Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox.
Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Bramowitz. Each day we
Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
Speaker 1: you and your money, whether you're at the grocery store
Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m L
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com. You know, Pim,
Speaker 1: we're getting a risk on rally today, but there's one
Speaker 1: sector that just keeps nagging at everyone. It's kind of
Speaker 1: raising a red flag. You know, perhaps things are not
Speaker 1: as good as raising a red flag from the roof,
Speaker 1: from the roof, from the housing, from the house, from
Speaker 1: the housing market. Joining us now to discuss that and
Speaker 1: everything else under the sun. Genie Wyatt. She's Chief executive
Speaker 1: Officer and chief investment Officer at South Texas Money Management
Speaker 1: in the beautiful San Antonio, but she joins us here
Speaker 1: in our eleven three oh studios. She manages about a
Speaker 1: three point three billion dollars has been three point seven
Speaker 1: three point seven billion. Excuse me, please forgive me um.
Speaker 1: So grateful that you're here. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about the housing market and how you're viewing it because
Speaker 1: we have gotten a slowdown in sales. Some areas have
Speaker 1: seen even declines in certain prices. Are we at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this Yes, good morning lista good morning PIM.
Speaker 1: Now I do not think, um, we're at only the beginning.
Speaker 1: I think this will be a long time UH sector
Speaker 1: challenge for anything housing related. The mortgage bankers, UM, the
Speaker 1: service providers to housing, and obviously the builders. UH. Not
Speaker 1: only is it the interest rate increase and the FED
Speaker 1: likely especially with these trade talks, is likely to stay
Speaker 1: on a tightening track because our economy the outlook now
Speaker 1: is to continue to have positive GDP, so interest rates
Speaker 1: will likely continue to rise. But the challenge with housing
Speaker 1: that I think is not fully appreciated is land prices
Speaker 1: are now so expensive and UM owners of homes no
Speaker 1: longer get the full tax benefit of the taxes that
Speaker 1: they pay, which really penalizes them in states like New York,
Speaker 1: like California, and so the affordability net net, the affordability
Speaker 1: of housing now it's just no longer a value proposition.
Speaker 1: That's the challenge. I'm wondering if you could just step
Speaker 1: back and speak to the issue that investing is not
Speaker 1: something that you should enjoy. Well, you should not be
Speaker 1: emotional about your investing, but you must invest because stocks
Speaker 1: are the best investment you can make. Because stocks reflect
Speaker 1: UM growth in corporate earnings. It's not mysterious. Stocks reflect
Speaker 1: UH growth and corporate earnings, which are amazing this year,
Speaker 1: continue to be strong. And corporate earnings have a natural UM,
Speaker 1: a natural UM succession plan because if if companies don't
Speaker 1: produce good earnings, they will go away. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on managements to be competitive and to
Speaker 1: succeed and to have good corporate earnings and thus their stocks.
Speaker 1: Stocks overall broadly do very well long term, and they're liquid.
Speaker 1: I just wanted for a second go back to the
Speaker 1: housing issue just for one second. I'm curious you're saying
Speaker 1: that the value proposition isn't there. Does that mean that
Speaker 1: prices are going to tank or does it just mean
Speaker 1: that it's going to go sideways? Well, um, I think
Speaker 1: there's downside. There's downside for the home builders stocks or
Speaker 1: for house prices. Are both for both? How much downside? Well, again,
Speaker 1: we're in a um a good economic environment, so I
Speaker 1: would say ten to fift downside on home prices. Now,
Speaker 1: of course the lower priced homes probably have more downside
Speaker 1: protection because there's huge demand across the country for homes
Speaker 1: priced three hundred thousand dollars or less. But the higher
Speaker 1: priced homes, I would say the downside there again, some states,
Speaker 1: some counties could be as much as thirty including New York. Yes,
Speaker 1: some some counties. Yes, that's got your attentions. That's daunting
Speaker 1: clients in some areas in the Northeast. But that's only
Speaker 1: if you can move very high priced. If it's a
Speaker 1: very high priced home, and the taxes have been very
Speaker 1: high and no longer can you ride off all of
Speaker 1: those taxes. I want to turn your attention out of
Speaker 1: something that maybe benefit benefiting from all this, which is
Speaker 1: that you can work anywhere, live anywhere. Microsoft is one
Speaker 1: of the stocks Microsoft. Microsoft has been so kind to us.
Speaker 1: UM we started putting money into Microsoft. We buy both
Speaker 1: value and growth stocks. So we started buying Microsoft in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve as a value stock, and it's up
Speaker 1: over three since that point in time. But we still
Speaker 1: get really good upside in Microsoft from this point. So
Speaker 1: we're still putting new money in Microsoft and we get
Speaker 1: over the next twelve to twenty four months upside and
Speaker 1: Microsoft with the dividend, and that's as their cloud revenue
Speaker 1: is accelerating. Microsoft Office is still performing well and um,
Speaker 1: it's just being very very well managed. This today's Microsoft
Speaker 1: again because of their cloud success there they are almost
Speaker 1: as large of UH provider of servers as Amazon. So um,
Speaker 1: we think again there's a lot of good upside remaining
Speaker 1: in Microsoft. You're also buying General Electric? Right? Um? No, no,
Speaker 1: are you not? So? Microsoft today is now a growth
Speaker 1: stock for us. We borrowed his value, it succeeded, so
Speaker 1: now is growth of value stock we are putting new
Speaker 1: money into today. Is General Motors, General Motors one of
Speaker 1: those beaten up G something so General motors, but not
Speaker 1: General Electric, not in electric Okay, we have not been
Speaker 1: in General Electric for years. For GM. You like love GM?
Speaker 1: Love GM? Of course you know the broad market is
Speaker 1: up today, but there's so much hype about we're at
Speaker 1: peak auto sales. And yes, we're probably at a near
Speaker 1: term cyclical peak and auto sales, but um, and a
Speaker 1: lot of that is the millennials are saying they're not
Speaker 1: going to buy cars. But millennials grow up, they form
Speaker 1: families and and autos will become more important to them.
Speaker 1: But really the story there for future auto sales is
Speaker 1: the self driving vehicles, and GM has strong conviction in this.
Speaker 1: In fact, they just moved their president, um Dan Ammand
Speaker 1: to become head of Crews, which is the autonomous vehicle
Speaker 1: area of GM. GM today has about three dred self
Speaker 1: driving vehicles in San Francisco. I think we will all,
Speaker 1: all of us, whether we're millennials or we're octagenarians, we
Speaker 1: will love autonomous vehicles. Well, we'll be looking forward to
Speaker 1: taking a trip in one of them with you. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Genie Wyatt, Chief executive Officer, chief investment officer,
Speaker 1: South Texas Money Management, based in San Antonio. We are
Speaker 1: broadcasting live from the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studios. After the
Speaker 1: worst month in more than a decade, four crewed, we're
Speaker 1: seeing a rebound today. Perhaps it's because of the trade truce,
Speaker 1: the trade war truce that I guess was struck between
Speaker 1: a President Trump and President Jijim Ping of China. But
Speaker 1: there also are other as next to a joining US. Now.
Speaker 1: Dr ellen Wald, president of Transversal Consulting, also a non
Speaker 1: resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center
Speaker 1: in a Bloomberg Opinion contributor. Dr Wall thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. I want to just to ask
Speaker 1: you why do you think oil is rallying today? Is
Speaker 1: it because of a more positive backdrop geopolitically or is
Speaker 1: it because of OPEC and the likely cuts that they
Speaker 1: will implement to output later this week. I think it's
Speaker 1: a combination of OPEX likely cuts, but also we have
Speaker 1: an announcement from the premiere of Alberta that they're going
Speaker 1: to be taking some pretty extraordinary measures to cut oil
Speaker 1: production in Canada so as to relieve the incredible strain
Speaker 1: on their stored oil, and that that has really helped
Speaker 1: the price of Canadian oil rebound today. Dr Wald, do
Speaker 1: you believe that the change at OPEC with the announcement
Speaker 1: that Qatar wants to leave, will change the politics of oil.
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that we could see um the
Speaker 1: beginning of something important. And one of the interesting things
Speaker 1: that we noticed is that after Qatar announced that it
Speaker 1: is planning to leave the organization, and I think it
Speaker 1: does make sense for Qatar. It's really had a lot
Speaker 1: of problems politically with Saudi Arabia. Clearly they are under
Speaker 1: an economic embargo from Saudi Arabia, and it probably feels
Speaker 1: that it makes no sense politically domestically as well to
Speaker 1: sit in meetings and be compelled to go along with
Speaker 1: Saudi decisions when there's so much animosity focused on them
Speaker 1: from Saudi Arabia, combined with the fact that they're really
Speaker 1: a fairly small oil producer and they're big focus is
Speaker 1: natural gas. However, this could kind of signal a maybe
Speaker 1: a larger sense of unhappiness amongst these smaller oil producers
Speaker 1: within OPEQUE. And if enough of them get together and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't feel we're being we don't feel that the
Speaker 1: larger producers like Saudi Arabia, UH and Iraq are really
Speaker 1: taking our concerns into UH into consideration. If a bunch
Speaker 1: of them leaves, that could really affect OPEC's ability to
Speaker 1: play a role in the market. Well at this point,
Speaker 1: I mean, perhaps perhaps it was emblematic that the Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin and the Saudi Arabian Prince greeted each other with
Speaker 1: the happiest of hands, laps and and you know, smiles
Speaker 1: over the weekend at the G twenty meeting in Buenos Aires.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it does it sort of matter more
Speaker 1: now the alliance between Russia and Saudi Arabia than even OPEC.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely a big concern here because Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: and Russia are really the big players in this new
Speaker 1: OPEC plus alliance, and Putin made this announcement that Russia
Speaker 1: is planning to continue its participation in this alience. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't indicate that Russia is necessarily on board with
Speaker 1: whatever cut Saudi Arabia wants to make, but it does
Speaker 1: indicate that they are interested in pursuing this partnership, and
Speaker 1: that puts the rest of OPEC that really diminishes their
Speaker 1: influence and importance UH in terms of OPEC going forward.
Speaker 1: Dr walts, should we make a distinction between the natural
Speaker 1: gas market and the oil market. I think we really
Speaker 1: do need to in this case. And Cutter is particularly
Speaker 1: influential in the liquefied natural gas markets, so it's not
Speaker 1: quite the same as the United States, where natural gas
Speaker 1: is very inexpensive and cheap. Cutter makes a lot of
Speaker 1: money from its its natural gas and that's really where
Speaker 1: it wants to focus its efforts going forward. And that's
Speaker 1: very interesting because Saudi Arabia is also announced plans that
Speaker 1: it wants to focus on its developing its natural gas resources.
Speaker 1: That's mostly though, for Saudi internal use, for domestic use.
Speaker 1: But still they have indicated they're interested in maybe becoming
Speaker 1: an exporter of natural gas, and so Cutter may may
Speaker 1: see that as a little bit threatening to their position.
Speaker 1: So I'm just wondering from your perspective, if, as expected
Speaker 1: on Thursday, OPAQ plus agrees to an output cut in
Speaker 1: order to bolster prices and reduce supplies, how much do
Speaker 1: you think oil prices could go up or do you
Speaker 1: think that this is sort of false hope. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it really depends on how much oil we see.
Speaker 1: They could end up increasing production as much as UH
Speaker 1: or sorry, cutting production as much as one and a
Speaker 1: half million barrels per day, and that's not an insignificant amount,
Speaker 1: and it could send prices rallying maybe for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year. That The issue though, is we're still
Speaker 1: you know, down in the brand in the low sixties,
Speaker 1: not even yet hitting sixty one, and with w t
Speaker 1: I is still UH fifty two. So I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure that there's enough to really get us back into
Speaker 1: the seventies before the end of the year. And it
Speaker 1: does depend open may not be able to cut as
Speaker 1: much as they think that they can. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you very much for spending time with us. Dr
Speaker 1: ellen Wald is the President of Transversal Consulting, nonresident Senior
Speaker 1: Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center, also a
Speaker 1: contributor to Bloomberg Opinion. Joining us now to tell us
Speaker 1: all about the world of economics and particularly how it's
Speaker 1: linked to trade is none other than Mike McDonagh. Michael
Speaker 1: McDonagh is the chief economist for Financial Products for Bloomberg LP,
Speaker 1: and he joins us here in studio. Mike, it's always
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Thanks for coming in. Um, what happened last
Speaker 1: week at the G twenty and over the weekend? Did
Speaker 1: Did we really solve something or we just kind of
Speaker 1: punted a little bit. Not that that's bad. If we
Speaker 1: want to go with trade war analogies, I'd call it
Speaker 1: a ceasefire. So I mean it's it's buying a little
Speaker 1: time to try to come to a deal that's that's sustainable.
Speaker 1: It takes the risk January one off of the tariff
Speaker 1: level being escalated, so buyas time. Now we have to
Speaker 1: see what happens with the time. Why why was there
Speaker 1: such a softening in tone from President Trump? It probably
Speaker 1: depends on who you asked, But my personal view on
Speaker 1: this is, um, when you look at how markets have
Speaker 1: been performing recently, UM, there's also, at the same time
Speaker 1: been some signs of weakness uh in US economic growth
Speaker 1: at least it might have been going in a direction
Speaker 1: they don't want to see it go. Uh. And really,
Speaker 1: when you have to ask yourself why, I mean, there
Speaker 1: is an argument to be made that maybe the FED
Speaker 1: was looking like they might be a little bit too aggressive.
Speaker 1: But the big, other, other big uncertainty was trade with China, right,
Speaker 1: and that these two things combined, Uh, we're reducing sentiment
Speaker 1: a bit, and it pointed to potential. So you know,
Speaker 1: so I guess that My other question then would be
Speaker 1: has anything materially changed from the Chinese point of view
Speaker 1: with respect to what they're offering as far as you
Speaker 1: can tell, or is it just a willingness to make
Speaker 1: a deal on President Trump side? You know, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say. I I don't know a lot about what
Speaker 1: they had been offering, but you know, we we saw
Speaker 1: the agreement on the opioid exports fentanyl, Uh, that's something
Speaker 1: that the president could hang his hat on and say.
Speaker 1: You know, when you look at where President Trump is
Speaker 1: on a lot of his agenda, I would say the
Speaker 1: opioid wars arguably someplace where he's further behind than in
Speaker 1: other areas. So this is something he could say, Look,
Speaker 1: this is a win for us. This is something new.
Speaker 1: I don't think that had really been discussed before. That's there.
Speaker 1: Then there's the announcement today about auto tariffs. I believe
Speaker 1: China had announced that they were reducing auto tariff from
Speaker 1: fiftent back in May for everyone, but then they increased
Speaker 1: it in retaliation of the US, I think, and now
Speaker 1: they're saying, okay, we're gonna get rid of them entirely.
Speaker 1: That's something. And when look at every deal President Trump
Speaker 1: has done so far, autos has been involved, as has agriculture,
Speaker 1: so the soybean part of it. So you know there
Speaker 1: is something there. The question is, what will you know
Speaker 1: President Trump's appetite? B Right, The issues we have with
Speaker 1: China aren't really the deficit, uh, it's the you know,
Speaker 1: openness of the Chinese economy to US companies. It's the
Speaker 1: intellectual property theft. And these aren't easy things to fix, Like,
Speaker 1: this isn't something trying to could just turn a switch
Speaker 1: on and say okay, you invest in anything and we'll stop,
Speaker 1: you know, the technology transfer. Uh So, it's hard to
Speaker 1: see how you resolve a lot of this in ninety days.
Speaker 1: Just to give the detail about the opioid and fencenel issue,
Speaker 1: it has to do with China reclassifying them as a
Speaker 1: controlled substance, right. Yeah, I don't know the details of
Speaker 1: it personally, but it sounded yeah, it would sound it
Speaker 1: sounded like it would make it illegal for Chinese distributors
Speaker 1: to sell into the US. Yeah, that's the goal. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: how many products do you think that Chinese will have
Speaker 1: to buy in order to be able to enable the
Speaker 1: administration to declare victory and to have some kind of
Speaker 1: come together moment. I think it's the difference is how
Speaker 1: many do they say they'll need to buy and how
Speaker 1: many they actually have to buy. I think that right, um,
Speaker 1: soybean sales to China have basically gone to zero at
Speaker 1: this point in time, So I think that you could
Speaker 1: pretty quickly see those go back up, uh to two
Speaker 1: levels that we had seen you know, last year before
Speaker 1: these sars and that would be important because I think
Speaker 1: that the soybean farmers are probably being hit most by
Speaker 1: what's happening. So I think that, you know, I think
Speaker 1: there will be promises of reducing I think I think
Speaker 1: the promise of reducing the tariffs on auto and leveling
Speaker 1: the playing field will go a long way. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say how much will actually buy. The Europeans sell
Speaker 1: a lot more cars in the China than the US does,
Speaker 1: so I'll have to see They'll definitely be buying uh
Speaker 1: more soybean because they've gone to zero so that they
Speaker 1: have to I think you could see more purchase is
Speaker 1: of airplanes, etcetera. But really, when you when you look
Speaker 1: at trade with China, we actually run a surplus when
Speaker 1: it comes to services. Uh So I think that part
Speaker 1: of this would be making it a bit easier, if
Speaker 1: not removing all restrictions for US companies to do business
Speaker 1: in China. That would actually go a long way, right.
Speaker 1: That doesn't show up in the the goods trade deficit,
Speaker 1: but it shows often the overall transfer between the two countries.
Speaker 1: So I mean, if you have more US companies in
Speaker 1: China providing services, that could go a long way towards
Speaker 1: off setting the goods balance, which everyone talks about a lot.
Speaker 1: So how important is it that Lightheiser is in charge
Speaker 1: of these negotiations? Now that's that's interesting because like when
Speaker 1: you look at um, you know who tends to be
Speaker 1: more hawkish and debbish. Uh In Trump's administration, Lighthouser tends
Speaker 1: to be on the more hawkish side. So he's now
Speaker 1: running these negotiations. Uh So I guess, like I said,
Speaker 1: we have ninety days, we really need to be watching
Speaker 1: these headlines. Uh So that it's not surprising. He is
Speaker 1: a trade you know, negotiator, That's that's what he does.
Speaker 1: So it will be interesting to see who he's working with.
Speaker 1: What is rhetorick is like how frequently are they meeting,
Speaker 1: who's meeting, what's coming out of the deals or the
Speaker 1: meetings that they have Over the next ninety days, I
Speaker 1: think there'll be a lot of signals. You were called.
Speaker 1: The last time we were in this position, Um, there
Speaker 1: were instances where they had meetings planned and then they said, well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing we're going to agree on, so we're not
Speaker 1: going to meet. So we'll have to read the tea
Speaker 1: leaves for a while. Over the next ninety days, and
Speaker 1: then we're going to read them again for the following
Speaker 1: ninety days when it gets us further down. There's two
Speaker 1: things we need to look at, China and the fit,
Speaker 1: and we have Pal on Wednesday. Would be interesting to
Speaker 1: see if he mimics his comments from last Wednesday, that
Speaker 1: would be good and let's see what happens with China.
Speaker 1: Mike McDonough, thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 1: As always, your perspective is always insightful and valuable. Mike
Speaker 1: mcdonaldh's chief economist for financial Products at Bloomberg LP, talking
Speaker 1: about the latest I guess easing or perhaps just kicking
Speaker 1: the can down the road. We're broadcasting from the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Interactor Broker's studios. Let's turn our attention now to entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: who make products that people seemingly want to buy, because boy,
Speaker 1: this company, Califia Farms, is doing about a hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of business at least a year. It is
Speaker 1: founded and run by Greg Stoulton Pole, who many in
Speaker 1: the food and natural food market no as the one
Speaker 1: of the founders of Odwallah, and he joins us here
Speaker 1: in studio. Greg, thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 1: I was reading a little bit about your background and
Speaker 1: I can we connect your interest in juice and in
Speaker 1: pressed uh drinks to your father and his love of
Speaker 1: the world of citrus. What is that story? Well, you're
Speaker 1: going way back. So um, my dad love to live
Speaker 1: around orange trees and orange blossom California, Southern California. We
Speaker 1: moved to California when I was seven, and we had
Speaker 1: to keep moving because as the development of southern California grew,
Speaker 1: they kept plowing down the orange groves and we had
Speaker 1: to keep moving further and further towards the hills. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I grew up with the romance of living in orange
Speaker 1: grove and uh, just the smell of all those blossoms
Speaker 1: and everything. So it goes pretty deep in my roots.
Speaker 1: And we had to start every day with a glass
Speaker 1: of fresh squeezed juice, which evolved into a juice company, Odwalla,
Speaker 1: which you sold and then at Califia, which focuses on
Speaker 1: plant based beverages almond milk, soy, etcetera. So I'm curious,
Speaker 1: given the fact that you've sort of been part of
Speaker 1: this evolution of the health foods in the in the
Speaker 1: juice movement, where are we in that. I mean, is
Speaker 1: it expanding or are we kind of hitting a plateau
Speaker 1: where people are saying, forget this, come on, let's just
Speaker 1: do whole milk or raw milk or whatever. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: there's lots of different things going on, but um, underneath
Speaker 1: it all, there's huge shifts in the food industry at large,
Speaker 1: which I think are driving this. But what's driving those
Speaker 1: shifts are really massive changes in the consumer and where
Speaker 1: the consumer's head is at, and knowledge on the part
Speaker 1: of the consumer, and also globalization of this kind of
Speaker 1: gen zennial phenomena where you really have trends moving simultaneously.
Speaker 1: When I started Duella back in the eighties, you know,
Speaker 1: things would start on the West coast and in places
Speaker 1: like Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and then you know,
Speaker 1: takes some years to get to the East coast, and
Speaker 1: then take a decade or longer to get to the
Speaker 1: middle part of the country, and then other parts of
Speaker 1: the world may take twenty thirty years. Now it's really happening.
Speaker 1: A trend that can happen in natural products can spread
Speaker 1: globally within a few years. So uh, now a consumer
Speaker 1: is really driving the need for change and the industry
Speaker 1: is behind where you know, more than thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: When I got started, it was mainly like visionary people
Speaker 1: like myself and my friends who were coming up with
Speaker 1: these unique ideas and trying to convince people that this
Speaker 1: was the right thing to do. Tell people about how
Speaker 1: you're borrowing from other cultures in order to bring different
Speaker 1: types of drinks to the public. And I'm thinking here
Speaker 1: about Latino culture, Mexican culture, and horg Chatta. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, our name, Califia Farms is named after
Speaker 1: the origin of the state of California, which many Californias
Speaker 1: don't even know, right, And even earlier, there was a novelist,
Speaker 1: a Spanish novelist in the late fourteen hundreds who wrote
Speaker 1: a book and created this character, Queen Califia, who was
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the Spanish coming here. And she was
Speaker 1: a beautiful black queen who was rumored to have tons
Speaker 1: of gold. So nothing to motivate a conquistador more than
Speaker 1: beautiful women in lots of gold, right. So anyway, the
Speaker 1: romance of California spread to the agricultural heritage, and so
Speaker 1: it's it's actually not that foreign, and uh, that influence
Speaker 1: has always been in California, and California is now the
Speaker 1: largest producer of almonds in the world, produces over eighties
Speaker 1: something per cent. So that became the basis of our
Speaker 1: first large commodity, so Odwalla was acquired by Coca Cola
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, I believe for a lot
Speaker 1: hundred eighty one million dollars. But you've said that you
Speaker 1: would never sell Califia and then entrepreneurs should not sell
Speaker 1: their creations. Why well, I haven't actually said then I
Speaker 1: can never sell because it's not just up to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm unfortunately liam No not saying that at all.
Speaker 1: But I also can't make a blanket statement. But but
Speaker 1: I have been very verbal about what I've thought the
Speaker 1: long term effect on O'dwalla's mission and vision were after
Speaker 1: Coke acquired it. And I think it can be fairly
Speaker 1: said that acquiring especially natural product food, the foods that
Speaker 1: are coming out of a craft type movement by large
Speaker 1: multinational corporations, there's not of extremely long history of success
Speaker 1: in keeping the mission alive and keeping the purity of
Speaker 1: those products first and foremost. So we're embarking on a
Speaker 1: strategy and continuating strategy of trying to remain independent, and
Speaker 1: in fact, we're the last fully independent plant based company
Speaker 1: of any size left today, and we're one of the
Speaker 1: only independent coffee companies of any scale today. So we
Speaker 1: hope we can keep it that way, and the spirit
Speaker 1: of that independence is I think important for the categories. Actually,
Speaker 1: if we went to your factory, your facility in Bakersfield,
Speaker 1: what would we see. Uh, It's it's a bit like
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka, and that we do a lot of things
Speaker 1: there in a pretty compressed amount of space. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden imagined, you know, rivers of soy milk or
Speaker 1: almond milk, and well, we we process a lot of
Speaker 1: type of milk based commodities. So it's not just almonds.
Speaker 1: We do ods, Uh, we do p We we do
Speaker 1: other grains, and a lot of coconut, a lot of chocolate,
Speaker 1: the hor chatta spices and and a lot of things
Speaker 1: that go in our cold brew coffees. So the smells
Speaker 1: are always changing and there's a constant different stream and
Speaker 1: we have flexible path packaging lines, so we'll be doing
Speaker 1: uh ice cold nitro brew on one line while we're
Speaker 1: running the mainstream on sweet and almond on another line.
Speaker 1: And chocolate chip coconut over on another one. So it's
Speaker 1: pretty fun. It's um fairly automated, so we've dispensed from
Speaker 1: our manufacturing and having a centralized control room, so everybody's
Speaker 1: running around with iPads and I watches and keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on all the machines. So it's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to have your own manufacturing. I'm just my imaginations
Speaker 1: going wild. I'm just picturing the scene and Willy Wonka
Speaker 1: the chocolate fountain. Greg Steals and Paul, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being with us. Really a pleasure having you on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast.
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