Born on the High Plains. Built for the People Who Farm Them.
Our Story
It all started with a question: what is the best way to support family farms and ranches? The answer turned out to be simple, even if building it isn't: give producers ownership of everything that happens after harvest. Rootward is a producer-owned cooperative sourcing regenerative crops and livestock from Eastern Colorado, processing it, and bringing it to market under a brand that belongs to the farmers who grew it. We started with the belief that the ag economy can work differently, and we’re proving it with every harvest.
Meet Zach
Zach Brammer is a sixth-generation Coloradan from a ranching and farming family rooted in Sterling. After spending a few years in finance and renewable energy, he founded Cloudbreak Energy Partners in 2019 and spent nearly six years developing community solar projects across Colorado. That work taught him the mechanics of building something from scratch, but it also brought him closer to the agricultural communities he'd grown up around and the economic pressures they were facing. He left the solar industry to pursue a question he'd carried for a long time: what can I do to better support family farms and ranches? In 2025, he founded Rootward to build the answer. He currently splits his time between Sterling and Colorado Springs with his partner Ally and their young Aussie/Border Collie mix named Poppy who's convinced she's the boss.
Our mission
Build a producer-led food system that keeps value on the land, in the community, and in the hands of the people who do the work.
Our Vision
Producers who can make a living from the land. Communities rebuilt around local food economies. Consumers who know the farmer and the story behind every meal.