Episode 47 Transcript: Daily Harvest CEO on Climate-Friendly Food and Organic Farming

Molly Wood:

Welcome to Everybody in the Pool, the podcast for the climate economy. We dive deep into the climate crisis and come up with solutions. I'm Molly Wood.

Molly Wood:

This week … we’re diving into the complicated and surprisingly carbon-intensive world … of food … what we eat … how we eat … how what we eat can be a major climate action … and how food companies themselves … can push for even MORE climate action … behind the scenes.

Molly Wood:

Let’s get into it …

Ricky Silver:

I'm Ricky Silver, the CEO at Daily Harvest, and we are a mission-driven food company built on organic fruits and vegetables. All of our chef-crafted meals are ready in minutes and help you find a healthy habit no matter what your goals are. And so just excited to be here with you.

Molly Wood:

Awesome. So I feel like there are possibly some people listening to this show about climate solutions and wanting to know why Daily Harvest is on the show. It is a one-to-one connection, I think, as I've covered in previous episodes. But I would love for just for us to level set on kind of the climate impact of the kind of eating that your company is promoting.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, so I think a couple things. I think increasingly people are starting to recognize the direct impact of the food choices we make, how our food is grown and the overall impact it has on both human health and planetary health. 

And, you know, I think for many years, the sort of food industries focus on waste and waste reduction was a big part of the climate discussion. But I think increasingly people are waking up to the reality that

Ricky Silver:

so much of the impact is actually coming from the agricultural side. How our food is raised and how ultimately we uplift different aspects of the food system have a direct impact on whether or not we will continue to see challenging climate ahead or we will come up with solutions that help address some of the greatest crises we're facing right now as a human race.

Molly Wood:

Tell me a little, I jumped right into the climate part of it, but tell me a little bit about the food itself for people who may not be familiar.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, so from our founding, we've been really based and built on the idea of people want to eat healthier. There's clearly an intent.

Ricky Silver:

there and yet it is very difficult right between busy lives and availability of food. There is a gap between what we all want to do and how what habits we form and so Daily Harvest was founded on this idea of if we can make it really easy to get a little bit more organically and sustainably grown fruits and vegetables into your

Ricky Silver:

diet, you're going to make a big difference in the habits you form on the long run. And so we make a range of offerings, all ready to eat in a handful of minutes with some basic easy prep at home, whether it be from our ready to blend smoothies or our ready to heat new pasta meals that we've just recently introduced. The idea is to make it quite easy, but most importantly, really delicious. And the variety we've been able to develop.

Ricky Silver:

primarily first within our direct to consumer online offering and now in retail stores across the country as we continue to roll out new distribution, has allowed many, many folks to try to find that balance, right? It's not about total overhaul. It's about really injecting some important regularity of those healthy ingredients on the fruit and vegetable side.

Molly Wood:

And then are they, they're also, are they exclusively vegan and or gluten-free or is that an option within kind of the choices?

Ricky Silver:

So, yeah, great question. All of our food is gluten-free. All of our food happens to be vegan because we're built on organic fruits and vegetables, but we are not explicitly a vegan brand. Many of our customers like to incorporate some of their favorite meat or dairy into the offerings. And it's been a big part of our ethos and our philosophy. And I think it's always true to what happens when people try to make,

Ricky Silver:

massive shifts in the way they eat, or in other forms of their life in terms of habits they form right around the gym. There's a reason why lots of people join a gym and then struggle to maintain that frequency is because habits are really hard to form. Exactly. Yeah. So for us, we've always felt it's critical to make the foundation of that healthy choice easier, but to still ensure that individuals are making those unique and varied choices for what makes sense for them.

Molly Wood:

What? I don't know what you're talking about. No one does.

Molly Wood:

Right, I think that it isn't, there was some research that just came out that talked about a flexitarian diet. Right, I think that there's this sense that as with every issue we ever talk about, it is all or nothing, it is black or white, it is vegan or nothing, and it feels like that's just not the case, as you're saying.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, and I do think there's, going back to the connection between human health and climate, I do think there's a real strong recognition that a greater plant-based diet leads to more biodiversity and more plant-based agriculture, which on its own right helps limit some of the impact of some of the more conventional sort of meat and dairy aspects of the farming world, but we're certainly not of the mind that again, the answer is to,

Ricky Silver:

simply turn off the switch, right? We're talking about meaningful complex change that needs to happen to ensure the food system is driving the right outcomes, again, both for human health and planetary health. And so we see ourselves as a change agent towards that. And honestly, recognize how hard it is to make the level of change we're trying to make.

Molly Wood:

So I think most people know Daily Harvest as a meal kit or a delivery service. But I want to put a fine point on this because it's a big deal. At the time that we are talking, by the time our listeners hear this, you will have launched in Target and some other really big retailers. Congratulations. Brag on it.

Ricky Silver:

That's correct. Yeah.

Ricky Silver:

Thank you. Yeah, it's been a huge part of our strategy and our development. And candidly, it always was. We built an incredible brand through the direct to consumer business model. It was, you know, we were one of the pioneers in many ways of that growth opportunity. And the brand that we've built is incredible for it. But the truth is, we have a fair amount of.

Ricky Silver:

individuals across the country that are aware of Daily Harvest or interested in Daily Harvest, but have never tried us. And rolling out into new partners first last year, our first exclusive national partner in Kroger and Harris Teeter banners across the country in 1200 stores, followed by Target, which we just announced this past week. Very exciting. We also had our first rotation in Costco, which was incredibly exciting to see.

Ricky Silver:

And I think what we're noticing, and honestly, it's what we believe we would see, is that being able to find Daily Harvest now in the places you're already shopping elsewhere is allowing people to try us and get that first experience and get more excited to learn more, right? What else does Daily Harvest have to offer? And I think that's one of the reasons why we compete in breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacking occasions, because we believe.

Ricky Silver:

we're uniquely set up to create solutions for folks throughout the day. We're not just a breakfast offering, for example. We really allow people to form habits throughout the day. And whether you find us in stores or online, we wanna make sure we're showing up for you in the best way we can.

Molly Wood:

A little more on the product and then I want to talk about kind of the big picture in sourcing. Talk to me about packaging. This is like everybody's bugaboo in a meal kit. How are you approaching this and what are you doing to just give me the least amount of plastic possible? I mean, first of all, the containers already are better than, you know, a meal kit where everything is in an individual little bag.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah. So I actually started my career in the packaging space. And so I know first and foremost that every company that is in the consumer packaged good is not just responsible for this, but it's really committed to working to find solutions. And we know it's hard, right? I think no matter what you're offering, consumers expect the highest quality. They expect the food in particular to be kept safe. And there are certain

Ricky Silver:

dynamics of packaging that is required to uphold those things, particularly if you're thinking about a frozen supply chain. And so we take a philosophy of always looking to drive continuous improvement on the packaging choices we make. From the first time I joined the company six and a half years ago to now, we've made a lot of changes in the packaging that both the product is packaged in and also the packaging that the product arrives in.

Ricky Silver:

to try to do more to get more curbside recyclable, more compostable options in the mix. But it is a balance. And I think this is one area where I personally wish the industry did a better job collaborating on. I think I tell the story quite a bit, but early days of my career, I was almost laughed out of a room for suggesting the big players collaborate on a large scale, bio-based.

Ricky Silver:

plastic project, why not, right? Everyone wants to be first. Everyone wants to try to get the credit for it. But the truth is everyone's responsible. And this is one area I really wish the industry did more to partner. But we've got great, an internal team and great partners on the sourcing front that are looking for solutions constantly and trying to find creative ways to again, improve both the recyclability, the compostability.

Molly Wood:

Yeah.

Ricky Silver:

or in some cases the reuse of materials, closing the loop. But that work will never be done, I would say. And I think companies that want to check the box on sustainable packaging, there's no box checking. It is work that we will just always have to continually do.

MW VO:

Time for a quick break. When we come back, how Daily Harvest is trying to incentivize more organic farming … to feed its own product. Pun intended

MW VO:

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool. We’re talking with Ricky Silver … CEO of Daily Harvest … about sustainable farming practices and how to get more farmers to go organic …

Molly Wood:

So I wanna ask you about the backend of this business because obviously agriculture...

Molly Wood:

is like where the fruits and vegetables come from. Sustainable practices are a big part of the climate conversation. How do you think about that and sourcing?

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, so I think this is spot on to the area of focus that we really feel like we can be thought leaders and drivers of change on our theory of change really is at the intersection between what food we eat and how that food is grown. And so there's a couple of themes that I think have emerged the last couple of years, albeit like a lot of things not necessarily net new, but I think have started to gain a lot of traction. So for one, there's a lot of.

Ricky Silver:

heightened discussion around regenerative agriculture, which is great. Regenerative agriculture is the idea that the practice is deployed on the farm. And in actually, quite frankly, the pricing models is meant to uplift not just the farmers that grow up, but also drive impact and the health of the soil in particular, where there's an opportunity to really reverse some of the impacts of climate change and actually see agriculture as a solution, not just something that

Ricky Silver:

needs to be net reduced. We have a, yeah.

Molly Wood:

What can I interject? What can you, what do you know about those practices? I think it's like a term that people hear a lot. I don't want to put you on the spot as the agriculture expert, but to the extent that you can, what does it mean specifically?

Ricky Silver:

Yeah. No, no. So it turns out a lot of those practices have been around for generations and they really are the foundation of farming from the get-go. It's how do you put more in than you take out? So some of the most specific practices that are getting deployed in more recent, sort of getting covered more, I should say, around basic things like cover cropping, no-till, right? These types of applications that

Ricky Silver:

ensure that the nutrients that are in the soil and the carbon that gets sequestered in the soil remains there. One of the things that's happened for a long time with the conventional agricultural system is, as we've looked to get more and more out and really focused on yield, it's depleted the sort of both nutrient and microbiome of the soil, and it means that we're having to put more and more

**inputs like chemical pesticides into the system to get that same type of output each and every year. 

And so it is a very extractive system. The regenerative practices are meant to ensure that the soil itself, the agricultural land can thrive for the long term without having to overcome that extraction and put in more direct inputs. And so that gets to the real sort of core of our belief system, which is

Ricky Silver:

Regenerative is key, but we really see organic as a foundation to regenerative. We struggle with the idea that you can get to regenerative without organic being a core principle of it. And which is why we feel so strongly about being not just investors in the organic sourcing, but also investing in more organic transition. Less than 2% of farmland is grown organically.

Ricky Silver:

And the demand has certainly grown over the last couple of years, but it's going to require more than just a demand and supply game for these practices to be adopted and deployed. There's a lot of risk. Farmers each and every year take on a ton of risk to ensure that we are all well fed. And that risk is largely blind to the consumer, right? We walk up and down the grocery aisle, you know, take a look at the quality of the produce and

Molly Wood:

Yeah.

Ricky Silver:

choose organic or not. But at the end of the day, the farming community each and every year is tackling the uncertainty of the market, the uncertainty of climate, the uncertainty of the crop performance. And so we have dove really head first into the area of that risk to better understand it first and foremost, and then to figure out models that help take some of that risk off the table.

Ricky Silver:

very explicitly the transition period to move from conventional farming to organic is a three year time period in which farmers are growing organically, making that transition, but they are not yet certified on that plot of land, which means they're not selling that output at the organic pricing. 

Most will know, right, as you go to the grocery store, organic tends to be more expensive than conventional, and that goes all the way back to the farmer as well. And so we've been working both as a direct contractor in some cases, contracting with the farmers, and other cases through some of our unique partnerships to try to fund and support that transition period to take some of the financial risk off the table.

Molly Wood:

Interesting. So you become almost like to use the parlance of energy and off-taker. You say, we will buy this product from you at what would otherwise be organic prices to encourage you to make this transition at a premium.

Ricky Silver:

At a premium, yeah, at a premium to the conventional price to help accelerate. And again, you know, I think just like anything that's complex, it's, it's you learn what works and what doesn't along the way. I think, you know, one of the things I'm, I'm actually most proud of is what we've learned that doesn't work or, you know, we thought would work in a way that was more clean and more turns out it's more complicated than that. Um, you know, I think this is a, a complex ecosystem. And so.

Ricky Silver:

Simply brands like ours contracting may not be the only solution, which is why we're also exploring other exciting sort of multi public private type partnership models that can help either directly provide grant funding for farmers who are looking to make that transition also provide wraparound services. Many of these farmers are on the smaller side and you know may not have all the necessary

Ricky Silver:

tools they need to be able to file the documentation and actually build the organic systems plans. Right, it's not just the sort of decision to grow organically, it's also the ability to be audited and validated that those practices are being deployed. And so this last year, the government has done a really tremendous job prioritizing organic for probably the largest investment we've seen in a long time, looking to make more grant.

Ricky Silver:

dollars available and looking to uplift and provide the type of support systems through nonprofit organizations for those farmers that are looking for it. And so we see this sort of support system coming from nonprofits and the government and demand guarantees coming from businesses like ourselves as really strong incentives to get more farmland growing organically.

Molly Wood:

Let's do another definition quickly because even organic is a term that confuses people and doesn't always have, from my understanding, super stringent standards attached to it, or at least consistent standards. So talk to me about the certification process and what is required.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, there actually, there is a pretty strict and stringent standard. I think, you know, this. No, no, all good. I think what is good is there's also been a recognition that there needs to be more put into the management of those standards, right? The, the rigor in which we are actually ensuring that both domestically and, you know, product that's imported from international.

Molly Wood:

Good, great. See, I repeated some like meat misinformation probably.

Ricky Silver:

sources is following those standards. And so organic itself is one of the first and probably most successful certifications that have been created in this way, where I think the standards while they continue to evolve are very clear and very stringent. Making sure that there's sufficient oversight, I think has been a big priority of actually the organic movement, as well as pushing the USDA and much of the new policies that have come out.

Ricky Silver:

around strengthening the organic enforcement are specific to that push. So that's great. I think what is maybe less known is what are the actual core differences and benefits. And so I think this is actually where the organic movement and brands that are associated with organic have long relied on the organic certification and seal as sort of this signal of premium.

Ricky Silver:

Um, with, we actually haven't done, I think, as good of a job as we can in, in communicating what the benefits are in this case, right? We're, you know, the primary difference being not putting chemical pesticides into use, which I think is probably the most well-known, um, difference. Um, which is great. I mean, less kept chemical pesticides in the soil and less chemical pesticides in all of our bodies, I think would be a, you know, uh, a pretty.

Ricky Silver:

easy bar for everyone to agree to, that would be good. And I think maybe what we're starting to see now, and again, this goes back to that connectivity between the regenerative movement, is that there's actually a real benefit to the capacity of the soil and the land that is being grown when it is grown organically. And so starting to really hone in on the scientific differences between what happens on the land and then what happens to the food that we're all eating.

Molly Wood:

Right.

Ricky Silver:

the nutrient density or the nutrient quality of organic produce being higher. How do we make that a more clear selling point? Again, not just for daily harvest, but for anyone who's really pushing the organic movement as something that needs to be supported and expanded.

Ricky Silver:

So it's very easy to say no pesticides. I think it's harder to say,

Ricky Silver:

And here are the positive benefits that are happening on the land. But because of the heightened connectivity and awareness of what's happening on the climate change side, I think we're all seeing a greater opportunity for the organic movement to make that case stronger.

Molly Wood:

like no pesticides and also bees, yay. Right.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, right, right. And also, you know, more resilient land that can grow food for us 20 years from now, right? And I think that's the other thing we take for granted in the food world is as temperatures change, as, you know, soil degrades, where we get some of the things we all think of as, you know, basics is gonna shift drastically over the next couple of years, let alone decades.

Molly Wood:

I wonder from your vantage point, what have you already seen? Like what have you already had to adapt to?

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, I mean, not just from daily harvest, but from, you know, as a consumer and someone who lives in the industry, I think you see consistently many of the core commodities we grew up on already shifting and sort of where they're grown or in the types of new emerging threats that exist. Oranges has kind of come in and out of the press cycles for many years now, but the threat to

Ricky Silver:

Orange juice, which you think about as you're sort of, we've all grown up on having a cup of orange juice on the table. The Florida orange and sort of domestic orange production is going to be threatened by climate change. Bananas, something we think about, again, one of the most basic fruits that you think of starting on from a very young age is already being threatened by climate change. And climate change, both in terms of

Ricky Silver:

The temperature for sure, right? We think about the elevations of temperatures across the world is a big problem. But I think increasingly people are also understanding that climate change means less predictable, more disruptive climate events. It also means the emergence of pests that may or may not have existed for that particular plant previously. So invasive pests that come in and actually are very difficult to destroy.

Ricky Silver:

without chemical pesticides. And so that's why this becomes even more urgent to invest in because you could get to a place decades from now where you don't have tools in your toolbox to contend with the issues that we are facing. And this is a great thing that, great example came up in a discussion we were having. We were visiting some farmers in Montana a couple of years ago now and talking about the possibility of doing some of this transitional programming.

Molly Wood:

Right.

Ricky Silver:

And one of the things that was raised was oftentimes in the sort of cycles of growth in the Montana region, things like lentils and chickpeas are great to incorporate into organic practices. But after three or four or five cycles of growing, new pests may emerge. And if the science at the university level or at the government level isn't keeping up with that, and there isn't an organic solution when that new pest emerges, well, now you're

Ricky Silver:

decision of do I grow wildly and efficiently, or do I take the risk of not getting the yield I need, or do I have to bring that land back into conventional farming? And I think that's the other big takeaway for us. And I think our team has felt it really sincerely is this is not really a linear work stream. It's like new challenges will emerge. And so I think it goes back to maybe the most important theme of all of this work is partnership matters. And you know,

Molly Wood:

Mm-hmm.

Ricky Silver:

commitment to risk management matters because this sort of typical dynamics within agriculture of sort of annual cycles and annual contracting and things like that aren't going to really lead to innovative thinking when the issues we're dealing with are, you know, constantly emerging and constantly changing.

Molly Wood:

Yeah. Let's talk about incentives writ large. So what is the incentive for a small to mid-size farmer to make that shift?

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, I mean, I think what we've seen is there's certainly the financial incentive that exists. You know, the premium from organic to conventional is there. And I think as the market and the demand continues to move that direction, many of the commodities that could be grown organically have, you know, potentially a greater number of customers that are interested at that smaller scale. And so the sort of demand.

Ricky Silver:

outstripping the supply as a natural incentive for some of the smaller farmers. Now, what that makes that, yeah. And I think, you know, on the other hand, what we will not surprise you at all, many of the smaller farmers are dedicated to their farming practice and their land in a way that I think is actually way more connected back to, you know, how we should all think about our food as coming from the land and as...

Molly Wood:

Right. People want it and they're willing to pay more. Yep.

Molly Wood:

Yep.

Ricky Silver:

the land is something we need to invest in. And so a lot of the incentive for those farmers in particular is just doing what they believe is better for the land that they manage. And again, so that comes back to it's like, it's not so much a, is there an interest or is there a market? It's a, how do you create the support system to take some of that risk off the table? Exactly.

Molly Wood:

Right, because they do care, obviously. Yeah, they live in nature. Yeah.

Ricky Silver:

Yeah, and I think, you know, it's very different to walk up and down a grocery store aisle and make that decision versus when you're, you know, on your fields and in your soil all day, every day, you see the difference.

MW VO:

Ricky Silver … CEO of Daily Harvest … trying to fix food on the farm side and the table side … like so many small brands out there trying to give us BETTER food … that’s also better for the planet. Eat wisely, friends.

MW VO:

And … that's it for this episode of Everybody in the Pool. Thank you so much for listening.

MW VO:

Email me your thoughts and suggestions to in at everybody in the pool dot com and find all the latest episodes and more at everybody in the pool dot com, the website. And if you want to become a subscriber and get an ad free version of the show, hit the link in the description in your podcast app of choice.

MW VO:

Thank you to those of you who already have. 

See you next week.