 Welcome to Hawaii is my mainland. I'm Kaui Lucas and I'm super excited I know I'm always excited, but you know, I look forward to this. What can I say and for years? I have been dreaming of a an ag co-op that would have many things to make our diversified agricultural community really robust and and allow farmers to do the kind of regenerative farming that we really need here and a dear friend of mine told me about David Rose and here he is he lives on Maui But happens to be in Honolulu, so I said yes come so David Rose tell us about this amazing journey that you have taken with just one organics And the technology let's just dive right in because we only have half an hour Okay, thanks Kaui. Thanks for having me and You know, it's a it's a great story not just for me but I think for our state and for our country because we're losing farmers and We're not replacing them and we're losing farmland. We're losing soil So a long time ago about 15 years ago. I noticed that and I thought what can we do about it? so it's just been a journey of Mostly common sense and a lot of a lot of great people giving me feedback and ideas and encouragement and inspiration and ideas and Just putting things together to figure out. How can we grow more farmers and how can we grow our regenerative food system everywhere? So that's what we're doing Okay, so you told me that you Found this through fermented poy so dear to my heart as a poy baby Oh, what was that and what is this? Well, just one organics is a brand that is a story and a product and a part of a movement Which we all know about and many years ago I was asked to be part of a company that created a pudding out of fermented poy and so to Stabilize the poy we looked for ways to do that and we found a drying technology. That's very gentle on the food So we did that and so while we were working on that project I was thinking well, what can we do with other foods and the idea came You know if you want to buy a lot of food from farmers then it'll help if you can stabilize it and keep it keep the value Stable for a long time So it's just been a process of experimenting and researching and trying things out and and so we have these what we call gentle dried whole food flakes Okay, and I'm crystals. Yes. So can you just point to them and tell us what we're actually? Oh, yeah, so so these crystals are blackberry and strawberry and peach and carrot and mango and banana That's what we have here and they taste really good. I don't know if you you can taste them now or later But but the idea so the I think I think what you're asking is What's behind all of this? Yeah? And so the idea is to work with the food to work with the farmers to work with the soil and This is the result so what is different about this just one organics method of Gentle drawing from other dehydration processes. Well Imagine that if you want to create a regenerative food system Every step along the way you have to work with because that's what regeneration is So we started asking the farmers what would help you and they said buy up more food And we'll grow it and if you could give us a contract before we plant That would say what you're buying in the price that would help a lot Okay, so now we're working with the farmers then we have to figure out what we need to work with the soil So let's only do organic because when you poison the soil You're not working with the microbes and the microbes upload the nutrients into the plants without them You have dead plants that look alive, but there's no nutrition in them So then we're working with the soil and now we're working with the food and we suck What's a gentle technology that will leave the nutrition the flavor the color the fragrance and the texture? Make it attractive so people want to eat it. So that's what we've been that's our approach is to work with Okay, so texture talk about texture Well texture so a lot of foods that you have that are dry these days they turn into a powder and most people like if if I asked you if you wanted to try some mango You can try a little mango, okay? And and it's it's fun. It's a texture. It's fun to touch and play with and it Wow, is it good? Mm-hmm. Okay, so so that's organic dehydrated mango puree and that was picked Probably a little over two and a half years ago Okay, so we're just the reason that it looks that way and that it tastes good is because our technology is gentle So again, we're working with nature works with and it's really sweet I mean, and it's really mango and I'm in I'm a mango snob Yeah, okay, okay, so Wow, okay, so it's really gentle it's really a Two and a half years and counting right right because you don't actually know how long Well, what I know is I've had this food dried in this technology not these jars But other food samples that were over ten years old and they were just like this So when you take again Most technologies they're either harsh on temperature like really high temperatures Or they're harsh on the atmospheric pressure or they freeze it a lot first or they they do all kinds of other things that are harsh on the food and So even if they some of them preserve the nutrition like ours does But the flavor and the color and the texture suffers So so that we fell as important to do all of those things well So how have you I mean how long have you been doing the ongoing testing of the nutrients? Or how do you know that the nutrients are still there? I mean it's like they're still there the inventors of the technology did a lot of testing on the nutrient density of their food So we're relying on their tests right now Okay, and the manufacturers of the machines now haven't redone that testing yet. We'll do that ourselves When we open up our first center Likely on Maui to start drying lots of this food, then we'll be testing it as well Okay, well, I want to get so much excitement around this generated that you can start yours on Maui But we gotta have one on a wall too. Sure. Yeah, there are just too many farmers here. Yeah So tell us about You know the amounts just throw like how much do you know how much plant material? Do you need to make this so? so again back to the original quest is How can we? Localize our food systems. How can we start growing lots more organic food? People use numbers like in Hawaii. We grow 10% of what we eat some people say 14% Some friends of ours that actually did the scientific research for the whole state a few years ago said we only eat sick We only grow 6% of what we eat But if we want to increase that a lot we have to start buying a lot of food So fortunately these machines will buy each machine we set up in different places will buy up to seven tons a day of Locally grown produce seven tons a day a day 14,000 pounds a day. Okay I didn't I Didn't know this so I wasn't able to go look in my Hawaii egg statistic books to see how much we're actually growing Well, we're probably not growing any of that because what we are growing. Hopefully is already being sold, right? So so there's this chicken egg thing Lorraine shin a wonderful lady was the head of USDA Rural Development for many years in Hilo for the whole state and Way back 10 15 years ago, and I was first looking into this I went and talked to her and she was retiring and I said Lorraine What do you think and she I think at that point she brought 25 million dollars? She told me to farmers on all the major islands over about seven years in grants And I said Lorraine, what do you think you have to show for all that and she said nothing? nothing permanent in changing The the amount of resiliency and localization and food security that we have in the state so So what the problem is is a couple of chicken egg things right one is The farmers go well We're not going to grow it unless we know someone's going to buy it and a lot of the consumers the restaurants the institutions say well We can't contract to buy something that's not being grown and so you've got this thing that spins like this so again if we Elevate the value of the food commercially by drying it and then we suspend the value in time and definitely Now we can do this because we can sell it anywhere. We can ship it. It's light We can sell it wherever we have to sell it so that we can keep buying it day after day after day And then we can prove to the farmers. We're buying it. How about you start growing it? One of the other things that I'm really excited about with this is that it is a great technology for the seconds in the Imperfects or as the French call it the ugly the ugly Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like the French restaurants last year Stores are now having to use those ugliest but here in America. We're just too hung up on pretty yeah 25% on average of what we grow in this country is wasted on the farm on the farm That doesn't count in the store or in in our consumer locations. That's on the farm so we can buy most of that Because you can't tell the difference when you puree it Yeah, it just has to be good quality and nutritious and our farmers do the best job I mean, we have such awesome organic farmers here and this is really Wonderful because it seems to be usable for all kinds of crops or is there a Limiting factor as far as there are probably some crops like I'm not sure yet how to dry lemon grass Example, but like ginger we can dry Some most like some of them will cook like of course taro we have to cook first But a lot of it will and Oulu we can we will probably drive never tried to do it yet But I know enough about it where I'm confident that we can do it and we'll probably do it both ways Right the soft Oulu the fresh and then we'll probably cook the hard Oulu and then dry it like a potato We would cook a potato first Okay, and so there there is there a fat content that problem if it's in some cases Yeah, like for instance coconut cream We can't dry coconut cream unless we emulsify the oil because the oil is so intense in coconut cream So coconut meat coconut me probably it's okay. We haven't tried it yet So we'll be doing a lot of experimenting with some of those questionable ones when we have our own facility here But we have we have tried to dry things years ago And I was really doing all the kind of horizontal research and some of them will have to emulsify the oils But we're looking for actually we found them already a non-soy non-corn emulsifier That's also organic that we can use so that we can do this stuff Okay, we do have to take a one-minute break, but we'll be right back and talk more about this cool. Thanks Aloha, my name is Justine Espiritu and I am the co-host of Hawaii farmers series this is my co-host Matthew Johnson and We are live with you every Thursday at 4 p.m. at think tech Hawaii comm and our show focuses on Hawaii's local food Community we feature not only the farmers that are producing our food But we also feature the supporters and other folks involved in the community that are Trying to promote local agriculture I'm Ethan Ellen host of likeable science here on think tech Hawaii every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m You'll have a chance to come and listen and learn from scientists around the world Scientists who talk about their work in meaningful easy to understand ways And you'll come to appreciate science as a wonderful way of thinking way of knowing about the world You'll learn interesting facts interesting ideas. You'll be stimulated to think more Please come join us every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. Here on think tech Hawaii for a likable science with me your host Ethan Allen Welcome back to Hawaii is my mainland. I'm Kauai Lucas and with me is David Rose from Maui who has been working with a technology that will extend the life at a high nutrient Retention for locally grown produce so this is is as part of that great vision I've had for years of a really ramping up our our local production here, so Tell us more. Okay, so let's see. Let's tell talk a little bit about the technology Yes, so the technology is gentle because we puree the food down to about a one and a half millimeter thick pureed it's very thin like paper and Very smooth and because of that it can lay on a belt over a bed of hot water and the heat in the water Can move into the food and remove all the water in about four minutes at a pretty low temperature So that's the gentleness of the technology. That's why it looks and tastes really good So that's important every time we land a machine We're gonna pay farmers up to four point three million dollars a year to grow more food That's really important. How did you get that number? We figured a high average per pound Times how many pounds we know we can take in a day, and that's what it came to it's actually a little bit more than that But that's a conservative number Okay, so the do you remember what about two point eight eight million pounds of food a year Okay at a dollar and a half a pound, which is a pretty good average wholesale price Some things sell for more most things sell for that or less and so that's what we can do so there's probably some prep work in Getting that sounds fairly labor-intensive, which would be a good thing because jumps are a good thing Yes, so every center that we set up we call them gentle drying centers Each one will be in a space. That's about 20,000 square feet. It's a big space and that will employ 28 full-time people and It will spin off more work for farmers that we estimate can create at least a few hundred farming jobs Out of that four point three million that we pay for that food every year So it's a pretty sizable engine for the the regenerative local farm economy and by only buying organics It's really important because you can't regenerate a food economy if you're poisoning the soil So so important. Yeah, and somehow that message hasn't taken root The way it needs to because people keep saying well, but that's too hard and You know, what are we gonna do? You know, it's too hard It's just the normal inertia is change right right change is hard in the mind Until we understand how easy it is and how much better it is to do that Like I mean I met a farmer on the North Shore here years ago And he was pulling up steak on a 600 acre farm that he had to abandon because he destroyed the soil by conventional farming And nothing would grow there. So you think about hard he had to start over on a whole new farm and Abandon all the work he put into that 600 acres because he wrecked the soil as well We are here. Well, you certainly have your share of industrial agricultural Graveyard on Maui, but we certainly have them here on a wahoo to and then I I am would like to talk about that the the community impacts of this and the Alika a day who is evidently a friend of yours Has been working as a farmer as an organic farmer and we have a little clip from the video He did for you folks that I would like to to share well several years ago. I was I was detected with cancer and That that made me wake up to see what and so with that I made a commitment of change You know a commitment to a better health and a commitment was Changing my diet and I know for a fact that by going organic and eating more more healthily That has changed my health, you know personally and then because I farm the involvement and a commitment of No chemicals, you know Because you know, yeah, I was young and I was I came from the old school of farming and conventional Farming and the use of that by have evolved away from that and now made a commitment To to my life and my future of growing food naturally and organically so so that So a week at high is also running for office And hopefully he'll win and and put things in place to support more organic farmers. Yeah, we we hope Alika wins He's running as a slate of council members council candidates We call it the aloha slate of candidates and one of their main platforms is organic regenerative farming So have you how much progress have you made in actually? Finding this spot or getting the partners or where are you in that the real It's it looks like it's happening pretty well We're friends with the farmers union likes this It's a lot of the leading nonprofits are in may I ask which farmers union other. Oh, sorry the Holly ocula farmers union Yes, okay, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so the Hawaii Farmers Union United is friendly to this Alika and his group a lot of organic farmers are excited about it We're looking at different locations and we're talking to different partners And so we're getting pretty close so we're grateful So if somebody was was watching this and they got as excited as I am and they want to talk to you, too I haven't talked to me. Okay. They can get they can get a hold of you through the contact information at just one Organics sure or they can email me at David at unified field corporation.com. That's my mother company and Yeah, they can find me. It's pretty easy to find me The the vision for a regenerative future for this state for us. It's not just to feed ourselves It's not just even taking some of that 25% of the wasted food and because we can buy that food at a discount We can allocate a portion of the food we make to give away to food banks and homeless shelters Anna Faust at the Maui civil defense coordinator is Excited about this vision because she realizes we can start building up a food reserve in the county of Maui Turning wasted food into this food so that there's a problem for preparedness exactly So it's all of the political the social the economic issues But it's also It's also an issue of connecting with the soil and the soil is powerful. It's healing Veterans when they start working on farms, they heal their PTSD Certain people who have had issues with substance abuse. They start healing some of those issues when they get in the soil So David speaking of that I had this thought after we spoke on the phone earlier this week. I said, oh, yeah low temperature drying Have you tried it with cannabis because the medicinal view value You know you if you if it's under a certain temperature then that preserves Then it doesn't activate the THC. So you get the medicinal value. Has somebody has anybody done any experiments? Nobody's done that that I know of with this machine We haven't done it yet with this machine. We're interested in that. We get a lot of questions like that So we'll have to see okay. Well, just one more So all right, so is part of Bringing this to the ground the bricks and mortar we need what we know we need 20,000 square feet We need 28 people to be employed and do we know about dollars of to start the whole thing? Yeah. Oh, yeah It's simple. It's a three million dollar experience without the building just moving in because it's about There are 19 20 pieces of equipment depending on how we do it All together that costs around 1.8 something million and then there's hiring and training those people and having some working capital to start buying a lot of food So we we've pegged at a little bit of a Conservative high note. We pegged at three million dollars as a startup so we're talking to different partners about that and What we'd like to do is have that funding happen through nonprofits and through the community Because what we really want to do is layer the benefits of this Technology and this initiative so that we can share it with as many people as possible Well, one of the things because I have had this long goal of making Rejuvenating the poultry industry which would mean having a cheap source of chicken feed is looking at the Products what's left after after your main main Process, yeah, so I'm thinking What are your what happens to your leftovers? I bet you have a lot of leftovers Some foods. Yes, some foods. No, right? I mean you just think through the different food berries No berries not so much bananas. We've got the peels and then goes we've got skin and pits and so on and on So right now We're talking to different large-scale farmers organic farmers about composting But your idea is a great idea some of those things we could regrind up And re-dry and turn into other things that aren't for people. So that's a great idea Okay How about just because we're throwing all kinds of fun stuff out there about biofuels? Is there a way to Do that or capture the energy through anaerobic digestion I think the anaerobic digestion makes a lot of sense The biofuels I'm not so sure because I don't see maybe To talk to some people about where this would add value to that process, right? Right because it seems like it they don't need to dry that to turn that into biofuels. So but I don't know Organic matter with Carbohydrates or right so the waste could become biofuel absolutely so okay Those are I think those questions are probably For people who know a lot more about those issues than I do I'm trying to stay focused on how can we start drying a lot of food because everybody wants this stuff and we're ready Right, and you know, I have to think three million dollars. Yes, that's a lot of money but when we think about What the process that we've just been through Around the the cannabis dispensaries and the kind of money that we saw coming in people excited about it and And that I would think that that this has a broader appeal. I mean it's many crops It's not just one crops and we saw substantial efforts at at Bringing that kind of working capital together. I think we can do this I mean, I think what he really needs to do this because instead of just talking about Grow more I mean Governor Igay bless him, you know is still talking. We're gonna double our production by 2030 except that he said double our production by 2020 when he was elected so yes, we're still gonna double our The time right so this is the kind of thing that makes those numbers a reality Right, well if you take it apart and you say what's okay If you double by that time how much do you have to do each year and oh the last three years have gone by already Did we do it and if not then what are we gonna do different so that we can do it from here forward? And so we have to start buying more food. Okay, David and the last minute What else do we need what else do we need to know? I? Think I think we need to come together as a community Around the relationship we have with our farmers and our soil and If we do that all of this is gonna get a lot easier on all kinds of levels so that would be my hope Thank you so much for coming downtown to think to kawaii today fresh off the plane from Maui And I'm really excited about learning more and hopefully I'll get to work with you and work with this project to make it really happen Thank you very much. I hope so Bye have a great weekend