Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science: Behind the Brand with Cave Pets

Jordan Tyler: Have you ever been so sick, so unwell, that you were willing to try anything? And I mean anything, all the way down to eating dirt? Yeah, you heard me—dirt. Well, as it turns out, the tiny communities of microbes that call dirt home could be one of nature's original superfoods.

I mean, how many of you have seen your dog eat dirt? I know I have. And while at first it might seem funny or curious, maybe, just maybe, they know something we don't.

Today, we're going behind the scenes with one pet nutrition brand leveraging the magical powers of healthy soil to bring nutrition—both for people and pets—back down to earth. Cave Pets is rewriting the rules of the industry and nutrition itself through regeneratively grown, science backed ingredients that are fueling health from the ground up by harnessing nature's most nutrient-dense sources to support pets where it really matters.

Get ready for some unbelievable stories, groundbreaking innovation, and unique perspectives on pet health, sustainability, and why challenging the status quo might just be the key to a healthier future for our pets and our planet.

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast by BSM Partners. I'm your host, Jordan Tyler.

So I'm here with Cico Rodriguez and Kathleen Fleck, who are respectively Chief Science Officer and Brand Director at both Beyond Organic and Cave Pets, to get the scoop behind their really fascinating approach to human and pet nutrition, what they describe as “primitive nutrition for modern pets.” But before we get into all that, Cico, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and how your career has led you to this moment?

Cico Rodriguez: Well, I started in the human nutrition space a little bit further back. I have a degree in biology, with some attention on biotechnology around bacteria. And so I had a real passion for probiotics and their impact on human nutrition, and I started a company in the dietary supplement industry called Garden of Life. And I quickly moved into research and development because I love seeing health transformed. And so, as I spent time developing a number of products there, had a passion for ingredients, which I'll share a lot of on this, on this podcast.

So, I moved into the ingredient world, but I stayed in touch with the founder of Garden of Life, Jordan Rubin, over all those years. He, you know, he came to mine and my wife's wedding, and so we stayed friends, stayed connected. But spending a lot of time on ingredients and really recognizing that ingredients are kind of the catalyst to making products effective, but there was other pieces to it as well, like making sure that ingredients are combined in a way that that's valuable. They're produced in a way that's valuable, so that the, whoever the end user is saw the benefit.

And then in: 2022

Jordan Tyler: Yeah, we'll definitely dig deeper into that passion for ingredients throughout this conversation. And I'd also like to learn more about the whole Garden of Life to Beyond Organic to Cave Pets pipeline, if you will, sort of how all these things came to fruition. But first, Kathleen—tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be involved in these brands.

Kathleen Fleck: I am an animal health lifer and my degree is in agriculture and environmental education. And I can remember almost 30 years ago, an advisor saying to me, “When are you going to stop playing with animals and start thinking about what your real job is going to be?” And here we are almost 30 years later, and I am still every day working with animals and doing everything I can to improve their overall health.

And so my journey has taken me from on the large animal side, I worked on a swine facility for a couple of years and literally got my boots wet. So, I spent a number of years in large animal nutrition—rumen fermentation enhancers and milk replacers—and then made the transition into companion animal, working on everything, mostly in the veterinary side of the business from veterinary nutrition, parasiticides, and then therapeutics for dental and dermatology.

I've spent the last 10 years helping startups and new organizations break into animal health, both with products or diagnostic tools, and really helping coach businesses into getting into the space. And that's really where I got my introduction to Cico and to Jordan and the Beyond Organic team and started having conversations about where we could take the business, and how we could enter the animal health space with all of these innovations and tools that could help. So that's a little bit about my journey.

Jordan Tyler: Excellent. Thank you for that. So, we've mentioned Jordan Rubin a couple of times, and unfortunately he wasn't able to join us today, but obviously he's played a leading role in the development of all these brands that you've mentioned—so, Garden of Life, Beyond Organic, and eventually Cave Pets.

Super quick note on Jordan's background: he's written 27 books on human health and wellness, has had his own television series, and been featured on many other TV programs, podcasts and shows, and now he's writing a new chapter for pet health and wellness through Beyond Organic Pets and Cave Pets by applying everything he's learned about the healing powers of whole food nutrition for people, to pets.

And I'd love to learn more about how each of these companies came about and what really motivated Jordan to enter the human health supplement space and then eventually translate that concept to companion animals. So Cico, could you give us some color around that story?

Cico Rodriguez: The way that we came into pet nutrition was not drastically different than the way that Jordan came into human nutrition. How do we create the same experience for animals, the same transformational health benefits for animals as we've been able to do in human health?

His dad was a chiropractor, and he was exposed to all of the weird and now more normal types of nutritional plans back in the 80s and 90s. And he was one of the examples of health to his friends around him as he's going to college when every kid thinks that you'll live forever and you can eat whatever you want.

And so he was an athlete, but he started to, you know, eat on the go. It wasn't easy for him to apply, especially in the nineties, to apply those nutrition principles in a college dorm and cafeteria environment. And so, he was impacted by that in a very real way, and really showing that what you eat impacts your health—it's not about calories or just about did you get the right macronutrients, right? It is a much, much bigger story than that.

So he was, he was impacted by getting Crohn's disease, and he had to go on a different journey than his family had been on for a long time, because the treatments for Crohn's disease were kind of not helping him. He wasn't noticing improvements. He went from being a 185-pound athlete, down to about 104 pounds, emaciated. He found a guy that told him he wasn't eating the right way. Fermented foods were now something that he, while he had consumed it periodically, it wasn't like a staple in his diet. Clean meats, and then probiotics from dirt that are actually very impactful to gut health was how he went from, you know, going from about 104 pounds, he put on, I think about 60 pounds in like 45 days, or maybe it's 45 pounds in 60 days, I don't remember exact numbers, but it was about that timeline, and that transformation really catalyzed a whole food nutrition brand called Garden of Life.

ld Garden of Life, he sold in: 2009

So, Jordan Rubin was a catalyst to creating Beyond Organic and was passionate about farming, long before even starting Garden of Life.

Kathleen Fleck: You know, when I first started talking with the team at Beyond Organics and Cico is on that team, I was a little skeptical at first, and I said, “Great, here's another human health company that thinks they know what they can do what's right for pets.” And what they did very quickly was convince me that their innovative approach through whole food and through nutrients really was applicable in the pet space.

The challenge is getting people to know that it's available, educate them on why it's important, and connect with the audience. And so, from some of those conversations, Beyond Organic Pets was formed as a source of ingredients, as a manufacturing partner, the developer of educational content, to be able to bridge that gap from being a human health company to an animal health company.

So, Cave Pets is a brand that developed out of that relationship of saying, we have these ingredients that are integrally important into animal nutrition, but also that they're sourced in a way that is organic, that is regenerative, and from a nutritional content, superior to some of the things that are already out there on the market. So that's really the relationship between Beyond Organic, Beyond Organic Pets, and then Cave Pets as a brand.

I like to tell people, you know, often times when you hear of a new brand, it's because of their one dog and their experience with their own personal pet, and that's how this mega-international brand formed, but it really isn't about that for us. It really is about all pets, all animals. We like to say our ranch dogs and our water buffalo and our geese and our chicken, those are our pets. Because without our pets, we can't help your pets.

Jordan Tyler: Yeah, that's a really compelling way to think about it. And I've heard both of you mention whole food nutrition a couple times already, and I'd love to just quickly break that down.

So Cico, if you wouldn't mind pulling back the curtain on how Beyond Organic and Cave Pets defines whole food nutrition, and then how that translates to both human health and pet health.

Cico Rodriguez: I think the first place you have to start is, how was nutrition intended to be? Because what most people don't realize is that it doesn't matter how much protein you put in your mouth, how much healthy fat or vitamins or minerals you put inside of your mouth, it matters how much goes to the places that your body needs it.

And so, instead of focusing on what the back of the label said as a requirement, a regulatory requirement, it was really more about how do the ingredients become utilized in the body while also meeting those regulatory requirements? And so whole food nutrition, you know, if I can give you a journey, minerals are a great example.

So, minerals have been historically consumed by eating food that had high minerals in them, and then we made a transition to start fortifying with minerals. So, we would take mineral salts and we would put those into human food. What we noticed was that those macro minerals, micro minerals, and other nutrients would actually create a lot of disruption to different areas of the body.

One example, and not, you know, I know we're on a pet podcast, so to talk about, you know, human nutrition is a little challenging, but iron deficiency anemia is number one deficiency disease on planet Earth. About 2.2 billion people suffer from it. Typically, it leans female. And so, what do most females say when they take their iron? They would say that, “Oh, I don't like taking my iron because it constipates me.” I don't know if you've ever heard that, but that's a very common theme.

The number one iron utilization is ferrous sulfate. Well, nobody goes around cutting their ferrous sulfate on their dinner plate, because it's not food. It's a mineral salt, and what happens is, in the body, both animal and human, the mineral has to go through an active transport activity in order to be absorbed. Otherwise, it just passes through.

Now, because people take iron and they feel constipated, they think, well, iron is constipating. Actually, iron has zero constipating properties. What happens to iron is that it either gets absorbed or it doesn't. And when it doesn't get absorbed, iron is a very good food source, or energy source, for pathogens. So, the pathogens downstream in our gut, or in the gut of our animals, start to be thrilled with all the iron they have available.

But when we consume things that are not food, we tend to feed the things that aren't supposed to be fed, or we don't get the nutrition at all. And so, that was a long way of saying that, you know, kind of on this journey you have things that are in a form, you know, for minerals it's a rock form, for other things it might be a synthetic form. And then what we attempt to do is to kind of say, how do we create something a little closer to food?

So, we saw that in human health. And we said, “Well, this has to impact our animals,” and you know, one of my favorite quotes was by a British agriculturalist, Sir Albert Howard. He actually was going to teach the Hunza tribe how to farm. And when he got there, he realized he couldn't teach them anything. And his quote is, “Soil, plant, animal, and human health are one and indivisible.”

You can't have sick soils and healthy animals. You can't have sick plants and healthy humans. And so, recognizing that those were the connection points, we knew that we wanted to create something that would tie those connection points to our pets.

Jordan Tyler: Really interesting. So really, it's about where certain nutrients are coming from and whether that source is bioavailable or readily available to be used by the animal. And so, you're facilitating that through regenerative agriculture, or regenerative organic agriculture, which I think is a term that isn't super well known or well defined right now. And I'd love to get your take on how it works and what it looks like and what some of the principles are.

Cico Rodriguez: So, the principles that we follow are, you know, we have to support the soil microbiome, which means we minimize soil disturbance. Keeping the soil covered is one way to minimize soil disturbance, but also not tilling. We maximize crop diversity, so obviously narrowing one crop, you only have a growing season, but if you can diversify crops or have a perennial tree system, we have some tree projects that we do, it helps. And then you integrate livestock.

And so, the ranch supports operations to impact soil health. We grow varieties of plants from mulberries to blackberries to turmeric. We also grow indoors. We have some mushroom technology, and then we have organs from regenerative farms that we partner with all over the world so that we can supply those.

So that’s on the ingredient side. And then the main things that we do on the pet side are little tablet chomps and powder toppers. That's our special ability in manufacturing. So that's kind of how we integrate from the soil to the supplement of the pet space.

Jordan Tyler: Really fascinating. And I will share, we're actually doing an entire other episode on regenerative agriculture in the pet nutrition space, and specifically on the Regenerative Organic Alliance, or ROA, and the certification program that they offer, which both Beyond Organic and Cave Pets have gone through.

So, this will be in a later episode as part of a larger series that we're kicking off this year about sustainable initiatives across the pet care space. So definitely stay tuned for a more robust conversation about regenerative organic agriculture and some other brands and farmers that are engaging these practices.

But, bringing things back to Cave Pets, let's hear more about your product line and your proprietary ingredients. Kathleen, I think in a previous conversation, you summed it up perfectly when you said, “Cave Pets supplements are combinations of organ meats, mushrooms, and probiotics that are meant to work in combination to increase digestibility, absorption, and then the health of the microbiome.”

But if you don't mind, I'd like to dig a little deeper, no pun intended, into each of those ingredient categories.

Cico Rodriguez: So, our regenerative organic products include mushrooms, we have almost 20 different species of mushrooms that we grow on a regenerative organic medium. And the ROA, we worked with them to show a regenerative organic medium, purple corn with high anthocyanin content, was a great way to grow regenerative organic mushrooms.

Then we have regenerative organic organs. Liver is one, kidney is another, heart is another of what we have right now, and we're looking to extend those all from bovine. And they're in powder form, and the nutrient densities are dramatic.

And then we have our organic minerals. So, this is a very unique process where we take certified organic spirulina, and we hydrolyze the protein. Hydrolyze is a magical word for cutting in biology. So, we chop up the proteins into what's very important is di- and tripeptides. Because when minerals are attached to di- and tripeptides, they get absorbed much more effectively. So, we have all of the minerals.

We have a probiotic—this one's kind of fun. You know, probiotics are live organisms. But the reason we like this one especially is because I was at a conference speaking in a human health conference, talking to alternative medicine doctors, and when I wasn't speaking I heard one of the doctors talking about kind of all of the toxins hitting our world. And you're aware of this, we're all aware that we've got a toxin load hitting us on a regular basis, and I don't know why, I just kind of asked the question: I wonder if our probiotic can help protect against glyphosate damage?

Jordan Tyler: Okay, super quick aside on glyphosate damage. Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world. In other words, it's used to kill off undesirable vegetation in crop fields. So, like a pesticide, but instead of targeting pests like bugs and rodents, it's targeting unwanted plants in the fields where our food is grown.

Now, studies have shown human exposure to glyphosate can take a really negative toll on health, particularly in the early stages of development. And it can also have toxic effects on neurotransmission, which is essentially like a microscopic game of telephone that starts in the brain and goes all throughout your body to signal things like blinking, laughing, sleeping, running, literally every other bodily function you can think of.

So, when glyphosate damage occurs in the body, it can lead to disruptions in all of these processes. It can lead to behavioral disorders, motor function issues, and all sorts of other developmental and cognitive problems. So, you can see why Cico put two and two together here and was curious to understand if the probiotic they've been working on could help alleviate damage from glyphosate.

Cico Rodriguez: What we did was we did an in vitro test and we fed some intestinal cells glyphosate, significant damage. We had to do it four times because we damaged the cells so much. And so, on the fourth time, we finally damaged them to the right amount. We used 2.5 milligrams of glyphosate to a milliliter, and we showed that our probiotic decreased the damage in a 60-minute window of time, at least in vitro, that glyphosate causes intestinal cells.

And so, it's a kind of an exciting thing that some of the human nutrition brands that we work with have taken to market. And so, we’re pretty excited to showcase that ingredient.

And so we have mushrooms, we have organs, we have minerals, and then we have our kind of unique probiotic. There's another ingredient that we're working on that won't be organic just because of how it's processed, but it will have some unique capabilities for metabolism. Very efficient at improving metabolism. So maybe that'll be for another podcast, that's pretty exciting.

Jordan Tyler: Yeah, we'll have to come back to that. I'm super interested in learning more. And speaking of, for listeners who are curious to read more about the specific products that Cave Pets offers, we've linked their website in the show notes for this episode. So, definitely go check them out if you want to learn more.

Now, throughout this conversation, two things have really stuck out to me—one is your unique approach to sustainability, and the other is your unique approach to innovation. So, I'd love to hear more about how Cave Pets and Beyond Organic Pets thinks about sustainability a little differently, and then we can shift the focus to how you're different when it comes to the way you approach innovation.

So, sustainability. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But, Cico, what does it mean for you and for Cave Pets?

Cico Rodriguez: So, I don't think it was intentional, but if we think about sustainability—Jordan, I'm saying this, you know, very politely: you're the youngest in the, in the group here. I'm confident of that. As you get older, the last thing we want to do is sustain where we are. We're actually all trying to regain energy, mental acuity, all of these things. We look at it on a personal level, right?

Now, if you would focus on sustaining, and again, I don't think anybody's intending this with a term, but it's where you actually make no improvement backward or forward, right? You've essentially stopped. I guess if you're going off a cliff, then sustaining is way better than falling off the cliff. We would all agree, if you're on the edge of the cliff, sustain as much as you can. But at some point, you have to go in reverse. And the faster you can accelerate reversing the damage that was done, the speed that you went off the cliff, you have to translate that in the other direction.

I think that what we have to recognize is that the Earth and ecosystems are insanely resilient, in a good way, and if we understand how to support their resiliency, then I believe we can accelerate the regeneration of things like topsoil, of things like nutrient density.

So, we like to start with the soil, because the thing that you don't see, it's the thing that's the hardest to measure. Everybody can measure yield, everybody can measure acreage, everybody can measure water use. But what you can't measure, or you can, but it's challenging to measure, is microbial diversity, microbial abundance, and how that microbial diversity and abundance impact plant and eventually an entire ecosystem and human health.

So, that's how we like to think about sustainability and regeneration so that we're always transforming things to a greater version of itself.

Jordan Tyler: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting sort of dissection of the term and the way that we talk about sustainability. In some cases, sure, we can maintain or sustain, but in a lot of cases, we should be thinking about it more in terms of regeneration or reversing the damage that's been done and really tending to our ecosystems and our health in a way that's not just supportive but additive.

And really, really quickly, while we're on the topic of semantics, I understand the term is regenerative organic agriculture. And I'm sure folks are much more familiar with the concept of organic than they are with regenerative, at least at this point. So how would you kind of describe the difference and also how both terms complement each other?

Cico Rodriguez: Organic is usually what you leave out, so you know, avoiding toxins, avoiding things that you would use for conventional agriculture, whereas regenerative is more defined by what you leave in or don't disturb.

And so, even organic we value, we've all been in the organic space, but we think the regenerative movement is going to not only be more impactful, but I think it's also going to accelerate, because it talks about something a little bit deeper than the does-not-contain list, but it starts to move into does-not-contain-and-also-increases-in type of story that we can begin to showcase.

Jordan Tyler: Yeah, yeah, makes total sense. I appreciate that delineation. So now let's shift to innovation. How would you all describe your philosophy around the way that you create and innovate ingredients and products?

Kathleen Fleck: Innovation for us is, in a lot of ways, a retrospective approach. I think there are hydrolysates and things out there, again, that Cico can address that, you know, like, “Oh, we've got this new ingredient that no one's ever heard of before.” But when I look at the pet space, there are many ingredients out there that are just not being utilized today in the pet space. That if we go back to the basics of nutrients that are provided by the earth and provided by the soil and the soil microbiome, we can be bringing that as innovation to the pet space.

I feel that when we look at nutritional guidelines and things like that, we've really built up these walls that say, “No, you should not do these things.” But in fact, integrating even just small inclusions of those things into a pet's diet can have amazing impacts on their overall health. So, we kind of look at it as using ancient wisdom mixed with modern science, and that's really what innovation is for both Cave Pets as a brand, but also Beyond Organic Pets from an ingredients and supplier perspective.

Jordan Tyler: Right, yeah. So, not limiting yourself to a conventional or mainstream understanding of nutrition as a means of being able to broaden your perspective about what's really possible. I think that's really interesting.

And I would be remiss to ask you about innovation without asking you what's on the horizon for Cave Pets and Beyond Organic. So, let's end with that. Any exciting upcoming innovations or partnerships or just announcements that you'd like to highlight for either of these brands?

Kathleen Fleck: I think when we look at the future, there are so many possibilities. I think when we look at Beyond Organic and Beyond Organic Pets, there are opportunities for us to share some of the ingredient nuances that we've talked about in this podcast with our five proprietary ingredients, and really expanding into the pet space and allowing those ingredients to be used by more brands across the country and across the world.

You can see from our passion in regenerative farming and practices, really that the passion goes so deep into our own personal lives and how we feed our pets and how we feed ourselves, and so we are looking to join forces with other people in the pet industry who share those passions.

I know there's a number of brands out there and I feel like there's strength in numbers, and so when I look at what's in store for Beyond Organic Pets, it's really working in a leadership position to help transition the industry into just a healthier, more regenerative space.

I can tease out, there will always be new ingredients on the horizon, and we are looking forward to sharing each of those with you guys as they become available and we start documenting some of those scientific impacts to our pets. And besides, I don't think I could keep Cico quiet on a new ingredient even if I tried. So with that, Cico, is there anything you'd like to add?

Cico Rodriguez: No, I just want to emphasize that double down activity on regenerative, looking at our own farms on what else can we produce and provide for healthy pets with quality ingredients. And then also partnering with other farms so that we can always create amazing finished product for both cave pets and other brands, is really what we have on the horizon.

Jordan Tyler: So, there you have it—primitive nutrition for modern pets. Leveraging ancient wisdom and the magic of dirt to feed ourselves and our pets more effectively and healthfully. From regenerative farming and whole food nutrition to the science of bioavailability, Beyond Organic and Cave Pets are dishing the dirt and breaking new ground for pet nutrition and regenerative agriculture.

If you're interested in learning more about Cave Pets’ product line or the innovative ingredients and unique concepts we discussed today, we've linked their website in the show notes for you for this episode. And if you're in the pet industry and want to explore using regenerative organic ingredients in your own formulations, Kathleen has kindly shared her contact information, which you can also find in the show notes.

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Barking Mad. If you want to learn more about us or BSM Partners, please visit us at www.bsmpartners.net. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite leading podcast platform and share it with a friend to stay current on the latest pet industry trends and conversations.

A huge thank you again to Cico Rodriguez and Kathleen Flack for lending their time and insights to today's episode. We'd also like to thank the dedicated team behind this podcast. Ada-Miette Thomas, Neeley Bowden, Kait Wright, Cady Wolf, and Dr. Katy Miller. An extra thank you to Lee Ann Hagerty and Michael Johnson in support of this episode. See you next time!

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