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Marc Wandler | Susgrainable
82 Plays7 months ago
It’s time to get your upcycling on! No, this is not a spin class… upcycling has nothing to do with riding a bike, what you’re about to hear a conversation with co-founder Marc Wandler from Susgrainable — he’s an energetic and inspiring entrepreneur who loves to talk about the circular food economy, the future of food waste, and baking delicious things that can dramatically improve our health.
In this episode we talk about how the grocery store could be a transformative experience, how his healthcare work played into his start-up venture, why it’s so important to have transparency throughout the food system, and how upcycling and localizing our food systems is so important. And yes, we talk about cookies and pancakes and banana bread made with flour that includes spent barley from beer making.
Learn more at https://susgrainable.com.
See who’s behind Aisle 42 at https://www.ethicalfoodgroup.com/podcast.
Here’s a summary of this episode:
Enhancing Customer Experience Through Technology: He advocates for using technology to improve efficiency and customer service, not just to save labor costs. This includes automated checkouts for convenience while maintaining traditional cashier interactions to preserve a personal touch.
Addressing Customer Needs: Marc emphasizes the importance of catering to various shopping needs, ranging from quick in-and-out visits to more immersive, event-like experiences.
Vision for a Better Food System: He discusses the decline in grocery shopping experiences over the past five years and calls for a collaborative effort among all players in the food industry to enhance customer satisfaction and streamline operations.
Sustainability and Upcycling: Marc's company focuses on sustainability by upcycling beer waste into barley flour, which is then used to create healthy, fiber-rich baking mixes. This not only reduces waste but also provides consumers with nutritious alternatives.
Impact of Personal Experience: Marc shares how his background in healthcare and aviation has influenced his approach to tackling inefficiencies and promoting sustainability in the food industry.
Future Plans and Challenges: He outlines the challenges and future plans for his business, including expanding the use of upcycled barley flour and enhancing its impact through further product development and market expansion.
Overall, Marc Wandler’s interview highlights his commitment to transforming the grocery shopping experience through innovation, sustainability, and a focus on customer satisfaction.
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Transcript
Introduction to IL-42 and Upcycling
00:00:00
Speaker
This is IL-42. It's time to get your upcycling on. No, this is not a spin class. Upcycling has nothing to do with riding a bike.
Guest Introduction: Mark Wandler and Circular Food Economy
00:00:14
Speaker
What you're about to hear is my conversation with co-founder Mark Wandler from Susgrainable. He's an energetic and inspiring entrepreneur who loves to talk about the circular food economy, the future of food waste, and baking delicious things that can dramatically improve our health.
Exploring Grocery Stores and Upcycling Potential
00:00:30
Speaker
In this episode, we talk about how the grocery store could be a transformative experience, how his health care work played into his startup venture, why it's so important to have transparency throughout the food system, and how upcycling and localizing our food systems is so important. And yes, we talk about cookies and pancakes and my favorite, banana bread, made with flour that includes spent barley from beer making. So let's jump in. Here's Mark Wandler from Siscrainable.
00:01:01
Speaker
Mark, I'm pretty sure you were one of the first people I reached out to when this podcast started to percolate in my brain. So I'm really excited that we're finally able to have this chat. Now I know you know it's coming, so let's get into it.
Vision for Future Grocery Stores: The 'Grocerant' Concept
00:01:15
Speaker
The big question, as I've heard you call it the other day, Mark, if you were to look into the future, if you could design your perfect grocery store experience, what would it look like?
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a new term going on behind the scenes that I actually think describes it amazingly. And there's only a few places doing it, but it's it's called the Grocerant. And it's basically a half split between the traditional grocery store and the restaurant experience. And I love it because
00:01:43
Speaker
It really captures the full aspect of food. Like you get to, a lot of these places have transparency. You're seeing the food cooked in front of you, but you can really like, you can tackle your hanger before you go grocery shopping. It makes it a little bit more of an event. So there's three things I'd love to see in the grocery store of the future.
00:02:04
Speaker
more transparency into the food system so customers can truly like understand more of where their food's coming from. I think efficiency is incredibly important and that's just to keep it like mine and so it's utilizing technology but not from a concept of like let's save labor but let's enhance the consumer experience.
00:02:26
Speaker
So like, let's go and take a automated cash register. That should be maybe one or two of your tills and it's meant for like an express thing.
00:02:37
Speaker
Most people should be going through the cashier and let's keep going with that experience and make it an experience. And the last piece, I think it has to be convenient. You want to go for the experience sometimes, and sometimes you just need to get in and out. So consumers go to the grocery store for a multitude of reasons, but I think the one thing that has to be really taken care of is actually creating an experience of it right now.
00:02:59
Speaker
a blend of farmers market, a blend of what grocery stores are doing, and the biggest thing for any consumer who's behind the scenes, and I call myself a six-year-old to the industry because I came from healthcare and the aviation industry, and the big thing I want is more people
00:03:17
Speaker
to understand that right now the food system, we're not really working together to create the best customer experience. There's a bit of infighting over margins and how to like drop costs and stuff, but how can we actually work together in the food system? All players from processors, farmers, grocery stores, making sure everybody's validated, everything's changed so much. So can we go back and how do we work together?
00:03:43
Speaker
to actually give the customer what they want. Because no offense, grocery store experience in the last five years has just consistently gone downhill. You have thought about that answer. Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit. I love it.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. The experience has become very, it's, there's a lot of big box. There's a lot of, you know, volume buying. There's a trend towards more for less and it can get a little overwhelming, especially if you're looking for an experience that doesn't fill you with anxiety and doesn't feel like a mad dash and doesn't feel like you're being put into a gauntlet of chaos. So yeah, that's a really great approach.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's the word I use is it's become so transactional. And it's not like the experience. And the one thing that I think like right now for early stage founders, the biggest thing is like demos give a great customer experience. Customers actually really love demos. But the one thing I've been trying to do with grocery stores is can you actually bring two companies in at once?
00:04:47
Speaker
because then you're actually not doing it alone. So when you don't have customers and there's a slow period, you actually interact with each other. They could be complimentary products, but there's always this energy that draws people in. And so it's, we've started seeing it, but I'd like to see more of that. And like, let's build off that. How do we get energy back into grocery stores? Food brings people together. It brings cultures together. There's food fusion. So cool. And how do we capture that in the grocery store? Sounds great. I love it.
00:05:15
Speaker
Okay, so let's go back in time a little bit. I'm going to take you back in time, actually. It was in the 90s. Do you remember the 1990s? I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember the 90s. I was actually a six-year-old back then. Okay, there you go. Well, there was a breakfast cereal called Grape Nuts. In fact, I think it's still around. It was a Grape Nuts commercial that I saw. It was the first time I'd ever heard anyone in a marketing message talk about fiber.
00:05:43
Speaker
first time. Later in life, brands like Holy Crap found their way into my lifestyle. These are breakfast foods. But even now, the importance of fiber in our diets, the health benefits of fiber in our foods, especially in packaged foods, it's not really talked about.
Importance of Fiber and Upcycling in Diets
00:06:00
Speaker
Maybe it's because it's associated with some you know something evil like carbohydrates I don't really know but you and your team spend a lot of time learning about and talking about fiber so let's get into fiber why is fiber such a big deal for us.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, so first and foremost, fiber is the biggest macronutrient missing from the North American diet right now. So I worked with diabetics primarily. Well, I worked with people with chronic health conditions back in my days when I worked for Alberta Health Services. And when it comes to metabolic diseases or conditions, basically one of the biggest components of those metabolic conditions is the fact that, yeah, we've eaten an increasing amount of sugar.
00:06:44
Speaker
but we've also taken all that fiber out. So if we go back 40 years, kind of before I was born, and that's when we started actually consuming a ton of beverages, sugary beverages that had all the fiber taking out. And this is everything from now starting to be your coffee, your electrolyte beverages, Gatorade. So all this stuff
00:07:09
Speaker
originally was meant for athletes who, if you're an athlete, which I was as a varsity athlete, you need to consume a ton of easy to access sugars when you're doing your high level sports, because you're using it up immediately. But most of us have lived a bit more of a sedentary lifestyle. And this is where we've kind of tried to make fiber fun.
00:07:28
Speaker
in how we communicate it out because it is so important. I see so many people talking and there's so many products on the market that talk about these amazing antioxidants, micronutrients, stuff like that. But if you're not giving your body the time to digest it, if your gut is like a slip and slide, then you're not even absorb it. You're paying so much for these like
00:07:50
Speaker
doses of antioxidants and you're not even absorbing it. So this is more around gut health. Fiber really helps with that gut health. It gets it back in balance. There's pre and probiotics. There's soluble and insoluble fiber. Like I could take this and talk about fiber for the full podcast. I won't. But this is kind of the premise of one of the components of our business. And the main health side is protein and fiber and trying to leverage this
00:08:17
Speaker
desire by the North American market to have protein, but also how can fiber be piggyback off of that conversation and how do we get fiber actually into people's diets, getting more than 50% of the fiber into people's diets? Most people don't even get 50%. How can we get people to 100% and how can we decrease these long-term health costs that the North American market is experiencing? Whoa.
00:08:42
Speaker
I have a feeling the zip folder in your head is about to explode, but calm down. Thank you. Thanks for that high level fiber note. I feel like I know I've put you in a cage right now asking you to hold off on talking about your products, but that's because I also wanted, I feel like when it comes to upcycling and in the podcast, we've talked a little bit about upcycling here and there and there's more interviews coming that we're going to dive into upcycling.
00:09:10
Speaker
When I hear you talk about upcycling,
00:09:14
Speaker
The reason why I get excited about your approach to it is that you have a very tangible take on it and you see it as clearly being more integrated into a lot of the foods that we could be eating and a lot of the ways in which food could be produced and processed. So I think for the consumer, though, it's a little bit of a minefield when it comes to upcycling as a term on packaging. It means different things to different people. Different ingredients are upcycled differently.
00:09:44
Speaker
But it's an important piece of the puzzle. So when you look at fixing a broken food system, what is it about upcycling that gets you so excited?
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, so fixing a broken food system, I mean, there's multiple ways we can talk about this. There's the social side, there's the environmental side. We're really targeting the environmental side right now with our business. And the one thing that we've tackled is we're tackling it at one level in the food system. So we're looking at beverage processors, primarily because that fiber component, when people are making beverages, you're actually removing all that fiber.
00:10:20
Speaker
It's a lot more technical to work with it at the food processor level, but everybody should understand that we need to fight food waste across the entire supply chain. It's happening at farms, it's happening in distribution, it's happening at the grocery store, and even 23% is happening in the consumer home. So everybody has to focus on this together. And the biggest thing we try and make is we don't want to guilt people into it, we want to make it fun.
00:10:45
Speaker
So when I teach out sustainability, food sustainability, there's kind of three pillars to making our food system more sustainable. The first is fighting food waste. Like if we're putting all these resources, because a ton of resources go into growing our food and getting food to your door, we need to make sure we're utilizing all of it. So that's kind of why.
00:11:07
Speaker
I'm like super passionate about this one because it's like I've never liked wasting my time, never like wasting my money. And the waste of food, I got to see so much of it in the airline industry. But I grew up in a home that we didn't have a ton. And it's just like food was never wasted. My mother, the best story I have about this is my mother on Fridays was left overnight. And Fridays is the night where you might invite your friends over for sleepovers and stuff like this.
00:11:33
Speaker
So my friends loved coming over to my house my mom was amazing cooking would get so creative and they get to sample like what we have the whole week and me and my sister were like left overnight no my mom was such an amazing chef that obviously from scratch was better.
00:11:50
Speaker
But this is where it really comes down to your lived experience. And there's roots in my education. There's roots in my family. And I just think it's so stupid that we're wasting so much of the food. And when I found out about this stat, I had to do something about it. Second component is, and I won't get so deep into the next two, but going plant-based, there's a lot less resources that need to be involved in plant-based
00:12:17
Speaker
food. So I think the one thing about that market is it's gotten a lot further forward, but they're up against some really big bodies in terms of there's like beef associations, there's dairy associations. There is really no plant-based, big established plant-based association backing plant-based foods yet. I think it's to come, but it's because it encompasses so many different things.
00:12:43
Speaker
So that's the next thing. If there's consumers out there, try more plant-based products, give it a go every once in a while. It doesn't mean you have to go completely plant-based or go vegan. It just means consume a little bit more of it because it's less resource intensive on our planet. And the last one is localizing our food system. So I shared out yesterday, I got to chat with some people in government, and I was like, when it comes to food, that's something we need to consume every single day. And so when it comes to the distribution cost,
00:13:12
Speaker
why we now have these cultures and we have vibrant cultures in North America. Can we start growing crops or having these, like, whether it starts in a greenhouse, whether it starts anywhere, but how can we disrupt the mileage that happens in the ecosystem? And I know you know that when you, when we talk about my business, we'll say what we're doing about it and why doing what we're doing is kind of setting the stage for other businesses to copycat.
00:13:39
Speaker
But yeah, those are the three components. So fighting food waste, going more plant-based, and localizing things. If we can do those three things, we are going to naturally have a more sustainable food system.
00:13:49
Speaker
But these areas,
Challenges in Sustainable Food Systems
00:13:51
Speaker
they're expensive to change. They are long systems that have been in place for a long time, and there's a lot of stakeholders in the mix. And so whenever those things get disrupted, it comes with new costs and new expenses. And the money side of it, it gets passed on to the consumers. Consumers in most cases,
00:14:12
Speaker
have to pay more for products that take these things into deeper consideration. Is that sustainable? Can consumers just keep paying more and more and more for things that do good things for people on the planet? It kind of seems a little bit scary.
00:14:26
Speaker
No, so this is where we'll see how many grocery buyers and stuff listen to this. But there's this whole thing going on right now with the grocery stores, some of the big five and this new grocery code of conduct. I think in the investment world, in the money world, we always look in the past instead of looking at what can we do for the future.
00:14:48
Speaker
As we went through this pandemic, grocery stores, more people just ended up having to go to grocery stores naturally. So food service shut down for a certain period of time. Food service is now recovering and having its recovery. But grocery stores got a big advantage in terms of more people were shopping there. They struggled with labor, but people had to go there. So they ended up making this huge sum of money.
00:15:11
Speaker
And the system's really geared towards grocery stores. If they know what they're doing and the big five do, as prices go up and as margins go up, they actually keep making more and more and more. And nobody else in the system is kind of making more, but it's this. Distributors are starting to get to make more because they're upping their costs and stuff like that. But how do we take this like, Hey, you just made $600 million.
00:15:37
Speaker
Kudos to you, that is capitalism. But now let's talk social capitalism. How are you investing this into a future, better system? So they've just made a bucket load of money. Instead of this being like, cool, here you go, shareholders. How about, hey, here's 70% for the shareholders. Here's 30% to match with the government who's saying they're motivated. And let's take the two biggest players with dollars
00:16:04
Speaker
and actually drive this forward. Because you know what? The cost is only going to keep going up and at some point we have to switch. So is that government subsidy of food processors? What does that look like tangibly?
00:16:18
Speaker
I think tangibly it looks like them offering up, trying a lot of things. So this is how innovation kind of works is throw 10 to 12 ideas against the wall. Don't even come up with all of them yourself. Come up with them, basically do what we did at the BC Food and Beverage Founders Group today. We had our very first session and I asked for five minutes at the end
00:16:40
Speaker
to basically get a brainstorm around what ideas do people want to see executed. So what do they want to learn? And lo and behold, after getting the few first initial ideas out there, all of a sudden we have a list of 20 ideas. And then the last task I asked, because now you have 20 ideas, you've got to triage it. So I said, I want everybody, everybody has this form, put your top three that you want to learn about on a form.
00:17:06
Speaker
So this is where grocery stores can kind of take a little bit from this crowdfunding model, a little bit of like, there's all types of innovations that can happen. Throw 15 ideas out there. They have a massive audience. Communicate it to like, hey, how do you want to see this money stent? How can we make a better customer experience for you? And then start basically investing in the areas.
00:17:29
Speaker
Obviously, food processors need to come to the table with a little bit of cash, but I think the majority right now, because grocery stores and government have the most of it, is how do we reinvest so that our food system doesn't completely fall apart? Sounds bold. I'd love it. Let's do what we can to make that happen. Let's go to the grocery shelves. Mark, what do you guys make as sustainable? What are you guys putting in bags? What are you guys driving around in trucks? What is going on as sustainable?
Innovative Products: Upcycled Barley Flour
00:18:00
Speaker
Okay, so our core, core product and what differentiates us is our upcycled barley flour. So that is the core ingredient that sets us apart from everybody else. And what upcycled barley flour is, we take beer waste and we turn it into a shelf stable flour. And when I say beer waste, it's not the leftover from your cup of beer. It's the grains behind the scene that you never see. The first step in the brewery process is they steep out the sugars and all the fiber, protein and minerals remain. So then it's we create this flour
00:18:29
Speaker
And then when we can launch our first facility, which is our next big hurdle, and we're getting closer and closer to this happening, which is amazing, is we create added value products. So for us right now, there's three baking mixes. There's a pancake waffle mix, there's a banana bread mix, and there's a cookie mix. And honestly, we also did these three mixes for a multitude of reasons, which if you want, ask me, I can dive into it further. But
00:18:53
Speaker
Basically, the whole concept is getting people to utilize it, getting familiarized, put it in front of customers, get their feedback, but also get the attention of other food producers who are like, and that's what's been happening is we actually have massive food companies coming to us being like, how much flour are you producing? Because they're like, we would love to start doing some R&D on this stuff. And that's how we really grow our impact. So I always say, we're impact first, finance is second.
00:19:21
Speaker
Because it's an economics play. And when we get the first facility off the ground, that's when the unit economics really come in. Me and Clinton and a few of our early investors have really dug deep and bootstrapped this thing along. But we're now at the stage where we need to bring on some investors to help us move this thing forward, get that first facility going. And really, the impact comes from getting this
00:19:44
Speaker
more grains rescued. And I'm also super excited. This is sometimes a sticking point with a few investors of, are you really staying focused to the company? And I'm like, we have to grow the community. This is not an easy thing. There's a whole awareness piece that's happening at the same time. This is nascent. So there's a lot of times where I partner with industry groups and stuff like this.
00:20:07
Speaker
And you'd be surprised at how little time I spend. It looks like I spend a ton of time, but I think it's because I'm just so ingrained in everything I'm doing that when I say yes to public speaking, like I had 11 years at WestJet where I did a multitude of public speaking. I've spoken on stages. I did a ton of presentations through the NBA. So when most people think like, oh, you have to spend this much time for a presentation, like
00:20:32
Speaker
We have our employees create decks. Sometimes I look at it eight hours before I need to present at this point in time. So flour, you guys are, you're making flour from beer waste, but that beer waste isn't just sitting there waiting for you to pick it up. It's time sensitive, right? Cause it can, it goes, does it go moldy or funky or does it start to break down? Like what's happening with this gunk that comes from the beer making, you know, that you guys need to collect and do something with?
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah, so I will be transparent. I don't know the full breakdown process. This is where I have an amazing co-founder in Clinton who understands the full operations. He is a farmer. If anybody ever wants to start a business, I highly encourage to partner with a farmer because they're the hardest working people out there, but it does spoil.
00:21:18
Speaker
After 24 hours, we actually aim to use it a lot earlier in the system. So we have this eight hour window that we play with right now, and we dehydrate it as fast as possible to make sure it then becomes shelf stable. There's no issues around food safety and everything when it comes to food safety.
00:21:37
Speaker
you want Clinton running your food safety side of things. He won't let me move forward on things until he's got it figured out. But he is next level on that. That is the biggest logistical hurdle to getting this thing out there. So once you dry it, it then becomes shelf stable again. Grains are very shelf stable and last quite a long time. And we basically take it back to that point and then we mill it. And then basically what you end up with is a keto flower.
00:22:06
Speaker
Some people treat it as a flour. Some people treat it as a baking additive. Obviously I can't market it as a baking additive. People won't understand that, but think of it a little bit like flax. Like flax is super popular now. Ours is similar to that, but it's upcycled as well. And so people are adding, say if they make, if they make their own waffle mix or they make their own baking item, they would use a portion of their rest of their flour would be what you guys have made.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, we recommend starting with about 10%. So the only things you wouldn't be able to make with any of our flowers, things like croissants or something like that, because it's heavy and you won't get the rise you want to get. But it works really great. And this is kind of a lot of our business happens accidentally on purpose because I put it in customers hands and we find things out. But our banana breads are best selling skew.
00:23:00
Speaker
I think it's because it's got this double rescue story. Almost everybody's got bananas sitting in their freezer. And so we also now are working with grocery stores to merchandise it next to the bananas, because there's not a lot of banana mixes out there. But the fun thing is, is you can create with that banana bread mix, you can actually make a pumpkin loaf, you can make a carrot, cake, bread, you can make zucchini. So like when your produce is starting to go,
00:23:26
Speaker
If you have this mix on hand, it actually is very simple to use it that way. But the thing I'm most excited about about our product is how our consumers are using it. They're actually using it as families primarily. And they're using it as an education tool because kids are really into sustainability. Parents are really into this like healthy eating and getting more fiber in the diets. And if you get them used to this texture early on in life, they're probably going to do it for the rest of their lives.
00:23:51
Speaker
So this weird thing happening, weird and amazing thing, is that they're kind of coming together. And we played off that with our new shippers that are going out into stores. And so I'm really excited to get back into stores. And I think I have 22 demos. I haven't been in a store doing a demo for a while now. But it's one of my favorite things to do is actually interact with the customer. So I can't wait. I'll probably be exhausted by the end of it. But I'm high energy right now. So you can tell I'm raring to go.
00:24:22
Speaker
I can tell. You're always high energy. I've never seen you low energy, so that's good. You're maintaining it very well. I love that comment you made about how normal people in our kitchens can actually rescue food. The idea of using bananas that are a little bit brown to make banana bread, that's not revolutionary. We all do it. Usually we either do it too early and the bananas aren't quite soft enough, or we wait too long and the bananas get a little funky.
00:24:49
Speaker
But you're right, there's a lot of fruit and produce in our fridges that end up in the organic spin.
00:24:55
Speaker
And for the longest time, as consumers, we've been proud of ourselves for using the green organic spin, like good for us. We're putting something in an organic spin, not into the landfill. But the reality is that it's still waste. It's not being used properly. And if it goes, I don't know organics recycling very well, but turning it into food is still, I think, a better way to go, given all the resources that went into it.
00:25:22
Speaker
I think it's really cool what you guys are doing. I've had your product many, many times. I think we're just, we just wrapped up. We had a bag of your mix at Christmas time. We baked a couple things with it. It was just fantastic. Like so good to have in our home. So really love it.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, amazing gift at Christmas time. I just want to add one thing because you're talking about the sustainability side. But the fun thing about bananas, so as bananas actually ripen, they ended up having a higher fructose concentration. So the sugars really end up crystallizing and like, they get more sugary. So that actually pairs better with our flour.
00:25:57
Speaker
And when you want to get that balance, when you're talking full carbohydrates, there's the sugars and
Balancing Sugar with Fiber in Baking
00:26:03
Speaker
the fiber. And you want to get both. So this is where I think there's also this health component to it. And it's not just environmental. That's the beauty of our product, is we're selling on both health and sustainability. You are getting that proper balance. You're rescuing that. And most people won't know. And I'm not going to nerd out on the details, I promise.
00:26:24
Speaker
Fructose is one of the most aggressive sugars on our gut. So pairing it with fiber is really important when you are going to have something that's high fructose. And let's be honest, most banana bread recipes have a lot of sugar in it. Every banana bread is high sugar. We get that in stores all the time. They're like, this is really high sugars. And like bananas are very naturally high in sugar. But I'm like, compare us to another banana bread. And on the macros, we're better.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yeah, but most recipes include a cup or two of additional sugar. So you can get pretty out of hand pretty fast. Yeah, everything's mindful eating. Like honestly, you probably shouldn't eat baked goods all the time. I always say if you're eating a baked good, we kind of have this way that we eat our desserts late at night after dinner. You should probably be eating your highest sugar foods first thing in the morning because you're actually just depleted your sugars overnight.
00:27:20
Speaker
So it's kind of this weird way of flipping it around. This is more of a personal thing, but you can take it to see if dieticians and nutritionists would validate it. Some will, some probably won't because there's varying opinions within that community too. But yeah, the sugars are a full other conversation.
00:27:39
Speaker
I get that. All right. Well, I saved, I think one of the best things for last, and that is you've recently, you were on national television. You pitched the dragons on your dragon's den. You've got a deal. So give us the scoop. What was it like to be on TV? What was it like to be in that whole dragon's den environment? Talk to us about the deal. Give us the dragon's den scoop, Mark.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, so that was a fun experience. The hardest part for me, because I am a talker, is not being able to talk about it since we filmed back in May, and the amount that's changed in our business since then. So the funnest thing for me was like, the one thing you control is your pitch, is that 90 seconds at the beginning,
00:28:18
Speaker
And it was really funny because you have to audition first and you go through a couple of like pre-screenings. A lot of companies that I know didn't hear back for like three, four weeks. We heard back the very next day. They're like, yeah, we want you guys on the show. And then they're like, okay, we need to go bold for the show. What are we going to do? And they're like kind of throughout their ideas. And I'm like, why don't I eat spank rain from a garbage can, like fresh spank rain? And they're like, would you do that on air?
00:28:42
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, it visualizes the problem. It's literally, which had an interesting experience because then the dragons were like, you just ate something out of a garbage can and now you want us to eat it off this plate. So it's not something I do again, but it was great for TV. Did you have to practice? I can't imagine eating a handful of that.
00:29:00
Speaker
I did practice once because I'm like, okay, I'm going to need to talk and answer questions later. We made sure that it was at the end of me talking and then Clinton and Ang were going to be talking for the next minute and a half because you're eating something that is like, and I took a handful and stuck it in my mouth. And then we had the beer to wash it down. So it was all part of the place. I'm like, I might need a lot of beer to like actually get this down because it's all fiber protein and it does need to be mixed with other things.
00:29:25
Speaker
But yeah, it was a ton of fun. One of the dragons wanted to actually eat it too, but the fun thing about it that people didn't get to see is like, we're very food safe and stuff like this, but this is for TV. So I'm like, I have a bucket and we had like the little bucket that was refrigerated cause we had to get it. We sat on set for a while behind the scenes before you get to go on. So the spent grain by the time we, we got in front of the dragons was about 24 hours old and we're like, okay, you need to put this on top. And they're like, yeah, yeah, no problem. And I was like,
00:29:53
Speaker
This is where Clinton immediately is like I don't think I don't think we can trust that it's going on top. He's like, do you not want to eat the spent grade anymore? And I'm like, I'm eating the spent grade. You might get sick tomorrow. I'm like, I might. But I'm like, that is a risk I am willing to take in business. There's a ton of risk. And I'm like,
00:30:09
Speaker
I have pretty much a gut of steel. I'm willing to try everything. I truly, this goes back to a market as a six year old. So I am glad I have Clinton sometimes to be like, don't eat that. But yeah, I know it was a great experience all in all. The advice we got is just as good as like getting money. The one best thing about after it's airing, because I'm like, this is where my, me and my co-founders are very different. They were most nervous when we were going and actually getting in front and having a pitch and do that.
00:30:38
Speaker
I love big personalities. I'm a big personality. I fit right in, and I can go back and forth with them. In a nicer way, they told me to shut up at one point, so Clinton and Ange could talk. But they were a little bit more polite about it. Not as nice as like, okay, please be quiet. But they're like, we've had enough from you. Let's hear from the other two. But yeah, no, it was great. The best thing that came out of it is Manjeet really validating the fact that this is a problem for the craft breweries. The big breweries have solutions for this.
00:31:07
Speaker
But the craft breweries who are still working the day to day and they really want to focus on their beer and almost everybody who starts a craft brewery never thinks about the cost of this as like a food waste management cost. So we come up with a zero cost solution for them and we have big plans for them to be part of our marketing as we move forward. There's a lot happening behind the scenes that people don't know about. That'll be for future podcasts.
00:31:32
Speaker
But yeah, no, exciting opportunity, got a lot of awareness. Retailers are excited about it. And apparently, yeah, we've even called the next 22 demo days, the Dragon's Den demo tour, because all the retailers are like, when's Mark coming in to do a demo for us with a staff want to meet him stuff like this, because we shared the video and know it's pretty exciting.
00:31:53
Speaker
That's awesome. And you guys are working towards your facility in Calgary is where it's going to, you're getting set up for. That's going to be fun to see that operation come to life.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. So the fun thing about it is that we're actually, this is where the distribution, I talked about distribution early on and how breweries are everywhere. So we actually want to have a more localized system, a three to 5,000 square foot facility where we work with local craft breweries across North America. And so yeah, Alberta's going to be most likely our first facility, but when there's appetite and we can make the economics worth in urban settings everywhere else, we want to do that because
00:32:31
Speaker
That's where the food system, it gets more local. We can work with the local community, work with the local breweries. And yeah, food should be more local. I love it. Mark, thanks for doing this. Thanks for everything you're doing in upcycling and in making beautiful things for our guts. Appreciate it. Appreciate you a lot. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, no, I look forward to it. And you know me, I look forward to sharing this out once I see it go out. Everybody should be listening to this podcast.
00:32:58
Speaker
It's very kind of you. Have a good rest of your day. Thanks again. Thanks for listening to this episode of IL-42 and for sharing our passion for upcycling. Grab a bag of sustainable mix the next time you're shopping online or your favorite grocery store. And if they don't have it, ask the store manager, why not? That's it for me. I'm Corbin Hebert from Ethical Food Group, and I'll see you in the future.
00:33:34
Speaker
you