Speaker 1: Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing, the
Speaker 1: gap between what companies say they stand for and what
Speaker 1: they actually do, and what they would need to change
Speaker 1: to practice what they preach. I'm your host time Ontogue,
Speaker 1: and I've spent over a decade helping companies define what
Speaker 1: they stand for, their purpose and then help them to
Speaker 1: use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. In
Speaker 1: this special episode, we're sharing a positive case study, a
Speaker 1: deep dive with the CEO of a purpose led company
Speaker 1: who we think is getting it right. Today, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Vital Farms, a publicly traded food company
Speaker 1: based in Austin, Texas, with the purpose of improving the
Speaker 1: lives of people, animals, and the planet through food. I
Speaker 1: had a great conversation with their CEO, Russell Diaz Conseco
Speaker 1: about how their mission drives decisions at every level of
Speaker 1: the company. But before we get to Russell, let's do
Speaker 1: some background. Vital Farms started in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: on a twenty seven acre plot in southwest Austin with
Speaker 1: only one farmer, Matt O'Hare. Matt saw an opportunity to
Speaker 1: change the way food is produced in America to reduce
Speaker 1: the environmental impact of the industrial approach to farming and
Speaker 1: give the power of food production back to small family farms,
Speaker 1: all while producing a high quality product at large scale.
Speaker 1: Starting with eggs, pasture raised egg gets a third or
Speaker 1: more of its diet the chicken does from grass, so
Speaker 1: they're eating salad as a result. The quality and the
Speaker 1: taste of the egg is dramatically different than anything and
Speaker 1: even before. That's matt back in two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: at the original Vital Farms location. Now, most eggs look
Speaker 1: pretty much the same on the outside no matter how
Speaker 1: they're produced. But the hens at Vital Farms eat grass,
Speaker 1: which creates a beautiful golden yolk, more beta caroteen, less cholesterol,
Speaker 1: and more vitamin A than conventional eggs. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Vital Farms was never just about eggs. That humble beginning
Speaker 1: was powered by an ambitious and inspiring purpose to improve
Speaker 1: the lives of people, animals, and the planet through food.
Speaker 1: And to do this, mattow Hair considered all the stakeholders.
Speaker 1: He designed his business for the welfare of the chickens,
Speaker 1: of course, but he also considered all of the people
Speaker 1: involved investors, small family farmers, employees, and customers, and last,
Speaker 1: but not least, the planet. The industrial food system that's
Speaker 1: made food so cheap in this country comes at a
Speaker 1: huge which cost to the earth, and Matt wanted to
Speaker 1: provide the country with a real alternative. Matt's concept got
Speaker 1: the attention of another Austin based company, Whole Foods, which
Speaker 1: loaned him a hundred thousand dollars for equipment to scale
Speaker 1: his idea and then became his first customer. Up until now,
Speaker 1: the only way you really could get a pastor raised
Speaker 1: egg was to drive to a farm by a dozen
Speaker 1: eggs and drive home. And that's a fairly large carbon
Speaker 1: flippent for for dozen eggs. And we think that getting
Speaker 1: them into the whole food stores and getting in with
Speaker 1: the customer is a more efficientative doing that, And this
Speaker 1: is when things really took off. Vital Farms started contracting
Speaker 1: with other pasture raised egg farmers, which allowed them to
Speaker 1: scale up distribution, and by two thousand and eleven, Vital
Speaker 1: Farms was doing four point nine million dollars in revenue.
Speaker 1: Four years later, Vital Farms became a certified b corp.
Speaker 1: This certification measures a by's entire social and environmental impact
Speaker 1: In ten Matt handed the CEO job to Russell Diaz Conseco,
Speaker 1: who had joined the company in furteen as an egg
Speaker 1: warehouse manager. With Russell at the helm and Matt still
Speaker 1: involved as executive chairman. On July thirty one, twenty Vital
Speaker 1: Farms went public on the NASDAC with the ticker b
Speaker 1: I t L on one of those of course, today,
Speaker 1: Vital Farms up sixty on the first day of trading,
Speaker 1: quite amazing, and in one Vital Farms hit two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty million dollars in revenue and is now the
Speaker 1: largest producer of pasteurised eggs in the universe. And something
Speaker 1: that really caught my attention because an industrial farm would
Speaker 1: never ever do this. In one Vital Farms created a
Speaker 1: label that allows you to actually log in and see
Speaker 1: the farms and hens where the eggs come from. At
Speaker 1: Vital Farms, we want everyone to know the truth about
Speaker 1: where their eggs come from without any bolt. After logging
Speaker 1: in to see the hands involved in my breakfast, I
Speaker 1: knew I wanted to learn more about this company. So
Speaker 1: the question we're here to answer today is how do
Speaker 1: we make more stories like this one happen? I asked
Speaker 1: Vital Farms CEO Russell Diaz Conseco to sit down with
Speaker 1: us to share what he's learned about the challenges and
Speaker 1: rewards of keeping Vital Farms ambitious purpose front and center. Folks,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to introduce today's guest, Russell Diaz Conseco,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Vital Farms. Russell, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me, So let's jump right
Speaker 1: into it. I'd love to just have you tell our
Speaker 1: listeners a little bit about yourself and your background. Thanks TI. So.
Speaker 1: I was born on the East Coast. I'm a product
Speaker 1: of parents on both coasts, very blue state upbringing. For
Speaker 1: the last twenty one years, I've lived in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: I moved here to pursue a really exciting opportunity with
Speaker 1: a grocery chain down here called H E B which
Speaker 1: is the biggest little grocery chain you never heard of,
Speaker 1: but does billions and billions of dollars in business. And
Speaker 1: that was the place that I was told was the
Speaker 1: best in the business to learn grocery and I was
Speaker 1: really excited about doing that and my latest gig here
Speaker 1: at Vital Farms. I've been here for eight years, which
Speaker 1: is by far the longest company I've ever been with
Speaker 1: and and having the most fun by far. That's great.
Speaker 1: And so when did you join the company? I joined
Speaker 1: at the beginning of and you took over as CEO
Speaker 1: from the founder Matt O'Hare. Is that right? Yes? In
Speaker 1: and how has that transition been? You know, in some
Speaker 1: places it's difficult for a founder to step back and
Speaker 1: hand a new CEO of the You're right, that transition
Speaker 1: is fraught with peril, and I think there are more
Speaker 1: stories of it not working well than stories of it
Speaker 1: working well. I think a couple of things worked to
Speaker 1: help make sure that this relationship would work, and ultimately
Speaker 1: this transition would work. One is I think a lot
Speaker 1: of mutual respect. Right, Matt isn't just a sort of
Speaker 1: head in the clouds creative guys. He's an opportunity around
Speaker 1: every corner. He's also one of the hardest working people
Speaker 1: I've ever met, and so Matt will pursue his ideas
Speaker 1: with vigor and frankly, there's no kind of work that
Speaker 1: he won't do in pursuit of his goals. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for that. We we actually share
Speaker 1: that in common. I think he came to respect me
Speaker 1: pretty early on as somebody who um, he could trust
Speaker 1: to be transparent, to do what I say, say what
Speaker 1: I do, which is consistent with the culture of the
Speaker 1: place he was building. But more than that, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's not that common to find people who you
Speaker 1: in ploy as the entrepreneur who can show as much
Speaker 1: passion for your thing as they do. And when I'm
Speaker 1: passionate about something, I'm all in, and so I can
Speaker 1: start to show up in a little bit with the
Speaker 1: kind of energy and the kind of ownership that I
Speaker 1: think entrepreneurs don't often see in the people they hire. Right,
Speaker 1: And is this your first experience at a different names
Speaker 1: for them, but a purpose led company, a company that
Speaker 1: pursues conscious capitalists. It is. I definitely have worked for
Speaker 1: some high quality companies that had some pretty strong cultures
Speaker 1: and some pretty strong values. But the extent to which
Speaker 1: our purpose is something that people throughout the organization understand, no,
Speaker 1: And the extent to which our culture and our stakeholder
Speaker 1: model is built into kind of the daily conversation and
Speaker 1: how we make decisions, I've never seen it anywhere but here.
Speaker 1: So let's pivot to that. How do you articulate the
Speaker 1: Vital Farms purpose. Our purpose is to improve the lives
Speaker 1: of people, animals, and the planet through food. And we
Speaker 1: do that through our mission, which is to bring ethically
Speaker 1: produced food to the table. Yeah, I love that. How
Speaker 1: would you characterize or talk about the dominant system that
Speaker 1: Vital Farms is trying to improve upon, you know, making
Speaker 1: that purpose real in the world. Well, you know, the
Speaker 1: dominant system is the U s food system. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think the US food system is characterized by a
Speaker 1: very steady march post World War Two towards very high
Speaker 1: productivity through very high concentration of animals in the way
Speaker 1: that they're reared and food is produced, very high concentration
Speaker 1: of players. There's been a lot of press lately about
Speaker 1: the Big four meat packers in the United States controlling
Speaker 1: the vast majority of just about any animal protein you
Speaker 1: could name a real concentration in terms of I think
Speaker 1: the productive benefits of that system to a limited set
Speaker 1: of stay holders and a lot of negative externalities that
Speaker 1: I think understate the cost of the food produced in
Speaker 1: that system, whether it's environmental externalities, whether it's the increased
Speaker 1: risk from lack of resilience because it's so concentrated to
Speaker 1: all the people who died in meat packing plants over
Speaker 1: the last year and a half of COVID. That's what
Speaker 1: I would describe as system we're working too to disrupt.
Speaker 1: Right and Vital Farms started in the egg business and
Speaker 1: and so obviously chickens are a huge part of your
Speaker 1: supply chain, and past your raised chickens are a big
Speaker 1: part of your consumer proposition. Can you explain to our
Speaker 1: listeners what that means? At its core, pasture raised means
Speaker 1: a system of rearing the chickens that is based in
Speaker 1: the outdoors and in allowing birds to exhibit their natural behaviors. Now,
Speaker 1: what I've learned in the eight years I've been in
Speaker 1: this business and in the twenty plus years i've been
Speaker 1: in the food business is a term doesn't have much
Speaker 1: meaning unless it's documented as a standard and then enforced
Speaker 1: with inspection. And so one of the first things that
Speaker 1: our founder, mattow Hair did was when he decided to
Speaker 1: pursue and try to scale up what he thought was
Speaker 1: a very superior way to raise hands to lay eggs
Speaker 1: that was much better for them and for their welfare
Speaker 1: and their health. And frankly would produce better eggs as well.
Speaker 1: He went to a third party certifier, Certified Humane, and
Speaker 1: collaborated with them to create a standard for pasture raised
Speaker 1: egg production in the United States that would be well
Speaker 1: documented and verified by them. So he realized early on,
Speaker 1: lots of companies claimed lots of things, but you're only
Speaker 1: as good as your ability to to convey and frankly,
Speaker 1: have transparency and trust that you're really doing what you're
Speaker 1: saying you're doing. So the pastur A standard has specifications
Speaker 1: for everything from the amount of outdoor space that the
Speaker 1: birds will have in our case, it's a thousand birds
Speaker 1: per hectare, which works out to just under a hundred
Speaker 1: and nine square feet per bird if you do the math.
Speaker 1: It has specifications for how much space inside their barn
Speaker 1: where they go to sleep at night and be safe
Speaker 1: from predators. It has specifications for all kinds of things
Speaker 1: around access to feed and water and how often you
Speaker 1: you provide those things to them, and and what you're
Speaker 1: gonna do to protect them from predators, and what you're
Speaker 1: gonna do to rotate those birds around the pastures so
Speaker 1: it doesn't get too eaten down in any one area.
Speaker 1: So it's a very comprehensive standard. And so for us,
Speaker 1: that all adds up to this thing we call pasture raised.
Speaker 1: It sounds great, How does that compare to the experience
Speaker 1: of an average laying hand. So in the United States
Speaker 1: there are several different housing standards. I guess they might
Speaker 1: refer to it as ranging from no claim, which means
Speaker 1: the birds are being raised in cages, battery cages all
Speaker 1: the way through the pasture raised, which is what we
Speaker 1: do the majority. So it's still more than half of
Speaker 1: the laying hens. I believe it's about six of the
Speaker 1: laying hens in the United States are still being raised
Speaker 1: in cages today. When I joined Vital Farms in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, it was so we're really moving the needle,
Speaker 1: but there's still a long way to go. And much
Speaker 1: of the progress has been made in the conversion of
Speaker 1: birds out of cages simply to to them not being
Speaker 1: in cages. And that's a the low the next lowest
Speaker 1: level we believe of animal welfare called cage free. Cage
Speaker 1: free doesn't mean the birds go outside. Cage free means
Speaker 1: they're still inside a house, a barn, a big, big warehouse,
Speaker 1: but they're no longer in cages. And in fact, the
Speaker 1: irony of the movement towards cage free, we believe is
Speaker 1: that many of the largest producers are taking the opportunity
Speaker 1: to raise their old caged houses and build even bigger
Speaker 1: and more efficient cage free houses. So you get rid
Speaker 1: of the cages. But now in stead of having a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand birds in one building, you might have five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand birds in one building or more. So the
Speaker 1: experience for the birds gets worse in a way. Before
Speaker 1: I ever even contemplated doing a podcast, I was a
Speaker 1: customer of yours. I love the design of the packaging,
Speaker 1: first of all, but I was reading it just nord
Speaker 1: ing out on what you had to say, and I
Speaker 1: noticed the I think it's called hens behind the lens,
Speaker 1: where you can actually go and look at one of
Speaker 1: your farms. I loved that because it hits on such
Speaker 1: an important part of I believe being purpose led, which
Speaker 1: is transparency. Has that been a hit with other customers,
Speaker 1: It's definitely hit a note. Look, I believe that what
Speaker 1: we've figured out how to do is not just doing
Speaker 1: the right thing every day, but it's doing the right
Speaker 1: thing every day and communicating in a way to all
Speaker 1: of your stakeholders that engenders their trust. Trust is easy
Speaker 1: to lose, hard to gain. We kind of all know that.
Speaker 1: I think that this campaign is just one of many
Speaker 1: touch points over a long period of time that we
Speaker 1: use to just be radically transparent and really engage our
Speaker 1: stakeholders and what we're doing, because that's the only reason
Speaker 1: they have to pay more for what we do than
Speaker 1: what somebody else does. Right, And so, just in terms
Speaker 1: of comparing Vital Farms to industry standards, are there other
Speaker 1: industry practices that you'd like to improve on in the future.
Speaker 1: Do you have like any kind of a sort of
Speaker 1: innovation roadmap? You know, when I think about what makes
Speaker 1: this place the kind of place for me to work
Speaker 1: out for eight years and the you know, the things
Speaker 1: that kind of get me out of bed in the morning,
Speaker 1: animal welfare improvement were the table stakes. That's what got
Speaker 1: me in the door. But what really excites me beyond
Speaker 1: that is that we are an alternative for so many
Speaker 1: of our stakeholders to a more traditional corporate system, not
Speaker 1: just food system. I think about the people who join
Speaker 1: our company who are so engaged and so just frankly
Speaker 1: smart and capable and driven and have such extreme ownership.
Speaker 1: So I like the fact that we're creating alternatives not
Speaker 1: just for the birds, but we're creating alternatives for consumers
Speaker 1: to actually get what they're paying for, you know, for
Speaker 1: retailers to have transparency because we're not perfect every day,
Speaker 1: and so we are we're the ones that tell them
Speaker 1: well in advance of the new things coming along and
Speaker 1: maybe the challenges as well, saying a supply chain issue.
Speaker 1: We're the alternative for the communities in which we operate, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so I just I mean, I come home proud
Speaker 1: every day of the work we do, and sometimes what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about might not have anything to do with
Speaker 1: the chickens. Well, there are animal welfare advocates who have
Speaker 1: argued that and ethically produced egg is impossible because of
Speaker 1: the nature of the process. And given your purpose, how
Speaker 1: do you think about resolving that tension at vital Farms.
Speaker 1: I think I'd say a couple of things to that.
Speaker 1: One is, Look, the reality is if you eat food
Speaker 1: produced by animals, whether it's the animal itself or something
Speaker 1: that comes from the animal, you have to be okay
Speaker 1: with animals dying to make that happen. That's number one.
Speaker 1: So if that's a nonstarter, then you shouldn't eat eggs. Look,
Speaker 1: I know, fundamentally, I believe with all my heart that
Speaker 1: the birds laying eggs in our system enjoy a much
Speaker 1: better quality of life, much better health and welfare, and
Speaker 1: are much better able to exhibit their natural behaviors then
Speaker 1: the vast majority of birds in any other system in
Speaker 1: any other company. I also believe that my people have
Speaker 1: a better experience in my company than in the vast
Speaker 1: majority of other companies. Then I could go around my
Speaker 1: stakeholder groups and point out the ways in which working
Speaker 1: with us makes them better off than just about any
Speaker 1: other company they could work with doing what we do.
Speaker 1: I read once that a thought exercise about your unique
Speaker 1: right to exist as a company is to imagine a
Speaker 1: world without you, and say, what would be different if
Speaker 1: your company shut down tomorrow. And the first thing that
Speaker 1: would happen is the eggs that are produced by my
Speaker 1: millions of birds would now shift to being produced by
Speaker 1: another company. And if I think I've got the best
Speaker 1: animal welfare in the business, then We're going to shift
Speaker 1: animal welfare down. So is that better for the birds? Now? Look,
Speaker 1: I get it, And there are some people and I
Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for people who make food
Speaker 1: choices based in their beliefs. That's what our customers do too.
Speaker 1: But the reality is we can't let their sense of
Speaker 1: perfection get in the way of fundamentally better than what
Speaker 1: we started with. Yeah. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: really do believe is that no company is perfect. That
Speaker 1: being truly purpose led is is a journey. Would you
Speaker 1: agree with that? Oh? Absolutely, We're learning every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so i'd love to hear I want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the Vital Farms journey and
Speaker 1: and also your journey is a leader. First, do you
Speaker 1: think that you know, being a purpose led business leader
Speaker 1: is harder, for instance, because you have so many more
Speaker 1: stakeholders to think about as the CEO of Vital Farms,
Speaker 1: then does the CEO of a traditional company. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: it's it's a different set of challenges. I don't know
Speaker 1: that i'd call it harder or easier. You know, the
Speaker 1: reality is every company has stakeholders. The question is do
Speaker 1: you realize it, do you acknowledge them and get treat
Speaker 1: them that way? Right? Great point? Great point. The challenge
Speaker 1: that comes in when you're trying to manage or even
Speaker 1: work with multiple stakeholders. Isn't so much that you've always
Speaker 1: got misaligned interests. I do think that the challenges tend
Speaker 1: to come up when we're looking at different time horizons.
Speaker 1: So I believe fundamentally that our business can only be
Speaker 1: sustainable if it's sustainable over the long hole for all
Speaker 1: of our stakeholders. So, for example, if farmers go bankrupt
Speaker 1: at the end of our movie, as so often happens
Speaker 1: in corporate agriculture, then we don't have sustainable supply chain,
Speaker 1: let's say. Or if our our people can't afford healthcare
Speaker 1: or daycare for their kids, then we don't have a
Speaker 1: sustainable workforce. So it has to be sustainable over the
Speaker 1: long hole for all of our stakeholders. But on any
Speaker 1: given day, what they might want may or may not
Speaker 1: be something I can agree to, and in that moment
Speaker 1: there can be tension. What keeps us sustainable is the
Speaker 1: track record that over time it's all going to work out.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants more. Farmer would love to be paid more,
Speaker 1: and I'd love to pay more for their products. The
Speaker 1: consumer would love to pay less for the eggs. Of
Speaker 1: course I want to pay less. The retailer wants more
Speaker 1: trade dollars so they can have better profits, acetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You can't be everything to everyone, but if you have
Speaker 1: the courage of your convictions that what you're doing will
Speaker 1: be sustainable for all of them of long haul, then
Speaker 1: it tends to work out in my experience, especially when
Speaker 1: you have values alignment. Yeah, this question is just occurring
Speaker 1: to me, but can you think of an example of
Speaker 1: a time when you had to keep your commitment to
Speaker 1: a set of stakeholders in a way that you know, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess what is the toughest decision in regard you've
Speaker 1: You've had to make? Offer one that was a pretty
Speaker 1: transformational decision for us as a company. So when I joined,
Speaker 1: there was a terrible outbreak of avian influenza, and I
Speaker 1: believe it was that resulted in the destruction of more
Speaker 1: than ten percent of all the birds in America. Forty
Speaker 1: four million birds were depopulated. Um, that's a story for
Speaker 1: another time. All of the avian influenza was spread inside
Speaker 1: those factory arms, even though the industry thought that the
Speaker 1: risk was going to be birds like ours that went outdoors,
Speaker 1: and none of ours were affected. But there was a
Speaker 1: typical boom and bus cycle where the shortage of eggs
Speaker 1: raised prices for eggs, and then the whole industry ramped
Speaker 1: up production, and then there was a bust where the
Speaker 1: price of eggs really tanked about a year later, and
Speaker 1: we were left with way too many eggs. And our
Speaker 1: contracts with our farmers have us buying their eggs whether
Speaker 1: we need them or not. We when we write a
Speaker 1: contract with you, we say we're gonna buy all your
Speaker 1: eggs for a certain period of time and we'll figure
Speaker 1: out what to do with them. But this was sort
Speaker 1: of an unprecedented shock to the system, and many companies
Speaker 1: left in that situation. We're simply telling farmers that they
Speaker 1: couldn't buy any more eggs for a while, and they'd
Speaker 1: call them back when they were ready to buy some more,
Speaker 1: and we certainly had the right within our contracts to
Speaker 1: do the same thing. We went to our board and
Speaker 1: we said, hey, if we walk away from these farmers
Speaker 1: for a period of time, will likely bankrupt them. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that means long term sustainability for the farmers,
Speaker 1: which is part of our values. And these aren't giant
Speaker 1: corporations either. These are family farmers, right, These are individual
Speaker 1: family farmers who have put in not an insignificant amount
Speaker 1: of money to build out a farm to our specifications.
Speaker 1: They have a soul source contract with us, they have
Speaker 1: may have other income streams, but this is a this
Speaker 1: would be a big this would be a big hit
Speaker 1: to their financial well being. And we all said, you know, you, look,
Speaker 1: if we walk away from them now, then when we
Speaker 1: need eggs again, are they going to be trusting Are
Speaker 1: they going to trust us not to do that to
Speaker 1: them again? And so will we even be able to
Speaker 1: get back in the business when we need them again.
Speaker 1: The board didn't take too long to debate the idea
Speaker 1: that it would be better for them to do another fundraise.
Speaker 1: This is when we're a private company, take dilution and
Speaker 1: use that money to pay the farmers not to produce
Speaker 1: eggs until we were ready. In essence, we paid them
Speaker 1: one pent profit replacement. We made them whole for as
Speaker 1: long as we had too many eggs, and it was
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, that was a year when we
Speaker 1: might have been budgeted to make a million dollars in
Speaker 1: iba DA and that cost us six million dollars. We
Speaker 1: spent six million dollars paying farmers not to produce eggs.
Speaker 1: So think about private equity venture capitalists making that decision.
Speaker 1: Holy smokes. Yeah, how did that go over with the board?
Speaker 1: That must not have been a board meeting even looking
Speaker 1: forward to Well, I gotta tell you they stepped up
Speaker 1: because one of the things that our founder, mattow Hair
Speaker 1: had done so thoughtfully was he curated who he took
Speaker 1: money from. And so we had this amazing board of
Speaker 1: impact investors who were pretty aligned with the idea that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't bankrupt the farmers, who were pretty aligned with
Speaker 1: the idea that the time horizon for this business to
Speaker 1: show its potential was over a little bit of a
Speaker 1: longer term horizon. And the payoff was that single act
Speaker 1: created a reputation in the industry that has led us
Speaker 1: to never market to attracting farmers, never advertise to attract
Speaker 1: new farmers. We have a list of a hundred plus
Speaker 1: farmers waiting to get into this system because we're the
Speaker 1: rare guys apparently that do what they say and say
Speaker 1: what they do and stick up to you know, we
Speaker 1: stand behind our contracts, right, do the right thing. That's great.
Speaker 1: Love that story. What are the standards that you used
Speaker 1: to decide who gets into the family, as it were.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, and we actually have a team
Speaker 1: of well over twenty. I want to say we're probably
Speaker 1: hitting about thirty people that both support our farms and
Speaker 1: help that new ones and onboard new ones, which is
Speaker 1: like a really big investment. Somebody said once that I
Speaker 1: think it might have been Peter Drucker said. If you
Speaker 1: want to know a company strategy, look at their budget.
Speaker 1: And if you look at our budget, what you'll find
Speaker 1: is that we spend an awful lot of money in
Speaker 1: service of helping our farmers be really successful. And that
Speaker 1: starts with choosing the best ones, not unlike the focus
Speaker 1: we put in hiring. So some things we go through
Speaker 1: UM Typically we're looking for someone to be a referral
Speaker 1: from a trusted and high performing farmer who's already in
Speaker 1: our network and most of them are. Next, we might
Speaker 1: go to their neighborhood and talk to some references. It's
Speaker 1: always a good idea to go to the feed mill
Speaker 1: and ask if that person pays their bills on time.
Speaker 1: Then we go look at their land. They may already
Speaker 1: have land, or they may be looking to buy some land.
Speaker 1: The land is really important for success. The right land
Speaker 1: is going to be in a part of the country
Speaker 1: that we call the pasture belt. The pasture belt is
Speaker 1: this goldilocks part of the country that's warm enough to
Speaker 1: have meaningful outdoor access year round instead of having feet
Speaker 1: and feet of snow in the northeast, for example, and
Speaker 1: wet enough to have meaningful vegetative cover instead of you know,
Speaker 1: the the southwest for example. We might also want to
Speaker 1: look for things like um standing water or open bodies
Speaker 1: of water on their land because those can attract sort
Speaker 1: of wild water fowl that can introduce disease on a farms.
Speaker 1: There are lots of factors that go into the right
Speaker 1: kind of land in the right area. The other thing
Speaker 1: that we've discovered over the years that's really important is
Speaker 1: treat cover. We used to think of pasture as a
Speaker 1: manicure golf course, but the reality is these laying hends
Speaker 1: are descended from jungle fowl, and so what they want
Speaker 1: is varied terrain under a canopy of treat cover, and
Speaker 1: so we increasingly are shifting our farm model to more
Speaker 1: of that. The really cool thing that allows for our
Speaker 1: farmers is if what we want for the birds is
Speaker 1: not a manicured lawn but instead varied, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of very topography under a tree cover. Now we're helping
Speaker 1: a farmer make use of land that he probably didn't
Speaker 1: have an another use for. In essence, this is forest
Speaker 1: edge land that wasn't going to be good for a crop,
Speaker 1: and might not even be good for for grazing cattle.
Speaker 1: Just another area of inquiry. At some level, proclaiming yourself
Speaker 1: to be purpose led in business makes a company a target,
Speaker 1: even if by comparison you're a beacon of hope in
Speaker 1: your industry. Have you ever felt that pressure at Vital Farms.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I think we saw that with if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, the CEO of of don Own, who, during
Speaker 1: a time when the stock wasn't performing as well as
Speaker 1: investors had expected, accused him of being overly focused on
Speaker 1: the purpose and not on the profits. That's right. There
Speaker 1: are certainly skeptics, and I gotta tell you, twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago in business school I was one of them.
Speaker 1: I was, you know, firmly in the Milton Friedman camp
Speaker 1: of your job as management is to maximize share older value,
Speaker 1: and anything you do with the profits other than give
Speaker 1: it to the shareholder is socialism. I mean, yeah, us,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what he said. He comes up a
Speaker 1: lot on this show. Actually, I mean, and I believed it, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: if the company believes you should give money to a charity,
Speaker 1: give it to the shareholder. Let the shareholder choose the charity.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's where I was in two thousand. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a falsehood in that whole chain of logic, which
Speaker 1: is I don't think about purpose and profits as two
Speaker 1: separate obligations on my balance scorecard. I actually think that
Speaker 1: the way we operate and our purpose are the things
Speaker 1: that give us the right to win in the marketplace
Speaker 1: and over time will produce outsized returns. Right, I again
Speaker 1: going back to that thought starter about hey, what does
Speaker 1: the world look like if your company seeses to exist? Well,
Speaker 1: in essence, what that's asking is what makes you different?
Speaker 1: And what impact are you having that's different than everybody else?
Speaker 1: And the impact we're having this different is is about
Speaker 1: animal welfare, and it's about improving the lives of people, animals,
Speaker 1: and plant through food. It's our crew members, it's our armors,
Speaker 1: it's our consumers and retail partners. Right, it's the chickens.
Speaker 1: It's less risk of you know, environmental destruction, if there's
Speaker 1: a flood, I mean better resilience for our factory workers, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so those things cost money, right, those things aren't
Speaker 1: all cheaper to do than a factory farm approach. Therefore,
Speaker 1: we have to have a way to get credit for
Speaker 1: them and have that resonate with consumers in order to exist,
Speaker 1: because otherwise we're just the most expensive egg producer in America.
Speaker 1: So it's not a tradeoff like it's not. Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a certain amount of purpose, but we've got
Speaker 1: to balance that with how much we dropped to the
Speaker 1: bottom line. It's actually a whole reason to exist and
Speaker 1: our strategy for for success in the marketplace. Are there
Speaker 1: any other leaders you mentioned the CEO of don Owne.
Speaker 1: Are there other leaders of purpose led businesses that have
Speaker 1: come to inspire you as you have kind of entered
Speaker 1: that or made the transition from the freedman model to
Speaker 1: the purpose led model. Well, certainly, you know Whole Foods
Speaker 1: and John Mackie loom large for us at Vital Farms.
Speaker 1: They do an incredible amount of work verifying their vendors.
Speaker 1: So when they set out their own standards for egg production.
Speaker 1: They visited every one of our farms and they do
Speaker 1: every year to eighteen months. Nobody else that we supplied
Speaker 1: to does anything close to that. So I have a
Speaker 1: ton of appreciation for Whole Foods because they kind of
Speaker 1: do what they say, and they say what they do.
Speaker 1: In fact, they probably do more than they get credit
Speaker 1: for in some regards. In terms of other leaders, one
Speaker 1: that has always been an influence for me as Paul Pullman,
Speaker 1: certainly when he was at Lever and the work he's
Speaker 1: doing since then. And then one of the kind of
Speaker 1: holy grail companies that we always look at is Patagonia.
Speaker 1: There's always a little bit about what would Patagonia do
Speaker 1: question in our discussions to learn more about how vital
Speaker 1: Farms mission drives company culture and for some great advice
Speaker 1: for anyone trying to leave a purpose led organization, stay
Speaker 1: with us before you head to the break. We'd love
Speaker 1: to hear what you think about the show. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were inspired to take action, maybe you disagree with today's
Speaker 1: bullshit rating. Either way, we want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: Leave us a message at two one two five oh
Speaker 1: five five, or send a voice memo to CBS Podcast
Speaker 1: at co collective dot com. You might even be featured
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode back with Vital Farms CEO Russell
Speaker 1: Diaz Conseco talking about how they do their best to
Speaker 1: truly live their mission. So I guess in the realm
Speaker 1: of advice to other leaders now that you you know
Speaker 1: you have made this transition. You know, Vital Farms began
Speaker 1: as a purpose led business, but there are now a
Speaker 1: lot of companies that didn't begin as purpose led businesses
Speaker 1: who are really trying to make that transition. So what
Speaker 1: advice would you have for other CEOs who are beginning
Speaker 1: that journey. Great question. I had the luxury of coming
Speaker 1: into it sort of already rooted in in this place.
Speaker 1: I do get calls occasionally from c e o s
Speaker 1: who asked, how do I do that? And it's often
Speaker 1: in service of a financial goal. Hey, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: having an I p O. What do you think the
Speaker 1: impact of my valuation would be if we had a
Speaker 1: purpose Hey, I'm thinking about doing a fundraise and I
Speaker 1: wanted what what it would it mean if I were
Speaker 1: a B corp? Could I if I were a B corp?
Speaker 1: How how much is that worth? And it's almost like
Speaker 1: a checklist item, and I got to tell you, I
Speaker 1: think you don't get the value of it if you
Speaker 1: think about it that way. And the example I would
Speaker 1: give is our crew members. I believe that we have
Speaker 1: some of the best people working at Vital Farms that
Speaker 1: you'll find anywhere. But one of the things that all
Speaker 1: those people have in common, and it shows up in
Speaker 1: our engagement surveys, that shows up in our town halls,
Speaker 1: is their role as stakeholders and their expectations of us
Speaker 1: in terms of the transparency, the way we treat them,
Speaker 1: the way we behave. Their expectations are perhaps higher than
Speaker 1: any other stakeholder group. They're in a position to know
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on in the business and they have
Speaker 1: zero tolerance for any bs. So, if you have a
Speaker 1: purpose but it's just on the wall and you're not
Speaker 1: really living it, or if you have a purpose but
Speaker 1: it actually isn't the thing that the people you've hired
Speaker 1: are wired to be excited about. It's not going to
Speaker 1: inspire them and it's not going to be a reason
Speaker 1: for them to come or to stay. And so you've
Speaker 1: got to do it for real, and you've got to
Speaker 1: start with the purpose and let the business model come
Speaker 1: from that as a pose to trying to stick a
Speaker 1: purpose on top of a business model that you already
Speaker 1: think is the right one. Right back to that, I
Speaker 1: thought your insight about thinking about being purpose led through
Speaker 1: the lens of how is this going to add to
Speaker 1: our valuation is the wrong way to think about it. Um.
Speaker 1: But it leads to another question that I wanted to
Speaker 1: touch on, which is does being purpose led mean being
Speaker 1: less competitive? God, so let me talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about what a purpose does for me? And I
Speaker 1: totally did not get this twenty years ago, right I
Speaker 1: I want to be very humble about the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm a work in progress and the company's of work
Speaker 1: in progress, and we're still figuring this out. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about strategy and about the CEO being
Speaker 1: the chief strategy officer, the chief vision officer, and they
Speaker 1: got to set the direction and set the guardrails and
Speaker 1: then unleash the potential of the organization. I would argue
Speaker 1: that nothing is a better north star than a purpose
Speaker 1: that you're all aligned around. And that's not just for
Speaker 1: you and your employees. That's for your shareholders, that's for
Speaker 1: your customers, right, that's for your board the purpose and alignment,
Speaker 1: amount of purpose and progress towards your purpose is the
Speaker 1: thing that calvanizes us all. It guides people in the
Speaker 1: moment when nobody else is watching, about maybe what the
Speaker 1: right decision is. It can guide us in our strategic conversations,
Speaker 1: how does this help us achieve our purpose? It can
Speaker 1: embolden you to take risks and do things that might
Speaker 1: not pay off in the short run but pay off
Speaker 1: in the long run. And you know, the example that
Speaker 1: I like to use, and it may or may not
Speaker 1: seem relevant to little food company like Vital Farms, is Tesla, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, a lot of people have strong opinions
Speaker 1: about Alan Musk and about Tesla, But regardless of where
Speaker 1: you sit in all that debate, I think it's fair
Speaker 1: to say a lot of Musk said many, many years ago,
Speaker 1: I want to move this planet to less dependence on oil,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to do that through a bunch of things.
Speaker 1: But the first one is going to be electric cars.
Speaker 1: And and look what he's done. He's not. I mean,
Speaker 1: so many companies are tripping over themselves making announcements about
Speaker 1: their electric cars that are coming out after years of
Speaker 1: ignoring it. He lit the flame were all, so many
Speaker 1: cars are going to be electric, maybe a fraction of
Speaker 1: him will be Tesla's. He didn't start Tesla to make money.
Speaker 1: He started Tesla to electrify the auto industry. No, that's right.
Speaker 1: And one of the proof points along the way that
Speaker 1: people some people may have forgotten, is that he actually
Speaker 1: opened up their patent portfolio to competitors in order to
Speaker 1: actually make that happen. He was like, the more electric
Speaker 1: cars there are in the world, the better off the
Speaker 1: world is going to be in, the better off we
Speaker 1: will be as a company. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, we
Speaker 1: we would call that an iconic action at our company,
Speaker 1: Like there are things that that purpose companies ought to
Speaker 1: do just because they will make people sit up and go, wow,
Speaker 1: they really mean it. So pivoting back to entrepreneurs, because
Speaker 1: there's a whole generation of purpose led businesses being born.
Speaker 1: You know what advice would you give to the purpose
Speaker 1: led entrepreneurs of tomorrow who are the next generation of
Speaker 1: matdow Hairs. I think two things stand out as advice
Speaker 1: that I would give to an entrepreneur who's kind of
Speaker 1: thinking about this as a topic. One is, even in
Speaker 1: those early days when you're stressed and bootstrapping and don't
Speaker 1: know about making payroll and all the things that a
Speaker 1: startup um founder is facing. Even then, you still have
Speaker 1: to be choosy about who your partner with and where
Speaker 1: you get your money from, because if you're misaligned with
Speaker 1: your early investors on your purpose and your commitment to it,
Speaker 1: it's going to be really hard to stick to it.
Speaker 1: That's number one. And there were times in our growth
Speaker 1: when I watched us not take the money we really
Speaker 1: thought we needed because we couldn't get it from the
Speaker 1: right place and we knew that would be disruptive. The
Speaker 1: second thing I would say is you've got to live it.
Speaker 1: You have to live it even in your darkest moment.
Speaker 1: You can't cut a corner because you feel like you
Speaker 1: have no other choice. As soon as you do that,
Speaker 1: then it's a little bit of of a takeaway from
Speaker 1: the purpose you've articulated and from the trust your stakeholders
Speaker 1: have in you that you really mean what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So two really hard things to do in those early days.
Speaker 1: Choose your partners wisely and don't stray. Let's pivot to
Speaker 1: the company culture because it's such a an important part
Speaker 1: of the equation. How would you describe your company culture
Speaker 1: at Vital Farms. Well, that's a great question. First of all,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely rooted in the tenets of conscious capitalism. It's
Speaker 1: something we sort of select for, it's something we manage against,
Speaker 1: it's something we talked about in our day to day work.
Speaker 1: The way that we bring those to life in UH
Speaker 1: in terms of company values again, so that they can
Speaker 1: be more tangible and so that we can recognize when
Speaker 1: people are doing them and aren't doing them. Who articulated
Speaker 1: five values that we believe are important ingredients to being
Speaker 1: a part of a conscious company. The first is humility.
Speaker 1: So we think humility is really important because if you're
Speaker 1: going to have truly collaborative relationships with your stakeholders, you
Speaker 1: have to be open to potentially them having some new
Speaker 1: information or a different idea that you need to be
Speaker 1: open to accepting and working with. You have to have
Speaker 1: the humility to admit when you've got something wrong. Um
Speaker 1: in order for people to trust you with their feedback.
Speaker 1: Ownership again, in the spirit of collaborative problem solving across stakeholders,
Speaker 1: we want our people to have extreme ownership over their
Speaker 1: goal or the project they're managing or the result they're
Speaker 1: going after. But that doesn't mean doing all the work yourself.
Speaker 1: So ownership for the goal, but not necessarily working in
Speaker 1: a vacuum to get it done. We want you to
Speaker 1: have a growth mindset, this sense of we reserve the
Speaker 1: right to get smarter over time, that in order to
Speaker 1: disrupt the dominant paradigm of food production, you have to
Speaker 1: be open to the possibility that some of the things
Speaker 1: you have to do look impossible, and you have to
Speaker 1: be open to the possibility that with enough human ingenuity
Speaker 1: you could make them possible. And you need to have empathy.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to really work in a true sort
Speaker 1: of peer to peer relationship with a stakeholder if you
Speaker 1: can't walk in their shoes. And the last one is
Speaker 1: a competitive spirit. For this to be sustainable for the
Speaker 1: long haul for all of our stakeholders, we have to win.
Speaker 1: We've got to win, and we are passionate about winning
Speaker 1: on behalf of our stakeholders. And that is part of
Speaker 1: the true north or that you know that that purpose,
Speaker 1: that that helps get us out of bed every morning
Speaker 1: to go to go back to battle with whichever competitor
Speaker 1: were focused on, whether it's competing for the best farmers,
Speaker 1: competing for the best space on the shelf, competing for
Speaker 1: scarce consumer attention, um competing for the best crew members.
Speaker 1: So those are the ways in which I would describe
Speaker 1: our culture and certainly at least the things that we
Speaker 1: focus on reinforcing in our culture. Are there problems or
Speaker 1: opportunities in your industry that you would like to see
Speaker 1: the company take on in the future, And I mean
Speaker 1: that broadly the food industry. Are there opportunities that or
Speaker 1: problems that you'd like to take on in the future,
Speaker 1: really use your purpose to take on or solve, you know,
Speaker 1: they're seemingly limitless opportunity to disrupt both factory food in
Speaker 1: the way that we discussed earlier and frankly sort of
Speaker 1: factory management, factory corporate management. And so for me, it's
Speaker 1: not so much that I would point to a specific
Speaker 1: animal husbandry practice that we want to change, and I
Speaker 1: would talk more broadly about the opportunity to really bring
Speaker 1: a whole new way of doing business, the whole new
Speaker 1: way of thinking about building trust and transparency, getting credit
Speaker 1: for what you're doing. I mean, again, the biggest hindrance
Speaker 1: in my estimation two people being willing to pay more
Speaker 1: for food like ours that cost more to produce but
Speaker 1: is meaningfully different. Is them trusting that it's meaningfully different.
Speaker 1: A lot of consumers say, I'd be willing to pay more,
Speaker 1: but I just don't believe what I'm getting. Small example
Speaker 1: years ago, I got to meet with a grocery a
Speaker 1: buyer at a grocery chain we hadn't met with before
Speaker 1: to talk about our eggs. And we have our standard
Speaker 1: presentation and we talk about what we're doing, and at
Speaker 1: the end he kind of rolls his eyes and he said,
Speaker 1: how do I know you're doing any of that stuff?
Speaker 1: The eggs all look the same. In fact, at least
Speaker 1: when I buy eggs from birds that are in cages,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm getting, right. So people say, well, gosh,
Speaker 1: are there really a lot of people in America that
Speaker 1: could pay six bucks for a dozen eggs? And I
Speaker 1: would push back and say, first of all, that's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot, And actually six dollars for a dozen
Speaker 1: eggs is fifty cents an egg. You can have breakfast
Speaker 1: for a buck. Is that really a lot? The hold
Speaker 1: back is not people who have six bucks. The hold
Speaker 1: back is people who trust that it's worth more than
Speaker 1: a buck for that thing we're producing. So that's what
Speaker 1: I wanted to disrupt. I want transparency, I want to
Speaker 1: create more and more jobs that are meaningful in a
Speaker 1: purpose driven company, and I want more stakeholder alignment. I
Speaker 1: think it's good for the world. That's what I want
Speaker 1: for the industry. That Okay, last question. So we define
Speaker 1: BS on this show as the gap between word indeed,
Speaker 1: and so we have a tool that we call the
Speaker 1: VS Scale where we rate organizations and ask them to
Speaker 1: rate themselves on that gap. On that scale, zero being
Speaker 1: the best zero gap between word indeed and a hundred
Speaker 1: being the worst total BS. Taking into consideration that you
Speaker 1: are on your purpose led journey, where would you rate
Speaker 1: vital farms on that scale today? So you know, I'd
Speaker 1: love to say zero. And the truth is, as I
Speaker 1: think about it, I can't think of a of a
Speaker 1: material way in which we should deserve something less than
Speaker 1: a zero. But at the same time, I've been here
Speaker 1: an awful lot of years, and there is a difference
Speaker 1: between your good intentions and your actions. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell you that on every day, every one of our
Speaker 1: over two people and all of their partners are doing
Speaker 1: everything exactly the way we would in the boardroom, and
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna say, Ted, give us a little room
Speaker 1: for the humanity of what we're doing and the fact
Speaker 1: that we do get better every day. Yeah. I love
Speaker 1: that answer, because nobody's perfect, right. And also, we really
Speaker 1: believe that your purpose should transcend your current state. In
Speaker 1: other words, you should it should be ambitious, it should
Speaker 1: be driving change, it should be something that you have
Speaker 1: to grow into over time. So Russell, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for the time today and for your wisdom. We
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. This was absolutely great. Thank you, Ti.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it very much. I'd like to end this
Speaker 1: show by giving Vital Farms an official BS score. As
Speaker 1: you know, the scale goes from zero to a hundred.
Speaker 1: Zero means there's zero gap between word and deed, and
Speaker 1: a hundred means complete BS. Russell gave himself a ten.
Speaker 1: Based on what I've heard today, I'm going to actually
Speaker 1: give him a slightly better score. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: Vital Farms an eight. By the way, that's the lowest
Speaker 1: score of our season so far. So why an eight
Speaker 1: Because one of the key aspects of being purpose led
Speaker 1: is transparency. It would have been easy for Russell to
Speaker 1: give himself in the company a zero, but by acknowledging
Speaker 1: that Vital Farms is on a journey and that there
Speaker 1: is always more work to be done, he builds trust
Speaker 1: and trust is the most important form of capital in
Speaker 1: business today. And look, of course no company is perfect,
Speaker 1: but I really believe that Vital Farms heart is in
Speaker 1: the right place. They're trying to live their purpose with
Speaker 1: transparency and integrity and backing up their words with actions
Speaker 1: that build trust with all of their stakeholders. So, if
Speaker 1: you're starting a purpose led business or you're thinking of
Speaker 1: beginning the journey of transformation to become one, here are
Speaker 1: three things that Russell said that you should take away
Speaker 1: from this episode. One, if you're a purpose led entrepreneur
Speaker 1: who you take money from, matters a lot. In the
Speaker 1: early days, your bootstrapping and worried about making payroll, so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure to take any money that's offered,
Speaker 1: but it will pay off in the long run. To
Speaker 1: be choosy investors who align with your purpose and understand
Speaker 1: all of the stakeholders you serve are vital. Two, your
Speaker 1: purpose drives your business model, not the other way around.
Speaker 1: If you're the CEO of an established company starting the
Speaker 1: journey to become purpose led. A purpose isn't something you
Speaker 1: slap on as an afterthought. It needs to sit at
Speaker 1: the core of your business and it needs to be
Speaker 1: operationalized throughout. This takes time and real work. Three purpose
Speaker 1: drives culture. Any conscious enterprise needs to define its values.
Speaker 1: At Vital Farms there are five Humility, extreme ownership of goals,
Speaker 1: getting smarter over time, empathy, and a competitive spirit. Now
Speaker 1: your values may be different, but they should be explicit
Speaker 1: and they have to be driven by your purpose. To
Speaker 1: weigh in with your thoughts on this episode, visit our
Speaker 1: website Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com. You'll be able to
Speaker 1: see where Vital Farms ranks on BS compared to the
Speaker 1: other companies and organizations we feature on the show. And
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today, Russell Diez Conseco, and
Speaker 1: thanks to the whole Vital Farms team for helping to
Speaker 1: make this episode happen. You can find Vital Farms social
Speaker 1: media handles on our site Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Have an idea for a company or organization we should
Speaker 1: consider for the show, you can submit that on the
Speaker 1: site too, and if you thought this episode was clucking great,
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And thanks to our production team Hannah Beal, Jess Benton,
Speaker 1: Amanda Ginsburg, Andy Kim Hailey, Pascalites, D S. Moss, MICHAELA. Reid,
Speaker 1: Basil Soaper and me John Zulu. Calling Bullshit was created
Speaker 1: by co Collective and is hosted by Me Time onto you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Before you go, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what you think about the show. Maybe you were inspired
Speaker 1: to take action, maybe you disagree with today's bullshit rating.
Speaker 1: Either way, we want to hear about it. Leave us
Speaker 1: a message at two one two five oh five zero five,
Speaker 1: or send a voice memo to CBS podcast at co
Speaker 1: collective dot com. You might even be featured on an
Speaker 1: upcoming episode.