Grounded Ingredients

What a week it has been at Grounded Ingredients hq.
We received our first Camelia sinensis products, from Kenya, in our Cape Town warehouse. This is an exciting new chapter expanding our portfolio to include a true commodity.

We also received and evaluated the Honeybush harvest for this year from
Tis harvest might be the best honeybush we have tasted to date! This following some factory upgrades that have taken the tea from excellent to outstanding.

We can't wait to get these products to Europe and North America so we can share the amazing products with wonderfully positive environmental and social impact.

Our sourcing director will be presenting at the Keeping it Wild festival in the Cederberg. She will be discussing our upcoming project working with five different rooibos producers on implementing regenetive cultivation techniques and the possible impact of this work.

We are so excited that has launched yet another honeybush product with regeneratively produced honeybush from the Langkloof, South Africa. ⁠

Curio spice is a company that produces high quality spice and tea blends. They source all their ingredients ethically. This is the type of brand all of us should be supporting, that put in the work to make sure their products have a positive impact.
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We can not wait to taste it! If you are in the states, you can order your own at the link below
https://curiospice.com/products/honeybush-chai-bag-1-5-oz
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We have had a very busy first quarter of the year. Here you can see the sensory evaluation of 9 new ingredient samples from all over Africa. The excellent team assists us with our sensory evaluation, lead by Mingwei Tsai, a leading tea sommelier.

Whatch this space for new ingredients that will be added to our portfolio soon!

Hibiscus or Rosella (Hibiscus sabdariffa) is made from the dried calyxes of the inflorescence of this plant. Many people know Rosella tea as a bright red, sour, immune boosting tea. But did you know that this species is indigenous to West Africa?

The species spread from there to other parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas beginning in the 1600s, as enslaved people from West Africa brought the plants and the culture of drinking Rosella tea with them. We highly recommend following the Center for plant and culture, where they dive deeper into this and other cultural associations between people and plants.
https://www.plantsandculture.org/

Read more on the story of hibiscus in the Americas here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CtrYn7uIpPm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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We source hibiscus from various producers in Africa and in each context the farming and processing looks different due to climatic differences in regions. Due to this there is large variations in the colour and flavour profiles of hibiscus cultivated in different regions. ⁠
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Pictured is Hibiscus from two different regions (Namibia and Zimbabwe).⁠
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UEBT (Union for Ethical Bio-Trade) shared an example of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) in action for Buchu (Agathosma betulina). https://uebt.org/ingredient-stories/buchu

Buchu is a plant that is endemic (occurs nowhere else on earth) to the Cederberg and is a very important plant in San and Khoi culture.

An extract from the article:
"Rules on biodiversity in South Africa, based on international agreements such as the Nagoya Protocol, ensure that the rights of indigenous peoples over their traditional knowledge is respected. Companies using native biological resources such as Buchu in research, product development and commercialisation need permits, as well as benefit sharing agreements. Additionally, local rules and policies promote cultivation, in order to avoid potential negative impacts of harvesting on wild populations. Buchu is an important source of local income for people in the region. The plant thrives in dry conditions and can be cultivated on hills where other crops do not do as well."

We are excited to continue our work with buchu producers to work towards an industry that has a positive environmental and social impact.

Tell us, do you know about the Nagoya Protocol and it a topic you would like us to write a more comprehensive blog post on?

Image credit: Köhlers Medizinal Pflanzen

Looking for a caffeine-free alternative to tea?⁠
You should try green rooibos.⁠
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Green rooibos is the un-oxidised version of the more well known rooibos. Rooibos is a plant indigenous to a narrow geographic range in South Africa. It is a very tricky process to prevent oxidation from occurring in rooibos as the plant naturally oxidised and turns red within a few hours of harvesting. To create green rooibos the plants need to be harvested during very hot days in peak summer (sometimes above 50 degrees Celsius), cut and dried as fast as possible to preserve the green colour of the fresh plant.⁠
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The resulting tea produces a brew that is light in color, with a yellow/green hue. Our green rooibos has a citrus aroma and grassy full-bodied taste. It has high levels of antioxidants and is caffeine-free.⁠
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In the coming weeks we will be introducing our team and allow them a moment to share their experiences and their role within Grounded Ingredients.

Please meet our Sourcing Manager Jenny Willis! Jenny is one of the founders of Grounded Ingredients and has been absolutely pivotal in developing the strong network of regenerative producers we work with, executing logistics and getting stuff done in general.

"My background is in sustainable food systems, with a focus on agrobiodiversity and building more direct linkages between producers and buyers. I implement our sourcing strategy at Grounded Ingredients, taking the producers we source from through our onboarding process and building relationships for long term collaboration.

I love learning about where things come from, and this is the core of my work at Grounded Ingredients: understanding the context and details of how and why an ingredient is being produced, to the farm and field level. By bringing attention to the specifics of ingredient origins, and prioritising transparency both up- and downstream in the food system, we can reshape supply chains so they are grounded in trust rather than opacity."

It is such a privilege to meet with our customers in person and talk about things we care about together:

1. Environmental impact of tea
2. Social impact of tea
3. Traceability
4. Just good tea!

Our sourcing director had the privilege of visiting the team in Berlin. There are some super exciting projects in the pipeline for 2024! Watch this space.

Last day of a fantatsic with the dream team from Grounded Ingredients and

Thanks to all the fantatic customers, partners and producers we met with! It is nice to know we still live in a world where face to face interactions are still so valued.

We'll be back next year!

In the coming weeks we will be introducing our team and allow them a moment to share their experiences and their role within Grounded Ingredients.

Please meet our Sourcing Director, Dr. Elzanne Singels.

"I have an academic background in botany and archaeology. My topic of research was focused on edible plants and the people that foraged for them in prehistory. My goal in life is to bring my experience and knowledge of African ecosystems and history forward into our present and future.
My work at Grounded Ingredients has been formative and fulfilling as I am fundamentally driven by my love for the plants and people of Africa, which meshes perfectly with the goals of Grounded Ingredients. I have learned so many things in my time in this role, but importantly I have seen how critical transparency is to change the broken food system. Where there is clarity and honesty, change will come."

Elzanne will be attending Biofach this week along with our Commercial Director Jochum Beetsma. So lookout for them if you are attending!

We are so excited to attend Biofach!

Grounded Ingredients works to make regenerative agriculture and sustainable wild harvesting financially viable for small and mid-sized producers. We bridge the gap between brands and regenerative producers in Africa by offering transparent, customised sourcing and expert blending.

We strive to offer full transparency to both the brands and the producers we work with. Our sourcing team in Africa makes frequent visits to producers across the continent, with a rigorous onboarding process developed to handle the complexity of sourcing from origin.

Our Sourcing Director, Dr. Elzanne Singels and Commercial Director, Jochum Beetsma will be attending, so please reach out to set up a meeting if you are interested in sourcing regeneratively produced ingredients.

In September 2023, the convened the first SHP Learning Journey. For 3 ½ days, 22 stakeholders from the botanical industry explored the people, places, and plants that are central to the herb trade from Appalachia. Though based in Appalachia, the issues we explored: the challenges of wild harvesting, low prices for raw material, over harvesting, care for migrant farmworkers, care for the soil, are common in the herb trade as a whole.

And so our goal in the Learning Journey was to approach these seemingly intractable challenges in the botanical industry in a different, more systemic way. We hoped to inspire change by listening to the voices of those we don’t always listen to: the people at the edges of the system, the places we visited, and the plants. Beyond analytics and industry interests, we wanted to open our hearts and connect with the earth. In this way, we hoped to tap into the inspiration and courage needed to act.

It was an amazing journey, you can read more at the link in our profile!

Thanks to all of the individuals that joined us and their companies that supported them! .naturalproducts and others! ❤️🌿🙏🏼

This morning we are evaluating 4 teas from a new regenerative producer.
A lovely selection of mostly indigenous teas.
Rooibos, green rooibos, buchu, lemon🌿🍵🫖

Rooibos 🍂 Do you know this indigenous herbal tea from South Africa? It can only be cultivated and wild harvested in a narrow mountain range in the Cederberg and Namaqualand due to its specific biological requirements, but also because rooibos has a protected designation of origin just like Champagne.

We have been working to support the establishment of the first regenerative rooibos production in the world, and best news of all -- we have stock of this beautiful rooibos in Europe! Contact us if you want a taste.

We'll share more on our exciting regen cultivation work in coming posts so stay tuned 🤓

On Thursday, 10 August, the Food Hack will host a meetup in Cape Town, the topic off conversation? Regenerative Agriculture!

Sourcing Director of Grounded Ingredients will be one of the guest speakers.

Attendance is free of charge, please use the link in our bio to register your attendance. We will be showcasing some of our ingredients for those keen to experience some seriously good tea.

It has been a frantic quarter for our team on various fronts. These boxes represent another big victory for us. 1800 samples of 14 different regeneratively produced, traceable ingredients that are ready to be exported to our European team.
This is a big step to make our operations as smooth as possible for our customers.

Watch out Europe, here we come!

March is Buchu time!
In March the annual Buchu harvest is done in the narrow distribution range of this species.

This past weekend our Sourcing Director Elzanne Singels spotted this thriving population of wild Buchu in the Du ToitsKloof Pass high on the mountain slopes.

Another opportunity to work with .co.za! Grounded is looking for a regenerative agricultural specialist to support the growing East Africa team. ⁠
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As the regenerative specialist you will get exposure to a range of different farming systems and agri-processing businesses, working on research, field work and strategic planning assignments on topics ranging from soil microbiology, IPM and agroforestry to carbon and traceability. Your role will be to help each Grounded operating company, and the farmers from whom they source transition to and realise the impact of regenerative agriculture.⁠
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Read more about the vacancy through the link in our bio & please share with your network 🖇️

.co.za is hiring! The Simalaha IFC — Grounded's regenerative farm in Zambia, pictured here — is looking for a CEO with a strategic, general business and management background to manage, scale and further develop the IFC. As a key member of the IFC’s management team, the CEO will work to prove the business model and drive extensive and sustainable growth, first by scaling up the IFC and then scaling to multiple locations.⁠
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Simalaha IFC is one of Grounded's operating companies and was established to invest in the best performing farmers to accelerate their growth to high production commercial entities. The IFC provides the means to ensure year-round production of high value vegetable crops.⁠ ⁠
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Read more about the vacancy through the link in our bio & please share with your network 🖇

Honeybush, popping up five years after fires razed this land in the Tsitsikamma to the ground! As far as we know, honeybush hasn’t been present in this area for 30-odd years. ⁠
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Fynbos plants are naturally adapted to fire and can either resprout after fire, or reseed. Plants that reseed depend on their seeds surviving in the soil or in the plant canopy until fire triggers their germination.⁠ Often many different seeds that have lain dormant in the soil for decades are triggered to sprout and recolonise the vegetation seemingly destroyed by fire. This honeybush is a lovely example of resilient fynbos doing its thing🔥 ⁠
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📸: .lok⁠
🔬species ID: Cyclopia subternata

We are buzzing at the opportunity to finally taste some of the sweet fruits of our labor 🥂⁠
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The Amsterdam botanical distillery recently launched their Bee Free Honey Rum Liqueur, featuring honeybush and rooibos from regenerative sources in South Africa. We love working with brands committed to transparency and traceability in their supply chains. Stay tuned for more collaboration between and Spirited Union in the near future!⁠
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To add this honeybush and rooibos infused rum to your barcart tap the link in our bio 🖇️

.co.za just launched a Regen Facility! The Facility provides on-the-ground-support for farmers and businesses to improve the regenerative nature of their operations. ⁠
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The Regen Facilty targets .co.za's large network of farmers — through Grounded’s Operating Companies in East and Southern Africa AND farmers and producer companies working with — while the research outcomes will hopefully reach well beyond the Grounded group network. We're extremely excited about what's to come. ⁠
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Read more about the Regen Facility through the link in our bio 🖇️

A baobab pod, illustrated for us by the talented 😍 ⁠
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We wrote about the fascinating baobab value chain and sustainable wild harvesting best practice in the blog - find the link in our bio 🖇️

A good cup of rooibos in the winter always reminds us of diving into one of the dams on top of Table Mountain during the summer 🏊‍♀️ Where else do you get that distinctly fynbos colour!⁠
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Order fully traceable rooibos via the link in our bio 🖇️

These are marula seeds being separated from marula fruit. To produce oil, the seeds are dried for two months and then cracked so the oil-rich kernels can be painstakingly extracted. ⁠
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Read more about the commercialisation of this so-called novel ingredient through the link in our bio 🖇️

A stunning day during this year's harvest, and the product is equally gorgeous. ⁠
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Each years' harvest tastes different, and 2022 is gracing us with the most delicious floral notes. Some of us taste rose geranium, some taste jasmine. Order through the link in our bio 🖇️ and let us know what you taste!

If you've noticed marula oil showing up in more and more products, you might have wondered how it's produced. Well, it is a seriously time and labour intensive process! ⁠
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It takes 1kg of dried marula seeds to extract 150g of kernels, which in turn translates into only 41ml of pressed marula oil 🤯⁠
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To learn more about the production of our organic marula oil, tap the link in our bio >>

In our present era of optimisation, the labour-intensive extraction of marula kernels (which marula oil is pressed from) is unusual. This painstaking technique is an example of the invaluable indigenous knowledge underpinning the commercialisation of marula. ⁠
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We source organic marula oil from KaZa Natural Oils, a Zimbabwean company partnering with rural communities in the production of indigenous African oils so that knowledge holders are included in the benefits of commercialisation. To read more about KaZa and their marula oil, tap the link in our bio 🔗

Marula oil has always been prized in indigenous African communities as a source of dietary fat, a balm for wounds and as a gentle moisturiser. In recent years the cosmetic industry has taken an interest too, for the oil’s skin hydrating and anti-aging benefits. ⁠
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With this new zeal comes the potential for exploitation. In our latest blog read how KaZa Natural Oils, our supplier for organic marula oil, navigates the commercialisation and protection of this natural resource.⁠
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Read the blog through the link in our bio 🔗