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This week on The Millionaire Choice Podcast, Tony talks with Jim Pakulis, CEO of Boosh Foods. Tony and Jim discuss healthy food, money’s effect on mindset, entrepreneurship in a world of corporate giants.
Jim grew up in a humble family with meager financial means. From walking daily two miles to and from school, to delivering newspapers in 3-feet of snow at age 8; Jim has always been a hard worker. Now a successful entrepreneur, he is the CEO and Chairman of Boosh Plant-Based Brands Inc.
About Jim Pakulis
Jim has over three decades of experience working with public and private entrepreneurial companies in a variety of emerging sectors and has developed a unique eye for identifying small emerging publicly traded companies and quickly scaling them. He has taken ventures from zero to $16 million in two years and now he is leading the forefront of the trillion-dollar shift from animal-based protein to plant-based protein.
He is passionate about being in the plant-based sector because simultaneously it helps individuals eat healthier foods, decreases the butchering of animals, helps the planet by re-structuring farming resources for sustainable purposes and helps to preserve the depleting water sources.
In Jim’s spare time he co-founded an animal rescue non-profit where he has helped save over 1,000 animals from being euthanized and found them loving homes.
Learn more about Jim Pakulis, https://booshfood.com
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Show Transcript
Tony (00:00):
Welcome back to the millionaire choice show. Today on the show, we're gonna be talking about food. We're gonna talk about food investments, and I'm sure we'll get a little bit of information on how you might be able to eat just a little bit healthier than the average person. We're going to be talking with Jim Pakulis of Boosh Foods, Boosh and Beanfields. I know you just acquired that company, so I'm sure you'll tell us more about it. Welcome to the show!
Jim Pakulis (00:24):
Thank you very much, Tony. Great to be here.
Tony (00:27):
Just for you people listening, you future millionaires, you're in for a real treat because Jim and I have been trying to get this show recorded for about three weeks now. For some reason we keep running into crazy technical difficulties. So, this is gonna be one for the books for you guys to get. We've worked really hard to bring you the information you're gonna hear today about money and also about health. Jim, I know we had a couple starts here. Let's talk about Bush and Beanfields, and what you're all about. Then we'll come back to your personal life and your story about what it was like in the early days of Jim Pakulis.
Jim Pakulis (01:02):
Absolutely. A couple years ago my team and I were looking for- we're agnostic. We were looking at a sector we thought was gonna have three to five or even 10 year growth to it. And, we did a lot of research on the plant-based sector and saw that there was a disruptive shift taking place. In our opinion, billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars will be shifting from animal protein to plant-based protein over the next "X" number of years. We wanted to be part of that. So we started to look at different companies in the sector, looked at roughly 30 different companies. None of them met our metrics. We have relatively high metrics in regards to groups that we wanna work with; provide management, infrastructure, financing, long term commitment. We came across Boosh. Fortunate enough to be introduced to the founder, Connie Marples, and saw that they had a wonderful line of non GMO gluten free heat and eat family meals; six frozen, three refrigerated, two shelf stable.
Jim Pakulis (01:59):
We thought, "wow, this is a wonderful opportunity. So, we took Boosh public in May of 2021, and then just recently, less than a year later, we were fortunate enough to come across BeanFields. Beanfields is one of the leading bean based chip in the marketplace. They're in over 7,000 stores throughout the United States. So, we were fortunate enough to acquire Beanfields. We're still in the process of completing the audit. If we talk about numbers; they will be un-audited. But, again, it's a fantastic company. So, now we have Boosh with the frozen, the refrigerated, the shelf stable, and we have Beanfields, which is a snack based category. So, I think we are positioned perfectly for significant growth over the next 2-5 years.
Tony (02:46):
Food is a very interesting thing. I've just started becoming more serious about how I eat, not to be depressing or anything like that, but we've lost three family members to cancer since 2016. And, as I learn more about that and go, "why did my mom die at 67 of cancer? Why did my boss, that I used to work for, die at 65 of cancer before he even retired? Why did my mother-in-law die at 70? And, most recently, why did my brother-in-law die at 49?"
Jim Pakulis (03:18):
Oh my goodness. My condolences.
Tony (03:20):
And, all of those ages- people don't realize this, but all of those ages that I just named off are like 20 to 30 years earlier than the statistical average. Now, what I've noticed more recently is that the average for men- I believe- used to be listed at 82 years. The average age of a man that passed away is 82 years. For women, I believe it was 87. Maybe women carry a little bit less stress. Maybe they're just a little smarter about how they live. But, you're looking at ages there; the four people I just named that are close to me died 20 or 30 years before their time. And, that bothers me cuz that's beyond statistical anomaly.
Tony (04:08):
Most recently, I think the newer numbers that have been released is that the average age of adults living- pass away- is actually down now in their 70s. The numbers have come down in a short period of time; the last decade or so. And, that's just pretty wild to see those numbers drop like that. But, I believe food is a big contributor to that. The chemicals that people are putting in their foods. Most specifically, I'll name one; aspartame, it's in all the diet drinks. That was something that my mother-in-law and my mother both drank; diet drinks; trying to help with their weight. You think you're eating healthier or drinking healthier, but you end up putting carcinogens in your body. Of course, we all know about Roundup, And everything that was going on with Roundup. Most recently, I actually know some people whose parents passed away from Roundup; early age; but so, when you talk about Beanfields; we all know about potato chips. You're talking about bean chips. So, talking about food, I'm very familiar with potato chips, which are common to everybody, but I don't believe I've ever eaten a bean chip before.
Jim Pakulis (05:14):
You are in for a treat my friend. You are definitely in for a treat. So, commonplace potato chips, Doritos; they taste fantastic. They're addictive; the sugary, salty, wonderful, crunchy flavor. They're horrific for us. And, I grew up on that stuff, I'm in my late 50s. I love that stuff, but now here comes a brand. It started 2010, but here comes a competitor of that brand that's based from beans. In my humble opinion, it tastes just as good, if not better. So, consumers- we- us- have the opportunity to, have a well priced, tasty, substance that's healthy for you. What could be better? It's almost a righteous thing. Going back 15 to 20 years; you look at the different types of foods that the vegans and vegetarians were eating, and, no offense to the companies back then, but it tasted like warm cardboard- fast forward today;
Jim Pakulis (06:20):
You got some phenomenal products out there, including; and I'm very biased; all of the Boosh and the Beanfield line, they're magnificent, they're well priced, they taste great, and we're getting 'em to the grocery stores, and those are the three elements that the marketplace is looking for. Very few people are going to be vegan or vegetarian. I think it's only 2-3% of the population, but just like you, Tony, and me, we wanna eat a little better. We're actually starting to get a little smarter in our older age. So, being somewhat of a flexitarian, you're able to go ahead and have these wonderful foods that perhaps substitute the fish or the chicken, but it's all plant based and it's good for you. And, the preservatives are lacking, or at least most of the preservatives are lacking in these foods. So, Beanfields is a fantastic product, and I suggest; and anybody who's going for a bag of Doritos; go for a bag of Beanfields first.
Tony (07:22):
That's wonderful. And just for being health conscious, I love- I forget how you said it. I think you might have said "heavenly" in there or something like that; about the chips; which I've never heard a chip be referred to as "heavenly" before, but we'll roll with it. So, it is very interesting because when you think about potato chips; potato chips are a starch, which turns into a sucrose, I believe that is sugar in your body. So, once you take a starch, it turns into sugar.
Jim Pakulis (07:48):
Very quickly as well.
Tony (07:52):
Beans are more protein based, so you're talking about a protein based chip instead of a starch based chip.
Jim Pakulis (07:57):
A hundred percent, and you're talking about less preservatives, less salt, less sugar. Everything about it is better for you, but you're absolutely correct. Diabetics can't have those spikes in their system. Perfectly stated; that starch converts into sugar very quickly. With the bean, again, it taste just as good if not better, and it's far better for you.
Tony (08:22):
I love that. I'm gonna have to figure out where to get one of those. Now, you said they're available in like 7,000 stores across America. Are they more regional right now, or do you see them mostly out west, or is there a predominant area they're distributed in?
Jim Pakulis (08:35):
Over 40% of the sales of Beanfields was in Whole Foods and Sprouts. So, previous management was concentrating in organic and natural food stores. As we take over Beanfields and expand the footprint, we wanna be knocking on the doors of the larger box channels. We wanna be knocking on the doors of the big boxes in order to get our products out there, and have it instead of- there's roughly 43,000 grocery stores in the United States. So, we're in a very small percentage; less than 20% of the grocery stores in the United States. I think we have a huge runway to get Beanfields into a lot more or stores relatively quickly as we go through the transition of the acquisition and start ramping up again.
Tony (09:23):
Awesome. Well, let's pause on that for just a minute. I wanna come back to it and talk about Boosh and Beanfields as an investment opportunity in food distribution; definitely looking for healthier ways to eat. But, you're a business guy; you're CEO of a company; you didn't start there. You didn't come out of the womb with the silver spoon in your mouth; contrary to what a lot of people believe. I talked to a couple people this week just about becoming a millionaire. And, I'm so surprised at how adverse people are to wealth and the concept of wealth. I grew up in a low income family; didn't really know what wealth was. Couldn't believe I could actually make a hundred thousand dollars in my lifetime. Like, that sounded like such an impossibility. And, I set the bar very low. You get born into this kind of lifestyle with the family that you're in. And, at some point, some of us break free, but a lot of people never break free. In your case, you grew up in a low income. You had some struggles you had to face.
Jim Pakulis (10:21):
If we were in low income, I would've probably been happier, dude. We were in low, low income. Lot of love, lot of fun, lot of happiness and wealth. We're talking about wealth from the capitalistic, from the monetary standpoint, but there's so many different ways to carve out wealth in your life. A ton of love; that could be classified as wealth, but you're absolutely correct. I remember back, I think in the 80s or early 90s, I went to a- Do you know who Brian Tracy is?
Tony (10:53):
Haven't read his stuff, but I know him. He's a big sales guy.
Jim Pakulis (10:55):
He is a big sales guy, certainly was. I remember going to a seminar one day, and he was talking about this very subject. And one of his employees, was doing so well. I think he was in sales and he went from $7,000 a month to like $20,000 a month or $2,000 to $11,000 or something. This employee, once he got to that level, basically imploded. He just couldn't handle the amount of money coming in a relatively short period of time. I think they parted ways. So, monetary wealth is interesting. In my humble opinion; it's a byproduct. It helps you get things; material things; and it helps you, obviously, in a status system, we are all in a status social system. It does potentially buy a little bit of happiness. But, you gotta be happy inside in general. There's a lot of very wealthy people that are very, very, angry, frustrated, sad, and tired. So, it doesn't automatically make you happy.
Tony (12:08):
Definitely. I worked for Dave Ramsey for a while. That was one of things I loved about Dave. Dave talked about money; "money's not a bad thing. It just makes you more of what you really are." So, if you've got those struggles in life and you haven't worked them out, then when you have more money, it's just gonna exacerbate those problems; whatever those character flaws are, and who you are. I had a few of those too. My income went up and I didn't lose my sanity and go nuts, but I did become; in some ways; a little bit unstable. I've spent the last four or five years of my life, maybe six- talk to my wife; she might say longer- trying to go, "okay, what's my real foundation like?"
Tony (12:48):
And, that's the thing I think that's so important is, that you build a firm foundation. Both in your character, who you are as a person, before the wealth gets there, because when the wealth gets there, it's almost- it's not too late, but it's pretty close. That's why you see a lot of NFL players leave the profession. And then, within- I think the statistics are like 40-60% of 'em are broke within three years of leaving it. You see that with a lot of sports because they didn't have that foundation. Or, you see actors; actors are another big one that have a lot of problems and breakdown. And, they don't have that foundation under 'em before that success comes. I think that's really important.
Jim Pakulis (13:26):
Well stated.
Tony (13:27):
Money is not evil. It's not an evil thing. Rich people aren't bad. We all got our issues. Whether you got a lot of money or a little bit of money. I'm a believer that if you're gonna work a 100,000-150,000 hours in your lifetime, it might be nice to have a little money left after you do all that work.
Jim Pakulis (13:46):
Touche to that. Absolutely. I agree with you. And, just to emphasize; I learned the acoustic guitar, and in a short period after trying to learn the acoustic guitar, I wanted to get an electric guitar. My instructor said, "all you're going to do is make your bad decisions on your acoustic guitar. And, the bad sounds you are doing now, you're just going to make them much, much louder. So, learn the basics first before you get into an electric guitar." Same thing in life. Just learn the basics first.
Tony (14:19):
That's a great analogy. I've heard somebody say that before, but that is so true. I wish I could play the guitar. My wife plays it, but I got her an electric guitar, but you gotta get your foundation and you get the basics down. That's with the acoustic. You don't need to upgrade until you get that done. Now, when you were growing up, what were some of the struggles you really faced with money? Because, your parents didn't have a lot. And, I think that's one of the most empowering things of us teaching the next generation, or teaching people that haven't built wealth yet; everybody shares these struggles. It's just a question of whether you wanna continue to live in those struggles or you wanna break free from those struggles.
Jim Pakulis (14:54):
Well stated. So, I grew up in upstate New York, a nice kind of Americana, middle class. I did not grow up in a Beverly Hills setting where we were socioeconomically at the low scale. So, I actually feel sorta bad for folks that were kids that are growing up in that setting where everyone's going to school and their Porsches and Ferraris, and you're still on your ten-speed bicycle. Where I grew up; very middle class, but we were at the socioeconomic level. We were pretty much at the bottom end of that. But, at the time, it's important, but it wasn't the most critical thing. It was getting out and playing sports. It was doing stuff with your friends.
Jim Pakulis (15:40):
It was working; constantly working. Working since I was seven or eight years old. So, there were so many other things that were happening in your life. You're not sitting there coming home from school every day and thinking, "oh, okay," and doing the checkbook and balancing the checkbook. It's just was what it was, and you just dealt with it, and you work through your challenges, and it's a great way to help you learn how to work through challenges. If you fall down, get up, that's the strength of a good leader. You're gonna get knocked down a lot in life, especially if you do wanna get into a leadership position; you're gonna get knocked down. So, you better be ready to shake it off, get back up, forget the past, learn from the past. Just get back at it.
Tony (16:28):
You're reminding me of a couple of the 80s movies I watched growing up when you talked about going to school in rich neighborhoods with a bicycle and you're the one that didn't fit in. Did you actually ride to school on a ten-speed bike?
Jim Pakulis (16:42):
Actually-
Tony (16:45):
Or twelve-speed or six-speed?
Jim Pakulis (16:46):
So, we literally lived two miles from the high school. So, for four years I did walk through snow and sometimes it was three feet high; although, the streets were mainly plowed to get to school. So, absolutely, I rode the bike. You ride the bike. You played soccer, football, or lacrosse, basketball, whatever it was. And, you get home at 7:00 or 8:00 at night. I walked a ton, but yes; you learned.
Tony (17:19):
Now, from what we talked about in the pre-show; you had a job at a very early age. What was it, eight years old, when you got your first job?
Jim Pakulis (17:28):
Well, I grew up with three different brothers. One of 'em had a paper route, so again; upstate New York near lake Ontario. We get the Canadian winds coming down, and the Canadian snows in the wintertime. So, when my next older brother who had the paper out would look out on a Sunday morning and see that we just got two or three feet of snow dumped on us, I'd hear, "Jimmy, get on your bike, start delivering those papers!" It's five or six in the morning on a Sunday morning.
Tony (18:01):
How do you deliver papers on a bike in three feet of snow? How does that work?
Jim Pakulis (18:06):
Well, first of all, the streets are plowed. Number two, you ride really slow. You have this big duffle bag of a newspaper bag, and you have all the newspapers in there and you just coast. You do a lot of coasting. But, normally a route would take about 45 minutes; on Sunday in the snow, you'd be out there for three or four hours, but you learn how to work. You learn discipline. You learn that you finish the job that you start. And, it feels good. Regardless whether it's throwing newspapers or taking a company public; finish the task at hand.
Tony (18:42):
Finish what's in front of you now. So, your brother was how old?
Jim Pakulis (18:47):
Oh, he was probably- he is two to three years older than me.
Tony (18:52):
So, 11-12 years old? Now, I imagine if you're taking a bicycle out in the snow and ice that you might have wiped out once or twice. Did you get any workers comp? Did you get any workers comp from your brother for that?
Jim Pakulis (19:03):
No. I didn't get beat up if I got back in within three hours because if I wasn't getting back with than three hours; that means people were going to start complaining that they didn't get their newspaper. So, the phone calls would go to my brother, and he would then take it out on me. So, just the opposite.
Tony (19:22):
That's very much what they call "the carrot and stick principle." Your brother was giving you the stick principle; get it done or I beat you with a stick. Oh, that's hilarious. Hilarious. So, you grew up in that family with a mindset of money that wasn't- you obviously learned to work, which is good. You got a good foundation, which is, work ethic, and getting the job done. Was there a time that you can look back to and go, "this is when, it clicked for me that I was gonna try to start building wealth." How old were you in that happened?
Jim Pakulis (19:54):
I think my DNA has always been entrepreneurial. I don't know if the Goldman Sachs or the JP Morgans ever would've accepted me. I never tried. I just always gravitated to the garage mentality. I always just loved sitting around, regardless of what age; call it mid 20s; and saying, "hey, what about this?" And, back of a napkin type of ideas and saying, "well, do you think this will fly? I don't know, let's give it a shot and then spending time trying to grow that." So, in my 20s and 30s, I've always only done that. So, it's always been in my DNA. Back in 2010 was when I got into the public arena, back in 2010, I actually did a reverse merger. And have you ever heard of Weedmaps?
Tony (20:41):
No, I haven't.
Jim Pakulis (20:42):
Okay. Weedmaps is a- I think last they did about 200 million annually. It's a finder site for cannabis; dispensaries throughout the United States, back in 2010 before any cannabis company was on the map; especially from a public arena. I saw an opportunity where if I did a reverse merger, there was a great little software; take it public. And so, we did that back in 2010, and it did tremendously well. It went from about zero to 16 plus million annually in less than two years. Stock went from like 28 cents to four bucks and won a handful of awards, and was one of the best performing stocks in any index during that two-year time period. But, it was, as they say sometimes; you're before your time.
Jim Pakulis (21:36):
And so, it took a ton of arrows by being one of the first cannabis companies; even though we were just a finder site, Pick and Shovels being one of the first cannabis sites in a monster industry that obviously exploded into billions, if not tens of billions, of valuations in various companies in the cannabis space. But, that was my baptismal by fire. Not only being the CEO of a publicly traded company in a somewhat questionable air industry, but learning all the regulations at that same time and, and trying to figure out how to be a proper CEO of a publicly traded company during that time period. So, it was a great learning curve.
Tony (22:20):
It sounds like you may need to figure out how to create a new brand called "weed chips."
Jim Pakulis (22:27):
It's a great idea. Okay. We'll do it. Back of a napkin; Let's do it, Tony. We'll do it together right here.
Tony (22:34):
I'll give you your initial investment. We can start that business up. It's interesting you talk about that. Cuz, a lot of people are afraid of cannabis, but let's talk about that just for a second. Cuz, you've got some insights that I don't think a lot of people do, but when it comes to cancer, we talked about that earlier in the show. I forget the oil- What is it?
Jim Pakulis (22:56):
CBD.
Tony (22:56):
CBD oil comes from cannabis, and I've got a friend who is out in California fighting cancer right now. And, she is a big proponent. She was also in the cannabis arena for a little while. And, she's a big proponent of CBD oil, and I hate to say this about the pharmaceutical industry, but they are very much against CBD oil getting released into the public. And, you kind of saw a little bit of that first hand didn't you? When you were with weed maps?
Jim Pakulis (23:22):
Yes. So, I think you can imply that, and lay that into any industry. Let's look at the 60s; we had electric vehicles. Lot of the automobile industry acquired the patents of those electric vehicle goals and shelved them. Why? Because there was a beautiful relationship between the petroleum companies and the automobile industries. They did not wanna see that progression. So, with the CDB oils; very natural. Now, and this is just my humble opinion, but I think what you'll see in the not too distant future, if it hasn't already come out, is big pharma come in and creating their own synthetic version of CBD, and then packaging that, and then promoting the bejeebus out of that in order to gain recognition that it works because there is now empirical data that it does work and it does help some people, on some of the times with some of the diseases.
Tony (24:22):
It's so unfortunate that that goes on. It's not really conspiracy because you can actually point back to all of this stuff happening. And, one that I just came across more recently was the story of Stan Meyers. You're talking about electric vehicles, but Stan Meyers actually created a hydrogen powered car where you could drive from like California to Washington DC on 22 gallons of water.
Jim Pakulis (24:47):
Oh my God. When- what year was this?
Tony (24:50):
I'll pull it up right quick. I was looking at it. I just read this story a little while ago, and you can find it on gaia.com if anybody's interested, you future millionaires. If you wanna understand the system that we're living in; it's a good idea to understand it, so you can understand how to deal with wealth. Read up on his story. Let's see. He died back in, 1998. He died after meeting; it's crazy, but let's go ahead and talk about it. He was meeting with a couple of investors at Cracker Barrel, and drank some grapefruit juice; I believe it was; and then, jumped up, ran outside and, he basically was yelling, "they poisoned me! They killed me!" And, he died on the spot. And, this is 1998. And, before that happened, he actually had some investors that pulled out of investing with him. I think they- if you speculate- probably got blackmail, or threatened, or something. But, I think the Saudi Arabian Royal family; or somebody over in Saudi Arabia; as the story goes, offered to buy his technology for like a billion dollars, like $1 billion, and he turned them down.
Jim Pakulis (26:00):
Wow. That's amazing.
Tony (26:02):
But, this happens all the time. You got CBD oil that gets covered up by pharmaceutical; you got a lot of money invested, and they don't wanna see that cure come because it really takes away profitability. You see that with this hydrogen- also electric cars, like you said, electric car technology. You can read that same story because the guy that had the patents on that got bought out and he thought, I think he originally sold them to Ford motor company and then he thought Ford was gonna take it mainstream. And, instead Ford- I believe- sold it over to the oil companies and the oil companies covered it up and killed it; otherwise, you would've probably had Tesla about 20 or 30 years ago. It's just pretty phenomenal.
Tony (26:44):
But, I think you're kind of in the same space because when you look at some of these chemicals that are going into our foods; a lot of stuff you can't pronounce; I've heard somebody say, "don't eat anything that you can't pronounce, only eat things that you can actually pronounce on your food." And, I think you're kind of going in that direction with your brands, correct? Like, vegan; very healthy type foods that take those chemicals out of our body. So, let's switch gears and talk about that a little bit. How did you end up- I think you might have said it earlier, but let's hit it again. How did you end up with Boosh; specifically, transitioning from previous career into Boosh?
Jim Pakulis (27:20):
So again, just to quickly recap; wanting to find a sector that was gonna have significant growth; we believed would have significant growth 3-10 years, and came across a plant-based sector. Did a lot of research. Lot of due diligence. Realized that this is something that we wanted to go ahead and spend our time and energy in, and then we started to look at a company that we could take public. Looked at a variety of different companies in the sector, and came across the now the founder of Boosh, Connie Marples. She actually is a celiac- and I can't remember if we talked about this online or offline- but, as a celiac, is very sensitive to foods. And so, in 2017, a lot of her friends were emailing her and asking her, "can you create some recipes and plant-based recipes?" And , she took it one step further.
Jim Pakulis (28:03):
She said, "well, not only will I give you recipes. I'll create some meals with a co-packer, and then actually you can purchase them." So, she literally; again, another example of an entrepreneur; went to the co-packer, created these recipes, got all the proper licensing and certificates. And then, she literally went to the various health food stores and natural food stores to sell her products. And, it was a very good. It was a success right off the bat. And so, she expanded in a relatively short period of time. Unfortunately, COVID then hit. And, she was starting to bring ambassadors in the grocery stores, trying a lot of one-on-one, experience with Boosh products at the grocery stores can be consumer facing as possible. And then, COVID hit, which slowed things down.
Jim Pakulis (28:52):
But, fast forward, Boosh is now in over 600 stores, throughout Canada. And, as I mentioned; six frozen meals. We have a beautiful relationship with Beyond Meat. We have two frozen meals, we have three refrigerated meals, chili, sloppy Joe, and mushroom gravy. And then, we just introduced plant based macaroni cheese out there as well. So, it's a wonderful story, fantastic product. We try to have the least amount of preservatives as possible in the products for everything we just talked about. Tony, you just don't need all the artificial preservatives in your food. You just don't need it.
Tony (29:37):
I love that you're doing that. I need to look into those products. Now, one of the things that's real interesting, and I'm interested to hear your take on it, and for the future millionaires listening, cuz it doesn't do a lot of good to build a lot of wealth, and not live a long life. You wanna enjoy it and have opportunity to create a real impact in the world, which is what we teach is; have a purpose behind your wealth. You're building wealth for a purpose. And, I like to think about making the world a better place. That's what I try to do with the money I make. But, one thing you see is; back in the day sugar crept into everything from breads; made breads addictive, made everything addictive, but even since then, they've changed it from sugar to high fructose corn syrup; which is even worse for you; and then put that in everything. So, as you guys are doing your products, have y'all looked at that; the sugar and the high fructose corn syrup and things like that; as you're working in your recipes or the products that you're creating? How that plays in; whether you want them in it, or don't want them in your product lines.
Jim Pakulis (30:35):
Yes. So, I'm not the expert to be answering this question, but I can give you a general response. We have scientists, we have engineers, we have Connie, and everyone is super sensitive to that very issue trying to minimize- again, as a celiac Connie is super sensitive to many foods. So, we have to make sure that what we're putting out into the marketplace is acceptable for her. That right there is a perfect litmus test. Then we have our chefs and our scientists and our engineers that also are working with us to try to create the best product with the least amount of preservatives that crosses the finish line. So, there's some natural substitutes to high fructose corn syrup and sugar; that we're using in our products as well.
Tony (31:24):
As long as it's not Sweet and Low or something like that.
Jim Pakulis (31:26):
No, no, no, no, no. Like peach juice, and plumbs. Things like that. Healthy stuff.
Tony (31:34):
I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker for fruit tea. That's the way to go; peach fruit tea is just phenomenal. All natural sweetener, came out of the earth. Love it.
Jim Pakulis (31:46):
Exactly.
Tony (31:46):
So, where do you think Boosh Foods and Beanfields are going in the future? What's your future outlook; your vision for the company?
Jim Pakulis (31:55):
I am extremely bullish on the company for a couple of reasons; one, for a company to succeed, you have to have the foundation. And, if you listened to me last year or the second half of last year, it was all about putting together a solid foundation. Once the foundation is in place and making sure you have the right management; then you can grow a company. I don't know if you remember; 8-10 years ago there was an advertisement on the Super Bowl. The advertisement was a couple kids standing around staring at their computer, and they came out with this new software. All of a sudden you see this rotation of 200, 500, 6,000, 10,000 people are joining up and they're all excited. They're high-fiving. Then, they get to 100,000, 3 million, 8 million, and they're like, "what do we do?"
Jim Pakulis (32:42):
And so, it's a very simplistic way of saying, you need a foundation before you can grow a company. You can't just go out there with a great product. And so, I've emphasized as much as I can about the foundation of the company. What does a foundation mean? Foundation means; besides internal structure; it also means having those strong relationships with your vendors; your supply chain; especially now, it's such a sensitive area with supply chain. Thank goodness all of the Boosh products' raw materials come from Canada. All of the Beanfields products come from the United States. We don't rely on any exportation for our products recently. A good friend of mine told me that she was interviewing a CFO. The CFO had just gotten done interviewing for another company.
Jim Pakulis (33:28):
And, that other company was doing 700 million annually, but his products were coming from various parts of the world. That company had been crushing it; 700 million in revenue, not market cap, but in revenue. Yet, they potentially had to go bankrupt. They're on the verge of bankruptcy because they're relying on exportation in this very disruptive supply chain situation we're in right now. So, long answer to a short question. I see Boosh and Beanfields doing very well in the long run, staying focused, staying in our lane, knowing what we do well and then expanding on that.
Tony (34:07):
You gotta look at the globalization that you see; a lot of companies suffer from that. I just saw a map yesterday, with some of the channels I try to stay in touch with, and I was looking at the number of ships that are out at sea waiting to get docked in Shanghai. And, literally, it's an uncountable number. When you look at the map; I swear; it looked like there was probably several thousand ships just out at sea waiting to get into port. I don't even know how that works because you've only got so many supplies on the ship just for the crew. What's gonna happen when the crew runs out food and they can't get food out there? If they're out at sea for six months trying to get into port; that's just a crazy problem to have. I think it's probably an unnecessary problem, but we'll save that conversation for another day.
Jim Pakulis (34:58):
I know, just on the port of Los Angeles, they're asking that the ships now stay anchored 2-4 miles off the port simply because they can't come in. There's no room for them to come in. And, the amount of pollution that's being generated from the ships are now coming into land. The second part of that; and I think this is few and far between, but; I have read articles in which the crew has been left stranded. Some of these ship owners just put up their hands and say, "we're done." And, they're in obscure countries in which these ships flags are being flown and a ship's flag being flown means the origin is that country and they just put up their hands. So, some crew members are stuck on the ship. They can't go on land, otherwise they'll be arrested. So, they have to stay on the ship and articles that I have read are just horrific; there's minimal food, there's no nutrition on the ship, and it's just horrific. It's like being in a prison. That's, what it has gotten to, which is really sad.
Tony (36:11):
Future millionaires listening to the show. I don't go down this road a lot with you guys on the show, but I would encourage you to look into some of this stuff because you need to be aware and prepared for things coming. I've got probably a year's worth of reserve food, just myself, for my family. We do grow some of our own things. I would encourage you to look into it. You should always be prepared. I think today, Jim, being in this food industry, when you look back- roll back the clock, 20, 30, 40 years, our parents and our grandparents went through hard times where food wasn't available. You have a different mindset; especially coming out of the Great Depression; to people who go, "we came from a place where we didn't have anything. We had to worry about having food on the table."
Tony (36:59):
And, those people are more wired to prepare. They've got cellars. They've got things. Today's society might have two weeks worth of food if you scrape everything together in a house that's not being prepared. And, we've gotten spoiled on the way culture and society works today, but that's not how it works in every country. A lot of countries they're preparing for year round droughts; food stores like that. It's just a different way of living than what we've become accustomed to. And, now you see all of the production; like you said; being broken down. And, I'll go as far as to say; that's not an accidental thing. That is; I think it's intentional being done. Humans are not stupid enough to screw up this much stuff on accident.
Jim Pakulis (37:46):
Simultaneously.
Tony (37:48):
Simultaneously. How do you end up with tens of thousands of ships out at sea and stored with goods? It's not an accident. And, what you might be asking me, future millionaires listening, "to what end?" Well, I could give you the answer, but it's probably gonna be better for you to go ask that question yourself and seek out your own answers. I do recommend a book. I don't mention a lot of books on the show, but let me recommend James Rickards' Road to Ruin, or Death of Money. Those are both two fantastic books that were written 5-10 years ago. Honestly, everything written in those books is coming to pass. You wanna be prepared for the future and what we're seeing on deck right now in the culture, in society, in the economy, go read James Rickards' stuff.
Tony (38:38):
He'll be very helpful; that's Road to Ruin and the Death of Money. That'll help open your minds up. I'd give you a whole lot of other books to read too, but, Jim, with your stuff; that's amazing; you see it scaling, so you're trying to keep everything more localized where you can maintain the supply chain, and continue growing the products. Do you see- you're in chips; now that you're in the food packs; what's your hottest product that you're most excited about; once you get your foundation in place like you want?
Jim Pakulis (39:11):
We also came out with onion rings;the company Beanfields came out with onion rings. The second half of 2021 did roughly; again, unaudited; roughly one-million U.S. in six months of onion rings. Think about a bean based onion ring. And again, I'd compare them; blind taste test; against anything in the marketplace. Phenomenal. So, I've really loved the Boosh products; love the mushroom gravy. I mean, you can add water and have a mushroom soup as far as the Boosh products go. We have, in my humble opinion, three or four real home-run products within our portfolio of products. So, what I wanna do is just concentrate on the best, and tying into that. When we acquired Beanfields, there was roughly 19 different skews of the chips.
Jim Pakulis (40:02):
I think some of them cannibalized the others. Listen, you only have so much real estate. If you are fortunate enough to get into a grocery store, you only have so much real estate, so you want your best sellers there all the time. You just don't wanna keep on trying to come out with something new all the time. So, my focus is skew rationalization; bring it down to six to eight products- our company believes in the same thing- and then really focus on those. "What does the consumer want?" Always have to be looking forward to the consumer. "What is the consumer looking for? What are they asking for?" I was on a podcast yesterday, and we were discussing how major companies fail after period of time. Kodak is an example; Sears; what happened? They were the cream of the crop in the 70s and 80s, what happened? And, there's a variety of different theories. My humble opinion is that senior management did not stay consumer focused. Compare that to a Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Records, he seems to always constantly facing the consumer. "What do you want? What can we give you?" And; just as an example on their flights; have you ever flown a Virgin airline?
Tony (41:18):
No, I've read a lot about his airline, and his story is fascinating about how he formed Virgin Airlines and ran that companies just fascinating.
Jim Pakulis (41:28):
It is. And, just as a couple small examples; you get on a plane. First of all, everything always seems new. The lighting system is purple and blue, and it's almost looks like going into a nightclub. It's really cool, a really Zen-ish type of music. It smells good. Just little stuff. It doesn't have to be this huge monster transformation. It's just the littles stuff to make it better, to do whatever you're doing in life. Whether it's eating, traveling, watching TV, sleeping. Whatever it is, just try to be consumer facing. So, I think some of the management of these larger corporations that had their private elevator to the 4,000 square foot office in which they only talk to leaders around the world, didn't go down and talk to the people; talk to us and figure out what's going on. So, that's one thing I will always hold true to my heart as we grow the company is just try to offer what the consumers want and make 'em happy.
Tony (42:32):
I love that. And, I think, from my business experience, as long as you have a CEO that's looking at innovation, and what I think typically happens; you get a company that gets a little bit arrogant. They're very successful. You end up bringing in a CFO or COO minded, and you transition those into CEOs. And, they're more bean counters looking at expenses. And, like you said; lose touch with the customer, but also lose touch with the ability to innovate. They just kind of stuck with what they know and what's been working. Blockbuster was an example; Netflix and Redbox came in; ate their lunch, but they should have been Netflix. They should have been Redbox.
Jim Pakulis (43:09):
But, Tony look at Netflix right now. I'm not saying they're on the demise. I'm not saying anything poorly about Netflix, but it'll be very interesting to see what happens over the next two years. With Netflix you have the first time in a decade that Netflix dropped 200,000 customers. They're anticipating next quarter- I believe it was a 2 million drop. If I read correctly. So, I love Amazon prime. Why do I like Amazon prime when I'm watching a movie? I'm working out and watching Amazon prime; because I can flip, 30 seconds ahead, five minutes ahead, 30 minutes ahead in a movie. If I've already seen a movie, but I wanna watch it again; makes me feel good or whatever; there's sections of it I don't wanna see.
Jim Pakulis (43:53):
I can do that with Amazon. I can't do it with Netflix. I try flipping 10 seconds ahead; it cuts me off, sends me back back to the beginning. It's all small stuff; consumer facing. And, I think, Amazon, in my humble opinion, is significantly better than Netflix. And, I think, almost a quarter of a million people are agreeing to that. We're gonna see probably some more fallout from that. So, Netflix is a perfect example of how they have to, again, think consumer focus. Don't think necessarily from the political standpoint, but what consumers want.
Tony (44:35):
I think that's good advice; good direction from a leadership perspective. And, you said Netflix dropped 200,000, but the problem is much bigger than that. Because from what I had read, they had projected a growth of 2.5 million subscribers. And, they had dropped 200,000. So, assuming those numbers, that was a 2.7 million difference in what was actually going on; which, caused them to have a 25% loss in stock price, which is just astronomical. And, I mean, if what you just said continues. Where they continue to bleed subscribers over the next two years. You could look at a total implosion of the stock price over the next two years, and it could be really bad for them. A blood bath. But, Jim, thanks for being on the show and giving us some direction around these products. I loved learning about Boosh Foods; Boosh and Beanfields. I'm definitely gonna look into the products, go down here and see if I can pick some up at the whole foods down the street. It's only a three minute drive from my house, but how are people gonna find out about Boosh a little bit more? And, do you guys have a subscription based food delivery service yet? Or, is that something you might work into the future?
Jim Pakulis (45:43):
It is on the checklist to do. And, Tony, if I could just end with a couple of different things. With Boosh, the publicly traded companies called Boosh Plant-Based Brands, it's traded on the CSE Canadian Securities Exchange under VEGI, and we're also on the OTC under VGGIF. Boosh Plant-Based Brands just acquired 100% of Beanfields. Where can you find it? You can go to booshfood.com. It has a locator site on there. You can go to beanfields.com, and that has a locator site on there, so you can go ahead and find out where you can find some of our fantastic foods.
Tony (46:23):
Love it, Jim. I really appreciate that. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, your business insights, your investment advice, and your before and after story about growing up in. I have to know you've got, I think what three kids,
Jim Pakulis (46:38):
Zero, unless you know something that I dunno!
Tony (46:43):
Well, I see that picture behind you; it looks like kids behind you.
Jim Pakulis (46:46):
Actually, the story we were talking about earlier; with my older brother making me do that. He had passed away. You talked about some very close people passing away in your life. He had passed away at 49. These are his kids behind me, who are like my kids; just love them. Beautiful, beautiful people.
Tony (47:05):
Well, you missed the opportunity to tell them the story; maybe you need to; about when you grew up and having to deliver newspapers in three feet of snow. That's a- I wish I had that one. I don't have that one to give to my kids, but Jim, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for being on the show.