As an industry, we have a massive influence on the economic, political, and even the cultural arena if we can only get together and influence the people that support our brands. When we use that influence regularly, whether consciously or unconsciously, we can promote health, wellness, environmental causes, climate causes, and other things we deem important. In this episode, Elliot Begoun brings together some providers in the food and beverage industry collectively named the Natural Products Mafia. Don’t miss this episode with William Madden, Brandon Hernandez, Corinne Shindelar, Bob Burke, and Mark Feinberg as they talk about the potential impact they have as an industry, as well as other important matters – from what’s going on in the industry to what’s happening in the world.
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Natural Products Friends
This is a different episode and for a lot of reasons, first, the monthly crew that is joining me, but second is we want to talk about the influence that we have as an industry, depending on the facts you choose and the data you referenced. We, as an industry influence somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million consumers, those are our buyers. Those are the people that support our brands. We use that influence regularly, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously to promote health, wellness, environmental causes, and climate causes but we haven’t necessarily overtly talked about it. About a few months ago when this all started and the world was tipped on its axis, I found myself wondering, “Am I giving the right advice to the founders I serve?” I reached out to a group of other providers in the industry, people who I respected and we put together a Zoom group ad hoc, and it has taken a life of its own. We’ve jokingly named it the Natural Products Mafia.
We meet a couple of times a month and we talk about all kinds of things from what’s going on in the industry to what’s happening in the world. We’ve been talking a lot about what is going on politically, culturally, and the potential impact we have as an industry. What we decided to do was take that past, just talk and put that into action. We wanted to be cautious in not trying to leverage our influence to promote a specific way of thinking or to assume that everyone was going to be like-minded because we know that’s not true. We all did agree that democracy thrives and is at its best when its citizens participate in the process. What we’ve decided to do as a group is using this influence and encourage all of you reading to use your influence and the influence that your brand has on its consumers to encourage participation, to encourage getting out and growing the boat.
I’m joined by a few of the folks that are in that Natural Products Mafia group. We want to talk a little bit about, how do you do that? How do you encourage, enable, and educate around voting and around participating in this very messy thing that’s called democracy? Before we go any further, I’m going to go around the horn here and give everyone an opportunity to introduce themselves. With that, I’ll start with Will Madden.
I’m Will Madden. I’m one of the Senior Partners over at Whole Brain Consulting. We’re an outsource operations firm servicing the food and beverage industry.
He wins the prize for the best beard on this show. Mark Feinberg.
Mark Feinberg, CEO of OTHRSource, which provides in-store support services to emerging brands. We also have OTHRStore which is an eCommerce platform, OTHRDigital, which is a digital marketing firm, and also OTHRFood Network, which is a media and content platform. I’m also a Managing Partner of Feinberg Capital. We do early-stage investing in most food and beverage-related companies.
It’s great to have you. Brandon Hernandez?
I’m the other half of the brain at Whole Brain, a Senior Partner outsource ops firm. I’m happy to be here. It’s an appropriate topic especially since its Constitution Day.
I’m interested. I didn’t even know that day. Mr. Bob Burke?
I’m Bob Burke from Natural Products Consulting. I’m based in Andover, MA, and I’ve had a long time consulting business around helping to bring natural, organic, and specialty products to market. I’m also privileged to serve on a number of boards and advisory boards of companies in the industry, as well as being part of The Angel Group. I’m happy to be here.
I’m happy to have you. The only member of this monthly group that does not have a beard, Corinne.
I’m Corinne Shindelar. I am the Founder and Former President and CEO of Infra and NCGA, President of Emeritus and starting to launch our new company called All Natural Strategies Inc. I’m happy to be here and I’m excited to be part of the conversation in general simply from the perspective of coming from a district where we have high voter turnout and trying to understand what causes that high voter turnout and how to share that with the rest of the natural products industry.
Grow The Vote: Democracy works best when people participate.
I’m going to start with a question that is somewhat a setup and I’m going to go to Corinne. If you would just explain to those reading a little bit about what our effort is and what this campaign is about?
I’ll do the best that I can. We’ve had a lot of conversation around it, but in our discussions as the Natural Foods Mafia, we said and talk about how important it is to make sure that we are providing the space for those that we work with and those that we engage in democracy, engage in the process of voting. Are we doing everything we can do on our part to make sure that people have the tools to do that with? How are we enabling folks to vote? How are we encouraging folks to vote? Where are some resources that we could make it more, or I would say easier to understand how you can access information? There’s a lot of information out there by state. We don’t have that level of expertise, but what we do have is the ability to be able to say how important we feel as the natural foods industry to participate in voting because that’s where we start. If we want to be working on expanding regenerative egg, organic foods, if we want to make food more accessible, if we want to be working on waste, any of the things that we value or are important to us, climate change. All the things that are happening, it starts with voting and it starts with our policymakers. That’s why we decided we wanted to get involved in this vote effort.
Bob, do you want to add to that?
I want to add one of the catalysts was our friend and fellow panelist, Mark Feinberg sharing with us that he was giving his employees a paid day off to go vote. That sparked the conversation of, what can the rest of us be doing? Whether or not we have a large number of employees like Mark does, or are there other ways we can influence our peers, the companies we work with? Whether we’re consulting on the boards, clients, etc., and to spread this in a wildfire way, throughout the industry to galvanize people, to do something that would be to encourage, enable, inspire people to vote.
We sound marvelously altruistic that we’re doing this, but let’s be honest and tell everybody reading that it first started with us all being on a Zoom call bitching about things. We then had the realization that we had the ability and the moral imperative to turn that into something more than just a group bitch session and take action. It was a combination. I want to pose this question to Mark about what Mark was doing. Also, one of the other members, Nick McCoy, who mentioned, we influenced 50 million consumers. That was an a-ha moment for us as an industry. It’s beyond voting and you’ll see in the graphics. A shout-out to Fred Hart and the team at the Interact who donated their time and helped us create the icons and the graphics that we’re using to help support this effort.
We know that there’s more than this. Voting is the foundation of it. It’s the start of it but there are other ways that we can power change in our society. Corinne was listing a few of those. I want to go to Mark because the economy is tough. It’s difficult and at the time that you made this decision, you were trying to keep your employees even at work, because it’s difficult to get in all the stores and so forth. To give 4,500 people a paid day off so they can vote, what compelled you to make that decision? Why were you strong about doing so?
It’s been a challenge for the last number of months. We, as a company has backstopped a lot from our team. These are people that not only will make money doing the work that we need to do, but they also make money in other areas. A lot of that is dried up and it may not come back. In terms of their ability to earn their way down, for me, I know a lot about from doing the work in terms of how hard it is to be part of the voting process when in some cases you might not have a car. In some cases, you’re working 3, 4, 5 gigs or jobs to make ends meet and juggling the responsibilities of a family. These are things that take people out of democracy, juggling. I would venture to say that the folks on the panel at least, we have our challenges in life, but we can get in our car, we can go vote. For the most part, we don’t have a 45-minute lunch hour where we have to squeeze it in and voting is something we do. It’s not that way when you’re trying to live your life, pay your bills, juggle kids, work and juggle everything.
For me, it was looking at it and saying, “What could I do for that one day to take the juggle away?” Make sure that they’re paid, that they’re taken care of. They don’t have to make choices in terms of, “Do I vote? Do I not vote?” For us, we take voting for granted. A lot of us take voting for granted because it’s relatively easy for us to do it. It’s not the same way for a lot of people. The company is at a point now where 4,500 folks, I could do my part but I wish I can do it for even more. At least for those 4,500, we can say, “You don’t have to worry about juggling anything. You can be part of democracy. Your voice could be heard.” It seemed like the right thing to do.
I know there are many who feel the same. That’s an investment that you’re making in a democracy. It’s not an easy decision when it’s a business decision. Frankly, in my personal opinion, it shouldn’t have to be your decision. I got an interesting email from Yasir who’s one of the Cofounders of Lumen. He said to me, “I grew up in a country where I didn’t have a vote. I didn’t get a say. I’m going to be voting and exercising that right.”
If I could add, and it’s a shameless ad, I want 4,500 folks to have the ability to not be tethered, to having to worry about making money that day and to participate in democracy. If there is anybody who’s reading this, if you’re in a position to be able to make a decision like that, I’m hoping that my decision to do that maybe it rubs off on you. I didn’t come up with that idea on my own. There were some other companies, it was Coca-Cola who came out with it and said they were going to give the day off. That gave me the idea to do it, and I hope others will follow suit and take, not only from what I understand Uber and Lyft are helping get people to the polls, people who would otherwise have a hard time with transportation. I know absentee voting and mail voting is going to be higher, but even still, if there’s any role that we can all play in taking any of the roadblocks that might be in place out of the way and allowed democracy to take hold, that would be fantastic. I encourage everybody.
That’s a great challenge. Corinne, I saw that you wanted to make a point.
I want to make a point here to encourage those that are reading to not go to that space that was easy for us to go to. It’s like, “It’s not possible for me to do anything. We’re too busy.” Especially depending on the role that you have and your stakeholders. That’s part of why we wanted to put this campaign together is to try to give some easy resources and recognizing that not everybody can engage in the same way, but that we acknowledged that we believe most people want to be part of the solution. If they’ve got some easy steps that they can take or things they can do that they want to do it. I want to encourage people to keep hanging in there, keep reading because this is all about ideas on how to do that.
I’m going to toss one to Brandon here and get the sense from you, Brandon, in terms of, why it was important for you specifically, but for the Whole Brain and in general, to be a part of this campaign, be a part of encouraging the message of growing the vote?
Grow The Vote: The vote is the most powerful message for everybody.
For us, Will and I had had extensive conversations about the frustration, not just the world in general, but the lack of participation in general that we see, because we both know people have friends. How many people I come across that say, “I was going to but I got busy. I chose not to.” Whether it’s 2016, 2014, 2018, it didn’t matter. For us, democracy works best when the most people participate. If you don’t like something that’s happening, the vote is the most powerful message for everybody out there. The way that the system has been set up now, or the way that it continues to be run, is they’re trying to discourage you from doing it because they want you to believe that it doesn’t make a difference. The fact of the matter is the more of us that participate, the more that we can encourage our friends, neighbors, colleagues, employees, whatever, the more we can encourage them to get out there because their voice does mean something.
If you don’t like something that’s going on, the more of you that show up, that shows power and numbers. That’s the one thing the founders wanted us to understand was that if we all participate, we can work the bad apples out of the system that much quicker. Will and I know it wasn’t even a, “Should we do this or shouldn’t we?” It’s, “We’re going to do this. How are we going to do it?” That’s ultimately where we came down is you can no longer sit on the sidelines and then complain about the result. You’ve got to get out. You’ve got to make action happen and the only way we can do that is to encourage people to participate.
I’m going to toss the next question to Will but I also want to say, I wonder if we had a deal whereas, “If you didn’t vote, you couldn’t complain.” What would happen because you’re forgoing your right to bitch if you didn’t take part in the process of selection? Will, I know you’re somewhat of an understated guy. You keep your opinions close to your best, not willing necessarily to take a flyer. I get that, but I’m going to try to pull this out of you a little bit and try to get that. For those of you who don’t know Will, if he is not the antithesis of what I’ve described, I don’t know what it is. There are a lot of people who are going to read this like brand founders, etc., who frankly are frightened to step into the fray at all. One of the things that we talked about was what’s the risk of telling people or encouraging people, enabling people, doing these things to vote? We’re not suggesting how people vote. We’re just saying do it. What would you say to those who are struggling about putting a voice to this to stepping up and talking about this? I’m going to open that same question to everyone giving the rest of you a heads up to think about that.
As far as going out to vote, what people forget is that when this country was created, everybody wasn’t truly equal. Everybody didn’t have the right to vote. Women thought for 70 years being arrested, having the nights a terror, and being beaten for the right to vote. African Americans spent 100 years fighting laws that prevented them from voting even after they were granted the right to vote. Eight hundred years, it wasn’t until 1960 that we got rid of all those BS laws down South. Every single damn one of us has a family member, a father, a grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandmother who gave up considerable portions, if not their entire life so that we would have this right to go out and vote. I honestly don’t care what side of the aisle somebody is on? I don’t give a shit. I ride the center of the pine on a lot of stuff when it’s political in nature because both parties have a lot of things that I agree with and have a lot of things that I don’t agree with.
The one thing that we have to remember is if we don’t go out and vote, our politicians don’t feel like they need to listen to us. We have roughly 100 million people that vote for the president of the United States out of the country of 385 million. You also don’t realize is on that ballot is not just the president. It’s your senators, your congressman, it’s also all the local initiatives that you have in your city, like changes in tax strategy, school funding, things like that. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on because voting is that important. If 200 million people vote or 180 million people vote, our leaders start realizing, “I can’t just be for corporations. I can’t be for this side or that side. I narrowly won. Maybe I should start rethinking my strategy because I might not narrowly win next time.”
All of those things come out of regardless of which side you vote on by voting. The way I look at it is everybody should do it. In Chicago, “Vote early, vote often.” Whatever works, but people are divided in this country and both Democrats and Republicans ignore facts. What we need to do is concentrate on the execution of the policies that we support and whether they’re executed well, not good talking points at the top line, but whether they’re followed through and that’s whether it’s everything from tariffs to gun control and have a reasonable nature. All you seem to hear from is the far left and the far right. Most of us are in the center. The center needs to get off their ass and make a decision. That’s where I stand on that.
I appreciate your coming out of your shell. I know that’s not easy for you. I’m going to toss it over to Bob and let you share, the same question.
Divisiveness in politics has been around since the Whigs and the Tories. Before that, the Greeks and the Romans, but it seems like in the last few years it’s hit fever pitch. Along with what other folks have been saying, none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines and watch what’s going on. The more folks who can weigh in making their voices heard and intentions heard, the better. Anyone who reads the news can see especially exacerbated by COVID. This is going to be more mail-in balloting this year than ever because of the pandemic. There’s been a lot of talk questioning the integrity of the election. My concern, I’m sure it’s shared by others, is that if it’s a close election, it could plunge us into a constitutional crisis questioning the legitimacy of the election. We’re not saying how to vote or what’s right, and what’s wrong, but get as many citizens out there to vote as possible that have a more legitimate election despite questions having to do with the absentee balloting, mail-in balloting, etc., in part, because of the Coronavirus.
Corinne?
It’s fun to listen to everybody. I mentioned that I live in Minneapolis. I’m in the 5th district. We on average have a regular voter turnout of 80%. It’s amazing for eligible voters. Our district is extremely diverse, so it’s not diverse in all forms of diversity, from economic to BIPAC and immigrants. I wonder sometimes, what makes that happen? Part of it is the dialogue and the continued dialogue. There’s a lot of dialogue that goes on in the Seward neighborhood. There’s a lot going on because I live in George Floyd’s neighborhood. It’s about why isn’t the dial moving? It feels like we’re in a stalemate for all of these things that are important to us and we value. One of the things that I want to put out there to everybody is to think about it from the perspective of, “If you want the dial to move, then you have to hold your elected officials accountable.”
The only way that we have to hold them accountable is by voting and part of that is, it’s hard sometimes to take the time, but it’s worthwhile to go in and look at those who are running for office. Look at their voting records, how do they vote? What do they look like? Does that fit with what you stand for? It’s not always as evident. I’ve been surprised sometimes over candidates that I feel like I’m supporting and then go in to look at their voting records and I go, “I never would’ve thought that based on my values.” It’s caused me to think differently or continue to think. That’s the other part is we’ve gotten this apathy about voting that I hope this 2020 will change. I hope the angriness of our planet and the angriness of the people will wake us up and get us away from this apathy. It’s a scary thing when you hear 14, 15, and 16-year-olds talk about apathy. We have a responsibility to illustrate to the next generation that voting does make a difference. I don’t know how any of us could sit on the sidelines and not sharing that responsibility.
Brandon?
Grow The Vote: The more of us that participate, the more that we can encourage our friends, neighbors, colleagues, or employees to go out there and vote.
The biggest thing, especially for getting out there, voting and participating is if you take the 100 million individuals that do participate, the purveying wisdom is that realistically 85%-ish of the electorate that does participate in voting have already made their mind up. You’re leaving it to 10 million to 15 million people, depending on what news source you get it from to make those decisions for you. That’s why the participation becomes important because, from the down-ballot voting and everything else, you’ve got Ruth Bader Ginsburg that is on this ballot, this election cycle, and the Supreme Court, many other things that outflow from it. You want to encourage as many people to participate again because it’s not that thirteen million people aren’t insignificant, but the fact of the matter is in light of the available individuals that could participate. I would rather leave it in the hands of another 100 million people because it’s an opportunity for people to voice their concerns.
When you’re dogfighting over 10% to 15% of an electorate, and that’s who you’re trying to get to move the needle in an election cycle, that should be concerning for everybody. I might not have the right to bitch if I don’t vote, but at the same time, you want to make sure that you get as many people engaged as possible because there’s much more at stake than simply one office or one human being in occupying that office. It flows into every branch of government and it’s important. It is the most important activity that you can engage in as a citizen of this country.
I couldn’t agree more. Mr. Feinberg, your feedback, your thoughts?
I have the benefit of being able to listen to everybody else first, but the comment that Corinne made about apathy, there has been a lot of apathy that’s grown whether it be out of helplessness or hopelessness and it lends itself to apathy. I don’t want to say my hope is that given the collective anger, the global anger regardless of what side you’re on, there’s a lot of anger for whatever reasons. In terms of you felt left out, you woke up one day and you had an awakening that I’m not happy and all of that seems to be bubbling up on all sides. To be honest with you, sadly we all have good reasons to be angry at a lot of things on all sides.
We have a lot to be grateful for, some of us do, but there are a lot of reasons to be angry there. We took our eyes off of a lot of things. We allowed the leaders to take care of their own interests or a select few. That’s on both sides. Regardless of whether you’re red and blue, there’s plenty of, “What about me? How’d you leave us off?” It’s collective. The voting process is a way to hopefully move past, being left out and to have your voice heard. One of the things that I’m hopeful for is somebody like my mother, who, frankly, I didn’t even know where she stood politically if I’m being honest. I know now. She’s out making phone calls and she’s out working as part of the process. My hope is that whatever is going on out there for whatever reasons it’s going on, that people become more part of the process like my mom who is now part of the process.
That’s both sides of the aisle. I also look at, are we creating the next generation of leaders and the people who may have not cared, now they care? These are people who jump in and be part of the democratic process. To echo Elliot’s comment, democracy is messy. What we’re seeing is part of it. I’m hopeful that more people like my mom or my son, who’s eleven who shows more interest in what’s going on out there than a normal eleven-year-old. I want to believe that maybe those types of things are going on across the board and that gives me hope that more people get involved. That’s my thought.
I think about my mama, about unleashing the power of Jewish mothers out there that would change the course of democracy. No doubt.
Good and bad, a lot of worrying.
I know our politicians would all feel guilty, so that’s a good thing. The thing I’ll add to that, I’m going to take a slightly different tack on that and that is, as a brand. I’m talking about it now from a business perspective, consumers want to interact with brands emotionally, and they want their brands to stand up for things and do things and be a part of things, and so forth. You can do that at the extremes that we see some brands choose to do, and there’s an argument to be made that some of the best marketing is polarizing. To not show up at this moment at the height of almost all of the people, consciousness is it’s a missed opportunity.
One to impart influence, but in addition, also to show up as a brand that is human, that it’s authentic. Getting out as a brand and encouraging people to participate in our democracy is smart for a brand. It’s smart marketing. I personally come back to this concept that we are supposedly a representative democracy. The way that we ensure that we are represented is by giving voice to those who we send to do the work for us. We forget that they work for us and we have to do a better job of encouraging that flip in recognition that we’re sending them to do our bidding, to do our work. I encourage brands to take the risk of showing up. The next question that came in and this is a perfect follow-up to it, but take the risk of showing up and being a part of the citizenry that you are a part of. Show your consumers that you are a brand that they can feel good about doing business with. The question that came up and Corinne, do you have something to add before I go into that question?
I have an example of that. Bob sent us a picture of a label from Patagonia. I sent that to my sisters, and I got this reply, “Really, that’s what it says? I’m going to spend some money. I want to get out there and buy some Patagonia clothing if that’s true.”
They’re an example of a company that chose to be more polarizing and that’s totally fine. Everybody has their choice and that’s what we’re trying to encourage, participate in this process. If you have a strong feeling and strong message that you want to do, or that you feel your brand stands for or needs to communicate, do it. Understand that when you choose to do that you’re going to alienate some and that’s okay. The whole premise behind this, I don’t know what happened in our society. There used to be an ability to get together, sit down, and talk about issues we didn’t agree on. Talk about politics and then go onto the next topic and everybody’s spawn, but now we’ve tied it closely to self-identity. We’ve got confirmational bias reinforcing that it’s us and them mentality and that scares the shit out of me. The question that came in is specific to that. I want to encourage the Grow The Vote message, but I am scared as a brand owner about the potential blowback. How do I respond to those who pushed back? I’m going to go to the meek understated person, that demure authority here and Will Madden again, to get his input on that.
Here’s the thing, if you’re encouraging one way or another on a particular issue, expect to have the blowback and you should not care. We came out with a position that was unpopular with a lot of people, but it was something that I felt strongly about something that affected my daughter, my business partner, his entire family, and our workforce that works for us, which is a good 60% minorities of some sort or another or immigrants. If you’re going to go that way, expect the backlash and the hell with it. Sometimes your morals are worth more than your money.
Grow The Vote: If we don’t vote, our politicians don’t feel like they need to listen to us.
As far as encouraging people to go out to vote, I don’t see how anybody could have any confrontation against you saying, “I’m going to give my people the day off to go vote. I encourage you to do the same.” You’re not telling them how to vote. You’re saying, “I’m encouraging the people I do business with the rest of you in the industry to empower your people, to help guide their own fate.” If somebody has a problem with that, they’re a horrible human being. I don’t see how you could have a problem with it. If you’re not sure about taking a political stance one way or the other, then this is one of the few issues that you can go down the center of the road and say, “Just vote.” The way that you send that message is everybody put out, I am giving my people the day off to vote.
I will tell you that in the perfect world, what we’ll decide is true, but we live in an imperfect world and you will get blowback because people will assume that message is a key or a Trojan horse for espousing your political view, or pushing towards a certain outcome or getting the like-minded out to vote. In my opinion, as long as you have a relatively visible position in the marketplace, you will get blowback. Let’s encourage that. Let’s encourage blowback because that’s how we have a dialogue. That’s how we have communication. Instead of feeling like you have to defend yourself, or that you owe a response in relation to that, in terms of, “I’m only trying to get out the vote.” Use it as an opportunity to understand the other person’s perspective. A great thing to do when you get those things and you’ll see this time and time again on social media is that someone will post an opinion then the people will attack that opinion.
That person will then respond by defending their opinion and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. What I don’t see enough of as the inverse where somebody will return and say, “That’s interesting. Tell me how you came to your opinion or explain to me your thinking behind it.” A couple of things happen in that, one is that you may learn from a different perspective and understand why they’ve come to that conclusion. Oftentimes what it does is it strikes the fear of God into that person because they don’t know how to do that. Encouraging dialogue and that’s the whole premise behind this Grow The Vote message. Participate in voting, but participate. Participate in the messiness of this democracy. Talk to each other, have a conversation. Brandon, do you have something you wanted to add?
For any brand that is concerned about taking a get out the vote initiative, my one piece of feedback would be you make declarations every day, whether it’s 1% for the planet on your package, certified. You make declarations every day. This is the least controversial, at least I would hope, for you to get out and vote. This would be the least controversial for you to be able to put out into the ether and have people digest it. Realistically to Will’s point, if they don’t like the fact that you simply state, “Get out and vote,” they were not for you anyways. Don’t waste your time on the noise.
The other thing I would say to that is, all of us on this show, all of us part of these Natural Products Mafia group, and you’ll see a lot of the names and some of the posts I’ve been putting out, mention us on any of the posts that you put on social media, and we got your back. We’ll jump in and be happy to speak up in support of the efforts that you’re making to encourage participation. Corinne, you had a comment?
I wanted to mention that for some of our readers, in some of our stakeholder groups like retailers, it’s hard to think about giving everybody that day off because I would pretty much require you to close your store. The flip side of that is if you plan ahead of time and chose to take that step of closing your store for the day, you might get some additional shopper engagement early on because of that. It’s something to think about, is it an opportunity for you when you start to feel like, “I can’t do that. It’s not possible?” Think about it from a more positive perspective of, “Is that possible? Could it have a positive effect on my business?”
It still boggles my mind that we vote the way that we do. We do our banking on our phones. We do most of our lives, the most important transactions mobile or on our computers and we haven’t been able to morph that at all. Will, you had a comment and then Bob.
One thing, everything that we’ve had on our phones has been hacked at some point or another. Hacking the election would be a bad problem. That’s why we can’t do it on our phones. Number two, if you’re a co-packer or a grocery store where it would shut you down, there are these things called breakers, and the way your breaker works is, “I’m giving my employees 2, 3 hours, whatever, to get out there and vote.” You bring in temps that fill in for those 2 or 3 hours. That’s how we keep plants running 24 hours a day, thirteen days a week. People take breaks to eat, to use the restroom, stuff like that. The breaker’s whole job is to free that opportunity up for employees. It’s not an impossibility. You might not be able to do the whole day, but you can bring in breakers and that costs you a bit of money, but not that much money. That’ll allow you to execute against that. Thirdly, anybody who gets pushed back on the fact that they took us under the road and said, “Get out and vote,” tag Brandon and I into it. I have no problem telling people to go to hell. I’m good at it. I do it for a living. We’ll be happy to defend the position and try and understand what the other party’s problem is with the position.
I wish I could bring you out more so that you’re more willing to show up fully and things and not be muted. One of these days, we’ll see the full manifestation of Will Madden. Bob, you had some things to add?
One thing I would say is that when there’s blowback that happens for apparently non-offensive things, who knows these days on social media how much of it is Russian troll firms? How much of it are the Facebook algorithm, amplifying, discontent, and that thing? That’s how they promote engagement. Having said that, where we as a group of people who have wide connections within the industry can make an impact is not only getting our employees, not only getting our industry friends involved but working through the companies we’re involved with to amplify this out to consumers at large. That’s where the 50 million come in that Nick did as a back of the envelope. Historically, brands and companies have been sanitized about what messages they put out.
It was either a lawyer to death or otherwise the product of a committee and homogenized to death. George Floyd was a real turning point. A lot of companies felt it was unconscionable to stay silent and not speak up. That got a lot of people to breakout. Now, to ask people to promote voting and to enable people to vote seems for a lot of folks a safer thing, but one that can be magnified and amplified in a huge way by getting these companies committed to this.
Jenny has a question in terms of any thoughts as to voting in person or absentee. I don’t know if there’s a nuance to that question, Jenny, feel free to add to it. I don’t think it matters how you vote personally. It matters that you vote. There’s some benefit to showing up at a polling place and being seen and also feeling the energy of democracy in action. If you can do it, it’s cool. I’ve encouraged all of our kids are in their twenties and I said that to them. If you can make it to a polling place, it’s different, do it because when you put the stick around and you feel like you’ve engaged in the process, it’s cool. Mark, you had something to add?
Grow The Vote: Voting is the most important activity that you can engage in as a citizen of this country.
I would say there are various options, do what you’re most comfortable with. I went through the algorithm in my head to feel most comfortable that I’m going to vote, that my vote is going to be counted. What I’m going to do is go early but I’m going to do it in-person. I’m going to do it early. My mom in her 70s, she’s going to do absentee mail-in, but she’s going to bring it to the ballot box. You can go to the box if you have issues or you think there could be issues with the United States Postal Service. It’s going through and looking at what your options are and coming out with whatever you think is best for you. The good thing with this election is there are a lot of different ways we can vote. Do what you feel most comfortable with given all the complexity of what’s going on.
Jenny added, because she’s hearing those things and whether there is an issue and Mark’s input is spot on but I want to take it to a slightly different element of that same topic. That is this whole concept of confirmational bias and the fact that we are having a hard time as a nation discerning opinion from fact and fact from opinion. I’m engaging in an experiment and I would challenge anybody reading to do it with me. I’ve made a decision between now and the election, every book, every article, and every podcast that I listened to that is of political nature, I’m going to try to find one on the other side of the issue to do the same. I will tell you that my wife has heard a few F-bombs and some things come out of my mouth as I’ve listened to some of those other podcasts and read some of those other articles and so forth.
It is not easy to read something that seems different from what you believe, but I feel like it’s extraordinarily important to do so. If nothing else, it creates a better ability to have empathy for those who have a different opinion. If you can meet people who have diverse opinions with empathy, there’s room for dialogue but also, it helps you understand where that feeding of that information comes from. I’m trying to do it more as a sociological experiment and hold myself separate from it, and it’s not easy, but it’s a cool thing to do at least, I’m finding it. We only have a little bit of time left and so I want to give everyone an opportunity, Corinne I’ll come to you. This is your full pulpit moment, your soapbox moment in terms of encouraging people to participate in democracy and any other last things of wisdom you want to add. I’ll go Corinne first and then Will next.
I wasn’t planning on the soapbox moment, but I did want everyone who is reading to know that this Grow The Vote campaign that we are going to be launching will all be open source. Any of our colleagues are welcome to use it and to pass it on and to encourage others to do so. I also cannot encourage everybody out through this with my soapbox timeframe, please go to your state website to find out what are all the different ways that a person can vote. That is the minimum that you can do is make that information available to your stakeholders whether your customers or whomever that you reach in your state. Every state allows absentee ballots to be carried to the election judge, which is different than your polling place. It’s important to make sure that you understand those differences, help people understand them. We can take some simple steps here. End of the day, I am going to be taking up Elliot’s challenge. I have to say, I’ll admit it like a grandma, I have six grandchildren. I want something for those grandchildren to have in the future and voting is my responsibility to make sure that happens. I hope everyone feels the same way.
Will?
I’m voting absentee this year. I do most years because God knows I can’t tell you where I’m going to be. They’re coming out on October 6th so you’ll have plenty of time to return them and planning it. When you get it, vote and mail it in. That gives them a whole month to figure out what your vote is. A lot of states are opening it up earlier and earlier. Get out there and vote. If you can’t get the day off to go vote, then vote absentee but make sure that you do it. Remember there are a lot of local issues that are on your ballots. Even if you can’t decide on who you want for Senate, who you want for work Congress, or who you want for the president, remember all those local things, things that you hate about your city are on those ballots.
I think that you love and want to protect. Mark, we’re going to need to do this rapid-fire here to squeeze it all in.
To piggyback off that, all the dates are different in the state. Check your state’s voting website and it will give you the dates that absentee mail votes are available. In some states, that’s already happening. I would echo, vote, do it early, check it off the list, but most importantly vote, and get it done. Check with your state the voting website. Every state has one for the most part. I’ve looked at all of them. They’re all good and give you good and accurate information in terms of what to do. Get out to vote.
Bob?
For a lot of people we know, and in the industry at large, exerting influence is opening up your wallet. What we’re hoping to do is mobilize a lot of people, get a compounding exponential effect going by having this Grow The Vote campaign. Each of us sending it out to 10, 20, 30 people asking each of those recipients to do the same and get this positive wildfire effect to get people engaged and to promote this idea of voting. It’s something within all of our means. It takes a few minutes to apply yourself here.
Brandon?
I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. Get off your ass and vote. Find somebody, take somebody with you. If you have a grandparent in a different state, there’s a website called GoGoGrandparent, which you can set up a ride for them to and from. Get out there, take a friend, and find somebody. I don’t care what it takes, but if we find our way to get one other person to go with us, it can make a world of difference.
I’ll end by saying that we want this to be an open-source. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for reading. Most importantly, thanks for voting. Take care. Bye.
Important Links
About Brandon Hernandez
Experienced Owner with a demonstrated history of working in the food production industry. Skilled in Continuous Improvement, Software Documentation, Food Science, GMP, Supply Chain, Operations and Quality Assurance.
Strong finance professional with a Bachelor’s of Science focused in Biology from Colorado State University.
About Corinne Shindelar
Corinne has over 38 years’ experience in the natural and organic products industry. She has the vision to see what is needed, the tenacity to fight for what is right, and the business and diplomatic skills to make it happen. Her numerous awards include being named one of NBJ’s “Most Influential People in the Industry”, and Progressive Grocers “Top Executive Woman in Grocery”. In 2019, New Hope featured her as one of the 40 Unforgettable Founders of the Natural Products Industry.
After nearly two decades of profitable retail management, she became the Executive Director of two regional co-op grocers’ associations, CGA Midwest and TCNFC. Simultaneously, she founded the Midwest Purchasing Co-op. In 2004, she led the merger of all three into the NCGA as the founding President.
She spent the last 15 years as founder and former CEO of INFRA (Independent Natural Food Retailers Association). Corinne has served on numerous Boards, including MSI (Mutual Service Insurance), Shared Capital as Chair, NC Credit Union, Cooperative Development Foundation, and Chair of the Non-GMO Project for the last 10 years. She serves on the Climate Collaborate board, is a member of J.E.D.I. leadership initiative, and provides guidance to INFRA as its President Emeritus.
About Bob Burke
As a consultant since 1998, Bob Burke provides assistance in bringing natural, organic and specialty products to market across most classes of trade. This includes work in strategic planning, writing sales, marketing and business plans, budgeting, pricing, building distribution, broker selection and management, organizational development, strategic options, financing, branding, trade spending management, US market entry plans for international companies and assistance around M&A, due diligence and venture strategy groups. He is also the co-author and co-publisher of the Natural Products Field Manual, Eighth Edition. Prior to consulting, Bob was with Stonyfield Farm Yogurt for 11 years as Vice President, Sales & Corporate Development and Vice President, Marketing & Sales. He has held marketing positions with Colombo, Inc. and Sperry Top-Sider. He received an MBA from Babson College.
Bob has had the privilege of working with and learning from exciting companies at all sizes and stages of development.
He currently serves as an outside director for EcoFish, Saffron Road, Uncle Matt’s Organic, Halsa Foods, Cali’Flour Foods and King Arthur Baking. He serves on the advisory boards of Noops, Wildwood, Soapbox Soaps, and Chaat. He is a former director of Stonyfield Organic, Orgain, Equal Exchange, Stirrings LLC, Pulmuone-Wildwood, Nutrabella, Farmwise, FoodState, Inc. (MegaFood, Innate Response) and the Specialty Food Association. He serves on the Industry Work Group: Preparedness and Education for the Specialty Food Association.
He also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Nutrition Business Journal and he is the co-founder of the GENA Group, a share group of leading natural and organic manufacturers. He serves as a Beachheads Advisor with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise and is also a member of the FMI Emerge Champion Council. He is on the board of the Hirshberg Entrepreneurship Institute. He is also on the board of advisors of the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Bob was named one of the “Top 25 Business Builders of the Natural Products Industry for the last 25 years” by Natural Foods Merchandiser Magazine. He was also named an inaugural Senior Fellow at Food Sol within the Lewis Institute at Babson College.
About Mark Feinberg
Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., is president and CEO of IAVI where he leads a global team working to advance the development of vaccines and other biomedical innovations to protect against infection with HIV, TB, and other infectious diseases that disproportionately impact low-income countries.
Prior to joining IAVI in late 2015, Feinberg served as chief public health and science officer with Merck Vaccines. In this role, he helped advance the development and global availability of vaccines against rotavirus, human papillomavirus, and other infectious diseases. He also led a range of research initiatives to address unmet health needs in low-income countries including the establishment of the MSD-Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories and the coordination of a private-public partnership to expedite Ebola vaccine development. Previously, he spent more than 20 years exploring HIV/AIDS pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention research and the biology of emerging diseases in both academia and government.
Feinberg holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He pursued post-graduate medical training in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and postdoctoral fellowship training in the laboratory of Dr. David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute. He has previously served as a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco and the Emory University School of Medicine and as a medical officer in the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and as a fellow in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University.
Feinberg is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association of American Physicians. He served as the chair of the Interim Scientific Advisory Committee of the Collaboration for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and currently serves as a member of the CEPI Joint Coordinating Group and as a member of the Council of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
About William Maden
Will Madden has worked in the food industry for the past 20 years. He specializes in big-picture operations and supply chain management and contract negotiation between food companies and contract manufacturers.
Madden has helped everything from start-ups to multimillion-dollar businesses find perfect-match contract manufacturers, setting them up for long term success. He is also the author of “Separating the Con Man From the Co Man – A Guide to Contract Manufacturing” (Train of Thought Press, available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon).
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