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Freeze-Drying in Latin America with Two Guys & A Cooler
3K views
May 15, 2025
Find out what other entrepreneurs are freeze-drying in countries outside of the United States. In this episode of the Frozen Assets series, I interview the owner and YouTube star of ‘Two Guys & A Cooler’ who is transforming his frozen meal business in Panama over to a freeze-drying business that includes candy, meals, and dog treats. This 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 successful companies in the freeze-drying space. #freezedrying #panama #freezedriedfood Time Stamps: 6:15 - YouTube & Social Media Impact on His Business 9:51 - Freeze-Dried Businesses in Panama 13:12 - Humidity Impacts on Freeze-Drying in Panama 19:10 - Running a Food Business in Panama vs U.S.A 23:30 - Why Did Eric Buy a Freeze Dryer? 25:56 - Protesting + Covid Pandemic + Food Preparedness 29:30 - Freeze-Dried Products 32:48 - Why Freeze-Dried Pet Food? 36:50 - Trending Products in Panama 42:55 - Freeze Dryer Brands & Shipping Internationally 47:19 - Is Freeze-Drying Profitable? Here are episodes of the Frozen Assets series - Episode 1 Sweet Potato Awesome: https://youtu.be/TySH666DmjE - Episode 2 Nutri-Freeze Dry: https://youtu.be/hztAakmnO8M - Episode 3 Yo's Fro Yo Bites: https://youtu.be/ebQQEHz64yM - Episode 4 Parker Freeze Dryers: https://youtu.be/1jqGP7xldGs
View Video Transcript
0:00
if you're curious if people are freeze drying in other countries besides the United States where it seems to be taking off in freeze-dried candy well
0:06
you're in for a special treat because I just interviewed a freeze-dried business entrepreneur in the country of Panama he
0:13
has a YouTube channel and a freeze drying business called two guys in a cooler he's an excellent Chef he's been
0:20
doing it for a long time making frozen meals and now with the advancement technology in home freeze drying he's
0:26
purchased himself several freeze dryers over the past year and he's seeing a lot of success freeze drying as frozen meals
0:32
fruits and pet food that you're really going to want to pay attention to in this interview this full interview is
0:38
fairly lengthy so I've included a couple of timestamps of different topics that we covered down in the video description
0:43
below and if you're interested in becoming an entrepreneur yourself go ahead and check out the whole playlist
0:49
of all different interviews that I've done featuring freeze drying entrepreneurs as well as other manufacturers and equipment in the
0:55
freeze drying space let's get to the interview and I'll introduce you to Eric at two guys and a cooler I'm talking
1:01
with Eric who's located in a different country than the United States for most of the entrepreneurs I've been talking
1:07
to and he's now venturing into the freeze drying side of his business which is very exciting that's why we want to
1:13
talk to him Eric welcome to the Freez drying business Channel and our podcast
1:18
series why don't you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and uh why you're getting into the freeze
1:24
drying space well first of all hey David I've been a fan for quite some time thanks for having me on your show super
1:30
excited about that and and yeah we do live in Latin America and we've been here for about 15 years and you know
1:37
it's kind of strange how we got into the freeze dried business because it kind of segued to our our natural business we
1:42
started a freezer meal business about 15 years ago and uh we would you know kind
1:50
of found like this niche in the market where people wanted food from back home
1:57
but uh but they couldn't really get it because the ingredient are difficult to find and so on and so forth and so yeah we started a small family freezer Mill
2:05
business and we from that business basically we were able to kind of like
2:10
add on uh certain elements to it right whether it's whether it's dog treats or whether it's you know soap making or or
2:16
whatever it was it it kind of gave us an Avenue to be creative under this sort of cottage industry uh license that we have
2:24
here in this country and about a year ago maybe a little bit longer than a year ago about two years ago people
2:30
started asking about freeze dried food right and uh it's a it's a bizarre
2:37
experience to uh go into a market where there's not really any competition
2:44
probably because freze dryers aren't very cheap and um here in Panama it's
2:49
just not a common business and so we started exploring the idea of of adding
2:54
you know High valued freeze-dried meals basically the meals that we were already making in the freezer meal version and
3:03
because we make them in such large quantities we thought you know what it might be a good idea to just kind of kind of take a portion of those meals
3:10
and set them to the side and freeze dry them and then offer those same meals that people are already familiar with
3:16
they love them they know the flavor and things like that it's it's not like it's new to them and offer them in in
3:21
long-term storage you know presentations whether it's for one person or two people or things like that and that was
3:27
kind of the beginning of it so we started to kind play around with you know what the market looked like and uh
3:33
how can we make something like that happen we uh originally reached out to harvest R and and harvest R got it
3:39
Square it up with the right size unit for the size uh business that we had at
3:44
that time it was a large model and you know it's as you probably are well aware
3:49
you know it can quickly escalate and it can quickly get to a place where you go wow we've kind of outgrown one large
3:56
unit and maybe we need now two or three large units and so what started as an Endeavor into
4:03
freeze drying dinners that we already had available for our customers um people started asking about desserts and
4:11
treats and candies and and things like that and you got to remember this is a novel thing for this country this it's
4:17
not something that's you know you if someone in this country Googles that then um they're being taken to stores in
4:24
America right it just doesn't exist in this country or if it does it's it's not very well known
4:30
and so we realized very quickly that we had something special and and we probably don't have it special for very
4:35
long because eventually you know more people are going to see the opportunity and they're going to try to capitalize
4:41
on it which I don't blame them it's a great opportunity and so you know we went from meals to
4:46
candies uh and the candies has been an interesting experience we could talk a little bit more about that later uh and
4:52
then we started to do uh dog treats we have two Italian Mastiffs we feed them a
4:58
raw diet and we thought hey let's freeze dry certain elements of their food so that we could give them snacks and as
5:04
soon as people started hearing we were doing freeze Dy chicken necks and liver and and uh chicken bites and all kinds
5:10
of Oregon meat and things like that it completely went berserk and now people started asking more about um buying
5:18
freeze stride dog treats which presented a completely different opportunity and so we didn't think it was going to be
5:24
nearly as as um I don't know as well accepted I guess as as it was because
5:32
you know there's a lot of unknowns when you kind of go down that road how do I price it how do I Source the the
5:38
materials necessary in order to to do it right like you don't want to come at it you know 50% you want to come at it 100%
5:45
and um and yeah although you know sourcing all the materials has been challenging the the people here have
5:52
been absolutely extraordinarily uh like Wide Open Arms with the product and it's
5:57
just been great but I also think that you know we price it fair which I think is critical in a in a good business and
6:04
and the product is good so two guys in a cooler is that your business or is that
6:09
just the name of your YouTube channel okay so yeah when we got here about 50 years ago I'm about to tell you this is
6:16
like breaking news kind of stuff my audience doesn't even know what I'm about to tell you I haven't haven't
6:21
technically done two guys in a cooler revealed party as to how how we origined our name because it it doesn't
6:27
necessarily make sense the content that's on our YouTube channel so when we came here 15 years ago we would attend
6:34
local markets and we would bring some of the different things that we had whether it was organic lettuce or you know
6:41
different freezer meals at that time we were making deep dish Chicago pizzas and whatnot and there was a situation where
6:48
a woman who there was like a big fundraiser that happened at that time once a year and and she would come
6:55
around to all the the vendors and ask for donations and we gave her a donation
7:01
and she saidhe your name will appear in this publication what's the name of your business and and honestly it kind of
7:07
took us by surprise we didn't because we were just honestly we were just two guys
7:12
with an ice chest that had the things that we were selling in it and it was freezer meals and and we had bagels and
7:19
things like that and so we told the lady we said you know uh we don't have a business name it's we're literally just
7:26
two guys in the cooler and she said great I'll I'll jot that down as your business and the local community uh sort
7:34
of found it super catchy and and they they sort of that's how they recognized it so at that time it was me and my my
7:40
son who's 25 years old now at that time he was you know 11 or 12 years old a long time ago and um and and people
7:49
started to know us as the two guys in a cooler who had the food that would come to the market uh the Youtube channel was
7:56
started later the YouTube channel has only been around for about five or six years and that was kind of a way for me
8:02
to creatively um Channel my obsessive
8:08
compulsiveness you know experiment with food and experiment with shery and experiment with the different things that we do that don't necessarily make
8:15
it to Market so to speak and so we started to funnel all of those videos uh
8:20
and the the library of of videos on our channel is just a collection of basically everything that we're into and
8:26
so at any given moment it could change right now we're doing a lot of freeze drying but you know tomorrow we may be
8:32
making cotton candy like it's who knows yeah that's kind of how it started have
8:38
you found that YouTube has helped actually grow your sales for just your business in general and your brand and
8:44
things like that or is it more of just a hobby that you enjoy you know video
8:50
capturing what you're doing in your life and it's a fun fun thing to do that's a tricky question because as the channel
8:56
gets bigger and it reaches a bigger audience um the international audience
9:01
doesn't really know the nature of my local business and and so sure it's kind
9:07
of crazy but you know every week someone from South Africa is trying to get you know a meal or or or a bag of dog treats
9:13
or or some sort of free stried candy because I hear about it and they they contact me through through the channels
9:18
that they find me in um but locally strangely enough the the local Town
9:24
knows me as the freezer meal guy they most people here don't even realize that I have a YouTube Chann CH and so we're
9:31
we're more locally known as the family that feeds a community but internationally known uh it it's it's
9:37
quite the opposite and so although there has been some cross crossover um it you
9:42
know for the most part it it I guess it's not very relevant because what we do here is is very isolated to a small
9:50
community tell us about what's going on in Panama or at least in your little local town where you're this freeze
9:57
dryer guy now I know that there's several other people that own free dryers uh some have recently bought
10:03
freeze dryers because of of what we do and they' they've been inspired to to start freeze drying either their own
10:09
there's a lot of farms where we live and there's a lot of dairy and there's a lot of fruit production and so local local
10:15
people have said hey that's a great way to preserve our our Harvest and and so you know people are doing it independently now whereas they they
10:21
might not have been doing it before people who had freeze dryers uh before
10:27
me used it they they were very tiny and they used it for like personal personal use only
10:34
and so for for us coming to market with the product um it's a it's a first nobody nobody's really kind of gone down
10:41
that road and and you know we hit a lot of different markets with the freeze
10:46
dryer so it's not just like long-term food storage but we also do pet we also do candy another interesting thing is
10:54
that the more people know we have a freeze dryer especially businesses the the more they reach out to us asking
11:00
whether or not we could provide our freeze dryer as kind of like a a service
11:06
right hey we'll we'll rent out our freeze dryer to free dry their product
11:11
or or or we'll charge them for the service of freeze drying their already made product which is a kind of like an
11:19
unexpected business opportunity actually uh the the local the local ice cream
11:24
shop uh wanted to have a different presentation of his ice cream which is really good and and he wanted to have a
11:30
freeze Drive version same thing with the different fruit places and so it's it has it has really kind of exploded in
11:36
the sense that um it's so new people are are kind of gravitating to it as kind of
11:43
a cool way to introduce their existing product in a new way and being that we're one of the only ones that have
11:49
kind of said hey we're doing this thing commercially they're reaching out to us which is kind of like flooding it's
11:54
almost I hate to say this but it's almost like overwhelming like it's too much we have to we have to say okay
12:00
we're not in a position right now to handle that kind of capacity you know so we try to turn other people onto buying
12:06
their own freeze yeah I think that's common across the board for people who
12:12
are running a freeze drying business you have like one two maybe three then your
12:17
commercial um where you maybe have several and you've got a lot of different people asking you one you're
12:24
trying to keep up with your own wholesale Partners or just Direct to Consumer events and then you have people
12:32
that are asking you to to uh do your Wholesale in bulk product so that they
12:38
can repackage it and um that type of thing and it's like that's why most
12:43
people you end up buying more freeze dryers because you're like I'm trying to keep up capacity and and especially for
12:49
longer cycle items um like fruit meat things like that you know you know that freeze dryer
12:57
is taken up for 24 for to 48 Hours you know and that that doesn't allow you to
13:03
be able to do things like we candy where it's you know just a couple hours um so
13:08
yeah I completely understand that for sure assuming that there's a lot of humidity there and humidity plays a huge
13:15
huge impact on how soon you have to take out the product how you package it you
13:21
know and and that type of thing how do you how do you regulate the humidity and
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making sure you know it doesn't like a fruit doesn't become more soft again and
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not crunchy things like that that's a that's a great question because that was
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that was the very first thing that we had to overcome because the humidity here year round right now we're in the
13:42
dry season and so you know it's not too rainy for about six months but then for
13:48
six months out of the year it's raining every single day but even during the dry season the humidity is you know 80 90%
13:56
every day um vacuum seal bags and Gamma
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Lids those are those are those are probably the first two things that we said okay look if we if we're going to
14:09
make candy which cand is great because the turnover is extraordinary but it loses its Pizzazz when the gummy worms
14:14
are kind of gummy again right you know what I'm saying and so the first thing we do is we take them out of the free
14:20
drar pop them in a vacuum seal bag without vacuum obviously and then stick
14:25
everything inside of a inside of a a bin with a with one of those gmaids and uh
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and they hang tight there for for a while and usually in those gmaids I put some sort of a portable dehydrator like
14:38
a a dehumidifier like one of those things uh when it comes to food food's
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tricky because you know you have to kind of go almost from from zero to 100 miles an hour as soon as the food comes out so
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for us we typically don't want to store a lot of food in gamut in buckets and So
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within I would say within 10 to 15 minutes of the cycle being
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complete we kind of get a team ready and we're like okay you're in charge of o2 absorbers you're in charge of portioning
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the bag you're in charge of sealing it and everybody's hitting at one time and we're trying to we're trying to package
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it all up as quick as we can because honestly in this in this climate within within 30 minutes if the freeze
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dried food is just on the table for 30 minutes it's already starting to to to rehydrate on on some level and you know
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obviously you don't want that you know yeah so it has been tricky how did you calculate what the time frame was going
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to be like from you know it being in the freeze dryer to packaging you know we
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could approach that in in two ways uh when it came to regular food stuff that is is a regular batch let's say you're
15:47
doing it at 125 Fahrenheit and you're gonna and you're going to run a regular cycle until it's finished um that was
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kind of straightforward and so there wasn't really a whole lot of um experimenting when it came with that and
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the the we realized very quickly because we did a batch of of seab basss in over
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here the something called ceviches super popular is we freeze dried like 20
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pounds of Ceviche and and had it on the counter and realized almost almost immediately that it started to to
16:16
rehydrate and so we said okay we have to do it a little differently um things like candy the first thing that we
16:23
realized and this is really where experimentation came in is that every single tutorial on the internet um is
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subjective to the person's uh conditions their their
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climate their humidity there are so many variations that that kind of play as to
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how the candy comes out and so you know initially you watch a YouTube video and you're like okay uh gummy worms let's do
16:47
it at this temperature for this amount of time and then you know mine expand to to this big and next thing you know I'm
16:52
having to clean out every single tray because they're it's it's insane and so that did take a little bit of experimenting I did realize because we
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live in a a warmer climate and hardly anybody has air conditioner honestly you
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kind of don't need it where we live because it's it's a pretty nice temperature but because it is a little warmer than most people's homes and it
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is a lot more humid um things tend to freeze dry slower and Candy tends to
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expand a lot faster and so that did take a lot of experimenting to really kind of dial it in um but once you kind of go
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okay these are the conditions that I'm working with now you can adjust every recipe and you're good to go yeah prior
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to harvest right coming out with the candy mode where you could warm the tree um to you know 150 degrees you know I I
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think what I did with most candies is if you left it out in more of that kind of
17:46
regular temperature around your house something like that it would naturally soften and so when I would do Taffy or
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when I would do anything kind of gummy related it would kind of soften it up
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and therefore to expand larger than what I wanted it to be versus if I kept the
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high chws and I kept the different kind of more chewy based types of candies in
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a more controlled environment that was cooler then when I prepped it on the
18:17
tray and immediately put it in the freeze dryer it it it kind of controlled the variable uh expansion and so it's
18:25
nice that there's more people doing freeze drying because there's more information now and you don't have as
18:31
much waste but it is kind of fun trying something and then you're like oh shoot you know it expanded way too much and
18:38
then you have to clean off the freeze dryer for sure yeah golly I know there was there was a good there was a decent
18:44
time where we had you know probably three weeks four weeks different candies
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on our menu that were you know basically clearance you know clearance sale kind
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of things where where they were they were still good they were edible they just weren't perfect and and that's what
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we're looking for we're looking to create that that perfect product that people are like wow that's amazing and
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so yeah it's little trial and error right there what's like regulations like in Panama and Central America compared
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to the US is it more flexible in Panama what's the advantages like what what are
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you seeing differently than your experience living in the US right so there's there's definitely uh
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a lot more flexibility I would say not only in Panama but in Latin America and if if anybody were to visit a Latin
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American country from Mexico on down you're going to find that you have a lot
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of Street vendors right you have a lot of businesses where out of their home they're selling tortillas or they're
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selling empanadas or or or you know over here there's a very popular uh drink
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called doodle it's it's the translation means hard but it's like a a strange like icy fruit fruit icy and you'll see
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signs all along the road with different you know kind of pointing to people's houses saying hey you could buy these
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brute ices here and so there's the laws are are definitely a lot more lenient so
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to speak uh over here because the country does recognize uh the people's
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ability to to earn a living and and and have independent businesses and so they do have to register you know as a
20:24
business but as far as you know like the FDA so to speak over here would be like the health department uh it's not nearly
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as it's not nearly as restrictive uh you know you have to have health inspections
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you have to have a ro rodent check rodent inspections and things like that
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but for the most part um and if you were to see some of the places you would be like oh yeah okay clearly you know
20:49
they're they're relaxed on some of these issues right and so it's it's not nearly
20:54
as intense as it is I was doing some reading online of what it was like to to uh uh to have let's say a sausage
21:01
business in the United States and wow I mean it is pretty incredible yeah so depending on what state you live in and
21:09
and what kind of food you're handling you know the laws can the laws can vary and it can get kind of expensive to uh
21:16
to start up a little business and so it's I would say it would be the opposite of that in not only where I live but in Latin America just because
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of the nature of the of how the people go to market it's that you know it's it's not a country where people make a
21:28
lot of money and so people find very ingenious ways to kind of have side businesses uh whether it's picking fruit
21:35
from their backyard or slaughtering chickens or selling eggs or or milk from
21:40
a milk cow you know things like that or the health department are they very curious of what freeze drying is in in
21:46
the country and and your town I would say that it still isn't really on the radar like it's one of those things that
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it's kind of like you know it's this is a scientific process right rather than
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and a restaurant or food process is what it comes down to I know that things get
22:05
a little more strict when someone wants to take their their the product that they make out of their home or out of
22:12
their facility and they want to put it into a store right so so the moment that
22:18
interaction happens right so currently if I'm selling at a at a at a local farmers market that's that's one thing
22:24
but if I want to take that product and put it into a grocery store like a like a you know a Walmart or something like
22:30
that then all of a sudden like all the rules change and so now that's when that's when you start to see the the
22:36
regulations become a little more strict as to um expiration dates and things like that and so whenever it comes to
22:43
freeze-dried food I mean if you can imagine like how do you how do you figure that out and so it it is
22:49
interesting and I do think that there are going to start probably implementing um you know protocols for freeze dried
22:56
businesses and free dried food I just don't think honestly I'd be surprised if it happened in the next five years
23:03
honestly I still think we're we're every bit of five years away from that if you're loving the discussion and dialogue that I'm having with Eric at
23:09
two guys in a cooler give this video a thumbs up right now it'll really help the YouTube algorithm to push this out to more people who need to know about
23:16
freeze drying and be inspired about being an entrepreneur in the freeze drying space Also I've got video links
23:22
Below in the description of other interviews that I've had with other entrepreneurs in this space let's get
23:27
back to the interview and find out more about Eric's freeze drying business well let's talk about your products so you
23:33
bought a freeze dryer you bought what reason why did you buy a freeze dryer
23:39
what has the evolution looked like so I guess it's twofold because for me I'm an
23:44
entrepreneur at heart like when I see when I see something in my mind I'm like how can I turn that into a business
23:49
right and and then there's the fact that I'm a content creator so I also have a YouTube channel so so at the end of the day when people started sort of buzzing
23:57
around you know um do you is there anything that you have that that doesn't require
24:03
refrigeration uh this country from time to time we'll have pretty radical
24:08
protests not not not like anything you've ever seen and I don't want to get into you should look it up it's pretty
24:14
incredible but when this country protests uh the entire country gets basically shut down a standstill the
24:21
last protest we had lasted a little over five weeks four to five weeks and within
24:27
that four to five weeks period the beef chicken milk butter eggs all of that was
24:33
gone it wasn't on the Shelf certain parts of the country couldn't get any vegetables and gasoline was wasn't
24:39
available uh you know it was it was pretty radical people were having to
24:45
cook on on wood campfires and when I say
24:50
people I'm not talking about one or two I'm talking about thousands and thousands of people because there wasn't gas for stoves and so this this radical
24:58
event that happened uh sort of jumps you know jump started this idea that hey you know forget about long-term storage
25:05
let's talk about situations that happen where somebody doesn't have food and maybe they have kids and they need milk
25:11
or they need meat or whatever and that was kind of like the beginning like the Genesis of it so to speak and then from
25:18
there I thought you know we could we could like there's so much opportunity it doesn't have to only be freeze dried
25:25
food it could be like in my mind it's almost Li L from produce to you know to
25:31
dog treats to fruit we love dragon fruit so we make a lot of different fruit powers and and then of course the
25:39
entrepreneurial side of me said well I can make YouTube content with all this as well and at the end of the day if the
25:45
freeze Drive business doesn't work at least I'll have YouTube content that maybe somebody will find helpful uh come
25:52
to find out it's it's kind of worked both ways and so it was it was quite extraordinary how that happened like how many times has that has a protest happen
25:59
is it happening yearly does it happen every other year uh due to more political types of voting periods really
26:06
America's only faced that really the pandemic was like this huge episode of
26:12
we are out of baby formula we are out of infant Tylenol we are out of meat and
26:19
all these different things and that that really I think boosted all the freeze drying types of uh industry you know for
26:26
most people to to realize that they need to at least have something packaged so
26:32
yeah what how often does that happen in Panama Okay so we've been here for 15
26:39
years and I honestly it's really only H at that at that level it's only happened
26:45
I would say maybe four times um it happened this year it happened last year
26:51
and then in the past 13 years it's only happened two other times um and and it
26:56
really just comes down to situations uh politics and and how the people are feeling about whatever is going on the
27:03
people have an extraordinary voice in this country it's it's actually pretty remarkable to see uh in in my opinion
27:09
it's kind of like true democracy but um but when the people aren't happy they are absolutely uh ready to to make their
27:17
voice known and and the government hears it which is kind of cool but but yeah so to answer your
27:22
question it's only happened about four times but when you start to look at other Latin American countries when you look at Columbia Venezuela when you look
27:28
in Ecuador and Honduras and Guatemala you start to see chil you start to see situations like this where you know
27:35
people are not happy and and it's not necessarily related to to a global
27:40
pandemic it's just related to economic necessity and um it causes A disruption
27:46
in in the food chain it causes A disruption in in economics and you know
27:53
I guess that's the point of a protest but on on our end we look at that and we say how could we be prepared you know
27:59
for the next one not for the the the 25 years from now apocalypse or whatever
28:04
but the protest that might happen in six or eight months or in a year Well four I mean four protests in 15 years I mean
28:10
that's that's I I feel like that's at least frequent enough to where you really do have
28:16
to prepare yourself for every four or five years something like that happening
28:22
in those types of develop countries um my other question to that was does it
28:29
take even a long does it take still a long period of time after the unrest is
28:34
there for everything to get back to normal as well I I did I did wonder like so so you know we went through this this
28:41
thing and this last one was was uh this last one was a tough one I gotta be completely honest I think everybody felt
28:47
like it was a tough one I bet the sale of electronic stoves skyrocketed after
28:53
this last protest because most everybody here uses uses gas and um and and my
29:00
wife and I were talking about hey what's the recovery time going to be after it's all said and done but uh surprisingly it
29:08
was actually very quickly I want to say within seven to 10 days uh the country
29:15
was you you would have never known um people were still on edge but the grocery stores were fully stocked the uh
29:21
gas stations were loaded down people had gas and so it it actually recovered very very quickly and then people were you
29:27
know going about their business which is kind of nice to see what products are you actually free stying and selling to
29:32
the public right so the it freying dog food originally began with our dogs
29:38
right so we feed them a raw diet we wanted to keep the dogs as as you know
29:44
as organic and raw as we possibly could so 100% you know grass-fed beef no
29:50
hormones all that really great stuff and um we love giving our dogs treats we
29:55
have two beautiful cone Corsos they're absolutely amazing and so we started to you know kind of create freeze dried dog
30:02
treats whether it was chicken necks Oregon meat uh chicken bites or or even
30:07
just our own collection of like bananas with all all kinds of like little little Kibbles yeah and and so that's that's
30:14
originally how it started and and honestly although I knew the opportunity
30:20
existed you know it's a funny thing when you have one freeze dryer you got to go okay how do I divide the time up where I
30:26
can steal meat the demand for the candy where I can meet the demand for the freeze dried long-term storage you know
30:32
where you you you kind of have to sort of split up the time for the freeze dry and it wasn't until we got a second
30:38
Breeze drar and so we just got not too long ago the the new pro version of the
30:44
Harvest Right freeze dryers which I absolutely love the the extra space and it's amazing and um and with that it
30:51
kind of freed up some time and allowed us to do to do double the production sort of like in what we were doing doing
30:58
and um and that's when people started asking hey when are you going to you know because people check out our Instagram and they they see pictures of
31:05
of different dog treats that we have on Instagram like hey when when when is that going to be available lot of pets
31:10
lot of beautiful pet owners in this in this little village and um and so that's when the opportunity became it it sort
31:17
of it sort of like hey people are asking if you don't do it someone else is going to do it right it's kind of like one of
31:23
those things and so we're a family-run business I've got my two youngest are uh
31:30
growing up and they're getting into a place where you know they could take on some more responsibility in the family
31:36
business and in my mind I thought hey you know what this is a great opportunity to teach them about entrepreneurship teach them about
31:42
sourcing ingredients and pricing and labeling and and packaging which is kind of complicated we can talk about that
31:48
later if you want um and then kind of let let them handle that arm of of
31:55
because I'm I'm Max when it comes to to responsibility I'm up here and so you
32:01
know say hey let me delegate some of this responsibility to them let them take ownership and U and have a lot of
32:06
fun with it and so that arm of the business includes uh freeze dried and and dehydrated depending on on on what
32:13
it is but the the freeze-dried version of it I like because you know as you know freeze drying food retains 80 85%
32:22
of the of the original nutrients and you know if you want to give something like that to your dog you want them to have the absolute best absolute most that
32:29
they can get out of it and so for us that's super important and I think it's such a a niche that offering Freeze
32:35
Drive dog treats uh to the community is is kind of like hey nobody else is doing that obviously you can find dehydrated
32:42
dog treats all day long uh but freeze dried dog treats are different so we kind of bundle everything together and it kind of what
32:49
is different that you're finding about freeze drying dog treats um that makes
32:54
it different from dehydrated as well as dry dog food so the the dehydrated Market uh
33:01
where we live is extremely expensive it's it's it's super super expensive and so a small bag now this this may seem
33:08
part of the course in other countries but a small bag of I'm GNA give you an example two
33:15
two dehydrated chicken feed okay two dehydrated chicken feed at the local pet
33:21
store sell for about about $2 okay so I
33:26
I'm kind of out of touch with with pricing in other countries but to me that seems extremely expensive like it's
33:32
through the roof expensive and so we're noticing this this sort
33:38
of concern that people had they're like yeah I want to get my dog dog treats but it's it's the price is just out of
33:44
control and so our vision was hey let's let's bring dehydrated which is as you
33:51
know you know basically cooked it at I wouldn't say low temperatures but not hot temperatures 140 150 degrees until
33:58
until it's dried and crunchy uh but you do lose a lot of the the nutrients and so I think where dehydrated treats shine
34:06
is their texture and what they do to stimulate the dog you know gum you know for for for gum health and for emotional
34:14
wellness and things like that the other end of the spectrum the spectrum that I like to entertain uh is the is the
34:21
freeze-dried version where you have you know your fish your your chicken your
34:27
liver your chicken necks whatever whatever you're going to be dehydrating or if you're going to be making your own kibble um with this much higher retained
34:34
nutritional value U what I've found to be probably the most tricky part is is
34:40
finding a place where people feel like they're getting a good price or basically a good
34:47
value is what it comes down to and so that's been probably the most tricky part about that sidearm but people do
34:54
tend to gravitate towards hey my dog is getting older you know they're not eating their vegetables or whatever and
35:01
they're looking for ways to put uh the nutrients into the dog food and we offer
35:07
you know different toppings and powdered vegetables that can be mixed in with the meat and things like that where you're
35:12
getting all those beautiful nutrients um and and the dog the dog doesn't know it because we're extracting the water from
35:19
let's say some liver things like that right like do you have to somewhat put
35:25
some water back back in to that liver that you're going to give to the dog and
35:31
and reconstitute it a little bit um or like would they become super thirsty
35:36
after eating freeze-dried food um with the dog that's a great question great
35:41
question let me let me ask when was the last time you had a freeze dried ice cream uh yesterday yesterday I love
35:47
freeze dried ice cream it's the first thing that I made when I got my freeze dryer was freeze dried ice cream it was
35:53
absolutely amazing and immediately after you eating that freeze dried ice cream did you feel feel like you were you were
35:58
parched and you needed to go get some water not not as much as it was after you finish like regular ice cream
36:04
sometimes you need the water yeah ex exactly and so what what we typically tell people is that if you're going to
36:09
be feeding your dog an entire meal that's been freeze dried right so let's say you have freeze-dried kibble or you
36:15
have whatever it is that's going to be freeze dried you're going to want to rehydrate it absolutely no question about it and we typically suggest adding
36:22
something like a kefir or a yogurt or something like that to to that freeze dried to help R rehydrate it with like
36:28
you know probiotics but if you're just giving your dog a snack yeah um if you're if you're responsible with the
36:34
snack then there's literally nothing to worry about the dog or the cat actually
36:40
in some circumstances um aren't gonna aren't going to feel like they need to go and get some water immediately and if
36:46
they do then generally their water bowl is pretty handy but it's usually not what's available in Panama that maybe
36:52
not even it doesn't have to be fruit but maybe the candy and things like that what what what are those things called and what have you been freeze drying
36:59
that's fun the candy scene in Panama absolutely is is horrible this is
37:07
this is not a country where you go to get candy and so strangely enough when
37:13
we do offer different candies that are free stried I almost always have to import it from the United States that's
37:19
not like I can't get skitts or anything like that but but the good majority of like some of the candies that you see the popular candies um very difficult to
37:26
get in this country what this country does offer that's absolutely amazing and in my opinion a million times better than
37:33
freeze dried candy is is fruit their fruit is unbelievable they have a
37:38
beautiful fruit called the mangolin it's a a fruit that was made illegal in the United States for for quite some time I
37:45
think it's legal now but it's a extraordinary Superfruit dragon fruit is really big it's sort of it's one of
37:51
those crops here in this country that just recently became you know a farmable like a farmable crop so the government
37:57
recognized dragon fruit as as a commercial crop and and now you start to see a lot of people commercially
38:03
producing dragon fruit so we get our we have a Orchard in our backyard with you know 400 plants we do a lot of freeze
38:11
dried a lot of freeze dried dragon fruit which is absolutely amazing in my
38:16
opinion and so we do we do a little series on our YouTube channel where we do like freeze dried fruit experiments
38:21
where I where I determined where you know if it's better freeze dried or if it's better fresh and a lot of the
38:27
fruits especially things like mango papaya pineapple like you had mentioned banana sour soof are absolutely out of
38:35
this world freeze dry it's like the flavor is just magnifying I mean you know it's just pops in your mouth and so
38:42
I love doing fruits people love the assortment freeze-dried fruit packets that we do have because we try to do
38:48
especially when I'm making videos you know we have all these different fruits that we're doing and it will add you know uh grapes and blueberries and and
38:55
cherries and all kinds of really crazy fruit free stri things into into a bag and people have never had it before and so it's kind of like one of those things
39:01
where it's this first reaction of of something amazing and they're just like
39:06
where can we get more yeah so it's pretty awesome is is fruit fairly inexpensive to to uh one not only
39:13
purchased but also farmed so that you like the cost the cost for you as a as a
39:18
business owner to then freeze dry at least the cost on the product is not super high or what's what's it like
39:25
there I would say for the most part fruit is fairly inexpensive bananas run
39:30
seven for a dollar um pineapples are 75 cents each or a dollar each it varies
39:36
depending on where you live in in the United States but around here those are all super common fruits papaya same
39:41
thing super cheap dragon fruit on the other hand is super expensive which doesn't make any sense to me it's almost
39:48
it's almost like it's been priced outside of the reach of a of a typical Panamanian because they're charging five
39:56
to six $ a pound which is just unheard of for a fruit in this country that's there's no other fruit that's pric like
40:02
that that's like USA prices or or Canada prices or something like that for for dragon fruit and so that's one of the
40:09
reasons we started growing dragon fruit because it was just like I love the fruit I wish more
40:14
panamanians would would taste it so that they could grow it as well and so we
40:19
started this dragon fruit Orchard business for that purpose but each year we end up with 250 300 400 of dragon
40:26
fruit that it just becomes overwhelming so yeah we do have to free dry and then we have it you know to make desserts
40:33
with and smoothies and ice cream and cheesecake and things like that that then we'll turn around and put it on our
40:38
on make available for people to taste and have and buy things like that awesome it's always it's always this
40:44
kind of like this this very organic everything sort of sort of
40:50
interacts with each other um type of Entrepreneurship where everything we do
40:55
has some sort of effect on something else is kind of cool actually so are you so are you recommending that I
41:01
experiment with with dragon fruit see kind of what how it is uh and things like oh my gosh freeze freeze dried
41:08
dragon fruit freeze dried dragon fruit is amazing in in cubes in slices the
41:14
problem and I'll tell you what the problem is is is how quickly it uh it it does want to now granted I live at a
41:20
super humid environment you you you may not experience this but I'll tell you the first time someone tries a dragon
41:25
fruit especially if it's not like the you know there's some dragon fruit that are kind
41:31
of bland right so that the most the most uh unfortunate experience that people have with dragon fruit is eating that
41:37
one beautiful dragon fruit that's kind of like your stereotypical red flesh white you know white flesh red red skin
41:43
dragon fruit it looks amazing but it has no flavor most people's experience with it if you can get varieties outside of
41:51
that that are acidic and sweet and and and have all these complexities with
41:56
berries and coconuts and and things like that freeze drying those fruits are are
42:01
kind of lifechanging I'll tell you what you're saying combine different elements
42:07
with the the dragon fruit or are you saying freeze dry the dragon fruit there
42:12
are dragon fruit varieties that embody Citrus flavors and Berry flavors and
42:17
coconut and and almost Rose like flavors it's so it just depends on the variety there's there's you know in our in our
42:23
Orchard we probably have 160 different varieties and each one of them has its own kind of unique thing going on some
42:30
are sweet some are tart some are you know beet flavored but you can speaking of which
42:36
if you're going to freeze shy you can kind of like marinate your fruit with
42:42
things like basil or uh Citrus like an orange or a lime or something like that to kind of give it other characteristics
42:49
and then freeze dry and now you create your own complexity that's kind of like your own version of fruit which is kind
42:54
of interesting I just want to ask you about your freeze dryer and you have a harvest right but did you find it
43:02
difficult to get shipped internally did you look at other freeze dryers um who
43:08
is there is it uh difficult yeah to to import a freeze dryer from us companies
43:15
are there other companies around other uh you know countries that uh are are
43:21
making these that you contacted so great question by the way so the
43:27
it all comes down to where you live and and what's available to you here in this country uh there are shipping outfits
43:33
that kind of use Freight forwarding companies that are either located in Miami or or whatever where if I wanted
43:39
to have something shipped to me from the United States it would just get shipped to Miami or or wherever my Freight
43:45
forwarder is and uh they would take care of shipping it to to where I live and usually that process takes depending on
43:52
on the company it could take anywhere from seven to 10 days it it really doesn't you know the the issue is is the
43:58
weight how heavy it is right and a lot of companies will charge by weight so
44:04
you know a typical freeze dryer when it ships from Harvest right if it's the large variety it may it may weigh 300
44:10
and yeah 50 pounds something like that and if a company's charging three bucks a pound where you're out you know that's
44:17
a thousand bucks in in shipping uh the trick I found is to find a company that charges by
44:23
volume and and there's a lot of companies here that are great companies they're responsible they're respectable
44:29
and they do they do charge by volume uh which ends up costing
44:34
about 450 500 bucks to ship a freeze driver down here but I I found that it
44:39
was pretty much across the board consistent with most companies um the companies that did ship to to not only
44:47
where I live but other Latin American countes they were they were commercial units so they're like yeah we'll ship it
44:53
to you but we're talking you know 15 $50,000 unit something like that when it come to freeze drying and so as far as
45:00
as far as the residential units that are that are large enough to kind of start a business um you know you've got
45:07
obviously you've got Harvest Right and they made it pretty easy to to ship it out and and I want to say that from the
45:14
moment the order was placed to when I got it I think a total of two and a half
45:19
three weeks at past uh but it you know it depends on availability depends on holidays things like that I I do know
45:25
that the popular ity of freeze dryers is skyrocketing and so these companies not
45:30
only Harvest Right but other competitors are U are are having a day keeping up
45:36
with the demand it seems like it's very much us-based but man as soon as the
45:41
world is starting to Sure ex experience this I think it could be another huge
45:47
boom one thing I did find I I did find like you know if if you want to get into at least for me and and you live in a
45:53
place where it's it's still a relatively unknown uh business uh packaging
46:00
packaging is extremely complicated when it comes to to how do we how do we get
46:06
the right things that we need and so 100% of the packaging that is dedicated
46:11
for long-term storage has to be imported because it's just it's just not available myar bags and and any of that
46:18
stuff uh they have they have what are those those kind of the bags that you use I can't recall the name they're
46:24
called The Artisan bags yeah the they're just like a craft a craft food dried bag
46:33
I'm looking I'm looking at a pile of them right there those are great and those are fairly inexpensive and those
46:38
work well for products that don't necessarily um require like humid
46:45
protection you humidity protection and so you know we absolutely or if we use
46:50
those we're putting our freeze dried products in like a a small vacuum seal bag first and then they're going in that
46:56
bag just to kind of save on on the price of packaging but that's another big thing that we had to consider Like
47:02
Oxygen absorbers desicant and myar bags and and you know how many do we bring in
47:08
at a time what's the cost to bring them in and how do you price that accordingly so that uh so that it's you know it's
47:14
fair and and reasonable for everybody involved I think yeah that's a tricky part yeah the big elephant in the room
47:20
for most people looking into freeze drying is have you found that freeze drying and then selling it is profitable
47:28
absolutely there's no question about it I I think and and here's kind of the unpopular perspective at the end of the
47:34
day like I I don't think um it's too late to get into the
47:39
freeze drying game I don't think it's too late to get into the candy freeze drying game I think there's a huge opportunity I think the biggest problem
47:46
that people are going to have is how they manage their business right at the end of the day you can have the machine
47:53
which does a great job it's kind of you know does it own thing you can have a product which is awesome not a problem
47:59
but how you take all of that and go to market is really what's going to be the difference between a successful freeze
48:05
dry business and one that unfortunately has a a used freeze dryer on the on the Facebook business page you know what I'm
48:11
saying it's for sale so I think that understanding hey if I get a freeze dryer and I want to have a business I
48:18
think that people need to have a plan before they even pull the trigger what's my marketing strategy how do I want to
48:25
like where what's my audience look like what's my pricing going to look like is there is there opportunity in the town
48:31
that I live in and what are the laws applicable I think I think that before people you know because people can get
48:36
pretty excited pretty quickly make that decision and then try to fill in the blanks later and and that's a little
48:41
more complicated and don't get me wrong I don't think there's any problem with having a free Shar but if you're going to spend hard-earned money like we did
48:48
and and and your savings to say hey this is a great business to kind of get me out of the Rat Race uh which I totally
48:55
get like it is it's a a great business it's very profitable uh when done properly there's a huge demand for it
49:02
and and as I talked about in this video there's lots of different options depending on on how hard you're willing
49:08
to work is what it comes down to I think people just need to kind of take a step back and say Let's either talk with
49:14
other business owners or let's put something down on paper just to kind of see what it looks like and um and maybe
49:20
attend some of these markets that I'm supposedly going to be selling at and see what that looks like you know and
49:25
and um and then and even with that at the end of the day uh it's it's it's a
49:31
lot of Blood Sweat and Tears owning a business a lot of work and and you know it's an interesting thing because most
49:38
people um get hung up on the risks you know because owning a business there's always risks involved you know you have
49:44
a machine what if it doesn't work what if nobody buys my product what happens you know like there's all these there's
49:49
all these questions and I think at the end of the day every single successful
49:54
business owner no matter M if they're a small business or a Fortune 500 um they
50:00
accept the risks they come to terms with the risks and they overcome them at the end of the day you know so all what what
50:06
I find is that successful people uh especially in business are problem
50:12
solvers right they they have an issue that pops up and then they move past it
50:18
and and problems certainly come up there's no question about it when you're dealing with free drying whether it's you know I don't know if you've ever
50:24
been in a situation where you're fre all of a sudden you know stopped working but there are some business owners where
50:30
they have a harvest and they're going to take their Harvest to Market and all of a sudden for whatever reason the freeer sto working and um and they have to
50:36
overcome those issues and and so being able to do that in U in a you know a
50:42
positive and encouraging way to be able to to kind of move forward I think is absolutely critical when it comes to
50:48
owning a business and you're either Gonna Learn to fix it yourself or have to make enough money to have someone fix
50:55
it for you exactly exactly and that's another thing I would say like if if you want to get into the freeze dry game and
51:02
you're gonna get a freeze dryer I don't necessarily think it's super imperative to be like hey I need to become a freeze
51:08
dry mechanic but I think it's kind of important for you to know for someone
51:13
who's getting into that for you to know like at least the basics of how a freeze dryer works right what are the
51:19
components what do they do so that way if something were to happen maybe troubleshooting it might be a little bit
51:24
easier and a lot less you know cost prohibitive if if you could say hey I think this is kind of where the issue is
51:31
coming from and don't get me wrong it that does take a little bit of experience and it does take a couple
51:36
problems to get to that place but I think that is super important where people go hey I have an issue what can I
51:41
do uh relatively inexpensively to take care of it myself and um funny enough as
51:47
as complex as free Shrine is it's actually a fairly would you agree it's a fairly simple machine u in in the
51:54
operation the complexity comes from the the little computer program but the way the Machine Works is actually pretty
52:00
simple in my opinion thank you so much Eric for being very open about your business
52:05
and and your life in Panama and and thank you for all the advice that you're giving all of us on being an
52:10
entrepreneur in the freeze drying space if you've made it to me right now thank you for watching the entire video of the interview I had with Eric if you're
52:17
interested in freeze drying and interested to know more about who's out there doing freeze drying as a business
52:23
I'd encourage you to take a look at the next video that I'm a show where I interview both Parker freeze dryer who
52:28
makes industrial freeze dryers as well as Josh over at sweet potato awesome in
52:34
Las Vegas Nevada these are great interviews and I think you're really going to like the content we'll see you over [Music]
52:47
there
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