#1 - Kristy Lewis @ Quinn Snacks

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #1 - Kristy Lewis @ Quinn Snacks

Episode Transcript:

Anthony Corsaro - 0:00:17
On this episode we have Kristy Lewis, who is the founder and Chief Visionary officer at Quinn Snacks. Quinn is supporting regenerative agriculture through their various pretzel and popcorn products. And in this episode, we learned more about Quinn's origin story, Kristy's journey as a first time founder and mother of three boys, and how Quinn is creating regenerative supply chains through their important work. Let's go. What's up everybody? Welcome to episode one of The ReGen Brands podcast. Very exciting day for us. We are so pumped to have Kristy from Quinn Snacks here joining us. So welcome Kristy.

Kristy Lewis - 0:01:01
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited and no pressure on me for episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:01:04
One no, no, no pressure at all. And Kristy's been dealing with some, some typical, you know, motherly troubles of being an entrepreneur this morning. But we got through it and we're here to record and we're ready to roll. Well, we're going to cover a couple things today, but you know the the point of this podcast is really to be a source of information for folks that are very interested in regenerative CPG. So we were pumped to to kind of have you to start us off Kristy and really just looking to hear you're kind of urgent story and Quinn Snacks, origin story and kind of the story behind how it all got started.

Kristy Lewis - 0:01:34
Yeah, sure. So I'll start from the beginning and I'll try and do the Cliff notes version, but it's pretty long I think, you know. I grew up in Connecticut, so not like no farms near me, essentially southern Connecticut. And what I remember most is we had this Raspberry Bush outside in my backyard. This is his old house. And my mom, you know, was totally not a foodie, right? I think she could. And she was a great cook. She's going to be listening to this. She could make apple pie, killer apple pie, and roast chicken and vegetables, but.

Kristy Lewis - 0:01:43
Really. I mean we we grew up eating healthy foods, but we definitely had like cheese whiz in our house and all of that, all of that essentials. But in the summer we had this amazing like 100 old Raspberry Bush. And so I would go out and and pick all the raspberries and just like found it so magical I was probably out there for.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:02:32
Hours.

Kristy Lewis - 0:02:33
And, you know, pulling up green onions in our yard. And so I became. Kind of really obsessed with this idea that this pure food is grown in my backyard. Like how awesome is that? But while, you know, at the same time I was eating cheese whiz.

Kyle Krull - 0:02:46
Also, no judgment for childhood food decisions, you know which.

Kristy Lewis - 0:02:49
We've all been there 100%. I remind myself that I reminded myself that yesterday when I I made it not so healthy choice for the boys for dinner, but I I think that, you know, during this time, this was in the 80s I. Really became kind of obsessed with going to my best friend's house and sleeping over there and eating my great popcorn. And so I tie this this snack to very core nostalgic memories. It was one of the best times of my life in that kind of decade, I think. Well, really the mid 80s to the. Mid 90s.

Kyle Krull - 0:03:26
Were you going like Orville's movie theater butter like we need we need specifics here.

Kristy Lewis - 0:03:30
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think this was like pop secret, like total artificial. I mean, everything was artificial.

Kyle Krull - 0:03:35
Back then, essentially I can see it.

Kristy Lewis - 0:03:39
And we would my my best friend's mom, Phoebe would put the popcorn on the fridge and so we would stack like 2 chairs in the middle of the night to get it and. It was kind of crazy, but anyway, I tied that to, you know, watching movies, eating my grey popcorn and sleeping over during the summers at my best friend's house. And it was, it was just a really special time. And so, anyway, Fast forward, I am in New York City, going to school at night, working during the day, really haven't touched my grey popcorn for a while. I wanted to be a journalist, so I was working really hard at that and. Going to the farmers markets in Union Square, right. We couldn't, I couldn't afford anything clearly. So I was just browsing and, you know, taking pictures and talking to the growers and I really started to connect again. You know, I'm in my 20s, I think I was like 21 at the time, really started to connect to these growers on and how are they're growing their food and where are they growing it. And so I kind of became again.

Kristy Lewis - 0:04:19
More obsessed with food, like going to the grocery stores and looking at the boxes and the labels and eating Annie's Mac and cheese. And do you guys put ketchup in your Mac and cheese? We were debating about that last night.

Kyle Krull - 0:04:55
I know.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:04:56
I haven't since I was twelve. I don't.

Kyle Krull - 0:04:57
Think no. I mean there was a time period when there's like hot dogs and Mac and cheese with ketchup. There would be a little bleed over, but never intentional.

Kristy Lewis - 0:05:05
Oh no, this is like full pour like in Mac and cheese, yeah.

Kyle Krull - 0:05:08
That's a different level of dedication, yeah.

Kristy Lewis - 0:05:11
But switching, you know, from Velveeta over to Annie's Mac and cheese. And so there's there was like this moment of time where I kind of made this conscious decision around like being more aware of what I'm putting into my body and what's, you know, existing on the shelves, right. And so I was living in New York. My then boyfriend now has been got a job in South Florida. We picked up, moved down there. I got a job in publishing. And hated it. It was a Palm Beach Illustrated magazine. I don't think anyone's gonna be listening from there, but I hated it is.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:05:43
Is that still in publication?

Kristy Lewis - 0:05:44
It is it.

Kyle Krull - 0:05:45
Is, you know, if you had everything, you wanted to be a journalist, you got your first job in publication. What was so different about that job versus your expectation? You know, you went to school to do this thing, you achieved your goal and then just like did not work.

Kristy Lewis - 0:05:57
Well, this job had nothing to do with writing. I was trying to apply, you know, Miami-Dade, you know, publications and newspapers and all this stuff and wanted to get, you know, my feet in the ground and then, you know, telling stories. Really. I was like, booking ads and also, like, I couldn't work in Excel spreadsheets. So, like, totally messed up. Like, that was nice. So. So it wasn't great, but I came home hating my job and practically in tears and my vice was binging on movies and my great popcorn. But then, you know, I was so like health conscious these days, I decided to open that bag and was appalled by what was in it, like these plastics or chemicals lining the paper. And this was when the PFOAPFC studies started coming out. I think this was like in 2004, maybe. So totally retired my great popcorn, but I started popping it in a bag with just kernels because I had read this article like a couple weeks later that you could put popcorn in a paper bag with staples, which apparently not supposed to do, but it works. Yeah, totally not endorsing.

Kyle Krull - 0:07:08
That on this podcast.

Kristy Lewis - 0:07:10
It was, it was pretty good. But I, you know, I could make this amazing organic popcorn in this paper bag that I bought a Publix and sprinkled, you know, all these seasonings and spices on it. And I felt like if I could do this, then why doesn't it exist like currently at that time. And honestly even when we started Fast forward to 2010, anything in that category, nothing had been innovated. So there's there's a 0 innovation, so very void of innovation. And everything was, you know, there was, there was all this butter flavor, but the butter flavor wasn't real butter. It was artificial flavors. Some had natural flavors, but I just wanted real butter, right? So I felt like there had to be a way. And I kept thinking someone was going to come in and do it for about 8 years because at this point, yeah, this is like crazy, like psychos, you know, obsession here.

Kyle Krull - 0:08:07
Eight years of disappointment every time you go to the grocery store looking for that real popcorn. Just nothing.

Kristy Lewis - 0:08:12
100% cuz like I kept thinking Paul Newman's was gonna come in or, you know, just someone. And at this time we were in Boston. My husband was working at IDEO. I actually loved my job. Then it was harmonics, music systems in Cambridge and. But kept obsessing about this popcorn idea. And so when I was pregnant with Quinn, this is 2009, I got really sick. Actually had to leave my job for a couple months, go home, live with my mom. But all I did was watch the Food Network, which didn't help like my obsession. So after Quinn was born. I was pregnant. I was so sick. I couldn't keep anything down. Like, it was horrible. But I was watching the Food Network. And so before backup, I'm giving you guys way more information. You can edit the graph of this. But the my choice was, you know, when Quinn came was to go to culinary school because I'm such a foodie and I really wanted to be a chef or jump into this crazy idea that I've had for, you know, eight years and so when Quinn was born, three days later.

Kristy Lewis - 0:08:49
I was like 100% in like, after sitting on my ass for three months in bed and watching the Food Network thinking about this idea for eight years, I was 100% ready to go. And so I told, you know, I had three months of maternity leave. And then the month before I was supposed to go back, I called my boss and was like, remember that popcorn idea that I was talking about? I'm starting it. He probably thought I was totally insane. I just talked to him a couple of weeks.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:09:44
Ago.

Kristy Lewis - 0:09:46
Oh, 100% Baby Bjorn headset. And my husband bought me like kind of this headset. Like while he was attached to me, I mean, Quinn was 100% attached to me the entire time. And all I did was talk because I was on on calls trying to figure out, I mean this was so new to me, remember 0 understanding of business. I'm really a horrible finance person. So like, you know, I this was not what I was supposed to be doing. I wanted to go into food or journalism, right? So we were on this wild goose chase. My husband was still at IDEO. He would come home, he's working crazy hours anyway, and then he would come home and we would work. I think he got home at like 7 or 8. We'd have dinner and then work through the night until like two to three in the morning, and then he would go back to work. And then Quinn didn't sleep. He just, he still doesn't sleep. He didn't sleep. So it was the first year was insane because what we were trying to do was clean up my great popcorn, right? I mean, if no one understood that yet, because I went down like 500 rabbit.

Kristy Lewis - 0:10:14
Holes. Trying to clean up my Gray popcorn and trying to take the susceptor that, you know, metal kind of plastic pouch out of the bag. Take out all the the plastic and synthetic and chemical coatings, so just purely use paper. And then trying to find a bag manufacturer who would take that roll of paper and put it into a micro popcorn bag, right like format. And then try and find organic popcorn kernels to go in. In addition to that, we were trying to remove all the flavors from it. So we wanted to do single pouches, so pour over so we could use clean ingredients. But so that was kind of the wild goose chase we were on the first year. I was really in charge of the operation side and my husband was trying to tell the story side from a marketing perspective. He's, he's really good at that.

Kristy Lewis - 0:11:06
And that's kind of what we did for the first year we launched on Kickstarter. We didn't tell anyone we were doing this. We told my mom, I think Coulter's mom, and they, I think they totally thought we were completely insane. But we told them. And then we launched our video culture produced the video. We launched on Kickstarter back in 2000, and I think it was the end of 2011. And at that time Kickstarter had been.

Kristy Lewis - 0:11:34
Just launching. And so it was on the front page of the New York Times, and then Kickstarter happened to feature our video on the front page of their website. And so it was like perfect, lucky divine, I mean, and my. It was crazy. And my friends, you know, at that point started sending emails to me from their friends of friends who were like, isn't this a friend? Isn't this Kristy and Goulter? So that was pretty fun. We ended up getting 750 backers from really all over the world. We couldn't at this point in time. You know, we're such an early startup that we actually needed the money to receive inventory. So we were working with, you know, our paper supplier and our kidder, and we paid 50% down, which essentially maxed out all of our.

Kristy Lewis - 0:12:14
Our credit cards. And at this point, we had $23,000 of savings just gone. So we literally just had no money left. And so the Kickstarter campaign really helped us get to that next step, which is, you know, launching into Whole Foods. And that's a whole other story. I'll stop there so you guys can gear toward where you want to steer me where you want.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:13:09
To go.

Kristy Lewis - 0:13:11
He's my husband, yeah. And he left the business in 2016 and by the way, never a good idea to launch business with your husband. It's really intense and and have three boys like in the middle of that, but he actually, he was so critical to the business. I had, you know, a partner in crime and we were working on this together in 2016. You know, the food industry has really always been my passion. He's an engineer. He graduated from Cornell with an Emmy and Super just massively creative on the product innovation side. So he in 2016 started a company out of our garage, we started the queen out of our attic in Boston and then we moved to Boulder in 2013 just to give you guys some background and. Our boys were, I can't remember how old they were, but our little guy was probably a year old, two years old when he started Sunday, which is a D to C sustainable on care system. So cleaning up your backyard. Yeah, it's, it's super cool. You guys should totally talk to you about working on.

Kyle Krull - 0:14:16
I'm really curious. I'm working on my backyard right now. What exactly do they do?

Anthony Corsaro - 0:14:19
Love that.

Kristy Lewis - 0:14:20
So Google get Sunday.

Kyle Krull - 0:14:23
Get Sunday.

Kristy Lewis - 0:14:24
I think I have, I think I have that website right right but but Google get Sunday and it's essentially they will you know deliver a soil. I'm I'm going to batch this whole thing, so I hope he doesn't listen to this, but they deliver like a you, they essentially send you kind of a collection to collect soil. So they do soil testing and to analyze kind of what your backyard needs and what it can grow. And then they understand the regions that you're in, but essentially they cater something to you and for your yard. So it's essentially anything under 6000 square feet. So if you have like a gigantic yard, this is totally not for you. But it's amazing. I mean, our yard, it's like velvet. I'm very like dandelions, like, you know, I don't like anything in our yard, but it's super, super safe for people, you know, planet pets, like everything. It's 100% amazing.

Kristy Lewis - 0:15:01
And it really makes a difference, so you should definitely check it out.

Kyle Krull - 0:15:22
Yeah, OK.

Kristy Lewis - 0:15:23
That was like the worst in folk commercial.

Kyle Krull - 0:15:25
That's good. We'll definitely check it out. We get the key thing is what's a Google? So we'll we'll get there.

Kristy Lewis - 0:15:30
Yeah, get sunday.com.

Kyle Krull - 0:15:32
Thanks for sharing so much of the origin story. That was really interesting to listen to. And I'm curious, you we've talked a lot about popcorn and I know that there's been some innovation since popcorn. So tell me about, you know, how you started looking at some other categories and why you decided to venture outside of the popcorn space?

Kristy Lewis - 0:15:47
Yeah. So all why we decided to venture outside of the popcorn, a couple of reasons. I mean going into microwave popcorn, it's about an $800 million category and most of that is happening in the conventional market, right. So the conventional channels and at this time we were really focused on Whole Foods and building you know our brand with the natural consumer. We've had a lot of great traction and target and Kroger and some of the the largest ones, but the idea was you know. Well, first, the turns are really low. So like 2/2 units for store per week just in general. And I never wanted to be a microwave popcorn company. I learned that right when we started because, you know, in the middle of 2011. I remember this so vividly because I was trying to find organic popcorn and we couldn't find it. And I want to know who was growing it, where it was coming from because I was so pissed about the lack of transparency and.

Kristy Lewis - 0:16:15
The supply chain especially like if I couldn't find out where it was coming from, you know, the consumers clearly didn't know where I was coming from. And I as a consumer wanted to know where my food was being grown and how it was grown. So, right, we went on this wild goose chase and I finally found Dave Vetter at Grain Place. And my first, he just like changed, really changed my life, changed the company's trajectory. And he started the one comment he made, I think in 2012 where we were having severe droughts in the corn kind of. Was collapsing, if you guys remember that. And I was totally freaking out, right? I mean, we were doing like $30,000 in revenue at that point, but like, every corn kernel mattered. But she's like, well, you can't. You can't change and challenge Mother Nature. And I was like, wait, tell me more about this, Dave. So we started talking.

Kristy Lewis - 0:17:11
Really about a lot of his practices. I mean clearly organic, but using a lot of regenerative agriculture practices. And at that time that term was not used right. It was it.

Kyle Krull - 0:17:40
Was really just.

Kristy Lewis - 0:17:41
100% farming, really kind of the way that nature intended, right? And that's kind of what I was trying to do with microwave popcorn was. Wait a minute. All we needed was a paper bag and corn kernels to produce the food, the clean food, a healthier option, right? And he and his family had been trying to farm differently since the 1950s, which is like a whole other story, which I would love to talk about. But it was, it was one of those moments game changers when I went to visit his farm in 2013. And it's just like you drive out and corn. Just belts of corn, right? Like the entire time.

Kristy Lewis - 0:17:50
And for me from remember, I'm from Connecticut, so I'm like this is amazing. And then you get to Dave's, you get to green Place and it's this Oasis like truly beaming with life. You have like butterflies and wildlife and everything. And he was clearly doing something differently, right? His, his neighbors were growing conventional, he was doing organic. But they weren't just organic, you know, they were implementing regenerative agricultural practices. So essentially.

Kristy Lewis - 0:18:17
I realized that at that time I didn't want to just be my great popcorn. I wanted to challenge our industry to to do better, challenge ourselves to do better, and really lean into these practices that I was witnessing Dave do on his farm. So in 2016, we made a decision to go into pretzels. It was this whole idea around we wanted to be the first whole grain glutenfree pretzel made with sorghum. Clearly a sustainable crop lake uses less water. It's it's just an amazing ingredient. So we drove into there and then 2019 we launched our glutenfree peanut butter filled Nuggets, which essentially saved the business and put us on a totally different trajectory. So it's I'm giving you guys super fast Cliff notes version, but that's kind of, you know, the evolution of Quinn.

Kyle Krull - 0:19:37
I just want to pause at the peanut butter. For anybody who hasn't tried them, they are addicting. Like the the most dangerous road trip snack I think I've ever had. Because there's no way when you open a bag you cannot stop.

Kristy Lewis - 0:19:50
I know so.

Kyle Krull - 0:19:50
Before you get to the end, this is not possible.

Kristy Lewis - 0:19:52
It's pretty bad. It's good, though, because, I mean, it's healthy fat, little bit of protein, carb, salt. I mean, it does like hit that bill. We're launching 2 new flavors this January. I think. You guys going to like them, I'll send you some as we get closer. And then we also, we launched a vegan cheese flavor. When did that come out in January? It's at Whole Foods. It's kind of like our version on a combo, but it's vegan. But.

Kyle Krull - 0:20:19
People yeah, well, I've actually tried it before. My girlfriend's vegan and they bought some for her and she dusted a bag.

Kristy Lewis - 0:20:24
She likes it. We're amping up that flavor profile a little bit.

Kyle Krull - 0:20:29
Um, it took her like two or three to really like, OK, I do like this. The first ones like, I'm not sure. It was like, I think. And then it was like, yes.

Kristy Lewis - 0:20:35
Well, what I totally get it. I mean, you know, the issue is we don't use natural flavors at all. I'm like fully against natural flavors and really one of the only companies that are putting a kibosh on that I think a lot of. Especially in salty snacks, when you're trying to create flavor profiles, it's really hard not to use natural flavors. But we're using extracts and just, you know, that base formula is really nutritional yeast and lentils.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:21:01
What are like some common ones that people do use Kristy just for the audience? Like I'm curious about that.

Kristy Lewis - 0:21:06
Oh, for the natural flavors. Well, you know, the the most amazing thing about natural flavors is that if you go to the grocery store today or tomorrow, turn over a box or a bag in any flavorful product, right. So sometimes companies will use like vanilla extract, which is the extract from vanilla and that's great. Like extracts are really good, but usually the natural flavors are just like, no one knows what they are, they're just natural flavors. So they could be a blend of, you know, vanilla or lemon or. You know, any, really anything, it depends on the company, depends on their source. And the unfortunate thing is, sometimes when you're using extracts, you have to list natural flavors, which is in my mind, total bullshit. Because the companies who really care, even though the extracts might need to be, you know, natural flavors, they could really be extracts. So it's it's, it's totally confusing for the consumer. But just our stances. If we can't say what it is on the bag, we won't use it.

Kyle Krull - 0:22:06
Yeah. You know, a quick another note on natural flavors, I used to work for a broker and we were representing Newman's Own organics at the time. And they had just launched these Raspberry peanut butter cups, essentially dark chocolate with the Raspberry filling, not peanut butter, but same format and they had natural flavors in there and the sales rip at the time was teaching us about natural flavors. And how frequently for Raspberry and vanilla natural flavors, they're actually derived from Beaver gland secretion, which I have no idea how that's even economically feasible, but just just. Yeah. So it's like a catch all term, which could include who knows what, similar to like fragrance, right and. So Kristy, just want to call that on really just respect the fact that you're very anti natural flavor because I agree like catch all terms reduce transparency. It's confusing for consumers and for those who really want to understand where their food is coming from. It's impossible when you use a term like that.

Kristy Lewis - 0:22:59
100% it's horrible and we're all about and I'm such like a purist. So like truly the back to basics essence of quind is really just it needs to be food. And of course you know we have to use some xanthan gum and some of our gluten free products, but it's like. You know we'll do every single thing not to do it right. We'll go, we'll just keep R&D and testing and testing and testing until we have to do it to do the product. But the natural flavors thing is like absolutely not like it's in our no list, we're not using it right, but yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:23:30
OK. It's like progress over perfection though, right? And you know?

Kristy Lewis - 0:23:33
100%.

Kyle Krull - 0:23:34
So we talked about sorghum and transferring into that category and you mentioned that sorghum is a grain that's grown differently. I believe you said it was Dave Vetter, was that the farmer for that? And so I'm curious, you know, how does how does sorghum kind of segue into the regenerative momentum that Quinn is kind of like pushing forward? You know I'm assuming that was sort of the gateway crop, if you will towards regenerative, is that correct?

Kristy Lewis - 0:23:59
Yeah, no. Well, popcorn really was, because Dave put that in like on the map for us to really understand, like why his popcorn was better and different outside of just, you know, being organic. But then we were trying to find something that was more kind of like really tolerant to drought. And that was back in 2015 when we were looking at ingredients to launch pretzels. And so at this point, I was actually working with the Land Institute in Kansas in 2015, trying to understand more of the perennial. And things that they were going like kernza, except were gluten free. So we couldn't use kernza and rye.

Kyle Krull - 0:24:43
Real quick, I just this is really important to touch on. I just want to reiterate this point that as a CPG brand you were looking to source grains that were drought resistant. For what reason on your part you just didn't want to contribute to something, what was the impetus that?

Kristy Lewis - 0:24:58
Yeah, I mean. The impetus was really just we need to do better as a company, right. And knowing what we knew back then, I mean we're talking 2015 and it's now, you know, 2022. So there is like a very, I feel like we, I feel like I've just lived 3 decades the last but, but I will say it was. More around this understanding of I saw an image and it's one. I feel like everyone seen this image but it was back in 2015 Ish where? I forget who it was, but it was a grower. And he was, he was standing in this trench and it was the the roots of a grain, right. What?

Kyle Krull - 0:25:40
Which?

Kristy Lewis - 0:25:40
Is that it's like.

Kyle Krull - 0:25:43
6 foot like.

Kristy Lewis - 0:25:45
Yes, totally. And really again just like concerned about the usage of water and what we're doing to our planet and then combined with Dave, you know, I just felt like everything was pointing to this kind of more in like again CPG company. I was so focused on AG. At the time, because I felt like why do what we're doing without doing it the right way and and doing it for the greater good, right? Like it's just why I was getting up in the morning. It wasn't to build a CPG company based on my Gray popcorn and pretzels. It was to change the industry in the way that we think about it. So it was really just more.

Kyle Krull - 0:26:21
So really like the. The CPG company was sort of the vessel for.

Kristy Lewis - 0:26:24
Change. Really.

Kyle Krull - 0:26:26
Changing the agricultural practices, you need to come up with a way for business to suit you, know that.

Kristy Lewis - 0:26:30
Cost 100%. So spending all this time you know you know, talking to the Land Institute, learning more. I just found this excel sheet actually that made no sense to me when I just read it. But it was more about you know like what grains are what we should be looking at and who's doing it and the growers and you you know you have like gay brown at this point and and all the the ones back in 2015 and then what really happened. It was. We didn't put a pause on it. It was just we were drowning in growth, in raising capital, trying to find our voice. You know, we had this farm to bag transparency policy that we launched in 2013. But and we were the only ones doing it right. So like at Expo W, you'd have, you know, General Mills and Plum Organics and Mondelez all coming up and saying how are you doing this farm to bag transparency policy? And I was like.

Kristy Lewis - 0:26:52
It's all about transparency. Like even even if you're even if you're not proud of what you were doing and there were plenty things that we were sourcing that we weren't proud of. It was about being transparent, right. So but that never, I couldn't really leave it at that. I felt like we needed to do more as a business and then clearly all things were pointing to, you know, how do we? Really take 99% of agriculture and push it in the right direction because you know less than 1% is organic. And that's really where we as as Quinn want to focus and that led to our be better, do better initiative which is really focused on you know how do we get our growers to farm more regeneratively. If they want to start with converting their their land from conventional to regenerative, if they want to keep going and do Roc, great. But that's not what we're about. We're just trying to have more impact on you know.

Kristy Lewis - 0:27:40
You know land than we are getting to the Roc seal again we definitely believe in organic, we definitely believe in Roc, but we believe that if you have 99% of conventional agriculture and most growers are implementing one or two regenerative Act practices they just need education and the tools to move in a different direction and they also need companies to purchase from them, right. Like we will pay more if they if they implement more of the pillars. So that's. That's really kind of what we do here every day.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:28:44
Yeah. I feel like you have a really nuanced take on how your brand has supported regen and we need more brand supporting regen 1 and we need more nuance in the conversation because it's not always super black and white and binary, which sometimes we try to make it that way all the time and it's just not. So can you share more just about kind of how, how Quinn has supported regen over the years you were kind of going into that? And how are you supporting now in the product set and with the farmers and just operationally, how does all that work?

Kristy Lewis - 0:29:08
Sure. So the biggest thing for me. Me and especially is is being a mom and and have 3 little boys. The pesticide thing drives me bonkers. And I think that was one of the reasons why we well not one of. I mean there's like a gazillion reasons why we got into my great popcorn. But one of the reasons I pushed really hard for organic popcorn back in 2010 was I did not want anything in that product. I wanted to be completely pure and.

Kristy Lewis - 0:29:10
What I realized was that you have this over time, right, not in 2010, but over time we have this major divide between conventional and organic, major divide for consumers in the market like on the shelves, like it's, it's really causing I think massive harm. And so the pesticide thing for me was that. Part of the regenerative AG piece was the biggest thing. When we talk to growers, we talk about can you guys start to get the synthetics and the fertilizers and the inputs out of the system. But what was interesting was, as you know, you dug into regenerative agriculture practices is you can't do that until the soil is healthy. So then the idea was okay, how do we get the soil healthy? I mean it's kind of like taking over the egg. But for us the goal is to get pesticides out of the system. And so you know we're talking to growers on and and some growers have different ways of thinking about it, but usually it's like, you know, we have to build the the organisms like we have to build that soil back up.

Kristy Lewis - 0:30:25
And then overtime they can reduce and eliminate the pesticides and then the synthetics. And so that's our major cool Anthony you're laughing with.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:30:57
I'm like smiling because I'm thinking of Steve Tucker so many, so many great thoughts and opinions on this. And he's also just one of the most like, interesting and fun farmers out there. So that's why I'm.

Kristy Lewis - 0:31:07
So he's so funny. We we talked about this when we were there shooting our video and he pulled out this. I'm sorry, I'm like completely losing my voice, but hold on.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:31:17
You're fine.

Kyle Krull - 0:31:18
It's all good.

Kristy Lewis - 0:31:19
Like a raspy singer at this point.

Kyle Krull - 0:31:21
Yeah. How many cigarettes do you smoke this morning before this interview?

Kristy Lewis - 0:31:24
Like 10 I smoked way too many, but during camp drop off and losing my charger like 10. Wait, how old?

Anthony Corsaro - 0:31:33
Are the three boys now?

Kristy Lewis - 0:31:34
They're older. I mean they're 11/8 and six.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:31:38
God bless you for.

Kyle Krull - 0:31:39
Doing with that.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:31:40
On your.

Kristy Lewis - 0:31:41
Pussy. This honestly is easy. You should have seen me like 3 years ago. I was a hot mess. It's totally insane. But I so Steve, sorry. I wanted to talk about Steve because we had the same conversation was you know, he's clearly growing our sorghum and we've been trying to get his sorghum and our pretzels for 2 1/2 years now. So it's. It's massively long. And I say this because you know as CPG companies you just have to be really patient. It's it's really that the longterm, not shortterm goals, building partnerships and you know, relationships and honestly like having these growers become your family, that is the end goal. So you just have to be really patient. But I remember we were filming our be better, do better video and he pulls out this like amazing pink purple seed. And I was like, Oh my God, is that again Connecticut or over here? Wow. Is that really what sorghum looks like? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, really, it's pink. It's so beautiful. And he's like, oh, well, that's coated seed. And I was like, wait a minute, hold on. I thought you were doing untreated stuff. And he was like, well, they ran out, so we had to get coated. But what I find interesting is I guess, and I, I don't know this for sure, so don't quote me on this, but.

Kristy Lewis - 0:32:30
I think there's treated and untreated. So the untreated is organic and the treated is conventional, which I find kind of fascinating. I had no idea. But you know, clearly the next season, you know, we're we're getting untreated but there. There is a back to your, you mentioned this Anthony earlier was progress versus perfection. We were making so much progress. We're not fucking perfect at all. Like clearly like we're learning as we go half the time. But there was so much progress that he had made over what like the times that he's been. He's 3000 acres and he took a stance on.

Kristy Lewis - 0:33:13
Turning that into regenerative, which is amazing. I mean, Steve's just totally a visionary. He's like totally the man we should call him. Actually, he would love this. He would be totally all over it. But so that's something that, you know, just bits. And every year we'll learn something differently, okay, next year we don't want treated seed, you know, next year, are you going to take out 80% of your pesticides right the following year, are you eliminating it? Maybe you.

Kristy Lewis - 0:33:38
You, you decrease the amount of tillage that you're doing one year and then the next year and the next year maybe you have to do tilling depending on the region you're in. But it's it's all about looking at, we're trying to meet the grower where they're at. So understanding where they're at and where they want to go longterm. And then how does Quinn fit in? We're also getting into more like how do we use the land fully. So it's not just you know, taking sorghum, but it's okay, we're going to take sorghum and sunflower and lentils and barbanzo beans on the same land.

Kristy Lewis - 0:34:08
That's what we're really excited about. And then some ingredients like we're totally struggling with like tapioca starch, like we have 0 visibility into that, which drives us crazy. And so as we innovate into other product lines, our stance is right out of the gate, you know, we're going to choose not to do tapioca starch. We're going to choose not to do the the commodities that we can't get any information from and then we don't have any impact. On so that stuff coming from overseas, we're really just focused on domestic supply and we have been, it's just some of that you know when you're doing a grain free chip you have to get cassava somewhere and you really can't get it in you know Kansas so.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:35:19
Important thing to touch on there. I love those because I eat pretty Paleo and that's usually what I grab the Whole Foods when I want to support your brand. And their fire. But we're gonna have an I think we're gonna have a continuum of people listening to this podcast that know a lot about food and CPG and know like very little, right. And so I think it's important to touch on like. What you're doing is so not the normal path in CPG like these are still manufactured goods. So a lot of times we're doing product formulation, you're going to a koman, you're going to a manufacturer, you're looking at their ingredient list and you're formulating based on what they have that they buy from these big ingredient suppliers. So what you're doing is such a massive undertaking and just kudos to you for for doing that, but I think it's important to to.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:35:37
Draw that contrast for the audience that maybe doesn't understand and that's why it is so challenging sometimes, right, because we have to get the comments to stock these ingredients. We have to get them to have consistent supply at the ingredient places to fulfill their demand. And so I just think that's important to touch on as well.

Kristy Lewis - 0:36:12
No, 100%. And I think also the the message there is that we're also in a way trying to change the way manufacturers produce as well. So you know they're buying you know millions and millions of pounds of sunflower oil and the other day I just heard that they were. Actually sourcing it from our grower, which was great, but not great given the sunflower issue. So it was kind of a double fold. But I will say that's what we want in the end, right? We want them to make that that change because they're pumping out, you know, just. Trillions of dollars worth of product, if you think about it. And so if they can change the supply chain, we're such an itty bitty portion of the entire CPG world, right? But creating case studies and talking about it will hopefully allow other people to say, OK, I can choose two ingredients, let's start there. Maybe next year it's three, maybe next year it's four and five. But it is, it's much harder. We have to do a ton of R&D trials.

Kristy Lewis - 0:36:45
You know, the gluten free shell that we launched what in 2019 is still a pain that has to run. So we're we're always tweaking that. But it's been it hasn't. It has not been easy. We are choosing the most difficult path. But it's my choice, right? Like, why do this if you if it's if you if you can't make or create that?

Kyle Krull - 0:37:31
Greater there's a few things I want to circle back on, which allude to a lot of the conversation we just had about choosing a difficult path, progress over perfection. You mentioned how every season you'll learn something new and incorporate that into your CPG offerings. And I'm curious, you know, as a brand retail person. How difficult is it to try to, on a package, convey what you're doing at the agricultural level to the consumer in the retail space? Like how do you do that?

Kristy Lewis - 0:38:00
It has been really challenging. I feel like we've gotten our message wrong a bunch of times because we don't want to create confusion. And I'm. I hate certifications. I think, you know, I can't even pick a shot too out. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 0:38:13
Right. So what's? Why? Why?

Kristy Lewis - 0:38:16
Do you feel the way you feel about?

Kyle Krull - 0:38:18
The certification space.

Kristy Lewis - 0:38:21
Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 0:38:21
Consumers I'm going to get.

Kristy Lewis - 0:38:23
So much hate meal for.

Kyle Krull - 0:38:24
This, but I'll stop interrupting.

Kristy Lewis - 0:38:25
No. OK. So as I clearly I do a lot of shopping and I go towards organic because again it goes back to the pesticides thing. Organic meat for me means elimination of pesticides and synthetics. And I know that, you know, some stuff is used, but clearly it's generally healthier for my kids, right. There's a lot of conventional product, not a lot, but like the pure, you know, conventional product. That can also, you know, have less pesticides and synthetics and they're not getting any of the benefit, right, because they're not going through the certification process. Like, you hear this about dairy farms and in the Northwest, like a lot of them are practically organic, but they're still getting paid the commodity price and it's still a great product, but they're not taking the extra time to go through certifications because it's costly. It's time consuming. Everyone's drowning, right? And so I feel like again we've created this just divide and so and and certification overload I mean holy shit like you have I mean we don't have to talk about certifications but you know non-GMO, non-GMO and then on GMO project verified and then you have two other verifications and then gfco and all.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:39:35
1.

Kristy Lewis - 0:39:35
100%. So we at Quinn, we're not getting any of that certified like even our we're coming out with a new product in. I don't even know what month this is. June, we're coming out September with a climate friendly popcorn kernels. So we're super excited about it. It's been like three years in the making, but we have a box of kernels. It's conventional corn I hate, I like shudder when I say that, but it's conventional corn and we launched that years ago. We haven't been able to change it and so we're coming out with the climate friendly. He's pretty much implementing all regenerative AG practices on his land. We can get it certified, but we're choosing not to.

Kristy Lewis - 0:40:05
Because again, it's we don't want it to create confusion. We want people to buy based on, you know, taste appeal. It's climate friendly. We support family farms. And then when they turn it over, we talk about some of the Regenerative Act practices. But it's just so overloaded, like when you're running through the grocery store. I mean, especially when you're with three kids who are like grabbing Doritos and Cheetos and you're like, no, you can't buy that. I'm trying to Quinn's like, wait, why can't we have this? I'm like for the.

Kristy Lewis - 0:40:17
Like the 50 thousandth time like you cannot buy this. We're trying to clean up the whole snacking category, Quinn.

Kyle Krull - 0:40:53
I mean, really should be your name's not on the bag, so you can't buy it, right? It's that simple.

Kristy Lewis - 0:40:58
11 year old going into 7th grade like they just want hot Cheetos. So frustrating.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:41:02
What's the Kroger division in Denver Boulder I forget the name of?

Kristy Lewis - 0:41:05
The King Soopers.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:41:07
Yeah, I can just picture Quinn just like rolling down the aisle cart, just slapping things.

Kristy Lewis - 0:41:11
Well, you know what's so amazing is we don't, we don't shop there. We're I do like massive Costco runs and and whole I'm like clearly a Whole Foods supporter but, but The funny thing about that is we'll be driving to Whole Foods in my middle guy Nash. He's like, why are we going to Whole Foods again? I'm like, what do you mean? We go here every week. He's like, can we just be normal like everyone else and shot that King Soopers. I'm like, no Nash. Yeah. I'm like, why Nash? She's like, cuz I want Gatorade and I want Cheetos. I'm like, well, there's organic Gatorade and Whole Foods. There's totally not. I thought there was, but there was. It's not one. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 0:41:46
Anyways, there was one there.

Kristy Lewis - 0:41:47
Was there I right? I kind of feel like there was. But yeah. So it's definitely a struggle in my household. Sorry, we totally. I don't even know where we started where.

Kyle Krull - 0:41:56
We're talking about the the challenge of generative messaging and certifications of retail.

Kristy Lewis - 0:42:03
Yeah, for sure. Our other thing is, personally, I mean, I think that it took about 30 years for organic really to resonate with consumers. If you think about it, I mean, the vetters were starting in the 50s. Everyone thought they were crazy. Yeah, it's like the most amazing story. I'll send you a little blurb that I wrote on it, but you should.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:42:23
Everyone should watch that movie.

Kristy Lewis - 0:42:24
100% well the I'd send my e-mail link. My brain doesn't work. It's. The better, the better worlds.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:42:35
I'm doing a link on.

Kristy Lewis - 0:42:38
This, it's incredible. We should put it like a link in the podcast if you can because it's, it's amazing. But they started you know, in the 50s and then in the 70s and I think 78 it became kind of this like you know, I believe it was 78, the certification came out. But if you think about between 1978 and then where we are now, I mean again. Organics less than 1% from an AG perspective. I know that that's not clearly accurate cuz you have to divide the food sector out of it, but but still.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:43:07
Like 6 or 10%, it's like 10.

Kristy Lewis - 0:43:10
Percent or less. So what we don't want to do is we don't want to cause or create more confusion. I think that organic, conventional, regenerative Roc, I mean, again, as a consumer, it's like I just want to buy something that's healthier for my kids and that I know that I'm doing good. So Quinn, that's, you know, kind of where we stand. But it's it's definitely very hard to communicate. We're trying to figure out a way to communicate where we're not overloading the consumer, but when we're also telling them, hey, this is this is better or, you know, we're not fully organic, but we're doing all this stuff in the back end. But it is is 100% challenging. I'm not gonna lie. Well, we're like spinning our heads here every day.

Kyle Krull - 0:43:52
Well, especially because organic is to to Anthony's organic is a binary certification. You're either doing these practices or you're not. Whereas regenerative it's like you know you're implementing all these different principles. The outcomes may vary. It's far more nuanced and complicated to try to explain to to an everyday consumer as I do. Anytime I talk to anybody I'm sure everybody here is the same way. I can't stop talking about regenerative but it's tough it's it's.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:44:19
It's OK to also say everyone in this Riverside room supports all those certifications and hopes that they all do well and we support the aspirations of them. But we also understand, like there is nuance and there's still need for improvement, but we understand what they're all trying to accomplish and like we're all for that and. When you look at just the pure data of CBG selling, it's, it's still a lagging value add for the consumer. You know they're still going to, they're still going to purchase off taste and other things that are more important.

Kristy Lewis - 0:44:45
Than right. Especially with the economy right now. And so I and I totally 100% like everyone. The positive intent is to do good right with all those certifications, but it it is just it's so overwhelming and confusing, especially now. So I think it's been really challenging and then you add you know price into that which clearly we're taking a hit on but hopefully you know it will wash out at some point. But but no it it's it's really difficult but you just got to you got to pick one or two ingredients and start there and keep going and progress versus perfection. I mean there's so many different ways that you could farm regeneratively and we're really focused on our biggest focus is nutrient dense product, right. So human health, soil health. Plan in health, that's the biggest thing for us. And it always has been. Even when I had no idea what the hell I was talking about, I was like, but it has to be better if you don't put pesticides in the ground. Like it just has to. And everyone's like really. But it, the studies are coming out now that it is showing that it is, it's a better, it's a better ingredient, right. And so that's what we're focused on. We're focused on.

Kristy Lewis - 0:45:31
You know making sure that we lean into those drought resistant crops, I mean clearly we have an issue on our hands now and going forward and then food security is a big one for us. So yield is, is really important, but that's kind of you know what we're doing.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:46:13
Kristy, just to give the audience like a barometer of where you're at like commercially, number of doors, roundabout like revenue, fundraising history, can you cover that just for us like Cliff notes version?

Kristy Lewis - 0:46:23
Yeah, sure. So fundraising history, I always think it's interesting because everyone always has a different path. And so I preface like our path has not been the easiest. We started out again maxing all of our credit cards out, took a family and friends round, which was like $150,000. At one point, right after the Kickstarter money came in, Whole Foods issued like a $30,000 PO to us. We had no money to make it, so then they gave us the local loan of $25,000 to make it, which was awesome. That was back in 2012, and then we pretty much much maxed out all that, and we then raised about $1,000,000 from friends of Friends of Family. And then we went into our first like series and we took that in with Boulder Food Group, led that ECHO Capital and I'm, I think I'm missing one someone else. And then we've we raised more money with them. We brought in some other angels, we took some capital from some other conglomerate companies which I will not name here.

Kristy Lewis - 0:47:09
And some others. But we've raised a good chunk of change for sure. It, it definitely hasn't been easy. We're not properly yet. We're on track to break even next year and we're really excited about that. I think manufacturing partners is critical, especially when you're innovating in that space, you're not just kind of you're redoing something entirely different. So there's a lot of training there. You get hosed on margin. That hasn't been fun.

Kristy Lewis - 0:47:35
And we took in money last year a a big for us like really big from new road Capital Partners. They have been awesome, really great to work with and we've you know built a really fantastic board. John Forkers on our board, Michelle Meyer from General Mills, Ben clearly from BFG, Ben Fenton. And Hunt Killow who helped build 1 bar and Justin's. So we have this really amazing board that.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:48:32
It has it.

Kristy Lewis - 0:48:33
Has been hard like it's it took a long time to put them together and you know we'll we'll probably need some more working capital just to bridge us to get to that break even point which we'll probably get into in August or. Or September, but I swear to God, I've been raising. It's funny, when you start a business, you're like, oh, I'm just starting business. Like, you become like a master fundraiser. And not everyone is good at that. Like, I sucked at it. I think I still suck at it, but it's really it's not. You're you're selling yourself for money, and that's really hard. You're trying to get money into the business.

Kristy Lewis - 0:48:46
I need.

Kyle Krull - 0:49:09
To give you some credit, because I mean it was 2012 when you started.

Kristy Lewis - 0:49:13
2.

Kyle Krull - 0:49:14
1010 years.

Kristy Lewis - 0:49:15
2011, Yeah, it's coming. Quinn's turning 12 in August, so will be 12 September, I think. Our, I think I did LegalZoom September 13th. So that's our official date. Yeah, 12 years.

Kyle Krull - 0:49:31
Awesome. So what's what's I mean you we just mentioned you spent 12 years which is insane. What is the next 12 years look like from what's on the horizon? What are you hoping to achieve in terms of either you know, channel distribution, you know, new products from a regenerative perspective, anything what, what is Quinn excited about in the future?

Kristy Lewis - 0:49:47
Yeah so we I feel like the the 1st 12 years I want to say that was my like MBA and and also making like every mistake in the book and also not doing 100%. And really just trying to do too much. Like there's clearly we have so many ambitions and so many goals of what we want to do here and it was really hard, but I feel like we're now, knock on wood, we hired. Our new CEO, Mike, he started in January. He came from white wave and Farmer brothers and you know, very classically trained CPG mindset, which I clearly am not. And so I feel like the idea for that was he could really operate and execute on the strategy. And so the next couple years, I mean my goal is to really dive into everything I'm passionate about and that's really in the space, you know, talk about what we were doing.

Kristy Lewis - 0:50:15
Hopefully that will translate to larger and smaller CPG companies to take a stance on their supply chain. So having more conversations, building more case studies and just focused on innovation. And I love productive and clearly cooking. Although last night's choice wasn't is like Mac. Actually, I don't even think I've made dinner. My sister made the Mac and cheese.

Kristy Lewis - 0:50:44
2.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:51:08
Yeah, 2 two questions. Kristy, can you talk?

Kristy Lewis - 0:51:09
About Oh yes. So I am chief visionary officer, which is kind of crazy that I can. That's my job. I mean, if you think about that for me, it's just kind of surreal in a way. And chairwoman of the board, which we're still trying to figure out what that means, but because I'm like first foremost founder, right? Like I think of myself really only as a founder and then. The visionary piece is really just what I love doing is trying to think big and how we get from here to there over the next couple of years and also then how the industry gets from here to there over the next hundred, 200 years. Because it's, it's right now. I mean this is clearly the moment where we we have to make some hard decisions. We hope to get more into policy as well. That's a big thing for me. I remember the year one I called, I was on the phone with the FDA for like.

Kristy Lewis - 0:51:35
Hours totally about sodium.

Kyle Krull - 0:52:08
Who wants to take the call?

Kristy Lewis - 0:52:09
100%. And, you know, for hours and hours. And John Forker called to check in and I was like, I was just on the phone with the FDA trying to figure out the sodium thing. It's a total crock of shit. And he was like, Kristy, you're never gonna be able to get everything done, focus on building the business. And he was 100% right, but now I'm like, OK, back at it. So that's what we hope to do. But yeah, there's a lot of opportunity in front of us.

Kyle Krull - 0:52:38
Awesome, yeah?

Anthony Corsaro - 0:52:39
So you hit us with a perfect segue and this is gonna be our final question that we're gonna ask everybody that comes on the podcast. And it's really. What needs to happen for region to have 50% market share by 2050, right, because we talked about some of those numbers like we're not anywhere near that when you look at region organic. So what needs to happen for region to have 50% market share by 20?

Kristy Lewis - 0:53:01
OK. Well, that's a big question. And the way that I think about it is, again, when we talk to companies like in Boulder and in really everywhere, everyone wants to know how do we do this? Right. And it's so daunting and overwhelming for everybody, especially those who have been in the business, those who are coming in the business really kind of like the the sub $200 million brands, right. That is it's challenging for them because they're just trying to build these businesses. And my advice has always been to them is literally go through your product lines and take the five largest commodity items. So for us it's. Sorghum, sunflower oil, popcorn, brown rice flour and potato starch. And so over the next five years, we're going to convert all of those crops to regenerative AG and that's, you know, a lot of your supply chain. And so, you know, if that's overwhelming, which yes, to some that sounds overwhelming for me. I'm like, but wait, we have so many more things we got to get done. We would just advise just picking one.

Kristy Lewis - 0:53:40
And just getting that done, right. So if your largest commodity is oats, how do you do that? And that's not going to be the first year, it's not gonna be the second year, it's not gonna be the third year. It's the first year. Building partnerships, relationships, planting in the ground, maybe you have a drought, maybe it's crop failure. Maybe you don't get to use that crop like Steve's like sorghum that we haven't put in our pretzels yet. And then the next year is, is learning, implementing more, more pillars. But I think you just have to think.

Kristy Lewis - 0:54:04
You kind of have to like dissect it and just pick one and then you'll get to do it and you'll realize, oh, that wasn't that complicated and then you'll pick another one and then another one and another one exactly. I think that really is where we, we, how we get there honestly because I I think just it's so if you pick, if you're a tiny company with very limited resources and limited cash, it's really hard to take. Those people and put them in that role. I mean, we just hired Grace Dennis, our sustainability and sourcing manager. We hired her last year and I had been trying to get someone in that role because I was doing it for forever and we finally were able to to make it happen and and I swear to God, it's like. Seriously, she's such a game changer because she can focus on that now. And so you know if you have to get an intern to focus on it, we're trying to initiate our or reinitiate our band of brands. So band of brands at Quinn is if you're interested in in sourcing any of our top five commodity items for your, you know, your product or your company like.

Kristy Lewis - 0:55:18
And together with us, we have more force if we come together and have really more leverage and we have greater acres. So that's kind of what we're we're trying to do. Again, we tried to do this right before COVID and clearly that didn't work, everyone was like.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:55:57
Who? Who are you targeting for that? I have some ideas.

Kristy Lewis - 0:56:00
Oh, for brands, yeah. So we have, we're working with seven Sundays on a pilot for sunflower oil. They're actually taking the flour and we're taking the oil. So it's kind of like an upcycled sun sunflower project. We, you know we've spoken to a bunch of companies. I don't want to throw them out here because I I feel like that's a breach of confidentiality like NDA. But anyone who's interested in any of the ingredients that we just mentioned like 100% hit us up because again we we love sharing our supply chain, especially if you're going to. Put this into your product and that's how we make change. It's like, OK, well 300 acres then becomes 1000, then becomes 5000, then becomes 100,000. So that's kind of what we're focused on. But going back to your original question, I really do think it's just that little itty bitty change that you can you can make.

Kyle Krull - 0:56:55
One commodity at a time, yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:56:58
Love that. Perfect way to end. Perfect way to wrap. Love it. So cool. So great to have you on, Kristy. It's awesome to hear more about your journey. And you know, Quinn's doing amazing things. And we're looking forward to having this conversation 12 years from now and hear about the more amazing things that we're done. Yeah. Thanks.

Kristy Lewis - 0:57:12
So much for having me you guys. This was awesome. Really appreciate it. Hope I did a good job on episode one.

Kyle Krull - 0:57:18
Definitely honored to have one inspiring story, for sure.

Kristy Lewis - 0:57:22
Awesome. Thanks.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:57:24
Thanks, Kristy. For show notes and more information on our guests and what we discussed on the show, check out our website regen-brands.com that is regen-brands.com. You can also check out our YouTube channel, Regen Brands Podcast for all of our episodes with both video and audio. The best way to support our work is to give us a 5 star rating on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe to future episodes. Thanks so much for tuning into the Regen Brands Podcast brought to you by the region coalition and Outlaw Ventures.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:57:29
We hope you learned something new in this episode and it empowers you to use your voice, your time, and your dollars to help us build a better and more legitimate food system. Love you, guys.