The job market is inching back to normal but some analysts say workers in certain fields have some amazing bargaining power to craft the job they want. But for some employees, they say that is NOT enough and they are taking the big jump to start their own business or downshift their hectic work life. The main driver for that? You only live once.
PLUS...”toh may toes” OR “toh mah toes”. No matter how you say it....it’s big business. Our next guest created the lead tomato processor in the world. BUT it’s the way his business is run by 600 employees that grabs my attention. There are no managers...no bosses...just colleagues running a near ONE billion dollar a year company. He joins us to explain how that works for him.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Follow the Profit is a production of Gingwich three sixty
and I Heart Radio. So the job market is inching
back to normal, but some analysts say workers in certain
fields have some amazing bargaining power to craft the job
they want. But for some employees, they say that is
not enough and they are taking the big jump to
(00:20):
start their own business or downshift their hectic work life.
The main driver for that, well, you only live once.
Plus tomatoes or tomatoes, I don't say tomato no matter
how you say it. It's big business and our next
guests created the lead tomato processor in the world. But
it's really his business and the way he runs it
and also his general worldview that really grabs my attention.
(00:44):
And he's running a billion dollar company, but he also
has some fascinating insights into the world today and where
we're going. He's going to join us and tell us
all about that. I'm David Grasso, and this is Following
the Profit. You're looking to get rich quick, Well, this
(01:08):
isn't your podcast. Today. We're gonna talk about tomatoes, management
and capitalism. You're gonna get to see the connection and
when you listen to Follow the profet, we kind of
deconstruct what's going on in the world around us, and
really you have to understand the world around you if
you want to make your money work for you. And
on that note, Yolo, what a gen Z word, right?
(01:30):
You only live once. I feel like a lot of
boomers are living by that philosophy these days. And a
lot of people will go back to the year of
two thousand and eleven and one of my favorite rappers, Drake,
and they say that that's where it comes from. Others
say it originated back in nine when I was in
seventh grade, from the name of a ranch belonging to
the Grateful Dead, or it might be a reference to
(01:52):
a German play from seventeen seventy four called Clave Eagle.
Either way, it's the general mindset that really is everywhere today.
Screw it, seize the day, trust little in tomorrow. You
only live once. And that's what a number of people
have been saying when it comes to COVID. Yeah, I've
kind of done that. The type of person I'm talking
(02:14):
about are people like me. They're millennials who have weathered
the pandemic with endless zoom meetings, of which I am
currently on one right now. Hours and hours of using
the peloton and figuring out what to cook because we're
so damn bored that we're cooking. They are the ones.
We are the ones rather who are able to save
(02:34):
money while working at home, and we're watching, if we're
lucky enough to own our own homes, watching the values
of our assets rise, and that cushiness has made us
all thing. Maybe I can take a risk, Maybe I
can have a new career, endeavor side projects, start a business.
But you know, suddenly lately we're seeing life come back
(02:57):
to normal. Right. There's less COVID, more people are willing
to get the vaccine, and people are getting back to business.
But there's a certain group that never wants to go
back to the old world. They never want to go
back to the office, the nine to five, the rat race.
They would rather quit than go back to that. I
think it might be one of those people like my friend.
He's a thirty something, your old attorney, and you know,
(03:19):
he's done the whole nine to five thing. He lives
for five minutes from his office, and uh, I don't
know if that's really sustainable in his life, are desirable?
I think he views work differently now. Maybe he wants
a family, maybe he wants some work life balance, maybe
he doesn't want to just play office every day. I
feel like a lot of people are in that position.
(03:40):
I know I am, And then there's people like me, reporters,
that we went from doing nothing to doing everything to
doing nothing because we're freelancers. Well, maybe we now see
other ways to get freelance work. Maybe our work isn't
so restricted to one area now, maybe we see that
there's other profit opportunities, not just in our area of expertise,
(04:02):
and that the nature of work has changed, and that
our clientele is now geographically distributed. So it really doesn't
matter where you live or what you do. You can
kind of do anything. And you know, even if you're
a corporate person, you're dreading that email that comes into
your inbox and says you've got to come back to
work at that glass building that's either downtown or in
(04:23):
suburban nowhere land. And you know, most of us are
kind of over that. That was the stupid world, driving
an hour to then squeeze in an hour for some
overpriced bad lunch. Maybe we're more interested in working from
the Caribbean, or you know, maybe we're more interested in
cryptocurrency and how you know, maybe we can make our
money work for us, or maybe we're interested in politics,
(04:46):
maybe one of our friends. You know, a lot of
us are coming of age as millennials. I have a
friend here running for judge and I support him. Right,
maybe I'm more interested in that than being in some
suburban glass bubble that you know isn't quite interesting nor
really fundamentally productive or accommodative to human nature. So businesses
understand that the pandemic change docs and the pandemic really
(05:08):
changed business as well. So they're trying to figure out,
especially corporate people, how do we keep people around. But
employees have more bargaining power now. The baby boomers, a
lot of people who are parents are retiring, and remote
work is kind of normal. And if CEOs think that
they could just have everyone come back to the office
(05:29):
if nothing happened and nothing has changed, they are clearly delusional.
A lot of workers like the change. You know, it
was a little lonely during the pandemic, but the flexibility
was great. Employees really saw who their bosses really were
as they dealt with this insane world that we call one.
(05:49):
And the more workers felt like a cog in the
wheel and number statistic. The more they started their own businesses,
or maybe they took on side hobbies that they genuinely
in woid Maybe if they stopped caring so much about money,
because the little assets that they bought before the pandemic
are worth that much more. And you really saw who
your overlords were during these problems. Everyone's character was just
(06:13):
made perfectly clear. And you can't unwring that bell. You
can't make people go back to the old world because
that no longer exists. So to the corporate titans of
America and to the dreamers and doers who are at
the very top, which include my next guest, the world
has changed. And my guests understands that and understood that
(06:38):
prior to the pandemic. But there are a lot of
people who are woefully unaware that they're not as powerful
as they were prior to the pandemic. And if they
don't engage their employees, freelancers, contractors, consultants and understand that
the game has changed while they risk being left behind.
(07:02):
We're gonna take a quick break here, be right back,
so as you know, we call this podcast follow the
profit well for a moment we're gonna call it follow
the bobo, which means in French it's earth apple. In
Italian it's actually golden apple. But it's actually funny because
(07:23):
tomatoes are actually from the America's right. They're not vegetables.
First of all, there are fruit, they're technically berries, if
you want to get super specific. And tomatoes are actually
from what we know today is Mexico. The Aztecs called
them tomatos, and that in their language meant fat water
thing with naval And when the Spanish, you know, showed
up in the fifteen hundreds and met the Aztecs, they
(07:45):
returned to Europe with these things, these red things, and
over the centuries the pronunciation kind of change. And in
the ninet thirties there was a musical debate around this
with the original song lyric you say tomato, I say tomato,
which you know, some people say potato, potato, but I
don't think anyone says potato. But the tomato itself, which
(08:09):
has come to be a mainstay in our way of life,
but was part of the Colombian exchange. Remember, back in Europe,
there were no tomatoes before the Spanish colonized Mexico, So
it actually went backwards. It's like chocolate and tobacco. So
the tomato itself could be finicky to grow, but it's
affordable and it could yield a lot of produce. And
for our next guest, the tomato is the thing that's everything.
(08:31):
His life is one big tomato. He's the founder of
morning Star Company, and they supply get this forty per
cent of the US industrial tomato, paste and dice tomato markets,
and they're also the global leader and tomato processing. Chances
are if you like tomatoes, or if you're like me,
I don't like specific tomatoes, but I like all tomato products. Yeah,
(08:52):
catch up, sauceampasta, etcetera. It probably came from morning Star.
So the other thing about morning Star, it's diff fringe.
It's not your typical company. There's a reason why they
do things well. Morning Star doesn't have really managers or bosses,
just colleagues. And some say a method probably works in
a small company, but morning Star actually has six hundred employees,
(09:14):
thousands of seasonal workers, and makes close to a billion
dollars annually, so definitely not small tomatoes or potatoes or
whatever you want to call it. Well, how does this
all work? And who's here to unpack this all, Well,
none other than Chris Ruffer joining me today from Sacramento, California.
Chris Ruffer, how you doing today? Great? I'm just fine.
(09:36):
So tell me about your history. How did you come
to encounter the tomato? What is your background? Well, I'll
tell you about background, and I'm very impressed with your research. Done,
a really good job, and you caught the point that
the tomatoes are fruit and not a vegetable. As far
as starting whatnot. I grew up in a family where
I'm seeing my grandfather doing something. My father worked for
my grandfather, and I always just pictured. I would just
(09:57):
go through the same steing like on a farm, working
with my father being around him a little bit. And
he drove a truck and a friend of his hauled
tomatoes from merced where I grew up. I graduated high
school and and hauld of down to Orange County where
my father had moved. So I just got an idea
for a summer job. So I rented a truck. My
(10:19):
father said, you can't rent a truck that big in
that day, and I went and talked through the big
truckers who worked for the processors, and you become a
sub holler. So again I rent a truck friend and
some trailers and butts some equipment. Had very little money
persually zero. I think I got a loan for two
thousand dollars my dad signed for and I went to
hauling tomatoes. And from that and you start seeing how
(10:39):
the world works. It's disappointing to me. There had a
lot of kids and folks in high school or college
don't do these internships because they've reality already got their
life planned out for them in a way that they're
searching already, and then they're going to be some intern
of some such. I went and drove a truck. So
that's a lovely job, apparently do you think it is?
But you get to see the world, and so I
saw how how things were working. This curiosity. You could
(11:02):
see the growers, what do you do in the field,
and you go to the factory and it works in
a certain way. I would tour the factories, get kicked
out to get on the growers, harvesters. It's just inquiring,
justin I think it's a sense of curiosity. And eventually
getting out of out of college a few degrees, so
I had some time there and drove a truck on
the Sumwich for five years, got an NBA from U
(11:23):
C l A. I never interviewed for a job. I
moved up to Davis and continuing to research some ideas
I had, and that that evolved to working for a
fellow in the industry who was a grower but you
known part of obtain to processing plant and did harvesting
and trucks, and so I got to see more than
the reality of how the industry worked and continue to
work on my ideas. Spent all my spare time trying
(11:44):
to advance what I thought would be a tomato processing facility,
which was at the time tomato pase was known as
a by product. And whether you're talking to bankers and
people in industry investors, this is just a by product.
You can't make money at that. It's stupid it but
all my research showed that was a meaningful product. About
twenty of the industry tomatoes went into bolk tomato face.
(12:07):
When I put the numbers together on with the prices
had been and with the cost structure I thought would be,
there was a substantial difference there profit opportunity, and so
I continue to pursue that and find a raising money
to build a factory. So I guess where my brain goes, Chris,
is that a lot of people in your social position
at the time probably would have thumbed their noses at
what they would have considered blue collar work. But through
(12:28):
this blue collar work you kind of found a market opportunity.
You kept on going down the tomato trail, and then
suddenly you figured out that there was this massive market
opportunity that was completely unexploited, which I think a lot
of us always assumed that every profit opportunity in the
world has already been exploited and taken. That's exactly it.
(12:48):
You know, I've gone too in business school and the
others are going to their Morgan Stanley or there there
Arthur Anderson for summer internships, and I'm out driving a truck.
I mean, this is this moment. And as I was,
I got an apartment in Davis and I lived there
for ten years. And my friends, which I still love
today and not say facetiously, but they got married to
(13:09):
a very nice ladies and they got their homes and
the nice cars and not living an apartment, living on
six thousand dollars a year. But you know you're driving
your passion, and in some houses it was all fine,
seemed a reality of Holley world really works. That's where
the opportunities are. Yeah, I mean everyone around you was
telling you that tomato paste is a Bye product and
(13:30):
that it's garbage, and you're seeing that you can build
an entire industry on this. Did you feel like the
crazy person at the time. No. I never felt it
was a crazy person. But when you get passionate about something,
it's just it's just push, push, push, and you're driving
too what your passion is and other people saying this
isn't this, But you just keep going and you're finding
you're leading yourself through these paths of resistance and opportunity
(13:53):
and finally that it opens up into an opportunity. Even
when I was building the plant, I designed each one
of the plants. I worked directly with the dutchal engineers,
civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and then worked with the contractors directly.
So I was basically the general contractor. And I'm whatever,
thirty two years old or something, but building the plants,
(14:15):
it's like no fear. You don't have any interfere When
you're young and you haven't gotten much of steak. So
you're just plowing ahead now if you don't listen to
people at all, Because I there's a few mistakes I've made,
and if I have listened to the people around me,
I've been better off. But on the other an, if
I listened every around me from day one and since then,
I never had the successes that I had. So it's
a balancing act on how much advice you take, how
(14:37):
much you listen to the people you need to listen,
but you know, give us some thought, consider those issues
and deal with them. So I'm too young to remember
a world where tomato paste wasn't valuable. Was tomato paste
not used in as many products back then? So historically then,
certainlyties and forties. In nineteen fifties, you harvest tomatoes, they
(15:00):
were put in the containers, they were brought to the
factory and they were unloaded, and then you process them
and make the catch up the pizza sauce. You're putting
the finished products into the final container right there during
the day in California. So what happened was the technology
and the change in geography and other elements brought to
bear the opportunity to make balk tomato paste efficiently, high quality,
(15:25):
to make the tomato paste in California, ship it to
the East coast Midwest where their consumers were, and did
make the finished product year round. So all that equipment
that was used and now already had the quality control
people manufacttion people could work year round making finished products
instead of just in a three month period in California.
So it's a transformation in the manufacturing method to make
(15:47):
the finished products. And that's the waves that that I
wrote to some degree that caused to happen. So do
you think your story would be possible today considering the
way California is and the way the world is today,
It certainly is possible. In fact that that's a strategy
that that we're following right now is to look for
those same opportunities as far as meat driving a truck
(16:07):
as an individual and starting out that way. That's definitely
tougher because the more regulations inhibit the smaller folks from
getting going. And I think he's look at the statistics
over the last twenty thirty years. There's all of us
excitement and and and about entrepreneurship and schools and all
of that's exciting because you've got the Elon Musk out
there and Steve Jobs and and what they've done. So
(16:30):
that's all the publicity is there. But the reality is
there's fewer small businesses starting, there's fewer entrepreneurs out there.
Whether what's causing that, whether that's the change in the
culture of how human beings are reared from home, and
whether it's the culture of everybody's a winner now and
and the self esteem movement which went backwards. I think
(16:50):
whether people have that same opportunity. I don't want to
call it guts or not, but it's just there's a
confluence of characteristics and situations which allow someone to take
advantage of the or to pursue these opportunities. So there's
character like, you know, you have the opportunity to do it,
You've got the drive to do what you might say
this self confidence to continue on to you know, live
(17:14):
in an apartment I think on six thousand dollars a year,
while are your friends are having their nice lives and
very professional incomes and professional status to do that. And
then there's the economic and social environment that allows you
actually to start something up and grow, which more regulations
of how to do things uh, inhibit that capability. Do
you feel respected as a business leader in your state? No,
(17:39):
I don't because I'm just an introverted person. I don't
live for raining publicity whatsoever. So I don't know which
you mean by respect the person in the stakes about
a statewide or even a citywide personality. So I'm a
ten out of ten extrovert. So you've probably noticed that
about me virtually already as an introvert. How do you
(17:59):
lead a company that's so large? And how do you
how do you balance your own personality with being the leader?
A few years ago, it was very interesting I read
an article and it made a differentiation between shy and introvert,
and I always equated it too, but it described shy
as a social disease. Well, that of course threw me
(18:20):
back how to think about that? But I think there's
truth to that. But introversion extroversion is a question where
you get your energy to where the intra energy from
other people as an extrovert, or you get your energy
from more of you know, being alone and thinking and
studying things. So and you need a mix for a
good company, You really need a mix because there's a
(18:41):
balance there and the introvert will miss things and the
extrovert will miss things. So you need a good balance,
uh to to have a larger company. But O bringing enterprise,
I it's just being a person and I don't see
any difference. I think it's more of a it's just
natural in a sense. If you're passionate about what you
want to do, and other people can pick that up
and then they're attracted to the situation that you that
(19:04):
you're developing, then you all get together and make things happen.
So it's uh, I don't see a leader is not
necessarily want to just talk talk talk. But you're you're
you're you've got an example. You're setting an example of
the passion and direction for which you want achieving an enterprise.
For me, a leader someone comes up with ideas one
and number two takes the initiative to make things happen.
(19:24):
So let's talk about initiative. A lot of times, big
organizations like yours have a lot of rules written and unwritten,
and they have management practices, and they have a culture,
and they have a hierarchy and they have a chain
of command. Your approach to these management practices is very unique.
Can you tell me more about that. Yes, so we
have a hierarchy too. There's hierarchies everywhere. If you think
(19:48):
about it, when you're in ten, twelve, fourteen years old,
if you're gonna go to play baseball, there evolves a
natural hierarchy. We need two teams, right, so you'll be
the captain on this team to give the captain on
this team of that that just evolved the recognition and
it may not be the best player. It could be
the extrovert that the ones who's the talking more and
the ones who who's more friendly with folks, they become
(20:09):
the leader. Depends on the situation and what you're what
you're doing. I believe in a natural hierarchy. We call
it a circumstantial and dynamic. So if it's baseball and
these folks evolved to be the leaders in baseball. But
then another day you're out there and you and you're
you're just inside it's raining and you and you look
around and you're playing chess, Well who's going to be
(20:30):
the leader there? They start playing in song, so a
different person and to opening kind of winner and these
the winner halts of time. Well, they get respect and
leadership capability from your capability there. So it depends on
what the issue is in a company, and there's lots
of issues when whether it's sales, whether it's finance, where
there's manufacturing, technology, engineering, all these different aspects of a company,
(20:55):
which there's hundreds that where people have an opportunity be
the leader. And so it's an it's a natural evolution
in our in our enterprise, versus a dictated or programmed hierarchy.
Well that sounds like an organic tomato, right. You're not
throwing pested by it on it, you know you're not.
You're trying to just let people do what they do naturally.
(21:18):
When I was reading about you, Chris, I kind of
do that with my own employees. I just didn't realize
that that was a philosophy. I always tell them what
title do you want? What do you do best? I'm
not going to force you to do something that you're
not good at. That would be horrific. On a personal level,
I can barely add, Chris, So if you put me
in accounting, I would probably be a disaster. But I
(21:39):
can give you, you you know, an extemporaneous speech in front
of a room full of reporters. No problems. So we
all have our core competencies, don't we Right, Yeah, that's
the key is trying to recognize that, and not everybody
recognize it themselves. But if they're giving some freedom to
move around, they'll find their their core competency. If you
(22:00):
allow the organization to to float and be flexible, and
the people who then have more decision capability, they can
find that that spot more likely. And maybe it's a
ten or modification of what you thought their contribution would
be going into the situation. But if you can make
a fire or ten percent switch and people are happier
by that's a big win. But Chris, unfortunately this sounds
(22:24):
like the exact opposite of the way the world has
run today, whether it's corporate or government. And I don't
want to pick on a certain sector. Is like, we
have these change management consultants that we pay ump teen dollars.
A bunch of my friends work in this industry and
they live in much nicer apartments than I do, and
they come into an organization like yours and they tell you, Chris,
you're bad. You're making this tomato paste bad, your employees
(22:47):
are bad, your distribution is bad. Here's a million dollar
report that we wrote about how you're bad and how
you should change and how you know you're doing everything wrong.
But then we're not going to do anything of it.
And then and they take that report, throw it in
the trash can, and then nothing ever changes. And I'm
describing this for both government and the private sector. Why
is it like that? That's that's a big question, and
(23:10):
it's just a big guest on everybody's part and mine also.
And you know, the consultant thing is is is a
weird thing. I'm not sure how that the folks that
become consultants actually get there, because either be a professor
in writing books like a consultant, or be a consultant.
But for some reason, if I've got a thought on
how some should work, I want to make it work.
If the consultants had come in, I just can't help
(23:30):
to think they can't do that, they can't make it happen.
Something's different general management consultants that unless you get involved,
really and you actually worked in a facility work with
these people, it's hard to believe from my perspectives that
their advice can be as spot on as it would
appear they would like it to appear. Well, So there's
(23:52):
a whole industry in Washington with these consultants, and governments
are very complex, right, you run a company, but government
in some ways is even more complex than private companies
because they don't have a bottom line. And this consulting
class seems to run Washington well on that score in government,
and the same thing with a lot of foundations and
(24:13):
charities when you got to watch out. There's no bottom line,
there's no did we do good? Or do we not
do good? How do you know? It's a it's a guess,
so we think it did good. You know you did
good or not. If you put a product on the
shelf and it sells, if you manufacture a product and
it gets to a distribution and it sells. Where people
(24:35):
have their own dollars which they worked hard for and
they're willing to sacrifice their dollars that they are from
their work to purchase this item. That's proof and putting
on whether it's worthwhile or not. But in government, we
did these things and there's there's there's no measure. So
it's very easy then for co consultants who can talk
(24:55):
well and and right well frankly, and they're smart, and
so they can come up with logic for everything. I know,
when when you're a little kid, you know, you get
to be three, you are now a lawyer. You your daddy, mommy,
daddy says, why did you do that? Why did you
throw all that ketchup on the new wall. It was
just kind of there's a reason, but it's but you know,
(25:18):
it's the same as when you go to court and
it's well, why did you kill those three people? As
a reason that is it worthwhile or not? So the
consults in compent and philosophies, they're sophisticated and they give
a good reason for things. And if you don't have
a bottom line though, you can rationalize anything. We're gonna
(25:40):
take a quick break here, be right back, Chris. You've
seen a lot of changes over in your neck of
the woods, and you're in an industry that depends on
the earth, and you know a lot of environmental problems
in California, specifically water, adverse weather events, regulation. You're operating
in a how a tax, high regulation state and additially
(26:02):
in a state with a lot of environmental problems. So
how have you found a way to you know, continue
to thrive and support your employees and keep control amidst
You know California is a big chaotic well, it would
appear to be chaotic in one sense. And the environmental
issues have the states that whether or what not, has
(26:23):
not changed much at all. As far as water issues,
you you've got again people without a bottom line. Growers
have put a value on water, citizens put a value
on water. But the environmentals and everybody's environmentalist, frankly, I
have I want a clean environment. Who does not want
a clean environment? That's stupid. Everybody wants a clean environment.
(26:44):
Everyone's clean water, clean air, etcetera, etcetera. But if you
restrict the flow of people's capabilities to work together, then
you get disruptions. So I have a and others have
a phrase to nature gives us may be more or
less water, but government creates the shortage. Prices go up
when there's a shortage. The prices going up cause things
(27:08):
to happen in society. Where people now conserve that resource
use other resources, and the people with are experiencing a
very high price, they're encouraged to expand to provide more.
It's a very good process if you allow the economy
to work. Capitalism is simply as the free trade of
goods and services. So when you interrupt that opportunity for
(27:30):
human beings to solve problems, particularly at a local level
where they really understand the issues, then you throw regulations
on top of something that's supposed to be good for everybody,
but it's never good for everybody. There is no average,
and there's people's values are all over the map. They
do make decisions for all of us and throw these
regulations on and that inhibits the capability of him beings
(27:54):
to solve problems. So that's the biggest issue that we've got.
And a perfect example is a few years ago the
Good Eat two Shoes pass a law to say that
everybody deserves three days sickly, okay, fine, sounds good. We're
processing tomatoes in about five years ago, and it's a
lot of into place. I'm getting calls and I'm talking
(28:15):
to folks of the faculties and we've got so many
people calling in sick. So we're here at the end
of the season having tent of our workforce not showing
up for work. And we've got harvesting people, trucking people,
processing people. And if in a fifty of truck drivers
don't show up, we can't harvest those tomatoes, and we
can't process them even if there's all the harvesting people
(28:37):
in the processing people show up. Well, then you got
to the process of people didn't show up. Why, Well,
they're all taking this freebeat that was given and they're
not sick, but they're calling in sick. So now they're
expanding that a few more days, I guess. And so
it's disrupting our operations in a way, which is is tough.
It's very very unfortunate because poor people pay off for
(28:59):
all of us because the cost of operations goes up,
our efficiencies go down, costs go up, prices go up,
and very unfortunately what happens is that people think, well,
business is paying for that. The business is an abstraction
people pay for it. So the prices go up of
tomato sauce or shoes or cars. Someone who's will to
(29:20):
do At this point in my life, I'm booked up
for material goodies. But you know, there's a lot of
people that are not in like people, and particularly there's
probably ten people you call it poor. And if that
costs of tomato sauce, the extra cost ten percent of
the goods and services, they now can consume ten percent
(29:42):
less real stuff. You deal with it as a business person,
you're just dealing with it. Me personally, I look at
it some of more philosophically and take that approach and
what's going on long term here with this regulations, what's
happening and how's the structure or society going. So we
all want to be good for everybody and and do
good things and help people, especially people that are under
(30:03):
the weather and and have a tough time and under
privileged folks. That's important. But the folks that are trying
to do that, to try and to do in the
short term and the long term, it hurts. But when
people start talking about zero carbon in twenty years, and
I'm looking at it from a scientific perspective and a
business perspective, but physically how I don't see how this
(30:25):
is going to happen. We're putting in like forty eight
charging stations at this hotel for Tesla Tesla stations it
being used. At the same time is the same electricity
for one of our major factories. It's amazing. So now
thinking of how they're going to distribute this amount of
electricity for everybody's home that has an electric car. It's humandous.
(30:48):
Do you want to talk about environmental issues and sites?
The wires that cables, the amount of electricity it's gonna
have to run through every neighborhood is startling. I don't
think that politicians are seeing anywhere near down the road
to reality on what's going to happen here or what's
gonna take for this happen. I'm looking at and saying,
no way. So we deal with the regulations as any
(31:10):
of dissent person with We just plow through. I mean,
what you're saying, Chris, is a lot of the stuff.
Environmental issues are a lot more complicated. I was an
environmental studies major. There are a lot more complicated that
what it seems to people. It's not just about recycling
or anything. You know, this is infrastructure, this is this
is everything. It's it's our life. We all want to
(31:31):
clean earth and and thank you for mentioning that. But additionally,
you're also pointing to the erosion of the middle class,
which is a major theme in American society, where politicians
of all varieties and all fairness come out and make
these arbitrary rules and someone else has to pay for it,
and typically like you're suggesting it is the middle class
(31:51):
which drops down to the lower wrongs and creates an
ever growing class division in America. And that's to me,
that's a lot of the explanatory variable for our crazy politics.
But that's just me, and I don't know if you
agree with that. Take a look at the actual statistics
on that. And I think the statistics that I see,
(32:14):
your final conclusion is correct. But the actually decreasing middle
class a large factor. That is people moving up to
a wealthier class. So what does happen as a commies
in Chile has gone through this the last fifty years now,
and I think you see I see this in society's
left and right. You get a system of good values.
(32:36):
Call those good values to the old basic honest, hard work,
respecting other human beings type of values, and you give
that and you have a quote a capitalist society or
free society. Again, capitalism is simply the free exchange of
goods and services. Capitalism is not a business. So business
(32:56):
is business, and capitalism gets a bad name only because
there are some bad businessmen, and so business has some
cheaters like any other game, and so they get a
bad name for business. And then of course, businessmen going
to government subsidies and favors gives business some businessmen and
then business a bad reputation, but then goes onto into
(33:17):
the concept of capitalism. Capitalism is simply the free exchange
of goods and services. Who would be against that? That too?
Human beings can actually relate to each other voluntarily, nobody.
So we evolved to a society of these values, and
things just take off. The seventeen hundreds, the eighteen hundreds
(33:37):
in America, and of course getting into the nineteen hundreds,
phenomenal growth, growth, not just economically at all, but it
sports and culture, every everything, and are just flourishes, chillions,
and there's a dictator whatnot Allende or something like that
(33:58):
got taken out and he was replaced Mr Pinochet, and
Pinochet brought in the professors from the University of Chicago,
including Milton Friedman, to set up a free market economy. Right,
And so did you think from seventy five to the
year two thousand, things just exploded and been great? This
is an economy takes off, and so the poor people, frankly,
(34:19):
if you look at the statistics, their standard living doubles,
doubts and if you want to study it. Really around
the world, the countries that have the more capitalist societies
have fewer quote rich compared to the average. There's a
there's less of a spread. You go to South Africa,
in the UH these other countries, there's in Mexico there's
(34:42):
the richer up here that people owning ten percent of
the wealth is a higher proportion of society. So you
have the economy growing. And what happens, though, is that
the wealthier people, the people that are now are free,
the entrepreneurs that happen taking nantacy opportunities, and they go
from you know, ex to why they're like their standard
living goes out, that's fine, but they start writing, you know,
they get a masserati or they see the rolls Royce's
(35:04):
driving around and so then that gives an opportup for
some people in our society to look to talk to
the poor in a democracy, talk to the poort and
say you're getting screwed. Look at these rich people here
and even though they're understanding living went up two three times,
you're getting screwed. So in a relative sense, they can
point to a few people you know today it's you
(35:25):
know Ellen and and the Jeff bezosaid went out that
they have these billions of dollars, and so they can
point to those few people, very few people, and and
talk to the poor and and say you're getting screwed.
It's a simple solution here, Take from the rich, give
to the poor. And that's a certification that you mentioned there.
And so that does occur. But in fact people lose
(35:48):
the site the fact that the poor people made out
the best relative to anybody else in this in a
relative standard living improvements. And then you get then you
get that, well, we've got to help the poor. And
then some of the rich people, particularly in America, like
the movie stars. You know, how how would you like
to be just a twenty two year old beautiful eighty
(36:09):
and you you're you're now a model, and you're earning
a million dollars a year and you went to college
with eighty or something but years beautiful and you're earning
his big bucks. And of course they're thinking, well, gosh,
I'm earning so much money in these poor people, I mean,
I should give it away. I don't problem with taxation,
but they don't understand what what wealth does, and it
supports the poor and supports your standard living. So you
(36:31):
go through this this cycle where now you've got socialists
basically coming in and getting elected in a democracy, and
then your growth rate goes down. You see that in
child today the last ten twenty years they moved to
more of a socialist regime. So that's going on. So
you know, when do people get, you know, wise up
to this and catch this. But over the now you
take the perspective of thousands of years, hundreds of years,
(36:53):
and we have continually gone up and then doubt and
we go up as we's reh the reinstalled. We visit
on our values and the way we should work together
as human beings, you know, freely working together, voluntarily, working together,
respecting it to each other's bodies and the property. And
then the economy goes up and the culture goes up,
(37:14):
and then you get this spread again and then then
that these people don't understand what capitalistm is. They understand
the philosophy involved. It's not it's not being taught two
people in schools as much anymore. So we lose the
understanding of the basis of our prosperity. And that's not
just economic, it's culture, it's human respect. The whole follow
(37:36):
acts from arts to sports to business. We flourish and
then somehow we we forget that and we go down again.
So do we can? And we usually catch ourselves before
we burn so hopefully we can catch ourselves again before
we before America can burn up. Well, well, Chris, I'll
tell you it's not lost on my family. My husband's
(37:57):
from Mexico, he's right over the border from where you are,
and my families from Cuba. So we we have a
very recent reminder of how things are in those countries
which are clearly not respectful of private property and innovation
and just the general philosophy as you're mentioning of capitalism.
So this idea that uh, you know, it's getting forgotten.
(38:18):
I agree with you, but there are some of us
out there who are wildly aware of, you know, the
way things should be versus the way things are. Yeah,
and uh, we get comfortable and regardless of whether we're
we're very, very poor, and now we get an i'll
beat up boatswagon to dry around instead of a donkey, uh,
or or we go from a Chevy to a Cadillac
(38:39):
whatever is, it's all relative and we get used to
this and that we get comfortable. But there's there's some
rock hard values that are that are in place for
us to flourish. And for me, it's it's it's what
I call human respect, respecting each other's bodies and respecting
each other's property. We do that, and then you let
(39:01):
people pursue their happiness, great things happen. It's like magic. Well,
you know, I just wish more of our political class
had that idea that less and more and small is beautiful,
you know, and the philosophy of freedom means that exactly
what you're saying, Chris, which is respect, and that's something
that everyone understands. So big things to all of you
(39:26):
as we follow the profit, and I can't I have
no words for Chris Rooper. I mean, inspirational is what
I would say. And I'm not just saying that. I
interview people for a living. Chris has a lot of
great insight, and you know, I wish more people ran
their businesses like Chris. And I evidently run my own
small businesses like Chris, and was unaware until I interviewed him.
(39:49):
So thank you for showing me more about myself as
I try to follow the profit. And of course I
would be amiss not to mention all the people that
help me with this podcast, and Miliano Lemons, Dot Handler,
Cheyenne Read and everyone else around me, and of course
the titans that have made this happen. Executive producer Knew
Gingrich and Debbie Myers. I'm your host, David Grasso. I
(40:11):
read your reviews. I'm interested in what you have to
say about the show. Give us five stars and I'll
check it out, or give me one star and I'll
also check it out. Follow the Prophet is a production
of Gingwidge three six I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, where I get my podcast or wherever you
get your podcasts. All opinions expressed by David Grasso and
(40:41):
his guests on the show are solely their opinions and
do not reflect the opinions of Gingwich three sixty or affiliates,
and may have been previously disseminated by David Grasso on
this podcast, television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should
not treat any opinion expressed by David grass so as
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follow in particular strategy, but only as an expression of
(41:03):
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considers reliable, but neither ging Ridge Productions nor its affiliates
and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it
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(41:25):
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Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither David
Grasso nor ging Ridge three sixty guarantees any specific outcome
or profit. You should be aware of the real risk
(41:45):
of loss in following any strategy or investment discussed on
this website or on the show. Strategies or investments discussed
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This material does not take into account your particular investment
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(42:07):
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Follow the Profit is a production of Gingwich three sixty
and I Heart Radio. So the job market is inching
back to normal, but some analysts say workers in certain
fields have some amazing bargaining power to craft the job
they want. But for some employees, they say that is
not enough and they are taking the big jump to
(00:20):
start their own business or downshift their hectic work life.
The main driver for that, well, you only live once.
Plus tomatoes or tomatoes, I don't say tomato no matter
how you say it. It's big business and our next
guests created the lead tomato processor in the world. But
it's really his business and the way he runs it
and also his general worldview that really grabs my attention.
(00:44):
And he's running a billion dollar company, but he also
has some fascinating insights into the world today and where
we're going. He's going to join us and tell us
all about that. I'm David Grasso, and this is Following
the Profit. You're looking to get rich quick, Well, this
(01:08):
isn't your podcast. Today. We're gonna talk about tomatoes, management
and capitalism. You're gonna get to see the connection and
when you listen to Follow the profet, we kind of
deconstruct what's going on in the world around us, and
really you have to understand the world around you if
you want to make your money work for you. And
on that note, Yolo, what a gen Z word, right?
(01:30):
You only live once. I feel like a lot of
boomers are living by that philosophy these days. And a
lot of people will go back to the year of
two thousand and eleven and one of my favorite rappers, Drake,
and they say that that's where it comes from. Others
say it originated back in nine when I was in
seventh grade, from the name of a ranch belonging to
the Grateful Dead, or it might be a reference to
(01:52):
a German play from seventeen seventy four called Clave Eagle.
Either way, it's the general mindset that really is everywhere today.
Screw it, seize the day, trust little in tomorrow. You
only live once. And that's what a number of people
have been saying when it comes to COVID. Yeah, I've
kind of done that. The type of person I'm talking
(02:14):
about are people like me. They're millennials who have weathered
the pandemic with endless zoom meetings, of which I am
currently on one right now. Hours and hours of using
the peloton and figuring out what to cook because we're
so damn bored that we're cooking. They are the ones.
We are the ones rather who are able to save
(02:34):
money while working at home, and we're watching, if we're
lucky enough to own our own homes, watching the values
of our assets rise, and that cushiness has made us
all thing. Maybe I can take a risk, Maybe I
can have a new career, endeavor side projects, start a business.
But you know, suddenly lately we're seeing life come back
(02:57):
to normal. Right. There's less COVID, more people are willing
to get the vaccine, and people are getting back to business.
But there's a certain group that never wants to go
back to the old world. They never want to go
back to the office, the nine to five, the rat race.
They would rather quit than go back to that. I
think it might be one of those people like my friend.
He's a thirty something, your old attorney, and you know,
(03:19):
he's done the whole nine to five thing. He lives
for five minutes from his office, and uh, I don't
know if that's really sustainable in his life, are desirable?
I think he views work differently now. Maybe he wants
a family, maybe he wants some work life balance, maybe
he doesn't want to just play office every day. I
feel like a lot of people are in that position.
(03:40):
I know I am, And then there's people like me, reporters,
that we went from doing nothing to doing everything to
doing nothing because we're freelancers. Well, maybe we now see
other ways to get freelance work. Maybe our work isn't
so restricted to one area now, maybe we see that
there's other profit opportunities, not just in our area of expertise,
(04:02):
and that the nature of work has changed, and that
our clientele is now geographically distributed. So it really doesn't
matter where you live or what you do. You can
kind of do anything. And you know, even if you're
a corporate person, you're dreading that email that comes into
your inbox and says you've got to come back to
work at that glass building that's either downtown or in
(04:23):
suburban nowhere land. And you know, most of us are
kind of over that. That was the stupid world, driving
an hour to then squeeze in an hour for some
overpriced bad lunch. Maybe we're more interested in working from
the Caribbean, or you know, maybe we're more interested in
cryptocurrency and how you know, maybe we can make our
money work for us, or maybe we're interested in politics,
(04:46):
maybe one of our friends. You know, a lot of
us are coming of age as millennials. I have a
friend here running for judge and I support him. Right,
maybe I'm more interested in that than being in some
suburban glass bubble that you know isn't quite interesting nor
really fundamentally productive or accommodative to human nature. So businesses
understand that the pandemic change docs and the pandemic really
(05:08):
changed business as well. So they're trying to figure out,
especially corporate people, how do we keep people around. But
employees have more bargaining power now. The baby boomers, a
lot of people who are parents are retiring, and remote
work is kind of normal. And if CEOs think that
they could just have everyone come back to the office
(05:29):
if nothing happened and nothing has changed, they are clearly delusional.
A lot of workers like the change. You know, it
was a little lonely during the pandemic, but the flexibility
was great. Employees really saw who their bosses really were
as they dealt with this insane world that we call one.
(05:49):
And the more workers felt like a cog in the
wheel and number statistic. The more they started their own businesses,
or maybe they took on side hobbies that they genuinely
in woid Maybe if they stopped caring so much about money,
because the little assets that they bought before the pandemic
are worth that much more. And you really saw who
your overlords were during these problems. Everyone's character was just
(06:13):
made perfectly clear. And you can't unwring that bell. You
can't make people go back to the old world because
that no longer exists. So to the corporate titans of
America and to the dreamers and doers who are at
the very top, which include my next guest, the world
has changed. And my guests understands that and understood that
(06:38):
prior to the pandemic. But there are a lot of
people who are woefully unaware that they're not as powerful
as they were prior to the pandemic. And if they
don't engage their employees, freelancers, contractors, consultants and understand that
the game has changed while they risk being left behind.
(07:02):
We're gonna take a quick break here, be right back,
so as you know, we call this podcast follow the
profit well for a moment we're gonna call it follow
the bobo, which means in French it's earth apple. In
Italian it's actually golden apple. But it's actually funny because
(07:23):
tomatoes are actually from the America's right. They're not vegetables.
First of all, there are fruit, they're technically berries, if
you want to get super specific. And tomatoes are actually
from what we know today is Mexico. The Aztecs called
them tomatos, and that in their language meant fat water
thing with naval And when the Spanish, you know, showed
up in the fifteen hundreds and met the Aztecs, they
(07:45):
returned to Europe with these things, these red things, and
over the centuries the pronunciation kind of change. And in
the ninet thirties there was a musical debate around this
with the original song lyric you say tomato, I say tomato,
which you know, some people say potato, potato, but I
don't think anyone says potato. But the tomato itself, which
(08:09):
has come to be a mainstay in our way of life,
but was part of the Colombian exchange. Remember, back in Europe,
there were no tomatoes before the Spanish colonized Mexico, So
it actually went backwards. It's like chocolate and tobacco. So
the tomato itself could be finicky to grow, but it's
affordable and it could yield a lot of produce. And
for our next guest, the tomato is the thing that's everything.
(08:31):
His life is one big tomato. He's the founder of
morning Star Company, and they supply get this forty per
cent of the US industrial tomato, paste and dice tomato markets,
and they're also the global leader and tomato processing. Chances
are if you like tomatoes, or if you're like me,
I don't like specific tomatoes, but I like all tomato products. Yeah,
(08:52):
catch up, sauceampasta, etcetera. It probably came from morning Star.
So the other thing about morning Star, it's diff fringe.
It's not your typical company. There's a reason why they
do things well. Morning Star doesn't have really managers or bosses,
just colleagues. And some say a method probably works in
a small company, but morning Star actually has six hundred employees,
(09:14):
thousands of seasonal workers, and makes close to a billion
dollars annually, so definitely not small tomatoes or potatoes or
whatever you want to call it. Well, how does this
all work? And who's here to unpack this all, Well,
none other than Chris Ruffer joining me today from Sacramento, California.
Chris Ruffer, how you doing today? Great? I'm just fine.
(09:36):
So tell me about your history. How did you come
to encounter the tomato? What is your background? Well, I'll
tell you about background, and I'm very impressed with your research. Done,
a really good job, and you caught the point that
the tomatoes are fruit and not a vegetable. As far
as starting whatnot. I grew up in a family where
I'm seeing my grandfather doing something. My father worked for
my grandfather, and I always just pictured. I would just
(09:57):
go through the same steing like on a farm, working
with my father being around him a little bit. And
he drove a truck and a friend of his hauled
tomatoes from merced where I grew up. I graduated high
school and and hauld of down to Orange County where
my father had moved. So I just got an idea
for a summer job. So I rented a truck. My
(10:19):
father said, you can't rent a truck that big in
that day, and I went and talked through the big
truckers who worked for the processors, and you become a
sub holler. So again I rent a truck friend and
some trailers and butts some equipment. Had very little money
persually zero. I think I got a loan for two
thousand dollars my dad signed for and I went to
hauling tomatoes. And from that and you start seeing how
(10:39):
the world works. It's disappointing to me. There had a
lot of kids and folks in high school or college
don't do these internships because they've reality already got their
life planned out for them in a way that they're
searching already, and then they're going to be some intern
of some such. I went and drove a truck. So
that's a lovely job, apparently do you think it is?
But you get to see the world, and so I
saw how how things were working. This curiosity. You could
(11:02):
see the growers, what do you do in the field,
and you go to the factory and it works in
a certain way. I would tour the factories, get kicked
out to get on the growers, harvesters. It's just inquiring,
justin I think it's a sense of curiosity. And eventually
getting out of out of college a few degrees, so
I had some time there and drove a truck on
the Sumwich for five years, got an NBA from U
(11:23):
C l A. I never interviewed for a job. I
moved up to Davis and continuing to research some ideas
I had, and that that evolved to working for a
fellow in the industry who was a grower but you
known part of obtain to processing plant and did harvesting
and trucks, and so I got to see more than
the reality of how the industry worked and continue to
work on my ideas. Spent all my spare time trying
(11:44):
to advance what I thought would be a tomato processing facility,
which was at the time tomato pase was known as
a by product. And whether you're talking to bankers and
people in industry investors, this is just a by product.
You can't make money at that. It's stupid it but
all my research showed that was a meaningful product. About
twenty of the industry tomatoes went into bolk tomato face.
(12:07):
When I put the numbers together on with the prices
had been and with the cost structure I thought would be,
there was a substantial difference there profit opportunity, and so
I continue to pursue that and find a raising money
to build a factory. So I guess where my brain goes, Chris,
is that a lot of people in your social position
at the time probably would have thumbed their noses at
what they would have considered blue collar work. But through
(12:28):
this blue collar work you kind of found a market opportunity.
You kept on going down the tomato trail, and then
suddenly you figured out that there was this massive market
opportunity that was completely unexploited, which I think a lot
of us always assumed that every profit opportunity in the
world has already been exploited and taken. That's exactly it.
(12:48):
You know, I've gone too in business school and the
others are going to their Morgan Stanley or there there
Arthur Anderson for summer internships, and I'm out driving a truck.
I mean, this is this moment. And as I was,
I got an apartment in Davis and I lived there
for ten years. And my friends, which I still love
today and not say facetiously, but they got married to
(13:09):
a very nice ladies and they got their homes and
the nice cars and not living an apartment, living on
six thousand dollars a year. But you know you're driving
your passion, and in some houses it was all fine,
seemed a reality of Holley world really works. That's where
the opportunities are. Yeah, I mean everyone around you was
telling you that tomato paste is a Bye product and
(13:30):
that it's garbage, and you're seeing that you can build
an entire industry on this. Did you feel like the
crazy person at the time. No. I never felt it
was a crazy person. But when you get passionate about something,
it's just it's just push, push, push, and you're driving
too what your passion is and other people saying this
isn't this, But you just keep going and you're finding
you're leading yourself through these paths of resistance and opportunity
(13:53):
and finally that it opens up into an opportunity. Even
when I was building the plant, I designed each one
of the plants. I worked directly with the dutchal engineers,
civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and then worked with the contractors directly.
So I was basically the general contractor. And I'm whatever,
thirty two years old or something, but building the plants,
(14:15):
it's like no fear. You don't have any interfere When
you're young and you haven't gotten much of steak. So
you're just plowing ahead now if you don't listen to
people at all, Because I there's a few mistakes I've made,
and if I have listened to the people around me,
I've been better off. But on the other an, if
I listened every around me from day one and since then,
I never had the successes that I had. So it's
a balancing act on how much advice you take, how
(14:37):
much you listen to the people you need to listen,
but you know, give us some thought, consider those issues
and deal with them. So I'm too young to remember
a world where tomato paste wasn't valuable. Was tomato paste
not used in as many products back then? So historically then,
certainlyties and forties. In nineteen fifties, you harvest tomatoes, they
(15:00):
were put in the containers, they were brought to the
factory and they were unloaded, and then you process them
and make the catch up the pizza sauce. You're putting
the finished products into the final container right there during
the day in California. So what happened was the technology
and the change in geography and other elements brought to
bear the opportunity to make balk tomato paste efficiently, high quality,
(15:25):
to make the tomato paste in California, ship it to
the East coast Midwest where their consumers were, and did
make the finished product year round. So all that equipment
that was used and now already had the quality control
people manufacttion people could work year round making finished products
instead of just in a three month period in California.
So it's a transformation in the manufacturing method to make
(15:47):
the finished products. And that's the waves that that I
wrote to some degree that caused to happen. So do
you think your story would be possible today considering the
way California is and the way the world is today,
It certainly is possible. In fact that that's a strategy
that that we're following right now is to look for
those same opportunities as far as meat driving a truck
(16:07):
as an individual and starting out that way. That's definitely
tougher because the more regulations inhibit the smaller folks from
getting going. And I think he's look at the statistics
over the last twenty thirty years. There's all of us
excitement and and and about entrepreneurship and schools and all
of that's exciting because you've got the Elon Musk out
there and Steve Jobs and and what they've done. So
(16:30):
that's all the publicity is there. But the reality is
there's fewer small businesses starting, there's fewer entrepreneurs out there.
Whether what's causing that, whether that's the change in the
culture of how human beings are reared from home, and
whether it's the culture of everybody's a winner now and
and the self esteem movement which went backwards. I think
(16:50):
whether people have that same opportunity. I don't want to
call it guts or not, but it's just there's a
confluence of characteristics and situations which allow someone to take
advantage of the or to pursue these opportunities. So there's
character like, you know, you have the opportunity to do it,
You've got the drive to do what you might say
this self confidence to continue on to you know, live
(17:14):
in an apartment I think on six thousand dollars a year,
while are your friends are having their nice lives and
very professional incomes and professional status to do that. And
then there's the economic and social environment that allows you
actually to start something up and grow, which more regulations
of how to do things uh, inhibit that capability. Do
you feel respected as a business leader in your state? No,
(17:39):
I don't because I'm just an introverted person. I don't
live for raining publicity whatsoever. So I don't know which
you mean by respect the person in the stakes about
a statewide or even a citywide personality. So I'm a
ten out of ten extrovert. So you've probably noticed that
about me virtually already as an introvert. How do you
(17:59):
lead a company that's so large? And how do you
how do you balance your own personality with being the leader?
A few years ago, it was very interesting I read
an article and it made a differentiation between shy and introvert,
and I always equated it too, but it described shy
as a social disease. Well, that of course threw me
(18:20):
back how to think about that? But I think there's
truth to that. But introversion extroversion is a question where
you get your energy to where the intra energy from
other people as an extrovert, or you get your energy
from more of you know, being alone and thinking and
studying things. So and you need a mix for a
good company, You really need a mix because there's a
(18:41):
balance there and the introvert will miss things and the
extrovert will miss things. So you need a good balance,
uh to to have a larger company. But O bringing enterprise,
I it's just being a person and I don't see
any difference. I think it's more of a it's just
natural in a sense. If you're passionate about what you
want to do, and other people can pick that up
and then they're attracted to the situation that you that
(19:04):
you're developing, then you all get together and make things happen.
So it's uh, I don't see a leader is not
necessarily want to just talk talk talk. But you're you're
you're you've got an example. You're setting an example of
the passion and direction for which you want achieving an enterprise.
For me, a leader someone comes up with ideas one
and number two takes the initiative to make things happen.
(19:24):
So let's talk about initiative. A lot of times, big
organizations like yours have a lot of rules written and unwritten,
and they have management practices, and they have a culture,
and they have a hierarchy and they have a chain
of command. Your approach to these management practices is very unique.
Can you tell me more about that. Yes, so we
have a hierarchy too. There's hierarchies everywhere. If you think
(19:48):
about it, when you're in ten, twelve, fourteen years old,
if you're gonna go to play baseball, there evolves a
natural hierarchy. We need two teams, right, so you'll be
the captain on this team to give the captain on
this team of that that just evolved the recognition and
it may not be the best player. It could be
the extrovert that the ones who's the talking more and
the ones who who's more friendly with folks, they become
(20:09):
the leader. Depends on the situation and what you're what
you're doing. I believe in a natural hierarchy. We call
it a circumstantial and dynamic. So if it's baseball and
these folks evolved to be the leaders in baseball. But
then another day you're out there and you and you're
you're just inside it's raining and you and you look
around and you're playing chess, Well who's going to be
(20:30):
the leader there? They start playing in song, so a
different person and to opening kind of winner and these
the winner halts of time. Well, they get respect and
leadership capability from your capability there. So it depends on
what the issue is in a company, and there's lots
of issues when whether it's sales, whether it's finance, where
there's manufacturing, technology, engineering, all these different aspects of a company,
(20:55):
which there's hundreds that where people have an opportunity be
the leader. And so it's an it's a natural evolution
in our in our enterprise, versus a dictated or programmed hierarchy.
Well that sounds like an organic tomato, right. You're not
throwing pested by it on it, you know you're not.
You're trying to just let people do what they do naturally.
(21:18):
When I was reading about you, Chris, I kind of
do that with my own employees. I just didn't realize
that that was a philosophy. I always tell them what
title do you want? What do you do best? I'm
not going to force you to do something that you're
not good at. That would be horrific. On a personal level,
I can barely add, Chris, So if you put me
in accounting, I would probably be a disaster. But I
(21:39):
can give you, you you know, an extemporaneous speech in front
of a room full of reporters. No problems. So we
all have our core competencies, don't we Right, Yeah, that's
the key is trying to recognize that, and not everybody
recognize it themselves. But if they're giving some freedom to
move around, they'll find their their core competency. If you
(22:00):
allow the organization to to float and be flexible, and
the people who then have more decision capability, they can
find that that spot more likely. And maybe it's a
ten or modification of what you thought their contribution would
be going into the situation. But if you can make
a fire or ten percent switch and people are happier
by that's a big win. But Chris, unfortunately this sounds
(22:24):
like the exact opposite of the way the world has
run today, whether it's corporate or government. And I don't
want to pick on a certain sector. Is like, we
have these change management consultants that we pay ump teen dollars.
A bunch of my friends work in this industry and
they live in much nicer apartments than I do, and
they come into an organization like yours and they tell you, Chris,
you're bad. You're making this tomato paste bad, your employees
(22:47):
are bad, your distribution is bad. Here's a million dollar
report that we wrote about how you're bad and how
you should change and how you know you're doing everything wrong.
But then we're not going to do anything of it.
And then and they take that report, throw it in
the trash can, and then nothing ever changes. And I'm
describing this for both government and the private sector. Why
is it like that? That's that's a big question, and
(23:10):
it's just a big guest on everybody's part and mine also.
And you know, the consultant thing is is is a
weird thing. I'm not sure how that the folks that
become consultants actually get there, because either be a professor
in writing books like a consultant, or be a consultant.
But for some reason, if I've got a thought on
how some should work, I want to make it work.
If the consultants had come in, I just can't help
(23:30):
to think they can't do that, they can't make it happen.
Something's different general management consultants that unless you get involved,
really and you actually worked in a facility work with
these people, it's hard to believe from my perspectives that
their advice can be as spot on as it would
appear they would like it to appear. Well, So there's
(23:52):
a whole industry in Washington with these consultants, and governments
are very complex, right, you run a company, but government
in some ways is even more complex than private companies
because they don't have a bottom line. And this consulting
class seems to run Washington well on that score in government,
and the same thing with a lot of foundations and
(24:13):
charities when you got to watch out. There's no bottom line,
there's no did we do good? Or do we not
do good? How do you know? It's a it's a guess,
so we think it did good. You know you did
good or not. If you put a product on the
shelf and it sells, if you manufacture a product and
it gets to a distribution and it sells. Where people
(24:35):
have their own dollars which they worked hard for and
they're willing to sacrifice their dollars that they are from
their work to purchase this item. That's proof and putting
on whether it's worthwhile or not. But in government, we
did these things and there's there's there's no measure. So
it's very easy then for co consultants who can talk
(24:55):
well and and right well frankly, and they're smart, and
so they can come up with logic for everything. I know,
when when you're a little kid, you know, you get
to be three, you are now a lawyer. You your daddy, mommy,
daddy says, why did you do that? Why did you
throw all that ketchup on the new wall. It was
just kind of there's a reason, but it's but you know,
(25:18):
it's the same as when you go to court and
it's well, why did you kill those three people? As
a reason that is it worthwhile or not? So the
consults in compent and philosophies, they're sophisticated and they give
a good reason for things. And if you don't have
a bottom line though, you can rationalize anything. We're gonna
(25:40):
take a quick break here, be right back, Chris. You've
seen a lot of changes over in your neck of
the woods, and you're in an industry that depends on
the earth, and you know a lot of environmental problems
in California, specifically water, adverse weather events, regulation. You're operating
in a how a tax, high regulation state and additially
(26:02):
in a state with a lot of environmental problems. So
how have you found a way to you know, continue
to thrive and support your employees and keep control amidst
You know California is a big chaotic well, it would
appear to be chaotic in one sense. And the environmental
issues have the states that whether or what not, has
(26:23):
not changed much at all. As far as water issues,
you you've got again people without a bottom line. Growers
have put a value on water, citizens put a value
on water. But the environmentals and everybody's environmentalist, frankly, I
have I want a clean environment. Who does not want
a clean environment? That's stupid. Everybody wants a clean environment.
(26:44):
Everyone's clean water, clean air, etcetera, etcetera. But if you
restrict the flow of people's capabilities to work together, then
you get disruptions. So I have a and others have
a phrase to nature gives us may be more or
less water, but government creates the shortage. Prices go up
when there's a shortage. The prices going up cause things
(27:08):
to happen in society. Where people now conserve that resource
use other resources, and the people with are experiencing a
very high price, they're encouraged to expand to provide more.
It's a very good process if you allow the economy
to work. Capitalism is simply as the free trade of
goods and services. So when you interrupt that opportunity for
(27:30):
human beings to solve problems, particularly at a local level
where they really understand the issues, then you throw regulations
on top of something that's supposed to be good for everybody,
but it's never good for everybody. There is no average,
and there's people's values are all over the map. They
do make decisions for all of us and throw these
regulations on and that inhibits the capability of him beings
(27:54):
to solve problems. So that's the biggest issue that we've got.
And a perfect example is a few years ago the
Good Eat two Shoes pass a law to say that
everybody deserves three days sickly, okay, fine, sounds good. We're
processing tomatoes in about five years ago, and it's a
lot of into place. I'm getting calls and I'm talking
(28:15):
to folks of the faculties and we've got so many
people calling in sick. So we're here at the end
of the season having tent of our workforce not showing
up for work. And we've got harvesting people, trucking people,
processing people. And if in a fifty of truck drivers
don't show up, we can't harvest those tomatoes, and we
can't process them even if there's all the harvesting people
(28:37):
in the processing people show up. Well, then you got
to the process of people didn't show up. Why, Well,
they're all taking this freebeat that was given and they're
not sick, but they're calling in sick. So now they're
expanding that a few more days, I guess. And so
it's disrupting our operations in a way, which is is tough.
It's very very unfortunate because poor people pay off for
(28:59):
all of us because the cost of operations goes up,
our efficiencies go down, costs go up, prices go up,
and very unfortunately what happens is that people think, well,
business is paying for that. The business is an abstraction
people pay for it. So the prices go up of
tomato sauce or shoes or cars. Someone who's will to
(29:20):
do At this point in my life, I'm booked up
for material goodies. But you know, there's a lot of
people that are not in like people, and particularly there's
probably ten people you call it poor. And if that
costs of tomato sauce, the extra cost ten percent of
the goods and services, they now can consume ten percent
(29:42):
less real stuff. You deal with it as a business person,
you're just dealing with it. Me personally, I look at
it some of more philosophically and take that approach and
what's going on long term here with this regulations, what's
happening and how's the structure or society going. So we
all want to be good for everybody and and do
good things and help people, especially people that are under
(30:03):
the weather and and have a tough time and under
privileged folks. That's important. But the folks that are trying
to do that, to try and to do in the
short term and the long term, it hurts. But when
people start talking about zero carbon in twenty years, and
I'm looking at it from a scientific perspective and a
business perspective, but physically how I don't see how this
(30:25):
is going to happen. We're putting in like forty eight
charging stations at this hotel for Tesla Tesla stations it
being used. At the same time is the same electricity
for one of our major factories. It's amazing. So now
thinking of how they're going to distribute this amount of
electricity for everybody's home that has an electric car. It's humandous.
(30:48):
Do you want to talk about environmental issues and sites?
The wires that cables, the amount of electricity it's gonna
have to run through every neighborhood is startling. I don't
think that politicians are seeing anywhere near down the road
to reality on what's going to happen here or what's
gonna take for this happen. I'm looking at and saying,
no way. So we deal with the regulations as any
(31:10):
of dissent person with We just plow through. I mean,
what you're saying, Chris, is a lot of the stuff.
Environmental issues are a lot more complicated. I was an
environmental studies major. There are a lot more complicated that
what it seems to people. It's not just about recycling
or anything. You know, this is infrastructure, this is this
is everything. It's it's our life. We all want to
(31:31):
clean earth and and thank you for mentioning that. But additionally,
you're also pointing to the erosion of the middle class,
which is a major theme in American society, where politicians
of all varieties and all fairness come out and make
these arbitrary rules and someone else has to pay for it,
and typically like you're suggesting it is the middle class
(31:51):
which drops down to the lower wrongs and creates an
ever growing class division in America. And that's to me,
that's a lot of the explanatory variable for our crazy politics.
But that's just me, and I don't know if you
agree with that. Take a look at the actual statistics
on that. And I think the statistics that I see,
(32:14):
your final conclusion is correct. But the actually decreasing middle
class a large factor. That is people moving up to
a wealthier class. So what does happen as a commies
in Chile has gone through this the last fifty years now,
and I think you see I see this in society's
left and right. You get a system of good values.
(32:36):
Call those good values to the old basic honest, hard work,
respecting other human beings type of values, and you give
that and you have a quote a capitalist society or
free society. Again, capitalism is simply the free exchange of
goods and services. Capitalism is not a business. So business
(32:56):
is business, and capitalism gets a bad name only because
there are some bad businessmen, and so business has some
cheaters like any other game, and so they get a
bad name for business. And then of course, businessmen going
to government subsidies and favors gives business some businessmen and
then business a bad reputation, but then goes onto into
(33:17):
the concept of capitalism. Capitalism is simply the free exchange
of goods and services. Who would be against that? That too?
Human beings can actually relate to each other voluntarily, nobody.
So we evolved to a society of these values, and
things just take off. The seventeen hundreds, the eighteen hundreds
(33:37):
in America, and of course getting into the nineteen hundreds,
phenomenal growth, growth, not just economically at all, but it
sports and culture, every everything, and are just flourishes, chillions,
and there's a dictator whatnot Allende or something like that
(33:58):
got taken out and he was replaced Mr Pinochet, and
Pinochet brought in the professors from the University of Chicago,
including Milton Friedman, to set up a free market economy. Right,
And so did you think from seventy five to the
year two thousand, things just exploded and been great? This
is an economy takes off, and so the poor people, frankly,
(34:19):
if you look at the statistics, their standard living doubles,
doubts and if you want to study it. Really around
the world, the countries that have the more capitalist societies
have fewer quote rich compared to the average. There's a
there's less of a spread. You go to South Africa,
in the UH these other countries, there's in Mexico there's
(34:42):
the richer up here that people owning ten percent of
the wealth is a higher proportion of society. So you
have the economy growing. And what happens, though, is that
the wealthier people, the people that are now are free,
the entrepreneurs that happen taking nantacy opportunities, and they go
from you know, ex to why they're like their standard
living goes out, that's fine, but they start writing, you know,
they get a masserati or they see the rolls Royce's
(35:04):
driving around and so then that gives an opportup for
some people in our society to look to talk to
the poor in a democracy, talk to the poort and
say you're getting screwed. Look at these rich people here
and even though they're understanding living went up two three times,
you're getting screwed. So in a relative sense, they can
point to a few people you know today it's you
(35:25):
know Ellen and and the Jeff bezosaid went out that
they have these billions of dollars, and so they can
point to those few people, very few people, and and
talk to the poor and and say you're getting screwed.
It's a simple solution here, Take from the rich, give
to the poor. And that's a certification that you mentioned there.
And so that does occur. But in fact people lose
(35:48):
the site the fact that the poor people made out
the best relative to anybody else in this in a
relative standard living improvements. And then you get then you
get that, well, we've got to help the poor. And
then some of the rich people, particularly in America, like
the movie stars. You know, how how would you like
to be just a twenty two year old beautiful eighty
(36:09):
and you you're you're now a model, and you're earning
a million dollars a year and you went to college
with eighty or something but years beautiful and you're earning
his big bucks. And of course they're thinking, well, gosh,
I'm earning so much money in these poor people, I mean,
I should give it away. I don't problem with taxation,
but they don't understand what what wealth does, and it
supports the poor and supports your standard living. So you
(36:31):
go through this this cycle where now you've got socialists
basically coming in and getting elected in a democracy, and
then your growth rate goes down. You see that in
child today the last ten twenty years they moved to
more of a socialist regime. So that's going on. So
you know, when do people get, you know, wise up
to this and catch this. But over the now you
take the perspective of thousands of years, hundreds of years,
(36:53):
and we have continually gone up and then doubt and
we go up as we's reh the reinstalled. We visit
on our values and the way we should work together
as human beings, you know, freely working together, voluntarily, working together,
respecting it to each other's bodies and the property. And
then the economy goes up and the culture goes up,
(37:14):
and then you get this spread again and then then
that these people don't understand what capitalistm is. They understand
the philosophy involved. It's not it's not being taught two
people in schools as much anymore. So we lose the
understanding of the basis of our prosperity. And that's not
just economic, it's culture, it's human respect. The whole follow
(37:36):
acts from arts to sports to business. We flourish and
then somehow we we forget that and we go down again.
So do we can? And we usually catch ourselves before
we burn so hopefully we can catch ourselves again before
we before America can burn up. Well, well, Chris, I'll
tell you it's not lost on my family. My husband's
(37:57):
from Mexico, he's right over the border from where you are,
and my families from Cuba. So we we have a
very recent reminder of how things are in those countries
which are clearly not respectful of private property and innovation
and just the general philosophy as you're mentioning of capitalism.
So this idea that uh, you know, it's getting forgotten.
(38:18):
I agree with you, but there are some of us
out there who are wildly aware of, you know, the
way things should be versus the way things are. Yeah,
and uh, we get comfortable and regardless of whether we're
we're very, very poor, and now we get an i'll
beat up boatswagon to dry around instead of a donkey, uh,
or or we go from a Chevy to a Cadillac
(38:39):
whatever is, it's all relative and we get used to
this and that we get comfortable. But there's there's some
rock hard values that are that are in place for
us to flourish. And for me, it's it's it's what
I call human respect, respecting each other's bodies and respecting
each other's property. We do that, and then you let
(39:01):
people pursue their happiness, great things happen. It's like magic. Well,
you know, I just wish more of our political class
had that idea that less and more and small is beautiful,
you know, and the philosophy of freedom means that exactly
what you're saying, Chris, which is respect, and that's something
that everyone understands. So big things to all of you
(39:26):
as we follow the profit, and I can't I have
no words for Chris Rooper. I mean, inspirational is what
I would say. And I'm not just saying that. I
interview people for a living. Chris has a lot of
great insight, and you know, I wish more people ran
their businesses like Chris. And I evidently run my own
small businesses like Chris, and was unaware until I interviewed him.
(39:49):
So thank you for showing me more about myself as
I try to follow the profit. And of course I
would be amiss not to mention all the people that
help me with this podcast, and Miliano Lemons, Dot Handler,
Cheyenne Read and everyone else around me, and of course
the titans that have made this happen. Executive producer Knew
Gingrich and Debbie Myers. I'm your host, David Grasso. I
(40:11):
read your reviews. I'm interested in what you have to
say about the show. Give us five stars and I'll
check it out, or give me one star and I'll
also check it out. Follow the Prophet is a production
of Gingwidge three six I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, where I get my podcast or wherever you
get your podcasts. All opinions expressed by David Grasso and
(40:41):
his guests on the show are solely their opinions and
do not reflect the opinions of Gingwich three sixty or affiliates,
and may have been previously disseminated by David Grasso on
this podcast, television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should
not treat any opinion expressed by David grass so as
a specific inducement to make a particular invest meant or
follow in particular strategy, but only as an expression of
(41:03):
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considers reliable, but neither ging Ridge Productions nor its affiliates
and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it
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(41:25):
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Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither David
Grasso nor ging Ridge three sixty guarantees any specific outcome
or profit. You should be aware of the real risk
(41:45):
of loss in following any strategy or investment discussed on
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This material does not take into account your particular investment
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(42:07):
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