Disrupting the food system for the benefit of farmers and consumers

Welcome back to another video, folks. Today I'm starting a long journey over to Stockholm to sell chickens, and this is for Leaves, a new supermarket with an interesting concept in Stockholm where they're focused totally on direct from farmer to consumer and premium quality. I'm going to take you on a journey on my trip to Stockholm and we can hear all about the concept there. Hey, so this is a freezer space that we rent in Karlstad. We have about 5 pallets at the back here, and this is a big warehouse supplying refrigerated and frozen goods to all the supermarkets in Värmland. Job today is to pack boxes full of chickens to take over to Stockholm, and I'm going to leave them in here and take them in a couple of days when I go up there, but have everything ready and have all the weights listed so we can create invoices and do update all the inventory etc. Okay, it is freezing and we've stacked 200 birds up in Kanga boxes, double-checking all the labeling, double-checking the weights and recording those. Now it's really important when you deliver frozen goods, you must deliver them at temperature. These Kanga boxes are incredible and we can take chickens for 12-15 hours and keep them at below -18°C. So when a shop or a restaurant takes products off you, they have to check the temperature boxes and the cold temperature of this industrial freezer, no problem at all for a 4-hour trip to Stockholm. Wow, first leg of the journey complete and we've got some chickens for Rico now today in Karlstad and we're taking the grey crates. These are the food crates that are used in the food system all over Sweden. You typically take things, drop them, pick up empty ones and what we've asked them to do towards Stockholm way is because we're taking in the insulated Kanga boxes, we need to have them use their own grey crates. We can't drop them in grey crates We can't transport frozen goods unless you have a freezer vehicle. So to keep them cool, we use the Kangar boxes, which means they need to use their own boxes, but they're a big logistics company, so they have plenty themselves. And that means these can go back to our farm and get washed and ready for next season. So this is my morning workout. We've got half a ton of chicken that fits pretty comfortably in the transporter. In fact, there's enough room for probably 30% more, uh, physically. I just don't have any more Kangar boxes outside. Full supply.

Okay, good progress, halfway to Stockholm, and really excited to be able to offer our incredible products at a really good price, even with the markup of the shop. When we started out at Rydsdal, we were pioneers in the field of regenerative ag. We brought pastured poultry and agroforestry, no-dig market gardening, keyline, all these new innovative approaches. And so we had to really set prices, and that made us think about is, you know, wanting to earn a good living and demonstrate a good living from a rural stewardship position, but also really placing a lot of value on making this kind of food affordable. And what we've been able to do with our birds, selling the Rico Rings direct to consumer, is we're actually able to undercut by a couple of euros a kilo the organic birds that are now available in stores here. There were no organic birds when we started up, but there's a couple of companies now that do that, but they're not really the same product. It's mass-produced industrial birds outside, so they are in movable shelters that basically don't move except for between batches. They have access to our doors, but you can imagine they don't really get any of the benefits of our small batches moving daily to fresh ground and then processed directly on the farm. And so we've been able to undercut their prices significantly, and even now with the markup that Leaves will have to put on our birds, I think our birds will come out at the same price as mass-produced organic birds, which is amazing. I mean, we're selling an artisanal quality product that's not comparable to anything on the market. So I'm really proud of that, and I'm really excited to support the Leaves concept. And I think, you know, it's maybe a model that's not suitable for where we live out in the countryside, but certainly replicable in other towns and cities. And so I really wanted to show you guys that and, you know, just see what's happening there. So excited to show you around. While we're talking about prices, I've been making some posts on social media recently about the sort of price gouging I see from copycat enterprises. Like, most of the people in this field in Sweden that are running pastured poultry are essentially following iterations of what we've promoted and put forward. There's a lot of people using our Eggmobile design and using our spreadsheets and planning, and we trained a lot of people doing this. But one thing I've noticed over the years is people not moving Eggmobiles very often, which means birds don't ingest so much greens and forbs, which means they don't have so rich vitamins and minerals in their diets, less insects in their diet, and cutting costs by feeding conventional feed, which is literally 50% of the price of organic feed. And what I've noticed since the early days is is because we were sort of trendsetters and set the price for pastured eggs, a lot of people who are cutting corners financially with their feed, etc., were kind of clawing their prices against the bar we had set. And I think it's not really justifiable. I mean, I calculated that based on the margins that they're able to produce with conventional feed, we would have to charge nearly €20 for a tray of eggs to have the same But they can only achieve that price because of the pricing we've set by feeding organic feed, which is double the price. And so it's interesting. I think it's one of the unintended consequences of an unregulated system like RECO. It's, I guess, why a lot of people would call for certifications and, you know, sort of standardization. But in a way, I've always felt like it puts the emphasis on individual farmers promoting their are their farming methods better? But it's a tricky question because consumers care, but they only care so much. I mean, we all live busy lives and the nuances of these enterprises and how you run them, it's, it's kind of difficult to tell because on the face of it someone can come use our Eggmobile model, feed conventional feed, but essentially promote the eggs as the same product as ours because on the surface they look the same even though they're chemically different and probably different from the land-based too. It's a tricky one, but I can see it's like a new phase of these things where a lot of people are now enabled in the marketplace through the hard work of others and the establishment of Rico Rings that sets up people's sales and marketing platforms, but able to kind of unrealistically claw up their pricing based on the work of other people who are striving for a higher level of excellence I think there's a certain level of unconsciousness there. It's not something that's discussed very much, and I think people are taking advantage of that. It starts to rub me the wrong way because I can see people are sort of— they're not directly lying to their customers, but it's a little misleading. It's like it's not totally, uh, you know, they're relying on this kind of sneaky way around. So I've been speaking out about it a little bit, and I don't know where where that will lead, but I think it's an interesting dilemma that we find ourselves in now. And we still hold the value of wanting to keep things affordable for customers, but it seems a little unfair that people are taking advantage of less degree of integrity in the copycats' way of running enterprises. So I just, I guess I really want this type of farming to be mainstream and to be the normal type of It's farming that people are eating from, and there's always going to be people that try and cut corners and bad actors. But I guess the world that I'm striving for is where integrity farming is, you know, people not just chasing a bottom line, but also really doing what's best from an ecological standpoint. Yeah, it makes me think a lot. So I'm curious about if you're experiencing that and have something to say about it also.

Okay, I've just met Simona, who is one of the founders of Leaves and also works alongside, uh, Nibbler Tradgård and Biodynamic Products. So this is where we actually buy all of our organic and biodynamic whole foods that we serve on the farm and at Siligården at the restaurant for products that we don't produce on the farm. So we buy bulk pulses and things like that from them. So this is where we're actually going to store the birds, and then we're gonna go into Lievs and see the shop.

Okay, birds are in, off to Stockholm. So we have stopped for lunch in Jana, and this is Emil's place, and this is local landrace homemade pasta expressed out of an old Italian machine with wild boar ragu. Fantastic.

The idea with Lifvs is to create a movement around proper food. So this is a member shop. So we are like 1,000 members that is focused on buying food, good quality, well priced for the farmers and the producers, without additives and strange fluff in the food. And they educate each other. So on Lifvs we have a lot of lectures. Like courses planned. They're not here yet, but they're coming.

You've only been open like a week since renovation.

Yeah, we have a lot to do before that, but we're gonna learn how to ferment, we're gonna learn how to bake, we're gonna learn how to like butcher your chicken, so that you can buy like the original ingredients and do the work yourself instead of buying strangely processed industrialized food. So that's the whole idea. So it's like a political movement in some ways, and it's a food movement that a lot of people are interested in.

Yeah, I mean, the concept of Leaves is to make food store accessible for everyone with reasonable prices, where everything is like produced in an organic way. We don't want any pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, or like chemical style, and we want to— I mean, we look at everything and we put product on the shelf that we're very, very proud of. So it's like a store open from 7 to 21, 7 days a week. So the goal is to make it easy to do the right thing. People want to find food. I think everyone wants to buy good food, but it's so complicated. So it's very easy to just go to a regular store and buy what's there. So I want to change that. And in Sweden, we only have like 3 big stores, chains, and they mix everything. You need to be an expert. So Leaves, it's like a place where you don't need to be an expert. And if you're an expert, you can actually relax and just get in and buy food and follow joy and gastronomy and what you feel like. Like eating following seasons. And yeah, pretty happy about that. That's a dream coming true. In Sweden, what I've learned is like organic food is not expensive by itself. It's made expensive by a bad system and by logistics. It's like middleman taking money in between. And so the goal is to work directly with farmers. The farmers should get paid more. It would be like transparency about what we pay for the products and at the end to make like products that actually are not so expensive. And the flavor and the origin and the proud of, you know, when you know that some something come from somewhere, I mean, it gives another dimension. I mean, all organic branding in Sweden are like anonymous. You go to Coop, it's I Love Eco. You go to ICA, it's Englammar. You go to the other stores like Garant, so you have like, they made a branding of organic and they removed the farmer. They made the farmer replaceable, and we don't want that. We want to— I want to be a bridge between, like, farming and sustainable food and good people that want to nourish themselves with, with nutrients and good flavor and invest money in guys like you that actually are stewardshipping soil, keeping biodiversity, and making, like, farms that actually make sense. France and are like robust.

For those of you that are from abroad, Sébastien is actually a famous baker here, moved from France. What's your like intentions moving out of just baking full-time?

Yeah, I mean, this is my big sadness in life, like I cannot live as a baker and make the bread I love to make with whole grain and ancient grain and sourdough, like because it's very complicated here where people have lost the touch on bread. And so in the meantime, I have, I have 3 kids and I'm really worried about like the near future and everything is accelerating. And I think that if we don't fix the food system, then it's going to be like lots of trouble. So it's a mix of happiness to create a place and get to learn about more people and, and getting to— I mean, making places where people are happy actually to go, to go and, and buying and shopping. But it's also, uh, uh, lots of, uh, of sadness, like, uh, because it's a really rough time. So it's like mix. I'm like, uh, uh, I wish I could just bake bread, but, uh, when I look at my kids and And I really want them to understand what's going on and that we are like working our ass off in fixing the system. The fun thing with Leaves is like we are not like retailers. I've been working with bread. Simone is like a vegetable grower farmer and Peder is like an IT tech guy and Johan is a designer and art guy. You know, like, we come from so many different areas and we are like cross-pollinating our will to create a place where people could enjoy good food without pesticides. And it's not just a store, it's also a place for great community. I believe in community. We need to interact and talk and help each other.

Am I right to think that the concept was like, once this shop is up and running and if If more members want to join, then you build up a waiting list and then go start a new shop and just spread it like that over time.

Yeah, that's the idea. So we, we are aiming to have multiple shops and multiple hubs for this knowledge that we want to spread. But one step at a time. We're still in chaos mode here, and we're so happy that everyone is like having patience with us. Now in Sweden, we have the big chains that sell everyday food. They have the whole market and there is no other options to buy good food. And I know I changed that.

These questions are like very close to your heart, but you were telling me before that the bigger supermarkets here are starting to drop organic lines. Of products because they're not maybe in trend so much anymore.

Yeah.

So what's— what are you like excited about from Leaves? Like, how is that driving change that you want to see in the food system?

I mean, I want to work with producers and wholesalers that is fully organic, that has that as a value. Like, because there is so many things with the organic food that is like actually good for the environment and the birds and the micro life and everything. So I want to work with those type of producers, and we can do that here. In the big shops, it's more like, okay, now it's a trend with organic, and then they produce something just because it's trendy, but they don't have it as a value in their hearts. And we want to work with them.

Yeah.

So how's that going?

You're in charge of sourcing products from farmers, and how's How's that process been?

Yeah, it's actually super nice because I have a background as a farmer trying to sell all my vegetables, and you put a lot of time trying to sell them instead of producing. And as a farmer, you should spend your time producing and someone else should sell it. So now when we have this shop, we give so many opportunities for small-scale businesses to try out products and and sell them straight to— without a lot of middle hands. Sometimes with middle hands, which is also good, but it's changing how small-scale producers can sell their food.

And you're aiming to really give a fair price to the farmers, right?

Fair price to the farmers and also experiment a bit. Maybe you're doing something new on your farm and you don't know where to sell that. Like, you could come to us and you can say, we want to try this this, and it's super fast and easy for us to try out things here because the people that come to Lifs, they, they want that. The idea here is to have different levels of both levels of organic but also different prices. So we have more like regular, just organic. We have a small, super small scale farm with their dairy on the farm. We have a regular, like in between these two farm, a little more to the north, and they all have different qualities. So some are really premium products, small scale. Some are like a little bit more price, like worth— you can have it economical, more budget. Yeah, which we want to have all the options for everyone so that you can buy it every day, but also when you want to make a Friday extra super nice date night. And one of the things we need to do, because the Swedish market doesn't have all the products that we want, is to like actually go to producers and ask if they can produce what we want. And this cheese is a very good example. We wanted to have a cheese that is quite simple, that you can use every day. So we went to Österjan Jämplan and they made this cheese for us. So now it's called Lif's Øst, but we want to do that even more to help small-scale businesses to scale up by us promising the volume.

Years.

We want to create a supermarket where we have everything so that you can buy all the vegetables that you like. But of course, if something is not in season in Europe, we, we don't buy so much of that. But we try to focus on what's local and Swedish. So for example, here we have my friend who's growing beetroots and pumpkins and potatoes, and they're just like 50 kilometers from here. And this is what you should eat in the winter in Sweden. And one way of helping producers and farmers is to like buy the whole animal. We cannot just eat ansikol and riggfilia. We need to eat everything. And so we bought two full animals, and here you have all the parts, and we need to eat all of them.

So I'm really happy to support this shop, and it's quite a long way way for us to come from the farm, but I'm very interested in these questions around the food system too. And Rico really gave us a way to connect directly to consumers and skip the middle people so that we get paid well for the work we do. But I really love what this shop stands for and the people involved, so I wanted to be part of that, and I hope it will serve to get really good food to people here in downtown Stockholm.

All right, long trip home now, and It's probably the audio is really bad and the visuals are bad when I'm in the car, but that was super exciting to see the store and the folks involved, uh, the powerhouse. I'm sure it's going to succeed well. I really love the emphasis on supporting farmers, and that's the reason that I was willing to put our chickens there even though it's far away from the farm. And something gets me thinking about is like, people have often asked if I would franchise Ridgedale, and I'm not interested in franchising whole farms in that way. It's too complex to manage. But one thing I could do, for example, is to franchise the production of broilers in our system or pastured eggs and have people produce under the Richdale label that I've personally taught, people of farms I've been to that I can vouch for. Because talking with Simone as well as Sébastien there, the issues that I've been talking about with people coming into Rico, copying these models but cutting corners with feed or with not moving birds enough It just undermines everything for all of us. So this is an idea that got me excited of having producers produce for us, and we can just, as the shops scale up and also they open multiple shops, we can just start to package everything together and guarantee a set very good price for producers, and it just saves them a lot of time in marketing and sales so they can just focus on dal in production, and it's kind of win-win for everyone. So It would take a lot of work off Simona who has to vet the individual farms if I say, for example, vouch for people that I've trained, I've been to their farm and I know how they're producing. And maybe stepping away from the WEKO model, I mean, if this LEAFS concept really grows and spreads to other towns as well, and I think it could be really good and I think they're there to really shake up the food system, that's the intention, is shake some of the monopoly that the bigger companies have and really tell a new story story and shape the way consumers make decisions. I'm really excited for it. I hope that was an interesting video, folks. It's been a long day and I'm eager to get home now and enjoy some of these beautiful products I've bought from the store. And yeah, happy to take you along. I thought it would be interesting just to see that there's new models and everything's constantly changing and dynamics are moving. And I think it's fun and I'm excited and feeling exploratory myself. So hope that was interesting and don't forget to like the video, subscribe to our channel if you're not already. And you can find out a whole bunch of resources in the links below, and look forward to seeing you in a video soon. Bye for now!