Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Essential Provisions CEO/Creator Robin Gentry McGee | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 24

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Essential Provisions CEO/Creator Robin Gentry McGee | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 24 · Beyond The Trailhead

• speaker-0: All right, everyone, welcome back to Beyond the Trailhead. This week we have an incredible guest. met ⁓ one of her employees, Dan, at a conference and they had some amazing food and nutritional things that I thought were amazing that we had to share with everybody. we have Robin Gentry-McGee from Essential Provisions. How are you doing, Robin? speaker-1: Great. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. speaker-0: Great. No, thank you for being on. ⁓ So I tried the food and I don't know why I've had so many people on the podcast these days with food. I'm a big eater. I could just eat all day long on the trail. I probably bring too much food on the trail when I go and I never lose weight on the trail. That's thing I never do. But ⁓ I love the story behind it, especially just the origins of essential provisions. And so I guess without further ado, if you want to just kind of go into the brand and how you guys came to be. speaker-1: Sure. ⁓ Central Provisions, produce organic, whole food regenerative, meals ready to eat, MREs, as well as worst nutrition products. We are about a year old, actually. We launched about a year ago. this company, ⁓ actually, the products were birthed ⁓ through another company that we had formerly, which was Functional Formularies, which was a enteral nutrition company that ⁓ launched in 2013. And that came about because my father had a traumatic brain injury. so my background is food. I've been in the food business pretty much my entire career, from everything from having an organic food restaurant to having lines of pre-made food that local markets have carried. Always been healthy. I've done private chef work. Then it was actually when I had my restaurant and after five years I was so burnt out on the restaurant business that I decided I needed to find something else to do with my life and get out of it. speaker-0: Restaurants are no joke. Sorry to cut you off, but I have a friend who owns a restaurant and he works 24-7. I can't even believe it. He's only open six hours an evening. So I can see why you want a break. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, I I was working 90 hours a week and Brian, my husband, he was my partner in everything. He was working about 90 minutes away and he would drive up, you know, coming straight from work on weekends and we were just so burnt out. So, and I tried to close a number of times and I told our customers like I'm gonna, and they would, they were like, ⁓ you can't do that, where are we gonna eat? Because there was no other organic food restaurants in our area. still or not actually, unfortunately, many years later. But it was just one crazy Friday afternoon. It was just, I was like, I'm just done. And literally I came home and I said, I'm done. I'm closing the restaurant. Went back the next morning, ⁓ let my employees know and put a close for business sign and literally just walked away. It was just, we had to get rid of everything. ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ wow. speaker-1: process after closing it that it was just, was just at the tipping point, honestly. But then unfortunately, like literally a month later, my father had an accident and suffered a very, very serious traumatic brain injury. And my parents were in Michigan at the time and ⁓ they, I just received a call one day he had had an accident. They didn't expect him to survive the surgery. And that was just really life changing. ⁓ He did survive the surgery. He started bleeding again 24 hours later. They had to do another surgery. And at that point in time, his medical team advised pulling the plug basically because the brain injury was so severe. He believed if he lived that he would be a vegetable. But my background has been pretty much walking the alternative path as far as medicine. which I came about really early on when I was probably around 19 due to some health issues that I personally faced. And before I could make peace with saying goodbye to my father, I just started asking myself, there anything outside the realm of Western medicine that's not being offered that could potentially help him? And there was. One of the first things that I had remembered was a conversation I had with my acupuncturist. years before this accident ever happened. For some reason, she was talking about bringing patients out of a coma with acupuncture. I remembered that conversation and I called her up and she said, absolutely, it can be done. So it was a long path. We tried to get an acupuncturist into the hospital and they would not allow it because it was against hospital policy. But there were some reflexology points that speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: we were willing to try instead, which we did. And my father did come out of the coma. Wow. Amazing. After three days of this reflexology protocol that we did. But he was still very sick, very brain injured. And I just continued to look around for treatments. And ⁓ he came out of the coma, but ⁓ was not thriving. And one of the things I did not even question was the food that he was being given. He was on a feeding tube because he couldn't swallow. ⁓ So out of boredom one day I was just sitting with him and I picked up this can that they were pouring into his feeding tube and I read the ingredients and I was appalled. The first ingredient was corn syrup and then canola oil. And then there were like five different kinds of sugar, synthetic, there was no food at all. So I just said to my mother, like, we need to find a healthier formula. is just crazy. And I thought it'd be really simple to do so. Nothing. I looked literally all over the world as medical team, registered dietitians, nutritionist, is there a healthy formula? Nothing existed. So I went to my DO. speaker-0: So. speaker-1: told him the situation and what I wanted to do and ask. I knew nothing about feeding tubes. would I? And I'm just like, and I do this. And he said, yeah, you're just bypassing the esophagus. There's no reason a patient on a feeding tube has to live on corn syrup, basically. And so then I started looking at, ⁓ in addition to the brain injury, because he had been in a coma for so long, ⁓ he had a number of secondary. complications and issues. So in trying to figure out how to get a real food into a teeny tiny feeding tube to make sure that the nutritionals that he needed every day were correct, it was a feat because he was also on fluid restriction. He could only have 32 ounces of food a day because he was going into congestive heart failure. it took about I don't know, a month maybe, six weeks, kept just looking. I would just look at bookstores and books and ⁓ online and look up brain injury and food and all of the other secondary complications and see what I could actually create that could help not only the brain injury but other of the issues he was experiencing. And I found a really beautiful book called Healing with Whole Foods. and it's basically ⁓ Eastern traditions and Western food. And the East, look at food very differently than we do, and the West, including the thermal properties of food, which if you're, it's damp when heat and cold, and if you have a damp condition, the worst thing you can do is have a diet that includes damp food. So was really intriguing to me being a food person. I never looked at food this way before. Also, looking at the healing properties of food. mean, yes, I used herbs and grew herbs and knew them and the subtle properties of herbs. But in all of my years of being in the food business, I really never looked at the healing property of food. So ⁓ I did with the help of this book and it's like almost 800 pages. when I bought it and I just devoured it, I'm like everything I need to create this formula. isn't for my father specifically, is in this book. And so I started experimenting with it and I finally figured it out. you know, it's been enough to go through the feeding tube and enough nutrition to keep, support his body. I was unable to find a doctor who would write orders because he had 24 hour day nursing by this time and everything that touched his body he had to have an order for. So I an Indian doc. It was actually through a woman that used to come into my restaurant and she did some sort of alternative brain energy work, but she worked at an MD's office. So I'm like, well, she's Oakland to alternative, but at least so I her and asked if he would be willing to see me and meet with me. And he was, and he was great. said, I know nothing about what you want to do, but I know why you want to do it. And I can help you to oversee the process. If all you need to do is, you know, put a note in your dad's chart that if he passes, I'm not responsible because he was rolling out on a limb ⁓ for this crazy idea that he'd never heard of before. I'm like, of course he's dying anyway, so why wouldn't I? So I did, figured it out. ⁓ We started giving it to him. We began calling the formula Liquid Hope in my family because it literally the only hope we had at that time. ⁓ We switched over over the course of about a week, just eliminating one feeding a time until he could tolerate real food. And six weeks later, at a six week follow up, the doctor, Dr. Saurwal is his name, who agreed to write the orders. He basically called me and he said, it's a miracle what you've done for your father. And that's how much improvement that had happened in six weeks, simply by changing his diet. And so, speaker-0: Wow. speaker-1: I basically said it's not a miracle. Are you kidding me? Like this is what we're feeding people in this country who are and dying. Such an awakening for me. ⁓ because I was trying to change my career, then I thought the message in this whole experience and the gift from my father was to teach people how to cook and heal with food as a chef. ⁓ So I did, I traveled around the country doing a number of certification programs, healing with food, food as medicine, along the way. But when you're at a new event or program, people ask, why are you here? What brought you here? And so people ⁓ found out my story and what I had done for my father. And I started getting a lot of requests for this formula. And then I figured out, like, try to figure out how could. commercialize it and make it shelf stable so that it would be accepted into hospitals. And it took me eight years literally to figure it out because I mean it was just the manufacturing, how do I do this? And one thing, I think I mentioned it early on when you ask about small scale farms, local farms, ingredients, one thing that I didn't know, and again I've been in the food business my entire career, that large scale food manufacturing, they don't use fresh food. You can't like have a produce truck and deliver produce or meat. Everything has to be IQF frozen, has to come in, you know, with all these certifications, documentations. So getting to the bottom of figuring that out, number one, and then finding a manufacturer who was willing to take on this project because they're used to dealing with multinationals. They're huge, huge. And I called one up and you know, after I found out finally the process I needed to make a shelf stable with a shelf life. ⁓ I found there were only like four manufacturers in the United States that offered this type of process. And I was turned down, turned down, turned down. I finally called one and the salesman, this is a great, this is an amazing story. You know, I really hope that we can help you let me talk to people. And let me call you back. And he called me back and he said, you know, really we wish you the best of luck, but this is, we've never heard of this before. Risk is really high for us. Blah, blah, blah. So he did send me then to a really small manufacturer. This guy was kind of like a one man shop that did all scale stuff just to try and work it out and see if I could make this product shelf stable. And I worked with him for about a year. And he, you one day he says, he called me up and he said, I think we're there. Cause I would make it ship it to him overnight. And then he would know we were back and forth as he was in state. And I get this call saying we're there and I was so excited to get the product. You know, and I'm like, excited. received the shipment and opened it up and it was like, we were not there on any level again. And it had to be like a really thin to go through it, not only to maintain the nutrition. speaker-0: ⁓ no. speaker-1: And so you could stick a spoon in it. And I called him up and I said, John, I thought you said we were ready to go. He's like, well, I thought we were. I thought we could make it work. I'm like, bless your heart for trying. What kind of work? So I called up the first manufacturer, same guy. And I said, you have to take me on. Like I've literally wasted the year of my life. I've got to this product to market. speaker-0: I can work. speaker-1: I'm like, tell me what I have to do. I'll do anything. What do I need to do for you to, to, you know, in order for you to take this on. And he had to go back to his people and he called and said, okay, we'll again, love your story. We'll help you, but you have to prepay for the production allowance. And I'm like, that's fine. I don't know how I'm going to do it because I had no money at the time. I had no clothes. So by that time I had such a waiting list that I did pre-sales. So I got people up when I'm like, you know what? I can get it to you, get it to market. so we were sold out of the first two production runs before I ever had them in my possession. Oh, wow. So at that point in time, the company was launched and we launched in 2013. then within probably a year and a half, we became, we were covered by insurance. So the product available, which was a game changer. speaker-0: ⁓ wow. speaker-1: when we were issued a billing code, which was truly a surprise to me because we were a one-off product that nobody had never heard of before. But it was a hockey stick straight up for five years. And by 2018, we were so burnt out that we were looking for help to bring on for day-to-day management because, you know, right back to working 90 hours a week. we like, we had insurance, we were dealing with hospitals, we were dealing We had grown to like 17 employees by that time. mean, was just like, just the time went so rapidly and we were so successful, which was really, really great. But we were struggling with just actually forming sentences at the time. so we started looking for partners. PE company from California came in. revering interest, they asked Brian and I what we wanted. We basically day-to-day management. I wanted you development, which is my love. And he's brand identity guy. Yeah. What we wanted. And they said, well, that's great. That's what we want too. So we ended up selling the company to them with the understanding that we would, we would stay on the last day. ⁓ we were ever in the office was the day that I signed the sales agreement. They got rid of us immediately. They had, they completely did not honor anything they said. It was just, sorry about your luck. speaker-0: Wow. Wow, I no idea, ⁓ my gosh. That must have been heartbreaking, especially because it's your baby, you know? speaker-1: was horrible. It was horrible. And they took my name off everything, everything. So if you can go to their website and they refer to me now as our founder, you will not find Robin Gentry McGee. And my name used to be on a product, Robin Gentry McGee's functional formula and whatever. Yeah. But, they were more than happy to do it. And I don't know why, they're doing so, but it's just like, and then it became all about the bottom line. them how much money they could make and it was just it literally I mean it took a long time to get over it was just hard it was about speaker-0: Yeah. I hear so many people say things like that. Like you create something that you're so passionate about and then not always, but there's a big company that comes in that they just are more money hungry. Making money is not a bad thing, right? speaker-1: That's what you do to people along the way. speaker-0: Exactly, exactly. Especially when they, I always hear that people like they get promised something and then a business is so big and we're so small, unless you really want to fight it hard, you're going to literally sometimes go bankrupt just trying to fight it. So you just have to kind of let it go. And they know that. And that's, that's a sad part about the industry is there's, there's no safety barriers in there for people. And, ⁓ Wow, I had no idea. So when that all happened, what was the period between that and then you creating essential provisions and how did that all come about? speaker-1: So the MREs, the Millis-Morady that we currently have, they were actually created. Fill fuel. That's created when we had functional formularies. Oh, this is the reason it was created. I had to think back. There's so many things that happened. It was a long period of time, but seemed like just pages turned so quickly. I was introduced to MREs. and which I'm not from a military family. And as I do with everything, I turned the package over and read the ingredients. And I was like, this is what they're feeding men and women who are protecting this country. I I the same realization as I did with the feeding. I I read the ingredients and I was just like, are you kidding me? And so ⁓ we then, like we needed. I need to develop MREs. This is crazy. We need a solution just like the feeding tube. both needed a solution. So we started going down that path and went to a couple of military feeding program shows, which they have twice a year. And from there, we met a lieutenant colonel, believe, Wright. He was at Wright, at Wren, not far from Wright Pat. and he was an ultramarathoner and he became a huge proponent. By that time we would run the product and had samples. And he loved the product. We were then invited to, I don't remember, was like Warrior Weekend or something that they bring in new technologies from lasers to food and tests, three day weekend at Right Pet. So we were invited there and able to test them with special forces. And they were really... really very well received. But when we sold the company, the rights to everything went to the PE group who purchased functional for me. But for my contract, if they did not commercialize them in three years, I received the rights to them back. So they failed to commercialize them and I the rights back up two years ago. And I'm like, there's still a huge need. So I need to try and do it again. speaker-0: I see. speaker-1: So I did, I kind of went back to the drawing board and we learned a lot from ⁓ the one military weekend that we did because the products that I had developed for functional formularies, they were all plant-based largely because ⁓ when you have a feeding tube, you have a bag that the food as in has to hang at temperature. So there was no way to solve the solution. or to solve the problem of the hang time and potentially bacteria with meat. So it's plant-based formula. The products I developed at the time for the military were also plant-based and the feedback was these are great, but we really need meat. So when I went back to the drawing board, when we got the rights to them back and began development again, then that's when I started looking at meat ⁓ as a solution to that and it's great. speaker-0: us. speaker-1: We're really, really, as I mentioned, picky about the products. Currently we have two products that are meat, both bison and a reason they're bison because that was the first meat that we could source of the quality that we would use. looking at small, it's a small farms that are doing regenerative farming, the clean food that we all want to use. I'm sorry. No, somebody said. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: but that people that we're looking for. So now we have been able to source since then, we now have two chicken products in development, two smoked salmon products. And we'll be doing more. ⁓ And the really cool thing that we are just most recently involved in, I was contacted by a gentleman on LinkedIn, his name's Juan Whiting. He has the Hunterland Institute. has military reserves currently. speaker-0: Oh, I'm speaker-1: He's also a farmer and his institute, the Hinterland Institute, they have developed a program and they're reclaiming ⁓ DOD land ⁓ and turning it into regenerative farmland and working with military personnel, and current military training them in regenerative farming. So the ultimate goal is that essential provisions will be purchasing the the food or the products, the meat and produce that are being grown by military turning it back into MRIs, they're it back to the military. speaker-0: That's cool. I that's like, it goes full circle, right? Full circle. I hung out with the Marines back in 2010 for about a week and just watching them, was taking, was shooting photo and video when the earthquake happened in Haiti. And so I was embedded with the Marines and then with the Canadian army. And it was funny watching them trading MREs. And I mean, they, the chemicals that's in there, it tastes good, but you know it's not good for you. it's not good. I mean, I'm a huge proponent on like really good food that's healthy for you and it impacts your joints and everything. It's all about inflammation and all these different things. We could go all into all those things, I'm sure. But it's great that you are, your heart is there to help people more than it is to help yourself. And I think that's why. the companies that you've created are successful. The restaurant, mean, everybody loved your food. I mean, who doesn't like really good food that's actually healthy for you? Right? And then the feeding thing. then, I just got back from, I was telling you earlier, I just got back from being on Mount Rainier and doing a photo shoot. And I just got back to the car and I was like, man, I'm gonna try it. So I tried the Bison Chili and I've tried it at the trade show, but when you're... like freezing cold outside and you're eating this warm Bison chili, it was so good. And what made you go from the MRE style versus say, you know, most people go freeze dried. speaker-1: So for military, actually the military MREs are their food, they're not dehydrated, they're shelf stable basically. So to get into the military, our end goal is we're currently working with a special forces group, of like our tiptoeing our way into that, you know, it's going to be a long road. But with the administration that we have currently in place and looking at the ingredients and food, I it's really good timing. speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. speaker-1: But it's just because we wanted to be, that was our target market was the military and that's the kind of food that the military offers. I mean, they do have freeze dried and dehydrated for different conditions, know, there's ice conditions or wherever they're deployed. But by large, you know, largely they use already rehydrated food. speaker-0: Cause I know when people go for, cause I do long, long hikes, but I also do overnights and two or three nighters. And I know for hunters, you know, they go into certain spots and I know there's so many applications for this food. And I was always a, ⁓ freeze dry cause it's lighter. But honestly, the taste of this is, it's like my wife made me some stew and I took it with me instead of rehydrating it. there's like these hard chunks in there. or certain things that I'm like, oh, it was just like, I just sat it in the pot and I just warmed it up and I was like, this feels so good. I almost wish I had a couple of crackers just so I could eat with it while I was there, you And now I'm thinking about the crackers that they put in the MREs that are like literally like cardboard. speaker-1: Well, we'll have to, we're actually, one of the things that we're doing is developing the full MRE kit for an exercise that they're going to do. So I'll have to send one of our fully developed MRE kits to you, which would include trackers. speaker-0: ⁓ that'd be great. So you have four flavors right now or four meals right now, correct? Yeah. So I was telling Dan that ⁓ I went vegan for a while, for about a year and a half, and lentil stew is like one of my favorites. And so when I was like, ⁓ my gosh, forget the bison at this point, let me just try the lentil stew. Because you can totally judge a food based on if they can make a good... veggie product versus everything meat. And it was so good. And my son is a hardcore, he's like a veggie fanatic, which is, it's just so weird because my two girls, they love sweets and carbs, but my son loves veggies. And so he loves lentil stew. And so I told him when I get back, I'm going to let him try the lentil stew. Cause I'm like, you're going to like this way more than lentil stew you eat right now. But you also have ⁓ the pouches, right? And what are in those pouches? I know there was like a mint type of one and I can't remember, but I know you know why you kind of created those as well. speaker-1: Yeah, they're like four ounce, we call them a sports blends. So we have salt and almond butter, vanilla, raspberry, mint and chocolate orange ginger. So it's just a little squeeze pouch that, ⁓ you know, it's great for hiking, great for driving in your car. I take them when I'm going to be on the road and I haven't eaten breakfast or whatever. The almond butter has 14 grams protein and again, it's all really clean and greedy. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, love the fact that it's clean ingredients versus just trash. think my wife and I were just talking and the people I was staying with when I was in Seattle, he's going to be a heart surgeon. So we were just talking about inflammation and all these different things. And I was telling him like, it's great in his perspective as a doctor, usually the doctors are like, you have to do this. And they don't ever talk about nutrition first. It's always like, take this medicine, do this surgery. And it's not, hey, maybe you should change your diet. Maybe you should stop eating all this fake sugar and all these different things. And that will tone down your inflammation and that will cause your gut to get straight and all these different things and your gut health and everything. ⁓ I just wanted to say thank you for making a really good healthy product, first of all. And then I don't mind caring for me. speaker-1: Uh-huh. speaker-0: ultra light hiking. I don't mind carrying a little bit extra if I'm going to have really good food. Cause if you don't enjoy your meals, then you kind of, when you're on the trail anyways, you have a, you have a bad day, but you can sit down and have a good meal. And you're super, super happy. think everybody that we've had on here when it comes to food production has all been, ⁓ locally sourced or just like natural ingredients, just really good, healthy food alternatives. And that was their heart as well was There's all these super mega processed foods and how can I make better foods that make people feel healthy? So going into, I guess, backing up a little bit to that, no, they kind of stole your product, took your name off of it and everything else. What are some lessons that maybe you could tell somebody else like, hey, ⁓ my goodness, if you're ever in this situation creating a product or a service or something like that, what are some speaker-1: Sox. speaker-0: protections that you're like, hey, this is, I've learned this, protect yourself with this. What would you say? speaker-1: Well, number one, you have to trademark everything. if you want, so many people do that too, who not really have ⁓ a good business advisor or have had previous businesses. mean, trademarking is so important because especially in the age of everything's on the internet for the taking. We know it happened even though we are trademarked ⁓ to rip off our name. But at least if you're trademark, you can take legal action if you choose. Okay. So that's number one, protect yourself at all time. ⁓ As far as sourcing, I mean, you really need to understand where your raw ingredients are coming from and those companies will send COAs, ⁓ you know, when you're working with them certificates of analysis. So it's so important and we're third, independently third party tested. We choose to do so because transparency and clean food is so important to us. So we third party test for PFAS, PFAS, glyphosate, heavy metals. trying to check all the boxes because for me, ⁓ like I could retire right now if I wanted to, but that's not my goal in life. My goal in life is to provide service and help people and try and make this world a better place. It's not about making money. And it's why we use ⁓ the highest quality ingredients that we can source anyway, because that's the mission is to try and help number one, heal the earth and heal people in the process, because we're living in some seriously challenging times, right? Yeah. But you're absolutely right about medicine. ⁓ I don't know if you're familiar with functional medicine though, but the reason functional medicine docs are, and I think that is the last I know of the fastest growing arm of Western medicine is functional medicine. And they're thankfully looking at root causes, lifestyle, diet, etc. speaker-0: Yeah. My friend who's doing the heart surgery, becoming a heart surgeon, ⁓ we talked about, ⁓ it's funny because I told him, was like, well, we still need doctors to perform like these heart surgeries and these different surgeries that before you wouldn't ever survive. But if we have those, ⁓ if we have like a good marriage between like the functional medicine and doctors being taught like other things, then we won't just be pumping pharmaceuticals. in our bodies like crazy. I know I have a lower back issue and ⁓ I went to a chiropractor and I loved my chiropractor but then he adjusted me when I was really, really sore and he slipped my disc even more. And so for a while I swore off of my chiropractor and then I went to a physical therapist and then they kind of always butt heads. And I said, and kind of same thing, I was like, we need a good marriage between the chiropractor and the physical therapist so that way we can go, hey, there's times for this and there's times for that. so the more I'm hearing from the food industry, the more I'm like, you know, I'm never gonna create a food cause it just seems like way too much work. Like it is, you have to be really passionate about it and know that, cause there's just so many hoops to jump through and hurdles, you know, they have to jump over and stuff like that. What was maybe the biggest hurdle that you saw? creating this, whether it was the feeding product, the feeding tube product, or if it was these meals, like what was something that was like, man, this is the biggest hurdle we ever faced. speaker-1: Probably it's the manufacturing, because of the ⁓ their MOQs or minimum order quantities are so high. Like 36,000 of each SKU of each product when we run production, their MOQ it's 36,000 per SKU. And so the first four MREs that we launched with, I mean, you're looking at close to half million dollars. Wow. Just to get to the market. that is the biggest challenge. ⁓ Thankfully, we were in the position to be able to and you we had investors with our first company. Those investors, large majority wanted to come back in again. So we've been very, very blessed in that respect. We've been able to bankroll this. But I mean, that's what keeps a lot of small companies with great ideas locked out of the market. And that's ⁓ I also think that's why it keeps a lot of companies really small, like small local, which is great. You're buying local produce from your local farmer, you have a commercial kitchen, you can create products, sell it to the local market or at the farmer's market or wherever, that's great. ⁓ But growing beyond that, if you wanted to get into like really full scale national distribution, there are so many hoops to not only with the shelf, with the production process of creating a shelf stable product, but you know, the other options refrigeration, then you're looking at a lot of expense because, you're looking at expiration dates and shelf space. mean, it's just layers and layers and layers. It's very difficult for many people with great ideas to even make it to the point in time they're profitable. mean, we'll be operating the red for a while just because again, all of the production costs and you have to have employee, so, Aero and everything else, it'll be a long time before we're profitable and we're able to ride that wave and hoping for success, but it's really, doesn't need to be, I mean, I think the system is designed and it works for large scale ⁓ food production and it's not created for people like me. speaker-0: Yeah. When you were getting investors for the first company, know, a lot of people have an idea and, know, a friend of mine, created a company and he did a Kickstarter campaign, even though the business was going like, gonna go ahead and open, he was trying to do in the Kickstarter campaign. I know there's another one for investors. can't remember the name of the website. ⁓ Invest Me or something like that. But ⁓ If someone's looking to try to get investors involved, like what were some successes that helped you get those people involved in your company? speaker-1: So we were really, really fortunate. Again, we've been so incredibly blessed on all of our attempts to launch businesses. so I think it was about year two. I've pretty much worked for myself my entire adult life. But I'd never really written a business plan. And going into with functional formularies and I knew the market I was going into, which was up against Nestle, Abbott, Nutrition. It's like, girl, you need to keep your toes. Girl, you are no longer playing small. And so I did, went through an accelerator program called Bad Girl Ventures. And I had to write a business plan, which I did, and graduated from that program. And then, I don't know, it was. speaker-0: You speaker-1: shortly thereafter, and we were operating, we were up and running as I said, was about a year after year two. And I received a call one day from a gentleman who runs an organic farm, 300 acre organic farm, beautiful farm, and his wife has had glioblastoma. And one of my, one of the deer, speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Thank speaker-1: very dear people I met along the way. And I think I met him through Bad Girl Ventures, actually. He's a neurosurgeon, very well, world renowned neurosurgeon. And he had ⁓ operated on this gentleman's wife for her brain cancer. And so Robert is his name, ⁓ the gentleman who called me and he said, Robin, this is Robert blah, blah, blah. He's like, I just want to tell you, ⁓ John, to introduce me to your product. And it's amazing what it's done for my wife. Like she could go through rehab. She was struggling with weight. She was just really, really suffering. And he started using Liquid Hope for his wife. And it literally night and day within a very short time. mean, the same thing we saw over and over and over again with functional formularies. And he said, I'd love to meet you. would you come down to the farm and meet with me? And I said, sure. So Brian and I went to the farm, is about an hour away from us, and just sat and talked with him for the afternoon. And he said, are you going to take investors? And we grew so rapidly, we really didn't need investors, thankfully. But I said, well, we thought about it. And we were selling into Canada. We had just started trying to ⁓ a trademark for Canada. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: from other countries. So although we didn't need the funding, I thought it would be really good to have a nest egg in case we needed it. So I said, sure, I'll consider it. And I was able to send him my business plan, which was like, business plan to send him my son. And he called me like a day later and I thought he was going to say, ⁓ my God, this is horrible. You should just like stop. And he's like, I'll take a million dollars for the blah, blah. And he had like four other people. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. Wow. speaker-1: literally overnight without trying we raised 1.6 million dollars but the most incredible thing is because I'm a tight one and I'm like I never want to lose anything like I can't imagine but we still had that 1.6 in the bank when we sold the speaker-0: That's incredible. That's cool. speaker-1: So as far as getting investors, mean, I just think it's right time, right place, honestly. And I think that is why a lot of people go down the PE, right, equity or the venture capitalist. ⁓ But just know, I mean, in my experience, and I knew, like I had heard enough going into looking, ⁓ even when we were looking to bring on partners, that VCs have a really, really bad reputation if they're short. They just are. I'll come in and take your business down. Really early on before I think I ever launched, there was a group that approached me and they loved the concept so much. They were like, offered me a million dollars. We'll give you a million dollars. We'll get somebody else in place, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, hell no, you're not gonna. Where are you? I didn't take that, but. just know basically who you're going to be dancing with when you go looking for investors. We are very fortunate, you know, the investors because there are silent investors and then there's also investors who will come in and try and tell you how to run the company, which can cause a lot of contention and ill will. Thankfully we never dealt with any of that. ⁓ But it is, it's, you know, I think it is, it's really, a lack of the draw unless you know someone really well. It's taking on a business partner or an investor in your business. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, feel like sometimes it's those those heart touching stories like that one investor that it really hit home and he was like this is something he believes in and when someone believes in it Yeah, I think those are really good investors because then they really believe in it and they're gonna let you For the most part run it the way you're doing it. They just want to help spread the love, you know, so to speak speaker-1: Absolutely. And it was great too, because he ended up being on our board and we would have quarterly board meetings and most of them in person and were just, for me it was awesome. We a presentation of, because it would have been different if we hadn't been some of the things that we were good But he was sitting in one of the meetings one time and he's like, Robin, he's looking at the financials and I'm like, oh God, what's he going to say? He was like, this is the best investment I've ever made. speaker-0: Ha ha ha ha ha ha. speaker-1: So that was really cool. was, when we're still very dear and his wife is still alive. Don't you know? I really, think she is one of the, cause glial blastoma, if I remember correctly, it has like one or two year, I mean, fatality. ⁓ I think it's been 12 years and she's. speaker-0: Yeah. So I guess going completely the other way with your product now, you know, because for the most people that are on here, we're like hiking, outdoors, hunting, that kind of thing. So where do you see this, your product kind of fitting into the hiking world? I know with the hunting world for sure. and then the hiking world for sure, of course, but I know there's certain marketing aspects that you're like, ⁓ this is why it would fit in with this. so, like, just kind of tell me kind of what your thoughts are. speaker-1: I mean, there's really no category. mean, looking at, and we kind of ⁓ transitioned our efforts actually. It was about a year before we launched and, you know, we were again, our goal really, really was the military. was the kind of our one, you know, one focus at the time. And we made our way to the head RD who makes the decisions for the military feeding program. and spoke with her, our, and we have an amazing medical team, functional medicine doc, nutritionist, protein expert. So our medical nutrition team was on the call and we had a call and she listened intently. We were telling her regenerative, organic, just the ingredients, the protein, everything. And then she said something to the effect of like, well, that's great, but I really don't care where your products come from. I don't care that your products are, you know, non-GMO. They were organic. was just basically I could care less about the quality of your products. And it was really jarring to me, but I'm like, whoa, wow, so much for that idea of military. And one of the people we were working with consulting at the time had experience in getting products into the military. And she basically said what that conversation translated to was that we're not going to pay the price for your product because obviously our is much more expensive than what they're for processed food MREs. So we changed our focus then and then we started identifying other markets, hunting, fishing, mean, literally you name it, all outdoors, but just moms who are busy and want to feed their kids healthy. And we have the MREs for dinner from time to time, throw together a salad and heat it up. It's like the easiest, healthiest meal you'll ever have. ⁓ As far as backpacking and packing in ⁓ for your talk about the weight issue, like it's not ⁓ because I've done the math on, unless you have an identified water source or water filtration system that you're carrying and with you. ⁓ Our product per to meet the required per calorie, per adult, per day, ⁓ our product is lighter by the time you carry. water that you need to rehydrate the freeze-dried or dehydrated food and also ⁓ the dehydrated food especially. I think it's like 60 % of the nutrients are lost in the dehydration process. speaker-0: Yeah, that's what Dan was telling me. That's why I was interested. I was like, oh, I had no idea. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ cause I think people always think that when you go hiking, everybody, depending on the industry, people think, ⁓ everybody goes hiking for hundreds and hundreds of miles. But I think on average, most people only do one or two nights. Right. And that's usually, they're usually most of them are when it comes to hiking, they're weekend warriors. get off work, they go hiking Friday, Saturday. So most people can carry. God, it's not, I mean, when I wear the two compared to a dehydrator meal, it's not that much difference. And then you have that homemade flavor of, I don't know, something about it is just like really, really hearty feeling and stuff like that. ⁓ And I think you still need like a variety of meals out there, because you can't just eat the same thing all the time, because then you're going to get sick of it. it's great to have a variety of healthy foods out there that everybody can eat and stuff like that. speaker-1: Yeah, for sure. That's a good speaker-0: Like I said, I ate it at the car when I got back, because I didn't bring food with me. I was doing a photo shoot, so I hiked up. I didn't really have much, just water and a snack bar. Taking pictures, and then I got back. The whole time walking back to the car, was like, ⁓ my gosh, I want that bison chili. I was like, it's in the bag. I know it's in the bag. I haven't had it yet, other than that little sample. So like, got to have it when I get back to the car. speaker-1: I will say Bison Chili is a best seller. I've said to Brian, we should have just gone into the Bison Chili business because that is by far everyone's favorite. speaker-0: Yeah, that's good. ⁓ I guess one last question would be ⁓ right now, because you've only been open for, not open for, but as a business for a year. I always ask this because I think it's a really great thing to hear is what's the weirdest place that you've seen your meals show up so far since you've been selling? speaker-1: The weirdest place, our meals. I don't know that there's a really weird place that they showed up. ⁓ I mean, of course, I don't know. I don't have insight to them. Like, we see what's posted on social media or whatever. One of the most interesting is we have a lot of boaters who the boating community has found us. And we have two or three, actually, guys who I think are affiliates or brand ambassadors. love our work so much. They send some beautiful photography. But one guy, one of the fishermen takes it out and he warms the product up on his motor, which I thought it's... And then we also have had truckers who will put it in their windshield when they're driving in the heat and warm it up. speaker-0: Yeah. It's funny you say that because I honestly, had it when I was driving to the trail and I hadn't eaten anything all day. was like, I'll just go take my photo shoot. So I literally was driving going while I was defrosting the window going, oh, I could just throw this up there. I don't have to even boil water because it'll get really hot off of that. off of that heater because that thing blows hot, hot air. And I had to have it crank the whole time. was like, man, I can't do that with a dehydrated meal. speaker-1: No. speaker-0: You know, I'd have to still stop, boil water, wait 15 minutes with this. It's literally, sitting there. I warmed this up in my pot in two minutes versus having to sit and wait. So it's like, it's a time saver for sure. speaker-1: It is, and I think some people will put it like in their coats, know, close to their body when they're hiking, kind of warm it up that way. I've heard that's a test that some people have done. speaker-0: Yeah. There's a company that I think they, a while back, I'm gonna say it was Gossamer Gear or a backpacking company. for April Fool's joke or something, they came out with the crotch pot. And it was basically a bag that you would put your dehydrated meal in and you would put it down in your warm area there and you would warm it up. And then people actually wanted it and they actually came out with it. Yeah. And so I'm like, ⁓ there's, mean, you could warm up between your cheeks if you wanted to. speaker-1: on here. This is too appetizing to me. speaker-0: Yeah. It would be surprising when you're out on the trail for a long time, the things that you'll do to warm up food. I guess what's ⁓ one thing, what's one legacy or impact you hope to leave on the outdoor space or the food space? speaker-1: That's true. I think as with functional formularies going back to that business, we've literally changed clinical nutrition. Like now, ⁓ if you go to the hospital or you have a ⁓ patient who's on a feeding tube, it's very easy to get an organic whole food, real food formula. Before I launched ⁓ functional formularies, Literally, I had registered dietitians in the process because as I said people found out what I was doing and trying to the product along before it came to market. I had registered dietitians calling me up telling me that you can't give people on a feeding tube real food, you'll kill them. It was the mindset then in the RD community. And so that's out the door. know, ⁓ Danone just purchased, Danone International, they just purchased functional formularies back in March. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. speaker-1: Though ⁓ now globally, we literally change clinical nutrition globally with that company. What I'm hoping to do with this company, especially for the military, is bring healthy food to those who need it most. that's my goal. And whether it's someone, a hiker who's tired of eating freeze-dried or dehydrated food or military, it's just, know, the legacy I hope to leave is just a gentler footprint on the planet and for people to be healthier and to have an option and not have to go searching to the ends of the earth to find healthy food. I I spend my entire life reading back of packages and there's so much greenwashing going on and all of these many, products advertise as natural, healthy, and then you read the ingredients and like, no way is it just, and people don't even know the questions to ask and a lot of that was education. And that's why as with the first company, have an amazing medical team. do a lot of podcasts. We're doing a conference in September at Skidmore College, Saratoga, who does central medicine on September 26th. So one of the biggest missions is education. So people understand how to eat and what to eat. And it goes far beyond. It's not about selling our products, it's about creating healthier communities. speaker-0: Yeah, that's great. I love it when people have a good heart for other people. So thank you for creating all that stuff. Yeah. So I guess now I'm going to go into completely, I'm going completely shift gears and just go into our little kind of rapid fire round. I'm going to ask you a few questions that get to know you a little bit more. Some of them will be kind of outdoorsy questions and then just kind of random questions that maybe you'll be able to answer in one word or just like a sentence. All right, here we go. speaker-1: K, alright, it's fun. speaker-0: ⁓ Favorite national park. speaker-1: ⁓ favorite national park. Hmm. That would be a good question. I'm trying to think of the national parks I've been to. And Arcadia, probably. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay, I've never heard anybody say Arcadia yet. I've heard of Arcadia. I heard it's really pretty there. All right, next question is the last thing you Googled related to your business. speaker-1: Last thing I googled related to the business. The business. Probably wrong ingredients. speaker-0: Wrong ingredients, okay. What's, if, I'll ask you this one. If you could collab or make a ⁓ smash with some other brand, what brand would you love to collab with? speaker-1: Death water for sure. speaker-0: Yeah, deaf water? speaker-1: love the brand because they're so bright. speaker-0: Yes. That's cool. All right. One word your team would use to best describe you. speaker-1: Headstrong. That would be my guess. You're not the shark of that fish. speaker-0: That's strong. I'll email Dan later and I'll ask him. He'll give me the truth. right, early bird or night owl? speaker-1: ⁓ early bird. speaker-0: Yeah, how early? speaker-1: 330, 430, wow. speaker-0: Oh my goodness, don't think I could, I'm a night owl. I go to bed like 12 or one and then we have to get up and take the kids to school at about 5, 36 o'clock. And then I come home and take a nap and then go to work. speaker-1: I wouldn't like a creature of the light and dark. speaker-0: Yeah, that's a good habit to have though, is that following the circadian rhythm, I guess. One app that you can't live without for work. speaker-1: one app that I can't. Probably Instagram, honestly, just because of the social media presence that, you know, and you have to ⁓ stay on top of it, as you know. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ my goodness. Every time the algorithm changes, goes wild. And my wife and I are going to a conference in New York for social media. Because our other thing that we do outside of this is white dad, Asian mom stereotypes. so we have about 110,000 followers on that. And we do funny stuff and then collabs with brands. And ⁓ they're talking about the algorithm and how it like, because I'm like, how do we keep up with it? It changes so often. It drives me crazy. speaker-1: It's off. We have a marketing guy and he has a team and there are, these guys are ones and Dia ones in Mexico, but it changes so frequently. And if you do any kind of ads, you know, your ads stop showing up and then I hate everything about it. Like if it were up to me, I would have the old landline telescope. It's just out of control. speaker-0: Yes. Biggest splurge you've made for your business. speaker-1: Probably the marketing company that we're working with right now. mean, we held off probably for six months, five or six months, because I mean, it's probably one of the most major in addition to like production expenses right now. But unless you can do it in-house and you're a wiz at marketing, which not only have three employees, so we were a tiny team, it's impossible. So it would be marketing right now. speaker-0: I wish you could tell that to everybody that I talked to, because especially with tariffs, when tariffs were like, I mean, they're still a big thing, but when they first started to be a big thing, everybody was like, well, we can't do photo or video right now or marketing because we have to hold it off for the tariffs and spend the money on the product. But I'm like, but if you don't market your product, it doesn't matter how much inventory you have, you're not going to sell anything. So you have to find that middle ground. ⁓ speaker-1: And it's, you know, and all of the noise that's out there right now on social media, you know, all platforms. It's like, unless you can figure out a way, like a marketing message and, you know, visually graphics, visual graphics that people are stopped in their tracks and actually want to look at, I mean, you're gone. know, nobody even sees you, number one, against the algorithms. And so you need somebody who understands how to move with all of those changes. And then there's so much, I mean, there's so many products on the market and you've got like one second to grab somebody's attention. speaker-0: Yeah. Yep. It's quite, when I, when we do reels for our other social media thing, like companies will ask us to send them two or three reels with the same reel, but just a different look at the beginning, the first two or three seconds. And it's amazing how that same video with just the first second of the video can perform and go viral and get millions of views. And then all of a sudden only get 10 or 20,000 views. So speaker-1: One, that's really good though, because that's a great, the AB roll thing or whatever, whatever they're thinking about. But to be, because you can see the metrics on that, basically. You can see it's performing and that gives you a lot of information and that information is valuable. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. What's something you're still learning as a leader? speaker-1: Learning as a leader. I think it's my biggest lesson in life is patience. I have just been a very, very, I always say patience is a virtue and I haven't even heard of But it's like I like, I'm just whatever, I'm high stock and just I don't have a lot. Even I have to get up and move a lot, like sitting in meetings, I'm just like, find myself, can I get up now? speaker-0: Yes, let me go. I've got other things to do. speaker-1: It's difficult for me to sit still and it's difficult. I just, it's learning, it's patience. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, Robin, I thank you so much for being on and just being so informative and letting people know. again, after I leave all these different conversations I have with people, my brain just goes, it's overloaded with stuff. I'm like, okay, I'm glad I'm talking to people that are doing it because I don't know if I have the bravery to go and spend half a million dollars and all these different things. That stuff like that. if people are looking for essential provisions, where can we find you guys on online and on your social? speaker-1: CentralProvisions.com and I think Instagram is CentralProvisions LLC and Facebook's Central Provisions. speaker-0: Okay, great. Awesome. Thank you, Robin, everybody who's listening. Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Trailhead and we look forward to our next guest and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks so much. speaker-1: talking with you.