Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, keto savage.com.
And today I have a special guest Phillip Meese from Carnivore bar
on the line. So Phillip and I have interacted
at numerous conferences, we've spoken on the entrepreneurship
panels together. We have similar products in the
keto carnivore low carb space and we have both kept our
operation in house from day one, bootstrapped from the beginning,
which I have utmost respect for. I wanted to bring him on the
podcast again, just kind of pick his brain about some of the
trials and tribulations that come with owning your own food
product business, what he's learned in that journey, what
he's excited about going forward, what he's doing in the
space and just really kind of hash things out from a business
standpoint, from a lifestyle standpoint, and just kind of
pick his brain, learn more about his operations.
So I've got utmost respect for Philip, who he is, what he
stands for, his moral code of ethics, his integrity.
His product itself. And I'm excited to just bring on
the podcast and reveal some of that to y'all.
So without further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the
conversation with my good friend Phillip.
And we are live Phillip. How are you brother?
I'm good. How are you, Robert?
I'm good, man. I'm good.
It's been, it's been a while since I've had you on the
podcast, man. I think we chatted quite a bit
last year at the various conferences, but I think it's
been probably two years or so since I've had you on the show.
Yeah, it's been a minute time. Time has flown by.
Time has flown by, but since then we have shared the stage on
a couple entrepreneurship panels, which is always fun.
I enjoy talking with you because you I enjoy talking with any
company in the space that has done something similar to what
we have which is simply stayed true to their roots,
bootstrapped their business kept production in house because
there seems to be a a declining demographic of companies that do
that. Everybody just seems to
outsource things. They go the route of like, you
know, massive Co Packers, they don't really have full
oversight. Whereas you with Carnivore Bar
has always stayed in house, which is what we've done and I
really, really respect that man. Yeah, I remember you.
You kind of shouted me out for for doing that in the beginning
and it was a little bit involuntary.
So, you know, I just, I needed the product, you know, to be
really, really clean because we serve autoimmune compromised
individuals and no one else could guarantee that they're
going to do it the right way. So I kind of was forced into
that and I remember you, you pointed that out and
complimented me on that. I was like, way to go, man.
You don't don't give in. I honestly did not know what I
was signing up for. Like it is.
I get it now. It is really, really difficult
to do something in house. But you know, I I kind of see
what you're saying now, 'cause it really is this heroic
responsibility you're taking on yourself to do something like
you've done. It is.
But like, there's so much like
fulfillment that comes from it, man.
Like, I love being able to come to the compound early in the
morning before any of my employees show up, crank up the
music, get some work done, sweep the floor if I want to take out
the trash. Just do the little things that
people that you know Copak can outsource everything, never
really get the opportunity to do.
It just makes everything so much more tangible and physical and
less abstract. And I love that, man.
Like, I love being able to see the actual physical components
and have that 100% oversight. And there's pros and cons to
everything, but keeping things in house like it just it feels
like I'm building something much more tangibly than it would if I
was to outsource everything. And I feel like we only have so
much time on this earth anyways. And I really want to make sure
that I'm departing it, having left more value than I took from
it. And I feel like if I can see the
fruits of my labor first hand because I've kept everything in
house, that becomes more and more apparent.
Yeah, and there's an intimacy to it, an intimacy and a
transparency that I think is, is lacking in the Co pack model
that you know, has really been relevant Tory over the years.
In fact, I was on a veteran's day podcast and and they were
mentioning your product that you go to all this trouble to make
sure that the macros actually are what they say they are.
And it's like something so simple but in the keto space
that is really, really important to us.
It's like if you hand it off to a Co Packer, you know they have
these margin of errors that are tolerable.
And it's like well our people are weighing and measuring every
gram. If our products have like a 20%
margin of error, like what kind of you know what kind of honesty
is that? It's like it It's really
important to get this stuff right, and having it in house
gives you that accountability so that you can actually sell what
you say you're selling a. 100%, man.
I mean and like a 20% amnesty up or down is pretty significant.
Like when you look at my product, which is 1000 calories,
there's 200 calories right there.
I mean, when I'm adjusting macros for a prep, I may only be
adjusting by 50 or 75 calories a week.
So if I was just haphazardly, you know, pouring things in and
not really giving any any thought to the accuracy of it
I'm doing myself. I'm doing my customers a
disservice. And I just, I wouldn't be able
to sleep at night doing that. So I like being able to have,
you know, full control. And yes, there's a lot of
headaches that come with that, but I can go to sleep at night
knowing that I'm doing my best with everything I've got.
And yeah, there's going to be some inaccuracies.
There's going to be some things that you just simply can't
control for at scale. But I've done everything I can
possibly do to minimize that and just to refine Polish and get
things truly dialed in. Absolutely.
It it's, you know, and I I made the I crossed the Rubicon.
I I have a version of my product with a little bit of carbs in
it. And for me, like it becomes even
more important, like if you're trying to be keto and stay, you
know they're different definitions.
But under 50 grams of carbs, like you can't, you can't afford
to be a few grams off. Like, you know, our products has
the one that the honey bar has seven grams of carbs coming from
honey, raw honey, mostly fructose.
You know, it's debatable how much harm that is to you, but
people feel very strongly about it and I want them to know
exactly, you know, you know exactly what's in it so they can
make the choices for themselves. Like, I think that's the heart
of this. You know, keto take your health
in your own hands. Like you got to have that
control and being able to offer what you say you offer is
crucial if for, you know, for these athletes and these
individuals trying to get a hold of their health. 100% man, 100%.
So I want to do a deep dive into all things business, your
company, you know, ups and downs.
But before we kind of put the curtain back on that for anybody
that has not listened to that first podcast that we did, if
they have not figured it out yet, you are the man behind
Carnivore Bar and you got into the space because primarily of
your military background and seeing the need for what you
offer, correct? Yeah, actually my origin story
is I was in Afghanistan. I ordered jerky, a really clean
jerky. It's spoiled.
So I was in an anti tank unit. Taliban doesn't have any tanks
so I was sent to the far end of the battle space and had
forgotten about. So we ate Mres way longer than
you should have eaten, took antibiotics for malaria and we
just we got our guts absolutely messed up.
So we tried to ship healthy food to the battlefield, couldn't
because it wasn't shelf stable. We tried to like we tried to do
everything we could. We just started end up eating
the candy out of our Mres because the shelf stable food
was so constipated. It was just, you know, sorry to
be graphic, but it was just, it was just terrible.
It wasn't food. And so it was like, how do we
get healthy food to the battlefield?
So I read and remembered this thing called Pemmican, which is
a Native American tradition to bring high fat food to survivor
ship or travel and they broke camp.
They didn't necessarily know if their next hunting spree was
going to be successful and and their whole, you know, their
whole community is riding on this.
So you know, they had a just in case food and that food was
pemmican and I was like, well, that would make it to
Afghanistan. Unlike the very clean jerky that
you ended up, if you can believe it, molding the condensation,
those preservatives are really important.
The condensation on that bag, they heat heat cycles of the
desert, you know, get really hot, then relatively cold, pulls
all the moisture out on the one side of the bag, molded the
whole thing a jerky, turned it sour.
I'm just like spending my own money trying to find health.
Nothing but caffeine, cigarettes, seed, oils,
preservatives, just just wall to wall anti nutrition, no sleep.
And I'm like I originally joined the service to pay for collagen
to to have a job that pay me to work out and stay healthy.
But the diet and lifestyle absolutely wrecked me.
So I thought if I came back I would make something that was
shelf stable, extremely shelf stable and that could make it
anywhere I needed to go, but have all the nutrition I'd need
to survive. So that's kind of the idea of
the carnivore bar is the survivor food that's made ultra,
ultra clean so as not to have any junk in it.
I love it, man. I feel like whenever you make a
product as a way to scratch your own itch, as both you and I have
done, there's just this underlying level of passion
behind it which sees us through the hard times as entrepreneurs.
So I love that you built it out of your own desire to satisfy
and fulfill that need that for you and others, because I think
it's that's the way to do it. Do you think there's ever going
to be a massive investment by the government to improve the
quality of Mr. ES? Because they have not changed
for the past 50 years. That I can tell, and they are
pretty horrendous. So there's millions and millions
of dollars invested in MRE currently, but most of it is
into like the packaging. So they'll do like an advanced
study of like dropping the MRE off a second story building and
then dropping it off the back of a truck in a muddy field and and
just dragging it through hell and to see if the bag pops or
not. And so the bag is really well
engineered and the food is designed, as stated by their
goals, to accomplish nostalgia. And if that's their stated goal,
like they're kind of, they're kind of getting it.
Like you're getting lasagna, you're getting sloppy joes,
you're getting all this peanut butter and like pound cake kind
of nonsense, but they're trying to mimic like a home cooked
meal. And you have this little bag you
put in hot water heats it up and so you get a warm nostalgia
filled full of preservatives that won't explode if you drop
it out of the helicopter. And to their stated goal, I
think they've achieved that. You know, it's very same, same
kind of idea with the USDA food pyramid with 11 servings of
grain. Their stated goal is to keep
farmers employed, not to keep us healthy.
So if you look at these institutions and you and you go
back to their their founding principles, they're
accomplishing them. You know the USDA is keeping
farmers employed. The MRE is creating a sense of
nostalgia or longing this for home.
But for me, I think that's a little like taking your rifle
and smearing Jelly doughnuts on it.
You don't need nostalgia in your war fighting tools.
You need clean air, lubricant, protect it.
You need CLP on your rifle. You need keto macros in your
food. It's designed to do a like to
have a function, you know to have a purpose.
Food should be about nourishing you and making you feel your
best. It shouldn't be about the mouth
entertainment. And I think that's what's
really, really wrong with the MRE and its underlying
philosophy. It's like they're trying to get
you food to make you miss homeless, whereas I think if you
extend that reach towards, how about you feel your best, you
perform your best, you think your best, you fight your best,
you end the war sooner and actually get to go.
Yeah, no, I can totally get behind that ladder messaging.
Much more so than the former. I feel like it seems very obtuse
to put our men and women in arms on the front line to operate and
perform at an at a high level, but then run the risk of them
having to rush off to, you know, relieve themselves due to
Constipation or something as a result of poor nutrition.
I'm. I'm on a petition right now.
Put it on record. We'll talk to our lobbyists
about getting all Mr. ES outfitted with one bag of
Carnivore Snacks, Carnivore Bar, and then a Keto Brick.
And I have no doubt that the performance of our military
would probably increase by at least 57.3%, don't you think?
Well, you know, it it is an interesting thing.
So as a business person, like I really had to kind of dispense
with some of my naivety and my my goals and my dreams because I
really wanted the carnivore bar to be really cheap and really
affordable. But, you know, drying meat,
especially high quality meat, is really, really expensive.
And there are certain things that, you know, affect the
shelf's ability, the moisture content.
It is really hard to do. I mean, there there are people
who are trying to emulate it but aren't doing a very good job
getting it actually dry. And so you have charlatans who
are willing to sell wet meat for a cheaper price.
But you know, that's that's water.
You're paying for the water. So it's kind of this devilish
task of, you know, what investment is a soldier's life
worth and what kind of health are they starting from?
Because if you have an athlete who is in pristine health, you
know, they can get away with a little bit of abuse.
But if you have a population that's inherently sick, you know
we may be going to a place unfortunately with warfare that
we use more drones than we do people because feeding people
healthy food is just not economical.
And that is a really like harsh thing to say because it it kind
of flies in the face of why I made my product.
But I think it's probably going to be more towards special
forces. It's going to be more towards
elite non replaceable with robots, kind of forces that are
worth the investment in body armor that works, worth the
investment in food that doesn't rot your gut.
The idea of, you know, fueling giant armies on meat, it's
really kind of gone by the wayside.
Like the last time we really did that was the Revolutionary War.
They had a pound of meat per soldier per day, which is not a
lot and it's why the US Continental Army spent a lot of
its time starving to death. So it's like man, how do how do
we feed people a species appropriate diet in the
military? And I think it it's a it's a
question that's fraught with challenges in multiple different
vectors. It is.
It is challenging for sure. Man, like I've dug deeper and
deeper into regenerative agriculture and sustainable, you
know, food procurement and homesteading for my own, you
know, personal and family needs. And I've totally switched gears,
man. Like, I, there's all this debate
in the space right now about, you know, grain fed versus grass
finished, you know, what the Omega profiles are like, what
the fatty acid profiles are like, what the micronutrients
are. And like all of that is very
important. But to be honest with you, I've
veered away from buying all of my meat at conventional grocery
stores simply because I don't want to support the model that
exists because of it. Like viewing meat, viewing beef
as this commodity system, that's not going to be good for the
livestock. It's not going to be good for
the farmers. It's not going to be good for
the environment. Like, it's just a bad system
through and through. And since then, I mean, I've
really like, I've found a local producer for my chicken, for my
pig, for my beef, for my lamb. I just picked up several lamb
two days ago from a local farmer.
I'm doing a lot of. I'm getting my own lamb to raise
in a couple weeks. We've got our own cheese, like
we're doing everything in house with that now, too.
And I feel so much. Better about it.
Yes, I'm getting the better quality nutrition.
Yes, I'm I'm taking more of an active role in the whole life
cycle process. But I'm also not voting with my
dollar to support the commodity food system, which is just
horrendous. And I was listening to a podcast
the other day, I forget which one it was.
It may have been the one with Will Harris on Rogan or
something like that. But they're talking about how
the percentage that we used to spend on our groceries was about
25% of our, you know, income as a as a American family, for
instance. And that has since dropped down
to less than 15%, which at first glance seems like a positive.
Oh, I'm saving money, but you should not be able to go to the
grocery store and buy a whole chicken for $2.00.
Like that should not happen. Because if you are doing, then
there is, there is a a short circuit in the system somewhere
and it's likely coming at the loss of the local farmers, you
know, ability to support their family, the quality of life for
the animal. Like we should be proud to spend
more on quality food knowing that it's supporting a better
system in and of itself. And I don't say that to, you
know, be little or, you know, guilt trip people that don't
have the financial means. But at the same time, if you
have a hard time spending a little bit extra for your
chicken, but you don't bat an eye at spending twice that
amount on shots at the local bar or a flat screen TV.
I would say that your priorities are likely needing to be tweaked
around and adjusted before before anything else.
Exactly, exactly. And the conventional beef model
it, it's a race to the bottom like any kind of commodity.
It it's it's a really interesting phenomenon like the
kind of things that they need to do in order to make their bottom
line. It's it's really eroding the
very foundations of the business they're participating in.
Like the ranchers are really losing in this scenario.
They get less and less for all of their hard work creating food
for everybody. And so if they're losing, if the
bound, if the foundation of this system is eroding away and it
just gets more and more exploitative, you know, $2.00
for a chicken, it's wrong on so many different levels.
But if you take into account inflation, that chicken is in
yesterday's dollars less than a buck, You know, So if you start
to take into effect that our dollars are worthless because of
monetary policy, it's like that that chicken is almost free, and
it's almost free because it's mostly water.
They're literally pumping water into this nutrient devoid source
of protein. It doesn't have any of the
minerals or the vitamins that you you need.
Might have the protein but it's going to be extremely low
quality and so and it's putting the it's a it's a bunch of de
beaked fat sick chickens who you know are stacked right on top of
each other going to the bathroom right on top of each other in
like the the most disgusting way possible.
It's like, and the farmer can't pay his bills.
You know, the person raising those chickens stacked together
in a giant warehouse can't, can't afford to buy feed.
They're going out of business in this horror show that's only
really benefiting the processor. The same processor who in a
moment's notice is closing plants.
I think it was Tyson. He just closed like several
different plants just last year, some in Missouri.
And so they're they're closing plants because it's not
economical and they're investing in plant based meats and bugs.
So you look at these industry wide moves, it's kind of like
the cigarette companies investing in vapes, you know and
so if these processors are investing in plant based meats,
they don't have any faith in the commodity beef or commodity
chicken. It's like these industries are
dying. They're horrible, they're bad
for the planet, bad for your health, bad for the ranchers and
farmers. So it's like it's kind of
tilting the scales towards this regenerative agriculture, you
know, for not only the people but also for your health and
also for the sustainability of the business model.
Yeah, totally, man. And like I said, I don't ever
want to you know play the self-righteous card or come
across as holier than thou. But I mean if you know better,
do better and vote with your dollar and do what you can.
I don't expect everybody to go out and get lambs and their own
chickens and homestead I I have that opportunity because I have
some land to do that on and I'm excited to do it.
But if you're living in a high rise apartment in New York then
simply order your meat from somewhere that is doing things
the right way. Allocate your resources such
that that's where a reasonable percentage of your funds go.
Because, I mean, you think about it like what you eat every
single day compounded over a lifetime like that.
You can't, you can't afford to skimp on that.
And a lot of people just don't know what how big of an impact
what they consume on a daily basis has on them until it's too
late. But, but it Yeah man, anybody
listen to this Like I would just really encourage you to you know
listen to the podcast, read the resources, get the books, listen
to the audiobooks that really kind of peel the curtain back on
the commodity beef and just poultry pork system.
And then act against it. Because that is probably one of
the single best things anybody can do to put the to move the
needle in the right direction for not only their own health
but the the sustainability of the environment and the economy.
Because like that is a system that can scale, that can grow
and that can truly benefit much more than just yourself.
Whereas like if you start, you know, spend your money at these
fast food grocery stores and honestly even like all the green
washing that's going on in like a lot of these more well known
and less supposedly bad, you know, conventional grocery
stores like the Kroger's and the Fred Meyer's and the Walmart's
and the Natural Grocers and Whole Foods to some extent, like
really know where your food comes from and make that a
significant priority in your life.
Like that would be key. Well, yeah.
And it's like your savage Creed. I mean, I've, I bought your
shirt or actually, no, you wouldn't let me buy it.
You gave me the shirt. But I wanted it because the
Creed is like it's my responsibility to live my life
to the fullest potential, you know, that's the heart and soul
of that it of that lifestyle. And it's like you said, it's all
about those priorities. Like you, we've de prioritized
our health and Wellness to a horrible degree.
And whether it's military rations or just general person
living their life, it's like everybody has de prioritized the
health and Wellness of the one and only body they get to live
life in. It's like you know you are more
valuable than that. You know the systems that
support real food are more valuable that people who are
trying to make unadulterated on the go products like yourself
and many others are are investing in the community who
want to know what they're putting in their bodies.
It's like you have a responsibility to take ownership
of that and to do something about it.
And I think that you know you and I are are kind of in
alignment on that that that's why we do what we do.
We do things the hard right way so that we can get results that
are are not typical, because the typical results are just this
soulless, lifeless, slow eroding of everything that we value.
Yeah, no, we're totally in alignment, man.
That's. Why?
I was excited to get you back on the podcast and chat with you.
So let's peel the curtain back on your business.
And I don't want to disclose any trade secrets here, so if
there's anything you don't want to talk about, by all means.
So we'll deflect the question of the conversation.
But your bar, So the carnivore bar, it's got several different
iterations of it now. The original is just simply beef
and salt and tallow, and then you've since come out with the
one with honey. And then I know you've done a
collab with pluck seasoning as well.
I had him on the podcasting in here not too long ago.
Oh yeah. James is great his seasoning,
which is an organ blend seasoning, which is delicious.
I use it on everything. Yeah, it's really, it's really
convenient and he's done the kind of the hard work of the R&D
of getting the spice spices to to cover the organ taste.
So when we were first R&D ING the carnivore bar, you know, the
idea is everything you need to survive in one single bar.
You're using the highest quality protein that we could find,
grass fed, grass fitness regeneratively raised as all the
micronutrients, you know, Omega threes, things like that.
But you know, people were always saying, well what about organs,
what about liver, what about heart?
What about, you know, Coq 10 or copper or zinc, methionine,
glycine, you know, all these different ratios and if you
added organs, you know, we'd have all our bases covered.
But when we added it to the plain zero carb bar, man, it was
really, really gamey. It was, it was gamey even for
me, like pungent, like wet, wet dog soccer shoes kind of smell.
And it's like when you dry something, when you dry meat or
any kind of animal product, you really concentrate the flavor.
So one of the reasons that we went with Joyce Farms in North
Carolina is because they had a program that was big enough to
scale and they have a genetics, the heritage version of the
Aberdeen Angus that just does so much better on grass and it
tastes really, really great even when dried.
So everybody that's doing grass, fed grass finished animals that
weren't designed to thrive on grass, like they're really at a
disadvantage with that gamey flavor.
So when we added organs, we were kind of undermining all of that
work without the flavor to kind of be covered with spices.
But pluck kind of has best of both worlds.
If you can do spices, some of my customers definitely cannot.
You know, you don't taste any organs at all.
We have a honey barbecue and a zesty garlic and all you really
taste is zesty garlic and the and the BBQ.
So for us, it was kind of a match made in heaven.
If you're doing spices now, you're eating nose to tail, you
got no concerns. And with the honey, we went with
a raw honey. It's giant pain in the butt to
not overheat it and accidentally cook the honey.
But it really does taste better to have it raw, to have it
unprocessed, to have it be ancestral.
And so our honey salted is honey salted bar, which is just our
regular pemmican with a little bit of raw honey.
It's like one of our best sellers.
It's it's tied between just plain and plain plus honey.
Do y'all. This is a tangent here, but I
used to be a bee farmer when I was in middle school, actually
my brother and I'm kind of by by design from my dad as a way for
us to work together and and just do something unique.
He's a biologist. He's like let's.
Get some beehives and start, you know, raising bees.
So we we did and we had I think 25 hives at one point.
We've got much fewer now, but as I've been getting more into
homesteading, I'm like I'm going to bring the bees back and I'm
going to get some more hives at my current location and use that
as a way to populate or pollinate rather, you know, all
the the flora around my. Place.
But I I don't really eat that much honey.
So I've got all this commercial equipment for processing honey.
And I don't consume it, so I might just start shipping y'all
my raw honey if that'd be feasible.
Hey, I mean, we'd be open to it. I'd love to try it.
Yeah, yeah. That might be.
That might be something you have to roll out in the future for
sure. But if you, if you're looking at
things at, you know, from an ecology standpoint, it does kind
of make sense. If you have a room in it that's
on the plains and you have all this wildflowers and different
species diversity and perennial grasslands actually goes pretty
well with raising bees. Oh, for sure, Yeah.
I think having bees is one of the, you know, a great thing you
can do as a homesteader, as someone that's wanting to just
improve the quality of the land, the biodiversity, I think it's
great. I just would never consume as
much honey as I'll have once I. Scale that.
So I need to find a way to to offload it and not feel guilty
about it. So yeah, we'll have to touch on
that at some point in the future as I get the bees back for sure.
Sure. With regards to the businessman,
so you've you've you started out with a Kickstarter that launched
Win 20/19/2019 and then you got the new facility that was what
two years ago now? Yeah, 2021, I guess it's closing
on three. Yeah, yeah.
And the new facility is? A game changer for you.
You got more space to grow. You and I kind of both moved
into our new facilities at about the same time.
I think I bought mine in 2020 and then we had to go through
this year long renovation process and we moved in 2021 as
well. So we both got our facilities up
and running at about the same time.
And when you do things in house as we do, there's like, I don't
know, I just love warehouse space, I love commercial kitchen
equipment. I love just seeing behind the
scenes and just figuring out how things work and how things are
made, so I definitely got to come check out your operation.
You're obviously more than welcome to come check out ours
at any .0. That'd be awesome.
Yeah man, for sure. But with that, like getting a
new facility, I know from from my experience I'm sure same is
true with you. Getting a new facility, getting
it renovating, getting it up to code throughout the 2020-2021
time frame was likely more headaches than you realize you
signed up for. Oh, yeah, it was.
I'll try not to curse the new channel, but it, you know,
definitely some expletives were involved it the supply chain
stuff was just murder. Like, I had pieces of equipment
that were promised to me that were nine months delayed.
And so, you know, to avoid paying rent in two different
places. Yeah, I had a pretty quick move
and I had to make do with what I had.
And so there were a lot of like emergency fixes and kind of
siloing like, OK, well, this part of the building is up to
code. Everyone stay out of that part
of the building. We're going to seal that off.
And it's like this giant warehouse.
I was so lucky to find it. It was such a Goldilocks
facility. It had all these freezers
attached to it. They used to do institutional
food for like nursing homes and prisons and stuff like that,
like contracts. So there's this giant hood
system, there's all this liquid propane for cooking, there's
floor drains and essentially what's just a giant metal
building. And so it's like it's got good
bones. It has a lot of the initial
horrendously expensive upgrades I'd need and it has freezer
space for days. And I was like kind of not
unlike your grocery store, you know, it has some of the things
you actually needed, but like if you were building from scratch,
like it would have been millions and millions of dollars.
So I I just kind of got really, really blessed, really, really
lucky and put a lot of sweat equity into that move and we got
it done. I love it, man.
It's it's always great when things come together, but it's
never an overnight success and it doesn't ever happen without a
ton of headaches and sleepless nights.
I mean, when we moved into ours, our we didn't want to, you know,
be paying lease on two buildings as well.
And we had everything time. But I told my renovation
contractor what time we need to be up and running by.
He went like 50% over budget and he was several months behind,
but we'd already moved out of our place, so for several months
we couldn't produce any new product.
I've got my employees I'm trying to continue to pay, you know, so
that their livelihood is met because they moved up with me.
So I'm literally paying them to like lay baseboard trim and nail
studs in the wall and do contract work while we're trying
to help these contractors get things back on schedule.
So yeah, it was brutal. There was, there was sometimes
during that window where it's like, I don't know if we're
going to be able to make through it because cash flow is not
there and expenses are ramped up higher than ever.
But we did. And I feel like if anybody has a
business that they've bootstrapped and grown
organically and they did something crazy like move
locations during that time frame, then you're freaking born
out of the flames and you're just hardened, man, battle
tested. Absolutely, absolutely.
And it it's those creative things like playing baseboard,
it's like you you really, you really learn who your employees
are, your your rock stars and and they're worth their weight
and goal. Like for me, that's been a real
headache, but also a proving ground through adversity,
through, you know, adverse conditions, delays, setbacks,
needing my employees to do things that were definitely not
on the job description and and seeing who you know really had
your back because those employees are worth investing
every penny you have into. Yeah, 100%, man.
I've been blessed with amazing employees.
We've got one that's coming up on being with us for five years
now. So he started with us, you know,
not long after we had started, which is just awesome.
I'm super proud to have. We've had some that we're not
worth a darn. You kind of learn.
A lot. As a business owner there too
and it's it's funny man. Like when you own the company,
you know it's always your fault. Like you can't ever point the
finger. You have to have this jocko
extreme ownership mentality and I've fully and completely
adopted that. I'm always reading leadership
and business books and self development books to try and be
the best leader I can for my. Crew and I take everything.
Person like if if they don't work out, I assume it's my
fault. And one of the hardest things
that I've learned in business is to recognize that it is always
your fault. But when it comes to personnel,
some people you can't help, people that don't want to be
helped. And you can't always motivate
people to be better and have a good work ethic and to, you
know, have a a long term vision like some people are just simply
there for the paycheck. And that becomes evident
relatively quick. And you can kind of decide if
you want that type of person in your inner circle or not.
But you know, teasing out what you have control over as the
company owner and leader versus what is just simply innate
personality types that you can't control, that's been a challenge
for sure. Oh, totally.
I mean this last year has been a huge year of growth for me.
I've had to fire a lot of people and it's it's devastated me
because this last August I tried to lower my prices because I
just felt like they were really high but my overhead is is
catastrophic. So I'm not making any money,
losing money hand over fist to make this thing that I love and
believe in. And you know, having people who
are not really on the team is such a life stealing force.
I just, I just couldn't tolerate it.
And the idea that you can't save, you know, you can't save
people it that kind of bucks the face of, like, why I created the
product I wanted this my, you know, the carnivore bar to be.
Like a cheap, affordable, ultra clean, ultra shelf stable, have
all the bells and whistles and you know, be really, really
affordable. But it's like, well, you can't
have, if you can't have everything, you know what's
really important to you and I. It's kind of been that triage
moment where quality peerless quality is my guiding principle
and I have to charge what covers the cost of rent and covers the
cost of this facility that I've got myself in.
Otherwise I can't continue in the business.
And at the same time, those people who are willing to grow
and learn new skills and develop and and say, hey, you know, I
see this is a great opportunity. I want to be a part of it.
I want to develop myself. That person is worth 10 of the,
you know, I'm just here for the paycheck people.
Because you could, you could go out to, you know, go find a PhD
who's perfectly suited for what you're doing, pay them a
quarter, $1,000,000 a year. Or you can find someone who is
willing to put in the work to grow.
And for our kind of business with, you know, honest pricing
and very thin margins, because of that honesty, you really
can't afford to pay for an industry professional.
You know, you have to kind of find someone who knows what
they're doing, who's honest, hard working and open minded so
that they're they're willing to take ownership of their
mistakes. Like ultimately, yeah, it is all
your fault, good, bad, ugly, everything in between.
I believe that Jocko mentality to be 100% correct, but
sometimes that comes down to the hiring process.
It's like I should have seen the warning signs.
I should have noticed that how they responded to this
corrective feedback was was a warning sign and I just ignored
it because I was too busy or was distracted or I wasn't taking
responsibility. You know it is my fault, but
like finding those people who want to grow with you and want
to develop into the PhD level quality from a position of maybe
no degree at all like that is the diamond and they're off.
Like that's the that's the Gold Star you need.
You need someone who can become more valuable over time as your
company grows and that person you know finding those people
is, is make or break. Yeah, and having the people with
the right, I mean, they might have all the skills in the
world, but they don't. If they don't have the right
attitude, that's that's no good either.
I mean, especially when you've got a small team, like we've got
eight of us total, how many is on your team?
So we recently had to downsize because of the for mentioned
pricing snafu, but I think we have 5 now.
Yeah. So when you've got a team that's
under 10, people especially like you and I both have, like if
you've got one with a rank attitude, it's going to fester
amongst everybody. So finding people with the right
attitude, like they may not have the skills, they may not have
the the know how, but I can teach that.
I can train that if you've got a killer attitude that's positive
and upbeat and you've got a student mentality and you're
easy to get along with and you accept responsibility like I'll
work with that person all day long over the industry expert.
Exactly. And you know, the industry
experts are all trained to adulterate the product.
Yeah, totally. So some of the things that
they're they're wanting to do are just bad for you.
Like I got refused from a research and development product
like Pipeline incubator thing because my product was too
functional. It's like I'm not willing to add
any chemical crap to it. Yeah and so they wouldn't take,
they didn't take me, all these food scientists, they wouldn't
help me because I I said right off the bat it needs to be
incredibly shelf stable and I'm not adding anything to it And
they're like that's all they do. You say you make a a great
muffin with whole quality ingredients, locally sourced,
and they'll they'll give you, they'll print out a sheet of
chemicals that will closely approximate the flavor for one
100th of the cost. It's like, that's the game.
It's like, yuck, gross, That's that's not useful.
To me, yeah, I'm glad we don't play that game.
No. So you mentioned overhead and
margins. I kind of want to touch on that
because I feel like you and I both have a lot in common in
that realm because a lot of people that don't, I mean most
people don't have any understanding of, you know, food
manufacturing, prepackaged goods like that's unless you're in the
industry, you just don't know. You go to the grocery store, you
buy something online, you eat it, you don't think twice about
it. You and I have a product that is
expensive and that just is what it is.
Like, you and I are not conducting this interview
sitting on private yachts somewhere.
And you know my product, the brick, it's 12 bucks for a
single brick, which is a lot more than a quest bar.
Now if you break that down, cost per calorie, ours is actually
really cost effective because it's so high in calories.
But your product also is not a cheap product.
And there's ways that you and I both have integrated like buying
in volume to kind of make the numbers work.
But somebody that is not in the know, they just immediately look
at the price tag, the number of, you know, the single price item
and then compare that to, you know, a Snickers bar or a Quest
bar or just some generic jerky at a gas station they're having.
They have no idea. They they just assume that we're
shovelling in this massive amount of profit.
But the the cost of your and my, I'm assuming my my biggest cost
is 100% ingredients and then followed by payroll cost.
So those are my two biggest line items on the balance sheet for
sure. I'm assuming the same is
probably true with you, but ingredients for quality products
are not cheap at all. And if you want to have a
quality nutrition that's in a prepackaged formula, if you want
to have quality nutrition, whether you're sourcing it from
a local farm, getting from a grocery store or buying it
online, it's just simply going to cost more.
And that's just the reality of it.
But again, kind of going back to what we were saying earlier,
what are you willing to prioritize?
And when you look at what we're putting in the product, when we,
when you look at what we're spending in these payroll costs,
in these ingredient costs, in the overhead costs, you know the
insurance, the facilities upkeep, just everything involved
from a a cost standpoint like you and I are not making hardly
anything from margins. Like if we were wanting to get
into this business to make a lot of money, we would not be doing
what we're doing now. Exactly.
And there's this horrible, you know, kind of distance from
reality that people have about capitalism in general.
They they don't realize who their friends are.
They don't realize who's providing value.
Like, the Carnivore bar is similarly priced for half the
volume of a keto brick, So you know you're providing twice as
much product for about the same price, but you're using really,
really quality cacao. You're using really great
ingredients, especially with the, you know, the nootropics
with Mark's Steak Shake. Like all the different like
partnership branding, Co branding, it's like you're using
like premium ingredients to make your bricks.
It's like, so there's there's like no margin.
If not, I'm sure that during some of these transitions you
had negative margins, same as I did.
Yeah, we're losing money. You're losing money to provide a
a something that you heartfelt. You know you have a belief in
that you think is going to add benefit to people's lives and
the same is true for the carnivore part.
Like I got funded with my Kickstarter $83,000 out of about
10 million. I need it.
So like we have a long way to go USDA meat plants.
Like the red tape for meat is, you know, at least twice as hard
and at least twice as burdensome for a small start up company
like JBS just put in a meat plant in my town for $200
million. So like you know that that's the
kind of scale we're talking about that little small
Kickstarter is trying to compete with.
It's like, well, I either need an investor who's going to drop
millions and millions of dollars on a product that, you know,
hardcore carnivores believe in or I kind of have to bake some
of that like infrastructure expense into the cost.
So as I get bigger, I'll lower my cost, you know.
But there's only going to be so, so much it's ever, ever going to
lower because of the quality ingredients.
Like, you know, that I'm sure the rent on a $10 million
facility is more than the I'm paying now with my can do
attitude and sweat equity. So that's kind of the rub.
It's like if you want real things that have quality,
understand that you're competing against adulterated sawdust.
You know, olive oil, that's canola oil with pepper flavor
added because people can't tell the difference.
It's like you're you're competing with lies,
adulteration, and this cheapening of the actual
materials that everything around you is made.
It's like everything's on Amazon, everything's ultra
cheap, You know, don't worry about the quality.
But if you look at the lifetime value of how many times you're
replacing everything that you buy it, it's just like there's
this slow erosion of value. And so people really need to
take seriously the value proposition, especially when it
comes to food you you don't have replacement parts for the human
body. And I.
Think so? Why wreck it?
Yeah, 100% man. And I think the more transparent
we are with our customers, the better.
Like I, I I can. I just feel incredibly grateful.
For the level of. Loyalty and respect and
appreciation that my customer base has for the bricks.
And I'm sure the same is true with your customer base for the
Carnivore Bar, because we've we've increased prices twice now
since we launched. And it's scary, man.
Like it's scary to have payroll, to have overhead, to have cost
and know that you're about about to increase cost and not 100%
guarantee whether people are going to keep supporting the
product or not. And both times, I've just been
incredibly honest and transparent and have gotten
hardly any negative pushback whatsoever because people trust
me. They trust you.
They know that we're not doing it for the wrong reasons and it
just is what it is. And it's like you either
increase cost to make ends meet and continue to offer that as an
option for people or you go out of business.
It's literally. Very simple, yeah.
And yeah. And it's, it's 100%, it's, it's
this moment leap of faith when you're raising your prices.
So what we did is we raised our prices last year when we're
selling out chronically and we're like, man, I just cannot,
I can't get the money to get the equipment to make this product
at the volume. It's going out the door and I'm
also losing money doing it. Got to change something really
quick. We raised our prices and this
year I felt like we could kind of we could go back to where
they were, but we didn't mean our volume.
So the environment changes, the economy changes your marketing
cycle, it's like so then we had to revert back to our prices and
which for me trying to be somewhat of integrity, I I
foolishly did an opt in to my subscribers instead of an opt
out like. So, you know, we ended up
canceling a lot of our subscriptions and it hurt.
It hurt a lot. But you know, if we can't meet
the volume to support an even thinner margin, you know, we
have to just be realistic that, you know, maybe we have fewer
customers, but the people we do have really want this product
and are with us. So I agree 100%.
It is this mixture of like horrible frustration and anxiety
and like immense, overwhelming gratitude that makes you that
brings you to tears. So it's it's a confusing like,
well, what do I put out to the public?
I'm feeling chaos, you know. But, you know, I think you have
to lead with the most mature of emotion you're feeling and kind
of lead with that gratitude, humility, respect, and and to
honor them with that transparency.
I think those are the good two moves.
Yeah, you can't go wrong with that.
I mean, if you're if you're fully transparent and you're not
how to how to mask? Like people see through the
masks easily and there's so many companies that are dishonest out
there. And if you just simply do what's
right, like we could go out of business tomorrow and I would
hate that, but if we did, I would feel very good about
everything that I've done as a business owner.
Yes, I've made mistakes, yes, I've learned things the hard
way. But at the end of the day, I can
go to sleep at night knowing that I've maintained my
integrity throughout this entire journey.
And I think you cannot put a price on that And I just want to
continue that man. Like I don't have any desire to
deviate from that. Like, I would rather live on the
streets again or live in. I mean, Crystal and I lived in a
warehouse for three years like we were while we were building
this business up. Like, like, I I don't mind going
without. I don't mind the sacrifice.
I fully embrace it. But if I ever had to do
something that would tarnish my integrity, I wouldn't do it.
And like that's just the the code that I'm going to live by.
You're definitely someone I look up to in the space.
I I don't know how you did all that, especially not at the body
fat percentage that you're at. Like, it's just insane, Robert.
I appreciate it, man, that. That's why I like I.
Love like it's another interesting topic or tangent we
can go on to. There's a lot of people that
have gotten into making a product, both digital products,
coaching products, consumer products, food products, and
they don't stand the test time because they get into it for the
wrong reasons. You know, like you've been here,
we've been here, we we started at about the same time.
And I just have utmost respect for you, what you've done, what
you're creating. And I'm excited to have that
sense of camaraderie amongst people that are doing it right.
Like, there's this scarcity mentality that a lot of people
that are starting coaching or starting, you know, business
have in which they try to belittle other companies or
throw shade. I just don't have time for that.
Like, if you're doing things the right way, I want to build you
up because there is 8 billion people on this planet and most
of them are unhealthy. So the more people like you and
I are that are offering a quality product for the right
reasons, like, I want to welcome you into the space.
I don't want to have a scarcity mindset.
I want to have one of abundance. And if there's anything I can do
to help you, I want to do it. And that's why I really like
doing these collaborations like I've done with Keto Brains and
the nootropic icing brick, like I've done with Steak Shake and
Mark Bell's brand, like I've known with a few different
brands. And I want to find opportunities
to interact and collaborate with other companies that are doing
it right, so that I can have this sense of abundance and just
build people up. That's what it's all about, man.
I totally agree. And and you can kind of like do
a gut check. Like any time there's a new
product, it's like, man, competition just got a little
harder. I'm losing market share.
But that abundance mindset is such a power move.
Like when you reach out and kindness to others in
encouragement, you're the people.
It really means the world to those people.
And you know you did that for me.
You definitely, you know you had the kido brick before I had the
carnivore bar and you know you recommended like the Unifiller,
like the the different ways like you can handle all this fat and
like doing it the right way. And for me like now we finally
got it working. Like for us putting meat in it
was was really difficult like it was constantly clogging.
But now like that has like a 60% efficiency Like had you not
mentioned that, had you not, you know LED with that, I don't
think that we would have we would have ever fixed our margin
amidst the you know exponential increase of cost of meat.
It's like we needed to find better ways to get more
efficient and like you really helped with that.
So I mean, thank you. Yeah, My pleasure, man.
My pleasure. I mean, that's what that's what
I want to do. That's what I I mean, there's
been so many people that I've because people have helped me,
like like Ross and Cara from F Bomb.
Like, I met them at the first Ketocon and I learned about the
packaging components from him. I learned about some of the
branding from him. Like, he totally helped me out.
And you know, I was able to sidestep a bunch of headaches
because of him because he'd already had those headaches.
So if I can pay it forward and do the same thing with you and
others, that's what I want to do.
I mean, and it's so cool to talk with you now.
Hearing that that unifiler recommendation was, was a
positive thing for you because it's like it took me no time to
recommend that. Like, I've I had so many
headaches and sleepless nights trying to figure out that
solution and then it just worked.
So if I can save you the same headaches and you can scale up
more efficiently than freaking, rock on, brother.
Well also too like now with the the Bell's brownie batter like
with the steak shake you got organs in that you have really
high quality protein. Us carnivores, you know we're a
little bit of a protein snob family pea protein was was not
going to work for us but like now there's a brick that's
pretty damn carnivore. Like it's completely compliant
and I can eat it and I do and I have no adverse reactions to it
whatsoever. It's extremely high quality
cacao, which has even more stearic acid, which is the most
saturated fatty acid we talked about last podcast that I was
excited about And the protein has zero reaction and I'm
getting organs all on a all on a brick.
Yeah, that's what I want to be able to offer man.
We got some more exciting products, exciting flavors in
the in the pipeline it's. Killer I I like it so you know
it is more affordable than the carnivore bar and and I'm eating
it because you know for me like it's really if you have cravings
for non non meat based foods, sometimes a lot of carnivores
fall into this trap of eating too much cheese.
Yeah. And I'm guilty of that.
And cheese just kind of. I don't know whether it's mucus
or digestibility or the pasteurization.
Something about cheese just doesn't sit well with me.
But a brick does. Like if I can get off cheese
which is more animal based and eat a brick with steak shake in
it, like I have the best of both worlds and I'm eating zero carb.
So it's like it's a really, it's a really awesome tool and I
think the more that we cross promote and and help people find
the solutions that really meet them where they are like
carnivore. Plus Brick is working great for
me. Yeah, it's pretty much what I've
done since I invented the bricks, man.
And it's just it's foolproof. Like I eat one full brick a day
and a bunch of meat and it hits my macros perfectly.
I have zero GI issues. I got down to sub 4% body fat
with a full brick a day. I mean like it obviously works
and I mean the carnivore diet is amazing.
Like, I've got so many success stories from clients that do
that my my prep protocol could be done with a carnivore
approach, no questions asked. But a lot of people want a
little bit more variety in the food texture and flavor and if
they're able to achieve that with the brick, then more power
to it. Like, I will never suggest that
the brick should be your only source of nutrition or is
superior to animal based products.
Like that's just not in my that's just not in my wheel.
That's not true. But in tandem you can kind of
get the best of all worlds and not have any GI issues and then
rock'n'roll with that. Like I said, that's what I've
been doing for the past six years now, so.
Absolutely. If you're if you're gone a few
days, I feel like the carnivore bar has an advantage.
But if you're trying to lose weight, I think honestly if
we're being honest, most of us are trying to lose weight.
I think the brick has an advantage in the fatty acid
profile 'cause I really like this hyper lipid kind of
hypothesis to obesity. Doctor Michael EADS did a
presentation on it, basically presenting hyper lipids.
It's a blog. Their theory that the the
stearic acid has that reverse oxygen pathway that kind of
promotes localized insulin resistance.
Yeah. In the SO itself, yeah.
Exactly so the fat cell says when you get stearic acid, it
says it's done, it's done getting fatter, which is exactly
the key to to unlocking your energy so you can use it and
stop storing it. So the carnivore bar, which has
grass finished beef, has more stearic acid than grain finished
beef, but cacao has about twice as much stearic acid.
So for weight loss specifically and and staying lean, I think
the brick has that advantage. I don't think I'd want to be on
a desert island with only bricks, but if I could have half
brick, half carnivore bar I think I'd be.
I think I'd be in heaven. Yeah, 100%, man.
I mean, meat and bricks is the way to go.
And I freaking love the carnival.
I had one the other day. I've had one in my pantry just
looking at me throughout my whole prep.
And then that prep's over. I tore into that bad boy and ate
it. And man, it was good.
It is good. It is good.
It, you know and I've been really.
There's one other brick I've tried.
I I've done the I can do the way variants, the way variants.
I don't feel quite as good as the Steak Shake, but the way
variants. I really like your seasonal 1,
the peppermint. Yeah, yeah.
That was awesome. Very Christmassy, 'cause there's
no way I'm eating any of the crap that my family was eating.
Yeah, 100%, man. I mean, honestly, I think, you
know, so many people that get the bricks, like they just want
to have that as an option for quality nutrition that's on the
go easy. And like a lot of them will use
as a way to kind of bypass or sidestep all the junk that's out
there because you get something that tastes, you know, like it.
Like the Chocolate Peanut Buttercup.
Brick is our top seller. It does not taste like a Reese's
Peanut Buttercup, but it tastes pretty darn close if your
palates adjusted to being on the phone.
Adapted diet. I mean it.
Like, I just had one a few hours ago as my brick for the day.
And I'm like, man, this thing. Like, I don't need to have a
Reese's Peanut Buttercup in my life because I've got this.
As a carnivore, it kind of blew me away.
Like at first the stevia is a little bitter, like 'cause I
don't do artificial sweeteners either.
But like once I got over like the first couple bites of the
stevia, like it tastes like candy to me.
Like I'm completely, I haven't eaten candy in forever.
So you know, being carnivore and going from carnivore to trying a
a brick with animal protein in it, I'm just like it.
It might as well be a Snickers because I don't remember what a
Snickers taste like and it's really, really tasty.
And so if you're having cravings and you're having a hard time
staying on the on the boat like, or eating too much cheese, it's
just like this is a great solution.
Yeah, but you don't get the blood sugar response that you
would or the continued cravings of, like the sweet treats would
provide, you know, so. Oh no.
They wrecked me when I was eating trash like that.
Like there there'd be little like binge cycles.
They're just so unhelpful from coming back from Afghanistan.
Like I'd try to eat healthy and then, like, fall off the boat.
I'd do paleo before I found Keto.
Like, I just couldn't, like, hit my satiation signals correctly.
And I think that's where the high fat on the go products
really shine is like, you know, you, you only have so much
willpower and if you spend it on, you know, trying to walk
past, you know, sugary crap that is going to wreck you.
Then when it comes down to, you know, doing what you need to do
for the day, you're kind of spent.
It's like you need something easy that just hits that signal.
Then it becomes not a measure of willpower.
It just comes a measure of proper planning A. 100% Speaking
of High Fat Man, there has been this big push for like
incredibly high protein and low fat amongst people in the low
carb space, which I find pretty interesting.
But you and I both have a product that has quite a bit of
dietary fat. And yeah, it's interesting
because I see all these people that are in our space now
advocating for minimal dietary fat.
And it's like I've done the whole high protein, low fat
thing. Like before I got into Keto,
that's what I was doing as a bodybuilder.
It was super high protein, low carb at times, low fat
throughout, and it's like if you're going the fat adapted
approach and you're keto adapted and you're using fat as your
primary fuel source, the last thing you want to do is strip
your body of all dietary fat. Now yes, there is certainly a
point at which you can be overdoing the fat and the
calories, but it's interesting to see this this push towards
lower fat. So I'm glad that you're not
making like a 0 fat Carnivore bar.
Well, yeah, I mean to me that was the whole point like if
you're going to survive off this.
So you know my whole thesis is Afghanistan day in, day out.
I'm eating an MRE and so I need to have all the energy
requirements, all the vitamin requirements, all the fatty
acids and keto, you know, fat is a better fuel.
So if I'm if I'm getting you know, at least you know my
protein requirements, you know up into like 3 to 4000 calories
a day for a soldier who's being very active.
You know I need the energy component too.
Otherwise it's not going to you know, I have to marry those two
objectives together with an energy source.
So if you're doing all that caloric work and ruck marching,
walking around with bullets on your back like it is
unbelievably heavy, you have like 80 lbs of armor on and a
backpack full of bullets. The AG, the assistant gunner,
sits next to the machine gun. The guy with the machine gun has
this ridiculously sized you know 240 that he he's fashioned a a
makeshift strap around around the and so he's just carrying
this unbelievably big gun and the other person just has this
backpack full of solid metal banging around on top of his
armor. It's like that person is burning
a lot of calories. If if they're not going to be
carved, fair enough, they got to have their energy component from
somewhere. Otherwise they're going to bonk
and they're just going to fall down.
Yeah. And protein is not a great
source of energy. So it's like you're either doing
carbs or you're doing fat. And if you're operating at a
lead level, you need to be consuming ample dietary fat, and
that's just allergic to it. Absolutely.
And the gluconeogenesis, the the the sugar that your body can
make is like 1600 calories a day.
So that's enough to keep your eyes, which are obligate glucose
and your erythrocytes, your red blood cells, you know, on board
and going strong because people don't realize, like, you know,
different cells have different roles.
If your if your blood cells used the oxygen that they're
transporting, they would deliver less oxygen, you know, and
that's what uses the oxygen. It's burning.
It's beta oxidation, it's burning that fat that your body
is designed to burn, all except for your red blood cells.
They need the glucose because they're saving the oxygen for
the whole journey. They want it.
You want your oxygen to make it to the very furthest capillaries
in your body. If the erythrocyte was using up
that oxygen, it wouldn't make it and you would you know, we'd
have to be a lot more compact. So it it's just the biological
mechanisms really favor beta oxidation through fatty acids.
The more saturated, the more energy, the more efficient, the
more ATP, and the better molecular signaling you can get
for insulin going where it needs to go and not where it doesn't.
So there's just a lot of reasons why being fat adapted are are
the way forward and and honestly you are the single like greatest
example of this success that I've that I've seen like the
level of performance that you're able to do while being so low
body fat it it clearly shows like the metabolic flexibility
and fitness there to be able to utilize all of those fatty acids
to to you know productive effect.
It's not just, you know, who can be lean.
It's like who can be lean and functional and kick butt and
then like I think that trifecta is really, really important and
I think that you are kind of an example in the entire space for
how you can do that. I appreciate that, man.
Like, this prep has been the the most successful prep I've ever
done, without question. Like, I've gotten leaner than
I've ever gotten. But beyond that, like I've
functioned better than I've ever functioned.
Like my mental acuity was on point the whole time, My mood
and personality was solid, and I maintained all of my
responsibilities in all components of my life.
Like as a family man, as a business owner, all all these
different things, like why you just had a kid?
Yeah, I would not have been able to do that had I been sucking
down rice cakes, high carbohydrate crap food, and not
ample quality dietary fat. Like, like that's just a no
brainer. So yeah, I I mean, This is why
you and I do what we do. This is why you and I have a
product that has the highest quality ingredients in it with
ample dietary fat. This is why I'm not making a low
fat keto brick, and why you're not making a low fat carnivore
bar. Yeah.
For me, I come from the other end of the spectrum.
I was terribly, terribly sick. But thanks to this way of
eating, I can be exponentially less sick, you know?
And I think that that's OK too. It it's about fulfilling your
potential, you know? And if you were meant to be an
Olympian or or trendsetter and change the world, it's like,
let's unlock that potential. Let's get you the fuel that you
need for the life that you were meant to live.
Amen to that, ma'am. Well, what?
What's in the pipeline for 2024 for Carnivore bar, man?
I mean, this is time. This recording is January 4th.
We have turned a leaf on a new year.
As a businessman, I always get super excited about that.
I don't really do resolutions, but I get like all my office
space organized. My warehouse is all clean right
now. I've got whiteboards full of
planes for the future, and I'm freaking stoked for this year.
So what's in the pipeline for you?
So I think this year it's all about efficiency.
You know we, I really want to get the business in a healthy
space. We've been kind of expanding
somewhat recklessly trying to like meet demand, meet demand,
meet demand, make more bars. And now I think we've finally
reached that goal. We've gotten more efficient with
the unifiller, we've gotten more established with our facility.
We've made some serious upgrades space along the year, onboarded
the pluck flavors and so now it's about really developing our
catalogue, streamlining that, creating SO PS like info
infographics for our team, really kind of getting that
nailed down into a healthy business.
You know, transitioning fully from Kickstarter, like, Oh my
gosh, we need to make a lot, lot more of these time now as
cheaply as possible to OK, we made it through the pandemic.
We've expanded rapidly. How do we make this business a
healthy, sustainable, like part of the future?
And I think that's really our next chapter is thinking about
being good steward of our time, our energy, our space and just
really dialing in that value proposition and develop
delivering, excuse me, delivering that high value
consistently across time. Like that's what I want the
business to become. I want it to be this like gold
standard of of quality in in the carnivore low carb space.
I love it, man. It's pretty similar to my my
theme for the Year my My manifesto is 2024.
The Revolution, Reflect, recalibrate, re engage, and just
get things super refined, polished and just functioning at
a high, high level. So yeah, we're on the same page
there and I can already tell like y'all y'all are killing it
on the social media and the newsletter front.
Like I get yells newsletters. They're all very clean and
crisp. All of your Instagram posts are
very they. They follow a similar structure.
They look great. They offer value.
They're like, insightful. Oh, thanks.
Yeah, you're you're you're doing way better than me on the
Instagram. I I am not good at Instagram.
Like my Instagram has not grown much at all, whereas y'all's has
totally skyrocketed because you got a good system in place
there, man. Well, we've been working with
the guys from Meat Mafia. They've been really helpful, you
know, so massive credit to them and their hard work and their
team they're developing. So they they came out and
visited the facility and we you know this whole last year we've
been working with them developing that and on on
Twitter. And so it it's really it's
really challenging sometimes to find copyright copywriters who
understand your brand, understand the mission.
You know it is so unique and singular finding people who do
this in house, who want to do it the right way, who understand
what's at stake and understand how many people are suffering
out there because they, you know they don't have time to meal
prep or they don't have time to do all the research and and
start a business on their own That.
But they have come to depend on the carnivore way of life or the
keto way of life and enabling them a a travel shelf stable
food in order to do that is really an impactful mission.
We hear letters every day. I'm sure you guys do too that
you know. Hey, I'm an airline pilot.
I eat carnivore bars and I can say carnivore, you know, hey,
I'm on this trip or, hey, I was doing this advanced individual
training as a soldier and I used your bar.
It's like those messages really keep you going because it really
makes a difference in people's ability to take their their
health in their own hands, to have an option where they can
take this healthy food into, you know, hostile territory.
Those messages keep me going, man.
Like, those are my 100%. There's been, there's been two
times where I literally had to throw away two $25,000 due to a
malfunction with our manufacturing.
It literally just threw away $25,000 of bricks.
It's happened twice. There's been numerous times
where there'd be an issue with, you know, an employee
frustration or equipment malfunction or this unforeseen
cost or something that I had to change with the website and redo
a bunch of stuff and it had downstream effects.
Like there's been so many times where I'm like, what is going
on? Am I in the right industry?
Is this where my life is going? And then I'll get an e-mail from
somebody that says something along those lines of, hey, you
know, I I was suffering from XY or Z and now I'm not because of
something you said on a podcast or the bricks that I'm consuming
daily or whatever the case may be.
And those emails are what give me life to keep waking up and
doing what I do. So without those emails, there
would be no keto brick, there would be no keto sabotage, There
would be nothing like those emails are my lifeblood.
So I can totally. Relate with you there. 100% and
it and it's it's so devastating throwing away product like you
were mentioning. It's like those gut check
moments. I had a moment like that where I
freezer burned a bunch of meat and it's just like I can't serve
this. Yeah.
And you look at it like you look at it again and you're like, Are
you sure, Like, do you know how much money that is?
It's like, yeah, well, it doesn't meet my standards.
So, yeah, Yep. Those are those moments that you
know, end up really defining you as a brand and as a as a man.
Totally, ma'am. That's why I've got so much
respect for you because I know you and I share similar values
when it comes to that stuff. So by all means man, keep doing
things as you are, keep being the light that you are and keep
making waves. I'm excited for what the the
future holds for you, for carnivore bar and for us man,
like I'm excited to keep interact with you.
We should definitely do some form of collaboration in the
future. I think there's something in the
pipeline there for sure. Absolutely.
Yeah, I would. I would love to see your
facility and you're obviously welcome to see mine too.
We should definitely make that happen.
Yeah, man, I'm in Missouri is not that far from me at all.
Like I I feel bad that I haven't already come up there and
checked it out. Oh no, no worries.
It's been a crazy, crazy few years, so.
It has. Well, this year, let's make that
happen. And you hunt too, right?
So I don't, but I really ought to.
We should totally put it on the calendar.
I didn't do near as much hunting as I normally do this past year
because of the competitions, but this year I'm going to hunt
quite a bit more. So we should definitely meet up
somewhere in the middle, go on an extended backpacking cross
country hunt trip, bring some bricks, bring some carnivore bar
and then consider it a business trip so that we can get some
awesome footage and just battle test these products out in the
wilderness. Oh, that would be amazing.
So let's plan on that for sure, man.
Cool. Well Phillip, where do people go
to get some carnivore bars, learn more about you, and just
dive deeper into your world? It's just carnivorebar.com.
Awesome, man. It's a carnivore bar and social
too. I'll link out to everything.
Yep. Well, always a pleasure man.
Best of luck with everything. Like I said, I respect you
immensely. I thoroughly enjoyed this
conversation and I've got no doubt people will take something
from it. So keep being you, man, and we
will talk soon. Oh yeah, Respect is mutual.
I think you're killing it. Likewise, brother.
Until next time, man. Have a good one, Phillip.
You too. Bye.