Back to the Roots, Inc.

Back to the Roots, Inc.
Private
Industry Organic food
Founded 2009 (2009)
Founder
  • Nikhil Arora
  • Alejandro Velez
Headquarters Oakland, California, U.S.
Products
Website backtotheroots.com

Back to the Roots, Inc. is an American privately owned company based in Oakland, California. The company makes a line of indoor gardening kits and aquaponics fish tanks for producing organic mushrooms, herbs, and vegetables at home. The natural fish waste fertilizes the plants, and the plants clean the water so there are minimal water changes required. After about 10 days, one can start harvesting the included organic microgreen seeds."Back to the Roots". Back to the Roots. Retrieved July 30, 2018. Back to the Roots also markets organic breakfast cereal, some of which contain ingredients produced through biodynamic agriculture.

As of 2017, New York City awarded Back to the Roots the contract to replace two of the five breakfast cereals offered by the city’s public school system, the largest public school system in the U.S..[1] The company is also partnered with Sodexo, one of the world’s largest food services and facilities management conglomerates, which carries its cereal products and indoor gardening kits.[2]

History

Back to the Roots was founded by Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, students at University of California, Berkeley.[1][3] The idea for their first product was inspired by a business ethics lecture by Professor Alan Ross at the Haas School of Business.[4] After the lecture, Arora and Velez approached their professor, separately, about a concept he had mentioned in passing, that mushrooms can be grown in used coffee grounds.[5] Normally, coffee grounds get thrown out but coffee grounds are actually a fertile source of compost, which mushrooms thrive on.[6] Ross put the two students, who did not know each other at the time, in contact and they began to develop the idea in a Velez’ fraternity home.[4]

After watching some YouTube videos, Arora and Velez experimented growing mushrooms in ten buckets; only one of those buckets yielded mushrooms.[7] They took the oyster mushrooms to Alice Waters, who used them in her farm-to-table restaurant, Chez Panisse, giving them a positive review. The mushrooms were also accepted by Whole Foods’ produce section. Arora and Velez obtained warehouse space and began to develop their idea into a company.[4] They began producing about 500 pounds of bulk mushrooms a week.[8]

One of the first Back to the Roots products was a grow-your-own mushroom kit.[9] It used recycled coffee grounds from Peet's Coffee & Tea as the substrate for growing mushrooms and packed this into a cardboard box. By the end of 2011, every week, the company was reusing about 20,000 pounds of coffee waste.[3] By October 2012, the company was collecting about 2.5 million pounds of coffee waste in its collection routes to Peet’s and other local coffee shops.[8] With its first yield taking about ten days,[10] the reusable kits can produce as much as a pound and a half of mushrooms in total.[11]

Since then Back to the Roots has introduced several other indoor gardening kits including an aquaponics fish tank[12] and herb gardens in a can or a jar. As of April 2016, the company’s products are sold in Cost Plus, Costco, Kroger, Nordstrom, Petco, The Home Depot, and Whole Foods. The company also introduced a line of ready-to-eat breakfast products and snacks.[4] This included a cereal made from ingredients produced through biodynamic farming.[13][14]

In fall 2016, Back to the Roots began a partnership with Sodexo, “one of the world’s largest food service companies,” to sell its breakfast cereal in U.S. schools. The deal also allows for the company’s grow kits to be introduced in the classroom as part of a curriculum on how food is produced.[2] In early 2017, the New York City public school system replaced two of the cereals offered at their schools with Back to the Roots products. The spots were previously held by two discontinued Kashi products from Kellogg’s. According to the city’s Department of Education, the decision followed “a student taste test” and because the products have a “better nutritional profile and organic ingredients.”[1] In August of 2018, Back to the Roots secured a $4 million investment led by Acre Ventures and Scotts Miracle-Gro[15]— Monsanto's exclusive agent for the marketing and distribution of Roundup® non-selective herbicides in the consumer lawn and garden market within the United States and select international markets.[16] This funding follows a $10 million investment made in 2016.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Strom, Stephanie (2017-03-01). "Healthier Cereals Snare a Spot on New York School Menus". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  2. 1 2 Kowitt, Beth (2016-10-05). "Startups Are Finding a Powerful Partner in This Hidden Corner of the Food Economy". Fortune.
  3. 1 2 Fabricant, Florence (2011-11-22). "A New Mushroom-Cultivating Kit". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Sciacca, Annie (2016-08-11). "Back to the Roots finds success in simple food". East Bay Times. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  5. ↑ Yvette, Mar (2016-04-04). "Our American Dream: How a passionate young Colombian is helping redraw urban farming in U.S." Fox News. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  6. ↑ Seaver, Jesse. "Businesses With Impact : Back To The Roots Mushroom Gardens". HUFFPOST. Oath Inc. Retrieved 2018-07-29.
  7. ↑ Dunlap, Tiare (2017-01-13). "Man Who Survived a Terrorist Kidnapping, Cancer and The Bachelorette Becomes Successful Mushroom Entrepreneur". People Magazine. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  8. 1 2 Seaver, Jesse (2012-10-02). "Businesses With Impact: Back To The Roots Mushroom Gardens". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  9. ↑ Strom, Stephanie (2016-05-24). "New Crop of Companies Reaping Profits From Wasted Food". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  10. ↑ Braw, Elisabeth (2014-05-20). "Starbucks turns coffee ground to milk in Japan". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  11. ↑ Purvis, Andrew (2012-05-18). "Will 3D printers make food sustainable?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  12. ↑ Magahern, Jimmy (2017-03-05). "Building the better fishbowl: Aquaponics combines fish, greens to create cleaner food". East Valley Tribune. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  13. ↑ Chhabra, Esha (2017-03-05). "Biodynamic farming is on the rise – but how effective is this alternative agricultural practice?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  14. ↑ Strom, Stephanie (2016-03-18). "From Kefir to 'Cucamelons,' Sampling the Next Wave of Natural Foods". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  15. ↑ "A startup selling mushrooms kits to millennials just got $4 million to expand further into Costco and Target". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
  16. ↑ "Monsanto and Scotts Miracle-Gro Expand Long-Standing Partnership | Monsanto". Monsanto. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
  17. ↑ "A startup selling mushrooms kits to millennials just got $4 million to expand further into Costco and Target". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
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