Ep 49. Voices from the Field: FarmLink with Founder Rob Barreca

If you have lived on Oahu during the COVID pandemic or more recently, then you probably already know about FarmLink. In this episode we speak with its Founder, Rob Barreca about the pre-covid days of this online, local-only food marketplace and how it has grown by leaps and bounds since. We find out how he went from "geek for good" to CEO of an innovative new Hawaii-based company and is now firmly in the role of Chief Technology Officer to ensure FarmLink's success into their promising future.

Brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources (CTAHR), and the Seeds of Well-being (SOW) Project. This podcast is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

Resources:

• FarmLink 
• Olin Lagon 
• Holy Cow bar in San Francisco (archive)
• Compost Cab
• GoFarm Hawaii
• Petal Mettle Flowers
• Kamehameha Schools Mahiai Matchup
• Ulupono Initiative
• Elemental Excellerator
• Local Orbit software
• Delivery Biz Pro software
• Shopify web platform
• DaBux SNAP/EBT Discounts
• Ma’o Farms
• Hawaii Banana Source
• Kamehameha Schools Podcast with SOW

Find out more about us:

• Seeds Of Wellbeing website
• Seeds of Wellbeing Resource Hub
• All the SOW links

Transcript

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Thao Le: 0:00

The information or opinions expressed during the seeds of wellbeing series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, our funders, and any affiliated organizations involved in this project. Welcome to a Seeds of Wellbeing"Voices from the Field" podcast, featuring voices of Hawaii agriculture producers for Hawaii agriculture producers. These podcasts were made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, also known as CTAHR. And the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW project. And it's supported by grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

Rob Barreca: 1:00

I think I unexpectedly really just fell in love with the act of producing food. It's kind of cliche, but maybe it's cliche for a reason of just like planting this little seed and then seeing it manifest and become, you know, a carrot, or an eggplant or a tree. Like, it's, it's super, we take it for granted, or I took it for granted at least. But it's, it's so magical and amazing. And it's like this very important thing for our survival. So it's super practical.

Jim: 1:35

If you have lived on Oahu during the COVID pandemic, or more recently, then you probably already know about FarmLink. In this episode, we speak with its founder Rob Barreca about the pre-COVID days of this online local only food marketplace, and also how it's grown by leaps and bounds since. We find out how he went from "geek for good" to CEO of an innovative new Hawaii-based company, and is now firmly in the role of Chief Technology Officer to ensure FarmLink's success into their promising future. Aloha. Welcome to another Seeds of Wellbeing "Voices from the Field" podcast. Today we have with us, thanks for joining us, Rob, Rob Barreca from FarmLink. Hey, Rob, how's it going?

Rob Barreca: 2:15

Hey, Jim, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jim: 2:18

No, I've been trying to track you down for a few months now. I've been following what you've been doing for a number of years. But I think if you want to give us a little background to start with; What got you to Hawaii? And what got you to a point where you wanted to start FarmLink

Rob Barreca: 2:37

Yeah, so I came out to Hawaii in 2007, February 13 2007. And I was born and raised in California, northern California. And probably when I was about 15-16, my mom got me this huge, I don't know, couple 1000 page - total nerd nerd alert here - HTML4 book and she was like super subversive. You just kind of like set it on the table. And so I don't know, this is '90, 1996 or something. And this is going to connect to how I got here. And she was always kind of like, you know, nurturing my, my math side and giving us little like math workbooks and stuff. And I don't know, my brain is just wired for that. But yeah, you know, the web was just kind of like becoming more of a thing then, and she was like, "oh, yeah, there's like, the Worldwide Web is out there. And you can actually like, learn how to make your own web page" and actually got me that book. And it was just like, it just triggered something in me, it was so interesting and exciting. And just like this, this wild west. Both the web itself and just like that, that finding, finding a way to find a creative outlet for kind of a more math engineering guy was really cool. And so yeah, you know, 16 years old, I started messing around creating little web pages and stuff. And I think I was working at the movie theater, the local movie theater in in Sebastopol, California. I remember I was making $5.15 an hour training wage. So I worked there for I don't know, six months and I was learning how to make little web pages and then I got in, I think my mom got me an internship at Autodesk which is in like the North Bay in California. And kind of just started me on this career of being able to make some money as I was going through high school, and then through college of making webpages for people, and it was, yeah, super interesting, exciting. So, you know, that evolved and just kind of kept on that career path and started doing more, you know, semi serious programming web application development for clients kind of just doing it as a consultant and also sub contracting for some companies. And then went to school in San Diego, and lived there for a couple years after and I was just ready to go somewhere new and me and one of my best friends, James, we call him"slow James" in San Diego, we're like, let's, "Let's go move to Japan." And he was going to teach English and I was going to do some, you know, digital nomad stuff, you know, do do web projects, and we'd just like travel Southeast Asia, and go explore and surf and cruise around, but James's nickname is slow James for a reason. He just takes forever to get ready to go anywhere, whether it's, you know, out to lunch, or moving to Japan especially. And I was ready to go, and he was just takin' forever. So I was like, well, maybe I can find, you know, a month long contract somewhere. And I was looking around on Craigslist, in San like San Diego, Craigslist or something. And I see some posting for, for, you know, web web contract, you know, one month long for a company called ChipIn, all one word. And I answered it and found out they were based in Hawaii, but they're okay with somebody, you know, working remote. So we did a short contract together, where I helped them build a web app for UC Berkeley, it was like a UC Berkeley project for people that had like a big idea. So so my contact was Olin Lagon, which is, which is amazing. Thank you Olin for getting out here. But Olin, Olin’s still involved in the tech community in a lot of really great ways. But Olin, you know, Olin and I've kind of just worked remotely on this UC Berkeley project. And then I think Olin and one of his, so a co founder Carnet Williams, of ChipIn at the time said, hey, you know, that was a great little project you did for UC Berkeley, you know, we actually have this startup is doing a lot more other stuff. We're looking for people to come out, would you be interested in coming out to Hawaii and working for, you know, another another month or so? So I said, yeah, that'd be great. That's halfway to Japan. Still waiting on slow James to pack his bags and set up as his English English teaching job in Japan. So I'll come on to Hawaii for a month. And then, you know, I’ll continue on my way to Japan and keep sort of living living that life. And I don't know, long story short, I think we'll go back and forth a bit. But I'm still here. Slow James went to Japan. And I never moved to Japan. I've been here since and we went and visited him. But then James was there for three years. And then he's back back in San Diego. So I never quite never quite made that that leg of the the full trip, but really glad I ended up where I am.

Jim: 8:53

You got most of the way there. First, I have to ask, are there any websites that you did in the early days that are still out there somewhere that we can take? In the show notes?

Rob Barreca: 9:08

You know, I looked I looked for one I don't think it's there anymore. I think it was I did. One that I was really proud of. It was for The Holy Cow. It's like it was like a bar in San Francisco. And I was using like, at the time I think it was like Macromedia Flash. And I did this like, you know, now it's like pretty lame, but, you know, animated this like cow and then like a halo over it and added some sound to it. I'm pretty darn sure that website is not there. Not what I did.

Jim: 9:51

You can be sure I'm going to try to find an old copy of it. And yeah,

Rob Barreca: 9:55

That'd be fun if you did

Jim: 9:57

I’ll put a link out there for the folks.

Rob Barreca: 9:58

I’d love to see it.

Jim: 9:59

I think watching or listening. So that got to you got you to California, you're a coder, probably learning new things like Java and, and things that keep you on your toes for for as things change in the industry. So you're, you're in Hawaii, tell us how you got the FarmLink? And how did that all come about? What's the link in FarmLink?

Rob Barreca: 10:25

So yeah, so I came out in 2007. And I was working at clChipIn a bunch of incredible people there. You know, Olin, Carnet, Kevin, Matthew McNealy, a lot of really, really smart folks. And I was working there from 2007 until I think, I think was 2013. So we ended up getting acquired by, so we rebranded ChipIn to Sprout. And then Sprout was acquired by a global ad company called InMobi, based out in India, and we, you know, we pivoted a bunch of times that ChipIn and then Sprout and, and into sort of advertising, technology, really, like interesting cutting edge technology, but wasn't something that was like, near and dear to my heart, you know, like the people and the engineering challenges was great but I was, especially in the fast the last few years working there, I was really kind of yearning for a bit more fulfillment, or, you know, meaning in life, like I wanted to be, I wanted to be a geek for good Jim. And, you know, use use some of these skills and, and do the work that I like to do, but have it, you know, impact the world in some way that that meant something to me. So lucky enough that, you know, we were acquired, and, you know, I made enough money, it wasn't, you know, a huge payout, but made enough money to give me a couple years, to kind of explore what the next phase of my life was going to be. And I was really, I think this is kind of, you know, as local food and farming, sort of, we're having a bit of a moment, you know, just becoming a little more like, sexy. And it was kind of, you know, cool to be a, cooler than it has been historically, in the last, you know, hundreds or years, millennia ever to grow food. And so I was, I was interested in that realm, but I didn't quite know what I wanted to do. And my first foray after after leaving, you know, InMobi was, I think I modeled it after some, a company called like, Compost Cab in New York. They basically pick up food waste from restaurants or homes, and then do thermal or verma-composting, and produce really good compost and then sell that I was kind of the business model. And I think trying to charge people to pick up their food ways, too. So I, I tried that, you know, to get something started there. And it just nothing was really clicking on multiple levels. And a friend that, “Hey, I heard about this program called GoFarm. Hawaii. I don't know if that's like what you want to do. But I think you should just go and check it out and try it.” And I was kind of hemming and hawing. And she was just, like, just stop trying to analyze, like, just go do it. And you know, it's it's very low stakes. And if you don't like it, you can you can bail and do something else. And I really credit GoFarm why I think it's the one of the best things that's going on in the food system in the state. I really, I really credit them with, you know, giving me a focus. And I think I unexpectedly really just fell in love with the act of producing food. It's kind of cliche, but maybe it's cliche for a reason of just like planting this little seed and then seeing it manifests and become, you know, a carrot or an egg plant or a tree like it's, it's super, we take it for granted, or I took it for granted at least. But it's it's so magical and amazing. And it's like this very important thing for our survival. And it's super practical too so that intersection is really neat. So yeah, when went through GoFarm Waimanalo. It was cohort three over there. And the yeah, so the first the first, you know, entry into the food system for me or real one was starting a farm. So when went through GoFarm graduated out of that program, I, me and my partner, Laarnie , kind of who is still a flower farmer with with petal metal, She's incredible. We started a farm and she came up with the name, it was called counter culture. And we weren't just gonna grow fresh veggies. It was really a farm and ferment operation so we use that business that concept and and applied to Kamehameha Schools Pewaukee foundations, Monte I matchup, which was a business plan competition, you know, the winner of which I think it's like $25,000 in seed capital and runner up, in kind of like 15,000. And then you get a five year free lease on five acres of commandment schools land. And so we were awarded that we got we got second place, prize and a parcel. So some cash in a parcel up in Haleiwa to start a farm. So we, you know, dove in is just a raw piece of land, jungle. And Kamehameha Schools helped us clear that one. And yeah, just went through kind of starting a farm from scratch, and then also learning the fermenting kind of like, commercial kitchen side of everything there. So that was super informative, as we started out doing that, but I don't know, typical, you know, to my just distracted attention span was as we were kind of starting that farm, you know, we were selling some fresh produce, as we kind of got the sauerkraut and kimchi product lines going. And I was really just seeing, you know, and also from the GoFarm experience working, you know, with my fellow cohort members that were there were starting farms, I saw that we were all, you know, like, it's hard. And I thought the hard part was going to be all of the manual labor and working with plants, and just all of the production side of agriculture. And I realized that that is incredibly hard. But what felt even harder, somehow, it's harder and harder in a different way. But it felt harder somehow was like everything that happened after you harvested like all of this incredible produce. And then just like the marketing, sales and distribution, you know, there's lots of everybody in spirit loves buying local, they love that concept. But when the rubber meets the road, you know, you find out who really wants to go above and beyond and kind of deal with some of the challenges of actually buying local. So, you know, just trying to find folks that take this really great product, and how to, you know, with very limited time in the day, how to get that product to them. And so seeing that, all of us in the in GoFarm and started meeting other small and beginning farmers or other you know, other experienced farmers and just seeing how much of a challenge the marketing sales and distribution was. And so I really, you know, like while the farm is still going and, you know, brought out my friend from California to help help start on the farm, Daniel Leas. I said, you know, I want to just like start this, see if there's anything there in some sort of aggregator some sort of entity that could help all of us, you know, a bunch of small farmers that there's that a lot of buyers don't want to work with directly because of the many challenges. Maybe we can all kind of hui up and have somebody that's like taking care of a lot of the marketing and sales and accounting and doing the distribution for us, because there was kind of there's kind of this awkward phase there where like, the big distributors, big purchasers or distributors locally, like they don't want to deal with a bunch of ragtag small producers. The big retailers, like you know, the brick and mortar grocery stores, and even you know, a lot of restaurants, they don't want to deal with it either. And so you're kind of in this place where it's like, you can, you know, go to the go to some farmers markets, which you know, have limited opportunity to sell and also just take a bunch of time. Um, you know, when you're, that's when you're that small and starting out, like, there's an opportunity cost for spending, you know, a ton of time going to farmers markets versus putting that time into production, which is really like, something that the only the farmer can solve. But I felt like there was some opportunity to start something, it wasn't even called FarmLink at the time. It was just, it was kind of a little incubator born born in GoFarm, I think we just called it like GoFarm. GoFarm sales website. You know, the marketing, sales and distribution felt like, sort of this overlaying entity like somebody else, you know, some other entity could help everybody solve that, and give them more time to solve the very, like, specific problems on their farm. And, yeah, so FarmLink was was kind of born. We got, we got some grant funding, purchased a, well, at first we were, we were driving around everybody's produce in coolers with ice in the back of my partner, Laarni's like 1998 Toyota Tacoma truck, little green machine. And then, yeah, we got, we got, I think, a loan through Ulupono Initiative, and some grant funding to help us purchase a 16 foot refrigerator box truck and, and yeah, in those early days, it was, you know, a couple of us just doing all kinds of the aggregation we're doing pickup, we also had like, decentralized refrigerated shipping containers, on partner farms, or on our own farm, or at GoFarm. Where, you know, we would kind of do the sales side of going to restaurants and Foodland was actually a really good early partner for us. We would say, hey, we have all this product from all of these growers, you know, are you interested in buying it, and then we would, you know, get those sales orders. And then we would communicate back to the growers and say, Hey, okay, we need XYZ, you know, this many pounds by this date, to be dropped off at your, your local drop site. And so, you know, all around Oahu producers would be, you know, just, they just get a bunch of orders, you know, could be you know, and restaurants and you know, a few like a food, Foodland, and a couple of Down to Earths like all just aggregated, they just got one order, essentially from FarmLink. And could harvest it all in one fell swoop, wash pack, and then just drop it all at, you know, refrigerated drop point like, and minutes away from their farm, and then get back to the farm and continue to work on production. And then we would drive the 16 foot box truck around the island, pick up everything, and then be doing deliveries like all, all in the same day. So yeah, it was kind of a crazy, crazy time. And it was early days.

Jim: 23:13

And this is about eight, nine years ago when, when it was, was it officially FarmLink at that point?

Rob Barreca: 23:20

Yeah. So I think pretty soon after we realized, okay, this is this is sort of bigger than then GoFarm and branded it FarmLink. And yeah, I think that's 2015, so about nine

Jim: 23:31

Nice. And so that started to happen. So well, maybe you years ago. still haven't given up your day job, but were you able to give up your day job at a certain point because there was enough volume and, and potential revenue.

Rob Barreca: 23:49

Yeah, and I guess I guess I left that part out, that after InMobi was acquired in 2011 I stayed on for a couple years and then left left in 2013. And so I basically I dove all all into it, you know, I had enough savings to kind of just live very simply for a couple of years and try to figure out what what the next move was. So I did kind of like leave, leave tech, you know. I needed a bit of a break. I was I was pretty fried at that point and yeah, just want to want us to dive dive into something else. So you know, started the farm started FarmLink. And at that point, I should clarify that like FarmLink, we were using sort of off the shelf software. So it was a it was a platform called Local Orbit. And, you know, was just trying to like, build that as a as a as a, you know, this purpose driven company at that point. But yeah, so from 2013 to 2015 it was kind of like flailing and trying to figure out what, what to do next. But then 2015 on it was really like, Okay, I got, I'm spending 50% of my time, you know, on the farm, helping, you know, a partner like weed and plant, harvest wash pack, and then 50% of time, kind of orchestrating and coordinating on the FarmLink side.

Jim: 25:31

Okay, so at a certain point to firmly take over and you stopped farming, are you still farming now?

Rob Barreca: 25:36

Yeah, I definitely am not in the field anymore. So I think I'm pretty sure you know, towards the end of 2019. I was I was still splitting my time. And I just realized, like, Okay, this is just for easy making. If, if I want, you know, either to succeed, I'm going to need to focus on one. And I think more of my passion and experience and skill set really was on the farm leg side and seeing what seeing where that was going. So, you know, basically 98% on on farm link, and was fortunate enough, so Counter Culture, the farm, I won’t spend a ton of time on it, but we kind of did the Kimchi and sauerkraut thing. And then, you know, that was too much so we stopped doing that and just focused on fresh vegetables. And then my good friend, and somebody that, you know, Jim Gabe Sachter-Smith, who was actually, you know, got his master's at UH CTAHR, but left for for a period of time to go get some farming experience in the Pacific Northwest. You know, we were chatting and he said,“You know, I love I miss bananas. I want to come back to Hawaii, you know, is there any is there any way that we can we can work together.” And I was so excited to hear that for many reasons. But Gabe came back, joined the farm, and really has taken over the the farm operation. And that's been shifted from veggies to bananas, and rebranded as Hawaii Banana Source. So, you know, Gabe is totally, you know, running everything there. And I help do some admin stuff and help with QuickBooks and you know, we talked about some strategy and stuff like that, but really, yeah, most of my time has been on FarmLink since, yeah, since 2019, and it would have happened, you know, the pandemic, really would have forced my hand anyway. So it's kind of good. I had a few months to, like, mentally prepare as much as one, one could for that, which is, which is

Jim: 27:59

I was gonna ask if COVID and the pandemic were were material in the decisions, or was it just coincidental?

Rob Barreca: 28:09

Yeah, I mean, it's all a blur now, but I'm pretty sure just yet it was coincidental.

Jim: 28:14

How did you manage through COVID? I mean, to me, it seems like perfect timing for food delivery. But what did you see as a result of COVID? And how that impacted FarmLink?

Rob Barreca: 28:28

Yeah, it was super crazy. You know, free COVID FarmLink was I think we were maybe like three or four employees. And I think revenue to that I should have looked this up earlier, but I think 2019 revenue Thank you. I think it was maybe like 400,000 per farm link. And, you know, mostly most of the business at that point was still b2b, you know, selling to brick and mortar retail, grocery stores, restaurants, processors, and a couple of schools like Malama Honua charter school and maybe one others. So really b2b focused, and 2019. Again, totally coincidentally, one of our biggest supporters and funders elemental accelerator had invested some money in us, and that it was a project focused investment. And it was to start exploring direct to consumer sales, just what that would look like because we had so many just individual household customers in the years prior are saying like, Hey, I just loved it, I'm just a normal household, I'd love to get this. And we had let a few few, you know, friends kind of like sneak in, just to try it out. But you know, we only had a 16 foot box truck. And so you're driving a 16 foot box truck into some some of these neighborhoods. And then like dropping the liftgate that to get in the back. It was really challenging and difficult. And the website wasn't really geared towards direct consumer sales. But, you know, in 2018, we started slowly kind of figuring out okay, like, what would this look like to expand this domiciled customers? And, you know, we had a few months of thinking about that, but, you know, march 2020 hit, and you know, everything was shutting down. And it just, you know, we didn't have time to wait and be calculated and plan. Because we had between March and April, I think it was like 7000 Customers sign up a week to FarmLink. And, you know, we've never been and, you know, don't ever plan to be like a subscription, CSA service and, and get some common myths or misconception. You know, we've always wanted to be this, you order what you want, when you want, it's just ala carte. It's like Amazon for only local food. And so, yeah, we had 1000s of customers sign up that website platform we were using called Local orbit was crashing all the time. It didn't, it didn't work well to handle that level of volume, especially just, you know, let alone all of those household customers and we tried to set up like a waitlist, and we had, you know, 1000s of people on the waitlist at a time. And, you know, people were super freaked out seeing empty shelves. And also, you know, there was the fear side, but then people just just coming into relief that, like, Oh, this is really important to to have, you know, a thriving local food system. So I want to support it. Not just I'm scared of, you know, having food tomorrow. So yeah, it was just, it was just really insane. Time. Yes, so many people to talk about that help us help us through it. But yeah, I think like the sort of the macro view of it is. I mean, I sent us the keys for good podcast, I think I need to share that. I hope it doesn't like complicate things. But so you know, we had counterculture, we there was drawing, produce, and then fermenting, which is already like two businesses in itself. And then farm link, you know, it's just local food distribution. In 2019, the platform local orbit, which we were just a paying customer for. And I had been, you know, like, there's all kinds of things I wanted to see done to the platform. And I'd emailed the owners of that of that company and said, Hey, like, I see like, none of this stuff's getting fixed and our bugs that just have been around forever, like, I would be open to just volunteering my time. And pro bono, I will just like help fix bugs, and and help improve the software platforms for all your customers. But you know, I know it'll, it'll benefit our business benefit FarmLink. So like, can I please, just donating totally my time and help them spot from and I understand why they said no. Just like who is this guy, and like, we don't know how to figure that out. And so I just kept badgering them for probably starting in 2018. And then 2019 came around the end, the owner of that company, emailed me and said, Actually, we're getting their company had two platforms, local orbit and something else. That other platform, the other software product was getting acquired, and acquired, didn't want to deal with this local or bid food thing. And the owner said, Hey, if you either we're going to shut this thing down, or is there any way that you would like take take this over and steward this, you know, and they had over 50 other similar businesses to farm like other other food hubs across the country and a couple in Canada? So I obviously didn't want to see it, just the rug get pulled out from under s for FarmLink. And then think being like, oh my gosh, like, there's 50 Other folks like us. So, in addition to all those other things, I ended up taking over, you know, as the EOC, to everything kind of for local orbit as like a software as a service product and in 2018. So that was just kind of a wild time, and then, you know, trying to try to fix bugs in that platform, and figure out, like, a way that, you know, it wasn't profitable, like trying to figure out a way to, like, fund this thing. And, you know, peeling back layers of the onion of the code, and just seeing like, oh, wow, this thing, really, the intent was great, but like, there's just, it's just spaghetti, there's, there's so much technical debt. And just eventually, seeing as the pandemic hit that like, trying, trying to put all the energy into into FarmLink as just a business, and then trying to have this thing that all of a sudden became so essential for all of the customers on it, that there was just like, No way, no way to square square at all. I'm sure if I was a savvy or fundraiser, you know, maybe there was a way through that, but it was just, you know, lots and lots of 100 hour weeks that, you know, I was, I was at my wit's end. So in all of this crazy tangled web, you know, I was figuring out a synthetic plan for local orbit, and trying to get everybody a soft of a parachute as they could and enough time as I could to, like, find another platform to migrate to. And that included FarmLink. So in 2020 1000s, of customers, trying to get food, you know, through FarmLink using Local Orbit, we're also trying to figure out, okay, like, is there another platform out there that, to just help us that just automatically out of the box works for household customers better. And so we found one that seemed the least worst option out there, which is Delivery Bistro, which I do not recommend to anybody. And we can talk about that later, about sort of where we're going next. But yeah, we were we kind of migrated to a platform that at least was better than Local Orbit for for household customers, and really just leaned into the direct consumer thing, and, and tried to, you know, both ensure that producers had a place, you know, had revenue coming in to their farms, or, you know, or their food business. And then also make sure that consumers, you know, could access food, period. But also, you know, be able to support local food, and, you know, that's just been this, this, I feel super fortunate to work on, you know, a problem, or in a solution like this, but you know, in all of our existence, as, as, as a company, or companies, really just being able to have this dual mission and try to continue to ratchet both those up, you know, provide better opportunity for food producers to sell more, get more for what they sell, and just give them more time to do things that are really, you know, inherent to being a farmer and anything that sort of can be outsourced, or, you know, find efficiencies that, you know, we can help help with those, and then make it really easy for customers to continue to discover and find all this amazing local food that's being produced. And yeah, have that flywheel continue to accelerate. So I don't even remember what you asked Jim, I'm just went on maybe a tangent there. But I don't know. I felt like it's forget I had I had to bring the whole Hey, for a while there. We ran a software as a service company.

Jim: 39:23

Right. Well, I don’t remember seeing that on your LinkedIn, but maybe I just missed that not knowing what it was. But it's kind of it's fascinating to me, certainly. And it makes me wonder, I mean, the Shopify platform is is awesome. So many folks are adopting it. It's kind of eaten a lot of other platforms lunch, and I know as an ag producer myself, right in talking with ag producers that have used it or tried to use it. There's some limitations. It's not necessarily as anything like you said. You're always looking for the least worst, but when you're when you're trying to find web platforms, but I think it leads me to think that maybe with some of the modifications and scripting you're doing for FarmLink, I wonder if that might be a piece that you could offer that could be of help to others, right just I’m thinking’, if they can steal some of your scripts to have it more conducive to what an ag producer needs. I know, your needs are real specific related to, you know, your your online sales and your delivery and all that. But I wonder, do you think there's any anything to that that might be an option that you folks could offer? If when you're through your migration that might be edit some scripts, so this could use?

Rob Barreca: 40:44

Totally, and it's something I get really excited about. And then I like, try to, you know, check myself and learn my lesson and go, okay, like, try to focus on what, what's really essential right now, which is, you know, having FarmLink sort of be the first you know, at least for what we're building. And so, yeah, we're, you know, we're migrating from our current eCommerce site over to Shopify, and been working on that for months now. And build doing a lot of custom app development, as well as custom theme development. And it's something we talk about a lot like, once, like what we're building, you said, you said, it's kind of specific to us, I actually, and I've heard other people say that. So it's like, it's, it's a, it's specific in the realm of maybe of eCommerce. You know, if you're selling T shirts, you don't need any sort of any conception of this highly volatile supply of this perishable product, that you need to sort of have accurate inventory and sell it as quickly as possible. And somebody ordering, groceries, really needs groceries, on that day, it's like, I'm ordering groceries, for tomorrow, for Saturday. When you're ordering a t shirt, it's like, Oh, it'll be here in like two to two to eight weeks. Like, that's cool, that's fine, I don't really care, I'm going to forget about it, and then it's going to arrive and I'm going to be stoked. And so it is, it is, you know, specific in sort of that in an industry, that it is, you know, a perishable product and, you know, local food exacerbates a lot of that. Those Those intricacies too, just local food, you know, and really meaning like working with beginning, you know, smaller, smaller producers, if you have a mega farm that's just like, or, you know, something like Driscolls or something that's like, you know, they have their own berries in the northern and southern hemisphere. And it's just like, they're pretty much always going to have raspberries for you. And, you know, maybe you can just like assume, you know, near infinite supply. But if you're working with, you know, hundreds of small producers like we do, and they have products that are available on certain days of the week, but not others, and it goes up and down. And sometimes they think they have, you know, 500 pounds, and they have 30 pounds. But then some producers, you know, are really consistent. So, you know, if they say they have 500 pounds, we can probably resell you know, let's say 450 pounds of that, because like, they're generally you know, they're 90% accurate. And so yeah, anyways, I'm sort of going into some of the functionality a little bit, but I think from abroad from broad strokes, you know, we're, we're building this custom stuff on top of Shopify, because we didn't want to, like reinvent a bespoke eCommerce platform. And I've been looking at Shopify for the past five years, every year, you know, like, do a little dive and like, kind of see what the developer ecosystem looks like. And really, you know, every year until last year, it had it, it felt like, I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's there to be able to support what we want to do. And, you know, I'm, last year like, I just continued to be pretty impressed with what how extensible it is, if you know how to code and even if you don't, but if especially if you know how to code you can you can do a lot on top of it. And last year, you know, it really just felt like okay if we as FarmLink want to get where we need to get, which is you know, quadrupling in size from where we are now. We need a better, you know, or this is the way customers order, discover us learn about us explore and discover new products, and you know, make their make their weekly or, you know, some people order a couple times a week, but make, you know, make their grocery orders. So trying to, you know, improve that experience for them. And, you know, we felt like you know, we have a unique opportunity that myself and even another colleague in the company, you know, are, are highly technical. And sort of felt like, we have, you know, I got these very delicate non farming fingers now. And I wanted to find a way to like, have some autonomy and put them to use for the benefit of FarmLink and for the local food system here. So yeah, we're really focused on, you know, let's just get our migration done, let the dust settle, like, really be sort of the case study for this, but we are super excited about about the potential of, you know, everything we're doing. For FarmLink. And I'm getting all the way back to the specific comment I was making earlier, is not really specific, you know, food is the biggest retail industry, globally, by far, like we all everybody needs to eat, and everybody spends money on food. And, you know, like, yes, ordering food online, and getting it delivered, or, you know, going to pick it up is like somewhat of a of a newer concept, or, you know, some of those, those pieces are. But what we're building actually is super common, you know, globally across food. So like, you know, and, and part of the benefit, you know, even though it was a crazy time running Local Orbit as a software as a service business, was, I just feel so fortunate that I got to interact with those 50 other food hubs across the US and Canada. And, you know, see, sure there are like little differences and how we operate, here and there, but those are totally on the margins. Like the core of what everybody is doing is, is so similar. And, you know, keeping all of all of those stories in mind as as we build what we're building for us. So, you know, it doesn't make sense just to, like, we've invested a lot of, you know, my my time other employees time, we're contracting some folks to help. So putting a lot of investment and we've benefited a time from from philanthropic philanthropic organizations, as well as, you know, social impact investors and, and grant funding from USDA and others, to just help FarmLink in general, but everything we're doing, we feel is totally applicable to a lot of food hubs and other you know, smaller entities. Yeah, that are just buying, aggregating and delivering food, and we want the platform. You know, like, I feel like Hawaii is a great place that Hawaii, anybody operating Hawaii's local food system, it's a great place to, you know, be the guinea pig for for software like this, because, you know, FarmLink now, you know, we're not just sourcing from producers on Oahu, we're sourcing from producers all across the state. And, you know, it is really people don't think this, you know, outside of Hawaii's ag scene, but growing food here is really, really hard. There's some things that just grow great, and it's all good. But just from, you know, an agronomic sense, you know, it's, especially if you're trying to grow all these temperate veggies. Land is land costs are high, Labor's high. There's, there's not a lot of equipment laying around that you can go borrow from somebody or learn from somebody else. So there's a ton of challenges to produce food here. We're doing air and ocean logistics to move food between islands. You know, tons of tons of traffic like that, you know, we have, I think we have, you know, probably nine out of the 10 challenges that, you know, are generalized over over food systems globally. So, to me, and maybe it's a little delusional, but I don't think so, like, if we can do it here and build something that works for FarmLink for as complex as our operation is and you know, we're selling direct to consumer and to wholesale and to food access programs and dealing with SNAP EBT and all of these things. If we can make it work for us, I think it's totally generalizable to be a solution for for others around around the state around the country and the globe really

Jim: 50:25

Nice. And I think, I mean, you're certainly focused on EBT. And making that easier. I know you do free deliveries, for EBT orders of any size. I think you mentioned when we were talking earlier about one of the big deals about the replatform is to make EBT easier, as well. And, and I know a lot of aggregators are really focused on that and have adopted that. And, and, but I can think, you know, we've, we've spoken with Hawaii Farm-to-Car folks spoken with HIP ag and what they're doing with food hubs, and you know, and I think they could really, there could be huge benefit to them, but I won't bug you for a year or two about that, because I know you get this yourself. But I think there's a huge benefit. Anyone, just small scale mom and pop, when to sell direct to consumer, I think there's probably a bunch of modifications you're making that could make their lives so much easier. And, you know, most of them, most of them, those folks that I know, aren't really script kiddies, or you know, don't write their own code. So I think I think it would be a huge benefit. So I'll just, that's my two cents related to that, because I think some of your big, hairy, audacious goal that you could have on your website as being the driving force transforming local foods, so

Rob Barreca: 51:46

Yeah, I mean, I am super excited about the SNAP EBT side, I mean, you know, we knew and we were getting into it, so right now, you know, just just to describe how it works currently, if you're if you're, if you are a SNAP EBT recipient, you can go onto our website currently and place an order. First, we have to sort of like you know, you have to email us and we have to flip a switch on your account. But then if you have that switch flipped, you can go place an order, and it doesn't charge your credit card. But we have to you have to be at home when our driver shows up at your house. And so you know FarmLink has like we of course we use technology everywhere we can, if you order on FarmLink you get like automated text messages as your orders out for delivery and then you can like track your driver on your your smartphone. So you kind of can predict a little bit of when your driver is going to show up that day but it's still a pretty big window and you do physically have to be home and swipe your EBT card you know our driver will swipe your EBT card, put in your pin. But we're super excited about you know, removing that constraint and so if you have SNAP EBT you know you can the night before before 10pm You could go online order pay on SNAP EBT on the website in the future and then you don't need to be home to get your order because especially if you're in SNAP EBT you know you probably have lots you know you might be working multiple jobs and have have challenges you know, with the transportation or whatever whatever it might be so you know even even more so than folks that might not be on be a recipient of that. And so yeah, trying to make it really convenient for them and give them access for that. Oh yeah. And then I mean the other aspect of that is is the whole Double Up Food Bucks so you know, the food basket on Hawaii Island administers the bucks for the state which you know, everybody so on FarmLink today, if you pay with SNAP EBT you get 50 automatic 50% off all produce, you know fruits, vegetables, poi, basically anything that's since we are just 100% local product at FarmLink, anything that's on our website that is purely you know, just fruit, vegetable or water. So pulling in some other things count. So integrating all of that into you know, SNAP EBT online. And because again, like those, those are not those are not specific to why you know, Double Up Food Bucks is is a program. I don't know that every state has implemented but I know many states, many states do.

Jim: 54:55

I think that will make it much easier for folks, which is great. So thanks for all your work on on that. CTO, you're now CTO and not CEO, is that right, at FarmLink? Did you

Rob Barreca: 55:09

That’s right.

Jim: 55:10

Was that around? 2021? So what inspired that? Then? How does How did that feel? Do you feel like you've handed it over to others? Or gotten through the founders syndrome phase? Are you still kind of the seen as that person?

Rob Barreca: 55:27

Yeah, I mean, that's, this is probably my biggest achievement. And my career was, I guess, you know, creating something that attracted somebody, like Claire Sylvan, who are, who is our CEO, now to join the company. Because, you know, still, you know, she's been with the company for two and a half years, I think. Yeah, so, yeah, so back end in October, I think, doesn't 21. You know, she and I had been colleagues and kind of, we would chat probably for like, 18 months prior to that, we would just have like a monthly call, just like, you know, we enjoyed talking to each other. And at the time, you know, she, she was part of the team that founded your that, that started Whole Foods here in the state. So she, she used to get the whole foods mail delivered to her house. So like, he was there, from before, there was even a Whole Foods in Kahala. And he was working there for 10 years, and really, really the driving force behind growing that local food program, they're so at their peak, they were purchasing, you know, she had the purchasing power and develop the relationships and supply building to buy $12 million of local product a year, you know, for comparison FarmLink right now. We're purchasing I probably this year, we'll end up purchasing, you know, close to 3 million, maybe two and a half million of, you know, money to farms. So, yeah, you know, Claire, and I were chatting, just on that monthly call for a year and a half or so. And she was at M’ao organic farm, which is, I think, one of the most incredible organizations in the whole state. I'm actually wearing the t shirt today, coincidentally. And Gary and Kukui, and Callie and Derek and everybody else, just Yeah, so amazing. And they're one of our biggest suppliers now, but Claire, Claire was, was working at M’ao for a few years, and then I think she was just, you know, saw, she was she was looking for the next thing, a way to a way to be more impactful, you know, maybe on on the, this, like intermediary place where we said, and so just in our conversation, it just kind of evolved, I think she heard me sharing, you know, that I felt like, you know, I, I have, I have my certain things that I'm just drawn to the types of work that I'm drawn to. And while I love all the, all the humans, it's, you know, I'm just not the right guy for that role. And, you know, I like starting things. But I don't necessarily like being the center of attention, or, you know, having some of those pressures or having to navigate some of, you know, a growing organization, there's just a lot of human challenges. And just ensuring you know, that, like, you're really taking care of the people inside the company. And also a lot of strategic thinking that, you know, I just, I saw that, like, I wasn't super happy in that role. And I think, you know, I had enough time away from my, like, tech career burnout, that I was really kind of missing that and also just being like, I want to be impactful and effective. And like my highest and best use really like I just I knew and know that it is working on the technology side. So kind of knowing that FarmLink needed somebody better in the CEO role, and that you know, I would be happier and and better in a CTO type role. So I was super surprised that Claire was even, you know, at all interested in it just because I sort of, I felt like she was just another echelon higher But yeah, I think she saw, she saw the potential and of what we're building. And then I think also, you know, she had built this incredible local purchasing program at, at Whole Foods, which was super meaningful, you know, $12 million bucks a year. And they, they co developed a lot of products with folks and encouraged some producers to get organic certification because, like, you know, there's, there's a market for that. And, you know, really was super inclusive, which is, I think, a spirit that she's brought in, you know, I, when, when, when FarmLink started, you know, that we had, we had a requirement that you had to be certified organic, or, you know, we had to ensure that you were, you know, following organic practices, but just hadn't gone through certification. And I think I've evolved there a lot, like, you know, our banana farm that gives running is USDA certified organic, I'm still a total proponent of organic, but realizing the sort of, I want it to be for something and to build something as comparative being against something or wanting to destroy something, or exclude a way, a way of being, and wanting to, you know, broaden the tent. Like, you know, we don't let everybody in, and I think there's some producers that like, we will never work with, because we don't agree with what what they do, either the human or the, the ecology side. But yeah, really excited about, you know, working with somebody that has helped, you know, evolve the whole organization and the mission, and be in a much more like constructive, generative strategy, you know, taking a more constructive, generative strategy to try to, like, get more people into this and say, hey, if we work together, and we communicate, and we collaborate, like we can build something better than actually everybody's going to want, versus trying to say, like, you are bad, like, you should not exist or not do your thing anymore, and we're only going to work on this. It's also just a practical thing, you know, there's there's only so many people that are willing to actually produce food. It's really frickin hard in so many ways. And so, you know, anybody that's like, willing to put themselves out there and grind and be, you know, be the plant scientist, the chemists, the biologist, the plumber, the electrician, you know, the soil scientist, Yachty, the, you know, the driver, the whatever, like, the million things that it is to produce food. Like, we, we want to talk with you, we want to work with you. And something I think that she, she brought into the role and the DNA of the company is, you know, transitioning from, or just recognizing that, like, farm, FarmLink’s role is to be an activist buyer, and to catalyze and encourage, and, you know, actively take part in supply building, and not just expecting other people to figure it out and just come to our door and say, “Hey, I got this stuff, do you want it?” and like, “Sure, well, we'll take it.” and that's, that's kind of the role of, you know, that's, that's how most, you know, buyers work. They, they're, it's, it's not they don't see it's in their best interest to put their money where their mouth is, and like, you know, it takes money and time to like work with producers to help them scale up, help them find capital, find resources, all of these things that FarmLink because we have our mission and we're holding to it have we are 100% locally grown or locally produced product. You know, we we've set those those kind of blinders are those those bumpers on so we can't just be like ah, it'd be so much easier just to like we can buy organic carrots from California for like 30 cents a pound. We don't need to actually like work with a amazing up and coming farmer in on Hawaii Island to help them you know, find resources and grow their certified organic carrot farm you know, in in, you know how that scale up, which is something we're doing. And yeah, so I think I think, you know, it's been such an amazing partnership, to be able to work with Claire and have somebody in that CEO role that's like, it's like, she's, she's incredible. And so I'm so thankful and just motivated, being in the role, but it wasn't, it wasn't an easy transition, you know, it's like, you know, I was I was sort of the, the main founder. And it really, you know, we didn't know what that was gonna look like. And, you know, we just, we just were communicated and, and work through it. And it really, honestly, it probably took, took a couple years to, like, really make that transition like solid. And a lot of intentionality around just how do we how do we communicate? How do we interact? Who, who kind of owns what decisions and making it really clear, like, Okay, this is you own this decision, I can give you my input. But it's your it's your ultimate decision, and finding just the way of organizing ourselves as a, you know, as a company. Really, it's helped that, but it was also just like necessary that kind of like, it forced us to, like, confront some of those things, too, which is, which is, yeah, really, really fun and interesting challenge.

Jim: 1:06:30

And you got, it sounds like you got through the other end of it. So totally, totally nice. And how many employees? Are you up to now? I think pre- COVID, you said four or five?

Rob Barreca: 1:06:40

Yeah, so we're at 34. We just hired one more, we’re 34 employees. And we have I think we have two new job postings out so. Yeah, well, you know, within the next couple of months, we’ll probably be 36.

Jim: 1:06:59

Well, again you mentioned meat, you know, meat products is part of what you offer now. And so it's the kind of all things. So what's next, I guess? What, what do you see in the next few years, we talked about the web platform, but I do see expanding to other islands beyond Oahu? I know you're working with producers on the Big Island, but I don't think there's a FarmLink on any island for delivery except for Oahu. So just going to, what do you think? What do you see coming down the pipe?

Rob Barreca: 1:07:27

Yeah, well, I think one aspect, you just reminded me, we do so many things, and like sometimes i i forget to, you know, touch touch on them. But I do want to talk about the meat thing for a second because it's something interesting we’re doing now. And also kind of, there's a expansive bit of that, but a lot of folks maybe don't know, we have butchers on site. We actually do all of our own like, or a lot of our own meat processing. We work with producer ranchers, on Oahu and on Maui and Hawaii Island. And we will get you know, we we purchase the whole animal often. So, you know, we're purchasing whole beef carcass, whole pig carcass. And, you know, sometimes those are, like, you know, cut into, like, primal, you know, so they can like fit in a big box. But, you know, we're getting that raw, essentially raw product in and then we have amazing butchery you know, actually expanded the term, it's culinary department, that are like cutting steaks, making sausage, roasting bones, making bone broth, lard. So all kinds of amazing stuff there. And you know, that a lot of that is, you know, our, our, again, our producer mission side of wanting to you know, the rancher wants to just be able to sell a whole animal not have to deal with all the processing and only sell the high value cuts in the middle and then be like scrambling trying to figure out what to do with the rest, like the best thing for them sell the whole animal and they can focus on you know, producing really fantastic meat and everything else on their farm. And so that department, you know, we sort of did that out of necessity just because there there wasn't another meat processor that was doing it and of doing it a) for some, some smaller animals and b) you know, even for beef doing it in a way that met our standard. But we are starting to expand that department. And so another wild interesting story. We were purchasing from Naked Cow Dairy on Hawaii Island, from Monique there and you know, unfortunately, she had to, she was shutting down the business she had she, you know, has to move on. And they're really like the only cow dairy in the entire state that was like producing butter, at least, you know, that we know about. If there's another one out there, please contact us. And she was yeah, making this amazing product and purchasing cream from from fantastic partners now at a Meadow Gold dairy over there. And, you know, we wanted to continue to have butter. And so, you know, we asked Monique, if she was open to selling us some of her equipment, and coming and training our butchery staff to to make butter. And so you know, I think last month we started making, you know, few weeks ago, even we started to learn literally churning butter downstairs, you know, and then other times, cutting up whole pigs, among everything else that's going on. So that department is really expanding, and we're trying to figure out where, where are the gaps in the marketplace where there's not a producer making that product already? And does it make sense? And should we and can we, you know, do that in house, at least even for a short period of time, you know, if you found a producer that like wanting to take that on, and we could simplify our operation and focus on kind of getting something else from zero to one, you know, like, like starting starting an industry, you know, not an industry but developing that product, kind of like an incubator. So, so the culinary is kind of a area that we're exploring more and figuring out what what to do there. And then I think, you know, another area on the supply building side that we're we're really interested in is to, again, you know, continue to play a more active role in helping producers increase supply. So, you know, we did a pilot project, we've actually had a pilot project between Kamehameha Schools who was an investor and amazing partner, also the tenant for Hawaii Banana Source, you know, the farm that Gabe’s running that I'm doing the QuickBooks for, and FarmLink. And so, you know, KS has just been on a tear and, you know, really just doing so many amazing things across the ecosystem. And, you know, they're, they serve a ton of meals to on on their, their campuses here in the campus here. And, yeah, they wanted to get more local bananas. So they actually pre purchased 80,000 pounds of bananas, because because we said, hey, we've got this farm, Hawaii Banana Source that needs upfront capital, we had to fix, you know, fix a tractor, purchase a new tractor, get, you know, manure spreader and, and trailer, just like all of these, these capital intensive things that we need to, you know, do it in any kind of efficient way. And we also have a bunch of plants in the ground that like we weren't gonna produce fruit for, you know, 12 months. And so, KS said, Hey, we will give you the capital, and you can pay us back over time, on flexible terms, you know, flexible, like timing, over the next five years in bananas, and that is just like, it's, it's, you know, such a transformational thing. Because it's, it's a, it's a vote of confidence, for sure. And then it's saying, like, Hey, you don't have to figure out where to market that. It's not just like a loan that you got to pay back on this fixed schedule, even though like plants just don't operate like that, especially, you know, maybe in 30 years, you know, we'll have it all super dialed in down to, you know, the day of the week, you're gonna get that thing but like, things happen. It's hard, like growing and building a farm. And they really understand that at Kamehameha Schools and so yeah, like, Kiachalk, and Tyson and the rest of the team there. Then hey, let's let's do this, and FarmLink is actually sort of like the facilitator in that. So, you know, we like the contract is kind of with FarmLink and then FarmLink has a contract with Hawaii Banana Source. And so you know, FarmLink if, if needed it can find another banana producer, you know, in periods of, you know, low, low yield on on the banana on Hawaii Banana Source’s farm. And, you know, like, it's, there's a lot of logistics to work out and just like accounting and like making sure all of that's, that's good, but you know, we've, we've started to kind of like figure all that stuff out. And that's been really powerful and we want to we want to find other producers to do that with either match them up, you know, directly with funders, like we don't need to be in the middle of it. But for this case, it made sense, you know, sort of from a delivery logistics standpoint, so for sure, you know, just trying to be more active in supply building. Yeah, it's, it's a really exciting and just needed thing. And yeah, it just, it's got so many so many positive impacts on the, you know, local economy and ecology to and just, you know, our future growth plans to have that product next year, or the year after

Jim: 1:16:06

I'll add my voice to kudos to KS for what they're doing for the Hawaii food systems in so many ways. We have a couple of podcasts, actually Seeds of Wellbeing podcasts that we've done with the folks at KS and one of them is talks a little bit about the their goal of having 50% local food by 2025. And so I think that sounds like your banana initiative is maybe a piece of that puzzle for them.

Rob Barreca: 1:16:36

For sure, yeah. And I was pretty impressed. They're already they're already, you know, I forget what the number was, but I think it was like 20ish percent. Like they're, they've made a lot, a lot more progress than other folks who I think are, you know, have this, yeah, have more lip service than actual action on the ground. So yeah, I'm stoked on it.

Jim: 1:16:59

And then on some islands, especially, I think, because, like, and l’ll ask, another time just maybe selfishly, because I'm on the Big Island. But do you think that you think that FarmLink we'll ever have food delivery on the Big Island or is that, like, you got to get a few years to make sure things are stable on Oahu, before you look at expanding or maybe never at

Rob Barreca: 1:17:21

Yeah, you know, we a lot, we get this question from all. all the islands, all the, you know, pretty often, we don't have any plans to do that yet. You know, there's, you know, most of the population is on Oahu, and, you know, we're not, you know, financially full disclosure, like we are, we are not a profitable company, we're not breaking even, we're still heavily dependent on grants, grants and investments. So, you know, we really want to want to figure our stuff out here, where, where most of the, the density is. And if we nail it here, and there's no other folks on the on the neighbor islands, that, you know, we can help lift up, because maybe there's somebody trying to do it over there. But maybe we can help them on the software side and best practices and, you know, folks can get consumers can get the same benefit that we don't necessarily need to expand. So, I mean, that's an option, but like, who knows, you know, we might we might expand down the road when we've got everything figured out. But yeah, we'll see one one step at a time,

Jim: 1:18:33

Well you can't blame me for asking. I get it. Maybe that'll be on my list of questions to ask you in a couple of years as well. But But this the Seeds of Wellbeing podcast that that we're recording this for, is focused on helping Hawaii ag producers on all the islands. So I guess any, any words of advice or any parting wisdom you'd want to share with our target audience before we sign off?

Rob Barreca: 1:19:06

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's anything novel that hasn't been shared before. But I'm even, you know, we have lots of challenges that we see at FarmLink, and, you know, this week, this week is no different. You know, it's always always some, some new challenge, but I, I would, I think, just encourage, encourage folks to, you know, focus on building versus excluding or destroying as, as I mentioned earlier, like, try to try to combat any cynicism of, you know, thinking like, Oh, those people over there, they're, they're evil or they're, they're doing something wrong. I don't want to work with them like you can always save that for later but like, try to like encourage and credit, just encourage everybody to, you know, if you think a farm is doing something you don't like, or a company is doing something you don't like, or a human is doing something new like, like, instead of just like writing them off, be curious, try to push the cynicism first step two, and just go engage, try to build something and create something and be collaborative and be communicative and transparent. And like, put the effort in, it's harder, it's more uncomfortable, but the outcome is so much frickin better. And then if it turns out, they really are an asshole, then, okay, you can go to the other thing, like there's, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. But yeah, try it, try to create something, try to do it together and, and just be open and curious. And persistent. Jim, you're, you're super persistent. And I think that's, that's such an essential attribute to like, it's not easy. You're gonna hit a million challenges, but try to just, you know, relish that moment and those challenges and try to surround yourself with, with people either, you know, inside your company, or is you're just a single operator in your social network. You know, shoot me shoot me an email, whoever, surround yourself with people that, you know, help help you continue to do that. And, yeah, we we can do it again. I'm way more optimistic than than ever. And yeah, it's there's there's a lot of exciting stuff to do together, for sure.

Jim: 1:21:39

We want to thank Rob for sharing his manao, and sharing his story of FarmLinks past, present and future. If you want to know more about some of the topics we discussed. Look for those links in the show notes. I think we've shown here proven that you're a geek for good but it sounds like maybe a farmer for good to as well. So, Yeah, I definitely try to do it for good. I am a geek, I'm a recovering farmer. That's what I like to say. Gade and there all crew and Laarni growin’ flowers. They're yeah, they're the real farmers. My my fingernails are real clean nowadays. Well, thanks for all that you're doing for for the island, for the islands, and for the farming community. It's, it takes all the pieces right and, and some of it farmers, ag producers don't want to do like you've been describing. And like we kind of all know we're we don't really want to have to do it all but are kind of required to if you're small scale. The things that you bring, can really alleviate some of the, or take off, take the things off our list that we really don't want to have to do, many of us. So thanks. Thanks again.

Rob Barreca: 1:22:52

Yeah, well, thank you. I mean, telling the story and getting the word out there and bring to, bringing people together like like you do. It's super important to it's totally part of it. So yeah, I appreciate you and what you are you doing here.

Thao Le: 1:23:08

The intention of these podcast series is to create a safe space for respectful and inclusive dialogue. With people from across a broad and diverse spectrum involved in growing and making accessible the food we share together. A diversity of voices perspectives and experiences can serve to deepen mutual understanding, to spark creative problem solving, and provide insight into the complexities of our agriculture system. If you, our listeners, have experiences with Hawaii agricultural ecosystem from indigitous methods, permaculture smallholder farmers to large including multinational agricultural, industrial companies, and everywhere in between, and you would like to share your story, please contact us. We welcome your voices and perspectives.