From milk to snack foods, more products are going ‘regenerative’

When Michael Ham first began handing out samples of his company’s tea to Whole Foods shoppers in 2024, explaining that it was grown using regenerative farming on South Korea’s Jeju Island, he was often met with blank stares.

That didn’t last long. By the following year, “People were coming up saying, ‘Oh, you’re regenerative!’” says the co-founder and president of Westchester, New York-based Wild Orchard Tea Company.

Regenerative agriculture, an approach to farming that aims to improve soil health through practices like reduced use of pesticides and plowing, is having a moment. Championed by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and propelled by increasingly health-conscious consumers, regenerative products now generate some $2 billion a year in retail sales, and some in the industry are positioning the fast-growing category as the next organic.

Big food producers and retailers like Nestlé SA, PepsiCo Inc, General Mills Inc and Walmart Inc have made regenerative agriculture commitments, often as part of ESG goals. And late last year agencies including the US Department of Agriculture announced a $700 million pilot program to support regenerative agriculture projects on farms.

But unlike organic, regenerative agriculture is only lightly regulated at the federal level in the US. To earn US Department of Agriculture organic certification, producers must comply with detailed federal standards, including strict rules about synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and undergo annual inspections. There’s no such equivalent for regenerative agriculture, and many products can be labeled as regenerative without having to verify their claims.

With the boom have come increasingly pressing questions from within and outside of the industry about what the label actually means and concerns from advocates about consumers being misled, especially because regenerative products tend to be more expensive. 

Nora Brown, a 47-year-old who works in international development in Washington, DC, buys regenerative products when they’re available. She sees them as healthier for the environment and herself, especially since recovering from breast cancer. 

But “I do have a fear of, we just love to label stuff for marketing. There’s pink washing, there’s greenwashing,” she said. “And I hope it doesn’t go the way of that.”

Certifying........

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