At Land to Market, our approach to traceability and integrity relies fundamentally on creating and fostering strong relationships with all stakeholders. We build trust between farmers, supply chain actors, and brands; monitor supply chains with one central tracking system; and report relevant impact data to brands. This is how we ensure integrity behind the Land to Market seal on products — whether it's a ribeye or leather boot.
Trust and strategic partnerships are key to making this whole regenerative movement work. Beyond trust in partners to trace, document, and segregate the verified products during processing, Land to Market Supply Chain Partners are essential in setting up viable and scalable supply chains for brand members. This is why we've chosen not to charge our Supply Chain partners for membership or certificates. After vetting potential partners, we create a formal agreement with mission-aligned suppliers who have proven their ability to segregate products and have agreed to complete the required chain-of-custody documents for Land to Market. Then we work together to meet our mission of scaling verified regenerative products by creating strategic, scalable, and turn-key solutions for brands.
We have also implemented a central tracking system to ensure that each node of the supply chain is documented and that volumes of products are analyzed and reviewed continuously to minimize the risk of fraudulently verified products ending up on shelves. Fraud can be a problem for any product with an attribute claim. Having worked with many sustainability certifications during my career, I was exposed to how various systems designed to track product attributes left gaps where potential fraud could occur. The Land to Market integrity system was designed with the intention to minimize these loopholes as much as possible. First, we hold one ledger for all verified products. We do not rely on certification bodies or administer transaction certificates. From my experience, transaction-based certificates work well when the entire supply chain is certified, yet that is often not the case because of the additional fees and burdensome layers of administration. With these more traditional certification schemes, companies may rely on documents from a supply chain actor in the middle of the chain (e.g., a yarn spinner) to prove the material (e.g., yarn) has a certain attribute (e.g., organic fiber or recycled content). The risk is that it makes it difficult to know that the material indicated on the certificate was used in the final manufactured product. This system still relies on trust in the supply chain partners but gives the appearance, through nothing more than a document, that the risk has been eliminated. Unfortunately, this can lead to fraud and the payment of premiums on materials that don't carry the attribute a brand is paying for.
Our integrity program makes the supply chain traceability data highly relevant to brands by pairing it with ecosystem impact reporting. The Land to Market seal shows that a product was made with ingredients or raw materials from regeneratively raised livestock that directly supported positive impacts on the ecosystem from which they were sourced. When brand members source verified Land to Market products, they receive a traceability report showing each supplier and processor of the supply chain, a complete supply chain volume reconciliation, and the aggregated Ecological Health Index of the farms they supported. Our program does not just promise transparency, but we deliver on it with supply chain mapping and impact reporting so that customers can trust that the Land to Market products they see in the marketplace have the highest integrity behind them.
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