In this Q&A series, SFA News Daily focuses on the brand journeys of Specialty Food Association member companies who’ve grown from humble beginnings to achieve success in the specialty food world.
Nikhil Arora, co-founder of Back to the Roots, who with his college roommate launched the brand a decade ago, spoke with SFA News Daily about growing the company into the largest 100 percent organic gardening brand.
Tell me about your brand and how it came to be.
We started off as an organic farm. We found a way to grow organic mushrooms and coffee plants and spent our first three or four years after college just farming. We realized we wanted to help people grow their own food and farming, then, led to gardening.
Now, we're an organic gardening company. We have a whole line of organic soils, plant food, seeds, indoor growing kits, raised beds, and everything someone might need to start an organic garden from scratch and focus on the next generation of gardeners, people who maybe don't think they have a green thumb, and try to make it easy, fun, and sustainable. So that's been exciting.
What dearth in the market were you trying to fill?
When we were launching our gardening products, there was this huge void of tools, resources, and products for a new generation to learn how to grow their own food. You had your old legacy brand full of synthetic stuff that our parents were using. But for this next generation that maybe lives in smaller spaces and never grows anything, there's no one talking to them and creating products for them or their generation of gardeners. And that's what we wanted to focus on.
What set(s) it apart?
It's just that our North Star is the purity of our mission. We are so focused on organic and sustainability. We are the largest 100 percent organic gardening brand now. The commitment to sustainability is core. As well as this commitment to the next generation. We have a Grow One, Give One campaign for anyone to post a photo of what they grew with us. We donate kits and stem curriculums to classrooms of their choice and focus on and empower kids to learn about food too.
What was your dream for the brand back in the early days?
The beauty of the journey for us is that the ‘why’ of this brand has never changed. The ‘why’ around reconnecting families and kids back to their food and back to the land has never changed. When we were working on the farm, we would work out of urban areas, like Oakland, California. We had tons of tours and family groups come by and learn about what we were doing. That hasn’t changed.
The ‘why’ has never shifted, which is about reconnecting people to the land, but because that's been consistent, it's allowed our ‘what’ to adapt. From selling mushrooms to mushroom kits, hydroponic systems, soil, and seeds, our consumers and partners have gone through that journey with us because that North Star hasn’t shifted.
When did you realize the brand had made it? Was there an acquisition, were you sourced by a large chain, or was there some other event that led to your brand making it?
I'll say this is an entrepreneur: I've never thought of it that way, I don't really feel like we’ve made it right now. The fact that we, 10 years later, are able to do what we love with people we love and somehow the world wants to reward us, and we can then pay ourselves and pay our team to do this mission is so cool. This idea that we had is supporting our team and hundreds of partners and employees across the country. That's surreal sometimes, that the idea is supporting the livelihoods of so many people.
I think it's real when you see how we had five million people last year start organic gardens with Back to the Roots. That is something that shows we’re “making it,” but I don't think it's a definitive “we've made it.”
It’s an awesome journey wanting to do better and grow. I think the moment you think you’ve made it the journey stops being fun.
Are you still involved with the brand and playing a role in its success?
Alejandro and I are still co-CEOS, so we are actively working on everything. It's the entire mission that drives me. There are two things we think about: one of them is how do we put a garden in every home and every classroom, and the other is how do we get every one of those to be organic and stop the use of synthetic and toxic chemicals. We obsessed over those two North Stars everyday. That translates to all business functions—sales, marketing, product development, operations—but it could all level up to those two things.
How has it evolved?
It has evolved a ton. Now, I love the fact that where we are today, we have a whole line of indoor gardening products for people that maybe don't have a big backyard. Someone that has an apartment can still grow with us. I love hydroponic kits, microgreens kits, and mushroom kits, all for indoor small-space growing but then we also now have outdoor gardening solutions like seeds, soil, and fertilizers. That’s what gets me so excited about where we are today—the fact that we can really cater to anyone, no matter if they have a green thumb or a backyard. No matter what, you can grow something.
Is there anything more you’d like to share?
I was on the board of the SFA for four years. The organization is near and dear to my heart, and a huge part of our support system early on and gave us the chance to meet many of our retail partners. I think we’re a unique brand in that way because we are really a gardening company. What I love is that we think that food and gardening are on the same spectrum. How do you want to engage with it? Do you want to buy the carrot seed? Do you want to buy the carrot at produce, or do you want to buy the carrot juice?
But how do we get people to realize what real food is no matter where they come across it? No matter if they’re growing it themselves, or buying the produce, or buying it in package form, it’s all just food. Right now, people are so disconnected from real ingredients. What gardening should teach you is not to grow all the food you eat yourself. It’s that everything you buy in the grocery section, you should be able to recognize in the seed aisle. If you can't see it in there, don't eat it. It’s creating a connection between food and grocery, or grocery and garden, that is so powerful and gets me excited.
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