Confronting the immutable truths ahead

This report is ultimately a call for renewal of purpose and commitment to sustainability policies, principles and behaviors that consumers are increasingly demanding. It is also a roadmap for alternative food technologies to regain momentum after a period of honest reassessment on the fundamentals of taste, nutritional composition, price and brand sustainability narrative.

Stay tuned for more guidance – but first a look at the current conflagration.

Two steps forward. One step back.

At the moment we are in the midst of a tug of war on sustainability commitments and performance. Despite mounting evidence of environmental trouble, some organizations over inflate their progress (greenwashing), while others green-hush by downplaying practices or abandoning them all together.

Progressive large food industry organizations like ADM and PepsiCo continue to lead the charge, working to secure improvements at the farm level. Others such as McDonald’s, who earlier addressed their ESG commitments head on have receded, horns pulling inward. Further some brands tempt a flame out on the path to redemption by intentionally hiding the ESG candle of achievement, preferring to operate in the dim shadows away from public or media attention.

We inquire: what’s going on here

We are confronted daily with the epic impacts of climate change. The situation is worsening. Evidence is all around us that carbon emissions and the resulting planet warming outcome is playing havoc with the balance of nature. Yet political considerations remain powerful deterrents to some organizations, apparently afraid of special interest criticism or concerned their current actions will be deemed subpar by climate watchdogs.

The fossil fuel industry tries to preserve the status quo by casting doubt on the efficacy of climate science. Some political groups snarl over “woke” capitalism even as our global “Rome” burns around us as violins play Emperor Nero style.

In a recent Fast Company article about current disinformation tactics taking aim at the plant-based meat industry, Sara Aniano, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, was quoted stating, “Anything that strays from what’s deemed natural, primal, or masculine is automatically deemed dangerous. Innovative food products are seen as a dystopian consequence of leftist politics.”

Yet we know this July was officially the hottest on record for planet earth.

Our food system already represents nearly 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all transportation systems combined. Increasingly, people believe companies have an obligation to address and mitigate System 3 (GHG) emissions now rather than wait for any future regulatory mandate. Moreover, there are only 7 more harvests on the run-up to 2030 as we face the prospect of irreversible climate change impacts if emission reductions aren’t realized.

Meanwhile “fake it ‘til you make it” greenwashing gets harder to pull off as deep knowledge about credible sustainability best practices becomes more pervasive among media and consumers. No matter what, the in-parallel denier criticisms are getting more difficult to defend in the midst of real-world crisis after crisis related to climate change impacts that manifest in floods, droughts, hot oceans and wildfires. The reality of climate turmoil is at humanity’s proverbial front door now.

What comes first: the sustainability chicken or the egg?

Stated another way which must come first, actions taken by brands and business to mitigate environmental impacts? Or second, the universal acceptance of these remedies as normal, practical, required and sought after by every conceivable audience and constituency a business might encounter?

• Can you be a responsible sustainability transition plan implementer, and also present your organization publicly as a neutral Switzerland on the climate policy-making front?

No.

“One of the most important and challenging missions that I think one company could try to do, which is basically to replace animal farming as the primary source of protein production for humanity, is very much the reason why we started the company,” said Andre Menzes, CEO of alt. chicken protein company, Tindle Foods.

Despite Tindle’s enviable progress, why the current backslide for plant-based meat?

The media flourish over “plant-based meat for meat lovers” saw the Impossible and Beyond Meat businesses rapidly accelerate; both brands hoping to jump the normal new category creation arc and leap instantly into mainstream acceptance. This required attracting consumers who are more price sensitive, more demanding on taste and less “environmental issues” motivated at a time when inflation was running up the prices of groceries right and left.

Weaknesses in the brand story around the reality of “healthier” (sodium?) left the door open to  “highly processed” attacks that stole precedence over the earlier perceptions of meat-like eating experience. Hype machinery ground to halt when declining sales performance tarnished the golden meat-from-plants goose. Revenue for Beyond Meat plunged 30.5% in the second quarter this year, prompting CEO Ethan Brown to call (finally!!) for more education on their better-for-you improvements and sustainability bona fides.

So is plant-based a fading fad? Absolutely not. This is a blip as brands optimize and improve taste, the ultimate decider on marketplace traction alongside input cost management to finally reach pricing parity.

• Plant-based must win more fans.
• Precision fermentation deserves its protein game-changing shot.
• Cultivated meat will earn its time in the shining retail sun.

Why? We simply can’t continue to endlessly add more animals as the primary source of protein in our diets. Animal meat on the menu isn’t going away. However, the composition of our dietary decisions and choices should adjust. Improvements from new protein technologies that come at a fraction of the environmental impacts of conventional food creation deserve our support.

Still, it’s a noisy fickle environment right now…

Why are companies afraid to plant their sustainability flag in the sand?

Escalating impacts surround the planet begging for mitigation attention.

Consumers increasingly demand action from business to solve the sustainability crisis.

Plant-based takes a step back amid criticism of its formula composition bona fides.

(Heavy sigh)

Landing on the side of the angels

• What is the essential truth here? For one, our food system is an actor in the carbon emissions build-up. The impact of global warming is escalating, and you can see the tipping point on the horizon. Food technologies that answer the crisis with a fraction of conventional food system carbon impacts are coming but desperately need more investment to close the last mile to commercialization.

• Sustainability performance matters. Science-based LCA level analysis of carbon footprints should be happening everywhere because you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you are. Boulder, CO based Meati, with its novel mycelium-based meat products, is already in retail distribution with an eye-opener on replicating the eating experience of muscle meat cuts of chicken and beef. Their story is a sustainable solution.

• Brands that look to help address the food and beverage industry’s carbon footprint are operating on the side of the angels and should do so fearlessly knowing the consumer is going on the journey with them. We have little time to solve the industry’s climate impacts so special interests should put down the quill of complaint and take up the mantle of participating in advancing change, not resisting it.

Guidance in the months ahead

• Taste and price optimization are job one. It’s table stakes for growth.
• Investments in Sustainability education for consumers and stakeholders should get more energy and funding, right now.
• We have ample data and evidence that sustainability readiness commitments backed with consumer-facing outreach to inform stakeholders of this progress is a recipe for balance sheet benefits and marketplace competitive advantage.

Can we climb back on the horse of wisdom knowing these shifts are vital to keeping our planet safe, and to nourishing people affordably in the future?

Sustainability isn’t a hassle, it’s a business-building opportunity if we play our collective cards right.

Your brand can make a difference. Yes, sound strategy is needed. Linking sustainability expertise with marketing know-how is a loop that must be closed to gain business benefits from climate-responsible performance.

• Let’s renew our vows at the altar of sustainable best practices. Time is not on our side, and we have policy ground to cover in a relatively short span of time.

Can we agree change is needed and desirable? We have a responsibility here to protect the future for our families and many others coming in the decades ahead. We have designed the recipe for success. We need to implement and keep at it as we move from friction around the birth of new ideas to transformation while new behaviors take root.

If you believe further guidance and fresh thinking on the path to sustainability performance excellence is in order, use this link to ask questions or start an informal conversation. We’re here to help.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Reclaiming higher purpose renews brand energy…

Most brands with a strong higher purpose (a refined “why” that informs behaviors and decision making) got that way because the founder(s) injected beliefs from their own sense of mission.

Staying true to the founder’s core purpose/vision and retaining the brand’s deeper meaning over time can be challenging. If higher purpose is intentionally woven into the fabric of how the organization operates, the belief system can be steadfast generationally. If the mission is largely a reflection of the leader’s ethos and the company experiences regime change, the “why” can disappear in the hands of executives who manage most often for profit and loss priorities rather than refueling the company/brand belief system.

• Apple lost its way when Steve Jobs was forced out in 1985. The company suffered as a result. When he returned in 1997 the higher purpose roared back. Business boomed.

• Starbucks began with religion around changing the coffee experience, from better beans to establishing the Italian espresso beverage traditions in its unique “3^rd Place” setting. When Howard Schultz left, the “why” went with him and subsequent leadership focused on operational efficiencies and expansion. Business declined until Schultz returned.

“Why” is influential to how a brand is built and sustains – providing a true north that transcends changing conditions and cultural shifts over time by securing a devoted community of true believers. It is fundamental to how brands engage successfully with core customers. It flies in the opposite direction from commoditization pressures and an unproductive focus on the competition.

• Nonetheless “why” can be left behind if new leadership isn’t entrenched with the same point of view as the founders.

Our brush with half-baked “why” – A mini case study on reclaiming purpose

In 1949, Chicagoan Charles Lubin was trying to figure out how to send his epiphanous cheesecakes to a man in Texas enamored with his sweet, dense creations. But cheesecakes (and baked goods like them) generally didn’t travel well; thus, why the bakery industry of the era primarily consisted of smaller businesses servicing a local trading area.

Lubin began experimenting and later innovated a new brand at retail through his pioneering of flash freezing tech – a process to preserve the taste, texture and eating experience of his baked delights. As a result, a new category was established through his single-minded mission to make high quality baked goods available to a much wider audience. Reinventing the baked goods business to create widespread access was his “why.”

Lubin’s innovation was personified by creating the iconic Sara Lee brand – named after his nine-year old daughter, who for most of her life would remain hidden in the background. He was wildly successful and eventually sold his company to Consolidated Foods. The corporation renamed itself after the bakery division (Sara Lee Corporation) even though it was largely a meat products business. After the sale, Lubin eventually retired and a series of CPG experienced leadership teams came in to run the company, expanding distribution into foodservice and adding new categories to spur growth. But along the way Sara Lee lost its why.

The company was focused on volume and balance sheet considerations, not the embedded love affair with bakery creations that touch people’s lives. With a diluted soul, the business resorted to price promotions and other commoditizing behaviors to keep the volume numbers going.

As we’ve seen before when the “why” dissipates or disappears all together, the energy underneath the business often goes with it. Sara Lee lost relevance as the focus moved from consumers to chasing the competition. Performance inevitably flagged and the parent company started to consider if it was possible to divest the Sara Lee baked goods division even though their corporate identity was tied to it. Tough to do.

In a last ditch effort to turn the bakery ship around, we were retained on a mission to restage Sara Lee Bakery and recapture the qualities and meaning Charles Lubin had originally brought with him. We needed to break with the most recent past in a big way and author a new story for the future.

• How do you quickly, decisively disrupt perceptions?  You do something over-the-top that forces consumer reassessment. You create a new story and put substance underneath it. It was time to swing for the fences.

Solution: Sara Lee’s First International Symposia on Dessert

Go big or go home. We sat down with Sara Lee, the actual person, and after many hours of conversation about our plans to rescue the business her father had started, Sara agreed to become a spokesperson for the brand named after her. To properly showcase her debut, we decided to create an event to showcase a new era at Sara Lee, complete with an updated product line. It would be done specifically for the top North American food media so the story could be told as widely as possible in a credible setting.

We decided to create a symposium on dessert – in the dessert capitol of the world, Vienna, Austria – the birthplace of sweet bakery creations and traditions beginning in the 18^th century. We also knew that a media event staged in Vienna was likely to be enthusiastically attended, and over three days we would have the full and undivided attention of our media audience 24 hours a day. It would be an extraordinary opportunity to exercise great influence, a ‘must-do’ if we were going to change the paradigm of what people think Sara Lee is.

Working with Austrian Airlines, the Austrian Economic Council and the Vienna Tourism Board, we were able to secure airline seats for 56 journalists for a song, hotel rooms at the famous Hotel Imperial at a rate more like Motel Six and free access to the famed palaces that made Vienna the cultural heartbeat of the world during the time of Mozart.

We recruited the top seven pastry chefs of Vienna to help reimagine new desserts using Sara Lee products as a base, to enchant and inspire the food media luminaries who would attend. We developed a comprehensive itinerary of educational events and experiences designed to provide so many varying story angles that any media decision maker would feel they could carve their own unique narrative around the experience.

• We brought a in a food historian who charted the emergence of sweet baked goods from the Roman Empire to modern day.

• We created a section on the psychology of eating dessert revealing the cultural issues at work between American sensibilities and European attitudes on indulgence.

• We prepared a hands-on cooking experience for all 56 media, dividing them into teams to work alongside Viennese pastry experts each challenged to work with a specific Sara Lee product.

• We brought the media to the oldest operating bakery in the world, opened in 1560, to hear a presentation on the history of chocolate.

The most important facet of all though was on the opening night where the editors gathered for a special reveal – they would be meeting the real Sara Lee and Charlie Lubin’s wife for the first time. This event, fit for royalty, was staged in a palace next door to The Hofburg, the Imperial seat of the Hapsburg dynasty. The editors were to experience a curated menu based on a 18^th century royal banquet, dining on china from the royal house. Ahead of a presentation that would whisk them forward to the modern era of baked goods and the new Sara Lee brand.

After dinner a video presentation chronicled  the history of dessert – a retrospective on the birth of sweet baking traditions and its evolution over time, a way for the brand to lock in its ‘knowledge broker’ cred on bakery expertise. At the conclusion of the video the room went dark and then Sara Lee was introduced to an awestruck crowd of food journalists (there really is a Sara Lee). You could feel the electricity when Sara walked into the room. Sara spoke of her father’s legacy, mission, values and unveiled the new product line for the editors, inviting them to join a dessert fantasy experience.

• Sara Lee’s top chefs created a dessert fantasy in the adjoining gold-gilt ballroom where Viennese pastry masterpieces were arranged near and around new desserts made with Sara Lee products. The editors were challenged to determine which was which. To a one, they couldn’t tell the difference. Perceptions were changed.

For three days it was around the clock substance interlaced with dazzle, including a specially staged concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at another palace in an unusual oval shaped hall where Mozart conducted his first concert when he was six years old.

From this hosted media experience, Sara Lee Bakery dined for more than a year on story after story after story about the events and tastes in Vienna. The media showcase for new products was unprecedented for Sara Lee. A reacquiring of the brand’s “why” sat at the center of the entire venture and with it a departure from the price oriented self-promotion that had been going on for years before.

• The business results were gratifying and the project was credited at Sara Lee Corporation’s annual shareholders meeting as the reason for significant improvement in the bakery division’s results.

The most important aspect of this campaign was its ability to reframe the Sara Lee brand and product experience in a relevant and resonant way. Sara went on to be the centerpiece of  brand communication for three more years before she ’retired’ to her former and much quieter life with her family.

The lesson: when the “why” is diluted, the business resorts to manipulations to create a reason to buy, and these tactics don’t – and will never – connect in the same way as purpose, beliefs and values. When Sara Lee found its footing again, it was remarkable how that change was reflected in the brand’s performance. Beliefs, deeper meaning and mission are core to creating the emotional connections that impact consumer buying decisions and actions.

• Great care should be exercised to help ensure your company’s “why” will remain steadfast and vital over time – even if new leadership arrives to carry the torch forward.

If locking in your company’s “why” resonates with you or if your organization needs to optimize its purpose and belief system, use this link to start a conversation. We promise it will be interesting and enlightening.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Deploying the biology of effective communication

For a brand message to have any real impact, to influence behavior and seed advocacy, it requires more than awareness and publicity. It must advance a relevant higher purpose, cause or belief system that people who share your values will immediately resonate to. Only then can your message create any lasting marketplace impact.

It is not the quality of your products that causes the category to tip your direction. Absent a refined brand WHY, new innovations and technologies will rapidly find themselves playing the circular and commoditizing price-and-feature game. Your competitive advantage gets real traction when you are crystal clear about the human-relevant purpose and mission you exist to champion.

An identifiable cohort of consumers exists who share your beliefs and then want to integrate your ideas and products into their own lives. It is their ability to understand and embrace your purpose, your WHY, that causes them to embrace your brand. They view what you make as a tangible path to reflect and demonstrate their purpose and beliefs to the world around them.

Beliefs are powerful and can be enlisted to change the trajectory of brand growth

It’s important to remember that “consumers” are first and foremost real, human three-dimensional people. As such, we are hardwired to gravitate toward people, places as well as things (products) that reinforce what we believe about the world and ourselves.

• Beliefs influence our behaviors and how we see ourselves
• Beliefs are emotional and rise from deep within us to inform decisions
• Beliefs run underneath our cognizant, analytical radar to impact our feelings and decisions
• Beliefs help people understand, connect and engage with your brand
• Beliefs are respectful of human biology and how we’re wired to take action (through feelings not facts)

Yet we find that belief systems are largely undernourished in business strategy because of a flawed assumption that a better mousetrap is the motivating tool that draws in consumers. Ultimately, products in any given category will be more similar than they are unique. Frankly, there isn’t any proprietary tech advantage that can be sustained over time without competitive dilution.

Instead, people are magnetically drawn to leader-type brands that communicate what they believe. This unique approach helps consumers feel safe and special – like they belong – and are inspired to align with the brand because the story and mission resonates so personally.

Future of food brands are often mission oriented

Emergent works with emerging food brands who are reinventing how food is created with a vastly improved sustainability story. To a one, the founders and leadership teams believe they exist to improve the health and wellbeing of people while measurably improving the impact of our current food system on global warming.

Their technologies are instrumental in changing the greenhouse gas paradigm. But that is not the reason they will be successful or that people will be drawn to their offering. It is the inspiration they provide to help enable consumers in exercising their conscious consumption wishes. To improve their wellbeing with healthier food choices and create a safer future for themselves and their families. These brands understand that taste, eating experience and proper price are all table stakes and not the real reason for marketplace success. Empowering consumers to experience ‘making a difference’ is the real brand elevator.

Thus, why conveying values, mission and purpose are so vital to success rather than relying on historic tactics that attempt to leverage features, lower price or the more subtle tactical manipulations of persuasion, fear, vanity, status, shame, peer pressure and social acceptance to close a sale.

One big example: we live in a nation founded on inspiration of a better future for people

In July of 1776 the world was forever changed with the emergence of the United States, the first-ever constitutional republic – a democracy ‘of and for the people’ – now at 247 years of age the oldest of its kind on earth. A new nation founded on ideals and principles that espoused freedom of speech and press, an elected representative government, the rule of law and a promise of a better future for people.

These ideals form the foundation of an inspired sense of opportunity and the expectation of an individual’s ability to pursue their own goals and aspirations. Despite the enormous flaws and inconsistencies that dogged the nation through a Civil War 84 years after its founding, the resilience wrapped in these beliefs and sense of purpose have stood the test of time.

America is one of the most powerful examples of “Why” culture and the influence of deeper meaning writ large. It is embedded in our American attitudes, thinking and distinctive behaviors. These principles and aspirations have spread around the world, yet most of these new democratic governments are less than 70 years old and still evolving.

• We have unique stories to tell about our nation’s founding
• Symbols abound about the American legacy of freedom
• It is inspirational to how we think and see our lives
• Our societal beliefs are founded on the concept of greater good

Yet for all of the evidence of how a nation founded on beliefs and values serves as an inspiration to a brighter future over time, and the power of values to impact attitudes and behavior – this POV hasn’t rubbed off as fully as it could on business and brand development thinking.

When brands become symbols of values and beliefs we hold close

Health, wellbeing, achievement, creative exploration, better relationships, education, love, serving others – there are so many places a brand can live to inspire users and improve their lives. It is in this moment of unselfish thinking that an environment of trust is created.

The process to explore and refine a brand’s “why” begins with consumer-centricity and works backward from there. It is formative insight into your customers’ interests, concerns and desires that informs a creative exploration around brand beliefs – which should reflect and mirror your users’ aspirations.

Emergent has developed a proprietary process for this evaluation we call Brand Sustainability Analysis – in this case the word sustainable refers not to environmental concerns directly but to sustainable brand growth over time.

The six primary components include:

• Core beliefs that are consumer centric and address how the brand contributes to improving users lives and the world around them.

• Based on those beliefs, Why the company exists, its core mission and higher purpose.

• How the company will fulfill its belief-driven higher purpose and mission.

• Therefore, What business the company is truly in and assets required to fulfill that promise based on the brand purpose.

• The company BrandStand that expresses the business’ true north and becomes an embedded guide for decisions on strategy, policy, employee policy and recruitment, innovation and marketing going forward.

• Implications of the BrandStand on company operations and marketing strategies.

If you agree that inspiration is a stronger path to influencing consumer decisions than passe’ tactical manipulation, and that an optimized purpose and mission – your why – can lead to brand advocacy and evangelism, then we should talk. Use this link to begin an informal get-acquainted conversation.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Doing business in the era of higher purpose and beliefs

As a brand builder focused on burnishing your organization’s most vital asset, your business goal isn’t to convince and persuade customers to buy. Consumers, weary of persuasion tactics and overt brand promotion, quickly dismiss those efforts with a simple click. To pass through the gatekeeping gauntlet, brands need to understand what consumers really want from you – and it’s not more of the same. Rather, your brand marketing goal is to inspire. You might agree motivating people isn’t easy. Thus, why you can’t build a community of committed users and devout brand evangelists by promoting improved formulations and recipes.

Yet so often we find brands preoccupied with their slightly better product mousetrap, thinking enhanced features and benefits comprise the alluring magnet to fuel growth. Not so. Instead, you are navigating in a mental and emotional ocean between the rational and the heart.

Giving people a sense of purpose, deeper meaning and belonging lie at the foundation of every sustainable brand-to-consumer relationship.

The incredible power of “why”

In the early editions of The Fast and The Furious movie franchise we witnessed the recurring testosterone-amped challenges of street racing. Inevitably, as our hero races neck and neck towards the finish line, a canister is activated next to the console that injects Nitrous Oxide into the engine. Boom, an incredible burst of horsepower slingshots our intrepid protagonist across the finish line, literally blowing the competition away.

The NOS (Nitrous Oxide System) is a secret acceleration amplifier that supercharges engine output, thus burying the other racers in a cloud of oxygenated dust. Today similar competitive advantage exists for brands that tune their value proposition with an advanced power generator of relevance and resonance. The NOS of brand marketing is a different kind of “air and fuel” chemistry, founded on an emotional alchemy of mission, meaning and values.

Just like engines of a certain size generate similar levels of horsepower, food and beverage brands focused on claims of superior taste cancel each other out because great taste is table stakes. On a technical formulation level, products in most categories are nearly identical. Competitive advantage based on assertions of technical wizardry isn’t sustainable because everyone brandishes the same wand. Literally everything we eat or drink can be reverse engineered to deliver comparable taste and texture performance.

“Why” is the catalyst for authentic relationships with your users

Here’s the news: the consumers’ worldview has changed – and relating to a brand is now fundamentally the same thing as relating to a person. When you refine and invest in brand purpose and mission, it creates an opportunity to achieve transcendence – the state of being admired – where consumers “join” your brand as members, not merely customers.

Meaning, in order to secure significant financial premiums, sustainable brand relationships must be built first on their admiration and trust of your brand. As evidence of the shift, brand advocacy is now a more important and relevant goal than loyalty.

Of note, this representation of goodwill can be isolated as a component of business value. It can result in higher margins or traffic. Moreover, deeper relationships with consumers will ultimately help reduce the cost of promotion, improving ROI and bottom-line performance. This happens because you are no longer relying on a constant (expensive) drumbeat of self-promotion to refire fleeting, fickle attention spans.

Businesses built on “why” understand that brand relationships work best on the basis of true, authentic reciprocity and humanity. Consequently, they are not superficial, opportunistic or purely transactional. In order to mine the advantages of sustainable brand relationships, marketers have a responsibility to push added meaning, trust and belief to the forefront of the relationship. This insight forms the basis for sound strategic planning.

• Consumers expect premium food and beverage solutions to meet their great taste requirement. Competitive marketplace leverage isn’t found on the factory floor. It is discovered in the hearts and minds of consumers who now care more about why you do what you do than either what you offer or even how it is made.

Mining the influence of cultural shift

Operating in tandem with a refined value and belief system is the wider influence of cultural shifts on preference and behavior.

Purchases today are largely symbolic gestures. They are flags consumers wave to inform the world around them about their lifestyle priorities – an expression of who they are that is in many ways a mirror of the cultural context swirling around them. For consideration: to what extent have you embedded symbolism and flags of meaning in how your brand story is packaged and presented to help consumers signal those values-based belief statements through purchasing your products?

Larger issues now influence food culture precipitating changes in what consumers are looking for in brands. The store checkout lane today has evolved into a form of voting booth where consumers cast their ballot in favor of a better life and world.

What do they want? Are we helping them with what they want?

More sustainable choices:

One of the most powerful cultural influences of the era we live in is the emergence of conscious consumption – a realization that our eating and purchasing decisions have a consequence. People are learning about the relationship between food production and carbon emissions impact.

• Climate change is upon us and with it comes a sensitivity to what goes on behind the curtain of our carbon-heavy food system.

Recently in Chicago, for five straight days a grey haze and smoky odor blanketed the city, sending air quality to “worst in the world” status – all due to Canadian wildfire smoke that traveled south and wouldn’t dissipate. Wildfires are occurring at record breaking levels now. These global climate events are a recurring theme.

People were advised to stay indoors. To avoid breathing the outside air given its hazardous particulate content. Meanwhile unrelenting heat waves in the south impact farm and crop viability while helping sponsor conditions that encourage deadly tornados. All of this serves as real-world evidence to everyone that climate change impacts are among us.

The outcomes of these environmental incidents and increasingly erratic (dangerous) temp and weather conditions is a cultural shift towards preference for eco-responsible and sustainable choice, although in many cases brands haven’t made it any easier to identify what is a credible carbon-friendly option.

Health, wellness and a desire to reassert personal control:

Latent pessimism reinforced by daily media reporting has most people believing the future is less certain and that conditions beyond their control may impact future quality of life. Humans resolutely look for ways to add control when everything around them appears chaotic. This has served to amp the importance of investments in personal health and wellness. This is a move to create physical (and emotional) resilience in the midst of events that suggest the environment is suffering at the hands of policies and behaviors which inflict various forms of climate damage.

No longer just a weight management motivation, healthy living is a lifestyle and “survival” choice that helps people reacquire a sense of control over their wellbeing. Gym visits, the explosion of Pilates classes, cycling exercise studios and online therapists. Similar to how consumers increasingly see the connection between food choice and sustainability, efforts to improve personal and mental health are cultural mandates increasingly embraced by a wider swath of the population.

Experiences over consumption for its own sake:

Culinary and environmental tourism, chef-inspired food and wine events, even dangerous expeditions to the deep ocean floor, serve as reminders that experiences offer a form of expectation magic that has surpassed the former thrill of the consumption economy.

We have managed to pack and stack storage facilities with the worn-out treasures of “buying stuff” – evidence that years of acquiring has left families with mountains of extra clothes, furniture, equipment and credit card debt. “Things” as evidence of elevated status and success no longer hold the same allure.  We have exhausted materialism and replaced the void with interests in adventures that reward our emotional desire for transcendent and novel experience.

Modern brands as coach, guide, advisor and enabler

All of these evolutionary changes in behaviors and desire provide one of the most positive, significant and vital opportunities for brands to acquire a valuable role in their consumers’ lives. Your brand’s number one job is to help your users on their life journey. To provide value that extends beyond the utility of the product you sell.

• How incredible is it that consumers have arrived at a place where advice and guidance are key to achieving their goals. Can we help provide it? Can we step into the breach to be an enabler of their wishes and interests? Can we impart wisdom and tools they can use to improve their lives?

Yes we can! If we finally decide that improved relationships are key to business growth more so than product feature/benefit selling. This is the challenge of the age and one, if you choose to accept it, that can result in a deeper relationship with your users founded on delivering deeper meaning and value.

• Here is a link to our one-page overview of these shifts and changes. Please take a moment to click the link to read. It may serve as inspiration for a deeper conversation with us about ways to map an improved future for your brand and business.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Awareness drives preference for sustainable choice

After 15 months of collecting data from a wide variety of companies that participated in our Sustainability Readiness assessment questionnaire, we can confirm the most common area of shortfall and weakness in sustainability performance is communications.

We’ve consistently encountered a disconnect between yeoman efforts by companies to improve their environmental and emissions outcomes, but too often without the integrated communications strategies that effectively tell that story to consumers and stakeholders.

It may be due to pervasive silo conditions where sustainability teams work separately from marketing, or the more intentional ‘greenhushing’ out of fear any sunlight might expose sustainability practices to criticism. However you slice it, without a robust, integrated communications strategy, it is virtually impossible to convert sustainability investments into related sales and share growth for the very reason people aren’t aware of what the brand has accomplished.

Building sustainability awareness

Without top-of-mind awareness your brand’s sustainability story isn’t considered. Awareness is also elusive and fleeting. It can be here today and gone tomorrow; thus, why continuous investments are required to keep your sustainability story front and center with the audience most likely to resonate to your environmental mission.

To be clear, aggregating eyeballs as the ultimate (and only) goal could overshadow some of the most important principles governing consumer engagement and consideration. Your brand’s higher purpose should inhabit every strategic decision you make when organizing an effective awareness-building strategy.

Note: be sure to check out the best practice example at the end of this article.

Earlier in my career while at Ogilvy & Mather, we always considered awareness purely in mass media terms, balanced with the twin towers of reach and frequency. In those days it was about hammering home a message in as many channels as budget would permit, as many times as the available media dollar could acquire. Tonnage in media spend was a thing and the share-of-voice advantage went to larger spenders. Hangover from this era of brand message carpet bombing still, unfortunately, exists.

Mass media is a relic. We have clear digital advantages today that level the competitive voice playing field for smaller brands and budgets. Social channels also enable a much closer, deeper relationship and dialogue with specialized consumer tribes. We can accentuate the best practices of audience focus and message customization because broadly targeted appeals in mass channels no longer apply.

Here we weigh in on Ten Steps to Better Sustainability Awareness to engage and endear your stakeholders.

1. Be where your audience is

Sounds a little like water is wet, but we often find that insight research doesn’t get the respect or attention it deserves. It’s how we get underneath the media consumption habits and preferences of a brand’s most prolific users. Hunches and assumptions here can divert outreach priorities down the wrong channels. Your goal is to emphasize the media they consume most often. You have to probe to know what that really looks like.

2. Show why you’re committed

The relationship you are trying to build with people is based on solving sustainability challenges and operating as a mirror to their beliefs and values on the journey. Your brand should be positioned as an enabler of their sustainable lifestyle aspirations, as well as an educator focused on helping them determine sustainable choices. Relevance to their environmental concerns is key to engagement and it will always be about them and not brand self-promotion, touting good corporate citizenship accolades.

3. Create “useful” branded content

Every time you solve a sustainability barrier or enable an aspirational activity people care about (you have to study to know what those activities might be) you earn trust, the most important component of any brand-to-consumer relationship. The litmus test for your content is its usefulness in helping or enabling your audience on the path to a sustainable lifestyle. Your consumer is always the story hero and the role your brand plays is always as coach and guide.

4. Take advantage of the publishing platforms

You should be present early and often in the right channels, depending on your category and audience priorities. YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, TikTok and Facebook can be addressed in optimized content that best fits the format of each platform. How you show up ought to be distinctive of your brand voice and personality – and focused on engagement, not re-treading old mass-marketing and self-promotion tactics.

5. Humanize your brand sustainability story

No corporate-speak or science-driven dissertation please. Instead present a human, conversational voice. If you’ve done your homework on brand archetype and narrative, your highly differentiated persona will shine through. Emotion is imperative and sustainability is an emotion-driven subject. This is a time to amplify your beliefs, values, commitments, standards and informed opinions on relevant sustainability performance goals and its value to your users’ lives.

6. Be a mirror

People like to see themselves in your stories, so hold up a mirror to them. Employ language they use (you have to know them to speak to them effectively). Your goal in storytelling is to generate a reflection of their concerns and motivations. It’s easier to talk about yourself, but that’s almost always going to lead to a disconnect because it means they are no longer the hero of the story. Determine what their sustainability concerns are, then speak to those priorities.

7. Storytelling

Stories are 22 times more likely to be remembered than fact telling. We love stories because we can see ourselves in the characters. We can relate to fears, struggles, challenges and triumphs. Wrap key messages inside stories where people can see themselves. Fact-based downloads won’t have the same stickiness and emotional staying power.

8. Focus on social media channels

Proof. Validation. Verification of what you want people to believe. Social media can be a rich trove of shared experience and advocacy. The voices of users carry more credibility than what your brand claims. You should encourage and facilitate sharing in the social platforms your customers use most often. Brand-created content should focus on education, help and emotion ahead of promotion.

9. Leverage your expertise

As a subject matter expert, you have a forum and a platform to be the knowledgeable guide. Elevate your voice and perspective on the larger more compelling sustainability issues your audience cares about – and then weigh in. Podcasts can be an excellent channel for this type of communication.

10. Harness editorial credibility

Beyond the digital paid advertising platforms of pay-per-click and paid social, editorial media placement is a powerful tool to deploy because it is inherently more trusted and credible. It stands as a form of education and information vs. straight promotion. Editorial requires focus on the problem solving and thus newsworthy aspects of what your brand has accomplished.

The Promised Example: sustainability awareness and education in action

Putting some of our Ten Steps to Better Sustainability Awareness to work, Emergent recently produced a sustainability education and information forum for food industry stakeholders.

(Read on to learn how this valuable content will be available to you.)

Here’s how it worked:

Current reports on the progress of the food industry’s sustainability transition planning show a gap between intention and measurable outcomes. To help bring the food and beverage industry further along the continuum, we recruited a panel of experts from some of the most influential organizations leading sustainability readiness and improvement.

Our theme: “Sustainability and the Future of Food” began as a live presentation at the Food Marketing Institute’s industry executive gathering, the MidWinter Executive Conference in January 2023. Here senior food industry leadership teams, both CPG brand and retailers, gathered to focus on key issues facing the industry in the year ahead.

Our experts included sustainability executives and senior executives from the leading organizations mapping the future of sustainability performance including PepsiCo, ADM, Change Foods (an emerging new technology player in precision fermentation tech), The Good Food Institute, the alternative protein’s industry association, and the team at Boston Consulting Group that produced landmark studies on the growth and potential impact of sustainable food technologies.

The sustainability messaging focus:

• Elevate understanding of the foundational reasons why the global food system is a significant contributor to climate threat (not sustainable), and the innovative, novel solutions that will forever shift where food comes from (future of food) and how it is produced.

• Reveal the foundational elements of sustainability best practices. Discuss how organizations can address the complex requirements for new standards, policies and systems required to decarbonize their businesses while offering consumers healthier, better tasting, affordable and sustainable food solutions.

• Introduce the face of new food production technologies now taking shape that are not dependent on carbon heavy, inefficient and vulnerable legacy supply chains to create the proteins necessary to nourish a growing global population.

• Inspire a path forward for evolutionary change that will maintain the U.S. food industry’s historic global leadership in bringing new solutions to the most challenging conditions the food industry has ever faced; addressing a sustainability mission that must be achieved to avoid the economic and societal impacts of future climate damage.

Emergent then extended the panel discussion to editorial media, with the speakers recently reprising their stories on readiness best practices and emerging technology for a two-hour, four-part video on best practices and the future of food. The series was produced in collaboration with Food Navigator. The videos will air in weekly installments early this summer at Food Navigator’s website.

The food industry’s sustainability concerns and activations are ramping up as consumer sentiment and interest is already steps ahead.

What are your next moves?

If you think it’s time to refresh your sustainability awareness- and engagement-generating strategies and investments, use this link and let’s talk about how best to design improvements.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

New report confirms ESG impact on business outcomes…

The consumer’s growing concern about sustainability and the environmental impact of food products is translating into behaviors on the path to purchase. A new study released by Glow, a Nielsen IQ research partner, affirms that ESG performance is impacting brand switching, preference and purchase.

• Glow reported their calculations that a brand with $500 million in sales and a Social Responsibility Score (SRS) that is 10 points higher than a similarly sized competitor, can expect to secure an additional $25 million in revenue over three years, on average.  

Glow’s study verified consumers are exercising choice by “shedding” brands that don’t meet their sustainability expectations, while also moving their allegiance to products that are more closely aligned with their values. In sum, consumers are increasingly regulating their purchases to operate in sync with their beliefs about environmental responsibility.

Sustainability driven brand switching – how much and which categories

The percentage of consumers switching brands based on their assessment of devotion to more sustainable behaviors and policies ranges currently between 30 and 40 percent. The categories where switching is occurring most often include:

Meat and seafood

Pantry (pasta, rice, condiments, oils)

Frozen

Pet

Bakery

Dairy

Don’t ignore the business driver – communications

The research also flagged that some brands aren’t getting the sustainability performance recognition they deserve, and thus aren’t seeing an impact on business outcomes. This happens because their environmental story isn’t breaking through. Glow’s report is a rallying cry for food brands to work harder to close the gap between rising consumer expectations of ESG commitments and actual progress towards credibly fulfilling and activating the brand’s sustainability story.

• Emergent’s recent Brand Sustainability Solution analysis of 25 food, beverage and lifestyle brands and retailers’ sustainability readiness, showed an almost universal weakness tracing back to sub-optimal communications efforts. Sustainability communications outreach to close the loop with consumers is missing or tepid. Read: not effective.

Glow’s study revealed the top five channels where consumers prefer to learn about ESG commitments:

1. News media
2. Product packaging
3. Advertising
4. Brand web site
5. Social media

News media scored highest because of its perceived credibility as a trusted third-party source. Packaging also tracked high given it’s a shelf-ready, shopper-facing place to get information. The most important on-pack claims to consumers were animal welfare, environmental impact, social responsibility and sustainable packaging.

According to Glow:

• Nine out of 10 consumers believe it is important for brands to act responsibly in their environmental policies and actions.

• One out of two consumers say they have changed brands based on their perceptions of ESG performance.

• 78% of consumers say brand purpose and values play an important role in their purchase decisions.

• 79% claim they are more loyal to brands with a clearly defined higher purpose.

• 85% believe it’s important for companies to act responsibly about climate impact.

• One in five rank ESG and sustainability in the top three purchase considerations alongside price and quality.

• Despite the challenges of inflation, sustainability commitments also provide a compelling reason not to trade down, especially among Millennial consumers.

Glow’s study analyzed the impact of 13 different ESG characteristics on consumer behavior. In the food category the most important considerations are:

1. Reducing emissions and climate change
2. Respecting natural resources (like water)
3. Protecting wildlife and eco-systems.

This study verifies what we at Emergent have been reporting now for over a year, that sustainability and environmental policies and commitments have formed one of the most important foundations of marketplace competitive advantage for the foreseeable future.

• Consumers are voting their preferences in the checkout lane and make decisions on the brands they prefer based on their perceptions of sustainability readiness.

When sustainability communications is just a quarterly progress report

Importantly, strategic communications cannot be underestimated in its relevant role to close the deal and convince consumers. And this goes way beyond regurgitating complex and often confusing scientific data points. Creative outreach works to connect investments in sustainability readiness progress with audiences most likely to act on that information. The absence of strong communications usually occurs when the sustainability team is not connected to the marketing team, or it operates as a stand-alone silo and isn’t integrated into the main go-to-market strategic plan.

• The Glow study validates that sustainability commitments, policies and performance isn’t just “talk” as far as consumers are concerned. It is impacting the “walk” of what goes in the shopping cart and gets purchased.

In our view, when organizations understand and act to secure the business benefits of sustainability investments, we will see more meaningful progress on the path to emission reductions and a healthier planet. And businesses will see consumer reciprocation in the form of enhanced brand preference, purchase intent and product movement. Sustainability is a business builder.

If you believe your sustainability strategies and communications could use fresh strategic eyes and a creative lift, use this link to start an informal dialogue around your questions.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.