#58 - Derrick Jackson @ Grass Grazed

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #58 - Refocusing The Family Farm On CPG Meat Sticks - (RECAP LINK)

Episode Transcript:

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

Kyle Krull - 00:00:15
Welcome to The ReGen Brands Podcast. This is a place for consumers, operators and investors to learn about the consumer brands, supporting regenerative agriculture and how they're changing the world. This is your host, Kyle, joined by my co-host ac who's going to take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:32
On this episode, we have Derrick Jackson who is a farmer and one of the co-founders of Grass Grazed Grass Grazed is supporting regenerative agriculture with a myriad of direct to consumer livestock products and just recently launched its first CPG item Grazed Snax, Grazed Snax is a meat stick made from 100% pasture raised pork. In this episode, we learn how Derrick and his family went from raising 25 backyard chickens to over 4000 pastures birds in just 11 months. The barriers that small scale regenerative farmers face in receiving financing for land acquisition and why the family has decided to invest in building CPG products as a key to their future growth. Derrick is a great storyteller y'all and it was really fun and informative to hear about their recent voyage into the world of CPG to help be both a growth and profitability catalyst for their family farming operation. Let's go. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The ReGen Brands Podcast. Very excited today to have our friend Derrick from Grass Grazed with us. So welcome Derrick.

Derrick Jackson - 00:01:44
Thanks for having

Kyle Krull - 00:01:45
me. We're so to have you on board. Uh Derrick and I were catching up just talking to each other for the first time before the recording started. We're both big fans of bone broth and oatmeal. I've convinced Derrick to try bone broth oatmeal. So super psych already uh together, same time, same time. Um, we can get into that later. But, you know, for those who are unfamiliar with grass graze, Derrick, give us a quick lay of the land. Like, what sort of products do you produce? Like what skews, where can people find your product today? Um Give us the high level overview.

Derrick Jackson - 00:02:13
Yeah. So, uh grass Gray is a uh farm. We're farm in uh Durham, North Carolina and we raised uh grass fed beef, uh pasture poultry and uh pastured eggs. We also do some grass fed only at dairy. Um It's a uh all direct to consumer. Uh We recently launched into, um, our, well, we recently launched our first uh CPG item which is uh uh pasture raises, uh pork, uh meat sticks and that can be found on our website. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:02:44
Yeah. Yeah, we're excited to talk to you about that. You know, we're obviously very biased on this show, but we think CPG is a incredible pathway to build market outlets for rega farmers. And the fact that you have kind of done that on your journey. I think it is very validating for us. But um you know, very, very early and we want to help tell that story and let you share with folks kind of all the things you've learned. I think, you know, the last time you and I talked Derrick, it was a, it was a rather long list. And you're like, man, I didn't, I didn't know what I was getting myself into here. But uh we're excited to have you share that today. For sure.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:03:06
What take us back to how this all got started. I know there's kind of a, a family piece here and just how did, how did you all start the farm? Why did you start farming? Take us all the way back there?

Derrick Jackson - 00:03:25
Yeah. So, so kind of a, a loaded question depending on, depending on who you talk to. Um But first generation uh first generation uh farmer, uh my wife and I started the farm back in 2019. Uh And the whole reason for getting into it was primarily due to um a lack of access. We did. I didn't have access to it. I learned in page, I was active duty army stationed out in North Carolina and it's, it's kind of a food des well, one of the food desert at the time where if you were trying to get access to anything locally grown, it's impossible. I didn't know that at the time but I was struggling with some uh gut issues. Um uh very, very healthy, doing the right things working out, um doing anything but eating, you know, eating right.

Derrick Jackson - 00:04:03
Um I thought I was eating balance but I knew nothing about uh what it actually, what balance actually mean. Um So after, after we start in the journey of trying to figure out how can we be rsps consumers? Meaning we went from the we, it, it was a, it was a, it, it happened a lot of times people were like that was it like you, it happened that fast. It, it went from, I found out that dairy was causing stomach causing my stomach issues. Like when I found that out, I was like, wait a second, wait dairy, why would dairy do that? That was the question.

Derrick Jackson - 00:04:44
When I started researching it, I realized, you know, I started seeing, oh, this is what a dairy looks like or this is what, why are they putting this much stuff in there? Like why does milk all these things? And just, just kind of, I saw a documentary and a documentary just kind of blew it all out for me and just, I left watching a documentary, feeling angry. Uh uh more than anything. I, I felt, I, I felt angry because I, I thought that what was being raised in a grocery store was what it was, actually, it was represented. It, it was represented, uh, in truth and it wasn't, uh, what you see on the label unfortunately is not true.

Derrick Jackson - 00:05:15
Um, and I thought that it was, uh, but after looking into it, you know, we found out, um, you know, it's the things that we're eating, it's how they're being produced. So I started, uh, we started trying to find local farmers markets, couldn't find any, there was one that we did find and, uh, at the time we were, you know, living, you know, living well, married, uh, five or four kids at the time life where my wife had a job. I was in the military sports were juggling schedules and trying to get to the farmer's market on Saturday to get, uh, pastures, uh, poultry because I couldn't find anything else, couldn't find any beef or anything that was, that we could source back to the land. It just, we, there was nothing. They, uh, the chicken farmer ran out of chicken and, and I remember my wife will tell you, I was upset. I was really upset because I was like, I'm on, man. Like I committed to you.

Derrick Jackson - 00:06:11
I thought you were committed like you were gonna raise a chicken and I'm gonna buy it every week. I'm only gonna buy chicken from you. Right? And we're buying a lot of chicken because we're trying to feed seven people in my house at the time. Um, and he was just like, I'm out, man and I didn't know this, you know, I'm just like, well, you're a farmer, you do this for a living. How do you run out of shit? And he told me I didn't know that. Silly.

Derrick Jackson - 00:06:36
He says, uh, it's gonna be, I was like, ok, well, next week I can get it and he was like, oh no. See, I don't have any old pasture right now and I was like, ok, I don't know what that means, but ok, he's like, it'll be eight weeks and I was like eight weeks. I was like, you know, I, I told her, I, you know, I get back in the car upset and he was like my, she says, what, what, what happened? I was like, you don't have any chicken and he won't have any until January. I was like, what? You know, so, yeah, I was just said I went home and uh I just started looking up like, why does it take so long to, you know, grow chicken? I know I've literally typed it in. Why does it take so long?

Derrick Jackson - 00:07:21
And uh I mean that I'm not joking like, what is this guy not telling me? And uh I saw a uh youtube video by um I don't know, I think it, it may have been Justin Rhodes. Um And I did at the time, he wasn't as big as he is now, but it was just a video about a man just saying, uh, uh, you know, an accountant and this man is an accountant and he went from being an accountant to raising all of his food. And I was like, wait a second, if this person can do it, I can do it. That's what I thought. And sure enough I got introduced to, uh, pasture poultry, uh, profits and that kinda got me like, ok, well, this, wait a minute, people are saying you can do this thing.

Derrick Jackson - 00:08:07
So, uh, I saw, um, I saw Paul Reeves, um, um, youtube video about how he got started and I was like, it was 12 o'clock, 12 o'clock and it was midnight because my wife was asleep and some, and it was like, just buy the chickens, just buy the birds and do it yourself. And I did it. I bought them. It

Kyle Krull - 00:08:39
sounds like a late night infomercial. Like, you know, it's late at night. There's somebody doing the infomercial guys just buy the birds, they're on sale, you know, five for five, whatever

Derrick Jackson - 00:08:47
it was. So I had gone to the site before, right. And after I looked at the site, I didn't, I got a notification. It was like, uh, quick ship, um, quick ship, um, something I can't remember what it was like. Quick ship birds, you can have them in whatever. And I was like, what? Quick sh ok. And I ordered them when I ordered them. I thought for sure that I broke the law and I was like, I just ordered birds online. They're gonna call me tomorrow and they're gonna tell me, dude, you're in North Carolina. We, how do you plan on getting those birds? We can't do that. You can't order chickens online. You can't do that.

Derrick Jackson - 00:09:13
I got a confirmation and it was like, yeah, birds will be there in two weeks. And I was like, what am I doing?

Anthony Corsaro - 00:09:31
Were you guys living on a farm at the time? Like, did you have money at the time or? No? No.

Derrick Jackson - 00:09:36
As a matter of fact, no, we were living in a uh in a very, very uh prestige. This is what they call it. I don't say that it's just what they call it um subdivision in the historical district of downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina where it's these, this, this neighborhood um They don't sell houses like the houses you can, it took us two years to get in the neighborhood. Um And we finally got an invitation to a house that was set. So we moved into the neighborhood. They didn't even have a backyard like we didn't care, you know, we, we need a backyard for this less grass to half a day. So that's where we were living. We didn't have a backyard. We, we had neighbors and you had to ask permission to put up a fence.

Derrick Jackson - 00:10:15
Yeah, but this

Kyle Krull - 00:10:23
is, this is literally one of my favorite intro stories we've ever had on the podcast. You are so like one track mind like, OK, hold on this food causes an issue. I need to figure that out. OK, I need to eat Passard poultry. I go to the, I find the one place I can find passage poultry. It's not available for eight weeks. I need to find how to buy my own birds. I buy my own birds. I don't even have a yard. I'm just gonna, you just keep going down that path and it is amazing. Um I love it.

Kyle Krull - 00:10:41
I'm so stoked of this

Derrick Jackson - 00:10:47
story the whole time. That's, that's when, that's what it was one thing after another. Like we bought the birds and I got the confirmation. I was like, OK, I gotta tell my wife and uh cause I didn't even talk to page about it and I was like, uh I'm still traveling at the time so I travel a lot for, I was traveling a lot for work uh for the military. So I was like, I have no idea where we gonna raise her, whatever. So I sent her a message. I was like, hey, I sent her a text message. Hey, I did something and she was like, yeah, and I sent her a confirmation screenshot cause I got the confirmation I was at work and I was like, whoa, them chicken, them birds are coming. I don't even know how they're gonna come, I don't know if they're gonna be alive or they're gonna eat. I didn't know what that was. So I called them. I called them. I was like, hey, what should I do when, you know, before the birds?

Derrick Jackson - 00:11:23
And they were like, well on the website, they were like, go to the website and there was a list of things that you should do to prepare for your birds. And I went and I read it and it was like, you gotta figure out where you're gonna raise them and where you gonna put them. Uh you know, the brooder. And I was like, what's a brooder? Um I don't know what that is but they say that that's the most important time of their life and I don't have it. So where did I get the brewing? And uh you, you gotta make it, dude.

Derrick Jackson - 00:11:51
So, uh I, I got, I did, I got some books and I started reading and I was only consuming farming pasture poetry how to raise birds. I wasn't reading anything else. Um And that's when built a chicken tractor, birds came in the mail. Um Yeah. So when I learned the chickens is how I started learning about farming, um I started learning about what a brooder was, you know, what was required in order to raise a bird, the life that um the um the life on the farm or whatever, you know, life to harvest. And um and just about food. So that led to the other thing. It was like, well, wait a second, what makes, what I'm doing different than what everybody else is doing. Well, they can't even reach the door. So I was like, well, I gotta be outside.

Derrick Jackson - 00:12:34
So what are we gonna do with that? So we're gonna do a pasture. Um, some type of enclose mean to put them on pasture because my neighbors aren't gonna like that if they're all over the neighborhood and then food, it was like, ok, well, I have no idea about food. How do you, what are we feeding these things? And I thought that you could buy from the pet store, but you can't buy chicken in, from, from a pet store. All right. And, uh, and then I looked up, ok, go feed stores.

Derrick Jackson - 00:13:01
It was like I came from my house and I was like, what, like the feed store has the feed store so far away, you know, whatever. So, yeah, and I learned about feed and then started looking at the difference between organic, non GMO. What, which one you go to a feed store? And there's 50 different, um, you know, brands. It's like which one is the best. And again it brought now looking back, it was just ok, here we go, again, consumer because I'm going to buy chicken feed.

Derrick Jackson - 00:13:27
I can do the same thing I did before when I was going in the store. To buy, you know, chicken breasts, I can look at and see what they're telling me or I can actually do the research. So, and that's, uh, I learned, you know, I found a feed store, um, and then found a farmer that was producing feed for the feed store, went directly to him opposed to going to the feed store. Um, but these are, that came later on after we raised the birds successfully on pastor um, friends and neighbors were peop. Uh Jones also said that people said that pe people are gonna think that we were crazy. They never, they never said it, but they definitely insinuated, it insinuated that we were, that I was crazy or that I was having a midlife crisis.

Derrick Jackson - 00:14:12
Um We started having people ask about the birds and some of our friends from uh from, from gym would come over and they'd be like, hey, you raise your own chickens like, yeah, like, so you're gonna sell them? And I was like, oh, they're for us. Like I don't even honestly, I don't even know if they're gonna live. Like, I don't know, like I haven't even thought about it. I just didn't know. Like, so we, we're going through this whole process, we uh we, you know, we put them on passion, we go through that whole cycle and then they get to the point where it was like, ok, well, the birds are big and they're, you know, they're big birds.

Derrick Jackson - 00:14:41
What, what next? It's hard this time. OK. Let's call, I was just like, well call the uh processor and see, you know, if they can get you in. So I was like, yeah, of course, call the processor in South Carolina because there's only one on the east floor at the time. There's only one on the east coast. So I called her.

Derrick Jackson - 00:15:02
I was like, hey, I talked to um the lady from the chicken processor and she's like this lady, she's been there for like 90 something years. Uh or I think so. Uh she, she sounds like it anyway. Um she says, ok, yeah, we can get you in uh how many birds do you have? And I was like 25 and she was like uh ok, uh 2500 and I was like, no, no, I said, I, I said like I was like, no, no, no, no, I only have 25 and she was like 250 I was like, no, ma'am, we only have 2025. And she says she started laughing and she was laughing on the phone and I thought, I thought she was talking to somebody else and I was like, what? And she was like, um unfortunately there's a 250 minimum here. And I was like, what?

Derrick Jackson - 00:15:45
Like, she's like, yeah, so you may want to call some friends and um you can have a party or something. But we, we, we can't, we can't do 25 birds uh so that I learned about processing and I started figuring out. Ok, well, how do you process birds on, you know, uh that look like the harvest? And um you know, I did some research and found out, you know, get the equipment, uh took a class online to do poultry processing, uh which is very, very simple. Um And we processed, we harvested the birds. My wife and I and my four kids at the time in our driveway.

Derrick Jackson - 00:16:26
Hey, you, I always thought that the uh the police are gonna show up and somebody was gonna call, I mean, someone's gonna drive by and see us, see the chickens hanging or whatever and be like, oh, you need to call and report it. But I told my neighbors I was like, hey, we're gonna be doing something in the backyard tomorrow, you know, it's our chickens this time and they were like, what like, yeah, you know, it's just, and they're like, ok here. So I was like, ok, good. And we process them in the yard. And then after that, it was so many during that time, there were so many people that were asking about the birds. Um It started like, um it started, it, the thing just started the, the wheels started to turn in my head uh being a business major and uh um I don't know, a um I've always had like this entrepreneurial spirit of like, I wanna do something on my own.

Derrick Jackson - 00:17:07
I wanna build something I wanna make something on my own. And uh during that process, uh Paige was like, after we process all the birds, we get them into the, the, the freezer and everything and we eat the first bird. It was the, from that, that now I'm thinking back um that, that was the last um or that was the first uh time that we had ever eaten um a pasture raised but or anything that we had ever raised, like it was the first time and it was the last time that the day before that was the last time we had ever consumed something off of our farm. Uh So since then I have been uh um at least this cooked at my house anyway. Uh we nothing's been raised or nothing has been served from our kitchen table that hasn't been raised from our farm. Um all poultry.

Derrick Jackson - 00:17:54
But yeah, I mean, so

Anthony Corsaro - 00:18:10
that man cra crazy story, I mean John, thank you for your service. Um Thank you. Yeah. Uh You're welcome. And two just wild. I mean how maybe maybe with less detail but how did you go from that to like where you're at now? Like with, with a diverse species and selling all that direct to consumer with the the farm you're on now? Yeah.

Derrick Jackson - 00:18:33
So, so after that, it was a the birds we sold half of those birds. So we only had oil left in the freezer for us. So it was immediate, I, I think I ordered another batch and I had no idea. I knew that we were gonna keep doing it. Um I knew we needed land. Uh We started looking for land, found some land. Uh We put a lease, I put a lease on a 60 acre property in like 30 days after that, it was two hours away from our house. Um But it was the closest that we could get. Um put a lease on the land.

Derrick Jackson - 00:18:54
When I, we leased the land, it wasn't the way that we brought it. Uh We were looking for clear posture because we were only looking to do pasture poetry because I, I knew that I could, the numbers, there had been enough case studies done to say that you could do it profitably as long as you um had a brand. Um So my wife page is a marketer by pla. So she says, no, no. The first thing is to start marketing, not, we need to start branding, not this farm. And I was, and I was like, sure page.

Derrick Jackson - 00:19:23
I'm, I'm, I'm building the farm and she on the other side built the brand. Um So the um kids started that we leased the property. It wasn't what we wanted. It was all we could get. And this introduced us into a regenerative because I knew about pasture poultry, but I hadn't really learned about regenerative agriculture. But as I was looking for farms, when I looked at the property that we were on the property that we found it was someone's, I remember when I went to look at the land, I was, I was kind of upset because I was like, man, I wanted more to pasture because I want to do pasture poetry.

Derrick Jackson - 00:19:55
And I remember, um, thinking, uh, the, the farmer was like, you know, a good farmer. Um uh this is what she said. She says she says a good farmer uh will take the land and, and, and, and bring animals that will benefit the land and knock the other way around. And I was like, I've heard something similar to that before and uh and she was like, yeah, like this is what we have and I've been able to raise the animals. I, I raised animals that I think will benefit from the land and the land will benefit from the animals, not the other way around. Um And so, um anyway, then I started looking at, and she was like, you should look into regent of agriculture.

Derrick Jackson - 00:20:37
And that was the thing that was like, ok, well, ok, and after looking into it, it just kind of, it resonated with our values as a family about leaving things better than we found it. So, um being a good source of the things that we're entrusted with and it just, it clicked. And I was like, that's why we're doing this. It's about the way that we steward things. Uh, so we, uh, lease the land after leasing land. One of the things that come with farming is when you, when you start farming, I think a lot of the time it's because of, um, of, um, a lot of this has to do with peer pressure and the peer pressure comes from all the farmers.

Derrick Jackson - 00:21:14
Um I had a friend, I was like, hey, you're raising chickens. I raised pigs. I wanna raise more pigs. We should go in on pigs together. And I was like, yeah, you know, he's like you got a farm, you got 60 acres, you need pigs. And I was like, sure, you know, like if my friend is telling me this, like we need to pigs. Sure enough. Um The property I to look at was um it was 60 acres, but 40 of the acres were um was woodland.

Derrick Jackson - 00:21:46
So it's perfect habitat for uh for pasture hogs. So or not pasture hogs but um um woodland hall. So um it, it just made sense. I was like, yeah, so we gotta get paid. So we release the property or release the property. We inherited um a uh laying operation, a layer operation. The farmer that was leaving the farm was like, hey, we'll move out faster if you will take our laying hands. And I was like eggs. Come on like I just wanna do past for poultry, right?

Derrick Jackson - 00:22:16
She's like, but we got layers. They were raised here, you know, this is their home, they and their laying, you will automatically, you, you get eggs, you know, immediately and then you can start selling. And I was like, yes, I need to start selling. So we uh we started uh we sold a thing of two months we went from, we leased the property, um, purchased our first, we purchased, uh, 15 Halls to start and then we inherited 75 Lane Hens which lay a lot of eggs and I wasn't prepared for it at the time because I didn't have any customers. Um, and, uh, and, and it just, it kept going from there. Um, I would need what I need to leave the works here. So it was ok. I want to replace my salary so that I can farm full time because I like this and I wanna do this.

Derrick Jackson - 00:23:04
And, um, the fastest way of doing that was to one take over someone else's operation because I had missed out the farmer's market at this point. I knew nothing about farmer's market. So it was like, well, you wanna, you wanna be at a farmer's market? And I was like, sure. But I don't, because I know farmer's markets from what I've read, it's not the way to build a business and I don't really wanna do that, but it's a way of you know, building a brand. So how do we do that in the middle of the season? Find a farm that is ready to retire and they have already mark they have some market space. So I was like, sure.

Derrick Jackson - 00:23:42
So I started looking and I found a farm that had been around for about eight years and they were ready to retire and we took over, we bought their operation, we just kinda did some rebranding and um just you kind of bought their customer and we bought all their market, all of their everything and just kind of brought it underneath grass gras and that kind of catapulted us from going from um 25 birds to our first year. We did, uh we went from 25 to uh 4000 in the first year. Um, and 5050 hos. So, yeah,

Kyle Krull - 00:24:31
hold on, hold on, hold on. What's the time frame from buying the 1st 25 birds to 4000 birds and hogs and everything else? Is that one year? Is that two years?

Derrick Jackson - 00:24:41
It's uh, it was 11 months. That's so crazy. Yeah, it was. And that was the year of COVID. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:24:56
And Derrick, you've shared that you, you all are a part of a buying club now, which is something I kind of heard of, but kind of not. And I think it'd be cool for you to educate people on, which was basically, I think you gave me the number, there are 65 families that are committed to purchasing y'all's output versus you having to kind of go sell it open market at the farmers market or something like that. And that's been really helpful and you know, a key piece of this. So can you just talk about that

Derrick Jackson - 00:25:19
a little bit? Yeah. So the, the buying club is it, it's a um it's direct to, it's still a little direct to consumer. The buying club is, I think an asset for farmers because it, it's, I think it really does protect the farm. Um, and the farmers. Um, and, and the relationship between the farmer and the consumer. We call them eaters. Um, it's a, we call them eaters because, um, they're not just consumers, they, they actually contribute to the whole process. So these are 65 families that say, hey, we're committed to sourcing all of our meat products, all of our, um, not all of the dairy but all meat from your farm we're gonna buy from you, we're gonna support you. Um, and that also means, you know, sometimes it is a, hey, um, you know, sometimes, yeah, as, and when, when prices fluctuate the, the buying club because they're invested in the, because they own a portion of it. Um, they understand that, you know, there, there really isn't much conversation when we're talking about, well, the price of, you know, supplies or are going up.

Derrick Jackson - 00:26:19
So we have to adjust prices, but during the time they're like, hey, I see the prices are going up in the store, you know, how are we looking? And it's like, I mean, they're, they're actually invested in the process, but it is, um, the buying club allows the farmer to, uh, sell e everything, the whole animal uh to the, consume the eater. Um, it's, uh, they sign an agreement saying that, you know, that, you know, they own a portion of, you know, a cow or a um like our dairy or like our herd, they, they own a portion of it. Um But it's, it's a she shared expense. So, um the end one benefits and it protects us. There is no middle land, there is no um we can, it's just between the farmer and the actual eater, there's no, um there's nothing in between it.

Derrick Jackson - 00:27:04
So, and that allows us to, um it helps us to predict it's kind of our bottom line. It allows us to do everything else. So at the bottom line, everything is taken care of. Um for the most part, like we can, we don't have to worry about paying the rent or paying the mortgage or paying our employees because we know that that's covered from our buying club. So we are able to focus on other things like the way that we sort the animals because we're not forced to be like, well, we gotta grow super fast or we have to cut corners because we're worried about not being able to make six. And that's typical, that's what we saw with farmers markets where, you know, we would, I would be at the market and I'm producing the same amount of products.

Derrick Jackson - 00:27:49
But, you know, I'm seeing the fluctuation in sales one weekend, you're at six and then the next weekend you're at 500. Um, and that happens.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:28:05
So on, on top of it, kind of being that baseline of guaranteed revenue is it also paid in advance as a production, finance like type mechanism to where it helps you finance some of the upfront cost before the harvest or is it just the revenue for, you know, for the end

Derrick Jackson - 00:28:21
product? So there's, so there's, there's, there's two. So there is a, it, so it's not a CS. So it's not the CS A model where you pay upfront. Um They, you pay, you pay a fee to join to be a member and then you just buy, you know, you buy there. So there is a subscription model where I know that there are, there is off the top of my head. There's 20 some families that, you know, they eat, you know, that's five or six halls that are sold, you know, it, it takes at least five or six halls to make sure that these families are covered um at a minimum. And then they still do a la carte sales like they still buy items like eggs and, you know, this year we're gonna host for Thanksgiving. So, instead of one turkey, we're gonna do three turkeys. But at a minimum, I'm still gonna get my one turkey because, you know, that's a part of, uh, being a member of the club is I, you know, I'm gonna buy, uh, you know, a cow, a pig and a turkey.

Derrick Jackson - 00:29:09
So, um, but yeah,

Anthony Corsaro - 00:29:23
the, the big question, the big question for me remaining is, is, um, uh, you know, then why, why the new CPG product? Right? So you started from the backyard chickens. Now, you have this diverse enterprise with this awesome buying club. Why, why get into pasture pork sticks? You know, what was the impetus?

Derrick Jackson - 00:29:40
Yeah. So, uh, how are we getting? So the big thing is, um, timing, um, some quality of life, the, the, the CPG, um pork, uh meat sticks, snack sticks is quality of life and I say quality of life because, um, a lot of the times, uh, what we do with the buying club and the farm that we've seen allows us to sustain, it's, it's very sustainable. We can sustain business the way that it is, we can keep our employee, we can our, our employees, um, we can maintain our farm and our livestock, but it, that's about it. It doesn't give us anything a whole lot of extra to do things like, um, buy more land, um, to invest in more, you know, to, to grow the herds, it takes a whole lot longer to do those things. And so we don't own land. So, one of the things that we want to be able to do is own land and we don't own land today because, uh, I just, I refuse, I don't feel good about, it doesn't make me, uh, uh, it doesn't make me feel good about purchasing property under the terms of me under the assumption that I'm gonna raise things, uh, the way another organization wants me to. And, and I say that because what I mean by that is a lot of the land, uh, farm land. It's, you know, it's very expensive.

Derrick Jackson - 00:30:59
So in order to get these FS A loans or farm, uh, s the, the USDA loans for this property, a lot of the questions that are asked is what do you raise? And I say, well, I, I'm a regenerative farmer. I'm a regent livestock farmer is what I say and they say, oh, what is that? And it's like, uh, what? And they're like, well, what you, oh, you mean y'all raise the chicken in the, on the, the, the pigs in the, in the wild or something is one of, one of the people said that I was like, ok, um, sure, um, yes, we raise our pigs in the woods. Um, they're contained but, um, they're in the woods and, uh, so they don't recognize it. Um, a lot of times they won't recognize it.

Derrick Jackson - 00:31:42
They'll say, despite the fact that um, my revenue, so they, they, one of the things that I refer to is on, you're a small farm and your revenue, you know, just, it's, they don't really want to take the li the li the liability is, is, is too much liability. And I, I told her I was like, ok, so you're saying that the liability is too much liability for us to do this. And she said yes. And I said, why she was like revenue? I was like, ok, it's based off of revenue. I was like, ok, this is me and none of the agents talk. And I say, ok, uh it's based on revenue. And I was like, well, that's unfortunate.

Derrick Jackson - 00:32:17
And she said, well, I was like, because you're looking at revenue while the farm, the farmer across the street who not across, but in our neighborhood, the pasture or not pasture, the poultry farmer in our county that raises, I don't know, thousands hundreds of thousands of birds a year. You're looking at his revenue, right? I was like, but what you should be looking at is uh net. Are you looking at net? No, you're not looking at that because if you look at net, you will see that I net way more than he does. My revenue isn't as high as he is, but I bring home way more than they do profit standpoints. Like I'm way more profitable than these farms that are raising their birds in books. Like way more profitable. We support three families off of a salary from our farm.

Derrick Jackson - 00:32:53
But because of gross, you base the application process. So, no, it's like, no, I'm not willing to raise my homes in a barn or raise. I'm not gonna do that to get a, um, to, to be able to purchase land. So the CPG, the other option is to produce a product or service or something. And CPG was the thing I saw some other farms doing this where uh another farmer that did something similar and it made sense that the farmer created a product and that product is what he used to launch, you know, um It was, it, it provided a lot more uh profits for the farm. So CPG just happens to be that thing that I knew may be worth investing in that didn't steal any more of my time away. So I'm already raising the halls. Um How can I keep more hearts? How can I keep more halls in the process?

Derrick Jackson - 00:33:43
Um When you're doing things like raising bacon? And I know everybody loves bacon and I love baking. Um But they get, they get a small percentage of the, of the hall, like very, very small percentage while the uh um the um margins are high, um they're still not high enough to cover that the rest of the loss from that pig. So, how can we incorporate the whole pig and the whole animal and, and uh while the meat six don't incorporate the whole animal, it it does incorporate a larger percentage of the animal, but the margins are much, much higher than um much higher than we see with the value added things like bacon. So that's why we decided to do A V six.

Kyle Krull - 00:34:40
That is super fascinating and I really appreciate the level of detail you shared with like how this loan application process works. This is completely new information for me. I've never heard this before and I just want to kind of restate this um to make sure I'm understanding correctly. So essentially today you're leasing your land and you would love to eventually be able to buy land, which completely makes sense, especially like if you're really stewarding the land, it's great that you're stewarding somebody else's land, but it'd be even better if you were stewarding your own land, right? And really reaping those benefits over time. Um So in order to do that, you either have to have more money in the bank or take out a loan, the loan process is like going to us C A say, hey, I'm a farmer, I want to get a loan for this land and they say cool, the way you qualify is based on a revenue. So if they want to see whatever the revenue threshold is, maybe it's $500,000 annually and to your point, your neighbor is hitting that $500,000 mark, even though maybe he's only taking home 50 grand, 100 grand. You might be at 250 grand in total, like gross revenue for bringing home maybe 100 grand. And they say, hey, your gross is too, too small. We don't care about your profitability.

Kyle Krull - 00:35:37
We just need to see this high number and you have to change the way you farm to do that or you're not stewarding the land. So it sort of forces you like, if you want to get more land, you have to sacrifice on your practices. Is that correct?

Derrick Jackson - 00:35:59
Correct. That's, uh, you said that really? Well, yes, that's

Kyle Krull - 00:36:03
correct. Well, you told the story. Well, I just, I'm just spin it back to you. Um, but yeah, that was, that's crazy. That is absolutely insane. And that's super eye opening for me.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:36:12
The, the private, the private credit and the, the credit programs run by the USDA are all really built around, around, uh, underwriting with commodity systems. And so if you're not a commodity farmer, they find it really hard. I would assume especially those more entry level. Or people like the first, the first wave of, of evaluators really don't know, kind of how to put you in a box. And so that is an issue and there's actually there's a ton of people really working on this, uh doing amazing work in the regenerative space. We have not totally cracked the nut there and Zach Duna is, is in the government now and doing some really awesome work. And I mean, you know, the other thing is obviously the legacy of uh extreme discrimination against black farmers too, Derrick, which I don't want to say that's a part of this, but also something we should like touch on and say like that's a really real thing. And so, you know, at the end of the day it's, hey, how do we better finance in an equitable way? Uh All small scale farmers, farmers, all regenerative farmers and especially BPO farmers that have historically been discriminated against, especially in the, in the financial

Derrick Jackson - 00:37:13
system. Yeah. Yeah. 100% 100% I couldn't have. Um, I'll tell you this is, I didn't, it's a sad truth. Now, you said, um, you said you're shortening someone else's land and we, um, unfortunately, uh, we just, uh, yeah, um, we've been here five years and we were planning on purchasing the, the farm that we're currently on. Um, and unfortunately the, the, the property across the street from us was just, uh Z for industrial, um, for industrial use, which means that they're gonna be building a 165 acre natural gas plant across the street from our current farm. So heartbreaking, it's, it's wild and it's like, as I look through the, through the woods, like I've been feeding the animals more nowadays. And, uh, and I'm just like, man, you know, it's just beautiful, just the, the changes that we've seen that, uh, on the land from the animals being there, um, and being stewarded, destroying them the way that we have. It's just, it's a beautiful predators, like a much, beautiful, a much more beautiful place than it was before. But again, you know, if farmers can't, a lot of the farmers are selling because one, they don't have individuals that are interested in farming or two, they don't have the funding.

Derrick Jackson - 00:38:26
Um And then they um um presented, it's the funding for it is extremely difficult and there are some organizations out there that are doing some really good stuff that we're in touch with. Um And um yeah, I think that it will get better in the next, uh we'll see some changes in the next year or two.

Kyle Krull - 00:38:54
Totally. Well, what's super frustrating to me about this story and, and I really appreciate it because we talk so much about why it's so hard to be a regenerative brand today. And I don't talk to, we've had conversations with a few regenerative farmers who are generally like much higher scale, like larger scale. But to hear your story and go from like, hey man, I was raising chickens in my backyard to, you know, trying to like purchase land for the first time. It makes me realize like how difficult that process is and like, it should be the exact opposite. The government in these loan programs should be incentivizing the stewards, the good farmers who are trying to do it the right way and make it easier for them to make this positive impact both on nutritional density. Um human health, animal health, planetary health like food, local food decentralization. Like that's what we should be incentivizing. And to hear that it's that hard for you to try to increase the scale at which you were stewarding. This land is just so frustrating. Um, and we've been talking for, what, 35 minutes? And I'm just frustrated.

Kyle Krull - 00:39:39
I mean, I can only imagine how frustrating it is for you. You know, like, um, it's tough, but I do want to get you, you made a statement earlier. I want to pitch it back towards CPG because you made a statement that I think you might feel differently about now. Um, you said, you know, you want to launch the pork sticks because it was ac PG thing that wouldn't take up too much more time. Um And I'm curious what you, how you feel about that now and what you've learned because I mean, you, you seem like a really avid learner. Like you go down the rabbit hole, you want to learn the whole thing. So what have you learned about the CPG space?

Kyle Krull - 00:40:13
And what has surprised you, what has that journey been like

Derrick Jackson - 00:40:30
every time we go to ship a product out? I'm, I'm actually happy. Yeah, I enjoy it. It is so much easier to ship a pork and beef stick or a meat stick than it is to ship £20 of frozen meat. And so it's a, it's a, it's a night and day difference. Uh, uh, we can do it as a family and not get angry with each other. Um, it is, uh, it's, it's, it's much easier I could say that and it's less stressful my stomach. I sleep better at night time after I drop off at the Ups Center. Uh uh, after I drop off at the uh center because I'm not like I used to get this, this, this knot in my stomach because I'm like, uh, oh, I'm gonna get, you know, I'm, I'm watching the tracking number like, ok, where is it, where is it, where is it? Ok. It's been there too long. It's been there too long and that happened multiple times where the item just got stuck over the weekend when it was supposed to be sent same day.

Derrick Jackson - 00:41:15
So, uh, yeah, shipping, I would say, um, uh distribution and, um, and uh shipping and distro is so much. I mean, it's, it's so much easier. Um, I, I tell all my farmer friends, like, I wish I had done this sooner just because it, it's, it's so much the learning curve for shipping, frozen products is extremely difficult and very, very new, capital intensive. Um, it's, it's just, it's a lot that goes into it and uh I wish we had known and seen it, but CPG is, it's new and it's new in the sense of trying to get into the same, I guess the conversations you don't meet too and your father talking about CPG. So um it's not, it access to information to conversations are a little bit different. Um Majority of the time is not the majority of the people that I'm talking to are professionals about CPG are not farmers, they are like the majority of them are marketers.

Derrick Jackson - 00:42:06
So, um it, it's a little different in the sense of a lot of the time. I'm trying to, I would say it's maybe it's a little bit, I, I found some, a few things to be difficult and the difficult thing is I'm still, we're still doing direct to consumer. So we still have the production process that we're still trying to map out and, you know, just streamline and make it a lot, a lot more efficient and just trying to get better with that. Um But also trying to make the connection between um being, you know, we, we produced a product. It's not something that, you know, it's not, we're not just drop shipping and people are, you make the sale and we're just, we're not just marketers, we're paying, we're, we're, we're, we're doing more marketing now than we were doing farming before. Um The majority of the time you spent, you know, trying to one see what, you know, what, how can we make you sick better?

Derrick Jackson - 00:43:14
Um, we spend a lot more time talking to customers about or just trying to learn more about how and what else is needed because pork shakes are great, great. But then there are, you know, there's still things like people, a lot of people don't eat pork. Um, and a lot of people say, well, are you gonna do something like a lamb steak or something? And I'm like, sure. Um, first we gotta get the, the pork thing out there and then you will look at that. But yeah.

Derrick Jackson - 00:43:34
Um, so, I mean, it's been, um, it's been, I would say starting with farming and we were just used to things so hard that pivoting into marketing, uh CPG product has been, it is, it hasn't been as labor intensive. There's a lot of back and forth with like product as far as like the product, the label itself took so long to develop and, and I told page, I was like, this is ridiculous. We've been talking about this label. The label took, it, took us, we spent a year developing the product, majority of the time was developing the actual label itself. And then, then the label signed off, we spent four months working on the label. And then after we get the label between the, the actual person that prints the label and the person that designed the label, it went back and forth. There's probably 203 100 emails back and forth. Um, only to go to the US C A inspector to say that's wrong.

Derrick Jackson - 00:44:35
You can't do that. And it's like, wait, what? We were ready to lunch and they say, well, you actually can't say that. The, that the, that, that, it's, um, what did they say? We couldn't say, you couldn't say gluten-free, you couldn't say, uh GMO free. You couldn't say any of those things. And I was like, OK, all right. Well, take them all off, that's fine. Take them all off. And you can't say uh grass graves. And I was like, oh yeah, you can.

Derrick Jackson - 00:45:05
And that's one thing I knew that we could, um, we could say grass graves because that's the name of our business. So that saved us. Um Even though, and then we had to go back and change the label again. Um That took seven months. Wow, the need of portion of developing the product did not take as long. So, um yeah, I mean, it's just some of the things that you just didn't know, like as far as like barcoding and how that will mess up an actual CPG product is if you don't have your barcode, correct, then you can't print it. So I didn't know that.

Derrick Jackson - 00:45:37
So, uh those are, I mean, overall it's been, I think it's been a good transition though. Um, we're able to from I guess from what we're able to, what we're actually able to do what we can actually control as a farmer. I want to be able to control the entire process as much as possible because I, I don't want, you know, additional hands touching the product because that's when things get added and that's where things get, you know, changed. We're gonna cut corners and we didn't want that, we want, we want to have complete, you know, as much transparency as possible. And that means from ra the animals to produce an actual meat stick to the actual label and then packaging and then shipping. We, we wouldn't be involved with the whole process. That way when our customers ask, you know, you know, where did that come from? What's in the product?

Derrick Jackson - 00:46:32
What is this, what is, what are your ingredients, which I can tell you about all the ingredients because I had customers ask and I wanted to be able to explain what the actual ingredients were and not be afraid to talk about them. So, um but that's, it's been a good transition though for, for us as a family and as a farm as a business.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:59
Well, it certainly sounds like you've learned a ton. I was, I was trying to take notes on really the whole conversation and the positives that I that I've taken away from bridging into CBGR vertical integration to some degree better carcass utilization margin expansion building the brand slash you know, consumer transparency. The fourth bullet and then the fifth bullet is basically increasing that consumer basket size, right? So giving them something else to buy in addition to what they already buy. So those, those are my five big positive takeaways, admin and regulatory are the two big negatives. It sounds like so far my my, the one I thought would be in the third spot there, Derrick would be processing like I'm assuming finding the per you know, finding the com man and like Moqs like, was that a headache? Like what was that process like?

Derrick Jackson - 00:47:44
Yeah, that was so um I knew a little bit about uh processing. So I just because we had been looking for a long time and I was talking to some other companies that had already launched some products and uh it wasn't, I didn't go into a brand. Um I knew that going into it was gonna be very difficult to find a product. I knew not to look locally though. Um Before we even rushed into it, I was told, hey, when it comes to packaging, that's one of the things that, you know, it matters like consumers care about packaging. Unfortunately. Um You have to, you, you really gotta, you gotta do, you gotta do the label, correct? And it cannot look like a farmer label. And I was like, OK, I got it, you know what the farmer labels look like. Um And yeah, so you you really gotta do the branding.

Derrick Jackson - 00:48:21
And um, so after looking, it did it, it, it wasn't, it was a long process. It took us probably about two or three months to, to find someone and it was still, it was still a long process of going back and forth with ingredients and what they can and cannot do. Um, you can't use uh we, the big thing for us is we didn't want any sugar in the product. And it was like, dude like that, you're making it extremely difficult and that's gonna be really expensive for you as a pro you know, as a producer, like it's gonna cost you a lot and the yield is you're gonna lose, you know, you're gonna cut your yield in half and you remove sugar and um and that was something that we did not know. Um but talking with the processor or with the meat packer or, or uh co packer. Um He explained it all in detail and just kind of laid out some things. There was some, we didn't want any sugar at all. Right.

Derrick Jackson - 00:49:18
Now, we're using maple as a um as a substitute, uh maple syrup. And uh it was one of the things that was acceptable we thought for our consumers. And um but again, we didn't want that because it also changed the flavor. It turns out people love the maple, it's great. Uh it worked out our benefit, however, going forward. Um It did. We don't, we can't put LA on everything.

Derrick Jackson - 00:49:46
So currently where we are, we're, we're looking for another co packer that can, um that can produce a product, you know, with the ingredients that we wanna use and with the limited amount of products while, and they do exist. It just uh he's just i it, it's just a lot, it's very labor in test for his staff and, you know, it's just not, it's not the type of business that he does, even though, you know, he's willing to work with where we are. We just, we, we want the product to have no sugar and no maple syrup and, and we're gonna keep searching. So, um, and um, so yeah, that's coal hackers. I figured out if you call them and you get them on the phone, they don't operate by email, they will not respond to emails. You gotta get them on the phone or show up, show up, like pull up at the actual facility.

Derrick Jackson - 00:50:33
Um, seriously, one of the guys I was like, hey, I'm gonna be in Tennessee for a farming conference. I'm gonna just stop by and he was like, oh, just call me, just call me and, and, uh, and sure enough, like it's, you want to have a conversation with them because the majority of the co packers, those guys know they'll save you a whole lot of time and energy from talking to random people on the phone about what you're trying to do because if you call up, they'll tell you, they'll put you on a waitlist for six months to a year before they will even take you seriously. So, yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:51:14
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, so Derrick, it sounds like you've got a lot going on. You know, you got chickens, you got laying hens, you got pasture pork, you've got, I think beef cattle as well. Is that correct?

Derrick Jackson - 00:51:25
Dairy, cattle

Kyle Krull - 00:51:27
and dairy. So you got a lot from like the, the meat perspective and then like the animals you're raising on the land, which is fantastic. You started the foray into CPG with the passer pork sticks. Sounds like you're looking for a new cack or for a non sugar or non maple syrup version. What else is on the horizon is, is the focus now utilizing like trying to figure out how you get more CPG goods from the land or the, the animals that you're raising or is there eventual? Like, you know, you're looking to get into retail, are you planning to stay with etc? Do you want to throw lamb? So you can do lamb sticks on your farm? Like what are you planning to do?

Kyle Krull - 00:51:53
And in the next few

Derrick Jackson - 00:52:02
years? Yeah. So, uh, one of the, we're gonna, we're gonna stay with, uh, we're gonna stay with me six. And so the, the focus, the focus going for all those animals currently. Uh What what I did mention is when you decided to put like cut out all the other animals for production. Um There are other farmers, we got other farmer friends, we made a lot of friends in the community, um, other farmer friends that we buy from as well that are gonna be consuming majority of our customers as far as like, you know what they said to supply our buying club members, um their needs. We're focusing, we're gonna focus on the CPG products for uh pasture raised animals. Like that's, that's what we wanna do. One of the things that we've realized is uh CPG products are, we don't have to sacrifice. No, that there no one has to lose.

Derrick Jackson - 00:52:42
If we do AC PG product, uh Meat six, no one has to lose. I can pay my farmers my uh uh we have, I have a farmer, uh I can pay my farmer uh what he wants for his per, you know, an acceptable uh price where he makes a profit. And as a, as a, you know, as a business, as the business owner, as a marketer, as a um as a brander, I can still sell that new product and we can steal built in from the process. Um Paige and I are taking it, we were trying to figure out in the beginning what do we bring to the farming community? And a lot of older farmers will ask for new farmers that when they come to when they start farming, they'll say, uh, well, what is it that you bring to the community? And you should think about that because you, you don't know yet.

Derrick Jackson - 00:53:34
You're gonna say, well, I'm gonna raise fashion poultry and it's like, well, sure. But we, we're all doing that. So, what do you bring? What is your niche? What is your creative, um, you know, genius that you're gonna bring that, that's unique to you, to the community. And I think Paige and I won uh page is really, I mean, she has a gift for marketing and branding and just to work. I think we tell stories very, very well. Um We're, we're very good at communication and we like um the community is big to us.

Derrick Jackson - 00:53:57
We know a lot of farmers that love to farm and I love to farm too. But I think, um I think I'm a better marketer than I am a farmer. Um I'm a better, um I'm a better salesman than I am a farmer. I just, it's just, I'm, I'm really, it's, it's not, I like talking to people. I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. I'm just giving people what they really want. This is just creating a product that people actually want. People have told us.

Derrick Jackson - 00:54:27
Hey, we shouldn't have to, we've experienced it whenever we go to travel. It's always like, well, what are we gonna take? Because what are the kids gonna eat in the car. I mean, you're at the grocery store trying to figure out what's safe, you know, it shouldn't, it shouldn't just be that one hour a in store that's like a shelf and you can only pick from a few snacks that you can actually eat without, you know, worrying about the effects it's gonna have on you or your Children or having, or feeling guilty about giving it to your Children. You shouldn't have to sacrifice like you shouldn't have to do that. Um, farmers are creating products. They just, you know, they just want some farmers just want a farm and that's ok because I like farming.

Derrick Jackson - 00:55:06
I go home and I do, I see a farm every day, but throughout the day, I think that I think better telling a story and moving a product and telling other farm stories that, you know, that already have the land that already have the infrastructure. They're just looking for an avenue to sell their products. And I know I know so many of them. Like I know a lot of those people that are, you know, just, I know a farm. Unfortunately, that's a friend of ours. Hopefully one day, um, when we release our, our beef portion, uh our beef sticks. Um, there's a farmer and they uh virginity.

Derrick Jackson - 00:55:44
Um, they're grass fed, uh, grass fed only, um, beef operation up north and they haven't trying to apply for in like three or four years and they have no idea what they're gonna do. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's only a matter of time before, you know, it's all over. Like that's, that's, that's how they have been living for the last four years and it's like, that's insane. You have all of that product and you cannot move it because, you know, you don't understand or you don't know or you don't want to because this, you just want a farm. So, yeah, we're gonna focus on CPG. We're going to um stay with the six.

Derrick Jackson - 00:56:15
Hopefully we got invited to the uh the Midwest um Midwest uh CPG conference this upcoming year. So in 2024 so we'll be there. I wasn't ready to go into retail or anything like that. Uh We got the invitation and when you get an invitation, you just gotta show up. So, and you know, after going, we'll see how things go and give us a chance to, you know, meet some other um just an introduction to the community itself, see what it's like, see what things are, have some conversations. And at this point, we, we would like to just keep selling um to the people that we know and, you know, locally and stuff like that.

Derrick Jackson - 00:57:06
Um But if the opportunity presents and stuff, you know, we're always open to conversation about, you know, just being able to move more product and uh allow more people to have access to it.

Kyle Krull - 00:57:30
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And man, I, I love what you're focusing on in the future because I think to your point II, I like the way you phrase like, what are you bringing to the community that's different? And it really feels like because you're sort of straddling this line between farming and CPG, you can provide a lot of value to both sides there. Um So kudos to you for number one, recognizing that number two, taking action on it and, and I'm really struck by the, the story you shared about your, your neighbors or your friends who have the cattle farm like they need, they want to farm in this particular way. And I think this goes back to like why people are not interested in farming. I think the younger generation has no interest in conventional farming where you're not storing the land, you're not taking care of the animals, you're not creating nutrient dense product. Like my generation certainly has no desire to do that. And so the question then becomes like, how do we create a market for those who want to form the right way?

Kyle Krull - 00:58:12
And this is where, you know, Anthony talks about this really well in this really articulate way that I'm not gonna do um of why the CPG brand is so important because, you know, you talked about page and pages skills with marketing and storytelling and that's the avenue where we can connect people to these practices via the brand and that's the work you all are trying to do, which I just super respect and appreciate. Um and, and I was excited to see what you all come out with. Next is gonna be really, really cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:58:52
And that, that's like the juxtaposition of CPG, which is the interesting part is it can be this amazing tool to create these stable profitable equitable markets for Regina farmers. And it can also be our worst tool to create extractive relationships that are rushed to the bottom and, and crush farmer margins and really lock them into really bad situations. And so I think that's the whole point of our platform. We're trying to show the former and not the latter. Um And we're trying to show in the former that if we build these enterprises the right way, it allows the farmers to just be amazing farmers and hopefully not have to do all these things that we've heard Derrick talk about at length, you know that he's that him and Paige and the family have had to do. Um And it, it makes me think of the term, you know, value added product or value added processing and like in its pure form when that's correct, like it's a really true form of, there should be a lot of value added in that product or processing, you know, the processing of that product that helps, you know, bring that kind of monetary value back to the to the original producer. As long as we're, we're doing it the right way. So, yeah, just really, really well encapsulated in this episode and just thank you for uh for sharing all that Derrick and you know, I'll take us, I'll take us home with our final question, man.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:59:59
I'm excited to hear your thoughts on it. Um which is uh how do we get Regen brands that 50% market share by 2050?

Derrick Jackson - 01:00:21
We need to I think, huh? Well, how do we do it? So I think that um farmers, the farmers are already producing, right? There's uh I will say that there is enough farmers because there isn't enough. We need more. However, farmers are already producing good products. The only but, but what needs to happen is we need more brands or um marketers that they are willing to bring the farmer to the table when we invite farmers to the table and I, you know, an actual table. But if you bring the farmer to the table, the reason why we want, we want them at the table in the conversation is because we're less likely to take advantage of them. Like you were saying, like we're less likely to take advantage of them. If we don't take advantage of them, then they will produce the products. Like they will produce things in a way that's, you know, regenerative and not just sustainable. They will, they will produce more products which will give us or give marketers or companies the opportunity.

Derrick Jackson - 01:01:05
CPT brands, the actual supply that they need in order to get the products out there. But putting farmers, I'm, I'm an avid believer that people buy into stories and they buy into, into people. People support people if we put people, if we put farmers, if you put a farmer and I don't know, I know they don't do this. But if a grocery store wants to make more money, put a picture of some farmers up in a grocery store and change the way people can change the way people purchase when you see this. Oh man, that, that man has a look at that. He has three kids and whatever. Just a simple, a simple touch of man. That's where that came from. It don't need not to be true. People will purchase it.

Derrick Jackson - 01:01:55
So by bringing the farmer, letting them tell the story, capturing their story and not trying to tell the story for them. That that's where I think that's where marketers did it wrong is they try to tell the story for the farmers, let the farmers tell the stories, the ones that are doing it the right way. Um And that will, I mean it'll, it'll, it'll be people want the product, people want healthy, they, they want it, they don't believe it healthy, they want, they want a local product that is raised in a good way. They do like they really do want that. They don't, people want garbage. There's no way if you ask people, they will tell you no, I don't want that. No. If I knew that.

Derrick Jackson - 01:02:39
So if we tell the store and we tell them how they're actually doing it, get people to trust then CBG products um supporting, supporting Regina uh will, will, won't have a problem. Uh It's just the right way.

Kyle Krull - 01:03:00
I love that answer and there's a couple of things I want to hone in on my, my new answer is change the USDA loan format because it's bullshit. Um But it's fun to answer, but I love what you talked about because it, it synthesizes a couple of different points. Like number one, like storytelling is going to be critical to the success of regenerative agriculture. We have to figure out how to tell that story authentically. And number two, like education you talked about people don't want garbage. We need to be able to tie this regenerative value proposition to health and wellness and, and both from a human and a planetary perspective. Um And I think you hit the nail on the head like we have to be able to do these things at the same time together and that's how this thing is gonna move forward. So, really appreciate that answer.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:03:42
Yeah, and agreed. And I think for us, you know, Kyle, this is something that we talk about openly, like not having the answer for you, but it's how do we integrate the farmer into the marketing story? Because at point of purchase in the middle of the aisle when someone's deciding they really don't care. But it is this amazing, powerful storytelling tool somewhere in that, you know, in that journey, right? So, so where is that? Is that at the end of the aisle? Is it just on social? Is it just via email marketing? Is it via a national media campaign? Is it all those places? And, and even more? Right? And like that's, I think that's what we're trying to do with the Regen Coalition.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:04:08
That's so important is like we're trying to build the infrastructure to go figure that out because truthfully none of us know what the exact answer there is. Uh But if we don't do it together and we don't do that R and D and put some money into figuring that out, we'll, we'll never know. And if we don't ever know we won't, we won't succeed.

Derrick Jackson - 01:04:39
No, no, it won't happen.

Kyle Krull - 01:04:43
Well, Derrick man, super appreciate the time. Love, love the story. Thank you for sharing. Um It's been a blast, man. I can't wait to try the pork sticks. Oh, and, and uh just for anybody listening, if they want to try them, the website is Grass Grazed.com. Um Go there, check it out. See, see you get some killer imagery on the phone. I'll get the website pulled up right now. Um So check it out

Anthony Corsaro - 01:05:04
Thank you. Thank you, Derrick. This is awesome man. Really appreciate it.

Derrick Jackson - 01:05:08
Yeah, thank you all. Thank y'all for having me

Anthony Corsaro - 01:05:13
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