Everybody's happy at the farms.
There's nothing like stepping foot on the ground
and actually going and seeing it. It's something
that goes beyond just the product. It's a
culture. It's an energy that's it's at the
farms, which is quite unique. Because this was
a land that was completely dead, not only
the environment, but a lot of the local
economies were completely dead. Fast forward to today,
it's been completely regenerated. The ecosystems, the economies,
the
everything in between the Flo, the Fauna. So
it's been a complete 1 80 from what
it used to be 9 years ago.
It's time for conversations about our food and
how it's grown on farm to table talk
with your host, Roger Was.
Farm table talk looks at local. We've looked
at regional. We've looked at products
that are produced
kind of in the wild and more and
more open to nature. We've at the controlled
environment. And now we're gonna take in the
whole world. We're gonna talk about specialty crop
production and
and also both producing and distributing products
all over the world.
And I'm
to do that, I have an opportunity to
have somebody here who's
really his company, their grower packers,
shippers
maybe biggest in the world that are tackling
us, and I'm I'm happy to welcome
Christopher
Sofia,
and Christopher welcome to Department Table talk.
First of all, thank you very much for
having us. We're really excited to be sharing
a little bit about what we do with
you.
Yeah. Well, you know, let's let's start with
where you are. Your company is... Tell me
where it's based.
So we're based out of Guatemala.
Now Guatemala
is... You may be my first guest from
Guatemala.
I've had people
from around the world but,
happy. It's a nice little country. Oh, I
would think so. I would think so. You
been have you been the hurricanes and the
heat waves? So that
have been hit over risk of us?
Yes. We have. We... The the heat wave
that that hit us or the past 6
months with a very
rough season. It was a dry year for
us for most of the year. But right
now, we're switching into the hurricane season, which
is we expect to be 1 of the
worst hurricane seasons
in the past at least 10 years. So
it's been a very violent climate
over the past 18 months for us.
Well, and then also, you've got other offices
and you've got an office in Houston too
and and Houston's had a bad stretch. And
as we Yeah. Not long ago, they're still
trying to get the power on from some
of the storms in in Houston and if
you've got coolers in Houston, how big a
concern is that for you.
So most of our coolers are a little
bit down in my calendar area, which was
not hit us far. Our office is in
more of our administrative
offices are in Houston.
So we've been able to hedge that very
well. Because most of our operations are in
Mca cali, and it was not hit us
bad.
Well you know when... When you're in a
position of growing
produce and then distributing it all over the
world to whoever wants it. That takes a
broad area. I don't even know how we
get started with this other than to say,
let's let's talk about how much produce that
we're producing and where it all coming from.
So give us a picture if you would
of of what it is you're you're growing
and where it's coming from.
Yeah. Like I mentioned, most of our growing
operations are based out of Guatemala,
guatemala is, you know, very
privileged
geographical position.
First of all, we're in the equator. So
we have a very stable climate throughout the
year. Which gives us a lot of advantages
to grow crops see around, and it get...
It's in a very strategic place to supply
in most to the Us because it's right
in the middle.
So that's where we grow most of our
products.
We specialize in
prep packed value added vegetables.
Products like French beans, which were the largest
growing in the world, that we also do
products like snow peas,
sugar snaps,
sweet corn,
baby corn,
brussels sprouts,
sweet potatoes, butter not, those types of crops.
So we grow a wide variety of crops.
Very focused on the specialized value added vegetables.
You know you say French beans. And and
I was thought that
I always was confused about French means so
that obviously Aren't French.
And and
and yet when you, you know, when you
go down a canned
vegetable aisle. You see you see lots and
lots of French beans, and I don't
know where they normally come from.
But
I'm when we're doing they normally come from.
So, yeah. So a lot of the french
screens in the Us come from Guatemala
have funny enough. Mh. But something interesting to
know is that there's a big difference between
a normal grieving and a French meeting. Most
people's it it's not something on their day
today. It's hard to to know the difference,
but the green bean is a different variety
from a French bean. A French bean needs
a lot thinner. It's very
the texture is different,
sizing and the width is very...
What's the word? It's very
it's very easy metric in size, compared to
a green. Most of the times, when you
get a green being, it's either machine harvested
or
it comes to different sizes, some are big,
some are thick,
some are thin. It's very
unstable when it comes to the quality.
A friend's being is the complete opposite. It's
a very
specialized vegetable. Most of them are the same
size. They're the same width, and the texture
is very consistent, then it's very nice to
So so it's it's very different from a
normal green.
Do you know, I remember somebody that got
concerned 1 time about snow peas because that
they were seeing... They felt like snow peas
were now coming pretty much all from China.
And the person that I spoke to was
concerned about
irrigation, water and some other things with snow
peas and yet if you were... They gave
me the impression that if you're gonna eat
snow peas, you just had to get used
to the fact that they were coming in
from China. So if I've had any concerns
about their production practices or about the quality
of the irrigation water, you're stuck.
But that's said apparently not the case if
you got snow fees too.
That's 1 of the main things we do.
So our whole model revolves around this source.
Because that's where we think everything starts. We
really focus on getting the first part of
the chain, which is the farm right, and
that's reflected in a few ways, but 1
of the most important 1 is food safety.
Stalking specifically about water, our approach is
something that's quite unique. So if you wanna
control the
food safety of your products. 1 of the
main things is water. And the way we
do it is we have 2 types of
water. You have our agricultural water, and then
you have the water that touches the product.
All of the agricultural products
that agricultural water
and our farms is done through drip irrigation,
which is about 10 centimeters
under the soil, which never touches the product.
Sure. All the product, all the water that
touches the product,
comes from 1 single source in our farms.
That allows us to control a hundred percent
of the water, and we can make sure
that it's being with the right food safety
standards. But that's because we control a hundred
percent of the source where it's coming from,
and we can really control what's goes for
water and what's the water that touches the
product. And the water that touches the product,
everything comes from 1 single source so we
can control it from safety part.
Well, you know 1 of the things you
probably wouldn't mind having more in this tree.
I'll except that if you look like a
competition of a country like China,
where you end up having all of these
industries that are up cream on the yellow
and yang river feed and,
you know,
into heavy metals that end up showing up
in the water, it's almost impossible to keep
it out from the water.
Don't have any factory upstream from your source
I would imagine?
We don't. And everything that touches the product
comes from deep water wells. So they're on
unaffected by all of that. Nothing comes from
the river. Everything comes from 1 single source
from a deep water well, and we're constantly
checking the water.
I, you know, I haven't been the Guatemala
guacamole again, but I I think that my
is you got plenty of water.
I... I'm not sure if that's... True. But
I would think it rains a lot, then
you probably have aquifer that are pretty filled
up too.
Yes. So that's why we always test the
water. We're always testing the water at least,
at least,
once a season, at least. So we always
making sure that you have the right water,
the right quality of water.
You know,
obviously, you're... If you are distributing products like
you just mentioned,
to consumers
pretty much all over the world. And we're
gonna get to that. Like where you're sending
them and every everything.
I mean, you personally earn out driving a
tractor or anything or planting seeds. So how
did you come up with getting getting those...
Seeds in the ground and and developing the
the farming level that's supplying you.
So that... That's an interesting story.
We haven't been in the farming area for
a long time.
Actually, we used to be a lot more
focus on the processing and packing side. And
it was about... I would say, 9 years
ago, then we decided to do a switch.
Because what we noticed is is if that
first part of the chain, the farms was
not right, it was extremely hard to streamline
the rest of the supply chain. Because what
we noticed is that if we wanted to
bring a solution to our customers, which are
retailers, it was truly predictable.
We needed to control the farms. So we
took a completely different approach to farming from
the traditional farming approach and approach build with
data at the core.
So all of our farms are controlled by
model that we develop called ce, which is
an artificial intelligence model called ce. They controls
every aspect effect of the farming,
from before you plan the seed to when
you harvest, which has allowed us to make
it extremely predictable
So the way we do it this, when
we get a projection from a customer
that goes into our system and our system
basically gives us a recipe or a workflow
of steps that have to be done from
seed to delivery to be able to deliver
that specific product to that specific customer, that
specific week. From the farm to the processing
to the packing.
So
I know farmers, and I've met farmers from
around the world, 1 word that you said
that a lot of farmers always just react
negatively because the word control.
Know, because farmers love their independence. But a
So when when you want to get something
produced,
you have to you approach a farmer that
can
match up? Or are they already somehow committed
to your company that they're gonna produce what...
I you ask them to produce,
so on a lot of our products, we
are the farmers. So it's part of our
operation. Yeah. We are the grower, the shipper
and the packer.
So a lot of items. You own some
farmland then? Yeah. Yeah. We we have the
farms. Yeah. Like I said, our model is
completely integrated. From
before the seat to when we deliver it
to the customer.
And that's what we noticed. If you really
wanted to make the value chain predictable, we
needed to
I don't know control the right word that
make it a lot more predictable the farmers.
Sure. Because on our items is very susceptible
to a lot of things. And I'll give
you an example.
A few months back, we got a storm
where we got the equivalent of a month's
worth of rain in 2 hours.
You can imagine the impact of that ad.
Yeah. Most surrounding farms have losses of 98
to a hundred percent. We have a loss
of 7 percent.
And the reason why was because before we
even planted the first seed, we had modeled
what that worst case scenario would look like.
And develop the greed of the farms to
be able to handle that store.
So before we we've planted because we own
that farming and that first step, we were
able to prepare for that worst case scenario
and make it a lot more resilient to
that
type of store. Mh. Well, then, first The
arrangement that you have is that you own
some land in in cases you own... And
are there some others too that you're you're
purchasing from independent farmers so well?
We also lease the land. We also... We
either do leases,
long term leases. Oh see. I see. And
so... And a lot of what we do,
So a lot of what we do is
we take land that was completely dead. So
1 of our core farms was a land
that hadn't and been used for 50 years.
So because they had destroyed the land with
bad agricultural practices and it was completely dead.
So it was a place where everybody thought
it was gonna be impossible to farm. Yeah.
And we took it when it was completely
dead. Fast forward it to today. It's been
completely regenerated.
So we leased a lot of those lands
that people had destroyed and we regenerated that
land.
Now. No that's really that's really fascinating. And
I I'm curious too a little bit more
back on the people that get to be
employed.
Because are are you able to
to find up mostly to help you need
locally? Do you have to bring people in?
Be able to get them started? How does
that work? So look, I'll I would say
everybody who works at the farm is local
from Guatemala. We have an amazing team.
At the farms and and we've been very
lucky You have a great team that can
help us.
So now I wanna get to the marketing
side of this because the 1 thing is
to grow it, and you get a lot
of variety when you went through a list
like you went through, and you were running
down all these different products that you're able
to grow in Guatemala,
it... It starts with customers. Doesn't that? I
mean you have to say, okay. What do
you I mean, these are things we can
grow,
and we can supply you this.
You know, what do you want from us?
Does that... Did I get that right?
Yeah. So this is an open dialogue we
have with customers.
A lot of the items that we do,
a lot of the customers already sell them,
like the French beans or snow or sugar
snaps. They're already part of their products that
they sell at their stores. What we do
is we come in with a better solution.
Yeah. Because we couldn't... Because we're not fragmented,
and we can offer them the complete service
end to end integration, It becomes a better
solution for them. We offer them beyond just
a bag of product. We offer them. The
service of really developing and operating a successful
fresh produce program for them. Okay. Okay. And
it goes beyond just 1 product.
Now now I wanna go back and make
sure I'm understanding again too. Would... Would a
hundred percent of what your your marketing come
from Guatemala or some other countries as well.
Power hundred percent What we saw... So what
we saw in this is part of the
world and
into the Us. A hundred percent comes into...
From Guatemala.
We're opening
funny enough offices right now in Mexico.
But right now, I would say a hundred
percent come from Guatemala.
Now in in the Us,
produce is
identified as to the country of origin. So
does... Do you have a packaging that would
say, you know product to Guatemala on it?
Yeah.
So all of our products say products we
Guatemala.
Well, you know what? And this is 1
of the reasons that I'm I'm happy to,
have this conversation with you because I think
people don't understand
enough about other production practices. And
and when they don't know, sometimes they're just
suspicious. And in the in the United States,
we do have the country of origin labeling.
I suppose some other countries do as well
have country of origin labeling. And I think
it's I for 1. I'm glad to see
but but put the name on they're not
ashamed of it. You know, if anybody wants
to know how we... How you do things.
It sounds like you're ready. Just say, show
you whatever you want.
In the benefit of owning a hundred percent
of the chain is that you can be
transparent.
We're a hundred percent transparent in the way
we do things, and we can offer trace
ability down to bad revenue of everything.
If I wanted to, which is not useful,
but if you wanted to, we could tell
you how the sun was the moment that
product was planted.
We can drill down to that level of
trace and transparency.
So that's how you can really back up
everything we're saying is if you have the
data and the trace ability down to the
bag to be able to prove it.
You know what? I was involved 1 time
in in a program where people were curious
about what the crop was looking like. And
Then I just put cameras out in the
Orchard.
And so people were speculating because it it's
funny, you could go online and people could
say something like, oh, you hear what's going
on in Guatemala.
And, although we weren't guatemala them all said
well fine, You know,
here's a live screen. Just look for yourself,
does it look to you,
like, you know, this is happening or does...
How does... What do you think about it?
And Actually, we wanna do that. And and
and because we have... Because we're a hundred
percent transparent, actually, we're have a project right
now in the pipeline where we're gonna put
farms,
cameras at the farms. Yeah. For people to
go in and see it whenever they want.
Yeah. Yeah. Don they gonna have everybody, make
sure they they they walk around looking happy
and be w or something. But but I
I think that You know what?
Everybody's happy at the farms. Yeah.
And I wish people, and, you know, with
our customers, what we always tell them is
You can't fake this. Come and see it.
There's nothing like stepping foot on the ground
and actually going and seeing it. It's something
that goes beyond just a product. It's a
culture, it's an energy that's it's at the
farms, which is quite unique. Because this was
a land that was completely dead, not only
the environment, but a lot of the local
economies were completely dead. Fast forward to today,
it's been completely regenerated. The ecosystems, the economies,
everything in between the Flo, the fauna. So
it's been a complete 1 80 from what
it used to be 9 years ago. So
there's nothing like, actually going and seeing it
in person.
Well, I tell you what, The... The hopefully...
Having a podcast is close.
Because I'm... That's gonna be a while before
I get to the Guatemala, But I... We
would love to have you. I'd love to
go. I don't wanna go sometime.
And and the other thing too, I feel
really good about having this conversation with you.
When I... When I've also been in these
conversations have people are all upset about country
of origin labeling, and frankly,
what they're concerned about is that it's not
required with animals with meat.
So you can you can end up in
the United States, you can have lean and
fat trimming come from all over the world
and be in different ages and blended together
and then distributed for Hamburger sales and so
forth. And you don't really don't know a
a lot of the story,
about sanitation about some of and
practices and so forth.
And so I'm just really happy to have
this conversation with you. And like, oh, this
is a chance
that people could look at the production.
And the key transparency, honestly,
And and it needs to be a hundred
percent transparent.
And you need that trace ability too.
And I think that's what gives the customers
the confidence that it was grown the right
way. A lot of what we give our
customers is the story behind where the product
was grown. Yeah. And that's something that customers
love. It was not only grown under the
food safety practices, which is the priority number
1, but there's also a sustainability story behind
it, a social story behind it. There's more
than just fat bag of vegetables. There's really
that transparency
in the up confidence that the product was
grown their right way, then they can go
ahead tell that story to their customers.
Snow peas are getting back on, like, on
my list again now. Yeah.
Guatemala is there beach... Go.
The board wants to, you know,
Now 1 other question about that the people
of the transparency
are
people that are purchasing, You do you get
any visitors that
you know, Us and other country supermarket
buyers do they come down and look at
your yes. Every time. Yeah. Like I was
telling you, we like to tell our customers
come down. See it. Yeah. And and once
they go and see it, and they experience
that they understand it. Yeah. Yeah. No. I...
That makes sense now. Here... 1 more. Let's
get back on the marketing side.
So how do you find opportunities,
and maybe before I say this, let's where
are the opportunities? Wow, how broadly do you
ship? How many places do you go beyond
the United States?
So
right now, we sell
in Central America. Mh. We sell in the
Us, which is 1 of our main markets.
We sell in Canada,
saw the Uk and we sell in Europe,
and we're starting Asia. So we send them
all over the world.
Are are you finding there's much a difference
to? They're all pretty much the same as
far as the degree of interest in production
practices and and so forth as
Europeans in the Us or, you know, Us
and Mexico. Is it is there much difference
among the countries in in how curious they
are in the product practices?
So so that's a good question. I think
every country cares about their thing.
But at the end of the day, they
all want the same thing. I don't know
if that makes sense. Like, some of them
might be very specific in terms of something
they want. But at the end of the
day, what people want is just to make
sure that the products were grown the right
way. Well what we've been hearing a lot
is the sustainability part, which for us has
been something extremely important. Because when we started
the farms,
we wanted something that was not gonna be
here for 6 months, that's something that could
be here for the next a hundred years.
So people right now in all of the
countries we sold to are really focused on
both the food safety, and the sustainability part.
And then you might get some countries that
are more interested about something very specific. Like
some countries are more interested in our story
about poll.
Others are more interested on the social aspect.
So you might get
some people are some customers that are more
focused in 1 specific topic. But at the
end of the day, it all comes down
to growing things right way, which people are
carrying a lot
lately,
especially that there's a big push from the
consumer side because they wanna know where their
product is coming from to make sure it's
healthy and it was grown the right way.
Both socially environmentally and everything in between.
Well, and I think the thing that we're
touching on here today is some of those
customers are saying wait a minute. Remind me
exactly where in Latin America is Guatemala?
And do we know anything at all about?
And I... I'm sorry to say it that
way. Yeah. No. And I I don't completely
understand. So guatemala on us.
So so Guatemala, like I said, it's in
a very privileged position. It's right on their
cycle. It's a very small country. We have
both oceans, and it's right under Mexico. Yeah.
So we can supply both coasts, and we
can go in the middle into Texas.
Well, and then what I was gonna lead
up to is that some people just make
some assumption because I don't know anything about
it, it might not be up to our
standards.
And that's not fair, but I think that
and people don't know anything,
and they're they're... You know, and they haven't
had chance to see your story.
Yeah. So so I'm... Anyway, I'm glad I...
We can help tell the story. And and
and it's completely understandable.
We're always
a little skeptical the things we don't know,
and it's they're not familiar.
But that's why we like to tell our
story and that's why we wanna make sure
our consumers ask
and come and see it and really
get to see the story behind where the
product is coming from. Which it's very unique.
We really haven't seen enough I've traveled around
the world. I've never seen an operation like
this. And I'm really proud of the team
to be able to do it. It's really
unique. You know? Yeah. So but we we
we encourage our consumers to see the story
behind it. Yeah.
I've got a request for you, Too.
Can you can makes him make them more
chop of of your different vegetables, john vegetables
that fill into
a tray for snacking that you can have...
You know, we're at getting into that. Yes.
So we do that for the Central America
market, and we're thinking about starting to do
it into the
Us market, especially with products like baby carrots.
Okay. And sugar snaps, which people like to
snack on. It's something that we're exploring right
now. Do you know why I think this
is the case is that some years ago,
I I was involved with A5A day,
which then they upped the 5 a day
fruits and vegetables. And then they decided that
wasn't nearly enough and they tried to get
it up to 10 a day,
and now they've had to change the subject.
Because it's just a lot for people to
try to get enough vegetables.
And and what I've found is that sometimes,
I'll just buy these big veggie trays
that come with ranch dip in the middle
of them or something.
And all they do have snap peas in
them. And carrots and some broccoli and some,
like, purple calls.
Yeah. Yeah. Some pepper sometime and celery.
Anyway, you can keep it in your refrigerator
and you might otherwise be kind of in
a hurry, and you can, you know, heat
make a sandwich or something like that. But
you pull that out and you're kind of
you're kind of n and you end up
before you know it, You've had several helping
of vegetables
just Yeah. Just snacking on all those vegetables.
Yeah. That that's an area that we're for
sure exploring.
Especially with a lot of the kit meals.
It's it's something that's growing a lot. Like,
you said, you you wanna make it easy
at the end of the day. So a
lot of what we do is really focus
on the packing side. Make it a lot
easier for the consumer.
All of our bags are micro,
which makes it a lot easier.
You cut a corner, you put it in
the microwave it's 2 minutes, and then they're
done. So So making it easy definitely helps,
increase the consumption.
Well, and plus, you'll probably get some more
customers. If you just
mention you heard about this on farm to
table talk, put that on the back. Sure.
And then and then we're we'll let those
sponsors we're we're off to the races.
I just...
1 a quick thing,
when you are shipping product into, whether Mexico
or or to
you know, the Us, Me are shipping, and
there was a time that people were getting
really kinda concerned about maybe still are the
footprint.
Because,
you got ways to go. So I assume
footprint? Yeah. Yeah. Carbon footprint. So
That's a great question. Actually, we're in our
way to becoming carbon neutral, and we expect
to do it by the end of 20
25.
Mh.
Completely by merit, no carbon credits.
So so that's something that's in a rate.
Right now, our carbon ambitions are very low.
Did we wanna make it carbon neutral by
the end of 20 25?
Somebody listening to this and they're kind of
like smack on their head and said, gee,
we listen to Was and farm cable talk.
And we're getting all psyche up from some
people we talk about about buying local and
go into the farmers market because I'm a
big fan of farmers market.
But... I too. I think the challenge is
that people could say, you know what? There's
a space for both. I mean, it's
just becomes you're trying to get a lot
of things. Local doesn't mean that you're not
getting a mix of these other things when
they're fresh coming from Guatemala. You know how
they're doing.
And and we coexist with a lot of
the local production,
especially that... Because we have a very precise
farming model, we can come in into the
windows where the local production can't do it.
Because we're the equator, so we have a
very favorable weather. So a lot of the
times when the local production can produce a
certain item, we come in.
For example, for Butter,
we just developed up the program for Spain,
for 1 of our customers, where they were
gonna have a window,
where they were not gonna have any local
production for the month of May. And we
developed a program specifically for the month of
May for them, and we came in exactly
at the week
they told us a year before, and 4
weeks after the program started. We ended the
program. Very precise. We came in when the
window was.
A million pounds in and hour.
You know. That's that sounds great. That that
just reminds me 1 other thing. I keep
having 1 other thing in mind.
And that is that
we already said you get a lot of
moisture and you're on the equator,
which
my idea is it makes it more difficult
to go organic
And understand And
you just got a lot more bugs to
work with is
is the impression I have so it's pretty
hard to use a standard of
Is that true?
Yeah. It definitely brings his challenges.
That's why not all of our products are
organic?
We work under their regenerative.
Because the organic certification goes beyond just pesticides.
It has a lot of other factors. Yeah.
We have to take in
a lot of which don't fit a hundred
percent with the equator, like you mentioned. So
what we tried to focus on is really
creating something that's a hundred percent transparent.
And if we're gonna work under the organic
certification, We wanna make sure we're are a
hundred percent compliant
And we have found that that is not
sustainable in terms of sustainability and they equator
in what we do. For. The reasons you
mentioned.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that just that just makes
sense. And then when you you grow up
and you harvest them, are you putting them
on planes? Is there anything that is cold
storage enough if you put on a boat?
So every... Most of it goes on boats
or trucks.
Mh.
Rarely on planes. It's very little.
Okay. What goes what goes on
what what goes on blinked.
We get about 3 hours from the moment.
Depends on the product that about 3 hours
from the moment, we harvest to when we
back, and then it goes straight into our
customers.
But you have... You still got a boat
ride to say houston.
It's about... So
to Houston, most of what we do is
we truck it, that's about 3 days and
to the Miami port, it's about 3 days.
So then you're not trucking to Miami, obviously,
you're... Are employed. So you're putting it on
a on a a bow for miami... And
because of the cold storage, you can put
a pretty good chill on it, so that
gets... And then after they... After they come
all the way from Guatemala there, How how
long is it is it
fresh, fresh enough and good quality
after it it gets to the store, how
long this this... So
it depends on the product, but within a
day, it's at the stores.
And it...
Depending on the product, you have about 21
days of shelf life. So we get pretty
good shelf life,
especially that all of our products
are packed in Bags, which are oxygen transmission
bags.
Which control the oxygen transmission within the bag
to control the metabolism of a plant
with no pre servants or anything.
It's great. Sure. It's purely
it control. So the way Ot bags work
is that they control the
Transmission between the air inside the bag and
outside. And it slows down the metabolism of
the plant. So it basically puts the plant
to sleep, fillet delay last longer fresh without
any chemicals or anything.
Isn't this strange. I mean, it's strange for
me because I'm sitting here thinking how I'm
going to probably the very next podcast and
I'm gonna be talking more about the people
that can buy within 10 miles or something
of their of their home and yet, there's
a really good case to be made for
Guatemala in. And who knows? There may be
some other countries that belong and in the
end circle as well. Yeah. Like I said,
like I said... Sorry for that. Like I
said, I think there's a window
for everybody. It needs to make sense in
terms of the energy.
Because you get a lot of products. Like,
you were talking. You were talking about the
emissions.
Even things that are local,
it really depends on the product. True. Because
sometimes the energy consumption and the emissions of
even our greenhouse is a lot higher in
doing it in Guatemala.
So you really have to look at the
big picture in terms of what's the energy
that it requires to get the product to
the consumer. And really find the windows where
it works best. And like we said, we
coexist with the local productions. And most of
the times we come in when that local
production can produce a lot of the products.
I'll tell you how curious I am. I
wanna know even more about the soils too
because I would think that
that you have to have
a different
community, than microbial content in your soils just
by being down there in the equator and
and everything.
Yeah. Would be would be different
than than other parts of the world. You
know, we have 12 different types of soils
in 1 of our farms.
Well, that's 1 of the different challenges that
we have to face. It's... That we have
a lot of different types of soils within
a very
short area in a very small area.
And the way we do it is we've
taken a very data centric approach to it.
We
take soil samples,
of the soils, and we analyze, and we
develop
nutrition plants and rotation plans to be able
to fit that specific type of soil. Yeah.
So we take a very scientific approach to
that because if not, it would be possible.
We have 12 different types of soils.
Not bet you have Earth ones too.
Yes.
We have everything.
You know? I... Because there's some places that
we... I know we've hit in the states
and some other areas that there's just like
farmed out. It's so intensive and than so
many chemicals over over the years, in it,
that you can't go out and stick a
spade in the ground and get see
like you can in healthy soils.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It what's funny is let
Like, I was telling you about most of
the land that we work with was completely
dead. They had formed it with horrible agricultural
practices, and they had killed it. With 1
of our farms, we had 0.07
percent of organic matter. At we cow.
And now nothing.
That that's nothing. And now it's 4.15.
That's
amazing. And that's
we're still figuring out how that translates
into the
nutrition in the products too, but it does
have an impact. It it it creates a
more nutrient dense
high quality product for sure. And if you
have a healthier
soil, you have a healthier plant. At the
end of the day, the soil is, like,
the refrigerator for the plant, that's where it
gets all of its nutrients,
and and and really, the food to be
able to feed the plant. So if you
have a healthy soil, you have a healthy
plant.
You know?
I I tell you what, we're gonna have
hit have more podcast because we're we're just
getting through the crop and and now we're
going underground. So that'll have to be another
podcast. We'll finish ship on the happy course
microbes underground. But I I wanna thank you.
This has been a great conversation. Now if
people would like to know more about your
company about the product about what you're growing
and where it's going and that sort of
thing. How do they... How do they find
it? How do they follow you where are?
You can look at us a bit on
our website, which is uni spice dot com.
That's UNISPECE
dot com.
Or you can also look us up at
our Linkedin. We're always posting
different content
and
you can look up my name, which is
Christopher savvy, and,
always posting about our stories, while we do,
how we do it, And,
yeah, I would love to to share our
story. So you can also shoot at the
end through Linkedin.
Hey. You know what. Christopher did did you...
This is crazy to ask you this question.
But
I might have misunderstood. You're filling uni spice
because I thought it was... You said you
in Ie p Ec.
Did you say?
Yes. I said you and ISPICEI
heard E c. So I'm probably wrong, But
in anyway, I've Oh, it's it's doesn't it
it doesn't hurt to repeat it, So people
can be sure to tip you up. Yeah.
I was lot. I learned a lot from
this conversation. And I'm really glad you reached
out and asked about having to conversations with
us because it's it's my pleasure to have
you and have this conversation on farm to
table talk. So thank you.
I appreciate it. Thank you very much. We
we really enjoy the podcast.
You've been listening to farm to table talk
with your host Roger Watson.