are finding that impact spending and socially responsible spending is very important. And I guess I'll tie it back into we know that efficiency and regenerative AG and caring for the soils and caring for the animal operations is all tied together and improving profitability for our our farmers and our reduced livestock producers. So just think about it as, you know, if, if, if we're planning a cover crop. And I guess what my point is, is do we necessarily have to have everyone spending more on a CPG product at the store? Or do we need CPGs major companies to come in and say, I'm going to sponsor and I'm going to collaborate with Truterra and their network of farmers to say, let me fund some interventions and help you get the cover crops you need and the equipment you need. And in three or four years, you're going to be sequestering carbon, you're going to have a healthier soil, that's going to protect your crop from frost in the spring or flood in the fall, that organic matter is, is driving more risk mitigation to these weather fluctuations that we're having. So there's, there's more to it than just someone writing a bigger check at the grocery store, or the incentives for these changes to happen to our food system.

 

Justin Girouard  16:07

And I think that's interesting. And so one of the things that we were writing down and I think, Mark, you alluded to it in the beginning of the show, with some of the statistics from the consumer side as far as what they say and what they do. So we know that consumers buy products based on value, not price. The price is not what they're buying, they're buying the value.

 

Mark Young  16:32

So we're always buying the best value. 

 

Justin Girouard  16:34

Exactly. The best value is what they're paying for. Right? So brands are still consumers, just a lot of them creating one organization. So So when we're talking about this concept of now shifting over to what you're saying, it seems that we have reached a point and you correct me if I'm wrong, Julie, that we've reached a point where now awareness is not the challenge. But it seems that education may be the challenge now.

 

Mark Young  17:00

 And commitment and execution on it. And it's funny, because I think, I think the business world takes a lot of bad reps. We hear people in the media and politicians oftentimes trying to blame business for not moving fast enough or not lowering prices or not doing the case. But in reality, we look at companies like Truterra and Land O Lakes, and for the most part, companies are doing the effort they are spending money, they are trying to be better citizens. I mean, is that is that a fair assessment to make Julie?

 

Justin Girouard  17:03

 Right.

 

Julie Dinatale  17:35

Yeah, I think you can look at almost every, you know, substantial company has some sort of sustainability report and specific efforts and showing a pathway to progression with with many different fronts, not just their carbon inventory, but also water quality, water efficiency, waste reduction, etc. It's, it's fascinating, you know, how much work is truly being done. And I think, you know, as we find ourselves wanting more engagement from the consumer on, you know, rewarding companies for this, it's around the corner, I mean, it's going to be something that folks are going to be looking for, it's just takes take some time. And and we do know that consumers are aware, maybe they're not getting as much education through marketing programs, as, as they you know, as what will be coming. But, you know, quality matters. And we were going to find that the supply chains from CPGs. So a CPG has also a benefit of doing this with their supply chain to improve the resiliency of that supply chain, to that land or that operation. It's not only more profitable and more efficient, but also more, again, resilient through extreme weather events or extreme market fluctuations. So I don't think we have a choice. I mean, you know, we all want to go to the store and have options and consumer choices ultimately, you know, so important, but, you know, we haven't we have the ability to reach about 50% of the US harvested acres.

 

Mark Young  19:37

Wow.

 

Julie Dinatale  19:38

And Truerra through our Winfield United system. You know, we truly believe in creating an environment that brings sustainability downstream to the consumer and upstream to the farmers and the rural communities.

 

Mark Young  19:53

So how much pressure because remember, a lot of our most of our audience are in the consumer packaged goods industry. How much pressure do you see from the major retailers? On the brands on the manufacturers? Is Walmart is Kroger coming to you and saying we expect this we expect that we want this by certain dates? How much of that are you saying?

 

Julie Dinatale  20:17

Yeah, so there is many different projects going on cross functionally with the Walmart's the targets, the major retailers, Kroger, with their their brands. And there's the Walmart's has several that have been going on for many years. And the major CPGs have been involved and you know, I'm sure others can talk about their involvement more than I can. And they've done great work and not only baselining carbon emissions from from agriculture, but also helping reduce them and sequester carbon as well. And we haven't even talked about you know, how farmers can really be the hero in not only improving sustainability in our supply chain, but also drawing down carbon and sequestering it and storing it in their soils for you know, as photosynthesis God created it and they can utilize it and make major changes. So, so yes, there are many different projects going on. And the, the consumer product companies that are leading edge of this has been aligned to those programs in there. There's just a lot going on. It's just not always tied to the package. You know what I'm saying like, you know, Nestle Purina Petcare is doing a tremendous amount of work, Nestle global is doing a tremendous amount of work. There's there's other ingredients, suppliers to the CPGs that are heavily involved from start to finish in these projects. Campbell Soup Company, many, many, many, and you can see their, their statements online and see their progress. But again, it's not always slapping it on the label for consumer, but farmers, you know, we are a farming organization, and we have access to the farm gate, like I said, in both livestock and with with harvested acres, and photosynthesis is out there and the more farmers we have using it and not telling their soils, just we're pulling carbon out of the atmosphere very quickly and storing it and, and also helping with water quality and water efficiency. Because that organic material in the soil acts as a filter and a moisturizer and a absorber when it's needed.

 

Mark Young  22:48

Do we have a farmer shortage now?

 

Julie Dinatale  22:50

Oh, I don't think so I think we have the bulk of farms are still run by family operations. They're, they're efficient. They're, they're highly educated, and they work with trusted experts to help them with the agronomic pieces. So what I mean by that, and you touched on it, there's modeling, there's inseason support. There's even satellite imagery now that can alert a farmer when there might be a pest problem in one corner of their field, you know, go out and treat that or there's been some additional rain on these three fields, you should check it for to make sure there's been the corn crop is getting all the nutrients it needs. So I don't think there's a farmers shortage. From from my perspective, I think we've got fantastic firms that are highly educated and doing an amazing, amazing job of feeding us all.

 

Mark Young  23:47

Now Justin, have you seen the autonomous tractors? The autonomous farm tractors?

 

Justin Girouard  23:53

No, I haven't seen them.

 

Mark Young  23:54

And I'm assuming Julie has, so we're now getting to the point where you can have farm tractors that are out in working the crops with nobody in them because they're driving by GPS and satellite and by coordinate. It's actually pretty cool to go out and see this big giant tractor and there's no one inside!

 

Justin Girouard  24:12

Wow.

 

Mark Young  24:13

It's out there working by itself which does help solve some of the labor issues I suppose I find a lot of this fascinating. Now, what is this Truterra have have any input into I know you're in the product do they have any input into packaging?

 

Julie Dinatale  24:27

Um, so we do have some downstream collaborators and partners with Truterra that work on some of the bio packaging that comes out of our corn and soybean crops. So we have supported projects for those those companies but we are not creating packaging for CPGs ourselves.

 

Mark Young  24:49

I've seen a lot of that out of Walmart, where Walmart is requiring less packaging, recyclable packaging. I haven't been I haven't experienced as much of what they're requiring from the food source itself, but certainly from the packaging.

 

Justin Girouard  25:05

Yep. Well, and and so, you know, one of the questions I have, Julie kind of bring it back now is, you are obviously, so involved, so educated in this space. And you, you absolutely understand the full impact of the work that you're doing. And again, I don't think consumers do. I don't think they apps they have any concept. Otherwise, I do believe there would be a higher value, I do believe the gap that Mark talked about earlier would be a lot smaller. So trying to understand now, in your opinion, if you have any thoughts, what can brands do? What can brands do, to try to try to educate and communicate this more effectively? To as you said, get it past the packaging. Yes, that's great. And I'm happy that there's movement but there's still so much more.

 

Mark Young  25:54

So to get people to appreciate the work the brand is adding to this product?

 

Justin Girouard  25:58

Absolutely.

 

Julie Dinatale  25:59

Yeah. And I've seen you know, we've done some co marketing pieces with Nestle Purina Petcare to explain how they're working with sustainability and sustainable sourcing and their supply chain, telling the farmer story about using regenerative, generative AG, and they the positive feedback, and that it's a win win for both the land and the consumer, I think, you know, it's, it's one of those pieces of consumer education that goes beyond just what they see at the store. And is, it's kind of an omni channel opportunity to have more brands tell the story, through social media, through their own websites, through, you know, education, launches of new products, and sharing that that story in that benefit that is meaningful from the firm gauge, you know, to the fork.

 

Mark Young  27:03

I think eventually, eco friendly packaging and sustainably sourced products are going to eventually not become the feature of your product, they're going to become the the table stakes to get in.

 

Justin Girouard  27:16

Right. Right

 

Mark Young  27:17

 It's going to become the entry cost. Right? Does that seem reasonable to you, Julie, that...

 

Julie Dinatale  27:22

Yeah, and..

 

Mark Young  27:23

...eventually this is going to be the the baseline.

 

Julie Dinatale  27:26

So if you if you, you know, in some of your audience may already recognize this, if you look at why the major CPGs have made these climate commitments and claims, it's, it's about doing the right thing and protecting the resiliency and the productivity of their supply chain. But there's also been a movement from stakeholders besides consumers. So impact investing, you know, our CEO, Beth Ford, is on the board of Blackrock. Blackrock, as an institutional investor has been the leader of encouraging companies in their portfolio to align with climate goals, you know, and make us make a plan, hit the milestones aligned to science based target initiatives, and make a difference. And an all will benefit. So, you know, is this is going to happen, how we scorecard it, how we put it on a label, how, you know, a carbon asset, that's a ton of co2e stored in a farmer's soil is serialized and documented, registered certified and insole. A lot of that is all being sorted out, I'm TruTerra is right at the forefront of helping CPGs guide them through it, and then bring the appropriate narrative and quantitative claims that they can report on to their board, to their investors, to their consumers, to NGOs. And you know, it's it's ESG its environmental and social governance. And there's, there's not a significant company that's that's not taking that very seriously and getting involved with it.

 

Mark Young  29:22

So with all the brands that are listening, and lots, lots of companies are listening to this.

 

Julie Dinatale  29:29

Sure.

 

Mark Young  29:29

What would be the what would what do you think is the most important message that you need them to understand what is what is the thing you want them to come away with knowing?

 

Julie Dinatale  29:40

So I think the number one thing that and I've been in this business for quite some time I've worked in agriculture now for nearly 18 years. My background is in Environmental Science and Environmental Toxicology. 10 years in the commodity markets before I go got into working with with the agribusiness side directly. So been around a little bit but I think you know why, why I'm at Truterra? Why am I at Land O Lakes?

 

Mark Young  30:12

What's what's driving you?

 

Julie Dinatale  30:14

What's driving me? Okay, so there's a lot of ways to measure to watch agriculture from satellite imagery and modeling and do baselining and look at carbon emissions and pick on farmers and, you know, pick on livestock operations and say this is our problem. What we fundamentally we all love to eat, we all love consumer choice. We've got a lot of people globally to feed that that's no news. What we need to do and what Truterra is different, why we're different and why Land O Lakes is differentiated in this entire space, is we have access and we are at the farm gate. We are on the dairies, we are at the soybean and corn price. We're at the wheat farms. We are working through our own teams and our affiliates to support and change the acre or the operation and make a substantial improvement that not only helps the environment but also supports the farmer, rural communities and resiliency, like I keep saying over and over again. What it what does it matter if we can watch a model and you know, point our fingers if we can't support and educate and drive change that benefits us all. And that's what we do at Truterra, we have we have the trust and relationships with these operations to move them to these conservation practices, that makes sense all the way around.

 

Mark Young  31:53

Can't be easy for a lot of brands.

 

Justin Girouard  31:56

 No.

 

Julie Dinatale  31:58

And that's why we work with brands in and out of our own house. Right? So you know if anyone's listening here that's, you know, challenged like, oh, I get corn in from a you know, a consolidated source. But I need to go to my supply shed and make some sustainability projects happen and start reducing our emissions and look at our you know, baseline and see where then we can get a scope three asset, a scope, three carbon asset, if that's what we do at Truterra, that's what we do at Truterra.

 

Mark Young  32:33

Are you seeing any core product supply shortages? Due to Russia, Ukraine?

 

Julie Dinatale  32:42

Um, I am not on that side of the house. You know, we are primarily focused on North American projects at Truterra, I'm sure that, you know, demand for our commodities here in North America, you know, is change based on that. But, you know, the, my experience globally prior to joining the team at Truterra, you know, it's really not only, you know, disheartening, what's happening to the people there, but the agriculture and the opportunity, you know, for us to feed so many people from Ukraine, it's just an amazing agricultural force in the globe. And, you know, I again, I don't I don't deal with that market directly at this time. But it's definitely a concern and something to watch.

 

Mark Young  33:40

Yeah. Because I've been reading some reports that are saying that with a lot of crops and a lot of core ingredients coming out of Ukraine and Russia that we could be heading into food shortages in the not too distance, not too distant future.

 

Julie Dinatale  33:56

Yeah. And again, you know, focus on here in North America. I haven't spent time analyzing, you know, how the Ukrainian situation is impacting Africa and Europe. But it's definitely something to be be watchful of. I'm sure many of your your audience that global CPGs are on that very, very tactically and carefully.

 

Mark Young  34:24

Yeah. And I agree with you on that, that the Ukraine and Russia situation is probably having a bigger effect in Europe and in, you know, Africa, than it is here in the US because we're kinda unique when you think of us as a country. We have, we have such diverse land, we have great crops, we have great land for farming. We have, we have oil, we have minerals, we have so many wonderful resources here in our country.

 

Julie Dinatale  34:53

Let's talk if we might just about scorecard and all this. So absolutely, yeah. Now how does the CPG scorecard, you know what's going on in there supply chain?

 

Mark Young  35:02

We love score cards.

 

Julie Dinatale  35:03

 Yeah, right, right, we got to keep a list here. So, you know, there's there's a lot of different ways that we can first monitor what's happening in a supply shed, you know, and Truterra, what we offer is a combination of a remote sense. Technology, combining that with years and years of direct supply shift data from our farmers. And that provides a CPG an improved admission factor data for their sustainability reporting. And this, this hybrid approach makes it easy for remote sensing. And, and what we call, you know, direct data are best available real data to work together to keep a monitoring system moving beyond just a baseline, so eyes in the sky. So you know, if a if a CPG gets the bulk of their soybeans from a point and, you know, Central Iowa or, you know, Southwest Ohio, we can monitor within 200 mile radius of that or whatever metric they want to use. And it's just a really economic way for them to start accurately understanding their supply shut. And then we actually have farmers and enroll and start engaging and changing and proactively learning through our affiliates. And, and that's where then they obtained some real scalable practice changes in their supply shed and start to move to a what is called a scope three carbon removal carbon reduction asset. And the key thing of those assets is, you know, these companies, all the majors, most of the majors have many of the large to midsize companies and midsize companies. They are going to start reporting publicly on their their carbon balance sheet. And in what will you know, what will be considered a point of measurement for that balance sheet will be tons of co2e. So ultimately, we're supporting a farmer throughout. We're checking on the supply shed seeing where there's acres ready to move to cover cropping and no till not every farm is doing all these things. Like I said, this careful consideration there's capital costs or such occasion. There's risks that needs to be mitigated to engaging the farmer educating them and getting them to change. And then actually like using our Truterra sustainability tool, which has this amazing insights engine. Two, two, factor in all the details, put together a report and then ultimately have this asset that is really transactable on a CPGs balance sheet. And you can't do any of that without being the farmers in the farmers trust to network and we know that farmers get their regenerative Ag education. You know, they don't they don't necessarily get it from you know, reading something in a magazine, they get it from listening to their, their seed rep or agronomists their nutrient management rep and their neighbors and their neighbors. So it's a lot it's a lot to officially have something that can be reported on and, and then also have these narrative claims and I think we're you you alluded to these earlier it's like we need to get more of those narrative claims telling that story out in front of the consumer.

 

Mark Young  39:09

And that's a problem. We're not telling the story.

 

Justin Girouard  39:11

That's that's a huge problem. And so, just thinking from a brand's perspective here a couple of questions. So one would be how because as you mentioned, you know, Truterra is is involved outside of just Lnd O Lakes so how would a brand get involved with Truterra if they wanted to take the next step and start doing sustainability.

 

Julie Dinatale  39:35

Yeah so that you know they certainly can can check out our website you know it can they can Google Truterra ag Land O Lakes and find us very easily reach out and in through our our website and get a hold of one of us or reach out if in the show notes here to me directly. You know it's it's important that we have ways for, you know, carbon indexing and for these, the reporting of our carbon footprint, but you know, we're not just carbon, we're looking at ways for the metrics, modeling and quantification of water quality, water efficiency, which is also very important. But I'm sure many folks in your audience are aware that they need to change their supply shed, maybe they're trying to do it through, you know, virtual reality, eyes in the sky satellite imagery or through, you know, boots on the ground here and there with with something that's not scalable. But, you know, that's where we can then pick up and help and guide them through leading their supply chain. And I picked on row crop farming, but we're also working with dairies, and in livestock operations, which, which are, you know, very, very important across the board as well and have opportunity. But let's not forget, farmers are the heroes and this and they can use the tools in their toolbox, including photosynthesis to make carbon reductions and carbon removals of what we've already already admitted. Change.

 

Mark Young  41:35

Well Julie, I appreciate you being with us. Folks, if you go to the show notes, you go to CPG insiders, with the episode with Judy Dinatale. So I'm working on that.

 

Julie Dinatale  41:46

Dinatale, you did it.

 

Mark Young  41:47

You will find you will find her contact information, the link to the website for TruTerra and for Land O Lakes. And I appreciate you being here. I think the real message here for our listeners today is sustainability is going to happen with or without your cooperation.

 

Justin Girouard  42:08

Yes.

 

Mark Young  42:10

So it probably makes more sense to get a little bit ahead of the curve than to be drugged down the path. And we as we said at the beginning, we need to take we need to take this investment. And yes, it's the right thing to do. But we need to figure out how to turn that investment into additional income or additional profitability. And we need to do that by learning how to message this better.

 

Justin Girouard  42:37

Yes, absolutely. Well, and it's like, and, and I think, Julie, I think you said it best too. Because, again, as a business, okay. Yes, I like that it makes me feel good. We're doing the right thing, but how does it affect my business. And that's the one thing you mentioned, resiliency is the key there is that it does affect your business, it won't affect your business today, but three, four years from now, you're going to see them the profit sheet too. So this is this is not just a feel good marketing ploy, that I look at statistics, I'm going oh, well, it's, it doesn't sell more products, we shouldn't do it. This is going to help your bottom line in the end as well. So this is this is much more again, this is much more...

 

Mark Young  43:18

If it's managed right. And that's why I encourage people to to reach out to people like Julie at Truterra, and and tap into all of the experience and the wisdom that they have. Because it makes no sense to try to reinvent the wheel or to try to relearn something.

 

Justin Girouard  43:33

No. And again, I think with all the work that Julie, that you're doing and Truterra is doing. I think that the more that brands will get involved, the more that they'll understand what's happening, so that they can promote the narrative properly.

 

Mark Young  43:50

Yeah, and the more that will bring other brands into doing it because the more that brands go down this path, the more as I said it becomes the cost of entry.

 

Justin Girouard  43:59

Exactly. Yes

 

Mark Young  44:00

So, now becomes I expect you right as a consumer, I expect you to be doing something to preserve the future.

 

Justin Girouard  44:07

Absolutely.

 

Mark Young  44:09

Well, that's it for today on CPG insiders. If you enjoyed today's show, please go to wherever you get your podcasts leave us five star review. Always keep in mind, you can always reach out to our guests, you can also always reach out to Justin or myself. And you can find both of us at CPGinsiders.com. Or JekyllHydelabs.com Either one of those places. And we will be back with more topics and more guests. We have a lot of guests coming up over the next few months don't worry.

 

Justin Girouard  44:39

It's really exciting stuff.

 

Mark Young  44:40

So we will see you on the next episode of CPG insiders. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde advertising and marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guaranteed result just go to Jekyll Hyde agency.com Or feel free to give us a call at 800-500-4210