The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - What You Need To Know About Your Food, Agriculture, & Produce Ft. David White - Farmer, Entrepreneur, & Man Of Faith

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

#658: Today, we're sitting down with the founder of The Squeezed Juice, David White. David is a businessman, fresh fruit marketer, farmer, entrepreneur, major junior hockey team owner, musician, man of faith, husband, father, and grandfather. His story is one of faith, perseverance, and hard work. Starting from humble beginnings, he went from a job selling fruit to owning a vertically integrated farming operation. Today, we have a conversation about the agricultural industry and how farming has impacted the produce people buy daily in their own grocery stores. He also shares information about what people should look for when shopping for produce, how to read the ingredient label, and business tips on dealing with setbacks and creating a successful company. This episode is brought to you by The Squeezed Juice Use code SKINNY for 20% off any order at shop.squeezedjuice.com To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. This episode is brought to you by The Squeezed Juice. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness.

Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her. I would say staying centered, having faith in yourself. And just, I'm just, I've taught my son that, my daughter that, everyone in our company, I try to get them engaged and say, you know, your paycheck, your pay stub, you look at that left side's what you earned. The right side's what went in the bank account, but get engaged in the middle. Care about that. Wonder where your money went. And try to teach people, whether being an entrepreneur or even if you're as an employee, just thinking at a higher level about things and what's ahead of you. So I think that was, for me, the different things I went through. I never gave up. If you believe in it, okay, I'm going to put a lot into that. I'm going to believe in it.

It's been very difficult. Walk through doors that are open and doors that close, they close. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Him and Her Show. Today, we're sitting down with the founder of The Squeeze Juice, David White. David is a businessman, fresh fruit maker, farmer, entrepreneur, major junior hockey team owner, musician, man of faith, husband, father, and grandfather. And his story is one of faith, perseverance, and hard work. Today, we're talking all about how to develop an entrepreneurial spirit, what you need to know about the agriculture industry, what is toxic, what's not, what's myth, what's not myth, what to look for when shopping for fruits and vegetables, the biggest shock about fruit juices you buy at the stores,

and having an end goal in mind, whether you're creating a company or any endeavor, really, and the key ingredients to a successful company. We also talk about how to achieve your goals and how to deal with setbacks. This was an incredible episode. David White is an incredible entrepreneur and has so much insight when it comes to the agricultural industry, entrepreneurship, farming, and how produce affects our everyday life and what to look for. This episode is for anyone that's looking to be inspired, live better, and learn more. Also, before we get into the episode, The Squeezed Juice has

generously offered a discount for our listeners. Use code SKINNY for 20% off any order at shop.squeezedjuice.com. With that, David White, founder of white founder of the squeezed juice welcome to skinny confidential him and her show this is the skinny confidential him and her what is something that the average consumer wouldn't know or understand about this space because obviously i'm just thinking about it now we've covered a lot of random topics on this show but we have not covered this so this would be interesting yeah tell us something that would like shock when i'm walking up and down the shelves. What rated is this show?

Oh, this, I mean, I don't think everything's been said here. This show is XXX, so go for it. Okay. Yeah. What's something that people just don't know? Probably the biggest in fresh fruit is, you know, permanent planting, especially with, with trees, which trees are incredibly important. Like one of the greatest sequesterers of carbon is permanently planted trees.

Like that's what we're fighting in California. And I tell all my friends, I go, you watch, they're going to completely turn the table on this water thing and say, you guys need to replant everything. We'll get you more water and all that. Because the more trees you pull out, you know, the warmer it's going to get. Why are they pulling trees out in California? Because of the drought we went through. Oh yeah, okay.

And, you know, years ago, a few governors ago, they had a plan when they did the California aqueduct and all that as California's population grew, they just grew the infrastructure for the water and they just never did. So the LA basin grew, the Bay Area grew, these areas grew, but they never increased the water infrastructure. It really would be a simple fix. And countries that don't even, like Israel or whatever, that hardly have any water have abundant water now because they've learned through desalinization and other things. They're just

reusing their water, things like that. So there's a lot of cool things you can do now, but California has always lagged. We're a very reactionary state, right? We react to things after they happen. People get upset with me sometimes when I bash on California and I grew up in California, but I just feel like the political machine there is just so inefficient. I don't mean, I don't want, I'm not even going to talk left, right side. I just think they are so inefficient over there at managing productive processes and budgets. I think what, what did they have like a deficit over there? Did they have like 30-something billion dollars? We went through, yeah, he'd had a surplus, and then now it's a deficit,

and they found a lot of stuff wasn't being shown, should have been shown. But like very typical California, we went through a horrible five-year drought that caught everybody off ground. So you let the reservoirs fill up, right, during the snow melt and all of that, and then farmers pull from the ground, you know,

using groundwater, surface water, they call it, comes down the canals, comes from the mountains. So then they let those, they'll let those reservoirs get lower and they prepare for the next winter. Well, we got caught that one next winter. They didn't come. The snow didn't come. The winter didn't come. Well, now you're caught catching up. So it's just a big swimming pool. The valley is just a, and people are picking, you know, putting straws in there. And so pulling the trees out affects this because you're going to have less water. Well, because the, you need the trees and all that to capture the carbon and, and it helps cool the planet. It's, you need permanent plantings. You need natural pasture lands. You need a great documentary to watch is kiss the ground. It's Woody Harrelson

did it. And it really will show you a lot of what's going on now. This regenerative farming, like organic was cool. We're all trying to look into organic. I farm organic, but it's not sustainable. Like your trees laugh last half the time. You can't use, I mean, bugs are smart. They go eat the fruit white when they should, when it's about ready to be picked. So when people say eat organic, what does that entail? Yeah, what does that mean? I always, I mean, we all know like organic, is it a buzzword? What does that mean exactly?

But I mean, what does it mean from an actual agriculture planting, like sustaining that, you know, farm or system? Like what goes into that process? Well, it's really to get certified there's a usda certified organic or the ccof we're with ccof you go through a number of things and get you know inspected and the type of chemicals you use have to be um you know which there's a number of them but you don't you don't have enough of the of the good implements to to keep the tree alive and hey a lot of stuff when I was a kid and whatever, I'm glad we've cleaned up a lot of the things that farmers used to use and they're being sold by the chemical company who's, it's like nurserymen.

It's like nurserymen that sell us trees and things like that. I mean, there's a lot of other scope and scale to the industry that you're saying is like a shock that people wouldn't, you know, understand or wouldn't know about. And so we've cleaned up a lot. The air is a cleaner a lot of things we don't use anymore and it's good to be enforcing on the chemical companies to come up with smarter more sustainable you know things for us to use i've been on a path for i don't know i think since 2015 or so to try to because the california grid is a disaster. Yeah. Right. And so that's the thing we have.

It's so impressive or it's oppressive on middle to lower incomes because the PG&E, Southern California, Edison, all the electricity is very expensive there. All the utilities are very expensive. So we really need a lot of help there on rebuilding that. But I've really been trying to get to a point where I could run my facilities off of my own byproduct. And so different things we're doing, and I'm close to that. We started Trinity Energy Company, renewable energy company. And so I'm getting close to the point where I can, some of the fruit we throw away that you can't use for anything would get turned into, you know, methane gas and ethanol and things like that.

Yeah, they got to figure something out up there. I know they're even talking about these electric mandates, but I just wonder where the hell they're going to get all this from. I have a tenant in one of my buildings and it was like, I was talking to him one day and he was working on the high-speed rail, a certain section that goes over to Hatchipie and down into LA. He goes, David, you'll be dead and gone before the grid has enough power. The train will run. It would run, but it would be just a regular Amtrak. Like there's not enough power. So I'm no expert on that.

I know that it's more sustainable for us and we're really close. I have all the equipment in now, but I already have a system set up where through solar batteries and generators to be able to run the facility all the time if the grid went down. As a consumer, what are some things that we should look for when we're shopping for vegetables and fruit, maybe fruit specifically? And what are some things that we should avoid? Like where you're like, oh my God, they use tons of pesticides and chemicals, don't even go there. We've got two things. One, to say something would shock you, is that most supermarkets have a,

which in some ways they need to, but a strict grade standards for which they'll receive the fruit. So there's a decent amount of fruit that gets rejected. I mean, we live in a business that we can't, if we had 1% problems over our whole year, a fruit that wasn't accepted, that'd be a rough year

you have to bring quality product yes they're not going to accept it because people buy with their eyes so leading back to what you asked me you buy with your eyes okay getting to know the fruit like a pomegranate a pomegranate it can be scarred up and have issues on the outside and this that and the other and the fruit inside is fine okay so you would just feel that to see if it's mushy or you know it's got you can tell if it's got some rot in it or things like that. It's not as easy as like a berry where you might buy strawberries and see a little mold in there and you just throw them out. Someone told me the other day, they're like,

you do not give your kids apples without peeling it because there's so much wax on it. Is that true? I'm not an apple expert. I eat them. I've been to a lot of seminars and things like that. The healthful benefits of fresh fruit and vegetable way outweigh over many lifetimes what you get from them and eating them fresh over the risk you're going to get from

something like that. The biggest thing I can tell you, I met with a food safety expert probably close to 20 years ago. And he goes, you guys all in the Valley are going to spend a fortune on food safety. Because I think whenever it was the spinach and some of these things started to have issues, probably close to 20 years ago. And he goes, why you guys all in the Valley are going to spend a fortune on food safety? Because I think whenever it was the spinach and some of these things started to have issues because people just don't wash their fruit and vegetables enough. There's stuff that gets on veg in particular,

being on anything that's grown on the ground, but on fruit, the same. You can really, E. coli, any of the things no one likes to talk about can really be dealt with just by, any of the things no one likes to talk about, can really be dealt with just by normally washing your fruit. I made Michael fajitas last night and I forgot to wash the bell peppers. And he had three servings. Whoops. And I forgot to wash the onion.

No, but this topic I think is interesting because doing what we do and engaging in the world of social and podcasts, you see everything. And you see a lot of crazy claims. And I think everybody now is under the impression that our food is killing us and it's the worst thing ever. But they can't seem to answer why we're living longer than ever. And I think that there's obviously dietary issues that people need to face and you need to think about if you're eating natural foods or engineered foods or whatever. But in terms of our produce, has the produce actually gotten worse over the last 50 years or is it the same and people think it's worse? Is the process better? From your perspective being close to farming.

Oh, it's significantly better. Significantly. But I mean, I laugh every time I go in the store and I see all the packaging and there's a whole world and industry behind that. Clamshells, we call them the plastic containers that open, call it a clamshell. The bags, everything else, all this goes into merchandising and marketing. I mean, you've had that little roll of bags there probably since, I don't know when they first introduced it. When did it first get there in the produce department where you peel the bag off and open it and put your stuff in there? It's always been there, but through marketing and merchandising, that's the competitive nature of ag and getting really good products out to consumers. But then there's a whole area we deal with on competing for,

there might be five or six major players in any particular category, right? At any one particular time. And everyone's trying to, and every major supermarket might have two or three or four major suppliers of that particular commodity. So everybody's going by what that supermarket wants them to package it i want mine in a bag like everybody's grab and go since going

through covid right we want grab and go grab and go we don't want people touching stuff we don't know what's going on with this thing so you know costco and the club stores kind of pushed that envelope years ago starting with that you know larger bulk package could buy. So everything pretty much now is, there's still some done loose, we call it, on the shelf where you can handpick your peaches, this, that, and the other, put in a bag, your onions, whatever. But pretty much everything's going to package. Just grab a bag and go. What makes you see white space in the juice industry? Where were you when you decided, oh my God, I need to start Squeeze Juice? Probably in 2000, one of my customers,

I was selling him pomegranates. He goes, how come you can't get their pain to open them and try to eat it? Why can't you take the seeds out? They really are. So I tried it and then Palm Wonderful ended up getting started like that next year. And they called me to see how I was doing it.

And I was like, who is this? And they've done a phenomenal job. And I listened to them and I was like, I'm embarrassed to tell you how. I was doing on a little cherry line we use for Japan. It was a little food safety hazmat suits on and all that. And I lost my shirt on it. Fast forward, the juice market crashed about 10 years ago. Why? Just too much supply. And that's the thing, ag will... It's a commodity. Yeah, people need to make a profit and there's a fine balance between the

banking system and the farming system. It all has to work together. And so when that crashed, like we were talking about before, only a small amount of the tree actually makes it to the store. So what do you do with the rest? So if there's not a byproduct market for that that gives enough back to the ranch, then that commodity is not going to be

sustainable. So I started with pomegranate seeds. That was extremely difficult. And so we've, you know, we've turned that into a niche and we're year round in that. Found some really good farmers in different areas that produced during the summer when my California crop's done. You know, we're doing a lot of that private label. The big thing on supermarkets now is private label. So there's only a handful, like I told you. So the private labels are all pretty much being supplied by the same, you know, group of suppliers that are doing our own thing. So, but private labels are very big, very big thing now.

Everybody wants to do that. You go to Trader Joe's, Joe's, they're a great company. Love working with them. They want to pretty much get everything into Trader Joe brand. So when you're in Trader Joe's and you're looking at all these great brands, what you're saying is there's a handful of suppliers that are basically responsible for putting all those products on the shelves, minus the packaging. On the fresh side, yeah.

I don't know anything about the grocery side. So the pomegranate juice is the first one you launched with. I'm getting better at it. My daughter told me I was mature enough to listen to Jordan Peterson now. Oh, you're mature enough to listen to Jordan. I think my dad just passed the maturity test too. I think he can listen to Jordan Peterson too. So I've been trying listening to him because my, like my,

especially my accounting department, they'll say he's coming in for a landing. Like I'll go off on something over here and they're like okay bring him back bring him back so peterson's really good at going and staying on something and getting back the original point so forgive me if i stay out there the same thing to me if i'm she goes all right land the plane yeah it's time to land so the the arrows were, then got into them again. And then the juice was just, you just don't know anybody who's getting it. You don't know where it's going. And so I looked at everything I have. So I'm trying to get all the byproducts I have that have no other home.

It's perfectly good fruit that either was too ripe when it's being packed. It's got external defects, whatever else. The internal is fine. Same as the ones with no external defects. And so I'm doing frozen stone fruit, freeze-dried pomegranate seeds. We just did a fancy food show in Vegas and that was a big hit.

Smart. There for kids, I'm thinking freeze-dried pomegranate seeds. I have a special variety that doesn't have a seed really in the middle. So that works for that. The juice was one of those things because I have so much pomegranate and mandarin. So people eat a lot of mandarins, easy peel mandarins, eat a lot of them, but no one really, it's really not a juice out there. So good. Especially like this. And it's a little different flavor than orange juice. It doesn't taste the same. So, and we're finding out that juice people are totally –

juice consumers are unique. So I'm dealing with trying to get it out to people that buy the juice in bulk that may not want – they're not looking for the health benefit as much, like looking for – from concentrate, not to say names or trying to take a sunny delight or something like that. That's a whole different part of the grocery store. For us, I kind of have a weird space. I'm being put in the premium juice set with Naked and Tsujo and Evolution and things like that.

There's not really a single strain, we call it, mandarin, pomegranate. There's only one ingredient in both of those. Oh, that's cool. It's just pomegranate. That's really cool. And Palm's done an amazing job with pomegranate juice on the concentrated side. And we're just, we're going on the fresh side. And now the functionals we're doing are, everybody likes a green juice. So we did the power one that has

matcha and jalapeno, but it's, but the base, most, a lot of these juices have water, coconut water, you know, from other countries, they have all these different things as a base filler. So ours only have the pomegranate or the Mandarin as a filler. There's no water. It's so funny when I look for this kind of stuff, I'm always like looking for just something with the least amount of ingredients because I feel like there's so many ingredients in so many things now. I don't want to take the time to just like, if I, if I want a palm, like the other day I was looking for a palm granite juice. I was reading about a benefit it had and i was looking around like what is one with just the palm granite

like obviously found it here um but i think that's the thing is as some of these companies have evolved they've gotten so complicated with the amount of ingredients they have and i think a lot of consumers just don't or they're out of integrity i think some of them sell to big conglomerates and then the conglomerate takes over and it's just not the same. Right. Which is a bummer. I've run into that, what you said a lot. People are asking me, what are you doing this for, to flip it?

Because most people in these spaces are trying to sell to private equity. Private equity has dipped its toe in California ag and they love it. Yeah, we know the founder very well of Suja. Yeah. And that's a whole other story. She's been on the the show but that's an interesting kind of story and example not to say they've done good or bad it's just it's changed maybe a little bit from when she started my daughter's favorite is lemon love is that the one with the cayenne i think it does i buy that one they're all they were ginger love yeah, they have some great stuff. So private equity is looking into the juice companies.

Well, I know Evolution. I think Starbucks had Evolution. Bolthouse started as, I think, something like me. It started as a family farm type, and it got sold to a company, and then the company that bought it, I think, bought. This is general knowledge I have. I think the company that bought Evolution also bought Bolthouse. So when you launch Squeeze Juice, do you have an end goal in mind? Is your goal to potentially sell it? Is it to just run it the

best that you can for as long as you can? Is it to leave it to your kids? I always wonder, as an entrepreneur myself, I love to hear people's plan. I would love to know what the systems you're doing to get to the end of that plan. I mean, we're fully vertically integrated. I sit in the sales pit with my guys or six of us. That's what I say. I'll never be off the cash register until my last breath. Smart. So you got to be engaged. And we have other interests. I mean, I have a major junior hockey team in Wenatchee, Washington, and we have some development hockey teams up there. So I'll have one day a week of a couple hours I'll spend with my hockey GM. We have some other

interests we do that I'll make sure I spend an hour or two a week with that manager. And then make sure I'm seeing all the budgets and the cash budgets. I like a very simple, I like to see the year going forward. I like to see the months as the actuals have been determined that I see those going along and then making changes. And I like that for every company I have, that's kind of my finance background. And so that's worked well for me, but in this one, I love the farming. I love the farming i love the i love the the marketing i think now you don't have to be in the old days you had to be at your desk in fresno now it's not that way there's been a lot of turnover there's been a consolidation in the supermarket industry you see now big ones trying to go through kroger and albertsons together much more centralized

procurement around the country so it's not at all like it used to be when I got in the business, but 35 years ago. So my goal is to, with these byproducts is to provide a level of sustainability to the ranch that some kind of looking at the reverse, not for the beverage company to be profitable in that, but for it to be just cover costs and to provide sustainable money to the, to each farm year round.

So it's just a component of the fresh and everything else that we do that keeps it propped up. What would the average American or just average person in the world maybe not understand about running a farm? I'm sure a lot, but what are we just uneducated about when it comes to running an operation like that? First thing people probably bring up is labor. So like us, we're a year-round operation. So we pretty much keep our labor force in the field and in the production facilities year-round.

So consistency of a labor force is one that's talked about. People that are working in the field, and this is a very skilled effort that they do on pruning. Like peaches and nectarines and plums in particular is probably the most expensive by the acre, and probably people wouldn't know that. Like in the winter, you have to go to the tree and you start pruning the tree, cutting out limbs and things to prepare for the next crop year. Then when the crop, then you got to go through weather, then you get the bloom. Everybody loves looking at the bloom, but then it's very susceptible that's the future fruit so you can get hit with you know i don't

like saying the words but you can get with very cold weather you can get hit with different things that affect that bloom then it makes a piece of fruit then you have to go in and take pieces of that fruit off when it's little and throw it on the ground because the fruit can't doesn't make any sense to support all of that fruit on the tree the fruit will all be too small if you go into whole foods and you want to buy a peach you're not going to buy one this big the customers like it yeah huh and so and the tree goes all different sizes so it's real art form but here's thinning it just right that is gmo i don't know anything about this like can you go off on that like how much when you see a huge ass strawberry that's literally the biggest strawberry you've ever seen is that a gmo strawberry or is that just a big ass strawberry might be on creatine

or something it works out it works out she's eating a lot of testosterone um when i think of gmo i think of corn and things they've done to be pest resistant. Because you think of the old food pyramid and how we were going to grow food really cheap for the nation. That's how that old food pyramid, I remember when it was from the 60s or 70s or whenever it was made. And so a lot of that drove, I think, the GMO to design these row crops in large scale. And so as far as genetically modifying, in the fruit business, there's breeding. Like you'll have a tree and it has a certain variety. So there's a different variety.

People don't probably understand that. I buy a peach during the summer. If you go through part of April, but May, June, July, August, September, 5, 20, 21 weeks, there's probably, there might be 40 different varieties of peaches that were growing during that time span they mature at different times so you can get them to the market when they're supposed to and ship them in time so they're not go bad on our own coal storage so it's so stone fruit in particular we call it with a pit in the middle it's a stone but uh that's one of the most complex and expensive industries there is and And that's really got down to just a few major players now. You know, I was talking, I'm reading this book.

It takes place in the 1400s. And part of it, they're talking about this crop that just gets wiped out. And I was telling Lauren, people have gotten so far away from understanding where food comes from. Meaning like most people, even today, they're not even going to the grocery store. They're going on their phone and ordering and then the groceries are showing up at their house. And I just don't, it's maybe some fault, but also for no fault as well, where people just

don't realize the process and the labor and the work and the time that it takes to create whether it's meat or whether it's food or vegetables, it just shows up at their house in a bag. And I was telling Lauren, I was like, you know, back in the day, if you were a surf working on a farm and ice storm came through like you were you're done it was over well i'm not as um it's been too long i mean a couple of documentaries have really impacted me sea spiracy was one if you haven't seen it my daughter my daughter-in-law were not happy with me when i had them watch that because we all love sushi so i still eat sushi but it shows you getting back to g but it shows you, getting back

to GMO, it shows you like, if you watch Kiss the Ground, Seaspiracy, there's decisions being made on our behalf based on our demands. As small as fast food, what does it take to get that much beef into the system to support all these different business models and that? And GMO has been really, it might've been in kiss the ground. I can't remember. It's been a few years, but that decisions we think about here, I'm not going to buy that as GMO. I'm going to buy this instead. To us, it's not that big of a decision, but it's impacted the rest of the world in a big way, like Africa and other developing countries that they haven't been able to get the food sources. Like you're saying, I got to remember what that documentary was, but bananas were just getting killed there, right?

And they just, there was a bug and they just couldn't fix it. And so they'd found where they could genetically modify. They added, they modified, they added like the gene from a strawberry or it's like, it's not taking something from an animal or as far as I understand. I mean, we're not GM, we're not in a GMO world at all. But from what I understand, they're using the genes from other, like a raspberry, strawberry, something else to help that particular fruit or veg ward off pests eating it was mature. Yeah. And I think that's the misconception people think. As an entrepreneur, there's a lot of people who are listening that are entrepreneurs or want to become entrepreneurs. What advice would you give them? Sounds like one thing after this conversation so far, what to me that's interesting about you is

you seem very patient because you've had to experience patience on the farm with watching things grow. I'm glad I didn't have you sit at a desk. Yeah, we didn't have you sit at a desk. But what are some tools that you think are really important in an entrepreneur's toolbox? Faith is a big one. You have to have a really good support team behind you. My wife's been incredibly supportive and my kids have. And that's important to me that the short time I'm here on the planet, I don't know how long that's going to be, but I want to make it worth something that I was here, that I added something to the whole narrative. And so I think you have to have a vision or a goal of something you really want to accomplish.

It doesn't have to be that. Certainly, I told my son that the other day, Gunnar, he's 30. I said, what would 30-year-old Gunnar say to 25-year-old Gunnar right now? Let me tell you, 60-year-old David would tell 30-year-old David a lot of things. What would you tell him? I don't know. But I hadn't really thought about it until the other day. It was like, I really want to start to think about that.

I've been trying to, you know, you look at what other successful entrepreneurs have done, but really, it's your journey. I mean, I was in, it's been a long time ago, but I was in martial arts for a number of years, and that was very impactful to me. I recommend martial arts too. It doesn't really matter which one I think per se is the instructor. Do you, did you click with somebody? Did you, you know, I, I particularly spent a little bit of time in Aikido

and, uh, I got my belt in karate, but in Aikido really about the center and being centered, there was something on Jordan Peterson's, uh, four part series here, four part series he has on there from a friend of his that was about that, being centered. And so I would say staying centered, having faith in yourself. And I've taught my son that, my daughter that. Everyone in our company, we have a little over 600 employees. I'm like, I try to get them engaged and say, your paycheck, your pay stub, you look at that left side is what you earned.

The right side is what went in the bank account. But, you know, get engaged in the middle. Be, you know, care about that. Wonder where your money went. And try to teach people, whether being an entrepreneur or even if you're as an employee, just thinking at a higher level about things and what's ahead of you. So I think that was, for me, the different things I went through. I never gave up. You just can't, if you believe in it,

like in this, I believe in the juice. It was a good product. Okay, I'm going to put a lot into that. I'm going to believe in it. It's been a very difficult road to be on, but I'm going to keep, you know, walk through doors that are open and doors that close, they close.

600 employees is a shitload of employees. How do you lead 600 people? I need some tips. Well, I don't know what they're doing right now. You know what? Building a management team, I'm very proud that organically we built up all our management from inside. The gentleman who runs my packing facility started as a welder with us and he does a phenomenal job. I'm lucky that one of my closest male friend is farming partners with me, and we share a lot of the same interests. Also helped me at the packing house and that. And so I think building relationships, treating everybody that they matter.

I mean, the golden rule is not really complicated, right? So as long as you wanted to treat yourself good, then it works. I want to treat somebody else like I want to be treated. So I think if you develop the right management structure and the right people, and they do things the way, and you let them incorporate in things that have their own signature on things, but you have to, whatever got you where you are, that entrepreneurial drive that you really wanted, as long as it wasn't strictly financial based or something like that. And that may work. I mean, look at how many different kinds of entrepreneurs there is.

Every different kind you can think of. And there's people who have a lot more than me and there are people who have a lot less than me. So I don't know what the actual answer is, except that I just never give up, be tenacious. On sales side, make another phone call. It's all statistics and sales. If you decide to go down that road and there's sales in everything. Everything we do, there's sales. And so it's okay.

It's not working there. Find another lane, find another opportunity. When you get a no or you have a setback, where does your mind go? What's your immediate process? And I'm sure you've gotten better at it as you've evolved in your career, but early days. I think there's a lot of people listening that start something and then they struggle. And I would just want to be clear, I've started a bunch of things and struggled in many things. But I think people, sometimes they look at the end success. They'll look at someone like you and say, okay, easy for him to say. Or they'll look at something like this and say, easy.

But what I wish we showed more of in the early days was all of the setbacks. You know, even in the juice, got started and okay, you can have a great product. But if people don't know that story, people have to hear the story that, okay, they're literally taking fruit that couldn't be put in a bag and go on the shelf. So they squeeze it. Our machines actually peel the skin off of the mandarin and the pomegranate so it doesn't get the oils in there. It's high-pressure pasteurization, which is magic. It uses high pressure instead of heat and boiling or a concentrate, so it's fresh.

And came out with the base product. For all I knew, people tried them. They said they were great, and it's going to fly off the shelf. Well, that was the opposite. And then you, and that space is actually shrinking in the stores. So then you reach out to different areas, like a grocery outlet or something and say, Hey, and get partnered with them. And they're like, yeah, this is fantastic.

Well, because of my, because I'm vertically integrated, I can say to each of them, what do you want to do? Where do you want to sell it at? That's very not common in the beverage industry. I'll be like, what do you want to sell of them, what do you want to do? Where do you want to sell it at? And that's very not common in the beverage industry. I'll be like, what do you want to sell it at? What do you want to make? What do you need me to bill you? Okay, we're good. What is more common if you're not vertically integrated? They're having somebody produce or co-pack it for them. You see that happening a lot, I think, in alcohol. I'll read between the lines and see people that are, there's guys behind the scenes that are signing up celebrities and getting them to, you know, put their name on it and then their partner in it and

they build it up and then they sell it. And so they're getting co-packers and that in different areas to, you know, make the tequilas or make the, all of that for you. In the beverage industry, you get a lot of that. Like you can find co-packers that'll make something up for you. Hey, I want this kind of shot. I want this. And I'm, and I'm coming up with more disruptive type beverages here really quick and have some exciting ones we're going to be doing so when i hit that no you know because you'll i'll run into a vp of a major healthy food store chain that may say this is fabulous this belongs in the store and then you can hit the procurement side of it and they they're like, no. And plus in this area, they'll look at it once a year

and maybe a year ahead of that year and say, think about if they're going to put it in or not. So it's not their fault. It's just as things have more became more centralized in the retail industry. It's like, they're not as nimble. Corporate world's not as nimble. Like, I can be very nimble.

And somebody say, hey, can you make this kind of shot or whatever, because now we're going to get into the, I wasn't going to do the shot world, but now I'm going to do it. So can you do this kind of shot? Yes. So then you do the recipe, come up, do a focus group, see how it tastes, everybody likes it.

Okay, boom. You know, probably next month or so we'll launch the shot. So that's not normal in this industry. It might take years to, you know. You just move way faster. But if you know the people month or so we'll launch the shot so that's that's not normal in this industry it might take years to you know you just move away if you know the people at suja i mean they've done an amazing job so i mean they look at this all the skews we call them individual things and it takes a lot of love and passion into the like i like i like green juice i didn't i some of the other ones i was buying i didn't like this one a little sweeter because it uses our apples it's delicious uses our apple puree, which makes,

we're going to have some kids drinks coming out. I'll give my kids all this. Yeah, my grandsons went nuts over the mandarin. The thing is, kids love juice, but you want to get them a good juice. Good juice. Right. So I'm not, I don't want to give them like a crap juice, but my kids will go crazy.

Yeah. What is the secret to 37 years of marriage? That's a long time. I give Michael all the tips you can take. Well, you brought up no before. So don't ever say no. I know. Just don't ever say anything.

It's like, don't ever say no. Don't speak. She's saying don't say anything. Is that? Well, I married a marriage family child therapist also. Perfect. Oh, wow.

That helps. A marriage family therapist. Yes. Her parents were therapists? No, she is. She is a therapist. She stopped practicing when she stayed home and we decided that we found a way to make it work. We didn't have any money back then, but we found a way that she could stay home and be with the kids.

We thought that was important for her. But Lisa, ever since then, she uses it every day. She's always with all her friends, family. She's using her therapy on me every day for her. But Lisa's, she, ever since then, she uses it every day. She's, all her friends, family, she's using her therapy on me every day for sure. You're trained up. What's the trick?

What's the trick to being married that long? I guess a lot of things is finding a balance. We're faith-based too. So, I make so many mistakes every day.

I just stop counting them. So, you know, we have that in common. I know just trusting each other and she's full-blooded armenian so when she gets mad it's yeah i i give in you should say that i make so many mistakes every day i have more i need to hear that i like how he says he makes so many mistakes i feel like if i give her like one inch she's going to take the whole mile well just

like a mistake that he made this morning is that his latest is to turn on an alarm. And the alarm is literally like a succession theme song. No, it's not. It's 630 in the morning. Is that like the greatest show? It was a great show.

Next to Curb Your Enthusiasm. I don't need to hear the theme song at 630 AM in the morning when I'm trying to get some shut up. No, it's not that. I think. So I told him last night, I said, I'm going to get some shut-eye. No, it's not that. I think... So I told him last night, I said,

I'm going to sleep in the other room. The piano part, the gling, gling, gling. Yeah, it's dreadful to wake up to. And it's like, I was told my broadcast channel, I'd rather a marching band wake me up. I really would rather...

Try the marching band. Yeah, well, try the marching band. I don't want to be woken up with an alarm. What's the school that's around here? Yeah, get the school to come wake me up. college ut to come out anything besides the succession theme song yeah no it's not that theme song you just think that because i had it as um a ringtone 24th theme song i had the jack bauer 24 like the what is it the star wars the jedi like i i can't you want something different yeah so you should take some notes from this podcast and just do what I say.

Let me tell you something. I picked the ones that come on the iPhone. There's one that's like a soft light. Those are even worse. That's what I have. No, guys. Can we wake up with our circadian rhythm or a hatch? Let me tell you something.

Whatever sound it is, she's going to be upset about it. I don't want any sound. She wants me to creep out of the room in the dark. Yeah. Because we're in winter right now. And so I need the alarm because I don't have the sun to wake up. No, I have a chime machine. I like chimes.

Chimes. Chimes. You can put wind chimes in your room and a fan. I was going to, yeah, a giant fan and me just sleeping in a bunch of wind chimes. Honestly, just sleep in another house. I read this article in the Wall Street. Then you just have to turn the fan on. That's right.

I read this article in the Wall Street Journal where these people were saying that the key to marriage is you have to go in other bedrooms and then other i'm like well what's maybe you shouldn't even be married maybe that's the case you should just like go live in separate places and not see how that works for you it was a strange article to me because i'm like basically what we're saying here is that like the key is to just not actually be together maybe steps like dick van dyke's just separate beds yeah before the separate rooms. Lucy and Ricky. Sometimes I read things in this modern world we live in and I feel like we're just completely, like it's a joke, like we're upside down. Like the key to the marriage is to be away from each other. I'm like, are you just saying that maybe then don't be in the

marriage? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And sometimes you are so annoying that I could see why the Wall Street Journal said that. i think it was written by somebody that's completely wacky and is not in a good marriage how many hours are you together a day a lot a lot you're probably like you and your wife it's like we're partners i'd say 12 12 in the morning in the morning and then um yeah in the morning an hour maybe and then i when i come home so maybe five six hours okay we're together a lot you might have a time issue we might have a little bit more time we do like being together it's like codependent and independent yeah but it just depends which way the wind's blowing that day where we're at that makes your journey so exciting if I had had a little bit more shut

eye this morning I think that I would be really into being with you. We've known each other since we were 12. So it's been a long time. Long time. Not 37 years. You had Dr. Peter Attia on here. We did. I'm halfway through his book. He was on that limit list.

I saw him on National Geographic with Chris Hemsworth. That was a great series. So he got me into kettlebells. And I actually bought the Onnit kettleettlebells, the Primal ones. Those are good. The Gorilla Head? Yeah. Those are good.

So all the girls, everybody in the office saw them coming in, so they all wanted them. So I bought Kettlebells for everybody. Oh, that's so cute. But he's, I love him. Yeah, he's a good one. Yeah, so I'm halfway through his book. We, like it's sometimes interesting. We get to sit with people and it's sometimes surreal that they're on the show because we're

big fans. We've been fans of him for a long time. Yeah. We had an author in here yesterday. It was a surreal experience. It was like, oh, I read your books for a long time. Then I'm just talking like this. And now we get to drink our favorite juice company's juice and meet the founder.

Which juice should everybody start with? If I were to pick, I think just, I'm going to say mine first. I would start with the pomegranate. And I think it also would taste so good in tequila. All of these juices though are so good. I got to try all of them. I'm going to give them to my kids. Which would you tell our audience to start with? I believe we just started in Central Markets here in Austin. They should be in the stores by now. I think they have the functionals. We have the Focus, the Immunity, and the Green. So if you're here in the local market, those should be in Central Market. The pomegranate is fabulous. You get your antioxidants. It's a fresh product. If you like pomegranate juice,

it tastes like pomegranates. Squeezed Juice did a sample pack for you guys. So I think that's a really good place to start too. They can go and sample all the juices. You can go on shop.squeezedjuice.com and use code skinny. And you get a discount and a sample packet you can go buy so you can try the juice. Yeah, they can buy the sample pack for $24.99. Love it. And that'll have the five juices in there.

And then with the skinny coat, it's 20% off anything on the site. And then we're going to give away a couple sample packets. All you guys have to do is follow at the squeezed juice on Instagram and tell us your favorite takeaway from this podcast on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. And I feel like everyone should go get the sample pack. Absolutely delicious. My new favorite juice. Thank you for coming on.

I learned a lot. Yeah. And I really like it's very good timing because I got super into pomegranate because of the antioxidants. Yeah. A lot of people are taking glutathione for the antioxidant benefits. But, you know, I think having this juice, I try to take at least eight ounces a day. Oh, good.

Yeah. Well, we'll get you hooked up. You know what my favorite way to drink a pomegranate juice is? Because I'm not drinking at this moment alcohol. You take a wine glass, you put a little bit of squeezed juice pomegranate juice, like an inch, and then sparkling water and ice and basil.

Nice. It's like a cocktail. It's really good. then sparkling water and ice and basil. Nice. It's like a cocktail. It's really good. Yeah, they're good in cocktails. Yeah. Yeah, I can tell. David, thank you for coming on. No, thank you so much for having us.

We really appreciate it. And please tell Taylor, your daughter, thank you for coordinating. We appreciate you. My daughter and my daughter-in-law are big fans. What's your daughter-in-law's name? Allison. Allison and Taylor, shout out. We love you. Bye, Allison. Two things before you go. You can watch us now on YouTube. So you can go on YouTube,

search The Skinny Confidential, and watch our entire episodes on your computer or TV. Also, you should know Michael and I are doing a him and her newsletter. So basically, it's a him and her tip of the day, five days a week. And the tips are very specific, as you can imagine. And then we also have a monthly favorites. So basically, we collect all our monthly favorites, everything we've bought and used and tried and put it in one monthly newsletter for you. To sign up for that, go to shopskinnyconfidential.com and sign up for the newsletter. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.