Sports Nutrition Labels & Quality Control with Untapped CEO Doug Brown #227

Doug Brown is the founder and CEO of Untapped. In this discussion we review how nutrition labels are created and what the quality control process looks like for a nutrition product that is derived from natural components. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Trail and ultra runners.
What is going on?
Welcome to another episode ofthe coop cast.
As always, I am your humblehost, coach jason coop, and on
this episode of the podcast wehave the ceo of untapped doug
brown, and, in light of therecent controversy surrounding
spring energy, I wanted to bringDoug on the podcast because his

(00:28):
products are actually reallygood analogs to what we are
seeing in the community.
He takes, and his company takes, maple syrup and turns them
into all different kinds ofsports nutrition products.
So I wanted to bring Doug onthe podcast today to discuss how
that actually happens, when youhave an inherently invariable
product or a product that doesnot have a lot of homogenous

(00:51):
properties to it, and you turnit into something that at the
end of the day, when the usersactually consume it, it is in
fact a homogenous product thatwe can trust that it contains
what the label actually says itcontains.
We go over that manufacturingprocess where the quality
controls are within thosemanufacturing processes, as well
as how a nutrition labelactually comes to be.

(01:14):
I have always appreciated Doug'sbanter and his friendship.
Over the years he's even put upwith me grilling him over some
of his ingredient decks as theyhave come out with products in
the marketplace and we start outwith a little bit of banter
around that particular subject.
So y'all buckle in.
Here is my conversation withthe CEO of Untappd, doug Brown.

(01:34):
Thanks for having me, jason.
No, I appreciate it.
Man, like there's been so muchkind of emotion, kind of
swirling around the sportsnutrition world, I feel like I
need to produce some contentthat brings everybody back down
to earth and reality a littlebit, and I could think of no
better person than you, sinceyou and I have had really good
interactions in the space.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
But there's been a little bit of emotion between us
too, but that's all that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
That's true, as anybody that I've worked with
for any period of time, I mean.
I always tell it as it is, doug, you remember you and I we
talked about your products,ingredients and things like that
, and where they're coming fromWithin 10 minutes of meeting you
.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I think you were telling me what I do wrong.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's an authentic experience.
Doug, I'm glad you brought thatup, unprompted and unscripted
it.
Unprompted and unscripted.
Okay, before we get too, beforewe go too far down the jovial
lane here and start to just tella lot of personal anecdotes
between you and I, justintroduce yourself to the
audience, like who are you andwhat is your role in Untappd,

(02:38):
and then we'll get into kind ofdescribing Untappd as a company
to kick things off drivinguntapped as a company to kick
things off.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, I am one of the co-founders of slope side syrup
and untapped untapped was anoutgrowth of slope side syrup
that now feels like it's more ofthe main event than slope side
is, though the slope side isstill here.
What do I do here?

Speaker 1 (02:58):
everything from driving the truck and trailer to
events or as I can attest toseeing you at the running event
in Austin.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
We got the trailer back two days ago, and yesterday
I was cleaning out the drinkmachine that we pulled out of
the trailer after being out atunbounded gravel and then up to
product formulation, we finallyhired somebody last year as the
sort of production manager, andso I stepped back from that role
a bit, but up until then I was.

(03:29):
I was the production manager,sales marketing.
I've done it all, and I'mreally fortunate now to be
working with a great team ofabout 10 people that help to do
things better than I did and cando, and so I try to support
that team and fill in where Ican.
I guess by title I am now theCEO, but as a little as with any

(03:55):
, as with any small business,you're also the chief bottle
washing officer as well it seemslike and um so you already you
already went into this.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
One of the things, one of the reasons I wanted to
bring you on, is because you arealso a small business and you
produce sports nutritionproducts from natural sources,
and I think that both of thoseprovide a really good analog for
what we've been discussing inthe ultra running community for
the past several weeks now, withthe spring energy controversy

(04:26):
community, for the past severalweeks now, with the spring
energy controversy, and beforewe get into the manufacturing
piece and nutrition labels andthings like that, which are
going to be the meat of theconversation, what is untapped
and slope side I don't think alot of people know this and it
was really kind of unbeknownstto me until maybe a couple of
years ago in terms of where yourbusiness also plays Describe
those two companies and thedivision between the two, so to

(04:48):
speak.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, Slopeside started as a maple farm in 2010
and sort of bounced along as asmall to medium-sized commercial
maple farm in Vermont for acouple of years, and then we got
into a lot of food servicebusiness and so now the
Slopeside brand is reallyfocused on the food service
business both restaurants,takeout food, subscription boxes

(05:13):
, that sort of thing.
In 2013, we teamed up with TedKing and Andrew Gardner, two
other folks out in the athleticrealm my background is in alpine
skiing, is a Cochran family, isa well-known ski family here in
Vermont and launched Untappedto bring maple syrup to athletes

(05:35):
, and so Untapped is reallyfocused on whole food, clean,
all-natural ingredients andgetting those into the hands of
athletes as a fuel that isbetter for their bodies and
better for the world but yourmaple syrup product, which is
kind of like the core keyingredient, would you?

(05:55):
yes, agree with that.
Like a description carbohydratewe use.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, that product goes into the restaurant
pipeline and it's myunderstanding that snooze is one
of your primary restaurantproviders, correct?
So if I go into any snoozeacross the entire country and I
have a Belgian waffle, yoursyrup?

Speaker 2 (06:16):
is going to be poured on top of it.
Neat is one of the one of thethat usually has it on there.
It is on the menu in everysnooze across the country.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
That's really cool yes, yeah, yeah, really cool,
one of my favorite restaurants,but then you also are using that
same kind of that same coreingredient in sports nutrition
products.
And so what's the lineup ofsports nutrition products that
this, that the maple syrup, thiskind of critical ingredient for
you guys, goes into?

Speaker 2 (06:44):
We started it was just pure maple syrup, so 100
calories about one fluid ounce.
Just a different deliverymechanism You're just putting it
in Just pure maple syrup in asport portable package and when
we launched it was in thatclassic gel packet shape and
we've changed that.
But that core ingredient, justthe pure maple syrup, has

(07:06):
remained the same.
The sugars that are there youknow, the sweetening topping
that we're all used to is sweetbecause it's got sugar in it.
It's a mixture of predominantlysucrose and then glucose and
fructose, which, for thechemists in the audience,
sucrose breaks down into oneglucose and one fructose in your

(07:27):
body.
But some of it's alreadypresent as glucose and fructose
in the syrup.
And then it's also got aminoacids, electrolytes, minerals,
antioxidants.
We're just taking the blood ofthe tree everything the tree
needs to live and boiling itdown.
So it's got a lot of the stuffthat your traditional athletic

(07:47):
nutrition is adding back intothe really heavily processed
stuff that they're putting inthe packet.
We find it's a lot easier onyour stomach, it's easier to get
it down.
It is just pure maple syrup.
So some people find that alittle sweet, but it's a really
great way to get around that.
But you have different sportsnutrition products that are made
from this core maple ingredientright, it's that gel category

(08:14):
is where we started, and thenwe've got a few different
infused maple syrups.
In this gel categories we'vegot five different gels I like
that.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
I like the term infused.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
You're flavoring it yeah, I try to avoid the f word.
You told me I could come on anddrop f-bombs, but the reason I
don't like the word flavor iseven natural flavors.
The food system that we are inis a really strange place, and
so a natural flavoring does notnecessarily have anything to do

(08:48):
with the compound that we'rewith the like.
Natural raspberry flavor doesnot come from raspberries, and
so when we say something isflavored and I don't take your
pick, seltzer, my spin, icecream, whatever it is my mango
orange spin drift that I'mdrinking right now has no mango

(09:09):
or orange in it, drift mightspin drift that's right, mango
puree and orange juice.
There you go, there you go, butso many things.
Where we talk about flavoring,it's it does not contain the
real ingredient, and soeverything we do has the real
stuff in it, and so I really tryto avoid that flavor word
because it connotes somethingdifferent than what we do.

(09:29):
But so we've got the five gels,six different kinds of
Stroopwafel and now five liquidconcentrates for drink mixes,
and all of them primarycarbohydrates, maple syrup we're
not adding in any other sugars,so no maltodextrin, brown rice
syrup, cane sugar none of thatand then really limited

(09:50):
ingredients.
So the gels and the drink mixes, three to four ingredients in
all those, and the waffles.
Obviously you need a little bitmore just to make the structure
of the waffle, but trying toreally limit what we're putting
into our products.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Can you describe, within that ingredient, within
those ingredient lists, whichones are, like your ingredients?
Cause you mentioned the mapletrees, right, you're taking a
lot of the maple trees whichones are the ingredients that
like untapped and slope sidesyrup whatever the proper name
of the company, kind of like ownand is proprietary to them,

(10:26):
versus you're getting from thirdparties?

Speaker 2 (10:28):
So at this point now we're getting everything from
third parties.
We're no longer a farm.
My cousins have taken overrunning the farm that that we
grew from.
I ran it through 2019, but thefood service side had already
grown enough by that point thatwe needed to be working with
other maple producers as well.
And then beyond that, you knowwe don't own an industrial

(10:50):
raspberry farming operation orgrapes or so.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
But you're getting all the maple syrup from this
one family owned farm, or arethere other maple providers kind
of coming in the mix?

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, we've got about three dozen maple farmers we
work with now.
Most of that volume is going tothe food service side, and then
there are three or four farmerswe work with where that syrup
will wind up in the untappedproducts.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Okay, perfect, okay, that's actually really good
context.
Okay, we're going to switchover to how nutrition labels are
born.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, you and I were talking.
No, I brought nothing as a showand tell here.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
That's okay.
That's okay.
We don't need a show and tellon this one.
So once again, we're going toset the food service product
side of it aside for a second.
I think that's really goodbackground that you have these
different channels that theseproducts are kind of going into
and really move over and reallymove over to the sports
nutrition side.
So you have all of thesedifferent products.
It started out as pure maplesyrup and now it's evolved into

(11:55):
infused maple syrup and otherproducts, the drink mix product,
the waffle and things like that.
When you are going through thatdevelopment process, you have
to ultimately determine this isthe macronutrient composition,
this is how many calories, thisis how many carbohydrates.
Everybody is very familiar withthe nutrition facts labels that

(12:16):
are on foods.
Right now, from yourperspective, when you're
developing those products, takethe audience through the steps
that you have to go through toget that nutrition label
produced.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
So I guess, to off the bat, there are supplement
labels as well.
I know nothing about supplementlabels, other than that they're
less regulated than food labels.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Your food product right.
It's a nutrition facts would bethe.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
There are athletic nutrition products that use a
supplement label, the foodnutrition facts labels.
So there are sort of two waysthat you can go about making
your labels.
There are sort of two ways thatyou can go about making your
labels.
One you can put together yourproduct and then send it out to

(13:01):
a laboratory and pay them to saythis is what the carb content
is, this is the dietary fiber,the sodium, this is the rundown,
the whole list of things thatyou see and plus a lot of other
things you don't see on thenutrition facts label.
That you see and plus a lot ofother things you don't see on
the nutrition facts label.
Or you can take uh data fromvarious sources and your recipe
and I, you know I have an Excelsheet.

(13:22):
This is how we get our nutritionfacts.
With a simple product, it's alot easier to do this than with
a more complex product, but withsomething that's% maple syrup,
4% raspberry juice, 1% sea salt,you can take the nutrition
facts.
The USDA maintains databases ofa lot of various products and

(13:45):
then from the suppliers, we canget nutrition facts for all of
those ingredients as well.
So the raspberry juiceconcentrate that we use, they
send us for every 100 grams ofconcentrate.
It's this many carbohydrates,this much sugar, this much
sodium, this much magnesium,manganese, and runs the whole

(14:09):
list.
And then plug that into an Excelsheet and figure out what's the
total weight of the product ina packet need to be to get to a
hundred calories, and you knowit tastes really good when it's
4% raspberry juice.
So you can imagine the maththat needs to get done to say we
need to hit a hundred calorieswhere this is a salted product.

(14:30):
So we want to hit.
You know 60 milligrams ofsodium, and so what is the ratio
of those things want to hit?
You know 60 milligrams ofsodium, and so what is the ratio
of those things need to be andwhat's the total weight need to
be to to hit all those variousmacro micronutrients that that
we're turning to.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
But fundamentally you're taking a recipe and
accessing like an institutionaldatabase, so to speak.
With the recipe that you havekind of created right and you've
gone through iterations, we'regoing to take the product
development piece of it out.
Let's just say you have theproduct, you have the final
recipe and things like that.
You know what you want from asodium perspective and things
like that.
You're taking that recipe,you're putting it into a

(15:10):
nutritional database and thenyou basically have an artist or
somebody that is in that fieldgraphic designer produce a
nutrition label from thatCorrect.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah, and it's.
There are rules about what fontyou have to use, what size font
.
It has to be where things areplaced, what has to appear.
If that doesn't appear, thenyou have to include it in the
not a significant source ofstatement at the bottom.
The rules even have, like, thestroke size on the different

(15:45):
bars that go in between all thedifferent nutrients it's a
standard format, right, soeverybody standard format but
and you can pay a professionalcompany to make those.
There are professional companiesthat you can send your recipe
to and they'll pull all thenutrition facts together and
send you back a label, or youcan figure it out yourself and

(16:05):
have your own graphic designerdo it and, as you can imagine,
pricing runs the gamut fromfairly affordable to fairly
expensive.
So the companies that you sendout for testing when you send
final product to somebody fortesting is that's going to be
the most expensive route.
You know, some of these teststhat have been run on various
products in the last few weeksseem fairly affordable.
You know I run far.

(16:26):
I think was sending outproducts that maybe a couple
hundred bucks, a sample orsomething, and if you're only
looking for a few of thenutrients it's pretty affordable
.
But when you're trying to runthe full label and all the
different micronutrients thatmight be required to be shown in
the nutrition facts label, itcan get fairly expensive.
And so we rely on our suppliersto provide the nutrition facts

(16:51):
for the products we're gettingfrom them.
And then, uh, each batch thatwe get, they have a testing of
the larger.
So the you know the bricks is ameasure of sugar content.
So that's one of the big onesthat we're looking for,
especially in maple syrup, andso from that you can tell yeah,

(17:11):
this is on spec, this issomething we can use.
It's within a couple percentvariation.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Okay, I want to get into that in just a little bit.
Let's stay on the nutritionlabel piece.
So you mentioned some of thetesting that gets done and
various sports nutritionmanufacturers will choose to do
either or both of those routes.
They'll either have a recipe.
They'll cross-reference it withthe database, calculate the
composition of the product,produce a nutrition label there.

(17:41):
Some of those companies willhave a sophisticated analysis
done.
So, in an effort of fulltransparency, the ones that I
did, which is a full nutritionanalysis those cost me just
under a grand a piece perproduct.
You have to send in 12 ounces ofsample for them to have enough
sample product in order for themto run the analysis.
You can also have what's calledapproximate analysis done,

(18:03):
which is what a lot of the datathat was presented on IRONFAR
was done, which is kind of alight version of this whole
nutrition analysis.
You'll still get themacronutrient composition and
things like that, so perfectlyvalid for that type of
assessment.
And then you also havethird-party certifiers that you
can send that will either verifyvarious components of it,
whether it's we're veryconcerned with this in the elite

(18:27):
sphere to make sure that theproducts are free of
performance-enhancing drugs.
And so you party third partiesthat will certify for that.
You'll have 30 third partiesthat will certify for the
composition or differentcomponents of the of the actual
mix.
The picture that I'm trying topaint here is that all of those
roads lead to the samestandardized nutrition label

(18:49):
that you actually see on thepackage, and how that company
got to that is relativelyunbeknownst to the consumers,
right?
Because?

Speaker 2 (18:59):
sure.
Yeah, it's very opaque and notregulated.
There's nobody saying this isthe way you have to do it.
There's no.
I guess when you get up intothe NSF for sport certifications
and that sort of thing, whichare really important in that
elite sphere for making surewe're free of anything that
might get you a positive testresult, there's a little bit of

(19:23):
third party regulation there,but there's no governmental
regulation in the United States.
I guess this is where myexperience is, and so in the EU
that sort of thing I'm a littlebit less familiar.
But in the US there's nogovernmental entity that's going
to come in and say no, yournutrition facts are wrong, or
you have put them on a labelwrong or you're doing something

(19:46):
misleading.
It is.
It's pretty much you got topolice yourself or somebody else
after the fact can come in andfile a complaint with the FDA.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, okay, really important point because I think
a lot of people previous to thisin the community kind of
thought that the FDA would comein and audit you guys before the
fact and produce the label andthat's anything but yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
It's nothing like that, nothing like that at all.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, no, it's nothing like that, nothing like
that at all.
The.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
FDA can come inspect our facility but they generally
will not look at any of thepackaging beyond ensuring that
it's food grade packaging orthat sort of thing, but they're
not looking at the label that weapply to it.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
I mean, assume you've had FDA inspections, Can you
kind of open up the we actuallyhaven't had an FDA inspection
yet.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
I've heard they are.
Yeah, you guys have been inbusiness for a long time we've
been in business for a long time, the fda, and maybe now we will
know that now we're having thisconversation.
So there are some foodindustries where there are
inspectors present every day,every hour that they're doing
production that specifically ismeat, and the usda does that
inspection.

(20:53):
For basically everyone else.
There is some governmentaloversight.
So in Vermont we have toregister with the Vermont
department of health and theywill do.
All of these entities can comeinspect anytime.
So once you're registered withthem you are open to surprise
audits.
But generally the VermontDepartment of Health will come

(21:15):
once a year or a little bit lessfrequently if they're busy, but
we have to re-register withthem every year.
We're also certified organic, sothat's another inspection.
They're not food safety inparticular, but they have food
safety in the rules as well, andso they inspect for that too.
We're also third-party audited.

(21:41):
We're not at that NSF for sportlevel, we're at a lower level
called good manufacturingpractices, and so there's an
annual audit for GMPcertification.
And then all food producers whoare making food available for
animal or human consumption inthe US have to be registered
with the FDA and the FDA cancome inspect anytime.
But I think the FDA focusesmore on higher risk industries.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
They're resource limited and so but just to
clarify your GMP certification,which has been brought up,
that's a voluntary thing on yourside.
You do not have to do that.
Am I understanding thatcorrectly, or it's very it is.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
There is something in the rules in the federal code,
that is good manufacturingpractices defined, and so you

(22:41):
are required to follow those,even if you are not certified to
be following them.
Okay, that would.
Those would be the things thatthe FDA would come in and check
on.
Okay, the a GMP certificationis a voluntary certification For
us.
It is driven by our customers,and so some of these larger
institutional customers will say, hey, you need this level of

(23:01):
certification.
And so, on a low risk industrylike ours, we can get away with
a lower level of certification,like just being GMP certified.
On more complex operations, morecomplex products, there are
higher levels SQF, safe qualityfoods, brc, british Retailer

(23:22):
Consortium, and then withinthose there are levels as well,
and so SQF 123, sf does its owncertifications, but everything's
voluntary, but usually requiredby customers and that's so.
It's a voluntary like no, Idon't like getting audited
because it takes days out of mylife, and so it's not something

(23:45):
I'm going to go out and be likeyes, I want to get GMP certified
.
It's, it's a requirement, butnot a requirement from the
government.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Got it.
You'd rather be washing waterbottles and cleaning out
cleaning out your trailer allright, okay, so let's move on to
kind of like maybe some peoplemight think this is the crux of
it, but I think it's certainly abig part of it and that's the
natural variation piece.
So you use a product thatyou're deriving from a tree.
You described it as the bloodof the tree.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
And there are inherently going to be
variations in that core productand remind the audience for
we'll just use the gel as anexample what percentage of an
untapped gel is the core maplesyrup?

Speaker 2 (24:31):
It varies from a hundred percent.
So that first product that westarted with pure maple syrup it
is a.
It is a felony to callsomething pure maple syrup.
It is not not actually puremaple syrup.
So that one's a hundred percent.
And then the gels I think thelowest syrup content is maybe
93% maple syrup.
Okay, that's what I wanted toget.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
It's a big component of it.
It is mostly maple syrup.
Okay, Got it, Got it Now.
Inherently in nature, there arevariations everywhere.
I mean the size of the tree,the maturity of the tree.
When you're extracting it outof the tree like how much rain
has there been and the nutrientsin the soil and on.
You're extracting this naturalproduct from all of these

(25:21):
different not you, but thecompany that you now get the
maple tree maple syrup from, hasall of these trees that have an
infinite number of variationsto them.
Right?
What goes into ensuring that,ultimately, the product that
gets put in the package is ahomogenous product in terms of
the macronutrient composition,the carbohydrate content and
things like that?
How does that actually happenwhen you're taking an inherently
variable source product andturning it into a homogenous,

(25:45):
consistent product that peoplethen consume?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, it depends a little bit about which nutrient
you're talking about.
So, in terms of thecarbohydrates, that is the thing
that we directly measure in themaple syrup, and so when we're
putting a batch of syruptogether, the thing we measure
is how much sugar is in this,and so there's a standard in
Vermont has to be 67% sugar tobe called maple syrup, percent

(26:17):
sugar to be called maple syrup,and so that is the thing we are
ensuring is the same in everybatch of syrup we put out has to
be between 66.9 and 67.5percent sugar.
Pretty tight tolerance, prettytight tolerance.
And so that means you know thisbarrel of syrup we received in
with 66 percent sugar, and sothen we need to find a barrel of
syrup that's 68% sugar, and wecan put those two together in

(26:37):
the same batch and get somethingat 67%.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
But the standardization hold on.
I want to back up.
The standardization as you'redescribing it right now is
within the sugar content itself.
That's the point that you aresaying.
We are trying to standardizefor this component.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
That is the thing that you are saying.
We are trying to standardizefor this component.
That is the thing that we arerequired to standardize actually
Vermont law.
It has to be in that tighttolerance and so Y'all are
serious about your maple syrupman That's-.
There are federal rules aboutit too.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Seriously.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Federally it has to be over 66% sugar.
So federal rules are a littlebit laxer than Vermont, you guys
, that's what I'm saying.
Y'all are serious.
Yeah, we're pretty seriousabout it.
So that's the thing that we arereally and and that's, I would
say, the biggest piece ofespecially what we're talking
about now is how many carbs arein this packet, and so that

(27:30):
thing we directly measure in theproducts that we're making.
How do you measure it?

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Like peel.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I don't have any here with me right now.
That's called a hydrometer.
I don't know for those who havemade beer or wine they'll be
familiar with that but it lookslike a thermometer, almost a big
thermometer.
But you float it in the syrupand depending on how much sugar
there is in the syrup, it'llchange the density of the syrup.
And then you have this thingthat is a fixed mass, fixed

(28:01):
volume, so it's a fixed density,and so it'll float at a
different height in the syrupand it's got a scale on it that
you can see, see where it'sfloating.
You have to do a temperaturecompensation as well, because
the density changes withtemperature, and so we're
measuring these things down totenths of degrees Fahrenheit and

(28:21):
tenths of brix, which isB-R-I-X is the sugar content
measurement that's used mostlyin the maple industry and then,
like the wine industry, uses alittle bit as well.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
But you're able to use that because you have this
core product, this core maplesyrup product.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
That is, it's a pure carbohydrate product, and so
you're using density essentiallyas the proxy for how much sugar
content there is.
Yeah, it's not like you'reputting it in a bomb color
colorimeter or something likethat.
You're literally like putting abobber like a sophisticated
bobber in there right.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, yeah, we're relying on our producers to say
this is pure maple syrup, andand since it's pure maple syrup,
we know that most of the stuffin there is sugar and water.
And then there's some more.
There's some micronutrientsthere as well that are really
important.
But when you're putting thesophisticated bobber in, yeah,

(29:22):
the thing you're measuring isthe sugar in the water I don't
want to.
I don't want to downgrade yourbobber I mean, it is, that is
what it is I used to use that,so I know exactly what it is
okay.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
So you kind of mentioned this.
Right, you're relying on yoursupplier, which you have an
intimate relationship with.
Right, you went through thefamily farm and stuff like that.
They're not going to like screwyou over or whatever, would you
?
You know, though let's just saylet's just remove the family
tie right, or say that youstarted getting in more products
from other people that were youdidn't have the same business

(29:53):
relationship with.
How would you go about knowingthat they're not selling you a
bill of goods?
They're not selling you likehigh fructose corn syrup that
looks like maple syrup asopposed to like real maple syrup
.
We taste it too.
You have like maple syrupsommeliers.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, I would say I'm a maple syrup sommelier.
I don't doubt that.
You can tell maple flavoringapart from real maple syrup.
You know if somebody wasstretching their product using,
you know, a 10% cane sugar blendto try to stretch that product
into 10% more than it really is,that would be hard to tell.
There are some fairlysophisticated tests you can do

(30:31):
on what the carbon compositionof the sugar is.
Those tests are done by theVermont Agency of Agriculture.
Food and Markets will sometimesrandomly take syrup and test it
.
Yeah, but that's really notsomething that is being done,
unless there's a suspicion ofsome fraud in the industry.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
But you're using like taste testers, along like the
QC line at some point, just tomake sure that the product is
what it says it is essentially.
And I'm sure that's like also,first off, the flavor is part of
the variance, the naturalvariance that I was talking
about.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
That I was talking about earlier Delicious maple
syrup and really terrible maplesyrup.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
That's all.
Natural, actual maple syrupfrom an actual maple tree.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, I mean we can dive into that, but that's a
different podcast.
For sure, the trees later inthe season, as the buds come out
, the flavor goes bad, and sobuddy syrup is not something
that we're gonna put in a packetand deliver to a runner,
because it's really it's apretty offensive taste and not
something that's gonna feelgreat at mile 10 or mile 240 if

(31:38):
you're doing coconut, but it'snot that like it's not.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
That happens on a light switch either, right?
I mean, you're that flavorprofile that you're describing
changes throughout the course ofthe season and you have a
growing season or a maple seasonI don't even know how to
describe it and you guys arekind of you're testing for that.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
You're literally taste testing for that the good
syrup tastes different from onefarmer to another, or from, you
know, late february to earlymarch, and so we're trying to
mix barrels together to wind upwith a fairly consistent flavor
profile, in addition to thegetting that sugar content right

(32:15):
.
And I guess we also haven'ttalked about the natural
variability in all of the othernutrients.
So getting that fuel numberright is really important.
But then when we're saying, hey, there's 60 milligrams of
sodium in this, that's reallyimportant for people to be
getting that hydration piece.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
And that sodium is coming from the maple syrup
predominantly and you're addingto it as well.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah so the pure maple packet has about five
milligrams of sodium.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Okay, so a little bit , Not much yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
And that I would say there's more variability in that
how much sodium is in thismaple syrup versus that maple
syrup.
That's really going to bedependent on what's the soil
composition like versus what'sthat soil composition like
Sodium testing all the batchesof maple syrup is not something
that we do.
We just rely on the variousUSDA databases that are a

(33:12):
compilation of tests to say, hey, on average, maple syrup has
five milligrams of sodium in 100calories milligrams of sodium
in 100 calories.
When we're doing a product thathas more sodium in it, we're

(33:35):
using sea salt as our sodiumcontent, and that's a little bit
easier to say.
Sea salt is sodium and chlorideand you can look at the
elemental weights of thosethings and figure out.
If you're putting in 100 gramsof sea salt, you're putting in
this many grams of sodium, andthen do the math from there to
get to how much salt do I needto put in to put 60 milligrams
into all of the servings thatare in this batch?
But that's also.
There's a lot less variabilityin that.

(33:57):
The sea salt has somemicronutrients beyond the sodium
chloride, but it's not veryvariable.
So we're standardizing thatbiggest macronutrient, that is
really the headline number, andthen just taking an average of
where's that variability landingfor the other micronutrients.

(34:19):
And then when we're putting insomething that's got a different
headline number the coffeeinfused maple syrup, for
instance and saying there's 27milligrams of caffeine in this,
our coffee supplier says theproduct that we provide you, the
caffeine content, is withinthis range.
And then you know that range isplus or minus about 5% and so

(34:40):
it's yeah, there's variationthere, but it's a pretty tight
tolerance.
We're talking a milligram ofcaffeine one way or the other
and we're okay with thatvariability.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Well, I mean, there's more.
There's like a hundred timesmore variability just in
Starbucks coffee if you go oneday to the next in terms of the
caffeine composition.
So that's a whole differentrabbit hole.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Okay, you already excuse me.
You already touched on thisaspect just a little bit.
And this is where, along theentire chain of events, would
you catch things when they goawry?
Because that happens in everybusiness, across any number of
different businesses.
You think you know you'reproducing a product, you're
producing a service, you're youknow booking time to do consults

(35:22):
and things like that.
Just stuff happens.
I mean, there's nothing'sperfect.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
You've kind of already described I mean there
are hundreds, thousands ofdifferent things that can go
wrong and that you have to catchat different places, and so
some of those things can be hey,when you're making maple syrup,
you're making hundreds ofgallons an hour of maple syrup,
some of the syrup you produce.
Some of those barrels are goingto be 65, 66 bricks.

(35:48):
Some of those barrels are goingto be 68, 69, 70 bricks.
We catch that sort of problemwhen we're making the batch and
so that's coming in from theproducer, making sure that the
product we're getting in, notthat it's necessarily consistent
, but that we can turn it into aconsistent product going back
out.
So we know product we'regetting in, not that it's
necessarily consistent, but thatwe can turn it into a
consistent product going backout.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
So we know what we're receiving that's really
important right because you knowyou're getting a variable
product and you're turning itinto a more homogenized product
or homogenous product sorry yeah, and then for the things that
we're getting less of.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
So you know, our cocoa we're buying in five to 10
gallons of that a year and soit's not like we're buying in
enough that we can sort of makea homogenous product.
But the people we're buying thecocoa from have already taken
the cocoa bean and turned itinto a standardized cocoa
product that we buy and thenthey provide us with a

(36:42):
certificate of analysis to say,here, this is the specification
sheet, this is the range thatyou can expect the pH to be in,
the sugar content to be in, andthis is where it is in that
range.
And so we have thespecification sheet ahead of
time.
And then with each lot that webuy in, we get a certificate of
analysis saying, yeah, it's inthat range, and those ranges are

(37:05):
pretty tight.
So we talked about with thecoffee.
So those problems, you catchthose problems pretty early.
I wouldn't even say they'reproblems, it's just sort of part
of the manufacturing process.
Once in a while we'll make a youknow 500 gallon batch of maple
syrup and be like oh shoot, thisis 66 and a half bricks instead
of 67 like you tested at theend of the line as well, like

(37:26):
after everything's happened orwhatever well, we'll test the
whole batch, yeah, so like weput it all together in a tank,
mix it up and then we test itthen and if at that point we
realize, oh, we messed up, wedid, we didn't get the, the
bricks right, there are severalthings we can do.
We can All the employees getmaple syrup.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
That's what I'm imagining.
Everybody goes home with a fewjugs.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Christmas presents for everybody.
We do not have enough employeesto deal with 500 gallons worth.
We can boil off some water.
We're not, you know.
I don't know if the listenershave been to a maple farm before
, but that's what it is.
It's boiling off water andreally set up for that.
We're not set up for that quiteas well, but we have the

(38:13):
ability to boil off smalleramounts of water and so that
sort of problem pretty easy todeal with.
You catch it really early.
The QA testing at the end ofthe line we do that as well.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Describe what that actually is.
Everybody like here's this kindof nebulous term quality
assurance testing.
What is it actually?
Are you running it through amicroscope?
Are you putting another bobberon it?
Are you visually inspecting it?
Are you taste testing it like?

Speaker 2 (38:43):
like, be specific here, as specific as you can, I
guess the most common test we'redoing is fill weight, and so
there'll be some.
We're having to heat theproduct up to put it into the
packages so that it's allaseptically packaged, so that
it'll be shelf stable and thatit's not like we hit 190.0

(39:04):
degrees the entire time whenwe're packaging, and so there'll
be some fill weight variabilityand the machine has some slop
to it and so we check I wouldsay maybe around 10% of the
packets we check the fill weighton.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
So you're just like seeing if it has as much product
in it as you as you want it tohave, yeah, and then fine,
tuning it here and there.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Where in it as you as you want it to have, yeah, and
then fine, tuning it here andthere where that needs to be,
where we need to be, making surethat we're getting that right,
and so that's really that's ahuge piece of.
If I say there's a hundredcalories in this packet, we need
to have a fairly tighttolerance of sugar content and
the fill weight.
So those are the two thingsthat are really going to drive

(39:45):
how many calories are in thispacket, and so we talked about
the sugar testing and then, yeah, fill weights, the fill weights
.
The other piece of that, theother QA testing we do, is
organoleptic, which is a fancyword for taste test.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
I'm going to use that by the way, organoleptic, these
are the maple syrup.
Sommeliers, rightolytic, theseare the maple syrup sommeliers.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Right, yeah, these are the maple syrup sommeliers.
And then we'll do burst testingon the packets to make sure
that there isn't some problemwith the machine or with the
film, so that you can take thisput in your pocket and not wind
up with a sticky leg.
And then we do not testeverything quite as much for the

(40:24):
sugar content at the end, justbecause we've verified it before
we put it in the packet andthere's no intervening step
where it could lose or gainwater.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
I was going to ask that.
I was going to ask that.
So you're doing a beginning ofthe chain analysis, essentially
because there aren't multiplesteps within that chain where
you're adding different productsit's closed pipes all the way
from where the batching is doneto when it goes into a packet
and is there any chance of likesettling or like that?

Speaker 2 (40:54):
that happens, like in those batches no, so we're
stirring it the entire time thatwe're packaging it, yeah, and
then pulling out of that stirredbatch and within a minute of
pulling out of that batch it'sput into a packet.
Some of the products you knowthe cocoa likes to settle.
So if you leave that overnight,yeah, you'll come back and find

(41:15):
some cocoa settled out the nextday.
And even if you take one of ourcocoa packets and pour it out
into a glass or something, youcan see kind of the cocoa
particulate in there.
So we're making sure it'shomogenous before it goes into
the packet.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, perfect.
Okay.
What else is involved in thiswhole nebulous QC piece?
Or is it really just thatsimple?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
It's pretty much that simple.
So fill weight.
So there's the beginning of thechain analysis.
Like you said making sure thething that we're putting in is
what we say is going in there,and then making sure we're
putting in the right amount andthen making sure that the
customer experience is going towork in terms of the packet
being able to be opened and notopening when it shouldn't, and

(42:01):
then that exploding on their leg.
I like that description muchbetter.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
And then the organoleptic does this taste
right?
Okay, so I'm going to switch tokind of a different, like a
different not a different topic,but something that might be
like a little bit more sensitive.
Right, you have products thathave that are in the marketplace
.
Those products have gonethrough some type of r&d, right,
even the Even the maple syrupproduct, which is pure maple
syrup.
You still got to figure out howto put it into a form factor
that people are going to want toconsume on the bike and the run

(42:30):
.
That's part of the R&D process,right?
Just like your taste testing.
When you want to have araspberry flavor, you've got to
go through different amounts andflavoring profiles and things
like that.
Whenever you've either beenthrough the R&D process or
actually have had a product outon the marketplace for a
significant length of time, hasthere been any time where the

(42:54):
consumer had a chance to buy theproduct and consume the product
and it wasn't what you actuallywanted it to be across any of
it?
The flavor, or how much of theproduct was in there, or the
carbohydrate content or anythinglike that?
And the reason I want to bringthe R and D process in is
because I realized that thereare things that you figure out

(43:15):
during the R and D process thatyou then smooth out to the
general manufacturing process.
It's kind of like a like youknow, if you send something to
you or ted or any of the otherpeople, like taste test, and
it's all screwed up, no big deal.
That's part of the deal.
Like the taste test, it doesn'ttaste well or for whatever
reason, the packaging is notworking out correctly.

(43:35):
I can remember when goo wasintroducing their chomps, which
is a chewable product, they werehaving a hard time getting the
number of the correct number ofchomps into the package because
they were sticking together andthe equipment wasn't separating
them.
And that's part of the R and Dprocess, right, just as much as
the composition of the of theproduct.

(43:55):
So I'll turn the floor over toyou.
You can either tell it as afunny story that had a happy
ending or something where, like,you caught something along the
line, but I think something likethat would be insightful.
Like, like.
Where along this process haveyou actually experienced
something going awry like that?

Speaker 2 (44:09):
we don't have a lot of qa issues that have made it
out into the marketplace.
You know, once in a while we'llget something that had mold in
it or a packet that bursts openwhen I shouldn't have.
Sometimes that's on us,sometimes that's a consumer
issue Like oh, I thought I couldleave this bottle of maple
syrup out for three months.

(44:30):
No, I need to keep it in thefridge.
And we do a fairly low riskproduct.
So when you're putting this lowwater activity is not just how
much water is in a product buthow much available water is in
the product for bacteria orother things to feed on or not

(44:50):
feed.
You know, feed on water butlive on.
So we're low water activity,which makes it low risk.
We're packaging it really hot,which kills pretty much anything
in there, which makes it lowrisk.
We're pretty lucky to have sucha low risk product that we
really haven't had many issues,and some of that's been.
Yeah, I mean I can think of amachine issue that we had that

(45:12):
we sent a couple thousandraspberry packets to a customer
and then the next day identifiedthat we were having a pretty
high leaker rate and so we toldthem hey, you're getting a bunch
of product that might be leaky.
We'll send you replacementsright now, and don't open it.
Yeah, if you can salvage it,give it to a high school team or

(45:34):
something you know like.
Use, use your own risk on those, but not a food safety issue,
not a not a quality issue, whereyou're going to go out and not
be getting the calories that aresupposed to be there.
Yeah, so we've never that I'maware of, and a lot of these
things are.

(45:54):
You're relying on the finalcustomer to tell you hey, I got
a packet that had nothing in itand so our waffles.
Once in a while there'll be anempty waffle wrapper that goes
to somebody, and that's just.
I mean, that's the nature ofthe beast, when you like.
Sometimes an empty wafflewrapper winds up like a waffle.

(46:15):
Just didn't go into that.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
There's two somewhere there's one, there's a package
with two of them.
When you describe that it'ssurprisingly little Like, once
again I realize you'redescribing it as a low risk, you
know relatively uncomplicatedprocess where you know you have
one kind of core product that'staking it, taking up between 93
and a hundred percent of theentire product that the end user

(46:39):
actually consumes.
But there's still highvariability in that because
they're like actual livingorganisms that you stick
something into to extract thejuice out of it.
You know, I mean like literallyI've been, I mean I've been
around those farms and I've seenyour employees like go from tap
to tap and they, they actuallylike attest to that variability

(46:59):
oh, this one's sweeter, thisone's darker, or whatever.
And I never really put togetherhow that variability turns into
a product that is relatively oris homogenous across the board.
So when I hear you describethat and you're being honest and
transparent about it, I'm kindof surprised that there's not
more like shit show behind thescenes.

(47:19):
Maybe there is that, you justdon't want to tell me, but like
it's a kind of it's kind of aremarkable story.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
There was the first time that we were doing it.
So the way we do our, ourproduct development, is hey,
this is the line of stuff thatwe can get that meets our needs.
You know, it's the pureingredient.
It's just raspberry juiceconcentrate without any
maltodextrin in it.
It's, you know, a lot of thesewhole food ingredients sometimes

(47:47):
can be hard to work with, likea lemon juice powder.
Basically any lemon juicepowder you can buy has silicon
dioxide or maltodextrin or bothin it, and so we have fairly
strict product needs, and so wehave a list of these are the
products we can get, and solet's try mixing them together,
see what tastes good, and then,once we've made something that

(48:09):
tastes good, figure out this ishow much we need to get to the
nutrient level You're laughingat me, I love it To get to the
nutrient levels that we'retrying to hit, and so we'll do
that, as you know, like a coupleounces of test product in the
middle of the office, just in alittle you know pint glass,
swirling it up from there.

(48:30):
Once we've narrowed it down, weneed to scale up, and we'll
usually do a scale up, that's,you know, a couple of gallons,
and then we'll scale up fromthere to tens of gallons and try
to put it in finished labeledproduct.
And then we'll try to scalefrom there to the full size.
You know three, four or 500gallon batches.

(48:50):
The first time that we didsalted cocoa in that, once you
get off the bench, past the past, the just oh, we're doing a
couple of gallons.
I was mixing it up and I did a.
I had a math error and I wentto mix the cocoa in it.
Boy, this is more cocoa than Ithought we were going to be
using, but I guess you knowthat's what the paper I've got

(49:13):
in front of me says I need.
I forget how many pounds it was.
I need 23 pounds of cocoa inthis batch.
Like, cocoa is really expensive, I didn't think we were going
to be using this much of it, butall right.
Cocoa is really expensive.
I didn't think we were going tobe using this much of it, but
all right, I got it mixed up andthen figured I'd go back and
double check and it turned outthat I was off by a factor of 10

(49:34):
.
You misplaced the decimal point.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
I mean no, but here's the deal.
Man, like I know that onceagain you're human, you make
those math errors.
But when you describe thatprocess of scaling it up, so
you're literally just making afew pints of it for your 10
person staff, and then you scaleit up to a few gallons, and
then tens of gallons, and thenhundreds of gallons.
Though you figure out whatyou're describing is you figure

(49:56):
out those math errors.
You figured out where you, inthis case you could have blamed
your intern, but you took theresponsibility.
I appreciate you I appreciatethat Right could have blamed
your intern, but you took theresponsibility.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate that right, likeyou, literally misplaced a
decimal point, which actuallyhappens, but it's not happening
at the final product.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
It's happening when you're at some point of the r&d
process yeah, and so that was aproduct that we were trying to
put into packets, but notfinished, not labeled, so that
we've got some just white packetfilm that we'll put test stuff
into so that we can send it outto ambassadors, we can take it
out on the run ride ourselves,and just things taste different

(50:34):
when you're out exercisingversus sitting here in the
office, and so that wassomething where it was like a
hey, this feels wrong, let medouble check it.
Oh yeah, this is way toococoa-y.
And then how do we fix it fromthere?

Speaker 1 (50:49):
But it's your ambassadors that you're
primarily leveraging and youremployees that you're primary
leveraging kind of field testing, the product to be an initial
detective in this entire process?

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah, In this case, we caught that issue before we
put it in packets.
But yeah, it's it.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
you got to beta test everything you got to get it to
the got to get it to the full uptest of the people that are
involved in that beta testingprocess, because once again
you're kind of it's in themiddle of it.
I guess is what I'm saying, themiddle of this whole chain of

(51:29):
events of you mix stuff up,you're tasting it in the office,
you mix some more stuff up andmaybe it's like you and a small
handful of people.
Now you've got it into whitelabeled.
You know, white labeledpackaging to a broader audience.
What does that look like foryou specifically in terms of the
number of people, and how longwill that actually run?

Speaker 2 (51:47):
It depends on the product.
We're small and fairly nimble,so we can turn stuff around from
concept to finished packaged inreal packaging within a couple
months which is pretty fast.
Yeah, no kidding, we generallyare not quite that fast.
You know, we've had productswhere we want to go faster and

(52:09):
are able to do that.
I mean, we've had products indevelopment for years that still
haven't seen the light of daybeyond.
You know, eliza's taking themout for for a run because she
likes it better than she likessome of the other products and
so there's just happens to besome left in the fridge and so
she goes and grabs it A lot ofthe stuff once we get out of the

(52:34):
bench, so once we're out ofjust the office, we'll get it
into that white labeledpackaging and either we'll go a
little bit broader audience andgo to just our ambassadors.
Either we'll go a little bitbroader audience and go to just
our ambassadors, or we'll try togo to a couple times.
We've done a larger beta testpool where we open it up to more
of our customers, but we'retalking tens of people and

(53:01):
getting some feedback on, forinstance, our salted citrus gel.
We made something that we liked.
It was pretty citrusy, but weliked it was pretty citrusy, but
we liked it.
We sent it out for feedback andthe feedback was and this is
just too tart and so we, we cameback, brought it back to the
bench, dialed back some of thatcitrus and then, you know, came
out with version two and andthat was better received, and

(53:24):
then scaled it up to the full,full thing from there.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
So, even as a small company, you guys are still
leveraging your employees, yourambassador network and your
customers to give you feedbackon what you're cooking in the
kitchen.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
essentially, yeah, yeah, and not everybody's going
to like everything.
That's why you have multipledifferent products.
But when the you know, if yousend it to 50 people and 40
people say, hey, this is tootart, and 10 people say I love
it, well, maybe you need to dialit back.
Yeah, you gotta listen to yourcustomers.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
All right, man Doug, I appreciate you coming on and
being so transparent.
I think we need a lot more ofthat kind of across everywhere,
and what I hope is that as moreand more companies continue to
kind of like coexist in thespace, that kind of the
transparency across everybodyand the confidence across
everybody increasessimultaneously.
So I appreciate that it's noteasy to open your doors and say,

(54:19):
hey, you know, this is where wescrewed it up and this is how
what our manufacturing lookslike.
You guys are, like I said, asmall company.
I'm taking you away from bottlewashing or mobbing the floors
or whatever else you're going todo next duck.
So I appreciate your time aswell.
I do know that you guys arereally hard working.
Every time I've seen you at anevent, one of the things that I
appreciate about y'all is it isyour employees and you're all

(54:40):
hands on deck.
The same people are serving upthe soft serve ice cream or the
creamies, as you guys say in theNortheast, serving up the
creamies are the ones that aredeveloping the products.
You know you're actuallyinterfacing.
It's a very small team and Ikind of appreciate the way that
you guys have scrapped togetherand hustled and, you know, just

(55:01):
had dogged determination to, youknow, put products in front of
people and even taking my sillylittle feedback on some of your
formulations at times.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
So.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
I appreciate you, man , I appreciate you a lot.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
That means a lot to me A big voice in the ultra
world, to say that I appreciatethat a lot.
And thanks also for being partof the team that's keeping us
all in the nutrition worldhonest on how things are going
and what we're doing with theproducts.
Thanks, man.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
I appreciate it.
We'll cut.
We'll have you back on wheneveryou come out with a new product
and you can tell us how good itis.
How's that?

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, yeah, we'll have to get Eliza on to get that
Some, some some version ofmaple syrup, something that's
all you can divulge.
No surprise, it's maltodextrin.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Oh, man, they might kick you out of the state.
All right, doug, I appreciateit.
Man, thanks, cooke.
Talk to you soon.
All right, folks, there youhave it, there you go.
Much thanks to Doug for comingon the podcast today peeling
back the curtain on his ownprocesses in order to give us a
little bit of confidence andclarity to what goes on behind

(56:09):
the scenes with these companiesthat take natural products and
turn them into sports nutritionproducts.
I hope you, the listeners outthere, have gained some clarity
and some confidence fromlistening to the conversation
that Doug and I had, because, atthe end of the day, I do think
that is something that we needto restore within the community
with all this chaos that isactually going on.

(56:29):
That's it for today, folks.
As always, I appreciate eachand every single one of you.
We will see you guys out on thetrails.