Amy’s Kitchen recently inked an agreement to purchase renewable energy from Ørsted’s Sunflower Wind Farm based out of Marion County, Kansas, to provide wind power for almost 30% of the company’s operations. Invited by retail giant Walmart to join its renewable energy accelerator, the deal positions Amy’s Kitchen and other Walmart suppliers to increase renewable energy to reduce 1 gigaton of emissions from Walmart’s supply chain by 2030.
“Sustainability is at the core of how we do business,” Renaud des Rosiers, senior manager of environmental impact for Amy’s Kitchen, said in a press release. “By participating in a cohort that collectively provided the scale needed to get the project done, we’re proud to help demonstrate that it is possible for small to medium enterprises to acquire renewable electricity. We know our company is a part of a bigger ecosystem and that when our communities thrive, we all thrive.”
While the battle against global warming rages on, Amy’s Kitchen isn’t alone on the front lines of the fight against emissions. J.M. Smucker Co., Levi Strauss & Co., and Great Lakes Cheese Co. are also part of the Ørsted plan that will generate renewable power that equates to avoiding the emissions of 458,000 vehicles over one year or an average of 6.5 billion miles driven.
By participating in the gigaton accelerator, Amy’s Kitchen will be more than one-third of the distance to its goal of powering 100% of its operations with renewable energy by 2030.
“Beyond our own renewable electricity acquisition, what’s really exciting about this project is that it sets a powerful precedent for other companies to follow,” des Rosiers added. “Beyond the Fortune 500 — who have thousands of locations, hundreds of thousands of employees, and hundreds of thousands of megawatt hours of annual load — most companies have traditionally been unable to access large-scale renewable electricity projects.”
Planting Seeds for Change
The renewable energy plan isn’t the only way Amy’s Kitchen is actively environmentally conscious. The brand prides itself on being organic long before it became trendy and received its B Corp certification in 2020 — a title only bestowed upon companies exhibiting the utmost standards of social and environmental sustainability.
“In its most basic sense, organic [is] really avoiding the use of over 700 toxic chemicals that are traditionally used in farming or the production of food. It’s a regulated system,” Amy’s Kitchen President Paul Schiefer explained on the B Corporation podcast “Responsibly Different.”
Amy’s Kitchen was so ahead of its time in the organic farming space that when the U.S. Department of Agriculture needed to set standards for what’s actually organic, it looked to the progressive purveyor of frozen foods for advice.
“Organic brings much higher levels of stored carbon in the soil, and 30, 40% higher levels of biodiversity,” Schiefer says. “We see much better water systems [and] lower overall carbon emissions from the farming operations. And truly, as the world has sort of caught up and now we hear words about climate-smart ag or regenerative ag, we’ve always been that way. We’ve oriented our supply chain from that from day one, and that’s just an incredible strength and gives us something quite unique.”
Schiefer describes how using plant-based tofu rather than animal-based proteins results in a larger carbon reduction.
“When we sell an Amy’s Veggie Burger, it’s only 10% of the carbon footprint of a traditional meat-based offering,” Schiefer states. “We have very active efforts to transition all of our production facilities to use 100% renewable electricity.”
In addition, Amy’s Kitchen is in the midst of a multiyear project to upgrade its refrigeration system in Santa Rosa, California. “That will cut over a third of the carbon footprint from that plant just by using some of the most modern cutting-edge refrigeration technology and getting away from some of the legacy refrigerators,” Schiefer says.
With 75% of its packaging compostable or recyclable, the company has plans to eventually hit that 100% mark.
When Amy’s began in 1987, it invested in small family farms to grow organic crops — and the business blossomed from there. Amy’s Kitchen co-founder Andy Berliner went out to the properties to meet with farmers and get a true grasp on ingredients that would eventually end up in his food line. With the belief that organic produce was not only better for the body but tasted better too, Amy’s Kitchen’s non-GMO organic crops have been a priority for the brand since its inception.
“How we source our ingredients, how we run our operations, our plants,” Schiefer added. “Even the design of our products has an impact on the planet. It’s what we do, but why we do it — that, for me, is almost the most compelling.”
Chibueze Uchegbu is a certified medical physiologist with a great passion for healthy living.