The Future of Sustainable Foods
In our October post, we shared an introduction to some of the incredible new team members who are helping make our work across our three business models a reality. As we come even closer together with The Urgent Company, we wanted to share the perspective of the incredible woman working to expand Brave Robot into indulgences beyond ice cream, and her perspective on the future of sustainable eating.
By August Vega
I recently joined The Urgent Company team as President of Brand for Brave Robot. I started my CPG career by founding a brand called MALK, a plant-based alternative to dairy. Over the course of eight years, I grew MALK from my home kitchen into a national brand, built my own scale manufacturing, and brought in significant investment. Late last year, I passed the leadership on to a new CEO and took some time to consider where I could go next that might have the most impact. I had to think about what is most important to me in my life, and it’s this: to help drastically reduce the impacts of climate change so that my son has a brighter future for himself and generations to come.
Prior to founding MALK, I worked in clean tech, using technology to reduce energy and water usage in efforts to lessen our daily impacts and reduce carbon emissions. My passion has always been in sustainability, health and wellness, and animal welfare. The passion, which took me from my career path in sustainability to creating my own line of products, is the same passion that led me to my new role within Brave Robot. When the opportunity presented itself, I wanted to assess what kind of impact I could have by joining the Brave Robot brand team, where the goal is to provide a better way of making food and reduce the environmental impacts which we can no longer ignore. It came to me: my entire career has been dedicated to sustainability, and this opportunity perfectly combines both my CPG background and experience in the tech-forward sustainability space.
Perfect Day’s innovation for a kinder, greener tomorrow is the mission I’ve been on for years. After learning more about the production process and precision fermentation, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to work for a brand that could extend the impact of the work I’ve been doing by making products consumers love, with a smaller footprint.
It may seem like a leap for my journey to move from plant-based milk to dairy ice cream (made without the cow), but I see it as the right next step for addressing the urgency of the work I’m doing, and the incredible innovators I get to work alongside. My core motivation is to create opportunities for consumers to have better and more sustainable options. With Brave Robot, we’re remaking dairy itself through safe and proven fermentation techniques using microflora, similar to how many common food components like vitamins, probiotics, and enzymes are made. Because the process is much cleaner and more resource-efficient than factory farming, our products are better for all and for future generations. And because it’s dairy ice cream, just without the cow, it’s easy for consumers to switch to animal-free dairy without having to make a taste sacrifice.
I’m thrilled to bring my passion for sustainability and consumer products into the food tech space, where we’re able to harness the best in bioengineering to create the most delicious foods. And I hope my contributions can help us continue to scale at a pace which addresses the urgency of the mission we’re pursuing.
If we don’t approach the problem of climate change from every angle possible, it will continue to snowball. We will run out of solutions. And in my work with Brave Robot, I’m so excited to join a team that’s creating a pathway for consumers to make incremental changes that will lead to an actual impact on climate change.
