Patagonia's CEO Shares The Playbook On Preservation & Provisions

0:10Hello, friends. I'm Ray Lateef, and you're listening to the number one podcast for anyone and building a business in food or beverage, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Ryan Gellert, the CEO of pioneering outdoor apparel and gear company, Patagonia, and Paul Lightfoot, the general manager of its food and beverage division, Patagonia Provisions. It's not every day that I get an opportunity to sit down with the CEO of one of the most influential companies in the world. So when I was given the chance to speak with Ryan Gellert, who has helmed Patagonia since 2020, I jumped at it.

0:48I met with Ryan at Natural Products Expo West 2024, where he was on hand to help promote and speak about Patagonia Provisions, a company division formed in 2012 that markets responsibly sourced food and beverages, including a variety of tin seafood, along with Kernza-based pasta and beer. Ryan, who I met alongside Patagonia Provisions General Manager Paul Lightfoot, has often said that whether the company is selling sporting apparel or smoked mackerel, Patagonia is guided by its mission of being, quote, in business to save our home planet. It's a bold declaration and one that carries significant responsibility and dedication to a cause that seems increasingly challenging.

1:34In this interview, I spoke with Ryan about his leadership of Patagonia, which began during one of the most tumultuous times in the history of the modern U.S. how provisions fits into the company's present and future, why an esoteric ingredient is at the foundation of its innovation strategy, and how leaders of early-stage emerging brands can actively incorporate sustainability and environmental responsibility into their business strategies.

2:03Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. I'm at Expo West 2024 and sitting with Ryan Gellert, the CEO of Patagonia, and Paul Lightfoot, the General Manager of Patagonia Provisions. Gentlemen, great to see you. Nice to be here with you, Ray. Thank you. So that was Ryan you first heard, and then you heard Paul right after that. Ryan, you mentioned this is your first Expo West. How's it going? Oh, my God. This is an incredibly busy show. It's wonderful. I mean, it's an amazing amount of energy. It's really nice to see not just all the people but all the products. But it is just incredibly busy. Have you had a chance to walk the floor?

2:41A little bit. We had about an hour to walk the floor, but given how crowded it is, we made it about nine booths from here. Nice. Paul, you're old hat at this point. You know Expo West. Well, I have been here a bunch of times, but one thing feels different this time, which is the rise of regenerative organic certified brands, many of whom have been getting national rollout at Whole Foods and Sprouts and are surging in the marketplace. So I'm pumped up to see that. Ryan, you took over as CEO of Patagonia about three and a half years ago, and it was in the throes of the global pandemic, September 2020, if I'm not mistaken.

3:15That's right. Yeah. Since that time, you hear a lot of praise for the direction of the company, where the company is going. What has inspired you as a leader? And what have been your biggest challenges in, I guess, riding the ship? Not that the ship needed a lot of riding, but you have it in a direction that seems very clear and intentional. I think it's been an incredibly dynamic period for all of us as humans the last three and a half years with COVID, with social unrest, with racial reckoning in this country and the Western world and beyond. And then the economy has been up, down and sideways.

3:48The only thing you know for sure in that space is that wherever it is today is probably not where it's going to be tomorrow. So it's just been a really, really dynamic time. the thing that's inspired me the most is the people that I'm surrounded by and have the opportunity to work for and work with and that's the founders the chouinard family and that's all of our employees and and it certainly includes our customers as well through all of that what we have felt is there's this community of people who care deeply about the health of the planet and the communities that depend upon it. And our restructure in September of about 18 months ago, and the work that we've been trying to do to live within our purpose statement, we're in business to save our home planet, I think has been a consistent grounding and source of inspiration.

4:39We're in business to save our home planet definitely factors into the creation of Patagonia Provisions. But Paul, if you could explain, you know, why did specifically, why did Patagonia launch a food and beverage division, and how does it fit into the company's overall mission and future? Well, I'll quote our founder, Yvon Chouinard, if I get this right. I believe he said that people need a new jacket maybe every five or ten years, but they need to eat three times every day. So if we're serious about saving a home planet, we need to be in food. I would add to that, that food is unique not only in how often someone buys it and consumes it, but also the fact that with jackets or really most products that humans make, you can get the impact, the emissions or other environmental impacts, close to zero, but never better than zero.

5:30Food can be better than zero. You can actually grow food in a way that draws down carbon, improves ecosystems, and improves the health of the people who eat it. So if we're serious about our mission, Yvonne Chouinard would ask, it's not why are we in food, it's how could we not be in food? How could you not be in food and how could you not make great tasting food? Because at the end of the day, if it doesn't taste good, people aren't going to buy it or drink it. And I think about my favorite parts of Patagonia Provisions, your tins. My goodness, they are just so delicious. I could eat those every single day and some days I do.

6:04But one of your most useful or one of the most recent product launches for Patagonia Provisions has been your new pasta line, which is made with Kernza. and Kernza is at the foundation of both the pasta line and the beer line. What is it and why is it such an important ingredient for the company? So I'm going to start with our three pillars of our brand. The best taste, the best nutrition, and the best environmental impact. And this is something we borrow from all of Patagonia. Quality has to come first because if you don't have quality, the other things will never really make a difference. Kearns is a grain that you can use like wheat.

6:46You can make bread out of it. You can make pasta out of it. But unlike wheat, which is an annual, it's a perennial. So you plant it, it stays in the ground for several years. It has really deep roots, which is great for soil structure. It's great for the soil organic matter, which is the process of photosynthesis, bringing carbon from the atmosphere into the ground. It means that on the farm where our Kearns is being grown, it's actually on a carbon basis, net negative. So it's a grain like wheat, but it's way better in terms of what they call ecosystem services. It makes the farm and the land and the environment around it better.

7:21Does Patagonia own the farms that grow kernza or do you source it from farmers? We have a farmer who grows kernza. His name is Luke Peterson. He's actually standing right there. He's a farmer in Madison, Minnesota, very close to the border with South Dakota. He has, I think, 1 ,200 acres across several plots. And he has a 13-year rotation, which includes cash crops, cover crops, kernza, and livestock. And he used kernza partly because it makes the rest of his farm more valuable. It makes the soil more productive and richer. Paul, you mentioned taste. You mentioned an emphasis on sustainability when it comes to your foods.

8:02But Ryan, I got to ask about price because in our world, you know, with the economy that we're in, inflation being out of control and leaders that we have in the food industry saying it's okay to eat cereal for dinner drives me crazy. And I got to think about the emphasis or if there is an emphasis on affordability and accessibility of your products and how price affects your focus and mission as a company. Yeah, let me answer that first through the lens of our apparel and equipment business, then we can talk about it in food as well. You know, we have long believed that our responsibility in the apparel sector is to make the highest quality product, to encourage our customers not to buy things they don't need, and then to partner with our customers in keeping their product in use as long as possible.

8:54We operate the largest apparel repair facility in North America. We replicate that in all the markets globally that we work in. We buy product back when it's still usable, but people are done using it and we take responsibility for all of our product at the end of life. And so that's just a handful of the cost that we bear in bringing our product to market and extending its life. And we believe in charging the real cost, the true cost for the apparel that we make. We bring a really similar point of view to food. And at the same time, I think the thing that we wrestle with is how do we change the food sector?

9:30how do we make food products that meet all the three criteria that Paul spoke to, and at the same time, create a food business that's not just feeding the 1%. So that's the big idea. And we're still very much in the early days of figuring out how to do that, how to scale the different food solutions that we're bringing to market. Well, you know, food, if you study, you know, price sensitivity in economics in college, it's really food that they often talk about. Your velocities go down as your prices go up. we don't want to be the super premium end of the market, but we are selling food that's grown responsibly.

10:03We view ourselves as in the business of creating market demand for farmers that grow food responsibly, and it's not going to be the cheapest, and we don't apologize for that. It's the same with our apparel business. When you think about the cost of the way cheap food is grown in America, the cost of pollution, the cost in climate, the cost in health care costs, It's much more expensive than the price of the food rings in your supermarket at. We're trying to grow things responsibly. And I think if this country feels like it can't afford to buy food that's grown responsibly, it's not the price of our food that's the problem.

10:41It's a poverty problem. Part of charging a premium for food and beverage is educating consumers about why the price is what it is. educating consumers about the ingredients, about sustainability. Do you see it as the responsibility for companies to educate consumers about sustainability and planetary health? And if so, what are the most simple and effective ways of doing so? Yeah, I think you used the food reference, and I think it's as true there as it is in our core business of apparel. And we not only believe that educating customers is a responsibility, We think it's probably the one thing that we're best at above and beyond making quality product.

11:24I think, you know, and I say this with humility, but we're pretty good storytellers. And we really try to focus on the issues and the stories that are often overlooked and easily misunderstood. And I think the same is true in the food space. You know, Paul talked at the beginning about why we got into food at all. in my version of that story is, you know, we've been at apparel for 50 years, and we have helped reduce the footprint of how we make apparel and provided solutions for others to do the same. But at the end of the day, it's just making it less negative. It's a broken supply chain, and we're trying to make it less broken.

12:00The supply chain for food, we have the opportunity, if we get this right, that it can be part of the solution. And so I think to make that possible, to create that both awareness and market pull, we've got a responsibility to tell stories. Stories about Kearns, stories about more responsible forms of seafood, and stories about, you know, just what we're trying to do in all of the categories that we play in. How do you do that on front of pack, Paul? I mean, that's the most obvious way, seemingly, to educate a consumer about what's different about your product and what you're putting into it and what's not getting in there.

12:34How do you effectively communicate what you're doing on front of pack? So there's a difference between, you know, trial and activation and repeat usage, right? Like you'll see this is a packet that has an unusually deep message on the back, right? Like this one says, use your noodle, fight the climate crisis. We actually merchandise these alternating sometimes. Oh, interesting. And the mountain range actually runs together from box to box. So this is a pretty unusual way of telling the story, but we're largely trying to attract them with the number one most trusted brand in the United States, which is Patagonia.

13:09This is an unmistakable Ridgeline, Fitzroy it's called. And that's what we're trying to start with and try to draw them in. They can read these claims here on the front. They see that it's regenerative organic certified, and we're hoping then that they pick it up, they buy it, they try it, they read the romance copy on the back, but we're trying to get them as they walk down the aisle and notice that brand block on shelf. We don't have a lot of time left, so I got to ask. Ryan, we're here at Expo West. I don't think there's a single founder here that would say that sustainability and environmental responsibility isn't important.

13:43But how can leaders, particularly those that are operating early stage brands, actively incorporate them into their business strategies? I think it's a couple of things. One is, we've talked a lot about the regenerative organic alliance. I think that standard. It's one we co-founded with Dr. Bronner's and the Rodell Institute. It's one we feel very strongly about. So I think if that applies in the business that you're in, I would strongly encourage you to look at becoming a member of that standard. I think as well, it's just really understanding your supply chain and understanding where the levers are, where the impacts are, and where the solutions are that you can apply and scale as we try to change this food sector.

14:23Outstanding. Well, Ryan, Paul, this has been so fantastic sitting down with you both. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks so much for what you do for the industry and for our world as a whole. Thank you. Thanks, Ray.

14:38That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram.

15:13Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time