Today I'm talking with Rob at The Food Movement. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Rob at The Food Movement. Good morning, Rob. How are you? Good morning. I'm well. How are you? I'm fantastic. Are you in Illinois? I am. I am talking to you right now from Arlington Heights, Illinois. Okay, yeah.

00:29
My mom grew up in Illinois, so I have a little geographic knowledge about the state. I'm in Minnesota. It is a beautiful sunny day here. I don't know what it's like where you are. Oh, yeah. No, the sun is shining. It's actually relatively warm. It's in the 40s today. Yes. For anyone who listens to my podcast, I usually ask about where you are in the weather because I feel like asking about the weather is asking...

00:55
How are you? Like it is how I say I care about you. So for anyone who's never heard the podcast before, that's why I do it. Well, likewise, what part of Minnesota are you in? I am about 40 minutes southwest of Minneapolis. Okay, cool. Yeah, so. I know the twin cities very well. Yeah, corn and soybean country is where I live, so. Yeah, I've driven through it.

01:19
Yeah, it's really, really pretty. It's much prettier in May and June than it is right now. But we have to have the winter too. The winter is the tax we pay to enjoy the spring, summer, and fall in Minnesota. Yeah, I like having all four seasons, but I don't know, this year here in Illinois, I think we skipped right past fall and sort of an interesting year weather-wise.

01:45
It sure was. And I'm really hoping we get a reset in January and we can have some normal, moderate weather for 2025. I was just talking to a friend yesterday about this and she was like, our gardens didn't do anything. And I was like, no, neither did ours because the weather was crazy. So anyway, that leads me to tell me about yourself and what you do, because what you do has a lot to do with food. Yeah. So for the past

02:15
Oh, 24-ish years. I've had a company called Whole Earth Marketing and we sell nutritional supplements, primarily to independent health food stores. And I love this business so much that in about 2009, I became a partner in an independent health food store in Gurnee, Illinois called Earthly Goods. Sorry, I'm giving you the long version, but- No, that's fine. Tell me.

02:45
And so a business partner and I acquired a store called Earthly Goods. It's no longer there, but had a good 20 plus year run in Gurnee, Illinois. And about two years into it, we realized that it was a lot more work than we thought running a store. We had some complications, staff left and things like that. And we conveniently got an offer to sell the store. And we did that.

03:15
Around that time, I had been working on a line of private label superfoods for our health food store. And I really wanted to do something in depth. I didn't want to just accept something turnkey from a manufacturer. So I started sourcing superfoods from around the world. And my naivete led me in some really interesting directions.

03:44
For example, importing superfoods from other countries or any kind of foods is a really complicated and potentially risky business. You really don't necessarily have to, which is what I found out later. There are ways to navigate that. In that process of putting together a line of superfoods for the health food store I was part owner of and then selling that store.

04:14
The food movement was born. I said, I've done all this work. I've come so far. This could really be a business venture in and of itself.

04:25
And that became the food movement. Okay. So do you have a background in the science of this, or did you just learn it as you went? So I think my background coming into the industry would best be described as herbalism, which is somewhat of a science, but also a traditional school of healing.

04:53
So, you know, my interest has always been in sort of the overlap of science and tradition, whether it be herbs or food, you know. So no, my background is not primarily scientific, but I do find the science quite interesting and relevant. And, you know, one of my favorite books when I was starting out in the industry working in a health food store, I was the book buyer. And there was a book.

05:22
called the scientific validation of herbal medicine. And I really thought that was cool, because I thought, you know, here we have traditions of thousands of years sometimes that cultures have found the validity of these foods and herbs, and they've seen the results, you know, in their culture and their trial and error. You know, traditionally using herbs, there was no scientific validation.

05:51
going back thousands of years. They really didn't exist, you know, when culture started using herbs as medicine. But in the modern era, it's exciting and, um, you know, interesting to see the validation of these traditional, you know, because it's really as simple as finding out that a plant can be medicine. And if you discover that garlic, for example, can kill just about any kind of

06:19
And this is today validated by hundreds, if not thousands, of scientific studies. But where did we learn that? We learned that from traditional cultures. The wise women and men who lived it, didn't study it, but lived it, yes. Absolutely, yeah. And that's, and so the name the food movement for the company that I started coming out

06:49
the Earthly Goods days was meant to put a pin in that intersection of herbs as food and food as medicine. And so I think, you know, we have a model in allopathic Western medicine, which is to have a symptom, I want to relieve it, I'm going to take a substance. So I've got a headache, I'm going to take ibuprofen. Problem solution.

07:20
But there's a bigger picture when you look at what do you consume, you know, 99% of the time when you don't have a symptom presenting. And how do you treat your body holistically and on a day-to-day basis? And I think that mindset is becoming more and more popular. And people are seeking that out. And more so than looking for a magic bullet. Which

07:49
really hard to find a magic bullet. I've never really found a true magic bullet that would be you know an antidote for the 99% of what we do. But thinking holistically, looking at what we do every day, what we consume every day as part of the medicine I think is really, it's really a growing, it's been there for just since time began probably. Sure and

08:17
I'm not going to lie to you. I'm going to push you a little on what you're doing because there are lots of supplement companies out there who are selling things that aren't necessarily good for you. So I guess my first question is where are you sourcing the ingredients for what you're selling? Yeah, so it really varies. We make a wide variety of supplements at the food movement.

08:46
And the first thing I would say is that, you know, the name of our company, the food movement is meant to draw a distinction and an alignment with a tradition in this business that has been around for many years, the trade organizations. So, um, and the reason I make that distinction is because since my time, starting in the health food business where there were many

09:14
legacy companies that had really good practices. In the modern era, we've seen hundreds, if not thousands, definitely thousands, I should say, Amazon supplement brands popping up. Never heard of them before. And suddenly they've got X, Y, and Z product Moringa. And, you know, I can tell you where we source.

09:38
Armoringa and that Armoringa is, you know, just as one example, just picking on Yes. Moringa, the miracle tree as one herb. You know, we source Armoringa from Asia, from reputable suppliers that provide us with testing to show that the product is what it says it is and that it's not contaminated. And then we, as part of our good manufacturing practices, which is validated by FDA.

10:08
we then do our own testing. So it's not enough to accept the testing of the supplier. Obvious reason being, they have a good motive to lie to you. So finding the right supplier that has vetting a supplier is an important part of the process in the supply chain, but then doing your own due diligence. So every product that the food movement makes is third party tested multiple times.

10:37
And we test for, and these are industry standards, you know, every good company does this. We test for microbiological contamination, and then we test for heavy metal content.

10:52
And then the third aspect of that is botanical identification. So just making sure the Moringa is Moringa. And there's essentially like a botanical fingerprint that validates that. That's the easiest part. But it's an important part because sometimes, you know, depending on who you're buying stuff from, you have no guarantee that it is what it says it is.

11:21
Yes, and that's exactly what I was trying to get to. So thank you for telling me all that. And I'm not picking on you, Rob, at all. I just, this is my podcast. I'm the only one doing it. And I have to make sure that what I'm telling people and what I'm letting people tell my listene...