Part 2 of my family's ventures into various businesses, starting from my grandfather investing in land along the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, which led to cattle farming and orange growing. Our small family business expansion continued with the investment into an egg farm, which was a kind of co-operative that later attempted a transition into a corporation.

The family decided against trading our physical investments for shares, leading to a period of uncertainty until an employee of the co-op proposed to manage the egg farm, thereby revitalizing it.

John, representing the third generation, shares personal experiences of working at the egg farm, facing what he calls a 'generational ceiling', and learning invaluable lessons in innovation and process improvement from his first boss.

The story summarizes a few of the challenges and transitions faced by a small family business over generations, touching on aspects like market impacts, generational perspectives, and the significance of adaptability and innovation in sustaining and growing business ventures.

The challenges I faced, the lessons I learned, plus the subsequent training I have received is what makes me, through our business Kuder Consulting Group, a Small Family Business Specialist.

Visit our website to learn more: https://kuderconsultinggroup.com/

00:00 The Beginnings of a Diversified Family Business

00:12 Diversifying Investments: From Land to Livestock

01:18 The Egg Farm Venture: A Story of Innovation and Challenges

03:22 Working at the Egg Farm: Lessons in Hard Work and Innovation

05:33 Navigating Generational Challenges in a Family Business

09:44 The impact of the Cholesterol Controversy and the Decision to Sell

And then after the

the citrus pulp, what else?

So as he was doing that, he

built an office in Lake Alfred, and

as he was doing that, the looked

around for ways, other ways to invest.

And so he invested in land.

And bought land.

, along , what is now the interstate

four corridor between Tampa and

Orlando and he put it together.

Put pieces of land at a time.

As he could buy it and

Dad said, you know, some of it

was bought $25 for the acre.

Which is pretty cheap back then.

Yeah, even back then, I think.

So, he he'd amassed a , pretty sizable

piece of property and we ran cattle on it.

Cattle in Florida is mostly scrub.

, meaning they just, they,

they eat what they find.

We didn't have a feed lot.

The cattle were grew up to a certain

weight age, and then they were shipped

to somewhere to the Midwest where

they were then fattened in a feedlot.

And became beef cattle, but that wasn't.

So we did that.

We grew and he grew oranges.

And, and so, you know, my father was

very involved in that part of it and,

uh, you know, stories of him getting,

getting stuck out at the, in that

land and, and having to walk in and

get on the phone and call somebody to

come and help, and things like that.

Another one of the investments

that my grandfather made was to

buy a portion of a, an egg farm.

There was a large.

Facility that was.

Maybe sort of like a franchise.

They, there was one central processing

plant where the eggs were going to

be washed and packaged and sold.

But a lot of investors invested

in the actual chicken houses, the

land, the buildings, the cages.

Almost like a co-op.

Like, it was very much like a

co-op, but all in one big, pretty much

one big facility, one big acreage.

And the parcels were all

adjacent to one another.

And the owners of...

the investors in this weren't in

any way involved in the management,

, they were truly investors.

And the company that did that

processing put the chickens in there.

It was called contract.

We called it contract

farming later, where they.

We contracted, we built the

facility and contracted with

them to put the chickens in it.

And then, um, when they would then

do the caretaking feeding of the

chickens, collecting the eggs processing

and sales and give us a percentage.

And that worked for a while.

And then they, they decided to convert

the co-op into a, , corporation

with shares and they wanted all

those people that had invested in

those land and the chicken houses

to trade that, that physical

asset for shares in the, company.

And my grandfather declined.

Okay.

And so they said, okay, well,

we're not going to put chickens.

I don't know what timeframe, but okay.

Well, we're not going to put

chickens in your, in, back in

your chicken houses, chickens.

There's about a two, two and

a half year time span there.

And then the chickens are taken

out and replaced with younger ones.

So at some point.

That happened.

Okay.

And, fortunately one of the people that

worked in that company was, from a whole

other story, he was rather disgruntled.

I ended up working for him.

He was my first boss, Lloyd Jones.

But, , he, he came to my father

and said, "If you'd like, I'll be

glad to run your egg farm for you."

And so they made a deal and he

ran it for a bunch of years.

Yeah.

So that was my first job in the

company, uh, was, was working at the

egg farm summers, a couple of summers.

Um, and then I went after.

, I met you and when we got married.

We moved down and, uh, you

know, I interviewed with Mr.

Jones.

We were expanding.

We expanded the egg farm.

I want to say.

Doubled the capacity by having satellite

contract farms, where we had smaller

producers, a number of smaller producers,

but ultimately we were expanding.

And we're putting in a new machine.

The new egg grading machine.

It was state of the art.

And that happened to be

the time that I came along.

And so we moved, moved back to

Polk county and went to work.

And I went to work at the egg farm.

Yeah, it was always

fun to know too then.

Uh, chickens do not take off holidays.

They do not.

They didn't care

that I was in labor.

They wanted to be fed seven

days a week and they were twice a day.

I was only at the egg farm five years.

Okay.

Before we sold it to the fella who

had actually started that go up in

the beginning and said, we're not

putting chickens back in there.

So we didn't, that's funny.

Yeah.

It was funny how that came back around.

The.

The things that I learned, the lessons

that I learned there in terms of

process improvement and, , systems

we're just incredibly valuable to me

and , there are very

universally applicable.

And there was a lot of I want

to say country invention.

I don't know exactly how to define

it, but, he was almost, he had a

real fascination with building stuff.

Who?

Mr.

Jones.

Lloyd Jones.

He he'd love to tinker.

We had a, we had a shop there and he

loved to tinker on stuff, but he had,

he was an innovator and he'd had a lot

of years in the egg industry and feeding

chickens, and he'd figured out a lot of

stuff that didn't work and ways around it.

And, and he'd also, I want to say because

he'd worked other places and seen things

that didn't work, saved us from making

mistakes that we might've made otherwise.

So was it difficult for

you coming into, so now you're the.

third generation, and you've

got an older boss there.

Who's been.

You know, who knows the

industry, how was that work?

How did that work out for you?

Did you enjoy working for him or.

What did you learn at?

Let's go with that.

What did you learn from that situation?

My goodness.

Well, we talk about in our

Kuder Consulting Group.

We've coined the term

generational ceiling.

And I did not so much

experience that with my father.

Not as impactfully as I did with Mr.

Jones.

Because I was there at the egg farm

and, and I wanted to, I wanted to

learn and I wanted more responsibility.

I mean, I started out doing

very, very low-end menial...

I learned how to work really hard and.

Didn't you knock

concrete off of...?

It was basically,

like sweeping floors.

I was busting concrete,

off of , creosote poles.

I was, , doing various things with you

know, the chickens that needed doing.

I won't go into that.

The first week I spent built bending

wires on a wire bending jig and, and

we did, you know, there was repetitive

things that we did seasonally.

But it was yeah, it's dirty work

and, and I, I expect it to grow into.

To learn.

I wanted to learn every aspect of the

business and understand the planning

that went into planning for the chickens

and planning to have, more chickens

laying eggs, so we were at our maximum

production capacity during the holidays

where there's a lot of baking done.

So from.

Halloween through Easter.

Right because you've got Thanksgiving and

you've got Christmas, the major holidays,

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

That's when people are

cooking with eggs a lot.

So we needed to have our

maximum capacity then.

And.

Chickens have a season that where

they're, you know, laying the heaviest.

And we had multiple groupings of

chickens, we called them flocks.

I think.

Like 25,000 each.

Okay.

Lots of chickens.

But that all had, that was planning

and timing that went into that.

And, and I, I wanted to learn all that and

I was never, I was not included in that.

At one point, I did have a

conversation with him, with Mr.

Jones and

he said, well, you'll be ready to do

some of this stuff, you know, after

you've been here 10, 15 years, cause

he'd been in the business 40 years,

right.

That was a turning point for me.

And, you know, psychologically,

because I thought.

No , I'm not going to be here 15 years.

That's where I had to have a conversation

with my father and My father.

This really gets into a whole, we need

to do a whole other podcast about when

you have, , an external or non-family

member manager or professional

manager in a family business and the

communication that needs to happen.

Because ultimately what it amounted

to was Lloyd Jones was afraid that

I was somehow going to replace him.

He felt threatened by my presence.

And my father was very clear.

You're not there to replace him.

You're here to replace me this.

You're just learning, you know, the

business through working through there and

you won't be staying there a long time.

And it was like, well, can

you tell him that please?

'cause he's really pushing,

you know, holding me back.

And.

Again, this is the generational ceiling.

I was very young and I thought,

I, you know, when we're 17, we

think we know everything by the

time we're in our twenties, and

especially after we've had a baby,

we realize we don't know much at all.

Right.

But, but there's still.

You know, Uh, a, uh, there's an energy,

there's a desire to grow that someone

in their sixties, which is what he was.

It doesn't have, you know, they're,

they're more coasting towards retirement

and they're more playing things, a

little safe and just, you know, using

what they've learned over the years.

And, and they've, they've got a rhythm.

Right.

And then I remember the day that

you came home and said, oh, by the way,

Yes.

Uh, So again, a long story

to get to that point.

But, uh, we, we had the opportunity to..

. The egg business was not a

profitable business at that time.

We were in the middle of what they

call, the cholesterol controversy.

Where doctors were telling

people eat , one egg a week

because eating the cholesterol

in the egg was going to kill them.

That is false science.

It's been completely debunked.

Debunked, but it still, you still see

today, , how many, 20, 30 years later?

You still see product , packaging that

says no cholesterol on it, because

that's how effective that campaign was.

And it was strictly in

a marketing campaign.

That's another rant for another day.

Right.

But we, so it was not a profitable,

very, very, very thin margins.

We unfortunately grew into a size

where we weren't big enough to get

the economy of scale that we needed to

have to weather those difficult times.

And, , it didn't make sense.

We really couldn't shrink.

We were kind of in a rock and a

hard place situation, and we had

the opportunity to sell it and , we

took it and, I was all for it.