At a time when many CPG companies are pulling back on sustainability initiatives – or at least not talking about them as vociferously as they were five years ago – premium chocolate maker Alter Eco Foods is proudly pushing forward and placing its environmental efforts center stage in consumer communications.
The B Corp certified company’s decision to hold the line on environmental sustainability actions, including fully compostable or recyclable packaging and promoting regenerative and organic agriculture, stands in sharp contrast to other larger CPG companies that are piping down and pulling back as an uptick in litigation prompts a rise in green-hushing and a sneering political shift eases external pressures to reduce carbon emissions.
For example, Coca-Cola Co announced in December that it needs an additional five years to reach select sustainability goals originally targeted for 2030 and that it would discontinue its agricultural goal. The beverage giant is far from alone and sustainability experts predict many other packaged food and beverage companies will amend their sustainability goals in the coming year.
But not Alter Eco Foods.
In this episode of Foodnavigator-USA’s Soup-To-Nuts podcast, Alter Eco Foods CEO Keith Bearden explains how and why the company under his watch has doubled down on regenerative agriculture, eliminated plastic from its supply chain and expanded distribution of what the company calls “the cleanest, greenest snacks on Earth,” including premium chocolate, a wide range of granola and quinoa. He also shares why chocolate needs a climate reckoning, what conscious consumers want in 2025 and how Alter Eco is meeting their demands with zero-waste innovations and by reinforcing its ethical supply chains in a global economy.
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Alter Eco’s three core principles
Like many packaged food companies, Alter Eco’s goal is to offer consumers great tasting products – but this isn’t its only goal. Rather, Bearden explains, the company stands on three principles that are so fundamental to the business they are baked into the business’ name.
“The brand name doesn’t say ‘chocolate,’ it doesn’t say, ‘granola,’ and it doesn’t say ‘snacks.’ It talks about who we are and what we stand for,” he said adding, “Alter Eco basically stands for three core principles.”
The first is to restore ecosystems, which Bearden explained includes helping more cocoa farmers practice regenerative agriculture or “dynamic agroforestry.”
“It is not regenerative agriculture in the same way that a lot of people think about it. We call it dynamic agroforestry, so that the cacao grows in the native environment, the natural environment of a forest,” with taller trees that shade the cocoa plants and cover crops, like avocados or passionfruit vines that cover the land, he explained.
Currently, 75% of the company’s cacao beans come from dynamic agroforestry, but its goal is 100%, said Bearden, who added the company is helping farmers transition by offering financial resources.
The second core principle is improving livelihoods, said Bearden.
“All of our chocolate is Fair For Live certified, which his a even a step above Fair Trade,” which includes ensuring everyone in the supply chain earns a living wage, he explained.
The last principle is reducing waste, which includes ensuring its chocolate products are in recyclable or compostable packaging and minimizing the impact of the plastic used for the granola pouches.
Compostable wrappers: A small but mighty shift
Alter Eco’s truffles may be “little,” as described by Bearden, but he said their compostable wrapper is a big point of differentiation with an outsized impact on the environment.
“We want to leave the planet a better place than we found it, and waste is a big part of what destroys our planet. And landfills just keep filling up and plastic, especially in lesser developed countries, is such a burden and such a contaminant. And so we came up with the truffle wrapper,” which is backyard compostable, he explained.
Creating a backyard compostable wrapper took several years because the packaging initially would rip or tear as it flowed through the machinery and because the company wanted to ensure that the truffles had at least a one year shelf life, he added.
Bearden says the company eventually would like its granola packages to also be compostable, but the safety and price are not yet where the company needs. So for now, the pouches are plastic, but the company is doing what it can to reduce their environmental impact by using post-consumer recycled plastic and offsetting the plastic it introduces into the environment.
Do consumers care about sustainability?
Alter Eco’s sustainability messaging has always resonated with consumers and was a primary reason the company was able to earn early shelf space at Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market and other natural grocers, according to Bearden.
Over the years, he adds, sustainability has become more important to the company’s core shopper and younger consumers more broadly. Although, he notes, shoppers are not taking the company’s word for it.
“They want to see your receipts. We talk about this all the time: Show your receipts,” he said.
Alter Eco does this with “certifications galore,” including organic, Fair For Life, Gluten Free, Non-GMO, B Corp Certified, Carbon Neutral and Plastic Neutral, he said.
“We try to do everything the right way, but it is an extra step to get the certification, because you have to show your receipts. You have to show the transparency to the certifiers,” Bearden said. “There is a lot of greenwashing on the market today, and we just don’t subscribe to that and I think our consumers know that.”
This strategy is paying off for the company which Bearden said grew 20% in 2024 while the market grew only 6%.
Clean label becomes table stakes
Bearden says modern conscious consumers also place a premium on clean labels and knowing where ingredients are sourced and how – something Alter Eco easily checks.
“Somewhere around 30% to 40% of people will come up, pick up a bar and turn it around to look at the labels, look at he ingredients,” and what they see are simple, recognizable ingredients including organic cacao beans, organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter and, in the case of the company’s crunch bars, quinoa rice, he said.
“We don’t use palm oil. We don’t use artificial flavors. We don’t use artificial colors. We don’t use anything artificial,” he added.
Alter Eco is ready to go big for broader impact
After proving Alter Eco’s bona fides in the natural channel, Bearden said the company is now ready to expand its presence in more mainstream stores so it can grow its business and its impact.
“Alter Eco has long been one of the top performing chocolates in the natural channel, and we still are today. But if we truly believe we have the best chocolate in the world that does the greatest impact in restoring ecosystems and ensuring a clean and traceable supply chain, then why wouldn’t we want everybody to have access to it?” said Bearden.
That is why the company is exploring distribution in more conventional retailers – a move that would improve its growth and profitability, but also expand access to more sustainable food.
Bearden also notes the company is expanding its appeal by expanding its portfolio with multiple new products, including a trio of new bars launched earlier this year, including Coffee Brittle, a Sweet Ginger Truffle Thin and a Passionfruit Cream Truffle Thin.