Speaker 1: Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. My
Speaker 1: wife likes to joke around that I have the soul
Speaker 1: of a depression era housewife because I save everything and
Speaker 1: work it into the following day's meal. So the other
Speaker 1: night we made peas. Following day, what have all the
Speaker 1: peas that are left over? They ended up in an
Speaker 1: almward for breakfast the next day, I say it all,
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Repurposing is great. Hey, I'm Tom
Speaker 1: Clichio and you're listening to Citizen Chef. So, starting about
Speaker 1: six seven years ago, the term food waste was something
Speaker 1: that a lot of Americans started focusing on. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of organizations pointing out the amount of food
Speaker 1: that was wasted throughout the entire production system, which was
Speaker 1: about all of the food produced in America. And again
Speaker 1: there's food wasted on the farms. Of food is left
Speaker 1: in the fields. When food gets into the processing plant,
Speaker 1: if it's not the right size, if there's any blemishes
Speaker 1: or bruises, it gets discarded and then wants it gets
Speaker 1: into the supermarket. Plenty of food that is just not
Speaker 1: perfect ends up getting thrown out as well. Anything past
Speaker 1: their expiration day. Milt that it's perfectly fine, but it's
Speaker 1: past the expiration day. But that's a whole other conversation
Speaker 1: about how they actually come about and at home, a
Speaker 1: consumer's waste between eight hundred dollars a year, which is
Speaker 1: roughly of the annual food budget. So just picture walking
Speaker 1: out of a grocery store with four bags and just
Speaker 1: dropping one and continuing to walk. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: And so there's a couple of companies that are doing
Speaker 1: something about it. There's a beer company that uses wasted
Speaker 1: bread to make beer. There's in France they actually made
Speaker 1: it illegal and throw out food. A lot of food
Speaker 1: gets donated to food banks and food pantries. But this
Speaker 1: really just scratches the surface. That was until I met
Speaker 1: Justin Camine and his family business called Do Good Foods.
Speaker 1: They don't shy away from seeking big solutions to some
Speaker 1: of Earth's largest problems, and Do Good Foods realize that
Speaker 1: food is being on now and still has a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of nutrient value. So they've come up with a
Speaker 1: way to take those nutrients uh and sustainably produce animal feed. Again,
Speaker 1: this is nothing new when you think about it. For centuries,
Speaker 1: farmers have been taking food that was left over and
Speaker 1: been feeding it to their animals. In fact, I have
Speaker 1: chickens at my house and I usually feed them scraps,
Speaker 1: especially produce. I stay away from meat and obviously chicken,
Speaker 1: but I feed them lots of leftover produce and scraps.
Speaker 1: And they also spend a lot of time foraging for
Speaker 1: insects and things like that. So if we could capture
Speaker 1: those nutrients the very same day, are immediately after, and
Speaker 1: turn it into a soil amendment or palletized animal feed
Speaker 1: the very next day, we can create a healthier, more profitable,
Speaker 1: and sustainable solution for our supermarkets and farmers and consumers.
Speaker 1: I mean, also, we are reducing the amount of corn
Speaker 1: and soy that we're feeding animals as well, and so
Speaker 1: hopefully we can take some of that that farmland back
Speaker 1: and turn it into farmland that produces food, not just
Speaker 1: animal food. So this is the kind of problem solving
Speaker 1: that gets me excited both as a chef and activist
Speaker 1: and a consumer. So I'm excited to introduce to you
Speaker 1: today Justin Kmine from Do Good Foods. Justin, welcome to
Speaker 1: the Citizenship Podcast. So great, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Full disclosure I'm an advisor to the company. There are
Speaker 1: estimates that between thirty to forty percent of all food
Speaker 1: that is produced UM in the country and worldwide is wasted.
Speaker 1: And there is waste throughout the entire UH food production
Speaker 1: system UH from the farmer straight through to the distributors
Speaker 1: to supermarkets and of course the end user. Estimates are
Speaker 1: between fifteen eighteen hundred dollars of food is thrown out
Speaker 1: by the consumer every year. And I guess about seven
Speaker 1: eight years ago, UM this started to become an issue
Speaker 1: that you heard more and more about, and at first
Speaker 1: it was quite shocking, and most people really didn't believe
Speaker 1: the numbers and they thought it couldn't be true. In fact,
Speaker 1: I ever remember I was at a dinner party I
Speaker 1: mentioned this and someone got angry at me and said,
Speaker 1: it's impossible, it couldn't possibly be true, But we know
Speaker 1: it is. And so there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: are trying to focus on this issue UH anything from
Speaker 1: making beer from from UH you know, bread that's thrown out.
Speaker 1: Lots of organizations working on the issue, but I still
Speaker 1: have not seen anyone that is actually tackling this issue
Speaker 1: to the size and scale and scope that do good chicken. Yes.
Speaker 1: So food waste became a kind of a major, kind
Speaker 1: of key emphasis for myself and the family about five
Speaker 1: or six years ago. UM, I think we started to
Speaker 1: see a lot of those same stats that you had
Speaker 1: rattled off that of all the food that gets grown
Speaker 1: gets thrown away, and if food waste was a country,
Speaker 1: would be the third largest greenhouse gas in matter. A
Speaker 1: pretty crazy problem to really have, UM, and something that
Speaker 1: I don't think that we fully understood and recognized, UM,
Speaker 1: but where we approached it to your point about the
Speaker 1: size and the scale. So our background on our family
Speaker 1: is that, UM, we've built large scale infrastructure now for
Speaker 1: about thirty years, about four billion dollars UM and energy
Speaker 1: and then telecom and having the largest probably health telecom company,
Speaker 1: and then my brother and I about ten twelve years
Speaker 1: ago when we graduated college, we wanted to work with
Speaker 1: our father and his team and use and focus that
Speaker 1: infrastructure capabilities onto what we thought was some of the
Speaker 1: world's biggest problems, recognizing that you can solve some of
Speaker 1: these problems so long as you're doing so at a
Speaker 1: size and the scale that can really move the needle
Speaker 1: quickly and efficiently. UH. And so long as it's not
Speaker 1: only economical but really with the environment in hand. Justin
Speaker 1: what I want to hear, I want to get to
Speaker 1: the back story. Um, why did you become aware of
Speaker 1: the issue of food waste and when did you decide
Speaker 1: to do something about it. Yeah, so, my brother and
Speaker 1: I graduated college about ten or twelve years ago and
Speaker 1: wanted to really fool just a family platform on the
Speaker 1: sustainable solutions that could really transform the world and do
Speaker 1: so at a at a size and the scale that
Speaker 1: could really matter. Um. So that's when we first started
Speaker 1: with solar, built about five hundred million dollars of solar
Speaker 1: projects collectively together. And then about five years ago is
Speaker 1: when we started to dedicate all of our time, energy,
Speaker 1: and resources and our team of engineers and business development
Speaker 1: onto how do we solve food waste and how do
Speaker 1: we build an infrastructure platform that can actually scale nationwide
Speaker 1: and really create the impact and the change that we
Speaker 1: all know is necessary. What do you do with this?
Speaker 1: So there's there's food waste. Are are food that is
Speaker 1: going to be wasted? You actually get it before it's wasted,
Speaker 1: and so what do you actually do with it? So,
Speaker 1: so people have been feeding food to animals forever. Right
Speaker 1: for century, we used to take our leftovers on our
Speaker 1: farms and feed it to our chickens. Used do I
Speaker 1: still do that? I have my chickens into that yard,
Speaker 1: and I take my compost what's going to go in
Speaker 1: the compost, But now I feed it to my chickens
Speaker 1: before it actually gets to the compost. So this is
Speaker 1: still happening. Um. But but I'm not doing it at
Speaker 1: the scale you're doing it. This is still happening, and
Speaker 1: God bless those that are still doing it. Unfortunately, a
Speaker 1: majority of the population in the US do not live
Speaker 1: on farms. Um. So, Hey, I think food waste is
Speaker 1: tangible to us all because we're all used to throwing
Speaker 1: it away or trying to repurpose it in some other way.
Speaker 1: But where where we really centered on is exactly where
Speaker 1: the FDA and the food hierarchy talks about where the
Speaker 1: maximum usage food is be fed to humans. The next
Speaker 1: masimi us to food is to be fed to animals.
Speaker 1: So what do we do we work with these supermarkets. Um,
Speaker 1: we actually provide them designated bins, one for the meat
Speaker 1: and one for the produce. Um, and they called the aisles.
Speaker 1: So all of the food that's just reached it sell
Speaker 1: by date UM or the apples or whatever it has
Speaker 1: fallen on the ground or two browns for consumers, they
Speaker 1: of course donate as much as they possibly can in
Speaker 1: because that's the best usage of food. But then we
Speaker 1: actually go and pick up that food that's kept in
Speaker 1: the cold change so this food is still fresh, it's
Speaker 1: still cold, um, and we're picking up about two hundred
Speaker 1: tons every single day. We have a designate logistics provider
Speaker 1: to do so UM that that equates to about on
Speaker 1: average every two or three days, about four d and
Speaker 1: fifties supermarkets that we're picking up that food. Of course,
Speaker 1: like I said, they we maximize human donations first and foremost,
Speaker 1: and the next best usage of that food is to
Speaker 1: come to our production facility where we take that meat
Speaker 1: and those fruits and vegetables. We put it through a
Speaker 1: conveyor system to pull out any kind of foreign material. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the supermarkets d package UM, so there's no plastics, there's
Speaker 1: no nothing in that material already, but we pull out
Speaker 1: whatever potentially had gotten put in there, and then we
Speaker 1: do a very simple process um we grind up food. UM.
Speaker 1: We passed her rised it at about a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty degrees for thirty minutes, we blend it like a
Speaker 1: wine for nutrient consistency, and then we're actually able to
Speaker 1: dry that product that same day into a usable form
Speaker 1: for our animals the very next day, into a dried
Speaker 1: animal feed that can go right back into the existing
Speaker 1: female infrastructure the very next day. So what we're doing, Tom,
Speaker 1: is exactly what you did with your leftovers and fed
Speaker 1: it to your chickens out back out cycling all this
Speaker 1: food two hundred tons every single day and to a
Speaker 1: dried animal feed the very next day. Do you have
Speaker 1: any idea what the two hundred tons represent in terms
Speaker 1: of water? What what did it take to produce? There
Speaker 1: was two hundred tons of food? You know, So because
Speaker 1: it's not you know, we'll talk about food waste and
Speaker 1: and solving issued food waste. Yeah, part of it is um,
Speaker 1: the actual food that is getting thrown out and not used,
Speaker 1: but there's also you know, water that goes into an
Speaker 1: energy that goes into it um from literally the time
Speaker 1: we pick up the food, saving that from typically going
Speaker 1: to landfill, which a majority unfortunately of the food waste
Speaker 1: that we have goes to, which of course is where
Speaker 1: it creates methane gas, which is uh twenty plus times
Speaker 1: more potent it than CEO two. But we have actually
Speaker 1: tracked and quantified all of the carbon associated with the collection,
Speaker 1: the production process that we have converting the food into
Speaker 1: a dried animal feed and back in into the animal's diet.
Speaker 1: And what's so exciting is that all of that, when
Speaker 1: you look at the third party valve verification, actually creates
Speaker 1: a carbon reduced chicken product. So you mentioned chicken. So
Speaker 1: when when you first, um start looking at his technology,
Speaker 1: obviously you knew based on on your your family's history
Speaker 1: that you could scale this. Uh, you know, how how
Speaker 1: long did it take to actually start from from when
Speaker 1: you create the technology to get to the process where
Speaker 1: you can actually start number one, producing the feed and
Speaker 1: start to grow the chickens, Because it was it was
Speaker 1: a lengthy process working with various chicken growers UM to
Speaker 1: come up with the exact formulas that you need to
Speaker 1: actually feed the chickens. There was a question to whether
Speaker 1: that would work, whether or not the chickens would grow. Yeah. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: it's taken us about five years and about twenty of
Speaker 1: our own kind of capital to get to this position. Um,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of trial and error. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of understanding as to from the supply chain, right,
Speaker 1: how do you get a consistent large volume uh supply
Speaker 1: Because to your point about feeding a chicken, the nutritionists
Speaker 1: on the chicken growing side need to know that the
Speaker 1: feed and greeting is coming to them every single day
Speaker 1: with a guarantee nutrient analysis so that they can consistently
Speaker 1: grow that that heard on a on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: So coordinating both of those two kind of variables into
Speaker 1: a consistency has been part of this kind of magic
Speaker 1: that we've created, which is largely predicated on size and
Speaker 1: scale and logistics. Uh So, over those kind of past
Speaker 1: five years, there's a lot of learnings as to how
Speaker 1: much bat composition um of course is an amazing component
Speaker 1: of energy for these animals um, and and what is
Speaker 1: the right inclusion ratios from that perspective, And then it
Speaker 1: got down into the usable forum, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you take food waste which we actually cause food
Speaker 1: leftovers two tons of meats, groups and vegetables every single day,
Speaker 1: and how do you get it to a dried form
Speaker 1: that can go right back into the existing female infrastructure,
Speaker 1: Just like your standard corn and soyd so. The whole
Speaker 1: drying capacity of that was a unique developed development that
Speaker 1: took a couple of years to figure out, how do
Speaker 1: you dry this to a consistent form that then can
Speaker 1: be just put into a mill, and and and and
Speaker 1: eventually a pellet. Really the exciting part, for the first
Speaker 1: time ever enabling consumers to be a part of the
Speaker 1: climate change in the food waste solution, going buy a
Speaker 1: piece of chicken, you know that every one pounds of
Speaker 1: chicken equates to one and a half pounds of greenhouse
Speaker 1: gases being saved and one and a half pounds of
Speaker 1: food waste being up cycled, all at a price point
Speaker 1: well below organic. We have now made climate change tangible
Speaker 1: to consumers. Continue your status quo, buy a piece of
Speaker 1: chicken and know that you're actually doing good and having
Speaker 1: a net positive on the world, not a net negative.
Speaker 1: And that's been the real unlock the logistics, the processing,
Speaker 1: and then that unlock of the brands owning that story
Speaker 1: onto the retail shelf and forever changing the animal agricultural industry.
Speaker 1: That's been really the focus. We'll be back with more
Speaker 1: Citizen Cheff. I'm Tom Clickio and you're listening to Citizen
Speaker 1: Chef today, I'm talking to Justin k Mine of Do
Speaker 1: Good Foods. His company is taking reclaim food and turning
Speaker 1: it into nutrient dense animal feed. So right now there's
Speaker 1: I called a plant and a half up and running
Speaker 1: right now, Is that correct? Yep? One in North Dakota,
Speaker 1: one in Pennsylvania. Um, and then we're gonna be building
Speaker 1: about six more of these over the next eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Right now. I I visited the plant in Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: this is not what you'd expect. Um. You know, if
Speaker 1: I were going into a plant that was processing food
Speaker 1: and making it's kind of like a little brown sludge
Speaker 1: and then against dried out, you'd expected to be you know,
Speaker 1: it's manufacturing, but you'd expect, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: garbage ways to be around flies and stuff. This is
Speaker 1: absolutely spotless, um. And what's really amazing is the truck
Speaker 1: comes in, it unloads the bin and it's never touched
Speaker 1: by human hands. It actually gets out this conveyor belt. Um.
Speaker 1: It's like you built a better mousetrap. It's great. It
Speaker 1: goes on this conveyor belt and um, it gets it
Speaker 1: dumped on the conveyor belt. It goes into the order
Speaker 1: and then the bin gets siloed off through uh what
Speaker 1: called a bin wash. It's like a car wash, but
Speaker 1: washes the bin, turns it upside down, and drives it
Speaker 1: and sent it back out into into the world. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the process starts. So let's go through the process.
Speaker 1: What exactly happens when when the waste comes in that
Speaker 1: goes on this conveyor belt. Yeah, so so absolutely so. Um.
Speaker 1: Every animal needs a different dietary component. So we are
Speaker 1: able to, based upon the source separation um of our bins,
Speaker 1: one for the needs and one for the produce, we're
Speaker 1: able to designate into our system the exact percentages that
Speaker 1: are necessary. Um. So we'll take that blend um call
Speaker 1: it typically about thirty five percent meats, sixty five percent
Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables. That's what our standard kind of UH
Speaker 1: diet is. We put it through a conveyor system where
Speaker 1: metal detection happens. Um, and then we go through a
Speaker 1: series of grinding steps. Obviously you're taking all this food
Speaker 1: sally lastic material. You've got to really grind it down
Speaker 1: to a a like you said, more of a sludge. Um.
Speaker 1: It's like the teeth exactly exactly just like what you
Speaker 1: and I do. Right, We're grinding up a bunch of
Speaker 1: food in our mouth, UM, and then it goes into
Speaker 1: a series of tanks where we are heating it up UM,
Speaker 1: destroying any potential pathogens that are there. UM milk is
Speaker 1: heated up at about hundred and sixty five degrees for
Speaker 1: about fifteen seconds. We do that for about thirty minutes UM.
Speaker 1: So of course, but we're already taking us D a
Speaker 1: certified food fit for human consumption, so we already have
Speaker 1: a very very clean supply chain. UM. That product is
Speaker 1: then blended, like I said, like a wine. So we
Speaker 1: multiple batches coming together where we blend it and then
Speaker 1: we're able to screen out some of the fats um
Speaker 1: to to help meet various dietary needs of various animals.
Speaker 1: And then those that product it simply goes onto a
Speaker 1: large drawing system where we're able to dry it down
Speaker 1: to a palleticizable form. So it's very simple. It's super complex.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of I P behind what we do
Speaker 1: and how we do it, Like I said, five years
Speaker 1: of development. Uh, but at the at the high level,
Speaker 1: it's a quite simple process that's actually been around for decades. Right,
Speaker 1: So of the for every plant, let's just say the
Speaker 1: existing Pennsylvania plant, how many chickens over the course of
Speaker 1: the year, can you actually raise and produce from the
Speaker 1: single plant? Yeah, so there there's enough feed for about
Speaker 1: twenty million chickens um. But it sounds like a big number,
Speaker 1: but it's not. That sounds like a lot. So here
Speaker 1: I'll blow your mind and give you the big number.
Speaker 1: So in the US alone, we slaughtered about eight billion
Speaker 1: to eight to nine billion chickens last year alone, and
Speaker 1: that's growing at about six percent year of a year.
Speaker 1: So if you think about the solution that we have,
Speaker 1: we can go off and build thirty of these production
Speaker 1: facilities and solve food waste nationwide. And we are only
Speaker 1: a small, small, small fraction of the overall chicken market
Speaker 1: let alone. To your point, when we start putting this
Speaker 1: speed into other animals, we are a small component. Yet
Speaker 1: we have the most sustainably grown animal at the at
Speaker 1: the price point that's affordable and accessible to all. That's
Speaker 1: why this is so exciting. By linking this to the brand,
Speaker 1: we can act age with consumers to help us solve
Speaker 1: food waste over the next five years, not the next
Speaker 1: twenty years. So I think by five years you'll you'll
Speaker 1: solve at the supermore could waste. That's the goal. That's
Speaker 1: the goal. Uh yeah, do you think you're taking a
Speaker 1: step further and get to the processing plants, because I mean,
Speaker 1: when when produce comes in from the field, Uh, if
Speaker 1: it's you know, the tomatoes don't fit in a five
Speaker 1: by six box or the zucchini are all perfectly straight
Speaker 1: and six inches long, it gets thrown out there. Do
Speaker 1: you see that we collected from the from the distributors
Speaker 1: as well. Um, eventually those will be bolt on to
Speaker 1: the platform. Um. We are after supermarkets first and foremost.
Speaker 1: It's high value and high volume UM. And it's more
Speaker 1: consistent um. But yes, then processing facilities will absolutely open
Speaker 1: up and we'll be a part of it. We and
Speaker 1: and we're doing this that try to better the world
Speaker 1: and all of us so as quickly as we can
Speaker 1: all help solve food waste. UM, the world's in a
Speaker 1: better position. And that's also how we actually we provide
Speaker 1: a lot of data back to the supermarkets for them
Speaker 1: to buy better and waste less. We're not trying to
Speaker 1: do all this create a solution for a problem. That
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily always have to be there, right and while
Speaker 1: you're also create a good solution for them because typically
Speaker 1: they have to pay dumping fees. But that's so that's
Speaker 1: going to go right to the bottom line of these
Speaker 1: sup markets, which is is a fine bit of business
Speaker 1: for them. Um. And then obviously, um, the streams that
Speaker 1: you're getting from the supermarkets, UM, I would imagine uh
Speaker 1: to do good chicken will be on those shelves. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: This is this is what's so exciting by this, which
Speaker 1: is we're help We're helping the supermarket solve one of
Speaker 1: their biggest pain points and one of their biggest complaints
Speaker 1: by their customers of what are you doing with that food?
Speaker 1: Of course, a tremendous amount of them have amazing giveback
Speaker 1: programs to Feeding America, and we absolutely want to help
Speaker 1: maximize that. That's the best usage. But then the next
Speaker 1: best usage is not to go to landfill or composting
Speaker 1: or anaerobic digestion. This food is still good and and
Speaker 1: and and literally cold to human touch. We can cycle that.
Speaker 1: That's what we're doing. We're up cycling this food into
Speaker 1: an animal feed and creating this amazingly unique carbon reduced
Speaker 1: story in an animal protein space that has never before
Speaker 1: seen that type of sustainability story. And that's why then
Speaker 1: the supermarkets want to tell this closed loop story to
Speaker 1: the consumers because as you look at all of these
Speaker 1: um reports coming out from companies like Chipotle and Sweet
Speaker 1: Green and everyone wanting to drive towards carbon reduction or
Speaker 1: carbon neutrality, the biggest pain point right now from a
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases is their meat consumption. And so if we
Speaker 1: can actually create a system that is a carbon neutral,
Speaker 1: carbon reduced animal production system, we've changed the game forever
Speaker 1: and we can really create the next kind of ecosystem
Speaker 1: for the agricultural industry that we maximize the usage of
Speaker 1: our resources and we hopefully reduce the destruction of the environment.
Speaker 1: What have you received any pushback at offpenning industries? Um,
Speaker 1: are the farmers are pro corn? So are they like
Speaker 1: breathing down your neck saying like like you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna interrupt the amount of of CORTN and
Speaker 1: soy that we could sell. I mean, when we build
Speaker 1: thirty of these production facilities nationwide, we're only producing close
Speaker 1: to a million tons of drive feed per year. The chicken,
Speaker 1: the chicken industry alone consumes about forty five million tons
Speaker 1: of drive feed per year. We're still a small, small,
Speaker 1: small fraction in the all animal feed space, but yet
Speaker 1: we have an amazingly unique sustainability stories. That is what
Speaker 1: I think consumers are really gonna desire. We're actually nervous
Speaker 1: that as we start to solve food waste so quickly,
Speaker 1: the demand for our products are gonna be so high
Speaker 1: that we're actually not gonna have enough waste anymore across
Speaker 1: the country, which that would be a fantastic That's a
Speaker 1: good that's a good problem I have. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: a good problem to have it. And there's still plenty
Speaker 1: of of of time to scale this. UM, it's not where.
Speaker 1: Uh how long does it take to put a processing
Speaker 1: plant on on board? It takes us about fourteen months.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be identifying the next six cities that
Speaker 1: we will go to. UM. We're making all these public
Speaker 1: announcements very shortly, UH, announcements of do good Foods will
Speaker 1: be on the retail shelf come this January. Uh. We're
Speaker 1: very excited by all of that. And then we will
Speaker 1: be building very quickly. UM. And to your point in
Speaker 1: the beginning, it's what my family has done. We've built
Speaker 1: four billion dollars of infrastructure across the country. Um, that's
Speaker 1: what we know how to do, and we've brought on
Speaker 1: a lot of agriculture experts UH to really then help
Speaker 1: build what we think can be the next kind of
Speaker 1: consumer product company that's actually a net positive for the world.
Speaker 1: When I was coming up, in the restaurants I work,
Speaker 1: we would actually look at the plates coming back because
Speaker 1: we thought that if people didn't finish their food there
Speaker 1: was something wrong with it. And often if we saw
Speaker 1: a half eaten dish, we'd go to the table and
Speaker 1: ask if everything was okay. And sometimes they would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's great, we're just not hungry. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: didn't like it, they just wouldn't say anything. In fact,
Speaker 1: the restaurants that I worked in France, if anything came
Speaker 1: back on the place, chef got really worried and concerned
Speaker 1: because cultural is a different cultural, especially around food, especially
Speaker 1: after going through the Second World War. I had a
Speaker 1: friend of mine whose dad almost starved to death during
Speaker 1: the war. Generations of people that are just you were
Speaker 1: trained to really eat your food and finish your plate.
Speaker 1: You got food on the plate, you ate it. I
Speaker 1: think Americans we are really just a generation away from
Speaker 1: our grandparents of two generations away from our grandparents who
Speaker 1: lived through depression where everything was saved. And I watched
Speaker 1: my grandfather fry bacon and then straighten out the grease
Speaker 1: and saved the bacon fat. And that's what he used
Speaker 1: to fry his food, and he wasn't going to throw
Speaker 1: that out. And food was much more valuable back then,
Speaker 1: and nothing was wasted. We moved so far away from
Speaker 1: teaching whole economics that was home economics was about stretching
Speaker 1: your dollars, especially around food, and we've moved so far
Speaker 1: away from that, and everything has become disposable and you
Speaker 1: want your food fast and it's not expensive to throw
Speaker 1: it out, and yeah, well it's a few generations away
Speaker 1: from really honoring that food. And when you think about
Speaker 1: what we're throwing out, it's it's not just the food
Speaker 1: stick around. With more from justin kmine of do good foods,
Speaker 1: we're back. I know you've been quoted saying that it's
Speaker 1: insane that of the food that we grow currently grow
Speaker 1: United States has wasted and added that the United Nations
Speaker 1: states that there's only about sixty years left of nutrients
Speaker 1: in our soil to continue to grow crops. Eight percent
Speaker 1: of global agriculture lands as being used for animal feed
Speaker 1: or grazing, and ur oceans are being depleted from fish.
Speaker 1: So the plant is the plant? When does it go online?
Speaker 1: The first plant It will start to go online in September.
Speaker 1: In September, got it? And so September you start producing
Speaker 1: food and then another four or five months, five months
Speaker 1: before you see the first chicken in the in the market. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so we're gonna have to bet up over a
Speaker 1: bit of the reserve as we just kind of start
Speaker 1: the commission and grow and develop the facility, um or
Speaker 1: turn on the facility, and then um, the chickens take
Speaker 1: their kind of gross cycle. Um, they're kind of fifty
Speaker 1: days to then get to the retail shelf. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For for anybody out there that's thinking like it's just
Speaker 1: a different kind of chicken, No, it's exactly the same chicken. Um.
Speaker 1: They taste exactly uh if I mean it depending on
Speaker 1: who cooked it. I mean I did have a sample
Speaker 1: early on and they tasted great. Um. And you were
Speaker 1: you were working in some of these early trials, you
Speaker 1: were working with the so the well known chicken growers
Speaker 1: that are out there without naming names. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: figure that out. And and and it's actually their natural
Speaker 1: diet there omnivores, this whole vegetarian fed chicken. They're just
Speaker 1: it's just the marketing terminology to claim because it's still
Speaker 1: corn and soy and corn and soy is not the
Speaker 1: chickens natural diet. No, it's not. You know, the the
Speaker 1: chickens actually like a dinosaur. It's actually that the modern
Speaker 1: chicken that we have now comes from the jungle cock,
Speaker 1: which is a bird from Asia. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: I watched my chickens and they are most of what
Speaker 1: they do, they scratch around and eat bugs. Um. Even
Speaker 1: though I feed them during the course of the day,
Speaker 1: they sit around and they scratch the surface sea them.
Speaker 1: They actually scratch and dig and they eat bugs all
Speaker 1: day long. So they're eating meat. They are, they are omnivorous. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, I mean that is their natural diet. You're
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. And um. You know when you some of
Speaker 1: the the um smaller chicken producers like I have a
Speaker 1: producer here in Browder's Birds, and they use the salatin
Speaker 1: method of growing chickens, so they're not actually in in
Speaker 1: houses where they're just getting fed. They're out on the pasture.
Speaker 1: And what they do is they depends that the chickens
Speaker 1: are in are moved every day, so they have fresh fielded,
Speaker 1: pick picked through and eat bugs. So again that is
Speaker 1: their natural diet. And when they do have that, that
Speaker 1: omnivores diet, that chickens actually taste better, um, because they're
Speaker 1: eating you know, a more natural diet, so exactly, and
Speaker 1: and that and that's the whole focus here right It's
Speaker 1: to create a more natural solution, to create a closed
Speaker 1: loop system, a waste free system, and to also enable
Speaker 1: us to feed all of the world right in an affordable,
Speaker 1: accessible way that we're not having to preach to everyone,
Speaker 1: Oh they gotta go plant based, so they gotta do this. Yes,
Speaker 1: all of that is absolutely key and critical. But the
Speaker 1: size and the scale of what the current animal agriculture
Speaker 1: industry is right now, and the size and the scale
Speaker 1: of what the food waste problem is right now, we
Speaker 1: can do a huge benefit to society over the next
Speaker 1: five or seven years. That absolutely has to happen. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other solutions are coming to fruition and
Speaker 1: we're all supportive of that, but feeding the world and
Speaker 1: providing enough animal protein which is going to be here.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna go away anytimes. It's just like oil
Speaker 1: and gas. We would all love it too, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to And we need to have a more
Speaker 1: sustainable solution for the present day industry. People that want
Speaker 1: to just buy a carbon reduced or carbon neutral chicken
Speaker 1: um as well to be a part of that solution. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to to the point in the beginning, we can
Speaker 1: create and use this process to feed a majority of
Speaker 1: our animals. And yes, we can tailor the protein of
Speaker 1: veg and all of this type of stuff to meet
Speaker 1: the dietary needs or restrictions of various animals. But that
Speaker 1: closed loop system has been that's the way nature intended
Speaker 1: to operate. It's just us as humans that disrupted that
Speaker 1: whole thing. Now we need to get back to that
Speaker 1: prior time and make it now a modern solution with
Speaker 1: the right technology that adheres to the right government regulations
Speaker 1: and practices, and adheres to being able to work with
Speaker 1: some of the biggest companies in the world to drive
Speaker 1: them to where they they are more sustainable in a
Speaker 1: real table way that engages with consumers at the retail shelf.
Speaker 1: All right, so you're disrupting the disruption exactly once you
Speaker 1: contend at a time time exactly. We hired an amazing woman,
Speaker 1: uh from Nestley UM and then we hired some former
Speaker 1: Tyson executives and uh some others to really come on
Speaker 1: and how do we build the brand of the future? UM.
Speaker 1: And that means across everything from retail to food service
Speaker 1: to restaurants. UM. I mean, as mentioned in the past,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of restaurants that are now trying to
Speaker 1: implement carbon labeling. UM. Bolo came out with can there
Speaker 1: burrito change the world? And what ingredients go into your
Speaker 1: burrito and affect the carbon calculation of that burrito? UM.
Speaker 1: Panera has a climate cool focus as to their carbon labeling. UM.
Speaker 1: And more and more retailers are really trying to talk
Speaker 1: the talk and walk the walk as to creating a
Speaker 1: more sustainable solution. They all know that this has to happen. UM.
Speaker 1: So I see this brand not only across retail and
Speaker 1: food service, but very much like Beyond an Impossible did
Speaker 1: where they're engaging at the at the restaurant level, where
Speaker 1: if you can walk into your favorite Chicken Sandwich company
Speaker 1: and go in and say, hey, do you want a
Speaker 1: chicken sandwich for five dollars or do you want a
Speaker 1: carbon reduced do good chicken sandwich for five dollars. I
Speaker 1: better bet that a majority of people are the gonna
Speaker 1: sit there and say I could help save the world
Speaker 1: by just eating this chicken sandwich. That's a cool aspect
Speaker 1: where they can really feel that they're doing good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is This has been a fascinating ride. I mean
Speaker 1: I could see I've had a view into what was
Speaker 1: going on over the last five years, and it's really
Speaker 1: been fascinating, really fascinating to watch, um all the steps
Speaker 1: along the way when things started looking like, wow, maybe
Speaker 1: this can't work. How um you and your your your dad,
Speaker 1: your brother just really pulled together and just kept focusing
Speaker 1: and kept focusing and kept pushing it and pushing it.
Speaker 1: And uh um, I for one can't wait to see
Speaker 1: that that first chicken on the shelf. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: really exciting. I'm all in, I'm all, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Can this technology? Is it better for the planet? Obviously, yes,
Speaker 1: it is, because you're reclaiming food that would end up
Speaker 1: in a landfill that would create methane plus. Again, if
Speaker 1: you can put a dent in the amount of it
Speaker 1: will be a small dent. But the dent in the
Speaker 1: amount of corn and soy that's produced your thinking about
Speaker 1: all the petrochemicals that you're saving, and and so you're
Speaker 1: hopefully reducing your footprint there as well. What's great about
Speaker 1: it is the USDA allowed us to use the word
Speaker 1: carbon neutral. Taking reclaimed food there's no carbon footprint at all,
Speaker 1: and creating this chicken. Thanks again to Justin Kmine and
Speaker 1: do Good Foods for their exemplary take on solving huge
Speaker 1: issues that so both the food supply chain and the environment.
Speaker 1: And thanks to a Place the Table, Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Citizen Chef is executive produced by Christopher Hasciotis and produced
Speaker 1: by Gabby Collins and researched by Lillian Holman. Citizen Chef
Speaker 1: is a production of high Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like this, visit the i Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts
Speaker 1: are anywhere you get your favorite shows.