Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
320 Matthijs Westerwoudt - Paying farmers for cultivating weeds and making biodiversity super tasty by selling drinks and teas made from native plants
Matthijs Westerwoudt is the co-founder of Wilder Land, a company transforming native plants, often considered weeds, into highly desirable products. These plants, once dismissed as unwanted, are now being used to create delicious drinks, herbal teas, kombuchas, fermented teas, and even pasta. The company pays farmers more per square meter than they would earn from any other crop. How do they achieve this? First, by ensuring that these products taste as good as, or even better than, those made from monoculture crops. Second, through exceptional branding—highlighting the appeal of "nature-restoring" drinks over the concept of "biodiversity-restoring" beverages. The secret to success lies in continuous testing and refinement. In short, they are making biodiversity not just important, but incredibly tasty.
In the Netherlands, many things are well-organized, but the country also holds the unfortunate title of being a world leader in biodiversity loss. This raises the question: how can farmers be compensated for the extra biodiversity they create or support? While the idea of biodiversity credits might come to mind, these are difficult to measure and not yet fully developed. Wilder Land found a different solution for it.
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In the Netherlands. A lot of things are organized pretty well, but it's also the world champion in biodiversity laws. So how do you make sure farmers get paid for the extra biodiversity they create, or better, facilitate? I can hear you think credits, but they are very hard to measure and not even there yet. Today we explore a company that basically figured out a way to do it by taking native plants, weeds or better ingredients, formerly known as weeds autonomous plants that want to grow and turn them into very, very tasty drinks Herbal teas, kombuchas, fermented teas and even pasta, paying farmers more per square meter than anything else they grow. How? First, flavor this has to taste better or as good as the drinks from Monoland. Second, really super desirable branding. Apparently, nature restoring drinks sell better than biodiversity restoring. Who knew that? How do you know? By test, test, test. In short, making biodiversity super, super tasty. Of course, none of this is easy, but, as we find out, they have so many other products in mind and there's so many possibilities to eat and drink your local biodiversity. Many possibilities to eat and drink your local biodiversity.
Speaker 1:This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast. Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume, and it's time that we as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt slash, soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means consider joining us. Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg. That is gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg. That is gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg, or find the link below.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode. We have a lot of background noise. I'm going to call it noise, but it's not because there's a beautiful bird concert going around. I'm very happy with the weather as well, because there was predicted a lot of rain. It might be coming in the afternoon. That might change some of the recordings in the afternoon, but this morning we're very fortunate to be able to walk the land a bit with Matthijs, co-founder of Wilderland, and we're going to walk a bit of Wilderland that used to be a monoculture golf course, as you called it. You claimed it before. But let's start with a personal question. We always love to ask what made you start Wilderland, of course, but also you think and and smell and taste biodiversity and how to make it tasty, because it's sort of your, your tagline most of your awake hours of the of the day. Let's say how did you roll into the biodiversity space?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh, wow, uh. First of all, thanks for having me and us in this podcast. Great honor, yeah. What made me go into this field? I think it was Commonland, and Dan and I started Wilderland like five years ago and I think eight years ago. I learned about Commonland and it was like for me, like like wow, you can have a business and create natural capital. How cool is that and it's scary.
Speaker 1:I like a landscape, landscape restoration at big scale. We're gonna interview Willem the founder soon with some of his colleagues we've interviewed before. I will link them below and so it might be out around this time. And anyway, common land is definitely. Go to the website. Yeah, you haven't heard about it.
Speaker 2:And there was. On the Dutch television. There's a documentary series called Tegenlicht and they made two episodes about Common Land and landscape restoration. It's called Groen Goud or Green Gold, and that was a huge inspiration as well, because in that series you see like degraded lands becoming lush and green again and then learning about that. There's like a holistic business case model behind that, and that for me was like okay, I want to do something with this.
Speaker 1:What were you doing at the time?
Speaker 2:At the time, I was working at a creative project management firm doing all sorts of projects for big multinationals in the Netherlands but also internationally, which, for me, was I always wanted to become an entrepreneur, or all these side hustles, and was doing all kinds of stuff. And I thought, yeah, I want to create a business for myself, always interested in the field of sustainability. But uh, while thinking so, I worked at the company to gain experience, network and and some professional skills. But while working there, I was always thinking, okay, what, what, what will be the thing I I'll, I'll start my own business in. And what I found out is that, especially working for all these big corporations and multinationals, I thought like, yeah, sustainability is only about doing less bad in this field. So I wasn't inspired by that.
Speaker 2:And then, while thinking of what, what, what kind of business, I did this thought experiment. So what if it will become a huge success? What if the product, service, whatever I'm bringing to the world, let's say, the whole world will start using it? Will it be a solution or a new problem? And and by doing that all the time, like I know this product, yeah, more garbage, or maybe this type of food, more monocultures, if it really scales. So a good example like, let's say, biological tea from organic tea from Sri Lanka. Yes, it's more sustainable than conventional tea, but it will be a new problem if the whole world starts drinking organic tea from Sri Lanka. Because more monoculture, less rainforest. So, and all the time, every time I did this thought experiment with ideas.
Speaker 2:I was like demotivated like, oh no, I cannot do this because it will be more garbage, more monoculture, whatever. And then when I learned about common land, it was like, wow, if, if your starting point from a business point of view can be creating natural capital or or restoring nature, biodiversity, whatever, then the bigger you grow as a business, the more nature returns. And then it was like, wow, how cool is that? Um, so then I was like, okay, yeah, as if regeneration is the starting point, uh. And then I was like, I want to create a business, uh, in that field.
Speaker 2:And, um, then, coincidentally, I, I walked into dan again, we, we met, uh three years before that because he was an intern at the company I worked. And then I heard that he started working at Commonland and I was already oh wow, are you working at Commonland? And then we met again on King's Day and I was like, yeah, I want to start a business. And he said, yeah, me too. And then we decided to start a business in the Netherlands inspired by the Common Land model, and then we quit our jobs. We had no clue what to do, but we had the feeling this feels right, let's dive into this field of landscape restoration, nature recovery, regeneration, whatever.
Speaker 1:And then what, and then what. Like you quit your job, which is going from seeing something on TV to walking into an old colleague or ex-colleague and both venting this idea of I want to start something, which I think many people have, but then actually quitting. First of all, yes and no, because we're in a fortunate position like you probably would find something else, like if the worst yeah, we thought we'll take a year and if we cannot find a, year, yeah, and probably we'll find another job and do some freelance and work on the site.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, yeah. So then we started. So in the netherlands you have, which is uh like the common land common land project north of Amsterdam.
Speaker 2:Yes, the landscape, yeah, yeah yeah, and of course, dan, we had this whole common land Weiland network. So we went to them and we said like, okay, we want to create a business. And we thought maybe we can become this business developer, because both Dan and I had this background a bit like entrepreneurial and we thought, and we have, like from studies, a background in psychology and business administration, nothing ecology or agro or whatever but we thought maybe we can create a business and we had this already, this super ambitious idea. Maybe we can become the regenerative Unilever. Okay, yeah, let's start, start. And then so we started talking with farmers, um, just like okay, how did that first one go?
Speaker 1:like, how do you? You sit at the kitchen table. How do you? Do you still remember the first farmer you talked to, yes, or for what turned into wild, etc. But like the first one, you sat at his or her kitchen table. What, what was it seen like?
Speaker 2:yeah, so the the cool thing was that a lot of farmers were really open to talk with us about like, new ideas, or and what, what, what, yeah, so we, it was like that. What struck me was that most farms are like, yeah, I want to be as sustainable as possible, I would love to, and, yes, the future will not be as we do it today, but what that future looks like we don't know. But, yes, we're open. So they were really open because we said maybe we can find market and what are your ideas. And then they were so open to talk with us about all these Because your idea was farmers wouldn't be open, or your your.
Speaker 2:We never talked to a farmer in this way and just. And so they were really open, taking the time with us to think about like, so so we, on one hand, we talked to farmers so what, what things do you see? But what opportunities do you? And then, but most farms that they were into go that we should do something with dairy or meat, and we were like there's already so much dairy and so much meat, so but okay, and we talked to two ecologists, so okay, we need it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is?
Speaker 2:needed we? We want to do something that contributes to nature, biodiversity. What should we do? And they said, yeah, less monocultures and more native plants. And so, okay, let's okay. And we went back to this farmer.
Speaker 1:We heard more native plants, so your ryegrass monoculture might be yes, yeah, how can we?
Speaker 2:change that? Yeah, and also, when we started, we also looked at the Netherlands. So, and then, from a nature perspective, if you look into the Netherlands, like what, what is what is going on? So we're one of the best in the world when it comes to agriculture or intensive uh, but we're world champion biodiversity loss.
Speaker 1:It was okay you never hear that. Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's definitely the. But then biodiversity is such an a big thing, or a big theme as well, like where do you even start?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it's too abstract. And we thought how can we turn biodiversity into a business model for farmers and for ourselves? So that was our credits, yeah, yeah. But. And then we thought, how do we do that?
Speaker 2:and then farmers and for yeah, especially for farmers because in theory, like 65 percent of the netherlands is managed by farmers. So in theory, if you can change their way of working into a, into a model that the more biodiversity they allow on their land, the more they earn, wow, then in theory you could have a huge impact on biodiversity. So we thought like, okay, we need to work. So it needs to work for the farmers. It needs to be integrated into their business model as well. The farmers it needs to be integrated into their, their business model as well. So again, yeah, the ecologist said more native plants and less monoculture. So we went back to these farmers and, okay, we're hearing that we need to allow more native. And then they say, yeah, those are weeds. We don't want weeds. We cannot make any money with weeds because the, the, we all, we already don't earn any money. So we need every square meter of our land to be super productive. It's the most densely populated country in the world with super intensive agricultural industry, super expensive land.
Speaker 2:Super expensive. So then every square meter. And there is the tension between production and biodiversity, because then, yeah, so from the perspective of a bee, there's no flower to land on in the Netherlands Because farmers cannot make any money on dandelions or plantain or chamomile. So yeah, these farmers said, yeah, those are weeds, we cannot make any money with weeds.
Speaker 2:And then we went back to these ecologists, like what kind of plants, what kind of native plants are we talking about? You say native, what's that? And then they said, yeah, it's chamomile, nettle, plantain, dandelion. And we said, oh, you said chamomile, that sounds like tea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can make tea.
Speaker 2:And then we thought, okay, but this is too simple. We thought like, okay, probably there's already a lot of chamomile coming from the Netherlands. And then we did some research on herbal tea and we found out that most of the chamomile in the big, big herbal tea brands is coming from Egypt or India. And then we thought, wow, so chamomile grows like weed in the Netherlands and you can make tea, but all kinds of other products from it. And then we saw that a lot of other, like dandelion, plantain, also are common ingredients in herbal tea. And then we thought, oh, wow, if we can sell local herbal tea to people in the Netherlands, then we can transform these weeds into a crop. And if we can make crops from weeds, then we can pay farmers for yeah, we can For biodiversity, for their weeds, yeah, for their weeds.
Speaker 2:And so then that's how we started. We thought, oh well, let's start with tea. And then from there we said let's start with tea, and maybe we'll find out all kinds of other products, and a few years later we have a whole range of products, all made from local native plants weeds, but also not formally known as weeds. Yeah, so we call it unherbal tea.
Speaker 1:And so now, like, how many years ago was like, when did you plant your first crop or your, when did you harvest your first weeds?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so five years, in January, we got the idea of tea and we started. And then, so five years ago, yeah, we started with the first seeds and a few farmers that said like, okay, this idea is so crazy, I'll help you guys. And were they scared?
Speaker 1:Like how do you find your first farmers? Because I think also a lot of the notion around the plant, formerly known as weed, is that it's going to affect my crop next to it, it's going to spread, it's like somehow this negative charge with it is quite strong. So how do you find the first? I mean, now it's different, because you have a lot of data, you can show a lot of things, but those first three, five, whatever the number was in that year, five years ago how do you sit at a kitchen table? We're going to plant something that you're actively trying to not have on?
Speaker 2:your farm and kill. Yeah, because we were talking about it from a business perspective and we're going to pay for it. We're going to pay for it and then okay, yeah, but, and that's also because we we had this, uh, we we knew the people from weiland and they have a whole network of more progressive or farmers that are open to also that want to in some way work towards more regenerative farming practices.
Speaker 2:So that was a huge benefit for us that via via them we could. We set a table at farmers that were already willing, but because we said like we wanna pay you for this and it needs to be, the income needs to be higher than you earn now per square meter.
Speaker 1:And that's fascinating. So just to give a mental picture, like for people I mean everybody's listening Like what kind of farm was that the first one? Classic dairy like. What kind of farm was that the first one? Classic dairy like. What should we imagine?
Speaker 2:when we think about where you planted this chamomile or where you planted this mix so the first farm that was, uh, hank, and he's like, yeah, classic dairy farm, uh, organic already, and actually he told us a lot about the benefits of herbs for cows and whatever, but still he was an organic farmer. But he said, but it was monoculture.
Speaker 1:Classic organic.
Speaker 2:Classic organic classic pasture and there we bought the seeds. And on the day he said do you guys even know how to sow? We said we have no clue, tell us. And on the day we and he said do you guys even know how to sow?
Speaker 1:we have no clue, tell them like on the side, like you should imagine the classic pasture, and then where you plant it, like not in the middle, I'm imagining no, no, it wasn't, but most farms, they all.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's on the side, sometimes next to a pot for the cows or whatever. Every farmer has some area where they say like ah okay, try there, because the ground is not super, and so that was also part of our model. We wanted to start really small because you can say to a farmer okay, look, uh, watch this biggest little farm video.
Speaker 2:This is the future, good luck good luck and then most farms are like ah, we love that, but how, um, what, what is the first step? And so we thought we need to find a model where the first step, like, is a super small, easy baby step. So we started with like thousand square meters. We said like we'll pay for the seeds and we'll give you and you rent the land.
Speaker 1:Basically, yeah, we rent, we rent the land, and land was anyway unproductive in a corner somewhere. So this is pure extra money pure, extra money and easy.
Speaker 2:So no regret, easy to start, no risk, no risk. Yes, we'll take the risk and for us that was a model. Just let's start, let's see how do you?
Speaker 1:sow that first thousand square meters by hand.
Speaker 2:And then at first we thought, if you sow the things you sow, they'll come up right, that's how it works. But then, oh goddammit, at this place all the seeds were eaten by birds. Then you see, the it's not as simple as that.
Speaker 1:Harvesting weeds for tea sounds herbal tea sounds very easy.
Speaker 2:Okay. So we started completely mixed but we thought, like in the end we want to help farmers transition step by step towards agroforestry. We thought that's a nice end.
Speaker 1:North star.
Speaker 2:North star, but let's start with the first strip. So then we started. Let's start with a mixed strip of wildflowers, see what works, and then so we sowed at some places. And then three months later we came back, it was buzzing with insects.
Speaker 1:And that's a nice thing with these kind of pioneering, formerly known as weeds, they if they find the right native plants. They explode, yeah, they're like explode with life extreme magnets for for life.
Speaker 2:And and what the cool thing was, is that the farmers that that that work. That's like, wow, I. I always get a smile on my face if I drive by this because I see the dragonflies, butterflies, bees there and we just like, wow, oh, we weren't expecting that you would be so happy with this, but that's already, and it wasn't.
Speaker 1:you didn't even pay yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't even that's already a win. So it was important let's start, let's do something. And then in the first year we found out that if you mix, we thought oh nice, intercropping, but it was way too complex because we had too much things.
Speaker 1:How do you then later separate?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we separated, we did it by hand and we experimented with all kinds of things. And some plants, yes, they can grow together, but most of the things, but. And then we thought, yes, this is a first, the mixed strip is a first step. And then we said like, okay, we'll go into strip cropping, because then you can have one strip of chamomile, one strip of blackcurrant, one strip of hazelnut, whatever, and so that's the second step for a farmer. So do you like this way of working?
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, we'll do a second, and then it becomes a bit more productive and then we can even pay you more for the for the yield or per kilo, just uh, and is that now still the case that you strive to pay the farmers per square meter more than what they're earning now, on whatever they regularly do? Yeah, and you, you may. Yeah, you, you're able to do that yeah, yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's really important that we pay the farmers right or a good price, Because otherwise they say like if we say, yeah, we need the chamomile, or it needs to be cheaper, then they say, yeah, get it from India. Or they say, yeah, it can be cheaper, but then I need to get a bigger field and go into monoculture again. So we need to get the price we pay for the farmers needs to be, yeah, relatively high, um, because otherwise they say I'll go back to onions or or dairy or whatever and and does it like for some of the farmers you work with now, five years in, does it make a difference like meaningful financially?
Speaker 1:is it, uh, starting to become?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, so it's. Building your whole business on herbs and on native plants is not a it's not a good idea, I would say. But um, and, as also the place we are, uh, currently walking, it's like a regenerative permaculture. They, they started from scratch. But the good thing with the herbs is that you can harvest from the first year. So the business model on agroforestry.
Speaker 2:So from year one you'll have revenue, because it's which is not to be underestimated yes, and of course it's not something you can build your whole business on, but and I think, for the place where now they like 10% of their revenue they see in the future can come from herbs. So okay, great, yeah resilient in drought, etc.
Speaker 1:They mostly do really well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it grows like weed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's not to be it doesn't compete necessarily. I mean in space a bit, but not not a lot so and what we see is that that.
Speaker 2:So we also work with a farmer. He used to grow only hops and so in between these rows of hops it was like bare soil, weeding everything. And now in between these rows, he's gone wild with all kind of plants for us and he's like, wow, in summer it's full of insects.
Speaker 1:So your goal of getting farmers to take that first tiny step, profitable step, or at least cashflow positive, and then hopefully getting their minds to see diversity as a potential, not just as a cost, not a competition I get more insects now I'm scared, et cetera, et cetera, that seems to be working. Yes, yes, Because we asked this farmer.
Speaker 2:Would you ever go back?
Speaker 1:And he said never.
Speaker 2:So even if we would stop not paying that much for the weeds, he would say I would always leave these weeds there because I don't have to spray. All the benefits of more biodiversity he sees. And also the thing that's also nice working with yeah, you can explain people how it should be done, but showing or go to your neighbor, he's working with us.
Speaker 1:See what you think about it. Like we see that I think Alfonso I don't remember Of La Junququera we've interviewed yannick. They saw the no fence systems of virtual fencing for their cattle at the neighbor and the neighbor was super happy and and then that triggered and and you can do all the research online you want, but, as you see, your neighbor is happy paying the bills, you pay on time and harvest and don't make a mess then and you do that every year. Then yeah, of course it's better. Do you get a lot of neighbors of your farmers?
Speaker 2:starting to recharge, like we would love. We would love to, yeah, so at the moment, we have a waiting list of farmers that want to work with us. So there's there's way more farmers that would love to take that first or second or third step into becoming more diverse. Uh, and that's yeah. So the bigger we grow, the more, the more we can do with farmers.
Speaker 1:Um which sort of satisfies your starting question like what if we do we all do this? Or what if the whole world ends up doing this like we? We, I think, could argue it might be plateau at some point, but we could all use more biodiversity everywhere and more diversity. And then, yeah, how do you sell it? Like, what's the market side? Because now of your waiting list, that means, yeah, if you would sell more, you could work with more farmers. Yes, but at the beginning, what was the first product that came out of that first trial? And how do you even go about, um, getting getting some revenue, because you have to pay the farmers. Of course you can do it for a bit of trial, but at some point it needs to start to turn.
Speaker 2:The first thing we actually did was create a website to test the market, because we were like how do we sell biodiversity? How do you sell it?
Speaker 1:to a consumer. The first thing you did, even before going to Chamomile and before, was setting up a website.
Speaker 2:Yes, because that big and we thought like, okay, we need to be vertically integrated, the shortest chain as possible. So direct to consumer is a logical step. So, okay, let's start a website. And then we felt like, yeah, t is nice to start with this because it can go through the mailbox.
Speaker 1:And it's not fresh. It doesn't need to if it's two days late.
Speaker 2:So there was also a thing we said, like we don't want to go in fresh things because I think like fresh vegetables or fruits, as a farmer sell them as close as direct to any consumer you can find, and we thought if we can add value by doing a processing step like drying or whatever, then that could be our added value and creating this brand in the market. So we started with a website of selling online tea or local herbal tea. But and the cool thing online, yeah, you can easily test your proposition. So do we, do we need to talk about bees, or do we need to talk about biodiversity or regenerative or what is the thing that?
Speaker 1:that'll, that'll stick, yeah, local, or that's, I think, a crucial point that many people miss. Like, we have to sell this stuff and a lot of it meaning you have to test how to sell it. But I think in the online and in the sales words, in the marketing world, it's very normal to a, b, c, d, f test and to just see, and and not imagine that everybody likes bees or imagine that like, be very ruthless about what you think, but like that. That's. That's not important or relevant. It's important what the consumer thinks and how he or she acts. Yeah, and, and.
Speaker 2:So you started a b testing, basically yeah, so we like make it work and yeah, whatever proposition we okay, yeah, who cares? Yeah, we can aliens, yeah yeah, as, as soon as so. For us it's really clear we wanna uh, do things that that that contribute to nature. If, if, what reason you're buying it, take it, um, yeah, so so now our tagline is wildly tasty biodiversity, or wildly tasty nature restoration actually so that you figured out that nature restoration is stronger than biodiversity yeah, biodiversity is what
Speaker 2:it's for the geeks, yes for the geeks and and in the beginning we were a bit more on the bees, because, yeah, so, birds, bees and butterflies, these are the large concept like and what? What I also like, everybody likes nature, if you like. If you look, see it at the funds for wwf a lot of people donate that. So from from yeah, every, in the end, everybody some way relate. But regenerative, super technical biodiversity, what but nature? Oh, wow, yeah, I love nature or I love birds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love birds. Restoration sounds good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds good and wildly tasty. Oh yeah, oh, tell me more about it. So what we learned is that nobody cares about you being regenerative, or that's not. So there's yes, of course, there's this dark green area of the market that that that would.
Speaker 2:That will, uh, keep on buying things, even if they're not tasty, but because they're, they're not, it's not big and it's not big yeah, so so that it was really important to start with the market, because we, we thought if we can prove to farmers that there is a market for local weeds, then they'll come. So that was the most important and and we, we started also. So in the first year we had almost no harvest for ourselves, but we, we, we bought the, the herbs we started with as local as possible, so as and as biodynamic or biological as possible. So some from the Netherlands, some from Germany, because we needed to have a product.
Speaker 2:But already we designed the product with the ingredients that would eventually come, because otherwise you would try to sell Because we needed to test if people like it, but you didn't have anything that grew yet.
Speaker 1:And so you needed to test if people like it, but you didn't have anything that grew yet. Yes, and so you needed to kick. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we piloted actually, and what was the biggest surprise there?
Speaker 1:The biggest surprise was that. What sold absolutely nothing, that you imagined was amazing, or the other way around, or what was way more, yeah, the biggest surprise was we launched with a viral campaign or a referral campaign.
Speaker 2:Okay, viral, that would be a great idea, but it went viral. So we started with the website and Dan and I did a growth hacking course while working on the website. That was really good, and there we learned about building virality.
Speaker 2:And so it was a few days before easter and then we, we, we were talking 2019 yes and we thought, okay, we'll, we'll integrate some like if you leave your email address on our website, we'll we'll plant one square meter of wildflowers for you and after you've subscribed, you'll get a link, and if you share that with your friends, everybody that comes via your link will plant an extra square meter for you.
Speaker 2:So this was this, this ponzi scheme of biodiversity and so and we posted it on our own linkedin pages and was like, okay, let's go into easter. And then Tuesday after Easter we opened our inbox and we were tagged by on LinkedIn by the happy activist. He's a guy in the Nellie. Every day he posts in a short video and so we whoa, whoa. This guy tagged and and he made a video about our cool and and that went.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he makes a video and, and and he had a video every day as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he makes a video every day, and he had a one-minute short video of our concept, and then it exploded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be clear, there was only a concept at the time.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we had already some. So we had some bags of tea and we created some blends and then the one month after we were busy shipping all the things. So that really kickstarted our and what triggered people?
Speaker 1:Why did people? Because you see so many things getting launched, or concepts or ideas, or crowdfunding or whatever pre-sales every other day, and what do you think? I mean, it's easy to look back.
Speaker 2:I think like biodiversity is such an abstract concept and a lot of people think like, oh, how can I contribute? Or what can I do? And because it's tea, so everybody understands tea yeah, I drink tea, most of the people and then it's like, oh, if you drink this tea, you can contribute. So it's really simple. A square meter, yeah, so it's really simple. Square meter, yeah, also, but by drink you can contribute to this really abstract, uh problem. I think that that, yeah, so selling some sort of positive perspective.
Speaker 2:I think that that that is what really, uh, appealed to people so then you have to plant a lot of square meters yes, so we had to plant a lot of square meters and and um, and from there on, um, but because we were selling, that really helped to all skeptical farmers. Yes, we have, we have demand, come on, grow for it. And and from there on, we, we, we, uh, expanded to more farmers and and still some, they, they come bring their harvest of plantain and like 500 kilos of plantain, they say like guys, can you sell this? Yeah, come on, we need more okay yeah, because how many products like what?
Speaker 1:and then we get to where we are now actually, but like in terms of product range, yeah, what? What do you currently sell? Because many of our listeners are not in the netherlands or in western europe, so they're not going to be able to, to buy or to see you in supermarkets, etc. So what do you currently sell and where?
Speaker 2:just to give a bit of a yeah, we're talking, so I'm gonna say spring 2024, but it's almost summer and not really the weather, but still we're in. So currently we have like eight different flavors of herbal tea so small patches yes, well, tea bags standard all the way in that. Um so eight flavors to kombucha, because from tea you can make fermented tea.
Speaker 1:Kombucha we have, iced tea we have exactly the right way for the last few years on kombucha and iced teas, etc.
Speaker 2:And we have sparkling tea, which is like a proxy for wine.
Speaker 1:So it's a way more complex. I've tasted a bottle of that. It's really good. It has a complexity, that's you drink it as wine, basically.
Speaker 2:It's not wine, but it's. It's non-alcohol, but you drink it on the moment. You would otherwise drink very interest.
Speaker 1:I mean, the bottle is very interesting and I'm imagining the margins, yes, as well, because and we're sort of used it's very interesting is where I was looking at it with the pricing of a wine bottle, without any doubt, I think many people do 15, 20 euros, or at least up from 8, 9, easily for quality there's no upper limit, let's say, and then you buy a juice like a puzzling tea and you pay a similar amount and the costs I'm imagining involved in that, compared to a wine, are way lower depends on you but it's an interesting that somebody paid for if you told somebody 10 years ago you paid for a juice nonalcoholic juice that amount you would say you're nuts.
Speaker 2:You pitch that to somebody and now it's done and it fits, because there's this whole non-alcoholic special moment.
Speaker 1:The market for non-alcoholic is booming, of course you have the wine, where they take out the alcohol and you never know how to do it and you have the low alcohol.
Speaker 2:and then we say like, okay, and this non-alcoholic wine is uh, is local and and nature recovery and super nice, so why not choose our? Uh, um, and so we. That's also with tea, and there are margin products, so therefore we need to look into products that we need to pay the farmers right. So so our, our ingredients are really, if you would compare it to, Per kilo.
Speaker 2:it's crazy Per kilo to other, but by selling them. So, having the chain as short as possible, we can still sell it for yes, it's a bit higher priced than Sorry.
Speaker 1:I interrupted your catalog. So you have the wine replacement yes, like the wine moment replaced.
Speaker 2:Yes, the sparkling tea, and we have cordial, what is cordial? Syrup.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, okay. And we have pasta Interesting business as well. Pasta how?
Speaker 2:do you get into pasta?
Speaker 1:and granola.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we went into pasta because we have a herbal pasta, and so we have a pasta which is From the Netherlands.
Speaker 1:that's going to raise some questions From the Netherlands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the grains are from regenerative farmers and it's instead of monograno, it's multigrano, so it contains a lot of different ancient grains and in these fields, there are a lot of weeds grows in. Between the population weeds, yeah, and and in these fields there are a lot of weeds grows in between, so the population. Yeah, so the? So the ecological value of these, these, these fields, is super high and you can make pasta from it.
Speaker 1:And then we even add plantain and sage to the pasta, and it's our wild sage pasta and so, if you just like, there you went into like a big field, not just a strip, where previously it's monoculture, maybe organic or non-organic, maybe some cover crop grain, maybe inter, but going to then a multi-crop, turning that into a product with some wild herbs, and that's suddenly you talk about acres and hectares.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but what so? So our goal was to create market for local regenerative or as native as possible products. So for the like five years, more and more people in the Netherlands are turning into regenerative and we can say oh, you have this field of grain, we'll buy some from you. So then it's not us asking the farmer to yeah to go.
Speaker 2:But uh, so also for buckwheat. We talked to a lot of. It's like, yeah, I'm growing buckwheat, it's, it's great for the bees, but I cannot find any market. Then I think, okay, we'll create a tea blend with buckwheat. We'll create now we're working on miso and soy sauce, not with soy in it, but with buckwheat in it, because you can make from protein, you can make umami, yeah.
Speaker 1:So um, but I can imagine. Pasta is quite a different. It's a.
Speaker 2:It's still dried, of course, yeah, but it's quite a different ingredient, like it's a different moment where you don't drink it, it's more difficult, because the pasta we're selling is and that's also with the granola it's it, it, uh, if you want to do everything right, it's like a million dollar pasta, yeah, and that's the all the time. The thing with uh, and especially pasta, is a bit of a commodity product, uh. So therefore it's it's, it's harder to uh, yeah, to make that work. But that's also from our portfolio for products. We want to also show like all these products can work, can be done, can be done. So what we do is like we think, okay, let's create a project with the highest ecological value possible. And then, okay, yeah, local umami. Yeah, not with soy. Yeah, of course, you can grow soy in the netherlands, but the ecological value of soy is is almost none, and let's look for something with, like hazelnut and buckwheat can you fermentate?
Speaker 2:that can ferment then into umami as well. So, and currently our, our ambition is to create a new product or launch a new product every month.
Speaker 1:Just to test again. Yeah, just to like to… and kill them as well if they don't work Like what's the…? Yes, yes, because you cannot keep a portfolio of….
Speaker 2:That's the nice thing. So our distribution… so we do a lot of… we have like three or four channels, so direct to consumer 25% of our revenue is coming from direct to consumer and it's actually quite evenly so. And 25% are restaurants, bars, 25% small retail like farm shops and specialized retail. And then last 25 is like end of the year gifting but it's like, yeah, it's all that's a pretty even yeah evenly. And the nice thing with direct to consumers that we can easily test new products.
Speaker 1:So we'll launch all the email addresses.
Speaker 2:Yes, make a small batch, see if it works, get feedback. Also, like people, let us know, do you like it or what, what should be done better, and then if it works we can take it to restaurants. And and that's the cool thing on the quality perspective is that from in the restaurants you see, like from michelin star restaurants working with our products, until the other side of the spectrum, family nice, wow we see a beautiful deer walking.
Speaker 1:Right now we're going to talk about the place we're at yeah, a deer popping out, popping out of the cover crop, basically, and out of the tree lane going into the, into the woods. So just everybody imagine what we just saw as we turn the video.
Speaker 2:And imagine a lot of bees and insects.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we walked through a very nice cover crop mix, I have to say, and you can hear, I think, the zooming of the insects around us. Matthijs is lowering the microphone now too. So direct-to-consumer is really a test. I mean, it's a significant part of your revenue, but also the easiest way.
Speaker 2:The easiest way to test, as we started. Testing on direct-to-consumer is great.
Speaker 2:One per month yeah that's ambitious and that's also for our. So we don't want to become like this. Traditional, traditional companies would say like okay, hocus, pocus, focus, go into iced tea or go into tea. But we think, no, we don't want to create like this, like three flavors, and then again create a new monoculture. So we need to diversify everything we do. So it's our ambition that in five years from now, we'll have like this whole, like 100 different products that all do like 100 000 in revenue and and how do you, just like your farmers manage that complexity in a company?
Speaker 1:because it's. There's a reason why we do Hocus Pocus, focus, because it makes your from an economical perspective but also easier. It makes your spreadsheets easier because you know what to turn, which dials to play with and you're like we do one a month as a marketing department. You don't even know where to start.
Speaker 2:If you do one a month, you drive them nuts probably yeah, but yeah, but that's great marketing to launch a new product every month, um, and of course, we'll need to see how long. So, but yeah, so how we work with our pharmacists, like every year, in the beginning of the year, we'll make a forecast on all ingredients. So, okay, last year we grew 50, so this year we need 500 kilos of dried chamomile, or, and so we have like more than 30 different crops that we, we, we- three zero people, not one.
Speaker 1:Three, yeah, three zero wow uh, yeah so, uh, and how much of that do you grow yourself, or do you grow with your growers? Uh 80 percent or 75 80% or 75%, and and but how many growers?
Speaker 2:30 and as more you think one-on-one, but that's of course not the case. No, yeah, so then. And then we're like, okay, we need 500 kg of of chamomile. And then, yeah, it's easy to to say to one farmer, you do it all. But then we said like, yeah, no, five farmers that.
Speaker 1:How does that work? You put like a question, but you know who's grown it before or yes, so we have long-term relationship.
Speaker 2:We try to to build long-term relationships and then we decide, okay, especially for the perennials, of course. It's like, okay, you already have this on your land. How's it going? Yeah, what? And then so we need to cap. So a lot of farms say, well, I want to do more of this. And then I know, diversify. Um, have you tried?
Speaker 1:xyz, yeah yes, so um, have you met ted, have you tried? Yeah, okay, so every year, step by step.
Speaker 2:they can do more of or or of different crops, so we will have a forecast and then we say, okay, let's say you guys can do 100 kg, and then we'll pay you this and it's guaranteed. So if it works we'll guarantee you.
Speaker 1:So, upfront, you guarantee a price per kilo, yes, and regardless of quality. Or is that not a thing? It's not a thing. If caramel came up, it's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fine, yeah it's fine. And we say, of course you need to. We have some requirements, of course, but those requirements are more. We don't want pesticides, no synthetic fertilizer, and we want it-.
Speaker 1:Herbicides probably also not.
Speaker 2:Yes, but yeah, we want it as natural as possible.
Speaker 1:But herbicides on weeds, yeah, it's probably a bad idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's cost for the farmer, so why would he or she do it anyway? Yeah, but you need those. Do you test for that as well?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we do tests on the, so we do like. How do you say?
Speaker 1:Sample size. Yeah, yeah, sample testing on-. I'm really curious what this machine is, by the way. Yeah, this is a machine they use to pick berries. Yeah, for the listeners, we're looking at a metal structure, two meters by a meter and a half, two meters on wheels. We're going to talk about the farm here. We're going to explore it in another episode, way deeper, by the way, but this is a berry harvesting device.
Speaker 2:I mean for people that are harvesting berries, low-tech berry harvest, and yeah, it's still manual, but then how to get into baskets and stuff, I think with uh yeah, so the plant is in, will be in the middle, and then here you have like crates and then people, I think, sitting sitting here shaking the bushes, and then the berries fall off into the crates.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're talking about pre-recording, we're talking about tech and machinery etc. How has it been? Actually Sorry, we'll go back to the farm. We'll get to processing. So you make a farm plan for the 30 ingredients, the quantities, quantities, pre-discussed, price, which is amazing, just for most, most crops and commodities, etc. That is never the case. You're going to see the year. If it's a good year, everybody has a good year and and you're uh, excuse my french screwed and but in this case you have. It's good to hear you. If they have more, you buy more, is that?
Speaker 2:variable. So we say like 100 kilos, that's for sure. If you have more, we'll dry it for you. That's what. So at this place we have seen hugely productive years. That's also the nice thing with perennials that, like we calculated on the first year like, oh, this is the expected, and then the second and third year were way too productive and we had way too much of some herbs.
Speaker 1:But you can dry and store.
Speaker 2:We'll dry it and then, once it's dried, you can store it for years, so it's preserved or conserved. And then we said like, okay, we cannot pay for this Now, now, but let's look together if we can find a market for it. And, uh, so the cool thing is that we, so we had kilos of of of some herbs and we've, and it took us two, three years and now we completely sold them out and even so that Through your products or through other places that start to reach out to you and say can we have 10K?
Speaker 2:Mostly through our products, because what we see like the price, nobody can work with that, and so that's also.
Speaker 2:we tried like maybe we could do white label for wholesale but then what we figured think is like, if you, if you do not really integrate it in the proposition, the branding and everything, then people like, okay, why is this bag of tea so super expensive? Yeah, but if it's oh, this is wilderland tea, local, regenerative biodiversity recovering, oh, that sounds nice, I'll buy it. So that's also what we learned. Is that that, yeah, if you don't do it right on the market side, it will not. Uh, work.
Speaker 1:But I can imagine like chefs reaching out or companies reaching out to, but you, yeah, you don't have a wholesale side of things where, no, not yet, because if it goes into your product, yeah, yeah and uh, so we do collapse and then and then it works better, but and then we in the beginning we thought we would easily go into wholesale or that that would be a nice thing, but yet again ingredients, commodities, yeah, yeah
Speaker 2:because and that's, I think, the the biggest challenge for everything like, yeah, from like a hazelnut the consumer will not see. This hazelnut is coming from agroforestry in the Netherlands, and this is like 3 euros a kilo. And this hazelnut is coming from Italy, from a monoculture it's 50 cents per kilo. And this hazelnut is coming from Turkey, from another monoculture, bigger monoculture 25's 50 cents per kilo. And this hazelnut is coming from, uh, turkey, from another monoculture, bigger monoculture, 25. So which one would you choose? And then people like, yeah, they're why go for the?
Speaker 2:hazelnut for three euros. So therefore, I think the branding aspect is really important, because then people like, oh wow, granola from this cool brand.
Speaker 1:Of course I'll buy it with with that hazelnut and so then to the processing, and actually, where we are, we're at schevenhoven. We'll cover that. You might have listened to that before. After this with martin, later today, I'm not sure if we're going to do a walk, because the weather later might turn different, but so we've done the walk. Um, but, okay, you harvest all of this. Where do you even start? You said we're drying. Yeah, that's the first step, sorting, like, how do you? Because, okay, you went to strip, so it's mostly the same. Yes, that helps, of course. Yeah, and then what do you? Of course, depending on the crop, but what's the standard way of? How do you at the end, get it in a bag, in a tea bag?
Speaker 2:yeah, so when we started, there was no processing for herbs or tea or whatever in the Netherlands. So we designed actually a dryer ourselves which is capable of like drying a new crop every year, every day. And we got help from this company in the Netherlands and they dry parsley nine months a year, 24, 7, so big, and so they knew everything about drying on a big, industrial, monoland scale so I was that first conversation with a company like that.
Speaker 1:Like, did they like it that they saying you're absolutely nuts yeah, they liked it big and thought it was absolutely nuts.
Speaker 2:But they said, like that, and that's, it's what fun they like. But we like it and because it's so crazy, let's okay, we'll, we'll give it a try. Um, yeah, so we, and actually we designed a dryer and we want farmers to dry it themselves. So our model is based so if we need to harvest herbs, you get um x amount of of uh kilos per uh. You get X per kilo.
Speaker 2:If you harvest it yourself and bring it to us, our dryer, you get X plus 20% per kilo. And if you dry it yourselves and at the end of the season bring the dried herbs to us, you'll get X plus 50 50 to get to give an incentive to yeah, we would love you to dry it, because then you can add more value. The business model becomes more interesting. So we designed a dryer and now a lot of farmers are building dryers themselves on their land because they're like yeah, wow, the model is way more interesting if I can harvest small batches, dry them myself in the end of the season, bring them to yeah, because of course you can.
Speaker 1:You can harvest in like sort of lost hours and lost moments and you can plan it yourself. This is not a crop, or most of it, if I understand that it really matters the exact second of harvest, like one day or the other. It it's more flexible, more robust, because they're weeds, yeah, and the drying part needs to be probably fast relatively soon.
Speaker 2:It's fast. So after you harvest you need to dry it the same, or it needs to be in the dry the same day, because otherwise, uh, the bacteria will grow but once it is in the dryer, yeah, and then it needs to be dry in like 48 hours and then and it's dry, then completely good, uh, and the quality is way better than all the products from um where do you want to pass yeah?
Speaker 1:sage yeah, sage always nice also in our tea very interesting. So you're actively promoting the decentralization of um of trying in this and then we also say like okay this, this farmer in your region has a dryer.
Speaker 2:better you dry it at their place. Yeah, so to create these like small processing hubs for dried grain.
Speaker 1:And some connection between farmers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we invested in a teabag machine and a processing line. So because, yeah, once you have a, a dried plant, then it's not yet tea. It needs to be made into smaller pieces and sieving and whatever, and make a pure nice product out of it. So that's, that's the thing we do. So we've invested in that processing line. But I think you have start drying more on the land, on your own farm.
Speaker 1:That's the thing we want to promote and then for the like liquids you sell. How does that work?
Speaker 2:yeah. So the tea, we do all of ourselves, but the liquids, like iced tea, and we're also planning to make more sodas we partner with bottling company and you come up with the recipe, we come up with the recipe and then we say like okay, what's your MOQ will start with a small batch of canned iced tea and then, if it works, we'll scale up and Do more.
Speaker 1:And was it tricky? Was it difficult to find? Because often you hear in other products maybe not necessarily here, but that the minimum for some of these more processing, turning it into a final product company is the minimum is so big that it's not accessible for startups or small companies. Or have you found that as well in the soda industry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a few years ago we thought, okay, we need to be vertically integrated on everything, we need our own bottling line and we need to do everything ourselves. But actually at the moment in the Netherlands, there are enough, like mostly crafty or uh like in between big or small companies that can do white label, uh, white label bottle and all these. And yes, it's challenging. So we work together with a lot of different companies and for every product, we work together with a taste maker, someone to like, okay, make this nice. And and for every product, we'll we'll look for a producer or a partnering, uh, but, and it's possible. So we have, like this, this whole ecosystem of of people helping us to make the product taste better and also that do the processing with us or for us that's.
Speaker 1:That's a surprise, probably to you. Yes, yeah, ecosystem in five years, which is nothing if you look at agriculture, time scales.
Speaker 2:There is an ecosystem around you that, yeah, you're part of that yeah, and I think that you see, yeah, so for like a canning getting a liquid into can, there were. Yeah, it was a big step to to go. But now there's like from with 10 000 cans, you can like 4 000 liters or you can, or even there are. We now know a company that that is like moq is 2 000 liters.
Speaker 2:That's like that's, that's that's of course, yes, it's, it's serious and and and you, it's a big problem if, if it, if it fails and if nobody likes it, but it's not, so it's not and then from there on you can easily scale to Hundreds of thousands if you want.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the thing is with, so there is some processing, but also, yeah, for pasta. That's a good example as well. So the pasta is still really expensive because the processing is super inefficient. But we said we'll start and whatever it costs. And the guy he bought a pasta machine and he was working day and night to get it.
Speaker 2:But now because the volumes increase he bought a new pasta machine which is way more efficient. So, yeah, you can create it as well, I think, because the volumes increase. He bought a new pasta machine which is way more efficient, so, yeah, you can create it as well, I think, as long as you can sell it as long as you can so, if, if there's market, processing will follow, and that's the thing we so.
Speaker 2:Therefore, focusing on market is, in my opinion, the most important thing, because, um, and then the rest will follow and do you feel like you're saturating certain markets?
Speaker 1:I mean, the netherlands is small, but still 17 million people, one seven. There's a lot of tea, a lot of like, say, drinks and pasta being eaten and like there's. Do you feel are you starting to hit some limits there at some point?
Speaker 2:oh, no, no, no, it's just we. We're super small compared to a market, and I think they're.
Speaker 2:It can be super big yeah and then because, yeah, if you look at a tea or iced tea or or sodas or kombucha, these markets are huge and there's almost so there's a lot of competition from monoland, anonymous brands, maybe selling some organic. But if you say, like yo, we have this cool drink, local nature recovering, and come have a look, this is the farm where your, your soft drink, is growing, then whoa, why, why not try that brand? And so now what we see is that, based on the quality, people are coming back because they like the, the products we sell, and I think that's the, the, the taste has to be good, the taste has to be good.
Speaker 2:And then I think, yeah, we can grow uh way bigger uh, because uh, so what's, what's limiting that growth?
Speaker 1:currently your growth?
Speaker 2:I think, price, so our products are, are more expensive than uh, and so you, and so, therefore, people need to know the brand, or and that's the, the, and we, we, we don't want to go to big retail, or because then, yeah, we need to, otherwise or lower our price for the farmers or increase the price for yeah, because where do you see, do you see potential of lowering the, the end price of the consumer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see.
Speaker 2:So recently we lowered the price of our iced tea because we now can produce larger volumes and so for things like iced tea or all these canned things, most of the money goes into the processing and there economies of scale will really be a significant price reducer. So we will never lower the price for the farmers and we'll try to be as efficient in the processing as possible, either by going vertically integrated and do it ourselves and finding smart ways of doing it, or otherwise go to um, yeah, yeah, go bigger in the processing of the cans or whatever and what?
Speaker 1:what's next, in that sense of local, local, local? Next door there's a big country called Germany. The other side there's the UK, Belgium. How do you think about expansion or replication, or impact in that sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're called Wilderland in its international name. We did that on purpose, because we we want to export the model.
Speaker 1:We don't want to export dutch nature recovering tea which probably in terms of like the land prices here and the pressure I mean it's a world champion of biodiversity loss but it might be easier. I don't know. Maybe yes or no, but it might be equally challenging or easier in other places where land prices are less or there might be pressure. But anyway, you're not gonna grow tea here and export it.
Speaker 2:No. So we think we believe everybody in the world should eat their local ecosystem. If you get more native plants into your diet, farmers will need to grow that into crops. And then, by having more native plants on your diet, farmers will need to grow that into crops. And then, by having more native plants on farmlands, way more bees, butterflies, and and birds will come back. So and deer and deer and and and everything will, will fall there as a insect, as a cornerstone species. The rest will follow. Um. So therefore, we believe, like so we want to export.
Speaker 2:So, yes, we could export wilderland to copenhagen or denmark and and that's actually we would love like in 20 years from now, that you're on a city trip, well, let's say in in cape town and that, oh wow, there's wilderland on the menu here. Let's try this, this, this south african kombucha, which has completely different uh ingredients than the one in tokyo or in amsterdam. Um, so we, we want to export the branding uh, but we want to keep the production and and and processing as local as possible and has it already?
Speaker 1:like happened our conversations happening there or what's it? Focus, focus, focus. We have yeah.
Speaker 2:So main focus is on getting the model right. So every year we learn and every year we tweak. So for some ingredients we need to put the price higher, because then we think, yeah, farmers are not really enthusiastic about these flowers, okay then, oh, higher price. Oh, yes, I'll do it then okay. Yeah, that's okay, then we'll, we'll play you learn so much on that.
Speaker 2:Yes, we learn a lot, and also on on how to sell and how to brand and all the possibilities. We started with tea and now I see endless possibilities of these culinary biodiversity products. Um, and so we worked with two Belgium, we work together with two Belgian farmers and they contacted us. They said we want to do this in Belgium, can we? Can we work and said, okay, let's start small, it, maybe you can start. And now they have their own brand, copying us in Belgium, do it, starting the same with it with the herbal tea, so they produce for us and they produce for their own brand. Now, and also like yeah, even emails from Germany, also from UK people saying like, okay, I want to copy yours and we said yes, do it.
Speaker 2:And maybe one day we'll create this big book of biodiversity business modeling and say like do it um so, yes, we would love to.
Speaker 1:For sure, there will be learning a lot. Yes, as well that you didn't tackle yet, or there are other like. There will be a fair like how do you make biodiversity tasty? And sales driven for the farmers is gonna have different shapes and forms, but an endless amount of learnings because nobody's doing that like. It has never been the focus, it's been a byproduct. Oh, we have more biodiversity on a biodynamic farm amazing, but that's not the thing that people have been selling. Yeah, and and you're saying it's definitely people are willing to pay significantly more for a really good, high quality, super tasty, etc. With a really good story. If you're able to sell the story, and that might look very different in southern germany or in italy or in spain or in belgium, and for you must be exciting.
Speaker 2:What we feel is that if you sell it as nature recovery, it's way more attractive than as selling it regenerative do you think that's uh, that's universal in a sense? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, for the netherlands it worked, maybe because the netherlands is so low in biodiversity that it is is something which is more appealing, but I think it's way more like the all the name wilder land or bees, but this way more emotional than, uh, regen agroecology or just technical, more technical terms literally wild farmed, and their tagline yes, yes, full of life, yes, these, these things are way.
Speaker 2:I think that's the make it appealing. And then, of course, in every context, maybe in uh, so we don't do not focus about the health aspects of all these herbs, because that could easily be a thing, but maybe in some countries that works way better. So, of course, for every local situation it's different so where are we here?
Speaker 1:we're at Schevinghoven, close to Utrecht in the Netherlands, in the center more or less, and a very different farm than other places Agroforestry focus. We're gonna explore it with Maarten, but how did your relationship here start and what do you grow? What do they grow for you? What do you grow with them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we started. So this is Schevenkoop. This is a good example of a farm that started all the way regenerative permaculture. From the start, they said like, okay, we'll we want to prove that, that it can be done, and we were one of their first partners and we started really small. So, and every year they are expanding their, their land and and expanding the, the herbs they grow for us. So we started really small but, yeah, from the first year they had revenue via us, which in agroforestry systems is not normal.
Speaker 1:Let's say that's if you can plant layers underneath or next to it or in the rows that bring cash from day one or from month five. Let's say, or it's, it's very, it looks very different in your business.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, even though it's not a lot, okay, but just that fact that you can show yeah, and then you're beneficial, and beneficial for the soil and beneficial for it's uh, it's not to be underestimated and so, yeah, from the start, they, they started integrating herbs in their, in their system, because we said like this is, this is our demand.
Speaker 2:Can you, can you do something for?
Speaker 1:us how many years ago was that?
Speaker 2:I think it was four years.
Speaker 1:One of the first?
Speaker 2:yes and also that's part of our model. So we want to be a partner for Market, for the, for the big monoland farmers that say like, okay, I want to take a first step, but also for these Pioneers, that that that say like, okay, I want to prove it can be done. Uh, yeah, both depend on the market. So we said okay and we started with, I think, fennel, lemon balm sage. So we had a list and they said, okay, we'll integrate these. And this year, yeah, so every year they're doing more, yeah. So what we see here is like yeah, it's agroforestry, all strips with trees, herbs, different layers, and some of these lanes are filled with herbs.
Speaker 1:for us it's simple as that and can you harvest multiple times.
Speaker 2:Can you like what does it yeah, so that's also the nice thing with with a lot of weeds, if, um, yeah, even four or five times a year. So, yeah, that's the thing. Like plantain or chamomile, you can keep harvesting.
Speaker 1:So because they grow back. Yeah, it benefits from the harvesting.
Speaker 2:Yes, as it will um, and you can most of the times, you can harvest the whole plant and, of course, you also. We have flowers which are there's also a lot of handwork, so, like elderflower blossom and linden blossom, all these things, these are. There's only two weeks a year that you can harvest them, and mostly done by hand.
Speaker 1:That's more challenging, but all these like green herbs growing like weeds that's, that's uh and you do that with, like, how do you harvest those flowers in those two weeks then, with all the farmers probably that have them at the same time, more or less?
Speaker 2:yeah. So some farmers say like, okay, I'll do it myself, we will arrange that, uh, and even also for the. So the hand pick flowers are way more difficult and we also invite our customers come have a look at these places. That's also. It's really interesting for people like, wow, what a nice but a beautiful place. And then like, in an afternoon, help us doing the harvest. But also that's also the nice thing with working with farmers, because also we have pine needles and birch leaf in our products and I was always like, ah, how can we make this work? But now we have two farmers that say, oh yeah, I'll plant those trees somewhere and I'll mow all the time trees somewhere and I'll mow all the time the new sprouts coming out. So they found a way of harvesting from trees mechanically in a way that is economical to do, and I was like, wow, I love these. Like, like that farmers being innovative and thinking, okay, I can, I can harvest birch leaves for you and this way, okay, if so how did they do it?
Speaker 1:sorry, did they? Planted the trees?
Speaker 2:yeah, so they planted the tree and it's actually he's creating like a bonsai forest.
Speaker 1:I keep it super low and then once in a while.
Speaker 2:Like tea actually, yeah like tea and like 30 or 50 centimeters from the ground, but the ecological value is great because the birch attracts a lot of insects and it's bush and Stimulates the growth of the plant continuously.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that's also the yes, so that's also the nice, because we say, yeah, we have this demand for this seed or this leaf. How can we make it work in a way that will not create a million dollar product but still can pay you a fair price? And then sometimes these like inventive ways of going into agroforestry pop up and you must meet.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you finance it until now, but like investors regularly, I mean the impact investing world in the Netherlands is quite alive and I like to ask this question of what? What do you tell them, or what is the one thing? Let's say, we do this in a theater, in somewhere the financial heart of Amsterdam, yeah, and we have a room full of investors. Now they're all, of course, excited after this evening. Biodiversity is sexy and is tasty and needs to be sold, etc. But if there's one thing you want them to remember and do differently or put to work the next day when they're back in their office deciding on money flows left or right, what would that be? What would that seed that you would like to plant be for people that are in control of money their own wealth or other people's money?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. Yeah, so I think, like, how we look into the crops is like look at the ecological value, because I think the higher the ecological value, the easier the proposition is, because then you can sell it Okay as a, and then it because, so we see that works really well, but that it's it's bit different, but I think so that's one thing there's great market opportunity for this ecological value. And the other thing, yeah, so I don't know about impact investing, because I often think it's less bad and so that it's. And then I talked to impact investors say like oh, yeah, we you want to invest.
Speaker 2:Okay, nice, what are your goals? You want maximize impact? Okay, yes, we want to maximize impact as well. So then, okay, let's great, you give me 1 million euros and then I'll give you 10 million butterflies in return. That's maximum impact. Do you want it? No, no, I want. And then I say okay, but so therefore, I, yeah, or maybe that would be. I haven't met the, the like the really long-term focused impact investors that are are not in a way you could say like yeah, okay, maybe your horizon is a bit longer, but what is the right?
Speaker 1:horizon. So what would be a perfect investor for you? If, like you need money to to grow? What would be the ideal way?
Speaker 2:for me, I think, uh as much as a crowd sharing. So now at the moment we're mostly bootstrapped and loans and yeah, of course there will be a point that we want to grow faster and and on the other, I read the book the secret life of trees and if you read that book and read business, and everywhere it says trees, then it's a great business book on organic growth and the.
Speaker 1:So we we also don't believe in like injecting growth hormones yeah, even though you did the the growth hacking course while you were setting up this.
Speaker 2:But then again it's like on own, it's difficult, like on injecting big like growth hormones. But for us, if we would go into investors I believe, believe in, I would rather have a whole crowd of consumers investing a bit.
Speaker 1:So share share funding would, for our business, be a great because, also because the share funders are ambassadors and our customers and our customers and like in this, the way you're currently set up, do you need like it's a relatively fast turnover, it's relatively, it's not that you need invest for 10 years before your system like starts yielding, etc. Like do you with the loans? Are you able to fund it? Until now, is it easy, between brackets, to get loans from banks etc. Just to keep going?
Speaker 2:so getting loads from banks is not easy because we're a startup and not bankable. Yes, but in the Netherlands we we had. We had some funding from really nice green initially with like really nice terms nice, really soft terms, this, so that's great.
Speaker 2:But we want to transition. If we want to become like bankable and then have a bank loan, just the credit line too yeah, because we don't need really big investments anymore. In the beginning, we had some investment to build up this whole processing thing and, yes, if we would go into like a whole, like bottling everything ourselves, then of course, of course. But then I think, yeah, that's also can also be done with the share funding. Yeah, um, yeah, we like patagonia as a, as a, so we're really long-term focused and so we're really long-term focused and Steward-owned.
Speaker 1:at the end, or donated to a foundation and maybe yes and maybe so.
Speaker 2:if we'll go into erasing more cap, then we'll do it on a steward-owned way.
Speaker 1:And if we flip the question and put you in control of a lot of money? Of course we can have the debate if, let's say, a billion euros should be concentrated, but let's say it is yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, somehow, I don't know, somewhere in your family somebody built a big, crazy business or somebody just gives it to you. It has to be invested. There's one condition yeah, what would you focus on? I'm not saying as I always repeat, I'm not looking for exact dollar, euros amount, but I'm looking for what people like you in the field like okay, now we take you out of the field for a second because you need to be in the office. Um, what are priorities on your list of what you would invest in or what you would love to invest in that maybe doesn't even exist yet, but where would you prioritize significant money?
Speaker 2:because this is a lot of money, it's nothing. At the same time, I think I would divide it so, so from. So what we do as a wildland is creating this combined zone from the common land perspective. I think I would would uh, the half would go to creating brands vertically integrated brands that promote combined zone so combined is really like just for, for for.
Speaker 1:it's really like there's the, the wild nature, ecology and economy meets so that that that both get.
Speaker 2:So it's still farming and it's still. It still needs to be work economically, but the the, the ecological aspects are important. So like, yeah, agroforestry is a way of, of combined zone.
Speaker 1:Biodiversity strips. Biodiversity strips Strip farming.
Speaker 2:Integrated, yeah, strip cropping all these things is a way of uh combined zone, biodiversity strips, biodiversity strip farming. Integrate, yeah, strip cropping all these things. Uh so or I would say like I'll scale uh wilderland to the whole world, like and we start in germany, then denmark and and like all western europe.
Speaker 2:I think every country can, would benefit from it's probably from a local wildland initiative or would invest in already existing brands and help them vertically integrate and source more local and source more regeneratively. But what you often see is that brands they only focus on the commerce and then, whatever their products come, they couldn't care less. Oh yeah, oh yes, it's organic. But come on, let's be more ambitious. I would, I think, that the NEP rewilding in the UK, like, invest in the natural zone and Look into ways Can we create a business model on the natural zone, like nap in the UK did, and maybe buy highly degraded lands or farms and and rewild them and and look into ways like how can eco tourism or what, what? How can we develop the business model on the natural zone? So where? So where? Uh, it's mostly about ecology and a little bit about, uh, financial return so, looking at the four zones, you wouldn't focus on the farming.
Speaker 1:Farming highly intensive, so no, not on the economic zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not too much. But I, because I think if we can prove that the, especially the combined zone, can work and that there's great business in the combined zone, I think it would a lot of yeah, a lot of consumers would, the market would would go big and then, if the markets go big, farmers, farmers will follow.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned, like investing in already existing brands. Do you see that as an opportunity? Because there are, of course, challenges there, but at the same time, they have a lot of things already in place. Starting from scratch is super useful and super difficult. Yeah and so, but at the same, yeah, how would you see that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as we have the Wilderland brand, I think it's for us easier to start Wilderland, because what we learned in five years we could do that in the first year in another country. But I think brands have a big following and they're by a great responsibility. It might be interesting in some countries to say, okay, we'll partner with this brand and transition the brand towards regenerative practices, because then people already have a relationship with that brand and I think from there on it could be easy to start talking. But be really ambitious, of course, and say like, okay, your old practices, we'll forget them, we'll start over, do things on a way which we think today is logical. So, yeah, way more regenerative, alba, forest or whatever, but use the audience you already have and and and your brand power to tell this story that takes that, takes time, time to build that following the trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's really expensive to scale a brand, because then you need like mass media and what, and and we've, we, we uh choose the path of organic growth, which we believe in is really strong. But then again, if you have like 1 million, then of course you can easily put some money into.
Speaker 1:And they probably already have done that. Yes, they've built up the audience, so you're saying the existing, maybe not regenerative megaphones, as in companies that have audience and brand, not the white label that have, that maybe have some margin as well to, to to play with or space to slightly, and and then say, okay, how far can we push this?
Speaker 2:but and I would try both and then after three years I like, okay, yeah, skill, wildland, wildland or yes, this works with, with, with going into. But and another thing is like with wildland, we only focus on culinary biodiversity, so making nice, super tasty products out of biodiversity. I see also potential for cosmetic biodiversity, because from all the plants we use as tea, you can make candles, shampoo, cream, whatever. So cosmetic biodiversity and the margins there are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are insane.
Speaker 2:So that's also huge potential, and also for fashion. You can dye, you can make a yellow pigment out of chamomile, and so there's a huge potential, I think, for valuing local biodiversity or valuing native plants in a completely different way and bringing them to market in a way that is regenerative.
Speaker 1:And a question we like to ask, inspired by John Kemp where you think different than, like, what do you believe to be true that others don't? And in this case, the others, I would would like to let's look at the brands, like if you go to I don't know if you ever go to brand conferences or something like other, maybe the food startup space or the food, the hip ones, yeah, like, where do you think fundamentally different or what do you believe to be true that others don't?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, I. I think in everything we do is like 180 degrees different than a normal FMCG or fast-moving consumer goods brand would work. So no economies of scale and local. Be inefficient on purpose in the process.
Speaker 1:You're giving a lot of good quotes for the title, but it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it works because it's a hell of a proposition, because you say this is a fully transparent product, grown close by bringing so maybe that's it birds and butterflies, and and and that's because I think all the brands, all the other products coming from monoland are like um uh, lacking zombie products, with with no real ingredients, lacking transparency, nobody would like. Don't, don't look into the chain, because a few steps down the chain, you, you, you'll be scared of the, of the monofields and monofields and and bad circumstances, the people that work on it.
Speaker 2:Um, so we say, like it's in ecology, ecologically it's super efficient, so let's so. Therefore it's a great proposition. And another thing is what we see in the, I think, in the regenerative field is we focus, we start focusing on, we say, biodiversity first and therefore we work with weeds, native plants and what I see in a lot of regenerative farms. They say like, oh, less mono is better. And then I think, yes, of course not going into mono is better and of course it's good for soil, whatever. But if you wanna also improve the biodiversity aspects, then if you look from the ecological perspective, insects, like they love native plants and I compare it often to a library, so you could say, like the agricultural field is now a library with one book rewritten and by monsanto. Nobody wants that. You'll die if you read that book.
Speaker 2:But it's really easy to have a library with one book, but there's nobody in that library, and then it's okay, we want people to read more books. Okay, how should we convert this library to a more interesting library? Yeah, more different books, oh, great idea. I know some cheap different books. I'll bring them in and then so, okay, from comics to novels, whatever, we'll fill the library with a wide range of books. And then three years later you come like, yes, of course I see more people, and that's like the honeybee looking at the pictures, but then still like, well, it's not this, this vibrant library we, we, we, we hoped for. And then you look into these books and then you see the cover and it's like, yeah, these, these are really nice covers. But then you open it and then, for the netherlands, they're like, yeah, this is a hungarian book, it's a german book, italian book yeah people don't read.
Speaker 2:So that's the same thing with insects. Are so the insects living in the netherlands? They don't. They cannot work with an hungarian plant because it's super specific. And that's what why we say, like, if you want to create this vibrant library full of life, work, with local bestsellers, and then yeah, it's, it's native plants, because our insects and these plants, they have coexisted for more than 12,000 years. And another great example is on the American oak and the European oak. So the European oak is native in Europe. American oak was introduced 300 years ago. From a human perspective, they're quite similar. You said like they're both oaks. And the American oak has rewilded throughout Europe. You can find it in every forest. But if you look into the ecology, you see like in the American oak so the non-native plant there's only 15 insects living, one five, yeah, one five, yes, one five insects on that tree. And if you look into the uh, european oak, it's more than 450 and some say even thousands, and that's a huge difference. And also this is a 30.
Speaker 2:we're walking close. This is the aronia bush.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:aronia is a is a bush, and every food forest, every agroforestry system in the Netherlands is planting aronia, and it's because it's a nice berry, not native. We have the blackcurrant. The berries are quite similar, but blackcurrant, yeah, old-fashioned, but from an ecological perspective it's the same as the. So if you look only a few insects on the Aronia Blackcurrant, more than 200. And you can make quite a similar product because they all taste like cassis. And then I think, okay, let's promote native. And if there is a native alternative for a nice berry and we have native berries, let's bring them to market.
Speaker 2:Let's make them interesting instead of the non-native ones and that's the problem with ironia is that already, um, it is is shown to be an invasive alien species, so a lot of our natural zones are overgrown by this plant because it was introduced here for food. And then I think that then again we're creating a new problem in.
Speaker 1:More ironia is okay and I go first system between brackets, but not okay.
Speaker 2:Actually a lot more is not okay but and then because the the birds just buried, so it's a perennial bush birds eat these, eat these berries and spread it, and that's the thing. So a lot of people, that's why, and so we focus on native, and I don't care if you plant non-native, we focus only on native. But that and that's also a thing because because we only think like, okay, does this make sense from an ecological perspective? And so we only curate our ingredients based on that. So, okay, does it make ecological sense to promote this plant in this landscape? If not, then we'll not make a product out of it.
Speaker 1:And as a final, which usually leads to more questions, but question if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight, what would it be?
Speaker 2:I love this question and I've I've thought about this question a lot and yeah, so I would change the. So what, what uh?
Speaker 2:sometimes it's better to do the spontaneous answer yeah, a few weeks, until a few weeks ago, I thought make a synthetic fertilizer and pesticides super expensive, so expensive that the model will flip for organic. But then I thought, yeah, then it will only promote organic, not per se regenerative. And now I think and it's actually an experiment going on in sweden from the dart lab matters they have, they've they've read a really nice article about it and it says we should go to a basic universal um nutritional.
Speaker 1:Wait one second. You universal basic nutrient income.
Speaker 2:Okay, send the article because it's the best article I've read in in years. Okay, so if and then if you could promote, like make highly nutrient products more cheaper than non-nutrient, then the incentive for everybody is uh, so the market for so cheap. The price is killing actually now. So we, what we say is like we as well, we, we compete with monoland, but mostly price is, is, is is decisive and if you can go to a system where price is lower for food grown in diverse systems.
Speaker 1:So would you subsidize it? You would lower the price and not higher the other price.
Speaker 2:No, you can subsidize this by uh taxing low nutritional so the other prices would go up?
Speaker 1:yeah, would go, and so this would not go down effectively.
Speaker 2:But in this experiment. In the article they said it can be even uh cheap, uh free in the end. The highest nutrition because and then you have like local, highly nutrient, highly diverse landscapes with real food, and all this zombie food with no real ingredients will be super Because it's not healthy.
Speaker 1:It will be super expensive, and they experimented with this.
Speaker 2:They will start experimenting, so you get. I don't know know the super grass, fat, liver and butter and amazing herbs etc and also if you look into like the highest nutrient density, then you need to eat in season and you need to fall.
Speaker 1:Yes, super diverse 30, 40 vegetable 30, 30, 40 plants a week.
Speaker 2:I think is the but then if you go into super local, super nutrient dense, then these two weeks are best for gooseberries. Let's eat them now.
Speaker 1:But you have to measure it, which is, I mean, we've done two series on the measurement of nutrient density and it's coming, but still very tricky, but it's very. I mean, if you can lower that the demand will, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So that's the magic one need to sort this that if, uh, healthy, diverse, great, uh grown uh products are cheaper than mono, then uh it, you'll always be trying to be more diverse and more nutrient dense, if that can be a new system, because now the system is, yeah, you see, like it's easier to sell a product with fake ingredients, uh, or with, with ultra processed ultra processed uh, coming from far away from monocle, with it's almost no food and if we can start re-evaluating like nutritional value, and then you, you'll uh keep on trying to be more um diverse on the field and and there's that piece on universal, like that, by definition, it makes it more accessible, like that's often the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with a lot of things like you can't compete on price and thus the people that need it most on the smallest budget are going to be the ones buying the cheapest calories because of of price and education and access and stress and etc. But where not the ones that go to the farmer's market on Saturday, like that's the least interesting group.
Speaker 2:So now you see only people that can afford it then can eat healthy and you want to flip that script. And the magic wand should sort that out. And this article. We need to share it because then people can fully understand, because I cannot really replicate it.
Speaker 1:Well, but yeah, this article is, and they, they've set the first step and I think yeah universal basic nutrition yeah, it's a right as well especially with children, especially with like it's should be a right of access to really nutrition. Not a crazy amount, but enough, and then you can decide to do your kombuchas etc, but like the basics. Yes, calories, it's almost like water is a human right. I mean some places not, but why food not and how?
Speaker 2:I think health is a great. It appeals to everybody like eating good food, I think, and if you can make that affordable, everybody will yeah but it because it has been.
Speaker 1:We've been paying crazy amounts for food as well, like the superfoods, the crazy wines, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:And we've known how bad the current food system is to our health and our ecological health for decades maybe, and somehow it's been bloody impossible to get out of that lock and I think with marketing it can be possible, but still it's, it's only only one brand or a few brands making it work and and I think price is is killing us on this uh thing do you see that now, with, like, the lowering of the price of your iced tea, for instance, like that, like price elasticity is important?
Speaker 2:to say it's important. Yeah, and so yeah, it's important if you want to reach a bigger audience which you want.
Speaker 2:Yes, we want so yes, of course, there's a group that don't really care if they pay 20 years, whatever more, because they they love the story and they love the product. But, of course, if you want to grow and become more mainstream which we want, of course, so we. So, yes, our prices are premium, but it's not that we, we will. We do not want to create a premium brand. We want this is the way to start.
Speaker 1:So and to pay farmers?
Speaker 2:yeah to pay and and and we hope at one point the the system will change and or true cost account, whatever then of course, then we would be super cheap because, like all the benefits for society, like so we uh, we put the so uh in our model the consumer pays the price. So it's not the, not nature, not farmer, not the people working on it paying the price but the consumer.
Speaker 1:Have you done a comparison with other kombucha brands or other tea brands? If you would calculate the real cost like true cost accounting compared to you, we haven't done that because it's super-. Difficult and expensive.
Speaker 2:Measuring biodiversity is like Good luck. Yeah, that's, and yeah, we are a bit more expensive. And then I think I won't name the, the brand, but there are a lot of premium brands the nestle coffee, whatever, with the big actors promoting so it's it's great yeah, it's premiumly sold and it's bad product. So then I think, why not sell premium with good product? So so it can be done.
Speaker 1:So that would be your target of your. Go back to the fund, taking the premium brands that currently are able to sell for a premium price because of marketing, yes, and somehow are not premium sourcing at all I mean they're doing some work, et cetera, but really the bare basics just because they're scared that they're not going to have coffee anymore, yeah, and say okay, okay, what if we actually use all that margin you're making?
Speaker 2:yes, and then shovel it to the farm, shovel it to the farmers and see what happens then. But then of course the the shareholder yeah, yeah, but you're the show then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that uh fascinating.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, matthijs, for inviting us here, because I reached out and I said shall we do it somewhere on the land? And the first answer was Schevinghoven, and I'm very happy to have walked in the concert of a lot of birds, a lot of insects.
Speaker 1:We walk through some fields where we are and I'm not saying attacked, but definitely interrupting a lot of busy insect lives and also saw some rabbits rabbits we saw, we saw deer, a lot of different herbs, plants and flowers, and thank you for this deep dive or shallow dive, depending on your point of view Into how to make biodiversity super tasty. And this is for the inner crowd, of course. The rest is nature restoration super tasty, thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend? Or give us a rating on Apple podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time.
