Episode Summary

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show, co- founder & co-CEO at Local Bounti, Craig Hurlbert. Local Bounti is an organization that strives to deliver the freshest, locally grown produce in your neighborhood. Local Bounti sustainably grows fresh greens and herbs 365 days a year in their greenhouses, using 90% less water and 90% less land than conventional agriculture.

Today, Harry and Craig talk about Craig’s extensive background in energy, from his time at General Electric (GE) to the origins of Local Bounti. Craig discusses the recent extreme weather and climate and how it has impacted the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry. Craig shares his views on leadership and why he chooses to lead through a centralized vision and goal. Finally, Craig speaks to the work Local Bounti is doing to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and why he’s rooting for all of his competitors in the CEA industry.

Episode Sponsor

CULTIVATD

Freight Farms

Key Takeaways

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• 01:14 – Harry welcomes to the show Craig Hurlbert, who joins the show to discuss his background in energy and the challenges we’re facing with the recent extreme weather and climate
• 
  
• 
  
• 10:12 – Mentors that shaped Craig’s career trajectory
• 
  
• 
  
• 14:45 – How Craig met his fellow co-founder, Travis Joyner and how their partnership has evolved
• 
  
• 
  
• 18:21 – Leading through foresight and vision
• 
  
• 
  
• 19:34 – Local Bounti’s origin story
• 
  
• 
  
• 25:10 – Key factors in scaling a business
• 
  
• 
  
• 28:53 – Working remotely vs. working in the office
• 
  
• 
  
• 32:12 – Lessons Craig learned throughout his journey at Local Bounti
• 
  
• 
  
• 35:52 – Supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• 
  
• 
  
• 40:20 – Multiple winners in the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry
• 
  
• 
  
• 46:12 – Never too high, never too low
• 
  
• 
  
• 47:33 – Something Craig has changed his mind about recently
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• 50:42 – Harry thanks Craig for joining the show and let’s listeners know where they can learn more about Local Bounti and connect with Craig
• 
  

Tweetable Quotes

“Our desire to move more rapidly into renewable energy has cut out a bunch of what I would call ‘reliable 24/7/365 power supplies’ that are less renewable but more reliable. And that has created some challenges for the different grid systems across the United States.” (05:40) (Craig)

“I think when you approach every room you walk into in this manner – park your ego at the door, walk in, roll up your sleeves, we’re all peers, let’s move things forward – I think things work better.” (18:03) (Craig)

“Without unit economics, you don’t have a business.” (21:56) (Craig)

“I don’t like people who dabble. I don’t like dabbling. I think dabbling is the enemy of progress.” (24:45) (Craig)

“It’s important for the listeners to hear, as well, that there will be multiple winners in the CEA space. It’s not Local Bounti or nothing. We’re rooting for all of our competitors and really rooting for the while industry.” (40:20) (Craig)

Links Mentioned

Craig’s LinkedIn

Local Bounti Website

Local Bounti LinkedIn

Local Bounti YouTube Channel

Local Bounti Facebook

Local Bounti Pinterest

Sponsor Info:

Cultivatd Website

Cultivatd Instagram

Cultivatd’s Twitter

Cultivatd’s Facebook

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Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations

with fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech

visionaries. Join us every week as we dive deep into the

world of vertical farming. with your host, Harry Duran.

Vertical Farming Podcast Season 4, welcome back. If this is your first time

listening, I'm positive you're in the right place. This is the show where we interview

fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from around the

world, and I'm your host, Harry Duran. In case you missed the last episode,

we kicked off Season 4 with Shannon O'Malley of Brick Street Farms. Highly

engaging conversation, make sure you check that out. This week we speak to

Greg Hurlburt. He's the co-founder and CEO at Local Bounty. Local

Bounty is an organization that strives to deliver the freshest locally grown produce in your

neighborhood. The company sustainably grows fresh greens and herbs

365 days a year in their greenhouses using 90% less

water and 90% less land than conventional agriculture. Today, Craig and

I talk about Craig's extensive background in energy from his time at General

Electric to the origins of Local Bounty. Craig discusses the recent extreme

weather and climate and how it has impacted the CEA industry,

and he shares his views on leadership and why he chooses to lead through a

centralized vision and goal. Finally, Craig speaks to the work Local Bounty is

doing to support the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and why he's

rooting for all of his competitors in the CEA industry. We're super

honored to have a couple of return and new sponsors also

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VFPOD2021. Excited to read a new

review that's come in. This one is from MrMonk21 out of the UK.

Empowered me to launch my own. Harry's done an amazing job at getting so many

variants of guests from different aspects of vertical farming. Since listening to this back in

March and leaving my job, I've I'm in the process of launching my own urban

farm in the UK using hydroponics. The show has inspired me and

empowered me to take action. Keep up the great work, Harry. Well, thank you so

much, Mr. Monk. I truly appreciate the review. And don't forget, if you'd like

to hear yours read out, head on over to ratethispodcast.com/vfp,

and I'll be sure to read yours out next. Okay, let's get into this conversation

with Craig. So Craig Hurlburt, co-founder and co-CEO of

Local Bounty, thank you for joining me on the Vertical Farming Podcast.

Harry, great to be with you. Excited. Have you done a lot of

podcast interviews lately? I've done a few. Okay. Uh,

it seems to be they're ramping up a little bit, a lot of interest in

Local Bounty. And, uh, so yes, it's ramping up,

but I've really looked forward to this one. I enjoy your work. Thank you so

much. It's been a fantastic journey. And what I'm doing is,

as I'm learning about the industry, I'm taking my listeners along for the ride. And

so I love telling origin stories. I've got another podcast that I've been doing

since 2014, so I love just Just follow that curiosity

thread, I think takes you a long way. I think it's really important

that, you know, your listeners have an opportunity to kind of hear

different perspectives and really kind of round out their

understanding of such an important part of our economy, such an

important part of our future just as human beings. So I applaud you for

what you're doing, and I've been excited. I've had this one circled on the calendar.

Yeah, thank you so much. Where's home for you now? My home

residence is Houston, Texas, just north of Houston in The Woodlands.

But I was born and raised in Montana. I'm a 4th generation Montana boy.

So I come from a family of farmers. A couple of points I

want to cover there, but Houston's top of mind because my brother

and my sister-in-law, they live in New Orleans and they just had to evacuate. So

they are in Houston. I think they're heading back soon, but they had to— they

have family there, so they had to camp out there for a while. Yeah. Houston

is famous, candidly, for bringing open arms to everyone

along the Gulf that has issues. And, uh, Katrina,

Ida, we have been known for bringing people in. In fact, I believe during

Katrina, I think 100,000 people ended up— Wow.

Moving into Houston, uh, full-time. So,

yeah, it's a great city. It's an international city. It's an entrepreneurial

city and a city with a huge heart. Yeah, definitely.

It's interesting because I was looking in your background and you've got decades of

experience in energy. And so I imagine it's a topic

that's always top of mind for you. And given what happened recently, I just

read there was a natural gas plant, I believe, built in New Orleans that was

supposed to kick in when this happened and it didn't. So I'm wondering how

you think about these challenges that we face going forward, especially with

everything that's happening and all these These natural disasters just

keep getting bigger and bigger or consistently large every year.

You know, it's such an important topic. I think

there are people that are believers in climate change, and then there's people that

aren't believers in climate change. But I think everybody

agrees that the climate cycles have become more violent, uh,

for sure, in most of our adult lifetimes. So no matter which

camp you're in, it's impossible to argue that

things are definitely changing or we're in a different

trend, whichever camp you fall in. And I

think it's impacting all industries. It's

definitely impacting those that are fundamental to human life. We're going to talk

about food industry, but to lose a power plant

in the middle of a city that needs power is really—

can be catastrophic, especially For those of your viewers in the north,

you don't have to deal with the heat and humidity that they have in New

Orleans this time of year. It could be deadly not to have air

conditioning or at least some form of energy to be able to

cool the air. So it's a massive issue.

The whole climate change, climate cycle topic has a

massive impact on agriculture, huge impact on energy,

just a big impact on human life, candidly. And we also saw it

recently in Austin as well. And there's a different

weather cycle there and you know, the fact that they have an independent grid. And

I'm just curious in your experiences, you know, obviously you spent a lot of time

at GE, you know, studying topics like this. And I'm wondering how you

think about ways we can think about it differently, or is there

anything that we can be doing differently to tackle this problem?

Yes, I can tell you it's a very complicated and challenging topic,

which is why I think we are where we are in certain places.

I do believe there are certain regulations that have hindered Common sense

progress, and I think we see that in the agricultural business as well.

And then there's certain regulation that's helped. I think our move,

our move quickly, or our desire to move more

rapidly into renewable energy has

cut out a bunch of what I'd call reliable

24/7/365 power supplies that are less

renewable but are more reliable. And

that has created some challenges for the grid, the different grid

systems around the United States. I don't think anyone's denying we

need to move more and more towards the renewable side of things. And I

think we're all on board with that. I think the tempo and the pace at

which we do that is critical because I think we're

realizing, you know, in Texas, we had a freeze that killed a bunch of

people this winter. If you can believe that, if you can believe how is that

possible? Texas. Well, that was strange. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's a

lot of theories as to why that happened, but we didn't have reliable power.

And there's a lot of good reasons as to why it wasn't there when we

needed it. And so I think we're going to need a common sense

approach to our transition to renewables. I think we'll get there

over time. But in the meantime, we're going to have some,

some growing pains. And I think we're feeling that right now. How was your

time at Brightmark Partners? How was that helpful for you

in terms of thinking? I imagine you worked with a lot of different companies in

a lot of different industries, and I'm wondering what some of the takeaways are there

with some of the companies you saw. Yeah. So I think in order to

get to Brightmark, I kind of need to start at GE. I could do it

pretty quickly and work my way through and then get to Brightmark because it's a

very important question. So my career started in investment banking.

I ended up at GE where I had an opportunity to

really be at GE in kind of the glory days, kind of during the Jack

Welch glory days. I had an opportunity to really learn how to behave as

an executive and learn how to operate things. Most

importantly, I had an opportunity to build global sales

force inside of a fast-growth company at GE Power Systems. My

last quarter at GE, we did over $1 billion in backlog. So we were

doing things all over the world in the energy space, primarily the power

generation space. And in that era, people

that performed at GE had that pedigree were very popular with recruiters.

My next logical step was to become a CEO, which I did in

1999. And over the next 14, 15 years, I

ran 2 different businesses, both of which had exits. And we

did all kinds of things, everything from, we did all the air conditioning on the

Palm Island, on the Crescent of the Palm. If you're familiar with the palm tree

in the middle of the ocean. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We did

120,000-ton air conditioning project there, many

other large-scale projects in the Middle East on a commercial air conditioning

basis. We did a bunch of HVAC solutions for over

400 power plants all over the world, 33 countries to be exact.

And then we also helped many of the large data center companies,

builders, solve the HVAC solutions for data centers.

So tremendous amount of experience between GE

and the 2 companies I just mentioned. And then Travis Joyner and I,

my co-founder and co-CEO, my best friend, we started

Brightmark Partners to really pull on his experience

and my experience to bring it to bear for entrepreneurs that

had businesses that were trying to grow their companies. And so we were

investing primarily in water, energy, and agriculture.

Those are the areas we were looking at. And I think I'm so

thankful that my journey kind of took me where it did because I've

had an opportunity to work with so many great people, but really had an

opportunity to learn how the world works and

what's really important in terms of introducing

new technology and getting that technology to stick.

And that learning that I went through prior to Brightmark

really played huge dividends inside of Brightmark. And

so dealing with those early stage companies is

so much fun. It's challenging, but it's so much fun because there's so much

passion and energy. And now here we are at Local Bounty, which kind of came

out of Brightmark, and now we've shut everything down inside of Brightmark and we're

only focused on Local Bounty. Yeah, I, I can only imagine

the experiences you had, especially at GE. I'm, I, I was, I'm a child

of the '80s, so I'm very familiar with the, the GE commercials. We bring good

things to life and it just, It was just that very

popular trademark that it was just prevalent and everyone

associated GE with energy. But also on the business

side, I mean, Jack Welch is one of the icons in

terms of business leadership. And so I'm curious, it'd probably be

a long list, but are there some mentors that come to mind in your time

at GE that really stand out? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I met Mr.

Welch on several occasions and he just had a presence about him that

was unique in my lifetime. You just don't meet

people like that. I mean, I could give you, I know we don't have enough

time, but I could give you several stories about meeting him and being around him

that, uh, it still to this day inspires me. What's one that stands

out? So I went to, they had a college, GE owned a college

called Crotonville where they sent their high pots or high potential

people. I had an opportunity to go up there a couple of times. And in

one particular case, It was a three or four week long course,

and it was all about how to behave as a GE executive. And kind of

the last week, Jack Welch would come and and spend two

days with us, which was really neat. They had a bar on campus, so we'd

go to the bar afterwards. He'd tell stories, and you know, he's just a

he was such a you know personable, easygoing kind

of a person to be around. But here we are, seventy two

people in a big you know kind of a an

oval with Jack down at the bottom. And he said,

everybody take a minute to introduce yourself. So we're going around the room

and one of the people worked at NBC and

at NBC, they had a Friday night, I think it was ER at that time.

Oh yeah. Yeah. You probably remember the TV show. He said, my name's

so-and-so. I'm at NBC in Rochester. And, uh,

you know, I'm responsible for this and this, basically the whole, the whole

operation. And Jack said, Hey, look, I was looking at the

ratings last Friday night. They weren't very good. Or last Thursday night,

whatever it was, they were a little off. And I thought, wow, that's

unbelievable. Wow. Yeah. So, and he did that kind of all

the way around. What should have taken an hour to do all the introductions took

like 3 hours because he interacted with everybody, including myself,

on what I was doing. And I'm guessing on the helicopter ride

over, he got downloaded. But even if that was the case,

just an impressive individual. And I think what it taught me watching

that was CEOs have to know what's going on.

They have to have a good feel. And I said at the time

when I left GE, not long after that experience I just talked about,

I sold all my stock in GE. And the reason was we all knew Jack

was retiring. And I said to my friends at the time,

there's no human being on planet Earth that could do what

that guy's doing because he had built it and had

watched it kind of get to that point. So he had all of these innate

feel for what was going on. And I just can't

stress enough the importance of my time at GE, not just because of

Mr. Welch, but so many other smart people I had the opportunity to work with

there. Yeah, someone like that is, I'm sure, leaves an impression

and is really the face. You know, it's kind of like the Steve Jobs or

the Bill Gates of their generation, but just to have some time in the his

presence, it just is, must have been really exciting,

especially as you're coming up and learning. Because when you're coming up, and I was

in corporate for 20-plus years, worked at JPMorgan Chase and E-Trade, and my bosses,

you know, we'd talk about some of the lessons learned and pass on books and

stuff like that. So there's a lot of like learnings that have gotten

passed down, I'm sure, multiple generations. Yeah, absolutely.

100%. His legacy lives on through many of us. that are applying

the parts of what we learned that are appropriate for the businesses we're running.

But there's a whole lot of GE folks out there today that are no

longer with GE that are doing big things. And,

you know, we all look at GE today, we're like, you know, it's very complicated

business and, you know, their CEO's doing the best he can do, but it's a

long way from where we were in the mid-'90s. Yeah. So then

in between Brightmark and Local Bounty, you also

took on the role of chairman at Clearus. Yeah, that kind of started

actually a little bit right, kind of as we were founding Brightmark,

maybe a little bit before. Claris is a very, what I would say,

innovative water technology company and also has a

farming component to it, which was interesting to Travis and I. Travis and

I are both investors. We both sat on the board. Travis just rolled off and

I'm still the chairman today. But Claris has a very

bright future in front of us and I'm still involved in that business today. But

We have a really strong CEO now and a great

board of directors. So, it's kind of off to the races. What's

the story of how you and Travis met? Well, it's funny.

We had some common friends and we were both in

Montana and were members at the same golf club. And,

there was an event at the club and both of us got there late

and there were no spots left to sit for the dinner. And so, the staff

kindly put this little tiny round table, stuck a candle in

the middle of it, put 2 chairs there and said, here you guys go. And

we joke to this day, it was our romantic dinner. You know, we're both married

with kids, but we had an opportunity just face-to-face. We'd heard

about each other, but we really didn't know each other. And when that

dinner, everybody was out of that room, Travis and I were still sitting there talking.

And what we learned really quick was His skillset and my

skillset are wildly complementary. And from

that day to today, which is about 10 years, we've had, I say

we live in a zero drama zone. We haven't had an argument to this day.

And we've just been able to accomplish a great deal with

zero drama. That's really important. And then really something to

strive for as a business owner myself. Now we run a

podcast production agency, but I'm always thinking about this idea of when and, and

how do you have conversations about people that could potentially come on in maybe a

founding role? And just like a, a marriage, it's a

relationship that has to be cultivated, that has to be grown, that has to be

nurtured. And so what would you say if you look back on your

relationship as co-founders, like what makes it work and

why has it worked for, for this period of time? It's such an important question

because every business deals with this. I mean, we've had companies that were owned by

husband and wife. We've had companies that had founders. We've kind of seen it

all. I think for Travis and I, what really— the

things that jump out for us and why we've been able to do a couple

of things, be very, very productive and do it in a really

positive, fun way. People, my friends are always like, why are you still doing

this? Like, what are you doing? I'm like, I love being with Travis. I love

growing companies. You know, this is who I am and what I love to do.

So it's like, That old saying, what is it? Love what you do, you never

work a day in your life, something like that. And that isn't to say there

are days that are stressful and you know you don't go to bed, you know,

with your head circling, you know, like wow, I got so much going on. But

for Travis and I, I think Harry, a couple of really simple things. I

mentioned this earlier: very, very complementary skill sets. Travis

is a PhD, highly intelligent, very data

analytic driven, and. Just super, super

high intellect. I, on the other hand, I'm more of the guy that has the

leadership experience and kind of seen all of the issues, all the

people issues, all the supply chain issues. How do you get something

built? Do this, do that. And so that

combination is very complementary. So that helps a lot.

I think if you have two partners that both want to do the same thing,

you tend to butt heads a little bit more. And then the second thing

is we both have, and we were both raised in a

certain way where there's a healthy dose of

humility in both of us. And I think no matter

what I tell you today about Craig and Travis, Local Bounty is an

amalgamation of a tremendous amount of talent.

And we're just representing that talent and are the voice to that talent.

So I think when you approach every room you walk into, In this

manner, park your ego at the door, walk in,

roll up your sleeves. We're all peers. Let's move things forward.

I think things work better. And Travis and I are definitely leading

by example on that front. How would you describe your leadership style?

You know, I guess the way I see myself is I

kind of see things other people don't see. And it's clear as

day to me that what role the CEA industry is going to play. It's just

crystal clear. So the key is, how do I get other people

excited about that? How do we populate the company with the

right talent in the right place and then get everybody really excited about the

vision? And then candidly, Harry, just get out of everybody's way,

you know, and be there when, when something needs

to be refereed, but not go overboard

and let your talent do what it needs to do. So, that's the way I

see myself. I'm guessing if you were to talk to other people, they'd say Craig's

really a hard person and all of that. I think

great leaders do have an edge. I could tell you right now, Mr. Welch had

a definite edge. And his whole thing was, you know,

the bottom 10% get exited, right? So, he had his own

way of driving his edge. I remember that. Yep. I think great leaders do have

an edge. But I think you can have that edge and still have a big

heart at the same time. And I certainly Certainly strive to do

that. And I know Travis does the exact same thing. So

we're eye to eye on that. You said something there that you see very clearly

the role CEA industry is going to have. Can you talk about that? And

as we segue into Local Bounty, you know, and how,

you know, even CEA came on your radar when you started to become aware of

what was happening in this industry. You bet. So let's start with the last part

and I think I'll get to kind of my look towards the future. So.

Why did Travis and Craig start Local Bounty 3 and a half years ago?

And the answer is, as I mentioned at Brightmark, as you brought

up, we were looking to make investments in companies, existing businesses.

And, you know, we're very structured in the way we

do our due diligence and we like data and numbers

and management teams and things of that nature. So we really dug in

and we dug in hard because we both felt that it had a massive

opportunity just from the ESG angle. And, you know,

kind of we could see kind of what was coming with traditional

agriculture and the struggles that they're having there. Maybe that partially

helped because I grew up on a farm. I could see kind of how things

worked. That was a long time ago, but that played a role in our

thinking. So we started digging in and doing our due diligence on

those existing businesses. Long story short, What fell

out is we couldn't find a business that we

felt was investable for Brightmark. And, you know, we view

the industry as capital-intensive,

high-growth, global,

commodity-based products. All of those things

are very much what the energy industry is. If you take a look at the

energy industry, capital-intensive, global,

You've got to have good unit economics, and you know it's

a global enterprise. So all of the things we learned in the energy industry,

we were layering over as we looked at the CEA space, and we were

disappointed. We were so excited about the space, and

we were confused too. We started just we looked at each other and said, you

know, why is this the case? What are we missing here? And so

we did another round, and if I could summarize, the number one

reason we did not make an investment. In the CEA space

as Brightmark was because we didn't feel any of the

companies we looked at had enough focus on unit economics.

And without unit economics— this goes all the way back to Jack Welch—

without unit economics, you don't have a business. You may have a hobby,

you may have a great R&D thing, you may have a beautiful facility,

but you don't have an underlying business that can

deliver products to consumers consistently and

returns to shareholders and do better for the environment. You can't do it.

So we were disappointed, as I said. So we said,

let's see, maybe this is an opportunity. Maybe the industry

is missing something. How many companies would you say you

researched? At least 4 in pretty

serious detail and several others that just didn't

get far enough. Sure. And then what I would say on top of that is,

as we were doing that research, this was the first part of your question,

the vision for what CEA could be really started

to emerge for us. And we started to get more and more excited about

the space and less and less excited about what we were

seeing in the space. And so that left us with quite a

conundrum. What are we going to do? We have Brightmark. Rocking and

rolling, but this is a big miss. And this is

there's going to be bees. There's going to be bees billions

that are going to be invested in this space on a global basis. The TAM

alone just for leafy for you know what I'll call let's say

perishables in that space is thirty billion in the U.S.

Less than one percent is indoors today, right? So the TAM

we just kept seeing the TAM, the TAM, the TAM. And then we started looking

at unit economics, unit economics, and it was all, if we do

this, if we do that, it's out here, right? I'll just pause there

for— there are some folks that are still learning some of the terms. So TAM

is a total addressable market, just for folks paying attention

at home. Yeah. Thank you, Aaron. Yes. So the total addressable market is $30

billion in the US. So massive markets. And that's a lot. Globally, obviously much,

much bigger than that. So yeah, just, I didn't mean to interrupt you as you

were talking about that as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, Both Travis and I

started getting more and more excited about the market opportunity and what was there,

and less and less excited about the unit economics.

And the lack of focus on the unit economics was really the bigger

issue. So we looked at each other and said, "I think it's time to

start a business." And we systematically did two

we started unwind everything at Brightmark, and we

started to really ramp up. Our effort at Local Bounty,

and that was about three and a half years ago. So yeah, it's really interesting.

And did you know that the opportunity was so

big? And as you started moving further into this and researching

it and realizing that you would have to build something, that there's no way you

could do that and Brightmark at the same time? Correct. Yeah, just from

you know both of our past experience. I don't like people that dabble.

I don't like dabbling. I think dabbling is the. Is the

enemy of progress. I think you could do a certain amount of dabbling when

you're at a certain point, but if you're gonna do something like Local Bounty, it's

all hands on deck, it's full-time. And, you know, I could sit on,

you know, a board, but that's about it. That's about all the time I've got.

And so you've had a lot of experience leading and

building up companies. How do you think about this? If, if it's different, if it's

not, but quickly scaling up a company, cuz it's something I always think about

also as, as we, you know, we start to grow as well, like Where do

you look at in terms of key hires? And, and at that

point, do they take over and help with the scaling? Or I'm always really curious,

like how new ventures think about, you know, personnel when it

comes to scaling. Okay. So the first thing I'll say on that

is I think today people are

more interested in working for organizations that

are in alignment with their values. So I just feel very

strongly that talent wants to be aligned

with what they believe in. And so when we tell the

Local Bounty story, and I'm sure when you tell your story,

there is really passionate excitement

about the potential for, you know, growing

products that are better for the consumer. No

herbicides and pesticides, just The whole story of CEA

generally and Local Bounty specifically has

been really powerful in our ability to add talent. Okay.

Now, the other thing I like is I like

to bring talent from all different corners of the world.

So not just geographically, but from industry basis.

Travis, I come from the energy space. We're looking at things differently. So

obviously we had to staff up the ag people. Our vertical farming talent,

our horizontal farming talent, you know, all of that, our processing talent, all of

that. And that's, you know, way down the path. But I'll give you a good

example. Our head of construction

is ex-Amazon. So who's building more things right now

than data center people and people like Amazon, right? Yeah.

So why not go get somebody? Now, he doesn't know a lot about

agtech, right? But we've got people that know stuff about agtech. He's

bringing heavy construction experience in. So we've just

populated what I like to call all 4 corners of the business with

really talented people that share our values,

share the vision of Local Bounty, are excited about what we're

doing, and bring unique skill sets that can help us

truncate the process and the problems that are

inevitably in front of us. Does

that just come from experience and figuring out, like, who are

the key hires and where are those 4, you

know, pillars that would need the most focus if this is to

succeed? Yes, it is a heavy dose of experience.

It helped that Travis and I were involved in so many businesses at Brightmark. It

helped that, you know, GE and the 2 businesses I ran as the

CEO from basically from the ground up. All of that builds on

itself. So one of the things we look at when we were at Brightmark looking

in the CEA space was experience of management teams. Do you have

experience putting a billion dollars of stuff in the dirt? Yes or no? If

not, who on your team does? And I think, you know,

investors should be looking at it in that way through that lens.

And you find there's a lot of technical talent,

which is very important. I'm not diminishing the importance of technical

talent. But it's kind of like if you just— like, I exercise

5 or 6 days a week. If I just did one thing

on one part of my body, I would look way out of balance. A business

is no different. You have to have that talent in all

parts of the business in order to be balanced and able to really

solve the challenges that are in front of you. Given what's been

happening for the past year and a half, how do you think about

differently If it is different, this idea of people coming

to the office and people working remotely, how's that come into play now?

Yeah, it's such a great question. I mean, if you would've asked me that question

2 years ago, I would've said, no way, it's impossible, right? Sounds good,

but you know, it's, it's impossible. And yet today,

I mean, we commissioned our first facility

utilizing FaceTime and Zoom and

things like that because the people from Europe couldn't even get to our plant.

So, I mean, I think what this does, Harry, to me

is it speaks to the human spirit.

Go past Local Bounty. Look at what we're trying to do. We're

trying to change the agricultural world as it

relates to these series of products to do things better.

And yet we've had everything against us, you know, in the middle of a

pandemic, you know, all these challenges. And yet Here we are,

you know, progressing so nicely through the

process. So I do believe there is a magic.

We had our very first all-hands, or let's say leadership

offsite meeting in June. And I can't tell you how great it was for me

just to be with the team, just to have those little sidebar conversations,

break bread for dinner, breakfast, whatever it was.

I felt fantastic, but I don't

know the ultimate answer on where people need to be located.

Right now we're doing a little bit of both and it seems to be

working, but we're kind of assessing it as we go along.

Yeah, it just seems to be one of those skills that's really important for leaders

that do end up having success, this ability to

take situations like that that are essentially black swan events. Like,

no one really saw this coming, and I think the people who have had success

have that ability to pivot and realize, you know, how quickly do you make a

decision? You know, because people were waiting to see how long this is going to

last. And then is this something that's long-term that you have to account

for and build for and maybe change, change course? And I think being

flexible, I think, is a really important trait. I think so too. I also

feel pretty strongly that business

leaders should have kind of a no-excuse mentality. We can make up

reasons why we can't do things, or we can just do things. And do our

best and see where we fall. And I think if you bring that into the

equation, kind of sets the tone of, we're gonna do our

best to make this happen. But, you know, it's pretty

astounding to me, not just Local Bounty, but a lot of my friends that are

CEOs, they've told me their stories. It's pretty

astounding what people are doing, you know, virtually. Yeah, yeah,

especially with the changes in technology and how people are

pushing the limits, even, virtual reality. I think I read,

uh, my friends and I would play poker occasionally, and we're all in different

parts of the country now, so apparently you could do that remotely now too. So

it's amazing what they're gonna be coming up with. Yep.

I think the ones that can learn to adjust and, uh, and

can thrive in the middle of it are gonna really have a leg up.

So looks like you're heading into the 4th year with Local Bounty, you know,

What have you changed anything in terms of how you started and your mission there?

And given like how the climate's changed or anything, how in terms of how fast

you're growing, what's been some of the key takeaways and lessons? Yeah,

I'd say the first 2 years were really more of

just kind of getting our feet under us, really trying to understand technology,

trying to understand the whole unit economic dynamic

and understanding kind of And really putting time in on the

scaling of the business. So we kind of we we like to talk

about going slow to go fast. I think a lot of people go fast

and they're like, oh my gosh! I now have this monstrosity. How do I get

it to run right? You know, we've kind of taken the other

approach to kind of go go slower at first, really

kind of get our feet on our ground, and then really get after it. So

our first facility has really only been running for a year and a half.

And that plant has taught us so many great lessons. And

we started small, right? It's a smaller facility. We're currently

expanding it by a little more than 2 times. And then our next

facility that'll break ground here not too far from now will

be about 3 times the size of our first expanded

facility. So what that's allowed us to do is really work

out all the kinks on a small scale. Okay. And then

be able to go to that bigger scale knowing what we're going to get.

Okay. That's really key. And I think multiple

benefits to that, Harry. Number one, you could do all that very capital

efficiently. So where others in this space have

raised hundreds of millions of dollars over 10 or

15 years and are in 200 to 300 to 400 grocery

stores, Local Bounty's raised a fraction of a fraction of that.

And we're in over 400 grocery stores today with our one facility. That's impressive.

So we are very capital

focused. We like to call ourselves good stewards of capital or capital

efficient, and we take pride in that because we were

investors. So, you know, we don't want to just be raising capital

and then doing R&D experiments. We want to kind of know what we're

getting. We'll be doing plenty of R&D, trust me. So, but we won't be

doing it with our business operating, meeting customers' needs.

So that's just a different mindset we brought into the business. So

I would say go slow to go fast. I would say what we've learned,

you know, as your listeners probably know, LocalBounty's in the

process of going public via SPAC. And I think

the quality of our investor base, which includes Cargill,

and, uh, other high-quality people that are in our, in our PIPE,

our private investment in a public entity, part of the,

the SPAC. That quality of that PIPE is

directly what I would say directly

proportional to the technology

and our ability to deliver. So the unit economics

side of the equation has been just a massive focus for us.

And really it's not just Travis and Craig, it's everybody in the business. It's the

people on the ground floor as well. Very focused on, you know,

what we call unit economics. I imagine that time at

Brightmark and working with all those companies has come into play here and it's been

very helpful for you to have that perspective. For sure. I mean, that

experience is invaluable. It would be impossible to do this without

a whole lot of experience in a couple of areas. One, that 2,

building things. 3, leading people. Just, you've gotta have

that in a, an industry like this that's going so fast

and be, and is so disruptive. You mentioned being good

stewards, and I was reminded of the fact that you are supporting the, the

UN Sustainable Development Goals as well, which I thought was, was really interesting and

admirable as well. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, I'd love to.

I feel like, and Harry, maybe I could turn around and ask you this question

when we're done. I feel like ESG and sustainability

is moving away from what was more philanthropic

before and starting to have a little bit of an edge to it. And I

think the UN SDGs are really, really

a great step in the right direction. So Local Bounty's all in on that.

First of all, CEA is a poster child for

sustainability as an industry in general, okay?

95% less water, land, herbicides, pesticides. Carbon

footprint, local to the consumer, all that stuff. Lots of reasons

why CEA is a sustainability winner.

However, at Local Bounty, the twist we're going to take on this—

our chief sustainability officer is a former CEO

in the energy space. He went out and got his GRI

certification, and we are getting

very, very granular on our metrics.

So we directly touch on 10

of the 17 UN SDGs directly.

Indirectly, we touch on all 17, but that's not enough for us.

The way we're looking at this is to go from philanthropy

to where we are now, where there's a lot more interest, to where

consumers actually purchase products based

on the impact that product had on the environment. And

let me give you a picture of my vision for

the consumer. Next time you're in the grocery store, go into the

produce section and stand in front of the lettuce

section and ask yourself, do you know what these

products went through to get onto this shelf? Do you

understand the impact that it's had on the environment? Do you understand the

difference between this, this, and this, all that are quote unquote the

same? The answer to that question is a

gargantuan lack of transparency at the

consumer level. So what Local Bounty is going to do

is measure our sustainability,

our impact at the plant level one day, and be

able to say to the consumer, here's a QR

code, hit on that, look at how this plant went through the process and

what happened. Now, because our unit

economics are as good as they are, our

sustainability metrics will be better.

So it all comes back again to that unit economic. If

you could grow a plant more efficiently, you're by definition

using less energy, less water, less labor per

plant, less cold chain. Less, less, less. All

of that goes into that one purchase decision.

It's going to be very, very powerful. Today, that transparency

isn't there. In the near future, that transparency will be

there. And Local Bounty as a brand, we want to be

the brand that people look to and trust to say those

guys are doing everything they can to cut the

impact down for this head of romaine lettuce I'm about ready to buy.

I'll definitely be doing that next time I'm in the produce aisle.

Yeah, it'll be hard not to. But I think it is interesting, that whole

point of— it's not that it's a dirty little secret, but it's not as

upfront and center and top of mind for people because I think they just

assume, you know, there's just a bunch of, you know, clamshells, right? And like,

even the packaging, like, what's— where's that going when it's done? And then

where's that coming from? And what's the impact for And I think taking an

active role and a leadership role in

sustainability, I think, is gonna really set Local Bounty apart. Yeah,

we agree. And the brand thing too, the brand's really important. I think

consumers, I know I do, when I go into a store, I have my

brands that I like, and for whatever reason, I'm connected to that brand and I

buy that versus that. I just do that. If you think about the

produce section, there's not a lot of branding there. Right? It's kind of a brand.

It's kind of a brand negative space, right? There's just nothing really there

to aspire to, and it's our goal to kind of change that. I think

too it's important for the listeners to hear as well, Harry. There

will be multiple winners in the CEA space. It won't.

It's not like a local bounty or nothing, right? We're rooting for all of our

competitors and really rooting for the whole industry. So we wish

everybody well. It's just we believe. Kind of the way we

started and where we're at. We've kind of coming at this from a different angle.

So we're trying to draw the contrast for your listeners,

recognizing that the market's so big, there will be multiple ultimate winners.

And what I love is that that's been a consistent thread throughout all these interviews,

that everyone that I've spoken to, to a person, to a leader,

agrees that the scope of the problem is so big that it's an

all hands on deck moment and that everyone that's contributing this

space, regardless of the size of the company or the initiative. I

think it's what we need at this time because, you know, it's— there's

a dire need for local access to food, fresh food, and just

covering all the topics you touched upon when we were talking about

sustainability. I think the more people that are doing this, the more

conversations we're having about this, I think it's all needed and all important.

Agreed. I think the whole industry in general has a,

I would say, a huge responsibility to get this right and to get

this into the system. And, you know, it motivates me

every day. I can tell you that because, you know, it's funny. We

ship product to one of our investors. I'll leave his name out. And

he's an unbelievably accomplished individual, former CEO

of a big publicly traded company, worked for one of the top investment banks,

one of the top 3 at a top investment bank. And I think it was

over like Easter break or something. And we shipped him a whole

bunch of Local Bounty produce for the Easter weekend. And he

called me and he said, you know, my 2 daughters

said to me, Dad, we've always been proud of you, but we never really knew

what you were doing. And we thought you were like in the oil thing. And,

you know, we don't like oil and all that. And after they had eaten some

Local Bounty lettuce, they said, wow, Dad, we're so proud of what you're doing.

And you're working to make our lives, you know, this next generation, right?

And I think a lot of us just feel that way. Like the time has

come for this to happen. We could compete head-to-head

at a price point with better ESG and a better product.

Okay, so we could grow it more sustainably. It could

taste better, have better texture, last longer at the same price point.

The time has come for these products to happen. Yeah. And as you

mentioned that there's just an education that needs to happen as well and

educating consumers as to the differences and what quality

fresh produce tastes like. Because I think we're just all accustomed to

heads of lettuce. I mean, again, I grew up in the '80s, so I'm sure

the stuff that I was tasting and trying back then is

leap years before what's available now in terms of freshness and

quality. Right. And I think there's a lot of great coming

in this space for consumers. I think the other thing too, I know

some consumers look to lettuce, for example, we keep picking on that,

and they're saying, I'm going to have a salad, today's Wednesday,

I'm going to have a salad on Friday or over the weekend, I could go

ahead and buy that head of lettuce now, right? Yeah. Otherwise, they gotta have

line of sight on when they're gonna have that lettuce. Yeah. Our products,

you could buy that head of lettuce and know I'm gonna have a salad in

the next month, right? I'm gonna have a salad in the next month. That

product's gonna last and be ready to go whenever I want that salad.

And that's a game changer for the consumer. You know, I have those little mini

carrots in my fridge. Whenever I get a snack, I walk over and have a

couple little mini carrots. That's the way I think we're gonna start thinking about these

products because they're just grown closer to the consumer. They're grown without all the

stuff on them. They aren't being triple washed with some chemical concoction. We don't know

what it is, and it's just better. Bottom line.

Yeah, I think people assume when they hear terms like triple wash,

they think that that's a good thing, but they probably have to do a little

bit of homework as well. What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently?

So many good ones. You know, I think one of the questions we get

frequently is, what are your thoughts on international?

And what are your— how do you see this playing out internationally?

And so we have a plan in place. The plan is primarily

You know, the 17 states in the western United States

to get us to a certain critical mass. We're very focused on that plan, the

whole team. However, this challenge is a global challenge, which

was one of the things Travis and I were really pulled to because, you know,

I have a lot of experience all over the world. I've lived in, you know,

many different regions: Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast

Asia. I've been all over the place, and I think this is an

international opportunity. Remember, Cargill is in under the tent with

us. They're an international business. So it's inconceivable

to think we would not have some type of an international platform at some

point in time. So right now our focus is in the US

specifically, and really, you know, again, go slow to go fast.

And then I think you'll see LocalBounty be a presence in multiple

different regions of the world over time. I'm

curious, you mentioned that the topic of stress earlier in terms of

like, you know, high stress situations and especially when you're moving pretty fast.

Just personally, how do you manage that on a day-to-day basis?

Oh, well, exercise is one. I think that's a big one. I

think staying grounded. I have an amazing family. My mom and

dad live not too far from me. My, my wife and her mom

are— my wife lives here, obviously. Her mom lives on our property with us.

I have kids. Kids are a great way to, uh, you know,

to help you forget everything that happened. during that day in

particular. I think, though, too, this is another

learned experience over time. The phrase I like to use is

never too high, never too low. So find

yourself in trying to top off those

peaks and, you know, lower out, you know, try to

minimize the valleys a little bit. And I think what that does is put you

in a better frame of mind. The other thing that helps is having talent.

Talent helps spread the stress around a little bit. If

you're feeling super stressed and nobody else in your company is, you

got an issue there, right? So you need to either have the wrong people or

you're not delegating appropriately. So, and that's a trick to the

trade as well, but let's face it. Anything that's

disrupted anything is, is stressful.

It's not easy. That's why it takes somebody that has a broad skillset

to do it. So we're not an application. We couldn't just

program something and change the game. This is a little more, I'd say a

little bit more old school than that. This is at the end of the day

still feeding people. And but yeah, it's, it's a

challenge. It's a challenge. But one, Travis, I like to say this to everybody.

You own your own balance. I'm not responsible for your balance,

but I will tell you 100 times a day if you need me to, you

need to be in balance. Take your balance, control your own balance, but it,

it's sometimes easier said than done. Yeah. So true.

What's something you've changed your mind about recently? As it relates to Local

Bounty or in life? Anything. Yeah. In life. Yeah. Well,

it's funny with Local Bounty, we have such a clear focus. It's

not a whole lot changing there. We do have quite a bit of IP in

the work around our technology. And we're kind of evaluating

how deep we want to go there. We haven't really changed course, but it's kind

of on the radar. I have put my amateur car collection

on hold. I've been buying these old Ford cars. So I haven't, I

haven't been doing any of that. I can assure you of that. So, uh, what's,

what's one of your favorites? I have a '71 Ford Bronco. That's— Oh,

nice. It's just spectacular. I love it. And then I have a '63 Ford

Falcon that's really in really good shape. So yeah, those are fun. I've

enjoyed that, but I, right now I just don't have the time. It'll have to

happen at some other point in time. I imagine that's a good way to direct

the excess stress. 100%. I have an old

barn on our property. I have the cars in there and I'll go out there

and tinker around, you know, on a weekend or something. So it's a good place

to go. I saw that you were recently featured, the company's

recently featured in People as well. And I'm wondering, as in terms of thinking about

it from a mass market perspective, obviously, you know, the press, the

trade press is always good, but when you can start to appear in mass market

publications, I imagine that's a great opportunity to educate The

broader audience as to what's happening. Yes, for sure. And I think it goes back

to this whole transparency thing. I think people don't know what they're eating. I think

people don't know what they're putting in their bodies. And that goes for me too,

you know, because Local Bounty isn't in Texas. So I don't know what I'm getting

at my local grocery store. I'm not sure. So,

you know, I think that just raising the awareness for people to

understand that there's something out there that's, that's happening.

That is a game changer for their families. I think the research we've

done as it relates to people, and one of the reasons

we named the companies Local Bounty, is when we were doing our

research and our due diligence, we kept hearing over and over again

local—the word local. Like consumers wanted

local product; retailers wanted to have local product because

produce is one of the things that pulls people into the grocery store. You don't

think about going to the grocery store to buy Skippy peanut butter. You're going to

the grocery store because they have great produce, right? Typically, or a good meat or,

you know, some specialty thing. So I think, you

know, that whole kind of transparency thing, the whole

thing around being local really became a big part of what we

wanted to do. And most customers are thinking

local and then they're thinking about what's best for their family. And

all of that has to kind of mesh with their, with their budget.

And so when you could touch on those 3 things,

you're going to have a game changer. And I think being able to

expose Local Bounty to, you know,

a people type of a publication, I think begins

to, I guess, raise that awareness, which is

overarchingly positive. Yeah, such a really good story.

Time flies, as always, during these interviews. Wow, it's

already over. I can't believe it. Yeah, but, uh, I really am

glad we got the chance to, to connect, and I'm really inspired by what, uh,

you're doing at Local Bounty. And it's so interesting to see how you've decided to

tackle this problem based on all your time and with all your leadership

experience, your time at GE, your time at Brightmark. It feels like you've been

preparing for this role in terms of like getting ready to address a

challenge that we're all experiencing, not just in this country, but across the globe.

And I'm sure there's a sense of pride in terms of the work that you

do and excitement about what you're— the change that you're leading at

Local Bounty. So I really appreciate you sharing the story and I'm excited to see,

you know, what's next on the horizon for you guys. Harry, thank you so much.

And again, I'll close by just saying thank you for all you're doing

and your firm is doing for getting the message out there. It takes a village,

as they say. And, you know, whenever you want to chat

about the industry or LocalBounty, please let me know. And just

great to be with you today. Yeah, likewise. And then we'll direct folks

to the LocalBounty— that's Bounty spelled with an I— and we'll

make sure that's included in the show notes as well. Thanks again, Harry. So great

to be with you. Thanks, Frank. Special thanks to our

Season 4 title sponsor, Cultivated. If you're looking into a vertical farm and don't

know where to start or which technology would suit your needs, make sure you reach

out to them today. The best part about it is that their service is free,

and it's because they work on behalf of their partners. So head on over to

cultivated.com, just leave off the last E. That's

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Another reminder, if you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and a review

at ratethispodcast.com/vfp. We'll be sure to read

those out on future episodes. Tune in next week for my conversation with

Samantha Johnson, director of the aquaponics programs at

Commonwealth Charter Academy. That's a really great conversation,

and I was really inspired to see all the work they're doing there. So make

sure you check that one out. Thanks for all you do to support the show.

Until we chat again, here's to your health. Thanks for listening.

To read the full show notes for this episode, which includes any links

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