The Comeback Kelp - Can Maine's Atlantic Sea Farms be turned around?

There's nothing we like more than a comeback kid.

While 98% of total farm seaweed in the world comes from Asia, over the past decade, entrepreneurs in the US, Europe and Africa have been trying to change that by producing locally-grown, high-quality seaweed for their domestic markets.

I've met a number of these entrepreneurs and it's not easy. Once you master aquaculture, you have to find a market, and that is proving to be a challenge. Some of these companies have gone bottom up.

A few months ago, we thought Maine-based, Atlantic Sea Farms, commonly referred to as ASF, was going to live a similar fate. Right out of the gate, it seemed like nothing could hold it back. ASF raised millions of dollars and made an incredible splash in the national media, but they just couldn't become profitable.

ASF shareholders, however, refused to shutter the company. They opted to restructure and brought in turnaround specialist Barrett Wood. 

Barrett joins us today to tell us how he is breathing new life into the company and paving a way to profitability. 

Transcript

Abigail: 0:07

Welcome to the podcast where we celebrate innovation for a happy planet. I'm your host, Abigail Carroll. After the oyster boom came the seaweed boom, while 98% of total farm seaweed in the world comes from Asia. Over the past decade, entrepreneurs in the us, Europe and Africa have been trying to change that by producing locally grown high quality seaweed for their domestic market. I've met a number of these entrepreneurs and it's not easy. Once you master aquaculture, you have to find a market, and that is proving to be a challenge. Many of these companies have gone bottom up, like Akua, whose former CEO came on the podcast in the spring to share her story of how it all fell apart. A few months ago, we thought Maine based Atlantic Sea Farms commonly referred to as a SF, was going to live a similar fate. Much like Akua, it seemed like nothing could hold it back. It raised millions of dollars and made an incredible splash in the national media, but they just couldn't become profitable. A SF shareholders, however, refused to shutter the company. They opted to restructure and brought in turnaround specialist Barrett Wood Barrett joins us today to tell us how he is breathing new life into the company and paving a way to profitability. There's nothing we like more than a comeback kid. Welcome to the podcast Barrett.

Barrett: 1:39

Thank you Abigail. I'm really excited to be here.

Abigail: 1:42

Well you've come all the way from Texas. You're here in Maine for a special opportunity to turn around Atlantic Sea Farms. Tell me a little bit about what that means to be a turnaround specialist.

Barrett: 1:56

Yeah, so I started out as an attorney out in West Texas and I no longer practice but you know, still carry some of those skills, but. But one of the things I always enjoyed when I was practicing was the restructuring space. And so now as I've moved forward to the investment and advisory side, I, I try to, I tend to lean more towards those projects. A turnaround, you know, I mean a turnaround always starts with a company that's in trouble. But what happens next really varies case by case. And it can ha you can go anywhere from a. A quick sale to you know, a company that has a full on comeback and, and experiences major growth after. So how did I get from Texas all the way up to Maine? Well this company, Atlantic Sea Farms drew a lot of attention all over the country and, and one of, one of the main investors was, was a fund here. True wealth ventures. In Austin that I've known the, the principals of for a very long time, and they knew that I did this type of work and they saw an overlap in the, in the situation that Atlantic Sea Farms was in earlier this year, and the stuff that I attend to work on. So that's, that's how I got there in May. And and we've been working hard on it ever since.

Abigail: 3:14

So this sector of these seaweed farms, we saw a big, huge surge of seaweed farms. In fact, we had a kua on our. On our podcast not too long ago for a situation that seemed like it could have actually been this, the fate of Atlantic Sea Farms. They, they blew up earlier in the year and she's now in, in Africa helping elephants. Which sounds like another exciting opportunity. But, what's going on here? What, what happened to Atlantic Sea Farms? And why, why do you think they're here in this situation? And what do you think could be done? Because obviously you think something could be done, you wouldn't be here.

Barrett: 3:55

Oh, for sure. So, you know, we'll take a step back and, and talk about kind of the history. It, it Plan C Farms was founded in 2018. Bree Warner did a spectacular job in drawing awareness and, and raising capital for this company. A thing, certainly not in in North America, and so. And, and to vertically integrated was another challenge that she took on. And and so how did we get here? It, it's not unusual for a company that grows very quickly to sort of lose sight of the economics. It happens frequently when you're growing fast. You know, you're spinning a lot of plates at once. And, and so what, what Atlantic Sea Farms was, I think the, the jam that they got in frankly was. They were trying to do too many things at once. And, and that included, they had 35 products that they were putting into, into retail stores. And you know, with 35 skews you're at some point you're, you're putting'em in the market and you're just kind of crossing your fingers. And, and retail's tough. It's really tough to, to meet your margins. It's really tough to, to have a consistent demand there if you're, if you're just not confident in that already. So despite an extraordinary effort again they were losing money. And kind of finally the music ran out in terms of the ability to raise enough capital to match that. So in May, the board made the difficult decision to, you know, to discontinue that, that model and, and didn't know exactly what the, what was next, but just had to turn off that faucet. Had to stop the retail. You know, hemorrhaging to be completely honest. And so we took a good look at it and, and if there's anything that, my professional career has, has trained me to do is kind of quick take a quick assessment and, and I assessed and said, okay, let's go back to a simple and as basic a process as we can, and let's just nail that. My first thing, when I enter a new situation. I like to ask every single person, customers, stakeholders, lenders, everybody. What's the best thing? This company does more better than anybody else. And, and here clearly because they've made the industry, but also just because of the talent involved. That thing was cultivating kelp. They the fantastic at cultivating and harvesting kelp. And and why was that kelp superior? Because it's traceable. If, if you compare it to the, to raw seaweed you know, what they call rock weed you don't know where it's coming from and you don't know the water that it's been in, and it's unreliable in terms of you know, you're the ultimate customer that needs it. So we took a good look and we said how they're definitely good at this. But we've got to get back to margins. And so we did, we, we got back and we figured out what the, the products we had already you know, going out the door that were selling well and who were they going to. And it turns out that was more on a B2B basis than, than the retail. And so we quickly pivoted to selling by the bag, as we say, and not by the box, not by the retail box.

Abigail: 7:08

Yeah. So, who are these wholesale buyers? Who are these businesses that you're selling to?

Barrett: 7:14

Oh, for sure. We're going to wholesalers. We're going to distributors. We're going to restaurants. You know, we're having very good early discussions. With legal seafood. The executive chef said, let, let's do it. Loved it. We're, we're going to, we're gonna be in cafeterias either K through 12 or, or all the way up to higher ed. We've had great conversations with the University of Maine and, and UMass already. You know, we just turned this new model on and, and. Where we've gotten or, you know, the progress in the last 40 days has been unbelievable. And I think that's a testament to one, the, the foundation that this company already had. The goodwill and the, you know, the support that it had in the community and in the business world, but also. We put together a group of external advisors Andrew Wilkinson and Andy Wright Gut Andrew Wilkinson's at North Coast and Andy Wright gut's at he's the CEO of Dr. Prager's and Zoe Croft, who was with LAC Farms within the last year and, and knew the place backwards and forwards, and, and they've made introductions on this B2B level. That might've taken weeks or months and, and are getting us right there to the, to the, you know, decision makers, so to speak right away. So yeah, you know, stay tuned. We're gonna be, we're gonna be in your, in your nearest cafeterias and, and restaurants here very, very quickly.

Abigail: 8:37

Well, it's interesting because what Brianna did was create a ton of brand equity. So you're stepping into sort of a startup, but you already have a lot of goodwill in the community. And I think a. That's to her credit and I think that makes it an interesting challenge.

Barrett: 8:54

No, no question. You know, I've, I've done several of these and what was unique about this situation was the amount of building blocks I was able to start with, it, you know, we had a, as I mentioned, a first class team. These are, these are the experts in their space. They're resilient. They're also versatile. We've had to wear a lot of extra hats, as you might imagine, in a, in the last, you know, 120 days or so. And they've, they've done it with Grace and they've done it with you know, with excellence. And we have a board that's that, that, like I said, made tough decisions, but also stuck around. I've been in situations where. You can't get the board on the phone when, when the, when the company goes, you know, in the wrong direction. And so we had a, an incredible investor base. This, this investor base is unique in that they are you know, equally if not more in tune with the impact than, than frankly the, the bottom line. Most of the time on the conversations that we're having, so our bank has been amazing. Anytime I enter into a new situation, the first question I ask is, how angry is our, is our lender at us? And, and that usually, you know, dictates. Sometimes it's, you know, I'll enter into a, into a company that has a, has software that just, it just didn't work. Or it's, it's behind on, you know, behind the market, so to speak. And so you've gotta face that reality, but people are buying kelp. And we just need to find the, the best channels to put that into. So, and, and as you mentioned, we're not a startup. Startup doesn't, doesn't begin with 204 customers that had already bought the product from you. We just needed to go back and, and knock again if they wanted to buy from us again.

Abigail: 10:43

Right. Right. So you've got, tell me, tell me about the, the farmers on this journey.'cause you've got a, a network of farmers, you aren't farming the seaweed yourself, if I understand correctly, you've got people in your network. So how have they, you know, made it through this period of transition? And what are, what are their hopes and dreams right now?

Barrett: 11:05

Yeah. Yeah. So the first year in 2018 A A SF farmed 30,000 pounds. And then fast forward to 2024, it was 1.3 million pounds. And that's. That's all a testament to, to, you know, Brie obviously at the top, but Liz and Aurora in our supply division are, are spectacular. And they stay in constant communication with that farmer network. They also provide, you know, kind of the tools and the, and the permitting advice to really get the farmers up to speed. And, and ready. And they, you know, they handle 99% of those discussions. It's, an amazing operation and they scaled it up to, to a significant size now. When, when we realized the reality that we were over harvesting and, and those weren't really matching our, our sales forecast, we had to do something about it. So we, we did cut back this year on our harvest. We were, we tried to be as, as transparent with the farmer network and, and really as quick with information as we could, as, as quickly as we had it. We, made sure this previous harvest in, in the spring of 25, right? As I, right as I came on, one of the first things that we decided to do was we were gonna actually pay ahead of schedule.'Cause there was some concern. You know, word gets around and and we, we wanted to head that off. So we said you were going, going to be paid by I believe it was the end of June and we went ahead and paid'em in May. Just, just to, to make sure that you know, those relations stayed intact and, and also there was that transparency again.

Abigail: 12:43

Just trying to put the pieces of the first sort of iteration together. What happened to, you know, the investors, angel investors and stuff in that first, like in a, in a turnaround situation, do they lose out? Do they just shrink? Like, how does, how does that get managed?

Barrett: 12:58

You know, it all depends on the situation. But in this situation, we're raising again and the valuation had had to come down'cause. It's a different company. And so there's a, there is a dilution factor for sure. And there's, you know, I'll use that word transparency again. We've been very clear about the new reality. And we've invited those same investors and said, you know, this is, you can, you can look at this as, as a loss. You can look at it as a new opportunity. And ask us anything you want about where we're at. But you know, it, I, I would completely understand if you've had it with us but I could also understand why you'd be excited.

Abigail: 13:34

Sometimes it's easier with all the information of the first round. So so you've got some new opportunities too,'cause to, to, to date. You worked with a lot with. Pretty much exclusively, I think with kelp and you're looking at some other seaweeds, how is that gonna open up the, the world of opportunity for you all?

Barrett: 13:53

Yeah, so we're excited about dos. I, and I'll be completely honest, Abigail, before May, I wouldn't have been able to tell you the difference between a lot of these things. I'm so

Abigail: 14:03

taste like bacon. Everybody says

Barrett: 14:05

Exactly. I mean.

Abigail: 14:07

like bacon?

Barrett: 14:08

they're raving about it. So I, I'm grateful throughout to be able to call Sue and Kara in our, in our innovation department because they, they're not just, you know, a SF experts. They're, they're, you know, international experts on these things. But do you know, I'll tell you, when I first got into a SF we, the early conversations, if. If we were talking about, you know, the day to day, and then all of a sudden somebody said the word dulls, people would sit up and, and their posture would change, and there would be just a little bit more energy and excitement and, and I, you know, picked up on that. And I, and so I said, this is what we need to do. And, and Dolce demonstrates kind of where we're taking this new model. We're not gonna try 35 things at once. We're going to nail this. We're gonna nail what we're doing you know, one at a time, so to speak. So we've got, we have these three skews that we're doing at the, at the moment, and then we're going to do a very deliberate and you know objective launch of dos. We're doing a beta this, this harvest, we're gonna do 10,000 pounds. We're gonna make sure we get it right. And then in in the next harvest, we're gonna try for a hundred thousand pounds. We already know just from you know, kind of a, a study of our, of our peers and our market, that, that frankly, people just asking us that, that we've got 80,000 pounds of demand. So, we, we've we're matching those, those concepts. We're being very careful, but also, you know, ultimately we're gonna be more ambitious with that product.

Abigail: 15:46

You said something that, that took me right back to grad school. I, I went to grad school in New York City and I I, I. Sat in in a class about turnaround management and the teacher there started the first class by telling this story about how they went into the first thing they did in any turnaround project was go in and clean the bathrooms themselves to show that management cares about employees. And so you mentioned that some backs the posture correcting when you started talking about adults with people in your, in your environment. And it made me think that. As a turnaround guy, you are, I think, acutely attuned to people and you, have to have a really good read on your environment so you can just plunge in outta nowhere and, and get people to work with you. Can you just speak to that a little bit?

Barrett: 16:39

For sure. And there's, there's a couple different ways that, you know, CROs or, or restructuring advisors work. And, and a lot of times may have to do with basically the, you know, the size of the project, but the way that I have always approached it is I want to be there face to face as quickly as possible. And not just with the, the, the team itself, but with all of the, all of the stakeholders. So as quickly as I could, I, I went to Maine and I sat in the, in the conference room at Atlantic Sea Farms, and I went and sat in the conference room with our, with our first lien holder. And we had a face-to-face discussion. I think that there's just so much more value in that. I've, I've had some, some mentors that have had a, a strong influence on me, and that's always been important. So whenever I can, I'm gonna be in the conference room. Some advisors, I'm not, it's not to denigrate, you know, anybody in, in the industry. It, it will be a, a few phone calls and a report and you know, and, and that's that, that I, I'll just never, I'll never work that way I'm going to be involved for better or worse. And I take it personal. I really do. I, I hope that's a good thing. I'm very outcome oriented. We talk about what the result's gonna be on day one and we point that direction as quickly as possible.

Abigail: 17:53

Well, speaking of results, I saw your new projections and it had like 600,000 monthly sales by April of 27, I

Barrett: 18:02

That's what we're looking at.

Abigail: 18:03

business plan.

Barrett: 18:05

Yeah. So, you know, that might be the best case, but to, to be honest, we're, we're looking at break even around mid the middle of 2027.

Abigail: 18:14

Amazing.

Barrett: 18:15

Our, our initial goal is a hundred thousand in sales because we're starting, we're really just flipping the switch here this summer on the new DE model. But I feel confident that we're gonna get there. I feel confident that the, the timeline from from 100 to 200 is going to be shorter than it was from, from zero to a hundred. And so on and so forth. I think because of, of how simple this model is, it's it's much easier to replicate. It's much easier to scale. The, the team is tired of me saying that. We're gonna know these products better than we know our, our pets and our kids. Because that's, that's what I say over and over again. We're going to know how to do this from the water all the way out the door. And, and every single day we're gonna micro focus on waste to improve it. And over time we're gonna, our costs are gonna go down and we're going to get better at selling it with ev every progressive day. So. Yes, I'm, I, I'm excited. I, you know, as, as you know you, you could, a pro forma can say a whole lot. But, but it actually just needs to kind of play itself out. This one is playing out on an encouraging trajectory to start, for sure.

Abigail: 19:29

What made this so exciting for you? I'm sure you have people coming to you all the time with opportunities to, to turn projects around. Why did you pick this one so far from home in, in an industry that you know, why working waterfront, I mean, that's a, that probably was a reach.

Barrett: 19:48

well I can start by saying that it, you know, it's 40 degrees cooler in May. In in May. In May. It is in central Texas, and so that's appealing. But no, I'll, you know, the two factors that come to mind are, are. This, as I mentioned earlier, had had the building blocks, had a lot more to start with than I typically see. This team you again, a patient lender, incredible investor base, a real product. And so I, I'm kind of feedback driven and, and I was pretty sure we were gonna see up or down pretty quickly here. And we did, you know we, we were gonna know pretty quickly whether or not this was gonna. Gonna take, so to speak. And, and the other factor, I, I just frankly would say is, you know, Carrie Rub asked she's a, she's a force of nature and, and she wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. And so there's a certain credibility and, and and, and I importance there on its own.

Abigail: 20:41

in the ask. Right. Depends on who's asking for your help. That's interesting though, to kind of come in and get a sense pretty quickly whether or not you have a vision that can, that can thrive. And I think that's, that's an important lesson. I think even for startups that are just coming out of nowhere, you know, the. The, the eternal raises towards this future, which is, you know, gonna happen where your product's finally gonna, run is, is a bit of a cycle. I think startups get in and it, and it sort of feeds in all to all these myths we have of the how hard it is to, you know, make a startup work. When in reality, I think the ones that do work often find that success pretty, pretty clearly and very pretty early on.

Barrett: 21:29

Yeah. Well, again, another thing the team has heard me say is this. This is simple. It's not easy. Or, or at least that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make it as simple as possible. And you know, a quote I like is, is Steve Jobs when he said that focus is not about what you say yes to it's about saying no to the a hundred other good ideas, right? I think that really demonstrates what was going on here. There, there was a million different ways that kelp could have been sold into the market. And, and unfortunately they were trying a lot of it and, and not really letting one work long enough to, to build on. So that's what we're trying now. We're just, we're just trying to simplify it and, and, you know, find the model, get stability, and then, and only then do we start to grow.

Abigail: 22:48

Yeah. Yeah. So what does, what does success look like to you right now? Like what? What will you call a win?

Barrett: 22:56

Yeah. There's, there's two ways to look at it. There's the, the, the practical and then there's kind of the more abstract, right? The practical is what I alluded to earlier. When we get to that, that first a hundred thousand dollars a month line in, in sales revenue, that's gonna be great. Balloons are gonna, you know, fall from the ceiling. And because I think that that'll be a major benchmark in terms of that this is, this is really working. We have some proof there. But, and, and that's, you know, the economics, that's the practical, but the, the abstract is more, you know, how many farmers are we, are we able to, to line up for the harvest? How many lines of kelp we able to put in the water that really reinforces that, that shore line and, and, you know, takes carbon outta the air and, and does all the great things for the environment. You know, how many grants is our, is our amazing innovation team able to, to get to, to just have that, you know, forward pioneering science through and care are spectacular at writing grants. And, and this is not an, an easy grant environment to, to say the least.

Abigail: 24:02

for sure.

Barrett: 24:03

they've been incredibly resourceful. And so and I, and really it's just fascinating to go into the lab and see what they're working on. So, you know, success is, is all of those things. It's, it is not just the numbers on a, on a spreadsheet, but it's what it's doing in this community. And, and, you know, to be honest you know, on day one I, I completely underestimated. The, the impact this company has on, on the community and, and the aquaculture community and the, the entire, you know, new England you know, world up there and, and and now I kind, I'm getting it more and more every day.

Abigail: 24:40

Yeah. Well, welcome to Maine.

Barrett: 24:42

Yes.

Abigail: 24:43

Maine does really buoy around some. Specific companies and they get excited about them. And I know Main Angels supported them. I know they've got, main venture fund, you know, they've got all the big people who've been rooting for them. So on the, on the farmer side, are the farmers who farm for you? Is this sort. Additional income for their other waterfront jobs. Are these lobstermen and stuff or are these dedicated seaweed farmers? Like is that a, is that a profession now?

Barrett: 25:16

Almost all of them are, are supplementing. It, as we were, as we were going and circulating to get our agreements these last two weeks we couldn't get anybody couldn't even get'em on, on the phone'cause it was a great time in the water. They finally hit a good season or a good part of the season. And so yeah, for most of'em it is, it is supplemental. The, waters are getting warmer. Lobsters is harder to, to bring in. And so this, this helps.

Abigail: 25:38

Why is it so important for a SF to, you know, survive and thrive right now?

Barrett: 25:43

Yeah, so as, as I just mentioned, there was the, the jobs in the larger community and, and obviously that environmental impact. But one thing I, I noticed early on in having discussions with particularly external stakeholders or, or people that were external to the company. Is that Atlantic Sea Farms really was a bellwether for, for how things were going in this, in this industry for the ocean economy. You know, at one point Atlantic Sea Farms was on the front of the New York Times. We were on CNBC, we were named Retailer of the Year by Whole Foods. As we've mentioned throughout breed was, was amazing at at getting awareness to this company and to this industry. And so for better or worse if, if a SF disappears, then, you know, risk reinforcing the idea that that companies that do the right thing companies that make a positive impact, can't succeed on their own or can't succeed at the level that other companies do. But the, and this is a big, but if it does. If a SF is able to survive and then thrive, then it proves just the opposite, right? That that value and impact can go hand in hand and even scale together. The, the more margin, the more mission. That's what we're trying to really nail right now and, and prove up. So that's why it's important for, for a SF to not only just stabilize now, but, but then, you know, turn around and grow.

Abigail: 27:10

Well, I certainly hope that's true because that is the whole purpose of this podcast and to talk about companies that can grow and they can do good for the world. So, you know, a SF has had a really, task in you know, changing habits and and playing to new tastes of, of clients and that that can be a hard mission when your product involves education and adventure and forming new habits. Can you, can you tell me a little bit about that part of the, the challenge.

Barrett: 27:49

Sure. It's a unique product. It's, it can be considered a niche product. It is growing, there's no question. But it boils down to frankly it's how people see it and, and also how people experience it. And, it's been my observation. You have to start small. You don't expect people to want to eat a giant bowl of kelp straight outta the ocean. You start with the, with the ready cut ingredients, right? The, smaller ingredient level that goes into your, your staple recipes like chowder or lobster or, or even sushi obviously. And so, and, and then, you know, you start to get some traction. And once you remind people how great it is for them on a health basis. Y you know, some people are, are even influenced just, just by the impact it's having on, on the environment. And, and they'll give it another couple tries if they didn't like it the first time. Or, or you just tried it in a new way. Right. You know, if there was another thing that Atlantic Sea Farms did well before they, they explored several different ways that you can, you can make this, make this ingredient really work. Whether it's fried or, or otherwise. I know with, with your background, with, with oysters, you know, sometimes people just don't, don't eat'em right outta the ocean, but they'll eat an an oyster po boy.

Abigail: 29:04

Rockefeller Povo. Yeah.

Barrett: 29:06

exactly. It, it with without even hesitation. So it's, just how you try it, right? You start small. And and you try to reduce all that friction that comes with people's, you know, predispositions. And you know, next thing you know they're eating seaweed salad. And, and that's, again, speaking earlier of adults and people, posture chain. We're going to these distributors we're saying seaweed salad. And, and they sit up because they get it. They've seen it. And knowing that we're coming with a sustainable version, a chem free, you know, chemical free version you know, a traceable version we don't have dyes. And, you know, comparing that to what's, what's already out there. Then we're getting a, we're, we're getting a lot of positive response there, and we're, we're gonna try and, and, and put that out as quickly as we can.

Abigail: 29:56

That's great. I'm, I'm glad to hear more sitting up. I love your focus on posture and I just, it just speaks volumes. So tell me do you have advice for other entrepreneurs who are either trying to bring these type, like, new products to the market or just battling it out in a, in a business that sort of has a dual mission of doing well and doing good?

Barrett: 30:18

Yeah, I mean, it seems like two different things. You're trying to influence somebody to try a product that's new or, or out of the ordinary, again, I would say make it, try and make it their idea. Make it something, make it so that they can make it their own way. Right. Again, if it's fried oysters rather than straight outta the ocean, if it's you know, if it's Maine seaweed salad instead of you know, a big bowl of, of kelp straight from the harvest make it theirs. Don't try and own every, every element of their decision. And I think that, you know, kind of revert back to what we were talking about earlier when we had our 35. Products. We were, I think maybe we were trying to control too much of the of the outcome. We were saying, you're gonna like it fermented and you're gonna like it with this taste and, and so on and so forth. And you're gonna like it you know, in this, in this little box. And so, you know, if, if an entrepreneur has something that they are sure people are gonna like, ultimately, then they, I would, I would listen to your customers a lot more and, and see the ways that they. They would really want to use it.

Abigail: 31:21

I love that because I think listening is so important and we don't talk about it enough in business, but like to understand what people want and what they need and what their hopes and dreams are, you really just have to listen. I mean that's, you know, at, at the Oyster Farm, you know, everybody wanted come see the farm and it turned into a, a major revenue source for us bringing people out into the farm and having these tasting tours. And, and I, you know, I wouldn't have thought that up, but we, you know, the people were coming to us asking for this and we had to kind of turn it into a business. So I think that's really smart. Just listen, listen,

Barrett: 31:57

Yeah. And, and to, you know, just on another, the other part of your question, your question was how, you know, how do you, if an entrepreneur says, how do you have an impact? And also, you know, have a, an ongoing business, I, I would suggest, and, and this is really on the heels of this particular experience, that you really lean in to your story. You rather than, than have it be an afterthought or. Or it might be nice kind of thing. We, we are telling our, our customers all about, you know, our farmers. We're telling'em all about the, the process. And we're, we're telling'em about how critical this is. And, and you know what? We're gonna compete on price. And if, if we're close I know that, that those customers are gonna be compelled by that story. And so lead into your story leading to what got you there. Don't try and be everybody else. What, what you know, you, you want to be the, the, the product or the, or the leader, frankly, that that is distinct from everybody else.

Abigail: 32:58

Interesting. Good. So lastly, I just wanna know if you're optimistic about the planet now that you're in the seaweed and you're seeing you're, you're now. Really on top of the coastal erosion issues and rising sea waters and all of that. How, how are you feeling?

Barrett: 33:18

Yeah, this is a, a much higher altitude question, right. And, and I, I kind of as you, as you ask it, I, I kind of have to zoom out, but well, first thing that comes to mind is that, you know, we as a human race have, when we, when we focus, we can accomplish amazing things, right from, from a. From an airplane to a, to a rocket in 60 years that puts us on the moon with, you know, with, with computer power. Now that you could, you could barely find in a calculator. But, you know, so that's, that's the positive. That's why you would be cautiously optimistic. About, about how we're all addressing climate change now. We're all aware, obviously there's, you know, a very. Politicized issue, unfortunately it shouldn't be

Abigail: 34:07

Right.

Barrett: 34:12

You know, cold War that started the space race or the, or nine 11 moment that, you know, where we have cities underwater before people finally get it. So I, I think it's, it boils down to, and I hope I'm not rambling here, I apologize, but I think it boils down to just those. That awareness and those resources, if you want to compare it to the moon landing, then, you know everybody was rooting for this, for this outcome. And, and I really hope that that's, that translates to, to climate change and to, and to. You know, fixing our planet. My goodness. We're, it's the only one we got. So if, if we, I, I don't have any doubt about what we can do if we all put our, our focus on something. I'm just wondering what it's gonna require to get us there.

Abigail: 34:57

Right, get everybody looking in the same direction. Well that leaves us with some good food for thought. But but thank you so much Barrett, for coming on the podcast today. It's been so exciting to hear about this adventure, and I really, really wish a SFA a fresh start and, and just tons of success.

Barrett: 35:17

Well, thank you so much. You know, I like the way we're pointed and, you know, call, call us in a year and I, and I hope to give you a, an even more exciting update about, about where we're at.

Abigail: 35:27

Oh, that'd be great. I'd love that.