Supplement brand Ancient Nutrition recently launched its R.A.N.C.H. Project at The Center for Regenerative Agriculture & Sustainability, the company’s new headquarters in Tennessee.
This ambitious project intends to fulfill the company’s commitment to sustainability and regenerative agriculture while also supporting its mission to transform human health via superfoods.
Many of the superfoods and other ingredients used in Ancient Nutrition products will be grown at the new headquarters’ 110-acre organic farm as well as the company’s 350-acre organic Heal the Planet Farm in Missouri.
What is R.A.N.C.H.?
R.A.N.C.H. stands for: Regenerative Agriculture, Nutrition & Climate Health.
What are the goals for R.A.N.C.H.?
By following these principles, by 2024, Ancient Nutrition aims to:
- Be carbon negative.
- Have planted a Million Member Regenerative Food Forest consisting of 1 million superfood-bearing perennial trees, bushes, vines, and shrubs.
- Reduce plastic and waste produced by the company by 25 percent, in part by transitioning to more sustainable packaging.
- Product canisters will be switched from PET to HDPE, which uses 25 percent less plastic, is recycle code 2, and BPA free.
There will be more than 100 plant varieties grown on the new farm and its 81 greenhouses. One million trees, bushes, vines, and shrubs are “as many as we can fit on this farm,” says Jordan Rubin, who co-founded Ancient Nutrition with Dr. Josh Axe.
What Is Regenerative Agriculture?
According to Green America, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, regenerative agriculture uses farming methods that reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, where it contributes to climate change.
Regenerative agriculture practices help keep carbon in the soil, where it acts as a natural fertilizer. Following traditional principles, Ancient Nutrition’s farm will engage in no-till farming; natural grazing; and use cover crops and crop rotation to slow erosion, improve soil health, and increase biodiversity.
Each harvest, Ancient Nutrition will collect and save seeds from the more than 100 species of heirloom, native, and exotic superfoods it grows on the farm. It will also collect food waste and seeds from local organizations and keep them from the landfill.
“Through our regenerative agriculture practices, we make sure that we’re giving back to the soil instead of just taking from it, because we want to be part of the solution, not the problem,” says Rubin. “That’s why all of the accessible waste material and by-product from the manufacturing process of Ancient Nutrition’s new fermented Multi Collagen Protein is composted and used to grow organic food crops, some of which become ingredients in Ancient Nutrition products.”
A final sustainability commitment will be to support Mully Children’s Family, a Kenya-based nonprofit organization working to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, and human trafficking while planting trees to fight climate change.
Learn more about Ancient Nutrition’s R.A.N.C.H. Project.
