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Owning a Freeze-Drying Business VLOG Ep 3 - Commercial Kitchen Walk-Through | Website Tips
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May 16, 2025
Want to know what it is ACTUALLY like owning a freeze-drying business as a side hustle while working full-time and balancing a regular lifestyle? In this video episode, I am at the commercial kitchen that I rent and share a quick tour of the facility and also talk about how my local business is sustainable through website orders and wholesale. Check out more "Day in the Life VLOG videos, here is the video playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8uz0_2xUyEJ5_LEUicpNkLjmiYHeC3Rp When I started my freeze-dried business (www.freezedrieddepot.com) in 2020, I had no idea how much time commitment it would require or whether the time I put into the company would be worth continuing for the money it brought in. This channel was created to help you become more informed about the freeze-drying industry, and how to work smarter using tools and resources that can make you more efficient which can bring you more money...faster! The freeze-drying industry is expected to grow exponentially over the next 5-7 years to over $70 billion worldwide. What piece of the pie are you taking? Are you starting to look at starting a freeze-dried business? Watch this video for the 10 steps I would take if I were starting a freeze-dried business from scratch: https://youtu.be/Shx_WHTVF3g Here are 7 reasons why own a freeze-drying business: https://youtu.be/s8Vx8zi42Fs If you need ideas for what to start freeze-drying for your business, watch this video for 20 items I would recommend freeze-drying first: https://youtu.be/neZYov6iQ2M Here are several freeze-dryers I use in my business and I would recommend considering them for your existing freeze-dried business or just starting out. - Harvest Right Freeze Dryers - https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1974.html. I like the Harvest Right Large to start out and then you can advance to the XL if you have enough business coming in. - StayFresh Freeze Dryer - https://stayfreshfreezedry.com/?sca_ref=3292008.4uBi4MIG3W&sca_source=YouTube. I like the freezing speed and dry times of this machine. It's a little larger than the Harvest Right Medium but you can do 12-13 pounds of food in it which is only a few pounds less than the Harvest Right Large capacity. Even though Harvest Right says up to 23 pounds that's not possible in my experience, especially with fruit. Blue Alpine Freeze Dryers could be another alternative to purchase for your business, I do not own one of these freeze dryers currently so I don't have any direct experience with the machine: https://bluealpinefreezedryers.com/thefreezedriedbusiness Create an Amazon Business Account like I did to save on Amazon purchases: https://amzn.to/40HUntM
View Video Transcript
0:00
hey everyone David with the freeze dried
0:02
business Channel hey it's another Vlog
0:04
video where I'm just doing raw footage
0:07
of my daily routine as a freeze dry
0:09
business owner if you're new to this
0:10
channel if you're wondering about freeze
0:13
drying wondering about what this
0:14
freeze-dried craze is all about and
0:15
whether you should start a business or
0:17
if you currently even have one you're
0:19
just wondering what it's like out there
0:20
for other types of people running a
0:22
freeze Drive business well this is the
0:24
channel for you and this Vlog series
0:26
that I'm doing is just kind of a
0:28
documentation video wise of My Life as a
0:31
freeze Drive business owner now I do not
0:33
do this full-time I actually have a very
0:36
sustainable side business running my
0:39
freeze-dried business it's called freeze
0:41
dry Depot I've been running it for about
0:43
three years as an owner
0:45
I have a full-time job I've got family
0:47
it's life is very very busy and right
0:50
now it's a beautiful evening in Boise
0:52
Idaho and I am just outside of my
0:55
commercial kitchen that I rent and I
0:57
just wanted to just kind of document
0:59
what tonight is all about well I did
1:02
some blueberries I poked them with the
1:04
roller Berry if you haven't seen that
1:05
video go ahead and check out that it's
1:07
called the number one freeze drying Tool
1:09
uh it's a great video it's been trending
1:11
a lot and I just really love the tool so
1:14
I already finished poking the
1:16
blueberries they've been frozen for a
1:18
while and so I'm back now at the
1:20
commercial kitchen to put them into the
1:22
freeze dryer that's kind of I would say
1:25
the the
1:27
the tough part about being a
1:29
freeze-dried business owner where you
1:31
are renting a commercial kitchen some
1:33
type of restaurant Church something like
1:35
that and you're still doing it as a side
1:38
business now if you're retired
1:40
if you've got your house paid off you've
1:42
got no debt or you're just like going
1:44
for it and you don't really maybe you
1:46
lost your job and you're just like hey
1:48
let's do freeze drying well that is
1:50
awesome for you most people are kind of
1:53
like me hey we're trying to dabble in
1:55
different entrepreneurship type of
1:57
opportunities where we're we're starting
2:00
to freeze dry we've started the business
2:02
or we've been doing it for a while and
2:05
we just have a nice little side business
2:07
earning us some type of income that
2:09
helps complement different types of
2:11
Lifestyles that we want now personally
2:14
for me I have been doing this freeze
2:16
drying business both very large scale so
2:19
I ran a cottage Food business and we had
2:21
five freeze dryers at one time if you
2:24
can believe it and I ran it with a
2:26
friend of mine
2:27
and we had two multiple young kids uh a
2:32
wife significant others we had full-time
2:35
jobs a lot of other things that we
2:37
wanted to do like hobbies and five
2:40
freeze dryers running even with two
2:42
people helping out it's a lot of work
2:45
and if you've been in freeze drying
2:47
before or if you're looking at it
2:48
cutting candy and unwrapping Taffy
2:52
unwrapping Jolly Ranchers cutting all
2:55
those pieces so that they're bite-sized
2:56
and bagging it all that type of jazz
2:59
it it takes a lot of work now it's fun
3:03
and I've talked about you know reasons
3:05
why you should start our business but
3:07
those are just kind of ways in which
3:09
I've documented that it's been a it's
3:12
been an interesting business because you
3:14
you really have to dedicate a lot to
3:16
uh the time commitment and sometimes you
3:20
just don't realize what that time is
3:22
so anyway I'm outside of my commercial
3:25
kitchen and I'm I prep the blueberries
3:28
already well that was previously I
3:31
freezed it and now I'm back again later
3:33
this evening it's about nine o'clock at
3:35
night
3:36
but it's beautiful and my kids are laid
3:38
down for the night so now it's my time
3:40
to work the life of a business owner so
3:43
what I'm going to show you today is well
3:46
on the inside of my commercial kitchen
3:47
just show you kind of what I'm going to
3:49
be doing with the blueberries it's
3:51
really simple I've already started
3:52
pre-freezing the freeze dryer and if
3:55
you're not familiar with Arbor stripe
3:57
freeze dryers and most other freestars
3:59
I've got to stay fresh that I just
4:01
bought
4:01
but you have to pre-freeze the machine
4:04
especially if you've got Frozen
4:06
or pre-frozen type of product so I'm
4:10
pre-freezing the freezer freeze dryer
4:13
I'm pre-freezing the freeze dryer so I
4:15
kind of want to make sure that it's down
4:17
to under 32 degrees and then I'll put
4:20
the actual blueberries on the trays and
4:23
then start the freeze drying process
4:26
now since it's the evening time
4:28
you know typically the freeze dryer
4:32
process for fruit depending on how much
4:35
you put in there I'm going to show you
4:36
how much I put on these blueberries in
4:39
this amount of cycle but typically
4:41
you're looking at about a 24 to even
4:45
upwards of 42 hours for a cycle to
4:48
complete on fruit that's just because
4:50
with fruit specifically has a lot of
4:53
water activity so that freeze drying
4:56
process of removing the water and then
4:58
drying it all is very lengthy
5:00
so it's the evening time
5:03
24 hours from now it's going to be nine
5:05
o'clock on Thursday and then I'm
5:09
probably gonna have to come in the
5:10
morning or Friday evening just with my
5:13
schedule and get the blueberries out so
5:16
you kind of have to find a good Cadence
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I like putting the fruit in in the
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evening time because
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I just kind of have a good system and in
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terms of I'm either gonna wake up early
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get my kids to daycare and then I can go
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stop by the kitchen and get this stuff
5:32
out or I'm gonna have to come in the
5:35
evening just like I am today
5:37
all right so let's go ahead and go into
5:39
the kitchen and
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one thing to know about finding a
5:44
commercial kitchen is I've talked about
5:46
this in my 10 steps that I would take if
5:49
I was starting a freeze drying business
5:50
is that I would look at restaurants I
5:52
would look at actual commercial kitchens
5:54
that are rentable
5:56
commissaries as well as I would look at
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churches and the reason I would look at
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those different areas is because they
6:04
are looking to rent their kitchen out
6:05
for additional income and usually you
6:07
can negotiate a good price now I've been
6:10
asked a lot of times
6:12
how much I pay for my commercial kitchen
6:14
I'm not willing to reveal that reason
6:16
being is you know there's just some
6:18
things that I think you know you have to
6:20
negotiate yourself and it's part of your
6:23
own business strategy so I've been kind
6:27
enough to kind of review a lot of
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different things in my business but
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that's just one of them where I've
6:31
negotiated a good a good price and you
6:33
can do the same I'm not saying it's just
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exclusive to me and I just got in early
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or I got this like sweet deal but it's
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up to you to find in that spot see if it
6:43
works with your number see if it works
6:45
with the distance and location
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um from your house or your work so that
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it's convenient for you to kind of do
6:53
these drop bys just like I'm doing
6:55
because I'm about four to five miles
6:58
away from my house so that's about a 10
7:00
12 minute drive for me that's pretty
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convenient but just like I am tonight I
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left that's 12 minutes then now I'm at
7:09
the kitchen doing this video but if I
7:11
wasn't doing this video that'd be 15
7:13
minutes to 30 minutes to freeze
7:15
pre-freeze that freeze dryer
7:17
so now we're at 45 minutes and then
7:19
you're gonna put in the the fruit and do
7:23
your cycle make sure everything's kind
7:25
of locked up clean things like that so
7:26
you're here for about an hour at least
7:29
and then you're driving home so all in
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all it's about an hour and a half ordeal
7:33
for me labor-wise and time commitment
7:36
so that's one thing that I would suggest
7:38
is make sure you're looking for a
7:39
convenient spot so that you can either
7:42
have it very quick to your home to kind
7:44
of do the ins and outs of candy things
7:47
like that or you know if you have the
7:50
time maybe you do find a really nice
7:52
kitchen that has a really good rate and
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you're just going to dedicate a full
7:56
Saturday or full Sunday or even if you
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work a four day work week you're just
7:59
dedicating all that time so let's go
8:01
ahead and go into the kitchen and I'll
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show you the blueberries and let's just
8:04
get started with showing you my process
8:06
for for that hey I apologize for the
8:09
audio side of things I'm just doing this
8:11
on my iPhone because just the microphone
8:14
wasn't working right so I'm actually
8:15
talking a lot louder than I want to be
8:18
but this is kind of what my kitchen
8:20
looks like that I rent it has everything
8:23
that I need it has the dishwashing so
8:26
that I can get the trays all clean and
8:27
then when you're in a commercial kitchen
8:29
if you didn't know this you're supposed
8:31
to air dry all of your dishes and
8:35
everything you you're not supposed to
8:37
use a towel or paper towels anything
8:39
like that because I could re-contaminate
8:41
what you just washed so I take it out of
8:45
the dishwasher put it over here and have
8:48
this all dried other people use this
8:51
kitchen so that's why there's other
8:52
things here but it's got the sink to to
8:56
do everything with
8:58
um you know I'm this is uh you know an
9:00
area where I can get all the
9:01
sanitization that I need to clean all
9:04
the counters things like that and one of
9:06
the things that I I really was attracted
9:09
to me for this place in particular is
9:11
that they had a stand-up freezer that
9:14
had at least four or five different
9:16
shells that I could do all my food prep
9:19
my food prep and then I could pre-freeze
9:22
that product with all the trays and
9:24
everything so that I can maximize my
9:27
time that I'm in here that I'm paying
9:28
rent every hour and then when I come in
9:31
like this I'm really just not even using
9:35
much of an hour I'm just putting stuff
9:37
into the freeze dryer and and that's
9:39
that's about it at the time that I'm
9:41
renting so let's go ahead and I'll show
9:42
you this uh this freezer
9:46
so in here I've got my blueberries in
9:50
here that are pre-frozen and I've got
9:51
one tray of strawberries now also in
9:54
this kitchen
9:55
um they've got all of this appliances in
9:58
case there was like caters which they
10:00
have occasionally some caters that are
10:01
cut that come in here so they use like
10:04
the stove top and things like that
10:05
they've even got a commercial
10:07
refrigerator over there and then uh and
10:11
then I've got basically my my prep table
10:13
here I've also got my freeze dryer and
10:17
then there's another area that I've got
10:19
another freeze dryer as well so I've got
10:21
two freeze drives in here this is the
10:23
main one that I showcase for all of you
10:25
to do all of my different videos
10:28
that's a large Harvest Right freeze
10:31
dryer all right quick update on my
10:34
business specifically it's called freeze
10:35
dry deep hook you haven't looked it up
10:37
go ahead and look it up it's
10:38
freeze-driedepot.com
10:40
now uh the way I've set up my business
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the reason I say it's a sustainable
10:45
business from for my own kind of side
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hustle side business is
10:49
I've got a couple freeze dryers I've got
10:53
several wholesale clients that are
10:55
consistently buying every single
10:58
month maybe four to six weeks they
11:00
always put an order in
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and then I have like a 50 and sometimes
11:05
I I up it during the holidays to a 75
11:09
product order minimum so they're always
11:12
ordering 50 items and then I also have
11:15
really dedicated myself to making sure I
11:18
have a very strong website search result
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so my website if you're not familiar a
11:24
website has what they call
11:27
uh you have search engine optimization
11:29
within a website so Google as a search
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engine Bing Yahoo all of those websites
11:36
that are searchable for they're
11:38
searching all different types of
11:39
websites almost instantaneously when you
11:42
type in something so when someone types
11:43
in freeze-dried candy Boise freeze dry
11:45
candy Idaho I wanted to make sure that I
11:48
showed up for that and so I dedicated a
11:51
lot of time to make sure that I made
11:54
sure that all of the kind of content the
11:56
pages and the different elements like
11:58
social media things like that all played
12:01
a role in making sure that I came up
12:03
number one or at least at minimum on the
12:06
first page of Google so that everyone
12:08
would go to my website if they're
12:10
searching for freeze drives stunt
12:13
something in Idaho so that's also how
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I've been focusing my business to be
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sustainable is that I get website orders
12:22
from a variety of different people
12:23
because of my search engine optimization
12:26
of where I rank on Google I would highly
12:29
advise that this is a tip during this
12:32
Vlog for you is that if you're watching
12:34
this far into the video my tip is to
12:36
dedicate yourself to understanding
12:38
search engine optimization or a partner
12:41
and pay for someone to help you with
12:43
that because the legwork that you're
12:45
going to put in for your own individual
12:47
website for freeze drying as a business
12:50
is going to be paying back tenfold
12:54
three four five years even 10 years from
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now no matter where you're at if you
12:59
still have the business even as a side
13:01
business or maybe you've grown it
13:02
exponentially you're going to reap the
13:04
rewards of search engine optimization in
13:08
the in the long term so dedicate
13:10
yourself to that there are a lot of
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different ways that you can build that
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you can type into Google and look for
13:15
searches and optimization tips you can
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have someone help you do that for your
13:19
own website or you can do it yourself
13:21
and learn it so I just kind of have a
13:24
background in that so it came kind of
13:26
naturally for me but I still have to
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dedicate myself to understanding new
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Concepts things like that now if you
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don't have a website uh it doesn't
13:34
really work like that right Google does
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rank Facebook pages and Instagram pages
13:40
and YouTube videos
13:43
but it's not as strong as a website
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where Google Sees different content
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meaning a blog post a paragraph images
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things like that that are on a website
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so if you don't have a website I would
13:55
advise you to get one for free using Wix
13:57
Squarespace those types of platforms
14:00
have free options for you freeze dryer
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is pretty much almost to 32 degrees I've
14:07
got the blueberries out that again I've
14:08
already pre-hoped with the rollerberry
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again I use baking sheets to pre-freeze
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and then what I use is I use Reynolds
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freezer paper and I use the shiny side
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up so that it doesn't stick
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and then I put them on the tray so
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that's what we're going to do right now
14:27
and they just go right on the trade now
14:32
the blueberries that I that I bought
14:35
I found a really sweet deal
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and they were only two dollars per
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ounces
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of blueberries so I mean that's just a
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great deal because it was only just a
14:51
couple of months ago even a month ago
14:53
that I had done a YouTube short uh and
14:57
actually I did another video where of my
15:01
Vlog where I went to WinCo and I showed
15:03
you what the prices was it was double
15:05
that price it was four dollars okay so
15:07
that's about how much blueberries is on
15:09
the tray from two cartons of the 18
15:13
ounce cartons of the blueberries
15:16
so I'm videotaping this so normally it
15:18
goes by really fast but this is pretty
15:21
much what I've done I've already done
15:22
all the prep work so if you can have one
15:25
dedicated day to where you're prepping
15:27
you know let's say 15 baking sheets
15:30
worth of blueberries strawberries and
15:32
things like that wow you can really kind
15:34
of just go all you have to do is now in
15:37
your commercial kitchen that you ran or
15:38
you have you're putting all that fruit
15:40
in as for the cycle and then you're done
15:43
then you can walk away the biggest part
15:45
of that was the prepping side and then
15:48
obviously you got your bagging day and
15:49
things like that but if you could really
15:52
maximize all your prep work and then
15:54
you're maximizing amount of time and
15:56
that way you're you're basically getting
15:57
at least three Cycles worth of all that
16:01
fruit man that could that could maintain
16:04
about a week's worth of driving back and
16:06
forth just to only just take the food
16:09
out put it in your buckets put the food
16:12
in take them out that whole process
16:14
that's a whole week's worth and then you
16:16
have the next week that you're doing all
16:18
the prep work it's just it's just you
16:20
got to choose kind of your battles
16:22
and choose what you're dedicating
16:23
yourself to it's really this really is
16:26
the fun part about freeze drying you
16:28
know I've I've stuck to kind of my same
16:30
core fruit
16:31
which is blueberries strawberries
16:34
raspberries
16:36
strawberry banana mix and apples
16:40
and that's kind of my core I don't I
16:43
don't want to have all these different
16:45
types of fruits because it's just more
16:47
time that I have to dedicate to prepping
16:49
them doing different Cycles to make sure
16:51
I have enough
16:58
it's just it's just you got to choose
17:00
kind of your battles
17:02
and choose what you're dedicating
17:03
yourself to
17:06
there's a lot of things to freeze dry
17:09
but again like
17:11
you could either have a core set of 20
17:15
products including candy fruit
17:18
ice cream if you can do it
17:21
or you can try to go
17:23
you know Hog Wild
17:26
and you know do 40 different items but
17:29
I'm telling you you're not you're not
17:31
going to want to do that especially when
17:33
you're looking at different flavors
17:34
things like that just find what works
17:37
well what you'd like to do and stick
17:38
with them all right so the Harvest right
17:40
it was already pre-frozen now I press
17:44
continue and so now it kicks on the
17:47
freezing cycle
17:48
and then you know you don't have to do
17:50
anything more I close the drain valve so
17:53
now it's going to do its whole free
17:55
strike cycle but that is the day in the
17:57
life of a freeze-dried business owner in
18:00
Boise Idaho thanks for watching
18:02
if you'd like to watch more of my Vlog
18:04
series I got it in a playlist on my
18:06
YouTube channel
18:07
if you like the video hit like or
18:10
subscribe I'd love for you to join my
18:12
channel thanks again for all of you who
18:15
contribute to commenting sending me
18:17
emails you guys are all awesome and
18:19
until next time
18:20
do something great in your community
18:21
using your freeze dry business we'll see
18:23
you again next time on the freeze dry
18:25
business Channel cheers
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