Oct. 19: Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk to Feature Annie Ryu, CEO and Founder of Jack & Annie’s and The Jackfruit Company
Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk, a popular live webinar series featuring conversations with top business leaders in the natural, organic and sustainable products industry, is also pleased to announce its new primary sponsor, Compass Coffee, an independently owned coffee roaster and cafe company based in Washington, D.C.
What: Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk
When: Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, 8 am PT; 9 am MT; 10 am CT; 11 am ET
Presented by: Compass Natural, Connecting Media and Markets in Natural and Organic Products
Sponsored by: Compass Coffee, Presence Marketing, Naturally Boulder, Naturally New York and Naturally San Diego
Register: Register for free here
BOULDER, Colo. (Sept. 14, 2023) – Annie Ryu, CEO and founder of Jack & Annie’s and The Jackfruit Company, producing delicious meat substitutes made from jackfruit, will appear Oct. 19, 2023, on Compass Natural’s popular Coffee Talk podcast, which features lively conversations with natural products industry leaders, innovators and experts designed to guide entrepreneurs and businesses to succeed in the market.
Annie Ryu discovered jackfruit in 2011 while working in India to implement a maternal and child health care program as part of her Harvard pre-med studies. Annie saw an opportunity to convert an underutilized crop to nutritious, delicious food and to create income and opportunity for Indian farming families. The company introduced jackfruit to retailers nationwide in 2015, and Annie left medical school later that year to focus on expanding the company.
Annie Ryu
While Annie’s passion for jackfruit was immediate, the path to creating Jack & Annie’s took a decade. Annie worked relentlessly to help popularize jackfruit, nature's meatiest plant, as an ideal innovation and to build a supply chain to transport jackfruit from India to the U.S. Today, Jack & Annie’s offers a wide selection of nutritious meat alternatives made primarily from jackfruit, the fruit of the jack tree, and the company operates the farm-to-fork supply chain, supporting over 1,500 farming families in India.
Hosted by natural and organic products industry veterans Bill Capsalis and Steven Hoffman, Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk is produced by Compass Natural Marketing, a leading public relations, branding and business development agency serving the natural, organic, eco-friendly and hemp products industries. Capsalis and Hoffman will interview Annie Ryu to learn more about her and her company.
From India to the U.S.
The jackfruit trees, native to India, require no fertilizers or inputs and are the highest-yielding tree crop in the world. Since Jack & Annie's harvests from existing trees, and uses the most carbon-efficient transport to bring its jackfruit from India to North America, a Life Cycle Assessment showed that the company's jackfruit has a 94% lower Global Warming Potential vs. beef. Further, partnering directly with farmers enables Jack & Annie's to ensure that their farmers earn 10-40% incremental income annually from jackfruit sales.
About Our New Sponsor, Compass Coffee
Compass Natural is proud to announce Washington, D.C.-based Compass Coffee as the primary sponsor for Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk podcast. The independently owned coffee roaster and cafe company was founded in 2014 by two former Marines, who were looking for the perfect cup after years of drinking terrible coffee on deployment. Working with a global network of farmers, Compass Coffee is committed to ethical sourcing, masterful blending and peak roasting in small batches.
Register for Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk With Annie Ryu
Register here for free to participate in Compass Natural's Coffee Talk podcast, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, 11-11:30 am ET.
About Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk
Take a 30-minute virtual coffee break with Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk. Hosted by natural industry veterans Bill Capsalis and Steve Hoffman, Coffee Talk features lively interactive conversations with industry leaders and experts designed to help entrepreneurs and businesses of any size succeed in the market for natural, organic, regenerative, hemp-derived and other eco-friendly products.
Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk is produced by Compass Natural Marketing, a leading PR, branding and business development agency serving the natural and organic products industry.
Previous Episodes of Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk
View the entire library of Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk episodes on YouTube. Co-hosted by natural products industry veterans Steven Hoffman and Bill Capsalis, Compass Natural’s Coffee Talk has featured notable professionals such as Jared Polis, governor of Colorado; Steve Hughes, co-founder of Sunrise Strategic Partners; John Mackey, CEO and co-founder, Whole Foods Market; Miyoko Schinner, CEO and founder, Miyoko’s Kitchen; John Foraker, CEO of Once Upon a Farm; Emerald-Jane Hunter, founder of the MyWhy Agency; Heather Terry, CEO of GoodSAM; Milton Zimmerman, executive vice president, Presence Marketing; Jennifer Maxwell, founder and CEO of JAMBAR®, and more.
Contact
Steven Hoffman, Compass Natural, steve@compassnaturalmarketing.com
Jack & Annie's Impact Report Evaluates the Brand's Contributions in Supporting Regenerative Agriculture
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The next-generation, plant-based meat brand measures the outcomes of its efforts to build a sustainable food system
BOULDER, CO (February 28, 2023) -- Jack & Annie’s, a leader in the alternative meat category, knows that fulfilling their mission of making a positive impact in the world includes measuring their own. With their first-ever Impact Report, Jack & Annie’s evaluates the company’s contributions in supporting regenerative agriculture through jackfruit, as well as its efforts to build community in the U.S. and India, support farming family partners, and further understand and improve the company’s own carbon footprint.
“We have always known that our environmental impact is strong. Jackfruit is one of the most sustainable crops, and we continue to partner with our farmers on regenerative practices,” said Annie Ryu, CEO and founder of Jack & Annie’s. “This past year, we took it one step further, performing our first LCA (Life Cycle Assessment). We discovered that jackfruit as an input is 94% better than beef, 60% better than chicken and 87% better than pork for Global Warming Potential.”
Jack & Annie’s is a global company, with teams in India and the U.S. working together to make a positive impact. In the U.S., the team participates in community programs to lessen food waste and is committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Additionally, Jack & Annie’s is proud to partner with over 1,700 farming families in India, who help harvest the jackfruit. The farmers benefit by being educated about the value of jackfruit on their land; selling jackfruit to Jack & Annie’s enables farmers to increase their income by 10-40%. Additionally, by building these relationships over the past decade, Jack & Annie’s has been able to study and calculate the carbon sequestration of the jackfruit trees, which equates to 28,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.
“The novel supply chains we've built have helped create a food system that offers both a healthy diet and a lower carbon footprint and provides an opportunity for small-holder farmers to earn incremental income. At scale, this food system will play an important role in solving this century's critical problems – public health, climate change and economic empowerment,” says Rahul Shrikant, Jack & Annie’s VP of International Operations.
Jack & Annie’s plans to further quantify its impact on food, farmers and the environment by planting 50,000 jackfruit trees per year to sequester more carbon. The company will also continue to provide education and assistance to farmers, bolster diversity through unconscious bias training, perform an ESG Materiality Assessment, and begin to take inventory of their carbon emissions.
ABOUT JACK & ANNIE’S
To view the full report, please visit jackandannies.com/impact/impact-report/.
For more information about Jack & Annie’s, please visit jackandannies.com or follow on Instagram @jackandannies, Twitter @jackandannies and Facebook @jackandannies.
CONTACTS
Steven Hoffman, steve@compassnatural.com
Taylor Welborn, taylor@jackandannies.com