By Co-founder Serenity Carr
My husband, Joe, and I care deeply about the environment. Joe is actually a little obsessive about it, he brings his own to-go containers to restaurants, makes his own toothpaste, and spent his early 20’s sitting in old growth trees to prevent them from being cut down. When we started our baby food company, we wanted to do everything possible to minimize our environmental impact.
It starts with ingredients.
Ethical Meat Sourcing
Meat is widely believed to be bad for the environment, but that’s not always true. It is true that modern mega-farms separate animals from their natural habitats, which destroys the land. But because animals have always been a key part of Earth’s ecosystem, we are dedicated to supporting small farmers who are preserving the land.
For our products, we only use meats raised by small American family farmers practicing regenerative agriculture techniques which mimic the way wild animals live in nature. Not only do their animals lead happier lives, but these practices also help reverse climate change. They do that by rebuilding soil organic matter, restoring degraded soil biodiversity, sequestering carbon, and improving the water. Alan Savory’s mind-blowing Ted Talk “How to Fight Desertification and Stop Climate Change” goes more into detail on the science of it all.
Serenity Kids donates 1% of our profits to the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit that helps protect the rights of these small farmers in an industry dominated by massive conglomerates. Because Joe’s mom grew up on a small family farm, he saw how serene the lifestyle is and how difficult it is for these farmers to compete with mega-farms.
Pouches or Jars?
Initially, we were not happy that most baby food is packaged in single-use plastic pouches rather than recyclable glass jars. But it turns out that thin, flexible packaging has a MUCH smaller carbon footprint than glass jars. The pouches smaller size and weight requires way less fuel to transport -- it actually takes nine times more fossil fuel to transport a glass jar versus a pouch! Also, only a third of recyclable materials actually get recycled, so the vast majority of those jars get thrown away, taking up 26 times more space in landfills than pouches. So while we recommend limiting the use of disposable packaging, you can rest assured that baby food pouches are a lesser evil.
Plus, our pouch manufacturing facility is entirely solar powered. They generate more power than they actually use and send it back to the grid, reducing fossil fuel consumption in their entire region.
TerraCycle*
Because our pouches aren’t accepted by traditional city recycling programs, we have partnered with TerraCycle to keep our pouches out of landfills. Here’s how it works:
- Go to https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/serenity-kids and complete a short form.
- TerraCycle mails you an envelope with prepaid postage
- Fill the envelope with empty pouches (no need to clean) and mail it back
- TerraCycle grinds them up and make them into flower pots, park benches, etc.
Our caps are recyclable in city recycling so you can throw those in your usual recycling receptacle.
We are on a mission to making babies healthier, animals happier, moms’ lives easier, and the planet healthier! Thank you for being a part of it!
*Participation Limited
