#140: CEO of Force of Nature Meats featuring Robby Sansom
Summary
Robby Sansom joined the Meat Mafia Podcast to discuss building a regenerative meat supply chain, restoring the soil health, and addressing major gaps in the current food system.Welcome back to another episode of the Meat Mafia podcast. If this is your first time joining us, we have one goal and one goal only, and that is that you, yes, you, listen to this podcast and get at least one valuable piece of information that inspires you to go radically change your health today. If this is your second, third, fourth, or a hundredth time listening to the Meat Mafia podcast, We are so grateful to have you, and we are so thankful for your continued support. Before we get going, if you would not mind going and following us on all of our platforms, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and, of course, Twitter, we would greatly appreciate it. This just allows us to expand our reach, and your reviews, comments, and feedback give us more and more things to think about and improve the show with.
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Speaker 1:It's inspiring to look at it from the outside in because it seems like you guys are putting out so much good content. But then underneath the hood, you guys are really like executing on it And really putting together these supply chains that are truly regenerative and educating people alongside. It's like a healthy balance of putting the product out there and teaching people like, hey, this is what really good food looks like. So we're excited just to have you on to unpack what you guys are doing over at Force of Nature and and dive deeper into some of these topics.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man. Yeah. Thanks thanks for saying that and thanks for having me on. It's that's what we're trying to that's what we're trying to do. It's funny we're doing, you know, this is mid January right now.
Speaker 2:We're doing annual reviews and stuff and talking to some of my, you know, the the folks that were founding team members, you know, original employees of ours. And it's like, holy crap. You know, we're not we're not faking it till we make it anymore. Like, we're actually out %. Kinda tip of the spear and leading leading some of this stuff.
Speaker 2:And, man, we got a long ways to go. We're not perfect, but it's it's really cool to see a lot of it coming together.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's it's special for us to have you in here too because we were kinda running the numbers before you came to sit down with us because we we think a lot with this show just about brand and vision and messaging that we wanna put out there, and the Force of Nature brand is something that has, like, personally meant a lot to the both of us too. Like, when I was going on my car carnivore journey, I was ordering from you guys. I was eating a ton of your meat. Collectively, we've been to three bison harvests.
Speaker 3:We went to the what good shall I do conference, and it's just been cool to see this whole progression to go from we are consumers of your product. Like, now we feel like we know so many people that work at the Force of Nature team and are just so impressed by everything that you all have built out there. So I'm sure you're probably incredibly proud of that.
Speaker 2:Oh, man. That's cool. Yeah. We are. We're super proud.
Speaker 2:And and and it was just weird too, some of the random mentions and call outs we get on social media now from, you know, people that you look up to or knew or, you know, wherever they may come from seems like they're coming out of the woodwork. And again, we're still small, right, you know, in the grand scheme of things. But it's but it's awesome to see the hard work starting to pay off and and some of the vision come to fruition and, you know, to see positive things coming out of it. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like even in starting the company, like meat is such a screwed up industry, right? I mean, it's been such a race to the bottom for so long and so many compromises and concessions at the expense of land and animal welfare and rural communities and health and wellness of consumers. And, you know, I surveyed some of my my mentors in the space to say, hey, if we do here's this idea, if we do this, are we just gonna be further centralizing? Are we just gonna be, you know, doubling down on the same flawed approaches and, you know, challenges that have been introduced into this industry in the past? Or is this something you really think that it has legs?
Speaker 2:In my mind it does, but I'm, you know, I'm not exactly objective on it. Right? I'm sort of extremely biased. And so, you know, it's good to see that those fears not materializing. Right?
Speaker 2:Like, we actually are and again, like, we're not perfect. We have shortcomings and we got shit we gotta do better. But but to see it growing to the point that it has and to have the the positive impact and to be lifting up and, you know, parts of and contributing to the beneficial momentum of the industry around us and the awareness and an awakening of consumers is really exciting. And that's what it's about. That's what it's about for us.
Speaker 2:It's not about perfection, it's about progress and making sure that bar constantly raises. And so I feel really good about what we've been able to do with in this crappy approach in the limited time we've had.
Speaker 1:Could you maybe take us back to day zero of starting Force of Nature and really just where you guys were drawing inspiration from for the starting the company and and really why your guys mission is so important to you because really the mission just comes across so clearly with the brand. But what were you guys thinking when you were starting it and how has that unfolded since you started?
Speaker 2:Day zero, you know, goes back probably more to the epic days. Right? And so I know that you've had Taylor on and he's told a fair probably a fair bit of that story. I'd hate hate to get too redundant there, but, you know, it a really powerful mission and it was an important journey and road that we went down to get into to learn how important meat was to a healthy diet and what better meat looks like and what the challenges in the industry are and what solutions to those challenges could be like and the realities versus the myths and all of the all of the nuance to it. And I think we feel really proud about what we did with Epic and and and in selling it and and eventually handing the reins over to General Mills and seeing them kind of, you know, do what big food does and not be a perfect representation of that.
Speaker 2:But, you know, they didn't adulterate it and and and then, you know, what we were doing was really good and real and good at that sort of scale is is fantastically good. It's really fucking good. Right? And so seeing what, you know, them help put regenerative on the map with the commitment to convert a million acres of their supply chain and get glyphosate out of Cheerios and things like that was really important and powerful. But, you know, we couldn't get our heads out.
Speaker 2:We couldn't get out of our heads this idea that like, why is nobody doing this with meat? Like, we're just a snack product, you know. We do Right. A couple ounces at a time. Like, we should somebody should be driving this sort of change in pounds at a time.
Speaker 2:And you you kind of went and looked into the industry and there's all these industry terms that you look at, you know, what is your household penetration, like how many people are actually eating bars, right? And how frequently, like what's the velocity of the product and stuff. And meat is insane, you know, it's it's in something like 98% of households. And, you know, people eat it two to three times a day. And, you know, it's just those those numbers don't happen any anywhere else in the in the in the food space.
Speaker 2:And we're like, wow, if we could really penetrate that market with this message. And the other the other thing too is like we see we're building supply chains and working with food producers and land stewards and processors and it's like they're good people. They want to be better. Like so many of them almost feel handcuffed in into being a part of a system that is adverse to their own best interests, right, and counter to the the direction they wanna be taking their own family's legacy and generational wealth in the form of their land and and and what they do and the service that they provide and what their identity is, you know, so closely tied into. And, you know, the system and the industry doesn't give them that opportunity to to break out and do that.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, for us it was like, holy cow, like number one, nobody's doing like really amplifying and building a national brand that's focused on content and education and really igniting a consumer revolution and a food movement in a way that we think that people are doing it. But I think we're that's a give that's strength that we have to give to the industry that I think we can help the many other good actors and good players out there with, right? And to do it and to address some of those other things and to, you know, give hope to these communities that have been, you know, had hope taken from them, I think is was another big kind of idea behind like, hey, we Starting companies is, you know, there's people always talk about like the ones that work and Mhmm. The glitz and glamour and like, oh, can you believe so? And it's like but most of them fail.
Speaker 2:Like, one in ten thousand will make it to, you know, you know, a million bucks or something like that, right? And, know, of those and only one in ten thousand will make it five years. And so it's just, you know, we had to convince ourselves that we actually wanted to do it again because it's really hard. But the the mission itself and the the vision we have for it, you know, was too important and we felt like we were we were we were poised uniquely to give it a shot. And if if we do nothing else but kick kick the door open for somebody else and create momentum for a rising tide and we don't end up Force of Nature is not here in five years, so be it.
Speaker 2:Right? But it's it's worth the effort.
Speaker 3:When you, Taylor, and Katie set out to actually start Force of Nature, did you have the intention in mind that you all were gonna be building an entirely new regenerative supply chain? Or was it more so you went out and surveyed a bunch of these other farms and understood what the meat industry actually was and said, oh, shit. We actually gonna have to build a new supply chain because this regenerative system just doesn't really exist in a way that we want it to?
Speaker 2:I think it was, you know, kind of a little of both. Okay. You know, we already had been building a regenerative supply chain. So part of it for us was, like, we can leverage the work we've already done to get off the ground and get started. But, you know, the scale of regenerative I mean, heck, when we started with Epic, the scale of grass fed was tiny.
Speaker 2:Know, that's that's grown considerably, but the scale of regenerative was a whisper. I mean, nobody nobody had heard of it. Right? And so, you know, we knew there was an opportunity to create supply that didn't exist before, but we also knew, and I think almost more importantly, that there was a ton of supply out there already that didn't have access to a market. And so it's it's facilitation of that that supply chain and connecting consumers to producers that are like minded, you know, consumers that are willing to pay a premium for something that aligns with their values and addresses things that they're concerned about and makes them feel makes them feel healthy and well, but also good about the system that they're supporting and complicit in, you know, the benefits or or or or challenges of.
Speaker 2:And then the same thing on the on the producer front, right? Making sure that they're finally getting rewarded for what they may already be doing. So I think it's, you know, I can't take credit for manifesting the magic of regenerative, you know, supply chain, but I think we've we're really proud of what we've been able to do to help make that connection, right, and start to build, you know, more of a pool. You know, if we create more demand for regenerative, that sure that helps us, but it helps the industry. It helps all those producers with whether they have different labels or whether they're in different regions or whether they have different proteins and different like, whatever it is, you know, again, our our goal is to create a rising tide.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, this is we're talking about potentially depending on how you look at the numbers, a hundred billion dollar industry, right? Like, you know, we have a long term goal. You know, our moonshot goal is, know, maybe one day Force of Nature can achieve 1% share.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? That's good enough, you know? And and and that's outrageously high anyway. Right? That'd be massive.
Speaker 2:We don't need to take over the industry. Right? But if we if we could do that, the ripple effect would be so massive.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And it would mean there's other regenerative minded and focused producers, processors, brands. There's supply chain. There's like, there's access. There's efficiency getting created where, you know, it's somewhat punitive now. Probably regulatory speaking, there's incentives that didn't exist previously that, you know, continue to make this mismatch between, you know, pricing that you see on the shelf and the true cost of food that's, you know, if you really were to weigh in the externalities and true accounting of food, right, we can start to level the playing field some in so many ways.
Speaker 2:And so sorry, I kinda went on a went on a tangent there, but, know, I think it's all really important, it all ties in.
Speaker 1:Equip's Unflavored Prime has one single ingredient derived directly from grass fed beef protein. For purists like ourselves who try to only consume balanced real sources of nutrition, this protein powder checks all the boxes. Go check them out in the link below and use our promo code in the description to get a discount. Do you guys view your role as kind of helping define regenerative? Because I think as these movements grow, look at like the keto movement.
Speaker 1:It's like as they grow, the definition or like the window for what it means can kind of change and drift. And I think like right now is such a unique moment in time. It's so early on in the regenerative movement. And just like establishing the range of what regenerative really means, I think is probably really important for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:No. I I don't I don't think I don't think defining regen I mean, there's there's a lot of people have already defined regenerative and they've been working on it for for decades. Right? And I think and I think regenerative as a concept is also really it's huge. And it's and it's and it's complex and confusing even for the experts, and even the experts don't agree.
Speaker 2:Right. Right? And and I think I think it would be more for me trying to be a good steward for the vision of it and and and try to fight against and avoid some of the temptations of greenwashing. And I think I think the other thing I would say is trying to be a uniting force. You know, I think of I think of what's happened in in in higher attribute agriculture as kind of a tragedy to some to some extent, and and not necessarily all because of external factors, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's there's some component of a circular firing squad. You know, like, we all agree who who's who's big and bad. But we have one minor difference of opinion on one subset of things, and it's like, boom, trying to take each other off at the knees. Right. And it's like, there will never be this surge, this groundswell if there can't be collaboration and agreement to disagree and work together and recognize that like the little guys got to align and work together to actually make progress and overcome the big guys.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I think the definition of regenerative matters. It matters it matters a lot. It's extremely different whether you're talking about poultry or whether you're talking about beef or whether you're talking about something else. And it's complex when you get to like, what about the net impact when you look into the supply chain of feed, you look at how far was it did it travel? And, you know, there's nothing that's perfect about it.
Speaker 2:And I think the other thing about the importance of defining regenerative is there has to be a standard, there has to be it can't be hollow and it can't just be a marketing term that means nothing like natural. You know, on on the flip side, you know, what consumer is gonna really understand what not understand what regenerative is, right? But, know, I I get this a lot, like, oh, the challenge that you face is gonna be educating all these consumers on what regenerative is. And it's like, how many consumers that of the 70 or 80% of consumers that bought an organic item last year, how many of them can recite the organic standard?
Speaker 1:Less than five Right.
Speaker 2:Way less than 5%. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:Less than 1% Yeah.
Speaker 2:So and it's not to say that that doesn't matter, it does. It drives accountability and it it creates the opportunity for regulation and consistency. So those things matter. But what matters at the end of the day is the consumer. And what the consumer needs to understand is that there's this opportunity and there's this system out there that is significantly better.
Speaker 2:It's better than organic, and it's better at delivering what they're looking for in their food. And the thing that regenerative does is it offers a little bit of something to almost everybody. Right? Whether you're and we have vegan customers that are buying stuff for their animals, you know what I mean? Because they recognize, you know, it's so it's you could be a conservationist, you could be, you know, trying to, you know, start a family and wanna nourish your family the best possible way.
Speaker 2:It could be that you're hunting into the wildlife and and, you know, want to see the native systems improve. I mean, there's so many reasons performance athlete, you know, whatever it might be. There's so many reasons why that we have like a draw to somebody to say, hey, check it out. I have something that you'll find interesting and valuable. And oh, by the way, while we have your attention, like, hey, let me let me expose you to some other things you might find compelling such that you not only begin to advocate for this sort of a system, but maybe even in time tip over into being an evangelist for, like, getting your friends and and and being that true, you know, thought leader and helping the groundswell.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. I love to hear what you were saying earlier about the hidden I think you said you called it the hidden cost of food. Because I remember very clearly when I first went carnivore going to the grocery store, and I just didn't have knowledge on the different types of beef and the different micronutrient content. In my perspective, it's like beef is just calories, protein, and fat. So why am I gonna pay $10 for the force of nature ground beef when I can just go to the local grocery store and there's $5 ground beef too?
Speaker 3:I didn't understand this whole hidden cost. I you're it's interesting how we're just we're almost just trained by society to view the upfront cost of the beef, but not all these other things that are going on behind the scenes. And I'm sure that's probably something that you're and the team are really passionate about, is just how do we educate people to really understand, you know, what what is the cost of good food? And the fact that, you know, you might be paying a little bit cheaper on the front end, but there is some cost that's associated with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We we we were talking about that before we kicked off too, because Taylor and I did a did a whole podcast on the Where Hope Grows podcast on, you know, the the true cost of food. And I think I think your point is a good one. And I would add the other side of it too is like, what is the what is the extremely high cost of really cheap food?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? And I think, you know, that 5 that that $5 option that you referenced, right, probably more likely costs $20.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Right? When you factor in health care costs, when you factor in, you know, that it's contributing to a system when you when you factor in, you know, loss of fertility and desertification on land, when you factor in that there's hundreds of billions of dollars going into a farm bill that supports and props up, you know, some pretty inefficient systems. And when you factor in know, what's the cost of having excess supply and excess demand simultaneously of food, because one plant and an extremely efficient but hyper fragile system goes down, and all of a sudden you can't process meat anymore. And now consumers don't have access to meat. Mean, these are there's costs to all of these things, whether it's taxpayers, whether it's consumers, again, quality of life and and reduced life or health spans, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:That doesn't ever factor in on that shelf price.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then there's like there's then there's the confusion of like what we think where we think there's value and where we think there's not value. Right? And, you know, like our most expensive item that people think is, you know, it's super premium. Extremely expensive within the industry all relatively speaking from a cost from a price point perspective. But, you know, 60¢ an ounce for like regenerative ancestral beef or or bison or something like that versus a dollar 19 an ounce for Ruffles.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We don't think in terms of that like that though.
Speaker 2:Right? Or candy or like Yeah. Or the same thing with a Hershey bar over a dollar an ounce and and you know, how much do you pay for wine and olive oil? How much do you pay for a freaking bottle of water? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Like we're just throwing money at stuff and you can take you've been on carnivore, you know, like the value and you know, like this like what you get from a satiation standpoint, what you get from a macro and micronutrient, phytonutrient profile from really good meat. You can take a pound of meat and a couple dollars of frozen vegetables and feed a family of four for like $15. You can't you can't feed one person at Chick fil A for $15. Nobody complains about those prices though or those costs, right? And so how we've been conditioned socially to think about what is cheap and what isn't, what's expensive and what's not.
Speaker 2:And it's like, holy crap, this is the cornerstone of our diet, the cornerstone of our plate, and this is where we're gonna be cutting corners.
Speaker 1:You mentioned the Farm Bill. And when I learned more and more about the different subsidies that are out there that exist in the legacy system, it's really propping up kind of what you guys are working to unpack and recreate into a new system. How do you think about what exists today in terms of subsidies? And do you think there's a chance that there are some subsidies out there for the regenerative movement in the long term that can help fuel the growth of this movement?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think the farm I would be an advocate for overhauling the farm bill. Right? And I mean, think one of the things when you look at what's going on broadly and geopolitically, right? One of the one of the great strengths that we have, we're fortunate to have here in The United States is the ability to produce food and produce our own food.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the sad realities is that we stopped producing as much of it, and we stopped producing the diversity of it, and the mix of it that we we once had the potential. And we stopped we're no longer a nation of farmers that we once were, right? We used to be I mean, even at the turn of the early nineteen hundreds, it would have been geez, I think it was like some 20% farmers and now we're some two or 3%. Right? And so, you know, I think some of these changes are fine, they're good, progress happens, but some of them aren't.
Speaker 2:So, right? You know, think we've all looked at and seen the challenge of relying on foreign nations for supply chains and like what? Would we really wanna be relying? How reliant do we wanna be on foreign nations for fertilizers or for food, right? When we have this potential internally.
Speaker 2:If we value it correctly and we appreciate it in the way that we should, you know, I think that the reward and the incentive could be there, right? And I think we're also incentivizing through the current system some really bad behavior, right? I mean, it's sort of like our sick care system, right? We are incentivizing farmers not to make progress, not to take care of their land in the way that they know they could or should, You know, to till too much or to overproduce something that doesn't need to be overproduced necessarily, right? And inversely, we're penalizing or treating punitively folks who step out of that mold who aren't controlled and absolutely under the thumb of the federal program.
Speaker 2:As soon as you step out of that, things get really hard. Like, you can't get crop insurance if you don't spray. So those sorts of sorts of things, right? And it's like, well, there's research that shows that spraying for pests, you know, to eliminate undesirable species of pests actually increases the amount of undesirable species of pests. So why would I want to spray?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Don't ask questions, you know, just stick with it. And then, you know, then it then it creates like a they can barely make enough money, so they do it again and they're just like they're stuck in and they're and they're drawing down and down and down, which is why you see such a hopelessness that we referenced earlier. And we see, you know, loss of land and centralization of land going to Bill Gates, but farmers that have been doing it for five generations can't afford to keep their land anymore, and kids aren't staying home because there's no point. The real virtue is in being a doctor or lawyer and moving into a city and not staying on the land and serving your nation and serving your peers and the people around you who are grateful for the incredible work that you do to feed the nation.
Speaker 2:And, you know, that's just the calculus is all screwed up. And so I think there's a ton of opportunity. I like what I'm seeing. I think, you know, when we talk about regenerative agriculture, we get too reductionist around the concept of carbon. It's a big issue, it's popular.
Speaker 2:And so it's one that everybody gravitates towards. And so it's helpful to be able to present regenerative from that perspective. But you have the nutrient cycle that we talked about a little bit. You have the water cycle. You have, you know, diversity and the health of land and ecosystems and wildlife.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things that we should be looking at and incentivizing, and we can do that. And I think, like, carbon credits are an example of something where if they continue to be there's a lot long way to go. They're very early on. And if it becomes more standardized, more understandable, more folks become more experienced with it, there could be a sort of incentive there to reward the good actors in the space that create that, again, sorts of level that playing field. And they're looking at some of those same sort of programs with water, you know, effective water infiltration rates and effective use of rainfall and helping recharge aquifers and stuff.
Speaker 2:And we could be look we should and could be looking at, you know, the other ecosystem services we could be supporting through agriculture again and increasing diversity of plant and animal species on lands and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:Why not reward that for willing to pay for some other things? Absolutely. %. Yeah. I know when when Taylor came on our show, he gave the statistic that 99% of Americans have never met their local farmer, which I thought that that was I had to, like, think about that a few times because that's such a high percentage.
Speaker 3:But when you think about it, it's definitely a % true. And you guys posted something on Instagram, I think, a few weeks ago that I think really it really embodies your brand. And I think what you guys said was, like, here are three great ways to actually source food. The first thing is to hunt your own food. The second thing is to connect with your local farmer and shake their hand and purchase from them.
Speaker 3:And then the third is that that you then go to force of nature if you can't do one or two. And it makes me think about the fact you I think you had mentioned that out of the hundred billion, you guys are just looking to carve out, like, a very small portion of the pie, like, maybe 1%. And it just makes me think about your overall mission, where it's like, yes, of course, you're a business, you wanna be profitable, but you're really trying to push people to really identify with their food and connect with those local sources. So I just think that's such an amazing message.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's that's I mean, that that's one that you you were asking some of the other things that that we've some some of other podcasts I've been on, that's one that I've that I've really resonated with. Like I don't I'm not looking to just like centralize the meat system around force of nature. Right? I mean that too many people too many brands and companies have come along to try to centralize the meat system and then we see what the result looks like.
Speaker 2:It looks like what Tyson's created, which is awful. You know, I think I think for us, it's like we're trying to reclaim the legacy of meat. Like we say in our tagline, right? We don't want we wanna fight these the propaganda and the myths around that are attacking meat. And we wanna we wanna call out where there's bad actors in meat.
Speaker 2:And and and, you know, shed some light on and pull the curtain back for consumers to understand like, hey, this isn't really what I believe in the consumer, right? I believe that folks will take action when they're when they're motivated and when they see where they're where they're value where they're being misled particularly. And where and where they're being sold something that is counter to what they what they believe it to be. And meat's a good example of that. The meat that most people are getting isn't what they think it is.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. That doesn't mean you should stop buying meat. It just means that you should stand up and say, hey, wait a minute, there's a better option. That's then that's the option that I want, and help that help that movement to grow and that awareness to happen. Think I still think, like I said, you know, there's no substitute for doing what our all of our ancestors have done, and that's, you know, packing some gear and getting into the mountains for a few days and struggling your ass off and working hard and failing.
Speaker 2:And figuring out like, oh shit, like, yeah, this isn't easy. Like, it's a luxury to have meat available to us and then going out and actually getting that meat, yeah, that's that's where you start, you know. Mean, that's what it's all about. But that isn't available to everybody unfortunately. And more and more people need to get in it, and there's a bunch of groups that are great out there that are helping to raise awareness to that and set those up, so more more power to them.
Speaker 2:And then, like you said, that that Second Avenue, it's not just local, right? Because local and doing all the things that are that are wrong and bad isn't isn't any really any better, you know, other than there's a smaller then travel is far. Yeah. Right? But like we should still be holding our local farmers and and ranchers to the standard of like, hey, can you be practicing these principles of regenerative agriculture?
Speaker 2:And are you finishing them on grains? Are you finishing them on grass? And again, it's not to disparage local, but local and regenerative is better than just simply local. Right? And so I would say if you have a really incredible regenerative operation nearby that's a neighbor, go there.
Speaker 2:Get that, right? Absolutely. Don't be buying it from us to be shipped from somewhere or, you know, to be sourced from elsewhere and brought here. Go support the local regenerative operation, no doubt. But if you want to support better food systems and supply chains, and those aren't options to you, then yeah, look to us.
Speaker 2:And there's others as well, but that's, you know, that's where we fit in the hierarchy of the best way to go out and nourish yourself. And then after that becomes, you know, still eat meat, you know. If you don't have access to one of those things, meat's still better. But, you know, that's that's when you start getting into further down that spectrum, you get to that right back to where we started with the current system.
Speaker 1:What sort of takeaways do you think people would have if they went out? They've never hunted before, but they went out and tried to go out and kill their own food and really like appreciate that connection with going and working for it for themselves. And just doing the hard work that it takes to put food on the table.
Speaker 2:What do what do I think that they're
Speaker 1:Like, what do you think their takeaway would be? Or I know I know you're a hunter, so that's why I'm asking. It's not many people have gone out into the wilderness and and made that kill and put food on the table that they've actually taken their life from.
Speaker 2:I think they'd figure out how much of a luxury it is to have access to what we have access to on a on a regular and daily basis. Know, we just we don't have to suffer for anything. We just walk, you know, walk any direction. Pick your point a direction and walk far enough that way and there's there's an abundance of of of food for you there. And that's that's a real that's a real luxury that never existed in human history for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 2:I think besides, you know, the the trial and tribulation of hunting, I think it pretty quickly get to that kill shot moment and they'd realize, you know, the they'd start to feel an energy that they hadn't maybe felt before when you're, you know, at the cusp of taking something's life. It's Steve Varnella wrote a quote in his book American Buffalo. I love it. And I and I don't know it, I'm not gonna even attempt to recite it. But one thing he said is it's an amalgamation of emotions.
Speaker 2:And amongst them he lists, it's excitement, there's sorrow, there's some like after you take the shot, there's regret, there's there's just so many things that go that you experience. And I I really do think part of that is tapping into some of our our roots, some of our DNA, some of our like a a sixth sense of of sorts where we're actually connecting with the food. And I know it sounds weird to say you're connecting with the food as you're killing it, but you are. I mean, that is what that's what life on this planet is. It's life, death, decay, new life.
Speaker 2:There is a cycle, and and we are part of that cycle. And it takes things dying, whether it's plants or animals, for us to continue. And we've lost connection with that. And so I think in that moment, we learn things. And I think one of the big takeaways for me, and I thought about this when we did the first bison harvest at Rome Ranch, and it was the and I shot the first animal, and I had to write a blog about it.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, what is going on? And I've shot lots of things in my life, you know, why am I stressing this so hard? And what's you know, like doing practice reps of shooting and going over it and trying to structure and set it up. I think the conclusion I came to is it's like, we are all complicit in whatever food system that we support. And I don't know why that moment, like, kinda clicked a light bulb for me, but, like, we're we're all always behind the trigger.
Speaker 2:Yes. Like, it doesn't matter if you actually go hunt and kill something and you pull the trigger, or you run over to whatever your local convenient or your your your local conventional grocery store is and you buy something in plastic wrap. Like there's a living animal, it died so that you could do that, you're a part of it, you did it. You have to take ownership of it, you have to accept it. And I think that it's easy to lose that connection and to distance yourself from that reality and that understanding whenever we have the conveniences and the luxury that we do.
Speaker 2:But in that moment, when you're in the field, you have to connect it, you have to face it, you have to own it. And I think there's a lot of value in that because it gives you an unbelievable respect, a reverence, and appreciation for the lives those animals live. And coming out of that, you understand, hey, I want I wanna make sure that, you know, as a consumer, I wanna make sure that the the system I'm supporting celebrates that life. Excuse me. Celebrates that life, gives it the opportunity to realize its true potential in the in in the world, in in the the life cycle of living things, and the circle of life.
Speaker 2:Right? I want it to realize that potential to do good on the land and and contribute its role and play its role and live its best life. And and and fortunately, as humans, like we have this capacity for empathy, like I want it to I wanna try to control all the variables that I can to make sure that when it necessarily becomes takes the next leap in that in that in that circle or transitions into the next phase of the circle of life, that we're we're being thoughtful and conscious about how we curate that moment and how it happens and how we can eliminate harm and suffering and unneeded stress and and those sorts of things. So I think that would be, you know, one of the big things I think folks would take away. And then again, like on the back end of taking down an animal, you gotta break it down, you gotta process it, and then be like, what the hell do I do with this thing?
Speaker 2:You know? And it's like, again, you have you have some luxuries and that stuff, sourcing, you know, finding that animal and sourcing it, you know, taking that kill shot and then and then breaking it down and putting on your plate, like, there's a value in all of that whenever you go to the store and find it. And those people deserve to be rewarded for that labor and that love and that and and and that burden they take on for you. Mhmm. And you should be paying a premium for that.
Speaker 2:You should wanna pay a premium for that. You shouldn't look for meat to be the cheapest thing at the lowest price point in the entire grocery store. I'd flip that on its head. Like, why are we paying $30 a pound for almonds? And we should be paying a premium for meat.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And to your point, Robbie, something that you guys do such an amazing job of, and I know you touched on it, and Harry and I touched on it. We've probably spoken about it 20 plus times on the show because it had such a huge impact on us, or the the bison harvest that you guys are putting on out at Rome Ranch in Fredericksburg. And for someone like both of us, where we eat a lot of meat, we haven't gotten to get into hunting yet. It's a huge goal that we have. That's been the closest exposure that I've ever had to death.
Speaker 3:So just the feeling of showing up there and you passing the bullet around the circle and putting some positive energy into it and almost like thanking the bison for its life, and the people that you have there are trying to get the perfect shot to give it the cleanest death possible, process, down to you guys sending us home with a bunch of the meat, the heart, the liver, sending us home with ground beef, and you're looking at the bag in your fridge and saying to yourself, this animal was literally alive a few hours ago. I watched it die. I took part in that process. It's like impossible to not just feel this insane energy and appreciation, and it makes you wanna like, take in the animal, and then go do incredible things with your life your life, because you saw the effort that it took to actually get to that point. So for people that haven't hunted, I think it's just so cool that you are all willing to give people that experience to connect with death in a way that they never normally would be able to.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think too often hunting is confused with killing. Right? And that's not the point at all.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's it's it's more about being human than anything else. Right? And and I think one of the cool things that that I would add to those those Harvest experiences is the community. To be able to tap into that element of our past where we would celebrate the life of that animal, celebrate the transition of that animal and the potential it has to then nourish us and help us realize our potential and do it in a community setting, right? Where it really would historically, you know speaking, take a village to make these sorts of opportunities and to keep folks going.
Speaker 2:And again, that's another truth that we're starved for, especially in an age where, you know, we're told to go into our houses and never leave.
Speaker 1:Can you talk about some of the changes that you've seen with some of the farms that you work with just in terms of having animal impact on the land and what people should understand from a consumer perspective of when things are done correctly? You mentioned that you know, it's not just carbon, it's water, it's all the mycelium network that's improving. Like what sort of things does the consumer need to understand about having things done correctly on the land from a regenerative perspective that's happening on the back end that they're not gonna see? Like what what's happening on the farms over a long period of time from an environmental perspective that is like, yeah, this is creating value over a long period of time.
Speaker 2:Oh, man. There's there's so many things. And I don't know that I could claim claim credit for all of them, right? But I think when you're when you're talking about the potential of regenerative agriculture and examples of that, and and I think we'll we'll look at that. And I think the other thing to look at is is comparing that and giving a benchmark against, you know, the trajectory that we're on, you know, otherwise.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, I think I'll start with the, you know, the the on the earth there's something like 30,000,000,000 acres of land and and, you know, not I think most of that's not covered in ice. And about 11,000,000,000 of it is under management for agriculture. There's a lot of land. And you see that, you know, particularly in United States, you know, there's two roughly 2,000,000,000 acres give or take, and about 1,000,000,000 of that is so about 50% of the land in The United States is being managed for agriculture. You see it when you fly on a plane, right?
Speaker 2:You look down, it looks like a checkerboard. Totally. And so, you know, we love we just do. We love the romance and the beauty of nature, but we're we're decimating it for these systems. And we don't have to, right?
Speaker 2:We could have food production systems that mirror nature. And the truth is, like, we're mining the protect productivity that nature gave us and instilled in these lands for some of these synthetic food production systems, like the chemical industrial monocrop agriculture lands that we always talk about. And so I think understanding the reality of that change, right, understanding that, you know, we're losing species left and right, and yet we have a potential to create habitat and restore the potential for diverse insects, animals, whatever, to thrive in our in our land and to produce an abundance of food is really important for us. I think, you know, you can look at how much we're spraying on all of that land globally. I know 50% of the land globally, I think, is still subsistence farming, right?
Speaker 2:And so it's not all industrial, but, you know, when you're talking about 11,000,000,000 acres, that means roughly five or 6,000,000,000 acres is industrial. And so think about spraying that with herbicide, fungicide, pesticide, and knowing that maybe half of that, maybe 40% of it sticks, the rest of it runs off into waterways. And so now we're all testing positive for glyphosate in our urine and breast milk and, you know, there's just unbelievable consequences that runs off into streams, causes algae blooms, kill streams, goes into oceans, causes dead zones in oceans. Like again, like we don't we're losing ocean species left and right. Like, these are all real things.
Speaker 2:And you look at carbon, you know, 40% of the legacy load of carbon in the atmosphere is a result of tilling Mhmm. For agriculture. Wow. Because you're tilling up the the dirt's you know, we're all life is carbon based. You oxidize it, it releases into the atmosphere.
Speaker 2:And so, like, you know, it doesn't it it almost doesn't even matter what the issue is that you point to. It's like the uniting force behind so much of the negative outcomes, so many of the negative outcomes we're seeing is is agriculture. And so we have an opportunity to do better. There is a system that we have proven through the ages. I mean, freaking Plato and Socrates and those guys write about importance of soil health and farming and systems.
Speaker 2:And we've seen civilizations rise in these valleys and then grow up onto the walls of the valleys and then have one bad year and erosion occurs, and then all of a sudden they can't sustain their population, so they go and they create war to try to bring in resources from another area and eventually they fail and then that civilization collapses and declines and then it recovers and a thousand years later another group of humans move into that valley and they do the same, you know what I mean? Like this isn't this isn't a new lesson, this isn't age old, This lesson's as old as time or at least as old as human species. And I think if you look at, you know but for the first time in history, we're a we're a global civilization. And you look at top soil, we rely on top soil. Like, that's what all life comes from.
Speaker 2:It's this thin little tiny layer over the crust of the earth. And the system that we're that we're we're advocating to become the most prevalent system is losing outrageous amounts of topsoil every single year, you know, billions of tons. I think I saw I don't wanna quote it because somebody could Google it themselves, but the numbers are outrageous, and you know, up to and including our biggest export in The United States is topsoil. It goes under the through wind and rain and erosion, it goes into the ocean, we're losing it. And it takes in nature, it takes over five hundred years to make an inch of topsoil and we need it to survive.
Speaker 2:And so it is a it is a finite resource and it is one that we are losing at a rapid pace, that has to stop or we will not be able to produce food. And again, this system addresses that and it actually builds topsoil and it builds topsoil faster than nature if we manage it correctly. So those that's that's the reality. Now, why else should, you know, what are some what are some examples of it working? You know, you look at at The United States and many many regions I mean, there's so many eco regions, but many areas you'd say like the average soil carbon level or soil organic matter level would be like, I don't know, somewhere between you know, six and nine percent, six and eight percent.
Speaker 2:And many of our industrial farmlands are down below 1%, below half a percent organic matter. So again, that's part of that carbon of the legacy load, right? You think about billions of acres and multiply that by how many ever layers how many layers deep. All that carbon is now in is now in the atmosphere. The problem is you need that carbon in the soil to maintain food production, right?
Speaker 2:Like that's what makes roots and the rhizosphere and all of the beautiful complexity and the romantic dance and nature that that biology that happens underground that makes allows us to upcycle from soil to plants and from plants to animals and so on. It also, you know, half a per or sorry, 1% organic matter over an acre has the potential to assist that acre in in retaining 20,000 gallons of water. So it becomes this sort of water storage area, right? And we always hear about droughts and floods and the issues that they cause. Well, when you don't have organic matter, you can't make effective use of rainfall.
Speaker 2:Mean, it won't penetrate, it'll run off and cause floods. You do have organic matter, it infiltrates and it holds in the land and then you can withstand droughts. So there's like tremendous examples like that. Gabe Brown up in up in the Dakotas has has some examples where he shows that he can infiltrate water at like upwards of 15 inches of rain an hour rainfall rate, right? Like most ag land that's bare dirt won't infiltrate an inch of rain.
Speaker 2:You know, it'll almost all run off if they get it in a heavy enough downpour. And you look at, know, Will Harris and Wide Oak Pastures, right? Bringing species back to an area that they didn't exist. And his example a great example there would be would be bald eagles.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And and you look at, I think, the other, you know, another example though, it'll I'll go past the land and talk about communities, right? I mean, I think folks that are doing regenerative well are stacking revenue streams, and they're creating resiliency in their operations. So they're not just making soybeans and corn, depending on the time of year. They're having multiple crops with animals integrated into that operation and doing a bunch of different things. So they have they're making more money per acre and more food per acre than the industrial conventional system that you'd compare them to.
Speaker 2:That's giving them more opportunity to stay on the land, more justification to be a better land steward for the land and for the future. And, you know, I think that's there's a major tragedy there in rural America with the loss of loss of farmers and and their farmland.
Speaker 3:When we talk about farmers, I was just curious just how that process goes for you and the team at Force of Nature when you're trying to find a new farmer, rancher, producer to source your meat from. When they meet you, are they happy? Are they are like or is there is there skepticism? I'm just kinda curious, like, how they kind of interpret what you're doing when you're having some of those earlier conversations about you actually sourcing from them.
Speaker 2:I don't I don't think that there's any skepticism. I think by the time we're having conversations with somebody, there's been probably a mutual vetting process. I think, generally, we're met with I think maybe early on when we weren't when we hadn't built the brand and the name, you know, sort of like, jeez, are you sure you're gonna try to do all that? Yeah. Good luck.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've heard that before, you know, people have tried to make change in this industry before. I think now it's that with more enthusiasm, right? Like they want, as mentioned earlier, know, want to do better. They want to there's a vision that they have for their land that they're limited in being able to pursue based off of the market that they have access to. And if we can help them get access to a consumer that's willing to pay a premium and help their peers and help the long term stability of what they're doing in their operation and help them justify taking the next step and raising the bar just a little bit more, them a little bit more diversity in customer base so they have, know, they're hedged against, you know, potentially losing one customer or another.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think generally speaking, they're excited to be to be working with us, and, you know, wanna keep it that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I'm sure that's a special feeling too, if you're coming across a rancher a few years ago, and they're saying, oh, sounds great, Robbie, but I've heard this before. And now for you to be sitting here a few years later and actually be delivering on those promises, I I would imagine that feels really good for you too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mean, that's that's that's part of what it's all about. Right? I mean, I think our our mission is to serve producers and consumers. And you don't you can't support one without the other.
Speaker 2:And so it's I think a lot of our messaging and brand work and copy and content that we put out highlights the folks on the front lines, and those are the front lines, you know. And I think we point a lot back to the farms and ranches because it's the consumer that is gonna really be the catalyst in the food movement, right? Nobody's gonna produce a product that a consumer won't buy. And so if we can help create awareness I say create access and awareness, create awareness of issue of key issues that are out there and create access opportunity to do something about it, then they can cast a vote, that sends a signal, and so on and so forth. So we focus a lot on trying to get the attention of the consumer, but the truth is like that only helps create more of a pool, more demand, which allows us to go back to the front lines and work with those folks and support them in what they're doing.
Speaker 1:We were lucky enough to you mentioned Will Harris at White Oak Pastures. We recently did a road trip back east to for Christmas and we stopped at White Oak Pastures. And one of the stats he talked about was the age of farmers being something somewhere in the range of like 60 years old or older. Are you guys seeing a resurgence or interest from younger people getting into farming and starting to think about these new systems from like a fresh perspective. Like, hey, if we're gonna start new, let's start with this regenerative model that we can get behind and bring all these different layers to the conversation.
Speaker 1:Not just about, you know, providing high quality food, but restoring the ecosystem and playing our part in that role as well?
Speaker 2:I think definitely, yes. I think there's I think it's there's definitely movement in that direction. I mean, there's a sort of renaissance seemingly taking place. I think generally speaking, folks are looking to move away from population centers and move out into more less crowded areas. You know, those tend to be the rural rural areas.
Speaker 2:And I think also there's there's a love and a romance and a recognition that we've really gone far down into this like synthetic reality, this artificial reality that we that we call everyday life, you know what mean? And what are what are big cities, in some ways like human KFOs in weird and distorted, but also truthful way. And I think the idea of getting back on the land, you know, whether it's, you know, being a the term's escaping me, but, you know, a lot of folks like trying to live off the land and, you know, moving into tiny homes and celebrating reduction in their consumer behavior and leaving prosperous careers in very white collar professional service or industry oriented areas to going and doing something hard with their bare hands and getting dirty and sweating. I think there's lot of folks that are interested in Not enough yet to make up for the loss that that, you know, the age difference that, you know, the the person being over the age of 60 and not having a next generation, all those sorts of things. So we've got a ways to go if we really want the people producing our food to be our neighbors, and to be other citizens that have our best interest in mind, and their best interest in mind, and not solely their profit interest in mind, like Bill Gates.
Speaker 2:And I think and and I think one of the one of the big challenges there too is the cost of land. I mean, there's just a major imbalance, right? It's extremely difficult to buy land at its current at its current cost, and then embark on that journey and that learning curve. And so I think I think there's, you know, not just people expressing an interest in that in that transition, but I think that there's groups working on, okay, how can I help with training for these folks? How can I help them get access to funding and debt?
Speaker 2:Or how can we help it make it where they don't have to buy the land, but they can come and work and be on the land and live on the land and work on the land and the person who owns the land gets the bent, you know what I mean? And so I think there's a lot of service, not for profit and service groups coming in to try to help be like facilitators of that transition and change. So it's extremely encouraging and I think it, you know, it should be something that gives us all a great deal of hope. But we do have a long way to go, you know. And again, we were you know, if you go from a thirty year population being farmers to, you know, less than, you know, single digit, a few single digit percentage points, you know, there's a lot of recovery there.
Speaker 2:The average size of a farm goes from, you know, maybe a few acres to a few hundred acres to a few thousand acres. Like, there's there's a lot of change there to to to unwind.
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah. You've you've mentioned Bill Gates a few times, I'm just curious, you know, what is your confidence confidence level in us being able to correct a lot of the nutritional misinformation that exists around meat and red meat consumption in general?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm I'm I'm very confident. Mhmm. You know, I think as long as there's access to free speech
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In the digital age, then, you know, the truth will be available. And I think I think there's a whole you know, I think one of the things that's interesting is there's so much money and interest in promoting the misinformation around meat and food and what is and isn't healthy and diet and lifestyle. I just saw something recently that like one whatever the government and group was, I think it was the CDC saying like for obese children, some of the top recommendations by the professional bodies are like surgery and medication.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 2:What the what about diet and lifestyle? Holy But but you know, as long as like folks can look at that and say, this is ridiculous, know, call it for what it is, total propaganda bullshit. And think we're seeing more and more of that. Right? And I think the truth behind the food system is one that's compelling for almost everybody.
Speaker 2:And again, there's that draw. There's something about regenerative agriculture and a better a better approach and a better system that's more it's more about winning across a broader group of stakeholders, right? The land, the animals, the people on all ends. I think folks like that, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I I think that will that will prevail. You know, folks like what y'all are doing, giving me this opportunity and y'all have y'all have been a champion for this message on your in your own right as well. You know, I just see that happening more and more. And I think I mentioned it a second ago, but, you know, when we when we when we learned about regenerative and began down our our journey, like, knew what it was. Nobody knew, let alone how to say it,
Speaker 1:right?
Speaker 2:Nobody had heard of it. And I just saw a report I mean, this is anecdotal. I think it was like Salon magazine, so, you know, whatever. But they did a survey of a thousand consumers, and I don't know the demographics, but it said something along the lines of 60 or 70% of consumers were familiar with organic, but only only 17% of consumers were familiar with regenerative. And my take on that was holy shit, 17% of consumers are familiar with what regenerative is?
Speaker 2:And and then it said something like 14 or 15% of them were highly likely to pay a premium for regenerative. And I'm like, damn. Know, it was only a small number of years ago where this was an unheard of concept. And and and, you know, to reach that many people at this pace is well ahead of the pace that organic, you know, which began in, you know, kind of the seventies and eighties and really became to prominence in the early two thousands before before where before getting to where it is now. And so I feel like it is growing at an incredible pace.
Speaker 2:And I feel like meat is a necessary part of the conversation around regenerative, right? Like you don't it's all about plants and animals and common and balance, so Totally.
Speaker 3:You can tell how much that you trust the process too. Because I we were texting at a a side conversation yesterday, and I was like, I went to this burger restaurant in Austin. Harry and I went there, and they're ordering meat from you guys, but, like, I think they're still cooking in seed oils. And you're like, slow down, buddy. It's a it's a good it's like, first step is great.
Speaker 3:They're starting to be more intentional about where they source their their their meat from. And it's a process, like eventually, we'll hopefully be able to get them to correct and cook with tallow and animal fats, but it seems like you have that approach of like one step at one step at a time and trusting that process, and eventually we can get there.
Speaker 2:Well, and it kinda goes back to what I was talking about even within just the meat industry and folks being too quick to try to villainize folks who should otherwise be their allies, right? Like we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater and we we we it is it is necessary that we hold ourselves to a high standard and look and have a vision for the future that is well beyond where we are today, but we have to work to do to get there. We have to build a bridge, right? And that that as the saying goes, we can't let perfection be the enemy of progress. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, let's celebrate progress where it haps happens and then drive drive may continue to drive accountability that that that bar continues to raise. But if somebody takes a huge leap forward to the point where they're literally leading an entire industry and category and doing something that so many others are have failed to do or don't have the courage to do because it is challenging to their economics or whatever other measure. But they're not perfect in every other way that we'd prefer they be and we attack them for it, we're not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How big is the, like, educating restaurants and these other, like, grocery stores on your guys' message? Because they're really interfacing with the customer as well. And it's almost I mean, it's great to see, you know, a restaurant like Hopdoddy having Force of Nature beef there. And, you know, I think like if they're able to champion your guys' message as well, it's like, oh my gosh, there's so much potential for this to grow quickly.
Speaker 2:Hopdoddy has Force of Nature bison. And Hopdadi is an incredible example in the food service industry. Those guys are endeavoring to, you know, at some point, you know, they'd like for their entire supply chain to be regenerative, right? And there's not a whole lot of folks we're talking to that have put their money where their mouth is and made such a bold claim. And so props and kudos to them for really doing what's right, not doing what's easy.
Speaker 2:It's way easier just to especially in the economic climate we're facing right now. Who's Totally. Who's welcoming increased prices and costs, sucking eating the difference so they don't pass it through to consumers to do the right thing. Man, I I have a hard time finding other examples of folks that are doing more and better than than that. Right?
Speaker 2:So kudos to them and they're incredible partners, incredible advocates for their consumers. Part of that was, you know, they did a survey of their consumers and those consumers said, hey, I all bison were grass fed. It's like, no, they're not. Most bison are not grass fed.
Speaker 3:If you
Speaker 2:think you're getting grass fed bison, you probably aren't unless it says grass fed and they're openly telling the story behind it. And it's like, well, we don't wanna be and we don't wanna take advantage of their misunderstanding, so let's do the right thing. Give them what they're expecting, what they think they're getting. So again, not a lot of folks do the right thing even when they're not when they're not getting credit for it, they're an example of it. I think grocery stores, early in our history, it was a challenge.
Speaker 2:The interesting thing about grocery is the driver of traffic in the stores is quality meat and produce. People aren't going don't don't historically speaking, and still at present, you know, they're not necessarily just going for the boxes in the center, although that has a huge place in the basket. You know, they want the best meat meat and produce because it is. I mean, what many people are still largely buying, you know, vegetables and meat. And that's part of the reason why we've seen the race to the bottom on price, right?
Speaker 2:Like, oh, well, if nothing else is relevant, then we have to have the lowest price. And then that becomes a singular focus on the race to the bottom, where the only thing that matters is how cheap is it. And when the only thing that matters is how cheap is it, by any means necessary becomes the approach, and you begin to compromise all of the things we've been talking about, and all of the externalities gets swept under the rugs and the truth gets veiled and you end up with a system that in no way represents what a consumer, what the average consumer would actually construct and hope and want to be supporting, but that's where we are. And I think, you know, I think vegetables and crop agriculture is getting a free pass right now and it should not. I think its day is coming.
Speaker 2:But I think, you know, right now, again, meat has been under attack and in many cases for the right reasons, in many cases for wrong reasons. But, you know, meat's real important when 98% of houses in the country are looking for it. And so, I think a lot of grocery stores are looking to not to to you know, it's hard to break old habits, and so they still have that. But they're also recognizing that there's a rapidly growing interest in higher attribute meat and regenerative meat and grass fed and better welfare. And you start to see those things represented in claims and stuff.
Speaker 2:And grass fed meat is growing at two and a half times, you know, non grass fed meat is growing at and things like that. And so they see the trends and they recognize, okay, well, we want to continue to have foot traffic in our stores at an age where there's a lot of other reasons why it's harder to foot traffic because there's e commerce platforms and other things coming out. And we better be able to we better have a better message, and we better be able to serve a broader base. And so, you know, we're seeing more acceptance and appreciation from in retail as well. I think food service is sort of the the the a harder path to do that, which which is why it's so great to have, you know, partners like we've talked about.
Speaker 2:Because you look at the menu like, the margins are really difficult in food service, you know. Yeah. They have to mark the mark they have to mark up the product a lot. Mhmm. But they have a lot of costs.
Speaker 2:And so it's not like they're, you know, getting fat and happy just with these markups. They're just trying to cover their bases and keep their doors open. And it's really hard, you know, like when you go to a grocery store, it's hard to tell a story and that's what you use the packaging for and use the branding and you have, know, of the Ps that you work with in the in marketing world to to but you can make claims and you can put beautiful imagery on there and you can write romance copy and highlight certain features and attributes. You can't do that on a on a one one row on a menu.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right. And so it's really difficult for them to get credit for improving their supply chain unless they're savvy and they have social and really good marketing and team. And that's not the case for a lot of restaurants. And so to me, it's like a more challenging frontier. And it's, again, half of the market.
Speaker 2:Think restaurant revenue is about the same as retail revenue, right? And so we have a whole lot of opportunity and potential there. How do we help restaurants and how do we to tell that story and to get credit for that story. And how do we, again, empower and create awareness with consumers so that they seek out those restaurants that are doing the right thing and reward them for those choices. Especially when I think so many, historically and internationally, like so much really good food, and most restaurants are here to want to make really good food.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Comes back to really high quality ingredients. And again, like, somehow in this reductionist American mindset trying to drive prices down, we've lost touch with quality as something that we wanna pay value for or give value to.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Yeah. The concept of order ordering meat meat at a grocery store is very interesting because at your point, it is so hard to verify where the product is actually coming from. With all these labeling laws and loopholes and marketing, and packages, it's like you think you're getting grass fed beef, but it's probably finished in grain, because that's what we've allowed for. And when you try and go ask the butcher behind the counter, it's like I mean, I every time I go to a Whole Foods and try and ask a butcher to verify whether it's grass fed, grass finished, I haven't been able to get a very clear answer.
Speaker 3:And so for me, it's I love going to a Whole Foods and being able to see force of nature meat there, because I actually know it's a verified source, and I know what you guys are doing. I know it's just it's almost like the ultimate insurance for me when I'm buying meat, and you just hope that we can get to a point where more grocery stores are able to carry your products or other brands that are doing things the right way, because it's just a big guessing game for the end consumer right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that and that and that, again, points back to and is part of that exist that system I was explaining, right? Mhmm. Behind the behind the service case where the butcher stands, you don't see a lot of brands and labels, right? Again, it's there's an incentive for grocers to want the consumer to believe that the only and best place to get those cuts is from their location.
Speaker 2:That's part of the rise of private label, you know what I mean? And it's of the and has led to pulling the curtains over the eyes of consumers, right? They're all getting it from JBS. It's the same stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if it's this grocer or that grocer or the other grocer. And again, not not to not to call anybody out, right? I mean, certain certain groups absolutely do better than others, but by and large, it's all it's it's more often than not coming from you know, you can't compare Whole Foods to a super, super conventional place, right? Those would be truly be different, but on par, you know, the high end natural stores are largely coming from similar places, and the super cheap conventional places are largely coming from the same places. There's no difference.
Speaker 2:I just don't want you to know there's no difference because they want, you know, they wanna bail the label. And I think the food revolution that occurred in the center of the store where brands started to gain prominence because consumers started to want to consume and purchase brands that were telling a story that aligned with their value. They felt and I think part of it is being starved for a connection to your food too, right? So it's like, hey, I relate to this. I believe in this.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about this. I think this is important. I like the what that brand is about. I like what they're doing. I like the claims that they're making and the system they're trying to build and the work that they're investing in, I'm gonna support that.
Speaker 2:And I think that's more recently over the last five to ten years starting to permeate into the perimeter of the store. The perimeter of the store is where all the commodities are. The meat, the produce, all of those sorts of things. Right? And I always say, commodification has resulted in the celebration of price above all else at the expense of all else.
Speaker 2:And I think this revolution of of brand and connection to food and the story behind it and the truth behind it infiltrating that perimeter is helping to break some of that break up some of that old way of doing business. And I think a lot more folks are recognizing that, hey, we wanna have these brands represented in our set so that we can benefit from the halo effect that the good work that they're doing and that we deserve and should desire to be a part of. And certainly our consumers want, right? So we should give them that.
Speaker 1:I can't help but think about White Oak Pastures right now because they just announced that they're moving out of Whole Foods. But I feel like it it almost speaks to exactly what you're talking about where their brand isn't really represented in the store. So them being able to rely more heavily on their direct to consumer model where people can see, hey, this is a White Oak White Oak Pastures piece of beef. You know, you're getting it directly from Bluffton, Georgia as opposed to, you know, you shop to Whole Foods and like it's just another box of ground beef. Whereas you guys, you know, your label is on that beef and it's clearly represented in the store.
Speaker 1:You're able to actually interface with the consumer because your brand is there. It's interesting like, you know, two of the bigger players in the space kind of making different moves at the same time, but it speaks to that, you know, you need to have the the brain representation or it's not really worth worth it for someone like White Oak Pastures to be in a Whole Foods.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and I think you need to have different models. Yeah. Right? Like our model is totally different than White Oak.
Speaker 2:We work with White Oak and, you know, Will's when I when I said before we started Force of Nature, I talked to mentors. I called Will. Will's one of the first people. Actually, Will might be the first person we called to say, hey, does this does this make sense to you or is this is this gonna be fucked up? But, you know, Will's it's it's I think diversity, right?
Speaker 2:Like I mean, it's a lesson that we take from nature, it matters, right? I mean, I think him doing what he's doing is inspiring other people that have the opportunity and potential to do what he's doing to do it. But not everybody can. And I think what we're trying to be is a little bit different than that and and create a different set of solutions by coming at it from a different angle. But be part of the same fight and recognize that, you know, our circles will overlap even though they may not be, you know, totally one on top of the other.
Speaker 2:But yeah, mean, I think we've to find ways for whether it's us or them or many there's so many others that you could put on, you could list out to be able to realize their goals and fulfill their potential and be an important part of them. Again, when we look to nature and we look at the complexity of how everything works together in harmony, like, shouldn't our food system be somewhat like that? Why does it have to be so homogenized? Yes. Shouldn't.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What what are you the most proud of about everything that the team has built out so far? I know you you obviously have huge goals and you're, you know, there's still many more chapters to come. But so far up to this point, what are you the most proud of?
Speaker 2:You know, I I I think the probably just doing it in in the way and at the time we've done it, you know. I mean, I think it I have ingests said told friends and investors of ours like, it should be the butt of a joke or the punch line of a joke, excuse me, to say that you started a business in mid twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3:Seriously.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like the last few years have just been outrageous. And I think most people under understand that, but unless you're in business, you probably don't appreciate just how challenging the last, you know, year and a half or two years has been. Specifically when with labor markets going sideways and supply chains failing globally and logistics networks absolutely being completely inept at getting anything picked up on time or delivered from point a to point b, and inflation skyrocketing beyond what anybody could have ever imagined. And, you know, it's just it's just been really difficult. And so, you know, I think I'm most proud of how we've been able to navigate that environment and how our team has grown and developed and really fought through that challenge and adversity to produce what we what we kind of let off talking about, right?
Speaker 2:Like we really are starting to realize, come into our own and realize that we're having a positive impact in the way that we had hoped from in ways of creating awareness with consumers and creating access to better protein and creating a rising tide and working with more producers and impacting more land and getting involved in more species and and addressing different issues. Not all of the issues, but different issues with each of them. And and so it's like I'm I'm certainly proud of that. I'm certainly proud of what we've been able to do, but I'm especially proud of of of the time in which we've been able to do it and the team that we've been able to put together in the process.
Speaker 1:Were there any lessons from you as a steward and and head of a business going through that period in 2020 when things were incredibly uncertain, you know, COVID is kind of a black box, no one knows what's going on, people are being told they aren't gonna be able to go into the office. Is there anything that you have just from a business perspective takeaways that really know, stand out and make you think about how you want to build the business going into the future?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. And I guess I hadn't thought a ton about that. You know, I I I guess, you know, it's it's it's business and life together. Right? I mean, when do you when you do you make a career change?
Speaker 2:When do you have a kid? When do start a business? Like it's never gonna be convenient or easy, you know, and like just one of our core values is, you know, do hard things. And I think I don't think we envisioned it playing out the way that it has necessarily, but Careful what asked for. Yeah, right?
Speaker 2:But I think, you know, nobody's gonna do it for you. It's never gonna fall into place, you know. The success stories weren't like overnight that that we all hear in romanticize weren't just these overnight things that fell into place. There's always struggle. And, you know, the the ability to just, you know, face that challenge head on and to persevere through it and to work really hard because you believe in something.
Speaker 2:And and and frankly, to make sure that your your why behind what you're doing is truly filled with purpose and mission. I think that's been really key to us being able to make it through and and and and overcome what was been thrown our way in in the way that we have. Right? I mean, again, you know, real real shit sandwich that so many folks got served over the last few years. And I think a lot of folks just said, you know, fuck that, I'm out.
Speaker 2:And I think our, you know, our team was able to say, you know what, this is this is worth this is worth it, you know. We're gonna we're gonna dig our heels in, we're gonna work harder than anybody else, and we're gonna do the things that nobody else is willing to do, and we'll be patient and and rethink and pivot and shift and do all the things that we need to do. And so I think, you know, just recognizing that nobody's gonna bail you out, nobody's gonna nobody's gonna do it for you, just like you gotta own it and do it yourself. And whether that's your family and your home life, your own personal goals, or whether it's a business or a job and a or a role that you're in, you know, you have the reigns. Your destiny is exclusively in your your control and other people can influence that, but they can't stop you.
Speaker 2:And if you keep you work at it hard enough and push hard enough, like, you'll get where
Speaker 1:you wanna go. Yeah. Your guys' brand name is pretty appropriate for that message.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I mean, I think on that point, that brand, that that messaging, every that mission that what you're talking about, I think that comes through so clearly in the product that you guys put out. But also, we've been fortunate because we've gotten to actually become friends and colleagues with a lot of the people in the Force of Nature team, and are just beyond impressed by everything that you all are doing. And there's such a strong mission behind that. There's a voice, and, you know, we we feel that, and we're just very appreciative that companies like Force of Nature exist.
Speaker 3:So I just wanted to thank you for everything that you're doing, and also just thank you for coming on the show to talk to us because it's just been awesome for us to get to pick your brain and get to become friends with you. It's it's really special, we appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And and both of you, mean, appreciate it. Right? I mean, you guys, again, thank you.
Speaker 2:We can't do what we do and what we're trying and endeavoring to do without opportunities like this to go out and expand it, right? And you know, I can't I can't I can't tell you how enough how important it is that our ecosystem includes folks like you that are willing to take on the fight and and do the hard work that you do and and help us and contribute to what we're working on. So thank you both as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks, Robbie.
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