Well, hello ladies and gents. Roberts sykesketosabs.com Today
I've got me on the podcast. This is going to be a short
podcast. This is not with a guess.
This is just with me bringing you up to speed on what I
learned in Brazil. So I went to Brazil to figure
out what's going on with the cacao crisis situation for the
Keto Bricks. I learned a ton and we are going
to have to start changing things as a business in result of that.
And I'm going to talk about that in this podcast.
But before we dive in, let's roll the intro.
What is going on y'all? Robert Sykes, Keto brick.com and
I got some information for you, as you may have known, may have
not have known, may know, I don't know.
I just came back from Brazil, spent the last week in Brazil
looking for a cacao. I made an announcement earlier
this year about the cacao crisis that we are now experiencing.
For those of you that do not know cacao butter, this is a
cacao fruit. It is a cacao butter is our main
ingredient in the Keto Bricks, main ingredient in the Keto
Bricks. Cacao butter is awesome.
It's got a whole host of health benefits and the extraction
process is super cool and unique.
I learned all about it while in Brazil.
Earlier this year, I talked about the cacao crisis that we
are currently experiencing. I'll throw a chart on the screen
here where you can see the price change that's happened over the
past few months. It's insane and it's not good
for business because again, that is our primary ingredient.
So I went to Brazil just to give you some Mac story as to why
that price change has occurred. Basically a lot of the cacao is
produced in Africa. Africa, D Force the the the
forest plants, a bunch of cacao trees, hires child labour to
process that. And they have jacked up the
pricing because they had experienced an El Nino rain
season which decimated their entire crop.
And now there's a run on cacao everywhere globally.
I've never gotten my cacao from Brazil or from Africa.
I've been getting it from Peru and I went to Brazil to try and
find better pricing on cacao. I had hoped in going to Brazil
that I would be able to go direct to the farmer, get a
better price and not have to do anything drastic with the
company. That is not my reality.
That is not our reality because the pricing of COW is just here
to stay for a bit longer and it will likely increase a bit more,
which is scary times, scary times.
So what does that mean for me? What does that mean for you?
How does that affect Keto Brick as a company?
Well, we're going to have to start charging shipping first
and foremost. I have been in business for six
years. All of our carriers have pretty
much increased our shipping cost every six months in that six
year span. So for all intents and purposes,
our shipping cost have increased roughly 12 times since we opened
the doors of Keto Brick. I have not once charged shipping
domestically because I have not wanted to pass that cost on to
y'all. In light of the cacao crisis,
we're going to have to start charging shipping.
That is just simply the reality of the situation and it is what
it is. I don't like it any more than
you do, but I would rather apologize for having to pay for
shipping due to a situation outside of my control than
apologize for not being able to produce the bricks at all
because we go out of business. So that is what it is, ladies
and gents, and that's just our reality.
So going forward, starting in August, we will be charging
shipping and we have never charged shipping before, as I
mentioned. So we're going to be working
through some bugs, we're going to be working through some
kinks. We're going to be trying
different softwares, different carriers, different discounted
rates, trying to get the best shipping prices that we can and
do right by y'all as best we can.
And that is subject to change as we learn more about charging,
shipping and different platforms and carriers and softwares that
we can use to streamline that process.
But expect to be charged shipping starting in the
beginning of August. That is one thing that we're
going to do differently. The next thing that we're going
to do differently is that we are going to be focusing on
diversifying our primary ingredients.
So as you know, cacao butter is our current primary ingredient
and we're going to be focusing on also offering tallow.
So quality beef tallow as the primary fat source.
I'm super excited about it. We've been actually working on a
tallow brick for four years now at least, and we have not yet
released it because I've been focusing on cacao, but because
of the cacao crisis, I'm going to be focusing more on tallow.
I do not want y'all's first impression of the tallow bricks
to be negative. So we are not going to launch
those until it cools down a little bit and we can offer
tallow without the risk of it melting because tallow, while
it's great, it's great from hysteric acid standpoint, it's
great from lots of different standpoints.
It is not quite as shelf stable and resilient to the heat as
cacao butter. So in light of the cacao crisis,
in light of my increased costs and in light of my increased
shipping costs and my increased ingredient cost, we're going to
be charging shipping that's going to go into effect in
beginning of August. We're going to be focusing on
tallow bricks and offering those for you as well so that you can
have another option outside of just the cacao.
And that will hopefully hedge our bets a little bit as well
and diversify our ingredient sources and allow us to stay in
business and going strong and offer tallow bricks for all of
you all that have won in tallow bricks.
So I'm super excited about that keto brick, this company of
mine, this company of ours, this company that my wife and I
created six years ago on a wing and a prayer for our own need
that has become what it is now is something I'm incredibly
passionate about. We slept on a freaking warehouse
floor for three years to make this a reality.
I'm not going to go down without a fight and I'm not freaking
going down because there is no Plan B in my life.
There is only Plan A and I'm going to make Plan A work.
I want everybody to be healthy. I want everybody to not have,
you know, food cost, ingredient cost as a barrier to entry to
eating healthy. But the reality of our situation
is that we offer a premium product.
We offer a quality ketogenic Carnivore premier product
without filler ingredients. And I'm going to keep doing that
because that's who I built the product for and that's who all
of y'all are. And the simple situation, the
simple reality is that a lot of these companies that use Kakaum
are either going out of business or they're increasing their
prices drastically, or they're trying to hedge their bets by
putting in subpar ingredients and fillers and seed oils and
just nonsense. And I'm not going to do that
because y'all don't want that in the products that you eat.
I don't want that in the products that I consume.
And I certainly don't want to put my name on it.
See that? That's a figure of me.
That's my name. If I'm putting my name on, it's
going to be the highest quality. That's why I've kept production
in house from day one, so that I can oversee the quality.
I'm not going to cut corners, and I promised that to y'all.
That said, I'm going to have to charge what it cost to produce
and ship the bricks. I can't make money.
I can't stay in business if the cost of my shipping and the cost
of my ingredients exceeds the cost of what I'm charging them
for. So that is a simple reality and
I'm not going to waiver from that and I'm not going to
apologize for things that I can't control.
I can't control the cacao commodity system.
What I can control is how I run the company, what I charge for
the costs to procure, produce and deliver a quality product.
And I can control the quality of that part.
And that quality is always going to be the most pristine quality
you can give. And I promise and commit to
that. That said, I, like I said, I
don't want people to have cost be a barrier to entry for eating
health. If you simply want to eat
healthy and be as healthy as you possibly can, you can't afford
the brick, then that's fine. Eat a whole bunch of eggs.
You know, eggs are great. They're cheap.
They're going up in price too, but they're cheaper than
anything else. So if you're trying to get
healthy, eat a whole bunch of eggs, but if you want the
convenience and the quality of a keto brick, you're going to have
to pay for it. And that's just the reality
because we're we're going to stay in business and we're going
to cost what it takes to stay in business.
I'm not driving a Lamborghini. I'm not, you know, retiring on a
private yacht somewhere. I'm not trying to price gouge
people. I'm trying to do right by y'all
and make sure you always have a quality product that I can
offer. And as such, I'm going to have
to increase prices to make sure it's a viable company at all
times. That's the reality of our
situation. We've had some people chiming in
on Facebook ads and Instagram saying that we're price gouging,
saying that we charge too much for our product.
And to be completely frank and honest with you, those are the
people that don't value the quality ingredients.
They don't value what they're putting into their body as much
as we do. And for that reason, they're not
my target customer. I don't want their money.
I don't want their business. I don't want their headache.
That may sound brash, but that is what it is.
If you want a premium product, you have to pay for the premium
product. And I can't, I can't say it any
other way. That is just simply our reality.
I'm going to fight to stay in business.
I'm going to fight to do what's right by y'all, and I'm going to
always maintain the quality integrity of the product, and
the chips will fall where they may.
Who knows what the price of cacao is going to do in the
future? It may go up, it may go down.
I don't know. I'm going to do everything in my
control, which may include buying a freaking farm in Brazil
and going to direct in the sense of growing my own cacao trees.
I don't know what that's going to be, but I'm going to do
everything in my power to do right by y'all.
I trust that those of you who know me, that those of you who
have been around for the long haul recognize that, believe in
that and appreciate them. And I will never, ever try and
do wrong by y'all. And I'll be transparent like I
have from the very beginning. So there it is ladies and gents,
that's the reality. That's what I've learned in
Brazil and I hope we can all be at peace with that.
And I appreciate all y'all that are loyal customers and do value
that premier quality of product more than you could ever know.
So thank you very much. Much love to all of y'all.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day. And again, the shipping cost
will be added at checkout starting August 1st.
So plan accordingly there. Appreciate y'all talk to you
next time.