Jesse Merrill of Good Culture: Building a Mission-Based Brand and Reinventing the Food System

Hi everyone, I'm Elizabeth Stein, founder and CEO of Purely Elizabeth. And this is live Purely with Elizabeth, featuring candid conversations about how to thrive on your wellness journey. This week's guest is Jesse Merrill, co-founder and CEO of Good Culture, the maker of ridiculously good cottage cheese and one of my favorite brands to pair my Purely Elizabeth granolo with. Jesse co-founded Good Culture in 2015 following a personal wellness journey where eating real healing foods cured him of ulcerative colitis. Through the founding he learned that most US dairy cows are confined, creating not just human health issues, but animal welfare and environmental problems. Today, Good Culture's mission is to reinvent the food system from the ground up and encourage other businesses and consumers to do the same, create healthier people, animals and planet. In this episode, we chat all about Jesse's personal and professional journey from his early days at Honest Tea to curing himself with cultured foods and launching Good Culture. Jesse and I talk about food as medicine and the importance of gut health, reinventing the food system with regenerative agriculture, the importance of a mission-based brand and becoming a platform culture foods company. I was so great to catch up with Jesse, keep listening to learn more. Jesse, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on. I was just chatting with a group of people yesterday and we were saying that you have the absolute hands down, best cottage cheese on the market. No questions asked. Awesome. Thank you. I'm combined with our granola. It's perfection. It's 100%. I eat it daily. We do. So let's start with your journey that led to starting Good Culture. Yes. So I started in experiential event marketing. That was kind of the beginning of my career here. And that led to a opportunity with Moby, the techno rocker from the 90s, who had a small tea company called Teenie, said for Teen New York. It was better for you to in Manhattan only. And I was brought on to help lead his experiential marketing charge. And did that with him for about a year and a half. It was a crash course in brand building because he had like three people. And I was though I was brought in on the marketing side. I also quickly learned how to roll within sales and within operations and finance, et cetera. So it was a great opportunity for me to learn a lot very quickly. Was that your first job out of college? I was very experiential marketing or no, my first job out of college, actually, if you go way back was in filmmaking, I was like, P.A.ing on film sets, because I thought I wanted to become a filmmaker, a director, cinematographer. I still kind of feel like I want to do that at some point in my life. But I started there and actually when you're P.A.ing, you don't make that much money. And so I was looking for ways to make additional dollars. And I did that through becoming a brand ambassador. I became a sampler. So I was like working for brand sampling and supermarkets, helping to push their product. And that's what opened up the world of experiential marketing to me. So I started to meet some of the activation companies that were hired to drive those B.A. programs. And I ultimately got hired with those groups to become a larger manager within the design and concepting for those tours. So that's what put me into experiential event marketing. That led me to Moby and Teeny Moby decided to sell the company after about a year and a half. It was growing quite well within New York, but it required him to continue to invest. He was personally funding the entire thing. He didn't want to raise money. And he was working on an album, right, because he's a musician. And he ultimately decided to sell the company. And that for me opened the door to honesty, which was a great opportunity. Honesty at the time was small. They were sub 10 million revenue. They were sold primarily in the natural channel, right? Like Whole Foods was like their number one account. They were showing good traction there. But this was the time when folks didn't care about organic. They didn't know about organic. They certainly weren't willing to pay a premium for organic. They didn't care about low sugar alternatives. You know, you looked at the tea space at that point in time. The stars were 99 cent can Arizona with high fructose corn syrup and you know, snaple. It's diet. Sapple. That was my drink. Yeah, right. Right. So like that's what was selling. And so honest, he was definitely well ahead of their time. As they introduced this organic, lately sweet and better for you tea was super disruptive, doing well, like I said, in the natural channel with the council, Whole Foods. But they wanted to expand, you know, and go wider than where they were. And so I was brought on to lead the marketing charge within the New York Metro market. Did that with them for several months. We did quite well. And then I was promoted to the director of marketing role and ultimately the vice president of marketing role. As I said, I joined when they were sub-temalian revenue grew the brand to about 75 million revenue. And then we sold the company to Coca-Cola in 2011. So amazing opportunity. Got to work under Seth Goldman, who's the genuine art, all real deal. He is authentically a mission driven founder. And I got to, you know, kind of learn a lot from him and work under him. And that for me really became the inspiration or the catalyst for wanting to ultimately create my own purpose led company. Well, we're some of the biggest lessons that you learned from sad. To stay true to your values, right? Never, never stray from your values, no matter what, you can change your strategies, but you can't change your values. If you start to erode values, you really lose kind of your purpose or your why. And then you don't have a team of dedicated, you know, passionate folks that are all roaming in the same direction. And that don't have the passion and the fight to really want to get to the top of the mountain. And so I think the biggest thing that I learned, two big things that I learned that that kind of touch on those items. Number one, don't stray from values, be authentic and everything that you do show up every day and show up every day with passion and ensure that you are communicating those values in a coherent way so that everybody understands what the bigger purpose of the company is that they understand what the why is. And like I said, if they all believe that, then you're going to breed a group of incredibly passionate people. I mean, the team at honesty was insanely passionate. I mean, they would run through walls to achieve our goals, right? And so for me, that was a huge learning is something that I absolutely wanted to take with me and rebuild with good culture. And what were I guess digging little deeper into that like what were some of the best ways that you saw says do that and that you might do that today in, okay, you have a set of values you have here's our why and purpose, but like how do you really bring that to life. And for tips for anybody who has their own business. What are some of those great tips to really help instill that time over time so people don't forget. So we have a brand architecture sheet. We have a company strategy that we circulate to the team. We actually just took our team through this exercise about a week ago to ensure everybody was calibrated fully clear and what what the highest ground is, what is our why, what is our what what is our how right like ensuring everyone is fully in line with that. And then number two, make sure that you're actually walking the walk right so it can't just be a piece of paper. And I think that's a misstep that several companies do make where they have good intentions. And they may document these things they may have may have process, but it never becomes more than that piece of paper. And so you have to ensure that you are truly making decisions based on those core values. You have to hire and fire against those against those core values. And you have to make key strategic decisions for the company growth decisions for the company based on those core values, even if it doesn't mean you know better better economics initially. You have to look at the higher the highest ground and look at your purpose and let that really be your north star. And like I said walk walk the walk so you know at honesty, you know they they were pushing forward on democratizing organics on driving more fair trade skews. And though that was challenging and potentially not the most you know not the best thing economically at all times. It still was a decision that they made because it you know it laddered up to the mission. And that is something that good culture that we we also do right we make decisions on ingredients sourcing on selection on supply chain that don't necessarily always drive the best economics. But it does roll up to the mission and ensures that we're truly creating change and doing what we're saying we're doing. That's awesome. Thank you. So all right, let's take one step back. So you're at honesty decide you want to you know create your own mission align business. How why kind of she is how did that come about. Yeah, so there was one one step in between so sold the company to coke moved on found an opportunity with Andrew's Eisner who's the son of Michael Eisner who was the ex CEO of Disney. He had an enhanced water beverage called activate that was trying to disrupt the enhanced water space. Hand enhanced water at the time was incredibly hot because Coca-Cola had recently acquired vitamin water for you know 4.2 billion dollars. It was as massive exit and he had a unique technology that was disruptive. And so I joined anders on that journey and help build that company out over about a three year period Michael and anders came together to sell the company that around that time. And when that happened. Andrews approached me and said, hey, look, I want to I want to continue to do something with you. I want to build my next brand with you. So let me know if you have any good ideas and let's talk about them. We looked at a bunch of different opportunity areas. But Cotta's Sheez was one that really stood out because we looked at it as an overlooked superfood that wasn't being properly, you know, messaged. You hadn't seen any innovation in the category since the 70s. In 1975, Cotta's Sheez was actually bigger than Yogurt. Wow. Yeah. And then totally fell off due to lack of innovation. And so we wanted to understand why, right? Having a marketing background. I'm like, okay, here's this space that's so ripe for disruption. But it's not being messaged in the right way. How do we tell this story in a way that's going to resonate with younger consumer segments that aren't shocking the category today? So we started to look at different brands on shelf and all of the brands on shelf were dated from a branding standpoint, packaging standpoint. You really didn't see anything other than large tubs of playing Cotta's Sheez, the ingredient statements were not clean at all, right? You had tons of additives, gums, thickeners, emulsifiers, preservatives, all these things. And you didn't have a lot happening in terms of use case, right? Like everything, as I said, was a multi-served tub. There was nothing happening. And single serve, there wasn't a lot happening in flavor. So it was just, again, incredibly ripe for disruption. And it was a sizable category. It was a $1.1 billion category that had like no support behind it. So we saw that as a large opportunity. So the business thesis was, let's make Cotta's Sheez sexy. Let's make it relevant to new consumer segments, to younger consumer segments, primarily millennial and younger Gen X that weren't shocked in the category. And let's see if we can drive some traction. And so that's what we did. And I will also say it was timely because at that point in time, Greek yogurt and yogurt broadly was starting to show some declines. And so retailers were looking for alternative, portable protein options. And so there was a way, you know, for us, it was good opportunity for us to get in front of retailers, category managers, buyers, and show them that Cotta Sheez could be reimagined in a way that would drive category growth for them. Well, I can't believe that Cotta Sheez is bigger than yogurt. That's so interesting. And to point it just like without that innovation, it was kind of sat there. Totally. And you guys came to market. I know that part of your story also is that you had a personal health journey that kind of tied into Cotta Sheez and some of the benefits. So we'd love to talk a little bit about that as well. Yeah, for sure. So we saw the business opportunity and Cotta Sheez and started going down that path, right, because of all the things I just said. As I was going through that journey, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called ulcerative colitis, where you have unnecessary inflammation in your gut, your immune system effectively attacks itself. Matreats food as a foreign invader. It creates all sorts of pain and bloating. You can't really eat. You don't absorb nutrition. You lose a ton of weight. It's hard to sleep, to function, et cetera, right? So it was a pretty rough situation for me. How long did it take you to figure that out that that was what you had? Like two months, because I just kept them riding through it. I was like, all right, probably food poisoning. Maybe I have like a stomach virus. I assume we'll go away at some point. I try to grind through, but it got to a point, as I said, where I started to drop weight rapidly. And that's when I started to get really scared. I was like, all right, something is clearly not right here. I'm not getting better. It's getting progressively worse. And now I'm losing weight. And so I went to a GI and took him through my symptoms and he was like, okay, that doesn't sound good. I get into my office and have an immediate colonoscopy and see what's going on. And did that. And I was diagnosed with all sorts of colitis. They told me that it was a chronic condition that the only way to kind of manage the symptoms is through harsh drugs, like steroids, not something I wanted to live on. They told me I would need to live on those for life. I asked if there was anything that I could do from a diet modification standpoint. And they said, absolutely not. There's not enough science to support that. And yeah, there's really, you know, I have no other options other than to live on these medications. So I pushed back on that. I didn't believe in that. I grew up in a household where we believed in food as medicine. My mom worked for a nutritionist, Gary Null for several several years. Oh, yeah. I used to live in New York across the Gary Null store. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She worked for him. She was a chef for him for years. That's so cool. Yeah, totally. So it's like in the 80s and we're eating like veggie burgers and like all sorts of things that were like radical at the time. I always believe that you could heal yourself through food and lifestyle changes. And so I pushed back. I met with a functional doctor and integrative doctor and asked if there was something more that I could do, something different that I could that I could do. And they put me on to a special diet. And they said, absolutely, we have other patients who have all sorts of colitis who have responded quite well to these lifestyle changes. And I got into a diet that consisted of grass fed meat, cooked vegetables, nothing raw, it's too hard to digest raw fruit and cultured dairy. And I did and I cut out nuts. I cut out seeds. I cut out grain, alcohol, caffeine. Right. I couldn't eat a lot. It was highly highly restrictive and started to eat that way. And within a few weeks noticed a massive turnaround. My symptoms started to to fade. I had like I said, bloating and sharp pains, all that started to go away pretty rapidly. I noticed that I was starting to put weight back on. I felt like I was absorbing nutrition. So my energy levels increased. And so I felt like it was working. And so that gave me the confidence to keep going. Obviously, if I didn't see benefit, I probably would have had to back to the medication because it is a dangerous disease and has to be managed. But it was working. But I kept going. I kept going. They told me it would take three years to fully heal my gut if I stayed true to this diet. And so I did that. I went all in and stayed on it for three years every year. You may just that for three years. Yeah, three years. They didn't cheat at all. And they told me they're like, if you cheat at all, you're going to lose all your progress. Like even if you go out one night and have a beer, that might reset the whole thing. So like, stay true. You got to keep going and be super, super disciplined. And so I did it. And at the end of year one, I had another call. I had to get, have a colonoscopy every single year, which is not fun. But I did at the end of year one. And it showed that my inflammation levels had come down. I did it at the end of year two. And it showed that my inflammation levels had returned to a normal, healthy level. And at the end of year three, it showed I had a biopsy done because they didn't see anything visibly. And they had a biopsy taken. And my pathology came back showing that there was no signs of UC at all. And they're like, not sure what you did, but you healed your ulcerative colitis. So whatever you did, keep doing it. Okay. And we'll see you in 10 years. And that was it. And so ever since, you know, I continue to follow a pretty disciplined diet because when you have an autoimmune condition, you can always awaken the monster. It's possible to come back. So you've got to like, you still have to be pretty disciplined. But I'm at a point now where I can do more. Like I can, I can eat a slice of pizza if I want to. I can, I can have a slice of bread or something. So I've pretty much returned to a normal place, but I do try to maintain that diet as much as I can to ensure I don't push too far. Well, that's amazing. I mean, such a firm believer in food is medicine and not taking one doctor's answer to say, you need to be on drugs and look really like asking questions and looking for alternatives. In most cases, there is another solution out there and it's food and it's also my second question is going to be also just like lifestyle because stress compiles such a big factor into that. So I'm curious to hear how what the timing of this was when starting good culture and how how lifestyle could affect that and like how you kind of work through those pieces of it. Yeah, well, I will say how it informed kind of the mission behind good culture. All this was happening like I said in year one of driving this brand, creating this brand. When this happened, though I was already, you know, a big believer in food is medicine, it really put it at the forefront and I was like, okay, this needs to be, you know, a major part of how we build this brand, right? It has to inform ingredient selection, sourcing, et cetera. We need to ensure that the ingredients that we're using for this product don't create unnecessary inflammation. So that means no gums, right? Like several companies will use gums. Gums are inflammatory. That was something that I could absolutely not eat when I when I when I had you say so that it absolutely informed ingredient selection. It also drove me to really focus on the cultured food piece, the fermented food piece because there's all sorts of beneficial bacteria that provide benefits to your microbiome and if you have a healthy microbiome, then you should have overall wellness because all disease starts starts in the gut and so there is definitely a direct correlation between gut health and overall wellness, you know, brain health, immunity, et cetera. And so that is a big part of, you know, in terms of how we show up as a brand in terms of how we think about product innovation that is always at the forefront. So that personal healing story, 100% you know, drove a lot of our thinking in terms of how we build build this brand. In terms of other lifestyle changes, I think it made me much more aware of the choices that I make on a day to day basis in terms of what I need to do to show up as a, you know, a strong leader and energized leader. I can't just take that stuff for granted because it's really easy to get caught up in eating [BLANK_AUDIO] food and not sleeping well and you know skipping meals and doing all these things because you're so busy as you as you build a company. But I put so much you know importance behind those decisions now. So I ensure that I don't skip those things right like I make sure that I oh yeah I push to get my six to eight hours of sleep even if it means I'm going to bed late I got a bed super late because I'm someone that does stay up late naturally like I don't like to go to bed until like I don't know midnight one night. Yeah but yeah but so but I tried like I make sure that I still get like if I go to bed at like 12 12 30 you know I'll sleep to like 7 7 15 where you know other people that I know are getting up at like 4 a.m. to go for a run. I don't do that. You're like person. Yes I need to get my hours in and then when I wake up I make sure that I 100% get my exercise in right I don't ever skip that so I generally go swimming in the morning some kind of cardio swimming or running or cycling but I really do like swimming and running probably the most so I make sure that I get that in and then I and then I meditate right so mental health is a major major part of it you know it's as you know building purely Elizabeth there are lots of dark moments when you're building a company or a brand when things are not going the way you want them to and it's quite easy to get overwhelmed and to you know to kind of take on more of a scarcity mindset and meditation really helps with that I think it helps to put things into perspective so you're always seeing you know kind of the bigger the bigger picture you know kind of meditation do you do or just I actually do different I'm big on following apps like headspace app I did for what I have that I don't know if you've heard of this product called Sensate where it actually like no it's on you yeah so it's supposed to drive relaxation the vibration on your chest is supposed to create a relaxed relax relaxed state deep relax state and you do that while you're also like visualizing and so I do that in the evenings and then I also generally will will follow apps or sometimes I'll just you know go into my little meditation room which is my closet love it yeah I have multiple kids you you know kind of get in the way if I don't do that and so I will go into my closet and sit in that room and just do breathing exercises and visualization and you know and it just puts me at ease and again it helps me to kind of like reset and and and look at the the bigger picture and kind of appreciate everything that's happening yeah I think as you said it's so critical I mean it's so critical for everybody to be doing that but I think particularly building your business and companies so many moments of highs and lows that it's had to stay the most even killed as possible and figuring out what works the best for you to be able to do that yes you have you have to find your balance somehow if balance exists right right yeah just yeah try try not to live in the extremes yeah exactly yeah so let's get back into sourcing and sustainability and I think it's you know obviously it was really difficult and hard for you personally having this diagnosis but hearing it it's like the silver lining was that it really informed your entire company and gave you such a public specific I mean you wouldn't have even been able to sample the product if it didn't adhere to all your needs yes so you were very particular about it and I know still very particular about sourcing and sustainability ingredients would love just to dive deeper into what that looks like today and and where you're headed with it yeah no absolutely so typically when I tell my creation story I always say there's like two things that really drove you know inspiration above and beyond the business thesis and number one was my healing story the second one was supply chain and you know milk supply overall and I didn't know a lot about dairy coming into the space as I told you I was I was a tea guy and so what I got into the space I learned that 90% of US dairy cows were confined and that completely broke my heart and realized that the food system was broken and that change needed to happen so when I launched good culture we launched as an organic only company because if you know we with organic products that ensures that animals you know spend a certain number of days on pasture but as we scaled it was not possible to to go with our organic proposition across all channels because the pricing was prohibitive for for several shoppers and we when we needed to to scale and democratize you know kind of the mission more broadly so we created a line of products that were pasture raised and we did that for some time with one small co-packer that we had in Wisconsin and it was great we had an organic line we had a pasture raised line as we scaled beyond that we started to look at other facilities other milk sheds you know other other co-ops etc and realized that that pasture raised milk supply didn't exist in a big way and that it would become increasingly more difficult to to source pasture raised milk for our products and that was obviously a big a big challenge for us and what we needed to do was effectively create a new milk supply in order to do that and that is something that we are currently working on so we partnered with the largest dairy co-op in the country DFA and we are working with them on a program called path to pasture where we are apt where we are actually converting conventional farms to regenerative farms with a focus on planned grazing and pasture and so that is a work in progress it doesn't happen overnight it creates a lot work to drive you have to build an entirely new food supply is quite challenging but if we do this right we will be in a place you know once we kind of achieve our full bright solution we will have created you know major food system change and so that for us is also you know a major north star and a huge huge part of our mission we're a certified B corporation we're 1% for the planet company 1% of net sales from our organic products go towards this effort to help convert confined animals to regenerative farms so yeah it's a it's a it's a big part of who we are what we stand for it's a big it's you know rolls up perfectly to our to our brand mission or why statement and really really drives us so we are absolutely walking the walk there and we'll continue to to lean in until we have that solution in place that's so exciting we're starting to actually get into buying regen oats oil and sugar and and actually embarking on a pretty interesting research project to understand nutrient level in the soil when it's farmed regeneratively like what actually happens and have that data but curious to hear for you what that path will look like to convert like how long of a journey is that going to be and just any other details on regen that you found that are like super interesting on this process because I I and our community I think find it fascinating and like such the future of the world solution in so many ways oh totally 100% I mean it's still pretty much in its infancy right so it's starting to to gain some traction and you know some there's a there's more you know kind of PR around regenerative I which is great to see but I think you know for the most part most consumers don't really know what regenerative ag is today so definitely a big opportunity to bring this to the forefront in a more meaningful way but for us it's it's it's a holistic solution right because if you can improve soil health you are capturing more carbon you are cleaning up you know you're improving water quality you are ensuring that the animal is getting out onto pasture so there's a there's an animal welfare component and you are driving a more profitable model for the small family farm who's struggling right now and you know if it's a win win for everybody I mean that's yeah that's how I view it and you know that's a lot of people view it it's just a matter of getting the farm farmer to kind of go through that journey to answer your question the timeline is kind of different for everybody depending on where the farm is and because some farms have no pasture and if they have no pasture that's problematic and that would take more time some farms do a pasture but they just need to like build defense to ensure that the you know their animals have access you know to to pasture but there is a lot of you know strategy that goes behind plan grazing you have to move the animals methodically from paddock to paddock you know kind of strategically to ensure that they're they're you know optimizing for soil health that they're not eating too much grass and exposing the ground because if you expose the ground then that's going to lead to desertification so there is a ton of opportunity and it is like I said a holistic up a holistic opportunity but the solve for the farmer right if it works you should theoretically increase your yields and you should decrease your inputs right and so if you're doing that that that should create a more profitable model for the farmer so it should be something that you know everybody kind of wants to push for so it's a win for the farmer it's a win for the planet it's a win for the animal amazing and it's a win for for consumers for people because you're growing more nutrient dense food right if you do this right right the healthier the soil the you know the the more nutrient dense your food is going to be yeah absolutely and I think that's that's our upsetting part about this research is to really say and prove the fact of look what happens to the soil look what happens to the oh like they're the nutrition level is just only going to increase in the level of the nutrition of your cottage cheese is going to be that much more beneficial for you yeah 100% so looking ahead into 2023 what are you most excited about because 2022 was definitely a very difficult year whereas what's exciting ahead wow there's a lot um because you're right. 2022 was a very tough year due to the macro economic climate, geopolitical issues, inflation, right? All the things everything we saw in the headlines. Yeah, it was a challenging, challenging year. But you are starting to see some promising signals. You're starting to see inflation ease. You are not seeing dramatic erosion and demand today for better for you premium products, which is, which is great. And I think from, you know, in our business specifically, we're really paying a lot of attention to commodities. And commodities right now are starting to kind of come back in line with what we would expect. They're still high versus 2021 and previous years, but they are coming back down to, you know, a more palatable level. And so I'm encouraged because it positions us to scale. It continues us. It positions us to drive, you know, more investment behind the brand. And that's, that's a big part of how we're thinking about good culture's growth from here. Because to date, we've done a great job of building our brand through conversion, marketing, performance, marketing, shopper marketing, whatever you want to call it. But it's been much more product driven, in store driven. And now we're leading in more on top of funnel awareness driving marketing to ensure that more people know about our story, about our mission, about the brand. And so we're excited about that next level of growth. But that's only possible if things improve, you know, from a costing standpoint, right? Because that'll let that gives you enough margin to be able to actually invest in those things. And I see this as the year where we will, you know, hopefully have the opportunity to start doing that so we can scale, you know, much more aggressively and become become a, you know, an enduring brand and a household name. So exciting. This year is totally one. And we've launched more new products. We just launched a cream cheese. So you're starting to, you know, our journey, when we launched good culture, we never said we wanted to only be a cottage cheese company, right? Even day one, though we saw the opportunity and cottage cheese, Anders and I didn't sit down and say, in 10 years from now, we want to own a cottage cheese company, right? It was more, we want to, you know, and it wasn't just a cottage cheese or a sour cream company because we have sour cream also. It was, we want to build a cultured foods platform company, a cultured foods platform company that's focused on gut health and, you know, and overall wellness, right? So that, that was, that is the larger idea. That is 100% our, our North Star. And I think we're starting to kind of go through that journey as we launch new products. As I said, we just launched cream cheese. We also have a probiotic fluid milk that just launched and we have our sour cream and we have cottage cheese innovation. So there's a lot happening now. We're starting to build out that portfolio and ultimately ladder up to that larger vision of becoming that cultured foods platform company. Cool. So well, if you could share any, you can't share. But what's like the creed most far out idea that could fall under the umbrella just of gut health? It's a good question and one that we're actually analyzing right now. It's very, very closely just had a meeting about it this week with our, with our head of marketing and there's a lot of thinking there. We still, we don't want to go too wide too fast, right? So we still are going to be incredibly thoughtful. But I mean, look, if you opened it up to just cultured foods broadly, you could go into sour crowd. You can go into like all sorts of places. I don't think we would do that. But certainly it gives you a lot of latitude to be really thoughtful in terms of how you think about, you know, driving cultured foods or fermented foods more broadly beyond dairy, right? I don't, I don't think we necessarily need to be a cultured dairy company. I think we can definitely, you know, go go wider and become a cultured foods company. I just don't know exactly what those products or categories look like, right? The second, but there's, there's, there's a lot of ideas. And I do think, you know, one filter would be, it needs to be food based or food products. A supplement. Yeah. I don't see our, yeah, exactly. I don't see us going into supplements as an example. Ideally, you would, it would remain a food based solution to gut health. Well, we'll stay tuned for five year innovation pipeline. Well, what would you say? You obviously had a ton of background, both even just from demoing because honestly, I'm sure that gave you so much understanding of the supermarket, the consumer, getting that feedback. I mean, that foundational job to begin with and then obviously through your career. But what would you say was the most surprising when you started good culture that, you know, maybe coming in, you thought, Oh, I have all this knowledge, but then not until you really start the brand from scratch. Might you have thought something different? Yeah. You know, I think it's a good question. I feel probably one of the biggest learnings for me was that there's no clear kind of beginning middle end. I think when I first got into it, I was like, okay, earlier years, this is going to happen and middle years, this is going to happen. And then we're going to have this, this like, you know, ultimate, you know, ending and we're all going to write off into the sunset. And it's definitely much more fluid than that. It's definitely more of a continuum. You're always evolving. You're always growing. You know, things are good. Things are bad. And so I no longer have, you know, kind of that that that more narrow view on how business is built. You have to be able to adapt and flex and evolve across the whole journey, regardless of what phase of growth you're in. So I think that was a big learning. The second one that I would underscore is probably around culture building and people management. I think when you start a company, you think you can do everything yourself, right? You're kind of like, you know, you're all in. You're all, you're going to climb them out on your own. And yeah, if you need to do it all your own, you're going to do it all on your own. And then as you start to scale and you get bigger, you realize how critical it is to have a team of people around you that believe in you, believe in the mission. That are, you know, that they're you're ensuring that everyone's rowing in the same direction. But in order to do that, you need to build a culture that people really care about. They really need to believe in the higher, the higher ground. They need to believe in your purpose and your why. But they need to believe in those things authentically. And if they don't, they're never going to run as hard as you want them to run. And you are never on your own going to have enough time to build the business effectively. Though you may think you can do it in years, one in year two, you quickly realize that the company suffers. If you try to do everything yourself, so you have to get really good at, you know, driving a people first culture, get really good at delegating and fostering an environment where, you know, people have a big voice and have the ability to really impact change. I love that. How do you think that you have changed since good culture? What are some of the ways personally or professionally that you've evolved and grown? Yeah, you know, I think. And I want to be careful how they say it because I don't want to make it sound like I've lost urgency, but I think I've been. Like like because I think when I first started going back similar to what I just said earlier, like when you first start, it's like all passion, right? You're like more faster, better, more faster, better go go go go. That's not always the best solution, right? Like sometimes it's actually better to take a pause and to, you know, pull back and look at things objectively and think about things for a minute and be more methodical and strategic in terms of how you grow your business. And so I think I've been able to, as I've matured as a CEO and co-fatter in this role, I've been able to take a bigger step back and and probably, you know, not lead with as much emotion. Emotion is still really important and still a big part of who I am and how I and how I lead. I think gut and instinct and emotion is critical, but you don't want it to be all emotion. Because and I think that for a lot of founders, when they start, it's like a hundred percent emotion. Yeah. And that is helpful in earlier years, right? I mean, because you do need to run really hard and you do need to do a lot of things. You don't have time. You don't have time. You know, people, you don't have resources and it's just like, you know, go all in, run, run super hard, super hard. So I think I've learned to be able to kind of step back and be more thoughtful, understand the bigger picture, be more strategic, be more prescriptive in terms of how we, you know, build and scale. I think that's really good feedback. I think it's also hard or I'm finding it hard that I totally agree. Like that's where I was and evolving to that. But I also want to make sure that we're not being like two methodical and strategic and taking too much time. Right. And it's like, okay, innovation used to take us like a month and we'd have a sample of the whole foods and that would be that. And now it's like a year. Yes. Well, yeah, it's like the paralysis by an ounce. Yeah, you don't want to overanalyze either. I think maintaining got maintaining instincts is critical. So you do, you definitely don't want to lose that. Otherwise, to your point, you're going to move too slow. And then you're going to, you know, show up and behave the way a big company, you know, shows up and behaves. And, you know, one of the competitive, competitive advantages that a solar company has is that we can be more nimble. And we can, you know, we can, we can pivot, we can go fast and we don't necessarily have to go through, you know, a year of legal review to make a decision. Not a way. Right. So yeah, you absolutely want to maintain that. And I'm a big believer in, you know, letting gut and instinct kind of carry you forward. There's the the famous, you know, quote, if you asked the people what they want, they would have said faster horses. So I don't think you're going to create true, true disruption. If you're letting those choices be made solely by data, but I do think data also plays a role. Right. I think there's a place for the, for data to help validate, but you don't want that to, that to be the thing that's, that's driving the decision. For sure. That's making the decision. For sure. Yeah. All right. We're going to move into some rapid fire Q and A. What do you wish more people knew about you? - That I love them and I appreciate them. - Oh, must read Business Book. - Shudog by Phil Knight, have you read that? - I haven't, I feel like I know. I'm way behind by not reading that. - And apparently now there's a movie coming out about it. - Oh, that's exciting. - Like Matt Damon and Dan Afluck I think. But I'm seeing a book, yeah, it's so good. - Favorite good culture moment. - For me, it was validating proof of concept. When I, like you work so hard to get it on shelf and that's gratifying. But what's more gratifying, gratifying is when you see it actually move off shelf and when you see that the velocities are there and that you're suddenly becoming a category leader across several key retailers. When we started to see that data materialize and learn like, wow, we're the number one selling cottage. She's brand in Whole Foods. We're almost like 60 share in Whole Foods. I mean, that's amazing. So when you start to see that come to life, it's so rewarding and validating. And it just makes you feel like you've built something that's truly meaningful and enduring. - Three things that you're currently loving. - Succession. I don't know if you've seen that show, amazing. - Yes, yep. - Open by Andre Agassi. - Yeah, I love that book. - Yeah. - So good. - Good luck. Yeah, I've already read it. And I love that book so much. And then I will go to maybe a food item. And I'm not just saying this and you said at the start of the call, but I'm currently loving purely Elizabeth granola on good culture, 4% cottage cheese. And I mean that through and through. I mean, I literally just want to target two days ago and I purchased more purely Elizabeth to put on my cottage cheese. It's like the best combo ever. - It is really the best combo. I will say there's something about like the salty sweetness of it that just works. - Yeah, just say. - Yeah, I do granola blueberries and some honey. I drizzled on and it's like, it's a good combo. - Is the 4% your personal favorite of your product? - Either the four or the six, our double cream. I like the higher fat excuse. They're just really creamy but a remouth feel. So yeah, that's where I go. And I'm a big believer in healthy fats. I think it's okay. - For sure. - Well, that leads perfectly into tap three items in your shopping cart but you can, it cannot be a purely or a good culture item. - I mean, I don't think I would even say brands because if you look at my shopping cart, it's a ton of deep green veggies, root vegetables. I eat tons of sweet potatoes, sour crout. You know, I like, I love, I eat sour crout because it's a super healthy, super healthy fermented food. - What's your favorite sour crout? Even though you say to work in the same brand. - Yeah, probably wild brine. Is where I go. - Yes, good. - Yeah, sometimes Trader Joe's private label, but I like wild brine. And then fruit, big, big on berries and fruits. I eat a ton of those. So I like to maintain a shopping cart that's primarily real foods. I don't buy a ton of packaged products. I obviously buy some, but I try to maintain, you know, a real food diet. If I was a gardener, a farmer, a grower, I probably do more of that. - Curious to hear. Obviously now you've had a way more exposure to dairy and to meet industry. What's your favorite meat that you buy? Or what kind of meat do you buy? - I primarily buy organic chicken thighs and organic ground turkey. Those are like my two go-to's. I do appreciate a good grass-fed steak, but I don't eat it as much. I try to limit my red meat intake and try to maintain more of a Mediterranean diet. Mediterranean, I'm sure you've read several articles of Mediterranean diets, but year-over-year continues to be like to win the best diet for longevity. And that's something that I'm increasingly more focused on. How do I live longer? As I get older here, I want to try to maximize lifespan. So Mediterranean diet continues to show up as being the best diet for longevity. So that's what I lean in on. - So funny. I was just listening to Jason of my body green. - Oh yeah. - Talking about Mediterranean diet. And he was like, you know, you have the keto influencers, if you can influencers, there's no Mediterranean diet influencers. I get needs the rebranded and needs some influencers. - Seriously. I mean, I didn't even realize that. I would have thought there were massive influencers in that space, but yeah. Well, hey, maybe you and I could-- - It's an opportunity. - Let's go. - All right. - We'll team up on that. - Come on. Favorite words to live by? - Fight to win versus fighting to not lose. And that has also really inspired me throughout this journey and drives me every day, right? 'Cause there's several folks that they fight, but they fight to not lose, right? But to fight to win is an entirely different mindset and a different level of, you know, how competitive you are and how hard you fight, how hard you run, et cetera. That's a, you know, you have to have a lot of grit in order to make it in this space. And so I think fighting to win, having that mindset at all times is paramount. You know, you can always be better today than you were yesterday or better tomorrow than you are today. And so I think maintaining that mindset is a critical one as you build a brand. - I love that. - Yeah. - And lastly, what are your top three non-negotiables to thrive on your wellness journey? Maybe those three non-negotiables that you might do every day or every week? - Yeah. - They're absolute. - Yeah, I mean, I think it probably goes back to what I was saying earlier. Like I can't skip my workout. That has to happen. Regardless of how busy I am, I will always find the time for that, right? And there are days where it's like, I'm so, you know, heavily scheduled, but I will still like strategically move in meeting or like find a, you know, even if it's 20 minutes or a 30 minute gap where I can go outside and hit a run or go outside and swim some laps in the pool. So that-- - Do you need to put that in your calendar or how do you like schedule that? - I don't actually calendarize that, but I just know. Like I know I have to work out every single day. What, yeah, and it doesn't matter. I try to do it in the morning. I prefer mornings. - Yeah. - If I have early morning meetings and I can't do it, then I'll work out in the evening or maybe I'll do a workout lunch break or something. But that, yeah, I can't miss that. My diet is another one. I'm not someone that cheats in a big way. You know, my cheat will be like, you know, I'm eating a slice of Amy's pizza, which is a much healthier pizza. But like, you know, I may be like, if I'm in New York, I'll get a slice of pizza from like a great New York list. But I'm not gonna eat like highly processed pizza. So I don't cheat. Like I know, I think there's a weighted cheat where it's still, you know, kind of in line with your health values. And like I said, like, yeah, I think that the pizza example is a good one. But I don't think I would ever go to a place where I'm suddenly eating highly processed packaged foods because I felt like cheating that day. Like that's not-- - You're never buying like a bag of Doritos. - No, like that would never happen. I'm not gonna do that, right? Yeah, I'm not gonna buy like a bag of, you know, ramen like bad ramen. So anyway, yes, that is a place right on cheat. And then, or yeah, that's a place where I'm always committed. And then the last one I would say is probably sleep/meditation. That for me kind of go hand in hand, like I kind of need to meditate in order to get good sleep. So I need to do both of those things well. And I definitely notice when I don't do those things and when I don't sleep well, I am so off my game. I am so much less productive, right? You have like mind fog and it's harder to be productive and you don't think as clearly, you don't move as fast. And you're just making worst decisions and you're indecisive. So like those are, it's critical that you do those things. So yeah, those are all non-negotiable for me. - Love it, Jesse, enclosing anything else that you haven't shared or you wanna touch on or anything that's next other than your five year pipeline that you'll share sometime with us later. - No, I mean, no, first thank you for having me. I enjoyed the conversation. I think I would just leave people with, learn more about the benefits of fermented foods and cultured foods. It is a critical part of a healthy diet and a lot of people don't eat enough cultured foods for mentored foods. So I think it's something that everyone should pay attention to. Cultured foods provide beneficial bacteria that convert carbohydrates into more digestible protein and other nutrients, which actually makes your food more bioavailable. So you're actually absorbing more nutrition. And that is so crucial to having a healthy lifestyle. So I would leave you with that. Make sure you get more cultured foods fermented foods into your diet 'cause it's a critical part of a healthy lifestyle. - Awesome. Jesse, thank you so much for coming on. This was so great to catch up. - Awesome, thanks for having me. - Thanks so much for joining me and live purely with Elizabeth. I hope you feel inspired to thrive on your wellness journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to rate, subscribe and review. You can follow us on Instagram @pjurely_lisabeth to catch up on all the latest. See you next Wednesday on the podcast.