[music]
>> Yeah, uh well welcome
Eliza?
>> Yes.
>> Uh okay. Eliza
uh
to the show. A pleasure to have you on
uh Pill Blue Nexus. This is going to
take a different sort of angle from all
the other episodes that I had, but it is
of interest of mine like just uh
agriculture and food and everything that
goes along with that. And who better to
have on than
a person who created a house plant
business,
um
took it to the next level, and now is
running The Farm Link Project. Eliza,
welcome to the show.
>> Thank you for having me. I'm excited to
talk about all things plants.
>> [laughter]
>> So
exactly, and I love plants. I'm a
gardener. I think I left this out on the
last episode. So um so it's a it it's
let's find a common ground here. Tell me
what what uh what um did you like about
plants to begin with? Like what made you
want to create The Sill?
>> Yeah.
Yeah. Um well, great question. I started
The Sill when I was
26, um which was quite some time ago.
Um and
uh that happened to be 2012.
And at that time I was um coming out of
brand strategy as a primary or initial
career. And I was very interested in
taking an entrepreneurial uh track. And
I was very intrigued by house plants as
a category, believe it or not. It was a
personal experience that I had of, you
know, being in one of my very first
apartments and trying to decorate with
plants and
um you know, trying to make it feel more
homey. And then come to find that there
there a lot of places where I could go
shop for plants that were going to be
inspiring or convenient or educate me or
kind of offer like anything that one
might come to expect from shopping any
other category.
And so I decided to create a consumer
brand surrounding plants that would do
all those things that would be beautiful
and educational and convenient.
Um and so we started as a
delivery service
um
that basically
was in my neighborhood because if you
ordered from the website I was going to
be knocking on your door and handing you
the product that you purchased. Um but
we did blow up into a national brand. We
were shipping nationally. We ended up
having having
um something like 12 stores in 10
different markets and um and now The
Sill is a full-fledged uh online garden
center. So you can buy not only house
plants, which is the category we started
with, but you can buy apple trees and
hedges and all sorts of things and um
and it was an amazing
uh adventure and skill set that
ultimately then led me to FarmLink.
>> That's amazing. So you went from The
Sill to like the field or the farm,
right? It's interesting.
>> right. That's great. I love that.
>> [laughter]
>> And um I get it. Like were you living in
the city where you just uh needed a
decoration for the sill, right? Like I
I've I've been there. Like I I put the
plants behind the blinds sometimes and
sometimes you have to roll it up a
little bit. So
>> Right. And that's exactly right. Yeah.
In fact, we I would have said, you know,
whatever more than a decade ago that we
specialized in like mini plants because
everyone had mini sills and mini
apartments and
>> Yep.
>> definitely um
>> [snorts]
>> you know, related to my stage in life
and in some ways that's actually
continues to be true. I graduated from
it and I've moved on to the next
chapter.
>> Speaking of graduation, you mentioned
that you were studying where were you
studying?
>> Um at NYU. So, I was living in a teeny
tiny village apartment like the sixth
floor of a walk-up just to paint a
picture.
>> Okay, that makes a lot of sense now.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, that's cool. How do how was your
New York sort of experience going to
school? That must have been awesome.
>> It was. I mean, I grew up in Western
Massachusetts which informs a lot of the
decisions that I've made in my life in
fact because I grew up in a very like
agriculturally based community.
You know, I passed a cow field on my way
to high school
and my high school was next to a
vocational school which I feel like
doesn't exist in the same way anymore as
it used to.
And so, going to the city was like the
biggest contrast that like I could make
for myself and I loved it. I lived in
New York City for 20 years, but then
ultimately left because I needed green
grass again and I wanted to be closer to
my food chain and I wanted to you know,
um reconnect with nature.
>> Talk about that move from the city to I
would say the country, but you probably
didn't go all the way in the country.
>> Well, kind of. I live in the Catskills
now which is pretty rural.
My I live in a small Hamlet of about
3,000 people
and I now again get to pass cows on the
way to dropping my [laughter] kids
>> off at school.
>> But, I would say that what's nice about
where I am versus Massachusetts is is
the proximity to New York City. Is I can
still get on a train and in under two
hours be in the middle of Manhattan. So,
>> Okay.
>> It's a transition with you know, a bit
of a tail.
>> Yeah, so you are a country girl at
heart.
>> I think I am.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I I can totally resonate
with that and that's probably where your
love of plants came in. so totally
resonate with that. Um, talk about the
Farm Link project. What is it?
>> Yeah, so the Farm Link project is a
national nonprofit. Um, we are in the
food recovery space, and most people
then say, "Well, what does that mean?"
Um, we will recover surplus produce all
along the supply chain before retail.
Meaning, a lot of food recovery
institutions might pick up food that's,
you know, post expiration or on its way
out from a grocery store. We collect
food before it even gets to a store that
would be considered surplus and
therefore might go to waste, and we
redistribute that into the charitable
food system. And this all started as a
grassroots movement during COVID uh by a
a group of college students. Um, so you
know, juniors and seniors in school got
together after they'd been sent home
from their jobs and sent home from their
classes
um
to try and get involved and be helpful.
And one of the things that they
recognized was that their local food
bank was really in need of fresh food.
And meanwhile, there was all these farms
who had lost their business because
hospitality effectively shut down
overnight and were forced to effectively
plow under a lot of their perfectly good
food.
So these students started renting
U-Hauls and cold calling farms uh and
making that connection. And and then
they came to realize that while that was
somewhat unique to COVID in the
pandemic, it is actually a pretty
significant um breakdown in our supply
chain. Which is to say that there are so
many people in need and there is a
tremendous amount of surplus food in
this country, but to actually transport
it, to both coordinate the
transportation of perishable goods, and
to pay for that transportation hasn't
existed in a really material way. And
that's where Farm Link has stepped in
and and and and we've done so at at
quite impressive scale. So in that first
year, those college students
moved 40 million pounds of food.
And we are now moving Last year, we
moved 150 million pounds of food, and
that's about 100 full truckloads a week.
>> Wow, so there's a really big business
logistical problem here to make that
happen, but it works.
>> It works, and the crazy thing is is it's
not actually all that complex. Uh I
think that was what surprised me most
when I joined was that actually
coordinating and making this happen
day-to-day is not the hardest thing.
It's really for us, it's been forming
the relationships over the past 6 years
so that when the surplus arises, we know
exactly who to call
because we have maybe 24 to 48 hours to
move the food.
>> Right. And And talk about the process
itself. What happens there? Like what
How does that day look like or those few
days look like?
>> So,
um relationships, as I mentioned, that's
like our currency. Like we don't have We
don't have assets as an organization. We
don't have warehouse space. We don't own
the trucks. Our relationships are what's
most important. And so, if we have a
thousand relationships spanning food
donors to receiving agencies, whenever
surplus arises, so again, we could have
someone who failed to sell their load at
the wholesale market one day or an
importer um with the same type of
situation or a farmer who lost a sales
order. All of these types of situations
can happen, and they do happen every
single day across every single
commodity. Um they know to call us, and
then, you know, we have to consider who
to call next. Um and that is a lot of
decision-making that we have learned
over the course of 6 years of doing
this. Often times, it's closest
proximity, right? Cuz we're also trying
to be responsible about this food. It's
also timing,
um but it's also understanding receiving
uh agency's capacity. Like who can
actually take a truckload of food? Um
who's going to absorb and distribute it
in a timely manner based on what it is
and how much shelf life it has left.
Like moving potatoes is very different
than moving bananas, as you can imagine.
>> And where does this happen? Is this
nationally or is this regional?
>> So, most of our food in the United
States that is grown here originates
from California. Um
pretty obvious. Um that being said, you
know, you probably can appreciate like
apples are grown all along the Northeast
and citrus is grown, you know, in
Florida. And so there is food and you
know, and potatoes are the Northwest. So
there is food being grown in all over
the place and we can move food from
anywhere to anywhere um
at scale. We move exclusively full truck
loads. And then we do a lot of work with
um folks who are importing food um from
Mexico or from Canada. Um so in fact,
our reach is really, you know, all of
North America to some extent.
>> Interesting. Talk about the end result
of all of this. Like how has this been
received?
>> Yeah.
>> Uh yeah, talk talk about the success
stories about what people feel about
this.
>> Well, look, this is like a massive
opportunity because not only are we
helping feed people, but this food would
have otherwise gone to waste, which has
a huge impact on our planet because food
rotting in a landfill creates methane,
which is not a greenhouse greenhouse gas
that you want in our atmosphere.
So, I would say it's a triple win
because you know, we try and support
farmers and we try and feed communities
and it's very much healing to the
planet. It's one of the best
interventions actually to climate change
is um diverting food waste. So, all to
say like it's been it's been received
quite well. Um and it's not to say that
we invented food recovery or there's not
an amazing ecosystem surrounding us
because I I what we also recognize as an
organization is that you don't do you
don't do this work alone. Like we in
fact are representation of partnership
in action because all we're doing is
coordinating. Like we're the connective
tissue between existing groups. And so
we very much depend on the great work of
other organizations. But on the
receiving end the impact is enormous. I
mean we're talking about fresh food.
You know, the charitable food system
often relies on you know, packaged
non-perishable oftentimes
ultra-processed foods. So we're getting
the most helpful the most fresh food
into hands of those who are in need. And
when we think about what's happening now
just broadly speaking like
you know, berries aren't cheap. Like I
know [laughter] that. You have a kid,
you know that. So it's also one of these
items that um people get priced out of
pretty quickly. Or um and and so we're
very proud of the work that we do that
we're able to focus in this very
specific way on produce um and um
pre-retail because it does guarantee
freshness.
>> Yeah, that's a great uh
thing. Like most people they would if
they're on the lower income, they would
go to the canned foods and not get the
fresh fresh stuff. Which is what you're
trying to do or what you are doing is
providing that level of access to to the
people who can't uh afford it.
>> That's right. Yeah. And and the volume
is is in some ways hard to wrap your
mind around. Um 115 million pounds is a
lot. Um a common standard in the
charitable food space is that 1.2 pounds
is equivalent to a meal. Obviously a
meal isn't just a bunch of apples, but
uh it does just put things into
perspective, you know, that we're
producing you know, hunt you know, 100
what you know, 25 40 million meals out
of that. And then when you think about
servings, like the math just grows. And
so, this is this is a material amount of
food that we're getting to people's
tables.
>> Wow. And And how big is your network of
food banks?
>> Well, I would say we probably work with
like 500 receiving agencies. Um when we
talk about food banks in this country,
oftentimes you think of Feeding America.
They have 198 network food banks. But
what a lot of people don't recognize is
that there's also a lot of independent
food banks, too.
And we work with any We actually will
work with any nonprofit
willing to take a full truckload. So,
like if you're if you have a very active
church, we can come to your church
parking lot and drop down a truckload of
food. Um so, we we try and work with uh
any organization who works with us.
>> I'm interested technically how you
handle the logistics of all of this.
Like Is there a spreadsheet somewhere or
>> [laughter]
>> Yeah, no. Well, I mean, what's also very
exciting for me, having just joined the
Farmlink Project, is like we're in an
era that is never been seen before. And
so, actually we can
start to use technology in ways that
even 6 months ago
um we weren't able to. So, in fact, we
are building
um a a database now
that pulls a lot of the manual work um
out of people's brains and will make it
a lot faster to surface data and
information and make decisions. And so,
we're very excited about applying tools
like LLMs and just AI in general to the
work that we're doing because a lot of
what we do is just communication. And
some of that needs to have human
intervention and judgment, of course,
and some of it just doesn't. And so, we
are again entering a moment in time
where efficiency is going to be um
achievable in ways that it just wasn't
before.
>> Oh, wow. Now that you mentioned that, I
can totally see how AI can help here Um
from a a logistical point of view,
administrative point of view.
Absolutely.
>> It's all data and we know that there's
lots of
value in data and sometimes you don't
even know until you have it in front of
you what questions to ask but you know a
lot of what we do is just is just trying
to understand one
um
who are all the agencies to begin with,
what is their where are they, what is
their capacity, when are they open,
um what kind of foods are culturally
relevant to them,
>> Interesting.
>> there's only so many spreadsheets and
pivot tables you can create to like
really get value out of that
information. So for us being able to
create a database is actually going to
be um
instrumental in being able to move food,
move it effectively and what we hope is
that it'll also continue to help us
unlock supply because I think there's a
lot of untapped supply as well in this
country and a lot of hesitation about
untapping it because of the coordination
effort to then distribute it.
>> Is there um the untapped area is does
that include restaurants?
>> For us we look at farms because a lot of
what gets wasted is unfortunately left
in the field.
>> Okay.
>> Farmers already have this incredible
burden of trying to turn a profit on
what they do sell.
It is impossible to ask them to pay for
the harvest and packaging of food that
they have not sold and yet there's
billions of pounds of food left in the
field every single year.
>> So your your organization is in the sort
of harvesting, collecting and then
processing it to a point where it's
edible.
>> Well, we hope to continue to do what we
call pre-harvest recovery work
which is more expensive
than moving food that's already been
harvested
but
it is plentiful and it is there and if
we can do that in a way that both
supports farmers and can feed people
that is a very large untapped
opportunity. And to say, you know,
process yes, but you don't even have to
process it necessarily.
It's just a matter of timing of getting
it out of the field and distributed to
people in in the time that they can
consume.
>> Right.
Yeah, there's like you said 48 hours but
uh
it there there there is really a time
crunch going on, isn't there? Like all
the time to to to get it to the to to
the right spot.
>> Mhm.
Yeah, we've we've seen this so a lot of
there's a lot of actual uh news
attention right now on the peach trees
in California and it's a really
devastating uh challenge that these
farmers have had because Del Monte
declared bankruptcy last year and Del
Monte's a big canning company and a lot
of that is just reflective of like
consumer behavior changing. Like people
aren't eating canned peaches anymore.
Which is just and canned pears for that
matter.
And so we saw this last year immediately
with pears actually. We we worked on
um some harvesting of pears because Del
Monte canning facility closed and there
was a farm in the Northwest that
literally was just then sitting on
hundreds of thousands of pears were
already harvested um and meant to go to
this canning facility and then the
canning facility like closed, you know,
and then and then what? And so all you
all of a sudden you have you know, all
of these pears ready to go and nowhere
to go and yet you have 48 million food
insecure Americans. And that in the
instance of the peaches because they've
now
determined that there's less of a market
for these types of peaches, the state of
California is actually paying the
farmers to
dig up the peach trees and replace it
with crops that are more um
viable in the market. And so now we're
seeing the destruction of all these
incredible peach trees, um which is
just, you know, quite sad. And yet, you
know, we do what we can in terms of
rescuing.
But, you know, we're up against big
forces that, you know, put us in these
positions.
>> So, the demand
for people for canned stuff
has gone down. That's interesting. I'm
wondering if it had anything to do with
uh the pricing or alternatives. So, like
if you guys got into the canning
industry, for example, right? Like would
you make a profit there?
>> Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not an
economist and it's so easy to, you know,
to make these assumptions about why
things are the way they are. But, of
course, what I've come to learn in being
in this organization is there's so many
factors that go into this. Like, I'm
sure like the price of aluminum going up
has something to do with it. Sure,
changing consumer sentiment and diets
has something to do with it. And I, you
know, there's it's all the things,
right? So, um it's it's hard to pinpoint
like what the one thing is, but what I
think about in terms of FarmLink
especially is we have pinpointed this
one intervention that we know does work
and that there are many more, as I
mentioned earlier. Like, this is all
about the bigger ecosystem and
relationships. And
um and that's what's really exciting is
that I think as we continue to evolve
and adopt technology and create
efficiencies, we will also be able to
develop new interventions for some of
this work because it's not going to just
be one thing.
>> That's interesting. Very interesting.
So, you there's a ton of challenges and
a ton of problems here and that you
probably see every day.
Um so, how how do you guys get funded?
>> So, um we get funded because of amazing
donors. Um we have corporate
partnerships. We get funded by
foundations
through grants.
Um and then individuals. So, you can go
to our website and donate five bucks.
You can be someone who's able to write a
bigger check than that.
But, right now it's uh 100% uh
philanthropy. Um we don't have an earned
revenue stream. Um that is something
that we are, you know, continuing to
hold curiosity around, but um we've been
very lucky that there's a lot of people
who believe in the work that we're doing
in this particular intervention. And
again, as I mentioned, you know, you can
be interested in um food insecurity, you
could be interested in waste production,
you could be interested in um the
American farmer, or you could be
interested in climate. Um all of those
things intersect in the work that Farm
Link does, and so I think we've been
really lucky to attract a lot of
different donors who are motivated by
different things.
>> You probably have a
bigger perspective than I do here, but
tell me I do live in a country area, so
I have farmers around me. But, talk talk
to me about farmers and farming as a
profession as it is today. And is it
making a comeback? Is people talk about
Amish rock and plumbing? No.
>> I mean, may you know, there we see all
this Instagram content and, you know,
tradwives are becoming a thing and
people, you know, want to homestead, but
the reality is is that farmers in
America are getting crushed, and there's
very little ability to have solid
succession planning because it's just a
very hard way to make a living.
All of the costs are going up. Um so,
cost of machinery and cost of
fertilizer, the cost to get into
farming. It's an enormous hurdle. You
know, if you're a 22-year-old coming out
of college and you're like, "Well, I
could start a website for free, or I
could start a farm for hundreds of
thousands of dollars." You know, which
is it going to be? And so,
unfortunately, um I think we're finding
that we are in a position that we are
not supporting our farmers enough, um
which obviously puts our food at risk.
>> Mhm.
>> Three.
Um we rely a lot on importing our food
and instead we reward a lot of the big
consolidated farmer ops that you know
don't actually really make food. They're
making inputs, you know, they're making
um ethanol or animal feed or you know
other things. So I think it's really
tough to be a farmer right now
and you know we could spend an entire
hour just talking about that but that's
why I say you know it's really not up to
the farmer to um put in the extra
overhead
to harvest this food to donate it cuz
they're already in a place.
>> And what what are the demographics of
the farming industry? Are they mostly
mom and pop shops, family businesses or
are they more corporatized now?
>> They are more corporatized now. There's
a lot of consolidation that has taken
place over the past couple generations.
Um
I
can't speak to it fluently other than
what I would recommend for you is you
read the farm bill
a citizen's guide to the farm bill which
is a great book that breaks it all down
for you to understand kind of how we
even got to where we are today and it
has to do with a lot of incentives and
programs put in place and obviously the
farm bill has evolved over a hundred
plus years but
a lot of a lot of what goes on starts
from the very top.
>> This is kind of like one of those things
like my
my father-in-law talks a lot about like
he's in the trucking industry and it's
like everything that's you you touch was
brought to you by a truck but people
don't people don't think about that but
also people don't think about where
their food comes from either.
>> That's right.
>> You're literally talking about the one
thing that we can't screw up is the farm
and it is filled with all these
problems right?
>> Yeah. Yeah and it's often something that
to you to exactly what you said. People
don't know about it. They're not aware
of the complexity or what we're up
against or the fact that the farm bill
is in is actively being worked on right
now. Um unfortunately, you know, those
aren't the things that were taught in
school and um and ought to be um just as
important as growing your own food for,
you know, a variety of reasons.
Uh I think it's important to know how
the food system works and I feel very
lucky to be now in this position um
getting a quite the education on it.
>> Where do you see this organization going
in like 5 years into the future? Where
Where do you see the What's the vision
for it?
>> Yeah.
I think there's um three things that are
most important for Farm Link. I think
the first is of course continuing to do
what we do well today, which is move
food. Um I think there's ways in which
we can move food that are more
effective. Um so you talked about impact
earlier in the conversation. Our team is
getting really
interested in not just moving more
pounds of food, but knowing what the
impact is and how to measure that. Um so
that's um
often what comes up in an early stage
nonprofit is going from acting to
measuring and understanding kind of what
that looks like.
There's a really important second piece
to this, which is the fact that we were
founded by students. So this youth
leadership aspect has always been part
of the DNA here at Farm Link and um one
of the ways in which we continue to
cultivate that is through a fellowship
we call FIELD. So we take a cohort of
students every single year and teach
them about food systems and then point
them at a problem that they get to go be
on the ground and learn about. So they
get partnered with a farm or a food bank
um
and uh then they it all culminates in a
final project. We would like to see that
continue to expand because I think part
of our responsibility isn't just trying
to fix one part of the problem, but
actually creating more problem solvers.
Um
I think that is quite unique to FarmLink
and being able to do both of those
things really well.
Um
and I think the third thing is just
continued innovation, right? So, I said
like it's not going to just be one
thing. Like we could be
the
biggest fastest smartest whatever
whatever and like it's not going to
solve the root cause of hunger
or the root cause of food waste.
It takes awesome partnership with many
and so I think the third piece will be
innovation and continuing to actually
create new interventions. This one
happens to work really well and it's
going to be one of many. So, how else
can we take sort of the model in which
we were started and scaled and do that
in other ways that touch on food waste,
food insecurity,
climate, and the American farmer.
>> Yeah, it almost it almost feels like
you're
setting the stage to solve some bigger
problems within the industry, which is
interesting
angle. You might you're seeing this from
a logistical point of view, but then
you're also seeing
solutions that could possibly be
fixing things, which is puts you in an
interesting spot.
>> Well, I would say as someone who's
entrepreneurial by nature,
seeing a boatload of problems like this
is actually really fun and exciting cuz
all you have is problems to solve and
many of them are very solvable, you
know, like even what we're doing today,
you know,
it's just a lot of logistics.
>> Yeah.
Yeah, there's they they need the Silicon
Valley folks need to
put some pitch decks together and you
know, solve these some of these problems
for you, I think.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well,
we hope to have their support.
>> Oh, very good. Very good. So, that's
kind of like one of the things you're
actively doing is engaging with the
students,
having them come in and and do that. So,
I I totally get where you're going with
that.
>> Mhm.
>> Okay. So,
Alisha, thank you so much for your time
today. This is a great sort of like
synopsis and lowdown of the food
industry.
I
I plan to do some nice clipping of these
and hopefully bring some awareness to
the industry.
>> That's amazing. Yeah, and
farmlinkproject.org
is where you can go learn more about us
and donate. And I hope your listeners do
and we're just excited to continue to
get the word out. So thank you so much
for having me in the conversation.
>> Thanks for coming and for providing this
perspective. It was really refreshing.
Thank you.