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Happy Hens, Happy Stakeholders, No Bullsh*t: Vital Farm’s Data-Driven Model for Impact Reporting with Andrea Chu

Andrea Chu, Director of Environmental, Social, and Governance at Vital Farms, joined us for an insightful Virtual Gathering. She broke down how Vital Farms defines its goals, measures progress, and shares impact through comprehensive, data-driven reporting.

Andrea highlighted three key takeaways to help Conscious Leaders create and formalize effective strategies that drive positive impact.


1. Understand Your Stakeholders for a Lighter Lift
Setting company goals often mirrors setting personal goals—considering the various aspects of life that matter most. For businesses, this process starts with identifying key stakeholders.

At Vital Farms, Andrea shared how they categorize stakeholders into six groups: farmers, shareholders and investors, the environment, the community, employees, and even their hens and cows. Grouping stakeholders in this way provides clarity and focus, forming a foundation for meaningful goal-setting.

As a publicly traded company, Vital Farms has published two impact reports to date. These reports serve as tools for storytelling, accountability, and evaluating how the business serves its stakeholders.

Since each stakeholder group has unique needs, Vital Farms customizes its metrics to go beyond financial considerations:

  • Environmental Impact: Measuring their carbon footprint and setting reduction targets.
  • Community Contributions: Tracking partnerships, philanthropy, and food donations.
  • Farmers’ Resilience: Focusing on regenerative agriculture practices to ensure long-term sustainability.

This stakeholder-centric approach helps Vital Farms maximize impact by prioritizing resources where they matter most—supporting farmers, delivering quality food, and minimizing their environmental footprint.

2. Involve Stakeholders to Set Realistic, Impactful Goals

Though Vital Farms has existed for 15 years, becoming a public company three years ago brought new challenges and opportunities. Andrea emphasized the importance of staying realistic about commitments and aligning them with internal capacity.


To achieve this alignment, Vital Farms:

  • Hold meetings with functional teams to understand supply chain capacity, farm support, and business objectives.
  • Benchmarks against companies they admire to identify areas for growth and to learn best practices in the food industry.

However, balancing sustainability and ethics with profitability is no small feat. Andrea explained the need to revisit the stakeholder model when introducing or modifying processes. Shareholders and investors remain a top priority: “If we aren’t making financial progress, everything else doesn’t work as well.”

For example, Vital Farms addresses climate goals through achievable, measurable targets, such as a greenhouse gas intensity reduction goal. This strategy balances financial growth with environmental responsibility by improving efficiency rather than setting unattainable absolute reductions.

3. Long-Term Strategy Leads to Greater Success
Vital Farms’ commitment to long-term planning is evident in their ambitious zero-waste-to-landfill goal for their primary processing facility. Achieving this involved:

  • Engaging employees to identify opportunities and challenges.
  • Narrowing an initial list of 20+ goals to five impactful priorities by asking critical questions:
    • Do we have the internal capacity to achieve this?
    • How does this benefit stakeholders?
    • Is this realistic given our financial constraints?

One example of their long-term focus is their investment in supply chain relationships. During the recent egg shortage, these strong partnerships allowed Vital Farms to maintain a steady inventory, avoiding the disruptions faced by competitors. Additionally, their traceability program builds consumer trust by enabling customers to see the exact farm their eggs came from via QR codes on packaging.


Andrea summed up Vital Farms’ philosophy: impactful change begins with understanding stakeholders and aligning long-term goals with both business needs and societal priorities. Their commitment to transparency, resilience, and strategic thinking exemplifies how profitability and sustainability can coexist, proving that conscious capitalism is both achievable and essential for success.


If you’d like to dive deeper into Andrea Chu’s insights, watch the full video here!