The S2G Podcast

Over the last three decades in the natural foods business, Seth Goldman has launched category-defining brands, navigated major acquisitions, scaled mission-driven supply chains, and brewed a whole lot of tea. In this “The Experts” episode, Chuck sits down with the founder of Honest Tea, PLNT Burger, Eat the Change, and Just Ice Tea to discuss what it takes to build a values-driven company in a crowded, ever-evolving food landscape. From label confusion to regenerative agriculture, navigating evolving food trends, simplifying product messaging, staying resilient through market shifts, and determining the right exit strategy, Seth unpacks the challenges and opportunities for...

To kick off Season Two and introduce one of our new formats—The Pitch—Chuck Templeton sat down with Coulter Lewis, founder and CEO of Sunday, just in time for spring. Sunday is on a mission to help yard owners around the country reconnect with their little patch of earth through smarter, safer lawn care. If you’ve ever stood paralyzed in the garden aisle, unsure of what to buy or how to apply those bags of soil and fertilizer, you’re not alone—and many of those traditional products are loaded with synthetic chemicals at concentrations up to five times...

Welcome back to the S2G Podcast! The podcast will still feature in-depth insights into the food and agriculture, oceans, and energy sectors but with a fresh twist. 

This season, we're serving up three different formats: The Pitch, The Experts, and The Seams. 

In “The Pitch,” we'll interview company leaders, focusing on their pitch to customers. You’ll get insights into how these guests have scaled their businesses by solving a distinct pain point and designing a unique value proposition that resonates with customers.

“ The Experts” will feature conversations with experts who will share in-dep...

If you are a retailer, CPG company, entrepreneur, investor, or just interested in the natural food space, we have a sugar-free, plant-based, adaptogen-rich, protein-packed treat for you. For our final episode of the season, we're excited to bring you a panel discussion from a webinar put on by Naturally Chicago, an organization doing amazing work to bring together the natural products sector through events, resources, and industry insights. The conversation featured panelists from SPINS, a company that helps brands, retailers, and their partners understand product data and shopper values to improve product innovation, and KeHE, a national food distributor...

How to describe Sam Kass? He’s a Michelin-star restaurant-trained chef, a White House Senior Policy Advisor, an investor, an author, and that’s just the shortlist. We are always talking about bringing industry-spanning stakeholders together, and when it comes to the food system, Sam has sat at so many of those tables. He brings this holistic perspective grounded in pragmatism and cautious optimism to everything he does–including this wide-ranging, eye-opening conversation. In this episode, Chuck Templeton chats with Sam about his unusual career arc, his moment of nutritional revelation as a young chef, how he went from cookin...

When the world seems so deeply divided, how can we step across barriers and preconceived notions to build avenues for conversation and collaboration? In this episode, Kaitlin Yarnall, Chief Storytelling Officer at National Geographic, argues that storytelling could hold the key.  National Geographic has become synonymous with eye-opening, awe-inspiring, perspective-shifting storytelling. They have been honing the craft for well over a century, telling stories that have helped to alter perceptions, build coalitions, pass legislation, and ignite movements. Kaitlin shares the components for effective storytelling, from the narrative elements to tapping into the right emotions and having a clear understanding o...

What do bioactives, aquaculture operations, and warehouses have in common? They can all be powered by AI. In honor of spooky season, we’re taking you on a cross-sector journey to explore a topic that can sometimes get a scary rep. We recently released a report that identifies use cases for AI across our focus sectors and evaluates the challenges and opportunities to see where AI can drive significant business value and environmental benefits. In this episode, we’ll hear from Vikram Sharma, operating partner at S2G, about the findings from the report and the opportunities for cross-sector coll...

In this episode, we’re digging into successful strategies for corporate innovation with Audre Kapacinskas, Principal of Corporate Development at S2G, and Ryan Smith, Chief Growth Officer and Executive Vice President at Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition, a multinational food and biotechnology company focused on seasonings. Audre shares five takeaways from over 600 conversations with corporates about driving effective innovation in the face of significant challenges to making the kind of rapid, large-scale progress needed to meet global sustainability commitments. Audre then speaks with Ryan about how Ajinomoto encourages innovation and utilizes the company’s distinct advantages as well as nove...

Many cities, such as San Francisco and New York, are passing policies to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. However, one of the biggest challenges to the adoption of EVs is the lack of fast charging stations. Revel, a company formally known for its fleet of rentable electric mopeds, is currently focused on transforming the EV charging landscape in urban areas. In this episode, Chuck Templeton sits down with Revel’s co-founder and CEO, Frank Reig, to explore the company's evolution from electric mopeds to a pioneering urban EV rideshare and fast-charging network, and Revel’s strategy to tackle the...

This week we launched a report called The Climate Finance Relay Race. It explores how asset owners are navigating climate investment and their rationale for their approach. We believe the most impactful and perhaps swiftest approach to designing a fit-for-purpose capital market system is partnership with asset owners. The idea of the “climate finance relay race,” is that the handoff of risk and reward across parties can better enable asset owners to underwrite more productive and less volatile economies.

To complement the report, we are excited to share this conversation between S2G managing part...