The Poultry Leadership Podcast
"Welcome to 'The Poultry Leadership Podcast,' where we dive deep into the world of poultry leadership to help you soar to new heights in your career. Join us as we sit down with some of the industry's most accomplished leaders, farm owners, and allied professionals. Gain valuable insights, strategies, and personal stories that reveal the secrets behind their success. Discover what makes these poultry visionaries the outstanding leaders they are. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, our show is your go-to resource for unlocking your full leadership potential. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey to becoming the poultry leader you aspire to be."
This podcast is brought to you by Prism Controls, the leader in Environmental Controls for the past 45 years! Check them out at http://www.prismcontrols.com
The Poultry Leadership Podcast
Nest Fresh: First in the US to Raise In-ova sexed Chicks with Jasen Urena
Jasen Urena, Executive Vice President of Nest Fresh Farms, takes us on a captivating journey from his beginnings in Southern California to becoming a trailblazer in the egg industry. Tune in to hear how Jasen's Hispanic heritage and bilingual skills became instrumental in forging strong relationships within the company and beyond. His story is not just one of personal growth, but also a testament to the power of community and family, both in life and in business. Jasen's narrative offers invaluable lessons on building trust and navigating the complexities of leading a major enterprise.
Discover the inner workings of Nest Fresh Farms as we examine the operational intricacies of managing over 200 small family farms. Our exploration delves into the challenges of ensuring quality and compliance, maintaining consumer trust, and staying ahead of the competition. Join us as we discuss the innovative strides Nest Fresh is making through partnerships and cutting-edge technologies like in-ovo sexing. This episode sheds light on how the company is setting new standards in the industry with their commitment to transparency and sustainability.
Technology is transforming agriculture, and Nest Fresh is at the forefront of this evolution. From AI to advanced processing operations, we explore the future of farming and its impact on productivity and creativity. Jasen shares insightful perspectives on how embracing these advancements can drive growth, efficiency, and problem-solving. As we navigate the challenges and opportunities of leadership in an ever-evolving landscape, we emphasize the importance of adaptability and a forward-thinking mindset. Prepare to be inspired and informed about the future of agriculture and the role of technology in shaping it.
More on In Ova Sexing - Episode 18 - https://www.buzzsprout.com/2275790/episodes/15447681
https://nestfresh.com/
Jasen Urena - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasen-urena-27179013/
Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com
Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Mulnix, and today we are going to learn about Nest Fresh Farms. This is really, really exciting because I have Jasen Urena on the line today and I'm learning so much about them just in the pre-interview that I can't wait to share him with all of you. So let's get started, Jasen, welcome to the show.
Jasen Urena:Hey, thanks, Brandon. Thanks for having me. It's going to be fun having a conversation like this with somebody from the industry, so I feel like we're going to have a good time doing it.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, it's exciting because you said you've know, you've been on a couple other shows and you know you had to answer basically the basics about eggs. But our listeners are pretty smart about eggs and I think we're going to be able to skip over the basics on that and get to something a little bit deeper. So, Jasen, can you tell the listeners who you are?
Jasen Urena:Well, I guess, starting professionally, I'm Jasen Urena. I'm the executive vice president of Nest Fresh. I've been it's hard to believe, but I've been in the egg business now for 19 years. I started straight out of college and I'm a Southern California kid, so for all intents and purposes I'm a city guy. I had never been on an egg farm before.
Jasen Urena:I knew nothing about where eggs came from until I started working here with Nest Fresh and the egg industry and it's been an amazing ride. For 19 years I've enjoyed so much of it. I've gone from not knowing anything about an egg to kind of being responsible for marketing, being responsible for sales, then getting into live operations, getting to know a lot of the great people within this industry, and I thought that this was going to be just a short term, like I'm going to get some experience and move on. But I really fell in love with this industry, not only the, not only the company itself, which has been an amazing place to work for and obviously grow over these 19 years, but just the people. The friendships, the relationships, as you well know, in this industry have been amazing. It's really hard to get away from.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, that's you know. As we, as we talk about your journey a little bit you know, share with me a little bit about your family. Where'd you get started?
Jasen Urena:Yeah, so I was born, uh, born and raised in Southern California, I mentioned, in a city called, uh, buena Park, not too, not too far from Disneyland. Um, I'm, I'm still based here in Southern California and the corporate office being in Fullerton, so never gotten too far away from home. But, like I mentioned, I've lived here my whole life. I come from a family, actually a family that immigrated here to the United States and nobody would be able to tell, but I am 100% Hispanic, my mother's Cuban, my father's Costa Rican. Spanish was actually my first language. They both worked really hard.
Jasen Urena:My father was a bus driver, my mom worked in sales administration almost her whole career. She moved her way up and they did a lot to give me and my sister I have one younger sister Opportunities that they didn't have, you know, coming from their countries, opportunities that you know our amazing country had given them, and they kind of wanted to give us a springboard to jump off, you know, even higher than they have. And now you know I'm here, we're here because of them, of them, so, luckily, I've been able to, you know, accomplish what I have because of, because of those roots, and we're still like an amazingly close family, uh, all you know, my wife now met my wife going to to cal state, fullerton, which I got my degree from in in marketing, business administration and marketing, uh, and her family lives five minutes away from us her parents and her sister. Then my parents live about 10 minutes away from us and my sister lives nearby too. So we've always kept like a really close family dynamic.
Brandon Munlix:It's been great. That's awesome. It's great. I mean, this is a family business, a family you know, very family friendly industry, and I'm assuming that really empowered you being bilingual to really you know relate to your, relate to the, to your, to your employees, just as much as you know relate to CEOs and business, because you can communicate, which is very empowering. That's awesome.
Jasen Urena:Yeah, with being able to speak Spanish fluently. It always helped, especially working in the plants, getting to know all of our people, from the people packing on the end of the machines to the people working in the barns, to the supervisors and managers at the locations. That always helped. It always helped create that relationship too, because it's nice for people that maybe you know English was not their first language, to be able to relate to upper management. So, yeah, that's always been extremely helpful for me. I mean, if you don't know, and in this industry and you have the opportunity to go out and learn, I definitely recommend it because it's a bridge builder, for sure.
Brandon Munlix:That's, that's cool. So you've been with Nest Fresh for 19 years, which is just. I mean that's, that's a career. That's as long as my first career was outside the industry. So can you? I mean I'm curious, and I know our listeners are curious who's Nest Fresh? Can you tell us about Nest Fresh and its origins?
Jasen Urena:Yeah, nest Fresh started in the early nineties and actually I mean because there's a lot of industry people listening to this and Nest Fresh is part of Hidden Villa ranch as the bigger, as the bigger company a lot of people know hidden villa ranch. Nest fresh is the specialty ag division of you know of hidden villa ranch, which started around the in in the early 90s and really um brought to life by Mike Sensor. He has been my mentor for all of these 19 years. Here at Nest Fresh we really want. When specialty eggs first started to become a thing, before cage-free was popular, before pasture-raised was growing all over the place, mike had this vision that this was going to be the future and that we wanted to get in on the ground floor. So he started this division, which now I'm proud to be able to take over for him and lead. But he started this division on the idea that we need to keep up with all of our customers that are asking for the next level of whatever it is animal welfare, environmental sustainability, packaging, innovation.
Jasen Urena:We weren't going to sit around and wait until the potential slice of the pie got big enough to get interested in it. We always wanted to be on the forefront and kind of pushing that in that innovation from you know, the 90s to the early 2000s. You know we were one of the first brands to really get into cage free in a big way. Uh, we were one of the first brands to really get into organic in in a big. Then, as time has gone on, we were the first to do non-GMO project verified eggs anywhere in the industry. We were the first to be able to secure that verification. We also, a couple of years ago, launched the first regenerative organic certified egg in the country.
Jasen Urena:So we'd like to keep pushing kind of that level of innovation, and not because we just want to do it too, because we feel like it is the right thing to do. And three, that we have consumers asking us for these types of things every day. And you know we're not a big, massive brand that's backed by Wall Street money or venture capital money. We're a family-owned business. Our owner owns 100% of it and we have to go out and kind of prove ourselves to our customers every day and we have to continue to innovate and bring in new customers. So we continue to innovate and bring in new customers. So you know, we continue to win their trust. You know what we do in a nutshell and why we do it.
Brandon Munlix:Well, you know, and I think of pasture raising, I think of you know, birds were raised originally in a pasture, originally outdoors. You know, you go down to Guatemala or places like that and you see chickens running everywhere. I mean that's birds where they came from. And then humans started gathering them up, put them in cages, and now you guys started early in saying, hey, let's get these birds back out in the wild a little bit. I mean it's controlled, but at a different scale, so then we can produce enough product for markets in those specialty markets, for markets in those specialty markets. And I think of all the labeling things that evolved just in those years of you know, you kept mentioning organic and environmentally friendly. I mean, all of these things have labels now. And it's like man, you guys had to be helping customers understand that long time ago and now it's probably coming more. You know, your work's probably starting to come to fruition, as people are starting to understand those labels Absolutely.
Jasen Urena:And it's about the customers, like I mentioned. Like we're very customer focused, very consumer focused, right, but we're also a big part of what we do and how it's all possible. Are the small farmers that we deal with like the family farmers that we deal with? We, a family-owned company, uh, but you know, we don't produce all of our eggs ourselves. We. We produce some of the eggs ourselves, but we also go out and we contract with a lot of small farmers across the, across the country, and part of the the brand is really to kind of keep, and part of the brand is really to kind of keep that small farmer way of life going as an Indian industry. As it grows. There's consolidation In order to get efficiencies, you got to get bigger, which is all understandable, but at the same time you go all throughout the country the Midwest, the Southeast, the Northeast.
Jasen Urena:There's a lot of farmers out there that want to be able to make a living off their land.
Jasen Urena:They want to be able to keep their family at home. They don't want to have to go move in closer to the cities to find a nine five job. So we try to identify farmers like that that are willing to produce for us, and not only willing to produce for us, but excited to be able to produce for us and our brand because we're doing some of these exciting and innovative things. These farmers see their birds, their hands, as like an extension of their own family, like they want them to have the best environment possible, like they're taking care of them every day. They treat them as well as they possibly can. It's dealing with those types of people. It's being able to kind of create a niche and create a market for them to be able to do what they do on the farm level. That's like really exciting to me and kind of and it gives us here, you know, on the brand level, the motivation to go out and keep growing so that we can keep adding more and more of these types of farmers from all over.
Brandon Munlix:That is interesting, as you you know, as a lot of my experiences in the commercial egg production with farms that are 50, 100, 3.5 million, you know size farms. How do you I mean, how does that work? Let's say you're in California but you have your growers are in Iowa, indiana, michigan, wherever how do they get their eggs to? You know how do they get their eggs processed and labeled in the Nest Fresh brand.
Jasen Urena:So we have processing plants scattered throughout the country. We have plants in Southern California, in Texas, in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania and a couple of others. So we go and we consolidate all the eggs from these farmers and you're right, they're scattered all over the place, from the upper Midwest to the south of the country, the central part of the country. So we'll go and pick up all the eggs, we'll bring them into our processing plants where then we process and pack and then distribute to all of our, to all of our customers. So it kind of takes the, it takes the stress out of the farm, off the farmer as to like where their eggs need to go, how they're going to get sold. They just they can focus on what they do best and that's, you know, raising a flock, get it in the best possible way and then getting the best quality eggs out of those birds.
Brandon Munlix:To give the listeners an idea, tell me about the size of these farms. I mean, I mean, what's the smallest grower you you work with and then the biggest?
Jasen Urena:I guess the smallest grower we work with is probably going to be about 7,000, 7, 8, 7, 8,000. Average we're probably closer to 20,000. On the size of these individual flocks, these are all free-range pasture-raised flocks, are non-GMO products, those types of things. They're somewhere around there. Maybe some are a little bit bigger, but they're somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000, I would say, on average.
Brandon Munlix:Okay, and so they gather their eggs, hand-pack them, because there's not a lot of automation in that size of operation from my understanding and then you have trucks that run around picking them up, or do they end up hiring somebody to run them to the nearest processing?
Jasen Urena:So there's a lot of. With so many farmers I mean, we probably have upwards of 200 individual farmers scattered across the country that produce for us so there's a lot of different ways that that happens. Like we really try to focus on the individual farms, what they can do, what they can't do, what we need to jump in and help them with to make it work, and then we just come up with a program for them that makes it as easy as we can on the farmer and also make sure that it works operationally for us and how do you verify quality in all the specifications that you have for that grower?
Brandon Munlix:Because, in order to meet GMO standards, in order to meet all the different standards, how do you verify that?
Jasen Urena:Yeah, that's what we do as a brand team.
Jasen Urena:We have a live production team, we have a compliance team and we have a group of field service people that will go out to these farms and some of the bigger groupings of farms will sometimes have some of their own services, but we also provide all of that for our individual farms that don't have that.
Jasen Urena:We have our live production team, based in Texas, will go around to a lot of these farms when they need to to make sure that everything is being produced up to our spec. We have our compliance team that touches base with all of these farms on a consistent basis to make sure that everything is again being done the way that we would want everything to be done, would want everything to be done, uh, but you know, to be honest, when you're dealing with these types of farmers that are so invested in it, you realize like they're, while you have to obviously have, have oversight and have, like, those constant open channels of communication, we don't have to constantly be on top of them to do the right thing or to do what we're what we want them to do. There may be help at the beginning to get them going, but really they're all about it. They want to do these things. So it's really been a joy getting to know all these people and working with all these guys.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, sounds amazing. I mean, it really does sound like a family farm orientated, because you're just dealing with a lot of families. They're just needing a market for their product. They want to grow it, you know, produce their product to a certain level and they have an outlet for it. So they don't have to go and create that relationship with the local supermarkets and and then when something happens to them, you know there's, you know where do I find information sounds like you guys support them a lot.
Jasen Urena:Well, it gives it gives these smaller farmers, uh across the country, uh an ability to to compete right, because, as our industry goes through consolidation and our industry continue, some of the bigger farms continue to grow. It's harder and harder to, you know, to compete on on big scales. A 20 000 bird farm can't compete against a significantly bigger farm. So that's where being part of a brand like ours and creating this egg pool of producers throughout the entire country, it gives them that ability to have a continuous market and not have to worry about going out after individual POs after individual POs and seeing where they're going to sell their eggs on a week to week basis.
Brandon Munlix:So with it, I mean, it sounds like when you have that many farms spread out through the country and there's, if I understand right, there's a competition for specialty farms, that is different than, let's say, the big commercial farms where it's a really, really huge investment to let's consolidate at that level, you guys, I mean, do you have competition with other I'm not going to name them here, but other companies that do similar things for growers? Meaning you got to, you know, entice that grower to work with you.
Jasen Urena:Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, we're not the only brand out in the market right now that has this, you know, this type of model and we have to compete out there at retail every day. But that's where really the competition comes in. And it's not necessarily all about costs right, I guess there are cost factors to this but because we treat our farmers in a certain way and we have a longstanding relationship with them, we have a track record within the industry and we're bringing them new opportunities all the time. We have a great base of loyal farmers. And it's the same thing on the customer side or on the consumer side, where we're competing.
Jasen Urena:We don't want to stay stagnant, as, like, nest Fresh is a free range brand and that's it right. Or Nest Fresh is a pasture raised brand and that's it. Like some of our other competitors are like that, they do one thing and that's what they do. Like I mentioned earlier, we have a very strong like ideology that we have to go out and win our consumers every day. Like we have to go and continue to gain their trust with transparency. We have to go and continue to gain their trust with transparency. We have to go and continue to gain their trust with innovation. We have to continue to gain their trust by listening to the feedback that we get from them and making changes. So Nesfresh right now is a free range pasture raised brand and above we're introducing other innovations and we're going to continue. We're going to continue to to evolve. Our consumers are evolving and we got to continue to evolve and that's how we're going to win that, that competition.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, one of the new things that I, you know, recently learned about you guys and is you know your relationship with Innova Sexy. And I want to talk about this because last year I really I had an episode on inovasexing which I learned so much about. If you want to go back, look I tell you that episode, I'll put it in the show notes down below of which episode you go back to learn about the science behind it and kind of the start of it. So tell me what's your relationship with inovasexing? What can you guys claim around that?
Jasen Urena:So we're really excited about our Innova Sexing project. I mean it's been in the news the last couple of weeks. Last week we officially became the first company in the United States, the first brand in the United States, to be able to say that we have a flock on the ground today of chicks that have gone through the Inovo sexing project Inovo sexing process. This has been a long time coming and we have been working on this for over two years Before all everybody started making announcements. So we'll commit to it when it's possible. You know we'll look at it when it's commercially available.
Jasen Urena:We had been going back and forth to Europe for more than two years looking at all of the different in-ovo sexing technologies out there, talking to some of our customers about it, talking to hatcheries about it, talking to our farmers about it and saying that we think this is the right next step to take for nest fresh.
Jasen Urena:This is something that's already happening in Europe. There's countries in Europe that have legislation in place mandating that all eggs go through the inovosexing process. So again, we saw kind of the writing on the wall. This is going to happen here eventually one way or another, and we have consumers that have been asking us those questions for years and we've been trying to figure out what's the best solution to this issue. After a few years of working on the project, we were able to partner with AAT, which produces the technology called Cheggie, and Highline North America that put the Cheggie machine into two hatcheries for us and we were actually back at the hatcheries last week to witness the first actual hatch of an inovo sexed flock uh, in the united states, and and mass rush is gonna is the first one to be able to say, like, we actually have a flock today that's on the ground, that's growing on our on our pullet farms in in texas, uh, and we'll have eggs to be able to bring to the market by may or j of 2025.
Brandon Munlix:That is exciting to see technology and how fast things advance and to see a farm that's at the cutting edge of technology. Farmers get a bad rap, that you know. Oh, I just want my 30 year old tractor and I want it to work and I don't want change. And here's Nest Fresh, who's nimble, who's like agile all the terms you want to say that they're on the cutting edge and that is. It's just great to see. It's great to see and it probably you know you don't have to worry about filling houses of 200,000 birds tomorrow. You get to raise pasture birds and smaller flocks. That does that equate to.
Jasen Urena:You know, help you be, why you guys are able to do something like this and be so nimble yeah, everything goes back to our network of farmers and that's why, like, I always try to give them as much credit as possible. I mean, no matter who I talk to, whether it's a retail customer, somebody in my personal life farmers really make it all possible and if we were a million bird complex, this probably wouldn't be very easy to do. But because we have this network of small farms, we can take smaller flocks and put them in and try different things, even though on the Inovo, on the Inovo sexing side, we're kind of really going all in as a brand. We're committing to transitioning the entire Nesfresh brand to the Inovo sex project and I mean, obviously that's going to take time. We all know that it takes a long time to go rotate through a flock, hatch a new flock, get new replacement flocks in. So it's probably going to be a two year process until we get all the way through it. But that's a commitment that we're making, starting with the flock that we just received on our farms last week. Yeah, the flexibility to be able to do something like this comes from having our network of small farms and it was throughout this journey.
Jasen Urena:It was really cool to see like a group of people from within the industry and outside of the industry kind of come together and make this possible, because it's not just us. You know we can't take all the credit we're we're the, we're the brand, we're the, we're the producers quote, unquote behind it. But you know it. It took a lot of work from from att, aat and and cheggy. It took work with, you know, highline and us, and then also our, our partnerships with uh, aspca and humane, uh, humane farm animal care, which is our, which is going to be our certifier. They're the first third-party certification that already wrote Inovo sexing standards and was with us last week and actually did the first audit. So now we are HFAC certified as an Inovo sexed layer operation, which is all of these people that have come together to make this work. This has been an amazing process to work with this group of people and this team, because you know you take out any one of those pieces and it doesn't come to fruition.
Brandon Munlix:Well, as I've watched this continual grow and I've watched the companies come on board talking about it, it takes the collaboration of the industry to educate the customers American Egg Board and marketing and all of these things that help. You can throw another label on your carton, but if people don't know what it means, they don't see the value in it. The story just doesn't get out there, and so that's the work that is. It's incredible to see, I mean to see, how fast you guys have been able to come together and work. You know you said a couple years. You know how. How long has it taken, you know, the industry to move on other things throughout history? It just takes, you know, farmers to collaborate. I mean heck, a lot of farmers, you know, struggled collaborating to begin with. Then they keep and they see the value of it and the value of it and pretty soon you know it's amazing how the industry has just grown into one big collaboration. You know, using that word again.
Jasen Urena:And in reality it has been over two years where we're like searching and trying to figure out how to make this possible and like who are going to be the partners that we get together to actually execute it. And it was March of this year where we still didn't know whether it was going to be possible, and then it all started clicking together and then, okay, we got the first yes we needed. And then we got the second yes we needed. And then from there we got, we got the first yes, we need it. And then we got the second yes, we need it. And then from there it actually happened really fast, from, I would say, maybe late March, April, where we said everybody came together and said, okay, I think we could do this, Like we can figure, we can figure out a way to make it work to then having a flock actually hatched sitting here in December. We're not talking about a lot of months. That happened very, very quickly. That's cool.
Brandon Munlix:I mean, it takes a lot. It takes a supply chain, the companies that are building the machines, the technology, the make sure it works. You know, after it's shipped across the globe you know most of these companies I'm assuming it's coming out of Europe is where the equipment's built, since that's where most of most of the poultry equipment is is developed. I mean, I can see the smile on your face and just how excited and proud you are for your farm of doing this and that's way to way to be, way to be innovators, way to be, you know, cutting edge and in our mind it just goes back to kind of like, you know, our our history of wanting to continue to to progressively make things a little bit better for the hens that produce our products.
Jasen Urena:And you know, this is just one of those things where it's like it's just taking another step in the right direction. You know, I've been in the industry for 19 years, obviously, and it's not really about what anybody else is doing wrong, because I've gotten a lot of those questions. You know, if you're doing this, then you know what other questions are going to start surfacing. And it really isn't about that. It's not about you know what we're doing right now or if anybody else is doing anything wrong. It's just about continuing to bring options to not only egg producers and consumers. It's about continuing to look for what is the next iteration of an egg. How do we stay relevant with those consumers, how do we continue to win those consumers' trusts? At the end of the day, the consumers are going to make the decisions right. If the consumers don't want it, then they don't want it. But at least we're bringing up the solutions, we're bringing up the options and putting it out there for everybody.
Brandon Munlix:I do have to go back and ask one question of you, Jasen. Can you describe Inovasexing to the listeners, Because they might be confused at this point. They might have not gone back and listened to the other episode and maybe they've signed off by now. But can you describe just simple words what is Inovasexing?
Jasen Urena:So Inovasexing is a process of identifying the gender of the chicken while it's still in the egg. So early on in incubation we take those hatching eggs and put them through the chagging machine which measures it with light basically with different light computer programming to identify what the sex of that hen is. And then, as it comes through the other side, the females, female eggs go to one side, the male eggs go to the other and the female eggs go back into incubation. The male eggs then get used for other purposes, whether it's fertilizers, pet foods, all different kinds of usages. But those chicks aren't hatched when in the current process those chicks are hatched and then they have to be euthanized on day one. So we're eliminating the need to hatch and euthanize male baby chicks.
Brandon Munlix:Which sounds like using technology for a different option. I don't want to use the word humane versus not. I don't. I'm not judging any of that stuff. I'm just saying it's definitely a different option. That's awesome, that's great. I'm loving seeing this evolution of technology move so fast. And you know let's change subjects here for just a second what I mean? You've been in this 19 years. What other areas of technology have you seen evolve and what areas you wish technology would help?
Jasen Urena:I mean, over the 19 years I've seen a lot of different technologies, mostly on the operations side, right on the farms different process, all the different processing equipment that we have today in our plants that we didn't have 20 years ago. I mean, you think about, you know, going back processing machine might've ran at 200 cases an hour. Now we're pushing seven, eight, seven, 800 cases an hour with a lot of of, with a lot of robotics and automation. Uh, that wasn't, that wasn't possible 20, 20 years ago. So we've invested as an industry a ton of money and you know a lot of different companies have in the operations of the plants and and the chicken houses. So it's it's nice to be able to actually bring in a technology that's actually a step in the right direction for the animal welfare of the chicken. And then, looking forward, I think technology is only gonna advance quicker and quicker.
Jasen Urena:One thing that I'm excited about and I'm trying to learn as much about right now as I can is the use of AI and how we use that. Not avian flu for our industry, but HPAI, ai, artificial intelligence. How do we incorporate that into our businesses? That's not going away, ai becoming more and more prevalent, I think, like, the life cycle of technology is going to just start turning quicker and quicker and quicker, and and we're going to have to be kind of open arm to that and really look at like, all right, how do we keep up with this? Uh, how do we best leverage it, um so so that's something that I'm excited to see, how that affects our industry overall, and who's going to be creative enough to figure out how to best utilize something like artificial intelligence?
Brandon Munlix:Well, and Jasen, I'm going to speak from my experience on the technology company side. It is interesting because AI can scare people. It's either, you know, used for good or bad, and I'm sorry, farmers are good. We're going to use it for good, but the idea is, what can we be using it for every day? That helps us in our everyday jobs, because that's what's going to help us adapt to it and start to appreciate the value of it. You know, for, as a leader, you know trying to one, empower your people to use it and not be scared of it. I mean, it does come, you know, at a cost sometimes. You know licenses for different users. You got to get that exploration going because that's, you know, the people on your farm or farms using it are probably going to be the ones that are going to come up with the next major revelation in the industry, because they're like, someone's going to have the crazy idea to come up with something, and it's going to come from farmers that are using it, not necessarily always the tech companies. I mean, we're constantly listening to our customers and saying, hey, how can we make better products? But it takes us a little bit longer to move and pivot as it does, someone that's using it every day, especially in the processing place, processing side, where you're, you know you're trying to improve quality of your product and timeliness and efficiencies. But then you start looking back into some of the other areas where data is so important data from your farms. You can see trends, you can see making business decisions to adapt, and we were talking about before we got on today about some of the things you have to do every day just because of the effects of AI in the industry, hp AI in the industry. We're going to use these interchangeable here. But the idea is you know one how can you craft your messaging so it's consistent? There's tools for that. How can you analyze when two or three of your growers out in the field or there's a heat map of your areas, to say, wow, we got to change some, we got to update some biosecurity things over here, because now I mean, what are we doing? All these things can be made with the power of business intelligence, because it's not artificial intelligence.
Brandon Munlix:Everybody keeps saying it's artificial intelligence. No, it's augmented intelligence. It's going to help you, the human, make better decisions. It's not going to take over. It can't just make up stuff based on data. It's literally got to use humans to say I got a problem. How do I look at that data and process it at a much granular and faster ways than you or I could ever do? I mean, I sit and look at spreadsheets all day long and it's like how can I get something to give me a summary of this, instead of having to actually go in and figure it out and have it be an accurate summary of it too? That's. The other thing is I've had some challenges with AI at times, but again it's early. I mean, we're in Gen 4 of ChatG, gpt, and it's only getting more powerful every single day.
Jasen Urena:You're right. You're right about that. I mean, it's it's trying to figure out how to like really harness everything that we got from a people standpoint, because we have so much. We have so much talent in this industry. I've gotten to meet so many different people from so many different companies across the country and there's just a ton of talent there.
Jasen Urena:How much of that talents time is getting tied up in remedial tasks, and how do you use certain technology to allow that talent to kind of open up their mind and come be able to give you more solutions, give you more solutions, give you more ideas, instead of filling out that spreadsheet that you were just talking about? That took them two hours to do? How do we? We've done really good at automating some of these tasks within the processing plants with equipment. Now, how can we do that, you know, not only in the process and plants, but in our overall business using some of these new technologies that are coming out Like I would love to be able to utilize more of my people's time in critical thinking and problem solving rather than filling out forms. There's a lot of talent there that can be utilized in different ways and we figure out how to use this AI technology.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, it's exciting. I mean we just had a conversation with a customer today and he was asking about, well, what's the life of a computer? I said it's not the life of the computer that matters anymore. Those can be replaced. It's the life of the technology that's on there and the data that's on there. That stuff's evolving so fast and it's so powerful. I mean, what we've seen in the last five years, we're going to see double in the next three to three years and and I think you know customers, you know companies like yours that are on that cutting edge, that can be nimble and can try new things You're you're going to change, you're going to, you're going to lead the way and I am glad that we were able to connect just because of that, just to see where you guys grow and go with it. It's so powerful and the people we're going to be hiring in the next five years are going to be different than the people we're hiring today.
Jasen Urena:I agree with that. Yeah, there's the more in and I've told this to you know, people within our own company, um, that that work for the work for my division of the of the company learn more about these technologies like and if you want the opportunity to learn more, let us know and we'll and we'll try to help out with with that learning because, um, it is, it is the future and the more we'll try to help out with that learning because it is the future, and the more we get exposed to it, the better off we're going to be yeah, for us it's completely.
Brandon Munlix:When I hear people, well, we're going to integrate that technology in the next 10 years, it's like 10 years. That's how long it takes. No, I can't wait that long. It's got to be like five years, and so we're constantly moving. I mean, I'm constantly wait that long. It's got to be like five years, and so we're constantly moving. I mean, I'm constantly using the tools myself rewriting emails, simple thing. Can you make this email sound a little less like me, because it didn't work the last three times I said it.
Jasen Urena:Can you make?
Brandon Munlix:it sound a little more or less like me or create slide decks, create images. I love making AI create images for me, putting all these weird things, and it comes out with some pretty cool stuff. In fact, my logo for the podcast came out from AI. Tell me how chickens talking in a microphone. Add more chickens, add different barn and it does it. It's just so powerful.
Jasen Urena:It's really cool to see what these things can do nowadays. Just to sit and play with it, and sometimes just the entertainment of it, is worth it.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah and I'm going to reiterate what one of my other guests said is if you want to know how to do this, go hire a high school kid, and if they're not available because they're already busy, go hire a middle schooler, because they're going to. They're already leap years ahead of what what you and I are, because you know they're figuring out how to use this stuff to cheat and it's not cheating anymore.
Jasen Urena:I mean they said it's.
Brandon Munlix:You know, it's part of how to. How do I write a book report? Well, tell you how to write a book report is different, because what prompts do I put into chat GPT to get the book report? That's going to get me an A.
Jasen Urena:Yeah like you know, when I remember growing up, my parents purchased, uh, an encyclopedia like a physical book, encyclopedia, a to you know, a to Z. That doesn't happen anymore, like those things are prehistoric. And then you know, internet can't Google. You know, google was searching. So when I was in college, everything was everything was online. Nobody, we didn't open books in the encyclopedia anymore. It's going to be the same thing. This is just the next iteration of it.
Brandon Munlix:Well, I think what's interesting? You mentioned Google search. Because Google search Now, if you start to look, there's some AI in Google search, because Google search used to give you all of the resources how do I do this? And it gives you 20 pages on different people doing that and giving you instructions. Now you type into a chat GPT how do I do this? It takes from all 20 and writes it out in front of you and then sort and then, if you get the right version, it'll actually give you the sources back. But now I don't have to think and read 20 different things. It actually summarizes. It gives it to me. Man, it's been pretty darn accurate for most everything, but that's so much faster than me having to go through 20 different pages. But that changes business.
Jasen Urena:Time and human resources are the most valuable things we have at our disposal. Time and human resources are the most valuable things we have at our disposal, and that's what utilizing this technology is going to give us back More of our time and more capacity from our people. I just don't see why we wouldn't want to take advantage of it.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, I mean we collect all of our information so differently. I remember going through college and someone's like you're kind of cheating by doing audio books. I'm like I want the information from the book my way. I don't have time to sit down and read and I don't learn as well when I sit down and read. For me, I learn more when I'm out running and I have it in my ears because I have no more distractions. Why am I cheating? I can write the same report that you can. I just have to go find the citations in the book. That's where technology is changing so fast. For the generations below that are the gen z's and stuff like that. Because they don't. They didn't get stuck with an encyclopedia like you and I did. Yeah, they're not stuck in that mindset that I gotta go and find that resource because they've grown up with google.
Jasen Urena:Yeah, and and, and that's a great word. That's just it's mindset it really is. Can we expand our mindset to be able to absorb what the world is now giving us? Because the world is changing all the time. It doesn't matter what industry you're in I mean, we're talking about the egg industry specifically here but everything is changing all around us and if we keep blinders on all the time and say like, this is the way we've done things, this is the right, this is the best way to do it, well, I'm sorry, I'm going to disagree with you. There's always a way to get better. You know, every day there's a way to get better. New information comes out, new technology comes out. Yeah, new tools are at your disposal. Just because you know, because you felt really right about what you were doing a year ago, doesn't mean that it's still the right thing to do or the best way to do it. You always have to be looking to evolve and I think that, regardless of what industry you're in, those are the companies that are going to win long term.
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, I'll put technology advances. I'm going to put the tractor or the mule with the plow next to the newest, latest, greatest John Deere tractor with a plow. There's a perfect example of how technology continues to evolve. And there are people that still think, nope, I'm going to use the hand plow, okay. Think, nope, I'm going to use the hand plow. Okay, that's they value. They value that the their feet in the ground or are doing that Great. That's their value system.
Brandon Munlix:And I'm not going to condemn them. I'm just going to say that if my responsibility is to produce more, because I'm going to feed more, I better be looking at the John Deere tractor with the you know, the newest, latest, greatest plows, because because, one, I can't drive in a straight line, so I need the gps tracking to help me out. And two, I can't remember what I just plowed two minutes ago, so I better have it, you know, show me exactly where I plowed and at which field. And, by the way, I want my air conditioning because I'm I'm a wuss and I want it. I want it nice and cool in there, nice and warm, with the latest and greatest tractors out there.
Jasen Urena:So it's not about anybody doing it wrong. I'm yeah, I'm pretty big on like there's no absolutes in life, like there's very few things that there's like an absolute right way or an absolute wrong way, and whoever wants to run their business with you know whether it's technology or whether it's any types of processes they want to then have at it and, at the end of the day, I wish everybody success in what they're doing, and if they can accomplish it in a different way, then great. Then maybe we have something to learn from each other. But the most important thing is that we're constantly learning. And how do we use what's successful here and what's successful over there and bring it together and keep moving this industry forward?
Brandon Munlix:Yeah, and I can guarantee you the listeners on this podcast, or listeners to podcasts, are way higher advanced than most of the other folks out there, because, I'm sorry, they're already utilizing technology to advance their careers, advance their knowledge of industry. So great that you're here. I got to ask another question, though. You're a leader, you run into challenges, probably on a regular basis. What's one of the challenges that you see for leaders in today's world? What are the challenges facing leaders today?
Jasen Urena:Yeah, there's a few. We're dealing with a lot of different challenges every day and I think, partially that's the biggest challenge that things are evolving so fast that we're getting new challenges thrown at us faster and faster. Just know, just before we finally think that, okay, we got this challenge under control and we figured this out, here comes something new, and now we got to pivot and figure that out. What I tell, like my group and the people that you know, the people that work closely with me, is that there's always going to be a new challenge coming at you and we don't know what tomorrow's challenges are going to bring, and it could be very different than the challenges that we're dealing with today. So we have to be able to be open-minded and be flexible, because we're going to need to adapt quickly to the next challenges that come at us. You know there's certain things that we're going to continue to do because those are our, you know those are our values and you know those might be the you know those might be the absolutes at the very core of why we're doing what we're doing. But we have to be able to be flexible and pivot, constantly pivoting all the time. If we're not in the mentality of that we have to change. If we have to pivot, then we're going to have issues solving the problems that are coming at us, because just the way that the egg industry operated five years ago is very different from the way we've been operating the last couple of years and we've had to be flexible and deal with all those challenges as they've come along and there's been some new things that have come from that that have helped us all be successful.
Jasen Urena:So for any leader really coming up and that's having to deal with these challenges is take the time, take a step back, take a deep breath. Whatever the challenge is that's in front of you, it's not going to end the world tomorrow. Let's keep an open mind and figure out all right, how do we get around it? How do we make our business, our operation, flexible enough to not only deal with the challenge but maybe even identify the opportunities that come within those challenges, because every challenge comes with some other opportunity. If you can figure it out, there's no challenges. It's just all 100% negative If you can find a way to turn that challenge into an opportunity. Those are the leaders that I want to keep coming up within my team and I would tell anybody that's coming up within the industry, or whatever industry they want to get into stay open-minded, stay flexible and be willing to deal with any challenge that gets thrown in front of you.
Brandon Munlix:Wow, I hear a common theme. I've recorded a few podcasts in the last couple of weeks and I hear this in every challenge there's an opportunity. Be the one to find the opportunity, be disruptive, but it's the same thing. Leaders don't talk about problems, they talk about opportunities.
Jasen Urena:That's true, I mean and really that's where we need to be focusing on is where are the opportunities? And in that you're going to deal with. You're going to deal with all of the all of the challenges. But you have to keep that positive, that positive mindset, because once you get through the challenge, you do got to identify the opportunity. Otherwise it's just a lot of wasted, a lot of wasted effort. You're dealing with all these challenges to stay in the same place. If you stay put in the same spot, I don't know of many businesses that have been successful with that strategy.
Brandon Munlix:All right, I want to lean into your experience in life. Not every challenge feels like an opportunity when we first experience it. What's one of those challenges in your life that looking back was a great opportunity, but you may not have seen it while you were going through it. And how did you make it through?
Jasen Urena:Yeah, well, throughout this 19 years, I mean, I've screwed a lot of things up, so I've had plenty of experience and try to go back and fix and fix my mistakes. And in talking to a lot of people over those years and and having a lot of people come up with me over over those years, it's really kind of about not worrying about the mistakes that you, that you made and being too hard on yourself about making a bunch of mistakes because it nobody's perfect. Yeah, there's, there's, no, there's no leader out there that has gotten everything right the first time around. And we're talking about the biggest ceos in the world that have made plenty of mistakes. Like, don't be afraid to go out and make and make the mistakes. If you, you know, if you work for a good company, if you have a good boss, they're going to give you the ability to make you know, to make those mistakes, learn from them and then come back with how could you have done it better, where's the next you know, where's the next set of solutions and where should we go from here. So don't beat yourself up about too many mistakes. And that's something that I had to.
Jasen Urena:You know, I had to learn the hard way, kind of early on, there was times where you know, especially in this industry and in this business, the business is very cyclical, right, you can be riding high one day and then the next year everything seems like know it's, it's burning down. And we've had, we've had a few of those years where, from a you know, from a branded perspective, we were doing, doing really well and then came the the years where everything was a struggle. It seemed like everything was going against us, from grain, grain costs, um, whatever, you know, whatever it was oversupply. And you can't just focus on the negative, because then it's too easy to get stuck down there and if you're only focused on what's going on here and now, you're not going to come out the other side. Like the only way that you're going to, that you're going to get through it, is to keep on going and it's just per and it's just perseverance, um, and pushing through those those tough times, uh.
Jasen Urena:So sometimes it is harder to. It's easier said than done. It's hard to you know, be motivated when when things seem to be going bad. But that's why you know you want to have a good support system around you, not only at home but within your, within your company, people that are going to have, people that are going to have your back, people that believe in you, people that you know will keep a mentor, somebody that can kind of help you go through those types of things. I was incredibly lucky to have a great mentor, like like Mike Sensor, all these years. That guided me through a lot. I owe a lot to him, but all of those things will help you get through those tough times because I guarantee you they're going to come. There's no business, there's no career path where everything is going to be roses and rainbows the whole time. You're going to get knocked down again and again and again. The people that are going to make it to the top are the people that just keep getting back up. That's all it is.
Brandon Munlix:Just keep getting back up, Jasen is there anything that you want to share with the listeners that we haven't already covered? But you'd be disappointed if you didn't get a chance to share.
Jasen Urena:I think we've covered a lot so far. We've gone through more things that I originally thought that we would, but no, this has been a great experience. I'm really happy that we got to have this conversation and share everything that we've shared so far, so I really appreciate the opportunity to be on with you to be on with you.
Brandon Munlix:Well, Jasen, I really appreciate you spending this time with us. It's exciting to see a passionate person like yourself a smile on your face the entire time you're talking because you realize that this industry is just so amazing. And, listeners, if you haven't had a chance, look up Nest Fresh Eggs, look up their business, look up their model. I mean, they're doing something right, they're doing something amazing and there's a lot that you can learn, and I'm so glad you know the Nest Fresh story was shared today. A little bit more about Innova sexing that it's moving. Ai is moving.
Brandon Munlix:Listeners, if you haven't done so, please subscribe to this podcast. In every player there's a method of subscribing little plus in the corner or follow, or. That just helps you get to hear new episodes as they get launched as well as there's another thing you can do is you can probably go into a very similar setting and share this with your friends. There are so many industry professionals that need or would benefit from this podcast. I just want you to share this. I'm here because of you, the listeners, and I just want to make sure that we can get heard by as many people in the industry. We had a great first season. I'm super excited that we're running strong in season two and we want to just continue this on. So please like, share. And also I have to remember, otherwise I couldn't keep doing this.
Brandon Munlix:This podcast would not be possible without prism controls. As a technology leader in the industry, you know they see this podcast, they see you as listeners, as the future of this industry. Without them, the technology just doesn't seem to keep moving forward. So we're very thankful that they sponsor this podcast. So if you go to prismcontrolscom, we're at the trade shows IPPE, peak, we're at all those. Come visit us, say hi, say thank you for the podcast, Thank them for their sponsorship of this. But listeners, have a great week, look forward to seeing you on future episodes. Have a great day.
