BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #97

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #97

Welcome to the Brand Secrets and Strategies podcast where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.

I’m your host Dan Lohman. This weekly show is dedicated to getting your brand on the shelf and keeping it there.

Get ready to learn actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

LETS ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES AND GET STARTED!

Dan: Welcome. I really appreciate you listening to this podcast. This podcast is about you and it's for you. If you've been listening for a while you know, that at the end of every episode, I give my guest an opportunity to ask me a question. I help them try to solve their most pressing problem, your most pressing problem. Sometimes this means that the podcast extends over an hour. And while I apologize for the length, the insights are invaluable. Where else do you have access to the leading thought leaders in our industry? Nowhere. This is the only place that you can get free access to all of your leading industry thought leaders, as well as advice to how grow your brand sustainably. If you like the podcast, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review. Remember, this podcast is about you and it's for you.

Today's story is fantastic. I didn't want to end it prematurely. We talked about how does a brand stand out, on a shelf, and more importantly, how does a small brand compete head to head, toe to toe, with some of the largest players in the industry? Both in natural and in mainstream. We talked about strategies to level the playing field between small brands and their largest, most sophisticated competitors. This is definitely an episode you're going to want to listen to, in its entirety.

Today's podcast is about a disruptive brand that's radically changing the category that they play in. Yes, there are other competitors that have been in the category for longer than they have, but what they're doing is they're making a commitment to dramatically change the way consumers think about food. Not only are their products different from their competition, but they stand out on the shelf, thanks to the iconic bottle that they use. As you learn more about this brand, you're definitely gonna be a fan. They've got a great story. A story that's gonna resonate with you.

Now here's Greg, with Califia Farms. Greg, thank you for coming on today. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey to Califia?

Greg: Great and thanks for having me on the program. Califia has become kind of a real large adventure for me. I've been, it's sort of a continuation of my own path in natural foods and beverage products, going all the way back to the 1980s. But the name and the brand itself came to me in an interesting way, I was just finishing up with another project. I had co-founded a company called the 'Adina for Life,' which was based around fair-trade products. Primarily coffees and innovative tea products like Hibiscus that we were bringing from other countries and trying to popularize in the US. And they were linked to coops back in the countries of origin. So I had got a bunch of investors in that and there were too many chiefs and not enough indians, so I left, and literally the next day, I got a call from a man named Burt Evans, and owned a company that was producing the largest amount of these mandarin tangerines in the Central Valley, California. And they had a real food waste problem and that these little thin skinned Spanish Clementines were easily bruised and they needed to find some way to, not just feed them all to the cows. I had a background, dating back to my Odwalla days in doing juices and figured out a way that we could make juice out of it, and go on to return some value and not have the crops be wasted.

Dan: Good.

Greg: Anyway, it was a serendipitous moment. I didn't know, I had no idea what my life was gonna do the day I left the other company. I tell the story that way, because it's just kind of a classic case of following your heart, one door closes, another door opens, so. Super thankful for that. And Califia has been on a big adventure ever since then.

Dan: And let me back up a little bit. I want to make sure that we get this right. I learned how to pronounce the brand, I thought, by listening to other people. So it's Califia. So what does it mean? And why is it important? And why did you name the brand that way?

Greg: Califia, the name Califia is taken from the namesake of the state of California. And there was a Spanish myth that was written about in a novel that dates back, even to the late 1400s and early 1500s. And that novel was kind of like a pulp type novel at the time. Very popular in which there was a heroine in the story, kind of a combination heroine and villain in a way. But, she was this heroic figure named Queen Califia. So when the Spanish, and, sorry, and in this story, she was the ruler of this island which was, you know, thought to be off the coast of the New World. And was this mythical Island of Abundance and populated by largely, these black Amazonian warriors who were both fearsome and had some very unique and intriguing abilities to you know, sort of came magical creatures, like griffins and speak to animals and speak to plants and so on.

Great story dating back 500 years or more and this story, we find out later, as we've researched it, was even based on another set of stories, and possibly a book that was found somewhere in North Africa that dated even back to maybe the 1200s.

Dan: Wow.

Greg: There's, and interestingly enough, the early Spanish and Portuguese sailors got around and started circumnavigating the globe, because of the skills of the Moorish sailors and navigators, who were black. There's a lot of speculation out there that actually, the Moors and possibly other African civilizations could have reached the New World long before the Spanish and Portuguese did.

Just kind of a fascinating piece of let's just say, tucked away history. And also, the fact that citizens of California, very, very few of them, in fact almost no people that I've ever asked actually know of this story. So, I think the popularity of Califia as a brand, is helping to rejuvenate this idea of the origin of the state and the figurehead that she represents.

Dan: I love that. I like the romance behind that. The mystery, the intrigue, and everything about it. That's a lot better than saying, "Hey, this is Joe's Favorite Stuff." I'm just teasing, obviously, but, no, it's a great story. And you know, honestly, I don't remember seeing that on your website. I'm looking in your website right now to see if that's there. That is something that you should highlight or use more, in terms of the what you talk about. You know, yesterday, when we were talking about your brand's story. That's a really cool origin story. I like that. And what I really like about it is what you said, what you called the 'mythical island of abundance,' which to me conjures up a lot of great ideas about what the Califia brand is and what it could be and what it would mean to grocers, et cetera.

Greg: Right. And you know, I was always kind of a fan of mythologies, not so much, even though I did grow up reading Grimm's Fairy Tales and the Greek myths and all that, so, I had the benefit of kind of a cultural education, in that regard. And I always thought they were super, this is before the age of cartoons and stuff that people, video games, obviously. And so these things really were an exercise in the imagination, right?

Dan: Sure, yeah.

Greg: For kids growing up in those days. So I also think that brands kind of are, you know, have mythic proportions, in some way. They're an aggregate of a lot of cultural and effort and collective work on the part of people and I think good brands create aspirational feelings for people. And I think that should be part of their job, really, is to stimulate better progress and also empowering people just to feel more energetic and sense of possibilities that they have about their own lives.

Dan: I couldn't agree with you more. I mean people want to feel good about what they buy. They want to feel good about the products that they support, and if there's a story tied to it. And to go back even further, all of the ... our history, we've learned a lot from our history. And it's the stories that are passed down from generation to generation to generation, that help us understand where we came from. And help us learn the fables, and the fairytales, et cetera, and all the different rich stories that we've had, passed down throughout the years.

Now, does it matter what your religious practices are? Or your spiritual practices or whatever, you know, mythology, et cetera. There's some great tales in there and we learn a lot from it. So to your point, yeah I love the idea that, as you said, and I agree with you, that brands need to be more aspirational. And this is a great way to connect the dots or tie a story, something based in history, to where we're at today. So thank you for sharing that. Certainly didn't expect to get that on the podcast. But that was a great story.

So, when you're building this brand out, can we go back even further, so Odwalla. Tell me about that, 'cause you're the founder of Odwalla. So what was it like and what did you learn there?

Greg: The learnings are gonna take up a long time, but I'll summarize the high notes. In those days, it was very early period in the natural food industry, as such, or business, in the United States. We were kind of contemporaries of companies like Ben & Jerry's, there was a company called The Body Shop, which was like an early sort of natural body care type company. The Whole Foods, some of the Whole Foods people were starting their own regional stores and Whole Foods itself was just beginning. There were a few handfuls, small handful of other companies that were springing up at the same time some of these pioneering retailers were getting going. At that time, Odwalla, which was, by the way also founded on a mythical character.

Dan: Really?

Greg: And we were a group of musicians who really were influenced by this band called the Art Ensemble of Chicago. And they were a group of African-American musicians and playing in Chicago, who played, they were adept at playing the whole spectrum of great black music. All the way from African log drumming all the way though avant garde modern jazz and electric jazz and all that stuff.

We just really liked their whole attitude and how they brought a lot of ritual and color into musical performance. And they had a song called 'Odwalla,' which was sort of their theme song. And one them also wrote a poem in which Odwalla was a character in that poem. And this character helped lead the People of the Sun, which was the name for humans, I think, through the Gray Haze. Which meant a period of pollution and trials and tribulations and kind of through a dark period.

So again, these are kinda 'hero' stories. Queen Califia being a little different take on that, but, similar idea. I'd gotten attracted and the gang of us that are involved in both companies and there's some people who have kind of followed both companies. We really like this idea of a story larger and a story of transformation and evolution in a kind of a non-Dystopian future. You know? And the idea that, yeah, there really is possible for a future that is mostly healthier and people working together to create a common good.

We're not a bunch of idealists and since going to work every day isn't very idealistic, but, we do share the optimism that you really can change things through a collective effort, so. Lots of overlap with both companies and I learned that building a brand is a lot more than having a logo.

Dan: Yes.

Greg: I also, learned that the culture of a company is more powerful or equally powerful to the products, or what's called the 'brand.' And I also learned that things take time and that achieving these things is the sum of a lot of hard work. And the giant, what we call 'big food,' that's out there today, is really the result of 100s of years after or where many, many companies and efforts have been acquired and rolled up and consolidated into these giant companies. But they have benefited from the sum of all these other efforts.

So, I'm [missing audio 00:16:27] just to say that, things sometimes drift away from their original purpose and I think there's a unique opportunity in this day and age, to we-up and think that, for companies like ourselves, to actually scale some kind of really craft approach and more personalized view of these products, into companies that actually be helping to supply a good part of the food system.

Dan: Love that. What a great story. And the reason we're doing this podcast is, back to what you said, people working together to create a common good. And that's the whole focus. In my mind, that's what makes natural, natural. And I'm really thrilled that you shared that because that is a great story. And where I'm going with that is, is that it's us working together to try to change the way that people think about food and people think about nutrition and think about the environment that we're living in and how brands play a part in that.

And so, to some of the things that you've talked about, having a brand that's taking the responsibility of thinking about how to make a better planet. A better life, a better community around it. Is far more important than having a brand that's simply looking at a profit margin, or a profit objective. I believe, and I've actually had this conversation a lot of times, Greg, where that I believe that it's the small, disruptive brands like you, like Odwalla and Califia, that are going to change the entire CBG landscape, because you're doing something that aligns with the way the consumers feel or the way consumers buy products and the way they consume products, but more importantly, that aspirational objective, or aspirational part of their product that you're talking about. Any thoughts around that?

Greg: Yeah, for sure. I think no matter, well I shouldn't say no matter what, because I think Apple is such a great story around something that was a small, like iconoclastic challenge your brand, right?

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: Up against IBM and then when they launched the iPhone they were up against Motorola and all these huge, phone, telecommunications companies, and yet they became the largest market company in the world. And I remember early days of being an Apple fan and the more traditional guys ... and Odwalla was back in those days, making fun of myself and a lot of the people that might have been in the marketing department who were early adopters of Apple, right?

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: They just, the world as it was, the status quo didn't take it seriously. And look at what happened. So, I shouldn't say companies like ours couldn't eventually, maybe become really major parts of the food system. But there really is a David and Goliath going on, and it's big food companies are between 50 billion and 100 billion in sales. And we're talking about companies our size that, even us in a medium size, where we're in the hundreds of millions, are not even scratching the surface of what these big food companies really do, in terms of revenues and amount of the world's food that they supply.

There's so much work to do and I always want to encourage other entrepreneurs that, don't think things are saturated or it's like I think people should pick areas where there's not a lot of people already challenging things. Like say, cold-brewed coffee, how many people ... you know there's, how many cold-brew coffee brands do we really need? But if you go in a typical convenience store, for example, there are so few choices for consumer's to have a truly, you know, either natural product, a pure product. A product that doesn't have preservatives and artificial ingredients, or abnormal amounts of salt and sugar.

Cleaning up the food supply, to me, is almost, I won't over-glorify it, but I would say it's a sacred task because our mission statement at Califia for example, simply states, "Return food to its original, nurturing purpose."

Dan: Love it.

Greg: That's all there is to say about it, from our point of view. And that should be like a hypocritic or oath, like a doctor would take that their duty is to save lives, right?

Dan: Right.

Greg: And protect the patient, or try everything in their humanly possible way to save the patient and for the patient's benefit. And I think it should be that way for a food producer, is like a sacred oath. And that would mean if you're coming into a company, a big company, then your job is to help clean it up.

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: It's a kind of giant environmental clean up project.

Dan: That's a good thing. And one of the things, I mean, going back to your comparison with Apple, you know what I would take away from that, Greg, is that Apple is a company, and by the way, full disclosure, my office looks like a mini Apple store. So I'm a huge Apple fan. I've been using their products for years. Love them. But one of the things that's unique about it, and I think the correlation, for me, is that here's a brand, like Califia, and other natural brands, that listen to their core consumer. And they build products based upon what their consumers want. So it's not just a phone you can talk on, but it is something that helps connect you to all the things that are important in your life. It's not just a liquid beverage in a bottle, but to your point, it's something that's focused on returning food to its original purpose. It's cleaning up the food supply. It's doing something bigger than just being a bottle on a retailer's shelf.

Greg: Yeah. Amen to that. I couldn't say it any better led. Listen, you know, when companies are formed, there's a lot of parts to it.

Dan: Right.

Greg: And I look at it as kind of a flywheel, and you've got first and foremost, everything, meaning any enterprise or team or gathering together of people, has to have some kind of common vision or purpose. From that, you know, you have to look at the consumer or user or fellow human beings' need, and need, desires, their pain points, their conflicts, their difficulties, and then, in our case, you create a kind of DNA that is in relationship to that need.

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: Steve was famous, Steve Jobs, was famous for saying he didn't do market research. Well, in point of fact, he really was, because his team of developers and designers and engineers, in those early days, they were the ones that were imagining the tools that they themselves wanted. So they were listening closely to themselves and then dreaming up a life or a kind of interface that would be much more enjoyable than the kind of like, I mean, back in those days, people can't even ... Even the codes. You had to enter in-

Dan: Right.

Greg: ... a bunch of codes to start your computer. I mean, it was really crazy, because they were thinking of what was convenient for the engineer, not what was really a tool for every person. And I don't know, this is a very passionate subject for me because food, you know, should not be creating suffering. We know for a fact that high caloric, refined carbohydrates, which are sugars, and even the artificial sweeteners, which create a continual craving for that sweetness, that this causes first, obesity, then diabetes, and then diabetic complications. And then it further makes the patients susceptible to almost everything, or lessens their ability to withstand other inflammatory diseases and so on. This is a medical fact that obesity and diabetes are real inhibitors of human, you know, comfort and they're pre-cursors to a lot of other diseases.

So by making people, you know, obese or creating diabetic type reactions, we're actually creating suffering.

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: I mean, we meaning the food system human being. I don't know. It's such a fundamental issue that to me, this new period we're in with millennials and Gen Z where people are voting with their values and what they really believe in? I just think it's gonna change the food landscape way more than people imagine. Way more.

Dan: Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. And on that note, yeah, I spent a lot of time digging into this and actually had the privilege of ... There's a company that I'm actually one of the founders in, that has actually come up with a ... believe it or not, organic, healthy sugar. And that sounds like an oxymoron, but learning about it and what's out there today and to your point, if you have a craving, but you don't have the right nutrients behind it, then that's what causes a lot of the issues. The obesity and the ... anyhow. Don't want to go down that path, but my point is that I do agree with you completely that having real food, the way it was intended to be, is the answer to that.

And what's interesting is that this generation, both boomers and millennials, are leading the charge in getting people to start thinking about food as being a more important part of their life. It's not just something that you do as a passing fad, but it's what fuels you, it's what sustains you. And then behind that, what makes natural, natural, back to that conversation, is that, understanding where the food comes from, the transparency and why something that's not processed is better for you. And what authentic food means and so, anyhow, that goes to the story. So tying that back into your story of the mythical Island of Abundance, to me, that makes a lot of sense. To me that really brings everything together full circle, in helping your consumers, and other consumers, understand why Califia exists and why you matter.

So on that note, what is, Califia, what are the products that you have? And then once you got started with this, I mean what's the origin story? Let me put it that way, in terms of one day you woke up, you decided to start a new business. What were the steps that you took to get this thing up and running and then what are you looking at in terms of the future? How are you going to fill that need of, or that mantra of the mythical Island of Abundance?

Greg: Right. We have a kind of destiny to fulfill, right?

Dan: Yes.

Greg: So we better get to it.

Dan: Hold you to it.

Greg: The origins, I mean, we got the company started processing these Spanish Clementines, and on my drive to where our plant is located in the Central Valley of California, the South-Central Valley, and there, when you're driving up to our plant, literally, you pass between almond groves on the left, almond groves on the right. And I would drive by those every day and sooner or later it started to sink in to me that maybe I should use what's local.

Dan: Hm.

Greg: Right? So, that was one sort of pinprick. The other one was, I was at Expo West, the big food show, and this is going back to 2012, and almond milk had just started to come out, by, the growers here in California called Blue Diamond, and they made one of the early almond milks. And I tasted it, but I put it in coffee, and I was trying to go dairy free, at the time. I put it in my coffee and it just curdled up like a sponge and I said, "There's gotta be a way to make a great tasting almond milk that would work in coffee." So, then we managed technically, to solve that problem by doing it a little different way and using the whole almond as opposed to buying a milled, kind of butter, if you will.

And then we said, "Okay, we got a great product, but, how can we possibly survive up against these bigger companies?" And that's where we kinda tapped into the design, so the group of us and we picked this carafe and then I had a collection of these French water carafes and thought they were really beautiful. And this was somewhat modeled after this classicism that the Greeks, the French, the Ming Dynasty, this is a sort of sense of proportion that all those great cultures had. And modeled a bottle after that, and like they say, the rest is history. The bottle, I think more people know Califia by the shape of the bottle than they do actually the name.

Dan: I'd agree.

Greg: So, that was how, we then launched it. We had a fortuitous relationship with Whole Foods where Whole Foods had some supply issues with their almond milk, so we stepped up, provided them. And it was just that era when soy was going down and the consumer was looking for something that tasted more like regular milk, and didn't have any of that kind of after taste. We did a good job on that and then just kept on the theme and looked at going back to my early cold-brewed days, brought cold-brew in. And by now, the consumer had kinda caught up with that idea and the cold-brew took off. And the company has managed to kind of be a leader in three or four categories now, in natural food. So, creamers and coffee, cold-brewed coffees, the plant milks, and now the probiotic drinkable yogurt.

So we've taken this whole concept of what plants can do and then just said, you know if you re-envision this back case of the store which used to be called the 'dairy case,' and you said, "Could this be the plant case some day?" And take and make healthier versions with less saturated fats and less allergens and less lactose, you know, speak to the greater part of the population, which is actually lactose intolerant. So. There's just kind a world of healthy change that at least we can provide a great option for.

Dan: Love the fact that you're doing that. And in fact, actually as a side note, Gary Hershberger said that we need to vote with our dollars. So in the same theme and so did, you know, John Foraker made some similar comments and Susan [O'Lochland 00:34:15], and the point being that we're all talking about how we need to pay attention to what our shoppers want, or what our consumers want, and provide them with the value and the products. And to the point of you being, your products standing out on the shelf, you know really, you're absolutely right. Your bottles are so distinctive, I can tell that your product is on the shelf, from way across the store. Again, that was a great idea that you guys did that.

When you're talking about plants milk being a healthy version of milk, I talk about the products like this, a lot on the podcast, and what I don't think people realize is that cows weren't made to eat grain and hay. And because of that, I think personally, and although it's not scientifically proven, that that's where a lot of the food allergies and a lot of the lactose intolerance issues come from, in terms of the dairy case. And so to be able to come up with a product that eliminates that, the gut issues, et cetera, I think is a great place to go.

What did you see in terms of the opportunity to get into that space? And then how did you convince the retailers that this is a viable opportunity for them to differentiate their product and bring new consumers back to the dairy case?

Greg: We're not done convincing the retailers. I wouldn't put it all in the past tense and we-

Dan: Okay.

Greg: ... talk about that later.

Dan: Sure.

Greg: But, I would say that our early successes have been, or, are best encapsulated in this phrase that we use, called, "Something different, something better."

Dan: Okay.

Greg: And it's a simple phrase that really helps the R&D and product development people in the company. It helps the people who do the marketing. It helps everything, everybody kinda stay to a true North. And we've already defined our space as 'plant based,' so we don't use any animal products anywhere in the whole company, or any part of the supply chain. We are truly a vegan company, in that sense.

When it comes to making the arguments for retailers, it's always, I think boils down to what sells. And what sells is what consumers want. But, you have to be given a chance to get in front of them. So, I also think retailers have to take some chances when it's in the direction of health and wellness. And I think they should be allies of the consumer and not just say, "Well, until you're as big as X or Y," or, "Hey plant milk guy, until you're as big as dairy, I'm not gonna give you as much space." And in fact, there's retailers like Target or Target, which have already been very progressive in this transition. And Whole Foods, too, for sure. In which, in the fluid milk area, Target is actually very close to 50% of all their milk sold being specialty milk or plant milk.

Dan: Good.

Greg: And by, specialty means either a lactose removed milk or like A2 or organic milk, plus the plant milk. And if you look at the population as a whole, there's only around 10 or 12% of that market is actually plant based. So there's a long way to go, but, we think it can be really balanced when the next generation becomes the dominant consuming generation. Because children are being raised in a very different way today and consumers are much more empowered with information that is less constructed by the interested parties.

Dan: Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. So let's talk about plant based. I couldn't agree with you more in a sense that consumer's buying habits are changed and that they look beyond the four corners of their package, and they want to understand what's not only on the label of the package, but then they go to the company's webpage and do research. And so, plant based is, is unique in the sense that there are a lot of nutritional benefits from it. Can you talk a little bit about that? From your standpoint, what are the things that you want to celebrate or discuss or educate the consumers and the retailers, the most about, in terms of the benefit of a plant based product?

Greg: First of all, I think that most retailers are catching on to the fact that plant based eating, or plant centric eating, is the biggest potential dietary movement that's happened in the last four years.

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: And that is because, in my estimation, that it's a positive oriented dietary concept, as opposed to like, you say, the Atkins Diet or the Grapefruit Juice Diet or all the hundreds of dietary fads that have come and go that have been about, oh, just restrict yourself to eat certain things, and you can only eat so much, and so on. Plant based is like an open door. It says, "Hey, take a step, eat a little less animal based products, see how you feel, and then go from there." And you can pick a meatless Monday, you can pick a plant based day of the week as a place someone can start. They can pick a meal of the day to start. And I think as people start to actually experience it, then you get real long term transformation. And it's more of a joyous and it's an intellectual exploration as well, around creatively coming up with recipes. And recipes are our biggest form of interaction with our consumer base, around plant based tips and lifestyle changes that people can make, and they're looking for those inspirations.

I think that the plant based diet shift, which has now also been embraced by many hardcore athletes, including a large group of Olympic athletes, and many specialized athletes, and even were in touch with this Green HipHop Movement, where there's a lot of rappers and new hiphop artists that are promoting the idea of a vegan lifestyle or plant based lifestyle. And it's popping up into lyrics and whole concerts that are just based around artists who share that eco. So it feels to me like almost a revolutionary period, only people aren't rebelling against something, they're moving towards something that's more positive. I think there's a mature aspect to this movement that's a little different than the 60s and 70s when it was kinda like, more, you know, 'against the man,' so to speak.

Dan: I know what you meant.

Greg: And not that that doesn't exist as well, not saying it shouldn't, but I also think that there's just our own, creating our own economies, right? I mean, our own economies are like Gary said, you vote with your dollar. Your dollar goes to supporting that company, who has that belief system. So wouldn't you rather, I mean, here's a thing, a company like, let's say Kraft or Nestle, which is so big, and they might come out with a product now and then that is truly what they call 'good for you,' right?

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: And companies like Pepsi have gone through various machinations in their vocabulary to say, "We have better for you, which means less of the bad stuff," right?

Dan: Yes.

Greg: And they have a little bit of good for you and the rest of it they call 'fun for you.'

Dan: Yeah.

Greg: It's fun until you're in the hospital, right? And then I would argue that then it's not so fun, but, I do understand executives in those companies and the position they're in with their shareholders. So, again, those shareholders are voting for maximizing the return of an old system, which wasn't based on the wellness of the consumer as the first and primary imperative.

Dan: Well said.

Greg: I was just going to say, just to kinda cap it off, the vision for Califia is to nourish and inspire through the wisdom of a plant based lifestyle. So we feel that's where pioneering companies kinda have a dual role, you know? One is to inspire people and give them information and turn them on to things, but, then, the sacred job of the food itself, is really to nourish people. So it's kind of a two-part deal. Right?

Dan: Well yeah, but it goes right back to what you said, return food to its original purpose. And one of the things I think is real exciting about the plant based food movement, is that people are beginning to experience foods, or, let me put it this way, people are beginning to think about plant based diets as being something that's actually feasible. And I was actually talking to my eco's kitchen about this, and we used to joke about how the packaging tastes better than the product inside. And yet, today, there's so many robust flavors and different products that we can try, and different things that can really satiate you, and then, that really just backfill your diet for helping you get away from what you were used to when you didn't have a plant based diet.

And then to your point about a lot of the big brands, they pay more attention to Wall Street versus Main Street, and that ties back into what we've been talking about, using Apple as an example, where you're listening to and paying attention to your consumer and producing or innovating, based upon what they want, rather than just slapping a different label on something, or a different flavor, and trying to convince us that we need to buy it because it's something different. The reality is, where I'm going with that, Greg, is that innovation, the bigger companies don't really understand this, but you're innovating around trying to come up with a solution that is geared toward improving health and doing more for the people that use the product than just simply worried about a bottom line.

When you're working with the retail community and you're trying to help them understand this, how do you educate them about a plant based diet? Or perhaps maybe I should back up and say, "Can you talk about what is a plant based diet? What are the benefits? And then why should people consider this as a healthy option?" Even if they're just trying it or experimenting with it?

Greg: I mean, first of all, there's a ton of impurical evidence that you will just lose weight, a very easy way to lose weight, is shift to a vegetable or plant based diet. And so, right away, so many people are, have gone through weight issues and self esteem issues and so many things, and especially for people who live in food deserts or food swamps, where just the availability of products that are even reasonably nourishing, let alone plant based, is very rare.

We're trying more and more to find ways to access our products to those kind of communities and I think that should be a bigger effort to make those products affordable, through those channels-

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: ... and all of that kind of thing. The plant based lifestyle, I think that one of the single, that I mentioned before, okay. The first is, people usually feel better on it. So-

Dan: Yeah.

Greg: ... the proof is in the pudding. So that's first. The second is, weight loss and just general feeling more at ease in your body and so on. So that's the second. And then third, there is reduction of allergens and potential issues that people may be very unaware of relative to lactose intolerance, or dairy protein. So there's a lot of emerging evidence now, that certain proteins that come from animals, are also, cause allergies and problems.

There's all the reactive components and then there's just, plant based foods have healthier fats when they do have fat. So, you say, coconut milk, for example, has medium chain fats, which are more easily digestible and assumable by the body. And they also help provide that kinda healthy fat balance that's needed from a macro-nutrition standpoint. So there's all those aspects and also just there's a point at which caloric load actually matters, too.

For example, a big reason I got into almond milk as well as wanting to solve the coagulation problem, was just, I could see the writing in the wall with fruit juices and need to know, my early career was based on smoothies. We all thought that was one of the, you know, drinking of raw juice was a way to get a lot of nutrient density, in a very concentrated way. Right?

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: Which is true for raw vegetable juices. But inevitably, when the big companies got a hold of those brands, they turned primarily into high caloric vehicles, made with concentrates, and large amounts of sugar, you know, usually in excess of 150, and some of them up to 320, 380 calories, per bottle.

Our almond milk for example, has only 40 calories per serving. So you compare that with dairy milk at 120, and then juice is at anywhere from 120 to 180 to sometimes, smoothies and the ones that, protein drinks, way out there in the 300s.

Just pure ability to have your morning smoothie, base, only be 40 calories. So then when you add your other stuff in there, you're not trying to work off a bunch of unnecessary calories, but you're still getting that nice creamy mouth feel. You're getting a whole delicious base for the smoothie. And that's actually the single biggest use of our product, on the milk side.

And then when you go to the coffee side, we've been the first company, and this again speaks to the relationship between the small natural food companies and the big food companies, is we were the first company to make a no-sugar added creamer in coffee.

Dan: Hm.

Greg: And coffee creamers are a two and a half billion dollar business. Mostly dominated by a brand called Coffee Mate, but also some other brands owned by Denon and so forth. So there's this huge amount of the American diet, which is, you know, and their consumption is coffee, in which they're getting a kind of chemical soup added to their coffee, which is touted as a non-dairy creamer, but if you read the ingredients, it actually has milk proteins in it. There's a lot of misconceptions about what's cool to add to your coffee or not.

So anyway, we were able to execute a high functioning, delicious creamer that actually has no sugar added.

Dan: Hm.

Greg: And we have vanilla, we have hazelnut, so we, and I would argue that if the consumer tries it, they will find that it actually has more flavor than the really sugary ones have. So lowering sugar, we talk about plant basing, I would put the ... Also, on paw with that mission is just the mission to lower sugar and hopefully try to come close to eliminating it from a regular part of people's liquid diet.

Dan: So important, too, what you were talking about earlier. That's what people put in a lot of the different products, they account for a lot of the calories, bad sugars too. I mean, sugars that don't metabolize, et cetera. And that is one of the things that we need to weed out of our diet. So you've got some other products that were very interesting. Could you talk about those too? Your yogurts and some of the other categories that you play in?

Greg: Yeah, but sure, I mean the exciting thing about a good brand or a good bone structure for a brand is you can hang a lot of dresses on it, so to speak. You know, we've been able to spread our wings in the dairy case so that people trust Califia, now through the milks and they're willing to try it. And that's something that's hard to do with a brand, because when a brand gets started, you know, people tend to associate it with one type of thing that you make.

And I think we've been fortunate enough to have a good bone structure so to speak, and we've been able to produce, now, our latest product, which you mentioned, is a plant based, probiotic yogurt drink. Which is, in my mind, completely revolutionary because, well, I mean, I'll pat our team on the back, I'd say it's the first one to really taste great. But, we also have a completely unsweetened version of it, which has no sugar in it. And not even the lactose from the cow, which actually has a fair amount of sugar.

So you're, you know, if you drink a glass of milk, you're going to consume 120 calories and quite a few grams of sugar because the cow produces sugar from the carbohydrates that it consumes.

When we launched the probiotic yogurt, the first job was to make a plant based yogurt drink that tastes good. And that took years. So when our team developed it, we also said we want this to be an incredible flavor experience for people too. The strawberry, we call it a 'super berry,' and mango, have, you know, real fruit in it that actually, we've searched for a couple of years to find the suppliers and really get the pop of like biting into a mango or strawberry.

Then, to top that all off, what's truly revolutionary is that these products have a legitimate, full probiotic dose in them-

Dan: Great.

Greg: ... of a proven probiotic. So let's talk about that for a minute, if you don't mind.

Dan: No, go ahead.

Greg: It's a pet area and I think it's an area that's so misunderstood. So, human beings are really like, there's a mathematical definition of something that folds in on itself, called a 'torus.' And human beings are like a torus, we have an opening at both ends, and in that opening is a long tube, right?

Dan: Uh huh.

Greg: And that tube, inside that tube, along the walls of that tube, live an enormous population of bacteria. And the beneficial bacteria that reside in that gut area, that job, their job, is to break down the food and transfer those nutrients through the cell wall, to actually inside our real bodies.

So if you picture it, our esophagal channel and all the way through the complete digestive track, is actually a tube that doesn't belong to us, in a way. It's run by the bacteria. And when those bacteria aren't fed the right things, or you don't have the right proportion of those bacteria, then your body does not function properly. So you are never going to get the nutrient transfer. So it doesn't matter whether you take mega doses of whatever it is and you have the greatest nutrient density foods in the world, you will not be truly nourished or helped by that food, to the extent that the food contains the right things, until you have a good gut biota.

And those bacteria have been studied like, enormously over the last 100 years. And we were able to form a partnership with a company that's the world's largest grower, and because that's what you do, you're a kind of bug farmer when you're growing bacteria, right?

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: You're growing the good guys, though, right?

Dan: Right.

Greg: And you also need, you need that gut flora to be good guys so that they will compete or crowd out the bacteria that are health hazards or can make you sick. That's a simplistic way of talking about it. But when you have the image in your mind that your job as the decider of what you eat, is to figure out how to give your bacteria, also, the food that they want, right?

Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Greg: And so that's where things like prebiotics come in and that's also where just giving, making enough of your bacteria available. And the one we use is called BB12. And BB12 is the most researched, beneficial gut bacteria in the history of the human race.

Dan: I see.

Greg: So it is the one that we got the rights to use for this plant based, vegan sub-strain. So there was never a cow involved, or an animal involved in the growth of these bacteria. Which is another thing that vegans don't always know about, because they can be consuming products that are actually grown on animal products. So they're not defined as an animal product but they were grown by feeding them animal products. That's something for people to be aware of, but we can say that ours have been vegan certified.

So-

Dan: Interesting.

Greg: I'm not sure I, here I'm trying to say this just because it's an area where people are throwing around the term 'probiotics' super loosely. People think they're getting some, and in fact, yeah, there may be a few probiotics in something, but if it's not the right strain, and there's no proof that that strain actually does help your digestion, then you might have a probiotic that's good for some other creature, but not for humans.

This is a pretty big area of communication and health education, at this point.

Dan: Absolutely. In fact, I told you I've done a lot of work in your category, specifically, but I've also done a lot of work in the supplement category. And there are a lot of products out there to your point, that throw around the term very loosely. It's like, what does natural mean? It doesn't really mean anything, it's a term that we use to define the channel. A lot of companies use, like you said, probiotic, as if it's a 'be all, end all.' And to your point, a lot of it's just wasted. And if you're not getting the stuff that makes, that really makes a difference, then, you're just throwing your money away.

I appreciate your really getting into that, because another thing that I hear a lot, is that people don't really understand that it's possible to have a probiotic that is not vegan certified, that actually has some animal, it's somehow created by an animal. I don't think people really understand the difference. So thank you for getting into that.

We've talked about three categories, what is your fourth category?

Greg: The coffee, so you know, we have the creamers, the milks, the probiotic yogurts, and then coffees. And for us, we use cold-brewing as the foundation of our approach for lots of reasons, but, the first one is the acid profile is different than regular coffee. There's, in most cases, substantially less acid in a cold-brewed coffee. Or another way to talk about cold-brew is also slow-brew, because rather than hitting the coffee grind with a very high temperature boiling water, which also goes deeper into the fiber of the coffee bean, and releases some of these bitter compounds that people have traditionally associated with bad diner coffee and all that sort of cliché.

Cold-brewing makes it milder, it's easier on peoples' stomach. For many people like myself, it's less jittery. So to me it's not a hype feel, it's actually legit, because you really do, in my case, you feel better, and in many cases, for people, their stomach is less upset.

And a lot of what people don't know, in true cold-brew coffee, the antioxidant level is much higher. The sad research in the United States is the greatest source of antioxidants, in the American diet, is actually coffee and ketchup.

Dan: Interesting.

Greg: It's, I don't know if that's going to change with the new generation, hopefully, but coffee and green coffee, or minimally processed coffee like cold-brew, retains those antioxidants and it's a great natural source of something that's really essential, again, for the human diet, from an immune system standpoint.

Dan: And you're making it better. Thank you for doing that. You've got a lot of different products. I'm looking at your website. You've got quite a list of different types of products and different formats. And so, I highly recommend everyone go to your website and take a look at that.

Greg, we've covered a lot, what else can you think of, about the brand, that you'd like to cover that we haven't talked about yet?

Greg: For listeners that are there, I just want to give a shout out for not just our brand, but other brands that, many of whom you've probably had on the show, but, that are truly trying hard to do the right thing and are dedicated to not, you know it's like, to do no evil type of thing.

Dan: Right.

Greg: And I think they need support, you know? It always kind of breaks my heart when I see people buy a commercial product that's made by a big company, when they had a choice to maybe pay a few pennies more to buy something that was either made locally or made by a smaller, more craft boutique firm. And I always think they deserve a bigger share of wallet. So, I know people reach out and support the kind of brands that you bring on your shows. So that's one thing. And we need your help, frankly.

And the other thing is that I think that people should speak up more in every possible way to wherever food is being sold, to make their perspective heard. Please Mr. Retailer, please Mr. Hotelier, please Mr. Convenience Store owner, bring me more healthy things. Or, don't you have this brand? Why don't you please carry it? Because they will start to listen and you can vote with your dollar but you can also inform and educate through speaking up.

Dan: Absolutely.

Greg: Because silence won't change anything. And the food activism, the act of choosing, let's talk for just a second about another aspect to plant based. And plant based living is more than a self interested act. It's a collective act because a pound, you know, for every pound of product that is a substitute for dairy, you're saving a pound of carbon. And we've done a LCA, which is a full life cycle analysis of our specific product, our exact almonds, our exact process, the whole thing. Soup to nuts, all the way to the end. And we've found that there is a ... compared to a dairy milk, 40% reduction in water consumption and something like three-fold savings in carbon [inaudible 01:07:32]. You know? So the release of carbon into the atmosphere.

People can do more and if you sum, just one person's activity for a year, and you shift, and leading a true substitution of a plant based diet versus an animal centric diet. Let's take a full meat eating, animal centric diet where someone's having some meat on their plate three times a day compared to a plant based diet. You will save, literally, a ton of carbon a year, per person.

Dan: Hm.

Greg: If you think about that, the consumer, by shifting, even if you shifted half, that's a thousand pounds of carbon in the atmosphere that you have prevented from going out there. And you add that up and it's equal or greater to what we could do to make all the vehicles in the United States an electric car.

It's a point of democratized activism that has a material planetary effect and I think it's just, it's amazing every time I think about it.

That's something that really is, and I'm not talking about plant based diet, well, people saying, "I'm eating chips, so therefore I'm eating plant based." I'm talking about the substitution of a direct product that was from an animal to a product that is from a plant.

Dan: I appreciate your sharing that, because this is why the show exists, to try to help small brands, like you, communicate this better. How to teach brands how to bake this into your selling story. Not only that, are you communicating and effectively with your consumers, but then helping your consumers become advocates with your retail partners to help them understand why this matters. And, back to like you said, try to get people to vote with their dollars, because that's what matters.

And as a side note, I did a project for, I wrote a feature article for the 2016 Category of Management Handbook, and it's at the bottom of every podcast episode. And while I focus on organic being the primary driver for sales across different categories, what I didn't include, but yet, was really at the crux of that project, was that plant based sales are an even bigger driver of category growth. And when, across all the channels and across all categories, and when retailers remove that even smaller sliver of plant based products, then the category's down or declining even more.

And so to your point, that's why this matters that we do a much better job of communicating the value of this to your retail partners so that they don't look at you as a commodity. And no, you're not going to have the same velocity that some products, but the bottom line is, you're going to have a larger market basket. And what I mean by a market basket, is the consumer that buys Califia, is going to buy a lot of other healthy, better for you products in the store. And so, as a consumer, you're customer is better for the retailer, in terms of profit and growth and better margins, across the store, than the consumer who doesn't.

I appreciate you sharing all that. I told you, when we talked yesterday, that one of the things I do at the end of the show, have been starting to do, is giving you an opportunity to ask me a question. And yesterday you gave me a question, could you repeat it and then I'll answer it for you?

Greg: Sure. For your listeners, I talked yesterday about a big challenge that we have, is telling, sharing our insides with major retailers. Not the Whole Foods of the world that already get it and independent natural food retailers, because they're always on the early adopter part of the curve. But, for being retailers who like to see all the date first and like to have a proof of concept and all of this, I don't think they fully appreciate the extent of this consumer revolution. And I think we're trying, as the sales team, to figure out how to reach above the buyer level and to go into a more strategic relationship with big retailers. And we're trying to understand, what's the best way to tell the best story? That really gets the point across about the potential of these brands and categories?

Dan: Yeah, and that's one of the biggest challenges that brands face, so let me answer it this way. I believe that every brand should step up and try, or at least strive to be a category leader. A category leader in my, from my point of view, is any brand willing and able to step up and help the retailer understand what's really driving sales across every category. Across their categories, anyhow. And where I'm going with that, is that, instead of saying that you're average consumer is two point, you know, female, two point three kids, et cetera, what does that consumer look like? What are their buying habits? When they buy your product, what else do they buy, et cetera? That's the first thing.

So it's about education. And then some of the things that we've been talking about, Greg, some of the abilities, your ability to go in and talk about some of the things we've been talking about in terms of educating the retailer on your story. And I love the story we started out with, What is Califia? And what does that mean? And the mythical proportions, you know, the mythical part of the story, but more importantly, talking about your commitment to give back.

So how do you align with your consumer? How does your consumer buy your product, from the standpoint are what are the decisions that they make at shelf versus another product?

Anyhow, as you're developing all this great, all these great insights, now you've got to look beyond just being able to take it to the retailer buyer and say, "Here it is." And here's the challenge that every brand faces, the retail data bases are not designed, or not set up, to look at the data from the standpoint of the way the consumer shops the category, one. And then two, you need information that goes well beyond just a simple ranking report. You need to be able to understand what that consumer basis looks like. What does a plant based consumer look like? And how is a plant based consumer driving sales across the entire store?

And, in terms of how do you penetrate, or work with, people across all levels of the retailer? And one of the things I'd suggest, and I actually built this into my free course, Turnkey's Self Storage strategies, is, teaching brands, how to teach brands, how to penetrate the retailer more effectively. So instead of just going to the person that you typically work with, it's developing a relationship with the retailer beyond that. And being able to understand who are the key players and what are their roles, et cetera.

And as you become a category leader, then the retailer learns to trust and respect and rely upon you. And here's the key, is that once you become more than just another package on a retailer's shelf, now retailers are going to start reaching out to you and asking you for insights. Asking you for strategies and how to build category sales. Asking you for unique promotional opportunities. There are a lot benefits to this.

But getting back to your original question, if you can start developing a relationship with a retailer on that level, it's being a lot more than just a brand that shows up with a ranking report and once to put a new product on the shelf, but yet, a value added partner, and you're able to change that dynamic. Then you start having conversations with the retailer at the levels that you want.

So that's really the answer to your question, and once you start developing those relationships, then you've got to be able to deliver at a much higher level. And what I mean by that is, is again, understanding the data from the perspective of the way the consumer shops the category as opposed to what everyone else is doing in the category. Again, saying, "Here's the top line ranking report."

Understanding how the consumer buys the product in terms of when they buy Califia, what other products are in their market basket? How does your customer interact and relate to other categories in this store?

And then where I'm going with all this is that if you're able to develop that kind of relationship with a retailer, now instead of going and say, "Look, we want X amount of space in the dairy case," now you're able to go and say, to the retailer and say, "Here's what the trends are, within your store and plant based. And this is where you need to be, Mr. Grocer, Mrs. Grocer, if you want to be able to capture those consumers today, tomorrow, and beyond. And if you don't take advantage of these trends, your customers could potentially go to another retailer."

And it's developing a lot the stories along those lines to help the retailer to understand what they need to be looking for, down the road. And at the end of the day, you know, as a customer, I've got a lot of different choices. And so, when you think about it from the retailer's perspective, they want more consumer traffic, they don't want to lose sales to their competitors, and they want to make a reasonable profit. And if you can help the retailer address those three primary needs, then that's going to help differentiate you in shelf. Does that help?

Greg: Yeah. I think, well, there's a lot of content there, so I think it's great. But, let me ask you-

Dan: Sure.

Greg: ... if you could, then, a little more specificity on when you say, "The consumer data is not necessarily, ranking data is not the way the consumer actually shops the category." And you have to recast or something, the data, in terms of, from a consumer centric point of view. Can you give a more specific example of, in some category, of how that, illustrate that in some way.

Dan: Sure. How about we just use-

Greg: I think that's incredible.

Dan: No, I absolutely, so I've mentioned that I've done several projects in your space, in your categories alone. You've got dairy products and you've got products that are not dairy. One, you need to understand the category from the way the consumer shops the category. What do they look at? What's important to them? And then as you're looking at the data, you need to be able to segment it in such a way where you're being able to isolate that consumer that's responsible for driving all the category sales.

So one of the examples that I used years ago, is that if you're looking at the category, adding another flavor of almond milk is not going to help drive more sales in the category. Because you gotta have something that you take off the shelf to make room for your product. So what does that mean? If you have a blended product or if you have a product with a different kind of nut or a product with a different attribute that consumers are migrating to, then you need to be able to speak to that separately and illustrate why that is driving sales or what the potential is for that attribute, over another one.

Does that help?

Greg: I think it's, I think it's super interesting that you're pointing out that there's sort of key consumer groups-

Dan: Yes.

Greg: ... that actually drive the change in the category.

Dan: Right.

Greg: And part of the role of the category leader is to identify that consumer and be able to speak and relate to that consumer, and give them what they want.

Dan: Yes.

Greg: And in turn, then there are other consumer groups that just kind of follow that, but you have to kind of trace back consumer, on their path-

Dan: Yes.

Greg: ... right? But, if i had cut that then.

Dan: Yeah, and that's what's key and that's what's really important.

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's also a question of when you have complex products that have attributes, so, you, but you just elucidated about. So A, you either have to have a knowledgeable consumer or you have to find a way to encapsulate some kind of position in the land of product.

Dan: Exactly.

Greg: Where you attract that type of consumer to at least investigate or look deeper into it.

Dan: Exactly.

Greg: That's part of the art, I think, of branding and marketing, where that comes in.

Dan: It is, and so that goes back to why I was saying your story is so very important, because when you're talking about your story, from the perspective of the retailer, some retailers, you're just another almond milk in a bottle, in a cool bottle, okay? You need to get beyond that. You need to be able to educate the retailer as to what's unique about your product. It's creamier. It tastes better. It doesn't get weird or strange and curdle when you add hot liquids to it. And when they start seeing your product, in terms of the values and the benefits.

And then more importantly, Greg, when they start seeing your product through the eyes of your customers, that's how you start developing this story. And then as you start building that relationship and building that story around what's unique about Califia, then that's when they start paying more attention to you as a brand. And that's where you start having more of those conversations in terms of this is why we need more space on the shelf. This is why we need to be a more active player within the category, because the reality is, is that your product, your consumer, is far more valuable, actually your consumer is far more valuable than your product.

And what I mean by that is that the consumer that comes into the store from the standpoint of the retailer, that consumer, like I said, they're going to spend more, they're going to buy more. And if you can understand, really understand who that consumer is, and then share that so you capture a unique consumer that a lot of your competitors don't capture. And that is your strongest selling point, when working with the retailers.

Anyhow, you bake all this together in your selling story and that's how you differentiate yourself.

Greg: Right. Got it. There's a classic thing that we just learned that illustrates, I think your fact, your story, precisely, and that is that we just found out what they call it 'brand switching study-'

Dan: Yes.

Greg: ... and so we looked at Califia versus two of the largest leading competitors, the ones that have dominant market share or like, big giant plans. And they found that the consumer, if our number one product was latte, their number one choice of our product line-

Dan: Uh huh.

Greg: ... then they would look for a different Califia product. And if that product was not there, they would look for another Califia product.

Dan: That's great.

Greg: And if that product wasn't there, they would leave the store.

Dan: That's a great story.

Greg: And because, and then, of our competitors, of which there's two big ones, the consumer would easily switch between those two without caring. So like, in other words, if they didn't have the competitor A, they'd just switch to competitor B, if they didn't have B, they'd switch to A.

Dan: Right.

Greg: That non-switching behavior, a loyal, you know, loyalist, means that, "Hey Mr. Retailer, if you don't carry Califia or," in other categories, a brand like Califia, which is the leading consumer-

Dan: Right.

Greg: ... lots, because we're the premium positioning. So we're already at a 35% premium to, you know. So, these consumers are prepared to pay for what they want.

Dan: Sure.

Greg: They're doing that, not just with our product, with all the ... other host of products, in their store.

Dan: Absolutely.

Greg: So, yeah. Exactly. I think we just learned this and to me that was like probably a major revelation, because that's hard. Hard data that they can understand.

Dan: It is.

Greg: Well that's, see, that's what I, you know, was sort of part of my parting words was that there's a role for everybody in this change-

Dan: Right.

Greg: ... and you can't just leave it up to the heroic brands, you know? You need customers who care and you need retailers who care, and obviously, people like you. Communicators who care. Because there really are people's lives at stake-

Dan: Yes.

Greg: ... and certainly there's a lot of suffering at stake, too. I just think this stuff is very real and it's also when people feel good, they go out and usually treat each other well. So.

Dan: They do, yeah.

Greg: It's a virtuous cycle, right?

Dan: It is. And you know, with a brand like yours, it's, you know, people want to feel good about what they buy. And if they understood your story, or they knew your story, and not just, again, looking at your package on the shelf, but beyond your package. And again, if you can leverage that with the retailer, then that's how you solve that problem. That's how you become a category leader. That's how you achieve the ultimate objective of getting in front of a retailer and being able to really impact or affect the way that they drive sales in the category.

Greg: Well put.

Dan: This is where I like to play. This is what I like to do because my ambition is to make our healthy way of life more accessible by helping you get Califia on more retailer shelves, in the hands of more shoppers. And the benefit to that is that if I can give more customers the ability to try your product and to buy your product, then I can help you grow and I can help other brands like you grow, across different categories. And then we can change this, the ... what we've been talking about all this time, be able to change the way that consumers look at food. And clean up our food system.

In fact, Episode 4 of my podcast, I make the point that our food system is broken, and this is the mission that I'm trying to fix and this is why I do the podcasts.

Greg: Yeah. That's great. I just, I think we are in kind of, and people may not see it, but it's historical times and I think that the chance for major, major shifts in the way the world feeds itself is possible in our lifetime.

Dan: Absolutely. And that's what we're shooting for, I mean, the small brands are definitely going to become the dominant players in, on every retailer's shelf.

Greg: Yeah, well, I hope your prediction is true. We'd love to be a part of that.

Dan: Greg, I really appreciate you're coming on today and thank you so much for making time for me. And I look forward to our next conversation.

Greg: My pleasure, Dan. Thank you very much for having me. Very appreciative. Take care.

Dan: I want to thank Greg for coming on today, for sharing his story, his insights, along with his vision on how we reshape the way consumers think about food. I'll be certain to put a link to Califia, in the show notes, and on this podcast's webpage.

This week's free downloadable guide is 11 key strategies to increase your market basket size and grow sales. This is exactly what we spent all this time talking about. How do you work with a retailer to help them understand that you're far more valuable than the product that's on their shelf. Your customer is the ideal customer that they want to attract into their stores.

You can download this, and the show notes, and on this podcast webpage, at brandsecretsandstrategies.com/session97. Thank you for listening and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Califia Farms https://www.califiafarms.com

This episode's FREE downloadable guide

Your market basket includes all items shoppers purchase on each shopping trip. Health conscious shoppers spend more than regular shoppers. Learn how to leverage the importance of your shopper to drive sustainable sales and increase shopper loyalty.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE STRATEGIC GUIDE: 11 Key Strategies To Increase Market Basket Size

Thanks again for joining us today. Make sure to stop over at brandsecretsandstrategies.com for the show notes along with more great brand building articles and resources. Check out my free course Turnkey Sales Story Strategies, your roadmap to success. You can find that on my website or at TurnkeySalesStoryStrategies.com/growsales. Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and recommend it to your friends and colleagues.

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I appreciate all the positive feedback. Keep your suggestions coming.

Until next time, this is Dan Lohman with Brand Secrets and Strategies where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.