Neil Dudley: I’m excited. I’m super pumped up for the people to get to hear your story and meet you and learn more about Force of Nature. You guys are just killing it. You’re doing those things that it requires to move an industry. So, let’s explore those things. And I think along the way, people are going to get some insight into a way they might want to think about things.

Robby Sansom: Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Neil. I appreciate it. 

Neil Dudley: You’re totally welcome. And really, you’re the person putting the time in here. This is what I do. You’re kind of donating your time for the audience, and they’re getting a chance to access your knowledge, your experience, and I’m really- I guess, I’ve got to send you some meat, although I think you’ve probably got plenty of meat.

Robby Sansom: I got access to a few ways to get good meat. 

Neil Dudley: That’s right. Well, for those that are watching on YouTube, you can see in Robby’s backdrop, there’s a bison, you see a Force of Nature, I don’t know what do you call that, scarf. Anyways, you can see the branding there. That’s what we’re going to talk about, Force of Nature. It’s kind of a strong sounding name. Did y’all pick that on purpose?

Robby Sansom: Yeah, exactly. A concept everybody’s familiar with, but probably fails to draw the connections in meat and protein. And I think at the time we launched this brand, it was maybe sort of the peak of meat falling under attack from we’ll call it these plant-based vegan driven narratives and sources. And we can dive into some of the realities behind some of the problematic mistruths that they’ve been perpetuating. But the short version of that is animals aren’t the problem. They’ve been around for a long time and are keystone parts of healthy functioning ecosystems. And that’s the power and awesome beauty of nature. And we should be celebrating that and employing the wisdom of nature in the way we practice agriculture, and kind of went that direction with the brand. As we say, we want to help reclaim the legacy of meat. And part of that is through honoring nature and managing our agriculture systems in nature’s image. 

Neil Dudley: It just occurs to me, we really haven’t even introduced Robby, which I think anybody coming to the podcast is probably going to read the title and realize you’re the CEO of Force of Nature. But there’s probably a couple things in your career that are really relevant too, which might illustrate to everybody why you’re such an expert in the field. Do you want to explore that for just a second? Like just give everybody a quick rundown of what your career path looked like. 

Robby Sansom: Yeah, just the short version, I’ve been in the business and startup space going back to the early 2000s, just doing a bunch of different things within working in various industries and whatnot and being part of purpose filled, values driven, mission-based businesses in that startup world for a long time. And back maybe about a decade ago, I joined forces with a couple of other Austinites and dear friends of mine, Katie and Taylor, who had started a vegan energy bar company that turned into a meat bar company called Epic Provisions. And I was the CFO and COO, and the three of us ran that together. And we’re fortunate enough that we ran it in a way and had products on trend in a way and were able to work with, and- 

Neil Dudley: He’s minimizing this, folks. That product’s on trend is like the hammer. I mean, y’all killed it with that. And it was it was just epic. There’s really no other way to put it.

Robby Sansom: Well, thank you. And I appreciate you saying that. And as I was saying, we were fortunate enough that we were able to sell that to General Mills. The idea of regenerative agriculture was still very early in its journey at the time. I’d say it’s even underground. And at the time, we began working with General Mills, we were able to really help, with the support of many others, help that concept to really start to reach the masses. And General Mills was the first fortune 500 company to make a huge commitment of transitioning agriculture practices, and then Danone followed and PepsiCo since followed and so many others. And so, that was really wonderful. And with some resourcing, we were able to help fund a lifecycle assessment. And so many fold in the grass fed and regenerative space now use that as a source of truth to point to the potential of regenerative to be a carbon positive solution on land. And so, so many good things came from that. But there was still a challenge with the call to action, scaling regenerative, the validation of the importance of regenerative, all of those things, making huge strides, but still we figured out that we could scale regenerative faster than demand was growing. And demand was growing, but it needed some additional fuel. And so that’s kind of where we transitioned our focus after a few years of running Epic for General Mills, we co-founded and I’ve switched over to running Force of Nature to do a couple of things and really focus on the brand and the consumer side, help create more awareness within consumers about what is going on in agriculture and what options are available, what they’re being served and what options are available to them and not to tell them what to think or feel, but just to give them the truth and then let them choose what works for them. Like, we should all have that opportunity. And then if they do want to choose these higher attribute proteins, these regeneratively sourced proteins, there should be a much easier call to action than there was. And for us, we’re available in stores and then online through eCommerce and in many restaurants across the country and not just one type of protein, but many of the most popular proteins. And so, trying to make it easy for consumers to know the difference and to have access to something that’s a difference. And ideally, helping to create a rising tide for other good actors in the space. Whether you work directly with us or indirectly with us or not at all, we want to help raise that awareness for everybody, the benefit, who’s doing it well and right. 

Neil Dudley: Man, I love it. Hey, everybody listening, that’s why I wanted Robby on this podcast, to just offer that understanding and that truth in another brand that’s really doing things the right way in my opinion. Like you said, everybody should have a chance to have the information, make their own decision. Now I’ve got to ask, why do you keep going through the punishment of startups? Like, what gives you that, I don’t even know, way of acting?

Robby Sansom: That’s probably one of the biggest questions that you could ask really. I think that people get enamored by the success stories and the glamor of startups. And nobody really conveys, does a good job of conveying just how much of a grind and, as you noted, a punishment it really is. As I noted, we ran and I ran Epic for General Mills for three years before doing this. And we tried everything under the sun to not do it. We were frankly hoping somebody else would do it, but we didn’t really see somebody step up into addressing this the way that we are. And we really felt that we were uniquely positioned to do it differently. And there’s other brands of meat out there that are great. And there’s regional, vertically integrated groups that are great. And there’s so many folks coming at these challenges from different ways that are fantastic. And that’s one of the things we think of and celebrating regenerative of agriculture is diversity. And I think diversity in ideas and solutions and approach is necessary. But what we’re doing is really unique. And the way that we’re going at it, we think creates a service and a value to, again, a much broader group of stakeholders from producers to processors to consumers and being a conduit to that. We just felt like we were uniquely positioned to help amplify that message and create that awareness and push this thing along faster and build momentum faster. And more than anything, a sense of duty would be the answer. Our mission never changed, Neil, from Epic. It’s just that we’ve evolved it from ounces to pounds of trying to drive positive change for rural communities and producers and processors and consumers and the welfare of animals and ecosystems. I’m like, man, what an awesome time to drive positive impacts in those areas. Why not just grit and bear it and go back for round two and try to move down that path more rapidly since it’s, as we say, replacing a vicious system with a virtuous one. 

Neil Dudley: Hey, well, just from an outsider, I think, well, you’ve been there, you’ve now built some credibility. Look, when you guys were building Epic, nobody cared or knew or anything. It was just a passionate group of people building a thing that turned out to really nail the consumer desires, and it just flew off the shelf. You did great marketing. Taylor and Katie are great. I mean, the whole team, it was just really good. I would say, or I’m curious, I want to ask, has building the team at Force of Nature been any easier than it was building the team at Epic?

Robby Sansom: No. So many learnings that carry over and transfer over and apply where it’s great we had that opportunity and those experiences. But as you can relate, we’re in a commodity space now, and consumers are conditioned to think and act differently even against their own best interests. And I could give so many examples of that. The complexity of operating a business with carcass utilization and logistics plays such an important role. And we’ve introduced more layers, being omnichannel, being omni-protein. There’re points at Epic where we had a couple of dozen products and SKUs, and we’ve exceeded that dramatically. So, there’s just different backend business parts of it. But I think the biggest difference is what we always talk about, that center store food revolution where consumers are desperate to source better for me, better for the environment, better for welfare, better for social issues or something. You see that in the center, and they’ll pay a premium for a set of claims. You saw that in the center store, and then it kind of spilled over into maybe yogurt and dairy, and then more recently eggs. It hadn’t really hit meat as hard or to the same degree it has center store just yet. And so, there’s a few pioneer brands out there before us doing that and some unique proteins. But it’s a challenge to shift thinking from the only value is in cheapness versus the cheap items are actually riddled with hidden costs, and the true cost of that food is excessively disproportionate to what it might look like, the mirage of a low shelf price looks like. And the truth is that these higher attribute foods and regenerative proteins are more cost effective and far more valuable for you, but they have a higher shelf price. And that’s a complicated story to tell. It’s an important story, but it’s just not, it doesn’t roll off the tongue and you can’t tell it in one 30 characters or less.

Neil Dudley: Absolutely. I mean, I always say absolutely a little too much, but I agree with that so much. How do you educate a person in a personal, trustworthy- a potential customer in a personal, trustworthy kind of way about a very complicated truth that they need to value the higher price they’re paying because it’s a higher value for their health? Which I could even argue that America is missing some of that in general, just the kind of value they should put on their health.

Robby Sansom: And the implications, you know what I mean? As you well know, using whatever the latest figure is, I often hear it quoted 5 to 10,000 farms a year, and it’s an easy term to not truly appreciate the significance and the magnitude of that. It’s not just 5 to 10,000 farms a year. It’s 5 to 10,000 families who lose their legacy, their purpose, their sense of self-worth every year, going back to decades, we have a system that is failing them. And those cheap prices on the shelf are predicated on being able to grind through, churn and spit out these neighbors, these community members, these pillars of American food production. And they’re the people. I want people producing my food. I want them, I want somebody who cares about me and the outcome. I don’t want some large business who is strictly profit focused on handling food production at the expense of now consumers and producers and ranchers, and so on and so forth. So, I mean, there’s just so many, you could talk about health, as you noted, and there’s so many directions, ecosystem collapse, and the list goes on and on and on about all these issues that are affected by agriculture that we can improve. But the challenges is it’s just an unfair playing field. Because we have to try to create awareness to all the costs of cheap food. They’re kind of in the lead position with just like this deceptively low shelf price, which you think encapsulates everything, which it doesn’t. So, the job is on us. And again, that’s why we’re here. But that’s part of the challenge. 

Neil Dudley: Yeah, man. That’s what makes it a trudge. Have you ever watched the TV show Alone? 

Robby Sansom: I think, maybe. Is that the one where they go to-? 

Neil Dudley: They drop them off in the Arctic and they have to live for a hundred days. They get to take 10 items with them. I want to encourage everybody to watch that and then think about your diet. Like just watch these people go survive on the land for a hundred days and ask yourself a few questions after you watch that. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t want to lead anybody in any way. Go check that show out. Oh, and the other kind of funny fact is, somebody said, hey, Neil, if you knew any one person that you think could do that, who would it be? And I said, Kirk Blanchard. It might be Robby, but I just know Kirk a little better.

Robby Sansom: Well, Kirk, your initial instinct is more spot on. Kirk, for those Kirk Blanchard is our VP of operations and he’s a pretty awesome guy. He has flown up to the Arctic and he did get stuck up there for an extra week with a caribou hanging in a tree and grizzly bears surrounding him and the weather not letting the plane come in to get him out. So, he’s actually certainly been the closest to that situation out of anybody over here as well.

Neil Dudley: Oh man, there you go. See, my guess was good. Okay, so now then, that was just kind of a rabbit we chased. Now, I am curious, I’m sure you’ve heard this, and if you haven’t, then we’ll just discard it and move on. What do you say to somebody who says, okay cool, all that sounds really good, Robby, yay, but you sold your first company to General Mills. Seems like you want profit. What do you say? Have you ever heard that? 

Robby Sansom: Yeah, I mean, I think you- not as much as you might think, and it kind of becomes like the you’re chasing money, you’re a sellout type. 

Neil Dudley: Sure. Well, I mean, that’s what somebody might say. Maybe I thought like, oh cool, like everybody, they’re talking big game, but when the dollar signs show up, they sell. I want to give you a chance to rebuttal that because I don’t really think that’s true, especially when you go start another brand and you’re digging it out of the dirt again. That kind of says, well, maybe they were really on the up and up. 

Robby Sansom: That if it works is a big if, too, because that’s like one out of 10,000 times, literally. I mean, I think those are the odds. The overwhelming majority of the time, it doesn’t. So, you’ve got to know what you’re getting yourself into. And if you look at the prior, the sale of Epic to General Mills, what came of that? Why did we even do that? We weren’t even looking to sell. They came to us, and we gave them a whole list of reasons why we didn’t want to. In fact, we said it would change the product, they disrupt processor and producer relationships that were folks who literally bet the farm on us. And when companies sell, they fire all their people, and it would- like the folks who made us special and what we were, our team. We weren’t willing to sacrifice or compromise any of those three areas. And they kind of told us no, like what y’all are doing is special and unique and we have as much to learn from you as y’all do. And so, for us, it kind of came- We faced the reality. Like we knew at some point that business would reach a scale where we wouldn’t be the best stewards for it. We wanted to make sure that whoever took the torch was in it for the right reasons and we weren’t ready to sell. We were growing rapidly. We would’ve made much more money if we didn’t and we would’ve waited, but we had to acknowledge the reality that the partner that came along later might not have that same mindset, might not be looking to protect supplier relationships, protect consumers through product integrity, protect our employees, and so on. And again, as I mentioned earlier in this call, General Mills funded that life cycle assessment that really has lifted this industry up to empirically validate and prove that regenerative, ruminant proteins is one of the only options out there that provides a net carbon benefit to food production, amongst other things. And being one of the first institutions to kind of really tip the domino to build momentum around regenerative. And then I think the other side of it, to acknowledge whether it’s with Epic or with Force of Nature, is that big and bad is really, really freaking bad. You know what I mean? But we’re all trying to drive change and create positive outcomes. And the only way that you do that is through scale. So big and good becomes really, really freaking good. And so, that’s what you want to do. You don’t want to just create a bunch of small niche things that can never scale because then you never actually drive change. It’s never meaningful. It’s an illusion that you’re making progress against something material when you’re not. And what we need to do is drive good outcomes at scale. And I think you look at Force of Nature and what are you trying to do there? Well, we’re trying to prove in a commodity space that consumers want better choices in protein and are willing to pay for it and that the system can be changed and is justifiably so to start to offer and support that. We say we want to create a global regenerative supply network so we can address this myriad of challenges and have the demand to do that. And the only way that we do that is if we run a company that is successful on a set of financial measures in addition to other measures as well. So, we call it being a triple bottom line company. So, people, planet, and profit all matter. You don’t want to have a- That’s a three-leg stool that sits real good. You don’t want to have a two-leg stool or one-leg stool. And I think too many big businesses are only focused on profit at the expense of kind of people and planet. For us, it’s if we focus on all three, that’s that virtuous outcome. That’s the best outcome; the sum of the parts exceed the individual components. You know what I mean? It’s very synergistic. So, we’re trying to prove that there’s the big JBSs and Cargills and Tysons and these big companies, that have taken us down a journey of a race to the bottom on our protein options, let’s give them an example of a brand that’s doing it differently to help encourage them to improve their ways and start to drive positive outcomes at meaningful scale.

Neil Dudley: Nobody can see this, but the whole time Robby’s talking, I’m shaking my head, yes, yes. I mean, he is just making a lot of really good points that I agree with. I guess maybe as the debater in this conversation, what do we say – I mean, really we is the better answer, because I need to have this answer as well – what do we say to that argument that, yeah, but consumers need it affordable, or we’re excluding a large portion of really the world or even the people that need to eat? Do you spend much time debating that particular argument? 

Robby Sansom: Yeah, I’m probably going to take a minute on this one, Neil. I would argue that at present, it is not affordable, and we’re fooling ourselves if we try to imply that it is. So, you have to first kind of reject that premise. And I also would argue that the path that we’re on and currently relying on isn’t going to be an option for us in the future because of the rates at which we’re degrading land bases and the challenge that would then come down the road to actually produce food. We’ll call that food security and food system stability. So, status quo I would say isn’t truly an option for us. And even still, if it were, which it’s not, it is also unaffordable. Number one, the ag bill is, what, $14 billion, the largest kind of welfare program that the government currently has, and it’s not even one that’s actually serving the intended recipients. I mean, it’s more like forcing farmers’ and ranchers’ hands to be a part of a system that’s failing them, but it’s the only game in town and it’s the only limited option. But taxpayer money is subsidizing falsely cheap prices. And frankly, the profits of very, very, very, very- four large meat producers. 

Neil Dudley: Oh, just real quick, and the pandemic has even, I think, shown a bright light on the danger of having all of our slaughter capacity tied up in a few companies.

Robby Sansom: It’s hyper efficient, which makes it brittle. Like there’s value in efficiency, but not when it fails when any pressure is applied. And so we need to recognize there’s value in efficiency, but there’s also value in flexibility and being nimble and not being so tied up in one location or in a global supply where we can’t actually- we’re about to, I think folks are about to have a rude awakening when it comes the cost of all their food being grain based right now as the cost of crops and grains are about to skyrocket. And we’ll just pay a higher price for it. But folks in Asia and Africa are going to pay the ultimate price for it because they’re going to be running out of food soon. And that’s a whole different podcast and tangent. But this is the true cost of this cheap food. We’re not seeing, we haven’t had to appreciate and live out these realities, but it’s real and it’s meaningful. And it’s in families, and it’s environmental toll. It’s loss in pollinators from the application of all these toxic chemicals, it’s dead zones in oceans, it’s waterways, it’s droughts, it’s floods, and the list just goes on and on and on. Not to mention food that’s not as healthy as it once was, that’s not as nourishing or, even worse, has toxins in it to the extent where now glyphosate is showing up in breast milk. And so, there’s a cost to all of us. We just don’t get to- I know as much as we like to have reductionist thinking and cognitive dissonance, but we can’t ignore these fundamental realities that the current system is not truly cheap. It’s just that the current system is set up to give the illusion of it being cheap so that consumers will not ask questions and continue to play the critical role that they play, which is being a consumptive machine, perpetuating the myth. I don’t like having the wool pulled over my eyes and being a part of somebody else’s game to benefit them at my expense. I take that personal. That pisses me off. And it pisses me off that there’s millions of people out there being taken advantage of in that way. And here’s some other examples of where and how meat is our conditioning and the way that we’re programmed and socialized to think about meat is off base. And for one thing, nobody complains about the cost of a Hershey’s bar. And I’ll send you a photo for fun, Neil, of a Hershey bar. I took a photo at 711 the other day. I think it was a $1.55 for a Hershey bar. Pretty cheap, not a big deal, a piece of candy. Just a treat, not food, but might satisfy a craving here and there. But you extrapolate that out, that’s about 16 bucks a pound. And you can’t live on that. And if you tried to, you’d have major health issues, and you’d probably be diabetic and overweight and obese and have heart disease, amongst some other things at best, maybe cancer because that’s associated with high sugar intake and so on. But you could buy two pounds of meat of grass-fed meat for that. And you could feed a family for a couple of days with it. So, which is cheap? Is the meat cheap, or is the Hershey’s bar cheap? You know what I mean? 

Neil Dudley: That’s a great illustration. 

Robby Sansom: And you can’t go to a 711 and get one of those rolling weenies on one of those wheels that have been sitting there for about a month and a half, and who knows what the heck might actually be inside of it, plus a package of like Hot Takis or Cheetos or something and a Big Gulp for really under 10 bucks. And that’s garbage. That literally is poison. But you could buy meat for less that will actually nourish you and give you all the macro and micronutrients that you need. You could make meals, even compared to the cheapest food. You buy a value meal at Chick-fil-A, it is like 15 bucks for a number five or whatever the heck it is. You know what I mean? And so, I think just we assume that meat is good the lower the price, but the fact is these same folks that want to buy cheap meat will buy almonds that translate out to like $20 or $30 a pound. And they’ll pay $400 for a Yeti ice chest and see value in that, and they’ll pay extra money for wine or whiskey or different oils or vinegars and things where you want to talk about the flavor profile and the nuance and do the tasting and stuff, but all meat needs to be homogenized to taste like one thing and any spectrum of flavor profile, which should be just as regarded and appreciated, is sort of ignored. So, we’ve just really dumbed ourselves down and become very much lemmings. Like we’re doing exactly what we’re- we are buying what we’re told to buy when we’re told to buy it, how we’re told to buy it, and we’re not asking questions about any of the why. And when you start to take a step back and look at it, it doesn’t make sense. 

Neil Dudley: Man, do you know a guy named Brian Sanders by any chance? 

Robby Sansom: I do not.

Neil Dudley: I talked to him a while back. He’s doing a documentary called Food Lies, and it’s just exploring a lot of what- you’re reminding me of him, or he’s reminding me of you because he says, well, we’re just all like little pre-Kers, that the world, that the government is just trying to keep doing the things they want us to do, keep us kind of in the room and not messing up and not challenging or asking too many question. That’s very similar to what you’re saying. Like, hey everybody, I think, just look up, look around, ask those questions. I think Robby put it so well, a high-quality meat, yeah, it’s going to take some money out of your pocket, but what are you trading it for? It’s almost like this time you’ve spent listening to this podcast, you don’t get it back. Have you traded it for a valuable insight, valuable understanding, a good thought provoking discord – maybe discourse is a better word. I don’t know exactly; my vocabulary is too small. But you know what I mean. If you’re listening out there, think about those things. Look up Force of Nature. I mean, we’ve already been over 30 minutes. Robby’s a busy guy. I know he has got other things to do. I don’t want to keep him any longer. He promised me I could have 30 minutes. Robby, thank you so much. As maybe just a parting piece, why do you guys kind of take bison? It seems like if I saw Force of Nature, I think bison. Is that on purpose? Is that your number one product? Is that the easiest thing you can go put some regenerative fingers on? Am I totally off?

Robby Sansom: Well, I think it goes back to the story on the name Force of Nature, the idiom, what it really stands for. And we’re here in Texas, in Southwest United States and the original soil builders and a keystone species that helped instill the fertility in the Prairie system we all rely on was the bison. It’s just the weight and respect and I’d say reverence that folks have for bison is really profound, us included. 

Neil Dudley: And if you don’t watch out, it’ll disappear. Like it’s a good example also of how humans can mess it up so much. 

Robby Sansom: Yeah. We nearly did, and yet it’s coming back, but it’s different, and there’s so much more to dive into there as well. But I think you get down to the business side and talk about how challenged the traditional proteins of pork, beef, and poultry are, and there’s a little bit more flexibility in some of these faster growing wild game and bison type alternatives. So, it gave us a chance to get our foot in the door to build some scale and do some things differently as that matters in this space. A handful of other reasons why, but yeah, a big part of it is just kind of the story, the history of bison, the history of our brand, our appreciation for that animal, the fact that we own bison, and my co-founders have a bison ranch. They wanted to put those animals back on the land for the first time in 200 years on their own property. And yeah, I think bison’s a good iconic animal to, I guess, base yourself off of if you’re going to do anything and try to replicate nature. Like they’ the largest herd of megafauna since the last ice age on the planet. What better representative than that, I guess? 

Neil Dudley: Oh, man, everybody. Robby, have you done other interviews? Do you ever get on a stage and speak? I mean, you just say things that are so smart, that are so educated. I mean, you just start- you’re almost like an anthropologist there talking about megafauna. I mean, I bet you could talk about where we came from as we started figuring out how to break bones and eat marrow millions of years ago, all of those things. It just is a really, really compelling thought for people to have, I think, like, hey, meat is super, super, super important and always has been for humans.

Robby Sansom: Yeah, well, I guess if we’re going to wrap it up, that’s probably a good place to leave it. I think we all should be eating more meat, and probably we could all stand to eat some better meat as part of that serving, and I would agree, going back 300,000 years. If you want to be as consistent as our body is engineered to run optimally, meat is the way to do it. Yes, Neil, I’ve done some other podcasts and other stuff. A good place to find more of the stuff that I’ve done and we’ve done as a brand is on Instagram at Force of Nature Meats as well as on our website, forceofnature.com. We have blogs there and highlight some other stuff. We have newsletters. We’re always trying to, we’re trying to be an information company. We’re trying to create awareness, like I said. And we want to inspire consumers, again, create more awareness, create more access, but really get them involved and take them from being sort of a cog in the big machine to being a free and independent thinker that’s representing their own self-interest. So, check us out there. And I really do appreciate you, Neil, for what you do and what you all over at Pederson’s do. And I also appreciate you having me on here and letting me talk a little bit about what we’re trying to do and what we’re about. 

Neil Dudley: Totally. Well, I want to introduce our family, the PNFers out there that pay attention to the podcast, I want them to know about brands like Force of Nature, people like Robby. Pederson’s isn’t perfect. We’re not doing every single thing there is to be done. So, we should just shine a light on people doing great things. We’ll put all of those places people can learn more about Force of Nature and Robby as links in the show notes so everybody can go there and quickly link out to more information. Robby, man, I enjoyed that, dude. You are one educated man in this space and just can’t say, keep it up. Tell everybody over at Force of Nature hi from me and the crew at PNF. We’ll catch you at the next food show. 

Robby Sansom: All right, Neil. I’ll do it. Thank you again. 

Neil Dudley: All right, man. See you later. 

Robby Sansom: See ya. Bye-bye.