How 2 plant-based food activists turned a class project into a global nonprofit

Samantha Derrick, MPH 21, was taking entrepreneurship and food innovation classes at UC Berkeley Haas in 2020 when she met professional faculty member Will Rosenzweig, who teaches Edible Education 101.

For a final class project, Derrick, an advocate of how plant-based diets help the climate, improve human health, and prioritize animal welfare, pitched an idea to create a course on plant-based food systems. At the same time, Brittany Sartor, BS 21, was developing a similar course through the Berkeley DeCal Program.

Rosenzweig suggested the two collaborate, and they immediately hit it off.

“It was like serendipity,” said Derrick, who became a vegan at age 12. “We got on the phone and just immediately clicked.”

A year later, with Rosenzweig’s guidance, Derrick and Sartor founded Plant Futures, a nonprofit with a mission to build a plant-based curriculum, promote careers in the plant-based food industry, and develop Plant Futures chapters at campuses worldwide. Derrick is executive director; Sartor is program director. Rosenzweig, the co-founder and former CEO of The Republic of Tea who has taught social entrepreneurship at Haas since 1999, serves as board chair and faculty steward.

Plant Futures dubs itself a global movement, offering a 3-credit Challenge Lab for UC Berkeley students who work with companies like Califia Farms and Beyond Meat to develop solutions to challenges in the plant-based food industry. Last spring, they added a second course called Introduction to Plant-Centric Food Systems, open to UC students at all 10 campuses. 

The founders are also piloting a certificate program called Foundations of a Plant-Centered Future, which they believe is a better alternative to credit-based courses to make the curriculum widely accessible. The certificate also helps the team accomplish another goal: training leaders to launch careers at plant-based food companies. 

Rosenzweig views this work as vital. “There is incontrovertible evidence that plant-centered diets are fundamentally better for people and planet, and that accelerating the transition to a plant-centered culture and food system is the single most effective thing a person can do to counteract climate change,” he said. He added that college students are at a unique point in their lives where “discovering and adopting small changes to the ways they eat has massive impacts over a lifetime.”

An unmet need

Derrick and Sartor offered their first accredited UC Berkeley weekend course on plant-based food systems in 2020. With classes still being held remotely during the pandemic, they decided to open the course to all Berkeley students. They hoped 10 students would sign up. They ended up having to cap the class at 500.

“I said, ‘You know, Sam, that is a signal of an unmet need,’” Rosenzweig said. “That’s what entrepreneurs look for.”

Today, Sartor teaches two classes with Miyoko Schinner, founder of the plant-milk dairy company Miyoko’s Creamery and a cookbook author. To date, they’ve taught about 1,000 students. She is also helping to bring the curriculum to schools outside of Berkeley, working with nearly 100 student chapters. Chapter members are involved with everything from advocating for more plant-based food options at dining halls to volunteering at local farms. One chapter even started a farmer’s market on campus.

Sartor’s career stands in stark contrast to her experiences growing up. “On my dad’s side, my grandparents were cattle ranchers in Texas,” she said. “On my mom’s side, they were hunters in Upper Michigan. So I grew up with an understanding of how animal agriculture works in food systems—in not so positive ways.”

Sartor said her time at Haas helped prepare her for the business side of running a nonprofit. Classes with Rosenzweig and Alex Budak, a professional faculty member who teaches students how to become changemakers, stood out, as well as standard undergraduate classes in accounting and other critical business skills.

“My Haas courses taught me effective and compassionate leadership and how to make positive change wherever I am,” Sartor said. “They also challenged me to embrace failure, take risks, and get comfortable asking for advice from individuals who have been in my shoes.”

Derrick, who now lives in Mexico City, has led the initiative beyond Berkeley. Harvard and UCLA, for example, have adapted the Plant Futures curriculum to their own campuses. Derrick is also developing a course in Spanish and is hiring local staff to develop community relations in Latin America. This aligns with the original goal to cut across disciplines and universities to launch an entire movement, she said. 

A core component of Plant Futures is inclusion—no matter what a person chooses to eat. Though most of the team is vegan or vegetarian, many students are not. They’re drawn to the course because they know a plant-centric future is vital for climate and sustainability, Derrick said.

“Ultimately, the root of what we’re doing is systems change,” Derrick said. “Regardless of whether or not you’re vegan or vegetarian, we can all get behind the fact that we have to move toward more plant-centered food systems. Few people are talking about food systems in regard to climate, but the needle is finally moving.”