S8. E9: Katie Cantrell: Greener by Default
“If you saw a celiac bowl on a menu, you would never order that unless you have celiac disease and you're gluten free. But if you see a Thai peanut rice noodle bowl, that sounds delicious. You're not even thinking about the fact that it's gluten free. It’s the same thing with vegan for a lot of people. They think, “oh, that is only for vegans, if I'm not a vegan, that's not for me,’” - Katie Cantrell
Katie Cantrell is the Director of Corporate Outreach for the Better Food Foundation and Co-Director of Greener by Default.
Greener by Default makes plant-based food the default option in businesses, universities, conferences, and many other places where people eat, while it still gives people the choice to opt into meat or dairy. It's seriously one of the smartest projects that I've ever heard of.
Katie also founded the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition where she spent a decade leading food policy workshops at universities, government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations.
If you want Greener by Default to come to your business, contact Katie: katie@betterfoodfoundation.org
Please listen and share.
In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
Learn more about Greener by Default
Learn more about Better Food Foundation
Learn more about Factory Farming Awareness Coalition
Contact Katie: katie@betterfoodfoundation.org
Transcript:
Katie: [00:00:15] If you saw a celiac bowl on a menu, you would never order that. Unless you have celiac disease, you're gluten free. But if you see a Thai peanut rice noodle bowl, that sounds delicious. You're not even thinking about the fact that it's gluten free. That's the same thing with vegan options, for a lot of people. They think, Oh, that is only for vegans. If I'm not a vegan, that's not for me.
Elizabeth: [00:00:41] Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask. If you like today's episode and you have a spare minute, could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts? It really helps people to find the show. This conversation is with Katie Cantrell. Katie is the director of corporate outreach for the Better Food Foundation and the co director of Greener by Default. Greener by Default makes plant based food the default option in businesses, universities, conferences, restaurants. While it still gives people the choice to opt in to meat or dairy, it's seriously one of the smartest projects that I've ever heard of. Katie, hi. Thank you so much for coming and being here in person. It is so nice to meet you.
Katie: [00:01:54] Likewise. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth: [00:01:55] Well, you just talk about who you are, what you do.
Katie: [00:01:59] I am the founder and board chair of the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, and I am the director of corporate outreach for the Better Food Foundation.
Elizabeth: [00:02:06] Very cool. So I had Monica on the show, who is now the executive director of Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, and she's awesome.
Katie: [00:02:14] Yes, she is.
Elizabeth: [00:02:15] But you started this whole thing, so let's start with that. I want to know why and how and what the whole plan in your head was to do this.
Katie: [00:02:21] I didn't really have a whole plan to start out. I went to the U.C. Berkeley. That's actually where I met Monica. We were in an animal rights student group together, and that's where I cut my teeth on advocacy. We would host film screenings and do food giveaways and leafleting, that sort of thing. It's there that I became passionate about ending factory farming. I knew that that was my calling. After I graduated, I didn't really know what would be the most useful form of activism for me. It's such a huge, overwhelming problem and I couldn't figure out the best place to volunteer and devote my time. Then shortly after I graduated, the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer came out and that was really a life changing moment for me.
Elizabeth: [00:02:59] For people who haven't read it or don't know about it, and if you haven't, you really should because it is life changing. Will you just give a quick synopsis of it for why it's so important?
Katie: [00:03:09] Yeah, well, what really struck me, it takes a holistic approach to approach the issue of factory farming. So this was back in 2009, 2010. Back then, factory farming was only being talked about as an animal rights issue, and even environmental groups didn't really talk about it.
Elizabeth: [00:03:23] And they still aren’t.
Katie: [00:03:27] True. But this book takes a really holistic approach and also it's a very beautiful and narrative book because he's a fiction author. So he takes a storytelling approach and really brings humanity to the issue. But what struck me was that when you talk about it not just as an animal issue, but as a social justice issue, environmental issue, public health issue, it just becomes so glaringly obvious that factory farming is bad for everyone, even if you don't care at all about animals, if you care about anything else or even just your family's health, you don't want factory farming.
Elizabeth: [00:03:56] So you read this book and you think, okay. What are you going to do?
Katie: [00:04:00] Well, I just felt compelled to spread the word to people. There really weren't any groups talking about the other facets of factory farming besides the animal rights issues. I knew from leafleting at UC Berkeley, sometimes I would try to hand people a leaflet about animals and they'd say, Oh, no thanks, I don't really care about animals. At first I found that horrifying as someone who's an animal lover. But, you know, at Berkeley, everyone's got a cause. I realized all these environmental student groups, all these social justice groups, they would care about this if it were presented in the right way, if it were framed in a way that connected with things they already cared about, rather than trying to force a new issue on them. So I put together a presentation based on eating animals and I went out to student groups and like student housing co-ops and places that I had connections to.I found my theory was right. People really were interested in learning more folks who I knew would never have agreed to come if it were like an hour-long presentation about animal rights. But when it's about food and social justice, then they're very curious. So that was the beginning of FFAC.
Elizabeth: [00:04:59] So then you started going into high schools?
Katie: [00:05:02] Yes, I had been primarily at UC Berkeley, but then started going into local high schools. Then eventually we started expanding and starting chapters in other cities where advocates wanted to start also spreading the word. So yeah, it grew very organically. I didn't set out to start a national nonprofit, but that's really what's happened. It's grown tremendously over the last ten years. So now there's chapters all across the country.
Elizabeth: [00:05:24] All of what Factory Farming Awareness Coalition is doing is incredible. But the high school thing, like was anybody going into high schools and talking to kids about any of this before this?
Katie: [00:05:34] There were a few groups. I mean, Swahili the Institute for Human Education has been doing amazing work for a very long time, and she was a big inspiration. There were a couple of other regional groups, but there wasn't anyone doing it like really on a large scale back then.
Elizabeth: [00:05:47] So many people, that's when they really decide or, you know, you really are open in a different way. It's such a powerful time to be learning and all of this.
Katie: [00:06:01] Absolutely. It is. I mean, it's kind of funny because in a way it plays into like the teenage rebelliousness because we're telling them, you know, the government's been lying to you and your school has been lying to you, and they're really receptive to that, like looking for a way to kind of strike out on their own or they're forming their new ideas, deciding how they want to live in the world. So yeah, it is a really powerful time to reach them.
Elizabeth: [00:06:22] It's been around for ten years. When did you leave?
Katie: [00:06:25] 2019, like December 2019 is when I stepped down. I stepped down for health reasons. Yeah, I had to take some time off and initially it wasn't a choice that I made, but I was really glad when I did so because I mean, Monica is phenomenal and it's just such a different world now than it was when I started the organization ten years ago. I mean, it's literally a different generation of students.
Elizabeth: [00:06:52] How is that different, though? Explain that a little bit.
Katie: [00:06:54] I think the students, the way that they receive information is different. Everything is so digital now. Even just the cultural references. Things that were funny and hip when I started doing presentations ten years ago, no one knows what they are today. So yeah, you know, it's a new generation. Also the landscape has changed. I mean, as you mentioned, still not all environmental groups are talking about factory farming, but thankfully a lot more of them are. So, you know, when I started, like people I'd never heard of factory farming, they hadn't heard of veganism, they didn't know where meat came from or like what it was made out of. It was very, very entry level. Just trying to get people to think about where their food comes from for the very first time. Whereas now I think thanks to all of the many amazing groups that are doing advocacy and online outreach and there's documentaries and there's books and even in school, some teachers are talking about it more. So we're starting from a higher level. That's why the work that Monica has kind of invented and is now one of the big focuses of FFAC is taking it to that next level. So it's not just that initial presentation, but it's really building on it and saying, how can we turn these kids into activists in their own communities and really activate them and give them the skills and the confidence that they need to go out and talk to their peers because of course, they're the most powerful voices.
Elizabeth: [00:08:11] And they're doing it. I mean, it's happening. So you take some time off and you come back.
Katie: [00:08:16] Yeah, I had this moment of what do I want to do this time to think about now I have a chance to pivot, what's the best use of my time? I was a psychology major in undergrad. Human psychology has always fascinated me and it's certainly a part of FFAC work. Because of my psychology background, I really admired the work of DefaultVeg, which is a project of the Better Food Foundation. It's more behavioral economics, but also psychology, sociology. Rather than trying to change people's attitudes in order to change their behavior, which is what I had been doing for the past decade with FFAC, this instead changes people's behavior in order to change their attitudes. There's a lot of research showing that happens. Like we like to think that every decision we make is very well reasoned and very logical, but a lot of it we're doing because it's a habit or because the people around us are doing it. Then once we do something, then we form ideas around it to kind of justify that behavior.
Elizabeth: [00:09:10] Will you give some examples?
Katie: [00:09:12] Sure. An example that we talk about with the power of default in particular, organ donation is a big one. Basically with defaults, the reason they're so powerful is we like to fit in as social creatures. We like to do what most people are doing.
Elizabeth: [00:09:27] We don't think that, though. We think we’re so unique.
Katie: [00:09:28] No, we don't think that.
Elizabeth: [00:09:29] Yes, but we do.
Katie: [00:09:32] Yes, I know. Of course we think we're all individuals, but really, we all just want to fit in. We also want to do the easiest thing most of the time. Like I still have the default ringtone my phone came with. I never bothered to change it.
Elizabeth: [00:09:45] Yeah, most everybody, right?
Katie: [00:09:46] Yeah, exactly. But a more serious example that's kind of a classic for defaults is organ donation. So in a lot of countries, including the US, by default, you are not an organ donor. You have to actively opt into it by checking a box to say, yes, I do want to be an organ donor, so if you do nothing, you're automatically not an organ donor. In countries where you're automatically not an organ donor, the rates of organ donations are much lower than in countries where by default you are an organ donor and you have to actively opt out of it.
Elizabeth: [00:10:16] And that's a huge difference?
Katie: [00:10:17] The example that we give is Germany is not by default. You are not an organ donor and you have to actively opt into it. Participation rates are around 15% there. In Austria, which is fairly culturally similar, you by default are an organ donor and donation rates are like 80 to 90%. So it's a huge difference.
Elizabeth: [00:10:36] Enormous. DefaultVeg was around already. Right.? You're thinking, okay, I want to get in this.
Katie: [00:10:43] Yeah. So there's a growing movement, especially university sustainability departments. We're starting to work with dining halls, but to date most of the focus has been on getting departmental adoption. So kind of laying the groundwork and walking the talk. So Harvard Sustainability Office, for instance, was one of the first to do it, saying that at all of their events now veg is the default any time they host a speaker or have an event, anything like that.
Elizabeth: [00:11:07] So just for people who don't get it, veg is the default meaning that's the option unless you, like the vegans have to do, fill out the little thing and say no, no, I want meat kind of thing.
Katie: [00:11:16] Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly it. It just flips the norm. So instead of having to check a box to request vegetarian or vegan, you check a box to request meat.
Elizabeth: [00:11:25] And most people don't request the meat? Is that right?
Katie: [00:11:26] Yes.
Elizabeth: [00:11:25] And that's just because, why?
Katie: [00:11:30] It's easier, people don't bother. But also we want to fit in. So, you know, especially at a sustainability event, if you're going to that and you think everyone around you is going to be vegetarian, you don't want to be the one jerk who requested me. You think everyone's going to be giving you funny looks? People want to fit in. So they're like, okay, I'll stick with the plant based default. With the default it's not fully vegan, it's not 100% vegan. It's by default vegan unless someone requests me and it works differently in different food settings. Because that works super well, if it's an RSVP event where people are are swooping and checking a box to indicate food, but if it's like a buffet, for instance, then what we recommend is having a bunch of plant based vegan options at the front and then some meat and dairy at the very end, so people can add them on if they want it. But it's not the bulk of the meal and everyone's seeing the vegan options first and there's other strategies too. But what we see is that people are going to eat what looks good, what other people are eating, and there is a small percentage of people who are really insistent on having meat. So like with the RSVP format, there was a study they did in Denmark at a series of conferences where they had like the control condition, like it usually is, the default is meat. You can request a vegetarian option and then for the experiment, they flipped it a veg default. They found an on average an 80 percentage point increase in the number of people eating veg meals. So it went from like around 5 to 10% to like 80 to 90% of people.
Elizabeth: [00:13:00] That's absolutely insane. Talk about when you go into a corporation like how does that even work and what is your role? What are you actually doing, from the beginning?
Katie: [00:13:09] Yes. So I have been working mostly with tech companies, some finance companies as well. So we go in, often it's a vegan or vegetarian who hears about it and wants to bring this to their company, so they help to make the connections. It's usually the sustainability director or the green team, that's the one to kind of take it and run with it. But getting the connection, like having someone within the company to flag it for the green team, say, Hey, I think this is a good idea, can you have a phone call with them? That's really critical. That's something that kind of anyone who's within any company, you can help set that up. That's a really important role. So then once I am in touch with the Green team or Sustainability Department, often I'll give a webinar, sometimes a lunch and learn like educational and its half about the connection between food and the environment and why it's so important, and half about the behavioral economics research and why these strategies are effective and then that helps to build support for it within the company.
Elizabeth: [00:14:04] Do you run into a lot of resistance or once you're at that point, are most people pretty open to it?
Katie: [00:14:08] Yeah, most people are into it. I've actually been pleasantly surprised by how easy of a sale it is. There's not really any downside because you're not taking meat away from people. They still have freedom of choice. Meat is still available to those who want it. So you don't run into the kind of resistance you do with a fully meatless menu.
Elizabeth: [00:14:25] I was interviewing someone the other day, Drew Pendergrass, who wrote a book about climate and it's also about socialism. Veganism is a tiny part of it. It's like a one little pillar. I asked him, I said, you know, in feedback are like and people talking about it, were they upset about the socialism aspect because it's such a loaded word in this country? And he was like, no. The only thing people pushed back on was the vegan, there was an uproar. Because if you put that on people, unless they're really open, they've run for their lives. It's like, okay, we have learned so much as a movement over especially the past like 10, 15 years in the sense of like no offer solutions, offer really good food, offer this. But what you're doing is so smart. It's literally like you've solved a huge piece of this puzzle, right.
Katie: [00:15:23] It is remarkable, these small changes. What a big difference they can make. Some of them it is a little bit difficult because as vegans we want to label everything vegan and, you know, say it as loud as we can. But what that does scare people off. There's all of this research showing that just changing the name of a dish makes a huge difference. So I was consulting with a software company and they had a vegetarian hummus wrap, and after seeing my presentation, they changed the name to roasted red pepper, avocado hummus wrap and sales immediately increased. Even one of the dining people who had been on that call said, I never used to get that hummus wrap because I'm not a vegetarian, but I order it now because I love avocado and it's delicious. So even though she knew what was happening, like, she still kind of fooled herself through this name change.
Elizabeth: [00:16:12] It is amazing. There are really big, simple solutions to a lot of this that we just haven't been looking at as a whole.
Katie: [00:16:21] Yeah, yeah. Because our environment really shapes our behavior in powerful ways. A great analogy that my friend came up with is, if you saw a celiac bowl on a menu, you would never order that. Unless you have celiac disease, you're gluten free. But if you see a Thai peanut rice noodle bowl, that sounds delicious. You're not even thinking about the fact that it's gluten free. That's the same thing with vegan options, for a lot of people. They think, Oh, that is only for vegans if I'm not a vegan. That's not for me. Whereas if you label it with the flavors and the taste.
Elizabeth: [00:16:51] That is so true. I honestly don't think I would get the celiac option.
Katie: [00:16:54] Yeah exactly and that's how a lot of people feel about vegan options.
Elizabeth: [00:16:57] Right now you're going into corporations and that started, right?
Katie: [00:17:02] Yes. So we just finished our first pilot. We’re still waiting for PR legal sign off, so I can't officially say who the company is, but it is a household name. A big tech company that the folks would recognize. We did a three month pilot in the San Francisco office. So we did a few different interventions. They have free food for everyone so it's just a big cafeteria kind of buffet set up. So they have eight entrees every day. When we went in, five of them were meat based and three of them were vegetarian, vegan. So slowly over time, we flipped that. So eventually they had five veg options and three meat options. Basically the amount of meat that was being served per person was cut almost in half and no one even noticed because we slowly transitioned it over time. Still, three meat options, which is plenty for anyone who really wants meat to choose from. But a lot of people are going to their favorite. There's like a Latin American station and an Asian station and a comfort food station. So they're still getting the flavors they like, they're just vegetarian, vegan, and they aren't even necessarily thinking about it.
Elizabeth: [00:18:09] That long term benefit of all this, too, is you're going to have a lot healthier companies. Right? And are they talking about that, too?
Katie: [00:18:17] Yeah. I mean, we've mostly been taking it from a sustainability angle and working with companies that are really aggressively trying to cut their carbon footprint. But of course, that is another huge benefit to a healthier workforce and less sick days, lower insurance costs, lots of benefits.
Elizabeth: [00:18:31] Is DefaultVeg going to other places right now too, aside from corporations?
Katie: [00:18:35] Yes. So my colleague Alana works primarily with universities and then jointly we manage events. So we are also working with some events. The CleanMed conference recently went to DefaultVeg. GreenBiz, they actually did a conference that was 100% vegetarian, 75% vegan. I think their next conferences will be default veg just to make sure there's something for everyone. You know, those few people who really insist on their meat, they have it. So we're working with conferences as well and then starting to work some with health care.
Elizabeth: [00:19:04] Health care, meaning hospitals?
Katie: [00:19:05] Yes.
Elizabeth: [00:19:06] Because there is nobody who hasn't been in the hospital or visited someone in a hospital while they're getting their meal and been horrified. Hospital food is so ridiculously not only unappetizing, but unhealthy. You would think they would want this, right?
Katie: [00:19:21] Yes, you would think so.
Elizabeth: [00:19:22] Very cool. For hospitals, you're just starting. Is it hospital by hospital or how does that work?
Katie: [00:19:29] So for pretty much all the institutions, it really starts with those connections because it takes a motivated person within the institution to help make it happen. As an outsider coming in, I can't just come in and tell them, You need to do this. There needs to be an ally on the inside. So that's really key is finding those people and then finding the institutions that are already motivated to do this. You know, like I said, I've been pleasantly surprised at how open a lot of them are. Most of them are saying, yeah, we know we need to cut our carbon footprint. We're already having employees ask for plant based options. So, hey, if you can do this, it's free. Also, right now, we're not charging anything.
Elizabeth: [00:20:04] Really? Yeah. That’s amazing.
Katie: [00:20:07] Yeah and then we can show now at the tech company, we did surveys before and after, and diner satisfaction didn't change. So if they can say, hey, if our employees are going to be just as happy with the food, it doesn't cost us anything. There's really no downside. So it's a pretty easy sell.
Elizabeth: [00:20:23] Is the hard part usually to shift? Bringing in plant based. People who have a hard time with change often. Is that part hard?
Katie: [00:20:30] Yeah. I mean, and another key thing is, is finding chefs who are really on board because of course, the food has to taste good. That is also key to its success. So the company that we worked with had a phenomenal chef, really top notch food service. The chef there was frankly skeptical at the beginning. She didn't tell me that until later, but she comes from a very traditional culinary meat heavy background. She thought people would be really angry if there wasn't meat at every station. But she's a brilliant chef and loves experimenting. So she went out, bought all these vegan cookbooks, learned all of these new recipes and really gave it her all. So the food was fantastic and that's a huge part of the reason that people weren't upset.
Elizabeth: [00:21:10] That's what I was thinking. This would be a lot harder to have done 20 years ago. There's just so much good food now if you have a good chef. Yeah, for sure. But it's happening and you're getting in there. At one point our school is going to be on.
Katie: [00:21:27] Well, I mean, universities certainly are doing it. We're not working with K-12 schools right now, it's just such a hard nut to crack. You know, there's so many bureaucratic regulations to school foods and the protein content and what subsidized and what they can source and purchase. I mean, it's kind of a nightmare. I really admire people who are doing work in that space, but it's a much heavier lift than working with universities and corporations.
Elizabeth: [00:21:54] With universities, eventually it's going to be cafeterias too, is that the plan?
Katie: [00:21:59] Yes. We actually are working on a pilot in the fall with a major food service management company at three different universities looking at having a station in the dining hall where some days it will be like usual, where you have a meat and a veg option. Then some days you'll have a veg option and there will be a little sign that says you can request meat, because this is such a cutting edge strategy that really came out of academia. There are, you know, there are studies of this, but a lot of them are just very small audiences, sometimes it's surveys about hypothetical food choices. It's not even actually people choosing the food. So we've really been working on proof of concept. This tech company is the first major corporation to try this strategy. In addition to what I talked about, changing the ratios, they also did an oat milk default in their coffee bar. So now if you go up and order a latte, it's automatically made with oat milk, rather than being made with cow milk.
Elizabeth: [00:22:52] I love it. That should be everywhere. That is incredible. Has anything really shocked you since you started all this? Like just with human psychology and how people respond?
Katie: [00:23:01] It was what I was hoping for, but to see it all play out with that major tech company, you know, I had read these smaller studies, but it is a little bit nerve wracking to say, is this really going to work on a larger scale? Is this actually all true? To see that people often don't even notice, let alone complain, there's no pushback. It's just funny because something like Meatless Mondays, if you think about it, that's one day out of the week. So it's like changing a fifth of the food and that tends to get huge pushback because people don't like having options taken away from them. Whereas this can result in like, you know, a 50, 80% increase in the amount of veg food and it doesn't get pushed back. Even though it's a much more drastic intervention than these other ones, because of that human psychology component and making sure that there's freedom of choice still, that's the key part, then, yeah, people aren't upset.
Elizabeth: [00:23:52] What have you learned throughout all of this about the psychology on vegans, like helping other people see the plant based options in the world versus preaching?
Katie: [00:24:05] Yeah, it is. It's a bit of a double edged sword and it's kind of funny because the work and the approach I'm doing now is the polar opposite of what I was doing with FFAC. So I've done both sides of it and I see the benefits to both sides. So far the work that we're doing has mostly been like stealth implementation, so we don't even tell people that we're doing it. We just gradually change. They don't even notice, they're fine with it. So in terms of supply and demand, it's hugely impactful. But of course, we do also eventually want people to know that they're eating vegan food and enjoying it because eventually we want it to change not only their behavior but also their attitudes. So right now, as I mentioned, we're getting proof of concept. This is very new. So showing that it works on a large scale is the first step and we've done that. We're in the process of doing that. It's powerful and it's really exciting. Then we'll be able to build on that and say, okay, now what happens if we add in some education on top of that doing. Having signage, that sort of thing. But it's funny because actually I was on a panel, there was an ECornell webinar on hospitality and it was myself and oh gosh, I'm blanking on her name. She's really wonderful. She runs a consulting company that helps hotels primarily to cater to vegan clientele. Our recommendations were the opposite because her target audience is vegans and so her recommendation was to have a separate vegan menu, call everything vegan, say that word as often as you can and it's true. That's what draws vegans, right? Like I'm here in New York for a little bit. I'm looking for vegan restaurants. I'm looking for vegan menus.
Elizabeth: [00:25:40] I'll give you a list.
Katie: [00:25:44] Thank you, yeah. Whereas for me, my target audience is omnivores. So, you know, the flexitarians or reducetarian. We're trying to get outside of this mindset that vegan food is just for vegans. So for that audience, you don't want to say vegan and you don't want to have a separate menu. You just want to make it seem like the norm and not anything different. So it is a bit of a double edged sword between like getting people to eat the food and building the movement around veganism and that word.
Elizabeth: [00:26:11] Right, yeah. What about the word plant based? Does that turn people off too?
Katie: [00:26:14] We're actually struggling with this right now because there's a lot of conflicting research on which terms are better to appeal to which audience. So for a long time, the study was in the prevailing wisdom was that vegan is too radical of a word that's a turnoff, say, plant based to appeal to a mainstream omnivore audience. But lately, there's more data showing that vegan is actually the more common search term that people use. I think another person said it's because it means more because plant based has become almost kind of like green washy like, you know. I saw someone post the other day. It was a plant based chicken bowl. But it was real chicken. Literally. The bowl was plant based. It was compostable like corn, like packaging with meat inside of it. They were advertising that as plant based. So I think consumers are starting to recognize that plant based is a sort of wishy washy term. So I don't know. It's tricky and again, it really depends on who you're trying to appeal to.
Elizabeth: [00:27:10] So lay out the future. The reason I'm so excited is because, first of all, this is like the smartest thing ever. It's like, oh, wait, it's so simple. Switch it.
Katie: [00:27:23] Exactly.
Elizabeth: [00:27:23] In terms of moving the needle and numbers, it's brilliant.
Katie: [00:27:27] Thank you. Yeah, it's exciting.
Elizabeth: [00:27:28] So I want you everywhere. Schools, hospitals, universities. That should be every wedding.
Katie: [00:27:32] Absolutely.
Elizabeth: [00:27:33] What's the path for growth?
Katie: [00:27:37] We're growing, honestly, much faster than we anticipated. We're working on much larger pilots with much larger companies and institutions than we anticipated. I mean, I've only been doing this work for a year and we've already finished a pilot with a household name tech company and working with some other big names and large institutions. Those we’re hoping to be able to go public with within the next 3 to 6 months and we're doing a couple of other pilots, so we'll have really great data from. So once we can really show proof of concept and especially get media coverage, then we're really hoping that this will just take off like wildfire. We'll probably be looking, you know, hoping to expand our team because like you said, I mean, that the opportunities are almost endless. So, yeah, figuring out how to scale and reach.
Elizabeth: [00:28:27] All of those upsides are endless. I mean, I think once all this is out there and people are doing it and it's really out of the pilot, into real life happening at work and hospitals and universities. The upsides people are going to realize, aside from their carbon footprint and people are healthier, it kind of changes everything.
Katie: [00:28:49] It does, and that's really what drew me to it initially and excited me about it from that psychology perspective. I've attended so many veg fests and veg events over the years with FFAC, and so often people will come up to me and say, You know, I went vegan for my health because my doctor told me I needed to. I had heart disease, what have you, after I went vegan, then I started learning about the animals and now I really care about the animals. That's exactly that, that's the difference between attitude driving behavior versus behavior driving attitudes. Someone who's eating only meat every meal, like many Americans do, talking about vegan veganism is very threatening to them. So the stakes are much higher and they're much more resistant to it, rather than someone who is eating vegan meals every day at work. Then you try to talk to them about why we need to end factory farming and they're like, okay, yeah, you know, I eat plant based. That doesn't sound so radical. So it kind of eases people into it and I think lowers the bar for then changing their attitudes and introducing all these different types of activism and really introducing them also to the animal component as well.
Elizabeth: [00:29:57] So if somebody wants their company to do this, do they just get in touch with you? How does that work?
Katie: [00:30:03] Yeah, so they can email me at Katie@Betterfoodfoundation.org, or our website, greenerbydefault.com/. We have a lot of resources there. We have one pagers that folks can take to their sustainability director or just get in touch with me and I would love to help folks bring this to their institution.
Elizabeth: [00:30:20] That's awesome. Thank you for this. It's one of the most exciting things, I think, happening in this space in terms of what is going to come from it. So thank you.
Katie: [00:30:30] Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Elizabeth: [00:30:40] To learn more about Katie, to learn about Greener by Default and the Better Food Foundation, go to our website SpeciesUnite.com. We will have links to everything. We're on Facebook and Instagram, @SpeciesUnite. If you have a spare moment and could do us a favor, please subscribe, rate, review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. If you would like to support Species Unite, we would greatly appreciate it. Go to our website, SpeciesUnite.com and click Donate. I would like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Gary Knudsen, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santina Polky, Bethany Jones and Anna Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day.
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