Shannah Peterson has been a part of the procurement team at Anchor Ingredients for the past six years. She also works with their sustainability and regenerative programs. On today’s episode, Peterson discusses the demand drivers for pulses for pet food markets, how trends like sustainability and regenerative farming practices impact pet food buying decisions, some important opportunities to be aware of for pulse producers, and what she’s watching from the pet food market in 2026. She shares great insight as someone who is a part of purchasing and sales decisions of pulses almost daily.

“ There's been this humanization of pet food where people really care the quality of pet food that their dogs and animals are consuming the same as humans. So one thing we've seen is as this trend in regenerative agriculture has hit the food space, it's also hit the pet food space. Where a lot of these brands are like we want to be able to source this product sustainably. We want to source it from regenerative farms. So we actually run a regenerative program where we offer regenerative farmers a premium for these pulses being grown regeneratively on their farm. And that's actually through our traceability platforms being carried all the way to our customers.” - Shannah Peterson

This Week on Growing Pulse Crops:

• Meet Shannah Peterson, a member of the procurement team at Anchor Ingredients
• Explore the use of pulses in the pet food industry and the recent impact of consumer concerns
• Discover regenerative and carbon programs used by Anchor Ingredients to create premiums for producers

Growing Pulse Crops is produced by Dr. Audrey Kalil and hosted by Tim Hammerich of the Future of Agriculture Podcast.

Dr. Chelsea Didinger is the founder of the online platform "A Legume A Day.” Didinger uses her PhD in nutrition to share her passion for the benefits of beans and legumes. She highlights not just their health advantages but also their role in sustainable agriculture through her online platform and presence. In this episode today, she discusses the global trends in pulse consumption, the nutritional benefits that make them a perfect food, and practical ways to incorporate more pulses into everyday meals.

“ I want people to know that it doesn't have to be hard. Again, you could sometimes make those swaps, like have a pulse based pasta or sometimes add chickpea flour to your baking, or pick the dishes that you really like and just add pulses to that, or crisp up some chickpeas, crisp up some lentils, and just sprinkle those on. It doesn't have to be hard. There are canned products. You can cook from dry. Whatever fits into your schedule and works realistically, you don't want to set this goal that's unattainable. So I think that's a good place to start.” - Dr. Chelsea Didinger

This Week on Growing Pulse Crops:

1. Meet Dr. Chelsea Didinger, the founder of "A Legume A Day” who uses her PhD in nutrition to share her passion for the benefits of beans and legumes
2. Explore why Didinger feels pulses are the “perfect food” and the many different uses she proposes that consumers might not initially consider to incorporate pulses into their diets
3. Discover bonus benefits to pulses including protein, fiber, complex carbohydrates, and additional phytonutrients and phytochemicals

Growing Pulse Crops is produced by Dr. Audrey Kalil and hosted by Tim Hammerich of the Future of Agriculture Podcast.

Dr. Charles Geddes is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based out of Lethbridge, Alberta. His research program focuses primarily on herbicide resistant weeds, where he looks at the discovery of new types of herbicide resistance, characterizing those types of resistance, and then monitoring where resistance is occurring across the Canadian prairies. In this episode, he shares about the growing incidences of resistance across the Canadian Prairie, the types of resistance, why resistance in weeds like kochia is spreading so fast, and what the research is telling us about trying to reverse this troubling pattern.

“About 70% of the fields that are annual crop production in the region have at least one type of herbicide resistance present. So group one and two resistance in wild oat, I mean both the in-crop options that we have in small grain cereals, for example. But in kochia, we have resistance, so widespread resistance to group two to the point it's not even worth testing for. Glyphosate resistance is in about 75% of the samples that we test. We then have resistance to auxin mimics, which would be group fours, primarily Fluroxypyr and Dicamba. And more recently we've identified group 14 resistance or PPO inhibitor resistance.” - Dr. Charles Geddes

This Week on Growing Pulse Crops:

1. Dr. Charles Geddes is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
2. Understand the growing incidence of herbicide resistance across the Canadian Prairie and what the research suggests needs to happen to resist this concerning trend
3. Explore different options for weed management that can be used in conjunction with herbicide use such as competitive planting techniques
4. Learn more at the Prairie Weed Monitoring Network Website

Growing Pulse Crops is produced by Dr. Audrey Kalil and hosted by Tim Hammerich of the Future of Agriculture Podcast.