Jason Karp (HumanCo) - How he started Hu Kitchen & Hu Chocolate, The Rebranding of Coconut Bliss to Cosmic Bliss, His Value System within Food and His Mission with HumanCo

WEBVTT 1 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:17.039 Hello and welcome to the consumer VC. I am your host, Michael but 2 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:20.920 and on this show we talked about the world of venture capital and innovation in 3 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.480 both consumer technology and consumer products. If you're enjoying this content, you could 4 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:30.480 subscribe to my newsletter, the consumer VC DOT sub stackcom, to get each 5 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:34.799 new episode and more consumer news delivered straight to your inbox. Hey everyone, 6 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:40.520 so this is our first live podcast episode, which we recorded at cosmic coffee 7 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:44.759 and Beer Garden in Austin, Texas, during South by southwest. To everyone 8 00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:47.560 who came out and was there in the flesh, thank you, thank you, 9 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:50.920 thank you. It was great to meet you, and special thanks to 10 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:55.000 mark Nathan for organizing the event. It was so much, so much fun. 11 00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:58.679 I chat with Jason Carp who is the founder of Hugh Kitchen, Hugh 12 00:00:58.840 --> 00:01:03.719 chocolate and CEO and founder of Human Co. Human Co is a holding company 13 00:01:03.759 --> 00:01:07.239 that's invested in healthy living. We're going to learn more about their brands now 14 00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:11.280 days, against the grain and cosmic bliss in my chat with Jason, and 15 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:15.359 also we're going to discuss the recent rebrand of coconut bliss to cosmic bliss. 16 00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:21.799 This is a great episode as we question what are the values within better for 17 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:26.159 you and if there is a bifurcation and maybe separation within the better for you 18 00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:33.560 movement. Without further ADO, here's Jason. Thanks mark. Thanks everyone so 19 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:37.359 much for Lennus Prash the wake up CPG your your monthly event. This is 20 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:38.879 could be a lot of fun and Jason, thanks so much for for being 21 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:42.239 here. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. This is great. For 22 00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:45.400 those you don't know, Jason is the funder and CEO of Human Co. 23 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:48.439 We're going to learn a lot more about that today. If you're interested in 24 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:53.040 better for you products, this is absolutely the best place to be. So 25 00:01:53.239 --> 00:01:57.040 let's get started. So, Jason, you were a hedge fun guy. 26 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:00.840 How is your health journey help shape your professional journey? Why did you kind 27 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:04.920 of transition into like CPG? Yeah, so some of you probably know this 28 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.560 because I see a lot of familiar faces in the crowd. Thank you for 29 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:09.439 coming. By the way, I was in the Finance Industry for just over 30 00:02:09.479 --> 00:02:14.039 twenty years. In my early s I got really sick. This is back 31 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:17.199 in two thousand and one two thousand time frame, and I was diagnosed with 32 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:21.719 a few different auto mean diseases and and I was actually going blind. When 33 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:24.840 I was twenty three years old and they they told me what I had was 34 00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:30.400 incurable. I've always been someone who thought I was healthy. I couldn't believe 35 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:34.159 that I got that sick that quickly after college and I just did a lot 36 00:02:34.199 --> 00:02:38.039 of exploration. I went into a lot of what at the time seemed bizarre, 37 00:02:38.039 --> 00:02:42.560 but now they called functional medicine, which is this sort of philosophy about 38 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:46.560 treating the root causes of disease instead of the symptoms, and I cured myself 39 00:02:46.599 --> 00:02:49.479 over the course of about a year and a half with food. As you 40 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:53.120 can probably see, I'm not blind. After that, I stayed in the 41 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:55.000 finance industry, but I had to live a much healthier life. I had 42 00:02:55.039 --> 00:02:59.240 to be very focused on what I put in my body and on my body 43 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:02.759 and I became a really interested in, you know, what's causing illness in 44 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:07.800 modern society and I wanted to change that. In Two thousand and ten my 45 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:12.000 family and I, my wife and my brother in law, Jordan Brown, 46 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.680 we created a restaurant in New York City called Hugh Kitchen. Que stands for 47 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:19.560 human. Most people know about you from our chocolate, but the philosophy and 48 00:03:19.639 --> 00:03:23.520 our slogan back then was get back to human because a lot of my research 49 00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:27.800 and a lot of my training over the last twenty years was really around anthropology, 50 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:32.479 human evolution and how we are living today with the way we've evolved. 51 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:36.039 That was the beginning of kind of how I got into health and wellness. 52 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:38.599 It started off as really a journey to try to get myself healthier and then 53 00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:42.719 it became a much bigger mission on trying to help everyone else get healthier. 54 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:46.840 I appreciate that. So was the goal like the breakout product of the first 55 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:50.199 product with huge chocolate, which I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with? 56 00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:54.120 Was the goal always to start with the chocolate company and eventually create other 57 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:58.879 products or what was kind of like the first test per se? No, 58 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:00.639 I think a lot of people don't realize that huge chocolate was kind of an 59 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:05.400 accident. It wasn't intentional. If I had known then what I know now, 60 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:08.680 I probably never would have done it. You know, it started as 61 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:12.159 a restaurant. For those of you who had visited Hugh kitchen when it was 62 00:04:12.199 --> 00:04:15.800 open in New York City, the whole restaurant was gluten free, dairy free, 63 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:19.680 refined sugar free, every animal product in the store was was sourced and 64 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:25.199 a sustainable way from wild animals. The beef was grass fed, pastor raised. 65 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:28.800 The chickens were free range and organic. Right before we open the restaurant 66 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:32.040 we were making a lot of glue grain free and gluten free items, things 67 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:38.399 like cookies, muffins, scones, etc. But we couldn't find chocolate chips 68 00:04:38.439 --> 00:04:41.439 that met our guard rails. We had very strict guard rails of what we 69 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:45.079 allowed and we couldn't find chocolate chips that had no refined sugar, had no 70 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:50.120 dairy, had no chemicals, preservatives or even emulsifiers. And there were a 71 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:55.360 few healthy chocolates at the time, but we thought they didn't taste great and 72 00:04:55.439 --> 00:05:00.439 so we ended up having to make our own chocolate chips for the baked goods 73 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:02.959 and the chocolate was so good that we had the idea of converting them into 74 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:06.800 chocolate bars, which originally just sold in the store, and then we got 75 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:11.120 kind of lucky. One of our chefs, his girlfriend worked at the Columbus 76 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:15.560 Circle Location a whole foods and he kept bringing her home our chocolate bars and 77 00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:17.360 she said these are the best tasting, healthy chocolate I've ever had. Can 78 00:05:17.399 --> 00:05:20.839 we start selling him in whole foods and we said okay, and that was 79 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:27.000 how we got into the CPG business. Wow, that's that's fascinating because right, 80 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:30.319 doughts entreprior is there just, you know, calm buyers and buyers and 81 00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:32.120 buyers at whole food. So that's super lucky. That kind of had that. 82 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:36.199 It was totally lucky. And originally we had no outside investors. My 83 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:41.360 family controlled a hundred percent of the company. It was really a passion project. 84 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:44.639 For those of you who know restaurants, they're generally not good investments. 85 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:48.040 I was a professional investor by training and so I sort of knew the odds 86 00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:54.319 of me doing a restaurant were very poor and it was more a passion project 87 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:56.720 where, frankly, we wanted a place where we could eat every day and 88 00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:59.000 we wanted a place where we could prove to the world that there was a 89 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.639 way to make healthier stuff actually taste good. That's great. With you, 90 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:04.800 chocolate. You eventually do raise money, right, yeah, and then you 91 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:09.319 still the business. You event why did you end up selling to mandalize much 92 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:12.199 later in our journey? So, you know, it's kind of interesting. 93 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.319 I was obviously very fortunate in my previous career to be able to fund a 94 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:19.519 business like you kitchen, on my own. We didn't take an outside investors 95 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:26.279 for the first many years, primarily because what our philosophy was at the time 96 00:06:26.920 --> 00:06:30.360 was controversial. It was the prices of everything we're much higher. Our sourcing 97 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.720 standards were higher than anybody, but we knew of in terms of the quality 98 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:39.879 the ingredients, how we source the ingredients, are commitment to things like fair 99 00:06:39.879 --> 00:06:46.439 trade and fair practices and I as a professional investor, I had seen that 100 00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:50.199 a lot of professional investors, particularly in the public markets, professional investors and 101 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:56.399 companies of all the big food companies that are public stocks. Most professional investors 102 00:06:56.439 --> 00:07:03.680 care strictly around shareholder returns and I didn't want to have arguments with professional investors 103 00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:11.800 about should we have more humane, more sustainable sourcing around certain products because it's 104 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:15.199 more expensive in our margins are lower. I never wanted to have that argument 105 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:18.560 with an investor because I heard those arguments. I heard those arguments around chicken. 106 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:23.879 I remember we had an argument. We had very expensively sourced free range 107 00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:30.040 organic chicken and we worked with specific farms and it was twice the price of 108 00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:33.040 just what I'll call conventional organic chicken that didn't have standards the way we had 109 00:07:33.079 --> 00:07:35.160 it. And you know, they said, well, why don't you just 110 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:39.279 use the regular chicken? Nobody's going to notice the difference, and I said 111 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:43.720 I'll notice the difference and I don't ever want to violate trust because I've had 112 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:47.040 to get to where I got in terms of my own health by being very 113 00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:50.560 strict, and so I never wanted to have that discussion. And so we 114 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:56.439 eventually did take outside money and we eventually had a Mandoli's, who's the largest 115 00:07:56.480 --> 00:08:00.279 snacking company in the world, take a small minority position in our company in 116 00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:05.279 two thousand and nineteen and we weren't intending on selling it, and this is 117 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:11.000 all public information, but we ended up having another very large company make an 118 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:16.240 unsolicited bid for Hugh, which created a bidding war and because we did have 119 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:20.240 outside investors at that point and I'm a fiduciary, the price got to a 120 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:24.040 level where I had to sell it for fiduciary reasons, and so we sold 121 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:28.800 it to Mandeli's. I thought they were the best of the partners. They've 122 00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:33.480 acquired several better for you brands like takes cookies and perfect bar were some of 123 00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:37.559 their more recent acquisitions and they showed us while they were an investor and they 124 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:43.159 were also on our board, they showed us that they're actually very responsible, 125 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:48.480 they're really focused on making snacking healthier and I watched their behavior over the course 126 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:52.080 of two years and I thought they would be a good steward of our family's 127 00:08:52.159 --> 00:08:54.240 legacy. That make fun of sense, I think, looking back, would 128 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:58.600 you've taken outside money if you had to start you all over again? Yeah, 129 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:01.159 you well, yeah, I would have, because I think we were 130 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:05.320 very deliberate of who we chose. Yeah, you know, we sort of 131 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:07.320 curated who our investors were and, by the way, we've done the same 132 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:11.960 thing with human co you know, we've been very thoughtful about who our investors 133 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:16.440 are, because it was really important to me that the people understood why we're 134 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:22.279 doing what we're doing. It was important to me that people authentically want to 135 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:26.399 help everybody and that people authentically want to make the world a better place and 136 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:31.399 that they kind of walk the talk, and so we were very thoughtful about 137 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:35.279 who joined us. We also wanted to have strategic investors, and by strategic 138 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:39.600 I mean people that can actually help with things that money can't buy, you 139 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:43.879 know, and we had plenty of kind of vocal ambassadors who care about the 140 00:09:43.879 --> 00:09:50.799 mission and sort of raised awareness that there are ways to do healthier food without 141 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:54.559 compromising and so we've had some amazing investors over the years that, through their 142 00:09:54.600 --> 00:10:00.120 own channels, through Instagram, through twitter, through social through their own network, 143 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:03.840 have just promoted the awareness of both hugh and human come. That's great 144 00:10:03.879 --> 00:10:07.840 and so and I'm glad you about a human go because for those aren't familiar, 145 00:10:07.879 --> 00:10:11.720 what is human co? So Human Co, if you now know what 146 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:13.919 by family and I did with you, Human Co is sort of my second 147 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:18.679 chapter. It's really the culmination of kind of everything I've done over the last 148 00:10:18.679 --> 00:10:22.799 twenty two years. Human Co is a is a holding company, or you 149 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:24.919 could think of it as if you think of like what general mills is or 150 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:30.799 Unilever, proctor and gamble. These are called conglomerates. There also called holding 151 00:10:30.799 --> 00:10:33.799 companies where it's a parent company at that sits at the top, that has 152 00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:39.799 multiple brands underneath. The same philosophy and ethos that we did with Hugh. 153 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:45.320 But Hugh was strictly from a consumer package because perspective, he was really chocolate, 154 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:50.639 cookies and crackers. She'll stable snacking and as a conscious consumer, and 155 00:10:50.679 --> 00:10:52.759 I have a family and I have two children who are my daughter is strictly 156 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:58.320 gluten free. Also, I wanted to create more brands that had the same 157 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:03.080 philosophy and ethosis Hugh, but in different categories, in the categories that, 158 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:07.120 frankly, I think consumers need better options. And we learned to ton both 159 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:13.360 good and bad in the hue kind of journey and along the way we created, 160 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:18.279 almost by accident, like an ecosystem of all sorts of different resources, 161 00:11:18.279 --> 00:11:22.759 from where to source and Gord organic ingredients, how to deal with supply chain, 162 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.159 how to deal with logistics. You know, we've become friendly with many 163 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:30.840 executives at many big companies who are trying to move the ball forward and we 164 00:11:30.840 --> 00:11:33.720 sort of looked around and we realize we had all of these kind of unique 165 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:41.000 advantages in an ecosystem that would make us more qualified and more able to create 166 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:46.279 and invest in companies that are trying to do better for the world. And 167 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:50.080 so human costarted is just an idea. It was started by me and my 168 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:54.480 partner, gentleman named Ross Burman, who's been a dear friend of mine for 169 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.600 about twenty years, and our idea was to create kind of the first mission 170 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:05.279 driven holding company that can provide better options than a lot of the big food 171 00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:09.200 companies. And as a professional investor who studied all the big food companies for 172 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.720 the last twenty years, you know many of them are actually trying to do 173 00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:16.919 better, but they have some constraints, which is they have a lot of 174 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:20.799 very unhealthy options that are the bulk of their business and it's very hard for 175 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:26.279 them to shift without cannibalizing their core business. And so if we if we 176 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:31.519 start with something that's new, that doesn't have those legacy shackles, we can 177 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:35.480 do things a new way. And that was basically the idea behind human co 178 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:39.159 and today. We started at about two and a half years ago. We 179 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:43.600 were sort of like a covid baby in some respects and we now have three 180 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:50.000 brands. We created one from scratch called snow days, so that was sort 181 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:52.679 of the second company I built from scratch. Snow days is the first. 182 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:58.360 We was really meant to go after the sort of frozen appetizer section. We 183 00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:03.080 started with a very healthy, organic, sustainably sourced pizza bite. I grew 184 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:07.559 up on Totino's pizza rolls. If any of you know put Totino's pizza roles. 185 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:11.639 I used to think they were delicious, but I never used to look 186 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:16.000 at the ingredient label. And if you look at the ingredient label it's pretty 187 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:20.519 shocking. It's over seventy ingredients it actually uses and it says on the label 188 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.759 imitation cheese, and it's not because it's Vegan. It's actually just imitation. 189 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:26.840 You know, I have kids who like convenient food and I like finger food 190 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:30.879 and we wanted to create something that had never have been done before. So 191 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:35.159 we have the first hundred percent organic Bouton Free Grain Free Pizza Bite. We 192 00:13:35.279 --> 00:13:41.279 use grass fed, sustainably sourced Mozzarella cheese, we infuse seven vegetables into the 193 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:45.480 sauce. It has the nutritionals of a meal and we also only use olive 194 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.320 oil as opposed to refine CONOLA oil, which is in a lot of products. 195 00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:52.919 And that was the first brand that we created and then we also bought 196 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:58.480 two brands. We bought the largest grain free gluten free pizza company called against 197 00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:01.080 the grain. They're based out of Brattleboro, Vermont. It's a family company. 198 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:05.159 They had no outside investors. They source their ingredients from local Vermont farms 199 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:09.320 and the two founders of that company. You're both seventy years old and really 200 00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:15.159 wanted somebody to preserve their legacy of doing things right, and so we net 201 00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:18.759 and against the grain is predominantly pizza, but also has a grain and gluten 202 00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:22.679 free breads. And then the third company, which we bought you about a 203 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:26.519 year and a half ago, is called cosmic bliss. It was called COCON 204 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:33.080 up lists. COCON UP LISTS is also a sixteen year old family business that 205 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:37.519 was known for its plant based organic ice creams. Got It. No, 206 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:39.440 don't. Thanks so much. So, to be clear, him and Co 207 00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:45.840 Holding Company, conglomerate, you own. Obviously you you do MNA purchase brands 208 00:14:45.879 --> 00:14:48.639 but also incubate your own brand. Correct. You don't have minority and destins 209 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:52.919 for any organized for that thing. We have a couple minority you gustments. 210 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.080 We have a minority investment in a plant based cheese company called MONTY's. Okay, 211 00:14:56.120 --> 00:15:00.679 but we are not a fund and you know the different is is, 212 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:05.120 you know, we are a singular company and our goal is to grow our 213 00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:09.559 brands all under one umbrella, as opposed to just investing in them and then, 214 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:13.000 you know, having to sell them to be paid we don't. We 215 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:16.440 don't take fees. You know, we're all completely aligned with our investors. 216 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:20.600 I'm the largest shareholder and investor in Human Co and so I wanted to have 217 00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:26.600 a sort of singular focus where everybody has the exact same alignment in building, 218 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:31.639 you know, better companies together. So how do you think about introducing new 219 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:35.480 products at Human Co, whether it's looking at an evaluating other brands looking to 220 00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:41.320 buy or you incubating your own products within better for you? What's your value 221 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:45.000 system within better for you? This is a good question, this concept of 222 00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:50.399 a value system, and over the years I've I've seen lots of different values 223 00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:52.799 in food. It can be a controversial area because a lot of people have 224 00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.879 different values. Most of the time you can try to do better and sort 225 00:15:56.919 --> 00:16:02.440 of all values, but at times you know you have to make compromises in 226 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:06.559 certain areas. And so our approach, and we sort of say that our 227 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:12.919 approach or philosophy for Human Co is making healthier living more approachable and more sustainable. 228 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:17.440 But there's kind of pieces in that. And so our approach is human 229 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:22.080 health first, if we had to sequence or order them, human health first, 230 00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:26.120 Planet Health Second, and sort of animal welfare third, and that's not 231 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:29.559 to say that all three aren't immensely important, but sometimes you have to make 232 00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:33.240 trade off, and I'll give you an example huge chocolate. When we first 233 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:36.879 started developing huge chocolate, you know there's food safety issues that you have to 234 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:41.919 adhere to to have scalable products for people and we wanted to show that we 235 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:45.879 could have much better, organic, fair trade chocolate, more reachable to more 236 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:48.919 people. But to keep the chocolate food safe and for, you know, 237 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:53.720 preserving it and making sure it actually survived, we had to wrap the chocolate 238 00:16:53.759 --> 00:16:57.600 and plastic. And so if any of you bought huge chocolate a year ago, 239 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:03.839 our outer wrapping is a compostable and recyclable paper wrapper, but the inside 240 00:17:03.880 --> 00:17:07.160 is what's called a plastic flow wrap. I hate plastic. I try to 241 00:17:07.160 --> 00:17:11.640 avoid single use plastic every chance I can, but that was the only option 242 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:14.960 and so we sort of had a decision like do we not sell huge chocolate 243 00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:17.799 or do we have to have it with a plastic rapper? And we're always 244 00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:22.200 trying to do better and about four months ago, through the help of Mondeli's, 245 00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:26.759 we actually found a compostable rapper. So now if you buy new huge 246 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:30.599 chocolate and you open it up, you will see that there is a compostable 247 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:33.000 inter wrapper and that was sort of progress that we had to make. But 248 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:38.599 I think our value system is really around humans first, because I believe that, 249 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:42.720 you know, we have multiple crises or epidemics going on simultaneously. We 250 00:17:42.759 --> 00:17:47.000 have a climate crisis, we have a human health crisis. I mean, 251 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.480 we have a war going on right now. There's always things that we have 252 00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:53.720 to worry about and for me, given what I went through when I was 253 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:56.880 sick, and you guys have probably noticed this, when you're sick, like 254 00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:00.319 when people are sick, you can't do anything, you can't help anybody. 255 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.920 It doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter what your resources 256 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:07.279 are, if you don't have your health, you of zero. And so 257 00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:11.680 I believe that we have to restore human health first, and that's sort of 258 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:15.279 the sequence we make. You know, and there's other people, by the 259 00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:18.440 way, and this is obviously subjective and everyone has different values. There are 260 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:22.839 some people who are putting planet health over human health, and that's okay too, 261 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:25.680 but for us, human health comes first and that's why we're called human 262 00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:27.599 gump. Do you think that within better for you? I think that you 263 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:32.039 started to allude to it, but there's a kind of a bifurcation or separation 264 00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:36.559 between those that are putting products that are maybe better for the planet but I 265 00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:41.079 actually better for you first over, better for you versus better for the planet. 266 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:44.440 There's plenty of examples of that happening right now and you know, I 267 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:48.319 think I'm pretty outspoken it about it. You know, I think to solve 268 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:53.720 these simultaneous sort of crises or epidemics, we need a lot of solutions. 269 00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:59.039 I'm for all solutions as long as people are open minded and educated about them. 270 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:00.440 You know, I think there's been a lot of terms that have been 271 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:06.880 greenwashed. There are many plant based items that are definitely better for cows but 272 00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:11.640 are worse for humans, and I think we should know that there are many 273 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:15.960 planet based items that are highly processed, that are filled with many chemicals that 274 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.680 are being touted as being healthy. Some of them are actually not healthier for 275 00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:22.759 the planet. Some of them are, some of them are unequivocally better for 276 00:19:22.839 --> 00:19:26.400 cows, but many of them are are not healthy for humans. And and 277 00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:30.279 you know, I sit on the board of the tough nutrition school, which 278 00:19:30.279 --> 00:19:33.200 is the top nutrition school in the United States. We have several professors. 279 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:37.119 The Dean of the Tough Nutrition School is actually on our board, as is 280 00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:41.759 the head of sustainability of toughs, and I just think it's important that everyone 281 00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:45.519 sort of is open minded and open, eyes wide open about this stuff. 282 00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:49.000 So there are plenty of things that are being created right now that are addressing 283 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:52.680 different needs and I think as consumers, you just have to decide what's more 284 00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:56.039 important to you and it's everyone's prerogative to choose that. Yeah, I mean 285 00:19:56.039 --> 00:20:00.519 it seems like even the the term plant base, it seems like it's kind 286 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.599 of a catch all term for being, you know, better for you when, 287 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:06.359 as you point out, there's, I'm sure, a lot of plant 288 00:20:06.359 --> 00:20:08.680 based products that might be better for the planet, but are they actually better 289 00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:14.559 for you to actually digest? So, yeah, no, I totally agree 290 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:17.279 with you. And now I mean all this realm and like the better for 291 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:21.480 you. And of course, with human human co it's all very premium, 292 00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:23.480 premium pricing. I know you brought up like the chicken story about how it's 293 00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:27.119 double the price. Yeah, because of saying these hours. Can you talk 294 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:32.119 about maybe like the pros and cons of be maybe in the premium space and 295 00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:34.240 what and why you think people are actually willing to pay more? Yeah, 296 00:20:34.279 --> 00:20:38.440 this is a controversial topic. I don't think it should be. In many 297 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:45.680 other categories outside of food, people have shown a proclivity for better value, 298 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:48.920 better quality, this concept of you get what you pay for. For some 299 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:55.079 reason in this country with food we've sort of gotten away from that and, 300 00:20:55.119 --> 00:20:57.640 like anything, you do get what you pay for. I have personally, 301 00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:03.920 I have disdain for ultra cheap, ultra process junk because, ultimately, you 302 00:21:03.960 --> 00:21:08.359 know, I think ones what you put in your body is literally the greatest 303 00:21:08.359 --> 00:21:12.279 investment you can make. I think for a lot of people health is a 304 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:18.240 slow moving, glacial process and so it's hard to observe the detrimental effects of 305 00:21:18.279 --> 00:21:22.440 eating, you know, ten twenty years of really poor food. If you 306 00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:27.839 go to other countries like Japan, France or Italy, they take pride in 307 00:21:27.880 --> 00:21:32.880 the quality of their agriculture, the quality of their ingredients. They actually have 308 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:36.880 disdain for really cheap food. And if you go back forty, fifty years 309 00:21:36.920 --> 00:21:41.880 ago this country, we used to spend roughly the same as a percentage of 310 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.799 our income, so normalized for income levels, on food as a percentage of 311 00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:49.599 our sort of annual compensation. We used to spend the same percentage as those 312 00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:55.079 countries and today we spend roughly half. We spend half as a percentage of 313 00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:57.759 our income on food that they do. I think a lot of consumers are 314 00:21:57.799 --> 00:22:02.680 learning that you do have to vote with your dollars. I think there's like 315 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:07.079 a skepticism and I think it's well deserved that when you see more expensive items 316 00:22:07.079 --> 00:22:10.039 that you're being ripped off. You know what we try to do a human 317 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:12.880 cos we try to be transparent about how we source, what we source, 318 00:22:14.039 --> 00:22:17.400 how we work with farms, how we work with with people and, you 319 00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:22.400 know, better practices and it is more expensive. It is more expensive to 320 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:25.599 do things better, but I think in the grand scheme of things it's about 321 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:29.599 discretionary choices. We've spent a lot of time on this at toughs and there's 322 00:22:29.599 --> 00:22:33.079 been a lot to research on this. There's a myth that you have to 323 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:37.200 be wealthy to eat healthy and it turns out that you only have to spend 324 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:41.880 one to two dollars a day incremental to dramatically upgrade your diet in terms of 325 00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:45.480 fruits, vegetables, more organic food, better practices and and basically anyone who 326 00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:49.680 has a smartphone, anyone who has a streaming service, whether it's Netflix or 327 00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:55.359 spotify or Hulu or whatever, anyone who's ever had a starbucks, they can 328 00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:59.880 all afford to have healthier options. They're choosing not to. I think part 329 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:03.799 of our job is to show people the the return, to show people that 330 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:11.359 spending more on better quality products goes towards creating better practices at the end of 331 00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:15.319 the day, and so I think it's a good fair discussion about how to 332 00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:21.119 sort of raise awareness around that. And it's really an invisible hand kind of 333 00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:26.359 economy. If more people demand better practices and pay for the better practices, 334 00:23:26.039 --> 00:23:30.559 more farms, more companies will start actually doing it, because that's where the 335 00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:36.160 money is. And so, you know, I'm a big proponent of showing 336 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.279 people that you do get what you pay for and also being very clear with 337 00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:42.039 everybody when they look at a hug chocolate baror they look at anything in Human 338 00:23:42.039 --> 00:23:45.680 Co and they're like wow, that's really expensive. You know, I'm happy 339 00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.759 to show you that our margins are half of what the big food companies are, 340 00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:52.559 that we're making actually way less money than the junk food because we're sourcing 341 00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:56.160 things and passing it to you as the consumer, and I think that's really 342 00:23:56.200 --> 00:24:00.160 important, that you're just basically buying better stuff with better practice. A couple 343 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:03.240 years ago, and I know you pointed out, that you acquired cooking a 344 00:24:03.319 --> 00:24:08.240 bliss, which was a plant based ice cream company, and you decided to 345 00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:15.759 introduce dairy and obviously rebranded to cosmic bliss. What was the rethinking behind that 346 00:24:15.799 --> 00:24:19.160 decision? Yeah, so this is a really interesting learning lesson. If you 347 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:23.440 guys have have seen this, there's a lot to reflect on this. So 348 00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:30.400 the background is is cocon up lists is about sixteen years old. It was 349 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:36.000 known as a plant based Vegan ice cream company. It's actually was owned by 350 00:24:36.119 --> 00:24:41.359 a dairy farming family and Eugene Oregon. All public information because they wanted to 351 00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:48.079 have a plant based option. The daughter of the family was really interested in 352 00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:52.359 more plant based options and dairy free options and you know, part of our 353 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:57.000 job is to talk to lots of consumers and and to sort of understand where 354 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:00.279 people's desires are. And it turns out, you know, at this point 355 00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:03.839 in time, obviously plant based is well understood and well accepted and we're a 356 00:25:03.880 --> 00:25:07.799 big fan and advocate of that. You know, most of Hugh products, 357 00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:10.839 for example, or Vegan. But there are a lot of people who still 358 00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:14.440 consume animal products, is still consume dairy. In fact it's over ninety seven 359 00:25:14.440 --> 00:25:18.759 percent of people and over ninety seven percent of ice cream sold in this country 360 00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:23.920 is still dairy, and the vast majority of that dairy comes from factory farms. 361 00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:30.440 And as a company, Human Co is against factory farming and against unfair 362 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:34.960 treatment of animals and we wanted to provide a better option for those people who 363 00:25:36.119 --> 00:25:40.839 still like consuming dairy from time to time. And it didn't exist. You 364 00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:42.799 know, there are a few organic ice creams out there. I have not 365 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:48.960 found a scaled grass fed dairy ice cream in the country and I haven't found 366 00:25:48.039 --> 00:25:52.680 one that focuses on regenerative and organic practices. And so we spent a long 367 00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:56.279 period of time over the last, you know, really year, talking to 368 00:25:56.279 --> 00:26:02.000 different farms, talking to different people about is there a way to do a 369 00:26:02.119 --> 00:26:07.400 much better dairy and there's something in the in the animal welfare community called the 370 00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:11.400 five freedoms, and the five freedoms is considered sort of the gold standard for 371 00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:15.119 animal welfare and it's things like, you know, is the animal free from 372 00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:19.519 pain? Is it free from hunger is it free to enjoy the way that 373 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:22.119 they live in the wild, like eat grass, which is what cows eat 374 00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:26.839 in the wild, and we wanted to produce a better option for people who 375 00:26:26.839 --> 00:26:30.279 still like dairy and it turns out that a lot of people still prefer dairy 376 00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:34.000 based cheese to plant based cheese and a lot of people still prefer dairy based 377 00:26:34.039 --> 00:26:37.279 ice cream to plant based ice cream. But there wasn't an option that we 378 00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:44.839 felt was much more humane, a much better choice than the industrial, factory 379 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:48.920 farming choice and frankly, it's actually much more delicious. So we developed what 380 00:26:48.079 --> 00:26:52.880 is now a launched this week. It's the first hundred percent grass fed, 381 00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:59.039 organic clean label ice cream in the country and and we're very proud of it. 382 00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:02.480 But what was interesting thing, and you know I think it's it's interesting 383 00:27:02.519 --> 00:27:06.880 for this crowd, is that it was very well received by most people. 384 00:27:06.920 --> 00:27:10.920 You know, we're trying to be more inclusive and provide better options for everybody 385 00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:15.160 and our general approach and are sort of implicit. It's not an it's not 386 00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:18.440 really an explicit slogan, is sustainability for all diets, no matter what your 387 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:22.480 diet is, no matter what your preference is no matter what your value system 388 00:27:22.599 --> 00:27:26.039 is. If you want to live better, we want to provide you with 389 00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:30.119 better options. And we had a small minority, but a very vocal one, 390 00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:36.200 come out that's very anti any animal products, any animal practices, whether 391 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:40.119 it's dairy or meat or leather, and it was really interesting to sort of 392 00:27:40.119 --> 00:27:45.440 hear this conversation because we're trying to preach tolerance. We're trying to preach tolerance 393 00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:48.960 for other people's value systems and to not judge. And you know, I 394 00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:55.400 feel like some of and I applaud all the plant based innovations that are coming 395 00:27:55.480 --> 00:28:02.039 because we're all trying to solve these problems, but some of the community is 396 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:06.880 doing it in a method of shaming and we are very much against the notion 397 00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:11.519 of shaming or intolerance, because I've just met so many people over the years 398 00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:15.680 that have so many different value systems and it's been an interesting conversations and and 399 00:28:15.799 --> 00:28:19.319 unfortunately there have been some people that are not tolerant and not understanding. When 400 00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.759 you look around and you think about brands within the better for you space, 401 00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:27.160 like how do you approach your marketing and branding behind your products? I mean 402 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:30.680 I think they all have some similarity. You know, I think one of 403 00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:34.119 our other value systems, which I didn't talk about, is there is a 404 00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:40.400 bifurcation happening right now in health and wellness. There are many companies that are 405 00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:42.920 taking the approach of what I call sort of techno food or Foodtech. You 406 00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:48.480 know, these are things like growing flesh in a peatree dish or using dprinting 407 00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:56.119 methods to print meat or synthetically using genetics and bioengineering to create things, which 408 00:28:56.160 --> 00:29:02.359 all obviously have the noble goal of reducing environmental footprint. But I still think 409 00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:07.279 there's a lot of opportunity in working with farms and working with agriculture and going 410 00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:11.240 back to a way, and this is really what regenerative agriculture is trying to 411 00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:15.839 espouse, is there are many ways to still work with nature that reduces our 412 00:29:15.880 --> 00:29:21.000 footprint, that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, that's much more humane and how you 413 00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:25.400 work with animals. That's been a big focus of ours from a value system 414 00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:29.519 perspective is still working with nature. If you look at all of our brands 415 00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:32.599 and all of our products, they are all of our ingredients or source from 416 00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:36.799 farms. We don't do anything that's that's produced in a laboratory or bioengineered, 417 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:41.160 and so we market our things as wholesome. We describe them. You know, 418 00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:44.000 most of what we do, everything we do is no GMO, everything 419 00:29:44.039 --> 00:29:48.359 we do is gluten free, almost everything we do is organic, and it's 420 00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:52.160 really about creating better options. It tastes amazing and we focus on foods that 421 00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:56.799 bring joy and that's really an outgrowth of kind of what I went through, 422 00:29:56.920 --> 00:30:00.799 you know, when I was sick and I had to eat a very restricted 423 00:30:00.839 --> 00:30:03.200 diet. I had to eat a lot of healthy things that tasted like shit 424 00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:07.599 and it really was depressing and if any of you ever had to been on 425 00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:11.559 different diets, you'll notice it. Like I believe food is a part of 426 00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:14.839 community and food is something that should bring joy and pleasure and food is an 427 00:30:14.839 --> 00:30:19.440 inherent aspect of human culture. And so we focused on comfort foods that historically 428 00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:25.920 have been really junky filled with a lot of crap, and really try to 429 00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:30.480 upgrade them and make them so they're still amazingly delicious. Our first variables always 430 00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:33.519 is it delicious? Does this pass the kid test, like, will my 431 00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:37.599 children eat it and not know it's healthy? And if the answers yes, 432 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:42.000 we go and so that's like a big part of how we sort of describe 433 00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:45.279 what our brands stand for. No, no, no, that makes that 434 00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:49.880 of says. How do you also feel specifically about cell based meat? And 435 00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:53.240 there's a few brands starting to like come into market and there's been a ton 436 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:56.359 of research about it. It's, as you would say, technico food, 437 00:30:56.440 --> 00:31:00.240 right, it's built in a lab, but a lot of people don't think 438 00:31:00.279 --> 00:31:04.960 that's actually genetically modified. As I an option of being sustainable and maybe better 439 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:08.079 for the planet, but also may be better for you too, I'd say 440 00:31:08.119 --> 00:31:14.119 on a lot of these innovations I'm more agnostic. I'm not anti I'm just 441 00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:18.559 agnostic, and I'm agnostic with a skeptical mindset. And the reason is is 442 00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:22.400 because, you know, it's also based on my own learnings and my own 443 00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:27.119 study, which is around anthropology and human evolution and and sort of how we 444 00:31:27.160 --> 00:31:32.400 evolved our diets as human beings, how we evolved as human beings, you 445 00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:34.599 know, particularly since we've been hominids and been on two feet, and you 446 00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:40.440 can learn a tremendous amount by just studying kind of evolution of both animals and 447 00:31:40.519 --> 00:31:45.359 humans. There have been many food products in the last fifty years, or 448 00:31:45.400 --> 00:31:52.640 something involved in the food system that the FDA deemed safe at one point and 449 00:31:52.680 --> 00:31:57.279 ten years later when whoops not safe, whether it was carcinogenic glyphosate, which 450 00:31:57.319 --> 00:32:01.759 is the herbicide that Monsanto is very well known for, is banned in many 451 00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:06.839 countries because it's a known carcinogen. There have been plenty of drugs that were 452 00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:09.680 proven safe that later we're proven unsafe, even things like Trans Fats, at 453 00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:15.400 one point where deemed safe. Oh Lester was deemed safe, and so I 454 00:32:15.440 --> 00:32:19.680 adhere to this notion of long term human safety studies. I do not want 455 00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:23.119 to personally subject me or my family two things that don't have long term human 456 00:32:23.160 --> 00:32:28.559 safety data. And we've learned a lot about what humans can eat and not 457 00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:32.119 eat over two hundred thousand years, which is a long period of time. 458 00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:37.519 And so when it comes to cell based meats, you know, my personal 459 00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:42.519 view is when you eat the flesh of an animal, part of what makes 460 00:32:42.599 --> 00:32:47.279 animals and US robust is our ability to survive stressors. We have become robust, 461 00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:52.680 we have become what we have because we have survived and dealt with millions 462 00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:58.119 of stressors. You know, whether it's gravity or its wind or its bacteria 463 00:32:58.200 --> 00:33:01.240 or its viruses, like we are who we are because we've survived all of 464 00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:07.319 these, you know, bombardments of stressers, and when people try to understand 465 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:10.759 like is the meat grown in a peatrie dish the same as a meat of 466 00:33:12.119 --> 00:33:15.200 a wild, organic chicken on a farm? And the way I try to 467 00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:17.960 describe it is, you know, you look like a healthy guy. If 468 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:22.559 I were to eat you, you know, you clearly have a lot of 469 00:33:22.039 --> 00:33:24.680 stuff that you've been through over the last I don't know how old you are. 470 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:28.799 You know you have muscle, you know you probably work out. You 471 00:33:28.839 --> 00:33:31.359 know, or you know, if you take like a perfect specimen of of 472 00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:37.440 like a beautiful human, you know, take like Brad Pitt in fight club, 473 00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:40.000 you know, and clearly he looked like somebody if you were a cannibal 474 00:33:40.039 --> 00:33:45.759 you'd probably want to eat. If you took Brad Pitt and cloned him and 475 00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:51.799 then grew him in a matrix like pod, as a clone with no gravity, 476 00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:55.400 no food, no walking around, no working out, is that bread 477 00:33:55.519 --> 00:34:00.960 pit going to be the same flesh as the Brad Pitt who grew up? 478 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:02.799 And the answer, of course, is unequivocally no, it's not. And 479 00:34:02.839 --> 00:34:08.760 there are many things in science that we still can't measure and and I am 480 00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:14.320 very humble that there are many things in science that we still don't know and 481 00:34:14.360 --> 00:34:17.800 we can't measure. And just because flesh grown in a peatree dish might have 482 00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:22.239 the same amino acid profile, might cook the same, might smell the same, 483 00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:24.440 might taste the same, it doesn't mean it's the same. There might 484 00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:28.639 be things that we're not measuring in the creation of flesh, and so I 485 00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:31.800 just try to be agnostic about out this stuff and I obviously applaud that it 486 00:34:31.880 --> 00:34:37.000 is way, way, way better for sustainability to do it that way, 487 00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:40.280 but I don't know if it's good for humans and I don't know if it's 488 00:34:40.280 --> 00:34:45.519 food safe and we need probably ten, twenty years a data before we know 489 00:34:46.400 --> 00:34:52.440 that. If we genetically modify a molecule that has never been ingested in human 490 00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:57.400 history and then we start eating it and the FDA spends two years on saying 491 00:34:57.480 --> 00:35:00.039 it's safe, I don't know if it's fully safe because we have plenty of 492 00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:04.480 evidence that there's other things that were deemed safe that ultimately we're not proven SAMEE. 493 00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:07.480 Yeah, I think you alluded to it that in this area we're still 494 00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:12.000 super early and at very much like the tip of the iceberg, and so 495 00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:15.960 there's still a ton of data we don't know, just because these brands are 496 00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:20.119 just startings, may become on the market and obviously in food sciences is a 497 00:35:20.239 --> 00:35:24.119 very just new territory that we're experiencing. So we're in some cases also kind 498 00:35:24.119 --> 00:35:28.360 of the test stummies to right if you actually try and actually eat the stuff, 499 00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:30.719 and I'm all for innovation. I just want to make sure we're grounded 500 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:37.840 that there are risks to ingesting technology that's never been ingested in human history and 501 00:35:37.880 --> 00:35:39.920 I just think we have to be we have to have an open conversation about 502 00:35:39.960 --> 00:35:44.800 it and we have to let you know. There are some opponents of what 503 00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:50.239 I'm saying who aren't for transparent labeling because they don't want the consumers to get 504 00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:54.440 scared, because they want to progress the agenda, but I think all consumers 505 00:35:54.440 --> 00:35:59.840 should have all full information and make their own decisions. Yeah, no, 506 00:35:59.840 --> 00:36:02.159 no, of totally. So with human code, let's kind of know a 507 00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:06.360 bit more about the future. You're obviously in the pizza business, you're in 508 00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:08.760 the pizza bye business and you're in the ice cream business. How do you 509 00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:15.920 think about new categories urges in and are you also thinking about going beyond food 510 00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:17.800 within health of wellness? Yeah, I mean, you know, a big 511 00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:23.519 part of what we do is we look for categories where we think the market 512 00:36:23.599 --> 00:36:29.840 leader of that category isn't doing things that's good enough for what we think should 513 00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:31.760 be in the world. You know, our state admission is to focus on 514 00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.840 anything that you put inside of your body or anything that you put on your 515 00:36:36.840 --> 00:36:40.360 body. So inside of your bodies obviously food, beverage, supplements, nutrition, 516 00:36:40.840 --> 00:36:45.519 anything you put on your body is everything from personal care to household products, 517 00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:50.400 you know, things like lotions and soaps and shampoos etc. We've looked 518 00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:54.840 at many hundreds of companies over the last three years and we both incubate and 519 00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:01.039 by we like to partner with entrepreneurs who has share our philosophy and share our 520 00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:05.119 mission of making the world a better place, because there aren't a lot of 521 00:37:05.119 --> 00:37:07.719 places for those kind of entrepreneurs. You know, many entrepreneurs don't want to 522 00:37:07.719 --> 00:37:14.199 sell to a large public corporation and many entrepreneurs want to keep doing what they're 523 00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:17.840 doing, and so, you know, we're focused on basically creating a home 524 00:37:19.199 --> 00:37:22.320 for entrepreneurs to just keep doing what they're doing and trying to make stuff that 525 00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:27.480 people want and make stuff that, you know, is really helping people live 526 00:37:27.519 --> 00:37:30.599 healthier, more sustainable lives. Yeah, I mean that that makes a lot 527 00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:32.639 of sense. I think it was also pretty interesting too, is the categories 528 00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:37.480 that you're in. They're obviously very large categories, right. There not nothing 529 00:37:37.519 --> 00:37:39.559 new there are you think about remaining when you think about new products, a 530 00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:45.039 better for you version per se in like a large category, or introducing maybe 531 00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:47.239 your own products that are, you know, quite different or or no one 532 00:37:47.320 --> 00:37:52.039 seen before? I mean, we're trying to make a difference, which means 533 00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:54.079 that we have to focus on things that a lot of people are going to 534 00:37:54.119 --> 00:37:59.159 consume. You know, I try to warn a lot of entrepreneurs who are 535 00:37:59.199 --> 00:38:06.320 doing very niche kind of things that if you're actually trying to improve people's lives 536 00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:09.400 and trying to affect change, the first thing is you can't do it if 537 00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:14.079 you don't have a business. So you do have to marry you know, 538 00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:17.719 having an economical business with, you know, doing good, because you can't 539 00:38:17.719 --> 00:38:22.519 help anybody if your business doesn't survive. And it's also difficult if you're focusing 540 00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:29.039 on really, really, really niche areas that aren't approachable for the masses. 541 00:38:29.639 --> 00:38:34.840 So we're generally looking at areas that can help and affect a lot of people. 542 00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:37.480 Some of them are smaller than others, but we're generally, you know, 543 00:38:37.559 --> 00:38:40.119 taking that approach. Yeah, since I'm now, I meant like a 544 00:38:40.119 --> 00:38:45.159 few entrepreneurs here. What's one piece of advice you might have for them in 545 00:38:45.159 --> 00:38:47.360 this current climate? Well, the first one I just mentioned, which is 546 00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:52.320 don't go overly niche. You know, it's very, very hard to change 547 00:38:52.360 --> 00:38:57.239 people's habits unless you have a lot of money to do so that would be 548 00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:00.880 my first piece of advice. My second piece of advice what you think the 549 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:04.760 world needs, as opposed to just looking at like current Tam. I know 550 00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:07.599 these two things that I'm saying sound a little bit contradictory, but when we 551 00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:12.159 were launching huge chocolate, you know, nine years ago now, a lot 552 00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:15.639 of kind of my investor friends, we're looking at the TAM, which stands 553 00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:19.760 for total addressable market, and they were saying, well, you know, 554 00:39:19.800 --> 00:39:22.199 in the data was never accurate, but they were saying, you know, 555 00:39:22.519 --> 00:39:25.840 well, the Tam for healthy chocolate's only like fifty million dollars and the Tam 556 00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:30.559 for regular chocolates like thirty billion and they were saying, why are you going 557 00:39:30.599 --> 00:39:34.840 into a Tam that's only fifty million dollars? You're not going to really take 558 00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:38.119 much of that. And you know, there's this sort of prevailing view of 559 00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:43.280 you know, you have to evaluate where you're taking share from, but a 560 00:39:43.320 --> 00:39:49.000 lot of times you can shift people's behavior in something that's already well known. 561 00:39:49.079 --> 00:39:52.840 So, for example, chocolate's obviously not a niche category. Some people perceived 562 00:39:52.880 --> 00:39:57.559 healthy chocolate as a niche category, but there were a lot of people they 563 00:39:57.639 --> 00:40:00.320 weren't eating chocolate anymore because they thought it was candy. And most of the 564 00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:05.079 chocolate, frankly, was candy. Lots of refined sugar, lots of chemicals, 565 00:40:05.079 --> 00:40:07.920 lots of junk, and so most of our early consumers are huge chocolate 566 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:12.960 were not people who are eating healthy chocolate and they were even not people that 567 00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.280 were eating chocolate. They were people who were eating full stop and just wanted 568 00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:22.440 to have something that was you know, dark chocolate is unequivocally healthy in terms 569 00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:25.280 of its polyphens, it's Flavin alls and what it does for for your brain. 570 00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:30.239 But there were a lot of people that we basically provided a better option 571 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:34.840 for who wanted to go back to chocolate. So I think for entrepreneurs it's 572 00:40:34.920 --> 00:40:39.519 really about like studying consumers recognizing what it is they ultimately want. You know, 573 00:40:39.559 --> 00:40:44.159 I think using COSM blisses an example, I talk to a lot of 574 00:40:44.159 --> 00:40:46.719 people who still eat dairy. You know, there are some people who are 575 00:40:46.760 --> 00:40:51.760 in kind of this circle and they're sort of even afraid a little bit to 576 00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:54.639 say out loud that they still like dairy because there is a contingent of people 577 00:40:54.679 --> 00:40:59.599 who want to shame people for eating animal products. And everybody I know who's 578 00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:01.920 educated wants to do better. They want to do better for their family, 579 00:41:01.960 --> 00:41:04.760 they want to do better for the earth, they want to do better for 580 00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:07.719 their health. And so in that example, you know, we wanted to 581 00:41:07.719 --> 00:41:13.599 create a better option for all of those people who still prefer dairy ice creamer 582 00:41:13.719 --> 00:41:15.679 dairy cheese, because there are a lot of those people. I mean there's 583 00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:21.239 literally billions and billions of people who still consume animal products and it's consistent with 584 00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:23.960 their value system, but there aren't a lot of like better options for them. 585 00:41:23.960 --> 00:41:27.760 So that's that's kind of how we approach it, and those would be 586 00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:30.679 probably two of my pieces of advice. Yeah, I mean one of my 587 00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:32.880 takeaways from this is, because I know that you want, of your pieces 588 00:41:32.880 --> 00:41:37.400 of advice is not to go to niche or d try to really like reinvent 589 00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:42.440 the wheel with trying to change maybe a consumer habit, but also that when 590 00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:45.320 you look at categories, look at the overall category, which the premium category, 591 00:41:45.320 --> 00:41:47.639 like your example with chocolate. Looking at you know, if you look 592 00:41:47.679 --> 00:41:51.960 at premium chocolate, it's easy to say that if it's only fifty million dollar 593 00:41:52.039 --> 00:41:54.679 Tam that it's a pretty niche category, right, and you're doing something pretty 594 00:41:54.760 --> 00:41:59.480 niche, when really it wasn't. It wasn't each exactly, because chocolates obviously 595 00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:01.280 a huge cat of are. Yeah, and so I think look at the 596 00:42:01.400 --> 00:42:06.719 entire category, not just the actual premium side to the category, because you 597 00:42:06.760 --> 00:42:10.599 can maybe be able to grow that premium category exe of just relying on trying 598 00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:14.320 to take market share. My last question, and we're going to open this 599 00:42:14.400 --> 00:42:15.639 up to q Anda by the way, if anyone wants to ask a question 600 00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:20.320 for Jason, especially for you, is what's one part that you think is 601 00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:22.920 still kind of misunderstood about better for you overall, and and it may be 602 00:42:23.239 --> 00:42:27.960 launching and premium products. I mean, I think we touched on some of 603 00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:32.840 the misperceptions. Nutrition is a very difficult field because there's not black and white 604 00:42:32.840 --> 00:42:37.519 science. You know, everyone's DNA is different, some people tolerate certain things, 605 00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:43.800 some people are healthier on certain diets versus others. But there are some 606 00:42:43.880 --> 00:42:50.239 myths that are very, very well established that still get kind of recycled in 607 00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:54.639 the newspapers and the common threads that are like unequivocal. You know, fat 608 00:42:54.719 --> 00:42:59.239 is good for you. That is an unequivocal fact in nutrition. You know, 609 00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:04.280 and many other cultures the word fat. In English language, the word 610 00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:07.800 fat is the same as the word fat. Dietary fat is the same as 611 00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:09.760 the word that's fat on your body, and so there's been sort of some 612 00:43:09.800 --> 00:43:14.400 shame over the last fifty years associated with the word fat. If you're like 613 00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:16.800 me and you grow up as a child of the S, there was a 614 00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:22.119 whole fat free trend with brands like snackwells. That was one of the worst 615 00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:28.119 kind of nutritional myths that that was like foisted on society that made a lot 616 00:43:28.119 --> 00:43:31.519 of people much, much unhealthier. So fat is good, egg yolks are 617 00:43:31.599 --> 00:43:36.679 unequivocally healthy. That is another myth the whole like egg white, Ommelett thing 618 00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:40.000 and and you know, there are many, many scientific nutritional facts that are 619 00:43:40.039 --> 00:43:46.360 unequivocal. And then there's many scientific there's many nutritional elements where there's a preponderance 620 00:43:46.360 --> 00:43:52.719 of evidence but it's not conclusive, but there's enough there that you know it's 621 00:43:52.760 --> 00:43:57.119 better. And nutritional studies are really hard to do because, you know, 622 00:43:57.199 --> 00:44:02.199 typical scientific method with with other fields is to have a control group, you 623 00:44:02.239 --> 00:44:06.760 know, where you give them one thing and then to have an experimental group 624 00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:09.159 where you give them another. You can't do that in nutrition because it's not 625 00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:13.800 humane to subject humans to something that you know is not good for them. 626 00:44:13.800 --> 00:44:17.719 And so all the nutritional science that we have today predominantly comes from what are 627 00:44:17.719 --> 00:44:22.280 called Epidemiological Studies, which is like looking at cohorts of people and saying, 628 00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:27.440 okay, this group ate like this, this group ate like this, let's 629 00:44:27.480 --> 00:44:32.320 try to draw inferences. And then there's other studies where you're literally pulling people, 630 00:44:32.360 --> 00:44:36.000 you know over the course of years and saying, what did you eat 631 00:44:36.119 --> 00:44:38.800 yesterday? What did you eat like a year ago? Like most people don't 632 00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:43.840 even remember what the eight an hour ago. And and so those are really, 633 00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:46.639 really imprecise, and so you know, I think there's still a lot 634 00:44:46.719 --> 00:44:52.320 of myths, but there's a lot of of wellknown things and basically one of 635 00:44:52.360 --> 00:44:54.159 the common threads, which is consistent with how we do things a human go, 636 00:44:54.639 --> 00:45:00.079 the more unprocessed you go, the closer to nature you go. Oh, 637 00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:02.599 it's better for you, full stop. You know, whether it's plant 638 00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:07.159 products, whether it's animal products, whether it's everything in between, the closer 639 00:45:07.199 --> 00:45:09.760 you get to nature, the better you are. And this is unequivocal, 640 00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:13.480 and I'll just end on this note because it's important, because we have been 641 00:45:13.480 --> 00:45:16.880 getting a lot of questions recently about different value systems and different diets. So 642 00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:20.559 one of the best things to study, if you guys are ever interested in 643 00:45:20.559 --> 00:45:23.280 this, when you study anthropology and you study human evolution, most of you 644 00:45:23.280 --> 00:45:29.320 probably know that we evolved this hunter gatherers. We were a nomadic species and 645 00:45:29.400 --> 00:45:31.639 today, if you go all over the world, there are some groups of 646 00:45:31.639 --> 00:45:37.800 people and cohorts that still live as indigenous people's and still live in sort of 647 00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:42.519 a hunter gatherer type of lifestyle. That's more consistent than the way it was, 648 00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:45.199 you know, a thousand plus years ago, and they're all over the 649 00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:51.159 world. There are indigenous peoples in the Arctic, their indigenous peoples in South 650 00:45:51.199 --> 00:45:53.960 America, there's indigenous peoples in Africa, there's even some here in America, 651 00:45:54.039 --> 00:46:00.280 and they all have wildly different diets. Obviously, in the Arctic regions like 652 00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:05.239 Alaska, where things are very cold all the time there are very few fruits 653 00:46:05.239 --> 00:46:10.199 and vegetables, there are indigenous peoples that live off of blubber and meat exclusively. 654 00:46:10.599 --> 00:46:14.760 And then if you go to, you know, certain other warmer climates 655 00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:17.199 in the the rainforest, for the jungle, they're indigenous peoples who live off 656 00:46:17.239 --> 00:46:22.039 of fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds, and then their tribes that also 657 00:46:22.079 --> 00:46:27.719 live off of cows meat and blood literally. And guess what? They're all 658 00:46:27.719 --> 00:46:30.360 healthy people and they have none of our modern diseases. They don't have obesity, 659 00:46:30.400 --> 00:46:34.199 they don't have diabetes, they don't have heart disease. They even don't 660 00:46:34.280 --> 00:46:38.000 have things that some people don't view as linked to modern diseases. They don't 661 00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:42.440 have adhd, they don't have allergies, they have no incidence of autism. 662 00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:46.559 And what's common amongst all of these people's and all of these tribes is they 663 00:46:46.639 --> 00:46:52.320 live really close to nature and we are remarkably adaptive as a species and what 664 00:46:52.360 --> 00:47:00.039 we have demonstrated over human evolution is that we do better when we work more 665 00:47:00.039 --> 00:47:04.679 closely with nature and less process. No, that's that's it's amazing. It's 666 00:47:04.719 --> 00:47:07.840 amazing. Well, Jason, thanks again. This has been terrific. We're 667 00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:10.960 going to open it up to Qata. If anyone has a question. We 668 00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:15.159 have a microphone as well that I could grab before I just raise your hand, 669 00:47:15.159 --> 00:47:17.360 I can bring you the Mike. Thanks Mike for Hosting this and thank 670 00:47:17.360 --> 00:47:22.079 you, Jason, for speaking. So my question for you is what is 671 00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:24.400 a better question that you think we should be asking ourselves? And as an 672 00:47:24.400 --> 00:47:28.760 example, you were talking a lot about tolerance, so I'm thinking maybe a 673 00:47:28.840 --> 00:47:32.159 question could be how might we develop more and better pathways to more sustainable lifestyles 674 00:47:32.199 --> 00:47:37.719 and dietary transition? What do you think people should be asking? I think 675 00:47:37.760 --> 00:47:40.320 this week was really interesting with the cosmic bliss launch, and you know there's 676 00:47:40.320 --> 00:47:43.920 some interesting people in the crowd vital farms. As in the crowd, which 677 00:47:43.920 --> 00:47:47.679 I'm a big fan of, I really want to preach more tolerance for different 678 00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:53.840 value systems and this week was fascinating because we had so much positive feedback on 679 00:47:53.920 --> 00:47:58.800 launching, you know, a much better dairy option for ice cream. But 680 00:47:58.840 --> 00:48:01.840 we did get some comments that were very hurtful and we're very, very intolerant, 681 00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:06.360 and from people who believe there's only one way to live. And you 682 00:48:06.360 --> 00:48:09.039 know, and I took it very personally because I've spent the last twelve years 683 00:48:09.079 --> 00:48:14.000 of my life trying to make better options for everybody, I have met people 684 00:48:14.079 --> 00:48:19.440 who have really bizarre value systems, bizarre to me, but they're not bizarre 685 00:48:19.480 --> 00:48:22.679 to them. You know, I've met people who think we shouldn't kill trees 686 00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:25.400 for wood but are not Vegan. I've met pro life from pro choice people. 687 00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:30.199 I've met people who I'll give you another really interesting example in terms of 688 00:48:30.199 --> 00:48:34.000 the kind of questions you should ask. You know, most people don't know. 689 00:48:34.079 --> 00:48:37.280 For example, a lot of what I've been doing and over the last 690 00:48:37.360 --> 00:48:40.920 year is trying to teach understanding about how the whole food system works, and 691 00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:46.599 the food system has some ugly underbelly to it. Most people who consume plants 692 00:48:46.639 --> 00:48:51.159 of any kind don't think about the fact that when you eat plants from a 693 00:48:51.159 --> 00:48:54.079 farm, and industrial farm and most most produce that you get in a grocery 694 00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:59.280 store comes from a industrial farm, meaning a farm that's in the business of 695 00:48:59.280 --> 00:49:02.639 producing lots of plants. Most people don't know that when you have to plant 696 00:49:02.679 --> 00:49:07.480 fields, or this concept of tilling soil, that when you're tilling soil or, 697 00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:13.119 you know, making the soil conducive to plant the seeds, that you 698 00:49:13.159 --> 00:49:19.880 are killing thousands and thousands of the underground insects, animals, snakes, rodents, 699 00:49:19.880 --> 00:49:23.559 moles in the process, and that is a choice that we all make 700 00:49:23.599 --> 00:49:28.480 to consume plants. But most people don't think about that, especially some of 701 00:49:28.519 --> 00:49:32.480 the people who are very angry about any animal products that you're by by creating 702 00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:37.639 a lot more plants that are from farms. To do that, you're killing 703 00:49:37.639 --> 00:49:40.719 a lot of wildlife to do that, and you know, I think that's 704 00:49:40.719 --> 00:49:44.920 okay, because that's the choice we're all making, is human beings. You 705 00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:49.239 know, most people don't realize that when you have like one of these. 706 00:49:49.960 --> 00:49:52.199 You know, most people never seen what the inside of the Fox con factory 707 00:49:52.280 --> 00:49:58.119 looks like when you make this. There are many inhumane conditions that happen in 708 00:49:58.159 --> 00:50:00.599 making this. A lot of people don't think about that, and so I 709 00:50:00.599 --> 00:50:07.559 think the really important questions for everybody is to just understand that the food system 710 00:50:07.599 --> 00:50:10.400 is complex, that we as humans, whether you like it or not, 711 00:50:10.440 --> 00:50:14.840 are at the top of the food chain. We have all made choices about 712 00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:17.639 how we want to live our life. Some people are fine having wood. 713 00:50:17.679 --> 00:50:22.199 This entire structure is made out of wood. That means a lot of trees 714 00:50:22.239 --> 00:50:24.880 are killed to make this structure and I think the biggest question we should be 715 00:50:24.920 --> 00:50:30.320 asking each other is how do we engage in conversations to show that we're tolerant 716 00:50:30.360 --> 00:50:35.119 of other people's value systems? You know, some of these indigenous tribes that 717 00:50:35.159 --> 00:50:38.519 I studied, we would view what they do as barbaric. They don't view 718 00:50:38.559 --> 00:50:43.039 it as barbaric, and so I think that's a really important question that everyone 719 00:50:43.119 --> 00:50:46.400 needs to be asking. That when you hear shaming and when you hear you 720 00:50:46.440 --> 00:50:50.519 know, how could you live this way or how could you do this way? 721 00:50:50.559 --> 00:50:52.519 I was shamed when, if you could believe it, when I was 722 00:50:52.559 --> 00:50:55.800 twenty two years old and I had to give up alcohol and gluten. I 723 00:50:55.840 --> 00:51:00.519 had many friends back then. If you were single in York City in one 724 00:51:00.519 --> 00:51:05.320 thousand nine hundred and ninety nine and you were at a bar not drinking alcohol, 725 00:51:05.400 --> 00:51:07.880 all of my friends shame me, like, what's wrong with you? 726 00:51:07.920 --> 00:51:09.320 Aren't you have a drink? Like, just eat the pizza, it's fine, 727 00:51:09.440 --> 00:51:14.239 have some clute, you'll be fine. Like. Everyone has different value 728 00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:17.280 systems and so I think it's really important that you ask people where they're coming 729 00:51:17.320 --> 00:51:22.639 from, what formed their value system, and then just to recognize that we 730 00:51:22.679 --> 00:51:24.400 just need to be accepting of everybody. Love that. Love that. Any 731 00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:30.239 other questions? This has been very insightful and I really appreciate it what you've 732 00:51:30.400 --> 00:51:36.440 shared. I'm interested to understand more like your philosophy around investing, as you 733 00:51:36.480 --> 00:51:39.719 share like a little. Investors usually focus on margins, on how you exit 734 00:51:39.800 --> 00:51:45.159 your Brandon for or five years, but it would like to understand if more 735 00:51:45.239 --> 00:51:50.039 like longer term investing, I yours. If you have the patients to invest 736 00:51:50.119 --> 00:51:53.280 in, let's say, twenty, fifty years, what would you invest in 737 00:51:53.320 --> 00:51:58.639 within the food of everage space? Yeah, so the question for everybody was 738 00:51:58.679 --> 00:52:02.079 how do we approach longer term investing? It's a great question and and look, 739 00:52:02.119 --> 00:52:06.639 part of the reason we created human code the way we did, which 740 00:52:06.679 --> 00:52:10.079 is as a holding company and not a fund. Most funds have a limited 741 00:52:10.159 --> 00:52:14.800 duration, meaning they have to give the money back after some period of time. 742 00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:15.519 And, by the way, I used to run a fund, so 743 00:52:15.559 --> 00:52:21.119 there's nothing wrong with funds. I built my career on funds. Most funds 744 00:52:21.159 --> 00:52:24.079 the way they get paid is by selling stuff, right. They have to 745 00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:28.880 crystallize their investments and that's how they get paid. And what I witnessed, 746 00:52:28.920 --> 00:52:31.079 and I was an investor and still am in many funds, but what I 747 00:52:31.119 --> 00:52:35.719 witnessed is that there were a lot of really good brands that I thought sold 748 00:52:35.760 --> 00:52:39.880 too early, and they sold too early because the investors controlled the process and 749 00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:43.679 wanted to get paid. And that's fine. It was a good you know, 750 00:52:43.719 --> 00:52:45.920 they were great returns. But if you look at some of the really 751 00:52:46.119 --> 00:52:52.199 iconic brands of today, they've been built over twenty, thirty years and and 752 00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:55.880 they've had many evolutions to get there. And I wanted to create something with 753 00:52:55.960 --> 00:53:00.440 human co that could hold things for ten years plus. I mean fifty years 754 00:53:00.519 --> 00:53:04.760 is crazy like that would be great. I'll take ten. You know, 755 00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:07.719 most people are, you know, wanting to sell things after three but it's 756 00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:13.000 tricky. You know, the food industry in particular is a tough business and 757 00:53:13.119 --> 00:53:15.960 part of what's made it tough is there's a lot of middlemen, and there's 758 00:53:15.960 --> 00:53:19.920 nothing wrong with the middleman that that's how they make their living, but there 759 00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:22.559 are a lot of middlemen who take big cuts along the way. And so 760 00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:28.599 when we first started selling huge chocolate, it costs us about a dollar fifty 761 00:53:28.840 --> 00:53:31.440 to make up a huge chocolate bar and we were selling it at wold foods 762 00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:37.360 for seven dollars. So somebody was taking fifty even though the bulk of the 763 00:53:37.440 --> 00:53:42.559 value, at least in consumer's mind, was us and we were only getting 764 00:53:42.559 --> 00:53:45.199 a dollar fifty of that seven dollars. And that's you know, and the 765 00:53:45.199 --> 00:53:49.719 retailer has to take their margin, which is, you know what they do, 766 00:53:50.199 --> 00:53:52.280 and the distributor has to take their margin and it sometimes there's a broker 767 00:53:52.360 --> 00:53:55.480 or there's another person in the middle. So the food business is tough and 768 00:53:55.559 --> 00:54:00.440 so you have to think about how do you finance your business to s vibe 769 00:54:00.519 --> 00:54:04.599 that investment period to get to the point where your business makes money. And 770 00:54:04.679 --> 00:54:07.800 so in the case of us, we found investors that knew we had a 771 00:54:07.840 --> 00:54:13.199 ten year plan, ten year plus plan, who are willing to bear some 772 00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:17.599 losses as we build our platform. You know, it's definitely not profitable in 773 00:54:17.639 --> 00:54:21.960 the beginning, because you're building the platform. You know, Amazon didn't make 774 00:54:21.960 --> 00:54:24.719 money for almost twenty years to build what you know of his Amazon, and 775 00:54:24.760 --> 00:54:30.159 Bezos had to have investors that understood that he had to lose money for a 776 00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:35.800 very long time to build what is now recognized as one of the greatest businesses 777 00:54:35.840 --> 00:54:40.280 on the planet. So I think it's really important that your investors time horizons 778 00:54:40.360 --> 00:54:45.400 and their expectations are aligned with what you were trying to do and if you 779 00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:50.440 have that match, I think you'll be okay. Any other questions? So, 780 00:54:50.519 --> 00:54:52.360 yeah, you talked about like the fact that you know, changing consumer 781 00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:57.519 habits is is really difficult thing to accomplish, but the same time there has 782 00:54:57.559 --> 00:55:01.119 been a lot of success stories in investing in consumer education, vital farms being 783 00:55:01.119 --> 00:55:05.599 one of them. So I'm just curious to hear, like your thoughts on 784 00:55:05.639 --> 00:55:09.119 the balance between, you know, not going to niche versus, you know, 785 00:55:09.320 --> 00:55:15.480 investing in consumer education to really grow out a brand story. Yeah, 786 00:55:15.519 --> 00:55:19.760 look, I the question was about how do you balance changing people's habits, 787 00:55:19.760 --> 00:55:24.119 which is hard, with actually changing people's habits, which a lot of us 788 00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:28.000 want to do. I look, I think it's a balance. You know, 789 00:55:28.119 --> 00:55:32.840 I think it's also understand in consumer psychology and recognizing kind of where they 790 00:55:32.920 --> 00:55:37.159 are and what. You know, again, everything is a hierarchy. You 791 00:55:37.199 --> 00:55:40.800 know, for us when we did hugh kitchen, it was considered preposterous, 792 00:55:40.840 --> 00:55:44.719 like we had. I had so many people that called me an idiot, 793 00:55:44.719 --> 00:55:46.840 that said you go to blow all your money. No one's ever going to 794 00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:51.440 eat like healthier X or healthier. Why? They're not going to spend twice 795 00:55:51.480 --> 00:55:54.320 for better stuff. I've been my whole life basically doing things that people told 796 00:55:54.320 --> 00:55:58.400 me I shouldn't do. So believe me, like I'm trying to be a 797 00:55:58.480 --> 00:56:00.920 change maker. But I think it's also then having discussions about how does this 798 00:56:00.960 --> 00:56:05.639 fit into your lifestyle? Why is this better, and is it something that 799 00:56:05.719 --> 00:56:10.039 actually is irreversible in a good way? You know, the beauty about educating 800 00:56:10.039 --> 00:56:15.000 on nutrition is it when you show people how detrimental like drinking cans of Soda 801 00:56:15.039 --> 00:56:20.000 every day is, it's very hard to go back. Like I never hear 802 00:56:20.039 --> 00:56:22.039 people being like, all right, I'm going to start drinking for Canca soda 803 00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:25.840 to day after they spend like a few hours on how detrimental soda is or 804 00:56:25.920 --> 00:56:32.440 traditional Soda, whereas I think there's other trends that are not permanent, that 805 00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:39.360 are inconsistent with convenience, with people's lifestyles. So, for example, I 806 00:56:39.400 --> 00:56:44.719 have done like the full full key too diet several times. I did it 807 00:56:44.760 --> 00:56:47.760 once for my health purposes. I did it once just to experiment full full 808 00:56:47.840 --> 00:56:51.480 key too. If any of you have done full full key too, where 809 00:56:51.480 --> 00:56:53.840 you're measuring your blood key tones, you can't cheat. You have to keep 810 00:56:53.880 --> 00:56:59.199 your key tones at a certain level. Is extremely difficult to do. It's 811 00:56:59.239 --> 00:57:05.199 also extreme dreamly inconvenient. It makes you a pariah at dinner parties and it's 812 00:57:05.199 --> 00:57:07.920 also for many people and it turns out for me was really bad for my 813 00:57:07.920 --> 00:57:13.119 blood cholesterol and a lot of other blood markers that I measure. Kido is 814 00:57:13.199 --> 00:57:17.519 really big and was really big a few years ago, but it's very inconsistent 815 00:57:17.519 --> 00:57:23.039 with people's lifestyles and very hard to do and debatably has pros and cons to 816 00:57:23.079 --> 00:57:30.360 it. Reducing processed food and refine sugar, I think, other than it 817 00:57:30.440 --> 00:57:32.159 tastes really good, has no cons to it, and so I think you 818 00:57:32.199 --> 00:57:37.119 just sort of have to think about tradeoffs and for us a human co we've 819 00:57:37.159 --> 00:57:43.719 really been about just providing better options for people in things that they already want 820 00:57:43.760 --> 00:57:47.119 in their life instead of trying to say, like, you need to eat 821 00:57:47.159 --> 00:57:52.480 functional mushrooms at four PM, which I love certain functional mushrooms, but I 822 00:57:52.519 --> 00:57:58.960 think getting people to introduce that into their diet is a much harder battle, 823 00:57:59.039 --> 00:58:01.719 you know, than getting getting people to have like better coffee. Any other 824 00:58:01.800 --> 00:58:07.320 questions once? Oh, okay, great, come on down. What's my 825 00:58:07.320 --> 00:58:12.280 biggest mistake? I've so many. I assume you mean in this business. 826 00:58:14.119 --> 00:58:16.400 I don't think you want to hear about like my my personal life mistakes, 827 00:58:16.400 --> 00:58:21.000 which at many of those two. I would say this might sound like a 828 00:58:21.079 --> 00:58:25.280 kind of a perfectionist mistake, and it's not. I should have gotten into 829 00:58:25.320 --> 00:58:30.320 this industry much earlier. Men. I'll tell you why I think it. 830 00:58:30.320 --> 00:58:32.239 And it's not because, like it's more lucrative. I was in a very 831 00:58:32.320 --> 00:58:38.239 lucrative industry that was destroying my soul and destroying my health and literally like actually 832 00:58:38.239 --> 00:58:42.199 destroying my health, and I see this with a lot of people. It's 833 00:58:42.280 --> 00:58:45.239 very hard. You know, I was very good in my previous job and 834 00:58:45.280 --> 00:58:49.239 it was very lucrative and it's what I thought I wanted to do from the 835 00:58:49.239 --> 00:58:52.960 moment I was a kid, but within a few years of me doing it, 836 00:58:52.039 --> 00:58:55.880 you know, I sort of knew it was at odds with my soul. 837 00:58:55.920 --> 00:59:00.000 And and when you do something that's really at odds with your soul, 838 00:59:00.159 --> 00:59:04.119 it does manifest in your health. And I know this sounds a little woo 839 00:59:04.159 --> 00:59:07.840 woo, but it's not. When you do things that are really at odds 840 00:59:07.880 --> 00:59:12.079 with what, like, you truly want to do, it will manifest through 841 00:59:12.119 --> 00:59:15.920 illness, whether it's mental health illness or whether it's actual physical illness. And 842 00:59:16.079 --> 00:59:22.880 I got really sick and and I pushed myself way too far. If any 843 00:59:22.920 --> 00:59:29.639 of you've ever seen that movie whiplash and and the way the drummer pushed himself 844 00:59:29.679 --> 00:59:32.119 in the movie to be the Best Drummer, I did that to myself in 845 00:59:32.159 --> 00:59:36.920 business and and in an odd way I was fortunate that it made me really 846 00:59:36.920 --> 00:59:39.400 sick because it allowed me to figure out, like it was just not good. 847 00:59:39.400 --> 00:59:44.880 And so I think it's a big mistake for people not to be aware 848 00:59:45.239 --> 00:59:50.480 of if they're doing something that is really at odds with what they feel is 849 00:59:50.559 --> 00:59:53.760 right. And I think there's a lot of people today that struggle with that. 850 00:59:53.960 --> 00:59:58.639 And so I think my biggest mistake was not recognizing it earlier and I'm 851 00:59:58.679 --> 01:00:01.400 so much healthier now and so much happier now and now that I've recognized it, 852 01:00:01.760 --> 01:00:07.840 it's great. Any other questions for Jason? You know, one more, 853 01:00:07.960 --> 01:00:09.119 one more, all right, no problem. Thank you so much. 854 01:00:09.119 --> 01:00:15.159 Okay, with all that you done, have you discovered any interesting new distribution 855 01:00:15.199 --> 01:00:17.920 models that could increase the profit to the producer while decreasing the cost of the 856 01:00:17.960 --> 01:00:22.719 customer? Great Question. You know. Obviously directed consumer, you know, 857 01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:29.280 has been a great innovation and there's many consumer products now that deliver right to 858 01:00:29.320 --> 01:00:32.000 your door, you know, whether it's but your box or daily harvest or 859 01:00:32.039 --> 01:00:36.559 you know, most of our businesses have directed consumer. You can order huge 860 01:00:36.599 --> 01:00:39.000 chalcolate directly online, but it's much harder because there's a big footprint on this 861 01:00:39.000 --> 01:00:42.719 stuff, especially if it's frozen food. You know, there's like what if 862 01:00:42.719 --> 01:00:47.039 they're now calling digital grossers, things like Foxtrot and go puff that are much 863 01:00:47.119 --> 01:00:52.440 more like last mile delivery, Amazon fresh, instat cart. You know, 864 01:00:52.519 --> 01:00:54.719 these are kind of coming in, but but they're still charging the same kind 865 01:00:54.760 --> 01:01:00.079 of way. I would encourage any of you to develop better distribution models, 866 01:01:00.159 --> 01:01:06.960 because I think the distribution model of today is kind of archaic. It's sixty 867 01:01:07.039 --> 01:01:13.039 years old and it's like really really in need of like disruption. I haven't 868 01:01:13.039 --> 01:01:16.639 seen anything great, but we're all working on it because I think it's really 869 01:01:16.679 --> 01:01:22.719 important. You won't see more better food until this problem is solved. That 870 01:01:22.760 --> 01:01:28.840 she said, because the producer, who's doing the hardest part of the work, 871 01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:32.760 is not making an enough of the total value and that is discouraging the 872 01:01:32.760 --> 01:01:37.039 producer for making better stuff because it's hard to run a business. It's great. 873 01:01:37.119 --> 01:01:43.960 It's great. Any any other further questions? Anyone? Going once, 874 01:01:44.239 --> 01:01:47.639 going twice? Jason, thank you so much for doing this. It's a 875 01:01:47.960 --> 01:01:52.280 it's an absolute pleasure to have you. Thank you, everybody. Keep up 876 01:01:52.320 --> 01:01:57.159 the good fight. Thanks, thank you. Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone for 877 01:01:57.159 --> 01:02:00.039 coming out and there you have it. I hope you all enjoyed that. 878 01:02:00.039 --> 01:02:04.239 That was so much fun and just really the great time of Jason. I 879 01:02:04.360 --> 01:02:07.960 highly recommend following him on twitter at human cart. If you enjoyed this episode, 880 01:02:08.079 --> 01:02:10.679 I love it if you'd write a review on the apple podcast. You're 881 01:02:10.760 --> 01:02:14.960 also welcome to follow me, your host, Mike, on twitter at Mike 882 01:02:14.960 --> 01:02:19.400 Gelb, and also follow for episode announcements at Consumer VC. Thanks for listening 883 01:02:19.480 --> everyone