• 10 Min Read

6 to 6000

Brand Strategy
Information Architecture
Business Development
Management Consulting
User Experience Design
Brand Audit
Website Redesign
Modeling
Forecasting
Modeling Analysis
Cultural Predictions
Trend Research
// STORY
When Alice Waters presented us The Edible Schoolyard project we were beyond thrilled to work with her and her team. The world renowned chef and founder of The Chez Panisse Restaurant wanted to make a difference in people’s lives at scale, and they wanted our expertise to help them get there.

To take The Edible Schoolyard, an effort to increase accessibility to healthier living to kids’ schools, to a point where it could grow past the limitations a centralized system has when it comes to scalability and sustainability.
Standing in their way were:
Complexity/accessibility issues to tools and information for parents interested in getting their kids’ school to sign into the program.
Being locally tied, making it hard to expand the movement elsewhere.
Having a global scalable impact, easy to replicate and teach.
Limited reach & Local Administration sustainability.
// RESULTS
Desired but unexpected, that’s a way to describe the program’s growth after our work with them. From being in 7 schools in the first 10 years to almost 6000 schools now, it has been a pleasant surprise to witness The Edible Schoolyard reach and scale the way it has, now impacting 100s of thousands if not millions of lives in the years after our intervention. Almost a thousand fold growth.

Now the program reaches people across the globe making recipes, processes, tools and resources readily available to anyone who wants to further the cause… Allowing Alice’s original seed to grow tall and wide and building a brighter future for the generations to come.

This is a project we enjoyed dearly, where we used the internet for good, to create the change we want to see in the world. Allowing people no matter where they are, with The Edible Schoolyards’ principles as a guide to further a common mission.
// BEFORE
Web Identity, Design & Development
In their previous website there were significant barriers regarding information for parents thinking of replicating The Edible Schoolyard process in their kids’ schools and it was discouraging to even try…
  • There was too much to see at once when going into any specific topic you might’ve been interested in.
  • It was hard to understand… Hard to explain… And eventually hard to reproduce, to learn, and teach. Making it hard for the system to get the validation it needed.
  • A lack of priorization, everything everywhere making it hard to choose what to do or how to do it.
  • The information hierarchy got in the way of the user
// AFTER
Web Identity, Design & Development
The goal was to incorporate Alice Waters’ existing brand into a digital experience that was bespoke to The Edible Schoolyard. We had a lot of time with Alice and her teams to get a great idea of the different personas and bring them to life.

Met with the team in a highly collaborative dynamic, reviews with Alice every few weeks at critical touch points to ensure we captured the intent and design. Getting the ‘soul’ of the vision – worked out details with the team, found the heart with Alice.
We built a clearer and structured experience for the teachers and parents so they could intuitively go through a system that helps them overcome the obstacles they might encounter including the program into their curriculum. Improving access to building tools consistent with The Edible Schoolyard principles and education standards. It made it easy and relevant for them to share lessons and contribute to other teachers. A system constantly vetted by other people helping each other.
Website inspiration
// PROCESS
Strategy & User Experience
We had lots of fun working with Alice and her team turning their vision into a system replicable worldwide. We flew to Berkeley and felt immersed in their world. We got to know everybody at the Chez Panisse and The Edible Schoolyard, getting to understand who we were working with and why…
Then together, we went to the chalkboard and worked on:
Business Strategy - Market and user profiling.
Optimization for Scalability (of her values, her ideas, and her impact)
User Experience & Product development.
Self-sustainability, locally and globally.
And a methodology where the central, foundational standards and practices can be overseen, nurtured and simultaneously replicated across the board. This allowed other people to participate in healthy education, no matter where they were located, guided by the principles of the organization so they too could be part of the impact and mission.
To spend time in an Edible Schoolyard is to realize how much more is going on here than teaching kids how to garden or cook. Kids begin to learn about food in all its dimensions – as an edible medium of culture, science, ecology, and even social justice. The Edible Schoolyard is an eloquent and practical answer to some of the most pressing questions facing us as a society.
Michael Pollan
Journalist and Author.
Ryan Scot
Ryan Scot

AI Software and DevelopmentAI Software and Development

Barrett is really great at what he does. What is that? Everything. He just knows his stuff. He’s smart and insightful and has given my company a lot of great advice, as well as financial models, contacts, business model idea and a lot more. 

 

If you get the opportunity to work with Barrett at The_Groop, I recommend you do so.

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Ricky Ray Butler
Ricky Ray Butler

CEO at BENlabs / TubeBuddy - Passionate about entertainment, content, AI, deep learning, and blockchain

Barrett was an amazing asset to BEN during his time at the company. Barrett is always thinking outside of the box and his approach helped drive efficiencies, innovation and user satisfaction in the products and tools he lead in creating. Barrett is always looking to understand the “why” of the problem and create solutions solving the roots of the issues presented to him. A self-starter and thinker, Barrett looks for ways to improve the world and people around him, and rapidly adapts to market, business and individual conditions to overcome challenges. Barrett works fluidly across executive, staff and technical teams, creating vision and motivating action. 

 

Barrett’s creative leadership combined with his vast experiences, ability to articulate vision and an entrepreneurial approach enabled him to steward the execution of the product roadmap while creating and inspiring positive relationships across teams during his time with BEN.

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Jose Caballer
Jose Caballer

Designer, creative director, brand strategist, and Web3 community builder.

Barrett was instrumental in helping The Groop grow 100% year over year for 3 years. 

His ability to lead, teach, and service our clients all at the same time was key.

He supported our sales and business development efforts with great results. 

In addition, he worked with me and our teams to help document and systemize our service delivery. 

 

One of the bonus additions was the work we did together on product architecture and product leadership. We had the opportunity to work together on architecting various enterprise-scale applications and startups. 

 

It was an honor to work with Barrett and I look forward to collaborating again.

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Jose Caballer
Jose Caballer

Designer, creative director, brand strategist, and Web3 community builder.

Barrett was instrumental in helping The Groop grow 100% year over year for 3 years. His ability to lead, teach, and service our clients all at the same time was key.
He supported our sales and business development efforts with great results.
In addition, he worked with me and our teams to help document and systemize our service delivery.
One of the bonus additions was the work we did together on product architecture and product leadership. We had the opportunity to work together on architecting various enterprise-scale applications and startups.
It was an honor to work with Barrett and I look forward to collaborating again.
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