Up next in 10
I interviewed Josh Kingdon who is the owner of Sweetpotato Awesome almost a year ago and wanted to hear how his freeze-drying business has been going over the past year. The company is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and he's developed a unique approach to freeze-drying sweet potatoes from slicing them to getting them all cooked and freeze-dried. He also added on new products and new freeze dryer equipment. I think you'll find this interview very interesting and gives you aspirations for maybe what you can create with your freeze-drying business.
The Frozen Assets Podcast series is all about exploring the world of the freeze-drying industry and hopefully inspiring you to achieve more in your business by looking at current entrepreneurs and companies in this growing industry. Full Playlist of Frozen Assets Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8uz0_2xUyEIGWHjImLMBkll8M0ykaama
If you don't have 53 minutes to watch the entire video, here are timestamps to various sections:
0:00 - Introduction to Sweet Potato Awesome & Updates
5:41 - I ask Josh how distributors work to help grow his business.
12:41 - How do you navigate knowing when to go full-throttle in Wholesale
17:18 - New Freeze Dryers and What has been the Impact to his Business
28:16 - Why did he add freeze-dried fruit to his product line-up?
35:10 - Competition in freeze-dried fruit, Josh's thoughts.
44:31 - Is Certified Organic complicated to get into?
48:47 - Setting goals for freeze-drying business
Sweet Potato Awesome - Company Info
Website: https://sweetpotatoawesome.com/
Instagram and Facebook: @sweetpoawesome
Want to try some 'Awesome'? https://sweetpotatoawesome.com/
Frozen Assets Podcast (Rate & Review PLEASE!)
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0:00
hey welcome back to another episode of the frozen assets podcast Series where we're focused on featuring entrepreneurs
0:06
in the freeze drying space I'm my name is David I'm the host of the podcast and today we actually have a one-year
0:13
anniversary of the very first episode that I did for this uh podcast series
0:20
I'm here with the owner of sweet potato awesome which is a freeze drying focused
0:26
business in Las Vegas Nevada now joshh um has own this business for several
0:31
years he's really perfected his recipe and he freeze dries sweet potatoes and then adds some great flavoring and he's
0:38
also added some new products uh to his product lineup that we're going to talk about in this episode I really wanted to
0:46
talk to Josh today because one it's been a year since I talked to him so we're going to get a kind of an update on how
0:52
this business has been going you know inflation uh in the United States has been very rampid for the past 3 to four
0:58
years um it's very critical for businesses uh to do everything they can to to kind of get through this
1:04
tumultuous time so I wanted to talk to Josh about how he's doing in that and also um asking him some things we're
1:11
going to talk about um how does he set goals for his business um does he still
1:16
do that how does he keep himself in check as a solopreneur because you know
1:21
some of us are all starting businesses by ourselves that's usually how our businesses start and then we add
1:27
employees and get managers things like that but some of us will remain um doing it solo and so we're going to ask Josh
1:34
about his goals we're also going to ask him about the new products like I mentioned about fruit he's added to his
1:39
product so we're going to ask him about why he did that and what he's seeing that differentiates himself and we're also going to ask him about any new
1:46
purchases that he's made which I know he has uh because I visited him in Vegas back in March so uh without further Ado
1:53
Josh thank you for attending this podcast again for part two uh highlighting you and your business
2:00
um what uh what do you have to say about your business what are you excited about
2:05
what's been driving you this year um how are things going uh things are better yeah things
2:12
have have improved since uh since last we we did the podcast um the primary
2:17
driver of that has been um uh a distributor our distributor in Southern
2:23
California uh which has really been kind of blowing us out with a lot of orders because like we talked about in the last
2:30
you know the podcast before you get sort of lower margins on those sales but
2:37
higher volume uh so the key key again is really to be able to kind of produce a lot and produce it efficiently um but
2:44
it's grocery stores like working with Distributors I started working with this distributor because one of the major
2:52
grocery clients that I had required a distributor uh and um so it's easier for
2:58
them and uh and you find that grocery stores that you might approach you know
3:03
directly uh are far more responsive when they're approached by a distributor um
3:09
so and from a kind of like an efficiency perspective is like once you get to the
3:15
point where you can produce a lot and you can find a partner like that like the handling of order fulfillment uh is
3:23
is pretty pretty helpful um I mean because we still fulfill our whole food
3:29
Whole Food orders by ourselves and it's you have to you do an invoice ship the
3:36
product make sure the right product is being shipped out and then every once in a while you'll have to deal with a store
3:42
you know calling you up you know uh asking about like where a product is
3:47
because we had been shipping US Postal Service because it was kind of like the most
3:52
cost-efficient um but you also run into some issues because the Postal Service delivers at times that aren't uh as
4:00
ordinary as say UPS or FedEx or FedEx and UPS will get to the receiving
4:05
department you know at a certain time and it's um more reliable in that way um
4:11
but uh yeah so you have to you have to spend time you know following up on orders and making sure they're fulfilled
4:18
while if you have a distributor that's sort of their job they kind of handle all the all the orders so um that's been
4:24
the biggest thing for us is that we've kind of developed this relationship with our dist distributor and part of that is
4:30
is because as we'll probably talk about later is I was able to get some larger dryers Harvest Right has come out with
4:35
some newer commercial size large dryers um and once I I I told our distributor
4:42
that like it I said well I can produce a lot more they started to be more aggressive in terms of pitching me to
4:48
some uh new clients and and then uh and that's helped us out and it's uh it certainly increasing our Revenue um you
4:55
know profits are I think are probably better probably because of the efficiencies we've gotten but we still got a little little ways to go so yeah
5:03
now when you get a distributor on do they sell your product for you to like
5:08
more of their clients or do you still have to go out and call on another
5:15
grocery store chain or a you know a healthy you know local Regional type of
5:22
store do they or do they do that for you so it's kind of a nice partnership I think it's a little bit of
5:29
both I mean you um you can you yourself can now pitch yourself as a product and be you know
5:35
that a product or a brand that has a distributor which in some ways makes you more attractive to a lot of grocery
5:42
store chains I know that's one of the things that they will ask you immediately and um and also and also the
5:48
distributor itself I guess it depends on the distributor but they they should they they usually from my experience and
5:55
I've worked with two Distributors they're going to go out they're going to try to uh find new customers because
6:00
that helps them because they want to you know develop new business as well so yeah and in terms of like you know for
6:09
new people I I sell wholesale to local people you know and you know I have to
6:15
Discount my product for them to purchase because they have to make their margins on that in is a distributor like kind of
6:22
a similar wholesale you know discount or how does all that work for like putting
6:29
in in kind layman's terms for somebody who's listening to this who's who's you
6:34
know in a different state just starting out and they're like well I know somebody who is a distributor how does
6:41
all that work how do you know what to price your product at maybe going back to Josh your early days of finding your
6:46
first distributor well I think the most important thing is that you come up with
6:52
your wholesale price and I think you know starting out you know we just ship
6:57
directly to Whole Foods uh because they offered that opportunity and we still hadn't really had the scale the
7:04
production volume to really make uh using a distributor you know worthwhile
7:09
so you come up with the wholesale price and then you're going to sell to the distributor at the your distributor
7:14
price so because the the distributor is selling the product to the grocery store
7:20
at your wholesale price so what you have to do is come up with a price uh for your distributor that's
7:28
lower than your wholesale sale price um so that's that's the way it goes with
7:33
the distributor that we work with now but there are there are other Distributors that will work I don't think it's prevalent but the previous
7:39
one that I worked with which was H pod Foods um which I believe they're all
7:45
over the country but they had a location in Southern California they will like basically sell in Consignment which
7:50
you'll ship them product and when they sell it or when the grocery stores that they deal with purchase it then you'll
7:57
you'll get paid um but still at a at a lower you know sort of lower they take a
8:03
well I think the way pod Foods worked was they took a commission so basically they uh you sold you sold the product
8:10
sold the product to the grocery store for the wholesale price and then the Pod Foods would take a a commission uh from
8:17
that uh from that sale but with most Distributors you know the distributor is
8:23
going to sell the product at the wholesale price and you're going to have to come up with a price where you can still make money
8:30
um but it's going to be lower than that I mean the way you can look at it one way to kind of do the the cost analysis
8:36
or the the income analysis is um you know with Whole Foods we ship to them
8:43
directly we don't charge them for shipping so even though so we're selling
8:49
you know them to them at a certain wholesale price but the actual amount that we're going to get is kind of
8:55
knocked down because of shipping expenses but with the the distributor
9:00
you know you you know you ship them a pallet which might reduce your per unit
9:06
shipping cost you know you fit 100 cases of your product on a pallet you're probably going to really reduce your
9:12
actual like price per unit in terms of shipping um so you know you you see the
9:19
benefits there of of you know maybe uh again it all comes down to volume if you
9:25
can get enough volume to go through your distributor to kind of make up for that difference um then it's going to be
9:32
worthwhile you know I mean I just throw numbers out there like oh let's say you're selling a product for 450
9:38
wholesale and then you go to your you know you're going to sell it to your distributor for
9:43
$3.75 um you know and but before when you were shipping to the grocery stores well you had to you know take into
9:50
account the six or seven or eight dollars uh that you're using to of shipping cost that you're you know
9:56
shipping to the grocery store so you're getting a higher number you know because you get a higher
10:02
you know price per unit but it's sort of mitigated because of the shipping cost but the distributor once you get it to
10:09
them like you're not paying shipping after that they do their own thing to get it out because they're a distributor that's what your relationship is yeah um
10:16
it's just a matter of like thinking of the the economics of actually getting a
10:22
pallet you know to your distributor you know the perfect situation was you know if the your distributor was right right
10:28
down the street and you could just you know pack up your van or your truck you know and uh and load it and bring it to
10:34
them that way because that way you've pretty much eliminated the the cost of of getting your product to the
10:40
distributor and for us you know they're because they're in Southern California I mean I kind of always coincide my uh
10:47
distributor drop offs with h you know picking up sweet potatoes in Southern California because I gota I still
10:52
haven't figured out a way to get sweet potatoes here to Las Vegas because I can't buy you know 12,000 pounds of
10:57
sweet potatoes um but I can't get them in in La like the supplier is able to
11:04
kind of ship them down there and I cross stock in La um so I was kind of like
11:09
coordinate trips so like I got to go there anyway so maybe I'll take an extra hour worth of driving go down to Orange
11:15
County and uh and drop off there um but even even when I'm there have been a few
11:21
times where I've shipped a pallet directly to Orange County and uh it's
11:26
it's like this it's like the same it's almost like it's a little bit more than what it would cost me in gas but you know it's uh it's it's a Time Factor as
11:34
well but you you do drastic not you do significantly reduce the price per unit
11:41
per per case uh that you're you're you're spending on shipping so yeah um
11:48
it gets me kind of wondering because there's a lot of freeze drying businesses that are starting these days
11:55
a lot of it has to do with candy but people's suddenly see a a real big spike
12:01
in interest and demand for their product and you probably saw that at some point
12:07
and you're still seeing it today but thinking about your like that first big volume
12:13
order did you pace yourself before you got there and you knew that you could
12:19
you could Supply that demand or were you an aggressive salesperson like anybody
12:25
else and you're like I'm going to go for that big order and deal with the Fulfillment time and the crunch time
12:32
once I get it um and so it's kind of a two-part question is that how you did
12:38
that and then number two is what would you recommend people do uh
12:46
uh when they're kind of looking at going more wholesale like hey get after it and
12:51
you'll deal with it when the time comes and you'll find the freeze dryers and you'll find all that or pace yourself
12:58
and and be more calculated you know what what what what would you do as an
13:04
entrepreneur I mean it as always it depends on the situation and like what your production capacity is and your
13:12
margins what you're able to command in terms of margins but um I mean I was I was more cautious
13:18
simply because you know our product was such a labor intensive kind of difficult thing and I was still working with sort
13:24
of the smaller you know Harvest Right units which were wer they weren't deal for you know scaling production um even
13:32
still there were a number of times with Whole Foods where I was remember that it was
13:38
2019 or something like that when uh you know I had the first big really big
13:44
expansion with the Whole Foods where I was working on Thanksgiving Day and like that that Friday afterwards just trying
13:50
to figure out a way to you know get those last few orders out for that first initial big
13:56
expansion um yeah for us like just because we have had decent demand um
14:03
it's it's never been uh there's been rare times where I've like really wanted to go out there and
14:09
try to find somebody because we have little lulls here and there but then soon thereafter we get some some order
14:15
and like right now like with our distributor they had a big order prior to uh their break they're having a break
14:22
because of July 4th holiday so they take like a week off and so they told me like you know we want if you can deliver
14:28
something to us just like the week before that'd be great uh and so I don't have anything from from them for now but
14:34
I'm preparing myself for when they come back after the holiday uh to kind of to
14:40
to uh you know to be able to fill that order and I think like if you have if you're if you're like a candy
14:46
freeze-dried candy person and like you could pump out stuff you know with batches in you know three to four hours
14:53
or whatever it is and you're willing to hustle I think you probably have a good reason to be more aggressive in that
14:58
regard I think it all comes down to your ability to be able to you know pump out volume yeah I think back just after
15:06
bringing up this question even my in my own business I you know I didn't really
15:12
find out what the cyclical purchasing times was for cl for
15:18
wholesale clients until you know really about year one anniversary or year two
15:25
because you know I know right now one of my biggest wholesale purchasers for my
15:32
fruit um purchases uh the she meets with people
15:37
right now for the holidays and then she puts in POs to me uh in Late July and so
15:47
um I had to like I didn't know that at the time when when I got the the relationship started three years ago but
15:55
so I really miscalculated and I would start producing all this fruit and then I had I would get all these
16:00
little small wholesale like stores and boutiques and I I'd restock them with all my fruit and then she would put in
16:07
this massive you know order and I'd be like
16:12
my you know like how the F am I supposed to get this done and uh you know and by
16:18
the way like you know she likes blueberries well blueberries aren't in season in August September so you know
16:25
I'm I'm like trying to figure out how I'm basically not making very much margin so I I figured it out now um but
16:33
it just bring that's that story so for people who are listening to this podcast
16:38
you know um I would say candy for sure I think you can generate those that demand
16:46
and you can find ways to work 24 hours and swap out those candies every three
16:52
hours that's fine but when you're dealing with stuff like Josh and myself with fruit and sweet potatoes you know
16:58
these are longer cycle time so it doesn't just you can't just open the freeze dryer and start another batch
17:05
like you got to take him out you got to defrost the machine because there's so much ice build up from the sub uh the
17:12
sublimation process and so you do have to kind of pace yourself but uh maybe
17:19
that brings up my next question which is you know you added some new freeze drying equipment that I think really can
17:27
help you carry that demand so yeah Harvest Right came out with another at
17:33
freeze dryer what can you tell us about your purchasing and what do you think so
17:39
far yeah no they've been uh so we got I think when we we talked last I had the
17:46
big HRC 220 sort of the larger 22 full-size tray uh uh uh prototype that I
17:53
I had purchased from them uh which was a huge huge you know game Cher for us and
17:59
then I was able to get a another prototype of what they have now available is a HRC 100 and and then just
18:07
about what was it two months ago two or three months ago it was beginning April
18:13
we're almost in July now so about three months um it uh I was able to purchase
18:18
and finance two more of the hrc1 100s and so far uh i' I've been pretty pretty
18:25
impressed um and very happy that I made the purchase um uh they from my
18:32
experience they're certainly more effic I think they're more efficient than the sort of the large Harvest Right units
18:38
that I had um I can usually get about two maybe
18:44
three Cycles before having to like uh defrost uh which is nice but I do find
18:50
that I I kind of run into I feel like I'm kind of pushing the machine a little bit too much if I go beyond that I find
18:57
that they they run a little but they run perfect after they run really well you got like one cycle where it's like got
19:03
that one layer of ice but it's not too much ice um and so yeah even in
19:09
comparison to the the the Prototype that I had bought HRC 100 prototype I think it works better than that they made some
19:16
good improvements um so put I I just had a
19:21
question like put the put like your large freeze drying batch in perspective
19:26
to the HRC 100 cuz HRC 100 the reason it's 100 is you can
19:32
do um up to about 100 pounds now 100
19:37
pounds basically what it really means is how much how much liquid pounds is able
19:44
to sublimate so like uh how much ice you know weight can it hold uh in there uh
19:52
as far as I it's our as I know about freeze dryers that's kind of why people say like well how much pounds can it do
19:58
well it's really about how much ice can be uh in the chamber how much you can sublimate out of the product but my
20:05
question is yeah so take your take your large for example how much product could
20:10
you get out of the large cycle and then now how much can you get with one cycle
20:17
run with the HRC 100 so people can kind of understand like how powerful this
20:23
is well I should um I think the first thing to understand about the hrc1 100s
20:28
is um from I using the the other prototype that that I was able to buy
20:33
the HRC 100 prototype it's a great unit but you
20:39
can't push it too much if and what I mean by that is uh if you you really if
20:47
you really load each one of the uh of the trays um it'll do it but it'll take
20:54
a while but I you know through experimentation I found that kind of of
20:59
um some keeping it somewhere in the middle like for example we do like two layers of freeze-dried of sweet potato
21:05
slices as opposed we could fit in three but I find that in terms of uh turnover
21:12
and in terms of just the unit finding that the unit seems to run a bit more
21:18
efficiently and it it kind of just feels like it's like it's a feel sort of thing uh in terms of like unit not
21:24
overworking I think you want to kind of keep it at like a a medium Lev you don't want to push it too much and the way I
21:30
look at it is if I if I'm able to put in sort of uh lighter loads I can run more
21:37
of those loads per week and make up for maybe maybe putting on that third layer
21:44
yeah but also most importantly keep the unit running uh and running well uh
21:50
because when I kind of push the the Prototype um there are a couple times where I there's one time where I I kind
21:56
of ran into some issues where I needed to replace you know something within the refrigeration um so I mean it's not a
22:03
science I haven't like you know technically you know looked at everything but I just my general sense
22:09
is and also hearing some feedback from from Harvest Right um is that you know
22:16
these units you don't want to push too much uh but they they definitely work very well and I can definitely do a lot
22:22
in them I would say so there you got nine full-size trays and
22:29
if I'm running um I got so I got 2 ounce pouches and if
22:35
I put in like two layers you know I'm I'm I'm going to run
22:41
approximately yeah somewhere in the neighbor depending on the size them uh the equivalent of like 120 pouches
22:50
and I can usually get that done in about you know 24 to 30 hours or so which
22:56
means I can do you know more batches per week while if I had that third layer I think it's going to jump up to like
23:02
maybe 40 hours or something like that um and if I had like one of the the my old
23:07
uh um you know large dryers I mean first of all with those
23:13
dryers just like there's no no telling you know you know you could you could have two machines running the same
23:19
amount and like uh one would take 45 hours and the other one would take you know you know 38 hours or something like
23:26
that so um but in general seems like the new HRC 100s run the batches more
23:33
efficiently and and if you use them if you don't try to push them too much you
23:38
can get a over a period of a week you can get more yield and and kind of like as we talked about it's just so
23:44
important for us to have those full-size sheet pans excuse me uh to be able to you know the transition out of the ovens
23:50
into the into the into the fullsize sheet pans is just super super helpful and I would imagine it would be
23:56
applicable for other people that are doing it whether you're doing fruits or whether you're doing uh candy if you got
24:01
that big tray that you're going to just pour stuff on you can obviously pour more you got it's easier to pour uh you
24:08
know a bag of Skittles or a bag of blueberries frozen blueberries onto a larger tray as opposed to sort of the
24:14
smaller trays yeah yeah that's a good point and you know so you have large you
24:20
have some you had some of the older large Harvest Right freeze dryers I've got some of those as well you know and
24:28
even even though Harvest R has said you know up to 16 pounds in those old larg large Harvest RS you know I really only
24:36
do about 10 to 12 because of your exact explanation and I found that out over time is like if I load those things up
24:42
with strawberries it's going to take over 40 hours to do um maybe even close to 50
24:50
hours and um it seems sometimes that you know they it wasn't dry completely
24:57
because I had so much product versus if I did it in kind of more of a single
25:03
layer which right now I do about two pounds of strawberries per tray um sliced that's kind of my go-to uh if I
25:11
put any more than two pounds I find that it increases my drying time by you know
25:16
almost 20 to 30% and so yeah you know and I just crank those things out um but
25:25
a large free dryer at 16 if you divide that by The 100 you know you're getting almost four to
25:30
5x uh the amount of product produced uh even doing trying to do the minimum uh
25:37
weight like you're saying so yeah huge huge efficiency I can't wait uh I'm
25:43
still deciding right now in my business what I my what my goals are for it I'm
25:49
just kind of keeping the status quo and building this YouTube channel but uh in the podcast so I'm trying to figure out
25:54
what my next move is but I would if I was uh going to be advancing my business a little bit more aggressively I
26:00
definitely am going to get the HRC 100 it's definitely seems like uh the the way to go um it's it's a tremendous
26:08
value for and you you know this just as well as I do in terms of like the industrial size units that are out there
26:13
that're just crazy priced it's Harvest Right is a godsend being doing what they do yeah um and and uh I've I've actually
26:23
done a lot more uh interviews and conversations with commercial grade
26:28
freeze dryer companies and I have been very impressed with the education that I'm receiving about those and what is
26:36
the cost savings over time uh and one of the things Josh you know just in our
26:42
conversation here is one of the things that I I really liked about my previous conversation with a company called uh uh
26:48
Tech Source systems they're actually based in Salt Lake they make custom commercial grade freeze dryers one thing
26:54
he uh you know he put in perspective which I really like was typically you
27:00
know a piece of equipment you might think of it as a capital expenditure where you actually have to have the cash
27:05
or the financing uh in one lump sum to buy that equipment but a freeze dryer um
27:12
could be seen as or even a automation packaging machine could be seen as an
27:17
actual operating expense and therefore you could amortise that over time like just like a lease and so that would that
27:25
would allow more businesses to upgrade a commercial grade freeze dryer even though it's $150
27:33
$250,000 machine um you know it's able you're able to kind of finance that and
27:39
and accounting wise put it in as an operating expense uh to secure financing
27:44
with those freeze dryer companies so uh that's one thing I'm finding out and it's it's interesting but I will say the
27:50
HRC 100 uh you can't beat it right now that's why Harvest released it you know
27:55
and for 10,000 bucks to do what it can do it's amazing so yeah that's awesome
28:01
so you have two or three of them uh three I mean I got two of the
28:06
new ones and then the one one prototype which I'm still using and still popping out stuff with that's awesome all right
28:13
um so I want to go back to uh let's let's continue on uh with new things so
28:19
you added uh fruit to your product did you add that in 2024 or was that kind of a late 2023 add-on tell us a little bit
28:27
about the fruit uh new product line um I can't remember when I first I
28:33
mean I I first started with the strawberries uh so I could get them at Costco and I think I I just thought that
28:40
they were you know kind of a would be a popular item but I I think I did that as far back
28:45
as even like 2019 it just maybe something I hadn't really talked about a lot it was and it wasn't something we
28:52
did year round because it's a seasonal item so there's certain times of the year where you know literally the price
28:57
for strawberries is like twice as much as it is now right now it's a great time for
29:02
strawberries um so it was just kind of something that like from a production perspective perspective it was um you
29:10
know it's fairly easy like we we didn't have to bake it we didn't add any oils we just simply washed them and and cut
29:16
them so it was something like to keep dryers full and to on days where because
29:22
I'm still I'm still doing the still doing the slicing by hand uh and the
29:28
days when I kind of needed to take a break from that or I had to be out on the road or I was out at a grocery store doing sampling or I was you know going
29:34
picking up sweet potatoes uh it was something my employees could could do uh to sort of you know keep production
29:41
going so that was it was most a big thing was uh the production efficiencies
29:46
but also you know people liked it you you well know it's like people really like you know freeze-dried fruit
29:51
especially strawberries and when you do it with the Harvest rights where you know
29:58
uh you're not flash freezing it it seems to yield that even like this puffy sort
30:03
of like really uh super flavorful you know uh end product uh and it's somewhat
30:12
similar like you get with the we do the bananas as well and those have a similar sort of puffiness and you get the
30:18
sweetness because you pull all the moisture out um so it's just kind of like it's like a dessert type option but
30:25
a healthy dessert and it's also kind of easy for us in terms of production process so yeah and if you're not
30:32
familiar with uh Josh's company he he does do all organic products uh correct
30:39
Josh yes yep yeah and so um you know what's your what's your also you know if
30:45
you haven't looked at his website sweetpotato awesome.com um you you actually cut the
30:51
bananas you know actually kind of in like whole pieces so you cut them you know you don't actually cut them thin
30:58
and you do the same thing with strawberries like you you you actually freeze dry them whole don't you um or we
31:05
slice up the strawberries but they're still pretty big pieces so yeah yeah what what kind of Drew you to make them
31:11
bigger versus thin sliced I mean I kind of like it uh like
31:17
that size there's more crunch I mean that's one of the reasons I love you know I think most people love you know
31:23
freeze-dried products is the Crunch and so the thicker piece of banana you're
31:28
going to get more crunch um and when you when you do Crunch and you bite down on
31:34
it because you have you know more fruit in your mouth there's more of an explosion of flavor I think um there are
31:41
some process efficiencies like just it make it easier for us you know if you have bigger pieces you have you have
31:48
less pieces to put on a tray you know to organize but if you have like a lot of small pieces you got to you know it
31:54
takes you it takes you a little bit more time to you know place them on the tray because even though fruit is a little bit easier than sweet
32:01
potatoes uh you still have you know you still got to make sure that they're you know they're not sticking up or sticking
32:07
above the the lip and that sort of thing and they're you know laid down they're get good contact with the the tray um so
32:15
yeah so kind of there's some efficiencies there when you have the larger pieces larger chunks now with
32:20
having the larger chunks though you know wouldn't you say that it's taking longer
32:26
for that freeze dryer to sense that it's dry you know with the um with the
32:32
sublimation process it's having to find those water molecules in a thicker product so is your cycle times taking
32:38
longer because you do that yeah I mean I honestly I haven't um
32:44
experimented too much with the thinner slices of bananas but I I suppose that's probably true it's it's a
32:50
tradeoff um I guess from my perspective is like you know if you bring in employees and
32:56
you have them for eight hours a day to help you out or you yourself or you know
33:01
when I'm here there's been a couple times last couple times I've done bananas I just kind of did it myself you
33:07
know later at night um it's it's in in the scenario whereby you have
33:15
thinner slices and the dryer is working less amount of time well uh that means
33:20
more work for you but when you have larger slices larger chunks that's more work for the dryer which does
33:28
which does take a little bit more time but when you're in the scenario of like well I you think one one thing about
33:33
freeze drying it does take a long time but it's also working all night you know they're they're pumping
33:39
247 uh so while I'm sleeping the freeze dryers are working for me you know yeah
33:44
uh so it's I I would much rather have the machines in every scenario have the
33:50
machines do more as long as it's not taking drastically more and it probably does take more time but not so much as
33:57
to not really make it wor worth it you know for you to you know because it's
34:02
just like it's such a grind to you know food production is such a grind and I'm fortunate enough to have employees that
34:08
are hard workers and they come in and they they really help me out but there's you know you just got to figure out ways
34:15
to make the process as efficient as possible for you know just to get as much production out of an eight hour
34:21
workday when you get guys in there or just for your own sanity to you know not be working so hard for so long uh to be
34:28
able to produce a certain amount of product yeah so you can tell viewers you
34:35
know there's no easy way to get around cutting off that stem of the strawberry you got to use a knife and a cutting
34:41
board and get that thing off right well no there's there's ways
34:46
there's ways you just got to experiment you know I mean you just gotta just kind of use your critical thinking skills and
34:53
think like how is what's the most efficient way and you do a little searching on Amazon and that sort of
34:58
thing there there's certain there's certain ways that you can kind of make that process more efficient okay Josh
35:04
has got a secret sauce to cutting strawberries that's what I'm hearing right now um so now now freeze-dried
35:11
fruit is a competitive space I mean there's a lot of people freeze drying fruit
35:17
so you know did you think about that before you got into it you know you know I know you said that you ventured into
35:23
it just kind of as more of a business um you know during downtime but how do you
35:29
figure in pricing how did you set yourself apart uh especially in a very
35:34
competitive space compared to your sweet potatoes which from what I from what I found you're one of the few that
35:41
actually freeze dry sweet potatoes so how do you compete or how did you kind of come to being like uh I think I can
35:48
sell freeze-dried fruit when it's super competitive yeah um well I think one of
35:55
the things at least for our strawberries like if you if you go into a grocery
36:02
store and buy freeze-dried strawberries they they're not going to look like ours uh they're going to be wrinkled they're
36:09
going to probably be smaller uh and I don't think they're going to have as much flavor uh because we cut them fresh
36:14
and we don't do the you know flash freezing um so we're kind of like a kind of a niche product that we do have a lot
36:21
of customers will you know they'll pay the $7 or so for you know one pouch uh
36:27
just because you can't really get it anywhere else but we don't rely on either of our fruits as sort of our main
36:32
you like Revenue driver um you know I mean we sweet potatoes is where it's at
36:37
that's where we we sell the most via sweet potatoes the fruit is kind of like an add-on to sort of adds us you know
36:45
gives us some more Revenue uh it gives the option to to customers
36:50
maybe uh don't like coconut oil but they still want to try to you know they come
36:56
to our website and they see the fruit and that's something maybe more more common to them um but yeah they answer
37:03
your question it's not the main driver of Revenue so I haven't really done like a heavy analysis into like you know
37:09
what's out there I did we we sawell jimbos in uh in San Diego and one of the
37:15
stores that I visited I think they had I think they had four freeze-dried banana
37:21
products and then on top of that they had like three other dried dried banana products they weren't freeze drive but
37:28
they were dried somehow and it was it was like six or seven banana products so
37:33
and uh and I was like wow I don't think they need another one but um I guess you
37:39
never know because I think they they were inquiring about it because they must they must know I think it tells you one thing and it tells that there is a
37:45
market out there for for freeze-dried dried fruits um especially tried to especially
37:52
high quality freeze-dried fruit too yeah I guess that's where you try to separate yourself because we're small you know we
37:59
do things that other people that big manufacturing places don't do that kind of enhance the quality and we just hope
38:04
that that you know people are going to be able to taste that and and notice a difference so then that I you know I
38:10
just try to emphasize their size you know it's um are because we have larger chunks it's just a different sort of uh
38:17
eating experience for the customer so yeah um you know I think anybody can
38:24
kind of look at an industry and you see that there's businesses that have been
38:30
changed into corporations and those corporations need to produce profits for
38:35
their shareholders and therefore certain qualities that they had previously are going to be lost in that but they're
38:41
able to scale more and reach more consumers who aren't really worried about that um but that's why I've always
38:48
said across all my videos you know is the market saturated it's not um it can
38:55
I still produce freeze-dried fruit and sell yes you can um you know what is
39:01
different uh how do you Market yourself how do you advertise what does your brand represent um you know I think zapo
39:09
uh and Tom shoes you know zapo he he's a wh it was a wholesale
39:15
Ecommerce for shoes uh but the thing that he really uh you know really wanted
39:22
to be after was customer service like how's the shipping process do people like their shoes if they don't like
39:28
their shoes they're going to get get their shoes back and get a different pair he didn't want any type of
39:34
corporate jargon to interfere with customer service and I think why I'm
39:40
bringing that up is you got to just differentiate yourself in the market and you can still stay small like like
39:46
you're just saying like hey like it's not really my main Flagship product I
39:53
just like doing it and I'm selling it so you know I don't need to try to over complicate the selling price and
40:00
and that type of thing so that's awesome um I've got a question so a lot of people are going to uh asked this too
40:06
and and you're doing it uh you know strawberries are in season how do you store your finished product do you
40:13
immediately bag or do you have a storage method that people might want to know
40:19
about oh once it's dried yeah um we we um we use that heat
40:27
Sealing gas Purge uh uh unit and we put them in stand up pouches and so yeah
40:33
once it's dried we'll you know as soon as it comes out of the dryer we'll you know we inspect them and uh and you know
40:41
make sure everything's okay and they're completely dried and then we uh then we almost immediately will pack will
40:47
package them uh with the nitrogen gas Purge I think we talked about this a little bit in the last the last episode
40:54
um and then heat seal them and you know know because there's no oils involved it's got a super high shelf life once
41:01
you get it once you get it in that pouch it's you know you're good to go so so what you're saying is you so when the
41:08
Cycle's done let's say it's it's done but you don't have your workers coming in for a a bagging day packaging day and
41:17
they don't come in till 9:00 a.m. but the Cycle's done you don't like store
41:22
the product to get another cycle going you you wait until you're ready to
41:28
package it and then you take it out of the freeze dryer yes yep okay
41:33
yep I think it' be pretty risky you'd have to I suppose if you had a like a like a
41:40
large refrigerator um I think you'd probably be pretty it would give you a little bit
41:46
more time if you could do that so because an airtight refrigerator would probably preserve them pretty well but
41:53
anytime you you get them exposed to oxygen in any way it's just you know know I mean and Vegas is the best
42:00
because it has so little humidity but you just I try to our goal is to try to avoid as much had to have as little
42:07
oxygen exposure as possible yeah before getting them in the in the in the bags so I think you're you're just running a
42:14
risk by by uh by delaying that at all yeah yeah that's fair um I actually put
42:22
um my fruit in a air sealed uh food safe bucket that has an actual gamma seal lid
42:29
it can hold it can hold well it's a 12 gallon bucket but it has an air seal uh
42:37
screw on lid so anytime I I finish and I'm not ready to package I actually
42:42
transfer that there and then I have some some uh oxygen absorbers inside there
42:49
just to kind of take up any Oxygen that's you know in the bucket compared to where the product is in the bucket
42:56
and then um and then when I'm ready to package I open that up and bag it pretty quickly
43:01
just like you would uh but it's it seemed to work pretty good yeah I I could see that working yeah I would add
43:08
um for people doing fruit one thing you have to keep in mind is that
43:15
um the volume like the size of the the fruit uh can vary between different like
43:24
Brands because there are certain strawberry brands that will purchase
43:29
that have a lighter have a uh are less dense than other ones and we know
43:35
they're both dried but it's like so we have like 1.2 ounces of of strawberries
43:41
in in a pouch but we're going to transition to one ounce of strawberries
43:47
per pouch because sometimes with certain brands it fills the pouch too much it's like it makes it very difficult to seal
43:54
and you want to have some room to be able to fit that tongue that that uh does the vacuum and then does the gas
44:00
Purge so that's something for your your viewers to keep in mind is that you have to do some experimentation with
44:06
different you know uh we haven't found this to be the case when I've bought through different sweet potato suppliers
44:13
um or different well different varieties you can notice a little difference in density but with fruits with strawberries in particular it's pretty
44:20
noticeable for certain you know I know that there's certain strawberry brands that I'm like oh okay this is going to
44:26
fit into the pouch more easily than others so yeah um my
44:31
other question is about you know you do organic fruit and also you know you're
44:38
certified organic uh company is that complicated to get into
44:44
you know for someone who's maybe trying to be unique and they live in Indiana uh even myself in Idaho uh is it
44:53
is it a complicated process to be organic and just given that you are
44:59
you've gone through that process gotten the certification you know is it is it worth
45:05
it or should you tread lightly you know get what's your advice for someone who wants to go into that uh from someone
45:12
who's in it uh I think the complexity is determined by uh I think two things that
45:20
come to mind are the the ingredients that you're using and your facility um
45:27
and because if in your facility like I don't know you're you got other people doing manufacturing stuff that you don't
45:34
that that that um they're using conventional or non-organic products
45:40
well that that that entails uh the responsibility for you more responsibility in terms of like saying
45:46
how you're going to keep your organic product separate and recognizable from other non-organic products and if even
45:52
if you had your own facility and you're producing conventional and organic
45:57
again there's you know there's certain steps you're going to have to take and prove to show to the certifier that
46:02
you're keeping those the conventional separate from the organic it is a lot of
46:08
recordkeeping um I think if you're you know your team or if your makeup is
46:14
someone that's pretty good at recordkeeping and you know you're detail oriented um you know it's it's
46:20
definitely doable um if you know for us because we're only doing sweet potatoes
46:25
and strawberries and bananas and we're doing all organic that makes it a little bit uh
46:31
simpler um but um I mean it's it's it's it's not
46:38
without its challenges you certainly have to take do a lot more record keeping like at that point you're you're gonna have to I think I mentioned this
46:44
in the last podcast you want to start keeping batch records no matter what you're doing but
46:51
you really have to keep Batch records when you become organic because you have to show to the Sur if fire I brought in
46:58
you know a pallet with 2,000 lbs of sweet potatoes and here's my records of the
47:05
yield that shows that we used up all those you know sweet potatoes you know that sort of thing um so uh so I'd say
47:13
if you're if you're good at recordkeeping you're okay with that um I wouldn't be afraid of it for my
47:18
experience it seems Seems like the the average customer at least type of customer going after you Whole Foods
47:25
customer Air1 customer you know they it's I think it's been beneficial I think part of the reason that our
47:30
distributor is you know uh gotten gotten us so much volume this year is is
47:37
because we're certified organic and I think a lot of people appreciate that so yeah I think that's a huge uh
47:43
competitive advantage that that you you're able to Market that way and I think if anybody's going to look into
47:49
being certified organic um that's something that you have to weigh like it's I like how you
47:57
said it's detail oriented that's kind of a good a good nugget there because it I'm not very detail oriented in myself
48:03
in my in my blood uh you know I have to very much stay on task I'm married to a
48:09
very detailed oriented person um and opposite the trct so but uh that that's
48:16
a good point and I think when you look at everything that in the media and the
48:22
health side of things um there's a lot of Pros and a lot of people who are
48:28
favoring uh organic and very pure types of companies and that's a very strong
48:34
way to get purchasing uh purchase orders so um awesome um hey Josh I wanted to
48:41
ask you you know we're almost to the halfway point in
48:46
2024 do you set goals for yourself each year um or did you and you know how did
48:55
how do you stay motivated how do you do check-ins with yourself as an entrepreneur like do you did you set a
49:02
goal this year how are you tracking to that goal how do you measure it uh answer that for
49:09
us um you know I think early on I might kind of I I I'd set like sort of Revenue
49:16
goals and that sort of thing but because production has become such a big
49:21
challenge right now the goal is you know I try to keep it pretty simple is like let's
49:27
we have a certain number of freeze dry machines let's try to keep those freeze dry machines running as much as possible
49:35
and if we're doing that you know then we're you know as long as because thus
49:41
far selling uh is is you know we we were we still have like back orders of of of
49:48
orders and if I can get to the point where when an order comes in I can ship it out immediately that's kind of like
49:54
my goal um so I I probably it's I think if you have a a process and we're we're
50:01
getting to that point now that we have the larger machines it's a little bit easier to kind of set goals um now that
50:07
we we we've become we've gotten this more of a system down that's that's that's more efficient um and I think one
50:14
of the things that we're going to do you know moving for the rest of this year if I have a goal for the rest of this year
50:19
is to um increase the velocity at our Whole Food Stores
50:25
um I think and I think I might have mentioned this in the last podcast it's like I I would
50:31
much rather have uh a smaller number of stores selling more product than a lot of
50:37
stores selling you know a smaller a smaller amount of product yeah and so right now um that's kind of like our
50:45
next step is to I mean obviously just keep up the quality and uh to maintain
50:50
quality and then also do some uh we don't do any marketing but I am going to try to get out and do some sampling I
50:57
mean if anybody any of your viewers have you know taken a product to the the farmers market the sampling is
51:04
invaluable if you have some a unique product freeze drying being kind of new so many people just like they're
51:11
wondering whether a freeze-dried product should be in the frozen food section that's is all new to them and if they
51:16
get a chance to try it really experience it you can you know three or four hours spent in a grocery store could yield you
51:23
you know a few kind of customers that'll keep coming back or they'll tell their friends uh so that's in terms of an
51:29
investment of our time and and a goal towards a goal of increasing that velocity at Whole Foods you know because
51:36
that's that's kind of where we're at because it's very expensive to expand to other grocery stores or to other regions
51:42
of Whole Foods so I'm like we have 46 stores here you know in Southern
51:48
California uh Southern Nevada Arizona and one in Hawaii and like it's just
51:55
given our resources it seems like a an appropriate goal is just like let's do what we can to increase the velocity at
52:03
those stores which is primarily driven by um uh sampling but I guess you could
52:09
also do some things on social media and me you can kind of identify you can do some searches on
52:14
like Instagram and maybe try to connect with some customers that are in that geographical area nearby a store I'm
52:21
always like if I have downtime I'm always looking up a certain store on Instagram and seeing the customers that
52:28
are like going you know anybody's kind of like posting from there you know fairly often yeah you know maybe I'll
52:33
try to interact with them as a way to try to like make them aware of our product um haven't had a lot of success
52:38
with that but it's something you can do to try to you know kind of help you know gain awareness for a particular you know
52:44
store location so yeah awesome well Josh I'm gonna I'm going to
52:51
end the podcast here if if you're interested in the previous interview that I had with Josh
52:57
last year uh in episode one of the frozen assets podcast series you can
53:02
check out your your go-to podcast streaming platforms Apple podcast or
53:07
Spotify I'm on there just type in frozen assets podcast or you can type in free
53:12
drwing entrepreneurs and I'm sure I'll come up in the search also if you're not a subscriber of the freeze Drive
53:18
business Channel subscribe here and I've got a playlist that runs all these different podcast episodes and uh Josh
53:25
just thank you so much for being on here um it sounds like your your business is
53:30
definitely uh increasing in Revenue this year and you're and it's and it's all uh rewarding you so I you know I know you
53:37
went through some some uh tribulations here a couple months ago where you weren't quite sure where you're going to
53:42
be uh glad to see that that's overcome and um God bless and and thanks for
53:48
being on the podcast oh you're very welcome thank you for having me
53:55
[Music]
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