#31 - Jordan Rubin @ Ancient Nutrition

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #31 - Saving The World With Supplements - (RECAP LINK)

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with AI and is not 100% accurate.

Kyle Krull - 0:00:16
Welcome to The ReGen Brands Podcast. This is a place for consumers, operators, and investors to learn about the consumer brands supporting regenerative agriculture and how they're changing the world. This is your host, Kyle, joined by my cohost, AC. Who is going to take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:00:33
On this episode we have Jordan Rubin, who is a cofounder and the CEO at Ancient Nutrition. Ancient Nutrition is supporting regenerative agriculture with its regenerative organic certified farms in Missouri and Tennessee and their various superfood supplement products. Their mission is to save the world with Superfoods. In this episode we learn about Jordan's personal health journey and his experiences as a two time founder in the natural and organic supplement space. We take a deep dive into the countless regenerative initiatives that Ancient Nutrition is pioneering both on their farms and in their products. And we talk about all the hot button topics like certifications, retailer adoption and scaling regenerative brands. Jordan's energy is infectious and is passionate about their work and regenerative agriculture at large left me super fired up to continue our work. We're excited to share this episode with you all. Let's dive in.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:01:00
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the regen brands Podcast. Super excited today to have Jordan Rubin of Ancient Nutrition joining us. So welcome, Jordan.

Jordan Rubin - 0:01:38
It's great to be here, gentlemen.

Kyle Krull - 0:01:40
We're stoked to have it, man. I've seen these nutrition around for a while. I I'm really looking forward to hearing the origin story. I also didn't know until Climate Day at Expo W that you guys were really supporting regen, so that was news to me. Super awesome. And we're looking forward to learning more. But before we do, for the other consumers who are not super familiar with the brand, give us the lay of the land. What does ancient nutrition make it? Where can people find you today?

Jordan Rubin - 0:02:04
Ancient nutrition manufacturers, dietary supplements and functional foods, we're Omni channel, so we're available at Ancient Nutrition Comm. We're available at retail stores primarily natural and specialty, several thousand health practitioners offices and Amazon.com and other marketplace purveyors.

Kyle Krull - 0:02:24
And then from a retail perspective, is that MULO, is that natural? Is that across the board like distribution everywhere?

Jordan Rubin - 0:02:29
Yeah, we're primarily natural. We sell, we, we love Whole Foods, Sprouts, Natural Grocers, Fresh Thyme and then we're a little bit crossover Publix, HEB, Wegmans, but we're really, I'll say. Particular about where our products are sold. We go by the adage go where you're celebrated not tolerated. So we've not made the big jump to Mulo but we're sort of picking our spots like a running back that's waiting for a hole to open. It's the best way to destroy. I don't want to, I don't want to land on the left tackles rear end.

Kyle Krull - 0:03:03
No butts here. You're Barry Sanders just scrambling in the backfield, waiting for that opportunity. You know you can scramble for a while. That's great.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:03:10
Jordan, Jordan's going football on me within first two minutes of the pod, so he knows how to speak my language. I love it. I use the multi collagen protein in my coffee each morning chocolate. So that's my that's my product recommendation for our listeners. Awesome. But Jordan, this isn't your first foray into CPG or the natural products industry. So, you know, give us a little bit about your background and how ancient nutrition got started.

Jordan Rubin - 0:03:35
OK this. I'm going to go way back because I've been doing this for 26 years now, which is shocking even to me. So I started a company called Garden of Life, which is the leading brand of dietary supplements in retail. I started it after overcoming multiple incurable illnesses. Crohn's disease and 18 other illnesses caused me to be at 104 pounds in a wheelchair. Deathly ill if someone wants to check out. I haven't before photo You can go to Google Images, type in my name. Now I will warn you, there are two Jordan Rubins. There's the science fiction horror film writer that my kids call the bad Jordan Rubin. And then there's me, who his kids call the weird Jordan Rubin. So like you'll but you'll see a photograph of my me, and my worst.

Jordan Rubin - 0:04:00
Condition where I asked my mom to take my picture and I'm so blessed that I did because I I can't describe to you guys what it was like being trapped in a prison that was my own body. Sick for two years. It's like a 24 hour virus for 24 months or food poisoning for two years. I didn't sleep. I wasted away, was in a wheelchair and tried conventional medicine which failed. Alternative medicine failed. Ultimately met a man who taught me how to eat.

Jordan Rubin - 0:04:24
Like the Bible, history, and science, I ended up writing a book about it called The Maker's Diet. And because I was introduced to a particular type of probiotic, I ended up starting a company called Garden of Life. And I wrote about my journey in books such as Patient, Heal Thyself and The Maker's Diet. I have a new book called The Probiotic Diet that just launched. Excited about that. And then.

Jordan Rubin - 0:04:51
During a course of time at Garden of Life, we were growing. It was amazing. But I had this epiphany. I was in a 45 foot tour bus, the kind that rock stars are in traveling America, promoting a book, filming ATV show and speaking at every health food store, church bookstore I could find. And I was riding somewhere between Nebraska and Iowa.

Jordan Rubin - 0:05:15
And kind of all windmills and green it was in May, so you can see some of the crops growing. And I remember looking and seeing green plants and I thought, wow, that's a beautiful field. And as I rolled closer, I saw mono crop, genetically modified corn and soy. And I said this isn't beautiful, this is my grandchildren's stolen future. And immediately from there I made a commitment or I should say a recommitment.

Jordan Rubin - 0:05:41
That I'm going to be part of the solution. I'm going to become a farmer. Now I I left out the fact that during the time I was getting well, which was in California, I was relying on foods that were illegal. Now today we talk about lots of things people are consuming that are illegal, but this was raw milk and raw carrot juice and grass fed meat. And so I would have to buy these from the health food stores in California and they were often gone because.

Jordan Rubin - 0:06:07
The medical milk board was always trying to get rid of raw milk, and so I go with my little cooler. I would lived in a motorhome at the time with no generator, and I if I didn't get my raw keefer and my raw cream, I didn't think I was going to be healthy that next day. And so I was so passionate about these foods and I knew that they were helping me. And I said one day I'm going to grow and raise the world's healthiest foods because. I was relying on these and I saw the handwriting on the wall that our food freedom was going to be an issue. And I wanted this for me, my family, and hopefully to share with others by the by that at that time I didn't have a penny to my name. I was basically two years out of Commission. But I knew that there were others like me, and if I would be blessed to get well, then I would spend the rest of my life helping others overcome disease or better yet, avoid it.

Jordan Rubin - 0:07:02
So I only got you up to Garden of Life and so, So in 2008 I said I was going to be a farmer. In 2009 I sold Garden of Life, bought my first farms, stayed on for a few more years, launched a food and beverage company which we can talk about If you want to talk about how to staple $10 bills to every bottle of product you sell. Maybe that could be for another podcast. And then I. Sat out a little bit of time which you know how that goes when you sell a company. But in 2016 I had another health challenge and I I've asked God to not be a Guinea pig for my companies that I start. I want to learn from someone else's experience. My goal. So I had a major knee injury and it was I wasn't able to walk. I couldn't put any weight on my right foot for almost 3 months. And this is how I discovered a way to get a powerful superfood called bone broth.

Jordan Rubin - 0:07:59
In people's lives in a powder form creating the first bone broth protein and a subcategory of protein. That was in 2016. I launched Ancient Nutrition along with my friend in protege, Dr. Josh Axe, who would become a very successful, I'll say health influencer, Blogger, etcetera and Ancient Nutrition. Was in the marketplace in May of 2016 and you'll love this part because I I know what you what you 2 like by listening to all 29 of your current published pockets more as this will air probably 30. But we had the concept for bone broth protein in February and we hit the shelves at the end of May. It was the fastest previous product launch and we immediately literally in weeks became the number 2 selling protein powder.

Jordan Rubin - 0:08:52
In health food stores, It was an awesome journey and it's spawned ancient nutrition, which now stands for so much more than bone broth, protein and collagen and probiotics. I'm wearing my ranch shirt here, Regenerative agriculture, nutrition, climate, health. Our mission is to save the world with super foods, and we're doing it with the utmost transparency and integrity. And it's it's a passion of ours to heal the planet, feed the world and eradicate disease.

Kyle Krull - 0:09:50
Wow, there's a lot.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:09:51
Where's the brick wall for me to run through? I'm ready. Let's.

Jordan Rubin - 0:09:54
Go, man. Let's.

Kyle Krull - 0:09:55
Go The first thing I have to mention for most of our listeners, I think, listen, they don't watch these podcasts and picturing you today that the version of you that I'm seeing at 104 pounds is like my brain's having a hard time comprehending that. So for those who are only listening and you can just hear Jordan's voice, like you can probably tell he doesn't sound like he's 104 pounds and he certainly isn't today. I'm not going to try to guess your weight, but I. Throw, You know, a bit more on there.

Jordan Rubin - 0:10:22
Yeah, 185 I went. I've been this same weight since I was 16, other than going to 104 for two years. So yeah, it's pretty radical.

Kyle Krull - 0:10:32
Crazy. So that's incredible. We appreciate you sharing your health journey. As you already know, there are so many people who are in the regenerative space in the founder space who have started with their own health issues, and I both have our own stories that are similar had our health issues that brought us to understanding the power of food. So appreciate that share. I don't even know where we want to go from here. A/C, I'm gonna give it to you man. There's a lot to to touch on. So your call, man.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:10:58
Yeah, yeah. No, I love it, Jordan, one thing that I think is interesting is we're seeing this proliferation of influencer brands, right, where influencers are playing a key role. So my, my mind really wants to learn about why you decided to partner with Dr. Axe and how that's been and how that's been helpful and just like kind of the story there.

Jordan Rubin - 0:11:17
That's a great question. So when? We started ancient nutrition. I had a team of people, some of which were holdovers from Garden of Life and a team that I was really familiar with and we knew retail, we knew manufacturing and formulation supply chain. But building a direct to consumer business was not something we had experience and we sold to iherb and obviously Amazon and some of the others thrive etcetera, but that. Expertise and specialties, social media, marketing, etcetera was not something that we were excellent in and Josh had just become an amazing sort of. Pioneer in that space. He was a big fish in a small pond. I mean, just to be very specific, they were getting a 12 to one row as on Facebook advertising and just selling 20 to $50,000 worth of product on a single Facebook Live. So I was back when that was worth doing. So we looked and said imagine if we could take a retail experience team.

Jordan Rubin - 0:11:59
Especially natural, that's really our primary, our bread and butter so to speak, sprouted iron cornbread that is with manufacturing expertise and supply chain and combine it with a young sort of millennial driven social media advertising blog. YouTube channel and it was, it was awesome. And so I said, Josh, we're going to do YouTube Lives or Facebook Lives every day if you're doing 20 to $50,000 in sales, which we did. We moved our team to Franklin, TN, where his team was located. And in January of 2017, we officially kicked off the ancient nutrition that we know today, which was.

Jordan Rubin - 0:12:43
A merger or really more of an acquisition of Ancient Nutrition in the Doctor Axe company and so we're in our 7th year. It's been a amazing journey and we have been able to really leverage our direct to consumer platform which is now extended to television, which has been my background. So we have a very large contingent of our business which you would call infomercial long form advertising on television, direct response we've got. A powerful database. We still do social media advertising although we pick our spots and our row ads is not 12 to one, more like sometimes .12 to one. But we are really what we like to describe ourselves as the most fully scaled Omni channel multi category dietary supplement company and we are.

Jordan Rubin - 0:13:33
Focused on saving the world with superfoods, and that's a double enten, as you probably guessed.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:14:04
Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 0:14:07
Still a lot going back. There's one other thing I forgot to call out earlier. As you know, I work for Ketlin Fire bone broth. I don't know if you know the origin story of Ketlin Fire, but it also started with the knee injury. So interesting parallel there, that knee injury seemed to be bringing bone broth to the market in different categories. So just got to touch on that. And the power of bone broth is a healing, no nutritional powerhouse. Absolutely. One of the other things I wanted to touch on, you mentioned your transformative drive between Iowa and Nebraska and looking at those monochrot fields and realizing like, hey, like this is sealing the future of our children, right? When did regenerative agriculture pop up on your radar? How did it pop up on your radar? You know, was that part of your health journey? Was that a different time? What was your indoctrination into the movement?

Jordan Rubin - 0:14:52
That is a great and multilayered question, Kyle. So every every answer I'm going to have is, is going to be a lot to unpack. So let's just get that on the table right now. So if you go back in my history, my dad was a hippie in New York, smart hippie, because he was going to become a medical doctor and he was very antiestablishment. And so he was reading a magazine called Prevention Magazine, which was a health magazine at the time by Rodale, and he learned about naturopathic medicine. And he ended up going from New York NYU. Instead of having a research fellowship, he was practically disowned by his family because he went to Wichita, KS, where the National College of Naturopathic Medicine started in 1973. It moved outside of Portland, and in 1975 I was the first child born to four naturopathic students. My dad was in the first class of what is now National University. John Bastier of Bastier University was his classmate and and went on to become a chiropractor because on the East Coast naturopathy was not legal and so he has a connection to a rodale story. My dad also was an avid gardener, as was my grandfather, but in terms of my regenerative farming roots, I didn't grow anything as a child. I didn't have a green thumb, a green pinky. I was a sort of concrete jungle suburbanite.

Jordan Rubin - 0:15:49
Who ate health foods? Begrudgingly, That my dad made me because they all tasted like crap and he made me eat carob and told me it was as good as chocolate. That's the first health food lie you hear with your parents and the school lunch. Don't even ask. Like it was an absolute horrifying experience every day because it back then, food was awful today.

Kyle Krull - 0:16:38
Health food is like the coolest.

Jordan Rubin - 0:16:39
And the greatest, and I mean like Alex Ice cream and Alexander Dairy. And I mean, come on, you know, it's like.

Kyle Krull - 0:16:45
As a kid, you like trying to feel crazy. Were you stealing snacks from your friends? Like going to your friends houses trying to find like you know something that you?

Jordan Rubin - 0:16:52
100% The problem is I couldn't trade anything in my lunch because it was untraving.

Kyle Krull - 0:16:58
Right. What was you craved the most as growing up in like a super healthy house, which is the opposite of the house I grew up in. What was like the the guiltiest, the best thing that you could get like as a kid? What were you going for?

Jordan Rubin - 0:17:09
Well, when I went, you know I'm thinking about it right now. When I went to this one friend's house, he had Pepperidge Farm cookies with like. Jelly in the middle or at school. You're talking about now and laters. I'm a little older I think than you guys but you know Laffy Taffys and you know it was eat healthy and at the home. But then I didn't own it. Now I will say this about my kids. A shout out you could not give them junk food. They used to go to Expo W They didn't want to go to Disneyland. They wanted to go to the show floor. They were young and cute back then. They tell them but they would turn down samples if something wasn't pasture raised, if something wasn't sprouted.

Jordan Rubin - 0:17:15
I was really proud of them, but it was embarrassing for the vendors who are like try my ice cream. You have non fat dry milk powder there and I don't think it's grass fed or organic. So they own it, which is so much better than me. I was just sort of begrudgingly dragged along. But today we're raising an army of kids who live the life, which is super, super exciting. Yeah, So I know I was in sort of getting into a different sort of tangent there, but I.

Jordan Rubin - 0:17:45
When I started getting well, I knew that the food that I was eating, the raw dairy. I knew that the raw carrot juice and some of these other ingredients, grass fed meat, pastures, poultry was coming from somewhere that was different. If not, why would it be illegal or why would it be only available in certain states? And so I began to visit farms. And then I began to partner with farms when I wrote my maker's diet book.

Jordan Rubin - 0:18:13
I sent a copy to 1500 Grass Farmers, everyone I could find on eatwild.com or Real Milk com and I offered them a case of books to give away free to promote their businesses because I knew how hard being a local farm was. And I went on my tour in 2008 and I visited dozens of farms across the board from Amish farms that. Wanted to do it right, but didn't have the resources to organic farms that had the resources but wouldn't go all the way. And so that's when I learned about regenerative farming it. It really wasn't called that then, but I called it beyond organic farming. And so we began to do that in 2009 when I started purchasing property. And really since then I have been engaged in regenerative agriculture. In fact, Blake and Stephanie Alexander partnered with us.

Jordan Rubin - 0:19:05
And I taught them about a 2 dairy because I was changing my entire herd to A2. They weren't at the time. And I I'm so proud of what they're doing. I anyone I that's that consumes dairy other than you know they believe in raw dairy the way I do but it's not practical to get it out there to the world. But.

Jordan Rubin - 0:19:34
What they've done is just absolutely amazing. So I ran across people like Blake and Stephanie in 2010, and we had all these great people come alongside us or advise us. And we developed a system over time that we now incorporate, which we believe will unequivocally prove that we can regenerate lands and ecosystems while producing the world's healthiest ingredients in a way that's never been done before to the tune of. Adding one inch of topsoil a year, 500 years like it takes according to Science in Nature. So we are Rodale is our research partner. We have Rodale scientists on our farms. We have farms in Tennessee and Missouri and we are a year and nine days into this 14 year research study. And I will tell you guys, you got to come do a remote from one of our two farms. We have orchards.

Jordan Rubin - 0:20:21
We raise exotic livestock like water Buffalo and yak. We have cows, go sheep, chickens, ducks and turkeys. We're doing research into pet nutrition, human nutrition, organs, the whole shebang. So we're we're omnivorous Omni channel on a mission and taking no prisoners when it comes to creating the highest standards on the planet.

Kyle Krull - 0:21:14
Oh yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:21:15
I love it. Let's let's dive a little deeper there Jordan. So you have you have the the multiple farm properties I believe they are Roc or in the process of being Roc. Not all that product is sold through the ancient nutrition label, some is breakdown for us which which route there and then just tell us more about kind of. How the farming stuff has come together and and my goals for the future of it and how it's all tying.

Jordan Rubin - 0:21:38
Together, absolutely. So we have two farms that ancient nutrition operates, but in Full disclosure, they are owned by myself and and Josh. So we there's separate entities and you guys can understand that we have institutional investors in ancient nutrition and they often like to be capital light. So they're, they're all about the brand, I'm all about the assets. So I'm totally fine with that. So our Tennessee farms 133 acres, interesting note, it started as an organic hemp genetics farm. So that's how we started it in 19. But at the end of the year that year I said you know what, there's way too much hemp and not enough consumers who can use it and legislation is not and regulations are not catching up, retailers are not on board.

Jordan Rubin - 0:21:56
We need to pivot and so we turn Tennessee into the center of regenerative agriculture. I planted 133 varieties of tropical plants, perennials in the greenhouses that we were growing our hemp seed for, for CBD genetics. And so we pivoted there, but that's in our area and that's the ancient nutrition headquarters. My Missouri Farms, just about 4000 acres since 2009 has been practicing regenerative farming and we have very similar. Soil building studies going on in both. So the Tennessee farm is the first regenerative organic certified farm in Tennessee #47 in the world. Our Missouri farm is the first regenerative organic certified farm in Missouri, number 79 in the world. And we are all about it. Listen, because I've listened to all your podcasts, I know that people preach progress over perfection.

Jordan Rubin - 0:22:54
I also know that many small farmers say that they're beyond organic, but yet they're not organic. They say their paperwork away from it. I say that's a A/B S excuse. I don't know how else to say it. I think we need to go all the way and find a standard that can transform soil, animals and people's lives. And so obviously Anthony, that's how we met, but we're all in on rock. We believe in organic, we believe in non-GMO.

Jordan Rubin - 0:23:20
We entertain and work with every regenerative cert that comes along so that we either get involved or we learn about it. We're also on our Tennessee farm. We're a onboarding Savory Institute hub, so we work with the Ecological Outcomes Verified Program land to market. We're not trying to be NASCAR with all of our certs, but if there's a meaningful organization that has set a great bar, we want to work with them. And substantiate what we're doing because we're we put all our chips onto the regenerative organic certified table. Now that doesn't mean every product we have is rock. You mentioned our multi collagen protein Anthony, but even that product we use an upcycled ingredient as our main ingredient and we take all the byproduct from this eggshell membrane collagen that's almost £500,000 and we use it as soil amendments on our farm. So everything.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:24:44
We do.

Jordan Rubin - 0:24:45
Even if it's not, Rock has a regenerative story and we dedicate 1% of our revenue to this ranch project. So pretty much one bottle sold as one tree planted on our farms, not in Zimbabwe, not with you know, the the Arbor Day Foundation. Nothing wrong with that. But we're not donating, we're dedicating and we're doing the work and I think that's that's important.

Kyle Krull - 0:25:11
We do hear a lot of challenges about transitioning to regenerative and developing regenerative supply chains from a lot of our brands. So I'm not trying to say that you're making it sound easy, but I'm wondering what your process was like and #1 getting these farmlands Roc certified and #2 is some of the challenges you're facing from the brand side and incorporating those ingredients into your product offerings. And then three from a demand and you know utilization threshold perspective. Is there enough to have like identity preserved rock ingredients for your entire portfolio or are you having to? I don't want to say compromise, but split hairs. Combine different source ingredients to meet your minimums just to sell your product.

Jordan Rubin - 0:25:52
Yeah, these are great questions and I want to make sure you guys get the up to date. Best answers, even if I've never shared this before. So I'm I'm kind of an open book. So my farm teams, and I've got two of them for the two farms they they said that rock was 10 times harder than certified organic. Now granted we were on land that had not used pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, even in our Missouri farm back in 2008, there was a small deer plot that was about 3 acres, but everything was. Fairly certifiable other than some treated wood beams and you know, there's different different things that you have to do. But regenerative organic certified is not just a certification, it's a verification and you've got to constantly improve through measured outcomes, which is what I love. And on top of it, as I mentioned, we're part of the Savory Institute EOV program, so we've got those teams involved. So Roc was difficult. There's not a great supply chain.

Jordan Rubin - 0:26:27
That being said, we established our own supply chain and we we've been blessed to have key retailers come to visit our farms, Whole Foods Sprouts, Vitamin Shop, Fresh Thyme, HEB, Natural Grocers is coming in the fall. So we're we're we're inviting everybody who can come because we want to show them how to take a seed, do a supplement. I didn't mention this, but in Missouri we have a full scale dietary supplement manufacturing facility on the farm. That is.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:27:24
Regenerate and.

Jordan Rubin - 0:27:24
Certified. So it's literally seed to supplement and we're actually creating an entire ingredient supply out of food waste that we pick up from 20 locations, including sprouts, farmers markets, which I thought was kind of this mushy, nasty goop. It's actually whole jackfruits, whole, whole passion fruits and pomegranates. And of course our birds. We feed our chickens, ducks and turkeys exclusively food waste. They're eating crab legs, lobster, steak, and then they're also eating 100 plants. So we've made 50,000 eggs to vulnerable populations and they're the world's healthiest eggs. They just don't know it. So anyway, back to the question. So these retailers would come and they would say, Jordan, it's amazing you have these farms, but when are you going to have products that contain ingredients that you grow and when are you going to be regenerative organic?

Jordan Rubin - 0:27:51
On the label and my answer was, I don't know, like we planted trees, mostly perennials, it takes time to get crops. And #2, the rock standards are not really created for supplements, let's be honest. I mean they're there's they're for single ingredient foods, dried mango, right. Like that's a candidate. So.

Jordan Rubin - 0:28:20
I would say that over the last year we have worked diligently with ROA and I have to give Elizabeth and Paul a major shout out now we've put our lot in with them but they have been amazing and we in partnership recently certified the first standards for medicinal mushrooms. So now and we grow mushrooms on our farm to 17 medicinal mushrooms. So we are introducing the first rock mushroom ingredients and. We are in the process as of September and this is drum roll please. The first ever full regenerative organic certified certified organic non-GMO supplement line in capsules coming to stores in September. 95% of the ingredients are growing on our farms.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:29:30
How many skews? How many?

Jordan Rubin - 0:29:32
Skews. Well, depends on who you ask, so I formulated to 50. But my retail team is wanting 12 which I get it and so Brian and Hank, you know you got your way, but we're what we're looking at is we're going to have relationships that are unique with retailers. So that one retailer may have some exclusive skews and another one may as well. So right now as we speak we launched a pilot 16 skews with sprouts that is made with rock. Certified organic non-GMO and they've done an awesome job. They came to the table early, but we're going to launch this globally and advance now to fully rock, which has never been done. And and I will be honest with you guys, the retail interest is huge. We kind of joke and say when we present this to retailers, which we're just starting to do, if they say no, what are they really saying? Like we don't care about the planet. I mean let's face it, they're offered vitamin C from genetically modified.

Jordan Rubin - 0:30:05
Corn processing people think they're juicing carrots to get beta carotene and it comes from petroleum. So how do they not do this? But the question will be and you'll you will ask at the end, how do we get consumers to value regenerative organic certified above the commodity crap that sits next to it?

Kyle Krull - 0:30:57
You segue nicely into what exactly I want to ask you and you know I'm curious have has your team done any sort of studies around this new Roc supplement line that says like from a nutrient density perspective or a bioavailability perspective of these nutrients like is there a significant difference between rock and or non rock certified or non rock skews right. So if you're doing rock certified vitamin C, can you quantitatively prove that it is more potent, more bioavailable than the alternative?

Jordan Rubin - 0:31:25
You know what, it's a great question Kyle. The answer is no because it's too new. We're we're not even in our year one data on our own farm, but we will, we're going to have all of that right around the next six weeks. So we measure, we do thousands of soil tests, plant leaf nutrition, fruit nutrition, animal nutrition. So we will have that data of how our values increase. But we can't say unequivocally that someone else's XYZ that's organic or non organic differs from regenerative organic. But here's what I'll say. Observationally, we're seeing fruit come on plants significantly faster. Here's an example which is amazing. We planted guava seeds from fruit I bought from the store. Now here I am, a kid from the suburbs, and I'm thinking, where do I get all these seeds? And a horticulture expert said, you know Jordan.

Jordan Rubin - 0:31:49
You could buy fruit and plant the seeds. I'm like, Oh my gosh, wait a minute, I can't. That's better than paying $1.50 a seed of jackfruit. So we're seeing we saw guava fruit in 16 months instead of 6 to 8 years. You you guys are going to love this. I planted, I bought 2 papayas at a health food store. I planted approximately 500 seeds because papayas have about two hundred 250 seeds.

Jordan Rubin - 0:32:17
We have already, in two years, harvested 3 generations of papayas and replanted the seeds.

Kyle Krull - 0:32:51
That is insane, and you attribute that to the soil health.

Jordan Rubin - 0:32:54
That's a big part of it. Insect pressures better and and lower. So we're just, I wish I could give you all the answers. What I do know is that we're seeing extraordinary things. We're planting in guilds, so we don't have and and by the way we don't grow papayas outdoors. This is indoors but because of rock standards. They're they have the roots have to be in the soil. So we have permanent greenhouses and we have about 15 tropical plants all together. So we've got cacao next to Noni, next to Acai, next to turmeric and so.

Kyle Krull - 0:33:28
All in the United States.

Jordan Rubin - 0:33:29
All in Tennessee and.

Kyle Krull - 0:33:30
Missouri associate with like being imported, but you're growing them.

Jordan Rubin - 0:33:36
Yes. And then we have outdoor plants we grow. About 50 varieties, 31 perennials that are more native to our area and I call these America's forgotten superfood. So for example, pawpaw Persimmon, aronia, which we know about. Now Pawpaw's like the most amazing tropical North American fruit on the planet. Thomas Jefferson's favorite fruit and no one I talked to has ever had one. So, so we get really excited about all this and we're doing let me just.

Jordan Rubin - 0:33:39
Paint the picture. So seven years of soil building using seven species of animals. Then we have seven years of planting our regenerative food forest. And then as the years go by, we bring animals back into the Rose. And that's our 14 year theory that we can create the world's healthiest soil right here in North America then is anywhere in any rainforest you can think of while.

Jordan Rubin - 0:34:08
Drawing down carbon and producing abundant ingredients for foods and supplements and beverages.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:34:48
Jordan, I want you to touch on something for the audience, the the how integral the animal impact is right and how how we have to have animals in these systems for them to be regenerative, for them to build soil and how y'all have executed that.

Jordan Rubin - 0:35:02
So I'm not gonna have to talk about veganic farming on this program.

Kyle Krull - 0:35:06
Actually, I wanted to ask, you know how you pivoted from Garden of Life to ancient nutrition? Because Garden of Life, correct me if I'm wrong, is a vegan supplement company. Is that correct?

Jordan Rubin - 0:35:13
Well. Truth be told, the third product we launched at Garden of Life was called Go Teen, the first goat milk protein. But then they moved. They moved when I left they moved into like the Kind Diet and Alicia Silverstone and all that. But then once ancient nutrition started in collagen and keto, they they somehow. Woke up to the animal nutrition side. So they do have an omnivorous offering based on sort of the popularity of keto years ago in collagen. But they they definitely for a while really focused on a plant based message which has never been my message but I was, I departed in that kind of came in that direction but so animal impact is the start and finish.

Jordan Rubin - 0:35:34
Of creating a healthy ecosystem. The truth is, every ecosystem has animals. Although mono crop genetically modified farming destroys many animals, they're still birds. They're still insects. This notion of farming the vegan way, it's it's not possible. Insects are animals, folks. Look at your biological kingdoms. I can't tell you how. Dealing with 26 years of idiocy.

Jordan Rubin - 0:35:59
Has has made me now listen, I respect plants and I love plants. I even hug trees now like I love trees. But animals are integral to building the ecosystem and our entire fertilization process comes from water Buffalo, cows, goat, sheep, ducks, chickens, turkeys. And here's another thing that another myth you can see eggs at a health food store. It says 100% vegetarian fed.

Jordan Rubin - 0:36:25
Only if forced. My birds. We put out meat from our food scraps and vegetables. Our ducks, chickens and turkeys. Man, they're like T rexes. You get a snake or a mouse in their paddock. Gone in seconds. So the it's just so we're so I like to say fast awkwards when it comes to these things but animals are critical and if I was tasked with.

Jordan Rubin - 0:36:53
Regenerating a piece of farmland. Really all I would need to start is some temporary fence, some water, and some animals. That would be the strategy for probably a number of years, and it's the simplest, easiest, and only way to do it. And we've even convinced some farms that are vegan to at least use animals in their farming, even if they don't believe in the philosophy of eating them.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:37:45
Right.

Kyle Krull - 0:37:46
And so you mentioned 7 animals and you're giving us a list a few times. Why do you have that level of diversity in the animals you choose, which what, what role do they serve? Are there like is there an order of operations in terms of you graze this animal here followed by this animal, like walk us through that process?

Jordan Rubin - 0:38:00
Great question. I don't have time to tell you why I started buying water Buffalo and yak. It's an interesting story for another time, but so we have our ruminant animals first. So let me let me back up. 53 acres is our soil building plot on each farm. Broken down into .7 acre paddocks, 75 to 78 paddocks. Every day they move, so we start with the Buffalo, cows, goats and sheep. We have them because they each eat different things and our land is poor so we grow mostly what you would call weeds. So without. Goats and sheep, we would need to Bush, hog, mow, you know, use more mechanical means, so.

Kyle Krull - 0:38:41
Sorry to interrupt, but I really want to paint this picture. Are all these animals together? They're together. Acre. OK, so they're all .7 acres in harmony. What's like the number of heads per .7 acre plot?

Jordan Rubin - 0:38:52
All right, I want to talk about the in harmony part for a second. These animals don't necessarily live together in nature. Or they didn't a year ago when we started. So this is going to be sad for some people. And I I get it. I'm, I'm, I want you to understand, I'm a sensitive person. I love animals. But it has been a difficult process to train our water buffaloes to believe that the Lambs are family, not furniture. And so listen, if I told you this was not without loss, I would be lying. That being said.

Jordan Rubin - 0:39:01
If a water Buffalo lays down now, today, a year plus later, a goat will likely get on its back and massage it. And I am the goat Yoga yesterday's news. So they do live in harmony. They each eat different plants and their manure and even their urine has different qualities. So for example, Buffalo manure has much more carbon, Cattle manure has more nitrogen.

Jordan Rubin - 0:39:27
It's an amazing process and by the way, this is a theory guys. I I didn't read this in a book or or find this being done by a pioneer of regen. It it's something we've developed. So we have those four. And answer your question Kyle, we started with .7 acres, poor soil, 12 mature water Buffalo, 12 cows, 60 goats and 60 sheep.

Jordan Rubin - 0:39:53
So we're about to be in lambing and kidding season, so we're going to have 100 babies here soon.

Kyle Krull - 0:40:20
But that was high stock density grazing. No joke.

Jordan Rubin - 0:40:23
It's as high as we could get it with the poor soil we have, but we actually are going to increase by three because here's the deal, Building soil is like building muscle. You need lots of pressure, lots of stress, followed by lots of nutrition and rest. That's why we give it 75 to 78 days rest, so those animals go through. Then we've got chickens, ducks and turkeys 3000. So they go in the next day and we learn this. So these birds, they eat all the goat and sheep manure. I know it's again sounds gross to some people, but what is that? Predigested plants? And then we drop our food waste, which by the way, it's about £10,000 a week per location.

Jordan Rubin - 0:40:44
That we're feeding these birds, you will flip over what they get to eat. It's amazing. And if we have time, I'll give you some theories on the eggs we're creating in the meat. I've got a lot of ideas beyond our own brand. So after that, the birds move and then we plant cover crops that will sprout in the ensuing days and weeks and will mature by the time the animals come back. So right now we're talking and it's in May. We're still on our spring cover crop blend.

Jordan Rubin - 0:41:10
Primarily annuals now because our soils so poor, but over the years we'll be establishing more perennial pastures once the soils better. And the team at Savory who are working with thinks that we have 150 native species of plants that are in our seed bank with only about 25 that have manifested. So our goal is to awaken the natural seed bank that exists that's been inhibited by poor fertility.

Kyle Krull - 0:42:07
When you say seed bank, you mean like dormant seeds that are dormant seeds preexisting in the soil without having been planted.

Jordan Rubin - 0:42:13
No, they haven't been. They're planted over the course of history. We just don't have the right conditions for them to germinate and express themselves because this is degraded land.

Kyle Krull - 0:42:24
Incredible.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:42:25
Yeah, that's beautiful. OK. The ReGen Brands Podcast, I want to move from regen to brands, right? So let's talk. Let's talk commercialization a little bit, Jordan. I want to kind of bifurcate 2 things. I want you to talk about what does it really take to succeed at retail has like a supplement brand and with the products that Y'all sell. And then I want to pivot back to how do we get consumers to care about regen and what we need to do probably as a whole there? And then what, what are Y'all doing as a supplement brand to really spread that message, get a premium, get, get that purchase, whatever that may be.

Jordan Rubin - 0:42:57
Yeah. So Kyle and I were about to go into regenerative La La Land. I could.

Kyle Krull - 0:43:01
Tell yes, Anthony. Thank you.

Jordan Rubin - 0:43:03
So much for bringing us back to the title of the podcast. You know what, I did a presentation this morning with Fresh Thyme and their leadership. We're going to be with Whole Foods soon. We were with Sprouts last week. They're super receptive, but that doesn't mean that everybody is willing to put all their regenerative chips in the middle of the table. And so the commercialization process with regenerative. Has been challenging because of what you alluded to earlier. Supply chain is limited. So I'll tell you a cool story. I love it. But our team was freaking out. So I said we're going to launch a regenerative supplement line and we're growing all of our own ingredients and everybody said it'll never work, we can't do it. And there's all these, we have sort of a scale on our product launch team, which is green, yellow and red. There were all these Reds down the line. I'm like we're doing it anyway, so.

Jordan Rubin - 0:43:30
Because it's too important. So Sprouts was going to launch this pilot project in late winter. And I got word that we were late on three of the 16 skews. And so I reached out to one of our farmers. I'm like, Todd, what's the deal? And he sent me a video that he was harvesting some of our plants. And I thought, you know what, I can't be mad at this because we're going to have a supplement.

Jordan Rubin - 0:44:00
In market four weeks after the ingredients were harvested on a regenerative organic certified farm, we're bringing real to to food discussion and equation. So that's an inevitable challenge because I'm formulating products for September with crops we haven't planted yet. I I remember bringing our President Cole of Ancient Nutrition to our farm, we have oregano and a Roc oregano in one of our products and he's like where's the oregano? And I showed him. 1000 cells, you know those 72 cell seedling and they're like he's like Jordan, that's the oregano like that I need to get out of magnifying glass. He's like what if it doesn't grow? And I said this is the beauty of what we're doing. We can't allow this entire section of a store or in some cases entire stores, entire channels to.

Jordan Rubin - 0:44:56
Only contribute to waste and toxicity within our within our world. And if we don't do this, somebody else will, which I don't like. But also it's it may never happen because we're we're already steeped in this. We already have the ranch project. We already operate the farms. This is the logical next step and we must partner with other organizations to get the word out. I'll give you an example guys. I was on a call yesterday. You know what I said I said to our.

Jordan Rubin - 0:45:21
VP of Impact and Retail Marketing, I said, Christy, I want you to contact every brand that's been on The ReGen Brands Podcast. I want to do a collab like how are we going to get this out? We can't do it otherwise. It's not going to be through paid social when they don't know what the heck regenerative means. So we're going to do this guerrilla marketing old school style. But I will say this, the retailers have been great.

Jordan Rubin - 0:45:51
We're going to present to everybody, even if we're too early for some, which we will be, we're telling them to build a regenerative set and we're going to cross channels, food, beverage, whatever to get this word out. Because if we don't, there's going to be a podcast that launches. That's your competitor. That's going to be the Regenerative Excuses podcast, because that's what I'm hearing each and every day I'm out there.

Kyle Krull - 0:46:44
We appreciate you leading the charge and what I like about what you said, you know anything worth doing is hard, right? And that's true innovation. And you know somebody's got to lead the way and somebody's got to do it first. And when you do what you're doing now and you prove this concept that number one, it's viable, it's possible and you bring these products to market, hey, that becomes, you know, possibly I can't think of the word, Anthony, help me with this word. Replicable, scalable, you know, so it's somebody's got to do it first. So we, I mean, I personally really appreciate the hard work that you're doing because it can't be easy. And as somebody who has innovation headaches in the CPG side, the thought of presenting a product with the ingredient hasn't even started growing yet is absolutely mind blowing. So kudos to you for taking the risk and taking the plunge.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:47:35
And and we we as a movement, we have to have a B2B mindset, right, just like Joe talked about from Serenity about how like those supply chains weren't built to like make products like at the end of the day, Y'all people still spend the majority of their time shopping at grocery stores and they buy packaged food products. Yes, if you can have your local farmer and you can buy as much unprocessed Whole Foods that are good for you from our Jenna farmer do it 100%, we support that. But we're not going to change the food system unless we build these B2B supply chains and build the brands that can interact with those consumers at the grocery store.

Jordan Rubin - 0:48:10
I totally agree. And listen, guys, again, having listened to all of your episodes up until now. I agree with so much of what you all have said. I've been inspired by so much of what you said. I think the danger and this has been mentioned a few times and you know, I knew we would talk about this. I think the danger of this movement is the the lack of governmental oversight, which we understand why Roedale and Bronner's and Patagonia did not want regenerative organic to be a governmental program. And I agree with that. But the flip side is.

Jordan Rubin - 0:48:16
Every single low hanging fruit regenerative certification in their pajamas is coming out there and it's hard. You know when you talk to Roc they they're fired up about other brands coopting regenerative when they have gone to such great lengths to make it mean something. And clearly Savory Institute can't be shoved to the side because of what they've been doing with with grazing lands and and animals. But I do think that the bottom of the barrel regenerative certifications are ultimately going to harm us. And I think that when the 72 corporations that have made regenerative pledges like Nestle, I don't know if you've seen their site. Nestle says 50% of their ingredients are going to be regenerative by 2030.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:49:33
I.

Jordan Rubin - 0:49:34
Sure, hope so. But where is it going to come from? Pepsi and General Mills. So I we chose rock. Again, we're part of Regenerate America with we're part of a lot of these organizations, but we chose rock because we wanted to reach the highest standard there is. That doesn't mean nothing else is good. We have many animals alive on our farm that will never be rocked because they weren't born into rock, right, Which we can talk about another time, but I do think that the idea of progress over perfection. Can be abused and and I I think you all have profiled some of the brands that are busting their butt to be regenerative but then there's others that are kind of well you know we don't believe there's one certification and and it's an excuse and so I'm what I'm saying is we need to strive for the top. If you don't have something to strive for you're not going to hit anything meaningful and I just I applaud you guys for being a mouthpiece.

Jordan Rubin - 0:50:06
For all things regenerative. But I'll tell you right now I am going to be a big voice against greenwashing because I am risking a lot, betting a lot, and making a stand that if we don't make great progress, our grandchildren may not be able to eat. So this isn't about sort of let's just tiptoe into it and maybe we'll do a little cover cropping and a little less tillage and a little less chemicals. Somebody's got to go all the way. And that's that's where I think some brands are. They're using excuses for not at least trying to go all the way. And therefore they're saying, well, there's no real standards, there's no one standard. There really is a high bar set. It's called rock. At least give a chance for your team and other organizations to help you get there because.

Jordan Rubin - 0:51:02
Rodale alone will help you transition. I mean there there's a way to do it. So I'd like to be a voice with you all. Not everybody has to be rock, but don't give up on the highest standard because if you do, all of your competitors who are greenwashing are going to come and take your market share. Eventually you you got to stand for something, as that Alabama song says, or you'll fall for anything.

Kyle Krull - 0:51:51
Yeah, you know, I think. A/C we both have things we want to say here. You want to go.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:51:55
First you you go first, so.

Kyle Krull - 0:51:57
I I think that what rock is doing in the industry, they are the North star. To your point, they are the highest bar, they are the gold standard. This is what everybody should be striving for. And I also think that their personal opinion that regeneratives shouldn't be tied only to organic. And the reason I feel that way is because you look at the arable land in the world, there's 74.9 million hectares of land. That is certified organic today, which is essentially the size of a little bit bigger than Texas. And if we tie regenerative to organic, what I fear will end up happening is that we will make a portion of that land, a portion of Texas regenerative organic certified. And if we don't allow some other level of market validation for those who are trying to get on the regenerative bandwagon so they can eventually hopefully get to rock, we will disincentivize transition. And so to your point, how do we prevent greenwashing while at the same time allowing that market market validation for those transitional farmers who maybe, to your point, don't have animals that could ever be rock certified, You know, there'd be a massive investment for somebody to cull their entire herd and start from zero. So they could be rocky eventually. So I think it's really important to aid to your point to strive for the best while at the same time figuring out how we allow for that transitional nonrock.

Kyle Krull - 0:52:50
Other good certification to exist and to coexist together and to support each other as partners rather than competition and.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:53:28
What I feel like I've seen from the community in the in terms of how much everyone is willing to openly discuss this and and actually wants that accountability and I'm talking about people that sit in different places on the continuum. I think we're going to be fine. I think the biggest threat is is really the multinationals and I think. Any effort that they're making to be more sustainable is great. What I do think might be like a a nice, a nice thing for some of the more I would call higher up on the the aspirational scale brands is like Pepsico's just going to make more sustainable corn syrup that like none of the none of us want to eat anyway. And so like really is that really regenerative anyway based on just the food product itself. So I think I think there's interesting things there I think. You know, I I certainly don't know what's going to happen with the certification landscape, but one thing that's increasingly peak peaking my interest is with a I and with tech, you know do we end up in a world where there's just so much transparency about the products in the supply chains like overnight that like some of these third party things go away. I don't know how that changes the the current consumer conditioning of I look for that on pack to make really quick decisions because that's what we have now. But yeah it's it's.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:54:12
It's really, really complex, you know? It's certainly it's it's something we'll all have to figure out together.

Jordan Rubin - 0:54:46
And I I will say this, Kyle, I agree wholeheartedly with what you said. I think the challenge comes when somebody can't reach a certification, so therefore they invalidate it, bash it or they discuss what they're doing as equal to or better. I'll give an example, Kyle, we didn't know about, you know, know about each other much off the air, but in 2000. Sorry 99 and sorry 2019. I was in New Zealand and I visited a bunch of farms and one of the main suppliers of kettle and fire at the time and I don't know anyone at kettle and fire. So I I'm only speaking to what I learned from this one organization that was amazing. So I visited the farms, I saw the bones, we went to multispecies farms, we went to to sheep farms and deer farms which are popular over there and then certainly some cattle farms and. I saw some of the most beautiful landscape. They're doing an amazing job. I wanted to literally, you know, lay down in the grass for about 6 hours. And clearly producing food from that landscape, even absent of a certified organic standard, is amazing. However, that's not the case for every farm that's not organic, that wants to be regenerative. And so I think I'm merely saying that if you don't want to strive for a great standard.

Jordan Rubin - 0:55:39
Don't act like it doesn't exist to try to validate it. As I said, when farmers say they're beyond organic, but they're not organic, what what I automatically think is you're using some pesticides, some nitrogen based fertilizers and some level of medicine vaccinations etcetera with your animals. Because I I know enough to know that. I think if if you're willing to let somebody see your closet. Whether there's skeletons or beautiful clothes in there, that's what matters. And so we decided to say, listen, we're not all rock. In fact, some of our supply chain is very different than others and and we're clear about that. But as you said, there's still a North Star and it bothers me when people.

Jordan Rubin - 0:56:35
Disavow that. And I'm sure it bothers because there are brands that you've interviewed like Blake and Stephanie Alexander, that need to get credit for what they've done. And if we can't differentiate, then they can't get that credit. And they've done amazing things just like Alec with his ice cream, he's going out of the way and we met together, Anthony, we're all in the same little eating mackerel and grits or whatever that was. So where?

Kyle Krull - 0:57:23
Were you?

Jordan Rubin - 0:57:25
We're at the Ecology Center at Expo W It was a great event, just the IT was awesome. The mackerel and grits weren't my favorite, but Alex ice cream made-up.

Kyle Krull - 0:57:34
For it, right. No, I think you know from a like a meat sourcing perspective, I'd have to, you know as I'm going to Kelvin Fire shirt work for Kelvin Fire, got to talk about the sourcing for a minute. We could source organic beef bones if we wanted to and have an organic cert on our beef foam broth. However you can give, you can finish beef cattle as you know Jordan in a cafe organic fed feed lot, we don't stand for that. You know we want 100% grass fed grass finish pastor raised and the best suppliers that we've been able to find across the globe like you mentioned they don't have an organic certification, they don't, they don't need one in New Zealand. You know, so we just try to find the best supply chains we can to support the best bones and sources we can. Now I also have to distinguish that Kindle Fire has two identity preserved or regenerative skews and then the rest of our portfolio. So our regenerative bones actually come from domestic farms. So a little bit different operations. Just want to make that distinction for any potential listener out there. But you're you're right, it's confusing and it's hard and into your point, we're sort of in this Wild West moment of regenerative where there isn't.

Kyle Krull - 0:58:11
Unification and there are a lot of people making different claims about what regenerative is or isn't. And like I said, it's really competitive and what I hope we can do as a movement, what needs to happen is, like you mentioned before, collaborating with the other brands who are doing the right work and working together to push this whole thing forward.

Jordan Rubin - 0:58:54
Absolutely. Well, I I want you guys to know I am turning you on to everyone I talked to. So I talked to Fresh Thyme Sprouts. I'm saying you got to.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:59:01
Listen to the Vgen.

Jordan Rubin - 0:59:02
Brands Podcast. Changing my buying habits based on the brands that you're introducing because some of them, you know, I hear their stories and it's it's tough. We're very blessed that I've got a history and I've been able to succeed in certain instances in this industry. But you're asking people about funding. You're asking people about scaling supply. And some of the answers I I just, I can even.

Jordan Rubin - 0:59:04
Hear what's behind the words and read between the lines. But I appreciate what you guys are doing and I do think that you all are a are two of very few people that could greatly impact how people feel about certifications and how the. Regen movement becomes unified. I'm all about baby steps. But again, I want to know where the destination is. I often times will leap forward there. Sometimes it serves me well, sometimes it doesn't. But when I see something that's difficult but possibly attainable, that's usually what I go for and and and listen, this is a business podcast, essentially.

Jordan Rubin - 0:59:44
I don't want to leave out the fact that by us creating the very first regenerative organic certified supplement line that is a huge unique selling proposition and differentiator. We're not doing this solely to be philanthropic. It's a very strategic message that we believe will change the world, but give us a leg up on our competition clearly and that's what I hope everyone feels about regenerative that by truly doing it. They will. They will be rewarded. As I mentioned, Alexander Dairy and Alex Ice Cream and many others that you all have interviewed. We need to get credit for it and people like you are helping us do that.

Kyle Krull - 1:00:48
Super appreciate that.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:00:49
Yeah, that that's like my whole theory of change is when we can prove that this is better for business from the farm gate all the way to the brand like regen will be the standard and right now it's it's not. And the reason I think, I think one of the biggest reasons I want to do the podcast is because we are highlighting The Pioneers that are working their asses off to try and change that, right. So just appreciate that. Thank you.

Kyle Krull - 1:01:14
Yeah. So we, we kind of touched a little bit on the future and what really feels to me like the future of ancient nutrition like you're so focused on regen like like we're going to regen La La land earlier, we're not even talking about brand stuff.

Jordan Rubin - 1:01:25
Anymore, But what?

Kyle Krull - 1:01:27
Is the future for either ancient nutrition or your general regenerative endeavors? You're sort of hinted at the fact that you have a couple of the concepts in the works, like what's the What's the future hold for you?

Jordan Rubin - 1:01:37
So I I would love and I can't say I'm going to, I said I would love to have 100 SKU's that are rock certified, certified organic, non Geo certified, I'm calling it now that will be dependent on consumers and really in a big way retailers. But that is my current goal today and we're putting more and more regen ingredients in all of our products that we can. So we're we're not simply rock. But that's the standard that we're moving to. We're going to do a collab with Alexander Dairy and get some ingredients from them. Like we're really trying to do that and we're trying to expand a supply chain that's global. We're we're considering a farm in a tropical environment so that we don't simply have to grow our papayas and mangos and avocados and charamoyas and sour stops indoors because it's it's not as ideal to do that. From a scalability perspective, So I want to have 100 Rock Skews and we want to see these regenerative dreams we have come to fruition. I want to see stores that are in retail adopting a farm or starting their own farm so their food waste today can come, can become their products on their shelves 10 years from now. It's absolutely doable 100%.

Jordan Rubin - 1:02:29
We also are working on some concepts because I mentioned we have a manufacturing entity and our farms kind of are their own entities. We're doing some really cool things in the regenerative pet space. A lot of our animal ingredients will be aimed towards that. We're looking at skin care and beverage. I've met with a doctor recently who has a clinic called Mulberry Clinic. It's local here and I said to him, I said Doctor Hutton, have you ever thought of?

Jordan Rubin - 1:02:53
Creating like a Mulberry medicine concept where you know you're going to you because Mulberry is an amazing perennial. The leaves are super valuable for nutrition. The fruit is amazing, they're great at drawing down carbon and you can feed the leaves to animals, which we do to create sort of Mulberry infused lamb or whatever. So I probably just gave all those ideas up but but so so we're constantly trying to. Move the needle whether it's ancient nutrition or partner brands and I mean it when I say you guys should come out and do a remote because we are not where we want to be. The only way we can regenerate is because we're taking degenerated lands, the before picture and making them better. But I would love for you guys to be part of that journey and I think we're part of a group called OSC which you undoubtedly heard of one step closer that we're going to probably host a retreat with our fellow.

Jordan Rubin - 1:03:48
Executive teams on one or both of our farms and constantly trying to engage local universities and the media and retailers. So for us, we want to advance the movement, we want to take away excuses, we want to set sort of a high bar, but we also want to be an organization that helps others achieve regenerative status. Through open source knowledge and and even just training interns and the whole shebang. So we're we're really about partnership, but we don't want to partner in a watered down, wimpy definition that ends up helping nobody.

Kyle Krull - 1:05:00
Right.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:05:02
I love, I love the people aspect and I love humanizing this whole thing because I think that's a really big key is just remembering that. We are nature. We are the keystone species here and that is why we can be the greatest stewards of what we do right to do to have regeneration and have regenerative systems. All right, Jordan, closing question. I know you're ready for it, right. How do we get Regen brands that 50% market share by 2050?

Jordan Rubin - 1:05:28
I'm going to take a different tact than than maybe some do because the consumer demand is obvious, like we have to do that. We have to make a supply chain. But what came first, the chicken or the egg? Somebody's got to start and if you start and you're the only person on the planet, how you going to have a supply chain? So I get all that, but I really believe. That retailers need to step up and fulfill their regenerative promises. I've seen many of them say by the year 2030 they're going to be regenerative. Well, guess what? I'm going to talk to them directly if you guys don't mind. Please step up, get rid of the crap and focus merchandise and prioritize regenerative brands. Guys, we could catapult this thing if retailers will.

Jordan Rubin - 1:05:49
Get the message. And as I like to say, wake up and smell the hummus as long as it's made with degenerative chickpeas. But shout.

Kyle Krull - 1:06:20
Out to little sesame we're.

Jordan Rubin - 1:06:22
We're Omni channel, but the the heavy lift to get a consumer from zero to 60 on regenerative is hard. But I don't know about you guys, human nature. We walk into a store when I'm at Whole Foods, I learn about a brand that's on NCAP. I see what's on sale. I see what's promoted because my subconscious says, well, I trust them. And if Sprouts trusts this brand, they must see something in it. So I would ask retailers to believe in this movement and subjugate brands that are not the future of regeneration and allow the ones that are making the effort to be regenerative to have that prime placement. I think it'll pay off for all of us. But man, as soon as Whole Foods said that the butterfly non-GMO verified was the key to everything. Not only did it stimulate brands, consumers, that stimulated competitive retailers. So the butterfly was everywhere. If we can do that and get leadership from Whole Foods and Sprouts and Natural Grocers and HEB and even Publix and many others independent retail which we love, that's the fastest way to make change.

Jordan Rubin - 1:07:11
Is for retailers to put us on display. Amazon to create more than a climate badge, but something that's more truly regenerative then the competition in a capitalistic nation is going to flock to the movement. It's got to be retail and let's do it together. Let's get these retailers to appreciate how much more dollar and profit they're going to make per linear square foot with premium products.

Kyle Krull - 1:08:05
Totally. And Anthony and I are almost on the border of Latin because this is like, literally, like, we just had a call about this yesterday. I just put a text together, like figured out, like how we're going to solve this problem for retailers. It's literally like to hear somebody who I've never had this conversation with speak to it as eloquently as you just did is #1 incredible awesome. It's just it's it's a cool moment that like, we this is truly what needs to happen, and we can do it together. So I mean.

Kyle Krull - 1:08:05
All I can say my only response from everything you just shared is that I supported 100%. We are actively working to solve that problem and would love to connect you know, talk about that a little bit more in depth soon.

Jordan Rubin - 1:08:45
Absolutely. And I do think that while competition reigns supreme in every industry, I've only been in this one, so I can't compare it to the the wars between Coke and Pepsi or Nike and Reebok. But yeah, I think that regenerative brands can start to let our. Our guard down and partner, so I say to everybody there's three supplement brands that have regenerative organic certified farms, Ancient nutrition, Gaia herbs and herb farm. And we're looking for ways to have collaborative end caps, collaborative sales calls, make our marketing dollars go further. Let's do something with Kettle and Fire. We may have bone broth powder, but other people want bone broth liquid. So I think you all could be a rallying piece as can Roc and others.

Jordan Rubin - 1:09:02
To have us, you know what, we'll take a risk. Sure, I'm taking some of my marketing dollars to or my my packaging space to promote another brand. But if we don't do it, we're going to be overrun by those who are not truly making a difference. And so at the expense of highlighting A competitor, I'm willing to do that. We've had competitors come to our farms.

Jordan Rubin - 1:09:29
And work on ways where we can supply overflow ingredients or technology and it always comes back to us. Again, I'm not trying to hold hands and you know sing Kumbaya as it were, but we need to do this. It's got to be a partnership between brands because there's too few of us that are truly spending the resources and we we just don't have enough. Share to make this go quickly unless we hyper accelerate like for example Simply Foods, we're working on trying to get some of their ingredients into our products and same with Abraham Farms and Madag. And so we're we're trying to build bridges but it can't just be supplier, vendor, brand, it's got to be together and I can tell you I am talking up the brands you guys profile just as my normal course because of how I'm becoming.

Jordan Rubin - 1:10:16
Intentionally indoctrinated in regen brands, and it's exciting.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:10:48
Yeah. And we the brands, the, the, the regen brands doing the work are internalizing all the externalized costs that other people get to put a cheaper product on the shelf and so and so the only way we can we can win at this game long term is to is to fight together. So I couldn't agree more.

Kyle Krull - 1:11:08
Agreed, beautifully said. Nothing to add, it's perfect. And we great to have you on, man. Yeah, this is, this would be great. Really appreciate all the work you're doing.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:11:17
Yeah, I'm not going to need my afternoon cup of coffee because I'm fired up.

Jordan Rubin - 1:11:20
Oh man, I'm ready to run through a wall right now And and what's great is almost every conversation I say almost I have goes like this, whether it's with my team or with somebody in the industry when it's on this subject because the feeling of pioneering something that we're going to realize. The benefits of in our lifetime, I've been too early before you don't want to be early, you don't want to be late. We're on the Crest of a wave. We're we're on sort of that bleeding edge, slash leading edge because I think the three of us and so many others have no doubt that regenerative must be part of our future. We're just trying to find a way to get on that train, so to speak. And you know again when, Anthony, when you and I met, I was not familiar with your podcast. I'm not a serial podcast listener, but there's only so many podcasts that literally every episode I can glean from my whole sales team is listening to Regen Brands podcast. This is something people should should hear, because I want them to know.

Jordan Rubin - 1:12:05
How these other brands are navigating the retail landscape because in every episode I'm hearing well, well Thrive is excited about it but we're we're not really going to this group yet. So that alone has been educating because we're launching rock. We want to know where we can be celebrated not tolerated and your brands that you've spotlighted, they're giving sort of that playbook of what works and what doesn't. So that's another angle for you all. You all need to be common.

Jordan Rubin - 1:12:28
Educational or I should say, prerequisite educational material for sales teams of all the brands. So that's, you know, get the vibe, get the word out.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:13:07
Yeah. Really appreciate that, man. Thank you so much for joining us, George.

Jordan Rubin - 1:13:11
Thank you guys so much for having me. Really had a great time.

Kyle Krull - 1:13:14
Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:13:18
For show notes, episode transcripts, and more information on our guests and what we discuss on the show, check out our website, regen-brands.com. That is regen-brands.com. You can also find our Regen Recaps on the website. Regen recaps take less than 5 minutes to read and cover all the key points of the full hour long conversations. You can 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, subscribe to future episodes and share the show with your friends.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:13:27
Thanks for tuning into The ReGen Brands Podcast, brought to you by the Regen Coalition and Outlaw Ventures. 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 regenerative food system. Love you guys.