Beyond the Equator is built around 5 distinct pillars that drive our approach as a company and are at the core of our values. These five pillars are Curiosity, Adventure, Understanding, Innovation, and Introduction.
Curiosity
Curiosity is the strong desire to learn something and that sentiment drives our company’s vision as we strive to increase our knowledge of the world around us. We ventured to South America searching for better farmlands and new farming practices. Without the strong desire to learn and grow, we would have never gone Beyond the Equator.
Adventure
A sense of adventure is what drives someone to act upon their curiosities. Diving into the unknown can be uncomfortable, but it leads to incredible opportunities for understanding and growth. We acted upon our curiosity and started our adventure into the world of farming superfoods. Countless flights, long nights and mistakes along the way were part of an unforgettable journey that lead us to a much deeper understanding of adventure, culture, and most importantly – food.
Understanding
Our experiences in South America working with local farmers and indigenous crops taught us about the power of superfoods, especially chia seeds. Not only did we learn about their history and cultivation, but we learned that chia seeds are a complete protein and one of the most nutritionally dense foods on the planet. We analyzed the North American diet and realized superfoods like chia seeds were underutilized, which started us down the road to innovation.
Innovation
Truly innovative products solve a problem customers might not even be aware of yet. We noticed superfoods were not consumed as much as they should be in the North American diet and set out to find out why. We discovered that most people had in fact heard of them, and had a desire to incorporate them into their diet, but did not know how. We used this as an opportunity to create a new product – 5 Seed Butter – that takes a traditional product like peanut butter and smoothly integrates the nutritious superfoods we learned about in South America. In order to improve upon peanut butter one step further, we tackled another common issue – allergens. We made an effort to make our butters accessible to all buyers by refusing to use any of the top 8 allergens.
Introduction
Introducing new products to the world is never an easy task. We are focused on packaging what we’ve experienced, learned, and created into the most useful and enjoyable products for our consumers. We are also using our platform to introduce charities that we think are doing great work and to inform our community about sustainability initiatives.
We use these 5 pillars to guide our company and hope to inspire our community to incorporate Curiosity, Adventure, Understanding, Innovation, and Introduction into their daily lives.