Seth Goldman:
Thank you, Simon. It’s great to be with you

Simon Mainwaring:
Now, if I look at your history, I see that you’ve leveraged partnerships time and again, to launch these really disruptive companies. And in the context of Lead With We, why is your mindset that way? Why did you always approach it in terms of having a partner?

Seth Goldman:
Well, this work is challenging. You’re going up against very strong forces with tons of inertia. I was a marathon runner, so I’d like to think I have endurance. But even, so it’s great to feel like you’ve got somebody in the trenches with, to use a war time metaphor. But to feel like who you’re aligned with and who you can really know has got your back and can bring an idea and insight from a different perspective. So all the businesses I’ve been in, I’ve enjoyed them all. And I’ve never been one to worry about, I don’t want to spread the prize out. I want to get to the prize and I want to get there with as many people as I can helping me.

Simon Mainwaring:
And you and I have known each other for a while, but I discovered in my research that you actually have a background in politics.

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. That was the government major in college. Yeah.

Simon Mainwaring:
So why did you start at that end of this trajectory?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. Because I’ve always thought of myself as an activist more than a business person. And so, when I was in high school in college, the folks who were making change happen that I saw politicians. I grew up in Massachusetts. I actually worked for Mike Dukakis, who in 1988, ran for president, but he inspired me as a governor. And so that was the kind of leader I saw, leadership I saw that was focused on change. And I ended up working on Dukakis’s presidential can campaign. And then I ended up working for Lloyd Bentsen, who was his running mate for two and a half years.

Seth Goldman:
And I really admired that work, but it felt a little too far removed from the kind of impact I wanted to see. And now, of course, as I’ve been in business for several decades, I’ve seen that the business arena, not every business arena, but the one I’ve chosen to be in can be an arena where tons of change can happen. And really, you can be an activist, a really aggressive activist. By aggressive, I mean really digging into the issues that I care about and in a way, doing it in a way that’s less political. I feel like what we’re doing appeals or can appeal to people across all different political beliefs. And the impact we can have, can be direct and much less compromised filled than the business world. So I’d like to think I’ve kept the activist hat on, I’ve just changed the venue where I practice it.

Simon Mainwaring:
I think that’s really important because so many issues today have become even more politicized than before, and that can really compound that inertia that you’re talking about. But actually, where did that inspiration or that desire to make a difference come from? Because I think everyone listening to this podcast wouldn’t have chosen to be here unless they feel some instinct to do the same. Where did it start with you?

Seth Goldman:
So my parents were both professors. My dad was a professor of what was then the Soviet Union, or now Russia, and my mother was a professor of Chinese history. And so the dinner table conversation, it wasn’t about the Red Sox or about the weather, it was about the world and our place in it. And I always felt that it was both my duty and my ambition to address issues I care about. We’re not spectators on this planet, we’re participants. And so, that to me, when I use the word activist, that means I act on the issues I care about.

Simon Mainwaring:
I couldn’t agree more. My dad was a lawyer. And I think just the conversations you have year over year have as to how you codify values and coexist inform the decisions I made. I think that’s very, very true. And sometimes, we don’t realize what an effect that’s having on us. But why a tea company? So you and your pro professor at Yale, Barry Nalebuff, came together. How did you approach him in the first place and why tea?

Seth Goldman:
So in 1995, it was the Yale School of Management. And I was a Barry’s student in a competitive strategy course. One of the case studies we looked at was the Cola wars and this dynamic where Coke and Pepsi were duking it out over carbonated soda. And Barry said, “Well, is there any other way for these two to compete?” And of course, yes, they don’t just have to try to sell a Coke versus Pepsi. They could totally change the dynamic by offering drinks with different sweetness levels or different sourcing practices. And we basically left that idea in the classroom. We agreed, we were aligned, but I had to find a job. I was in my second year of business school. So I moved down to Bethesda, Maryland, and I started working in what would now be called ESG Investing.

Seth Goldman:
And after a presentation I gave in New York City on behalf of the fund I worked with, I went for a run. And after the run, I was thirsty and I went to the cooler and I said, “There’s nothing here.” There’s all these same, I thought back to Barry’s class, it’s all these sweet drinks, all these water drinks, nothing in the middle. So I reached back out to Barry and I said, “I am ready to act on this now, that idea we brought up.” And Barry had just come back from India, where he had been studying the tea industry, and he had come up with a name Honest Tea.

Seth Goldman:
And then for me, it kind of like the clouds parted, well, that’s a perfect name. And it gives us this license to really have… To do more than just sell liquid in a bottle, but to really put an ethos behind it and a whole approach to it. So I left my job in the investment world and started brewing tea in my kitchen. I managed to get an appointment with the local Whole Foods buying office, where I presented five thermoses of tea and an empty Snapple bottle that we pasted some labels on. And that was enough for the buyer to say he was willing to give us a try, and he placed an order for 15,000 bottles.

Simon Mainwaring:
That’s amazing. What I’d love people to take away is that this seemingly innocuous moment when you just went for a run, that transformed your life. And also, you didn’t let somebody say no for you. You reached back out to the professor and said, “Hey, what about standing up that idea?” And I think a lot of entrepreneurs have great ideas, but they don’t take that leap. Would you say that’s fair?

Seth Goldman:
That’s right. It’s both the idea and the partnership. Right? So the idea sort of some dots connected. But Barry and I had always had a great communication and real respect for each other. And I think part of it made have been, as I said, my parents were professors. So I often was able to speak more frankly with my professors than a lot of my classmates. Barry could be very intimidating for some of the students. So there’s two circle backs. One was the idea, but also the person with whom I had that connection. And so the two of those converged when we got together and we’re still wonderfully close friends and collaborators.

Simon Mainwaring:
And to what degree did you formalize, integrate purpose and values at that point? Because now it seems so self evident, but that was a long time ago.

Seth Goldman:
It’s so fun. So I’m on Honest Tea’s website, which it’s still there, is our original business plan, and you can just go to honesttea.com and find it there. And in that very first business plan, we outline it’s called an aspiration for social responsibility because of course, the company wasn’t yet formed. So we just talked about what we aspire to do. But what’s so go ratifying about that statement is that if you read it, it actually describes the brand almost exactly the way it is today. Talking about a commitment to authentic and sustainably sourced ingredients, talking about a commitment to helping support economically disadvantaged communities. In the case of Honest Tea, it manifest itself through fair trade sourcing. And so we called it mission in a bottle. We brewed into the drink we made. And we also created guardrails around it, such that even after Honest Tea got acquired by Coca-Cola, those values are still very much intact.

Simon Mainwaring:
So how do you navigate that? Because you see Ben & Jerry’s, you see Seventh Generation and the Unilever family. You see lots of examples like this. How do you either protect the integrity of your brand, or how do you upload it to the mothership?

Seth Goldman:
You leave as little to chance as you can. And what I mean by that is with Honest Tea, everything was certified organic and it wasn’t just, oh, take our word for it, it’s all natural. No, there’s a USDA organic seal that is federally enforced, in fact, even internationally enforced so that someone is inspecting the tea gardens, whether they’re in India or China. And then with fair trade sourcing, again, we don’t just say, “Oh, we’re socially responsible, we give back to our supplier communities.” Fair trade has a very rigorous inspection mechanism and auditing mechanism to make sure that not just that the working conditions are there, but that there’s money going back to these communities that’s audited to make sure that the community has the say in how the money’s invested. And of course, the third pillar of Honest Tea was the nutrition. And that, the consumer can just see by seeing the low or calorie label.

Simon Mainwaring:
And then how do you, in those final negotiations, because you’ve effectively got this Trojan horse where you bring these values into a wider portfolio and so on, how do you identify the right partner? And then what role do you play over time, together?

Seth Goldman:
Well, the best way to enforce that and make sure they we’re upheld was just to grow the brand. There was nothing legal we could say that it has to always be organic or anything like that. But what we did was worked hard. Honest Tea first took an investment from Coca-Cola in 2008. They bought the company in 2011, but I stayed on through 2019. And that was for me, the best way to ensure that the brand key came to its scale and to fruition with all those equities embedded in there. And as I said, they are still there today. So I feel very good about the way the brand has been adopted, but also been embraced.

Simon Mainwaring:
And for those who’ve never been to it, there’s a big event called Expo West where new food brands and beverage brands are on display. And one of the things I love about Seth, I’ve got to tell everyone, is that I was there at this year’s. They stood up a live event for the first time, and there was Seth front of the booth out there, Eat the Change, down in the trenches again. So in the spirit of being in the trenches, from that Honest Tea experience, what glorious mistakes did you make? Would you do different-

Seth Goldman:
How many days do you have?

Simon Mainwaring:
What would you do differently?

Seth Goldman:
Well, look, it’s all a journey and you don’t regret your scars. I probably have fewer gray hairs, but the biggest mistake we made was that for six years, we owned a portion of a bottling plant because we thought that was essential in order for us to be able to make our product. And it was only after we were able to pass off the bottling plant. I don’t want to say we sold it, because it was a, it was a liability. But we were able to bestow it upon someone else that it freed me up to really build the brand with full scale. And so it wasn’t just the business distraction, it was the personal energy. The plant was in Pittsburgh, I was in Bethesda, Maryland. Every few weeks, I’d go do these just brutal drives and get up at like three in the morning and get to Pittsburgh by 7:30. Stay until about 3:30, drive home sometimes have to pull over to take a nap.

Simon Mainwaring:
I bet you were a great company at home after a day like that, right?

Seth Goldman:
It was the wrong use of my energy. It wasn’t where my passion was. And so part of what I learned was one, make sure that the most… People always say your time is your most valuable asset. My energy is my most valuable asset. So make sure you’ve got the right energy and you do what you can to cultivate it and protect it. Also, really make sure that the work you’re doing is what you love and what you’re good at. And frankly, I wasn’t great at running a bottling plant. It just wasn’t needed. The real lesson is make sure you’re building what’s valuable.

Seth Goldman:
And of course, Coca-Cola would never have looked at that bottling plant as an asset because they can make products so much better at such larger scale. And so, as I said, once we got past the bottling plant, all of a sudden we realized, well, we’re here to build this Honest brand. And that can be so much more than just producing tea. It can actually produce a product like Honest Kids, which was our kids line, and that’s taken off. And so that was a good lesson, and it was an expensive lesson.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, I think the more they cost, the quicker you learn them. Also, I want to call out something you mentioned there, which is so important, and it’s meant a lot to me too. I found in the early years of entrepreneurship, you’re always sort of dialing up your energy and throwing your energy at everything. But if you do that long enough and you get exhausted long enough, you realize that your focus should be in when can you dial down your energy, when can you preserve and protect your energy, because the job takes so much out of you. Would you say that’s fair?

Seth Goldman:
I think that’s fair. I also think for me, I’m most focused on how do I infuse my energy into others? How do I get people as excited about the business as I am? And that means spending time with them, making sure they’re focused on the right work, making sure that we are passing on the right message, whether it’s to a grocery store or to a consumer or to the media. Making sure that the vision and it becomes a real palpable thing within this company. And so a lot of my energy is focused on spreading it as well.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah. That sort of passion and energy is contagious. And then in 2013, you went into the meat analog, the sort of Beyond Meat. You joined the board there. How did you transition because that’s kind of a little bit of a sort of 180, shall we say?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. My family’s been vegetarian for 18 years now. But back in 2013, so we sold Honest Tea in 2011 and I was enjoying the work. But I was getting that entrepreneurial itch. I wanted to go build and create. What we were doing at Honest Tea was scaling, and that’s important work, but it wasn’t creating as much. And so I was just thinking about what would the right idea be. And my wife happened to read this article about this company getting started out in California that was seeking to replicate the taste-

Simon Mainwaring:
Never going to take off, right? Never going to go anywhere.

Seth Goldman:
No. Her response was, “Well, as a family of vegetarians that really misses eating our burgers, this could be a good idea.” She said, “You should reach out to those folk and see if you can help.” And so I literally sent an email to info@beyondmeat.com and I said, “I read about what you’re doing. I’ve learned a lot. If there’s any way I can help please let me know.” And they emailed back pretty promptly saying, “We need some help.”

Seth Goldman:
And what was interesting about the company is that it had just gotten some good finance in place, but no one on the board had a food background. They were all finance and tech people. And so my experience was very relevant for the business. And so I got into first a weekly cadence of talking to the CEO, Ethan Brown, and then we thought, boy, this is useful, let’s talk every other day.

Seth Goldman:
I had joined the board it by that time. And so I created this very unusual arrangement where I was able to work half time with Beyond Meat and become executive chair of the board. And then the other half of the time work for Honest Tea and still helped be that founder presence and guiding vision. It was a wonderful five years that we grew both brands, and sometimes I would travel internationally and got to work with both brands at the same time. And of course, with Beyond Meat, it built from less than a million dollars in sales to eventually going public. And today, the business is over 500 million in sales and I’m chair of the board now.

Simon Mainwaring:
And it’s easy to think that this was an easy road to you back then, but I can imagine in these nascent days, what was it like? What were the challenges that you faced when you came in the door?

Seth Goldman:
For me, of course there were real challenges. But I love all of… The first challenge is, can you sell the product? And then if you’re lucky enough to be able to sell it, can you make it? There’s a challenge about convincing consumers. Why is it different and why is it something you want, right? So of course, with Honest Tea, why would you want a less sweet tea? And people aren’t used to that. And with Beyond Meat, plant-based meat, they didn’t understand. They don’t like veggie burgers. So anything that smacks of that is not appealing. And so it really was kind of reintroducing them or getting them to give veggie burgers or plant-based burgers a second try. And then scaling globally, thinking about the supply chain. Are we going to be able to grow enough of the ingredients? And then going internationally to sales, how do we convince people in other markets and what is that challenge like?

Seth Goldman:
Inevitably, challenging, frustrating. There’s moments where you lose sleep. And of course, I don’t relish those. And I’ve been losing sleep now with the new startup, Eat the Change. But it’s all part of the journey, and I just love that. Feeling a building and even the successes or the wins can be really small when you start from scratch. But they are wins, and it’s just that feeling of building and creating. And of course, the impact. Because with every win, whether it’s winning a new consumer, winning a new chain, winning a new restaurant, you know the impact of what you’re doing. And all the businesses, whether it’s Honest Tea, Beyond Meat or Eat the Change, when you embed your mission in your product, then you know that every win has an impact to it.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah. That is a tangible, ongoing reward. And one of the best pieces of advice I ever got as an entrepreneur is develop a healthy relationship with anxiety. Because you either have too much going on or not enough going on, and there’s very few moments in between. I just want to push in before we go to Eat the Change, the education piece must have been huge, much like the shared economy with Uber or Airbnb. How did you solve for educating people even to adopt or try?

Seth Goldman:
I think with all these businesses, they’re really part of a movement to shift people’s dietary habits. And so like any movement, whether it’s a political campaign or a nonprofit, you have to educate people. And ideally, you can get them inspired. But sometimes you just have to rely on taste. This is one thing I’ve always said. Doesn’t matter whatever you’re selling, it’s got to taste great because you may get someone to join you because they’re a believer. But they’re only going to stick with you if the taste delivers as well. And so, what’s striking about whether it was with Honest Tea and organic and fair trade Beyond Meat with plant-based protein, when I got involved with all these things, they were totally nascent. These were barely on, the level of awareness was so low with the consumer. And same with Eat the Change now. But when you start from almost nothing, then every sort of advancement is something.

Simon Mainwaring:
Is something. And you’ve got nothing to lose. Right?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. And then you look at what’s happened, talk about plant-based protein. So from 2013, when the Beyond burger didn’t exist to today, where every continent in the country has it, and not just Beyond Meat, but plant-based protein more broadly, it’s incredibly gratifying to see that impact. And of course, it’s still so early. But you know where where we’re going and you can feel that, what the future looks like, and understand how you’re a part of it.

Simon Mainwaring:
What percentage of the overall protein market are these plant-based alternatives?

Seth Goldman:
Super small.

Simon Mainwaring:
Very small.

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. So it’s just about 1%. Now it’s a huge market. But what’s interesting and where we take inspiration is you look at plant-based dairy, which is about 16% of the dairy market. And of course, 20 years ago, soy milk, of course it existed, but it was not really marketed. It was marketed in a shelf stable box. And then when they moved to the dairy case, that’s when things happened. And of course, with Beyond Meat being the first plant-based burger to be merchandised in the meat section of the store, as opposed to the freezer, that’s where we see this big expansion. And now you’re seeing companies like Beyond Meat partnering with major quick serve restaurant chains around the globe. And this is how you start to penetrate in a much broader way.

Simon Mainwaring:
And just to get the benefit of your expertise, on several occasions, you’ve got in very early to markets that then exploded. Are there any common denominators or is it instinct when you get-

Seth Goldman:
Well, certainly one of them for me is this idea that it’s a fundamentally different product, right? So I’ll take the example of Honest Kids. This is our kids’ drink. And we brought it out. We looked at the kids’ drink case. And actually, the way this one came to is kind of a funny story. I have three sons. My middle son asked me one morning as I was putting things in their lunchbox. He said, “Dad, how come you’re selling these healthy drinks to grown up, but you’re putting these really sugary drink pouches in my lunchbox?” And I looked and I realized the drink pouch I was putting in his lunchbox had 100 calories per pouch, which was more calories per ounce than in a can soda. And this is what I was putting in my son’s lunchbox.

Seth Goldman:
And so the answer would not have been to say, “All right, well, if everyone’s at 100 calories, let’s go make an 80 calorie drink.” That’s not the right answer. Instead, we said, “Let’s go make a 40 calorie drink.” And why 40 calories? It was just sweet enough that kids like my son would be happy with it, but for me it was 60% fewer calories. So dramatically different. So the way that we’ve been able to make inroads is by offering something that’s fundamentally different from what’s out there. And sometimes with the plant-based protein, someone would said, “Well, the best idea would be to mix, do a 50% animal burger and a 50% plant-based patty.” But that’s kind of a neither. It’s neither plant-based and it’s neither animal based. So the answer is to make a plant-based that tastes as good as you can make it.

Seth Goldman:
One of the really fun things we’ve just done at Eat the Change, this new company, is we looked at the kids’ snack case. And I said I want to make a snack that is the analog. So if Honest Kids is to the kids’ drink pouch market, I want to make a snack that is equally compelling and equally different. And so of course, one category we looked at was what are called fruit juice. There are anywhere from 80 to 100 calories. Turns out there’s not really fruit in them at all. So maybe some fruit picked in or some fruit juice. And so the answer wouldn’t have been to say, “All right, well, let’s make a 60 calorie fruit snack.” Instead we said, “Let’s make a kit snack that actually is based on a real food.” And so we launched this new product, that’s called Cosmic Carrot Juice, and it’s made with carrots.

Seth Goldman:
And when you look in the pouch, the product is a carrot. And so the first ingredient is carrot and it has all the nutritional benefits and all the fiber and the vitamin A of a carrot. Now, of course, we have to get the kid to be willing to adopt it, but we know the parent will quickly understand why this is just a much better product. So a lot of our food systems scale the way it’s scaled, because companies looked for relatively inexpensive and high margin, I’ll say cheap, ways to offer things. And now we have the chance to help reset. We have to communicate to parents and bring them products that, in this case, are fairly easy to understand.

Simon Mainwaring:
And there seems to be these little signature moments that triggered these new companies as you’re sharing. What was it that led you for, from for example, plant burger, to Eat the Change?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. So this was a fun one. And as you’ll notice, a theme, right? So I talked about my wife inspiring me to go after Beyond Meat, my son inspiring me to launch Honest Kids. My oldest son was the head of marketing for Plant Burger and he came up with this phrase, eat the change you wish to see in the world. And as soon as he said it, I just thought, wow, what a great call to action. And of course, it’s a phrase that’s attributed to Gandhi who said, “The way you act is how you can make change in the world.” And it’s even more so with food, that every day, our biggest daily environmental impact is what we eat. It’s great if you can bike to work or recycle or use less plastic, but what you put in your body is by far the single biggest driver of your environmental footprint.

Seth Goldman:
And so I realized that phrase, Eat the Change, would be a great name for a brand because it’s a call to action, it’s a call to empowerment and a call to accountability. And so if we could help people make that connection and do it with products that exemplify that consciousness. And so I mentioned this carrot snack. Well, turns out carrots are one of the most water efficient crops in the world. They take about 20 gallons of water to make a pound of carrots. Contrast that with about 1,800 gallons of water to make a pound of almonds, or of course to meat is almost the same as almonds in terms of the water footprint.

Seth Goldman:
And then the way we designed the Cosmic Carrot Juice, we use the full carrot. There’s no food waste. So we actually had initially looked at trying to make a carrot chip, like a potato chip made with carrots. But there was going to be so much waste with the carrot, let’s not, we’re trying to create an example. And then of course, everything is organic and we embed as much of that climate consciousness as we can into the products we design. The other product line that we have is a mushroom jerky. And once again, mushrooms are extremely water efficient. They grow on compost. So once again, a great example of how to help people shift their diets to more climate friendly food, planet friendly food.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I want to call out something which I think is so important because you’re launching these businesses and building them, but you’re also scaling brands. And if you look at the narratives across the companies that we’re talking about, that you’ve led, you’ve got initially Honest Tea, which is honest about what’s in it and what it does for you. You’ve got Beyond Meat, which is taking the narrative of meat further. You’ve got Plant Burger, which is distinguishing something familiar. And now you’ve got Eat the Change. And I want to ask you Eat the Change is a very direct call to action, as you say. Would you agree that there’s a big shift in marketing now that brands are showing up as platforms that enable shifts in consumer behavior?

Seth Goldman:
We hope so. That’s certainly everything about the way we communicate does embrace the messaging. But at the same time, as I said, the carrots, we may be able to sell them to a parent once because of our climate agenda. We’re not going to sell them again if the child doesn’t come home and say, mom or dad, “I like what I had in my lunchbox today, and I’ll eat more of that.” And so it has to work on its own. Certainly from my perspective, what gets me motivated and excited and a lot of my team, is the mission. But part of that mission is we also have to make a brand that’s fun and accessible and tasty.

Simon Mainwaring:
And one of the reasons I actually got to know you was I noticed this incredible calendar that you put out there, which was all about consumer change. I saw, to explain to those listening, it’s a calendar that over a period of 28 days, rather than tell you to change wholesale what you’re doing in your eating habits and so on, it gave you small little step that allowed you to incrementally sort of upgrade. Tell us why you took that approach, why it was successful.

Seth Goldman:
I think sometimes people get overwhelmed. This is a crazy world we’re living in. There’s so much going on. And sometimes, you just feel like I can’t change all of it. I can’t do anything about all of it. But you can do something. And the easiest thing you can control, and this is totally within your jurisdiction, is what you choose to eat every day. And so every day, as for our incrEDIBLE Planet Challenge, we offer just a different little suggestion. And we try to make them as accessible as possible. For day one, it’s just swap out dairy. So if you’re going to have coffee or cereal, just put a plant-based substitute in. Such a simple, kind of lateral move. It doesn’t take a lot. And that’s all you need to do on day one.

Seth Goldman:
And then we go on and there’s other examples of, obviously you can make a taco night with that. You go out and eat at a restaurant and order something plant-based. You can make a dinner with leftovers. You can try incorporating new ingredients into what you make at home. But all of these things are steps towards a more planet friendly diet. And we just want to make them accessible. We make them fun, we have different chefs who we’re even engaged with, different brands, different giveaways, all in the name of just helping awaken some interest. And like I said, even with Beyond Meat, we always made a point and we still make a point, we don’t want to be judgmental. We’re not saying anybody who eats animals is bad. That’s not way to sell something. We want to help us inspire people to try something new and understand why we think it’s worth doing.

Simon Mainwaring:
And just to build on that, I think one of the most powerful things you can do in marketing today is shift from this idea of one to one, where you’re selling to one consumer to one to one to many, to get that customer to advocate or evangelize on your behalf. So you create these experiences. But then how do you get people to talk about what you’re doing?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. Well, and social media is so powerful here, where we can share this campaign. And leading up to the launch of the incrEDIBLE Planet Challenge. I spoke to EV businesses, schools, colleges, anybody who would listen about what we’re doing and just to show how easy it is to do. And then part of what we do through social media is encourage them to share it with others. And so for the giveaways, when we do that, they’re eligible for a giveaway when they share and pass the word on to some more friends. And so we just want to spread this as widely as we can. And of course, the other thing we do is we leverage all the other brands who participate and get them to tell their community. So we worked with a plant- based dairy company on day one and their partner. They may not have as much interest in someone using reusable bottles. That’s not in their charter. But those people who have been engaged with them, get the message too. So we are able to expand. Using the work, we can expand much broader, much more further than our own platform.

Simon Mainwaring:
And one of the great needs in the food space is underserved communities. You’ve got infrastructure and healthcare and education, and so many other issues that play into results like food deserts, or just the proliferation of fast food restaurants, which have so many health effects. How does a company like yours, Eat the Change, play into that?

Seth Goldman:
It’s really an important question. And one of our commitments within our planet based commitments is access for all. And so we actually stood up a grants program before we even launched the business. And this was from a separate pot of money, but my wife and I did it in the name of Eat the Change, because we wanted to really, it was our own way to discover what were the causes, how do we sort of manifest this mission? And we’ve found amazing nonprofits all over the United States that we could donate to that were helping to democratize plant-based diets and doing it through education, through access, whether they’re setting up a store, setting up a farmer’s market, working in the classroom to help kids grow plants and understand what they are. And they don’t just appear the shelf and how to integrate them into our diet. And so this is now our third year with this grants program, and just really been inspiring to see the kind of leaders we’ve been able to support and help advance this cause.

Simon Mainwaring:
It’s not unique to Eat the Change or plant-based meat, but these issues become so readily politicized these days, especially in these echo chambers of social media. How do you navigate, not just speaking to either those who are converted or those who are open to it, but those who are really resistant for a lot of reasons?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. For us, once again, we have to lead with taste. So we’re never going to try to put our agenda in front of somebody and say, “This is why you need to change your diet.” We want to talk about how delicious this is. With the kids’ product, we just made it fun. We just wanted it to be something that a kid Seth Goldman Draft 2 (Completed 04/16/22) Page 11 of 15 Transcript by Rev.com This transcript was exported on Apr 18, 2022 – view latest version here. and a parent could think is fun, accessible. We’re basically competing with gummy bears. So we can’t just show a picture of a carrot and say, “Eat your carrots.” It’s got to be Cosmic Carrot Juice and get ready for lift off. We have to find ways to engage people that’s fun. And it has to be about taste.

Seth Goldman:
Anybody who wants to dig in on our website, either EattheChange.com or EattheChange.org can go many layers down and discover the depth of our commitment and our sourcing practices and the farmers that we work with. But at the same time, the job that people hire us to do, I always say this to my team, they hire us to provide them with nutrition or calories and we’ve got to do that first. And so that’s why our messaging has to emphasize those things.

Simon Mainwaring:
And despite the sort of 1% market share of plant-based alternatives, there’s so much upside ahead. You do see large companies like the Meatless Farm, you see Kellogg’s, you see Kroger going into this area. Is that good for the market?

Seth Goldman:
Absolutely. Yeah. We’ve got to grow this category. And so we need more participants. It is how you build something. What’s striking and perhaps the most powerful indicator, when we launched Honest Kids, as I said, we went into a market where everything was 100 calories. If you go to a shelf today, you’ll see far more varieties, certainly some 40 calorie, but a lot more 60 calorie. And so there’s a great phrase that the CEO of Patagonia once told me. She said, “You want to make it uncomfortable for your competitors not to follow you.”

Simon Mainwaring:
Right.

Seth Goldman:
And so that’s part of what we want to do. And you build a category by basically legitimizing it. And so when we went to the grocery store and put Beyond Meat in the meat cases, the first plant-based protein, we knew we wouldn’t be the only one there. It becomes a section of a store when there’s more brands. And so, yes, we’ll build that out as a movement.

Simon Mainwaring:
And then as a mindset, how do you approach growing the category and collaborating with otherwise competitors and also delivering on your own mandate, which is to grow your own business.

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. Well, you have to keep in mind, what’s the competition. The goal, we would never want the goal of winning all 1% of the meat market. We would rather see it expand to 16% and being the largest player in that category. That’s a win. Just sort of duking it out with the other brands, it’s not a worthwhile investment of our time or our impact. So you’ve got to think expansively about changing the paradigm. And that’s certainly for all the businesses I’ve been in. That’s what we’re about.

Simon Mainwaring:
And obviously, there’s urgencies around these areas because there’s a need outright to feed people, to look after their health and so on. But there’s a larger context around the IPCC reports and updates that are coming out saying we’re working against timelines in terms of the climate emergency, loss of biodiversity and so on, that they’re contracting towards us. And so where are we in the plant-based food movement? Because you’ve had the luxury of building all these different businesses. How well are we doing? How far are we getting? What’s the urgency?

Seth Goldman:
Well, it’s so early. The urgency is tremendously high because, I don’t want to sound doomsday, but it’s too late. The earth is changing. This is our doing. And so global warming isn’t something we have to worry about as a future thing, it’s happening now. And it is due to so much of our own impact. And so the good news is we do know, without dispute, that based-protein is a more sustainable option. And we’ve had a independent life cycle analysis done for Beyond Meat. It uses 99% less water, 93% less land, creates 90% fewer greenhouse gases to make, compared to a beef burger. So we know this is a solution. The other thing of course we know is if we scale the American diet as is and feed try to feed it to the rest of the world, we will need two and a half earths to do that. Well, last time I checked, we didn’t have that many earths.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right, right.

Seth Goldman:
We know that we can feed the planet nutritious and sustainable food. There is a diet that can do it, it’s just not the diet that we have in the United States. And so we have to make these shifts and it has to happen urgently. So that’s the doomsday scenario and that can be upsetting. The other way to look at it is this whole category didn’t exist six years ago.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right.

Seth Goldman:
And look at the change that’s happened. Of course, I pay attention to quarterly results, but I look at what’s happened in just the past few years. And it makes me incredibly excited about the future. And so while it can be depressing at times, it just depends what indicators you look at. And I always say, when I’m thinking about strategy or where we want to go, a sailor doesn’t sail by other ships, it’s sails by the stars. So you need to think about what direction you want to head. Don’t worry about what others are doing, stay focused on that destination.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right. I think that’s great advice. And also, given the urgency, given the progress that’s being made, what do you see the future of food looking like here in the US or around the world, if you could cast your eye 10 years down the track?

Seth Goldman:
Yeah. I do think this shift will be inevitable. Because here’s what’s happening right now. When you ask people about their diet and the climate, they’ll say, “Well, I understand that when the climate changes, I won’t necessarily be able to eat the same kind of foods I used to eat.” But they haven’t yet made the flip, which is, I understand that the dietary choices I make will have an impact on the climate. They’re not there yet. And so we need to keep working on that message and we need to bring that to life. And so sometimes when you see or hear about incidents in the news, it helps bring it to light, but sometimes it takes the marketing that we’re doing. And so I do think whether it’s Beyond Meat or Eat the Change, this ethos will become much more of a mindset for people.

Seth Goldman:
You’ve heard about obviously carnivores, herbivores, vegetarians. And there’s also a wave of people called climatarians, who choose foods based on climate. You’ve certainly heard people talk about choosing local foods or choosing foods in season. But there’ll be a lot more nuance to the dietary choices people make. And so part of that will rely on information. So people will become much more aware of the foods they eat and their environmental impact. It does take education, for sure, but I do see that being very much part of the future. And I think restaurants as well will start to make choices that are better informed, whether it’s because of seasonality or of sourcing because they want to talk about whether it’s fine foods or high quality foods, they’ll want to be able to demonstrate they’ve evaluated the ethical considerations as well.

Simon Mainwaring:
And as someone who has a unique line of sight, over all your experience, but also the industry and the food system, what keeps you up at night?

Seth Goldman:
Well, sometimes it’s just worrying about how come my mushrooms didn’t arrive at the smokehouse on time and all of the, I don’t want to call them… The day to day worries, those keep me awake. I don’t worry about the business impact because I know I’m doing everything I can. And so, of course the world, you can sort of be upset about the darkness or you can light a candle. And so for me, I’m lighting a candle and I’m doing what I can do, and as many ways as I can, as powerfully as I can, bringing as many people to it as I can. So that doesn’t keep me awake.

Seth Goldman:
The other thing. Our three sons are growing up and going into the world and we still worry and want the best for them and for the other people in our lives. But that’s all part of life and the journey. Generally, I find that the more I exercise, the better I sleep and that’s a bigger determinant of my quality of sleep.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right. The more tired you are mentally from work and physically from running. And there’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic and you’ve touched on some of them, but is there anything of all the reasons out there that you’d point to that the listeners could go, “Actually, that’s right, that is something to hang our hat on”? What would you point to?

Seth Goldman:
I think when consumers understand the impact of their diets, they make choices. And so it’s not like we have to unlock some crazy secret code. The code is there, it’s just about information for people, and helping people connect the dots. And even in my family, so as I said, we’re all vegans now, but 16 years ago, we weren’t. And so we just went through a process of learning and talking and thinking and discussing, and we changed. My wife never would’ve imagined being vegan. She says she came from a long line of carnivores, which of course, we all did. And just being able to frame things in a different light. And of course, then finding that there’s actually not sacrifice involved with making these choices. There can be both a delight and almost a freedom to it that we hadn’t expected.

Simon Mainwaring:
Well Seth, I can’t thank you enough for being such a committed activist through all of this journey and such an accomplished entrepreneur, because you’ve enabled the market to get the traction it has, and there’s more to come from here. So thank you for your insights today.

Seth Goldman:
It’s great to be with you Simon.

Simon Mainwaring:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Lead With We. And you can find out more information about today’s guest, Seth Goldman, in the show notes of this episode. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts so you never miss an episode. Plus, you can now find us on all United Airlines in-flight entertainment consoles as well. And if you like this video, hit the like button below and be sure to subscribe. Finally, if you want to dive even deeper into the world of purposeful business, check out my new book and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Lead With We, which is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google Books. Lead With We is produced by Goal 17 Media. I’ll see you again soon and until then, let’s all lead with we.