Sweetpotato Awesome Interview Part 2 - Updates from One-Year Ago

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hey welcome back to another episode of the frozen assets podcast Series where we're focused on featuring entrepreneurs
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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
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anniversary of the very first episode that I did for this uh podcast series
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I'm here with the owner of sweet potato awesome which is a freeze drying focused
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business in Las Vegas Nevada now joshh um has own this business for several
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years he's really perfected his recipe and he freeze dries sweet potatoes and then adds some great flavoring and he's
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also added some new products uh to his product lineup that we're going to talk about in this episode I really wanted to
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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
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this business has been going you know inflation uh in the United States has been very rampid for the past 3 to four
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years um it's very critical for businesses uh to do everything they can to to kind of get through this
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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
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going to talk about um how does he set goals for his business um does he still
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do that how does he keep himself in check as a solopreneur because you know
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some of us are all starting businesses by ourselves that's usually how our businesses start and then we add
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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
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about his goals we're also going to ask him about the new products like I mentioned about fruit he's added to his
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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
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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
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Josh thank you for attending this podcast again for part two uh highlighting you and your business
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um what uh what do you have to say about your business what are you excited about
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what's been driving you this year um how are things going uh things are better yeah things
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have have improved since uh since last we we did the podcast um the primary
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driver of that has been um uh a distributor our distributor in Southern
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California uh which has really been kind of blowing us out with a lot of orders because like we talked about in the last
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you know the podcast before you get sort of lower margins on those sales but
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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
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it's grocery stores like working with Distributors I started working with this distributor because one of the major
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grocery clients that I had required a distributor uh and um so it's easier for
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them and uh and you find that grocery stores that you might approach you know
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directly uh are far more responsive when they're approached by a distributor um
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so and from a kind of like an efficiency perspective is like once you get to the
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point where you can produce a lot and you can find a partner like that like the handling of order fulfillment uh is
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is pretty pretty helpful um I mean because we still fulfill our whole food
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Whole Food orders by ourselves and it's you have to you do an invoice ship the
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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
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you know calling you up you know uh asking about like where a product is
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because we had been shipping US Postal Service because it was kind of like the most
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cost-efficient um but you also run into some issues because the Postal Service delivers at times that aren't uh as
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ordinary as say UPS or FedEx or FedEx and UPS will get to the receiving
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department you know at a certain time and it's um more reliable in that way um
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but uh yeah so you have to you have to spend time you know following up on orders and making sure they're fulfilled
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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
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the biggest thing for us is that we've kind of developed this relationship with our dist distributor and part of that is
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is because as we'll probably talk about later is I was able to get some larger dryers Harvest Right has come out with
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some newer commercial size large dryers um and once I I I told our distributor
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that like it I said well I can produce a lot more they started to be more aggressive in terms of pitching me to
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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
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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
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now when you get a distributor on do they sell your product for you to like
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more of their clients or do you still have to go out and call on another
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grocery store chain or a you know a healthy you know local Regional type of
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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
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both I mean you um you can you yourself can now pitch yourself as a product and be you know
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that a product or a brand that has a distributor which in some ways makes you more attractive to a lot of grocery
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store chains I know that's one of the things that they will ask you immediately and um and also and also the
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distributor itself I guess it depends on the distributor but they they should they they usually from my experience and
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I've worked with two Distributors they're going to go out they're going to try to uh find new customers because
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that helps them because they want to you know develop new business as well so yeah and in terms of like you know for
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new people I I sell wholesale to local people you know and you know I have to
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Discount my product for them to purchase because they have to make their margins on that in is a distributor like kind of
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a similar wholesale you know discount or how does all that work for like putting
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in in kind layman's terms for somebody who's listening to this who's who's you
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know in a different state just starting out and they're like well I know somebody who is a distributor how does
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all that work how do you know what to price your product at maybe going back to Josh your early days of finding your
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first distributor well I think the most important thing is that you come up with
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your wholesale price and I think you know starting out you know we just ship
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directly to Whole Foods uh because they offered that opportunity and we still hadn't really had the scale the
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production volume to really make uh using a distributor you know worthwhile
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so you come up with the wholesale price and then you're going to sell to the distributor at the your distributor
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price so because the the distributor is selling the product to the grocery store
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at your wholesale price so what you have to do is come up with a price uh for your distributor that's
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lower than your wholesale sale price um so that's that's the way it goes with
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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
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one that I worked with which was H pod Foods um which I believe they're all
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over the country but they had a location in Southern California they will like basically sell in Consignment which
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you'll ship them product and when they sell it or when the grocery stores that they deal with purchase it then you'll
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you'll get paid um but still at a at a lower you know sort of lower they take a
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well I think the way pod Foods worked was they took a commission so basically they uh you sold you sold the product
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sold the product to the grocery store for the wholesale price and then the Pod Foods would take a a commission uh from
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that uh from that sale but with most Distributors you know the distributor is
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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
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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
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or the the income analysis is um you know with Whole Foods we ship to them
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directly we don't charge them for shipping so even though so we're selling
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you know them to them at a certain wholesale price but the actual amount that we're going to get is kind of
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knocked down because of shipping expenses but with the the distributor
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you know you you know you ship them a pallet which might reduce your per unit
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shipping cost you know you fit 100 cases of your product on a pallet you're probably going to really reduce your
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actual like price per unit in terms of shipping um so you know you you see the
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benefits there of of you know maybe uh again it all comes down to volume if you
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can get enough volume to go through your distributor to kind of make up for that difference um then it's going to be
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worthwhile you know I mean I just throw numbers out there like oh let's say you're selling a product for 450
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wholesale and then you go to your you know you're going to sell it to your distributor for
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$3.75 um you know and but before when you were shipping to the grocery stores well you had to you know take into
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account the six or seven or eight dollars uh that you're using to of shipping cost that you're you know
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shipping to the grocery store so you're getting a higher number you know because you get a higher
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you know price per unit but it's sort of mitigated because of the shipping cost but the distributor once you get it to
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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
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it's just a matter of like thinking of the the economics of actually getting a
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pallet you know to your distributor you know the perfect situation was you know if the your distributor was right right
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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
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them that way because that way you've pretty much eliminated the the cost of of getting your product to the
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distributor and for us you know they're because they're in Southern California I mean I kind of always coincide my uh
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distributor drop offs with h you know picking up sweet potatoes in Southern California because I gota I still
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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
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sweet potatoes um but I can't get them in in La like the supplier is able to
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kind of ship them down there and I cross stock in La um so I was kind of like
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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
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County and uh and drop off there um but even even when I'm there have been a few
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times where I've shipped a pallet directly to Orange County and uh it's
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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
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well but you you do drastic not you do significantly reduce the price per unit
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per per case uh that you're you're you're spending on shipping so yeah um
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it gets me kind of wondering because there's a lot of freeze drying businesses that are starting these days
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a lot of it has to do with candy but people's suddenly see a a real big spike
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in interest and demand for their product and you probably saw that at some point
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and you're still seeing it today but thinking about your like that first big volume
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order did you pace yourself before you got there and you knew that you could
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you could Supply that demand or were you an aggressive salesperson like anybody
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else and you're like I'm going to go for that big order and deal with the Fulfillment time and the crunch time
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once I get it um and so it's kind of a two-part question is that how you did
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that and then number two is what would you recommend people do uh
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uh when they're kind of looking at going more wholesale like hey get after it and
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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
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and and be more calculated you know what what what what would you do as an
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entrepreneur I mean it as always it depends on the situation and like what your production capacity is and your
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margins what you're able to command in terms of margins but um I mean I was I was more cautious
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simply because you know our product was such a labor intensive kind of difficult thing and I was still working with sort
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of the smaller you know Harvest Right units which were wer they weren't deal for you know scaling production um even
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still there were a number of times with Whole Foods where I was remember that it was
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2019 or something like that when uh you know I had the first big really big
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expansion with the Whole Foods where I was working on Thanksgiving Day and like that that Friday afterwards just trying
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to figure out a way to you know get those last few orders out for that first initial big
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expansion um yeah for us like just because we have had decent demand um
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it's it's never been uh there's been rare times where I've like really wanted to go out there and
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try to find somebody because we have little lulls here and there but then soon thereafter we get some some order
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and like right now like with our distributor they had a big order prior to uh their break they're having a break
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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
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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
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I'm preparing myself for when they come back after the holiday uh to kind of to
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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
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freeze-dried candy person and like you could pump out stuff you know with batches in you know three to four hours
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or whatever it is and you're willing to hustle I think you probably have a good reason to be more aggressive in that
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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
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bringing up this question even my in my own business I you know I didn't really
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find out what the cyclical purchasing times was for cl for
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wholesale clients until you know really about year one anniversary or year two
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because you know I know right now one of my biggest wholesale purchasers for my
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fruit um purchases uh the she meets with people
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right now for the holidays and then she puts in POs to me uh in Late July and so
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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
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so I really miscalculated and I would start producing all this fruit and then I had I would get all these
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little small wholesale like stores and boutiques and I I'd restock them with all my fruit and then she would put in
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this massive you know order and I'd be like
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my you know like how the F am I supposed to get this done and uh you know and by
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the way like you know she likes blueberries well blueberries aren't in season in August September so you know
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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
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it just bring that's that story so for people who are listening to this podcast
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you know um I would say candy for sure I think you can generate those that demand
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and you can find ways to work 24 hours and swap out those candies every three
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hours that's fine but when you're dealing with stuff like Josh and myself with fruit and sweet potatoes you know
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these are longer cycle time so it doesn't just you can't just open the freeze dryer and start another batch
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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
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sublimation process and so you do have to kind of pace yourself but uh maybe
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that brings up my next question which is you know you added some new freeze drying equipment that I think really can
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help you carry that demand so yeah Harvest Right came out with another at
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freeze dryer what can you tell us about your purchasing and what do you think so
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far yeah no they've been uh so we got I think when we we talked last I had the
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big HRC 220 sort of the larger 22 full-size tray uh uh uh prototype that I
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I had purchased from them uh which was a huge huge you know game Cher for us and
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then I was able to get a another prototype of what they have now available is a HRC 100 and and then just
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about what was it two months ago two or three months ago it was beginning April
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we're almost in July now so about three months um it uh I was able to purchase
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and finance two more of the hrc1 100s and so far uh i' I've been pretty pretty
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impressed um and very happy that I made the purchase um uh they from my
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experience they're certainly more effic I think they're more efficient than the sort of the large Harvest Right units
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that I had um I can usually get about two maybe
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three Cycles before having to like uh defrost uh which is nice but I do find
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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
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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
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that one layer of ice but it's not too much ice um and so yeah even in
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comparison to the the the Prototype that I had bought HRC 100 prototype I think it works better than that they made some
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good improvements um so put I I just had a
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question like put the put like your large freeze drying batch in perspective
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to the HRC 100 cuz HRC 100 the reason it's 100 is you can
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do um up to about 100 pounds now 100
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pounds basically what it really means is how much how much liquid pounds is able
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to sublimate so like uh how much ice you know weight can it hold uh in there uh
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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
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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
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question is yeah so take your take your large for example how much product could
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you get out of the large cycle and then now how much can you get with one cycle
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run with the HRC 100 so people can kind of understand like how powerful this
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is well I should um I think the first thing to understand about the hrc1 100s
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is um from I using the the other prototype that that I was able to buy
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the HRC 100 prototype it's a great unit but you
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can't push it too much if and what I mean by that is uh if you you really if
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you really load each one of the uh of the trays um it'll do it but it'll take
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a while but I you know through experimentation I found that kind of of
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um some keeping it somewhere in the middle like for example we do like two layers of freeze-dried of sweet potato
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slices as opposed we could fit in three but I find that in terms of uh turnover
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and in terms of just the unit finding that the unit seems to run a bit more
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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
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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
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look at it is if I if I'm able to put in sort of uh lighter loads I can run more
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of those loads per week and make up for maybe maybe putting on that third layer
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yeah but also most importantly keep the unit running uh and running well uh
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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
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of ran into some issues where I needed to replace you know something within the refrigeration um so I mean it's not a
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science I haven't like you know technically you know looked at everything but I just my general sense
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is and also hearing some feedback from from Harvest Right um is that you know
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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
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in them I would say so there you got nine full-size trays and
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if I'm running um I got so I got 2 ounce pouches and if
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I put in like two layers you know I'm I'm I'm going to run
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approximately yeah somewhere in the neighbor depending on the size them uh the equivalent of like 120 pouches
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and I can usually get that done in about you know 24 to 30 hours or so which
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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
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maybe 40 hours or something like that um and if I had like one of the the my old
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uh um you know large dryers I mean first of all with those
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dryers just like there's no no telling you know you know you could you could have two machines running the same
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amount and like uh one would take 45 hours and the other one would take you know you know 38 hours or something like
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that so um but in general seems like the new HRC 100s run the batches more
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efficiently and and if you use them if you don't try to push them too much you
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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
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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
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into the into the into the fullsize sheet pans is just super super helpful and I would imagine it would be
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applicable for other people that are doing it whether you're doing fruits or whether you're doing uh candy if you got
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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
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know a bag of Skittles or a bag of blueberries frozen blueberries onto a larger tray as opposed to sort of the
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smaller trays yeah yeah that's a good point and you know so you have large you
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have some you had some of the older large Harvest Right freeze dryers I've got some of those as well you know and
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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
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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
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with strawberries it's going to take over 40 hours to do um maybe even close to 50
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hours and um it seems sometimes that you know they it wasn't dry completely
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because I had so much product versus if I did it in kind of more of a single
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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
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put any more than two pounds I find that it increases my drying time by you know
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almost 20 to 30% and so yeah you know and I just crank those things out um but
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a large free dryer at 16 if you divide that by The 100 you know you're getting almost four to
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5x uh the amount of product produced uh even doing trying to do the minimum uh
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weight like you're saying so yeah huge huge efficiency I can't wait uh I'm
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still deciding right now in my business what I my what my goals are for it I'm
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just kind of keeping the status quo and building this YouTube channel but uh in the podcast so I'm trying to figure out
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what my next move is but I would if I was uh going to be advancing my business a little bit more aggressively I
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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
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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
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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
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done a lot more uh interviews and conversations with commercial grade
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freeze dryer companies and I have been very impressed with the education that I'm receiving about those and what is
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the cost savings over time uh and one of the things Josh you know just in our
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conversation here is one of the things that I I really liked about my previous conversation with a company called uh uh
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Tech Source systems they're actually based in Salt Lake they make custom commercial grade freeze dryers one thing
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he uh you know he put in perspective which I really like was typically you
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know a piece of equipment you might think of it as a capital expenditure where you actually have to have the cash
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or the financing uh in one lump sum to buy that equipment but a freeze dryer um
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could be seen as or even a automation packaging machine could be seen as an
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actual operating expense and therefore you could amortise that over time like just like a lease and so that would that
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would allow more businesses to upgrade a commercial grade freeze dryer even though it's $150
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$250,000 machine um you know it's able you're able to kind of finance that and
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and accounting wise put it in as an operating expense uh to secure financing
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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
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HRC 100 uh you can't beat it right now that's why Harvest released it you know
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and for 10,000 bucks to do what it can do it's amazing so yeah that's awesome
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so you have two or three of them uh three I mean I got two of the
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new ones and then the one one prototype which I'm still using and still popping out stuff with that's awesome all right
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um so I want to go back to uh let's let's continue on uh with new things so
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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
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about the fruit uh new product line um I can't remember when I first I
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mean I I first started with the strawberries uh so I could get them at Costco and I think I I just thought that
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they were you know kind of a would be a popular item but I I think I did that as far back
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as even like 2019 it just maybe something I hadn't really talked about a lot it was and it wasn't something we
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did year round because it's a seasonal item so there's certain times of the year where you know literally the price
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for strawberries is like twice as much as it is now right now it's a great time for
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strawberries um so it was just kind of something that like from a production perspective perspective it was um you
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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
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them so it was something like to keep dryers full and to on days where because
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I'm still I'm still doing the still doing the slicing by hand uh and the
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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
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picking up sweet potatoes uh it was something my employees could could do uh to sort of you know keep production
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going so that was it was most a big thing was uh the production efficiencies
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but also you know people liked it you you well know it's like people really like you know freeze-dried fruit
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especially strawberries and when you do it with the Harvest rights where you know
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uh you're not flash freezing it it seems to yield that even like this puffy sort
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of like really uh super flavorful you know uh end product uh and it's somewhat
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similar like you get with the we do the bananas as well and those have a similar sort of puffiness and you get the
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sweetness because you pull all the moisture out um so it's just kind of like it's like a dessert type option but
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a healthy dessert and it's also kind of easy for us in terms of production process so yeah and if you're not
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familiar with uh Josh's company he he does do all organic products uh correct
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Josh yes yep yeah and so um you know what's your what's your also you know if
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you haven't looked at his website sweetpotato awesome.com um you you actually cut the
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bananas you know actually kind of in like whole pieces so you cut them you know you don't actually cut them thin
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and you do the same thing with strawberries like you you you actually freeze dry them whole don't you um or we
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slice up the strawberries but they're still pretty big pieces so yeah yeah what what kind of Drew you to make them
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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
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