Nutrition for Life with the co-founders of Nuzest

I'd like to ship you a free.

Copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode, I bring you an inspiring leader or expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

How much time do you invest in your brain? Well, look, our brain dictates so many things. It's our largest asset. We've got to look after it, right? But often we're putting things on our skin and we're doing all these other things that care for our bodies, but our brain dictates so much. I came across a product a while ago called Flowstate and it's made such a difference. And look, they offer functional mushrooms that sharpen cognition, they really boost energy and definitely strengthen immunity. And they actually use one of their key ingredients is lion's mane. Right. So lion's mane is popular among really peak performing athletes and those wanting an edge. It's known as the brain mushroom and it's currently being studied extensively for its nerve growth factor potential as a means to ease the symptoms of Alzheimer's and for treating inflammation in the body.

The thing I love about these products.

They don't taste like mushrooms. You can mix them in with your tea, they're a great replacement for coffee. But I actually love the PM mushroom blend, the evening one. It really helps me sleep and to know that my brain is getting extra nutrients is just next level. The one thing that's really important for me is what's in there. So they have tested heavily at Hill Laboratories for heavy metals, pesticide residue, microbials and also at Massey University for activ compounds.

So I urge you, if you love.

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I don't know about you, but sometimes I get home and I think, what Am I eating tonight? It's the last thing I want to do. I don't know what to cook, I don't know what's in the cupboard or in the fridge. And it often leads to poor choices.

Like ordering some takeaways.

So recently Caroline and I started eating green dinner table and it's absolutely amazing. After a long day when I'm knackered, I know that when I get home there's going to be a great recipe and all the ingredients I need right there in the fridge. And look, I absolutely love it. I've been doing it for several months and it means I don't have to think at the end of the day and I just know that I'm going to get good, nutritious, wholesome food. And look, it's plant based, which has so many benefits. So if you're a meat eater, perhaps you might want to start on maybe just three, like a three day plan. So you've got three evening meals for you and your partner or you and your family, depending on what option you want to go for. But the food is delicious. It's so nutritious and it means we don't need to think. And as leaders of families, teams and organizations, what we put in our bodies is just so crucially important. So I urge you to go and check it out and I want to give you 20% off your first order so you can go to GreenDinnertable Co NZ and use the coupon code. Purpose.

Finder Trevor Boland turned to nutrition when his daughter Monique was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 22. Not satisfied with the bleak prognosis they were given, they looked to health experts all over the world for advice and turned a diagnosis into a directive to help others.

What started as a father and daughter.

Looking for answers has grown into a range of premium plant based supplements and an incredible company enjoyed by thousands of families around the world. In today's show, we get to connect with Trevor and Monique to hear about their journey in business, about how they lead themselves, about the breakthroughs that they've discovered and how their products are helping others in sport, in business, people who have ill health, people who want to prevent disease. So I know that you're going to enjoy the show, so sit back and enjoy.

Trevor and Monique, a massive welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for having us.

So great to connect. Look, you guys do incredible things, not only for high performers, athletes, leaders, but for the everyday human. And we're going to get to talking about your business but just to get the ball rolling, I'd love to just ask you, when you think of leadership, what comes to mind?

That's an interesting question because I have a military background. So for the first 15 years of my life as a naval officer, I'm not sure they taught us leadership that way. You had to learn it on the job. But I think it's different in different situations. And today leadership is very important and very different because we're in fairly turbulent times, and if you've got a team of people that are fairly young like we have, they need a bit of guidance and direction and reassurance more than anything.

Mentoring? Yes.

100%. Yeah. This is. Now more than ever. Leadership is vital, really, when we look at what's happening globally and obviously regionally as well, that there's great challenges with COVID with the economy and lots of uncertainty and obviously other factors now geopolitically. So when we go back to looking at your company, all companies that I believe they're formed to either solve a problem or to add something positive to society. So what was the catalyst, the inspiration that started your company, Monique, was.

So she can explain.

So When I was 22, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune condition of the central nervous system. There wasn't then and still isn't a known cure for Ms. So, dad, I'm an only child, so obviously it turned our whole family upside down, but probably no one more than my dad. We basically went on this journey looking for, not necessarily ways to cure the ms, but ways to improve my quality of life and improve the outcome of the disease. So we spoke to naturopaths, nutritionists, scientists, you name it, all over the world looking, you know, I. I tried some crazy treatments. I mean, I had everything from sharp cartilage to dark embryo stem cells to. At one point, someone had me taking something like 20 or 30 individual vitamin tablets every day. And we thought, look, none of these are the solution. But what we did come back to was there was a common thread from all the recommendations from all these different practitioners, and that was that good nutrition and lifestyle are critical for anybody, but particularly anyone who has chronic illness. So essentially, that was the catalyst for starting new Zest as a company. There's a bit of history between then and how we got to where we are now, but that's what set it ongoing.

That's amazing. That's really, really deeply emotional. I imagine for you guys to go back to that starting point and realize it was a very personal reason that you started the company.

Yeah, it wasn't. We didn't start the business for the purpose of creating a business that just grew organically and we made lots of expensive mistakes along the way because we didn't have a plan at the start. We didn't plan to build a business. We just planned to make some products that worked particularly for Monique. And it grew from there. But yeah, now we have a real business and we have to be serious about it.

Hey, James here.

I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlin.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

Yeah, I love it. And let's talk about the whole connection between our immunity, our immune system and nutrients or micronutrients and how they, you know, what's the importance of being aware of the micronutrients that we actually need and how that impacts or can impact our immunity.

Look, everyone is different. That's the first thing. So there are, there are genetics, there's background, there's lifestyle, there's what your diet is. All of those sorts of things are going to influence what you need. And you don't necessarily know what you need because there are so many nutrients that aren't even studied. So the first thing I would say is that food is the most important thing, not supplements. So we always say that. So a healthy, balanced diet is critical. You know, rich in all the colors of the rainbow, particularly plant based. That's where most of your nutrients are. And what we set out to do was to say, okay, how do you create some sort of insurance for people? And that is, how do you try and fill the gaps that may be missing from someone's diet? Because we do know that there's poor soil quality, which means we don't get the nutrients we used to in our food. We have this fast paced lifestyle where we eat fast food, we miss meals, we like to indulge in food that, that is not that good for you and therefore that creates extra stress on the body. There are some people whose biochemistry doesn't. Don't convert certain things into the essential nutrients that we need. So what we did was put together a formula that essentially was not therapeutic in nature, but it helps fill the gaps. And it's all of those nutrients we've. Our body is one big chemical factory. And to make it work properly, that's whether it's our cognition or our immune system or our gut health or our joints and our bones, all of those things use the same nutrients to one degree or another. And so it's all one balance. So what you've got to do is make sure you've filled all the gaps, make sure you've got all the ingredients in that chemical formula. If you remember from chemistry at school, you leave something out of that formula and it doesn't work properly. Sometimes we don't know which one it is. So, you know, you just eat the best you can supplement if you need to. If you need particular essential nutrients that are missing, I mean, that's where you're going to your health practitioner and finding out if there's something wrong. You're doing blood tests and hair samples and all of those sorts of things to find out if you need to supplement even more with one particular nutrient. So it might be that you're particularly deficient in iron. We deliberately don't put iron in our formula because, you know, too much iron is not good for you and you really should check to see. You don't want to OD online. And it's that sort of thing that you've got to do. So it's a balance. If you're ill, you go and get some help, you see what's wrong, you might supplement further to what you have. So the immune system is no different to the rest of the bodily functions?

No. And I guess with your body systems, they all rely on each other. Right. You know, they say a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. That's the same with all the systems in your body. Your immune system is not going to function properly unless your digestive system is functioning properly. And there's a whole lot of research about the gut brain connection. So talking about if your digestive system isn't functioning properly, your cognitive ability is not going to be optimal either. So the whole idea with our product, particularly good green vitality, is it's all about improving your baseline health. So it's about trying to support all of your body systems all at the same time, so that you can basically, you know, achieve the best level of health in every area.

How did you find that yourself, Monique? Obviously you had some challenges that inspired you to take action and start to look for solutions. How have you found that journey and has there been things, breakthroughs that have really supported your health?

For my health, I mean, look, I, I am still medicated for my ms, but I also have, according to my neurologist, a very aggressive form of Ms. So when unmedicated I get sick straight away. I have relapsing, remitting ms, which means I'll have an episode, but then I do recover. They say that generally you only recover about anywhere between 70 to 90% I think was the threshold when you have a relapse and then over time your recovery rate decreases and you go into a chronic condition. What's helped me with the keeping up my nutrition and lifestyle and making sure that my baseline health is good is when I do have these episodes, I recover almost 100%. So I, the medication keeps the illness at bay, but I credit nutrition and lifestyle to my ability to recover. You know, when I was first diagnosed, I was told I'd likely be in a wheelchair by the time I was 30. I turned 40 this Friday and I am still walking, running, exercising, working full time. I have a three year old daughter who runs me around in circles. And that's, yeah, I credit all of that to lifestyle and nutrition.

Just to clarify that a little bit as well. When Monique was first diagnosed, there was very, very limited medication. The medication that was available did not work.

It worked for some people, it didn't work for me.

The interference didn't work for anyone. The reality is they didn't work. And so it was lifestyle and nutrition that actually helped Monique overcome those early years. Because when she was first diagnosed, she was in a bad state. You know, affected her eyesight, affected her walking, affected her. You know, she's a graphic designer. She couldn't work properly. So it was not, she was not in a good place. And by changing her lifestyle and changing nutrition and exercising and meditating and all of those things, that holistic approach, she, six months later, she was in fantastic shape. She looked like the healthiest person on earth. But the form of Ms. That she has is very aggressive and it affects different people in different ways. So luckily medical research has helped and we've got a medication now that helps her to keep that at bay as well. But we talked about nutrition and how that affects immunity. It is the holistic approach, it is your lifestyle as well, because stress has an effect on your immune system. So now in Fact, talk to your doctor. If you're stressed, you depress your immune system. If you're an athlete and you overtrain that stress as well, that's putting stress on your body. You suppress the immune system, you get sick.

Simple, 100%. That's so true. And it's what's interesting about this is there may be someone listening right now that goes, hey, I've got an autoimmune disease and I want to start taking action to try and give myself the best chance to get healthy or can I sustain the lifestyle that I want and the health that I want? But there's also people out there that are perfectly healthy and we'll be waiting for something to happen before they take action. But prevention really is the best medicine. And so when I look at what you guys do with your products, we should be taking those before we get sick. If we have the opportunity to do that. If we have the luxury of not having any disease or any challenges, we should be doing that before that stuff on sets and before the stress compounds. Right?

Absolutely. It's easier to prevent than to cure, for sure.

And the science behind it, like you guys have this formula. I'd love to chat more about the greens side of it. What's the science behind it? Who do you consult?

Who helps you to bring that all together?

We use experts in the field because I don't have a background in nutritional bioscience and neither does Monique. We've learned a lot over the last 10 or 15 years, but we use people who know what they're talking about, experts in their field from all over the world. So we have nutritionists on staff, but we use PhD bioscientists out of the UK. We use a lot very close to our businesses. Dr. Cliff Harvey in Auckland, he's got PhD in nutrition, very, very active in the community over there and he helps us a lot with our formulas and guides us, but we also seek advice from others. So it becomes a collaborative affair. When we check with might be someone who has a master's degree in sports nutrition and they have their view on certain things. This is a PhD scientist sitting in the UK that we use and another one in New Zealand. So we gather expertise to put together the formulas. And what you do have to remember is the science is always changing. We really don't know. We haven't scratched the surface of all of these nutrients that are in the foods and in our bodies. They talk about the 24 essential vitamins and minerals, but then now all the micronutrients and some Categories are proving to be just as essential as the essential ones. So they're finding out new things every day. And what was true yesterday is not necessarily true tomorrow. So it is an evolving situation and we try and keep up with it as much as we can. There's a lot of research out there and, of course, research finds things well ahead of, I guess, established regulatory rules and medical practices. Research is there first. You can't necessarily use some of the ideal solutions because in some cases, regulations are 40 years old.

In New Zealand, for example.

We use a form of B12 methyl cobalamin. So it's already methylated, it's already the active form your body uses. It means you don't have to convert it because if you're a bit ill, then your body might not be functioning properly. So you can't convert it to the active form now. You can actually put the active form in the formula. But the food standards, Australia and New Zealand have this list of forms of ingredients that you're allowed to use. You're not allowed to use methyl cobalamin now. In the US you can, In Europe you can. But in Australia and New Zealand, they haven't got around to fixing the regulations yet.

Wow.

We have to constantly evolve the formulas in line with both the research and regulations to make sure, because obviously we sell all over the world, so we need to make sure we've got the most effective product, but it also has to be legal to sell in every country.

Yeah.

Wow, what a challenge. And if we kind of take a moment and shine a spotlight on the business side of it. So prior to doing what you're doing now with new zest, you didn't run a business. You said, you know, you were in the army, you're in the military before that. Tell me about the business journey, what you've learned along the way, what some of the big challenges have been.

I've been in business before. I was in the Navy was my first career, so I did spend 15 years in the Navy, but I left the Navy and went into the property business. In fact, I was the CEO of Colliers International in New Zealand for a number of years. So I've had some business experience and I have formed other businesses here and I developed childcare centers for a number of years and that's the business I sold out of when Minnie got sick. So I've had business experience and admin experience. What we haven't had is experience in this type of business, manufacturing products in the health supplement sector. So that is all new managing business. And finance and business plans and people, all of that is fairly second nature. It's quite easy. But the actual industry itself has been a very, very steep and sometimes very expensive learning curve.

What have been some of those big learnings or those lessons that if you could go back or maybe someone sitting at that point right now that's listening, that you could give them some advice on some of your biggest learnings?

Look, I think that the first thing is that.

Look.

When you go through your career and you're in a particular industry, you develop a body of learning and experience that you don't appreciate how valuable it is because you make decisions and do things based on all that experience. It's been before. So when you go into something new and look, entrepreneurs go in blind most of the time. That's why probably 95% of small businesses fail. You really have to do some homework and understand the nature of the business that you, that you're getting into. You know, the regulatory side of things. If you're in our particular case, we're producing product that you know that has a shelf life attached to it. There are all sorts of different ways you can distribute the product. There's this whole new online thing that's come on. So there's all these new things continually evolving. So the more you can prepare yourself beforehand and get advice from people have already been there and done that, that are in the industry, the better off you are. And if you can afford it, employ people with experience.

That's always been your advice. Your business advice to me is employ people that know more than you do.

Yeah. In whatever area you're in, you're better off paying more to get a person that's had experience. Rather than saying, I can't afford this, this good designer or this good production person or whatever it is, because, you know, we're a startup. So what you do is you make mistakes and you get there more slowly.

So.

But you've really got to take the plunge and employ good people. Employ experienced people who know what they're doing because it will save you time and it will save you money in the long run.

I believe we should all be taking shots. Yes, you heard me right. Every morning I take a double shot of nutrient rescue. Reason being? Well, the harmful western diet of heavily processed food combined with our busy, stressful lives means that 60 to 70% of people are missing out on their five a day of fruit veg. This micronutrient per diet has contributed to the modern epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and dementia. The Studies prove it. Look, 87% of people who take the Nutrient Rescue shots reported feeling better within the first month. That's because 100% of the ingredients in nutrient rescue products are 100% grown in new Zealand. But look, don't take my word for it. Give it a try yourself. Using the code purpose, you will get a 15% discount. So head over to NutrientRescue NZ and that 15% discount goes across any of their superfoods, including their starter pack.

So cheers to you.

Joining me for some shots.

Oscar de la Renta put it perfectly. Fashion is about dressing according to what's fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. And that's one thing I always try to do, is try to be myself. Whether I'm interviewing a former head of state, hanging with my family on the weekend, or working with some of my incredible clients, I try to always just be myself as much as possible. And part of that is dressing accordingly. But every now and then a special occasion will call for some special fashion. And I am by no means any expert on fashion. And that's why I'm delighted to partner with Munz. Munz is back and it's better than ever. Located in the beautiful tannery emporium on Garlands Road in Christchurch, it offers a huge range for men with suits for hire and sale, ties, jeans, waistcoats, hats, sunglasses and more. So, so for all of your menswear needs, head along and check it out at Munz Co nz.

And it's that longer term thinking, I guess, the long game as opposed to short term roi when you're employing those heavy hitters. So going through Covid and what's been happening geopolitically, how has that been for you guys to navigate because you distribute all over the world?

We do. It's certainly been challenging. The first thing has been the supply chain issue and with.

The scarcity of ships that were sailing around the world, the increase in the freight cost, the scarcity of ingredients, it's just delayed everything. So the challenge has actually been not only being able to absorb the margins of the higher cost, but actually getting product made and then once it's made, getting it delivered, you've got also a.

Lot of facilities are running, you know, for the last three years they've been running at half staff, limited capacity, so they can't produce the product as quickly as they used to be able to. So it's now not a case of doing the forecasting a year in advance, it's, you know, three years in advance and making sure everything's booked in.

So we're having to forecast our core ingredient requirements 18 months ahead. We are having to place orders six.

Months ahead now, and they're delayed by six months. So let's call it 12.

So an example would be that you might be looking at a packaging component that you're buying and it might have taken 10 days to get, you know, pre Covid.

It now takes six weeks to three months to get that component. You might say, well, source it locally. So you source it locally. Let's say you use an HDPE plastic jar, whatever it is, whatever the packaging is. And yes, they manufacture it here in Australia and they manufacture in New Zealand. But where do they get their raw material to manufacture it? They get it in China. China's closed down. There's no ships coming here. There are no containers, can't make the jars. So, you know, it's a. The world is very. It's one big global, it's one big factory. And we're interdependent on each other. And I don't see that going away in a hurry either.

Yeah, of course. And that's obviously forced you to update and refine your systems and processes. So, you know, what's been the biggest thing you've had to change? Because to forecast that far out, I mean, that's a huge shift and a huge challenge. What's had to be put in place for you to do that?

First thing, the disciplines with each of our distributors, because we've got businesses in different parts of the world. So getting those disciplines in place to make sure that they are forecasting and checking their stock and being diligent about that and getting those orders into us early and those forecasts into us early. The second thing that we've had to do, and I talked about sourcing locally, is that we have set up manufacturing operations. We don't manufacture ourselves. We use contract manufacturers, but we've established relationships in the regions that we operate. So we now use contract manufacturers in New Zealand, Australia, UK and usa so that we're mitigating our risk and we're shortening the supply chain.

That's brilliant. And as you see things moving forward and we're starting to expand again. We've been contracting for a few years, but things are slowly starting to expand. Where are you guys taking the company? What's the vision for you all?

That's an interesting question, because we're at that stage where we are not small, we're not big. So we have an infrastructure cost that is expensive, but that infrastructure can handle a Much bigger business. As you grow, especially when you're producing product, your need for working capital grows. We've got $5 million worth of stock sitting around at any one time. So to grow from that, you need a lot more money to grow. So I guess from us, our decision right now was what we want to do. Do we just want to organically grow and stay where we are, or do we want to get an extra capital, actually grow the business.

And realize the potential of the business? Because there is potential there for us to grow exponentially. So that's where we are right now. And in fact, we will probably go into a capital raising, but that is the. We're at the worst possible time in the financial cycle to do that. But that doesn't matter for good businesses. There's still capital around, so that's probably what we'll do. Either that or I sell my house and put that into the business. I love it.

Good. I love it. And it's interesting, you know, thinking back to your work with Colliers and now with what you're both doing, collectively leading the company, decision making is not difficult. When times are good, when things are great and everyone's comfortable and economy's going great, decision making, it's not that difficult. But decision making in turbulent times, decision making under pressure, that's when it's very difficult. So do you have, individually or collectively have a process that you go through when making tough decisions to try and be collaborative and to be joined in that end up resulting?

We do. Well, yes, we do. And it is a matter of working with each of the managers in the different regions and my cfo, and then we work out budget wise, where we are, what we can afford, what we do. So we go through a very disciplined process of budget forecasting and market analysis in each market and then bring those all together. I've got a very experienced cfo. We just put the numbers together and you have to make decisions based on the numbers and on the market opportunity and then you make a risk assessment. So when you, when you own the business, which I essentially do, then it's a bit easier to make those decisions. If you're in a larger business and you've got shareholders that you are beholden to, then you have to justify those decisions. So in many ways those decisions are probably better because they are far more disciplined and you have to actually be able to put those down on paper or articulate the reasons for the decisions you have made or the decisions you want to make with the approval of.

The board.

With an Owner, operator, you are probably less risk averse, but also you're not accountable. So in many ways it's dangerous. And in that case.

We debate internally. But I think that we're lucky because I've got a very good CFO and I've got a very good team of people who make rational decisions and rational recommendations. But if you don't have those people around you, you need to go out, you need some outside advice, you need an advisor, you need a financial advisor who you can go to other business people that have had experience that you can sit down and talk with, articulate your plan, get their views. Just don't make a decision without any advice.

That's great.

And I look at both of you and I think so many times we're told not to get into business with family. It's just too tough and it doesn't work. So for you guys, what's your experience working together and how do you continually manage that relationship?

I'll let Monique answer that because as a father, I'm very happy to have my daughter working with me. So it's up to her.

We actually work well together, but we operate in very separate sides of the business and I think that's probably where the harmony comes from.

Yeah, I don't know what else to say there. Like, it's, you know, obviously the relationship in a family business is very different and it changes the dynamic for the rest of the staff as well. But as a whole, we have a really good relationship with all of our team members around the world. So it's quite informal a lot of the time, but everyone feels like part of the family. So I think that's something. When you come and work at Newsest, you accept that it's a family business, but it's a very big family business and it works well.

I think also that the nature of the way this business started, it was a combination of Monique and me. It wasn't me having a business and my daughter coming into the business. She was very much a part of the foundation of the business. So that's a different dynamic. And she knows a lot more about many things that I do. So I've got no choice but to have her.

I love it.

Like I said, very different sides of the business and they complement each other and it works well.

That's amazing. And if we were to dig underneath the hood a little bit and for the listener to get a bit of a feel for the, the purpose that drives the business and what's the underlying purpose of what you guys do.

Well.

It is, it's to.

When I was looking for health advice and nutrition advice, it was so complicated and there was so many products and there was so much to learn and it was, I think for a lot of people, they struggle with health because it's over complicated. So our mission is to make it easy for people. It's to say look here is a really clean, effective product.

Yeah, it's not a huge learning curve.

We have. We, you know, our objective is to make with plant based. But I'm not a vegan. I know you're a vegan, but I'm not a vegan. But we have a number of vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians in our company and when we started the plant based market really wasn't as advanced as it is today. But we set out with the purpose of making sure that our products were suitable for everyone. That means we have to cater to vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians, people on different types of diets, people with allergens. So we wanted to make products that were high quality, that had efficacy, that were clean, that they didn't have anything artificial in there, they didn't have stuff in there that upset the digestive system.

Products that were good for you and products that people could trust. And that came about because of Monique's situation. And we've been in that situation where who do you believe, who do you trust? Is this product good for you? Is it not? What's in it? So we just wanted to make sure that anyone who came along and said I'm going to buy this newsiest product I know that it's probably certainly not going to harm most people and hopefully it won't harm me. I mean there are exceptions in the world where people that have. We've got one customer in the US for example, who started taking our protein, just the plain plant protein, no flavor. And that's all she could take. And it was the only protein that didn't give her digestive issues. She's got severe digestive issues, very, very severe. She can't take even natural flavors so she can't even take our vanilla for example. She has problems with any product that has natural flavors in it. So she's very limited. She couldn't get any protein but she found that she could take the plain protein. So there are these exceptions in the world where people have very, very severe allergies. We have a hypoallergenic, no gluten, no soy, no dairy, shellfish, any of those things. But there are people in the world that are Allergic to peas. And even though most of the peas gone and the pea problem, protein, you know, it's 90, it's 86% protein and the rest is a bit of fiber and, you know, carbohydrates, there's still an element of pea there. So we've had, I don't know, two.

Occasions, two, I think in the last.

Decade, two in the last 10 years of people that have ended up finding out they're allergic to peas because then they had a reaction to the pea project.

Wow.

So you can be as, you can be as diligent as you want to be, give it 110%. But there are people, unfortunately in the world that have some really, really severe problems.

And your people, your clients, the people that are really benefiting from these products, how do you reach them? Is it a B2C, model B2B, a bit of a combo of both?

Yeah, we're multi channel. We sell online, we sell through Amazon in different countries. We're also in store. So in New Zealand, we're a big part of your, your listener or your, your fan base is we've been around in that market. We launched in New Zealand because we're from New Zealand, so we have an affinity to the country. And I had a good friend over there that wanted to get involved in the business, so we did it together. So, you know, we're in all the health food stores over there. We're also going to be purchased online and through different health practitioners. There are a number of, you know, sports people, particularly professional sports people that were also introduced to the product. So all of a sudden we found that we had a whole range of sports people taking the product, even though we didn't set out to be a sports brand. But as I said, the product is there to be suitable for everyone, to give a good solid foundation to nutrition, to fill the gap. So, you know, we've got a lot of high profile rugby players in New Zealand. We supply certain teams in New Zealand when they go into camp.

I love it.

I can talk about, you know, I can talk about the famous number 12 Manonu, who's a, who's been taking our products, I think since we started, and he still takes them and he's still playing rugby at the age of 41, 42. I think he's got another season in San Diego this year and in his last World cup he took his boots and he, he wrote on them. He said, thanks to newsies for keeping me on the field and he sent them to us.

That's Amazing.

Yeah, yeah. And he's, yeah, he's a good, you know, he didn't ask for anything. He's just a tremendous guy. Used to, used to go into stores in Wellington and start signing footballs when we were doing a promotion.

I love it. That is so good. I love it. And I'll be, I'll share my experience. So as a plant based eater, I wanted to try and find more protein and so I was having morning smoothies and I was looking at these pea protein based proteins and they all tasted terrible. So I was like, I can't do this. And then my partner Caroline came across your plain protein and it was brilliant. That's the only one I've found still that actually works really well and doesn't taste horrible. And, and by taste I mean the texture as well. A lot of the proteins and the powders that the texture is just not nice. The plant based ones, you've, whatever you've done, you've hit the nail on the head. So well done.

Look, it's all, it's all about the isolation process. So we get our protein from Belgium and the company that produces that are really the leaders in pea protein isolation. So all the peas are growing in northern France. They actually supply the farmers with the seeds. So they, they're controlling the quality of the peas that they're getting into the facility. They're very sustainable, like peas are a sustainable crop anyway because they use less water, they use less soil and the other production, other forms of production of protein. But they also barge the stuff to their facility. They use the waste for biofuel and animal feed. They produce their own power, but all the, all the water is purified and recycled. So they're a really, really good company. But it's their process that is the difference. So you'll find that the powder is very, very fine. So it absorbs very easily. It gets rid of virtually all of the anti nutrients, so it's lectin free. And the anti nutrients are the things that interfere with digestion and give you bloating and all of those sorts of things. So there's none of that in there. And that's all down to the isolation process. And when you've got that, you don't have that grittiness, it's very fine and you don't have that heavy pea smell and that means it's easy to flavor and you don't have to add anything to give it a smooth texture. So a lot of proteins, you'll see that they've got to Add some sort of masking agent to cover the smell. They add gums or emulsifiers to improve the mouthfeel, to try and get it a bit smoother. When you don't have to have all of those things, there's less and less chance of it interfering with digestion and therefore it's more digestible and that's why it tastes good and it's smooth. We don't do anything to it. We simply add flavor. It's the quality. That's right. Of the raw ingredients. And we simply add a natural flavor and a natural sweetener which is from the contemporary fruit. It's the protein extract, which is a very, very sweet, much sweeter than sugar. It's a very tiny amount that goes in and that's how we flavor it. So it's pretty simple.

I love your attention to detail and your passion for, as you say that the raw ingredients has got to be top notch. It's got to be world class. And I can see why someone like Manon, who's world class, really wants to use a brand that also has the same values and same ethos as he does for his profession.

Yeah, yeah, it is important. It's particularly important. And yeah, it's a big problem in the industry because, you know.

There'S all sorts of claims and you can make on a label and things you can leave off a label. And yeah, I thought that, look, the industry is good, but you still have to be careful. And it's the consumer in the end is the one that pays the price one way or the other.

That's right, yeah. Comes down to the health price, doesn't it, rather than the cost price.

Yes, it does, 100%.

Well, I just want to say a massive thank you to you both for sharing your story and sharing what you do. And I'm going to make sure to put in the show link as well if people want to go and actually try the product. And I would strongly urge them to try the product if they haven't before. Whether that's the greens or whether that's the proteins or your full range is incredible. So I'll be sure to put a link to where they can do that. But just before we part, I got one last question and I'd love for both of you to share your individual thoughts on it. If we get to the end of life and it's your last day and you know it's your last day and a very young person in your life, maybe it's a grandchild, asks you, how.

Do I lead my life on purpose.

What advice would you have for them?

Find your passion and follow it.

I love it.

Find something that you love doing and do it every day.

I love it. That's so great. Well, make sure and spread that word. And for the listener, please take note and share that with someone today. But a massive, massive thank you to you both. I look forward to meeting you in person. Next time I'm in Sydney I'll be sure to drop in and check out what you're doing and check out the operation.

Thanks a lot.

Absolutely. It's a pleasure.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.