The First National Egg Brand To Stop Culling Male Chicks | Jasen Urena, NestFresh

Speaker: 00:00
Welcome to Shelf Help. Today we're speaking with Jason Uranaf, Vice President at NestFresh, the egg brand that just became the first national brand in the US to move its entire retail lineup over to InnovoStext humanely hashed eggs. Just very curious to dive into exactly what that means in detail because I'm not all that familiar to be totally honest. But yeah, Jason's been in the egg business for 20 or so years across marketing, sales, ops, basically every season. Netsfresh was started as a family company in Colorado back in the early 90s. It's kind of been a pioneer in just about every certification that matters in the category. So long story short, Jason does that category very well. And so super excited to dive into it. Jason, maybe just first off for the listeners that aren't all that familiar with NestFresh, give us just kind of a quick lay of the land, just in terms of kind of the origin story, why behind the brand, and then what the core product lineup looks like, and then uh we'll take it from there.

Speaker 1: 00:55
Thanks, Adam, for for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Nest Fresh started, the the brand was born in in Colorado around 1991. Uh, but the company actually existed well well before that. Or company was was founded in in 1976. So we're actually celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. The the company was was founded by a guy named Tim Lebersky. He started the company while he was in while he was in college. His father had been in and out of the out of the egg business uh while he was growing up, so he you started to get into eggs to help pay his way through school. And then the the company kind of developed over the years in the early in the early 90s. And like as you mentioned, I've been with the the company for 20 years now, so it predates me a little bit. Really started looking at like, so what is what is the next step? Like what is what is the progression in in eggs? How do we bring some innovation into the category? And what and more importantly, like what are the consumers, what are the shoppers really looking? And then we heard really loudly from our customers that animal welfare was really high on on their list of topics and list of values and how they were and how they were shopping. Yeah. So we started to so we started to get into that area looking, and that's where Nest Brush was really established. Nestbrus was established as an animal welfare first brand. Uh and then really quickly, as we got into that space, like we s we realized you know all the big boys and how they were how they were farming and what small farmers in the country really wanted to do. And it really lined up with our values and what we wanted the brand's new brand to stand for. So while it really started as like an animal welfare brand, uh it really quickly developed into an animal welfare plus small American family farms. Those two things together became the pillars of Nets Fresh. And while we started with cage free at the time, we're talking about the you know the early 90s, we've developed now into uh specifically free range and pasture raising, still with the idea of how do we continue to help small family farmers around the country differentiate themselves and compete with a lot of the big producers all over the country. Over this last you know 20, 30 years, there's been a mass amount of consolidation in farming. Uh farming has not gotten smaller or and more spread out throughout the United States, it's gotten bigger and more consolidated. Right. So a big passion of mine, a big passion of ours at Ness Fresh is how do we continue to add more small family farms throughout the country and give those farmers the opportunity that like our founder Tim had to start a small business, continue continue to grow, and have that security that they know that they're gonna have a home for their eggs at the end of the day. That's what you know is important to us. And then as we started, you know, getting to know a lot of these farmers and the way that they farmed and what their you know, what their values were, environment really became a important topic for us too. And that's we started getting into organics and the now regenerative organics or the first regenerative organic egg in in the country. Wow. So we really focused the brand around those those things. Animal welfare, uh, small family American small family farmer, and what impact can we have on the environment?

Speaker: 04:30
As of June, whole Nest Fresh portfolio is is humanely hatched, and every egg is not even sure if I'm saying this, right? Innovo sexed, becoming the first really national egg brand to do this. Just first off, can you just give me the lowdown of what innovosexing actually is, and then we'll go from there. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 04:45
Yeah, well, you're not uh you're not in the minority in that one. Uh I think the the studies the studies were that the right roughly about 10% of uh the American population knows what happens during the hatching process, what happens to the females and what happens to the males. So in order to explain in ovosexing, I've got to you know kind of go back and when you incubate an egg, and you have you have a flock that lays eggs that are then going to be hatched to then hatch the layer chick that is going to eventually lay the egg. So you have to go back a generation in the flock cycle. These this flock that is going to lay these eggs that are going to be hatched are going to lay just like like human birth rates, 50% males, 50% the females are the ones that are going to go on and go into layer production and lay eggs for that end up at the shelf consumers to buy. The the males, some people think that they're going to go off into the into the meat market, and then you're going to end up eating it as as poultry meat. But that's not the case. The genetics are completely different from the poultry meat that you eat to the poultry or the birds that lay your eggs. So those those males are deemed useless in terms of an economic sense, and then they end up hatching, and then they get euthanized on day one. This has been a practice that's been happening all not only in the United States, but all over the world forever, because you can't find a use for those males. And it's not necessarily a shame thing on any of the companies that are that are doing that because there wasn't an option up until up until we have have done is employed some technology that we went we found over in that started over in Europe, brought it here to the United States, and then started to use that technology to identify the the gender of that egg or that that embryo before it ever gets to hatching. So we can just simply remove the eggs from incubation uh before we ever have to hatch it. So we're kind of we're trying to like spare the the lives of these male baby chicks from getting just being born just to be just to be euthanized. This has been a major animal welfare topic for our industry for for a couple of decades now. There's just never been a solution for it up until up until that's really interesting. Yeah, and um it was just it was it took a long time for us to to get here. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't necessarily uh easy. There was several roadblocks along the way.

Speaker: 07:23
The hardest part of scaling up this a new process, I guess maybe the best way of word to use.

Speaker 1: 07:30
Yeah. They uh it the technology has been there for a few years. There's in in Europe, there's a few several countries in Europe that were using this technology already. So it it took uh myself and uh Mike Sensor, which is been my mentor for at least 20 years in in the egg industry. He's been in the egg industry for probably 40, 50 years. But we went back and forth to Europe, talked to a lot of the equipment companies, the technology companies that were doing this over there. And really the main struggle was how do you scale that technology up in order to be used here in the United States? Because the size of the egg industry in a lot of those European countries are s are smaller in scale than here in in the US. We have bigger hatcheries, uh, for instance. We've our our far or our egg usage per capita is is significantly bigger than most of Europe. So that was the main that was the main hurdle. As we found the technology, it's how are we gonna implement it here? How are we gonna work with the hatcheries here in order to make it as efficient as as efficient as possible? So we talked to most of the technology companies, and then it was trying to find the right partners here in the United States too, the ones that were gonna help us then take this forward because we weren't gonna be able to do it.

Speaker: 08:54
As you were learning about how this technology and process works, anything that was a really big surprise that you were not expecting?

Speaker 1: 09:02
I mean my my surprise really was like how accurate the technology already already was. There is there's a a few different types of the of the technology, and all three of them, the the the three that really that that we looked at were actually relatively accurate at at the time. I was expecting, and this is you know, we had not done a ton of research before we really went over there and started looking at the technology, but I I figured that the accuracy level was was going to be pretty low. But uh once we really got into it, I mean the accuracy level is in the is in the 90 percentile and and above. And now that we're doing it live, I mean we're seeing accuracy levels above 97 97 percent. So that was a that was a surprise. So we ended up working with uh a company called uh AAT that is uh out of Germany, and they produced a piece of equipment called Sheggy, and we brought we helped bring that over. They they scaled it up as to the the size that we needed, and we've partnered here locally in the US with with Highline North America, which is uh the hatchery that we use uh for all of our humanely hatched uh humanely hatched layers. And they went and built the built out the hatchery space in order to house this, you know, house this uh and really enabled us to do it here. Because we don't own our own hatcheries. Uh and it it took them to partner with us, and they've been a great partner in the the whole way in order to make this a reality.

Speaker: 10:30
That's great. From a a number standpoint, I'm curious how the numbers work with an ovo eggs versus your typical mass market eggs, let's say, and like the biggest kind of impact macog standpoint.

Speaker 1: 10:44
Yeah, anytime you you make a a business decision like this, the the dollars and cents are gonna are gonna come into it, right? Like you have to take you have to take that in into into consideration.

Speaker 2: 10:55
Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:56
But you know, honestly, like this this meant you know something to us. It was a it was a problem that our consumers, uh you know, for the whole industry have been talking about now for for years. And there was a yeah, there was a solution out there, and it was honestly more developed than we had originally thought before we really started started looking into it. So when when we started talking to the groups that were kind of gonna help us get there, like I mentioned, a AAT is the technology, uh, Highline North America as the as the as the hatchery, uh, Humane Farm Animal Care, which was our our certifier, uh would help develop the the certification, which is huge, you know, huge part of it, our retailers. And then the stakeholders like ASPCA and Innovate Animal Ag, which are more on the animal welfare side of things. We realized like this is something that should be done. Like, you know, you you sometimes you like you you get beyond the the dollars and cents and say, hey, this is important enough, and and we think that we should do it. And we feel like this is going to be the first domino in a chain of events that is going to lead to the industry really moving towards Innovo sex, uh or as we call it, you know, our branded humane, humanely hatched chicks. Because it's it to me, I think it's going to be something that's going to be like the wave that we saw with with cage-free. For a long time, you know, just commodity caged eggs dominated. Now, over this last 20 years, we've we've seen our industry become 50% cage cage-free because the consumers wanted that. And I think now that this you know, we've proven that this is doable here in the United States, that in ovosexing it's doable here in the United States, that now it's going to then start that domino effect for the rest of the industry. So we we did, yes, obviously there is cost. There's the cost of the technology, there's the cost of building out the infrastructure, uh, there's the cost of learning because you know we don't do everything right the first time. But we wanted it to be available here, so that's why we took that's why we took that step. We wanted to make it, we wanted to make it happen. And we didn't raise it, and we also wanted to make it affordable. So for Nest Brush, like we didn't raise any of our prices to any of our retailers just because we were implementing this technology. So if you're if you're buying our Nest Brush eggs now, it's they're gonna be the same price as soon as we convert them. Right. So you're pretty compelling to retailers, I imagine. Yeah, I mean the retail the retailers like that. Uh and at the same time, you know, we when things are important to us, like we we want to make sure that we're gonna make an impact. Yeah. It not only like on our humanely hatched side, on our regenerative organic uh farm farming side, we are we are competitively priced with non-regenerative organic egg products. And that's because we want it to be affordable enough for everybody to come in and and try it. Because if we're not selling enough units, we're not you know saving as many male chicks, right? Like we need to sell the units in order to hatch the in order to hatch the birds that lay the eggs. And if we're not selling enough units, we're not farming more regenerative organic acreage or adding more small American family farms throughout the country. So we have to be we have to be accessible at the same time. You can't sell eggs can't be sold at $14.

Speaker: 14:27
Totally. Expanding the conversation and just the egg space in general. Um I don't know. I've talked with us, worked with some other egg brand owners in in the past. And um one that they have told me is that like in general compared to other categories, there's a lot more kind of consumer confusion in the egg aisle in terms of like what does cage free mean versus free range versus organic versus pasture-raised? Research shows that the more educated a consumer is, like the more likely they're they're to buy premium, which which makes sense. So I'm curious, does that resonate with you, track with what you what you guys have found historically? And if so, what have you found has been some of the most effective tactics to educate those consumers so they understand why they should be buying more on the premium side of things?

Speaker 1: 15:10
I I think that specialty eggs have grown significantly over the especially over the last five to ten years. Yeah. And is the egg taste a little a little confusing because there's so many different terms in there? I I would agree with that. Yeah, the the it does tend to be a little confusing, but I would also say that shoppers now have more information than they ever had. And that speed of information, regardless of where you're getting it, uh, whether it's just a simple Google search or you're getting it from you know you're getting it from influencers on your social on your social media pages, you're getting it now from AI. They it's so simple to ask one of these LLM models a question, and you can deep, you know, you can go down the rabbit hole with those things pretty pretty good. Totally. So I I think that consumers have the have the education that they need, and if they're curious and want to really get to the bottom of you know how their food is produced, that information is is available for them. And I think that you know, as time goes on here and that and that time cycle speeding up so much that they have the information that they have they need to make the decisions that you know, the purchase decisions that attach to like what their values are. And we're seeing now you know so many more consumers shopping with their values and with their and with their hearts more than they are with their with their pocketbook. Like you know, the the economy the economy is what it is. Our our economy ebbs and flows all the time, and there are definitely people out there that you know are are strained. But at the same time, some of those same people are making the making the choice that like this is important to me, whether it is animal welfare for them, whether it is environmental impact for them, whether it is just you know shop local, yeah, they're buying those products because it means you know, it means something. And they'll sacrifice some, you know, and they're sacrificed somewhere else. So yeah, the there's a lot of there's a lot of terms in in the egg case, but there's also a lot of information out there for customers to really go look for you know what they want and get that information. And I think you asked about the how do you educate a customer. It you know, education is is not easy, uh but what I would say is you especially in today, because of all of the stuff that we've just talked about, the information that's out there, you have to be you have to be radically transparent and honest. Because it it it can't just be a bunch of it can't just be a bunch of marketing speak and like you know, we want to tell the the the cutesy story all all the time. Like you you also have to educate about the realities of of you know the fact that this is how things work in this industry or you know in this in this business. And I find that you know, as we talk to our customers and our shoppers more transparently that way, there's an appreciate there's an appreciation because there's sometimes people are being misled by just the pure marketing of it all. And if they get you know let behind the scenes more and more and realize like, hey, this is this is a real farmer sitting in you know Texas or Missouri or Wisconsin, where we have a lot of our own farmers, like you know, and and they're doing the best job that they can. And they're fan this this production, this egg means something to that farmer. And the fact that you know that shopper is picking it up off the shelf and buying it, it means yeah, that means the world to that that specific farmer. Totally. Uh and are they gonna make mistakes? For sure. Like everybody makes mistakes, nobody nobody's perfect, no brand is perfect. I think leaning into that transparency and that and that honesty really helps connect with with the shoppers and keeps them loyal to the to the brand. Because they know that you know you're gonna you're you're gonna be telling them.

Speaker: 18:58
Totally. I imagine some of these certifications resonate with consumers more than others. Um but I imagine that's some way the brands kind of separate themselves on the shelf. There's all these different brands that's all these different terms, and those are the ones that some people recognize more. I'm curious how you kind of think about that. You mentioned regenerative organic certifiers as an example, but also how that plays into I think humanely hatched is your own trademark program versus third-party certification that you've developed, at least as of as of yet.

Speaker 1: 19:26
So certifications, uh yeah, there's a there's a lot of certifications out there. And then you can you can throw that in with all the terms and the egg and yeah, and and the egg case and how you buddy the waters a little bit more. But you know what we really look for in a certified, well, I guess I'll go back. First of all, it's when when we decided we were gonna start doing these like higher value eggs uh with different claims on them. We wanted our consumers to be able to trust that we're doing what we say that that they're not only gonna have to be, you know, trust trust us, like, hey, we're we're pasture raised. So just just believe that. Now we we want to make sure that there's always a third party that's standing behind our claims, whether their logos are on our package or not, there's always a third party that's gonna verify our claims that are gonna be on our farms, that are gonna be in our processing, our processing lines, to make sure that the consumer has that safety note there, that they are buying what we say that they what they are buying. Now, not all certifiers are are created equal. There's a lot of certifications out there. There's a lot of certifiers out there that are you know just looking for just looking for a check and then say, hey, here's the here's our logo, put it on, put it on your package. So we really you know get into it with our certifiers and want to make sure that they have the same values that we have, like they have the same mission that we're not looking for the certifier that's the easiest. Uh we're looking for the certifier that is going to uphold a high standard and then continue continuously improve that that standard over time because that's what that's what we want to do. We're all about one continuous improv. You mentioned regen our regenerative organic, and when we're our regenerative organic certifier is uh regenerative organic alliance. And they are definitely not the easiest certification uh to obtain. But when we decided we were gonna get into regenerative organic, we said we're gonna go for the gold standard. It took us well over a year, probably a year and a half, to get our first farm regenerative organic certified with through ROA. And we appreciated that that process. It should, you know, if you're gonna make claims like regenerative organic agriculture that you're you're improving the soil and that you're reducing the emissions that you're putting into into the air, and you're you own you're not using specific things, it it should take time to get that to get. Yeah. Totally. So that's what we look that's what we look for in our in our certifire partners. Uh the humanity Humanely hatched. It is Humanely Hatched is a logo that we use on our carton. It's our branding for all of our Inovosex. So we're going to that's on the Nest Fresh, all of our Nest Fresh packaging, and we'll finish that rollout by the end of July. And we're going to use that in all of our other brands as well. So our Country Hen brand, our newborn organics brand. Those will be in OvoSecs or humanely hatched also, hopefully by the by the end of the year.

Speaker: 22:30
Okay. So we're going to use that same branding across. And that's will be something you guys will turn into certification others can use, or is this like this is something you guys really want to own?

Speaker 1: 22:39
Yeah, that's not we haven't really thought about that yet at this point. Early innings there. It's a branding that we wanted to keep consistent across all of our other all of our brands. Yeah. But the certificate, the certification, the third party like you know, aspect of the fact that we want we have somebody in the background so consumers can trust what we're doing is still there because humane humane farm animal care or HFAC is the certification that we use. Got it. Humanely hatched is just the the branding that we use, so it's more recognized, more recognizable. Totally.

Speaker: 23:33
Yeah, that makes sense. From a retail standpoint, uh my sense is that the the egg isle is is a category where a huge percentage of the purchase decisions by shoppers are made at shelf. Assuming that's what you guys have found, what does your in-store strategy look like? Any tools, strategies, levers you found that that really have had the biggest impact from a velocity standpoint, other than well-designed packaging, which is kind of the obvious one?

Speaker 1: 24:00
Yeah, packaging's a big one. In in-store strategy, it's it it kind of varies across all of the different retailers because not all the retailers allow you to touch, yeah, touch the shelf very much or or put up or put up sign each signage. So really your biggest billboard and opportunity is that is that packaging. What you're saying on the claims that you're putting, the certifier logo is like, what the fuck are you talking about? And and and then it would go into okay, individually with the retailer, what do they allow you to do? Signage, you know, signage is is is great. Uh tags that allow you to kind of say, hey, like maybe tell a little farmer story, or highlight locality, depending on on where you are in in the country. Making a bigger attribute call-out, like you know, pasture raise, if you if you can. Those those types of things will help add on to what you're you're saying in your packaging. Yeah. Also, what you put in your carton for for us, and whether you know we put inserts or coupons and things in the in the carton so when the consumer, because most consumers, when they buy eggs, they're gonna grab it and they open it up to make sure that you know they're they're not broken, right? So you know from time to time we'll put a little insert in there telling more of the story of the specific of the specific product, or telling an armor story, or we'll put a coupon in there that will then help them make the decision to trade up to buy you know to buy our product. Yeah. So those types of things are are definitely helpful on show. And then you have your other you know, vehicles, your your pricing vehicles where you have put out some CPRs from from now and then you know, now and again to try to get that price down a little bit to entice a consumer to come in come into your brand. Those are all you know powerful tools.

Speaker: 26:01
How do you think about CPRs and and promos like that in the context of not trying to overpromote, trying to maintain a premium, especially with this humanely hatched aspect?

Speaker 1: 26:10
You have to you have to pro in retail and in CPG, you have to you have to promote. And we we do we do promote, but we try to keep that in balance with the fact that like I mentioned earlier, like we want to be an everyday affordable, affordable premium. Like it we are a premium product. Yeah, there's no question about that. Uh but we also want to take that premium and slide it back towards affordability. We we want everybody to be able to try our nest fresh newborn products. So we're usually going to be somewhere on the lower end of all of the other bigger competitive, like national, national brands. And and then we'll try to pulse from from there with our with our promotions. Uh but we'll probably promote a little we promote a little less because we're out there every day at a at a good rank.

Speaker: 27:01
Totally. And that makes sense. That's why it makes sense. From a packaging design standpoint, um, I know you said you're just rolling out some new packaging with the humanely hatched stuff on there. I think earlier, ways back in 2024, you guys did a pretty big redesign, assuming I'm I got that right. Walk me through the why behind the redesign, what led to the decision to say, yeah, this is this is needed and it's needed now.

Speaker 1: 27:24
Yeah, we haven't really he hadn't really touched the the packaging in a long time at that point. And we had done like so much work on the the brand values and what we wanted to do and how how we wanted to and how we wanted to do it with all the things that we talked about. And we realized like you know, our our packaging really isn't translating that. Like our packaging really isn't communicating that to the consumer, and like we talked about, the package is the most important thing on the shelf. That's how the consumer is gonna see you, that's how the consumer is going to interact, uh, you know, for the most part. So we we wanted to take a step back and say, like, all right, how do we get our packaging to more directly tell our story? And and not only you know tell the story, but tell it in like a more like fun and engaging and in and eye-popping, eye-popping way, eye-catching. So that was really the why we went back and uh we we completely redid it. It was the the the colors are the colors are different, uh the aesthetic went from a live you know picture of the chicken and the production style on each pack to more like an animated farmer scene on different on every package that kind of tells a story for each individual egg type. And you know, it and we found that you know that was a much more engaging way for our shoppers to look at our products and and then be able to differentiate between the different products in our you mentioned you hadn't done anything to the packaging in in so long.

Speaker: 29:01
So people are very familiar with how did you guys think about obviously you're doing a redesign for a reason, but also you make sure that it doesn't so different than when people are walking down the aisle, they no longer recognize it and can't find it anymore. How did you guys balance that need for a fresh look with also maintaining keeping some of those familiar legacy brand elements for those existing customers so it still felt like something that was part of their lives and still resonated with them and and whatnot?

Speaker 1: 29:30
Well, first of all, we had to kind of really evaluate like who we are at at retail. I understand that line of thing, like you gotta keep things very similar. You know, it it were that's a very true. For somebody like a Pepsi or a Coke or you know, these big brands that are that are iconic, you you're not gonna change that Coca-Cola logo very very much. You know, for for us, I mean at the time we were we were a good sized brand throughout the country, but we were still like an up and up and coming brand. And we we tended to like lean more towards we want to get the branding right. We want to be we want to be bold with what we're with what we're doing and and not focusing too much on like hey, these specific things need to stay the same. Uh because we figured that you know our our consumer that we had at the time was pretty was a pretty loyal consumer that they were gonna migrate with us if we communicated the packaging redesign in the right way. Uh and in then through our social media efforts, like we we tried to bring our shoppers into the the redesign. We communicated that hey, we're going to be redesigning our our packaging. We had done a few uh drafts early on that we shared and got some and got some comments back on. And and then over the is I think it was like six months before the cartons actually hit the the shelf, we'd done some like teasers and things on on social media where we started letting out pieces of the you know of of the packaging, uh how the how the logo was gonna look, some of the some of the colors, some of the some of the animations. Uh and then we finally launched launched the packaging. It was very it was very well received. We saw in we saw sales increases almost immediately when the packaging started started hitting the shelf. But yeah, we we definitely leaned towards, hey, we're gonna be we're gonna be bold with this redesign. You know, we we want it really to you know match with our values and our story, and that was gonna be more important than to us than trying to keep some of the stuff that we had in in the past. Totally. So we we kept some of the naming conventions. Uh we we obviously uh the name stayed the same, the logo didn't didn't change a ton, but the rest of the package did change.

Speaker: 31:52
Totally shifting gears. Uh NestFresh acquired Newborn Organics back in 2021. It seemed like it was a pretty interesting structure in the sense that NestFresh basically acquired the assets, the brand, the recipes, IP distribution, all that kind of stuff, but the actual entity stuck with the existing new barn organic shareholders. Assuming I I did get that right. What was the thought process around structuring it, structuring it that way that made the most sense?

Speaker 1: 32:18
Well, first I would go back and say we had a long relationship with with Newbarn Organics before we ever started talking about acquisition. The the founder over there, Ted Robb, we met many years ago, and he as we started working together. He he became a really good friend of mine. And he is still with us now. He he works as one of our directors of sales under for Nest Fresh Overall, and then focuses on Newbarn. We really kind of hit it off because our values and the way that we like to we wanted to run our companies really started coming into alignment as we as we talked more. We we were uh a supplier to Newbarn for a time, and then we started helping with the distribution aspect and and some of some of the procurement aspects and operational aspects of Newbarn. Uh, before we started about started talking about a potential merger or acquisition. And then it was probably a couple of years later, Ted and I had a conversation. It's like there's there's so much aligned here. There's so there's so much potential like efficient efficiencies here. Why don't why don't we figure out a way uh to bring the two bring the two companies together? And yeah, I guess uh on the structure side, long story short, I mean there's there's a lot of investors and things and and and owners on the new barn side. Our structure at at Nestresh is relatively simple. It's still a family owned, still a family-owned company. A Tim LaVersti, which we talked about, that founded the company, is still a hundred percent owner. So just doing a straight-up merger kind of didn't didn't make sense for us. And this is the way that it worked out the the best for for both sides. We were able to get out of it what you know what each side needed and then be able to go forward as a as a stronger entity, combine entity with with both brands. And and newbarn was a great addition to like the Nesfresh fam family of brands for us because it also got us into a a different industry that we weren't in previously. So Nesfresh has always been an egg, yeah, an egg company, an egg first company. And with Newbarn, we got into almond milk and coconut milk, uh, barista. And now we're just uh in September, we're gonna be launching our first buckwheat milk. So it'll be the first buckwheat, buckwheat milk in in the country. And we were able to take this the newbarn brand, and Ted always had the vision of like newbarn needs to be regenerative organic across the entire platform. We want to be regenerative organic. When we acquired it, uh it was only an organic brand. So together we were able to do that. We were able to first we came out with the regenerative organic pasteurized eggs. We were the first uh regenerative organic egg to be distributed nationally in the country. Then we launch we uh relaunched the almond milk as a regenerative organic almond milk, the first almond milk uh to be regenerative organic in the country, and then so on. We do the same thing for coconut, and now we're gonna do the same thing for buckle. So we've been able to kind of create this platform brand that is all based around regenerative organic agriculture. And we have other things in the in the innovation pipeline too that we're hopefully will be coming out with in the next in the next couple of years. But it it really came to like Ted and I getting together and I'd say we can really make an impact in this space. Yeah. And let's figure out how to do that. And once you really decide like, hey, this is this is what we want to do, like both sides, this is what we want to do. It makes sense to both sides, and and both sides feel feel good about it, then the structure kind of falls together. You you figure you figure those things, those things out. But that's really what what came.

Speaker: 36:14
No, it makes that that totally tracks. Yeah, last question for you, Jason. You've obviously been in this egg and broader C VG world for quite a while. Any brands just around the around the space that you've been tracking lately that have piqued your interest or just kind of trends in general that you've that are seeming exciting as of late?

Speaker 1: 36:32
Brand that's kind of I that I could resonate with, and maybe it's because the story is is similar to to ours, is uh simply. They are really in in the regenerative organic space. They simp simply they they simply source all of their all of their ingredients. It it was it's still privately owned, I believe. I've I've I don't know them. I don't know them personally over there, but they they're a great brand trying to do things the right the right way. And they seem to start to get a lot of traction doing it that way. So I and I I respect that a lot because I know from from personal experience it takes time to to do that. It it's it's not always easy. You're gonna have a bunch of hurdles, but if you know if you keep true to that, uh you know to to that mission of you know do things the right way, eventually, eventually you're gonna you're gonna succeed. You might you know it might take longer than than some others that want to do things a little differently, but hey, you're gonna it it's gonna be worth it.

Speaker: 37:38
Yeah, totally. I think that's that's a great call-up. Well, yeah, Jason, this has been awesome. What's some you definitely have a lot of knowledge in the space. What's the best place to follow along with with you and your expertise and then best place to follow along with the Nest Fresh brand these days and all the things that are going on?

Speaker 1: 37:53
Well, if you're looking for me, you can follow me on on LinkedIn. I'm not huge, I'm not a huge social media person, so LinkedIn is my main, you just search my name, and that's my main platform. Uh, but for our brands, you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn at uh NestFreshEggs, at Newborn Organics, and at the Country End. All of our three main brands are all of those. Perfect. That's great. Awesome, Jason.

Speaker: 38:20
I appreciate the time. I think uh I think that's the pod.

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