The pandemic has undeniably shifted a number of things in doing business. And for a relatively conservative industry such as agriculture, pivoting toward the trend can be a bit more challenging. This is what our guest in this episode faced when COVID hit, realizing the need to bring their brand to the shelf and tell their sustainability story to the world. Erin O’Donnell, Vice President of Sales for Sun Valley Rice, joins Elliot Begoun to share with us how she took the opportunities brought on by the sudden changes and built a strong brand in the agriculture business. She talks about the health benefits of eating brown rice and the technology they use to make it more palatable. Creating more impact, Erin also tells us what they are doing in Northern California’s rice industry to promote the environment, pushing forward their passion for sustainability with their products at Planet Rice. There are so many fresh insights to learn about being an entrepreneur within this industry that you can apply to your business. Join Erin as she imparts more!

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Listen to the podcast here

Planet Rice: Building A Brand For Greater Impact In The Agriculture Business With Erin O’Donnell

I’m here with Erin with Planet Rice. We are going to have a chat about a lot of things. We were discussing this before. For example, what it’s like to be an intrapreneur, to be entrepreneurial, to be building a brand within the walls and the confines of a larger business, let alone an ag business. As many of you might know, ag businesses tend to be relatively conservative and not known for taking wild fliers on entrepreneurial opportunities. We will talk about the importance of sustainability and building a brand on the back of a strong ESG foundation. We will talk about working in the service of the growers and the farmers out there and we will visit and have a good conversation.

We welcome all of the audience to let us know if you have any questions that you want to have asked and answered and we will do our best to get to them. Before I go any further and before I have Erin introduce herself and Planet Rice, I want to mention two other important things that are going on here in the show. The first is the TIG Collective. This is our hope to build a community-based advisory collective where brands and their founders can come in, sign an advisory agreement, and get the advisory support that they need to take the next step and have that support ebb and flow with the seasonality of the business as the business changes its priorities and so forth.

All while learning how to be a more effective leader and be more effective and extracting value out of your advisors and run more effective board meetings. Simultaneously, we are doing this in the hopes of finding a path to create more diversity on our boards. Boards that are more reflective of the communities that our brands serve and give everybody the opportunity with different lived experiences to help shape the brands of the future.

If you are interested in learning more about the TIG Collective, please reach out to Jenny. Jenny@TIGBrands.com. The other thing we are talking about is our TIG Venture Community. This is a change or a new take on the venture. It’s a community of folks interested in supporting the entrepreneurial brands that are change agents. Those that are on the front lines of human health, climate action, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

It’s also a little bit of a thumb in the wind trying to change some of the perceptions. We are always looking for that home run brand where funds are seen 75% or more of their portfolio yielding one X or less. They are dependent upon that brand or two that is going to be that giant win. Those are wonderful. and great but we have a thesis that we can help a lot of brands that are focused on being nimble capital efficient, and resilient.

Those that are focused on making the economics stronger, getting to cashflow, and EBITDA positivity quickly. A fund where it’s based on instead of home runs and grand slams, it’s Texas League bloopers singles and an occasional double. We are doing this fond the TIG Venture Community fund through Angel list. It’s a rolling fund. It’s open to all of those interested both in being a potential LP and an investor. If you want to learn more, please reach out to any of us here at TIG. Those were my two commercials for the day but they are passionate projects and are aimed at trying to do more.

My last pitch is we are trying to make this show more reflective of those that are reading. We want this to be yours. We want this to be shaped by the things that matter, and that’s why we are spending more of our time with the entrepreneurs that are in the day-to-day of their businesses, sharing not only the great successes but also the hard-fought lessons.

Some of the challenges and even some of the personal toll that this takes so that people understand as you are doing this, that you are not alone. You are not on an island. There are millions of you out there and we are all trying to do the same thing. Do us a favor. Wherever you get this show, whether it’s on Apple, Spotify, or Amazon Music, give it a five-star rating. Help us get the word out there. Promotions done. Erin, welcome. Thanks for hanging with me. Do me a favor, and tell everybody a little bit about you, your background, and Planet Rice.

My name is Erin O’Donnell. I’m the Vice President of Sales for Sun Valley Rice. I’m building the brand Planet Rice. Sun Valley Rice is a family-owned vertically integrated rice grower up in Northern California, and I have worked with Sun Valley for years. I started my career in international sales with Sun Valley. When COVID hit, we found that we, as a company, didn’t have our portfolio expanded enough and we saw a real change in consumer habits.

Over the first twenty years of the business of Sun Valley Rice, we are strong foodservice sales. If you don’t know California rice is world famous for being great sushi rice, so we sell sushi rice here in the US but also internationally. I worked on building our sushi rice business in Europe and also in Asia, before COVID. There was a time at the beginning of the pandemic which was interesting. Rice was sexier than it had ever been.

You had rice on the same list as you had toilet paper as limit one, and we were missing the boat on that trend, and we didn’t have a product in our own brand on the shelf. We wanted to bring our brand to the shelf, not only to be a part of this trend but also to use this brand to tell our sustainability story, to tell the world how amazing California rice is, and also to bring a healthy product to the shelf. We have done a lot of things to innovate ways to make brown rice a little bit more palatable.

If you don’t know, all rice starts as brown rice. As somebody in the sales of rice, I know that even though people know that brown rice is healthier for them, they don’t like to eat it. As a company, we developed several different techniques to make brown rice a little bit more palatable, a little bit tastier like white rice, and cooking like white rice.

We wanted to bring these products to the market, 1) To give people healthy rice choices and, 2) To help people understand where their food is coming from to connect with the growers and the people who are making these products for them. That’s where we started. We are about a couple of years into building this brand and we are starting to see some good distribution. It’s exciting to be in the CPG world now.

Let’s talk about a couple of the innovations or things that you do. Let’s talk about the California Blonde because that’s a super cool approach to brown rice. Many of you know that brown rice is better for you but it’s a pain in the ass to cook because it takes longer. Sometimes it feels chewier. Having the full rice, the benefit of the rice brand, and everything along is so much better for you. It’s a lower glycemic index, GABA, and all that stuff. How did you guys create California Blonde and tell us a little bit about the technology that’s used there?

Our California Blonde rice came to be because one of our colleagues here at Sun Valley wanted his kids to eat brown rice and he couldn’t get them to eat the brown rice. He worked with production and we have found a way to poke holes in the brand of the rice. As I said, all rice starts as brown rice, and that bran layer of the rice has some oil in it. That oil prevents water from getting into the rice kernel.

When you cook it, it takes longer to cook because the water takes longer to get into the rice kernel, and it’s also a little bit chewier or harder. Maybe not as soft and delightful as white rice. What we did is we figured out a way to poke holes in the bran layer of the rice without removing it. If you leave the bran layer on, you get all those health benefits but by poking the holes in that layer, then you get the water to get into the rice kernel quicker so it cooks up quicker almost like white rice, and it’s a lot fluffier and tastier. It’s sticky enough with our variety that you can even make sushi with it. It’s a neat product. It’s what I eat at home. It’s what I feed my kids and everybody loves it.

Let’s talk about sprouted rice too because your sprouted brown rice also. What’s the benefit of that and how does that differentiate? We will get past all this product stuff.

Any seed can be sprouted. Sprouting is the process where a seed wants to create new life. It’s going to grow into a plant. Any seed can go through this process including brown rice. To start this process, you want to have a seed in a hot humid environment. There are ways to do this like soaking the seed. Trick it into going through this process. When you soak a seed, you also can introduce some microbials and things like that which can innatively affect the taste of that seed. Together with a partner SATAKE Corporation, a Japanese rice equipment manufacturer, we developed a process to sprout rice where you basically put the rice in this large tank, where the rice is sifted through.

The humidity of this tank is increased together with the temperature to a point where the rice is tricked into thinking that it’s time to sprout. What it does there is change all of its internal sugars and starches, and help the amino acids that will support life like GABA, for example, Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid.

What we have done is we have figured out a way to maximize the GABA in the rice, and once we hit that maximum point, we continue to increase the temperature and hold it there for a long time. It’s effectively like a kill step. It basically stops the process and locks all those nutrients in the rice. In this process, it’s nice and clean, so it doesn’t have those microbial tastes that you find in some other sprouted products. We dry the rice down and at the end of the process, it looks and feels like regular brown rice but it has improved nutritional qualities, and it’s a little bit softer too. That process has softened that bran layer. It enables rest to pick up faster, softer, and with tons of extra health benefits.

Talk about GABA a little bit. There are a lot of people who don’t know what it is and why it’s beneficial.

GABA is a neurotransmitter that’s natural parading the body and it’s associated with heart health and cardiovascular health. It has a calming nature. Oftentimes, people are taking a GABA supplement like a vitamin but it’s great to get those sorts of health benefits through your food. If you are eating these things rather than taking them as a vitamin, it’s a lot more available in your body. You can associate it with cardiovascular health. Getting the blood through your veins a little easier so it’s well-known to have these effects on the body.

Their product line is very cool. We didn’t talk about the power blend, which is also one of my favorites. It’s a unique approach to making rice more bioavailable and accessible. It’s also important to the company to build a brand that talks about the benefits of the way rice has grown in Northern California and the things that you are doing. Let’s switch to that for a little bit. There’s a lot of talk about water use, whether it’s rice or almonds.

Especially around Northern California, it’s even more show. You guys go to great lengths to help educate and help both consumers and environmental activists understand that you are on the same team. You are trying to do things. Talk a little bit about what is done in Northern California’s rice industry to promote the environment, the things that Sun Valley is doing, and how this is turned into a passion for you as well around sustainability.

Rice is such a simple, clean product and it’s so cool to be up here and see the way it’s grown. Growers here in Northern California have been growing rice for many years now.

What percentage of the rice that we eat as Americans have grown in Northern California?

It depends on the varieties that you are eating. If you are eating sushi rice or medium grain rice, the percentage that’s grown here in California is probably, 80% to 90%. If you are eating at a sushi restaurant, then it’s 100% guaranteed that you are eating California rice. If you are eating like the long grain rice or Uncle Ben’s style rice, that will be grown in the Southern part of the US like Arkansas and Louisiana, those places. That’s all to do with climate. Our climate here in Northern California is a Mediterranean climate, and it allows us to grow good japonica-style rice, which is your medium grains and short grains.

With our climate, we have hot dry summers with cool nights. We get some breezes up through the river systems that pull off the rice and our whole environment at night, and that allows the rice to rest, which helps it mature into the beautiful medium brown rice. Some of the things that California growers do are impressive. One of the things to know is we have improved land use sufficiency by 30% over the last several years. Improved water efficiency by more than 40%.

We reduced emissions and energy use. All of this time while growing a healthy sustainable food, and supporting wildlife habitats. One of the things to know about rice is that it’s essentially providing wetlands that would have used to be here in Northern California but because of development, other things, are not available anymore. By growing rice, by using water to grow rice for providing habitat for wildlife like birds, for example, using the Pacific flyway, as they migrate from North to South and back from South to North. As they use our rice paddies to rest, roost, and take a little bath. Thousands of species of migratory birds use our rice paddies as part of their habitat.

In addition to that, rice growers are doing something innovative and exciting. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about. When you flood a rice field, what’s happening is you have a lot of life going on in there. Little bugs and things like that start to grow in there. As you probably know, we have some problems with the salmon population up in the Sacramento River. Rice growers are working together with environmentalists, Northern California Trout Association, and Ducks Unlimited to help bring back these fish populations.

One of the ways to do this is to start a fish fry in a rice paddy. When you do this, because there’s so much food for the little fish in the rice paddy, those little bugs and things, it enables that fish to become up to three times larger than it would if it was started in the river system. It’s an incredibly exciting project where we are using a food production system to also support wildlife. It’s synergistic. It’s almost like a symbiotic relationship related to growing food or supporting families but we are also supporting wildlife habitats. It’s an incredibly important use of water when we can use water to do all of these good things for ourselves and our communities.

It’s such a hot topic. Especially, given all the concern around climate change and also in California in general. There is so much of the water in Northern California, sent down to the population in Southern California. It’s a contentious issue. Doing the things that you are doing and being able to speak to them as important. Let’s switch gears again.

Let’s talk about your role within Sun Valley Rice. You are an intrapreneur. Here you are like any other founder, you are in charge of building a CPG brand and growing it. You are doing all the things that are required to do it but the two differences you have is your investor is the parent company and are more used to seeing EBITDA positivity and that stuff. Also, tend to be a little bit more conservative. Although, the current CEO, Ken LaGrande is pretty innovative in general. He likes that aspect of it. What’s that role like to try to bridge the divide between a mature ag business and a startup?

I had been with Sun Valley for several years. The Sun Valley owned by Ken LaGrande is the heart of the entrepreneurial company. Ken and his dad Mike started the company several years ago, and it shows their own entrepreneurial spirit by doing that. It’s a mature company. I have been in business for many years. I’m in charge of building the brand Planet Rice.

One of the things like building a brand, is there are risks involved. There’s a lot of investment and a lot of money. It was expensive. Whenever I’m asking the company to spend or invest money on this brand, I think of it as I would think about my own money. I look at the risks and rewards. When do we want to overinvest in a certain account to bring on a new business center or something like that?

I think about what are the risks, what are the rewards, and being able to tell that story within our organizations to bring people along with us as we make these choices and decisions, and when and where to invest. Being part of that family business, bringing everybody along with us with the story, and then being scrappy. You have to be scrappy about it. Spend the money wisely. Don’t want to spend for no reason. Treating that money like it’s my own money. I want to make sure that we are successful.

On the other end of it, whenever we are able to have the company invest in building this brand. Doing the legwork and putting the feet to the pavement, and getting out there and working hard to make sure those dollars aren’t wasted and we are putting the effort in behind it as well. Continuing that hard work to build this brand, to build our brand awareness, to keep our velocities up, and all of those things. It’s a team effort. I’m happy to be a part of this team.

What have been some of the lessons that you’ve learned from switching hats going from international to building a domestic CPG brand?

What drives me is being my value systems aligned with the brand’s value system. That’s what drives me to get this product on the shelves and to tell the story, to pull the brand awareness and all of those things. It’s so important to me to see the power of a consumer package product, to help people see where their food is coming from to connect to people with healthy food but to then connect them all the way back to the grower. To help them see what we are doing with these land use and water use that we were using. We are able to help the consumer get into that story to feel good about their choices, what they are eating, and feel connected to the land where it’s grown.

That’s where my value system aligns with the brand and it drives me forward. When I was in international sales, I noticed that people in other countries prides California food, and California, agricultural products. People know that food that’s grown in California as food safe, it’s healthy and we are California growers are driving innovation and sustainability. People in other countries know that. They pride on it and want these products.

I wanted people in our own backyard to also feel that way. I want them to feel good about their choices. When they see California grown on any product, they can trust that it’s sustainably grown and that those growers are constantly innovating to save water and reduce emissions. Being a part of telling that story, is rewarding for me.

As you can continue to do it, and as the brand build has the internal dialogue within Sun Valley changed around it. Do you see the extended team, those that maybe aren’t as involved in the day-to-day of the building of Planet Rice, getting more excited and proud of seeing the product on the shelf?

One of the things being in business and selling. Sushi rice, oftentimes, you know your rice might be in a certain sushi restaurant and you can feel pride about going there, taking your family there, and eating the sushi rice there in the restaurant but not necessarily seeing it on the shelf. What has been exciting for everyone in our company is to be able to give out coupons to their friends and family and say, “We helped package this rice.”

Another cool thing is that on our code date, we have the initials of whoever the foreman was on the packaging line that day. If you go into the store and you can see who’s initials are on that bag, that’s pretty exciting too. It has been fun. This is a family business and everybody here is so proud of the work that they do. Being able to bring that product to the mainstream shelf and get their family and friends to see it there, it’s pretty exciting.

As you start thinking about what are some of the challenges that you have faced with and what challenges are still coming, especially in this current economic climate, what’s keeping you up at night? What stresses you out?

It’s pretty devastating this 2022. California rice, the whole community grows about 500,000 acres of rice in a normal year. This year because of water management issues, and the drought, the rice acre was cut in half. It’s devastating for our rural communities up here. When you have a big source of the economy is growing rice, and to have that cut so drastically is difficult.

At Sun Valley, we work hard to support our rural community up here. There are a lot of jobs involved in our company but beyond that, supporting the local charities and local schools. Doing things like that is important to us. We will get through it. We weathered this storm but hope our water outcomes in 2023 will be a bit better.

What drives those water outcomes? Beyond the drought and rain, you said water management. What are you seeing?

One of the projects that have been approved and in development is the site’s reservoir. The site’s reservoir would be additional water storage up here in Northern California. Has got wide support, and California voters approved a bond for it. We would love to see drought conditions like we are having increased the public’s knowledge and support for water storage products. The public supports us. Witnesses need the government to get moving on it and getting going a little quicker would be great.

For reference to those reading, I’m in Northern California as well, and the last time we built a significant reservoir in Northern California, the population of the state was eighteen million. Now, the population is shy of 40 million. That in and of itself, couple that with the reality of sustained drought conditions and the inconsistency that all of that we see now around the climate is a desperate need for Northern California, and yet it has been a fight.

Increasing water storage with sites doing whatever projects on Charleston would be incredibly important because growing food here in California using this fertile land to grow food, provides jobs and food security, when we are not having to rely on food imports to feed ourselves and with a good healthy product. That’s an important thing about food security. We want to be able to continue to use the resources that we have to grow healthy food and save food for our community. Using water in this way is incredibly important, and it provides a huge value to our community. It’s not just in nutrition but in jobs and other things too.

Not just that. What we see for agriculturalists in California, they are a huge part of the fight against climate change, whether it’s providing wildlife habitat as we do in rice, sinking carbon into the ground with regenerative farming techniques, or with almond trees taking carbon out of the air. All of these things are important for our community to be able to adapt to climate change but also fight the effects of climate change. We can’t do it without our agriculturalists, and the agriculturist will be at the forefront of our fight against climate change.

How did you get into that? I know you so I have the added benefit but it’s so evident the passion you have. The passion you have for the environment, the passion you have for the ag families, the growers, and so forth. Where did this come from?

I didn’t start my career in agriculture or sales. I started my career as a scientist and engineer. Like with my husband, we started a little consulting business several years ago, and that brought me into not only being a salesperson but learning a lot about what we do here in California agriculture. I don’t know what it is that got me to be so passionate about California agriculture but it’s seeing the benefits that the California agriculturist provides.

It’s probably with my science background, seeing all of the things that we can do, with the California agricultural land, and being a part of telling that story to get people to see the value of growing food here in California, and to feel good about their choices. You want people to go to the store and say, “I found this rice and I know where it’s grown. I know what a benefit it provides to wildlife and to the community that I live in.” I am excited about being part of telling that story.

Now that you are entrepreneurial doing this and trying to get Planet Rice selling on eComm, Amazon, in stores, and so forth, what has been the hardest thing? What surprised you in terms of, “This is ridiculous?”

A lot of things. You wrote about it in one of your blogs. The hardest thing for me is that hurry up and wait. Being patient enough to let things develop and happen, and being persistent enough that people don’t forget about you. Getting the attention of buyers and things like that is a push and pull game of always wanting to be persistent but not to the point of being annoying.

That has certainly been the hardest part for me. Realizing how expensive it is, building a brand is incredibly expensive, and so trying to be mindful that these investments, once we have invested these funds to build this brand, we want to continue that persistence to make sure that we are successful and this investment pays off.

As you talk about those investments and you meet with the internal team at Sun Valley and try to express to them, what it takes to build a brand. What questions are they asking you? Are they stunned by it? Are they like, “What did we sign up for?”

Especially, when you get the remittances. You get those remittances, so they come in with about half of what you want and what to expect it, certainly that’s a tough conversation. My approach to it is to be upfront and make sure that we are calculating all of our costs accurately, so people are prepared for what we are doing.

Those remittances don’t come as a surprise that we are prepared for it, that we knew what we are getting into, and that these investments are something that is going to continue to develop over time and multiple years. Like what you said before, when employees get to see these products on the shelf, show their families, and give out coupons, provides pride and ownership as well of this brand. It’s a team effort. No one person is doing it alone. We are all working together to make this happen.

As you think forward for the brand, what’s your goal? Where do you want to be in five years with Planet Rice?

With our SKUs, would love to be in distribution at least nationally. There’s probably a little bit of a component to be able to do some international distribution as well. I would love to have this product on the shelves, throughout the nation and to help people see the value of California rice production. Over time, I would imagine that we will be building more SKUs. More integrating our rices and ingredients, especially our sprouted rice.

I would love to see a sprouted rice crispy. I personally would love to have sprouted rice to put in my kids’ lunch. The kids love the rice crispy treats, and that’s good for a treat. That’s all used for rice and things like that but I would love to have it a little bit healthier. I would love to put our sprouted rice into a number of different snack products, so again, people consider feel good about their choices. You want to quick easy snack. You want something that tastes good but you also want to be healthy, and you want to do something that’s supporting the environment as well. I would love to see that happen over the next five years.

No bullshit here. How many nights a week or how many meals a week include rice?

A good 2 or 3 at least, and if I’m doing some recipe development then a lot more than that. My friends and family will tell you that every time I come over and bring a dish, it always has rice in it. I’m always taking photos of it and trying to post them on Instagram. Rice is a big part of our life and I feel good about it. I feel good about feeding my kids healthy brown rice. It works for all of us.

You use a rice maker, an instapot or stove top. What’s your favorite method?

I use a rice cooker. Rice cookers are so easy. You can put it on the stove and that’s easy too but the rice cooker could be the set and forget it, and by the time the rice is done cooking, you got everything else done, you put it together, and you got a meal in 25 minutes. It’s pretty perfect.

I would be neck to neck. I probably have rice and it’s always yours. It’s usually the sprouted brown, 4 meals, sometimes 5 meals a week.

We are the number one customer. We love it.

As you look towards trying to educate consumers. It’s compelling. It talks about the whole value chain and the benefit, not only the benefit for the individual eating it, the health, climate, community, and family benefits to the growers. That’s a lot of stuff to try to share. How are you telling the story? What are you doing to help people understand what Planet Rice is all about?

This is where I need to give a shout-out to our marketing agency. We work with a third-party marketing agency called AC&C or Ali Cox Company. They are great to work with. Ali and her team have a real background in agriculture. They are able to share the agricultural story in a beautifully compelling way. Their creativity continues to astound me. I love the graphics that they come up with and the copy that they have been able to develop.

If you follow us on Instagram, you will see all of our different rice varieties have their own little personalities. We are developing our story by sharing the personalities of each of our rice varietals. It’s fun to see what they come up with this marketing agency. It’s very impressive. Telling a story of rice seems so simple but it’s a center aisle product and hard to get people to pay attention. The creativity of AC&C has driven that forward and helped us make this compelling story fun and attractive too.

The brand does it too. We have talked a lot about that internally the inherent benefit of the brand and the brand name. Planet Rice gives us a platform to have that conversation. Another pivot. Here we go. Ready for this one to come out of the left field for you? Years ago, you started this journey with Sun Valley Planet Rice. You’ve amassed a lot of learnings and lessons. I’m sure your fair share of disappointments. If you could go back to yourself years ago and give yourself a piece of advice about this, “Know this one thing, and it will help you so much,” what would it be?

Trust yourself. As long as you stay aligned with your values, trust yourself and you can do it. That’s a big part of it. Trust your gut, stay true to your values, and you can’t go wrong.

As you go forward, you have this unique skillset. You have been in sales now for years, you have a science background. You are now an intrapreneur. An entrepreneur within an organization. You know what it takes to be creative, persistent, flexible, nimble, and so forth. As you plot, what’s next for Erin and the brand, and what things are going to serve you the best? That amalgam of skills and lived experience. What do you think is going to serve you the best in terms of moving forward?

When I’m seeing this space and ESG, is an important development for not just agricultural processors but every company. As a manufacturer, we have committed to setting and executing sustainability goals, and publishing our sustainability report. Sustainability, it’s not about environmental stewardship. It’s a big piece of it. It’s also building sustainability. A sustainable business is about supporting the society where you work, supporting your workplace, and also being a profitable company.

You can’t be a sustainable business if you are not profitable. We worked hard as a team to set sustainability goals so that we can continue to push the ball forward. What we have learned writing our first report, is about setting your benchmarks and making sure you are measuring the right things. That’s where my science background has helped me determine what things we would start measuring to even set the sustainability goals.

The first part of it is benchmarking where you are at now so that you can set goals to continue to improve. I see this as a space that’s happening not just with CPG brands but worldwide. Every company is going to begin to do this, and it’s exciting to be a part of a company like Sun Valley that likes to be at the forefront of things. We are looking forward to seeing where that brings us.

One of the questions that came in an entrepreneurial journey, starting a company, building a brand, doing all of that stuff. It can be super isolating. They are left to ruminate on their own thoughts. They are oftentimes a party of 1 or maybe a party of 2 with a cofounder got some fractional folks and so forth. You have both the challenges and the benefits of doing this while working within and around others. Do you still, at times, feel like you are out on an island? Does that change your mindset at all or do you feel that you are still part of something bigger? How does that interplay?

A big part of what I value in work is collaboration. I try to find collaboration wherever I can. Working with you, your team and the TIG Community has been incredibly rewarding. Feeling that collaboration and feeling you are not alone. You don’t hear back from a certain buyer for weeks and those sorts of things. Understanding that you are not alone has been valuable being part of the TIG Community and then collaborating with internal stakeholders and our external consultants like AC&C and our broker as well. I try not to get down and when I do, I going to go back and lean on those collaborations because that’s where I thrive is when I’m feeling like I’m being a part of a team moving something forward.

With offices in London, and that exposure being an international business, how has that helped, informed or shaped what you are doing here with Planet Rice? Are you guys watching what’s going on in Europe, in the UK, and in Asia, using any of those trends and need that data and bringing it back? What’s that relationship look like?

The largest part of the business for Sun Valley Rice is food service, whether that’s here in the United States, Europe or other places. We are at the forefront of all sorts of issues with the supply chain and knowledgeable about global issues and global issues around rice. We are always knowledgeable about what other places grow rice, what are the pricing look like, and things like that. That in-depth knowledge of the general global industry is helpful to see what’s happening on the global scale and then apply it to Planet Rice. A part of that’s helpful is helping buyers know that you can empathize with them on their supply chain issues.

For example, maybe you don’t want to buy that imported rice. Maybe you need to have domestically produced rice because of the supply chain issues. Things like that are helpful. We want to have a diverse portfolio. We saw with COVID, that you don’t want to have one feather in your hat. You don’t want to be doing food service. You need to have a diverse portfolio. We want to continue to support our food service partners but we also want to have a retail brand and an eCommerce presence and a diverse portfolio of products. You are not only standing on one leg and you’ve got several pillars that you can depend on.

As a mom with kids, what do you want your kids to see in you as you build this brand and learn from you in this experience, whether it’s around food? Most kids have no clue where their food comes from or anything along those lines. What do you hope that they take away from your experience?

I have two kids. While most kids probably don’t know where the food comes from. Kids living in the Central Valley of California, get to see their food growing up all around them. My husband is also in agriculture, so every time we are driving around, we are always asking, “What’s that growing?” They are pretty knowledgeable on what different crops look like, which is great.

Aside from, knowing where your food comes from, being able to prepare healthy food for yourself is important. Certainly, they got better at that over COVID when they are having to cook three meals a day for themselves at home. We are all busy working from home, so they learned how to cook, which was exciting. What I liked them to see in both my husband and I, was living our own values. Doing something that you care about.

If you are working for yourself or you are working for another company, but making sure that your values are aligned with the product that you are working with it. I want them to see that as well. It takes hard work. You don’t get anything for free and you got to continue to pound the pavement and deal with disappointments as always. Hard work, in the end, does pay off.

Would you want them to have a career in the food business or CPG?

Yeah. Especially in California agriculture, we need young innovative people. We need to continue to hope that our kids get this agricultural bug and want to continue to tell a good story of California agriculture.

This has been awesome just as I knew it would be. I told you not to be concerned about that. We have a chat. Take us home. What would you like the folks reading to learn more about Planet Rice or around ESG, sustainability, and California agriculture? This is your moment to get on your box and preach.

Go out and get a bag of Planet Rice. Get a little bit about what you are eating. Check out our website. We have got tons of great recipes there. Feel good about what we are doing in California. We have got so many great California agriculture products. You’ve got rice, almonds, walnuts, and fruits and vegetables. Being in California and we live in one of the best places on Earth. We can feel good about what we have produced here, whether you are here in California, New York, or wherever you might be, when you see that California-grown signal, you can feel good about what you are putting in your body.

I find it unique and I agree with you that people outside the United States see a premium on California-grown items. Around the country, we don’t assess that same premium. It’s very interesting to me. Thank you very much for spending an hour hanging out talking. I sincerely mean it for those reading. I literally have rice and it’s always Planet Rice and 95% of the time, it’s the sprouted brown.

Although, I’m starting to dig the power blend too, which is pretty unique. I think about it all the time. I think about what you’ve taught me and told me about the growers and what we are doing. Admittedly, I do feel like I’m doing a small part to support California agriculture, the families, the wildlife, and also health. It’s a cool thing.

Keep doing it. It’s cool to be an entrepreneur in an organization. You are very fortunate to have that opportunity. There will be a lot of entrepreneurs who would love to be entrepreneurs and residents, able to have that and have some of the sophistication support dollars and people in an organization. At the same time, it’s not easy because it often fought flies contra to what mature businesses used to. Having negative numbers on an income statement, making some calculated bets, and doing some things. You’ve done a remarkable job of balancing the two, and I appreciate you being here with me. Thanks to all of those who are joining and reading. We will see you next time.

Important Links

• Planet Rice

• Jenny@TIGBrands.com

• TIG Venture Community

• Apple – TIG Talks

• Spotify – TIG Talks

• Sun Valley Rice

• SATAKE Corporation

• AC&C

• Instagram – Planet Rice

Erin O’Donnell

I am a VP of Sales in the California rice industry. I tell the compelling story of California rice growers to consumers here in the US and abroad. I have extensive and varied sales experience in the rice industry, including B2B International Sales in Europe, Asia and South America, Ingredient Sales in North America and B2C Sales as the Head of SVR’s CPG business unit. I build relationships, craft messages that drive action, and follow through until the job is done.

As a California Ag Leadership Fellow, I’m expanding my focus to telling the story of all California Agriculture. I’m passionate about sustainability in California Agriculture and am working to ensure the sustainable practices the industry already follows are known and recognized, even as we more add ways to ensure a sustainable future.

My superpowers include synthesizing large amounts of data, making the complex clear and persuasive, and bringing people together within an organization to solve thorny problems. I am using these skills to solve the problems we currently face defining and telling the story of sustainable agriculture in a way that helps the consumer get what they really want: healthy food that is sustainably produced, food they can feel good about buying, eating and feeding to their family.

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