It’s Time to Lead with Passion and Heart with Jane Pinto, Pinto Barn
Gooder Podcast Featuring Jane Pinto
We humans, especially in the naturals space, have desires to live strong clean, and healthy lives. My guest Jane is no different – however, her journey into the better-for-you space took a route many of ours don’t. A child born with food allergies added fuel to her entrepreneurial ways and inspired her to use her natural leadership ways to help move the free-from movement mainstream.
In this episode, Jane Pinto, founder of First Crop, Don’t Go Nuts, Sacred Sleep, and the Pinto Barn shares with me, her journey of developing brand ecosystems that are based on the foundations of reciprocal relationships. She challenges our thinking as brand owners and consumers to do one thing every day that holds our industry accountable for the claims we make and the passions and commitments we profess. And she reminds us that true leadership starts with the heart. Listen, learn, and get inspired!
In this episode we learn:
- What sacred economics are and how companies can embrace this philosophy.
- Why we should always believe that there is enough for everyone.
- How to create brands using the foundations of love, transparency, and authenticity.
- How being honest about your knowledge, abilities and your feelings can make you a better leader.
- How to have courageous conversations with your consumers, customers, business partner, community and employees.
- That it’s time to be bold, real, and fierce leaders.
About Jane Pinto:
Jane Pinto is founder of First Crop, Don’t Go Nuts, and Pinto Barn. She is a lifelong visionary in the naturals and wellness space building cultures of love and care, companies with strong missions that are devoted to healing and elevating people and the planet, and spent her entire career helping corporations create workplaces that honor unconditional equality. Her companies create innovative products and services that help people improve their lives through engaging with consciously created, uniquely designed products.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-pinto-5977a814/
E-mail: jpinto@firstcrop.com
Show Resources
Pinto Barn – Founded in 2011, based in Salida, Colo., Pinto Barn is a collective of caring hearts who commit their energy, talents, and passion to consciously creating products that help people to live healthy, whole lives. Divisions include Don’t Go Nuts and Sacred Sleep.
Don’t Go Nuts – makes safe nut-free foods using organic, non-GMO ingredients that are good for you and good for the planet.
First Crop – A hemp and CBD brand with the mission of “Healing People and Planet one seed…one soul… one regenerative act at a time.”
Sacred Sleep – a division of Pinto Barn Inc., is a company dedicated to Lifestyle Sleep Wellness and to creating Sleep Sanctuaries to help people set intention around sleep. In addition to the new organic cotton and fair-trade alpaca collections, Sacred Sleep’s product offering includes luxury eucalyptus blend sheets and mattress covers, medicinal herb loose-leaf teas in daytime and nighttime blends, and custom locally made pottery mugs and tea bowls. Sleep is sacred, so are you.
Hilary’s Eat Well – is the creator of convenient and culinary foods that are made from real ingredients and are free from common allergens. We are helping to heal the American diet by bringing these foods to all people who seek tasty, nourishing cuisine. Our products forge innovative culinary paths and disrupt the status quo. We care about the health of our customers, employees and ecosystem.
EnjoyLife – Enjoy Life Foods is the leading brand in the growing Free-From category, featuring a robust portfolio of Certified Gluten Free and Non-GMO Project Verified products that are free-from 14 common allergens. Enjoy Life’s mission and brand promise is to deliver safe, better-for-you products free-from food allergens, but not free-from taste so everyone can Enjoy Life and Eat Freely!
Transcript:
Diana Fryc: Hi, welcome to The Gooder Podcast. I’m your host Diana Fryc as partner and CMO of Retail Voodoo and award winning branding agency, I’ve met with and worked with some of the most amazing women in the naturals industry, food, beverage, wellness and fitness. As such I decided to create the Gooder Podcast to interview these great people and subject matter experts and have them share their insights and expertise and in this case today passion to help businesses all around the world become gooder. I’m really excited to introduce today’s guest Jane Pinto. Pinto farms is kind of like that’s the holding brand right or the control barn.
Jane is for those of you that don’t know that I got to learn about recently is a lifelong visionary in the naturals and wellness space building cultures of love and care companies with strong missions that are devoted to healing and elevating people in the planet. And she’s really spent her entire career helping corporations and small business even create workplaces that honor unconditional equality. Jane, thank you so much for joining me today.
Jane Pinto: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really honored. It’s very important. Thank you.
Diana Fryc: Oh, well, I learned about you, kind of through my LinkedIn network. I had made a request on LinkedIn asking people out in the Big Planet, who they wanted to hear from on this podcast that I started and Leslie Sabino of Nestle Waters specifically made a request to hear from you. She had learned about you in a previous career life of hers. And she asked me to hear from you. So thank you for being open to that request. And we can thank miss Leslie for that opportunity as well.
Jane Pinto: That was really touching. I so appreciate it. Thank you.
Diana Fryc: Yeah. Are you in Colorado today or New Mexico. Tell me where are you on this planet?
Jane Pinto: I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I live now, where the new company First Crop is headquartered.
Diana Fryc: Okay, I’m interested in learning about that in a little bit. But you have kind of an interesting history that the naturals industry has changed so much in the past few years. So I want to start with what I think and correct me if I’m wrong is kind of your entry into this better for you industry. You have an interesting story that I’d love for you to share in this. How did you get here kind of through this Don’t Go Nuts brand? And how did you get here and Don’t Go Nuts are so intertwined? Maybe you could talk a little bit about that Genesis.
Jane Pinto: Sure, well, I always was trying to create mission based companies and the first one that I had created was called Pinon Real Estate Group and we really brought forward loud and clear message that transactions were not relationships and sales were not about your values. And so we really worked on a culture of love and care in real estate firm and talked about the spirit of the sale. And it really changed things. It’s a beautiful company that still today in Salida Colorado, but while I was there, I had twins. And my little girl, three had anaphylaxis and, of course, then you go on this journey and we had no idea what we were doing.
We didn’t know anything about anaphylaxis, peanut, Trina, mango allergies. And we didn’t know what food to feed her. And being visionary and entrepreneurial, it’s just something I can’t help. I was born that way. And I don’t apologize for it anymore. I’m really grateful. Everybody has their gifts and this one is my gift and blessing. And immediately we just started thinking about what could we do. These kids and families, these communities of care for these children need to feel safe, they need to feel like they have what they required, not only to feed the body, but to feed the soul. It’s such an emotional thing for these children. They’re worried about their life, food becomes something that is not fun and not trustworthy. So we started and Lily my daughter and my son Gray, they helped every step of the way and my husband Doug, and it was a family business and it became a family community business.
[00:05:00]
Everyone in Salida got behind it and angels everywhere and we created our own facility because we didn’t trust making the food somewhere else. And those foods are delicious, organic and sold today still.
Diana Fryc: Well, that’s really interesting. Our firm worked with Hillary’s Eat Well, a few years ago, I don’t know if you know Hillary Brown. She had a very similar experience and right around that same time. And this food allergy concept, and I’m calling it a concept. It’s not really a concept, they’ve been around forever, but it seemed to kind of accelerate around this time, or at least the acknowledgement of it started to accelerate right around the same time with you. And it was maybe not quite a novel concept, but still knew, what sort of issues where you come up against, either in the industry or I guess probably in the industry because it sounds like your immediate community kind of got it and galvanized and surrounded you and helped you move forward but were you running into anything in the industry whether it was the concept or that you were coming from Colorado because at the time, Colorado was not the epicenter of naturals as it is now? Just anything?
Jane Pinto: I think the thing that we faced most was where we are going to make it and we realized we have to make it ourselves. And so building that facility was quite an undertaking because you’re not only building a brand you’re also running a manufacturing facility, which I think was the biggest hurdle and of course took the most resources. Then you get a great product and you’re trying to go into a marketplace and category that Free Farm really wasn’t even known then. I mean, enjoy life really plays saddles for all of us. And I’m grateful, really grateful to that brand.
But people really didn’t understand the category. There was a lot of education. There was a lot of Poohing, like, “Oh, come on, it’s not that big a deal.” So the education around this really was about life and death and providing this for our consumers was our responsibility as not only retailers, but as brand builders. And that conversation took flight and people started to really respect that Free Farm was a real thing and people needed gluten free and they needed that free and they needed the things they needed for nourishment, but for life force.
Diana Fryc: Yeah, it’s a kind of a tricky combination, because you’re developing a product for a legitimate need and yet you need to talk about it in a way that isn’t scary or medicinal, because you are as you said earlier, this is like people are now distrusting their food source, the relationship with food isn’t casual like it is for people who don’t have these issues. What were the tricky components, or maybe it was easier than what I’m thinking, but what were the components around being able to share what was going on and not make it be this life and death thing that it really is but something that was attractive to people because they, you know what I mean? Like you get more flies with honey. So talk about that a little bit.
Jane Pinto: Well, I think that was where the love and care culture came from. Not only do we want to work in that love and care culture together, but we wanted to be love care for all of the people we were educating and talking to, mothers who didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t have a peanut butter sandwich anymore.
I kept talking about, and so did everyone that don’t pronounce that, we have to handle this with love and care to be heard, to be seen, and to have this really be something that other people care about. And if you go at them with anger or anything justified or defensive people run, they run. And so that’s really where love and care was born. Not only are we making it with love and care, but we’re expressing it with love and care.
Diana Fryc: I wonder if anecdotally just simply because the Gooder Podcast is about women leadership, did you see accept it and adoption happened faster with women because they were typically the caretakers of the family, or did you find the adoption to be a little bit more equal or easy to remember that?
Jane Pinto: No, I remember very clearly, on the consumer level, the online level, both mothers and fathers were so grateful for the product. It’s a terrifying thing.
[00:10:00]
And so it’s just really wonderful when you feel heard and cared for and provided for, but the buyers, for sure, there was a faster and just a more natural nurturing understanding from female buyers right off the bat. And I have to say that the men really came along quickly and some of our greatest champions along the way have been men.
Diana Fryc: So that’s awesome. I know that there’s like an equilibrium, men and women, like our world works best when we work together because we have our strengths and our weaknesses. So I’m always interested to see where that adoption starts and then who becomes kind of the champions of the initiative. So thank you for that.
So here you are, in addition to starting this new company and building a manufacturing facility, you’re transitioning industries, Real Estate to CPG different Bs. Did you find anything in your real estate experience that helped you kind of adopt or transform easily, or kind of just feel more comfortable and CPG. Were there any traction there?
Jane Pinto: Well, I think the most important traction is I’ve just always believed we have to be exactly who we are. And that if I bring that with me, if I go and I’m just Jane and I do exactly what I do and I’m honest, and I’m truthful, and I say when I don’t know, and I say when I’m scared, and I feel confident when I really am and those things have always been, I feel what has guided the path for me in any industry, just being who I am and being willing to learn. I had so much to learn, and ask for help. And there’s so many people who help and then you get to help others and that’s just awesome.
Diana Fryc: That’s great. Of course, we’re jumping through swaths of time here, but since then, you’ve now started First Crop. It’s a mission based CBD wellness brand. And when I was first doing research on you, I thought to myself, well, this feels a little bit more like an ecosystem where the brand wants to take care of the farmers and the land and consumers, but it feels consistent with your previous efforts. All of your businesses are kind of an ecosystem. This one just feels a little bit bigger because we’re taking on I feel like bigger and multiple initiatives, not just more singular initiatives. So instead of just allergy foods, now we’re talking about responsible farming and taking care of the little guy and tell us a little bit about that history in my understanding what you’re trying to do with that brand.
Jane Pinto: No, that was really great. As you know, we go along in our careers at each stop, we learn something, and then we take it with us. And the next thing we do, hopefully we do better. And I think that, what is so exciting about First Crop is that really is from the soil, all the way to the soul, all the way to the shelf and then back to the farmer. It’s a regenerative system in its corporate model. And so I feel great about that. But I also feel great about the fact that our mission is healing people and planet one seed one soul, one regenerative act at a time. And I know that and I’m sure you would agree with this, that it’s going to take one small regenerative act at a time for all of us to really, really save what we have, regenerate what we have, be respectful of what we have and heal ourselves and the planet along the way and First Crop is really about that because CBD is an amazing healer. And hemp is an amazing healer and miracle for planet just in its natural state, how it grows and what the taproot does to the soil and how it grabs carbon out of the air and puts it back in the soil. It’s just absolutely amazing. I had no idea.
Diana Fryc: Curiously, I learned about sunflowers and sunflowers ability to clean soil, do they function kind of the same way?
Jane Pinto: No, I think that those big taproots like hemp has and like a sunflower has, they literally go down and they get into the soil and a whole bunch of different tentacles and they do their work. I mean, they are really, honestly, they’re healers.
Diana Fryc: It’s super fascinating. I only asked that about sunflowers because I don’t know, I was watching something like Sunday morning.
[00:15:04]
That’s my secret weekend thing that I like to do. And they were talking about the fact that sunflowers are being used in Japan to soak up all the radiation from the ground that spilled during the tsunami. And I thought to myself, how on earth can a plant do that? So when I’m hearing about hemp, it’s like, oh, it must be a type of plant that can be regenerated. That’s super exciting.
Jane Pinto: Yeah, hemp was used to Chernobyl to remediate the soil. I mean, it’s fascinating. And CBS Sunday morning is where First Crop came from many, many years. Many years ago, Jason Brown was on it. He had left the NFL. He had left a huge contract. He was telling the story about becoming a farmer. He touched me so much when he said, “I’m going to give my First Crop every year to my community because it’s the most nutritious and healing crop of the year.” And I got out my visionary pad. And I wrote down First Crop and started working on it at that moment alongside of Don’t Go Nuts.
Diana Fryc: That is so nuts because I remember that exact episode and I was thinking to myself, what an amazing story. How small world was that moment right there. That’s crazy.
Jane Pinto: I know, I had to tell you because I just love that.
Diana Fryc: So, the real reason I reach out to anybody to participate in podcasts are those that come reach out to me is I love to meet people. I love these stories. I think the more of these stories that we can share, particularly for our industry, the better we can become as an industry. And when you and I first connected, this great conversation about women in business just in general, and I’ve made some kind of pretty general observations that women predominantly start businesses because they see a need within their family or their community or the world. And that is, of course, your story. And we talked about a number of things you had so much to say about a woman’s role in Business Economics. In fact, you used a term sacred economics that I had not heard before. Can you talk about that a little bit? What do you define as sacred economics? What is it that we can learn from that term and the philosophy?
Jane Pinto: Thank you. It’s one of the most important things to me in my heart, sacred economy, sacred economics is, and as far as I’m concerned, I mean, this is something I’ve been working on my entire career and I’m getting ready to bring forward it’s that belief that there’s enough that we can create beautiful companies, they can be profitable, but we don’t have to grab every single last bit of the profits we can bring forward in service and admission, a lot of the profits so that if everybody was giving more of their profits, that ripple effect would be absolutely amazing. And that’s how I feel an economy is sacred is when we’re really in purpose in service. And we understand that there’s enough, there’s enough for the investors, for the team members, for the consumer and then there’s enough for service to do good.
Diana Fryc: I’m trying not choke on that, try and keep my emotions on that. It is really a place that I come from, and I really haven’t met a whole lot of people that feel that way. And it’s hard when you work in an industry, end of the end of the day as an agency, when I’m working on like, putting on my agency hat and my business partner and I are talking to people, the goal is to make more, make more so somebody can have more. And sometimes when the missions of the companies kind of crash against that, and this idea of there is enough, I think is outside of our industry, is something that I think that we could all embrace a little bit more. We don’t need to hoard, there’s no need to over produce food. I spoke with a woman recently named Janet Lee, who was working at PepsiCo and an initiative to reduce the amount of overproduction that a food that is grown and the resources used for food that is grown, that is never going to be consumed and to start moving away from that.
[00:20:00]
So when I hear somebody like Jane Pinto’s philosophy of sacred economy being used, the language is differently in the major CPGs. But when I see that I’m like, I have a lot of hope for how things are changing. That’s a really great thing. I love that, sacred economies or sacred economics. I love that and I’m going to borrow it and attribute it to you, of course, but I’m going to use that in my vocabulary now. Thank you. Now, of course, since 2012, natural and better for you brands have exploded. They’ve mainstreamed we have a lot of these multinationals stepping into it partly well, mostly because of opportunity. And my agency has certainly seen the shifts. We started working in the industry when it was brands that were just founder owners and we’re trying to do something more than just make money. And we’ve seen the shift from missions creating products to brands and brands to brands creating missions almost simply for marketing sake.
Sometimes I feel like the authenticity of a brand is a sound bite rather than act of caring or love. And I’m not saying that’s good or bad that it’s just simply that the natural category has evolved. I wonder what’s your take on this transformation. Do you have a POV? Are you feeling that because it’s bigger, that it’s better at the end of the day? Or are you finding there are some things that you wish weren’t happening?
Jane Pinto: Well, I think everything matters. So, if somebody is doing good, but they’re actually really doing it and somewhere along the way, somebody who’s touching it really believes that it’s doing good because the founder, just start something. And this is what we’re going to use to do good, it will never work, it won’t ever work. And so somewhere along the way, somebody is doing the good. And if the good is actually happening, this is the Gooder Podcast, then I’m all for it. I mean, we’re going to know who’s real and truthful about what they’re doing. You’ll hear it in a minute, you’ll hear it in the first sentence they say. I think consumers today are the ones who really judge that. And I think they look and they read and they see and they figure out if you say you are about the environment, and you’re using plastic and everything, they get it very quickly that that’s not matching up. And so I think the consumer actually is the one who bears true and I think they really know who comes to feed the soil rather than to take the fruit?
Diana Fryc: Sure. We’ve looked back a little bit, but as you look into the future of the industry, and I already feel like I know what you’re going to say, but what do you feel is important for us to keep in mind? You’ve gone through one iteration of change in the naturals industry. I’m kind of looking for like, what sort of advice would you give those that are maybe just coming up into the workforce or even those that have been in the category for a while? What’s the advice that you would give to a brand that really wants to make a difference?
Jane Pinto: Well, I think we have to look at our global family and we have to look at the condition of Mother Earth. And I feel like the earth is sacred, I do. And if we look at that, then there’s so many needs if we even just take one of them and focus on that, and that’s our place where we give back and our place where we serve. So much will happen. It just has to be real and passionate, and it has to be fierce.
Diana Fryc: I feel like the realness is kind of crashing around us right now. I think there’s so many different fronts that everybody as a consumer, they want to find those safe brands that are doing the heavy lifting for them so that by association, they feel like they can do good when everything else feels out of control in their immediate environment.
Jane Pinto: Nothing is certain right now, but what is certain is what we do and how we treat people.
[00:25:00]
And so I think we should buy brands that care and I think we should investigate them. And I think we should know that what we’re buying really is making a difference, is doing something for someone somewhere that is changing everything because every little change is collective and it makes big change. And I think we have to demand personally, we have to be bold and demand that all of our leaders are heart leaders today. Not just effective strategy, execution leaders and financial leaders but they are heart leaders. I think we have to demand that male, female, child, everyone.
Diana Fryc: Love it. I wonder when you look back at just kind of the two brands, the two most recent brands and I feel weird wanting to separate it because I understand that you see that all as so closely related because how you built them. When you look back on your brands, is there one learning that you would want to share with us that you think I wished I would have learned that sooner? I wished I would have learned that earlier.
Jane Pinto: I thought about that. I’ve been asked that before. And for me, I think knowing who you are working with, really knowing them. People who laugh, a bunch of times I’ve been in meetings and somebody’s gone and put their education at the highest level and they are absolutely fantastically brilliant in their mind, but I’m looking for heart and mind brilliance and I higher hearts. I do and I just do and people laugh and they’ve teased me about it. But I often hired really big roles not even exactly knowing where they came from as far as education because for me, I want to know what you care about and who you care about and how you do what you do to make sure that the world knows that that’s true. And I think what I’ve learned is sometimes I got it wrong and that that’s okay.
That I believed in people that sometimes disappointed and at first that felt really personal and heartbreaking now it just feels like you love them in the door and you love them out the door. And I try not to get into right and wrong and good decision bad decision, I just try to keep open and keep leading from a place of everything matters and everything we do matters and everything we say matters and every decision we make in a company matters because it all affects someone. And so that’s what we hold at the company. That’s what a culture of loving care is, is that every decision matters. Dave Weir, he’s the CEO of First Crop and he is the most beautiful right left brain leader and full hearted leader and there’re just beautiful men like that, we have to work with them.
Diana Fryc: Well, this idea of getting it wrong is okay. That’s not exactly what came out of your mouth. That’s kind of what I’m hearing is like getting it wrong is okay. It really is about the intention. And if you’re coming at whatever it is that you’re doing, it could be making dinner for a family, it doesn’t have to be from business. But I think if we gave ourselves, and I find this true for myself, but getting it right is always like on the top of mind, because I feel like there’s constantly this desire to prove that I’m not going to get it wrong. And it’s probably because I’m a child of the 80s. But that’s another story probably over a beer, but this idea of intentionality and okay to be wrong, and then be able to forgive yourself and then ask for forgiveness. I feel like that’s all kind of looped together. And I don’t necessarily think that’s a natural way of doing business. Like if you make an error to be able to go to somebody and go, I screwed that up and to have that person say, “Thanks for acknowledging that.” It’s okay. Instead of it being like, getting mad and making people wrong, I don’t think that helps. I don’t think it helps a business culture. I don’t think it helps a business ecosystem and sometimes, frankly, getting something wrong or not getting it perfect, there’s more learnings and more value there than it is getting it right.
[00:30:05]
Jane Pinto: Without a doubt, I mean, look at our own lives when we fall down and hopefully we fall forward and then we get back up and in a culture that we call a culture of love and care, then there’s times when you have to say what you mean, just don’t say it mean and we have to have courageous communication. And I have to say, “Hey, I’m really sorry to have to sit with you and say this, but I have to tell you, because you’re valuable to me. And I’m valuable to me. And the company’s valuable to me.” And so we have a lot of training on how do we have these conversations? One person said to me once, “Culture of love and care, does that mean when someone does something wrong, you just love them?” Yes, yes, that’s exactly right. We do love them, but we also tell them that they didn’t do it. And we say it in a way that is respectful.
It values the person, values the mistake, ask them to take responsibility. You get into a conversation of how do we all need it to be better, and then you make agreements on that going forward. But if you think about marriage, or kids, or friendships, you got to do that everywhere. So I would say how we do anything is how we do everything.
Diana Fryc: Yeah, I like that a lot. How I do anything? Well, I wonder, I don’t know if there’s anything specific that I haven’t asked you that you were hoping to be able to share with me or with us today. So give you that kind of opportunity right now. Have we covered kind of those things that you’re like, yes, this is what I want to share with people or is there something else?
Jane Pinto: Thank you. Thank you for doing this podcast. Thank you for the heart behind it. Thank you a lot. I think it’s just a time to be super bold. And we have to just talk about that there has to be love at work. There has to be the conversation about love at work, because if we don’t have it there where we spend all our hours, it’s very difficult to bring it out into the world because we’re exhausted. I just think it’s new time, new conditioning, there’s so much anger and there’s so much harm being done in the world. It’s our responsibility to be regenerative, to be reciprocal. Go back to reciprocity, like the old history showed, if you took something from the land, you put something back in, that wasn’t me doing that, but I’m so grateful people started doing that. And we need to do it again. And it’s just the same thing with how we treat each other. You give me something, I need to give you something and we just need to get back to a more loving way.
Diana Fryc: I’m not frequently gob smacked, I’m mostly a babbler, but I’m hearing a lot of things that make me want to just take time to sit with it. And I know I’ll have an opportunity to do that later. Thank you.
Jane Pinto: And people need to buy brands that care. Support the brands that are truly walking, walking this talk and doing it because it’s expensive to do it this way. And so many great, great, great harder brands don’t make it because they don’t get supported. We need to support our good companies. That’s the last thing I’ll say and thank you.
Diana Fryc: Oh my goodness, no problem. I wonder, you have such a fun experience with the brands and then also your relationship with business and community and land. I wonder if you might have kind of some sort of I’m going to use the word fun nugget that you like to share with people that have them go, “Oh my gosh.” Like for me it was like the sunflower or maybe it was just earlier that how regenerative hemp is to the soil, but is there maybe another point that you sometimes like to go, “Well, did you know?” And it’s just a simple sound bite that people can take and easily share over cocktail or coffee. “Hey, listen to Jane. She said this one thing.”
Jane Pinto: I think the miracle of hemp is not only does it wake up our own Cannabinoid system that lays dormant without it reacting with the things that come through CBD.
[00:35:02]
So it is so healing. But when we look, I read this and it was from a good source that in 90 days, it takes for hemp to from soil seed to harvest. That’s 90 days, we sequester as much carbon as it would take 20 years to mature trees and in a small part of the forest. I mean, so every 90 day period where we’re harvesting hemp, we are sequestering enormous amounts of carbon. I think we can all think about that and then go buy CBD, go buy hemp products, not just because I’m from First Crop, buy all the hemp products out there, because you are doing a regenerative act by doing it. So maybe that’s not the funnest thing over drink, but maybe put a little CBD in the drink and we’ll all have fun.
Diana Fryc: All right, well, maybe some people will talk about this over an edible or something, who knows. That’ll be interesting. I love hearing that. So I shared this with somebody else just recently too, but my first experience with kind of this Better-For-You industry actually started in 1999 when I worked on a project with Jane Goodall, it was my team. It wasn’t me, I was part of a team. And she had asked me to find paper that was ethically sourced, environmentally sound, didn’t hurt people or the environment, etcetera. And in 1999, the internet was not possible. And so here, this little tiny woman gave me marching orders, and I learned so much about the damage of manufacturing through my research just trying to find a product that met her standards that that’s where my battle cry started from is like getting into recycled paper and ethical manufacturing. So I know that it just takes that one interaction with another Jane, Jane Goodall, Jane Pinto, whoever it is that can kind of get you to understand that it is every single choice has a wave has an impact. And so it’s fun for me to have this conversation with you and just kind of reignite that spirit of love, planet love. I’m not quite sure exactly how to articulate that. Thank you so much for your time.
Before we end the conversation, if people wanted to connect with you directly, what’s the best way? Do you prefer LinkedIn or what other method would you prefer?
Jane Pinto: Sure, LinkedIn is fine. My First Crop email is fine JPinto@firstcrop.com. Happy to speak to anyone, I’ve always believed deeply that believing is what gets us there and I am here if anybody wants to talk and I love Jane Goodall, me and you we got some stuff.
Diana Fryc: We do, right? We need we drink I think.
Jane Pinto: She to me you’re asked how Rand can truly be authentic. If you look at her life, it has been lived in such truth and passion and service that that’s what a brand needs to be if they want to be real. She’s real. She is real.
Diana Fryc: She is the real deal.
Jane Pinto: So inspiring.
Diana Fryc: A woman on a mission this, she was just this little ball of fire and there was no chit chat because she had a mission and she was not going to be derailed from that. And not everybody can be a Jane Goodall, but you can take lead from her, take one idea from her, take one idea from a Jane Pinto or one idea from an insert whomever and run with it. And I think that’s where a consumer can get overwhelmed is thinking that they have to do everything. Just choose one thing. If that’s all you can do is one thing, that’s one more than you were doing yesterday.
Jane Pinto: One regenerative back there.
Diana Fryc: There you go. I love that. Well, just a quick thank you again to Leslie Sabino of Nestle Waters for recommending you to come on here.
Jane Pinto: Thank you, Leslie.
Diana Fryc: Yeah, I love the connection. And I encourage these sorts of requests. So if anybody else has an idea of somebody that they would love to hear from or that we should all hear about, I want to know about it. So send a note to me via LinkedIn. And Jane, thank you so much for your time today and for the work that you are doing out in the world, not just through your brands, but just you as a human being is pretty fantastic. Thank you so much.
Jane Pinto: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. So grateful. Thank you.
Diana Fryc: Thank you. This episode is sponsored by Retail Voodoo, a creative marketing firm specializing in growing, fixing and reinventing brands in the food, beverage, wellness and fitness industries. If your naturals brand is in need of positioning, package design or marketing activation, we’re here to help. You can find more information at retail-voodoo.com.
And so there you go. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. And if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to this channel and share with your network. Until next time, be well and do gooder.