 What came of that was our foresight started to set in where we're like, okay, Cass, we're bleeding money in this area how do we Stop that and how do we make people feel like our juices in more places with the money a little bit of money? We have in the bank and so I think that's where Cassandra and I started to really get creative and Strategic where we said okay We put a list together with our partner Bo at the time and we said okay There's here's the 15 accounts the dream accounts that we would love to be in and so we really Narrowed it down and we ended up getting into every single one of those those accounts within the first year Oh cool people kind of recognize the brand and then they come to our storefront. They'd realize we're doing it, right? You know, yeah, it's a great product and our biggest fear was that we would make a product and people wouldn't like it This is start of the storefront the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth today's guests are Cass and Andrew Walker husband and wife duo and co-founders of the cold press juice company little West Their journey began with their wedding or more accurately using the money They would have spent on their wedding to start little West They got some space in a yoga studio and threw themselves into making juice Now they'll be the first to tell you that they knew absolutely nothing about running a commercial juice business But Cass and Andrew dedicated everything they had to learning and mastering their craft Their story is one of perseverance and grit which is paid off in numerous ways Not least of which in selling their company to plant X So listen in as we cover everything from the lessons learned in taking bad loans to float their business Drinking coffee in the morning juice at noon and wine at night and why the number one rule of running a business is to invest in marketing Now back to the episode All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're interviewing the founders of little West Cass and Andrew Thanks for coming on. Please tell everyone a little bit about your company. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us Our pleasure a little bit about the company. We are an LA based cold press juice company We're sourcing local ingredients from all over the West Coast hence the name little West but we'll dive into that later Yeah, we're known for having a really high quality product. We small batch everything We are 24 hours farm to bottle which means we're basically sourcing our produce and pressing it and bottling it all within 48 hours and yeah, I mean that's pretty much it We're known for the quality of our product and and we love building she said 24, but really it's pushing 48 That's still pretty good When you guys started so there's a party website where you talk about your wedding and instead of doing a Wedding you decided to start a company. Can you share a little bit about that? Definitely. Yeah, we so we had an opportunity to open up our first storefront and It was right at the time where I get done asking her I said we should get married We've been engaged for three years for three years said so look what's the deal here? We should we should probably pick a venue do something invite friends have a party at least whatever and It was my birthday weekend and we had Had a reservation that we had booked at French Laundry up in Napa Yeah, it was like a bucket list That's such a dream that we had always wanted to Thomas Keller, right? Yeah. Yeah, and so we were just we just Were you know felt grateful that we got on the list finally to get have a lunch there And it was my birthday weekend and so a couple days passed and I said to Cassandra I'm like this this might be a great opportunity for us to Get married as well. What do you think what if we go up there and Get married this way. We can save money on a wedding, right? We can just elope and we can put a portion of the money that we had put aside for this wedding and her parents Had generously set aside some money. There's three daughters You know, oh, yeah, three daughters So they put a little little money aside for us and we said look let's not spend all this money on a wedding and Just goes into the you know the ether the abyss and and let's put it into the storefront and just have a great time Going to French Laundry and at the same time I was looking for a career change We didn't know what that business was but I was looking for a career change I'd spent six years in the fashion business was I really don't care about clothes. I just eat sleep and breathe food That's just that she was selling clothes to women that didn't need any more clothes. Yeah Yeah, so it just wasn't super fulfilling. Yeah, and at home We were just really passionately at the time making cold pressed juices and making smoothies and we were just kind of Passionately making But the reason why I say passionately is We're really passionate about inspiring people around us to be healthier Yeah, and I think like when we get on a kick of something there's purpose there Yes, we want everyone else to be on it with us and we want to share that the excitement that we have because if we're feeling good We feel like other people can feel good doing the same thing So basically we had an opportunity friends of ours who have a yoga studio right here on La Brea in LA they were expanding they basically told us one night over dinner and Andrews like you guys if you can carve out 200 square feet from that yoga studio We'll open up a juice bar and they were like, yeah, let's do it So we're cheers egg having wine and then the next morning I remember waking up and being like wait a second Did we just agree that I'm quitting my career of six years and opening up a 200 square foot juice bar with our wedding Money because at this point we had just eloped Yeah, and Andrew goes yeah, I think we should do it risk taker not risk taker And so basically within six months of that we opened up a juice bar So, I mean it was just totally nuts. We had no clue. We're doing we leaned on friends of ours Who had restaurants to learn how to purchase produce? We didn't even know like what's a bunch of celery? What's the weight of a case like so that was all part of it But we essentially opened up this little juice bar and the story is yes We took the money for the friends and family had lent us some money a little bit of money that we had Put away and we opened up a 200 square foot juice bar without thinking about anything else The story is so good. Yeah, I love it You just my wife and I didn't we also didn't have a wedding right, but it wasn't as beautiful as your story It was because I realized like I have to invite this on that I haven't seen in 10 years And then so we were doing the guest list and I was like, I don't want to invite this person And my mom's like no you have to because they saw you crawl at one point in life But I'm like that doesn't justify an invitation to me and so I quickly realized like it's not our wedding Yeah, I was like it's not our wedding and my wife's father is one of nine and so it just becomes this like 300 person thing And we're like all right cool. We're living in Boston. So like we're gonna get married in Boston at the seaport hotel and blah blah blah Oh, well, that's not that's not close enough for some of the family We have to make it so now the location was moving and I'd been an entrepreneur for most of my life So I was like tell you we're just gonna like Not get married and we're gonna start a company But I was like, but it's up to you because her father was more than willing to pay the bill Which was super generous and like very unnecessary. I was like, please don't do that because I'm it's not my party anymore I'm not sure I'm gonna have fun and that was it And so then she we like slept on it and then we woke up being like, yeah We're just gonna have a small city hall wedding and then there was like eight of us Went to City Hall then went to our favorite restaurants and so it's like immediate family only and it was so nice And it was so special and our own the intimacy of that we got married We eloped or got married at San Francisco City Hall and it was we each just had a friend there And because it got complicated our both families are in Montreal and then do we have sit, you know Family fly out so you're from Montreal both of us are from Montreal. Okay. What brought you to San Francisco fashion So LA he brought me to actually Andrew's been here for 21 years And I've been here for 50 we've been here for 15 together But he is an actor as well. And so acting is what brought him out. I chase to say I moved back to Montreal all after being here for two and a half years and New Cassandra through the grapevine of our small, you know, suburb We grew up 10 minutes from each other and never knew each other until we were in our time. Wow Chased her for three weeks. She kept on denying me and And then somehow convinced her to go for coffee and then and then year later We were together a year after that and then she came out to I convinced her to come out That's awesome. So it was the first step to starting the business So you guys have a storefront I assume you don't have any like commercial grade equipment just yet like nothing. Maybe you do. I don't know So at first we were like, okay, cool. So cold-pressed juice because that's where it's at right now We're not just going to do normal juice because the heat we did there was a moment that we said, okay We'll just we'll do it in the storefront. We'll do juice on the spot and we'll have a blender or whatever Like, yeah, like a You know, we didn't even know that things had to be Certified and like when I say we knew nothing. I mean we knew nothing There was no like let's hire a consultant and figure out how to build this and set ourselves up for success It was also a new industry, right? The yeah, the players were pressed juice And moon juice really and Beverly Hills juice Yeah, the oh geez. She's amazing. Yeah, she's amazing. Cash only doesn't scale But I love her her ethos of like literally she doesn't throw anything away. No trash. I mean, it's great Really inspired. Yeah, but I'm like, can you just take a credit card, please? Look, I get I get I get the whole thing. But like, please. Yeah, you're right So not many players at the time players and then we started doing our research into juice and realized Well, if we want to be competitive and have the highest quality product, which was really important to us We have to do cold press juice and then we start looking into cold press now What is cold press juice to the novice me in the room? What is what's what does that mean cold press juice is basically Where the juice has never come in contact with heat Heat is what compromises the quality and the integrity of the nutrients So the vitamins and the minerals and the um enzymes If you have cold produce and it goes through the temperature control the entire process So the produce the washing of it it goes into a grinder. That's just this that's just another layer Is like to keep the produce cold. That's kind of our little secret what we do. Okay Everybody knows it now, but what kind of feet are we talking about here? So the motor the heat from a motor of a juicer So you know like when your blender is going for a long time. Yeah, it gets really hot. Sure So imagine that when you're juicing it and the heat is what Kettle and you get the foam if you get juice on the spot you get the foam on the top of your glass visualization And that's just from the the high rotation Never known what that was from. I just thought it was yeah So you see that that's a no no It just cuts the shelf like you have to drink that immediately if you're gonna if it's nutrient loss Okay, got you but if you you can't take that is it because the heat now starts a process like it starts to process it Like the heat basically cooks it the heat just initially You know how when you talk about pasteurization of like a tropic can of orange juice You're basically heating and you're starting that yeah all of the nutrients of the orange juice So you end up with you know, yes, it'll show vitamin c and stuff on there But really once something goes through pasteurization You're not getting so the slower the grading process and then what happens is you know Lots of different technology different systems that do it, but essentially it's a cheese cloth that you then have to hold Presses that press that and then the juice comes out the bottom so you want it a slow grading process of the of the fruits and vegetables and As companies get larger what they tend to do is to cut back on costs They'll do all the kale All the spinach and they'll they'll fill by percentage I get so it's still technically okay pressed But what we have always done from the start of our business is we small batch That's just also going back to that's the only way we knew how to do it And even though we went even which goes back to the first piece of equipment that we bought Yeah, yeah going back to the question Yeah, we did realize if we want to cold press and and really put out a quality product Number one we have to source the best ingredients So we spent weeks meeting farmers at the Santa Monica farmers market talking to produce purveyors And figuring out Which farms do we want to work with and source from because we didn't want something to sit for two weeks and then juice it It was all about the quality and then on the other hand, what's the process? So we found this machine called a good nature x1 and it's this 500 pound industrial thing How did we find it? Cassandra? Do you remember that store? We were at we were at moon juice And because sitting in our car out in front of moon juice Okay, talking each other on how we're going to extract the information from the store from the store clerk becoming being suspicious Because it was such a it was such a hush hush Industry no one wanted to talk about it. Wow. Everyone had their secretive ways of not very collaborative not very collaborative So we went in and they have this swinging door It's really funny because our best friend is the cmo from moon juice right now And so it's really funny But so we're basically like peeking in as the sliding door opens and closes trying to get a peek of the machine One person's asking about while I'm asking about ingredients and juices and I peeked in and I was like It says good nature on there So then we're googling good nature trying to figure it out Turns out we ended up finding the company and we found this machine But once we realized what this huge investment for us We I mean we didn't have the money to we were like, what are we gonna do? But then we like we can't put this in our 200 square foot juice bar because this it has about a footprint of It's probably about five and a half feet by Five and a half to six feet. And how much space did you have in your juice bar 200 square feet? So okay, and this machine it produces you can do up to around 3,000 juices a day On this machine Which considering the size of it doesn't seem like that much almost But it goes back to how delicate of a procedure it is But we because of the hot yoga studio that we were partnered next to we knew that we had to have Like a volume That's what gave us the confidence to initially open the space was that it's a We knew that next to the hot yoga studio. We would Immediately have customers if we were putting out a good product, right machine costs about 25,000 dollars Then the shipment costs and all the the add-ons was not an expense We knew we were gonna have to spend we thought we'd spend like maybe two thousand dollars on them We were like, we're gonna store this dress money gone. Yeah Lucky for us. I never envisioned myself in a wedding dress. So we were we were fine on that I borrowed a dress and shoes from my best friend So did you have to do the math on okay? So this cost 25 grand plus shipping we can turn out 300 juices per day. Did you have to do the math like 3,000 and you were like, okay How long until we pay this off how many customers we have to do a day for that and did it all of a sudden I wish we had okay. We would have we did absolutely none of that We were just like let's do probably smarter and obviously not like smarter But it's to some extent it's better for the entrepreneur to not do that because there's a there's a real belief Right, there's the creating reading around. This is gonna be fine every moment That we felt is bliss. Yeah every moment that we felt like. Oh my gosh What are we doing? We need to stop then something really positive would happen that would kind of catapult us to the next level And then we're like, well feels right. I guess we just keep going with it Well, that was after the smoke cleared because the very beginning the first I would say Six months was just us keeping our heads above water. I was juicing at night time So we found a place to house this juicer The x1 the x1 We x1 3000 which by the way the company good nature right around the same time They're an unbelievable company and they now have podcasts. They have Blogs they do newsletters and they've really changed. They're doing countertop for homes now for cafes So they've really changed. They've made it super approachable and accessible to everybody who wants to start a juice bar Nice From the press juicers of the world the suges of the world to you know, the the local juice juice bar owner And we have to give credit where credit is due because at the time kisandronite did have a partner And he owned a couple restaurants the church hill the hudson His name is bow lawflin And bow had given us access to the bakery at the church hill down on third street It was the orlando hotel and it was this like 100 square foot It was tiny on the second floor of a hotel bakery kitchen And that was our very first that was our first juicing kitchen and we would I'd show up at the juicing kitchen and accept the produce You know go through all the produce and then as the night would wind down Some of the lion cooks would come meet me upstairs And we would juice from 11 12 o'clock at night all the way through till about three o'clock in the morning I would drive the juices to lebrea kisandronite would meet me there at 4 30 in the morning five o'clock in the morning stock the fridge stock the fridge I'll see you. I'll see you tonight. Wow And she would work at the store and we we did that for almost six months. What was this like for your relationship? That silence in the room Good. We've always spent a lot of time apart I think just by nature of what andrew does for a living and we're very independent We're good independently and we're better together. So it was fine, honestly Like we're we are great communicators. I think there is something true to absence makes the heart grow fonder You know, I definitely think and and also we're very passionate people in our own respects and yeah, and I love watching her Just be in her element and she's great with customers great with customer service. She's customer facing I'm not customer facing. I don't have a lot of patience. I have Well, you are a customer facing. We just want to have you handle customer service customer service Yeah, yeah, well, no, I'm just not good with the rude customer I just be like just buy the juice man. You don't want the juice. Don't take don't have the juice Yeah, and that was a very nice way of putting it but andrew, you know, it's luck This is you know, people listening can't see me pointing to the product, but It's a labor of love and I think that it's not something we didn't hire Formulators and be like, hey, we want to make money in this industry and so create Four skews for us that we can just crank to market We created a juice bar out of our passion for wanting to share a product that we loved With our community and we wanted to inspire people in our community to be a little bit healthier And we never came open the store and we were like Everyone do a three-day cleanse and everyone needs to be juicing. We were like Have we were the first juice company to have a coffee program So we were like have a coffee in the morning. Have a juice have wine at night. Yeah, we started We started in Stumptown originally wine at night. I like that. That's good. It's a food group in my in in our family Yeah, welcome to our house And we made juices for cocktails as well. Like we yeah, I can see the beet juice being I mean a lot of the all the ones I've had so far. I'm like, oh, this is the pair. Well, that was the original cocktail tequila mixer I could definitely see this thing. It's just the golden green aspect of it. Absolutely What liquor would you pair with this tequila tequila? Yeah, that was my first vodka goes with everything. Yeah Really tequila and then a lot of these mixologists have done some really interesting takes on our juices as well like add a nice flower to the top and then you know with the clover There was one Matthew Bianchi and yellow who's an incredible mixologist here in Los Angeles. He did one eat your drink Eat your drink. That's it. Yeah. I know Matthew. Okay, cool. Yeah, he's awesome He he did something cool with the clover. Yeah, he did it with gin He did our clover with gin and just so the listeners can hear out there The clover has kale cucumber celery spinach pear cilantro mint and lime. So when you have that on the menu With a mixologist it sounds like there's a lot You know a lot of juicing that they're doing on the side, but really it comes from the product, which is great Very convenient, but then he would add he added gin. He did some Like a licorice liqueur in there. I think and then he did a nice flower on the top But interesting takes on things like the beet juice for example, there there's mixologists at hotels that turn this into a A beet Bloody Mary Oh, it's just interesting. Yeah, which I had only heard that a couple years ago So speaking of this like as you guys are entering the market, you have your hot yoga fanatics, right? And so you have that crowd immediately But at some point you start thinking about like, how do we get into stores or distribution or even the mixology game So what was that like for you guys? Was it natural or was it like we need to be in stores here? It was natural Well, the first customer we had was alfred coffee. Okay. Um, they had opened up the day before we did their first location Yeah, yeah, and so they're great But we had a three-day shelf life at the time and so managing Any product with a three-day shelf life that is perishable, which means that it needs to stay refrigerated or else it will spoil It's very strict temperature regulation. It was pretty much impossible to manage So we did start working with coffee shops So we started first working within our first three months of being open We started working with alfred coffee and at the same time we but we did kichela We did kichela. So within our first year kichela was like, hey, can you guys be the juice company for kichela this year? So we opened in january. That's awesome to like march planning for april kichela and we're like, yeah at this time First of all, we didn't even know what was happening at this point But because we were just trying to hunkering down and just drinking juice. Yeah, but we were like, oh, yeah There was no world of no. It wasn't like, oh, we don't know if we can do that It was like absolutely we can and then we're like we say everything and everyone smart and I think what ultimately What came of that was Our foresight started to take, you know to say when we were like, okay cas we're bleeding. We're bleeding money in this area. How do we Stop that and how do we You know make people feel like our juices in more places with the money a little bit of money We have in the bank and so I think that's where kisandra and I started to really get creative and strategic Where we said, okay, we put a list together with our partner bow at the time and we said, okay There's here's the 15 accounts the dream accounts that we would love to be in the so houses of the world and A couple hotels the montreon the Chateau Marmont, you know and a couple other coffee shops the alphards of the world and stuff And so we really narrowed it down and we ended up getting into every single one of those those accounts Within the first year, but this is the thing is we recognized early on so alfred coffee You know, they were just getting started But then kichela really gave us a little bit of Exposure and street where we were like, oh cool people kind of recognize the brand and then they'd come to our storefront They'd realize we're doing it right, you know It's a great product and our biggest fear was that we would make a product and people wouldn't like it But what I was just going to say is that we essentially ended up just saying we have no money to spend So all these juice companies were starting to open up and they were just putting billboards up and opening storefront after storefront You served here. Yeah, who is making a big quote-unquote splash How do you compete with these these companies? And so we just decided let's just do what we do best Which is make a great product and try to approach our dream accounts And if we can get into those then that will at least give The allure that we're in a lot of places and then hopefully our business will kind of we were never good at raising capital That's one thing because andrew and I are not Did you try and it just didn't work out or was it something like it was just so uncomfortable So when we did try we put a great deck together after being open for Six months. We raised what we thought we would need to scale for the next two three years That money Was soaked up in a matter of six months. Right. Yeah six months. Yeah And two weeks before the six months was up. We didn't know that we were going to be at the end of the line We were just still making juice and we didn't have somebody who was looking at the four You know forecasting for us looking at the pianos and kind of breaking it down So it was really just was too little too late at the time So when we were already in kind of a Desperate place we didn't want to go back to investors and be like guys. We're desperate. We need money here But we did need money But we needed money. Yeah, and we made it happen. We ended up We did do we did raise money finding ways to never it was just never enough It wasn't at the time enough. So we've always had we were always like we're like we took some bad loans I mean to be straight up we we took a couple really bad loans and We were at the mercy of the interest rates And we thought that that was going to be a band-aid for us for you know until things started picking up again And obviously, you know, you lose a couple of your key accounts to the juicer of tears of the world And the press juicers of the world that are buying out your product paying the customer to remove you off this off the shelf So buying you out and then free filling them And so we lost out in a couple of those customers It got crazy in our industry all of a sudden People would joke around it's like oh the juice war is of LA 2015 You know the juice war is meanwhile There's you and me just being like do you want to come to our kitchen and see it because people are like How is your product so vibrant? How is it and we're like you got a small batch? It you got a temperature control. You got to juice it with love, you know, like our whole thing was so Feeling driven and and just who we are Were you guys just not like pricing it correctly because I know a lot of entrepreneurs never put like their own Wage into their business and so they end up having this business that looks like it's making money But as soon as you slap like this is what I should be paying myself. It's like the business is under water Yeah, that's that was okay. Yeah, we never we never pulled money from the company when we did when sure really needed it Right. It was always the margins for sure. We didn't we didn't bake in the margins Especially when we were started to when we started opening up wholesale when our wholesale business started to really take off with a three-day shelf life That was suicide You can't scale a business with the three at least we couldn't tell you how did you guys solve the What was the work around the shelf life issue at the same time that this there's a process called hpp high pressure processing And uh, basically, I'm sure you've probably I don't know if you've had guests on here I think brook does brook does do that. She does. Yeah, I was gonna say basically uh, high pressure processing It's a process that we make our juice seal it in the bottle And then it goes to a third party where it goes into this really crazy huge contraption on a conveyor belt water It looks like an oil tank. It looks like an oil tanker like an 18 wheel Water fills water fills the chamber our bottle is sealed. So nothing's getting into the juice But we apply 87 000 pounds of pressure on the water And basically what that does is number one it extends the shelf life of the juice without killing it's a cold water So you're not killing the nutrients in the juice But also it kills harmful bacteria like listeria E. Coli salmonella So the raw juice we used to have to have a warning label on it that would say not safe for pregnant women people with weakened immune systems And that was a warning that you had to have because bacteria could form in the bottle So by going through this hpp process now our product not only has a longer shelf life But it's safe for everyone. I like the visual of applying pressure evenly to an egg on all sides Basically, that's what it is you apply the 87 Pounds of pressure and the the egg doesn't crack but it changes the molecules on the inside of the egg What becomes the shelf life now? Is it like does it go to like two weeks or what does it go to at the time? We were raw juice purists and we were like this is crazy So then we started testing with it and realized it's actually great the integrity of the juice stays intact So then we started with a seven day Then we went to 15 then to 21 then to 30 45 we're at 90 days We plan on staying at 90 we could have had it at 90 days from the get-go But because we were afraid of alienating the purists And there is two worlds in the juice world is one you are either a Quote-unquote purist where you have your juice bar and you make your three-day shelf life juice And you sell it within your four walls. You produce it and sell it within your four walls Beverly Hills juice exactly. Yeah, if you have a wholesale Arm to your business you can't produce your your three-day shelf life raw product and sell it Outside of those four walls to a customer. It's a little wholesale account So for example, they can't sell that 3d juice to a coffee shop and then have them sell it So the health department was catching up, you know can't kind of like finding out about different people doing this at this It was a new industry So there was a new industry being created we used to fall under juice So all of a sudden we became a new category to the health department, which was cold press juice And then a whole bunch of regulations kind of but it was interesting, you know, we were in it as it was happening There were times when the health department would come into our store and be at a time We had three stores They would come in and if it didn't say at the time we didn't know it needed to say Let's say perishable keeper-frigerated or something like that on on the bottle They would come in and they would front of our customers take the entire fridge worth of juice That we had been overnight juicing Put it in a black garbage bag with a red tag on it and say until we approve your labels at the head office or whatever You can't sell this and this didn't fall into any kind of grandfather clauses or anything like that They were disabled to make these rules and then retroactively go and enforce them It was you know, it was tricky because the rules existed But no one was really doing it. So really like we would hear about, you know, press brothers or another juice company They had someone come in and they took all their product off the shelf and we're like, oh gosh We hope they don't come to our store, but we were all evolving at the same time So, you know, it was the difference Between raw juice and doing the high pressure processing is that when we had our raw juice We were juicing overnight six nights a week We had a team of 35 guys in the kitchen or people in the kitchen men and women And they would juice through the night We'd have three drivers show up every morning load up the trucks We'd hit the streets and start our distribution And take back expired product from customers that we're now crediting them for so we're losing money there And then this was basically the cycle once we moved to high pressure processing We would do a massive full day production And then we would take all that juice to get at high pressure processed And so it was a really interesting time in the industry, but we it was an exciting time because 15 16 15 16, okay What started ringing the bells was uh, there was an incident where somebody had gotten Salmonella off of drinking. I won't say the company's juice, but the but a company's juice that's well known And and then the health department it got on their radar and then just Everyone was deployed, you know, all the health department people were deployed in their territories And then they just had to search for cold press juice that didn't have the You know proper label Yeah, meeting the requirements that we had requirements. Yeah, I mean ultimately they were trying to make our industry safer But at the time. Oh gosh, we were hating it. We were like Frustrating especially when someone comes in and clears out your entire shelf in front of your customers It was really you know, we're struggling to pay rent, you know, and you're like, you know Rent at our personal house, you know Because the business was what really mattered, you know, we were like, that's our lifeline And we had put, you know, I think that's the thing when you have your friends and family as investors. Yeah And your own money pressure there. It's an added burden It is but what I appreciate is that failing is not an option And so you have to get really creative with ways to stay alive. And that's what we did. I mean, it got really crazy How were you guys doing marketing at the time? So instagram is kind of the thing at 2016 And so are you guys doing a lot of social media or what's the What's the marketing strategy? I guess or even if maybe you didn't need it Maybe the juice pierce or the people out there in the juice world just I wish we had had it I think one of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make or used to make I think now there's a lot more talk about it But we would put whatever extra money we had towards marketing, which was usually nothing So we have to say something that I want people to really listen to because this is a really important thing Right. Go ahead. Well, number one, you need to invest in marketing And we learned the hard way everyone would say what's your marketing strategy? Who does marketing for you? Oh, well, we have a friend of ours that we give him, you know $1,000 a month and he posts pictures on our instagram That was it. That was our marketing and he loved juice and we just we fed him as much juice as he wanted as well And a big yeah big fan of the product and but that was our marketing strategy And you know, I'm embarrassed to say it now, but it's also part of our story And you know, it is what it is, but I really do wish that Well our marketing strategy started to cut you off But our marketing strategy was sales driven. I was we're being in the right Locations the places which is smart. That's intelligent. So that was kind of because that does its own marketing for you To some extent. That's it. Yeah a lot of eyeballs to this day. Yeah to this day We get calls from food and beverage directors saying, you know, I was at shutters having lunch and I had your juice And I'd love to have a conversation about working with you guys at my property x over here That's what happened with us. So lexie, you know, and so our social media team was here They live in Ohio, but they were here and so we were shown the studio and everything and they went to beachwood cafe And that's where your juices are and lexie's like, I think they should be on the podcast and I was like, okay I'm like and she she reached out to you guys via the our social media account on instagram And then you guys responded. That's how it all happened And so that's how it went and so when you were coming in today, obviously we're in a coffee shop also And I was like it'd be great if you had like a RTD, you know the right with you guys and they were I was like would you guys be up for that? They're like totally I was like, let's make that happen And so they become these things just kind of flower to your point. Yes. Yes. That's what happens. Yeah You need to be Putting out a good product to work with right people and you need to be really solid at building partnerships We built our entire company on those two things the best product And strong partnerships and I I think that that's really what's gotten us through so many of the hard times We always knew we could lean on our loyal customers when other juice companies were coming in and saying We'll buy everything in your cold case. We'll put our product. We'll guarantee everything everything's on Consignment. Thank you We couldn't compete with that. We couldn't be on consignment, you know, we were we knew the local farms We were sourcing from so but our customers would call us and say hey, just so you know, we're not changing juice companies But I just want you to know that this is what is happening. Sure And it was so cool for them to do that. Hang on. Hang on If you're not subscribed, can you go ahead and do that right now before we get on with the video? Helps us out tremendously. That's all we ask and we're back Do you guys sell direct to consumer too? Like do you guys? Maybe like a monthly subscription thing exactly or they can go on the website They can pick one of our kits that we've made or they can go on and I make that over the pandemic which Yeah, how did that I was gonna say did you guys boom during the pandemic was it? I mean It's it's good and bad right some of the places because there's a close now And so no one's buying it and you know at like beachwood cafe as an example Yeah, well, they were shut down But maybe there's like a like the way I think about it is there's certainly an awareness around what we put in our bodies Or at least it happened during cove it for some more than ever Right, and so then maybe it goes in the right direction people start saying. Oh, this this is interesting. It did we Grew that business about 500 percent, which was which is awesome. But we're talking pennies before that E-commerce was the smallest part of our business overnight on like march 13th 70 percent of our business Corporate offices. We you know, we work with some awesome corporate offices hotels Restaurants coffee shops. They all shut down So we put all of our focus into grocery store because that was the only customer that was still open And which wasn't a big piece of our business at the time all like we this is like broken good milk Yes, it's identical. Yeah, and the next thing, you know, she's like flying off the shelves. Exactly Well, we we just didn't realize we were like great We're in gelsons and Bristol farms and you know in these smaller Natural chains and we were stoked that we were in them But what we didn't realize before the pandemic was that we weren't giving them the attention that they needed Which is merchandising the shelf running promos constantly. We just weren't doing a good Exactly how many forward facings we have Making sure we had proper representation on the shelf in the fridge And so in the pandemic our distribution manager who then became our driver because we had no customers to deliver to He basically just started going into any location that carried our product Every day as much as he could and he would just make sure our product looked beautiful on the shelf And as other companies couldn't produce and were you know struggling in the pandemic He would just keep gaining more and more fridge space which really did help keep us alive I imagine at that point it becomes easy to lean into whatever's working because if everything else shuts down it can Serve to narrow your focus and especially seeing that grocery stores are the only thing that's open and direct to consumer is the only way people are Everyone's ordering everything offline. I mean now that I'm curious now that things are opening back up again and Places are allowed to have customers inside. We're mostly maskless now. Have you Shifted your focus away from that or have you just kind of redistributed where Where that focus is going? We definitely have new thresholds for everything for every for every vertical You know, it's it's now we just we say, okay We can't go we can't go below this now We we know what our our wholesale in general was before the pandemic February of 2020 was our best month in the history of our company you know eight years being around and then Covid happened And then march was I feel like that's so common for so many companies and so many people right there was 2020 vision That was what I was gonna say Yeah to answer your question We redistribute it now and just know that we can't go below these markers and we know Where we ultimately can take our wholesale business Which is great because we with with some of the this the corporate offices that we work with One in particular Netflix they were Shouted from Netflix Thank you for caring. That's a good partner. You guys if only all customers could be As much of a joy to work with as them. I've heard they're amazing across the board. I mean Yeah, people I've never heard a negative thing. No, we started their one location on Sunset And we took over from Suja, which was so cool that we look at these opportunities Like a starting place if they're if they're carrying a product Like a Suja or somebody that's just a lesser quality juice We know that there's an there's an opening there. It's like kind of the eye of the needle You know, you're like they want to elevate they're already interested. They have juice, right? We can come in and do they're on the journey. They're just not they need a little push to go in the right direction When you try Folger's coffee and you like coffee, you're like, oh, okay, cool What's this blue bottle over here? So, yeah, Netflix in February Had some of their best sales and we knew they were opening up two more locations as well in the coming months So the good news is Netflix is just starting to roar back now and the two buildings aren't even, you know, we haven't even started delivering to them So that's good. So we have some things in the pipeline that are really exciting but when you talk about Kind of redistributing your energy and stuff we Cassandra and I during the pandemic we started We just hunkered down. We said look, where do we really need to focus and going back to I think what you were Going to say before is that we knew that we had to focus on our grocery really like We've had a bit of a of a difficult journey in navigating grocery Strictly because on Little West bottles, you'll never see a USDA certified organic symbol I don't want to say never is that because the farmers you work with don't pay for that Some of the farms that we love, but even though it's like literally the best is it's going to get They just can't right. Yeah, and they don't want to go there. It's better because this is a common thing So here in the front the the farm cup team, they literally get it's direct from the farmer But they don't want to pay for the organic label until they just have to say direct trade or something else single origin Is something you're seeing and so but they're educating the customer on that. I was just you took it If you're in the know, it's great to see but most people are not in I would love to see you're better than organic Is what you that's what we let's say. No, we are it's a tricky thing to educate on though And I wish that some companies and you know, I think it's it's important for us to continue to educate the consumer So when we're at a an all-natural an organic primarily organic grocery store Grocery store association is funded by Monsanto So of course Monsanto wants the products to be buying into the organic There's an ecosystem there that are being pressured So you are being forced into a section of a grocery store if you don't have a certain symbol on it Why would we be in the you know conventional section of the grocery store when we are better than organic But in a lot of you know, it's us being like we're better than organic prove it Well, you want to come test the soil at this farm that we work with in san diego Like you know, so that was the difficult, you know, that was that was kind of the the red tape Or the the boundaries that we had in not being able to you know, crack through to the grocery store chains And get into these larger all-natural and organic grocery store chains However, we went back to we had a relationship with Whole Foods Going back a couple years before we had rebranded our we didn't even bring We used to be clover juice now we're a little west but we had a relationship there with Whole Foods We started revisiting that with some of our friends with other beverages this particular guy named jr Simmich who has a company called Vive organics. They do incredible shots Yeah, they're basically our counterpart the reason why we don't do shots is because of vive and because of j because of jr Best in the industry So he helped push us a little bit through to Whole Foods to the buyer again. She said look guys There's an opportunity coming up pepsi just dropped a dualla and this is going back to I think the I think during the pandemic Everyone was I forgot about them revisiting. We didn't because we got their shelf space Yeah It was not a very it was not it was it was made with concentrates and syrups and even like the texture I remember the texture of that. That was a one and done for me coating your mouth. Yeah. I'm like, how do people like this? quality brands Were able to get through this pandemic the brands that were the like You know stand the test of time that people know they want to spend their money on Made it through because Because they have Integrity behind them back to your point of people prioritizing their health all of a sudden We're hyper conscious of what we're putting in our bodies and all of a sudden we're like, oh wait This is a really common thing in our industry Most juice companies will list five ingredients on the front and then about 15 ingredients on the back All stuff that you don't know is in your juice because you're reading the five you're like, this is good for me I'm gonna drink a little Trojan horse right on the bottle spinach juice Not you guys though You guys this is like what you see is what you get It is fully transparent and that's a big thing for us with our customer education And now that we do invest in marketing That is an important thing is just to say like we are a transparent company What you see on the front is the same thing that you see in in the fine print on the back and that's important so in november of 2019 We were able to get into whole foods because of that That's great take the shelf space from these a few of these companies that had fallen off Yeah, that's certainly a milestone like a nice milestone to achieve. When did you guys rebrand? 2018 we rebranded so from two that we opened in 2000. Why why the rebrand? Yeah, uh clover dairy farms Oh, yeah, trademark. We do great milk. We you know, we do love did they reach out to you guys? So you got you got a letter they did we started we did like any company would I mean young company Not knowing we got the trademark for clover juice when we started our business We opened our storefront. We were never on their radar, but the second we started getting into distribution All of a sudden they were like, hey guys, we love what you're doing down in LA. It was a very kind letter. It was really nice about it Yeah, but they were like, hey, we see what you're doing down in LA. We love it However, if you ever start getting into distribution, we will have an issue with it And then like six months later We get into gelsons and then grocery. They didn't want us to touch grocery And so fascinating. Yeah, and then grocery saved you. Yeah Well after we after yeah, yeah, but we did we did kind of face the do we go to Litigation with this massive company as like our small company or do we take that money? And it was we wouldn't we didn't know if we were going to win or not It came down to a judge would say well clover clover dairy does orange juice you guys do a cilantro pear kale mint lime juice Juice is juice. Are they similar? This reminds me. I have a friend of mine who's a she's a big shot attorney Or used to be in boston and so in boston. We have these duck tours. Everybody knows them the duck tours It's where like if you win either the world series or whatever might be then they Have these vehicles, right? Yeah, the parade is in these duck ducks, right? Yeah And so there's a company called duck tours and there's another company called super duck tours And so she's a she's at wilmer hail, which is like a very expensive law firm And they're in court and there's a judge And she's like so imagine me, Diego There's two ducks behind me and i'm explaining to the judge This is the duck and this is the super duck and i'm explaining the differences in the way the ducks look To the judge so that he won't complain about the name despite the ducks looking very similar And she's like that's my life. That's her life. Yeah, she did that for like two more years and left Well, so like never forget that to that point to that point. We were faced with our attorney We hired a big wig attorney or a firm and they were like, it's a 50 50 guys And we're looking at that being like, oh my god. I mean, so either we spend an obscene amount of money Not knowing a full win or we spend the same obscene amount of money rebranding And making all the changes to our company and to our product that we never knew to make when we started because We started as a retail shop. All of a sudden we're in a cold case with, you know A thousand other brands or a hundred other beverage brands and we would get lost. We had a clear label We it just the product didn't pop. We were in a 16 ounce bottle We ended up changing to a 12 ounce because you'd always have a little bit left. It was just too much So little things like that we made the changes. So it was kind of like We were looking at it as a brand refresh it ended up being an entire rebrand But the interesting thing in it is that the company clover juice was named after our 19 year old niece or she's 20 now She was a young teenager at the time And so we conceptualized this name with her when we were when we were in a park one day And so we're like, we're gonna call it clover juice in toronto. Yeah And then when we were faced with rebranding we spent a bunch of money hired a team to help us come up with names We went through thousands of different names We had a two-year-old son whose name is west And then after going through all the words and all the names It came down to little west, which is what we called our son We were on an airplane going back to montreal for the holidays And we were at our wits end and every time you do it, you know, every time you do a trademark search It's like $2,800 and then you do the and you do the in-depth one. That's another, you know 2,500 bucks or whatever. So here we are $30,000 deep in names that just happen to make sure that we would never run into this problem again And so right I just I think I looked over to kiss Andrew one point. I'm like Let's just put a little a little in front of west because we knew we love the word west and the west represented We buy or produce on the west coast. We just loved so much about it Well, I mean that's the reason why we named our son west And uh and Andrew's like let's just call it little west and I was like I love that And then we ended up doing the trademark search and it worked and then we just that was it So we spent the first half of 2018 Prepping for the rebrand and then the second half of 2018 trying to survive the rebrand the year of the rebrand Is there like a 32 ounce called like big little west? There is not yet And how old is west now he's five now So, um, is he aware that he is the face? He's just started to become a little bit Understanding it now. We have like, you know, we have t-shirts I think Andrew had a humble conversation with him Yesterday at the park. Yeah, he was just saying I tell everybody that I'm little west I had I had to bring him aside for a bit and just like chat with him and yeah, yeah Parenting. Yeah, right. You don't go into that if people find out that's great But like you don't lead with that. You know, he's at his preschool just like shouting it off Mommy and dad, you're gonna sell the company and then That's not yours at all, buddy. And then you're Oh, man, yeah Are you guys in that position now where you're thinking of selling the company or is it just grow? We sold the company Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. When did you sell the company? Wow a couple a month a month and a half of six weeks ago. Yeah Six weeks to two weeks. So you're able to talk about it. Yeah And we're we're so just really excited about who who we partnered with and I don't I don't even really feel like it's It is an acquisition. It's a hundred percent acquisition, but We are now Very much on board with this this you guys are working with the company Nothing's changed except years with them. Okay Nothing's changed except for basically having the financial backing and the resources and the team and the expert personnel to now Lean on and run things by to actually finally grow the business to the place that we've always envisioned Line extensions now. We've had we've had so many line extensions that we've wanted to do Very specific ones. We're creatives. So I think that's a game that we missed Well, we do have a second son and his name is wolf and so there is in the back of our mind like what are we going to do for Wolf Can you disclose who bought who purchased? Yeah, they're called plant x Oh, and they're a public company. I know plenty. Yeah, you do. Sean. Yeah, Sean Dullinger. Sean purchased you guys. Yes. Oh Yes, this is so crazy. How you know, Sean so Sean I was introduced to Sean or plant x maybe a year ago So he wanted to do something in the front here like they wanted to do some plant x something Like a living wall a living art wall And so we had all the I was like, that's great. No problem That way it helps them promote their brand and then the coffee truck gets this like really cool to loom vibe, which is what they wanted to do this like super Plants everywhere. And so we were introduced. I don't know if this is something you're up for but and so then we had a bunch of calls with Sean to do this and then It ended up kind of all the plants you see in the front were given by plant x No way But I ended up having a lot of phone calls in a small world and when he's in LA, he's going to come on the podcast We did his podcast together his like quick thing together a couple months ago. And so yeah, that's awesome. Oh, I love that That's so funny. Yeah, and they really it was Great alignment really Cassandra and I look there's different reasons why we chose to sell and I think just having the support the financial backing and just the a team in place but also Like Cassandra was saying we're we're creatives and we didn't want to be on this perpetual wheel of always having to raise more capital for our company to grow and She is an incredible cook and great writer. And so her her dream has always been to write a cookbook And and I'm an actor So and I have I'm always you know, I'm gemini I kind of have a bunch of things always going at once and so I've never really been Outside of the first Two years year and a half to two years in the business. I haven't been a hundred percent little west ever Look, so leave for weeks at a time and then come back and I mean, that's a whole other conversation of like a couple being married and being in the business together of Figuring out what our lanes are and and you know supporting each other without squashing and trying, you know We've had a lot of couples on the podcast and it's like some have gone through the couple's therapy At least for me So Natalia and I work together sometimes so she owns a construction company I own my development company and so on on my projects. I obviously Are hired. Yeah, Natalia But in that like she used to talk to me like a I don't like a peasant. I don't even know like she would just be so verbally abusive And I would be like i'm not your subcontractor Like I'm literally your client and probably like a really good one like for the record Like I'm like I make it like really easy. Yeah, but it took time and we had to build like a system For her to like understand We could probably compare a lot of notes because I'm the same way Cassandra is you know a type and just and Very specific in the way she likes things done I am Really all over the place like I you're an idea fragmented person in general Huge amazing ideas and then we're all very passionate. So good. And then he's like, okay, but now you guys run with it It's all verbal diarrhea it and then three weeks later. I'll say, okay So what what happened with where are we at with that? Usually nine times out of 10. She says, oh, don't worry. It's already been you know It's been activated and you know, there's that odd time that I'm like what what do you mean? It was such a great idea and I you know, I lined it teed it up for us. I teed it up for us and you know, but there is definitely a The communication aspect of it and also Having your ego take a backseat is a really big, you know component to couples just making it through Being partners together. Do you think it's just as easy as as having a child together? Or would you put them like basically starting a company versus having a child together? Do you think they're similar in terms of what you have to learn as a couple to survive? What would you say? Absolutely. I really do. I do because it's something I mean luck having a child is having a child I don't know if either of you guys have kids, but no I mean, they're both very unique experiences But it is because it's just how to communicate number one It all comes down to communication and when you're parenting and disciplining and And doing all of that it it's all down to communication. So I do think that it prepares you for it I think there are a lot of parallels for sure And so yeah, I do think it's quite similar. I mean the business doesn't maybe give back the love But financially it can support you and so, you know, yeah, it's fun. It's cute. But in terms of In terms of in terms of communicating I think it's really similar and I think like first step is you get a pet together like get a dog together And then maybe you know, we have what you guys did. You got a pet together. We had a dog together What kind of dog that was our I rescued a husky six months before meeting Cassandra And brought her back to Montreal and and then left her with me. Yep Cassandra, and I came back and that dog was so disciplined She put her through the rain That's really funny Yeah, I was like oh and she yeah, she's she's a husky huskies are wild So because we're doing this we're doing this thing with cat. I have to ask you a question What was the moment in your business journey where you leaned in and did more like where you decided to Go that extra mile and how did it pay off? Like was there a specific instance that you can remember? 2016 we almost closed the business so end of 2016 was you know after we had taken out some bad loans and we were just transitioning into a longer shelf life and we were just bleeding money and we got to End of the year and our controller reached out to us and said you know at this point anytime Andrew was working We're putting more money into the company just to keep our employees paid and to keep making product And our controller called and says you guys we we have two more weeks and and that's it We just we can't keep stretching it. We've tried all the you know, we've done everything the money just isn't coming in fast enough to support And basically Andrew goes okay. He goes We're gonna stop paying everything. We're gonna stop paying Every loan we're gonna stop anything that is not our team and our produce to make our product We are stopping all of it Which means all of a sudden our phones are now blowing up from people. We own money too, you know I mean it was insane We picked up every single phone call from every single person that ever called us and we reassured everyone That we would pay them back But that was like we were like we have to do that just morally but at the same time Before we made that decision Andrew goes Cassandra. Do you think we should keep doing this? And I was like I just don't feel like it's over yet. Do you feel like it's over yet? And he's like I don't either Let's just he goes one more month Let's buy ourselves one more month and just see what happens And I was like we just we need a sign We need a sign that in one month that we should keep pushing because that's how we had gotten to the place That we were at and that's when he cut everything off And we were like this is totally nuts for digging ourselves into a hole and on january 21st We get a call from a corporate office that I won't mention their name But we get a call from a corporate office and they're like hey We want to hear we want to learn about clover. This is clover at the time And I thought I was like, oh cool. Yeah, I'll tell you about our company But because we had built the company From the ground up with him in the kitchen. I did our hazard analysis plan and you know, we changed kitchens And we did we knew the inner workings of our company. We knew our farms This company ended up spending six weeks vetting us And they're like we have a huge juicing operation at our campus We are looking to shut it down and then within six weeks after calling the farms checking our facility and all that stuff They switched over to clover juice and we started doing their juice for them And that was our sign because we were like well if they their standards choose us We need to stop doubting ourselves in this industry We not we need to stop thinking that we're lesser than all these other companies who have more money The world you know the largest tech company in the entire world And so we just said, you know what we need to start believing in us too and then That was our first purchase order was beginning of march and we like I said, we took every phone call And and we just told everyone we'd pay them back and ultimately we have paid every single vendor back and we You know, we have long-standing relationships because of it. That's amazing. Yeah, that was pretty That's fantastic. I would clap if I could I can but nick's gonna get angry with the mics That's a good story. Let's talk about the sustainability you want. Yeah so I think you know one thing that we've always gone back to is You always want to go back to refining your way of doing things right and just making sure that you're giving the the best from top to bottom to the consumer and also The planet we're big you know proponents of recycling and and we have our compost and we We try to have minimal water trying to we're conscious. We're really we try to be as conscious as we can So there's a couple parts to this but when we rebranded we Had decided because throughout a year. We'll probably have a hundred different charities and non-profits and things We're giving money to and donating to and so when we rebranded we said, why don't we just pick One that we can really make a difference with and so we chose to work with big green learning gardens Which is a local charity here that helps Children learn the importance of eating real food because Sandra goes with I did I was doing volunteer work with them at the time and we just decided instead of working with all these other organizations Let's just we're already volunteering with them. We're already passionate about it Let's just make it a one-year donate once a year donation. So we donated one percent of all of our proceeds to big green learning gardens and When this became available to us we we jumped on the opportunity But we also offset our carbon emissions with eco drives. We plant trees with eco drive another charity that we Are working very closely with and so between the two of them We've also now started every single bottle that you see here is made from 100 recycled once recycled plastic as well because we are Our product has to be hpp'd in order for it to be in plastic because the pressure going back to the pressure on Yeah, you can't pressurize glass yet But they they will be able to at some point But we're just doing all of these, you know taking all these steps and also Upscycling our produce any way we can so if it's Making different products with it sending it to farms Using it big green learning gardens to start as their initial compost But the pandemic was something that we'd already started working with big green But in the pandemic we just had more time to think about things and we thought well now that we have this time How can we be better? How can we as a company? How can we as a company be better and we were like, you know what if we partner with eco drive? Every time someone purchases a case from our website if you have a case Ship to your home or to wherever We plant a tree for every case that's shipped and it's so cool because it's a visual. It's tangible We know we're doing it and so and we see the numbers we're in upwards of 6,000 7,000. We're planting trees in Madagascar mangrove trees and we're employing local Local villagers as well And so I think the pandemic gave us the time to think about are we doing everything we can actually be doing for our company How many of these do you guys drink a day one to two? Yeah We always have a gallon of our clover juice in the fridge. So we do do the big little vest But it's not really like customer phasing yet. So it's like a gallon a day It's a gallon. Yeah, we start every morning with a green juice And that's our our first thing and then so and then the big the big glass So that's probably equivalent to like two two of two of your glasses My glasses Like I'm still working on this one. I yeah, how does it go big in the afternoon? Okay, I could easily see a market for this like breweries have growlers and growlers I could see something like that for juice as well We're working on it Like you could just like, you know bring your your growler in for a refill It's eco-friendly and reusable and all that stuff and people get their fix Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. What are the things you're working on now with plant acts? Like so how has that acquisition changed what you guys are working on in terms of either a retail strategy or maybe marketing or Marketing most importantly. I think that's the biggest thing Marketing do they handle all of that now? Not yet. So we have our own marketing manager, but we are in the process actually this week We are doing a lot of calls to kind of merge that together We are spending on ad spends for facebook and for stuff like that Which is something we never could afford and do before we started doing that Earlier in the pandemic when we saw that e-com was really one of our only sources of revenue And so definitely more into marketing 100 percent Not knowing retail packaging packaging larger formats nicer customer facing and then new products and so for us You know coming out with a larger format is something we've been wanting to do We do these gallon jugs for hotels or for some offices, but they're not customer facing They're like, you know a milk jug and so we are in the process actually right before we came here And I don't want to say it yet, but it's so exciting But we are coming out with a larger format that is Customer facing can be used in many different settings and that was a really important thing for us So we just left a meeting where we're finalizing our packaging for that We see that there's a need for a more approachable price point plant based beverage Something that is more water based And so we're very far down the line on water based product. That's not a juice. That's plant based That has all the most of the nutrients you would get in a green juice In a water based product. Yeah, which is exciting Very refreshing and also kind of like the Athleisure crowd would drink it much more approachable to the average consumer. Yeah, and I think just shelf stable That's very smart for us coming out with a product that is Not perishable And that's really like we have a 90 day shelf life And it has to be between very specific parameters that have temperature control at all times So for us to come out with a shelf stable product. I'm just like, what are we? What is that like a year two years like we don't even do it that much time So it's really exciting. When you look at the water category and how big that category is and now how there's these offshoot Then alkaline and you know, look at vitamin water, you know, what's happened with that space? You know, it's just insane So we do feel like there is a category there that that is still That's not explored yet and then we can put our spin on How many flavors do you guys have 10 total 10? That was tough. We After shutting down our stores. We had the way 18 or 20. Oh, wow And we did collabs Custom flavors manatees coffee. I don't know if you know manatees coffee. Soho house vise fry hotel So you guys are the are the juice at soho. We are not now. They're doing their own juice But we worked with them actually was the liaison to start that whole program helping them helping them develop their juice kick us out I've always wondered because when I get their juices, I'm like, do they Know this because their almond milk is garbage. Yeah The juice is out of Miami. I don't even know who does this. It's done out of Miami Facility down there or at least it was last time we lost him. Well, listen tell everyone where they can find you guys and Yeah, I know we've mentioned it a lot of the stores already. Yeah, so most importantly I mean you can order it to your home through our website. So little west.com And how much is the case just so people know um usually around $100 because we usually put 14 12 to 14 bottles in a case We like to our free shipping after after hundred. Yeah Our whole thing is one juice a day We believe like as much as we do drink because it's around us in what our office We drink a second one really if you start every day with a juice. That's our whole philosophy You will feel the difference So online on our website and then Whole Foods through the pacific north-west region, which is california, arizona and nevada And then you said pacific northwest. Oh pacific southwest. Thank you for correcting me so pack region. Yeah, that's important So california, nevada, arizona, and then just all over southern california Lassons all over southern california. Really coffee shops hotels and your instagram Is at little west a little west beachwood cafe You know, they were one of our first customers. I love I mean, it's how we met. That's how it happens They're still giving that amazing. I have to reach out to them and tell them We also we're at groundwork coffee, which is another great part of ours Coffee, they've been incredible We fell into coffee shops because we love coffee And so we would just be in coffee shops and be like you guys should get some cool prescius By the way, we have a company and so, um, yeah, that's how we that's how we ended up That's how we ended up working with it is it became and it was actually a guy by the name of evan dorman Who brought stumptown cold brew basically to the masses like he was the one that penetrated the market down here He brought stumptown from from portland down to to los angeles. That's it. Yeah, and so he now he now runs groundwork coffee He had said at the time he was a you know purist coffee guy and he's like, you know 15 years ago You would never sell a juice at a coffee shop because people would think that you'd be buying a juice Instead of the coffee so be you know pulling Sales pulling sales from their core product, but everyone knows now it's ancillary You know you go into a coffee shop you get a coffee now No, no no product is going to get you away from getting your coffee. You want a coffee you get a coffee because you're craving coffee I do coffee and juice because I usually have a juice for like uh snack like lunch. That's it. Yeah Mid-afternoon, so I need both we do it for like a mid-afternoon pick me up when you're craving something It's really energizing. Sometimes I bring him to tennis with me. So that way I drink it while I'm playing tennis We go water. Yep. A little more nutrients. Thank you guys for coming on the podcast. It's been a real pleasure Thank you so much for having us guys. This is great. I really appreciate it