184 Anthony Corsaro on investing in regenerative CPG brands after curing an autoimmune disease with nutrient dense food

Anthony Corsaro, director of business development at Regenerative Food Systems Investment, joins us for a discussion on the importance of CPG brands for the regenerative transition and the next Regenerative Food Systems Investment Forum that will take place on October 12th and 13th in Denver, Colorado.
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Why is CPG so important in the regenerative transition? Anthony has made 18 personal investments into the regenerative ag and food space. He healed his autoimmune skin disease with nutrient-dense food.

More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/anthony-corsaro.

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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Why are CPG or consumer packaged goods companies so important in the regenerative transition? And I'm really looking forward to the upcoming regenerative food system investment forum on October 12th and 13th in Denver, Colorado. Today we're chatting with Anthony who runs the business developments there and has made 18 personal investments into the regenerative food and ag space. Plus he healed his autoimmune skin disease by nutrient dense food. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume. And it's that we as investors, big and small, and consumers start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community. And so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you, and if you have the means, and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. That is gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. Or find the link below. Welcome to another episode today with Anthony Corsaro, Director of Business Development at the Regenerative Food System Investment Media Company, but most importantly, the forum, which is going to happen on October 12th and 13th. I'm going, I would love for all of you to see you there in person to meet. So I'm very excited to unpack the forum, first of all, but we'll do that in a later part of this interview, but also the personal story of Anthony, who has been connected to the space for quite a bit and is very active in it. So welcome, Anthony. to the show

SPEAKER_00 2:03

thanks great to be here man appreciate

Why are you doing what you are doing? Why Soil?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

it and so as always the first question how did you end up focusing on soil

SPEAKER_00 2:12

yeah um so my family's been in the food business for almost 100 years my grandfather was you know an orphan actually in indianapolis and he was second or third generation italian american and at that time there wasn't a lot of opportunities for folks like him but produce wholesaling was a low margin but a decent opportunity to make an income. And so my dad followed in his footsteps. I told myself I would never follow in their footsteps. And then I actually ended up kind of eating those words as a young adult and worked in the family business after it had been acquired by a private equity firm and learned a lot, but took a step away after, you know, getting great experience there to deal with an autoimmune disease that I've had since I was about 14. And through, you know, the journey with the disease, food is medicine and environmental toxicity were really the two biggest barriers to me being healthy. And I kind of solve those on the sabbatical and on this decade plus long journey. And I just, I don't remember the very, very first thing about regenerative agriculture that kind of sparked my interest. I mean, obviously, I kind of watched the biggest little farm kiss the ground, people were talking about it. I listened to a podcast with with Dr. Zach Bush. But it was, you know, the topic overall was just a book I couldn't put down. And I just got totally captivated by it. When I was on the sabbatical, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I just couldn't, I couldn't stop learning about region ag, I couldn't stop researching it. And I realized that, you know, my family had bought and sold millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of food, but I had no idea how food was grown. You know, I knew how to unload it and put it away and repick it and send it out to grocery stores and merchandise it and sell it, but I had no idea how it was grown. And so I kind of got obsessed with, with soil health and region ag and just dove in from there

SPEAKER_01 4:03

and do you remember what like the trigger that healthy food healthy soil and your own health is connected because I think many people it's very easy to now talk about it and say okay of course it's connected and we see the reports coming out we see books coming out this year but it's not such an obvious connection because otherwise many more people would make it like do you remember in your journey trying to figure out what to do with this autoimmune disease you took a right or left turn at some point and ended ended up focusing on food. How did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Through a lot of trial and error and some really good naturopathic and functional medicine doctors that finally, after banging it into my head for quite some time, that it was super important, it just sunk in. And seeing is believing. That's a saying for a reason, right? And so my disease is skin-related, and I just started to look better overall, totally, and my skin blemishes started to go away. And so there's just no better kind of proof in the pudding than that. And And that to me is an extremely important piece of regen ag overall, because if you go to the farms, if you go to a regen farm and you go to a conventional farm in the same day or the same week or the same month, and you can really see, touch, feel, smell the difference, like you, you get it. You don't even need, you don't need the research or any of the, you know, all the other great things that we have. But once you see, touch, feel, smell, you get it.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And it could have stopped there. Like you said, okay, I fixed it for myself. And then you might, I don't know, do a bit of advocacy work for maybe people with the same issue and then sort of stop there and continue to work in the food space or somewhere else because maybe you were tired with that. But you didn't. What was the trigger there to say, no, I'm going to actually dedicate the rest of my career to maybe the rest, like a good portion of your career to that, to do more than just fixing my own issue?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah, the exact trigger, I don't know. I think it just made too much sense. And I was just so, so excited about it. And all also started to see really early on, you know, there wasn't, I mentioned Biggest Little Farm, I mentioned Kiss the Ground, and I was listening to a ton of your podcasts, and I kind of noticed we just needed a ton of education and content circulating about this topic. And so your podcast also taught me, like, there's all these great pioneers doing investment work in the space, but we still don't have anywhere near the capital from a public or a private perspective flowing into the space. And so I think just early on, I saw that void, and I I was in a couple angel deals outside of Food and Ag, and my mom's a pretty seasoned angel investor, both her and my dad. And I just went to them and I said, hey, I have some capital. Would you guys help me if I started to look at this space? I really believe that it's the future of food, and I really believe there's an opportunity for all the impact, yes, but also solid financial returns here. And they really supported that, and that's kind of turned into what Outlaw Ventures is today. And there's no teacher in life like it. experience you got to get your hands dirty and so um i think just opening myself up to that deal flow open myself up to that network and then i found rfsi and then all these things kind of started to snowball and domino and it turned into the beautiful thing it is today

SPEAKER_01 7:16

and how skeptical i'm putting words in their mouth where your parents about this they're very seasoned angel investors they've seen the food space from inside and from the family side and you come with this um i've seen this documentary and i would love to invest in region food and egg. What was their honest response to that?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah, they actually got it right off the bat. So I give both my mom and dad a lot of credit. I think in that is for a couple of reasons. One, they had saw my transformation from a health perspective and how food played a part in that. I think my mom was also exploring that for herself. And then we owned a produce distribution business. So we sold fresh, healthy food to people. We didn't sell Twizzlers and Skittles to people. So we always ate pretty well I would say especially versus the mainstream we still had the classic I think 90s children American sins of fast food and vegetable oils and some things that I definitely don't endorse now but overall we ate pretty well and food being Italian Americans was always a huge piece of kind of our vitality and I think they understood it right off the bat actually and so they supported me a lot and I really appreciate that

SPEAKER_01 8:29

and so Outlaw Ventures now a grew into, I think, 18 investments. What's the rationale behind that? And what excites you in that? What excites you in the portfolio or the companies you've been working with? I obviously put a link below with all the portfolio companies so you can dig into that deeper. What has the journey been like?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, it's been a true learning journey, which I've really appreciated. And like I said, there's no way to learn in this life better than just doing. And so the portfolio, 18, like you said, two funds. One of the fund is, is non food and ag. And then the other fund is, is trail capital. Who's obviously a pioneering voice in the region ag, you know, VC kind of world. Um, and then 16 directs one is non food and ag and the rest are food and ag. And within that 15, you have, um, three distribution companies, one, the existing family business, and then two kind of new distribution businesses to ag tech on farm, uh, one apparel that's regeneration nation, one apparel, that's the non food and ag and one food service slash food service tech, a little bit of debt into stewards. So I would call that FinTech and then six CPG or consumer packaged goods, which is where I kind of saw the biggest gap from an angel side, right? So if you're going to do early stage equity, if you're not going to do debt investments, you really have brands, you have tech and tech can be ag tech, FinTech, supply chain tech, right? But I think we've seen some traditional food and ag VC go into more of the tech stuff because the multiples are better. The opportunity to IPO is better than in CPG. But I really think there is this void right now to support growth stage and early stage CPG and regenerative CPG, which is kind of being discounted because the multiples aren't as great. Usually, you know, the two to five X revenue, right? So they're not as high as some of those tech valuations and multiples. But I think there's a great opportunity for impact and returns in that space.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

And just CPG is considered producer no what is that consumer

SPEAKER_00 10:35

packaged goods

Why consumer packaged goods?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

packaged goods so it's the package side of things it's not the skittles obviously but why is it such an exciting space for you apart from the fact that it's neglected and not so much money is flowing into which is always a reason to look at things but always also a reason to be skeptical so why did you get so excited or are you getting so excited because it's clear that your portfolio is leaning towards that if in the future we'll be doing more investments I'm imagining it will be in that space Like what's the exciting piece, both from a return perspective, but also from the regeneration perspective in the CPG space?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, there's a lot of reasons. You know, what gets talked about a lot in this conversation is we have to create market demand. We have to create consumer awareness and brands are the greatest vehicle to do that. So brands that taste great, look great, tell great stories. I love brands. I love branding. I love working on brand strategy and go to market. So it's just fulfilling for me to help those organizations with those things. So that's kind of one big buck And I think the second big bucket is you can have the chicken and the egg conversation of, okay, well, do we need to ramp up production first? Or do we need to ramp up kind of end market demand and brand demand first? Right. And I think we've seen with has organic scale to the level that we want it to know, but you have to have brands, you have to have anchor brands with some scale or collab, you know, a collaboration of smaller brands, creating some scale together that creates that market demand and pull through for the products, which is going to create the demand. for the practice implementation and integration on farm.

Why is now the moment of regenerative CPG brands?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

And... How difficult is it to start a CPG brand and to grow it compared to a tech brand, for instance, or compared to other pieces in this puzzle? I mean, they're all tricky and all difficult, but I'm just imagining getting into sales channels like supermarkets, et cetera, or are you actually seeing the biggest potential, I don't know, is online and go direct to consumer. Like, why is it possible now compared to maybe 10 years ago? We see organic brands, of course, grown. Many have been absorbed by others and have gotten reasonably slash good returns actually we have seen some IPOs in the regeneration space like Vital Farms etc so what's different now and why is it such an exciting one apart from that the consumer probably is ready or seems to be ready at least but it still doesn't mean it's easy to set up a cliff bar which just got sold but something like with reasonable size and not just a mom and pop company that makes great marmalades but sells at the farmers markets and it stays there

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah. So it's a super cashflow intensive business though. That makes is one, one of the big challenging pieces. Um, and there is this thing in CPG, just like there's in this, you know, regional organic transition on farm is the valley of death and people, people usually say it's somewhere 24 to 36 months. And then I think there's kind of individual valleys of death in the scaling from zero to 1 million scaling from one to five, five to 10, you know, five to 25, 25 to 50, 50 to a hundred. And there's kind of these certain benchmarks, but there's, there's all kinds of good information around CPG brands and what we really, what that playbook is, right, to invest and kind of scale those organizations. But why is now the time or what's the compelling reason to invest there? To me is the consumer, like you said. I mean, if you look at the data on growth in the set and you look at Gen Z, millennials and the kind of products that they're demanding, this is going to be super important. And I think, you know, over the long term, if if you look at Walmart, Target, Kroger, all of these big retailers and the sustainability commitments they have to make, especially if we get into where they have to publicly report things, it's gonna be about market access even more than market premiums. I think there's always gonna be a place for market premiums for brands that have the best taste, the best ingredients, the best XYZ, but eventually Walmart's gonna buy your product because it has a lower carbon footprint or Walmart's gonna buy your product because you use less water Like that day is coming and may already be here. And so I think from a long-term resiliency perspective and in a return perspective, it's going to be about market access. And so the people that are on the forefront of building these supply chains outside of the typical, you know, CPG status quo, I think they're going to have a competitive advantage. And I think that even the larger ones are going to have to start doing that. I mean, we see that with General Mills and all these other people making these huge commitments to to reach an ad

SPEAKER_01 15:09

and the other piece like consumer seems to be there maybe the supply chain or the supermarkets or the large distribution seems to be starting to get a head around in terms of talent like are I don't know people that have run this playbook before that maybe were in the organic space or were in the sort of quote unquote sustainability space or health space are they coming into this space and can say okay I've shown that I can run a bar company or I run a liquor company or run a tea company or whatever to that 100 million or whatever like do you see the talent coming into the space um that we we absolutely need because it seems like a very um it's a playbook but it really helps if somebody has done it before

SPEAKER_00 15:52

yeah i think i think most definitely and i think as retailers continue to support regen brands we'll see that that wave of talent i mean heather terry the ceo of good same foods is a perfect example of that she worked on midmore which was another chocolate company that scaled to a pretty significant number i don't remember the exact revenue number. And now she's, you know, founding CEO of Good Sam, right? And trying to grow this completely regenerative smallholder indigenous farmer supply chain for chocolate, coffee, nuts, these great products, I think baking mixes as well that they have. So I think that's a that's a perfect example of, it's just like climate tech, right? We're going to see this, we're going to see this wave of talent go from tech to climate tech, we're going to see this wave of talent go from food and ag traditional to region food and ag. I mean, I'm, I'm an of that, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, no, absolutely. So, and this is very US focused. Do you see, are you following the space outside the US as well or outside North America? Let's include Canada and Mexico as well, but do you see the outside there similar movements or you get approached a lot or what have you seen if you have any outside North America?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, I think I've heard some good things about what's going on in the UK. I've looked at two or three deals there. I've looked at a Brazilian deal a So there's definitely some things going on outside of the U.S., but I definitely don't. I wish I had more time to look more in those places than I do. But, you know, once again, it's going to come down to what the consumer is demanding, what sustainability commitments the retailer has made, and then what kind of reporting those people are going to be required to do, because that's going to determine how they purchase.

Why is RFSI worth attending?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And let's talk about what's observing your time, actually, which is the forum, which is coming up. We're a recording this end of summer 2022 actually the end of August so it's very soon and not very soon so I'm imagining you're extremely busy like what's what's going to happen because I've been there three years ago or we've been actually three years ago which was amazing two years ago obviously it was online last year it was mostly because of travel impossible to to get to the US and and you've moved places like what's going to happen in October

SPEAKER_00 18:01

yeah year four super excited I mean Sarah and Rachel on our team have put so so so much work into this event. So, so thankful for them and all their hard work. But I think it's gonna be a big leap for us. I mean, we had, we had about 180 last year, which I thought was really solid given the, I forget what variant at the time had just kind of reared its ugly head, but people were still very excited to be there, be back in person. We'll have 300 plus this year. We'll have 35 plus speakers, two full days of, of stuff going on, you know, nine plus hours of networking. We've got new fundraising happy hour. We've got pitches, we've got breakout sessions. We have a new venue, like you mentioned, where we'll have different things kind of going on more than just one stage. And that's the only the only thing going on. So I'm really excited about it. We're really excited about it. Super appreciative of our sponsors and speakers and all the people that will help us bring it all together. You know, traditionally in that event business, everyone signs up late. That's just part of our business. Right. Half the tickets are already gone. And I think this Wednesday will be the seven week out mark. I mean, that's unprecedented. And so it speaks to a few things. One, the space is exploding, which is great and needed. And two, you know, we're really taking a step up as an organization and as an event and hopefully bringing a lot of value to the space. So we're happy and proud of both of those things.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

And for people coming from overseas, let's say, how would you quote unquote sell it to them? Because obviously it's a long trip if you come. I remember people came from New Zealand, Singapore, Australia. I saw Brad Clover there. I think he's going to come back as well but they have a big business in the US as well now so how would you say for people coming over from Europe or coming from let's say South Africa or places far away Argentina etc why should they absolutely be there and just to make sure that it's not a US party by itself

SPEAKER_00 19:52

yeah yeah and we're definitely trying to weave more kind of international participation into the event so I appreciate you teeing that up I mean look it's the one thing like it in the whole world so that would be my number one selling point and number two you know if if you are coming from an international perspective, you know, the majority of the people there will be from the U S or from North America. So you'll have unique talking points to really network with folks. And, you know, a lot of people in the event business talk about our event does this or our event does that, but we have had businesses started from the RFSI forum. We have had investments made from the RFSI forum. We have had commercial partnerships made from the RFSI forum. Those are facts. Those are not, you know, it's not marketing lingo. So if you work in this space and you want to get things done, you go to the R upside forum.

What should smart investors, who want to invest in Reg ag and food look out for?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

It's a good sales pitch. And just to shift gears a bit to unpack. And of course, I'll put the links below if you want to sign up and you want to see us there. Definitely make sure you do. And you actually do a lot online as well. So if you cannot make it, there's a lot of online activity going on in general. Next, you do a lot in Australia. You will do actually quite a bit in Europe. It all goes well. And so there's a lot happening online. Plus, you have one of the best newsletters out there. Thank you. weekly which is a nice news update always but what do you feel like let's say the second part of 2022 where we're coming out of or out of it depends where you are incredible heat waves and a lot of attention for climate at the moment a lot of attention actually for food and ag the farm bill in the US is being discussed there's a lot of discussion in Europe obviously around climate and land like what would you tell let's say we're on stage at the forum and I would ask you what would you tell all the investors here in this space actually we can do this in a few months but what would you tell them obviously without giving investment advice what would you tell them to look out for to focus on or to dig deeper into once they leave that room in Denver and go back to quote unquote work let's say the day after what would be your apart from CPG obviously what would be your like go and look there and go and dig deeper because that needs attention or that's something to dig deeper into

SPEAKER_00 22:37

yeah I mean cliche answer but take a systems approach and really do holistic due diligence for what you're looking at. I think so many times we get caught in the carbon tunnel vision and the carbon silo. And even there's certain things in region ag that I think we haven't still fully vetted from a holistic and systems approach.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Like?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

You know, I think the whole...

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Just listen, as you can see, we are on video recording this. You can see him doubting if he wants to go there or not.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

I think the whole spraying or no spraying conversation uh is is very nuanced and people have a really dogmatic approach to that usually one way or the other i tried not to because i do think it's really really nuanced and i mean mainly pesticides herbicides um so that that would be one which is

SPEAKER_01 23:25

interesting for somebody that brought up toxic toxicity at the beginning of this conversation

SPEAKER_00 23:30

yes yes so there's right but there's different there's different levers there's environmental toxicity there's soil health there's farmer profitability and so it's the perfect example of we have to create systems that produce the least negative externalities and the most value across all those different levers that I just said, right? And when people think about food and ag, I had the great pleasure of growing up in a distribution business. So I had to think about what's going on with the growers, what's going on with the packer shippers, what's going on with us and our execution, what's going on with the retailer, what's going on with the consumer. So I got a great holistic vision where a lot of people grow up in the silo of I'm a farmer, I am this, I'm that, right? And you have to think holistically about everything to make really well-informed decisions. And to me, we got into the position that we are in because the system that we have creates a massive amount of negative externalities. So every investment needs to be looked at with, okay, making this change or making these changes is going to produce less negative externalities. That's really the framing that needs to happen. And that's how I think about that one.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

And so let's say there are a few areas which require more nuance, let's say, but other places that are just completely ignored. Do you see places there would say, please go and look at that corner because we need, I don't have a solution, but we need, need attention, brains, money, et cetera there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

One thing that I think gets ignored a lot is. Thinking about all those different pieces in the supply chain, but thinking about all the workers and laborers in those various places of the supply chain. I said on the Modern Acre podcast a week or two ago, don't get into food systems change if you haven't at least worked one hourly wage job in food. And I've picked those produce orders. I've worked in our processing department at the family business. And you really need that experience to ground you. And so I would encourage all investors to do that themselves, get out on the farm, do something, or make sure you're talking to those people. If you're not talking to those people or people that have great depths of experience working with those people, in your due diligence process, you're missing something in the due diligence process.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

I would still argue to also do it. Yes. Go and pick grapes for a day. Go and pick whatever. Go and just to, like you said, to ground you and to, first of all, see the extreme privilege anybody, probably anybody listening to this has. And then make sure you ground your investment decisions well. And so what, let's say in themes on the forum, this year, what are the main things that are, let's say, different from last year or what would you like to highlight? What are the big themes that you see that changed over the last 11, 12 months since the last one came out?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yeah, so themes overall, day one has a really heavy land working capital on farm production kind of a vibe to it. And day two has more of a supply chain brand technology vibe. And we thought that was a good way to kind of divide and conquer. I mean, look, that's the hardest part. about what we do is talking about everything we need to talk about in the length we would like to talk about it in, in just two days. I mean, region ag is, is exploding right now. I mean, region ag investment is, you know, we, we, once again, we get in our silos, but it's equity, it's debt, it's grants, it's blended capital, it's production, it's processing, it's distribution, it's ag tech, it's, you know, it's all these things. And so, and I haven't even mentioned all the different geographies, right. And all the different cropping systems that we need to talk about it in. And so we definitely do our very, very best to curate what we think are the most important conversations to be had. But those are kind of the two big themes of the days. I think the biggest change from last year is just we went really heavy panels in one stage last year to guard against losing people to COVID last minute. But this year, I think it'll be much more participatory and engaging from an audience perspective because we still will have panels, but we'll have presentations, we'll have fireside chats, we'll have breakout sessions, we'll We'll have the pitches. We'll have all that networking time that I mentioned. So I just think it's going to be an electric event. So I'm looking forward

SPEAKER_01 27:48

to it. And why moving location? I mean, Oakland, I think, was two years. I mean, one year done online. Then last year was San Francisco slash Oakland. Now it's Denver. And what triggered that?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

No crazy strategic reason. I mean, I think when we look at the landscape of investment, Oakland and Denver-Boulder seem to be the two hubs in the United States. So I would

SPEAKER_01 28:09

definitely think... is by far the biggest production state if you look at it. But the brand space is happening there maybe.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

I

SPEAKER_01 28:18

mean, Trailhead is located there, Madcapital is located there.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Right, Replant. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 28:24

so it makes sense to be close to that. And at the end, if you find a good location and a good hotel, and close to an okay airport, it doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, you need to be by major airports, so obviously you check that box. And for us, it was really about finding a venue that had that diversity and just had some of the aspects that we wanted. And this venue has all those amazing rooms for all that stuff I just mentioned. It has great natural light. It has what we need to serve the region ag and food, you know, from a catered perspective.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

That's what it's going to be. Like, is it going to be like catering wise? Because I remember three years ago, that was the normal, I think, Marriott catering. Nothing against that, but it was the normal Marriott catering. What can people expect?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

So really tough part about the events business. If you work with a hotel venue, they were very rarely... never let you do anything different to the catered food menu, let alone bring in kind of snacks and packaged foods. So that's always a challenge. And that was another reason why we went with this venue was because we've solicited an amazing lineup of people to bring packaged foods for the coffee breaks, the receptions. I mean, we're talking ice cream, beer, wine, snacks, coffee, A2 regenerative dairy. We got it all for those sessions. And then on the catered side, found a caterer that has a lot of great relationships with local organic and regenerative farmers. And then we have a couple of cool brands that are yet to be announced that I think are going to supply the proteins for, for both of those catered lunches.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Super very, very interesting. Now, because I mean, it's a challenge, like how far can you push a location? And of course making it, making it work in a budget, especially having demands that are not so, so normal is, is not easy. Exactly. And so what, what would you consider a success? Like after, let's say we wrap up the 13th and I ask you a few questions of October and ask you a few questions like after the event, what would you, I mean, of course it would be great to have deals signed, et cetera, but that would probably happen the weeks after. Like what would you consider a success after the event?

What would you do if you were in charge of a 1B investment portfolio.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Yeah, I think it depends on who you're talking about, right? If I'm an institutional investor that's there and interested about the space, if I'm going to make an investment or I really better understand the space and I'm ready to roll, that's a success. If I'm trailhead or a fund manager or someone like that, and I get a couple of commitments from people like that, or I find a couple of new deals to diligence, that's a success. If I'm an angel investor, I get educated and I play some capital, that's a success, right? So I think it depends on the profile, right? We have activators coming, which is the people that we call that are getting invested in. So if I'm a soil health indicator organization and I can partner with two investors to scale my technology to their fields, that's a success, right? If I work at Kiss the Ground or Farmer's Footprint and I'm an advocate But I want to help spur, you know, better success on Farmville Advocacy or Greater Consumer Education. And I find some investors to partner with or some activators to partner with. I mean, it just runs the gamut. And like I said, we don't want to be an event that's about fluff. We want to be an event that's about results. And it's very challenging to do that as just a four-year-old event. But we have a track record of doing that. And so my barometer of success is we go back to our sponsors, we go back to our attendees, and we say, what did you get? it out of that, right? Qualitative and quantitative. And that's how we measure success.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Let's flip the question in a sense. I mean, Outlaw Ventures, you have 18 investments now and it's your personal capital, but what would you do, actually, if you would be in the space right now with a billion dollars? You had a billion dollars to invest. I mean, with inflation at this high, it probably should take 10 billion, but let's say a crazy amount of money. And you can make any investment you would like in terms of length, et cetera. What would you focus on? What would you prioritize? Of course, I'm not asking for the exact dollar amount. I'm asking what would you... prioritize if your resources were quote-unquote unlimited?

SPEAKER_00 32:38

It's a super easy answer for me. Vertically integrated evergreen land fund that buys degraded row crop land, transitions it to multi-species pastured livestock and build your own processing, get vertically integrated, have your own brand that you sell, all those different various meat products, grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, pastured pork, eggs. I would do that immediately and I would use some of that money to also fund research that shows all the ecological benefits of those systems and the transition and the last thing i would do is i would set aside a portion of that money for media to show these transitions tell that story to both consumers and investors to basically spur more of these systems created

SPEAKER_01 33:23

and because you believe or see or know that let's say in the animal protein space when done well that's where interesting returns are both environmentally but also financially because you you didn't hesitate a second you weren't like okay i'm not going for fruits i'm not going for coffee i'm not going for chocolate now i'm going for animal protein yeah um what what triggered that or what's the the reasoning behind that

SPEAKER_00 33:48

look a lot of contention on on animal protein conversations right especially kind of the the regen versus food tech thing but for me meat consumption no not at all like i know one of the

SPEAKER_01 33:59

listeners erof uh what we had on here talking about olive oil actually is great you should follow him on LinkedIn because every time somebody posts especially the chart about beef the impact of beef of world what is it world of data which is extremely outdated and all the LCAs are already like they can go into the bin but he responds to that properly like explaining why it doesn't make any sense and I applaud him for that because somebody has to do it but yeah there's a lot of discussion around it and you would say okay let's go to the heart of that matter and let's follow it research it but also put it produce a significant amount of this money would be actually used to produce a lot of animal protein.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yeah. I mean, look, just from a pure demand perspective, demand is growing. Consumption is growing. So I don't think it's going anywhere. I don't see people eating fake meat and these other alternatives that have been offered or whatever we're going to grow in a, in a vat somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And one of the most powerful things for me, in my region journey has been, I went to see Eric Perner and rep provisions, his, his home ranch in Oklahoma. I went to last summer. And he had planted just a really small plot of organic corn, and he had left the land right next to it as perennial pasture that the cows and the pastured pork and poultry had grazed on. And I mean, it's organic corn. It's good. It looked nice, but bare soil, no water infiltration, no fertility, and the perennial pasture, all kinds of species of grasses, insects everywhere, birds coming to it. And we did a little experiment where we actually watered it and kind of watch the lack of water infiltration, but it was just such a powerful experience for me. And, you know, ecology 101 in North America is that the vast majority of the land was grazed by bison. It's like, we need these animals to have properly functioning ecosystems, but we have to get on the offensive. I think on the animal protein side, especially on the regen animal protein side of this is the right way to do it. This is the, this is the benefit of that. And I think from a land steward perspective, you know, I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, which is like the capital of corn and soy everywhere, you know, with GMO seeds sprayed by a ton of chemicals. And I drive by those farms and I just see that. And it makes me want to cry, you know, and I think we could provide such a better lifestyle for, for people in the systems that, that I'm articulating as, as, you know, maybe being another option.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

And just to open another rabbit hole. So what do you think you're an investor in Trinidad actually of their investment in, let's say, the cell-based meat, regen meat. I got a lot of responses to that interview. I'll put the link below. I think it was with Pete Oberle. But what do you think of that approach? What do you think of that, which feels at the edge of many things and many people would say, I'll get uncomfortable with that. But what are your thoughts?

What do you believe is true about regenerative agriculture that others don’t believe to be true?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Yeah, look, venture capital is designed to take the most risk and invest in the things that are the most out there. So do I think it's the most purest region thing in the world? Absolutely not. And I think the trailhead folks would admit that to you. And I think they've explained themselves well on your podcast and other platforms, you know, for that investment. But you know, I think, I think it's interesting and it should be

SPEAKER_01 37:20

tried. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's like a trade in professional sports. We don't really know how it's going to work until five or 10 years until the funds over and we see the impact it's made or the return it's created and both really. So, TBD, I would tell you.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

And this is a nice way to bring up a question I'd love to ask, inspired by John Kemp, who hopefully is coming. I don't know. I should check with him. But I met him last time. He's coming. He'll be there. I'm already looking forward to that. But anyway, he always asks, what do you believe to be true? And he asks in general agriculture, but I like to ask it about region act. So what do you believe to be true? So where are you contrarian? What do you believe to be true about region act that others don't believe to be true? So we're at the event, at the forum, and where do you feel very different different there? Like even among your tribe, among your people, where do you feel that you think very, very, very different?

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing in the agriculture i

Can we feed the world regeneratively?

SPEAKER_00 38:13

People need to start investing more money faster. Um, you know, I, I think many people would agree on that, but yeah, nothing, nothing is more frustrating. Like I'm a big content person. I love to talk, but nothing frustrates me more than people who talk and don't do anything. Um, and there's a ton of people in the space not doing that and putting their money where their mouth is and acting and and moving very quickly and doing amazing work. So don't wanna cast it like it's the entire space, but I do think there's also a lot of people that love to talk and having been kind of totally ingrained in the ecosystem now since January of 2021, all I've seen them do is talk. And so the time for talk is over and let's start doing. So that's really where I'm contrarian is let's learn by failure. If you talk to any of the Regen pioneers from just a pure on-farm production, They didn't learn by thinking about it really long time on their porch. They learned by doing it trial and error and seeing what worked and we have to invest a huge amount of capital in that trial and error with the appropriate stipulations and kind of things that go along with that.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing in the food space, or egg, food and egg space, or in general, what would you change? What would be your one magic wand power change you would make?

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah, I mean, the subsidies are an easy answer here, and I know you get that a lot. I think it's got to be the answer because they're just so, it's just such a non-level playing field. But maybe taking it a step further, if you mandated that everyone had to grow food for human beings, I think that would be that would be a pretty significant radical shift that would change the way they reproduce you know food and what we grow in this country

SPEAKER_01 40:06

and I mean always the scale question comes up and there's some research I think it's one of the understanding ag people actually showing like simply the amount of land we have currently in production for biofuel animal feed etc is more than enough to offset let's say for the animal production side because obviously many people are not obviously many people and easily say, yeah, but we need to produce this corn for what you just mentioned on the organic corn side. We need to produce these calories and an animal, a cow needs X amount, kilos of this, et cetera. What do you say to people when they start this, we need to feed the world? We need to feed the world rhetoric. What's your normal response? I'm asking for myself because we obviously get that a lot. Yeah, it's all nice and funny, but it's never going to feed the world. What do you say to people like that?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah, I mean, I would tell those people, look at PepsiCo, look at General mills, look at ADM, look at cargo, look at all these people that have massive businesses and are publicly traded. And I mean, it's their behinds if this bet on region ag is, is incorrect. And we could argue that it's not regenerative enough or it's not, you know, it's, we need to hold them accountable to do more. Like I get all that. And yes, that's all correct. But like those people being on the region ag train shows you that this thing can scale or at the very least that the people with the scale are committed to figuring out how to do it so there is no greater indicator that this thing's real this thing is going to scale than that to me

SPEAKER_01 41:34

and so what do you say to the people like okay but that's those were exactly the ones that created most of these issues like how do we make sure we don't just repeat let's say the sustainability movement or the organic even and don't get the results we need not only on soil health but definitely also on societal health

SPEAKER_00 41:54

yeah I I don't know. I don't know what the silver bullet answer to that one is. I think it's just a combination of a lot of things. I think it's really a nuanced conversation that doesn't have some super black and white buttoned up answer. So not trying to be evasive, but I think that will be, that will be really hard. And you talk about land ownership in this country. You talk about power control over the food system. You talk about social justice and equity. There's, there's a ton of issues there. And we need to do more in regenerative agriculture. I think to talk about those things, I need to do more. I try to do more there. But I think it comes down to really the, I think you got to start with the ecological consequences of what's going on, right? Because that is the commons that we all share. So one of the things in region ag that gets overlooked, in my opinion, and the easiest way to make an impact is just input reduction. Like if we just could spray less herbicides, pesticides, nutrients, et cetera, like that is the easiest lowest hanging fruit and it's honestly very easy to track i sprayed four gallons this year you know versus 20 gallons last year and so to me it's it's a totally different topic but it does play a role in you know that is that is taking something that has traditionally been a super um singular focused me my production system decision and expanding it to what what is the world at large going to kind of see from this choice that i'm about to make and how can we enable and incentivize a better decision there.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

And how can we track and how can we make sure to get a lot of the toxicity and a lot of the fossil fuel honestly out of ag as soon as possible because it makes all of us extremely fragile.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

And No, I think it's a good way to end, actually. I'm looking forward to the event, as you can hear, I think, if you made it this far. I want to thank you for sharing your journey up to now and sharing, of course, what is shaping the upcoming one in October. And I would invite anybody that can make it to do so and hope to see you there. Thank you so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Thank you. Thank you, Kun. Thanks so much for your support of RFSI and having me on and just everything that you do for our space. It's super important. And it was formative in my early journey before I knew what I wanted to do, just being able to learn from the people that you have on the show. So I'm honored to be a guest.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Thank you so much for those nice words. Thanks, Coon. Thanks again and see you next time.