The Mango That Smells and Tastes Like Mango: Miguel Páez, From Buying Fruit to Growing It

Does anyone actually know how to eat in season?

Capturing the sky on earth

Thoughts on the first half of 2026

Written by Gonzalo Úrculo, farmer, CEO and co-founder of CrowdFarming. Note: I wrote this text as an internal document to align the people who work at CrowdFarming every day. For a couple of years now, I have also shared it with our community of farmers, customers, and suppliers.At the end of the article, you will find a glossary explaining the meaning of technical terms or internal jargon marked with an asterisk (*) throughout the text. Has sustainability gone out of fashion?I haven’t read company statements on sustainability on LinkedIn or in the press for a while. It’s as if sustainability managers have now transformed into AI gurus. It very much looks like the sustainability that was done for outward appearances has lost momentum in the corporate world. And this, in my opinion, is positive because it reduces noise and allows actions to speak for themselves. Corporate sustainability is a competitive advantage when it is part of a company’s culture. Well-applied sustainability achieves positive and sustained effects over time on business metrics. During this first half of the year, we have managed to reach these business metrics, not through a one-off effort but through constant drive in the same direction: 2,969 farmers selling their harvests at a fair price. Soil analysis conducted on 47 new farms to measure the impact of regenerative practices, and designing an agronomic programme together with the farmers to increase their soil’s natural fertility in the long term. With these 47, there are now 100 farms within our regenerative organic farming programme. €1,794,784.43 in sales of fruits and vegetables in conversion to organic. Receiving a fair, predictable, and stable price is especially key when a farmer is in the delicate phase of conversion to organic because their trees usually experience a drop in productivity. 25% increase in sales of All Is Good* (our brand of processed products) compared to last year. And furthermore, we are starting to see the results of our efforts at an economic level. For the first time in 5 years, we have finished the first half of the year with positive EBITDA*, and growing at double digits. Betting on the direct production and sale of organic products is profitable. To achieve this positive EBITDA*, we have all had to make sacrifices and prioritise spending items well.An example of this is that we have not renewed our B Corp* seal. It was a difficult decision because this seal has positive aspects. Renewing the seal cost €16,000 this year and, thinking clearly, although it’s cool to have a company audit the sustainability of your operations, we saw that we weren’t getting the most out of it and that this money (a scarce resource in our startup) could be dedicated to more farmer training and to raising the salaries of some profiles in our team. We do not rule out getting recertified in a couple of years. Successes to celebrate from the first half of the yearSuccesses must be celebrated. Especially those you pursue, but also those you achieve almost by accident. I have found that when you surround yourself with good people, the mission that unites you is pure, motivating, and ambitious; along the way, good things happen that you didn’t even count on. We do not have a goal to reach a certain percentage of young farmers selling through{Brand} CrowdFarming but we were very excited to see that, naturally, we have achieved a metric that is well above average.

Capturing the sky on earth

Pumpkin cake for when the cold bites