Building America's First Regenerative Organic Dairy: The Alexandre Family Story

0:00 Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. My name is Sophie. I am on the sales and marketing teams at Green Cover, and today I have the great privilege of hosting Blake and Stephanie Alexander of Alexander Family Farms, a regenerative organic certified dairy located in Crescent City, California. So today we're going to learn a little bit about their story, the brand that they've built over time, and the advice that they might have for others who are interested in marketing regenerative products directly to consumers. So I'll go ahead and have you guys take it away, and my first question for you is what led you to choosing a career in dairy farming?

0:41 Thanks, it's great to be here, Sophie. Blake and I met at CalPoly San Luis Obispo, but I grew up on a dairy farm in Southern California. My dad was an immigrant as a teenager from the Netherlands, and my mother was third generation dairy farmer in Southern California area. Blake grew up in Ferndale, California, and his father too was an immigrant as a teenager from the Azores Islands, Portuguese heritage, and his mother was a third generation dairy farmer. So we have similar upbringings even though we grew up in different parts of the states.

1:15 Blake and I got married and we started dairing in Southern California for a little bit with my family, and the opportunity to purchase a dairy up in Crescent City came available. It was getting Blake back to his roots of grass-based dairy farming, to move back here. We always knew we wouldn't stay in Southern California long because the dairies were moving out in the area, but it certainly gave us a start in the dairy business as a young couple. So we bought our dairy, and that was pivotal.

1:49 Yeah, and so thank you, Sophie, for the opportunity to speak to you today. I would say that what got us into the career of dairy farming—while we were born into it and it's kind of a career that you inherit as opposed to, say, land and cattle sometimes—I grew up on a ranch that my parents had rented for 38 years, and that was home for me. We always had a dream to own our own, and so we've kind of just never considered other options as far as not being a dairy farmer.

2:23 When this dairy became available and we saw it, we just right away saw the beauty in this region—living right on the ocean, average daily temperature is 11 degrees from winter to summer. It was at a time 32 years ago where tree huggers were just these extreme environmentalists, and we realized: wow, we want to get this land and make it better than we found it. We can be a bigger environmentalist as a farmer, and that was kind of our attitude. So early on, we started fencing off riparian zones that were on the ranch that were really swales in the field where the creeks filled up in the wintertime, and planted trees.

2:58 So today we're seeing the benefits of those first actions we did early. And then also we befriended early on an agronomist who taught us about soil organic matter and really got into the soils and the pasture grasses early on and do no harm to that soil. That took us down a path that really allowed us to easily convert to organic production 25 years ago when the dairy market out here in California was kind of asking for it. So we were one of the early adopters and moved into that production model, which then got us really thinking about soil biology and understanding why you don't want to put pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers out that are harmful to the biology.

3:54 Once I learned that, then it really fast-forwarded my thinking in terms of how we take care of our soil and how we treat the plants that are growing and whatnot. And of course, then that led to regenerative 10, 15 years later. So one thing I always say is regenerative is kind of just more of a new word for an extremely old system that our creator set us up with from day one on this planet. What we've got now is an awareness of farmers and people understanding the biology and the soil and how it works and our role as stewards of that ecosystem that's under the ground and how that affects our ecosystem above ground.

5:00 Regenerative angle first and then had an easy transition into organics. I think sometimes people see the organic price premiums and consider doing a sharp turn from conventional to organic and that doesn't always work out well. So what can you guys say about that transition for you for going to organic certified organic? Sounds like it was pretty smooth. Did you have any hiccups along the way?

5:27 Of course there were hiccups along the way. We started that process in '99. By the time we got certified it was early 2001. During that time in 2002 the organic rules changed and our hardest part was raising calves. So we were asking a lot of questions trying to search for answers and we found out about Acres USA, which is a conference in the Midwest. We attended the keynote speaker at that conference—they were doctors that were making a difference in people's lives by going to the farm instead of the pharmacy. These guys are talking to all farmers. It's a farmers conference, more organic type or natural type, small farmers, large farmers. We were meeting people and that's where we found our mentors.

6:15 Through that process we found a book, The Biological Farmer by Gary Zimmer. He read that right away and really became a soil grass enthusiast and researcher. And today he watches a lot of YouTube videos about it. But he, who's an excellent cowman, really changed his focus in that direction too. And the reason why we were always concentrating on pasture, even before we're organic, is we are pasture dairy farmers. We're not confinement here. Then I became this nutrient dance foodie mama because we had five little kids at the time and I also was in charge of the calves and the herd health program. So I was just doing so much research.

6:55 Just like people, it's about nutrient density that you eat that keeps you healthier. Like farms or the doctors were talking about, it's for the calves and cows too. We got to feed them right. We got to do the prevention instead of finding that there's all kinds of organic treatments. That wasn't the solution. The solution was prevention and feed them healthier and give them a climate that they're content with and can grow well. And we are fortunate that we live in that climate here on the coast.

7:23 Yeah, definitely. I had my partner Mitch and I had the great privilege of actually being able to visit you guys in January and we have been fans of your products for a while. We're kind of natural product nerds and when we saw you guys in Whole Foods and saw that you were regenerative organic certified, we were like, oh we definitely need to try this product. So we had been purchasing your product for a while and then we just happened to be driving through California and we were like, we definitely need to stop and visit this farm. We found out that you guys were home so we came over and said hi and you guys asked us. You were like, well, where are you guys staying tonight? And we were like, oh we're just going to keep driving and find an Airbnb. And you said no, you'll stay here and you'll have dinner with us. And we had an amazing conversation and you guys just extended really awesome hospitality. It was amazing to get to know you guys like that. So I think that just speaks a lot to your character and I definitely wanted to share that, not that you're going to let everyone stay in your house, but yeah, many do.

8:25 Right. When you started talking about regenerative and organic and who you've seen and where you've been and the farms you've visited, it's like, oh my gosh, we are friends before we even know each other. So we enjoy one of my favorite things to say is life's about those who surround you at the kitchen table. And so it's a pleasure having you guys at our table.

8:52 Yeah, no, that's awesome. Cool. Well, so why start a brand?

9:01 The real single answer to that is to bring premium pricing to our farm. We were kind of always willing to go the extra mile and do the right thing on the soil and with the cattle and going organic, early adopters to all kinds of new programs. And it was the A2 breeding of our cattle that we learned about maybe in '07, '08 that really started to make our cows more unique. I'd say our milk supply more unique. And ultimately when it's unique, it should be more valuable. Yet we couldn't find an organic market willing to buy A2 milk and sell it as A2 milk with a

9:47 Premium you know to the consumer and that was really frustrating and so we're sitting on this milk supply that we're selling to different directions that are just taking it and blending it with A1 milk and selling you know organic milk on the market for the normal price. So we were looking for was a way to you know kind of find that premium pricing and keep our milk segregated through a creamery processing situation that we could you know make that available for consumers and our goal was first just to do it for the West Coast consumers basically the three states here on the coast and you know it just kept growing and leading us down different paths. We had to actually own the processing facility to make that happen because again we couldn't get a milk supply contract or an agreement to process milk A2 milk going in one end and coming out the other end is only our product so that was just a really difficult hurdle to get over.

11:00 I would also add that we pay attention to the grocery store shelves and we also just pay attention to what happens to our milk after it leaves the farm gate but also milk in on in the country. We ourselves are organic consumers in our kitchen and we follow the foodies you know that talk about the better foods and this and that and so we knew there was an untapped market. Not only for A2 organic milk but also the fact that people are leaving dairy for different reasons maybe for environmental reasons and at the time the conversation of it's the cow not the house. So we knew our grazing benefits and we graze we raise grass here like no other being our cool coastal climate all year round and we have the story of the coho salmon through our streams the frogs the bald eagle nest, an endangered species of an Juan Canadian goose that came back from extinction and now it's a hunted species. So all this ecology that we have an effect and we're still dairy farmers and we realized we can check different boxes that other dairies can check and maybe bring people back to dairy and most importantly A2 is digestible and that was kind of an unheard of thing too. So we were more forward in the market with the organics and following the trail of the A2 milk corp that had a product out there but maybe not too popular yet. So we were the organic version.

12:24 Can you describe a little bit more what A2 is and what makes it different why is it more easily digestible? Sure, it's primarily a protein and milk that is and we're talking about the digestibility of that protein. So there's an amino acid chain of 209 units that at intersection between 66 and 67 somehow there's a mutated gene that got into the gene pool of the dairy cattle around the world so thousands of years ago most likely and it's a histadine where there's supposed to be a proline. And so because of that simple little reaction there as people consume dairy products they immediately feel flam in their mouth or in their throat or digestive issues downstream. They're really reacting to this beta casein morphine this little seven chain amino acid that breaks off but then won't continue or further break down. And so that's why people often believe that they're lactose intolerant or you know they can't do dairy. So when offered A2 dairy it solves that for 90 some percent of the people and we've heard this over and over hundreds of times now and it's once you understand that. So let's back up 10 years ago we had learned that you know five years earlier we were breeding for that in our selecting for it in our cattle and so once you understand it then it's a matter of taking the cow that inherited the A2 gene from both of her parents and that's the milk supply that we are now talking about. So that's why we call it an A2 A2 because she literally got two two genes you know that that match up and there's no A1 in the mix.

14:19 So essentially people who have gone their entire lives not being able to consume dairy are then able to try your products. Are you finding that a lot of people are reaching out and telling you this or hearing about it? Yeah we are through social media they they contact us and let us know. Sometimes they call our office and our office knows give my cell.

14:43 I want to hear from that customer. Some of my favorites have been that child in Georgia or Tennessee that is autistic and he drinks our milk and he calls it his heaven in a glass because he can't drink milk for some reason. Autistic children are very sensitive to dairy but it's really the A1 dairy they're sensitive to. They can drink our milk is what we're finding.

15:09 That was one of the things when we read the book 'The Devil's in the Milk.' Early on in that book it says there's people that can drink goat milk but they can't drink cow's milk. So goat milk, mammal milk—all mammal milk is A2 digestible. So breast milk, so if you could drink breast milk but then all of a sudden you can't do dairy, really you're sensitive to the A1, that foreign protein, not the lactose.

15:34 Many people just say lactose intolerant. Exactly, lactose is the milk sugar and that's most of the time that's not the problem. It's the milk protein that's causing the issue.

15:46 Aside from A2, when we were first launching we did a lot of demos in stores and it was really fun. At one point this lady came and she was pretty much older and she drank our milk and she just started crying and she had a strong accent. She walked away and then she came back: 'I'm sorry but you took me back to my childhood in Yugoslavia. This is the milk I was raised on.'

16:12 One of our key milks is a 6% butterfat home milk and we really wanted people to be able to purchase something that was higher and better fat. Because the fat is where the taste is, the fat is where the flavor is, and that is what she grew up on in Yugoslavia on a higher fat product. The nutritional goodness is in the fat, right, especially when you're talking about grass-fed animals and meat, milk, and eggs that are pasture-based. The health benefits are really transferred in the fat.

16:45 When we launched our brand, our goal was to be kind of an old-fashioned brand, if you will. Old-fashioned products that were just wholesome, minimal processing as little as we could. We don't homogenize most of our products so the cream is still on top and we low and slow vat pasteurize it so it has a little more nutritional integrity. Primarily we were really trying to give the consumer a better option for dairy.

17:19 Regular dairy in California is 3.5% butterfat. Nationwide it's 3.25% butterfat. Our milk is anywhere from 4 to 4.2, whatever the cow gives us on our 100% grass-fed milk. And then we call out a 6% milk that's higher butterfat. We wanted to give consumers, as Blake always says, the right to pay more for something better.

17:49 Most of our products are 4% and we also have a 6%. Our 100% grass-fed milk is whatever the cows gave us that week and that ranges from 4% up to 4.89 is the highest I've seen it. We just don't alter it and I think that's our number one selling SKU. Consumers really appreciate that and like that.

18:13 It goes—this milk that you have the QR code on where people can check and see what the weekly butterfat is. Exactly, yeah, so that's the green labeled fluid milks. You check the QR code to see what the cows gave us that week based on the expiration date printed on the cap. The beauty of that milk is it's not fractionated, it's not separated from the fat and the skim. It's just vat pasteurized with gentle pasteurization into the bottle.

18:48 Looking behind you we can see your products here. You also offer eggs. Can you tell us a little bit about the egg operation?

18:56 Sure, we've had eggs on the shelves now for like 18 or 19 years. It was something we started in 2005 with the kids. It was really a situation where we were at the time a large dairy here with maybe 20 employees and raising five young kids that we wanted to grow up on the farm but there was really no particular role with them to go out and feed calves because we had so many calves it needed to be really employee oversight on that. So what we did was we started this project for the kids where it was just kids only. That's how we came up with the name which is called Alexander Kids—that's the label on that. It was really about raising our kids. They started with 150 birds and year two, three went to.

19:51 About six or 800 then 1500 and then by the time they got into college and our oldest were like 12 to 14 when we started. By the time they got through high school they were 3 4,000 birds and then we kind of held that number through college until they came out and then expanded drastically to the ability to have 20 or 30,000 birds and from there we doubled up one more time.

20:20 That's awesome. So how do you have that many birds on pasture? What does your rotation system look like?

20:29 Yeah it's a little tricky. We've got a really neat coupe style that we created and invented, and those coups can hold about 3,000 birds comfortably in each one. We move them on Tuesdays and Fridays kind of religiously. We haven't missed for years and so they're just a sled, if you will, with no floor that we put netting around it. It's like a one acre square and we move it every three or four days so they're on a new acre and they're kind of in a rotation where they won't see that same spot for another 60 or 80 days. So it's a commitment. It takes a lot of effort to go out and move those coups but we've kind of got it down to where five people can get it done in 20 minutes for each coupe and we have 18 coups and they're all full.

21:30 That's kind of our model for doing a lot of things. We tend to do everything a little lower and slower and take the path less traveled and we get really awesome eggs. Our eggs are such that consumers that eat our eggs don't leave our brand to go eat someone else's because they can notice the difference.

22:02 Yeah. And so when we were first learning about that nutrition component and cows on grass for the nutrient density of a product we're producing, we also learned that chickens on grass. So just going that direction to have our chickens out on grass because we had chickens in a pinned cage that we just threw grain to them and then you learn that. So we built a little chicken coupe and it was really a fun time. Today when we have meetings with the kids and our brand manager and marketing people, they're like okay we need to change the name now. The egg business should be part of Alexander Family Farm and I kind of fight it because the conversation is about kids. I think in every community a conversation is about the kids in your community because that's what we're hopeful for and that's what we want to give better nutrition to. Growing healthy kids in a healthy community. And so let's keep that conversation alive and let people ask you know what? Why does it say kids? And we can tell that story because it should be about the kids in your community.

23:01 Yeah definitely. And that's an awesome story. I mean I'm sure your kids took so much pride in being able to build a business that has turned into something that is now feeding so many kids across the country. That's really cool. Do you have any of your kids still involved with the operation today?

23:21 We do. Our oldest son Joseph does a lot of brand work, analytics, oversees our crew processing and he's also manager at the dairy in Ferndale which Blake's great-grandfather started in 1926. So spends a lot of time at the computer and he's a fixer of anything and has a great crew down there. Our son Christian, number two, runs our trucking, harvesting, works with irrigation and he's also in charge of the egg ranch. He was the one that kind of grew feathers when he became a teenager, we say. So he's passionate about the poultry and chickens. He's actually president of the American pasture poultry producer association right now, a group of pasture poultry producers. And so that's exciting to see. Our daughter Vanessa she loves the cows. She's our dairy herdsman. She's a mother of two little ones right now. Her and her husband, she's our dairy manager and just loves cows and everything cows and cattle. She also works with us on the brand. Really all the kids are involved in the brand and then our two youngest are still figuring life out so they're not quite involved in the business as the other three but we're excited the other three really stepped up.

24:41 Yeah. The three oldest are all married with kids now and so that's fun. We got a new generation of Alexander kids coming.

24:47 Along that's awesome. Maybe they'll start another enterprise. Well I just lost my thought there for a second. Okay, well we'll go into the next question. How do you tell your guys' story to the consumers? I mean there's so many layers to the kids starting the egg business like you said. I mean you're keeping it in the label. How do you guys tell that story through the brand?

25:16 Yeah, it is. There's a lot of consumers out there. There's hundreds of thousands of people consuming our products every week, and of course we, it's hard to communicate to them right. A handful of them see us on Instagram or Facebook or here or there or listen to a podcast or YouTube or whatever. I'm going to say that the best way we can communicate to consumers is kind of subtly. We're usually the highest priced products on the shelf, and that would send a signal to a young mother say walking in for the first time who just decided she's going to start treating her family organic. And if she makes the decision to buy the most expensive milk and then takes it home, then it's the communication starts with the taste and the feeling and the odors, the physical look of our milk. It's a little more cream colored than others. It's not as pale and white. And our eggs are literally look different in a carton before you even open them up. You open the lid of the carton and you'll see eggs that are randomly different colors, different shades of dark brown or light brown. Everyone else tends to make eggs that are all the same size, shape, and shade of brown. And that's really I always refer to that as that's how man makes eggs and God made eggs randomly. So our chickens have a choice. They can eat some grain that we always have in front of them or they can eat the grass that they're standing on and walk around outside inside the goop and any grass.

27:00 And our cow is the same thing. I didn't really mention but our grass is green 12 months out of the year. So we are really blessed to live in a cool coastal climate that's cool in the summer and relatively warm in the winter. And so we have grass that is healthy and green. And so that nutritional goodness from the grass pulls through in the products all year.

27:26 When we're at food shows I love to stay in the booth and meet everybody, meet every store, meet every buyer, meet every potential customer because I want them to know we're the farmers, we're the real deal. We're the dairy farmers that grew up milking cows, feeding calves, kind of thing, and tell them our story. But most importantly, taste our product and really get them to taste what milk should taste like. And it's a lot of people come back also because of taste. Our milk tastes incredible. The breeds of cows we have tend to have a higher butter fat, but we're choosing to put higher butter fat in there but also higher protein. And so that just resonates health.

28:10 I know somebody had reached out to us and they used to get raw milk from somewhere and they couldn't access it anymore so they got our milk because it was digestible for their family. And they said within about four months they just started feeling more healthier. They could just tell there was a change in their life, the way their family was feeling. So they reached out and told us that story that they were really living with that nutrient dense product in their body now and felt like they were more alive. So just telling those little stories and resonating with the consumer how we care about what they're purchasing, we care what they're putting on their kitchen table, and we're the farmer that should provide that.

28:50 Yeah, totally. Spins just came out with their consumer report for 2025, and there studies cited that consumers are willing to pay more for dairy products that are regenerative, organic certified. That's you guys. So just given the trends around alternative milks that have really it seems kind of came and gone in the last couple years but have definitely had their moment, how have you guys continued to tell your story about the difference in cow's milk in nutrient value and the impact it has on your health versus an alternative milk?

29:33 Yeah, it is. You know, Stephanie just told the story right, and so hundreds of people will hear that but not maybe.

29:41 Thousands we don't know right, it's hard to continue to tell the story. And so I think people have to experience it. People that buy our products are loyal and almost like, for me personally, 18 years ago an egg was an egg, and now I can see and taste the difference. I don't like eggs at restaurants anymore and so I don't consume them. It's like that, and I drink a lot of milk now. I crave our milk because it's good for my body and my body tells me that. It's really been enlightening, as an adult now that I'm drinking more milk than I did when I was in my 30s or 40s.

30:30 When we launched our brand and we saw the increase in other milks that are not truly milk but they're calling themselves milk, we knew there was going to be an awakening. I'm glad you said that you can see that trends going downward, that is not milk. There's so many nutrients in milk. In the olden days if somebody was sick they just lived on milk and that healed them. Milk is nourishing. It's hydrating. It's satiating because of the butter fat. So all these things, it's like electrolyte after you run or exercise. So it has all these purposes and people are discovering that. Yes, we're checking like I said many boxes with the ecology, the story of how we dairy the A2. And so let's bring them back to dairy. We're glad that Spins is recognizing the regenerative organic portion of it because really there needs to be more farms making a difference in the earth, making a difference in soil organic matter. Even farms that aren't organic, if we can move the needle on how they're treating the soil, we can make a difference in the food system. And that is one of our missions, our vision, is making a difference in the food system for all food, not just regenerative organic, but the conventional world too. We worry about the kids on the schoolyard that aren't healthy and the processed foods they're eating. So it's important that Spins is showing that and it's important that people see that and change the food system totally.

32:08 Have you guys ever tested? I would go ahead. Sure. I was just going to maybe add back to how do we communicate that to the consumer? There's so many channels, but ultimately it's the taste and the experience that the family has, and then hopefully they check out our website and the story matches the experience and the truth. Our commitment to truth, we take excellent care of our cattle and our employees and our land, and that translates to a healthier, better environment for all of us, our neighbors, and our neighbors around the world, because we all share the same air. So that whole complete package, it's fun to tell and try to market our product because it's super healthy. Our sales team, we meet on Wednesdays, and it's just wonderful to hear their stories because there's no effort in selling our product. It sells itself, just taste.

33:14 I think the visual that you shared of the color of your milk in comparison to others on the shelf is one that as a consumer definitely caught my eye initially. I forget sometimes our color is unique, and I'll go to another dairy farm and have their milk or somebody pours a glass of milk and I'm like, oh, it's so white, and ours is cream color, which is where the color of cream was invented. It's the color of cream, the light yellow hue. And to see white milk, it's like, oh, those cows don't eat seagrass.

33:50 Have you guys ever tested your products for nutrient density? We're working on that. We're formally doing that over a 12-month period. Somebody else pulled products off the shelf, our products off the shelf, and tested it and said, hey, you guys are kind of separated from the crowd here, you need to be bragging about that, hire us. And I said, no, not really. Let's test our farms on the farm all year for 12 months to see the seasonal differences that might happen, and then we'll evaluate. Then we may go out and brag about it in a sense, but we know that our products are more nutritional because we've done everything to build that, to make that happen. In the past we've seen the CLA content on our 100% grass-fed milk is just.

39:42 We sell our milk and we do have three or four thousand cows, but we have a limited supply of milk and we've been successful. So last year we started looking at neighbors and neighboring farms that had A2 cows and organic, wanted to move in our direction, and so we encouraged them and helped them to get certified regenerative. We're excited about that. A rising tide lifts all boats, and we want it to be better for our community. We want to help our neighbors, and we're talking neighbors in Oregon, neighbors in California on a regional basis. That's starting to become a reality, and I think it's a great move. It answers our desire for rural revival and taking care of farms and the family farms that are friends of ours in this region. We see each other at conferences, we talk milk prices, and then we hear they have A2, so we encourage them to go regenerative. They're going to learn and pick up their soil organic matter and tell that story very soon.

40:52 You guys have mentioned community and the health of children several times in this, so it really shows that's a value that speaks through you and through your brand. I know you guys have the bucket calf program and I wanted to ask you about that because I think that's really cool.

41:07 Thanks for asking. We just showed at the county fair last weekend. We had 107 kids that started out the project. We start it right after school gets out. Basically the kids adopt a calf. They learn how to put a halter on it, and they can come out anytime to work with their calf at the farm. We have formal meetings once a week. It's a seven-week program. During the formal meetings they work with their calf for half an hour as a group. We divide them by age groups, and then we put the calves away, and then they do something educational on the dairy. We're teaching them about the dairy over the course of seven weeks, and then we take all the kids and calves to the county fair. It's just so sweet to see those kids from ages five to eighteen. What's exciting and important is we're teaching the parents as well. The parents learn how to help their child put the halter on. The parents walk with their kids until the kids can handle the calf. The calves are really small and young, and they really learn the loving quality of a dairy cow and how sweet these calves are. They just love to be loved and cared for. We're teaching all kinds of things in our local community. It's been the twenty-sixth year. After COVID, we had 190 kids adopt calves. Everybody was excited to go do something. These families become little ambassadors. They really know our farm, and we also want them to feel that they are now a part of the Alexander Farm family.

42:48 That's so cool. That would be such a core memory as a kid growing up. If you're living in the city and probably driving past fields and seeing cows but never getting to interact with them, and then you get to actually watch one grow throughout the summer, that's really cool.

43:02 It's actually a 4-H program, and 4-H helps administer it. I'm really thankful. We just offer the opportunity, and they help us organize it, so it makes it really easy for us to just show up for the meetings and offer what we can. A lot of kids will do it for two to four years, and then some of them that really get addicted and really love the dairy experience will stay on as junior leaders and just help year after year coordinating for the other younger members.

43:38 You guys are really working with young people in the community. As far as young people or anyone interested in farming, do you guys see your model as one that could be replicable in other contexts? Of course they would need to be able to have some good pasture access, but do you think there are principles from your model that other people could take to start their own farm selling direct to consumer?

44:05 Yeah, absolutely. We would encourage that. I think all communities could use an Alexander Dairy in their county if you will. That would be a wonderful thought across the country, and we would encourage our...

44:29 Our model is really straightforward, there's nothing magical about our marketing. I'm trying to say it's really basic: value your time as a farmer and then value your products appropriately. I think consumers will respond if you've got honesty and integrity in everything you do. We're blessed with grass 12 months out of the year, but a farm across the country where they only have green grass for half the time can still do this. Just don't pretend to your consumers that the milk in December is the same as July. It's that simple—it's only slightly different. It's still milk and it's still organic or certified, so just present it that way.

45:20 In general, what advice would you guys have for young people wanting to get involved in any type of agriculture? It's not for the faint of heart, right? It's a lot of work. I often think people come see us or drive by and we tend to make it look easy, but the more you dig in behind the curtain, it's not easy. It's financially difficult, there's a lot of hard work and a lot of committed employees and of course family members. It just takes a huge coordinated effort. But we're willing to help. We're willing to talk to young folks any time. I would encourage them to ask us, talk to us. We enjoy that stuff. Just start with what you've got. I listen to a lot of podcasts and the market gardeners that are doing a half acre or an acre and a half and making two or three hundred thousand per acre—that's out there. That might be a better model than starting with 10 acres or 20 right. Everybody has to scale it appropriately. We have tended to do things at a large scale because of who we are. We're farming on 9,000 acres, but you don't need that to start. You just need to start wherever you're at and then decide how big you want to get.

46:51 I love seeing all the homesteads that are popping up across the country and that movement. I'm sure if there's a few in a community where certain homesteads specialize in something else, they can barter or retail or sell on their fence line or whatever they choose to do. But within communities, it would be great to revive that. I mean, that is being revived, but it also would be great to know that people could make a living or a wife can make a living while the husband's working remote somewhere, and that enables them to be a homesteader out in the country.

47:28 Definitely, and I really like that idea of creating collective CSAs. The farm that we're working on right now has a farm store where we're selling products from all different farms—even wines and cheeses, so value-added products as well. We're like a focal point for all of those other farms to sell their products. I really like the creative collaboration that you can do within a community without one person having to go all in and take all of the risk. There's plenty of opportunities like that out there.

48:04 Just reflecting on all of the change that you guys have made, what would you say was the biggest difference between the farm today versus when you first arrived? I'll start: 35, 37 years ago when we got married, Stephanie and I owned no land. The only land that's still in our family is a couple hundred acres that my great-grandfather bought a hundred years ago. We were able to buy that land for my parents at market value. So like everyone else, we started with zero, and you just start grabbing it. You have to be willing to pay for the land and pay for whatever enterprise you choose, whether you do that on rented land or owned land. It really doesn't matter. I think anybody can do anything they want. They just have to put their mind to it and tackle it one bite at a time.

49:19 The question was what is the biggest difference on the farm today versus when you first arrived? As we have gotten older, I know a lot of older people.

49:37 Say this, I wish I knew then what I know now. The biggest difference is our knowledge, and through that process we've incorporated it. I really watch it with Blake, with his knowledge of soils, and he's still just open-minded and watching YouTube and going to a three-day soil class and incorporating it at home because we're constantly learning, 'What can we do better? What can we do better?' And so are we the best yet? No, never, because there's always our mind is always open to what's the new thing that we could try, or if we really think it's right, then we stick with it. But just the knowledge and not afraid to adapt and pivot.

50:23 To literally answer the question, how did this ranch look 30-some years ago? Well, we were milking all Holstein cows three times a day in a confinement situation, harvesting the grass in the field and bringing it to them in the carousel. And you know, we had gotten away from my roots, which was four generations of grazing cattle in this environment, this climate. And the reason we did that is because we had bought a thousand-gallon tank that was set up to be managed that way. And so it took us a handful of years to kind of really rethink that and lose that high production, high input, high output model and kind of go back to the basics where, no, we need to be more profitable than large yield. And so we started grazing, went to milking the cows twice a day back in 2001, and I think that's what really is the first point in time when we said to our contemporary college people that we're going to swim in a different direction and we're going to kind of go back to our roots and not just follow this high-yield production agriculture model.

51:50 And then at that time, because now we're going to open the gates and let the cows graze, Blake, being in the C-man, went into research on genetics. We wanted to try and find grazing genetics, and that really wasn't prevalent at all in the United States. So we went to New Zealand for our genetics for our cattle and did Kiwi cross genetics for a while, and then more recently we've gotten into a German which breed called the Fleck V. It's a dual-purpose breed, a little bit of beefiness to them. So we cross them with our Kiwi crosses and making these genetics that are really doing well on grass. They're not high-yield genetics; they are grass-based genetics. And that's been key to us as grass-based farmers. And to learn that, so that's a huge difference. When you look at a picture of our cows today, they're a Neapolitan color, all kinds of a little bit of Jersey color, a little Holstein color, a little bit of white-faced cows, and so it's really cool to see their different personalities and looks, as opposed to when we had a picture that we took in 2000, they were all Holstein.

53:02 I loved coming to the dairy and seeing all the different colored cows. I wasn't expecting that, and so it was fun to see. So what does it mean to you guys? This is a very philosophical question, so you can answer however you like. But what does it mean to be a steward? It means that there's a burden of responsibility on your shoulders. And I'm going to sit here and say that God gifted us with the Earth and gave us dominion over the earth and the animals and the fish and the birds and the critters, and that dominion came with a responsibility to be a caretaker for those things that I just mentioned. And the first thing I mentioned was the Earth. And the Earth is the mother of everything. She gives us everything on this planet. You know, the cell phone in your pocket came from the earth. Everything comes from the Earth. And I think consumers, and certainly this last generation of folks that have been raised, don't have a clue of that. And so to steward the things that are available in nature and this environment that we live on is a huge responsibility. And then when you start taking ownership of animals, that responsibility notches up a little. And when you take ownership and control of land, it notches up. Now you've got to water the plants and you've got to protect them and you've got to really steward the biology and the bacteria and the living things that live under the soil. So it's a huge responsibility.

54:42 That's great, yeah, and that's so true. Yeah, so I can't say anymore. Yeah, I think that he nailed it. Awesome question. So then my final question for you guys, kind of the theme of our Soil Health, our upcoming Soil Health Resource Guide, is legacy. So talking about the legacy that we're leaving behind, whether it's a fourth generation farm, fifth generation, or maybe you're first generation farm, we all have some type of legacy that we're going to be leaving behind for the people that remain when we pass on. What legacy do you guys hope to leave behind for future generations?

55:21 We have been given a calling. We followed our path, passion, and thus as we matured, we realized that God gave us this purpose and this calling. And I hope a legacy we can leave behind is people follow what they are called, call, serve where they are called. And when you follow your calling, you're really satisfied. We are so happy with what we do. We're not happy all the time, but we know we have a higher purpose to make a difference in the food system, make a difference in soil, make a difference in cattle, in milk, in our community. And so that is our calling, and we are doing it the best we can and we follow that North Star, who's our God, and follow that purpose. And so that's a legacy we hope to leave our children, that they decide what their calling is and they do it with all they got. And so we're doing that as organic certified regenerative A2 Dairy farmers.

56:33 I would only add that typically when people think of the concept of leaving a legacy, it's about the land, the cattle, the assets, and those transferring to the next generation. I think that we built something that's almost too big to just ask our kids to steward. And so when I think of who's going to steward it, it's a combination of a whole lot of folks: family members, employees that are mentally bought in, physically bought in and committed. And I understand that those will come and go and stay. And just on this call, Santa called and I get choked up just thinking about it. Santos has been here for over 40 years. I've only been here for 33. And his kids and his family are still here, many of them.

57:33 And I think the legacy that we want to leave isn't about what I just spoke about. It's about the products on the shelf across the country. And so the legacy is that here's a brand that absolutely is stewarding the land and offering the best product that the land and the cattle and the animals can possibly give. And so our legacy is healthy families and people that understand that, and healthy farms, and showing other farms that it can be done, that consumers will pay more for it, and you can take care of your own community.

58:16 Yeah, and exactly, and recreating that model. It seems so obvious that every MBA class around the country should have been teaching, but I don't know how we got away from it in the last 50 years. But damn it, just give people a reason to pay more to get more. It's that simple.

58:37 Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for your time today. I can feel your passion and motivation to do this amazing work, and I'm so excited to be able to share you guys' story with our audience. I think people will get a lot of benefit from this. So thank you.

58:53 Thank you, Sophie. And Sharon's a great resource. She's our Chief Marketing Officer, or just CC me too if any clips you want or certain pictures or whatever that we could help you with. We have a bunch in our whole Google Drive that you maybe haven't seen. If there's certain topics you wanted to cover for video, because heaven knows we don't want people staring at our face all the time. I'd rather see them look at the cows in the grass.

59:24 Thanks for having us. I'm going to wrap. Sure, thanks, thank you guys so much. I'll be in touch with the recording, and we'll go from there. This was super fun, and hopefully we can use the recording too for our own stuff. I sometimes do the voice memos to record, but since you were and you're gonna send it to Sharon, that's perfect.

59:45 Yeah, yeah, I find it's really nice to do this like super long format and then you can just do with it what you want.

59:51 Yep. Wonderful. I appreciate that. Great seeing you again.

59:54 Yeah, yeah, great to see you. Well, I was going to say I'm going to re-record the intro so that I say you guys's name correctly.

1:00:03 That's fine. And I know Blake was busy also fiddling papers while you were doing the intro, so that will help too. I was worried about the background noise that was being produced.

1:00:16 Yeah, all right, well sounds okay. Thanks. Thank you. Bye. Okay, bye, bye.