Tasting Terroir

2023 Food Trend: Buying Direct from the Farmer

February 13, 2023 Sara Hessenflow Harper Season 2 Episode 17
Tasting Terroir
2023 Food Trend: Buying Direct from the Farmer
Show Notes Transcript

One of the top trends in food for 2023 is buying foods that have a simple ingredient list with a transparent supply chain.  Turns out....that's exactly what you get when you buy your food directly from the regenerative farmers that made it!

Check out an article talking about top trends that we refer to in this episode by clicking here.
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In this episode, we go back to some of the farmers and food companies in our online network – The Global Food & Farm Community – and hear from them about their top-selling products and more about what makes them so unique in today’s food system

You can learn more about these awesome food providers and get to their online stores through our website:
globalfoodfarm.com/betterfood 

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We are excited to help get you started on this ‘finding better food’ journey by connecting you with farmers and food companies who are delivering on this trend.

Our feature interviews for this episode come from part of a webinar we held with the public…….It’s a discussion that includes a whole wheat pasta maker from North Dakota – DeAnna Lozensky of Guardian Grains, a forage-fed beef producer in Alberta, Canada –  Craig Cameron of Peony Farms, and a gluten-free flour miller and pizza crust maker in Ohio – Jennifer Kocher of Around the World Gourmet.

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Learn more about these awesome food providers and get to their online stores through our website: globalfoodfarm.com/betterfood 


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Sara Harper:

And your pasta. I'm surprised that you're able to figure out how to do it. So it's just the wheat and water.

DeAnna Lozensky:

I was not trying to offer more of what people could already get. I was trying to offer the Molina pasta in a blonde form with no nutrition and no diet digestibility. That was not the goal. The goal was to offer whole nutrition pasta that tasted good, that had a great texture, and that was shelf stable, and that people could actually nourish their bodies from our farm to their fork. When they told me I had to sift it and remove all the brand and then hammer mill it and then reintroduce the brand to enrich it, I.

Sara Harper:

Was like, put back the minerals that you had to strip out. We are not doing that.

DeAnna Lozensky:

It's perfect the way it is. We're going to stone mill it at a low temperature to disrupt as little of the nutrition nutritional value as possible, and then we're going to add water, and that's all we're going to do. They did tell me I'd have to add egg powder and all of the other things, and I didn't. And it's working. Simply have a great tasting pasta that holds up great with sauce, and I'm really proud of it.

Sara Harper:

So that was Deanna Lizzynski Regenerative, farmer from North Dakota and owner of Guardian Grains, a company selling whole grain wheat, and, as you heard, some amazing simple pasta. Deanna's pasta is right exactly on trend. As it turns out. We'll be hearing more about that and from others in our online community, Global Food and Farm, who are making these on trend products and selling them directly to you. Welcome back to our podcast, Tasting Terroir, a journey that explores the link between healthy soil and the flavor and health of your food. I'm your host, Sarah Harper. If you've been following this show, you know that we have been having a lot of great conversations about soil health and how it connects to the flavor and health of your food. But if you want to find this kind of food, this food that lets you taste a bit of the place that it comes from and is filled with nutrients from healthy soil, well, that's a tall order. You can't really buy that kind of food in the store, but you can buy it directly from farmers who are increasingly selling it direct to consumers like you through their online stores. In this episode, we go back to some of the farmers and food companies in our online network, the Global Food and Farm community, and hear from them about their top selling products and more about what makes them so unique in today's food system. But first, let's dive into another soil health lesson from Dr. Joe Clapperton. In this clip, Jill explains more about why plant roots are absolutely critical to both building up soil structure, storing carbon, and creating the opportunity for soil to regenerate itself. It is only when we understand how important it is for soil to be fed by a continuous route in the ground that we can appreciate the difference made to our food when it is grown. In a regenerative farming system that has, as a key principle, the practice of keeping the soil covered with plants above and roots below all year round, we.

Jill Clapperton:

Need to create soil root profiles, and that's getting roots all the way down, having them in the middle and having them in the top. Because if you think about it, if you just think about above ground biomass, you actually are not in any way creating real soil organic matter. Only roots and only soil organic soil organisms are what create organic matter in the soil. That's it. That's how you build soil organic carbon. And that's how you build soil carbon. And earthworms leave carbon behind too, because the slime that they exude as they go through or how they lubricate themselves going through the soil is carbon is a carbon based substrate. So they're going to cause carbon channels as well and show oxidized organic matter. And all your soil animals, like everything that lives in the soil, is leaving carbon behind. So that's building your soil structure, building your ability to hold water, building the ability for your soils to function. When you magnify the soil, you can see how much room there is between the particles for things that are microbes and really small things to move. And they rely on this because not everything can burrow, like bacteria and fungi don't burrow, and actually your nematodes and your Protozo don't burrow either. So they actually need this network in order to move around and actually regenerate all the nutrients, like recycle all the nutrients in the soil. And we create these continuous soil poor networks with roots and all the microbiological activity that comes along with the roots.

Sara Harper:

That's just a tiny sample of the kind of information that Dr. Jill Clapperton provides to help farmers and food companies in our online network, the Global Food and Farm community, we have a content series called Presentations by Jill in our Regen Flicks digital streaming library. There's no better place to find in depth explanations of how to build up soil health and for understanding why that matters to all of us as eaters. This kind of information is only going to become more valuable in the future, as not just farmers, but consumers are demonstrating a real interest in the link between soil health and the health and flavor of our food. Of course, that's what I believe. But it's not just me. Regenerative agriculture and the desire for a transparent supply chain, well, these are increasingly being found on top consumer trend lists. Take, for example, a January 13, 2023 article on food and beverage insider called Five Food and Beverage Trends to Watch in 2023. Pretty straightforward. I will add a link to this article in our show notes, but there is an excerpt I did want to share. One of the key trends they identify is transparent supply chain from the article while consumers are on the search for better for you foods and beverages, they are also eager to learn where exactly everything comes from. Simply put, long lists of ingredients are turn offs for consumers who now crave less processed foods with more natural ingredients that are familiar. According to proprietary adm Outside Voice Research, nearly 70% of consumers said simple, recognizable ingredients influenced their purchasing decisions, while two thirds 66% said that they are looking for labels with the shortest ingredients list. With this transparent supply chain trend comes interest in supporting innovative farming technologies and other advancements that are going to help lessen carbon footprints and extend the planet's lifespan, such as regenerative agriculture, vertical farming, crop rotation and plant breeding. Globally, almost three quarters 73% of consumers indicated they have positive feelings about companies that are transparent about where and how products were made, raised or grown. According to Mintel's, Global new products database of CPG launches in 2022. CPG standing for Consumer Product Goods Category so it's great that consumers are becoming more in tune to the supply chain that brings their food to them and to the ingredients list on their favorite products. But truthfully, the current supply chain is not built to meet either of these trends. Although of course they will spend millions of dollars explaining to you just how they do. If you really want to find simple, clean ingredients and food grown in regenerative systems that restore soil health, help the planet, and bring you a unique flavor of the place they were grown, well, the best option is to buy directly from the farmer doing it or a brand working with a known and shared farm supplier. We are excited to help you get started on this finding better food journey by connecting you with farmers and food companies who are delivering on this trend. Our feature interviews for this episode come from part of a webinar we held with the public. It's a discussion that includes a whole wheat pasta maker from North Dakota, Deanna Lozinski of Guardian Grains, a forage fed beef producer in Alberta, Canada, Craig Cameron of Peony Farms, and a gluten free flour miller and pizza crust maker in Ohio, Jennifer Cohen of around the World Gourmet. You can learn more about these awesome food providers and of course get connected to their online stores through our website that features them and others in our community who are on this journey. You can reach that at globalfoodform combetterfood. And now let's get to our discussion. I did a lot of consumer research as a consultant working in environmental group working for other on big AG projects and of course you always want to know what consumers want. Of course everybody's trying to meet that need. I've gone to the Expo East and Expo West trade shows a couple of years before COVID and you would see this trend like sweeping through all the brands. Like one year it was Turmeric, I mean, Turmeric was in everything you couldn't imagine. Another year was beets. Like beets were in everything. Beet bread, beat chips. Because again, where do they all get this? Some consumer research group basically presented them. Look, Beets have got all these things, they line up. They should really meet everything that everybody wants. I know a big issue for them is time. They don't have a lot of time to research things. They want to be able to trust, obviously labels, but then they also get overwhelmed by too many labels. Consumer research tells us all of this stuff. So for what we know about consumers, let's just start with Deanna, with you. How do you think what you're doing, the direct to the consumer approach and the touches with the consumer that you've had? What have you learned so far about what consumers really want or what they really say they like about what you're doing that may surprise you, that are the reasons that they're looking for what you're providing.

DeAnna Lozensky:

The reason this started, right, was just so people could have direct access to grains grown differently, right? And so they had access to organic and that was about it. There was no other choice. And we had bins full and instead of delivering all of it directly to the local elevator or where we haul some of the other things, it was an easy way for me to be like, hey, we have that and I'm happy to give it to you directly from our farm to your fork. And people got used to having groceries delivered, so they are not really shy about ordering whole grain or stone milled flour or artisan pasta to go directly to their door. And if they can skip the line at the grocery market, that works great for them and it's great for me too, but being visible to that market is the challenging part for me. Our loyal customer base is growing all the time, I'm happy to say. And I think that's really important, the feedback that we get. I get a lot of encouragement to please keep doing what we're doing to heal the soil so we can grow better food for people and making it available to them because they weren't seeing whole grains and stone milled flour and artisan pasta that was grown regeneratively, going direct to consumer. And so there's a gap in that market and we're happy to be there to help.

Sara Harper:

And they were already, the people that you're talking to were already aware of that link between soil health and maybe they didn't know the word regenerative, but they were already aware of that.

DeAnna Lozensky:

Not exactly. That's been a lot of education.

Sara Harper:

The whole brain part, that's what they were looking for.

DeAnna Lozensky:

That was the first and actually most of my customers found me looking for desiccant free right. And so I have a lot of customers that were only sourcing organic that will source from me because we're desiccant free and not spraying over the top of fruiting crop. And once they learn a little bit more about what we're doing on the farm with no seed treatments and no fertilizer and no insecticide and no fungicide and the notillage part, that makes them reassured that they're spending their money to help us farm better.

Sara Harper:

Right.

DeAnna Lozensky:

And so that's encouraging. And no, they didn't necessarily know about the soil health benefit for human health benefit.

Sara Harper:

Yeah. And Craig, would you say that's been or what's been your experience? You're not selling direct yet, but you're going through a local grocery store right, to sell your beef.

Craig Cameron:

Yeah. So the biggest selling feature for us in the past has been just the qualities of our beef. We have a tenderness gene that makes it guaranteed tender every time. And so the eating experience has been number one. And the regenerative thing is just something the path that we've gone down for ourselves and to give our customers that extra nutritional value. And so now it's just letting people know that that's also a part of this product. We're fairly early on the past, so we don't have a lot of feedback yet on the nutritional part of it and that type of thing. But we think we're heading in the right direction.

Sara Harper:

Yeah, well, it's definitely a theme. I mean, I know Jennifer, too. You're focused on working with Adam and growing his regenerative rice and bringing that into mill into flour and turn it into your gluten free crusts. There's a similar thing. I mean, the focus is on the quality. That's where customers are. Of course you have to meet them there. That's table stakes. Whereas you guys have started from a place of true, like the focus of your brands are around that and then the story is still secondary because consumers are not shopping first and foremost for the story, but they do care about the story and they do want it. And so then when you're able to get through, that story is more authentic and ready to go and it doesn't have to be forced. And I think that's the real advantage that a lot of your brands will have. But Jen, what has been like, your experience with that with your customers and letting them know about what you're going to be doing with Adam and the rice?

Jennifer Kocher:

Yeah, so I was able last year, it's been about a year ago that I went on a sales call for one of my distributors out of Pittsburgh and they had me go to a place called Pizza Joe's that has a 40 unit chain. And I met with a woman who had a sister who was also helping her run it. And her father is the one who created Pizza Joe. So that's Joe and he's still active, but with the next generation, which they were about my age. They actually had a sustainability program there, which I didn't know about until after I went and saw them. They were actually making a gluten free pizza themselves in some back room.

DeAnna Lozensky:

In.

Sara Harper:

The back, away from the flower as.

DeAnna Lozensky:

Much as they could be.

Jennifer Kocher:

And it was, it was struggling to of course you have employees and there's inconsistency issues like it not being always the same. And so they really like the idea of the regenerative. They really liked that part of it. So there are people out there, even in food service, that are interested in this. I find that more of the universities to places like the St. Jude's Children's Hospital that we're in with your connection with grounded growth, I was able to get into that.

Sara Harper:

That was like a tie breaker for you. I mean, you sent your samples and obviously they liked it, they liked the product, but they really liked the direction you were going with regenerative. And that was a door opener.

Jill Clapperton:

Yeah.

Jennifer Kocher:

And it was a different what's interesting about St. Jude, I feel like they have it was more than one person. So the original person who you had connect to had watched us in our group and then had connected with me. He was the original person who came in and was the buyer and asked for the samples and brought it in. Well, they were using a different distributor at the time. Then he left and then another person came in and I didn't have a connection with this person. I didn't know who it was. Then when I was just checking with the distributor here and there, do you need another order yet? I finally found out, well, we're not their distributor anymore. And I'm like, what? So now I'm like, now what am I supposed to do? So I reached out through LinkedIn and found out that the guy who was in charge at St. Jude's now was actually the chef who had been there and had sampled the pizzas. So he knew all about them. So I had to hitting on the portal and that they make you fill out all this information and make sure you have everything in place for their system. I'm still waiting. I just got an email back from them saying they're just waiting on the salesperson to do the first order again. But what the guy told me was that it didn't even matter, probably what the cost was. St. Jude is refusing to use any pizza crust except for mine.

Sara Harper:

Wow.

Jennifer Kocher:

They kept trying to use, trying to sell them one of theirs is what the chef told me, and he said, they're starting to make me mad because I told them that I wanted your crust and they keep trying to give me another crust and keep selling me another crust.

Sara Harper:

I've learned so much from you guys, particularly you, Jen, about working with food distributors and even when they're supposedly distributing your product, they often have competitive products or products that they'll get more of a percentage or whatever for if they sell those. And so they'll often frame your product either won't give it as much chance or will actively undercut something because they have more volume with another customer, and then they make more money off of them. And so that's another big part of this whole farmers coming with direct to consumer, because when I first heard about people doing it, and one of the first people that I saw doing it was, what were the accents? Doing? Derek And Tanner's accent. And I was like, wow, that's fantastic. But, oh, man, you guys understand, I feel like, for Diana and Greg and Jen, like, when will you sleep? When will you have a chance to go hang out with your kids? Because you already have two full time jobs and now this is another one. But, well, first of all, I want you to just share what is your best selling product, what is it, and why? So, Deanna, let's start with you.

DeAnna Lozensky:

Okay, well, as of April of 2022, we started off bringing stone milk, flour and artisan pasta to our whole grain lineup because I thought people needed a finished food product and not everyone knew what to do with the wheat berry. And in case you didn't know what a wheat berry is, it's just the seed. Right? Because I didn't know exactly what that meant. Still, our best seller is still Whole Grain by the 35 pound bucket. And it's our French heritage wheat that we grow called Rouge de Bardo is the best selling product I have still. A close second is rotini artisan pasta. Those are the top two. And then it filters in with some more grain and then flour. So we are still moving a majority. Still, whole Grain is our best seller. And like I wanted to mention this, direct to consumer through guardian grains is a fraction of a percent of the grain we grow. Right. Having smaller companies come on board and support and source ingredients, whether it's naked barley or oats or wheat, those are really important connections for us because then we can trace our grain to the end user. And that's what's really valuable about these small companies that are coming on board to source directly from farms and skipping all the in between, is that we are able to help make their ingredient, whether it's grain or whatever, more traceable. And so whether they're sourcing pasta or flour or grain, it makes it easier for them to tell the story about where it came from. And then I don't have to tell the whole story all by myself, so I'm happy to go. To build our customer base direct to consumer. I love it. I love that part. But it's for this to really gain momentum, we need companies like Snaptivist and around the world gourmet to come on board and source from Regenerative Farmers. And I think it's super important the work they're doing and so appreciative, and they're really leading the way and setting it an example. And so thank you both for doing that.

Sara Harper:

Yeah, absolutely. I am surprised that whole wheat is just actual wheat is your top seller. So the people that are milling it at home, like, grinding it into their flour at home right.

DeAnna Lozensky:

Who knew? There's this whole world of home milling happening that I had no idea about two years ago when we started direct marketing. Whole grain, and it's growing, and it continues to grow. And so that's really exciting. And honestly, going direct to consumer with whole grains, that's the no brainer for me.

Sara Harper:

Yeah, that's the easiest one.

DeAnna Lozensky:

And we do have two teammates that are filling those orders for us, so that makes it easier for me, too.

Sara Harper:

And your pasta, have to note this. I'm surprised that you're able to figure out how to do it. So it's just the wheat and water, right? Those are the only two I couldn't yeah. Wow.

DeAnna Lozensky:

And anyone who knows me, especially my husband, they were like, oh, they should have never told you no. And so that just made me more determined because I was not trying to offer more of what people could already get.

Sara Harper:

Yeah.

DeAnna Lozensky:

I was trying to offer semolina pasta in a blonde form with no nutrition and no digestibility. Like, that was not the goal. The goal was to offer whole nutrition pasta that tasted good, that had a great texture, and that was shelf stable, and that people could actually nourish their bodies from our farm to their fork. And so when they told me I had to sift it and remove all the brand and then hammer mill it and then reintroduce the brand to enrich it, I was like, put back the.

Sara Harper:

Minerals that you had to strip out.

DeAnna Lozensky:

It's perfect the way it is. We're going to stone mill it at a low temperature to disrupt as little of the nutrition nutritional value as possible, and then we're going to add water, and that's all we're going to do. And they did tell me I'd have to add egg powder and all of the other things, and I didn't. And it's working simply. We have a great tasting pasta that holds up great with a sauce, and.

Sara Harper:

I'm really proud of it because another aspect of our network is obviously Dr. Jill Clapperton and the work that she does with measuring nutrient density. So if people aren't ready for understanding Regenerative, they're certainly not ready for understanding nutrient density. I mean, in terms of the specific amount of zinc and manganese and how they are, how they fit together to make you, like, make it like a superposta. But my hope is that we're laying the groundwork for that. And, like, your consumers, they start by learning more about the soil health and the practices, and then you can follow up with them because you're building, obviously, this relationship with customers. You have their emails, you're able to. Communicate with them, because I know you've. Had some of your products tested. And as that testing becomes more solid and over time, you see changes, maybe being able to communicate the amount of nutrients in your wheat and in your pasta, unlike other maybe other products where, okay, well, the the zinc might be in the wheat, but you milled the wheat to a point where you took it all out. So can you really say that it's 40% more zinc? But you could. The design of your product is set up so that as more information comes in about the outcomes, like the proof points of this is how we grew it, but now here's proof that what we did mattered, and that nutrient density data will be maybe part of that. Are you already using that? Are you planning to use that? What's your thinking about how that fits with the direct to consumer piece?

DeAnna Lozensky:

So the only testing that I've done so far is on our pasta. And so since that's made with a French Heritage Week, that was a test that we ran on our own prior to working with Jill. I do think that it's really important to know that the nutrition in our food doesn't have to come from fertilizer, that it actually comes from the soil. So if we can heal the soil and make the nutrients in the soil available to plants, then those nutrients that are in the plants will be in the grain and can be available for our bodies to consume them. I think what's really important is that we don't get in the way of the delivery of that nutrition. I think it's really important for people to understand that the nutrition doesn't have to be enriched.

Sara Harper:

Right.

DeAnna Lozensky:

We can grow it. And that's why my packaging, like my label says, growing nutrition, because that's what we're doing on the farm, is growing nutrition. And I think that it'll be going forward more and more important to know exactly which nutrients we're growing and how they are more available. Because density is one thing, but if those nutrients are not available for her body to absorb, then it really doesn't matter.

Sara Harper:

Yeah. Craig, do you have different products? I mean, I know it's beef, but do they different cuts or different types or what is your best selling thing so far?

Craig Cameron:

Ground beef. Hamburger can go in anything. People can use it for all sorts of things. Some of the more unique ones that people like to get a little bit of here and there is like, tomahawk steaks. Those are pretty cool. But yeah, number one seller is ground beef. Like put in lasagna. Just grind it up, cook it pretty easy to use.

Sara Harper:

You're working with this concept called forage finish. I love that term, but I think a lot of people don't understand, especially if you don't know what the animals are foraging for. So maybe explain what that is.

Craig Cameron:

Yeah, so for us kind of coming at it from our core values of human health, coming from our background with our daughter and that type of thing is it's really important for everything we do to have a human health element coming out the end. And so what we've been looking at is our soil testing, SAP testing, and then feed testing and liver testing and all that stuff comes back to the best thing for the cows is a diverse range of green plants. Grass finishing, in my opinion, is just like it limits someone can throw in a bale of hay or something, call it grass fed. And we're selecting everything specifically for the best blend of forages for our cattle to have the best nutritional value in the end.

Sara Harper:

So you grow the optimal things that they should eat, like in swaths in.

Craig Cameron:

The pasture in the summertime they'd be grazing it in a pasture up here. We have no green things growing in January. No for our mama cows. Then we'll have growing a diverse mix of forages and laid it down into a swath so that it's all concentrated in lines down the field so that the cattle can get at it under the snow. Our feeder cattle, we still haven't tweaked our blends good enough to be able to do them on the Swiss. We still haul them stored feed in the wintertime. But that's also a diverse forage blend that we've stored and then feed it out to them in a mixture in the wintertime.

Sara Harper:

Well, good. And right now you're selling through a grocery store, as we mentioned. But you're working on a direct to consumer option, right?

Craig Cameron:

Yeah, we do direct to consumer more with bulk, bulk sales. It's easier if someone wants to come to the farm for one steak. It's kind of hard to drop to do that. So we kind of say if someone's looking for just one or two things here there go to the Italian centers, go to messenger meets. If you're looking for a big couple of boxes of hamburger, half a cow, half a cow or whatever, then we're happy to put something together.

Sara Harper:

Oh good. And Jen, what is your best selling product?

Jennifer Kocher:

I would say obviously the pizza crust right now because I'm just starting to actually bag up our flour and rice.

Sara Harper:

And start well, that's exciting.

Jennifer Kocher:

Yay, I know. I got some craft bags. I like it with the little window so you can see the product inside. I'm creating the labels and I've had two people even locally asking me do you have that rice flower ready yet? And they want to buy it locally here.

Sara Harper:

That's great. Jen also has a retail part of her operation. She has manufacturing and retail all in one spot as well as online.

Jennifer Kocher:

So I'm trying to get more people to hire me to do. Their milling as well. The bestseller right now is The Pizza Crust because I was already making it. And who doesn't like pizza anyway?

Sara Harper:

Well, but especially I always have to say this because I've tasted a lot of gluten free pizzas because I am gluten free, and many of them have real challenges. And Jen's is so good, it really can pass as a regular, thin pizza crust. And I know a lot of them.

Jennifer Kocher:

Say that, but they can't surprise myself sometimes because we baked yesterday. And I always say, okay, well, we're all starving here, baking all these pizza crusts. I yelled up to my employee and I was like, Amy, make us a couple of pizzas for lunch. So she did, and then I went over to eat it and I was like, oh, this is actually crunchy, and it's actually good.

Sara Harper:

This is really good. You've been listening to Tasting Terroir, a podcast made possible by a magical collaboration between the following companies and supporters, all working together to help farmers, chefs, food companies and consumers to build healthier soil for a healthier world. Risotera. Owned by Dr. Joe Clapperton, Risotera is an international food security consulting company providing expert guidance for creating healthy soils that yield tasty, nutrient dense foods. Check us out@risottera.com. That's RH Izoterra.com and the Global Food and Farm online community, an ad free global social network and soil health streaming service that provides information and connections that help you apply the science and practice of improving soil health. Join us at GlobalFood and Farm.com and from listeners like you to support us through our Patreon account@patreon.com. Tastingterwire. Patrons receive access to our full length interviews and selected additional materials. Patrons will also have the opportunity to submit questions that we will answer on the podcast. Tune in next week to hear more interviews and insights with myself, Sarah Harper and Dr. Joe Clapperton, as well as the regenerative farmers, chefs and emerging food. Companies in the Global Food and Farm. Online community and beyond. If you like our work, please give us a five star rating and share the podcast with your friends. Thanks so much for listening and for helping us get the word out about this new resource to taste the health of your food. Until next week, stay curious, keep improving, and don't stop believing that better is. Possible when knowledge is available.