How A Guy Named Gunnar Made An Online Whole Foods For People Who Aren't Rich.

Hey, what's up? It's Ben Greenfield coming to you from Panama, where I just got off the water during an epic surf lesson. That's right, I'm learning how to surf. I'm also horseback riding, stand up, paddling, fire dancing, and engaging in all manner of tomfoolery down here at Runga in Panama. The event is actually almost over, but I'm recording this for you straight from location, which is why you might hear birds screaming and fountains bubbling in the background, because I'm out in the middle of the jungle. My podcast today is a fun one. It's with my buddy Gunnar, who owns this online version of Whole Foods. Now, don't worry if you've heard about the whole, like Whole Foods meats, Costco membership, grocery store, blah, blah, blah. This is interesting. We get into a few very interesting things along with some superfoods that are going to blow your mind that you have to order right after you listen to this episode. Hint. The coconut flour wraps are amaze bombs in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

And we think that there's a really passionate consumer out there who in the face of super intense political dysfunction and recognizing, you know, just like the prelude of what we had at Harvey and Maria and these storms like climate change is happening. You know, we spend 300 billion doll million a year on diabetes related illnesses, and that's just one of several major lifestyle diseases. So the way that we are producing, distribute, marketing, consuming food is literally poisoning us.

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The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Hey, what's up, folks? It's Ben Greenfield and I like to grocery shop. I like food. I like good, high quality organic food. And you know, I, I do hunt a lot of my own meat. And we have a big vegetable garden up here where we grow a lot of our own veggies and we forage plants and we've got some fruit trees now, which I'm excited about. And I think all those things should be at the core of a healthy diet. And even if you don't have all those things, there are of course the existence of farmers markets and CSAs and local grocers. But let's face it, I also like my packaged goodies. I like my nori wraps and I like my coconut milk, and I like my. My gluten free baking powders and seeds and nuts. And there are a host of options out there forgetting this stuff. Amazon, Vitacost, Walmart, Safeway, you know, you name it, the list goes on and on. But when it comes to buying online organic food, you'd be surprised at what you're about to discover on today's podcast with probably the single gentleman that knows more about getting organic food online, especially than anybody on the face of the planet. His name is Gunnar Lovelace. Not kidding. That's his actual name, Gunnar Lovelace. Probably one of the more unique names that I've had on this show. And Gunnar is, he's a serial entrepreneur, starts companies. He's got one called Love Heals, which I'd love to actually hear a little more about, which is a jewelry business that basically is being used to fund the planting of literally over 1.5 million trees and sponsors over 50,000 malnourished kids around the globe. And he also has a passion for making organic and non GMO groceries available to people who may not want to pay the price of what you got to pay at Whole Foods. So basically, he specializes in making Whole Foods esque experiences available to people who aren't rich, who don't want to blow their whole paycheck on kombucha. So anyways, I've had a chance to hang out with Gunner. He's a fascinating dude. Cool story, too. So, Gunnar, welcome to the show, man.

Hey, it's great to be here. Big fan of your work and your community, so it's an honor to be here.

Oh, thanks, thanks. Appreciate that. So I've, I've hung out with you, dude, and you'reyou're kind of a hippie, and at least that's the impression that I get of you. And I'm. I'mI'm curious, you being as healthy as it seems that you are, did you grow up, you know, like, eating kale and sprouts and kombucha or was this kind of a development that occurred later in life or where'd you develop your. Your passion for organic foods and living a healthy life?

Yeah, so, you know, I originally grew up with a single mom and saw how hard she worked to make healthy choices and just, you know, always seemed crazy to me that food with lots of chemicals and processing costs less than Food with no chemicals and processing. And when my mother remarried, my stepfather was running a food co op out of a little hippie commune in an organic farm that he runs to this day.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew you grew up a hippie.

So I have been in the alternative culture of the organic industry and agriculture for over 35 years and obviously I love the roots. And also one of the things that's so exciting about Thrive Market is that we're really making it a mainstream thing. 50% of our member base is in the Midwest and the south. And so that's really exciting that a lot of this couple decades of development work that came out of some of these more alternative communities is now going mainstream.

Interesting. So for you growing up, and by the way, I was the complete opposite. I grew up on iceberg lettuce, take and bake pizza, 29 cent bags of hamburgers from McDonald's. So we had a little bit of a different existence. But I'm curious now, you know, growing up with all that and yet living because you're inare. You in LA now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So living in la, what's your diet look like now? Are you pretty much like 24, 7 at Erewhon or.

Yeah, that's a good. You kind of hit it on the head. Erewhon is definitely one of my spots, you know, honestly. So, you know, I'm a little like all of us, we're kind of unique and diet is so specialized, but I historically have stored a lot of stress in my stomach. That's just kind of like one of my areas of weakness and vulnerability. And so the truth is that I find that the simpler I eat, the better. It's just like it's few ingredients, very, very simple and frankly I love it and I feel better. So that's like mostly, you know, fruits and vegetables with some very select animal protein.

Got it. So do you follow like a specific. Do you like a ketogenic thing or are you more of like a Kitavan fiber based plant diet or how would you describe, or are you just agnostic?

I'm loosely paleo and obviously I eat a lot of healthy saturated fats and I love the keto movement, you know, again though, it's actually like if I eat too much animal protein, my system just gets bogged down. So I, you know, I think.

What do you mean your system gets bogged down?

I just don't have as much energy, my dad, I get constipated and you know, just like, it's just, it's harder to digest for me. Whereas if I'm eating, you know, lots of steamed veggies, for example, I'm just, I'm doing better. Yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's just a function of like being in a super intense startup and I just kind of store my stress in my stomach. So I don't necessarily recommend that for everybody, but it works for me.

Yeah, well, honestly, there are genetic reasons for that. There's, I don't know how familiar with methylation, but there are people who, I believe the correct term would be under methylators who actually need a lot more of the amino acid methionine from meat based sources. And then there are other people who are over methylators who, who basically, if they eat too much meat, just like get overrun with methionine. There's like an aging effect and so there really is like this genetic propensity for some people to do better on a plant based diet and then others to just feel like crap unless the, unless they get their steak every three days. So.

Yeah, and I'm not, I'm not at all plant based exclusively, but it's, you know, you know, I definitely eat high quality animal protein throughout the week, but it's just not, I just don't eat very much of it.

Yeah.

Again, I think, you know, you're super educated on these issues and I think that, you know, I think at the end of the day I think, you know, it's, it's pretty, pretty simple. I have a pretty simple approach to my own personal diet which is just, you know, you know, eat simple food that's primarily veggies and then just, you know, try, try, you know, just eat lighter in general. Less food is generally for me I find like that the tendency is to eat too much or you know, I also like when I'm stressed out or feeling insecure or emotional or whatever, then I'll like, you know, like it's, there's like, you know, kind of that trained emotional response of like going to food. And so I, you know, I bring a lot of awareness to that. Doesn't mean that I get it. Right. In fact, if I'm really stressed out, I, it's very easy for me to break the habits that I know are good for me.

Yeah, you're such a weakling, dude. Nobody else is like that.

Total weakling.

Yeah. What about supplements? Are you a supplement guy?

You know, I do temperature stable probiotics. I really like them because I do a fair bit of traveling and as you Know, vast majority of the immune function is regulated out of the gut. And so I discovered this, I don't know, six or seven years ago that if I ever am starting to feel even a little bit of a tinge in my throat or run down, I actually just take probiotics every hour or two and it just.

Every hour or two, really?

Yeah. And it just completely knocks the cold back. It's a really cool trick that I learned eight or ten years ago.

Wow, that's a lot of probiotics. Do you have a brand or a strain that you use?

Yeah, I really like the Dr. Ajitas that we keep carry. It's temperature stable so it allows. I can travel on airplanes and I always have it with me. Again, I only do that a few times a year if I'm feeling rundown. There used to be a period of time where eight years ago or so where I was on the verge of being sick all the time just from overwork and stress. And as soon as I discovered that kind of probiotic trick, I just knock on wood. I rarely, rarely get sick anymore. And then the other product, that supplement product that I actually will take again, it's mostly around if I'm feeling a little rundown is I really like the Host Defense mushroom products. They're super effective. And then there's a vitamin C powder from Healthforce that I find really effective and absorbable. So I actually, I do that almost daily.

Is that like a, like a chaga, that mushroom?

Yeah, it's like chaga and Reishi. It's a whole blend. You know Paul Stamets and his work?

I am familiar with him. Yeah.

Yeah. He has a great product called Host Defense.

Cool.

That's the extent of my supplements.

You've got basically an online grocery store more or less where you sell a lot of this kind of stuff and I order from your store. But I'm curious before we talk a little bit about that, I mean, where'd you go from being a tiny hippie as we've already established, to actually starting an online grocery store? How did that actually develop?

Well, you know, I've always been interested in food. I think just a lot of survival issues growing up where it wasn't clear where the food and money was going to come from to pay the rent. You know, food is obviously such a primary thing in terms of like our sense of well being and just like general survival. So that just naturally drew me to the area. And then I went on after high school, went to college at UC Santa Cruz, really kind of My peak of my kind of more expressed activist days and started a couple nonprofits and shut my campus down a few times around different environmental issues. And then I just realized same 500 or 1000 people showing up to our events and rallies and just over the hill, the tech boom, the first dot com boom was happening. I saw the scale and potential of the intersection between business, media and technology and saw that it could really give a broader platform to have a positive effect. I dropped out of college and started an educational software company teaching children how to read and was really fortunate enough to be able to sell that business and then just had many failures, AKA learning experiences along the way and some great successes and really just most broadly really interested in the idea as business as a vehicle for good and thinking about and looking for organizing principles that can bring people together at scale around the common good. And one of the things that's been so gratifying about being in the food space through Thrive Market over the last few years is really just seeing how you know how it doesn't matter who you are, where you live, what you believe, what the color of your skin is like. People want to feel good in their bodies, they want the same thing for their children. And it's a very scalable organizing principle that positively affects people in their lives and deals with some of the biggest issues we face with obviously huge health epidemics and the economic impacts of those health epidemics. And then conventional agriculture today is the second largest contributor of greenhouse gases with factory farming of animals being the vast majority of that. I think the way that we produce, distribute, market and consume food cuts to the core of our viability long term on the planet. And so our mission at Thrive Market is really to make healthy living easy and affordable to everybody. And so if we can sell a healthy alternative at the same price as a conventional equivalent and ship it to people's homes for free and eco friendly packaging, we really have made a huge improvement in the solutions that are available.

And that all sounds great, but I guess what I'm wondering is how do you actually start a grocery store? How'd that actually happen?

You know, just very organically. Like I. Because I have a retail store with my jewelry business, Loveheels, I was able to get a bunch of wholesale accounts set up with the brands that I love and I just like, I think it was like five or six of my top brands at the time and friends found out that I had wholesale accounts and could get Healthforce and seventh generation products at 40, 50% off. And so they started Wanting to be able to access those discounts. And then I ran a few shopping events on Facebook to test the demand of that. Shopping events were oversubscribed. And it made me think that there's got to be a better way to organize this type of demand that there is to access these products at lower pricing. And so that really led us into kind of building a platform that today is Thrive Market.

So how does that work exactly? Like, you guys actually have like a warehouse where you're ordering from different farmers or what exactly happens? And the other thing I'd love to hear about, by the way, is I also notice everything's like super cheap. Like, it's free shipping and it's 25 to 50% discounts. Like, how do you even do that when people have to pay so much at Whole Foods or Amazon, for example?

The main thing is, you know, grocery today, the way it works is you've got your farmer, your manufacturer brand, you've got brokers and distributors in the middle, and then you've got all your retail markup, the profits that the retailer is taking, and all the pay to play shelf games that the retailer charges the brands to have their products placed. And so we own our own warehouses, we buy directly from farmers and brands. We cut out all the middlemen in the supply chain, which gives us the ability to offer tremendous savings. And instead of Thrive Market making money on the product sales the way a normal retailer does, we make our money on a $60 membership every year. So for $60, $5 a month, you can get organic groceries, the highest quality, curated organic groceries at 25 to 50% off, shipped to your home for free. And, you know, our average member makes back their membership fee on their second purchase. And as you know, most American families are spending thousands of dollars a year on groceries, so saving 25 to 50% off is a big deal for people, not to mention the time factor. So the core of it is that we buy directly, we cut out all the middlemen, and instead of making money on the product themselves, we charge a membership fee of $60 a year. And then for every paid membership, we sponsor a family in need with a free membership.

Okay, got it. So in terms of actually getting this stuff and stocking, how are you deciding what kind of things that you're going to carry and what you're gonna order? Like, let's say coconut milk, for example. Like, I drink like a, like a full fat bpa, free coconut milk. Like, let's say that you guys decide you want to carry coconut milk. How does that work? Like how do you actually look around for who's going to be able to get you the good coconut milk at the correct price and then allow you to be able to turn around and ship that to me and be able to provide me with the price that you're currently providing on something like that?

Yeah. So, you know, it really depends on the category. So, you know, baby and cleaning products have different criteria we use than say, you know, kind of grocery. We have extremely stringent criteria. And I think one of the things that's really important just broadly about what we do is it's hyper curated. You know, you go to a normal retail store, you're going to see 50 to 100,000 products. You know, you shop on Amazon, you've got literally 500 million products. At Thrive Market, we have 5,000. That's it. And instead of, you know, 100 laundry detergents, we have two. And we think that that's really important because it allows us to support and work with our partners more deeply, but it also allows our members to know that the choices that they're looking at are the absolute highest quality. And we've done a tremendous amount of research in that, both in terms of the quality, but also making sure that we can deliver it at a really great price. And I think that's really important. We're all super busy. You don't have a lot of time. A lot of people may know about a few brands in a specific area, but none in other areas. And so we really seek to build a lot of trust with our members that when they're looking at our catalog and they're looking at the products that we carry, they know that we're carrying the absolute highest quality. So, you know, obviously most of the time like 90 plus percent of the time that's organic. You know, we're the largest retailer in the country that sells exclusively non GMO groceries at that point. You know, when we're carrying skincare personal care products or cleaning products, we cross reference against the environmental working group database for toxicity levels.

Interesting.

A lot of people don't know that, you know, the skin is the largest organ in the body. And you know, when we take a shower or put our baby in the bath, the, you know, skin, the pores dilate and we absorb whatever it is that we're putting into our body. So, you know, every category has different types of editorial requirements and we use the relationships that we have in the space. And frankly, we were able to use our social mission around democratizing access to healthy Living, which really resonates with our partners, our suppliers, our investors, people, you know, influencers like you, where we get, we just get a lot of great information from people. So a lot of times it's just like, you know, people start searching for a new brand on our site and we look, we study failed search results on our site and if we see that there's a spike in some particular product or brand that's showing up with no results, we'll start to carry it because it lets us know that people want it.

Right. All of a sudden everybody wants BlackBerry Kombucha. So you guys start to start to carry something like that. So do you ever feel like though, I mean, playing devil's advocate here, it's online grocery shopping, right? You're having to ship stuff, there's jet fuel. Tell me how you're fighting that battle against leaving a big carbon footprint footprint or like disrupting community small businesses by shipping food to people versus having them shop locally or, you know, at their local farmer's market or csa.

Yeah, yeah. So two, two really important questions there. So one, you know, just kind of how we think about sustainability. So first of all, there are studies that show when you shop online or carbon impact than when you, when you drive to the retail location, people don't realize all the intermediary people that have touched and moved and transported and all the packaging and the lights and utilities that go and not to mention one's drive to and fro retail location actually has a higher impact than shopping online.

Not me, I ride my bike to the grocery store.

Yeah, so you're an outlier, which is, you know, that doesn't surprise me because you're such an alternative character yourself. But by and large, like 99% of people, obviously, you know, they're driving. So just core architecture, you actually have a lower impact when you shop online. Second thing is we're 100% post consumer recycled packaging. We're the first e commerce company in the country that's going to be going zero waste from our distribution centers to landfill, meaning literally no waste will go from RDCs to landfill by the end of the year. We're very, very close to that number today. And then we offset all of our carbon through conservation easement in Minnesota, which is a domestic carbon project. So we're, you know, that's kind of like high level. And then when we think about our sourcing, you know, we're extremely fastidious about looking at the environmental impact of that. So, you know, we don't carry anything that has palm oil that's got, you know, that isn't certified or we know what, what, where it's coming from because of the type of destruction palm oil is generating in the rainforest. Or when we set out to make a nutrient dense bone broth, we went to a really high quality grass fed jerky provider and we're like, hey, can we use your whole animal to make this bone broth rather than it being wasted? So we're extremely careful about that. And it's really, you know, the high level of like, you know, 100% post consumer recycled packaging. And when you shop online, it's actually more efficient because you're using existing last mile delivery service. So when we ship, you know, we're shipping with FedEx and UPS and local carriers. These guys are already driving around. So we're not, we're not actually adding significant new carbon impact on the delivery side. You know, that said, it's like, it's not a perfect thing. Like we, by the very nature of being humans, we're consumers and we have impact. And so we spend a lot of time optimizing our packaging. Like we just sent our team out to Minnesota to document this new domestic carbon offset program that we're doing in Minnesota. You know, just had a meeting yesterday with executives about, you know, when can we prepare to really announce our zero waste from our distribution centers to landfill. It's a huge ongoing topic and literally comes up every day, all day long.

Interesting. What about the packaging? Like, you know, I've actually, for those of you listening and I've been to thrive markets headquarters in L. A and seen it and you guys have a really cool facility there. And I seem to remember when I was there somebody mentioned like maybe there's, there's an option to make packaging out of like dirt or mushrooms or something like that. Is that true?

Yeah, I mean there is a, there is a packaging, there's a kind of cardboard replacement packaging that is made out of mushrooms and you can just literally just compost it. You know, we, we use 100% post consumer cycle packaging today. The mushroom based packaging is just too heavy. And one of the challenges that we confront in our business is the, you know, price to weight ratios is super, is a super delicate dance. Because we sell so many grocery items at such low prices, we end up with really heavy boxes and that costs a lot of money to ship. And so we make our shipping free to our, our members. And so we have to be really, really careful and thoughtful about how we make sure that the baskets that people are buying fit within the right matrix of price to weight ratio so that we can actually fulfill on the mission and be a long term sustainable business. And good news is we're really getting that down now. And for the first time in history, you can get these super high quality organic groceries and brands that you already love and are buying from at the same price as conventional equivalents for the first time in history, shipped to your home for free.

Even if you can't eat the box yet.

Yeah, I mean you can't eat the box yet, but as soon as we get, as soon as we get that worked out, I'll let you know. And we'll need you to post a video of that though.

Yeah, absolutely. I will eat the whole box. I'll toss the coconut, I'll just eat the packaging. Now you guys have your own brand of foods now as well. Like you're making your own stuff rather than just carrying other people's stuff. I'm curious what it is that you're making now on your own or packaging now under Thrive Markets brand?

Yeah, so it's super broad and you know we're always going to be working with the best third party brands. That's just a core part of our business. But there are just really important opportunities for us to further improve on supply chains, further improve on the quality while lowering the price to our members. And that's where we go more directly to sourcing. For example, we have one of the highest quality artisanal, organic, fair trade cold pressed virgin olive oils on the market. And it's something that you'd spend 40 or $50 for at Whole Foods. And we're selling it $15. And you know, we went to third generation farmer in Crete. It's one of the, it's one of the oldest olive oil producing regions of the oldest olive tree in the world is right, right there. And we just vertically integrate and that is important for us because you know, we, we know that there's a lot of controversy around olive oil and it gets cut with other types of oils and solvents. And so we, we really work very, very. Every single product that we develop under our own Thrive market brand is extremely high quality and also works to make the world a better place. So at the core of our business we're always thinking about how do we save people time and money, but how do we also connect them to the fact that when they're making a purchase, they're really tangibly making the world a better place. So example is coffee. I didn't realize until I started to research this, what the practical realities of labor conditions are like in conventional farming of coffee. And you know, the average Guatemalan worker has to pick 100 pounds of coffee just to qualify for their $3 a day salary. And in Honduras, during the picking season, 40% of pickers are children. A lot of these locations have armed guards and they harass people if you're not working fast enough. So it's just like near slave labor conditions. And so, you know, we couldn't offer third party fair trade organic coffee at a price that was competitive with third party brands. And so we went straight to a Peruvian farmer that's fair trade, single origin organic. And we were able to really build a super high quality premium fair trade organic coffee, but at a great price. And so every single category has a different rationale. And every single time that we work to develop a product, we really work to improve what it is that we're offering while improving the price.

Yeah, and you've got, I mean, I've checked out some of your guys brands. You got like diapers and baby wipes. You have ketchup. You have coconut wraps. By the way, I haven't actually used the coconut wraps yet, but what is a coconut wrap?

They're freaking the bomb. The coconut wraps are awesome. You can put vegetables, meat, whatever you want in them. It's just a way to get that kind of that wrap.

It's just a wrap made out of coconut meat.

Just a wrap made out of coconut meat, dude. So freaking awesome in. And we have these coconut flakes that are so freaking cool too. You know, it's three ingredients and it literally looks like a corn flake, but it's made out of coconut meat.

You mean you would eat this like a cereal?

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome.

You got to fill me in on this stuff more. Don't you know that I love anything coconutty?

When you talked about downing cans of coconut cream, I think we can serve your coconut obsession.

Is that the organic Coconut Flake cereal?

That's it.

Dude, you're gonna cost me a lot of money on this podcast. I'm gonna be adding a bunch of stuff to my cart. Well, not a lot of money because I know it's a. You save money.

What I think is the best granola on the market shortly. And it's all sprouted paleo friendly organic granola, super low glycemic. I just love the recipes.

Wow.

I think the American breakfast is one of those.

Who comes up with these recipes? You guys have like an in house.

Chef you know, we all, we all contribute. Like our senior vice president of product development, Jeremiah is, you know, he was the former brand manager of 365 for Whole Foods. He ran Whole Body for Whole Foods for seven years, which is a billion and a half dollar annual division. So super deep, rich domain expertise. And he's like super passionate about environmental issues. So he and I work super closely on this. And then I end up sourcing a lot of the products myself. Find great suppliers and partners, and we've got an amazing lineup of stuff that we're doing in 2018. I can't announce it yet, but there's some amazing stuff coming.

Wow. What are a couple of the other. Because I never heard of coconut cereal. Coconut wraps are now on my, my must do list. Maybe replace the nori wraps that I usually use or at least, at least be. Be an addition to the pantry. What are a couple other just like crazy good foods. You think more people should know about that? Kind of fly under the radar. Yeah.

I mean, I think all the, all the great healthy fats. You know, I think that I love sprouted nuts. You know, I find unsprouted nuts and nuts that are cooked. I find them hard to digest where sprouted. I just, I feels really clean and light in my body and like really great energy source that's long term.

Deactivate a lot of the enzyme inhibitors.

Yeah, exactly. Just makes it more bioavailable. So sprouting is a really, I think that's a really fun area and I think there's going to be a lot more of that. And we're, and we're, you know, like, you know, it's not, not specifically paleo, but like, we do, we have great sprouted quinoa and like that's, you know, just part of our, our broad offering. But you know, like, the sprouted granola is something I'm super excited about because it's such a, I think that, you know, and chia. I think chia is awesome. That's one of my, you know, I eat that pretty regularly and you know, great source of fat and protein.

You just like eat chia or do you make the chia slurry out of it where you soak it? Yeah, I'll do it.

I'll do it. Yeah, I soak it overnight and I'll either blend it into a smoothie the next day or I do like a chia pudding with, you know, monk fruit or stevia and some like, fruit. And it's just super, super low glycemic and Some vanilla and very simple.

Wow, I love it. And that sprouted granola. Did you say that launched yet or that's still to come?

It's coming.

Okay, got it. Very cool. I love it. Okay, so I've got another couple of questions for you. One is in terms of the whole Amazon thing, I'm going to admit, dude, and I hear this a lot from people that I tell about Thrive Market. They're like Amazon prime is way more convenient because you can buy like a friggin alarm clock and a book at the same time you're buying your canned coconut milk or your nuts or whatever. So sell me on why Thrive is better than me. Just like going to Amazon for the convenience and the speed.

Yep. Yeah. So you know, Amazon is definitely, I mean they've got the fast shipping thing down. You know, we're better prices than Amazon and like less than a third of our products are on Amazon. So if you're really like interested in health and wellness, you're just not going to find it on Amazon. And you know, we never set out to out Amazon. Amazon. Amazon is really good at what they do. They've got half a billion products on their site. You know, we're very curated and I think for us, you know, we're very passionate about the supply chains and treating employees well and managing our carbon impact. And we're much more than just an e commerce utility. Yes, at the core you're getting these amazing organic groceries and brands at incredible prices. But there's much more than that. You know, we have a giving program, we do advocacy work, we helped bring food stamps online last year. We do a lot of work around environmental issues. We produce tons of content and we have a real active community. And so when you're part of Thrive, not only do you save time and money, but you're really part of a community that is doing good on the planet. And I think that, I think again the market for grocery is so big, we never set out to compete against Amazon. We know that there's going to be other major retailers that do more organic and do more of it online. We think that's a good thing for us. We only have to get you know, 1% of the grocery market and we're a $10 billion business and we think that there's a really passionate consumer out there who in the face of super intense political dysfunction and recognizing just like the prelude of what we had in Harvey and Maria and these storms like climate change is happening, we think that there's a consumer that in the face of this intense dysfunction where politicians in Washington aren't doing anything substantive or positive, that they recognize a place that they have power is to vote with their dollars. And yes, they want to get great prices and convenience, but they also want to support businesses that represent their values. And I think that for the health and wellness consumer that cares about sustainability in the environment while getting great pricing, there's just no better option than Thrive Market.

Okay, now, when it comes to this whole Amazon thing, what do you think about the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon? Like, how is that going to affect you guys? What are your thoughts on that?

I think it's brilliant, both on Amazon's part and Whole Foods part. Again, for us, though, we're so focused on speaking really specifically to the customer. I think Whole Foods was already struggling reputationally prior to the acquisition. And you already see a lot of stories coming out how Amazon's phasing out small brands and streamlining the business in a way that's going to negatively impact the values of the business. I think ultimately it's a good thing that Amazon bought Whole Foods because it means that there's billions of dollars moving into the organic industry, and that's a good thing for everybody. But there's still a really important role for a challenger brand like ourselves to serve customers who want to get these products at great prices, but want to vote and support a company that has really authentic commitment to doing good, taking care of its employees, and obviously making sure that we have the highest quality, innovative products. I mean, again, 70% of the products we sell, you just can't get on Amazon.

Yeah, well, you definitely can't buy this coconut cereal on Amazon that I'm drooling over. Or the coconut wraps. Never seen those on there, so that makes sense. And, yeah, I mean, it surprised me when Amazon bought Whole Foods, but I guess it just kind of says something for the whole organic foods industry. And I would imagine it's just gonna. It's gonna blow up. And now, what about you? I mean, like, personally, are you. Do you guys think you're gonna get acquired at Thrive? Like, what are your. What are your plans regarding that? Like, is General Mills gonna roll in and buy you guys?

Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of conviction about what we're doing, and we're really excited about it. So we think that more than likely the path is standalone. We execute on the business. We'll go public in two or three years, but we're open to partnerships. If somebody. We really felt like they were authentically committed to continuing to improve the supply chains and they were prepared to really invest in that. For us it's never been about how much of the pie we own, but how big the pie is. And the core of our business is really focused on, on how do we make healthy living truly accessible to everybody. And so I think the good news for us as a business is we've had big strategic retailers and partners interested in buying us from the very beginning of the business and we've said no, but we're polite and we listen and there's other types of partnerships that can be done. I think that the Whole Foods Amazon deal, more importantly is a real existential threat to retailers and CPG companies who don't understand how to do direct to consumer, don't know how to build authentic relationships online and don't know how to really build the technology and data driven back end competencies to make that work. I think it's a lot like Blockbuster versus Netflix but a much greater scale. And I think over the next five years we're going to see tremendous disruption amongst traditional grocery players that are going to really suffer a lot.

Interesting. Okay, got it. Now I have another question for you that might not be related to groceries, but it intrigued me anyways, about your background. What's the whole love heals thing?

Yeah, so just again being a student of social enterprise and the idea of business as a vehicle for, for good. My mom has been a jeweler for decades and I went through a period where I was really burnout about 10 years ago I was burnt out on technology. I had helped co found a natural language processing company which got purchased and just really burnt out on technology. And so I really enjoyed the tactile, tangible and emotional connection that I saw my mother's customers had with her jewelry. So like hey mom, let's build a socially conscious fair trade jewelry business around the idea of love and beauty. And so that's really been, that's what we've done. You know, we've 75 employees in that business. It's been going for about 10 years and it's, you know, it's really focused on, you know, the idea of spreading beauty in the world and, and doing that in an ethical way.

Now these aren't actual pieces of jewelry designed to, to like vibrate at specific frequencies associated like that. Okay, that's what I was curious about. Like I wear. Have you seen the, the Love Tuner before?

No, but I've seen stuff like Q Link and.

Yeah, yeah. No, like the Love Tuners literally is like a It's a. It's a necklace with a little tuner on it. And you blow it and it vibrates at about 528 Hz, which is the frequency associated with the emotion of love. It's really kind of a cool concept.

That's cool.

Whenever you need like a pick me up, you blow on this thing.

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, we are energy. Right. So there's a lot of actual science that supports some of those things. But no, we have like, for example, we did a line at one point, at the height of the civil war in Sudan, at the Darfur conflict, we did a line of jewelry where every piece of jewelry soldiers we actually bought. We got a child out of slavery. And so, like, you know, we've done stuff like that. And, you know, I think it's. Those are beautiful things. Again, though, I think one of the things that I love about Thrive Market is that the actual core of the business, the success of the business, making healthy living affordable to millions of Americans, it's inherently a good thing. And the success of the business and the social mission are inherently interlocked and the same thing. Whereas in my jewelry company, which I love, the social mission is a little bit of a bolt on. Obviously, we have fair trade working conditions and we take care of our employees well, but we take profits from the jewelry business and then put them into programs like planting trees and children. And I think that helping people access healthy food for less is such an important issue. I'm sure you talk about this. You know, we spend $300 billion a year on diabetes related illnesses, and it's $300 billion a year, and that's just one of several major lifestyle diseases. So the way that we are producing, distribute, marketing, consuming food is literally poisoning us. It's poisoning the economy, and it's poisoning the planet.

Wow, Interesting. I do like what you guys are doing. And before I fill those of you listening in on how you can get a killer discount, even a greater discount than what Thrive currently offers. On Thrive, I want to mention one other food that I think you should get. They have these spirulina super chips. Have you eaten these before, Gunner?

I haven't.

Okay. I was gonna say I was wondering if your job involves just like eating everything, because I had these last time I was down there.

I want to see what you like for sure. So send me your. Send me your list because I'd love to check it out.

Okay, I'll give. I'll give you my list of things that I Think are just bomb. So you have these sprouted spirulina bags, but it's not just organic spirulina. It's organic coconut, organic banana, sprouted organic sesame seeds and organic dates. And they're like these little cookie bites and they're freaking amazing. They do dye your mouth just like slightly green. So be careful. If you're listening in, rinse that with. You look like a freaky with some water afterwards. Yes. A couple of others that I'm a big fan of. Coconut manna. You've had that before, right? So if you haven't. Oh, yeah. If you're listening and you haven't had coconut mana yet, which is basically like this ambrosia like blend of coconut fat and coconut meat and coconut oil, you're missing out on a very important part of life. I'm a macadamia nuts guy because they're like one of the best ways. I do generally eat a high fat diet and macadamia nuts will keep me satiated for hours. You guys have the Hawaiian orchards natural roasted macadamia nuts. So I'm a huge fan of macadamia nuts. I'll sprinkle those in anything.

I know. They're so good.

Pastas, smoothies, you name it.

Yeah. If you gravy grade them, grate them, or crush them up. It's like a total cheese replacement.

Yeah. And then I'm kind of a fan of like lower oxalate seeds and lower oxalate nuts. That's another reason I like the macadamia nuts. But pumpkin seeds are another really good one. Like I'll. My wife makes fun of me because I'll just take whole pumpkins. I'll throw a whole pumpkin in the oven at like 400 and just bake it. Put a little raw honey and olive oil and sea salt on there. And that's my lunch. And I'll eat the seeds and everything. But you guys have.

I love pumpkin and squash.

Oh, yeah.

The Mark Sissons Primal Kitchen Avocado mayo.

I have not. I have not put the avocado mayo on there, but now I'm going to add that to the list. So you just basically put mayo on pumpkin? Yep. Amazing.

Yeah. I mean that I probably eat that for dinner as a primary thing for two or three times a week. Okay.

For those of you listening in, I will add that recipe to the show notes. And then the last one that I like is the sprouted pumpkin seeds like I mentioned, just because I'm a fan of pumpkin. So the sprouted pumpkin seeds, it's just sprouted pumpkin seeds.

Good for male reproductive health too.

Exactly. Yeah. And Celtic sea salt. So I'll link to some of my favorites if you guys want to hear some of my favorites. I'll link to some of my favorites in the show notes for today's episode with Gunnar and you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Gunnar like as in Gunnar's first name G U N n a r BenGreenfieldFitness.com Gunnar to get the show notes for today's show. And I'll link to all that stuff but then I'm also gonna throw a little discount in there in the show notes or you can just write this down right now if you want. This is going to get you 60 bucks worth of free organic groceries and free shipping. And because like Gunnar mentioned, Thrive Market is a membership based model, right? Kind of like the whole Costco meets Whole Foods thing. But you'll get a 30 day membership for them as well. Gets trial their membership for 30 days so you know their prices are already like 50% off. So that's giving you an extra 60 bucks of free groceries on top of the 50% off of the stuff that you can find that we just got done talking about. Wipe that saliva off the corner of your mouth and go to thrivemarket.com Ben that's thrivemarket.com Ben and when you go there that'll automatically get you the landing page. It'll get you the free groceries, the free shipping, 30 day trial, everything. So check that out. Thrivemarket.com Ben if you want to know what to get, what I'll do is I'll add that link to the show notes over@BenGreenFulfitness.com Gunnar and I'll also link to some of my faves. We'll link to that probiotic that Gunnar mentioned and his favorite mushroom product, the vitamin C by Health Force, the coconut wraps, the Coconut Flake cereal and a few of these others that are my personal favorites so that you canyou can grab some of those goodies for yourself and have basically like a little organic grocery shopping Christmas for yourself. So Gunnar, that all being said, thanks for coming on the show man. I really like what you're doing and kudos, kudos on putting together a great grocery store.

Really appreciate it. Appreciate your support. I think it's just so awesome that you're able to do what you do and serve the community that you serve. And it's just such a great time for people to empower themselves with information from influencers like yourself where they can really get unfiltered information, and it's just really exciting. So I just really salute you for the work you do and grateful for your support.

Awesome. Thanks, man. That means a lot.

Cheers.

Now that we've gotten all sappy folks Again, go to BenGreenfulFitness.com Gunnar and you can access all the goodies there. Gunnar, thanks for coming on the show, man.

Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks, buddy.

All right, later, everybody.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness pod. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice. Sam.