March 24, 2024 • 28 mins
On this week's program, host Phil Tower welcomes Gary Schuler, the founder and president of GTF Technologies. Gary was recently featured on iHeartRadio's CEOs You Should Know Podcast Series. GTF Technologies was founded in 2014 and specializes in creating secondary applications for unused plant-based materials such as fruit and vegetable side streams and brewer's spent grain from larger juice food processors. GTF Technologies uses a revolutionary drying and pulverizing technology that enables materials to be “re-valued” into new “green” materials such as consumer food products, next-generation animal feed, bio-degradable plastic, and building products. GTF uses an innovative way to divert food waste and perishable food from landfills. As Founder and President, Gary is GTF Technologies' visionary. He also leads strategic growth and oversees business development. GTF Technologies is located in Ada Michigan.
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(00:03):
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend, a publicaffairs program and welcome in. It's West
Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio. I'm yourhost, Phil Tower. Thank you so
much for tuning in. I havea lot of fun being with you every
Sunday morning here across whatever iHeartRadio stationyou happen to be listening in, and
I'm glad you've tuned in. Inthis segment, we are going to bring
(00:25):
you a conversation one of our newestCEOs you should know features. We had
a great time sitting down with avery dynamic person. His name is Gary
Schuler, and Gary is the founderand president of GTF Technologies, a company
doing amazing things right here in WestMichigan. Now here's my conversation with Gary
(00:48):
Schuler from GTF Technologies on iHeartRadio's WestMichigan Weekend. I'm pleased to be in
our iHeartRadio studios here in Grand Rapidswith Gary Schuler. He's the founder in
president of GTF Technologies. We're goingto tease you not tell you what GTF
means for a while here, andI had to pay Gary to make sure
(01:08):
he didn't give that away early rightup front, welcome to the program.
I'm so glad you're here. Hey, thanks Phil, pleasure to be here.
Yeah, so we are. We'regoing to unpack the story of GTF.
But I told you Gary, aswe typically do in this podcast and
will also be playing this back oniHeartRadio across West Michigan. But we like
to kind of talk about you andyour background. I like our listening audience
(01:33):
hearing this conversation. I don't knowmuch about your background. Where where is
home for you? Where were bornand raised? I was originally born and
raised in Aurora, Indiana, whichis in southern Indiana. And I was
the youngest of eight kids in southernIndiana on a rural farm. So my
parents had eight kids by the timethey were twenty seven and great upbringing,
(01:57):
but I learned a lot. Really, the basis for this company was inspiration
from my father and my mother justthe way that we grew up. So
basically your family had your mom anddad had eight farm hands, is what
you're saying. Yes, that's howthat all worked out. Where did you
fall in that order? I wasthe baby, you were the baby.
I was okay, yeah, okay, And it's interesting you said that whole
(02:21):
experience really kind of inspiration that eventuallywould lead to you to start GTF Technologies.
Well, you know, growing upin southern Indiana, the core of
the Great Generation, my parents justwent through the depression as kids World War
Two, and we never looked atanything as waste. Everything had a value
(02:45):
everything. I kind of joked becauseI think of me being the baby and
being the youngest. I literally thoughtthat hand me Down was a brand name
until I was about ten years old, and so we just didn't throw things
away. And even later in life, my dad always solve value in something,
so he would keep it, andyou know, we we would stockpile
(03:07):
in a shed out back. Buthe was always looking for a need and
if he had something that he couldfill a need with either a church or
somebody in the community, he would. He was always there for them and
taking something of that you would justtypically maybe throw away, he would he
would keep because he always thought,boy, somebody could use this someday.
(03:27):
Well, and you have a longcareer. You had a long career.
Gary was Sintas big uniform commercial uniformbusiness. He had a very successful career
there. I'm curious, at whatpoint do you decide Okay, I've had
a great run here. I wantto start my own business. I want
(03:47):
to do something different. But Ihappen to know from a little research,
it's a backstory there how that allhappened. Yeah, I look at this
and I didn't intend to start thisbusiness. I kind of thinking a little
bit. It found me and wasfelt called to do something. Not exactly
(04:08):
certain that it was going to getinto food in our technology that we have
today, but at the time,back in the late nineties, when I
worked at our corporate headquarters, itwas also one of our main distribution centers.
So even back in the late nineties, Sintas made more pants. We
actually manufactured the pants that went intothe various businesses, but we made more
(04:30):
pants than Levi Strauss. We wereCarhart's largest customer by far. And if
you can imagine, if you're puttinga brand on a shirt, could say
Joe's Autobody, for example, andthat shirt got returned to our distribution center.
It could be a brand new garment. But back then, the typical
way of disposing was landfill, andthat is not uncommon even today in the
(04:56):
retail industry. The things that wetake back to the as a return.
Even on Amazon, twenty nine percentof the time that gets landfilled close to
a really yeah, it's it's areal shame. It could be up to
or five hundred billion dollars is theestimate, you know. And I want
to stop you what you said aboutdisposing of that Joe's autobody shirt, because
we don't think about clothing going ina landfill. It's either you know,
(05:19):
you take it to Goodwill, oryou sell it a garage sale, or
you know, I guess if it'sthat favorite pair of genes that now have
more holes than fabric, you dothrow it away. But that's kind of
an interesting thing. It could createa lot of waste in a landfill.
Well, if you think about it, we have options. So you have
Salvation Army or Goodwill, great organizationsthat we can take our materials to.
(05:43):
But you have business considerations. Whatabout the channel channel conflict with the marketing?
Does Will Joe have some heartburn aboutthe vcs as sure, yeah,
at Goodwill? And imagine if it'sa national brand. So if it's a
let's say, a Verizon Wires orMarriott Hotels, that could be problematic.
Sure, And so there's also anissue with just from a company standpoint,
(06:08):
what do we do with all that? Possibly side streams and when they're in
a company, is a billion dollarcompany, eight percent let's say, going
to waste. It usually doesn't hitthe P and L for that organization,
But when we look at the actualtonnage, it is a big, big
number. Sure, And that wasreally what it happened. It really stopped
(06:28):
me in my tracks. Back inthe late nineties, I went into our
distribution center and saw pallettes, pallettesfull of clothing stacked up and they were
all brand new, but they didthey had a logo or maybe the pants
were hemmed. We couldn't restock thatgarment. And I asked the question,
I said, what are we goingto do with those garments? And the
response back is we're going to landfillit? And I said, well,
(06:51):
we should do something about that.And do you ever ask yourself a question
that you realize that maybe you arethe answer to that question. So there
was a nonprofit organization down in Cincinnaticalled Matthew twenty five, still in existence
today, and they were taking fullcontainers full of humanitarian goods to really areas
(07:12):
with extreme poverty around the world.They had the channels to get those products
like old wheelchairs or medicine, foodwriting materials for the orphanages, but they
also had clothing, so we workeda program out with the nonprofit to make
sure that the logos were removed oryou had a patch that could go over
let's say Joe's autobody. But thatwas then when instead of going to the
(07:38):
landfill those garments, we donated themto the nonprofit organization. And was also
a nice tax incentive. There's atax provisions one seventy three. I do
believe it's still in place. Thatwas really an incentive to these corporations that
hey, don't landfill it, don'twaste it. If you can donate it,
there's an additional incentive oftentimes there's mostcorporations aren't even aware of that provision.
(08:03):
You know, I just want tostop and congratulate you or just point
out that mindset. Did you knowyou were not a normal thinker in terms
of thinking that way because most peopledon't even think about this stuff. And
thankfully your parents shared that with you. I mean, which ends up course
leading to GTF. If we stopand ponder that, you have to probably
(08:26):
not I think my parents really installedinstilled in me and in the rest of
my brothers and sisters that you dothe right thing because it's the right thing
to do. You don't need aparade, you don't need a banner or
pat on the back. It's reallyit's the core of who you should be.
My dad would have been disappointed enoughI didn't take that action, and
(08:48):
it was really is you know,that's that's who we were supposed to be.
We're supposed to look out for ourneighbors. I mean, that's that
should be the core of who weare. And for some reason, you
know that's we don't need a parade. I don't need to do a post
the selfie about it. It's justdo the right thing. So it's twenty
fourteen. You decide to start GTFTechnologies, which is all about specializing and
(09:13):
creating secondary applications for unused plant basedmaterials and in essence and this is this
is audio and radio. So wecan't show you these post I guess processed
materials that come out of GFTF,but it's fascinating. It's essentially turning food
(09:33):
waste and it just microscopic powder iswhat it is, which a lot of
that can be reused, and we'regoing to talk about that. But so
there are a lot of entrepreneurs Gary, But to start this, you got
to sell this business plan to something, to somebody, to some financial backers.
(09:54):
What did they say first? Well, when I first started it,
it was when I was sharing whatwe did at Sentas and just kind of
just naturally when I had clients.I was in sales for Sentas, but
I was in charge of our largestcustomers, and I would just have a
conversation like we're having today with theCFO of a food company or another company,
(10:16):
and they were just they never reallyknew how much waste they had.
It just never got to their desk. And so when I was sharing this
these stories, I would get callslike a couple of months later and they
would say, Hey, I've gotyou know. I heard your name from
our CFO. We have a manufacturingplant and we have some pancake mix that
(10:37):
the label maker went haywire on ourpackaging line and we're about ready to landfill
this the pancake mix, but weheard about you that you may be able
to get it donated to maybe anarea offshore that doesn't have our retail brand.
It's not that much. It's onlytwenty six semis and that's a true
(10:58):
story. Wow. And so Iwas getting those types of calls and then
finally my wife back in fourteen,said why don't you do what God's calling
you to do and not to overspiritualize things, but sometimes that's what it
takes. It takes a little bitof a kick in a butt. Absolutely
absolutely, And so I said,okay, I'll help this with retail,
but I'm not going to get intofood. And again, so we started
(11:22):
in twenty fourteen. I was primarilyworking with other hard goood materials and then
back in twenty fifteen, the stateof California made it illegal. That was
going to make it illegal with thegovernmental laws that you couldn't landfill food waste.
So if you're a brewer food processingcompany that's creating this food waste,
(11:45):
you couldn't landfill it because it's acontributor of greenhouse gases. As matter of
fact, it's the number second largestcontributor of greenhouse gases. Food waste going
into a landfills. And so that'swhen the technology it's kind of was not
being fully utilized for food that that'swhen we looked at if we could stop
(12:07):
the rot for some way that Ican take a product and stabilize it to
get a longer shelf life, retainthe nutrients. That's where GTF technology is
in our technology to design and manufacturethese equipments really started back in the twenty
eighteen for us to really look atthe problem set is that this is not
(12:28):
only a food waste that companies werehaving problems. So I could have the
greatest technology in the world, butunless I can help a company make money
or save money, it's really notgoing to bring value. But if we
can help that company save money,help them with their problem, keep it
out of the landfill, which isgoing to help our environment, and also
hopefully then help somebody in need downthe road. So there's a big hunger
(12:52):
problem around the world right now.No brainer, a win on multiple levels.
Gary Schuler's with us EOS. Youshould know here at iHeartRadio. He's
founder and president of GTF Technologies.As we are kind of unpacking the story
of how GTF got started right herein West Michigan, located in Ada,
by the way, we don't wantto miss that. You can learn more
(13:15):
online if you're curious as you're listeningto this podcast or hearing another radio gtfdash
technologies dot com is the website.Got a great website GTF Technologies dot com
with a dash in the middle.So you were telling me and man,
oh man, you know we've gota time limit. I have so many
questions. Now, I knew thiswas going to happen. I was going
(13:37):
to get into this. This issuch a cool story. I've got all
these questions. But you were tellingme. One of the really to localize
this problem. Founder Is Brewing haseight hundred thousand pounds of byproduct when they,
you know, use hops to maketheir great tasting beer. But those
(13:58):
hops had to go somewhere. Sotalk about that in terms of your where
your equipment, your technology could comein. Yeah. In the beer industry
in general, I think the averagefor every six pack of beer, it
produces about a pound a brewer spentgrain waste product or side stream. And
in the brewing process they're basically takingthe sugars out of that grain material to
(14:20):
make the beer. So right now, most of that goes to animal feeds.
That's what feeds the cows and thepigs in the areas, and when
it needs to be removed from thebrewing facility if we can take that product
though it has and powderize it.So our technologies we're able to take something
(14:41):
that looks maybe like the in thebrewer spent grain look like oatmeal if you
can imagine, and we turn thatinto a powder in less than a second,
and we're using electricity not natural gas, so much more energy efficient,
better for the environment with eliminate theemissions that comes from natural gas, and
we do it so quickly that itretains the nutrient value of that powder.
(15:03):
So in the industry itself, ifyou can imagine, it's not only in
the brewers, spent grain is onearea that conversion. We could make about
two hundred thousand pounds of powder orflour that could be made with bread and
even other sustainable packaging materials out ofthat material, and it has a direct
(15:24):
offset from a carbon standpoint. Socertainly, for every million pounds of brewer
spent grain that is converted into likea food up cycled ingredient that could be
made into a pretzel or a pizzadough, there's about sixteen hundred tons tons
of carbon that could be offset.So that's every week, So imagine the
(15:46):
beer industry in general worldwide, whatthat could could do not only from producing
a food product, but also adirect carbon offset for that waste conversion.
I think people are hearing you tellabout that story, worry of taking that
spent grain, that byproduct from makingbeer and then literally, you know it
(16:08):
kind of is an oatmeal technology.In a matter of seconds, it's in
this powder. It almost sounds likeit's a hyper powered microwave using electricity.
I don't I mean, I'm notgoing to get into physics here, but
is that essentially what it is.It's like super cooking it real quickly that
(16:29):
you retain the products or no,we're not cooking the water out of it,
which is very unique. And sothe there's basically the technology inside where
we're spinning a turbine of let's sayfive thousand times per second, and if
I can imagine the outer edge ofthat is making an impact around fifty seven
(16:51):
hundred times per second. So imagineif I took a walnut, regular walnut,
and I packed it in a snowball. So if I took this snowball
with a wallet inside, and Ithrew it at a brick wall, just
shy of the speed of sound,and I did that fifty seven hundred times
in less than a second. Wewouldn't see this, they wouldn't maybe auch
(17:14):
less. There's a de bonding ofthe water molecules and the water from the
food product. And because we're doingthat so rapidly that we're not cooking out
the nutrients, it's chemical free.And so the water goes one way and
the water vapor and then the foodproduct is its powder eyes comes out in
a very very compact way. Sothat's what's really allowing I would say these
(17:40):
companies like a brewer spent grain arebrewing company a juicing operation. You can
imagine the orange juice, the orangepeels, it comes off. Before it
really wasn't economical to put in abig gas dryer to try to dry these.
But now if we've got it verycompact and a lower cost to drying
it, there's new emerging markets.Because that is the biggest challenge we have
(18:02):
for a lot of these companies.They say, okay, I can I
can create Let's say Founders two hundredthousand pounds of flour. What do I
do with all that? Who's goingto buy that? And so that's what
we're trying to do is develop homesfor this powder, whether that's utilized for
a food ingredient, sustainable packaging.So that's really the catch up part of
this is that as consumers, we'retrying to deliver what I call carbon negative
(18:30):
ingredients. So imagine your kind baror some other packaged goods could be made
with a product that's one hundred percentnutritious, actually could be more nutritious than
the juice that's coming off as mostlysugar. That could be used for our
every day products. Then that reallycould move the needle on eliminating food waste
for industrial uses. You showed meGary a pouch of essentially cranberries that have
(18:56):
been processed into a powder, beautifulred powder, And I looked at that
and I thought, the nutrients inthat powder have got to be off the
charts first and foremost. You're thinkingabout a place to find that. But
I want to back up to whatyou were saying. It sounds like a
lot of what you're doing at GTFTechnologies now is finding people to marry this
(19:18):
process with because it's a brilliant idea. Are you afraid of competitors? I
mean, is help us understand interms of how this process will work and
what you're working on right now.Well, our goal and media goal right
now is to get more of theequipment out to companies like a Founder's or
(19:41):
the larger food processing locations. Iwould say probably about ninety five percent of
our work right now is being donein California, mostly because the governmental pressures
that are on these big food processingcompanies and a lot of the fruit and
vegetables has grown out in California.So that's kind of our primary focus right
now for twenty twenty four is againbeing able to get awareness to the technology
(20:07):
and the solutions that offers. Sothat's that's really our main focus. Ideally
in the future, what we loveis the business partnerships to be able to
really help do win win scenarios forcompanies who maybe are potential buyers for that
product, as well as the otheruses of let's say sustainable packaging for let's
(20:30):
say pineapple skins. You can imagineif you core out of pineapple, what
happens in the pineapple skins. Well, if it goes into the landfill,
it's going to create carbon. Butif we now have that as a packaged
material because it's very high in fibrius. It's a really great business solution and
an environmental solid. Well, I'mthinking here in Michigan apples and all the
by products and all the waste andapple skins and so on and so forth.
(20:52):
I mean, there's a gold minethat they're in that whole process.
This year, I think that fiftypercent of the apple harvest could not go
to market. The supply was thatgreat that there's not enough demand. And
you have right now with any typeof apple or strawberries that you buy in
(21:15):
a grocery store, time is ticking, so you don't have limited time.
If we could powderize that apple,keep all the nutrients in there. Once
it's in a powder of let's sayless than five percent moisture, it's got
a shelf life potentially of three tofive years. The crazy part of that
field is that as a country weimport apple powder from overseas a lot of
(21:40):
our food ingredients that come into thiscountry is actually coming from parts of the
world that we aren't on the bestterms with politically. So there is a
risk factor there. And so whatif we did take the apples that the
excess apples, we turned it intopowder. I know it was a small
company called McDonald's that has apple applepies every day. Yep. Well,
(22:03):
if you look at the ingredients,guess what they don't have apple powder.
It's white bleach flour with a lotof other stuff going. Imagine if that
could be made with apple powder.Yeah, and imagine how much healthier it
would be and better tasting as welltoo, Not that I've had in McDonald's
apple pie in a while. GarySchuler is with its founder and president of
GTF Technologies on CEOs you should knowhere on iHeartRadio gtfdash Technologies dot com.
(22:32):
As we continue to talk about thislong term, where do you hope to
be maybe in five or ten years. You know, I think that not
only do we want to bring solutionsimmediately obviously if we can start that here
in Michigan and here in the UnitedStates, but there's so many other opportunities
worldwide. It's crazy. Half ofall the fruits and vegetables grown worldwide it
(22:56):
gets wasted. That's you know,one point three trillion tons or choose me
billion tons of food waste, justenough to feed about two billion people around
the world just on the waste product. But there's also I would like you
to see us more in terms ofan international presence, especially with certain areas
(23:18):
of the world with sixty percent ofthe crop goes wasted just because they can't
get it to market fast enough.Think about the coffee industry, there's farmers
that are really there's not a lotof margin for them. But the outside
of the coffee it looks like acherry, and the outside is it's called
a casava. A coffee cherry iswhat they call it. High and anti
oxiden materials. It could be usedas a food ingredient. But again,
(23:41):
how do you stabilize that powder sothat it could be turned into a new
revenue source that could totally transform someof these really poor communities in Latin America
and other places of the world.Absolutely, I would also like as a
company, our mission is really howdo we provide nutrient powders to maybe some
people who are malnutrition So I knowAmway has a program nonprofits called the Power
(24:07):
five. They recognize that forty percentof kids under the age of five die
because they don't get enough of theright nutrient powders or not powders. But
like your vegetables, sure. SoI've got one company that has just one
of their processing line creates twenty millionpounds of broccoli waste every year. That
could equate into about three million poundsof broccoli powder. Well, imagine when
(24:32):
you know that we could actually usethat powder. That mean you turn that
into a supplement that's then given tokids with malnutrition. That that really is
I think for the mission of everybodywho works at GTF, is we realize
that this is a purpose in whatwe're trying to do. Yeah, there's
I mean, it's just mind blowingthe potential that exists there. And I
(24:56):
think it all comes down to connections. And you know, we're having this
conversation in this podcast. It willalso play in all the iHeartRadio stations here
across West Michigan. You never knowwho's going to hear this, Gary and
go Gary. We should talk andI certainly hope maybe we at least serve
as a catalyst for a couple ofthose conversations. I've got to ask in
(25:18):
our final couple of moments, what'sthe best thing about being the boss?
Being the president? I know you'vegot a CEO as well, so you've
gotta be careful because he'll hear this. But what gets you out of bed
every morning? And they're like,I can't wait to get to work.
Yeah, Phil, I was adirty laundry salesman, pretty good one,
(25:40):
I thought. And I did notcreate the technology, and again, the
technology is it's really about what youdo with the technology and helping people.
I think what gets me up asthe phenomenal team that we have that I
can't even who are passionate at GTF, for our engineers and even Jim we
(26:03):
were our CEO who's come along,and including the investors, We've got a
family who are passionate about what we'redoing. And so what gets me up
is to realize that the Good Lordhas blessed me with coworkers and really people
with a vision. Uh and uhand also my wife Kristen, who's been
(26:26):
very patient for ten years. Imean that that is hard because when you
when you start something, you havea vision, it never goes the way
you planned and it's taken a longlong time. But yet the more that
we go along and the more wedevelop and see the needs, we we
also realize that this is much biggerthan anyone individual. And UH, that's
(26:49):
what gets me excited is our suppliershere in West Michigan where we're making the
equipment. Uh, everybody's really passionateabout Boy, this could really help people
and that and that that that reallygets me fired up every day. It's
just an amazing story. And bythe way, g TF Technologies Gary Schuler,
founder and President GTF Technologies based herein West Michigan, stands for and
(27:15):
there's a biblical reference, yes,Phil it's gleaning the fields GTF, which
you'll see various references in Leviticus.Sure, and their whole premise was that
the outer edge, you weren't supposedto go back and reap a second time.
That the outer edge was for thewidow, the orphan, the alien,
uh, those in need. Andso if you look at that field,
(27:37):
which is really God's field, thebusinesses is the same way. If
there's products that we have that isan excess or side stream, if we
can revalue those I hate to callit waste, it's a food asset.
We just need to stabilize it.And if we can do that, it
could really really help a lot ofpeople less fortunate. And that's our passion
(28:00):
and that's what we try to liveup to is that biblical standard? Incredible
story. I am just so blownaway by this. I had about another
half dozen questions, but we are. We are at the end of our
time, and thank you so muchfor the generosity of your time. We
have this conversation with us very inspirational. And you just heard my conversation with
(28:21):
Gary Schuler. Gary is founder andpresident of GTF Technologies. One of our
recent features on iHeartRadio CEOs you shouldknow segments. That's our program for this
week. Thank you so much forlistening. We hope you join me again
next weekend right here on this iHeartRadiostation, iHeartMedia, West Michigan. Weekend
(28:42):
a public affairs program
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend, a publicaffairs program and welcome in. It's West
Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio. I'm yourhost, Phil Tower. Thank you so
much for tuning in. I havea lot of fun being with you every
Sunday morning here across whatever iHeartRadio stationyou happen to be listening in, and
I'm glad you've tuned in. Inthis segment, we are going to bring
(00:25):
you a conversation one of our newestCEOs you should know features. We had
a great time sitting down with avery dynamic person. His name is Gary
Schuler, and Gary is the founderand president of GTF Technologies, a company
doing amazing things right here in WestMichigan. Now here's my conversation with Gary
(00:48):
Schuler from GTF Technologies on iHeartRadio's WestMichigan Weekend. I'm pleased to be in
our iHeartRadio studios here in Grand Rapidswith Gary Schuler. He's the founder in
president of GTF Technologies. We're goingto tease you not tell you what GTF
means for a while here, andI had to pay Gary to make sure
(01:08):
he didn't give that away early rightup front, welcome to the program.
I'm so glad you're here. Hey, thanks Phil, pleasure to be here.
Yeah, so we are. We'regoing to unpack the story of GTF.
But I told you Gary, aswe typically do in this podcast and
will also be playing this back oniHeartRadio across West Michigan. But we like
to kind of talk about you andyour background. I like our listening audience
(01:33):
hearing this conversation. I don't knowmuch about your background. Where where is
home for you? Where were bornand raised? I was originally born and
raised in Aurora, Indiana, whichis in southern Indiana. And I was
the youngest of eight kids in southernIndiana on a rural farm. So my
parents had eight kids by the timethey were twenty seven and great upbringing,
(01:57):
but I learned a lot. Really, the basis for this company was inspiration
from my father and my mother justthe way that we grew up. So
basically your family had your mom anddad had eight farm hands, is what
you're saying. Yes, that's howthat all worked out. Where did you
fall in that order? I wasthe baby, you were the baby.
I was okay, yeah, okay, And it's interesting you said that whole
(02:21):
experience really kind of inspiration that eventuallywould lead to you to start GTF Technologies.
Well, you know, growing upin southern Indiana, the core of
the Great Generation, my parents justwent through the depression as kids World War
Two, and we never looked atanything as waste. Everything had a value
(02:45):
everything. I kind of joked becauseI think of me being the baby and
being the youngest. I literally thoughtthat hand me Down was a brand name
until I was about ten years old, and so we just didn't throw things
away. And even later in life, my dad always solve value in something,
so he would keep it, andyou know, we we would stockpile
(03:07):
in a shed out back. Buthe was always looking for a need and
if he had something that he couldfill a need with either a church or
somebody in the community, he would. He was always there for them and
taking something of that you would justtypically maybe throw away, he would he
would keep because he always thought,boy, somebody could use this someday.
(03:27):
Well, and you have a longcareer. You had a long career.
Gary was Sintas big uniform commercial uniformbusiness. He had a very successful career
there. I'm curious, at whatpoint do you decide Okay, I've had
a great run here. I wantto start my own business. I want
(03:47):
to do something different. But Ihappen to know from a little research,
it's a backstory there how that allhappened. Yeah, I look at this
and I didn't intend to start thisbusiness. I kind of thinking a little
bit. It found me and wasfelt called to do something. Not exactly
(04:08):
certain that it was going to getinto food in our technology that we have
today, but at the time,back in the late nineties, when I
worked at our corporate headquarters, itwas also one of our main distribution centers.
So even back in the late nineties, Sintas made more pants. We
actually manufactured the pants that went intothe various businesses, but we made more
(04:30):
pants than Levi Strauss. We wereCarhart's largest customer by far. And if
you can imagine, if you're puttinga brand on a shirt, could say
Joe's Autobody, for example, andthat shirt got returned to our distribution center.
It could be a brand new garment. But back then, the typical
way of disposing was landfill, andthat is not uncommon even today in the
(04:56):
retail industry. The things that wetake back to the as a return.
Even on Amazon, twenty nine percentof the time that gets landfilled close to
a really yeah, it's it's areal shame. It could be up to
or five hundred billion dollars is theestimate, you know. And I want
to stop you what you said aboutdisposing of that Joe's autobody shirt, because
we don't think about clothing going ina landfill. It's either you know,
(05:19):
you take it to Goodwill, oryou sell it a garage sale, or
you know, I guess if it'sthat favorite pair of genes that now have
more holes than fabric, you dothrow it away. But that's kind of
an interesting thing. It could createa lot of waste in a landfill.
Well, if you think about it, we have options. So you have
Salvation Army or Goodwill, great organizationsthat we can take our materials to.
(05:43):
But you have business considerations. Whatabout the channel channel conflict with the marketing?
Does Will Joe have some heartburn aboutthe vcs as sure, yeah,
at Goodwill? And imagine if it'sa national brand. So if it's a
let's say, a Verizon Wires orMarriott Hotels, that could be problematic.
Sure, And so there's also anissue with just from a company standpoint,
(06:08):
what do we do with all that? Possibly side streams and when they're in
a company, is a billion dollarcompany, eight percent let's say, going
to waste. It usually doesn't hitthe P and L for that organization,
But when we look at the actualtonnage, it is a big, big
number. Sure, And that wasreally what it happened. It really stopped
(06:28):
me in my tracks. Back inthe late nineties, I went into our
distribution center and saw pallettes, pallettesfull of clothing stacked up and they were
all brand new, but they didthey had a logo or maybe the pants
were hemmed. We couldn't restock thatgarment. And I asked the question,
I said, what are we goingto do with those garments? And the
response back is we're going to landfillit? And I said, well,
(06:51):
we should do something about that.And do you ever ask yourself a question
that you realize that maybe you arethe answer to that question. So there
was a nonprofit organization down in Cincinnaticalled Matthew twenty five, still in existence
today, and they were taking fullcontainers full of humanitarian goods to really areas
(07:12):
with extreme poverty around the world.They had the channels to get those products
like old wheelchairs or medicine, foodwriting materials for the orphanages, but they
also had clothing, so we workeda program out with the nonprofit to make
sure that the logos were removed oryou had a patch that could go over
let's say Joe's autobody. But thatwas then when instead of going to the
(07:38):
landfill those garments, we donated themto the nonprofit organization. And was also
a nice tax incentive. There's atax provisions one seventy three. I do
believe it's still in place. Thatwas really an incentive to these corporations that
hey, don't landfill it, don'twaste it. If you can donate it,
there's an additional incentive oftentimes there's mostcorporations aren't even aware of that provision.
(08:03):
You know, I just want tostop and congratulate you or just point
out that mindset. Did you knowyou were not a normal thinker in terms
of thinking that way because most peopledon't even think about this stuff. And
thankfully your parents shared that with you. I mean, which ends up course
leading to GTF. If we stopand ponder that, you have to probably
(08:26):
not I think my parents really installedinstilled in me and in the rest of
my brothers and sisters that you dothe right thing because it's the right thing
to do. You don't need aparade, you don't need a banner or
pat on the back. It's reallyit's the core of who you should be.
My dad would have been disappointed enoughI didn't take that action, and
(08:48):
it was really is you know,that's that's who we were supposed to be.
We're supposed to look out for ourneighbors. I mean, that's that
should be the core of who weare. And for some reason, you
know that's we don't need a parade. I don't need to do a post
the selfie about it. It's justdo the right thing. So it's twenty
fourteen. You decide to start GTFTechnologies, which is all about specializing and
(09:13):
creating secondary applications for unused plant basedmaterials and in essence and this is this
is audio and radio. So wecan't show you these post I guess processed
materials that come out of GFTF,but it's fascinating. It's essentially turning food
(09:33):
waste and it just microscopic powder iswhat it is, which a lot of
that can be reused, and we'regoing to talk about that. But so
there are a lot of entrepreneurs Gary, But to start this, you got
to sell this business plan to something, to somebody, to some financial backers.
(09:54):
What did they say first? Well, when I first started it,
it was when I was sharing whatwe did at Sentas and just kind of
just naturally when I had clients.I was in sales for Sentas, but
I was in charge of our largestcustomers, and I would just have a
conversation like we're having today with theCFO of a food company or another company,
(10:16):
and they were just they never reallyknew how much waste they had.
It just never got to their desk. And so when I was sharing this
these stories, I would get callslike a couple of months later and they
would say, Hey, I've gotyou know. I heard your name from
our CFO. We have a manufacturingplant and we have some pancake mix that
(10:37):
the label maker went haywire on ourpackaging line and we're about ready to landfill
this the pancake mix, but weheard about you that you may be able
to get it donated to maybe anarea offshore that doesn't have our retail brand.
It's not that much. It's onlytwenty six semis and that's a true
(10:58):
story. Wow. And so Iwas getting those types of calls and then
finally my wife back in fourteen,said why don't you do what God's calling
you to do and not to overspiritualize things, but sometimes that's what it
takes. It takes a little bitof a kick in a butt. Absolutely
absolutely, And so I said,okay, I'll help this with retail,
but I'm not going to get intofood. And again, so we started
(11:22):
in twenty fourteen. I was primarilyworking with other hard goood materials and then
back in twenty fifteen, the stateof California made it illegal. That was
going to make it illegal with thegovernmental laws that you couldn't landfill food waste.
So if you're a brewer food processingcompany that's creating this food waste,
(11:45):
you couldn't landfill it because it's acontributor of greenhouse gases. As matter of
fact, it's the number second largestcontributor of greenhouse gases. Food waste going
into a landfills. And so that'swhen the technology it's kind of was not
being fully utilized for food that that'swhen we looked at if we could stop
(12:07):
the rot for some way that Ican take a product and stabilize it to
get a longer shelf life, retainthe nutrients. That's where GTF technology is
in our technology to design and manufacturethese equipments really started back in the twenty
eighteen for us to really look atthe problem set is that this is not
(12:28):
only a food waste that companies werehaving problems. So I could have the
greatest technology in the world, butunless I can help a company make money
or save money, it's really notgoing to bring value. But if we
can help that company save money,help them with their problem, keep it
out of the landfill, which isgoing to help our environment, and also
hopefully then help somebody in need downthe road. So there's a big hunger
(12:52):
problem around the world right now.No brainer, a win on multiple levels.
Gary Schuler's with us EOS. Youshould know here at iHeartRadio. He's
founder and president of GTF Technologies.As we are kind of unpacking the story
of how GTF got started right herein West Michigan, located in Ada,
by the way, we don't wantto miss that. You can learn more
(13:15):
online if you're curious as you're listeningto this podcast or hearing another radio gtfdash
technologies dot com is the website.Got a great website GTF Technologies dot com
with a dash in the middle.So you were telling me and man,
oh man, you know we've gota time limit. I have so many
questions. Now, I knew thiswas going to happen. I was going
(13:37):
to get into this. This issuch a cool story. I've got all
these questions. But you were tellingme. One of the really to localize
this problem. Founder Is Brewing haseight hundred thousand pounds of byproduct when they,
you know, use hops to maketheir great tasting beer. But those
(13:58):
hops had to go somewhere. Sotalk about that in terms of your where
your equipment, your technology could comein. Yeah. In the beer industry
in general, I think the averagefor every six pack of beer, it
produces about a pound a brewer spentgrain waste product or side stream. And
in the brewing process they're basically takingthe sugars out of that grain material to
(14:20):
make the beer. So right now, most of that goes to animal feeds.
That's what feeds the cows and thepigs in the areas, and when
it needs to be removed from thebrewing facility if we can take that product
though it has and powderize it.So our technologies we're able to take something
(14:41):
that looks maybe like the in thebrewer spent grain look like oatmeal if you
can imagine, and we turn thatinto a powder in less than a second,
and we're using electricity not natural gas, so much more energy efficient,
better for the environment with eliminate theemissions that comes from natural gas, and
we do it so quickly that itretains the nutrient value of that powder.
(15:03):
So in the industry itself, ifyou can imagine, it's not only in
the brewers, spent grain is onearea that conversion. We could make about
two hundred thousand pounds of powder orflour that could be made with bread and
even other sustainable packaging materials out ofthat material, and it has a direct
(15:24):
offset from a carbon standpoint. Socertainly, for every million pounds of brewer
spent grain that is converted into likea food up cycled ingredient that could be
made into a pretzel or a pizzadough, there's about sixteen hundred tons tons
of carbon that could be offset.So that's every week, So imagine the
(15:46):
beer industry in general worldwide, whatthat could could do not only from producing
a food product, but also adirect carbon offset for that waste conversion.
I think people are hearing you tellabout that story, worry of taking that
spent grain, that byproduct from makingbeer and then literally, you know it
(16:08):
kind of is an oatmeal technology.In a matter of seconds, it's in
this powder. It almost sounds likeit's a hyper powered microwave using electricity.
I don't I mean, I'm notgoing to get into physics here, but
is that essentially what it is.It's like super cooking it real quickly that
(16:29):
you retain the products or no,we're not cooking the water out of it,
which is very unique. And sothe there's basically the technology inside where
we're spinning a turbine of let's sayfive thousand times per second, and if
I can imagine the outer edge ofthat is making an impact around fifty seven
(16:51):
hundred times per second. So imagineif I took a walnut, regular walnut,
and I packed it in a snowball. So if I took this snowball
with a wallet inside, and Ithrew it at a brick wall, just
shy of the speed of sound,and I did that fifty seven hundred times
in less than a second. Wewouldn't see this, they wouldn't maybe auch
(17:14):
less. There's a de bonding ofthe water molecules and the water from the
food product. And because we're doingthat so rapidly that we're not cooking out
the nutrients, it's chemical free.And so the water goes one way and
the water vapor and then the foodproduct is its powder eyes comes out in
a very very compact way. Sothat's what's really allowing I would say these
(17:40):
companies like a brewer spent grain arebrewing company a juicing operation. You can
imagine the orange juice, the orangepeels, it comes off. Before it
really wasn't economical to put in abig gas dryer to try to dry these.
But now if we've got it verycompact and a lower cost to drying
it, there's new emerging markets.Because that is the biggest challenge we have
(18:02):
for a lot of these companies.They say, okay, I can I
can create Let's say Founders two hundredthousand pounds of flour. What do I
do with all that? Who's goingto buy that? And so that's what
we're trying to do is develop homesfor this powder, whether that's utilized for
a food ingredient, sustainable packaging.So that's really the catch up part of
this is that as consumers, we'retrying to deliver what I call carbon negative
(18:30):
ingredients. So imagine your kind baror some other packaged goods could be made
with a product that's one hundred percentnutritious, actually could be more nutritious than
the juice that's coming off as mostlysugar. That could be used for our
every day products. Then that reallycould move the needle on eliminating food waste
for industrial uses. You showed meGary a pouch of essentially cranberries that have
(18:56):
been processed into a powder, beautifulred powder, And I looked at that
and I thought, the nutrients inthat powder have got to be off the
charts first and foremost. You're thinkingabout a place to find that. But
I want to back up to whatyou were saying. It sounds like a
lot of what you're doing at GTFTechnologies now is finding people to marry this
(19:18):
process with because it's a brilliant idea. Are you afraid of competitors? I
mean, is help us understand interms of how this process will work and
what you're working on right now.Well, our goal and media goal right
now is to get more of theequipment out to companies like a Founder's or
(19:41):
the larger food processing locations. Iwould say probably about ninety five percent of
our work right now is being donein California, mostly because the governmental pressures
that are on these big food processingcompanies and a lot of the fruit and
vegetables has grown out in California.So that's kind of our primary focus right
now for twenty twenty four is againbeing able to get awareness to the technology
(20:07):
and the solutions that offers. Sothat's that's really our main focus. Ideally
in the future, what we loveis the business partnerships to be able to
really help do win win scenarios forcompanies who maybe are potential buyers for that
product, as well as the otheruses of let's say sustainable packaging for let's
(20:30):
say pineapple skins. You can imagineif you core out of pineapple, what
happens in the pineapple skins. Well, if it goes into the landfill,
it's going to create carbon. Butif we now have that as a packaged
material because it's very high in fibrius. It's a really great business solution and
an environmental solid. Well, I'mthinking here in Michigan apples and all the
by products and all the waste andapple skins and so on and so forth.
(20:52):
I mean, there's a gold minethat they're in that whole process.
This year, I think that fiftypercent of the apple harvest could not go
to market. The supply was thatgreat that there's not enough demand. And
you have right now with any typeof apple or strawberries that you buy in
(21:15):
a grocery store, time is ticking, so you don't have limited time.
If we could powderize that apple,keep all the nutrients in there. Once
it's in a powder of let's sayless than five percent moisture, it's got
a shelf life potentially of three tofive years. The crazy part of that
field is that as a country weimport apple powder from overseas a lot of
(21:40):
our food ingredients that come into thiscountry is actually coming from parts of the
world that we aren't on the bestterms with politically. So there is a
risk factor there. And so whatif we did take the apples that the
excess apples, we turned it intopowder. I know it was a small
company called McDonald's that has apple applepies every day. Yep. Well,
(22:03):
if you look at the ingredients,guess what they don't have apple powder.
It's white bleach flour with a lotof other stuff going. Imagine if that
could be made with apple powder.Yeah, and imagine how much healthier it
would be and better tasting as welltoo, Not that I've had in McDonald's
apple pie in a while. GarySchuler is with its founder and president of
GTF Technologies on CEOs you should knowhere on iHeartRadio gtfdash Technologies dot com.
(22:32):
As we continue to talk about thislong term, where do you hope to
be maybe in five or ten years. You know, I think that not
only do we want to bring solutionsimmediately obviously if we can start that here
in Michigan and here in the UnitedStates, but there's so many other opportunities
worldwide. It's crazy. Half ofall the fruits and vegetables grown worldwide it
(22:56):
gets wasted. That's you know,one point three trillion tons or choose me
billion tons of food waste, justenough to feed about two billion people around
the world just on the waste product. But there's also I would like you
to see us more in terms ofan international presence, especially with certain areas
(23:18):
of the world with sixty percent ofthe crop goes wasted just because they can't
get it to market fast enough.Think about the coffee industry, there's farmers
that are really there's not a lotof margin for them. But the outside
of the coffee it looks like acherry, and the outside is it's called
a casava. A coffee cherry iswhat they call it. High and anti
oxiden materials. It could be usedas a food ingredient. But again,
(23:41):
how do you stabilize that powder sothat it could be turned into a new
revenue source that could totally transform someof these really poor communities in Latin America
and other places of the world.Absolutely, I would also like as a
company, our mission is really howdo we provide nutrient powders to maybe some
people who are malnutrition So I knowAmway has a program nonprofits called the Power
(24:07):
five. They recognize that forty percentof kids under the age of five die
because they don't get enough of theright nutrient powders or not powders. But
like your vegetables, sure. SoI've got one company that has just one
of their processing line creates twenty millionpounds of broccoli waste every year. That
could equate into about three million poundsof broccoli powder. Well, imagine when
(24:32):
you know that we could actually usethat powder. That mean you turn that
into a supplement that's then given tokids with malnutrition. That that really is
I think for the mission of everybodywho works at GTF, is we realize
that this is a purpose in whatwe're trying to do. Yeah, there's
I mean, it's just mind blowingthe potential that exists there. And I
(24:56):
think it all comes down to connections. And you know, we're having this
conversation in this podcast. It willalso play in all the iHeartRadio stations here
across West Michigan. You never knowwho's going to hear this, Gary and
go Gary. We should talk andI certainly hope maybe we at least serve
as a catalyst for a couple ofthose conversations. I've got to ask in
(25:18):
our final couple of moments, what'sthe best thing about being the boss?
Being the president? I know you'vegot a CEO as well, so you've
gotta be careful because he'll hear this. But what gets you out of bed
every morning? And they're like,I can't wait to get to work.
Yeah, Phil, I was adirty laundry salesman, pretty good one,
(25:40):
I thought. And I did notcreate the technology, and again, the
technology is it's really about what youdo with the technology and helping people.
I think what gets me up asthe phenomenal team that we have that I
can't even who are passionate at GTF, for our engineers and even Jim we
(26:03):
were our CEO who's come along,and including the investors, We've got a
family who are passionate about what we'redoing. And so what gets me up
is to realize that the Good Lordhas blessed me with coworkers and really people
with a vision. Uh and uhand also my wife Kristen, who's been
(26:26):
very patient for ten years. Imean that that is hard because when you
when you start something, you havea vision, it never goes the way
you planned and it's taken a longlong time. But yet the more that
we go along and the more wedevelop and see the needs, we we
also realize that this is much biggerthan anyone individual. And UH, that's
(26:49):
what gets me excited is our suppliershere in West Michigan where we're making the
equipment. Uh, everybody's really passionateabout Boy, this could really help people
and that and that that that reallygets me fired up every day. It's
just an amazing story. And bythe way, g TF Technologies Gary Schuler,
founder and President GTF Technologies based herein West Michigan, stands for and
(27:15):
there's a biblical reference, yes,Phil it's gleaning the fields GTF, which
you'll see various references in Leviticus.Sure, and their whole premise was that
the outer edge, you weren't supposedto go back and reap a second time.
That the outer edge was for thewidow, the orphan, the alien,
uh, those in need. Andso if you look at that field,
(27:37):
which is really God's field, thebusinesses is the same way. If
there's products that we have that isan excess or side stream, if we
can revalue those I hate to callit waste, it's a food asset.
We just need to stabilize it.And if we can do that, it
could really really help a lot ofpeople less fortunate. And that's our passion
(28:00):
and that's what we try to liveup to is that biblical standard? Incredible
story. I am just so blownaway by this. I had about another
half dozen questions, but we are. We are at the end of our
time, and thank you so muchfor the generosity of your time. We
have this conversation with us very inspirational. And you just heard my conversation with
(28:21):
Gary Schuler. Gary is founder andpresident of GTF Technologies. One of our
recent features on iHeartRadio CEOs you shouldknow segments. That's our program for this
week. Thank you so much forlistening. We hope you join me again
next weekend right here on this iHeartRadiostation, iHeartMedia, West Michigan. Weekend
(28:42):
a public affairs program
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