“That’s a bit of the idea- to get back to basics, get back to knowing where your products come from and how they are made and that they are made by humans on a small scale and to really have a product that is fresh with nutrients, this is all really important. ” – Geraldine Starke, Refarm’d
In this episode, we talk with Geraldine Starke, CEO of Refarm’d, a new initiative and plant-based milk subscription service that helps farms convert to producers of plant-based milk as well as transition to animal sanctuaries. We discuss:
- The thought process that led to her establishing Refarm’d
- The business model of Refarm’d
- Rising consumer demand of plant-based milks
- The multiple layers of sustainability (environment, animal welfare, glass bottle and green delivery service, local ingredient sourcing and local customer base) that Refarm’d addresses
- The beginning developments of her work with farms
Listen to this podcast session on Anchor, Spotify and PocketCasts
View video interview here
EXCERPT FROM PODCAST
“I had this realization that animal farms could be the perfect sanctuaries because they already have the animals, they already the land and they already have the people knowing how to care for them and work with them.
Obviously I’m talking about small to medium scale farms, not factory farms where the animals don’t live in good conditions. This allows us to not need to use more resources to build animal sanctuaries, because animal farming consumes so much resources already (be it land or other things) that I think it’s important that when we try to find a solution to animal farming to not to use more resources than it already does.
That’s how I came to the idea- it could be amazing if these farms actually could turn into sanctuaries. Then we would not need to move the animals, they could continue living in the herd and not have to find land, and we have the farmers who know the animals and how to care for them.
The question was how do we make these farms transition and how do we help the farmers make a living from something else and not from the animals, while still being able to pay for the costs of the animals and not have to rely on donations? That’s how I came to the solution of plant-based milks because it’s a quite easy process and it’s also something where the demand is rising a lot.
I wanted to find a solution for them that was quite easy to put into place. It’s not transforming the farms into factories of plant-based milk. It’s still going to be small-scale, handmade fresh milk, only made with local ingredients and sold to local customers and directly to customers. So farmers go out of the system where they are just going through multiple processors and companies that just take their milk or meat and where they get just a small percentage of it. We really want to have the farmers enjoy what they are doing and take back a bit of their power and making a good quality product and help them rebuild local community.” -Geraldine Starke, Refarm’d
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