#74 - Johnny Hunter @ Castor River Habitat & Farm

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #74 - Trial By Fire & Salvation By Regeneration - (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 Coves, AC, gonna take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:33
On this episode, we have Johnny Hunter, who is a 3rd generation farmer in the president of Castor River Habitat & Farm. Castor River Habitat & Farm is supporting regenerative agriculture with its lineup of rice products grown on their own farm and produced in their on farm milling facility. In this episode, we learn about the hunter family's deep agricultural roots, how Johnny was forced to go regen after hitting rock bottom in 2012 and how the brand has grown since its inception in 2018. Johnny is a masterful storyteller y'all, and this episode had a little bit of everything. Thoughts on why we need to keep regenerative farmer focused and rooted in reality, stories of collaborative commercialization with some of their retail and food service partners. Plus, what is ahead for Castor River, including achieving Regenified certification and expanding sourcing beyond their home farm. Let's go. What's up, everybody?

Anthony Corsaro - 00:01:17
Welcome back to another episode of The ReGen Brands Podcast. Very excited today to have our friend Johnny from Castor River Habitat & Farm with us. So welcome, Johnny.

Johnny Hunter - 00:01:38
Hey. Great to be here. Thanks, guys.

Kyle Krull - 00:01:41
We're super stoked to have you. And just a little background for our listeners, like, the way these typically run AC meets people, I might meet some people, but AC does like an intro call. And oftentimes, it's the first time I've ever met somebody. As we're doing this live. And I can already tell I got great vibes from Johnny. This is gonna be a fun episode. So I'm really looking forward to digging in.

Kyle Krull - 00:01:55
But, Johnny, before we get too deep into, like, the origin story, give our listeners a quick lay of the land, like, what does Casper River Habitat & Farm produce, and where can people find your products today?

Johnny Hunter - 00:02:10
Yeah. So Castor, Habitatin Farm, that is the brand that we own. We go out into grocery retail and food service with with really 3 products, long green brown rice, long green white rice, and then we're also we launched Jasmine into food service late last year. Gourmet grocery retail side, I think we're in Somewhere around 800 Walmarts, scattered across, continental US, all the fresh markets fresh time, Saint Louis, Deerburg, Snooks, Whole Foods, Florida. Probably about a 1000 different, like, independent mom and pop. You know, onesies, twosies, up and down the East Coast. Our our distribution on the West Coast isn't, I do have some distribution out there. We've got some retailers out there that we're working with, but you know, we're we're located at in Southeast Missouri.

Johnny Hunter - 00:03:04
I, you know, I wasn't exactly what you would call a learner's student growing up. And, but I always thought I lived in the middle of the country because we they say, hey. You live in the heartland, and I'm making fantastic. We live in the heartland. Well, it turns out when, you know, I got, you know, older, we realized we will live way closer to the East Coast and the West Coast. Somebody lied to me back in, like, 1989 about that. But, anyways, yeah, it's, it's good. You know, our our go to market was with long grain rice.

Johnny Hunter - 00:03:35
And, you know, we we like business. There's days we love it. There's days we hate it, but We here we are.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:03:56
Dump dumb question on rice. What is like long grain versus what? Like, what does that mean as a as

Johnny Hunter - 00:04:02
a person that just keeps

Anthony Corsaro - 00:04:03
on the rice? But should

Johnny Hunter - 00:04:04
That's not a dumb question. We'll get to those later. But, anyways, there's there's long green rice, which is more of a, what I call, like, a Southern rice, like, you know, it's great for gumbos and it's great for soup. And it's great for the the, you know, black and shrimp over rice. And then you get into the medium grain, which is what you see in, like, a lot of the pokey bowls, a lot of the you know, more of the the Asian cuisine. And then you get down into, like, the short grain and, like, the sushi rice. And so And it's all about the length of the rice kernel. So you go from sushi all the way up to, like, a long grain. And there's even people that talk about extra long grain.

Johnny Hunter - 00:04:39
And I don't even know what that means, but they talk about it. But, anyways, I just like, it's long grain. Either it's longer than 8. You know?

Kyle Krull - 00:04:56
AC, I'm glad you asked. I had the same question in my head, and I was like, I'm not gonna ask that question. So I'm glad you did.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:05:03
And, you know, I'm I like to cheat on these tests as Kyle's already alluded to a little bit because I'm I'm the one having most of the introductory, prep calls. But Johnny, I've heard kind of the origin story and even the background story of both the family farm farming legacy, the transition to regen, and starting the brand. So We almost have 3 origin stories to tell in a way, but, wherever you kinda wanna kick that kick that off, you know, take us back, maybe with the family piece to start.

Johnny Hunter - 00:05:29
Yeah. It's it's a it's definitely a trilogy. And you can we could gobble up 3 or 4 hours on this thing. I'm gonna give you the cliff notes. I I think the most important thing to say at this juncture is you know, I'm on a region brand podcast, right, which means we have a region brand. But it's just that for us. We own a brand. We're not a brand. And I and I wanna make that differentiation right now we're we're a regenerative company. Okay?

Johnny Hunter - 00:05:54
And so how did we get here? Well, through through a lot of, sacrifice and hard work and vision of people that have come before me. And so you know, the last thing I want your your listeners to to do is is to watch this and think that I'm gonna stand up here and beat my chest and say, look what I did. When you look at what's happened before me, I'm extremely insignificant piece of this story, but I am the storyteller. And so we we traced this back to I mean, we can go all the way back to Scotland if you wanna get really deep, but let's not go all the way back there. Let's go to 1954 with my grandfather FS Hunter. The the Hunter family is is really focused on a legacy. We live it.

Johnny Hunter - 00:06:50
So his legacy was he was able to, through just sheer hard work and determination, He was able to take just undeveloped, unusable, kind of, just rough wooded swamp ground, and he was able to transform 100100 and 1000 of acres of this into production farmland. And that was a monumental undertaking that I'll never even begin to understand how much work went into that. But we're not talking about 40 acres here. We're talking sections. Section is 640 Acres for the uninitiated. And so Wow. FS was doing that.

Johnny Hunter - 00:07:38
And so, really, like, that that was the first moment in time when we go back, we're like, okay. We're we're we're an agricultural family. And then so my father was the oldest of, of 7 children, large Catholic family. And so his vision in in his legacy really revolved around taking this land and improving it and creating a a farm that was able to produce crops regardless of the amount of rain, right, because everyone, you know, most people realize farmers depend on rainfall. In the delta, we we we also depend on rainfall, but we also have the ability to irrigate our crops if you're landless level and and you have irrigation installed. So that was one of dad's first big things was he was an early adopter of precision land leveling and he was an early adopter of irrigation.

Johnny Hunter - 00:08:28
And what that did, it it has a a compounding effect on the value of your property. And so that, you know, any any any wealth that my family has created has revolved around farmland. And so that that was a huge legacy that that he sent forward through the generations. Unfortunately, we lost dad in 1992, I was ten years old. My sister was sixteen. And so, really, at that time, the legacy shifted from my dad over to my mom because my mom had the opportunity to say, you know what?

Johnny Hunter - 00:09:03
Kids were out of here. I'm selling this land we're moving to Florida, and we're gonna start over. And that was definitely I mean, that was on the table for that woman, but she and and no one believes this, but it's it's god's honest. Truth. She came to me at ten years old, and she said, John, I'm getting a lot of offers on this farm ground. She goes, I need to know.

Johnny Hunter - 00:09:25
Do you do you want a farm when you grow up? Wow. And I I I told her, you know, how many how many damn ten year olds have to make that kind of a decision? Right. And but when you when it's in your blood and, no, it wasn't even that big of a deal. I mean, I just answered. I'm like, yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:09:43
I I want a farm. So she took the word of a ten year old, and held on to the land and I never grew up, but I got older. And so as I got older, and I failed out of college 2 or 3 times, I, I came back and started farming, about 774 acres in 2006. And it went as as good as you think it did because it was, you know, it was just learned, like, you know, trial by fire. And so

Kyle Krull - 00:10:22
Johnny, what were you forming at the time when you first came back?

Johnny Hunter - 00:10:25
Rice and soybeans. Rice and soybeans. I've grown a little bit of everything. After on the corn, cotton, myelow wheat beans, I've grew pot pumpkins 1 year. It was weird. You know, I I've grown a little bit of everything through my farming career. And then, you know, as you as you get older, you're thinking, well, what's my legacy? What am I leaving my children? I'm gonna leave 2 things. I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna leave my children on a sustainability journey that we ness we weren't necessarily on to this level whenever I got on the scene of no fault of anyone, though. And, I mean, shit, when you die, you die when you don't have any choice. I mean, things just got left the way they were.

Johnny Hunter - 00:11:04
And the second thing that I'm gonna leave is my legacy is the fact that we do own a CPG food brand. That's gonna be a legacy. And so that's what all the works for. That's why I do what I do, and that's why Caster River Habitat & Farm exists. It's it's really not for me. It's it's for the kids.

Kyle Krull - 00:11:32
Johnny, there's a lot we wanna dig into there, and I think the first thing I'm compelled to ask you about is you know, you mentioned sustainability wasn't necessarily a priority for any of your predecessors, you know, to the no fault of their own, but it seems to be your number one thing you wanna leave in your legacy. And I'm curious, like, when and why did that become such a priority for you?

Johnny Hunter - 00:11:52
Well, let's back up there a minute. Let's not say that that sustainability wasn't a priority for my ancestors, my father, and my grandfather. It definitely was because I'm here today. And so sustainability wasn't on the radar, but sustainability only means what it means in the in the time that you live in. So in the year 2024, everybody's gotta hell with a lot of opinions about what sustainability means. Yeah. But in 19, 54, what do you did the word sustainability even exist? No. It it meant keep keep this thing moving. Don't don't go backwards. Right?

3 - 00:12:34
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:12:35
And so you have to understand the context of time in which we live. And so Sustainability to me became top on the radar. Because I, you know, I I really feel that it was theirs too. What are we doing? What are we doing today that ensures longevity of tomorrow.

3 - 00:12:57
How

Johnny Hunter - 00:12:58
do we satisfy the needs of today without compromising the needs of the future? Hey. Those guys did it. I'm sitting here on a damn podcast because they did it. And so, you know, hopefully, We'll look up one day, and my son, Johnny, and my daughter Emerson, well, they'll be doing some other thing because their old man, you know, took a stab at it. And that's really what it's all about, guys.

Kyle Krull - 00:13:23
Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:13:24
And you had you had a rather formidable year that was was challenging on the on the farming side. I think that really kind of underpinned some of the regenerative practice and option that you've gone through. Right? That was those

Johnny Hunter - 00:13:35
Yeah. So 2012, I think people make most of their their big life changing decisions when they reach rock bottom. You hear that out of, you know, people that have struggled with alcoholism or or drug addiction. If you gotta go all the way to the base before you can start working your way back up. And by god, I found the basement, in 2012. I walked around there, and I had a studio apartment down there that I lived in. And no internet, no electricity. It's a miserable place to be.

Johnny Hunter - 00:14:01
But, anyways, we had a, you know, I was farming very conventionally. I was using a lot of herbicides. I was using a lot of pesticides. I was using a lot of fertilizer. I was doing, like, this very intense micro managing of, like, Getting it down to the sub acre and what's going on in this one particular cock quadrant of the field and doing just a heck of a lot of recreational tillage. No cover crops, no living root in the soil other than what was growing during the growing season. And look, you know, of of guess of no fault of mine.

Johnny Hunter - 00:14:37
That's how we were taught to farm.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:14:48
Right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:14:49
And that's how a lot of people are taught to farm. And it works for a lot of guys. It it it it, you know, they make great crops. A lot of people make great crops in spite of what they're doing, not because of what they're doing. And so that that's, you know, we've modern agriculture too. You have to remember it's been a very much a volume focused game.

Kyle Krull - 00:15:11
Right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:15:11
You get paid on weight. You get paid on how much weight can you send across the scale, and that's how we make our money. We get paid by the bushel bushel is a form of weight. A bushel of rice weighs £45. A bushel of soybeans weighs. I think 56 or 60 or something like that. It makes no difference. But Mhmm. So, yeah, that's that's the world we've been living in.

Johnny Hunter - 00:15:27
2012, my world came crashing down. We had a record drought. Even with irrigation, my water was not infiltrating. My fertilizer was not being taken up by the plant. We we overspent. We over overspent and underproduced by the tune of about $650,000. Don't know if you've ever lost. Yeah. Damn right. That's what we're talking about.

Johnny Hunter - 00:15:48
That's the reality of the situation. Go lose 650 and then see if you don't make life changing decisions.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:07
Right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:16:08
And I did. I was very fortunate though, like, you know, not to, you know, take a religious turn here because I know there's there's a few things that really turn people off. One's religion, the other's po politics, so we're not gonna dive into those today. We'll save that for another day. We But I really I really feel I really feel strongly that I was being led down a path. And I I was led down a path in order to wake up. And and once I woke up, I was presented with a with an opportunity, and I was presented with a mentor that I wouldn't have been ready for any other way.

Johnny Hunter - 00:16:43
You know, I they they say the the lord provides when you're ready when you're ready for the thing, it shows up or the universe or whoever, whatever higher power you believe in, it makes no difference to me. And so, I got connected to a guy named Ray Archuleta. And it was a it was a life changing moment, and, you know, we're still friends of this day. You'll be at my farm in July.

Kyle Krull - 00:17:19
Tony, before we I really wanna dig into that story and, like, what what it was like, you know, your first couple of conversations with Ray, how you started to transition your I recall for practices, but just for my own learning and then hopefully that of our listeners, you mentioned losing $650,000 in in the year 2012. If you wouldn't mind sharing, like, in prior years, like, how much would you typically make? Like, you you'd spend, I don't know, $700,000, but you'd you'd sell a 1,000,000. So you'd be like, you know, net positive is $300,000. Like, what were the economics like before 2012? And then I wanna, like, don't have to give them the details for post 2012, but I'm just really curious, like, what did that look like?

Johnny Hunter - 00:17:57
Well, you know, the economics of a farming operation, it's you might as well try to understand the economics of going to the casino because that's what we

Kyle Krull - 00:18:09
put it all black. Right?

Johnny Hunter - 00:18:11
Yeah. No. Exactly. That's what we do every single year. And, like, because you anytime you're trying to find patterns and you wanna develop consistency, you have to look. What are the variables? Well, in farming, our variables are infinite, weather, huge variable, commodity prices, huge variable, government policy, huge variable, labor costs, huge variable, labor availability, huge, yeah, input prices, equipment prices, land leases, guys that, you know, there's no Excel format or Right. There's no Excel pro form a that I know of that will actually spit you out a okay. If you farm this year, here's what you're gonna look like at the end of the year. You can get it you can get ideas. And our financial system

Anthony Corsaro - 00:18:58
Johnny, you mean you can't put mother nature variability in cell j Four. You know? Come on. You can't put

3 - 00:19:05
that here.

Johnny Hunter - 00:19:05
Maybe it's formatted with the right thing. I despise Excel. I use it all the time. But no. There's there's no putting that in there. Yeah. It really is. And so, you know, I mean, with Armen, it's kinda either you win big, you lose big, or you break even. There's there's it it's tough to have a lot of middle ground. And so, you know, for us, I mean, you know, we might make a couple $100 1 year and, like, And that's great. And then you go out and you take that cash and, you know, improve your land or you buy new equipment, but you're you know, the casino never lets you out, you know, because the house is always gonna take you at the end. And so what you have to realize is like, Okay. Well, if if I'm in the casino, then who's the pit boss? Well, it's it's the input suppliers.

Johnny Hunter - 00:19:49
It's the equipment manufacturers. It's, to a large extent, the lending institutions. You know, it's just if a $1,000,000 flows through a farming operation. A farmer's gonna touch all 1,000,000. Right? You're you're gonna touch it. But there's you're not gonna hang on to it. You're just gonna touch it. Right. Right.

Kyle Krull - 00:20:22
Well, that analogy. That's, no, that's really helpful. And, you know, it it helps me to understand that it's not as simple as, you know, typically, you know, you can expect a 10%, you know, cut every year. Like, it's just not that simple. So it's helpful for me. And I appreciate you sitting on the table that way.

Johnny Hunter - 00:20:39
Yeah. Now if you yeah. I mean, you can't learn how to farm by going on so from media and listening to all these people rattle on about all this bullshit. They, you know, if you wanna learn how to farm, go do it. You know, go go get your hands dirty and and, you know, that that's how or or actually go talk to farmer, and that's what I think's missing in the world today is

3 - 00:21:02
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:21:02
You know, there's not enough actual farmer's voice is being heard. It's just you know, it's the supply chain's a never ending amount of, you know, opinions of here's how we need to be doing all these things, but, hell, go talk to the farmer, and then we'll work it out together.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:21:18
Yeah. We feel lucky to have, featured some voices like that that are, hopefully,

Johnny Hunter - 00:21:23
a little bit

Anthony Corsaro - 00:21:23
of a dent in that.

Johnny Hunter - 00:21:25
Yep. But you gotta be doing

Anthony Corsaro - 00:21:26
it a lot more collectively. You you had a good quote when I talked to you the first time of, like, you reached the end of the internet in terms of cover crops at that. I sure did. 2012 2013, because that was before the proliferation of information, but What what was that like when you first connected with Ray? And, like, you know, the the initial days of the transformation, was it just we're trying a couple of things on a couple acres. It was super crazy overhaul in year 1. Like, what what did that transition period look like?

Johnny Hunter - 00:21:54
So my personality type does not lend itself well to, like, dipping a toe in. We're either we're either in or we're out.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:22:02
Yes. We're

Johnny Hunter - 00:22:02
either gonna do the thing or we're not. You know, it's So, you know, my 1st year, I did half my acreage. My second year, I did the other half. Because, you know, in the first conversations with Vere, we're in you know, they were it it's it sounds cliche because I think a lot of guys try to go here with information, but it's like the damn Matrix movie. You know, there's Ray Archletta with the blue pill or the red pill. He's like, you know, you take take this, and I'll show you how far the rabbit hole goes. Well, I'm like, oh, yeah. I'm in. Boy did he.

Kyle Krull - 00:22:39
I'm just picturing him in the trench coat. Like, sunglasses

3 - 00:22:42
that don't even want me to

Kyle Krull - 00:22:43
get it, you know, like, all of the bills.

Johnny Hunter - 00:22:46
That is exactly how I felt. And so I took You know, I drank the Kool Aid and down the rabbit hole I went. I I don't think I'm ever coming out, but it's beautiful down here. I love it. Yeah. I'm so much happier now than I was before. Even with all the additional stress and headache and you know, seeing what's actually happening on the land is really impressive to me. But, yeah, we we transitioned half the farm and and you know, with no till and cover crops and and things were so easy in the beginning. Shit.

Johnny Hunter - 00:23:10
It was easy. It's fun and love. I'm like, what's a big deal. And then we got cocky. And and then we got we scraped her knees We scraped our knees doing it, but you gotta remember, man, this was back in 2013. You know, there wasn't a there wasn't a damn group like, in my neck of the woods that I could go, you know, that I could go converse with.

Johnny Hunter - 00:23:33
I had farmers that were doing some things too. Yeah. But Ray sent me to Bismarck North Dakota to learn how to do what I do. Right.

3 - 00:23:53
Can

Johnny Hunter - 00:23:53
you imagine going to Bismarck, North Dakota and learn how to farm rice? Right. It don't make any sense. But those guys those guys and gals up there, they've been doing what we now call regenerative act, which let's get one thing straight. This regenerative act term, which I know that's thing of the podcast here, so I gotta be delicate with that. But first, we called it first, we called it Conservation Agriculture.

3 - 00:24:20
Right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:24:21
And then we called it sustainable farming. Yep. And now we call it regenerative agriculture. And so I tell people all the time, don't fall in love with the words, fall in love with the process. And because that, you know, Anthony, just spoiler alert, you're gonna rename this here in about 5 years.

3 - 00:24:40
Or you're

Johnny Hunter - 00:24:40
gonna spin up the next thing. You're gonna have to because this is this ain't gonna market anymore, and we're gonna have to find a new thing. But that's the industry. Right? Don't don't worry about the industry. Worry worry about what's actually going on on the planet. That's because that's where the rubber meets the road right there. So, anyways, I'm talking on circles, but just trying to give you an idea of of some of the things that I've been through.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:25:04
No. I love it. The I feel like the 2 good round out questions would be you you listed all the things that y'all used to do on the farm, Johnny. And now I don't think you do a lot of them anymore and you do some different things. So could you give us kind of the the equal and opposite list of today and also take us through the journey of when the brand got involved because my assumption is you probably stayed in the commodity markets and then you were like, hey. This this ain't it for all the added value we're providing here. We need to do something else.

Johnny Hunter - 00:25:31
Yeah. That's exactly right. So again, you know, looking let's let's talk about, you know, fertility. We were using lots and lots of synthetic, fertilizer, 100 and 100 of pounds of urea, 100 of pounds of of pounds of potash, boron, copper, ammonium sulfate, and, you know, because you had to have right, because when you're farming in a broken system, it takes a lot of of help to get you down the road. Right? And then, you know, lots of tillage, lots of water, lots of fungicides, lots of insecticides. You know, our job as farmers in the old way was we wanted, we wanted as much of a laboratory in that field as we could get We wanted it sterile. We wanted it clean, and we wanted it, you know, just like medically sterile. And we did a pretty good job of it.

Johnny Hunter - 00:26:21
Looking forward to today, you know, my farm looks more like a zoo than it does anything because my job as a regenerative farmer is to bring in as much life as I can into my ecosystem. And I tell people all the time, look, you know, I've got a habitat And I've got a farm. They coexist with one another. The habitat is home to millions and millions of millions of living organisms, both above and below the surface of the soil. And then within this ecosystem, within this habitat, we're we're raising food. And to me, that's exciting. And I love the fact that I do what I do.

Johnny Hunter - 00:27:13
And, you know, obviously, I need to if I'm gonna do it, but Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:27:29
I love that, and I love how the there's so much intentionality behind Castor River, Habitat, and farm like you just spelled out. Right. Yeah, you'll kind of dovetail me back to Anthony's question. You you started to implement these new principles and practices, You stopped using the fertility. You started cover cropping. Was there anything else that you had implemented as part of this transitional period?

Johnny Hunter - 00:27:51
Yeah. So the first thing we started doing was selling equipment because I didn't want that temptation sitting there in front of me every day.

Kyle Krull - 00:27:59
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:27:59
I think it was, who's at, like, Orson Wells or somebody that said I can resist anything, but temptation.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:28:06
Yeah. I

Johnny Hunter - 00:28:06
misfolded that, but I'm not a I'm not a literature buff. Bye. Any We we know exactly. You know the point you're making. Yeah. I don't think it was Orson Wells looking back on that statement. We're gonna ride with it. Anyways, So we we needed to remove the temptation to go back to the old ways because I'm a big fan I love the mentality of burning the boats.

3 - 00:28:29
Yes.

Johnny Hunter - 00:28:29
And you sail to the new world,

3 - 00:28:31
and

Johnny Hunter - 00:28:31
you find yourself on on a strange distant sure, burn the boats because nothing will

3 - 00:28:39
motivate you, and nothing will inspire

Johnny Hunter - 00:28:39
positive action as there's no going back.

3 - 00:28:47
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:28:47
And so that really gets your creative juices flowing. And that's one thing I learned too is that you know, farming the old way, I'd I'd kinda just been, like, on autopilot with my brain, and I'd just been kinda marching through life, And now I'm much more of a creative person. I'm thinking proofing in a much I'm reading a book right now by a guy named Rick Rubin. He's a music producer. Yeah. Called a creative way of being I misquoted the book too. Again, I'm not a literature guy, but I really like this book.

Johnny Hunter - 00:29:16
Because the way he's thinking is the way that I'm thinking now, and I'm recognizing it. And so so now my job is am I a farmer? Hell, yes. I'm a farmer. I was born a farmer. I'll die a farmer, but What if I'm also an artist?

Johnny Hunter - 00:29:35
What if I'm an artist and my canvas is this ecosystem that I've created that I'm fostering. I haven't created shit. I'm fostering this ecosystem and all the life and all the plants and all the things you know, that's the picture that I'm painting on this ecosystem. And that makes sound pretty far out there, but I'm kind of a far out there guy, so I don't care.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:30:05
You're in good company here, brother.

Johnny Hunter - 00:30:08
Yeah. So that's the way I think about life, and that's how we think about this brand. Is this bra hey. If you wanna, you know, you can't go up to the museum and and snip you off a little piece of, old Oh, Van Gogh on the wall. They're gonna frown upon that.

3 - 00:30:23
Yeah. You know,

Johnny Hunter - 00:30:23
they're not gonna be too happy with you.

Kyle Krull - 00:30:25
To put it like

Johnny Hunter - 00:30:26
that. Yeah. Yeah. They're gonna frown upon that. But if you want a piece of the art that I'm creating at Caster River, well, hell buy bag of rice, and you're a part of it.

3 - 00:30:37
You're

Johnny Hunter - 00:30:37
in the club, and so that was a shameless pitch to buy my product. But, again, I'm a pretty transparent guy.

Kyle Krull - 00:30:46
I dig it. So so you started implementing these new principles and practices. You're making a you you've developed a habitat. You're farming in in your existing habitat. Who were you selling your product to at that time, and when did the need for a brand to become apparent to you?

Johnny Hunter - 00:31:02
Yeah. So the you know, when we started again, we started with we went into no till, then we went into cover crops, then we started cutting out a lot of this commercial fertilizer. Probably too much in the beginning because you have to think you have to remember your soil is a living organism, just like me and you. And in and we have created an addict. And this addict is addicted to water synthetic fertilizers all these petro all these chemicals. And so just like with somebody who's addicted to, like, let's say heroin, you can't just pull the needle out in one day. You're gonna kill them.

3 - 00:31:39
And

Johnny Hunter - 00:31:40
so you've gotta step it out. You've gotta step it out. And so I think I pulled the needle out a little too quick, and it it bit me a time or 2. But we were selling all of our products just to, you know, the a, b, c, d's of the world, you know, the ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Lewis Dreyfus is of the world. And, you know, at that time, this is, you know, 2013, 2014, 2016, 26 they didn't care. Nobody did. I mean, yeah, you say, hey. Look at what I'm doing.

Johnny Hunter - 00:31:59
Like, is there any, like, You know, is there any premium to this? You're like, no. We don't no. You're you're lucky we're paying you what we're paying you to get out of our office. And so I thought, yo, this is ridiculous. And, you know, why am I getting paid the same as some Joe Smow down the street is is not doing a damn thing. Right. I said, you know what?

Johnny Hunter - 00:32:23
We we need to take more control over our life because I was sick and tired at this point of being a price taker. There's 2 types of people in this world. Never forget this, guys. There's price takers and price makers.

3 - 00:32:44
There

Johnny Hunter - 00:32:44
ain't no third direction. And farmers are the most part of price takers. You pick up the phone. You call somebody and look, hey. What do you give me for this? And they don't care what you got in it. Here's what the market is gonna allow you. And so we had to get off that train and get on a get on a different one. And so how do you make your own price? So you gotta have a you gotta have a brand you gotta have a vehicle to communicate value to the marketplace. Right?

Johnny Hunter - 00:33:02
And then, hopefully, the marketplace rewards you for that value. And we, yeah, we launched the brand in in 2018, and I wish I wish I could tell you and and your viewers that we had this really let go to market strategy, and we knew what we were doing. And we had it all figured out, but

Anthony Corsaro - 00:33:30
you had McKinsey come in. You had the Consultants down there. Is there anything else you want for you on the whiteboard, Johnny?

Johnny Hunter - 00:33:36
Here's the business model. Here's the business plan. Here's all the, you know, friction points in your in your process. You know, here's everything you need in terms of certifications. Here's what your county needs to look like. Here's what your legal framework needs to look like. Man, none of that. I built a rice mill. And I had a package. And I was really shocked when the phone didn't ring off the hook. It hurt my feelings. It did.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:34:07
So you you not only decided to do the brand. You decided to vertically integrate the manufacturing too and build the mill. Which is I mean,

Johnny Hunter - 00:34:13
that's another separate thing. Yeah. I mean, but if you're gonna if you're gonna if you're gonna go to the beach spring and umbrella, Right? Like, just do the whole thing and and be done with it. And then, you know, now when you look up today, you know, obviously, we own the land. We far the land. We own the mill. We own the packaging line. We own the brand.

Johnny Hunter - 00:34:29
And we also own our own trucking company because, you know, I'm I'm making a lot of promises to people that Johnny Hunter and Caster River team, we're gonna get this rice where we say we're gonna get it to, and we it's gotta be there on a certain day or they call me up, and they're they're saying things that they probably can't take back. And so if I'm gonna keep those promises, then I've got cover the first mile of distribution, then at least I know I've got it into a 3 p l, if not a d c, but usually a 3 p l, and then we're LTLing out to the d c's from there. Not to give away the family jewels, but that's my business model. If you want a copy, go ahead. I mean, shit. I didn't invent it.

Kyle Krull - 00:35:16
It all makes sense. And, you know, we're actually really glad that you didn't have everything baked in, and you you had all the interest right away because we wanna dig into some of some of those learnings. So Yeah. Bringing it back to the origin of the brand. You know, you mentioned you you you put the rice in the package. You got the mill up and running, you know, obviously not in that order of mill up and running price in the package. And people weren't calling you.

Kyle Krull - 00:35:31
So what were those early days of commercialization like? You know, where were you selling? Was it direct to consumer? Were you trying to work with local retailers? Was it, you know, how did you get the word out?

Johnny Hunter - 00:35:47
Yeah. So, you know, we went and we paid this marketing company probably 50 or $60,000. And they said, we're gonna make your dreams come true. I said, well, good. And that that that's always great when that happens. You know?

Kyle Krull - 00:36:04
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:36:04
And so, we we did that, and they got the branding together. And then they started on the social media and you know, Google search, and then we got it on. Obviously, we went direct to consumer through the website, right, because we're gonna make a $100,000,000 on Shop by. And Sorry. What what year is this?

Kyle Krull - 00:36:23
So set the set the what year is all this happened? 2018.

Johnny Hunter - 00:36:27
Okay. 2018. Yeah. 2018. And so we did all that. And then, you know, we we ran, you know, we ran that DTC direct to consumer off the website. While trying to build grocery retail. And so we figured out, okay. Well, here's the name of a distributor. Well, let's call them up. And let's see why on earth they wouldn't want this great family owned sustainable product. And you'd call them up, and this was pre COVID.

Johnny Hunter - 00:36:48
So, hell, I could get a meeting, and I could just walk in there. And I'm like, I'm Johnny Hunter. Here I am. And they loved it. They're like, this is fantastic. And then they, you know, towards the end of the conversation, I'm feeling good about this. I'm like, there ain't nothing to this.

Johnny Hunter - 00:37:02
All these people whining about this stuff. And then he and then and then they get down to the end and be like, so tell me how many retailers are you in? And I'd say, well, none.

3 - 00:37:21
And they're

Johnny Hunter - 00:37:22
like, oh, come back when you got about, you know, a 100 retailer. And I'd say, hey. You know what? No problem. I'll have that done in a week, and I'll be right back in here. Yeah. And I thought I got my marching orders out the door I went and a go get me a 100 retailers. And then you go to the retailer and be like, I'm Johnny Hunter. Look at this Caster River Rice. They you can't live without it, and they're like, you're right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:37:38
This is perfect. Our customers are actually asking about this. And they're like, so who's your distributor? And he'd be like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. That this is a no yeah. I I'm I said I just left him, and he wanted me to talk to you.

Johnny Hunter - 00:37:57
And they're like, we'll come back when you're when you're loaded up in, when you're loaded up in Kaye, and we'll put you on the shelf. And I'm thinking something's wrong here. Mhmm. Did did I miss a memo? Did did something, like, what happened? And so, anyways, we we bounced around like that, and we got we got kicked around and rightfully so because we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and they knew it.

Johnny Hunter - 00:38:18
We knew it. The hell everybody knew it. And so But we caught a we caught a lucky break, and that's what it takes in this business. You gotta get lucky sometimes if you're not good, and I ain't good. So I gotta I gotta get lucky every once in a while. And we found out that they're gonna kill me if they ever hear this, but I'm gonna say it anyways, but high these store managers, high these are grocery store chain in the Midwest.

Johnny Hunter - 00:38:42
Pretty damn big one too.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:38:52
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:38:53
We found out We found out that store managers at Hy Vee could put new product on the shelf without going through corporate.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:39:02
Yep.

Johnny Hunter - 00:39:02
And I said, here's our go to market strategy. And let's get on Google and find out how many high these there actually are. Turns out there's a couple of 100 of them. Well, here goes Johnny Hunter, and, a sales director I had at the time. And we just go marched in Heidi, Kansas City, Springfield, Missouri, DuPont, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska, and I ended up getting in 65 high beads.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:39:29
That's awesome.

Johnny Hunter - 00:39:29
Because I probably walked into a 150 of them. Yeah. And and just

Kyle Krull - 00:39:34
this is you literally driving around from store to store over the course of Store to store? Weeks months.

Johnny Hunter - 00:39:40
Oh, months on end. You you would you would do a you would do an every other week rotation. So we would spend the 1st week, and we would line up meetings with these store managers. And we just lie to them. Would be, you know, how you tell them anything. I've got a gift card for Walmart for you. You know, whatever. It's whatever you had to tell these people.

Johnny Hunter - 00:39:52
You know, you tell them anything to get them

Anthony Corsaro - 00:40:02
to to

Johnny Hunter - 00:40:02
come out from out of the damn back to talk to you. And so we would get them out of the back and we'd be like, prize. We're here to sell you something that they'd roll their eyes. But then, you know, you I'd sell the store manager, and he I'd get him to agree to it. Then I had to take the product to the back and talk to the women in the very, very back. They have this one little room in the back of the grocery store and there's, like, 8 computers back there. And it's like a broom closet, and then they cram all these people in there. And so but if you go back here with, like, a sody and a candy bar, I'll talk to you.

Johnny Hunter - 00:40:31
And so you go back there and you gotta give them like a treat. Yeah. And and then they'll scan your product in, and then they would give me the shelf tag. Well, then I would go out. I had my tag, and then I'd go out to the car with a shopping cart. I get my product. And I'd roll it in the front door.

Johnny Hunter - 00:40:47
And then I got to pick where I wanted to be on the shelf. And I thought, you know, dead center eye levels where this thing needs to be. Yeah. And so I was shoving this guy this way. I was shoving this guy this way. We won't talk about who got put down on the bottom because that's That wasn't my problem. They weren't they I was there. They weren't.

Kyle Krull - 00:41:12
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:41:13
And so I would actually load the product on the shelf. And my my record day, I I got sick stores in one day. That was my best day ever.

3 - 00:41:20
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:41:20
That's quite a bit of work to to do it. And then, you know, load the car and then know, we do that for a week, and we work Kansas City for a week, and we'd come home, and then we had all of our little purchase orders. And then we were sending bills to the store.

3 - 00:41:35
And

Johnny Hunter - 00:41:35
each store was cutting us a check.

Kyle Krull - 00:41:37
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:41:37
And, of course, the hard part was was, like, between my gas, my meals, my bar tabs, my hotels, shit. It was running me a $1000 to be up there, and I was selling $200 worth of rice. So so far upside down, I couldn't see straight. But what I was working towards was distribution, and I knew I had to get there to get distribution. Yeah. And we did. And and Domino's, once we got in those 65 high V's, which I'm not in today, interestingly enough, Ivy, if you're listening, Johnny wants to come back in the club.

Johnny Hunter - 00:42:01
I miss you. Get Lomar to putting in distribution and put me back on the shelf, and I'll come

Anthony Corsaro - 00:42:17
Come on, Heidi.

3 - 00:42:19
Come

Johnny Hunter - 00:42:19
on, Heidi. We need you back. You're a big part of the story.

Kyle Krull - 00:42:23
Jaime, they will order from you in a 5 just to throw it out there. So if you can get them, through you in a 5, that they can work.

Johnny Hunter - 00:42:29
I'm in UNFI's. I'm in a lot of them. Anyways, we'll we'll work on that. I bet I bet they call Johnny after all this. But, anyways,

Kyle Krull - 00:42:39
it's good.

Johnny Hunter - 00:42:40
Yes. But, yeah, that was it. And then, you know, started working, you know, got a meeting with the fresh market down in North Carolina and met a gal out there and that loaded us into Chek's finer Foods and that loaded us here, and that got us there. And so you just we just stumbled our way through it. That was all it was. That's not how it is today. We've got a team today that actually knows how this industry works. We've got all kinds of people. I mean, coast Coast.

Johnny Hunter - 00:43:00
So all Johnny has to do, I talk third person a lot, but all Johnny has to do is, like, make sure that the habitat and the farm is doing what it needs to be doing and that, you know, I'm I'm serving that resource to the best of my ability.

Kyle Krull - 00:43:25
Well, Johnny, I love that story, man. That was, one of the best I think we've had on the podcast ever. No. I'm not I'm not trying to just make you feel good. That was fantastic. As somebody, like, I spent the bulk of my career doing exactly what you're just talking about in in the early days. Store to store traveling, going on trips, standing hotels, just trying to build those store level relationships, get some stuff done, and how I know how great it feels when you walk out of the store with a win. And you can rack up 6 in a day like that. That's a hell of a day. You know, it's a it's a huge day with time between stores.

Kyle Krull - 00:43:49
Like, It's it's it's a ton of work. And I think that that grit and tenacity and sheer, like, I will do whatever it takes to figure out how to get on shelf. Including, like, quite literally bribery with sugar, or snacks, you know, whatever works. I think it's great, man. I really appreciate that story.

Johnny Hunter - 00:44:17
Well, it's, yeah. I mean, like I said, things have definitely evolved, but that's where that's where we came from is just grit.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:44:25
When did the the messaging go from sustainable to regenerative? Like, what was the timing there? And, like, what's that specific journey been like telling that story to either retail partners or the end consumer, Johnny?

Johnny Hunter - 00:44:37
Yeah. So we we changed our messaging from from sustainable to regenerative about the time, you know, we recognize what the CPG market was, the direction it was going. And sustainable is such an ambiguous

3 - 00:44:55
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:44:55
You know, it's kinda like all natural. What the hell does all natural mean? Nothing. It's a meaningless term. And I think sustainability was getting pushed around like that. You know? And that's why I'm I'm always put point out, like, I don't claim to be sustainable. I tell people I'm on a sustainability journey, period. I've reached no destination. I don't know destination looks like.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:45:19
Right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:45:20
But chances are we're never gonna get there, but we we like the journey.

3 - 00:45:24
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:45:24
And so I think we made that switch about 2020 about 2020 is when we we rebranded out of that old brand into into the new brand because what we found, we actually did hire consultants this time in paid them a hell of a lot of money. And it's it's really funny that you can pay people to hurt your feelings. It's what a weird world we live in. It is. But that's what I did. And so the consultants, we hired them, and they hurt my feelings. And they said your brand is not telling your story.

Johnny Hunter - 00:45:54
And here's the story because here's what you're actually doing. And so that was really, that was a fun process to go through and and we hired a a really awesome team, at McLean Design to help us design this brand. And to actually tell the real story because we just weren't getting it done.

Kyle Krull - 00:46:20
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I I'm looking at the website pulled up right now, and the packaging feels very intentional, feels very clean. And it definitely has, like, Habitat. I mean, not not just front and center from, like, a wording perspective, but you know, it's a picture of a malar flying, you know, out of water. You know, so it's very much like habitat first.

Johnny Hunter - 00:46:41
Yeah. That's actually a it's actually a canvas pack. But it's black and white, so I won't hold that against you.

Kyle Krull - 00:46:47
Okay. I appreciate that. I'm getting more information.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:46:49
So you're getting more fortunate. I would've got Kyle. I

Johnny Hunter - 00:46:52
Kyle's just taking all the all the heat over here too. You know?

Kyle Krull - 00:46:57
I'm okay with it. I I can handle it. I'll be alright.

Johnny Hunter - 00:47:00
That's good. No. That's, yeah, that's a and and that that duck, you know, it lives there, but, you know, we envision other animals are gonna live on that pack. It cost me so much money to get a new die line cut. I told him, like, we're gonna live with this duck for a while because the duck was expensive. Getting the the the the dye cut was expensive. So that duck's gonna be there. But, you know, I mean, anything anything could live there. A frog could live there. A butterfly could live there.

Johnny Hunter - 00:47:22
You know, everybody wants the majestic twelve point Buck, a rabbit could live there. I don't know the skunk, but hell, they're part of the deal too. You know? But who wants to see a skunk on their bagger eyes. We got, you know, there's just certain lines we just we probably don't need to cross until we have a little bit more brand equity.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:47:54
You you just need to wait till you have the kids skew and you get Pepe Lapue on there, do a little loony tunes licensing deal, then you'll be off to the races, Johnny.

Johnny Hunter - 00:48:02
Well, don't trademark that idea because I'm gonna steal it

Kyle Krull - 00:48:04
from you.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:48:06
That's alright. You can have it. I I wanna double back to kind of the investment in in processing and the vertical integration because this comes up as a recurring theme on the show. Whereas, you know, unless you invest in some sort of more upstream control oversight investment, whatever, it's really hard to maintain kind of the region integrity that being created on the farm all the way until the end product. So, you know, is that something that you all have seen as well? And, like, what have been some challenges slash rewards of just that whole vertical integration journal?

Johnny Hunter - 00:48:39
Yeah. You see, it's amazing to me being in in agriculture. How quickly a supply chain can transition to regenerative overnight. I think that's really interesting. That people are able to do that. And I question some of the ethics around, you know, that process. Yeah. But for us, the vertical integration, offers us traceability. And accountability on a level that a lot of other brands don't have. And, you know, I I I think moving into the future, you know, you're you're gonna get you're you're gonna get, people that, you know, they're gonna get in trouble for greenwashing.

Johnny Hunter - 00:49:17
They're gonna get in trouble for calling things out that aren't true. They're gonna get in trouble for claiming regenerative for from products that are coming from Third World Countries that have it you know, they can't afford to feed themselves how they're gonna feed the planet with with their processes. I I think it's good But what you wanna see is you wanna see a marketplace that rewards people for doing the right thing. But in that same process, you want those dollars flowing back to the people who are actually doing the thing. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:50:01
And so that that's how I because I'm always gonna be Farmer First. I want the farmers to win in this scenario, because farmers haven't won for a very long time.

3 - 00:50:23
And that

Kyle Krull - 00:50:24
makes a lot of sense. And it it kinda makes me wanna bring up the REGENIFY thing. You know, you talked about the, people making claims that are not legitimate. Know, in the certification space in the regenerative world today is, interesting called the Wild West. You know, it's convoluted confusing. It's difficult to navigate. So why did you choose to go with the REGENIFY certification? And when can we expect to see that either on the website or on pack or or anywhere.

Johnny Hunter - 00:50:52
Yeah. We chose for genocide because it's farmer. It it's farmer designed and farmer led. Two guys, Gabe Brown, and who's a farmer up in North Dakota.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:51:07
Oh, yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 00:51:08
You know, Gabe sits in a in a very unique class of people who have been regenerative before regenerative was a word

Kyle Krull - 00:51:16
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:51:16
And kind of considered, like, one of the the god fathers of of the of the movement. And so, seeing seeing Gabe and seeing Doug there made me feel at peace that this was gonna be something grounded in reality. Mhmm. And grounding grounded in truth. I see other regenerative things out there that that worry me because it's high in the sky. It's very, you know, Walt Disney couldn't dream up more creativity with some of these groups. And so to see something based in reality, because that's where we have to work as producers. We work in in the real world.

Johnny Hunter - 00:52:03
I just got probably close to 6 inches of rain in 24 hours. That's a reality that I have to live with, and that's a reality like, that will that that will ripple through my farming organization for for months.

3 - 00:52:32
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:52:32
And and and they get that. I think the timing on that is gonna be 2024. I really believe that we're gonna get this done because we're not changing anything.

3 - 00:52:47
I

Johnny Hunter - 00:52:47
think a lot of people get the get the the standard in their hand, and they gotta they go, well, we gotta change this. We gotta change this. We got And then they have all the learning curve of going through the changes they have to make to get the certification. We're already out here. In left field where we need to be. And so we move we we we have to move backwards to the cert, and that makes life easier. When you're coming back to the cert location instead of reaching for it

3 - 00:53:18
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:53:18
It it goes a lot smoother.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:53:23
You you had a quote that I really liked in our first call, where you said you feel like there's a place for regen organic and regen organic. And we feel the same way. We know there's definitely some people that disagree with that.

3 - 00:53:37
But

Anthony Corsaro - 00:53:37
with that for you to to expound on that, in in how you feel that way, Johnny?

Johnny Hunter - 00:53:43
So let let's let's try to put some buckets together, and let's try to get some things sitting in some buckets. Regentative for us, I'm not trying to own the word regenerative, But regenerative for us is a way of producing food that leaves the soil health in in better shape every single year. We are soil health focused.

3 - 00:54:12
And how

Johnny Hunter - 00:54:12
we get to that healthy soil is gonna be unique to Caster River, because of our geography, because of our rainfall, because of our crop rotation, because of our management style, because of the amount of acres we farm, Everybody's gonna have a different playbook, right, to get to the healthy soil. But are we moving that needle every single year? Is it traceable? Is it identifiable? And are the practices in place that we know of that are gonna get us there. And the answer for us is yes. Regina organic, I think, you know, they're doing the soil health thing, and they're also able to incorporate an organic, production method to get them there. Fantastic. Organic.

Johnny Hunter - 00:54:47
It's simply here's a list of things that we're not doing And here's our certification. There is nothing about organic that screams soul health and a lot of operations that I'm aware of, it it it can be just the opposite. I'm not trying to lay a blanket statement down. But I think when you when you think about our our most precious resource, which is our top soil, you wanna be farming and producing in a way that is building that tops a little every single year. I think organic is gonna get better through time, because we have some technology coming online that's gonna assist with weed control. Where these organic guys aren't stuck in this constant need, for tillage. Right.

Johnny Hunter - 00:55:51
And they don't have to, like, just speaking to Rice, one of the things that a lot of organic rice guys have to do, because it's the only tool in their toolbox, is they have to flood their rice you know, a certain degree deeper than a normal rice farmer. At Caster River, we don't flood our ice. We just we just furl irrigate it. Why do I not wanna flood my rice fields? Because I'm thinking about soul health. I'm thinking about the soil biology. The biology that I'm trying to foster in my soil is aerobic. Arobic biology needs some things to be happy.

Johnny Hunter - 00:56:28
Food, water, shelter, and air. All three of us are aerobic biology. If I put all three of us under water or 4 months out of the year, How happy are we gonna be? We're not gonna be happy.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:56:49
It's gonna be tough.

Johnny Hunter - 00:56:50
Not very. So not very.

Kyle Krull - 00:56:52
Now I was a scuba diver for a long time. I still would not be happy.

Johnny Hunter - 00:56:56
Right. So Yeah. And so that's, to me, you know, look, there's room in this world for anything. There's room in this world for anything and everything. It's the market's the job. It's the consumer. It's the customer. It's their job to go out and make the decisions that they think are the best for their family. And who am I to tell them, no, do this, but don't do I'm not in to tell them people what to do. Hey.

Johnny Hunter - 00:57:17
If if If RO is your thing, go get it. If organic is your thing, go get it. If my rice is your thing, come get it. But do what you think is the best. And and let's not get caught up. I think I mean, we live in such a divisive world these days, We've got way more in, like, an organic, a regenerative, and a regenerative organic guy.

Johnny Hunter - 00:57:38
If you put 3 of those guys in same room. They've got more in common than they have differences. And so let's let's focus on what we've got in common. And let's not worry about what makes us different shit. We can get that anywhere.

Kyle Krull - 00:58:02
Mhmm. Johnny, that you're spot on, man. It's so easy to point out where we're different, and it seems to be to your point, like, this divisive culture, this tribalism culture that we're in, that seems to be what everybody. And then and I'm making a blanket generalization here because this is not encompassing of the entire planet. But people seem to it's almost like they wanna fight. They wanna understand what's different and are you about it rather than to your point, let's focus on, you know, if we agree on 80% of this, let's focus on that. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:58:27
How come and and especially to your point, like a regen person or an organic person and a regenerative organic person, that's still only less than 10%, less than 5% of all farmers globally. Right? And if those three people in the same room can't figure out what they agree on, like, hope is there for the rest of us.

Johnny Hunter - 00:58:45
Right. Exactly.

Kyle Krull - 00:58:46
So it yeah. It's it's a great point, but I wanna pivot a little bit. You know, we talked about the the assortment. You've got your white rice lawn grain. You got your brown rice lawn grain. You just launched Jasmine food service. What is coming in the future? For Caster River Habitat & Farm? Is it more SKUs? Is it what we're seeing on retail? Is it more food service plays? What's what are your plans?

Johnny Hunter - 00:59:06
Right. I mean, the highest growth area of our company right now is food service. We find a more linear path to, p o in food service than we do anywhere.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:59:20
Yep.

Johnny Hunter - 00:59:20
And what we love about food service is that we get to build, what feels like to us closer relationships, and there's more opportunity for brand collaboration. There's more opportunity for collaborative innovations. Obviously, we're highly, highly committed to CPG and will be for a long time. And you know, some of my best relationships are in CPG, but there's just not as much friction over there. Right?

3 - 00:59:53
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 00:59:53
And so what's next for us? You know, there's gonna be line extensions in the right, so I'm not saying there's not. But remember, you have to remember, you know, we're a Habitatin farm. We're not a rice company. It you know, rice comes out the end of our of our ecosystem, and and that's how we transactionalize our our our processes. So we're we have rice, but we're not about the rice. We own a brand but we're not a brand. Right? We're stewards of the land. We're conservators.

Johnny Hunter - 01:00:23
And so I think we can go a lot of directions in, I think, you know, I I'll have to think about a plate. How many different areas of a plate would appreciate what a company like ours is doing. And, you know, for us, we want you know, we'd love to be, like, an inch wide and a mile deep. And what I mean by that is I would love to have 3 or 4 skews of rice, but the story and the value and how it came to be is so damn deep you can't believe that I would having 50 skews of this thing, that thing, bowling a bag, minute rise, parboiled, flavor. This. I'll leave that to the the CPG Giants of the world to to to do that.

Johnny Hunter - 01:01:22
We wanna be an inch wide and a mile deep in every place we go in, you know, on the plate.

Kyle Krull - 01:01:39
I need a great method, a great, great philosophy, and I wanted to hone in on something you just said because it's surprising to me, the food services. It's more exciting, and there's more opportunities to collaborate. And in my mind, coming from the CPG space, it always feels to me like it's easier to to Storytell as a CPG brand, but I wanna get your perspective. And, like, from a food service perspective, like, what are those collaborations that are getting you so excited and and and it showcase that opportunity for growth in that channel.

Johnny Hunter - 01:02:06
Yeah. So, you know, take our relationship with just salad. They are they're they're a very innovative restaurant group. You know, we are their rye supplier. And, you know, that collaboration with them that is, you know, So so take what happened when we launched with them. Johnny Hunter, this mug, why they wanted my face on their menu. I'll never know because I've got a face for radio, and I know it.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:36
Come on, Johnny. But look.

Johnny Hunter - 01:02:38
I mean, the this group had me on their menu.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:41
Their sunglasses on looking pretty cool.

Johnny Hunter - 01:02:43
Good look for snap on. Come on, dog. You can you can dress this thing up. I'm not saying you can't skip shine this. It's possible. You know? I mean, my hair is always on point, and I've gotta maintain that. Yeah. But, You can yeah. But, you know, and, you know, they made us a part of their marketing. They they made us a part of their story, and that's how we like to work. You know, I love to tell, you know, here's how I think about a relationship with Just Salad.

Johnny Hunter - 01:03:10
Like, the the transaction that we have is my story becomes their story, and they're getting the rights for free. But here's how we value the relationship. Right? It's not about the rights. The rights is simply our bartering tool. Right? Like, hey.

Johnny Hunter - 01:03:27
You know, here's here's the thing I have that's going your way, and here's the thing you have that's come in mind, but the relationship is much deeper than that. And then, you know, we're we're doing stuff on social media with them that that's gonna be launching soon. They're actually gonna have me in there restaurants in 2025 talking to their customers. Well, how many restaurants have you been in lately where you walked in and there's the damn farmer that grew the rice that's in the food you're about to eat.

Kyle Krull - 01:04:03
Yeah.

Johnny Hunter - 01:04:04
And he's staring your eye in the eye, and he can tell you anything you wanna know about And so the, like, the a group like that, they get it, and they and they and, like, that's how you bring, how you bring this food to life. And so that's just one example of of a really great relationship that we have.

Kyle Krull - 01:04:23
I I love that example, and I specifically love the way you talked about it. It's not about the rice. You know, they're buying the story, and you're spot on because they could buy rice from anybody. They are choosing to buy rice from you because they want the affinity of the story and because there's there's mission alignment and they share that that common ethos, right, So I I'm I'm so glad I asked, and that's such a great, you know, showcase relationship, and and good on simple salad. Or just what was it? Just salad?

Johnny Hunter - 01:04:49
Just salad. Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 01:04:50
Just salad, man.

Johnny Hunter - 01:04:50
And they're and they're in and they're in New York, Chicago, Miami, East Coast. I mean, they're they're marching towards, like, a 100 something locations. Nice. And they're just getting going. So they're

Kyle Krull - 01:05:04
my eyes peeled.

Johnny Hunter - 01:05:05
And they're coming to the farm this summer. They wanna actually come put boots on the ground, and that's the relationship that we want. We don't wanna do we we we wanna do business nose to nose. Right? Like, you come here, and I'll show you why you buy rice. From Johnny. And and here's the reasons why. And the same way, I'm gonna go see them.

Johnny Hunter - 01:05:20
And that's the collaboration that we have and I'll learn something on my trip about their business that I didn't know that I can that I can do something different to help them with. And then they're gonna learn something by visiting me that they didn't know, and they're gonna go hey. What if we did this? Would that, you know, and that's what a partnership looks like, and that's what we're forming here. You know, we we don't have you know, against her, we, you know, we don't talk in terms of of customers and clients. We have partners because when you were doing business with us, that's exactly what this is. It is a partnership.

3 - 01:06:05
Mhmm.

Johnny Hunter - 01:06:05
And if it's just a transaction to you, chances are you need to go buy products from somebody else. I I

Anthony Corsaro - 01:06:14
think that's a dynamic in food service that also makes the transactional piece more appealing even though it's still transactional as most times you are an exclusive supplier whereas with the retailer, they still got 8 other rice brands in there. So you can have the most collaborative approach ever. You can have a great promo program, but somebody else is still sitting next to you on the shelf. Somebody else is going on promo. The month, you're not. You know, so there's there's some just basic limitations to the model. Johnny, does is is the future growth plan is going to, make it necessary for y'all to source from other folks, or can the farm and have grow all the rice you ever need?

Anthony Corsaro - 01:06:39
Like, what what is that kind of upstream supply chain building beyond the manufacturing look like in sure.

Johnny Hunter - 01:06:55
Yeah. So when we think about growth, we think of it in two terms. We think of internal growth and external growth. We we do have a business model that allows us to own more land and to farm more land. But farming the entire world is not in the business model. And You know, and so I think the the best service we can do for our communities and for our industry is we wanna be able to partner with other families like ours. We wanna help transition them from where they're at today to where they need to be and then we wanna be their partner to offtake their lives. And then we wanna be able to tell their story. Right? Because every family's got a story to tell. Every farm has got something going on that's unique to it.

Johnny Hunter - 01:07:34
And I think that is gonna be a really fun period of time for me that's coming up really quick because, you know, our our supply, you know, it it looks like 2025 is gonna be the year that we that we probably are gonna need to source from other farmers. But it can't just be anybody. Right? It's got they've they've gotta be And that's really where this for genocide is gonna help because so much of what they're doing is in is in very strong alignment to what we're doing. And so I don't have to go out and police. It's just like, okay. Here's the certification you need to have. You're gonna be non GMO project.

Johnny Hunter - 01:08:20
You're gonna be regenified you know, here's the cover crop program. Here's the no till. Here's the no flood. Here's this. Here's that. And you know, we'll end up being our own little supply chain in our corner of the world that hopefully grows in scales. All over the world.

Johnny Hunter - 01:08:36
It's the beauty of what I'm doing. You can take my farming practices or my philosophy, really. It's not the practice. It's the philosophy and you can park it anywhere in the world because and it's gonna work. You're gonna have to change some subtle things and some subtle practices, but the principles of soil health hold true no matter where you're standing on this planet.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:09:10
Have you have you had any neighbors or people in your area reach out to you and have you been able to kind of convert any other folks around you yet or no?

Johnny Hunter - 01:09:18
I started a group, probably 4 or 5 years ago, 96. I've lost track of time. What year is it 2024?

Kyle Krull - 01:09:26
Correct. 2020.

Johnny Hunter - 01:09:27
8 years? Shit. 8 years ago. Anyways, called the the Missouri Delta of Seal Health Alliance. And it was a group that we formed that brought together farmers, landowners, USDA, university extension, university students, you know, conservation groups, we would bring everybody together in in in multiple times of the year, and we would do, field days. We do workshops. We do a, like, a conference at the end of the year. And that's really people's opportunity if if they're my neighbor and they're interested in what I'm doing. That's a great place to go learn about it. And so I try to I try to make myself as available as I can.

Johnny Hunter - 01:10:06
I take a phone call probably, depending on the time of the year, you know, once a week, from sometimes a farmer I've never met, and they're like, hey. I hear you're doing this, this, and this. Here's the problems that I'm having. Can you help me? And I and I help them. So, yeah, it's But to answer your question, the the world is not beating my door down to figure out how they can make their fields look like mine.

Johnny Hunter - 01:10:27
Because when they drive by my field, are like, this guy's out of his damn mind.

Kyle Krull - 01:10:43
So far, today, they'll see the Alright.

Johnny Hunter - 01:10:46
And, well, I am out of my mind, but it doesn't make me wrong.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:10:52
We gotta get away we gotta get away from that Victorian ideal of agriculture, though, because it's clearly not working for us, and it's not the way that we can, you know, have a symbiotic relationship with nature and produce food. And I was certainly guilty of that, growing up in the Midwest and seeing the Victorian corn and soy everywhere, and that's, you know, maybe the most degenerative systems out there. So I think I think we're coming around on that. And like you said, maybe we do have to call it something different in 5 years, but it does feel like regenerative is is different and unique. And, hopefully, you know, we can have a a massive net positive benefit with with the term and the movement depending on where it goes.

Johnny Hunter - 01:11:31
Yeah. I I think so too. And and I say some of that tongue in cheek, but sometimes not. But I I want people I think again, if you you fall in love with the process, if you fall in love with knowing where your food comes from, if you fall in love with healthy soil, do you fall in love with new density, then it, you know, it doesn't matter what we call it at that point. Mhmm. It's just knowing your food source. It's knowing your farmer. And I think that's the direction, the positive direction that we're moving in.

Kyle Krull - 01:12:04
Mhmm.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:12:06
Well, I think you've answered this final question in bits and pieces throughout the whole conversation, but I'll take us home with it, because interested to get your thoughts. The one that we wrap every episode with Johnny is how do we get regen brands to have 50% market share by 2050?

Johnny Hunter - 01:12:23
2050. It's 2024. 50% market share. CPG or food service. Let's do CPG. If you want 50% market share by 2050, I think we're gonna have to do a better job of educating, the people who are actually eating the food. I I think with education comes empowerment, and I think with with there's obviously a certain generation that's, you know, they're not changing. Mhmm. And but the generations that are coming, if if you want if you want if you want 50% market share, then you need to be marching into a school and you need to be talking to the kids. Go right there. Go find young minds that are still open to ideas that don't have, you know, TikTok or Instaface or whatever running 247.

Johnny Hunter - 01:13:22
Go go talk to a kid and explain to him how soil works and explain to him that their food comes from the soil and then let them take that message out into the world. Show these kids what's really going on with their food. And I think you'd be surprised to see how how quickly the snowball would grow.

Kyle Krull - 01:14:01
I think that's a great answer. And I I don't know if we've ever had somebody answer. No. And and this is this is episode 74, by the way, but with that one's emphasis

Anthony Corsaro - 01:14:10
Yeah. Consumer education, but it was definitely a unique take on it.

Kyle Krull - 01:14:13
Yeah. Well, I've never I've never heard an answer that is that focus on the kids in the next generation. And I thought that was a really interesting And I and I think you're correct. You know, when when you don't have to shatter somebody's preconceived notions of where food is, it's a lot easier to to grow up with this idea of like, oh, food is soil and soil health is important, and it makes sense. Yeah. Because it is it's an inherent truth. Once it is learned, it can't really be unlearned. Right.

Kyle Krull - 01:14:32
If you have learned of the opposite, it's hard to kind of break out of that mold. So I think that's a really

Johnny Hunter - 01:14:42
good point. Yeah. Be be be be legacy minded with your with your education.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:14:48
Yeah. I I was also kind of writing down some notes on what on various things you said throughout the episode, and what you just said there was obviously consumer education and youth empowerment. Then I also wrote down farmer focused and rooted in reality. Collaborative commercialization and fall in love with the process, which I think we've all, you know, we've talked about at length on this episode in other episodes, and those are really clear themes across everything we've done today. Like, if we can't do all those things, we're we're not gonna get the job done. So just Yeah. Appreciate it, man.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:15:12
This has been a very educate educating and eliminating, and you're you're an amazing story, Tyler. So thanks for joining us.

Johnny Hunter - 01:15:23
Well, I appreciate you having me on. And, yeah, thank you for inviting me. I feel blessed to be here.

Kyle Krull - 01:15:29
Absolutely. You know, quick shout out to the web site, for any listeners who are not near a just salad or a fresh market or a fresh time or some of those other retail chains. It's Caster with orriverfarms.com. Check out the packaging. It's beautiful. One more from Johnny and the team. And, yeah, man, super appreciate the time. Thanks for sharing your story.

Johnny Hunter - 01:15:48
Alright. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:15:50
Thanks, Johnny.

3 - 01:15:57
And more information on our guests and what we discuss in the show, check out our website, regenn-brands.com. That is regen-brandsdot 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 cover patience. You can check out our YouTube channel, Regen Brands Podcast for all of our episodes with both video and audio. 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 in to The ReGen Brands Podcast brought to you by the Regen Coalition and Outlaw Ventures. We hope you learned something new in this episode and empowers you to use your voice, your time, and your dollars to help us build a better and more regenerative food system.

3 - 01:16:38
Love you guys.