Conscious Alliance Celebrates 20 Years of Feeding People in Need
Creativity Fuels the Group’s Evolution
On December 30, 2021, the Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes, displacing thousands of families. Just a few miles away in Broomfield, Colorado, sits Conscious Alliance’s 10,953-square foot distribution center and headquarters — and they were ready to jump into action.
Since its founding 20 years ago, Conscious Alliance has rallied people together to fight hunger. In 2002, brothers Justin and Evan Baker stood outside Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium, exchanging an artist-donated String Cheese Incident concert poster to music fans in exchange for a few cans of food. The University of Colorado students thought they could rally other young music fans to fight hunger. They were right.
Flash forward to December 31, 2021: Conscious Alliance team members rallied a support operation in response to the fires. They brought healthy salads to firefighters in the field. World Central Kitchen, their pandemic delivery partner, flew in to help more than 70 restaurants supply meals. Conscious Alliance staff and volunteers delivered meals — more than 10,000 in the first two weeks — to displaced residents. Conscious Alliance’s effort continued through its We Got This initiative, bringing displaced families everything from air mattresses to gift cards.
In the past 20 years, Conscious Alliance has fed more than 8.8 million meals to kids and families in need. With its roots in music and art, creativity fuels the group’s evolution. From food drives at concerts, the nonprofit helps brands simultaneously fight food waste and hunger.
“We’ve stopped 1.7 million pounds of food from going into landfills in 2021 alone,” says Justin Levy, executive director, who began working with Conscious Alliance after he met the Baker brothers outside a concert in 2004.
“They realized they had something going on,” Levy says. The brothers drove the food to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Justin Baker, a religious studies major, had spent time learning about native traditions. When Justin Baker asked Oglala Lakota elder Floyd Hand how he could help the community, Hand said, “If you want to help our people, help feed our people.” One of the most economically isolated communities in the country, the reservation is about the size of Connecticut, yet it has only one single full-service grocery store. A six-hour drive from the Boulder County natural products mecca, the average life expectancy at Pine Ridge is 48 to 52 years.
With donations gleaned from “Art that Feeds” food drives around the country, Conscious Alliance began making regular food deliveries to the cities where bands performed. The group worked with musicians like Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson, The Dead, and STS9 to inspire young people to join in the fight against hunger.
“We spent a lot of time going cross country in Penske trucks,” Levy says. And, back in the days when squeeze packs were just for ketchup, Justin Gold of Justin’s joined the effort, donating the nut butters his company made. “That was back when we were just two employees in my living room,” Levy says.
In 2008, Whole Foods donated products valued at $1 million to Conscious Alliance and expanded the group’s operations by distributing truckloads of large-scale donations from natural brands.
“We met (Plum Organics CEO) Neil Grimmer, who immediately picked up the phone and began calling B Corp businesses to come on board,” Levy says. “Suja Juice gave us our own flavor.”
Conscious Alliance headed into Expo West 2015 with partners Justin’s, Plum, and Suja to launch one of the country’s first school backpack programs featuring natural and healthy products. By the time they left, Boom Chicka Pop, KIND, and Organic Valley were on board. Traditional programs fill students’ backpacks with foods containing high amounts of sugar, sodium and artificial ingredients. Kids at Pine Ridge — all of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch — went home with nut butter, fruit and veggie pouches, and health tips.
Not long after, something clicked for Levy. Conscious Alliance had deep knowledge and processes around logistics, while brands had products they couldn’t sell at stores.
“Let’s create a value proposition for them. Let’s reinvent the food system,” Levy says.
The team took that value proposition and the “good will of Justin Gold and Neil Grimmer and other folks and started picking up close-to-code products and began delivering them to kids and families who needed them,” says Levy. “It began with 300 meals, then 700…then 1.2 million to 2.6 million meals delivered during a pandemic.”
Today, Conscious Alliance works with over 65 brands to keep food out of the landfills and put it in the hands of families in need across the country. The group feeds students at all 15 schools on the Pine Ridge Reservation and fills bellies across the country with its backpack programs and large-scale donations, after natural disasters and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, ALOHA, makers of plant-based protein bars, joined the organization to fight hunger among students in the Chicago Public School System, where 1 in 6 kids is food insecure. ALOHA issued a call-to-action for other natural brands; 15 joined.
“Day in and day out, the Conscious Alliance team puts out unequaled energy and kindness,” says Tricia Leone, director of partnerships and marketing at ALOHA. “They inspire us each day and we are proud of our partnership to support the Chicago Public School program as well as contribute to their overall mission.”
ALOHA CCO Amy Boyer says, “Partnering with them is personal; our employees feel engaged and can see the direct impact we are having, which makes our connection even more powerful.”
In 2022, ALOHA and Conscious Alliance built on their successful partnership with TAP IN, a hunger relief initiative that took place in March (B Corp Month) and empowered the B Corp community and other like-minded brands to “tap in’’ with available resources so, together, they could reduce food waste and feed more people. Over eight truckloads were filled with healthy food and essential goods that are currently being distributed nationwide.
The organization’s ability to make connections across and beyond the CPG and music industries has been key to its success.
“Celebrating 20 years as a nonprofit is spectacular,” says Andy Fyfe, director of Equitable Growth, B Lab US & Canada. “B Lab is a nonprofit and we’ll admit: Nonprofits and government are insufficient alone to tackle the most severe issues our communities and planet face. It takes partnership across sectors. Conscious Alliance does this so well and we applaud ALOHA and all the other brands who step up for hunger relief with Conscious Alliance. Nobody should be hungry today. It’s our collective obligation.”
One in 6 children in America are food insecure. “No 7-year-old deserves to go hungry,” says Levy. “We welcome everyone, from the smallest brand to the biggest… as a community let’s keep dreaming, let’s keep building, let’s keep creating and let’s keep making an impact.”
Adapted from an article that originally appeared on New Hope Network. Gagan (Jared Levy) is the founder of Guru Media Solutions. Guru is at the forefront of a range of systemic movements within the natural products industry, working on such initiatives as new certifications for JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), Net Zero Packaging, and the Climate Collaborative. Guru is dedicated to helping Conscious Alliance partner with incredible, values-aligned natural products brands to transform what would end up as food waste into hunger mitigation.
B The Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
