 Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Mbali Noakor, your host every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. It's great to see you once again. And we've got another exciting show lined up for this evening. But before I get into our guests, I must mention that we are running a competition leading to our 100th episode. Today is episode 97. And every Tuesdays and Thursdays, right here on the Farming Podcast, I will be announcing two winners based on our campaign that we're running. So check our social media pages. It's called Know Your Crop. So basically what you need to do is tell us about the crop that you're growing and give us one or two interesting things about your crop. And you can stand a chance to win 500 grand cash prize every week here on the Private Property Farming Podcast channel. So every Tuesdays and Thursdays, I will announce two winners. And this evening, we do have two winners. And what you need to do in order to claim your prize to the people I'm about to announce right now is that you need to comment right here, live onto the show, about just say anything interesting. It could be to our guests, ask our guests a question, like, share, or comment, based on our discussion. And just tell us about maybe your crop even. So the more information, the merrier. So you just, all you have to do to claim your prize is just pretty much comment right here on the live show. The team behind the scenes will look out for your comment and that's how you claim your prize. So I just want to start off by naming the two winners today. So our Facebook winner is called Josiah Fadival. And we have Twitter, a Twitter winner who goes by the tagline Anna in, or Anna Marigotsi. So Anna Marigotsi and Josiah Fadival. Please, if you can comment live onto the show to claim your 500 grand cash prize, that'll be fantastic. Or just comment with the hashtag Know Your Crop, hashtag private property, hashtag private property farming podcast. I think that is sufficient enough. Or you can ask our guests anything based on our topic this evening. So to Josiah and to Anna, please make sure that you comment to get your 500 grand cash prize at the end of tonight's show. So let's get right into it. Today we're speaking to Devin Wells as well as Henning Glopper. These are both the co-founders of Zuni Wagyu which is quite an interesting business. It's about beef farming. And I like the term Wagyu which little explained shortly but gentlemen, thank you for coming onto the show. Tell us about Zuni Wagyu. And how are you doing? I forgot to ask. Barley, thank you so much for having us. Firstly, we really appreciate the opportunity and we look forward to the chat. My name's Devin Wells and this is Henning Glopper. And we're from Zuni Wagyu. We're actually quite a young business. Or us too. The company was only registered in the beginning of this year. It is a generational business. We have taken over from our dads. Our dads are actually best friends. A long story short, so Henning's family moved on to the Eastern Cape from Johannesburg in 2006 next door to us and our family became best friends and since then a friendship has then emerged into a partnership. So we've actually, we come from two different farming backgrounds. We used to farm with ordinary Angus cattle and we used to have a beef stud, an Angus stud, and Henke used to have a commercial stud. So we combine now, we combine the genetics of our past with our Wagyu of the future or of the present. So we, our Henning's dad went to Australia in 2010. They went to Australia in 2010 and had the his first Wagyu experience. And then when he came back, our families decided that we should maybe start farming with Wagyu together. And in 2014, both farms merged together and we started, they started the business Zuni Wagyu. The reason why it is called Zuni Wagyu is because we farm in the Zuni Valley, quite close to Alexandria, about 80 kilometers east of Port Elizabeth. And we've actually, we both quit our jobs last year and moved back to the farm this year to take over the business and onwards and upwards from so forth, yeah. So essentially our fathers are responsible for raising the cattle. And then once it's gone to the abattoir from there, we take over the reins and we've got a deep owning facility on the farm. So we've got control of the entire value chain almost. And then from there, we send our Wagyu literally across the country to wherever you are. Wow. Wow, it sounds amazing, guys. Tell me, what were you doing before that? Devon, you said you quit your jobs. So what were you doing? Penny, what were you doing as well before Zuni Wagyu? I studied agricultural economics at university and then went away to work, came back and did my postgraduate teaching certificate. And I was a teacher, a geography teacher for two years last year and the year before. But I've always had a passion for farming, always had a passion for beef and me and Hennan decided largely, we're actually driving in the bucky on the farm, one of our farm holidays on the holidays in the farm. And we both just had a conversation like what do you really wanna do one day? And we both just said we really have a passion for meat and we have a passion for the wild factor in beef. And we really wanna be that wild factor in South Africa. So that's where our deal started. And then eventually we just decided, you know, this is something that we have to do. Yeah. Interesting, Penny, what were you doing? I was head of operations at a company called Freedom of Movement. For, since that started, yeah, I was actually one of their first employees and grew with the business and obviously a small business growing into quite a large retail business. I gained quite a lot of experience, especially in the logistics side of things. And that's kind of where both of us said, well, who's family at his dad, that's this amazing talent of deboning wagyu caucuses because you cut it slightly different to normal beef. And I've also got the logistics and retail experience to kind of take a product online and to market. So we said, why don't we combine it? Because I think that's quite an interesting talk order is that the fact that due to COVID, you can now order any, a good quality wagyu steak and have it delivered to your door. We previously saw everything as I think, we're a little bit nervous to buy things online. And we're not asking them to buy meat online. But I mean, we've done over two and a half thousand shipments and then very successful, no big major faults there. So yeah, gentlemen, just to get into the technicalities of this, right? Because I'm hearing you saying beef and I'm hearing you saying wagyu in like in different terms, right? So is it safe to say that wagyu is beef or wagyu is a specific type of meat? So wagyu is a breed that originated in Japan. Just to give you a little history lesson quickly. So in Japan, they were used as track deer. So they were used to pull plows and to pull carts. So they have a wagyu carcass or a wagyu animal has an overdeveloped forequarter and a smaller hand quarter. That's one of the reasons why you get so many different cuts out of a wagyu carcass and you would have an ordinary beef carcass. So wagyu actually means our cattle in Japanese. So in other words, it means Japanese cow or Japanese cattle. Okay. And is the wagyu cattle best grown in South Africa or are the other breeds that surpass wagyu, for example? Well, we obviously wagyu farmers. So we're always going to tell you that wagyu beef is going to be the best. But to be quite honest, wagyu beef, there isn't really much that comes close to our we feel personally. Obviously the main difference is the quality of the fat and the fat content within the meat itself. So there's a term marbling. I don't know if you've heard of the word marbling before. So marbling is inter-muscular fact within the muscles. So that's what makes wagyu different to ordinary beef is the fact that they have fat stored on the inside of their muscles. In Japan, very cold, obviously the animals not only had to store fat on the outside to survive, but also had to store fat on the inside of their muscles. And obviously fat is energy as well. And in order for them to produce enough energy, they had to store fat on the inside of their muscles. And we all know that fat is flavor. So that's why you get a juicy tender, tender cutting, or tender steak or a juicy steak is because of the extra amount of fat in the meat. Yeah. All right, so let's get into both your roles because you said the parents are primarily involved in the primary production. Henning, you're head of operations. Just tell us about what your portfolio within Zuni Wagyu entails. So essentially, Devon and I also kind of split our roles as in our parents raise a cattle and they send it to the abattoir. And then Devon is responsible to raise, to debone the carcass, and then cut it up obviously into different steaks. I'm from the moment it leaves the meat room, I'm responsible. So what we do is obviously we're selling a luxury product. It's not been around the bush, it is more expensive than normal beef. It is really the money worth, in our opinion. What's nice is that there's so many others, lesser known cuts that people are now starting to explore. So from the moment it leaves, we've obviously got polystyrene cooler boxes and then an outer box, which we packaged it in. So with tissue papers, we try to sell a story here and kind of give people this entire experience like the box opening of it. So from there, we then give you on that evening, once it's sent out, we give you estimated time of arrival. We then coordinate with the client the entire time to make sure that they're available at that time. And then obviously once we have delivery, we then go and check in with the client to make sure that they're happy at the end of the day. Happy client, happy life, I guess. Yeah, so your focus, Henning, is definitely from business to consumer, right? What made you decide to focus directly on the consumer and not go wholesale and sell in bulk? That's an interesting question. So COVID definitely, as I mentioned earlier, played in our favor in the sense of people want to have a good piece of steak at home and we, one of the only companies that can offer them, I mean, we've sent to, from literally, as they've mentioned, 80 kilometers east of P, we've sent to La Palale, we've sent to Tricard, we've sent to Richards Bay, we've sent to Sutherland. We're a little bit nervous sometimes, but we always get it there successfully. So we ensure that it stays cold for four days, but we get delivery at 10.2. Where everyone's focused on keeping the cold chain in the sense of keeping the vehicle cold, we then rather let's focus on the inside of the box. There's a lot of people that ask us how we do it. And I think we're crazy as well. Yeah, a lot of people thought we were crazy last year when we said that we want to do this, but I mean, we've done two and a half thousand shipments and it's really been, we've had three issues. One was due to the Durban rides. The other one was a missed delivery and the other one was, we had a new gun here and unfortunately didn't take the box. So it's all things that were a little bit out of control, but three out of two and a thousand is quite a good rate. Absolutely. And I mean, with any startup, with any business, you're always going to have mistakes. I mean, there are companies that have been around for 50 or 100 years and are still trying to get it right because the consumer at the end of the day constantly evolves. David, you're head of marketing as well as deboning. So maybe explain to us the deboning process is it doesn't mean that I'm buying meat without bones and I'm only eating fat or, you know, and how's the marketing channels like, like we've already established with Henning that, you know, your strategy is more from Zuni to the consumer instead of the business. So from the deboning process, are you thinking of the consumer first and then you're deciding how to package it so that the consumer can consume the product? Yeah, so we actually focus on obviously our website based on our retail customer, but we actually do specified orders as well. So people ask us for specific things. So some of the products that you see on our websites, we actually tailor to the individual customer as well. So there are people that are asking us to do certain things every day. What happens is the animals leave either our farm or Henning's farm and they are transported to an abattoir in Graemstad. The animals are then slaughtered or harvested in Graemstad and then they are graded at the abattoir as well because we need to obviously have an external grading system in order for us to keep track and gather data about our beef which is a completely different conversation on itself then gets transported back to the farm where it then arrives in an ordinary caucus would be transported in quarters but a wagyu caucus weighs between 500 and 550 kilograms where in comparison an ordinary beef caucus weighs between 320 and 380 kilograms. So it's a lot heavier. So we actually don't transport the animal in quarters. It's actually sometimes in five or six pieces because they also have to do the grading between the fifth and the sixth rip. For us to measure the iron muscle or the fat content within the ribeye in order for us to have the marbling score per se. So the meat then comes into the deboning facility. It is then cut into certain primals. As we mentioned earlier as well the four quarters they have an open available four quarters. So there are a lot of different cuts that some people might have never heard of. So like the flat iron that comes out of the blade or the denver that sits below the chuck or the chuck eye that's above the ribeye between the chuck or the neck and the ribeye. Rib steak so it's a short rib of the animal so the pork belly of beef you'd say. So there's a lot of different cuts then we actually then obviously have to make sure that we're very accurate with our cutting process because it's an expensive product. So if you cut away a centimeter of steak or a centimeter here and there you're losing money. So we are very fortunate to have quite a good team that work with us in the deboning facility as well. And we really focus on attention to detail and then after that obviously focus on making sure that the clients are happy. And then once that product has then been put into the package Henling takes charge and then it gets sent to the customer. Yeah, still with you Devin. Then customers can sometimes disappoint and people would say the economy is not doing so well. I'm a vegetable farmer and I know that having supplied to retailers and some wholesalers businesses will tell you that the number of the footprint of people walking in stores, nevermind online has slightly dropped because the average income in the household has slightly dropped. So with your strategy as a Zuni focusing on more on consumers how do you manage the demand versus the supply? Are there times having been around for a year now? Are there times where there's too much meat from the avatar and you just don't and there are less customers buying? Do you find where you kind of like maybe we need to expand it a little bit more to a bulk buyer because the individual customer is not buying and like you said, it is a premium product. So I suppose it doesn't come cheap. And there's so much technicalities in what you were just explaining Devin around the processing of it. So how do you manage the supply and the demand especially in an economic climate that we're faced in with a premium or a luxury product? And will that push you or pull you rather to maybe focus on the bulk buyer slash wholesale slash retail client? Obviously with an expensive product or a luxury product you've got a certain target market or a certain LSM that you're trying to target. So they're obviously trying to create small pockets in certain areas or in certain clientele in order for us to be able to or not even get rid of but sell all of our products. But our strategy per se has actually been to try and focus our trim products on the wholesale market and then try and focus our promos and our stakes where we obviously add a market to that quite a proportion of market to that. The reason being that obviously let's take a caucus that weighs 500 kilograms. People don't, people think that if you have a caucus that weighs 500 kilograms you're gonna have 600 or 400 kilograms of steak. They don't realize that there's bones, there's fat, there's trimmings, there's this wastage, there's sinews, there's so much in that caucus that you can't actually sell at a premium price. So we've actually made the joke plenty of times that we actually just glorified patty salesmen. Because we have a sustainable model where we need to make sure that we have to sell all of our trimmings before we can sell our steak. So out of a beef caucus that weighs 500 kilograms you get about between 220 and 250 kilograms of trimming. So that's your mints, your boss and your patties. So for us to sell 20 or 30 kilograms of steaks we have to sell 250 kilograms of trim. So that's where we try to focus on our bulk sales being our wholesale market. So we're in all the Hudson's in the country so our burger is actually on the menu and all eight Hudson's in South Africa. We've now started a slow rollout with cattle baron as well. And then obviously we try and focus on getting our trim through the wholesale market and then we make sure that we keep our clients, steak clients happy per se. So we've got restaurants that are often on the menu for a constant supply of rebar or sirloin or flat iron or steak cuts to sell in the restaurant. And we actually just tell them, very sorry but we can't help you because we don't have enough supply. So that's where the question is we don't have enough animals to be able to scale it at this moment. So that's one of the issues that we actually have. I think that's the interesting touching point that David wants to touch on is that Wagyu is this new buzzword in the meat industry and people also used to, I mean, before this year I would walk into a small web and buy a ribeye steak and not think about the entire rest of the product. And with this whole new buzz that's going around Wagyu is at the end of the day, if it carries on creasing like this demand, there's not gonna be enough supply in the country because what's also very different about Wagyu is that you don't raise it for one year or 18 months like an overclock because it's literally three years. So what that means is the carrying capacity on your farm also divides by three. So it's a long, slow process and you can't really take shortcuts because if you push it for, you know, say cable and feedlot and try and only sort it after two years, you're gonna get almost like a forced marbling. So we try and do have like slow, natural marbling. When you see marbling, you need to try and look for small, thin veins of fat instead of big coarse pieces of fat. That's almost like a little bit of a forced marbling if I can put it that way. So yeah, that's where, yeah. Well, I guess perfection and premium takes time, hey? Before I get to my next question, which is directed at you, Henning, I just wanna encourage at NAM or at Marigotzi to comment on tonight's live so that you could claim a 500 grand cash prize as well as Josiah Farival to claim your 500 cash prize for our Know Your Crop competition. If this live ends and you haven't said anything, unfortunately, you will forfeit your prize. So please comment on tonight's live, say anything, hashtag Know Your Crop, hashtag private property, hashtag wag you, which is part of our discussion this evening. Going back to you, Henning. So how has the online sales been since you started? I mean, you mentioned a very interesting stat, 2,000 plus orders, and the fact that you also come from your previous job or employment also dealt with a bit of online sales, et cetera. So how's this type of business different to your average retail sales because now we're dealing with meat and hey, it's wagging. Like you said, it's quite premium. Yeah, so at the end of the day, we are still selling a fresh product as I mentioned earlier. South African consumers in general have been very wary to purchase things online, which is understandable. A lot of things can go wrong in a career process. It's a very difficult thing to monitor, but overall the response has really been amazing. And I think short of that, our clients, we've picked up data that 70% of the clients who placed the order first time round actually placed the second or third order. And that's a very positive sign that our systems are working so that people start to realize, hey, it is actually really easy for me to get this awesome product delivered to their door. Another challenge that we also kind of found is that if you cook wag, you're slightly different to normal steaks. It's because of the high fat content, you can easily get it out crusty outside quite quickly. And then to go into more depth, cuts like Denver or Flatiron is a more dense muscle. So it takes about one and a half times longer to cook it, to cook the steak of the same size. So what we did to kind of counter that is we add cooking guidelines and instructions into the package because at the end of the day, buying wag is, it's got a high price and it's gonna be a daunting cost. We're like, okay, I really don't want to mess this up. So that we kind of baby and like grew in them into being, okay, it is actually easy. And this is the hot tops and guidelines. Wow. Yeah. They're hungry already. And I think that's a fantastic thing that you've added there because you just hear waggy and I kind of like want to order now, but I want to make sure that I'm cooking it right so that it doesn't taste awful. Because the way Devin explained the deep owning process and the fat and the this and the percentage, you're kind of like, geez, I never thought meat would be that complicated. So yeah, so I think it's such a genius idea to actually add recipe instructions or cooking instructions. And maybe I'll ask this question to Devin, it could be an opportunity here, but have you considered maybe partnering with other online, other online fresh produce delivery company? One that I can quickly think of is like a you cook, because you could go onto the websites, they give you recipes and they give you the raw product, and then you cook. So let's say a bachelor was ordering and he doesn't know how to cook, would you look at partnering with like a you cook, for example, to add your waggy beef and have your recipe in there for greater partnerships and expansions? We're always obviously always looking to partner with the online platforms. And we actually are farm direct, we actually started working with farm direct. So we obviously, I think the most important thing here is that we need to make sure that we're working with other people in order to grow waggy as a whole in South Africa. We obviously trying our best in order to create a good product, a Zuni Wagyu brand, but inevitably all producers in South Africa are under the same brand being waggy. So we obviously try and make sure that we always try and uplift the name of Wagyu per se. And if there's anyone that's on that same, on that same wavelength or on that same sort of course in order to improve the quality of not only of Wagyu, but of beef in South Africa, which Wagyu is per se, it is a better quality beef than ordinary beef. So we work with other smaller platforms as well. Sorry, getting back to your question, I've got a little bit sidetracked. There's smaller platforms that we do work with than the weeklies of the fillet lady in Cape Town, Bay Meat Market, also based in Cape Town. So we slowly but surely creating a web and creative positive relationships and good relationships with other suppliers in order to help ourselves and to help them as well. Yeah, and I suppose you can never also grow too quickly because you have to manage the supply and demand and also the fact that the growing process or the raising cattle process that Henning mentioned that you raise the cattle for about three years. So you obviously need to manage, but it's great to know that you work with farm animals because we actually had them on to the podcast. I think it was last month. So it's nice to know that farmers are working with platforms such as these. So gentlemen, as we close off our conversation today, I just wanna find out, so what's the next step for Zuni Wagyu? Have you guys discussed in terms of where do you guys see yourself in the next two to five years? I mean, there could be people watching this podcast that are outside South African are thinking, damn, I'm hungry, I want a bit of that Wagyu. So someone could be ordering online right now. So which are the inner prospects of delivering maybe like to neighboring countries, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Namibia, you know, is that a possibility? So I think it's quite interesting. Internationally, there's a big demand for Wagyu. It's growing faster than the demand for Wagyu in South Africa almost. And I mean, in Australia, China had a bit of a trade agreement fight. So now the entire China is looking for quality Wagyu to be exported out of countries and into it, where we kind of try and keeping like our best product and ensuring that we always deliver. But we are actually actively looking into specifically Africa. I think there's an amazing target market and it's actually the tourism industry and it really is an awesome opportunity. So we are actively looking at that further in the local community. We are looking at possibly opening small niche butcheries and things like that. A little bit of a different spin to your average butchery. I think in general, no offense to any meat farmers, but the entire meat industry is dull and boring and we're trying to put this new young, fresh energy into it so that people realize, okay, cool, there is actually a little bit of a different spin on it. One thing that we do, which not a lot of people actually do and it's been quite successful is tasting events. So we're actually doing one tomorrow evening for Brian Havana. We did one two weeks ago for Sivan Gezi. So we go and we run through eight different cuts and we obviously talk about the cuts and go into detail what they do. And actually it's similar to some of the concept to wine and ask people, okay, what tasting notes do you taste out of this? And what we always do is we take all of the stakes from one cog and we explain to people that like how awesome it is that interesting it is that you get such different taste profiles and flavors out of just simply different cuts from the same animal. And that's also a new little bit of a different spin where we actually, obviously when COVID allows it, go to people's houses and then present it and do a whole run through of all the different cuts that we do. Yeah. Wow, thank you so much for your time gentlemen. This was such a fantastic conversation. And geez, I know that we'll see a lot of Zuni much more as well. And maybe just please share your website details so that people know where to find you. So do I go to Farm Direct or go directly to Zuni and maybe just spell out Zuni so that people know where to find you? Of course. So they are always welcome to purchase the Farm Direct platform or any other platform but our own website is Zuni YU that's Z-U-N-E-Y-W-A-G-Y-U.com. All of the information run through there, our information and all of our contact details on there. And by all means please call us, ask us questions. We like, because we're trying to educate the consumer here to understand what Wagyu is because once again it is a luxury product to kind of give them. And hang large to chat. He loves to chat about me, that's it. That's fantastic. It shows that he's passionate about his product. He's passionate about his business. And I mean, that's what's gonna make the sale at the end of the day. Imagine if he wasn't talking about it, then we think, oh, you know, this is quite boring and who would wanna buy? So yeah, it's great to see the passion both your gentlemen faces. And I'm sure your parents must be part of you in how you've pivoted the business and really focused on this secondary and tertiary part of the business. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. It's a pleasure, thank you so much. That was Devin and Henny, both from Zuni Wagyu. And they were telling us about their business, Zuni Wagyu. Wagyu is a beef premium product. Please go onto their website. I won't try butcher how Henny's spelled that, but if you missed today's live, just go towards the end, check out their website and order directly. And what I liked about Henny, what he said is that he's always willing to understand the consumer's perspective. So please buy their products and also give them feedback because I think that's what's gonna make them great at the end of the day. So yeah, here's the spelling. So it's Zuni Z-U-N-E-Y Wagyu.com Order and they are delivering throughout South Africa and also you can get their products on Farm Direct SA if you are a regular to shop on that platform. And I must congratulate both our winners, they've commented, they've claimed their prize. So congratulations to you. Please continue to follow our campaign, know your crop. And I will see you next week Tuesday at 8 p.m. with another fantastic guest. That's it for me tonight. Goodbye.