A taste of Wild(er Land)

In 2021, psychology graduate Matthijs Westerwoudt and business administrator Daan van Diepen set out to answer that question. Their vision was clear: by cultivating native herbs and shrubs in carefully designed strips, they could boost biodiversity while creating a new revenue stream for farmers. What started as a daring experiment has, three years on, blossomed into a thriving social enterprise. One that encapsulates the very ethos of Triodos Sustainable Finance Foundation’s mission to align economic success with ecological gain.

Pivotal support

In early 2023, Triodos Sustainable Finance Foundation recognised the potential of Wilder Land’s model and provided a loan that proved pivotal. With this support, the founders secured the working capital necessary to stabilise operations, invest in quality control, and forge a partnership with the social workshop Pantar. This collaboration transformed their fledgling artisanal drying and blending process into a professional, fault-proof, and scalable production line. As a result, Wilder Land moved decisively from start-up scrappiness to financial health, closing 2024 with a turnover of € 1.2 million. An impressive feat for a company barely out of its infancy!

By tapping into Pantar’s expertise in inclusive employment and industrial logistics, Wilder Land moved from ad hoc, small-batch tea blends, often crafted on kitchen tables, to a professional, baseline production workflow. While day-to-day operations aren’t yet perfectly seamless, this new structure has greatly improved consistency in product quality and delivery timeliness. Even as Wilder Land continues to refine its processes, this foundation has liberated the founders to concentrate on their core mission: giving back to nature.

Deepening community ties

In 2024, Wilder Land collaborated with forty farmers across the Netherlands, inviting them to experiment with native herbs and shrubs alongside their usual crops. Rather than making biodiversity strips a fix ed requirement, these plantings sometimes emerged from uncultivated second harvests or even as a by-product of a failed crop, offering a low-risk way for farmers to test the concept.

Through bespoke mixes of yarrow, chicory, sage, blackcurrant, and elderflower, Wilder Land set out to explore whether a viable revenue model and nature restoration could go hand in hand. The true impact lies not in the strips themselves, but in the farmers who, already inclined towards ecological stewardship, relish working with nature and choose to deepen that engagement. Wilder Land sees itself as a first step in their transition, supporting those eager to expand nature-based practices across their land.

Ecological impact

The ecological dividends are tangible. Over the past year, Wilder Land’s tea blends alone accounted for more than three million cups of infusion, each one emblematic of hectares of rewilded verge. Yet tea is just the beginning. Capitalising on their refined production process, the company introduced a suite of new products, including pasta, granola, and botanical soft drinks, all carrying the same biodiversity-first philosophy. Alongside their classic herbal infusions, Wilder Land's bottled sparkling teas, lightly carbonated blends of yarrow, chicory, and sage, became a firm favourite on menus, driving both flav our discovery and field restoration.

One of the crowning achievements of 2024 was the launch of Wilder Land’s botanical brews, a range of sparkling beverages that celebrate local flavour. Kouwe Klets Sparkling & Berry, one of six cans now in Wilder Land's assortment, offers vibrant notes of blackcurrant and elderflower, while Thé de l’Été Rosé delivers a delicate fusion of rosehip and raspberry. By eschewing tropical juices in favour of native berries, Wilder Land ensures that consumer choice directly translates into on-farm sowing of species that underpin our ecosystems. Take the blackcurrant bush, for instance: it supports at least 118 other species of insect, bird, and mammal. Every bottle sold is therefore a vote for in situ biodiversity restoration.

A vision for the future

The founders are unwavering in their belief that ecological and financial value are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. “Our mission is to rewild ourselves and our landscape,” they say. “A jar of our tea or a bottle of our sparkling brew is more than a product. It’s a conscious decision to invest in a richer, more resilient ecosystem.” Through consumer engagement, farmer partnerships, and soil stewardship, Wilder Land has made nature restoration both tangible and enjoyable.

Looking towards 2025, the company’s ambitions are bold and European. With the foundations now laid, Wilder Land aims to place its botanical brews in cafés, restaurants, and retailers across the continent. By scaling distribution, it will drive demand, which in turn will fund the sowing of even more native plants, across an ever-expanding agricultural landscape. Wilder Land seeks to help delist threatened plants and pollinators from the IUCN Red List by engaging as many European consumers as possible. Think of Wilder Land as the “Regenerative Unilever,” leveraging scale and consumer choice to drive genuine biodiversity restoration. Its vision is nothing short of a rewilded Europe, where economic activity and ecological flourishing advance hand in hand.