#56 - Kyle Koehler @ Wildway

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #56 - Transitioning An 11-Year Old Brand To 100% ROC™ - (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 is going to take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:33
On this episode, we have Kyle Koehler who is the founder and CEO at Wildway. Wildway is supporting Regenerative Agriculture with its commitment to transition its entire product portfolio to Regenerative Organic Certified, beginning with a four SKU lineup of Planet Friendly oats and a three SKU lineup of coconut chips. In this episode, we learn about Kyle's 11 year journey bootstrapping Wildway from the farmer's market to a nationally distributed and profitable brand. Kyle shares his inspiration for taking the brand fully regenerative organic plus the immense challenges that that has created and he shares how they're looking to fund the future of the business with redeemable equity. This was a super fun and informative conversation. Y'all. We love Kyle's radical transparency and really respect the level of thought and integrity he's bringing to this work, lots of good discussions and good learning nuggets in this one Let's go. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the ReGen Brands Podcast.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:01:17
Very excited today to have a second Kyle joining us, our friend Kyle from Wildway. So welcome Wild Kyle.

Kyle Koehler - 00:01:43
Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Kyle Krull - 00:01:46
We're super stoked to have you. Um For those who are listening in, I wanna make sure that I describe your shirt right up front. Um There's three different lines of text. The first line is purpose over profit, followed by significance over scale, followed by collaboration over competition. Um And that just really sets the vibe and we're excited to dig in to understand more about the origin story of the brand. Why you're wearing that shirt um and kind of get into the nitty gritty. So just, just want to share the vibe with those who can't see it. Um But before we get too deep, give us a quick lay of the land. Like what sort of products does wild we produce? Where can people find you today? What are like the SKU flavors?

Kyle Krull - 00:02:09
Like what's the high level for the brand?

Kyle Koehler - 00:02:22
Yeah. Yeah. So we are a breakfast and snack food manufacturer based out of San Antonio. We produce a Regenerative Organic Certified oatmeal, um a Regenerative Organic Certified uh coconut chip snack and then a nut seed and dried fruit based granola as well. Kind of our three product lines that we produce today. So we're heavily distributed in Texas and then uh we focus mostly coastal. So California, New York, New England areas is where you can find, uh you can find most of our brand products.

Kyle Krull - 00:02:49
It's breakfast time right now as we're recording this podcast, give us the flavors. I need to, I need to like really feel like what are my, what are my potential options if I'm gonna go?

Kyle Koehler - 00:02:59
Yeah, on the uh on the oatmeal side, um probably our best seller and most my favorite flavors are maple coconut sugar. It's like our take on your classic Quaker maple brown sugar but just way better for you. Um Super good, you know um organic maple sugar, organic coconut sugar, um super clean, super delicious. Um We do a banana nut flavor as well which is like super home style like banana nut bread tasting um love that one and it's some fruit forward flavors with like a raspberry chia flavor as well. Um which are, which are fantastic. Uh On the granola side, we do my personal favorite flavor on the side, we do a vanilla bean espresso which is an organic Fair Trade coffee. So it's it's really like a love hate with a lot of people. It's because it's it's some people don't like to eat their coffee, right? But but I'm a little bit of a coffee addict. So it's probably my favorite flavor of what we produce.

Kyle Koehler - 00:03:41
But uh but our best sellers are coconut cashew flavor and we do a dark chocolate sea salt, which is kind of ubiquitous like flavor for, for a lot of people. So, yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:03:58
Nice, nice,

Anthony Corsaro - 00:04:00
nice. Well, so I I referenced that we're gonna refer to Kyle from Wildway as Wild Kyle because Kyle and him have obviously the first, the same first name, but also the same second initial. Um So, uh I'm gonna call Kyle Kyle and I'm gonna call Wildway Kyle. Wild Kyle. So Wild Kyle take us back to uh to the wild roots of, of this, this company, man. How did this thing started?

Kyle Koehler - 00:04:27
Yeah, so we've, uh we've been in business for 11 years, so we just celebrated our 11 year anniversary last month. So it's been, it's been a hot minute. Um seen a lot of the course of that time. So we started, um, yeah, when we started back, you know, 1011 years ago. Um, you know, I've, I've always been an advocate of health, food and health products and I've always kind of had, you know, dietary, um health kind of issues throughout my life. And so at the time, um I did this pro I was, I was working in accounting that was my like past life before, before food um in New York City um of all places. And uh I did, I found this program, did this program that was called the Whole Nine, uh which is now more properly known as the whole 30 is kind of what it evolved into right at the time, at the time it was called The Whole Nine. It was like a very new and na thing and just kind of. So I took all these things out of my diet, um, felt a lot better and I was like, wow, there's, there's something to be had for like, you know, not including soy and dairy and sugars and all these crazy things and, and, uh, but couldn't find a whole lot of products to eat.

Kyle Koehler - 00:05:17
Um, on that, you know, when I took all those things out of my diet and so created this, this product for myself. Actually tried to recreate a larva is really like the, the actual like true origin of, of, of the story, but it wouldn't stick together. Uh, it kind of crumbled and was like, hey, this is like this kind of a trail mix that kind of eats like a granola, you know. Well, it's like, it's like a granola, right? So I just made it for myself for a while. Um, really got tired.

Kyle Koehler - 00:05:42
I was gonna say personally,

Kyle Krull - 00:05:54
I would have loved for there to have been a Kyle Bar out there just for me to support. So I'm psyched Wildway here, but I would have loved Kyle Bar also.

Kyle Koehler - 00:06:07
Yeah, we've got a lot of requests to do a bar over the years but uh, but not what is the dam

Anthony Corsaro - 00:06:12
of Kyle in the US. We need to figure that out I need. So that, that's,

Kyle Krull - 00:06:16
that they actually, they actually had a convention for all the Kyle in the country to go to somewhere in Texas in Kyle, Texas this year. I swear to God. That's

Anthony Corsaro - 00:06:26
true.

Kyle Koehler - 00:06:26
That's true. Yeah. Uh So, yeah, so, you know, something I just made for myself for a while. Um, I tell people I got tired of working, um, all the time, um, in New York and accounting. So I had to do to just work even more um as an entrepreneur. Um But uh yeah, I moved back to Texas where, where I had roots and family and uh started selling at farmers' markets here in San Antonio and sold out like every single day, we'd go to the market, we sell out of this, of this granola product that, that I created and, and, and said, I don't know if you know, you guys know much about San Antonio, but it's certainly not the uh health capital of the world um at all. And so I figured, hey, if this is something that like people like here and it will go over, well, we're here, then I think I've got something that can maybe grow and scale and, and so walked into Whole Foods, just walked in the Whole Foods Corporate uh one day with a little pouch of it and just told the receptionist that like I had a product that I think would sell well in their stores. And I wanted to talk to the buyer. Um, she, yeah, politely asked if I had an appointment and I was like, no, of course not. But, uh, but she, she took it and got it to the right person.

Kyle Koehler - 00:07:26
And like six weeks later we were on shelves and whole Foods and, and then it's, we just kind of just kind of ran from there. Yeah, it just kind of ran from there.

Kyle Krull - 00:07:45
What year is that? Give us some context.

Kyle Koehler - 00:07:47
That was probably 2000 and 2012. Um is when is when that happened? So 2013 is kind of our first year in which we had like sales in stores. So

Anthony Corsaro - 00:08:01
one SKU 34 SKUs. That

Kyle Koehler - 00:08:04
was, yeah, that was 33 skews, um three SKs. It was our coconut cashew, our banana nut and apple cinnamon were like the three skews that we with. Um, and we weren't planning to grind into stores. The buyer just said, hey, I'm gonna turn you on as a product that the stores can buy, but it's going to be store specific. So we're on a road trip around Texas uh to every single whole Whole Foods store where just cases of granola and asked to speak with individual store buyers and said, hey, this is, I think, you know, this is a great product. I think you guys should take it. Um, and started that we rented kitchen space. We went to the commissary kitchen space here in San Antonio and would go from like 9, 10 at night to like, 12 in the morning making granola, um, bagging and boxing it up and then getting it out to stores. And that was, that was how it started for a while.

Kyle Koehler - 00:08:50
Um, and, and you were DS

Anthony Corsaro - 00:08:54
D or you were going through a UN F I DC.

Kyle Koehler - 00:08:56
We were, we were DS D, yeah, we were DS D we worked with a really small distributor after that. That just was very regional. They just did Texas. Um And then, and then eventually worked with the UN F I eventually. Um but yeah, it was a lot of just really scrappy work and, and, and labor to begin with. We, we've always, we, we still produce in house today. We have our own manufacturing facility. And so we moved from that commissary kitchen space to like a 1000 square foot. It was basically an office. It wasn't like a food production facility. So we had to like, you know, put a kitchen, you know, put a sink in and sanitation room and do all this stuff and, and, and yeah, it just became a little labor of love, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:09:23
We had a little 30 quart mixer that we would produce in and we used that and, you know, I think we got to a point where, you know, we were having to produce like something around 200 like to 300 like mixes in that like mixer a day before. It was finally like, hey, we need a, we need a bigger like batching system um, for this. And so, yeah, quickly went from Whole Foods to, to Wegmans was actually our second retailer. Uh, oddly enough, um, we went to our first Expo West in 2014 or 2015. Um, it just so happened that the Wegman's buyer had taken a trip to Austin, seen our product on the shelves at Whole Foods and then randomly like walks by our booth and was like, hey, I have your product in my backpack and I was like, mm, not a chance. And he like opens up his backpack and like pulls out our granola and was like that we really do have a product. Um just like a weird stroke of luck. And, and so that was the second retailer that that we launched into.

Kyle Koehler - 00:10:18
And then very quickly heb after that and then once we, we launched Wegmans and Heb, we were like, we got to the point where like we, we, we need to like some equipment and some people um to make this because it was just, it became like a 24 7 operation. We had this little couch in our facility and I slept on multiple times just because we'd made grenades like two in the morning. I would go to sleep and wake up and we just start doing it again. And it was just, it was just whatever took, you know, whatever we needed to do to kind of make it happen and get it into stores in like the really early days. Yeah,

Kyle Krull - 00:11:01
that's insane. Um I also just want to shout out, you know, I was excited to talk to you for a couple of reasons. Number one, I knew that we had a similar timeline in the natural industry. I didn't realize it was exactly 11 years for both of us. So that's really interesting. Um And we both had a similar arc where like, you know, for me, regen wasn't a passion 0.11 years ago and it has become a passion point today and you're similar in that uh that area as well. Um But as you were talking about that early days of Whole Foods, like super nostalgic for me, like when you could really get stuff done at like the local level of Whole foods and go store by store and get those store level authorizations like the whole foods of today, like that doesn't exist anymore. So anybody who's launched a product post Amazon acquisition, like they're not going to believe that story. Um But those were the days. So, yeah, totally.

Kyle Krull - 00:11:37
Um But on that note, I want to get like a better sense of like, you know, we super appreciate the intro story, whole Foods heb Wegmans. When did regen become something that you first heard about? How did you hear about it and why did you decide you want to incorporate that and support that as part of your business?

Kyle Koehler - 00:12:05
Yeah. And so, you know, on the, so the brand for us started my emphasis for was I just wanted to get people to eat real food, right? Real whole food. Like get back to like where food came from, like eat food that was grown or that lived, right? Not all this processed stuff, right? And so we all, you know, something that we've always, that's always been a part of the brand is our, our, our focus on 100% real food. Um And then we've always used this mantra of trying to get people back to the wild, right? Wildway, like that's kind of the participant Wildway and where that came from, let's get people back to the wild. Um You know, and we always said that from a physical standpoint as well, like get outside, right? Get some sunlight, like do those things and like, and then also eat food that's like grown or live, that's all natural.

Kyle Koehler - 00:12:36
And so that's always been a big part of our brain. And so I think over time, you know, as, as, as the brain shift, you know, we started to really early on, like in this, you mentioned earlier in the kind of the grain free and the paleo space and we started like paleo was super new and nascent and grain free was really new that's what retailers really wanted. And so we got really quickly sucked, sucked into this, like paleo grain free, like space. Like that kind of became our, like our, our big moniker that, that we went after because retailers were asking like, hey, we want more grain free stuff, we want more paleo stuff like this is exploding, like we want these products and so that we grew really quickly, like based on this moniker of Grain Free. And so, um but as that kind of evolved over time, you know, you know, we realized more and more that like the brand became synonymous with diet culture, right? Which is something that I, I never really wanted for the brand.

Kyle Koehler - 00:13:19
I never really wanted the brand to be so synonymous with, with diet culture and like Paleo and Keto and all these other things and that's kind of what it started to become synonymous with. And so I really kind of took a step back. Um I would say three or four years ago and said, hey, you know, this is not really what I want our brand to stand for, right? Like it has been great growth and like, you know, retailers have loved it and like the keywords convert online, it's great, like it's fantastic. Um But I don't want to really run a brand that's ony diet culture. I think diet culture um really, you know, brings more negative things to the food industry than positive, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:13:59
Um, and I think what, you know, it really kind of like hit home for me the most, um, years ago when I was in, you know, I was in Costco of all places like shopping and, and was like, listening to a couple super excited about like their, their uh keto diet that they were doing and, and, and I looked in their cart and it was like keto cookies and like pancakes and like chocolate and like crackers and like, and I was like, man, there's not a single like meat or like vegetable and this is crazy. Um And realized like, how far we had, we had taken this whole movement as, as far as like just processing it and turning it into junk. And so that was kind of like the real like, OK, we need to do something about this and we need to move in a different direction. And so, um you know, the more started to think about it, the more said, hey, if we're going to really talk to people about getting back to the wild and we need to really embrace of the agricultural principles that also take us there and the way these things are grown and how they're grown and, and where they're grown and really focus a lot more on our ingredients and supply chain, not just like the ingredients being better for people, but like the ingredients being better for the planet as well. And so that kind of started my whole like research and kind of involvement into kind of what, where can we kind of take the brand and evolve the brand that has a lot more to do with how these things are grown and like the holistic impact and that can really have on the entire system. And so I started doing a lot of that work. Um 2020 kind of derailed a lot of that for us. About a little over a third of our business was in food service at the time.

Kyle Koehler - 00:15:20
So in 2020 happened, we pretty much lost a third of our, you know, 35% of our business like overnight, just, just like boom. And so it was at that point, we're like, OK, let's, let's table some of the stuff that we're trying to do and just survive for, you know, a couple of years and then, um and then kind of do more of that work. And so um once things kind of settle down a little bit and some of the business started coming back, we started really digging into the supply chain side and saying, OK, um and doing a lot more research, learning a lot more about regenerative and the outcomes. Um And that was really kind of the impetus of the start of this kind of snowball effect, like how we're going to shift the brand from, from this grain free and diet culture, you know, that that did really well for us, you know, for like a decade but, but was, was not something that, that really excited me as an entrepreneur or something that I really wanted the brand to stand for. I really wanted to have a more holistic approach and holistic take on the products and what they did for the system as a whole. And so that's what really drove us to kind of do a lot more with the regenerative and organic and how these things are being grown.

Kyle Koehler - 00:16:21
And, and yeah, so

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:28
had Kyle had the brand always been us d organic before that or was even organic part of like a transition journey too.

Kyle Koehler - 00:16:37
Yeah, organic has been a transition journey too. So we're still working on transitioning um the granola, it's 100% organic as well. So it's it initially route the gate, um initially route the gate. It did start as organic. So that was our goal is to source everything organic as much as possible. Um And then we started, you know, learning a lot more about the cost of distribution and retail um and all of those things and realize like we had a product that sat at like 999 on the shelf, you know, and, and this has always been like a um something that's like kind of tugged at my heartstrings over the years is the fact that like I grew up in a super like middle, lower, middle income, like household Right. I grew up in a really small town. My mom was a teacher, my dad worked at a power plant, like early on in the business. I realized, like, man, like my family growing up wasn't, couldn't even afford to like buy the own product that I'm creating today. Right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:17:14
Because I'm pricing, you know, my own, you know, my, my own family, like out of the market, you know, and that, that was something that really, you know, sat heavy on me. I wanted to make products that were also accessible to people that really needed them. And so, um we scaled kind of some of that stuff back in order to make the product more accessible. Um And now, you know, we had to do that to get to scale as well and to get to margin and to get the profitability and get the margin. Um So we've never raised any money over time either. We bootstrapped it.

Kyle Koehler - 00:17:49
And so, you know, we had to make some really hard choices on the ingredient side and product side to say, hey, if we're going to bootstrap this and we've got to have margins that are going to allow us to grow profitably. Um And so we made some really tough changes on the ingredients side early on. And so now that we've kind of grown and have a little bit more scale um and, and a little bit of legs underneath this, now we're kind of going back and saying, OK, let's do what we kind of initially wanted to do with all the ingredients transition all of them organic and then kind of also take that step further on the regenerative side. So

Anthony Corsaro - 00:18:22
well, I mean, impressive, impressive strap anything for 11 years, especially in CPG. So just commend you for that. Um I'm super curious about like what was the team's initial reaction when you started playing around with this new vision specifically? I don't know if like you're handling, handling raw material purchasing or if that's someone else like specifically from a procurement perspective where people just like, bro, no chance we're doing this or were people like really excited about it? Like how, how is that journey? Like because I think we've talked a lot about agronomy in a lot of episodes but maybe the better topic for a brand like for like y'all is like, how did you procure these items? Right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:19:00
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yes. So I've had a pretty heavy hand in a lot of the procurement and the supply chain side of it. Um especially initial, a lot of the initial source in a lot of it. Um You know, I think the reaction for a lot of the team was just like, like, it's always just been like, all right, let's do this. Like if you want to do this, like, let's, it's always just been like, uh let's do it right. This is what we want to do and this is what we want to stand for. Like, it's gonna be difficult but like, you know, f like, let's go, like, let's just look like, let's just do it right. I mean, and that's kind of been our mantra over time. We've always had to try to do a lot with a little and so, you know, our teams always, it's been ingrained in our entire team of like, hey, like, it's gonna be hard, it's gonna be difficult. We're gonna have to work a lot harder for things.

Kyle Koehler - 00:19:28
Um Given the fact that we just don't have a lot of capital. And so, um that kind of grit and determination has always been like a real big part of our culture. And so, you know, when we're starting to make this transition, like, hey, this is, we're going to have to work, we're working direct with a lot of people. Now we're gonna start importing things direct. Um The lead times are going to be a lot longer. Um the cash flow, you know, gap is going to be a lot larger. Um There's gonna be a lot of things that we're gonna have to consider.

Kyle Koehler - 00:19:55
Um And so those are just kind of team discussions that we sat everybody down and said, hey, here's how things are gonna be changing from a cash flow perspective and an ingredient perspective, sourcing perspective and, and, but if this is something that we really want to do then, then it's worth it. Right. Let's do it. Um And, and so, yeah,

Kyle Krull - 00:20:18
well, let's talk about why that's so hard from a retail execution perspective. You know, we've had a number of different brands on here and I think that not to say it's ever easy to start a regenerative brand, but when you start from zero in your supply chain and you get to start with regenerative ingredients and grow that that's different than having an existing supply chain and having to transition and you certifications and new skews and retailer requirements. So let's let's kind of dive in a little bit there and talk about what that transition looked like from like a sku perspective. If it's like, hey, we're going to rock on everything or we had to start small with rock and what that transition plan looks like over the next, you know, 135 years.

Kyle Koehler - 00:20:55
Yeah. Yeah, it has been, um it's been a fun transition over the past couple of years. Um And so, you know, we, we've dedicated to, to going fully rock certified on everything. And so, you know what that means for us is we've had to make some kind of hard, we've kind of had to make some really hard decisions on things. Um We had, we, we produce kind of a nut and seed based hot cereal that just did not have a path ingredient wise to go rock. And so we had, we discontinued it Right. We just made the hard choice to say like, hey, like we're going to stop producing this. Like this isn't something that's going to get us to the next goal that we have. And so if we're truly dedicated to doing this, then we can't, we can't like have 1 ft on either side of the line. Like we need, need to go there, we need to not go there. Right? And so just continue that product line.

Kyle Koehler - 00:21:30
Um, the granola is going to be a lot more difficult to transition there. I still like hopeful that we'll be able to get there in the next year or two. I think there's gonna have to be some ingredient, formulation changes and, and to be able to get there. Um, and it's going to be a process, it's going to take time, um especially going from that conventional supply chain to organic to or of organic. It's not something that we can do overnight. Um There's cost considerations, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:21:52
And then, you know, taking that to distribution to retail, of course, you have to give the distributor 90 days to change price. And of course, you know, because we have a year shelf life, the distributor is going to buy up a whole year of inventory during those 90 days, of course, at the lower price before we change prices. And so there's, there's all those wonderful considerations, right? And then, you know, and then we're dealing with on the distributor

Kyle Krull - 00:22:23
piece real quick. Um In my experience, certain distributors will actually charge you a fee to go from conventional to organic. They have to change some paperwork on their end. So that's a whole another like bottleneck. Like, like the fact that you're being dis incentivized to make the transition is just like an additional financial hurdle that brands trying to do the right thing have to address and it's such a backward system. So I just want to call that out as well. While we're talking about these challenges to the

Anthony Corsaro - 00:22:47
product, the product also has to be handled and stored differently. If it's organic too, it can only be handled and stored with other organic products. So there's an, there's an operational hurdle too.

Kyle Koehler - 00:22:58
Yeah. Yeah. And we we faced all those operational challenges as well. So we've had to contract out third party warehouses for storage. Um A lot of the ingredients that we're bringing in in order to get in order to get our pricing where we need to get sourcing them organic, we have to buy more of them. So not only to create a bigger cash flow gap, but now it creates a storage problem and those things have to be stored because they're not fumigated or there's no chemicals, they have to be stored refrigerated, right? We can't store them ambient, right? Because now we start to deal with pest issues. And so all of our storage here has always been ambient And so, you know, now we have to go contract a third party refrigerator warehouse to store a lot of these things that are now organic um which is just adds to the extra freight cost. We have to freight it there, pay for storage, freight it back.

Kyle Koehler - 00:23:34
And so it, it logistically it becomes a lot more complicated to make that transition because not only, you know, not only is just the raw material pricing increase, but we have to think of, ok, now we are, we have to freight it refrigerated. Do we have to store it refrigerated? Um you know, and all the price considerations from distribution into retail um it becomes, it becomes quite a large like, you know, piece of the pie, right? It becomes a lot to chew on, right? When you start factoring in all those things and, and trying to build all those things into your margin calculations and redoing all those things. It it can become a nightmare, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:24:01
It can become a big, especially with something like a granola that's got, you know, we're trying to do it with, you know, a dozen ingredients, right? Maybe. And so it's, it's not something that's gonna happen overnight. What is the

Anthony Corsaro - 00:24:21
percentage threshold? Like let's just talk the basic simple of multi ingredients can be harder because there's multiple ingredients to be rock certified on pack product. It has to be 8590 95%. Like what is the actual thre 90

Kyle Koehler - 00:24:33
5, 95. Yeah, I mean, 95. So, same as organic. Yeah, it's the same as organic. So, yeah. So it's, it's not much can be not, it's just, you know, and organic is the same 95%. And so, um, right, in order to really achieve those outcomes, you know, you all or nothing, right, you've got to go the full, you've gotta, you gotta take the full way. So, yeah,

Kyle Krull - 00:24:54
doing the Lord's work. It certainly doesn't sound easy. I commend you for walking into this with both eyes open. Um It really sounds like a difficult problem to try to solve for. Um I do want to kind of like take us back to something you said earlier because I think it's really important to touch on. Um You mentioned that your original intentions in starting the brand were to get people to eat whole real food and that sort of ended up writing the coat tails of this other wave of like the, the rise of Paleo crossfit keto, et cetera and you kind of got jumbled in there. And as they're like that movement though, probably well intentioned was sort of optimizing for a single thing. And that was essentially net carbs, right? Especially on the Keto front like net carbs. Um And as, as you were describing that it made me think of regular agriculture which is optimizing for another single thing which is yield and the the downside in doing that. So in Keto, you go towards this, like not real food system, same with optimizing for yield.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:33
It's like you end up just eating not real food. Um So that was an interesting parallel and that sort of bringing you towards regenerative and like, I guess this is sort of an off the topic question that we haven't asked before, but for the regenerative movement, how do we ensure that that movement doesn't end up optimizing for the one single thing that could end up derailing the entire movement and putting us like into this position where there's just like quote Regen cookies that are made with Regener Organic Franken foods and it kind of like bastardize what we're all trying to accomplish

Kyle Koehler - 00:26:22
before, before you

Anthony Corsaro - 00:26:23
answer Kyle, my friend and colleague in the space David Lasak calls that climate smart diabetes, uh which I think is, which I think is beautiful and very scary.

Kyle Koehler - 00:26:31
That's Yeah. Yeah, that's a great, a great way to put it. Yeah, a great way to put it. Yeah. Um Yeah, we've always been anti, we've always been anti fake food, right? Um But I mean, I, I think, you know, I, I think a lot, this says a lot of it right about what we have to prioritize as a company and what you have to prioritize as a, as a farmer and as a grower and as a producer, right? You have to prioritize purpose over simply profit, right? You have to prioritize significance over scale and we have to prioritize collaboration over competition, right? There's a lot of ways that we can, we can get collaborative in this space, you know, from the ground up, right, as a producer and as AC PG brand, um there's a lot of ways that we can, that we can collaborate versus compete um to where we we we can all where we can all be more successful, right? And so I think that that's, that's a big thing that it's gonna take, right is being a lot more collaborative and prioritizing, doing something that's significant over doing something that can simply be scalable, right? Because I think, you know, regenerative has proved this as well.

Kyle Koehler - 00:27:17
Um And maybe, and, and, you know, I'm, I'm certainly not a farmer, right? And I don't want to speak for them, but I, I want to say that there's enough data out there to say that regenerative has proved that that significance over scale can matter, right? And you can be profitable, working towards significance rather than simply working towards scale alone, right?

Anthony Corsaro - 00:27:48
You know, I want to tip my cap to Roc and Bronner and the Rod down too. And Bridget Gilmore and other people that are really trying to do some really cool preco pre competitive supply chain building together. I mean, Kyle and I have been in the rooms and so have you wowed Kyle for a lot of those conversations now? And I think that whole group would admit to you, it's nowhere near where they want it to be, but they're laying the right groundwork and infrastructure to try and get those people in the room that are all sourcing the same things or from the same systems. And, you know, I had like a really interesting call with um Trot and organics, which is a big organic supplier to the US. But they're based in the Netherlands and they have Roc Cacao and they have a few other things that are like right on the cusp and they need an anchor customer. And so it's like all those of the value chain certification bodies, the brands, the ingredient suppliers, the farmers and the actual, the actual production systems getting those folks continually into the same rooms, whether it's virtual or in person and building those pre competitive like supply chains. So that hopefully it reduces a lot of that logistical friction or the cogs or all those things that you just went through that laundry list of challenges to, to make the transition.

Kyle Koehler - 00:28:54
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's, you know, and I've never had any problem like sharing our suppliers where we're getting stuff from, how we're getting it from. I mean, I just, I've had multiple conversations with Emily right over a little box and said, hey, like you're using like a lot of the same ingredients that we're using and sourcing a lot of the same things that we're sourcing rock. Like, why aren't we, like, purchasing these things together and like sharing container loads to come over here? Like, why, why have we not been doing that? Like, let's start doing that. Right. And, and if you know, and, and, and even if like, you know, we're shipping things separately if, like, you don't, you don't have something that you need that.

Kyle Koehler - 00:29:18
Like, I have that I'm storing in my own warehouse for our stuff and I can, I have stuff that I can supply to you. Like, absolutely all day. Like just let me know and I'll ship it to you, you know, we'll get it out to you that day, right? Because it's, it's, we're all working on the same thing, right? We're all working on solving the same problem like, and, and, and that's one of the big, you know, issues I've always had with our food system is like we're, we're, we're all working on changing something that's broken within our food system, right? We all have the same goal, right? And so it benefits all of us to be a lot more collaborative than it is to be competitive, right? It will benefit all of us so much more to be collaborative than it is to be competitive, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:29:48
The the example that I've, that, that I've used the past of people was like, so if, if think of, if Apple, when Apple came out with the iphone, if they said hey, like we're gonna internally develop apps ourselves, right? And that's it, right? Like we're gonna do all the app development for just Apple and it's gonna be all Apple's people, right? Like that would have made Apple billions of more dollars, right? Um But it wouldn't have accelerated technology nearly as fast as if they had said, hey, we're gonna outsource this like any developer who wants to develop something like develop it, put it on our platform like cool, right? Like so they open source that and made it collaborative and like everyone has benefited, right? Including them, right? Um It's not like, you know, it's not like iphone is like it's like a secondary phone for people, right? It's like they've it's just continue to benefit them.

Kyle Koehler - 00:30:29
So we need to think about that kind of thing the same way in our food system, right? And what ways can we open source things and make things more collaborative? So we will all benefit and this regenerative movement that we're all trying to build will benefit as well. So,

Kyle Krull - 00:30:56
I mean, the collaboration is always music to me in ac Ze is something we feel super strongly about. Um I appreciate the examples you're sharing. Um I'm curious from your perspective, what you mentioned with Little Box specifically is like very much like supply chain logistics collaboration. What other sorts of collaboration would you like to see in the movement? Whether that's more back end? Like, you know, back of house development side or like front end brand side or retailer or, you know, whatever. I don't want to put words in your mouth. So, what other sorts of collaboration do you want to see?

Kyle Koehler - 00:31:23
Yeah, I think there's, I think there's a lot that can be done, right? Um I think there's a lot that can still be done from the retail side as well. Um And you guys are working on that with the coalition, right? But I, I know there's a lot that can be done from the retail side and to prioritize um this movement and give preference to people that are, that are doing these things. Um And there's because the education piece is still a huge component, right? It's still a huge component for the consumer. And so the more we can share the cost of that education piece and getting, giving that education out there and helping people understand here's why this is better for you, here's why this is better for the environment. Um You know, that, that, that's just going to help everybody, right? No one brand is going to benefit from that education piece. We will all benefit from that. So I think that that's um I think that that's a big part of it.

Kyle Koehler - 00:31:56
Um But I think there's also a lot that can be done on the supply chain side as far as processing goes as well. Um And so, you know, this goes back to the significance over scale, right? I think there's a lot of, of farmers out there that have supply regenerative stuff that don't necessarily have a market for it because either maybe it's not enough volume, not enough pounds. So like a big aggregator. And so how do we help those farmers solve their crop rotation problem? Right. How do we help them?

Kyle Koehler - 00:32:26
Say, hey, I want you to rotate all these things and I'm going to collaborate with a bunch of different brands and a bunch of different companies to create a processing facility that will process your, you know, £10,000 of what you have, right? Instead of like £100,000 minimum that you might need for a large processor. Um because I'm aggregating a lot of small farms as well as producers together um to create uh to then create a supply chain where then CBG brands can come in and say, hey, I don't have to do the work to like source from like 30 different small farms. You know, there's people that are helping to aggregate a lot of that volume for me, you know, um to help save on costs, logistics, everything else. So I think there's a lot that can still be done in the supply chain. Um you know, internationally that becomes a little tough but domestically, I think there's still, you know, an enormous amount of opportunity there to kind of help um to help aggregate a lot of this for people.

Kyle Koehler - 00:33:11
Yeah,

Anthony Corsaro - 00:33:21
so true man. And the we had, we had like a buckwheat post on linkedin from the the recent episode with Pacha. And it was a bunch of really cool different voices whether it be brand farmers processors chiming in on like what is holding buckwheat back and it was processing in markets and really aggregated supply and demand. And so I I really am such a stand for what mad markets is doing and what they've built, which is no infrastructure now, but they want to get into the physical infrastructure piece. And I think that's the right path. And so we have to get to the to the point where we have that for multiple different regenerative sourcing buckets. So they're obviously doing organic grain rotation. Um and and roc you know grain, but like how do we do that for all these other commodities as well?

Anthony Corsaro - 00:33:52
And I do think it's really important to bring back the whole, hey, just the transaction piece is really important because it's really hard to scale direct trade by itself. So we have to have this kind of aggregated supply but also the hard infrastructure really matters because just to come just the example you gave with working with Emily, you, y'all can help each other a lot but you could help each other so much more if it was a shared like actual warehouse space and you could split that cost and the dollars and cents can really get split up at the end of the day operationalize that. So that was kind of a mouthful. But I think just that work is so important. I'm so bullish on that being a huge unlock for all of it.

Kyle Koehler - 00:34:43
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, you made a good point as well as, as far that there needs to be a market for a lot of that. Right. And so, you know, I think, you know, I, I really want to put some of that onus on the retailers, right as well. Um Right, because it would be nice to have a retailer not come to me and say, hey, what do you get? That's Keto that's hot now and it'd be nice to have a retailer come to me and say, hey, like we need to do more with buckwheat because that's, you know, we see that there's a lot of potential, we need to do more with regen grains because there are a lot of, can you make something for me with this? Right? Instead of, hey, can you make something for me? That's got 1 g net carbon made with a retro, right? Like because that's what we're experiencing now. Right. Right. You know, we've had retailers come to us and say, hey, we want more keto stuff, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:35:13
When you like this is great. This is huge. Like, you know, like, well, you know, that's nice. But what, what are we doing collectively, that's what we're continuing to push at the retail level, right? And these are natural retailers, right? Independent retailers that are asking for this. Right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:35:22
And so I think there's some, you know, some of the owners should and could be put on, on the retail side of things to help unlock a lot of that, a lot, a lot of the need for that. Right? Because, because it, it can and should become its own self fulfilling privacy, right? We've seen that I've seen that time and time again in this industry, things that become their own self fulfilling privacy because either starts on the investment side or starts on the retailer side. Um and then it just, it just bubbles out from there, right? Consumers see more of it and the consumers say, oh, this must be a thing, right? I'm going to tack on to this, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:35:56
Um And so I feel strongly that like we need to make regen a thing, right? We need to make, we need, we need to create a self fulfilling prophecy with it. Um And that only happens if like collectively, you know, from, from the ground up, especially on the retail side, we can all get together and, and and prioritize it. So

Kyle Krull - 00:36:22
I love that example for a variety of reasons and you know, in particular like, like where does a movement begin? You know, is it, is it ever retailers first? Probably not? Is it brands first is it consumers driving the brains, is it, is it mission driven brands who are pulling consumers, you know, into the movement? And there's, there's, I mean, I'm sure you ask 10 different people, they might come up with 10 different answers. But I think what really, to me where it really comes down to that education piece like you mentioned earlier, right? Like as a collective, that's really where we need to be focusing, to ensure that consumers understand why this is important for them, why it's important for the planet and so on and so forth. And I'm curious from your perspective as an existing brand who hasn't had that same regenerative attribute, how are you transitioning your marketing and your messaging as a brand to your existing consumers to say, hey, like this is what we stand for now. This is why it's different, this is why it's important. And then part two, how are you casting a different to try to bring more people into the Wildway fold with that new regenerative attribute?

Kyle Koehler - 00:37:16
Yeah, those are fantastic questions, right? Um Yeah, because so much of our current consumer base has been dietary attribute focused, right? Um with the grain free, the lower sugar, like all these things. And so we, we've, we've done consumer surveys in the past about hey, about sustainability, about some of these things and, and, and, and how they rank and, and still dietary attributes still of course, taste and price are always going to be number one, right? I mean, I think this is, this is something that's been echoed on you guys' podcasts like a million times, right? Um It's always going to be taste and price. So we can't ignore, we can't ignore that, first of all, right. Um because that's where people are going to buy first. Um And so, you know, for us marking kind of the regen side of things, knowing that like tasting price is gonna come first, we know that first of all, you have to create a product that's gonna taste great, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:37:50
Um That's gonna, that's, that's gonna have great flavor profiles. That's not gonna be too crazy. I mean, that was, that was part of the decision to kind of go down the road of producing the oats, right? Because it's not a, it's not a weird product, right? Ubiquitous like they're oats, right? It's oatmeal, right? Everybody knows how to eat it, you know, and that's just buying the flavor profiles that we chose, right? Everybody's familiar with those flavor profiles, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:38:14
We're not creating some like macha like weird stuff that people are like, oh like, I don't know what that's gonna taste like in an oatmeal, right? I mean, you can't, you know. Right. Yeah. So you have to, you know, you have to pick and choose your battles, right? And so we said, let's choose something that's ubiquitous, something that people know how to eat you know how to use. Let's choose flavors that people are familiar with and let's get that piece, you know, let's not. So we don't have to educate people there. Right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:38:36
Like, you know, that's already done for, that's already been done for us over time. Right. So now we can focus on some kind of the environmental attributes, you know, of the, of the package of the product, um, and those types of things. And so I think that that's, that's becomes a big part of it, right? Not happen because you know, consumers aren't going to intake all of that at once at the store, right? They're not going to want to have to intake, what do these flavors look like?

Kyle Koehler - 00:38:58
How am I gonna eat this? What kind of is this product? Oh and it's environmentally friendly, right? That you have to like take a lot of that, you know, brain width, you know, bandwidth away and just say, hey, this, this is what I want you to focus on, right? Like this is oatmeal, it's a flavor you should be familiar with, but it's better for the environment, it's better for the planet. Um And let me to kind of give you some ways in which you can um in which I can market that to you.

Kyle Koehler - 00:39:19
And so like for, for oats, for example, one of the things, one of the phrases that we use is that they go beyond sustainable, right? And I don't know how much you guys have, like, read, you know, that, that quote actually is inspired by an old Bob Dale quote. Uh when he was interviewed years ago, um the interview asked him what was different about regenerative. And he said, well, regenerative goes beyond um sustainable, um was kind of the word that he used. And I love that so much and I was like, oh my gosh, I love that. Um That's fantastic. I want to use that in some way.

Kyle Koehler - 00:39:47
Um And so, you know that that was the inspiration for kind of using in our packaging and saying, hey, this is a um a product that's formed in a way that kind of goes beyond and kind of takes the next step, right? Because we can't afford to simply just stay with the status quo, right? Sustainability to me is sustainability, to me is just status quo, right? We can't afford just to kind of stay with the status quo and do things the way things have always been done that won't create change, right? And so if change is the goal, we have to go beyond what we're currently doing. So to me, that's where the power of regenerative lies is that it's going beyond, it's it's taking these extra steps to go beyond what we're currently doing to create better outcomes.

Kyle Koehler - 00:40:25
So, yeah,

Anthony Corsaro - 00:40:36
love that man. And I, you, you read my mind because I pulled up a big picture of the of the oats and I wanted to talk about the packaging really as a case study for like what y'all think will resonate with consumers. And like Kyle just said in a bright color at the very top of the bag, it says oats that go beyond sustainable and all caps in pretty large font. They're called literally Planet Friendly oats. There's a beautiful picture like a background photo on the package of a field of oats and then you have, you know, USDA Organic, Non GMO and Roc uh and gluten-free. All the logo is pretty prominently featured there on the front. Um And I would love to kind of hear you, you talked about that romance copy on the top. Why Planet Planet Friendly oats? Why, why not Planet Positive oats or you know, how, how did y'all envision that specifically? I mean, that's a big deal.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:41:11
Like how did y'all see that playing with consumers?

Kyle Koehler - 00:41:27
Yeah, I mean, I think they just behind that was just to get somebody to go Planet Friendly. Like why or like what does that mean? Right. I mean, what you always want to do is have something that gets the consumer to take the next step, which is to grab the bag, pick it up and like look and read on it, right? Um Because most people, they just walk up and down the shelves, right? 20 seconds grab what they want to grab and go, right? And so we said, hey, we could just, we could call these organic oats, right? We could call these just oats and just call out the regen logo really big. But like what is the way that we can really get a consumer to say? Ok, like they're calling out the planet specifically? Like why, like I want to know why, right? Why, why are these planet friendly?

Kyle Koehler - 00:41:53
Like how do these go beyond like give me some, you know, you know, with, without trying, you know, at the same time, like I'm super cognizant of really trying not to be greenwashing. Right. And so, you know, that was a big discussion even with the planet friendly, like, hey, it's planet friendly is that, are we starting to get greenwashing with like what we're doing? Like, how do we, how do we ensure that we're like getting people to understand that these are that these, that this product like does better things for the environment without like, you know, taking that extra step that like that, that goes too far. Right. Right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:42:20
So it's like

Kyle Krull - 00:42:36
the plane.

Kyle Koehler - 00:42:37
Right. Right. Right. And that, you know, which is a good segue because like we had played with, that was the initial thing that we played with it, like plane, we want to talk about the planet in some way or like how to save the planet. And we said, well, that's starting to get like a little bit too kind of greenwashing because we're actually saving the planet even though like this is something that that at scale, like really, I truly believe really can, you know, kind of reverse love and negative impacts that our food system is having. But how do we, how do we get those environmental attributes across without being green washy while also making sure that we can like stoke some kind of curiosity in the customer, right? I mean, because I think that was a big and just behind why the grain free granola did so well too because it's it's a clearly it's a clear oxymoron, right? Someone goes well, grain free, grain. No, like grain is in the word granola, like grain free. What does that mean? And so I think, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Koehler - 00:43:20
So I think that that causes a lot of people to say, you know, and then, you know, when and so when we were testing at farmers markets early on, we realized like people would always go grapefruit granola, like how does that work? But it caused them to stop, pick up the bag and like look and say, OK, I think we have something here with a name because that's the goal, right? We want people to stop and not just get what they've always gotten off the shelf, but like say, hey, what, what is that? And why is it what it is? And so I think that's the impetus behind the planet from right there in the beyond sustainable. What is the way that we can stoke some kind of curiosity in the customer to stop, pick it up and read more and say, oh, these are original organic. This is what it does. You know, here's how these are grown. This is why it's better. Cool.

Kyle Koehler - 00:43:49
I like it. I'm going to buy it. Right. And so I think that that's, that's part of the, not the game, but just part of like the, how can we stoke some curiosity in the customer to, to want to learn more about what regenerative is, right?

Kyle Krull - 00:44:11
I think it's a really good point and it's a great example, you know, we talk about how regenerative awareness, a lot of people might hear the term might not really understand the term, but most people maybe have not even heard the term before ever. So when you use the term like sustainable, that everybody knows and has some association with it, you can say like we're going to tie beyond to sustainable. So you're using a familiar trade attribute and saying we're better than that, that to your point kind of Stokes like, oh, I care about sustainability. This is somehow better than sustainability. I want to pick this up and learn more. Um So I think that's really interesting um especially because like, I think all of these brands are now to your point are trying to figure out like, how do we package this in the right way that people are going to start to understand what this is so that we can communicate this relatively nuance complicated, you know, value system to a consumer on a package within three seconds, right? Not easy to do. Um I I got a question you mentioned earlier before the environmental impacts of the packaging. Are there any specific packaging differences here that make this different than like some of the other packages within the granola aisle?

Kyle Koehler - 00:45:13
Yeah. So when we initially launched those in a fully home compostable package, so it was a package that was made from Cassava Beetroot and eucalyptus fibers. And so um it wasn't petroleum plastic at all. Um It was, yeah. Um So getting rid of a lot of that plastic is something that, you know, I think is incredibly important as well. I don't think that, you know, it doesn't make any sense to me to do all these great things on the supply side and then just pack in like a virgin petroleum plastic package, right? Like that to me, that's completely um you know, not the point, right? And so there's a lot of challenges with the packaging as well. Um on the packaging side of things as well. Um you know, but I felt strongly about wanting to launch these initially in a home compostible pouch to kind of signify, hey, here's what we're trying to do um on the packaging side of things.

Kyle Koehler - 00:45:50
Um You know, so we launched those initially in that the packaging that it's in right now after the launch is a packaging made from 50% recycled and reclaimed material. So which is kind of the highest amount that we've seen lately is 50%. And so I said, ok, if we can, if we can at least reduce 50% of the virgin plastic, like we're getting somewhere. Um because a big part of moving to fully home compostable pouch is just like moving ingredients, virgin of organic. It's just a massive cost increase, right? I mean, we're talking 3 to 4 times the cost of just putting them in a conventional plastic pouch, right? And so you know, you of, you know, then you're talking about OK, well, this is, this impacts cash flow, this is now impacting margin and all these other things.

Kyle Koehler - 00:46:26
And so before I go out and like move all of my packaging to home composable and like, you know, spend all the money and resources doing all this and, and, and take all the margin hits like we need to know the consumer cares enough about it to, to want to pay a premium for it if it's something that they, that that's going to make, if it's going to be an extra to make them want to buy it, right? Hey, if I have to pay a dollar more that this is regenerative organic, am I gonna pay $2 more if this is regenerative Organic? And also I can put the pouch in my home home compost in, in my backyard. Right. Um And so we're trialing that out now to get some of that data to see like how the consumer responds to that, how much they care, how much they really care about it. If they're going to put their money towards it, I think there's, there's some interesting data out there. Um So I was at NCN this past week and, and Nick mccoy. Um wh sh shared some interesting data about um the fact that consumers do care about sustainable packaging.

Kyle Koehler - 00:47:19
The index is really high for consumers. Um You know, but they say that do they put their money towards that? Right? I

Anthony Corsaro - 00:47:40
think that's bullshit. I mean, I think so much of that data is preference and not purchase and purchase is what really matters and that's, that's why it's a challenge. Um But I'm, we're also seeing a lot of purchase data to be bullish about. So I'm not trying to be a negative nancy there, but I just, I just don't put as much weight into that into the preference piece. Like everyone while sitting at home watching Netflix is gonna say, yeah, I'd love to spend a dollar more and then they're walking out there, you know that that's not always the reality 100 100 of times at home.

Kyle Koehler - 00:48:12
Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it, you know, the packaging side, the same as ingredient side, right? There needs to be more collaboration on that right? Because if we can collaboratively all say like, hey, we all want to move to compostable materials, right? Then we can, you know, and we can start ordering material, you know, and we can kind of find a way to collaborate all that material into like one form, like one processor, one, like 11 bag form, right? Then if you get to a price point where we can all swallow, right? Um Because right now it's, it's at a price point that's incredibly tough to swallow, right? Um And so that's something that, that we, we, we definitely need some more collaboration on. Um But it's a direction that we're, we're incredibly cognizant of like the impact of the plastic is having and wanting to really truly get rid of that completely in the supply chain, right? And so the the home compost is great and we want to be able to do that at scale. Um But I think it's going to take time and scale to get there as well. Um But, but to me, to me again, that's, that's the gold standard, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:48:58
Is something that's truly circular, right? Whether it's completely home compostable, right? Because the industrial compostable stuff is great and that exists out there. But if you have to take that bag and then mail it off to industrial compostable facility that creates its own carbon footprint. Like how much better are we actually doing? Right? Like what's the true like you know, life cycle or, you know, the, the true carbon cycle of that, of that whole process. Right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:49:22
And so it's either got to be truly home compostable, um, or, um, or it's got to be truly recyclable. Right. And so we're, we're trialing out three different materials right. Now, two of them are fully home compostable. Um, we're trialing these out in our equipment because they operate very differently on our equipment as well. Um And then trialing out some a product that's fully recyclable in the paper recycle chain, which is a little different than the, than the stuff that exists now in the plastic recycle chain. So the stuff that exists now, right? Is store drop off, right? So, same issues, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:49:47
You have to go take it to a store that has a store drop off recyclable. Um And there's also a lot of municipalities and that just don't have the capacity to even recycle those things. So even a lot of the store drop off stuff just ends up going to the landfill, right? And so the paper recycle chain is really interesting to me because it's one, it's, it's more available to consumers. You can put it in your bin at home, right? You don't have to take it to a store. Um And it's a lot, it's a lot more recycled and a lot more municipal municipalities. And so just really trying to look for ways to like um to create circularity in the supply chain supply chain.

Kyle Koehler - 00:50:17
And, and so we're part of a one step, closest packaging collaborative as well. So they're doing a lot of great work on the packaging side um trying to help people move to those more sustainable materials. And so um that's part of it, right? That's part of it. We can't, you know, again, we can't do these great things with the supply chain on the ingredient side and then, you know, pack it in a petroleum based, you know, bag. Yeah. Yeah, this just doesn't work.

Kyle Koehler - 00:50:41
I gotta find a we got to take steps to to be better.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:50:57
Yeah, super, super happy. You brought up, brought up one step closer. They're amazing. Do amazing work. We'll drop a link uh to their organization in the the show notes and I come back to what we talked about with Cody Hopkins in a recent interview, which is we need scale and efficiency, but we have to do it cooperatively or collaboratively. I mean, this is, this shit is not rocket science like I've been fortunate to be part of a private equity acquisition and all they do is buy a lot of businesses synergize the sit out shit out of them and make them more efficient and we can do that without having to have a holding company or a private equity structure. But it's gonna require a lot of work and investment in collaboration and creative corporate structures and you know, things that can really move the needle there. And hopefully the regional coalition is one piece of that puzzle that can become a big piece of that puzzle over time. Um But speaking of private equity, uh I know we wanna chat about kind of how the business has been funded today. Some things that you're working on there right now, Kyle. Um So maybe you, you mentioned this thing's been bootstrapped from day one.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:51:41
Take us through that a little bit, just the top line, some challenges there. How that's been a unique journey and then bring us up to speed on, uh this redeemable equity piece that you're exploring right now for the business.

Kyle Krull - 00:52:06
One additional point in there, if you could do like a contrast between standard VC funding in the natural products industry and what you're looking to help build and support. Um I think that'd be really interesting for our listeners

Kyle Koehler - 00:52:20
to hear. Yeah, for sure. Um So, yeah, I mean, like you mentioned, we've, we've been bootstrapped, um from the beginning, right? So the only money that's ever flown into the business was the old friends, family and fools, um, amount like really early on, right to just get it off the ground, right? And they all, they all probably still think they're fools at this point. Um You know, but it wasn't much right. It was, you know, and so we, um it's been a fun journey, um, and a very difficult journey growing a bootstrap company and just, it's, it's a, it's a very different company, um, running a company that way. Right. It's, it's a lot more disciplined, I think discipline is probably the biggest word that I would use to, to, to describe it. Um, a lot more disciplined growth, um, is, is the big one. Right. So, we've grown fairly slowly, um, over the past decade. Right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:52:53
And I have no problem saying that, like, guys, I'm super proud of like what we've built um because we've done it sustainably. Um we've done it profitably, we've been profitable most of the years. Um You know, but there's also some caveats that come to that, right? Um That, that, that, you know, that come for that with that slow growth, right? And that's, you have a lot of copycats, it gives time for copycats to come into the space and kind of overtake what you're doing. Um It gives copycats an opportunity to come to stores and say, oh, well, hey, this company, they're bootstrap, they're not going to pay your slotting like I will like, replace them with me. Right? And, and that happens and that has happened, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:53:26
And so, you know, you have to deal, you're just that those are things you're gonna have to deal with. Like you don't have, we don't have the deep pockets um to give to retailers. And so if it's over the years, if it's been between us and another brand and we can say, well, you know, I, I, you know, like I can't pay your slotting, sorry, like I just can't do it. Like I can do a free fill but I can't do slot, you know, and we're up against another brand that's gonna say, hey, I'll refill two cases and give 10-K per SKU like we're gonna lose out every day. Right? And, and I get it right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:53:52
It's a business, right? Retailers are running the business just like we're running the business. Um, you know, and I don't blame them for that. Um, and so it, it makes growth a lot more difficult. Right. And in that sense, um, and, uh, the bets you have to take are just smaller, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:54:10
We have to take a lot of smaller bets, you know, I was just talking to somebody about this the other day and, and liking it to, to, you know, playing in a poker tournament, but, like, only being able to bet, like, 10 bucks even when you have a really good hand, right? Instead of like, 10,000 bucks when you have a good hand. Right? Like, like you're gonna have great hands all day. But if you only bet 10 bucks, you know, each time, like, you either gonna eat your way through or like, at some point, like someone's gonna go all in and put you out of business. Right. And so your bets have to be a lot smaller.

Kyle Koehler - 00:54:30
Um, they have to be a lot more conservative, you have to be a lot more conservative with innovation. Um, and what you bring to the table. Um, knowing that, like, if you make a really big bet and it's wrong, like that could mean the business. Right. Um, we don't have the deep pockets to, like, have a big bet go bad. Um. Right. And so, um, that's a big part of it.

Kyle Koehler - 00:54:52
Um, and then just kind of saying no, I think standing up for ourselves and saying no to a lot of the things that people have said are typical that you have to do in this industry, I think is, is something that growing a bootstrap company you have to do. And so, um, sliders is a good example like, yeah, what are some top ones? Slotting is a big example. We've always just said no, like I'm not doing slotting. It doesn't create a win, win, right? Like you get, you get this money and I don't get any guarantee as far as like, where am I out of the shelf? How long I'm on the shelf? Um, that creates a win for you and a lo for me. Right.

Kyle Koehler - 00:55:24
And, and if it's not a win win partnership, like, and it's not something that we're going to, to take part in. So we've said no, I've said no to gosh, I don't know how many retailers over the years because, because they just want too much. Hey, slotting two cases and I said, ok, well, like, no, like it's just a no. Right straight. No. And that's what? And that's, you know, um, you know, it's a, it's a thanks. But no, thanks. Right. And that's where the discipline comes in.

Kyle Koehler - 00:55:45
Um, and then same on the distributor side. Right. You know, a lot of people have had issues with, with these big national distributors, like, with deductions and like not paying on time. Um And so we've had no problem with the year saying, hey, you know, Unify, like you're late payment, like we're not going to ship you anything until we get paid. Like, sorry, like cancel, cancel your trucks this week, cancel them next week. Um And guess what, we managed to get paid. Um, you know, so there's a lot of people that don't think that you can do those things or have the power to do those things as a small company.

Kyle Koehler - 00:56:18
But, you know, I've always been a big point of just standing up for what we think is, right? And what we think is the right way to do business, right? And so, you know, the the slotting all the free fills, all this like erroneous deductions and things like those don't really, those don't build an equitable business in my opinion, right? And so if we're in business to, to, to be in the business of doing good and to build an equitable business and so if, and we want our partners to have those same, you know, the same values as us. And so if you're not going to be a retail partner or distributor partner, that's gonna have those same values, then. Hey, thanks, thanks. But no, thanks. And so it's, it's, it creates a lot of discipline to do that. Right? Um And, and it's really hard.

Kyle Koehler - 00:56:53
I just want to

Kyle Krull - 00:57:06
comment on that really quick. Sorry to interrupt. But I think what you're doing is so needed in the industry. I think what has happened with the VC boom over the last 10 years is that retailers have these and distributors have these unrealistic expectations that every brand especially start ups have these deep VC pockets and they can afford all these fees and it's, it's put the asks even higher, you know, like slotting at air water mothers or some of these like smaller regional change is just becoming insane amount of requests. Um You know, and I think the more brands who came to your point, collaborate, work together to push back and say, look like this isn't a win win partnership. This is why we're not going to do this. We'd love to be on your shelves. We'd love to create win win partnerships because it's not about being stingy to your point like it's got to be good business. So I wanna commend you for that and, and kind of just advocate that like more brands should be doing this stuff and it's something that we, we try really hard to do to Kevin on fire as well.

Kyle Krull - 00:57:49
And it is amazing how much leverage you can have if you're willing to draw a line in the sand and say, look, this is what's right for our business. This is what isn't right for our business and like have those can conversations and sometimes you have to say no. Um, so again, just kudos to, to doing that, I interrupted, let's get back on track with the VC standard vs is like the the new fundraising style you're going for.

Kyle Koehler - 00:58:17
Yeah, I mean, so the VC standard, right is it's, it's brought, it's essentially brought tech funding to food, right? Um It's brought this funding model in which in order for the VC to make the returns that they're promising their LP S and their funds, you know, you as a brand have to exit for an incredibly large multiple, right? Um or have to at least have the potential to exit for an incredibly large multiple, right? That's, that's the goal, right? And so as as, as a VC, I want to invest in 20 you know, 2030 brands, right? They all have the potential to exit big knowing that one of them is probably gonna exit big, right? Two of them might kind of net net or exit a little smaller and the rest are all gonna fail, right? Go to 0 100% right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:58:48
But that one giant exit is gonna make my return on all the other, like, 18 out of the 20 companies that all went out of business trying to do the same thing. Um, but weren't successful at it. Right. And so the problem that we have is that 99% of 99.99% probably of CBG companies today aren't going to have that massive exit. Right. They're not built for that massive exit. Um It's not gonna, it's like it's, it's the equivalent of winning the lottery, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:59:11
Um It's not gonna happen for 99.99% of brands yet we fund 99.99% of brands all the same way all as if they all have the potential to do that, right? And that's incredibly broken system, right? We have to have a different funding model to which an investor can still get a good return, right? I'm not against capitalism, right? I'm not against like making money, right. That's, you know, that's, that's created leaps and bounds, all kinds of wonderful change in our industry, right?

Kyle Koehler - 00:59:40
Um V CS and capitalism has so I'm not against that, right? Those models are great for the few companies that, that, that want to, to do that and want to have that massive exit return. But again, for the 99.99% of companies either they're not going to have that rocket ship style growth and be acquired, right. Or, or they, or they just don't want to, right? They want to build a business that's mission driven and purpose aligned for the long term, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:00:02
And so it, it boggles my mind this again, I'll go back to the fact that we're all, we all have this goal of creating change in the food industry, right? And if we're truly, if we truly do want to create that change, like that can't happen with a 5 to 7 year timeline, right? Which is what most a lot of these funds timelines have before they need to show, you know, a return, right? And so it's like, yeah, you have five, you know, call it 5 to 10 years, you know, before you either got to exit and get a quote before, before some sort of liquidation event needs to happen. Um So my LP S get the return, right. Well, you know, again, like we can talk about this in terms of regenerative space, like those changes, the changes that we all want to see with regenerative, they're not going to happen in a decade, they're not going to happen in five years, they're not going to happen in a decade.

Kyle Koehler - 01:00:46
Like these are incredibly long term outcomes that we're all shooting for. And so we need to be able to have models that fund companies for the long term, right? So that they can be around for the long term to make this happen. And so that's the impetus behind the the funding model that we're doing. So we're, we're trying to raise with the funding model called redeemable equity, right? And so what that is, is, is, is an investor will buy shares of our company and we will redeem them, redeem all redeem those shares over time, right? And so and and those and so we'll we'll redeem 75% of the shares that they buy over time.

Kyle Koehler - 01:01:15
So what that means is, is, is every quarter. Um We will redeem shares as a certain percentage of our revenue, so call it 1 2% of revenue, right? So say we have, you know, $500,000. Um And so the company has $500,000 in revenue for the first quarter, right? So we will, if we're, if we're redeeming those shares at 2% right? We'll redeem $100,000 worth of those shares the first quarter, right? And we'll do it in the second quarter, third quarter, vice versa until 75% of the shares of that investor are fully redeemed, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:01:48
And so um and then we put a multiple on it, right? So we'll say, hey, we'll redeem two X, we'll redeem your shares at A two X valuation from what you purchase them from for us. And so what that does for the investor is they get their return and they are same timeline, this 5 to 7 year timeline, they get their two X return on 75% of the shares. Yet they still get to keep 25% of the shares. If there was some sort of liquidation event or acquisition or something down the line for us, they still get to participate in that, right. So they still have that upside to participate in that massive exit.

Kyle Koehler - 01:02:21
Should there wish to be one but their return and what they're promising their fund um is not predicated on us exiting, right? If it happens later on, they get to participate in that upside, that's great. But regardless of if that happens or not, like they're getting a two X return on 75% of the shows that they purchased from us, right? So they're getting that return, they're getting at risk reduced over time, right? And so from that first quarterly redemption on like their risk as an investor continues to get reduced as we continue to stay in business. And so, you know, I, you know, I feel like it's, it's a true win, win for both founder and funder, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:02:53
So we get to stay mission aligned and purpose driven. We don't have to, to be susceptible to this growth at all cost business model, we don't have to, to run our business in a way that's going to generate a massive exit if we don't want to, right? We can run it in a way that's more aligned with, with, with, with our mission and our values, right? And on the investor side, you know, they get the risk reduced, right? They still get a decent return, right? And they still get to participate in upside if there were some um upside or if there were some like potential exit at the end of the day as well.

Kyle Koehler - 01:03:28
So it's, it's to me it solves a lot of the problems that, that, that exist with the traditional funding model, right? Because as an entrepreneur, I get that equity back, right, I get that equity back and I can do what I want with that equity, right? I can create a steward owned business and give that equity to my employees. And so our employees and stakeholders then become owners in my own business, right? Um with the traditional funding model, like I don't get the opportunity to do that, right? Um And so many entrepreneurs I've seen over the years get sucked into these models early on and then their vision for what they want for the business changes later. But guess what? Like they can't, they can't do anything about it, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:03:58
Because they're stuck, they're stuck, they're stuck on this train of like, well, I got to go and like exit and, and I have to generate a certain return the minute you put a financial return on to something, right? That that comes first, right? That, that comes first before purpose before mission, before anything else at the end of the day, if you have to generate a return um for your VC and for them, for their LP S like that's going to come first. Right. And so I've seen so many entrepreneurs get stuck in this, on this kind of Ferris wheel or on this roller coaster early on. Um and then later on they're like, oh, well, you know, I don't know if I want to exit or man, I, I really would love to like for my employees to own my business and create something for the long term.

Kyle Koehler - 01:04:39
But they don't have that optionality anymore because they gave that away early on, right? Whereas this model gives them that optionality lets them get that equity back. Um So they can do what they want with it. Um Still gives the investor a return and still give the, still gives the investor a potential to participate. Should there be some like big exit down the road? Um But again, it gives the entrepreneur optionality, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:04:57
It gives them optionality, lets them grow their business in a more sustainable way. Um Let's let's them grow their business in a mission focused, purpose aligned way. Um Again, while, while also like giving an investor a good return. Again, I'm not against capitalism. This isn't like true impact investing or this isn't nonprofit investing. This is like we still want to be able to generate a good return for the investor, right? That's a big part of it, right? If we can't generate a great return. Like this model doesn't work. Right. Right.

Kyle Koehler - 01:05:19
I can't go out and say, hey, I want to do this redeemable equity model and you're gonna get 8% in five years, like, like, like there's too much risk, right? Like no investor is gonna go for that. They're gonna go, ok. Well, I'll just put my money in stocks and bonds and like, I'll get 8%. Right. Um, but if you can say, hey, like, you know, like you'll get 20% you'll get a 20 22% return, you know, in five years on this and you'll be able to participate in upside on top of that if you'd like. Um, and it's risk reduced right.

Kyle Koehler - 01:05:43
Then we can kind of start to have more of a conversation, right? Because I, I'd love to put my personal money in that kind of like, that'd be great. I'd love that kind of return over 5 to 7 years. Right. Um, especially for a business that's doing

Kyle Krull - 01:06:06
reporting a mission driven brand, you know, bucket as

Kyle Koehler - 01:06:09
well. Right. Right. So, so, yeah. Yeah,

Anthony Corsaro - 01:06:14
there is so much to unpack here. I have many thoughts. Uh, I'm sure that's shocking everyone. Um, you, you explained that really, really well, bro, it is really well done. Um, the, the few things I would add are, you know, typical venture. The flaws really are one, it's designed for the 1%. So it's designed for a very small number of brands, as you said, it's binary. It's either a massive success or a massive failure. There's no middle ground and we need to build a solution for that middle ground. It's a limited set of tools. So it's safe and convertible notes up front and then price equity until an exit. And you just can't do the work we need to do with only those tools. And then lastly, what you alluded to is the limited timeline.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:06:41
So not a lot of these businesses, especially if they have a regenerative supply chain, and we're trying to maintain the integrity of that are gonna scale in a 57, 10 year timeline because that's the return timeline that you owe the LP. So you hit on all those, I just wanted to recap those the, the things I would add on to that is I wanna be careful to not throw the baby out with the bath water. And this is very biased because I am trying to build a venture strategy for regen brands. So like, look, I'm throwing my bias out there up front, but I do think it is still an amazing tool for those 1%. And you know, myself as the person trying to build a, trying to bring a piece of significant capital to this space for the first time, the market dynamics dictate that you have to start there. And here's why because it's really hard to raise a meaningful amount of money on unproven tools and everything outside of that, even though the batting average is still low, is an unproven tool.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:07:38
So we, it's, it's really hard to raise $10 million let alone 25 30 50 which is what we need to make a meaningful dent in this thing. Second. Secondly, we do have a, a slate of brands that I would call in the 1% that need funding. We could fund and, and could scale and exit at a venture timeline and, and return. Um And then the third thing which is really the biggest flaw, which ties back into. The first thing is unfortunately, as a professional fund mana manager, you have to earn the right to be innovative.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:08:12
And so what I mean by that is I can't take some super new strategy to potential LP S and raise that significant amount of money until I prove myself over typically three funds, which sucks. But that's the world we live in. And so it's almost the unfortunate order of operations of I gotta go do 1234 pretty vanilla funds have success. And then I can come back to that same group of people in the market generally and say, hey, y'all, we're gonna raise 50 million. Now for this other strategy that we think is we're still very bullish on, but it's more of an R and D trial because there's not this super big sample size to say this is for sure, gonna work or for sure has this, this type of an outcome. So that was a lot.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:08:55
But I, I'll stop

Kyle Koehler - 01:08:56
there. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, II, I echo all those things like 100%. Right? I mean, and that's, you have to have that success to justify it. Right. Um You know, and it's, it's the same feedback we've gotten so far already going out with this model, right? People are like, hey, you know, like, thanks, but this hasn't been successful for so it's really hard for me to like justify even to my LP investing in something with this model when it's not been proven out, right? And the same with same with regen, right? And again, we can go back to talking about the self fulfilling prophecy, right? Like you guys have been around long enough to like, hey, when crave sold years ago, right? The jerky market just blew up, right? You know, because there was all that money that got generated by that sale. And so everybody wanted a piece of the next one, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:09:31
And so all of a sudden, like all this money went into better for you Jerky and you saw, you know, two dozen like better for you jerky brands just explode over like the next two years after that, after that um after that sale. And so like, yeah, I I can totally understand the market dynamic that like there needs to be some, some relatively, you know, significant success, um, capitalistically wise in the regenerative space for someone to say, oh, hey, like somebody made a shit ton of money with regenerative, like, OK, cool. Like I'll put some money, you know, see something that we can point to, to say, hey, this was a massive success, right? And there's a lot of people that made a lot of money doing it and doing it this way, um to be able to, to, to bring more money to the table there. So I totally understand those market dynamics and, and, and it's, that's the system, right? Um But it's also a system that we're, we're, we're, we're trying to change and we're fighting to change and trying to do something better. And it's, it's certainly an uphill battle. Um a big uphill battle, right? A mountainous battle, I'd say more than a hill.

Kyle Koehler - 01:10:20
But um but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, we're gonna fight it, right. So,

Kyle Krull - 01:10:38
yeah, I, I think I just want to call out like you earlier in the podcast, Kyle. You did a fantastic job. Sorry. Wow, Kyle, you did a fantastic job of outlining all the different challenges that you as a regenerative brand are facing from logistics to supply chain to packaging, like all those different things. And it's so hard to try to like follow that venture model of growth because there's so many like uphill battles that we talked about. So it's so, and I'm just glad we're having this really candid conversation. It's like it's nearly impossible to hold a truly regenerative mission driven brand to the same standard as these historical exits for, you know, Crave or Rx or, you know, whoever else it it it's just the model doesn't work for that type of a system that's trying to do good. So I just want to call that out at a super high level. Um But also we want to kind of pivot towards the future, you know, if you were to receive these funds, like, what is it the Wildway is trying to accomplish in the next year, in the next three years? Five years, is that more skews?

Kyle Krull - 01:11:19
Is that getting more existing skews rock? Is that generating maybe some new products that, you know, help to build out different rock supply chains, walk us through the future for wildlife.

Kyle Koehler - 01:11:41
Yeah. And so, you know, I think we're at kind of a crossroads and a real pivot point now in the brain and in that, you know, we've committed to going full RC, right? And that's what we've committed to kind of doing in the direction that we've committed to going. And so right now, we really play in two very distinct Roc supply chains, right? One with kind of nuts and dried fruit. That's a little, that's a little, it's quite a bit, that's global, right? Where supply chain is very much globally based. Um And then we kind of play in this oat space and they are looking at different, you know, grains and, and, and some things that are, that's got a lot more of a domestic supply chain right on the RC front.

Kyle Koehler - 01:12:06
And so for us, you know, it's hard enough doing all, all of what we're doing on Roc to begin with, right? So kind of the big kind of decision now is like where do we go with the product portfolio and supply chain? Right? Do we double down what's happening globally and go more on kind of nuts and dried fruit and seeds and some of these things that, that are grown all over the place or we double down on um having an impact more domestically, you know, with oats and grains and a lot in these rotational crops. And so two very different supply chains, right? And two very different paths. And so, you know, a big part of like what we're, what we're raising for, what we are trying to do now, a lot of the work that we're doing now is taking a look at OK.

Kyle Koehler - 01:12:43
One where can we have the most impact? Right? Where is the most impactful space to play? Where can we have the most impact on climate on the regenerative space? Um Two, what is something that, what, what, what is, what is the supply chain that we can get into that where the P can scale? Right? And so it's got to be a vi it's got to be viable, right? It's got to be viable.

Kyle Koehler - 01:13:03
It's got to be impactful. It's got to be something that, that can a movement that we can truly like grow under and get roots under. Um And three, where can we create a white space in the market to make this work on the retail side as the CBG brand? Right? And so those are kind of the three big burning questions that we're asking ourselves now, um that will really kind of shape where we want to go the future of the brand, right? Or is it, are we gonna want to go more nuts, seeds, dried fruit, um build out more of that supply chain work more there or are we do we want to double down and like more traditional breakfast, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:13:34
And cereals and grains and, and really dig in to the domestic supply chain um and really work more with rotational crops and what these farmers are doing and solve some of the issues um that some of these smaller farmers are having with rotational crops and finding a market for those and a market for some of those grains. So I think there's, there's a lot of value right to both. Um And so I think it's, it's, you know, again, but it's putting together impact, you know, can the impact scale. Um is it is something viable that we can take to retail and then is, can we create a white space in the market for us and our brand to make sure that we can continue to grow the brand, to continue to have that impact, right? Because it's not going to do us any good if we if we double down the supply chain and go out of business in five years because we can't create white space. So there's no, you know, market need on the retail side, right?

Kyle Koehler - 01:14:21
And so those are all conversations that we're having now and, and I'm meeting with a lot of people over the next few weeks to kind of determine where we want to take the brand, uh where we want to go, how do we want to play this out? Where can we have the most impact? Um I've had a lot of great conversations, a lot of great conversations with advisors, investors, um people within the supply chain and to help to help us understand like, where, what is the next evolution of Wildway? Right. What is kind of, I, I I've called it kind of Wildway two point. Oh Right. What is, what, where do we want to take the brain from here? Um And, and how do we want to have the greatest impact?

Kyle Koehler - 01:14:52
And I think that the most important, like, like one of the greatest things for us and, and having those conversations is the fact that we haven't taken venture capital yet. And so we have that optionality to kind of go out and determine what we do, right? I don't have someone saying, well, I got to generate a return. So this is what you're going to do with your supply chain, your products, here's the products you're gonna produced because the velocities are great and the Martians are great and this is, you know, this is, you know, and so we have the optionality and we're profitable, right? So we have the optionality and the time to kind of sit back and go what makes the most sense for us? Um And what makes the most sense for the market? What makes most sense for this movement?

Kyle Koehler - 01:15:25
Um And where can we combine those things to create a truly impactful mission driven company um for the next 2030 4050 years, right? Not for the next five.

Kyle Krull - 01:15:43
So yeah, I super appreciate that answer primarily because of the order in which you answered. And this has been a recurring theme with a lot of the regenerative brands we've had on here in the best way possible is that impact is driving innovation and future decision making. And it's really about how you're utilizing your brand to make the biggest positive impact for people on the planet. And I super appreciate that. I'm also going to throw my own biased opinion here that I'm so bullish on regenerative domestic grains and the impact they can have in the United States. And I think another one of the key components of selling regenerative to consumers in the United States is that it's going to have a positive impact in the United States. And that's not necessarily to say that any of the um international or a broad regenerative efforts. I I don't mean to diminish those efforts in any capacity but to make people care, I think it's easier to do that when it impacts their daily life. Right?

Kyle Krull - 01:16:26
And regenerative grains can increase the water holding capacity, it can reduce carbon runoff into the oceans, reducing carbon dead zones on our coastlines. Um reducing planet temperature, like there's just so much positive that can't happen from all of that arable land. So my vote is domestic grains, but obviously,

Kyle Koehler - 01:16:52
you know, but and the stats are wild, right? And so 60% of the food that's grown in the United States comes from industrialized monoculture farms and GMO crops and it's used for animal feed, ethanol production. 60% right. Over half of the food that's produced in this country comes from industrialized systems that goes for animal feed and ethanol. Like we don't, you know, like, like not only is it like tearing up the land but like we don't even eat it. It's tearing up the things that we eat that then tear us up, right? And so it's like, it's, it's wild how, you know, when I, when I realized that I was like, wow, we, the problem is massive, right? Um It's it's the opportunity, but the opportunity is massive as well, right? There's an incredible opportunity to kind of change that and shift that and fix that. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:17:37
Well, it's the perfect segue. I feel like I'm saying this on almost every episode now. It's almost like we send the questions in advance or something. Um But Kyle to wrap us up with the question, we asked everybody, how do we get Regen brands that 50% market share by 2050?

Kyle Koehler - 01:17:54
Yeah. Um Again, man, I'm gonna go back to the shirt, man. That's why I wore it on. That's why I wore for this podcast, right? I think we free from, from a brand standpoint, from an investor standpoint, from a retailer standpoint from a collective standpoint in this industry. We have to create businesses that value, purpose over profit. We have to create businesses that value significance over scale and we have to create businesses that value collaboration over competition right across the board. Um We have to do that, right? And if we can prioritize those things, I think we have a really good shot of, of, of growing the regen movement and creating real change in our food industry. I really do believe that. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 01:18:30
Oh Yeah, super appreciate everything you're doing. Um It really sounds like an FL battle and I commend you and applaud your efforts. Um Stoke at your trial, the planet friendly oats for those who are not like or those who want to follow up and learn more. It is Wildway of life.com. Um So go there, check it out, find some planet friendly oats. Um And yeah, man, super appreciate the time.

Kyle Koehler - 01:18:53
Thank you. Thank you all so much.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:18:55
Thank you brother for show notes, episode transcripts 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 find our Regen recaps on the website. Regen recaps. Take less than five 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 five star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to future episodes and share the show with your friends. Thanks for tuning into the ReGen Brands Podcast brought to you by the Regen 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.