#11 - Stephanie & Blake Alexandre @ Alexandre Family Farm

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #11 - Stephanie & Blake Alexandre @ Alexandre Family Farm

Episode Transcript:

Kyle Krull - 0:00:16
Welcome to The ReGen Brands Podcast. This is a place for consumers, operators and investors to learn about the consumer brand supporting regenerative agriculture and how they're changing the world. This is your host, Kyle, joined with my cohost AC. Let's dive in.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:00:32
On this episode we have Stephanie and Blake Alexandre, who are the husband and wife cofounders of Alexandre Family Farm. Alexandre Family Farm is supporting regenerative agriculture to their organic A2 dairy products as the first certified regenerative dairy brand in the world. In this episode, we learn about Stephanie and Blake's deep family roots as dairy farmers, their journey from conventional to regenerative production, and how they've built their own vertically integrated CPG brand from scratch. Stephanie and Blake are a joy to chat with and support. They are truly people fighting the good fight and doing things the right way, and they put so much thought into their business. It is just so evident in this conversation. Kyle and I are thrilled to have these regen pioneers join us. So let's dive in. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The ReGen Brands Podcast. We are so pumped today to have Blake and Stephanie Alexandre with us of the Regen dairy pioneering Alexandre family farm. So welcome Blake and Stephanie. Thanks for joining us.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:01:40
Thanks for having us.

Kyle Krull - 0:01:42
We chatted briefly before the call started. I've been a big consumer of Alexandre family farms for I think about a year and a half now and I I basically just try to drink every product I can find. So really excited to have you 2 on. For those who are unfamiliar with the brand, can you just give us a really general overview of what products you make and where you can generally be found if somebody wants to find out a grocery?

Anthony Corsaro - 0:02:05
Store.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:02:07
We are Alexander family farm and we are known for certified regenerative. A2A2 organic milk, we also have yogurts and we're known for a high 6% butter, fat milk and most of our products are found on the West Coast, but we also nationally have carton product that's a 4% whole milk and 2% as well as some yogurts nationwide.

Kyle Krull - 0:02:32
Nice. And when you say West Coast, is that primarily like natural channel like natural grocers, Whole Foods or what types of retailers are you in right now?

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:02:40
Yes, Whole Foods, natural grocers, like you just said, they've been great partners, any independent organic, natural food stores, coops and of course customers can ask for our products in there by the dairy buyer.

Blake Alexandre - 0:02:52
Yeah. So, so we launched five years ago on the West Coast, 33 states here in the West and we're primarily kind of saturated in that market on the high end natural food stores and then the the the longer shelf life products are now reaching across the country and Whole Foods and other. Retailers.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:03:11
And y'all are doing eggs now too, right?

Blake Alexandre - 0:03:14
Yeah, the eggs have been a big part of who we are for a long time. We actually started with eggs about 1617 years ago and the brand on that called Alexander Kids. And so literally that was a way for us to raise our kids and give them a project. We've got five kids and. When when the oldest two were about 11-12, thirteen they they started that egg business with our help really and it's it's grown and and done really well.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:03:44
Love it, love it. Well, you're giving us, you're giving us a little background of the taste into the family's journey and. I've heard you guys kind of talk about it on some other podcasts, and we've talked about it in person. And it's a really compelling story of both your family's, you know, history's in the dairy industry and then just y'all's individual journey kind of through the dairy business and how you've gotten to the production method you've gotten today. So take us through just kind of your origin story and your arc to where where the brand is now.

Blake Alexandre - 0:04:09
Sure. So I I grew up in this region about 100 miles from where we Live Today and and and our oldest son and his wife now live in that that my hometown of Ferndale where my grandfather had started the dairy about 100 years ago and and so really. You know our our kids are down there as fifth generation and and and two weeks ago they had their 6th generation started. So that, that's right.

Kyle Krull - 0:04:37
Incredible and.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:04:38
Congratulations.

Blake Alexandre - 0:04:40
Thank you. Yeah, it's, it's really cool. And so that's my roots right here in Northern California on the coast grazing milk cows literally for 100 years whether we were conventional or or organic here for the last 20 some. Stephanie is from Southern California and we met at college. Couple of days ago.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:04:59
Yeah, just nice. I did grow up on a dairy farm in Southern California and grew up knowing I loved cows. I loved milk and loved the dairy industry and prayed. I married dairy farmer and got my guy.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:05:16
Manifest.

Kyle Krull - 0:05:17
I love that. What were you studied? Were you able to meet? Was it like in a classroom? Was it like some extra extracurricular events? What did that look like?

Blake Alexandre - 0:05:26
Extracurricular, Stephanie was on the volleyball team and she drove a really fancy car and then and I was a couple years older and he was tall and good looking and so us dairy guys would would go to the volleyball games. We heard there was a girl from from the dairy industry on the volleyball team and so that's that's how it all started.

Kyle Krull - 0:05:46
There.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:05:48
Love that you were the cream of the crop from from the start.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:05:53
Yeah, well, Blake drove a car that said love cows on the license plate, so that was a great deal for me.

Kyle Krull - 0:06:01
Wow, love that.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:06:04
So you guys, you guys leave college and then what happens?

Blake Alexandre - 0:06:08
So actually I left college two years ahead of Stephanie, went home, worked on the farm in Ferndale with my parents. And at that point, it's a rented facility. It's not my grandfather's dairy at this point. It, it was my parents, the dairy I grew up on that they had leased for about 38 years. And and so I was working there and helping out and you know communicating long distance with Stephanie for another 2 1/2 years before we got married and and then lived in Ferndale again working for my parents for about six months and then then we migrate. Traded down to Southern California and and rented a dairy facility and started a partnership with her parents for them. It was a secondary on about a 500 Cal dairy in Southern California and Chino Town.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:06:58
But I'll ask also add when I was finishing up my senior project in college, Blake helped me and we did it on raising heifers in Ferndale and looked into Stan Parsons which was a partner with Alan Savory. So we were already doing the. On grass based stuff, the growth of grass throughout the year, the percentage each month rotational grazing or I think it was management intensive grazing back then rotational and so anyway we we already started on that conquest to learn about how to do it better and working with grass so that was.

Kyle Krull - 0:07:33
In 19 interest about making that shift. Yeah, I'm curious to know that that seems way ahead of the curve at least for today's. It's still becoming popular, still so much runway. Why did you want to go that route?

Blake Alexandre - 0:07:46
Yeah, I'm going to Fast forward a few years there and and I think answer that question with the context of actually living in Southern California as we moved down there and became a dairyman in that area or region. It was really enlightening for me because I always felt that we went from 2 extremes. 1 Extreme is is Ferndale where I grew up, small farms grazing. You know just not real intense and and of course cows are out on their own sink or swim and then we moved to Southern California where it's confinement farming and and we're literally on 40 acres with 500 cows and you've got all the tools to. Yeah. And and that wasn't all that intense. I mean other farms were much larger, not, not acres wise, but where we had all the tools to feed the cows and group them by production and and really encourage it and stimulate high production. And so when I got down there, I was like, wow, these guys have all the capabilities of getting a lot of milk. Out of their cows. And then I realized that the 300 farms down there compared to the 100 farms back home, we were getting more milk back home we were had healthier cows and more butter fat per cow per year and it it really shocked me and so I kind of.

Blake Alexandre - 0:08:51
I I guess learned you know the the beauty of what they were doing was you know the efficiency of kind of the numbers and and feeding and and buying cheaper feed and and and targeting it to the lower end cows and and just learning how to target the high end cows and really take care of them. So that was very beneficial for us and and having that contrast was was just a a super great learning tool so. Four years later when we bought the ranch up north here and and moved home, in a sense we were able to kind of combine both worlds and and put the you know the the efficiency skills that we have in there into a grazing setting where where cows tend to live longer perform better. You know we've we've come full circle now with organic production we we don't have the tools in the feed barn that we used to and so we are very content with a lot less milk per cow.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:10:10
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting, right. And I think that we, we need to see more of that for regen to scale, right. It's like the efficiencies and the scale, but also like the return to doing things the right way and organic and all those things. So it's really interesting to hear you speak to.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:10:26
That so four years after we lived in Southern California, my hometown, we bought our ranch up here where we are today, Crescent City. And really when we bought it, we were leaving our both our dairy communities. We were going to another community that wasn't a dairy community. And and I would say our parents weren't super supportive because we were young, four years old, you know, in their little kids, A2 year old and one year old and very and but it was just a feeling that we were called to be here and you see this ranch, it was beautiful. Riparian zones and and creeks basically. And a lot of grass, a lot of pasture and where land doesn't come for sale in Blake's hometown. This was an opportunity for us to get on our own and have our own farm that we could own. And at that same time, environmentalists were a real thing. Very active and tree huggers and and stuff like that felt like Oh my gosh, we could be the environmentalists. Look what we have to take care of. We could be caretakers of this land and I think.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:11:04
Kind of got into that spirit of wanting to better it.

Blake Alexandre - 0:11:39
Yeah, absolutely.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:11:40
That that that region is, is really great for grazing cows and I don't know if a lot of our listeners really know why. So can you guys explain kind of what that bio region is like in Crescent City and why it's so great for raising, you know, dairy cows on grass?

Blake Alexandre - 0:11:55
Sure. Yeah. So we're, you know. Coastal plains, if you will, where the rivers are coming out to the ocean and we're we're literally about a mile from the ocean. We're only about 10 miles out of Oregon farm, and so we're extreme Northern California and the temperatures are really cool. So I think the most extreme statistic to to get through people's head is that our average summer temperature and our average winter temperature are only 11 degrees apart, and that's 11. 11 degrees Fahrenheit. And so we're basically in the low 50s in the winter and the high 50s in the summer. You know, California's in the heat wave. Yeah, California's heat wave. This week, I talked to a friend of mine in the valley and it was 112 yesterday, 114 the day before. And we're sitting up here with, you know, 65 to 75 on these really hot days.

Blake Alexandre - 0:12:25
Wow. Well it's just literally comfortable for cool season grasses and cows and people. And it's a it's a wonderful environment, much like a New Zealand or Ireland type setting.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:12:59
And then also we get the rainfall in the winter time. We have housing for the cows for winter to protect the land. And so we can get anywhere from 6080 to 120 inches. And so we're a little bit isolated when they talk about the western drought. We do have water available to us.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:13:18
That's great. And when you guys came back, you started your own, you started your own deal. What was the arc from conventional, organic, regenerative. I mean, what was that whole transition like? Why did you make those decisions and how is that played out over the years?

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:13:33
I I would say that what first happened was we befriended a soil agronomist and John Schneider and he taught us about soil organic matter and what we could. The soil, so that was even before we went organic. So we were starting to pay attention to soil organic matter. And then Clover Stern at a dairy brand in California wanted to go organic and they were recording, recruiting organic milk. And so we really went organic as a business decision. Then it was like, well, how do you do things organically? How, how do we figure that all out? So Blake and I learned about Acres USA in the Midwest and that was really cool because.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:13:43
The keynote speakers were doctors making a difference in people's lives and teaching them to go to the farm instead of the pharmacy. And so I became this nutrient dense foodie mom. We had five little kids at the time and I was worried about calves and then Blake who's outstanding cow man and always loved cows. He he really got into soil biology and and pasture grasses and was learning about New Zealand style grazing through our friend John Schneider who was the agronomist and. And really, he loved Gary Zimmer's book the biological farmer and learned so much early on. So we just, it just was a paradigm shift for us and a focus rather than it being a business decision. It became almost like a purpose. It gave us a purposeful journey on how to do things better, making better food out in the nation.

Blake Alexandre - 0:15:01
I I would call out that, you know, the fact that John had led us down this organic matter path was just really absolutely ideal because. That's the core of, I think organics and the core of regenerative certainly is if you can build organic matter soil and just literally focus on that, pay attention to that with a compost program and and a fertilizer program that doesn't do harm. That just benefits and works in harmony with nature. When you're doing that and building organic matter and and we were doing it because we wanted to irrigate less. You know, we wanted the humus and the humans and then build up. To hold more moisture and and and you know lower our cost of production. And then you know what you see is that you know not only do you lower your cost of production but you increase yields and and you have more sustainable yields. Your fields are greener longer for for for you know much darker green relative to the neighbors who are using commercial fertilizers who get a Big Bang and then a yellow effect two months later.

Kyle Krull - 0:16:04
I think that's one of the themes that we keep hearing when we interview and talk to brands like this is like that longterm play, right? It's not looking for the quick fix, it's like you're, they're looking for the longterm, you know, health of your business and for the health of your land. And I'm curious so at this stage in the game you're starting to transition to produce organic products for a different brand or at this stage do you already have your brand active?

Blake Alexandre - 0:16:28
No, we were. Literally content being a normal dairy farmer where you sell truckloads of milk to some. And that's the business model that we all had in mind or in our heads since occasionally it was through a Co-op or something. But in this case, Clover Sornata, which is 300 miles South of here, was looking for milk. And so we're like, OK, we'll make truckloads of milk every other day and we'll sell one to Clover sornata and then we sold one to Tillamook cheese, who was looking there? They owned band and cheese at the time and they were wanting an organic option and and so we we literally alternated truckloads for for that first year and you know so we were totally pioneering this organic industry out here on the West Coast and then. About two years into that we, we took the whole production model and and handed it back to our our hometown coop in Ferndale which my family had always been part of literally for the last 100 years. And and that was humble Creamery and so then then humble Creamery used our melt to start an organic label and and eventually make ice cream and some other products and it it was going really well and until.

Blake Alexandre - 0:17:19
I would say about 10 years in and they went through a bankruptcy that just devastated the Co-op and it was very unfortunate. I don't think it had anything to do with the fact that they were organic or organic products. It was just the internal fraud that caught everybody off guard, including the banks and the.

Kyle Krull - 0:18:05
Wow, that's a bummer to hear that.

Blake Alexandre - 0:18:08
Yeah.

Kyle Krull - 0:18:09
So I'm curious. So it sounds like that was a major event. And was that sort of the catalyst into creating your own brand or was there a different event that triggered that action?

Blake Alexandre - 0:18:20
Yeah, great connection, Kyle. That's exactly why I brought it up.

Kyle Krull - 0:18:26
Okay, I think and.

Blake Alexandre - 0:18:27
It's not talking because it hurts so much. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:18:30
Yeah. No, I mean, yeah.

Blake Alexandre - 0:18:32
Yeah, so we went through hell there really, really badly and it took years to kind of catch our breath financially. And you know, one of the, the things that brought us out was Organic Valley eventually started buying milk out here in this region and that that was very helpful. That was three years later and then we had a few good years after that and I'd say two or three years. And then we were at the Expo West Conference in in LA and Stephanie was kind of pulled aside by a couple of Whole Foods folks who said, hey, we think you guys should start a brand and in fact we would love to help. And so that became the, you know, that conversation as we drove home from that 14 hour trip, we, we, we we talked about it and we we, we were under the impression, I don't know, we got a good thing going. You know, we had a failure with the coop, let's just ride this thing out. And then we realized, you know, that hey, our kids aren't going to grab this ball and run with it. We're not that old yet. Let's just, let's just.

Blake Alexandre - 0:19:10
We we came home and talked to the kids about this brand concept and and you know we didn't see any major pushback because we were really telling them what we wanted to do and you know they were going to come along for the ride you know willing or not. And they were all in and it was wonderful and so they were helpful. So that was about 6-7 years ago and we literally launched five years ago, September 17th up in. Where? Spokane? No, not Seattle, WA.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:20:11
With Whole Foods and connections there and then and part of it was prior to us deciding to do our own brand, we had already gone to our creameries that we sell to locally and really pushing the A2 story and A2 the milk and dairy is real and and we read the science, we read the book The Devil's in the milk by Dr. Keith Whitford out of New Zealand. Our two daughters had gone to Lincoln University in New Zealand and and got to know their program and saw New Zealand studies and where a 2 Milk Corp had started and so we were following that. We actually went to A2 milk cork to see if they would do an organic option and and they weren't interested. And so then us wanting to do the brand was really a passion to get the better milk out in the marketplace. And then as we started hearing from customers that tried our milk and stuff, especially kids with autism that really can't do dairy, they can do A2 and we really were excited about what we were seeing when we first launched.

Blake Alexandre - 0:21:17
Yeah, one of the the big motivators that I think y'all would just love to understand is we were asked because of our egg brand to speak at a. Food it. So in integrated technology at Stanford University, our son Christian was going to go because he was kind of our chicken guru who had studied in college. And so he was busy like with a Napa conference or someplace. And so this was about 7-8 years ago I drove down. It was 500 miles and and I'm thinking I I've got to you know talk to this crowd at Stanford. Of course I'm just a farmer from, you know nowhere and and and they the subject was why $10 eggs. And so I drove all the way down there. This question you know why is this this little brand able to sell their eggs for $10 a dozen. You know this is 7-8 years ago.

Blake Alexandre - 0:21:47
And so I got there and then basically I'm on a panel and given the talk and and I said the room consumers have the right to spend more to get extra or to spend extra to get more or you want to look at it. And and so we have always tried to embrace you know nutrition first which starts in the soil and and and literally make the best quality products available for consumers that want the best that want to spend more. Because they, they believe, you know that that it's good for them or good for their kids. And so that's that's where we, we, we kind of always had that mindset. And so as Stephanie's talking about this A2 knowledge that we learned about and it's like we can't get a organic company or the A2 company to launch an A2 organic version. It's like well shoot, let's just ourselves you know, eventually that's what we.

Blake Alexandre - 0:22:42
We fought it for a few years, but then, yeah, that's really where we got we we we wanted to have the sustainability coming to our our family farm of a a coop or a buyer of milk that wouldn't go broke, that wouldn't go away. That you know would just be there and so for us this was a sustainability move financially to to add you know longevity to our farm and. I think ultimately give us a real purpose to, you know, to spend the extra time, effort and money on the soil and with our cattle and products so that you know, we we could provide that service of paying more to get extra to all consumers that we could possibly reach.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:23:59
Yeah, and then as our friends Foods said, we checked many boxes they had been to our farm.

Kyle Krull - 0:24:06
Several.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:24:07
Program and because dairy people would send them to our farm of what we were doing we were representative for other for these milk brands we were selling to and with the right here the riparian zones the creeks the the waterways that are just beautiful now that we've really concentrated on. And and the bald eagle nest on the corner of our ranch or the Roosevelt elk or being a part of an endangered species recovery program all that stuff. Different boxes and many people have left dairy over the years, whether they couldn't digest it where they didn't like the social aspect or the animal humane or whatever their reasons. We had so many reasons to bring people back to dairy and that's what gave these Whole Foods buyers confidence to come help us and then come work for us to launch our brand.

Blake Alexandre - 0:24:53
Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:24:53
Love it, it's.

Kyle Krull - 0:24:54
So incredible. Orient, you go ahead.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:24:56
So two follow up questions to that. One for the for the uneducated person, Stephanie, can you explain exactly what a 2 dairy is and what that means right if I've never heard of a 2 dairy, explain that for me. And then two, I would love to see y'all do like a three phase contrast between conventional dairy, organic dairy like because most is still probably kfo dairy, right? And then region organic and then. Really. What? Why you guys are so different? For all those reasons you just said Stephanie. So long long, long two questions, but would love to have you speak to.

Blake Alexandre - 0:25:28
Both of those things.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:25:29
Sure. I'll talk about the A2 first. A two is the beta casing in in milk, the protein. Historically all milk was a 2. Mammal milk is A2, breast milk is A2. If you could have breast milk when you are being raised, you could drink our milk. We.

Blake Alexandre - 0:25:45
And you weren't lactose intolerant.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:25:47
Exactly. When. And so people go right from dairy thinking they're lactose intolerant. However, when they drink ours, they can they can digest it and not have a problem. So really they're sensitive to the protein, not the lactose. What happens is when people drink regular dairy, you've got this amino acid chain that's 209 links long, and there's a portion of it where they call it the beta casein morphine 7, seven links that don't break apart. There's a histidine where there should be a proline, so you drink the milk. The first thing you notice in other people's milk, other dairies is that it's kind of Fleming in your mouth and we think that's your body trying to expel that foreign protein right away. Then when you drink our milk, it's more refreshing. You go in to digest it. Your body doesn't digest that protein because it's not natural, and therefore the lactose in your body ferments, and that's where you get the lactose intolerance symptoms. Then now you have this foreign protein that grows into your system and the doctors, you go to the doctor because you're dealing with autoimmune disease and they say we'll get off dairy, get off gluten, gluten's a protein as well and so they do much better and but they want milk again. So they drink our milk and their their autoimmune disease disappears or they just don't have it. They don't have a problem. So it's it's.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:26:41
Just really important that if you're drinking dairy, if you're feeding your your children even infant formula, that it's from A to dairy. The digestible occurring and that mutation they believe happened 1000 years ago. You know we want to blame it on modern milk but it's not modern milk. It might be the straw that's breaking the camel's back in a sense of all the other processed foods that are out there then therefore your system. Sensitive to the A2, whereas when we were we never heard of lactose intolerant from anybody. Everybody drank milk. But there's so many stressors in our food system today that you really have to be careful what you're eating and drinking. And so now we can be an anti stressor with the dairy that we provide with the H organic milk.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:27:47
You literally just said my story. I had an autoimmune disease. I was off dairy for a while and now I drink your milk and I consume Alex ice cream, which has your milk in it. Daily, quickly with no with no problem. It's awesome.

Blake Alexandre - 0:28:03
Yeah, yeah, we hear that all the time Anthony and it's, you know, it's obviously real. I, I would say that you know 90% of the folks that think they're lactose intolerant are probably having issues with the protein and dairy and a two is a solution for them. And so we want to certainly encourage them to, to give it a try.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:28:22
Is it a different cow? Like how do you screen, how do you screen for A2? Like how do you manage that as a yeah?

Blake Alexandre - 0:28:29
It's a it's, it's really rather simple. We we pull a DNA sample, so it was a hair follicle out of the big hair and their tail and we put it in an envelope and we send it to New Zealand back in the, you know, ten years ago that's how we were doing it or so and I guess probably 13 years ago. New Zealand had the only lab there at Lincoln University or wherever it was that would could differentiate between you know telling us whether the cows had the mutated gene which is the A1 or or they were you know natural A2 and and it's as simple as they got you know a gene from each of their parents and and so when we started labeling our milk. We were under some restrictions and patents that we couldn't break. So we we called it a 2A2 dairy and a 2A2 means that they got one from each parent and it just makes it simpler when when the lab results come back that you know Cal #306 is a 2A2. So that's that, that's where all that comes from it, it's that simple and it makes it a little easier to tell the story. And and now we we have a couple labs here in the United States, but we're still spending 20 to $25 a cow or per animal to do that testing and you have tested a lot of cattle in the last 13 years.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:29:50
I would imagine.

Kyle Krull - 0:29:51
Yeah, I believe it. I want to share my, my dairy story real quick because I left dairy for entirely different reasons. I was worried about the environmental impacts of raising cattle in general. And this is just my own, you know, arc of. Learning about food systems and assumed that all dairy, including organic was like a capo type system and was detrimental to the environment. So I stopped consuming dairy for I think two or three years and then started to learn more about regenerative agriculture. And then I found, you know, I was into farmers being a regenerative dairy and I was like, Oh my gosh, I can drink milk and know that not only am I not doing harm, but I'm doing something good for the environment and that's what brought me back to dairy and. I I will say like I've never really had like the A1 intolerance that doesn't affect me at all, but I feel fantastic when I drink Alexander Farms. So you know a little bit of a different, you know, reason for coming back to Alexander Farms. But I think it's super relevant today because a lot of consumers are really conscious about trying to reduce their impact. And with dairy and all animal based products right now there's this huge paradigm shift of like people are trying to push. Plant based is good no matter what and I think it's great when brands like you.

Kyle Krull - 0:30:31
Exist and tell the story of like no, no, we can do dairy in a positive way and steward this land and make a really positive impact. So just kudos to you guys for for taking that charge forward in the dairy industry.

Blake Alexandre - 0:31:09
Yeah, thanks Kyle. That that's I think a perfect segue into the the answer of Anthony's second question. Good to go. You know how did we get from conventional to organic to regenerative and. You know, we, we literally started out at university learning about high yield production agriculture like everybody else in the United States back in the 80s. And you know, I'd say here in the US we were really good at you know, making cheap food which is what people wanted. They wanted cheap fast food and and and you know agriculture responded to that. Farmers responded in in a big way and you know, through the use of you know. Chemicals and and and pesticides and fertilizers and so you know kind of no regard to the soil. The soil was just the the substance that held them and we we talked about nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and we supplemented and then then we started supplementing with a little of the micros and and so here we are you know during that time we're we're basically growing grass with a lot less intensity and you know as we looked at the conventional world.

Blake Alexandre - 0:31:50
You know gosh there was a time I read a book called Saving the Planet with pesticides and plastics. I think Dennis Avery wrote that and I saw him at a long saying level you know convention in San Diego and I fell for that a high yield production air culture that's going to feed the world and and and so I I literally read his book. You know, wondering is truth or is it, you know, is there a better way or whatever. I would compare that book down to the Bible and and then say God as a perfect plan. God gave us the, the, the, the, you know, the nutrition and the microbiology and the soil. And if we we farm with Mother Nature or God or our creator in mind, you know, that's how we're going to feed the world and so.

Blake Alexandre - 0:32:42
So organic came along. Like Stephanie mentioned, really out of it was more of a financial decision and we're not ashamed to say that we were looking for niche marketing. I remember coming home from a trip up where we had toured some dairy farms in northern Oregon and we're driving home, kids are all asleep and I'm sitting here thinking, wow, we just visited 6 farms and tillamette and three of them wanted to sell us their farm because they heard we were from California. And what a sad state.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:33:41
Yeah.

Blake Alexandre - 0:33:42
Why are these farmers, conventional farmers, shipping to a really good market that get paid a little extra? They'll never go organic because they don't need to. They already have access to a better market. And yet why are they wanting to sell their farm? Well, they've lost their motivation. They've lost something. And and so as I'm driving home and we're talking and thinking. And it's like, what are we going to do to keep our, our farm viable? So these kids are going to grow up, they're going to meet their spouse, they're going to get educated and then they're going to make an adult decision. You know, do they want to return to the farm or do they want to go out in the real world? And we just wanted to give them a, a better option so that that decision to come home was, was an easier, smarter decision, not a sacrifice to come out, you know, help out mom and Dad. And so that was really our motivation I think behind going organic and and chasing that niche market. And then once we got into it, we just literally learned that you know focusing on organic matter which we were already doing makes total sense and now you know Start learning more about the biology through the biological farmer, Gary Zimmer, Gary Zimmer and you know it was just awesome and and and so.

Blake Alexandre - 0:34:30
I think all that has led to being open minded and curious and and wondering. And so you know four or five years ago when we're again at Expo West in in LA our daughter Vanessa was with us and and there were some regen conversations happening and we said you need to go you know learn about that pay attention and and get us involved and. I know I went to one of those with her and a year later she was on the panel for the Rock certification group Regina Organic Alliance. And so we became a pilot farm for two different groups and participated in the process of helping them establish rules and understandings and of course that data on the ground and and so when we were launching our. Our extended shelf life milk and the cartons nationwide with Whole Foods two years ago they said well you guys say you're regenerative. Do you have a certificate or anything that we could you know kind of utilize for money and we're like no we don't but we are. And so we went back to both the the the savory group with EOV and and the the Rock group and said you know we we need a certificate we need something by January and so they are both.

Blake Alexandre - 0:35:51
They both got us something and it's like boom, we were their very first certified farm for both groups. It's not set out, it's because Whole Foods asked for it and we happen to be launching a product that week or that month and and so yeah that that's how that came to be and it was really a cool thing. And so yeah we've we've got that title and no one can take that away and and so now we're trying to honor that and and you know be respectful of the kind of the privilege. And, you know, be advocates for the story.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:36:53
And you know, through our when we're traveling, we're in a car often and we live, we have to drive to places where we go and then we listen to a lot of podcasts and our podcasts are focused on nutrition and and. Listen to other farmers also that are in the same you know field or learning and teaching about regenerative or soil health or what to eat to be healthier and ancestral eating kind of stuff. And and so that's very patient motivating as a farmer to hear that and be doing it and being part of the solution and you mentioned the conventional world and dairy and then organic and then where we are you know we certainly you know just told about that but in the. What my greatest fear about the conventional products that are out there is the exposure to glyphosates and the link the healthcare system with the glyphosates and and all the gluten problems people having in the autoimmune disease. You know, that's one aspect of it. And with the organics we're all pushing for stricter organic rules that cows are out truly raising and eating. Grass and and we're we're gifted in an area where we can almost to an unfair advantage that we can graze so much well then that makes milk so much better and also and that we raised all our animals organically from the start and we're excited that some of the rules have even gotten stricter in the last year with some new regulations. But we we want to keep on the forefront of doing it best for what the consumer can be drinking in a glass of milk.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:38:05
Or eating in an egg or yogurt or any of our products.

Kyle Krull - 0:38:38
I'm curious if you could summarize 3 different topics for the same, like conventional, organic and regenerative dairy operations. So like from a conventional perspective, what are they eating? Where do they spend their time? And actually maybe just those two things, what are they eating? Where do they spend their time? And if you can go by, you know, again, conventional, organic and regenerative, how do those three things differ?

Blake Alexandre - 0:39:02
OK, and you're talking about the cows and what they're eating, right?

Kyle Krull - 0:39:06
Yeah, not the humans, but answer for the humans still.

Blake Alexandre - 0:39:12
Different direction there, but yeah, so conventional dairy farming and you know we have a lot of a lot of friends in that world and.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:39:21
Relatives.

Blake Alexandre - 0:39:22
And relatives and and neighbors, right. And so. They typically you know conventional herds are confined like I was mentioning earlier like our past where we when we run Chino in Southern California and and you know cows live in a corral or now freestyle barns where there's a good shade and and a spot to really a comfortable spot to lay down. And I think the dairy industry has done a wonderful job. Tampering and taking great care of those kind of cattle. You know, it's from the cow's point of view, what are they eating? Typically a lot of corn silage is the bulk alfalfa hay, especially in the West and soybeans and corn. And so soybean is the protein police, corn is the carbohydrate and and then a whole lot of other things that are you know, Microly added and and these guys are getting a lot of milk per cow now like twice as much as we get. So you know I'm not here to say that we're better because they're obviously outperforming us. However, the cows from the cow's point of view they're, they're, they're in high, high gear all the time. It's like a car doing.

Blake Alexandre - 0:40:07
Here, 100 miles an hour. And so when when you know something goes wrong, it's a pretty big crash, right for that individual cow. Then she's done and then she's out in the system.

Kyle Krull - 0:40:48
And where's the cow spending this time? Is it just in that shaded paddock area that you had mentioned, or do they have the ability to walk around? If so, what does that look like?

Blake Alexandre - 0:40:56
Yeah they they they're they're in groups of a few 100 head I don't know and and they live usually in in a in a corral that may have a roof over part of it or the whole thing and then then that would be called a barn or a freestall barn and and you know they can come and go and and freestall is is these little bedded areas where they individually lay down and get up at will and then go eat and there's always feed at the Manger and so they have a fairly pampered life. If you will it's just a lot of concrete and a lot of neighbors in and and and it's a pretty tight space. However we certainly can't say that they're they're being harmed by that because their performance is telling us that they're healthy and happy and and so now let's let's jump into organic and the first thing about organic that we learned 25 years ago was when you got a grace and and then eventually that turned into 30% of their diet. For 120 days I believe and and so yeah we we have to graze well, we want to graze because that was you know that's how we've been doing it here for 100 years and so grazing isn't a sacrifice from my point of view when to trying to grow grass organically and and and and send cows out to get it. We know how to do that and at a pretty good. Pretty good scale or pretty good pace and so so that our counts are eating fresh green grass 300 days a year, roughly twice a day most of that. And that grass is made-up of a lot of rye grass, Italian rye grass from Italy, a lot of New Zealand type grasses and then New Zealand white Clover and red Clover and.

Blake Alexandre - 0:42:19
Plant chicory and and a lot of other things. So those are the primary species but you know there's there's another 40 or 50 species including all the weeds that we grow in our neighborhood that they eat as well and and then through the use of rotational grazing and and. I say simple management, we let that those feeds get about 12 to 18 inches tall and then we send in big cows and don't give them a whole lot of space. So they they eat it all down and and that's kind of competitive eating for a few hours and and they just clean the field up including the weeds as well. And they pee and poop where they're supposed to and and it's just all part of the natural cycle. And then they really don't return to that space for another 40 or 50 days. You know, depending on the season it'll even get shorter and it's just a lot of fun. That's that's what we do. We manage our land that. And so if you were to look at our fields there, you know they're broke up into these five to 10 acre paddocks with a watering through or two out out in the field and we can three through.

Blake Alexandre - 0:43:23
Using polywire, we can give the cows three or four or five feedings in that one field and it's, you know, it's basically fresh grass every 12 hours. Then the cows return to the barn every 12 hours because they've got a report to work and they bring a bunch of milk and we will sometimes supplement and fetal some grain or grain and hay and silage, which is grass haylage on the Manger. When the pastures are kind of petering out this time of year, we're getting close to fall, the days are shorter, the grass isn't growing at the same pace. So we kind of have to spread that out and supplement it more. You know our farms now are 100% grass fed where we're we're, we're moving towards no grain at all and that's our green label products and we really like that model we've we've got the right genetics now to. To do that efficiently. So we've got great cows that can graze and and literally take great care of themselves and stay healthy and get pregnant when they're supposed to and and stay in the herd for a long time and give us enough milk to to make the whole thing make sense financially.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:45:04
And I love like that Blake, in the genetics. Because in searching for the right genetics for our type of daring, we went out of the. Out of our country and New Zealand and then more recently Germany. And we're getting these genetics that are a little bit more oldfashioned and they are higher percent butter fat, higher percent protein. And so you can use the difference not only because the cows are mainly eating grass, but also because of these genetics, the way milk really used to taste. I love it when I give a sample of milk and somebody's older from a foreign country and they'll tell me, wow, that's the milk I grew up on and you Yugoslavia farm and. And just those stories and and we know our milk tastes amazing and there's many facets to it, but I think a lot of it is our our composite breeding that we've done and focused on grass based genetics.

Blake Alexandre - 0:45:54
Yeah, I I would say it like this as well. Not only does our our dairy look different than a confinement farm because our cows are out grazing, but our cows look extremely different than the cows that live at the conventional dairies. We literally breeding cows that look a lot different. They have white faces, they come in multiple. Colors, the breed that we really love is called Fleck V from Germany and they're actually bred dual purpose for meat and milk at the same time and so that's why they're able to take great care of themselves on these high forage diets.

Kyle Krull - 0:46:31
Wow, that's incredible. I just, I want to summarize real quick. So, and correct me if I'm wrong, in conventional dairy there are. Animals that are in call it high density areas, unable to graze, they produce a lot of milk. They're very high production animals, but they don't necessarily feel like naturally express themselves and do what cows do grazing. Is that correct?

Blake Alexandre - 0:46:52
Yes, that's correct. All the feed is brought to them.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:46:55
And I is a lot of feed might be GMO products. They might be sprayed with things they are exposed to, like things that I don't want to be a part of.

Kyle Krull - 0:47:06
Totally, totally. So that's conventional, organic. There is, I think you said 30% of the diet has to be grazed over the course of 120 days. Is that correct?

Blake Alexandre - 0:47:15
Yes.

Kyle Krull - 0:47:16
So, so there's a little bit of grazing, but they're also still fed, organic, certified, no glyphosate, hopefully fee and not not quite as much after time.

Blake Alexandre - 0:47:27
Right. And so, so and and every feed stuff that we feed them whether it might be corn and soybean or or hay has to be grown on our certified organic ground or or bought from the certified organic you know producer.

Kyle Krull - 0:47:42
And got it.

Blake Alexandre - 0:47:43
And let me also be clear. So that was the minimum for for grass, you know, we're achieving about 50% of our our cow's diet for 365 days on grass, so. We're we're blowing the minimum out by four times I'd say at least and and that's because we lean on grass. So we have a a little pasture promise to our consumers that we're going to lean on grass as hard as we can and we do that and you know we're just trying to get better and better at growing healthier more vigorous grasses and pastures and and then of course. Don't tear them up when it's raining 5 inches in one day. So yeah, yeah, be careful, right?

Kyle Krull - 0:48:28
Yeah, I feel like it's a good loading story there, like it's happened before.

Blake Alexandre - 0:48:34
Yeah, it happens. It happens everywhere somewhere. And it's just a simple. Yeah, it's an extra 3 hours that they they stayed in the field and we should have pulled them out earlier.

Kyle Krull - 0:48:45
Right. OK. Well, I really appreciate the the kind of summary of, you know this, these are the differences between these three different types of dairy. We've done a deep dive into regenerative practices and sort of like how you guys do what you do. I'm curious from like a commercial and like a sales traction. You mentioned you launched the brand five years ago. What did selling regenerative A to dairy look like five years ago and how does it look today? And what do you see like the the future of that sort of subset within dairy? What do you think that's going to look like? Yeah.

Blake Alexandre - 0:49:14
I I would say, well, three or five years ago it didn't exist. There was number options, right, really. I mean maybe a couple small farms in Pennsylvania or something. We're selling milk to their neighbors. That was a two. I don't know that for sure, but I'm guessing that that was a possibility. But there was no brand out there there and no organic brand at all. And so, you know, we just, we just jumped in and you know decided to be the first. And so we spent the first three years telling our consumers what a two men and what a 2A2 men.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:49:51
And still do, yeah.

Blake Alexandre - 0:49:52
And and just educating folks both buyers, retailers and consumers and we didn't have a budget to do it. So we spent a lot of family time doing demos and stores and just one on ones. And and getting people to taste it. And then I'd say our products meets for itself. All you have to do is, is taste our eggs or taste our milk and you're only going to be hooked. And so we don't need to tell you the best. That it's the best. The way we communicate that is the price tells you it's the best. And so some people want want the best they try it and and I think most return. In the last two years it's been easier to tell our story but the story always starts with regenerative first. So some for some reason this, this, this, this word that came along to describe.

Blake Alexandre - 0:50:19
You know the system, I'd say God's system and and managing and and managing the earth or managing soil and sequestering carbon and doing the right thing at every turn. Is it's just an easier story to tell you know retailers, brands, everybody jumped on that bandwagon. We hope that they're you know serious about it and and we're certainly doing our part to tell the story and consumers seem to relate to it and you know there is you know a lot of chatter about it and and some you know interpretations that I I think. Need to be flushed out still. And so we try to say certified regenerative whenever we can because we are and there's at some point there's going to be a huge difference between the certified group and the and the rest of the field.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:51:40
Absolutely. And we need pioneers like y'all that have set the bar so high to really establish that baseline of accountability. And so I mean. I don't think the average consumer will ever understand how much work and effort and just I mean fortitude it took for you guys to basically create the brand, create the first regenerative organic A2 products, go tell that story, you know, beat that drum and try to run a profitable business all while doing all that. And so you know as. Has someone that has like made a career now of supporting regenerative agriculture? I can't thank you guys enough because it lays the foundation for people like us that can hopefully help you in some way or help tell the story or whatever that may be.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:52:23
Well, we appreciate it. Profitability is key, yeah. So I mean it's.

Kyle Krull - 0:52:29
Kind of important.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:52:30
We want to stay in business.

Blake Alexandre - 0:52:32
Yeah, thanks. And then it is crazy hard. It's hard to pay the bills today. And so we're still fighting through the the startup phase of everything we do because we just keep doing new stuff all the time. And you know most of that's my fault for being too aggressive. We're just trying to do the right thing here and.

Kyle Krull - 0:52:55
It's important to acknowledge that you know you've got a super premium product. You mentioned the price is high. But it's not because you're trying to like line your pockets and make a ton of money. You're just trying to maintain a level of like probably razor thin margins in some level of profitability and really all of that premium that people are paying is going into your operation. And I think it's really important to call that out because you know whenever there's a brand, a new brand coming up, premium price, I'll look at it and I've worked in natural foods for 10 years. And I'll say, OK, is this truly a premium product? Is there something premium about their supply chain or the way this food is being grown that demands this premium price? Or is this just like really slick branding and they're trying to make some money? So I think it's really important to acknowledge, like you said, you're just trying to maintain a profitable business.

Blake Alexandre - 0:53:43
Yeah, thanks. Yeah and and and that is absolutely the truth and and you know we're just right on the edge of profit and and you know right now we got to get the farm healthier so that you know we can keep keep moving forward with the whole project and it does feel good.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:54:00
Now we we truly bet the farm. We used our equity in our farm or land. To launch the brand and and so we we're we're walking a thin rope but it's exciting to see the growth in the brand and and get the EBITDA positive we see and and the the yeah the sales that that hockey putt is real we sales are increasing but now we need to get the farm healthy and and talk about you know how to do that.

Kyle Krull - 0:54:26
I mean, this is the almost cliche phrase in the book is you bet the farm.

Blake Alexandre - 0:54:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:54:32
And you, you took us right to that something we want to cover and you guys don't think of us exact details. But I'm curious to educate the audience on, you know when you have a farming operation and then you have a brand and you have other entities, there's probably a mixture of debt, equity grants, loans, you know there's all kinds of financial mechanisms kind of going on there. So just help help the help the audience understand how much risk you're taking on and like maybe just like what that looks like high level from a financial perspective.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:55:00
Yes, so and. We, we have the dairy farm and the dairy farm produces milk and then we have an egg farm that produces eggs. We sold those products to a brand to sell and that brand was starting up and therefore the brand didn't pay back the farms for goods. So we kept throwing, you know, sending milk to a buyer that didn't pay us but for the sake of the brand. And we also did some real estate appraisals and new loans on equity and land and put that into the brand too. So it's definitely. Has the farm suffering and and lenders you know our land lenders and and cow lenders nervous but it's exciting to see the the brand and now say how we have this brand that's doing so well but this dairy and egg business needs to get paid to bring it back you know and that's the kind of the global look of what we're dealing with would you say it?

Blake Alexandre - 0:55:53
Differently, I I would just add that, you know, we are large, we've got thousands of cows on five farms and a lot of. A lot of land 9000 acres we own most of it and and so it's very capital intensive and and a lot of dollars involved. When Stephanie says that you know the brand didn't pay us for milk you know that that's you know five $7 million worth of product that we haven't been paid for a big stress on the on the farm and then so the number large and. I think that it's also important to say that, you know, because of our stubbornness or our intelligence or.

Kyle Krull - 0:56:33
A little bit of both.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:56:35
Yeah.

Blake Alexandre - 0:56:36
We didn't want to bring in venture capital and we didn't want Equity Partners on the brand and we're not building a brand so we can sell it. We're not building a brand to build our egos. We simply are doing a brand as a necessary component to sell our milk off the farm. That the farm that makes A to regenerative organic milk like nobody else. And so it's literally I believe the best milk in the country that you can find on the shelf that's that's we couldn't get another group to do it, to bring it to market. We did it ourselves and we're trying to make that work.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:57:12
Also, we live in one of the poorest counties in California, if not the poorest still. And it was like that moved here 30 years ago. And when I said in the beginning of our talk we were called to be here. We're all about rural revival, we're about our community. We had 190 kids adopt A calf for our little bucket calf program. We do every summer and we've done.

Blake Alexandre - 0:57:32
For 24.

Stephanie Alexandre - 0:57:33
Hours we educate the public where food comes from. I hope that we can do so well for our brand that we could sell our milk locally cheaper. We maybe don't sell cheaper, but all of the milk that's close to sell by date comes back and goes to our local food bank. So our milk is in the food, the mouths of people who really need it in our rural community that suffers with with economic issues in our Community. And so we were part of that charge. We love hearing Will Harris talk about his rural revival and we're right there with him. Knowing that, that's so purposeful for a rural community to have those key businesses that really want to give back in the Community and that's so important to us and in all rural communities that are kind of dwindling.

Anthony Corsaro - 0:58:22
Absolutely incredible. Yeah, I love that. So you're you're taking us there to our kind of closing topic, which is basically. You know, Kyle and I wanted to start this podcast for lots of reasons. But one of those reasons is we're all trying to figure out how do we scale this thing, right? How does regenerative agriculture get more market share? How does it go mainstream? You know, whatever, whatever kind of word or terminology you want to use. And so the final question that we ask everyone is really how can we get regen brands to have 50% market share by 2050? You know what, what needs to happen to to make that happen? Yeah, I.

Blake Alexandre - 0:58:56
I think. That's that's a that's a very worthy goal and I I've been fortunate to be involved with California Farm Bureau and and had the opportunity to speak at three of the American Farm Bureau conferences at you know groups that you know farmer groups so 757 thousand people attend those things and across the last subject I chose was you know honor soil like you would your your grandchild and. And really what I'm saying there is the soil is part of us, it's part of who we are and and it's it's what we leave for the next generation. So I I think that as farmers become more aware and the reason I bring up the Farm Bureau thing is because there's, there's these conventional farmers in the audience that come up say, wow, I hadn't thought of it like that. I didn't know that, you know? Fertilizers were negative. I didn't know they were hurting my grandchildren. I didn't know that it was, you know, affecting the farm that you know. I didn't know that it was a diminishing return. And so I think that in return of of NPK going into the soil and getting less every year and needing more every year, it's just so incredibly obvious now that farmers can't help but pay attention. And so, yeah, we're leaning in that direction. I think it's really cool that that.

Blake Alexandre - 0:59:53
What I always tell these conventional farmers is, you know, pay attention to some of these retarded principles. You don't have to go organic. I'm not asking you to switch churches and religions all the same time. Some of these religious principles. Then I truly are biblical by the way and you know, paying attention to the regenerative principles and adopting some of those and then maybe getting your hay and your soybeans and your corn grown that direction is absolutely going to benefit the farmer on the other end that's growing them as well as your cattle and your consumers. And so I think it's a natural evolution. We just got to get our.

Blake Alexandre - 1:00:37
Ego set aside and our head straight. And so to me it's it's common sense that that's what we're doing.

Kyle Krull - 1:01:11
I think the theme that struck me most in what you just said is the connectivity between humans and what they're consuming is that soil is a part of us. And that's both literal and figurative, right? Because you know the soil that your cattle is eating. You know, they use that nutrients to create milk that we then consume. And like, you know, if we're drinking high protein milk, that builds our muscles and there's a number of other things in our body that literally become part of who we are. So to think about food in that way instead of just fuel that goes in and out, but it actually like is what composes your body, I think is an educational shift that we can make to try to get people more interested in how their food is being grown and processed. So I just really. That they hit me home like in a really positive way. I want to share that.

Blake Alexandre - 1:01:58
Yeah, I would just add to it, it's about nutrient density. It's not just empty calories and calories going and flowing because they ate at McDonald's. It's about the nutrition truly builds their body in a way where they can think. Better they can think more clearly they need animal bats to to literally feed their brain the vitamin B there or whatever it needs to think more clearly. And so I would really encourage people to to you know to to question their diet and and you know be part of this solution and and you know shift gears.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:02:36
And I. I heard out of there like profitability mentioned a couple of times and when I think about that it's how do we create these systems where it's the most profitable financially. Yes, because we need that for farmer adoption. But also you know ecologically and biologically when we talk about human health like those, those are the three things, triple bottom line or whatever, whatever catch phrase you want to use for them. But it's about how do we, how do we create a more profitable system across those three lanes and that's, that's, that's the answer.

Blake Alexandre - 1:03:02
Yeah, it truly is. I spent 21 years on the land, a regional Land Trust board of directors and we just, we had to define sustainability 20 some years ago. And we ultimately came up with it. It boiled down to it, well, it has to be profitable. If a farm or a ranch or a landmass isn't profitable, it's not sustainable. And you know, we can't just fall apart a national or State Park and pretend that that's, you know, really benefiting society because it's not feeding anybody, right. And so we all have and we have this land and we have the earth and and Mother Earth has been given to. Us to Stuart, and we need to as responsible stewards of that, that it's truly that simple.

Stephanie Alexandre - 1:03:46
Yeah. And also the the on a national scale, our farm bill needs to be tied to our healthcare bill and.

Kyle Krull - 1:03:52
100%.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:03:53
Go yes please yes, dive into this.

Stephanie Alexandre - 1:03:56
This is something before the topic.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:03:58
Please go there.

Kyle Krull - 1:04:00
Have you read food fix by Mark Hyman?

Stephanie Alexandre - 1:04:04
No, I no, no.

Kyle Krull - 1:04:05
OK. Highly, highly recommend that book. He talks a lot about how our government operates in silos and that, you know, food and AG can work against themselves and you know, and I don't want to go down the rabbit hole. Incredible book. And it touches on that exact sentiment very well. Yeah.

Blake Alexandre - 1:04:21
Yeah. Well, thank.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:04:23
Y'all so much. I think that's a perfect way to wrap up. Stephanie share, share with the listeners like website, Instagram, any of that stuff. Just where can they find y'all if they want to learn more and connect with y'all?

Stephanie Alexandre - 1:04:34
And we're Alexander familyfarm.com also. That's our handle for Instagram and Facebook. And then Blake and I are both on LinkedIn as well as you can follow our, our brand, Alexandra Family Farm on LinkedIn as well.

Blake Alexandre - 1:04:50
And Alexander's our re on the end. It's a little backwards there. My dad Portuguese and that's how we did it, yeah.

Kyle Krull - 1:04:59
Perfect. I was just gonna say that same thing. So I'm glad you.

Blake Alexandre - 1:05:02
Mentioned that. Yeah. Thanks.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:05:03
Thank y'all so much. We really appreciate you guys and just appreciate all the work you've done.

Blake Alexandre - 1:05:07
Thank you and thanks. Thanks for the work you guys are doing. We appreciate that and I guess we will be seeing you shortly in a few weeks.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:05:15
Yeah, very soon. OK.

Blake Alexandre - 1:05:18
Thank y'all. Thanks guys.

Anthony Corsaro - 1:05:25
For show notes and more information on our guests and what we discussed on the show, check out our website regen-brands.com that is regen-brands.com. You can also check out our YouTube channel, Regen Brands Podcast for all of our episodes with both video and audio. The best way to support our work is to give us a 5 star rating on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe to future episodes. Thanks so much for tuning into the Regen Brands Podcast brought to you by the Regen Coalition and Outlaw Ventures. We hope you learned something new in this episode and it empowers you to use your voice, your time, and your dollars to help us build a better and more legitimate food system. Love you, guys.