Transcript of Podcast: Pet Food vs Climate Change
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F/X : Grocery store atmosphere
Alex
Pizza, check that off the list, it’s in recyclable packaging as well, nice!
Fruit, I’ll pick up some loose local apples, avoid the plastic on the bagged ones.
Right, now for Henry’s food.
…. None of these look particularly appetising… And I can’t see anything about sustainability, or carbon footprint... hmm…
F/X : transition to food sizzling / being cooked
F/X : Dog bark
Alex
Settle down Henry, it’ll be ready soon!
Alex
None of the kibble looked appetising, I know I can’t always feed you a steak for tea, but it’s nearly ready okay?
Jane
Hello and welcome to Engineering Matters, I’m Jane Sophia and I’m Alex Conacher.
Alex
And you might well be wondering what my pet dog Henry is doing in an episode of Engineering Matters
Jane
Well…..this is a story about an environmental life cycle assessment calculator that our partner for this episode, consultant WSP, has created for a pet food business called Open Farm.
Alex
It is a story about how one business has implemented technology to tackle some of the most difficult challenges that any company will face when it comes to understanding and reducing its carbon footprint.
Jane
This includes addressing the carbon generated by its supply chain, known in industry as scope three emissions. And its experience could offer valuable lessons for other companies.
Alex
Here’s Jacqueline Prehogan, co-founder of Open Farm and this is her story.
Jacqueline
Okay, so we have three dogs that are seniors. They're all pug mixes. So we have a Puggle, which is a pug beagle, Bella, a pug Japanese chin, Maddie, and a Pug Frenchie, Duncan, but they're all very puggy. So they all like look like pug. And they're actually all rescues. So Bella, we got, and Bella was like, the OG like pug that like it's like started at all, you know, we got her in 2010 Yeah, she's 12.
Then Maddie came next, Maddie’s 10. And those two are a bonded pair so they can't be separated. They need to do everything together.
And then yeah, Duncan was, he was seven when we got him and I was like, obviously, we can't get any more pugs or dogs
But he was a diva. He was like, I don't know what went on. But he was like such a spoiled diva. And he still was from the beginning.
So yeah, no they're definitely the inspiration and a big part of what we do and give us ideas but also, you know, again, why we love what we do because it's pets just like them you know that we're working for every day and we really you know, we really enjoy that.
Jane
Through the love of her dogs and the personal transition she and her family were undergoing, Jacqueline began to consider the animal welfare behind her meals.
Alex
As a family, they applied an ethos to consider where their food was coming from, how sustainable and ethical the rearing practices were that went into their food.
Jacqueline
And then of course, wanted to do the same for our pets.
But yeah, really, you know, when looking for, the original idea was a humanely raised pet food went out looking for that, couldn't find it, and you'll realise there was an opportunity. And for sure, you know, there are other people out there looking for the same thing, especially at that time. You know, as I think, when people are trying to really go back to their local butcher shops, and really starting to look for those better options when it came to their meat. And then I think we really quickly realised that, you know, there's more to do. And the concept grew into, you know, ethically sourced, which has a bigger scope, because that's around, of course, the, the animal welfare being super core, but also you know, sustainability, of course, you're really looking at how all of our ingredients are sourced even, you know, the packaging that they come in just a whole very holistic approach to ethical sourcing for our product.
Jane
Extending this idea into the needs of other pet parents, Open Farm strived to provide an easy solution without compromising on nutritional value or enjoyment.
Jacqueline
So for me, like, how I scoop, scoop of kibble, scoop of freeze dried bone broth, wham, bam, done in like, one minute.
Alex
Further to that, they realised that owners often make more of an effort to research the food they want to feed their pets.
Jacqueline
And the reason is, you know, people go to the grocery store, they kind of know what they want, they're in and out. But for feeding their pets, like people want help, they need help, they're confused, there's a lot of options really need a lot of guidance. And so they do a lot of research, they talk to people in the stores, they take the time. And so through that, you know, we've really been able to educate on our programmes, on our certifications. And then people be like, Oh, wow, that's amazing. And they might even make a change in their own food and how they're eating based on what they learned through their pet food, which is really cool.
Jane
These principles became their mission…
Jacqueline
Yeah, so our mission Yeah, exactly, is to do some good for animals and the planet.
Jacqueline
And so a lot of it was sort of building that up and having the right format. But it's also it's not enough to just like slap a certification on our new products, it's also looking at the formulation, like every detail the intention of how it feeds in, and making sure that it's, you know, extremely delicious for pets, that it is really digestible, that it has, you know, super nutrient dense ingredients, every single product, you know, we go through that, you know, fairly like scientific process as well to make sure that we really are, you know, including the right nutritional values and every product.
Alex
Here to talk a little more about the sustainability aspect is Open Farm’s Director of Impact, Megan Tuttle.
Megan Tuttle
Yeah, we really want to kind of, walk the talk, and make sure that we really are the most sustainable pet food company, we really are the most ethically sourced pet food company. And that's really why we set our science-based target, we can, you know, do small changes to our sourcing and to our packaging. But if we think about where most of our emissions come from, it's from our supply chain. It's from our manufacturing. So that was a really, really big lift to set that science-based target. But it's in line with the impact that we want to have as a company.
Jane
Science-based targets are a critical mechanism for demonstrating that emissions are being reduced in line with the requirements of the 2015 Paris Agreement. This landmark global pact, which we have talked about a lot here on Engineering Matters, aims to prevent the earth from warming beyond repair, keeping global warming on a path of below 1.5°C.
Megan
So we set a target in 2020 to reduce our scope one and scope two emissions…
Jane
Scope one emissions being those from sources that are controlled or owned by the company, such as on-site fuel use.
Alex
Scope two, purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling for company use.
Megan
By 42% by 2030, based off of that 2020 baseline year,
And then as part of that, we also set a goal to measure and reduce our scope three emissions.
Alex
As we said earlier these are the most difficult to tackle as they include a larger number of categories, from purchased goods and services, to business travel and waste.
Megan
So a little bit more vague there. Without, without any of those numbers, but we're working to refine that, figuring out exactly how ambitious we can be there.
So the WSP team really helped us out setting that science-based target, but the LCA calculator focused on our scope three in our supply chain emissions. So what that did was look at each of our different products and all of the components of our products, not just the ingredients, but the packaging, and the transportation and delivery at each different node of the supply chain. To kind of lay out at a product level what the greenhouse gas footprint was.
Jane
When looking at the early stages of products, the results weren’t surprising.
Megan
So we saw that ingredients were a big hotspot for us knowing that all of our, all of our products are, I think more than 75% meat, sometimes more than 85% meat, we knew that was going to be a big hotspot for us.
Jacqueline
So first of all, it definitely depends on the protein. You know, farms are very different, depending on the type of animal that they're raising.
Alex
For example, cattle produce more greenhouse gases than chicken or turkey.
Jane
But that doesn’t mean they have to be completely cut out.
Megan
In the US in particular we have native grasslands in kind of the Western US. And cows actually do a really good job of keeping that grass and preserving that, that landscape. And making that land economically viable still in agriculture, in preventing it from being converted to a mono crop like corn or wheat or soy.
Megan
Then there are also things that we can do on the other side to create carbon sinks, and that's where regenerative agriculture comes into play.
Jane
A method of farming in which the focus is on soil health, water management etc.
Megan
So, we are working with our farmers and ranchers to better understand exactly what supply chain practices are directly within our value chain.
Alex
Another nice thing about buying from these farms is the community aspect.
Jacqueline
For example, you know, our, our chicken farmers, and I definitely, you know, visited many in the past, are they’re a family farm, like, you'll go there, and it's a farm with, you know, parents, and usually kids, we're gonna have dogs, and they're raising their animals there. And, you know, usually, it might be like, a generational farm.
Jane
But they can’t buy directly from hundreds of these farms. Instead, the produce is sent to a processing facility and consolidated for companies like Open Farm to buy from.
Jacqueline
And what I love about, like, for example, the Certified Humane programme is, it's, there's an audit process at every level. So there's an audit at the farm, which is for the animal welfare standards, there's an audit at the processing slaughter level, which is to comply with the slaughter standards, and then there's even then, you know, we buy the meat, it goes to a manufacturing facility, there's even an audit backstage, to ensure that only that meat is going into our bags, and there's proper, you know, tracing, flushing out of equipment and all of that. And so it is really extensive, but that's how we're able to work with all these sort of individual little farms. And it's great because they then get compensated for like having better practices.
Alex
The next step to consider is what this food is packaged into…
Jane
And where that packaging goes at the end of its life.
Megan
We want to design everything so that it has a path out of landfill. So right now the majority of our packaging goes through a programme called TerraCycle, which is a really cool programme that takes hard to recycle materials like multilayer pet food bags, to things like cigarette butts and kind of finds a path out of landfill for them. And it turns them into parking bumpers or park benches.
Alex
The trick is in ensuring the customers know how to dispose of the packaging in the correct way.
Megan
We're also, working with an organisation called How to Recycle which is a standardised labelling kind of system and what they do is really clearly explain to the customer, what to do with each of the different components of their packaging. So we're launching two kibble bags that’ll be curbside recyclable in Canada, store drop off in the US and then our supplements packaging will be widely recyclable and in both countries.
Jane
Between all of this, the production, the processing, the end of life, is transport.
Megan
Just thinking of the logistics of the gas and the diesel and, and all of that another, another hotspot for us.
MUSIC
Jane
Here is Samantha Metaxas, an advisor on the WSP Climate Advisory Team. She works with companies to help them understand their environmental impact – by quantifying their greenhouse gas inventory.
Alex
And how best to reduce their impacts through targets and other initiatives.
Samantha
We carried out a series of workshops with the Open Farm team to understand what vision objectives, and ultimately KPIs and targets they wanted to set with respect to climate change. And then we also covered a few actions that they could take at a high level to start reducing that impact after we had quantified their inventory.
But we also went through a number of conversations through those workshops to get a broader understanding of why they were taking on this work, how it aligned with their brand and their goals as an organisation, and where they ultimately wanted to be. So that's where those, those workshops came in. And I think it's helped provide a broader context for the more technical work that we were doing.
Jane
This technical work was a greenhouse gas inventory, calculating the greenhouse gas emission associated with Open Farm across a calendar year.
Alex
This top-down perspective takes in Open Farm’s operations at large…
Samantha
That gave us really a sort of top-down perspective on their operations and the impact associated with those operations in their supply chain as well. And then seeing the output from that exercise, it triggered the need, or the desire to take on this screening level Lifecycle Assessment Tool…
And that was really to look at the bottom-up perspective, from a product-based lens.
It allows them to focus in on where those biggest impacts are from product to product, and actually, incorporate those decisions for reduction into their recipe design, product design at that level.
Alex
To correlate the data from these steps required a very special tool….
Jane
Have we mentioned before that we love a calculator here on Engineering Matters?
Samantha
Theoretically, the tool could be used to assess any type of product, it could also be used to assess the impact of processes as well, it doesn't necessarily need to be from the perspective of a final product, although that I think, is what it's most beneficial for. But it really is flexible in terms of how it's designed.
Alex
And a lot went into its creation…
Samantha
There was a lot of iteration in the development of the interface. Of course, a lot of the data, we depended on Open Farm for that came through conversations with them. And some of the emission factors or other impact factors that sit in the backend of the tool, we brought those to the table. But in terms of improvements, I think a lot of those improvements were ironed out over the course of the tools development.
Jane
Resulting in a sort of carbon pie chart, showing the amount of carbon produced in each area, or slice if you will
Alex
Seeing this breakdown allowed Open Farm to understand which slices needed work and delve deeper into those to discover why.
Jane
However, this does mean that the calculator relies heavily on the data it is fed.
Alex
Remember earlier when we mentioned different ingredients having a different environmental impact?
Jane
The beef vs chicken thing…
Samantha
For that reason, we want to dive deeper into those ingredients in terms of the data that we use.
Jane
Currently, the data they utilise is primarily sourced from industry benchmarks.
Samantha
So a benchmark figure for how much, how many greenhouse gas emissions are associated with one kilogramme of beef for instance. And I think one improvement, you could call it, would be working with Open Farm’s, suppliers directly to better understand what practices they're employing on the farm for example and be able to refine that emission factor and have it be more bespoke to Open Farm’s operations. So that's one area of improvement that we're currently pursuing.
Fundamentally, the tool was designed to help them better understand the impacts of their individual products and beyond that, the inputs to their individual products.
to help Open Farm really narrow in on some high impact areas and be able, internally, to make some decisions through their innovation and R&D, to lower the impact of their products that ultimately reach the consumers.
Megan
So when WSP, helped us with our carbon footprint…
Alex
Helped Open Farm understand the overall impact of their operations, this led Open Farm to design new products
Jane
A development of this has been the design of new products.
Megan
So we, kind of thinking along those lines wanting to still be the most sustainable pet food company, are launching later this year, a, insect based in kibble and a plant based kibble, which we're really, really excited about. So that will give pet parents the option to make the choice and they can see, you know, fully transparently the carbon footprint of each, how that kind of stacks up, the detail behind it and make the choice that's right for them and their pet.
Jacqueline
And now being able to sort of focus on our mission and sort of new, innovative types of products. You know, for me, at least, like I am so excited about insect kibble, I think number one, it's an, a very important sustainable type of protein that we want to be using, and it's a very low carbon footprint product and we're really excited about that. Number two, again, I like this idea of sort of, like socialising a new concept, just like we did with like, our animal welfare certifications, and educated, you know, insect base is still relatively new.
Jacqueline
And three is sort of pet needs because a lot of dogs have a lot of allergies and sensitivities, to different like proteins, like chicken allergy is, so common, and a lot of times the vet will want to get the dog on sort of a unique protein, novel protein, something that that they've never had before. And I'm really excited about the idea of insect as that because, you know, pets, they definitely haven't had that, typically.
Alex
Working with WSP and their LCA calculator to better understand their carbon footprint, Open Farm now has a roadmap to head into the future.
Jacqueline
And, absolutely, we want to see this continue in our industry as well, you know, one of our core values as a business is to raise the bar. And really, that means, you know, pushing forward, never sitting back, always trying to sort of elevate the way that we deliver on our mission. And, and the goal is hopefully, you know, for others to follow. And I think there have been some really cool, like, you know, examples of how we've seen that happen in our industry. And I think how our brand has actually really changed the dialogue and consumers expectations in our industry. And that's been Yeah, really incredible. And I think one of the things we're most proud of, but also really want to continue to do is to drive that positive change.
S F/X: outro music
Samantha
I think a lot of companies understand that this is a very pressing topic, climate change is a pressing issue. They want to start making moves to do something about it. But my word of advice would be, start by understanding your impact,
don't run before you can walk so to speak, there's always you know, the enthusiasm to jump straight toward target setting, I want to be net zero by 2050 and, unfortunately, those kinds of claims don't hold a lot of weight unless you've done the work to understand where you are right now. And what is feasible by when and how you're going to get there.
Megan
I would really love to be the example that other companies follow. Because it is a really long journey, it's a really tough journey to start to decarbonize your entire value chain. So that is, that is my biggest hope. And I'd love to kind of beyond that work and inspire our pet parents and inspire others to kind of go about that journey within their own lives as well and, and have a really strong foundational understanding of what we're doing and why we're doing it. And how they can take some of those same solutions and implement them in their own lives as well.
So working to kind of continue to inspire kind of those personal decisions, because I think that's how we'll ultimately be successful as a society in addressing a lot of the issues around climate change.
Jacqueline
It's like how can we invest more in our mission? How can we do this better? How can we keep pushing, and you know, really seeing, like these things that are difficult, and that are obstacles as opportunities to just really do something amazing.
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Engineering Matters is a production of Reby Media
This episode was written and produced by me, Jane Sophia
Co-hosted by Alex Conacher
Editing by Bernadette Ballantyne
Sound Engineering by Ross MacPherson
Series supervision by Jon Young
And our own furry friend is Rory Harris
Special thanks to our episode partners WSP and Open Farm
And thank you for listening! You can find Engineering Matters on all podcast apps, on our website engineeringmatters.reby.media, on Facebook, on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
S F/X: fade outro music
