Heard Around The Grove
By Blake Newcomer • March 23, 2026
Cleantech is about change. Even the best change, though, sometimes isn't designed to last.
This week's conversations hit on two themes that matter for anyone serious about systems-level change: food supply chain innovation and the behavioral science of getting change to actually stick. Let's dive in.
In this week's issue
- Food Tech's Hidden Opportunity
- Making Sustainability Behavior Change Real
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Inside the Meat Supply Chain with Dr. Gaurav Tewari and Anat Tewari
Apparently, I had no idea how meat supply works. My teachers this week was a good friend of mine and his son!
Dr. Gaurav Tewari, founder and CEO of Tewari Zero Ox Systems, has been thinking about almost nothing else for years. Anat, too.
The core issue is oxygen. The same enzymatic reaction that browns a cut apple happens to meat, only faster and at enormous industrial scale. Because no technology could previously extend the shelf life of centrally-cut retail meat beyond a few days, the entire global supply chain was built around a workaround:
- cut close to the point of sale
- ship in bulk
- fabricate downstream
The result is a six-step distribution system that wastes an estimated $3 billion annually in resource inefficiency alone, generates significant plastic waste through repeated packaging cycles, and still loses roughly 10% of product in transit.
Tewari Zero Ox Systems' patented process is a specialized film and sachet system that achieves absolute zero oxygen exposure. It extends shelf life of retail-ready cuts to 120 days. Dr. Tewari likens the shift to the move from renting DVDs at Blockbuster to streaming: a decentralized, inefficient system replaced by a centralized one.
The climate implications are real. Water, energy, and labor currently spent on redundant downstream fabrication operations around the world could be dramatically reduced.
Changing Change work: Dr. Jacqueline Kerr
As the founder of Leading Real Change & a background in behavioral science, Dr. Jacqueline Kerr has spent two decades figuring out what moves people.
Her framework is counterintuitive. Science alone doesn't drive action.
Kerr found this firsthand when years of research made it into city master plans that were never implemented. The shift came when she stopped presenting findings to policymakers and started building community groups who wanted change, showed it happening, and then invited decision-makers to witness it. Policymakers, she found, respond to constituents and to visible momentum rather than data.
The same logic applies inside companies. Frontline workers and suppliers are where real carbon and waste reductions happen. Compliance-focused sustainability programs that emphasize double materiality assessments and box-checking give those people no reason to engage and no tools to act.
Kerr's approach is to build capacity, identify the right messengers for specific audiences, and let communities lead on their own terms.
One of the best points is about framing. Talking about "green products" to a skeptical audience fails. Talking about energy independence through solar to someone with a different political identity opens a conversation.
The messenger and the message both have to match the audience — and sustainability professionals often make the mistake of making themselves both.
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With love, Blake
See you next week!
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