Ancient Nutrition’s push into regenerative sourcing has taken it beyond finding ingredients that meet its specifications and into the farms and infrastructure needed to produce and process them.
“We kept hitting roadblocks from availability, to pricing, to processing ability, minimum order quantities, and pure supply,” Kristie Cerutti, vice president of strategic partnerships and impact at Ancient Nutrition, told NutraIngredients.
She explained that “rather than wait until all of those caught up to where we needed, we figured we would start to help the process by building the foundation.”
Ancient Nutrition and Rodale Institute first partnered in 2021 and renewed the collaboration in early 2026. Rodale’s Organic Consulting team is working directly with farmers producing ingredients for Ancient Nutrition, providing agronomic guidance, soil-health support and assistance preparing for organic and Regenerative Organic Certified certification.
From the farm to a usable ingredient
Working directly with farmers addresses only part of the sourcing equation.
Ancient Nutrition has found farmers with crops it wants to source, as well as farmers willing to grow them. The harder part has been finding enough certified processing capacity to turn those crops into ingredients the company can use.
“In one word: processing,” Cerutti said of the biggest challenge.
“We have found several farmers who either have the ingredients, or are willing to grow them, but the crops are not in the form that we need them, and we have not found enough certified processors to help with this in a cost-effective way,” she shared.
Cost and demand further complicate the equation. Farmers have to consider the economics of certification and whether a premium market will exist for what they produce. Brands face uncertainty of their own around ingredient volumes, pricing and demand for products that may still be in development.
Scale presents another challenge. Cerutti said aggregating ingredients from multiple small farms requires significant work from a brand’s internal team, whereas relying on a single farm can create supply risk.
“That is why we believe collaboration is so important...brands, farmers, ingredient suppliers, processors, nonprofits and certification organizations all have a role to play,” she said.
Measuring progress upstream
The renewed partnership is expected to generate reporting on acres impacted, farmer profiles, certification milestones and project outcomes.
Cerutti said Ancient Nutrition looks beyond the number of acres and farms transitioned when assessing its work. At the farm level, the company considers soil health, biodiversity, water and carbon. It also looks at farmer education, economic viability, community and access to resources.
Some of that work extends beyond farms that ultimately become Ancient Nutrition suppliers. Through its R.A.N.C.H. Project, the company has participated in research projects, planted perennial food forests, addressed food waste and supported seed bank concepts.
Greater involvement at the farm level also provides the company with more visibility into how ingredients are grown and the practices and certifications behind them. Cerutti said the environmental benefits remain important, but developing the supply chain itself is central to the work.
Building supply before buying it
The model requires brands to take on a role that starts well before an ingredient is ready for procurement.
Cerutti said companies interested in regenerative sourcing may need to invest in farmer transitions, support research and education, develop longer-term relationships and help create demand for what farmers produce. Even then, the economics and sourcing needs may not line up.
Ancient Nutrition acknowledges that some of the farms it supports may never supply ingredients to the company.
“We have to build the foundation,” she emphasized, as “the way we see it is that even if we aren’t ever able to source from these farms, we are still making a huge impact to people and planet.”
