From Oceanographer to Eco-Baker: Maddie Hamann on Building a Sustainable Bread Brand to Help Protect the Ocean

1:00:00 Welcome back to the podcast. We have a special episode for you today because this is an ongoing thing that I've been trying to do for the podcast. I talk a lot about oceans and protecting the ocean. And this is why you're here. You're here because of how to protect the ocean. That's the name of this podcast. Well, we protect the ocean by supporting businesses who have values that are there for that are good for the ocean. And today we are showcasing one of those businesses that talk about these values that have these values to not only just make people happy, but also just because this is what's important to them. You know, protecting the environment, making something healthy, taking away chemicals from food. And today we're going to be talking to Maddie Hemman, who's actually a former oceanographer, well educated oceanographer who is here to talk about the business that she co-founded with her husband called Pacha, which is a buckwheat bread, a loaf of bread that you can buy in the US and you can enjoy. It's tasty. It's healthy. It's made with not only love, but actually healthy things that are good for your body, less chemicals or no chemicals and just something that's really good.

1:01:07 She tells us how she makes the bread, how they make the bread, how the company came to be, how she went from oceanography to supporting an organization or starting a company, co-founding a company that has to do with selling bread. We're going to talk all about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now, today's episode, we're going to be talking with Maddie Hemman, who is an oceanographer and an engineer and someone who's quite intelligent and says, you know what, I want to make a difference in the world.

1:01:50 So I am going to co-found a company that sells buckwheat bread. Now, did I expect that to happen when I first heard about Patche, the company that she co-founded with her husband? No, I didn't expect to hear that one bit. But as I got to know more and more about the story, I started to think to myself, I said, hey, you know what, this is something that I think the audience would really appreciate. You know, somebody who changed their path multiple times because they wanted to have an effect on the planet. They wanted to do something that's good, not only for the planet, for the people who live on this planet. And she does that for her customers. She does that for the company's customers. And they have values that are good. And do they market based on, hey, we do some good things. We have really good values for the environment, for the planet and for you? No. They say, this is great bread. You're going to want to eat it because it's tasty. And it's a little good for you too, but it's really tasty. You're going to want it. And that's how they market it.

1:02:40 I thought it was a really good episode that I think everybody should listen to. So enjoy this interview with Maddie Harmon, former oceanographer now co-founder of Patra bread enjoy and I will talk to you after. Hey, Maddie, welcome to the how to protect the ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about Patra and regenerative agriculture all in the context of protecting the environment and growing a business? Let's do this. All right. I'm excited for this because as I mentioned, like this is a fun podcast. The stuff I've been wanting to do for a long time, I'm having businesses on that are good for the environment that allow us to make better decisions for the ocean and for the environment in general, reducing climate change and so forth. And people can make a buck. And it just goes to show that you can you can grow your revenue and you can protect the ocean and the planet at the same time. So I'm really happy that you're here to share your journey.

1:03:29 It's an interesting one because you do have a background in oceanography. So we're going to talk about that. But let's get to know you a little bit and then we'll get to know Patra a little bit. So why don't you just let us know, Maddie, who you are and what you do. Yeah, so yeah, my name is Maddie Hamon and I am the co-founder and director of marketing for Patra. We make a an organic gluten free sprouted buckwheat bread and it is delicious and nutritious. And at the same time, it is supporting regenerative agriculture and saving the planet. That's awesome. That's awesome. Now you got your start in oceanography like you got that's that's what you went to school for. How did all that happen? Did you want to be an oceanographer when you were a kid? Can you take us through that process?

1:04:17 Yeah. So no, I wasn't the kid that always like always dreamed of being a marine biologist. I, you know, I, I was a I was a super nerd in school was like always the A plus student really good at math. And my journey kind of was like, well, I should just do the hardest thing because it's always you can always switch out of the hardest thing if harder, you don't like it or whatever. And yeah, so I went to school for civil engineering for my bachelor's degree. And sometime along the way, I realized like, I don't really want to design highway overpasses for the rest of my life. That led me to fluid mechanics.

1:05:04 And my one of my mentors in college, I took some of his graduate level classes on turbulence and he kind of introduced me to the idea of oceanography. Okay. And, you know, from the from the perspective of a civil engineer, oceanography is studied like, okay, well, how can we protect our coastal infrastructure? How can we understand how storms are going to impact humans, etc. Yeah, very much like the Army Corps of Engineers, essentially. Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And but through that, I discovered like, oh, well, there's people who are just purely studying the science of the ocean and the physics of the ocean. And so that is then I found myself interested in that and pursuing a graduate degree in physical oceanography after college.

1:05:57 And again, it was in some ways, it was like, this seems like a really good way for me to use the very particular like math and science skills that I gained to help humanity. I was motivated by the I mean, I came from the Midwest and my understanding of what was happening with the planet was like, okay, the climate is changing. And I was like, we must not know enough about it. Otherwise, like, things would be different. And so I thought going into grad school that understanding more about the climate and and how the ocean impacts the whole ocean climate system would be the best way for me to help with the issue of climate change.

1:06:49 And I think, I mean, as I was incredibly interesting and an amazing experience I learned so much. And the more I learned, the more I realized, like, wow, we know a lot. And I think that really knowing what was happening was not the thing that was going to start changing our behavior as a species on this planet. And there's some time in my third or fourth year, I realized that I probably would not pursue pure research as my as my life, I thought I would maybe get into science and education or, you know, some something in that vein. Yeah. And then it was in the last two years of my time as an oceanographer that I met my partner, Adam. He's my husband, he's my co founder. And he introduced me to the concept of regenerative agriculture.

1:07:54 And he has been he's a serial entrepreneur. Okay. And he has founded businesses, catering restaurants, and then most recently, a business called Boochcraft that makes a hard kombucha. And he was in a, when at the time we met, he was in the space of there was modern of his roles at those companies and found himself in a place like, "Well, I'm ready for the next thing." And that happened to be this bread, what we now call Pacha bread.

1:09:00 And yeah, he kind of got the ball rolling and pretty soon in the early days, I realized that I wanted to be involved because I saw the opportunity to really use business to shift the paradigm that the food system is currently in, in a way that actually sequesters carbon and actually makes a big difference for many ways for the environment. Yeah, it's really interesting. You had quite the journey going from engineering to, okay, I know a lot about this, you know, getting into grad school, I want to learn more about climate change and some of the things that we are, you know, what do we know and how can I help, you know, contribute to that knowledge? And you're like, "Well, hold on a second. We know way too much about this, but we're not changing." Like, which is so true. Like we do know a lot. We're still discovering things, but we do know a lot.

1:09:57 It seems like every time we discovered it becomes more and more grim and doom and gloom, and then we're look around and people aren't changing. Now you happen to meet your now husband who is also a serial entrepreneur, but also for like, seems like good for the planet type of businesses. And then you get into this. So you basically went from, "I'm going to do something and do something really impactful and hard to I'm going to change the way we look at things so that we can help this climate change thing. We know a lot about climate change. Now we need to act. So I'm going to help in that action." That's quite the jump from like doing research to business and did that. Did you find that a difficult, like that to be a difficult transition?

1:10:49 I mean, yes and no. I studied observational oceanography. So my group, my advisor and my group, we would go out to sea and we would, you know, we'd write grants, we would build instrumentation, we would take a whole crew of engineers and students out to sea to gather data and then we would come back and analyze the data. And so really like two thirds of my thesis, I spent more on the side of like writing grants and administrating my own. I collected my own data and wrote my own grant and everything. So a lot of that was like managing teams. Yeah. And so those skills transferred pretty readily.

1:11:35 And then, you know, there's this whole section of my brain that's just like, knows a bunch of differential equations that I don't really need to know anymore. I don't know how you make the bread, but if you need to use differential equations, maybe you'll be that'll that'll help. But for now, probably not. But even going to like you had that interest in maybe science communication and going into a marketing position or taking a marketing position within this company really is saying, hey, look, like you look at science communication in a way of like changing behaviors around through the communication. And now you're like, okay, I want this behavior change to really go towards I want you to buy the bread. And so how do I convince you to buy this bread? And now there's always a divergent way of doing things for me from a scientific and from a nature based perspective, I'm just like, get this bread because it's it's probably good for you, but it's also better for the environment. So I'm going to make a decision because it's better for the environment. But a lot of people who own these businesses are like, I want like people don't always buy that way.

1:12:36 I'm not the right I'm probably out of the norm from from your regular customer base. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. But how was that to going from convincing? Is it going from convincing like, oh, look, this is good for nature or to just be like, you want to buy this product because it's good for you. It tastes good. You know, it's a different way of looking up bread. Like, how do how is that transition going from a very like, you know, oceanographic, very to the point type of of writing style and communication style to, hey, this is this is some fun bread for you to eat. And it's good for you. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd say it's a different kind of to the point. But you're you're totally spot on. And what it's one of the things that has been, it's been a learning piece for me. And as you know, as somebody coming from a science background and into the world of marketing, it's like, you, you're doing this dance where you're, you're you are in a way, communicating, like trying to get a message across.

1:13:35 But you have to be meeting people where they're at. And frankly, most people don't don't care about the sustainability piece like, yeah, they could say that they care. But when push comes to shove, it's like the bread's gotta the bread has to be meeting a need of there's a lot of people, a lot of people's needs are in the cost arena. And our bread is not the cheapest bread on the on the shelf. So the thing that we have to really lead with is like, hey, this bread, it's, it's better for you. That is much more motivating for people than this bread is better for the planet that you live on. It's like, it's too abstract a concept for people to say, I'm going to spend $2 more on a loaf of bread because it's gonna sequester some carbon or something. No, people it's more of an afterthought, right?

1:14:32 Like, so say I'm sharing the bread with somebody and like, oh, this is really good. I'm like, yeah, it's really healthy for you. It's got all this. It's got this amount of protein, this, you know, reduced carbs and stuff like that. Then I can say, oh, by the way, it's also good for the environment. And they're like, oh, that's cool. But this really tastes good. You know, like, that's probably it's more of like the after like the secondary thought afterwards and be like, oh, yeah, by the way, they do this new agricultural thing. And if you're interested in agriculture, then maybe you go on with that conversation. Is that is that pretty much on point? Yeah, that's on point. And it's, and it's like, it's on point. And I'll just put some language to it. It's, it's a customer retention tactic more than anything else. So someone starts buying our bread. And we don't like we don't lead our advertisement, our hook isn't like, bread, that's safe, you know, that's not the hook. The hook is this bread is tasty. It's allergen free. It's, you know, like got good, complete, plant based protein, etc. And then, you know, they start getting our emails. And emails, we start talking about like, Hey, did you know that this bread was grown with regenerative buckwheat? Or Hey, did you know that our, our packaging is fully compostable, like home compostable. And then it's where the values of the company make a difference. Yeah, yeah. And people start realizing like, Oh, this bread, this company is really cool. I want to keep buying from this company. I'm going to convince my kids to eat this bread.

1:15:56 Yeah, even if it, you know, like, even if it's not the first thing that their kids are like, yeah, you know, yeah, it's a state. I mean, let's be honest, like bread is a staple in a lot of households, right, especially in North America, bread is a staple. And so, you know, I grew up toasted in the morning, or I'll have a sandwich or, you know, so it's part of that, that process. But lately, it seems as though over the past maybe decade, bread has become a bit of like regular bread, your typical bread that you buy in a grocery store. People have had gluten allergies, you know, people like, well, it has a lot of complex carbs. So it's not like, or hard to break down in the body, you know, it's going to create like, it's not going to be healthy for you. If you want to lose weight, or you want to be in shape, you lose your bread, you feel better, all this kind of stuff. And this way, I'm looking at your weight, you know, I'm going to be like, you know, on my website, it's like, for people who've given up on bread, it's such a great message. Because so many people have been like, you know, screw that, I'm just gonna avoid bread altogether. But people love bread. I love bread. I have like, thoughts of my dad when I was younger, like on a Sunday, and eating like T biz and, you know, in front of the TV with butter and stuff. And but like, now I don't do it, because I'm like, Well, this bread's not good for me, the ones that I buy at the grocery store.

1:17:06 How do I get good bread? So I think I love this messaging. Because it's really just being like, this is a new way of thinking of bread where you can have it. You know, it's almost like have your cake in your bread. And I don't think I can have it. you to have your bread and eat it too, where you don't have to feel sorry for yourself after you drink, after you eat it, right? So I think that's a really interesting messaging to get to. I love that. I like that aspect. I might steal that, have your bread. Yeah, there you go. Right? I'm not bad. I'm going to get for a little bit of marketing. But let's talk about the bread. Like why is it, like you mentioned it a little bit before about regenerative agriculture, like how is this bread so different than the bread that we would like sort of the quote unquote typical bread that we would see in a grocery store?

1:17:51 Yeah. Okay, so there's two there's two like important parts of this. One is the actual bread itself and why it's different nutritionally ingredients wise. So our bread is we make the bread from whole groats of growth seeds, buckwheat seeds. Yeah. Buckwheat is not wheat. It's completely gluten free. It actually the plant is it doesn't it's not like a grass. It's not a grain. It's like this little flat. It's like these little white flowers that have like a very green leafy plant and it's a cover crop. So it's completely different than wheat. It's a totally different thing. High in protein.

1:18:38 It's one of the only complete plant based proteins. You know, you got like your quinoa, your pumpkin seeds, your hemp. And buckwheat is one of the only it's like nine or 10 plant based protein sources that are complete. And so and then we, we actually don't use flour to make our bread. We soak the whole seeds. So that that process actually starts removing what are called anti nutrients that bind to the nutrients that are in the bread. Normally those things would just cause you to pass some of the nutrients that are available from waste. Yeah. Yeah. And then we, we blend it, we ferment it and the fermentation process, we use a wild fermentation. We don't add any yeast, but the, the yeast that are on the buckwheat groats ferment the bread.

1:19:37 It begins, it kicks off the digestion process. So it's like almost like it's predigested. So the bread is really easy to digest. It's full of nutrients. Buckwheat's really high in magnesium, which is nutrient that most people are missing. And it's like anybody can eat this bread unless they're allergic to buckwheat, which is like 0.0001% of the North American population. Okay. So it really is like it's, and it just feels amazing. Yeah. It feels really good in the body and I eat it every day, like multiple times a day. And you don't get like that. You know, I have some people they have like, I've had bread before, like I said, I love bread and I feel groggy after I feel kind of like, you know, sluggish after and you're just like, why did I have so much bread and that kind of stuff? Almost to the point where like, I don't want, if I have a hamburger, a lot of times I just have the patty. I don't have the bread that goes with it because I don't want to feel crappy after. So this you're saying you actually don't feel that you just feel, you feel maybe energized or something like that. You just feel good. Like you can just go on with the rest of your day without being affected.

1:20:43 Yeah. It just feels good. And like, you can eat a couple of slices of Pacha bread and you'll be full for the morning, you know, like, yeah, that's great. Quick sugary head. You get level of boost and crash. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. So yeah. And now like that's, that's the first part of it. And then there's another part, which I assume is how it's, it's grown and, and things. Yes. Yeah. And so then the second piece about the bread is, and this is the piece we don't always talk about first thing, but all of our buckwheat is grown by certified regenerative farmers. And for, for your listeners who aren't familiar with regenerative agriculture, the basic idea is that regenerative farmers are taking care of their soil. So by taking care of the soil, they're doing a few things.

1:21:37 They are, they are, well, they're turning, they're turning carbon from the atmosphere into soil carbon. They're making a really healthy, robust soil ecosystem so that, you know, you can imagine like, when you, when you have like a new bag of potting soil, right? And you, you can just see that it's like, it's all fluffy and airy and healthy and you pour some water on it and it soaks it up like a sponge versus like compacted dirt from your kids playground or whatever. Yeah. It creates this, this ecosystem, this network that has air and it, and it allows life to move through it. And the life is what's storing the carbon, all of the little critters that are carbon-based life forms. And then, like I, like I mentioned, that soil is able to retain water. So regenerative farm. Much better than what you would normally, like regular farming and regular soil, right? Yeah, exactly. So like, yeah, if you'd imagine on a, on a, on a conventional farm, you've got compacted soil that you are, you're, you know, you're tilling the field, you're adding in your, your synthetic fertilizers to be able to grow something there because there's, you know, the soil is lifeless. Right. And then when it rains, a bunch of that dirt is being washed off the field. So we have major flooding

1:23:09 issues across the country. I mean, in California, I'm especially aware of it, but what, what you'll see in areas where there are regenerative farms is like the, the conventional farms, if there's a big rain event, they've just got like ditches full of like red, you know, muddy water. And then you go onto the, onto the regenerative farm. And there's not even really a flooding issue at all, because the soil is taking up the water. This is so crazy too, because like you think if you, if you look at how water moves nowadays, especially when we get these bigger rainfalls due to climate change and more sort of extreme weather patterns, even just regular weather patterns, you start to see water move differently. And people are wondering what is going on? Is it the way you know, we're routing water, you know, that which is, which is part of it, but we never really talk about how soil changes over time, especially when we're farming everything, we go into like monoculture type of agriculture, we're going to like soil impacted, and we don't talk about how important it is for soil to be in, in quote unquote healthy shape. And you know, this is regenerative farming practice, which is what we used to do back in the day when we needed the soil to be to be good. We got out of that for some reason, and because maybe it was a quicker return, I'm not sure. And now we're, we're starting to see some some companies go back to it. It's just insane

1:24:40 to me to really think about and we don't document that we don't talk about it as much as we should, to say, hey, we're going to do this. And if we're going to do this as much as we should, to say, hey, you know what, if we take care of our soil, like farmers take care of our soil, they're allowed to take care of the soil, we will get a much better system, like just environmentally, not only from a climate change perspective, but just from a safety and water movement perspective. Totally. Yeah. And like, I mean, since we're on the water, there's more about regenerative agriculture, but when on the water perspective, you know, like, in the oceans, there are there are huge issues. Yeah. Dead zones just from the nutrient runoff. Oh my gosh.

1:25:20 I mean, huge issues, the Gulf of Mexico is like, yeah, I used to work in there. Yeah, it's not really. Yeah. But, you know, so the one regenerative agriculture is removing the need for those synthetic inputs. Yeah, you know, like, or at least significantly reducing it so that you don't have this issue where people are just dumping nitrogen onto the onto the soil. And then the rain is washing it off down to the waterways. But there's also, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of issues on our reefs and in our in our coastal zones, just from sediment itself, like, yes, I didn't run off affecting the quality, the water quality, the, you know, the marine life that's in the coastal zones, sometimes is damaged or killed by overloaded sediment from the water.

1:26:14 Yeah, I think about just the impact of the Mississippi, how far it reaches into the Gulf of Mexico, that current that comes out of the Mississippi. I mean, oftentimes the impacts of hypoxia from the just from the nutrient pollution and the phytoplankton growing and won't get into it. But you can go all the way to Texas, like it's huge. And just the sediment carries, you know, pretty far out there in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico or in the middle of like the part the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico. And it's just it's insane to to think about we don't talk about it a lot. But it's insane to even think about how that soil that's going there could be already impacted from fertilizers from chemicals that are used all the way up and down the Mississippi River.

1:27:00 You know, that's obviously the major river in the US, but other rivers are pretty much impacted very similar. Just not maybe not to that, that size because it's just such a big, such a big river and travel so far up up the Midwest. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, like I said, there's other, we mentioned the, the chemicals. And so like, oh, swimming in the Ohio River. Oh, yeah. But yeah, the you know, the other the other major thing that is a boon for the environment and a boon for people's health is that regenerative agriculture is essentially like farming in a way that the ecosystem is in balance.

1:27:47 So we have an issue with pests. You know, like, an example, slugs on an on an orchard. Cool. Well, we just let our ducks in and the ducks. Yeah, slugs. Like, we try not to separate the systems. Right. Right. The systems are intertwined and the animals are a part of the of the cult. That's just one piece of regenerative agriculture. And then, you know, on a on a greater level, just having more diversity in the plant life. So rather than having acres, hectares of of one plant when like, you know, sometimes one genetically modified plant that has a lot of the same genetics.

1:28:31 If a pest comes in or if a disease blight comes, it's going to knock everything out. Yeah. So that's why they have to use the fungicides, the herbicides, all this, you know, on those plants to protect them and in regenerative agriculture, the idea is, well, if there's more diversity and if if the fields are smaller and more spread out, then those kinds of diseases, they just can't travel because there's other, there should be more. There's just more genetic diversity. And a lot of times, too, like because of the biodiversity present a lot of the night, I don't know an example off by heart, but a lot of the times any invasive species or any species that comes in that could harm a specific culture.

1:29:18 In this case, the buckwheat might be deterred by other animals present or other plants that are present that would ward off these types of invasive or, you know, animal life or disease that could be that could alter, you know, the growth and the health of the buckwheat or whatever your culturing. Now, so this is interesting because he said something that really kind of made me interested because I've been thinking about business and how everybody wants to grow their business and grow and grow and grow. And it's got to be big. It's got to scale. It's all this. When you have smaller, I guess, landmass or keeping it the the the I guess the growth of the buckwheat smaller because you have all this biodiversity, can you have a business that's sustainable, that can still bring in revenue without, you know, because you're having a smaller area, maybe without impacting, you know, your bottom line or just sort of your lifestyle that you prefer?

1:30:16 Like, is it a change in it's a change in mindset? Maybe you're not growing all the time? Or is that in my wrong? Is it a change in mindset when you have a company that uses regenerative agriculture compared to the others? I assume that's the benefit for the others. You can scale really, really big and grow as much as possible. But there's a cost to that in terms of the environment here. You're keeping it small, but keeping the environment intact plus probably less upkeep and less chemicals. Yeah, I mean, that that's an that's an interesting question. And I mean, there's certainly there's certainly issues where it's like, okay, regenerative agriculture, great solution for climate change, but it's not like we can flip a switch and turn all of our fields onto regenerative agriculture right away.

1:31:05 But you know, from like from our from the perspective of our farmers, a lot of them are already growing, you know, they have their fields are their fields are separated and they have they have certain things happening on different parts of their property. Gotcha. So we just one aspect of their farm. Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot of like crop rotation is a part of it too. So you can actually have quite a large. Yeah. Like, you can you can have a large farm that that farm is buckwheat. But the it may just be that year to year they rotate. Yeah, where that is being grown.

1:31:52 And yeah, that alone. And that helps with the the nutrient profile of the soil and right and the and the bio ecosystem, the this and even from a farmer's perspective, do they like it more like regenerative agriculture than sort of the what has become the conventional agriculture? Yeah, I'm just gonna say yes. And but they may not know it yet. Okay, so benefits for the farmers, you know, for sure, they you know, they're they there's so many issues with farmers and people in rural areas with that where they spray a lot of life say a lot of incidents of leukemia cancers, all many, many, many health issues that arise from being exposed to those chemicals.

1:32:43 And we've seen like the movies about Monsanto and like, you know, taking over specific areas and taking over farmers and seed, you know, genetic, genetically modified seeds and stuff like that. There's a lot of bad for business as well as bad for health, like human health, too. Exactly. So there's the health side. And then, yeah, that also, so what, what has happened in our farming system, you know, kind of going back to when we shifted away from regenerative agriculture, we created these, these synthetic fertilizers, and most of them actually, you know, a lot of them were created kind of in the post World War Two era, where the chemical manufacturers were needing to figure out what to do with their plants.

1:33:28 Yeah, plants and they're going to produce so. So chemical fertilizers and, you know, and it really like it was a miracle thing you could you could improve your crop yields by 5x by inputting this this chemical. And then it was kind of this like this loop because every year you need to put a little bit more to get the same return on your on your field because you're not taking you know you you're not taking care of the soil, you're relying on these chemicals. And so what's happened is a lot of the farmers find themselves in a cycle where they need they need the the synthetics in order to make the way they farm work and a lot of them you know they learned how to farm from their dad, they've been doing it this way for 30 years.

1:34:19 And so it's hard to change your ways and it's hard to learn something new. And so it's not it's not always an easy sell to be like you really should be growing your food regeneratively. Like just because they're like, well, I've always done it this way I don't want to change. But the farmers who do shift. They want regenerative regenerative be grown food can often bring in a premium price for them. They can make more money on their crop, but they also can reduce their their inputs, like they don't have to spend money on the fertilizers and the pesticides and the herbicides.

1:34:59 So it's just a win all around really. Yeah. And plus they're not exposing themselves to these chemicals too. There's a danger in working with these chemicals. You have to be careful you have to wear certain types of gear and so forth to be an accident happen. Like we obviously they try and reduce them, but accidents happen. Yeah, there's a really there's a really excellent documentary called Kiss the Ground, which gives a really good perspective on some of the regenerative farmers takes on this. And yeah, it's it's powerful. It's powerful. I mean, and it takes I think it takes these types of documentaries to educate people like potential consumers are just people in the US and Canada and elsewhere where regenerative practices are trying to be put back in place, but are not. And we're looking at what our system has become.

1:35:46 You know, you in marketing, you're trying to tell people about the benefits of of this bread and and like made from buckwheat and and how it good like I'm looking on the website, you get some pretty great reviews here for people. Did it is does it take a lot to get people to try it to try your bread? Um, like is it like a I guess I get you know, from a digital perspective when you're marketing and there's emails going out or you have an ad on YouTube or you have an ad on or wherever you place your ads or wherever you are present in terms of organically trying to educate people.

1:36:27 Does it take like a certain amount of times before someone's like, no, you know what, I'll try it or is it more of like word of mouth is really helping spread as people are trying to try this. I mean, it's a little bit of it's a little bit of both. So Pacha bread and like I mentioned, it's not the cheapest thing on the on the shelf. So we don't have the benefit of like, Oh, well, this is the cheapest one. So I'm just going to grab that. True. But in terms of like, in terms of conversion rates and costs per acquisition, like, we're not in like, it's not like we have to pay way more than the next company, you know? We're on par with what we would expect in that zone.

1:37:09 So it's not necessarily, it's not hard to give people to try it. It's not harder than we would expect it to be. Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, and it really depends. Like, you know, some customers, like it's just the thing they've been looking for, especially for people who are allergen, like really allergen free, like celiac, and like, yeah, just can't eat any of the-- Yeah, makes it an easier decision. Yeah, a lot of the gluten-free breads have like psyllium husk and guar gum and different kinds of binders that are not actually like super digestible. So a lot of people who have inflammation and like irritable bowel syndrome, et cetera, they can't even really eat the gluten-free options that exist, so it's a hard thing.

1:37:56 I know you're gonna be polite and say this, but a lot of people that I know have gluten allergies eat gluten-free bread and they say it sucks. (laughs) Yeah. It's just a taste. It's from general, like, not only like the irritation and stuff like that from it, but also they just say it doesn't taste good. You know, they don't like the taste, they don't feel good after, just like you mentioned before, like this. It's a tough ask, especially, you know, when you have to make that change, right? And you're trying to find something new. Yeah, and you know, pacha bread is, it's not trying to be white bread. I think it's the other thing. Right. It's just like, in some ways, there's a lifestyle shift that happens when you start eating pacha bread because you're not consuming it.

1:38:36 Like, I don't make sandwiches with my pacha bread. I make like open-faced sandwiches or I kind of use them as like English, we have English muffins and I like to make like egg sandwiches on that. Oh yeah. But it's, yeah, it's just like a slightly different, it's almost its own category of food. So when you really getting people into pacha bread, like once people are in, they're like, I'm never going back, but. I see that, I see that review on there, yeah. Yeah, totally. However, we are, we just released tortillas. Oh, cool. Yeah, and they're incredible. They are made with the same base as our bread. So it's still, it's like two ingredients.

1:39:18 It's just buckwheat and salt. And yeah. No chemicals, nothing else added, like none of that. Nothing. They're, and so they're super clean, allergen front, allergen free, gluten free. And they, yeah, they're like, they perform somewhere between a corn tortilla and a wheat tortilla, obviously like the gluten in a wheat tortilla, just like you can do, you can fold it, you can stretch it, whatever. That's really hard to achieve with gluten free. For sure, yeah. Yeah, but our tortillas, they're like, we actually have quite a few people at our facility who are from Mexico who do the production.

1:39:58 They're like, this is, this right here now, this is a good tortilla, like this feels authentic. That's a good thing to have when you have like people who have tortillas on a fairly regular basis, being like, yeah, this is what we want, like this is the stuff, yeah, that's awesome. So like when it comes to the company here, and just, obviously the values are high in terms of clean eating, less chemicals, no chemicals, buckwheat, going a different way of farming, regenerative farming, it's a big part of your values as a company. And like, as you mentioned, it's not necessarily what you're marketing on because you want people to taste the bread, you want people to go with what has it.

1:40:44 Like how big of a part is the value part of your company to you as well as the staff? I believe there's, there's what about, is how many people work for you right now? We've got like 25. 25, okay. So like, you know, small to medium sized company, but like how important is that to the staff, to you, to your husband, like a co-founder Adam, like how big was creating those, that value system, not just for the product, but just for yourselves as well, you being an oceanographer, understanding climate change, understanding what it can do, understanding that the powerful impact of regenerative agriculture.

1:41:25 When we talk a lot about ESGs and all these types of things, when we talk about values for companies, how big was that for all of you to create those values? I mean, I'll just say that the company wouldn't exist without the values. True, true. Like, you know, Adam and specifically our founding team, the people who like birthed it, we were clear that this was why we were making this company. Yeah. Like, it wasn't like, it wasn't like, let's make as much money as possible and that will screw the rest.

1:42:06 It's let's make a great product for people like that is healthy for people. That's, that's good for the environment. And let's make some money while we do it. It's still a company, still for profit company, but we want to have, it has to be this, it has to have regenerative agriculture, less, like no chemicals, be good for people, be healthy, be healthy for the environment. That was the big thing, right? Yeah. And I mean, and I also think that there, there's a genuine trust. I'm going to believe, isn't quite the word, it's genuine trust that this is where business has to go. Yeah. Like we, we, we have to start doing this and Pacha is on the leading edge of a movement that is, that is building and unfolding and yeah, if we're going to have food farmed from our farmlands, we have to start shifting, you know, there's like an estimate that there are 60 harvests left from most of like 95% of the farmable land in our country.

1:43:16 60 harvest is like 30 years if we keep going the way we're going. That's terrifying. That is terrifying. That is very terrifying. But when you install things like regenerative agriculture, now you're looking at extending that like, Indefinitely. If you truly are caring for the ecosystem and nurturing, like just, if the main thing you're caring for is the soil, the soil is going to care for you. Yeah. Now, here's a question that you may or may not be able to answer because like, obviously here's the problem is like, you know, we have a problem where we have 60 harvest left, about 30 years left of agriculture and within the United States. I'm sure it's very similar to Canada.

1:43:57 Regenerative agriculture really will help to make it indefinite. How do we make that shift on a larger scale, not just company after company, but just being like, we need to make this. Is that a policy decision that needs to take place to really move the needle or is it more of just education for business owners or both? Yeah, I mean, to move at the pace that I think we need to move at, it's, you know, attack on all fronts. I do think that policy is going to be key in making the shift. What exactly, what kind of policy that needs to be, it's hard to say, you know, like one of the issues with regenerative agriculture is that it's actually not well defined.

1:44:44 Mm hmm. Gotcha. So kind of like, you know, you got your organic certification and one of the issues with the organic certification was like, we had to define it really well in order to make it a USDA certification. And in doing so, we actually, like, some of the heart of what it was got lost and like, you know, you had to have hydroponically grown organic, organic certified produce, which is like, well, it's not really what we were trying to do with organic certification, but technically they are meeting all the standards.

1:45:26 But, you know, in terms of making policy, like, yeah, I think one of the most, for me, at least one of the most interesting ideas is just implementing a carbon tax. I think would be is potentially one of the most effective ways, but then assessing how, how, you know, like if there were carbon tax and you were just, well, okay, there's two pieces. If there was a carbon tax and the and the you also most we didn't say this, but most of the pesticides herbicides and the synthetic fertilizers, those are all petrochemicals.

1:46:13 They're all from petroleum. Right, right. So you're reducing that right away. Yeah. You know, you're going to have to tax that. Yeah, yeah. And get rid of the subsidies that currently exist for the wheat, soy and corn that are growing in this country. We have, you know, we have the government is paying farmers to over produce crops from these conventional systems that that would not that would not be viable in the marketplace without the subsidies. Right. People wouldn't buy them. Companies wouldn't buy them if they had to pay full price for them. Of course, if the farmers had expensive. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think on a policy level, there's a lot that can be done. And it's it's complicated. It is. Well, it's also complicated. Yeah. And so many people have like, it's so ingrained in our system now that the current system of farming that it would be difficult to go back to regenerative farming, just like renewable energy versus, you know, fossil fuel energy. It's it's it's it's it's not an easy.

1:47:12 Switch if it was easy, it would probably been done already. But there's a lot of people who have a lot of money tied into these systems. And, you know, they do not want to change. And they want to keep their lifestyle and they want to keep their money that they make. And it's and it can be very difficult. But I love the fact that, you know, Patches is like spearheading, just be like, you know what, like, we're just going to continue going what we're going to do. And we're going to show that it can be done. It can be done well. And we can be successful at doing it. And I think we just have to ensure that our values are supported. We have to ensure that our values stay the same and that we continue to challenge ourselves to continue to either grow our product type or even just make our product even better and better as we go along as we do more and more research.

1:47:56 And I do love that now to just to kind of let people know, Patrick, where can people find Patrick to pick it up and give it a try? So easiest place, Whole Foods were nationwide in the frozen section. OK. And we also sell our bread nationwide through our website, livepacha.com. There's also, you know, other independence and some smaller change chains in Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. If you want to try to find a physical location, we have a store locator on our website that you can check out. Yeah. Awesome. If you want the tortillas, you got to buy them online. Wonderful. I mean, this is great. I think this is really this is really great to see this company continue to do what it's supposed to do and to be good for not only the people that use it, but also for the environment.

1:48:51 And I love that. I love how you came on here and spreading your message. It's fantastic to have you on. I'd love to have you back on, Maddie. And maybe Adam would come on next time to you and talk about more about some of the products that you're doing and some of the more about regenerative agriculture. I think we're just scratching the surface when we come in, how it could be implemented on a wider scale. But we want to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story. Thanks so much. It was great to be here. Thank you, Maddie, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to have you on. It was great to speak to someone who has pivoted so many times in their life to say, hey, you know what? I want to have an effect on the planet. I want to make sure that I do something good. And that's to start a business that not only has great values, but makes a great product that people can enjoy. And they know it's healthy for them. And you don't market based on that. You market based on the tastiness and how it fits into their lives and why they should have it. But I really think this is something that we need to support more of.

1:49:48 We need to support businesses have these values no matter what they're selling it on or how they're marketing their item. But they have these values regardless because they want to do something that's good for the planet because they we need to do something that's good for the planet. We need to talk about regenerative agriculture. This is something that's extremely important to not only the company, but also to our planet and how it can conserve water, how it can make sure that it's something that is a big thing. It's a big deal. It's good for the soil, which is good for the ocean. Eventually, it's good for the planet. Which is good for you. And I think that is a great sales pitch in my opinion. That's how it sells to me. But also it's great tasting bread and something I wish I can get access to on a more frequent basis. But I live here in Canada. And unfortunately, it's not available right now. Hopefully in the future. But if you're in the US and you want to get access to it, I'll put the link in the show notes. You can find out where it's being sold. And I think it's Whole Foods.

1:50:43 This is what she said. But so check out your local Whole Foods. But this is so great. It's so great to be able to speak to someone like Maddie who's got an oceanography background, understands the role of the ocean that plays in the regulation of our planet, but also looks at different aspects of life. Looking at regenerative agriculture as a way to protect the planet and to conserve the planet is something that's really interesting. And I just love the fact that she's out here doing this building a business that's greater husband who's you know, multi entrepreneur does a lot of different things led them to this business here and something that's very successful. And so that's great with great values for the planet. So thank you again, Maddie, for joining us on today's episode. We're gonna put the links to the all the things that that will lead her and connect you with her and the business of patcha and also buy the product if you can. If you're in the US.

1:51:31 Buy the product. But if you're not just listen to the story. We don't also we don't need as many scientists in marine biology or even just conservationists. Well, of course we need them but not as many as we need in businesses that will create great things that have great values for the planet and for healthy systems in general. And that's what we need. So this is a great inspiration for that. So thank you again to Maddie and thank you for listening to this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please do let us know. And I'll see you next time.