#72 - Alison Czeczuga & Zach West @ Gaia Herbs

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #73 - How This Supplement Leader Is Implementing Regenerative On Their Home Farm & Beyond - (RECAP LINK)

Episode Transcript:

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 gonna take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:34
On this episode, we have Alison Czeczuga and Zach West from Gaia Herbs. Alison serves as the director of social impact and sustainability, while Zach serves as the farm operations manager. Gaia Herbs is supporting regenerative agriculture with their 250 acre regenerative organic certified farm in North Carolina and there are more than 200 plus SKUs that contain various regenerative organic certified ingredients. In this episode, We learn how this natural channel supplement leader has developed, implemented, and expanded their regenerative strategy, plus how they're betting that time regen to product quality and consumer wellness will be the winning commercial strategy. We talked farmworker housing, composting programs, herbal extraction, product label claim challenges, and so much more on this one, tons of insights, and, of course, some good laughs along the way. Let's go. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The ReGen Brands Podcast. Very excited today to have our friends, Alison and Zach. From Gaia Herbs joining us.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:01:27
So welcome y'all.

Kyle Krull - 00:01:40
Thank you.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:01:41
Great to be here.

Kyle Krull - 00:01:42
Yeah. You know, every episode we start with me asking, you know, our AC welcomes us in, I ask to question. Like, for people who don't know the brand, let us know what it is, but it seems so silly to ask that question for Gaia Herbs because you all are a behemoth and a powerhouse in the supplement space. Have been doing incredible work for years, but we'll still ask the question. For those who are unfamiliar with Gaia Herbs, what all do you produce please do not go SKU by SKU because we'll be here for the whole episode. The high level, what are you producing? Where can people find your product today?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:02:12
Yeah. Definitely. So thank you for the introduction. Great to be here. Gaia Herbs is a legacy herbal supplement brands. We produce herbal supplements in all sorts of formats from our, liquid phyto caps to powders, gummies, syrup, as well as different tablets. And we can't go skewed by SKU because we have over 200 ish skews, ranging really from, women's health, digestive health, stress, sleep, immune, you know, really every different category of of health and wellness. We also have a health practitioner line as well. Is a little lesser well known, but, we have a, yeah, we have a pro line that has about 88 SKUs ish, about 30 of them are exclusive. And so we serve the the practitioner area as well. And we also recently, I I think I should mention, became the distributor for floridex, which is a German Brit based herbal supplement brands with over a 100 years, founded by doctors, multi generational.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:03:03
So It's been really neat to see the different parts of Gaia evolve. Yes. It's very always something going on, very dynamic. But really at the center of it all is is our dedication to quality, and that's really brought us to be, you know, the number one herbal brands in the natural channel. We've been around since 1987. And so continuing to stay true to our roots, but also innovate, you know, to serve the growing consumer who is interested in holistic health.

Kyle Krull - 00:03:47
Incredible. I have to ask this question to each of you. Maybe you don't have a favorite supplement, but, like, if you can't name a favorite, tell us the last one you took. Just out of curiosity.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:03:59
Yeah. For me, it would the literal last one I took was holy basil. And holy basil helps you stay centered. Keeps you in the eye of the hurricane. Helps with stress support, such as for recording a podcast.

Kyle Krull - 00:04:16
I'm feeling that basil vibe. Yeah. Yeah.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:04:21
And it it's just a really beautiful plant. We used to or we we grow it on the guy farm, collect the seeds, but we also source from, our partners in India who are regenerative organic certified Fairtrade and all that stuff. So you know, many different reasons to like that product. So I'll I'll just leave it with that one.

Kyle Krull - 00:04:39
Yeah.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:04:40
Zach?

Zach West - 00:04:41
Yeah. So I I actually took 2 this morning. I took a stinging nettle for my allergies, and then also, I took some elderberry gummies. So that's just something I take every day for immune support. And they're gummies. You can't really go wrong there. They're easy to take. They taste amazing. So definitely a favorite

Anthony Corsaro - 00:04:59
Love it. And really cool. This is this is a unique first episode for us just in terms of the the guest profile. And the titles in the hats that y'all wear in the the brand. And we wanna talk a lot about, you know, the brand, but also the farm. So Zach, wondering if you can kinda just give the audience like a high level of this farm where it's at, how big it is, which I'll grow, just kinda set the table for us there if you don't mind.

Zach West - 00:05:24
Sure. Definitely. So we we have about 250 acres on the farm side, and about a 170 acres of that portion is actually in cultivation. So that's actual field space with plants and crops. And we are a organic certified farm as well as a regenerative organic certified farm. We became regenerative organic certified a couple years ago and went right the silver level, which we're really proud of and trying to get to that gold level eventually, but that's that's something we can talk about later maybe.

Kyle Krull - 00:05:55
Yeah.

Zach West - 00:05:56
And a big part of the farm, like, really the heart and soul of it is the fact that we have 27 guys that come come over every season from Mexico on a H2A visa.

Kyle Krull - 00:06:07
Wow.

Zach West - 00:06:07
And some of these guys have been coming for 20, 25 years, year after year, They know every field, they know every rock and storm, everything, all the equipment, all the plants. So it makes my job a lot easier. I don't have to really dictate exactly how to do things. They already know how to do it, luckily. So, yeah, that's that's kind of a huge part of the farm for us is those those 27 guys that that repeatedly come back every single year and, get us through the season. So really lucky to have those guys.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:06:39
Yeah. We know y'all have done some recent kind of improvements or changes to the farm worker programs, and we wanna make sure we talk about that today. I see I see Kyle's itching to get a question and so we'll go to him one second. I just want both of you to just share your title and kind of the scope of your role just so the audience kind of understands what what hats you do wear at Gaia. And, Zach, may we start with you then then go back to Alison?

Zach West - 00:07:02
Sure. So my name's Zach West. I'm the manager of farming operations at Gaia. And I've been with Gaia now for almost 2 years.

Kyle Krull - 00:07:11
Nice.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:07:13
And I'm Alice to to well, we'll start that one again. Even I can't say my last name. I'm Alison Chichuga. I'm Gaia's director of sustainability and social impacts. So I really work across departments from our sourcing, to our farm, to operations, to really try to bring more focus into our sustainability programs.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:07:36
Nice.

Kyle Krull - 00:07:37
Awesome. I'm really glad that you stumbled on your last name. I wasn't even gonna try. I wasn't even gonna go back. So the things feel a little bit better. But the question I was itching to ask for Zach is, you know, you all have a a huge portfolio like we discussed earlier. You've got this great farm. I'm wondering how much of what you actually source comes from that home farm versus what you source from partners?

Zach West - 00:07:58
Yep. Great question. And that's something that maybe a lot of the general public don't quite understand. We do source about 80%. It really depends on the year, but more or less about 80% of our raw ingredients externally. And so the farm produces about 20%. And we'd like to say that, you know, we we try to grow what grow as well in this area, and we let other people who have things that, grow in the tropics, for example, we let them grow those They grow very well there. We we obviously can't grow like turmeric or ginger very well. So we try to purchase those from the the places where gotta get the best quality.

Kyle Krull - 00:08:38
Totally makes sense. And just just to put place on the map for the listeners, I don't think we've talked about this yet. Where is the farm located?

Zach West - 00:08:44
Sorry. Yeah. I meant to mention earlier. So we are in Brevard, North Carolina. So we're in the Appalachian mountains over on the west side of the state. Just a gorgeous area where, just south of the Pizzka National Forest Mountain range, and then just to the north of the French Broad River, which is fun fact, the 3rd oldest river in the world. Don't ask me how they figured that out. That is. I believe that

Kyle Krull - 00:09:08
they can Google it.

Zach West - 00:09:10
So it's It's really cool to have, you know, these ancient mountains right here, this ancient river, years and years of amazing sediment that's come down from different floodings. And so we're really truly, just honored to have just amazing soil to work with.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:09:27
Yeah. And I think I think Alison said there's, like, 30 to 35 ingredients sourced from the farm. And then I saw on the website, there was a, like, there's 3,000,000 plan total in that small acreage, which, like, that was crazy to me. That was mind blowing to me.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:09:42
And I think it's actually gone up to Yeah. I think it's it's even grown since then to around representing 5,000,000 plants.

Kyle Krull - 00:09:50
Wow.

Zach West - 00:09:51
Right around there. We we have a brand new greenhouse that can host about 3,000,000 by itself. 3,000,000 seedlings by itself.

Kyle Krull - 00:09:58
Wow. Blow in my mind. Literally. That's crazy.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:10:02
It's it's really impressive. Yeah. The biodiversity, it comes naturally because we're growing all different kinds of botanicals and so you have echinacea fields and like, you know, lemon bomb. But then, you know, Zach's also stewarding the biodiversity of the soil. And so that's amazing. In addition to us growing, we dedicate about 10 acres to our employee and community food programs. So twice a week. Our employees get free organic vegetables that the our quarantine grows for us, and then we donate the rest to the community. So they Zach and our whole team are so humble, but they really do such incredible work for not only, you know, Guy as a brand, but our community and our workers and and their communities too.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:10:48
Wow.

Kyle Krull - 00:10:49
Crazy. So there's, like, I'm I'm struggling right now to decide what to take those conversations because there's, like, there's so many different places we can go. And I'm, like, okay, what question do we need to to, like, I need to ask questions for myself. Like, how do you make a supplement? Like, how do you how do you go from a plant to to the to the bill? You know, like Yeah. Yeah. But we won't go there.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:11:10
Yeah. We can start anywhere. We'll just do, like, a 2 hour course training on that. So, yeah, we'll go wherever

Anthony Corsaro - 00:11:15
you want to. Go ahead and just from I

Kyle Krull - 00:11:17
I feel like that's something that most people don't know. We'd love to better understand, like, you know, lemon balm, for example, you just mentioned. That's something I've taken before. Like, how does that plant how has it grown? Why is it regenerative? You know, and then how does that end up in the bill at the end of the day?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:11:29
Yeah. So when you think about our vicinity Sorry. Sorry.

Kyle Krull - 00:11:32
Also also, I wanna rephrase capsule sounds so much better than pill. How does it end up with a capsule at the end of the day?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:11:40
Yes. Yep. A capsule or even different format, you know, liquid. But, you know, when you think about herbs, they come in many different forms. Culinary, horticulturally, we focus on, the health producing compounds of of herbs. And to get those healthy constituents, you know, those vital chemicals, those plant chemicals that are in all plants, we have to extract them. So Gaia has an on-site, manufacturing facility as well as lab. So we extract everything on-site. We're able to work with the farm Super closely. Didn't know when stuff is peak potency when, you know, Hawthorne is ready. It's like, we think it's ready. Let's test it. It's ready.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:12:14
So it comes to the manufacturing facility, and we extract that with, food grade alcohol and water. You can also extract, you know, with hot water or, unfortunately, what's also really common in the industry is extracting with toxic solvents. So Gaia only uses, CO2 water, food grade alcohol, but Other companies, you know, to try to maximize certain constituents. We'll use stuff like hexane and butane and ethyl glycol, which are Really bad for you as a person, but also the environment if you're, you know, extracting mass amounts of herbs with this, you know, to break down the chemical the the plant structures. And then Sorry

Kyle Krull - 00:13:05
to interrupt, but I wanna pause real quick. On the consumer, like, when when a when somebody's purchasing a pack, Do those companies who are using those, like, chemical methods have to, like, list that anywhere on their allies?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:13:16
No? No. Nope. Nope. There are some, FDA regulations for what passes or not. We believe that they're not high enough, so Gaia has you know, we don't use it them at all, but we have, you know, done blind testing on brands that show that are on shelves, you know, when many different stores that have toxic solvent residues on them. And so when you're taking health producing, you know, health and wellness products, why would you wanna have those things that are carcinogenic and harmful? Not to mention they they strip that whole plant profile that you really want to have when you take herbs. You don't wanna have just one isolate. You know, you wanna take the way nature knows best in the way nature grows, and we wanna mimic that. So, yeah, a lot there, but that's kind of the basic, central part of, herbal extraction.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:14:04
And then it's blended, different Carriers are added and then for Gaia, that's may that's injected into a Fido capsule. But, you know, there's different processing for different methods, and it really is a a art of herbal extraction and, production. And so guide us Most of ours in house, but we do work with contract manufacturers, and they have to have the same kind of level of quality that we do. And that's not easy to find and and an industry that is continuing to grow that a lot of people just kinda wanna come in and, formulate trends and not look at quality from you know, how has that herb grown? What inputs were on it? How are the workers treated? How was it harvested? What test was it done? None of this is required to put on your products.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:14:56
So that's one challenge that guy has had, I think, another quality herbal supplement companies have is how we educate consumers on what is quality and why does it matter and and why does actually sourcing regenerative reflects not only on the communities it source from, but the final products, you know, from from the quality of soil, but also the fair trade and social aspect of regenerative of if you pay people the right price, they will sell the herb you know, at at the highest peak profile as well, like, right after harvest. But if they're getting offers for prices that are too low, you know, they'll often hold that and quality degrades. And so then, you know, you get what you pay for, essentially.

Kyle Krull - 00:15:51
Totally makes sense. And I appreciate you walking through that. I learned a lot. Super interesting. And I'm curious. I don't wanna take it back to the soil now and get Zacks perspective. Like, you know, for for Gaia, for the home farm, know, when did regenerative become, like, the priority term? And what has the transition towards regenerative look like for you and how does that differ from non regenerative, you know, botanical growing.

Zach West - 00:16:17
Great question. So I can really only speak from my experience here at Gaia, which has only been 2 years, but kind of funny story. I I came to Gaia, Because they were going through this journey, I actually used to work for the Rodale Institute as an organic consultant and a regenerative organic consultant. And, Gaye was wanting to pursue this this certification. And, you know, I came into the picture and helped them through that journey a little bit. They were already doing, you know, above and beyond even what regenerative is is calling for, basically. They've been organic since day 1. They've been doing everything correctly as far as kind of fostering that the whole the whole system here, the whole environment, Not just the fields, but also some of the buffer areas, the creeks, the rivers.

Zach West - 00:16:56
But I think you know, picking backing, picking backing off of what Alison was saying. Regenerative, I see this as getting more into storytelling, creating a narrative you know, organic kind of already does that a little bit. But if you think of, like, a conventional product, I'm just gonna take Doritos for an example here. You never see a Doritos commercial where they're explaining, oh, these ingredients come from this farm or this farm. They actually probably don't want you to know where those ingredients are coming from. Organic's a little bit better, and then you get into regenerative. And we're happy.

Zach West - 00:17:34
We wanna share that information. We wanna get that out there to the looks. They know, where those quality ingredients are actually coming from. And I think that's something that Gaia has had in their minds since day 1. They've wanted people to understand how we produce things, why we do things, the way we do them, and that they can count on us to give them that quality product.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:18:04
What Zack just said brought something up for me of just, like, maybe a cool way to tie in the origin story is to just talk about the direct sourcing and the farm journey and how that's paralleled with the growth of the business I kept. You always had this farm. Was it just motivated because sourcing from all these other amazing farms. You wanna do that themselves. Like, what was the actual origin of starting to do some of the farming, y'all selves slash having the farm?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:18:29
Yeah. Do you want me to speak to that, Zach, or do you wanna I can Yeah.

Zach West - 00:18:31
Go for it.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:18:33
Yeah. So, Gaia Herbs was founded in 1987 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And then in 1997, our founder decided to move to Western North Carolina, and he looked all over the country and chose this area specifically for its biodiversity. It's it's one of the most biodiverse places of the world. Many different micro climates in in small different areas. And He knew the importance of direct sourcing of getting the most high quality products really means you have to start with the most high quality ingredient, and that means having to be involved in that whole process. So very dedicated to quality. And He found, an old organic cattle farm, in the French Broad River Basin area, as Zach mentioned. So super beautiful soil.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:19:12
First herb grown was peppermint, I believe. And when they started the the farm in 1997, we supplied, you know, upwards of 80% to our product line. And then as our products kept growing, mhmm, as our products kept growing, we had to expand sourcing both for, you know, variety of plant, like, you know, Maka and Peru or Cabinsana Watu, but also as secondary sources, we outgrew the farm, you know, relatively quickly. Well, we haven't outgrown it yet. It's still the core. And it it'll always be a core. Yeah.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:19:58
But, yeah, the dynamics have changed, but it really makes us it enables us to relate to our suppliers in a way that I think a lot of brands can't, both from growing, but also lab issues, challenges, questions. We have, a huge quality assurance team that's able to troubleshoot. And, you know, regenerative practices have always been present on the Gaia farm. And I should mention it. It's it's located in Ancessorial Cherokee land. So, you know, the the reverence for this land is is very strong, and those practices, you know, regenerative indigenous practices were in this area long before we came as well.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:20:35
And then in 2015, we've been certified organic since our founding And then in 2015, kind of the buzzword of regenerative, I think, started coming onto our radar more and the more conferences I went to, the more I heard about it and brought it back to the team. And it took a few years for us to kinda be in the conversations. There was a lot of, you know, what is regenerative What certification should you use? How how do you choose? What is the benefit? So lots of questions.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:21:13
And then we decided to become regenerative organic certified and go with the rock standard, I guess, in 2021, is kind of when we made the decisions that can that checks me, to get certified in 2022, I believe, was our first certification.

Kyle Krull - 00:21:39
Zachie's audit is approval for the listeners. Yes. Sorry. Yes. I can. So we're we're on board. These these are correct timelines.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:21:45
Yes. Yes. And really one of the reasons we chose it. It was like a Cross departmental group that came together, farming, sourcing, sustainability, procurement, and we really wanted to go beyond organic. I think organic is the baseline, that that we really value. And it quickly came up of just the social element that we felt was missing from some of the other certifications, organic, or the environmental movement in general. So, rock has the 3 standards of soil health, animal welfare, and social health as well. And you know, as Zach mentioned, we have our farm is dependent on our farm team from Mexico, and there's a lot of issues within the H2A program that you know, we can't fix them single handedly, but we can create policies that support the dignity and experience of our farm workers. So that's kind of our journey of regenerative and where we've landed with, the certification

Anthony Corsaro - 00:22:46
Yeah. I I would love for y'all to tag team 3 things because I think anyone listens to this podcast with any regularity knows rock, loves rock. We have the overview of what rock is. I think the fun nuance to get into would be, like, for Zach, why are you silver and what what what can you do to get to gold? I think that'd be really fun to peel back that kind of onion for the for the audience. And then I know there's a new composting program and I know we haven't gotten into the details on the farmworker program. So I think I think those three things would be really fun to to dive into however y'all would like to.

Zach West - 00:23:20
Sure. I can I can start us off there? So we do have a plan to get to rock gold. It is a very ambitious level to get to. It's it's

Kyle Krull - 00:23:31
Yeah.

Zach West - 00:23:31
Really difficult. Because when they've made this standard, You know, when you think about making a standard for such a huge variety in diversity of farms, it's really hard to, create those specific standard points that's gonna fit all the way across the board. So, you know, our farm compared to an apple orchard, for example, well, the apple orchard never has to till So they've they've met that no till criteria very easily versus us here in Brevard. We we still till, and we kind of have to. We We have a, well, we have a farm here in a rain forest, basically. So, if we were to try to do no till, or at least grow not on beds, then our plants and mainly our plants with roots that we're after are just gonna die. They're gonna rot. We're not gonna have a crop.

Zach West - 00:24:19
So that's that, I think, is gonna be one of our biggest challenges to get around is the no till part of the standard, at the gold level, you are required to be a no till operation. So for us, that, I think that's gonna be the biggest hurdle to get over. Another big one that I, I think we're on the right track. It's gonna take a little bit more time to get to is to have a third party social certification. So that would be something like fair trade or something like that. To come in and do a separate certification that would enable us to to get past that, that point for rock as well.

Zach West - 00:24:53
So those, those 2 are two big things. We have a couple other little things to work out as far as crop rotation, and we have one crop as well that lives this entire life in a greenhouse. It is a aquatic tropical plant called Bacopa. And it has to be watered many times a day. It can't be out in the cold weather. Anything below 40, it's it's kind of in danger of of dying. So to be a rock gold operation, we have to have everything eventually in the native soil.

Zach West - 00:25:23
So we are also looking at ways to possibly grow that in a hoop house where it's in a raised bed, but in contact with the native soil underneath that hoop house. So those are just a couple examples. Some of the bigger things that we'll need to to address over the next year or 2 years to to get to Rockgold.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:25:55
Super interesting nuance.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:56
Yeah. Exactly. I I respect the hell out of your job. Sorry to interrupt Alison. And I also can't even imagine the level of complexity. The, like, 2 examples you just provided out of the 200 plus plants through the 5,000,000 plants being grown. Like, it just seems insane. Also, like, the juxtaposition of, like, you know, one of the key pillars of regeneration is like maintaining living root systems. Right? But sometimes you're harvesting the root. You know, so, like, right. Again, the complexity is just gotta be out of this world.

Kyle Krull - 00:26:18
So, we expect what you do, and I can't even imagine, like, trying to have to solve all of those problems at the same time. Really exactly.

Zach West - 00:26:29
And that's that's the whole thing. The context part of it when when they made this standard. I, you know, and this is a young standard. I'm sure there's gonna be changes over the next few years, but trying to meet farmers where they are. If you're harvesting potatoes, for example, it's the same thing. You're gonna be digging that soil up, you know, not every year, but every couple years. So The no till thing to me is something that's, yeah, something that might need to be just varied a little bit based on operation.

Kyle Krull - 00:27:00
Makes sense. Yeah.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:27:02
And I was just gonna add in too. It's it's, you know, interesting with the Bacopa example because that's a traditional herb from India. And Zach mentioned the reasons, you know, climate wise that we need to keep it in the greenhouse, but we actually started growing this on-site and that shows the ambitiousness of our firm team. We couldn't get the Copa clean from anywhere. So it grows a lot of the times, like, in gutters or next to areas where water's collecting, and so it'll pick up pesticides, metals, anything from, it's like it's like a bioremediator. Yeah. So we're growing it in the greenhouse in pots to avoid contamination, in in that. So we're trying to do it for quality, but then it it bumps up against the standards for rock, which is just, you know, that that juxtaposition you have.

Kyle Krull - 00:27:53
Yep. Yeah. And the complexity. Yeah.

Zach West - 00:27:56
And I I did wanna just circle back to the note tool thing. This is this is a a hot issue for me. So I just wanted to add one more thing. We are, we we have been doing through my entire time here, different trials to see if we can do at least reduce tillage or reduce cultivation So yeah. We've had a couple of trials with a a very small roller crimper to see if we can, use that. I'm sure you're all aware of a roller crimper, but it was we, developed by the Rodale Institute to grow a cover crop, roll it down, and then the plant right into that, that, that mulch, basically. And then this past year, we've also started a reduced cultivation trial where we plant our crop And then in the fall, we will come through and plant a kind of a cover crop over it of white clover. And that white clover, the next spring, will act as, a living mulch and should keep the, the weeds at bay, which it has this year for several crops.

Zach West - 00:28:47
So We are doing our due diligence to try to adhere to this this point. But, more more More to come. To be continued.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:29:07
Yeah. Well, it you know, it's I it's funny to me because I actually think the greatest point of argument in regenerative is actually our greatest point for future success, which is the organic camp needs to tell, but not spray, the conventional regenerative camp needs to spray, but not till. And it's like, what if we all just found the through line of the best possible solution, like, given the context? And easy to say, much harder to verify and make sure it's legit and not green washed. They get all that. But it makes me hopeful that we've kinda had conversations from both sides of the aisle there. And then there is real people out there doing the really hard work of, like, trying to figure out how to do what they know is not productive as little as little as possible.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:29:45
Because at the end of the day, the the the the perfection of the ecological piece is never gonna match, like, modern day business and consumption. What we have to do is, like, enterprises to make money. And so it's like, how do you create the greatest intersection at that imperfection that you're never gonna truly solve 100%. So I don't know. I feel like I just went super super philosophical there, but I was saying.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:30:18
Absolutely. It's all about context. I feel it. I'm sure Zach feels it immensely.

Zach West - 00:30:23
Definitely. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:30:25
I mean, you you brought us from the specific examples up to, like, the super high level, how it is really impacting, like, the entire movement. So I think it's valuable comment. I do wanna circle back to AC's original, like, 3 pronged question. I think we covered the silver to gold. I'd we haven't covered the labor side yet. We'd love to learn more about that labor program?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:30:43
Yeah. I can start and then pass it over to Zach as well. So as you know, as I mentioned, the social aspect of rock is super important to us. Our farm team, as Zach mentioned, consists of about 27 people from Mexico and together, they represent about 250 years of farming experience. So their knowledge is just incredible. And I'm I'm not sure if we mentioned, but one of them, Jorge Mendez, he's been with us, for 27 years since Gaia moved to North Carolina. And so he actually brought his family, you know, neighbors, cousins, uncles, brothers. So our firm team is literally families in different aspects.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:31:30
That's amazing.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:31:31
So and it says a lot. And and one of the reasons I wanted to introduce this is because our farm team is so humble, but it just says so much to Zach and Kate, our firm director, and Laura, and Abby, and the farm maintenance crew who develop programs that really serve these people who keep coming back and and they wanna come back. And, as Zach mentioned, they have to come on an H2A visa. So that is a visa, through the department of labor, that enables migrant farm workers to come to the US, and it was not created with dignity or humanity in mind. For example, in the in the housing standards they have, I believe it's about, and Zach might know more stats, but, sixteen people per one shower head. And so that's just one glimpse of kind of the standards that they say is acceptable. And even you look at some growers, who have migrant farm workers in their houses are you know, it's like barracks of bunk beds and bathrooms with outdoors and no mirrors and just not any place any respectable human would wanna be.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:32:28
So as we were thinking about how we can strengthen our program, and getting feedback from our team as well, housing came up as a as a huge area that we wanted to focus on. And then other areas were health and wellness, their experience to and from Mexico, through lodging, and transportation and making sure that's a positive experience and, benefits as well, wages and benefits. So we've done I can't take credit for it. I was blessed to be part of the the brainstorming, but our team has implemented all of these areas, which is really phenomenal. The biggest one is we actually have a ribbon cutting ceremony next weekend or next week for our site housing. So it's been a 2 year project.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:33:27
We worked with outside organizations and had a participatory design process. And privacy was really important. So we have, I think 6 to 8 new units. I'll let Zach chime in here.

Zach West - 00:33:47
6 units. Yep.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:33:48
6 units, all state of the art facilities. And, yeah, Zach, do you wanna share kinda how it's been with installation? And they literally just moved in, you know,

Zach West - 00:33:57
Sure. Yeah. This is so, yeah, this is our 1st season with the guys in the new housing. And first of all, I wanna start by giving all the credit to Kate, our form director, and Todd, who is our, farm maintenance manager. Those 2 have really been pushing this initiative and getting it done, on this past off season. And, yeah, we're really proud to have these these 6 new, homes on-site. They they are on-site. They're on the farm. That way in the free time, they have the freedom to walk around the farm.

Zach West - 00:34:23
Some of the guys this year, kind of funny update. They they've actually been going out after work and jogging around the farm for exercise, which Oh,

Kyle Krull - 00:34:38
love it.

Zach West - 00:34:39
Yeah. It's been absolutely Amazing. So, just providing them with this kinda healthy environment to to live and to to have that off time, when they need it.

Kyle Krull - 00:34:50
Zach, I gotta I gotta ask sort of interrupt. The photo that's behind you, is that a picture of the farm?

Zach West - 00:34:56
So this is actually, back. I'm not sure exactly when, but, Gaia did have a holding in Costa Rica, and this is actually a turmeric field. That is it's got that beautiful sunset as well. So they so Gaia did have some farmland down there for a few years and tried out a few crops. And that was a a very brief initiative. I believe Alison, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was only maybe 2 or 3 years. And then they decided to just focus here in Brevard and, continue growing in this area.

Kyle Krull - 00:35:31
Got it. I I asked because I was thinking, I was like, imagining the farm workers jogging in that place. And I was like, what an amazing place? Like, jogs on to that before. That's gonna be incredible. Not to say the current farm isn't beautiful and amazing. I'm sure it is. Just wanna keep a picture for Or

Alison Czeczuga - 00:35:44
bring it out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Kyle Krull - 00:35:45
And here. Hold on just one interruption.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:35:48
I thought you were just trying to call the visuals to get our YouTube subs up, bro, which I you know?

Kyle Krull - 00:35:54
You see, you know, I don't even know what that means, man. So, you know, I would never do that. Oh, it's so good.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:36:03
Yeah. And I I I'll also mention, well, Zach, just hearing that, you know, they're taking advantage of being the farm. We've, like, carved a path down for them to have access to the to the river and the swimming hole. And, I mean, it is beautiful. It's, instead of turmeric sunsets, you have echinacea field sunsets and where they were living previously was about 20 minutes away. There was, you know, issues with the trailers, you know, safety, health. And so just to know that they're, like, in this beautiful setting, where they can hopefully feel a little more relaxed is is awesome. They they really deserve it.

Zach West - 00:36:40
And they and we we have them fully furnished. So we have brand new beds, brand new couches, TVs, grills, picnic tables. We just got done landscaping, so they have, some fruit bushes. They have a privacy fence. They they've already created their own little barbecue area in the back as well, to take their big their big pot and make their big soups on the weekends. So they've they've settled right in. And that's that's one of the benefits that we've offered. There's a lot there's a long list, but we also work with a a few other nonprofits in the area. Visinos is 1.

Zach West - 00:37:08
They come out and do a mobile health clinics so they come out and check out the guys a few times a year just to make sure that they are in good health and that, you know, if they need any assistance They have that ability to go to to that organization and ask for it. We have a local extension agent who comes out, and does yoga with the guys, which is always super fun. They come in they come in, to the greenhouse area. We do it in the greenhouse. And they'll come in with their boots and their blue jeans a little bit muddy. And, and we'll do yoga, and we'll do that for, you know, 30 minutes or so.

Zach West - 00:37:49
And then, the last pose is, I I I guess it's called the child's pose where you basically lay there and, and breathe. And so at the end of that, the the guys actually don't get back up. They just stay laying for as long as possible. But, it's it's a really fun time to see the guys who have never done yoga before and, just enjoy it and and kinda cut up and bring their own little, Mexican flare to the situation.

Kyle Krull - 00:38:22
Yeah. That's amazing. I I

Anthony Corsaro - 00:38:25
don't know if you'll have an internship program on the farm too, but I think the applications are gonna go through the roof if people listen to this podcast.

Kyle Krull - 00:38:31
Told them. I was

Alison Czeczuga - 00:38:32
like, can I be on the farm team? Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:38:34
I wanna go. I wanna I wanna do, like, a 2 week, you know, Farms didn't learn about regeneration. Do yoga have barbecues like, man, come in.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:38:41
I know.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:38:45
Just going back to the original question, last thing is the composting program, which there was a term that Alison taught me in our first call, Herbal Mark, which I I had not heard of before, and it sounded like that was 80% of y'all's waste stream, actually, and you're now, like, composting all of that. So just share the background there with us and what's happening there.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:39:03
Yeah. I can share the background and pass over to Zach and he can kinda update us on how it's going. Also, you'll I I was gonna say if you were impressed with his complexity of hoodie managers on the farm, just wait till you hear about, like, the composting and all of that. So a few years ago, I believe in 2021 ish, we did our first environmental impact analysis. So we looked at wastewater and energy use and Our waist one was very clear that a huge percentage of our waist stream was this herbal mark, which is the material left over after extraction. So this kind of sludge, and it was being sent to the landfill. And it's all organic and could be a beautiful input for a farm. And We had tried to compost it before, but ran into before my time, but ran into, permitting issues and it's a big project, but when we saw that it was, you know, 75 to 80% of our waste stream, we could get to, you know, close to 90% or more waste diversion if we can fix this problem.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:39:46
Because we're pretty low low generating waste company, you know, overall And so we kicked off a a project team of, you know, how can we look into using this mark in the best, most useful way in a circular system that, benefits our farm and reduces the inputs we have to have. And we kicked this project off, gosh, maybe almost 3 years ago now, which is it's not easy. It's a very, very complex. So in those years, we've done a whole lot of testing. We've identified identified an on-site, operational, you know, industrial composting facility that we wanna bring on. That other companies have had success with, but we also have to do a lot of testing and a lot of pilots.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:40:54
And I'll let Zack kick that off and just kinda talk about that experience because it's it's pretty interesting and you learn way more than you knew existed about herbal Mark and the complexities of, like, alcohol and chemical activities and microbes and, yeah,

Zach West - 00:41:16
Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:41:16
Before before Zack dives in, gotta give credit to whoever came up with the term herbal mark instead of, like, waste, you know, what is being termed that is? Like, oh, yeah. Is is this our herbal mark? Don't worry about it. You know? So I know. Slush. Somebody was somebody was thinking. Yeah.

Zach West - 00:41:34
Yeah. So, I guess just to kinda present it in in a different form so maybe some people can understand it better so we have the herbs. They're going into extraction. So you can think of that that herbal material going in as like a tea bag. And once you extract it, you have a used tea bag that's basically not good anymore. And so that's what's been going to the landfill. And it still has that extraction material in it, which is alcohol. And that that's kind of the holdup.

Zach West - 00:41:56
You can't just go out and apply that to the field because the alcohol is gonna kill anything that's in the field, the microbes, the plants, everything. So our goal has been to figure out a way to compost this material or at least to volatilize the alcohol off of the the pile and then to be able to get that compost material back out into the field. So there's a couple steps to that. And number 1, of course, is getting rid of the alcohol, because if you have that in the material, it's not gonna compost it's not going you're not gonna have the microbes, and the microbes are the ones that are actually doing the composting. So last year, we started, 2 trials where we brought down, I think it was about 10 or 15 yards of material straight from processing, and we built our own bunker. Which had 3 pipes in the very bottom of the bunker, to provide a, aeration source.

Zach West - 00:42:55
So we had air turned on through a pump, and it would pump air in every, I think, 10 minutes for 2 minutes. And the the thought behind that was that that's going to hopefully volatilize the ethanol or the alcohol off the pile. And eventually, the microbes will be able to inhabit that material and start the actual composting process. So our first trial, we ran into a few issues. We figured out a few things. And we started a second trial.

Zach West - 00:43:30
And, of course, we had testing all along the way to monitor those alcohol levels to make sure we got down to a certain level that, the department of environmental quality deemed was appropriate. To be to qualify for compost. So we did hit those levels, and we are still doing a few extra test in completing the final, application for the dev department of environmental quality in order to continue the, pursuit of building a larger composting facility. So it's been, like Alison said, this has been a long long road with a lot of complications and permitting and trying to hit certain parts per million, of alcohol. And also trying to do this efficiently. We don't want to compost material over a full year.

Zach West - 00:44:20
We're trying to condense that composting time, to where it makes sense for us.

Kyle Krull - 00:44:31
So,

Zach West - 00:44:31
yeah, I'm happy to go more into detail on any of those points, but that's kind of the basic premise of what we've been up to for the last year on that project.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:44:38
He also makes compost tea, so he can go in many directions.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:44:43
I'm so happy that Zach has the patience and the brain to handle that. I could I could never, but I was having kind of an interesting thought as you were taking us through that, Zach, of, like, I know so little about composting, and I think about it as just we put stuff in a bin or we throw it in a pile in our backyard. And that's maybe how other people look at food production. So not knowing that kind of made me rethink. Like, that's a lot of the times I feel like the lens we're bringing to food or the the main agriculture production as well, which is like most people think it's just a thing that shows up in the grocery store. And I'm just like, oh, compost is just like shit. You throw in a pile in the backyard and it turns into something that you can put and you're like, we got regulatory. We got machinery.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:45:17
We got industrial scale waste streams that were up cycling. It's like, woah. Like, this is a lot more complex than than that.

Zach West - 00:45:30
Yeah. I mean, there's there are, books many, many books written on just the composting process and how that's supposed to to work out and and you can mess it up. You can mess up compost pretty easily. You know, if you go out to, a compost pile that you might just have in the backyard, you're not really turning it, you're not watering it, maybe, or You know, it's just sitting back there. Maybe it smells a little bit bad. Maybe it's got some weird, you know, mold or fungus on it. Good compost takes a lot of work.

Zach West - 00:45:51
It takes a lot of monitoring to make sure you have the right microbes in place. You have the right micro environment for those microbes. You have the appropriate amount of air. The appropriate amount of water is being flipped on a regular schedule. So there's a lot of little details when you get into, like, microbiology, yeah, to to make sure. And I'm not a microbiologist. I've learned a lot from other people.

Zach West - 00:46:14
I'm not gonna claim them an expert, but I'm trying to to learn every day and to to make our compost systems better.

Kyle Krull - 00:46:31
Yeah. I can share that I am an expert in how to compost the wrong way. I I have I have a one of the the cool, like, rolling bins in my backyard. It's hilarious. I just have to own this story publicly because talking about it. You know, it's like, cool. Yeah.

Zach West - 00:46:46
We wanna start composting.

Kyle Krull - 00:46:47
Like, we wanna do the right thing. So buy this, like, I don't know, but $150 roller compost thing. You know? Start throwing a compost in there. You know, we roll it and stuff, but it just doesn't work. Because, apparently, you have to add a certain amount of paper ish material, which we did not do. And then we moved and we we brought our bad compost with us to the new house. It is still just sitting there. And we don't know what to do with this. Like, we need to clean the whole thing out need to do better.

Kyle Krull - 00:47:10
I need to have a conversation with Zach 1 on 1. So, yeah, so to both Zach and AC's point, it's more complicated than just putting your food waste in a fan and rolling. It's it's harder than that. I'll I'll

Zach West - 00:47:25
give you a quick, you know, synopsis of what I'm gathering. I think your carbon tonight gene ratio is all. So you need to figure that out

Kyle Krull - 00:47:33
and then go through that.

Zach West - 00:47:35
I said, we'll connect offline.

Kyle Krull - 00:47:36
I have a separate 1 hour debrief. We'll we'll we'll get through this eventually. Really. But I think we did answer the big three questions. So that's awesome. I do kinda wanna pivot to the commercialization piece, you know, for a company with the resources the guy has, and I've been continually impressed with the knowledge you 2 of both shared about, like, your commitment to dedication and, like, or commitment and dedication to quality. In every aspect of what you do and even like the housing for your your farm workers who come up and stay, like, it's just it's very evident. So I'm really curious from you all's perspective you know, how did you how have you thought about incorporating regenerative messaging into guys marketing materials or consumer facing education? Like, programs, as you start to roll this stuff out.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:48:21
Yeah. So it's a very hot topic and one that I think you know, many industry colleagues have also discussed of how do you get something to hook our consumers, but not get bogged down in the details So with our regenerative message messaging, I mean, regenerative at Gaia, it really is It's interesting because herbalism is a regenerative approach to health and healing because you're looking at the whole person. You're looking at the the whole system, the interactions, you're not just looking at one aspect of something, you know, and it's same with regenerative. You're looking at holistic management and holistic health and the whole ecosystem. And so you're looking at that, you know, in your body too when you take herbal supplements. So it's it's interesting to see that connection. So drawing on that but, I mean, I think it's really important to draw out what quality means and why regenerative is linked to quality because it really is going above the basics from how you source to how you formulate for Gaia specifically, and looking at that full system, Gaia's vertically integrated.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:49:11
And so we're we're able to look at every step of the way and how all relates. So I think being able to really drop back to why it matters to you as a consumer for your health, but then I'll so for the greater communities that we operate in because when you take that herbal supplement, that ingredient has had a very fascinating journey, whether it's just from the farm and growing in, you know, the fertile area that Gaia has or if that journey has been to India, or Peru or any other place. So I think bringing that awareness to the consumer is really essential. I will say also, so Gaia has chosen to go forward with the rock certification We don't have, you know, label claims are important. We're USDA certified organic at our farm as well as rock. But getting those, claims onto products is challenging. So with rock standard. It's very similar.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:50:23
I'm sure you guys have talked about of, you know, it's the similar setup for as USDA organic. So you have to have a certain percentage of rock ingredients in those products. And a lot of

Anthony Corsaro - 00:50:47
guys Right.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:50:49
Yes. For label claims on front of pack. Yeah. And so for That's

Anthony Corsaro - 00:50:53
that's not a lot of margin for error.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:50:55
No. Not at all. And for a company that has proprietary blends that are very complex that, you know, in some of our blends, we have 12 ingredients, different formats, raw materials, extracts. Being able to get rock certification in all of those areas is is really hard because it's a new It's a new certification. So, you know, we can look at single sourced ingredients from our farm, and liquid extracts would be the easiest for us because if we look at phytocaps, then you also have, you know, glycerin and alcohol and the availability of glycerin, for example, is not there for rock ingredients. So

Anthony Corsaro - 00:51:34
Is there even organic versions of that stuff, Alison? I mean, like, is there are people making organic capsules? Like, that's what the glycerin is. Right? Like

Alison Czeczuga - 00:51:41
Yes. That you can get organic capsules. But there's there it's it's hard to get that because of the level of detail and transparency that you have to have for those Fido caps. So, that's why we, you know, we have challenges with that, for sure, with organic, because some of our products. It's all organic ingredients, but, we have challenges being able to meet the CAPP claim. Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:52:07
And my my assumption for y'all is like, you gotta work hard enough just to get somebody to know what the hell an Elderberry is. Like, let alone understanding regenerative. Right?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:52:16
So it's

Anthony Corsaro - 00:52:17
like your marketing team is probably working twice as hard just to get people to try some of these products or, you know, add them to their cabinet. Worse is like we're talking re regen ground beef. It's like everyone's eating ground beef. So it's just a trade up conversation. So my assumption is the hierarchy of kind of tasks, is is much different, and the thought process is much different.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:52:36
That has absolutely been a part of the conversation of how we educate both on the product, the ingredient, but then regenerative. So that's why I really do think that we have to kind of couple those together of

Kyle Krull - 00:52:49
for

Alison Czeczuga - 00:52:50
us, you you have to have regenerative herbal supplements because you don't wanna be you know, it's it's your health. You wanna be putting the best stuff in your body.

Kyle Krull - 00:52:59
And

Alison Czeczuga - 00:52:59
for us, that's regenerative.

Kyle Krull - 00:53:02
To continue with the the ground beef parallel, you know, there's been some really cool studies that have come out recently with a regeneratively raised cow, with a biodiverse diet and how their nutrient profile changes, and how that benefits human consumption. You all done any similar studies for, like, regeneratively grown botanicals versus conventionally grown, whatever that means? I don't know. Botanicals and how the potency is different on one side versus the other.

Zach West - 00:53:29
We we have not finished any testing of that sort yet. We are looking into trying to figure out how those vital chemicals, can be altered based on you know, agricultural practices. One thing that we have been looking very closely at, especially in the last year, are our, soil organic matter levels, any kind of soil characteristics, whether it be carbon or organic matter, to see how that's changing over time. And that's part of the rock standard as well is to keep track of that so that you know, hey, you're heading in the right direction or, you know, maybe something needs to be changed. But as far as the actual phytochemical content in our in our ingredients and the the products that we grow here on the farm, that's something that we wanna continue to to develop and still look more closely at.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:54:24
When I worked at MC State a number of years ago, we did a project. We were trying to grow the natural product industry within Western North Carolina from, you know, growing through marketing. That's actually how I got reintroduced to Gaia. Started knocking on the door trying to get my foot in. But we did look in that project. We did look at some of, like, the locally grown organic, medicinal herbs we are growing. This one was, Chinese medicinal herbs compared to some that we just bought offline, you know, off of some distributors and just the visual representation.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:54:50
Like, I wish customers could see visually you know, fresh, harvested organic herbs from the Gaia farm versus something that you'd buy off the attributor because you can just see the vitality of the herbs is captured, you know, right after harvest. That's when you dry it and we're able to do it immediately, store it the right way. And the HPLC analysis, when we did it at NCCDA, it did show you know, much more activity in the the fresh ingredient, which makes sense because it's, just straight off the farm. So I do what I I hope we can at Gaia and customers can just start thinking about herbal supplements beyond the bottle, you know, put as much care into how they think about their supplements as they may about, you know, eating local or organic fruits and vegetables, for some reason, I found that people might not just quite get that this is from living plants that it's important where they're where they're from and how the whole process is. So it's that's one of the reasons we're really committed to transparency, intraceability. We have me your herbs program where you can actually go to me your herbs.com.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:56:02
Type in like a a distinct code, and it'll show you where that herbs from. Education on the earth, what tests we did to ensure, you know, purity potency integrity. It's it's amazing. We are the 1st in the industry to do it. I've just really, like, don't trust us. Here's the proof. To trust us.

Zach West - 00:56:32
And just to to piggyback on one one more little thing, you know, there's an old saying you are what you eat. You know, we We have an internal stomach, and the plants actually have an external stomach. That's that's the soil. So it really, really is super critical to to understand your soil, to know what's in it to make sure it is, a fully functioning ecosystem. You know, when you think of the soil, you might just think of the little pieces of minerals, and there's a lot more in it than just that this It's a it's a huge ecosystem. I mean, you have bacteria, you have fungus, nematodes, the list goes on and on. So making sure that that external stomach is fully functioning and complete is going to transfer to a healthy plant and then to a a healthy consumer of that plant as well.

Kyle Krull - 00:57:23
Zach, I love that analogy, and I use it myself. And I think what I love most about is, like, the gut health has become so prominent if for human health recently, And I really hope that wisdom transfers to soil health and realizing the importance of the soil microbiome just like we've realized the importance of our gut microbiome. Because you're spot on. You know, it's it's a healthy soil. Is it the healthy gut for a healthy plant, you know, which some

Anthony Corsaro - 00:57:47
Which is where I think the like, if I put my super commercial hat on, like, that's the opportunity for Regen, because to the mainstream consumer, organic has been watered down to just chemical free. And it has lost kind of all these other things that that the organic system should produce, like, in the quality of the product. And I think Whether you're just, you know, regenerative or you're regenerative organic, the opportunity is too tied to quality. So I love that y'all are thinking about that because what better kind of beachhead, you know, SKUs and and brand to do that than than what y'all do. And when I think about how we're gonna actually reach a mainstream consumer with this, it's gonna be tying it to that health and wellness quality benefit. It's not gonna be because they care enough about climate change or biodiversity or farm worker livelihoods like they should, like we all should, but, you know, it's it's gonna be that quality piece.

Zach West - 00:58:33
Yep. Anthony and and just to to talk about that for a second, you know, in the organic standards, themselves, they say the bare minimum criteria is to maintain the soil, sustain the soil. If you already start at Nothing. You're not gonna get anywhere. If you're not trying, you don't have to. There's no incentive, and that's why I really like this regenerative piece. You know, you're always trying to do better.

Zach West - 00:58:50
You're always trying to make things, function in in a more complete system. So that's that's a big differentiating factor between organic and regenerative that I I absolutely love.

Kyle Krull - 00:59:10
I'm curious from the commercialization piece here, like, as you all have started, you've achieved rocks over. You know, what are the conversations like with the retailers when you talk to them about, like, these new regenerative initiatives? And I realized as I'm asking the question, neither of you salespeople. So maybe this is the wrong audience to be asking, but just out of curiosity, like, how have those conversations been?

Alison Czeczuga - 00:59:29
I I was thinking the same

Anthony Corsaro - 00:59:30
thing too, Kyle, like, maybe what are what is the sales and marketing team asking them for? Cause they gotta be getting that information from Zach and Alison too. So, Vivek, that is an interesting way to frame it, maybe. Sorry. Yeah.

Alison Czeczuga - 00:59:40
And I I do work with the sales and marketing team quite a bit. So, our retailers are very excited about regenerative. Sprouts and Whole Foods market in particular have been very excited. I was able to speak actually with, the CEO of Whole Foods, at South by Southwest on a panel about climate friendly food and regenerative, and they're really pushing standards and labels and making sure that greenwashing doesn't happen. There's, of course, challenges with getting the standards and labels, like I mentioned. So really have appreciated their partnership. And same with our independence. I mean, the regenerative aspect of the movement, I think, really resonates with a lot of our retailers retailers and supplements because of the whole health healing and the whole system and the holistic approach.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:00:20
But they're struggling too of how do you get that down to consumers of of why it matters and what do we show them that brings them in the most. And I think some of it's, you know, testing and learning as well, but I mean, it's been really exciting to see organizations like Rodale hosting the regenerative health care conference and really bringing doctors into the conversation as well around regenerative because if we can start to have doctors understanding that more and thinking about that more and adding that to, you know, their list of research areas, which is not required in school. I think will really help this movement as well to have some people who are really influential in that space, you know, of not just anyone saying, like, regenerative's good, but well known accomplished doctors really linking it to the whole system and to our own health. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 01:01:36
I don't know who's gonna go next.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:01:39
You had something else for you.

Kyle Krull - 01:01:41
I thought you were leaning in the camera. I was like, is he gonna go? But, no, I think you're spot on. And I think that's the first time anybody's mentioned the doctor piece. I think that's really interesting. I did not know Brodale was putting those clinics or events on. And I love the concept, and you you kind of alluded to it that a lot of doctors don't really study nutritional health. Right? It's more like a, how do I solve this problem with a with a pill against pill, not capsule pill.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:02:09
Yep. Diagnosing one one thing, not looking at the whole system.

Kyle Krull - 01:02:14
Right. And, yeah, and I think the preventative health or, you know, food is medicine, whatever movement. The more we can get that into the mainstream, I think it can make a really big impact in a lot of different ways. So I think that's a really great answer. And that was my only comment. AC?

Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:28
Yeah. I think we haven't talked at all about the practitioner line, and maybe there's not a ton we can share there, but it just makes me think of, you know, Kyle and I both got into regen because of our own personal health troubles. And I've I've been prescribed a lot of natural remedies, herbal supplements, etcetera. I had no idea y'all had that line. And I, you know, We have countless story after story of people we talk to and people that have been on the podcast that want to work on regenerative, want to be big supporters of regenerative because of personal health struggles, which is obviously, you know, somewhat sad because that's the origin. However, like, things like that as a beachhead into getting people to care more and then becoming evangelist, becoming kind super consumers. Like, that's really cool.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:59
And I think there's a lot of opportunity there. So just think there's stuff. There there's cool stuff to to be had there.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:03:13
Mhmm. Definitely. It's one area that makes me really excited for sure.

Kyle Krull - 01:03:18
Mhmm. So let's pivot to, like, the future. Like, what's next for Gaia? It sounds like, you know, I really appreciated the the information about how hard it is to get, like, rock label claims on, like, an actual package because of the complexity of the supply chain and the number of the ingredients So moving forward with the regenerative hat on specifically for Gaia is the goal to get more like maybe single ingredient rock skews out there with the certification is it really to focus more on the development side? Is it trying to get more of the non farm supply chain rock certified? Like, what are you focusing on there internally? To continue down this, like, regenerative path at Gaia?

Alison Czeczuga - 01:03:54
Yeah. A bit a bit of all of that, actually, from the products. From the product development side to also the the supplier network development side. Gaia is where certified B core but we're also a public benefit corporation. So we have, 3 different areas that we focus on, health and wellness, environmental regeneration, and and employees and community. And so we have goals within each of those, and we have a specific one related to ethical trade and you know, not only rock, but, you know, fair trade, fair wild is another certification that is regenerative in nature and has, equivalencies with rock. And so we have a public benefit goal to continue to increase are certifications. And those are yes in hopes of being able to label, being able to talk about them more to the consumer. But also as supply chain resiliency strategy.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:04:42
We know that if we're paying farmers the right price, which rock, includes we're gonna be able to have these farmers growing for us for many years ahead. I I'm sure you've heard from sourcing people. From various different brands, but farmers not farming anymore is a serious threat. And so we need to make sure that we treat them right. And then, yes, from the product labeling side, our team is definitely looking into what we can do to get those claims and to take advantage of the growing movement. It is neat to see that, you know, the, recognition of the rock label is continuing to grow in certain areas.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:05:23
And so We're excited to see that, but it's it's complex theme theme of maybe all of this, but and exciting.

Kyle Krull - 01:05:41
That'll be the title of this episode complex and exciting. Complex. Cool. Yeah.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:05:46
I mean Perfect.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:05:47
We you guys are gonna be there's there's one gap episode between y'all, but we just had Brianna from Yogi on.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:05:54
I listened. Yes. She's amazing and Yogi is doing incredible things. And that's actually one call out, just the industry partnerships and how important they are, especially in the botanical industry because we face a lot of different things than some of the other CPG brands. And Yogi has been a great partner with that and we we've connected through the sustainable herbs program. And that really brings together botanical brands who are really trying to make sure this industry stays in a regenerative path.

Kyle Krull - 01:06:30
Who

Anthony Corsaro - 01:06:31
who is spearheading that or organizing that housing?

Alison Czeczuga - 01:06:33
So it is spearheaded by Doctor Ann Armbrecht, and it's currently housed under the American Botanical Council. So it's kind of been a springboard for that kind of work. And last year, we did a learning journey where we started in Southern Appalachia and heard from wild harvesters in the region who are growing, you know, black cohash and Golden Seal and other native plants, could have been traditionally harvesting for generation. So that's, you know, means literally going into the forest and harvesting wild plants for, medicinal use And then they also came to the Gaia farm to visit and hear about, what we're doing. And it's just it's a really refreshing group that is thinking, you know, beyond business day to day operations, P and L, net sales, and really kinda getting to the heart and spirit of what the essence of herbalism is. Because herbalism is just not produced an herbal supplement. It really is the connection to land, to plants, to each other, to yourself, And as herbal leaders, if we don't continue that, it's gonna get lost. And that's what's special about herbalism. It's We have formulators who are working on our products who have years years of training and herbalism and nutrition.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:07:41
And there's a much different approach to what they do than to folks who may not have any training and are just marketing off trends. So Yeah. All that to say is just really trying to keep that, that core alive.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:08:07
Love it. Super fun episode y'all. I'm learning so much. This is gonna be a fun one to put the show notes together on and put the highlights together on. Would love to take us home with the final question that we ask everybody and get, you know, thoughts from both of you, which is how do we get regen brands at 50% market share by 2050?

Alison Czeczuga - 01:08:29
I think it has to go with linking regenerative to health and wellness and why consumers should care. I think people many people care about biodiversity and climate, but humans are ultimately selfish and care about their their own health and wellness. And so bringing that back of of how this is impacting you, I think, will be essential, and investing in the infrastructure for this to happen. It's not going to happen without investing in farmers and investing in the land.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:09:06
Love it. Zach, do

Kyle Krull - 01:09:07
you have anything you wanna add to that?

Zach West - 01:09:09
Yeah. No. I would just say, you know, in in a similar vein, just education to the general public, you know, trying to compare the current food system with what could be, and how much healthier that would be. You know, you're basically making your health. You're turning that from a reactive situation to a proactive situation, which is kind of what we always try to do on the farm is to foster that proactivity and to make sure that we have an immunity built into the farm. And so that, you know, that goes into the soil and also goes into personal health. So education for me is is a huge thing.

Kyle Krull - 01:09:55
I know AC and I both agree with both of those takes. And the hardest part of our education is, like, you almost have to do, like, inception education Like, you have to package it in that format that people will really care about, and they will learn without the intention of learning You know? And I I don't think anybody's really cracked the nut on exactly how to do that for regeneration yet, but I think that will be one of the key unlocks.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:10:18
Yeah. And we you know, it's been interesting. I think that's why we do this podcast because we're so bullish on brands as not not the silver bullet to solve the problems in region, but it's a very important piece because that's the interface between the land, the farmer, the product, and the consumer. And Absolutely. If we can use that health and wellness and quality tie in to boost overall ecological knowledge and education, like, that's it. And I feel like, that people have been in this movement before it was called regenerative, whatever we've called it for so long. I'm sure it's been very frustrating to feel like the ecological knowledge of our population is so limited. But it's like Kyle just said, we might have to lead with something else to then get to that that end, which this is the opportunity to do that.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:11:00
Absolutely. Yep. Cool.

Kyle Krull - 01:11:02
Well, super appreciate the time. This is where I naturally tell everybody to go the So check out Gaiaerbs.com. That's GAIAerbs.com. Looks like you got a new is it functional mushroom line that's being featured on the website? Looks super cool. And we didn't we didn't have time to dive in and talk about speed, but that was awesome. But super appreciate the learnings from both of you, and Zach will absolutely connect with you offline to learn how to compost properly. So thank you for the time.

Alison Czeczuga - 01:11:31
Thank you all so much.

Kyle Krull - 01:11:32
This is

Anthony Corsaro - 01:11:32
great. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 01:11:33
Yeah. I figured it.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:11:37
For show notes, episode transcripts and more information on our guests and what we discuss on the show, check out our website, regenn-brands.com. That is regen-brands.com. You can also find our regen recaps on the website. Regen recaps take less than 5 minutes to read and cover all the key points of the full hour long conversations. You can check out our YouTube channel, regenbrands podcast for all of our episodes with both video and audio. The best way to support our work is to give us a 5 star rating on your favorite podcast platform, subscribe to future episodes, and share the show with your friends. Thanks for tuning into The ReGen Brands Podcast brought to you by the Regen Coalition and Outlaw Ventures. We hope you learned something new in this episode, and it empowers you to use your voice.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:12:20
We your time and your dollars to help us build a better and more regenerative food system. Love you guys.