The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Ben Beichler Of Creambrook Farm Joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Ben Beichler, Owner of Creambrook Farm, joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Ma��ana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc, Castle Hill Cider, and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex. This is Michael. Happy to be here. We're very excited to have you joining us this morning. And as you can hear, we're going to be joined very shortly in the show by Ben Beichler from Greenwood Farm, which is indeed a dairy farm. So we'll be looking forward to that in just a few minutes here. We've got a great show lined up for you. He's going to be joining us.

We'll have some finance topics later in the show. Glad to be here. Happy to be here, Alex. With you. Glad to be here on the I Love Seville Network. Appreciate, of course, all our great partners, Emergent Financial Services, Matias Yon Realty, Credit Series Insurance, Castle Hill Cider, Fort Adelante. Love just

really being able to partner with so many great businesses here in Charlottesville, Virginia. So we've got a lot going on. The best part, too, winter's over. It springs here, right? It feels like it, doesn't it? It springs here, yeah.

There's no more cold days. Exactly. Well, the funny thing is, last night, it changed. But last night, I was checking the weather forecast for Friday, and it was predicting 78 degrees. And I said, what are we, just a stiff spring and go straight to summer? And, you know, thankfully that's been adjusted.

It's been adjusted, but it's still like 70 tomorrow. It's going to be 70 tomorrow. The problem is with this weather, Alex, do you get a chilled cafe con leche or a hot cafe con leche? That's the challenge. Our viewers are wondering what Alex is going to recommend. I know. I would still say with the rain, still go with the warm cafe con leche.

It's pretty humid out there. The AC, when we were driving here, the AC turned on on your car automatically. It's true. It's true. So I just, it's that time you can choose your preference. Can you have a lukewarm Café con Leche? Does that sound right? I feel like either hot or cold is kind of your...

Lukewarm, do you... Lukewarm seems indecisive. Like, do you want cold or do you want hot? So what's Alex's official thing? Before people sit down they need to know. Get your hot cafe con leche settle into a cozy spot. It's still rainy and dark. You're going to feel cold if you drink

a cold cafe con leche. That would be my suspicion. And we certainly have some good news relative to last time. Last week we were sitting here saying, oh man, UVA basketball not doing so great. How did they win three in a row?

Well, it's because you and I gave a pep talk. We were like, hey, come on. You guys can play better. Tony better figure it out. And they were watching today and they made the adjustments. I mean, we noticed. We watched the game. We were like, that's what... I was like, Alex told them to do that. And it worked. But it's been, I was like, Alex told them to do that. And it worked. Exactly.

But it's been pretty, I mean, since then, they, obviously they beat Virginia Tech, which was good. Yes. Always good. They then won their first road game of the season. Of the season or in the ACC season? Their first true road game. I think they had won like some neutral spot games.

But I don't think they had won a road game all season. Wow. In the opponent's stadium. So they did that. And then they got revenge last night. It took overtime, but they got revenge against NC State for having crushed them a few weeks ago. So we beat NC State. So that was nice. So, I mean, we're back to over 500 in the ACC.

Got some wins. I mean, our record is, what, we have like five losses? I think five losses. So, I mean, our record is, what, we have like five losses? I think five losses. So, I mean, it's not a bad record. Really, the issue is one of those is that loss to Notre Dame was one of the worst teams in basketball. So, it's a bad loss. Yeah, I know, but they could still turn it around.

I mean, you look at the schedule outside of, I mean, they got obviously one game against UNC and one game against Duke. If they can manage to sneak one of those and just have one loss the rest of the year, at least you give yourself a shot if you have a good ACC tournament run. I mean, if they have one loss, to get to one loss for the rest of the year, they're probably going to have to beat two out of three of Duke, UNC, and Clemson, which are the three good teams in the ACC. So they're going to have to beat two out of those three teams,

which is probably what it would take. I've read some articles that might be what it would take to get to the NCAA tournament. Probably not. Can't have any other bad losses. I'm probably going to win two out of three than some combination of Duke, UNC, and... It's doable, though.

It's doable. I think they're better than they've played in some of their losses. I think so too. We've got some good players. We've got some talent. They just have to figure it out. The defense has been good. It's just every once in a while the offense just can't figure it out. As long as the defense can keep it close

and offensively they can get more people involved and not just feel like it's just Reese Beekman doing everything. Exactly. We have some people tuning in this morning. Bill McChesney, thanks for watching the show this morning. Ali Raza, thanks for watching the show this morning. Dr. Elizabeth

Irby, watching the show this morning. Always appreciate our fantastic guests joining us. And speaking of fantastic guests, we're excited to welcome to the show this morning Ben Beitler. He is one of the founders and one of the owners of Creambrook Farms. So Ben, thanks so much for coming on this morning.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Really excited. It's our pleasure. So for those who haven't met you yet, tell us maybe a little bit about yourself. I know Creambrook Farms is like a family business. The family is involved, you, your wife, your kids. Tell us a little bit about how you first started it, how you first went down the path of starting it. Yeah, so the cliff notes, to make a long story short,

is I did not grow up farming. I actually grew up in northern Maryland, north of Bel Air, close to the Mason-Dixon line. I grew up, my grandparents used to go to farm shows all the time when I was a kid, and they would take me along. And I fell in love with tractors and animals and all those things. Graduated high school, attended Towson University outside of Baltimore because that's what I was supposed to do, or at least I was told. Was getting good grades, but I was literally bored to tears with college. It drove me crazy.

Like I would go to college, I'd come home and split firewood and sell firewood on the side just to like stay sane with the classwork. And at that point in time, I came across the writings of Joel Salatin over at Polyface Farm. It really reignited that interest I'd always had in farming, but I'd always been told like, well, you can't farm. You don't have a farm. Your family's not farmers. Most people might not realize this, but farming is kind of the American royalty. Like you're either born into it or you have a really long bloody struggle to get into it. Um, so we, so which way we know which way you, we know which way I took. Yeah. Um, so, um, polyphagy and apprenticeship program. I applied, moved in 2007 from Maryland, quit college in between college semesters,

sat my parents down. It's like, Hey guys, um, I just canceled all my college courses cause I could get a full refund. I'm taking my summer job back and so I can move Virginia I'm going to start farming and the reaction was mixed to say say the best but anyway I moved down didn't really have any idea what part of agriculture I might end up in but just did the apprenticeship program work for multiple other farms just kind of like tasting and trying different things to see what caught my interest and I found out I had a real love for cows, really, really enjoyed cattle. And for whatever reason, milking was something that, and raw milk was something I was really drawn to. So in 2012, my wife, Chris, and I married. As soon as we got back from our honeymoon, we borrowed her dad's truck and a cattle trailer

and went to Pennsylvania and bought our first couple dairy cows. We were renting a small little farm in Swope, started milking there. That's where Cream Brook really kind of took off. We were still doing some pasture poultry and some other things on contract for another farm at that time period, but the dairy was the long-term goal. We operated there for two years, realized that we didn't know what we were doing, so we kind of temporarily shuttered Cream Brook and over the next three years worked for multiple different farms,

two of which were in Pennsylvania, kind of getting my quote-unquote master's degree in dairy specifically. It wasn't a literal master's degree, but just getting experience. Yeah, getting experience. And then in 2017, we got the opportunity to come down to our farm in Middlebrook. So we relocated from Pennsylvania back to Virginia. My wife's from Virginia originally, so that's where her family's from. And started Creambrook with the intentions

of certifying as an organic dairy, shipping milk commercially to Organic Valley. We did not have ambitions of becoming a raw milk operation, but 2017 was a really terrible year for commodity dairy. And we were kind of caught in the crosshairs. Like, here we are trying to get started. The market's awful. We're going to go belly up, literally right out of the gate,

if we don't adapt and make some major changes. So we had worked for some raw milk operations. We were familiar with raw milk. We're like, well, we know how to do this. I guess we'll start trying that. So I think it was Juneune or july 2017 we started our herd share um it was like 30 folks um in stanton and charlotte sort of the two areas that we kind of originally got started with middle brook where our farm is located just outside

of stanton just southwest of it so maybe 50 50 minutes from here um and then things took off from there um we found there was a real need for the raw milk of course we were highly motivated to like we we just acquired this farm of course nothing will motivate you like a mortgage payment necessity right yep necessity and um so we we worked aggressively growing it and then when covet hit in 2020 and everybody had kind of this scare over food accessibility it like blew the lid off of our business. I mean, we all of a sudden just got inundated. Yes, we just got inundated.

And we thought at that point in time that this is a one-time blip in the radar just because of the unique situation everybody was going through. But COVID was followed up by a real interest in people on how can we improve our own health? What can I do to make myself resilient? Not just to COVID, but to anything. So you saw people joining gyms and eating cleaner and, you know, focusing on how they can improve themselves and raw milk really kind of fit well with that. And there's just been an explosion in interest and demand for raw milk since then, which we've we've struggled to keep up with quite honestly yeah that's amazing just love what would you say you started with about 30 people you said where are you up to now in terms of like we're serving around 2,500 families wow yeah 2,500 cow shares that's that's amazing it's crazy so so the

process of raw milk is i I know the milk you buy, for example, in a grocery store, it's pasteurized. Yes. So what's the process of you forgetting raw milk? Is it literally just straight from the cow you put into a bucket and then you put into a bottle? Or is there anything else? I'm curious. It's a lot more complicated than that. I figured it was. Yes. So first, let's define raw milk. So raw milk is milk that is straight from the cow that has not gone through the pasteurization process now at our farm we have a stainless steel system where our cows come in we have a prepping and cleaning process where we clean the teats off we do a full inspection of the cow make sure there's no issues with that individual cow before the milker is hooked up to her which point the

milk is drawn from the cow goes through a filtration system that catch we try to get as clean as we possibly can but this is a micron filter. It'll catch teeny tiny little things that may have gotten missed. Then it goes through what's called a plate chiller. It looks like a car radiator. And what it does is it has well water running through it. So it takes the milk,

which comes out of the cow at 101 degrees, and it chills it instantly down to about 60, about well water temperature. From there, the milk goes into a stainless steel tank that has refrigeration lines that go back to a commercial compressor and is chilled down to about 33 to 34 degrees. The goal is to chill the milk as fast

as possible. The faster you chill it, the longer the shelf life, the longer the freshness. So there's kind of this race to get the milk cool as fast as possible. And also, most pathogens cannot survive cold, or they don't thrive in cold. So the sooner you chill it,

it's another defense system we have within our systems to make the milk as safe as possible. That's incredible. So it's so much that goes into that. What is kind of like the shelf life of? So like you get a bottle delivered. How long typically, I mean, if you've refrigerated it. Yeah, if you refrigerate it properly and all those things,

we like to try to get it two weeks. Like we guarantee 10 days, but two weeks is kind of our goal. You do lose a few days because you have, you know, getting bottled and transported and people coming to pick it up. But we like to see 10 days in the customer's possession. Now, honestly, most of it's long gone before the next week rolls around and they get a fresh delivery. But if the milk is clean and everything's being done properly, we've had milk go as long as three weeks. Interesting.

So you just talked about the delivery. So how is the process if someone's interested in purchasing your raw milk? Yeah, so Virginia is a little bit of an interesting place when it comes to raw milk and access. So you can't just buy raw milk in Virginia. It's illegal for me as the farmer to sell you raw milk. It's not illegal for the consumer to possess it. It's weird. It's kind of like fireworks.

But anyway. Can't sell it. You can have it. Don't light it. You can just leave it somewhere and I can pick it up. Yeah, exactly. But the way it's done in Virginia is what's called a herd share. So it's similar to a CSA

where a member will purchase a share of the herd. Almost like buying a stock in a company like Google or Facebook or something like that. And in proportion to your ownership, you get dividends or a return of ownership, which in our case is the milk, the end product. And then how we, the farmers, are paid is we are paid for the service of managing the herd,

bottling, distributing, and all those other things. So technically, we serve 2,500 member owners, if you want to call it that way, that we're basically providing the milk. And then we have some extra products we do, like the kefir, which I know you want to talk about here a little bit soon. But we get paid for the service of providing that. So we can't actually sell the milk. kefir, which I know you want to talk about here a little bit soon. But, you know, we

get paid for the service of providing that. So we can't actually sell the milk. It has to go specifically to members. And that's the way Virginia handles it. It's different in each state, like Pennsylvania, California, Washington, you actually can buy it off of a store shelf. Like, it's legalized in those states. And then you have other states

like North Carolina, where it's sold in store shelves, but it's sold as pet milk. It's not sold as not for human consumption. Everybody knows what's going on. It's kind of a paper charade. So you have to go to the pet section to purchase the raw milk? Yeah. Wow.

That's funny. Well, listen, some of that pet food, listen, we used to feed our, we used to have a Westie, and we actually fed him raw meat. Like organic raw meat. It looked like it was good stuff. It was like human quality. Yeah, it was really good stuff. Sometimes the pets eat better than we do. I'm not going to lie.

Yes, and that's a whole other topic. It's one of those things where each state handles it differently. This is the way it's done in Virginia. It's a little bit clunky, but basically it's a subscription. You purchase in the herd share. You have your weekly dues that you pay. And the nice thing is, especially during the supply issues with COVID, is when you're a member, you're a member.

You're in. It's a weekly subscription, same as a magazine or a gym membership, unless you cancel it or you change your altar or something like that. So this is something we work really, really hard. If somebody gets on it or you change your altar or something like that. This is something we work really, really hard. If somebody gets on with us, we want to make it as consistent. We want to be as reliable as the mailman or more reliable than the mailman

as far as like, hey, your milk's going to be here every week at this set time. Exactly. Now, is the purchase of the herd share, is that like a one-time? So you made a one-time buying a share of the cow, essentially, and then you pay essentially a weekly amount, which is basically the milk to be delivered.

The service fee. Yeah, the service to get the milk to the place where you'll pick it up. Yes, correct. And you guys have a lot of drop-off places. So it's not as though if you're in one part of Shortsville, you have to drive 30 minutes to pick up milk. Yeah, we have a spot in Rutgersville and then, you know, all the way up through 29. So, yeah, it's a busy system.

Absolutely. So what are, on that topic, so what are some of, because obviously I think this might be a new topic for some people that are maybe used to just going to the store and all the milk in Virginia that you go to the store is pasteurized. Most of it's homogenized. Yes. all the milk in Virginia that you don't restore is pasteurized. Most of it's homogenized. So what would you say are some of the either myths or misconceptions that you encounter that people will have this notion of raw milk that are incorrect? Well, let's have a quick history lesson because I think it kind of helps explain this. So everybody drank raw milk for thousands of thousands of years, no questions asked, didn't think anything differently of it. You come up,

fast forward to the 1860s up through like the 1890s we have the industrialization of the western world you have people all suddenly moving in very confined spaces with little to no sanitization i mean if you looked at like victorian era photos of inner cities it's awful and all of a sudden all these foodborne illnesses start popping up when you had this massive urbanization happening. Raw milk was one of the key problem foods. It had extremely high infant mortality. It had people getting sick on a regular basis. So there became this real push among the legislatures

and also wealthy people who were philanthropists. I have you say that word. Oh, philanthropists. Yeah, sorry. Who were like, we need to clean up milk. We need to figure out what to do about this. And basically there was two opposing sides that came out to how to address this issue. One was, we'll pasteurize the milk, we cook it,

because magically when we cook it, the illness issue goes away. And the other was supported by a man named Henry Coit, who had lost a child to milk-borne illnesses, who said, I think there's still great value in raw milk. Let's see what we can do to clean up the farms. So Henrik Coit went out, got a bunch of medical doctors together. They created the Medical Milk Commission, and they went around and started certifying certain farms

where they actually had doctors visiting the dairies. This is 1890s. This is early. And setting standards and practices for how do we make a dairy farm clean. A lot of these practices were later adopted by the USDA for the foundation for what became Grade A, which is the standard that almost all farms are held to for milk production. But there was basically for decades this coexistence between pasteurized milk and then what they called certified milk. It wasn't necessarily called raw milk.

And the interesting thing was the certified milk was actually used extensively by hospitals and certain doctors. Like the Mayo Clinic actually had a dairy farm specifically supplying them with raw milk for medical research. And there's published papers you can find online still from the Mayo Clinic on different research that was done by leading doctors at that time with raw milk to try to address certain issues. There was actually a farm in New Jersey that milked over 1,600 cows.

Granted, this is the 1940s, that was supplying raw milk directly by rail into New York City, Philadelphia, of course New Jersey, down into Baltimore. It was actually allegedly the favorite drink of President Franklin Roosevelt. And when he went to the Yalta Conference during World War II, he specifically ordered to have fresh milk from that dairy supplied during his overseas trips for World War II.

That's amazing. But post-World War II, you had this push, not just culturally, but also industry-wise to homogenize society and everything like this. And there was a massive push to get rid of raw milk. A lot of states passed laws where the only way you could legally sell milk was through pasteurization.

Virginia was one of the states. Now, there were some states that didn't change those laws, like California. Raw milk has always been legal in California. They never altered that law. But they're the outlier in that situation. And over time, raw milk got pretty much squeezed out by regulation. And also there was a lot of public campaigns where people would dig up all these horrible statistics from the 1880s to the 1920s and be like, you know, why would you give this to your kid?

You know, you're a terrible person if you do. So that was kind of the major push. And then starting in the 1990s, early 2000s, you had people starting to get really interested in like, you know, the paleo diet and like eating more traditional. And raw milk kind of started to see a rebirth during that time period. And then since 2020, it's just absolutely exploded where you have, you know, actually board certified medical doctors who are talking like, hey, this is actually an important food. People should be consuming it. Where before that was unheard of. How interesting. So what are some of the benefits that when the,

when they talk about like why to go back to raw, what would be some of the reasons to return to raw milk? So real simple. We like to think of ourselves as a single cell organism. I mean, I'm Ben. I don't like to think about the fact that I'm actually inhabited by millions and millions of bacteria and enzymes and all these things. I like to just think of myself as Ben. But the fact of the matter is all those millions of little critters, they need to eat two. And the thing is, if you're just feeding yourself food that's been sterilized, it's not bioavailable to feed our gut biome, all of our gut bacteria, all the different things that we need for us to have healthy functioning systems. So when you get a living food like raw milk or even something that's been supercharged like kefir

with probiotics and stuff like that. Now you're feeding your gut biome. Now there's more and more medical research coming out all the time about how a healthy gut is key to a healthy immune system. It's key to mental health. And I'm not a doctor, so I'm not going to get into all the research, but you just go look up PubMed or one of these other places online, and there's so much interesting data coming out all the time about the gut

and what it can do for human health. So eating gut-healthy foods, which raw milk definitely fits that description, is key to – and that's not even talking about the minerals and vitamins and stuff. We're just talking about simply the bacterial end. You're thinking, why would I want to drink bacteria? Whether we believe it or not, there's bacteria on everything we touch and stuff. We're just talking about simply the bacterial end. You're thinking, why would I want to drink bacteria? Whether we believe it or realize it or not, there's bacteria on everything we touch. It's the same reason why you would eat yogurt. Yeah, exactly.

Yogurt is filled with bacteria. Yes. Obviously, you don't eat the bad bacteria, but the more your system is resilient and strengthened, the more easier you can... It's just like working out in the gym. If you work in the gym, you build strong muscles, and if you trip and fall, the chances of a serious injury

are a lot less than if you don't do those things. So it's the same thing. You're basically exercising your gut, if you want to put it that way, stimulating it, encouraging it, nourishing it, feeding it, all those things. And you also happened to mention kefir, which we had talked about a little bit. And I'm curious, so for those of you, for those of our viewers who viewers who don't know what exactly is it what's the process of making it and what kind of actually got you interested in yeah um so kefir is um traditionally a drink from siberia a lot of the nomadic siberian tribes are the ones that kind of discovered it and and encouraged it and then it

migrated migrated down through russia into europe It's a very popular drink in Europe, and there's lots of different variations with different names of similar drinks. It's kind of become popular here in the United States the last 20, 30 years. I mean, there's other places where it's been around longer. But basically, kefir is like a supercharged version, if you want to put it, especially if it's a raw kefir. Like, there's a lot of pasteurized kefir for sale in the store, but that milk was completely killed off, and then they re-inoculated the cultures into this, where with a raw kefir, you've already taken this very bio-available product, and you've just kind of, like, spiced

it up, for lack of a better explanation. But the other thing, too, is you have to think, once again, historical context. Pre-refrigeration, if you were going to consume a dairy product, you had to either drink it fresh because it was going to sour extremely quickly without refrigeration and sanitary equipment, or you need to sour it. Souring has always been the long-term way of preserving a product, outside of making cheese and butter. But something like a kefir would be a product where you could take this thing with you,

you could continually be culturing it, and would preserve it it would be safe to consume um so it's it's kind of a little bit that's where it came from it has a little bit of like a tart taste to it how is it soured what do you add so we we add so we inoculate with 16 or sorry 12 different forms of um uh what's the right word for it? Probiotics. And the names are like as long as this table, so please don't ask me to repeat them. You know, some Latin thing. But there's specific bacteria that are introduced that create the fermentation process.

And you can actually make kefir yourself. It's super, super easy. There's the commercial form, which is what we have to do because of making fresh bashes all the time, where you actually use an inoculant. Or you can make it on your own kitchen table where you have what's called kefir grains. It's like a SCOBY that you add to the milk. Same as like sourdough, you're constantly kind of feeding it and refreshing it. There's like the mother. They all call it the mother in kefir.

That's the sourdough term. But you're constantly kind of like. And in the past and present, we have quite a few customers who make their own kefir using our milk. How interesting. Where, you know, they've acquired the grains. There's places you can buy the grains. We don't currently carry them.

But you can kind of create this yourself. Wow. It's amazing. I wouldn't have thought that that's what you do. And of course, you get that. Go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead, please. So you get that. I mean, obviously, you that's what you do. And of course you get that. Go ahead. No, no, no. Go ahead, please. So you get that. I mean, obviously you have the health benefit, obviously, already of the raw milk.

But now you've added those probiotics that so many people would otherwise go into the store and get a probiotic pill and try to compensate for the lack of it. But you can literally just drink it right there in the food that you're consuming. And I love the ingenuity of having the probiotics, this way you can carry it with you. It's kind of like, I always love the, I don't want to say ancient methods of how we used to kind of think about food, but it's like even with cheese, it's like we said, no, no, wait a second, let's age it. And then cheese, I mean, it takes so long for

cheese to really kind of go bad, especially depending on the type of cheese, versus, like you said, like with milk, it's like if it comes out fresh, back then without refrigeration, probably two, three days, it'd spoil. So we found ways to kind of like preserve your food, you know, like salting fish and everything, like that salting meat. You know, it's fascinating.

Yeah, when you put it into historical context, it's really interesting when you start realizing, oh, this is why they did it the way they did it. And how it made sense. Nick Lacerpi, watching the show this morning, he has a question. did it the way they did it. That would make sense. Nick Lazerpi watching the show this morning, he has a question. He's a big,

his wife mates kombucha so he wants to know is it the same scoby as kombucha or it's a kind of a different, so you have to get something specifically

for kefir? Yes, it's completely separate. Okay. Completely separate. So Nick, you have to get a new It's similar

and then once again it's a drink where you're adding probiotics to it and making it to where it's really bioavailable for your gut. Exactly. But you would have to get specifically kefir grains. Yes. There's your answer.

Nidhlusurpi Rosalia de Rosalia Tardaro watching the show this morning. Thanks for tuning in and joining us. So, I mean, even with the fact that we've talked about the historical process, you guys also take, there's a number of precautions. I mean, your mill just tested and so forth. There's a lot of things that go to still make it certified and safe. So let's talk about food safety here then. I think there's a misconception that all food is safe.

And the honest truth is even highly processed food is not safe. Like if you go to foodsafetynews.com and you look, there's articles every day on a specific outbreak, whether it's related to lettuce or hot dogs or ice cream. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, if you want to get nightmares, just get on some of these medical websites. Well, the worst thing is then you're going to go there and then it's like outbreak on this ice cream.

You're like, I just had that last night. Yeah that last night i know exactly it's like watching the car warranty thing there's a recall on my car oh no great um so so the thing is like with food we're kind of in the risk mitigation business like i wish i could say we could make it 100,000 perfectly safe there can never ever ever be a problem with that unfortunately there are some people out there who say like well raw milk's a perfect food there can never be a problem with that and that's unfortunately just not correct it's just not paying attention to the data um so the thing is you at cream brook we're actually members of the raw milk institute it's a global organization that is dedicated to raw milk research and looking at what are the best protocols we can put in place to make milk as safe as possible. So that's why we have our own lab on the farm. We're doing our own testing.

We test every single batch of milk before it heads out. The tests we use without getting in the weeds on the scientific end of it are basically population counts. We can't test for specific pathogens. Right now you need like a very, like a state lab to actually be able to do those tests. They're very expensive, and they take a long time to do. But we can do population counts where we can kind of get an idea of what the cleanliness of the milk is.

So for example, I live in Middlebrook. There's like 200 people out there. If I throw my keys, my wallet, on the dashboard of my car, the chances my car gets stolen still exist, but are very, very, very low. If I do that in New York City, a city of millions, my car is guaranteed to be gone by the time I get back. So it's kind of

a similar thing. We're looking at population tests where it's like, we know if we keep the number super, super low, our risk mitigation is working and we have, you know, it's clean and we have a very, very low chance of there actually being a problem. Now, the cool thing is, in the same way that our cell phone has become a compression of libraries and research labs and all these other things that we've seen over the last 30 years, there's the same kind of technological compression going on within science right now. And there's some really cool new lab technology coming out probably next year where on farm

we'll actually be able to do pathogen testing safely on the farm. So this is why we're we're part of the raw milk institute and you know we're looking at like what are the things that we can constantly be learning and doing and improving to to make our system as safe as possible now there's still risks to raw milk like i'm not going to sit here and tell you there aren't and that's why we always tell people like look it's a personal decision or whether you feel comfortable with raw milk you know if you're coming off of chemotherapy or something where you've had your system completely wiped out, it might not be the best thing for you to try

something that's that biologically active. Or you've got a compromised immune system. We always tell people, we're here to support you on your food journey. We're not here to tell you you need to drink cream broke raw milk. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of it. I believe firmly in our

product, but we always tell people hey, you need to drink Creambrook raw milk. I mean, obviously, I'm a huge fan of it. I believe firmly in our product. But we always tell people, like, hey, you need to make an informed decision based on what you think is best for you and your family. We're here to support you whether it's as a customer in Creambrook or not. But, you know, you do have to take into consideration that there are some risks to it. And that's something that, like, us and there's some other raw milk dairies that are doing some extremely wonderful work now with their own labs, techniques, procedures. But the problem is there's a lot of raw milk floating around out there, too, that's also not as cared for. I encourage people, like, if you're going to purchase raw milk, have a relationship with your farmer.

Know where it's coming from. Ask informed questions about, like, do they have procedures and processes? Like, you know, we're not inspected by the state because the state doesn't want to legalize raw milk. But even though we're not inspected by the state, we still have built redundancies in our systems and have accountability within our system with our own laboratory, with our own standards and stuff like that, being members of the Raw Milk Institute. So if you're going to get raw milk from somebody, make sure that there's some accountability in the process. They're not just out there

sticking their finger in the wind and hoping everything's going to turn out fine at the end of the day. It's a serious business. We take it very serious. And it's our joy to see people who are thriving because raw milk is usually the first step for somebody on a bigger food journey

where they're looking to start eating cleaner or working out or doing things. So it's cool that we kind of get to be a lot of times that first step towards kind of pushing them to, like, you know, a healthy lifestyle. Exactly. That's fantastic. Well, Ben, this has been an absolute pleasure. Where can people, like, kind of, if people are interested in learning more and checking you guys out, where's the best way to find you? Yeah, you can simply look us up online at

cremebrookfarm.com We have a wonderful website that my wife has spent hours perfecting. It is a nice website. Very nice. We have a newsletter where if you want to get weekly updates on the farm and a lot of our customer related news as far as when milk's available

certain places would be there. You can sign up for the newsletter on the website. We are also on Instagram. We aren't on there as much as we, some people are. It's kind of more of just where we post little random updates of what's going on. But yeah, the website's kind of, if you want to find out more, that's the place to go.

Perfect. Creambrookfarm.com. Well, Ben, thanks again so much for coming on. Thank you so much, Ben. I really appreciate it. Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks. Thank you. Always learn so much, right?

Yeah, that was great. Just to learn kind of like first a little history about the raw milk and how it ended up getting pasteurized and all that. But, yeah, to see Ben talk about it, you could very clear his passion for it. He wants to kind of share the milk around. And I'm telling you what, I'm kind of interested. I'm going to be going to creambuttbarn.com after the show. I thought I said to myself. You know me a little too well.

That's the problem. I know you well. So transitioning from there, he mentioned, it's funny, Ben mentioned he did a great analogy of kind of owning a share of a cow versus owning a share of stock. And like the milk was like the dividend. Exactly. It was very creative.

It was a great way of showing it and leads beautifully into like different finance topics. Yeah, you jumped up and down when you heard that. I was like, yes, I get that. I got that reference. I got that reference. I got that reference. Exactly. So just a couple things that we were thinking about beforehand. You know, obviously, to Xavier's point a few weeks ago,

how the consumer is still kind of pushing things forward with spending. We saw that again in the fourth quarter. Two interesting pieces of news, right? I saw a week ago, because the GDP number came out today. A week ago, I saw an article about how buy now, pay later hit its highest ever usage in the fourth quarter. I think Nick had mentioned that at some point. We actually talked about it.

Nick had mentioned it before we even had fourth quarter data on it. And tons of people were using buy now, pay later in the fourth quarter data on it and tons of people were using buy now pay later in the fourth quarter so they were buying things and with the notion that they would pay for them in January, February, March, April right of course fourth quarter GDP 3.3% it's a good number

a lot of that is being purchased by things that are going to have to be paid for in the first quarter and what's interesting is that you, Xavier, Nicholas, and myself, we've been talking about this a few times at work. Because we would notice it was like, come Christmas time, everyone's going to spend. Because no one wants to go cheap on Christmas presents. So you kind of had a feeling that fourth quarter GDP number is probably going to be positive. The question is

coming this next quarter GDP and maybe even the one following, is there going to be some sort of backlash to the fact that everyone was spending with these kind of like small borrower programs and now they're going to eventually have to start paying it back.

At what point when you're at the highest ever credit card debt, you have buy and out pay later, which is basically a way to push credit card debt into the future, and you have student loans resuming, 40% of which people have not begun to pay back. 40% of student loan people are already delinquents. And some of those student loans are pretty hefty. I mean, I know a couple people who started repaying their student loans and it's a pretty big number

that it's forced them to think about having to take a second job. Exactly. So at what point is your spending finally hit? At what point do you actually run out of, I mean, you've been fueling consumer spending by pulling out of 401ks,

going into debt, using buy now, pay later. At what point can you not do it anymore? And that's the real question. Is it the first quarter? Is it next year? And at what point do people simply say, now I have to stop because I literally have no more options. I have to cut down on something. So it's just interesting.

I see that last week and this week, I'm like, well, sure enough, people used buy now, pay later. They bought stuff. It shows up in consumer spend. Yeah, and the prediction happens. Like, no, fourth quarter for 2023 GDP is going to be a good number.

And it was. Now it's like big tests come April. What happens going forward. Exactly what that number is going to be. Exactly. So just very interesting to see there. We had talked about it a little bit before the show started. The younger individuals, so nearly half of young adults,

say they are obsessed with being rich. Their terms, not mine. And, yeah, basically 46% of millennials, 44 44 percent of gen z like are very nervous about wanting to be wealthy now can i ask you a question does that article have a number with this in which they define wealthy no which is an interesting yes because you people have different views of what's wealthy because let's be honest there was a time a very long time where it's like if you made a hundred thousand dollars you would be considered very wealthy like really well to do upper middle class as inflation has gone up and we see housing prices go up and

mortgage rates go up this is getting to a point where a hundred thousand dollars isn't necessarily upper middle class very wealthy number that it used to be you live in manhattan it's not even close no i mean you can't afford to live. To rent an apartment for a year is already probably $100,000. The median income for a household is $123,300. Right here, median, which is like flat middle,

$123,000. I'm just curious what exactly is the defining number for, oh, I want to be rich. Because maybe they think, well,, oh, I want to be rich. Because maybe they think, well, $200,000 a year is rich. But $200,000 might not be – $200,000 a year is not necessarily rich anymore. It may have been 20 years ago. You would have been like, oh, yeah, you're borderline rich. It sounds like it's a lot of it.

What it is is partly in part because we have such a social media culture that obviously the younger you are, the more you are on these things. You're seeing what wealthy people do more than ever, right? Think about it. You were like living on a farm in 1920s. Do you know that John Rockefeller is taking a vacation to Europe every month? No, it's not.

You're chatting every day. It's not every day. Let me see what Rockefeller's up to today, right? Now, though, if you're on social media, you see every day what people you're following. If they are wealthy influencers, you see every single day, I went to Prague.

I went to a mall for years today. And it's not just the rich people, because let's be honest. You could say, yeah, Elon Musk went to this place. I mean, Elon Musk has wealth. You, because let's be honest, like, you could say, yeah, Elon Musk went to this place. I mean, Elon Musk has wealth that you as a realist person will realize you will never be able to attain.

But I think it's the problem with social media is it creates these you follow so many people that you see this other person, you're like, well, I'm kind of like that guy, or maybe I even know that guy. How do you take this vacation to this place? You know, like you mentioned, like the multi coast, they got a boat on,

you know, go out and swim in. But you have to be careful because sometimes that is literally those people's kind of, like you mentioned, their job or it's all basically an image that they're trying to create of wealth. Because by trying to look wealthier, they're hoping

to get more money. But it's sometimes it's not necessarily the case. They might not be making that much more money than you are. That might be their one vacation in four years or something. Exactly. Or some people have this really, really fancy car and you're like, oh wow, look how much fancy car. But they actually have zero dollars in a 401k.

They have zero dollars in an IRA. They spent all their money on a fancy car to look wealthier than you. And then hoping by looking wealthier than you, you're going to follow or buy their product. They say, hey, I got this Porsche because I wear this shampoo. I'm going to buy that shampoo because I want that Porsche. It's not correlated, but that's how they make their money. So you have to be careful with that.

Exactly. I mean, Nick had a great comment. He was thinking the same thing before we even said it, that could it be that the desire to be rich might be social media driven rather than a financial decision? I bet you, in most cases, I bet you that is the case. You just watch social media, it's like, ah, you know, Jim went to Prague this year for a week.

How come I can't do that? He must be rich. But like you said, there are other factors that could be determining that. Maybe he doesn't do any other vacation at all. Maybe he didn't save any money. Maybe he used a pay now, buy now, pay later program. I mean, a lot of people have done that too. I mean, we've noticed sometimes like in vacations, there's a lot of younger people and you hear about their struggle with credit card debt and you're like, how could so many young people be on vacation if they're all in debt?

Well, because they're just putting on more debt. It's like, well, I don't want to skip my vacation. I want to put this on Instagram. Exactly. And I think for me that comes down to when you say, because I think when people, especially younger people, when you say you want to be wealthy, the question I always have is you need to narrow it down to what is your real goal. Because the things which make you wealthy in the long term are, to put it in a better term, the unsexy things. So it's the opposite of leisure now, travel now, buying things now. It is the number one thing you can do to become wealthy is save money

early. It's the most powerful thing. You start we ran this when the Roth IRA was $6,000 a year, the most you could put into it. You put $6,000 a year into your Roth IRA from age 22 to 30. In other words, that's $500, which is not cheap, that's $500

a month. Every year from 22 to 30, that's 500 bucks you could use to go on vacation. You know what I mean? Obviously, 6,000 a year you could use to go on vacation, buy things, do something. I know where you're going with this, yes. If you do that for those eight years

and you never save another penny, you have $750,000 by the time you are retired at 68. Right? So this was like the 67, 68 retirement age. So, yeah, you can become wealthy. You can get $750,000 in the bank at 67 if what you do is save $6,000 a year for eight years starting at age 22 and then you never save another penny. Yeah.

Right? But that's not the thing. you never save another penny. Yeah. Right? But that's not the thing. You can't put that on Instagram, right? That's not the thing that doesn't appear anywhere. It doesn't appear as a car. It doesn't appear as increased leisure time. It doesn't appear as a vacation. It's a hidden thing which results in you being wealthy.

Yeah, because wealth is also about what you own. Like you say, you have retirement accounts or maybe you own a house. None of these, especially certain houses, if you're younger, you're not going to have a... You're not going to put

your townhome on Instagram and say, look at my new townhome. No. Yeah, you want to show off a fancy house. You're like, well, I don't have that house.

But the point is you have to start small. The problem is symbols of wealth sometimes are depreciating assets, not appreciating assets. So for example, you could buy a Rolex watch that's $50,000 and say, look at me. But guess what? That Rolex might not be jumping in price. You could get a really fancy car. It's not worth $50,000. Exactly. You could buy a car. And think about the minute you buy

that new $70,000 Porsche, it's already depreciating in assets, but you're going to look rich because you're like, I got the watch, I got the car. You could even buy the same thing, a really fancy suit, or how you dress. You will look wealthy, but you what you're wearing now is already decreasing in value. Exactly. Well, I always thought about it, like, every time

you hear about net wealth numbers in America, right? What percent of people have net wealth and so forth? And I always say to people, net wealth, like wealth can be a deceiving number because if you, and I always use this example, if you, let's say you own a house and you own a car and you own some stuff, you have some money,

but you've got a million dollars of debt because your house is underwater, your car loan, your car is worth less than what you borrowed it, but you're sitting there with a million dollars of debt between mortgage, credit card debt, all this stuff. And that debt is greater than your, let's say you have $800,000 of assets, but a million dollars of debt.

You are wealthier than a homeless guy on the street with $5 in his pocket and no debt. But his net wealth is $5. Your net wealth is minus $200. Do you feel like the homeless guy with $5 is wealthier than you? Not really. So there are things which are not producing wealth for you. They're not making you wealthier, but they make you feel wealthier than you? Not really. So there are things which are not producing wealth for you. They're not making you wealthier, but they make you feel wealthier.

So it's an interesting Tony, so it's funny Nicholas, as a comedy says, he's been told a lot of Gen Z millennials are buying smart stuff and cars because they've given up on owning a home. So they've decided it's not worth it to

save. So it's that you said, it's that transition to, well, I don't think I can have a real asset, so I'm going to do things, buy things which give the appearance and the feeling of wealth. But those are two contradictory things. So you often have to decide, you should sit there, there's nothing wrong, there's an old movie, I forget what it's called, there's an old movie. I forget what it's called. There's an old movie with Terry Grant essentially based on this topic where he decides that he's going to blow all his money and enjoy his youth

and then work into old age. The Amazing Adventure? No, it's... Might be called Vacation or something. I can't remember. It's not The Amazing Adventure, but it's a movie with him and I believe it's Terry Durant and Catherine Hepburn.

But I forget what the name of the movie is. I'm not 100% sure. The one with the cheetah? No, it's not the one with the cheetah. It's a different one. But he basically decides to do that. He said, I'm going to quit my job, burn all my money now because I want to enjoy youth, and then I'll just deal with it in retirement. And nobody around him can understand this decision.

And if you want to do that, look, I mean, by all means, you will not become wealthy. You will be the opposite of wealthy. If your goal is wealthy, then it often is the opposite of what you may see on social media, the things which make you become wealthy. If your goal is wealthy, then it often is the opposite of what you may see on social media. The things which make you become wealthy. And if you want to become wealthy at 40, right, if you want to retire in your 30s, then you probably got to do what the guy I once read about that he basically ate Chef Boyardee cans for his entire 20s, right, and lived in a 200 square foot, 500 square foot tiny apartment. And then yes, you will become wealthy by 40, but

you will not feel wealthy in your entire 20s. Exactly, yeah. And then you're going to have back aches and then knee problems and then you can't do this or you can't go here and you're like, what? A lot of it is balance. He all got issues because he didn't. So a lot of it is you have to think about

what you mean by wealthy and how you want to... Ah, Nick has... The movie's called Holiday. Holiday. It's the movie called Holiday. Oh, that one, okay. It's not the cheetah, but it's... Yes, I know. Holiday. Okay, yeah.

Well, that's the one where he's going to marry the rich lady, right? Yeah, Katharine Hepburn, yeah. Well, no, he's not going to marry Katharine Hepburn. Katharine Hepburn's her sister. He's married... Oh, he's married somebody else, yes. Yes, yes. Yep, no, he's not going to marry Captain Hepburn. Captain Hepburn's her sister. He's married. Oh, he's married to somebody else. Yes. Yes.

Yep. A 1938 film. Okay. Called Holiday, which is basically exactly about that. So it's, you have to decide. Yeah, but it's easy because that one, they have money, so. Yeah, but he's going to blow his money. Yeah, but it's easy to blow what you have versus like, you can't blow something you don't have.

You can't be like, I'm going to spend it. And it's like, well, you have versus like you can't blow something you don't have. You can't be like, I'm going to spend it and it's like, well, you have no money. How can you live a life of luxury for 20 years? Go to deep debt. But essentially, you have to make that decision. I'm just curious what exactly to get into the minds of millennials and

Gen Z people, what their definition now of wealthy really is. Is it just owning a house? Is it owning like a two-story house? They said they've given up on a house. They're redefining what wealthy may look like. I'm curious whether they're trying to jump a step.

Like they're trying to get from point A to point D without realizing they have to go to point B and C first. Exactly. That's the great point. But I think there is, unfortunately, I think there is a slight problem with the economy, which you do see, where I don't, I think

our jobs and the wages that they're being paid have not necessarily kept up with inflation. So I think for a lot of Gen Z millennials, they have a common gripe where they're like, you know, I'm working, for example, for some people, I'm working at like a Walmart. And it's like, I can't afford rent.

I can't afford groceries. And this is a problem because, again, it's not like the problem is necessarily like, oh, well, you can't live on a Walmart job. Well, people used to live working at grocery stores all their lives in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, even to the 90s. Now it's becoming a problem because, again, the prices have jumped up so high. People are like, well, wait a second. They told me to just, if you take this job, you can live comfortably, but I can't live comfortably. I have to do more. Now I've got to work two jobs.

They feel like they're at a disadvantage and I don't think there's been a lot of solutions for people to kind of fix that. Jerry just told us, you know, median income area of 120. If a home, the best you can do for your first time home is $400,000, you have to work almost four years. And that's the median.

And there's some wealthier people in the Charlottesville area that I'm sure have. Or maybe below the median. What was that? If you're making $100,000 a year, you're below the median. You would have to save your entire salary for four years. Certain things have also gone up. Home prices are higher than inflation. I think

you're definitely right. They're seeing the challenge of working really hard doesn't always translate now into being actually able to succeed. It's very difficult. So you can definitely understand that. And I think that's also why we're seeing some of the

credit card numbers so high. Absolutely. And then the other last topic I just wanted to cover, to Xavier's point, we had talked to a couple weeks ago, New Year, a lot of articles come out,

oh my goodness, people are going to get all these RMDs, required minimum distributions this year, because the stock market went up, right? In their 401 case. And you're like, the tax you pay on an RMD, even if it was like 20%, I think I would rather get

80% of more money than 100% of less money. Seeing a lot of similar ones about Social Security now. So Social Security cost of living adjustment, which is Social Security basically they're paying you Social Security 8.7% more this year than last year if you receive Social Security. The amount of social security that is exempt from being taxed never changes it hasn't changed in like 20 years so what happens is there may be a small group of people that because they're making 8.7 percent more social security

will be pushed into the category where some of their social security will be taxed. Now, only 85% can never be taxed. So the government never taxes 100% of your Social Security. They would tax 85% of what is over the threshold. So I'm sitting there saying, this sounds like a bad thing, but it's actually a good thing. Yeah. It's like someone, you go and you're like, oh, last year I paid $15,000 in income tax.

Now this year I'm going to pay $20,000. And you'll be like, well, why? Did the rate go up? No, I made $25,000 more. Well, then that's a good thing. You should be like, oh, look, this is terrible. You're going to pay $5,000 more. Yeah, but you made more money.

Exactly. You got to look at the bright side. Exactly. So even if, let's say, of your 8.7% increase, let's say it's $140 a month on average, right? And they're going to tax all of it at 20%. So you're sitting there and you're like, oh, man, now I've got to pay $21 more.

I've got to pay $21 more in taxes. I'm like, I think I'd rather have $140 more and pay $21 in taxes, so net I only get $119. I think I'd rather have $119 more than have no more money with the satisfaction that I'm not paying anything to the government. Well, yeah. It's like, I mean, what's like the, I don't remember the exact income tax bracket, but it's like, would you rather, if you made $50,000, you'd pay this amount of taxes, but if you

made 150,000, you'd pay this amount. Well, I don't want to pay that amount of taxes, but would you rather have the 150,000? Yeah, for 100,000 dollars, exactly. Exactly. It's like, if you gave someone just the amount of money they'd have to pay in taxes, people would be like, oh, give me the lower one. I'm like, yeah, but you're making less money because if you're paying that little, you're not making a lot of money. Hell, in reality, I want to be paying a million dollars in taxes to the government.

Then you're making tons of money. I'm sure I'm making that point, $100 million or whatever it is. So there are things in life which David and I would call good problems to have. Your social security going up by 8.7% and you now having to pay a little tax is a good problem. So don't be scared that when you see these articles, you might think, oh my goodness, I'm going to have less money. Do the math.

Realize you will still have more money this year than last year. You won't have as much as you might think if you just looked at the increase, but you will have more money. So social security, cost of living adjustment going up is a good thing and it's a necessary thing given inflation that we've seen. So don't be scared by these kinds of articles. Just talk to someone who knows what they're doing. Your financial advisor will know.

Your accountant will probably know. There are people, talk to people who know and get them to help you understand what's going on because it doesn't make sense to be scared by it. Yes. And these people,

they're very misleading in their articles, in their headlines. What is the headline? Things will be, you will receive more money in social security this year. Nobody reads the article. Nobody clicks it. Yeah. You should be hit with a terrible social security this year. Nobody reads the article.

Nobody clicks it. You should be hit with a terrible tax bill this year. Exactly. Oh, I've got to see this. I've got to see what it is. I mean, it's always like that. The news is always negative. It's like old lady wins lotto.

Nobody clicks. Like old lady gets, you know, mysterious disappears. You're clicking. It's like, how did she disappear? And all she did was, you know, go to the doctor a day and came back. But it's terrible. Yeah, I just hate the way they have to manipulate headlines. It's like, oh, good stuff happening.

How can I make this bad? Yeah, exactly. What's the negative in this? So just be aware of it and make sure people know about it. So that's what I had. Finance topic wise. No, I think that was good. It was good to kind of give people a little feel of what's kind of going on so far to start 2024.

Exactly. Exactly. So it's been a great show. Learned a lot. Tremendously. You're going to be on a three-foot farm.com. I know. Exactly.

Yes, I know. Ben was a great guest. He kind of gave us a good insight into the raw milk. I was curious, too, how the process of collecting the raw milk, how it's kind of going through the stainless steel and kind of getting, not frozen, but kind of cooled off very quickly. Because not that I asked it, it can't be just like put a bucket, put it in the bottle. I said there's got to be something else.

But it was interesting how this kind of like a cleansing process, a filter, so you're not really drinking it directly from the cow. I forgot to ask him whether he's actually done that. I don't know, but yeah. You know, because you said actually the milk comes out like, what is it, like 110 degrees? 110 degrees. That must be like really warm. So it's got to be really warm, you know.

Yeah, that's interesting. So that's interesting. That would be neat to find out if anyone does that. Oh, I'm sure someone does. I'm sure some people do it. You know, probably you don't want to do it too often because like he says, there's a lot of stuff, you know, it's coming from a cow. So,

you know, he's sitting in mud and poop, you know. Hey, milk's got a funny taste. That's why you filter it and go to the bathroom. That's why they clean it so much.

Absolutely. Well, just, I also like the business model. How, how you navigate what is not an easy environment for what you want to sell

and you figure out ways to do it and do the share and the... You're not buying the milk. This is, you're getting a gift. You're paying him. environment for what you want to sell and you figure out ways to do it. Exactly. You're not buying the milk. You're paying him to deliver milk from a cow that you own a part of. Exactly. Which is really interesting. Next week, I've got some more great guests.

We're going to be joined by Dr. Eduardo Castro and Kelly Tortas from Castro Integrative Medicine or Integrative Medicine. I don't know't really want to pronounce it. So that'll be coming on the show next week. It should be a

fun one. I don't know if it'll be you or if Xavier will be back, but we'll find out. We'll find out. We'll keep everyone's suspense. Exactly. Always appreciate being here. I'm happy to be here. With you. Always appreciate Judah behind the camera. Joey giving us some financial data live on air. Love it. All our great be here. With you. I always appreciate Judah behind the camera. Joey giving us some financial data live on air. Love it.

All our great desks, thank you all so much for tuning in this morning. Thanks, of course, to Emergent Financial Services, to Castle Hill Cider, Credit Series Insurance, Mattias Yon Realty, Ford Adelante. Thanks to all of you for joining us today, for your questions, comments. Be sure to check us out next week. We look forward to seeing you then. But until that time, as we'd like to close it out, hasta mañana. Thank you.