From Soil to Shelf – Closing the Knowledge Gap in Regenerative Farming Webinar

Last week I had the exciting opportunity to join a panel of experts to discuss regenerative farming including top tips for brands and businesses looking to market their products and supply chains as regenerative.

The webinar was hosted by Vypr following the publication of their regenerative farming report, and brought together a broad range of industry views from The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Wildfarmed, Rothamsted Research, Six Inches of Soil, and myself from Soil Association Certification to discuss what regenerative is, the opportunity for brands looking to source regenerative goods, the importance of marketing and storytelling to bring regenerative to life as well as the need to build consumer trust in the term and put safeguards in place to protect shoppers from greenwashing. It was an excellent opportunity for me to also share learnings and insights from the organic sector and its role within the evolving regenerative space.

 

‘The power of a pound’ - opportunities for better buying

During the webinar, we heard striking research from Beth Mander at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation that the top 10 FMCG companies influence up to 40% of agri-land in the UK and the EU. Challenging this system is key to shifting the norm away from conventional agriculture to regenerative practices and diversifying products and ingredients.

Brands and retailers play a critical role in accelerating this shift - by seeking better ingredients from suppliers and creating a circular system in food design. While price remains king, this creates a communications challenge: how do we convey “true cost accounting” of food in a way that connects with consumers?

Beth illustrated this disconnect with a powerful example: consumers might expect cheap carrots while donating to wildlife charities with the other hand - unaware that these actions may be in conflict. Brands can help bridge this gap by raising awareness of “the power of a pound” - empowering consumers to understand the environmental impact of their food choices.

The organic symbol is one of the most recognised sustainability markers amongst consumers in the UK. Organic is proven to deliver a range of restorative outcomes, such as on average 30% more species biodiversity on organic farms, 25% more soil carbon storage and healthy, living soils with more soil microorganisms. Organic farmers also practice some of the highest standards of animal welfare in the UK. The UK organic food and drink market is growing rapidly and valued at £3.7 billion, demonstrating what a better supply chain looks like, and providing a scalable and trusted choice for customers seeking regenerative products. There are clear learning opportunities here for regenerative farmers.

 

From soil to sandwich - the power of a good story 

Storytelling is a powerful tool in education - especially when tackling nuanced topics like agriculture. Claire Mackenzie, Producer at Six Inches of Soil, highlights that this nuance is regenerative agriculture’s strength. The regenerative movement benefits from a vocal community of farmers who are active across a range of platforms, prioritising knowledge-sharing and learning.

Holly Holder, Senior Marketing Manager at Wildfarmed, reinforces the need for regenerative brands to use accessible, everyday language that resonates with consumers, creating opportunities to begin a conversation. For example, Wildfarmed recently ran an in-store event at Waitrose where regenerative farmers handed out sandwiches made with Wildfarmed bread, to help customers connect with the brand - no jargon, just a tangible product-led experience. This approach also helps to overcome perceived barriers around the higher cost of regenerative products. By leading with drivers like taste, provenance and quality, brands can reframe the value conversation from the outset.

Holly also emphasises the power of emotional storytelling—especially for heritage products like bread, which carry strong cultural and nostalgic significance. Messaging that is hopeful and positive tends to resonate far more than narratives focused on scaremongering.

To build trust and cut through the noise, focus on clear points of difference. For organic brands, this might include animal welfare, biodiversity, or the absence of artificial pesticides. Communicate these benefits in a simple, substantiated way - clarity and credibility are key.

For support with claim substantiation, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) offers a tailored copy advice service with a 24-hour turnaround.

 

Preserving integrity amidst the risk of greenwash

Regenerative farming is gaining momentum but remains unregulated, bringing both pros and cons. From a farming perspective, this flexibility allows producers at any stage of their journey to adopt more nature-friendly practices. We fully support businesses that are committed to serious regenerative approaches. However, without a legal definition or standard, regenerative is vulnerable to greenwash – particularly if the term is used sceptically by businesses to repackage business as usual. Currently, the term spans a wide range of activity - from farms implementing a single regenerative practice (such as minimising soil disturbance), to those embracing truly regenerative, whole systems approaches to sustainable agriculture. This means that the use of the term “regenerative” in consumer facing claims has the potential to be misleading and confusing.

So, in this unregulated space, it’s incumbent on brands and retailers to be transparent on the specific practices and outcomes delivered throughout their supply chains to ensure that consumer trust in credible sustainability terms is maintained. As Claire Mackenzie stated during the webinar, for a brand to robustly communicate regenerative status, the whole supply chain must be demonstrably regenerative to maintain integrity of the system.

At a legal level, there is legislation coming into force over the next few years that address greenwashing in the sustainability space. These include the DMCC (Digital Markets Competition Code) - now in force – which gives the Competition & Markets Authority powers to impose significant financial penalties on brands that use misleading green claims, and the EU Green Claims Directive which states that green claims will likely require third party certification at a minimum.

For Soil Association Certification, safeguarding consumer trust in certified organic is a top priority, so we will continue to track how businesses are using the term regenerative, and uphold organic as the independent, legally regulated, third-party certification that delivers regenerative outcomes at scale, and protects against greenwashing.

 

Raising the bar and managing trade offs

In an increasingly crowded sustainability market, organic certification has a key role in helping consumers trust regenerative claims.

But organic and regenerative farmers have lots to learn from each other to drive innovation at pace. Whilst we maintain that organic is the gold standard, we hugely value the openness of regenerative farming to meeting famers where they are, raising the bar from conventional to more transformative modes of farming.

In an industry like agriculture there are always going to be hard decisions, trade-offs – and room for improvement. In the webinar, Andy Neal from Rothamsted Research discussed common trade-offs between organic farming methods and other regenerative farming, namely the use of chemicals like glyphosate in regenerative agriculture (which are prohibited in organic standards), as a potential preference to disturbing the soil through tillage as weed control methods.

However, other research*  shows that controversial chemicals like glyphosate cause other problems, and organic farms achieve regenerative outcomes whilst using responsible tillage in combination with practices such as cover cropping, compost application, and diverse crop rotations that extend the cycles between ploughing, indicating that responsible tillage can be part of regenerative farming systems and is not universally detrimental to soil health. You can find out more about organic and regenerative practices on our website.

The organic standards provide a floor, not a ceiling, and as such there are opportunities for both organic and regenerative farmers to improve their practices in the spirit of a continuous improvement and knowledge-sharing mindset that underpins the regenerative movement; a mindset needed to facilitate the step change required to address our climate and biodiversity crises. 

Watch back the webinar, or read the Vypr report in full.

 

*Delate, K. Cambardella, C.,Chase, C., Turnbull, R.. 2015. A review of long-term organic comparison trials in the U.S.. Sustainable Agriculture Research. 4. 

Friends of the Earth (2025) Rethinking No-Till: The toxic impact of conventional no-till agriculture on soil, biodiversity, and human health. [Online] Available at: Report_No-Till_Report.pdf  

Tautges, N. E., Chiartas, J. L., Gaudin, A. C., O’Geen, A. T., Herrera, I., & Scow, K. M. 2019. Deep soil inventories reveal that impacts of cover crops and compost on soil carbon sequestration dier in surface and subsurface soils. Global Change Biology. 25 (11): 3753-3766.