The Chicken Industry Is Clucked Up | Pasturebird Founder Paul Greive

Summary

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark

Episode: The Chicken Industry Is Clucked Up | Pasturebird Founder Paul Grieve
Release Date: February 28, 2025

Hosts: Alex Clark (Turning Point USA)
Guest: Paul Grieve, Founder of Pasture Bird

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1. Introduction and Background

The episode begins with Alex Clark introducing Paul Grieve, the founder of Pasture Bird—now one of the largest pastured poultry farms in the United States, available in Sprouts nationwide. Paul shares his journey from battling debilitating joint pain and arthritis in his 20s to discovering relief through the Paleo diet, which ignited his passion for clean, healthy food.

Notable Quote:
Alex Clark [02:51]: "Pasture Bird is on a mission to change agriculture by focusing on regenerative farming, animal welfare and nutrient-dense food."

2. Paul Grieve’s Personal Journey

Paul recounts his struggles with Lyme disease acquired during his time in the Marine Corps. Experiencing severe brain fog and fatigue, he was introduced to the Paleo diet by fellow Marines, which significantly improved his health.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [02:39]: "Two weeks later I could start feeling the impacts. And it woke me up to like, wow, food actually does matter."

3. Transition to Farming: Starting Pasture Bird

After returning from Iraq and settling in Newport Beach, Paul and his wife humorously decided to raise chickens for their in-laws' backyard. This spontaneous decision led to the birth of Pasture Bird, inspired by Joel Salatin's practices detailed in "Pastured Poultry Prophets."

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [05:23]: "Two weeks later, 50 little fluffy white chicks show up. And we had no experience in food or farming or anything."

4. Challenges in Scaling Up

As Pasture Bird grew from a backyard operation to a significant pasture-raised poultry producer, Paul faced the daunting task of scaling operations. The financial burden of establishing a hatchery, feed mill, slaughterhouse, and logistics necessitated a strategic partnership. Eventually, Pasture Bird partnered with Purdue, allowing them to leverage existing infrastructure while maintaining their commitment to quality and affordability.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [12:53]: "If we want to move the needle and leave it better for my kids, I feel like we need both. We need the small, tiny guys and people trying to affect things at scale too."

5. Understanding Food Labels and Industry Practices

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the misleading nature of food labels in the poultry industry. Paul highlights the confusion surrounding terms like "pasture-raised," "free-range," and "cage-free," explaining that many products labeled as such do not meet consumers' expectations.

Notable Quotes:
Paul Grieve [07:13]: "Nature gives us like this beautiful template. Let's try to copy what nature set up in our farming systems."
Paul Grieve [09:05]: "You could have chickens that have never stepped foot outside of a giant warehouse building that are labeled as pasture-raised and sold for $18 a dozen."

6. Transparency in the Food Industry

Paul emphasizes the importance of transparency and honesty in the food industry. He criticizes companies that exploit labeling loopholes to deceive consumers, stressing that true pasture-raised conditions extend beyond mere access to outdoor space.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [09:59]: "If you're honest about it, I actually respect it more than faking people. That's what bothers me the most."

7. Regenerative Farming and Sustainability

The conversation delves into regenerative farming practices and their significance for soil health and sustainability. Paul explains how moving poultry to fresh pasture daily not only benefits the chickens but also regenerates the land by mimicking natural ecosystems.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [33:17]: "Plants have roots for a reason, and animals have legs for a reason. It's a symbiotic relationship that happens naturally."

8. Nutrient Density and Seasonal Eating

Paul discusses the decline in nutrient density of fruits and vegetables over the years, attributing it to factors like prolonged storage and transportation. He advocates for consuming seasonal and locally sourced produce to maximize nutritional benefits.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [35:10]: "Three days after an orange has been picked, it could be like a third in nutrient density."

9. Antibiotic Use in Poultry Farming

Addressing the rampant use of antibiotics in factory farming, Paul explains the dangers of antibiotic resistance stemming from the prophylactic use of antibiotics in poultry. He criticizes companies like Tyson for reverting to antibiotic use to boost economic efficiency.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [30:42]: "If we're using antibiotics not just in response to sickness but prophylactically, that's developing antibiotic resistance in humans too."

10. Future Plans and Accessibility

Paul shares Pasture Bird's vision to make pasture-raised chicken accessible and affordable for the average consumer. He highlights their presence in Sprouts and other specialty stores, with future aspirations to partner with larger retailers like Walmart to reach a broader audience.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [45:09]: "If we're serious about making regenerative, pasture-raised food accessible and affordable, then we should eventually target Walmart."

11. Advice to Consumers

Paul offers encouragement to consumers feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of food labels and choices. He advises focusing on cooking at home with wholesome ingredients and making incremental changes towards healthier eating habits.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [52:57]: "Just do your best. If you're just cooking at home as much as you can, you're doing great."

12. Conclusion

In wrapping up, Paul underscores the broader impact of consumer choices on the food industry. He encourages listeners to "vote with their dollars" by supporting transparent and ethical farming practices. Additionally, he highlights the spiritual and community aspects of health, advocating for outdoor activities and strong local connections.

Notable Quote:
Paul Grieve [50:24]: "You vote every time you buy food. That's how big food changes."

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Key Takeaways

• Misleading Labels: Consumers often misinterpret labels like "pasture-raised," leading to misconceptions about animal welfare and product quality.
• Transparency is Crucial: Honest communication and visibility into farming practices build consumer trust and drive industry change.
• Regenerative Practices Benefit All: Sustainable farming not only improves soil health but also enhances the nutritional value of food products.
• Accessibility Matters: Making ethical and nutrient-dense food affordable and convenient is essential for widespread adoption.
• Consumer Power: Everyday purchasing decisions significantly influence the direction of the food industry towards more sustainable and transparent practices.

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Follow Pasture Bird

• Website: Pasture Bird
• Social Media: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook (@PastureBird)

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Note: This summary excludes promotional advertisements and focuses solely on the substantive content of the conversation between Alex Clark and Paul Grieve.

Transcript

[Alex Clark]

Does it really matter to eat fruits and vegetables seasonally?

[Paul Grieve]

Three days after an orange has been picked, it could be like a third in nutrient density.

[Alex Clark]

How do you know that the eggs in the grocery store are truly pasture raised?

[Paul Grieve]

That's the problem. People don't know. There's no way to really know other than knowing your farmer. So it becomes really, really tough for the working mom who's rushing through the grocery store with three kids hanging onto the shopping cart and they're like, I wanna feed my kids the best I can. I'm gonna grab the pasture raised. But they're paying extra for a label.

[Alex Clark]

After battling debilitating joint pain and arthritis in his 20s, Paul Grieve found relief through the Paleo diet, which sparked his passion for clean, healthy food. Frustrated by misleading labels in factory farming practices, he started raising his own chickens. And what began as a joke turned into Pasture Bird. One of the largest pastured poultry farms in the US now found in sprouts nationwide, Pasture Bird is on a mission to change agriculture by focusing on regenerative farming, animal welfare and nutrient dense food. In this episode, farmer Paul Grieve shares his journey, challenges and vision for disrupting the factory farming system and creating a more transparent, sustainable food future. If you're passionate about clean food and ethical farming, this conversation is a must. Listen plus Navigating chicken in the grocery store. Watch this episode on Spotify in the real Alex Clark YouTube channel. Have you been listening to the show for a while and you just haven't taken five seconds to leave a five star review? Just tap the heart or write one sentence about why people should listen to culture Apothecary. This show is free and you doing that helps out immensely. If you really believe in our mission to heal a sick culture and want to take things to another level, you, you can become a financial donor of the show with a tax deductible donation through the link in the show notes. Please welcome farmer Paul Grieve, founder of Pasture Bird to Culture Apothecary. Pasture Bird is now the largest pasture poultry producer in the US and this all started because you were super sick in your 20s?

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, I mean it's been, it's been a journey started. 50 birds in the backyard and we are where we are today. That sounds cooler than it probably is. Like the largest pasture raise is still pretty small on the national scale compared to a lot of the big companies, but it's been a lot of growth. It's been really, really fun.

[Alex Clark]

So what was going on, like when you say that you were sicker than you've ever been.

[Paul Grieve]

What was happening after college, I went to the Marine Corps and when I was in sniper school, I got Lyme disease from a tick bite in Virginia. Like in the backwoods of Virginia. Started getting weird brain fog and fatigue and like at 22, 23, just feeling like crap, basically. And I'd never thought about how food affects the way you feel or perform or anything like that, but I don't know if you've heard of like Paleo, but paleo was getting really big back in the Marine Corps and they were like, dude, you got to try this. You got to get the inflammation out of your diet. And I was like, I can't breathe through my nose and my back hurts really bad. So let me give it a shot. And literally two weeks later I could start feeling the impacts. And it woke me up to like, wow, food actually does matter what you put in your body when you grew up.

[Alex Clark]

What were you taught about food in your house? Like, what was your family like?

[Paul Grieve]

No, my mom was amazing, but it was like a standard 90s childhood of McDonald's and like going out for whatever and just she would cook at home. Sometimes we're like really busy, hyper sports family. And so we would eat out a lot and like, we never thought twice about it. I'd never thought about, oh, it's really important what you feed yourself because you may, you know, not perform so well.

[Alex Clark]

And so Paleo means you're basically eating what type of food for somebody that isn't familiar.

[Paul Grieve]

Think of it like a whole foods diet. So meat, nuts, seeds, you know, fruits and vegetables. That's basically it for Paleo. I don't necessarily eat exactly like that now, but that felt like a way to just knock out all the potential inflammatory stuff in your body. And I just started to feel like, great, really quick.

[Alex Clark]

And how long did you stick strictly to Paleo?

[Paul Grieve]

Probably like two years. And after I came home from Iraq, my wife got really into it, my whole kind of family got into it. Like, my brother and father in law both lost like 50 to 100 pounds. And I felt like the whole family was just like, oh my gosh, like there's something to this.

[Alex Clark]

Do you think it's really just about cutting out ultra processed food when you're doing that? And that's like what's really holding people back.

[Paul Grieve]

There's so much more than that, but it's a big one. Like, if you grew up as a McDonald's kid, just literally changing your diet could be a huge impact. I think there's a ton more with being outside and mental wellness and spiritual and everything else. But, like the food piece, if you're really far, like, messed up on the food piece, changing your diet will have a huge impact.

[Alex Clark]

So how do you go from Marine to I'm going to become a chicken farmer, man.

[Paul Grieve]

That was where it got weird, you know, that's where it got weird. My wife and I were like these normal people living in Newport Beach. I was an accountant, she was like an interior designer. Just living a normal life.

[Alex Clark]

Very Newport.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, totally. Newport beach lifestyle. I came back from Iraq. We were sort of joking about getting some chickens for my in law's backyard in the rural part of Southern California, Temecula. And my brother in law, Rob, that runs Primal Pastures now, he kind of disappears from the room. He comes back like 10 minutes later and he's like, hey, those chickens you guys wanted to order, like, I just got them. And we're like, no, bro, like, we weren't saying you should order chickens. Like, we were just joking about getting some for the backyard.

[Alex Clark]

What, did you just get them on Amazon or what went online?

[Paul Grieve]

I don't even know where he got them from. Two weeks later, 50 little fluffy white chicks show up. And we had no experience in food or farming or anything.

[Alex Clark]

So how'd you find out? Like, were you just YouTubing stuff?

[Paul Grieve]

So one of your past guests, Joel Salatin, wrote a book called Pastured Poultry Prophets. And we geeked out on his YouTube, we read his books, and we followed, like everything he said to do by the letter. And that's how we got going.

[Alex Clark]

Which was what? What was Joel Salatin saying to do that conventional farmers don't do?

[Paul Grieve]

So you went and visited his farm, you saw his little poultry, like mobile enclosures. His whole premise is animals are meant to move. They're not meant to be in one place. So his whole thing is about building floorless mobile houses that you move the animals to a new spot every day because then their manure fertilizes the land. And then they get to forage for bugs and worms and grasses and seeds. And they're not like living indoors in their own filth. So we just copied that word for word. And then we set up, like, backyard processing and Bethany from Primalay Pure. And my wife, the interior designer, we're like out there, you know, harvesting chicken and cutting up chicken. And the family got baptized into it really fast. But it was meant to just be for us and our family. And then all it took was like a couple social media posts back in the day and pretty soon it was sold out. And we were like, oh, we better order a hundred next time.

[Alex Clark]

What were you saying on social media that was really resonating with people, you think?

[Paul Grieve]

We said like, we've been looking for pasture raised chicken for a long time. We have not been able to find it in the grocery store, even the farmer's market. This is like 2012, 2013, and we're gonna raise some birds and if you want some, just hit us up and we'll reserve them for you. And like, people love that.

[Alex Clark]

You know, you say that nature set the standards that we should be abiding by. What does that mean?

[Paul Grieve]

We have a lot of, you know, Joel calls it the post hole digger degree, the PhDs. We got a lot of fancy letters behind our name. But like, really our understanding's pretty small still. We understand very little of, I think, what's really, truly happening at the cellular level. And so I just think nature gives us like this beautiful template. I'm not saying things need to be rewilded and like there's no place for human interaction with nature, but let's look to nature as like the optimal template. Let's try to copy what nature sort of set up what God has really intended in our farming systems. And like, you're going to see lots of benefit from that.

[Alex Clark]

Why is it a huge red flag if a chicken or egg company says, oh, our poultry is vegetarian fed?

[Paul Grieve]

Because chickens aren't ve vegetarians. Like that freaks me out a little bit when I see that. If they're really a vegetarian chicken, wouldn't that mean they've never had a bug or never had a worm or never really been outside? To be honest, all that goes back to the days of mad cow feeding cows to cows. And there was a big fear around that time of like, oh, we shouldn't feed any animals to animals. Well, chickens are different. Chickens are actually omnivores. They're not herbivores. Like they're meant to eat animals and plants.

[Alex Clark]

What animals are chickens supposed to eat?

[Paul Grieve]

We have videos of them eating mice on our flats, scorpions, like anything they can roadkill. Like they'll find anything and they'll eat it. They're little T. Rexes.

[Alex Clark]

Because I'm thinking some of the biggest, most popular pasture raised egg brands and things like that in the store are saying vegetarian fed. So are you saying like avoid that with a ten foot pole?

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, I mean, don't get me started on like the big pasture raised egg brands because there's shenanigans going on. Tell me, please, if they're raised on pasture, why would they be vegetarians? They should not be like, that means they're literally not going outside if they're vegetarian.

[Alex Clark]

So that's contradicting itself. The big egg brands that are saying pasture raised but vegetarian fed, those can't go together.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, but there's this massive loophole that people don't realize that when they say pasture raised, what they mean is pasture access. So access is like the dirtiest word in the whole pasture industry. And it's not a small thing. Like we think, oh, that's cute. Pasture raised, like, no. It's a multi billion dollar industry out there right now, and all it takes is to open a few doors. Whether the birds ever go outside or not, that can still be labeled as pasture raised. And it is, by and large, it is labeled as pasture raised. So you could have chickens that have never stepped foot outside of a giant warehouse building that are labeled as pasture rays and sold for 10. Well, nowadays, $18 a dozen and consumers are, like, working really hard. They're trying to do the right thing. They're trying to buy nutrient dense food for their family, and they're getting tricked. And that's like the most frustrating thing. I support transparent factory farming more than the companies that are tricking people and like, lying to them.

[Alex Clark]

Out of all of the major grocery store companies across the country, if you had to buy eggs from the grocery store, what brand are you going with?

[Paul Grieve]

I love Alexander Farms, if you can find them. Alexander.

[Alex Clark]

They're doing eggs.

[Paul Grieve]

Oh, they're the best eggs.

[Alex Clark]

Okay. I've never seen eggs from them, and I love them.

[Paul Grieve]

They do a great job with dairy.

[Alex Clark]

And they love the show. They listen to the podcast.

[Paul Grieve]

They're the coolest family ever. They live in, like, this. Be part of basically Oregon, but it's technically California.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Paul Grieve]

Their eggs and their dairy are. I say they're the best in the country. Like at that scale where you could get it in the grocery store.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, I like that. Okay, so we trust them.

[Paul Grieve]

They're so cool. And they're all having babies now and they're just like this beautiful multi generational operation, all pasture based. A2, A2 dairy. Really, really great stuff.

[Alex Clark]

And you guys are only doing chicken, though. You're not doing eggs. Correct.

[Paul Grieve]

We don't do any eggs. We've decided to stay pretty focused and try to, like, bring some scale and some accessibility and affordability to past chicken. So we're just like, trying to stay hyper focused on it.

[Alex Clark]

So here's something juicy that I want to ask you because this is a big thing right now with clean food companies kind of selling to bigger, big food names.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Pasture bird started with 50 chicks. This passion for better food. How did you go from that to becoming the largest pastured poultry producer in the US how can a company grow to that size without compromising food values?

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, and I'll be the first one to say, like, we're really proud of the partnership we have. We sold our company to the largest organic chicken company in the country. Here's like the background of it. So you start producing 50 birds in the backyard. It's super cool. Then you go 100, 200, 500. Pretty quickly you get to this point where you're like, shoot, if I'm going to keep growing this, I need my own hatchery for the baby chicks. I need my own feed mill to make feed. I need my own slaughterhouse to basically harvest the birds and get into market. I, I need my own logistics and trucking to be able to get the birds that are harvested to the market. And pretty soon you're looking at this bill that's like $200 million to get that all set up. We're take a step back. We're like, okay, do we want to go raise $200 million in equity financing? Nobody's probably going to write us that check. Do we want to go take on $200 million in debt we don't have? I mean, nobody's going to give me a $200 million loan, you know? Or do you want to go find a company who already has all that stuff, who may not be doing things the way that you would like on the actual live animal side, but they have all the infrastructure, they have all the equipment, they have all this stuff. And so we made this, like, really difficult but like, prayerful decision that now let's build this company to where we could partner with somebody bigger and basically like leverage all the stuff that they have and then bring an authentic product to market and make it, like, accessible. Because the other thing that happened 2015ish rolls around. I grew up square in the middle class. The rest of my family grew up square in the middle class. And we're selling whole chickens for like 40, $45.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Paul Grieve]

And I'm like, that's awkward for me because as my mom, as you small.

[Alex Clark]

Farm on your own.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, because we're independent. Like, chicks cost twice as much, Feed costs three times as much. Like, we don't, we have off the shelf pricing, you know, and to be financially sustainable, like, we have to sell the birds for 40, $45. And granted, there's a subset of people that can do that, but like most people, including my own parents, could have never done that. So we got really passionate about, okay, there's a thousand small farms doing a great job. Joel Salatin style, decentralized. I love it, but it feels like there's a gap for somebody to go, let's do a really great job. But let's like do it at scale and try to bring the cost down and make it convenient and accessible for people. Like in the regular grocery store where they shop. If we want to move the needle and like, leave it better for my kids, I feel like we need both. We need like the small, tiny guys doing the farmers market thing and then we need like people trying to affect things at scale too.

[Alex Clark]

Everyone clap.

[Paul Grieve]

Please clap.

[Alex Clark]

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[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, because I've been, I've been in big food now and I was raised to like hate Big Ag. Like that's the way I came up is like Big Ag's bad. They're the devil, they're the enemy. All of them worship Satan, you know. And then you get inside of the company, you're like, wait a second, like these are normal people, These are like cool people. So we dated for a long time. We got to know the leadership. Like I can't necessarily speak for C other than me and my family are huge consumers. We love the product. I feel like people snap to a very quick judgment that they're going to gonna sell their soul and they're gonna change all the ingredients. Here's my personal opinion. Big companies wanna make money and there's a huge shift in consumer demand where they want clean food now and they want regenerative food now. For like 50 years before, people demanded cheap food. So guess what the big companies are gonna do? They're gonna give you cheap food. But now there's a big shift happening. Like we talked about it a little bit before. Like people want clean, they want healthy, they want stuff that's a little better for the environment. In my opinion, if they do it authentically, like let's celebrate that because that's amazing. You know, just because they're big, if they're trying to do the right thing. And they're doing it for real. Let's celebrate it. There are some other brands that have just literally sold their soul right? And like day two, after the acquisition, they change all the ingredients. Everything's totally different. And that's a bummer.

[Alex Clark]

How were you able to keep the integrity of pasture bird and truly stay pasture raised? Regenerative farming and all that, but also working with Purdue, like, how did that work? What kind of conversations did you have?

[Paul Grieve]

Purdue pushes us to stay authentic to it too, because they see the consumer in the market demanding transparency and authenticity. And like, in their own way too, they've led. So they were the first to ever do organic. They also own Niman Ranch, which is like, in my opinion, the best national scale pork company that's out there. So they've like, led in these other things. They've already innovated that way. I'm not saying they're sinless or perfect, and neither are we. But I think, like, the track record, it does speak for itself. So when we got in day one, we were able to drop our prices and take the product to be no GMO at all. Yeah, they were like, do it like, go for the non gmo. Like, that's great. If you can save money and we can still do it and still make money, then do it. Like, they. They're true believers in it. So I think you'd have to go big company by big company. And then like, for me, I'm in. I'm under no contract. I could have left the day after we sold the business. But, like, I really deeply believe in what we're doing. And I think if we again, if we want to see it left better. Small companies have to partner with big companies and like, bring that change at scale.

[Alex Clark]

I like that mentality with it. And also, you know, I just want to bring up Primal Kitchen, for example.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Sold to craft. Their ingredients have not changed. And that's been a while. I'm friends with Jason Karp, who created Hugh Chocolate. He sold and huge chocolate. Ingredients are great. That hasn't changed. I think behind the scenes, sometimes these smaller clean food brands, brands are putting it in the deal. Like, we're willing to sell to you, but part of that deal is that you're never allowed to compromise our ingredients. Like, I think I've heard that some of them are doing that. So I just didn't know if you'd heard the same.

[Paul Grieve]

I've never heard of that. But I do think, like, okay, you're gonna spend a billion dollars on ciate. What do you think happens if you go and put seed oil?

[Alex Clark]

Right? Like, nobody buys it higher.

[Paul Grieve]

You just wasted a billion dollars. So, yeah, I think the days of the, like, 80s and 90s acquire and smash and change. The Internet, like, kind of disallows that now. So why would you spend all that money and then just completely change what they're doing? Like, it would be kind of stupid, in my opinion.

[Alex Clark]

You've said that you're challenging the status quo of factory farming. What's the most shocking thing that you've learned about the way the poultry industry operates today?

[Paul Grieve]

The most shocking thing is that labels, by and large, like, don't mean what you think. And that's really for the worse. I would say, like, people are very convinced that they understand what the labels, like, pasture raised means free range, organic. And oftentimes it's not what you would think. And I think that when people start to understand that, it's a bit disheartening because they're spending a lot of extra money on this stuff. But the reality is it's just, like, oftentimes not what you would hope it is.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, so let's go through what some of these labels mean. Like, let's talk about what is cage free. What is free range? What is pasture raised?

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah. My disclaimer with this is like, I'll explain these, but it's no shade to the actual farmers. Like, these people. I don't care. I've met hundreds of them, and they are the salt of the earth. They're good people. Even the people doing factory farming, it's like the farmers themselves, they're just trying to make a living, man. And that. That's what they know. And they're doing their best. And, like, I respect anybody who's producing food. My cut is more like, towards the marketing departments and the ivory towers that are like, oh, let's take this and spin it this way and call it something else. And I think that that's where it's jacked up. So I think there's room for everything with transparency. To me, that's the important piece. Like, let people decide. There's so many people that are on such a tight budget, like, they just need to buy the caged eggs. Like, that's just what they can afford.

[Alex Clark]

And that's still better. An egg is still an egg versus.

[Paul Grieve]

You know, nonsense or something. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so ca free. For a long time, animals were, like, laying chickens especially, were raised in actual cages. Like, six animals in a small little shoebox. Size cage. That's mostly, at least in California. Like that's mostly gone by the wayside now. So you'll see cage free. That sort of explains all meat chickens at least. Like there are no caged meat chickens in the US In Europe there actually is free range. Free range means the birds were free to range outside. So take kind of like an industrial style warehouse, 600 foot long, 40 foot wide, 24, 000 birds inside of there. As long as those doors open, those birds were technically free to range outside. They don't have to go outside to be free range, but they need to have the access to go outside. Some companies are diligent about it. They're putting food out there and shade and water and they're like actually trying to encourage the birds out. Some companies are like, oh, oh, we popped it open for one minute this year while the auditor was there. We're gonna count it, you know, so it's really company by company. The problem is chickens are prey animals. They don't really like just running out into an open field like your dog or a cow or something. So unless you have a lot of reasons for them to spend a lot of time outside, they'll stay. They're kind of going to stay where the food and water and their friends in this, in this shade is, you know, so they're going to pretty much stay inside. But I would say like outdoor access is still better than not having outdoor access. So I'm not knocking free range or anything. It's just some people have this picture of like chickens, like red chickens outside running around. Like that's not really what it is.

[Alex Clark]

But that is kind of the case with pasture raised, right or no?

[Paul Grieve]

Kind of. So I'll explain pasture raised too, because it's not what a lot of people think it is either. A lot of the marketing has made us think like, oh, there's just these fluffy chickens out on their own, like running around. Chickens just don't do that. Like if you've been to Hawaii or Thailand, chickens are like sneaking to this bush and then they're like running over to this bush. Like they don't want to get eaten, you know, so they want to stay protected. They want to stay close to their buddies. So in a true pasture raised system, usually it's like Joel's place so that you have some kind of a protective shade structure that gives them, you know, a way to get out of the rain and the, the sun. And then it's a floorless structure. So you're moving that Structure because they want to be close to their food and water and shade. The important thing is, like, you got to move that structure, and then the birds move with it.

[Alex Clark]

And you guys are doing that every day.

[Paul Grieve]

Every single day. And that's really important.

[Alex Clark]

You're in national grocery stores and you're able to move all this every day.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, but that's a lot of innovation. And like, a lot of what we spent the last six years on is how do we, like, automate that? How do we build? Like, everything has to be on solar because we're on these farms out in the middle of nowhere in the state of Georgia. So we can't just, like, plug it in and drive it, you know, how do we do it? All automated so we're not like sitting there like, moving in our cell. Like, Joel's system is awesome, but it's really labor intensive. Yeah, he has interns and apprentices and all this stuff, so he can kind of do it, but at our scale, I mean, we're way beyond what he's doing. So we have to have a way to. To automate all that stuff. And we call it the Automated Range Coupe. It's this really cool invention that we feel like is like challenging the status quo. And it's like. It's like a. A place for the birds to actually grow. But it's on wheels and it moves every single day. So it's a total.

[Alex Clark]

So it moves on its own or you drive.

[Paul Grieve]

It drives itself. It's like the. It's like the largest electric vehicle in the world.

[Alex Clark]

How much that costs?

[Paul Grieve]

It's probably a small apartment in Phoenix for each one.

[Alex Clark]

That's wild.

[Paul Grieve]

But it has these huge benefits for the chicken and for the land.

[Alex Clark]

Is it possible for other farms to be able to duplicate what you guys are doing?

[Paul Grieve]

Oh, there's a thousand small farms doing it for real at different scales. So, like, Joel's would be the small scale where you have like 80 birds inside of a little thing that you pull by hand. There's a lot of farmers that do a greenhouse that they pull with a tractor. And there's us doing it at like, the large scale for pasture rays, which is these huge 6,000 bird systems that are driving themselves. I mean, anybody can do it. There's no, like, protection. There's no. No stopping you. But the problem is there's kind of no reason to do it because that pasture raised label can be slapped on by people in a free range system. Like, up until very recently, the USDA considered free range and pasture raised to be the same.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, so then how do you know that the chicken at the grocery store, that the eggs in the grocery store are truly pasture raised?

[Paul Grieve]

So a lot of people would say they're going to hear your question. They'll be like, well, I can tell from the yolk. Like, the yolk's going to be orange in the true pasture raised. No, people like, that is not how you tell the. The industry uses something called xanthophyll, which is a feed additive.

[Alex Clark]

What.

[Paul Grieve]

That can make that yolk any color they want. So whether the birds have. Have lived out on green grass or they've never stepped foot outside, I can produce an or a yolk that's orange or red or bright yellow or even like shades of green. Like, I can make it any color through a synthetic feed additive. That's what those guys are doing. So then a lot of people are cracking this yoke open. They're like, oh, look at this beautiful orange yolk. And I'm like, that's not. That's not orange because the birds are outside. That's from a feed additive, you know. So how do you really tell. That's the problem. Like, people don't know they have. There's no way to really know other than knowing your farmer, which is not a realistic solution. Like, Joel talks about that a lot. Will Harris talks about that a lot. Who I love. And you've had on as well. Most people are too busy. Like, they can't really do that. So it becomes really, really tough for the working mom who's rushing through the grocery store with three kids hanging onto the shopping cart. And they're like, I want to feed my kids the best I can. I'm going to grab the pasture raised. But. But they're paying extra for a label, you know.

[Alex Clark]

Holy smokes.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, it's a bummer.

[Alex Clark]

That is like a massive manipulation tactic I wasn't aware of.

[Paul Grieve]

And that's why I say, like, if you're doing free range or even caged birds, like, if you're honest about it, I actually respect it more.

[Alex Clark]

Sure.

[Paul Grieve]

Than faking people. Like, that's what bothers me the most.

[Alex Clark]

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[Paul Grieve]

Well, I'm not expert on antibiotics.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Paul Grieve]

I just think eventually you are what you eat and you are what you eat eats. And with antibiotic resistance like spiking throughout the country, we are like a family that never takes antibiotics for anything, you know, but there's a lot of people that need antibiotics. Like medically they're, they need to be effective. Well, if we're using them not just in response to sickness like in the poultry industry, they're used prophylactically a lot, which means they're fed to the chickens whether they got sick or not because it kind of helps them to grow faster. That's a 9 billion animals entering the food supply every single year. And that's gonna develop antibiotic resistance not just in the chicken, but some studies are saying in humans too, if we're eating that chicken. So it's a very dangerous thing to just be like stuffing animals with antibiotics. And there are companies, Tyson is one company who just went back. So they had no antibiotics for a long time. They just went back. They're like, nope, we're going to add antibiotics back into the feed.

[Alex Clark]

Why are places like Chick fil a Tyson, why are they suddenly going from antibiotic free to just adding them back in all of a sudden?

[Paul Grieve]

Because the birds grow faster. So economically it kind of makes more sense. They convert feed faster. Like it's mostly an economic incentive. It's not consumer demand. Consumers do not want antibiotics in the chicken. So it's not for that.

[Alex Clark]

I can't remember if it was on farming that they were showing these chickens the way they're factory farming. It's like, it's like they can't move. Their, their legs are basically, they're just laying there limp. They're growing at such a fast rate and they're getting so huge that they can't walk and things like that just so they can be butchered and they're just creating more meat. What are some of these factory farms doing to chickens to just make a quick buck? That is not actually healthy for the consumer.

[Paul Grieve]

So let's say like a normal chicken, like the breeds that we raise are going to be maybe, maybe five, six pounds, something like that. That animal can walk very well. It's the same breed. It's like what you see in a giant factory farm or whatever. It's the same breed. But we're harvesting. When they're five or six pounds and they cruising around, they can still forage. They're doing really well. I mean some places are raising those animals to 12 pounds.

[Alex Clark]

That's like a turkey in a couple months span.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah. And we talked about like being able to go outside and express the chickenness of the chicken. Like a 12 pound chicken's not going to just cruise outside. You know, there's no way. It's not, it's not walking around like that, you know.

[Alex Clark]

How does moving chickens to fresh pasture every day regenerate the land? And why is regenerating land and soil important for sustainability in farming?

[Paul Grieve]

I came to this like not as a farmer. I didn't care about soil at all. I didn't really understand that God's design is like amazing with this. So we've really separated plants from animals in western first world agriculture. That is not God's design. Like God's design is that plants feed animals, animals in return feed plants. And there's a reason animals have legs and plants have roots. So it's this beautiful like symbiotic relationship that happens all the time. And you could go back to the days of the bison where they go into these big, big herds, they eat the grass, they kind of poop all over the ground and then they have to move to the next spot. They're not going to return to that spot where they grazed for like a long time time that allows the nutrition to like work into the soil, build up the soil health. And the funny thing is if you think about where the bison were like 500 years ago, that's where that beautiful black rich soil is in the Midwest where now they're growing all the corn and the soybeans, you know, like that's built by bison for a long, long, long time. So it's this awesome design, this intelligent design of like plants and animals working together and then wildlife coming in and it's like this awesome thing. Well, we've broken that. So like, like now our animals are raised here in these regions or these states. Our plants are raised here in the Midwest, and these regions are these states, and the two, like, don't intermix at all because of synthetic chemical fertilizers. Like, we're kind of jumping into that saying, well, we don't really need animals to fertilize the fields anymore because we have these cheap petrochemical synthetic fertilizers. And to me, that's a. That's a huge mess.

[Alex Clark]

Plants have roots. Animals have legs for a reason.

[Paul Grieve]

It's a cool design. Right.

[Alex Clark]

I really like that. The way you said that makes so much sense to me when explaining regenerative farming and the importance.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

For our soil. Does it really matter to eat fruits and vegetables seasonally?

[Paul Grieve]

So remember the, like, what we're Talking about, the PhDs and all, like, the smart stuff. I think we are. We haven't scratched the surface of the importance of, like, fresh, local food, really. I don't think we understand anything about it. So there's new, brand new research coming out that says, like, three days after an orange has been picked, it could be, like a third in nutrient density. There's also studies that say the exact Same orange in 1950 is nine times less vitamin A than an orange that looks the exact same today. So, like, our food today looks like food. It's shiny and it's beautiful, and it sits there on the grocery store shelves. It's, like, not nourishing us like it once did, you know, and the freshness is a big factor. Or bananas come from God knows where in South America. They're picked totally green. It's, you know, a chemical process that, like, when they're gas, to turn them yellow for the stores. And you kind of think about, like, to me, as a consumer, because I was not a consumer that long ago, I didn't farm for my whole life. I don't really care as a consumer. I don't care that much about the soil on some random farmer's field. But I'm a dad of four little kids, and, like, I really want to feed them the best food I can. So to me, that's what I actually care about is, is the nutrient density of the food.

[Alex Clark]

So when we're putting, you know, avocados and strawberries and all that on trucks and shipping it, especially times of the year where it's like, it's not strawberry season and things like that, it's just maybe not as nutrient dense if you're eating things out of season. Because, you know, I. I love those accounts on Instagram that are like, february here the vegetables that are in season or the fruits. And so I really do try to then pick those at the store.

[Paul Grieve]

Totally.

[Alex Clark]

But I'm like, like for these farms that are, you know, supplying the big grocery stores, I don't even know that it really matters.

[Paul Grieve]

You got to just do your best. Like, you can only do so much. I buy bananas still. Like, I'm not perfect. Like, we have kids and all that stuff too, but that was our whole premise. So two years ago, we started an all organic, like fruit and vegetable, you pick farm with the idea that let's get rid of all the distribution and the retail and everything and just have people come out and get their food very, very fresh. And, like, love what that does too, is think about the flavor. Like, if you've ever had like a vine ripened, you know, BlackBerry or I never have, you will cry when you eat it. It's the most different thing that you've ever tasted. And it's just like that amazing flavor is the nutrient density that you're tasting too. So, like these two beautiful things that go hand in hand. And it's the saddest thing when people come to our country from basically any other country in the world and they're like, like, oh, the food doesn't taste like anything here. And it's something that we notice a ton when we travel too, is like, oh, my gosh, like, these third world countries have the best tasting food.

[Alex Clark]

What is your response to people who believe that organic, regenerative or ethical farming is just too expensive?

[Paul Grieve]

You're right. Like, it is too expensive. And for far too long, amazing farmers have not stepped up to innovate, to meet customers where they're at. It's not a knock against the, the Joel Salatins of the world. We would not be here if it wasn't for him. But there's to, like, figure out how to meet people in the middle that I think some farmers have a hard time with. And it's like these awesome, grassroots, small scale backyard farmers are like, well, you're just gonna need to pay more for your food. You're just gonna need to travel out to my farm to do a pickup. You're just gonna need to like, do this and do this and do this. That's cool. You can say that. But, like, if we stay with that mindset, I don't think the food system looks any different for my son, who's 12, when he's an adult. Like, I wanna actually move the needle. And in order to do that, we need the small guys but we need people focused on making it more cost effective and also making it more convenient so that people can actually have access to it. So I would actually kind of agree with those people. And then the counter argument is like, okay, you do have to spend more for getting good stuff too.

[Alex Clark]

Yes, a little bit. And I, and I do want to give hope that with RFK Jr. Now and this HHS appointment, I mean that is definitely one of his core components that he wants to work on. It is subsidizing the bad crops that make the bad food and not, you know, the healthy crops that are making healthier organic food. And if we were able to help farmers out in that way, that it would make organic food healthier options a lot more accessible and less expensive. Right? Am I right on that?

[Paul Grieve]

Well, it may make everything more expensive.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, explain.

[Paul Grieve]

Well, because like if you ended the subsidies on grain, grass fed beef isn't going to move. The price isn't going to move, but grain fed beef is going to be more expensive and it may match grass fed beef. Well, now you have grass fed and feedlot being the same price, most people are going to choose grass fed. The crazy chart is if you go back like a hundred years, we spent 40% of our income on food and 10% on health care. And today that's literally flipped. So we're spending 10% of our, our income on food and 40% on health care. So I don't know, maybe we are spending not really enough on food and that needs to like come back into balance. But I just think my charge to like amazing, you know, small scale farmers is like, we gotta try to meet these people where they're at too. Like you can't just say, well, you just gotta spend more. Sorry. Like we gotta innovate.

[Alex Clark]

What should the average consumer understand about choosing food options that say regeneratively farmed?

[Paul Grieve]

That the term is becoming a buzzword very fast.

[Alex Clark]

Not this again. It's being bastardized.

[Paul Grieve]

It's the way of every single label. You know, like they all go through this process of like started with the best of intentions, a few earlier adopters doing it for real brands. You know, these marketing guys that we talked about earlier start to hear like, oh, that's what people are demanding, they start kind of putting it on labels. So sadly, just because something says regenerative doesn't mean anything. You know, it literally doesn't mean anything. It could be true. Or you could have stuff that has like the old school white butcher paper and it could be the most regenerative Thing. But the guy doesn't feel the need to put it on there because he's just doing good old school farming.

[Alex Clark]

Because pasture bird, you guys have like a non GMO little picture on there, I think. A regenerative. Yeah, farm picture. But you don't have an organic. You don't have that on there.

[Paul Grieve]

We're not doing organic. Organic's really cool and I'm a big fan of it. Purdue does a ton of certified organic chicken. It's awesome. But we wanted to keep it more affordable and we felt like the trade off for the cost of the organic wasn't really worth what you would like get out of it it. So we decided to just stick with non gmo. No glyphosate. We test for glyphosate on everything. We raise the birds in a way that's, you know, way in excess of organic requirements. So we just feel like that's kind of the sweet spot and trying to keep it affordable for people. Like we're super proud that you can go into sprouts, you can get a legitimate authentic pasture raised chicken for your whole family. A whole bird for like 14 bucks. And you could feed a family of six with leftovers. And like that's half the price of going to McDonald's.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Paul Grieve]

For something that's way, way better for the, for the environment, for your family.

[Alex Clark]

And so pasture bird does chicken.

[Paul Grieve]

That's it.

[Alex Clark]

Like I can get chicken breasts, I can get thighs and drumsticks and things like that.

[Paul Grieve]

You had wings and all that are.

[Alex Clark]

Seed oil free chicken nuggets in your future?

[Paul Grieve]

Oh yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Really?

[Paul Grieve]

Oh yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Tell me everything.

[Paul Grieve]

Now we have to do it. I mean, that's like what. I make them at home all the time. The kids go crazy. If we're talking about accessible and affordable, a big part of accessibility is like you gotta make the products that people.

[Alex Clark]

Want and like the chicken tenders ready made and stuff like that.

[Paul Grieve]

For sure it's gotta be ready to eat. Like it's gotta be heat and stuff. Serve.

[Alex Clark]

What are you going to do about breading? Are you guys going to do some gluten free options or just automatically gluten free or what?

[Paul Grieve]

I mean, as long as I'm with this company, it's only going to be stuff that like I would feed my own family, you know. So anything that we do right now we're just doing like raw products so you can make your own nuggets at home or whatever. But any, any product that we release will be Paleo. It's going to Be like ideally made with tallow or avocado oil. Like it's going to be the good stuff, you know, no question.

[Alex Clark]

Picture this. You're at a penguin convention, you know, full tuxedo, top hat, feeling sharp. But suddenly the penguins start circling. They point at you and scream cultural appropriation. You're shocked. What, it's a tuxedo. But no, apparently it's their thing and you're out of line. You're standing there stunned in front of a sea of tuxedo clad birds all judging you like you've committed the greatest crime of the century. You know what would make everything better? Some masa chips. Chips.

[Paul Grieve]

Oh yeah.

[Alex Clark]

These chips are made with just three ingredients. Organic corn, grass fed beef, tallow and redmond sea salt. No seed oils, no weird chemicals. Just the highest quality ingredients that make the crunchiest, tastiest chips out there. Masa chips are so much better than any snack that you've ever had. And they're way less controversial than a tuxedo at a penguin convention. Grab some masa chips today and use Code Real Alex Clark for 20 off your first order of seed oil free Masa chips. Masachips.com code real Alex Clark for 20 off your first order order. Just don't bring them to the penguin convention. They might judge you for that too. What stores can you get past your bird in?

[Paul Grieve]

So if you're in California, we are in a bunch of small specialty stores. If you're in where we are right now in Arizona or if you're in Florida, Georgia, you can get it at Sprouts. Basically you can get at most of the Sprouts except for the ones in California or Texas. That's only because we just, we're small and we're like still getting going. Sprouts needs a lot of chicken so we're working towards it.

[Alex Clark]

Are there some, any other names of grocery stores you guys?

[Paul Grieve]

Oh, Jimbo's in San Diego is like our original partner. They about five stores, amazing health food store. They do, they do a really, really great job. I would say Lassen and, and Vicente Foods up in la. Those are some really good ones that you could look at as well. And then up in the Bay area, Nugget and, and Raley's Sack Foods Co Op.

[Alex Clark]

Does Pasture Bird have any plans to expand into retailers like Walmart or Whole Foods?

[Paul Grieve]

That's like the big thing is if we're serious about this goal of like making nutrient dense, actually regenerative, pasture raised food accessible and affordable, then we should eventually target Walmart. Because that's where real people shop.

[Alex Clark]

But would it be possible, the biggest grocery store in America, would it be possible to keep doing your truly pasture raised chicken and have enough chickens to supply wool? Walmart.

[Paul Grieve]

But we don't have enough right now. But. But we've built the model to scale, to work with partners like that someday. And here's the crazy stat. You can say whatever you want about Walmart. They're the number one largest organic retailer in the world. They sell more organic produce than anybody else in the world.

[Alex Clark]

Yep.

[Paul Grieve]

So say whatever, but like, the customer is there. And I would say there's this weird melding of a lot of things right now. But the Whole Foods shopper is also now starting to shop at Walmart. And the Walmart shopper shops at Whole Foods. And like the whole world, I feel like, is sort of coming to this equilibrium a little bit on politics and kind of religion and lots of things. So it's a really interesting time to be in the game.

[Alex Clark]

How does pasturebird focus on transparency with consumers and prioritize it?

[Paul Grieve]

We struggle with this for a long time. So our, our number one thing from day one was, was farm tours. So we open up the farm twice a year to the general public. We want everybody to come out and see it for themselves. We're not like Joel, where we're like, come any time of day, 24 hours a day. It was like, that's a lot to plan for. And you get Chatty Cathy out there. That just like takes away your whole day. So we do twice a year. We want everybody to come see it for themselves. The problem is 99.9 of people, like, can't make the trip out to see it for themselves. So we had this crazy idea two years ago where we're like, okay, well, let's use the Internet to our advantage. So we started live streaming.

[Alex Clark]

I was just gonna say like doggy daycare or something where the camera is on. You can just, oh, let me just check on pasture bird. What are they doing? And then you can just see the farmer, like, doing stuff.

[Paul Grieve]

That's what we did.

[Alex Clark]

Wait, that is fascinating.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah. So we use a QR code on every single package of chicken we sell. And there's literally a live stream where you scan the thing. It'll take you to like a. It's not glamorous. Like, it's our true actual production. It's not marketing, but what a good homeschool.

[Alex Clark]

Like, little lesson.

[Paul Grieve]

Totally.

[Alex Clark]

That's so cool to talk about meat, where your food comes from, and then let's pull up this live stream of this farm. If you can't do a farm tour, you know, if you're home, you just had a baby or something. I love that.

[Paul Grieve]

I just think, like, transparency is the future of food, I hope.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Paul Grieve]

We talked about. Oh, is pasture is just like one chicken out in an open field running around. No, it's like 6, 000 birds. They're in, like, a protective structure. That structure has grass underneath their feet. It's moving all the time. So some people go on and they're like, whoa. Like, that's not what I expected. Did. And I'm like, great. I just want you to know what you're getting. Like, I just want it to be an honest, open transaction. And like, in the military, we said inspect what you expect. So I want people to see it and decide if that's what you like, then buy it. If you're like, no, that's gross. I don't want that. Then don't. That's, like, totally fine. I just think the future is around transparency.

[Alex Clark]

What is your opinion on this seed oil lobbyist, agriculture pick from President Trump?

[Paul Grieve]

I was really hoping for Thomas Massie.

[Alex Clark]

Don't even get me started.

[Paul Grieve]

That would have been crazy. I don't know this person. I understand their backgrounds, like, not where I come from at all. But I. I would reserve my judgment until I, like, get a chance to hear what she has to say and totally hear her out. But when I heard Massie was on the docket and Joel was gonna be, like, an advisor, I was like, no way. Like, with RFK and those guys, like, this is gonna be insane. You know, I think it still can be at the end of the day. Like, RFK is still running hhs, and that has so much pull.

[Alex Clark]

Well, and that's what I'm saying. I think it's okay for us to be disappointed in that pick and still be really hopeful with rfkg.

[Paul Grieve]

Exactly.

[Alex Clark]

For me, that's. I'm like, okay, so we missed that one, and that does suck. But we got a lot. With even FDA director, you know, Dr. Marty Makary, we've got, you know, RFK Jr HHS. Like, that is going to have tremendous impact on the future of America. So I think you win some, you lose some. And overall, with all of President Trump's picks, I mean, my personal opinion is we won. So if, you know, we have a couple in there we don't aren't that crazy about, I think overall, it was still a huge net positive.

[Paul Grieve]

I just. I pray that Massie remains tightly involved because that guy's amazing.

[Alex Clark]

I know. He's my absolute favorite congressman of all time.

[Paul Grieve]

He thinks on a different level. The science background that he has, and he's literally a pastured poultry farmer. Like, he does what we do at a small scale, so he gets it at many, many different levels. And, like, I just pray that he stays around and stays involved because he's a force.

[Alex Clark]

I would love to see Congressman Massie run for president one day.

[Paul Grieve]

You need to get him in here on his show. I bet he would come.

[Alex Clark]

I did a little mini documentary touring Polyface Joel Salatin's farm. And in that documentary, I do like a short, like, three question interview with him about raw milk.

[Paul Grieve]

Oh, cool.

[Alex Clark]

And farmers and like the Farm Bureau and stuff. But I haven't done like a intensive sit down, long form in interview. If you guys would like to see me interview Congressman Massie, say so in the comments. I'd be curious to see if you guys would be interested in that. I actually have never. I don't think that I've ever interviewed on this show an elected official.

[Paul Grieve]

He's different, though.

[Alex Clark]

I know he's different, but I just. I just haven't done that. But he actually might be an interesting choice. So we'll see. How can the average person who can't necessarily up and start a farm like you did change the food industry?

[Paul Grieve]

Well, you vote like three times a day. It's cliche, but you vote every time you. You buy food. Like you're casting a vote. That in my opinion, may be even more important than the big election that we just had. Like, that's how, like, big food. That's how Purdue started saying, whoa, maybe we should invest in pasture, raise and regenerative. Because people started voting with their dollar. And like, they see that and it literally changes the future.

[Alex Clark]

Don't just vote every four years. Vote three times a day.

[Paul Grieve]

Yeah, it's cliche. It's kind of corny, but I love it. It's so true.

[Alex Clark]

I like the corny little sayings and slogans. What is different about pasture bird chicken?

[Paul Grieve]

I mean, look at the product itself. The breast size is, like, much smaller. You're gonna see, like, so much color to it. I mean, the side by side comparison is. Is wildly different. We thought about having a whole campaign around small breasts and we were like, that'd be weird. Like, let's not do that one.

[Alex Clark]

I think that's hilarious.

[Paul Grieve]

Maybe we will. I don't know. It's also just like, what you're Feeding to your family three times higher in omega 3s.

[Alex Clark]

It tastes so good.

[Paul Grieve]

50% vitamin A, vitamin E. It's just a different product.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah, it is so much better than other chicken breasts on the market. Like, it really is. You guys have done a phenomenal job.

[Paul Grieve]

I appreciate it. And not that everybody needs to do this, but I just feel this call, like, as a Christian, to steward the land and steward animals under my care really well, too. So I feel like, not that that's everybody's thing or they really care, but, like, I do feel this call as Christians that, like, we need to take that seriously and take really good care of, like, the land that we're trusted with, With. And I just think that this is a great way to do it. Like, the animals and the plants and how they're meant to work together. Like, we got to bring that back. There's so much pessimism about, oh, food's killing us, and the vaccines are killing us, and it's like, all this stuff is killing us. It's like there are actually, like, real hopeful, optimistic solutions out there to a lot of these things that are like, I don't know, we can be bummed or we can be like, no, let's like, focus on the great stuff that's happening. Like, there's. There's a great progress that's happening.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, absolutely. And I mean, I just want to say, too, for transparency to my audience, you guys are not a sponsor of the show. I believe in the company. I believe in the product. I buy it whenever I need to get chicken at the store. And it's phenomenal. And I think it's the best option, chicken wise, that we have if your grocery store carries pasture bird. So I was just so interested in hearing your story, and we have a ton of mutual friends. And so I just thought, man, it would be so cool, cool to have farmer Paul out here for the mom listening or the person listening who's really new to all things organic and non gmo and I need to be eating real whole food. And this is just really overwhelming. What kind of encouragement can you give them or advice, Mom?

[Paul Grieve]

Just. Just do your best. Like, this stuff is so overwhelming. I think it's one of the things I actually feel really convicted by is, like, talking about all these labels and all these problems. Like, dude, if. If you're just. Just cooking at home as much as you can, I don't care what you're buying, you're doing great. Like, you are doing fantastic. So I want to leave people with, like, a Lot of hope and encouragement. And also it's not just about passion, Bird. Like, we're just one small player in the movement. And I'd actually rather have people buy local when they can, you know, like, find that awesome small farm, Find the one that really resonates with you. Find the farmer that you can go actually know personally. But brands like us, like, we stand in, in the those food deserts or those, I mean, we've got the four kids. Like, we've got soccer, we've got baseball, we got everything going on. Like, we need to have these convenient solutions too. So that's where we try to stand in. But to that mom or that dad, that's just like feeling super overwhelmed. Like, just all. It's only about doing your best and like the incremental, it happens over time. Like it doesn't happen overnight either.

[Alex Clark]

Obviously. Feed your kids real food as much as possible, but at the end of the day too, having a dinner at home with families, sitting at the table together, having conversation, having that community, building those relationships, that's always going to be the best. So that's, that's a really important part and reminder. So if you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, mentally or spiritually, what would it be?

[Paul Grieve]

Oh, it actually has like nothing to do with my business. It's just get outside, have community, like find a great local church. To me, those are three are way more important than eating pasture raised or free range or cage free like that. This stuff's important, don't get me wrong, but I think being outside, having like good friends that know you and you know them and being part of a local church and understanding that like life is way bigger than you and like you were created and you're loved and it's like so much bigger than just our own little universe that we try to build up sometimes. Like, to me that stuff is true, deep spiritual health that goes way beyond like, you know, what you eat or whatever.

[Alex Clark]

Where can people follow Pasture Bird on social media?

[Paul Grieve]

Good question. I'm. I've been off social media for 10 years, but a true farmer. I do know that we're on Instagram and TikTok, if that still exists, and Facebook. I'll just find Pasture Bird. You'll find it.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah. You'll find it. Thank you so much for coming on Culture Apothecary.

[Paul Grieve]

Oh, thank you for having me. It was awesome.

[Alex Clark]

I love getting to know Farmer Paul. Try Pasture Bird. If you ever see it in stores near you, your family will absolutely love it. Listen to my episode with regenerative farmer Joel Salatin from June of 2024 and watch my mini documentary touring his farm Poly face on the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel. That video is called Farm Like a Lunatic. Now let's be real. Do you love this show? If you do, please leave a five star review and tell others why you love it and that they will love it too. We're on a mission to heal a sick culture. Twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays at 9pm Eastern, 6pm PAC Pacific, New guests bring their own unique remedy to do exactly that. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube and follow me on Instagram at Real Alex Clark I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.