Skip to main content

Tag: marketing

Beyond B Corp: How Plant-Based Brands Can Build Real Accountability with Consumers 

Written by Benjamin Davis on . Posted in Industry updates, Manufacturing.

The plant-based food movement is built on values—sustainability, ethics, and transparency—which is why so many brands pursue third-party certifications to validate their commitments. But what happens when a once-respected certification loses credibility? 

This week, Dr. Bronner’s, the highest-scoring B Corp in the world, announced it will not renew its certification, citing concerns that B Lab has failed to protect the integrity of the standard by allowing large corporations with questionable supply chains to obtain certification. 

“Despite our multi-year effort urging B Lab to strengthen its standards, they have allowed the subsidiaries of multinational companies—that have histories of socially & environmentally destructive practices in their supply chains—to obtain the certification & use it to greenwash their branding.”
– Dr. Bronner’s, LinkedIn Announcement 

For plant-based brands, this is a wake-up call. If one of the most mission-driven companies in the world believes B Corp no longer guarantees true accountability, how can plant-based brands build trust with consumers in a more meaningful way? 

 

Building Brand Accountability Beyond Certifications 

Third-party certifications like B Corp, Non-GMO Verified, and Organic can be useful tools, but they are not substitutes for real transparency. The modern wave of conscious consumers—especially those choosing plant-based foods—are increasingly skeptical of corporate sustainability claims and want real proof, not just labels. 

Here’s how plant-based brands can demonstrate accountability without relying on B Corp: 

  1. Disclose Your Supply Chain with Radical Transparency
  • Show customers exactly where your ingredients come from. 
  • Share supplier partnerships, sourcing locations, and impact reports on your website and packaging. 
  • Utilize blockchain technology or QR codes to give real-time traceability to consumers. 

Example: Oatly publicly shares its sustainability impact, including water and land use, per liter of oat milk sold. 

 

  1. Commit to Real Audits & Public Reporting
  • Conduct third-party supply chain audits and publish the findings—even the challenges. 
  • Set specific, time-bound sustainability goals and report progress annually. 
  • Use verified regenerative or fair-trade certifications that require on-the-ground audits. 

Example: Alter Eco Chocolates shares in-depth impact reports on its supply chain, including carbon offsets and regenerative farming initiatives. 

 

  1. Engage Customers with Two-Way Accountability
  • Create a consumer advisory board to get real feedback on sustainability efforts. 
  • Open direct channels for customer inquiries on ethical sourcing, production, and impact. 
  • Encourage independent watchdogs to evaluate your claims. 

Example: Patagonia has an independent review board for its environmental impact statements. 

 

  1. Support Industry-Wide Change
  • Align with policy-driven initiatives to push for systemic reform in food production. 
  • Collaborate with NGOs and sustainability organizations instead of relying on certifications alone. 
  • Advocate for legislation that enforces stricter supply chain regulations. 

Example: The Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) works with manufacturers to drive policy and advance legislation for the betterment of the industry. 

 

What This Means for Plant-Based Brands 

If Dr. Bronner’s is walking away from the B Corp certification, plant-based brands need to rethink what accountability looks like. Instead of checking a box, brands must prove their commitment through action, transparency, and direct consumer engagement. 

Your customers are paying attention—they want to support brands that are genuinely ethical, not just certified as such. Now is the time for plant-based companies to lead with authenticity and set a new standard for accountability in the food industry. 

CPG Marketing Lessons: Launching a Disruptive Brand

Written by Ben Davis on . Posted in Retail.

I recently led the development and launch of a disruptive brand in the health and wellness food and beverage space for the first time in my career. It was a very rewarding experience. As I think about what made this launch so successful, I want to share the 5 most important lessons I learned which I will apply to wherever my next opportunity lies and will also use to help others in the process of preparing for a new brand launch. Some of these lessons are obvious, but not to be overlooked!

  1. Education, Education, Education:  When you are a disruptive brand, you can never underestimate the importance of educating consumers on your product.  In our case, the product is refrigerated in a category that is filled with shelf-stable products.  We used search and social to tell and remind consumers to look for us in the refrigerated area of the store. This is still part of the brand’s core messaging almost a year after the launch.
  1. Highlight Only the Most Compelling Benefits:  This product has several nutritional benefits. It was tempting to talk about all of them, but we resisted and succeeded as a result.  We consistently spoke to the 3 most compelling benefits throughout all of our brand messaging across search, social and in-store and let the consumer discover the other benefits once they engaged online and in-store.
  1. Consumer-Friendly Packaging, in Design and Function:  Create packaging that is simple for consumers to open and reseal.  This one is obvious, but in a startup, things don’t always go as planned.  In our case, the package we launched with was suboptimal because we needed to commit to packaging equipment ahead of the design work.  We ended up with a clumsy package that consumers didn’t realize was resealable. Our customers communicated this to us and we immediately began work on an improved package.
  1. Don’t Give Up Despite Retailer Reluctance:  We were convinced that our disruptive product would sell much better if it was displayed on pegs so the compelling benefits were easy to spot, but most retailers merchandised us laying down in the well.  It took time and persistence, but when we were finally able to convince one of our retailers to display our package on pegs the velocity became significantly higher.  Once we had the data we were able to leverage it to influence other retailers.  Don’t give up on giving your brand its best chance of success!
  1. Embrace Your Fans:  One of the many nutritional benefits of our product was it was the only keto-friendly option in the category. Keto followers became our biggest fans, creating new uses and recipes themselves and posting to share with their fellow keto followers.  We embraced these fans and paid the most active ones a nominal amount to create several quick and easy at-home snacks when we all found ourselves at home back in March.  This gave us a ton of great content and strengthened our brand’s relationship with this community that continues to flourish as they have become passionate advocates.

While the product referenced is not plant-based, the lessons learned still apply! Check out Egglife here.

Chris Mahoney is a brand marketing executive with 20 years experience accelerating brands in the food, beverage and pet industries.  She has led brands at companies including MolsonCoors, Beam Suntory, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Merrick Pet Care.  Most recently, Chris led the very successful launch of the egglife™ brand at EggLife Foods.

Chris is actively seeking new, disruptive projects and is excited to connect more deeply with the plant-based movement and market.

Connect with Chris Mahoney on LinkedIN