177: How Mary Wetherill Discovered the Business Model Shift That Makes Urban Farming Profitable

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So, Mary Wetherill, founding president and CEO of Green Food

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Solutions, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you very much for having me.

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I'm happy to be here. So where's home for you?

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Jersey City, actually. I happen to be. I keep saying Jersey City because I was

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born and raised in Jersey City, but I'm actually in Rockaway, New Jersey right now.

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I'm sitting in my house. My wife and I bought it

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about just about two years ago. And, you know, I've been

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a renter in Jersey City my whole life. Lived in Manhattan, lived in Brooklyn a

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little bit, but, you know, so it's kind of nice being out here. And Also,

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it's only 15 minutes away from my office in Jersey City, so it's not that

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bad of a commute. So I get a little bit of the best of both

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worlds. Yeah. Home for me is currently Minnesota, but I grew up in

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Yonkers. Ah, okay. And I've lived in the city as well.

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New Yorker. Yeah. Yeah. That title will never leave. It's something

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that was. No, it doesn't. I don't know. We have our east coast pride. We

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have our Tri State pride. We have our state pride.

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For sure. For sure. So I saw that you're also co founder of

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Square Roots. No,

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Properly. Oh, no, that is definitely not the case. Oh, that's what I saw it

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there. But you worked with Square Roots previously, so. Well,

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so, yeah. So essentially my partner and I had. That's interesting that you say

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it. So what happened was they were

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advertising themselves as a business accelerator when we were starting our business, Green

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Food Solutions, this was. We officially incorporated in 2017,

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but I think this was like in 2015 or 2016, maybe, something like that. I

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don't remember exactly the date on that, but we were, you know,

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conceivably looking at doing this business. My wife, now partner and

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co founder at the time, had,

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I think it was an internship that she had with a business called Blue Planet

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Consulting. And actually, many people know Henry

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Gordon Smith in the industry. He actually recommended her for

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a program that they were doing that I think

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was going for a grant in Brooklyn through the. Actually, he's now

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the mayor of New York, but he was offering like a $2 million grant for

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urban farm incubators and things like that at the time. And

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this was actually our first experience with kind of like that Silicone

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Valley kind of coming into urban farming kind of experience, honestly. And

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it didn't, you know, we made lemonade out of lemons, as they say,

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but it wasn't the best experience for us honestly. She was the official participant

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in that program. I was her, you know, we

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were co founders. It wasn't incorporated yet as I said, but it was our concept

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and business to go into urban farming. She had actually

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introduced me to hydroponics in general. You know, my

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background actually we can get into that as well. But you know, essentially

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just about the square roots thing, we were renting from them

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for a year and while actually day one we had walked in and

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thought that we were going to like talk to the branding

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team and the, you know, all the things that you do at a business accelerator.

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We did eventually do one in Japan and Tokyo which was awesome and really did

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help a business accelerate our business. But at the time they were

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like, oh, we don't even get to that stuff till day like the end of

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the program. I mean this, you know, there was a long story obviously involved but

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we were there for a year and we were growing food, selling it

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and we came up, you know, they were doing some like 70, 30% kind of

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thing, you know, with farmers and it just really wasn't what they

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said it was. And you know, so we kind of made the best

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out of it. You know we learned a lot about freight farms which is the

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system they were using and we hacked the hell out of it and learned how

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it was how over engineered and you know, didn't make money and wasn't

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feasible and all these things and really kind of studied the

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systems. You know again that's to my you know, wife

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and co founder's attribute where she actually was. Her name's Electra Jarvis.

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She also worked for Bowery for a while and you

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know, until they closed actually, actually she stayed with them until the end.

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But yeah, but my background, you know,

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despite her having introduced me to hydroponics and

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vertical farming and honestly Henry Gordon Smith was truly the one

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who had a lecture like I said was interning with him at a company called

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Blue Planet Consulting at the time. And I was brought to

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Greentech in Amsterdam like in like I think it was 2016 actually.

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And you know we were in this program I think at the time

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and it's, you know actually I think it was actually before we started square roots

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actually inside of that. But I had been in sales

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and you know my background I've been so I went to the new school for

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Social Research. So I everything from anthropology to

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philosophy, psychology. I love the way systems worked.

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I've been in the service industry, I was worked in restaurants, worked my way through

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college, didn't really come from much of a strong financial background,

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you know, economically. My parents, you know, they worked as lab

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techs, very like, you know, middle work,

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you know, middle class work. And oftentimes our family would actually have

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like the church bringing food and things like that because my parents were struggling.

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But I had know, really like gone into

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the service industry pretty young to kind of make some money for myself. I was

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always kind of this entrepreneurial spirit actually. I remember when I was a kid, my

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family kind of jokes about it would shine shoes at like the

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Jersey City Pass station or like over at. I would sell

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my toys to like kids, you know, who were younger than me in grammar

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school and in high school even and stuff like that. So like I always had

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some sort of a side hustle business going on. So, you know, got that

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entrepreneurial gene early then. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't even know

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it as such. Like I never went into business. Like I said, I went to

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the New School for Social Research. Like everyone graduates with a BA in liberal arts,

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you know, so you're kind of like, what am I going to do next? And

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you know, I loved wellness, I loved health.

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And so, you know, I went into my massage journey and I went into

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that and you know, so my background in being in restaurants and as

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of being a waitress and you know, kind of then as a

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massage therapist working in gyms, you know, it just kind of, you

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know, kind of, I guess built this service and customer service

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mentality inside of who I am. And you know, I really do love people and

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I love life and I, you know, I'm just kind of very active that way.

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I love to travel and you know, so you know, when Electra and I

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had met, we, you know, she was kind of inspiring me and you know,

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Henry had invited me, you know, alongside her to kind of, you know, be at

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Green Tech while they were working a booth, I think for the Vertical Farming

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association as well. So got to meet all the players really young

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and all of that and it was kind of really exciting. But honestly, because of

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my background in sales, I also worked at Merrill lynch for a period of time.

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And I actually was so like this was pre Internet, right? So like, you

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know, I was doing a lot of research, so they hired me cause I was

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very research oriented. I did a lot of market research for them and for high

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profile accounts. So looking at like what to invest in and what was

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good, like what was a viable good market, things like that. So

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it just kind of was interesting when I saw these, you know, My

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interest in health and wellness. I had a wellness center in Montclair, New Jersey for

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gosh, like 20 years. And I said, what prompted that,

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Mary? Like the interest in massage therapy? Because you've been doing that for a while.

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Yeah, honestly, that's a more personal story with my mom. She was

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a diabetic and she died at age 60. And just growing up, I would

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always massage her feet. And she actually averted getting

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an amputation, which is something common with diabetics sometimes

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of her, her whole foot. They did have to amputate part of it, but would

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have been like life changing from like not being able to walk around to like

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being able to wear a certain type of shoe and at least get around, you

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know. And she went to these things like my, her, my uncle, her brother brought

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her to like hydrotherapy. And I was a young child, so I kind of just

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was learning about these things and it was a cutting edge technology at the time,

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I guess. And you know, I would come home and I just want to like

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mimic it, you know, and help her and like, you know, massage her feet. And

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so I did that and just, you know, kind of, I guess

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being in the service industry, having developed this love for people

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and just always having that entrepreneurial spirit, I wanted to do something on

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my own. Like I just actually, when I worked for Merrill Lynch, I quit. It

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was funny. I was in with my boss and I was getting a promotion actually.

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She, while she brought me in her office and I was like, God, I was

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just going to give my two weeks. I'd rather stick a pencil in my eyes

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and actually like take your promotion. Like, I just really didn't like the corporate

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environment. Not a fit for you. Yeah. So I just went on the

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path. I went on and studied massage, graduated that, worked at a

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gym for a while. So again, just really engaging with people and

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healthy minded people, you know, to be debated. But you know,

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but with that said, that was really kind of my background and launch into

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it. It was truly meeting Elektra. And even that's the

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benefit of what happened in Brooklyn with the Square Bridge program, you know what I

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mean? Like, I learned how to grow food, I learned how to,

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you know, I'm, I tend to be good at monetizing ideas and concep.

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And so I basically,

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you know, was like, hey, this is not working as a business. And

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everyone's so in farming that it's like they were in the sales

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channels and the things to do and the way it's done and da da da

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da. And it's like, no, let's try this, let's do that. And honestly, after

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being in Brooklyn in the shipping containers for a year, because that was a year

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program, we were looking, we actually had a fight for our customers. It

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almost gone to. Went on to Politico. It was a deal. But like,

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when we, we had our. We salvaged most of our customers. We did get some

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stolen from us. But when we were in the like, search for. Looking for a

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space to continue growing food for our customers, we ended up in a. It was

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a farm. It was a greenhouse in the Bronx. It was growing basil mostly, I

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think for Italian restaurants. But it was failing. So it started renting out space

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to people struggling like us, because all the farmers we knew were struggling, including

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ourselves. Yeah. And selling the food was, you know, kind of

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a struggle in and of itself, being combated with these other challenges in

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a, you know, pseudo accelerator program. But we were

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on top of a, an affordable housing building. It was a 10,000 square foot

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greenhouse. What part of the Bronx is this? It was on Tinton Avenue. It's

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168 in Tinton. So basically, you

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know, whatever. You know, a lot of people in the industry have opinions about that

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farm and why it failed and all the players that were involved with it. But

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the thing is that regardless of those things, what we were noticing was that

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it was a commercial farm that was failing. Everyone kept trying to see that do

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the same thing over and over again. And you know that expression about insanity

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and things like that. Right. So it was just like, we saw none of the

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food was going to the people in the building. So we created a

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program for that from our food. And then we also just started pitching the idea

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to, you know, architects, developers, like, you name

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it. And like, we got our first break and our first farm was

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actually in, um, Bushwick, Brooklyn. 54

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Knoll Street. It's the Denison. It's still there. And we've never

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lost a farm. That building actually went bankrupt. And that was mostly

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our R and D section. All of our farms are indoors now. That was a

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rooftop farm. But we realized they, they don't really actually work that well.

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And especially in the built environment, the way it's developing

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today for the ever urbanizing world we all know about and

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live in. You know, things that were suburbs like Montclair,

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New Jersey, you know, Westchester, are completely

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urbanizing and city. Urban centers themselves, you know, and then you

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roll it out to different places and, you know, so we started to

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see that the target markets that were really

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interested in this. And that was a feat in and of itself as well, may

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I add. Like, so we did so much customer discovery. We were

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actually invited to Drexel University through

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a sponsorship that we had gotten through the nsf, the National Science Found.

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Okay. And they sponsored our going to this customer discovery program.

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And we just took as much out of it as we could in the

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sense of we worked with those professors, they loved our concept

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idea. We went to all of these trade shows literally around the world

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and like just interviewed thousands of farmers

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essentially. And we realized exactly who the customers were for this and who they

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weren't. And you know, we do sell to commercial farmers

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various equipment, but, you know, we also know where

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it applies and where it doesn't. And we're not looking for anyone to fail

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in their goals and dreams, you know what I mean? So. And we see a

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lot of that. So I'm curious for folks that don't

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understand or know what Green Food Solutions does. And a lot of times when we're

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in, we're in this world, you know, we're having insular conversations where we

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all kind of know what we all do. But sometimes we have people who are

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curious about vertical farming who listen as well. So someone who's

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just entering the industry, how would you describe what Green Food Solutions provides?

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Well, so Green Food Solutions is a farming as a service business. We're the first

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to franchise the concept and scale through partnership.

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We're looking to bring this to the 35 different cities that we are

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registered in. We, you know, are actually in

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conversations with Canada and Toronto specifically about bringing Green

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Food Solutions to that city. And there's a lot of interest

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because once we sit down with people and we show them the numbers and the

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business model, you know, franchising is actually regulated by the Federal

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Trade Commission. So you don't get any of this like mumbo jumbo. Like you actually

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have to be really transparent, like the food system we would like to see in

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the world. So, you know, we really kind of had certain

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core values and inside of our mission, you know, our mission is essentially to

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empower what we'd like to call a new local food system. And so,

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you know, what we do on the day to day is, you know, we sell

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equipment, we install it, we train people how to run their farms,

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or we maintain it for them through what we call our farm or garden amenity

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services. And farmers in our business concept get paid for their

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farming through these service contracts. An annual service contract can

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average 30, sometimes 50, sometimes $60,000. You know, you're not

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selling the food, you're getting valued as a value add in our

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communities. And we saw this was something that

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wasn't new. Like these are companies that already work with third

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party vendors in different ways and these, it was like we were working

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right into these market segments in a way that already worked for them. In

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fact, they were looking for things like this, you know, so

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I mean hospitals, there was a million dollar project that they're still looking

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to get the grant for. Mammedes Hospital in Brooklyn where

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they have six satellite sites putting in farms for the

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prenatal patients that are in there that basically will learn about the nutrition. The

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nutritionalists will come in, there will be the farmers harvesting the

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food, making it available to them and they'll talk about the actual

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nutrients that the prenatal vitamins come from, fake kale

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or basil or what's being grown there. And actually they

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are going to donate a system, a growing system to one patient

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who actually kind of like takes it on and owns it and like is there

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a lot and participates and learns how to run and grow their own food and

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they're going to donate a system to them. So it's really like we just

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like, we're like wowed by how many people like, like

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this serves them, it serves us, it serves farmers. It's actually

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profitable. Like year one. Like we don't like

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the way it's set up. Is that our oper, we don't have any operation costs

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after year one, you know, I mean it's, you know, so the

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ROI is quick, you can even meet your operating costs

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quickly. And, and it kind of was like, you know, I just had a different

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pair of lenses to the service industry. I can't say that I had anything other

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than just a different perspective than farming. And you know,

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I mean like people who've been in farming, I imagine, you know, you're so in

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it, you want that to work. You know, you really want that to work the

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way you think it should work. And

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it just doesn't seem to be working. I mean when I look at it

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from the outside in, historically every, you know, obviously from like

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free farming to, you know, farmers from through slavery farmers,

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you know, most of the farms even today like need volunteers or

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subsidies or something and it's just, it's not, you know,

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I mean the food system's broken because the business model is

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broken. Do you know? And we need a better business model.

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So I saw that you work closely with Tower farms. Is that correct too?

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They were our first and Honestly, most popular system. So

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we work with, like I said, almost every vendor that is that indoor

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adcon and all of these shows, you know, and things like that. Like we were

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in green tech even before we even started the company. We made relationships with everybody.

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So, you know, and honestly what I like to say about that is that a

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lot of the vendors who are in our secured network, they see that

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like, you know, I think right now in the industry, the manufacturers, I mean, the

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farms are struggling. We see them closing. We also see manufacturers closing. I mean freight

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farms obviously, right. And you know, I think what happened

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there was that there's just. Everyone is thinking that there's. We were told

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ourselves to actually develop systems. I'm so glad we did it. You know what I

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mean? We were like, oh, why don't you guys invent a system? You hacked the

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free farm, you know this, you know that, you know how over engineered it is.

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You know, we would tell people, you know, plumbing has existed for centuries, guys, you

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know what I mean? Like, you know, you don't really need all this, you know,

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so you kind of have to meet and Tower farms to your point, was actually

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that happy medium. Like they really meet you in the middle with technology

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and innovation, you know, so. And there's a lot

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of. While their system is proprietary, the attachments

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weren't. So like it was just very like applicable and it just made

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sense and it had the right price points back to profitability.

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So like I have a catalog of, you know, Dutch buckets rack

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systems. I mean I can turn a whole stadium into a farm. It's just

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not what we believe in or do, you know, but like we

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work with every vendor. You know, we have shipping containers, we get, you know,

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we can make everything for you, but we really advise on the

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small distributed farms and we have people start slower, not

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large. You know, I'm not a huge fan of build it and they will come,

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you know, so, you know, and that's just. I think they tried that model.

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Like, you know. Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. No, I think they tried

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that model. It didn't work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So

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I'm curious, so Mary, since you have so many systems at your

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disposal and so many great relationships with your.

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These partners that you've mentioned, a lot of which have been on the show, how

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do you help new farmers kind of make their way through that

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maze of decision making? You know, do you.

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Is there vetting involved? Are you looking at business plans? Like, how do you understand

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and help them make the right decision, Is it best if they have some experience?

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If they're doing this investment with zero farming experience, are you warning them? I'm just

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curious about those conversations. You know, I started with zero farming experience, you

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know, so the truth is they don't need the farming experience. What we do look

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for is someone who can manage teams. And when I say teams, they are looking

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for someone who can work in like a retail mall. You know, you're looking for

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:: 18:39

someone who's upbeat and friendly, which are a part of our core values. You're looking

311

:: 18:43

for someone who's going to, you know, when people come in the farms, the

312

:: 18:47

person is like, hi, how are you doing today? Is this your first time at

313

:: 18:49

your hydroponic farm? You know, kind of things like that. We have scripts for everybody,

314

:: 18:53

you know, kind of like rolling it out. But when you think about the personality

315

:: 18:57

and the type of person. So the business owner

316

:: 19:00

doesn't necessarily have to remain the farmer. Well, I did originally and I

317

:: 19:04

loved it and I was really passionate about it because of my own journey around

318

:: 19:07

health and wellness. Very proud to say that I actually lost about

319

:: 19:10

£90 and I've kept it off for like, I don't know, 10 years

320

:: 19:14

now. But I, you know, I think that

321

:: 19:18

food is really something that people need access to and

322

:: 19:22

the nutrition and the density of that is lacking.

323

:: 19:26

And, you know, we all know that, you know, universities are studying it and,

324

:: 19:30

you know, I see that, you know, we just really kind of need to

325

:: 19:33

bring that back to people in a real way, you know,

326

:: 19:37

and I just, you know, I mean, obviously we could go through the flaws. I

327

:: 19:41

feel like I'm digressing a little here, but, you know, it's. All of it seems

328

:: 19:44

to be a little on topic. No, for sure. It's all related. And I think

329

:: 19:47

when people are listening, you know, a lot of them are coming in new as

330

:: 19:50

well. So it's not just folks who are established in the industry. When

331

:: 19:54

you're looking and having these conversations with people that are looking to work with you

332

:: 19:57

for the first time, what do you look for in these

333

:: 20:01

owners or these people that want to do this? And what should some of the

334

:: 20:04

warning signs be if, you know, so that they understand what they're getting into?

335

:: 20:08

Yeah, absolutely. So I think essentially what we're

336

:: 20:12

looking for is someone who is interested in a local 9 to 5

337

:: 20:15

business. So outside of, you know, in the franchising world, there's

338

:: 20:19

a lot of pokeballs and things like that. Right. You know, and for people who

339

:: 20:23

are interested in starting a Farming business but see themselves struggling. You know,

340

:: 20:27

we support in every which way. So like we're supporting on the actual

341

:: 20:30

sales calls, we have all the marketing information. So there's a lot that we

342

:: 20:34

train them in that we've set up already. So really

343

:: 20:38

they need to be able to follow a system. They need to be someone who's

344

:: 20:41

willing to be a part of a team, brand minded, you know, in the sense

345

:: 20:44

of like they're, they like when I kind of came in and I was like,

346

:: 20:47

wow, this, you know, like many people do in this industry, they're so inspired

347

:: 20:51

and then so deflated by some realities that they see,

348

:: 20:54

you know, and I think that it's like that inspiration doesn't have to go away.

349

:: 20:58

It's just innovation can look different. It doesn't have to be through technology,

350

:: 21:02

it can be through thinking and you know, innovation through business

351

:: 21:05

models, you know, but people in general

352

:: 21:09

are people who have been transitioning through jobs, you know, and things like that.

353

:: 21:13

But yeah, for the most part

354

:: 21:17

the people that we're looking for are generally people

355

:: 21:20

who are passionate about the food system, interested in owning a business of

356

:: 21:24

their own, but not on their own. You know, that they realize that

357

:: 21:28

will support them, that it's like a partnership in many ways.

358

:: 21:31

And you know, it's, we work with them even on financing if

359

:: 21:35

they need that. You know, we pretty much know every aspect

360

:: 21:39

of how this is needed to roll out. And we have

361

:: 21:43

a very detailed operations manual with all of

362

:: 21:46

collaborative SOPs that support them in that. So when

363

:: 21:50

like the skill set that they really need is this customer service

364

:: 21:53

oriented, upbeat ability and loving to

365

:: 21:57

engage with people, especially if they're going to be the growers themselves. Like I said,

366

:: 22:01

we're a very faith forward business. This is like, you know, people are walking in

367

:: 22:04

and out of the farms, all the food is free. So people are coming in,

368

:: 22:07

they're enjoying it, they're talking about the systems are like, wow, I just moved into

369

:: 22:11

this building or hey, you know, as a patient comes down

370

:: 22:14

or we're in correctional facilities, you know, some of the officers come

371

:: 22:18

in and they're like, wow, you know, this is amazing. And you just want to

372

:: 22:22

really engage everybody because while it's interesting

373

:: 22:25

because our customers, the people who pay us are completely different from the people

374

:: 22:29

we're facing with every day. You know, they're the people who are getting access to

375

:: 22:33

the food. It's why we built this food system and why we built this model.

376

:: 22:36

It's because it addresses food access. There's dresses, zero

377

:: 22:39

miles, you know, Food miles. It addresses these things. So for people

378

:: 22:43

who are passionate about that actually being realized in their

379

:: 22:47

community, the system exists now. And, you know, we'd love,

380

:: 22:51

you know, to have a conversation about partnership. Do you ever have conversations

381

:: 22:54

with folks who come to you expecting one thing and then after

382

:: 22:58

you're going through what you just went through, they sort of get a little shell

383

:: 23:01

shocked and just maybe decide it's not for them?

384

:: 23:05

Of course. I mean, I think I've gotten that even when we were at like,

385

:: 23:08

trade shows selling equipment, you know, there's a lot of people who

386

:: 23:12

kind of get captivated by one thing and then, you know, get

387

:: 23:15

sobered by a reality, you know. So I think what we've

388

:: 23:19

noticed is that there's people who have we

389

:: 23:23

been going to franchise trade shows? So we see that there's a lot in that,

390

:: 23:26

there's a lot of people who are looking at opening restaurants, people who want to

391

:: 23:29

like, start their own businesses. There tends to be this big drive towards

392

:: 23:33

food, but that's what exists. Like, we're literally the first to

393

:: 23:37

franchise, like in the world. So, you know, we have

394

:: 23:40

zero national competitors. Like we already have. I said all this

395

:: 23:44

interest, like, our first franchisee is very likely going to be in Chicago or

396

:: 23:48

Dallas, Texas. Whoever comes first, it's about signing

397

:: 23:51

the agreement and we'll roll it out. But, you know, so we have our process

398

:: 23:55

and we, you know, meet with them. You know, anyone who wants to come visit

399

:: 23:59

our farms, they can come reach out to us and we'd be happy to, like,

400

:: 24:02

go through how this works and show them what they you would entail. I

401

:: 24:06

mean, you know, it's about looking at the idea because I know there's so many

402

:: 24:09

people out there that are passionate about building a real food system,

403

:: 24:13

like a new food system in their area that actually works that

404

:: 24:17

and addresses the issue where you're not just selling highly priced food to people who

405

:: 24:21

can already afford it, you know, so, you know,

406

:: 24:25

there's people who are passionate and I know really want something like this. And,

407

:: 24:29

you know, it's just. It's kind of cool that it just happened and it worked

408

:: 24:32

and it was, you know, and I just think it's just people sometimes want

409

:: 24:36

to make the same idea work when it just, you know, sometimes doesn't.

410

:: 24:40

When you first. Can you take me back to sort of like the

411

:: 24:44

origin story for green food? Like, how did you come up with this idea

412

:: 24:47

and how did you decide land on this concept and how

413

:: 24:51

you envisioned green food when you first started? Is it what it looks like now,

414

:: 24:55

or did it, like, evolve and morph along the way? No, like I said, when

415

:: 24:58

we first started, we thought we were going to sell food and grow food and

416

:: 25:02

that we could, you know, have a viable business doing that. And we

417

:: 25:05

very painfully learned otherwise. You know, how we came about

418

:: 25:09

this is more through, I think, a little bit. It really evolved through

419

:: 25:13

that moment when we were realizing that we were just dealing with what we dealt

420

:: 25:16

with trying to hold onto our customers in the Brooklyn

421

:: 25:20

containers as we were moving to the greenhouse, and then kind of

422

:: 25:24

seeing that. Like, I was seeing that everyone was failing around us in a

423

:: 25:27

way. I mean, the shipping containers aren't in Brooklyn anymore. That company went out way

424

:: 25:31

too. So, you know, that

425

:: 25:35

as I was noticing things, I think things layered. Right. And I was just

426

:: 25:38

saying the fact that none of the people in the building were getting the food

427

:: 25:42

was a problem for me. You know, I wasn't necessarily

428

:: 25:46

caring about traditional farming. You know, I was caring more about people

429

:: 25:50

getting access to fresh, healthy food, which is what actually helped me lose

430

:: 25:53

£90. Yeah. You know, I was interested

431

:: 25:57

in, you know, them realizing that it's not all about counting

432

:: 26:00

calories. Sometimes it's about counting chemicals, you know, and

433

:: 26:04

looking to fresher sources of food and then seeing where

434

:: 26:08

communities didn't have that. So we work with tremendous

435

:: 26:11

amount of, like, nonprofit organizations, community centers. They're already

436

:: 26:15

doing food projects. And, like, this just

437

:: 26:18

accelerates the difference that they are already making. You

438

:: 26:22

know, these partnerships started, and even just the sales and installation

439

:: 26:26

and the trainings that we had been doing. Um, but then we

440

:: 26:30

kind of just realized that, actually it was a friend of mine who. He's in

441

:: 26:33

accounting, actually, and he was just like, you. Have you ever thought of franchising? And

442

:: 26:37

he actually used to tell me to do this with my massage business, too, but

443

:: 26:39

I had, like, zero interest. And I really didn't know what franchising was other

444

:: 26:42

than, like, McDonald's and these kinds of things. But what I actually

445

:: 26:46

saw was he explained it to me in a real way, that it just aligned

446

:: 26:49

with our mission. Yeah. He said, you know, it was like, you're already

447

:: 26:53

actually training people and starting their farms. We do free

448

:: 26:57

planning and design. So at Greenfield Solutions, like, if you give us your square footage

449

:: 27:00

using your square meters, and you want to start a farm, we'll tell you exactly

450

:: 27:03

what can fit in there. We'll give you free CAD layouts. We'll do the whole

451

:: 27:07

thing. Like, we were disgusted by how consultants

452

:: 27:10

and all these people were charging tens, twenties of thousands of dollars.

453

:: 27:14

You know, for things we were giving for free, you know, and honestly,

454

:: 27:17

manufacturers usually give those for free, you know, so it was just so like,

455

:: 27:22

I didn't like what I saw happening, you know what I mean, when I was

456

:: 27:25

so originally excited about it. So, you know, I guess, you know,

457

:: 27:29

that the layers of things happen. You know, you have your service industry

458

:: 27:32

knowledge, then, you know, you have your monetization knowledge and you just see that not

459

:: 27:36

working. And then you have your, you know, social research and interest in making

460

:: 27:40

a difference. And then it's like, I don't know that it was like an aha

461

:: 27:43

moment. And then we set sail and like, we just like went in a very

462

:: 27:46

focused direction. We're ongoingly, you know,

463

:: 27:49

developing and updating and, you know, looking at

464

:: 27:53

new ways to, you know, bring in new revenue streams and continue

465

:: 27:57

to grow and grow and grow both for ourselves as a company as well

466

:: 28:01

as for our partnerships and even for our customers. So, you know,

467

:: 28:04

it's just like we said, it's development of a new local food system

468

:: 28:08

that really just came, I think, from our being mission driven that we wanted to

469

:: 28:12

see a food system we weren't just willing to stop when like, you know, a

470

:: 28:16

lot of people start a farm and then for some reason, if their farm

471

:: 28:19

is successful, like, I know a farm that we helped down in North Carolina that

472

:: 28:23

they. We sold them towers. They sell and they actually grow food in soil and

473

:: 28:26

in towers just to actually, you know, bring themselves to market a little earlier.

474

:: 28:30

And actually they do a lot of great talks at a lot of these trade

475

:: 28:33

shows because they actually are very profitable and they sell out every year

476

:: 28:37

in their CSA program. So, like, there are successful small

477

:: 28:41

farmers that can figure this out. But there, at the end of the day, it's

478

:: 28:44

not something that is happening for most of the

479

:: 28:48

people who are going really, really, really high tech. You

480

:: 28:52

know, we just wanted to see a way that there could be a

481

:: 28:55

viable business model that was going to make a difference for a

482

:: 28:59

farmer in an urban area. I mean, you need land access. It's always been an

483

:: 29:03

issue. I don't know that it's going to get any better with the urbanization of

484

:: 29:06

the world. Like, it just when you want to do

485

:: 29:09

that versus just sell the food. Like, I guess to my point, what I was

486

:: 29:12

about to say with that farmer down in North Carolina, it's like, once you're doing

487

:: 29:16

really well and your farming is selling out, somehow all

488

:: 29:19

of those other issues aren't as important to you anymore. Like, you're doing well.

489

:: 29:23

Like, you know what I mean? And I only really hear that from the

490

:: 29:27

people who aren't even following that. Like, you know, in the newsletter that

491

:: 29:30

indradcon done, I mean, you had mentioned, you know, we basically, you know,

492

:: 29:34

we're sharing with them about how we don't use traditional

493

:: 29:38

sales channels. You know, we are in multiple market segments in

494

:: 29:42

completely different ways. And, you know,

495

:: 29:45

it's really interesting that, you know, people aren't looking outside

496

:: 29:49

of the traditional box of those things, even with this innovation of

497

:: 29:53

technology, you know, yeah, we're innovating around manufacturing and

498

:: 29:57

product development, but I mean, is that

499

:: 30:00

really what's going to help the food system or is it the actual

500

:: 30:04

systems behind how those systems can be utilized?

501

:: 30:07

Right. It's like it's not the drone that's bad. Right. It's how it's used.

502

:: 30:11

For sure, for sure. Where did you think you got your knowledge about like helping

503

:: 30:15

businesses think about monetization in a smarter way? Because that seems like to be

504

:: 30:19

like a good, like a prime skill that you have. You

505

:: 30:23

know, honestly, I don't know if this is true or not, but I think I

506

:: 30:26

got it because of having grown up poor. I think there

507

:: 30:30

was a day that my mom had a box of food that was brought into

508

:: 30:34

the house. There was a priest, my mom was very active in the Catholic church

509

:: 30:37

and this priest brought a box of food to our house. And I'd walked in

510

:: 30:41

and I think that was the first day that I had an experience

511

:: 30:44

of feeling poor, regardless of what level

512

:: 30:48

it was or whatever, you know what I mean? That I digested that over time

513

:: 30:51

and processed that. Like I. I was like, wow, okay, we need food

514

:: 30:55

assistance. And that just kind of.

515

:: 31:00

I don't, it wasn't even. I don't remember making the decision. I just

516

:: 31:03

know that the behavior that I started doing was I went out and started

517

:: 31:07

selling my toys and I started shining shoes. My

518

:: 31:11

grandfather was a chemical engineer, but he was also a carpenter and made

519

:: 31:14

sailboats and cool things. And so he made this shoe shine box for

520

:: 31:18

me and I would just take this wooden shoeshine box with all my stuff and

521

:: 31:22

shine shoes for all the people going, you know, into Wall street and

522

:: 31:26

stuff like that as a kid. And they thought I was the cutest thing. I've

523

:: 31:29

actually made quite a bit of money. You know, it's just

524

:: 31:33

being resourceful when times call for it. Resourceful would be a good

525

:: 31:36

way to put that. Yeah, I'm curious about takeoff agreements. And when

526

:: 31:40

people build these farms, a lot of times they don't take that into consideration. Where

527

:: 31:44

they're going to be selling it if it's not a partnership with, like, a hospital

528

:: 31:47

or a research center. So when you have farmers that are going to be

529

:: 31:51

in markets where they're going to have to sell their food, do

530

:: 31:55

you have those types of relationships or those types of people that are looking to

531

:: 31:58

work with you and help you understand it, and how do you help them figure

532

:: 32:01

out the growing is the one part, and then you actually have to sell it,

533

:: 32:04

which is sometimes the harder part, building those relationships.

534

:: 32:08

So we don't work on business models for them and selling the food,

535

:: 32:12

particularly in the franchise, because the whole model is totally premised on

536

:: 32:16

actually earning your living on the farming

537

:: 32:20

contracts. So our revenue streams are obviously, people get paid

538

:: 32:24

30 to 50% markups on, like, products

539

:: 32:28

that we sell. They'll make money on the installations. They'll make money

540

:: 32:31

on their, you know, ability to either train

541

:: 32:35

or maintain, as we say, their farms, you know, through our services

542

:: 32:39

and those contracts and templates and ways in which of running those

543

:: 32:42

systems and processes are all laid out. So, you know,

544

:: 32:46

there's multiple different revenue streams. We hold workshops. There's different ways that,

545

:: 32:50

you know, workshops. For example, we're a B2B business, so we're not B2C.

546

:: 32:55

So these are much higher ticket items, you know, where you might have to

547

:: 32:58

sell to 100 to 300 people. You know,

548

:: 33:02

we're, you know, running certain locations. Like I said, like, one of

549

:: 33:06

our farms actually is like $60,000 contract. One of our farms is a

550

:: 33:10

$30,000 contract. One is like a $12,000 contract. One is.

551

:: 33:14

So, like, there's different size farms and how we do our pricing and things like

552

:: 33:17

that, so that it really works for literally every player involved,

553

:: 33:21

especially including the farmer, because those are the people being forgotten.

554

:: 33:25

I mean, farms are closing. They don't have jobs. The food system

555

:: 33:29

needs the farmers to have the, you know, or to start

556

:: 33:33

their own businesses. Like, nobody was really thinking about how to

557

:: 33:36

empower farmers as much as they were. I mean, in a lot of these

558

:: 33:40

businesses, you know, farm modern farmers were the people

559

:: 33:43

packaging were the people, like, you know what I mean? Like, they,

560

:: 33:48

you know, so, like, there was a little bit of a farce to, like, what

561

:: 33:50

was actually happening and how things were being portrayed, you know, so we're actually

562

:: 33:54

looking to empower farmers and say, you can have a business of your own. You

563

:: 33:58

don't need to work for somebody's company that may or may not be around tomorrow.

564

:: 34:02

You know, this is a business model that works for you. Now,

565

:: 34:06

how do you think about partnering. When it comes to vendors and folks that you

566

:: 34:10

work with, is there something that you look for or is there a consistent thread

567

:: 34:14

when you think about the partners that you're working with? I like

568

:: 34:17

working with people I enjoy, I really do. I start there.

569

:: 34:21

I've had meetings with so many different people, so many different

570

:: 34:25

manufacturers. And you know, it just

571

:: 34:28

seems that the ones that we have worked with is

572

:: 34:32

that they just really work well with ourselves. They're actually

573

:: 34:36

also with vendors is that we do have certain contracts that

574

:: 34:40

we have like, so we really are protected in a way

575

:: 34:43

in our system and they kind of see the value in how we're

576

:: 34:47

expanding. Because I think like I brought before, you know, manufacturers, you make

577

:: 34:51

up one product, you know, I mean I call it the wild, wild west. Everyone's

578

:: 34:54

pivoting. It's like most manufacturers sell to wholesalers who sell

579

:: 34:58

to, you know, I mean, and it's just like there's like they're, you know, they're

580

:: 35:01

like, oh, I want to be the service business. I want to be this. But

581

:: 35:04

one of our customers tell us this all the time. Like there's so many. I

582

:: 35:07

mean, I won't mention the names, but there's different, you know, individual small

583

:: 35:10

sized equipment providers that are like, oh yeah, I'll sell to

584

:: 35:14

resellers, but then I'm also going to try and sell exactly to your target market

585

:: 35:17

too, you know, and be in competition with you. It's just like ridiculous, you

586

:: 35:20

know, there's no integrity. So we really work with people

587

:: 35:24

who see the longevity of this type of a business model and they get

588

:: 35:28

it. You know, they see that they're struggling with when a farm buys equipment

589

:: 35:32

from you or when a school buys equipment from you, it's a one off. They

590

:: 35:35

have no recurring business model, you know, like none.

591

:: 35:39

100%, like actually so 90%

592

:: 35:42

literally of our business is a recurring business model. If I didn't sell anything this

593

:: 35:46

year, I'm fine. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, and I would

594

:: 35:50

love farmers to have that too. I would love cities to have that

595

:: 35:54

too. I saw that you got written up in the New York

596

:: 35:58

Times as well. So it seems like you're getting some pretty good local press.

597

:: 36:02

Yeah, all for free. You know, we were

598

:: 36:05

never, you know, we were bootstrapped company. We started actually with $5,000 on my

599

:: 36:09

credit card and that was it. We just actually were

600

:: 36:13

able to make money and you know, I was working

601

:: 36:17

as a massage therapist through building the entire thing until we were able to pay

602

:: 36:20

ourselves, you know, so it Just you gotta monetize when

603

:: 36:24

you don't have the millions of dollars. I used to, I used to joke about

604

:: 36:26

it like, wow, all these companies are failing. If I got those millions of dollars,

605

:: 36:30

you know, look where we'd be, you. Know, like it can totally. I didn't even

606

:: 36:34

need it honestly. But you know, with the franchising and things like

607

:: 36:38

that, there's, you know, maybe possibility for it. But I'm honestly told

608

:: 36:41

by some consult franchising consultants that we worked with that

609

:: 36:45

honestly, with our numbers, we don't even need it. How

610

:: 36:48

big is the team now? We have five. We're small and mighty

611

:: 36:53

and so how do you think about things when you're running a team as

612

:: 36:57

the, you know, as a person in charge. What are some of the day to

613

:: 37:00

day challenges. For me

614

:: 37:04

personally, Team management. I owned my like

615

:: 37:09

massage business by myself for years. You know,

616

:: 37:13

I basically had a wellness center where I was the massage

617

:: 37:16

therapist and then I rented out rooms to chiropractors, things like that and da, da,

618

:: 37:19

da, right? So yoga center, like yoga room. So you know, I had a

619

:: 37:24

second floor and nice building. I love that business. But anyway,

620

:: 37:28

I do struggle personally with

621

:: 37:32

managing teams of people in the sense of, you know.

622

:: 37:36

Well, I, it's funny because actually I, my team says I'm actually

623

:: 37:39

good at it. But where I feel I struggle personally about it is

624

:: 37:43

that I can be really intentional. I can, you know, the way I'm very

625

:: 37:47

systemized. So it's like we do things a certain

626

:: 37:51

way and it helps us accelerate faster. We have systems for

627

:: 37:54

absolutely everything. Like even our phone calls, like our

628

:: 37:58

meetings, our daily meetings, like everything is a. Okay, open up the

629

:: 38:02

agenda. Let's start here. People start like, you know, all their like

630

:: 38:05

cooler talk. I could be a little attention, like, okay guys, let's get back to

631

:: 38:08

this. So I feel like I can be harsh,

632

:: 38:12

but you know, honestly, I guess I should take other people's

633

:: 38:16

a little bit of feedback on that. So, you know, but that's, that is

634

:: 38:19

honestly truly something that I feel that I could work on personally because

635

:: 38:23

I believe in leadership through, you know, example.

636

:: 38:27

Like you have to transform yourself and to be the person you want to be.

637

:: 38:31

You have to transform the, you know, business model into what you want to

638

:: 38:34

see out of it. Obviously money hopefully is business, you know, and

639

:: 38:38

then also like the goals, like the actual mission side of

640

:: 38:42

it. And I really have worked for myself way too long to ever

641

:: 38:46

like not want to do something

642

:: 38:49

or not be able to almost do something that I don't believe in. You know,

643

:: 38:53

I literally have this like sticker on my refrigerator that says, you

644

:: 38:56

know, do big things make a difference and do big

645

:: 39:00

things. And I try to live up to it, you know, and I don't know

646

:: 39:03

if I am, but I try. Well, you keep referencing mission

647

:: 39:07

and core values and so I get the sense that this is something

648

:: 39:10

that's almost like in your DNA. Like you've always seen life and

649

:: 39:14

of course it's going to be how you run your business. Yeah, I mean I

650

:: 39:17

was really passionate about this. I never took a salary from this company until

651

:: 39:20

like other people were able to make money. Like I paid my people first, you

652

:: 39:24

know what I mean? And again, like I'm all for the farmers. I think that

653

:: 39:27

we need a food system that serves their bottom line and not just

654

:: 39:31

the people on the farms. What's a tough question you've

655

:: 39:35

had to ask yourself recently? I asked myself

656

:: 39:39

whether franchising was the right direction as

657

:: 39:42

opposed to going into my own independent business

658

:: 39:46

and like just building this, like going every like, you know, like trying to do

659

:: 39:50

it ourselves everywhere. Right. And I've even had some of our potential

660

:: 39:53

franchise candidates say, you know, why don't you just do this

661

:: 39:57

yourselves? Like, you know, they were like, they're so excited about, they're like, I'll partner

662

:: 40:00

with you, we'll do that. And it's just like, you know, joint venture

663

:: 40:04

and it's just like, you know, we are actually establishing a joint venture in

664

:: 40:08

Canada, but that's mostly for legal purposes as I'm advised.

665

:: 40:12

But there, you know, I guess when I

666

:: 40:16

look at that it wasn't mission aligned. Like I

667

:: 40:19

know God is sound like a broken record here. It was just like, like I

668

:: 40:22

could take it all for myself. Sure, I could be the Walmart and vertical farming

669

:: 40:25

and like in cities and be this big family business that like,

670

:: 40:29

you know, doesn't have the best reputation for how they treat their people

671

:: 40:33

and all of that. I mean we pay our farmers well. Our farmers love it.

672

:: 40:36

Like you know, they're gonna have a whole system to bring them into salary and

673

:: 40:39

you know, bring them apart on the team. Like there's like, you gotta treat your

674

:: 40:43

people well. You can't call them modern farmers.

675

:: 40:46

Play off of it for your own benefit and then you know,

676

:: 40:51

for the people who know what I mean, they know what I mean. What's your

677

:: 40:53

take on the industry? You know, obviously without having to name names, but we've gone

678

:: 40:57

through a bit of a hype cycle and which has been sobering for a lot

679

:: 41:00

of people. I feel Bad for our

680

:: 41:03

food system because as we see

681

:: 41:06

farms failing or

682

:: 41:12

you know, turning to universities just to be saved,

683

:: 41:15

essentially, you know, we don't see what we need

684

:: 41:19

to see. Now I think it was, you know, when I walked into

685

:: 41:23

GreenTech, go, you know, full circle here, right? When I worked into Greentech, way before

686

:: 41:26

we started this business, bright eyed and bushy tailed, didn't know anything

687

:: 41:30

about hydroponics. Hardly even walked in the door of what I did

688

:: 41:34

know from my sales background actually had helped launch a jewelry company

689

:: 41:37

for a friend of mine. I did the PR for it in New York,

690

:: 41:41

Manhattan. She had a showroom. So I did trade shows like in a

691

:: 41:44

different industry for a really long time. And I had, you know,

692

:: 41:48

essentially saw like, I was like, wow, okay, so there's nine types of

693

:: 41:51

growing food hydroponically from an engineering perspective, but I see

694

:: 41:55

at the time it was like tens of thousands. Now it's like hundreds of thousands

695

:: 41:58

of brands on the market. I was like, this is not going to help farmers.

696

:: 42:02

And that what we studied in our, you know, customer

697

:: 42:05

discovery, that next generation farmer that actually has no, little to no experience in

698

:: 42:09

farming. And it's just transitioning careers and looking to be a part of something

699

:: 42:13

that they want to be a part of and make a difference, you know, and

700

:: 42:15

invest the money that they made maybe in a different career in a new direction.

701

:: 42:18

You know, those are the people that we meet, you know, those are the people

702

:: 42:22

who are coming to all the trade shows. Those are the people who are engaging

703

:: 42:25

this, this industry of vertical farming, you know, and I think they're

704

:: 42:28

being totally disturbed by, because they don't have a lot of

705

:: 42:32

knowledge, you know, like I did, you know, like I didn't when I first walked

706

:: 42:36

in, but I did have knowledge of trade shows and systems. And I was like,

707

:: 42:39

wow, this is just going to confuse people. This is not going

708

:: 42:43

to help clear up anything. Particularly when everyone was just trying to claim that their

709

:: 42:46

system was better in one way or another. You know, it wasn't serving

710

:: 42:50

a food system at all. I'm interested because of your background

711

:: 42:54

in pr, what a lot of farmers or farms get wrong when it

712

:: 42:58

comes to think how they should be thinking about like publicity and marketing.

713

:: 43:02

So let me correct myself. My background in PR is completely

714

:: 43:07

self generated. I have no marketing training or business background or training

715

:: 43:10

in any of this, right? Even when I was hired and worked for Merrill Lynch,

716

:: 43:14

I got the job through my aunt. She was a nun and she used to

717

:: 43:18

run a school in the World Trade center, teaching French to

718

:: 43:21

mostly children of Financial advisors and

719

:: 43:25

things like that. So when most of my cousins

720

:: 43:29

and I needed a job, we were like, we called her Aunt Sister because she

721

:: 43:32

was a nun. Her name was Marie, but we were like aunt Sister, you know,

722

:: 43:35

can you help us get a job? And she would always talk to her banker

723

:: 43:38

friends and all the people that she took care of their kids and taught them

724

:: 43:41

French and things like that. So. And then she would. But that.

725

:: 43:44

So where my pr, I mean if you could re. Ask the question because

726

:: 43:48

I just have to be honest about that part of it. No, I mean sometimes

727

:: 43:51

the best experience comes from doing it yourself. And so regardless of all

728

:: 43:55

the education, because I didn't really get education entrepreneurship in marketing, as an

729

:: 43:59

entrepreneur myself. And I've been doing it for 11 years and a lot of it

730

:: 44:01

is just having to learn and sometimes learn what to do and what not to

731

:: 44:05

do. But over time you get good at it. Yeah. And that's why, you know,

732

:: 44:08

someone who's interested in partnering with a Green Food solutions and owning one for themselves

733

:: 44:12

in their area or their community, like that is exactly

734

:: 44:15

the thing. Like it's a step by step process and we walk you through it

735

:: 44:19

every step of the way. We are with you for the learning curves. It's kind

736

:: 44:22

of like you know how like you have on the job training, like we're actually

737

:: 44:25

like there with you on those sales phone calls, showing you until

738

:: 44:29

you feel comfortable leading those PowerPoint presentations that we've already aggregated and put together

739

:: 44:32

for you. You know, we're there with you at the installations

740

:: 44:36

and the training. We actually lead the trainings until you

741

:: 44:40

section by section. It's how we lead. We trained all of the people on our

742

:: 44:42

team, all five of us, but even other people who have come and gone, you

743

:: 44:46

know, and even how we train other people, like we've trained people who have freight

744

:: 44:49

farms. We actually have a freight firm training coming up in Houston,

745

:: 44:52

Texas, you know, helping those people get back online. And we

746

:: 44:56

have one in GUN is in Colorado as well. So like we, we really

747

:: 45:00

want to help farmers, you know, and so this business model is a way of

748

:: 45:03

doing it in cities. But we happen to have this training ability

749

:: 45:07

to train people in starting their own businesses, training them in the

750

:: 45:10

farming itself and the operations. We already give farming

751

:: 45:14

operations manuals with the agricultural systems maintenance and

752

:: 45:18

the agricultural operations SOPs and everything for all of the different

753

:: 45:21

systems. And that's something, you know, a lot of these other people, they're

754

:: 45:25

one system wonders. Right. You know, so like in a sense it's like

755

:: 45:30

no Real food system can thrive that way. We knew we

756

:: 45:33

needed to work with multiple people. They weren't working with each other, so we had

757

:: 45:36

to figure that out, you know, So I don't know. But.

758

:: 45:40

Well, I appreciate you making time to come on this conversation because it's. I was

759

:: 45:43

looking forward to it because you got such an interesting background and I think, you

760

:: 45:46

know, we don't know what the story is going to look like as it's happening

761

:: 45:49

to us. And you know, your background, the way you were raised, you know, the

762

:: 45:53

struggles you had to go through early on, being resourceful,

763

:: 45:57

they just started to all lay the path for you so that you would call

764

:: 46:00

on these skills later on in life. And it seems like

765

:: 46:04

that's exactly what's happening. And when you talk about building a company that's as mission

766

:: 46:07

driven as yours, you can easily see when you listen to this story

767

:: 46:11

how that happened because of, you know, who you are. It's in your DNA. It's

768

:: 46:14

clear that this is. Oh, yeah, I didn't need it. I didn't need the headaches

769

:: 46:18

or the business. Honestly, my business is doing great. Montclair Therapeutic Massage

770

:: 46:22

Center. I loved it. You know, it's still going, but I.

771

:: 46:25

Yeah, not me. Yeah. You know, I always have this, like, next

772

:: 46:29

idea to be like, here we go. You know, when. I mean, I was really

773

:: 46:33

just genuinely inspired. You know, my mom, another thing, my mom was a director of

774

:: 46:36

a homeless shelter for many years when I was a kid. And she just really

775

:: 46:40

showed me that, like, you have to kind of,

776

:: 46:44

you know, just really be open and share your heart with

777

:: 46:47

people. And, you know, there was a point at which I told you I used

778

:: 46:51

to sell my toys, right? Well, she took all my GI Joes, right? And she

779

:: 46:55

gave them to the homeless shelter. And then she really taught me a beautiful lesson.

780

:: 46:58

She like, she's like, come. She was like, if you want your toys back, you

781

:: 47:00

can take them. And of course, when I got there and I see kids playing

782

:: 47:03

with them, I was just like, of course I don't want them. So

783

:: 47:06

my mom gave me this mission driven thing, whether it's good or bad thing. And

784

:: 47:10

I'm just glad it worked out because I think that it could actually be the

785

:: 47:13

food system that cities need. And, you know,

786

:: 47:17

I'm not the only one who can create it by myself. I don't want to

787

:: 47:20

do it like that. You know what I mean? Like, I guess I could, right?

788

:: 47:23

Everyone's telling me I could joint ventures and all these things, but I don't want

789

:: 47:25

to. I really would like to empower farmers. Well, it

790

:: 47:29

definitely sounds like that's what you're doing with green food. And so I'm really happy

791

:: 47:32

that you shared the story. I feel like it's gonna be pretty inspiring to folks

792

:: 47:35

that are listening to it. So thanks again for your time. Thank you very

793

:: 47:39

much. I appreciate you having me on the show and letting me share.

794

:: 47:43

Where's the best place for folks to connect with you? Our website through

795

:: 47:46

the contact page. We're also on Instagram, LinkedIn,

796

:: 47:50

Facebook, but yeah, we're really open to conversations. You can call

797

:: 47:54

us

798

:: 47:55

201-375-3588.

799

:: 48:00

We're your local farming business that's looking to help other people start local

800

:: 48:03

farming businesses too. That might be the first or second time I ever got someone

801

:: 48:07

to share a phone number. Yeah, as a contact,

802

:: 48:11

it sounds like an 80s thing too. I know I'll be contacted by all the

803

:: 48:14

lighting companies and all everything. I know, I know that's great.

804

:: 48:18

But that just speaks to your open heartedness, which I love. So that's great. We'll

805

:: 48:22

make sure all those links are in the show notes, but appreciate this really fun

806

:: 48:25

story. Thanks again, Mary. Thank you so much.