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The Parker Freeze Dry Interview
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May 15, 2025
I interviewed Parker Freeze Dry in Beresford, South Dakota to better understand their manufacturing of commercial freeze dryers. Become a Member of this channel and support my efforts to connect the freeze-drying industry through more video content just like this. Thank you! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCicmjUC8pG_3jwFo9m-va1g/join Join my weekly newsletter for more new and tips on the freeze-drying industry: https://freezedriedbusiness.com/ Subscribe for more videos https://youtube.com/@freezedriedbusiness Check out Parker Freeze-Dry here: https://parkerfreezedry.com/ Matt Graunke - [email protected] *Let him know you watched this interview Videographer credit: Levi at PxD Marketing https://www.pxdmarketing.com/ 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 Frozen Assets Podcast (Rate & Review PLEASE!) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/frozen-assets-freeze-drying-for-entrepreneurs/id1722696670
View Video Transcript
0:00
hey we're back with the frozen assets podcast series with another episode focusing on entrepreneurs and also just
0:06
the general freeze drying industry because it's fastly growing for a lot of different people and where we're here
0:12
today is we're talking with a commercial freeze drying company that's been doing commercial freeze dry manufacturing for
0:18
a long period of time and now with the exponential boom in different recipes and Innovative entrepreneurs man there's
0:25
so much to talk to this company about it's Parker freeze dry they're based in beer Beford South Dakota brand new
0:31
facility they do everything assembly and Manufacturing here we're going to be talking with the sales and marketing
0:37
manager Matt grony who covers everything about Parker of freezez dry and really inform you and educate you who's
0:44
watching this video about the commercial freeze drying space so without further Ado Matt thanks for joining me here
0:51
today in beersford South Dakota introduce yourself let us know about Parker wonderful thanks David for coming
0:57
up to visit us this is going to be a good uh good event here that we get to kind of show you around let you know how
1:04
this equipment is put together everything that goes into it and kind of talk about some of the steps that go
1:11
from taking it from a concept at a small scale to equipment that can process you
1:17
know thousands of pounds per batch and so Parker freeze dry tell me about the company as a whole first thing they're
1:23
going to notice is there's a lot of opportunity as far as education goes um a lot of our sales process lot lot of
1:30
our marketing initiatives all revolve around a consultive approach to things
1:35
and helping to make sure everybody understands um so that they can you know make the right decisions that's right
1:40
for them in their business um we have uh Parker freeze dry we've been in this
1:46
industry for quite some time uh the business was founded over in Wisconsin
1:51
20 some years ago and at the time um Parker was a customer of proor
1:58
fabrication which is the parent company of the brand um as time passed on we had
2:03
an opportunity to acquire Parker freeze dry so instead of them being a customer now it became a brand of ours and
2:09
instead of just manufacturing the chambers now we handle the entire process with the refrigeration with the
2:16
control systems with the after sale service um parts and maintenance all of that stuff is all coming out of this
2:23
facility now and so Parker I mean how many freeze dryer types did you have
2:29
initially when you bought Parker freeze dry to what you have today yeah so at the time um I believe we had two three
2:38
five different versions and now I believe we've got six with uh kind of
2:45
just improving on them as time goes on as technology gets better taking advantage of opportunities to make
2:51
things run a little uh more efficiently and and allow a little bit more control of some of the different um pieces of
2:57
the puzzle yeah and so you have a lot of different freeze dryers that fit a lot of different types of people's companies
3:04
and recipes which is very exciting in this industry right now because everyone has things from pet food to Candy to ice
3:12
cream to meals all of that tell us about Parker like who are you trying to Target who is best suit for looking at a Parker
3:20
freeze dryer as far as Industries are concerned it's really never a dull moment because every week we've got
3:25
somebody new reaching out and asking us questions about scaling um freeze drying
3:30
is becoming more mainstream and more I guess uh awareness of it as a technology
3:37
has has grown quite a bit over the last couple years so you know where pet food would be a big part of the puzzle now
3:45
that's human food as well um we've got you know backpacking meals we've got uh survival meals we've got um on the
3:52
agriculture side um people that are trying to deal with uh what otherwise
3:58
would become refuges if they've got a crop and a portion of it is not as
4:03
pretty as the rest so it can't go to the grocery store groups are finding us and finding ways that hey we can we can
4:09
still Salvage this and offer you know product based on that um we see things
4:15
in uh the egg industry we see biotech uh supplements um cannabis um there's lots
4:24
of different things going on and just when I think I've heard the you know strangest thing I've ever heard then we
4:30
get another call of something that was even more unique than that you know and sometimes it works out and sometimes it
4:35
doesn't but the whole point is you know you got to figure it out yeah I think there's like two different types of
4:41
people looking into freeze drying right now as of 2024 and we're almost all all
4:46
the way done with 2024 as of this interview but it's like two people are looking at freeze drying one is the
4:53
entrepreneur starting something from scratch and saying I really like this concept and I want to develop my own
4:58
recipe and and actually bring out a new product to Market and then you've got the other side where people are
5:05
recognizing that they can have a completely new skew in their product line where it's like they've always had
5:11
this product that's been more fresh and the shelf life has been a a finite amount and now they look at freeze dry
5:18
and they're like oh man we can accelerate our growth and keep and keep adding different things so they that is
5:24
that kind of what you're seeing too I would absolutely agree with you um I think that you know we a large portion
5:31
of the contact that I have with with prospects and and customers is is it's a
5:38
pretty even split you've got the innovators that are trying something completely new that are building
5:43
something out of nothing and you know they're the ones that have done the homework on the countertop unit they've
5:49
proved out their concept and now they're ready for that next step how do I make this how do I take this to that next
5:55
level and then we've got the other groups that already have a functioning successful business and they're creating
6:02
this new arm this new skew this new line to go with their facility some of that
6:07
is just because they've are you know they're in whatever their business is
6:13
and hey if we do it this way now we've got another skew with longer shelf life other ones is like I was saying before
6:19
this whole sustainability initiative that everybody's on right now on just trying to make the most and stretching
6:24
everything as long as as far as we can getting the most value out of everything they're find that things that were
6:30
otherwise just waste and it was causing them money to get rid of it there may be an opportunity to turn that into revenue
6:39
and that's something that they were otherwise losing money paying to get rid of now it becomes a source of es skew
6:45
that they can sell for whatever that product is for yeah and the fact that
6:51
the US has one of the largest food waste rates in the entire world I think it's close to 40% it's like you know I think
6:58
about my own like habitual food waste habits which are like you know when I trim a strawberry stem off you know I
7:05
throw away some strawberry and then also the stem yeah but the stem has some
7:11
nutritional value as well as there's still strawberries on there and um there's some people on YouTube that are
7:18
using it to make a powder and then they use that powder to make smoothies or to
7:23
flavor something naturally it's there's so many arrays of applications yeah the opportunities are
7:30
endless at this point because you know there's just so many different things happening that you could do something
7:35
with so that's what makes it exciting to be part of the business right now yeah now so going back to the freeze dryer so
7:42
you've got six different freeze dryers what are the different capacities that someone has to like figure out how to
7:50
like what what's the right fit for them is take us through kind of each one and maybe how do you find the right fit for
7:56
them right so the way that the way that I I like to do it is I like to work it backwards how much do you want to
8:02
produce in a year so you find out what's your goal you know and I want to make X
8:08
well okay how many days are you working that year divided by that because you're assuming for most products it's about a
8:15
batch per day when it comes to most things you get into some situations where you've got shorter times or longer
8:20
times but you're not working 24 hours a day so if it ends in the middle of the night you're not getting up and going to
8:26
change it over right so just using simple as assumptions one batch per day 5 days a week 52 weeks a year obviously
8:33
there's going to be some leeway for maintenance things like that but that's typically how the path that I like to follow is
8:41
just working it backwards what's your goal and then what are the Milestones to get there and then at that point that
8:47
tells us what we need per batch and then we can point them into the right machine there or numerous of the right machine
8:54
whatever that ends up being and from a machine size standpoint from a batch capacity standpoint our system runs
9:01
trays and our um our Summit system which is going to be our entry into the
9:07
industrial freeze dry space that has 15 trays in it so approximately 97 lb 98 lb
9:15
we'll call it 100 just to keep the numbers round um the next size up from there is going to be our Parker 2 which
9:21
can do up to 500 lb per batch the Parker 6 system is uh 1,500 lb and the Parker
9:29
10 and the 10r are going to be 2500 pound units wow and and like thinking
9:36
about that per day I mean do you know of companies that are actually producing that much per day like even absolutely
9:42
the 2500 and all that wow absolutely per day yeah yeah and and I would say exponentially more than that with our
9:48
systems yeah and is that because they're trying to support just the domestic like
9:54
us demand or a lot of those companies producing that amount they're they're doing things globally you know I can't
10:00
comment on that because I know that there are a lot of pieces that need to
10:06
be in place in order for global Shipping and I'm not sure who's all doing that and who's not I know that it's a fairly
10:12
challenging Prospect when it comes to do with anything with food so I'm not certain that um any of these guys are
10:18
shipping overseas at this point okay that I'm not certain staying on the path of customers who come to approach you so
10:25
we now kind of know all right we work backwards from you know how much you want to prod produce things like that
10:30
but what are some of the red flags that you see when you get inquiries in your team about someone looking at starting
10:37
and purchasing and going more commercial with the freeze drying company what are some red flags that you're like you're
10:43
not quite there yet so that someone watching this is like you know yeah maybe I need to I need to recalibrate
10:50
but I'm going to come back to you yeah I don't I don't know that red flag is the right term just because it's not like I'm saying just stop but it's maybe just
10:58
let's take a step back because you want to make sure you've got your concept
11:04
proven out you want to make sure you've got a recipe and then you want to make sure you've done enough homework on the
11:10
actual cost of doing business so that you know is what I'm doing scalable and
11:15
there's a lot of different calculations you can use um but you want to make sure you kind of got an idea of your business
11:21
plan um you know so that you're you're on the right track otherwise you're just kind of wasting time yeah you know but
11:30
I would say just make sure you've got your concept proven out and then you're
11:35
ready for that okay now what do I do yeah there's other opportunities to have a commercial freeze dryer though to help
11:42
fill in the gaps while you're trying to create that demand oh talk a little bit about where you've seen those
11:47
opportunities yeah I mean the number one thing about if you're going to have a piece of equipment like this and is you
11:52
want it to be running all the time so if your current Demand only requires you to
11:58
run this machine twice a week there's enough demand out there on the market right now that if you know put the word
12:04
out you've got capacity for 3 days that week I'm pretty sure you're going to find somebody that'll be able to you
12:10
know fill that machine and keep it running for you it just you know there's there's going to be challenges at the
12:16
local level to make sure you're in a position to legally operate a business that way with your certifications and
12:21
everything that you need to do but um you know there's there's plenty of opportunity in the marketplace to fill
12:28
freeze dryers right now yeah it we know that as fact just because of the amount of attention all of this is getting yeah
12:35
people want to know more yeah I think there's a lot of planning that goes into doing a freeze drying business
12:41
especially going more commercial but there's a good way to to inexpensively
12:46
test those Waters uh which a lot of the audience here on this channel know like
12:51
you can buy a home freeze dryer test those different elements see what's working well what the texture what the
12:58
consist is going to be like do you like it being super hard and crunchy or do you like it being more like a wafer
13:03
where it's not as uh crunchy it's more like melting your mouth type of feel how does it reconstitute all of those
13:10
different types of things and you can do that yeah with a home freeze dryer then when you look in a commercial it's like
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okay the recipe is this and this is how we're going to get it out to Market to
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multiple audiences right right and and one thing that to take into consideration too is just I don't know
13:28
about the the right term is just the sheer efficiency of a system at this level running all commercial equipment
13:35
commercial vacuum industrial Refrigeration for the coal plates and you know for your condenser that profile
13:41
that you've created in your countertop unit sure translates to this but then
13:46
you're going to have access to all the different kpis that come with having a commercial system to allow for
13:52
improvements in your processes beyond that I mean it's uh there's a little there's a little bit of a learning curve
13:59
to learning how to read it but once you understand what's going on inside the machine and you understand the product
14:05
that you're putting into it you know there's always opportunities for continuous Improvement yeah I mean and
14:11
freeze drying is still relatively for freeze drying food and all the different recipes that are coming out it's still a
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relatively new market that's why I think this industry is still very at the early stages because most if you look at most
14:24
food processing manufacturing facilities you know they're investing Millions of
14:29
dollars in equipment to be able to cut certain produce or cut certain things package it the right way test it have
14:36
different specialist nutrition people on staff that's what somebody needs to look at when they're looking at a freeze
14:41
drying business commercially but that's it's common practice no matter what but
14:46
people still continue to run those businesses because there is profit there is money to be made there absolutely um
14:53
and so that's it's it's general practice across board is what I'm saying yeah no for sure um so let's let's say somebody
14:59
is ready to purchase a commercial freeze JY they' talk to you walk me through what the sales process looked like Yeah
15:07
from the time they contact you to they buy one like what's the full service that Parker offers to someone who's
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going to do this yeah so we we're going to start with a a a consultive call and we're going to do a lot of listening and
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I want to know about what it is you're doing you know how you're doing it currently what's your biggest challenges
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and you know what's your goals um once we've got that kind of laid out and get an understanding we're going to figure
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out what machine is the one you want when we get to that point we'll go through a contract set up lead times
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talk about you know how everything's going to come together the system's going to get built here we're going to
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test it here where you'll be invited up to see it run at the factory acceptance
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um once that is complete then we basically prep it for shipping you get it to your facility once it's installed
15:54
at your facility then our team comes down and we'll commission it for you so on our larger systems the Parker 2
16:01
through the 10 um we're on site and we're working with your team and basically bringing it all back online
16:08
doing training it's usually anywhere from 3 to 4 days um on our smaller systems like the summit all that is done
16:14
virtually cuz that's a little bit more of a plug-and-play style of setup yeah um where Summit everything is all on one
16:21
crate and you know you've got your receptacle and you get it installed you plug it in you turn it on and get a hold
16:27
of the team we guide you through it virtually okay um the larger systems is a little bit more Hands-On because we've
16:32
got a refrigeration component that's Outdoors you've got piping that's in play you've got electrical that's in
16:38
play um you've got carts that move around instead of a cartridge that's permanently in the machine so it just a
16:44
little bit more Hands-On so we send more hands yeah now you you've said Team a couple times yeah so like what when you
16:53
install these things for different customers what type of team setup do they have that you're like this was a
16:58
good setup that like they had the right people to run this freeze drying operation and run the freeze dryer yeah
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that's a super good question so um from the install side of things anybody that's running a piece of equipment of
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of this level when you get into this commercial industrial phase you're going to want to have a qualified commercial
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HVAC to handle all the refrigeration side and then you're going to want to have uh qualified electrical so any kind
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of um is it electrical engineer mechanical engineer that kind of maintenance type stuff okay um so those
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are going to be the two main players you need on that side um from a team on
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staff you're going to need somebody that knows how to program the machine set up your recipes uh somebody that
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understands that process and understands freeze drying so that they can look at that data that's being shared with them
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and then they can make decisions for improvements if needed um enhancements what have you and then you're going to
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need a labor element and and that can all be the same person it can be different people um our system is set up
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that you have different levels of access mhm in the operating system so that you
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know your management level your person that's designing your recipes doesn't have to worry about somebody that
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shouldn't be in there changing anything and and ruing a badge um so you've got just a couple
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different levels of things and I would say you know our large systems the two up through the the 10 a team of two
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safely loads and unload it um you're talking about a lot of product and it's a big piece of equipment so you want to
18:34
be safe yeah um making sure that the carts are getting in there they're not tipping over you're not spilling product
18:39
nobody's getting hurt and I think about like that time frame like when you think about like man that two people if you're
18:46
looking at you know employing those two people well you got to think about too like a lot of the product that's going
18:51
to go into a commercial freeze dryer is going to be in there for 24 to maybe 48 hours so I mean you know it could be a
18:59
part-time person that says hey everything's prepped it's in the freezer getting prefrozen now we can put it into
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the freeze dryer so I think for most people watching this you know you can it
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doesn't have to be these full-time individuals you know you can start off with people who are like hey your job's
19:16
this on these days and you have a schedule of when they come in and out so that they those people who are
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specialized know what to do yeah and and there's there's a lot of we see wearing a lot of hats you know they've got the
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machine Lo loaded they hit start the rest of their shift they're prepping tomorrow's batch MH getting the carts
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loaded getting it rolled into the freezer for the next day or the iqf or
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whatever they're working on if they need to so there's a lot of different things and a lot of different ways you can do
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it and obviously the more units you acquire and the bigger you build your business the more people you're going to
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need you start getting into the point where you're running multiple machines and you've got multiple shifts well all
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of a sudden you're not looking at a batch a day anymore because if it was only a 16-hour batch you're turning that thing over every 16 hours instead of
20:03
every 24 hours yeah so it can really exponentially scale just kind of depends on how big you get now when you've gone
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to your clients um and done these installs what type of like facility does
20:17
that look like like these are the core elements like you can't you can't have this type of commercial kitchen or this
20:24
setup like you need to have these things power um refriger ation like what types
20:30
of things do you commonly see that the person listening here can can gather that they need so at a minimum you know
20:38
you want to be able to at least prefreeze one batch depending on what
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size you you get into um personally I would suggest two batches just so that
20:48
you're a g a day ahead and you're allowing yourself for any kind of loss time that could
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possibly take so you need a walk-in freezer that can get certainly do yeah if you're on a summit level a console
21:01
style freezer that can hold 30 trays is plenty because you can only fit 15 trays
21:06
in the summit but when you get into the two the six the 10 you want to make sure you got a walk-in freezer that can
21:13
accommodate you know at least one batch I recommend two okay so beyond that
21:20
that's a whole different thing because it's different for every company what do they need are they packaging or are they
21:25
putting it all in pallets and shipping it right off the door for someone else to do it are they are they white
21:31
labeling are they C- packing where they're packaging 50 different brands 50 different
21:36
SKS that can change drastically depending on what's going on yeah the
21:42
the needs of a um company that's doing bulk supplements is going to be quite
21:48
different than the needs of the company that's setting up backpacking meals and so talk about maybe more the
21:55
power side of a freeze dryer this I know it varies Bas on your six different freeze dryers but what does is it
22:03
expensive to Output a freeze dryer this magnitude or is it surprisingly not as
22:09
as other types of machines that would be in an industrial facility yeah so it's
22:15
challenging because there's so many variables with everything we talk about but you know three-phase power when you
22:21
start getting into the 500 lound units are better three-phase power is going to be a necessity and you want to make sure
22:27
you've got you know enough amp and that varies from machine to machine um what your needs are but the way our
22:33
systems are set up is they're almost in a way modular where you don't have to build out a whole
22:40
facility just for this freeze drying system you can find a facility like ours
22:46
that's empty that has three-phase power and just fill it with freeze dryers yeah
22:52
that's the way we've designed it it it's it's scalable it's easy to implement as
22:57
long as you've got a um a loading dock door and enough electricity yeah and I'm not an
23:03
electrician Matt so what's a three-phase oh so um three-phase 480 volt I'm not an
23:09
electrician either but I know that like so our Summit systems run on singlephase
23:14
power so somebody that's just coming off of a countertop system and they're working out of their garage and they want to put in a Summit
23:23
it's usually pretty easy to get 240 volt single vase singlephase power in your
23:28
garage it's you know it's like a nice heavy duty welder or dryer or some
23:34
Electric Appliance like that when you get into Industrial Equipment three
23:39
phase is fairly standard from what I understand um I've had talks with a few
23:44
customers when they're shopping for their next facility they've ran into some challenges with their local
23:49
utilities if they were in like an industrial area that was older or wasn't really built out right or where they
23:55
just they couldn't get it or it was going to be not cost effective to get it put in there yeah so that's just
24:01
something you need to you know have in in mind and if somebody want if somebody's thinking about something like
24:07
this those are one that's one of the discussions we're going to have during that early discussions is okay where do
24:13
you have this kind of power in that facility and sometimes they know and sometimes they don't so it's just the
24:19
stuff we all make sure everybody knows about maybe let's talk too about like there seems to be a gap in like there's
24:24
people running freeze drying businesses that have a lot of Home freeze dryers and then there's the commercial side
24:30
that seems much more intimidating much more capital investment so like how does someone afford or how have you seen
24:37
clients afford a commercial freeze dryer on the lending side of things we're a manufacturer of equipment we're not a
24:43
bank however we do have people in the industry that are and they're familiar
24:49
with this sort of a setup they know what goes into this type of business and they
24:54
set up uh basically Capital Equipment financing so referral lot of people that way for those discussions and there's uh
25:02
they get into the the Weeds on things that I'm not privy to yeah and I'm fine not being privy to that stuff but
25:10
there's that's typically how it's done is they'll look at some sort of commercial lending okay and uh it's just
25:16
finding a partner that works for them basically yeah so we've got a couple different groups that we work with that
25:22
our customers have worked with in the past and uh we don't mind sending them
25:27
an in production so that they can have those discussions and make sure it makes sense seems also in this Gap where you
25:33
have customers who probably have dozens of Home freeze dryers because they built up up that demand they're seeing a lot
25:39
of success but all those freeze dryers cost you know less than $5,000 for each one um so you know your machines cost
25:47
six figures um what's the difference in like the ROI on one of your freeze
25:53
dryers versus people who have dozens of these other freeze dryers that cost a lot less mhm what are the challenges
26:01
that you would see you're going to no longer have with a dozen Freeze drers
26:06
versus what you have with yours yeah a lot of times it's if you're growing to that point and that's the kind of
26:12
production that you need I don't know how you can afford not to make that move because there's so many unaccounted for
26:18
costs associated with running that many small machines as opposed to one large
26:26
machine or two of the Summit models at 100 lb a piece um you know to get into
26:32
it our Summit system sells for 135,000 you're processing 100 lb a day typically
26:38
depending on what your product is that's your your wet product going in with an industrial quality system you're
26:45
planning your maintenance on the machine typically once a year um instead of
26:52
running the risk of of your 20 machines letting three of them plant it for you yeah so it it it really it becomes a
27:00
crucial piece of the business is how much time are you spending to save this money on these 20 other units in the
27:08
grand scheme of things did it help you at all it helped you get going but now
27:13
that you're there now it's time to think about that next step everything you did to get those 20 was great but 20 more of
27:21
those isn't going to get you to where you can get when you take that next step
27:27
yeah I also think of about you know your your cart systems has a ton of racks you
27:32
know and a ton of different trays too and you know versus you know 20 or 30
27:38
different of the home freeze dryers same amount of number of trays but they're all getting dirty at different points
27:45
they're all needed to be sanitized at different points they all have their oils changed at different points they
27:51
they just it they all have to defrost at different points versus what you're
27:56
seeing on the commercial side no matter who what commercial freeze dryer you know you're only doing it one time now
28:03
yeah yeah it's it's a streamlined process it just comes with scaling and and scaling is scary but it it's a
28:11
necessary part of the process if if that's the growth you're looking for just other type of little like little
28:17
small questions for you to answer too about what I'm usually accustomed to because I just I just have some small
28:23
home freeze dryers for my business but like so what type of oil does like a big
28:29
pump for a commercial freeze dryer use I don't know what the exact name of it is
28:34
but I know we stock it here and we've set up an e-commerce platform for our users and our customers to order it okay
28:40
so we basically um you know anything from a part stpoint is here at beersford
28:47
with us and um we've set up a specific channel for our users that they can go
28:53
in and they can order it whenever they need it just online and we'll it out the
28:58
next day and if it's an emergency and they need you know they need like an overnight or something like that we've
29:05
got options for that as well the whole point of going to this level is because you need to be operating every day yeah
29:12
so that goes back to twoo you know you're allowed to plan your maintenance instead of having the machine plan it
29:18
for you and does a Parker freeze dryer need to be defrosted like do you have a
29:23
just like the home freeze dryer it has to like defrost get all that water out and then freezing yeah so we're talking
29:29
about a lot more water when you get to this level yeah so there is some runoff
29:35
that's going out the drain but as as a whole the ice is falling off in chunks and depending on you know what size
29:41
machine that's that's moisture's got to go somewhere yeah and that usually means
29:47
with a shovel in between batches after it comes off of those cold plates yeah
29:52
so keep that in mind um usually that's included in your batch per day calculations
29:58
yeah because you're figuring it's you know 2 to 4 hours of defrost time and you're running an 18-hour batch type of
30:05
a scenario okay but um we can talk a little bit about that when we get out there too a new customer contacts you
30:11
what what's the first thing you want them to know about Parker and what do you hope that they gather from knowing
30:18
more about your company yeah what probably the most important thing is that we you know we need them to know is
30:24
that we're here we're here for you when you're getting into equipment at this level you need to have a very consultive
30:31
approach and you need to be able to reach out and connect when you need to and that's one of the things that we
30:37
take a lot of Pride on is once everything's installed and we've gone back home and you're operating your own
30:43
equipment if something comes up you've got somebody you can call we can either
30:48
log in remotely and look at it with you we can talk with you on the phone very rarely do we ever have to make a visit
30:54
unless something is you know out of the ordinary but typically most of the things that would happen in a production
31:00
scenario can be resolved just by a few conversations and us better understanding the situation and then our
31:07
team will walk you through so that you understand the situation as well one of the things that we offer and we've that
31:15
I feel is fairly unique to this industry is we've created this whole knowledge base Parker University on our website
31:21
and that is a constantly growing and changing uh resource for any one of our
31:27
our users it's not open to the public because there's proprietary info in there but once we've installed your
31:34
system and brought you online you and your staff will have access to that and
31:39
that's where they go to ask questions about maintenance or very specific instances like if hey I'm noticing that
31:46
I'm getting a heavy draw on this um what do you think that has something to do with you go in there and you can look
31:51
under the control system and you can say okay well you know make sure all your gaskets are still good make sure you
31:57
don't have a corrupt valve somewhere make sure you're still getting good vacuum so we work really hard on taking
32:03
feedback from our users and then using that feedback to continue to grow that knowledge base if our service team is
32:10
taking a a call over and over again from different people that tells us that we need to put more info in that so that
32:16
that answer is already out there so that they don't need to call just to get something that is apparently fairly
32:23
common question you've been through a lot of different shows over the past couple years you know you've been in
32:29
this role for quite a while too but you see everything from big pet food
32:34
manufacturers freeze drying to all the different types of Manufacturers but
32:40
you've seen a lot of things over the course of the years where do you see freeze drying headed mhm in the short
32:46
term but also the long term Trends in the industry is just growth just overall growth and whether that's a specific
32:53
segment or just the industry as a whole um there's so many different people reaching out and different uh
33:00
opportunities coming up about ways to use freeze drying if one of the other Industries starts to tail off it's very
33:06
likely somebody else has figured out a way to bring it back up again I don't Envision um any kind of a dip at all
33:13
because it's new enough it's not new but it's becoming more uh people are more
33:19
aware of it now that there's just so many in innovators uh if what what is it
33:25
the bell curve you know we're on the the front of the hockey stick yeah and it doesn't appear to be you
33:31
know when is that going to dip back down again we're still everybody still figuring out all the different things we
33:37
can do with this and as technology continues to improve and we continue to you know innovate our systems and and
33:45
keep bringing new things to Market to make this process more efficient make uh
33:50
the operations of it the maintenance whatever all the different things that we're working on you know it's just only
33:55
going to get better from here well we've been talking to Matt grony from Parker freeze dry we're going to take a look at
34:01
their facility and answer a lot more questions but if you're interested in freeze drying and starting a freeze
34:08
drying business this is the channel for you I want you to subscribe to this channel if you're interested in starting a freeze drying business or you can even
34:15
just like this video and that'll help YouTube and all the different platforms that you're viewing this on to kind of
34:20
give you more information more videos on about freeze drying so Matt thanks for joining me on this podcast and we'll be
34:26
in touch more about about Parker let's go check out the facility
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