On this episode, we have Hayley Painter who is one of the Co-Founders @ Painterland Sisters.
Painterland Sisters is supporting regenerative agriculture with its line of organic and regenerative Icelandic skyr yogurt products that are made with organic milk sourced from their family farm and others in the Northern Pennsylvania area.
In this episode, we learn about how Painterland Sisters has grown to a 3-million-dollar annual run rate in just under two years of business, how this sister duo proposed a CPG brand as a way to protect the future of their family farm, plus what the term “regenerative” means to them, their farm, and their brand.
Episode Highlights:
💥 The difference between skyr, greek, and regular yogurt
🐄 Why their cows are “grass-based” versus “grass-fed”
🙏 Why CPG was the best path to safeguard their farm
😂 Hand-labeling the first 60,000 yogurts
👏 Eclipsing $1M in revenue in the first 12 months
👍 Pooling organic milk from their neighbor farms for supply
💪 Why their yogurts are packed with nutrition
🎯 How regenerative starts with adequate farmer livelihoods
😍 Leveraging “The Moo Crew” to boost retail sales
💰 Their WeFunder campaign happening NOW
Links:
Episode Recap:
ReGen Brands Recap #52 - Regenerative Skyr Yogurt Safeguarding The Family Farm - (RECAP LINK)
Episode Transcript:
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with AI and is not 100% accurate.
Kyle Krull - 00:00:15
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 co-host ac who's going to take us into the episode.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:33
On this episode, we have Hayley Painter, who is one of the co-founders at Painterland Sisters. Painterland Sisters is supporting regenerative agriculture with its line of organic and regenerative Icelandic s skier Yogurt products that are made with organic milk sourced from their family farm and others in the Northern Pennsylvania area. In this episode, we learn about how Painterland Sisters has grown to an epic $3 million annual run rate in just under two years of business. How this sister duo proposed a CPG brand as a way to protect the future of their family farm. Plus what the term regenerative means to them. Their farm and their brand Hayley is just a bundle of joy. Y'all. We had a great time learning more about the brand exploring their epic start their current fundraising campaign and some big plans for the future.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:01:07
Let's dive in what's up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the ReGen Brands Podcast. Very excited today to have Hayley, painter from painter, land Sisters joining us. So welcome Hayley.
Hayley Painter - 00:01:38
Hello, thanks for having me.
Kyle Krull - 00:01:40
So Hayley, I'm super, super excited to have you here. I've been a fan of the Pain of Lances since I first found the brand at Natural Grocers in Bend Oregon. Um I've got two of the planes in my fridge right now. Um And you know, ac and I are both super passionate about de vilifying animal based agriculture. So anytime we get to showcase that story, we love to. So for those who are unfamiliar with your brand, give us a quick high level. Like what skews do you produce? Where can people find you today?
Hayley Painter - 00:02:08
So we are Painterland sisters and what we offer is an organic Icelandic style s skier yogurt. We have six simply yummy flavors. Of course plain strawberry blueberry lemon vanilla bean and Meadow Bery named after my niece, Meadow. Oh and a Savannah's peach. We just rolled out. Um And then we have two larger sizes. Um The multi serve plain and vanilla bean that me berry
Anthony Corsaro - 00:02:36
slaps that meow Bery slaps. That's my
Kyle Krull - 00:02:39
favorite before we dive in any further. Why did you decide on a skier style yogurt over just a regular some other type of yogurt?
Hayley Painter - 00:02:47
So the skier style yogurt is one of the most nutrient dense yogurts um with a low amount of sugar and so with that much nutrients in it, we wanted to provide the most premium product we could. So it's pretty um an easy choice for us. It's also um consumers are looking for that premium quality at the moment. So it was, it was just let's do this, you know, it was one of those serendipitous things
Kyle Krull - 00:03:10
you, you're super spot on. And as a consumer, I've always looked for a well sourced high protein yogurt. Um And it's been almost felt historically like I have to choose between grass fed or high protein. So the fact that you are combining both of those like subcategories within the broader yogurt space is super, super appealing for me and hopefully many others.
Hayley Painter - 00:03:30
Ok. So in the industry, every like it was a lot of the cattle were fed primarily like small grain. So the longevity of the cattle wasn't good, the health of the cattle, but the yield came out fast. So everyone switched to grass fed and now it's the complete opposite extreme. So sometimes these animals aren't getting as many nutrients as they need. Um So we primarily are grass based diet, which is a very um natural and nutrient dense diet for the animals to provide the healthiest possible animal. So grass based grass fed, they're both great. Um I definitely lean more towards the grass based because it's more achievable. Um And you can make sure that your animals are getting as many nutrients as they actually need.
Kyle Krull - 00:04:10
So grass based music, the grass is the primary portion of the diet, but you supplement that with some level of grain at some point in time to ensure that the animal is as healthy as it can.
Hayley Painter - 00:04:20
Yeah, because when you're completely grass fed, you have to have fast acting carbohydrates and you can blend good amount um fast acting carbohydrates from grass fed foods. Um It's just a little bit more difficult and so you can achieve that, but you can also achieve, achieve that with a grass based diet and it's more accessible. Um, and it's pretty natural too.
Kyle Krull - 00:04:45
Super interesting. This, this is, this is why we do these podcasts. It's great to learn this stuff.
Hayley Painter - 00:04:50
Mhm. Yeah. Think about like your rin animals, like a deer is a ruminant, sheep, goats, cattle, like your deer are grazing, they're primarily gonna eat grass. Um, but they can also stumble upon a little bit of grain supplements and throughout history. Um, this is definitely that, that's exactly the different resources they've had. So, right now we're, um, 95% grass fed and 5%. Um, other things. Um, the other things are like corn and soybean, um, minerals that you blend together
Kyle Krull - 00:05:22
makes sense. You know, it's one of the regenerative principles, right? Is diversity. You know, if, uh, I think, I don't know if we've mentioned this before on the podcast or not. But if like, let's say, for example, spinach is the most the most beneficial food for humans to consume, which is not true, but just for the sake of an argument, if all you ate with spinach, you'd still be nutritionally deficient. So that diversity in the diet is still super necessary. And we should apply the same wisdom, you know, from human diets to, you know, all animals. Why not?
Hayley Painter - 00:05:47
100% diversity is, you know, we're very strong believers in diversity um from what the cows eat and all the way into what type of cows we do have. So all of our cattle are crossbred. So we have a different um different mixes so that we can provide the healthiest possible animal with the highest longevity. So for instance, some cattle are great at um walking up hills, some cattle are really bad at it. They have weak ankles and um some of them produce really a lot of fat in their milk, which is great and others don't. Um But they have a high yield quantity of milk. So by being cross breeding them all, um the strengths kind of balance out and the weaknesses are muted. For instance, like German shepherds, if you breed um German shepherds over and over and yeah, they have these really great, awesome looking ears, but have you seen their hips lately?
Hayley Painter - 00:06:23
It's really sad. Um And so that's an outcome of breeding the same animal over and over for great for, for one quality. Um And then you have more of the cons as well. So cross breeding, the animals providing diversity in the feed really has the best possible outcome um for the cattle itself. Yeah, we're going, we did not jump into that and
Anthony Corsaro - 00:07:04
I love it. I love it back. No, no, I love it. Um And the agronomy talking about the agronomy is a perfect segue into the origin story. Hayley. We know you're missing your, your, your other half of your dynamic duo, Stephanie, we congratulate her on the newborn baby at home. Um But the, the eloquence you're speaking to dairy cows and dairy production, I think, speaks to y'all's family history and the fact that you're commercializing uh the milk that's coming off of your family farm and others in the area. So just like talk about why you two crazy gals wanted to start a organic yogurt brand to help, really do all that and how y'all know so much about dairy and dairy production and, and all those things.
Hayley Painter - 00:07:48
Yeah. So my sister, Stephanie and I are fourth generation on our family's organic dairy and crop farm here in the, in northern Pennsylvania and the rolling hills. So we actually live on top of a hill but still in a huge valley takes us like 15 minutes to just get to a regular paved road. So we're very rural. Yeah. Uh It's, it's a great way of life. Um We grew up with 13 cousins all running around barefoot helping out feeding calves, hiking those hills, um working the land because we provide most of the feed for the cows ourselves. So we grow a majority of the feed. Um So we have the experience there as well.
Hayley Painter - 00:08:13
And when you're young, you don't realize any of this is important or that um not many people in our country actually living like this. I, I thought everyone lived like this. To be honest, I was shocked when I found out only 2% of the country actually lives um is directly a part of agriculture and out of that 2% how many have, you know, the dairy and the crops and the ability to process those grains to make the different feeds and work with that many family members. It's such a rare thing. Um You know, that used to be an everyday occurrence across the US.
Kyle Krull - 00:09:10
I was gonna say, so you grew up in this like idyllic, you know, farming community with your family. You know, I love the way you painted the picture of the rolling hills and everybody running around barefoot. Um When and how did you decide you wanted to continue that as an adult and start your own brand? Um And walk us through that journey.
Hayley Painter - 00:09:31
Yeah. So growing up on the farm, we had a lot of hardships although it was so, you know, wonderful to work with your family and nature. We, we never had a lot of money. We ate pretty much all the food that we grew on the farm or in our gardens. Um And we never, we didn't get a lot of new clothes when we went to school, we always smelled a little bit like cow poop. Um, but we were fine with it until we realized that, you know, our way of life is at jeopardy. Like there's hundreds of farmers, dairy farmers going out of business each year. Um And our farm felt hardships um of, you know, worried if we were going to lose the cattle, if we're going to lose the farm in different areas. Um And so as we got out into the world, we won realized how disconnected people are from the source of their food. The American farmer, uh many people don't know where their food comes from. They're just super disconnected.
Hayley Painter - 00:10:11
Um And then on top of it, they don't know the struggles that farmers are, you know, putting out forward just to be ST of the land and stewards of these animals to provide this great quality food for us and they're struggling. Um And so as a way to sustain our family farm, and then as we were setting out to that journey to sustain the other farms in our area because you can't make it as a family farm alone. It takes a whole community and others like you. So we set out to sustain our family farm and others like it. Um And to showcase what they're doing and to connect the farmer directly to the consumer. Um so that it provides transparency and a voice.
Hayley Painter - 00:10:49
And so while we were setting out to do that, we thought of all the different value-added dairy products we could make. Um I personally studied cheese making and why I have cheese in the background. Um
Anthony Corsaro - 00:11:14
For those, for those that are just listening, Hayley's got an epic little cheese diagram over her, over her left shoulder. If, if you're watching on video, you'll be able to see it.
Hayley Painter - 00:11:24
So I'm a, I'm a cheese nerd because I really had this vision that cheese would be our uh solution for bringing this, you know, connecting the farmer to the consumer and providing stability for our farm. Um But I learned cheese making yogurt making bottled milk. I went on large farms, small ones. I went to Costa Rica to learn about it in North Carolina. I sold cheese in farmers markets in New York City, Hoboken. Um And so I got a lot of experience there and understanding one, what the consumers were looking for. But then also two like the process of making it in the niche. And it took us four years from 2018 to 2022 to figure out what actual value added dairy product we wanted to make. We went as far as designing our own processing plant for cheese.
Hayley Painter - 00:11:55
Um We stopped when we got, we stopped when we got the quote and it was 8 million bucks and we were like, all right,
Anthony Corsaro - 00:12:20
it was a little strong
Hayley Painter - 00:12:22
and we didn't know how to sell it. Right. We just knew how to make it. We had it all lined up. So then the next thing we had to figure out was ok, this isn't gonna work. What niche can we do and can be large enough to sustain these farms, um, and have the niche niche in the market. So we ended up settling on the organic Icelandic style skier yogurt because in the yogurt sector, yeah, it's a very saturated section. Um but there's so much room for premium quality products in that area because consumers are looking for, you know, the source of their food, they're looking for high protein, high nutrients, high micronutrients um in their products. And so we just led with premium transparency and the Icelandic is, is a great little opportunity for us. Um And then additionally, how we ended up making the product is we use a co manufacturer. Um So we ended up not doing our $8 million plant.
Hayley Painter - 00:13:02
We actually met an Icelandic guy who moved to the US and he started a plant right here in Pennsylvania. So now we're able to source our milk, bring it to the plant very close. Um So it's a very short supply chain and he's, you know, 10th generation Icelandic gear maker. So it was a very no brainer like we got to do this thing.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:13:41
Yeah. And Hayley, it hasn't been that long since y'all launched and you all have scaled pretty rapidly. Um So maybe just give the, give the audience a quick overview of that timeline just so they can understand kind of what has happened in the past couple of years.
Hayley Painter - 00:13:56
Yeah, so 2018 to 2022 is when we, we're wondering what are we gonna make? And we finally launched our first product March of 2022. So only a year and a half ago, we're talking in babies' terms. It's like 18 months, right? It, it sounds shorter, right? You learn how to market things. Um So a year and a half ago, we sold their very first cup of yogurt, but the problem was we didn't even have labels for those yogurts. So we hand labeled for the first three months and the 1st 60,000 yogurts. Oh
Anthony Corsaro - 00:14:32
my God. Wait, how did you do this? How would you, how did you even do that?
Hayley Painter - 00:14:38
Oh, we brought the farm family down and they went into the plant multiple days. So the plant and the family were both very excited when we were um hand labeling anymore. Um And we weren't really able, we only sold those products super locally and our local Mennonite Amish country stores. And so we were actually got our labels and we're ready to actually rip by July time of 2022. And so it's basically a little over a year from now. So we launched March of 2022. We became um kind of got into giant, which is a local grocery store chain. Um in Pennsylvania really supported us from a farm own um standpoint, they came to our farm, took videos um and really helped us launch and then by August, we became a national brand.
Hayley Painter - 00:15:18
Um and we just continued to grow and grow within our 1st 12 months, we sold more than a million dollars worth of yogurt. And um now we're on the path to sell 3.5 million and it'll be less than two years in business. So we've just really um grown tremendously. We're focusing on the premium aspect of the, the premium grocery stores in the natural channel um as a way to find consumers that are looking for a premium product, looking for that transparency. Um We didn't plan on being a national brand March of 2022. We thought, ok, we'll like, stay in our northern region of Pennsylvania and then by April, we're like, all right, we'll expand to, to statewide and then we're like, all right, maybe we'll just go a little larger.
Hayley Painter - 00:16:04
Our problem is we are a little naive. So the minimums for dairy, so dairy gets picked up in £60,000 truckloads and it's most efficient to process them in those truckloads. And so, um our minimums were so high. We didn't, we had to get large enough in order to sustain just that enable to, to move out that product with a 60 day shelf life. Um We had to get pretty large quickly only to hit our minimum. So a lot of people get large people think it's full, like slow down, slow down. We, we just got to the level of, of our minimum capacity and then um by doing that, our sales increase at the store level. So our velocities are pretty good.
Hayley Painter - 00:16:57
Um And our continue continuing to increase month, over month. And so we got into the stores we needed and now our sales are continuing throughout that. And we're still targeting a lot of the premium national grocery stores. We're on almost 2000 stores nationwide in every state. But Alaska,
Anthony Corsaro - 00:17:31
hey, the question on the £60,000 how many head of cattle is that? And then what time is that a week? A month? Three months? Like just so people can understand like what the production needs are for that capacity.
Hayley Painter - 00:17:44
Yeah, so we produce £60,000. Um a full tanker load of milk once a week, we're actually doing a tanker and a half right now, which is very inefficient for the farmer and the processor. But anyway, um so the milk industry likes to move in those very clean truckloads. And so a whole truck you have to, when you milk cows, they get milked every day, at least twice a day. Ours get milked twice a day. A lot of organic farms get milk twice a day, organic regenerative. Um, it doesn't push the cattle that much, especially when they're grazing out on the pastures. Um, so it gives them that chance, um, to come in. So that milk, once it gets, once the cow gets milked, it has to be moved within 48 hours and once it's moved, it has to be turned into value added product within 48 hours. And so there we have to.
Hayley Painter - 00:18:21
So although the cows, we can pick up their milk three times a week, we only take one of their milk, um their truckloads of milk. And so right now, we're using one third of our full capacity of our farm. Um So that's why we use our farm's milk and other farms in the area um to top off that full truckload because our farm produces about um 65% of a truckload. And so we get 45% milk from other farmers in the area. So it's kind of crazy that we're not quite using all of our own milk but still expanding out.
Kyle Krull - 00:19:10
Yeah. Yeah, it, it feels like there's a ton of opportunity to grow and just get more efficiencies and therefore more profitable um until you hit that like minimum threshold you've been alluding to, which is really interesting. I do want to touch on the, the appetite to go from 0 to 3.5 million in less than two years is pretty insane. And I think timing has a lot to do with that. And obviously the quality of your yogurts. But from a like a macro perspective, we zoom out to like 10 years ago, even five years ago, it felt like commodity dairy was sort of on its way out and just that plant-based resurgence because people were tired of lack of traceability, not knowing where their food is coming from. And now we're sort of on this cutting edge of regenerative decentralization, connecting our consumers with our farmers. And you're really like filling that niche that you discussed earlier.
Kyle Krull - 00:19:47
So I think that's a huge part of the success of time and it's just been perfect for you and your brain so far, which is really, really cool.
Hayley Painter - 00:20:04
Oh, it's been, it's been a really great time for us. Um There's opportunity because consumers are kind of hungry for that. And then on the verge of social media, it's, it's wonderful because now farmers can actually compete a little bit. We can show what we're actually doing on our farm. And um it it is a beautiful thing. And so we can, we're able to tell our story a little more transparently. And since we are the farmers and a food brand, which is very rare, very, very rare. Um It's so easy for us to go outside, take pictures of our cows, go over to our neighbor's house. Um who we pick the milk up from, take pictures of their cows. It's just, it's a very simplistic um way to market. And right now organic marketing is huge.
Hayley Painter - 00:20:33
People don't like, you know, the videos that are super professional for Super Bowl. They only want them on the Super Bowl Sunday series. You know, they want organic reels, they want Tik Tok, they want real life um they want to feel a part of it. And so we were really able to tap into that network well, um to provide that transparency and then the premium side of things. Although consumers want that premium, the market isn't really, it's great because plant-based yogurts, there's, there's more of a price raise for them as far as dairy yogurts though. Um they're kind of capping at around $2.
Hayley Painter - 00:21:08
Um for a single serve, we have four cups of milk in every single cup of yogurt. So it's a little difficult to demand the price that we need. Um And to be able to provide the consumers what they actually want. So we're kind of um we're, we're trying to face that head on and be really leaders in that area. So we're not depleting the nutrients, you know, for a price point, we're trying to really drive the different prices and our retailer partners, they're, they're pretty good at understanding, especially after we walk them through it. We still have a little ways to go.
Hayley Painter - 00:21:45
Um But the consumers, they've you all, they all have showed their resilience and their like they'd rather pay a premium price for that transparency and for real food, real nutrients.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:22:16
And y'all from a marketing perspective, if I'm remembering correctly, y'all are leaning into some of that nutrition Hayley. I think there's something on pack or y'all are talking about it a lot in the marketing. So how is that resonating with like the core consumer?
Hayley Painter - 00:22:29
It's resonating great one. They, a lot of people look for protein right now. It's like the stylish thing. Um But there's so much more about yogurt. And so a lot of times, you know, people can get fooled by the high protein. Um it doesn't mean that there's high other nutrients. You know, it's very easy to add protein powders to get that protein increase. It cause leaves the yogurts very gritty. Um and it leaves, leaves them depleted of micronutrients. And so a yogurt has a milk, like a glass of milk has 13 essential nutrients in it. We have four cups of those in each one of our yogurts. We don't lose any of the nutrients besides 50% of the sugar.
Hayley Painter - 00:22:59
So now our low end sugar have all these other nutrients. And so consumers one love it because we're really high in protein, um high in probiotics, the things they're looking for. But then they, they really feel the side effects because they also have access to all these micronutrients. They might have been missing out on, um, which is a great base for their day and what they need, but they need every single day.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:23:36
What, what part of that processing process, manufacturing process for or the fact that it's Keer uh, causes it to not have that nutrient depletion. Like how is it maintaining so much of the nutrition? What's different about that process?
Hayley Painter - 00:23:52
Yeah. So there's regular yogurt and then there are strained yogurt. Greek and skier, Icelandic style are strained yogurts. And so the method of straining on the mass level, especially in the US has commonly been to centrifuge um the water out right to strain it by spinning it super fast. And so all the heavy molecules kind of, you know, fall to the bottom. So you lose all of the whey protein and all of the micronutrients by doing that. Um But in Iceland, in the nineties, they kind of came up with ultra filtration and so they're able to actually take a regular yogurt and then strain out the water through those um through filters with pressure behind it. So the water comes out, 50% of the sugar comes out of the micronutrients and all of the way protein are left remaining.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:24:46
That's super interesting. Isn't
Hayley Painter - 00:24:49
that cool? That's why it's so like rich and creamy and velvety. Like a lot of people tell me they're like, oh, I don't like Greek yogurt and I'm like, ok, cool. This isn't Greek yogurt and then they're like, they don't like thick yogurt and I'm like, it's ok. I don't like any yogurts on the store shelves. Um, and then they try ours because of that ultra filtration and before, because of the four cups of milk in it and the double cream, 6% milk fat and it doesn't really separate because it's all the same product. It's not like different products added to it. It doesn't really separate. And so a lot of the times you can take our cup of yogurt and put it upside down and it won't fall out. And when you take a bite of it, I always kind of yell at people like, don't stir it, it doesn't need to be stirred just like if your spoon up and there's so much nutrients and goodies, it's just like a custard.
Kyle Krull - 00:25:46
That's incredible. Um, I do want to kind of pivot back to some of the agronomy and the regenerative aspect of the dairy that both your family and your, your neighboring farms, you know, the practices that they have. So give us a quick, like, this might be a hard answer for you because you grew up on a farm. But I like to ask, you know, where did you first hear about the term regenerative? And how did that apply, you know, to the practice on the farm? You grew up on a farm? So that could have been like an inherent part of your upbringing. I don't know, but walk us through the regenerative aspect of the brand and when that became important to you as a person.
Hayley Painter - 00:26:17
Yeah. So regenerative when I first started hearing it, I just thought it was um a word to like, you know, you regenerate the land. I didn't know it was actually a movement that was happening. Um And so I think I heard of it as like right before we started the Yogurt company. Um and I didn't think too much about it. I'm like, ok, we're doing all these things that people are talking about. We're regenerating the land. Um, we're kind of leading in these different areas. And so I didn't know it was going to become a movement of what it is today. It's a really exciting movement because it provides this level of um extra thought into. Ok, we're gonna actually provide nutrients in all aspects.
Hayley Painter - 00:26:43
And so it took me a second once I realized it was catching on like, what does it actually mean to me, I studied have a degree in animal science, um, ruminant nutrition and food science. And so I was wondering, you know, what does this actually mean to me? And I started looking into the different programs and groups of people talking about it. And I kind of came to our different conclusions based on my experience of being a farmer and the information that I do have. Um And for us, if you only focus on the soil, which at first some of the claims we're talking about regenerating the soil, then you're gonna deplete something else. So, like we talked about earlier, diversity is key. Well, balance is also key.
Hayley Painter - 00:27:30
And so if you over focus on one thing, you're gonna deplete something else. And so um to me regenerative and to a lot of the people that I'm talking with, regenerative means sustaining and giving back to the land, the soil, soil, the environment, the animals, the communities and the farmer itself, farmer is the steward of the land. And if the farmer can't even sustain themselves and their kids for future generations, how can they provide to the land and to the animals? If we only focus on the land and you're not giving these cattle these proper balance of nutrition, you're providing them too much fuel. Um They're not as healthy, they don't have as much longevity. Um They're providing fertilizer that's not as adequate. Um How are they going to be able to provide that nutrients back into the soil? Right.
Hayley Painter - 00:28:26
Um And so it's all a process together and I've been really speaking out about it and I hear others doing it as well. The beginning conversations of regenerative, I feel like we're really focused on soil. So I'm happy to hear it's about all of it. And to me, the biggest thing especially um when animals are involved is that symbiotic relationship between the animals, the land and the farmer grazing is, is the biggest buzzword to me. How do you graze? Why are you grazing?
Hayley Painter - 00:28:53
And any, any, which way there's so many different ways to do it. Um, it's, it's gonna be a wonderful thing for everyone in between. And so I just, I really stand for, um, grazing, cattle, grazing animals.
Kyle Krull - 00:29:28
I, I love so much of what you just said and there's a ton I want to unpack there. Um, but I just for the sake of time on a couple of things. Um First and foremost, I love your focus on the nutritional aspect, both from an end product perspective and from a environmental health perspective and from an animal health perspective, because I think all of those things are tied together, right? Um So I think it's really, really important to touch on that nutritional piece. And then part two, this is another thing we like to do on the podcast. I'd love to kind of give our listeners a, you know, an A B scenario like you and your, your company being ancestors focuses on regenerative dairy. What is non regenerative dairy look like? And how do those things differ?
Kyle Krull - 00:29:58
Can you paint us a quick picture of like those that, that dichotomy essentially,
Hayley Painter - 00:30:17
I'm gonna start with, I believe that all farmers are amazing and that we need to fuel the farmers with the right tools. The problem is never the farmer. I think it's the incentives of the markets that the farmers have to play with. And so a regenerative cycle. To me, that's really great is one supporting the farmers. So they have adequate wages to be the proper student. Words of the land being a proper steward of the land is I believe allowing the animals to work with nature, um letting them graze outside, letting them have that sunshine on their face to be able to rotate and have fresh pastures that haven't been fertilized on um to be able to, to, to provide that nutrients and that's also not over stimulating the soil um so that it can continue to grow. Um But we need that stimulation of soil or we're just going to have an overrun of brush. Um A lot of acres here in Pennsylvania are turning into brush. We have a lot of hills and valleys, the same Oregon, probably the same in Wisconsin.
Hayley Painter - 00:31:06
So if we don't have grazing cattle on these hills and valleys, we're not putting houses on them. It's too difficult. We can't grow corn and soybeans, which is still needed for, like you said, we have a lot of plant based products that consumers. We need our corn and soybeans, but we can't grow these here on our hills and valleys, we can grow cattle here. Um And so rotating cattle being able to make sure it's a balance for the soil on the land. Um and then taking those extra nutrients from the cattle and being able to spread it on the land that's then used um to supplement these cattle in the wintertime or store it um or to supplement the um the food for human consumption.
Hayley Painter - 00:31:44
And then like I said, adequate wages for the farmers and for, and having availabilities for the farmers to be able to fix their equipment or get access to minerals for their cattle at fair prices, things like that um are really essential. And then an outlook of a, a non regenerative farm is the, if the cattle can't go outside, if the calves, um don't get the opportunity to grow up and be raised um and have that opportunity for open pastures uh being depleting the nutrients all the time, not fertilizing over using chemicals. Um just trying to get a yield and not thinking about the future if we take too much. So we make a profit today, we're not gonna have any profits for the future, right? And so it's really just balancing it out, not focusing on yield, but focusing on longevity for everything and health of everything.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:32:58
Yeah, that the system thinking that you're bringing to all of it is, is super evident. And the piece that struck me is uh John Kemp likes to say a lot like increasing the capacity for stewardship like with the farmers and at the RF I forum recently, he was on a panel with Kate HST Casad who also said, I'm, I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact quote, but it was basically just like, well, farmers can take care of the land, well, like, but they have to be well first and so we have to create those properties. Um and those markets and all the other things that you mentioned Hayley to, to enable that to happen. Um I, I'm actually curious to back into the origin, one piece of the origin story we didn't cover of just when y'all had this idea and I believe I, I met your dad on, on a Zoom call briefly one other time we chatted but I think he's like the head, the head farming operations person, right? Like what, what was his reaction to? We're gonna kind of vertically integrate and have our own CBG brand? Was he like y'all are crazy? Was he like go to your thing? Like I'm super curious what the that that hyper farmer perspective was to this opportunity?
Hayley Painter - 00:34:04
Yeah. So I think a lot of farmers uh generational farmers are scared because they're barely holding on to their pants. If they go and reach for something else, they're they're letting their draw show, you know. Um And so I think a lot of farmers are a little scared um for this generational change because they're not, well because they don't have that clear path for the future and we need to pave that. Um So it's really about the brands working with these farmers that are already existing, not creating new farms. Um, and, and letting the old ones deteriorate. It's really, how do we progress these older ones then encourage new farmers, um, to either take over some of these old farms or work together. Right. And so I really, what I, I'm fearful of with this regenerative movement is making these perfect new regenerative farms and new areas pushing out old farmers instead of mitigating the problem which farmers are struggling right now, they need a new market.
Hayley Painter - 00:34:48
How do we support them for this transition? It might be slower. It might not be a perfect like when you pop up a brand new house, it's easy. It's wonderful. Bam. We hit the regenerative cert. Let's go. Ok.
Hayley Painter - 00:35:04
Well, what about these old houses that are not being used at all that are just depleting, you know, the area and the resources. Let's take these farms that are struggling that need help that want to pass it down for a generation. Maybe they want to pass it down to a new farmer. How do we support them? And I don't think I answered your question because I go off on tangents. What was your,
Anthony Corsaro - 00:35:37
I I love it. No, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Um But just what, what was your dad's initial reaction to this plan to commercialize the, the, the milk?
Hayley Painter - 00:35:48
So my dad though, he's a little out of the box. Our whole family is, we are just really big go getters. Um We were one of the first. So when my grandpa started, our family has been in the US for a long time. Um They were at the rating of the Declaration of Independence. And um they, they were the ones who brought over the first milking short horns to the country is what the story is. Um and leather bound book. Um They helped start the Pennsylvania railroad. They started some of the salt mines in the area um in the Pittsburgh area. So they've always had this like twinkle in their eye and ambition. And so my grandpa, he was second generation on our farm in northern Pennsylvania in 1941.
Hayley Painter - 00:36:19
And when he got the farm with my grandma, they only had two farms. When he passed away, they ended up incorporating 53 other farms that were going out of business. Um Neighbors who said, hey, I want you to farm our land because I don't want it to be built up into something else. So they would give it to him at a lower price. He cons he, he um said he'd rather have money or he'd rather have land than money in the bank. My grandma always asked him, how does he know that? Because he's never had money in the bank before. We've always had a ton of debt.
Hayley Painter - 00:36:51
So he's always been innovative. A twinkle in his eye. He passed away in 2013 and he's a strong um reason why we wanted to figure out how we could support our farm for future generations and it's so passionate and deeply ingrained. And I fully see, um, the struggles of these farmers, like these farmers are, you know, they go out and work all year round when it's super hot, when it's cold out on winter's day. Last year, it was like negative 30 below zero. And my dad almost got frostbite to the point where he lost his fingers. People don't know this on the store shelves, right? And so how do we support these farmers who are being stewards of the land who are taking this extra mile?
Hayley Painter - 00:37:35
And so my dad, when he found out we were doing this, he was so jolly and happy and excited, our biggest supporter. He's got the biggest pimples and smile the rest of my family, my mom, my brothers, they're all really excited. Um But it's a, it's been a ton of hard work. Um But just some of the cool things our farms done, like we've got, we got the first one of the first ethanol stills on the east coast when it first started in the early two thousands or maybe late nineties. Um We're getting solar panels on our farm 9 ft tall so the cattle can graze underneath them. Um And so we've always been pretty innovative and kind of, you gotta do what you can to keep growing.
Hayley Painter - 00:38:17
And um my, my dad's feedback is you have to be ruthless and the bear can't eat you if you don't stop, if he can't catch you, so don't stop running. So that's what we're doing and we're not gonna let him, you know, eat our, eat our farm, meet the rest of these farmers here and really be able to be this voice in connection for consumers.
Kyle Krull - 00:38:52
Super interesting story and you know, the trying to start AC BG brand is hard for anybody. Um, let alone a fa farming family who is so expert and has so much industry knowledge for how that industry works. So I'm curious like how did you end up doing this brand thing in addition to all of the farming things at the same time, what was that learning curve like how did you start a protein retail first? You know, were you working with certain partners? Um walk us through the the real brand development side of like getting into natural retail.
Hayley Painter - 00:39:25
I didn't know what the words natural retail were. I didn't, I didn't really know what retail was. Um let alone CPG. I, we learned CPG four months after launching the brand. Um So I think, you know, consumer packaged goods, it's such an interesting world. We didn't quite know it. We were chasing a mission um and whatever we had to do to get there. So we learned as we went and as we were running. Um And so I think the four years of learning what product do we want to launch, what could, what, what could be the niche in the system and the processing opportunity to be able to, if someone shut our farm off tomorrow that we could sustain ourselves. That was the question we were trying to answer. And after four years, we launched that this product in March of 2022. Um And so that was the, I guess the time that we had time to think, um, understand it all.
Hayley Painter - 00:40:16
Again, we didn't even understand the quantity without our market. You know, we thought our con our consumer base would be able to eat 60,000 yogurts in a week here in Pennsylvania. So we were a little off on some things. Um, but we, we knew we had to get there and we had to get there fast. Um We were at risk of losing our co op a couple of times selling our cows in the early 2019. Um, getting hardly any money and deciding is, is today the day.
Hayley Painter - 00:40:44
Um And so we were, we had a lot of pressure behind us to answer that question. So we just had to start rolling with it. And when we felt confident enough that we had the niche, um that could really get us to scale and get, get consumers a product that they need, then we just went with it, um, and went full force and we had, we had plans to do a farm store to make cheese butter bottle milk. Um, we were gonna bottle spring water from the hill. So we had these massive plans in these four years and so we had to slow it all down and focus simply on originally, just five flavors of yogurt five skews. Now we're at eight skews, we're still focusing on that. Um So I think, I think that was the, the biggest part. And then how do we wanna tell our story? We decided we wanted to tell everything very positively.
Hayley Painter - 00:41:40
A lot of organic farmers or farmers tell their story by putting down another style of farming. And really we need to support each other. What are we doing and how can we lead in this way and how can we get other people to lead with us in that way? And so we decided to make our marketing point very positive um to pay heritage to that and to be that transparent voice. And so that all happened before we launched. And ever since then again, it's like you're running and you're figuring it out on the way.
Hayley Painter - 00:42:16
We've gotten grants through the State of Pennsylvania, through the US, the National um United States Department of Agriculture, which is really cool um to help us get financial advisors, business advisors, and we always ask for help. We never assume we know, but we're not afraid to ask questions. And I think that is the biggest thing for anybody is ask questions and be vulnerable because you will get answers. I truly believe anyone can lead if they have that ability to question whenever I see, you know, a leader who wants to even come in to support our company if he doesn't ask a question. Um, he feels so confident that he, he or she, um, knows the answer. I already don't, don't want to work with them because they're gonna miss out on the new opportunity because this life is constantly changing and no one is an expert in any field.
Hayley Painter - 00:43:05
Um Because there's so much change,
Anthony Corsaro - 00:43:17
Hayley, I've had the pleasure of talking to you and Stephanie about the Mo O crew, which is one of the ways that y'all have supported velocities at retail. Um And I would love for y'all to speak to or you to speak to the Moo crew and then other ways you, you, you're obviously performing really well at retail to, to gain on the distribution that you have and to have this rapid growth. So how are you getting the yogurt off the shelf once it's on the shelf?
Hayley Painter - 00:43:41
Yeah. So we're, we're just moving it off the shelves, I think by telling our authentic story and letting these consumers feel connected to it and even the store owners, like we have some store, like some um retailers that are part of the Mo O crew or some people who stock the shelves, whatever it is. So what the MOOC crew is, we really believe in field marketing, we don't have a ton of dollars to support in marketing. So you gotta get creative, social media, um push it in different ways. But the MO O crew, we found out um we have brand ambassadors which are for social media. They, we send them coupons, they post pictures, we pay them to post on our social media. It's just like everybody else.
Hayley Painter - 00:44:10
Um And what we're getting is their engaged audience from social media. But the best way to market is still word of mouth. And as we launched because, you know, we're farmers here, we have such a fiery community support team of like our rural agriculture area. And so they, they believe this brand is theirs as well and it totally is. And so we started talking about these brand ambassadors and some of these ladies would come and be like, I want to do demos for you or I wanna help you at this event or I want to fly to California with you like II I don't want you to drive home at night um after you're going through all these shows or I've told so many people at my church group about this. So whatever it is, right, they all have their own like circles, they exercise groups right now. Pickleball is a huge thing.
Hayley Painter - 00:45:05
And so what we decided to do because we listen to, I guess our audience is we decided to open up our brand partnerships um and focus on field marketing that had nothing to do with social media, but we provide coupons to these really cool um people in our areas. Um and they're able to help advocate for us. And I really think it's not because they love the yoga, it's because they love the story and they feel a part of it. And so I think, I don't think every brand could do this. I think it takes a really special impactful brand to be able to connect with, I guess the audience like this um and have them spread the word so organically,
Kyle Krull - 00:45:56
I love that, you know, I spent a lot of time working at retail, interacting directly with customers um at like store shelves and we call it uh interception if somebody is shopping a category and you can approach them and say, hey, you know, continue to buy whatever it is that you want to buy, but also try this and see how you like it and they get to develop a personal connection with that positive interaction that leads to like a level of loyalty that is, it can't be beat to your point, it can't be compared to a social media post, right? Um So I think that's a really cool grassroots creative outside the box way to continue to build a fan base at the location where people are shopping and finding your product. So kudos to you for um again, thinking outside the box and creating this initiative that and the name is fantastic. The Mo O crew um
Hayley Painter - 00:46:44
shirts to come.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:46
I need a T shirt. I need a Booker T shirt now, like ASAP.
Hayley Painter - 00:46:51
Oh, you can definitely have a Moon Crew t-shirt if you wear it on this podcast.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:56
Oh, absolutely. That's easy. Um The other, the other topic I, I know we want to make sure we talk about Hayley that comes along with growth is you need cash, right? You need to fund that growth and there is a open We funder campaign happening right now uh that I believe is being even revamped right now. Um And you have a very specific vision, I think for how you want to use that capital and what kind of um investors you're looking for, what the expectation is for return. And so I wanna just give you the mic to talk about what are those capital needs? Kind of, what are they moving forward? And how are you approaching this wefunder campaign and the investors that you're looking for?
Hayley Painter - 00:47:34
Yeah, so we're really excited. Um Everything has been a learning curve like we've talked about. Um and our goal for the future is to have this company for a long time. We've talked about longevity a lot and that's completely a part of this regenerative system. And so for regenerative farmers, it's about sustaining the land and their stewardship for for generations to come. 90% of the brands on the or 90% of the food on the grocery store shelves is owned by 10 companies. So that's not diversity. So how can we support regenerative agriculture if we don't have regenerative markets for them? Um And so, so therefore, we strongly like our vision is to create this difference for a long time and to have a company that really soars and hits profitability and can stand on its own. And with that goal, we want investors that want to come in um and reap those benefits along the way. And so we haven't modeled out to do distributions of profits with them. So that's a belief that hey, we want to grow, but we want to grow with profits.
Hayley Painter - 00:48:27
Um And then at the same time coming in, at this level, um the shares are gonna continue to grow. So, um that opportunity is there as well. So it's not a system of, hey, come in, we're gonna sell the company with within 5 to 10 years. It's, hey, come in, we're going to create an empire together and you can either get the distributions of profits or you can sell your share that's gonna be worth a lot more because you're gonna help us grow with it. And so right now we have a, when we're thinking about how do we want to do this, um There's honestly not a lot of funding for, I guess, ideas like this that I know of as well. And so in order to kind of connect with other people and see what's out there. I decided, we decided, let's open a crowdfunding campaign. We stuck with We funder. And so we're able to be very transparent about what we're doing.
Hayley Painter - 00:49:19
A lot of people say they don't want to do crowd funding because they're putting all their information out there and you know what transparency is, everything. So now we're able to freely talk about what we're doing. It's really exciting. It's positive growth. Um In the last two months, we've doubled our sales um which is wonderful. Um We had a, we had a $400,000 month
Anthony Corsaro - 00:49:54
and you want a next day and I said, and you want a next, which we haven't talked about. So we need to give you a shout out
Hayley Painter - 00:49:59
there. We want next e we're really focusing on that premium. And so we're looking for investors to come in that want to have that premium product with us, use that voice and longevity so they can go to, we fund it right now. They can invest. A lot of people are like, oh, it can only be small investors that come in, small, medium, large venture capitalists can even come in through there. I know it sounds crazy but it has been done before. Um You can look at the different programs and the reason we're doing this is for the most awareness and to be able to market it. So um if anyone's interested, you can go to wefunder dot com or you can reach out to us if you want to talk directly, I'm gonna be doing a live tonight from 5 to 6 even though this isn't gonna be airing until after, isn't it? So let's just go back.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:50:44
Well, we will put the uh we will put the we funder link in the show notes and we will include some other promotional materials on the investment as well like the live you mentioned. So we will support in that way, for sure.
Hayley Painter - 00:50:57
Awesome. Um Yeah, and people can reach out to me directly. So that's a little bit about what we're doing. We're also looking for grants. We've gotten our first. It was actually a $250,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture to help us fund our processing. So we're looking in that way as well. So there's a lot of cool ways to, to fund business, businesses and CPG brands. Um I just think there needs to be a little bit of change in the industry, so I'm excited.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:51:29
Yeah, there's definitely a dearth of capital for regenerative brands in general, which we've talked about a nausea on this podcast and there's especially a dearth of capital for any CPG brand that is not modeling to an exit in a venture timeline, which is a struggle, right? And this is someone that wants to build a venture capital fund that funds brands like that and we still haven't built what I would say, proven um mechanisms to make that happen. And so a lot of the trail blazing work, like what you're doing is very important because once we have this portfolio of success there, we can really show that it is possible. And I do think there's probably more out there than we know of. Someone needs to do a better job of aggregating it and really telling those stories and there's some folks doing some really cool work in that regard as well, but it's a great, it's a great um testament to just, I think the way that y'all built this whole thing through that authenticity and transparency and you're being very honest and forthright about this is the vision and please help us if you're, if you're down, but honestly, don't if you're not right, which I think is important and Hayley, I know y'all are doing some really cool what y'all call impact work, like talk to us a little bit about that and what y'all are doing there.
Hayley Painter - 00:52:37
Yeah, so impact work to us is um it's not directly related to selling products. More impact in our impact is how do we connect consumers to farmers and farmers back to consumers and providing sustainability to them. And so we like to get involved into our agriculture communities um and educate or support different initiatives that are, for instance, there's programs like the Dairy Center or the Dairy Princesses or the Center for Dairy Excellence, um Future of America.
Kyle Krull - 00:53:09
I love this. This is amazing.
Hayley Painter - 00:53:12
I was the keynote speaker this year. It was really flattering. No, it's interesting though because I was, I thought they were all in high school, but I was only two years older than the oldest one there. So I kind of, you know, I really felt like I um you know, encourage them that they could do different things. Um F fa like future Farmers of America. Do you guys work with them at all?
Anthony Corsaro - 00:53:39
We haven't done anything with them but they, they have their big conference here in Indianapolis every year. So I see them running around that one, that one big uh week of the year.
Hayley Painter - 00:53:47
Yeah, we'll have to combine and see how we can work together there. Um So like that, there's Pennsylvania friends of agriculture, there's dairy grazer's apprenticeship program or farms and apprentice farm um groups like that. So we try to get involved, get our voice out. How can we help out? Um And the, the Pennsylvania friends of agriculture, we've actually supported, there's a mobile immersion lab. And so it's a like a little trailer that's mobile that can go to different events, it can go to high schools, elementary schools and it has a Meet The Farmer series on the whole one side of it. And it's actually Stephanie and I saying what a farmer can look like. Um And so farmers really can be, you know, anything. And so although it's not directly helping us um get sales, it's really broadening the education for consumers to try regenerative and organic products or farmer owned products. Yeah, this cat's named Milk Mustache.
Hayley Painter - 00:54:35
We
Anthony Corsaro - 00:54:50
have so for those, for those that are just listening, we got the cheese diagram in the background. We got the, the the cat guest named Milk Mustache and then Hayley has the most epic pig mug that I've ever seen. So all time aesthetic lineup out of out of out of hay today,
Kyle Krull - 00:55:08
she's doing a great job trying to control these cats that cat just tried to walk into the frame and she just like casually, like shoved it below the desk and then like popped it up to show the milk mustache pretty hot
Hayley Painter - 00:55:19
when we first pitched sprouts. Um We were so excited to get into sprouts. Um But yeah, one of the cats is right there looking at the camera and I'm like, we are not getting in
Anthony Corsaro - 00:55:33
love that
Hayley Painter - 00:55:34
I
Kyle Krull - 00:55:36
acknowledge the cat's presence, talk about the cat and especially when your cat has a milk mustache and you're a dairy company. I mean, that's a win. Um Make sure the cat's there for every. Um So that's great news also, this is total segue back to like conversations minutes ago. Um I had a conversation with a natural channel dairy buyer recently who talked about how the plant based set has not just plateaued but started to erode a little bit and they're going to start shrinking that set to look to get more high quality, you know, traceable regenerative dairy products back on shelf, which I think is super, super cool. So that goes back to the time and conversation we had earlier. Um But the impact where you just laid out sounds incredible. I want to talk, you mentioned the longevity piece for Pain and Sisters and I want to talk about the future you mentioned. There's a new peach skew coming out soon. Um But what else is coming down? The pike? Are there any potentials to get? I mean, clearly, you've got an educational background in cheese making. You've talked about bottle of milk.
Kyle Krull - 00:56:25
Like what are some of the 135 year goals from like a skew development or category, category penetration perspective for the painter and sisters?
Hayley Painter - 00:56:45
Yeah. So we definitely want to focus on our premium yogurts. Um Our yogurt is lactose free as well. I didn't mention that. So it is a really segue between that plant based and real dairy for consumers who have difficulty and have had to go to plant based for so long. Um And then all those probiotics
Kyle Krull - 00:57:02
is it just, is it naturally lactose free because of that ultra filtration process you mentioned? Or is there some other thing that happens that makes it lactose free?
Hayley Painter - 00:57:10
Yeah. So ultra filtration makes it low in lactose but to be completely lactose free. We actually add a lactase enzyme to the culturing pro process and pretty much any dairy product can be lactose free. Um It's a little expensive though to do that. And so we're like, you know what, we're gonna do it for our consumers because we want everyone to be able to enjoy it. Um And it's one of the few very premium products that are also lactose free.
Anthony Corsaro - 00:57:36
Super cool, super cool. Yeah.
Hayley Painter - 00:57:39
Um What did you ask me?
Kyle Krull - 00:57:42
We were talking about the future like what uh what's the future hold for painter and sisters? And and that could be either SKU or category development or you know, incorporating more farms or whatever that looks like. What, what's the future outlook for the
Hayley Painter - 00:57:53
brand, the future outlook of Painterland Sisters is really to lead with premium quality products and to be able to provide the stability for farmers to increasing the different farmers and the awareness um and the transparency there to be able to utilize all of our family's milk. Um and then to really grow into, right? We want to saturate our yogurt categories, but see what else is out there in the future. Um I would definitely tell you some of those, but I think it'd be better if it was kept a secret and I'd like to hear from everyone else if they have any ideas of premium dairy products that they wish they had. Because again, as a consumer I, when I would leave the farm and didn't have my raw milk, I did not like yogurt guys. This is like the one product I'm like, we are not making yogurt. And so we made a really premium yogurt and now I like it.
Hayley Painter - 00:58:31
So, is there anything that's missing on the shelves that, you know, you guys think should, should be on?
Anthony Corsaro - 00:58:52
Love that flipping the question into some strategic advice from the audience that is uh that's a hungry founder right there. We love that.
Hayley Painter - 00:59:00
I can't give all my secrets.
Kyle Krull - 00:59:03
I love to answer the question like premium dairy on the shelf, like recommendations. I do my best to consume as much regenerative and or grass fed or grass based. Now that I've learned that term today, um dairy that I can and one of the things I have a really hard time finding is cheeses that still taste good. There are a few that have come out recently um that are organic, raw and I'm not going to throw any of these brands under the bus because I think they're doing really good things, but the taste is often not there. So if we can get really high quality from an ingredient perspective, dairy, that still tastes fantastic. That would be incredible. And I'd love to support those products with my dollar.
Hayley Painter - 00:59:42
So you would like a pro you would like a cheese with more flavor that's organic and regenerative. Um and possibly grass based or grass finished. I think that would be a great product in the future. I think um what, what is really lacking is the artisanal style cheeses um where they can be cave aged or some type of craft in them. The beauty of cheese is it can taste so different from each bite. And so there is some new opportunities out there because the organic regenerative cheeses are the ones that are consistent, which is a demand as well in a niche. But you, you want those artisanal cheeses that maybe taste a little different every time. And trust me, I would love to do that. My dream is to just have a cave on the farm. Invite people up. We're five hours from New York City, five hours from Philadelphia. Let people come to the farm experience cheese.
Hayley Painter - 01:00:26
They can make cheese with us, we can age it in our cave. Uh We can have free and mozzarella and a bunch of things. So, but I would love to do that as well. Yeah,
Anthony Corsaro - 01:00:50
we're gonna, we're gonna find a rich person to put the $8 million up for the cheese cave and processing facility. Um If
Hayley Painter - 01:00:58
we're just doing a cave, we just need a thing of dynamite. But I don't know if that's regenerative.
Anthony Corsaro - 01:01:04
I don't, I don't know if it'll be SQF certified, but it sounds like it'll, it'll work, which is the most important thing.
Hayley Painter - 01:01:10
Yeah. Our artisan cheese can get around the SQF. Yeah.
Anthony Corsaro - 01:01:16
Well, hey, this has been a super fun conversation. I'll take us home with the, the question that we ask everyone. And I know from what we've talked about so far, you're gonna have a really interesting take on this. But um, how do we get regenerative brands to have 50% market share by 2050?
Hayley Painter - 01:01:33
I would say that we need to make our voices louder, um, more marketing opportunities, more spaces on the shelves. But most importantly, if we get that 50% market share, I want to make sure that market share is providing the adequate um sale price, right? So these brands can continue to thrive. But more importantly, we can pay that directly back down to these farmers because getting like a certification, a whole new one, it's going to be an extra expense for them. Um So that 50% market share as long as it has a really great, you know, margin to demand higher prices. And I think that all comes with marketing, marketing, a voice that's louder, an ability to get support on retail shelves because consumers will buy it. They're ready for that 50% market. We just got to make room for them. That's what I think. What do you guys think?
Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:28
Love that and your, your uh concern and action around the farmer livelihood piece has just been a thread throughout this whole conversation and I just really admire it. It's, it's so evident in everything that y'all are doing. Um And it's, we have to build not only the brands but the supply chain supply webs is the new term that everyone loves whatever the, the commercialization engines that take these outputs off farm and adequately reward the farmer for, for their work. Uh And that's, that's really the key. Um But I do think, I think consumers are ready for it. Obviously, we, we think that we wouldn't be doing all this, but we gotta make it happen for sure.
Kyle Krull - 01:03:07
Agreed. And I think you hit the nail on the head with the marketing piece. Like we've got to drive education, we got to drive awareness and make sure that consumers understand why they would be willing to pay that premium. Because I think that if they can connect those dots, it becomes a no brainer decision. Like why wouldn't you want food? That's more nutritionally dense, that tastes better, that's better for the planet. You know. So as long as we can communicate those three value propositions, I think that we can get there.
Anthony Corsaro - 01:03:30
Agreed, brother couldn't have said it better myself. Hayley. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been super fun. Thank you.
Hayley Painter - 01:03:36
Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun, cheesy conversations.
Kyle Krull - 01:03:42
Well, yeah, great to hear your story. Thanks for all the incredible work you're doing. I wanna give a quick reference to the website Panter L sisters dot com. If anybody wants to learn more.
Hayley Painter - 01:03:53
Thanks Hayley. Thank you guys
Anthony Corsaro - 01:04:00
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 five 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 Regent Coalition and Outlaw Ventures. We hope you learn 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.