Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mentor, and I'm Mark Boris.
Speaker 2: Ben Crowley, Welcome to the Mentor, Mate, thanks for having
Speaker 2: us as welcome. Now.
Speaker 1: You're the founder and director of Bulk Nutrients.
Speaker 2: And we're going to talk about Bulk Nutrients in a moment.
Speaker 2: And I have to say you're one of the major
Speaker 2: sponsors of our highly regarded Project one hundred series and
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. And I do use your stuff too,
Speaker 2: by the way, but I don't look that bulky, but
Speaker 2: I do use your stuff. And we've got a few
Speaker 2: of the few of the items here and I don't
Speaker 2: know why we've got water in there, but I presume
Speaker 2: they're going to want me to shake one up something.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure Ben your business, you're you just from Tasmanium,
Speaker 2: so maybe you could just tell us is your business
Speaker 2: base in Tasmania and you're a national business.
Speaker 1: What's the deal?
Speaker 3: Yep? So just one thing I mentioned to the bulk
Speaker 3: from the name actually comes from buying in bulk and
Speaker 3: saving money rather than being.
Speaker 1: Well priced, absolutely very well priced, right ye yea for sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And then unfortunately did papers But I do,
Speaker 2: I do use this stuff, and Ben's been great to
Speaker 2: make sure that I've got whatever. They got so much
Speaker 2: of arrange to I've got a shock the stuff you've got.
Speaker 2: You've got so many different things. I wouldn't even know
Speaker 2: how to go through them. Or there's so many things,
Speaker 2: and I keep trying of trying everything. But my ones
Speaker 2: might and creating. So they are two really important ones
Speaker 2: for me, yep and I.
Speaker 1: But I guess I should have stop talking about me.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm more interested in you, but to be that's
Speaker 2: what it's just shows about you today. So when did
Speaker 2: you Why is it you decided to set up a
Speaker 2: nutrient business?
Speaker 3: Okay, so this goes back to about two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: I was living in Japan teaching English and teacher, well
Speaker 3: an English teacher, so it's kind of you do an
Speaker 3: adhole course to do that rather than being a full
Speaker 3: time but you can teach this as a second language.
Speaker 1: Can you speak Japanese?
Speaker 3: Next question? One of the beautys of teaching in Japan
Speaker 3: is they didn't want us to speak Japanese at all,
Speaker 3: so that suited me. You know, it's a weird.
Speaker 1: That's a weird. That's weird. So how do you know
Speaker 1: about that? Like, how'd you find ou about something like that.
Speaker 3: I guess teaching English's second language. Teaching is pretty pretty
Speaker 3: popular with younger people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The idea is you can kind of go go around
Speaker 3: the world and it's different places. And I was originally
Speaker 3: going to go to Mexico. Long story, but I'm a
Speaker 3: big boxing fan. And they met a guy in a
Speaker 3: boxing forum that said, why don't you come to Japan first? Okay,
Speaker 3: that'd be cool, and I looked into it a bit
Speaker 3: and thought, yeah, that looks looks interesting and he was
Speaker 3: telling me, you know what kind of great life style
Speaker 3: you have as a young Australian over there, And yeah,
Speaker 3: ended up just kind of organizing myself, jumping on a
Speaker 3: plane and it's a pretty cool place. I was amazing,
Speaker 3: and especially twenty five years ago. Twenty years ago it
Speaker 3: was it was great. Yeah, I mean still is great,
Speaker 3: but yeah, probably the pay and things back then. I
Speaker 3: think even ten years before was really good. Whereas you
Speaker 3: don't really want to be teaching over there now because
Speaker 3: you're not earning much.
Speaker 2: So you're a boxing fan, massive boxing fan. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so you've got a couple of good fighters come down,
Speaker 2: come from Tasmania. Jacko, He's what he fought for the
Speaker 2: world title, and I think the featherweight division. He fought
Speaker 2: the Irishman jack Ash Jackson. Unfortunately he lost that fight,
Speaker 2: but he's a great he's a Tasmanian. And you've got
Speaker 2: who is the other guy, the other featherweight, the blonde
Speaker 2: head featherweight.
Speaker 3: We've got a younger with sponsored, Sebastian sab he's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Look,
Speaker 3: I mean boxing a big love of mine. So actually
Speaker 3: you just have a lot to do with robbery Peden.
Speaker 3: Don't know if you know bomb and Peton. But he
Speaker 3: was a world champion. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I saw him win a world title and I watched
Speaker 3: Sam Solomon a couple of times too time. Sorry, Sam,
Speaker 3: I know, just.
Speaker 2: So that would have been Sam would have been in
Speaker 2: the sort of two thousand and two twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He had a pretty awkward fighter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: He used to sort of get down low and it
Speaker 2: was always hard to hit him. And I remember he
Speaker 2: Ford Garth would for there was a top ten fight
Speaker 2: and they would have given a Garth ranking the same
Speaker 2: at the time was two or three in the middleway division.
Speaker 2: Sam very a good fighter. I don't know whatever happened
Speaker 2: to him, but I usually watched him. He was really
Speaker 2: weird way he was able to get really down low
Speaker 2: and then he'd come in at you pretty hard.
Speaker 1: It was an awkard fighter. Yeah, so you used to
Speaker 1: watch Sam and that I did.
Speaker 3: Actually, Sam had a fight against go called David Reid.
Speaker 3: He was sort of established in America. I think it
Speaker 3: was David Reid something like that, and I think Sam
Speaker 3: went in late notice and he did his funky style
Speaker 3: and he almost it was almost a massive upset, you know.
Speaker 3: The Americans like, where the hell is this guy?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I love boxing, Why do I look? I kind of
Speaker 3: like the underdog story, you know, I see our stories
Speaker 3: a little bit like that. But look, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of sports. I'm a massive motors sport fan, and that's
Speaker 3: the complete opposite like boxing, a little bit like soccer
Speaker 3: and a lot of these other true international games where
Speaker 3: you come from a poor family, you know, train really
Speaker 3: hard and too well and yeah, kind of a bit
Speaker 3: of a Cinderella type thing. And I think I've always
Speaker 3: loved boxing because it's a story of kind of the
Speaker 3: underclasses and some of those poorer countries and I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, grit and determination everything. I think all those
Speaker 3: values that I really admire, Like you've got to have
Speaker 3: those to be a good boxer, you know, I like
Speaker 3: just flashy guys. But yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Interesting when you say the under class, because you don't
Speaker 2: see boxing toward anything. You know, the private schools maybe
Speaker 2: probably worried about kids getting hurt and different things, but
Speaker 2: used to those they used to it. In fact, my
Speaker 2: oldest son boxed at Scott's College. It's twenty more than
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago now, but they probably a couple
Speaker 2: of years after he left. You just got rid of
Speaker 2: it because it was sort of deemed to be a
Speaker 2: little unpopular. But you're right, it is. That's there was
Speaker 2: the cinerelement that movie, So there is there is that,
Speaker 2: you know, from poverty and ashes. Boxing was the opportunity
Speaker 2: to make a quid, may name yourself and turn through
Speaker 2: things around. The obviously is rocky, Yes, the great story.
Speaker 2: So that sort of stuff appeals to you taking an
Speaker 2: establishment so to speak.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, yeah, no, I think so. Yeah. I guess
Speaker 3: when you sort of grow up and you the way
Speaker 3: you see yourself and sort of fitting into society and
Speaker 3: those around you, and I probably more identified as a
Speaker 3: bit of an outsider, and yeah, hence you know the
Speaker 3: story with OLK two that was watched. The term disruptive,
Speaker 3: you know in terms of coming into industry and doing
Speaker 3: things quite differently. So you come over from Japan, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we actually I was over in Japan at the time
Speaker 3: and I was buying a lot of products from America.
Speaker 1: And what type products?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so protein powders, all of the brands, you know,
Speaker 3: opt nutrition, the popular brands that big there, buying them
Speaker 3: into Japan through online stores, and then realizing looking at going,
Speaker 3: why do we pay so much for this stuff? In Australia?
Speaker 3: You know what's going on here, you know, exactly the
Speaker 3: same products. And that's when my first goal was to
Speaker 3: maybe import American products into Australia. And the more research
Speaker 3: I did on manufacturing the products where the ingredients come from,
Speaker 3: the more I realized that we could make these products
Speaker 3: in Australia.
Speaker 2: So was it more about I mean, the typical or
Speaker 2: the build explanation or definition of someone who's disrupting is
Speaker 2: to make a product more affordable and more accessible. Was
Speaker 2: this about just making it well? Assuming the product quality,
Speaker 2: We'll talk about the product quality of the moment, But
Speaker 2: was about making it more affordable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, but also quality. So what is most commonly
Speaker 3: the case is people come to a market and they go,
Speaker 3: how do I make a more sophisticated product. Now I
Speaker 3: realized at the time that what consumers wanted, and consumers
Speaker 3: like my health was we actually want a more simple product.
Speaker 3: So back then it was you know, American brands, lots
Speaker 3: of claims, lots of ingredients, lots of smoke and mirrors,
Speaker 3: and it was really clear that people just said, look,
Speaker 3: if someone gives us a protein powder as pure as
Speaker 3: possible with a little bit of flavoring sweetener in there,
Speaker 3: that's what we want. And so what we did is
Speaker 3: we said, look, it'll be a more simple product, it
Speaker 3: will be much more pure, and you'll buy it directly
Speaker 3: from us. So our manufacturer direct model the ideas that
Speaker 3: we source all the ingredients, lots of Australian New Zealand proteins,
Speaker 3: blend them all up and then sell them to the
Speaker 3: customer and through the online shop. And so there's no distributors,
Speaker 3: you know, no importers, no one else that will sort
Speaker 3: of middleman retail, et cetera earning their chunk.
Speaker 2: So then that's so can we just talk about your
Speaker 2: let's call it the business model in terms of making
Speaker 2: it more more affordable, get more less expensive if we could.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about the product.
Speaker 2: And ingredients at the moment, just put out a side,
Speaker 2: but just in terms of the structure of how you
Speaker 2: make something.
Speaker 1: More affordable. YEP, I was gonna say tribute, but no, that's.
Speaker 3: Sort of more affordable.
Speaker 1: That sort of suggests.
Speaker 2: Something and the ingredients or something like that, so more affordable.
Speaker 2: The business model is that what did you do first?
Speaker 2: Did you sit down and examine every single stage of
Speaker 2: what everybody else is doing? In other words, you know,
Speaker 2: produced a product, producing packaging, distributed distribution costs. Did you
Speaker 2: sit down and then break down that down and sort
Speaker 2: of say these things I can get rid of basically?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if we look, let's just run through a scenarios.
Speaker 3: Let's say Mark Morris goes, look, I want to have
Speaker 3: a protein company. If you want to be as easy
Speaker 3: as possible, what you do, as you'll reach out to
Speaker 3: a contractor. Now they will manufacture.
Speaker 1: The product a food A food.
Speaker 3: Sorry, that's right, A nutritional suppleon't manufacturer. And there's lots
Speaker 3: of those, lots of you know, certainly good quality establishments
Speaker 3: around Australia to this contracting. They would then most commonly
Speaker 3: get the ingredients from Australian supplier. Now that Australian supplier
Speaker 3: deals with overseas suppliers deals with Australian dairies, but they're
Speaker 3: also another middleman. Now, once that company, that contractor for you,
Speaker 3: buys those ingredients through the supplier, that's obviously a margin there.
Speaker 3: They're manufacturing that product, they're putting a margin on, and
Speaker 3: then if you want to sell that same product through retailers,
Speaker 3: that's another margin there. Now, pretty much from day one
Speaker 3: we went directly to supplies in Australia, so actual dairies
Speaker 3: and pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturers overseas and we're buying direct from
Speaker 3: them and again getting the ingredients to us doing the
Speaker 3: manufacturing and then selling direct to the customer. So there's
Speaker 3: about three different people there that will normally have a
Speaker 3: margin that don't have a margin with our model.
Speaker 2: Which means it doesn't reflect them in the business model pricing.
Speaker 3: That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, And look it's a great
Speaker 3: way of saying that we can use were used to advertise,
Speaker 3: you know, you get what you pay for because I
Speaker 3: like that. And it's like with bog nutrients, it's what
Speaker 3: you're not paying for, and so you're not paying for
Speaker 3: that extra supplier, the extra importer, the contractor, and the retailer.
Speaker 3: It's just going from our factory and we're sourcing lots
Speaker 3: of ingredients at one time, manufacturing the product, and then
Speaker 3: sending it straight to the customer.
Speaker 2: So let's just pick on protein from a moment. Let's
Speaker 2: pick on Way protein because that's one of your products.
Speaker 2: And you weren't like a you're not a food scigentist
Speaker 2: or anything like.
Speaker 1: That, No, no ah.
Speaker 2: But you get food signists in so you have to
Speaker 2: have someone to tell you know it formulates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, look, lots of our team. We've got
Speaker 3: massive experience our team for many decades.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to two thousand and six, whatever it
Speaker 2: was when it started. Yes, how did you do that?
Speaker 3: So the original formulations for the way proteins were not
Speaker 3: particularly complex. So yeah, all you're dealing with is getting
Speaker 3: a really high quality protein. In the first place, it
Speaker 3: tell us what way is it? So way, so when
Speaker 3: they make the during the cheese making process, way is
Speaker 3: what's extracted from the cheese. So you probably know the
Speaker 3: nursery rhyme about the kurds in the way. Now, once
Speaker 3: upon a time they used to throw liquid way in
Speaker 3: the bin and they realized it full of protein. But
Speaker 3: to get that protein they have to go through a
Speaker 3: pretty complex filtrations process and system.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a milky.
Speaker 2: It's not a milky like, it's like a it's sort
Speaker 2: of not clear, but it's translucent sort of.
Speaker 3: That's right now. Turning that, I think that liquid way
Speaker 3: is only about one percent or maybe five percent solids.
Speaker 3: But to get that into a way protein is quite
Speaker 3: a process because you've got to get rid of all
Speaker 3: the water. I've got to get rid of the fats
Speaker 3: and things, and the lactose too, and so that's a
Speaker 3: pretty complicated process. But basically when we get the ingredient
Speaker 3: from a dairy. There's only about two or three dairies
Speaker 3: in Australia that actually manufacture wag protein, and luckily for us,
Speaker 3: one of those is in Tasmania, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but some of the highest quality proteins are made in
Speaker 3: New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker 1: Right, what do terms highest quality good good?
Speaker 3: Question? Well, it would be the cows what foods they're fed,
Speaker 3: you know, predominantly grass fed. A lot of people make
Speaker 3: claims around grass fed, and it's difficult in Australia because
Speaker 3: you can never guarantee something as one hundred percent grass fed.
Speaker 3: But you know, for the most part it will be
Speaker 3: a lack of certain hormones and things using the cattle,
Speaker 3: So we tend to not use the same hormones that
Speaker 3: you know, let's say I'm all free instead of Europe
Speaker 3: and America. But then when it comes to the finished product,
Speaker 3: what you're wanting is a product that's really high in
Speaker 3: protein and then low in fats and carbo hydrates. So
Speaker 3: we're very specific about accepting only proteins that are especially
Speaker 3: our oceolate's very high in protein and low in fats
Speaker 3: and carbs.
Speaker 2: So what did you do when you first kicked it off?
Speaker 2: Did you go around to some dairy farmers in Tazzi
Speaker 2: because there's quite few, In fact, I had one on
Speaker 2: the show here or about two years ago, who is
Speaker 2: one of the biggest dairy farmers in Tasmania. And did
Speaker 2: you just go knock on doors and say, hey, dude, look,
Speaker 2: I want to buy your way.
Speaker 3: A kind of but so we don't deal with the
Speaker 3: dairies themselves, but it's the people that own the processing plants.
Speaker 3: So that might be fon Terror which are a massive
Speaker 3: sort of New Zealand Australian conglomerate and basically you know,
Speaker 3: emailing them, having meetings with them and supplies that they
Speaker 3: deal with too, and just yeah, coming to terms on
Speaker 3: you know what quality product do you have? Getting some samples,
Speaker 3: trying things out, and.
Speaker 2: The symbols of the actual of the way protein not
Speaker 2: not the way itself, no no, so when when we
Speaker 2: get it, so we don't do the actual processing of
Speaker 2: the way protein. We get in dry usable form and
Speaker 2: then we're doing the blending. So so Fonterra as a
Speaker 2: well known company around the place, and Fonterra will go
Speaker 2: get the picks the way out from everybody and they
Speaker 2: I don't know what ever, boil it and then reduce
Speaker 2: get rid of ale the water anywhere and reduce it
Speaker 2: down to like a like a solid form which and
Speaker 2: they somehow they make it into powder.
Speaker 3: It's all all dryers and things too. Like it's quite
Speaker 3: a competent price.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a complex process, but you buy it
Speaker 2: from them, correct and but you specify this and I
Speaker 2: don't want so in terms of provenance of what you're
Speaker 2: buying from them or what they're offering for you to buy,
Speaker 2: in terms of you're being clear on the providence of it.
Speaker 2: And for example, that is not being ways not coming
Speaker 2: from cow's milk, that's sort of where the herd's been
Speaker 2: sitting in some being eating. You know, how do you
Speaker 2: know that that's not the case? Does Fonterra give you
Speaker 2: a certificate or something correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so's there's a lot of back
Speaker 3: and forth with dairies and processes about you know, what's
Speaker 3: done in Australia. We have very strict rules actually, yeah,
Speaker 3: so there's for dairy to come into Australia in the
Speaker 3: first place, it has to be normally very high standard
Speaker 3: and very safe, so free and foot in mouth disease
Speaker 3: and all of that kind of thing. So I think
Speaker 3: we have one of the high standards in the world.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to day it comes to dairy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so do we import the milk Sometimes?
Speaker 3: I don't think we import the milk, but we certainly
Speaker 3: import completed way protein powders. So yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 3: we also use American way protein, and some of those
Speaker 3: are really high quality. But again we've got some very
Speaker 3: fussy standards in terms of how height needs be in protein,
Speaker 3: how the carbohydrates are, and then other information about being
Speaker 3: hormone free inside.
Speaker 1: Because I saw something the other day, I can't rememberhe
Speaker 1: it was, I was listening to it. But let's say
Speaker 1: they make a batch of protein which is prote powdered,
Speaker 1: and it might be in a big one ton machine.
Speaker 1: What if you call it like a big.
Speaker 2: Container of one ton, and they and that they were
Speaker 2: saying that. Now in the United States you can get
Speaker 2: batch testing done. Yes, per batch, No, it was, let's
Speaker 2: call it per ton yep. So someone goes into that
Speaker 2: one batch and scrip a little bit out from where
Speaker 2: I don't know, and sends it off to a lab
Speaker 2: and get its test, gets it tested for contaminants.
Speaker 1: I guess, yes, what are they testing for?
Speaker 3: Normally, if you're doing away protein, you could be testing
Speaker 3: for micros. So that's microbes, yes, yeap, bacteria yep, exactly.
Speaker 3: But the more common tests that we do and others
Speaker 3: in our industry should be doing, is the protein quality testing.
Speaker 3: So that's basically there. If I'm paying for a way
Speaker 3: protein isolate that says it's ninety percent protein. I want
Speaker 3: to ensure that I've given given that to customers. Now,
Speaker 3: something unique about pol Nutrients. For look, it's probably twelve
Speaker 3: or thirteen years we've been testing four batches a protein
Speaker 3: every single month, and we have all of those results
Speaker 3: from you know, twelve years ago to now. That'd be
Speaker 3: close to one thousand lab tests on our website. So
Speaker 3: if you're buying away protein isolator or concentrate from us
Speaker 3: or one of our protein blends, literally you can go
Speaker 3: back more than ten years and check, you know, what
Speaker 3: batch was that, what protein level do we claim it was?
Speaker 3: And then what it was and where the only company
Speaker 3: Australia that's people do sporadic tests and might have a
Speaker 3: few things on their website that might be a couple
Speaker 3: of years old or whatever else, but we literally have
Speaker 3: I think it would be close to one thousand lab
Speaker 3: reports on our website.
Speaker 2: Do we in Australia have some sort of stamp to
Speaker 2: say something's been batch tested or approved by I don't
Speaker 2: know TJ or whoever it is. Somebody here is there's
Speaker 2: some authority that.
Speaker 3: Is not not exactly so we have has to testing,
Speaker 3: which is all about band substances. Yeah, but that that's separate,
Speaker 3: so it has to really covers all the band ingredients
Speaker 3: so antidoping stuff. Yeah, but the quality testing is completely
Speaker 3: separate to that, and that's I guess with orditors. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're ordered by New South Wales Food Authority, that's
Speaker 3: company in New South Wales or Past Area Authority for US,
Speaker 3: you're basically just showing them your your test results and things,
Speaker 3: and that's not as strictly audited. The more strict auditing
Speaker 3: is around the microbe levels and stuff.
Speaker 2: So we just quickly bring it into I don't want
Speaker 2: to just sit on this too long because it's quite dense,
Speaker 2: but we're looking at micro level lot microbe levels, which
Speaker 2: is probably indicating bacteria and bad stuff.
Speaker 3: Let's manea and whatever else, and basically saying that we're
Speaker 3: free of all.
Speaker 2: That things made it sick. The second one is the
Speaker 2: actual amount of protein in the batches, like per whatever
Speaker 2: it is. And and the final one is that's not
Speaker 2: contaminants but like or no additives, things that like wader
Speaker 2: would like an athlete can't use like water would something
Speaker 2: like wide it would be against like us R or
Speaker 2: would have the equivalent of the United States. So there's
Speaker 2: sort of three things. And then when it comes to
Speaker 2: looking at protein content, is there a a quality there
Speaker 2: is there some protein it's better quality than others?
Speaker 1: I don't mean.
Speaker 2: What I don't mean by that is like if a
Speaker 2: consumer is looking at that, is there like an equality protein,
Speaker 2: B quality protein, a super quality protein, or is something
Speaker 2: becomes a B quality protein because it's got maybe got
Speaker 2: some some small insignificant amount of contaminants in there.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that genuityf we're talking about an A
Speaker 3: and B and C quality protein that would be based
Speaker 3: on what former protein is. So, way protein it almost
Speaker 3: always considered an A class protein. And then that's also
Speaker 3: determined by it's a meno acid combination. Yep. So your
Speaker 3: ability to build muscle from protein we're based on what's
Speaker 3: its actual amino acid composition. Right now, Way protein is
Speaker 3: generally considered the best because it has a higher level
Speaker 3: of a branch and of mino acids and essential amino acids,
Speaker 3: and it's better than let's say, collagen and also plant
Speaker 3: proteins for building muscle.
Speaker 1: For that reason, it's also quite bi available in the time.
Speaker 3: Is that's right? Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a combination of that something unless you sort
Speaker 1: of allerdes you to milk.
Speaker 3: Yep. It has the highest biovailability. And whenever they've run
Speaker 3: tests on plant proteins versus way proteins, almost always that
Speaker 3: way proteins will give a better result in terms of
Speaker 3: building muscle and recovery.
Speaker 2: So I mean, and I mean, I was talking about
Speaker 2: this the other day to Simon Hill on our Project
Speaker 2: one hundred show, and is it. I mean, you're obviously
Speaker 2: that you've got scientists and all sorts of working for you,
Speaker 2: and we'll come back to that. You know how many
Speaker 2: people you are working for in a moment, and you know.
Speaker 1: Where you distribute, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But in terms of you know, people walk around these
Speaker 2: days saying, well, we should be taking between one point
Speaker 2: six and two point two grams of protein per kilogram
Speaker 2: of weight. Do you, guys, as an organization, you have
Speaker 2: a view on that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it looks certainly that most
Speaker 3: of the science when it comes to healthy living, longevity,
Speaker 3: building muscle seems to be about that, you know, two
Speaker 3: grams per kilo. But look, I think it really depends,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're an endurance athlete that say, you
Speaker 3: might be having a high level of carbs and lower
Speaker 3: level of protein. If you're cutting weight for an event
Speaker 3: or something in a sporting event or boxing match, then
Speaker 3: you may change that a little bit too. But that
Speaker 3: seems to be the generally sort of respected number.
Speaker 2: Let's call it a Joe blow walking around. You know,
Speaker 2: he's fifty years of age.
Speaker 1: Trains every day.
Speaker 2: About myself, I'm not that I'm a bit old enough,
Speaker 2: but the trains every day probably you know, burns seven
Speaker 2: hundred calories per session, not the same every day. You know,
Speaker 2: pretty much do something every day. You know, I get
Speaker 2: good sleep, I think. I mean, just from what I'm read,
Speaker 2: I think I probably need ben Like I probably need
Speaker 2: two grams per kilogram, but there's no way I can
Speaker 2: eat it. I just can't. Like I'm eighty five killos.
Speaker 2: It means I need one hundred and seventy grams of
Speaker 2: protein as well as other stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just too much for me to eat. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: the amount of protein.
Speaker 2: Get out of meat. It means I've got a lot
Speaker 2: of meat. Yes, you know, it's just because as you
Speaker 2: get older, I mean you're too young, but not too young.
Speaker 2: You're very young, fortunately young. One thing that happens is
Speaker 2: you get older, you lose your appetite because all the
Speaker 2: things that create appetite they start to sort of disappear
Speaker 2: a bit, you know, everything, anybody sort of reduce everything,
Speaker 2: and and therefore you're not as hungry. Yes, it's weird,
Speaker 2: think like it's weirdest thing. When I was your age, young,
Speaker 2: I was always hungry, perpetually hungry, and I could like
Speaker 2: something's forcing me to need all the time. Now you know,
Speaker 2: I've got a I'm conscious of it's time you've got
Speaker 2: to eat, and I'm very conscious of getting enough protein
Speaker 2: into my system because otherwise, I know from the boxing,
Speaker 2: like if you don't need enough protein and you're training hard,
Speaker 2: all that happens is your muscle started to deplete, and
Speaker 2: which say, okay, if you're trying to make weight, but
Speaker 2: I don't need to make weight. I need to keep
Speaker 2: my strength and my muscle volume to a certain level
Speaker 2: to avoid injury. Yep, I don't mean training injury. I
Speaker 2: just mean falling over. You just been able to carry
Speaker 2: stuff around, you know what I mean. So protein is
Speaker 2: like critical, critically important to something like me, amongst other things.
Speaker 2: As other things critically important to me too, but protein's
Speaker 2: really important to me. So I'm I'm just very interested
Speaker 2: to hear you know where you you're researchers and your
Speaker 2: organizations research is around levels of protein.
Speaker 3: I think pretty much spot on to what you're saying
Speaker 3: about the two grams per killer body weight without doing
Speaker 3: a hard sell here. But that's why things like way
Speaker 3: protein shakes it so good because let's say you can
Speaker 3: only get one hundred and ten hundred and twenty grams
Speaker 3: easily from your food. A couple of shakes a day
Speaker 3: might bump up that fifty to sixty grams that extra amount,
Speaker 3: and it's pretty easy to have this without affecting your
Speaker 3: appetite too much. Yeah, you know, so I think that
Speaker 3: that's and it's so cost effective. I mean, our most
Speaker 3: expensive WPI and it's our premium product is still like
Speaker 3: you know, at the moment, what dollar fifty served dollars
Speaker 3: seventy year serve at most compter to a one hundred
Speaker 3: gram steak that's the same amount of protein exactly give
Speaker 3: you other things is too, probably taste a bit better,
Speaker 3: but still you got to cook the bloody things you
Speaker 3: want to go to buy it.
Speaker 1: You got to cook it, then you've got to eat it,
Speaker 1: and then you've got to digest it. Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: going to cost.
Speaker 2: You maybe fifty bucks forty five dollars plus time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So you're saying it's like the thirty grams
Speaker 2: broad this is probably going to cost.
Speaker 1: You thirty couple of bucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thirty grams serve is sort of twenty six grams
Speaker 3: of protein and that's yeah, I think at the moment,
Speaker 3: because there's fluctuations and dairy markets, so this does change.
Speaker 3: But maybe about a dollar fifty dollars sixty year serve. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so yeah, very very cost effective and it's i mean
Speaker 3: one of the criticism people had this supplements years ago
Speaker 3: in protein is it's expensive, and it's like it's actually not.
Speaker 3: It can be a really cost effective way of getting
Speaker 3: your protein.
Speaker 1: I never thought of it like that.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, if you can compare it to where
Speaker 2: you're going to get another thirty grams of protein from yep,
Speaker 2: and you add time to it as well.
Speaker 1: That just explodes the cost. The price. So a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks, that's that's that's cool.
Speaker 2: I'm getting asked to go to the break, which I'm
Speaker 2: going to do it together break, I want to come
Speaker 2: back and straight back and talk to you about creatine.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about your digestive, your
Speaker 2: enzymes or your digesti fusion. But I also want to
Speaker 2: just talk to you about your whole range of skews.
Speaker 2: If you've got like I don't think most people realize
Speaker 2: you have a massive range of stuff from hydration drinks
Speaker 2: to greens stole drinks and over those algas.
Speaker 1: And like it.
Speaker 2: It's mind boggling what you guys have. Mostly we wouldn't
Speaker 2: even know unless they go to the website. But we're
Speaker 2: going together. It comes straight back. Okay, So I'm back
Speaker 2: here with Ben Crowley and he's the founder and director
Speaker 2: of Bolk Nutrients. We've just been talking about protein, actually just
Speaker 2: mostly I guess I wanted to. And we've got a
Speaker 2: bit of a story about how you sort of got
Speaker 2: into this this this game, let's call it nutritional game,
Speaker 2: because it's not just about protein powder, it's about nutrients,
Speaker 2: nutrition generally and clearly Tasmanian, how important you think is
Speaker 2: by the way, how important is provenence? Like where what
Speaker 2: are the origins of ingredients? How important is that to you?
Speaker 3: Look, it's reasonably important. But I mean we're completely honest here.
Speaker 3: So things like pharmaceutical ingredients, so the vitamins and minerals
Speaker 3: and those ingredients they almost always making China now and
Speaker 3: they get added that's right. But don't get me wrong,
Speaker 3: Like I mean, the biggest pharmaceutical companies and health companies
Speaker 3: and the most expensive in Australia are all getting those
Speaker 3: ingredients from China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, why won't tell you that directly. By the way,
Speaker 2: what is it though, then, like what is it? China
Speaker 2: sort of dominates that environment that parmatudent.
Speaker 3: I think that's just really invested heavily into it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and their standards have risen and yeah, certainly over the
Speaker 3: last five to ten years they've gotten really really good.
Speaker 3: H and yeah, I think ninety percent of the world's
Speaker 3: pharmaceuticals would come from there. Don't quote me on that number.
Speaker 3: It is very high, it really is.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like electronics, you know, there's hardly an electronic
Speaker 2: device that doesn't have the bulk of its electronics come
Speaker 2: out of China.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the world, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the way, everything's well built, like you know,
Speaker 2: we have been through this process of using China in
Speaker 2: different business that I've involved with, and like it's not
Speaker 2: backward stuff. You go on these joints and like it's amazing,
Speaker 2: it's so big.
Speaker 1: So clean.
Speaker 2: Everyone's got like masks on and suits on. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean business suits. I'm talking about like sort of
Speaker 2: decontamination suits. They walk work or own things on their feet.
Speaker 2: It's heavily heavily heavily controlled, very very strict, and so
Speaker 2: that sort of makes sense to me when you said
Speaker 2: that about the nutrient world or about pharmaceuticals. At least
Speaker 2: you add pharmaceuticals to your protein.
Speaker 3: Not this one. No, so almost all the ingredients from
Speaker 3: there will be from Australian, New Zealand or Europe. With
Speaker 3: the protein and its tiny a little bit of artificial
Speaker 3: sweetenert but we use that the safest artificial sweetener.
Speaker 1: Sucralose sucerlose. Yeah, now what is that?
Speaker 3: So it basically modified sugar, but it's about six hundred
Speaker 3: times sweeter than sugar.
Speaker 1: Right, so you don't have to use use a little bit,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 3: And the reason why we can't use the sugar is
Speaker 3: because it adds all the carbs and you are yes
Speaker 3: as low carb as possible. That said We've got some
Speaker 3: natural varieties where we use a combination of stevia and
Speaker 3: the martin, which is an ingredient and a natural sweeteners ingredient,
Speaker 3: and they're getting pretty close in terms of how close
Speaker 3: they taste to a real sugar.
Speaker 1: You have some body they're standing there all day long
Speaker 1: taste and everything.
Speaker 3: Well, we do a lot of a lot of R
Speaker 3: and D and a lot of tasting and that's sort
Speaker 3: of the part of the development that I really love.
Speaker 3: But yeah, look, our staff at constantly tasting stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: because our R and D team working away testing new formulas,
Speaker 3: looking at competitors products, and if you work at both nutrients,
Speaker 3: you'll be pretty used to it. We've got on a
Speaker 3: B tests, you know, you'll have two tests in front
Speaker 3: of you and you have to give you a score,
Speaker 3: and that's normally we do them blind. Yep. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: if you don't like taking supplements and sipping on different
Speaker 3: things and giving feedback, probably not for you. Working for
Speaker 3: Bok Nutrients.
Speaker 1: How many people got work for you now.
Speaker 3: I think it's close to one hundred and twenty, So all.
Speaker 1: Down and Tasi, all in Tasy, Yeah, we're all but
Speaker 1: one in Tasi.
Speaker 3: We do have a special guy in Sydney that's worked
Speaker 3: for us for oh gosh, it must be about ten
Speaker 3: years now, your customer service guy. But yeah, otherwise all
Speaker 3: in Tasy and we just love live there. It's a beautiful.
Speaker 1: Place, sure is. I mean I was down there this
Speaker 1: week as you know.
Speaker 2: So, but in terms of people who work for you,
Speaker 2: how many when you first kick this business off?
Speaker 1: How many people were there?
Speaker 3: So look, well it was it was just me and
Speaker 3: I was working for the government part time, and I
Speaker 3: think it was about I had about four or five
Speaker 3: staff before, and they were part timers. Before I looked
Speaker 3: at all the invoices. One day I said to my
Speaker 3: wife said, I don't think I need this job anymore.
Speaker 3: I think I can just you know, keep kicking on
Speaker 3: with this folk Nutrients thing.
Speaker 2: So that's from how you literally started started the business
Speaker 2: actually a part time job, part time, part time.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to be, you know, the thing that
Speaker 3: I do. But I'm reasonably I would say that I'm
Speaker 3: quite aspirational and a bit radical, my deears, But economically
Speaker 3: I've always been pretty conservative, you know, so invested cash
Speaker 3: flow as much as possible, borrowed as little as possible,
Speaker 3: but made a lot of smart decisions in terms of
Speaker 3: building the business while de risking.
Speaker 2: So how did you get your so how did your
Speaker 2: your distribution is all online, but you had to be
Speaker 2: a lot of gis behind it. Yes, in other words, ie,
Speaker 2: you online, I buy one of these, I get the dojesfusion,
Speaker 2: I tick a box, whatever it is, go into the cart,
Speaker 2: put it.
Speaker 1: In my card, buy it.
Speaker 2: So the first thing you had to do was establish
Speaker 2: your website and all the all the e commerce on there.
Speaker 1: Yes, how do you do that sort of stuff?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's actually an area I'm not particularly strong at.
Speaker 3: So my my sort of real strength is around I
Speaker 3: guess that the business structure and the model in terms
Speaker 3: of you know, suppliers, manufacturers, blending the product or the
Speaker 3: recipe development, that kind of thing. The e commerce side,
Speaker 3: I think I use some friends and you know, so
Speaker 3: sits and whatever else to start with. But now, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, we've got a team of oh gosh, I've
Speaker 3: got to get this wrong. It's like two or three
Speaker 3: data guys and about six web devs in our team,
Speaker 3: you know, So it's completely different proposition now. But yeah,
Speaker 3: those guys are probably lucky because I never get in
Speaker 3: their way because.
Speaker 1: Because I don't know what they're doing, they know more
Speaker 1: about it than you do.
Speaker 2: And so you got so then you you've got and
Speaker 2: then you've got the logistics. So I mean getting stuff,
Speaker 2: I mean the last mile or the delivery piece is critical,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of experience. Yes, if I'm a
Speaker 2: customer first, especially for my first time customer, I'm trying
Speaker 2: you out, and the thing gets thrown over the bloody
Speaker 2: fence or something, the dog gets hold of it or whatever,
Speaker 2: how did you go about organizing the logistics and the
Speaker 2: last mile party business?
Speaker 3: So we deal with I guess different postage partners, but
Speaker 3: predominantly for the last ten years on what it's been
Speaker 3: Australia post and we have a really good relationship with them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I guess we've kind of really pushed their level
Speaker 3: of service because one of the problems within any kind
Speaker 3: of business is that if you've got associates that you're
Speaker 3: dealing with, your service is only the standard of those
Speaker 3: of theirs. Yeah, yep, yep. So we certainly push customer
Speaker 3: service as much as we can. We take stuff off
Speaker 3: their hands we can. In terms of tracking, there's lots
Speaker 3: of automation and stuff now. But I'd say as a
Speaker 3: larger company, we just get a better level of service too.
Speaker 3: But where we're always pushing them and look to be honest,
Speaker 3: we actually consider them a great partner. They're a big
Speaker 3: part of our success story.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and through Star Trek Wars, through Australia Posts,
Speaker 2: through Austraight Post.
Speaker 3: Of the biggest difference between us and a lot of
Speaker 3: companies based on what we call the mainland as Tasmanians
Speaker 3: is that we send about eighty percent or more of
Speaker 3: our orders go express post. So if you order anything
Speaker 3: under three and a half kilos, we'll send that express
Speaker 3: and that way it'll get to you in a day
Speaker 3: or two. And that tends to take the stress off
Speaker 3: the customer service team and the rest of the business
Speaker 3: because you've got the order before you've thought too much
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Perfect, So you've got your e commerce piece, you put
Speaker 2: your experts in there, You've got your logistics, which is
Speaker 2: making sure I get the product that I go on
Speaker 2: to through the e commerce site. And then the most
Speaker 2: important part now is a product. Yes, and that's where
Speaker 2: you get involved. And you said to me that most
Speaker 2: people working a joint at some stage or raither go
Speaker 2: to do an A B test where their test taste.
Speaker 2: It's just everyone, like even the econmost dudes, they get
Speaker 2: to get it and do it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah, No, we have. We've we've got two sites.
Speaker 3: We've got one where our main factory and the supporting
Speaker 3: staff there. We've got managers and manly based there, so
Speaker 3: all that dispatch and production happens there. And then we've
Speaker 3: got another site which I mostly work from, where our marketing,
Speaker 3: customer service and webdev team is. And yeah, but our
Speaker 3: taste testers, the guys in R and D will come
Speaker 3: up there sort of one day a week and ensure
Speaker 3: that they get involved to and we're pretty big like that,
Speaker 3: Like you know, we have extended team meetings in our
Speaker 3: Christmas parties and midyear parties. Like we very diverse range
Speaker 3: of jobs, you know, skills and pay levels and whatever.
Speaker 3: But whenever we can kind of get together and you know,
Speaker 3: celebrate that big team we have. We look for every opportunity.
Speaker 3: You good with your people culturally, Yeah, look, it's huge
Speaker 3: for me, so I've I think that one of the
Speaker 3: things that inspired me most about starting a business is
Speaker 3: wanting to create a place that people really wanted to
Speaker 3: work and they felt respected and loved and supported because
Speaker 3: I've had some pretty bad jobs and pretty bad bosses,
Speaker 3: and for me, that's it's something that makes me most
Speaker 3: proud about the company. And my sister in law, Jess,
Speaker 3: so she's our general manager. I should mention her because
Speaker 3: she's been an amazing part of the growth journeys in
Speaker 3: the organization. But her and I have very similar values
Speaker 3: when it comes to looking after people, supporting them and yeah,
Speaker 3: just creat I think I'll give you this number. I
Speaker 3: think of the ten people that started working for us,
Speaker 3: our first ten employees, I think like seven are still
Speaker 3: with us. And the reason why those others aren't is
Speaker 3: that one became a full time mum, one retired, and
Speaker 3: you know we have great staff retention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if I asked you, then mean I used
Speaker 2: to often get us, still get us. So what do
Speaker 2: you think therefore, is the definition for you in relation
Speaker 2: to bog nutrients anyway this business? How would you define success?
Speaker 3: I would say creating a creating a community around yourself
Speaker 3: where you're supporting people and adding value and making their
Speaker 3: lives better. And personally, I'd say putting myself in a
Speaker 3: situation where I have autonomy in that I can choose
Speaker 3: to do what I want, you know, choose to work
Speaker 3: the way I want, and go and see things and
Speaker 3: you know, buy things I want, et cetera. Having maximal
Speaker 3: choice around that. Yeah, and then being able to spend
Speaker 3: time with my family and friends and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So your business has been and or has been funded
Speaker 1: or whatever were the words I through the business profits?
Speaker 3: Correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you haven't gone out to markets.
Speaker 3: No, we haven't. We have lots of people always approaching us.
Speaker 3: But we've been very fortunate, and that we've banked lots
Speaker 3: of money tell us something probably really interesting about our company,
Speaker 3: and this signifies how much we've grown. But that original
Speaker 3: factory site that we're on at the moment, so it's
Speaker 3: what is it, four acres of land, sixteen thousand square meters.
Speaker 3: The factory itself is about original building was about two
Speaker 3: and a half thousand square meters. Now we bought that
Speaker 3: eleven years ago. Now we only used a tiny bit
Speaker 3: of it at the time, and we got the building
Speaker 3: very cheap. So it was an old Apple cool store,
Speaker 3: which we've spent millions on since you know, we've we've
Speaker 3: decked it out it's beautiful. You walk inside there and
Speaker 3: it's kind of state of the art. But the original
Speaker 3: price we paid for that building and land, which we're
Speaker 3: at now is equivalent to two days turnover, well two
Speaker 3: days two days turnover of today's turnover, yeah, some way
Speaker 3: back then. But just I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 3: beauties of Tasmani. It's like, you can't build a business
Speaker 3: like that in Sydney or Victoria. You know, you you
Speaker 3: would have to buy, renovate, sell, move. You would have
Speaker 3: had to move three or four times, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that mays to be difference in terms of efficiency
Speaker 2: because you're not uprooting all the time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, And look we've renovated that building more
Speaker 3: and more as we've gone along, and we've even added
Speaker 3: a building out the back. And again we've spent many
Speaker 3: more times in the original purchase price. But you know,
Speaker 3: that flexibility was just amazing for us. You know.
Speaker 2: So, how many skews or product lines do you have now,
Speaker 2: because I'm where we've got three in front of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're at about one hundred and fifty. So our
Speaker 3: goal is always been to be one stops upment shops.
Speaker 3: So the idea is if you're a sportsperson, athlete, someone
Speaker 3: involved in in that kind of sports nutrition, we want
Speaker 3: to be giving you as many products as you can
Speaker 3: from us.
Speaker 1: So let me throw a few act you've got what
Speaker 1: about and.
Speaker 3: In amen?
Speaker 1: Correct, yeah or ad and do whatever have you got
Speaker 1: that's so sure.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, yeah, no, it's a big one for us.
Speaker 3: And we recently changed our capsual size from two fifty
Speaker 3: to five hundred grams, and we're very responsive. So what
Speaker 3: happens with these ingredients is when they come out, they're
Speaker 3: only very expensive. Not many manufacturers synthesizing the ingredients, and
Speaker 3: over time there'll be more competition in the market and
Speaker 3: those prices will come down. And so we recently increase
Speaker 3: our capsual size from two fifty to five hundred grams,
Speaker 3: but didn't increase the price of the product, you know,
Speaker 3: so we passed that saving onto customers.
Speaker 2: So, and how do you work out which what's trending
Speaker 2: or whatever the word is, and and what's and also
Speaker 2: what's of value? I mean, how do you work at
Speaker 2: somebody might be dreading but then you might say, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's all bullshit, it's not worth it.
Speaker 3: And look for us legitimacy is so important, so anytime
Speaker 3: that we look very very closely the science, and we
Speaker 3: don't want to sell snake all. You know, there's no
Speaker 3: smoke and mirrors and transperency. Experience is a big part
Speaker 3: of what we do. Certainly something has to be around
Speaker 3: for long enough time, but we would normally look at
Speaker 3: the established science and kind of go, do we think
Speaker 3: this is legitimate enough? And everyone's rule here is different.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's some sports scientists that think there are
Speaker 3: only three ingredients in this contru space that are worth
Speaker 3: looking at, and then there's others that think there are hundreds,
Speaker 3: you know, and we're obviously somewhere between those points.
Speaker 2: So I.
Speaker 1: Must say I'm like a I'm actually quite a big.
Speaker 2: After having learned a lot doing my Broat Project one
Speaker 2: hundred through speed into various physicians and so called experts,
Speaker 2: et cetera, I'm a big bever in the benefits of creasing. Now, yes,
Speaker 2: not not just before women too, particularly if you're you know,
Speaker 2: I was amate fighter, but like you know, if you've
Speaker 2: been knocked around a bit, and because it's actually quite
Speaker 2: good for the brain, especially as we get older. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't take it too. I don't take you like
Speaker 2: the bodybuilders do. They take a lot more than I do.
Speaker 2: I take like five grams or milligrams or whatever, two
Speaker 2: spoon worth. What is that five milligrams? So I take
Speaker 2: it to spoon. I just know it by two spoons. Yea,
Speaker 2: how much I obtained by two spoon? And and I
Speaker 2: tell you every day, let's say nearly every day. And
Speaker 2: I just mix with the product that's going to taste.
Speaker 2: She doesn't say that good with water. It's a bit
Speaker 2: of a sickly taste. So but if I mix it
Speaker 2: with somebody that that's something else. I can't taste it
Speaker 2: at all. But I'm a big believer in it. And
Speaker 2: what what do you what would you you know, you're
Speaker 2: in the business. Do you look at guys all the science.
Speaker 2: What would you tell me about creating?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I definitely say that's good idea to take it.
Speaker 3: One of the things about creatine people don't realize how
Speaker 3: cost effective it is. I think a killo creatine from
Speaker 3: us at the moment might be thirty or forty dollars forever. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you've got two hundred serves there. You know, it's
Speaker 3: the eight months work and that's totally decent sized, does
Speaker 3: so every day every day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so crazily
Speaker 3: cost effective, and I would say out of every ingredient,
Speaker 3: it's the most verified in terms of increasing strength and performance.
Speaker 3: You know, even has some benefits and endurance too. It's
Speaker 3: been studied, you know, there literally be thousands of studies
Speaker 3: that involve creantine. But that's that's creatine predominantly is involved
Speaker 3: in the energy cycle, which is used for muscle contractions.
Speaker 3: Kind of, it's not worth me going into the science.
Speaker 3: They're how it works and replenishment of the atp et cetera.
Speaker 3: But yeah, look, as you've just said before, there's there's
Speaker 3: all sorts of research now in terms of you know,
Speaker 3: anti aging benefits, you know, cognitive ability, you know, warding off,
Speaker 3: all sorts of you know, age related stuff. Specifically some
Speaker 3: benefits for women too. Just seems to be a bit
Speaker 3: of a wonder compound.
Speaker 2: But yeah, because I saw something the other day which
Speaker 2: I thought was very interesting that women tend to it
Speaker 2: tends to be busy a statistical sense, more women get
Speaker 2: dementia than men, and that creatane is actually very good
Speaker 2: for well, the science suggests that cretan is very good
Speaker 2: in helping to not necessarily stop you from getting a
Speaker 2: dementia or and or else office but delaying it, and
Speaker 2: particularly if you have had two traumatic brain injury. And
Speaker 2: I don't mean by traumatic brain injury by the way
Speaker 2: going through the front window or something you can't I'm
Speaker 2: talking about played footy, or you were a basketballer, or
Speaker 2: you're a netball or you're a soccer player you're heading
Speaker 2: the ball, or you played robility or your box or
Speaker 2: whatever the case be. And I'm talking about little little TBI.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily trauma doesn't have to be huge, it can
Speaker 2: be just small, and Creatan is very good for that.
Speaker 2: In fact, there's a lot of studies are saying that
Speaker 2: if someone has just played a game of football or
Speaker 2: is about to play a game roby League for example,
Speaker 2: that they should have like twenty middle grams do this
Speaker 2: before they play because it helps you actually your brain
Speaker 2: deal with the trauma you're going to get. And a
Speaker 2: lot of footballers get this trauma, they accept the proposition,
Speaker 2: they get it. But I just think this underdone, way,
Speaker 2: way underdone, creatine, and it's so easy. There's absolutely no
Speaker 2: excuse for it, especially if it's you know, just sitting
Speaker 2: in your cupboard and where you get up first in
Speaker 2: the morning when you have a first drink of water.
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about another really important product
Speaker 2: that you have is hydration product. So you have a
Speaker 2: a hydration product which is made up of minerals, made
Speaker 2: up of minerals salts, basically mineral salts.
Speaker 1: How long you've had that product? And why does it
Speaker 1: so important have.
Speaker 3: Just before I do that just in terms of the
Speaker 3: crew scene. Yeah, so there's evidence about improving improving cognitive
Speaker 3: performance during stressful situations, even helping people if they're affected
Speaker 3: by sleep deprivation. We have to be careful not making
Speaker 3: therapeutic claims here, but yeah, it is. It is shown
Speaker 3: to be beneficial for so many things.
Speaker 2: You know. I for me, when I read the paper,
Speaker 2: will work on it. And that's the sort of thing
Speaker 2: I do. I read, you know, like abstracts and studies publications.
Speaker 2: It covers so many things. Yeah, Like it's crazy like sleep,
Speaker 2: as you say, cognitive cognitive cognitive ability, you know, like
Speaker 2: if you're looking from my point of view, particularly as
Speaker 2: you get older. From my point of view, performance is
Speaker 2: really big deal. Being able to perform like it if
Speaker 2: when younger I mean, like may I don't hold you,
Speaker 2: but you look pretty young.
Speaker 1: Someone like you.
Speaker 2: You're probably sweet if you just eat, you know, you
Speaker 2: know everything, Like you all have good vegetables and good
Speaker 2: steak or whatever it is. But when you get older,
Speaker 2: it's not the case. And we don't and because we
Speaker 2: don't and we don't digestive thing as well as we
Speaker 2: used to either, because you know, we're producing less acid in.
Speaker 1: The stomach, and there's a whole lot. It's quite complex.
Speaker 2: So when the thing that you get from creeding is
Speaker 2: like massive, like in terms of dish or stuff proty, yes,
Speaker 2: really important because you just need protein. But this stuff
Speaker 2: here does so many other things or is involved in
Speaker 2: so many other processes the body. I just don't think
Speaker 2: you can do without it. I mean, that's my point
Speaker 2: of view. And this one here does support what is that.
Speaker 3: Diffusion talking about. Yah, so if you talked about some
Speaker 3: of the jestive problems that people have when they age.
Speaker 3: And just to be clear, so I'm forty.
Speaker 2: Five, so obviously look then if you've been taking this,
Speaker 2: you'll go, you're about twenty five.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm younger than you, but I'm certainly old enough
Speaker 3: to have a lot of niggling, you know, knee and
Speaker 3: back issues, and you know, a lot of the longevity
Speaker 3: benefits I get from these products. Yeah, I'm sort of
Speaker 3: relling to really into that realm. You know. When I
Speaker 3: was sort of thirty and below, you know, it's like
Speaker 3: you don't think about your body. It's just your wake
Speaker 3: up and you know, you bounce really well. But now
Speaker 3: I'm certainly old enough to be getting the benefits of
Speaker 3: living in a healthy way.
Speaker 2: You know. Well, I've only sort of more recently been
Speaker 2: involved in supplement yep. And you know, prior to that,
Speaker 2: I've always trained, but I've always had injuries and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. But I've always trained. But now I don't
Speaker 2: think I can get by without supplements. So and I
Speaker 2: just also think that sourcing the right food and sourcing
Speaker 2: the right amount of the supplements that I need is
Speaker 2: not an easy thing to do. And then you've got
Speaker 2: to cook, and you know, blah blah blah. And sometimes
Speaker 2: you know, like at night, I don't want to eat
Speaker 2: a big meal because I want to sleep properly and
Speaker 2: I might get home late. So then then for me,
Speaker 2: it's a no brainer. Gets these things up together. I
Speaker 2: did want to talk about the infusion and the salts
Speaker 2: because I've had I had a conversation with Jordan Sullivan,
Speaker 2: who's the fight dietician who is very famous when it
Speaker 2: comes to hydration.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal for him.
Speaker 2: And I see that you've got your own hydration product
Speaker 2: as well. I've got it in my office. Actually, let's
Speaker 2: just have a quick talk about hydration. Like I can't
Speaker 2: remember the three middles. I think a sodium, I think
Speaker 2: of sodium, ignesium and potassium potassium. Yeah, yeah, yep, that's
Speaker 2: in yours, correct, yep. So, and there are other products
Speaker 2: like that. It doesn't need to be sweet. It doesn't
Speaker 2: need to be the one you buy for when you
Speaker 2: get diary, you know the thing that everyone get. What's
Speaker 2: your how's your standout? How does your process look?
Speaker 3: Ours is, well, we're very transparent in terms of what
Speaker 3: ingredients we use in the ratios. I'd say that we
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time looking at the literature and
Speaker 3: worked out what the opten ratios were. And it's completely
Speaker 3: carb free. And some people like adding carbs, but they're cheap,
Speaker 3: so if you want to add them, you can, but
Speaker 3: otherwise we want to give you a carb free product.
Speaker 3: So you've got that choice, and it's just really cost effective.
Speaker 3: You know, off the top of my head, that might
Speaker 3: be one where it's like, you know, fifty or sixty
Speaker 3: cents a doze. And again there might be some competitives
Speaker 3: products which are more like a couple of dollars a dose.
Speaker 3: So yeah, classic bulk nutrients product. We look at the
Speaker 3: market and said what exists? Can we make a better product?
Speaker 3: Can we make it more cost effective? You know, and
Speaker 3: you get it in a tub rather than individual's sachets,
Speaker 3: which you can makes it more cost effective. That's a yeah, very.
Speaker 2: Popular product and we just I just want to hone
Speaker 2: in on this one here the gut health what are
Speaker 2: you talking mean? Because is es like the Greens a
Speaker 2: little bit more sophisticated than just the Greens product.
Speaker 3: So with the digestic fusion, we use as many natural
Speaker 3: ingredients as we can. So we've got the pea fire
Speaker 3: but the weak grass, barley grass, colrell and spillina and
Speaker 3: then a variety of fruit powders. But this is both
Speaker 3: a combination of probiotics which we have in there, but
Speaker 3: also some probiotics, and the idea there is you're keeping
Speaker 3: your your guts nice and health in the first place.
Speaker 1: We're giving the microbes something to it.
Speaker 3: That's right exactly.
Speaker 2: Basically you're feeding the microbes in your gut and you're
Speaker 2: feeding them with the good stuff.
Speaker 3: They say that everyone's got microbes in the gut, but
Speaker 3: it's you know what to what level they are, and
Speaker 3: you know which ones you've got more of and less of.
Speaker 3: Is obviously changes spending on the food.
Speaker 2: So you're you know, you've got all these skews or
Speaker 2: product lines. You know, you're obviously doing quite well. Just
Speaker 2: when you say that the cost of the land you bought,
Speaker 2: which is riggers, the building and the building is equal
Speaker 2: to two days turnover. So they just just give us
Speaker 2: a broad idea like would you be number one in
Speaker 2: terms of nutritional products in Australia today?
Speaker 3: It look good questions. So it's hard for us to
Speaker 3: know the Australian base. Yeah, yeah, look well I think
Speaker 3: so because when I look at compared to so we've
Speaker 3: got our direct to consumer brand, so that's what we are.
Speaker 3: We manufacturing and sell direct. I think we're probably like
Speaker 3: three to four times bigger than maybe the next biggest
Speaker 3: of those. Yeah, maybe two to three actually, depending on
Speaker 3: which sector of the market you're talking about. But in
Speaker 3: terms of those established brands, you know, there's you've got
Speaker 3: what we've got Aussie Bodies and balance and nutrition. It's
Speaker 3: hard to know exactly how big they are, but we
Speaker 3: do know that when they're part of a conglomerate, which
Speaker 3: some of them are, you can look at the total
Speaker 3: Turno vigas and then kind of do some estimations and yeah, look,
Speaker 3: I think confidently say that we're bigger than those brands,
Speaker 3: and we certainly tell a whole lot more protein.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's sort of been under the radar a
Speaker 2: bit though, because as you're online and you know, sitting
Speaker 2: on shelves in those shops where you're looking at everything's
Speaker 2: sort of for sale, and we get mesmerized by walking
Speaker 2: around the room and then you get confused because you
Speaker 2: wouldn't know which one to buy because there's so many
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: But you've been one. Therefore you've been on the raid
Speaker 1: because your director consumer.
Speaker 3: And also to a customer base. I don't know what
Speaker 3: the current percentages are, but something like you know, ten
Speaker 3: to fifteen percent of Australians you would use approchain. Really,
Speaker 3: it's something like that, and what people used to say
Speaker 3: to me, I've never heard of you, and I actually
Speaker 3: realized that that's a bit of a compliment in a way,
Speaker 3: because it's like, if you're not buying our products, we
Speaker 3: don't necessarily want to waste that marketing budget on you.
Speaker 3: So we're very very specific with how we market to people,
Speaker 3: whether it's through you know, fitness expos, you know, bodybuilding shows,
Speaker 3: powerlifting events. Online marketing is a huge part of what
Speaker 3: we do, so I can talk about that also. We've
Speaker 3: got a massive budget for that social media, but we're
Speaker 3: very good at targeting people who are likely to buy
Speaker 3: our products. We are broadening over time because you know,
Speaker 3: there might be a lot of people that are sort
Speaker 3: of dipping into this market that aren't aware of us,
Speaker 3: and if they go into a supplement store or have
Speaker 3: a look at Wullies on the shelves, we want them
Speaker 3: to be aware of us too, because we used to
Speaker 3: be a brand that people would come to after using
Speaker 3: name brands and kind of going, I want better value,
Speaker 3: whereas now we want people to see us early on
Speaker 3: and going and I'm going to go straight to bulk
Speaker 3: nutrients because that's where value is.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, what would you think then,
Speaker 2: is your probably your number one highlight as far as
Speaker 2: consumers concern? Is it because is it because of the pricing?
Speaker 2: Is it because of the ingredients or I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: you'd probably say some combination. But what is the one
Speaker 2: thing that most people think of when they think of
Speaker 2: bulk nutrients that actually are a consumer of it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that the being very cost effective. Yeah,
Speaker 3: certainly compared to stores and gyms and things. But word
Speaker 3: of mouth for us is massive too, So you know,
Speaker 3: so many personal trainers and competitive athletes and others are
Speaker 3: using our product. And that's why even though we literally
Speaker 3: spend you know, many many millions a year on digital
Speaker 3: advertising and things, whenever we do our surveying, word of
Speaker 3: mouth is still our best advertisement.
Speaker 2: Wow, and where to from here? So you know we've
Speaker 2: got You're doing really well from my point of view,
Speaker 2: Very young you and your fairly new business. You're only
Speaker 2: twenty years old, yeah, fifteen twenty years Yeah for me,
Speaker 2: that's nothing in a lifetime business lifetime. What's your plan?
Speaker 3: So about three years ago we started four years ago,
Speaker 3: we started TGA project, which is Therapeutic Goods Administration. So
Speaker 3: we had capsulated products as foods, which we still have
Speaker 3: some of them, but we understood that legislation was going
Speaker 3: to change, and if you were to manufacture and sell capsules,
Speaker 3: they needs to be under therapeutic goods.
Speaker 1: Now, is it because it's in a capsule.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a long story here, and crazily it looks
Speaker 3: like medicine. Yeah, that's right. But the legislation was due
Speaker 3: to change in the eleventh hour, literally about two months
Speaker 3: from the date change, after we'd invested many minutillions. They
Speaker 3: basically said, oh, maybe it won't change so much after all.
Speaker 3: That's a story in itself, and you know, bureaucrats a like.
Speaker 3: But we now have a therapeutic goods plant, which is good,
Speaker 3: so that that's probably the biggest thing we've done in
Speaker 3: a while. So we manufacture. We always manufactured our captual products,
Speaker 3: but now we manufacture some of them are starting to
Speaker 3: therapeutic goods, which kind of means that we have opportunities
Speaker 3: into that sort of much wider range of complementary medicines
Speaker 3: and those kinds of pharmaceuticals. So that will be a
Speaker 3: bigger push for us. So, you know, weight loss products,
Speaker 3: performance based products in the capsual form, and yeah.
Speaker 1: What does a performance based product mean, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: I guess that anything that will give you eogenic benefits,
Speaker 3: So something that will help you add muscle or get fitter,
Speaker 3: or muscular endurance or you know, yet just straight endurance.
Speaker 1: You mean outside of creating for example.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'd say that most of our products, like
Speaker 3: a pre workout product, our branch shann amino acids, our proteins,
Speaker 3: et cetera. All of these things that designed to improve
Speaker 3: performance in some way. Yeah, rather than well, I mean,
Speaker 3: we would say general health is also performance though, isn't
Speaker 3: it big taking it's better? Yeah that that that line
Speaker 3: is probably blurred. But in the past, at least from
Speaker 3: my perspective, I used to look upon it and say,
Speaker 3: we were a sports nutrition company, so that's aligned with
Speaker 3: kind of performance and muscle building, et cetera. And then
Speaker 3: there was the kind of the general health, which is
Speaker 3: more the black Wars and traditional products like that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: there's been a much greater kind of merging because they're
Speaker 3: more in our space and we're more in their space
Speaker 3: now too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean I've seen a couple of other
Speaker 2: because there are some more there are. There is one
Speaker 2: particular and I'm not going to mention the name, but
Speaker 2: there's one particular provider who sells everything in a capsule
Speaker 2: or table of form and the you know, the chemist warehouses.
Speaker 1: Of the world.
Speaker 2: Like it's just got a million there of this particular
Speaker 2: individual's brand in there, but it's all sort of nearly
Speaker 2: homeopathic or it's all like stinging nettle and all these
Speaker 2: sorts of things. You know, these sorts of things will
Speaker 2: kind of hurt and marketing is unbelievable because they're everywhere.
Speaker 2: What do you think about that sort of stuff? Is
Speaker 2: that sort of territory where you guys go down.
Speaker 3: Look, not really, I mean I'm not sure of Yeah,
Speaker 3: like we'd have to get into the weeds about which
Speaker 3: products and what's effective and whatever else. But I think
Speaker 3: that for us, that that cost per serve and that
Speaker 3: real value and ingredients that generally better known is going
Speaker 3: to be something that we kind of stick to. But
Speaker 3: that said, I mean, we're getting into the longevity space
Speaker 3: quite a bit. You know, we have the nm N product,
Speaker 3: We've got a lot of different ingredients that you used
Speaker 3: for that, and we've got some formulas that we're due
Speaker 3: to release which will be you know, in that kind
Speaker 3: of longevity, anti.
Speaker 1: Weight because I want some of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah a good let me be your.
Speaker 1: Yeah test umy.
Speaker 2: I mean no, I'm serious because I actually some sage
Speaker 2: you love to come down and have a look at
Speaker 2: your free tractor. Absolute, it'd be good to come down
Speaker 2: and have a look at that.
Speaker 1: You know. I should have thought about that on because
Speaker 1: I was just quick in and out meeting.
Speaker 2: But I could have if I had got probably organized
Speaker 2: the probably could have come down and spent another half
Speaker 2: a day looking around the joint because I was you're
Speaker 2: not far from her butt.
Speaker 3: No, I look only about half an hour. And we
Speaker 3: love nothing more than you know, showing people the factory.
Speaker 1: So I love, I love know him and have a look.
Speaker 3: Well. The good thing about ours From the outside that
Speaker 3: original site they're at, it looks like a pretty basic
Speaker 3: building and then you go inside and it's kind of transformed.
Speaker 1: Get blown away.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, And just the team are beautiful and everyone's
Speaker 3: very friendly. And I think you'll you'll know straight away,
Speaker 3: you'll say this is a workplace that people are happy in,
Speaker 3: you know, Well, that makes it.
Speaker 2: I think that makes a big difference to the product,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think that's a good place for
Speaker 2: us to wrap.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's for me.
Speaker 2: You're a relative to the young man, and this business
Speaker 2: is relatively speaking, young business, but you've actually been out
Speaker 2: of carve out a real corner of.
Speaker 1: It for yourself. You know you're doing a great job.
Speaker 2: I can say to anybody who's listening, I mean I
Speaker 2: use the products and I'm not here.
Speaker 1: Look, I will be straight up.
Speaker 2: We do have a commercial relationship, and particularly in RELATIONSIP
Speaker 2: Project one Hunter, but it suit's been a commercial relationship
Speaker 2: only with people that I understand that I know how
Speaker 2: the business works, and that I try their product and
Speaker 2: I read what's on the back of it.
Speaker 1: I read everything about these sorts of products.
Speaker 2: I mean, I might be asked some questions today, but
Speaker 2: that's something because that's how our podcast goes. He's got
Speaker 2: to do the answering. I've got to do the questioning.
Speaker 2: But I have read about these sort of things, their products.
Speaker 2: I know a lot about their products, and I think
Speaker 2: you've done a bloody great job. Seriously, a really great job.
Speaker 1: And your team.
Speaker 2: Obviously, success is always built up on the broad shoulders
Speaker 2: above us. They're really on one person. Even though one
Speaker 2: person can sort of stand up on top of everyone
Speaker 2: else's shoulders. But that's how it works. And you've done
Speaker 2: a great job. And I know, I actually want to
Speaker 2: come in and meet your team. Now you've got me
Speaker 2: sort of going. And then when it comes to longevity, mate,
Speaker 2: And if you've got some longevity thing that's you know,
Speaker 2: like everybody else in the world is talking about, and
Speaker 2: that it's and you've done the work. I don't have
Speaker 2: to do the research. You can do the research. You've
Speaker 2: got the people do the research. You can do that
Speaker 2: got the teams you can actually verify or quantify or qualify.
Speaker 2: Please let me know because I'd love to try these things.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And one thing I would say too is
Speaker 3: when we get you down the factory, you know, we'll
Speaker 3: get you involved in the taste testing and we'll get
Speaker 3: your fear that go through the ingredients. And that's always
Speaker 3: been a huge part of what we've done too. Like
Speaker 3: we use customers a lot when it comes to developing formulas.
Speaker 3: We're getting advice from them all the time. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, the detail of the formulas is done by us,
Speaker 3: but we're really really collaborative with our customers too, because
Speaker 3: they're you know, they're kind of part of a business.
Speaker 3: And I think that even though we're in much larger
Speaker 3: business now, we still act like a smaller business in
Speaker 3: that way with that customer relationship, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: So I love the sound of that small business, small
Speaker 2: business acting like a big business. Yeah, I love it,
Speaker 2: you know, or a big business acting like a small
Speaker 2: business is better.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Congratulations building this from where you have to where it
Speaker 2: is made. Yeah, no worries in all this you've been yep.
Speaker 2: Thanks love for having me on, Thanks for coming off
Speaker 2: from I'll see it down there.
Speaker 3: Want me to do do do Do