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Tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode of Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast. Join Francine L. Shaw, the savvy CEO of Savvy Food Safety, and Matthew Regusci, compliance connoisseur and founder of Fostering Compliance, as they serve up the latest in food safety with a side of laughter.
Explore the ins and outs of food systems, responsible food practices, and food safety regulations. Stay informed about food safety awareness and the not-so-occasional food recall. Delve deep into the complexities of the food supply chain with our dynamic duo, who blend expert insights with a pinch of food safety humor. Whether you're knee-deep in the food safety industry or just passionate about what's on your plate, this podcast promises a fresh take on staying safe while eating well.
Expect candid conversations, personal anecdotes, and occasional guest appearances that spice up the discussion. Shaw and Regusci bring their combined decades of experience to the table, making each episode as informative as it is entertaining. From industry trends to must-know food safety news and regulations, they've got your back (and your lunch).
In essence, Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast is not just about imparting information; it's about fostering a culture of food safety. By shedding light on the intricacies of the food supply chain and the latest food safety news, it aims to promote awareness and encourage responsible food practices among consumers and industry professionals alike.
When it comes to food safety, knowledge is power, and a good laugh is the best seasoning. At the heart of every episode is one golden rule: Don't Eat Poop!
DEP E96
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Fracnine L Shaw: There are studies out there that show hypochlorous acid does kill Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, Norovirus. I've posted this information.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, you have.
Fracnine L Shaw: Why, why are they not looking at it and using it?
Matt Regusci: Because obviously,
Fracnine L Shaw: I've written articles.
Matt Regusci: Lawsuits and recalls and outbreaks are significantly cheaper than hypochloric acid.
Fracnine L Shaw: There are companies out there that are using it. It's just. I don't know if it's because it's new. I don't know if it's because it's something that isn't talked about. It's food safe for God's sake.
intro: Everybody's got to eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine L Shaw and Matt Ragusi for a dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't.
Eat. Poop. Don't eat poop.
Matt Regusci: Hello, hello, Francine.
Fracnine L Shaw: Hey, Matt. How's it going?
Matt Regusci: Good.
We're almost to our hundredth episode. Can you believe that?
Fracnine L Shaw: I know. It's so exciting.
Matt Regusci: This episode launching is 96. 96. What do we got to do for 100?
Fracnine L Shaw: I don't know. We need to come up with something fun and exciting.
Matt Regusci: Do you think we should eat poop live on a podcast?
We should do something outrageous.
Fracnine L Shaw: From the local news and the way it sounds, we've been eating poop all year.
Matt Regusci: Oh my God, that is so true.
Fracnine L Shaw: You can count on me.
Matt Regusci: Oh my gosh.
So we are going to talk about a post Francine made on LinkedIn because it is so prophetic, Over the last year and she and I were riffing on this and we're like, Oh my gosh, we need to just start recording this because this is exactly what we need to do on our podcast to wrap up the year.
We're getting to the end here. This is the end. Yeah, this is going to be our first episode in January or the last episode.
Fracnine L Shaw: Oh, wow. Yeah.
So before we get started, I want to thank Steve from Eagle Protect for these amazing green gloves.
Matt Regusci: Oh my gosh.
Fracnine L Shaw: I love them. And the one thing that we can be assured of.
What is it, Matt? Do you know? They're poop free.
Matt Regusci: That is true. They are tested and approved to be poop free.
Fracnine L Shaw: Oh my god. I love them.
Matt Regusci: So, okay. Right.
So really, I know you guys went back and forth on LinkedIn on this and he sent you over gloves. What are you going to use those gloves for?
Fracnine L Shaw: So, you know what I really love? My nails fit in these too.
Matt Regusci: So now you can go work on a line again.
Fracnine L Shaw: So easy to make happy. No, there are occasion. I have them at home. I have them. Yeah, I have them at my house. I was so excited. There are occasion when I use, do you never use gloves at home?
Matt Regusci: Never. My wife does because my wife, we have medically fragile kiddos.
So she'll throw them on when she does stuff like cleaning of.
Fracnine L Shaw: I don't like it when stuff gets under my fingernails, especially raw meat. I will wear gloves. Because I don't like it when that grossness sits underneath my fingernails.
Matt Regusci: So I find this fascinating. And for someone who doesn't like things getting underneath their fingernails, you have created the immense possibility that there will always be something underneath your fingernails because they're like 14 inches long.
You're like Edward Scissorhands. Shut up. You don't have to be like an inch beyond your finger dip.
Fracnine L Shaw: I like them to look nice, but I don't like the grossness. Like. When I'm making food and stuff, granted, I know the risk and there's always some kind of funk underneath there, whether I can see it or not that, like, when I'm cooking, I don't want that grossness.
Like, the raw meat grossness underneath and if I were to go in a restaurant in the back of the house. I would not have them. Well, so for anybody that's judging me.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Fracnine L Shaw: Yeah.
Matt Regusci: I used to, yeah. My beard was a lot rimmer when I had to be in facilities all the time. Cause the big beard or whatever is, you know, they don't really like that in the facility and beard net sucks, so.
Fracnine L Shaw: So one of the things that is real important to me and I talk about when I speak is that I think it's important that consultants and professionals, leadership, health inspectors set an example.
Matt Regusci: Yes.
Fracnine L Shaw: When they're in facilities. So speaking is different.
Matt Regusci: Speaking, consulting, talking to people, what our job is now.
I added a lot more complexity to myself this year. Becoming CEO of Ellipse Analytics and running a lab, or running a company that has a lab. Very different than just consulting.
Okay, your message, we need to go through this because this is crazy what you posted on LinkedIn and very true. There are so many comments.
You posted this an hour ago and there are already what, like a dozen comments? Yes, a dozen comments.
Fracnine L Shaw: I was busy so I don't really know, but it was true.
So I love salad. We've been out to eat several times and how often do I order salad? A lot. Yeah, so.
Matt Regusci: And it's funny because if she doesn't order a salad, and I do, Then she spends the whole entire time talking about how good my dinner looks like and I'm like, it's mine, Francine.
Fracnine L Shaw: So I even said to my husband the other night, we went out to get something to eat. I'm like, you know, I'd really like to get a salad, but I'm almost afraid to.
So anyway, my post says for several weeks I've been craving a salad, but every time I turn around another product from the produce aisle is recalled due to an outbreak or a testing issue.
And then I listed just a few of the produce items that recalled in 2024. And that list reads like this: lettuce, mixed greens, salad kits, spinach, arugula, sprouts, cherry tomatoes, avocado, carrots, cucumbers, green onions, celery, green peppers, mushrooms, eggs, raisins, jalapenos, nuts or seeds, vegetable kits.
So if I want to make a salad without using any of those recalled items, the only option that I really have left is radishes.
Matt Regusci: You could make a potato salad.
Fracnine L Shaw: I want a green salad.
These are really good salads.
They have things called lettuce less salads that have like cauliflower and broccoli, but I'm sure if I continue to look past six months, On the recall list, I could probably find cauliflower on that list.
I didn't go back through the entire 12 months. I stopped. I didn't go through the whole year.
Matt Regusci: You missed a big one on here, too. You missed onions.
Fracnine L Shaw: I had green onions, but yeah, onions were on there as well. So, again, I only This was very surface. I didn't deep dive into the recalls.
Matt Regusci: You also then said, it's frustrating to see so many food recalls.
It's time for the food service industry to get it together. If you were listening, I read these and think what Francine would actually be saying. And so there would be another expletive in this. Get your blank together. More likely enough people getting sick and dying from attempting to sustain their bodies by eating.
And you forgot to put healthily, right? Because a lot of people don't eat salad. They're not going to get it right. And then you said it's essential to prioritize public health to ensure that people can enjoy fresh produce or any other food without fear of contamination.
Now, here is the real reason why you created this post. And I know it is Francine. She said, now, excuse me while I go grab a candy bar. If you've been listening to our podcast since the beginning, that she'll only do the five second rule, if it's chocolate. If she drops chocolate on the ground, she will eat it because she is addicted to chocolate. So, this is just an excuse to feed your addiction.
Maybe. Okay, so, but, okay, I made a joke and somebody who doesn't know me very well obviously posted below that I don't know anything about food. What, like a couple months ago, on, on,
Fracnine L Shaw: a few weeks ago,
Matt Regusci: a few weeks ago, I made a joke about that. This is why people shouldn't eat vegetables. They should eat everything but vegetables.
It's obviously more healthy.
Fracnine L Shaw: When somebody posted below that, that obviously, you know nothing about food. I thought I was going to die because I read the sarcastic tone as I read what you wrote. I heard it.
Matt Regusci: But okay. So this is insane and crazy though. We keep talking about this. So, Darren Detweiler, again, earlier this year, very earlier this year, we did a whole podcast on it, talked about what was going to be the big recall this year.
We've had so many freaking recalls. I don't know which one.
Fracnine L Shaw: It's okay. So Boar's Head is going to have to win if we're going to think I'm a winner because people died.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. Like air quotes winner.
Fracnine L Shaw: It's the most devastating because people died.
How deep do we want to go into this? Because Okay, so people died, but the rest of these, my God, how many hundreds of people have gotten sick because and those illnesses we don't know could have devastating lifelong effects.
As a result of
intro: truth,
Fracnine L Shaw: these outbreaks, we don't even know because oftentimes the media is okay. So we've had this outbreak. This number of people have gotten sick. These many people have been hospitalized, but then that's all we ever hear. We don't hear anything beyond that. And we've talked about this, you know, many times, we never really know if anybody died as a result of these, and it was overlooked or how many people truly died and it's overlooked because they're part of those highly susceptible populations.
Matt Regusci: Right?
Fracnine L Shaw: And they were never tested for the actual pathogen that's making other people sick. You don't know the real numbers at the end of the day, statistically speaking. We make assumptions because of, you know, what the CDC tells us, you know, this many people above and beyond what's actually reported get ill, but those are assumptions.
They're statistics.
Matt Regusci: Okay, this doesn't happen at all, but I wish if in all these articles, we need to talk to Bill about this. This should be something that is a new practice in food safety news. Every single time they list the number of people sick, if they then put in parentheses next to it, what the estimated CDC exponential number should be.
Like a hundred people sick by this E. coli outbreak, which we should talk about a little bit what's going on. So 600 people theoretically sick, that would be intriguing because then it puts a different number, right? Because people just assume that it's only a hundred people sick when that's the wrong assumption.
It was only a hundred people confirmed sick with this particular strand of E. coli.
Fracnine L Shaw: And so we're talking right now about produce is what has been recalled, what has been tested, and what has made people sick. So we can blame Taylor Farms is the name of the week, the name of the month. It's the one that's out there right now.
It's not just Taylor farms. Other people, other brands have also had products recalled that have made people sick, but right now they're the big name that's out there. There are other people that are accountable for these outbreaks as well, because people purchase their products. Okay? So the companies that purchase their products.
They may have had systems in place, but if you have systems in place to check your suppliers and you're not using those systems, You're also responsible for these outbreaks because those systems don't work if you're not using them.
Matt Regusci: Using them consistently. Correct. Yes.
Fracnine L Shaw: So you do your supplier verification and you go out to the facility and you check it one time and you never go back or you don't look at your documentation as it comes in because you just assume that it's okay and you don't look at it as thoroughly as you should when it's submitted or any number of things, you're as guilty as they are. Yes. In my opinion.
Matt Regusci: Or you find something and there's supposed to be a corrective action, and then there's no follow up on the corrective action.
I've had conversations with companies in the past about software, for instance, like a big part of my career has been evaluating, helping to develop, and Market and sell software for compliance. You would not believe you probably would believe, but maybe some of our listeners would not believe how many companies have said to me, well, I really don't want to digitally track this because there's like a timestamp on this.
And so then people will know if I didn't do this correctly or yeah, if I find something though, and then there's corrective action, That has like a timeline on this. And I'm gonna be held to this with this software. I'm like, that's actually the point. Okay, this is good. We're having this conversation because you're probably not going to be a client of mine.
And I'd rather have that be figured out very fast before I waste my time. But yeah, that's precisely the reason why you have this software. You have to do those things.
Fracnine L Shaw: Let me explain this to you. When we build this software and we build in these digital timestamps for the images and for the comments, we do that to protect you.
Matt Regusci: Well, actually, I don't care. Like they're doing that to protect themselves. Yes.
Fracnine L Shaw: But then we explain to them it's and they're like, no, we don't want the timestamp. So we don't want what, let, you know, Because then everybody, and it's like, what, what is the matter with you? No, I know I've had those conversations.
Matt Regusci: Yes. Yeah, we even had the same issue you and I when I was at RisePoint and we did that project together for COVID. People were freaked out about buying and implementing that software because of all the hype around it and we're like, we're trying to help you so you protect yourself. Like, you're supposed to be checking all these people.
Remember the whole entire checklist for each individual person when they showed up?
It was built too well.
Absolutely correct. We should have just had an intern. If you were to pencil whip something, What would you create so that we could sell it to the masses? We'd have to not care and we care too much. It's unfortunate. There's a lot of people in the industry that make a lot of money because they don't, they actually don't care. Yeah. Okay.
So the big one right now, and this is going to keep unraveling, I'm sure we're gonna be talking about this in January a lot, is this huge E. coli outbreak in lettuce right now.
There's a huge outbreak in St. Louis. There is a caterer who catered a wedding, funeral, school events, and like over a hundred people got sick with E. coli and there's a couple kiddos in the hospital because of it. And the multi state outbreak, where as of recording this, almost 70 people have been sick in 10 states, that's linked together.
So they're finding a link to that. I don't know if it's going to be done because we're talking about romaine and iceberg lettuce. So the shelf life on that is pretty short, but that could be it, or it could continue to grow, but man, you're right, Francine, like this year for vegetables, the whole produce industry has been kicked in the nuts, man.
Fracnine L Shaw: So this is the thing. Obviously what they're doing is not working. What are they doing? I hate to state the obvious. Clearly it's not working. Our industry does not like change. They hate change. It's like pulling teeth to get them to change anything. They need to change something. What do they do? We can sit here all day long and say there's no kill step for produce.
How do they clean their produce before it hits the shelf?
Matt Regusci: It depends. If it's just bulk produce, they don't clean it.
They just cut it and stick it into the box and set it out. If it's processed, then it depends on the processing, right? And you have like dunk tanks, you have spray bars, you have all of that as it's going through the process.
Fracnine L Shaw: So I would challenge the retail industry to read the information on hypochlorous acid. I really would. But there are studies out there that show hypochlorous acid does kill Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, Norovirus. I've posted this information.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, you have.
Fracnine L Shaw: Why? Why? Are they not looking at it and using it
Matt Regusci: because obviously I've written article lawsuits and been recalls and outbreaks are significantly cheaper than hypochloric acid.
Fracnine L Shaw: There are companies out there that are using it. It's just. I don't know if it's because it's new. I don't know if it's because it's something that isn't talked about. It's food safe for God's sake.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. We need to have seriously, like in the beginning of this year of 2025, an episode on this, because I just don't think there's enough information.
Literally what I'm finding out about this from you, Francine, and not at any of the conferences or anything that we're going to, there is definitely not enough information on this out there about this.
Yeah, you know another one too that we need to get on here is there are technologies now for it's not irradiation unfortunately anything that looks smells or tastes like irradiation even though it's not irradiation so you can do like electric shocking of fresh vegetables now.
And there's technology right now out there that kills all pathogens. It's over a five log reduction. But nobody will accept it in produce, like in the retail side of things, because you have to put radiation label on it. And a lot of people freak out about irradiation. I don't. I'd rather 100 percent not worry about dying acutely of E. coli than having a label. Or Listeria.
I'm not as worried about Listeria, for me.
But yeah, the industry in general.
Fracnine L Shaw: Old. I'm on that old group.
Matt Regusci: I think old is relative risk. You were like the youngest old person.
Fracnine L Shaw: Realistically, I fall in that old group.
Matt Regusci: That is true.
I had a, this is insider baseball, but I had a call with Francine a couple, what was like a month ago because of different projects that Francine and I are doing.
And I was like, so Francine, like how long do you want to keep working? Do we see doing this type of stuff for the next decade? Or do you want to be done in the next couple of years? Because in the next decade, you're going to be like, Way past needing social security. You've already been on it for a decade.
No, by then, a decade from now. Well, maybe not. You're like, I'm going to work until I die. Then, that will probably be after I die.
Fracnine L Shaw: I hope I don't work until I die, but I don't know. On some level, I don't ever see myself sitting at home knitting.
Matt Regusci: No, you are definitely not the grandma that knits. No, although that would be funny to get a blanket from you, a knitted blanket from you.
It'd be like all cattywampus. There'd be holes in there where you miss spots and it's not because you're very observant and you like things to be very specific like our marketing. By the way, guys, if you don't know all of our branding, all of our marketing, all that stuff is done by Francine. Because anal keeps coming up is the word, but that's not really the right word to describe you.
But you are very specific, which is great for food safety, but I can see you being not that way for knitting and just being like frustrated and ticked off and damn it. Okay. There's going to be this random big ass holes in my quilt or my blanket.
Fracnine L Shaw: I was reading a book the other day and it was talking about knitting and it said there are three steps. Knit, purl, and rip out. I would be on that rip out phasea lot.
Matt Regusci: There's one quarter of a blanket done. You're like, nah, I'm done.
Fracnine L Shaw: Maybe I should just try it on a podcast.
Matt Regusci: Okay.
So back to this though, again, outbreaks or recalls this year, lettuce, mixed greens, salad kits, spinach, arugula, sprouts, sprouts is not surprising.
Sprouts is like a perpetual expectation of some sort of outbreak. If you've ever gone into a sprouts facility, you'll understand why. They just grow these things in a vat. If there's any type of contamination at all in these vats or these laundry machine looking type of things. Any type of contamination at all in one of those seeds, one.
And they do thousands of seeds when they make these sprouts at one time. One, one of them has contamination. The whole entire vat is going to have contamination. So, yeah, sprouts, cherry tomatoes, avocados, carrots, cucumbers, green onions, regular onions in quarter pounder, hamburgers, little tiny diced onions, also, which wasn't on this list, celery, green peppers, mushrooms, eggs.
Although, if you're going to have an egg on a salad, I'm guessing you would have it hard boiled, so that probably, you probably wouldn't be worried about that. Jalapenos. Raisins. Raisins also is interesting, too, because how they grow or process raisins is they just put, have you ever seen this before? They just put paper down, and they pick the grapes off and they lay it on the paper and it just dries outside.
At least that's how they do it in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Nuts and seeds. And vegetable kits. Vegetable kits is an interesting one because you couldn't buy a vegetable kit just recently, huh? You were gonna buy it for Thanksgiving?
Fracnine L Shaw: Let's talk about what's not on here. Protein. If you get a protein on top of your salad, salmon was recalled.
Matt Regusci: Liverwurst though. Liverwurst would not be a good one to be adding to your salad right now.
Fracnine L Shaw: Okay, well I wasn't gonna go with liverwurst.
Matt Regusci: You're a big liverwurst fan. You hit the right age profile, Francine.
Fracnine L Shaw: I've never had liverwurst. Never. I don't even know.
Matt Regusci: I have. It's not bad.
Fracnine L Shaw: Salmon was recalled. You're gonna cook these, but still, they made the recall list.
Matt Regusci: Bill Marler just talked about the Kobe beef that was on there too. It's so fascinating. Even if, okay, this is how my brain works, which is probably not the best for food safety all the time, but it's my own decisions.
If you were to tell me that this Kobe beef had E. coli on it, I'd just be like, I'm still good. I'm going to, I'll just cook it a little bit more. I'm not letting that go to waste. I wouldn't do it tartar.
Fracnine L Shaw: You're like, do you know what I paid for this? I'm eating it.
Matt Regusci: 100%. Do you know how much is it? That's what I would say to them. Wait, there's E. coli on this? Oh, okay. It's like a dented can. So is this discounted then?
Fracnine L Shaw: Bill and I are saying expensive doesn't mean safe and Matt's saying can I get a discount?
Matt Regusci: That's exactly correct. Bad year. Hopefully 2025 is better.
Fracnine L Shaw: So it's not even slowed down. You can't take a breath before the next one hits the paper.
Matt Regusci: Now, mind you, usually in fall, early winter is when we hear about E. coli and leafy greens.
Like we had this conversation last year. Every year we're like, oh yeah, when's the new outbreak in lettuce going to be? Who's it going to be? Where's it going to come from? Is it going to be Salinas or Santa Maria or Yuma? Like where's this going to be?
Fracnine L Shaw: You just made a good point. Every year we talk about it and every year, where's it going to be this year? So, what are we going to do different?
Matt Regusci: I'm guessing that next year we're going to have very similar content.
I get asked this question all the time. I don't know if you get asked this question. How do you guys come up with the content for your show? Is it hard for you to come up with content for Don't Eat Poop?
And I'm like, no. The industry creates it every single time. There's always content. There's always some brand out there trying to kill their consumers. So, yeah.
Fracnine L Shaw: Like beginning, I can remember being concerned about what are we going to talk about?
Matt Regusci: Yes. I remember that being a conversation.
Fracnine L Shaw: People don't want to listen.
What are we going to talk about? And we didn't intend to talk about recalls and the safety of the current Items that we eat every single day, like all the time. But good Lord, that's like all there is right now.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Fracnine L Shaw: Companies are national brands are out there making people sick and killing them every day.
And we've got to produce company that can't seem to get their crap together because they're out there spreading it among their items that they're selling.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. Yeah. And I remember, I mean, we interviewed Andy Kennedy. That's going to come out later on, but he and I, When we were starting our podcast, Andy and I were discussing about creating our company, New Era Partners for FISMA 204, the new traceability rule.
And I remember him saying, Okay, you're literally going to create a podcast with Francine called Don’t Eat Poop! ? Yes. Right before you and I become a consultant for a new rule paced by the FDA to the industry. Yes. What are you going to talk about, Matt? Well, we're going to talk about all these different types of stuff.
Francine and I are still trying to figure it out. We're talking about like outbreaks. You're talking about outbreaks. Yeah. We're like people get sick and die. Yeah. And you're not going to change your personality at all. No. So are you telling me that you are going to make light of death and illness?
Well, the way you make that sound doesn't sound good, Andy. Yeah, Matt. That's not though. It's not good. I was like, okay, well, we almost didn't do it because of that. I almost bowed out and Francine was like no Matt. No, you what are you talking about? No, we're doing this. But obviously there's a listenership for this, but that is.
Fracnine L Shaw: This is the thing we don't take this lightly.
We take it very seriously. And we're very passionate about what we do. We both have a sense of humor that is very unique. There's no question. On the other side of that, we both shed tears for this business.
Matt Regusci: Yes, just last podcast.
Fracnine L Shaw: You know, yeah, and if we allowed that to happen all the time, we'd need to be heavily medicated.
You have to, I believe, in order to stay sane, have a bit of a unique sense of humor in order to deal with all the doom and gloom that is out there. I feel for these people whose families have gotten sick and people who have died and the people with the long term disabilities and it should never happen.
And there's no one, I know what one of Andy's concerns were, but there's nobody better to help the industry than the people that do what we do, because we understand both sides of it. There are just a lot of issues right now.
Matt Regusci: Yes. And obviously he came on and talked about it. He's a huge fan of our show too, but you could understand the concern because I, I remember you talking to a bunch of people in the industry as well.
And so did I about this. And they were very concerned about how we were going to pull this off. What, what, what are you two doing? And how is it like, I remember you being like, am I putting, we even did a whole talk on this. Am I putting my career in the dumpster fire? What, by doing this?
Fracnine L Shaw: Well, concern myself before you convinced me that it was going to be, it'll be okay.
Because my reputation, I had built such a clean, I don't know if that's the right word. But we did not have the same followers. No, let's just say that.
Matt Regusci: No. And that goes back to like, you were very good about your brand.
Fracnine L Shaw: I could not post the same things you posted and get away with it.
Matt Regusci: Do you mean like just WTF on top of it?
Fracnine L Shaw: Followers would not have thought that was funny.
Did you know that we've mixed those followings nicely through this and have a huge following, which is amazing.
Matt Regusci: I know. And it grows. We doubled. So that'll be something we need to talk about probably next episode is what we achieved, our goals that we achieved and what we didn't achieve because there are some that we did it.
That was. A couple of them are largely my fault because I decided to change my, not career, but job halfway into the year. And then what we did achieve and what our goals are going to be for next year, because I think that would be interesting. We are doing things that we did not think we were going to do when we started this podcast.
I think that would be interesting for our listeners to hear about what we're planning on doing in 2025.
Fracnine L Shaw: We're both just astonished at the things that we have accomplished, even though we didn't do some of the things that we. Thought we would get to this year.
Matt Regusci: One of the goals that we had that we just absolutely blew out of the water was double our listenership.
We blew that out of the water. Thank you all for continuing to download and listen to our podcast. Cause yeah, we thought, man, doubling every year for the next few years, that would be awesome. And we like tripled. Or even more, our listenership definitely tripled our subscribers, almost quadrupled our subscribers to the podcast.
Pretty cool. Very cool. Okay.
So the title of this episode is Francine wants a poop free salad. You might have to wait till 2025 Francine.
Fracnine L Shaw: And buy some local produce. Or a garden. Yeah, a garden. We have too many deer for a garden.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, you'll have to get like a greenhouse or something.
Fracnine L Shaw: Can you see, Tim, my husband, when I'm like, honey, in the midst of everything else that you're doing for me right now, I need you to build a greenhouse.
Matt Regusci: I can see him putting it back to you, like, are you actually going to use this greenhouse? Are you going to be out there? Every single day.
Fracnine L Shaw: I thought maybe you would plant some vegetables for me in that greenhouse .
Matt Regusci: So hun, what you're asking me to do is in my abundance of free time, one build you a greenhouse and then two garden in that greenhouse.
Fracnine L Shaw: Because your deer would eat all of my vegetables.
Matt Regusci: Okay, well then honey, just let me buy more tags.
Fracnine L Shaw: We live on a farm. You know who we haven't talked about for a long time, and I wonder what he's doing? Barfly777. What's he doing? We haven't even checked in on him for a while. No.
I need to know.
Matt Regusci: Three years from now, when we look back at the evolution of our podcast, that barfly consistent secondary part of our episodes are going to be like, what the hell were we thinking?
Fracnine L Shaw: People ask about him. Do they really? They ask you about him? Yes. He comes up. Haven't you seen him? People talk about him.
No,
not him. His barfly.
Yes.
I know. It's just so absurd that
Matt Regusci: on that note, don't eat your poop.