Malk Organics - The Simple Ingredient Strategy That Built Consumer Trust

Ramon Vela (00:02.26)
Welcome back everyone. I can't wait to talk about this brand. This is a product that I use and so was really excited to actually try this product. And when I say I use, I use this type of product, but I've actually never tried this one until I got some samples. I'm going to tell you a little bit about my experience as well. But in the meantime, please welcome Jason Bronstadt, who is CEO of Malk Organics. Welcome to the show.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (00:46.37)
Ramon, it's an honor to be here with you to have a great conversation. I appreciate the way you lean into these conversations. I've had a chance to listen to quite a few of them and really excited to be a part of this community.

Ramon Vela (00:58.762)
Great, thank you so much and I appreciate you making time for us. I'm excited, like I said, because this is a product, a type of product that I use and I had never used it until you guys sent me samples before. But I'm gonna save my experience in a second, but just to tease the audience, I really did have quite an experience. So I'm gonna share that a little bit later. In the meantime, let's start off with my signature question, which for everyone out there who's the first time listening.

I like to ask this gratitude question, which to me is a couple of, there's a couple of reasons. One is it's a great way to start a discussion around someone's journey or the brand's journey, because there's so many times where we can be grateful and things happen and people help us and et cetera. But also as a listener, I want you to know that there's real people who work behind these companies that we feature here on the show.

I know it's easy to see a product online or see it on a retail shelf and just think that there's a, you know, it's a faceless corporation, but I want you to know there's real people who care deeply about their community, about their products, about the people they serve. And, uh, and one way of getting to know someone is by understanding what they're grateful for. So, uh, Jason, if you don't mind, can you share a moment or a memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (02:21.262)
I'm already getting emotional just thinking about this gratitude. It's my wife hands down, no question. And the specific time that it really showed up in a way that I wasn't either expecting or ready for was as I was in a career transition timeframe and late 2019, early 2020. And we had taken a trip because we wanted to map out and be able to have a real life conversation about.

What is right for us next and my bride she followed me and we moved and at one point she taught in seven schools in seven years as an educator just moving around for my career and we were at this point and We were out of the country my in-laws bless them were watching my two children and Through some really deep conversation Ramon. She looked at me and she said

I want you to find the right job for you, not the next job for the family. And the way that she hit that helped me to reframe and helped us to align on what was important to our family in the next stage of our journey. At the time my children were eight years old and four years old, I had started a really a very intentional pivot to lead a healthier life.

at that point is about a year into that journey. And I had been in packaged meats, I'd been in beverage alcohol, frozen foods, but it really allowed me to sit there and know that unequivocally my wife supported me to take the right opportunity, not the next opportunity. And that led us to Malk. And it's been a blessing that through her support that this opportunity landed.

Ramon Vela (04:18.888)
Wow. That's a great example. and that's actually the way you described it as really powerful in the sense that, you know, choose the right job for you, not the right one for the family. And, and to be able to, for her to say that is a real sacrifice, you know, for on her part, and knowing, but I think, you know, there's also a knowing that if you find the right job for you,

it will be the right job for the family.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (04:53.342)
Yeah. And she gave me the space to make sure that it was the right job and not the next job. wasn't just, Hey, go get an income. It's go get a job where you're going to show up as your best self knowing. And, know, our, our wives are so intuitive. They're like, if he has a better experience at work, he's got to be a better dad at home, a better husband. So there's layers there, obviously. But for her, you know, we were 15 years into our marriage at that point.

Ramon Vela (05:15.241)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (05:20.318)
And that was like, she laid it on the line. She's like, I'll go back to work. I'll do whatever I need to do. I want you to find the right job that allows you to be you.

Ramon Vela (05:30.558)
Yeah, wow. I love that. And that just underscores whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're an executive, in pretty much any type of leadership role, you have to have the support network around you. Loved ones, spouses, partners.

family members, whoever it is, you need to have these around you because it's, you know, like the old saying is, you know, no, no person's an island. And what you do when you're in these leadership roles just takes a, there's a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety and to have someone by you to support you is just really incredible. I we don't really take that into consideration when we think about the keys of success, but

I think it really should be one of those keys to success is understanding, knowing, and finding that right support person or network around you.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (06:28.374)
It's foundational. It's foundational to have the support system at home and to have a support system outside of your coworkers. And I was blessed not 90 days after she gave me that feedback to find a group of men that I joined called Front Row Dads, that I've had the opportunity to have an ongoing support system with other, the tagline is family men with businesses, not business men with families.

So to have my wife's support and then to be able to join an organization of men that want to help you show up as your best father and husband first and support the business growth really helped me to evolve into this job specifically.

Ramon Vela (07:14.632)
Wow. Sounds like an amazing organization. I've never heard of it, but I mean, I just know just from experience and from what I've read, a couple of things there. I mean, there's layers there, like you said earlier. One is, we just, need community. There's something about community that, you know, is from research and from people studying like longevity and everything else. It's a key component of longevity, of a healthy life.

lifespan because that connection is just so precious and having something like that in your life, not only with your, of course your spouse, but having this group with you. think that that means a lot. And I think we all, we all crave that. And I think we crave it not just from a business perspective, but just like a human connection perspective. I see that missing in a lot of like quote unquote purely business groups.

Like it's very transactional, which of course, you you want some of that transaction. You want to know that knowledge and that experience, whatever. But at the same time though, having a group that is not just about business, but also about being the best dad that you can or be the best man that you can and whatever. I think that is, that's pretty, that's pretty powerful stuff when you can combine the business as well as the personal stuff.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (08:35.182)
That's where magic happens. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.

Ramon Vela (08:36.308)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (08:39.754)
Yeah, I love that. And this might be a good place to segue into, you you just mentioned right now about the journey of finding Malk. You obviously, you're the CEO of the company you were brought in to assist. And I believe if I'm not mistaken, you were consulting first and foremost and then became the CEO. And I'm wondering, I think it might be...

It might be instructive for people who are listening right now because, you know, business is crazy and there's lots of challenges in place. What were some of the challenges that you faced from a business perspective that you saw coming in? And then what were the opportunities that you saw and some of the things that insights and lessons learned?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (09:30.988)
Yeah, it's, you know, to walk into a business in the middle of COVID and to do a deep dive analysis on it and to write a business plan to help put it on a trajectory that the brand deserved is the honor of my lifetime professionally.

Our business was founded by a mother that wanted to transition her son from mother's milk to something other than dairy. Started making it at home into farmers markets, into retail. All of this bootstrapped and started to bring on investors, started self manufacturing in a smaller facility in Texas. And when I stepped in, the opportunity was clear. People were looking for

a clean alternative within plant-based milks. And the processing path that we maintained for 14 months after I joined was, you know, we self-manufactured and it was HPP, high pressure processing, which gave it a 45 day shelf life.

really hard to produce enough product, ship it across the country, have it on shelf so it has enough shelf life for consumers to enjoy it. So one of the primary path that we pursued and have leaned into is into ESL or extended shelf life manufacturing with co-manufacturers that through rigorous testing, we validated that we have the same taste and product quality at

365 days as we do on day one. So to be able to open up the spectrum of distribution based on available shelf life, we had a base and we still have a very strong base within the natural channel. We are fortunate, we were picked up with Whole Foods in 2018 as a global brand. And for us to continue to grow and meet consumers where they shop,

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (11:39.404)
we needed to meet the expectations of other retailers. And that simply meant a longer shelf life product. took us a long time to be able to deliver the same quality product through a different process than self manufacturing. So it was quite the journey of trial and error and testing and finding new partners, building new relationships to be able to pursue that path. And it was an exciting one for sure.

Ramon Vela (12:09.842)
Wow. And yeah, and I, that's a really great, interesting strategy because I had never really heard of that. But the impact of that was a cost savings on the manufacturing side of it in terms of being able to have product last longer because I'm assuming that a shorter life, shelf life, meant more of a turnover in terms of inventory. Is that correct?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (12:37.496)
So multiple layers at Ramon. So at the point of manufacturing, you know, have a very limited number of days on the bottle's shelf life. Then in order to meet whatever the actual demand is, you're shipping what we call it at that time, rainbow pallets. We had 14 different SKUs when I stepped in and we were shipping mixed pallets and we were shipping them LTL or less in truckload. And what that means at the end of the day is it was.

really expensive to get our product from our manufacturing facility out to our distributor partners and to our retailers. So as we look at one of the very important dynamics to scale a business is not only do you have have your cost of goods and your gross margin structure aligned, you also have to have absolute clarity on how do you mitigate.

very expensive shipping because as a cold chain product, which we remain to this day, we are shipping refrigerator. So, you know, the, the pinnacle of refrigerated shipping is full truckloads, full truckloads of single products. If our ops team would have their way. but we had to make a lot of decisions. I mean, in the first 120 days, we went from 14 skews down to three skews. kept our core three.

to give us a chance to focus, overhaul, and as you see behind me now, we're back pretty significant on the breadth of our product offering, but it took us time to go back and rebuild the trust and make sure that all of the products meet the quality that this brand is known for.

Ramon Vela (14:16.122)
And I'm always curious about this when I see a brand do what you just mentioned, is necessary, know, eliminate excuse and so forth.

that will impact consumers. Maybe some products weren't selling as well and I'm assuming you probably got rid of the ones who weren't selling as well and you wanted to the core ones. But obviously some people were impacted, right? Some people might have liked those flavors or might have liked whatever those were. How do you balance when you make a decision like that with communication with a consumer and the brand?

story with the consumer. Like how do you balance that? Like what did you guys do? Was there anything that you guys did in particular? Did you share this strategy with your consumers? And if you got feedback, how did you manage that feedback?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (15:11.982)
You know, Ramon, honestly, to go back and do it over, I would have been much louder about what we were doing and why. Rather, we took the, hey, those that reach out to us, we'll engage with. And, you know, the executive team had constant conversations with consumers, be it those that emailed us, called us, you know, we still get handwritten letters from consumers to this day. And it's really inspiring that when people have the passion for a brand and they'll reach out. But in that era.

As we made those decisions, we were very honest. It was cost prohibitive for us to make some skews. And in order for us to continue to provide quality products, we had to make some tough decisions. So the honesty and transparency and the personal touch with consumers makes a difference. Consumers stuck with us.

Ramon Vela (15:58.558)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I appreciate your transparency about wanting to, if you went back, you'd be louder on that front. And that actually really impressed me during our pre-interview. You mentioned some other, I don't know, mistakes, but just things that we wish we would have done differently.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (16:21.134)
We call it the kerfluffle. The kerfluffle of 21 is what that one is.

Ramon Vela (16:26.004)
Well, because a lot of times when we make do strategies, think sometimes we forget or we don't take everything. And it's hard to take everything into consideration, but you mentioned about the natural flavors, right? And that was a big one, right? Because there is a lot of talk now about natural flavors last year, a couple of years now. And I thought it was really instructive what you told me. And if you don't mind sharing that little case study.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (16:53.326)
happy to. So, you know, after writing the business plan and the board asking me to stay on to run the business plan, we started the formulation work. And, you know, our number one is unsweet almond, our number two is vanilla almond. And originally, it was our number three that we kept. As we were going through the formulation process, some great partners, you know, we're manufacturing this in a different way. We have very few dials to turn.

There's very few ingredients. So the less ingredients, the harder it is to dial in an exact product. And we did even some very, at the time, very expensive consumer testing. And the consumer testing came back as we really liked the vanilla. Can you make it a little more vanilla-y? It's like, sure. We'll just dial up the inclusion of organic natural flavors. Because as an organic brand, we would only use organic natural flavors.

So we went down that path. did our first production run and the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2021, social media blew up.

Social media appropriately, our loyal fans called me out for the mistake that I made and that was introducing natural flavors, albeit organic, into the cleanest plant-based milk that was on the market.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (18:11.022)
We went into crisis mode as any brand at that stage will do. Hey, we just launched a new product. Oh my goodness. We have backlash. What do we do? And, uh, had a great opportunity to engage with Vani Hari, uh, the food babe and talk to her about, why was it that her and her consumers were attacking us? And it really helped to codify who we were as a brand in lockstep as we were seeking to understand, uh, reached out to our formula partners and said, Hey,

we want to get only organic vanilla extract, not flavors, into this product. Can you give me some samples of varying inclusions so we can approve this? So it was Monday that it blew up. By Thursday, I had samples to myself and to my board of directors with the proper inclusion of vanilla extract. And by Friday, we had it approved. And Ramon, that only happens in a very small,

very engaged dynamic, not only within the team that was in place at the time, but also with our board of directors. There's unequivocally a margin hit to our product by putting the organic Fidelity extract versus the natural flavors. And it was absolutely the right thing to do. And it codified how we approach innovation from that step forward. So I was really proud of the way that we weathered that storm, the kerfuffle of 21.

Ramon Vela (19:39.068)
Thank

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (19:39.913)
Uh, and came out on the other side with clarity and that clarity, it was actually serendipitous that same week that was blowing up. I was interviewing for a head of sales and she is now our chief revenue officer. She's still with us to this day, Adrienne Campbell. And I said, look, I just want to be honest with you. This is what we're in the middle of right now. This is what we're doing to mitigate it. And I don't want you to be surprised by anything if you choose to join us. And, uh, that transparency.

really helped to codify our connection. She's like, look, if you're going to, and I showed her all of our numbers, you know, here's the P and L, here's the consumption data, here's what we're going through. If you want to join this executive team, you need to know the truth. So as we think about transparency with our brand, we also really embody that internally in the organization and how we communicate.

Ramon Vela (20:32.426)
and I, and I really respect that. I, I love that aspect of it because, you know, on social media, some, you know, influencers or whatever can be very harsh, but for me, it's always about, you know, does a brand listen, right? And does it, you know, does it understand what it means, to it? Does it, does it understand what it means to its customers?

because there comes a point where I think that a brand, of course you guys manage it, you control it, but at some point it becomes almost like outside of your hands, right? And in some ways I think you want this to happen. You want it to kind of be in the hands of the consumers because you want them to care enough about the brand. And when you see that, then you realize, okay, there's a co-ownership now of the brand and...

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (21:12.802)
us.

Ramon Vela (21:28.84)
And I think that's a good thing. But at the same time though, it's a responsibility. And I think that doesn't mean you don't make mistakes or you don't have challenges along the road, but it's how you respond to it. And I think for most consumers, if they understand what the kerfuffle was, and I love that word, I don't use it very often, they know what it is, but they would appreciate how you respond to that.

I think that's actually a good thing that this brand ownership is a co-ownership with you and the consumer because obviously they would not have brought this up or made a big deal out of it if it wasn't a meaningful product for them or brand for them.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (22:12.16)
Instead of becoming the owners of the brand, it was clear that we are stewards of the brand. And the owners are those consumers that continue to give us the opportunity to expand our distribution and introduce it to more consumers.

Ramon Vela (22:16.682)
Good, yeah.

Ramon Vela (22:26.632)
Yeah, and given that experience and probably others, because you mentioned like people write in hand notes and things like that, what are you doing as you are making changes within an organization or have made changes? What are you doing to build that community? What are you building to increase that feedback and or you learn from your mistake on that particular case study?

But that also shows you that there's probably other things that we need to keep in mind or understand more about from our consumer base. What are you doing to build that sort of community or that feedback loop?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (23:06.008)
So the beautiful thing is the way that we've built our marketing organization is to actively listen and engage with our consumers. So we get a feedback loop through just the natural social channels, the way that people use it, engage it. As we have partnerships with, you know, we've got an Air One partnership and their smoothie bar, which is a phenomenal opportunity for us to help their mission of getting healthy smoothies out to consumers with a clean base.

It's an ongoing evolution, though, Ramon. As we think about where we were in 2021 to call it through 2023, we were in the building phase and we had very few products that were out there. And we were honestly trying to make sure every day we woke up and we were doing our best to get the brand out there. I had the fortunate opportunity to bring in a president over sales and marketing last June, Ryan Rouse, a good friend of mine. I've known him for five years now. And

His visionary approach with the way that we share more about the brand, the way that we evolve, how we show up on the shelf, because that's the point of communication that matters the most. It's the point of purchase. How do we show up on the shelf? Are we speaking to consumers in a way that matters? Does our packaging do the work? And then evolving our messaging within social media. We're working on relaunching our website. That'll be a better engagement platform.

And we're still building. I wish I could say there's an easy button answer of, we figured this out. It's a work in process. And honestly, it should always be the second that a brand says they figured it out. That's scary because people evolve brands evolve. We should always be learning. And just like I tell people when I interview them, they will ask me the question, Hey, Jason, what's the culture? And I say, we're building it. And you are a part of building the culture.

Ramon Vela (24:47.934)
Hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (25:03.66)
We look for people to be accretive to the business and accretive to the culture. Because just like a brand's evolution, if we say the culture is established, it's evolving.

Ramon Vela (25:13.886)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And, you know, it also shows through your actions because you just talked about two different folks. I mean, you talked about Ryan, but you also mentioned about your sales leader who you're interviewing. And it also, I mean, it goes by what your actions right now just in talking about this, how important it is to have sort of like that team dynamic. From a team leadership standpoint,

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (25:28.654)
Adrian.

Ramon Vela (25:45.258)
This might be instructive as well. I remember once hearing, was the CEO, the founder of Ritual, and I think she was quoting Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn. And she said something about the first 50 people or something like that are like the most crucial. And because they are the ones that are going to establish the culture of the organization.

And if you do it correctly, they actually start to, what's the word I'm looking for? They start to guard that culture. Like when new people come in, they themselves are the ones that almost like oust people because they can see, does that person fit in? If they don't fit in, then they are very guarded about their culture and will sort of almost like...

like single people out like, hey, you you're not going along with the culture because it's so important to them. And I realize it's so difficult. So as you came in to the organization, how did you manage that or how did you look upon that culture and start to build from there?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (27:06.57)
It wasn't until, let me think for a second, it would have been spring of 22 that I had built out the executive team at that point. So I had a finance lead, ops lead, sales lead, marketing lead, where we went and did an offsite to establish what are our Malk core values. And it's evolved to the point where every person has one of these at home now to talk about our five core values of accountability, drive, collaboration, integrity, and growth. And.

We start every internal meeting reviewing our core values and it's part of our performance reviews. In fact, at our annual all hands meetings, we have core value award winners, whom in the organization embodied a core value at the highest level and why. And we recognize them and we honor them at the, in front of the entire organization. Last year we had 39 people at our all hands and we had seven award winners.

So those seven award winners have a chance to showcase what it means to live our core values. And to your point, they are the stewards of our core values. They are the ones that will provide the feedback at any level of the organization. We're still the size, we're under 50 employees right now. And I still have the opportunity at least every quarter, if not every two months, to have a one-to-one with every employee.

I had three of them earlier today and it's just such a ray of sunshine in my day to be able to engage and understand not just honestly, it's not even about work. You know, I asked the, the optional agenda. It's their time. It's what's a dreams win. What's a work win. Where's their work friction and what questions do you have for me? Those are the four questions and they can choose to follow that, do whatever they want. They can ask me any question. I'm an open book to the team. So.

In that process, it starts to uncover what's really important to people.

Ramon Vela (29:12.874)
This is really interesting because I wonder, this is not appropriate question, I was kind of curious. When you're a culture from, like let's say you're the founder, it's one thing, right? You're building this culture and so forth. But when you come in,

to an organization where you're not the founder, you like you don't have that prehistory or whatever in there. It must be really difficult to walk into that. I mean, as an executive, as an individual, is that kind of frightening to go into that? Not frightening, but just like.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (30:00.078)
It's terrifying, it is frightening. Absolutely Ramon. And tracking the timeline, it took me 18 months of in the business, not on the business, in the business to get us to the point where we could take the time to go offsite and have those conversations, to experience working with each other, to understand the feedback from consumers, to understand.

what we expected from those that we wanted to bring onto our teams. What was it that we're looking for? So we were able to do that and feel really good that it not only spoke to who we aspired to be, but also honored who the brand is. So we should always honor the roots, period. The brands start for a reason. We should honor that.

and the people that are in the organization should make sure that there is an element that they own as well and it's theirs to continue to grow and build.

Ramon Vela (31:05.064)
Yeah, wow. And so the other thing I wanted to ask you about was you refer to the business plan and so forth. And so far in our discussion, we've talked about eliminating SKUs and adding now going back to start adding more SKUs. you've got a couple of products that we'll talk about in a second, some new products coming up and new flavors.

And you talked also about the extension of shelf life, which is a great topic. Are you on track with that original business plan in terms of where you wanted to see it? What other challenges are you facing right now, whether internally, but also environmentally and, and what things. And you don't have to be specific. I don't want to say anything you don't want to say, but what things threw you for a loop?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (32:08.054)
It's always tough when there's a transition of people that you don't plan. One, do you think you've made a hire? And it's like, all of a sudden, no, you've got a hire slow and fire fast. So anytime there's an unplanned turnover that can throw you for a loop. The other is, look, mistakes happen in financials. There was a point in time where as we were building an annual plan,

We had the inventory of finished goods forecasted for our cash flow needs. We didn't have the raw materials forecasted with our cash needs and put us in a heck of a cash crunch at one point. So, you know, that's two specific examples that happen to be tied together. And with that, you know, as you go from in the teens, there was a lot of money available. People were willing to put money into almost anything.

Ramon Vela (33:02.919)
and

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (33:05.55)
to the point, you know, coming through COVID and to secure funding, especially to continue to go back to the same investor group and say, actually, we're, you know, six to 12 months behind the revenue that I said, and I actually need another $7 million to continue to build this. Those are challenging conversations, especially, you know, the pride of authorship in a plan.

Ramon Vela (33:33.578)
Hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (33:34.434)
To have to go say, I was wrong on these aspects. And at the same time, I also see this, this, this as an opportunity that will unlock future growth for us as well. So humility is, is a tough pill to swallow at times. And it's hard to be humble when you are expected to make all the right decisions. And the reality is pop quiz, everybody makes wrong decisions. Own them.

Ramon Vela (33:51.018)
Thanks

Ramon Vela (34:02.634)
Hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (34:04.76)
Take extreme ownership, lean into it, admit it early, have the frank conversations, engage the right people. We have a very supportive board of directors and investor group, and we probably engage with them more than most brands do. That's their ask. I enjoy it. It gives us an opportunity to keep them at our hip and understand what we're doing and the decisions we make, and their feedback is real and it's fast.

Good feedbacks a gift. And if you ever look at it as anything, but then is that your ego? You know, one of our, one of our team members has the acronym ego is everyone's greatest opponent. So how can you humble yourself to just say what is truly best for the company? What is best for the investors? What is best for the brand? What is best for the employees and continue to take those steps forward.

Ramon Vela (34:48.585)
Hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (35:03.278)
Those are the challenges that everybody's facing in some way, or form. And they're hard.

Ramon Vela (35:09.577)
Mm-hmm.

Wow. I love that response. By the way, you made me think of something earlier and before I forget, I wanted to share it when we're talking about culture. the CEO of Sara Valley, which is like a baby food company, Brain Food, and he told me that

At the start of every, cause I went, just so everyone knows, I have this weird ritual that I do and sometimes gets joined me, is a breathing, doing the deep breaths. And he told me that at Whole Foods, they start off their meetings like that. They're a get of meetings where they, they, they do a breathing exercise and then they talk about gratitude for a little bit and then they start their meetings. So anyhow, I just thought I'd share that in terms of culture.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (36:01.902)
It's a beautiful practice and it was a great way. It's the first podcast I've ever started that way and it's awesome. I encourage everyone to explore breath and breath work. It unlocks a lot for you.

Ramon Vela (36:07.498)
you

Ramon Vela (36:12.178)
Yeah, I agree. So let's talk. I want to start talking a little bit about the product, but before I do, you know, I think you've done this. mean, just from hearing you, you've done this really hard work and you're continuing to do this hard work. And I admire that. I always think it's a tough spot to come in into an organization and try to right the ship. And it's not just you, you you have to choose the right people. You have to have a plan.

Altogether, you guys are moving forward. And so I really appreciate that. And we're in a very tough environment, competitively, just terrifies. mean, there's all sorts of stuff going on. And then of course, just running the business. Is there anything before we move on, is there any insights, large things that when you step into an organization, when you step into that type of...

situation, is there anything that you could recommend to an entrepreneur or to another CEO who has to step into that same type of situation? Is there any insights or lessons or just things that you would share that have worked for you?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (37:23.264)
One of my favorite expressions, and this was from a team member that I met some 15 years ago, his statement was, I'm blessed with two ears and one mouth, and I do my best to use them in that proportion.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (37:38.7)
When you give people the space to talk and you ask the right questions, what they will share with you inevitably are the answers. You have to give them the space to be able to give those answers.

Ramon Vela (37:55.082)
Well, I love that. Two ears, one mouth. It's straight and simple. I love that. Yeah, mean, it's a difficult situation and I love what you just said because there is, in my perspective,

You mentioned earlier in terms of ego, there's always an ego that we need to guard against. And a lot of times we go into situations because of our past experience and, know, there is a reason why that, but a lot of times we go into a new environment thinking, you know, we know already the answer or we already know what, you know, how to solve this. it's in Zen, there's something called the empty tea cup or something like that where

You know, are you, you know, are you the empty tea cup that can be filled with this knowledge or are you full, a full cup of tea that can't fit any more knowledge? And I think when you, have to go into an organization and try your hardest to not have some of the biases that you might have or the preconceived notions that you might have and listen. I mean, it may be the same challenge that you face in other places, but like you said, I think it's really important that.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (38:52.974)
you

Ramon Vela (39:18.826)
to listen first and understand because there are clues that they will give you in terms of the things that you need to do. So I appreciate that. That was more of a comment than a question.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (39:28.182)
You. I love that. I'd love to build on that because the empty teacup really resonates with me. I haven't heard that expression and I I'm going to steal that. I give you credit for it. The one thing that I've learned through this group of men, front row dads that has rung true for me is as a man. I spent most of my life compressing, suppressing and repressing emotions. And to your point, you get to a stage where you are so full of emotions that you can't.

take any more emotions in. You can't hold space for others. And it was ever so transparent with my son, who I sat down with him at one point, I sat down on the stairs, he was four years old, and I said, what is it that I do that upsets you? And he looked at me and just said, your dad voice. I lost it. I absolutely lost it because I was so

crammed down with emotions that I was holding on to that I couldn't give my four year old space to just be a boy. I wanted him to be a man at four. I'm like, so much so. So I love that empty cup. And I'm going to, I'm going to share that with my some friends tomorrow and talk about, we empty cups? So thank you for that gift.

Ramon Vela (40:49.022)
Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, that group sounds really interesting that you mentioned. But yeah, I mean, I think that the ego and our preconceived notions are really difficult to manage. I have found that if you can be more aware of those emotions as they arrive, as they appear,

It makes life a lot easier. For instance, and I'm just going to share this with you real quick, that my wife and I would have this argument, ongoing arguments. And it was because sometimes I felt like her tone of voice was attacking me. I just be honest, like it, felt like an attack, like the tone of voice felt like an attack. And so that would create a reaction.

for me without even thinking. Like I would just like react like, and that's the thing is that we are society. A lot of times we are so quick to react and negative, negative type of emotions. Like we're being attacked versus, know, like when you, someone compliments you, you're like, shucks, you know, you know, we can take the negativity. can't take the positivity, but I would react. And then of course, then it would just start to snowball. Then we'd have an argument and.

As I started learning about creating that space between your emotions, kind of like what you just said, and what was going on, it really started coming to me that maybe it is just a tone. Maybe it's not an attack. Maybe it's just a tone. And so can I separate the tone from what she's actually trying to tell me?

And if I focus on what she's actually trying to tell me versus the tone, what I realized is that it was just a tone. wasn't, she wasn't trying to attack me or anything. It was just like, she was, she just had this tone. She, you know, I think it was something like, I think her mother or father had the same tone and I think she just kind of learned behavior. So she had this tone, but it wasn't an attack. It was just sounded like an attack.

Ramon Vela (43:11.284)
But so many times we have these preconceived notions and these ideas and we just immediately think, they're attacking me. I'm going to respond or react and so forth. So anyhow, that was just a lesson that I learned. It took me a long time to figure that out.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (43:25.866)
And what you just said is as applicable in any partnership as it is with your business colleagues.

Ramon Vela (43:31.498)
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because with, you know, I'm talking about a marriage, but at the same time though, I mean, when you're in a, when you're part of an executive team or more, it's it's kind of like a marriage in the sense that, you guys are in this mission together, right? Not a mission of life, but maybe a mission of business.

And you really have to learn to communicate well, you know, like that old saying about being in the foxhole and all that other stuff. Like you guys are in it and you need to learn to communicate and understand each other and not come in with those preconceived notions about what the other person is thinking or doing based on this action or whatever and not, and respond, not react. So anyhow, this is great. can go on for all this stuff forever. I love this stuff.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (44:18.56)
Love that. Thank you for that.

Ramon Vela (44:23.38)
So let's talk about the product. So I have a bunch of the product here. You've got some of the product there. Let's talk about some of the, the, the big sellers, the things that at this point, I always imagined that the listener is saying like, okay, I really like what Jason had to say. And I really liked where this conversation is going. but I know I want to know more. I've like myself, I had never tried mock before. Where would you start in their journey? If someone's listening to this and they want to know.

Where would you start? and by the way, let me just, excuse me. Let me mention that if you want to take a look at what we're talking about, you can go to MalkOrganics.com, Malk, M-A-L-K, the word organics.com, to take a look at the products that we're gonna be talking about. And of course, you can see some in the background. If you're listening to this, you won't be able to see it obviously, but if you watch the video,

You'll be able to see some products. Where would you like them to start? And then feel free to let's talk a little bit about the ingredients. We already mentioned about a little bit of the manufacturing process, but if you want to talk a little bit about ingredients, that would be fantastic.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (45:33.598)
Let's go even higher. Let's start with fluid milk. Dairy milk is around a $10 billion category in America. Plant-based milk is around a $3.5, $3.6 billion category in America. So I start there to help people understand that Malk's mission isn't to transition dairy milk consumers to plant-based consumers. It is a category that's three times the size that we are.

Malk wanted to provide those that want to consume plant-based for whatever reason, be it dietary, allergen basis, the absolute cleanest, closest to earth organic product possible within plant-based. That's our focus. That's all we care about. We have as few ingredients as possible to deliver a great tasting product, and they're all organic. So our number one sellers are Unsweet Almond. It's water.

unsweeted sorry, it's water, organic almonds and pink Himalayan salt. Jason, why do you have salt in there? It was already in the formula when I came in. And the reason we have it in there is, people want to eat healthy. And the reality is if you're going to continue to consume something, it needs to taste good. And a little bit of salt helps. It helps with the mouth feel. It helps with everything else. We are a thinner product than dairy milk.

Ramon Vela (46:44.778)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (46:54.794)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (47:04.012)
We are a thinner product than some of the other plant-based products that choose to use gums, oils, emulsifiers, carrageans. Why do they use those Ramon? Because they're trying to mimic dairy milk. They want to transition people over. Okay. If that's their business model, then fantastic. We are true to who we are. We want to provide those that want plant-based products the cleanest, simplest ingredient deck possible.

Ramon Vela (47:33.032)
Wow. And you know, that was actually one of the questions I had was that I noticed that it was, it was more liquidy versus some of the creamier stuff that I've seen in other places. and I didn't realize that it was those, those additional things that made it so creamy.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (47:52.204)
Yeah, we call them baditives or bad additives. that's our kind of punchy way to have fun with it. and at the end of the day, you know, there's a time and place perhaps, but here's the thing. None of us are doctors. are CPG veterans that are in the business. I can't tell you Ramon, how a, an oil interacts with your gut biome or how a sunflower lechettin or a gelling gum or dipotassium phosphate.

I don't know how it's going to impact your gut bio because the way it interacts yours is going to be different than how it interacts with mine. And every consumer on earth is going to have a different experience. So why, why add things that aren't, that don't have a specific purpose to your product. If it is not specifically there to add flavor or to give you the, the texture, the natural texture that you're looking for. Hey, let's keep it clean and simple.

Ramon Vela (48:45.994)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that aspect of it. And by the way, I'm currently looking at the malt organic vanilla. I have some of the others here and I'll look at them. But the sodium level really isn't that off the charts here. It's not anything that I would flag as like, ooh, that's a lot of sodium.

But I really, think I enjoy the aspect that you just described, the gum-free, the no fillers, the oil-free, the simple ingredients. think people, there are some times that people have a transition period, I think from when they stop drinking milk or dairy. Like I don't drink dairy almost at all. Or yeah, I don't drink it at all.

And unless I'm forced, like if there's nothing there, but, but I think there's a transition period. It's kind of like the transition period that people go when they stop eating meat, which I actually don't eat meat myself either. But there was a transition period where I wanted to eat some of these processed foods that look like meat, right? Like the morning, the morning stars or the impossibles and so forth. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. Like, you know, you can have it every now and then, but for me.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (50:01.39)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (50:09.332)
that was my transitionary food because I went from being a meat eater to this. And now I eat mostly whole foods and other stuff. But I kind of feel like that can happen also from the dairy standpoint. People getting off of dairy, they maybe their first reaction is to look for something that's milk-like and whatnot. But I think that something I read in an email that one of your folks sent to me,

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (50:30.702)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (50:38.44)
which is this whole turn it around campaign. And I was thinking like, you know what? I think we're at the moment where people are beginning to turn it around more often, which I am like, that's the first thing I do is I always look how much protein doesn't have, how many sugars does it have in there? What's the sodium level like? What's the fiber? You know, like I always ask these questions depending on what I'm, what I'm eating. And I think the more you, the more you turn it around, the more you're going to see that, Hey, this is, this is actually has some pretty good stuff in it.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (51:09.698)
I'm gonna match you product for product. This is our oat malt organic vanilla. And I love that you went to the nutritional fact panel first, where we like to send people to a straight to the ingredients, filtered water, organic gluten-free oats, pure organic vanilla extract made from vanilla beans and Himalayan pink salt. Can you pronounce and understand what all those ingredients are?

Ramon Vela (51:33.128)
Yeah.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (51:37.65)
with my children and I'm blessed. mean, I talked about my son, so my daughter is just the kindest soul on earth.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (51:51.424)
My wife and I wanted to make sure that we evolve the way that they think about food. It's nourishment for their souls, nourishment for their brain. is something not to, know, sure, we have bad meals every once in a while. And my daughter, who's in sixth grade, makes her own salad every day to take to school. She makes, you know, she packs her vegetables by herself.

And I bless because when I was 12, there was 0.0 % chance I would have done any of that. I might've had a bagged salad, put in a plastic Tupperware dish that I probably dumped out at school. And as we started the conversation internally about hashtag turn it around, I talk about work at home. I'm very transparent with the kids about what we're doing. what, I used to brag.

10 years ago, I could do a grocery trip in 15 minutes, because I knew everything that I bought about the same things every week. I knew exactly where it was. And I was a lightning bolt through that store.

And we've evolved to where we take our kids. It's like, okay, let's look at the ingredients. What is in there? What are the things in there you can't pronounce? Do you know what it is? Do you know what it does? And it evolves the way that our prayer is that it evolves the way our children think about food for them as they grow older. When I was 39 years old, before I really started to understand how to nourish my body.

I spent most of my life over 300 pounds or on the precipice of 300 pounds. And starting in 2019, I went on, on quite the weight loss journey because I started to pay attention to what I consumed. And then I continued to make iterative changes. it was some almost 20 months ago that I stopped drinking alcohol. Now that comes from a guy that spent almost nine years in the beverage, alcohol space. And I've never felt better. And my kids see that.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (53:56.522)
So as a dad, I should model the behaviors that I want my children to see the way I want them to understand. And I need to have conversations with them. I can't just assume they're going to understand what I do. I've got to be intentional about why I do things and share with them everything I do. I want them to understand the why. And that is such an important dynamic for our society. So I know I went on a bit of a tangent there, but

Ramon Vela (54:22.634)
Hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (54:26.594)
Back to the ingredients. When you can pronounce the ingredients and you know what they are, it feels like a heck of a lot better food to consume than something that might have a lot of, you know, 10 syllable words.

Ramon Vela (54:38.718)
Well, and you know what you said, I don't think was a a tangent because I think ultimately so many of consumers and probably your consumers have the same experience. I've had a similar experience in that my diet was really bad. And and I have gone on a journey of trying to eat better and so forth.

And I've noticed change with my children too. My youngest, as matter of fact, she's 18 and she's also like eats very, very healthy. She eats a lot of salads, know, eats very clean meats and lots of vegetables. I mean, at her age, I was eating like Big Macs and you know, like Big Macs, whatever. Yeah.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (55:31.534)
Pizza and beer at 18, are you kidding me? I off to college like, hold on, I can have pizza any day I want or pizza rolls or.

Ramon Vela (55:38.974)
Yeah. yeah, I mean, but I think that this is what consumers are asking or tell our, our, our, our thinking about what you just described or what consumers are thinking about, because I think the trend, I think it's not just, I mean, I think the trend is it's not just really a trend. It's a movement where people are wanting to eat better. People are trying to eat healthier. People are trying to make small changes in their lives. It doesn't have to be drastic changes.

But they're also, if they happen to be parents, they also want to eat better because of their kids. Because their kids, and I think everyone can agree, kids will listen more to what you do than what you tell them. Because if they see you having a healthy lifestyle and so forth, they will also mimic those behaviors. So yeah, I think what you just said was very spot on.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (56:26.488)
us.

Ramon Vela (56:36.702)
because I think these are the conversations that people who want to try Malk are having in their heads and around their family tables. So this is fantastic. Walk us through some of the new flavors that you're talking about.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (56:54.862)
So we launched here in March our coconut milk, unsweetened, and I'll read the ingredients here for everybody. Filtered water, organic coconut milk, organic evaporated coconut water, and Himalayan pink salt. That's it. This is going to be a rocket ship. We are so excited about the taste on this one. And then we also launched our soy product. Our soy ingredients are filtered water, organic soybeans, and Himalayan pink salt.

Three ingredients in our soy, four ingredients in our coconut. We're excited for these. know, we launched initially as an almond company. When you look at plant-based milks, almond composes 65, 70 % of all plant-based sales. And then it's oat, which has waned in popularity over the years with the addition of the oils that a lot of brands have. We do not have oils in our oat milk. And then you've got soy.

Then you've got coconut and you've got cashew, which is another skew that we have here, which we brought back last year after having it discontinued for three and a half years. We believe that consumers in plant-based milk deserve to have a clean, simple ingredient, organic product in any base or the type of nut that they prefer. And consumer preference is a finicky thing. You know, what do you want? Do you use it for cooking? We know a lot of people use coconut and cashew for cooking.

Are you looking for protein? Soy is a great source of protein. So that's why we were so inspired to launch coconut and soy at the same time this year was to come out and meet the gap that we had left out there in the availability for an organic product in coconut and in soy. And I want to hit on it for a minute because organic is more expensive. Hey Jason, bulk is more expensive than the other guys on a per ounce basis. And you're right.

Ramon Vela (58:33.588)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (58:50.452)
And I wish there was an easy button way to make it cheaper. But if we go back to the source, if we go back to the farming practices that actually qualifies organic, there's no herbicides, no pesticides, nothing artificial that the farmers are doing. So what does that mean? Well, that means that their yield or the amount of product they get off an acre or out of a farm is less than one that can use.

pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, et cetera. So their production is less. Then as it goes through to get to us, there are a few steps to get to Malk before we can use it. And they have to be certified organic. And by the way, the beautiful thing just last year, the FDA, they have an enhanced organic certification for brands that are organic.

which requires that even if I produce it elsewhere as an organization, I too am certified and held accountable to all of the same levers and boundaries that our manufacturers are. So there's a process and governing bodies to certify that a food is organic. So we are proudly organic in everything we do. It's in our name, Malk Organics, and we will remain that way. So.

I did want to make sure that I leaned in on that one a little bit and talking about the product felt like the right time to acknowledge. Yes, we are more expensive and yes, it's because it costs more to make organic. And hopefully as we transition and evolve, were talking about consumers looking for healthier things. I hope that we continue to evolve as a country, as consumers to vote with our pocketbooks to say, I want more organic that allows.

that to become a more efficient process to hopefully in the future drive down prices.

Ramon Vela (01:00:44.586)
Yeah, and thank you for sharing that because I think it is important for consumers to know that when you create a product like this and it has a price point that it does, that there's a reason. And the reason is because you have this product integrity that it's organic and unfortunately,

Like the way you describe these things can be more costlier than, than, than not organic, but there's a reason for that. There's a reason why that other stuff is cheaper. It's kind of like the same reason I always tell people who eat like hamburgers at a McDonald's or Jack in the box, they're like a dollar. And I was like, that shouldn't be a red flag for you. If they're selling a hamburger for a beef patty for a dollar, there's a reason why it's a dollar. You probably don't, you know, don't want.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (01:01:32.942)
you

Ramon Vela (01:01:36.754)
that burger in your body. But thank you for sharing that. I think it's important to understand that. This is amazing. I appreciate, I want to be respectful every time. Let's talk about where they can go, website, social media, and if you want to shout out any partners or any new collaboration.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (01:01:51.246)
you

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (01:01:57.538)
Yeah. So mallcorganics.com as you referenced earlier, we have a product finder on the site. It also has links now to where you can procure it locally, be it through an Instacart or DoorDash and the like, given it's a refrigerated product. We also have on Amazon our Tetra product. have, it's a shelf stable product, same simple ingredients. So that's available in six packs on Amazon. We would love to have that backup in our pantry. So.

And for we're making a lot of smoothies that week. So we always have a backup available. The shout out is to the team. Honestly, Ramon, as I think about where we are today, we have an amazing product, but an amazing product. There's everyday amazing products, shut down companies. We have people that are so passionate on the inside of mall.

that they care about making sure more consumers have the ability to purchase it. They are driven to go make our mission come true that Malk is available to the masses. We want Malk everywhere for people. So the passion and the way people show up every day to go fight for that consumer that hasn't yet tried Malk is an inspiration. So my shout outs to my team.

I appreciate everything they do. They are what makes all of this possible and gives me the opportunity to come talk to great people like you about it.

Ramon Vela (01:03:25.022)
Well, thank you so much for that. And I love to hear that from you guys. And hopefully, as consumers choose more organic, more manufacturing, more sources will provide this and it'll level out the pricing. But for everyone out there, I really feel like if you are looking for a very simple ingredient product,

that tastes great, that is uncompromising, and that has so many wonderful flavors, then Malk Organics is the place for you to take a look. Go to MalkOrganics.com. What is the social media?

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (01:04:10.766)
So it's at Malk Organics on Instagram, Facebook. Those are our primary.

Ramon Vela (01:04:15.592)
Yeah, so go take a look. This, think, really meets our criteria or our tagline, which is products we're buying, brands we're supporting, and I really appreciate you coming in here. And I love how you have that turnaround campaign right there in there. So this has been great. Thank you. We've covered so much. We've covered the business. We've covered the ingredients. We've covered a little bit of...

being a dad, living a healthy lifestyle and leadership and everything else. So we really packed that in. So thank you so much for your time and I really do appreciate it.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (01:04:52.066)
Thank you so much, Ramon. But I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about your experience with our product.

Ramon Vela (01:04:57.38)
and I meant to say that. So I have actually tried several of the ones that we have here. I've tried the creamers. I've tried the organic unsweetened, the organic vanilla. And I've also tried the organic vanilla, which I have in front of me right here. I don't know if you can tell this, it's already half empty. Most of them are already half empty because I've been using them. so my honest is that

my straightforward, I'm always honest, but a straightforward is I had never tried it before. When I first tried it, I did notice that it was a little less creamier than some of the others. And at first I was like, oh, okay, you know, this is a little bit different, but I thought, okay, I'm going to give it a try. Cause I love after reading everything on the label, I thought, okay, it meets all my criteria and it's really interesting.

And so I wasn't, you know, I was just thinking like, I wonder what it is that makes it less creamier. And so I was used to that, but after I started trying it, I was just thinking like, Ooh, I really, really enjoy this. And not only that, but I really am a turnaround it type person. And I want to see some of these, these numbers and I want to see some of these, these, these things, which are important to me because, it really, they really are from a health perspective.

you know, especially if you're dealing with any diabetes, like I actually have diabetes. so I'm always looking at this stuff. so I really, really enjoyed it. So I plan to be a consumer of this, and there's, places where I can buy it nearby, but I mean, these samples you gave me, I was just fortunate enough to try all these different, versions of it. I don't think I tried the cashew and I, you may have sent that to me and I, I haven't tried that one yet, but everything else has been.

Fantastic, and I can't wait for the soy because I have eaten, I have drank soy before. So I appreciate it and I really enjoy it. And I really like the creamers. really like, you know, my daughter has been using them when she makes a matcha at home. So she really loves that. So yeah, we give it an A+.

Jason Bronstad - MALK CEO (01:07:10.04)
Yeah

Thank you so much for that candid. Thank you for the candid feedback. I, I love for consumers to hear from someone like you that's well respected in the industry is like, Hey, my first impression was like, is this what I expected? And it helps people to get over that. I'm go, well, hopefully in our conversation, people understand a little bit more why it is that way. And it's always asking that question. Why? And once you understand it's because we leave all the baditives out game on let's move forward.

Ramon Vela (01:07:34.122)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (01:07:42.366)
Yeah. And, you know, there, there really isn't a sacrifice. It's, it's a texture only, the, there's no sacrifice in the taste. It tastes great. It drink, it's very refreshing. it's just like the first time you see you think, it's a little bit, a little bit different than the other ones, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And so, like I said, I highly recommend people, going to take a look.

So thank you so much. This has been amazing. I know I've took more of your time than we agreed, but I appreciate it. Everyone out there, we have just had Jason Bronstad, who is CEO of Malk Organics. We're gonna have that link on our podcast description as well as the social media link. I highly recommend you go to the website, sign up for whatever email or newsletter that they might have. That way you keep up to date with promotions and new products and everything else that's going on with the company and new flavors and so forth.

Andy, by the way, you're always welcome back. We didn't really talk about the future, but this has been fantastic. This has been amazing. I really feel like this is, like I said earlier, a product we're buying, a brand we're supporting. So I always end with this, which is to stay sane, stay safe, and stay healthy. One way of doing that is by trying Malk Organics. Go to the website, try the product, stop, you know, there's a lot of different stores.

and give it a try. Beyond that, everyone, one last thing. We've all been going through something else, something crazy the last five years or so. Can you believe it's already been five years since, you know, 2020 when the pandemic started? It's been crazy. We've got wars, we've got politics, we've got all sorts of things going on in the economy, and we're all, you know, stressed out and anxious. So let's do ourselves a favor and let's remember that

Everyone is going through something and if we can just be a little kinder to each other I know we can make this human experience a better one beyond that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart We're listening to another episode of the story of a brand