 to Hawaii reimagined streaming live on Think Tech Hawaii. As we're facing massive disruptions to our labor markets due to automation and now the pandemic, we need to create solutions to address the future of work and how to upscale our workforce to meet the demands of a new labor market. On Hawaii reimagined, I feature innovators and entrepreneurs who are addressing these economic and workforce development issues with innovative solutions that will make a positive social impact for people in our communities. I'm Ruby Menon, your host. And as we're trying to find our way in the world of work, I help mid-career professionals navigate their career transition in my career, get it done mastermind community. And you can learn more at brainsmartdesign.com. So my guest today is Ethan West. He is the co-founder and CEO of Punehele Provisions. They're a food business startup that integrates supporting local agriculture and care for the environment. And their premier product, Are You Listening Moms, is creating baby food made from all natural whole ingredients and superfoods grown on the Hawaiian islands. We'll learn more about Punehele Provisions, his work with a food innovation hub and regenerative practices for the land that allows healthier communities to thrive. And I also wanna congratulate Ethan. He was recognized as the winner of the Young Professional of the Year Award for Pacific Edge Magazine. And Punehele Provisions was also finalist for Best New Business. So Ethan, I am so happy you're here to tell us more about Punehele Provisions and the work that you're doing, not only in regenerative agriculture, but some of these cool projects like the Food Innovation Hub to talk about how that integrates with workforce innovation. So I'm excited to dive right in. And let's start with you telling us a little about yourself, what your career path was, how did you even like get to Punehele as the co-founder and CEO? Awesome. Over to you first and foremost, thank you so much for the kind words, introduction and congratulations. It's an honor to be here talking with you today. And I've come a long way from home over the past seven years or so, a little bit about me. I grew up on the East Coast originally. We did organic farming in Maine and Rhode Island. So every day before school, I was milking cows at 4 a.m. and every night I was in the same place. So it was a great way of life. My father was a chiropractor by trade and we were farmers at heart. So from taking care of the land, we were able to take care of our communities. We always grew in a model that was synergistic with the earth and we would bring the excess into his chiropractic practice and hand it out. And the method behind the madness there was sharing the bounty of the land, encouraging healthier diets, saying if you eat right, if you get out there exercise, you won't have to come in and see us as much because you'll be healthier. And little did I know that that back breaking work on the farm was gonna set up such a lifelong path centered around proper agricultural practices. But here I am, a couple of decades later, continuing the same mission. I came to Hawaii going on seven years ago and began working at Kunau Cattle Company and really trying to concentrate on keeping a lot of the cattle that was born in Hawaii. Traditionally, there were plantation agricultural methods that were done in Hawaii, which was monocrop cane sugar, pineapple, and when those plantations pulled out, it left these large open parcels of land that were in need of holistic management. And that's what we really tried to focus on was using cattle to regenerate the land, increase carbon sequestration out of the environment and create healthy for land, animals and communities. And about a year, year and a half ago or so, I stepped back and tried to look at Hawai'i's food systems overall and start to solve some of those additional bottlenecks and additional holes at the retail level that we could fill with local products. One of the products that was staring me right in the face was baby food. Poi, think about it, it is the perfect baby food. It's hypoallergenic. It's full of such credible nutrients. It's culturally appropriate. And then I started diving into it and found out why baby food wasn't locally available, why there was no company. It turns out it's really, really hard. But we were certainly up to the challenge. So I'm curious, how is it that, what led you to baby food? Like how did that journey happen? Yeah, that was a great question. And it was very top of mind. Actually, about this time last year, first of all, there was a study that was released that tested 95% of baby food products that were available retail. 95% of them contained heavy metals, toxic chemicals like arsenic and lead. And I, at the time, had just had a brand new baby nephew and a brand new baby in Eastbourne and freshly engaged, thinking about a family of myself. I really became discouraged in what was available and became enthused about making something better, making something that parents can trust. When you see on the label, these are the ingredients, that's all that's in there. So those first 1,000 days of a child's life are exponentially important, right? And setting up the building blocks, setting up the foundation for the rest of your life. Wow, that's incredible. So, actually, I'd like to show the video because I think that will really kind of tell the story about Poonahele provisions and what it is that you're offering to the local community, especially for babies. Can we queue up that video? Our children are everything. Every giggle, every step, every moment is one to be cherished. The first 1,000 days of our children's lives are the most critical to their development. And as parents, we want to make sure we're putting the absolute best fruits into their growing bodies. That's why we founded Poonahele provisions, to offer the healthiest baby food made from the best of what Hawaii has to offer. We use sustainably sourced, island-fresh ingredients and superfoods like taro and breadfruit grown on the Hawaiian islands to create nutritious and delicious on-the-go baby food pouches. Our blends are made with no artificial flavors or additives, just pure fruits and veggies for a healthy start to life. Making this food is a labor of love for us and our farming partners, and we can't wait to share it with the families in our state and beyond. Oh, there you have it. That tells the entire story. So, you were talking about the reason why you discovered that there wasn't local baby food being produced, was that you found it incredibly difficult. So can you tell us a little bit more about that journey? And because I'm thinking that there's a lot of things that a lot of moving parts that have to happen in the production, all of the different partnerships with the farmers. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about that journey. Yeah, yeah, happy to. Like I said, started working on it out of the community in the entire baby food space. And when I started down this journey, one of the main things that we were looking at was the processing method. A lot of the main canning operations, processing operations had shut down in 2007, 2008 timeframe when the recession hit. So there weren't many options left locally to make. Your traditional retort canned Gerber jar, for instance. And that led me down the path to say, what is the best possible way to process this food and what can we innovate here in Hawaii? I looked at everything from doing a hot fill and hold to high pressure processing, which is pretty popular on the mainland and gaining in popularity. And something we hope to bring here to Hawaii. It's also incredibly capital intensive to start up for reference. One machine is in the range of a couple of million dollars. Yeah, very expensive to take on as a new company, but certainly something we're looking to do. We even went out to Kunea and looked at irradiation operations to create a shelf stable product. So the background in a research over just the production models and what was available in Hawaii alone, took us no less than eight or nine months. We went out there and researched all of the different methods that were available from steaming to baking to acidifying to making sure that we have product that was a mix between the best nutrient profile for growing babies and then also the best production model on the farm side of things. So pairing those together has been truly a labor of love and we've been blessed to have the farming partners that we do that are taking care of the land in a way that is protecting Hawaii's main source of income, our economic driver traditionally has been tourism. We've been made aware of that, especially so during current times when so many are being hit so hard. So to focus on farming partners that are taking care of that land in not just a sustainable way but a regenerative way for future generations to take care of that, to keep that economic edge of growing is incredibly important to us. Having a farming background myself, I know how much of a paycheck to paycheck, a crop to crop way of life farming can be. And we wanted to use Punale to also create a more fair, equitable and just food system where we're paying farmers not just what they need to survive but what they need to make an income and have it be an attractive industry for future farmers to get into. Yeah, this is something that I'm finding is really kind of unique with what's happening with our local agriculture scene because there are several farms especially out in the Waianae area there's Mao O organic farms, Kahumana. They're all done it's like they're doing more than farming. They're actually contributing to their communities with the social programs that has sort of turned of the whole farm in my estimation, the farming industry on its ear in terms of showing it's more than just growing food like you can actually send kids to college you can create pathways for the homeless. I mean, it's pretty remarkable. And one thing I wanted to maybe have you clarify because there's this terminology of regenerative agriculture well, that's a mouthful. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about what that means exactly and what the differences are between that model versus the model that we're currently practicing and why is that a better model? Like how does that contribute to the community versus our current model? Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned a couple of incredible farming and community programs to say the least Mao O organic farms doing a wonderful job. I remember back when I was doing my MBA at Shamanad University, Gary came in and if you've ever heard him talk, it is- He's amazing. It is palatable, yeah. And that certainly helped solidify my love for local ag and keep me moving in this direction. They also mentioned Kahumano organic farms which is one of our partners and just doing an incredible job in their community with as you mentioned transitioning folks out of homelessness and doing the food hub aggregating from other farmers and really having economic impact in their community. To touch on regenerative agriculture, I think that a lot of people right now and for the past few years have been really focusing on sustainability and sustaining the land and creating a model which doesn't take out of the land which is great and I'm all for it but before we get to sustainability we should focus on regenerating the land because the typical agricultural production model for easily the past century or so has been fairly destructive to the land. It has been monocropped, it has been spurred out of wartime rations and a lot of chemicals, a lot of genetic modification, a lot of creating shelf-stable rations essentially and you'll see that in the study those heavy toxic chemicals like arsenic and lead that were found in the baby food products there aren't these evil-doer companies that are out there dropping lead and dropping poison into our baby food products that comes from the production model. Those are byproducts that are left over from pesticides, from chemicals, from artificial fertilizers. So regenerative agriculture concentrates on creating a healthy microbiome in the soil. It starts with the soil. It starts with plant diversity and these fundamental principles of permaculture. We're saying much like business. The more diversity you have in it, the healthier the overall system is going to be. We saw a link between animals and produce from the Kunalides. When you have animals going around in bovine in this mob grazing pattern, breaking up the grass, chewing it down to a level where it really promotes root growth to prevent against soil erosion. The birds come along afterwards and they pick up the fertilizer and help scratch it around. And it's just, it's an incredible model based after Alan Sabred. Well, the regenerative model is, there's a certifying agency called Demeter and it concentrates on biodynamic. I think Pu'uahoku Ranch over on Molokai is a certified biodynamic ranch as well. It concentrates on really working with the natural patterns of the earth. And I'm not going to claim to be an expert by any means, but I am an activist, I guess would be the right word for it or just somebody who is trying to use their company, their business and their podium to promote these regenerative models. Because in order to get to sustainability, we need to get the soil to a point where it is healthy and thriving and naturally resilient. Wow, that is, you know, I thank you for clarifying that because you're right. I mean, everything is about sustainability but there's actually a step before that that regenerative agriculture is actually addressing. And I don't think it's really part of the mindset and really what you were talking about is this entire ecosystem, where the cattle are stomping around and mucking up the earth and then the birds are coming in. I mean, it's like they all are helping each other and helping the earth. And it's just amazing when we really start to apply the systems thinking model, I think, to see how all these parts are interrelated. Like if you took the birds away, then what would happen, right? Or if you took the biodiversity out of the earth, you know, like then you'd have all these problems with the lead and all these other different things. So I think... It strips your topsoil, you know? That's why when you continually farm in mind in the same way, what you're losing is your topsoil is that layer of the earth that is so fertile and conducive towards life. Yeah, yeah, that's... Well, I'm really glad that these farms are really looking at these practices. I'm just hoping that at some point there's gonna be some type of economic ROI to prove to all the other farming practices in the world that this is the way that we have to go in order to be able to create better food for our communities and also have it be, create a thriving economy. So it's a huge problem, but it's gotta start somewhere, right? So when you guys are with Punaheli are definitely doing that, you're working in that. Now, one of the things I really wanted to also talk about with you is this food innovation hub project that you're working on. I know that you're still kind of in the conceptual phase, but what's interesting to me about this is that we don't really think of agriculture as an ecosystem for an economy that could actually create jobs. I think there's a lot of limited thinking there. And some of the things that you were talking to me about sound not only super innovative, but very exciting to elevate this field to show that there's so many different career paths that can actually happen here. So can you talk a little bit about that hub project and what you're doing, the innovation hub project? Happy to, happy to, thank you for bringing it up. There are so many incredible conversations that are happening right now and specifically around diversifying our workforce and helping to create a more resilient economy. And part of that conversation is, okay, how do we help set up an economy and industry that is conducive towards innovation that is bringing together at the agricultural list, the farmers, the people taking care of our land to encourage them to grow more food and better food and take care of the land better. We have some incredible entrepreneurs across the state that are making like the most delicious, the most nutritious, the most eco-friendly products in the world. And then we also have a community that is fiercely dedicated towards local, towards Hawaii. And what we're looking to do is, how do we take these different components of our food system here and make it, so it's connected globally, a little bit farther and having inspiration from all areas of the globe. How do we, I'm an advisor for Waipahu High School, how do we talk with these students about alternative career paths and say, you can go on and become a chef. That's an incredible career path. You could also come work with us at Ponehalei Provisions, create scalable recipes. You can work on the marketing side. So it's bringing the technology, the knowledge and the skills to Hawaii to help diversify our economy and create these skills, these transferable skills amongst our workforce. You know, we have a saying at Ponehalei that we want to train our family, our employees so well so that they can go anywhere in the world and work and we want to treat them so that they don't want to leave, right? And we're taking that same approach in this method. One of the main pieces of feedback that we got back in talking with the community is this idea of COPEC, you know, is allowing entrepreneurs to do what they're best at, allowing farmers to do what they're best at and taking a lot of the processing and food safety side of things off of their plate and what that could potentially look like. And this would be in tangent with my larger overarching scheme of things and creating these sister hubs around the world. Because Hawaii is a global place, you know, it is such a great proving ground for products. But then once you prove yourself here in Hawaii, how do you make that jump across the pond? How do you scale? How do you continue on your mission to allow farmers to grow more food? And that's why it's working with partners in California, it's working with partners in Singapore, it's working with partners in Australia to take those pieces, the models that they've created and make it work for Hawaii. I'm really excited about it. I think that it has the potential to have an exponential impact on the resiliency of our food systems, but also on allowing entrepreneurs, allowing agriculture to work together in this really innovative way. So because you were contacting a lot of these farmers and collaborating with these different entities, what's your pulse on this? Is this something now that you feel has the potential to go mainstream at some point or are we still at the tip of the iceberg where they're still noodling and thinking about it, but they haven't quite adopted it yet? Like where do you think things are right now? I think that we're right on the cusp of this going mainstream. I mean, the need has never been more apparent. It has never been voice more. I mean, we have talked about, I've talked about it until I was doing the face before, but if a natural disaster were to hit, if the docks were to hit- It's it. People were just still on strike. Yeah, it's like we're out of food. This facility will help us mitigate against that risk. With the global pandemic, with COVID, it has unfortunately been brought to light that our centralized food system is broken. There are faults in it, but it has also provided that opportunity to really motivate all of our communities around solving those problems, around providing opportunities to create a more decentralized food system. One that is rich in innovation, one that is rich in taking care of the land and taking care of our communities. Yeah, I think this is what I've been hearing from a lot of businesses now, is that especially like more innovative businesses that have been on the fringes and not so much in the mainstream, that, I mean, if anything good has come out of COVID, there's been a lot of suffering and misery, but if we can say that anything good has come out of it, is that all of these ideas that were just sort of like kind of hiding over here, where the rest of the world was doing its thing, it's like now there finally, there's finally seems to be the fertile ground for acceptance and for listening and for realizing that we've got to find different models, we've got to find new ways of doing things. And I think that has 100xed a lot of this. And that's why I was interested to find out what you're thinking that because of this acceleration, maybe there's gonna be a much clearer pathway for this to become mainstream, which is very exciting. And it's also I think dovetails with the fact that we're dealing with a dying planet and we have to find, we can't keep doing the same, same. So we have a few more minutes and I have to ask you this, but I'm sure COVID has impacted your business. So can you tell us a little bit about what you've gone through and some of the pivots maybe that you've had to make as a result? Happy to, yeah. Pivot to say the least, they were originally going to be doing in HPP, a high pressure processing model, which we talked about earlier. Now part of the problem there is it doesn't exist in Hawaii. So like many other entrepreneurs in the food space in Hawaii, we were having to ship raw agricultural products to the mainland to be processed and finished. That dovetails into the need for co-packing here, not just in HPP, but in so many different realms. There's a lot of local meat companies that are sending container loads full of frozen meat to the mainland to be turned into jerky or sticks. And that's a huge operation. When COVID hit, we really, really pivoted and said, let's change up our production model. We don't want to add any more food miles. We won't want all of that economy leaving the state. We need to double down on Hawaii. And that's what we did. We switched our production model and our pasteurization model to be able to do it 100% here in Hawaii, not just grown, but made, minimally processed all the way here. It took a lot more investment. It took a lot more pivoting. It took some packaging redesigns. It took investing in some pieces of equipment that would be able to fill our pouches. But in the end, we're really happy we did. Wow, that's amazing. And so were you able, it sounds like you were able to do that pivot fairly quickly. I mean, what was your timeline? Yeah, we were able to do it relatively quickly. I want to say it was right towards the middle to the tail end of March when we started switching and we'll see it come to fruition December 3rd and December 4th. Wow. Yeah, it was a pretty big switch. Wow. I wanted to just dovetail back just for a second to the, you were talking that you were working with the Waipahu High School. And I know that they're very innovative in terms of creating these career tracks. With the Waipahu High School, I know they have a lot of these different career tracks that the students are able to get into. And you said that there's a really strong culinary. Can you talk about some of the types of jobs that students might look at in terms of the career paths that could exist in this agricultural regenerative agriculture ecosystem that we've been talking about? I'm happy to, yeah. And it's, Waipahu High School does a phenomenal job over there. They really do a great job at creating global community members and connecting all of their students with continuing education opportunities and ways to get involved. Culinary Avenue specific, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, you can go and become a chef. And we have some of the best restaurants in the world here. We have usually an incredibly strong tourism industry. You could also look at scalable recipe development. You can become a food scientist. You could become a PCQI about food safety. All of these educational opportunities that you're going through in the culinary program are in high demand in the agricultural industry, specifically here in Hawaii. I think creating that bridge between the farmer and the end consumer is one of the most important jobs that you have as a student going through culinary program. You are at the last hands before it reaches that person's mouth. So the opportunity to share the story, not just of the farm, but of the production model of that ingredient, that is what is going to help push this movement forward. No pressure, students. Well, I'll have to leave it there. So if any students are listening, I hope that you consider this as a career path that you can certainly do some exciting things around, especially in the agricultural realm. And Ethan, I want to thank you so much for spending some time with us today. And certainly love what you're doing with Punehele. And once again, congratulations on your awards and your recognition. I'm Ruby Menon and this is Hawaii Reimagined. We're live streaming on Think Tech Hawaii. And Ethan, could you tell our audience how they can learn more about Punehele provisions? Of course, Ruby. Thank you so much for having me on today. If you want to go to our website, punheleprovision.com, you can learn a lot more about us, about our products and about our community partners across the state. Great, thank you. And thank you all for being here. And please check back for our next show on Wednesday, December 2nd at 3 p.m. I'll be talking to Sheila Buyukakar, who is an educator, and she's created a lab for project-based learning to prepare students with the skills they need to become impact citizens. Until next time, be safe and be kind to one another. Aloha.