Barbell Shrugged - Making Healthy Living Easy and Affordable For Everyone w/ Gunnar Lovelace - 298

Episode Date: January 31, 2018

Gunnar Lovelace is founder and Co-CEO at Thrive Market, an online wholesale-buying club committed to sustainability and social justice. Lovelace is a is a lifelong health advocate and serial entrepreneur. He grew up as a child of a single mother, and experienced first hand how hard it was for families on fixed budgets to make healthy choices. At Thrive Market, he and his partners are on a mission to make healthy living accessible and affordable to everyone. Thrive Market is sort of an online Costco, full of only healthy, high quality products. In this episode, we dive into how Thrive Market built their business, what strategies they use to offer high quality foods to underserved markets, why we need more supplements than ever before, the new regenerative organic certification, and more. Enjoy! As a thank you for watching Thrive Market has a special offer for you. You get $60 of FREE Organic Groceries + Free Shipping and a 30 day trial, click the link below: https://thrivemarket.com/shrugged   How it works:  Users will get $20 off their first 3 orders of $49 or more + free shipping.  No code is necessary because the discount will be applied at checkout.  Many of you will be going to the store this week anyway, so why not give Thrive Market a try! ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Barbell Shrugged helps people get better. Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast and Barbell Logic. Find Barbell Shrugged here: Website: http://www.BarbellShrugged.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Find Barbell Business Here: Website: http://www.BarbellBusiness.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellbusiness Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellbusiness Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellbusinesspodcast

The core challenge is that, you know, we've now got seven and a half billion of us on the planet. You know, for the vast majority of our species, it was less than a billion of us. And then with the birth of agriculture, you suddenly have this new capability to produce food at a higher quantity from a very localized area on a consistent basis. And so that gives birth to modern civilization and trade and business and arts and language and all the things that we love and also you know all of our hopes and fears Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bletzer. Doug Larson. Anders Varner.

And we came up here to, are we in Venice Beach? Closer. Marina Del Rey. Marina Del Rey, up here in LA. And we dropped into Thrive Market to hang out with Gunnar Lovelace, the founder, co-founder of Thrive Market. And I'm really looking forward to finding out exactly what it is that, why you started this thing in the first place and what exactly it is. Sure.

Yeah. Well, it's great to have you guys here. And I don't think I've ever been interviewed standing up by three people at the same time. So this is a first. Whole new experience. Whole new experience. It's going to take you at least a week to digest what happens.

Hopefully I'm not that backed up yeah uh so so do you want me to kind of get into the high level yeah you know what um i'm curious as to why it is that you or yeah why did you start thrive market and i mean i i met you a few years ago at paleo effects and when you told me what you were up to, it sounded really fucking cool. And you took it really far so far. And I just want people to know why you did it in the first place. Yeah, so, I mean, it comes from a very personal place. A lot of survival trauma for me early on as a child you know growing up a single mother uh seeing how hard she worked to make healthy choices and it always seemed crazy to me that food with lots of chemicals

and processing cost less than food with no chemicals and processing like that's like the sky is you know down and the earth is up right um and um and as i mentioned we did a little tour you know my mother remarried and my stepfather was running a little food co-op out of a hippie commune. And so I got to see firsthand, like all the wacky stuff coming out of the organic industry, but also notice how expensive it was and how much lower prices could be when people bought together. And so as I went on in my own entrepreneurial career, I always felt like there was an opportunity to disrupt access to healthy living and that you know just transparently i've been looking for an organizing principle that brings people to at scale together

around you know common good my whole life and i love the conversation around food and health because it's so uh it's so accessible to everybody it doesn't matter you know what your color is what you believe where you live you know people want to feel good in their bodies and they want the same thing for their children. And so, you know, that, you know, having been going to Expo West for 15 years and knowing a lot of the founders in the space and really admiring a lot of the socially conscious businesses that were kind of emerging out of the organic industry. I felt like there was a real opportunity for us to disrupt access to that. And so what we do at its very core is we sell organic and non-GMO groceries at the same price as conventional equivalents for the first time in history, shipped to your home for free in eco-friendly packaging. And that's done through a membership model. So the traditional retailer will mark up their products a lot and the products are bought through a bunch of middlemen on the supply chain.

You've got your farmer, your co-packer, your brand, your brokers, your distributors, your retails, all the markup that happens in that process, which causes prices to be a lot more expensive than they necessarily need to be. Yeah. So is this similar to what Costco does? Exactly. So we're a socially conscious version of Costco online where you can buy online all of these products that you would get at a normal health food store, but at lower prices than you get at Whole Foods or other types of channels. encourage people to eat really well, eat clean. When organic became a thing, it was like you should be eating organic, and these are all the reasons why.

I mean, I think it would be good to dive into that, why organic and non-GMO is actually a good idea. And the pushback is always it's so expensive. That's right. Or you can't get it because it's not near you. Yeah, not near you. I mean, Doug and I were living in Memphis, Tennessee, you know, years ago. And finding great food was a challenge.

I remember when Whole Foods came in. And if I wasn't there on Sunday morning for the farmer's market, I was screwed. You know, it was like I just don't have the food, the access to the food. And moving to the West Coast actually made it, I found it way easier to eat really clean and healthy. It wasn't a challenge anymore. But for the majority of people that are watching, listening to the show, that's not, you know, their case is they don't have access to really great food. That's right. Yeah. And then access is, as you guys know, it's really also an educational

component too. So, you know, and that's the beauty of what you guys do in the community that you have. You're educators. So it's one thing is to, you know that and that's the beauty of what you guys do in the community that you have your your educators so it's one thing is to you know be able to access the products themselves it's another thing to be able to afford them and then it's another reason another thing to even know why it matters and so you know that's a core part of our thesis is that you know we're an aspirational brand experience that's selling these previously premium products for less combined with the social mission and educational content that informs and inspires people. So our model, instead of making money on the product sales, we charge a $60 a year membership, we break even on

the product sales, and then for every paid membership, we'll give a membership away to a family in need. How do you guys go about, if I turn on Netflix right now, there's probably 75 documentaries talking about how corrupt and crooked and bad labor policies that are going on in the food industry. You guys have seemed to have risen above that. How does that story go with building trust with your, and relationships with your clients? Because that model that you guys have set up, that really is the education piece that pushes Thrive forward. Yeah. And I think that the good news, as you pointed out, is the consumer is increasingly aware of and wanting to know more about that. And I think that's actually really driven by, in the face of intense political dysfunction,

we recognize the place that we have real power is voting with our dollars. And we want to support businesses that, yes, they serve our self-interest for getting us whatever it is we need at the best price possible, at the highest quality, but we also want to be able to support businesses that represent our values. And food is one of those places, you know. And so I think the great thing is that there are all these documentaries coming out, and there are communities like yourselves that are educating people about, you know, pay attention, like, you know, how many serving sizes. Yeah, maybe it's only three grams of sugar, but there's 30 servings in the thing, you know,

like little tricks like that that are being done all the time. And so the consumer is getting more sophisticated, and so I think that's a great thing. You know, for us in the market, you know, we're definitely positioned to really serve a really broad audience which is really um borne out by who our members are you know 50 of our members are in the midwest and the south this is not a bi-coastal phenomenon which i'm really excited about um those are likely the areas where it's hard to find stuff like this i would hard to

find and newer to the conversation yeah i mean I had a friend just last week, a childhood friend, texting me. He lives in St. Louis, and he says, my wife and I just decided to go paleo. How do you do it? That's right. And I said, well, being in St. Louis, you know, you've got some hoops to jump through. And check out Thrive Market. Yeah. I was like, hey, man, I got a discount code for you and everything.

We might share the discount code with everybody else. We'll see. Stay tuned. See what happens. Yeah, so I think that's really, you know, so it is really hard to verify. You know, we've had brands that represented things to us, and then we found out after the fact, and we had to pull them off, even when they're, like, top-selling brands.

So you get this dynamic tension in any business when you've got a social mission like where does that line draw and that's that's a you know there's a small startup you know that's those are those are difficult decisions what is that process what is that process on uh how do you guys decide hey this brand is no longer in line with this this culture that we're creating or the social mission. Where do you guys got to draw that line? Because you are a business. You do have to produce the revenues. But there's also this other side of this social venture that you guys are on.

So I think at the core, we believe that the brand is the most valuable asset that we have. And so if the trust isn't there, if we're doing something that we feel like is going to be exposed later as a clear hypocrisy, we're going to make whatever decision we need to do to really protect the integrity of our trust with our members. So that's first and foremost. It's just that's the way we think about it. And we're willing to take the hit to maintain and preserve that and grow it. That said, it's hard. I mean, the supply chain of laundry versus like,

you know, of a power bar. I mean, these things are like super complex global phenomenons at this point. And so, you know, our one of the first hires we made, he's our senior vice president of product development. You know, he ran all of whole body for Whole Foods for seven years, you know, billion and a half dollar annual division. He led their whole product development. You know, he ran all of Whole Body for Whole Foods for seven years, you know, a billion and a half dollar annual division. He led their whole product development. You know, he's a very, very experienced entrepreneur in that particular industry.

And so, you know, there are things you look for. You know, what are the types of certifications that a co-packer has? What's the fair trade supply chain look like with a partner that we're you know so there's like things like that that said we don't get it perfect all the time and you know we end up making some mistakes and then we have to clean it up and then yeah that's just part of the iterative process it seems that high quality food delivered at lower prices than you can find most other places would be much easier to do once you've hit a certain level of scale because you have enough volume to get good prices on things like how how does the business look now versus how it looked when you

were you know 10 people and how did you deliver on that when you were so small uh we were um to your point we lost a lot of money on every sale when we were small you know that was just we that was our strategy you know we we went for a growth strategy and we knew that our model worked at a certain measure of scale and we're, we're hitting that scale now. So our pricing structures are really starting to work across the business. And, you know, that was really difficult to do because, you know, we were rejected by all the top VC firms when, you know, my co-founder Nick and I were doing the roadshow, San Francisco, LA, New York, like ubiquitously, every single one rejected us. And so, you know, it meant that we had to be really scrappy and really like, you know, it was touch and go. But ultimately it was the best thing ever being

rejected by all the VC firms because we brought in over 150 mega bloggers as investors in the business. So the first $10 million we raised all was influencers like yourselves who heard from their communities, you know, we want to live the lifestyle, but we can't afford to do it or we're not near a health food store. And so that really trained us on this idea as content is marketing and marketing is content and as a way to really build trust in a time where people don't trust their traditional sources. Yeah.

What is the problem with a lot of traditional sources? I mean, because this is not something that was necessary 100, 200, 300 years ago. And there's a new emergence of industrialized food. I think most people listening already understand that there's a huge problem with our current food system. But I'm sure you have. Can you lay it out for people who may not be initiated? Sure. I mean, to your point, there's so many different ways of approaching that.

But, you know, 100 years ago, like you illustrated, everything was organic, right? I mean, that's just the way the world was. And so the idea now that, you know, conventional is the baseline and you've got, you know, massive amounts of, you know, chemical fertilizers made from,izers made from hydrocarbons that are being put into soils to build this very unsustainable system. So I think from my perspective, and I totally welcome feedback on this, I think the core challenge is that we've now got 7.5 billion of us on the planet. For the vast majority of our species, it was less than a billion of us. And then with the birth of agriculture, you suddenly have this new capability to produce food at a higher quantity from a very localized area on a consistent basis. And so that gives birth to modern civilization and trade and business and arts and language and all the

things that we love. And also, you know, all of our hopes and fears. But it also allows for our population to explode. So, you know, birth of Jesus Christ, about a billion of us on the planet, you know, you go, you know, and that's after 185,000 years on the planet. Then you go to World War II, suddenly you got two and a half billion people on the planet. And then you fast forward another 70 years to present day, we're at seven and a half billion people on the planet. So that's a real challenge, just structurally, just from a pure like sustainability dynamic and you know every major ecosystem now is either on the verge of collapse or is collapsing and a lot of that is driven by the way we produce distribute and consume our food a lot of the the strategy that's

been used up at this point last hundred years or longer is just extract the resources out of the ground and it'll figure the nature will figure it out that's right and it's just we've broken that feedback loop and so i i think uh some dots that people don't tend to connect just yet but over time people will be connecting these dots which is if the land is is fucked up and the natural feed feedback loops are fucked up that means the food we're eating is going to really – it's not going to have the nutrients we need to be fit, to be healthy. And it's getting more and more challenging. And I actually think that's why there's a huge emergence in the supplement industry is because you have all these – you're eating food that's devoid of nutrition. So now the supplement industry is just skyrocketing

because now we're trying to plug holes and you know yeah you're gonna be able to plug some holes but i mean we're discovering new new stuff more new stuff all the time that's not we're like oh your body needs this we didn't even know that existed five years ago so we're making all these new discoveries it's like well you know if the, if you were just getting like, if you had sustainable agricultural processes, this wouldn't even be a problem. So as we go forward, we have to take care of, we have to think about the sustainability of our resources and how to get the, and think about the ecosystem as things go on and consider ourselves as part of that ecosystem. Yeah. And I think you hit on amazing themes there. I mean, the truth is that the costs that we pay today for the products we consume don't reflect the real costs of those products. And that's what

you're hitting on with, you know, what chemicals are released when making my jeans, you know, by, you know, meat that's grown from land that's, you know, been deforested. So these are the types of things that, you know, we're now with the internet and the transparency that's starting to come into the system, we have an opportunity and, frankly, a responsibility to educate ourselves and empower ourselves. Can you actually expand on that a little bit? A lot of people might not have really took in what you just said about the price you pay for food isn't the full cost of that food. Can you go into more detail there? Yeah, So just thinking about the meat industry, for example, which is an area that we're focusing on really intensely. And we have some amazing stuff that we're doing that we're

about to release there. And so we've been studying, like I have a PhD researcher just helping us understand how does the meat industry work today? And you've got a big player like mega meat producer Smithfield Farms that's now Hog Farm in North Carolina. They have all these exploitive contracts with farmers. They've got, it's a Chinese owned company. They're getting hundreds of millions of dollars a year in agricultural subsidies that make their products artificially cheap. And that's being funded by us as taxpayers. So you've got a taxpayer that's funding this distortionary corporate welfare

that makes extra profits for a company. And then the taxpayer is then picking up environmental cleanup costs because of dead oceans. And it's picking up health costs because people are getting sick. So this is the state of our kind of crony capitalist system. And I think the power that we have now is moving so quickly with this voting with our dollars that it used to be that, say, in the 50s and the 60s, the government actually could

work somewhat functionally and pass legislation like Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act. You had Republicans and Democrats actually able to come together and make those types of decisions. That just doesn't happen anymore. That was previously top down. Now it's bottom up. And I think that's the power of what you guys do is you're out there educating, and it's creating a wave of consumers that are asking for a better way. Really interested in the social conscious side of this thing. So if I go to the store and I want a bell pepper well i don't want it to be a gmo pepper i also want the person that picked that pepper to be paid well i want the

soil to be awesome where where do you guys start looking for this stuff where when have we gone too far into this social conscious thing i don't know if there is too far but how do you guys there's a there's a give and take on everything and where does it start where does it end and where is kind of your mission yeah and and and you're absolutely right there is no like absolute right or wrong way I mean this is like the great the grand human experiment and so we're asking ourselves constantly as a business how do we do it better yeah and there are times where we're able to do it one way because of where we're at as a business,

and then that's continued to evolve. For example, the first two years of the business, I was trying to get rid of all the virgin plastic in our packaging, and I just couldn't get rid of it. I couldn't find anything that performed the right way, that had the right pricing. Our margin structures were going to get messed up if we tried to do something,

and we were going to have all sorts of returns because something was going to melt because it got heat, and laundry detergent was going to get messed up if we tried to do something and we were going to have all sorts of returns because something was going to melt because it got heat and you know you know laundry detergent was going to break open and it wasn't going to perform well it was going to ruin an order so like we had to make the decision that we're going to use a poly bag to wrap our laundry detergent because we're shipping to people and boxes get knocked around that really agitated me for a long time um but you know we've been able to make a really consistent effort to you know really apply ourself on that I had mentioned on the tour you know we we just became the first e-commerce company to go zero waste from our distribution center to landfill which means that there isn't

there's no waste that's going from our DC's to the landfill and that's like like simple stuff like all of our all the the packaging gets palletized and recycled. You know, if the pallets are broken, we make them into firewood and the employees actually use it as firewood. I mean, just like simple things like that that just make sure that our distribution centers are like really clean. Another question about organic food. I think a lot of people think about things being organic or not organic. And if it's not organic, then there's chemicals and pesticides and all kinds of stuff that you don't want on your food that you're consuming. And if it's organic, then hopefully you're not getting those things and it's better for you.

But is there really actually a spectrum there? It's not black or white, yes or no, good and bad. What does that spectrum look like and how do you choose if something is organic enough? Yeah, so I think you've got to know your sources. So that's the first thing. As a consumer, we have to just take total responsibility and we can't assume that anybody, even if they've got an organic

label, it might be really highly processed and not be good for the body anyway. So you've got all sorts of... There's all kinds of organic gummy bears out there and you're just like, well, that doesn't mean it's good for you. It just happens to be organic. And fat-free. Organic vegan Pop-Tarts. Yes. Delicious.

Sounds like Burning Man food. For sure. So I think the core there is we have to take responsibility. Like, yeah, we can point out, and we do as a business, we point out bad actors. But at the end of the day, it's on us. We have to empower ourselves to educate ourselves. The good news is that we can literally go to google and you type in almost anything and there's going to be commentary about it whether it's reviews what it

is like the information is now out i think it's really hard to keep secrets um and i think that uh to your point like yes organic is really really important to the movement in fact we're coming out as a business with patagonia and dr bronner's and others releasing a regenerative organic certified label it's the new label beyond organic which is all about soils and worker standards like there's a whole new label that we're about to release as an alliance as part of this coalition that is you know what's the next level beyond organic yeah so it's implying that the practices used to make this organic food are also sustainable regenerative regenerative so what's the difference there so so sustainable just by technical So it's implying that the practices used to make this organic food are also sustainable? Regenerative. Regenerative. What's the difference there?

So sustainable, just by technical definition, means you sustain where you're at. We've done so much damage to the ecosystems. We actually now need to consciously build our supply chains to have positive externalities instead of negative externalities, which actually make things regenerative, which make them better, which make them healthier. And that's to the earlier point of the conversation. A lot of that's driven by soil. We don't realize what we're doing to our soil. All carrots are not equal.

You know, if you've got a carrot that's grown in dead soil with chemical fertilizers, it's just like empty calories. Yeah. I mean, to that point, when we look at the soil, there's three main chemicals we add to it to make things grow faster. Right. But we're not replenishing all the other minerals. So it's like we're growing food.

We're just robbing from future generations. Bernie Madoff is commonly known as the purveyor of the largest Ponzi scheme in history. I would say that we're all purveyors of the largest Ponzi scheme in history. And that Ponzi scheme is called Capitalism 1.0. And we actuallyzi scheme is called Capitalism 1.0.

And we actually need to really make Capitalism 2.0. Yeah. When I think about change, how do you get a culture, an entire group of people to make a change? You know, education makes up a piece of that. And that's one of the things that we're doing. But in studying economics, I look at what got us in trouble in the first place is the economic piece because not everything is being considered and people, I think, are

driven more by economics than by education. I may know better, but when I get to the store and I look at my bank account and I look at these options, I think a lot of times if I'm not fully convinced, I'm going to go to the cheaper thing. And that's what's driven all these things to be made of corn and things like that. That's right. Yeah, and the corporate welfare in the system, right? So you've got this whole shift out of a post-World War II economy where all these chemical war processes got shifted to support these kind of industrial farming practices that just caused us to go down this, you know, really distorted way of producing food. I think that, you know, it's,

there's just so many ways to tackle the conversation. And the good news is it's happening really quickly. And I think that the bad news is it needs to happen faster. Yeah. So we mentioned organic, but you also mentioned GMO foods. What really is the problem with something being genetically modified and why should we be avoiding those foods in the first place? Let's take a break and then we'll jump into GMOs. Sounds good. Yeah. Thanks for watching the show. If you'd like to learn more about how to improve your snatch, clean and jerk, we have a free 55 page ebook you can get at flightweightlifting.com has sample programming specifically for weightlifting weightlifting how-to technique

videos and other tips on how to improve all of your lifts go to flightweightlifting.com and you can download that ebook for free download it now all right and we're back with ganar lovelace of thrive market and uh actually before we go any, I want to make sure you guys get a special gift, which is if you go to thrivemarket.com slash shrugged, you're going to get $60 worth of free groceries and free shipping for the first 30 days. I've been a member of Thrive Market for two years now. My wife and I have been getting all sorts of products from you guys

that we can't find in the grocery store, or it's just cheaper, or we find a much better brand, or it's something where I'm like, I don't know if I can trust this, and I know that I can just go to Thrive Market and I can trust whatever it is that you guys are selling is something that's going to be good for my body. Thank you. So you go to the thrivemarket.com forward slash shrugged and you'll get the first month of free trial.

You'll get free shipping and you'll get $60 of grocery credits off your first three orders. And the way we are a membership community, so that's how we make our money. And so the membership won't be charged until the 30-day period. So you get to make as many orders as you want during those 30 days. And you'll get your groceries delivered conveniently to your home. And then at the end of those 30 days, you get charged a $60 membership.

I'm going to buy a year's worth of almond butter. Exactly. Coffee. Yeah. And what else? Ghee. Ghee. Ghee and mayonnaise.

Yeah. Primal Kitchen avocado mayonnaise. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's what else? Ghee. Ghee. Ghee and mayonnaise. Primal Kitchen avocado mayonnaise. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's what I buy, actually. I saw Mark the other day. We were making our own mayonnaise.

My wife makes amazing mayonnaise, actually, so she still makes it sometimes. But we always have the Primal Kitchen mayonnaise there just in case it didn't get made. Mark was our first influencer investor, so we spent three hours at a Starbucks selling him on Thrive Market, which was called Shop Tribe at the point. So it's all sorts of iterations of the business. Right on. So right before the break, I was asking you about GMOs.

So I'll kind of re-ask the question for context. Really, what is the problem with something that's genetically modified, and why should we be avoiding those foods and trying to buy foods that are GMO free? So our position, so first of all, we are the largest retailer in the country that sells exclusively non-GMO groceries. So we've been incredibly fastidious about that. And that hasn't been easy.

As I mentioned, there's top-selling brands that said they were non-GMO and then we found out later that they are, and we had to pull them off. GMOs seem to be in everything. It's like high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. It's just everywhere. Yeah. So I think that is our core position. We're very fastidious about making sure that we don't carry GMOs in our food groceries.

That said, we're not inherently against genetically engineering. We've been doing it for thousands of years. The species is called natural selection you know breeding like this is it's a slower form of genetic engineering but it's basically that i think the problem with genetic engineering today in the food system at scale the way it's being done is that we're engineering our food crops to withstand massive amounts of poison. So you've got Roundup Ready food crops. I know the solution. Roundup Ready food crops like corn, soy, cotton, wheat, etc.

that are being engineered to withstand massive amounts of poisoning, which is this herbicide which kills the weeds, but the plant survives this incredible poison, but it also absorbs that poison and then ends up in our food stream. So the plant, so to speak, is okay, but we may not be. Exactly. And the planet is definitely not okay with it. It's not good.

It's like it's completely – Gets in the water supply and all that. It kills all the topsoil, gets in the water streams. Like there's some studies coming out showing more than 50% of Americans are now testing positive for glyphosate in their urine. Is that the – That's Roundup. That's Roundup.

Oh, wow. And Roundup, the way it kills insects is it gets in their digestive tract and eats them from the inside out. You don't know the mechanics of actually how it works at that level. It really messes up the digestive system. So it's probably messing up our digestive system too. There is a lot of speculation that all the various types of gluten intolerances and celiac are actually functions of a lot of glyphosate in our intestinal tract. It sounds like there's a lot of people with really weak digestive systems these days.

That's a super common thing to have. It's like, oh, my shit is not coming out right. You have a problem. That sounds like a super common thing to have. It's like, oh, my shit is not coming out right. You have a problem. That sounds like a problem. But back to your point, for us, one, we're incredibly – again, we have become the largest retail in the country that sells exclusively non-GMO groceries. That said, it's not like we're against it necessarily.

We just think it needs to be done slowly and properly. And until it's done that way in a way that we feel like we can trust and that we feel like it's good for our members, we're not going to have any genetically engineered food on the platform. When you guys are going out and finding products, I'm holding this organic extra virgin olive oil from Greece. We just got a sweet tour. This place is gorgeous. What does it look like outside of this facility? Who's out finding the best olive oil, not just locally, but in the world, and bringing it here so that you guys can be the distributors? Yeah, so we actually go ourselves in a lot of instances.

So Nick, my co-founder, and Jeremiah, the head of our product development, they literally were there. It's a third-generation olive farm in Crete, the oldest olive tree in the world right down the road. And as you know, with olive oil, it's often used with solvents, and the solvents get into the olive oil, or it's cut with vegetable oils. I just learned about this. I was watching something on honey and realized that they're literally

cutting it like drugs. You're buying a quarter of the honey, yet they're selling you this thing as if it's grown in your backyard by these beautiful bees. No, you just cut that seven times. There's actually no honey in there whatsoever. So olive oil

has had a lot of controversy around is it really olive oil? How's it processed? That's why we were know we're really clear about making sure it was cold press virgin that way we know that there's no solvents being used in the extraction process um you know the other one here and i showed this to you guys on the tour was you know our almond butter and i was mentioning that you know the leading almond butters on the market will use palm oil and sugars um and as we mentioned, palm oil is one of the leading destroyers

of rainforests. And so very simple revolutionary idea that a single ingredient is just almonds. And so that's kind of how we think about it. Our coconut oil, we're working with incredible fair trade supply chains all over Southeast Asia. And we don't always get it right. We'll find out about something later, and we have to go fix it. These are complex systems.

Yeah, a lot of MCT oil that's out there is palm oil. That's right. And that's super problematic just because it destroys a lot of land. I mean, palm oil is just a freight train through the rainforest ecosystems. And, you know, there are technically, like, you know, certified sustainable palm oil sources, but that's just so, like, derivative. And I just think that we shouldn't be supporting palm oil, period. It's, you know, we carry a little bit of certified

sustainable palm oil on the site but it's not like that's not an area that I'm particularly proud of is there a better substitute for things that palm oil is being used for I mean coconut oil you know olive oil you just don't need it like it's just it's just it's just you know again like these you know you've got big food companies working in developed countries and developing countries that get all sorts of sweetheart deals for the land and these distortionary economic dynamics that cause palm oil to be artificially cheap. We're talking a lot about food, but we also have these cleaning supplies. And I swear, sometimes I walk in my kitchen and it looks like there's a chemistry experiment going on because my wife is trying to figure out how to make this stuff from all the bad information

and put the right things together so we can actually have a clean house and we're not breathing all these toxic fumes in all day. What is a little bit of the story behind how you guys got into cleaning products? Yeah. So to your point, a lot of people don't realize that their home is actually the most toxic environment that they'll be in and also don't realize that their skin is the largest organ in the body so you've got you know you're applying all of this stuff you know there's studies showing out that there's all sorts of respiratory

downstream effects from the chemicals we use you put your baby in a bathtub the pores of the baby dilate the baby walks around absorbs everything from the floor. So, you know, there's some real reasons not to use chemicals with hormone and endocrine disruptors and chemical stabilizers and chemical perfumes. Like there's just data around it. You know, Europe has banned over 1,300 chemicals that we only like. They're all allowed in the U in the US market except for like four So that just shows you how powerful these industries are in in our in our particular system So I think you know to that end our whole mission is to empower our members to be able to make healthy living

Accessible and easy for everybody. Yeah, and so, you know cleaning products essential part of that, whether it's the simple act of like, what's your laundry detergent like? And let's use a nice lavender essential oil instead of like some chemical stabilizer. And it's so easy to get lost in the marketing without having somebody that's saying like, here's the problems, here's a better solution, here's the product that can help you. That's right. My wife recently got an app where she can just scan barcodes of the different products in the house. And she just went around the whole house scanning barcodes. It's like a scale of 1 to 10. Which app was it?

Was it the EWG Skin Deep? I don't know. She was telling me all about it. I was like, you got this handled. Because we actually sat down and had a conversation and said, I pushed it for a little bit and then she pushed back and then she went and met with some women where they were talking about now she sold on it so i can't say anything um but no she gets this app and she she goes around the house and she's scanning barcodes and she's just throwing shit away she's just like and then she's like i don't know if i should throw this away because now where is that gonna go you know this is problematic

overall but let's get it out of the house so i got out of the house and now she uh she uses uh an app to to scan the barcode or something she just it hit her one day she was putting on makeup and she goes i don't even know if this is safe scan the makeup terrible goes and finds goes and finds some really natural stuff you know what's funny she started using this new makeup and two three days later and then she has a some makeup that's got probiotics built into it and her face just started glowing like first thing in the morning she didn't wake up looking tired she looked bright when she woke up and it was just from changing the makeup she was using. It was incredible.

It is interesting. For us, historically, and that's changing with more men coming into the conversation, but 90% of our members have been women historically. And they tend to be chief of household, like you're talking about. Totally. She's running it. And the good news is that is changing, that more men are coming into the conversation, which is great.

Obviously, that's part of what you guys do is help broad... Finally got us in here. Yeah, exactly. But I think it is interesting for women that a lot of times, even women that are really focused on health and wellness, it's often from the neck down because of the beauty and makeup. That's just been a really hard place for women to make a better choice. wellness it's often from the neck down because of because of the beauty and makeup like that's just been a really hard place for women to make a better choice and we're you know we're really

excited about being able to offer solutions that you know are mineral based and other types of things that don't have all of those chemical toxins do you have a do you have an app you were you were started listing off apps um do you have any apps that you would recommend people use to find out how toxic the chemicals are in their house? Well, I mean, I like the EWG Skin Deep database. They have an app, too, and it's like the largest database of toxic ingredients in all the products we use, both beauty care, personal care, food. So they've got an amazing database. And then I'm biased.

Our app is awesome. It's an award-winning app. But, you know, it's not explicitly focused on toxicity, but we do have a lot of content around that so that we help educate people about it. Nice. So it seems you guys are doing really, really well right now. You're doing a lot of good in the world.

You're growing. You've got 700 team members. What does the future look like for you guys? Where are you going next? It's really a lot of the same. We're just getting warmed up, and the market for food is so big that it's really our core focus is just to stay completely obsessed about our member

and just continue to make everything better all the time. So, you know, that's how do we make the packaging better? How do we connect the stories of the brands and the people behind those brands to our members better so that they understand what it is that they're supporting? How do we take care of our employees better? These are all the types of questions that we're constantly asking ourselves. I mentioned to you earlier on the tour that the single biggest thing that we've been challenged with is just that rapid growth. You get all sorts of challenges that emerge out of that. And how do you really invest in your people in a way that makes people feel connected and positive and feel like they're part of something greater than just a nine to five job. And that's, we've

really benefited as a, as a mission driven business, we benefit from all these positive virtuous cycles from people feeling like they're part of something much greater than just punching in and punching out. Um, that said, like it's, it's in a continuum. And while we, you know, made a lot of mistakes, we've made a lot of progress. We have so many things that we know we can do better. And we're just constantly trying to stay super focused on those things. And on the tour, you were saying that when you first started, it was all kind of third party products, but lately you guys have, have started making all of your own not all of your own but many of your own products what's the story there and what do you want to do with that yes i mean i think that the thing that we see there is a lot of times there's products where we can't get the right pricing or quality from a

third-party partner and so we'll work to innovate on the supply chain so i mentioned the bone broth for example we went to a grass-fed jerky provider. We were able to use the whole animal to create a nutrient-dense bone broth. Or the coffee example. We just couldn't get the pricing right. We knew that our members are expecting to get better pricing.

It is back to that self-interest issue. Part of the reason we grow so quickly is people want to be able to get a better price. And they want to be able to have it delivered conveniently to their home. But our core thesis as a business is we want to save you time and money but connect you to your purchases in a way that make you understand that you're doing good for the world with every single purchase and so really the our own branded product is really just an extension of that basic idea how do we continue to make it easier better

more affordable, higher quality, more ethical across the board? And our own product development is a core part of that. I imagine there's probably supply chain issues and processes that have to go beyond where it is now. But what does fresh food look like? Is that a potential to be able to get meats, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits to people that aren't in California? Yeah.

So that's it. It's been obviously, to your point, it's hugely important. And frankly, it's more important than a lot of the stuff that we sell when you come to like the, you know, true nutrient potential and health of a human being. We spent a year doing GPS heat map testing, trying to ship vegetables. It's really hard. Oh, yeah, I can imagine. It's brutal.

By the time you factor in the cost of shipping, the shipping cost itself, the packaging, the labor, shipping potatoes and broccoli, it's impossible. I think it's a testament, too, because you guys do keep such a high quality that it, if it's not going to be at that quality, you're not going to sacrifice the brand and sacrifice that, that piece of it.

Yeah. So the way we've approached that to date has been that we think that the best solution is to get truly nutrient dense, fresh food from a local farmer at a farmer's market where you're able to interact with your farmers on a local basis and then get everything else from us. And so that is, I think, the best solution for the food system in general, both for the consumer and for the farmers. It's really important that the local communities are supported and farmers markets are the

epicenter of where that happens. And so being able to get something that was just harvested the morning before, it's like truly nutrient, hasn't been oxidized for 10 or 15 days. Even if you're buying in California, the way that the food system works, that could be sitting on a bunch of intermediary processes for 10 days oxidizing. And it may look shiny and bright because it's been waxed, but it's basically dead. Nothing's more frightening than when you walk into the store and everything looks the same and you're like, I know that's not true.

They're telling a story over there that is not true. All those oranges should not be that large or look the exact same. We're in Vermont and our friend Joe, who runs a farm there, was saying that the best thing he can find on his fruits and vegetables are bugs. If there's bugs on them, then those bugs didn't get killed by something. That's right. And bees.

And bees. Which are a bug. But yeah, definitely. Like, you know, you want to see, you want your kale to have, you know, critters in it. Like, then you know it's alive and you know the soil is healthy and you know that you're getting truly nutrient dense kale. So that's, you know, that's, but I think, you know, the soil is healthy and you know, that you're getting truly nutrient dense kale. Uh, so that's, you know, that's, uh, but I think, you know, we,

we are studying ways to do things well beyond the core catalog, um, including meats and other categories. And, uh, you know, we have, we have, we could do a whole other discussion about that and a couple of months, cause there's a whole thing that we're doing there. I don't want to announce it quite yet, but that's a whole great topic of conversation we'll be back awesome yeah um if you guys are well i want to mention too you guys have that app you mentioned that a little bit but i'm able to go on that app and just add groceries to my oh yeah you can just go in there just like yeah and it's really easy to reorder your last order or you can put it on

auto ship um it's i mean these are consumables last order, or you can put it on auto ship. I mean, these are consumables. You figure out what it is you want from us, and you can just have it come every month on a consistent basis. Yeah, instead of me telling my wife, hey, can you put this on the list? I'm just adding it to the app, and it's right there in the cart the whole time. So make sure to go to thrivemarket.com slash shrugged. You get a 30-day free trial, 60 bucks worth of groceries. What did you say for the first?

Yeah, over your first three orders. So you get $20 off each order for your first three orders. There you go. Anything else to go with that? And free shipping. Free shipping. Yeah. Free shipping.

So definitely do it. Check it out. And where else can, is there anything else I'm leaving out where people need to find thrive market? I mean, we're, as you said, the app store where we have a great blog on our platform. You know, we're really grateful for the work you guys do. It's an amazing time, you know, where, where the, so many changes going on. And I think that we, we have this amazing opportunity, uh, working in partnership to really help empower and inspire people to live a better life and to do that in a humble authentic way and i know you guys that's clearly what you guys embody so really appreciate you guys coming in and look forward to being allies for for many years yeah

thanks for coming on and having us up in your place it's been really good awesome thanks guys thank you and make sure to go over to it. Give us a five-star review, positive comments. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, all that mess, and we'll see you next week. Thanks for making it all the way to the end of the show. If you like the show, which I know you did, please go share it on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever social media channel you happen to be loving at the moment. Pinterest? Twitter?

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