Case Study: Hellmanns
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation, Philanthropic Advising, Policy Engagement
The Goal
Hellmann’s is Unilever’s $2 billion mayo brand with the purpose to inspire and enable 100 million people around the world every year to be more resourceful and waste less.
The Hellmann’s brand team reached out to Littlefoot about their Make Taste, Not Waste campaign as a way to learn more about the problem of food waste and to gain credibility and partnership within the food waste ecosystem. Understanding their brand power, Hellmann’s goal was to create a comprehensive strategy that went beyond just traditional marketing tactics.
The Impact
Leveraging her food waste knowledge, Eva guided the Hellmann’s North America leadership team through a series of strategy sessions to help them first understand the current food waste landscape (drivers, solutions, key players) and then went on to create a three-pronged strategy to build on their existing marketing and consumer campaigns.
As lead technical strategist for all of Hellmann’s North America marketing campaigns, Eva worked across the brand, marketing, public relations and legal teams to edit all materials including press releases, talking points and interviews, and social media and web content to include relevant food waste facts and original data calculations and data visualization. Highlights also included contributing to the LVI SuperBowl commercial script and its accompanying “Fridge Night Challenge” app. The SuperBowl commercial alone resulted in 6.6 billion impressions, with Hellmann’s doubling its projected sales goals within a week post-game day.
Eva developed Hellmann’s strategy for its philanthropic giving portfolio, resulting in over $1M in grants to nonprofits, furthering the company’s commitment to community involvement.
Littlefoot crafted Unilever’s federal policy engagement strategy and helped shape their work with Unilever’s lobby team, Signal Group, to re-introduce the The Food Date Labeling Act, a bipartisan bill to address food date label confusion, one of the largest drivers of consumer food waste.
Case Study: Matriark
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation
The Goal
Anna Hammond, CEO of Matriark Foods, has a long history and years of experience in farmer engagement and nutrition nonprofit space. With this perspective, she sought to create more value and more affordable options from fresh produce surplus by creating a series of low-sodium, upcycled, vegetable-based broths and sauces.
One of Matriark’s major challenges in starting an upcycled food business was trying to establish the right narrative and value proposition of such a unique offering to attract both consumers and investors who may not understand the complexities of off-spec and upcycled offerings.
The Impact
Littlefoot has worked with Matriark Foods since 2018, helping new product ideation and designing the brand narrative strategy to support the fundraising and sales processes.
At less than five years old, Matriark is a verifiable leader in the upcycled space, securing nearly $1M in funding and engaging top foodservice and retail partners including Kroger, Google, Whole Foods and Compass Group.
In 2021, Matriark Foods was peer-selected by the cohort of The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger Zero Waste Foundation Innovation Fund to receive an impact investment of $250,000.
Case Study: Private Family Foundation
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation, Philanthropic Advising & Capacity Building
The Goal
- Littlefoot Ventures worked with a private family Foundation founded by pioneer funders who work to address social, economic, and environmental concerns, both locally and globally.
- Knowing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030, this Foundation saw this as an opportunity to contribute and make a difference within the food waste space.
- They reached out to Littlefoot to help them take a more strategic approach to identifying which food waste organizations they can make a lasting impact on.
The Impact
- Littlefoot was tasked with creating this Foundation’s 10 year giving strategy for their food waste and environment portfolio. Eva worked closely with the Foundation’s leadership team to understand their goals, vision and the impact they hope to achieve in the next decade. The result was a 21-page giving framework, which defines their now-evergreen funding strategy for the next decade as well as high level priorities and opportunities.
- In less than 12 months from developing the strategy, it resulted in the deployment of $2.5M in grants to 13 organizations to change consumer environments and reduce food waste.
Case Study: BLUE STRIPES
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation
The Goal
Blue Stripes, a pioneering CPG brand upcycling the entire cacao fruit into high quality cacao-based products such as chocolate and granola, sought to define and communicate its unique value proposition in the competitive and emerging upcycled food space.
The company needed a cohesive narrative strategy to elevate its positioning, resonate with consumers, and support a strategic pitch for endcap placement at Whole Foods.
The Impact
Littlefoot Ventures developed a clear narrative strategy and messaging framework that articulated Blue Stripes’ financial, social, and environmental value.
We also created a high-impact Whole Foods presentation, positioning the brand as a leader in sustainable innovation.
The work strengthened brand storytelling and contributed to securing a $20M Series B round led by Whole Foods and Hershey’s.
Case Study: BRIGHTLY
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation, Philanthropic Advising & Capacity Building
The Goal
Brightly, a carbon credit company working at the intersection of food rescue and climate action, saw an opportunity to sharpen its value proposition and storytelling to unlock greater demand from corporate buyers. As they looked to scale their impact, the team recognized the need for clearer, more consistent messaging and stronger sales tools to accelerate growth and demonstrate the value of further marketing investment.
The Impact
Littlefoot Ventures delivered a clear messaging framework, refreshed sales materials, and updated website copy to sharpen Brightly’s story and elevate its value to corporate buyers.
The new tools boosted buyer engagement, enabled more strategic sales conversations, and gave leadership confidence to invest in marketing—positioning Brightly for growth and deeper climate impact.
Case Study: CHEF ANN FOUNDATION
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation
The Goal
We partnered with the Chef Ann Foundation—an organization committed to advancing whole-ingredient, scratch-cooked school meals that boost student health and support local economies—to strengthen its positioning for philanthropic growth.
This included developing a strategic landscape report analyzing peer nonprofits and sector trends, creating a targeted funder prospecting list, redesigning the organization’s core 4-pager for funder engagement, and facilitating high-value introductions to potential partners.
The Impact
The Chef Ann Foundation leveraged the funder prospecting list to strategically expand its fundraising efforts, deepening relationships with aligned philanthropic partners.
The redesigned 4-pager enhanced their outreach materials, helping the team more effectively communicate their mission and value to potential funders—ultimately supporting their continued growth and impact in transforming school food systems.
Case Study: FMI & FWRA
Services: Multi-stakeholder Coalition Building
The Goal
As a founding organization and co-convener of the Food Waste Reduction Alliance (FWRA), The Food Industry Association (FMI) sought to revitalize FWRA’s momentum and reestablish its role as an active leader in the food waste reduction ecosystem following several years of limited progress. FMI aimed to strengthen FWRA’s effectiveness and position the retail sector as a key driver of coordinated, high-impact food waste reduction. To do so, FMI engaged Littlefoot to identify strategic, retail-specific opportunities where FMI and FWRA could add unique value without duplicating existing food waste initiatives.
The Impact
Littlefoot conducted a focused sprint to assess FMI and FWRA’s strategic direction and identify high-impact leadership opportunities in the food waste space. Through targeted interviews with members of FMI’s Sustainability Executive Committee, Littlefoot surfaced key strengths, priorities, and gaps across the retail food waste landscape. These insights were translated into clear strategic recommendations and an actionable implementation roadmap that brought renewed clarity, alignment, and momentum to FMI’s work, laying the foundation for sustained leadership in food waste reduction across the retail industry.
Case Study: SYSCO
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation
The Goal
Sysco, a multinational food service provider, sought to advance its sustainability leadership within the foodservice industry by translating its ambitious sustainability commitments into clear, high-impact action pathways that strengthen its ability to identify, prioritize, and scale sustainable food innovations while also equipping teams to drive customer engagement, adoption, and more sustainability-aligned supply chains.
The Impact
Through internal stakeholder interviews, Littlefoot aligned Sysco’s sustainability goals with customer priorities and designed an action-oriented workshop framework that links customer engagement directly to supply chain implementation. Alongside this, Littlefoot developed a refreshed innovation scanning and prioritization framework (supported by a curated innovation pipeline) that enables Sysco to focus on the highest-impact opportunities through a clear, repeatable process, thereby strengthening its leadership in sustainable foodservice and increasing value for customers working to meet their own sustainability commitments.
Case Study: National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods AssociatioN
Services: Messaging and Impact Narrative Development
The Goal
NFRA engaged Littlefoot to help activate its membership around food waste by clearly demonstrating how the frozen and refrigerated foods industry, and the cold chain more broadly, can play a critical role in reducing waste while simultaneously driving category growth and delivering greater value to shoppers. Building on NFRA’s existing strengths in market data and consumer insights, the engagement translated food waste from an abstract sustainability issue into a strategically relevant, industry-specific opportunity that connects environmental and social impact with business performance.
The Impact
Littlefoot developed a narrative-driven Food Waste Insights Report tailored to the cold chain and NFRA’s members, synthesizing data, trends, and real-world examples into actionable guidance for cold chain stakeholders. The work strengthened the business case for food waste reduction, and positioned frozen and refrigerated foods as a frontline solution.
Case Study: Gellert Global GROUP
Services: Strategy Development & Implementation
The Goal
Gellert Global Group, a food importer and distributor, manages high volumes of imported food products and regularly confronts inventory nearing spoilage. While resale channels such as Spoiler Alert deliver strong recovery value, Gellert suspected it was leaving additional value on the table through under-optimized donation and tax processes. Gellert engaged Littlefoot to identify where value was leaking and how to streamline donation workflows to unlock measurable financial gains.
The Impact
Littlefoot mapped Gellert’s existing donation and tax workflows to identify gaps, bottlenecks, and missed opportunities for value capture, translating these insights into a clear framework that highlighted unrealized financial upside and practical paths forward. The engagement enabled Gellert to identify immediate, actionable opportunities to reduce food waste and capture lost value, providing greater financial clarity and internal alignment without requiring extensive data pulls or additional strain on internal teams.
Case Study: r4
Services: Messaging and Impact Narrative Development
The Goal
With a goal to grow the adoption of its AI-driven SMART Food Program, r4 Technologies was looking to clarify how its platform creates value for retailers and partners, strengthen its outreach efforts, and improve relationship-building across the industry to turn a proven technology into messages that are easy to understand, relevant, and compelling for new customers.
The Impact
Leveraging Eva’s narrative expertise and deep retailer network, Littlefoot supported the development of retailer-ready messaging materials and outreach approaches, identified and activated opportunities to engage retailers and trade association partners, and provided strategic preparation for industry events. Through close collaboration with r4’s leadership team, we helped sharpen the company’s strategic positioning with priority accounts, contributing directly to new client onboarding and accelerating r4’s growth as a trusted technology partner in food waste reduction and food access.
Case Study: US Food WAste pact (Refed/wwf)
Services: Multi-stakeholder Coalition Building
The Goal
The U.S. Food Waste Pact sought to accelerate progress toward SDG 12.3 by translating its “Target–Measure–Act” framework into a clear, cohesive 3–5-year strategic plan and an external roadmap guiding action through 2030. With the 2030 deadline fast approaching, the Pact needed guidance from an experienced partner to strengthen its strategic clarity, sharpen its value proposition, and ensure that its growing coalition of businesses, funders, and partners could move from alignment to sustained, high-impact action.
The Impact
Littlefoot helped the U.S. Food Waste Pact develop a clear, implementation-ready strategy and external roadmap by benchmarking peer initiatives, assessing internal capacity, and gathering input from key stakeholders. The resulting framework clarified the Pact’s value for businesses, solution providers, policymakers, consumers, and funders; established a practical approach for prioritizing new initiatives; and strengthened governance and decision-making. These activities provided a flexible, long-term foundation to guide coordinated action and accelerate food waste reduction through 2030.
Case Study: Sharing excess
Services: Messaging and Impact Narrative Development & Fundraising Support
The Goal
As Sharing Excess looked to powerboost its fundraising strategy in order to expand nationally and grow its technology-enabled model for bridging surplus and scarcity, it engaged Littlefoot to help clarify its narrative, build funder-ready messaging, and identify aligned funding opportunities to support its next phase of growth.
The Impact
Littlefoot assessed Sharing Excess’s grant strategy and developed a reusable messaging bank covering core themes including sustainability, equity, innovation, and systems change. The engagement also included vetting and connecting Sharing Excess with a mission-aligned grant writer, curating a tailored list of prospective funders with strategic guidance for engaging them, and facilitating warm introductions to aligned funders. Together, this work provided Sharing Excess with greater clarity and confidence in funder outreach, strengthening its ability to secure support for scaling food rescue and technology-driven solutions to food insecurity.