S6 Ep13: Getting People on the Urgency of Upcycling with Anna Hammond
“There was so much need for healthier food and so much extra food.”
Food is an important part of our lives. It's what we eat, and it's how we celebrate and mourn. But sometimes, getting the right ingredients can be a challenge—especially if we're trying to do right by our environment, too.
As faithful stewards of the earth and advocates of our health, we are faced with the urgency to act upon this inherent responsibility. Upcycling is a great way to reduce waste and give something new life. It's also a great way to support local communities and build connections with the people we're working with. Thankfully, more companies are embracing upcycling as a sustainable business practice.
Matriark Foods is a Founding Member of the Upcycled Food Association, therefore, all their products are Certified Upcycle. Their dedication to sustainability is also seen in their FSC (Forest Council Certified) packaging, which means that their products are totally eco-friendly and sourced responsibly from the inside out.
In this episode, Justine sits with Matriark Foods’ CEO, Anna Hammond to discuss the urgent reasons we must reframe our food system and how businesses can help in achieving this goal. They also talk about food and art, how food strengthens bonds, tips on starting a new business, getting your products on the shelf, and the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs.
Connect with Anna:
Anna Hammond is the Founder and CEO of Matriark Foods, a social impact business— inspired by the thousands of children Anna has worked with (including her 3 children and 4 grandchildren) — to scale access to healthy food for the benefit of people and the environment. Anna has spent 25 years as a nonprofit leader scaling programs and teams into dynamic, and stable organizations. Most recently, she was Executive Director for The Sylvia Center and collaborated with farmers, institutions, funders, and foundations committed to solving food insecurity through education and reimagined food systems. Together they expanded healthy eating and cooking programs in public housing community centers in all 5 NYC boroughs and all 6 school districts in Columbia County.
Episode Highlights:
00:56 The Goals of Matriark Foods
03:55 Weaving Environment, Economics, and Health
07:04 Creativity in Food
10:56 Tips When Starting Something New
18:03 Getting on the Shelf
22:30 Challenges of a Female Entrepreneur
Tweets:
Giving back by creating sustainable products from sustainable materials is now becoming a passion for many entrepreneurs. Join in as @jreichman and @matriarkfoods CEO Anna Hammond share how to build a food company around upcycling as well as how to do so with great care and thoughtfulness.#podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #MatriarkFoods #womenownedbusinesses #femalefounders #womenleaders #FoodandArt #foodinsecurity #upcycledfoods #sustainability
Inspirational Quotes:
03:04 “And if you don't know how to cook and you're living on a budget, it's hard to eat healthy food regularly.” —Anna Hammond
03:55 “There was so much need for healthier food and so much extra food.” —Anna Hammond
07:12 “There are so many similar things between the art world and food and one of those things is creativity. There's almost no comparable creative group than people with food and artists." —Anna Hammond
08:02 “Food brings us together— it fosters so much connection for people.” —Justine Reichman
23:50 “We believe that we do have to make money to make progress. But a 10x return in three years in any food system business is not realistic." —Anna Hammond
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host Justine Reichman, with me today is Anna Hammond. She is the founder of Matriarch Foods. Welcome, Anna.
Anna Hammond Hello, thanks so much for having me.
Justine Reichman I'm so pleased to have you here to learn about what you're doing and to share that with our viewers. So there's lots of exciting stuff going on for Matriarch and before we get into all that exciting stuff, I think it's important to just share with our viewers and our listeners, from your perspective, what Matriarch Foods is, so we can all get on the same page, before we take a deep dive.
Anna Hammond Yeah. So Matriarch is really an environmental impact food company. Overall, we upcycle farm surplus and fresh cut remnants into healthy products for food service, retail, and also emergency food. And the purpose of that really is to decrease the impact of wasted food on the environment, increase markets for farmers, and increase access for all people to healthy food.
Justine Reichman Wow. That's, I mean, there couldn't be a better reason to do this. Right?
Anna Hammond Far more urgent reason, yeah.
Justine Reichman For urgent reason. So, I mean, you're creating healthy food, and you're impacting and doing positive things for the environment. So what inspired you to take that focus?
“And if you don't know how to cook and you're living on a budget, it's hard to eat healthy food regularly.” —Anna Hammond
Anna Hammond Yeah. So I, you know, I'm a sort of serial entrepreneur, but not in the traditional way. This is actually my first business. But I've spent most of my career sort of starting up programs for different nonprofits, going from really zero to, you know, 100 staff, creating programs for the benefit of cities and young people. And my most recent position was as the Executive Director for a program called the Silvia Center, which is still a lively program that teaches young people how to cook healthy food on a budget. And when I started, it really was very nascent, they were working with about 300 kids. And we built it along with funders and foundations and farmers and cooks and chefs and all kinds of people in the Hudson Valley into a healthy eating program for youth and families living in public housing in New York City, which, if you don't know, or your viewers don't know, is technically the 10th largest city in the United States by number of people who live there. Many of whom are food insecure or experiencing diet related illnesses. And if you don't know how to cook, and you're living on a budget, it's really hard to eat healthy food in a regular way. Simultaneously, there was a farm program in upstate New York in Columbia County, which is about a couple of hours north of New York City, where we had a learning garden. And we also collaborated with the school system in Columbia County. I was six districts to introduce the version of the program into those schools. So from about eight years building that program, going from 300 students to cumulatively about 25,000 by the time I left, we were teaching multi week classes. We were helping kids get produce into the classes from some of the farms that we were working with, including the firm where the program resided in Columbia County. Ad there was just so much need for healthier food, and so much extra food. I mean, even if you're an extremely efficient farmer, nature likes to produce, and nature likes to produce in all kinds of formats, the small, large, you know, a little hard, a little soft, you know, there's no sort of every day the same thing comes out of the ground. So there's always extra and finding a place or a way to move that extra food was extremely difficult. The logistics around food transportation, especially produce very complex and if you're a small to mid scale farmer, it's really hard to place that. It's really hard to find markets for that food because you can take it to a farmers market or, you know, maybe you find a catering company that you can supply to but there's just always extra. And so it just was insane that there was so much food going to waste and while at the same time, you know, we were working with teenagers who were just hungry for great quality food to cook into great things for their families. So saw an opportunity really to, you know, create a business that had a dual and then triple bottom line really around environment, economics, and health.
“There was so much need for healthier food and so much extra food.” —Anna Hammond
Justine Reichman was your interest, always in food and around access to better for you food?
Anna Hammond No. I worked in the art world for about 25 years. I ran publications department at the Museum of Modern Art. I was the deputy director for the Yale art gallery. Previous to all of that I ran community mural programs in the South Bronx. But when I decided to leave the art world, I had a very short stint in politics. I was approached by the head of the legislature in the county where I used to live. She was looking for a speechwriter and we met a couple of times, and she was sort of grooming me for politics. And I was like, are you sure about that. But I'll come and speak, you know, so I did. And she was fantastic. We had a great working relationship. But very quickly, there was like, no politics, definitely not for me. But she sort of strung me along by giving me a very interesting project working with a group of farmers in the county who were trying to get a piece of legislation to be able to use county land to grow food for the community. And so I worked with that group of farmers. And eventually we got the legislation passed, and eventually founded something called the Rockland Farm Alliance, which is now quite, you know, quite a thriving group, and they have a community CSA program. And it just really plugged me into, you know, the opportunity and also the plight. So that was really the beginning. And then I happened to meet the person who was building the Soviet center, the founder of the Soviet center, and we hit it off, and she asked me to come and help her build that program and the rest is sort of history. But I will say, you know, that even though I spent many, many years in the art world, you know, working with artists, working in museums, that there's so many similar things between the art world and between and food and one of those things is just the creativity. People and food, there's almost no comparable creative group than people with food and artists. You know, they're just like incredibly energetic, always thinking of something new, you know, always taking kind of what's around them and making something great out of it, and sharing it with people. So, you know--
Justine Reichman I was just going to say that they also bring people together.
“There are so many similar things between the art world and food and one of those things is creativity. There's almost no comparable creative group than people with food and artists." —Anna Hammond
Anna Hammond Yeah, they bring people together, and in creativity, and with energy and community. And so, you know, sometimes people are like, it seems so different being in the art world and being in food. And it's just like, they're kind of couldn't be anything more similar from my perspective.
Justine Reichman Well, I think that a lot of times when I think about food, food brings us together in terms of family, we commune over food, we bring our families, we eat dinner, we talk to our children, our parents, we do so much over food. It's creative. We get in the kitchen, and we cook and we make recipes. And there's so much as you're saying, creativity that comes with it, and also bonding and that also happens over art. And so I think it fosters so much connection for people. And so I think that that is a very big similarity for those two things
“Food brings us together— it fosters so much connection for people.” —Justine Reichman
Anna Hammond I mean, it can. You know, I mean, I think we always just have to make note that it is a privilege when it does do that. And I think that, you know, certainly one of the drivers for me is to create greater access to that experience. If you're facing food insecurity, you know, most likely are not sitting around a table with your family, or, and so I think that's, you know, and likewise with art, if when I worked in the art world, and a much of my role was developing programs to create more inclusivity and that was a big driver. It's like this is one of the greatest experiences in life is to have is to make something yourself or to look at something and know how to enjoy it or have the leisure to enjoy it. And with food, the same thing, you know, growing food is a necessity, but it's also a great pleasure and being connected to nature in that way and health. So it really comes out of for all of us on our team. I think a strong drive to create greater access to those experiences.
Justine Reichman Well, I think that's wonderful and amazing, and one of our driving forces is to provide a platform so people like yourself can amplify their story but also provide information so people can make more important choices, be more educated. Because, you know, I originally built this because I was looking for the answers myself on how to do some of this. And I didn't have all the answers. And so I think that at every level at every stage, we lack information on so many things, whether it's building a business like you're doing, you took your information and decided to become an entrepreneur. And I'd love to, you know, how was that experience, you came from being an executive director, and you were inspired after, you know, a variety of different experiences, and you had a vision, and you wanted to build that, and you took a certain set of skills, and you wanted to be able to take that vision and then execute on it, and really make a difference. So, you know, I'd love to be able to give you an opportunity to share that, because we have so many people that would love to be able to do that,
Anna Hammond You have to be a little bit crazy and a little naive. Those are two components. So I'll never forget taking a group of students many, many years ago to visit a friend of mine at the Whitney Museum. And she was responsible for this incredible book program that they had where they put together artists and poets to make art and artists book and they were they did one a year. And I remember one of the students asking a question like, how did you come up with the idea? And how did you make this work, and she's like, I knew nothing when I started. Thank God, because if I had known how hard it was, I never would have even, you know, put my toe in the water. And I think there is some aspect of that, although, you know, of course, one has a lot of skills, you know, not like completely naive about it. But when you are starting something new, you know, a new that you haven't done before, you have a vision, you can see what the world looks like and you want to make it look like that. And so then you just keep figuring out what you have to do. You know, and obviously, I'm an older entrepreneur, I'm not like in my early 20s, I didn't think of this idea right out of college. I have a ton of lived experience, organizing things, raising money, finding the right people, knowing that I don't-- knowing what I don't know, which is a huge thing. And then seeking out those people who do. And also, you know, I've just had incredible mentors and advisors along the way who really not only, like, encouraged me and supported me, but also kind of pushed me into it. They're like, you've got to do this. You're the perfect person. It's a great combination. It's like, social impact business, now's the time. So it's been a really interesting, fascinating journey, I have to say, full of just amazing creative people and a time when I think, you know, if I were doing this 15 years ago, you know, people weren't thinking about the need for food systems transformation, as globally, there were certainly a lot of people thinking about it and working on it. And we build on the foundations of those people, but the zeitgeist around food systems transformation, the urgency of the climate crisis, I think it's just for and what happened during COVID around food loss and waste in addition to enormous food insecurity. I think it's just galvanized people's awareness. Now, galvanizing awareness and galvanizing action are two different things. And so I think now, you know, it's upon all of us in the upcycled food space, in the carbon neutral food space, in the environmental impact food space to really figure out how to galvanize the general public into participating more actively with us in creating this change.
Justine Reichman What's the plan? How do we do it?
Anna Hammond We started off really with a vision to transform procurement in food service. And I still think that was a good idea. We launched our first product in the fall of 2019. And we were invited into the Compass Group stop food waste event at the Javits Center. And we immediately got business from that event and distribution. And by the time we finished all the paperwork and onboarding, we sold our first pallet of product in the first week of March of 2020 and one week later foodservice shut down globally. And, you know, whoa, I mean, we just like we're there and then let's like, we're nowhere. You know, we spent the next two years kind of just doing a lot of, you know, like everyone doing a lot of things to survive, but we had developed all ready very strong partnerships around mitigating wasted food and also, because the value proposition of our business is so much around access. You know, we were able to partner with Restaurant Associates to do a smaller version of this food service concentrate that we sell, that they put into food boxes that they were doing for various frontline worker programs. We got a grant from reef fed to transform half a million pounds of vegetables that would otherwise have gone to waste because of canceled contracts. I mean, this was a proposal we made to them and we got a grant for into a healthy stew for food banks. We partnered with table to table, the largest food bank or food bank provider in northern New Jersey. We were part of the Kroger Zero Waste Zero Hunger program. We won the prize for that. So we just, you know, which then gave us money to develop this product that we're coming out with this spring, which is a healthy meal and a shelf stable curtain for food banks and emergency food. And we also were able to, you know, just collaborate with colleagues in the space, most of whom were at the time all in CPG. And everyone was like, you've got to release a retail product, Matriarch is such a great name, you'll crush retail. And we were like, oh, retail, it's so expensive. It's so hard. It's so this, you know, marketing dollars, etc. But we did last year, kind of take that advice. And you know, we have a supply chain of-- an incredible supply chain of surplus tomatoes. And so we developed three skews of tomato sauces, and we're like, Okay, we'll do a little launch in the northeast--
Justine Reichman I need to get it out here so I can try it. That's not fair.
Anna Hammond -- see what it is, you know, see how it does, and then see, you know, maybe retail is a good idea. So we launched the product at Expo East in September, and in the first hour of the show, we got picked up by Whole Foods. So we were just like, oh, well, this is easy, kind of, not really easy. But we did kind of hit, as I said, kind of hit the ground running and we just launched at one Wall Street, which is their new flagship store.
Justine Reichman That's amazing. I mean, that's really, really easy. So for the listeners--
Anna Hammond [inaudible] easy part, but it wasn't easy. I mean, none of it was easy, but it just those things happened, I think naturally, again, because it's like, it's obviously it's a great product, it's tastes is phenomenal. And I feel like I can say that objectively because every time we do a demo people, you know, people are still a little like, I don't know, cautious about upcycled when they taste and everyone's like, this is amazing. This is the best process I've ever had. So we launched, I guess it's just two or three weeks ago with whole foods and now they're putting us in 55 stores.
Justine Reichman You must be flying off the shelves.
Anna Hammond Well, we'll see. That's what I want to talk about here. So we just are going to be in the next bunch of stores in the next couple of weeks. And I think now is really the test is getting off the shelf. I mean, it's one thing to get on the shelf and that's very, you know, typically very challenging, but getting off the shelf takes marketing, it takes communications, it takes people wanting to buy your product that may not have tasted it before. So, you know, you're doing demos and all that standard things. But you know, you asked me in the beginning, you know what's on my mind the most? And it is really what's the best way to engage people in the urgency of purchasing upcycled climate friendly food. And so we're doing, you know, we're doing some campaigns on Instagram, and we just hired a great guy on fractional CMO. We're working with him. And then we have gotten a lot of fantastic press just naturally. So we're feeling pretty sanguine about it. And then, you know, just looking for young people and boomers who care about the environment and are going to help us be, you know, help be ambassadors basically for the brand and for the future.
Justine Reichman So question for you with the Super Bowl coming up. It seems like a natural fit today.
Anna Hammond Well, yeah. You got a million for the midterm ad they should definitely--
Justine Reichman I'm not even thinking that. I mean, that's huge. Okay, I like to think realistically, but I think you can get some influencer, I mean to partner with them to do so not show ads, you know, collaborate with them, have them put up some recipes and put up some collaborative posts.
Anna Hammond Well, if you I hope you've got some amazing influencers listening to your show because if there's anyone out there who wants to work with us, we will be delighted.
Justine Reichman Okay. And then I'll get you a recipe and then we'll collaborate. And we'll tell you, you tag us and we'll do something, we'll find something. Well, I think we should do that. And then maybe we'll even do like a little post about it and ask, and you can do a post. And then we can all ask for people that want to maybe do your recipe and you can choose the best one you like, maybe they could submit.
Anna Hammond I'm from Buffalo. So I think a hot size made with our tomato sauce with our Beata four wings is a great way to go. Working on that.
Justine Reichman I think that would be good. I'm in San Francisco, and maybe do something with a San Francisco chef because it is the 40 Niners or with Philadelphia Eagles as they like to call themselves, right, with the Philadelphia chef, and we're working to find a chef to give us some recipes that we can do. So maybe if we find one, I'll ask them if they can include it. You can send over your--
Anna Hammond Sounds fantastic. We'll give free product to anyone who wants to develop a recipe for the Super Bowl. We actually did collaborate with a wonderful chef in the Bay Area. Her name is Preeti Mistry, and she had a fantastic restaurant called Juhu Beach Club that closed, I think I want to say like at the beginning of COVID, but she made an incredible Rossum for Italy out of one of our sauces that's actually on our Instagram page. But yeah, we've been-- we've done some really interesting collaborations with Chef but that's a great idea for the Superbowl for sure.
Justine Reichman Okay, let's see, we can try to collaborate make something happen.
Anna Hammond Or maybe Hellman's this year, we'll, you know, mix our sauce with mayonnaise and that'll be their dip.
Justine Reichman You know what you could do that for July 4, right? Do something like that for July 4. That goes on like a salad or something? I don't know. It's kind of big. One of those Labor Day things or Memorial Day. I don't know, something like that. So we've collaborated to drive to do that. As my partner always like to say, I like to fix lots of problems. I'm not saying this was a problem. But, you know, in any event, so when I'm curious for our listeners, and our viewers, I know you are not an entrepreneur before you got here. You're an entrepreneur now. Is there anything you wish you had known when you gotten into this that you didn't know? Do you think that would have changed your, like would you maybe have looked for a partner that was a man or?
Anna Hammond Hmm, interesting question. I think maybe I wish I had known that it's much harder to raise money as a woman than it is as a white dude. I wouldn't have changed anything, but maybe it would have made me less frustrated. Although, I mean, we, you know, we have raised money. So it hasn't been like a terrible struggle, but it just in terms of amounts, you know, I just found out about someone who just like raised $6 million for a tea company, you know, a can tea company, I was just like, oh my god
Justine Reichman Are you raising money?
Anna Hammond No. I would-- no. For sure not. But I might have-- I'm not sure what I would have done differently honestly. It's such an it's such an interesting question. I just think that I'm not sure I would have done anything differently. Because I actually feel like the way we built our company is so solid and so real, and so based in the real, and our investors are literally all just incredible people who really believe in what we're doing and understand that it's a business. It's not a, you know, it's not like a, you know, nonprofit, it's not that we that we you know, we believe that we do have to make money to make progress. But that, you know, a 10x return in three years in any food system business is not realistic. But I might have sought out like VC advisors earlier on. I mean, we now have people in our network, you know, who are in that world. But maybe, I don't know. It's really-- I have to say, I don't-- I feel like we did everything in the right way for our business. And for like, who we are and what we stand for, maybe it's that I wish there were more money out there for minority and women owned businesses, because we outperformed by 63%. And if we all had more capital, we would be moving, you know, six times as fast as we're already moving. So I think it's more that I just wish there were more capital for minority and women owned businesses. But even that has changed. I mean, since I launched this business in 2018, you know, there are a lot have groups now that are supporting minority and women owned businesses and we are approached, I mean, I feel like every couple of weeks someone reaches out to me, connected to someone else interested in whether or not we're raising money, wanting to be supportive, and–
“We believe that we do have to make money to make progress. But a 10x return in three years in any food system business is not realistic." —Anna Hammond
Justine ReichmanAre you raising money?
Anna Hammond We are you. Yeah. We're in a raise right now.
Justine Reichman In a raise and where are you in this raise today, is it a precede or is it a seed or
Anna Hammond Convertible bridge now before we do our series A. We did a seed series A last year, and this is just, you know, really kind of getting us over the hump from the leftovers of COVID into the next level.
Justine Reichman Okay. Awesome. So what's new and what's next for you guys on the horizon in the next three to five years?
Anna Hammond Yeah. Well, we're gonna become a household brand. That's our next operation here. So we're working on some new products toward the end of this year, always looking at our supply chain, really to develop those products out of. And yeah, we're really sort of, I guess, just amplifying our retail presence now that we have this incredible momentum. And then, you know, still trucking along with food service. And we've got some incredible partners in food service, you know, we've been working with Restaurant Associates, Google, LinkedIn, the Good Eating Company, Vizient, you know, which does a lot with hospitals. So we've got, you know, kind of incredible roster of partners and customers. And now that things are really, you know, things are moving in foodservice that's just getting bigger. And also, because food service companies have made very big commitments to sustainability. So we just actually sent out our first sustainability, our impact report, first impact reports on how many pounds of vegetables each company.
Justine Reichman Oh, I'd love to see that.
Anna Hammond From landfill by purchasing our products, and you know, how much water is saved, and how much greenhouse gases. So yeah, we're really just getting building more on the strong foundation from the last couple of years. And then, as I mentioned earlier we're coming out in March with a product that's specifically for food banks and emergency food. And that's a healthy vegetable stew made from New York State vegetables, so it will also be eligible for nourish New York. And that's really designed, we had in kind support from dinner and communities to develop that. And then the Kroger, Zero Waste Zero Hunger Foundation gave us financial support to develop that program. And the idea there is, you know, not only to provide, you know, a healthy better for you product for people experiencing food and security, but also, again, to you know, it's Climate Neutral certified, and that we hope will be really a line of products eventually that food banks and emergency food providers can purchase. And that not only, you know, not only will provide something healthier and better for the environment, you know, by its nature, what it is, but also, I'm sure as you know, a lot of food for food banks is stuff that's, you know, gone to the grocery store, or come off the grocery store shelf, you know, been back in the warehouse then sent out again. And so it's many times has traveled, you know, at least twice, or three times what our product would have traveled. And so to reduce the travel impact of a lot of donated food is another reason that we've developed that program. So we're very excited about that and looking for partners too. Philanthropic partners who want to purchase and donate to food banks, business partners who want to carry the product, and so yeah, so that's kind of that's a big, that's a big one, in addition, obviously, to the retail launch we just
Justine Reichman You have done so much in so little time. It's amazing the outcomes you've had. So we are going to continue to watch what you're doing. And it is just exciting. And I can't wait to see how things progress. And when I'm in New York, the beginning of March for a bar mitzvah, I'm gonna go into Whole Foods and check it out your product.
Anna Hammond Great.
Justine Reichman While I'm there, but I will check it out and we'll continue this conversation because I do hope that maybe we can find a collaboration for the Super Bowl. I'm really motivated for that.
Anna Hammond Oh, yeah, that's amazing.
Justine Reichman And in the meantime, you know, hopefully we can collaborate on other things because I have some ideas percolating in my brains already. So keep us posted on how things progress and the impact you're having on the planet with all these upcycling products you're making because I'd love to just hear how that goes. And I'm sure the numbers are going to be staggering and more than I could ever imagine. So thanks again for joining me here on Essential Ingredients.
Anna Hammond Thank you so much wonderful interview.
Justine Reichman Thank you.
