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Hungry for Change
Photo by Christina Gandolfo
As a management consultant at Kurt Salmon, Kate Flynn (MBA 2012) often worked with clients in the packaged food industry. She saw customers asking for healthier and more sustainable foods, and she herself was seeking better options. From that hunger, Sun & Swell was born in 2016.
“We started with the mission of bringing healthier foods to the world,” explains Flynn. But that ambition quickly expanded as she began to research the grocery and packaged food industry. Flynn came to believe packaged food isn’t only a detriment to the health of individuals; it also damages the health of the planet, with single-use plastic from food packaging clogging landfills. She envisioned her new company as the “Patagonia of the food industry.”
Today, Sun & Swell—a team of 10 based in Santa Barbara, California—sells pantry staples and snacks. All the ingredients in the foods are organic, vegan, and gluten-free. They are grown mainly in the United States, and most products come in compostable packaging (with a return service for those who lack a compost pile). In 2021, the commitment to composting kept about 50,000 plastic bags out of landfills, Flynn observes, citing a company metric of which she’s particularly proud.
The ultimate goal is to build a circular food system, in which you buy a good-for-you snack in a compostable bag and that bag turns back into rich soil to grow more food. “We hope to move the entire industry forward in the direction of compostable packaging,” Flynn says.
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