The Startup CPG Podcast


In this special two-guest Founder Feature, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Gonzalo Bisquerra, founder of Happy Caapi, and Chris Kilham, the botanical expert known as Medicine Hunter, to talk about the first non-hallucinogenic supplement made from the ayahuasca vine.


Gonzalo spent two decades in sourcing and supply chain for major CPG companies before an ayahuasca ceremony in Panama changed the course of his life. After connecting with two friends developing an early prototype, he spent four years navigating the regulatory, sourcing, and formulation challenges of bringing Happy Caapi to market - a legal, shelf-stable way for people to access the vine's benefits without the hallucinogenic experience associated with full ayahuasca ceremonies. Chris Kilham, who has studied medicinal plants around the world for over 30 years and sat in 135 ayahuasca ceremonies himself, joined as an early advisor and friend of the brand, bringing decades of botanical sourcing expertise and his own published sustainability research on the ayahuasca vine.


Caitlin, Gonzalo, and Chris dig into the important distinction between psychoactive and psychedelic, how the vine alone delivers focus and mood benefits without the visionary effects of the traditional brew, the real story behind ayahuasca vine sustainability and sourcing, and what it takes for brands to work responsibly with botanicals.


Listen in as they discuss:

  • What Happy Caapi is and how it differs from traditional ayahuasca ceremonies
  • The critical distinction between "psychoactive" and "psychedelic," and why it matters for consumer education
  • Gonzalo's personal ayahuasca experience and what inspired him to build a shelf-stable, non-hallucinogenic product
  • Chris's multi-year field research on ayahuasca vine sustainability, published in the American Botanical Council's HerbalGram
  • The science behind how the vine's alkaloids affect mood and focus without producing hallucinogenic effects
  • Why the growing consumer openness to psychedelics and natural alternatives is shaping the timing of this launch
  • Product format decisions, from the current liquid extract to an upcoming single-serve sachet
  • Gonzalo's vision for Happy Caapi as an ingredient platform for other brands, not just a standalone product
  • Chris's advice for CPG brands sourcing and working with botanicals responsibly
  • The safety profile of Happy Caapi and how its alkaloid concentration compares to everyday psychoactive substances like caffeine


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Creators and Guests

Host
Caitlin Bricker
Managing Editor @ Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Chris Kilham
Right now, if you tell people you have something that is a mood boost and it's not going to cause them to see things that aren't there's an openness that wasn't there before. People came up and they had samples and we'd say, come back in 20 minutes. Tell us what you experience. If anything, every single person who came back said, I feel this, and they like what they felt.

00:32
Gonzalo Bisquerra
The more we realize people trying the product, the more I am inspired by just keeping up with this very difficult but very rewarding journey of launching a product that actually works. With Happy Caapi, it works whether you believe in it or not.

00:48
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. We are back with another founder feature and this time it's a special two guest episode. Today I'm sitting down with Gonzalo Bisquerraarra, founder of Happy Caapi, and Chris Kilham, Medicine Hunter is the first non hallucinogenic supplement made from the ayahuasca vine, also known as Banisteriopsis copy, for focus and mood enhancement. Gonzalo spent years in pharmaceuticals before an ayahuasca ceremony changed his life. He's not alone in that. Well, the ayahuasca ceremony part. Chris is a botanical expert and medicine hunter who has traveled the world and studied medicinal plants for over 30 years and has very casually attended 135 Ayahuasca ceremonies. We're diving into the distinction between psychoactive and psychedelic. Why the vine alone offers benefits without the hallucinations, sustainability and sourcing of ayahuasca.

01:43
Caitlin Bricker
And how this product opens the door to plant medicine for people who might not be ready for a full ceremony just yet. We hear from founders on this podcast every week. If you're a brand and want to get new opportunities right in your inbox, text CPG to 833, 605-77002. That's 833-605-7002 and we'll get you hooked up. As always, enjoy. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Gonzalo Bisquerraarra, founder of Happy Caapi, and Chris Kilham, Medicine Hunter. This is a first for me. Usually I only have founders, but today we have a special guest with us. Hi, guys. How you doing?

02:29
Chris Kilham
Good. Caitlin, it's great to see you. It's been quite a while, actually. I'm happy to see you.

02:35
Caitlin Bricker
It's always good to see you. Gonzalo, what's going on with you?

02:38
Gonzalo Bisquerra
I'm so happy we met and then finding out that we have a very good mutual friend here, Chris. Serendipitously, it really is.

02:45
Caitlin Bricker
I met Gonzalo in New York very shortly after seeing your post on LinkedIn, Chris. And I recognized him. And of course I saw the Happy Caapi shirt and I had to go up and introduce myself. And I'm sure we'll get into how we know each other. But before we do that, Gonzalo, can you tell us what Happy Caapi is?

03:05
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Great question. Happy Caapi is the first non hallucinogenic supplement from the ayahuasca vine. It comes in a very nice bottle and it's a natural supplement for focus and mood enhancement, something that doesn't exist in the market. And we are very fortunate to be a communicator of such a beautiful plant from the Amazonian medicine tradition. We are blessed to be creating a path for people to connect with natural alternatives for focus and mood, which are such an important part of our lives, isn't it?

03:36
Caitlin Bricker
Yes, they are. And some of us have a very hard time with both of those things. Focus and we. I know you brought a special guest with you today. I also brought a special little guest with me and it is a piece of ayahuasca vine from my trip to Peru with Chris and his wife Zoe from 2018.

03:57
Gonzalo Bisquerra
I have held onto this ayahuasca trip, no less.

04:00
Caitlin Bricker
Yes.

04:01
Chris Kilham
Right.

04:02
Caitlin Bricker
Some pretty good context to add right there. Yes.

04:05
Chris Kilham
Yeah, that's sweet to see. That's sweet to see.

04:08
Caitlin Bricker
I keep it in a very special high up place where my daughter cannot mess around with it, although she's always very curious. But you know what? Not now, later in life. So I have to ask the obvious question, Gonzalo. Why Happy Caapi and why now?

04:26
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Well, I first experimented with the mother vine four years ago. And after that beautiful experience, my whole life has changed since then. All for the best, no doubt. Not the easiest, but definitely for the better. I knew I had to bring this experience to many more people. And I met two friends who were developing a prototype of a non hallucinogenic ayahuasca product. And it had a cute capybara logo in a very not so pretty, but still pretty bottle. And I got hooked. And they asked if I could help them create and launch a product that people like, their parents and their siblings, who won't likely go to a full ayahuasca ceremony, still like to have benefits from the plan. So that's why it exists. I definitely was hooked in.

05:14
Gonzalo Bisquerra
And then the three of us got into labs, lawyer rooms, and cons rooms and in rooms where we met Chris, actually we realized we had something really special which was a way for everybody that wants to experience Venisteriopsis capi to grab a bottle from a shelf. A legal path to revere or consume this wonderful plant, which does have non hallucinogenic benefits. As I said, for focus and mood. So that's why the. Why now? It's been four years. It's not easy to launch a brand. I have worked for decades for large CPD companies and it's much easier when you are on the inside of a large FMCG company with tens of thousands of people. It's much more difficult when you're launching something on your own. So it took us a while to find the regulatory path.

06:05
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Of course we want to make sure that we do things the right way, that we have. Sustainability is at the core of everything we do from a packaging to how we live our lives. And also we found that in 2026 the world is shifting the openness to trying natural alternatives, especially psychedelics. And we are getting a lot of traction from a lot of people that would otherwise maybe two years ago wouldn't even want to entertain a conversation. Even though we're a non psychedelic extra, completely legal, there's still an association with the hallucinogenic experience, which we honor. We revert and at the time I think it's perfect.

06:41
Caitlin Bricker
Now I have to agree with you. I am seeing other products pop up on the market that are non psychoactive, non hallucinogenic versions of mushrooms like Amanita. And I also just recently saw a mad honey CPG product as well. So there's definitely a resurgence happening right now. There's certainly a trend that's going on and there's definitely a lot of interest. So Chris, now you, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got connected to Gonzalo and Happy Caapi?

07:13
Chris Kilham
Well, the Gonzalo part is easy. He called me up a while ago and we started to talk. That's the entirety of it. I've been researching medicinal plants in the field actually for longer than I want to admit at this point. It's been, gosh, more than 30 years. And that's not counting my many years of working with food crops in the Great Plains prior to that. So I travel all over the world investigating plants and helping companies, you know, very often to find the next big thing, whether it's a cosmetic ingredient or something else. And it's funny how our industry, the natural products industry, has gone over time We've become more accepting of certain uses of supplements. For example, 25 years ago, you couldn't sell supplements for the heart. You really couldn't. People go, no, no.

08:06
Chris Kilham
If I have a need for my heart, I'm going to go to a cardiologist. Now, of course, there are loads of supplements that we know to beneficial for the heart. And what we saw, maybe starting about 15 years ago, was an openness to supplements, especially botanicals that have brain enhancing properties. Whether you're talking rhodiola, holy basil, panax, ginseng, schisandra, ashwagandha. And so in terms of timing, we have these periods of time when certain applications become accepted. Right now, if you tell people you have something that is a mood boost and it's not going to cause them to see things that aren't there's an openness that wasn't there before. And one of the things that I appreciate about Happy Caapi, were at the Biohackers conference in New York. People came up and they had samples and we'd say, come back in 20 minutes.

09:06
Chris Kilham
Tell us what you experience. If anything, every single person who came back said, I feel this. And they liked what they felt. Nobody came back saying, oh, it makes me grouchy or irritable. So in my work with ayahuasca, I'm very aware that certain Colombian tribes in the turn of the last century were known for engaging in ceremonies only using the vine, not using the leaf, which contains dmt, which gives you the lavish visions with which we're so familiar. And now, granted, they were doing it in extreme concentration and larger amounts. But we know this to be both psychoactive in good positive ways, helping to maintain a higher level of serotonin and dopamine, which are two primary feel good neurochemicals and also safe. The safety of this goes back certainly a couple thousand years that we know of.

10:02
Chris Kilham
So that's how I come to be a friend of Happy Caapi and think it's a good product for sure. And it's something that, at least what I've seen with people who've sampled it, gets a very enthusiastic response.

10:17
Caitlin Bricker
It's interesting because when I first saw Happy Caapi come through on the startup CPG slack, I raised an eyebrow a little bit. I'm not going to lie, Gonzalo. And I thought, what is this? Because I've always had the assumption that it's only ayahuasca if you have the vine and leaves together. So of course, I was wondering about that. Why would this Beneficial to me if it's just the vine. And also, how are you harvesting? What's your sourcing method? And then I saw Chris was associated with your brand. And to me, I thought, okay, this has a stamp of approval. This is legitimate. Because Chris has been working with plants for decades. And ayahuasca vine is something.

11:03
Caitlin Bricker
Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you did two years worth of studies with the ayahuasca vine and sustainability, and it was even published in American Botanical Council's Herbal. Graham?

11:15
Chris Kilham
Yeah, there was a lot of conversation going around in the ayahuasca community that the vine was being ripped out of the forest and it was being depleted at a rapid rate and it was.

11:26
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Almost gone and we needed to panic.

11:28
Chris Kilham
And, oh, my God, what are we going to do? And I was quite suspicious of that. So my Peruvian team and I, we did four different missions to different parts of Loretto and Ukayali provinces in Peru, the main ayahuasca areas. And what we found was a very different story, that while there were areas where it had been harvested out, there were a lot of people cultivating, which is the inevitable future cultivation is where it's at. And in the ayahuasca breadbasket, which is an area that most people will never ever go to because it's way too far away and extremely dangerous. We went there and, I mean, there was ayahuasca every 10ft. So I came away with the understanding that this happens a lot with botanicals.

12:16
Chris Kilham
You have a botanical that is harvested in the wild, it becomes popular, and then people say, we should cultivate this stuff. And that's exactly what's going on with Banisteriopsis, with the vine that is really the half of the ayahuasca brew as we know it.

12:34
Caitlin Bricker
Very good to know. And I feel like that is definitely comforting to know too, because this plant and this brew has had such an impact on so many people's lives. And to now be able to say, okay, it's not in danger, there's more to go around. There are more people that can have this experience. Experience. And now experience it without these psychoactive effects is, again, it's very comforting. Gonzalo, I have to know from you, if you're comfortable sharing, can you give us a little bit of insight into your experience with ayahuasca and what inspired you to then create Happy Caapi and make this a non psychoactive product available for consumers?

13:15
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Of course. Caitlin is open kimono session. So I was going through a, as probably most people, difficult time in My life. And ayahuasca tends to be the last thing people try. Well, for me it was the first thing I tried. I haven't done any assisted psychedelic therapy before, so I went straight for was presented to me or call me however you want to say. And it's a beautiful experience in Panama with lovely music and people that were creating different things, businesses, art, music, products. So when that product was presented to me, literally that first weekend when I had the ceremony, I knew that all of the years of Me Working for PNGs of the world had to be put to a better use. And I think that's what got me to it.

14:05
Gonzalo Bisquerra
With the connections that I have made over time and the knowledge about how supply chain works, how regulatory protocols, quality protocols, TMP certification, branding, ftc, all the acronyms that we can think of, I was now able to put it into bringing an experience that I know people need. Right. And the first inspiration is my brother. He's actually the capybara. If you ever seen our ads, an inflatable capybara, that's him giving it away. Used to drink energy drinks three a day. And after he started taking Happy Caapi, he cannot pass the first one. And then I understood the science behind it. So the alkaloids in capi are very powerful. The most known benefit is that it inhibits MAOs, monoamino oxidized enzymes. And as a result of that, then you get either the DMT to access your nervous system or other alkaloids like caffeine.

14:57
Gonzalo Bisquerra
And so by removing mao, he didn't need to take more energy drinks. That to me paid off the four years of investment just getting my brother off energy drinks and then seeing how other people are getting off bad habits or athletes taking Happy Caapi before they go and perform a martial art, a baseball game. And the more we realize, as Chris was saying, people trying the product, the more I am inspired by just keeping up with these very difficult but very rewarding journey of launching a product that actually works. So supplements is, my boss used to say, is a faith based category. You either believe in them or you don't. If you do, they might work with Happy Caapi. It works whether you believe in it or not.

15:43
Gonzalo Bisquerra
And that is very refreshing in the supplements market to put trust in a bottle or a product or a sachet that you know it's going to do what it's intended to do is going to make you feel more present, more focused. And then as a consequence, over time there will benefits like producing new neurons, like I thought Neurogenesis was a myth and that once you drink too much in college or whatever, those neurons never grow. Well, it's not true with this plant. Not Happy Caapi, but the plant, the vine, you can generate new neurons and then it has so many benefits that it's just when moments when I'm down and everything is going uphill, I try to remember the people that have called me and literally thanked me for just bringing it into a bottle.

16:29
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Because you can always get capi if you go to outside of the US but it's not easy to find capi down the street in this market.

16:37
Caitlin Bricker
I am curious, since you started talking about the format in which people could find supplements, pills, packets, bottles, what is your vision for Happy Capi? You probably have a bottle on you. I would assume so. So it's in a little squirt bottle. What do you picture for the future of Happy Caapi and a retail presence? Are you targeting specific retailers? Are you targeting specific channels? What does that look like for you?

17:05
Gonzalo Bisquerra
So the taste of a product is very important, as I'm sure you know. And the taste of ayahuasca is not great. Okay. And finding the right format for a capi product to taste well has been a challenge. We found that liquid preserved the way that we extracted it is completely non chemical. There's nothing else other than the plant and glycerin and water. And because we want to honor the plant, it's just the plant in a bottle. But the taste of it through a liquid format, if you get to try it, you will see it's actually enjoyable. So we want to maintain that. So what we will launch though as a second phase is a disposable, recyclable, paper based sachet, like power gels. You take power gels before you go running. This is going to be a power gel for your brain.

17:50
Gonzalo Bisquerra
You have a big podcast. You're interviewing big names like Chris, small names like me. You take a pop, you pop one and then you're settled for three hours. The lifespan of the effect is around three to four hours, which is just a lot. You can get a lot done in three hours of focus versus eight hours of distraction. And in terms of retailers, we haven't targeted retailers yet. We are finding that it takes a lot of education and retailers tend to associate it with a illegal product, which is not. We've got a very solid safety and regulatory support for introducing this product in the market. And so we're targeting first consumers, people that want to experience and creating the education and the journey of introducing a new product into such a large market.

18:36
Gonzalo Bisquerra
But the vision is for Happy Caapi to just be the first of many brands that we'll see in Divine, a divine purpose to bring people to the present moment. So we want to help other people create Happy products. We want to help introduce it as an ingredient to other nootropics that want to add something new that is beautifully crafted by nature. So, yeah, this is definitely the first step. And that's, I think, what Chris and I also have a passion for is how do we in that process of expansion of the knowledge of the vine, how do we protect the cultivation of it? And we want to create a protocol of how to grow capi sustainably and then look for places that are already growing capi and augment because the demand will surge.

19:20
Gonzalo Bisquerra
I envision a year from now there will be a Capi ingredient. We are developing the ingredient so that other brands can have a standardized access of Capi. And it's going to be rapidly furious. So we want to be prepared for that.

19:32
Caitlin Bricker
Chris, I'm really curious. From your perspective, you have had many ayahuasca experiences. Do you actually know how many you've had off the top of your head?

19:41
Chris Kilham
Yeah, because I keep journals. I've sat in 135 ceremonies.

19:46
Caitlin Bricker
Okay, all right.

19:48
Chris Kilham
So I've drunk a little bit of ayahuasca over time.

19:51
Caitlin Bricker
Just a few. Just a couple. You've also written the ayahuasca test pilots Handbook. You've had these experiences. You've offered advice to people on how to approach ceremonies. Are you expecting any kind of backlash from people who are very protective about the plant, about ayahuasca in general, who might say, why are you doing this?

20:15
Chris Kilham
I expect backlash from people if you tell them that you like to eat peanut butter sandwiches. And I want to make a comment. Whoever said that supplements is a faith based category is uninformed and cynical. And that's really does a disservice to many tens of millions of people. The fact is that as long as people are cultivating, I mean, I met one man in the Amazon when we did our study. He had 6,000 vines. He makes fencing out of them. Okay? I mean, he runs a center. He's never going to run out of ayahuasca, ever. He has hundreds and hundreds of psychotria viridis bushes too. But the point is that people will object to anything. They'll hear half a sentence and they'll immediately go on a strident campaign against the thing that they don't even Understand. So, yeah, I expect backlash.

21:12
Chris Kilham
But we live in this amazing time in which information is readily available in ways that it was not decades ago. If you go online and you look, for example, at the alkaloids that exist in Banisteriopsis, copy the ayahuasca bottle and you pay attention to the science, you discover that there's an enormous body of science showing very specific levels of and types of brain activity. We're talking elevation of serotonin and dopamine neurogenesis. These things are well documented by people who've never sat in an ayahuasca ceremony. They're scientists doing brain studies. So, yeah, I do expect backlash because people backlash to everything on earth and I don't think that's a reason not to go forward. But what I do think is that means that the information has to be strong enough. That objection among some people doesn't steamroll the product and the category.

22:17
Caitlin Bricker
I think that is totally fair and I think it's a really good observation to make, especially with how people view very many controversial topics. And psychedelics is definitely a controversial topic, but I do think with decriminalization, legalization, etc, it is allowing people to open up to have more of a conversation for these taboo topics that maybe they weren't having years ago. My father in law even was very open to talking about CBD when CBD was in its boom back in 2017, because he wasn't going to talk about cannabis with us in general. And now we're able to have discussions about psychedelics, something I never thought would happen in my lifetime and certainly not his. So this is pretty cool.

23:06
Chris Kilham
One thing I would like to say, because the term has come up repeatedly, there is no question that Happy Caapi is psychoactive. Coffee is psychoactive, tea is psychoactive, chocolate is psychoactive. It is not psychedelic. And I think that part of the education process, Rhodiola rosea is psychoactive. I think we need to be very clear that in nature there are lots of good, safe things that are psychoactive. In other words, they're active in the brain and they work on mood and they are not psychedelic. So part of the challenge with something like this, given that the term ayahuasca always represents something psychedelic. To clarify, yes, this is definitely psychoactive. There's no question about it. That's why it exists. If it weren't psychoactive, there'd be no purpose for it. But it is not psychedelic. So you're not going to see things that aren't there.

24:02
Chris Kilham
You're not going to lose motor Control, you're not going to be disoriented, you're not going to taste music, these things. But I think the language with this is, it's not that it's tricky, but it is an educational process.

24:15
Caitlin Bricker
I think that's a really good distinction. And I probably said non psychoactive several times already.

24:23
Chris Kilham
We have these things available to us, you know, many things. And I think that this product, especially given the very positive results that people got at the Biohackers conference, I think that this product really has legs. And the challenges are to clarify messages, make sure that people don't go completely batshit crazy about, oh, it's gonna ruin the supply of Ayahuasca vine globally. I mean, all of that stuff. I think it's got a great feature.

24:54
Caitlin Bricker
I would love to hear from you, Chris, with all of your years of experience, any advice that you wanna give to other brands that are using botanicals in their products? Advice from you all the time on LinkedIn. But if anybody's not connected with you, what advice can you give them about working with botanicals?

25:13
Chris Kilham
Well, first of all, companies, if they can afford it, have to have somebody in the field. Now, there's a lot of adulteration of botanicals, there's a lot of misidentification of plant parts. Things get expensive and tightly controlled, and people substitute and don't say so. But also, one of the problems that we've seen with some products over time has been a failure to use enough because they want to hit a certain price point. And if you're developing a product for price point, you're developing a product for failure. The idea is to have something truly effective so that when people try it, they go, wow, this is great. I like this. I mean, I think that there are dozens and dozens of factors, but at this point in time, you can't afford not to know the entire chain of trade.

26:07
Chris Kilham
You have to know everything about the source, who's working with it, where it comes from, all the way through to the finished product. If you don't have that, you don't have control of your product. If you do have that, then you do have control of your product.

26:21
Caitlin Bricker
Gonzalo, what green flags would you say there are for people who are looking to work with botanicals and how they approach sourcing?

26:30
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Yeah, so I am a sourcing professional. That's what I spent 20 years. But when it's not your brand, you're not very close to what it is. So if you are launching a botanical brand, you have to really feel it. So there's an element of purpose when you deal with nature products, I think, and when you really understand where you come from, what was it originally intended for? It was definitely not intended for being in a bottle in Walgreens. There was a different purpose with it. And then really understand how people use it, how people cultivate it, how people revert it, then you naturally get a different mindset. And that mindset, I'm sorry if I'm going a little bit esoterical here, but I do believe mindset sets up the rest of what happens in the real world.

27:12
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Then you start to worry about the quality, the regulatory path, the communication, all the autips and SLAs and any other acronyms that you can think of. If you don't do that, you're only going to be managing a KPI. And as Chris say, KPIs are easily fooled. You can definitely have potency tests unless they're done in the right lab showing off something that is not. And so for me also what has helped me is connecting with people in the field like Chris. Like, I am blessed that I found him or stalked him to the point that he answered my call because definitely he challenged me to the first time. The first time he did. He's such a nice person and he challenged me, have you thought of X, Y and Z? And I hadn't.

27:55
Gonzalo Bisquerra
And so definitely bring in the right lab partner, the right comms partner. And I do think botanicals have to be my perception purpose LED brands. And we're not making a new plastic bag.

28:07
Caitlin Bricker
I think that's a perfect answer. There's a lot to peel back from that. And I think any brands who are working with botanicals, you both have become great resources for them to lean into and to look at your work and see what you're doing. And on that note, for anybody who's listening right now and wants to follow along, we'll start with you, Gonzalo. Where can everybody get in touch with you? What's your website? What's your socials?

28:32
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Absolutely. So it's very easy. Is Happy Caapi Cappy with a double A and on Instagram, Happy Caapi. Same on TikTok. Happy Caapi, everything Happy Caapi with double A dot com.

28:44
Caitlin Bricker
Great. And Chris, how about for you, if.

28:46
Chris Kilham
People do Edison Hunter, they're going to get everything in the medicine hunter universe and terribly more than they want on LinkedIn. I'm Chris Kilham. I am not using Facebook anymore. I don't care if people had quinoa for breakfast. I am on Instagram as Medicine Hunter. And if you go to my website, medicine hunter.com if there's a fault with it, there's too much there. But people can take a really deep dive into the work I do, into the photography I do, the places I've been, and there's a lot about medicinal plants. I do want to say there are going to be people who will take Happy Caapi and instead of doing say five squirts, they're going to do 15 and they're going to sit around in a circle drumming and they're going to mix it with cacao and they're going to do ceremonies.

29:33
Chris Kilham
This is going to happen. People are going to ceremonialize this stuff at some point and there are going to be others who keep it in their desk drawer. And then if they feel like they need a lift at work, they're going to take it out and they're going to do five squirts. The applications are going to be all over the place. And as long as people are having a good safe experience, that's fine, you know, let people be creative.

29:55
Gonzalo Bisquerra
And on that note, Chris, I do wanna add that safety, like anything can be a poison or a medicine, depending on the dose.

30:02
Caitlin Bricker
It's a spectrum.

30:03
Gonzalo Bisquerra
And my point is like the safety level of Happy Caapi is extremely high. So we actually have the alkaloid concentration is 500 times below what is safety level, which there's a lot of other alkaloids out there that are. If you take too much coffee, it is dangerous. And we really worked on, I think, the right balance of the concentration so that you can experiment with it. We're recommending a serving that as long as you are 500 times below per day, then you're good.

30:30
Caitlin Bricker
Oh, that's it. Okay, great. Good to know you guys. This has been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed hearing more about Happy Caapi, why you started and your story. And Chris, it's always a pleasure to be able to connect with you again. I do not say this lightly when I say my experience in the Amazon with you and Zoe changed my life. I'm sure that is a phrase that we hear all the time associated with psychedelics, but it truly did. Next to having my daughter, it was the most life changing experience I have ever had. And that was the end all BL for me when it came to psychedelics, cannabis, all the things. After I had that experience, I just thought to myself, I'm good, I don't need anything else in this life. More on that later.

31:21
Caitlin Bricker
But I just want to thank you and Zoe for the experience that you allowed me to have and for bringing me in for that experience.

31:29
Chris Kilham
Well, thank you for saying that. And you were a really good traveler, you know, I mean, not everybody shows up or ceremony with the same good spirit and attitude that you did. You did the work. We set up the situation, but you alone did the work. And that's the thing about it. People can have profound, life changing experiences with medicinal plants, with the psychedelics, certainly. And this is the promise of nature that we hold. And when people say this is a faith based thing, I want to push them off a cliff that most peaceful, humane, compassionate ways possible.

32:06
Caitlin Bricker
Pushed off a cliff, but everyone's safe. Everyone's safe. No one got hurt, Right?

32:10
Chris Kilham
Right.

32:11
Caitlin Bricker
And Gonzalo, I want to thank you too, because I think that this is a really great way to introduce people to Ayahuasca who aren't ready for a psychedelic experience. They can have a little taste, see what it's like, and then maybe if they're ready, one day they can pick up a copy of Ayahuasca Test Pilot's handbook and head down to Peru.

32:31
Gonzalo Bisquerra
Yeah, no thanks. Hair tang.

32:33
Caitlin Bricker
So, guys, thank you again. It's been so good talking to you. I hope to catch you again in real life soon.

32:38
Gonzalo Bisquerra
We will. Thank you.

32:40
Chris Kilham
Thank you, Caitlyn. Very best to you. It's a real pleasure to see you again and I'm happy for your great, happy life.

32:47
Caitlin Bricker
Thank you. Same to you and give my best to Zoe. All right, bye. CPG BFFs. We've now arrived together at the end of another episode of Startup CPG Podcast. As you may know, we're not just the top globally ranked CPG podcast. We're a community of tens of thousands of CPG founders and experts. And you should join us if you haven't already. Head to startupcpg.com to sign up. You'll get an invite to our Slack community, hear about events near you, and get access to opportunities that connect you with buyers, investors and other brands. It's free. So what are you waiting for? I'll see you in Slack and in real life. Thanks for listening.