Industrial hemp has traditionally been a ‘super crop’ for many of the great civilisations, tracing its roots back to India, China, and many other regions for its use as paper, rope, textiles, food etc. The industry has been held back by misconception and has recently in the last decade started to see a re-emergence as one of the most nutritional sources of vegan protein from its seeds, with its stalk material used as a long-term biogenic store of carbon, reducing emissions for concrete, insulation and plastics. With the shifting attitude of people towards hemp products, Suneet Shivaprasad, Jamie Lewis, and Stephen Wong formed an entrepreneurial trio to start Rare Earth Global, a climate tech venture focussed on sustainable alternatives made of hemp.
ROOT OF AN IDEA
Suneet Shivaprasad, co-founder and Chief Operating & Technology Officer, Rare Earth Global throws light on the journey of the trio. “We started the brand to be able to develop new products from hemp and scale industrial quantities to enable people globally to benefit from the nutritious qualities of the seeds and replace scope 3 emissions in some of the most polluting industries with a sustainable alternative made from the hemp stalk.”
Speaking of the how they came on the name, he added “When starting the brand, the fact that hemp roots also remediate (regenerate) soil stuck with us. It was Rare to find Earth (soil) that hadn’t been over farmed. By introducing hemp at scale we were tackling the problem of over farming. We would be helping farmers to remediate soil and produce nutritious and sustainable products.”
The road to success is rarely smooth. Shivaprasad, Lewis, and Wong also faced speed breakers in the initial days. “The biggest challenge we faced is with education about hemp. We found that introducing hemp’s use as a textile, bio composite or food enables people to do their own research. Inevitably they come back to speak with us, with incredible excitement at the potential of hemp. Beyond that, the focus has been on accelerating the understanding of how to optimise the growing of the crop, the most efficient ways of harvesting and processing, and building the foundation to scale the crop price competitively (that works for both the farmers and our customers),” he continues.
The trio managed to overcome these challenges by innovation- creating new products and working with established farming co-operatives as well as infrastructure/engineering partners to ensure scale is possible.
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