Eradicating Food Waste One Juice at a Time ft. David Cote (LOOP Mission)

LOOP Mission rescues perfectly good fruits and veggies that would have been thrown out simply for aesthetic reasons like shape and size. Then they make delicious & healthy products like cold-pressed juices (a weekly staple in host Lauren Scott's grocery haul) and more. Even their leftover pulp gets repurposed!

On this episode, we are joined by Co-Founder and Superhero (yes, that is his official title!): David Cote. 

Often described as hyperactive, David is recognized as a serial entrepreneur almost in spite of himself. This self-taught leader is so enthusiastic about life, that he sometimes has a hard time saying no to commitments. After co-founding Rise Kombucha and the organic restaurant chain Crudessence, he embarked on a new circular economy mission: eradicating food waste. That's how he co-founded LOOP Mission. Between teaching acroyoga and organizing epic parties in his rare spare time, David has managed to write seven books on living foods, kombucha and fermentation, three of which have become best-sellers, translated into five languages. He's an outspoken go-getter who doesn't hesitate to shake up traditional ways of doing business. 

In addition to cold-pressed juices made from imperfect fruits and vegetables, LOOP also offers beer made from bakeries' day-old bread, gin that repurposes potato scraps, soaps made from a restaurant chain's cooking oils, and fermented sodas that give a second life to by-products from the essential oils industry. Since the company's inception in 2016, it will have saved more than 8,035 tons of food, prevented the emission of 6,411 tons of GHGs and saved more than 482 million liters of water.

In true David fashion, this is such a fun, inspiring episode. We start by unpacking the staggering scale of food waste in North America, particularly focusing on fruits and veggies. We then demystify the concept of "circularity" in sustainability, the meticulous, data-driven planning and hands-on process behind preparing ingredients for their innovative products, their partnership with Costco (and why it almost did not happen), and David’s research on the most sustainable packaging options for LOOP. Bonus content? Listeners will also gain valuable insights from David’s entrepreneurial journey, including what your first step should be when it comes to growing your business!

Transcript

I’m not going to lie: I was completely caught off guard when preparing for this next episode with the beverage company, LOOP Mission. I initially reached out as a huge fan of their products. For the past couple of years, I have loved their amazing, locally made, healthy juices fighting food waste by repurposing the outcasts of the food industry. One of their Co-Founders promptly wrote back with an enthusiastic “why not!?” and we were off.

But here is where I was surprised: this super accessible, upbeat leader on the other end of my email exchange was actually the sustainability AND food & beverage powerhouse: David Cote. Because, in doing my research, I quickly found out that not only is David Co-Founder and “Super Hero” at LOOP, he is also the Co-Founder of Canada’s most popular kombucha, RISE. Oh, and he also happens to be on the Quebec version of Dragon’s Den / Shark Tank: Dans l'oeil du dragon!

So who is David?

Often described as hyperactive, David is recognized as a serial entrepreneur almost in spite of himself. This self-taught leader is so enthusiastic about life, that he sometimes has a hard time saying no to commitments. After co-founding Rise Kombucha and the organic restaurant chain Crudessence, he embarked on a new circular economy mission: eradicating food waste. That's how he co-founded LOOP Mission. Between teaching acroyoga and organizing epic parties in his rare spare time, David has managed to write seven books on living foods, kombucha and fermentation, three of which have become best-sellers, translated into five languages. He's an outspoken go-getter who doesn't hesitate to shake up traditional ways of doing business. 

As for LOOP, it’s a company that comes to the rescue of the food industry's unloved ones, reclaiming foods that have been thrown out simply for aesthetic reasons like shape and size. In addition to cold-pressed juices made from imperfect fruits and vegetables, this global leader in the circular economy also offers beer made from bakeries' day-old bread, gin that repurposes potato scraps, soaps made from a restaurant chain's cooking oils, and fermented sodas that give a second life to by-products from the essential oils industry. Since the company's inception in 2016, it will have saved more than 8,035 tons of food, prevented the emission of 6,411 tons of GHGs and saved more than 482 million liters of water.

Just a few of the LOOP’s accolades include being THE Canadian food industry leader in terms of the circular economy model, amongst world leaders in the fight against food waste, the #1 cold-pressed juice brand in Quebec and Canada, and amongst the best-selling gins in Quebec!

In true David fashion, this is such a fun, inspiring episode. We start by unpacking the staggering scale of food waste in North America, particularly focusing on fruits and veggies. We then demystify the concept of "circularity" in sustainability, the meticulous, data-driven planning and hands-on process behind preparing ingredients for their innovative products, their partnership with Costco (and why it almost did not happen), and David’s research on the most sustainable packaging options for LOOP. Bonus content? Listeners will also gain valuable insights from David’s entrepreneurial journey, including what your first step should be when it comes to growing your business.

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[Host: Lauren Scott} Well, this next company that we have coming up is one that I came across for the first time a couple of years ago. Much like a lot of our Millennial and Gen Z listeners, I'm someone who was trying to find alcohol-free alternatives when going to dinner parties. A couple of years ago, I was tired of drinking water, and even bubbly water with lime in it was getting really boring. I was trying to find some healthier juices to bring, and I came across this incredible brand that was not only locally made but was truly a healthy product. Then I turned it around on the back and saw that this company was focused on reducing food waste. So, I immediately fell in love, and a couple of years later, here we are with the founder of LOOP, David Cote. So, David, welcome to the show.

[Guest: David Cote] Thank you, really happy to be here.

I would love to start off on a very high level, which is to get back to the concept of food waste. Can you help us understand the scope or the scale of food waste, especially when it comes to things like fruits and veggies here in Canada? Or you could go as broad as North America as well.

Absolutely. It's very straightforward. We, as Canadians, throw away 45% of every produce or fruits and vegetables that we import or grow internally. That's almost half of it. If we look at food waste in general, like all the food waste—produce, grains, everything—it's about a third, a little bit more than a third. The most optimistic studies show it's a third, and the most pessimistic studies show it's more than 57%. So, it's between a third and more than half of the food that is wasted, depending on which study we're looking at. It's pretty dramatic, you agree with me? And produce, we know it's 45%.

Before we maybe dive into the concept, because I think a lot of us in sustainability tend to throw out terms and assume everybody understands what they are, could you help us understand this concept of circularity?

Absolutely. I even didn't know what circular economy was when I started my project, when I started LOOP Mission. It was called LOOP Juices. It was just common sense to take something that's wasted and retransform it, making sure that it's not being wasted. Then I realized after it was called circular economy. A teacher in NYU called us and said, "Hey, you're the leaders in the circular economy." I was like, "What is circular?" My wife was like, "Come on, babe, hand me that phone. I'm gonna talk to them." Circular economy is very simple. It's the idea that waste shouldn't exist. It's the creation of value and looking at everything that's being wasted and trying to find a way that it comes back into the cycle. So, it's creating value with waste, with something that used to be waste. It's something that we've always done as a civilization. It seems like we forgot just a few hundred years ago, with the industrial era. If we look at any tribe or any survival scenario, no matter who the survival person is, you will try to use all of your resources as much as possible. But as soon as you become abundant and a little excessive, resources don't have that same value to you as they used to.

Well, it sounds like you were doing it before you even knew what it was. Was there a catalyst moment in terms of creating LOOP? Maybe now that we have these general terms, bringing it down to your company, was there a catalyst moment where you realized you wanted to tackle this waste issue?

I had a few "aha" moments, but I think the first one was that I had a restaurant chain. I would see every day how much we're wasting in the restaurant. The classic. But then I would buy my produce—it was a vegan raw food chain, so it was really based on a lot of produce and vegetables. I would buy my vegetable and produce at the produce warehouse in Marche Central in Montreal. One day, I came to the buyer and saw a line of skids of pineapple that were going to landfill. I looked at the pineapple and they were fine. Seriously, they were perfectly fine. I mean, some of them in a few cases started to have some decay and mold, but most of the pineapples, like 95% of them, were actually totally correct. They were ripe and at the perfect stage for making a smoothie, when the bricks and the sugar content are at their highest because they're ripe. I asked the seller, "Can I just buy those pineapples at a lower rate and freeze them to make smoothies?" He told me straight up, "No, David, those pineapples are going to landfill. You're buying my organic premium stuff that I sell you at a high price." He said it ironically, but he was serious. He didn't want to sell me the stuff he was sending to landfill. That's when I was shocked. I realized there's a problem in our industry. It's only a few years later that I got a phone call from a guy in the same business who told me, "Hey, I'm throwing away pallets of produce, and I want to do something about it." I went to visit his warehouse, and he showed me everything he was throwing away that day, which was about 16 to 20 tons. Still today, at this facility, Courchesne Larose, one of the biggest distributors of produce in Canada, they throw away about 25 tons every day. So, every single day in one single produce warehouse, and there are many of them out there, there's 25 tons of produce that goes to landfill for not the right reasons because they're perfectly fine. They're not moldy, they're not disgusting, they're not even crooked or misshaped or misfit. They're just ripe and overstocked, victims of speculation. 

So, it's inventory speculation, but of something that is perishable, resulting in waste. Are those classic sources in terms of where you're getting produce? Is it from those warehouses, or are you working with growers as well? How do you source all the fruits and vegetables that go into LOOP Juices?

We work with the whole chain, from the farms to the distribution warehouses to the grocery banners. But our main source, I would say 75% of the produce we rescue, comes from the middleman, the distributor. They receive produce from all over the world and sell it back to grocers. Sometimes, when the fruit gets to their warehouse, there's a little blemish or superficial issue, not affecting the taste or quality. It's something superficial that gets put away. When produce ripens in the warehouse, it’s too late for sale because customers like Metro and Costco want produce that will last through the entire distribution process. If the fruit is ripe at the center, it’s too late. It will be sent to landfill because space has value. Sellers send it to landfill because it’s taking up space they need for sellable goods.

When it comes to you, I think this was the craziest part when I was researching your company. You’re not receiving all these fruits and vegetables unwrapped and ready to go. There’s a whole process where you have to then take it and process it. For example, if you take a bag of grapes, it comes to you in that bag wrapped, and then your team needs to pull it out?

Exactly. We’re the only food manufacturer that transforms raw ingredients that were supposed to go on a grocery shelf. The stuff we receive is actually grade one, the highest grade of food and produce you can find at the market. Most food manufacturers never use grade one product. They use raw ingredients selected at the farm as not nice enough for the consumer market, then transformed for food manufacturing. For example, a smoothie company might buy mango puree that's already aseptic and pasteurized in a barrel from Peru. They assemble it with other purees and make a smoothie. 

We buy bananas that were going to the shelf, and we peel them. We buy strawberries in clamshells by the truckload, open every single clamshell, put them on the conveyor, and sort them. We buy blueberries in clamshells by the truckload and sort them. That’s how crazy we are. When I say this, people understand quickly why nobody does that. It’s extremely complex and costly, but we needed to do it because nobody was doing it. Before LOOP existed, all of this produce went to landfill because it was all packaged. Nobody has the time or the money to separate the plastic and cardboard from a box of blueberries to send it to compost. It's way too costly, and margins in the food industry are among the smallest in any industry, actually the smallest. You can't afford it.

I never made the connection that, of course, there's no one on the distributor end, and it's not their fault. As you’re saying, it’s cost prohibitive. I always assumed it would go to compost, but clearly, it can’t. 

And when you are planning, are you working with suppliers who can supply you X number of bananas per week, mangoes per week, or are you changing what is on your conveyor belt based on what you’re receiving that specific week?

Absolutely. We’re a two-process operation. We’re mostly data crunchers. We have to become really good at data, knowing seasonality with farmers, distribution trends, and consumer trends. Sometimes, overstock happens not during the farm's peak moment, but during the highest peak of consumer demand. That’s when we need to act. We had to crunch a lot of data, knowing what’s being wasted and when. What’s amazing is that data is widely available. Every produce distributor knows what they’re going to throw away next year. With that data, we created recipes and product lines that make sense with these overstock items. We had to create recipes knowing what was being wasted in the highest quantities. Clementine, for example, is our biggest commodity. It’s the ingredient we use the most, which is awesome because it tastes great. I’m really happy that Clementine is the most wasted because if it was beets, I think I would have less success. 

I love beets, but not everyone does.

Me too! But clementine, everybody loves. There’s a lot of clementine waste, especially in Eastern Canada at a certain time of year. After that period, there’s no more on the market, so we have to transform and process all of them in the right amount of time. We have to be very good at data in terms of forecasting our sales to know how much we need to juice to ensure we have enough for the rest of the year. It’s taken us years to become really good at it. Now we’re excellent, the best in the world at doing this because we’re the only ones doing it!

With this show over the years, I've become very interested in packaging. I realized that a lot of business owners are very particular about what they choose and prefer. Do you have any preferences for your products in terms of what packaging you use? Do certain packages help your drinks be more shelf-stable than others? What does that look like?

We chose our packaging for sustainability. We have no choice; it's our core mission. LOOP Mission is not a juice company; we're a food waste reduction project aiming to eradicate food waste globally. When it came time to choose packaging, it was confusing. My wife, the CEO of the company, has a master's in environmental science and has been educating me a lot. When we started, I said glass would be our packaging. She said no. I insisted, but she said no. We hired an outside firm that took all the latest life cycle analysis studies from the last 60 years. They came after a month and a half and said glass is the worst solution for us because it's the least sustainable packaging. I was shocked. I didn't sleep for days. I had always thought glass was the best packaging, and everyone still thinks that because we see all the plastic in the ocean. But not all plastics are the same. Life cycle analysis is the only real way to assess the environmental impact of packaging or any industrial process. We found out that PET number one ranked higher than aluminum in Canada because of transportation and environmental aspects. As an entrepreneur, you have to choose between value and money, and they don't always align. I knew would sell more because of its premium perception, but we chose PET because it was the best environmentally. We still receive emails from people saying they won't buy our product because it's in plastic. We send them the study, but they don't believe it because it comes from us. Every decision we make as a manufacturing company has an environmental impact, so we choose the least impactful one.

Hats off for doing a life cycle analysis. I know it's gaining traction in Europe, but it's still pretty new in North America, so that is a huge endeavor. To change gears a little bit, LOOP recently made an announcement about a partnership with Costco. I'd love to hear more about that, but first, I heard it almost didn't happen. Could you share a little about that tumultuous journey?

You know everything! You've done your study, Lauren. Well, in the life of an entrepreneur, there are a lot of ups and downs. I'm an entrepreneur, not a manager. My team always tells me that. As an entrepreneur, I often put the cart before the horse. I go fast when I'm passionate. When I have an idea, I go for it. I used to not over promise, but kind of take leaps of faith. I'm very optimistic as a person. When we opened our new facility in Boisbriand, north of Montreal, even though it was my fourth factory, I naively thought everything would work perfectly the day it opened. It didn't. We had just started listing at Costco but couldn't supply them. The logistical nightmares were awful. Trucks didn't go to the right address. It was a catastrophe. We were backordered, not just for Costco but for all our partners. Costco was new, but our long-time partners, like Sobeys and Metro, who helped us be on the map, were also affected. It was very hard. And that was when we realized that we also got a love from the industry as well. Because we got a lot of support from our partners, who believed in our mission. Relationships and mission are so important. Everybody connects with what we do. We're not just a couple trying to make money; we're environmental activists who started a business to make an impact. This connection helps us go to the next step.

I'm glad that worked out. Another piece I found while researching, and I felt so ignorant, is that I loved the brand, but I did not know you. And then I was researching and realized that I actually love two other brands you've been involved with: Rise Kombucha and Crudessence. Hats off to you for that. I've heard you refer to both of those companies as your draft businesses or your “brouillons”. What would you say is maybe the one thing you learned from each of those that you now apply in your day-to-day operations or the way you run LOOP? 

I will say that everything I learn through those two companies is me, right? It's learning about your own skills and what you should do and what you shouldn't do as a manager, as an entrepreneur. Like what I told you before, that I'm not a manager, I'm an entrepreneur. I didn't know that, and I think when you start a business, you want to do everything and you think you know everything, right? And I've learned so much about where I'm really good at, and I decided with that new project that I wouldn't be the one leading. 

The two previous companies, I was the President, and I realized after a while that it wasn't for me to have like 10 direct reports. Everybody relies on you, and you need to make sure that the objective of your employee is good, that he's not anxious, that you need to kind of mold yourself to every personality you're working with. A good company has a lot of different people, right? If everybody is the same, it doesn't work. You need to have so many different kinds of personalities for your organization to actually be very resilient.

I've realized that I was trying to surround myself with people that were, most of the time, the people that I work well with. It was always the same kind of personality, which wasn't good for an organization, right, for a company. For LOOP, I said I'm not going to be the leader. Like Julie, who is the opposite of me, right? Very academic, very structured, takes her time, very passionate but still takes her time before making a decision. So she's the one, right away, that was the CEO from day one. For her, it was very challenging because she had never been a CEO before, and she was like, "What's the point? You've been CEO twice and you have success." I was like, "Yeah, but no." I think we can go faster like this, and it was a really good decision to do this because I could really be on… There's always the box, you know, with the four boxes: there's what you're really good at and you really love, and at the opposite corner, there's what you're really bad at and you don't love. Then there's what you love but you're not good at, and you know the drill. Now, I can really be doing always what I really love and what I'm really good at. It's good to have a mission, it's good to have a business, but it's also good to be happy, right? I think the more good you are with your daily life, the more thriving you will be generally, and the more success you'll have. 

Of course, some schools of thought, and even people on this Dragon show with me, will be like, "David, no, you need to work hard." My dad's mentality was, "Just work hard and do everything right." But I like fun. I love to have fun. I love to joke around. I love to not take everything so seriously. It's true that you might be able to go faster sometimes when you just go and do everything and work, but is this really success? Do we really define our success through the success of our companies, or do we define our success through a holistic point of view? Like, okay, yes, my business is successful, but am I successful in my family, in my relationship to myself, and my spiritual life and everything, right? 

That's how I see success now. So for this, I'm okay that my business will not grow as fast as it could, but at least I'm going to be happy. Does that make sense? It's the first time I actually say this, so I wasn't very clear. I feel like I'm not very clear.

No, that's extremely clear. 

Hopefully, listeners get the picture of where I want to bring us. 

Absolutely, I think it's finding that joy in your day-to-day. Maybe to riff off that a little bit, are you working on any specific projects right now that just light you up, and that obviously you can share? I'm sure there are a ton of NDAs out there, but any projects that really excite you to be working on?

Yeah, I'm working on many, many projects that really excite me right now. Well, there's two things. One that's really related to LOOP, which is our ingredient branch. We won a big prize of $1.5 million from the federal government for a challenge that was called the Food Waste Challenge. We were one of the contestants, one of the groups that got selected to participate out of about 95 participants, and we won. We won $1.5 million as a leader of a food waste reduction company.

With that project, what we're doing now is that we help other food manufacturers integrate upcycled ingredients into their products. Let's say you're a yogurt company, or you're a granola bar company, or you're any kind of food out there, then we can help you get ingredients in a puree or a juice or a powder form that's made with upcycled ingredients that we transform in our facility, which is awesome. It's so exciting because we always knew that we couldn't tackle food waste alone, that we needed the help of everybody. By doing this, we can actually harness the power and volume of the whole food industry and put a little bit of upcycled strawberries in this yogurt, in that beer, and in that lemonade that we don't make but other brands make.

So that's one of the projects I'm working on, and to be honest, about 85% of my time at LOOP is on that now, developing this, and it's kind of a startup, so I'm excited about it. Then the other project that I'm working on that nobody knows about yet is a new project that I'm working on kind of on the weekends and at night. It's a project to help people start their business. It's not a project to help leaders become better leaders. There's so much of that. It's not like a ten-key to success. It's not that at all. It's really a project to ignite the fire of entrepreneurship in our world because I really think that entrepreneurs are the ones that change the world. 

I really do think that we need more entrepreneurs out there to start their businesses. There's so many people out there that have an idea, but they're so scared, right? They're so scared of starting it because we learn so many things about the danger of starting a business, especially if you go to school and you learn even more threatening things. I didn't go to school, so I didn't know all that, so I just started my business. I'm starting a new project, which is a school to help people start their own projects. 

Everyone that has this idea, that they're like, "Oh, I should really do this. I think that could work," it's a school where you're going to learn really quickly the most important part, which is, is your project going to really work or not? Instead of launching it now, we're going to help you make sure that you can really launch it and it's worth it. You might realize that it's not, and then you'll go back to your drawing board or your normal non-entrepreneur life, but at least you'll know, right? If it's a good idea, then you'll have the exact plan and we'll help you out to actually start it for everything. 

It's really exciting. I had such a hard time, Lauren. Starting a business was so complicated. There's so much paperwork, the government, the taxes, the lawyers, the bank. What's a margin? What's a credit? There's so much information you need to learn so fast, right? No matter if you're in service or CPG or manufacturing or whatever, it doesn't matter what kind of business, it's still complicated. My goal is to help ignite the fire to create more entrepreneurs out there.

A lot of our listeners are actually entrepreneurs, and when they're trying to think about scaling their businesses, and most of them are within that sustainability space, what would you recommend as kind of that first step for them thinking about what might be the best way to finance that project? Whether it's going towards crowdsourcing, family and friends, going to the bank, or trying to apply for different loans to the government, what would you recommend they do to think about what would be a good step for their business?

There's going to be like a five-hour thing just on that in my project, but in a small nutshell, the first thing you need to do, and I'm amazed how a lot of people are already in business and they still don't have that, the first thing you need to do is a forecast, a financial forecast for the next three years, very clear of all your sales, ventilated, knowing where they come from, and all your expenses. You need to do this, and the reason I say this, it sounds obvious for some people, but I'm telling you, 95% of people that are even already in business don't have that, which is amazing to me. It's great because if they don't have that, it means they didn't have to get financing. It means they could start with their money they had. 

But as soon as you need to be financed, that's what you need to do. A lot of people see this major moment as homework to get what they need, but it's not. It's the only real tool you'll use to know if you're doing right or wrong, if you're at the right spot. A lot of people will do it and will kind of put numbers in there just to have a nice point of view so that they can show it to a banker. That's the worst idea ever, and I did that, but that's the worst thing you can do. You need to do it really, really, really with all of your heart, all of your time, and all your concentration, really objectively, what you think you're going to spend and make in revenues to see if your business makes sense. 

To see if it really makes sense, that's the first key to know if you have something in your hands or not. With that, honestly, when you have that and it's solid and you're passionate about your project, you don't need anything else to get financing. This is all you need. This is all you need to be financed by all kinds, no matter if it's a bank, private equity, anything, VC. This is what you need to be financed because there's money out there. There's a lot of money out there, so it's not the money that's the problem, it's that a lot of people don't have that clear forecast.

I’ve definitely witnessed that in seeing certain businesses for sure. It seems like that extra level of homework, if you will, but I think it's a great tip. You're clearly passionate about this new school, about your business. I also know you're passionate about traveling. What are your thoughts on the role of travel when it comes to making us more responsible business leaders? Do you think that there is a direct connection between traveling and adopting a more sustainable mindset?

Not necessarily, not necessarily, not anymore. I will say not anymore because when I was 20 and I traveled for so many years, it feels like there was no internet really. There was hotmail, but there was not really media or press on the internet. Newspapers were not on the internet. There was not even Facebook when I was 20. We didn't have access to what was going on globally, really. Now we have access to that, so I'm not sure that you need absolutely to travel to have this sustainability mind. I'm not sure if that's the question, but for sure, traveling will bring you resilience. 

Traveling will bring you, well, depends where you travel again, but the kinds of travel that I did where I hiked for many months, or when I went to Central America with no money, that's where you really learn all the skills to survive, to get out of potential danger, to communicate with people that don't have your same way of communicating. That's when you learn the real resilience and witnessing other people's resilience, and witnessing mostly happiness through something else than, I will say, materialistic possession. 

Because we're so, and I've said this in another podcast that didn't air yet, and I'm going to say it here too, we kind of define ourselves through our possessions, through our role in society, but also through our possessions, through our car, our clothing. It's very important to us, for most people, what we look like. I know that's very basic information, everybody hears this all the time, but the real happiness never comes from that. Never comes from what we define ourselves, because we'll never be happy with what we look like. There's always something nicer, there's always a guy with a nicer car, someone with a nicer haircut, someone with nicer lips. 

To really be happy is to not define yourself with your surroundings and your material possessions, but with the realization that life is freaking awesome. Oh my God, I sound like a real hippie today, what's going on with me?

Well, it might resonate really well with our listeners of The Resilience Report, so I think that's much needed.

I just spent time off work in Italy with my kids and I was like, "Oh, it's beautiful." So now I'm all like, I’m kumbaya today.

Well, you mentioned it at the top as well, and I think this is probably the question I'm the most excited to ask you. You referred to yourself as an activist, and I think I really identify with that. Especially, you've mentioned in previous interviews that you felt as an activist who was super passionate about the environment, that you felt the way you were going to affect the most change was through business. That's definitely the angle that I come at this. I started in more the grassroots space and now work in very much corporate America because I really believe that. But I would love to hear a little bit more about that from you.

You mean how businesses can change the world?

Well, yeah, and how as an activist you found that you can really have a big impact by having a business presence versus perhaps going and protesting, which has its role as well, but then being part of the system, if you will, by having a little bit more of an impact that way.

Yeah, absolutely. I really believe this in my whole person. Just talking about it gives me shivers. Because I used to manifest in the street also, and I used to point my finger at a lot of things. I think a big thing in the activism world is that there's a lot of frustration. Frustration is a great fire, but I've realized that a lot of the frustration in the activism world is often directed outside. It's often that frustration where we're going to point our fingers, and we're going to try to get a petition, which is right. It's a good thing to change the government's stance and everything, and we'll point our fingers and say, "This is wrong, this shall change, this is wrong, we should change." But there's really a real embodiment of the problem to really take action. 

And us French Canadians, we are the best at that, we complain so much, it's so easy to complain. "Oh, this is not working, oh, this bridge, oh, the traffic." But who really actually says, "You know what? I'm going to try to do something about that. I'm actually going to try to take that anger and frustration and really do something about it." The people that have the most impact on everything, the environmental, social action, are the businesses. Why? Because we have employees, so we have a community in a way. The more we grow, the more that community grows internally. There's a small community of employees and the team, and there's also our consumers that are followers also. 

We have financial power because we buy a lot, we create jobs, we pay taxes. The people that the government listens to really are not citizens, it's the businesses. That's why the citizens are always like, "Why did you accept this for that business?" Well, it's because that business makes a lot of money and pays taxes, much more than the citizens all together. Because of that, we have so much power. I've met way more ministers in this office, in my factory, at least seven came here and visited our factory, that I met in my activism role when I didn't have a new business. 

I've talked about new policies and ideas that I have to change the world. Why did they come here? Because I'm an activist? No, because I have a business that employs people, that has an impact on the world, and they want to see how they can help. Economy and capitalism is the engine we roll on. That's it, that's the engine. We're nothing else. We live in a capitalistic world, that's the engine we roll on. We can actually harness that engine to the service of environmental issues and social issues for sure. Everything can be profitable. Most of the time, when the project is environmentally friendly or more friendly or socially more friendly, it's usually more financially interesting also. Most of the time it goes hand in hand. That's what people don't understand yet, that it goes together because it makes more sense. 

Circular economy makes so much sense. We give money to people that used to lose money sending stuff to landfill. We reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taking those things. We sort the plastics and the cardboard and sell it back. I don't give it, I sell it back to people. They come and pick it up at my factory because there's value to it because it's been sorted out. I sell those juices and I help banners and other groceries to make a better profit by selling a sustainable product, so they also help sustainability by selling my product. It makes so much sense. You can tell I'm passionate about that, I guess.

I love it. Well, I feel like we could go on, I have so many questions for you, but I want to be respectful of your time. If our listeners want to learn more about LOOP and you, where would you recommend they go check out?

You said that exactly at the same time that I got a text from Julie saying, "Who's going to daycare today?" It's the perfect timing for her. 

She texted me on the side, that's why I'm wrapping up. 

Every social media out there, LOOPmission.com, on Instagram, Facebook, of course. Ideally, you'll see us in the grocery store. Consumers and listeners out there, when you see our product on the shelves, remember that you can buy a product that will feed your personal needs of drinking a good juice, or you can also buy another product that will also fulfill those needs but will also fulfill a greater need to have a social impact, which is not an individual need but a community need that we have. I'm not sure if I'm clear, but that's the message out there.

Absolutely. We like to end every episode with the same question, which is, what do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

I think it's to slow down a little bit. When you have a business, you often forget why you started it. You often don't realize all the collateral impact that you have by creating that product or offering that service. Sometimes you need to take time a little bit and distance yourself from your daily job or daily life or daily business to really look at where the holes are. What are we wasting here? It might not just be product, it might be time, it might be space. You might realize that your space has never been used, or your office is always empty, so someone is there next door that can actually use it and spend less money on it. Is there time from someone that you realize you could save by doing something else? 

Circular economy is in everything. Circularity is in everything. It's to take time to look at all that waste that's not only material and to try to use it at its most. This is what we've always done as a civilization, we just forgot about it.

Well, thank you so much. It has been so great talking to you. I'm sure everyone's going to go look for the product if they're not already consuming it like myself for the past couple of years. Thank you, David, this has been great.

My pleasure, it was awesome.