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Lauren Tucker
Founder, reNourish Studio
Lauren Tucker is a principal consultant at Beyond the Farm, based in Los Angeles, California.45 She has extensive experience in the regenerative agriculture and sustainable food systems space:
Background and Experience
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Co-founder and former Executive Director of Kiss the Ground, an organization focused on soil health and regenerative agriculture6
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Currently leading reNourish studio, which works in collaboration with Farmer's Footprint to help food businesses thrive as regenerative enterprises12
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Involved in projects like the almond project, working on evolving growing systems in California's Central Valley23
Areas of Expertise
Lauren specializes in:
- Writing and editing
- Project coordination
- Event coordination
- Permaculture design
- Sourcing from farms5
Current Work
At reNourish studio, Lauren:
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Runs a program with 23 participants from various parts of the food system, including consumer packaged goods brands, certification organizations, nonprofits, investors, farmers, and startups2
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Focuses on shifting business models in the food industry towards more regenerative practices1
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Works on reframing understanding of regenerative agriculture and food systems2
Philosophy
Lauren emphasizes:
- Looking beyond soil carbon sequestration to address root causes of soil degradation1
- Viewing humans as keystone species with the potential to positively impact ecosystems1
- The importance of holistic thinking and evolving food business models12
Through her work, Lauren aims to drive systemic change in the food and agriculture sector, promoting regenerative practices that benefit soil health, ecosystems, and communities.
Highlights
Ending business as usual…
Are you at #expowest2024?
Hope to see you tonight at Regenerative Agriculture Dinner and Drinks at The Anaheim Packing District 7-10pm The Climate Collaborative HowGood Mad Agriculture GoodSAM, PBC White Leaf Provisions Farmer's Footprint Kiss The Ground Terra Genesis Simple Mills Regrow Ag
And, spend the afternoon with you on Thursday: 2:45-3:30 reNourish Studio panel "Ending Business as Usual" 4-5:30 The Almond Project Happy Hour
Join us for our panel with reNourish Studio participants called "Ending Business as Usual" on Thursday 2:45-3:30pm, Marriott, Grand Ballroom E. We're speaking about our work evolving our thinking and way we work so that our businesses can enable the evolution of our food system to better nourish all life. Megan Westgate Jesse Smith Heather K. Terry + Alexandra Shabtai. Details below!
https://lnkd.in/gJCqS3NN
https://lnkd.in/gNuhFqnt
Join The Almond Project happy hour 4-5:30 at booth #8605 Cappello's Simple Mills Justin's Daily Harvest White Buffalo Land Trust and learn about our mission to preserve natural resources, enable ecosystem regeneration, protect farming communities, and ensure the livelihood of nutritionally-rich almonds for generations to come.
Some light weekend reading, my most recent Medium post... https://lnkd.in/gzxD9R5v
A little over a decade ago, in February 2013, I sat in an airplane hanger at the Santa Monica Airport and listened to Graeme Sait speak about the link between healthy soils, climate, water, and nutrition. His talk was eye opening and inspirational. It was the spark that created Kiss the Ground, an organization that began with a group of friends meeting in Ryland Engelhart’s living room and later his garage office in Venice Beach. We had hope, that beyond cutting emissions we could participate in sequestering carbon and balancing the climate. And, the soil health, “regenerative agricultural”, movement has grown significantly with the combined efforts of my friends, colleagues, and folks all over the world. The world’s largest food companies and many governments are committing to regenerative agriculture, soil health targets, alongside their emissions reductions goals.
It’s a beautiful moment, and at the same time I believe that we have aimed for the wrong target. If we sequester a lot of carbon, do we bring about a food system that is nourishing to ecosystems, people, and communities alike? Do local food traditions thrive, does biodiversity increase, does our culture support people and planet thriving as one? No. Healthy soils are a fragment of the imperative work to be done.
The core of what I was inspired by that day with Graeme Sait, was that humans have a very key and specific role to play on the planet. We’re tenders of ecosystems. We have opposable thumbs, which means we can move mountains, plant forests, and divert watersheds. With this tending role that only we can uniquely play, we have a responsibility - toward which direction do we wield our power?
What if there is a more effective way to work on evolving our systems to enable life to thrive? What if food industry leaders were guided by an understanding of how living systems function and the unique role we can play in them, and stepped into leadership roles as agents of regeneration rather than extraction?
I’ve come to see regeneration as so much more than soil carbon sequestration. And, alongside an incredible group of food business leaders and colleagues, in reNourish Studio, we’re applying living systems thinking to find roles for our businesses in bringing about community scale regeneration, not just soil carbon.
Do you feel like the existing constraints of operating a business prevent you from meaningfully contributing to the shifts you know are needed in our food and agriculture systems? We are launching a second cohort in June 2023 and you are invited to join us: www.renourish.studio.
Learn more about how our thinking about regeneration and systems change is evolving as a result of reNourish studio in my most recent medium article.
#agriculture #food #culture #regeneration #foodsystems #foodsystemstransformation #expowest2023
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
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Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
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Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.