Episode 13: Peaceful Fruits

In this episode of Water In Food, we're joined by Evan Delahanty, founder of Peaceful Fruits based in Akron, Ohio. Inspired by his Peace Corp experience and entrepreneurial spirit, Evan is building a unique all-natural fruit snack company. His products promote healthy snacking and feature a full fruit serving in every pack. Working with fruit and developing new products can be challenging. Water activity helps him nail texture, taste, and sustainable growth. Let's hear what Evan has to say on Water in Food.

What is The Drip by AQUALAB (formerly Water In Food)?

Welcome to The Drip (formerly Water in Food), where we keep your mind hydrated with some science, music, and a mantra. I'm your host, Zachary Cartwright, lead food scientist at AQUALAB by Addium

Hosted by Zachary Cartwright, Ph.D.
Lead FOOD Scientist at AQUALAB
https://www.aqualab.com/

Zachary Cartwright (00:00):
I'm Zachary Cartwright. This is water and food

Evan Delahanty (00:02):
People. Aren't just buying calories. They are buying into a story and a feeling that they get because they're eating something that's good. You know, we want to make sure that we are creating a product, has the right texture that has the right feel. And so we do really take the business side of this very seriously. And a big part of that is water activity

Zachary Cartwright (00:23):
To another episode of water in food today, I'm excited to have Evan Delahanty from peaceful fruits. Hi Evan. Thanks for joining us today.

Evan Delahanty (00:32):
Thanks Zachary. I'm happy to be here. Thank you very much for having us.

Zachary Cartwright (00:36):
Yeah. I'm excited for our listeners to learn about your dried fruit snack company and, you know, just start off, what inspired you to start this company?

Evan Delahanty (00:45):
Yeah, I started peaceful fruits after serving for two years in the United States peace Corps. So a agency under the United States state department, I was a community economic development specialist, deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. And when I came back, I wanted to stay connected to the mission of peace Corps, which is all about respectful and responsible economic empowerment. And I wanted to, at the same time, you know, bring that, bring that idea home and also bring home some of the amazing fruits that I had enjoyed down there in the Amazon. And so I started a dried fruit snack company as a way to connect people back to the Amazon and connect the Amazon to people here I'll all while doing it in a way that would create economic opportunity.

Zachary Cartwright (01:30):
And what drove you to, towards looking into the peace Corps, you know, how did you make that decision and, you know, for any of our listeners out there who are considering the peace Corps, what, what can you tell us about your experience?

Evan Delahanty (01:43):
I mean, it was, it was a great experience. It was really impactful on my life. And for, for me, I took a little bit of a, of an abnormal path to the peace Corps, which might appeal to a lot of the folks out there. You know, I wasn't a 22 year old, you know, fresh out of college in Birkenstocks trying to find myself kind of a thing. You know, I was, I was early career, but you know, I've been working for four or five years and I consciously chose to do peace Corps instead of going and doing an MBA. You know, it's a two year program where you don't make any money and you invest in yourself personally and professionally is, you know, similar to grad school in a lot of ways, but obviously it puts you on a, on a very different path than it was the path that, that spoke to me because I wanted to, I wanted to make a difference.

Evan Delahanty (02:25):
I want it to go from, you know, just, just the day-to-day of corporate life, which is, you know, what I was doing before, before peace Corps, I wanted to jump in to try and really make a difference in people's lives in some of the areas that get, are getting left behind by modern progress. And so, you know, I mean, I literally remember having the MBA applications up on one screen and the peace Corps applications up on the other screen. I'm a, I'm a two screen monitor kind of guy can't live without it, but, and the peace Corps app is just what called me to follow my heart and try to make a difference that way. And then when I came back, like I said, I tried to tie those two, you know, business, passion and education that I've done in my life along to the mission of the peace Corps. Yeah.

Zachary Cartwright (03:06):
And while you were there in the Amazon, what products did you come across that, you know, kind of pointed you in the direction that you are going in now and what were some of the flavors of your first products?

Evan Delahanty (03:18):
Yeah. Yeah. So when I, when I was down there, I mean, I'd heard of us IIE, obviously, you know, it was, but, but down there, I mean, it literally falls from the trees and they call it pulled a Siri or a Poteau and it's just everywhere, you know, falling, literally falling from the trees like acorns in, you know, in Northeast Ohio where I live now and just really experiencing fruits, you know, fresh from mother nature. I mean, I grew up, you know, right across the street from an app on Apple and peach orchard. So I know what a difference that makes, but you just, you know, you never get that for tropical fruits. I mean, literally, you know, mangoes season and mangoes would just be everywhere, you know, papayas, Asahi pineapple. It was just, I mean, the flavor was so amazing and I just wanted, I really wanted to share that with people.

Evan Delahanty (04:08):
And the other thing is that it's a great way to connect with these small farmers, these small, you know, people, communities that are, are often, you know, they're only, they're only economic opportunities are very extractive, right? Leave their land and move to the city, you know, become a construction worker, become illegal gold miner in Suriname, the country arrived. I was in, it was a lot of illegal gold mining, illegal logging. And there just weren't a lot of ways to make a living while respecting the land and maintaining it. And so that's where I got into us, was working with a co-op that, you know, uses wild, harvested SAE, that they then, you know, helped the farmers harvest. And then they process it into the Asai juice that I then use to make my very first fruit snacks were Asahi based and we just, you know, blended the SAE with other, other flavors and other things to make a couple of different products. And, and that's what we started with was literally that wild harvested SAE from the Amazon that was helping people to make a living while staying on their land.

Zachary Cartwright (05:14):
So you returned back to the States and, you know, you had an idea of, of the flavors and the fruits that you wanted to, to work with, but what did the early days of your R and D look like? Can you, can you describe that experience?

Evan Delahanty (05:26):
Yeah, it was a good time. I think my first, you know, I, I, my first ideas were not around, you know, trying it to make fruit snacks. You know, I looked at a lot of different angles, you know, originally I thought, you know, maybe I'll be a, you know, fruit importer, you know, my background is in more of a business logistics. So, you know, buy container loads here and ship them there and, you know, supply people, but it turns out that's pretty capital intensive and I didn't have the, the capital or the infrastructure or the network to do that. So I needed to make a value added product. And so I started looking at what could I do with these amazing fruits that would connect back, but still be, you know, a value added product that I could start from nothing and build up little by little.

Evan Delahanty (06:10):
And, you know, my that's actually funny sitting around the kitchen table with my parents. You know, my dad suggested like, well, you know, you can make dried fruits, you know, dried fruit snacks out of, you know, Apple or blueberry. Like, can you do it out of SAE? I was like, well, nobody is. And I don't know if that's because you can't or, or why, but I'll find out. And so I started making us fruit snacks, literally in a old circular with a hole in the middle, you know, Ron co Nesco, whatever, you know, off-brand a tiny little dehydrator that my parents had had in their basement probably since the eighties. Right. And so that was my first, first Ossie fruit snacks were in that little Ronco. And then, you know, we graduated to a, you know, an Excalibur, you know, one of those little, $200 ones that you can buy on eBay or whatever. And then we went up to, you know, 16 shelf Cabela's and then, you know, just to kind of step-by-step move it up to actually commercial grade machines until now we've got a, you know, still, still a small guy, but we've got to roll into hydrator where we can roll, you know, eight bakery carts full of fruits and everything else, roll them in, shut the door and, and really go to town to get some scale.

Zachary Cartwright (07:21):
And how long has that upscaling taken? You know, you started off basically in, in your mom's kitchen using that dehydrator, and now you're on a much bigger level. How long has that process taken?

Evan Delahanty (07:33):
Taking a lot? I have to be honest, somebody smarter than me said that, you know, it takes 10 years to be an overnight success and it hasn't been 10 years yet, but I'm not an overnight success yet either. So who knows, but somewhere in between. Yeah. But no, I, I started, I got back from peace Corps in, in 2014 and just, you know, was doing those very early stages of ideation and experimentation kind of through 2014 to 2015. And then I started to, you know, work on the business through a series of accelerators and incubators in 2016 and really got serious about it there at the end of 2016, early 2017. So that's been, you know, for four years now that it took, you know, two to get, to make each of those steps to where now we're able to, you know, we're producing, you know, commercial quantities and qualities and, you know, able to service larger clients like, you know, Kroger or target that it, it takes a long time. It takes, it takes a lot, a lot, a lot of sweat, especially when the dehydrators on, because it's warm in there.

Zachary Cartwright (08:39):
Well, and I also understand a few years ago you were on shark tank on season eight. I believe if you could talk about that experience and how it helped you, even though you didn't receive any investments at the time, how did that

Evan Delahanty (08:54):
Come on? You have to check out the app. There we go. There we go. It's been two or three years. So I guess if you haven't seen it by now, it's your own fault. Right. But, but yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, it was, it was a huge experience and just so much fun. I mean, one, one of the most fun things I've ever done, which I don't know if that says good things or bad things about my personality, but Hey, but yeah, we, we had, literally, we had done a, an accelerator where it ended in a, you know, a five minute like local access televised, you know, local NPR, radio, whatever pitch contest, where we ended up winning Tony $20,000. And you know, everybody, every little old lady in the grocery store, when I would be there, you know, hustling my product at the local health food stores, you know, every little old lady would say, you should go on shark tank sunny.

Evan Delahanty (09:44):
And I was like, well, you know, that's the most useless advice I ever heard, but thank you for the sentiment. But after we won that accelerator, that pitch contest, I was like, well, why not? I guess I'll, I'll, I'll send them, you know, drop them a line. And so I, you know, emailed shark tank and said like, Hey, you know, these guys thought I was good enough to put on, you know, local NPR or PBS or whatever it was, you guys should put me on TV. And then they called me back and I jumped through a lot of hoops very, very quickly. And about two months later, I was standing in front of Mark Cuban and the rest pitching peaceful fruits with literally, literally like half a Kickstarter. We were in the middle of a Kickstarter at that point half a Kickstarter and about 57 web orders to my name.

Evan Delahanty (10:27):
So we, I mean, we had barely, I, you know, like we were barely a commercial business with a legitimate sale when we went on there and yeah. Then, you know, no spoilers, but essentially that's what the shark said is, you know, you're, you're, this is a great idea. It's a great product. We love the story behind it. You know, everything you're doing is great and you're on a good track, but you're just way too small and early stage for us, you know, come back when you have half a million dollars in sales or something like that, but we hope you get there. Good luck. You know, so it was a very, very positive experience. Good. And one of the things that you talk about in the episode, and even that you mentioned at the start of this podcast is on your company's philosophy and how you've been able to really hold on to that.

Evan Delahanty (11:07):
So I was wondering if you could take a moment and come back to that philosophy and just talk about how you've been able to maintain it as you've grown in size. Yeah. I think that's, that's so critical is, you know, to have a vision for what you want to do both personally and professionally and where those things meet. Because especially when you're talking about food, you know, food is life. Food is, is how people connect with themselves and with other people and, and, and with the world. Right? And so it's all about the values that go into that exchange. You know, people aren't just buying calories from me, they are buying into a story and a feeling that they get, because they're eating something that's good. And it's not just good because of the flavor or because, you know, we put the good ingredients in it.

Evan Delahanty (11:57):
You know, we don't put junky fillers, we just put healthy fruit, but it's also good because of that story behind it. And they get to be part of that story. And for me, as we talked about that story starts in the Amazon, but then it comes all the way home here to, to Akron, just a kid from Akron. Right. If anybody's heard that one out there, I think some guys started saying that I don't know what it was named the brand. I don't know. Good guy. No, actually very, very good guy. We went, we actually were same year in high school, but we went, he went to my homecoming rival. So, but, but anyway, so, you know, I wanted to bring that same philosophy back here to Northeast Ohio. And so as I was scaling the company, I wanted to not just be sourcing the right kind of fruit in the right way.

Evan Delahanty (12:44):
I also wanted to make sure that I was employing people to help me do this, that were part of that same mission of economic empowerment. And so I'm very proud to say that, you know, peaceful fruits is a, is a certified B Corp, you know, and part of our economic empowerment mission here in Ohio, we are actually employing adults with disabilities in full wage jobs that make, you know, every single one of the snacks that goes out the door. They're, you know, they're my team of folks. We, we partner with a local nonprofit and, you know, their full wage, their core part of the team. They're literally making the snacks, packing them and shipping them out there. You know, th that is who is, is, is making my products. And that means that when you order from peaceful fruits, like it really is made with love because this is a team of folks that are just so excited and so passionate to be part of something, as opposed to just sort of being, you know, left behind swept under the rug, you know, given junkie opportunities to sit around and stare into space, you know, th they have so much more to offer and I'm so proud to be able to, to, to be part of offering that better thing.

Evan Delahanty (13:47):
And, and then they do a great job. You know, they just flat out do a great job at helping me make my products and build my business. So it's really just a win-win for everybody. And, and we feel great about it.

Zachary Cartwright (13:57):
And if there's someone out there listening who, you know, who is really connecting with the message that you're giving today and is interested in learning more about your company, or maybe even a job position, what can that person do to, to reach you, or to learn more

Evan Delahanty (14:13):
Anybody to go to peaceful fruits.com? You know, we're, like I said, we're a small company. If you call the number, you know, I'm the one that answers the phone, you were sent an email, you know, it gets to me pretty quickly. And we love to connect with people, you know, especially on the, you know, on the food science side, we're always developing and pushing forward to do more because we don't, we don't give ourselves a lot of tools here at peaceful fruits. You know, we haven't talked about that part of it much yet, but I mean, we really keep it simple in terms of working with, you know, just whole fruits, you know, blends working with, you know, just air and time and love. And so we get really to get different flavors, different colors, different shapes, configurations textures. And so we, it takes a lot of, of, of know-how to do that. And then of course, all the, you know, sales, marketing growth side of things. So we're, we're a small team, but we're growing quick. And we always love to connect with people that can help us do that, and then fight with our mission.

Zachary Cartwright (15:12):
And as you've started to expand and move beyond SAE, what other fruits have you started to work with and, and where are they sourced from?

Evan Delahanty (15:20):
Yeah, we work with a wide variety of fruits at this point. You know, I started with SAE, but on the business side, you know, what I realized is that not everybody wants to buy an SAE fruit snack, right. And so we've expanded over time to, to other fruits that might be more accessible to, you know, different taste buds or different price points. And we, we always try to maintain that, that, you know, that we're to make sure that we're sourcing things in the right way, but, you know, we work with a great organization out of central America. You know, obviously many hundreds of miles from where I was in peace Corps volunteer. I don't, I can't claim to know them personally, but, but, you know, we've built a relationship with them. We see the certifications that they get. You know, we look at the relationships that they have and that we've built with them.

Evan Delahanty (16:02):
And we trust that the mango and the pineapple and the passion fruit that we get from them is, is the right thing that gives it matches our values. And then, you know, same thing we work with, you know, apples and, and, and, and pears and other fruits like that, where, you know, same thing. I've been buying that from the same family in Oregon, since I started the business, because they do things right. They a hundred percent do things. Right. And that's, that's really important when you're, when you're, like I said, you're making food. That's more than just calories.

Zachary Cartwright (16:30):
And along this journey, when did you start to realize that measuring water activity was important for your business?

Evan Delahanty (16:37):
Yeah. Here we go. Getting into the good stuff now. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's cause it is, it is the good stuff because you have to, you know, all the feel-good, that's what Mr. Wonderful said to me, you know, when I was on shark tank is we're here in America. We've got to make money. It's the reality. You can't do any good if you're, if you're starving on the street, unfortunately. And so we do really take the business side of this very seriously. And a big part of that is water activity. Because for us, there's, there's two things that really matter in terms of water activity. You know, one is safety, the, the process that we have, where we are, you know, we're not putting in any preservatives, we're not because I'm using, you know, whole fruit purees, which means that I don't, I don't drop the mango into the blender myself anymore when I started, I did, but you know, we now buy them already pre pureed.

Evan Delahanty (17:26):
They pureed in Nicaragua for us or wherever, but, but you know, we're dealing with whole fruit purees, which means that from harvest to harvest, from batch to batch, you know, we don't get a precise bricks. We don't get a precise pH, you know, we're not controlling those variables by adding, you know, a 50 pound bag of citric acid or who knows what. And so making sure that the product ends up safe is, is super important to us and it, so being able to hit a water activity spec where we know that this is going to be shelf stable, nothing bad can grow. That's, that's very, very critical to our process. And then on the other side of that is of course, you know, we want to make sure that we are creating a product, has the right texture that has the right feel and where we're not, you know, leaving money on the table. So to speak where they'll for us, it's often one in the same. Right. You know, if, if I over dried it, then it's too dry and it's not a good texture anyway. So, you know, finding that right balance of moisture is, is, is super critical for the quality of the product and for the efficiency of, of our operation. So, yeah, we, I mean, we, we use that water activity, mate meter every single day to check the batch, you know, beginning, middle end and everywhere in between.

Zachary Cartwright (18:40):
And w what did things look like before you had that one activity meter? How did you know that you were at a safe point and what would you do if a food inspector came around?

Evan Delahanty (18:50):
Yeah, when we first started, you know, I sent product out to the, to the Cornell food lab to get, to get tested. And so we were still, we were still depending on water activity, but I mean, it was very much to be honest, it was very much the eyeball method, right. I mean, and the, the pro is that for my products, you know, basically if it peels out, you know, you do enough for the testing and if it will peel out of the tray, it's probably under 0.6, five. Right. That's the reality is that it's probably, it's probably safe if it's not total pudding. Right. But probably safe is not exactly what, you know, customers or, or inspectors always want to hear as you kind of alluded to there's X. So, yeah, I mean that, but that was, that was what it was, is we were, you know, we were periodically testing with outside labs, which is slow and, and, you know, expensive potentially, and just not very reactive as opposed to, you know, where we can literally check a batch and say, well, yeah, of course it feels done, but what does it actually read at like, Oh, we're at 0.3, two, we need to, you know, we can knock 20 minutes off this recipe, or, Oh, we're at 0.6, you know, six, zero on the nose, like, great.

Evan Delahanty (20:00):
We're just under, we know we're safe, we're still getting a great texture, you know, get that stuff in the bag and get it out the door.

Zachary Cartwright (20:05):
Yeah. So it sounds like now, you know, you can move forward with certainty and, and really know where your products are. And it sounds like you've been able to make not only safer products, but more consistent as well. And now that you continue to expand, what are some of the goals that you have for the rest of this year and maybe moving on to next year,

Evan Delahanty (20:27):
It was really to expand the product line. And as I was talking about before, I mean, we are really taking this time during COVID, obviously it was a tough time for a lot of businesses. And, and for us, you know, fortunately we do enough sales online that we weren't hit as hard as some folks, but, but I really chose to spend that just double down on product development. And so what we've done is, is come up with, you know, we're, we've got eight flavors, you know, on, on a piece of fruits.com right now. But, you know, by the time that some folks are listening to this in the next couple of weeks and a couple months, they're, they're going to see, you know, maybe 30, you know, a couple dozen new products, new flavors. And, you know, I don't know how many we'll, we'll end up fully launching, but we've developed over over three dozen products, flavors, configurations that we are, you know, selecting the winners of what we want to launch here over the next couple of months and into next year, because that's what we want to do.

Evan Delahanty (21:22):
We want to keep innovating. We want to keep developing, you know, I, I spent months and months trying to make my strawberry tastes more like strawberry. You know, I'm going to spent a lot of time making these natural fruits without the coloring, without additional flavoring really tastes like what, you know, you think of that fruit look like that fruit tastes like that fruit act like that fruit. We put a lot of thought into it and we see consumers are, are interested in, are excited to try more natural products. And so we're excited to be able to offer those.

Zachary Cartwright (21:51):
And are you running any, any type of taste panels I'm mainly asking for myself? Well, yeah, for sure

Evan Delahanty (21:59):
We did. Yeah, we do. We did a lot of focus grouping, you know, early on, you know, we had started some of this part of pre COVID, obviously. So we did a lot of focus grouping early on to sort of direct us in, in what directions to, to go on. But, but yeah, now, as we're starting to show things to, to buyers at the stores and beyond we are, we're definitely gonna open it back up to the public. So I'll, I'll keep you in mind.

Zachary Cartwright (22:22):
Thank you. And one of the products that caught my attention are your edible stickers. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that production process and how moisture has played a role there.

Evan Delahanty (22:34):
Yeah. Yeah. So that's one of the new products that we are, are putting out. It's sort of our take on the old, you know, peel and eat that a couple of like fruit roll-ups style companies did, but we take a very different take on it to make it more fun, to really create more colors and flavors and shapes. And, but, but for this product, I mean, water activity and moisture are just really, really critical because, you know, again, we're not adding artificial sugars or, or, you know, or even, you know, cane sugar, we're not, we're just using the fruit. And so you need it to be the right kind of sticky, right? You need it, you need it to, you know, not leave residue and smear when they pull it off the back end, you need it to not smear all over the front of the package or over the kids or, you know, or adults.

Evan Delahanty (23:25):
I don't judge, we all love fruit snacks, you know, wanting to not smear all over your fingers. You want it to peel off easily, but then you still want it to be, you know, sticky. So it's, it's this really fine band, you know, sticky enough, but not too sticky, you know, moist and pleasant to chew, but not too moist. And so when you have stack of stick of edible stickers like that, I mean, you gotta, you gotta really fine tune it, especially when you're talking about all right, well, you got it right with the pineapple, but raspberry is a totally different beast. So we've done a lot of, you know, of, of the scientific method of trial and error and testing and measuring and, you know, reconfiguring recipes and heating profiles and everything else to get to the right, you know, shelf stable, right. Water activity, right. Moisture content. So that, so that it turns out acting, you know, feeling tasting texture and mouthfeel release from the, the, the sticker, backing, all those things. It turns out the right way. So it's something that's fun to play with and fun to eat.

Zachary Cartwright (24:23):
And for each of those different products, or even each a different flavor, are you setting a, a very specific water activity spec for each of them so that you can get that desired texture and flavor? Or how does that play a role in your process?

Evan Delahanty (24:37):
Yeah. Some, some the interesting thing for us is that definitely some fruits and some shapes, or I shouldn't say shapes, actually, some, some depths really are much more forgiving than others. So it's really been a learning process for us where, what we know is, you know, raspberry, like, like I said, raspberry is a much easier to mess up than blueberry. You know, you see, it seems that you wouldn't think they're that different. And a lot of people will actually steer away from blueberry because it has some issues. But, but with our process, the way that we've worked it out, I can make blueberry turnout. Right. Every single time I'm good at blueberry, but raspberry you'll often have texture issues. You'll have color issues. You know, the red will want to fade to Brown. And so for raspberry, we have to, yeah, we have a very specific, tight target on it where we, you know, we know that if we get outside that it's, it's, it's not going to be good, but blueberry, blueberry is easy, right. As long as it's under six foot five and you know, anywhere in there, it's, it's going to be fine. That's not going to mess up. I don't know why it is, but some, like I said, some fruits are just finicky. So,

Zachary Cartwright (25:49):
And you mentioned your, your website earlier, is that the best place to find your products or where else can a listener find your products?

Evan Delahanty (25:56):
Yeah, I think, I mean, especially, especially with COVID, you know, we really, like I said, it pushed, pushed a lot of people online, so we don't, you know, we, we haven't, we don't have a nation nationwide storefront presence yet though, that may be changing soon. So stay tuned. But, but definitely, you know, for, for folks that are just out there listening, and you're not sure, I mean, you can't, can't argue with Amazon order today, get it tomorrow, eat it, enjoy it. And give us a five-star review.

Zachary Cartwright (26:21):
There you go. Well, my last question for you, as you know, we have a lot of people from early stage food companies who tune into water and food. And what advice would you have for them? You know, you've been through this process from, you know, your inspiration through the peace Corps, being in farmer's markets, being at your mom's kitchen and now a commercial kitchen. What advice would you have for somebody who's who's in an earlier stage, just starting off.

Evan Delahanty (26:49):
So it's interesting. I've actually, you know, we, we do a little bit of consulting and R and D work for other companies and, you know, I've made so many mistakes. Some of them, you know, cheaper, some of them were expensive and I see other people, you know, making these mistakes and I try to, you know, you try to help folks do it, but, but part of it is you just have to not be afraid to make mistakes. You're gonna get things wrong. You know, if you don't reprint packaging, at least once in your life, or at least print correction labels, like you're not, you're, you're not having, you're not having enough fun. You know what I mean? Like you, but you know, you better, you're going to mess it up at some point. So just accept that, forgive yourself and die and dive in. You gotta just start trying that's that's one big thing.

Evan Delahanty (27:29):
And then, and then number two, I mean, it really like I'm, I'm, I'm working with a company right now that, that we're helping out with some R and D and potentially some production and, you know, they were working with a different Coleman, a co-manufacturer, which I, you know, I highly recommend if you can. Yeah. I mean, find someone that knows more than you to make it, like, it makes your life easier, but, and this is the key, but that these guys weren't doing prior to working with me, they didn't know what their product was being dried at. Right. They didn't know what temperature, they didn't know what, you know, what, what, how long they didn't know they had the con the manufacturer they were working with. Didn't have a water activity meter didn't have a critical spec. They didn't have any data that, you know, when I'm asking this coming, like, you know, okay, well, how do you like it?

Evan Delahanty (28:11):
Like, well, you know, not true dry, but not too wet. Like, well, what does that mean? You know, like give us put some numbers on it. And that's where you do have to get, you have to force yourself to be scientific. And, you know, if you can't, if you, if you can't afford a fancy machine, then send it out, borrow somebody that does, if you can't, if you can't do that, then, you know, just keep your notes, keep your science, keep your, you know, as detailed as you can. So, because little by little that's what you're going to need to scale up is that very detailed process that literally anyone can do, right? You don't, you don't need a $10,000 piece of equipment to start doing that. Are you going to need one eventually? Yeah, of course, you are. If you're successful, but you can start off little by little and then work your way up the chain. And that's what it takes. You know, you can't go from zero to 10,000 overnight, you know, unless you're way, way, way, way richer than I am. Right. I guess if you have the capital great, but for most of us out there, you just gotta start step by step by step. Keep good records, keep good data, keep using the scientific method and little by little you'll get there.

Zachary Cartwright (29:15):
Yeah, I think it takes the capital, but it also takes the experience in it. It takes inspiration. And I really appreciate you taking your time to tell us your story today. So thank you, Evan. Just a kid from Akron. We really appreciate you. My pleasure. Thanks. I'm Zachary Cartwright. This is water and food. Find this podcast on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.