Tag: CPG

Marcelo Salazar and Zé Porto – A forest super shake to preserve and regenerate the Amazon, the world’s largest agroforestry system

14th January 2025 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 0 Comments

A conversation with Marcelo Salazar & Zé Porto, co-founders of Mazô Maná, about how we preserve what is left of the Amazon rainforest, regenerate the forest and, most importantly, truly partner with the Indigenous peoples of the forest who have been stewarding this ecosystem for generations. Yes, the Amazon is a vast, managed agroforestry system. Marcelo e Zé, after decades of working with NGOs deep in the Amazon and building careers with corporate tech giants like Google, decided to create a superfood shake made purely from nutrient-dense ingredients—up to 14— directly sourced from the forest, avoiding monoculture. Indigenous peoples partly own the company.

Why did they choose this model, and why are regenerative brands essential for elevating awareness and consciousness around deforestation? A healthy Amazon is crucial not only for the planet but also for local climates, as recent floods in São Paulo demonstrate. So, how can we encourage health-focused consumers in cities like São Paulo and Rio to buy superfoods from their “backyard”, rather than relying on imported products from overseas marketed by fancy foreign brands who are mostly good at marketing?

Philipp Stangl – Why an award winning hybrid blended regen meat company decided to exit before becoming a ‘unicorn’

6th December 2024 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of corporations 0 Comments

A check-in conversation with Philipp Stangl, co-founder of Rebel Meat (now Rebel Kids), a company we featured earlier working on hybrid blended meat. The story isn’t over, but definitely didn’t develop as we discussed more than 3 years ago.

Let’s all talk much more about changed plans and pivots and companies not being overnight unicorn successes. The founders of companies, in general, have to be very optimistic and visionary people. They need to convince people to join their crazy ideas and people to partner with them and invest in their vision. But things don’t always go as planned; actually, usually they don’t go as planned. But we hardly talk about that. We as society mostly cover the beginning of a story where everything still seems possible or the end where exits or big successes happen.