Royal Canin and Roquette co-fund regenerative wheat farming in France

Royal Canin and its wheat supplier Roquette will co-fund regenerative farming on the French farms that supply both of them, with Soil Capital running the program.

Soil Capital says it covers around 60 farms and 4,700 hectares in a shared French wheat supply shed. It calls this the first time a downstream buyer and its upstream supplier have co-invested in the same farms.

Roquette supplies wheat to Mars-owned Royal Canin, according to AgFunderNews.

Soil Capital says farmers receive 70% of the value of each investment. Reductions and removals are quantified under ISO 14064-2, with an independent annual audit by TÜV Rheinland.

Two accounting methods now share one dataset

The two companies count emissions differently. Royal Canin uses economic allocation, common in pet food, while Roquette uses mass allocation, common in starch processing. Their figures are not directly comparable.

Soil Capital runs the same farm-level data through both systems, so each company keeps its own method. Luc Beerens, global director for sustainable sourcing at Royal Canin, told AgFunderNews, "What you need is a third party that has a robust MRV [monitoring, reporting, and verification] framework that is compliant to external guidelines."

Magali Amouroux, sustainability manager at Roquette, told AgFunderNews, "We believe that a joint investment model is the most effective way to drive large-scale adoption of regenerative agriculture." She said sharing costs and value across the supply chain reduces the financial burden on farmers.

Roquette is a family-owned company founded in 1933 in Lestrem, France, and now based in Lille. It processes more than six million tons of corn, wheat, potato and pea a year into more than 700 plant-based ingredients, per its company history page.

The wheat deal sits inside a bigger Royal Canin program

Farm counts differ by program. Soil Capital puts this co-investment at around 60 farms, and AgFunderNews reports more than 60. The 250-plus farms Soil Capital cites belong to Royal Canin's wider program, which it says produced verified estimates of more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2e in reductions and removals over 2023 to 2025.

In a January review, Royal Canin and Soil Capital said all of Royal Canin's French cereal volumes, more than 75,000 tonnes, are covered.

They reported more than 250 farmers on nearly 60,000 hectares. They also said €11M will be paid back to farmers over five years.

Royal Canin announced the partnership in July 2023 with a target of up to 300,000 hectares of farmland.

Soil Capital adds that Roquette's own programs have engaged and trained close to 3,000 French farmers.

Rival pet food makers are running similar programs

Purina Europe, part of Nestlé, said 29% of its cereals and vegetable proteins came from regenerative farms by the end of 2025, ahead of a 20% target. Its supported programs engage more than 630 farmers on over 37,000 hectares, and it aims for 50% by 2030.

Nestlé also signed a four-year deal with Soil Capital covering nearly 230 farmers and 13,000 hectares in France, Belgium and the UK, reported by The Grocer. Soil Capital describes most past corporate funding as unilateral, with one company paying alone.

Our view: for ingredient suppliers, the change is that a customer now has a model for asking them to share the bill, not only to send cleaner data.

Soil Capital CEO Chuck De Liedekerke said the agreement "can serve as a blueprint for others looking to turn theory into action on co-investing."

Mars Petcare runs a separate supplier accelerator, which picked three startups from 83 applications in September.

Rémi Rocca, global VP of sustainability at Royal Canin, said in Soil Capital's announcement that "the ambition is that this partnership can attract additional suppliers to do the same thing."

AgFunderNews reports that both companies are exploring how to replicate the model with other companies. Soil Capital says it applies to other crops and countries.

No second crop or partner has been named.

Source: Soil Capital