Grounded launches the world’s first online wholesale platform for regenerative ingredients
Press Release, Cape Town, 15 June, 2021 - Grounded Ingredients is the world’s first marketplace built to offer regenerative ingredients to brands making ethical, traceable products. This novel platform sources wild and cultivated natural goods from independent producers committed to regenerative farming and sustainable wild harvesting. It launches in South Africa as a pilot with a selection of herbal teas, carrier oils, essential oils, waxes and dried herbs, some of which are indigenous to Africa and relatively new on international markets. With an ambitious growth plan, Grounded Ingredients aims to expand its range and make these ingredients available in other markets soon.
“Our goal with Grounded Ingredients is to enable producers to transition towards regenerative agriculture by making markets more easily accessible,” says Grounded co-founder Thekla Teunis. “We believe it’s time for a new kind of wholesale model: one that’s geared towards the specific needs of smaller brands and focuses on stories of authenticity, while offering full traceability of all ingredients.”
What makes this platform unique is its curated selection of regeneratively produced ingredients, made accessible directly to brands. Unlike traditional wholesalers that are geared towards serving the ‘big guys’, it specifically targets small to medium-sized brands. It is fully transparent about who the producers are; it is transparent with producers about prices; and it’s piloting ways to share profit with and fairly reward producers.
For eight years, Grounded has worked with African farmers in their transition toward regenerative agriculture by providing on-the-ground support, and building companies to process and market their carefully grown ingredients. Grounded has seen both how difficult it is for small to medium-sized regenerative producers to find the right markets for their goods, and how hard it is for conscious small to medium-sized brands to source these ingredients in volumes appropriate for them. This led to the launch of the Grounded Ingredients platform.
Because Grounded knows that no two producers are alike and every path toward regenerative agriculture looks different, it has developed its own sourcing guidelines to assess where each producer is on their journey. It also has its own in-house support services to enable producers in the early stages of their journey to transition further towards becoming fully regenerative. Many ingredients also have third-party certifications, such as organic or FairWild.
Every ingredient on the platform is accompanied by its origin story, with details on the landscape, practices and the people involved in cultivation and harvesting. We hope this will support brands to build a more nuanced picture for conscious consumers who care about the who, what, where and how of what they buy.
Grounded Ingredients aims to build an economy of honest, regenerative products. “The platform is another way of us supporting an agricultural transition to a regenerative system,” says Grounded co-founder Gijs Boers. “We started off with a focus at the farm level, only to realise that to make this transition happen the sustainable brand and the customer were just as important. With Grounded Ingredients we’re removing obstacles for farmers and consumers who, in the end, fuel this economy.”
About Grounded: Grounded supports and equips farmers to produce regenerative agriculture products, builds companies to process these products, and brings high-quality regenerative ingredients (tea, herbs, spices and oils) to market. For more information visit: grounded.co.za