The Unedited Computer Generated Transcript

Because I don't want to forget mostly. And just I've had that happen like twice this year after 390 something interviews. Wow. Because I made the mistake of like starting to talk to people and then, and then I forgot to hit record. So I'm just turning it on. But I do always, I tell everybody it's super easy to edit. So if you want to think about an answer or change something, or you need to let the dog out, like don't hesitate me on the phone.

34s

Faiez Rana

Cool. Good to know. Thanks for letting me know that.

36s

JackieMarie Beyer

And then do you have any questions for me?

41s

Faiez Rana

I mean, I, I honestly have a bunch of questions for you, but they might be better for the podcast. Let me think if there's anything pre pod that I would like to ask. I mean, I would love to know how you got started. You said 390, but if you would prefer to talk about them in the episode itself, that's fine.

1m 8s

JackieMarie Beyer

Well, let me introduce you and we'll just, I can always edit it out if we don't like it. All right, here we go. Welcome to the Green Organic Garden. It is Tuesday, September 28th, 2021. And I am super excited because you guys have heard me talk a lot this year about wanting to start my own kind of salad lunch club. And I have a guest on today. There's going to talk to you about their business, where they have taken this to a whole other level and they are bringing it to nationally. So from prep to your door here today is Faiez Rana. So welcome to the show. Faiez , am I saying that right?

54m 1s

Faiez Rana

It's but you, yeah, I'm excited to be here.

54m 5s

JackieMarie Beyer

Well, go ahead and tell us, I didn't, we didn't even ask, like, where are you located?

54m 11s

Faiez Rana

Yeah, I'm in a, I'm in Austin, Texas. That's where we're headquartered

54m 16s

JackieMarie Beyer

In Austin, Texas, the

54m 17s

Faiez Rana

Perfect city to do what we do. We have a bunch of smaller organic farmers around here. So, you know, there's no shortage of amazing organic fruits and veggies for us to use.

54m 30s

JackieMarie Beyer

Awesome. Well, I always start my show asking about your very first garden. Like, do you actually garden yourself at all?

54m 39s

Faiez Rana

I am a designated garden waterer at our headquarters, but I am not the gardener myself. I'm sorry. Can you hear the jars clinking in the background?

54m 49s

JackieMarie Beyer

I can, but I like that sound. Okay.

54m 52s

Faiez Rana

Luckily, our chef is an amazing gardener and then we have some teammates that are far better at it than I am, but I am the person who watered it every day. It's my therapy.

55m 6s

JackieMarie Beyer

Cool. Well, I used to always say I'm the organic eater and my husband was really the gardener. But now that I am going on almost, it'll be seven years in January of my podcast. And the last two years, especially with the pandemic, I've really picked up the gardening. Like I grew a lot of food this year and I ended up starting like that kind of a business this summer called local organic lawn care where my goal was to mow people's lawns. Just, I thought, oh, it'll get me out of the house. And I love to mow lawns. And then one person asked me to like help her plant her greenhouse and to her landscape.

55m 52s

JackieMarie Beyer

And it's kind of morphed into that. And then her she's still not moved into her house. So her food is actually growing in my garden and I ended up growing corn. And what else did I grow for her peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, like things that I had never grown before, lettuce and well, I've always kind of grown the lettuce. I grow a lot of herbs, but my husband grows like enough food for us. Like I pretty much skipped the produce aisle from almost June through last year. It was through almost January this year. We're out of something. So I've had to, and I almost always have to buy our fruit, but because we are in Northwest Montana, if you didn't know, it's interesting because last spring I keep bugging my stepdaughter to start like a food truck with us.

56m 48s

JackieMarie Beyer

Cause last year, cause we grew like a ton of potatoes and I thought, oh, we can make French fries, you know, form to garden or what is it, farm to table, whatever, you know, we could sell the pre some of the extra produce, my husband and I found this guy and he, he had a food truck and I asked him to come on and he was like, no, Jackie, what you should do is start this salad lunch club where you make salads for people. And like you, they order them on Thursday. So there's no waste. You put them together and then you deliver my Monday. And I ended up like not doing that, but I started making the salads for myself in my fridge.

57m 38s

JackieMarie Beyer

And I just loved that. And so seeing that you're doing this nationally and, and, and just like, like, it never occurred to me. I don't know. Anyway, I had some issues with it, so I never, it never, I never went that route or it never took off, but I'm so curious. So tell us about what you guys have going and how this is working and, and how you're like you're delivering glass jars to people.

58m 9s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. What you just, the story you just told us quite literally exactly how we started. It was, it was this concept of, okay. So if we prepare meals on Friday, Saturday, we can deliver them on Sunday, you know, organic plant-based completely real meals. And, you know, originally when it was only 3, 5, 10 customers, it was doable outs out of our, our studio kitchen at home.

58m 36s

Faiez Rana

But over time, as more people got involved with the layers of complexity, you know, started to pile up. So it became a much, it became a real business, but I totally have an idealistic vision of the future where we no longer have grass in our lawns. Like I w I wish for a future where everybody's front and backyard as a garden instead of grass. Cause I don't really see the value in grass other than aesthetics.

59m 6s

JackieMarie Beyer

I haven't been arguing with somebody about this for like, since she came to my house I year and a half ago, because we take the lawn that we mow at our house and put it in. Like, that is like a huge component of our compost. And like, I feel like without the lawn, our compost, like Schaeffer's, and then we're in the woods and like the one is literally fire, right. So I like, I, I do understand the vision of like food and lawns, but I also feel there's a certain value in one. And like people who have like kids that play soccer on their lawn, or

59m 50s

Faiez Rana

I don't, I don't, I don't disagree with that. I think

59m 54s

JackieMarie Beyer

You can definitely have more gardens, less lawn space, you know, and the way we take care of our launch could be usually different.

1h 0m 3s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. I, well, so some, you know, when I would be doing deliveries around Austin, I would just be driving through neighborhoods and neighborhoods and neighborhoods. And I would just, I would see all these, see all these lawns, which is fine, but I just had this visual in my head. I'm like, man, even if one out of every five of these was a garden, it could transform the health of these neighborhoods.

1h 0m 32s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yes, yes. And, and the way, like I said, the way people, and that's funny, cause that's kind of how my thing turned out. Like I found out I have this huge knowledge base and how to take care of, because we don't really like, we don't wastewater watering our lawn and it does turn brown in the summer. And just like people could, like, I find myself driving through our town the same way and I'm like, oh, if they would put some perennials there and they would put a pollinator border here and they could do this, so they could do that. And they could put a shade tree that would keep this part of the lawn growing. And, and definitely we could have way more food growing gardens, backyard frightened, hard gardens.

1h 1m 25s

JackieMarie Beyer

Like you can have one and food. I think

1h 1m 28s

Faiez Rana

I'm curious what you think about this. So I kind of have a theory that, you know, we live in a super convenience driven culture right now because everybody has different things that are important to them that they want to spend time on. And I think that there's a certain subset of the culture perhaps like you and I, that would take the time to cultivate our own gardens. But I think there's a much larger population that would love to have a home garden, but is not going to go through the effort of learning, how to set it up and potentially even maintain it.

1h 2m 10s

Faiez Rana

And so, yeah,

1h 2m 11s

JackieMarie Beyer

It's a huge, it's a huge, and the other thing I talk about a lot on my show is the difference between having a yard and a garden. And like, we call it like an organic Oasis. My husband, I wrote a book called the, are getting noises, guidebook, and then growing vegetables, like growing vegetables or a whole other learning curve. And so even if you're growing herbs or flowers for pollinators and bees, your flowers can pollinate, you know, those insects and beneficial insects can help the person who is growing the vegetables because that does take a certain amount of commitment and, and knowledge and, and time that a lot of people like during the summer, there's a lot of days where I won't even see the garden for five days and I have all to do to water it and forget, like trying to take care of it and do all that stuff.

1h 3m 13s

JackieMarie Beyer

And some people just aren't going to have the time. So there could be other people that, you know, there could be like one person on the block that's maybe growing the vegetables more, but I still feel like that grass can help fill the compost for people or like the leaves, like right now we don't have a lot of leaf trees. So we're like looking for leaves to put in our compost. Like I just feel like we never have enough compost. My husband and I really, really literally fight over the compost, like what bed isn't going to go in. And, and like, he finally like one year he was like, it's got the vegetables are priority for getting the compost because I built like some new flower beds. And he was like, yeah, you can use that compost.

1h 4m 8s

JackieMarie Beyer

But he didn't realize that's where I was going to put them. And he was kind of like, he's like, but I was waiting to put that on the carrots or whatever. And so I just feel like, I don't know, I took this video one day of me like mowing the lawn and then putting the greens into the grass clippings into the compost with like the vegetable scraps and stuff. And, but I forgot where I was going anyway,

1h 4m 40s

Faiez Rana

The value you're, you're still challenging my original statement of no value in lawns. And you've already convinced me otherwise,

1h 4m 47s

JackieMarie Beyer

It's funny because this was this of mine. And I have just been kind of going back and forth because like, it was funny. It was the day she came to her house. I just felt like she went home and like, it kept her, you know, how there is, like, what keeps you up at night? What did your ideal client up at night? And I know it kept you, it's still keeping her up at night, all the lawn at my house. Cause she hates that like, you know, like I have this like gas lawnmower and I'm mowing the lawn and she's like, you could have that space put in a vegetables and this and that. And, and then I've been like on the struggle to like try to turn the lawn into garden beds, but like we have like a water shortage at our house. And so I have all to do to water, the vegetable beds that I do have.

1h 5m 52s

JackieMarie Beyer

And like now trying to take this grass and turn it. It's like more space that's water. So it's almost actually taking water away from where I do have tomatoes growing where I do have other things growing. And it's just, I like to say nothing of like the quackgrass is great. Like I put the cardboard down and I put like the layers of compost on top of it. And I've done all these things and the quite crest is still coming back and it's just like, you know what? That crack grass would like if I mow that. And, and it's also, it's like, it's really hearty. Like it didn't die during our shipper hot July when like everything else was dying and just, we had no water and just everything and, and, but then we finally got some rain in August and it came back to life and now it's lush.

1h 6m 52s

JackieMarie Beyer

And so we are not as worried about fire, forest, fire coming and burning my house down. I don't know. Anyway, what's that?

1h 7m 1s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. Do you know what happened when people in the suburbs, for example, mow their lawn and, and let's say you don't have comments.

1h 7m 10s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah. Well that is totally a problem for sure. And also like I've had plenty of guests come on and talk about the fact that like back that, that backyard yards and stuff have more chemicals and are putting more glyphosate, Roundup and stuff on their lawns because they weren't the perfect, like even my mom, I hate those stupid little yellow flags that say don't walk on here for 24 hours. That was like the bane of my existence. Like my mom walks her dog and her next door neighbor. And like, I don't know how many, like every day in her little town in New York, there are, you know, shovel lawns on the block. And so the little yellow flags are moving on. I want to create these little green flags that say no chemicals, sprayed here.

1h 8m 5s

JackieMarie Beyer

This is an organic lawn, you know, no pesticides and start like a thing like that because it is bad that they're putting those chemicals. Like, I don't want to see that. I want to get rid of that.

1h 8m 20s

Faiez Rana

If I'm somebody who uses, let's just say Roundup on their, on their lawn, compost, compost, that grass does that affect the comp, I'm sure it affects the pump.

1h 8m 31s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yes. Yes. You don't want that in your compost.

1h 8m 35s

Faiez Rana

And how would a, a composting facility or business or service be able to distinguish between materials that have Roundup on it and those that don't is that even possible?

1h 8m 46s

JackieMarie Beyer

Well, they would have to know who's mowing on, you know, who's they would have to like, know where no. And like, and on top of that, the water supply in my mom's town is just like, totally like, it's just insane. They've used problem with cancer on the whole like, cause she lives on long island and there's just a huge problem with her waters by. And I'm like, and here are your neighbors, like, you know, spewing, chem, where do they think they think it really just a battery it's after 24 hours that that's not going into your water supply. Like, it just, it drives me crazy. It drives her crazy and just, I don't know. So yeah, if we could get more and then it's so funny because the first chapter in her book is all about healthy soil and building composts.

1h 9m 43s

JackieMarie Beyer

And like, she's like, I don't think you should start out that way. So many people hate composting, not returned me off. And just it's like, I don't understand to me, like composting is a group is like a clean garden job. Like I complained on my show a lot. Like I don't like to get shuffle in my feet and my sandals and only to get my jeans dirty. Like I have gardened jeans, but my jeans that I wear to work because I am a elementary school teacher by trade. And so I don't want those Jean when I come home at the end of the day, I don't want those jeans that I get to wear on Friday to get dirty or my school clothes, if I go down to pick and then I ended up down in the guard anyway, back to you because I, my listeners frequently told me I interrupt my guests too much.

1h 10m 46s

JackieMarie Beyer

And the nods talk so much.

1h 10m 48s

Faiez Rana

Well, I think you and I can agree that a future that's completely organic is better than what we have now. Right?

1h 10m 57s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yes, completely. Totally. And just so, so tell us about this business model. How does it work? So you have farms that you work with and then you're delivering like tell me that the glass jar. Cause like the biggest thing I couldn't figure out was like what to do with the salad dressing and you guys are delivering full meal, like all sorts of meals in these jars, right. It's not just salad.

1h 11m 25s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. So that was originally it's my, my fiance and I were getting married in 40 days or something. And thank you. When we started this business, we were just like six months into our relationship. But one of her non-negotiable was that she would not help me on this business if we use plastic and nice that, that was, I was like, and then, so my non-negotiable was okay, we'll use the glass, but we will start using it if it doesn't make financial sense.

1h 11m 59s

Faiez Rana

And so I think both of those things were really good sorta non-negotiables because as far as I can tell where the only company it forced us to, to, to develop this closed loop model, that's not only zero waste, but it's profitable as well. And that to me has been one of the most important things to focus on because a lot of the sustainable brands that we see, they're not financially viable because they're putting, you know, the, the values ahead of the finances, which is kind of idealistic, but things never reached scale with that sort of approach.

1h 12m 38s

Faiez Rana

So it has to make sustainable sense and business sense at the same time. And that's when we have real winners. And so what we do is, I mean, you asked about the dressing, that's part of the, part of the reasons that our meals are able to stay fresh for so long is that you put the wet ingredients, the most liquidy wet ingredients at the bottom, and then you put the dry list ingredients at the top. So they're completely separated and they never touch. So if you have a salad with, you know, addressing at the bottom, but mixed greens at the top, and they're separated by layers of keenwah and beans and cherry tomatoes that makes greens never touched the dressing.

1h 13m 27s

Faiez Rana

So the greens never get soggy at least, you know, within the week that you're supposed to eat it. So

1h 13m 35s

JackieMarie Beyer

Like amazed me how long. So I ended up making salad jars for me. I was amazed at how long they kept in my fridge for one. And then I actually also, I just started working back in the house in this restaurant in town. And like, one of the things I've learned there is we're constantly throwing the lettuce and spinach away. Like their salad mix goes bad show fast. And I keep like talking to the manager, I'm like, she really try this salad jar that, you know, the like, I'm not sure how it would work for them, but yeah,

1h 14m 15s

Faiez Rana

So quickly is because the produce at the store is probably three weeks old. So we're everything we, most things we're buying at the grocery store, unless it's a farmer's market where it's like on its final leg. So especially when it comes to greens. So that's why, you know, sourcing from local organic farms is so important to us because it's just better, right. If, if we're getting it a few days after it's been harvested rather than three weeks or four weeks later, it's it's fresher. It has more nutrition, intact tax still and just tastes better.

1h 14m 54s

Faiez Rana

I'm totally nodding my head. Yeah. It's facts. I'm, you know, part what one sort of a fun vision in my head is the one I shared with you about all front yards having gardens. Another one is that, you know, as much I'll share a tagline that really irritates me when I see it, which is when I see a restaurant or a big business market that they are organic and source locally, whenever possible, local when possible. And I find that such a frustrating borderline greenwashing slogan because in the business world, we all know that what you measure is what you improve.

1h 15m 35s

Faiez Rana

And so unless, so we actually measure every week, what percentage of our menu is locally sourced? And that's super important to us because that gives us benchmarks to slowly improve on. But if we, if we were just satisfied with saying like, yeah, we source locally, whenever possible, then there really wouldn't be any goals for us to, you know, do better at. And so that's something that we share with our customers. It's local is one of our core pillars because of the reasons I just shared with you about being better for your health and the environment, all the things that we know, but on the backend, the things that our customers don't really see is that we have real systems and processes and benchmarks in place so that, you know, last year 53 and a half percent of our menu was locally sourced where we want to do better than 53 and a half percent this year.

1h 16m 37s

Faiez Rana

And we have certain things in place so that we can do that. And next year we want to do better in the year after that we'll want to do better. I always tell our team that for our company, we don't, we don't just want to maintain our sustainability. As we grow, we want to get better at sustainability as we grow, it's like a never ending project to get a better and better and reducing our impact. And eventually, you know, some people argue that sustainability isn't even a good goal, right? That's that's, we, we should have a goal of regeneration. So, you know, if we take a view of, of being a regenerative business than we can, we sort of have this infinite goal of getting continuously better forever.

1h 17m 29s

Faiez Rana

And that's something that excites the hell out of me, because even though our product is organic, plant-based real food, which is amazing for the customer. And our packaging is zero waste and you don't throw a single thing away and everything is reused. That's also great. But the truth of the matter is that all of our deliveries happening fossil fuel cars right now. So there's a point that we can improve. I already that 53 and a half percent of our menu is locally source. Well, how do we get to 55? You know? So there's always things that we can improve. And that's what really fires me and my team up. So I just, I, I, there's always that original challenge of like, okay, you start out this small niche company with all these sustainable values that are better for your customers and better for the planet, but how do you quote unquote, hold onto that as you grow, well, forget holding onto it.

1h 18m 34s

Faiez Rana

How do we get better at it as we grow right. To me, that's the real goal. And my hope is that that kind of becomes the new norm for everybody that starts a business from here on out. You know, we know the immense consequences that the last hundred years of business has had on our environment and fill in the blank. So I just think that we have a huge opportunity to really re consider rethink re approach how we approach, how we approach business and what business's role is in our communities and society. And yeah, that's, that's my Ted talk, but that's what we do.

1h 19m 17s

JackieMarie Beyer

So you guys are based out of Austin, but is your company Nash? Are you shipping things all around the

1h 19m 25s

Faiez Rana

Never, never, we'll never ship. So right now we serve Austin and Houston. We're bringing Dallas and San Antonio online, and then we'll be expanding to the Pacific Northwest and California next

1h 19m 37s

JackieMarie Beyer

How's that going to work? Like you're like starting new little shops facility, like kinda like franchises,

1h 19m 44s

Faiez Rana

Not franchises, but so we have our headquarters here in Austin and out of this facility, we deliver to all the four major cities in Texas that I just named out of this same facility. So basically you have like on Sunday, all our deliveries, Sunday, Monday, all our deliveries go out and everybody in Houston and Austin get them at the same time. So we just send a refrigerated truck filled with jars and bags down to Houston and have delivery drivers, meet that truck at different points. And then they go and deliver and then they bring everything back and the truck comes back to Austin.

1h 20m 26s

Faiez Rana

So we can maintain that close loop model, which wouldn't be possible if we were shipping in boxes or whatever nationally. And so you can think about it like some somewhere between there's, there's an in-between between what blue apron does, which has shipped nationally. And what let's say Chipotle does, which is they have to have a new location and every neighborhood that they serve, right? So the in-between is what we do, which is we just need to put up one facility and we can serve a whole region. So, you know, the one facility we have here can serve the entirety of Texas.

1h 21m 7s

Faiez Rana

The one facility we put in PMW will serve, you know, Washington and Oregon, et cetera. And that prevents us from ever having to ship. And we can continue using the glass jars because it's not just a aesthetic and it's not even just zero waste it, like you said earlier, it maintains the freshness and prevents the oxidation of what's in the jar. So it's literally more fresh five days later.

1h 21m 35s

JackieMarie Beyer

It's amazing. I had, no, I could not believe how long my salads would last. And like, in the beginning I thought, oh, tomatoes are going to ruin it. The tomatoes didn't ruin it. The radishes didn't ruin it, the cucumbers, like, but I never did put the salad dressing in the bottom of the jars. But see what I was imagining was like, I was like, well, maybe I could like give them a separate jar of salad dressing. Like my mind, my model was like, they were going to get five jars last them the week on Monday. Like, I don't know why, that's what I was thinking. Like, I didn't realize it was like, oh, you're just getting the one salad, a special fancy salad for, you know, so I like my, in my head, I was like, I was, cause I eat a salad every day for lunch.

1h 22m 35s

JackieMarie Beyer

And like when I'm in the classroom and like, I, it was just like, it was such a game changer for me. And I was amazed at how much salad court jar could hold. And I would play with like different things that I would put in there. And then I would make seven salads on Sunday. Now this was the one thing it did take me well over two hours to prep seven salads just for me. And I couldn't figure out how that was going to scale and like what you guys are doing. Like you do, like, like there's like breakfast and lunch and dinner altogether. And then it comes in like a grocery bag, like, is that right?

1h 23m 22s

Faiez Rana

It's an insulate, it's an insulated reasonable bag. So those come back as well. Jackie, like four years ago, I would, there was a point between, there's always a point in a business where the founders are doing everything before you can really afford to hire other people. And it was like, I would start on Friday. I would cook through the night, all day, Saturday through the night, Sunday, like jar everything, and then go do all the deliveries and come back Sunday night, like a walking zombie. And it was, it was truly unsustainable and unhealthy, but that's just like, that was the process the business had to go through before eventually we could hire people.

1h 24m 8s

Faiez Rana

And now we have a whole team that, you know, I don't even, they laugh at me if I'm in the kitchen, they're like, what are you doing here? Like, you don't even know man, every one of these definitely. But it's just the natural evolution that it has to go through. But I think, I mean, I would love to help you think this through, if you actually want to launch your, your, your salad club. I think I, I personally think you have to sort of think about, it's a completely different animal between, you know, do you want to serve five or 10 people every week? Is it something you want to do for a hundred people, a thousand people?

1h 24m 56s

Faiez Rana

And all of those, if you can get clear about what you want, then, you know, you can kind of set boundaries and design the process for that. For me, it was always like, I wanna, I wanna, I want to serve as many people that want this as possible without ever reducing the quality. But if we had stayed with, you know, five or 10 people to use extras from our garden, I don't think it would have become as all consuming as it, as it has.

1h 25m 31s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah. I don't know what I wanna do. I kinda liked this landscaping thing that I've kind of stumbled on. Cause it I've never felt so confident in anything. I think I've done in my life as I have giving this woman advice on what she should be planning in her landscape. And I think that's where I'm going to end up going. I don't think I'm going to ever do this. Like I've thought about like helping the woman at the kitchen that I'm working for. Like maybe to help them like maybe pick up some business during the winter. Cause like I post them in Facebook group. I was like, well, if I started this, you know, lunch club of people be interested in one person.

1h 26m 21s

JackieMarie Beyer

She was like, you know, my husband does construction and they would love it. If you, you know, got a food truck and brought the food truck to their construction site once a week and stuff like that. But I, like I said, it never took off where you're like, you know, I never, I don't know, but I'm, I think I'm going to end up going the landscape type model and focus on helping people with their it's going to be like local organic landscape and helping people do the things like you were talking about, like, you know, have better. Cause I find myself like driving through town, looking at people's yards and being like, oh, if this person would just do this and this person would just do that.

1h 27m 12s

JackieMarie Beyer

And like I said, my husband, I built that wrote that organic Oasis guidebook. But I am I'm, I'm so curious about it. Cause I love this model and I love to like getting rid of the pie. I hate buying the stupid plastic containers of spinach or salad mix because like, it's funny, like I keep telling my husband like, why don't we have more lettuce growing? Like, because I have harvested like a rugala up in, through December in the snow before for Thanksgiving, like I have harvested, I have really good lettuce growing in these tubs for this woman outside right now when I pick it and I bring it to her and like, I don't even eat it because I'm like, well, you know, she paid me to grow it for her.

1h 28m 5s

JackieMarie Beyer

So it's her life. I don't even have any lettuce growing for me and my garden right now. And I like, but I get now I get like a free shift meal. So I eat my salad at work anyway. Plus they're constantly sending me home lettuce that we can't really serve the customers that are paying like 10 or $12 for this fancy salad. But like, I don't care if the ends are a little brown, so I eat it. So, so anyway, but

1h 28m 38s

Faiez Rana

Go ahead. No,

1h 28m 39s

JackieMarie Beyer

You ask real quick.

1h 28m 41s

Faiez Rana

I was going to ask like, do you think that well, where do you buy? Do you just buy your produce from the store in the months that you can't grow what you want to eat?

1h 28m 55s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah, because I know it's funny. Like one of the first, when I first started my packets or anything, I was like listening to this other podcast. What is it that this, I don't know, they stopped some kind of coop cast, but anyway, they were talking about doing a CSA and I was like, I am not a good CSA customer. I barely make it to the farmers park in our town. Not that our farmer's market and our town even has, like, they finally have a table with vegetables. Mostly it's like arts and crafts. Like we don't have a lot of local food here where I live in my little town. There are some thriving farmer's markets, like 45 to 65 minutes away. But just like having to be somewhere at one time just is not different.

1h 29m 50s

JackieMarie Beyer

Like I just want to be able to go to the store. They did start this new little thing called the farm stand where like different farmer's places like that's open during the week stoked 45 minute drive for me that I've been going to, they have like these really cool chef salads that I like. They're like a vegan shop that have like kale and I don't know, they put like cashews on it and some different salads. That's pretty nice. But anyway, I forgot what you were asking, but yeah, for the most part, I'm buying my salad at the store and like Gridley and Greenlee flooded even though I would choose them.

1h 30m 34s

JackieMarie Beyer

They just, I don't know. They're always so wet. And

1h 30m 38s

Faiez Rana

How many months out of the year do you have to buy it from the store?

1h 30m 45s

JackieMarie Beyer

Me, I buy what is almost all year round. Cause for some reason, like I don't really grow a lot of light. It's like, what did I have this year? Mike had a whole bunch of lettuce come back, like volunteers that I ate all through June and some year we've had a really, I really liked the black seed that Simpson lettuce. And we've had a hard time getting it to Germany lately. Like my Lexia and Simpson lettuce is just not done well. There's some years where I will get a good crop to grow and I can pick that for me, but I we're usually better off with like things like chard my kale this year. Oh my goodness. So I went through the whole thing of like covering it with row cover so it wouldn't get the bug holes in it.

1h 31m 41s

JackieMarie Beyer

But then the plants never really took off. I didn't do good with my kale. My Swiss chard was a total bomb this year and might let us again, I pretty much had to buy lettuce except for like one month in June, the other 11 months of the year, I do have a good plot of a Bruegel I've had some good regular this year, but otherwise, Nope. I am like buying those stupid either claim shows or, you know, even if I buy the Redlee figures, I finally did start buying those like cloth plastic or cloth produce bags. So I'm not having to get the plastic bags as much, but

1h 32m 25s

Faiez Rana

That was, I was looking, I was looking at your interview questions before any one of them was a little tip that everybody could, you know, practice to, to maybe be more sustainable or something. And that was literally going to be mine is that I remember when my fiance, when we first started going grocery shopping together, she would just put the produce straight into the basket and she wouldn't use the plastic, you know, things that you pull out. And I was like, what? I was like, that's disgusting. You're just, you're putting it straight in the cart. But yeah, that's exactly what I do now. And we just watch it when we get home. And now whenever I go grocery shopping with somebody in my family or friends and they pull out that little plastic thing to put their head of head of lettuce or their few tomatoes in or jalapenos.

1h 33m 25s

Faiez Rana

And I'm just like, Hey, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't have to do that. Just put it in the cart.

1h 33m 34s

JackieMarie Beyer

Ah, drives me crazy. And then like, so now in New York, when I just went to New York this spring, I noticed like they have a new thing in New York where you have to buy. I don't even know if they have plastic bags in the grocery store. Everybody's finally bringing it. Like I've been in Montana for 30 years now. I moved here in 1988 and I've been using recycled cloth, grocery bags ever since then. Am I? When I go to New York? Oh, I left there in the trunk or whatever. She knows. I have all these excuses. Well finally, now New York made it where like, you either have to buy those grocery bags. If you get a plastic bag, whatever, my mother and my brother are finally using the recycle bags.

1h 34m 28s

JackieMarie Beyer

But I noticed in the produce aisle, people are pulling out those plastic produce bags. Like there's no tomorrow. I'm just like, oh my God, like, what are you doing? You know? And just, and, but the one thing that she would argue with me about is like, and I see that even here sometimes, you know how they like have the spray in the produce aisle. I'm like the lettuce and the salon drill and stuff. Then the person like at the counter, at the grocery store, when they're like putting your, their thing gets wet and then they're wasting paper towels drawing off their little scanner thing. Do you have that problem?

1h 35m 13s

Faiez Rana

Huh? That sounds like a solvable problem to me.

1h 35m 16s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah, but you don't mind do you work? Like now they have like special produce produce cloth bags that you can wash that seemed to work really good, but they're not that easy to find, but I've been finding them a little bit more and those are really nice that are like a cloth produce bag that goes in your pre usual grocery bag.

1h 35m 41s

Faiez Rana

I got a little fun stat for you guess. How many plastic shopping bags we go through a year in the U S

1h 35m 50s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh my gosh, millions, billions, too many disgusting.

1h 35m 53s

Faiez Rana

A hundred million. Like, and those they're

1h 35m 56s

JackieMarie Beyer

Just, they're just, where do they end up single use plastic grocery? I can't stand them.

1h 36m 2s

Faiez Rana

They'll just end up in some landfill or some waterway or the,

1h 36m 7s

JackieMarie Beyer

Or some turtles belly or seven animals. They like going somewhere. What do they say? Now? We all eat like a credit cards worth of plastic, you know, tiny little micro cut plastic. Like every humans eating that. Cause it's getting in so much of our water systems and everything.

1h 36m 26s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. It's terrifying. I think like this plastic problem, it's, it's so out of sight, out of mind, just cause we throw it away and we never see a pile up that, you know,

1h 36m 39s

JackieMarie Beyer

So are you a habit? Like how has the glass like jar? So how does your thing work? Like, so people get a glass core jar with their meal in it. And then what happened like the next week you pick it up and you deliver it right to their house. Like tell us your whole, like the whole thing. Yeah.

1h 37m 3s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. I mean, you order a sub it's a subscription. So, you know, you can order five to 20 plus meals.

1h 37m 11s

JackieMarie Beyer

So they go to, what is it? Prep to your door.com and they look at the menu and do they like order? Is there like a plan, like a minimum, like you get seven days or something or a day? Or like, how does that work? Yep.

1h 37m 30s

Faiez Rana

So every, the subscription is weekly and you can pause or skip at any time. You can cancel it's super easy. And every week we serve a new menu, so You got to eat something different. So new entrees, new salads, different breakfast options. We also carry other ready to eat retail products, like different nut milks or, or yogurt or cookies or kids' meals, things like that. And so can you hear that in the background?

1h 37m 60s

JackieMarie Beyer

I kind of can, it's not bothering me. Okay.

1h 38m 3s

Faiez Rana

And, and yeah, it's, it's so it's so simple and easy. I feel like we're going backwards to a simpler way of eating where most of the food space is like trying to come up with this new innovation and this new supplement. That's going to cure everything for you. It's like, no, we're just, we're putting just real, you know, food ingredients in a jar and we're delivering it to your door. And you know, the next week you just put your empty jars out on, on the doorstep and we'll deliver your new stuff. And we just keep, keep doing that every week, unless you cancel at some point and then we'll just, we'll pick everything up.

1h 38m 50s

Faiez Rana

So we like to say it's like the old school milkman. I know when I, when I was growing up in Colorado, we used to get our milk delivered to our doorstep every week. And we would just put the old gallon outside in this little box. And every Thursday morning we have a fresh couple of gallons in that box.

1h 39m 14s

JackieMarie Beyer

I know does not like, I just, sometimes I think I'm like, I don't understand how it seems like we've almost gone backwards. Like how did they use to make like these fancy cars that were like huge and, and they did everything. And like, now we can't do that. Like, it just seems like, yeah, like the milkman thing, like they used to be able to do that. So why can't we do it anymore? And I just think this is such a great and the tote, the, and it's like you said sustainable. And like, to me, I know there's that battle between sustainable. Like some people say, well, we don't want to sustain what we're doing now. But to me, it's like, I, when I think it's sustainable, it's like sustaining our planet for life.

1h 40m 7s

JackieMarie Beyer

Like we have healthy air, we have healthy food, we have healthy, clean water, you know, that's what I think of. But I, I know there's kind of a little debate out there. Like we don't want to sustain the status quo because what we're doing right now, isn't working. But to me, sustainability is like sustaining our planet. So I don't know

1h 40m 32s

Faiez Rana

Same. I think, I think, I don't think it's about sustaining the status quo. It's about sustaining, like our, what you said, our water, our air, our soil. So that future generations can, can thrive as well. And we don't extract everything before they get here.

1h 40m 50s

JackieMarie Beyer

I like the way you guys are supporting local farmers too. Cause you're sourcing from, you're not like getting your, like our produce gets shipped in from Spokane. And Lord only knows where it comes from before it gets to Spokane. So like you said, yeah, it's already sitting like literally the restaurant manager gave me two bags of unopened salad the other day just to take home and just, I think the other thing that's good about your business model is that, you know, ahead of time, right. Cause it's a subscription. Like they're ordering it ahead of time before you even buying your food. Right?

1h 41m 32s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. One of the most exciting things that we're able to do as we get bigger is to actually plan a harvesting and planting schedules with farmers based off of what our menu will be to do way more of that. You know, as we, as we get bigger, I think supporting our forgets

1h 41m 53s

JackieMarie Beyer

Andres, you guys are doing,

1h 41m 55s

Faiez Rana

Let's see this week, we have a Buffalo cauliflower bowl. That's going out. We have, we do like what's on the menu this week. Let me pull it up. And also last week we did this vegetable Molay I think we have, we have a tofu scramble next week. You gotta Biegun clam chowder. This week, we served up some Tempe, mashers and cabbage. It's like a little bowl, did a Thai green Curry went out this week.

1h 42m 25s

Faiez Rana

There's just a lot of fun stuff. Like the tiger and Curry is, you know, if you go to a Thai restaurant and you get their green Curry, but there's so many different vegetables depending on the season that you can make that make that dish with. So, you know, we have hundreds of recipes, but we get so much more flexibility because you know, you can take the base of a dish, but you can make it three different ways, depending on which vegetables you use. So I just a lot of fun.

1h 43m 2s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh my gosh, this is like my dream come true. Like to have somebody cook tofu for me and vegan Tempe, like, because I'm not good at cooking tofu and like the whole marinating and ahead of time. So it gets like extra flavor. And just, I have dreamed about these things for years. Like all through high school, I got vegetarian times magazine and just, and especially like, my husband has no interest in eating any of that food. And so like, you know, cooking just for me, I just feel like, you know, I buy it and then I opened the tofu and then half the package ends up going in the garbage or going bad or not in the garbage, it's going to end up going in the compost, but still like, and have you ever smelled rotting like tofu?

1h 43m 57s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh my gosh, the smell of that stuff. When it goes bad, it's just awful. And I don't know, just like having somebody couldn't like when I close my eyes and I'm like, what could I dream about somebody cooking me 10 bay? I don't even know. I don't know there anywhere I could get 10 bay cooked for me.

1h 44m 21s

Faiez Rana

Well, that's the idea, you know, we just want to, we know that everybody wants to eat healthy. I mean, everybody wants to be more sustainable. A lot of these documentaries are follow the influencers that say like, we need to do things differently, but it's like how the question is, how, how do I make time? What do I even do? Like what's the right way. And so that's what we're here for in this one domain of, of food we're supposed to solve that problem, make it super easy for you.

1h 44m 57s

JackieMarie Beyer

Okay. So my ulcers were probably like, what is Jackie going to ask? Are you a rock star, millennial born between 1980 and 1995.

1h 45m 6s

Faiez Rana

I have 92.

1h 45m 8s

JackieMarie Beyer

I love that because I'm writing a book. Well, I keep trying to write a book called rockstar, millennial about the amazing people that I interviewed because you guys are the solution. People, like, I feel like my generation gen X we've talked about all these problems, but we just haven't come up with the solutions and put them into place. And like, you guys are doing it. My problem is I do these amazing interviews and you guys sound so good. And then when I write it on paper, it just like, it just falls flat. I can't seem to capture guys as voices. So

1h 45m 49s

Faiez Rana

That's so cool. So I think it's cool that you're calling us wrong.

1h 45m 54s

JackieMarie Beyer

I know. And like, I even had a publisher, she likes something. She's like, well, it sounds interesting. And you need to do this. And then I took this class last year on ghostwriting and the guy like helped me like fill in a rules, submission form, and I've everything except for the sample chapters. And like, I pull them out. I printed them. I've written like six sample chapters. And like, every time I look at them, I'm just like, oh my gosh, I wouldn't want to read this. Why would I, like, I just can't find my voice, but I know because like I still hear, it's like funny. I, I transcribe podcasts like virtually for some people in a year. These one HR guys, I do, they bash millennials all the time, this one old white guy. And he's so funny. And he's just like, yeah, he hates millennials.

1h 46m 53s

JackieMarie Beyer

And I'm like, I love millennials. I think you guys are the best because I feel like, and I even just got into this phone call with this Greenpeace girl and she, she was awesome. But you know what? I do have another interview starting at, in like nine minutes. So anything else you want to tell us that we haven't talked about or that I missed or

1h 47m 20s

Faiez Rana

Yeah, not really. It was great talking to you. I love listening to you talk about your garden and I,

1h 47m 28s

JackieMarie Beyer

Sorry, go ahead.

1h 47m 29s

Faiez Rana

Nothing. If I can, if I can help with anything, just let me know. I love what you're doing.

1h 47m 36s

JackieMarie Beyer

Like words. I never thought I would utter, but I'm pretty sure I am going to go to Texas next April if I am so in love with Magnolia, like chip and Joanna from fixer. And they, if, if, if they can do it, they host a half marathon in April. And I am going to try to come to Waco and run in that half marathon in Texas. And like, Austin is on my list. I can't tell him my stepdad. I'm like, why don't you move to Austin, Texas? You like the, he, you know, it's such a groovy place. Like there's so many cool people there. It's like one of the biggest hip growing towns in the United States, I'm like, you would fit in per what are you doing here in Montana?

1h 48m 29s

JackieMarie Beyer

You hate the cold. You don't really like camp. You know, like, I don't understand why she was here. Like I dreamed about moving to Montana, my whole life growing up and one of the best high school, her daughter's in high school, my granddaughter and one of the best high schools in the whole United States is an Austin that like, I was looking up like the top a hundred high schools and like it's in the top 20. And I was like, why don't you move to Austin? They have so many cool, you know, food. And she loves to eat organic. She like makes me look like she buys like everything organic and healthy. And she's super into like the food movement. She loves music and dancing. And I'm just like, I don't know why you don't move to Austin.

1h 49m 25s

Faiez Rana

So where to come on down. I mean, there's, it is everything that you just said. I mean, there's tons of people moving here. So it's becoming a little bit on

1h 49m 37s

JackieMarie Beyer

Nashville.

1h 49m 38s

Faiez Rana

Yeah. Well, I mean, I would come on. I think we're better than Nashville, but Nashville I hear is also great, but you know, there's just a lot of good things going on here. Especially if you care about the environment or healthy food, there's just, you can live a really solid lifestyle down here in Austin. And if you don't mind the heat, then by all means it's a great place.

1h 50m 6s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah. And see, I hate the heat, but she hits the coal and like Montana. It's like one of the toughest places to make a living there can possibly be, especially we're in like the top, most unemployed county in the state. Not only is Montana, a hard place to make living, but like the county we live in is a super hard place to make a living. And I just, I just like you should anyway, but yeah, Texas Waco I'm so in love with like, cause the Meg, because chip and Joanna, they came out with a new Magnolia app and you can watch. And like, I don't know if you know Erin from Florette, she's got a show on there and it's just like the coolest thing. Now. I, I've never been able to watch fixer upper all these years. And now I'm like somewhere in the middle of episode two and just, I love those guys and I want to go see the silos and see Magnolia market.

1h 51m 13s

JackieMarie Beyer

And I want to go do that halfway or Thumper chip. So,

1h 51m 17s

Faiez Rana

And if you do come down here, let me know, and we'll definitely get you some jars. You're going to need some pre and post marathon fuel.

1h 51m 28s

JackieMarie Beyer

You're right. For sure. And that is like key. So thank you so much for sharing with us today. And remember everybody, their website is prep to your door and if you don't live in Texas, now they're going to expand and hopefully they'll be coming to you one of these soon days. So thank you so much for sharing with us and congratulations on your upcoming nuptials and your wedding and good and so thankful for your fiance who said no plastic and good luck with all you're doing and come back and give us an update next year or sometime in the spring. Absolutely. I would love to. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you so much. This was so fun talking to you.

1h 52m 16s

JackieMarie Beyer

You too. Have a great day. All right. Bye. Bye.