From Ugly Fruit to Bold Impact: A Soldier's Story to End Food Waste and Feed Communities with The Ugly Company. With Guest Ben Moore, a U.S. Veteran, 4th-Generation Farmer, Entrepreneur, and Founder Hosted by: Colleen Silk
In this episode, Colleen Silk sits down with Ben Moore, a fourth-generation farmer and the founder of The Ugly Company—a purpose-driven brand redefining what’s “ugly” in food.
From military service to peach orchards, Ben’s journey is anything but traditional. Inspired by his grandmother’s passion for preserving food and his own calling to serve, Ben transformed rejected fruit into a powerful brand that fights food waste, nourishes kids, and makes an impact in underserved communities.
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What We Discussed:
- Ben’s background and transition from military service to mission-driven farming
- The origins and evolution of The Ugly Company in the CPG space
- His grandmother’s influence on his values, vision, and the brand’s heart
- Why reducing food waste means rethinking how we define "value"
- The brand’s growing impact on nutrition access in schools and local programs
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Key Takeaways:
- Food waste has a fix—and it starts on the farm.
- Military discipline meets farming values in Ben’s entrepreneurial path.
- Family legacy matters, especially when it's rooted in nourishment and love.
- The Ugly Company is more than snacks—it’s a movement touching schools and communities across the country.
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#HospitalityBites #BenMoore #FoodWaste #NutritiousOptions #TheUglyCompany #Farming #PackofUgly #FarmToSnack #VeteranEntrepreneur
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Connect with The Ugly Company:
🌐 Website: https://www.theuglyco.com
📸 Instagram: @packofugly
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About Hospitality Bites:
Hosted by Colleen Silk, Hospitality Bites is an honest and restorative space for voices within the hospitality industry. More than just a podcast, it serves as a storytelling platform for changemakers, risk-takers, and hospitality professionals who are approaching their work in innovative ways. Each episode features guests ranging from chefs to advocates and media personalities, focusing on mental and physical health, personal experiences, and the realities of thriving in the hospitality industry and beyond.
New episodes of Hospitality Bites drop every Monday, now proudly under the Walk-In Talk Media umbrella.
Watch the full episode on YouTube the following week.
Want to get involved, sponsor, or learn more? Visit HospitalityBites.com
Transcript
When I was a kid, you know, farming.
Speaker A:So peaches, nectarines, plums, so stone fruit, also raisin grapes, wine grapes that, you know.
Speaker A:So you basically grow your tree.
Speaker A:There's only so much that actually gets purchased by the fresh market, right?
Speaker A:That growing tree specifically, you know, on a good year, a good field, about 10% of that fruit is unsellable because you have all these different defects, cosmetic issues, kill damage, wind scars, different size considerations.
Speaker A:But then you also have shelf stability type issues, defect.
Speaker A:You have all this fruit that has defects.
Speaker A:And my grandma and we were smaller farmers on a smaller scale, she came from Sweden, Swedes were really, really creative about preserving fruits and vegetables because there was a generation who didn't really have fresh fruits and vegetables in their deep winter.
Speaker A:So she comes to the United States kind of with that same mentality.
Speaker A:She had all these crazy things she would do with the fruit that was left over from picking up.
Speaker A:My personal favorite thing is that she'd make this thing called roof dried fruit where she would, I think my grandpa would help as well where they, you know, they'd slice the fruit and then they'd, they'd pit it and they dried on the roof of the house on raisin trays.
Speaker A:So anyway, so I grew up with this kind of frugal way of being as a family farmer, but also eating non typical snacks and things like that.
Speaker A:All my ideas, all really originally came from my grandma and how she would, how she would, you know, waste not whatnot.
Speaker B:Hello everyone.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Hospitality Bites.
Speaker B:I am your host, self proclaimed hospitality hustler, mompreneur and founder of Hospitality Bites Media.
Speaker B:As many of you know, I take immense pride in highlighting individuals from all over the industry with the goal of humanizing it.
Speaker B:Many of my guests have included restaurateurs, chefs, cookbook authors, bartenders, advocates.
Speaker B:But today we're adding a new title and that is Farmer to the ever growing list of incredible hospitality professionals.
Speaker B:Today's guest is a United States army veteran, a fourth generation farmer from Southern California, and now a significant disruptor in the CPG space, but in all the best possible ways.
Speaker B:And he is the founder and CEO of the Ugly company.
Speaker B:Welcome to the show, Ben Moore.
Speaker A:Hi everybody.
Speaker A:It's awesome to be here.
Speaker A:Colleen, thanks for having me.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you, thank you for joining me at like 6 o', clock, 7 o' clock your time.
Speaker A:Oh, no problem.
Speaker A:Been up, been up for a while.
Speaker A:You know, we got, we got on farmer schedule here, so there's a lot to do before 7 o' clock and.
Speaker B:You'Re a new dad.
Speaker B:So there's like that, too.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, that was fun this morning.
Speaker A:I was telling you earlier, the little band was sitting there scratching the wall for about two hours last night having fun, entertaining himself.
Speaker B:That was cool, too, as they do.
Speaker B:Well, since your time is limited and we are running on fumes with caffeine because we're both parents with little people in our lives, let's just jump right into it.
Speaker B:I know that you serve in the military.
Speaker B:What motivated you from this transition from military service to farming?
Speaker A:Yeah, so I'll tell you about that, actually.
Speaker A:So my whole life plan from central California, from Kingsburg is my original hometown.
Speaker A:I served in the army, in the infantry.
Speaker A:I absolutely loved the army.
Speaker A:Was planning on making a career out of it.
Speaker A:I never had a shadow of a doubt, like, hey, this is what I'm gonna do with my life.
Speaker A:I'm gonna serve 20 years in the army, and then I'm gonna come home and farm with my family while the army door slammed shut.
Speaker A:I got injured pretty significantly.
Speaker A:I got medically retired very early on in my career, which was.
Speaker A:Which was not at all the plan.
Speaker A:And then I came back home to the farm.
Speaker A:When you're.
Speaker A:When you lose your career, that's a pretty significant thing.
Speaker A:And then came to my dad and said, hey, dad, I'm out of the army now.
Speaker A:That was quick.
Speaker A:It's only been a few years, but here I am.
Speaker A:Where do I start?
Speaker A:On the farm.
Speaker A:And he's just kind of like, hey, you know, I'm.
Speaker A:I'm barely hanging on.
Speaker A:I can.
Speaker A:I'm supporting myself to some degree, but there's not really, like, you can't make.
Speaker A:There's not a career here for you anymore.
Speaker A:You're gonna have to go find something else to do.
Speaker A:So then you.
Speaker A:Door number two slammed shut.
Speaker A:So the only two things I ever saw myself doing in life very quickly, very quickly went away.
Speaker A:And that's just sort of the reality of small family farming in central California.
Speaker A:There's just not.
Speaker A:There's not hardly anybody supporting themselves off of, you know, kind of 150 acres or less.
Speaker A:And it's just.
Speaker A:It's just the way the industry's gone, right?
Speaker A:It's just matured and everybody's scaled up or the small guys have all gotten out.
Speaker A:And my dad's very uniquely one of the few people that's still, you know, that's his primary.
Speaker A:Primary career supporting himself on a small farm.
Speaker A:So after I did.
Speaker A:After that, I. I went and I started driving truck.
Speaker A:You know, as farmers, we Always had, we always had trucks.
Speaker A:I've always, you know, knew how to move and change the tires and do some basic stuff with them.
Speaker A:But I went and started driving truck for a company in Fresno, hauling oversized loads, so excavators, bulldozers, like all the oversized construction equipment, which then led to me buying my own trucks and then starting my own little business that then led to the equity company.
Speaker B:So you were.
Speaker B:I want to be in the military.
Speaker B:If that's not gonna work out, I'm gonna go work on the farm.
Speaker B:Dad says, no, you're not.
Speaker B:So, you know, I guess I'll just go into the next thing that I can do, and that is the trucking.
Speaker B:So people that don't know purchasing your own truck is a very hefty load to lift and the skillset to do that.
Speaker B:Did you think that trucking was going to be it for you?
Speaker B:How did you fall back into then, back on the farm?
Speaker A:Yeah, so with, with, with, you know, me at the time when I went to work for that company in Fresno, I. I just kind of knew, hey, as my default as an infantryman and as a farmer is like, you know, when in doubt, if you learn a skill that's always valuable.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I really don't know what I'm going to do with my life here.
Speaker A:So I'm going to go master the skill of driving truck, which already had kind of a novice level skill at it.
Speaker A:But, but your husband's a truck driver too, so you know, there's levels to it, right?
Speaker A:Like, there's, there's some people out there on the road that shouldn't be on the road, and there's some absolute studs out there driving around.
Speaker A:And so I just took that as an opportunity of like, hey, I just, I'm just gonna go sharpen up a skill.
Speaker A:But then I had always looked at like, hey, this is my way of trying to find my way back to the farm by learning this skill that we, that we do employ on the farm.
Speaker A:But my, I had kind of followed my dad's model a little bit too.
Speaker A:When, when he, when.
Speaker A:When the farm was under hard times, he would, he would use his seasonal kind of trucks and trailers that he had, he had had for hauling grapes and hauling our crops and stuff.
Speaker A:He sort of tailored that, those machines into then hauling manure and compost for other farmers.
Speaker A:So he already had most of what he needed to do it.
Speaker A:So he only needed like extra set of trailers, a couple extra things.
Speaker A:And so he would, he would haul manure for other Farmers to supplement the farm income.
Speaker A:And ultimately, when I was a kid, that's what saved the farm was, was him hauling, you know, so I, I just took that as my model of like, I know my dad was able to do this to help save the farm.
Speaker A:There's probably having this skill and I didn't know what it was going to look like at the time.
Speaker A:But having that skill, taking some of those risks, I felt like was, was going to kind of help me follow my dad's footsteps to then hopefully get back into farming.
Speaker B:I think that's important people to understand is there are people that say, oh, truck drivers, you know, how hard can that be?
Speaker B:It's a really hard job.
Speaker B:And as a wife of someone that drives big trucks and they have to deliver loads and hoisting or whatever your CDL license is, you're carrying materials that are tons, like thousands of tons of weight.
Speaker B:And if you get into an accident, it can be really catastrophic.
Speaker B:So I always get anxious when my husband has to drive across the Bay Bridge with whatever materials he's carrying because people on the road don't pay attention to trucks sometimes.
Speaker B:And you guys have a lot of responsibility to be safe drivers.
Speaker B:And that's a skill that is not easily, I think, mastered.
Speaker B:I think people just sometimes get licensed because it pays well to drive across state lines also.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And with your husband with it, you know, he's, from what I recall, he's got his crane and stuff and he's unloading his own materials and things like that.
Speaker A:And there's like a, there's a much higher echelon level of skill that your husband would have versus just your average person that says, hey, I just got my license, I'm throwing out on the road.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:When I was hauling oversized loads and stuff, it was really complicated.
Speaker A:I mean it's, those are all overweight loads.
Speaker A:And then you got certain routes, you got your heights, widths, all this pilot cars and stuff.
Speaker A:But I'll even tell you like, I mean, you know, very quick segue off of our real conversation here.
Speaker A:But I, I haven't personally really driven truck in three years, you know, and driving hard like your husband's doing, where, you know, you're leaving at five in the morning or whatever it may be, and you're not.
Speaker A:You're literally on the road for 14 hours.
Speaker A:I haven't done that in, in five or six years now.
Speaker A:And we just started our, our processing season in our plant and I, we were down a driver.
Speaker A:So I, I jumped into the truck, said, hey, you know, I'll.
Speaker A:I'll help out here for a week.
Speaker A:And so I'm doing this, and I'm like, oh, I'm just loving it because I haven't done it in so long.
Speaker A:Well, one of the main reasons I stopped driving truck is because my.
Speaker A:Because my back and my neck and my knee are not healthy, you know, well, within a few days, just sitting there, my.
Speaker A:My knee, I.
Speaker A:It was starting to hurt one day, and then by the end of the day, my knee was swollen the size of a grapefruit.
Speaker A:And ju.
Speaker A:Just from sitting there all day doing the gas and, you know, and shifting and all that, getting up and down.
Speaker A:And still to this day, I'm just.
Speaker A:I'm literally hobbling around, limping around.
Speaker A:Cause I.
Speaker A:And I. I told everybody yesterday, like, I can't drive truck anymore.
Speaker A:Guys, as much as I, like, love doing this and being with all the people and stuff and doing something I'm actually good at, I can't do it.
Speaker A:I physically can't.
Speaker A:I can't perform this task anymore, you know, so, no, it's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's a lot of responsibility, and it's definitely.
Speaker A:It's definitely an underappreciated kind of thing until you do it for sure.
Speaker B:Well, in our industry and hospitality, we rely on truck drivers to give us everything that we need to run a business.
Speaker B:Everything that you need to run a restaurant or hospitality space that serves food or beverages, or you just need supplies.
Speaker B:A truck driver is bringing you all that stuff.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:I think, definitely, whether you work for a major company truck driving and you're a food purveyor or you're a smaller business and you're now doing cpg, you rely on people to do that.
Speaker B:It's not all machines that are getting us this stuff.
Speaker B:Like, I think that's a human side.
Speaker B:People totally forget that these people are bringing you the product that you need to run your businesses.
Speaker B:Going all the way back to, you know, to the farmer that is creating the food, the food source for you.
Speaker B:And I know that your history with your farm goes back generations.
Speaker B:What is the name of your family's farm?
Speaker A:So, my dad's.
Speaker A:It's called More Vineyards.
Speaker A:So that's his farm.
Speaker A:Even though there's not just vineyards, but at one point it was just vineyards.
Speaker A:And then my farm is.
Speaker A:I call it Big Bend Farms.
Speaker A:And I farm on a very small scale.
Speaker A:Like, I'm still working my way back into it.
Speaker A:I'm kind of basically using my salary to build back My little portion of it and plant, plant trees again and do things like that.
Speaker A:We've all farmed in and around Central California for, for generations.
Speaker A:And then the other half my family came from Sweden, then were farmers there.
Speaker A:And then the other half, they used to farm out in Kansas as well before they moved to California.
Speaker A:So it even goes back multi generations beyond, beyond just California too.
Speaker B:You told me a little story when we chatted before about your grandmother and her drying fruit.
Speaker B:I lovely tribute to what you do now with your, with your brand.
Speaker B:I actually told my mom immediately after we hung up.
Speaker B:I was like, you gotta hear the story about what his grandmother did.
Speaker B:I will let you share about what it is that you guys actually do.
Speaker B:And the story of your grandmother.
Speaker B:How does that all tie in together?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:I guess we probably might have forgot to mention that what we do at the Ugly company, we jumped back on the train of how I came to be working there.
Speaker A:So, um, so when I was a kid, you know, farming, we farmed.
Speaker A:So peaches, nectarines, plums, so some fruit also raisin grapes, wine grapes, and just kind of a couple other random things here or there.
Speaker A:But, you know, we, we had fruit that, you know, grow your tree.
Speaker A:There's only, there's only so much that actually gets purchased by the fresh market right on that growing tree specifically, you know, on a good year, a good few field, only about 10% of that fruit is unsellable because you have all these different defects.
Speaker A:So you have cosmetic issues like hill damage, wind scars, you know, different size considerations.
Speaker A:Sometimes the fruit has a little double.
Speaker A:You know, it has two pieces of fruit attached a little just like cosmetic stuff like that.
Speaker A:But then you also have shelf stability type issues, defects.
Speaker A:So you hit this thing called soft shoulder.
Speaker A:The actual top of the fruit ripens before the bottom, or inverse, you get soft tip or the bottom ripens for the top.
Speaker A:As you're growing this, this field of fruit, you have all this fruit that has defects.
Speaker A:And so my grandma and we were, you know, smaller farmers on a smaller scale.
Speaker A:She, she came from Sweden and she.
Speaker A:The Swedes were really, really creative about preserving fruits and vegetables because there was a generation that they didn't have, you know, back before, like world economies and like, you know, hospitality trucks showing up, showing up with everything you need for the event and things like that.
Speaker A:But long before that, the Swedes were kind of isolated up there.
Speaker A:They didn't really have fresh fruits and vegetables in their, their deep winter.
Speaker A:So Swedes themselves were very, very creative with preserving these fruits and vegetables.
Speaker A:So she comes the United States kind of with that same mentality.
Speaker A:And so she had all these crazy things she would do with the fruit that was left over from picking.
Speaker A:And my personal favorite thing is that she'd make this thing called roof dried fruit where she would, I think my grandpa would help as well.
Speaker A:Where they, you know, they'd slice the fruit and then they'd, they pit it and they dried on the roof of the house on raisin trays and they dried it on the roof of the house.
Speaker A:Cause it was, you know, because it was warm, but also because there wasn't rabbits and like things eating it, running around in it necessarily.
Speaker A:So it was like convenient way to do it.
Speaker A:So anyway, so I just kind of grew up with, hey, that's my context of like I'm a farmer.
Speaker A:I got this grandma that her, her motto was waste not, want not, you know, so basically don't waste things because if you, if you do, you shouldn't want things, you know, because you can use what you got.
Speaker A:So I just grew up with this frugal way of being as a family farmer, but also eating non typical snacks and things like that.
Speaker A:Then you fast forward back to me working as a truck driver.
Speaker A:Eventually I bought my own truck and I had started my own like, kind of bulldozing business.
Speaker A:But also I would haul fruit for other growers and they would contract my dad and I to haul and dump their fruit.
Speaker A:So whatever they couldn't sell, they would contract us to haul and dump it.
Speaker A:And so we were dumping just for a couple small packing houses.
Speaker A:Six to eight million pounds of fruit a year, which, which is a lot, you know, if you can imagine, it's you know, two to 300 truckloads of fruit, roughly speaking.
Speaker A:And so me, hey, I'm the guy that's driving truck, but I'm also farming a little bit and I'm trying to kind of supplement the farm income and find my way back to farming.
Speaker A:As the story goes, I would, you know, get in the truck every day, grab my burrito and then haul fruit.
Speaker A:And when you're trucking, you eat whatever you haul.
Speaker A:I mean, not so much with your husband and the crane, right?
Speaker A:You're not eating water pipes and things.
Speaker A:But out here it's an ag.
Speaker A:So everything we're hauling is ag related, right?
Speaker A:The joke for all the truck drivers, you always eat what you haul unless it's, you know, but even if you have to, you know, you got to do what you got to do.
Speaker A:But so I, I probably legitimately I probably eat, I average like 7 to 12 peaches consumed a day.
Speaker A:Like I eat a lot of fruit and like I have a very strong gut that's used to eating a lot of fruit, right?
Speaker A:So I was eating the fruit coming from the field and then at night when I was dumping the loads out that they couldn't sell, I'm still eating all this fruit.
Speaker A:You know, you hook up the trailer, check the tires, check the lights and I, you know, pick out a couple of piece fruit, wipe them on your shirt and hit the road.
Speaker A:And I just spent years thinking like, God, like, why are we wasting this?
Speaker A:This is an incredible amount of waste.
Speaker A:And looked into it.
Speaker A:And then to make a long story long, that's basically where we are now at the ugly company.
Speaker A:So we make dried fruit that doesn't have added sugars.
Speaker A:There's no added ingredients, there's no artificial any.
Speaker A:There's literally nothing, no junk.
Speaker A:It's the only ingredients is just the fruit, right?
Speaker A:So peaches in this bag with peaches and nectarines, right?
Speaker A:So how we make dried fruit, we sell all over, all over the country.
Speaker A:But most specifically what's relevant to you and your listeners is we do sell bulk and some of our different distributors that is used for recipes like, like you have like a corporate salad bar or it's used in the, in the schools.
Speaker A:They make this muffin out of.
Speaker A:I meant to send you that muffin recipe, but yeah, but they use dried peaches and it's kind of non traditional dried fruits.
Speaker A:And it.
Speaker A:All my ideas all really originally came from my, my grandma and how she would, how she would, you know, waste not.
Speaker A:What not.
Speaker B:Isn't it crazy?
Speaker B:I think of my grandparents all the time.
Speaker B:My mom is from Chicago and my Dad's from the D.C. area.
Speaker B:And my grandmother, my dad's mom, Granny Franny passed away last year.
Speaker B:But she had six kids.
Speaker B:And after she had six kids, she was like, I'm gonna have a career.
Speaker B:And she went and got her realtor's license and she became one of the top realtors in the area that I lived in up until she was 80 years old.
Speaker B:So she had a whole life before, you know, becoming an entrepreneur, had raised all these children.
Speaker B:And then she's like, you know what?
Speaker B:I wanna do something else.
Speaker B:And I think about that, like how inspiring that is to me.
Speaker B:Like, man, something so simple, like, I just wanna do something else.
Speaker B:And she did it, and she did it really well and she, you know, expanded upon that.
Speaker B:And all of my cousins, we all feel the same way you have really great people in your life, like, especially when you go back to your grandparents and you want to strive what they did, but maybe do it even better or be, be more than what they were.
Speaker B:And we had the ability to do that.
Speaker B:I think that she'd be so proud of you that you took her simple thing that she didn't think twice about.
Speaker B:She just did it.
Speaker B:And that you have a.
Speaker B:Now an entire business based off of it is, is wonderful.
Speaker B:And it's a great legacy for your children too.
Speaker B:Like, my great grandmother inspired this.
Speaker B:That's so cool.
Speaker A:No, it's pretty cool.
Speaker A:I've always wondered.
Speaker A:Cause, you know, she's, she's passed away before I started the business I've always liked.
Speaker A:She'd be so stoked.
Speaker A:She'd be so stoked to like eat, try our fruit and see in the stores and stuff.
Speaker B:Well, because also they come from a generation where you said, you know, they didn't waste anything.
Speaker B:Food was not a given.
Speaker B:Know a lot of people, especially my mom's dad was born during the Great Depression.
Speaker B:And to think that they had to go on little to survive is really hard to comprehend.
Speaker B:So to throw away, we say millions of fruit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So in our, in our area, just, just in central California, stone fruit, we're throwing away between 100 to 200 million pounds of fruit a year just, just in this little kind of 30, 40 mile radius right here that where I'm, I'm sitting in the middle of.
Speaker A:So peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots.
Speaker A:We're.
Speaker A:We're tossing 100 to 200 million pounds a year just in this little area of.
Speaker A:And granted we are the biggest fruit production area in the world ultimately.
Speaker A:But, but yeah, but just if you can imagine this one locale dumping 100 to 200 million pounds of fruit a year, depending on the year and depending on the market.
Speaker B:As someone with two kids and I am very strict about what we spend money on and food, it pains me to throw things away when they've gone bad.
Speaker B:It's really hard.
Speaker B:Like I go to the grocery store more than I ever did because I like buying things knowing that I'm going to use it immediately because things expire or you know, especially with fruit, you know, when you have a tight budget, can't buy everything that you want to buy your kids.
Speaker B:So what you're creating is one.
Speaker B:I know that you make it so the sizing makes sense for a family and for people, which is huge because you buy people that have little people right now, snacks for kids are like this big.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And they cost this much.
Speaker B:And that, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker B:And I know that you guys are priced really well and you're in places that people can find it.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So, so we, you can be found in Walmart.
Speaker A:We're doing not, we're not in every single Walmart yet.
Speaker A:But you can find us in local Walmart.
Speaker A:And if not, if you do go to Walmart, you can always ask the store manager and say, hey, can you bring ugly in?
Speaker A:Because I would love them.
Speaker A:And they can, they can.
Speaker A:If you get a specific request from a customer, oftentimes that store manager can, can bring the product directly to the store for you, which is pretty sweet.
Speaker A:There's a little.
Speaker A:And that helps because that helps because then we just keep expanding.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:No, I mean the power of the consumer is really strong because most especially in Walmart specifically, like, and this is kind of self described from the upper echelons of Walmart, like their store managers are like their own CEOs, kind of the way they run their team and the way they run their business because there's always some consideration.
Speaker A:But that works for a lot of local stores too because that's always the best way that we grow in different chains and stores because we're, you know, we're West Coast.
Speaker A:I don't necessarily have a presence physically in New Jersey, but if people, you know, in New Jersey or New York or hear about us and they actually go to their local group grocery store, they can often order it through one of our distributors that's active in the area.
Speaker A:So that's a pretty cool little thing.
Speaker A:And it does help us.
Speaker A:So we're in Walmart's Sam's Club, even our local cvs, we have pretty good coverage there.
Speaker A:Sprouts is another big one.
Speaker A:Depending on where you're listening.
Speaker A:Whole Foods as well.
Speaker A:And then Giant Eagle, we're spattered all over across the U.S. the other cool thing you mentioned.
Speaker A:So with, with kids and things like that, we also have a school program now as well.
Speaker A:Mostly concentrated in California, but we're growing it across the nation as we go too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So your kids might even bring it home to you at some point.
Speaker B:I'm a burnt chef ambassador and we're a global organization.
Speaker B:And one of my fellow ambassadors, he works for a culinary program for schools and he's a professional trained chef.
Speaker B:And the reason that he loves what he does is he gets to provide healthy foods for kids, aged baby to high school, and they create all different types of menu offerings, and they like to use things that are sustainable.
Speaker B:And they teach kids about farming and they teach where their food's coming from.
Speaker B:So if they're serving a certain item, whatever that dish may be, they can tell them exactly where the food comes from.
Speaker B:I think it's so important for our kids to understand the value of food and also the value of trade, trade opportunities and like farming or truck driving.
Speaker B:Like I said, my husband went to a trade school to get his license to do everything and culinary space to trade.
Speaker B:I think that there's kids that they thrive in that environment.
Speaker B:So to teach them young, like, hey, this comes from this farm because this guy realized that we were dumping hundreds of millions of fruit that could have been used in other ways to help make your meal today.
Speaker B:I think that that's beautiful.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, it's really cool.
Speaker A:Like this.
Speaker A:That's really, that's cool.
Speaker A:You appreciate that and know that because, yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker A:Schools are like the funnest channel, you know, because, I mean, and I've done, I do these presentations at schools every so often and like, the kids, like, man, they're sharp, you know, they know they, they're, they're all about it and they.
Speaker A:And it's so interesting getting the mind of a child that's basically uncorrupted versus, like, oh, there's all these levels of why this fruit is ugly.
Speaker A:They don't think like that.
Speaker A:They're like, oh, this is tasty.
Speaker A:I like it.
Speaker A:Or like, or even like, ah, I don't like these peaches, but they'll like the nectarines, you know, or something like that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's, it's really cool getting like that feedback from kids.
Speaker A:And I've really enjoyed, I've really, really enjoyed that channel.
Speaker A:And, and what schools have really helped us with too.
Speaker A:So, you know, you, you've worked in hospitality your whole life.
Speaker A:Know, a dried peach or a dried ne.
Speaker A:White nectarine, for example, is not like a common used ingredient in food service.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So if you're thinking dried fruit or your corporate salad bar or like the hotel vent or whatever, your, your dried fruit's probably going to be a raisin, dried cranberry, and then maybe like a dried cherry.
Speaker A:Like, there's a couple maybe things there.
Speaker A:But it's, But a dried peach is never going to show up, right?
Speaker A:Well, the schools, because they're, they're, you know, actively trying to ensure that the kids get their serving of fruit.
Speaker A:And a lot of kids just, just like they're not accustomed, believe it or not, a lot of kids are just not accustomed to eating fruit.
Speaker A:So they don't want to eat something that resembles fruit.
Speaker A:Like the kids don't like it sometimes.
Speaker A:So we've incorporated, we have iced fruit that.
Speaker A:We incorporated recipes like this whole grain muffin.
Speaker A:The schools are kind of making its way and circulating throughout California now.
Speaker A:And I tell you, like, when I've had that muffin, the peach, it literally tastes like it's little, like, kind of like a little ball of honey in there, you know, like it's like a sweet kind of gooey thing like when you cook it.
Speaker A:And I'm like, oh my God, this is so great.
Speaker A:So the schools have helped us actually kind of build some of these use cases where, hey, chef at the hotel that are like the, you know, whatever culinary thing is putting on the event.
Speaker A:We have some of these great recipes that are, you can help, you know, prevent fruit from being thrown out.
Speaker A:You can have a sustainable message to your actual menu item and then, and then you can provide something that's really, really different and tasty and it can often kind of fit right in with whatever recipe you're already using.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I know schools have been a huge, a huge deal for us.
Speaker A:It's really fun.
Speaker B:I love that you had this idea and how it's evolved.
Speaker B:It's almost quickly.
Speaker B:Cuz you went back to school to really do all this and you went to Notre Dame, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So that was my thought process, I guess.
Speaker A:Let's see, about eight years ago now we're.
Speaker A:I had been thinking about trying to do something with this fruit and all these different ideas of like, oh, because ultimately it's all, it all goes back to like me providing people with good, nutritious, healthy food that doesn't have added junk in it.
Speaker A:But then at the time, I didn't necessarily know how I was going to get that to customers.
Speaker A:And I had everything from like disaster relief food ideas and eventually landed on, you know, dried fruit in our consumer package because that was the best way to market it.
Speaker A:I felt like.
Speaker A:And actually I kind of solve all these logistical reasons why the fruit's thrown out and stuff.
Speaker A:About eight, eight or nine years ago, whatever it was, you know, I had my, I had my pretty successful bulldozing and trucking business.
Speaker A:My, my back and my neck problems really bothered me.
Speaker A:So I knew I got to get out of the truck.
Speaker A:I can't make, I really can't make a career out of this.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna be able to do this in 40 years or so.
Speaker A:But I really wanted to do something with this fruit and so I kind of self assessed and, and like in the infantry we always say like in order to lead you must first be able to do so.
Speaker A:You gotta have the foundational skill to tell somebody else.
Speaker A:Before you can tell somebody else what to do.
Speaker A:You gotta at least understand the job.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Even though you don't have to be perfect at it.
Speaker A:So I ended up going to the University of Notre Dame because I felt like, hey, going to business school is what's going to get me there as a leader to be able to lead and run a business like this.
Speaker A:I did that.
Speaker A:I launched our business while I was in school.
Speaker A:We got us on shelves in Southern California.
Speaker A: This is back like summer of: Speaker A:Seems, it's kind of, it's like in a way it's like, it's weird, it's gone by like a flash because I've just been working so much head down for so long.
Speaker A:Long.
Speaker A:We've been in business for over six years, almost seven.
Speaker A:Seven years now, you know, chipping away at it.
Speaker B:Well, hats off to you for you had like multiple lives in a very short amount of time.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Because I think military life is a very specific life.
Speaker B:And then you enter civilian life and then you're trucking and you're farming and you're going back to school to evolve your business.
Speaker B:I feel like that's probably what Walmart also saw value in you, is that you were someone that you weren't just talking about creating it, you were actively in it and you were able to talk the talk and walk the walk in every part of the business development.
Speaker B:What do you think is the most unique thing about your pack of ugly.
Speaker B:The ugly company that Walmart was really drawn to?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's, it's, I mean you hit, you hit the nail on the head there.
Speaker A:The most unique thing about our business ultimately is how real our story is.
Speaker A:And, and I mean every, there's so many people out there, it crosses all demographics, everything you can imagine.
Speaker A:People want to do something sustainable for the planet, right?
Speaker A:Nobody's like, oh, I want to, you know, I want to, I want the planet to warm up, you know, I want, I want there to be less trees, you know, like nobody, nobody, nobody thinks like that, nobody in the world, right?
Speaker A:With our brand, I mean it's pretty simple.
Speaker A:I got this, the Sam's Club bag sitting in front of me.
Speaker A:It saves almost 12 pounds of fruit from being tossed out.
Speaker A:And so it makes that really easy for a consumer to say, hey, I get a great product that's at an affordable price, it's healthy, there's no added sugars.
Speaker A:And I get the benefit of, of helping fruit from being thrown out.
Speaker A:Generally it, to, to grow 1 pound of peaches takes over 30 gallons of water oftentimes.
Speaker A:So you can imagine, yeah, you imagine like, you know, like all, all of these resources that go into farming and you can now use 10 to 30% of the crop that was just being tossed out.
Speaker A:So to answer your question, what, what Walmart and what are the retailers often seeing us and customers as well is, hey, like, this is a real thing.
Speaker A:This is, this is real fruit, real farmers.
Speaker A:You know, Ben's legit.
Speaker A:And this is, it's, it's hard as a customer.
Speaker A:Is this the regular everyday person that you have all the stresses you have in life, you have all the stuff that you're already responsible for, you want to make a larger impact, but it's, it's difficult to do that.
Speaker A:It's also difficult to trust, like things that say they're doing that and you're like, is that really, you know, this is sustainable?
Speaker A:Is it really?
Speaker A:That's what most customers and Walmart and other retailers, well, saw on us is like, hey, this is legit.
Speaker A:We believe in it, we want to be a part of it.
Speaker A:And anybody can come out to the farm and check out these fields, be like, yeah, this is no bs this was fruit being dumped out.
Speaker A:It's healthy fruit and now we can do something with it.
Speaker A:So that's kind of our secret sauce for sure is just being legit.
Speaker B:You said something that struck a chord in my heart is that some kids have never been exposed to fruit before or healthy foods.
Speaker B:I don't know why it makes me emotional because I think I am a mom and I've got two little people in my life.
Speaker B:Knowing that that's such a true statement, that kids get some of their only nutrition is from school and that you understand that is incredible.
Speaker B:And I know that you're now a new dad.
Speaker B:And to think that your kid may not have, would have potentially might have access to something like that is heartbreaking.
Speaker B:And we're dumping millions of pounds of food that could go to kids in needs.
Speaker B:I mean, growing up, we've got our own problems, but like little people, they didn't do anything.
Speaker B:I think it should be an easy and accessible thing and just a part of their every day.
Speaker B:And like you said that kids like, oh, I don't, I don't Eat things that look like fruit because.
Speaker B:Because they've never seen.
Speaker B:It's hard to comprehend because it just breaks your heart in the same breath.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I'll tell you straight up, like, I.
Speaker A:Where I used to dump most of this fruit out was.
Speaker A:It was right across the road from this.
Speaker A:The country school that I went to.
Speaker A:And I drive the truck by, you know, you're just, you know, going up the hill, like, you know, by the.
Speaker A:Across the school, so you're going like two miles an hour.
Speaker A:And I'd see Tino, my old bus driver out there almost every day, wave at him.
Speaker A:And I'm driving two to six loads a day dumping fruit.
Speaker A:And, And I'm literally dumping it right across the road in the field.
Speaker A:And it's like, man, like, you think those kids would.
Speaker A:Would like the fruit in the way that, you know that.
Speaker A:That in those trailers, the way the fruit's handle, it's not sanitary in that exact scenario.
Speaker A:They can't just stop and like, dump it off or whatever.
Speaker B:But yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But yeah, I'd stop and I'd talk to her once a while, catch up, and then be like, hey, is there something like, what?
Speaker A:We're dumping all this fruit.
Speaker A:How come you guys don't get it?
Speaker A:Like, what's the deal?
Speaker A:You know, And.
Speaker A:And it was all these.
Speaker A:And it was all these little things.
Speaker A:I'm like, oh, well, we don't have enough refrigeration to hold, you know, all this fruit.
Speaker A:And then it's not shelf stable.
Speaker A:And so that's kind of where the dried fruit thing came from.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But yeah, I'll tell you, it's.
Speaker A:It's so interesting because I grew up.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm a country guy, you know, Grew up on a farm, middle of nowhere.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And still to this day, like, people, like, find it weird when I, like, eat a tomato.
Speaker A:I'll just grab a tomato.
Speaker A:Yeah, I eat it.
Speaker A:I eat tomatoes, like apples and like, different, like.
Speaker A:Like cauliflower or like cauliflower, broccoli.
Speaker A:Just eat it like off the stem, you know.
Speaker A:And people think, People always tell you they're always tripped out by that because I have to remind myself, like, oh, I'm a country guy.
Speaker A:Like, this is how I grew up.
Speaker A:And even as my son, like, he.
Speaker A:His favorite thing is, is like, overripe fruit.
Speaker A:And so he's seven months old, but he sits there and like, I'll have.
Speaker A:I'll keep peaches, like, in my pickup till they get, like, pretty mushy and Then I'll just come home and sit there with him.
Speaker A:And he just.
Speaker A:I just stick the peach in his mouth and he just sits there sucking on this peach for 30 minutes or an hour.
Speaker A:Well, in a lot of these other schools I've been in, especially, like, you know, especially the urban ones, right?
Speaker A:Like at the country schools, the kids are usually like, a little more.
Speaker A:A little more in tune with fruit because their parents are bringing fruit home from work and things like that.
Speaker A:But in a lot of these urban schools, the.
Speaker A:The kids are just like, oh, I don't eat fruit.
Speaker A:I don't like.
Speaker A:I don't like the way it looks.
Speaker A:I don't like the way it smells like.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:They just do not touch fruit.
Speaker A:And I'm like, wow, this.
Speaker A:So they're.
Speaker A:They're the ones that are a little more tricky to convince to try our product, which is why it's great in the muffin and things.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But yeah, for me, it's like, as a parent, I think about these things a lot more now than being involved in these schools.
Speaker A:There's something powerful about taking this fruit that was being tossed out, and now kids are actually going to get to eat it.
Speaker A:And then, hey, maybe they wouldn't have tried the raisin or they wouldn't have tried the cranberry.
Speaker A:But now because it's in a cute package and it.
Speaker A:And it's a peach or it's a nectarine, like, there's that much more chance that this kid's going to eat fruit today.
Speaker A:I think it's a really special thing.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's huge.
Speaker B:And I know that parents.
Speaker B:I lived in Chicago for a while.
Speaker B:Urban farming became really popular.
Speaker B: I think it was like: Speaker B:But my cousin, her daughter went to a school and they did urban farming where they're on top of their school was legit a farm to teach kids in the city about food that they don't get, have access to, readily available to them.
Speaker B:And something I take for granted.
Speaker B:You know, I did not have that problem growing up.
Speaker B:And I think that what you're doing is beautiful.
Speaker B:I think a lot of parents are grateful for that, especially something called like a ugly.
Speaker B:Like a kid.
Speaker B:We, you know, kids like to push boundaries.
Speaker B:Oh, this is called ugly.
Speaker B:They're maybe more inclined to eat something that's called that because it's.
Speaker B:It's not normal.
Speaker B:It's not packed pretty.
Speaker B:It's packed ugly.
Speaker B:So that's really, really fun for kids.
Speaker B:And then building it into like their.
Speaker B:You said into a muffin.
Speaker B:I mean, my God, how, how simple.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, no, so on the urban farming thing, that's, that's really cool you mentioned that because I've always like, one thing that's really unique about my kind of, like you said, I've kind of lived these multiple lives almost already.
Speaker A:You know, being in the army and then and just all, you know, going to school and all this type of stuff.
Speaker A:And I'm in a position, I get to talk to people and I, I meet with people and I travel the country a lot for sales and stuff where I meet with all different types of people from all different views, whether it's political or the way they're raised and things like that.
Speaker A:And so for me, that common thread is like providing nutrition.
Speaker A:And I, I love listening to people talk and hear their stories, hear their opinions.
Speaker A:And I'm not a super highly opinionated person all the time because I'm very impressionable and very open to hearing what people think.
Speaker A:And that's one thing I often tell people is like, hey, just, just because you're a city person born and raised doesn't mean we have these commonalities.
Speaker A:And, and whenever I always tell people, like, I think what would change the food waste thing more than anything is if everybody had to grow a tomato plant.
Speaker A:They just tried.
Speaker A:Hey, just grow one tomato plant one year and you'll realize like, oh, you're gonna water that little tomato plant and you're finally gonna get this one little like measly, like little crooked looking, like jacked up tomato that comes off and you're gonna be like, oh, I cannot wait.
Speaker A:You know, and it's like, ah.
Speaker A:So like everybody would realize how difficult it can be to farm and grow things.
Speaker A:And, and yeah, those people that do have those urban farming experiences in their schools, that rooftop, I love that stuff.
Speaker A:It's so cool because then everybody truly appreciates farming and ag and stuff.
Speaker A:That's really cool.
Speaker A:You, you mentioned that as well.
Speaker B:My sister started a salsa garden a couple years ago and she basically.
Speaker B:So she can make her own salsa.
Speaker B:And I remember her first like crop growing of like these horrific looking peppers.
Speaker B:But she was so proud of herself and she did, she made her own salsa.
Speaker B:We, we live, I live on the eastern shore, so farming is very popular around here.
Speaker B:But I grew up in the city, so we were really, I would say suburban city people.
Speaker B:But I do appreciate, you know, seeing all the farms where I live and my daughter getting to see that and you know, she gets to see animals on a daily basis.
Speaker B:And you do value things a lot more when you see it come to life.
Speaker B:We have corn for days here and you can see the corn stalks growing all summer long and they're now 8ft tall and they're going to be gone in probably less than a week.
Speaker B:My grandfather, my mom's dad, he made his money in the stock in agriculture and corn specifically.
Speaker B:And he always said, corn knee High by the 4th of July is a good time to buy.
Speaker B:So, you know, we're going back a hundred years.
Speaker B:And he was from the Midwest and he took the time to learn about the stuff he was selling.
Speaker B:If I'm going to sell corn, I need to understand how it works.
Speaker B:I know how farmers work their schedules, all those things.
Speaker B:And even though my mom was a city person, my grandfather really did instill the value of like a piece of corn.
Speaker B:Like, this is why it costs so much.
Speaker B:Because this person Woke up at 4 o' clock in the morning every day for months to harvest one corn for you.
Speaker B:And it's just, you know, it's super important to think about those things even if you're in the city.
Speaker B:Like, the food you're getting comes from a farmer.
Speaker B:At the end of the day, everything we get came from a farmer, no matter where you are in the world.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker A:That's really interesting.
Speaker A:And you mentioned this earlier about like, oh, you know, because food's ultimately, it is expensive, right?
Speaker A:So you probably spend, roughly speaking, a third of your, A third of your spending is generally on what you eat, right?
Speaker A:Or maybe it's even more.
Speaker A:I don't even know.
Speaker A:But yeah, like with, like, like with me being once again being a farm guy, like, I have goats and chickens and things.
Speaker A:And so for example, I bought corn the other day and I overbought and I was like, oh, I'm gonna barbecue it.
Speaker A:Because I love barbecue and corn, like with the, with the husks on and everything.
Speaker A:And I got too busy.
Speaker A:I just, you know, like, you're firing.
Speaker A:The barbecue is a mission sometimes.
Speaker A:So I looked in the fridges.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, damn.
Speaker A:Like the corn.
Speaker A:My wife, she told me that.
Speaker A:She told me I wasn't going to use it.
Speaker A:The corn, the corn starting to turn a little bit.
Speaker A:I was like, yeah, I know I should.
Speaker A:I know, you know, I know I screwed this up.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But like, I have the advantage of like, well, I have chickens that'll eat it at least, right?
Speaker A:And like, it doesn't, you know, and then the goats will eat.
Speaker A:And so it's like, yeah, but not everybody has that exact advantage.
Speaker A:And then it's, you know, especially in cities.
Speaker A:Yeah, it is, it is a lot.
Speaker A:It is a lot more of a burden to like, oh, it didn't.
Speaker A:To find something to do with your waste and to have those different tiers of.
Speaker A:Of usage, right?
Speaker A:From, you know, for US Consumption to animal consumption to composting and things like that were sort of kind of built into how we operate here.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But yeah, that, that's.
Speaker A:I think that's one thing about our brand that, that really works for a lot of people is you can kind of engage with this.
Speaker A:And, And I mean, I'm a little bit rough around the edges.
Speaker A:I try to.
Speaker A:I try to tame some of it, you know, but being.
Speaker A:Being infantry man and being a farmer, like, you know, there's definitely some F bombs and things here and there, but I, I try, you know, I try to kind of tame some of that stuff because especially, like, I don't want to turn off, you know, moms.
Speaker A:I want kids to be able to engage with our content and things like that.
Speaker B:Were some of the queens of F bombs when.
Speaker A:Yeah, but then.
Speaker A:But they're like, me.
Speaker A:Like, moms and dads are like, me were like, oh, I don't, I don't want my kids, like, necessarily.
Speaker A:Like, listen, so you got to find a toy storyline, right?
Speaker A:You got to like, find like the Pixar version of a farmer.
Speaker A:Ben, like, mad at something.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But yeah, people like, they're like, they.
Speaker A:That's one cool thing with our brand is, hey, we can.
Speaker A:We truly from the farm here we are engaging with people in Chicago and where you live in like the cities and things, because they can pick up our cute bag and be like, oh, this is ugly fruit.
Speaker A:But it's kind of cute.
Speaker A:Our kids like it.
Speaker A:And I've done this in stores and demos before where, like, you know, I'll be like sampling out the fruit.
Speaker A:And I'm sure, because I'm ultimately, we're trying to.
Speaker A:A dried peach is not on anybody's grocery list in the United States of America.
Speaker A:For the most part.
Speaker A:Nobody's going to the store, like, I gotta get my dried peaches today, right?
Speaker A:So ultimately, like, we're trying to take these levels of introducing people to consuming a dried peach or a dried nectarine, a dried plum and things like that.
Speaker A:And so a lot of what we used to do is.
Speaker A:And we still do it, but it's.
Speaker A:It's kind of expensive now.
Speaker A:But we're doing in store demos and like letting People sample the product, and there's no better feeling than when a mom or dad comes up and they have a kid and the kids, like, convince them to get them the candy, and the kids, like, kind of carrying the candy and then.
Speaker A:And you know, and dad's like, hey, well, try this.
Speaker A:And the kid tries it.
Speaker A:Oh, I like it because it's sour.
Speaker A:Like, her kiwis are sour and our plums are kind of sour, the apricots a little tangy.
Speaker A:And like, there's been times we had the kid, like, leaves that bag of gummy worms, like, on.
Speaker A:On my sampling desk and takes our fruit instead and walks through it.
Speaker A:And, like, you can tell the parents are just like, yes.
Speaker A:You know, when.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:So I don't know why I started telling that story.
Speaker A:But there's.
Speaker A:There's some.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Our daughter's a sample queen at the grocery store, and every grocer knows that.
Speaker B:So, like, when they see her coming, they're like, super stoked.
Speaker B:She's a big cheese kid.
Speaker B:Like, she loves all different cheeses, no matter where it's from, what it is.
Speaker B:Like, she had caramel cheese last night.
Speaker B:She loves smoked cheddar.
Speaker B:That's kind of like our thing with her is like special cheeses.
Speaker B:But our son is like a garbage bowl.
Speaker B:He'll eat anything.
Speaker B:And fruit.
Speaker B:He's just.
Speaker B:It looks like he was bleeding from his mouth the other day.
Speaker B:He inhaled so much watermelon because watermelon's huge here on the East Coast.
Speaker B:And I'm like, I can't keep it in long enough because he just eats so much watermelon or we eat so much cheese in his house.
Speaker B:But it's fun, you know, teaching your kids young.
Speaker B:Also, like, it doesn't have to be what the grocery store is telling you to buy.
Speaker B:Like, I think that it's really cool that you're doing these in person demos versus them just seeing on the shelves.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, you know, and you mentioned, you mentioned earlier in the pod that kids portions and stuff in stores, like, it's.
Speaker A:It's like small bags and it's expensive.
Speaker A:And there's, you know, there's a science behind, I guess, kind of how that's developed because ultimately then you can purchase like, at a lower price point, even though your, like, actual price per ounce or whatever is elevated.
Speaker A:But that was really very much the trend, like, kind of like that shrinkflation concept over the last five or six years.
Speaker A:And so we have our larger serving sizes.
Speaker A:Walmart was the first one that Took our, our family size bag and then we have our, our 20 ounce bag that's in Sam's club.
Speaker A:But that's something I, when I started the business, I always wanted our fruit to be available and priced to where the average parent can buy this for the family.
Speaker A:And it can be a pantry item, not just like, oh, this is, oh, this is five bucks for two or three, four ounces.
Speaker A:Like this is, that's kind of expensive because you know, I mean we all come from working families and like, yeah, that, that $5 or $6 that you spend is, is a very intentional spend because it ultimately comes from something else.
Speaker A:So you gotta have the nutrition and good value to your customer.
Speaker A:That's the cool thing is we've been able to like, we're, you know, we, we have our solid, you know, kind of snack size bag in most stores, but we're now working these larger sizes in which that's really where the value is now.
Speaker A:And I'm really excited that because often the feedback from, from a lot of stores, oh, we want the smaller size.
Speaker A:I'm like, but the mom or dad coming to buy this, like, I truly believe they want the bigger size, you know, and it's kind of hard to prove that sometimes.
Speaker B:But I, I mean I'm just one person.
Speaker B:But I can tell you because I have a son that eats every two hours even though he's 15 months.
Speaker B:Those small 1.5 ounce bags of his snacks are gone within the day.
Speaker B:Yeah, because he, his nutrition value is way higher than that of a one year old that is only 18 pounds.
Speaker B:He's 30 pounds.
Speaker B:I, I do think that there's people like me that it's.
Speaker B:When you're spending $5 on something so small, it is hard.
Speaker B:Like we have a lot of conversations about groceries and what we're spending and you know, we pay for our kids first.
Speaker B:They will always come first.
Speaker B:But it is really hard to buy stuff sometimes that are super expensive, but they're so small.
Speaker B:And I'm like, oh my God, we'll be back here again tomorrow because he's gonna eat through this so fast.
Speaker B:But that's normal though.
Speaker B:That's how life is.
Speaker B:And I'm not saying that, you know, woe is me, like I'm grateful I can provide for my children.
Speaker B:But knowing that there's a person behind a product that understands bigger make a difference.
Speaker B:It doesn't have to be like, you know, like the, you said Sam's Club size of ginormousness, but something that makes more sense for Only to get through a week, like one week would be life changing for us.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker A:And then, and in.
Speaker A:So like in our 10 ounce plums that you would find in, in Walmart, for example, you know, every piece of that plum, it's half of a real plum.
Speaker A:But so it's, you know, there's two halves.
Speaker A:Make one, make one whole piece of fruit and you're gonna find like 40 plums in that bag.
Speaker A:You know, that's a lot of fruit.
Speaker A:It's a lot of fruit that you get for I think seven, $7.50 or whatever it may be at the Walmart.
Speaker A:But those types of things go a long way.
Speaker A:And it's cool because that was always my vision is like I truly want everybody to be able to afford.
Speaker A:And we're never going to be the cheapest dried fruit necessarily on the shelf because we don't have added sugar, added ingredients.
Speaker A:But on a nutritional basis we're really well affordable to the average person.
Speaker A:And you can buy something that doesn't have added sugar because that's with a lot of dried fruit, you put all these added oils and sugars in it.
Speaker A:Well, because that's like your cheap weight.
Speaker A:Whereas the fruit is the, is the more expensive part.
Speaker A:So you kind of dilute it down with all this junk.
Speaker A:And I can promise you like fruit doesn't need added sugars.
Speaker A:Nobody in the world has ever thought that that's something that's needed.
Speaker A:So yeah, we're not gonna be the cheapest dried fruit.
Speaker A:But you know, when you know you're eating clean and it's literally just peaches that you're getting in some of those bags, like say you're getting, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 pieces of actual fruit in that bag for you know, somewhere between five to seven or eight bucks.
Speaker A:Like that's a legitimate, it's a legit.
Speaker B:I can tell you that one plum that I recently purchased, I bought one plum.
Speaker B:Cause I'm the only one that eats plums in my house.
Speaker B:I think it was like a dollar, like 40 something for one plum.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So if I could spend $7 for up to potentially 40 plums to feed my family, that's.
Speaker B:I mean that's humongous.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's funny, my, when I was little, my mom would buy plums for me cause I'd eat them at the pool.
Speaker B:It was like my favorite summertime snack because I would eat a plum between like the kids out of the water for like 15 minute break.
Speaker B:And that's what I would do is I'd eat a plum.
Speaker B:I was probably the only 7 year old that would eat, eat plums or eat cherries with pits.
Speaker B:But I always love fruit.
Speaker B:My mom's always made like fruit's been a huge part of our, our lives and I can't have some fruits, which is really sad now.
Speaker B:But yeah, as a kid I just, we inhaled fruit.
Speaker B:Like that was never a question.
Speaker B:If we didn't, we didn't have in the house.
Speaker B:My mom always made a point to make sure we had it and it was accessible to us.
Speaker B:And so I again commend you guys for acknowledging that maybe not everyone can.
Speaker B:So let's find a way to get it into these homes.
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker B:Good for you guys.
Speaker A:Appreciate anything too.
Speaker A:With dried fruit.
Speaker A:It's shelf stable so like you don't want to have to, you don't actually want to over buy or like lose that piece of fruit in the back of the fridge or something.
Speaker A:And so the fruit is shelf stable.
Speaker A:The shelf life for any of every bag is two years.
Speaker A:See that too.
Speaker A:Like when I'm working and driving, like you know, I often eat fresh fruit but then, you know, oh, like I don't have fresh fruit with me.
Speaker A:I always have a bag of dried fruit and I always supplement that throughout my daily, daily snack.
Speaker A:And it's a great way to get your fruit serving and have very, very little, very little spoilers.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You're not going to, you're going to buy that bag and you're going to be able to eat it.
Speaker A:You're not going to, it's not going to, you know, it's not going to go bad.
Speaker A:So another advantage to dried fruit you.
Speaker B:Were obviously you served and I know that dried packaged things are often sent over for a military to have to sustain.
Speaker B:Have you ever thought about going that route?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, we definitely looked into because that was always like the joke with us as soldiers.
Speaker A:Like we're, we're basically professional athletes and we're here we are eating this like really terrible for you food in a lot of ways.
Speaker A:And there's a way the reason they have all the preservatives and stuff in it and all that, but I mean literally all everything they feed us, it would make all of us constipated.
Speaker A:And we were like, oh, is this by design or is it just because there's literally so much preservatives in what we're eating that like we just can't digest it?
Speaker A:And yeah, the one little fruit you'd get would be the osmotic Cranberries was what it's called.
Speaker A:So I dried cranberry.
Speaker A:Why it was called osmotic.
Speaker A:I don't even know what that means, but okay, yeah, we get these osmotic canned cranberries and be like, oh, you like suffer through them to get some fruit.
Speaker A:So yeah, I've always wanted to have our fruit in, you know, in, in, you know, shelf stable military meals and bikes.
Speaker A:A lot of people actually buy those MREs and things like that for like kind of their disaster preparedness things.
Speaker A:I've always wanted to do that.
Speaker A:I looked into it and it's, it is a long process to get approved as a.
Speaker A:And it makes sense because you can't have.
Speaker A:It does make sense why they're so rigorous to become like a vendor for those.
Speaker A:But yeah, so I'd love to do it.
Speaker A:It's not in the cards right now just based on like where we're at in the growth stage of our business, but would absolutely love to do it and it would be really, really rewarding thing someday to have soldiers eat our dried fruit that otherwise would have just got tossed out.
Speaker B:You've been out for a little bit of time now.
Speaker B:What would you tell those that are transitioning into civilian life?
Speaker A:Yeah, like you mentioned earlier, right?
Speaker A:Military service, it's like a, it's a totally different life when you're living that versus then when you end up doing the next thing.
Speaker A:And everybody has their own difference of why they went into the military and then ultimately why they end up getting out of the military.
Speaker A:So for somebody like me, like, it wasn't my choice.
Speaker A:I, I got retired.
Speaker A:You know, my number got called and hey, I'm, I'm medically retired.
Speaker A:I'm, I'm done.
Speaker A:A lot of people have that experience.
Speaker A:A lot of people are especially more combat arms style things and otherwise people are leaving the military with injuries and things like that.
Speaker A:And so there's.
Speaker A:Everybody's leaving the service in some different capacity.
Speaker A:A common theme I would say generally is hey, you have this very specific job and set of skills in the military that's not necessarily like just go to the autozone and apply with like, oh, there's the exact same job, right.
Speaker A:I always tell people, others, I mean, there's nothing cooler than flying around in a Blackhawk with that, with the doors open under night vision, you know, flying nap of the earth, like going over and it's like that experience that you don't ever get that back.
Speaker A:Like that experience once you're done, like you're done and like you were never going to do that again, right?
Speaker A:In civilian life.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So you definitely, like, you know, you lose some of those thrills.
Speaker A:You lose that just immediate purpose to wake up every day.
Speaker A:And, like, you don't have to question what you need to do that day because you're.
Speaker A:There's a military discipline built in, and there's a structure built in, and you have this overarching mission where you're, you know, ultimately trying to do something.
Speaker A:Trying to do something good and protect, you know, kind of protect the homeland in some form or another.
Speaker A:Sammy, my.
Speaker A:My advice to.
Speaker A:To, you know, to really.
Speaker A:To everybody getting out.
Speaker A:Like, the number one skill that I look for, and this is maybe a soft skill, however you want to describe it, the number one thing I. I appreciate about the people that I work with is the discipline to show up, to work on time, and to show up early.
Speaker A:I always say, like, there's, you know, we don't have military discipline in the civilian world, right?
Speaker A:We're like, all things considered, like, you will.
Speaker A:You'll do your job.
Speaker A:And when it comes down to it, like, if you have to, like, you'll.
Speaker A:You'll shut up in color and you'll do the job, and you're gonna.
Speaker A:You're gonna push forward, right?
Speaker A:So everybody in the military has that to some level, even like, the lowest of the low and like, the people that are, like, barely scraping by in the army and like, everybody still shows up to work shaved on time early and ready to go and ready to work out at five in the morning, six morning, seven morning, right?
Speaker A:That's my.
Speaker A:My biggest number one thing is, like, if you're in the military, you have the skill of discipline, and that is the hardest thing to find in the civilian world.
Speaker A:So you can use that as your foundation.
Speaker A:And every.
Speaker A:If you have discipline, everything else from there can and will come together.
Speaker A:But then I would also say, hey, it is.
Speaker A:It legitimately is a struggle for a lot of people, whether because of your injuries or whether because of the circumstance of, you know, we were talking before the pod about, like, even postpartum depression and stuff.
Speaker A:And, you know, losing your military career, whether it was by your choice or not, is.
Speaker A:Is.
Speaker A:Is.
Speaker A:It can be pretty depressing.
Speaker A:So I know what I've learned during those difficult times is.
Speaker A:And it's not easy.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:It's not like a linear.
Speaker A:Like, I can say this now to you, but I might still feel dumpy tomorrow, personally or whatever, but going back to that, I hurt my knee working this last week.
Speaker A:And it was just doing a basic job I've done for a long time.
Speaker A:And it was, you know, just literally an old injury from when I, I tore my, my quadriceps 10 in the army.
Speaker A:I have this injury and it's lingered.
Speaker A:And here I am trying to do a normal job at 34 years old that I'm really good at.
Speaker A:And I, I physically, I'm just not competitive.
Speaker A:I can't keep up.
Speaker A:I can't do this job anymore.
Speaker A:And so I've, I've Learned after now 10 years of being out of the army as best I can.
Speaker A:It's about perspective, right?
Speaker A:And so in that moment in time, like, oh, I go home like, damn, this is, this, this sucks.
Speaker A:I can't, I'm like, this is embarrassing.
Speaker A:I can't do my job.
Speaker A:What, what if I like had to do this job to provide for my family and I had to be a truck driver?
Speaker A:And I legitimately cannot do this at a competitive level anymore.
Speaker A:But so what I've learned is like, yeah, you gotta ride that like initial being bummed out stage of whatever's bumming you out.
Speaker A:But then the perspective for me was like, you know, and I'm a religious person, so I'm not saying everybody has to be religious, but it's this perspective of like, hey, if I'm listening to the world around me and listen to my body and listening to God and stuff, like what this is telling me is, hey, Ben, like you're not a truck driver anymore.
Speaker A:You're running a dried fruit business.
Speaker A:Your value to your people around you is not in the truck ultimately, it's, it's, it's in the sales office right now and it's, it's managing and working with people.
Speaker A:So I looked at that as an opportunity like, hey, this is good to reground me, to remind, remind me that that chapter of my life is closed.
Speaker A:I'm now on to the next thing and physically I'm not the same.
Speaker A:But it's actually, this is actually an opportunity to be a better leader because I can't fall back, can't fall back on this foundational skill that I have.
Speaker A:So I would like to maybe leave all the veterans that listen to your pod with that is, it's, you know, perspective is what's going to get you there.
Speaker A:Because everybody's going to struggle in their day to day, whether it's getting out of the Army.
Speaker A:They're 10 years out of the army, they're still going to struggle.
Speaker A:It's about perspective and you got to Try and find the opportunity within the struggle, which is much easier said than done.
Speaker B:Sometimes I think it's important that veterans or those that are getting ready to get out.
Speaker B:I think you said you have a brother that's still in the service, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, two of my brothers are still in the Army.
Speaker B:That they see someone go this route that you did, that you've lived, like I said, multiple lives.
Speaker B:Because I do feel like there's this, like you said, relating to postpartum depression.
Speaker B:It's like a part of you is, like, gone like that, like, overnight, right?
Speaker B:You become a mother, and then it's like, oh, this baby is baby, baby.
Speaker B:But I'm over here.
Speaker B:Like, are they okay?
Speaker B:It's like you kind of are forgotten, and you're just.
Speaker B:Now you're on your own, and you got to figure it out.
Speaker B:And I think that you should be really proud of the service that you gave to our country and leading by example and showing people, like, hey, when you're out, their life does not end the second you become a civilian.
Speaker B:Because I do think that there is this fear for.
Speaker B:For some vets that when they enter the world, like, then what do I do now?
Speaker B:There's a life for you.
Speaker B:There is a life, and there's a purpose for you beyond, you know, serving our military.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And for a lot of people, it's kind of scary because, like, you've.
Speaker A:You just haven't questioned for years, like, what am I gonna wake up and do today?
Speaker A:Because I'm.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:In some way or another chick, man.
Speaker A:I'm being told what, you know, the basics of what to do, and I have to figure a lot of things out.
Speaker A:But, like, the place to show up and the time to be there is usually figured out for you.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And so that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's tough for a lot of people to just.
Speaker A:They could just lose that structure.
Speaker A:And then you might end up.
Speaker A:Because you've lost the structure.
Speaker A:You might end up drinking too much.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Or you might end up hating.
Speaker A:Now, you're probably not in as much good a shape as you once were, because, like I tell my brothers, like, hey, I'm.
Speaker A:You know, there's a reason I got a gut.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A:I'm not a professional athlete.
Speaker A:I'm not being paid to show up to work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I'm working 12, 14 hours a day.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:This is not a luxury I have anymore where I'm.
Speaker A:I'm not as good a shape as I once was.
Speaker A:And so then you start that inner Body image changes and things, things like that.
Speaker A:And so there's all those different things add up that can be genuinely difficult to work with.
Speaker A:But like I said, I would fall back on that.
Speaker A:Hey, you've got the discipline built into you.
Speaker A:And even when things were, were, were terrible in the army or Navy or when you're just standing there doing something dumb in the rain for no reason and you're cold and you're just literally standing there for absolutely no reason, there's no discernible reason why you're standing there doing nothing and you're miserable.
Speaker A:You've got that built in you to be disciplined and also to, to have the perspective of persevere.
Speaker A:And you know, and like back then it was always, oh, we got people around you and you got people you enjoy working with.
Speaker A:Well, you'll find that perspective on the outside too.
Speaker A:It's exciting.
Speaker A:It's a scary time, but it's an exciting time when you're, when you're transitioning out of the military and the world needs you.
Speaker A:Like I said, the world needs disciplined people that can, that can work hard and are committed and, and that you will find something that's gonna, that you'll find your niche.
Speaker A:It might take longer than you hope, but you'll definitely find, find something that will be as fulfilling, if not more.
Speaker A:And I always used to tell me, oh, I wish I could go back to the army.
Speaker A:And I wish.
Speaker A:But then like, what I'm doing now is on, on a.
Speaker A:If you zoom out is a much more impactful thing than what I was doing in the army just as one person.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So, you know, that door closing really created the opportunity for, for fruit to.
Speaker A:Less fruit to be thrown out in the world.
Speaker A:So that, that's much more impactful, I think, than what I was doing in the service.
Speaker B:Good for you.
Speaker B:I think it's important what you just said that you are needed in this world.
Speaker B:I think that's something that people are afraid to say.
Speaker B:Like, I have no problem telling everyone that I meet.
Speaker B:You are so valued.
Speaker B:Your purpose, whether or not you see it, there is a purpose for you here.
Speaker B:And the more people that talk about that, I think it's better.
Speaker B:Especially like a big guy like you with tattoos and a beard and you know, you're from the country, like saying to someone, like, it's, that's not what, like big tough guys don't say that all the time.
Speaker B:So I think that's really cool that you said that.
Speaker B:So kudos to you.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:I think there should be more People like you in the world.
Speaker B:So I really appreciate you chatting with me and sharing about your family and your, your life and all the good things and the ugly things that you guys are working on and so what is next for you and and u.
Speaker A:First of all thanks for all those nice things by the way.
Speaker A:That was you know, taking compliments some, sometimes the hardest part of anything.
Speaker A:But I do appreciate that.
Speaker A:That was very kind of you.
Speaker A:But yeah, so, so with us and ugly like this is peak fruit processing season.
Speaker A:So it's all hands on deck.
Speaker A:This is the time of year where hey, we're, we're taking the fruit that would only be thrown out and we're preserving it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We're making dried fruit.
Speaker A:It's my favorite time of year.
Speaker A:It's like you know, a lot of stress, you know, a lot of payroll and then the inputs and things breaking and stuff.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But it's, it's ags.
Speaker A:We love.
Speaker A:We live for this.
Speaker A:And then like I said we, you know we just launched in Walmart.
Speaker A:We have a really cool.
Speaker A:This is actually hospitality people.
Speaker A:This might speak to you more than anything.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:So we're launching a bulk program in sprouts as well and we're gonna do some co branding around it.
Speaker A:So it's gonna be like 100 upcycled section in sprouts and so yeah, all.
Speaker A:All these unique dried fruits that don't have added sugars and things.
Speaker A:And so I think where a lot of people even could.
Speaker A:Could help us as we're growing is especially when you work in hospitality.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like I like I was saying like that that dried peach is not contextually in the chef's mind necessarily.
Speaker A:There's so many cool things you can make from it.
Speaker A:And also sourcing a sustainable product that you could probably find at your local sprouts now and then try it in a recipe or do something that you could potentially even incorporate into, into your, into your chef setting or like you know, even dried fruit and bars and things like that like with drinks like so there's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So for us to answer your question in a non direct way, this is the season of processing fruit for us and preserving everything that we can, that we can afford to do.
Speaker A:And then, then the next step is hey let's.
Speaker A:We're now speculating a lot of this growth.
Speaker A:Now we gotta go sell the fruit and continue to reach out and touch more people basically with our, with our mission.
Speaker B:I love that I would say the bar world get their hands on dried fruit.
Speaker B:They love a good dried fruit And a drink now that is like the it thing to do.
Speaker B:I mean non alcoholic spirits too.
Speaker B:I'm a big non alcoholic drink drinker.
Speaker B:My girlfriend just got me actually a non alcoholic apparel spritz and champagne bottle and I was like, man, I really could use like a dried fruit in this drink.
Speaker B:Which I know it sounds so silly because we do, we're like at the bar people eat their bar fruit.
Speaker B:And I don't necessarily agree with that because sometimes I think it's gross.
Speaker B:But dried fruit is such a trend that I think that's like a no brainer for people is to stock your bars with something and also knowing that you're doing something good for the planet.
Speaker B:Like everybody, you said everybody wants to do something good.
Speaker B:It's just you don't necessarily realize that you can do it in like the smallest ways that have the biggest impact.
Speaker B:And this is like one of those definite companies that it may sound small to start but like what a huge impact you're having for people in your community.
Speaker B:One but also like on a grander scale like with the kids and school and education.
Speaker B:It's huge.
Speaker B:It's like simple, it's so simple.
Speaker B:Just don't throw it away.
Speaker B:Like what can you do with something?
Speaker A:I mean I'm, I'm a sucker for like eating the orange out of the old fashioned or whatever it may be.
Speaker A:Like yeah, I mean country guy once again eating everything.
Speaker B:Well, where can everyone get products that you do have it readily available?
Speaker B:If you don't have it like a Walmart, where can they go?
Speaker A:Yeah, so definitely.
Speaker A:So you can just search us up the ugly co dot com.
Speaker A:We have a little map on there that shows the different stores that we're in.
Speaker A:And then if you're not certain you can always, there's a support button on there so Support the ugly co.com you can click that button or email that and one of us will answer that question, that email almost within a day usually.
Speaker A:And we can help you find where you need to go.
Speaker A:But yeah, we got Walmart, CVS Sprouts, Giant Eagle, Gelson's down in SoCal, I mean you name it, we got a lot of different coverage.
Speaker A:But then since like a lot, a lot of your listeners are in hospitality specifically, probably the best place to go be, hey, ask your distributor you're making your products with and say hey, do you have Dudley Company's fruit?
Speaker A:And if not could you get it?
Speaker A:And then we can always, of course if you're interested, hit us up through support.
Speaker A:We can ship you a sample, ship you a couple recipes of just ideas like what we're doing, then you can even take that back to your distributor.
Speaker A:And that would help us too, to continue to kind of grow our footprint little by little.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:And they're also on Instagram at Pack of Ugly, which is like such a great handle.
Speaker B:So I want to thank you, Ben, for joining me early this morning on your end.
Speaker B:I want to thank you also for your service as well as all of our service members in the United States.
Speaker B:We thank you for your time, dedication and to your families.
Speaker B:As always, thank you all for listening.
Speaker B:Be sure to follow all things hospitality bites through hospitalitybytes.com or connect with me on social media.
Speaker B:And please follow my friends at the walk and talk show where this podcast is distributed and enjoy all of their incredible content, including me.
Speaker B:As always, please be kind to yourself and one another.
Speaker B:And thank you again, Ben, for your time.
Speaker B:Really appreciate it.
Speaker A:Thank you, Colleen.
Speaker A:I appreciate it.
Speaker A:And thank you everybody for listening.
Speaker A:It's been a great experience.
Speaker A:It's awesome.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:I.
