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Industrial Freeze Dryers, Interview with Richard Delong | NutriFreeze, CannaFreeze & Botanique
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May 15, 2025
If you are ready to LEVEL-UP your freeze-drying business, industrial freeze-dryers may be on your radar. In episode two of the Creative Freeze-Drying Series, I interview Richard Delong who is the owner and founder of NutriFreeze and CannaFreeze which are divisions of Botanique Preservation Equipment, Inc. We discuss everything from his 30 + tenure in the freeze-drying industry to freeze-drying cannabis. It is a fascinating interview. If you don't have time to watch the entire video, here are several timestamps for topics we covered: 1:19 - Richard's background in Freeze-Drying 3:31 - Botanique Preservation Equipment - Freeze Drying Flowers 8:56 - CannaFreeze - Freeze Drying Cannabis 18:30 - NutriFreeze - Food Freeze-Dryers 26:58 - Is There a Standard for How Freeze-Dryers Should Operate? 29:31 - Why NutriFreeze Dryers vs Other Home Freeze Dryers? 34:52 - When Does It Make Sense to Look at an Industrial Freeze Dryer? 39:24 - Freeze-Dried Food Storage Advice 43:36 - Mistakes to Avoid For Freeze-Drying Businesses 48:08 - Future Outlook for Freeze Drying Candy and the Freeze Drying Industry NutriFreeze, CannaFreeze, & Botanique Preservation Equipment www.botaniquefrzdry.com www.cannafreeze.net www.nutrifreeze.net Social: @cannafreezedry, and @nutrifreezedry.
View Video Transcript
0:00
if you are looking to build a freeze drying business that is unique that's built around creative products that are
0:06
Beyond just freeze drying candy freeze drying ice cream and freeze drying fruit you're going to want to stick around and watch this video because I'm going to be
0:12
interviewing the owner of a freeze dry manufacturer who has built machines that are built to design very unique products
0:18
and scale at large now this series is focused on companies who are in the freeze drying space whether they're
0:24
equipment supplies or their owners of a unique freeze drying company now today
0:29
we're going to be interviewing Richard Delong who is the owner and founder of Nutra freeze as well as two other
0:36
companies botanique preservation freeze drying flowers as well as Canna freeze
0:42
which is freeze drying cannabis and hemp now we're going to be interviewing him and talking about his different freeze
0:48
dryers his whole background is really really interesting just given he's had over 30 years experience doing this now
0:54
if you don't have time to watch the entire hour-long interview go ahead and drop to the video description I've got a
0:59
couple times stamps of different topics I'm also going to be introducing some different segments in other future
1:04
videos related to those topics so be on the lookout for that now let's go ahead and get to the interview and see what
1:10
Nutra freeze botany preservation and can of freeze is all about rich without
1:15
further Ado why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about your company and your background I'm rich D long I
1:22
started a free string business in 1988 in Iowa I purchased a bowling alley that
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had several businesses in it that it one after another gone bankrupt and uh
1:35
so I purchased it on April 1st of 1988
1:41
and when we moved that business to Arizona we actually Incorporated it here in Arizona also on April 1st not exactly
1:48
sure what that really means um but we were really the first company
1:55
in the United States to freeze-dry flowers on a really large scale or
2:03
distribution to Flores Crafts People interior decorators
2:08
and in Iowa we were running 10 large freeze dryers freeze drying about 960
2:17
000 roses a year and 100 other types of items and
2:22
um we had um some pretty tough Winters back there and uh my wife at the time
2:31
um came into my office one morning and she said I'm moving to the Sun Belt you
2:36
can either come or stay and I'm like okay let's talk about this
2:42
over lunch and so she had a sister and brother in Phoenix and it really made
2:48
sense for us to move to a really nice dry climate since we were in the
2:53
freeze-dried flower business and you want to keep everything really dry after it's restart and so we moved here in 94.
3:01
the parent company that we have is botanic preservation Equipment Incorporated and that has not changed
3:08
but we also have added a couple of trade names can a freeze and nutra-freeze a
3:16
Nutra with an eye neutral freeze and in the Cannabis industry and hemp
3:22
Industries we have eight models of machines and in the food industry neutral freeze again
3:29
we have eight models of machines first company botanique preservation
3:35
that company has always concentrated their efforts
3:41
in um free strength flowers and over the course of 30 years I ran
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325 training classes for people from around the world and
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basically trained the entire industry um we still have a botanique
4:00
Distributing equipment into the florist industry and we have three models of
4:06
machines that we distribute into the florist industry I have a young man that actually takes care of a marketing sales
4:14
training takes care of all of that for me so that I can concentrate on califreeze and nutrifice at this time
4:21
oh awesome now let me let me just kind of ask you some questions about this uh botanique uh line so uh for those who
4:29
aren't familiar with freeze drying flowers you know has that been around in
4:35
in terms of people using it as a business how like how long has it been around and and what are some of the
4:40
advantages for freeze drying flowers too most of the people that are in Falcon free strength flowers are actually
4:45
freeze drying but we would consider memory flowers bridal bouquets sympathy flowers maybe anniversary
4:52
flowers okay really and truly predominantly wedding flowers that go
4:58
into shadow boxes or bubble frames you know it's like any industry if you ask is it profitable it's it really depends
5:05
on how you run the business um I uh in the past I've sold freeze
5:10
dryers to people who really did nothing and uh and then we've sold freeze dryers
5:15
to people who even on a part-time basis crank out a hundred thousand plus gross
5:21
a year oh holy cow yeah so if someone came to me and said can you guarantee me
5:27
that I'll be profitable in the freestyle fire business I would say no that's up to you yeah it's it's all on you yeah
5:34
and that's and that's something I actually did a video um and for those who haven't watched that video I did a the truth video I
5:41
just said is is it can you make money with a freeze dryer and I said yes you
5:46
can um and I showed some calculations if you haven't watched the video for those who are watching but I showed some
5:52
calculations of just you know here's your cost of goods sold and then here's what you're kind of left over with but
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the rest of it is really indicative of how you're going to run your business you know how are you going to pay yourself are you going to pay yourself
6:03
are you going to uh how are you going to calculate your power uh Power is
6:09
different electricity is different for everybody you know what type of packaging are you gonna do
6:14
so Prof you know when people say is it a profitable business I think it is but I've I've worked three years to make
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sure that it is and it's sustainable for a side hustle like I do while having a full-time job and so uh yeah and I just
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like asking if it's profitable it's it seems like it is yeah it can be and uh
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it just depends on how uh you dedicate yourself to understanding the business
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and where you can make better margins uh by you know a common things that you
6:46
would need to know with running a business so that's awesome uh I have one client that at one time offered over 600
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choices in the way of bubble frames shadow boxes glass domes glass boxes
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he um has narrowed it down to two sizes of shadow boxes and he's making money
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now yeah I I sometimes it's just keep it simple yeah I I talk about that too you
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know I say that uh one of the things that can really help you understand the business is
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yes there's a lot of things to freeze dry with food and fruit and vegetables
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and even some ice cream as well as these candies that are very trendy but you
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know you know sometimes less is more and you can have a lot of skews well a lot
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of different candies means you have to package all of those you have to have different labels for all those you have
7:41
to have storage for all those you have to have time in your freeze dryer to do those and if you have any you know
7:48
decent lead time from people buying it from you you know you want to deliver on time and when they want it and I just
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think less is more sometimes than just really knowing how to do something very well and then starting to build up the
8:02
product line so wow 600 types of flower cases and just down to two now huh
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really now he's making really good money because he just totally streamlined his
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business yeah and I can see you know and uh you know I can see that too with preservation of
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you know you know flowers that are more you know uh sentimental because uh my
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wife did that for her wedding dress you know it was preserved with a uh free uh a dry cleaning place preserved very well
8:33
and it's in a box and it's you know basically stored for decades if she wants to and we don't have any daughters
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unfortunately uh we've got two boys but you know if if we did you know maybe she wanted to pass that down or whatever but
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preserving that is something that not it's not for everybody but it is for some people who want that sentimental
8:53
side of things yeah absolutely um so talk about the other line uh you
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said cannabis and hemp and uh I actually researched this a couple years ago when I was starting out I kind of saw your
9:04
website a little bit tell me about that that particular line and and what what
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kind of things have you done that's made this kind of an accelerating kind of growth opportunity well you know you
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know we had um a tremendous amount of experience free Shrine Botanicals before we decided
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to enter the Cannabis industry with freeze dryers um at the same time we
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um didn't know everything about cannabis and in fact even today there's more and more
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information coming out about the chemical makeup of cannabis and what
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those chemicals are capable of doing for instance in the medical industry
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um but right away we found that people wanted to preserve uh terpenes or
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fragrances and some of these terpenes are really really volatile
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um so what do you mean by that what's what do you mean by volatile so showing the Cannabis industry you
10:09
really have to control time temperature and vacuum um most of the freeze dryers uh in fact
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maybe all of the freeze dryers that are sold for instance by Harvest right because you're using Harvest Right
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equipment um they don't have vacuum controls on them
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and if you don't have a vacuum control kit installed on a freeze dryer
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you wouldn't be able to use it successfully in the Cannabis industry because everything that you're trying to
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save in the way of taste and fragrance is just going to get vaporized off
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and you're going to end up at the end of the load with um grass and you might as well just go out in your yard and you
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know pick up a handful of grass out of your yard because all the good stuff's
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going to be vaporized off so we never go above 70 degrees in fact we stay under
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70 degrees when we're freeze drying cannabis or hemp and we also don't use
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really deep vacuums we actually don't um you know publish
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what we're doing because over the last several years we've developed algorithms
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for running cannabis and hemp um that make our clients very successful
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and and it's taken a lot of work a lot of effort to develop the algorithm so
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we're just just publish them but we do share them with clients that purchase
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equipment from us and the majority of the equipment that we sell into the
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Cannabis industry in fact all the machines except for two small machines all have computers on them and when we
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go out on site to commission a machine I
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not only train at least two people from their business but I also key in
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algorithms for them to go ahead and run their their equipment now wow they can they can
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change those algorithms if they want to and with a CAT5 data cable
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um they can communicate with me directly in my office or with the factory that builds to my specifications could you
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share a little bit about you know what's the difference between because with hemp and uh cannabis you do dry it uh before
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for sale but what's the difference between freeze drying it and and just
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having it more dried like it's available now at a dispensary things like that well the majority of the product in the
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United States I'm going to save 99.9 or more of the product the United States is
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still simply air dry by hanging it in a room where they're controlling uh
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temperature and humidity and it's air dried for anywhere from 10 to 30 days
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really depends on a lot of different factors um and sometimes one of the electricity
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course is the size of the product and and so while it's hanging there
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um if you walk into one of those drying rooms why the fragrance is just about knocks you over and why is that that's
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because the terpenes that cause that fragrance are actually deteriorating and
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they're actually vaporizing off and
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um so one of the things one of the reasons that people hang their product for so
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long is because they're trying to get rid of the grassy taste the chlorophyll out of the product and what happens is
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the enzymes that break down the chlorophyll are actually deteriorating
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as the product is hanging there and so it takes a really long time sometimes
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for that grassy taste to go away when we freeze dried the product we're now
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freeze drying a product in 24 to 36 hours and some sometimes even less
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um and during the freeze drying process the enzymes that break down the chlorophyll remain 100 viable and at the
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end of the drying cycle when that product is unloaded into an oxygen-rich atmosphere the enzymes go to town and
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within a matter of just a few hours the grassy taste is totally gone we've unloaded loads of product and an hour
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later people who are very knowledgeable about the Cannabis industry are smoking
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the product and there's no grassy taste product doesn't shrink has great color no Browning no yellowing
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um smoke super smooth no grassy taste um what more could you ask for pro
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there's no shrinkage product looks fresh and people talk about the fragrance for instance and the fragrance is not a
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decaying fragrance where it's been hanging for 10 to 30 days it's not that decaying fragrance
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so when you're smoking it it's a live resin fragrance it's the same fragrance
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as the live plant growing in the facility very interesting yeah I
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personally don't smoke but uh but I can see how what you're describing would make a very fresh product versus you
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know that long drying period kind of maybe just kind of removes that fresh
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type of uh activity that you might want uh and that probably a taste and the
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smell and just the overall experience is way different Rich what would you say like is has been the growth in this type
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of particular industry not necessarily your sales per se but just how many
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people are getting into this because you have the the type of freeze dryer for this you know how many people would you
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say are doing this right now is it something that is uh barely even tapped into or is it maturing still a real
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minority of the businesses a lot of people think that they're doing everything absolutely perfectly and
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um and they don't want to change and the people that are actually doing the work
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um of growing the product post-treating post post-harvesting the
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product and all of the people that are really doing the labor
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um feel that their product is perfect and they just don't necessarily want to
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change but the people that own the the premises sometimes the actual investors are
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interested in automating they have to automate they absolutely have to automate
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um when you actually shipping over 20 tons of finished product a year you
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can't be hand trimming that product you can't be hanging it in these massive growing rooms all your profits are just
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getting eaten up we recommend cryo trimming which is very fast using uh using carbon dioxide
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and and basically just flash freezing the little
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sugar leaves and tumbling the product gently for a minute and it looks almost
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hand trimmed almost just a tiny bit of work and it's done
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um cryo trim can go directly into bags and in a freezer when the freeze dryer is available move it into the freeze
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dryer and it really automates everything that's great yeah so the business has
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taken off how many people would you say are doing this right now is that something that you can reveal to us well
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I don't know what my competition is doing but I'm I'm going to say that we're
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still uh way over 90 percent of the product is being air dried a lot of opportunity and we're tapping into that
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on a daily basis uh where can people find out more about the Cannabis uh hemp particular machine what's the name of
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the company you can view our website at canafreeze.net
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okay antifreeze.net it's actually right behind Rich right there on that Banner so can of freeze
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I'm not sure what we're hiding no that's great well I think we could
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probably do a whole segment on on each one of yours uh but let's maybe get to the neutral freeze hey I wanted to cut
18:37
out of the interview real quick to ask you to do two things one hit the like button on this video if you feel the
18:42
content in the interview is good so far it's informative providing good information now number two is to comment
18:47
in this video because I'd love to know if there's other questions that you think I should have asked or maybe just
18:53
spurred some interest into other topics that you want me to ask in the future because I'm planning on interviewing
18:58
Richard in the future for all these three different companies that he's been talking about and just his knowledge of
19:04
the freeze drying space again if you're not a subscriber hit the Subscribe Bell and that way you get notified of future
19:10
videos that I produce out on the creative freeze drying series let's get back to the interview uh side of things
19:16
because you know a lot of us who have been in the buying some Harvest Right freeze drives you know Harvest Right is
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definitely the name out there right now just they are really cranking out a lot of machines but there is a lot of
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competition coming in I personally purchased recently the stay fresh freeze dryer it's got some new technology of
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drying and sensors and things like that uh but it's it's definitely taking off a lot of people freeze drying candy a lot
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of people doing Cottage food type style type of side businesses or even full-time
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and even people are getting much larger operations um and so I wanted to ask you you know
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tell us about neutral freeze and specifically maybe you know what is the
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difference in what sets you apart in terms of what your freeze dryers have to offer versus what is very accessible on
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the home the home freeze to our side like Harvest right well we just placed a couple of units with people who had
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multiple Harvest strikes really and truly there's there's kind of a point at which if your business is is truly
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taking off and growing you could end up with 10 Harvest strikes or 16 Harvest strides yes that really means this you
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have 16 vacuum pumps to think about it 16 sets of electronic controls to think
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about and and so you have a lot of things that can fail really a lot of
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things that could fail um we really believe that there's three kinds of freeze dryers out there there's
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free traders that are manufactured for home use and in your particular case
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it's being used for small business um and then there's commercial freeze
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dryers and then there's industrial and we're industrial at this moment in time everything we sell is industrial and I
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know you've looked at our websites and one of our machines that's fairly small is fifty thousand dollars and why is
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that why is it not five thousand dollars and it's because it's super industrial
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it's meant to be used 24 7 365. we've been placing freeze dryers now in the
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Cannabis and food industry since uh 2019 industrial freezer since
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2019 and we've had one issue where we had to send a tick out only wow that's
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impressive because uh uh as many people who are probably watching this or will watch it in the future uh that is
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definitely something that's happening the issues with the vacuum pumps and the
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mechanical parts of the Harvest Right is definitely something that's deterring people but also it's just uh something
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that we're all if we have Harvest rights like me we're kind of just dealing with it sometimes we get lucky in there the
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machine is running very smoothly and there's very minimal types of fixes to be done but other people have had it
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very common and I I dropped back to more of like a company that really has blown up uh exponentially in
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a very quick amount of years and the quality control just isn't what they're able to manage for how many they're
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trying to get out into the consumer space and and so I I just recognize that
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that's a company like Harvest Right who is very quickly uh developing products
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and just pushing them out the door and the quality control has been impacted by
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that type of speed and so the mechanical parts and things like that just isn't what it probably was when they first
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started where you know they could definitely make sure every single one was going out right
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um and so I think that's where competition comes in and now you have choices and things like that so it's
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nice to hear that you have a very a very low rate of mechanical issues I have a
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company in Europe that builds everything to my specs and um the owner of that company many years
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ago um came to the conclusion that it's way better to over build and have zero
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issues in the field than it is to try to cut corners and and try to you know
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compete with everybody on price and then have issues in the field and so our
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warranty issues are nil yeah and what it what is your warranty
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on a freezer machine it's one of your parts and labor um but the other thing is
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we never run and hide you know I'm here and I take calls all
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day long I'm working I'm working with people that have been clients of mine in the floral industry for well over 20
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years and um so we always do our very best to make
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sure that people are successful and that they don't have issues okay um there's always going to be issues if you have a
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machine for 20 plus years there's going to be issues we try to help people work through those
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about uh NSF is kind of a standard for you know stainless steel like commercial
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grade industrial type of equipment is is your equipment like uh certified in that
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type of sense where that type of NSF type of certification
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is is good for FDA like if someone very very few of my audience right now as it
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stands is probably in that space But it's probably good to know um in terms of
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the FDA wanting that type of type of equipment in your kitchen so
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everything that a product can touch the specimen chamber the shelving the trays
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is all 304 stainless steel food grade stainless steel now if someone is going
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to do something that we know is medical and we and we talk about this right up front with everybody if you're doing
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something that's actually medical grade then the trays that we provide are 316
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stainless so they're pharmaceutical grade we don't even charge extra for it we just take care of it
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um one of the reasons that our equipment is more expensive is with
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most of the home freeze dryers that are out there in fact I think everything and we we research continually we research
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um and there's a half dozen companies that are coming online right now to compete with Harvest Right
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um because they they see that market and it's a really big market and um and so
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there's at least six companies that we're aware of that are coming online within the next few months that are
25:54
going to compete with Harvest Right we're not going to be in that market with industrial free Strikers
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um they're using um electric heating pads to set the
26:07
trays on and what we're doing is we're using uh stainless steel shelves they're
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welded in place that have hollow grooves in them and we're forcing liquid
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silicone through those Hollow shelves at a very high velocity
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so that we have less than one degree C difference in temperature anywhere on
26:30
the Shelf wow it costs a lot of money it's a lot it's yeah between between
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you know building that and putting a heating pad in place to a big difference
26:45
a huge difference um what what sorry sorry to I would like you to
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expand on that because it actually Drew from a question I had prepared for you which is you know is there kind of a
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standard for for the drying process within freeze drying in your experience because
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people who own a freeze dryer like me who just are getting into it three years ago who own a freeze dryer like Harvest
27:11
Right you know we're just you know there's a lot of like myths and kind of
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uh perceptions out there in terms of if the freeze drying processes if if
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there's a standard for freeze drying or are we just supposed to press start and let the Harvest Right freeze dryer run
27:28
and as long as it has low moisture content with a moisture meter or if it
27:34
seems dry through some testing they don't like it's good to go is there kind of a standard and like is is your method
27:41
the the right way you know how do you how do we know that well there's actually machines that are
27:47
more sophisticated than what we sell in the pharmaceutical industry
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um there are companies that uh you know have been out there since um in the 1960s and they've developed
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incredibly sophisticated pieces of equipment
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um in the pharmaceutical industry for instance um
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it's extremely necessary to process using recipes that are tried and true
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and you can't deviate from it or it might destroy an entire load of medicine for instance
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that builds for us also builds Pharmaceutical one of the and and a lot of that really
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sophisticated technology um isn't being used down the chain for
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it that's necessarily in food or floral or Taxidermy or in other Industries
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because it's not necessary and it's really expensive
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and so um people do ask um is there something that's more
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sophisticated are are people developing newer techniques and you know for free
29:05
strike it's all it's all been developed believe me it's all developed it's just costly and so you don't see it in a
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harvest right you don't see it in a Harvest Right anywhere close to the technology that's in a pharmaceutical
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machine cost yeah so when it comes to food when it
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comes to nutri-freeze you know um your industrial type grade of a
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freeze dryer now I notice that you have kind of the same capacity as a large Harvest Right freeze dryer and I know
29:37
that I can do 12 to 14 pounds of product in about 36 hours sometimes longer depending on
29:45
the heat in the area that I'm in and yours is about the same maybe 24 to 36
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hours is what you say um so for someone who would want to look
29:55
into your freeze dryers what are those things that they need to check off in their business to say I need to pursue
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these type of freeze dryers that are more costly you are a significantly
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higher than Harvest Right but what what type of boxes does someone need to check to say
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neutral freeze is the type of freeze dryer I need to start looking at okay the two smaller freeze dryers that we
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have um are really designed to go into research labs
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uh for a company that involved in the
30:31
food industry and they need a research unit for a whole new line of product that they're developing and so that's
30:38
what those two small units are are that the least expensive is fifty thousand dollars and and you're absolutely
30:45
correct it doesn't have a lot of production potential but it doesn't need to because it's being built as a
30:51
Research Unit so I wouldn't expect any of your clientele to even consider buying debt
30:57
unit now the our model uh FC 12.5 is a really
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nice unit that you can move from several Harvest rights into that unit and you
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can run it 24 7 365 and it has good production capabilities and what's the
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cost of that one as it stands today in 2023 yeah so um I don't have everything
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memorized so I'm gonna it's perfectly fine I just know you know five years
31:27
from now somebody's gonna look it up and I don't want them to to uh say like well you said this then but in 2023 yeah what
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could someone purchase that for so we're 85 500 plus creating custom creating and
31:41
shipping normally ocean from our Factory in England okay Factor like I say the bills for my
31:48
specs this unit I helped design from the ground up it's it's very very new to us and we design we
31:57
designed this machine for One customer but it's going to be a great machine for
32:02
a lot of other customers but we designed it for one customer in Detroit and this
32:07
is this is the size he wanted and we made it happen or 85.5 okay it has tremendous
32:15
capabilities um it uh has uh the hollow shelves that
32:22
are welded in place High Velocity silicon flowing through a
32:27
um this particular unit uh does not have a computer screen on the side of it but
32:33
it has some pretty sophisticated uh controls with four temperature probes
32:38
that go directly into the product okay so you said re this is for someone who
32:45
needs to research developing a product the 12 the 12.5 is uh is something that
32:52
a lot of people are going to purchase the smaller units that we we refer to as Malta dryers are just research on it
32:59
okay but the 12.5 is is a terrific unit and if you have a few Harvest rights and
33:05
you're having issues um you're not going to have an issue with the 12.5 it's just going to set third and run day after day after day
33:13
and and that 12.5 was the 85 85.5 exactly and then from from that point we
33:20
we actually double in size to our model fc25 from a 12.5 to a 25. and on a 25
33:30
um you can put 55 pounds of product in it um and uh freeze dry it in really 16 to
33:37
24 hours we claim 24-36 we really don't know what you're going to put in it and
33:43
so we're going to say 24 to 36 but with food you're going to be 16 to 24 hours and then we go up in size you know and
33:50
as you're very aware of from that point we go using uh conductive heat energy we go up
34:00
in size using radiant heat energy and we um
34:06
we go up to some really big boys the largest unit that we would typically Place does 1100 pounds in 24 to 36 hours
34:15
really 16 to 24 1100 pounds of food now that's our fcr 500 right now at the
34:24
factory we're building three fcr 1500s which will do 3 300 pounds of food
34:33
every 16 to 24 hours so if you want to scale up from your 250 Harvest rides
34:40
I mean really and truly it it it's uh it's a whole different ball game but
34:45
this is um the three that we're building right now are for very large companies
34:51
that manufacture dog food and I would probably say you know for those of you who you know heard a 85 5 type of price
34:58
85 500 and you're looking at it for those for those of everyone who's watching who has 12 15 maybe even 20
35:06
Harvest Right freestars that does seem like a lot but think about how much time you're spending coordinating the top the
35:14
the the the production of those freeze dryers maintenance of all those pumps
35:19
changing oils making sure the error messages are fixed making sure you're changing out all the trays all of that
35:28
it's kind of like me I I hand stamp my bags right now that I product I do my
35:33
product right it I haven't reached the threshold yet to have them printed for me
35:39
um because I can just I know I can do it really quickly and the just the the money that I would save hasn't quite
35:46
equated to the time I would I would say it I think that is different when it comes
35:51
to I know personally with three freeze dryers um how much time I'm spending washing
35:58
trays uh the error messages all of those different things and uh it could save a
36:04
lot of people out of money I think it's maybe the one or two percent of freeze dryers right now at freeze-dried businesses but man take a look at
36:12
neutral freeze if you are not um if you are kind of in this placement
36:17
because it will at least take your interest of seeing where the payback would come and breaking even and uh Rich
36:23
I've even known when I looked at your uh botanique uh refreeze dryers back
36:29
when I was first researching in 2019-2020 is you actually do have a calculator to show the the profitability
36:36
and the kind of the break-evens of those things so um I think your company would really help understand when that profitability
36:43
would come or that break even after purchasing one of your dryers Um well hey we just did a show uh sorry
36:51
we just did a show um back in Oklahoma and it was a cannabis show
36:57
um and uh we sell it uh an FC 12.5 into the Cannabis industry also and we had a
37:06
gentleman come by our booth they have 16 Harvest rights and he's doing Edibles in
37:11
the Cannabis industry and I just said to you how many are actually running at this point in time he goes eight so he
37:17
has half of them there wow and uh and as uh as we were packing up to leave he
37:23
came by our booth and said write me up for a 12.5 yeah and and I wouldn't say
37:29
it's a knock on harvest right because I think you're right when you said a little bit a while ago that there's three types of freeze dryers I think the
37:36
home freeze jar is what Harvest Right is focusing on but if there's a lot of people that are like me who are getting
37:44
it and making it into a business and there's a certain amount of you know threshold that you got to decide you
37:51
know what's your what's your capacity for dealing with troubleshooting machines and maintenance and look at
37:58
that you know that guy has 50 percent of his machines stopped right now like dealing with production issues you know
38:05
um that's just a lot to deal with and I can see why he wanted you to write up in order
38:12
we're really not out there to you know to not competition at all and
38:17
um Harvest Right obviously has been very successful so yeah you know thousands
38:22
thousand tens of thousands probably of uh of small free shares I agree um
38:27
yeah so they've been very successful um I think um what you said about
38:33
the number of machines that they're actually shoving out the door compared
38:38
to early on uh probably has some Credence I didn't say it you said it yeah well I'm just I just uh I I study
38:47
business I kind of see how it goes so uh I'm fine with that but I own freeze I own Harvest right and I'm gonna I'm an
38:55
affiliate of harvest right so I do promote that people buy that if they're starting out as a freeze-dried business
39:03
um you know it's just kind of probably that one to two percent that are needing to upgrade to something like you that it
39:09
makes a lot more sense um thank you I've got a couple more questions rich and then we'll we'll wrap
39:14
up this uh one and for those of you watching I think you're gonna really like these next couple of questions uh
39:20
to continue watching this video but Rich could you tell us in your experience that this freeze drying industry you
39:25
know is there a proper way to store freeze-dried food um and especially if there's any tips
39:31
you have that you've seen from some of your customers customers how do you probably how do you properly
39:37
store freeze-dried product to eventually bag but also what's the proper way to
39:42
store it for a one to two year kind of consumption period you know that's where
39:48
a lot of us are at is we do shows or we need to store product for the holidays
39:54
coming up as later this year do you have any insight that you'd like to share with us that could help us we know a lot
39:59
about freeze dry but packaging is really not our uh wheelhouse but um over the
40:07
years I have seen that if you're storing bulk
40:14
food you can use five gallon buckets and um and I saw that you do that use
40:21
five gallon buckets with the special screw off lid that has a Rubber seal in
40:26
it I believe you're also using oxygen scrubbers
40:32
um what I would be tempted to do if I were going to store it for very long
40:38
is possibly use the same kind of bucket maybe a five gallon bucket with that
40:44
special lid that screws on with a nice seal but I probably would actually flood
40:49
the bucket with nitrogen with nitrogen gas and then go ahead and
40:55
put and screw the lid on really tight that way you know that you can store really for a long period of time and you
41:03
really truly don't need to even worry about oxygen scrubbers at that point now what happens if I unscrew the lid and
41:10
you know need to package it but I want to I only package half of what's in the bucket what do I can I just refill it
41:17
and you do the nitrogen again or would it could or would it ruin the product no
41:23
you certainly could do that I saw that being done in llds community
41:30
um at the large food banks that the uh Mormon Community has the LDS Community
41:36
um they definitely use um nitrogen to top off the five gallon buckets and
41:43
normally they're just hammering a lid on to the five gallon bucket for storage or
41:49
three gallon or whatever size bucket yeah I personally that's a good point I
41:54
I think the storage I think I've nailed down it's terms of the the bags individually you know a lot of what's
42:01
being purchased is ones that have Windows because visually marketing wise you can see the product and things like
42:07
that and it sells well but the the shelf life of that is very low in uh
42:12
especially in very dry humid climates is uh it just there's a lot of especially
42:18
human um you know there's just a lot of uh chances that oxygen can get in
42:24
through the window and the the type of thickness of the bag and so I've kind of found a sweet spot for my shelf life of
42:32
my craft mylar bags uh well they're not my alarm they're just crap bags but basically I think that's the kind of a
42:39
thing that I think everyone's trying to figure out is what's the best way to for short-term storage of the packaging
42:44
versus storing the bulk product but I think I've got it right that uh according to what your experience is so
42:51
yeah and if you and if you want to buy if you know some of those Lids I've got some links in this video description if
42:57
you want to buy some of the buckets with the gamma seal Lids that have that Rubber seal
43:02
um hey is there Rich could you give us also is there any mistakes that you've seen
43:08
from some people who have even bought your freeze dryers or you've met at different conferences like what's
43:14
a common Pitfall that people maybe should try to avoid or that you've seen that we
43:19
could kind of learn from your experience on um and it doesn't necessarily have to be
43:25
related to you know specifically freeze drying cannabis or freeze drying flour things like that but just for the business of
43:32
freeze drying what what's one thing that we could learn from your experience over the years is um can I run this business
43:39
out of my garage and I'm sure you've heard that a lot yeah we're in this business out of my
43:46
garage well the thing is a freeze dryer really is a piece of laboratory
43:51
equipment really and truly even the Harvest rides commercial freeze dryers our industrial freeze dryers their
43:58
laboratory pieces of equipment even the biggest machines that we have laboratory equipment so
44:05
um so when people are just entering the industry and they say can I run this out of my garage I think you need to ask is
44:12
your garage insulated sheetrocked do you have is it climate controlled uh is it
44:20
heated in air conditioned and if it's in some areas like let's say across the
44:26
deep Southeast do you have a dehumidifier and because you really need to put that
44:34
freeze dryer in a climate controlled facility and so that'd be like the first thing I
44:40
would say is find you know find out where's this machine going to be is it
44:45
going to be in the kitchen is it going to be in a garage um yeah where is it going to be
44:52
um the other thing uh that just fails in
44:57
the free straight industry if it's not taken care of properly is the vacuum pump and so
45:06
um sometimes we in the florist industry and a lot of the older machines that are
45:12
out there in the florist industry we just hear from people and it's like yeah we hate vacuum pumps
45:19
because they've been out there for a really long time even really high quality vacuum pumps like
45:25
from Welsh or Edwards or leibold or Pfeiffer really high quality vacuum
45:32
pumps need to be taken care of I tell people you take care of that vacuum pump like it was your baby check it every
45:40
single day check the clarity of the oil um if the oil is milky it needs to be
45:47
changed if the oil is Rusty it needs to be changed probably need to flush that pump if the oil looks the least bit
45:54
Rusty for instance um but that that's one of the one of the
46:02
you know fail points is people just not taking care of a vacuum pump
46:07
oh that's great vacuum pumps in your industry I think have missed filters on them I don't think most people vent the
46:14
vacuum pump to the exterior of the building um and so you have missed filters well
46:20
Mist filters are there there of course for a reason to catch any oil Mist that comes off of the pump
46:27
and and misfilters are going to need to be drained on a regular basis and if you
46:32
start smelling oil then the filter that's inside of the Mist filter element
46:37
needs to be changed but you know those are a couple of things that I see is
46:43
where are you going to put this and how are you going to take care of it yep and the Harvest Right for a lot of us we
46:48
have a premium pump which has that mister on it and um now they they say that you can you can go about 20 to 30
46:56
Cycles running that uh without having to change the oil I do believe that in the if you're doing Candy if you're not if
47:03
you're doing something more longer cycle like fruit and things like that is taking longer than 24 hours you probably
47:08
need to shorten that about half change it out every maybe five to ten Cycles
47:14
but yeah I can also see why having larger and larger freeze dryers and a
47:20
smaller amount of them can really benefit so you're not having to do all these changes right but uh but great
47:26
great advice yeah I think that's a that's really helpful thank you for sharing that
47:32
um yeah um and I think just my my only my last question that I've been asking in this
47:38
series to talking with freeze drying business is is you know where do you see the freeze drying industry headed you're
47:44
obviously very entrepreneurial Innovative you have three different types of freeze-drying kind of sectors
47:50
but you know have you in your all your experience is this industry like craze
47:56
and this trend of a lot of people getting into it is this exciting and what you know what are you looking
48:02
forward to and what do you think is going to happen to the freeze drying industry uh in the United States
48:07
specifically well in free straight candy for instance there's a lot of people in
48:12
it like yourself that have one or more machines and normally small machines
48:20
um and doing a really nice job nice packaging everything's really really terrific
48:26
um recently um the company um uh in Europe that builds for me uh
48:33
sold in fc50 in an FC 100 for candy so this is all this is a lot of candy this
48:41
is a tremendous amount of candy um so they saw you so they sold an 1100 pound one for and a 3 000. they showed
48:50
uh the largest one was uh FC100 and an FC100 well process a minimum of 220
48:59
pounds of candy per run and that's going to be um twice a day
49:05
yeah they're gonna run it twice a day so they're gonna do 440 pounds minimum of
49:12
candy per day with that unit so here's what I see happening I see these large
49:18
companies like Frito-Lay or Mars or some of these other companies that are
49:24
watching all this happen coming to us and saying we want to buy some of your really big industrial
49:31
equipment and they're going to flood the market and you're going to walk into every supermarket and every
49:38
um little mini market in the United States and their product is going to be there yep and and they're going to try
49:45
their best to put you out of business well uh yeah that's it's definitely not the hope that everyone uh wants to for
49:52
the words that ever nobody wants to hear uh but you know I think it's on the tip of everybody who's smart enough to
49:57
understand that yeah that these large companies you know people like me who are buying Skittles who are buying some
50:04
of these brand name uh uh candies it's great business for them because they're selling a ton of product but they're
50:10
wondering why and and that but that was several years ago they they now know why
50:16
people are they're seeing this increase in sales and and they are going to do that and I think
50:24
nobody would people would be stupid to to not know that and they are they are
50:30
going to do that and that's why this interview this type of Channel exists
50:36
because I want to provide opportunities for people to think Beyond just the candy candy is fun I think people will
50:44
still be able to sell to your small local Boutique shops that want to sell local freeze-dried candy or someone who
50:50
makes the candy who's local I think you're always going to have that but for someone who wants to get into a
50:57
Wholesale Distributor who is local or maybe is regional and you have that contract right now you are probably
51:04
going to get squeezed out eventually and so you need to Pivot and think about what's the long-term play here within
51:10
the probably the next two to three years and I think it's going to come from Finding Your specific Niche finding your
51:16
target audience getting into cannabis getting into some some larger fruit
51:22
making getting into building a recipe that's unique using freeze-dried types of products I think everyone needs to
51:29
think about that and so I think that that's great that you bring it to the audition it may not be the the words that everyone wants to hear but uh don't
51:37
go crazy buying a bunch of freeze dryers if you don't have a good business strategy
51:43
um to also now you're going to have a lot of equipment and you're dependent on freeze drying Skittles you know Mars is
51:49
Mars Wrigley is coming and they're going to flood the market uh for that but
51:54
there's still plenty of opportunity to sell it at local places and your farmers markets don't don't cap that those out
52:00
but yeah I agree with you um the same thing's gonna happen in cannabis at some point in time yeah the
52:07
massive pharmaceutical companies are setting back right now just watching what's happening and
52:13
um you know cigarette companies and these really large global companies are sitting back watching and
52:20
um right now it's still considered an illegal product a schedule one product
52:26
in the United States a schedule one drug um when that changes
52:32
and the the fair Banking Act happens
52:37
then the big boys are going to step into cannabis and so
52:43
um you know we see it we see it in other Industries yeah yeah um and I and you know what it's
52:50
good it's good for the industry that the big boys are gonna be there but there's always going to be the small niches the
52:56
small companies that are going to be different and you take a look at yes
53:01
there's the behemoths like Target and Walmart and Costco and things like that but why do you think you know small
53:08
local shops like we have Boise Co-op here in Boise Idaho sure they have they have two locations and they are similar
53:15
to Whole Foods but they're local to the local area and they have a great base of
53:20
cus clientele and that they're very unique in that and I just want that's I think that's what's unique about
53:25
anything is everyone that's what's great about America is capitalism is working
53:31
it's giving everyone opportunity to build a business that the big dogs are in or going to be in and you just have
53:38
to be smart in business and start talking to people even like myself who can help you strategize and and and even
53:45
Rich here with neutral freezes hey help help you kind of guide you in maybe your
53:50
long-term plan for a freeze drying business um rich I want to thank you for attending this uh this video uh series
53:58
um we're at the freeze Drive business Channel we're really here to connect the freeze drying business industry with the tools and the resources needed to grow a
54:05
sustainable business a sustainable business is one that really works well with your lifestyle both uh in work and
54:12
in personal life just build it to something that maintains just the goals that you want to achieve
54:17
uh thanks again for coming where can people find out more about your company I know you said neutral freeze and the
54:22
can of freeze behind you but where can people find out more about you sure um on um
54:29
you can always find us at botanique and um and of course like uh can a freeze
54:36
and nutra-freeze um on social you can find us at Cana
54:41
freeze dry a Nutra freeze dry neutral with an eye so you can always find us on
54:49
Facebook and Instagram well thanks a lot and yeah and if you haven't subscribed already the freeze red business Channel
54:54
go ahead and hit subscribe in the video description of this video I'm going to include some links directly to uh the
55:01
the websites that rich outlaid here as well as some other information so take a look at that and uh and reach out to
55:08
Rich if you're interested so thanks a lot Rich for your time thank you thank you
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