🛒 The Check-Out: Rebecca Ghim, The Ferm
🛒 The Check-Out: Rebecca Ghim, The Ferm
+ 5 cool climate events + what's in our basket - Dr. Bronner's x2, and pluots...!
Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of climate x consumer goods inspiration, and your discovery box of products and events the Following the Footprints team are loving this week. It’s great to have you here.
For the FTF team, some brands truly stick around as benchmarks of good business. We’re 170+ newsletters in at this point, but back in our youth (the newsletter 50-100 age, duh) one of the first brands we ever did a ‘brand spotlight’ on was The Ferm. It’s been amazing to see their journey since then, and learn from Rebecca’s determination and sharp observations on how to build a ‘waste management company that happens to sell kimchi’. Inspiring AND tasty AND better for the planet, a true FMCG triple threat.
After we chat to Rebecca, we’ll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week and 5 Climate x Consumer Goods events coming up. Let’s dig in…
> Brand Spotlight
🎙️ Behind the Brand: 6 Questions With Rebecca Ghim, Founder of The Ferm
👉 Hello! We’d love the non-LinkedIn lowdown on who you are, what your mission with The Ferm is, and what you were doing before you were making the planet cooler (both meanings intended)?
Before diving into entrepreneurship, I was a designer with a pronounced aversion to numbers and spreadsheets, traits I believed essential for business success. Two years in, I realised I'd unknowingly been cultivating a strong entrepreneurial foundation: curiosity, drive, problem-solving, networking, and pitching.
Growing up with farmer grandparents instilled a love of foraging. Today, I find joy in fermenting everything from kafirs, hot sauces, sodas to vinegars, nut cheeses and miso. This process, requiring full sensory engagement and presence, is a form of mindfulness. My ultimate goal is to inspire widespread appreciation for microbial fermentation. By introducing products like cauliflower leaf kimchi and empowering people to experiment with fermentation at home, I hope to honor the wisdom of the women who taught me these invaluable skills.
👉 Can you give us some context as to the food waste crisis in the UK?
WRAP estimates food waste arisings in the UK in 2021 at 10.7 million tonnes. Household food waste makes up 60% of the total, on-farm 15%, manufacturing 13%, hospitality and food service 10%, and retail 2% (source here). Although The Ferm works on rescuing from the farm, manufacturing, hospitality sector, the amount is significant as these parts are considered “inedible” rather than wonky or rotten. They are premium high quality parts that are very fresh, which is why we take these parts from this sector. To tackle household level waste, we will have to nudge the general public’s behaviours which can be led by brands, such as Oddbox, Rubies in the Rubble, Toast Ale, and hopefully The Ferm.
Our supply chain is built on colonialism and still is very extractive and exploitative socially and environmentally and most importantly, it is extremely inefficient. 8.4 million people in the UK are struggling to eat. 1.5 million adults in London and 400,000 children experience hunger - that’s in the capital of one of the richest countries in the world. The more control supermarkets have and the less farmers rights are protected, the more end users suffer due to food illiteracy and food deserts. On a global scale the food system generates between 25%-30% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and the agricultural supply chains uses 70% of global freshwater reserves. We have to aim for food justice, where good food is a right not a luxury.
👉 How does the process of developing a product that looks to stem food waste differ to the process for developing one that doesn’t?
The Ferm operates like a waste management company that happens to sell kimchi. The system is set up for virgin materials so it is much faster and cheaper to buy imported cabbages from Spain or China through wholesalers that bring it from New Spitalfield Market than to bring off cut leaves from a restaurant 20 minutes down the road from our site. The chilled logistics costs are just as high if not more expensive than buying the cauliflowers ourselves and using the leaves. We have to make the process as smooth and easy as possible to encourage chefs and farmers to donate their parts to us.
In terms of food hygiene and accreditation, health officers and policy makers aren’t used to unpasteurised fermented foods especially in the UK compared to Europe. The stigma against fermented foods is declining due to the works of Tim Spector, chefs, food influencers, nutritionists and more but combined with the stigma for rescued foods / upcycled foods, we have a lot to work against. The way to package the story of upcycled fermented foods will have to be very specific for the public to be open to it.
👉 You’ve run supper clubs, sell at farmers markets, and have invested in really showing a sense of community online for your brand. Why is this important to you?
Teaching workshops to share the joy of kimjang (kimchi making) brings the honor back to the women in my family who have taught me to ferment, cook and love food. Whereas supper clubs are an opportunity to showcase the unique ways to implement kimchi and other ferments into different dishes. Farmers markets are more of a research opportunity for me to get direct feedback from my customers, which is very crucial as a startup that can still pivot in small ways relatively easily. All of these avenues offer insights where the brand or myself can learn from.
👉 Ok, magic wand time; if we could grant you two wishes for the food industry, what would they be?
I wish that there wasn’t as much of colonial residue as we have. We have biases that Asian cuisine should be cheaper than european cuisine, which is seen as the standard of composition of how kitchens operate and how flavours are constructed. I also wish that supermarkets didn’t have as much of a monopoly in the UK, which leads to them manipulating the margins so much that producers don’t have any room for negotiation.
👉 Finally - We’d love some recommendations; one climate-related resource, one person to follow online and one consumer brand that’s killing it!
Bold Bean, Nibs Etc - They are both amazing brands that communicate sustainability with flavours to their customers very well.
Louise Grey - Her book Avocado Anxiety was a summary of all the concerns that modern food systems presents.
Ellen MarArthur Foundation - They have variety of programmes that offer insights in different industries. I have participated in the “From Linear to Circular” one, which have helped during the initial parts of my start up journey.
A huge thanks to Rebecca for jumping into the hot seat today!
> In Our Basket
🔎 What we loved and consumed this week:
From Lexi in San Diego: My Dr. Bronner’s soap literally does it all! It’s “ultra-concentrated” and appropriate for face, body, dishes, pets - the real question is what can’t you use it for? An added bonus is that my favorite supermarket has a refill bar with all the scents.
From Katherine in London: After seeing Lexi’s pick, I realized that I’ve been using Dr. Bronner’s organic peppermint sanitizing spray this whole time but didn’t make the connection that it was their product. It smells so good, is so light, and doesn’t leave a residue. Seriously recommend!
From Jenny in New York: Is anyone else inhaling stone fruit and savoring the final days of summer? I specifically ate lots of great pluots this season - the superior fruit hybrid, in my opinion - and love that they are less likely to get mushy than peaches or nectarines. Check my Google history for a ‘how many pluots is too many to eat’ query!
> Monthly Events Roundup!
📆 5 Consumer Goods x Climate Events:
Browse 30+ upcoming consumer x climate events, and submit yours.
13th September - A Low Carbon Food System Is Easier Than You Think
Organisers: Better Food Foundation and Plant Based Treaty
Location: Virtual
20th-22nd September - The Good Clothes Show
Organisers: Good Clothes Show
Location: National Exhibition Centre, Berlin
22nd September - Common Ground Screening @
Organisers: Sound Future, Envest
Location: New York
23rd September - Fusion Fashion Tech Summit
Organisers: Fusion Fashion Tech Society
Location: Fashion Institute of Technology, New York
25th September - Are best before and use-by dates still relevant? The potential of time-temperature indicators in the fight against food waste
Organisers: Food Campus Berlin, Hello Fresh
Location: Virtual
That’s it for today!
Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.
Hungry for more? You’ll see us on Monday! That’s when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.
Much love,
Team FTF