Co-Packing with Kelp | Farmer Forum
Recorded on February 9, 2022
An exploration of co-packing strategies for kelp farmers and processors, featuring industry experts from GreenWave, AKUA, and Ocean’s Balance who share practical advice on leveraging co-manufacturing relationships to create successful kelp-based products.
Chapters
00:00 – Introduction and GreenWave Presentation
Lindsay and Grace explain co-packing fundamentals and Sam discusses when to work with co-packers
15:07 – Ocean’s Balance Processing Capabilities
Mitch Lynch shares about their new kelp drying and milling facility
22:37 – AKUA’s Co-Packing Experience
Courtney Boyd Myers discusses product development journey and lessons learned
38:56 – Q&A and Industry Discussion
Participants explore market challenges, processing methods, and collaboration opportunities
Transcript
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Okay, let’s go ahead and jump in and and
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we’ll look for for more folks to
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join us through the hour next to
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see everyone here today. My name is Lindsay for those
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you don’t know me. I’m the director of training and support. I live
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up in Homer Alaska on Dinah and supiac land and I’m
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joined by my colleagues Grace and Sam on the
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east coast. And for those of you who are joining us for the first time
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to a farmer Forum. This is an initiative that we
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launched this past year to try and really connect the active you
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need farming and practitioner Community by bringing Farmers
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together on a monthly basis to dig into topics that you
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might be grappling with at different points of your season.
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And the goal is to make these calls like really practical and conversational so
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we will leave lots of time to answer your
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questions. But we also encourage you to raise your hand put a
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question in the chat at any time and I am happy to interrupt our
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speakers and and try and have that conversation lifetime.
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We are recording this call. We are going to record it
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in speaker view. So you won’t be seen unless you’re talking with
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your camera on and again, yeah, you
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can use that freeze hand function at the bottom of your screen where
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it says reactions smiley face, or you
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can go ahead and throw a question into the chat and we’ll
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compile those and make sure that we hit them at our
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dedicated Q&A time at the end.
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So today I’m joined. As I said by
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Sam Groen and Grace calorie are Market development team. They’ve
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organized and put together today’s really informative presentation focused
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on co-packing with kelp and we’re
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also very lucky to have with us Courtney Boyd Myers the co-founder
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and CEO of akua who will
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share about her experience coping with kilp. And then we
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also get a brief Cameo from Mitch Lynch of Ocean’s
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balance who’s going to share about an opportunity for Farmers on the
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east coast to coax. Kelp at his facility this spring
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which is really great.
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All right. So I always like to kick off farmer form
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calls with intros. It’s nice to just know where everybody is tuning in
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from. So I wonder if in the chat you could just share
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your name your role in the industry whether you’re a farmer
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processor, if you’re just curious about the space and where
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in the world you’re located.
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Kristen with great gun awesome great to see
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you back.
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Hey Meg.
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Awesome. Well, people are putting intros in the chat. We can
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go ahead and jump in. So thanks so
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much Lindsay as you just mentioned. My name is Grace and
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I’m the market development program manager at Greenways.
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I have a background working for an advising
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food businesses, and I’ve worked with a co-packer first hand.
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So I’m super excited to jump into this topic with
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you all.
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Today we’re going to discuss what a co-packer can
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do why you might want to work with one and specific
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considerations for kelp.
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We’ll then share insights about finding a co-packer as well
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as a few opportunities to help you get started.
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And finally Courtney will tell us about her experience co-packing
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with kelp to produce all the amazing products for akua.
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There will be plenty of time at the end to discuss and answer all of
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your questions as well.
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Start us off. Let’s think about co-packing in
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the context of the seaweed value chain.
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You may wish to leverage a co-packer at either the primary
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or secondary processing stage
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A co-packer at the primary processing stage might Blanche
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freezer dry and package your kelp.
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Whereas a co-packer at the secondary processing stage
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might turn process kelp into its
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final state.
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Say a kelp hot sauce or a kelp
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Burger.
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At this time, it’s more common for companies to leverage a co-packer
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for secondary processing especially to
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make package food products.
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But you should consider the use of a co-packer to meet your
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specific business needs.
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So what is co-packing first? I think it’s helpful
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to go over some terminology.
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Generally, the terms co-packer co-manufacturer
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or command are used interchangeably.
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There’s lots of terms being thrown around all
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the time. And these are people who produce
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and package your product.
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A contract packager on the other hand packages and
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already finished product. We won’t be focusing on
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contract factors today.
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So when I say co-packer, I mean a manufacturing company that
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operates on a contract basis to turn
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raw ingredients into finished products for clients.
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Clients could be a cpg company or they
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can be the farmers who produce raw ingredients.
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Co-packers are an incredible resource because they’re
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experts in manufacturing.
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They typically have certified commercial kitchens or
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manufacturing facilities professional grade
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equipment trained employees who work in their facility
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in deep expertise in food manufacturing and
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safety.
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all of which you can Leverage
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every co-packer is different, but I want to
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talk about the typical co-packing model.
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Co-packers manufacture and package your
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product, but they do not develop your product for you.
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You should come to a co-packer with your recipe and
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any necessary supplier suppliers lined up.
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However, co-packers may be able to support you in
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scaling your recipe or leveraging their existing supplier
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relationships as you’ll typically be producing much
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larger quantities in their facility.
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At the end of the day co-packers are a critical
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manufacturing partner, but you run all other aspects
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of your business such as ingredient sourcing marketing
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and sales.
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Now that we’ve talked about what a co-packer is Sam will
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take us through how to find the right co-packer for your needs.
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Thanks Grace. So.
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We hear a lot of people who are kind of wondering when
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they should co-pack. What is the right time
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a co-packer is perfect for
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someone who has Grace said does not want to be
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in the business of producing value added products themselves because
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that involves having facility training employees a
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whole bunch of activities that maybe are
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not core to why you got into the business of
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farming kelp, but there are obviously a
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lot of benefits from a financial perspective about owning the
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value added product piece of
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the value chain. So co-packing isn’t generally
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a first step for companies when you’re
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first getting into developing your product. You should
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look to commercial kitchens to hone what your recipe
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is or even produce at home with a cottage food permit.
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So we have a co-packing 101 document that we’re going to Fair out into
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this call where we go through in detail
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why you might want to co-pack and why you
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might not to but here are some of the highlights so co-packing might
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be a good fit for you if demand for your products
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has increased really rapidly and you’re struggling to
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keep up in your existing commercial kitchen
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or you know, if you’re producing it at home the co-packers
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because they are manufactured by trade that
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like what they do. That’s all they do. They’re really really
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good at producing large quantities of product and
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they have really efficient workflows. And
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so if you say you lock in a really big
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customer order and you’re like how the heck am I going to
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produce that with my existing capacity a co-packer
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might be perfect.
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There’s this other aspect of like is your business. It
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says you’re do you love the actual work of food production,
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but I think maybe the more relevant point is also like
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is it core to what your business does? Are you a
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food manufacturing company, or are you a farmer or are you
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a you know a brand?
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So if you don’t love the actual work of food production,
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it’s great to be able to hand that off to someone else. This could
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also apply either can’t afford to build
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out your own facility. So you would like to do it that you kind of can’t or
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if you just don’t have access to commercial kitchen
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space period
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You do as Grace said really need to have your recipe and
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food safety processes buttoned up. So if you try to go to
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a co-packer and you say hey, I’ve got a few ideas. Will you
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test them out with me? Most of them are gonna say no they expect
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you to come with that already ready
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to go. There are some places that will have like pilot scale
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operations where you can work with
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them to to hone recipes because
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oftentimes there are changes that need to be made to your recipe
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to work with their equipment. But in general you
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kind of have to have that under control already.
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Next slide please.
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You are not ready to co-pack if first
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and foremost, you’re still operating at small scale.
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So co-packers again want to do large batches of product.
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We’re talking thousands of pounds. Usually not hundreds of pounds
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or tens of pounds and there will
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be minimum quantities that you need to have in order to work
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with a co-packer and those are gonna differ depending on the co-packer, but
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you won’t really be able to realize any of the benefits of working with
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a co-packer until you’re able to consistently Place orders above
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the minimum.
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It might also be challenging to work with a co-packer. If you
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the value-added product that you want to make or the end of
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product you want to make is super super unique. So co-packers achieve
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lower costs through efficiencies and efficiency
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of achieved through repeatability. And if
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your product is innovative to the point that nothing exists like
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it on the market, it’s gonna be really hard to find an existing
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facility that has machinery and expertise that can produce
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it in that case. You might be better off fundraising to
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build your own manufacturing facility and
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note that just because you’re ingredient is unique
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like kelp does not mean that the value added
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and product needs to be and Courtney will talk a lot about you know,
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how they arrived at their products, but I think it’s a it’s a great example of
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like the come, you know, think about a burger like the concept
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of a burger and that unique concept of putting kelp
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in a burger That’s Unique but still can utilize a lot
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of the same equipment.
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um
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If you don’t have cash in the bank working with
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a co-packer is going to be hard because you have to put out a lot
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of money up front in order to pay for the production of product
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which then you’re going to sell later so there could
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be some cash flow issues if you have produced a
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whole bunch of product, but then you forgot that you needed money to Market it
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and sell it afterwards.
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And finally working with a co-packer really
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does require excellent communication. You have to get be really
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really precise in your expectations and be
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willing to talk with them when things go wrong because it’s
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not within your control and so a co-packer’s just one
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more relationship in the value chain that is really important to manage.
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So when you do start to look for a co-packer some
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things that you might want to consider are first
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and foremost you want someone who is physically close to
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your farm. The more you are transporting your kelp the
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more expensive. It’s going to be in the less than it makes to
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Process of kelp this your kelp this way. We ideally
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also want to be looking for a co-packer with
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capacity to work on your kelp from April through
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May. So in a lot of places this is fish processors who
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are doing something else at some time of year and then
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or most of the year, but they happen to have
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a downtime in April and May
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we also want some place that has existing equipment expertise and
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certifications to match your needs.
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Sometimes there are co-packers who will work with you to add additional
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Machinery. Sometimes you can buy the machinery and
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they will install it and they will, you know
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run it for you. But for the most part you want
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people that have an existing framework for doing things
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that you need done.
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You also need to be able to hit those order minimums. So you want
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someone that has minimums that align with the amount of kelp you’re
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expecting to produce and they need to have a fee structure.
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Of course that makes allows you both to make money. Remember the entire
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supply chain has to make sense and so both of you need to
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make money in order for this to to work.
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Finally, obviously anyone who you work with they are
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gonna have a really really critical impact on the quality
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of your end products. You only want to work with people who
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have a reputation for creating high quality consistent products that
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you like. So, you know go out there and try some stuff see
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who makes it go talk to those people and you
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should be able to talk to some of the customers who already use
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that co-packer and here what they have to say, you know, nobody’s perfect.
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But it’s it’s good to know kind of what you’re
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getting into before you sign a contract.
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Okay, so we have
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a few folks who have indicated that
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they would love to talk to CB Farmers about co-packing this year.
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I’m gonna talk to you about the first two and then I’m gonna let Mitch
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speak for himself when it comes to Ocean’s
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balance. So the first first company
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on this list is Harvest Kitchen.
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This is the company that is based in Rhode Island
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and Green Wave worked with them in 2020 to actually
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develop four recipes for sugar kelp products
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that are open source. And so this is a
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very small-scale co-packer, but they have
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these recipes for making pickles Dijon mustard
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and like a relish and
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any health farmer is
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welcome to work with them can either work with them to develop recipes
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or to make recipes that you have
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developed on your own or you can use these
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recipes that Green Wave developed and those are available to
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anyone.
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We have also been in touch in the Southeast
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region of Alaska with a company called
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Jacoby Fisheries. They are a family-owned and operated business based
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primarily in Pelican, but they also have
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Juno warehouse and distribution space and some profits
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and capability there and they’re really interested in developing primary
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or light secondary processing for
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seaweed farmers in southeast there. Definitely
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seeking to work with farmers who have larger volume and
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an established processor recipe, but they’re really
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excited about the direction that the mirror culture industry
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is going and would love to speak to to any farmers
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who are getting started there and looks like
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I left out the phone number, but I will put that in chat in a second.
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Mitch would you like to tell us
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about what oceans balances up to?
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Sure. Yeah, so Mitch Lynch
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with I’m the CEO of oceans balance and so
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we are not traditionally we haven’t been
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a co-manufacturer co-packer.
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We’re vertically integrated seaweed company
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based in a bit offord, Maine and
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we’ve been around since well, we formed in 2016. We’re
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really launched most of our products in 2018. We have
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our we have a hatchery. We provide seed
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for our own farms and third party Farms as well as we have
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a we actually have two processing facilities and we
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create value-added products for both the consumer
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products Market. We sell over a
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thousand stores across the us as well.
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As we also have an ingredients part of our business that
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sells into different manufacturers including food
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manufacturers.
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So really the whole the
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dryer is what I’m going to be talking you drying and Milling so
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one of the bottlenecks that we ran into in the
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industry is the same that a lot of other seaweed farmers
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and companies have run into is that drawing farmed?
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Kelp is really complicated. You
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wouldn’t think it would be so complicated but it is and we’ve worked for years
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trying to solve this issue. We’ve worked with
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rockweed dryers other agricultural companies
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that have some drying capacity
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greenhouses. Basically, we tried pretty much
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everything we had no intention of buying a dryer
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because we like all right, two months out of the year who needs a dryer let’s
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let’s work with somebody else and that’s basically our Mo overall
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is like wherever we can collaborate we do.
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Um, but really we felt it was holding us back and
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we felt it’s probably holding back other Farmers as
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well not having that drying capacity in
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Northern New England. So a
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few months ago, we bit the
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bullet. We had done a lot of research. We worked
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with a engineer who spent 20
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plus years building seaweed
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refineries and tons of experience. We
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figured out the right engineering company overseas
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to build a custom built.
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A huge dryer for for us. But
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also we’re going to talk about I’ll mentioned for third parties.
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So this
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dryer is being built right now. It’ll be
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delivered in before the harvest season
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and we have two technicians that are coming over as well
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to make sure everything is running properly.
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It will do about 10,000 pounds
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per eight hour shift.
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We it’s done at a low
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temperature. That was one of the key things we’re looking at
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is so we don’t lose a lot of nutrients during the drying process.
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And we also have
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Milling equipment. We’ve been doing a lot of we sell all different types
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of seaweed. We do everything for adults wakame
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Irish moss.
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Kombu sea lettuce Etc. So we’ve
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been doing Milling for for years. And so we have a big meal. We
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are also getting a new Powder Mill.
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That can go down to really find powder. So basically the
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same things that we’re going to be using. We said why not
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open it up to others as well
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because we’re going to have enough capacity. So I
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appreciate greenwave giving me the
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opportunities the first time we kind of got in front of a group mentioning that
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we’re gonna have this capacity come the springtime
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and I’d encourage you to get in touch
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with me and you know, we’re gonna feel our way through
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some of this the first question everybody’s gonna be asking is what is your pricing
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we have an idea of the pricing but we’re still refining some
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parts, but we know the economics as as
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Sam was mentioning the economics have to work
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for both the co-packer as well
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as the
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Um the farmer or the company that’s using
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the services and we work with co-manufacturers on
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some of our products. So we know this balance has to
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be struck and we also know the market for dried
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kelp. So we have a pretty good idea of what
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the pricing needs to be to make sense for both parties.
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Minimum quantities is
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going to be another question is coming up. We’re going to be pretty flexible this
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first year, you know,
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maybe in the future we’ll have very strict
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standards. I think we’re going to be you know more flexible
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than normal this first year just to kind
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of have companies try out the drying in
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the milling and see how they like it. One other
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thing I’ll mention too is
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We’re also we we do some
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freezing and and that’s been a kind of a that’s not
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a remain thing as freezing kelp, but we’ve been doing that.
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having the
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The drier allows us to buy more kelp too.
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So if you’re a farmer, you’re looking for diversification in
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terms of selling your your seaweed
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or your new whatever come talk to us too because
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we’re going to also be buying seaweed for
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our own products as well.
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I’ll stop there.
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Awesome. Thank you Mitch. Next up.
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Courtney is going to share more about her experience.
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Hello Greenway family. I’m Courtney White
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Myers.
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I started akua.
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When I was basically sitting on a boat with Bren and
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20.
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16 now I was
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totally hooked on this whole idea
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of growing seaweed for environmental and health reasons.
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Like I think a lot of you guys are and I just thought
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well
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You know, I guess bren’s gonna help people grow it so
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I’m gonna help people eat it you go the next
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slide.
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So we you know, obviously this is this
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is the slide we share with investors and we share with brand Partners a
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lot. You know, we’re facing a climate and
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Human Health crisis. I started to who
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I think for both of those reasons. I saw that like
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well as a fun backdrop, my dad helped create like the
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Burger King kids club and worked for Pepsi for like 10 years. And
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so I saw what a diet of like the high process like
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80s food can do to someone you love and
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Just thought God, there’s got to be a better way to create like actually
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healthy food and then to go Upstream of
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human health issues. You know, I think we get a lot of our our health issues
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from poisoning our water supply and our soil and so how
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can we create food and in partnership with Mother Nature and I
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just think help is about as cool as he
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gets and so this is our farmer Colleen that
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photo with her gorgeous skinny
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kelp and we take this beautiful
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stuff you guys grow. I think it’s like mermaid hair and turn
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it into kelp Burgers crab cakes and ground meat and
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and many more items so
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Click, okay and many
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more items. I mean like what can you not do with? Kelp?
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It’s pretty awesome. So our mission is is super
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simple. It’s to you know be a global leader pioneering
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a new sustainable food category. That’s oceanfrb sea
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greens. We focus on
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meat and seafood Alternatives like not because they’re super trendy
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and hot right now, but because when I was sitting in
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that boat with brand, I just thought
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you know, how do we get more typical white
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Americans and North, you
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know, Northern Europeans to eat more seaweed. Well,
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what’s more American and like burgers and
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jerky and crab cakes? And so that’s that’s how
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we started running down that path and obviously
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now with with everything in the
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sort of plant-based On The Rise. It’s it’s been it’s been
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really good for us.
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click
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Um, so like I was
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I was actually just chatting with Mitch before this started like
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we’ve been beating the kelp drum now for a long time, it feels
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like and and there’s been a lot of hard learning
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along the way for us. I started the
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company in 20 17 technically
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and we launched our
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first product help jerky in 2019. I’m
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curious how many people have tried our
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kelp jerky. We know longer make it which
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some of you might not be. So surprised by I
459
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think it was probably a big hit with folks
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on this call because you guys love kelp but it it really
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didn’t find what you might call product Market fit.
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So
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I’m going to really tie this into co-packer learnings here. I
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kid you not we got dumped
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by four co-packers in
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a row trying to make this product.
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And I was like, you know 28 years
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old at the time and I just like ran into the first person. I
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met in New York City that had a co-packer and I was like, can you make my
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kelp jerky and I guess he thought I was like, you know really good energy
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and he brought me in and after our first run, he’s like
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get out like I’m not making this product like between receiving
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just these giant Frozen
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bags of kelp that like if not
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treated correctly like could go bad and trying
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to thaw them out and then dehydration is
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extremely expensive and also
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temperamental because if you
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think about a dehydrator as basically a giant
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broken oven, there’s like parts
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of the dehydrator which will like be more
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effective at dehydrating than other parts. So like the culture
483
00:24:50.600 –> 00:24:53.500
you would come out basically like not really dry
484
00:24:53.500 –> 00:24:56.300
in the middle and like extra dry on the sides of
485
00:24:56.300 –> 00:24:59.300
the racks. So getting consistency in the product was like really
486
00:24:59.300 –> 00:25:01.700
really hard that
487
00:25:01.900 –> 00:25:04.500
our first co-packer we went to a co-packer in
488
00:25:04.500 –> 00:25:07.300
Connecticut that again just like he was like, well,
489
00:25:07.300 –> 00:25:10.300
how do I even get the jerky dry
490
00:25:10.300 –> 00:25:13.700
all around like I do I have to go in and turn manually
491
00:25:13.700 –> 00:25:16.400
turn over like 14,000 pieces of kelp Jerky
492
00:25:16.400 –> 00:25:19.900
like this is gonna be really really expensive in any
493
00:25:19.900 –> 00:25:22.200
way it goes on and on and on and we ended up
494
00:25:22.200 –> 00:25:26.200
co-packing this product up in Portland Maine at Inland
495
00:25:25.200 –> 00:25:28.100
seafood and this guy
496
00:25:28.100 –> 00:25:31.400
Scout who I’m sure some of you know, he took us in
497
00:25:31.400 –> 00:25:32.400
really just
498
00:25:33.800 –> 00:25:36.300
Like out of the goodness of his Kell part because
499
00:25:36.300 –> 00:25:39.200
he was like I see where this industry is going.
500
00:25:39.200 –> 00:25:42.500
I make all my money right now off of lobster and
501
00:25:42.500 –> 00:25:45.700
I think it’s really interesting. If you
502
00:25:45.700 –> 00:25:48.300
know, I can keep my team employed year round
503
00:25:48.300 –> 00:25:51.200
because right now like lobsters are pretty seasonal business,
504
00:25:51.200 –> 00:25:54.200
but if kelp is like part of that then I can, you know
505
00:25:54.200 –> 00:25:57.500
don’t have to like lay people off and rehire them throughout the
506
00:25:57.500 –> 00:26:00.300
year. So we found a good home with
507
00:26:00.300 –> 00:26:05.200
them but still this product was really hard to scale from
508
00:26:03.200 –> 00:26:06.600
a manufacturing standpoint.
509
00:26:06.600 –> 00:26:10.000
Also this product was so I’m
510
00:26:09.400 –> 00:26:12.100
like a really healthy eater and I’m one of those people that
511
00:26:12.100 –> 00:26:15.500
takes like shots of wheatgrass not because I think it tastes good
512
00:26:15.500 –> 00:26:18.000
because I like how it makes me feel and I kind of
513
00:26:18.300 –> 00:26:21.300
thought there were like more of us in the world, but actually most people eat
514
00:26:21.300 –> 00:26:25.400
food for how it tastes which is totally fair and and
515
00:26:24.400 –> 00:26:27.400
kelp just like this product was basically
516
00:26:27.400 –> 00:26:30.400
a week grass shot and a snack and it made
517
00:26:30.400 –> 00:26:33.500
people feel really good, but it didn’t taste super
518
00:26:33.700 –> 00:26:36.500
Delicious it was like really high in fiber and
519
00:26:36.500 –> 00:26:39.700
protein and zero sugar and it had
520
00:26:39.700 –> 00:26:42.100
70% kelp which is
521
00:26:42.100 –> 00:26:45.500
a lot of kelp for your average white person that like
522
00:26:45.500 –> 00:26:49.700
didn’t grow up eating seaweed if I’m just being real so we
523
00:26:49.700 –> 00:26:53.300
came to the conclusion basically
524
00:26:52.300 –> 00:26:56.200
on March 1st
525
00:26:55.200 –> 00:26:58.200
2020 that we were probably gonna
526
00:26:58.200 –> 00:27:01.600
pause this product and we were like driving into Expo West
527
00:27:01.600 –> 00:27:04.600
when the world started shutting down and Expo
528
00:27:04.600 –> 00:27:07.300
got canceled and we were really grateful that happened
529
00:27:07.300 –> 00:27:10.200
because we were about to spend a lot of money coroning a
530
00:27:10.200 –> 00:27:12.200
product that like just wasn’t a right fit for the market.
531
00:27:14.400 –> 00:27:17.200
I just to touch on the top right one like
532
00:27:17.200 –> 00:27:20.200
make sure you can scale before you hit go like I did
533
00:27:20.200 –> 00:27:23.600
so much marketing and storytelling for this product before
534
00:27:23.600 –> 00:27:26.000
we had really figured out that it was a
535
00:27:26.800 –> 00:27:29.600
scalable product to make and that was like a huge hard learning
536
00:27:29.600 –> 00:27:32.100
for me. Like if I could redo the business I would have
537
00:27:32.100 –> 00:27:35.300
spent zero time on branding and marketing and all my
538
00:27:35.300 –> 00:27:37.800
time figuring out how to make a product that is.
539
00:27:38.700 –> 00:27:41.100
Really good in the kitchen, but also really good when
540
00:27:41.100 –> 00:27:44.200
you’re trying to you know, make a hundred thousand units of
541
00:27:44.200 –> 00:27:44.800
it at a time.
542
00:27:46.300 –> 00:27:46.600
next slide
543
00:27:48.200 –> 00:27:51.900
so I mentioned March 2020
544
00:27:51.900 –> 00:27:54.400
it probably very emotional time for everyone
545
00:27:54.400 –> 00:27:57.600
on this call. We you know retreated from
546
00:27:57.600 –> 00:28:00.400
that trade show. Thank God it was canceled. Like
547
00:28:00.400 –> 00:28:03.300
I mentioned and our Coban Inland Seafood
548
00:28:03.300 –> 00:28:07.100
up in Portland. Maine said well look guys like I
549
00:28:06.100 –> 00:28:09.500
mean, why don’t you just make burgers like everyone can
550
00:28:09.500 –> 00:28:12.500
make burgers. We just you know, we take similar recipe and
551
00:28:12.500 –> 00:28:15.300
we just you know, we do this with our hands and it’s
552
00:28:15.300 –> 00:28:18.300
frozen and then you have a burger and we were like, okay like we
553
00:28:18.300 –> 00:28:21.900
love burgers and that was like definitely part of our original thought process
554
00:28:21.900 –> 00:28:24.800
on Making burgers and I you
555
00:28:24.800 –> 00:28:27.300
know got together with my co-founder at the time and and we
556
00:28:27.300 –> 00:28:30.400
started making this and you know, you guys wrote in
557
00:28:30.400 –> 00:28:33.600
your slide earlier like, you know command cope manufacturers don’t
558
00:28:33.600 –> 00:28:36.400
often like you are indeed with you and like they don’t
559
00:28:36.400 –> 00:28:39.500
for sure and ours, but I
560
00:28:39.500 –> 00:28:42.600
think like you need to find someone who’s willing to like make a
561
00:28:42.600 –> 00:28:45.500
bet on you a little bit and like do those small runs and
562
00:28:45.500 –> 00:28:47.800
like be experimental and like that’s part of the
563
00:28:48.800 –> 00:28:52.000
Or the the dance with with coat
564
00:28:51.200 –> 00:28:54.300
bands in the beginning is trying
565
00:28:54.300 –> 00:28:57.400
to get them to like allow you that line time to do
566
00:28:57.400 –> 00:29:00.400
the experiments and like it’s even harder if you’re like not
567
00:29:00.400 –> 00:29:03.500
on the floor with them. You know, I don’t live in Maine.
568
00:29:03.500 –> 00:29:06.800
I was living in New York City at the time and I think
569
00:29:06.800 –> 00:29:09.600
like we’re doing a lot of that remotely was also really challenging.
570
00:29:09.600 –> 00:29:12.600
Someone asked how much kelp is
571
00:29:12.600 –> 00:29:15.700
in the burger? That’s definitely our secret recipe, so
572
00:29:15.700 –> 00:29:18.200
don’t tell anyone but we like I mentioned
573
00:29:18.200 –> 00:29:21.400
with the Jerky like 70% was too much so we dropped the
574
00:29:21.400 –> 00:29:23.200
kelp in the burger too about 30%
575
00:29:24.100 –> 00:29:27.300
And now it’s actually a little below that and I’ll explain why but we found
576
00:29:27.300 –> 00:29:30.600
that around 30% with all the other ingredients was
577
00:29:30.600 –> 00:29:33.600
like a nice sweet spot because it allowed
578
00:29:33.600 –> 00:29:36.300
it’s still like what’s important to akua is it?
579
00:29:36.300 –> 00:29:39.100
Kelp is like the first ingredient our ingredient label or
580
00:29:39.100 –> 00:29:42.100
at least in the top three right now all of our products. It’s it’s
581
00:29:42.100 –> 00:29:42.900
the first ingredient.
582
00:29:43.900 –> 00:29:46.000
and we don’t want to just like, you know,
583
00:29:46.500 –> 00:29:46.500
kind of
584
00:29:47.600 –> 00:29:50.200
Make a bag of chips and sprinkle some kelp on it and call
585
00:29:50.200 –> 00:29:53.000
it like sustainable. Like we really want kelp to
586
00:29:53.100 –> 00:29:56.300
be the bulk of all of our products but by mixing in mushrooms and
587
00:29:56.300 –> 00:29:59.300
extra virgin olive oil and quinoa and black beans and tomatoes and
588
00:29:59.300 –> 00:30:02.100
all of these ingredients that people eat in veggie burgers all
589
00:30:02.100 –> 00:30:05.600
the time. It allowed people who didn’t grow up eating kelp to
590
00:30:05.600 –> 00:30:08.500
really enjoy the product and not even taste the kelp
591
00:30:08.500 –> 00:30:11.400
which is is something that’s kind of important and then we drop
592
00:30:11.400 –> 00:30:15.000
the kelp even a little more than that because of iodine
593
00:30:14.500 –> 00:30:17.300
so kelp is really high in iodine and
594
00:30:17.300 –> 00:30:20.300
iodine really scares people because they think about
595
00:30:20.300 –> 00:30:24.100
like thyroid problems. And so they look at the FDA guidelines
596
00:30:23.100 –> 00:30:26.100
for iodine consumption, which for an
597
00:30:26.100 –> 00:30:29.700
adult is 150. I think it’s micrograms a day. So
598
00:30:29.700 –> 00:30:32.300
we drop the kelp to be at that threshold and
599
00:30:32.300 –> 00:30:35.300
not go over it so that we just yeah, we
600
00:30:35.300 –> 00:30:36.500
were just playing by the rules.
601
00:30:37.400 –> 00:30:40.500
So that you guys know in Asian?
602
00:30:41.300 –> 00:30:44.300
cultures and by their health guidelines, the iodine
603
00:30:44.300 –> 00:30:47.800
limits are like much much higher because they’re just used to eating more seaweed
604
00:30:47.800 –> 00:30:47.900
and
605
00:30:48.800 –> 00:30:52.100
in my humble opinion in eating extreme amounts
606
00:30:51.100 –> 00:30:54.100
of kelp all the time. Like the only thing that
607
00:30:54.100 –> 00:30:57.300
I’ve noticed is like increased energy and like weight loss so
608
00:30:57.300 –> 00:31:00.200
like happy days, but I also have like
609
00:31:00.200 –> 00:31:03.400
a very healthy functioning thyroid and if you don’t and
610
00:31:03.400 –> 00:31:06.900
you, you know, potentially have hyperthyroidism eating
611
00:31:06.900 –> 00:31:09.300
too much kelp can can be a
612
00:31:09.300 –> 00:31:11.100
problem because of that excess iodine.
613
00:31:12.700 –> 00:31:15.700
I don’t remember what I meant Oh, but that’s kind of the 80/20 rule.
614
00:31:15.700 –> 00:31:18.200
So the kelp in our product
615
00:31:18.200 –> 00:31:21.500
is about 20% and 80 is everything else and you
616
00:31:21.500 –> 00:31:24.500
guys know the 80/20 rule with like eating and so we
617
00:31:24.500 –> 00:31:26.400
make that joke with our kelp burger recipe.
618
00:31:27.500 –> 00:31:30.800
Other so Frozen versus
619
00:31:30.800 –> 00:31:33.200
dried so it’s really awesome that Mitch is
620
00:31:33.200 –> 00:31:38.400
providing the dried kelp Services because carding
621
00:31:36.400 –> 00:31:39.500
around like wet Frozen
622
00:31:39.500 –> 00:31:42.200
first of all pain as a as a brand
623
00:31:42.200 –> 00:31:45.800
for water weight is really painful and
624
00:31:45.800 –> 00:31:48.200
so like pain for wet Frozen kelp over time
625
00:31:48.200 –> 00:31:51.700
can be really expensive and sometimes you have a bag of kelp
626
00:31:51.700 –> 00:31:54.200
that has more water in it than another one and
627
00:31:54.200 –> 00:31:58.500
so like that can be really hard as you’re like scaling your costs, but
628
00:31:57.500 –> 00:32:00.300
dried kelp eliminates like all of
629
00:32:00.300 –> 00:32:03.100
that and but what with our
630
00:32:03.100 –> 00:32:06.300
kelp Burger we use wet Frozen because it’s just taste better
631
00:32:06.300 –> 00:32:09.200
in the product and with our crab cake we use dried.
632
00:32:09.800 –> 00:32:12.900
There’s a question about iodine does the
633
00:32:12.900 –> 00:32:15.700
iodine get much lower in the processing when you make the burger
634
00:32:15.700 –> 00:32:18.600
the iodine and other vitamins and
635
00:32:18.600 –> 00:32:21.200
minerals in the kelp are only decreased when you
636
00:32:21.200 –> 00:32:24.100
blanch it and I’d actually don’t even
637
00:32:24.100 –> 00:32:27.200
know if iodine’s decrease that much. It’s mostly it is
638
00:32:27.200 –> 00:32:30.200
yeah. Okay, so that’s washed out a little bit and then when you
639
00:32:30.200 –> 00:32:34.200
dehydrate I don’t think it’s decreased but I think the water soluble vitamins
640
00:32:33.200 –> 00:32:35.000
are decreased.
641
00:32:37.200 –> 00:32:40.600
Anyway, I think dried’s like an innate like if you can make your products with dried.
642
00:32:40.600 –> 00:32:43.200
Kelp that makes a lot of things easier like your storage
643
00:32:43.200 –> 00:32:44.000
cost but like
644
00:32:44.600 –> 00:32:47.400
Like wet fresh. Kelp just tastes so good. Right. So
645
00:32:47.400 –> 00:32:50.500
and then lastly other issues
646
00:32:50.500 –> 00:32:51.100
to consider.
647
00:32:52.700 –> 00:32:55.100
So Jeremy knows this very well
648
00:32:55.100 –> 00:32:58.800
with the crop project to buy our help from them. But like, you
649
00:32:58.800 –> 00:33:03.300
know, we use Blanche kelp and it’s a
650
00:33:01.300 –> 00:33:04.400
definitely a different taste
651
00:33:04.400 –> 00:33:07.100
and unblanched health, like unblanched help can be
652
00:33:07.100 –> 00:33:12.200
like pretty Punchy also. It
653
00:33:10.200 –> 00:33:13.400
was way before the
654
00:33:13.400 –> 00:33:16.300
crop project even existed and I won’t say who it
655
00:33:16.300 –> 00:33:19.100
was but we were buying Help From A supplier who told us that
656
00:33:19.100 –> 00:33:20.000
it was farmed.
657
00:33:20.700 –> 00:33:24.000
And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t and that is
658
00:33:23.200 –> 00:33:26.200
because it’s like with Farm. Kelp you like definitely know
659
00:33:26.200 –> 00:33:29.800
the age, right and it’s like a year old, but with
660
00:33:29.800 –> 00:33:32.300
wild kelp you don’t know the
661
00:33:32.300 –> 00:33:34.300
age in any way we were making the jerky.
662
00:33:35.400 –> 00:33:36.400
And we were selling it.
663
00:33:37.700 –> 00:33:40.500
And like for some reason it just started leaching like
664
00:33:40.500 –> 00:33:43.600
all these salts and so like this white stuff
665
00:33:43.600 –> 00:33:46.900
was just growing all over our turkey in
666
00:33:46.900 –> 00:33:49.700
bags and you can imagine that looked like mold and it
667
00:33:49.700 –> 00:33:52.100
was like horrifying like, can you
668
00:33:52.100 –> 00:33:55.500
imagine telling your investor? Oh by the way, like our product just looks like it’s moldy, but
669
00:33:55.500 –> 00:33:58.700
it’s not don’t worry. It’s fine. It’s just like the natural salt bleaching
670
00:33:58.700 –> 00:34:01.500
out. And what we really discovered was actually we
671
00:34:01.500 –> 00:34:04.100
had bought kelp that was probably wild and was
672
00:34:04.100 –> 00:34:07.500
much older and so it’s like like salt and magnesium content
673
00:34:07.500 –> 00:34:10.200
was like much higher and like when you see seaweed on
674
00:34:10.200 –> 00:34:13.400
the beach and it’s like leaching those salts and it’s like, you know kind of salty and
675
00:34:13.400 –> 00:34:16.400
white and crusty that’s what was happening to our jerky.
676
00:34:17.100 –> 00:34:21.000
And then the last thing is that the
677
00:34:20.500 –> 00:34:23.900
Jeremy and I have dealt with like we had a farmer who I
678
00:34:23.900 –> 00:34:26.700
guess somehow like the twine got into the kelp and
679
00:34:26.700 –> 00:34:29.800
so we were processing like, you know tens of
680
00:34:29.800 –> 00:34:33.100
thousands of pounds of kelp and our Command
681
00:34:32.100 –> 00:34:35.300
found kelp or sorry twine in the
682
00:34:35.300 –> 00:34:37.500
kelp and like that was big issue. We thought we identified it.
683
00:34:38.500 –> 00:34:41.400
And then like we don’t have a lot of influencers by our
684
00:34:41.400 –> 00:34:44.700
products, but an actress before million followers DM
685
00:34:44.700 –> 00:34:47.600
does the other day and was like Hey, I was eating my burger and
686
00:34:47.600 –> 00:34:49.600
there’s a piece of rope in it.
687
00:34:50.500 –> 00:34:53.200
That was like I just I
688
00:34:53.200 –> 00:34:55.500
can’t get a break seriously.
689
00:34:56.300 –> 00:34:59.600
And at the end of the day, she was really cool about it. And like it’s
690
00:34:59.600 –> 00:35:02.300
rope. It’s not metal and I explained to her
691
00:35:02.300 –> 00:35:05.400
like the growing process and it was like an opportunity to like
692
00:35:05.400 –> 00:35:08.100
connect with the customer and we made it as good as you can
693
00:35:08.100 –> 00:35:11.500
but yeah, that was another kind of, you know wild in
694
00:35:11.500 –> 00:35:12.300
the weeds moment. So
695
00:35:13.400 –> 00:35:15.200
that’s all I got. But yeah, thank you so much.
696
00:35:18.600 –> 00:35:21.700
Awesome. Thanks so much Courtney really
697
00:35:21.700 –> 00:35:24.600
great to hear from you. Um, yeah, let’s pepper
698
00:35:24.600 –> 00:35:28.100
these guys with questions. Does anyone have questions Grace?
699
00:35:27.100 –> 00:35:30.000
You want to come off screen to your so we can see each other.
700
00:35:30.800 –> 00:35:33.400
and you can go ahead and raise your
701
00:35:33.400 –> 00:35:34.700
hand or
702
00:35:36.800 –> 00:35:37.800
put a question in the chat.
703
00:35:38.500 –> 00:35:40.400
And then switch over to gallery view so I can see everybody.
704
00:35:56.700 –> 00:35:57.900
I have a question.
705
00:35:59.300 –> 00:36:01.000
Oh Catherine has a question like Catherine go first.
706
00:36:01.700 –> 00:36:04.200
Catherine you want to come up? Oh, thanks. I just
707
00:36:04.200 –> 00:36:07.800
wanted to really thank Courtney for all of that really candid
708
00:36:07.800 –> 00:36:10.200
commentary about the challenges you’ve run into
709
00:36:10.200 –> 00:36:13.100
as Lindsay and Grace and Sam
710
00:36:13.100 –> 00:36:14.000
know we’re just setting up.
711
00:36:15.200 –> 00:36:18.600
A processing Hub and homer which is aimed at drying kelp and
712
00:36:18.600 –> 00:36:21.300
we know that the learning curve is steep. And
713
00:36:21.300 –> 00:36:24.700
yeah Mitchell, thank
714
00:36:24.700 –> 00:36:27.500
you also for all of your shared information. It’s just
715
00:36:27.500 –> 00:36:30.300
really wonderful to hear about the things that you guys have run
716
00:36:30.300 –> 00:36:34.100
into and I have to say I was an early early supporter and
717
00:36:34.100 –> 00:36:37.000
we had a potluck and we got all the jerky and everybody said
718
00:36:39.600 –> 00:36:41.200
lighter that you guys made it.
719
00:36:42.300 –> 00:36:44.000
Over that. Thanks just so much for sharing all that.
720
00:36:46.900 –> 00:36:49.300
Of course, um what have been
721
00:36:49.300 –> 00:36:52.500
some of the challenges around getting people to eat? Kelp. Is
722
00:36:52.500 –> 00:36:55.200
there a lot of PUSH Pack and once people buy or they usually
723
00:36:55.200 –> 00:36:55.700
hooked
724
00:36:58.800 –> 00:37:01.500
Mitch do you want to take it and I’ll answer
725
00:37:01.500 –> 00:37:03.200
after you accept it’s been chitchatting away.
726
00:37:04.900 –> 00:37:05.200
Okay.
727
00:37:07.200 –> 00:37:10.500
So, you know what, there’s there’s two different types of
728
00:37:10.500 –> 00:37:15.300
people we found people who are already kind
729
00:37:14.300 –> 00:37:17.500
of kelp or seaweed aficionados and
730
00:37:17.500 –> 00:37:20.400
they’ve been eating seaweed for a long time or they’re
731
00:37:20.400 –> 00:37:24.000
or like Courtney. They’re really leaning into the whole health
732
00:37:23.600 –> 00:37:26.400
benefits. So they’re you know, maybe doing
733
00:37:26.400 –> 00:37:27.800
it from a nutritional perspective.
734
00:37:28.600 –> 00:37:31.300
And we sell some of our products
735
00:37:31.300 –> 00:37:35.000
are just you know, flakes or whole Leaf
736
00:37:34.600 –> 00:37:37.800
plain seaweed. We also have a kelp puree
737
00:37:37.800 –> 00:37:41.300
which is a very it’s just like basically kelp Farm
738
00:37:40.300 –> 00:37:43.200
kelp with some little bit
739
00:37:43.200 –> 00:37:46.700
of lemon juice and water. So that’s like a pretty forward. Kelp
740
00:37:46.700 –> 00:37:49.900
and not it’s not our best seller. I’ll put it mildly the
741
00:37:49.900 –> 00:37:52.800
what we found is we needed to
742
00:37:52.800 –> 00:37:55.700
start putting together products where kelp
743
00:37:55.700 –> 00:37:58.500
was only a part, you know one ingredient and it’s not always the
744
00:37:58.500 –> 00:38:01.400
biggest ingredient in order to kind
745
00:38:01.400 –> 00:38:04.900
of introduce a lot of people more mainstream folks
746
00:38:04.900 –> 00:38:07.700
who are you know necessarily come forward into that
747
00:38:07.700 –> 00:38:11.100
world and then it’s like kind of a subtle Umami
748
00:38:10.100 –> 00:38:13.300
flavor doesn’t overwhelm them and
749
00:38:14.300 –> 00:38:17.100
There’s a lot more people tend to to kind of
750
00:38:17.100 –> 00:38:20.400
gravitate to it. And So eventually we want to get away
751
00:38:20.400 –> 00:38:23.500
from just you know, we sell it
752
00:38:23.500 –> 00:38:27.300
Whole Foods and places like that, but we want to be in Krogers and
753
00:38:27.300 –> 00:38:30.700
mainstream supermarkets and really get the entire country
754
00:38:30.700 –> 00:38:33.100
eating as opposed to you know, the
755
00:38:33.100 –> 00:38:34.900
coasts and certain parts of the country.
756
00:38:37.500 –> 00:38:38.700
I’ll turn it over to you.
757
00:38:40.400 –> 00:38:42.800
Yeah, I think that’s that’s definitely fair.
758
00:38:44.900 –> 00:38:47.800
Yeah, and you know we’ve been in the
759
00:38:47.800 –> 00:38:50.700
morning we haven’t gotten into Whole Foods yet, but hopefully this
760
00:38:50.700 –> 00:38:53.600
is the year and we just launched into a
761
00:38:53.600 –> 00:38:57.700
really conventional chain out in La called Albertsons and
762
00:38:56.700 –> 00:38:59.500
Pavilions and
763
00:38:59.500 –> 00:39:02.200
bonds. And so I think this is going to be just a really interesting test for
764
00:39:02.200 –> 00:39:05.400
a coup but also for kelp in general to see how we do in a
765
00:39:05.400 –> 00:39:08.300
more conventional retailer setting. We’re putting a
766
00:39:08.300 –> 00:39:11.300
lot of marketing power behind it. You know,
767
00:39:11.300 –> 00:39:14.100
I think we all know taste is King and and so that’s
768
00:39:14.100 –> 00:39:17.700
you know what we’re really going after and also, you know,
769
00:39:17.700 –> 00:39:20.300
just a cleaner plant-based option versus
770
00:39:20.300 –> 00:39:23.700
the more process kind of Beyond and impossible burgers that
771
00:39:23.700 –> 00:39:24.500
everyone’s been sold.
772
00:39:25.700 –> 00:39:28.200
Um, I find too just like
773
00:39:28.200 –> 00:39:29.000
that.
774
00:39:29.900 –> 00:39:32.300
If someone has like grown up
775
00:39:32.300 –> 00:39:35.800
eating seaweed a little bit it like dramatically changes how
776
00:39:35.800 –> 00:39:38.300
they perceive it and I think we get a lot of our like
777
00:39:38.300 –> 00:39:41.600
food preferences from
778
00:39:41.600 –> 00:39:44.300
like our memories and it’s like very ingrained in
779
00:39:44.300 –> 00:39:47.800
- So we’re really excited. We just launched a partnership with
780
00:39:47.800 –> 00:39:50.600
SpongeBob. So we’re gonna be doing kids
781
00:39:50.600 –> 00:39:51.300
products.
782
00:39:52.800 –> 00:39:55.100
Which we’ve had to drop the kelp a lot in this because
783
00:39:55.100 –> 00:39:58.900
of the iodine, but it’s it’s a way to introduce the
784
00:39:58.900 –> 00:40:01.400
new ingredient to A Whole New Generation, which I
785
00:40:01.400 –> 00:40:03.600
think will be really fun for all of us in the long run.
786
00:40:04.300 –> 00:40:07.900
And yeah, Kristen, we’re sold in about 500 grocery
787
00:40:07.900 –> 00:40:10.000
stores right now. We have
788
00:40:10.100 –> 00:40:13.600
a great like store finder on the website and we’re definitely
789
00:40:13.600 –> 00:40:16.200
chugging along. We don’t want to be
790
00:40:16.200 –> 00:40:19.600
selling Frozen products online and paying
791
00:40:19.600 –> 00:40:22.200
overnight shipping fees and dealing with FedEx and
792
00:40:22.200 –> 00:40:25.400
all that. So it’s our ambition to grow in retail
793
00:40:25.400 –> 00:40:26.100
this year big time.
794
00:40:28.300 –> 00:40:30.900
Awesome. Thanks Jordan. You want to come off mute and ask your question?
795
00:40:33.100 –> 00:40:34.100
Yeah for sure.
796
00:40:35.100 –> 00:40:38.300
Hi, everyone joining you from Tofino, British Columbia.
797
00:40:38.300 –> 00:40:42.200
Sorry I missed the first bit of the meeting here, but we’re
798
00:40:41.200 –> 00:40:44.700
just in the process of setting up a large scale
799
00:40:44.700 –> 00:40:47.200
production drying Hub. Just a set of Tofino
800
00:40:47.200 –> 00:40:50.300
and Courtney and Mitchell. Just want to hear your thoughts
801
00:40:50.300 –> 00:40:50.500
on.
802
00:40:51.600 –> 00:40:54.300
As kind of more food producers enter this kelp space.
803
00:40:54.300 –> 00:40:59.300
Do you think it’s gonna be more important for the dry
804
00:40:58.300 –> 00:41:01.600
production of wholesale kelp or
805
00:41:01.600 –> 00:41:04.200
like a Blanche Frozen production on like a quality
806
00:41:04.200 –> 00:41:07.400
level and a usership level for I guess
807
00:41:07.400 –> 00:41:09.000
like value added processing.
808
00:41:12.100 –> 00:41:13.300
According you want to take that first?
809
00:41:16.900 –> 00:41:18.400
No you go. Okay.
810
00:41:20.900 –> 00:41:23.300
So yeah part, I think
811
00:41:23.300 –> 00:41:26.300
the Frozen Market as Courtney was
812
00:41:26.300 –> 00:41:29.300
pointing out in her talk. The the
813
00:41:29.300 –> 00:41:32.500
challenge is really your shipping around a lot
814
00:41:32.500 –> 00:41:35.100
of water and you’re storing a lot of water. So like
815
00:41:35.100 –> 00:41:38.800
we get bills every month from
816
00:41:38.800 –> 00:41:41.200
our freezing storage company and it’s
817
00:41:41.200 –> 00:41:44.700
not pleasant to see because it’s just a constant
818
00:41:44.700 –> 00:41:47.100
cost. We’re in dried. We don’t have that and plus
819
00:41:47.100 –> 00:41:50.300
shipping, you know shipping Frozen is hard and
820
00:41:50.300 –> 00:41:54.500
the other thing that makes frozen heart is just there’s less shelf
821
00:41:53.500 –> 00:41:56.900
space for Frozen. And so you’re competing
822
00:41:56.900 –> 00:41:57.300
in a more.
823
00:41:58.200 –> 00:42:01.400
Competitive kind of category to get in there. I’m not saying
824
00:42:01.400 –> 00:42:04.100
there’s certain products that it makes a lot of sense like burgers. I think
825
00:42:04.100 –> 00:42:07.500
that that makes a lot of sense the potentially
826
00:42:07.500 –> 00:42:10.200
have especially for gonna have a lot of lot of
827
00:42:10.200 –> 00:42:13.700
it because especially if you’re doing Farm sugar kelp and
828
00:42:13.700 –> 00:42:16.200
with the iodine content there you may have
829
00:42:16.200 –> 00:42:18.300
to do that if it’s going to be the main ingredient
830
00:42:19.500 –> 00:42:22.500
but you know, I look around the world and dried is
831
00:42:22.500 –> 00:42:25.300
by far. I don’t know what percentage but yeah,
832
00:42:25.300 –> 00:42:28.900
probably in the 90s of edible. Kelp
833
00:42:28.900 –> 00:42:29.700
as is dried.
834
00:42:30.500 –> 00:42:33.800
And it is fairly easy to store. It’s
835
00:42:33.800 –> 00:42:36.500
kind of you know, the downside of it is that it
836
00:42:36.500 –> 00:42:39.200
is concentrated because of all the water weight you’re taking out
837
00:42:39.200 –> 00:42:42.600
and so you do have sugar kelp has
838
00:42:42.600 –> 00:42:45.600
that iodine issue that you know is your continuously having
839
00:42:45.600 –> 00:42:46.800
to confront.
840
00:42:49.100 –> 00:42:49.400
Courtney
841
00:42:53.700 –> 00:42:56.400
yeah, I don’t know whether I would go for like wet Frozen
842
00:42:56.400 –> 00:42:59.400
first or or dried. It depends like
843
00:42:59.400 –> 00:43:02.500
you know, what kind of customers you want to go after and like
844
00:43:02.500 –> 00:43:06.000
also crunching the numbers on costs associated
845
00:43:05.200 –> 00:43:08.200
with each one. It sounds like what Frozen is probably
846
00:43:08.200 –> 00:43:09.500
the easier.
847
00:43:10.300 –> 00:43:13.200
but I think like with dried you
848
00:43:13.200 –> 00:43:16.500
could potentially just reach a lot more customers like I think
849
00:43:16.500 –> 00:43:16.600
like
850
00:43:17.500 –> 00:43:20.700
other than human food like dried can go into supplements
851
00:43:20.700 –> 00:43:23.400
and probably Beauty and and probably pet food
852
00:43:23.400 –> 00:43:25.800
more easily than like a wet product could
853
00:43:29.700 –> 00:43:30.000
thank you.
854
00:43:31.700 –> 00:43:33.300
Sam did you ask your question?
855
00:43:34.100 –> 00:43:37.700
Sure. Yeah Courtney you had mentioned the
856
00:43:37.700 –> 00:43:40.600
crop project and you also mentioned Inland seafood and
857
00:43:40.600 –> 00:43:43.900
I’m wondering if you could like help people understand what those
858
00:43:43.900 –> 00:43:46.400
two different folks play like
859
00:43:46.400 –> 00:43:48.400
what role each of them plays in your supply chain.
860
00:43:50.300 –> 00:43:53.400
Yeah, I mean it kill world is so small that like I
861
00:43:53.400 –> 00:43:56.500
remember at one point like Scout up at Inland Seafood
862
00:43:56.500 –> 00:43:59.300
was thinking about you know processing kelp for
863
00:43:59.300 –> 00:44:02.300
Colleen and then the crop project was too and then eventually I
864
00:44:02.300 –> 00:44:05.300
was just you guys need to talk to each other. And so now they’ve they’ve teamed
865
00:44:05.300 –> 00:44:08.400
up to you know, basically process help
866
00:44:08.400 –> 00:44:12.000
up in the Portland facility Inland Seafood
867
00:44:11.200 –> 00:44:14.400
is a branch of like a
868
00:44:14.400 –> 00:44:18.100
very large Seafood meat
869
00:44:17.100 –> 00:44:20.100
and a company like they
870
00:44:20.100 –> 00:44:23.600
sell like I don’t know it’s like not a
871
00:44:23.600 –> 00:44:27.300
billion but it’s it’s not a hundred million somewhere in between of meat
872
00:44:26.300 –> 00:44:29.400
and seafood and to grocery and Retail each
873
00:44:29.400 –> 00:44:32.600
year and they’re Portland Hub
874
00:44:32.600 –> 00:44:35.700
is where they process all the lobster and Jeremy
875
00:44:35.700 –> 00:44:38.800
is here from the crop project if he wants to maybe tell
876
00:44:38.800 –> 00:44:41.300
a little bit about his business and do a better Justice and
877
00:44:41.300 –> 00:44:41.500
I could
878
00:44:42.400 –> 00:44:45.700
Yeah, happy too. Thank you everybody. So we
879
00:44:45.700 –> 00:44:45.800
are.
880
00:44:47.100 –> 00:44:50.700
in ingredient business, we work with Kua and
881
00:44:50.700 –> 00:44:53.800
a couple of the food and Beauty Brands today the relationship
882
00:44:53.800 –> 00:44:55.500
between us and Inland is
883
00:44:56.500 –> 00:44:59.300
From a very high level we on the supply in the demand and
884
00:44:59.300 –> 00:45:02.600
we process in their facility when they’re not processing Lobster.
885
00:45:02.600 –> 00:45:06.000
So we bring in the Playbook utilizer labor infrastructure and
886
00:45:05.500 –> 00:45:08.000
equipment. We bring any equipment.
887
00:45:12.400 –> 00:45:15.500
But happy to answer any question evidence. Yes.
888
00:45:15.500 –> 00:45:16.700
That was great. Thank you both.
889
00:45:43.100 –> 00:45:44.200
Any other question?
890
00:45:46.200 –> 00:45:50.000
I can ask one question. So I am curious we hear from
891
00:45:50.200 –> 00:45:54.100
a lot of farmers that are looking for different could have Market outlets
892
00:45:53.100 –> 00:45:56.100
and I wonder if you know the
893
00:45:56.100 –> 00:45:59.400
two of you run successful food businesses Mitch. I
894
00:45:59.400 –> 00:46:02.700
know you also are vertically integrated and you and you farm, but I
895
00:46:02.700 –> 00:46:03.800
wonder if you could speak to.
896
00:46:05.300 –> 00:46:09.500
At what point does it make sense for a
897
00:46:08.500 –> 00:46:11.500
in your opinion for a farmer
898
00:46:11.500 –> 00:46:14.600
to go through the process of doing this work to co-pack
899
00:46:14.600 –> 00:46:17.500
a product and sell it themselves and at what point is it
900
00:46:17.500 –> 00:46:20.900
more helpful to partner and work
901
00:46:20.900 –> 00:46:23.200
with someone who’s going to do that marketing work on their own?
902
00:46:30.300 –> 00:46:33.400
I’ll just say that if I knew how hard it was to start and
903
00:46:33.400 –> 00:46:36.500
scale a cpg business. I don’t know if I would
904
00:46:36.500 –> 00:46:39.200
have done it. It’s pretty brutal and margins are
905
00:46:39.200 –> 00:46:42.100
really fit. I mean, it’s a lot of fun. Don’t get me
906
00:46:42.100 –> 00:46:45.300
wrong, but it’s it’s really hard. I think there’s a lot of other ways
907
00:46:45.300 –> 00:46:46.300
in the world to make money.
908
00:46:48.700 –> 00:46:52.500
But I think there’s a awesome Farm nautical Farms
909
00:46:51.500 –> 00:46:54.600
up in up in Maine the
910
00:46:54.600 –> 00:46:57.100
founder Morgan used to work with
911
00:46:57.100 –> 00:47:00.300
us, and I’ve worked with her another company. And anyway, she
912
00:47:00.300 –> 00:47:01.600
and her husband I think.
913
00:47:02.500 –> 00:47:05.700
Do it really well like where they have their own products and
914
00:47:05.700 –> 00:47:08.700
it seems pretty low lift and they’re able to really brand
915
00:47:08.700 –> 00:47:11.900
their farm and this nice way with those products. I
916
00:47:11.900 –> 00:47:14.800
haven’t really caught up with the business, but I followed on
917
00:47:14.800 –> 00:47:17.300
Instagram and I just yeah, I I think if
918
00:47:17.300 –> 00:47:20.300
I had a farm that would be my vibe. I think it’s like
919
00:47:20.300 –> 00:47:23.400
some bath and beauty stuff and it’s it seems lower
920
00:47:23.400 –> 00:47:23.900
lift.
921
00:47:24.500 –> 00:47:27.300
I think like a lot of well, you know
922
00:47:27.300 –> 00:47:28.800
Grass Is Always Greener, but I think
923
00:47:29.900 –> 00:47:32.400
some of the more like easy hits making money in
924
00:47:32.400 –> 00:47:35.400
this industry and Jeremy will probably you know, Jeremy’s fighting
925
00:47:35.400 –> 00:47:38.100
this one, but it’s like selling kelp as an ingredient to other
926
00:47:38.100 –> 00:47:38.300
people.
927
00:47:41.100 –> 00:47:44.400
Versus like making your own products and scaling them. But it
928
00:47:44.400 –> 00:47:47.600
all depends. If you have like a great command relationship and that’s
929
00:47:47.600 –> 00:47:50.600
like half the battle and you can get your command
930
00:47:50.600 –> 00:47:53.300
to be a partner with you and really excited about making it and
931
00:47:53.300 –> 00:47:55.800
scaling it. So
932
00:47:56.700 –> 00:47:58.900
Not really a direct answer there, but just things to consider.
933
00:48:00.100 –> 00:48:00.400
Okay.
934
00:48:02.200 –> 00:48:05.300
Yeah, I I would say it depends on
935
00:48:05.300 –> 00:48:07.500
what you’re kind of goals are if you’re
936
00:48:08.700 –> 00:48:11.800
looking to maybe make a little extra income create
937
00:48:11.800 –> 00:48:15.100
coming up with some products and just
938
00:48:14.100 –> 00:48:18.600
doing kind of like a side hustle. That’s one
939
00:48:18.600 –> 00:48:19.800
thing if you’re looking at
940
00:48:20.800 –> 00:48:23.300
Really pushing in to create like
941
00:48:23.300 –> 00:48:27.200
a cpg brand that you’re trying to get distribution across
942
00:48:26.200 –> 00:48:29.400
the country. It’s a huge lift. I
943
00:48:29.400 –> 00:48:33.200
mean I didn’t come from the Food business either and I
944
00:48:32.200 –> 00:48:35.400
didn’t realize how complicated it
945
00:48:35.400 –> 00:48:38.900
is and also how expensive it is and especially
946
00:48:38.900 –> 00:48:41.600
on the consumer side and it’s gotten a
947
00:48:41.600 –> 00:48:44.900
lot more expensive. So we recently brought
948
00:48:44.900 –> 00:48:47.300
on he’s a former
949
00:48:47.300 –> 00:48:50.300
head of sales at Bob’s Red Mill. He’s currently the chairman
950
00:48:50.300 –> 00:48:53.600
he joined our company and so like he’s got 20 at
951
00:48:53.600 –> 00:48:56.500
27 years at Bob’s Red Mill from the time they were tiny until
952
00:48:56.500 –> 00:48:59.200
you know a year ago when he retired from
953
00:48:59.200 –> 00:49:02.300
them and he has been shocked at how
954
00:49:02.300 –> 00:49:06.000
hard it is or like how much painted
955
00:49:05.100 –> 00:49:09.500
play there is going on. Like when you go into a supermarket go
956
00:49:08.500 –> 00:49:11.700
to supermarket chains or just everybody
957
00:49:11.700 –> 00:49:14.300
is taking big cuts. So
958
00:49:14.300 –> 00:49:17.300
like a margin that used to make sense and
959
00:49:17.300 –> 00:49:20.100
you could probably reach is really hard to do
960
00:49:20.100 –> 00:49:20.400
and
961
00:49:20.700 –> 00:49:23.200
And that’s one other thing I’ll add is
962
00:49:23.200 –> 00:49:26.900
that would you when you’re doing a co-manufactured product?
963
00:49:26.900 –> 00:49:29.500
What we found is it’s you
964
00:49:29.500 –> 00:49:33.500
know, it’s there’s a chicken and egg situation because in
965
00:49:32.500 –> 00:49:35.400
order to get that pricing down you
966
00:49:35.400 –> 00:49:38.300
have to do very large runs, but in the in the interim, you’re
967
00:49:38.300 –> 00:49:42.400
gonna probably lose money on on co-packed products
968
00:49:41.400 –> 00:49:44.300
or make very little money until you
969
00:49:44.300 –> 00:49:47.700
get to some kind of scale. Oh, that’s why
970
00:49:47.700 –> 00:49:50.200
a lot of cpg companies have to
971
00:49:50.200 –> 00:49:54.000
raise a lot of money if they’re really going to go into it because there’s this
972
00:49:53.300 –> 00:49:56.300
like Valley of Death where you have
973
00:49:56.300 –> 00:49:59.100
to climb through to get to the other side and it’s
974
00:49:59.100 –> 00:50:01.900
not easy. It’s it you know, that that’s a struggle.
975
00:50:02.700 –> 00:50:05.200
So anyway, that’s that’s some thoughts
976
00:50:05.200 –> 00:50:05.600
on that.
977
00:50:06.900 –> 00:50:07.700
That’s really helpful.
978
00:50:09.500 –> 00:50:12.200
I’m Derek your question. Has anyone tried
979
00:50:12.200 –> 00:50:15.300
making a burger with only fresh or frozen? Kelp and dried and
980
00:50:15.300 –> 00:50:18.300
if so, was it blanched or washed with sea butter or potable water
981
00:50:18.700 –> 00:50:21.100
Etc. He’s gonna talk about your blanching process
982
00:50:21.100 –> 00:50:21.700
if you can.
983
00:50:22.400 –> 00:50:25.900
We we use fresh. Well, we
984
00:50:25.900 –> 00:50:27.300
use frozen. Kelp that’s been blanched.
985
00:50:32.600 –> 00:50:35.800
And yeah, I know the question came about iodine Sam. Do
986
00:50:35.800 –> 00:50:38.800
you and I’m reference or Grace for that study that you you
987
00:50:38.800 –> 00:50:41.300
point to all the time about iodine and blanching.
988
00:50:42.100 –> 00:50:42.700
Sure.
989
00:50:44.900 –> 00:50:47.400
The study which we will try to find and
990
00:50:47.400 –> 00:50:50.600
drop in did it was
991
00:50:50.600 –> 00:50:53.300
done by some folks in Europe, I believe and they took sugar
992
00:50:53.300 –> 00:50:56.400
kelp and blanched it
993
00:50:56.400 –> 00:50:59.400
in all different times and temperatures of
994
00:50:59.400 –> 00:51:02.500
water and what they found was in all
995
00:51:02.500 –> 00:51:05.800
but the shortest and coolest water
996
00:51:05.800 –> 00:51:08.700
that blanching can pretty
997
00:51:08.700 –> 00:51:12.500
consistently reduce the iodine levels from 100% You
998
00:51:11.500 –> 00:51:14.400
know, if you think of the
999
00:51:14.400 –> 00:51:17.100
fresh raw, kelp is 100% it reduced it
1000
00:51:17.100 –> 00:51:20.600
down to about 12% pretty consistently. So that is
1001
00:51:20.600 –> 00:51:23.800
great news because it you know, iodine does
1002
00:51:23.800 –> 00:51:24.800
not like iodine is
1003
00:51:25.600 –> 00:51:28.300
Awful, like it just it’s too high in
1004
00:51:28.300 –> 00:51:31.500
that concentration and it’s very manageable. Like
1005
00:51:31.500 –> 00:51:34.100
it’s predictably dropping to 12% when you
1006
00:51:34.100 –> 00:51:34.900
blanch it. So
1007
00:51:36.900 –> 00:51:39.400
yeah, it’s just a thing to consider and and to
1008
00:51:39.400 –> 00:51:41.700
be intentional about when making products or sugar help.
1009
00:51:44.600 –> 00:51:45.100
awesome
1010
00:51:46.900 –> 00:51:49.600
Yeah, sorry, I’ll also say
1011
00:51:49.600 –> 00:51:52.400
one thing that I think the room needs to
1012
00:51:52.400 –> 00:51:56.200
to know about and that’s heavy metals in kelp. It’s
1013
00:51:55.200 –> 00:51:58.300
like white elephant.
1014
00:51:58.300 –> 00:52:01.600
I mean we and I’m sure Mitch does label all
1015
00:52:01.600 –> 00:52:04.600
of our products with prop 65 warnings because
1016
00:52:04.600 –> 00:52:05.000
California
1017
00:52:06.200 –> 00:52:10.000
f****** crazy and they sue everybody
1018
00:52:09.500 –> 00:52:12.700
for everything and like kelp is
1019
00:52:12.700 –> 00:52:15.800
just a really amazing absorber of
1020
00:52:15.800 –> 00:52:18.600
vitamins and minerals. And so therefore like also is
1021
00:52:18.600 –> 00:52:21.000
an amazing absorber of heavy metals in the
1022
00:52:21.300 –> 00:52:24.200
water. So you just want to also be
1023
00:52:24.200 –> 00:52:26.900
aware of that in creating your products.
1024
00:52:28.500 –> 00:52:31.700
And that’s one of the reasons that like it’s a good thing that our kelp Burger
1025
00:52:31.700 –> 00:52:34.400
is not 100% kelp and as we
1026
00:52:34.400 –> 00:52:37.100
market products for kids, we’re dropping to help you and more.
1027
00:52:37.100 –> 00:52:40.500
I mean perhaps 65 is totally nuts. But it’s
1028
00:52:40.500 –> 00:52:43.800
yeah, it’s just it’s a good thing that the people
1029
00:52:43.800 –> 00:52:46.100
should be testing regularly for.
1030
00:52:49.300 –> 00:52:52.700
Just a sad reality of the planet and the Industrial Revolution
1031
00:52:52.700 –> 00:52:55.500
and all that. So and I heard there
1032
00:52:55.500 –> 00:52:58.200
was a recent class action lawsuit against
1033
00:52:58.200 –> 00:52:59.100
Kirkland.
1034
00:53:00.400 –> 00:53:03.300
Does the seaweed snacks not coming from not sugar
1035
00:53:03.300 –> 00:53:04.000
kelp but
1036
00:53:04.800 –> 00:53:07.100
Something heavy metal, too. I think
1037
00:53:07.100 –> 00:53:10.400
one or two heavy metals. So it’s not
1038
00:53:10.400 –> 00:53:13.700
just the theoretical risk. It’s a real risk.
1039
00:53:16.700 –> 00:53:19.200
Yeah, and they’re targeting kelp companies right now.
1040
00:53:20.600 –> 00:53:21.300
Like for sure.
1041
00:53:22.300 –> 00:53:25.300
We I mean we went to but the thing is you just need to put this like super scary
1042
00:53:25.300 –> 00:53:28.400
label on your products. It’s just like hey, this causes cancer which like
1043
00:53:28.400 –> 00:53:31.200
everyone wants to see when they buy health food products and then
1044
00:53:31.200 –> 00:53:34.300
you can’t be sued or you can spend
1045
00:53:34.300 –> 00:53:38.300
like tens of thousands of dollars building a case. I
1046
00:53:37.300 –> 00:53:40.500
know I spoke to Atlantic Sea
1047
00:53:40.500 –> 00:53:43.600
Farms about this once and they were like going back to get really old
1048
00:53:43.600 –> 00:53:46.100
samples of kelp to like build this case that kelp is
1049
00:53:46.100 –> 00:53:50.300
always had organic arsenic in it, even before the Industrial Revolution. And
1050
00:53:49.300 –> 00:53:52.600
then there I don’t
1051
00:53:52.600 –> 00:53:55.600
know where they landed with it. But all the old pieces of kelp were
1052
00:53:55.600 –> 00:53:56.300
preserved and Lead
1053
00:53:57.300 –> 00:53:58.900
so they like couldn’t do the studies on them.
1054
00:54:00.600 –> 00:54:03.200
They are let Laden with lead.
1055
00:54:05.300 –> 00:54:08.700
That’s this was a topic Jeremy and
1056
00:54:08.700 –> 00:54:12.700
I spoke a few days ago. And and
1057
00:54:11.700 –> 00:54:14.100
we were one of the
1058
00:54:14.100 –> 00:54:16.700
things that we’re talking about is like need to do it.
1059
00:54:17.400 –> 00:54:18.600
maybe an industry
1060
00:54:19.800 –> 00:54:22.200
study on absorption because that’s another issue is like
1061
00:54:22.200 –> 00:54:25.300
how much actually gets absorbed in in your system when you’re
1062
00:54:25.300 –> 00:54:29.200
eating the heavy metals and they’re some
1063
00:54:28.200 –> 00:54:31.500
more rigorous tests and maybe an industry
1064
00:54:31.500 –> 00:54:34.500
wide thing. Maybe this is something Green Wave could help on as
1065
00:54:34.500 –> 00:54:37.300
well would be really helpful because like everybody knows
1066
00:54:37.300 –> 00:54:40.800
this is an issue, but we’re all kind of looking at
1067
00:54:40.800 –> 00:54:43.800
this individually and this may be also a good Grant opportunity.
1068
00:54:44.800 –> 00:54:47.500
yeah, I would the one thing that I would add is just even
1069
00:54:47.500 –> 00:54:50.100
more broadly to that point Mitch and in terms
1070
00:54:50.100 –> 00:54:53.100
of collaborating with other players in the space is
1071
00:54:54.500 –> 00:54:57.400
I mean, I guess that’s why we’re on the phone right now is to share best practices
1072
00:54:57.400 –> 00:55:00.000
and learn from how everybody else is doing it and there’s so much
1073
00:55:00.200 –> 00:55:03.500
that is not figured out yet that I think that list
1074
00:55:03.500 –> 00:55:07.500
is probably longer than what we do know so much
1075
00:55:07.500 –> 00:55:10.800
to your point. I think collaborating with even between our two
1076
00:55:10.800 –> 00:55:13.700
companies and looking at how can we make the industry better overall
1077
00:55:13.700 –> 00:55:16.900
for products like a Kua and for
1078
00:55:16.900 –> 00:55:19.100
other people that we serve and so I
1079
00:55:19.100 –> 00:55:23.400
would just throw that out there that the more collaborative we are within industry the
1080
00:55:22.400 –> 00:55:25.600
further we will all go. I don’t
1081
00:55:25.600 –> 00:55:28.400
think it’ll cannibalize one company if we
1082
00:55:28.400 –> 00:55:28.700
collaborate.
1083
00:55:31.300 –> 00:55:34.500
I couldn’t agree more seriously, and I think
1084
00:55:34.500 –> 00:55:35.700
there’s been a little bit of like.
1085
00:55:37.600 –> 00:55:40.300
A lack of collaboration. I mean not Green
1086
00:55:40.300 –> 00:55:43.100
Wave you guys have been amazing Clarity but you know
1087
00:55:43.100 –> 00:55:46.100
just other players and there’s so much we need
1088
00:55:46.100 –> 00:55:49.300
to learn and band together on and so I think this was an
1089
00:55:49.300 –> 00:55:52.600
amazing call and first for my
1090
00:55:52.600 –> 00:55:55.100
first experience at this many people in the kelp industry. It’s pretty
1091
00:55:55.100 –> 00:55:55.300
awesome.
1092
00:55:57.300 –> 00:56:00.200
And so Suzanne had a question about thoughts on
1093
00:56:00.200 –> 00:56:03.100
staying local when it comes to co-packing in the local aspect for the
1094
00:56:03.100 –> 00:56:06.300
customer to eat locally produced food. Is that something
1095
00:56:06.300 –> 00:56:09.300
that is feasible or did when you guys looking went
1096
00:56:09.300 –> 00:56:12.700
looking for co-packers? Was it really sort of practically logistically based
1097
00:56:12.700 –> 00:56:13.800
for who could be your demand?
1098
00:56:15.200 –> 00:56:18.300
Yeah, I I think that there’s real advantage to working
1099
00:56:18.300 –> 00:56:22.500
local because you can be on the ground but it’s it
1100
00:56:21.500 –> 00:56:24.400
can be very random in terms of who makes
1101
00:56:24.400 –> 00:56:27.100
what depending on what you want to make like, you know,
1102
00:56:27.100 –> 00:56:30.400
we’re looking at doing sausage links in our current co-packer can’t
1103
00:56:30.400 –> 00:56:33.200
do that. And so oh there’s this guy in Ohio who can
1104
00:56:33.200 –> 00:56:36.800
or oh there’s this guy like outside of you know, Mendocino Valley
1105
00:56:36.800 –> 00:56:39.400
or whatever. It’s just these guys are
1106
00:56:39.400 –> 00:56:42.400
really thinking about co-packers is they’re really
1107
00:56:42.400 –> 00:56:45.900
hard to find they don’t have websites. They are
1108
00:56:45.900 –> 00:56:48.200
all on Android, you know, you can’t
1109
00:56:48.200 –> 00:56:54.100
even text them and it shows up blue. It’s very good. They’re
1110
00:56:51.100 –> 00:56:54.400
on
1111
00:56:54.400 –> 00:56:57.100
actually like their own text message change with each other and they
1112
00:56:57.100 –> 00:57:00.200
know each other and so you can like sometimes get referrals and you have to really
1113
00:57:00.200 –> 00:57:04.200
just peel back layers of operations Consultants to
1114
00:57:03.200 –> 00:57:06.200
really find them. It’s it’s very tricky.
1115
00:57:06.900 –> 00:57:09.300
Hmm Jordan into your
1116
00:57:09.300 –> 00:57:12.600
hand, but quickly when I feel this one maybe to Mitch Meg wanted
1117
00:57:12.600 –> 00:57:15.400
to know our CB dryers able to cross over for other products
1118
00:57:15.400 –> 00:57:17.700
like herbs for co-sharing machinery.
1119
00:57:19.100 –> 00:57:22.400
That’s a good question and one we’ve been looking at. Yes,
1120
00:57:22.400 –> 00:57:25.600
they can and I think especially dryers
1121
00:57:25.600 –> 00:57:28.500
that are drying at not really
1122
00:57:28.500 –> 00:57:31.100
high Heats. I think they have high heat. They
1123
00:57:31.100 –> 00:57:34.400
have a better chance across over. So we’re looking
1124
00:57:34.400 –> 00:57:37.100
at what else can we drive with our dryer? Because
1125
00:57:37.100 –> 00:57:40.200
we don’t want it to just be utilized two months out of the
1126
00:57:40.200 –> 00:57:43.300
year. At first. I thought the Cannabis industry would
1127
00:57:43.300 –> 00:57:46.100
be a good one. But friend who’s in that industry said
1128
00:57:46.100 –> 00:57:49.100
that it’s hard to move take the
1129
00:57:49.100 –> 00:57:52.300
Cannabis off of the premises because of regulatory issues. So
1130
00:57:52.300 –> 00:57:55.000
they we would have to go to them which is not not possible.
1131
00:57:57.200 –> 00:58:00.300
Great. Join. You want to close us out with a final question?
1132
00:58:02.300 –> 00:58:05.000
Sure. Yeah, this is kind of question for anyone on this
1133
00:58:05.300 –> 00:58:09.600
call and one thing that we’ve had a challenge with with our
1134
00:58:09.600 –> 00:58:10.500
wholesale markets.
1135
00:58:11.300 –> 00:58:14.600
Is has anyone been able to successfully with confidence
1136
00:58:14.600 –> 00:58:17.800
remove the allergen risk
1137
00:58:17.800 –> 00:58:21.700
of shellfish or fish contamination from
1138
00:58:20.700 –> 00:58:23.400
dried or blanched or
1139
00:58:23.400 –> 00:58:24.400
just raw frozen?
1140
00:58:25.900 –> 00:58:28.200
Yeah, it’s like a big roadblock for us right now kind of
1141
00:58:28.200 –> 00:58:31.100
reaching potential customers. So just curious if anyone’s.
1142
00:58:31.700 –> 00:58:32.700
Beat It
1143
00:58:34.900 –> 00:58:35.900
that’s really funny and
1144
00:58:36.500 –> 00:58:37.200
I don’t know the answer.
1145
00:58:37.700 –> 00:58:40.100
But definitely have people paying us and be like you need
1146
00:58:40.100 –> 00:58:43.000
to get kosher certified. You need to get kosher certified and I’m like, I
1147
00:58:43.200 –> 00:58:43.900
don’t know if we can.
1148
00:58:45.900 –> 00:58:49.000
I think you can because some companies
1149
00:58:48.000 –> 00:58:49.300
have
1150
00:58:50.100 –> 00:58:53.800
as a shellfish allergen. I’m not
1151
00:58:53.800 –> 00:58:56.000
the food safety person on our team.
1152
00:58:56.300 –> 00:58:56.400
So I
1153
00:58:57.700 –> 00:59:00.600
I may be answering this incorrectly, but I think that
1154
00:59:02.500 –> 00:59:05.800
I don’t think that’s been a big challenge with
1155
00:59:05.800 –> 00:59:08.200
with maybe it’s maybe it’s a buyer to
1156
00:59:08.200 –> 00:59:11.600
buyer. I don’t I think the risk is fairly low. I do
1157
00:59:11.600 –> 00:59:14.000
think that like we have to put that as maybe some kind of
1158
00:59:14.200 –> 00:59:17.200
warning but it’s also depends on
1159
00:59:17.200 –> 00:59:20.600
how like what kind of product it is and how well you call
1160
00:59:20.600 –> 00:59:22.600
- And so if it’s something where
1161
00:59:23.800 –> 00:59:26.600
It’s probably a little bit in Frozen. Kelp going
1162
00:59:26.600 –> 00:59:30.500
to be a little bit more risky than in then in
1163
00:59:30.500 –> 00:59:33.700
dried because like our dried it goes through a lot of hands before
1164
00:59:33.700 –> 00:59:36.500
we actually even Mill it
1165
00:59:36.500 –> 00:59:36.500
so.
1166
00:59:37.300 –> 00:59:40.000
I think it’s a risk would be pretty low to have have some kind of
1167
00:59:40.300 –> 00:59:43.500
big shellfish contamination in there. But it’s a it’s
1168
00:59:43.500 –> 00:59:46.500
always possible. That’s that’s been less of an
1169
00:59:46.500 –> 00:59:50.300
issue than than some other other challenges allergen-wise for
1170
00:59:49.300 –> 00:59:50.500
us.
1171
00:59:54.600 –> 00:59:57.400
Awesome. Thank you guys. We are a
1172
00:59:57.400 –> 01:00:00.900
time. So I do want to be respectful everyone’s afternoon. But thank
1173
01:00:00.900 –> 01:00:03.200
you so much for speakers Courtney Mitch. It
1174
01:00:03.200 –> 01:00:06.700
was really wonderful having you on the call and thanks to those who chimed
1175
01:00:06.700 –> 01:00:10.100
in for discussion really great conversation. Please
1176
01:00:09.100 –> 01:00:12.900
come and join us join us
1177
01:00:12.900 –> 01:00:16.500
next time for the our
1178
01:00:15.500 –> 01:00:18.200
next farmer Forum. We’re going to be talking on March
1179
01:00:18.200 –> 01:00:21.800
9th about the science behind environmental benefits of kelp and
1180
01:00:21.800 –> 01:00:25.100
we will send out and that’s been about that and there
1181
01:00:24.100 –> 01:00:27.500
will be a report an evil that goes out to everyone who was
1182
01:00:27.500 –> 01:00:30.600
on who registered for this call with the recording and then also the resources
1183
01:00:30.600 –> 01:00:32.100
that Sam and Grace mentioned earlier.
1184
01:00:33.700 –> 01:00:35.200
Thanks everyone and have a great day.
1185
01:00:36.100 –> 01:00:37.200
You too. Thank you.