Sustainable Food And Drink: Products That Taste Good And Do Right

The success of a food or drink business is predicated on many things—quality, flavor, price and market reach, to name a few—but in a world plagued by climate change, water scarcity and vast income inequality, consumers are increasingly looking at the social and environmental footprint of their purchasing decisions. According to data-marketing company Leger, 64% of consumers feel that a brand’s social responsibility efforts are important, a figure that rises to 67% among millennials and Gen Z. When it comes to environmental impact, 83% of consumers believe that brands should utilize sustainable practices, and 42% say they’d choose sustainable brands over others.

This trend was evident at last month’s Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City, where the word “sustainable” made more appearances than the Kardashians on social media. But the term’s overuse and vagueness can be confusing, which may explain why people don’t always follow through on their stated preferences.

Perhaps that’s why we are seeing labels with different terms—like “regenerative,” an approach to agriculture that treats farms as part of their larger ecosystem. A year ago, La Tourangelle, a French-American company that produces a variety of high-quality oils (including olive, avocado and nut oils), debuted a line of regeneratively farmed sunflower and flax oils as part of the first organic and regenerative oilseed program in California. Increasingly, food and drink businesses are looking for ways to show consumers that their products can taste good and do good at the same time.

Brewing A More Sustainable Future For Tea Farmers

The global tea market is valued at nearly $50 billion dollars, yet many smallholder tea farmers are struggling economically. Husband and wife Harshit and Sudarshana Parolia established their tea company, Brewix, with these challenges in mind. The couple grew up in Kolkata, India’s tea-trading hub, and uses their connections to buy tea directly from farmers in Darjeeling, Nilgiri and Assam, bypassing auction houses and others that take a cut of the price. “Buying tea directly matters because it ensures fair wages and better conditions for workers, supports sustainable practices, guarantees quality and freshness, fosters transparency, and contributes positively to the economic well-being of small-scale farmers and their communities,” says Harshit. The company also funds a project to remove low-value plastics from the Dehradun region, recovering the equivalent of 29 million plastic bags to date. Finally, Brewix’s teas contain no artificial additives or coloring and come in a dizzying variety of flavors, but my favorite was the fragrant Masala Chai.

Lifting Tea Farmers Out Of Poverty

Across the border in Nepal, the situation is similar, with many smallholder tea farmers trying to eke out a living. Enter the Nepal Tea Collective, an immigrant-owned public benefit corporation (a for-profit enterprise that also seeks to make a positive social impact). Led by second- and third-generation tea producers, the company aims to lift one million tea farmers out of poverty within the founders’ lifetime while also making a name for Nepalese tea. Similar to Brewix’s model, the Nepal Tea Collective buys directly from farmers and also shares 1% of its revenue with them. A QR code on the packaging of its loose and bagged teas tells the story of where each product originated. You can even tip your farmer via a PayPal link on a product’s sourcing page, with donations going to the Nepal Tea Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) that disburses funds to the pertinent farmers. One of the company’s best-sellers is a three-product bundle featuring white, gold and chai teas.

Seasoning With A Light Carbon Footprint

For the Icelandic company Saltverk, sustainability is baked into the landscape, literally. Located on the Reykjanes Peninsula, where the hot springs naturally heat the water to a temperature of 206 °F, Saltverk starts with seawater from one Iceland’s deepest fjords. The company relies on geothermal energy to preheat, boil and dry the water from which the salt emerges. Thanks to hand-harvesting and the use of a renewable energy source, its production processes generate no carbon dioxide or methane emissions, and leave zero carbon footprint. (Saltverk has been certified “climate neutral” by The Climate Change Project.) Beyond the plain flaky sea salt, it also produces interesting flavored salts, such as its aromatic birch-smoked salt and one with Arctic thyme.

Building Community Over A Cup Of Coffee

Closer to home, the nonprofit Grace Farms Foundation is located in a nature preserve in New Canaan, Connecticut. This cultural and humanitarian center is open to visitors, and collaborates with artists, activists, governmental organizations, and members of the community. The foundation also has an arm known as Grace Farm Foods that sells its own line of teas and coffees—two beverages that have been long associated with people coming together to exchange ideas. A Certified B Corp, Grace Farm Foods passes on 100% of its profits to Design for FREEDOM, the foundation’s initiative aimed at improving working conditions in the building-materials industry, and ending forced and child labor. Its coffees are sourced exclusively from women-led co-ops in Ethiopia, Colombia and Indonesia, while its teas come from Fairtrade Certified producers around the world. All packaging is plastic-free, recyclable and/or biodegradable. Especially appealing are the easy-to-brew iced teas, which come in flavors like spearmint rose and ginger peach.

Dangerously Delicious Sustainable Hot Sauces

Based in the southern African country of Eswatini, Black Mamba is a hot-sauce and hot-honey producer whose stated manifesto is “building a better world through good food.” Named for the one of the most dangerous snakes in the region, its spicy products start with organically grown produce. Black Mamba collaborates with Guba—a local organization that trains smallholder farmers in regenerative practices—and sources its ingredients from the 90 or so smallholders in Guba’s network, 75% of whom are women heads of household. Any produce that’s left over gets returned to Guba, to be composted or used as animal feed, and all packaging is either recyclable or biodegradable. In fact, when Burger King wanted to use one of the sauces in its South African outposts, Black Mamba got the fast-food giant to agree to add it directly onto burgers instead of providing plastic pouches. The sauces range from a mild, sweet pineapple to the fiery “XXXtra hot” peri peri. For me, the “tangy and hot” peri peri, which sits in the middle of the spiciness range, had the perfect balance of heat, flavor, and bright acidity.