Award Honorees

The Social Impact Leadership Award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding efforts to be a source of positivity and stability for customers and organic community members during the pandemic and beyond. The winner of this year’s award is Seth Goldman, co-founder of Eat the Change and its recently launched brand, Just Ice Tea. Seth is an activist entrepreneur who has committed his career to bringing organic, environmentally-friendly food to the public, and to ensuring livable wages and healthy working conditions for his employees and the farmers who grow his products.  

Seth began his career when he co-founded Honest Tea in 1998, the country’s first organic, Fair Trade Certified™ tea. In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Seth co-founded Eat the Change, focusing on nutrient-dense, plant-based products that prioritize organic ingredients and are kind to the planet. The Eat the Change Impact Grant Fund was then quickly established, which donated more than one million dollars to nonprofit groups providing access to climate-friendly foods. In fall 2022, Just Ice Tea, was launched after Coca-Cola – which had acquired Honest Tea in 2011 – unexpectedly discontinued the line. Rather than deserting the farmers and growers with whom the company had worked for decades, Seth and his partners launched a new organic and Fair Trade Certified™ bottled tea line in just three short months.  

“I am so honored to receive this award because the organic farming community is what inspires me to do this work. We are determined to democratize organics – to make them available to everyone,” said Seth. “I have always considered myself an activist, so our work to spread the adoption of organic food and drink is at the center of my climate change efforts. Organic must be at the core of any efforts to improve human health or planet health.”