Episode 5 - Eric Jackson, Pipeline Foods

U.S. consumer demand for clean label foods is outpacing domestic supply of key ingredients—enter Pipeline Foods. Eric Jackson, Chairman and Founder, talks about why farmers struggle to find organic markets, and why big companies struggle to meet their organic needs—and how Pipeline is partnering with both. Rounding out the picture, we’re discussing major breakthroughs coming fast down the pike linking soil and human health. 

This is a conversation about system change and how that change is happening right now. Eric contextualizes why the growth of organic and regenerative agriculture is critically important, explaining how skyrocketing U.S. healthcare costs have paralleled the use of chemical agricultural inputs over the past decades. 

Pipeline is building the essential, yet invisible, link between farmers and major food companies so the organic and regenerative food industry can grow. We learn about the financial support, infrastructure, and crucial community support farmers need to shift to organic and regenerative practices. We dig into how major companies are a crucial part of the transition, and we explore how consumers are a critical lever of change. 

We go for a fascinating dive into the agricultural industry, and how advances connecting soil health and human health are accelerating change. Eric shares insight into how quickly researchers are gathering data linking industrial agriculture and the rise in disease and healthcare costs in the US. Underpinning our conversation is how the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust the connections between food and health into the headlines and what this could mean for the food and agriculture industry.