SimpleMills - Regenerative Agriculture

We bake positive impact
into our food

It starts at the farm

What we eat, where it’s grown, and how it’s grown matters. As a food company and passionate team of eaters, we recognize that our products and impact are dependent on the ability to continue farming on this planet for generations to come.

That’s why our planetary health journey begins with a deep focus on agriculture and its impacts, especially on the food we make. We’re doubling down on our ingredient sourcing and product design as our biggest opportunity to create positive impact.

Joe Gardiner
Simple Mills farmer partner
at Treehouse Almonds

New! 2023 People & Planet
Impact Journal

Read Journal Here

We’re Interested in Four Key Outcome Areas

Farm Economic Resilience

Soil Health

Biodiversity

Water Health

Farm Economic Resilience

Soil Health

Biodiversity

Water Health

Regenerative Agriculture:
The Foundation of our Food

While regenerative agriculture has been capturing headlines in recent years, these principles of land management have been practiced by Indigenous communities for many generations. We're on a continuous journey to learn from land stewards and farmers so we can ensure our approach is informed by the leaders at the foundation of our food system.

Across the industry, the definition of regenerative agriculture varies. At Simple Mills, we think about it as a holistic approach to farming and ranching that builds ecosystem resilience through principles that consider the holistic context of the farm system.

Six principles guide our work in regenerative agriculture. These principles are adapted from sources including Understanding Ag, the NRDC, and several Indigenous texts and leaders.

We also know that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to how growers approach land management and we recognize and honor the variability that exists across farms, ecosystems, and communities. For example, farmers growing sunflower in the Midwest may use cover crops to keep a living root in the ground year-round, while coconut farmers in Indonesia rely on the perennial nature of their coconut palm trees to achieve the same regenerative agriculture principle.

We boldly commit to revolutionizing
food design for people and the planet

At Simple Mills, we’re working to bake positive impact into the food we make: flipping the script on innovation to design products with people and planet in mind.

In 2021, we announced that 100% of our new innovation will be designed to advance regenerative agriculture principles thorough at least one of our three key regenerative agriculture pathways.

Design for Diverse Ingredients

Biodiversity boosts ecosystem resilience, food security, and dietary diversity. We design our products to feature a variety of ingredients beyond the most dominant crops in our food system (like wheat and corn), including those with the potential to provide ecosystem benefits like increasing soil carbon storage and creating pollinator habitat.

Our Organic Nut & Seed Flour All Purpose Baking Mix is made from a nutrient-dense nut and seed flour blend of chestnut, almond, buckwheat, and flax. Chestnut is a perennial tree with deep roots that stay in the ground year over year and can help draw carbon into the soil. Buckwheat is a warm season broadleaf that provides nectar to pollinators and helps make nutrients like phosphorus more available to the soil. Flax is a cool season broadleaf and is gaining popularity with farmers as a fast-growing crop that can diversify farm economics and ecosystems.

Direct trade with Farmers

Thoughtful relationships deepen our farm-level connections and potential for impact. That's why we work directly with farmers who prioritize regenerative principles, and we build contracts to incentivize management approaches that prioritize positive ecosystem outcomes beyond yield.

We started our direct trade work in 2020 with 3 farmers across 300 acres in Minnesota, on a shared journey to disrupt the traditional commodity supply model and bring consumers closer to the people and places that grow their food. For the 2022 growing season, we worked with 8 farmers across 3 states and 500 acres! In 2022, we began integrating sunflower seed grown through this program in our Organic Seed Flour Crackers and were able to source 26% of the sunflower used in this product from our direct trade farmer network. The crackers are made from a nutrient-dense base of organic sunflower, organic pumpkin, and organic flax seeds.

Invest in our Sourcing Regions

We invest in the people and places who bring our ingredients to life by working directly with select members of farm communities in our strategic sourcing regions: providing support such as agricultural coaching, forums for grower-to-grower connection, support for soil health research, and tool upgrades for farms and kitchens.

In 2022, Simple Mills launched The Almond Project: a trailblazing, multi-year, farmer-led initiative to revolutionize almond farming in California’s Central Valley by implementing and evaluating the outcomes of regenerative soil health principles.

We’re working with a one-of-a-kind multi stakeholder group: third-generation growers at Treehouse California Almonds, organizers at White Buffalo Land Trust, a soil scientist, technical assistance providers, and fellow pioneering food brands Daily Harvest and Cappello’s. Over a five-year period, The Almond Project is working with growers to integrate a variety of soil health practices on two 80-acre blocks of farmland in Central California – one conventional and one organic – with the goal to improve soil fertility, sequester carbon, conserve water, and increase biodiversity. The group is measuring outcomes in soil health, ecosystem biodiversity, and almond nutritional density and sharing learnings with other growers and the industry to catalyze implementation of regenerative principles,

Coconut sugar comes from perennial trees, which can help build healthy soil by keeping living roots in the ground year-round.

We’ve invested right at the source to support some of our key growing partners in Java, Indonesia directly, by launching a three-year project in partnership with suppliers, farmers, and agroforestry experts at PUR Projet. The project is focused on empowering farmers and regenerating ecosystems through four main activities: 1) providing trainings on organic farming practices and food safety, 2) investing in kitchen renovations and tool upgrades for farming families, 3) testing a mini species of coconut palm to increase ecosystem diversity and reduce risk associated with harvesting tall palms, and 4) connecting farmers with technical assistance and seedlings to help implement agroforestry design, supporting livelihoods with crop and income diversification.

At Simple Mills, we’re nuts (or should we say beans?) about cocoa! Cocoa brings a deliciously rich flavor to many of our products, with the added bonus of antioxidants and micronutrients.

In an effort to redefine cocoa’s impact on people, ecosystems, and our products, we’re investing in a multi-year program in our key sourcing region of West Africa to support community-based education around the importance of diverse farm ecosystems. We’re partnering with agroforestry experts at PUR and a local production company to host a series of engaging and educational theater and radio shows focused on building awareness among farmers about the importance of restoring ecosystem services and diversifying cocoa farms with other native or naturalized tree species (such as avocado tree, orange tree or akpi).

Transitioning to a regenerative approach begins with farmer engagement and empowerment. Because of that, we’re supporting awareness-building activities to enhance farmer adoption of regenerative practices that improve soil fertility and support farmers' economic resilience.

We bake positive impact into our food

It starts at the farm

New! 2023 People & PlanetImpact Journal