Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Conservation Stories. Conservation Stories is a podcast that's sponsored by the Sand Hill Area Research association, or sarah. Sarah is interested in all kinds of things that have to do with rural economics, any kind of ecosystem. As you all know, if you've listened to our podcast before, and this episode today is going to be especially interesting because we have a local startup that is producing some really amazing product from Beef, and we are like the beef capital of the world, you know, guys, so I'm going to do some introductions here and let you kind of tell us a little bit about yourself. Billy Knox down here on the end.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Navy veteran.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Where'd you grow up?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: I'm from Houston originally.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: So did you know that it's drier here than it is in Houston?
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I am very aware of that. Yeah. Yeah. I was actually. I was stationed in Florida before we came here, too.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: The lack of humidity is. It's very nice. I've adjusted well. I don't know if I can go back.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Why? What brought you to Lepet?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: I.
So I got married to a girl from here.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: She followed me around in the Navy for 10 years and.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Okay. Turnabout. Spare play.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, when I got done, she got full veto power and we decided to move down the street from her. Her folks, who are wonderful, super helpful.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: The kiddos. And so, yeah, that's what brought us here.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. My kids grew up within 30, 35 miles of four sets of great grandparents.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: That's pretty. Pretty unique. And boy, it gives. It gives a lot of roots.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. We're like a mile down the street from them and I think. I think they probably would wish it was maybe more like 35.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: We're over there quite a bit, but I doubt it.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: But we. The first half of the.
Of their lives, they. They weren't really around so much, so we're trying to build some roots.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yep. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you for your service.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Really appreciate it.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Now we have my long lost cousin, actually Ian Timmons. And this is actually a fact because we did find this out.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: For the podcast. That we are actually connected through Alexander.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Ambrose, at least through A.A.
timmons, not the group.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:33] Speaker C: Maybe. I don't know.
But yeah, I'm Ian Timmons. I am a luck guy.
I own Tom and Bingo's Barbecue for the past.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: This is.
And we are so sad that Tom and Bingoes is gone.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: Well, thank you. But it did birth Beefy, so.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: It is a.
A continuation, I would say, of Tom and Bingo's. And I mean, it's made of brisket. I cooked brisket for 10 years, so it spawned from Tom and Bingo's, but yeah, I'm a Lubbock guy. Went to school here, went to Texas Tech.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: So. Yeah.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: You got family here?
[00:03:14] Speaker C: I do, yeah.
Got two kids, two girls, five and seven beautiful girls. And yeah, my parents and my wife's parents are both from here, so.
Yeah, as you get older, those roots tend to matter to me more so than you know. I lived in Denver for a while and that was nice. But as I get older, I. I like to. To be close to my roots.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: And so in case my children who live in Denver are listening to this podcast, please take note.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Do they have kids yet?
[00:03:45] Speaker A: No.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the game changer. You have kids and you're like, we need help.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: That I cannot imagine because we did have a lot of help and it really was a huge blessing.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: That is the flex when you're a parent, to be by grandparents.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Yes.
Makes a lot of difference. So Tom and Bingos sadly closed. And you did that, obviously, because you have this new product.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Were you selling it while Tom and Bingos was, or did you kind of like come up with this idea?
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Yeah. So I guess we can go to the start of the creation of Beefy.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Very beginning.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I.
I took over Tom and Bingos in 2017. Me and my wife moved back to Lubbock to take over Tom and Bingo's. Three weeks after we moved back, my father in law, Dwayne, who owned Tom and Bingos, died suddenly.
So I was kind of in this crazy situation where I had this institution all on my shoulders all of a sudden. So I had to figure it out.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: And everybody's grieving.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: It was quite a weird situation, but, you know. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that kind of pressure, I think, is what sent me down this rabbit hole of just being completely obsessed with trying to maintain the standards of Tom and Bingos and keep all the customers happy and not only do that, but do it in my own way.
So I. I took a master class from Aaron Franklin, like the actual masterclass.com or whatever on online.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: And this was before I had kids. And I finished it on a Friday, and I was like, I have to go to Franklin's. And I finished it like Friday morning and Friday eve, Friday afternoon I was in Austin and Then I just went down a rabbit hole of being obsessed with smoking meat and cooking all kinds of meat, making sausages and then connecting, building connections and networking in that space too. Of barbecue pit masters, there's not many people that cook on that level for, for the public. So it's a tight knit community.
And I just kind of like woke up like eight years later from this obsession. And I was like, oh, I have kids, I have a family. Like, who are these people?
And I realized that, you know, have ADD back. Yeah, I don't know. Not diagnosed.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Hyper. Hyper focus. Yes.
[00:06:29] Speaker C: But it's easy, you know, when you find something that you love and that you're passionate about, it's easy to just kind of lose yourself in that. And that's a good thing, you know.
But so that's kind of my, my, my time with Tom and Bingo's we got on Texas Monthly Top 100 list.
I think we did just a fantastic job of bringing an old school joint that, you know, had such deep roots in the community, bringing it from just a sandwich shop to a new school type of butcher style barbecue joint where everything was made in house. Sausage, ribs, burgers, all the sides. And we stuck to the original 1952 brick pit. So that was my big thing was like cooking on that pit was kind of the connection between like myself and all the other previous pit masters. And just that like barbecue lineage was. This was like really important to me.
So once that pit started to break, it started to break down. After 75 years, everything was kind of lost. All the magic of the place was lost. And I got a. Yeah, I got a grant from LITA to move and to get a new pit. But I, I just had this feeling of like taking. Yeah, it wouldn't be the same because all the walls have the stored memories and, and there was so much history there that if I tried to move that it just lost. I kind of just lost my passion for it. And it, I don't know, in some weird way I just didn't feel like it was right. And 75 years is a great run for a restaurant. So it was like, well, the time is. It feels like it's time.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Like it's meant to be. And then, you know, go to, you know, Tom. Bingo is closed in January.
Six months before that, a friend of mine and the community knows him, Lloyd Turner, owner of Caprock and Orlando's, walks into my pet room, brings me a bag of a similar product and is as beefy. And it's like, hey, I'm on This carnivore diet, do you think you can make me something similar to this? I will buy thousands of dollars of meat from you. I tried it, and it was. It was odd. It tasted very weird.
Um, and there was a lot of, like, technical things that were wrong with it that I could see from a pitmaster's perspective.
So I thought it was weird. And, like, I just kind of had a bag around for a few weeks. I didn't touch it. I didn't think about it. I just kind of was just kind of, like, looking at me.
And then after a couple weeks, I was like, I'll try it. I bought, like, a $300 dehydrator and little slicer, maybe, like, spent, like, four or five hundred dollars for this little setup, and started. Started making it in my garage. And it was. It was not good. Like, first few iterations, it was quite bad.
But after a few. Maybe five cooking iterations, I started taking it to my. My jiu jitsu guys at Bueno Jiu jitsu. And they started just, like, eating it up, just wanting it. High protein, clean, healthy snacks.
And then I just started getting obsessed, just like, I guess I am. I guess I do. Maybe. I do have add, but because I started going down that rabbit hole of drying meat and making these unique meat chips that really.
The textural experience is very unique. And most people. It's original.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yes. And so in that. Let's talk just a little bit about the product. I've had it when I come here.
It's absolutely amazing. It's like a chip that. That's crispy, but it also, like. Is it like eating a piece of bacon? I mean, it's. It's. It's. It's the equivalent to me of how much, like, I love bacon.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: And it's like, when I eat that, that's what it reminds me of, is like. Like the best crispy bacon you've ever eaten.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: And.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: And it has another element of textural texture to it other than, like, crispy bacon. Then it becomes, like, even a little bit melty at the end.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Like, that's what it is.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: It has, like, a buttery.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Buttery.
[00:10:59] Speaker C: Yes, exactly.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yeah. It's very addicting. And. And it's clean, and it's healthy. And I just, you know, once we. I started going down, that it started naturally kind of taking off the client list just started growing. And then I met Billy, and that's when it really took off.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: So you guys didn't know each other before this venture?
[00:11:25] Speaker C: We had met, like, Once at a wedding in Utah or something like that, I think was the first time we met.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: We're friends growing up.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: So we kind of knew of each other. And when we moved back here, Chrissy and Ian were kind of like our first friends. Like, we're like, oh, gotcha. Some people we know, other than my wife's parents.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: So, yeah, we. We connected that way.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: And your background in the Navy has probably really brought a lot of structure and business, like, logistics to the project.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. Ian's definitely, like, the. The passion and soul of it.
And I've got. I've got a lot of spreadsheets if you guys are interested.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: He's the kite and you are the string. And then. Then a lot of times, like, in my situation, my husband, I say, he is not the string, he's the rock.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Somebody's gonna have the idea, but somebody's gotta be holding onto that idea and making sure it's.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it. I think it works well. Works well together. I mean, in any founder relationship, there's stuff you gotta figure out. But, yeah, I came on. I came on board. We moved back here, and, you know, I just.
We had. My wife had tried them. Cause my last year in the Navy, I was deployed, so she moved back here, and she had tried them and was like, yo, you've gotta try these, like, meat chips that Ian's making.
And I tried them and had, like, a quasi religious moment.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Yeah, they're amazing. I don't. Do we have a sample of one? I mean. I know.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, we can just.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Let's open up one and let's just kind of look at one and see, because it. They really are.
There's. You know, I don't know that there's really anything comparable when you're trying to explain to people what they are.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Yeah, it's.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Look at that. It's also like. See, it's this piece right here. Let me zoom in on this. So most piece right here. Right.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Extreme close up.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: This is. What is the butter part. To me, it's like. It has that marbling is what makes that sense. I'm sorry. I'm gonna eat this.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: Yeah. No, so traditionally, I mean, I don't really love to.
Yeah, it's crunchy, like a chip. I don't love to compare it to jerky just because it's.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: No, no, no. It's not like jerky at all.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's like comparing a burger to a steak. It's like. Yeah, they're both beef but so most traditional jerkies are cut and cooked from really dry pieces of beef. So you, you get that very hard, you know, chewy. The leathery, the leathery type of texture. And this new idea is like, keep the fat on and fat's actually really healthy for you.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: And it, it just delivers such a different type of product.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's delicious.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: That's also where flavor comes from.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Right?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Low, low and behold. So.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And so, and when you, when you're thinking about jerky, which, there's some great jerky out there, but also there's a lot of. You have to put a lot of stuff back into it to give it a really good flavor.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Most jerky is like, you know, a ton of preservatives, a ton of sugar, all kinds of bad stuff, microbials that aren't even on the ingredients list.
Um, and yeah, most jerky, unless it's very natural, isn't exactly healthy for you, just with all the additives and preservatives.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: I'll just say that you just used one of my favorite words.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Microbial.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Really?
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Microbes was my word of the year in like 2021.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Really?
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Yes. You know, some women are like, joy, peace. No, mine was microbes.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Yes. So my friend Sarah Burnett is a microbe like, guru. She owns Texas Earth here, and she got me into that rabbit hole.
This is why I recognize hyper focus.
I spent all year going, what can I learn about microbes?
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's a whole unseen universe.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: So interesting. Her father in the 70s was getting his masters at, I believe, at tech, and he, his.
His thesis was on do the microbes in the soil that the cattle that's growing the grass, the cattle graze on impact the meat.
And this was like back in the 70s when no one was talking about microbes at all.
I mean, even the discussion of microbes in the soil is something that 10 years ago, it was just a thing that some people were talking about.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's still, still pretty nascent on the fruit, which.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: You know, we should do more to push that into.
But you know, that is. It is coming full circle. Regenerative farming and things like that. People are starting to realize that, hey, things are. Everything's connected, right.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Ecosystems. Yeah, it is. It's all connected. It's all just circular. And the more that we can keep that connected and not try to disconnect it. You know, I think about things being in a loop. We think about a value chain, and I think about a loop more often. You know, that when we disconnect that, you know, somebody on, on one end or the other is going to get left with the pickings, you know, And I feel like you put just, even in our modern system of the way farmers get paid, you know, so often, there's so many people in that value chain that are pulling the true value out of that crop. And so the farmer's just not getting.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Which is what they're worth.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Which is crazy. Right. They're the ones actually creating the value. And then people down the, down the chain are, because they own distribution rights or whatever it may be, you know, or are using their power and influence to.
To extract more value than probably they should be.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah. That's actually something that we're super interested in as a new CPG startup. Like, what is our distribution channel look like? What does our distribution chain look like?
[00:17:32] Speaker A: And so for people that are listening, CPG is consumer package. Good.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to get down with the lingo. We, we didn't know what it meant when we started this.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Oh, I. This is something I heard. I know. This is something I have just recently learned.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: I think we went to like, a meeting and everybody was saying it and we were like, yeah, like, oh, yeah, we are. What does that mean?
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Excuse me, I've got to take a call.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Google.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: But yeah, that's something that we're looking at, like, you know, traditional distribution methods. And do they really, you know, how can we, how can we return value to the places where we think value should belong? Yes, the producers, the farmers, the, you know, farmers markets, things that are as close to the source as possible. And that's, that's really something that is at the core of our ethos is, you know, getting, getting as close to the source as we possibly can. I mean, our original chips is just brisket and salt. And we don't do anything weird to it. We don't. We don't put preservatives in it. We don't. It's literally, if you come by the facility, you'll see guys slicing brisket, putting it on a tray, and then. And then, you know, putting it in a dehydrator, we dehydrate it.
But the closer we can get to that source, we feel like the more value it has to the end. To the end consumer and really across the supply chain in general.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Right, well. And it's such a great. I mean, you just kind of, you're. You're hitting your stride at such a good time with, you know, the things that are happening and the recognition that's being brought to local, you know, And I can tell you, like, years ago when organics first became a thing, I was like, this is the stupid fad that will pass, you know, and so you realize, no, it's a, you know, whether you, you know, you can argue, I think, either, either side that organics, there's no added value or there is added value.
People are, are. It's a market. It's a market that farmers can, you know, participate in and, and some of them have, have chosen to do that, you know. And so I think, though, the, the fact that here we are 30 plus years into the fad. Into the, into the fad.
And so I, I mean, I have, I've definitely learned like that the things that I have because I haven't had the experience that other people have had. A lot of times I would dismiss what people think or believe because the only experience I've ever had is the experience of growing up here, you know, and so I think that's something that's good that's happened, like with the Internet. And something that happened for me when I started traveling outside of this area is realizing that these are people that have real life experiences that are of equal importance and value as my real life experience. And for me to dismiss what they're saying and the things that they have found is really ignorant.
It's ignorant.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: And I think that hits a particularly special chord today with like, what happened yesterday with, oh, gosh, Charlie Kirk. And you know, I, man, that's something I'm super passionate about.
I put my life on the line for a decade in the United States Navy to defend the right to, you know, the right of free speech, the right of, you know, to be who you want to be, to love who you want to be the person that you want. And I think that's something that, like, I mean, this is maybe a little bit off topic, but yeah, I think we could all, yeah, I think we'd all learn to like, focus, refocus on that on a daily basis. Right.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: And it is important because at the same time that what happened with Charlie. Charlie Kirk, 20, 20 minutes from my son's school, there was a mass school shooting, another school shooting. You know, and so those are two, two things. So these are two truths, right, that, that we have the right to keep and bear arms, and that the most you likely think a child is going to die by is a school shooting. So those are two truths that are happening simultaneously. And we have to find A way in our country to be willing to say both things are true. Even though they have opposing, they're kind of on the opposite side. It's something that we don't have. We don't seem to have the skill to know how to manage.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think we've lost the ability to like, be cordial and respectful and like, and have differing opinions. I mean, you know, that's something as co founders, right? Like we're both, we both have ideas about how to run a business. They don't always align, but we still, like, there's still mutual respect amongst ourselves. And it's like, how do we, how do we imdue that into society again? Like, you know, we need to get back to this place where it's okay to disagree, it's okay to, to think differently.
You know, let's look at facts, let's look at, let's, you know, remove emotion from the equation sometimes and, and let's be respectful of one another.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think too, you know, we really are pawns to the media, you know, and the propaganda on both sides that's out there and you know, I told my mom, if it makes you mad or sad or scared, it's propaganda, you know, that's the, that's what that's intended to do, you know, and, and so now that creates. And then that actually it triggers people that have mental health issues.
Hey friends, I'm excited to tell you about NASA. NASA Acres, which is part of the Earth Science division of NASA, is coming to our area. They're coming here because they want to learn about how we farm and they want to see if there's ways that they can help us. So NASA Acres is a project that we've been partnering with for several months now and they will be here for ag tours October 6th, 7th and 8th, and we will be in Terry County. We will be heading then up to Cress and over to Morton. We're going to be in a lot of different places. We're going to put that agenda up on our website, on the homepage so you can see where we are. And if you want to come by and just see what NASA, what do they have to do with agriculture? We would love for you to meet these folks. They want to meet you. They want to talk about maybe how you can participate and have remote sensing information available for your farm.
This is a farm farmer led effort. So if you're an ag ag business or if you're a farmer, come out and just kick the tires on what it might Be like to partner with NASA on an ag project.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Well, it's, it's interesting that you say that. I mean, kind of bring this back to something that we've learned, you know, along the process is in that in, in the food industry, we're learning that, you know, the, the line that we've been given or the things that we hold true aren't necessarily correct. Right.
Like, I went down this rabbit hole. I'm like, Ian, I go down rabbit holes all the time. I mean, when we started Beefy, I read the food code to, you know, figure out, okay, what do we need to do to actually bring a product to market? And yes, I told a USDA advisor that, and they were like, you actually read that? Like, why would you do that? It sounds horrible.
You know, but for instance, the, the thesis on fat, right. Like Ian mentioned earlier, you know, there's fat in the chip.
Well, that's where. And that's where flavor comes from.
If you trace the, the origins of like the low fat craze, the low fat craze diet. It's crazy. There was this, There was this Dr. Ansel Keys, who in the, like, I believe the 60s, wrote this, like, horrendously inaccurate population study correlating, like, heart disease with consumption of like, saturated fats.
But he picked and choose what, which countries. And it's like, statistically it is. It's absolute garbage. But he was very charismatic and he was very loud. And so people just kind of assumed and he was a doctor.
And then the food companies, you know, caught on and it gained popularity. This low fat idea gained popularity. So what did food companies do? They removed food from, or they removed fat from food. What happens when we remove fat from food? It tastes like cardboard.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: So in order to counteract that, we injected sugar. Yeah. And then not only did we inject sugar, but then we mutated sugar into high fructose corn syrup. And these things that are, you know, 3x5x10x, you know, the glycemic. On the glycemic index of, of just normal sugar.
And that lasted through, you know, until really now. Like, I feel like it's.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Now people are kind of catching on.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: That like, okay, hey, sugar's not really. And it's interesting if you look at, you know, I found this really interesting graph on the CDC. If you look at the instances of like type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and obesity and just growth in the population, it correlates like almost exactly with this, this movement to move to remove fat from food and to. And Then to replace it with, with sugar.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: So, you know, it just, it kind of further iterates that.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: That idea that don't, you know, you don't always need to believe the main thing, the main line, like, let's, let's get into the. And I think that's like a pillar that we've built beefy on is like, hey, let's get back to the roots. Let's get back to what's real, you know, let's get back to as close to the source as possible.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: And that, you know, not only you're talking about like how the improvements it does for your health, but you also think about like when you have locally grown and sourced food, then when the supply chain gets disrupted, you have, you have the ability to still take care of yourself.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: You know, and your local region. So to me, I'm like, I'm not like, let's get rid of the, you know, long distance supply chain. I think we need both.
I think that the emphasis has been on that longer supply chain more than on the local supply chain. But I know you guys probably are well aware how difficult that is, you know, that it doesn't, it doesn't. And it depends really on where you are. You know, I know that our friends at Frontier Market in Plainview, they can go to Canyon Farmers Market and they will have a 45 minute line before they even open until they're sold out.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: But they can't get it sold here in Lubbock.
And so it's, it's really just the difference even between Amarillo and Lubbock, the cultural difference, you know, of what, what people are, are interested in or value or willing to put their money in or even maybe are aware of, you know.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So we actually have a really interesting idea back to what we were talking about, but like distribution, distribution channels. And one of the fun things about building a company is you get to like, you get to kind of dissect the way things are done. And I had a really interesting skipper in the Navy who I got in trouble once because I was in the wrong uniform over the weekend. And he came in, he was like, why are you wearing that uniform?
And I, you know, I looked at him, I was like, this is because we all. This is the uniform we wear on the weekends. It's like, because this is the way it's always been done. And he looked at me and he was like, that's the laziest answer to any question that you could possibly give.
If you, if you would have told me because it's in the, you know, regulations, or because the previous skipper gave us, you know, permission or whatever, I would accept that. But to say because it's the way it's always been done, that just, that just tells me that you're, you're not willing to, like, put forth the effort to, to, you know, dig and find out, find out the reason why. And I've kind of adopted that as like a, a very poignant life lesson. And I try and take that into the things that I do. But with the, you know, the distribution model as a new cpg, there's plenty of people that want to give us opinions on what to do. Right. And one of the things is, oh, you guys need to be in grocery stores and, you know, you need to be talking to distributors and you need to be talking to retailers. And one of the things that we've really enjoyed is being able to say, well, okay, why do we need to do that?
You say that we need to do that because that's what everybody else does. But is that really the best option?
And one of the things that we'd really like to explore is building out a distribution model where we go to farmer's markets. Instead of going to large change grocery stores, we go to farmer's markets. And there's a little bit of resistance because a lot of farmers markets want things to be local.
But I really love this idea of like, what if farmers markets. What if we reimagine what a farmer's market was? What if it was a hybrid model of most things are local, but then you have some regional products and you have some national products, and then it truly becomes this like one stop shop, you know, and, and Right.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Make people pay for access. Like, you know, if, if, if, if we wanted to access to a market in, you know, Houston, for instance, like, we would pay for that. We'd have to pay a distributor.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: So why not charge an, an extra fee for.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Well, the other thing you're doing is you're making a product exclusive to the people that are trying to do what you're doing.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: And when you do that, then you're expanding the, the, their, their customer base because customers that want this now have to go to them.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: To get it locally. So what you're doing is you've reimagined how to use a long supply chain.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: To beef up a local supply chain a thousand percent. And that's like, that's one of the visions we have is like, if we could Take this product and we could, we could build something like that and then we could use, you know, the brand awareness that we built to then not just move our product, because at the end of the day, we're for.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Profit company and you need to make money.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: We have to make money. But if we can raise awareness for local vendors, if we can raise foot traffic, if we can divert some of our profits into local economies, if we can use that, like, someone's got to work our booths. Right. Well, those, Those are jobs. Those are jobs created in that local economy. And yeah, so you get to. You can kind of reimagine the supply, the distribution chain.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: And, you know, and yeah, some people think I'm crazy when I say that. They're like, that's so difficult. I'm like, elon Musk can land used rockets on floating barges in the ocean. Like, yeah, we can, we can tweak the distribution model. Like, we can do that.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:33:08] Speaker C: And you get to close that. That loop of. Instead of the supply chain, we're back in the communities and we get to, you know, talk with the people and.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: And make that connection and make.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Have that relationship with our customers.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:21] Speaker C: Instead of making it a chain, like you said, it kind of closes that loop.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: To me, the brilliance of that is that how difficult it is for, you know, somebody like the Frontier Market or Sunburst Farms or, you know, people that are locally trying to make a living providing what. What people say they want, but sometimes they aren't there putting their pocketbook. Right. You know what I mean? And so when you're able to increase the awareness for those people and give people more of a reason to come in, I. I just think that it's just a brilliant idea.
Yeah, it's brilliant.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Just a bunch of hard work between an idea and reality. That's it.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that. You know, I. Two weeks ago, or maybe three now, I was at a.
A consumer packaged goods conference in Denver called Newtopia.
[00:34:19] Speaker C: We were there.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: Our brand was there. Not technically we weren't there, but Beefy was there.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Beefy was there. Really?
[00:34:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we had a.
There's a group, that angel group.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: They're an angel investing syndicate. They sponsored our brand and we're kind of. We were one of six new up and coming CPG products that they highlighted.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: So that was a really interesting. I go to conferences all the time and a consumer packaged good, that was probably one of the best as far as net networking and what I came away with, like, there's a Company called Zero foodprint. Have you heard of this company? So Zero Food Print works with retailers and restaurants. So like in Denver, the subway food chains. Restaurant chain, they do like a. I think it's like a 0.04% surcharge on every receipt.
And all that money goes directly to farmers for incentives for different types of, you know, either regenerative or conservation efforts or things like that. And so they're not relying on the government programs that come and go, you know, and.
And we're talking about less than half a cent.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: I mean, what customer is gonna even know?
They're never gonna feel that. You're not gonna feel that. You know what I mean? And so I'm like, that is, to me, just such a brilliant.
You know, that's the kind of people that were there that were thinking in the way that you're thinking, you know.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: How do we solve these big problems?
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Yes. That's awesome. Yeah, we not gonna lie. We have a little bit of FOMO that we. We. Next year. We'll get them next year.
[00:36:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: I will say it was a great event, albeit pricey. Yeah, it's a great event.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah, that was. That was the constraint for us is we're. We're still. We're still swinging hammers and.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: And doing dishes and.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I can.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Cleaning the toilets. So.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: So where you guys set up as far as your.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Where you sell.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah. To where you putting all this together?
Your warehouse.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So we built a custom facility on the south side of town.
[00:36:43] Speaker C: We.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah, when Ian and I got together, we kind of. We ran the numbers and we're like, yeah, I think this can be something. So we took the plunge and we. We rented out a industrial warehouse space, which. One of the benefits of Lubbock is that it's very easy to find.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Yes, it is.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Cheap, affordable space. But. So we built a custom facility. We crafted a kitchen to USDA standards so that we can then go through the certification processes, and we do everything in house. So we get raw brisket sent in, and we've got a team that processes everything for us, and then we ship out from there. So.
[00:37:25] Speaker C: And let me explain a little bit more on that by when Billy says, we built a production facility going back to rabbit holes. Billy went down the.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: The.
[00:37:37] Speaker C: The construction rabbit hole. We actually literally built our own facility. So, yeah, Billy. Billy is a.
A very handy guy. And we did everything ourselves and, you know, going back to keeping everything in circle or, you know, whatever.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: What.
[00:37:59] Speaker C: What word were we using?
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Ecosystem.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Ecosystem. That's right.
We mo. You know, most people that make a CPG product, they're going to create it and then they're going to send it to a co packer to then make. That was one of the things that we didn't want to do. We wanted to keep full control of our product, the quality.
Um, and with such a new product like this, we can't send it to a co packer because they're not going to do it as well as. As we can. And we wanted to keep the jobs local here and, and provide jobs for people too.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: I love that. So, yeah, that's great.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been fun. It wasn't. Grinding concrete was not fun. That's the job. I'll never was the one.
[00:38:43] Speaker C: Or drywall.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: But yeah, drywall's not so not so fun. But.
But yeah, it's fun solving problems and it's fun to build something and then step back and look and say, hey. Which is something I think we kind of lose sight of. Like, I would imagine, you know, farmers, ranchers, trades, anything in the trades, like, it's very. There's this like, feedback loop. Right. But there's so much of what we do today is like online or on a computer, and you spin your wheels all day long and you're like, did I actually add value to the ecosystem? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.
But it's. It's. It's cool to actually build something and then to step back and say, okay.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Hey, that's so exciting. It's so good. So what's next?
[00:39:31] Speaker C: I mean, we still have a lot of building to do. Only a, only a tiny percentage of people know about Beefy, so we definitely want to, you know, continue to grow the business and, and to help shape the food industry, not just for Beefy, but, you know, to. To flip the script on what is possible through distribution, through manufacturing, through sourcing, you know, all kinds of. All kinds of stuff. And, and then, you know, we. We'd love to give back to the community. We're both interested in changing, you know, the snacking programs in our school. We both have kids that have access to a snack bar every day. And that snack bar is. Is full of, you know, processed junk that, you know, to me, doesn't feel right for our schools to be giving our kids.
So, you know, we'd like to be a voice there. And I think, you know, it doesn't start with one person, but if more voices can, you know, more parents taking action can be involved. I think that's when kind of change comes about. But yeah, those are a couple of the things that, that is on the horizon for us and, and just trying to, to, you know, make healthy, honest products that people still enjoy that are still delicious.
Make that most.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: When you like, think about something like, I've yet to find a protein bar that I don't want to gag.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Yeah. So that's, that's what we, we really wanted to do with Beefy is to make a healthy, clean, honest product and, and still make it taste that, you know, so that people are still excited about. Because that's one of the things generally if it's healthy, it tastes like it's healthy, you know, and not in a good way.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Right. Well, and that's, you know, part of, you know, I think the struggle. I've had several conversations with people on school lunches, you know, that work in that arena. And you know, part of the problem is that once you have that your taste buds are so acclimated to that high sugar taste, it's really difficult to get a kid to choose an apple or grapes or something. If you've given them a little Debbie.
[00:41:47] Speaker C: Snack, it's almost impossible.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: Yeah, but they're not, you're not gonna do.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: They're kids. Like, it's, it's our responsibility as, you know, as parents, as leaders in the community, it's, it's our responsibility to provide them with healthy options with. And like, it's just so. The kid thing is so crazy. Me and Ian are so passionate about that. You know, we have small kids, but it's just talk about like a broken system, you know, because like you go, we go to kid, these kids go to school and an hour and a half into the day they're going to snack bar and they're buying, you know, Skittles and it's like, okay, well that kid's not going to pay attention the rest of the day. Like they're going to be bouncing off the walls and why are we expecting them to, you know, we're providing all these horrible options for them and then we're saying, oh, you're, you know, you're a troubled kid or you have ADHD or whatever. And it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's just such a broken, such a broken system. And why do they need. I mean, I have a two year old son and he goes to this like mother's day out and I swear every, every day they're like giving them lollipops. And, and I was like, he doesn't even know what that is.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Why does he need to have that?
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:05] Speaker B: You know, give him.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Give him, you know, a piece of string cheese or. Or something. He just as happy. He's just as happy. And ultimately, it's what's. It's what's good for them. There's. There's this responsibility that we have as. As parents and then not just as parents, but as his administrators, as, you know, in the. In the school system that, you know, there's, well, just.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: There's just better options even that don't have kids have a responsibility towards that next generation, too. Yeah. You know what I mean? I. I mean, you know, I've got a granddaughter that goes to public school, but, like, that means all the other students aren't connected to me much. Very much. You know what I mean? But still, I feel a sense of, like, this is who's coming after me. There is a sense of, like, I.
I do feel responsible to make certain that not only that I leave things better than I was given them, but that I've equipped the people that come after me to know what's right or to let them have all the information to decide for themselves what's right, you know, and. But also to protect them from.
You know, we spend a lot of time worried about what kids are reading in a school, but we don't hear people talking about this. You don't. People are angry about the fact that a kid's getting a bag of Skittles.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Come over to our house. You'll. You'll hear some. Some angry words.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But you don't hear the vitriol, you know what I mean? And the passion that people have, like, you know, to take things out of schools and. You know what I mean? Like, books and stuff, you know what I mean? And so I'm like, if we have that same type of passionate energy towards nutrition. Nutrition.
Right. You know, we can't. This is kind of like, to me, it's like that we're looking at the wrong part of the pyramid of. Of our needs, you know, that down there is the basis of our needs. You know what I mean? And so we haven't even given the kids a good foundation before we even start expecting other things for them, you know?
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And part of. Part of our, like, goal, our ethos. Because it's one thing to, like, complain about something, it's totally another thing to, like, be like, hey, here's the solution.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: That's exactly right.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: And so one of the things that's really exciting about this is that, you know, Ian's created this product and we're building this company around this thing that, like, hey, you can take something that is as close to the source as possible, do as little as possible to alter it or to alter its flavor profile, and it is still crave worthy. Delicious.
And what's really cool about being in cpg, the consumer packaged goods space right now, is it's happening on a larger scale. You're starting to see brands emerge that are, you know, one, two, three ingredients, like, very close to the source, very minimally processed. And so there's. There's kind of this, like, groundswell coming up. And it's really fun to, like, be a part of it and to be a part of the conversation that, you know, you can bang. You can bang your drum all day long, but if you don't have a, you know, a solution.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: To the problem.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Exactly. And you have to look at the problem holistically, because so you think about, like, what is driving the consumer choices that we make. And part of that is that we live in a culture where people have to work a lot of hours.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: To make a living.
And when you have, you know, people who are making minimum wage to provide for their family, and Maybe they're getting $300 a month in food stamps, which is probably about what they would get per kid per person, which we all know is not enough. Right.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: If you're going to go. You know what I mean? So you. You're either. You either have time or you have money, but generally you do not have both in our society.
[00:47:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, there's also another scary stat statistic of parents who. In Lubbock, I don't know, outside of lck, but who don't qualify for food stamps and who still don't have enough money to pay their bills. And I think it's my. My wife is an ambassador for. For Cooper, and I think it's a scary number, like, up in the 40% of parents.
So that is.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it. It, it is. I know that my husband and I, we went through bankruptcy when our kids. When our four kids were smaller. And I mean, we were making like 30,000 a year. We had four kids. We could not qualify the four children. And I mean, I went in to talk to the lady about it, and she was basically in tears.
You know what I mean? Like, here's someone who is like, it's her job to help me, and she knows that we need it, but there's no way for her to help Me do that, you know, and so, you know, we, I think like during that time, my parents, my dad was raised, he would bring us, you know, a full, you know, cow, a beef every, every, you know, like twice a year, you know, and we had a freezer and that's what we lived on. You know what I mean? Like, we had my kids, when they started providing for themselves, they're like, okay, now I understand beans and rice.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: You know, but I was also not working. I was a stay at home mom. I was homeschooling my kids.
So there's a lot of privilege to that.
So I had time as that stay at home mom to invest. Right. So I was, you know, making that sacrifice, but because I could afford to do that, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say, I was trading off time for money.
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A short form will be sent to you with some basic information like your planning date, termination date, maybe the years that you had cover crops. Your information is going to stay protected, but it'll make a really big difference in showing what cover crops are really worth having in our region. If you want more information, want to be part of this, you can visit sara-conservation.com we'll have some information there.
And you can also reach out to me@contact Sarah Conservation.com and I would be happy to put your name on the list. Thank you very much.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Which, that's an interesting concept too. Like we talk about this all the time because my wife, she was a military spouse and man, you, I feel like anything associated with like child care and taking care of children is like discounted at like a 99 rate. It's like, yes.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: You know, like people that get paid the least, people that take care of our old people and people that take care of our babies.
[00:50:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: Which is teachers.
It's crazy. Like the amount of value added to, you know, like, I, I mean the context that we view it through is like, I, I was in the Navy for a decade and I would go on deployments and I would come home and people would pat me on the back and say, you know, hey, thank you for what you've Done. Thank you for your service. And my wife is like right there.
And like, you know, I, yeah, I went, I went on, you know, these seven month. They weren't vacations by any means. We were doing dangerous stuff. But like.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: My wife was at home. She was a single mom. She was, you know, 24 7. She was, yeah, 24 7.
No break. Like, I watch my kids for a long weekend and when my wife gets home, I'm like, I, I, like, I got a beer. I need some space, you know.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:28] Speaker B: And there's no, like, there's a lack, there's a real lack of appreciation for that.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: I think, I think our culture values productivity.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: You know, and my dad and I were talking about how greed is. So he's like, we know, it's like, it's like, we don't think it's wrong. And I said, no, it is a virtue.
Greed is a virtue.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:49] Speaker A: And productivity. And so when, when we value the productivity of people, then we dehumanize, humanize the people that cannot be productive. And so we're not going to spend money on the people that don't produce.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: Yeah. There's also this weird, I think there's like kind of a broken, I don't want to say family structure, but so I, I graduated with a finance degree and much to the chagrin of my parents, I joined the Peace Corps out of school and I went and lived in Europe.
And it was really fascinating to see like family structures. There's three generations living in a home, all taking care of each other. It is this like, it's an ecosystem. It 100% is an ecosystem. And like, we don't do that.
We don't do that at all.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: Right. Right.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: To the point that it's like, it would, it's like weird, you know, but it's because we don't.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: I think as a culture we don't really value that.
[00:52:51] Speaker C: That.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: You know, the contributions of.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Caretakers or, or whatever. It's all about, you know, showing. Show me, show me the money. Right. Show me the Benjamins. But like, at the end of the day, you could die with all the money in the world and.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Well, no one cares.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: This is turning into a depressive, depressing me depressing conversation. So we're going to turn it around.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: Because the truth is, is like until you recognize the problems and identify them, you really can't. You have to give them a name and you have to really believe that they're there before you can begin to start thinking about the Change that you can bring, you know, and it is very encouraging to me as a person who's worked in our community to try to do things and have hit brick walls so many times. Surprising amount of brick walls, you know, and to see, like, that you guys are, you know, you're the. You're. Who's going to be the leaders. You know what I mean? Like, you are. That's who we're looking to.
We're all dying thought. I'm. I'm like, my parents are age. They're getting to their 80s. I'm about to be the old generation.
I'm about to be the old generation. So, like, to hear you guys talk about recognizing that these are problems that we are having in our society, and you're thinking deeply about what's causing them and how we can bring solutions, that is extremely encouraging to me.
And I want to say thank you very much for thinking about these things and. And valuing, you know, valuing being here, valuing the culture that we have, but not just accepting it and embracing it so much that you can't see that some things are. Are wrong.
[00:54:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, thank you. And you're. You're welcome, I guess.
But. But before. Before we get too positive, I. I do want to. I mean, I'm all for positivity.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: I want to bring this back down.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: A little bit really quick. The last thing I'll. I'll say. I don't know if we need to wrap it up, but, you know, it is interesting that there. There does seem like there's, like, some sadness in the air today. You know, September 11th and what happened yesterday with Charlie Kirk, and that goes back to, like, the whole ecosystem thing of, like, what happens to one of us. It's like, we all feel that, and I think that's something that we should be more aware of and of how we're all connected.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: You know, I. I didn't know about what happened to Charlie Kirk. I. I had got on Facebook or something, and I saw Sher McMahon, which is one of my favorite.
The only reason to get on Instagram is Sher McMahon.
And she was crying and talking about this. Now she's somebody that I would say is probably ideologically not maybe in the same category as Sanford, certainly not far. That far. Right.
But she's like, this is not America I want to live in. I don't want to live in this kind of America. What. What can we do? How do we change that dynamic? And I hope that what we. What we do here on this podcast is try to bring these discussions to the table in a way that, that people can hear them. Because you do. You can talk about things in a way that really does put people off, you know.
[00:56:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: And I, I hope that what we do is we bring these discussions and these ideas to help people think about, you know, what they're doing.
How can they be part of the solution?
And I, I think you're. There's this sense of I can't make a difference what I do can't make a difference.
When I think that's not really true.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: That's not true at all.
[00:56:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: It's about our collective humanity.
Right. At the end of the day, we can have different opinions, we can think different. We can be on completely opposite ends of the spectrum ideologically. But, you know, we're.
We're all, you know, daughters or husbands or wives or fathers or children or, you know, it's, you know, it's about finding.
I, I think we're so obsessive about finding our differences when, you know, why don't, why can't we flip the script on that? Like, why can't we be, you know, hyper focused on finding our, our collective humanity and finding the things that connect us? Like when we came in and you guys immediately made that connection about, oh, we have the same last name. Like, you know, it's like, I think there just needs to be a lot.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: More, you know, and I think that's something that we have that's unique in the United States that, you know, that we, we could take this melting pot and make it like something, you know, so unique to, to us. But we. In, in a way, what we do is everyone throws all their colors in together. And if you've ever seen every single color of play doh. Mixed up, what you get is like an ugly gray, you know, and that's what I noticed about going to Europe was that the cultures were so distinct. Right.
And maybe, you know, being able to allow people to be who they are and without forcing this sense of complete integration into our society.
When we do that, our society becomes just this generic gray, colorless.
When we stay like that. You know what I'm saying?
[00:58:45] Speaker C: Yeah. We need to celebrate our differences. I think that's what makes the world.
[00:58:49] Speaker A: Interesting, I think so.
[00:58:51] Speaker B: One of my favorite facts, I guess, lack of a fact is, you know, what's the official language of. Of the United States of America?
[00:58:59] Speaker A: No, we don't have one.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: We don't have one.
[00:59:01] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:59:01] Speaker B: What's the official religion? We don't have one.
Right. There is no creed, there's no belief system, there's no language, there's no culture, there's nothing that unites us except for the common thread of, you know, the American dream of, hey, this is the land of, you know, opportunity. And, and you know, as a, as a veteran and, and as small business owners, and now we're, you know, we're building, I mean, we're living this actively on a day to day basis of like, you know, going out and like rolling your sleeves up and, and you know, that's one thing I, I love too about the, the kind of agricultural community is like there's, there's that connection to the land, there's connection to work, there's connection to.
But yeah, it's where you know it.
Traveling. You've traveled, I've traveled quite a bit. And you go anywhere else in the world and you're not going to find this freedom, the freedom of speech, the freedom of thought, the freedom of, you know, the exercise of religion. I mean, this is such a beautiful place. And it's a beautiful place because you and I can sit next to each other and have polarizing viewpoints, but at the end of the day, we all believe in the common.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Shared. Exactly. I mean, like, I have such close friends that are way to the left of me or way to the right of me. I've got a good friend who doesn't think we landed on the moon.
[01:00:31] Speaker B: And I'm like, I, those people are fun.
[01:00:33] Speaker A: I don't care. And you know, I'm like, I know, I know you don't. And she's like, well, we'll just ask the Lord one day. And I'm like, yeah, that's fine. You know, but because I value her so much, I don't care.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: You know, and I, I hope that. I think most of us are like that, but you know, when we, things like what happened to Charlie Kirk happen, you feel like that that's who all of America is because that's what we hear. And I don't think that we were, as humans intended to hear every single bad thing that happens in every point of the world immediately.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah. 24 hour news cycle isn't, isn't as helpful as.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not exactly, Exactly.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:16] Speaker A: But I, I think that it's worth, you know, we have something that was, was unique, that was started, you know, 200 years ago. And it's, it's, it's unique. It's not as unique as it used as it once was. You know, I spent time in Poland. And I think there's ways where they have more freedom than we do, you know, and so, I mean, like, it's just freedom has gone across the globe, you know, and even more in our lifetime, my lifetime, you know, and I love to. For us to be able to keep that conversation going.
[01:01:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:53] Speaker A: And raise our kids in a way that they know how to converse with people who don't agree with them.
Absolutely.
[01:02:03] Speaker B: You know, and to be positive forces of impact. To go see a problem.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:02:11] Speaker B: Create a solution, you know, and to respect the people around them.
[01:02:15] Speaker C: And.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's, that's one of the coolest things about this is like our kids are watching us do this and they're watching us pour our lives, our hearts and souls into this.
[01:02:27] Speaker A: It is this thing. They are. I think that that's something that I wish I had been more aware of is how closely my kids were watching, were paying attention. Even when I'm like, oh, it's terrifying, they're not paying attention. You know what I mean? They are. And then it's not even just the things that you say or do. There is, there is this soul connection of the attention of the intentions behind what you're doing that your kids. And when they become teenagers, wherever there's hypocrisy, I'm telling you.
[01:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah, they can, they'll smell it out.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: They smell it a mile away. A mile away.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I think my 6 year old has gotten a jump start on that.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: I don't know.
[01:03:10] Speaker B: I don't know if she's waiting for the teenage years.
[01:03:12] Speaker C: Well, I, I. Not to change the subject too much, but I will bring this back to cpg. The coolest thing about CPG that, that I've realized over the, the past year is that there are a lot of people who are trying to make products and are, are doing really good work to make products that are healthier. And that's why, you know, the new topia, networking with the cpg, we've, we've experienced that too, is everybody is so supportive of each other because it feels like we're all kind of on this same mission to try and do better.
[01:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:44] Speaker C: And something that I do want to bring a call to action that, that you kind of talked about earlier of like, you know, people feel helpless. What can I do? You know, there's so many big problems. Um, and I spoke to the, the food director of Cooper ISD yesterday about just how do we change the snack bar? And her answer was kind of a little bit scary. And she she kind of said that, you know, obviously there's a lot of financial elements involved in politics, but a lot of the new guidelines are, are ruling. They, they kind of rule out Whole Foods. And, you know, I think it's, it's absolutely great to be excited for, you know, the make America healthy again. We know we're, we're all on board, but there's also this thing that I haven't quite seen yet that I experienced yesterday of what could happen is, you know, we could make some slight changes. And the people who are going to have the resources to change are the same companies that poisoned us for the past 50 years. They're going to slightly tweak their ingredients list and they're going to have plenty of resources to do that. Then they're going to go upcharge that product.
[01:05:02] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[01:05:03] Speaker C: A whole lot more. And then they're going to then be the ones that started the problem and then profit from the problem again.
So something that I think that parents can do of kids.
And this is, this is, you know, I just want to start the conversation because it's so complex and it's so layered, but when it comes back to what can we do? Just like talk to people.
Your voice is. Most people think their voice is. So, you know, they, they don't understand how strong a simple email to a principal can be or just voicing their.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: Concern how much difference it would make if one school sources their ground beef from a single rancher.
Just, you know what I mean? Like, I'm going to need x thousands of pounds of ground beef.
[01:05:58] Speaker C: And so to do that is they. That local rancher has to come in with the lowest bid. And that's almost impossible when you're going up against a huge, you know, farm.
[01:06:10] Speaker B: So, or, or the parents need to get involved and say, hey, I don't care if it's the lowest bid, if there's a funding gap, like, we'll cover it, right? Yeah, so we'll support it.
[01:06:22] Speaker C: So I don't think that parents should sit back and go, well, actually, there's all these changes coming from the new administration and it's about to happen. Well, I think it's great, but I don't think we should sit back and think that our government's about to take.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: Well, and also a really great example of this is I was in Sprouts probably a year, two years ago when all of these Climate Smart grants came out under the last administration. So they gave money to large corporations to give money. So they subsidized Large corporations to subsidize farmers to put in regenerative practices. Okay, so I'm looking on the shelf and seeing a $7 can of soup that says regeneratively grown.
And next to it is an organic can of soup that is like $3.
And then there's a conventional, and it's like 99 cents. And I'm thinking to myself, 99 cents, $7. First of all, we don't even have a certification for regen. Like, what even does that mean? They just made that shit up. Pardon me, you know, and put it on the label.
[01:07:42] Speaker B: Now it's getting real.
[01:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And then what happens when the money's gone? I mean, I asked the Leader in Washington, D.C. this question, like, okay, farmers are getting incentivized to. To do this.
Companies are making products and giving them the label.
And that money's going to be gone in five years, but that product will still be there.
And they're like, well, we. Our. Our hope is that they'll continue to incentivize farmers. And I'm like, what is the saying about wishing in one hand and spitting in the other? I'm like, you gotta be kidding.
You know, like, that's not gonna happen. Why? They don't have any incentive to do that, you know, and so that is.
I completely agree. You know, and that's where, you know the conversation my dad and I had about, like, how greed is the max, maximizing profits is the most important thing, rather than how do we impact people, planet and profits, what's the best for all three of those things? So maybe we aren't reaching the maximum profits, but actually we're helping people and we're improving the planet that we live on.
[01:08:59] Speaker B: And I think one thing to add with that and to kind of highlight what Ian's saying too, is how do we push those to small ecosystems?
[01:09:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:09:08] Speaker B: Because taking it back to what Ian said, you can feel on a global stage, you can feel like your voice doesn't matter, but it's your kids school.
[01:09:21] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. It matters. Do you all know who's in charge of the school lunch programs for the state of Texas?
It is our Ag Commissioner.
And our current Ag Commissioner is Sid Miller. And I just heard him on an interview talking about how all the changes that he's made and how he's fixed things and how much better they are.
Be great to have a conversation with him, because if this is something that he's passionate about, why couldn't you take a single school in Lubbock, Texas?
And see what else can be done. I'll tell you like in other states that I have been to and seen, there are states that I've been to where I've been in small communities and there's not a single school that does not have a huge garden, a huge garden outside of it. And so right now Farm Bureau has a grant for schools to apply to put in a garden. And kids are more likely to eat something that they have an invested interest in. You know, a vested interest.
[01:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. My daughter hates tomatoes. My, my mother in law grows them in her backyard. She'll eat those tomatoes because she thinks it's cool.
[01:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:10:29] Speaker B: You know. Yeah. A thousand, a thousand percent. But it goes, it's, you have to affect change at your level. Like.
[01:10:35] Speaker A: Yes. Right.
[01:10:36] Speaker B: We joked around in the military or who, who was it said the worst phrase in the English languages? I'm here from the go. I'm from the government. I'm here to help.
[01:10:48] Speaker A: I think that was Kennedy.
[01:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:50] Speaker A: Kennedy or Reagan, I can't remember anyway.
[01:10:52] Speaker B: But it's so true. Like you have to affect change at your level.
And if you're waiting for the administration, whoever they are, I don't care what your belief is, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. So let's roll it. And this goes back to like what makes this country great. Right. The American spirit. That, that like that grit and that determination of like if you want something to get done, roll your sleeves up, get dirt under your fingernails and go make it happen. And it's true. I mean, you know, what did it take for you to get that meeting with, with the couple emails? Yeah. Like we, we expressed the same interest that our, our daughter goes to a different school and we pulled the, the person in charge of the, of their food program aside and we're like, hey, we would love to stand up like a committee. And they were like, we would love you to do that.
[01:11:45] Speaker A: I think I, I really do. I mean that's what I have found is the people that oftentimes we think of as the bureaucrats are actually just our neighbors.
[01:11:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And they, and, and they want help. They want help.
[01:11:58] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:59] Speaker A: Yes, they do. Percent and they, you talk about the people who are, they're really bearing the burden of, of the problem.
[01:12:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:12:06] Speaker A: You know, and, and they do care. You know, and so. Right. I mean whatever we can do as an organization, this is part of, you know, where our heart is, is how do we bring change right here where we are.
[01:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:12:20] Speaker A: And make things Better, you know, so anything that we can do, you know, we're. We're all on it. And I've already thought in my mind, like, two people that you need to meet, you know, in Lubbock, that would just be great, you know, partners for setting. And I think one thing that we have to remember, too, is that we at. In the positions that we're in and the school that you're in, you know, is so different than say, like, Lubbock High, where everybody's on free lunch, you know, because so many of those kids don't have parents to advocate for them, you know, and, you know, so how do we maybe start somewhere where it's easier, but then bring that to people that are going to be part of our, you know, children's generation, that's who, you know. So we can't leave those other people out of the equation, because what we want for our kids, we need to be helping the kids around them in their generation, you know.
[01:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah. But you start, you solve it in one place, and then 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes it.
[01:13:23] Speaker C: Create the foundational blueprint at your level.
[01:13:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:13:27] Speaker C: And then.
[01:13:27] Speaker A: Right. And I will say, I think one thing that right now, I mean, I do feel like with the administration that we have now, that there is a sense of wanting to make some changes. And if there's a way to do that through usda, who's the one who supplies our. A lot of our lunch things, you know, and. And the state and also, you know, make America healthy again. Like, how can we take your lofty things that you're saying are going to happen and actually put feet to them, you know, in our communities, that's, you.
[01:14:05] Speaker C: Know, that's exactly what needs to happen. That starts with parents and people at the ground floor.
[01:14:12] Speaker A: Well, you know, and I think it's so. We get so worked up about making sure that we vot when the president election comes around, but I think we forget so often that we need to be voting who our county commissioners are, you know, who's representing us at the city level.
Those are. Those impact us way more.
[01:14:29] Speaker B: Yes, 1,000%.
Yeah. We get up in arms and we'll fight our.
Our cousins and brothers and uncles over who's who we're electing president.
Very little impact on your daily life. Right, right. And then all these local elections come and go, and no. 1, the turnout is abysmal. It's abysmal. Yeah, because we're just so disengaged.
And. And really that's what we need to be focusing on is that, you know, how do we again push that ecosystem small and like, you know, right in our tribe of 150 people, those are the. Those are the people we can actually influence.
And what are we doing to, like, be a force of change and be a. For a positive net force in those small.
[01:15:17] Speaker C: And when you do engage it, you. It changes the way you perceive it. Instead of getting mad and feeling helpless, you actually have, like, a little bit of agency and you don't get mad. Instead, you get. You see a problem and you. You think that you can do something about it.
[01:15:32] Speaker A: So, you know, something I learned kind of the hard way or my poor. My poor kids were the guinea pigs, but when I was homeschooling, I would be like, I don't think they're learning this. And then, like, try to, like, cram a bunch of stuff, you know what I mean? Like, we gotta. You know, I've gotta get them to get this concept or whatever and try to cram it all in at a day. And when I realized over time was a small drop fills the cup in the end, and if I pour it all in, they're gonna lose more than they're gonna acquire, you know, And I think about that now in, like, change in the things that we do is like, even if it's just a drop a day, eventually it builds up over time.
It does.
Thanks, guys. This has been amazing.
[01:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:16:20] Speaker A: And Beefy is wonderful. We came here to talk about Beefy, and we talked about a million other things, but.
[01:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah, securest route, you know?
[01:16:26] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. But I. I mean, it's all connected because everything is connected.
[01:16:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:16:32] Speaker B: Yes, ma'.
[01:16:32] Speaker A: Am.
[01:16:33] Speaker C: That's the message of the day, right?
[01:16:34] Speaker A: That's it. Yeah, that's it. Everything's all connected. Right. Thank you, guys, and thanks, friends, for.
For joining us on this winding road of conversation today, which was really great.
We look forward to the next episode and having you join us again.
