EXPERIENCE 249 | Don’t Feed Your Cows Candy! - with Kevin Pallaoro, CEO of Grass Fed Foods, Inc.

In this episode of The Loco Experience podcast, I sat down with Kevin Pallaoro, the CEO of Grass Fed Foods. Kevin shares his journey from growing up on a ranch in Salida, Colorado to becoming a leader in the natural beef industry.  Did you know that Salida was heavily settled by Italian immigrants? - well you do now.  

We delve into the history and operations of Grass Fed Foods and its brands Teton Waters Ranch and Sun Fed Ranch.  Kevin's passion for healthy, sustainable food is evident as he discusses challenges in the industry, including the economics of beef production and honoring commitments to animal welfare and environmental sustainability.  Did you know that most “grass fed beef” in the US is fed pelletized grass in a feedlot?!  

We also explored Kevin’s family and career path, from financial roles in various food companies, including a season in Germany - to his current leadership position and how he ascended to the role.  Kevin emphasizes the importance of balancing work and family, and drawing wisdom from  experience and from mentors.  Overall, it's a rich conversation about values, business strategy, and the drive to make a difference in the food industry.  So please join me in enjoying my conversation with Kevin Pallaoro.  

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Transcript

Speaker 9: 0:00

In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I sat down with Kevin Palero, the CEO of Grass Fed Foods. Kevin shares his journey from growing up on a ranch in Salida, Colorado to becoming a leader in the natural beef industry. Did you know that Salida was heavily settled by Italian immigrants? Well, you do now. We delve into the history and operations of grass fed foods and its brands, Teton Waters Ranch and SunEd Ranch. Kevin's passion for healthy, sustainable food is evident as he discusses challenges in the industry, including the economics of beef production and honoring commitments to animal welfare and environmental sustainability. Did you know that most, quote unquote, grass fed beef in the US is fed pelletized grass in a feedlot? We also explored Kevin's family and career path from financial roles in various food companies, including a season in Germany to his current leadership position and how he ascended to the CEO role. Kevin emphasizes the importance of balancing work and family and drawing wisdom from experience and from mentors overall. It's a rich conversation about values, business strategy, and the drive to make a difference in the food industry. So please join me in enjoying my conversation with Kevin Palero.

Speaker 7: 1:13

Let's have some fun. Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy. And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest.

Speaker: 1:49

Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Kevin Palero. And Kevin is the CEO of Grass Fed Foods. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:58

Glad to be here. Very exciting. Uh, sit down with you, Kurt.

Speaker: 2:01

Yeah. Well, I love grass fed beef. Uh, and so that's what you know more about than anybody I've met. So it seems to me a good chance for us both to learn. Yeah. Um, tell, tell me and our listeners about, uh, what brands and how would people recognize grass fed foods? What are you up to?

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yeah. So Grass Fed Foods, it's basically a holding company. We have two grass fed beef brands today. Okay. Uh, the largest one is Teton Waters Ranch. Okay. So Teton does grass fed hot dogs, sausages, burger patties, breakfast sausage. Okay. Uh,

Speaker: 2:37

and when I buy these at King Super or Costco, or at more like Whole Foods or at restaurants.

Speaker 2: 2:44

Uh, all except for restaurants. So we're in King Soopers, we're in Costco. Okay. We're in Whole Foods Sprouts. Okay. Okay. Kind of a across the nation, most retailers. Okay. Uh, no food service today.

Speaker: 2:57

Okay. Alright. But so that's your, you're ultimately, your, your, uh, distributor to those grocery enterprises of these products, but you're, well, you build the products too,

Speaker 2: 3:07

correct? Yeah. Correct. So we don't, we don't process any of the cattle ourselves, so we don't have cattle.

Speaker 3: 3:13

Sure.

Speaker 2: 3:14

The company started with cattle years and years and years ago, but Okay. It outgrew the cattle and, you know, we Oh, really? Like it was

Speaker: 3:21

a ranch that started this brand and then they're like, we don't have enough cows to keep making enough hot dogs.

Speaker 2: 3:27

Correct. Yeah. So originally the name Teton Waters Ranch Sure. Came from a ranch in the Tetons sounds that the Teton River ran through. Yep. Hence the name Teton Waters Ranch. Um, they bought the ranch originally for real estate and development. Hmm. It's on the Idaho side. Was an old pot potato farm for

Speaker: 3:47

Victor kind of thing. Or over more by Driggs or over there. Yeah. Gotcha. Toton. Yeah, that was, that was long before my teia is where I had my honeymoon. Oh, what really? Yeah. Yeah. Right up in there.

Speaker 2: 3:57

I've been over to that side

Speaker: 3:58

and I've actually floated canoe in the Teton River. It was where my wife accused me of being an idiot because I couldn't make a canoe go straight in a river. I never did it before in a river. It was way different though. Like, anyway, I digress. No, no, it's all good. So it starts over there. They're starts over there. They're like, we need a higher value output for our awesome cow kind of products or?

Speaker 2: 4:17

No, so, so they bought it for real estate development. Okay. And they were going to subdivide it from, this was long before my time, so yeah. I just kind of gather any errors or emissions or

Speaker: 4:27

just what I gather.

Speaker 2: 4:28

Yeah. What I've gathered over the years. Um, so they bought it for a real estate development and then that's when the market had crashed back in like. I wanna say it was like 2008.

Speaker: 4:38

Yeah. Probably.

Speaker 2: 4:39

And so they said, boy, you know, we've got a lot of money tied up in this. Yeah, exactly. A lot of money tied up. And it really wasn't good for potato farming anymore because you know, when you kind of monocrop for years and years and years and years, the land goes a little bit fallow.

Speaker: 4:58

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 4:58

And so, oh,

Speaker: 4:59

so it'd been kind of burned up. Burned up potato farming.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yep. Too many years of ag chemicals. Yep. Monocropping. And they decided to start raising beef Okay. On it and doing grass fed beef. And as the years kind of went on, the worms started to come back into the land.'cause they weren't spraying ag chems.

Speaker 4: 5:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:21

Uh, wildlife started coming back. So they were starting to see more deer and eagles and all the natural wildlife coming in. The ground just started to regenerate.

Speaker 3: 5:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Hence the term regenerative ag.

Speaker 3: 5:35

Sure.

Speaker 2: 5:35

And so as the land could handle more and more cattle,'cause the cattle were helping the land regenerate through their Sure. Natural manure stuff. They're manure and the like, one thing about, you know, beef that helps the regeneration, it's just the pressing of the hooves down into the ground to help open it up. It's called like natural variation. It's like

Speaker: 5:54

where we, uh, run those little thingies to throw like those goose turd looking things around our lawns. Right. Exactly. It's a little bit of that.

Speaker 2: 6:01

And so while the market was down, they kind of regenerated this ranch. Mm-hmm. And they were holding more and more cattle and they're like, yeah, we should sell this grass fed beef.

Speaker 3: 6:10

Okay.

Speaker 2: 6:10

Into the market. So they took it into like Jackson Hole.

Speaker 3: 6:14

Sure.

Speaker 2: 6:14

High end restaurants. Started marketing it there and did really, really well.

Speaker 4: 6:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:21

And at some point they're like, Hey, we need a bigger market than just. Idaho Jackson Hole. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 6:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:28

So they moved the company to Denver.

Speaker: 6:30

Okay.

Speaker 2: 6:31

And started processing more, buying

Speaker: 6:33

other people's beef and stuff too. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 6:36

And one thing about the beef industry that's pretty challenging is unlike any, under any other industry out there. Like there's, there's a few, but it's the dissection, not the putting together. So like if you think about building a car, you're buying all these pieces of parts

Speaker: 6:54

Okay.

Speaker 2: 6:54

To have one output.

Speaker: 6:55

Right.

Speaker 2: 6:56

So I bought 10,000 pieces. Yeah. And the high value

Speaker: 6:58

output is the car. The car.

Speaker 2: 7:01

And when you think about like animal proteins Yeah. There's not a lot of things where you're like, I bought the car, but I'm really in the business selling, like the value is really tearing it down. Yeah. The mirrors and the, the engine. Right. And all these pieces,

Speaker: 7:16

the loins and the ribs and the whatever.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Exactly. And so. That's the hardest thing when it comes to like animal proteins, is you have to have a home for every single pound. Mm-hmm. Because you bought the car. If you can't sell the transmission, you're probably gonna lose money.

Speaker: 7:33

Sure. Yeah. And that's kind of why that happens. Yeah. That's your profit margin basically is if you can't sell any of the transmissions. Exactly. You know,

Speaker 2: 7:40

and it, it kind of even boils down to like the mirrors. Yeah. Like the littlest parts. Like unless you can do something of high value for every single piece

Speaker: 7:49

Right. It's not gonna work. That's interesting. Well, it kind of, you know, I'm from North Dakota and have processed a number of deer over the years, you know, where, you know, we never did use the guts for anything, but some people, I suppose could make sausage out of it and stuff and you know, the Native Americans would use virtually every part of the bison. Yep. Right. Um, and that skillset is largely gone. Like if you dropped a whole cow in my. F backyard. Like I would actually know what to do with it.'cause I've been there with, you know, a bunch of deer over the years and stuff. Yeah. And I'm, I know what beef costs and I'm not gonna let anything go to waste hardly. But that's gonna be a chore. And I wouldn't know really what I was doing, you know, getting those t-bones and ribeyes accurately and things like that. I wouldn't have the foggiest of where to go get those things hardly.

Speaker 2: 8:40

It's, it's tough. Yeah. I actually, I went out, uh, we have a local wrench, just my family. Mm-hmm. And I went out last weekend and got an elk.

Speaker: 8:49

Oh, you did? Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Sweet. You should have brought me some milk steaks. I should have. It was just to put some, some meat in the freezer. Yeah. That's awesome. And we do

Speaker 2: 8:57

it all ourselves. Like we process it in our house and. And it's kind of funny'cause like there's a lot of times like, ah, I'm pretty sure this is the, uh, sirloin, but

Speaker: 9:06

Right. Yeah. You know, so it goes at

Speaker 2: 9:09

some point you're like, ah,

Speaker: 9:10

so do you, do you make sausage out of it too, you know, and all, or you mostly just use it as either ground beef, ground beef equivalent or for the elk take the steaks and stuff? Yeah,

Speaker 2: 9:20

yeah. And just do grinds and head steaks and yeah. In all transparency, working in the sausage business, I eat more sausage than I can

Speaker: 9:27

less sausage please and be Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:29

Because we sample things every single week. So my sausage consumption's probably like in the 99th percentile of the US Americans as it is

Speaker: 9:37

in my, uh, relatively brief food trucking days. I had, um, a number of, uh, snarky titles for my menu items, but one was the, the special Sausage of the Week at Sprout's Farmer's Market. Like whatever they had on sale. Yep. That was my sausage I was featuring. And so the menu item was called Sausage party.

Speaker 5: 9:57

Okay. And I

Speaker: 9:58

don't know if you know what a sausage party is, depends on where you went to college or high school perhaps, but suggest you do so it's like nobody likes a sausage party, really. Anyway, I digress. So these ranchers, like they, they had enough success in whatever their secret sauce was in both raising cows, but also creating products.

Speaker 2: 10:19

Correct. So like, they had moved to Denver, tried to expand the market and where I was going with the, the splitting of the animal Yeah. Was they developed, you know, originally a really good market for all the stakes. Mm-hmm. But they were having a hard time selling everything that's not, that everything el that wasn't the high end stakes. Yeah. And so they had a good idea to go into making sausages with everything else. Sure. And. The sausages just exploded. Hmm. And before you knew it, they had a sausage business that could be 20 times the steak business.

Speaker: 10:58

Wow.

Speaker 2: 10:59

And you can't kill cattle just to make sausage.

Speaker: 11:02

Right. Totally.

Speaker 2: 11:03

And so it kind of like slowly progressed from, you know, harvesting your own cattle to buying, you know, the pieces from other people to help them enable their steak business. Yeah. And you're Oh, cool. Part of an entire ecosystem Yeah. To help the entire industry raise. Right. So it is a really cool win. Well, for everybody,

Speaker: 11:23

every producer, every cow calf operator, every grow lot. Like being able to sell those premium state cuts is, is a big, important thing. Yep. But getting rid of all the mirrors and the transmissions and the spare seats and whatever, that's really where the margin is.

Speaker 2: 11:39

Yeah. I mean, cool. The protein industry's super low margin. Right. Industry like food. Food in general. Very low margin. Yeah. So when you're taking those things apart

Speaker: 11:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:52

If you don't have a home for every single pound, like,

Speaker: 11:54

so do you guys still move steaks and sausages and stuff? Or is it mostly just the prepackaged stuff and send that all around?

Speaker 2: 12:01

Uh, so on the Teton side it's all prepackaged.

Speaker: 12:04

Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:05

We have another brand called Sun Fed Ranch.

Speaker: 12:07

Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:08

Uh, it does, ground beef was in some stakes. Uh, the stake market's pretty expensive right now. Right. We, we actually, right now we're in the process of selling in some like certified regenerative Certified organic

Speaker: 12:27

Oh,

Speaker 2: 12:28

uh, stakes. Okay. Into like some natural players. So, so is

Speaker: 12:32

that like a different, like a level up from like organic or whatever kind of thing It is. So. Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:37

It's considered, these are certified organic. Organic. So it's organic plus, yep. Plus grass fed. Yep. Um, and then it's certified regenerative, meaning that with these programs and the ranchers that we're working with, they're proving on paper that they're putting more carbon into the soil, than's coming out. So like they're able to actually regenerate the land. Sure. Bring the carbon back, bring the health back into the land. Right. And it's proven third party. So it's kind of like, kind of takes

Speaker: 13:10

the teeth out of like Belgium forcing people to kill their cows and stuff. Right. Or whatever. Yeah, that's, yeah. Like we've got somewhat of a shortage of beef in the world, partly because of some of those coals and stuff that were forced almost'cause cows fart too much. And if you can prove the point that you can actually have a negative carbon footprint with cows. Well,

Speaker 2: 13:31

yeah. That they can help be part of the solution. Right. That they're not part of the problem.

Speaker: 13:35

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So

Speaker 2: 13:37

yeah, that's one thing that we're working on the stake front. Um. That's kind of where I, well it

Speaker: 13:42

also proves out some of the founder's original intent of regenerating that property. That was potato farm. Exactly. Burnt up potato farm.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Exactly.

Speaker: 13:50

So

Speaker 2: 13:50

like for us, you know, across both brands, uh, the real focus is, you know, what's good for the animal. So making sure that they're always grass fed, never confined out in the open, not treated with hormones or added antibiotics.

Speaker 4: 14:07

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 14:08

You know, it's better for them. Most, almost all actually, not, almost all of the Teton products are certified humane, so like proving the humane treatment of the animal, that kind of thing. Better for the planet. I

Speaker: 14:20

like programs like that. As long as they don't cost like$4 a pound to administer, then it becomes kind of a,

Speaker 2: 14:26

the humane's not too bad. The regeneratives at, at its super early stages. Yeah. So it's really expensive stuff.'cause you're like, like a, like each ranch has to take soil samples and rub it and.

Speaker: 14:38

Yeah. That's the challenge of those kind of things. Like you can't really have like a Pinky Promise system either. Otherwise there'll be a bunch of abusers. Oh.'cause they wanna get this premium price, you know?

Speaker 2: 14:47

Well, and that's unfortunately, like, that's just a lot of the industries today. I mean, everywhere.

Speaker: 14:54

I mean, that's the reason why we have 300 page mortgages is because somewhere somebody that should have been okay with a picky promise screwed us over. Exactly. Or screwed somebody over.

Speaker 2: 15:06

Yeah. That's, that's probably one of my biggest frustrations with the industry is like my number one value as a person is truth. Yeah. And so, like, I always believe in doing the right thing, you know, with ours, you know, never confined anything like that. And like the, the majority of grass fed beef in the US is fed in a feedlot grass pellets. They're not even roaming in a pasture. Oh. Eating grass. So it's like not legitimate. Yeah. In, in my opinion, I think they're eating grass, but Yeah. Well they are

Speaker: 15:36

eating grass, but. Like kind of the point of being grass fed is you get to wander around out there.'cause if you ask the cow, like if you put a pile of ground corn with some yummy supplements in it beside a pile of these grass pellets in a feedlot, I bet most cows would go right for that corn.

Speaker 2: 15:52

Oh yeah. It's candy. So you're Exactly, so you're

Speaker: 15:54

not even giving them what they would choose of their accord. Exactly. You know, they just get to stay in the same kind of housing. You're still, you're still in the section eight housing, but now you gotta eat vegetarian. Exactly. And, and no offense, I love grass fed beef and like for my, for me personally, if that grass fed beef can be finished on like 30 days of corn, they like the candy. They like Yeah, they do like the candy. Is there a reason why I should like, think again about that, uh, notion in my mind because, um, I like the flavor of grass fed as well, but if it could have a little bit more marbling, a little bit more. Candy flavor. I, I would usually choose that at my plate sooner.

Speaker 2: 16:39

I think it all depends on personal preferences. Yeah. So, you know, one thing with grass fed is the fat profiles are a lot different. So like,

Speaker: 16:48

tell me more.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Um, so like we, we work, we import a lot of our grass fed too, because there's just not much, they don't have to prop pate grass. True, legitimate grass fed inside the us. Like if you look at how much legitimate grass fed open pasture, eating native grasses year round, like climate wise is pretty tough

Speaker: 17:08

to do.

Speaker 2: 17:09

So we import a lot from like tropical type regions. At least seasonally

Speaker: 17:12

You have to.

Speaker 2: 17:13

Yeah.

Speaker: 17:14

And we went to, oh gosh, uh, I'm trying to remember. Santa, uh, one of the tropical islands and we had a, an alarm cow. Like they had jungle cows where we were St. Lucia Okay. Was the island. And like every morning at like six 30, 7:00 AM there was like four to six cows within a mile of our cabin that we were staying at. And they were, they were our alarm clocks every day.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Just waking you up. Yeah. Just jungle

Speaker: 17:44

cows, man. We never saw a one of'em really? Well when we saw other cows in other places along the side, the road and stuff, but in the jungle they were just jungle cows somewhere out in the trees, you know? Yeah. Anyway, I digress. But I would imagine that's a year-round environment. Yep. You're always able to pick strawberries in the jungle. Right.

Speaker 2: 18:01

So it's like, you know, more tropical, um, they get a big variety of diet. Mm-hmm. So like, that's the one thing about like being truly like free roaming, but they still will

Speaker: 18:10

choose grasses quite a bit. Like that's what's, yep. There's

Speaker 2: 18:13

hundreds of types of grasses. Right. Versus like, if. If you make a pallette, it's gonna be modern. Well, they'll probably eat apples

Speaker: 18:17

off the ground and stuff like that too. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Anything mangoes? Maybe not.

Speaker 2: 18:23

Maybe I, I don't know if I've seen many mangoes up there where we go's maybe too fruity anyway, but, um,

Speaker: 18:29

so that's how you can do year round sourcing is to have your own uh Exactly. Elements there.

Speaker 2: 18:34

And so they're, they're diet variety is so broad. Yeah. You're getting lots of different nutrients. So like when you eat, you know, a corn fed that's been in a feedlot through traditional systems Yeah. They're mono fed just like a monocrop. So you're not getting as big a variety of nutrients and vitamins. They have to be supplemented.

Speaker: 18:52

And then do they just bring in like sides of beef your, when we get it, your company? Yeah. And then turns it into sausage here somewhere. Uh, or sometimes they actually make the sausage according to your spec there.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Nope. No. So we process over there.

Speaker: 19:08

Okay.

Speaker 2: 19:09

We get some here in the us. Yep. So some's here some, you know, there's some that comes from South America. Some that comes from Australia. Yeah. Kind of source globally.

Speaker: 19:18

Yep.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Uh, as long as every to, to some extent

Speaker: 19:20

there's an open market. It's not quite as homogenous as wheat

Speaker 2: 19:24

Correct.

Speaker: 19:24

Or corn. But it's still relatively homogenous and it's quality tiered and whatever else.

Speaker 2: 19:28

Exactly. And we go and we verify, you know, we're on the ground visiting these ranchers and that kind of thing.

Speaker: 19:33

Yeah. Yeah. Is there like open markets a lot? Or is it more like handshakes with the producers?

Speaker 2: 19:40

Uh,

Speaker: 19:41

and

Speaker 2: 19:42

it's open market. It's a little bit of both. Yeah. So, like, you know, we have good partnerships with like processors.

Speaker 3: 19:48

Sure.

Speaker 2: 19:49

And so they, they might have 5,000 producers. There's some instances where we go directly to the producer.

Speaker 4: 19:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 19:57

So, you know, if I, if I were to guess, we're probably sourcing from about 15,000 ranchers at any given time.

Speaker: 20:06

Wow.

Speaker 2: 20:06

And we go visit. You know, 10, 20 a year.

Speaker: 20:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:10

Um, but the producers

Speaker: 20:12

Yeah. Like process. Yeah. Because they're taking in, in from the real small guys and stuff. You can't go visit that, but they still raise good cows.

Speaker 2: 20:17

Exactly. And so they pull, you know, and they're visiting all those ranches on a regular basis.'cause they're regionally there. Yeah. For us, like, you know, trip to Australia is a big deal. Right. Totally interesting. Um, but, you know, coming back to like the health benefits Yeah. Please. Um, you know, with the variety diet they have, you know, the nutrients are much denser and then the fat profiles are pretty interesting. Yeah. So we'll test our products like in a lab here in the US versus conventional beef. Okay. And you know, a couple things that always seem to pop up is the density of vitamins and minerals always higher. Okay. The, uh, Omega-3 fats Yeah. Are way higher. So omega threes are good for you. It's

Speaker: 21:04

like the fish pet usually, right?

Speaker 2: 21:05

Yep. Yep. So

Speaker: 21:07

interesting.

Speaker 2: 21:08

Sometimes, and we don't market this'cause there's variety and different cattle and different kinds of things. But like we've had some tests come back that like the omega threes were as high as in salmon in one instance, where we're like, wow, that's pretty impressive. Interesting. Um, but the omega threes are very high in the fats and the omega sixes are quite low and in, and omega sixes are the bad fats.

Speaker: 21:31

That's the bad, bad cholesterol or whatever. And it's the stuff it the exact reverse huh? In corn fed.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Interesting. Huh. And then the other thing that's like way off the charts is the CLOs. Do you know what CLOs are?

Speaker: 21:42

I don't know if I do.

Speaker 2: 21:43

It's like con acids. Okay. Um, and it's a iCal visit Sounds like a good thing. So it's,

Speaker: 21:52

so it, and those are,

Speaker 2: 21:53

it's a fat, um, that basically help your body process fats. It's like a metabolism

Speaker: 21:59

thing helps it pull it out of there. Yep. And it's, it instead of just looking at it.

Speaker 2: 22:03

Exactly. And it comes from lots of, um. Like eating a photosynthesis type plants. Mm-hmm. So, you know, when we did lab testing, like in traditional beef, the CLOs was, I can't remember the exact numbers, like three. Hmm. And ours were 65.

Speaker: 22:21

You know, I think they should do some genetic stuff with squirrel DNA in cows because squirrels really put on fat nicely in the winter.

Speaker 4: 22:30

There you

Speaker: 22:31

go. Right. And they must have maybe a lot of that conac acid so that they can access that fat easily while they're not eating Kinda their hibernation in the winter. Yeah. And they're hibernating, but they're not really hibernated. They're going out in here and there and just not eating as much.'cause there isn't berries all over the ground and bird apples and whatnot. Um, but they definitely have these ability are bears, you know, the ability to put on and then melt away fat at a very high discretionary level almost. Yep. Um, anyway, I'm just an idea for you super scientists out there that are listening to this podcast is, uh, yellow Squirrel, DNA and your typical Angus, uh, herd. And is it, is it Angus cows or what's the, what's the, what is the outside world look like, like in America? Basically, black Angus got fancy and then everybody just did Black Angus with some Red Angus. After a while, there wasn't any herefords and there wasn't any charlet and all these different cows we used to have. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:26

And that's still a big thing in the us. Like there's, there's all, there's charlas, there's too low. Oh, there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, you know,

Speaker: 23:33

seemed like where I grew up, it was just all of a sudden everybody had black cows.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Now there's, I'd say in the US like Angus clearly is the dominant breed.

Speaker 4: 23:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Uh, internationally. Angus is still the dominant, like British breeds are kind of the Angus. Okay. Uh, in some of the tropics there is some like Brahman mm-hmm. In there just because like the Angus don't take the heat as well. Right. And they can't fight off the flies and those kinds of things Okay. As well. But you know, it kind of all varies. And one thing, if you wanna hear something super interesting about like what's happening in the beef world right now is, do you know much about dairy?

Speaker: 24:17

I mean, my dad subbed in for a dairy farmer a little occasionally. You know, the four days a year that the guy got off was my dad was milking his cows and I would help him, but it was like a 60 cow herd or 80 cow herd or nothing big.

Speaker 2: 24:30

So we, we are not doing this today, but we're, I've kinda learned a little bit more about this and it's something that's becoming more and more prevalent. So in dairy,

Speaker 3: 24:41

okay.

Speaker 2: 24:42

For a cow to make milk, it has to have a baby.

Speaker 3: 24:45

Sure.

Speaker 2: 24:47

Without babies, there is no milk. Sure. And one of the biggest problems in the dairy industry was, okay, you have babies, but you don't really need boy dairy cows.

Speaker: 25:00

Right.

Speaker 2: 25:01

So traditionally the boy dairy cows when they were born went to veal.

Speaker: 25:06

Right.

Speaker 2: 25:07

And which

Speaker: 25:08

is yummy. Yeah. But it is baby cow.

Speaker 2: 25:11

But it is baby cow. And like a lot of Americans aren't too big on eating baby cow. Yeah. So like the veal industry. Yeah. It's hard to get the market little bit from it.

Speaker: 25:18

Yeah. Get it. And

Speaker 2: 25:19

then like, you know, the girl baby cows become the deal. Mama

Speaker: 25:23

baby cows. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:24

The mamas. And which also

Speaker: 25:26

isn't a very glorious job generally. Yeah. No, not, but you know, for a good ranch or or for a good dairyman, they get to cruise on the pasture quite a bit and then come in a couple times a day and have the old milk relief. Correct. Treatment, you know,

Speaker 2: 25:38

so what, what they've been able to do through artificial insemination over the last few years. Is be able to almost predetermine the sex of the baby.

Speaker: 25:49

Mm-hmm. Makes sense

Speaker 2: 25:51

To like 96% accuracy.

Speaker: 25:53

Okay. So you just have girl baby cows anymore

Speaker 2: 25:55

or you know, you don't always need more girl baby cows actually. Well, if

Speaker: 25:59

feeder cattle you, everybody wants steers

Speaker 2: 26:02

for, because

Speaker: 26:03

they, because they fatten up faster on the corn lot and whatever.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Exactly. But nobody wants a dairy steer.

Speaker: 26:09

Right.

Speaker 2: 26:10

So when the farmers know that they, Hey, I need to kind of have more girls coming in and rotate through that. Yeah. We're going to breed really high quality genetic female cows. Sure. For dairy, but this year maybe I don't need many females, so we're gonna breed Angus onto dairy with like all the attributes for great quality meat and then the boys go to the market.

Speaker: 26:37

No way.

Speaker 2: 26:38

Yeah.

Speaker: 26:40

Interesting. So you can put a little, uh, grower, not a show into the boy cows that happened to get slip through.

Speaker 2: 26:46

Yeah. So that's kind of where the industry, the dairy industry has been going.

Speaker: 26:50

Well, and on the, on the cow calf operations, you know, they, the, the, they'd rather have more steers'cause they put on weight a lot faster as adolescent. Right. And so same thing could apply where you could just have more boys and less girl cows. So that, that could be a trap in terms of just building the herd. Right. Like, now we need more girl cows.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Yeah. Now we need more hers. Right,

Speaker: 27:14

right.

Speaker 2: 27:15

And steers about,

Speaker: 27:16

yeah. Interesting.

Speaker 2: 27:18

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I don't know how much that's happening in the US Yeah. The of it is

Speaker: 27:20

all very complicated. Like, you know, is it. Is it good? Is it better in some ways of having, you know, more girl cows in an industry where nobody wants to eat veal? Or is it like kind of ethically funny, like pulling those strings and

Speaker 2: 27:37

we're definitely playing God, right? As as humans, right? Like I was, I don't know how much of that happens in the us. That was something new I learned about. But if it's a competitive

Speaker: 27:46

advantage, it's going to come here eventually. Probably. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Yeah, I just thought it was pretty interesting that insane when somebody, like we went through and they were explaining that, and

Speaker: 27:54

so yours is a premium product on both sides. Both the, the branded sausages and hot dogs and whatnot that you can pick up wherever. And then, and then the, is it restaurants and such that do a lot of the steak or other cuts and grounds products or is that also

Speaker 2: 28:07

that's all retail marketed retail too. Yeah. Okay. So today we're just very a hundred percent retail. Your

Speaker: 28:13

roots are abandoned, kind of in the premium steakhouse in the, uh, Jackson Hole, Wyoming,

Speaker 2: 28:19

yeah. For now. Yeah. I think, you know, we're, we're leaning more towards, you know, kind of going whole animal. Yeah. Longer term.

Speaker: 28:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:26

But, uh, for now it's all on the retail products.'cause that's where the brands have done really, really well.

Speaker: 28:32

Right. Yeah. You gotta follow your opportunities in some way. Yeah. So, um, I guess talk to me about, you said a lot, a little bit of, for now, like, so what would be the steps of being able to do more whole animal stuff? Is that, uh. Like it's, it's, you'd almost have to do stakes through those retail environments. Correct. Just add that on, not, not go back to the roots of the restaurants, but just have a packaged product again.

Speaker 2: 28:57

Correct. Yeah. And, and a lot of it's just, as I said, like my number one values truth. Yeah. And, and we're a small player, like, so we Right. In the grand scheme, in the grand scheme, like pretty difficult for us to compete with the four major packers in the us. Mm. Mm-hmm. And you know, when you think about like, if truth is your number one, like you're always going to be at a bit of a competitive disadvantage from a cost standpoint then versus the people willing to cut corners, which we are not. Yeah.

Speaker: 29:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:29

And so, you know, when we've gone in on the stake programs, they're like, boy, you're pretty expensive. And you're like, well,

Speaker: 29:34

it's what it takes to have a good steak. It's what it takes. You want not such a great steak that I tell you is a great steak, then I could do that, but it wouldn't be true.

Speaker 2: 29:41

Correct. Um. So that's kinda the number one challenge that we're at. And I think, you know, one place that we could be more competitive that we're looking at is working directly with more of the ranchers.

Speaker: 29:54

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 29:55

And saying, Hey,

Speaker: 29:56

almost a coalition of sorts.

Speaker 2: 29:57

Correct. And then we're taking the whole animal.

Speaker: 30:00

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 30:01

But, you know, maybe doing it instead of having that really, really top tier, you know, steer say, Hey, like let's take a little bit of an older animal that's lived a great life out in the, the farm.

Speaker: 30:15

Yep.

Speaker 2: 30:16

And 90% of it's going to go into hot dogs, and then we're gonna take the stakes as well.

Speaker 4: 30:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:23

And give us a little bit of a competitive advantage on the price there. Yeah. And you know, all that will be certified regenerative.'cause those are the ranches we're going back and working with directly.

Speaker: 30:34

Well, and if you can help them increase the productive capacity of their farms and give them an equipping to do so and stuff. Right. And some encouragement. It, it kind of can be you scratch each others back a little bit.

Speaker 2: 30:48

And I think a lot of the ranchers that we've talked to, like they're really excited about the idea of like, oh, when we send it to you, we see this premium product. Like we see the Teton brand Yeah. On the shelf. We like, we almost feel like we're part of that. Yeah. Yeah. Versus in the, the traditional market. Like once it goes into a major packer, like who knows where it

Speaker: 31:08

is. Right. Right. Yeah. And you still have that responsibility to make sure it is a premium product. Exactly. And qualifies for all those things. That's what costs so much money. Yep. I was just thinking to myself about the. Because I, my dad actually, uh, well he is, he's a farmer in North Dakota, but he's raised, he raised cattle for maybe about 10 years. Like okay. Right after I was off to Colorado, he bought some, what do you call, broken mouth heifers or broken mouth gold cows. Like they were basically bred old cows. Okay. That didn't hardly have any teeth left, you know, so they weren't very good grazers or anything, but he had a bunch of extra pasture and they were so cheap that the, the baby cows were almost worth more than the pregnant mama cows.

Speaker 5: 31:45

Yep.

Speaker: 31:46

And it was just kind of a blip in the market. But he happened to have pasture and stuff, so they raised cows for eight or 10 years and, you know, ultimately realized they could make a lot more money just not screwing around with cows all winter. And like it was half their work for 8% of their money. Yeah. Kind of thing. But the, even before that, going back to my grandfather's days and, and into my dad's cattle raising, like the cows that we ate. Yeah. Were grass fed. Totally. Because they were just the old mama cows basically. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:15

They were, were roaming on the, on the land. Right. And they

Speaker: 32:18

lived, you know, nine or 12 years or something out there and had eight babies over the course of their lifetime. And then they got old enough, they didn't really have babies anymore, so it's time to hit the Yeah. You know, the vacation time.

Speaker 2: 32:30

And that's the way we used to eat. Right. Yeah. And that's the, that's kind of what we've gone away from. Yeah. You know, where everybody's like, oh, I just love that pure white marble state. And like, but

Speaker: 32:41

that flavor of that old heifer is actually better. Correct. Frank or that old heifer, what's, I guess just an old mama cow. Yeah. An old mama cow is actually better than a, you know, a 12 month old steer that got fattened up on candy for the last eight months of his life.

Speaker 2: 32:56

Well, because you're getting all the nutrients and all the things that it ate over. Right. It took a lot of work

Speaker: 33:01

to create that many pounds. Yeah. Of beef. Grass. Yep. Whereas it doesn't take much work at all to create a bunch of pounds of beef outta corn.

Speaker 2: 33:10

No, that's pretty crazy. Like in a, just like

Speaker: 33:13

if me and you just ate Doritos and whatever, ice cream. Yep. And that's all we ate. Like we would fatten up real quick and drank alcohol. We should probably drink beer. A lot of beer. There you go. Right? Because that's like the sorghum or the, uh, silage is equivalent of beer for cows probably. But if you're just eating sugary treats all the time, I don't know. I, I guess if I'm thinking seriously about it, would you rather eat that fatty or like a marathon runner? I'm thinking the marathon runner would be kind of tough. The, the vegan marathon runner or the couch potato fatty.

Speaker 2: 33:48

I guess the question would be, are you eating somebody? Are you eating? No, no. My question would be, are you eating for purely taste and satisfaction? Which is one thing like Yeah. Or are you eating for your health and the longevity of your own body? Question because personally I'd rather eat something that I know is leany eat the marathon runner. Yeah. Like clearly this is, that's gonna be a headline

Speaker: 34:12

from this podcast is, uh, eat the marathon runner. Eat the Marathon Runner, not the couch potato. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good quote. You could use that in some of your branding if you want to. Okay.

Speaker 2: 34:20

Yeah, we'll take that one. Eat the marathon running.

Speaker: 34:25

So, um, so tell me about, um, like how did you get here? Like to this organization, how long you've been a part of it? It goes back farther than you Yeah. It seems, yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:36

So I've been in food my entire life. Okay. Like literally from the day I was born, I was born on a cattle ranch in Colorado.

Speaker: 34:44

In a hospital nearby, you mean?

Speaker 2: 34:46

No, I was in, yeah, I was in the hospital. Okay, that's good. But, but, uh, I grew up in a town called Salida. Mm-hmm. Up in the mountains. Um, we had a cattle ranch. I did something called four H Sure. Yeah. When I was a kid, so like, yeah. The first year I could be in four HI think it was eight. Nice. And sold my first steer at the age of eight and like Nice. Got a pocket

Speaker: 35:05

full of money from some local businessman.

Speaker 2: 35:07

Correct. Which I think four H is like an awesome, for sure. Awesome thing. Like selling, selling my market animals in for h is what put me through college. Yeah. Like I sold one every year for nine years.

Speaker: 35:21

Right. That's cool.

Speaker 2: 35:22

And I had zero college debt. Like I paid for it right through four H. That's awesome. Um, so I kind of got outta school and then my very first job was with a meat packer in Nebraska. Okay. So I moved school

Speaker: 35:36

for what? Like, uh, uh, ag finance or something like that? No, I just went for finance. Okay. So

Speaker 2: 35:42

I went for finance and when I graduated it was kind of like in the recession.

Speaker: 35:47

Okay.

Speaker 2: 35:48

Pretty tough to find something. So when I had to go to

Speaker: 35:51

Nebraska, yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:51

Somebody called me up there like, well, I got a job at a meat packer in Lincoln, Nebraska. And you're like, ah, I'll take it. But I did that. For a couple years. Um, that company actually like, ended up going bankrupt.

Speaker: 36:05

Oh, wow. Uh, and what was your job like?

Speaker 2: 36:08

I was like a financial analyst. Okay. Like very entry level. Yeah. Finance person. And that company,

Speaker: 36:15

you're trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding right away, uh, once you learn what's going on. Yeah. Or it was above your pay grade. You were looking more at divisions and margins on your segments. It was, that

Speaker 2: 36:24

was above my pay grade I'd say. Like, you know, where, where mine came in was like, it was kind of macroeconomic conditions is what put that interesting. That business under. But it was pretty interesting, like when the bankruptcy process happened, we had plans, we had all that, so we went from like 600 employees. Mm-hmm. And by the time I left, I was one of three. So they kept me along. Oh, what the heck? Just to pay the bills. Right. And those kinds of things. The

Speaker: 36:51

administrative stuff. Interesting.

Speaker 2: 36:53

Which. It was pretty, pretty hard lesson for like a finance person. Right? You're

Speaker: 36:58

like 22. Yeah, I was 24 that, yeah,

Speaker 2: 37:02

probably about 22, 23, something like that. Yeah. Wild. And like, I just remember like handing people their paychecks and they're like, why, why do you get, keep your job? You like, I don't know. I don't like, I'm cheap. Right.

Speaker: 37:15

And they don't have any more processing going on. So,

Speaker 2: 37:18

yeah. So it was like my job was just like making sure the bills were paid and, and all that. And we, it was, you know, looking back it was a pretty painful time, but like

Speaker 3: 37:28

sure.

Speaker 2: 37:28

I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.'cause it really taught me the value of like, understanding the numbers. Sure. Understanding how businesses work, disconnecting feelings from business decisions.

Speaker 4: 37:44

Hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Like, and you know, just kind of what it meant to be. A good friend and a good boss, and sometimes those can't be the same

Speaker: 37:53

thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, interesting.

Speaker 2: 37:57

I did that.

Speaker: 37:58

It's harsh but effective.

Speaker 2: 38:00

It was, it was like, uh, and then my, my old boss called me up and he is like, Hey, I have an opportunity in Europe. Do you wanna go work in food ingredients in Germany for a number of years? So,

Speaker: 38:14

and you're like a, a, a single 23-year-old guy now by now or something like that? Uh, or did you find your,

Speaker 2: 38:20

so that probably by that point, I'm trying to remember. It would've been like 26 or seven. Okay.

Speaker: 38:26

So you spent a few years doing this whole thing?

Speaker 2: 38:27

Yeah, yeah. It was a number of years and I was single ish. Okay. So I was in a relationship for like six months and, and this guy calls me up and he is like, yeah, I got a job. Like if you want to come live in Germany. I was like, yeah, that sounds pretty awesome. And so I talked to my girlfriend. I was like, look, I, I have this really cool opportunity

Speaker 4: 38:54

yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:55

In Germany, but like it's gonna require me to move. I'd love for you to come. Right? And she looked at me and she's like, yes,

Speaker 3: 39:04

okay.

Speaker 2: 39:05

And now she's my wife. Great. Good. I love it. Those are quite the leap on her right point. Like I would be like, I don't know, minister, that's pretty cool. I mean, it's

Speaker: 39:13

basically almost like. Probably yes. Yeah. You know, that's a, it's a, a lot of probably inputs went in her decision, uh, but it went pretty quick. So, yeah. That's a kudos to you there. So what's her name by the way? Melody. Hi Melody. You'll probably listen to this podcast. Um, and so you and Melody bundle off to where in Germany.

Speaker 2: 39:32

So we were in the far north in a town called Lubeck. Okay. Germany. All right. Working for a food ingredient company. Kind of a big multinational,

Speaker: 39:41

like when you say a food ingredient company, they're like breaking down certain things into other stuff or, or,

Speaker 2: 39:47

um, so the company was called Tate and Lyle. Okay. Still, still is Tate Lyle. Like, okay. It's Origin. Origins were, it was a sugar company originally. Okay. So they made sugar inside the US they have a massive sugar and like corn starch business. Okay. And by massive, I mean like. I can't remember. I don't know, like Arthur of Daniels

Speaker: 40:07

Midland size, but not quite that big, but yeah, pretty darn close. Wow. Like, okay.

Speaker 2: 40:10

They would send train loads of high fructose corn syrup to Gotcha. PepsiCo on a weekly basis. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. It was, it was impressive stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the division I worked in is kind of what I would call the Betty Crocker division. Okay. So like if you go make a cake Yeah, yeah. You can buy the flour, the sugar, and all the ingredients and try to figure out how to make a cake.

Speaker: 40:32

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:32

Or you can buy a box, box of Betty cracker, add an egg

Speaker: 40:35

to it, and a third of a cup of oil or something.

Speaker 2: 40:37

Yep. And that's kind of what we did for like, a lot of different companies. Okay. So like,

Speaker: 40:42

and even if it was like a, a production cake maker out of this town here or whatever, they could just use your cake, make mix

Speaker 2: 40:49

for, for dairy is what it was. Okay. Okay. So it was like, like, I won't name names, but like the number one seller of soft serve ice cream. Which is a fast food restaurant that's in every, every city town. Yeah.

Speaker: 41:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:04

You know, they would come to us and be like, I want the best tastings, vanilla ice cream.

Speaker: 41:08

Right.

Speaker 2: 41:09

And so we would, you know, co-develop with them and be like, okay, pour this bag Yeah. Into this much milk and run it through your ice cream maker. Interesting. And you have, and at one point I think we had developed, like, I want to say it was probably like 95% you dominant market

Speaker: 41:26

share. It was just yours. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. And it was like super easy too. Like you could have a plug, a 14-year-old kid in there putting those ingredients together and measuring'em. Yeah. And then you got delicious ice cream. Exactly. Interesting. So, you know, one of the stories I've always found funny is when, uh, the Betty Crocker cake mix kind of stuff, uh, first came out. Mm-hmm. It didn't require the egg and the oil. Oh, really? Yeah. It was just water. And nobody bought it because it didn't seem like real cooking. But once they backed the egg and the oil out, it made you mix your own damn egg and oil in there just

Speaker 2: 42:01

to give the perception that you were cooking a little bit more. Doing something.

Speaker: 42:04

Yes, exactly. Interesting. And then people are like, oh, I'm making you a cake, honey.

Speaker 2: 42:09

I did not know that.

Speaker: 42:10

Yeah, that's, uh, maybe that's just an urban legend, but I'm pretty sure that's a, a truism from history and uh, but if you're the owner of a polar king or anything like that, then uh, you know, having your kids just be able to dump these ingredients in there and turn it back on and be ready to serve, serve, serve baby. Yeah. Interesting.

Speaker 2: 42:31

Yeah, I didn't know that about Betty Crocker. Yeah. Super. Anyway. That's interesting. What I

Speaker: 42:34

think I read some time, a long time ago, I could be wrong.

Speaker 2: 42:38

So when I was there, like that was really an r and d company. Yeah. More than a food company. Yeah. Like it was. It was crazy. Like we're constantly sampling products.

Speaker: 42:47

Yeah. Interesting.

Speaker 2: 42:48

In all fairness, I put on a ton of weight. I

Speaker: 42:50

don't doubt

Speaker 2: 42:51

in my time there. Like when you're sampling ice cream, everything. Did you bring some

Speaker: 42:54

home to Melody too and she wants, plus you had beer fests and all that kind of good stuff, I'm sure. Yeah. Um, so tell me like, not to get into the, into the weeds on it, but like we hear a lot about processed foods and things like that. Like did they put a lot of stuff you don't want to eat in there too? Or was it really kind of relatively pure ingredients?

Speaker 2: 43:17

Um, it was a lot of things. How do I put it? The best All ingredients start somewhat here.

Speaker 4: 43:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:27

Uh, it all depends on the processing along the way.

Speaker 4: 43:30

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 43:31

So. You know, we did a lot with like different kinds of gums that like are on the bad list. Yeah, yeah. Like yeah. Yeah. You know, carins, gure, gums, um,

Speaker: 43:45

what's the stuff they put in, uh, Asian food to make it taste really delicious. MSG. Yes.

Speaker 2: 43:51

We didn't do any MSG like, well,

Speaker: 43:53

and when I was a kid people were like, MSG is terrible for you and this and that, whatever. And then like, it seems like that's kind of turned so now like even some chefs I watch on YouTube and stuff are like, you know, you, it's okay. You can put a little MSG in. There

Speaker 2: 44:04

isn't MSG where it's just supposed to make you feel full and then like, no, I think it's

Speaker: 44:09

like a more of like a flavor magnifier. Like is it salt? Like salt plus umami is how I have it understood in my little brain

Speaker 2: 44:18

maybe,

Speaker: 44:19

but I don't know.

Speaker 2: 44:20

I thought it was something to like help create fullness.

Speaker: 44:23

Oh no, I don't think so. I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to. Look that up afterwards.

Speaker 2: 44:29

I know it wasn't good for you, or at least that that was what it was like. So

Speaker: 44:33

you're in North Germany working at this, at this food ingredients company and exploring, right? Yep. Because, uh, you were from, you know, a kid from a small town Colorado situation, moved to Lincoln, which was your big town experience up to that point.

Speaker 2: 44:45

Yeah, so lived in Germany for a couple years. Um, did really, really good in the food ingredient company. Really enjoyed it. Uh, spent like six months in London where the corporate headquarters were. Okay. Which was really cool. Still in

Speaker: 45:00

a financial focused element.

Speaker 2: 45:01

Yep, yep. So my background's finance. So even though

Speaker: 45:03

they're an RD company, you're still focused on the numbers part of it and hey, hey, hey, you spent enough on this project. Is it ready?

Speaker 2: 45:09

No.'cause we were still a food, like it was r and d, but you're still just selling food products fair. So it was a lot of like, you know, making sure that. Products made money and yeah. What are the import duties into these countries and all that stuff. So yeah.

Speaker: 45:26

Yeah. Where do we want to sell to? Exactly. Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:29

Um, I remember like, it was one of our biggest countries when I was on that side was like, into Russia. Okay. And then like, we were a UK based company, and then they had like, the UK implemented this, um, anti-bribery act.

Speaker: 45:46

Okay.

Speaker 2: 45:46

And we're like, it completely killed the Russian business. They're like, well, you know, unless there's bribes happening, like, yeah, so you have no business. Like, and I remember like crazy times, but I perfect fix it guys. It was like, yeah. It was just like certain countries, like I just, I clearly remember the Russian thing where like, they're like, yeah, well, unless, like you're just, we lost the entire Russian business. Interesting. It's like, well, unless you pay something to get things across the border, they're not getting across the border.

Speaker: 46:20

Oh, interesting. Huh.

Speaker 2: 46:22

Yeah, it was pretty interesting times.

Speaker: 46:24

Um, maybe that's good. Maybe it's not, I don't know. Right. Like their companies moved a lot more stuff when it was Okay. You know, tariff by another name,

Speaker 2: 46:34

but, um,

Speaker: 46:35

locally, uh, locally applied tariff is what I would say. Yeah. Like a bribe.

Speaker 2: 46:41

It's a, it's a very narrow, very narrow tariff to go across

Speaker: 46:45

this county line. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much wrote this boundary. So spent a little time in, in Germany, found your way back.

Speaker 2: 46:53

Yep. Came back with the company in Chicago. Okay. For a number of years. We had our first child and my wife's like, yeah, I really want, like, I'm going back to Colorado with her without you. I was like, okay, okay. I'm coming too. Where was

Speaker: 47:04

she from?

Speaker 2: 47:05

Uh, she's from Greeley, so. Okay.

Speaker: 47:07

Yep.

Speaker 2: 47:08

Um, so we moved back and I started working for an organic produce company. So a company called Earthbound Farms. Okay. They sell, you know, the tub lettuce? Yeah. Spring mix spinach.

Speaker: 47:21

Yep, yep. Pretty much every of the products before

Speaker 2: 47:24

every grocery store. I think Lucky's carries it

Speaker: 47:25

right?

Speaker 2: 47:26

Lucky's carries it. Um, yeah, I mean, trying to remember. I've been, I'm sure. But yeah. Uh, they were so similar thing, huge business similar. They're, they're sourcing

Speaker: 47:36

these, this kind of quality category, this kind of organic or non-organic whatever. And just only organic for the earthbound. Yep. Okay.

Speaker 2: 47:44

And we actually had ranches and farms, so we farm like 27,000 acres Oh wow. Of organic plan. Like it was the largest organic farm in the nation. Oh dang. Okay. Like huge. It's almost a million square foot salad plant.

Speaker: 47:59

Dang. Like we had Okay. So a lot of it was its own production?

Speaker 2: 48:03

Yeah, it was. It was a big company. Yeah.

Speaker: 48:06

Yeah. Interesting.

Speaker 2: 48:07

Um, and at that time, that company, we were. A company called WhiteWave Foods who had like Horizon Organic Dairy. Oh, sure. Silk. The Soy milks International Delight. Yep. They must

Speaker: 48:18

move a lot of product too.'cause they got a lot of tons bridge space. I know that. Tons. It's crazy how much Silk coverage is. Yeah. They got all these different flavors. But it all gets Chef Space.

Speaker 2: 48:27

And that company WhiteWave got acquired by Danone or Danon Yogurt. Oh

Speaker: 48:32

yeah. Okay. Danone is how you're supposed to say that.

Speaker 2: 48:35

Uh, so the yogurt's danon, but the holding company, the ownership is Danone. I see. Because it's a French company.

Speaker: 48:40

Yeah, yeah. I got it.

Speaker 2: 48:42

And they got acquired and they're like, why do you have a produce brand? Oh, interesting.

Speaker: 48:46

Okay.

Speaker 2: 48:46

So ended up selling that company. So I was with, with Earthbound for like six years. Okay. And I was kind of like employee number one when WhiteWave acquired it.

Speaker: 48:56

Okay.

Speaker 2: 48:57

And then I was the one that sold it at the end. Oh,

Speaker: 48:59

interesting. Man. You were like the last guy on the boat a couple times already here.

Speaker 2: 49:03

Yeah. And I had the opportunity to stay there or. Kind of do something else. And it's like, I like the smaller companies. Like when in those really big companies, I always think of things as like, it's like an inch wide and a mile deep. Like Yeah, you might be the, the nationwide expert on Yeah, you might, transportation might be just crushing it

Speaker: 49:25

at your job, but yeah. Nobody notices and you don't make any change in the overall business.

Speaker 2: 49:30

Exactly. And I like to be more of a generalist, so I kind of went to a smaller company.

Speaker: 49:34

Okay.

Speaker 2: 49:35

Uh, and did like ice cream for a year or so, and I was like, ah, it doesn't really align with like what I like. Yeah. Like

Speaker: 49:43

truth is ice cream makes me heavy. It's slow. That's your right. That's your right.

Speaker 2: 49:49

And then I, I had the opportunity to be, um, get my first like chief financial officer job at a plant-based meat company. Okay. A local one in, in Boulder. And they were, you know, cleaner for the plant-based meats. Yeah. Because most plant based meats are now pretty nasty too. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty nasty. I spent like three years there and I was just like, this doesn't quite align with who I am. Yeah. Like as a cattle rancher, right. Growing up like,

Speaker: 50:19

well, and you know, the truth is you can't just can't grow soybeans places where most of the cows do their thing, you know? Yeah. So it's not really that great of a

Speaker 2: 50:28

alternative,

Speaker: 50:29

ethical alternative. Really.

Speaker 2: 50:31

Well, and I think like most consumers have gotten to the point, like, if you want to reduce your meat consumption, eat more fruits and vegetables, just do it. Like don't have more process things like totally. Yeah, I'm a big fan of fruits and vegetables and healthy things too. And I like a

Speaker: 50:46

veggie burger. Like one of my, uh, guilty pleasures is, oh, what's it called? Oh, the Hypocrite Burger at Big Al's.

Speaker 2: 50:54

Okay. I've never had it.

Speaker: 50:55

The, I think it's called the hippie crit, uh, because it's a burger, like a quarter pound burger and then a quarter pound, uh, vegetarian veggie burger.

Speaker 2: 51:04

Oh, okay.

Speaker: 51:05

And then a sauce and lettuce, tomato so's both. It is both. Oh, interesting. Real beef and a veggie burger.

Speaker 2: 51:09

Interesting.

Speaker: 51:11

Which sounds funny, but their veggie burger is actually quite nice. It's one of the bean based ones Yep. That have a little texture. And, and it's not trying to be, it's not trying to pretend it's beef. Yeah. It's just being a proud veggie burger, you know, being proud with a, with a bean heavy con texture, you know, bean forward veggie burger. And I, I've got respect for that.

Speaker 5: 51:30

Yep.

Speaker: 51:30

But don't try to grow me something with that starts as some sort of mold and then tell me it's beef.'cause I know what you're lying. Yeah. And that's kind of where I, like, I digress

Speaker 2: 51:40

over the years with the few years I was there, I was like, yeah, this just doesn't, doesn't align with who I am. Yeah. And so that's when I had come over to Grass Fit Foods. Okay. So I originally joined as the CFO Okay. Of the company, uh, little over three years. Okay. And that was right when the two Teton and Sun Fed were merging. Okay. So originally they were both standalone businesses. Okay. They,

Speaker: 52:05

that must have been kind of interesting to. Have like a holding company, but still the brands beneath kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 52:11

No, that's pretty common. Yeah. Pretty straightforward. Like, like WhiteWave when I was there. Sure. Like WhiteWave was, you'd already it holding company and like seen

Speaker: 52:17

before had nothing to do with the grass or the whatever. The, the farm Earthbound Farm Earthbound Farms, yeah. Brand. Yep. Exactly. Makes Okay.

Speaker 2: 52:24

Yep. Every little, you know, brand kind of had its own. Yeah. Yeah. So I came on right before the merger. Um, that merger came with plenty of its financial challenges that the ownership didn't quite expect. Gotcha. Um, so we had to go through a couple years of some pretty hard financial challenges, but kind of got through that. And

Speaker: 52:49

so did, was it a new owner that, like a private equity firm or something that bought these two and put'em together? Or was the owner of one of'em the owner before or how did that all all come together? Yeah, the owner,

Speaker 2: 52:59

the owner of one. Uh, was the one that kind of orchestrated the deal and then it was gonna be like ownership on both sides.

Speaker: 53:06

Okay, got it. A merger of equals stronger together. Correct?

Speaker 2: 53:09

Correct.

Speaker: 53:10

Oh, something's not right here. Yeah. Something isn't adding up

Speaker 2: 53:13

quite something didn't quite work out.

Speaker: 53:15

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 53:16

And so it was, it did not go nearly according to plan.

Speaker: 53:20

Okay.

Speaker 2: 53:21

Um,

Speaker: 53:21

and you're coming in kind of after people know it didn't go nearly according to plan or while they're figuring it out or?

Speaker 2: 53:27

No, I actually came in, I came in one week before the merger happened.

Speaker: 53:31

Oh, okay. So

Speaker 2: 53:32

they had hired me saying like, Hey, you know, these two businesses just a simple

Speaker: 53:36

merger, everybody's all square, we're great friends.

Speaker 2: 53:39

And they didn't wanna bring me on'cause they didn't think like the businesses were big enough standalone for A CFO.

Speaker: 53:45

Okay.

Speaker 2: 53:46

And they're like, once it's merged, like then it makes a ton of sense. Okay. So they brought me on for the merger and then. About two weeks, three weeks after the merger, I discovered some discrepancies in the, the accounts and I was like, oh man. Like on

Speaker: 54:00

just one side more?

Speaker 2: 54:02

Yeah. On one side.

Speaker: 54:03

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 54:04

So then kind of changed everything.

Speaker: 54:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:08

Uh, spent the next year and a half or so just trying to fix all the financial troubles that the one side had.

Speaker 4: 54:16

Wow.

Speaker 2: 54:17

Got it fixed. And, and the ownership was like, Hey, like you did a great job. This clearly is more like you understand beef.

Speaker: 54:25

Yeah. Deeply. We got this douche bag with the Harvard MBA that's been the CEO and he sucks. Would you like to be the CEO? I mean, I'm sure they didn't say it quite like that anyway, but So you got your chance to swing at the Yeah. So they're like, Hey, chair.

Speaker 2: 54:42

If you want, like this is your chance, if you wanna run the company and what to run. And what did, honestly,

Speaker: 54:47

what did you think of the CEO o previously?'cause you reported to that person, I assume.

Speaker 2: 54:51

Yeah, I think

Speaker: 54:51

he was fine.

Speaker 2: 54:52

He was a good guy. Like,

Speaker: 54:53

yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:54

Uh,

Speaker: 54:54

but he didn't understand the industry like you did?

Speaker 2: 54:56

No. He ultimately, I'd say like, sounds

Speaker: 54:58

like

Speaker 2: 55:00

every person has their own unique perspectives and their unique styles. Yeah. Uh, he, he was a long time meat veteran. Okay. He's still in the meat industry.

Speaker 4: 55:12

Okay.

Speaker 2: 55:13

Uh, I just, you know, I think his perspective and his vision for the company was all around that merger and when that merger didn't work and it just kind of put him on his heels maybe. Yeah. And yeah, I don't like to talk badly about anybody, but like Yeah.

Speaker: 55:34

But he wasn't quite as engaged in the future of it as much after feeling like he kind of. Did a, uh, air ball on that, that merger.

Speaker 2: 55:42

Pretty, yeah, it was kind of a deflating, yeah. Uh, kind of a, a burn situation. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.

Speaker: 55:49

Yeah. And meanwhile, he is, you know, an owner probably, but not a significant owner. And he is got all these investors to answer to and they're all like, Bob,

Speaker 5: 55:57

yeah. What happened? What

Speaker: 55:58

the hell happened? You promised how much money we were gonna make after this merger. And it seems like we're doing the opposite. We were the exact opposite. Yeah. For a while at least. Yeah. So you kind of got it, got the one side fixed up and that opened up the opportunity to be the CEO in general. Yeah. This is a pretty smallish firm, right? Ultimately, as far as people and,

Speaker 2: 56:16

yeah. I mean, we do, you know, pretty significant business nationwide, but you know, we don't have a plant, we don't have our own truck drivers. You don't have drivers and we don't have a farm, anything like that. So like we're able to manage the business with like 16 people wild, which is. I don't wanna say how big the business is, but it's a, it's a sign. So it's like significant like contract delivery

Speaker: 56:40

and stuff too. Then like every time you gotta move some product from this place to the next, you're pretty much relying on somebody else to deliver it to that place or whatever. But there's all those systems are there. All the systems there. As long as the math is right. Yep. Right. That's where the,

Speaker 2: 56:54

and you have really, really smart people, which we do that are like Yeah. You know, a great transportation expert that knows every transportation company in the nation. Right. And Rolodex is,

Speaker: 57:03

and they're like, can we talk about who the team, like key, key roles within, we don't have to talk too much about'em, but like, I wonder what that, like, is there a headquarters leadership team that's, there is kinda a C-suite. So we're based in Loveland. Okay.

Speaker 2: 57:15

Um, the leadership team is myself and then I have a head of supply chain. Mm-hmm. So his job. Overseas source, the beef source, the beef source, the sausage manufacturing plants that, so we, we bring the beef in the processing capability, right? Yep. We bring all the beef in from either the US or overseas. We get it all here. And then we have four or five different production facilities that make the sausage. I like to call'em the

Speaker: 57:45

wiener makers, if that would be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2: 57:47

So we have four or five of those Yep. That pretty much make product every single week. Gotcha.

Speaker: 57:51

And his job is to make sure both of those things are functioning well and if we need more sausage makers,'cause sales are going up, we better go find them kind of thing. Correct.

Speaker 2: 57:59

Correct. So he's kind of in charge of everything from sourcing the beef, making the sausage, transportation.

Speaker: 58:06

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 58:07

All that. Uh, on his team, he has some fantastic people. So he has like a head of logistics. I was gonna

Speaker: 58:14

say logistics type thinkers too. Yep.

Speaker 2: 58:16

Yeah. So they make sure that all the products in the right place at the right time, where sauce at the right price, their when. Yeah.

Speaker: 58:22

Yeah. Interesting. Uh, yeah. And, and your customers in many cases are like the distribution businesses that deliver to these Krogers and Sprouts supplier? No, we're directly to the, to the Kroger's and Sprouts and Okay, gotcha. You stock it right there in the shelves and everything, all sauces of shelves. But we send it to like

Speaker 2: 58:36

their distribution centers. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So it goes directly to their Yep. Their centers. And then we've got the

Speaker: 58:42

sausages on the shelves ready to go. Yep, exactly. Okay. All right.

Speaker 2: 58:46

Uh, you know, one of the, you know, you, one of the key roles actually is like a production planning person. Like, so we have this, this woman on our team, she's absolutely fantastic. The meat

Speaker: 58:57

whisperer, they call her.

Speaker 2: 58:58

Yeah. She just knows like, all right, I gotta have this meat here at this time, and this leaves here at this time. Like, we gotta have this much, you know, when you're bringing product, especially like overseas, like you're thinking a quarter in advance, like,

Speaker: 59:12

yeah,

Speaker 2: 59:12

we gotta make sure that these animals are processed.

Speaker: 59:14

Yeah. Oh, and has it been a mess with tariffs and stuff too, or? Well, they opened, they loosened on the beef.

Speaker 2: 59:20

They loosened on the beef. Right.

Speaker: 59:22

It was

Speaker 2: 59:23

pretty painful for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On the beef front it didn't really mess up too much from like our supply side.

Speaker 4: 59:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 59:31

Um, but it did definitely hurt like on the cost side. Yeah. We're a pretty low margin business. Right, right. So you can imagine like just

Speaker: 59:38

absorbing a quick 25% increase in your beef costs, uh, makes this can't raise the sausage price fast enough.

Speaker 2: 59:45

No. And, and we're a premium product, like

Speaker: 59:47

Right. We're already selling high price. We're

Speaker 2: 59:49

already pretty, like one of the higher prices on the shelves. Right. So when like that came, you're like, boy, there's not a lot of room Yeah. To take much price. So we tried to like, so,

Speaker: 59:59

so you were cheering when you heard the news?

Speaker 2: 1:00:00

Yeah. Yeah.'cause it was, we're kind of, when the news came, we were like contemplating like, we're gonna have to take another increase. Like there is no more. Yeah. We've tried to like wait out, we can get more efficient. We tried to like Yeah. You know, find other places, do what you can. Yeah. But when the news came, we're like, okay, well thank goodness, like at least that means we don't have to take a price increase right now. Right, right.

Speaker: 1:00:22

And who else on your leadership team, or is that the main,

Speaker 2: 1:00:24

so that's on the supply side. Yep. Um, and then we have like a head of commercial, so he's in charge of sales and marketing. Okay. Uh, so he has a couple sales people underneath him and they're like

Speaker: 1:00:37

talking to grocery stores and stuff, or regions, you know, to the, to the head buyers. Okay. So, yep. Oh, gotcha. Makes sense. Yep. Okay. So like, I'm just thinking about who you're selling to. You're ultimately not, I mean, it's a brand name, but it's not a brand name. You're not doing commercials on Fox News or anything like that

Speaker 2: 1:00:53

typically. No. We do little tiny commercials. Yeah. Yeah. But, um,

Speaker: 1:00:58

mostly it's direct sales to the, to the deciders.

Speaker 2: 1:01:01

Yep. So we go to the deciders, like actually tomorrow I gotta fly to Cincinnati, to Kroger. Gotcha. So like

Speaker: 1:01:09

the Kroger decider is there. Yeah. The

Speaker 2: 1:01:11

Kroger deciders there. So we go to them. Yep, yep. Like makes sense. Um, so he kind of leads all sales marketing and then we do, you know, little marketing. He's like, obviously there's not the budgets to do a TV ad, but we did a really cool collaboration like this year with Blackstone Griddles.

Speaker: 1:01:29

Oh, cool. That's my favorite. I've got a grilled griddle combo that I used for my camping gear. Yeah. Best, best$200 I ever spent.

Speaker 2: 1:01:36

Yeah, they're, they're awesome. Yeah. Like we ended up buying a couple griddles for like an event. Yeah. And I talked to one of the people at Blackstone, it's like, Hey, we should look at a collaboration. And they made it happen.

Speaker: 1:01:46

Cool.

Speaker 2: 1:01:47

And so, like, you know, we've been doing like some cooking shows on the Blackstone Channel Oh, fun and that kind of stuff with them. And that's been like really cool kind of. Yeah. Things that we can do. Low investment. Yeah. Yeah. Those kinds of things. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:01:59

That would like take advantage of. They got a, they got a bigger reach, but they also don't have unlimited money, and so if you'll throw in some nice cuts, uh, we could do some collab here. This is cool. You know? Yeah. They, and it gives them more credibility as well. We got a premium beef cuts company that wants to be part of our, you know, premium beanie weenie, uh, cooking hour here.

Speaker 2: 1:02:19

Yeah. They're Blackstone's been absolutely awesome. Cool. So like we do that kind of marketing. Yeah. That kind of thing. So, um, that, that's kind of it from, that's the kind of the main primary portion of the team. The, and then there's like a head of finance. Yep. That's kind of like as I've moved into a leadership role. Yeah. I brought in a head of finance that helps too much. Keep the book straight and

Speaker: 1:02:39

awesome

Speaker 2: 1:02:40

Bills paid, but Yeah. Yeah. We're pretty lean and mean.

Speaker: 1:02:42

Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting, it's so cool that every business is a different business. Right. Like, yeah, there's no, I haven't hardly experienced a business like yours in my years as a banker'cause it's just kind of a different place, a different marketplace. But here you are in Loveland, Colorado and you know, your team is mostly local too. Is that true?

Speaker 2: 1:03:04

Mostly, yeah. Yeah. We still have a couple, we have some people kind of in California and Yeah. You know, different places, but, which is pretty

Speaker: 1:03:11

easy still. But also you get that the element of, you know, here you're just one more front range business, putting it together. Yep. Exactly. So, so, hey, I wanna call a short break. Okay. We'll for a potty break for me and a refresh and, uh, we'll be back here in a few.

Speaker 8: 1:03:24

Hi, this is Clint Jasper, managing partner at Purpose-Driven Wealth. We believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Our mission is to guide clients through the complexities of wealth management, retirement planning, and legacy, using a values-driven, stewardship based approach, focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment with more than a century of expertise through thriving. We offer tailored strategies to help individuals and families achieve their goals and embrace generosity. Whether you're navigating a life or business transition or planning for the future, we are here to partner with you every step of the way. To learn more about Purpose-Driven Wealth, call 9 7 0 3 3 0 7 4 1 1.

Speaker: 1:04:13

And we're back. Perfect. How was that bathroom break for you?

Speaker 2: 1:04:17

Relieving,

Speaker: 1:04:19

what do you think of my, my, my new podcast producer? Uh, Sadie does, she seemed friendly as you came in. She does seem friendly. She pushed the cookies on you and tried to guilt trip you about not taking'em a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:04:29

Yeah. She was, she was pushing the cookies Was gentle though. And you're pushing the bourbon. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's

Speaker: 1:04:35

our policy here. Yeah. We just want you to be comfortable.

Speaker 2: 1:04:39

I appreciate that.

Speaker: 1:04:40

Um, so what we often do right after the break is, you know, you mentioned kind of growing up in Sali of town and a few chapters, but I want to get a little bit nos you into that, you know, third grade year at in Salida. And what was Sali like then? Was it the, you know, beers, bikes and babes kind of town that it is today? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:05:02

No, no. When I was growing up, like it was very much an agriculture community. Like

Speaker: 1:05:11

is there, like, I know about over by Gunnison and stuff, there's a lot of pasture land and stuff, but there's cattle like south of Salida in those trees and stuff. Or where, where do they keep.

Speaker 2: 1:05:19

Yeah. Well they used to be where all the houses are now.

Speaker: 1:05:22

Oh, gotcha. Gotcha,

Speaker 4: 1:05:24

gotcha.

Speaker 2: 1:05:25

Um, so like I grew up kind of at the base of Mount Chau we had.

Speaker 4: 1:05:30

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:05:31

Uh, it was probably like 600 acres. Okay.

Speaker: 1:05:35

Maybe, yeah. What we'd call a section basically in North Dakota. Yeah. A mile by a mile.

Speaker 2: 1:05:41

In all transparency, that's not exactly the most productive ag land. Sure. Up there it's like mostly rocks and wind and Yeah. One

Speaker: 1:05:49

cow per every, uh, 60 acres. It is a little bit better than that, but still not a high grass production place compared to Argentina or parts of the Midwest, even in the US stuff like that. Yeah. Midwest

Speaker 2: 1:06:00

like, so, no, it was very, very ag centric and it was kind of interesting, like that's where, but did your family

Speaker: 1:06:07

make a living from the ranch or? It was,

Speaker 2: 1:06:09

uh, my dad had a construction business as well. Okay.

Speaker: 1:06:11

I was gonna say, that doesn't seem like a. Could have enough cows to make a,

Speaker 2: 1:06:14

make a living from. No, that was, that was more of like

Speaker: 1:06:17

passion project, we'll call it.

Speaker 2: 1:06:18

Yeah. And at that point, like my dad was older. Mm. So like Yeah. He was more semi-retired. Yeah. And just like, do what I wanna do. Kind of. He was working on the ranch, but I'm sure that that was not what paid the bills. Right, right. It was kind of all of his real, uh, like construction, right. Projects, excavation, that kind of stuff. Like over the years that had done that. But no, it was great. Like growing up today, it was not the community that it is today. Like, I remember when the first art gallery came to Southern, you're like, what is interesting? Okay. Right.

Speaker: 1:06:53

Why do we need art? Yeah. Well, and a lot of

Speaker 2: 1:06:56

what the art is, is not what I, I'm like.

Speaker: 1:06:59

You say it's not the community it is today, but in some ways it was probably more community like. Yes. Like everybody had deep roots. Very deep roots in the roots region. You know, it was ranchers and small business people and Correct little bit of home construction and stuff, but it wasn't a boom town yet. So you probably had, there was probably more grade school kids.

Speaker 2: 1:07:18

There were, yeah, it was when I was there now it was just rich

Speaker: 1:07:21

people whose kids have grown up and they don't correct want'em or whatever. Or they're just kids with, before they have kids.

Speaker 2: 1:07:26

Yeah. When I was there, like the average class size was like a hundred kids. Mm-hmm. And I think it's like down to like in the sixties now

Speaker: 1:07:32

with double the population.

Speaker 2: 1:07:34

Yeah. Well just older people. Either

Speaker: 1:07:36

older people or young people that don't have kids yet.

Speaker 2: 1:07:38

And one, one thing that was super cool when I was growing up is, um, most of the, or like a really high percentage of the community. Was Italian immigrants because Oh really? Salida had like a very similar landscape, huh? As like parts of northern Italy. Is that right? So like, tons and tons of people,

Speaker: 1:07:57

people that came to Denver would find Salida and be like, oh,

Speaker 2: 1:08:00

it's like home. It's like a home or, or

Speaker: 1:08:03

something like that. Or they would

Speaker 2: 1:08:04

like tell their family. Oh, interesting. So it was like people would just come from Italy. Huh. And so like, I grew up in like, almost like an entire town that was like this big Italian family. Is that right? Like, oh, come on over. Like, I'm gonna feed you. And like

Speaker: 1:08:15

And your family wasn't one of those families though.

Speaker 2: 1:08:18

I do have an Italian last name, so Polaro? Yeah, sure. It is Italian for, uh, gold Golden ball is what it actually means. Bid

Speaker: 1:08:26

in with those books.

Speaker 2: 1:08:27

Yeah. Um, but my dad claimed to be more German than Italian. Gotcha. Um, but like my godparents were pure Italian. Interesting. Like. Huh? Just like the most loving, caring people, like rocking kind

Speaker: 1:08:44

of tragedy of its own. Like now Salida is just a melting pot of rich people that made their money here or there everywhere. Yeah. Mostly in Colorado, probably, but also everywhere. But it doesn't, you I would, you would never suspect that Italian connection today. Yeah. Yeah. It was. Whereas in your days of growing up, you could recognize that.

Speaker 2: 1:09:03

Oh yeah. I mean every, every name ended with an A or no. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:09:07

The high school yearbook has got all these, uh, yeah. You know, Italian looking names and all that kind stuff. Huh. I would've never known that.

Speaker 2: 1:09:15

Yeah. It was, it was interesting.'cause like, I mean, the one thing I love about Italian culture is it's just like so welcoming.

Speaker 4: 1:09:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:09:22

Like we, I remember like a friend her, her grandma was like this old Italian woman. Yeah. And they lived like not far from the high school and they, you know, when you had open campus, like it would be. Today. Like kids will be like, oh, let's go to McDonald's. We're all like, yeah, yeah, let's go to Nona Mama, Rosa's Nna, gran's house. And she'd have like 30 high schoolers at her house for lunch every day. Like,

Speaker: 1:09:48

that is awesome. What are you, what a unique, uh, kind of environment to, to grow up in. Yeah, it was awesome. Other siblings as well?

Speaker 2: 1:09:57

I do. So I have a sister who still lives down in that area, so we, we sold off all the land in Sali. Which house is there now? Yeah. Pretty much houses there. Yeah. Now, um, my sister and I bought a ranch in like the San Luis Valley, which is just over Poncho Pass.

Speaker: 1:10:15

Sure, yeah, yeah. I go down there occasionally by the sand dunes to do some hot springs and then motorcycle touring and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 1:10:21

So do you know where Swatch is?

Speaker: 1:10:23

Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:10:24

So between my sister and I, we have like, it's like 1600 acres in Swatch.

Speaker: 1:10:30

You could, uh, get 1600 acres in Swatch for what you sold 600 acres for and have. A lot left, uh, yeah. To do stuff with. Yeah. When

Speaker 2: 1:10:38

we bought, when we bought the land as a watch, it was

Speaker: 1:10:39

one than 10. Pretty,

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

pretty fair, fair price. I saw

Speaker: 1:10:43

the other day actually, there was a, like a put your tiny house or whatever on this property in San Luis.

Speaker 5: 1:10:50

Okay.

Speaker: 1:10:51

Uh, in just outside of the town, like a two and a half miles outside of the town of San Luis. Yep. And it was just, you know, sage brushes surrounded by sage brushes, but like three acres and it was like 20 grand. Yeah. That's, you know, with a road to the site and, you know, maybe even electric to the site. Wow. I can't quite remember, but it, you know, it's so interesting and, and if you're okay with cold nights, it's a pretty amazing climate to live in down there.

Speaker 2: 1:11:16

It's pretty, yeah. The winters are pretty brutal. Yeah. Well, it

Speaker: 1:11:20

gets kind of nice during the day a lot of times when, when it's not blizzarding or whatever, but, you know, get up to 50 in the daytime and then down to 30 below at night or something.

Speaker 2: 1:11:27

Yeah. I was, like I said, I was down there last week and part of the reason I, I wanted to get the place with my sister was like. Elk could go in there. Oh yeah. So I was like, yeah, you got some nice

Speaker: 1:11:38

cover down there.

Speaker 2: 1:11:39

So I wanted to go elk hunting and was down there and nobody was there when I was down there this week. Okay. And like I was in the house and it's just like the house is, I don't know, like an 1890s. Oh, okay. Old farmhouse. Sure. And like the only heat in there is like a wood. The wood stove. Right. You like trying to get, and the windows are original and so actually

Speaker: 1:12:01

heating the house up is a job in itself.

Speaker 2: 1:12:03

Yeah. I was like sitting there, I was like texting my wife. I was like, I am freezing, wearing like all your clothes to that, the wood bring stove has

Speaker: 1:12:12

been like burning for three hours. Yeah. And I'm still freezing it here.

Speaker 2: 1:12:15

Luckily it was like a pellet stove. Like it go run by itself all night night. Put the dragger on. Yeah. Yeah. Like

Speaker: 1:12:21

But you were successful, you got an elk.

Speaker 2: 1:12:23

Yeah, just, just a cow elk. Just for the meat, like whatever. I grew up eating wild game. I love, yeah.

Speaker: 1:12:28

I'm, I'm actually loved Wild game Salivating a little bit right now just. Thinking about a nice elk steak or whatever. So I'm definitely jelly about that.

Speaker 2: 1:12:36

Yeah. I just, man, I, I mean I love beef. Yeah. But I love wild game. It was, it was pretty funny as a kid just thinking about it. It was like we grew up beef farmers mm-hmm. And eating wild game. And my dad would get so mad if you went to a restaurant ordered chicken. He's like, we don't eat chicken in this house. We're beef farmers.

Speaker: 1:12:56

I hate to say it, but for one of the first times in forever, uh, they had at, at Blue Agave, I was down in Denver, went to the Blue Agave restaurant down there and they had a special, that was like a, a there and corn dip thing that I shared with the A two course meal.

Speaker 5: 1:13:11

Yep.

Speaker: 1:13:12

And then an air airline chicken or airplane chicken or whatever they call that with the breast, with the wing attached. Yeah. And with the skin on there. And it was delicious. Good job. Blue agave. You killed it on that entree. Um, and I never ordered chicken, but like that's one of the few. Preparations of chicken work can actually make me happy. Okay. But, uh, but yes, my household, my wife, my exchange didn't, they're always like, so we eat beef and pork and assorted sausages and it is like, well, well I have chicken again next week. Not really food anyway, to all your chicken partners out there.

Speaker 2: 1:13:52

I remember, just remember my dad always be like, what are you doing eating chicken? Put that crap down. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:13:58

My, my taste buds and sensibilities are the same. I'd rather have a gamey chunk of venison, frankly, than a, than a chicken breast. Especially chicken thighs. I'm all about, but yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:14:10

I'm all about wild meat. Like

Speaker: 1:14:11

how about birds and stuff too? Ducks and,

Speaker 2: 1:14:14

uh, I didn't grow up eating too much birds. Like we had a pond at our house like. My mom thought that the ducks and geese were more her pets than wild life. Yeah. She doesn't want you bringing'em home to eat. You could go shoot a deer or an elk all day long. Gotcha. Like if you shot a duck, you were a dead man.

Speaker: 1:14:34

Gotcha. So it is not as good anyway, honestly, like ducks are okay. Pheasants are pretty tasty is pretty good. Um, goose? I do not like goose. No, nobody does. Just tastes like eating mud. If they tell you like goose, they're lying. I think so quite the, the, I guess agricultural background, ranchy environment even continues today. You dabble in it a little bit with your sister. Yeah. And what, does she work in town or something and live on this ranch or do they try to, you try to make money with this ranch somehow? Uh,

Speaker 2: 1:15:03

so cow, some cow. We obviously try to not lose money on the ranch. Like, uh, so

Speaker: 1:15:08

you, you're you raising some cows then on it or what do you do with it? Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:15:10

So they have about 160 head of cows. Oh, okay. Um,

Speaker: 1:15:14

that's more than I would've thought could fit on. A ranch of that size is down there 10 per acre?

Speaker 2: 1:15:19

No, we have. It's pretty, pretty fertile spot. Okay. Right on. Like

Speaker: 1:15:25

it's coming outta the foothills, kind of up there,

Speaker 2: 1:15:26

coming outta the foothills. Okay. Right on one of the major creeks we have Oh, cool. Water rights. Nice. Which is, that's awesome. Probably the water's worth more than the land and all transparency. Right. Um, so her husband kind of manages all the, the land and the ranch and the cattle and that kind of thing. But she has a small CPA business. Okay. And I think that probably helps pay for more things than

Speaker: 1:15:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:15:51

Yeah. The ranch itself, it's more of a hobby.

Speaker: 1:15:54

Right. For me. Well, I mean, 160 cows, that's quite a few cow calf mostly. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:16:00

I'd say it's more of a hobby for me, for them. For him. Oh, you guys share like herd? Yeah. For him it's his full-time job. Right, right. But the ranch itself, like for me it's like, ah, you know, it's their cows, their kind of thing. Like Gotcha. I, I like to go down and. Still be connected, help brand cattle lie, those kinds of things. Lie I wanna tell

Speaker: 1:16:17

the truth when I fill out my gros. Exactly. Elk permit. Exactly. I said,

Speaker 2: 1:16:21

do you have gratis in Colorado? Gros? Like if

Speaker: 1:16:23

you're the landowner.

Speaker 2: 1:16:25

So you get, you get landowner permits. Okay. So that's what I was, yeah. I'm a big elk. That's what

Speaker: 1:16:29

you have in North Dakota is you can hunt in your own land if you're a landowner. Kind of.

Speaker 2: 1:16:33

Yeah. But you still gotta get like vouchers from the divisional wildlife. Right. It's not helping Amy. You still have to pay for it,

Speaker: 1:16:40

but you're automatically guaranteed to get it though, right? Yeah. Or no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's the way it is in North Dakota too, like and in North Dakota the deer populations are down and so they're barely send selling that many over the counter tickets.'cause the landowners all want one.

Speaker 2: 1:16:52

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:16:53

And there's so many landowners.

Speaker 2: 1:16:54

Yeah. It's kinda the same here. I mean like if you put in for a draw, like I'm a big elk hunter. Yeah. Like I do archery elk every fall.

Speaker: 1:17:01

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:17:01

And I put in for tags and like I haven't drawn a tag in a couple years. Is that right? Like I'll still do like over the counter, but it's pretty tough hunting. Interesting. In the over the counter units. Because there's thousands and thousands of people like

Speaker: 1:17:15

Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 1:17:16

So then the backup plans. The voucher on the land.

Speaker: 1:17:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:17:20

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:17:21

Well you brought one home. There you go. So, um, and then we kind of picked up your journey as you went off to college. Where did you go to? Did you go up, come up to Greeley? Is that where you went, your wife then? Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:17:30

So I went, got my undergraduate in Greeley, where I met my wife at UNC, I presume At UNC. Yep. Um, and then, you know, after Greeley, I went and worked in Nebraska for a few years. Sure. Came back and worked here for a little bit before I went to Germany. Oh, okay. With kind of still in the beef industry with a company called, um, Meyer Natural Foods. Oh, yeah. So it's a company in Loveland as well. Yeah, yeah. So when we had the beef. Processing facility. We process cattle for Meyer. Oh. Interest. So then like Gotcha. Then I worked here. And then how you became

Speaker: 1:18:08

aware of them kind of, so you've kinda moved through network in many cases too. Correct. Like people were like, Hey, we need a dorky numbers dude at our place. I remember working with Kevin, he was pretty cool for a dorky numbers dude.

Speaker 2: 1:18:20

Correct,

Speaker: 1:18:21

yeah. Or something like that.

Speaker 2: 1:18:21

Yeah. Every job I've ever had was through a connection with the exception of this one.

Speaker: 1:18:27

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:18:27

This was the only one where I like cold applied.

Speaker: 1:18:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:18:31

But like everything was through somebody. That's

Speaker: 1:18:33

a pretty cool testimony, frankly, on a, on a career path and that people recognize your talent and your agreeableness to work with and stuff like that, and wanted to get you on our team.

Speaker 2: 1:18:44

Or they were just drunk maybe. I don't know. Yeah, they, they needed somebody and they knew you were a pretty easy sell. Well, he is. Got a poll. I doubt

Speaker: 1:18:52

it. I doubt it. Um, would you like to engage in our ping pong ball? Random question challenge? Sure. This is an exciting segment of the show. Oh, and by the way, before we leave, uh, melody behind, do you have children also with

Speaker 2: 1:19:08

I do. Yeah. Together have two daughters. Okay. So my oldest is Claire. Alright. She's 12. And my, Claire my youngest is Hannah.

Speaker: 1:19:15

Hannah? Yeah. Why? What makes it different than Hannah?

Speaker 2: 1:19:19

So it's HANA. Oh.

Speaker: 1:19:22

Like Hawaii Hana.

Speaker 2: 1:19:24

That's exactly where it came from. Oh, cool. Okay. So we were driving on the road to Hana, which is amazing. Hours long. Yes. And that's where we had come up with like, yeah, maybe we should have a second child. Little did we know that the word Hana. Is, uh, I wanna say it's

Speaker: 1:19:39

devil,

Speaker 2: 1:19:40

it's Hawaiian. Just kidding. Yeah, it's Hawaiian for hard work, which is very fitting. Like. She's an awesome girl, but she's a lot of work.

Speaker: 1:19:50

Perfect. Well, I'll keep you young for a long time. Yeah. So choose three of these. I'll pass it right to you. Or you can grab'em right outta there. They will tend to bounce out, so be careful. This is my questions that are associated with each number. So, 16, 16, we'll start with 16. How do you define success in your career and or your business might be two different answers there.

Speaker 2: 1:20:17

Well, I'm How do you

Speaker: 1:20:18

define success?

Speaker 2: 1:20:19

I'm a very goal oriented guy. Okay. Uh, so I'd say

Speaker: 1:20:24

so each week, each month? Each quarter.

Speaker 2: 1:20:26

Each week, yeah. You're breaking it down. You know, you, if you say, I think of success in two different ways, like there's. Career and family. Yeah. Or there's career and work and there's family. So like making sure that I'm being successful in every box that's there. And so I try to make sure I limit the things that will hamper,

Speaker: 1:20:48

distract me from that.

Speaker 2: 1:20:49

Yep. Like there's only so much capacity in the world for me. Yeah. So like, I'm clearly a driven guy in business, but I, my family's number one. Yeah. So if anything gets in the way of family, then that's not a very successful life. Go.

Speaker: 1:21:06

I think that, take that. Um, and so from a,

Speaker 2: 1:21:08

you know, from a career standpoint, because I am a finance guy, like I measure by numbers for everything.

Speaker: 1:21:16

Right. Like maybe overly so sometimes. So you're like ranking with your interactions with your daughters. Like, oh, on a five point scale, how is that?

Speaker 2: 1:21:26

No, but just time. Time. Yeah. It's all about time. So like, on the family front, it's like making sure, like

Speaker: 1:21:31

mm-hmm. I,

Speaker 2: 1:21:33

I have to draw travel a ton for work. Like I pretty much travel every week.

Speaker: 1:21:36

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:21:37

But like, can I get, so even though if I'm traveling every week, I'm gone for no more than one night.

Speaker: 1:21:44

Nice. So

Speaker 2: 1:21:45

it's like,

Speaker: 1:21:45

wow.

Speaker 2: 1:21:46

You know, those kinds of things. So that's on the, the family front. Family's always first. And then on the business front, we set targets and I try to make sure that we always hit our targets.

Speaker: 1:21:57

Yeah. Will, and how are you doing that? Are you a high accountability guy? Are you like busting Kevin's balls if he's not meeting with enough new grocery store or buyers and stuff like that? Or, uh,

Speaker 2: 1:22:10

I'm a realistic guy. So high accountability. Mm-hmm. But realistic, like

Speaker: 1:22:13

fair,

Speaker 2: 1:22:14

like you, like you tell me what you can do and if like all that, like, do you feel confident, right? Like, you can do this. What do you have to do

Speaker: 1:22:23

different? That's 30% more than you did last year? Yep. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:22:27

And then you're like, yeah, I can do that, then I'm gonna hold you to it. Fair enough. And I remember, like, I was talking to our, we did an offsite and I, I try to lead by example and really, you know, guide the team and we were at an offsite Yeah. And I was talking about, you know, uh, our bonus program for the year. Okay. And, you know, when I pitched it to the board, you know, I was like, we're gonna measure ourselves on profit because we're a super, super low margin business.

Speaker: 1:22:57

Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:22:58

And so,

Speaker: 1:22:59

and a lot of things have to go Right. To get much profit out of it.

Speaker 2: 1:23:02

Yep. So like, if you're the head of sales, you can go win a ton of business, but if it loses money Right. Not probably. Well, course you're gonna sell

Speaker: 1:23:09

meat that we're losing money on. Yeah. You know, and or not, don't have enough margin on.

Speaker 2: 1:23:14

Exactly. And I was like, so from a bonus perspective, I, I like to keep things super simple. So it's a hundred percent on profit, like you hit the profit goal for the. You get paid your bonus. Simple as that. And somebody was like, what if somebody like completely fails their individual goals?

Speaker: 1:23:32

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:23:33

I was like, then you're fired. Plain and simple. Right.

Speaker: 1:23:37

Then they'll be gone next year,

Speaker 2: 1:23:38

like

Speaker: 1:23:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:23:40

And, and people that can't keep up. Believe, but I'll just be honest. Like if you don't, if you can't do what you promised, you said you did. Yeah. Yeah. You were the one that signed up for it.

Speaker: 1:23:51

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:23:52

Then you probably don't fit.

Speaker: 1:23:54

I listened to, and I, it's more tied to your, your previous answer, but I, Tucker Carlson was on somebody else's, no, it was actually on the Charlie Kirk podcast. Okay. Uh, and it was him talking with a Seventh Day Adventist guy at some random church like a while ago about their shared decision to to honor the Sabbath.

Speaker 2: 1:24:16

Okay.

Speaker: 1:24:17

And I don't know if you're familiar with Sabbath. I'm in, in Jewish tradition, um, like from Sunset Friday to Sunrise Sunday or something like that. They're checked out. Okay. And they don't work, you know, and, and seventh Day Adventists are probably the most dedicated Christian Sunset, subsect or whatever. Okay. That they just don't work on Saturdays and they go to church on Saturdays. So only the, the, the pastor works or whatever, but, and, and Charlie Kirk wasn't a Saturday guy, he was a Sunday guy, but they were talking about honoring the Sabbath. Okay. And so, like, Charlie wouldn't pick up his phone to do any work or do anything that was like, work on Sundays, you know, to go to church. And then it was basically just for family. Yeah. Strictly. And, and it was an interesting conversation. Not as much from the, I guess the, the hard segmenting, but like. I forget. There was a line that, that one of them shared, Charlie shared that was like when Moses led the, the people that had escaped slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land. And when they had, they were right there. He was like, you're no longer slaves now going be free. And there was a lot of people bitching like, Hey, we live better when we were back there being slaves. But one of the identifiers is they didn't work every day anymore like they had to when they were slaves. And so if you're the kind of guy that works seven days a week and you're working 14 hour days every one of those days, you may or may not know it, but you're a slave to something. Oh yeah. And if, and just by taking that step of breaking that slavery was kind of the argument of these guys, of whether it's exactly what God wants or not, it actually is an example of you being a free person and showing you're not a slave Exactly. To honor this kind of time. And so whether that's protecting your family time or. Making sure you're gone for no more than one night and things like that. Yeah. It's all kind of honoring, I think, in some ways

Speaker 2: 1:26:15

that actually, I don't know, it's kind of disciplining I, if I should say, but like my dad was a pretty rough, rough guy. Okay. And he said something that to me as a child that, like a teen, upper teen brother. Yeah. Yeah. That was almost the same thing. And he was like, you know that everybody's a prostitute.

Speaker 4: 1:26:37

Hmm.

Speaker 2: 1:26:38

Everybody will do something that they don't really like. Yeah. To make some money and to do the things that they need to do in life. A good value on your life is can you be less of a prostitute and do more of the things that you want to do? Yeah. And things you want that inspire you.

Speaker: 1:26:58

Yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:26:59

I like that. And then you kind of move forward and so that's always, it was a similar concept. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:27:05

Do the things you choose, not what you feel like you. Have to have to do to, to get by or to get, make more money or whatever. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:27:13

And that's like, you know, part of the reason like I love being in the grass fed beef space. Yeah.'cause it's something I believe in. Yeah. Yeah. And it inspires me. So like Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I was in, it's not really work

Speaker: 1:27:24

when I'm working even. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:27:25

Yeah. Like when I was in plant-based meat, like there was lots of days where I was just like, I'm not inspired Yes. To come in. Yeah. And so it was just as you said, plant thing about being a slave plant plant, it reminded me of the comment like, it's in intriguing everybody's prostitute.

Speaker: 1:27:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:27:43

Can you be less of one?

Speaker: 1:27:44

Yeah. Well and if you can show up and do work that you believe in, that's a nice start. Yeah. And I suspect that a big part of your team is there for that reason too. Correct. You know, they're not there because they were the best logistics person or number cruncher. It was.'cause they were really good at that and they cared about what you're up to. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:28:03

Yeah. I think finding a, like we, we have an awesome team. And that's why like, and I'm super, super transparent guy. Like Yeah. Hence my comment was like, well if you don't do your job then you're probably not gonna be here. Because like

Speaker: 1:28:16

Well and high performers like that kind of culture. Correct. You know,

Speaker 2: 1:28:20

like we had, we had a head of sales years ago. That just wasn't a great fit. Yeah. And I tried to like, figure it out and everything and as soon as, you know, we made the decision like, okay, we gotta change, we gotta make this person. Yeah. And everyone's like, thank you. What was taking you so long?

Speaker: 1:28:41

Like, and then you're like, okay, we need to develop a culture where if you guys are feeling that, you should tell me. Yeah. Because I don't always know. Tell me. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, we better hit the next question.

Speaker 2: 1:28:53

Alright. 24.

Speaker: 1:28:53

24. What's the most durable business relationship you've had? Any of the old folks that corded you away still on the, on the radar.

Speaker 2: 1:29:08

I'd say so there was a guy that was my mentor, um, when I was in college, there was a guy, he was the, uh, he was kind of like a head of strategy for Swift Company. Okay. The beef company. Sure. And he had helped work to have like JBS acquire Swift. Okay. And so JBS had acquired Swift and then let him go because obviously they don't need that type of role anymore. Yeah. And so he took one year to be a college professor. Oh, cool. Between Joss?

Speaker: 1:29:45

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:29:46

And then, and he was like your best professor

Speaker: 1:29:48

ever.

Speaker 2: 1:29:48

Like he was, I remember when I first met him, I was like, I hated him.

Speaker: 1:29:52

Oh, really?

Speaker 2: 1:29:53

Like, I was like, can you look at this? He's like, it's not formatted. Right. Take it back. And I was just like, ah, this guy's a jerk. But like, ended up like learning so much from the guy.

Speaker: 1:30:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:30:04

And he was the one that called me. He's like, Hey, I got this job in Nebraska.

Speaker: 1:30:07

Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 1:30:08

So went over and worked for him. And then he was

Speaker: 1:30:10

your lever in the industry in some respects? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:30:13

And then he was the one that's like called me. He is like, I'm living in the uk. Do you want to come live in Germany? Oh really? Okay. And like taught me so much. Cool. And like he still, the guy, like I talked to you probably like every couple weeks of like, I got this like, yeah. Crazy challenge. And he's, you know, a food executive, like

Speaker: 1:30:35

yeah, he, you wanna shot him up by name? Is that allowed?

Speaker 2: 1:30:38

Yeah. Yeah. His name's Scott WiDi.

Speaker: 1:30:41

WiDi.

Speaker 2: 1:30:42

WiDi. Wich. Yeah. It's

Speaker: 1:30:44

not Italian is it? No, I don't. He like Dutch or German or something funny. I don't, I don't remember. I don't know. It's a very unique last name. Well, hey Scott, I hope you listen to this

Speaker 2: 1:30:56

Great, great man. Shout out to you.

Speaker: 1:30:58

Yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:30:59

I always talk to him and you know, just kind of bounce some ideas off of and love that. And that. That relationship. Like who knew

Speaker: 1:31:05

he's a mentor, right? Like ultimately, yeah. Still. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:31:08

still.

Speaker: 1:31:09

That's cool. Last number is,

Speaker 2: 1:31:11

last number is three.

Speaker: 1:31:16

Eh, this has all been this, this question. I'm not gonna ask this question'cause we've already talked about it. So gimme your,

Speaker 2: 1:31:22

your most random one on the sheet. How do

Speaker: 1:31:24

you approach work life balance is this one, but the very next one is, what would you estimate your burp to fart ratio to be? Uh, ratio? No, not numbers. We just want ratios. Ratio. Yeah. Burp to fart ratio.

Speaker 2: 1:31:38

Uh, I'd say two to one burp.

Speaker: 1:31:43

Two to one burp. Okay. Yeah. And has that changed? Uh, you mentioned that you quit drinking alcohol like five years ago. Your diet's changed a lot and stuff. Were you,

Speaker 2: 1:31:51

yeah.

Speaker: 1:31:51

Were you more of a farter and less of a burer before?

Speaker 2: 1:31:55

I think I was, um,

Speaker: 1:31:57

I know I'm, I'm probably a two farts to one burp kind of guy. Probably. I

Speaker 2: 1:31:59

drink lots of club soda, so that gives me lots Burp adds a lot of burps.

Speaker: 1:32:02

Yep. Fair. And then, and if the gear's working right, you shouldn't be farting too big or too stinky anyway. Right. Except for like, unless you're a cow.

Speaker 2: 1:32:10

Unless like, I notice like, like we didn't get an elk last year and I, we ate the elk for the first time night. Oh really? It like

Speaker: 1:32:18

sprouted some extra gases. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:32:20

I always, but I also like, I'm a big fan of eating like head to tail. So like the first night, like my wife and kids won't do it. So like I made them milk steak and I ate the heart. Yeah, baby. That's what I was

Speaker: 1:32:31

hoping you were gonna say.

Speaker 2: 1:32:33

And like, I definitely was like,

Speaker: 1:32:35

yeah, that's a different kind of protein. Yeah. Do you eat the liver too?

Speaker 2: 1:32:39

I do. Like, I actually an, I buy a beef

Speaker: 1:32:42

liver sometimes. Yeah. I'm sure. It's huge.

Speaker 2: 1:32:44

It's huge. And I don't love liver. Like I'll choke it down, but like, you know, an oak liver's pretty big. Yeah. And I probably kept maybe a third of it. Okay. Like when it was kind of getting into the, like you manier piece. I like, I'm good. Like there's only so much oak liver I can choke down or any liver. I, I just don't like liver, but I'll eat it for health benefits.

Speaker: 1:33:05

Yeah. Yeah. I dig it. Um, I think it's time for the loco experience, our namesake segment. All right. Uh, what's the craziest experience that you're willing to share from your lifetime?

Speaker 2: 1:34:00

Craziest experience?

Speaker: 1:34:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:34:03

Hmm.

Speaker: 1:34:04

Could be, you know, I don't know what it is. Uh, you see, I'll really, I'll give you a life changing experience. I want that. Okay. That sounds good. Yeah. So when

Speaker 2: 1:34:13

I was in high school, I was a pretty terrible student. Really? Yeah. I was like, that's surprising

Speaker: 1:34:17

to me. Were you rebelling against your dad being kind of a jerk or something, or? No.

Speaker 2: 1:34:22

I didn't care about school.

Speaker: 1:34:24

Yeah. Like

Speaker 2: 1:34:25

And so you didn't have

Speaker: 1:34:26

dyslexia, didn't just didn't care.

Speaker 2: 1:34:28

I just didn't care.

Speaker: 1:34:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:34:30

Uh, and I was super into cars still. I still like cars. Interesting. Okay. Unfortunately it's bad. It's a bad hobby.

Speaker: 1:34:36

What do you mean? Yeah, just gotta build a nice enough business that you can afford it.

Speaker 2: 1:34:42

I've kind of decided it's, it's a drug you I wanna get off of. Fair. Fair. But I was super into car, so like I want to, like in high school I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do, I'm gonna be a mechanic'cause that's what I enjoy doing.

Speaker: 1:34:55

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:34:57

And so, like between junior and senior year I was working at this auto, uh, tire shop. Gotcha. My senior year, I think I had like three or four hours of auto shop in my schedule. Okay. I was like, yeah, whatever. Like, and when I was working at the tire shop, this dentist came in and he was a semi-professional drag racer.

Speaker: 1:35:18

Oh, interesting. And so, so we spent$50,000 a year. Drag racing or

Speaker 2: 1:35:23

more. I mean, this guy had unbelievable things. Well, when you say

Speaker: 1:35:26

semi-professional means I get enough sponsorships to cover one third of my drag racing costs.

Speaker 2: 1:35:31

I don't think he even got that much. He just, he blew some money on Right. Some cars.

Speaker: 1:35:35

Right. Thankfully he was a good dentist and had enough extra.

Speaker 2: 1:35:38

Exactly. Okay. And like he always came in, like he had drag racing pikes and like he had built this new Corvette, like bought a brand new Corvette and then just gutted

Speaker: 1:35:48

it. Oh my. And and this is like a salido dentist.

Speaker 2: 1:35:52

Yeah. This was like a sali dentist. Dang. Yeah. Okay. And he like gutted this, like, bought a brand new and like tubbed it out and switched the motors and everything. Right. And it, it was like 1600 horsepower. Damn. And so we put these big old slicks on the back. Yeah. And he is like, you want to go for a ride? And I was like, yeah, I do. And so we like just went out to the highway where there's this one stretch. Penny hits and we go from like zero to 180 like that. Wow. And where is

Speaker: 1:36:22

this at? Like, I've been around s slide, I've been on the back road at Gunnison and stuff. Like,

Speaker 2: 1:36:26

like, you know, when you're going towards Canyon City, like right outside of town, there was like a big O Tire, something

Speaker: 1:36:32

on, on Highway 50. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:36:34

this was like middle of the day.

Speaker 6: 1:36:37

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:36:38

So we go at like, he hits it and like, I, I just remember almost like being in shock.

Speaker 6: 1:36:44

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:36:45

And, and he's like, can I curse her now?

Speaker 6: 1:36:49

Yeah. Oh yeah. Fuck it.

Speaker 2: 1:36:50

Alright. So we, we get back and he's like, so what'd you think? He's like, I was like, fuck, working on other people's cars, I need to make some money.

Speaker 6: 1:37:00

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:37:01

And he's like, what? And I was like, I gotta, I gotta turn my shit around. And he's like, what do you mean? I was like. I'll never be able to afford anything like this, ever

Speaker 6: 1:37:12

if I work on him.

Speaker 2: 1:37:14

Yeah.

Speaker 6: 1:37:14

And he's like, that's so crazy that that was your epiphany. That was my epiphany. You were like, I want this, I want this. What you need is a Tesla model.

Speaker: 1:37:21

S plaid. There you go. Because those babies are like ridiculous. Zero to 103 seconds or something.

Speaker 2: 1:37:27

And like I got done with that and I remember like I was the star auto shop student. I was like, I'm dropping it all. I need like this class, this class finance. I'm

Speaker: 1:37:37

going into business, I'm gonna college. Well I was

Speaker 2: 1:37:39

originally like, maybe I'll be a dentist. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Right.

Speaker: 1:37:42

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:37:43

And like really like most people, like their senior year of high school is like the sliding one. Right. And I was like,

Speaker: 1:37:49

you were like a whole new pivot.

Speaker 2: 1:37:50

I had to do everything just to get into UNC and Greeley. Like what does it take? And

Speaker: 1:37:54

not for the money, but just'cause you would need a bunch of money to have a really fast car like that.

Speaker 2: 1:37:59

I just, I had that epiphany like, I'm never going to have all like the things I want. Just by working on cars

Speaker 6: 1:38:08

and, but do you still want a really fast car like that, or has having two little kids or two?

Speaker 2: 1:38:14

No, I don't really have the, the desire for the fast car. Right. I didn't, well, I said like the drug, the terrible drug. I did make the decision, like over COVID where everybody bought something stupid. Yeah. I bought a first generation Ford Bronco.

Speaker: 1:38:27

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:38:28

And like, yeah,

Speaker: 1:38:30

restoring old Broncos is a pretty bad drug.

Speaker 2: 1:38:32

Yeah. It was terrible. Like, I spent more, more freaking money on that car and it's still like, still not working, still not running. And I'm like, my wife, every day I am like, I'm gonna sell as soon as I'm done, I'm selling this thing. And she's like, I think you should keep it as a, as a reminder. There is no done.

Speaker: 1:38:53

Yeah. And

Speaker 2: 1:38:54

I was like, never again. I'm never restoring another one.

Speaker: 1:38:57

Yeah. It's a, it's a tough, uh, that industry. Like rich people pay, like places like Pinky's Rod shop and, and Wally's speed shop and stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:39:08

Insane amounts.

Speaker: 1:39:09

Insane amounts. Like literally like a quarter million dollars.

Speaker 2: 1:39:11

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:39:12

On the car that they sourced for 50 grand and then they, you know, so they got 300 grand into this thing. They take it, win a couple trophies, maybe if they're lucky, and then if they decide they wanna sell it, it's worth 104.

Speaker 2: 1:39:25

Yeah. Yeah. That's,

Speaker: 1:39:26

you know, they got 350 grand

Speaker 6: 1:39:29

or something. Yeah, I know. And nobody, and the reason is, is'cause I don't wanna buy your custom. I wanna build Bronco, I wanna build my own,

Speaker: 1:39:40

I wanna drop my own$400,000 on a stupid 32 Ford with a chopped top and a,

Speaker 2: 1:39:46

yeah, I didn't, I didn't spend that kind of money, but I spent more than I should have. And I remember well

Speaker: 1:39:51

and you probably, knowing you, you probably did a lot of your own stuff

Speaker 2: 1:39:53

too. Yeah, I did a high majority until I got, like, I thought I could do all the body work and then at some point. Oh, this is just trash. I actually want this to look nice. If I'm ever gonna sell this thing

Speaker: 1:40:04

for one third of how much I've invested into it, I better make it nicer.

Speaker 2: 1:40:08

So that's why I said it's a terrible drug. Dig it.

Speaker: 1:40:11

Thanks Melody for giving them that leash and high daughters. I hope you're having a good time out there. And, uh, any last questions for me or musics? No. Anything you want people to really know about Grass Fed Foods?

Speaker 2: 1:40:27

I would say, you know, my message to people is live your values. Yeah. Do what you think is, you know, the best thing for you. Um, you know, the one thing too that I, I think is pretty interesting is just as you think about eating, one thing that I've really realized, particularly after my time, putting on a lot of weight in the food ingredient space and in the ice cream space. Like, were you

Speaker: 1:40:51

really big?

Speaker 2: 1:40:52

Yeah. At one point I was, I was pretty big. Like, I'm still, because you're not

Speaker: 1:40:56

a real tall guy, right? Like, no,

Speaker 2: 1:40:58

I'm. Like, in all honesty, I'm like, I'm still like a 210 pound guy. Whoa. Like I'm,

Speaker: 1:41:03

you wear it very well.

Speaker 2: 1:41:05

Uh, more muscle than fat. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:41:09

Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 1:41:09

But I was the opposite in those days. And like, you know, we have a chronic health issue Totally. In the US Yeah. Yeah. And people are, you know, people are in tough situations because they're eating the

Speaker: 1:41:22

same candy that the cows are eating. Exactly. Kind of just different packages, you know, that's why you were selling train fulls of high fructose corn syrup.

Speaker 2: 1:41:31

Yeah. And in those industries, like when you're selling the junk, you have high margins. Yeah. When you're selling real food. Yeah. It's hard and, but you know, if I could give any message to anybody, it's like, eat for your health and eat for the longevity. Yeah. Yeah.'cause I'd much rather spend. An extra couple bucks on high quality protein today and not spend, yeah, 10 more years. Medical bills, nursing home bills,

Speaker: 1:41:55

and Yeah, exactly that end of life. Even if you, I mean, you'll probably live longer and you'll live better longer. Almost certainly.

Speaker 2: 1:42:03

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:42:03

So I dig it. Thanks Kevin.

Speaker 2: 1:42:05

Thank

Speaker: 1:42:06

you. Fun conversation. Super fun. Thank you very much. Got speed.