America's Youngest Woman CEO (Lifeway Foods' Julie Smolyansky)

We got a call from the White House. Reagan was headed off to Moscow to meet Gorbachev. They said, we heard about this Soviet immigrant living the American dream, building a business on a staple from the Soviet Union.

What happens?

Reagan meets with Gorbachev and he says—

She took an ancient drink and built a modern wellness empire. Julie Smoliansky became the youngest female CEO of a publicly traded company and made Kefir a household name. From refugee roots to fearless leadership, this is her story.

The youngest female CEO in the history of the country.

They said, there's no way a 27-year-old If a 17-year-old girl could run this company, that's it, company's over, sell all your stock. The board votes me in as CEO.

What is kefir?

A 2,000-year-old ancient superfood. Those people that consumed it, they lived past 100 years of age.

That is unbelievable.

When you hear of people's health crisis and how kefir and Lifeway has helped them, that is a miracle.

Wow.

That is all the reason why we do it.

How important Is it that you or your family runs the business?

Well,

today— Welcome everybody to episode 3 of the Zeitgeist Podcast. I'm your host, Steven Galanis, and I'm so excited for for today's guest. Julie Smolinski is a very, very good friend, and she's hot off the first ever National Kiefer Holiday. And we'll be celebrating with a drone show here in Chicago tonight over Lake Michigan. So while you will see this episode in a week, the drone show is going to be epic. And hopefully by the time it's on, we can get some footage of it too. Anyways, Julie is the CEO of Kiefer Lifeway. It is an incredible company. She has an amazing story. I can't wait for you all to hear it. Julie, welcome to the pod.

Thank you so much for having me, Steve. It's such an honor and privilege, truly.

Well, actually, I'm so happy with like all of our season 1 guests, and you've been such a good friend and a great partner, both on the Cameo for Business side and through everything we do in YPO together. So we're so excited to go tell your story because it's an incredible one and an amazing brand.

Thank you.

So first off, What, for those that haven't ever tried it, because I know we even walking around the office today, there are a lot of people that are like, wow, I taste this, this is great. What is kefir?

Okay, so kefir is a 2,000-year-old ancient superfood that originated in the Caucasus Mountains where, like, think Ukraine, Russia, former Soviet Union, that whole region. And this product, was filled with storytelling and folklore. It was really passed down generation to generation, babushka to babushka, grandmother to grandmother. And those people that consumed it, they lived past 100 years of age, and they attributed their longevity to their consumption of kefir. And since then, they considered it like a gift from the gods. They felt that they experienced like a sense of wellbeing. And actually, in Turkish, the word kayf is like buzz, like good feeling. So they said when they drank kefir, they felt like a little buzz. And it's because of this fermentation process that happens. So it's probiotic, and we put live active cultures into milk, and it inoculates, and it ferments, and it takes about 18 to 24 hours or so. And the process of fermentation has Tremendous health benefits that are just now starting to be understood and researched. But the first scientist, Dr. Elie Metchnikoff, who's considered the father of immunity, he did the first round of studies on kefir in 1908, and he won a Nobel Prize for his research. And he found that kefir has beneficial health properties. And so since that time in 1908, the research and science has only started to like explode in a massive way. And actually the pandemic even helped that because there was a race to find cures and how to boost your immune system, et cetera, et cetera. And so more science in the last decade has happened on kefir, fermented milk, and probiotics, and the microbiome than any other area at any other time. It's amazing. It's really— we're at a tipping point at this iceberg of this understanding that food is medicine. And so that's the background of kefir. So,

Well, also amazing, we're talking about longevity, right? Yeah. And you're saying for hundreds of years, people knew that they were drinking this and they're living longer. You know, as we get into your amazing story, it is, you know, you have to point out that all these big macro trends that are happening now, everybody cares about their gut biome, they care about longevity. It continues to be a tailwind for what you're doing. Yeah. And you have this natural product that's, you know, been around for 2,000 years. It's proven to have had health benefits. So I'm so excited to share the story of how we got here and then your journey also. So going all the way back, your parents immigrated from the Soviet Union, and there's a classic story that I love hearing you tell about your mom and dad kind of walking into grocery stores in the US. So talk about them coming to Chicago, them walking in and seeing this land of plenty, and then what was missing.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we, we immigrated through a slit in the Iron Curtain. I was born at the height of the Cold War in 1975. My dad promised on the day I was born that he would get me out of the Soviet Union and out of communism. And so we were in exile 3 months in Rome. We landed in Chicago in 1976, August 4th, almost exactly 49 years ago. It was 100 degrees. We came with 1 suitcase and $116 in our pocket, an infant. They didn't speak a word of English. We were the first 48 families that were settled in Chicago from the Soviet Union at that time. Wow. The year before us, just 12. So there were no language resources. No help. We were just really thrown to the wolves. And my mom learned English watching General Hospital and Dynasty. And then my dad was an electrical engineer. He was a mechanical engineer. And so he walked around the streets of Chicago, found broken electronics in alleyways, would repair them. And that's how we survived. You know, he'd sell them off. So we survived for a few weeks that way. So when they walked into a grocery store, they literally fell to their knees. They cried. They couldn't believe how much food there was. And, you know, they just— they told me stories of breadlines, of standing in line all day for a chicken only to get to the front of the line and all the chickens are gone, or toilet paper. And they didn't have toilet paper. They would scrunch up newspaper. And I know a big client of yours is a partner of Dude Wipes. That would have been like epic in the Soviet Union. But no, they literally scrunched up toilet paper— scrunched up newspaper for toilet paper. So hard times. So they couldn't believe it. And what was missing was kefir, which was a staple for them. They grew up from birth till death, cradle to grave, everyone in the Soviet Union consumes kefir, and largely for the medicinal properties because it's passed down. It's known to have health benefits. Benefits for my community. They couldn't believe it, that it wasn't in existence. And my dad had Crohn's disease, so he needed this. He started to feel the symptoms of his health condition without having kefir. So that sort of started the idea. And in 1985— so just to backtrack, my mother opened up the first Soviet, Ukrainian, Russian, Slavic, let's say Slavic deli in Rogers Park off of of Devon. So she recognized that all these other Soviet immigrants would be coming. There was an exodus all the way through Perestroika, and they would come to America and they wouldn't have any of their Slavic foods that they were used to. So that started the entrance into the food industry. She later became an importer and distributor of Eastern European food. So they were in Germany on a food buying at a trade show. They walked into the German grocery store and they bought 3 bottles of kefir there because throughout Eastern Europe, not just the Soviet Union. There were a few bottles of kefir scattered throughout Europe. They bought 3 bottles. My dad drank 1 bottle right outside of the store.

And he was like, he missed it so much, right?

He was like, this is like my childhood. This is so nostalgic. I can't believe— and this was the sentence— America has everything, but it doesn't have kefir. And my mom said, well, you're an engineer. You know how to build plants and design machinery and equipment. Why don't you start making it, and I'll distribute it in my distribution system? And it was born right there. 6 months later, he incorporated the business. I mean, growing up in our basement in Skokie, he would disappear for hours fermenting, you know, like pots of milk. Just the smell of fermented milk just permeated throughout our house. And I got the very first tablespoon of Lifeway kefir ever. It just hit my lips and it was this sour, tangy, effervescent, just delicious sip. And I will never forget it. And every time I drink it today, I still, I remember that. And so that's what it is. No business plan, no logo, barely spoke, still, you know, kind of broken English. But this dream, this desire that, you know, this knowledge that America, in America, you can do anything if you work hard.

One other amazing part of this story that I was reading as I was doing research for this that I hadn't heard you tell me is that you got your grandmother from the Soviet Union to actually send, like, a culture. Talk about that.

Yeah. Oh, I love that one, too. You dug deep, Steve. I like it. Yeah, so when my dad was starting this, you know, this idea, he needed the bacteria. It's very important. So he called my grandma, who was still in the Soviet Union, and relayed to her to send us bacterial culture. So she stuck it in between, like, children's tights for us, like children's books, children's tights. She just put a little bit in there. It's probably contraband. So, but we got it in. And from that culture, he started to grow that same bacteria. So every time you drink Lifeway kefir—

Starts—

You're getting a little bit of the original culture from the Soviet Union. Yeah,

that is unbelievable.

Thank you.

So you've got a plant now, you've got distribution, business is going.

Booming.

Talk about the early days.

Yeah, so, well, I mean, I was 11 years old when I hit my first convention, my first trade show. I remember Lee Iacocca's daughter was launching an olive oil, the very first olive oil in America, and my dad walked me over to her and to Lee, and we had a conversation. And my dad, we walked away, and my dad was like so blown away. Lee Iacocca, I had no idea who that was. And, but he said to me, one day you're gonna be just like Lee's daughter. And that was a really special moment. But, you know, the business was booming because all the Soviets already knew what kefir was. They didn't need marketing or advertising. They missed it. This was something they loved.

And the timing of this is really interesting, right? Because we're talking like— Cold War. Yeah. Specifically, the business is getting going right as the Iron Curtain is being lifted. You're starting to get more and more Eastern Euros and ex-Soviet people coming in to go live in the United States. They're looking for the things that they were missing, and this flywheel just starts going.

Yeah, and it was blowing up. Then at the same time, the natural food, like organic market starts starts growing. Whole Foods is opening stores in a couple of places. Wild Oats, old store, got acquired by Whole Foods. All these like little co-ops, mom-and-pop natural grocers started, you know, opening up. And kind of health enthusiasts, we would say, like really healthy people who were in the know, I would say were like the early influencers, the early adapters. They would tell everyone what they were eating and how to, you know, live 100 years, etc. So we're kind of on the cusp of 2 trends: the Europeans, for whom, you know, this was a staple, and these new health enthusiasts. So kind of 2 great tailwinds behind us. And the company was growing so fast, my dad needed more capital. So somebody said you should go public, and he had no idea what that meant. So he went to the Skokie Public Library and pulled out Dewey Decimal System and started researching what it meant, wrote his own business plan there in the library. And we went public at $600,000— with $600,000 in revenue. Like, it's unheard of today. Nobody would have. It was ridiculous. We were supposed to go public on— what is it? Black Monday? Blue Tuesday? Black Tuesday? Black Monday?

Black Monday.

In '87, the stock market crashed. And he was devastated. And he couldn't go public.

Black Tuesday, I think.

Something like, yeah, we have to pull out. I mean, I was a kid, but, um, so—

Yeah, because you guys were gonna go public that day, right?

Yeah, that day.

And then you got— luckily you got to pull out before the market—

Pull out, yeah. And

then how long was the delay?

6 months later.

6 months later. Wow.

And he had to bring more cash to the table, but he had already gotten all the cash that he could find to do it. So he went to all his friends and got cash, and he— $50,000 cash. Yeah, that's what was the difference to go, you know, uh, wait 6 months, and he got on a plane with $50,000 in cash for the closing, just in case if he needed more money. All of his friends just gave him whatever cash they had. So it was a really crazy story. So things were going really great. We keep growing. We're on the COVID of Time— not the COVID We are in Time magazine. Jesse Jackson was running for president. He was on the COVID And there was an article about my dad. you know, this American dream, this crazy story. Yeah.

What did that feel like both for him? I can imagine the pride of coming over with $116 in his pocket, not speaking a word of English, going from being an engineer in the Soviet Union to like doing odd jobs to just make it rent. And, you know, so many of the entrepreneurs listening to this, people have a dream, they don't have money to get going. You know, this is an amazing story of resilience. And to think that all of a sudden, you know, You're in Time magazine. What a moment.

He couldn't believe it. I mean, truly, he was on top of the world. And it was a moment of success, not just for him, but for the entire community. You know, he really paved the way and inspired the entire Soviet community who followed along.

And in fact, he was the first person from the Soviet Union to ever take a company public in the United States.

That's right. Even before Sergey Brin at Google, he did it first. Unbelievable. Yeah. So really historic. milestones, achievements for not just Soviet immigrants, but for all immigrants. Yeah. I think anybody can look to our story as an example of what can be possible. And it comes with blood, sweat, and tears. It was not without a cost. It's true. It's not an easy journey. So as we're growing and all this media is happening, I mean, he was blown away. phones were off the hook, we got a call from the White House. And Reagan was headed off to Moscow to meet Gorbachev. And they said, you know, we heard about this Soviet immigrant living the American dream in Chicago, building a business on a staple from the Soviet Union. Can you send us a case? It's possible Reagan is considering, like, taking Some to Gorbachev. So we sent a case. As I'm told, they take it on Air Force One, and Reagan meets with Gorbachev, and he says, this is an example of what your countrymen are doing in my— in our country. And you're having a mass exodus of knowledge and culture and people because of your policies. you could have this, tear down your wall. This was like part of the conversation. Wow. And we got a nice letter and everything. And so we really feel like we were part of that process. Later, I got the privilege and opportunity to travel to Moscow on a delegation with the UN, with Ted Turner and Kofi Annan and all these incredible diplomats. And I got to meet Gorbachev and I spent 15 minutes with him and he remembered The story. He knew of me, of my father. He told me how proud he was of, of me and what we've done. And he said, keep going. And, uh, we cried for, you know, some time.

And think about how surreal that moment is, right? The day you were born, you said earlier, your dad was so fed up with communism that he made a pledge that he was going to get you out of the country.

Yep.

And they were going to build a better life. And now you have the head of the Soviet Union And telling you how proud he is of your dad and you, his entrepreneurial pursuits. Unbelievable.

It's, I mean, it makes my, you know, it gives me chills. It's unbelievable. I can't believe that journey. And what a miracle, all of that, like how it unfolded. But, you know, we followed our gut literally all along in this process. And no matter how many times you know, people laughed at my dad or laughed at his, you know, his accent or told him he was crazy. He didn't care. You know, I think you have to be crazy to do some of this stuff. You have to be crazy to believe in yourself so strongly that you think you could really do anything. And my dad told me, you know, Julie, you could do anything you want in the world except be the President of the United States, only because you weren't born here. So, you know, I really do feel like it is a land of opportunity. And, you know, if you, if you have a good idea and you work hard, you could achieve all of your dreams.

So as an immigrant, like you, your dad, the company is on top of the world. Gorbachev is, you know, drinking your product and, and using you as an example. You're on in Time Magazine. The company's public. And then something really bad happens.

Yeah.

And we take— this story takes a huge turn.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I was working for my dad for about 5 years after college. I was originally going to be a psychologist. I was in grad school for psychology. I worked as an in-home family counselor. I worked with really challenging stories and children and families. And then I got into kind of a little bit of a crisis and almost died in the middle of a gang fight. And I kind of quit my job that night and I just called my dad. I said, can I just work for you part-time while I finish out grad school? I was with him for just 2 weeks and I'm just listening to all the stories that he's telling and how, you know, Kefir can can change the world and change your life and improve your life and health. And I thought, you know, why— I could kind of change the world, as cliché as that is, and help people through a for-profit business with my dad and help him. And I did not come back for my second year of grad school. I ended up full-time with my dad. became the director of sales and marketing, he was so happy because he begged me to take a business class in college. And I was like, no, capitalism is bad. I'm not going to be a part of that. You know? And so I never took a business class. And then when I came full-time, he was like, oh, I'm so grateful, but I wish you took a business class. But I think a lot of it was intuitive to me. I grew up with it. But so—

School of hard knocks.

Exactly. You know, you learn from the experience. So things were going great. We were continuing to grow. We were about $12 million at the time in revenue. And he had a sudden heart attack. And he passed away in the summer of 2002. And, you know, I think about it all the time. And that basically threw the company into a crisis. The stock— that night, all of the family, friends start gathering at the surviving spouse's family's home. My dad's best friend, a few feet away from me, said, there's no way a 27-year-old girl could run this company. That's it. Company's over. Sell all of your stock. And that was a Sunday night. And so I went into the office. I was devastated by hearing that, first of all. It really set me up for— it, like, ignited a fire in me. And I was livid. And my father taught me how to fight. You know, my father loved to trigger me to get a response out of me, to teach me how to fight. He always told me, Julie, you have to know how to take a punch, but you know, have to— you have to know how to give a punch too. And so he, he said, you're— this world is hard and you need to learn how to fight, especially as a woman. So I go into—

So Stock is now Tanking overnight.

Monday morning.

Monday morning, the board comes and convenes.

NASDAQ halts trading because—

NASDAQ halts trading. Like, this is as bad as it can get.

Very bad crisis. Yeah.

And there's a board meeting.

Yeah, there's a board meeting. And, uh, there was— there— well, my board member, one of my board members calls. We're just picking out the cemetery plot for my dad. He calls and he said, honey, do you know that there is a, uh, uh, Emergency board meeting tonight, and I was like, "No, I didn't know about it." He said, "Well, yeah, the SEC counsel at time was was planning this board meeting, and he wants to become the CEO. And we thought you were aware." And I was like, "No, we didn't. Nobody told us. Like the family, me, whatever." I was the next person in line for my dad. I was really his right right-hand person. So this was a surprise. Anyways. Anyways, we call another attorney. We have another board meeting before the one that he was planning, and the board votes me in as CEO. That attorney later got—

Hold on. I have to, I have to add this.

Okay.

27 years old, Julie becomes the youngest CEO of a publicly traded company in American history.

Youngest female CEO.

Female CEO.

Yes.

The youngest female—

Maybe the youngest person.

The youngest female CEO in the history of the country. So now, what happens?

Well, I mean, it was still crisis. I had no idea how to do that. And, well, basically, we just start building the company out. I mean, I just— I mean, I made small decisions like we need to put a Sign outside of the door. That was my— one of my first decisions. Somehow all these years we never had a sign outside of our corporate headquarters. I said, let's put a sign out there. You know, it's just this idea of like making a decision, learning how to make a decision, and just, you know— was there something else that you were thinking about? No, no, no.

So, well, the other thing I was thinking about is like, obviously you had— when you came in, you were really helping out on sales and marketing especially. And there's something very different about like an engineer CEO or a product CEO versus somebody that is actually like just has the natural sales and marketing intuition.

Yeah.

So talk about like kind of day one, your dad's gone, you know, engineer, and all of a sudden now you're running the show. Like what changed at the company?

Well, I wanted to modernize it. I always wanted to like bring it more current. I think my dad was more focused on the kind of Slavic ethnic market. I was more focused on kind of mass market.

Health.

You know, health, yoga, you know, people my age, women. I was surprised, like, why young people weren't drinking it as much as they could be or should be. We were the first company to write probiotic, for example, on the label. You know, the microbiome, as I mentioned, a huge, huge place of study, and nobody was talking about it in America. My dad always said, you know, they'll talk about calcium or protein, but they won't talk about good bacteria because bacteria freaks Americans out. And I thought, well, all we have is these, these benefits. I don't have a $100 million marketing and advertising budget. I just have my crazy story. I have my story, my dad's story, and the benefits of the product. So let's lean into that. So we're the first to write probiotics. We really started the conversation around gut health. No one was talking about gut health. I mean, we've been doing this now 40 years. So, um, and I even remember like customers would call and say, oh, I want the kefir that's not probiotics. So we had to educate people on what probiotics are, what gut health is, why you want, you know, foods with, with a diverse range of bacteria in them. And so we really just set out to, you know, advert— to, to build awareness and trial on the product. And I mean, We did unhinged things. Like, I brought a list of—

Julie brought her list of the 4 most unhinged things she did to grow the business. I think this is the time.

This is so— this stuff is epic. Okay, so first, we launched a product, and it's really hard to get new products on the shelves.

Yeah.

So we had an intern call every single Dominick's pretending to be a customer and Basically by the second day, we had corporate office calling us, asking us to come in to present the product, even though they had told us no many times. But this intern called like all of the like 150 grocery stores.

Hey, listen to all you interns out there. You could make an impact.

You really could. It was awesome. Okay, then also when we got products on the shelves, We would have all of our friends drive around and buy them off the shelves, and then we would just resell it. The store would call, this is flying off the shelf, it's doing great, here's more space, come in, please replenish our shelves. So we would sell like the same product over and over and over again until it was able to stand on its own and had authentic customer reviews.

Yeah, and by the way, then the more you're selling, the faster it's selling out, like the better placement you're getting on the shelves. Absolutely. And then when it's got better placement, people are discovering it. Because, you know, I'm thinking about what you were just talking about. You knew that you had this intuition that younger people should be drinking it. You knew to build a really big business, it couldn't stay within the niche of just the Slavic people coming over. So, you know, talk to me about how you got into the youth there.

Yeah, so I mean, it started with a lot of sponsorships of like 5Ks and runs, marathons, et cetera. I remember, You know, waking up at 3 in the morning on a February, driving over to the plant, opening up the plant, like going into a cold refrigerator, loading up my car case after case of samples, driving over to the lakefront in frigid icy weather, putting up a booth. And I did it all by myself. This was before we had a large team.

Yeah.

And standing there at the finish line, passing out samples. A lot of things like that. There was a lot of that. Just any time that we could get product in the hands of— for people, like sponsoring yoga events. Now that's a big industry, like the wellness activations, yoga events. Again, I think it's something we started. Probably one of the first companies to like hold a yoga event and then offer people like free LifeWake Fear at the end of it. Okay, once we sponsored like Disney was opening up Animal Kingdom when they just launched it. So they brought a kind of Animal Kingdom to Chicago. We sponsored it and we took all of our labels— before there were like sticker labels— and we just, we covered people in labels like walking billboards. Or once we put stickers on all of the signs around Chicago. Mm-hmm. Just like, I'm sure the city of Chicago was not happy. But, you know, we did just crazy things like that just to get the name out. Anything that we could do for free, of course, was also amazing.

So you're putting stickers around Chicago, but this is a brand that has kind of exploded all over the country. As you first found kind of product-market fit with the Slavic community that had just come over here, or people that had been in Chicagoland for a while that maybe, you know, they would go back, they'd go back to Eastern Europe and they would try this when they're home in the summer and they're eating it. How did you start like breaking out of that initial cohort and like get it into other cities? Like, talk to me a little bit about that story.

Well, I'll just even backstep a couple moments back. So when my dad would go on some of the sales calls originally, so like he went over to Dominick's and the category buyer tried it the first time. So the first SKUs were just plain. Yeah. So plain tastes like buttermilk or sour cream, tart, tangy. And the category manager said, Mike, this is great, but if you want to sell this in America, you need to put sugar in it. and flavor in. And so for the first time, it was brilliant. Nobody had thought to put flavors into kefir for 2,000 years. So my dad tried it and it was amazing. And it just— that was a game changer.

What was the first flavor?

Strawberry.

Strawberry?

Yeah, strawberry, raspberry, peach, blueberry. Now we have like over 200 flavors and all sorts of varieties and like cool things like matcha latte, you know?

Yeah, it was like guava, jackfruit. Yeah.

pistachio. Yeah, a lot of— right, you know, inspired by Dubai chocolate, the Dubai chocolate bars. So yeah, we— that was a big moment. Another thing was changing the label. So after my dad passed away, we went from just a small sticker label to a full shrink sleeve wrap, which gave us a lot of opportunity to write about the product, to promote it, to make the graphics more vibrant and beautiful. So that label change was a big change too. That was was the thing that took us into the next level, next stratosphere. And then I would say just because the whole industry— natural food started to go from obscure fringe crazy crunchy hippies to mass market, and all of the mass market grocery stores started recognizing that they needed to get more healthier, better for you options. So they started opening store within a store concept. Within their big grocery store, they would give us a little space. A little pop-up. Yeah, a little, you know, in the corner somewhere. But people went. That was the start. That was the beginning of it.

And was it— and those— and those were a lot of free samples, I would assume?

Lots of demos. Lots of samples.

Because, you know, you're talking about the 5Ks, like coming there pouring yoga.

Oh my gosh, so many demos.

How many? Yeah, just an unlimited amount. Demo after

demo. Unlimited amount of demos. And just day after day at the store. Any— I mean, that's what my, you know, summer vacations were, running around to stores. and doing demo after demo.

What did you learn from the demos? Like, obviously there's, you know, when you're talking to your customers as an entrepreneur, it's such an important thing. But what's like, what are some of the stark insights that you specifically remember, you know, as you're kind of giving these demos out, you're exposing people to this thing they've never had before. And even though it's something that, you know, you and your family have had for so long, like what were like the learnings? What'd you hear from 'em? Good and bad.

The number one thing is to smile and to be friendly. A lot of people, I'm surprised how many people who work behind a demo table are not, and they're kind of annoyed with being there. You have to love the product. Yeah. And I did. You have to have a passion. I think what I hear from other people, they say my passion is contagious. And I do feel like I have a huge amount of passion for the space and wellness in general. I think that every single time I talk to a customer, to me, it feels like it's the first one I've ever talked to. And I bring that same level of enthusiasm for the millionth customer that I've told the same exact thing to for the last 40 years, the same level as I, you know, when I was 11, as passionate as I am today. And that hasn't changed. And it always feels like the first time. And I'm as— and I'll stand and talk to anybody for as long as they want about the products.

No, and people can literally, I mean, obviously being right here, like, I feel it, and I know they can feel it through the screen too.

Thank you. I love Lifeway and Kefir for sure. I mean, I just, I remember all the customers that I've talked to. You know, it is so special, especially when you hear of people's health crisis and how Kefir and Lifeway has helped them. I mean, the very, one of the calls that I remember that really changed my trajectory at the company, I was there late at night with my dad, A woman called from New York and she was like, I have Crohn's disease or irritable bowel disease syndrome, and she had to have 80% of her digestive tract removed. She was scheduled to have this surgery to deal with it. And she said, you know, on a whim, a friend of mine told me to try Lifeway kefir. So I went out and tried it, and within 2 weeks I felt Symptom-free, I'm off all of the meds that I was on, and I cancelled my surgery. And I thought, wow, that is a miracle. And I mean, think about how many millions of people we can save from this, you know, very risky, horrible, expensive surgery. Nobody wants to go through that. And I hear the same thing around cancer patients who've gone through chemo, and the only thing that they can digest and hold down is kefir. That's my why. Like, that is all the reason why we do it. There's nothing better than to improve someone's health and wellness and just give them some joy in their day. And, and this is one of the best investments, bang, bang for the buck, I guess that you can make.

So when you get those customer stories, right? And at Cameo, we get this in reaction videos. Somebody will buy a Cameo for, you know, it's a gift to their idols wishing them happy birthday or congratulating them on graduating from college or any of the occasions that come. And like we watched the person that bought it film the person they bought it for watching it. Right. And these reaction videos are like what made us, like that's what made Cameo Cameo. And yours, when you're hearing these on the phone, how did you transfer like the knowledge that you're hearing from the customer feedback and actually like start telling that story at scale?

Yeah, so I think, you know, one of the great things benefits of being a young leader was that I was able to kind of see things in a way that maybe my very older counterpart executives weren't seeing yet. So think about what was happening when we were— well, I'm a little bit older than you, but—

No, Facebook, MySpace.

Facebook, MySpace, right? MySpace? So that's where I was headed. I got— we developed children's products called ProBugs. We brought the first pouch to America. We innovated that whole space disrupted the baby food space. So we launched the first pouch in America for kids, and they had little cartoon characters of the good bacteria, and each little bug had a little story. So I kind of humanized the friendly bacteria. Instead of a cartoon cow, we had a cartoon friendly bacteria, you know. So it was a great opportunity to put these characters on MySpace. So they each had a profile, and they would start talking with customers. That was one thing. And then after that, Twitter and Facebook, we were the 5th company on Twitter. Wow. It was Sun Microsystems, ComEd, to get all the complaints. People would tweet complaints about ComEd. Starbucks, Whole Foods, Lifeway.

Right. And how did you— how did you— like, is it just because you were really early, or did you know people? How did you become the 5th company on Twitter? That's unbelievable.

I was like, I don't understand why brands aren't on Twitter.

So they're just scared to do it. They just didn't know anything.

I mean, I remember I would go into a YP PO forum and tell my whole forum, you guys need to get on Twitter. And they're like, no, that's for creepy old men. Like they didn't understand the power of social media. They did not. They were so far away from what our generation. I

totally remember that. I remember my first job. I'm an options trader in Chicago, and I'm like the only person going on Twitter. And like I would, you know, we're trading commodities, and something crazy would be happening across the world, and I'd be on the overnight market. And I read it there first, and other people were waiting to get the Wall Street Journal the next day.

Right, exactly. People didn't understand how to use it yet. So early. Same thing with Facebook. I put like— and like literally, I was up at 3 in the morning. It was maybe 2007, maybe earlier. And I literally put us on Twitter, and I was personally doing the tweets and the posts. Like, it was ridiculous. But that's what you, you know, in the beginning, you test it out, you see how it works, you see what you need. So put Lifeway on Facebook. A few days later, Facebook would take Lifeway down and they would say brands are not allowed to exist on Facebook. Later, they obviously realized that that's their revenue stream. So we're back on. But Vogue magazine, this is one of the moments I knew we made it. Vogue magazine wrote an article about us and they said, Lifeway's early use of social media created an avant-garde status and a cult-like following. I'll never forget that quote.

Yeah.

Validation that I did the right thing, and that we just boomeranged. Like it dropped our demographic by 15 years. It's very hard to lower your age demographic, and you want new users. We want new generations. You know, we've been around for four decades now. We've raised babies. They're you know our babies that we've been giving kefir to are becoming grandparents. I mean, that's insane. Yeah, I mean, it's it's um it's really special. But so that was one of the ways that really. changed the game for us. And the fact that we were first to market there and we were able to communicate these health benefits.

Yeah, it was really, I wanted to ask about that. Like you get on, nobody else is on. You're on so early that Facebook is kicking you off because you're not a college student or you're, you know, any of the reasons they weren't allowing brands originally.

Right.

What content was resonating as you built this like rabid audience? Like, what were you putting out there that really, really resonated? And what started to help you guys go viral on social?

Always health, new research, new health science. People really want to hear that there's some science behind it. There's so much snake oil in our industry. So it's important to have real science behind it. We would share things like that, recipes. I wrote a whole cookbook to try to help people understand ways to use kefir. Storytelling, you know, People love a good origin story, folklore, things that gave us authenticity, even mistakes, even when we had grammar mistakes, which often happens, it humanized us and it made it okay. But yeah, I mean, a lot of health information or whenever a celebrity would use it or we would get wind that a celebrity would use it, we would share that kind of content. And it just started to, it started to go viral. And when other people would use it and share and post, then we would reshare their content. So it was, we were really like early to market on that like idea of influencer marketing, content creation. I mean, I read a book, I'm sure a lot of people, I highly recommend still, Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. The best.

That's my single favorite. One of my favorite books of all time.

Same, same with me. I mean, It was really the blueprint for Lifeway, this idea of finding your influencers, your connectors.

Like the story of, I think it was Hush Puppies. Yeah, Hush. It was like a couple hipsters in Brooklyn that just made this thing, this brand that was about to go bankrupt, all of a sudden it becomes huge. And so many of the stories we're gonna tell on the podcast have that moment like that where maybe it's a brand that's been around a long time and something reignites it, but it always comes with finding that niche, cultivating it, and then getting those people to spread the gospel.

Absolutely. That's exactly— after reading that book, it really just, it made sense. Okay, I know what we need to do. As many of these kind of ambassadors that we can bring on that represent the— and different stakeholders, like nutritionists, dietitians, you know, young people, runners, you name it, like across the gamut, because everyone has a community. And we're here for everybody, we're in all generations, not just my generation or older generation. So yeah.

So you mentioned early days of like social media, you know, celebrities and influencers are starting, or what would be called influencers, 'cause nobody was calling it yet, are starting to like acknowledge that they use the product, they love the product. Take me through some of those like ones that you're just like, I can't believe they are drinking this, or I can't believe they love it.

I made a list again, the other list. Okay, so one of the first ones was Oprah when she was, like dieting, and she had her chef Rosie, and Rosie had Strawberry Kefir in the bottle. Oprah still did not know what it was, and she pulls it out and she goes, I don't know what this is, but Rosie has me drinking it. And so that was one of our moments. Was that on TV? That was on TV.

Wow.

Yeah.

Did you see a huge spike in sales after that?

People were calling. They said, oh, I saw you on Oprah. I saw you on Oprah. Like Oprah didn't know, but other people knew. It definitely like prompted more purchase and curiosity. People visiting websites. Okay, Kim Kardashian was one. She was over at— it was at Sundance Film Festival and we had a little activation there and she took a picture with it, unprovoked. She took a picture and posted it. Wow. That was another one. Yeah, I mean, there were kind of a lot like that. And now we have it all. I mean, Bethenny Frankel posted about it and Farmer's Cheese, which is another legacy product that we made, had been making for almost 40 years. But yeah. And it's so exciting every time. And I hear it all the time now. And it's not like, well, when we were doing first rounds of trials and sampling, people would look at it and say, is this like Pepto-Bismol? Like, what is this? I don't know. And, you know, so now people know what it is. Yeah.

And know what it is is also, you know, with 200+ SKUs, right? Like, you've got collagen. Like, there's just so many things that are happening. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, when they do, you know, you guys have this business, it starts with the, you know, no flavour, and then you get the flavour, you start, obviously new flavours always make sense. How do you balance kind of like continuing to double down on your core versus like finding expansionary products? And where does it become a— where have you found it become a distraction versus like something that really is accretive to the rest of the business? Yeah. I think a lot of us struggle with that.

I agree. And it's really hard. I hate when the team wants to do SKU rationalization meetings because each one of these SKUs are my babies. Yeah. Um, there is not a product that hasn't been innovated, you know, because of me. Yeah, I'll just be honest. So—

But I have to imagine, like, and, you know, I feel the same here, sometimes you have ideas that don't work.

I know.

Like, have you killed them?

I've had to kill some.

And what is— what's the one that keeps you up at night? What is your favorite product you had to kill?

I mean, there are so many. Uh, I'm sad that we don't have the non-dairy version. You know, we tried it. So you, you know, you have to live under a rock to not know, uh, But when this plant-based movement happened, the alt-dairy movement, it was very devastating to the business. That was one of the most challenging times in the business. And I mean, overnight, practically, like the whole world decided that milk was evil and they would just shame you if you had any kind of dairy product. So we had to launch a non-dairy version to give it, you know, to give it a chance. give the community what they wanted. It didn't last. The pendulum has swung fully back to high premium, full fat dairy, you know, just the best dairy that we could find. People are really kind of off of the non-dairy. But I do think that there is a place for it. And I think we should have maybe kept one SKU or 2 SKUs just to give people an option.

Yeah.

That's always hard. But it didn't make sense anymore. And then there's just flavors that I love that are gone, or flavors, at least we bring them back limited edition. They're kind of quick in and outs. They're fun. But I think it's important for— so this balance of the core versus the kind of new fun things. I think that having these new innovative flavors It gives the team a reason to get in to talk to their buyers, to establish their connection. Everyone wants to know what's new.

Yeah.

They want to hear what's new. It gives the opportunity to talk to media and just to bring up your brand again and make it relevant, especially when you have a legacy brand that's been around for multiple decades. But they don't all last, and some of them do have to get discontinued. You know, we mourn those, but we think about future ones. Like, BABA is a great one.

You know, and by the way, just like anything, there are setbacks, but there's been a lot of success. And as we look all the way forward to today, right, this business under your leadership has gone from $12 million in sales to $200 million in sales.

Yeah, well, obviously.

And you've now had, is it how many consecutive quarters of growth?

22 consecutive quarters of growth. just basically the last 5 years. Yeah, consistent. We've doubled our revenue in the last 5 years. We've returned— shareholder return is up 1,000%. Our EBITDA has gone from $3 to like $27. Wow. And we're on target to $47 to $50 by 2027. Yeah, we are growing like crazy. And it is— we're really at a tipping point right now. It's really exciting. And yeah, we— so like our core products are everywhere. I would say like 3, 4 SKUs, our top 3 to 4 SKUs are everywhere. Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Erewhon, everywhere. And then we have all of our various like innovative new things, and those go into smaller stores or more—

Specialty.

Specialty. Health stores. Yeah. And then as those get success and traction, And if they work and there is success, then they start going into the Walmarts of the world, into Amazon. But I will say that model is kind of being flipped on its head because I am watching Walmart, Amazon, Target, like the big guys, the ones who do give scale, getting to the marketplace faster with new innovation. They no longer want the core products. They want the cool stuff before anyone else has it. They want it before the upscale trendy Yeah. They want to be the trendsetters now. They want to be the tastemakers.

Which is great.

It's awesome. It's great for me. Yeah. And I also think that they've become much more with like an established brand or probably with startups too, much more collaborative in what they want and what they're looking for and like giving us direction. Like, we're looking for this or we're looking for that, or, you know, so we can really innovate for them. Oh, I have another— as I'm talking, I have another innovative. So one time you probably— you might have been there, the Economic Club of Chicago. Chicago had Howard Schultz as the keynote speaker. So I got my way into the dais, into the speaker room. This is an unhinged thing. I had a small bottle of kefir in my cocktail purse. And I mean, it's black tie. So black tie, kefir.

Hey, it's like the legacy of sneaking the bacteria into the kids' clothes, smuggling it in. You smuggle into the Economic Club of Chicago behind the dais.

In my little purse. I was first to be in the room because I wanted his time before he got swarmed. So, I'm standing there, he walks in, he sees me, he comes right to me. I'm like, Howard, I have a product for you, and I pull out my Lifeway. And, we had a nice conversation. He gave me his number, an email, and we talked and we had a nice— he hasn't brought in Lifeway yet, but maybe this is the reason that they did.

Oh, but you know what? That's such a at bat, right? And I see, you know, I've been guilty of it. I think we've all been guilty of it. There's that person there that actually could make, you know, could, could make a huge change in your business, and you don't go up to them. You don't tap them on the shoulder. You don't, like, shoot your shot. You gotta shoot your shot. I tell our talent team all the time, right? It's like, there's— it's not a no, it's not yet, right? And you have to keep going.

Never give up. Keep going. And, you know, the worst thing that he says is no, or I'm not interested, or you're an idiot, and turns around.

And if they say no, you're in the same place you are right now, which Starbucks doesn't have it.

Yeah, yeah, not yet, but maybe this will be it. Not yet. Yeah, you can dream. And I'm sure that there will be a time when it's there because like we're in CVS, we're in, you know, you name it. We're at the airport in the vending machine at Terminal 3, H12 at ORD. Amazing. So yeah.

What is the most unhinged marketing idea that you were really excited about that you ended up not doing for some reason?

Oh, gosh. I think I do all of the unhinged ones. Okay, the one on— the unhinged thing that we're doing right now for the 40th anniversary and our National Kiefer Day, which is June 18th, is— so we launched a tattoo challenge. So if anyone would like to show their love for Lifeway for Life and get a Lifeway-inspired tattoo, Kiefer-inspired tattoo, you could win Kefir for Lifeway Kefir for a year, a year supply.

I love it. I think that we're gonna be seeing a bunch of those. In fact, we just over here— I'm gonna get one tonight. We just over here, 2 of our top execs just got Cameo tattoos, what, 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago? Yeah, fresh.

Yeah, I think it's a nice way to show brand love for life. Definitely something unhinged. Gotta do something really that gets you out of the everyday marketing and stand out. And hopefully there's a viral moment there.

So obviously taking over so young, right? And being at this really special time where social media is becoming a thing and the world's just changing. By running this company, I'm sure there were people that got into your network either through YPO or just through being a public company CEO that you're kind of meeting the people that you're reading about. Who are some people that really inspired you and, you know, helped you take your game to the next level? And what are some brands that you really admired from a marketing perspective that, you know, you kind of felt like, hey, I love what they're doing. Like, we gotta do more of that.

Yeah. Oh my God, great questions. So Chrissy Hefner, who was the CEO of Playboy, Yeah. Was a huge inspiration for me. You know, there weren't a lot of female role models for me, female entrepreneurs or CEOs.

She probably previously was the youngest, right?

Yeah, I think she was the youngest. So you took the mantle from her. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I remember being in college and I came home and my dad was like, oh, come look, there's a special on CNN about Christy Hefner. You should watch this. I had no idea who she was at the time. And he's He's like, one day you're gonna be just like Christy. You're gonna take over this business. And that was really, really inspirational and validation to me that my dad believed that I could do that. That sticks with me. You only need one person to believe in you. Just one person is a big game changer in your own self-confidence. So meeting Christy, I remember I was at a benefit dinner. She was there, and I had talked about, you know, fangirled about her in the media. And the director of the organization had read that story, and he walked over to me and he said, Christy's over there. Do you want to meet her? Wow. I was like, oh my God, yes, yes, yes. So I did. I got to talk to her, and we're now, you know, great friends now. She's such a supportive figure for me. And— but after we walked away, he said to me, one day you're going to be sitting at a table and a young woman is gonna walk up to you and fangirl over you just like that. And, you know, you're gonna be in that position. And that's happened. And there's nothing more special than feeling that and kind of carrying that torch on and lighting the torch of others. That's one. But there's been so many. I mean, Arianna Huffington, I met her at a, like, a Fortune summit. She invited me to her house and hosted this like an incredible lunch for me when I launched the book. That was really special. I mean, it's, you know, you have Arianna Huffington inviting you to her house. Yeah. To help you. I mean, it's things like that, like I'm very touched by. I got a chance to introduce Deepak Chopra. I mean, talk about health and mindfulness and improving people's lives. And he wrote a snippet for my book. That was a great one too. I mean, that's an iconic individual legend. So lots of people like that. And it's amazing. And every time I try not to get too starstruck, but it still happens. Do you ever get starstruck?

I mean, there's— in my business and in your business, like, we've been so fortunate to meet so many people. And, you know, for me, I'm trying to think like the one, I am not like a starstruck person. No. Obviously like a Michael Jordan or something. Like there are certain people out there, like you go meet a president, like there's another level to that. But I think it's always so interesting how these little, like in business, there's so many things could go right, could go left. right? Arianna Huffington could have like not invited you to her house. And like, you just think about the butterfly effect of all those. And it's something I've thought a lot about. As you're thinking about like, you know, you mentioned like lighting the candle, passing the torch. Your own daughter gets to watch you every single day. And your father— Thank you. Yeah. 2 girls. 2 girls. And your father was such an inspiration. To you? What have they learned from you?

Well, I mean, hard work. I think that's— it's like an overnight sensation that took 2,000 years, you know, and 40 years and 23 years. Hard work is really a big part of it. Unbridled ambition. Creativeness. Confidence. Um... I think the confidence, like, and owning your story, and, like, being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Being fearless. You know, I'm not afraid pretty much of anything at this point. I don't care. I'm in the zero fucks given era. Uh, I don't care. And I don't have anything to prove to anybody anymore. I've kind of done the things. Um, you know, more isn't gonna make me happier. Right. I'm just—I would love to keep building this business, keep growing it, keep scaling it. You know, my vision is to bring Lifeway kefir to every refrigerator in the world. We are the number one brand that you've mentioned, 95% category leader in the States. We're the number one brand in Mexico. We have a huge plan for Mexico, but we're already number one there in all the Walmarts, Costco. Costco, Suprema, like all these amazing stores. We're in the Caribbean, all throughout the Caribbean, South America, South Africa, in UAE, Dubai, parts of Europe. So, you know, the opportunity for scaling internationally is definitely there, and we're at the forefront, and we have the capacity to do it. So anyways, the girls have seen that I'm unafraid, and I think that you have to be unafraid, and you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's the bottom line. You're not gonna, you know, if your fear takes over, then it's really easy to just not go do the brave thing. But I think bravery is a muscle, and the more you do it, the braver you get. The more you put yourself out there, the more opportunities you get. And I always like think, you know, you have to follow your gut. That's one thing my intuition has really taken me far. You know, maybe I didn't go to Harvard, But my intuition, I can dance circles around people who did go to Harvard. So, you know, that just being able to know that you can, you have the intuition, you have the knowledge base, you have the survival skills. I think that's what they've learned.

How important is it that, you know, you or your family runs the business? I'm sure at some point, right? as you think, like, hey, you've kind of accomplished everything you want, and obviously you have this much larger vision, and you still got gas in the tank, right? Yeah. But I think every entrepreneur, everybody that's been in that seat, sometimes it's like, I wanna go do something new, or I feel like somebody else can take this to the next level. How do you think about that? Yeah. 'Cause I think a lot of founders and a lot of people that kind of were there from the beginning, they just, it's their baby.

It is. It is our baby. I mean, this is my baby. I birthed it. Maybe my father founded it, but I was there from age 11 and really was kind of led here. And I definitely do think about, like, what is the next chapter? What would that look like? How could it continue? Who would the torch get passed on to? I think it's just too big at this point for it to be like a, you know, a kid, my kid taking it over. I would love for the family to stay involved on a board level.

You're not set yet. You're not setting a goal of, hey, one of the daughters gotta take over by 23, break mom's record?

I would love it. Yeah, break a record. I would love it. I think that would be really cool, actually. But no, I think I— and also, you know, they've seen the blood, sweat, and tears, and they've seen me curled up in a fetal ball on the floor crying, and all of the stress that it does, the toll that it carries, that I carry. It's hard and it's really, it's cutthroat and it's not for everyone. And honestly, I don't want them to have this level of struggle and pain. 'Cause as awesome as it is and as glamorous as it is, there is a lot of pain behind it as well. I mean, it is very challenging. It's very stressful. I feel like— It's exhausting. It's really hard to rest or to take a vacation. Like, that doesn't exist for me.

Yeah, you're never off.

Never off. You know, the work is always in the palm of my hand and there's always things to be done. And of course, you know, if you have high expectations of yourself and you have this level of ambition and it's an international company and there's, you know, always things that I could do in every place I go, I see opportunity. I can't turn off. I'm just wired that way. Probably like my father. Or, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And everywhere I go, I think about, I can do this, I can have this partnership, I can do this collaboration, I can do the— but you don't have bandwidth for everything and you can't do everything. And you wanna do the things that'll really move the needle at this point at scale, or the things that are really fun that I wanna do as well. You know, that's another way, like, do I wanna do this or not? You know, but yeah, I can't turn off. And that's the hard part. Like, I think about all of our vacations. I think about how many hours I spent pacing in a lobby, you know, on a call with lawyers or whatever. So that's a challenge. And they have their own dreams and passions. I don't want to project my desires onto the girls. And that's really the great thing of like being second generation for them, or first generation, I guess. I'm first gen. I don't know what I am. I'm the generation. I'm the immigrant. They're the next generation. I think that, you know, you know, all of this hard work by my parents, by myself, gives them another opportunity. They don't have to struggle as much, but they have their own passions. You know, they're gonna find their way.

And they've got a world-class, unbelievable example.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

That's there. As you think about the future, what most excites you about where you guys are going?

Yeah, I mean, I am really excited about all the medical research because this is the the most important thing that is happening for our health.

And that's being tied in a lot to the longevity. And, you know, I was just in Sweden a couple weeks ago with Bryan Johnson. Yep, Don't Die. They're doing their, yeah, the Don't Die Superhuman Conference and a lot of the world's leading longevity experts. And like, you just kept hearing gut biome, gut biome. You guys literally put that in the lexicon. You put it in the zeitgeist.

Yes, yes, exactly right. You know, it is having a moment, but it's only the beginning. We haven't even scratched the surface on the knowledge of microbiome, friendly bacteria, the impact of fermented dairy on the body. You know, everyone is like biohacking their health, their wellness, their longevity. Yeah, it's not just lifespan, but healthspan. Right. You know, your quality of health and wellness, and that we can actually manipulate our wellness and our health and all of that. I mean, the research is phenomenal. I am blown away by it myself because all the things that my dad used to tell me when I was a teenager, I would like roll my eyes because I thought he was exaggerating, but he was actually right.

And now you're seeing it in the journals.

It's for real. It's real. I mean, mental— I remember coming into his office in college. I was having a mental health crisis, really in a bad, bad place. And I said, can— would you pay for a therapist? And he said, of course I'll pay for a therapist, but drink kefir, drink Lifeway, you'll feel much better. And he was absolutely right. Today, Harvard and all these other incredible institutions have done research around kefir and Lifeway, and they've said that there is a mind-gut connection and that through the mind-gut access, the gut controls 80% of the serotonin, 90% of the serotonin in the gut. Yeah. When you drink kefir, neurotransmitters, GABA receptors, all of these things are happening. There's 600 unique peptides and amino acids that are found in kefir through the fermentation process. So these are remarkable studies now, and we now know that kefir can help reduce stress, depression, and anxiety, that there is a mental health benefit. We now know that a recent study out of Boston came out that said they followed 130,000 people, one of the largest studies, 130,000 people over 30 years. They tracked regular consumption of fermented dairy. With bacterial cultures that are found in Lifeway, they found you can reduce 20 to 30% of colon cancer by the consumption of kefir. This is a miracle. Like, it's mind-blowing. There are studies around ADHD and autoimmune diseases and allergies. So all of the diseases that we see, these— we talk about epidemics in these crazy autoimmune diseases? Why are there so many allergies? Why are there these— and a lot of it is because of the modern lifestyle and the dysbiosis, the imbalance of friendly bacteria in the gut. All of the disease, most of disease that we see is caused by a dysbiosis of the gut, an imbalance of the gut, and inflammation causes inflammation. And Lifeway kefir can help reduce inflammation in the body. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions. For all the good things that social media offers, it also creates a lot of misinformation, agendas, You know, influencers, etc., people who maybe don't have the science behind what they're talking about, sharing kind of misinformation. So that's something that's important to point out. But, you know, the fact that we can manipulate our health this way, and it's in every grocery store, you don't have to go on a fancy spa retreat, you don't have to do anything really crazy.

You don't have to buy it online.

No, you literally go to your local grocery store. CVS, it's there. It's the best investment, nutritional bang for the buck. Um, it's good for your skin. We launched a collagen, uh, a product that's infused with collagen. Um, but kefir naturally has skin health proponents because there's a gut-skin axis. So it, you know, um, on the set of Barbie, when they were filming it, they had a nutritionist on site. And she was tasked with creating a menu for the actors and actresses to give them glowing skin. And one of the things she had was kefir for all of them. And Margot Robbie attributes her glowing skin to her consumption of kefir on set. So, you know, that was— when my teenagers heard about this, they started telling all of their friends. Yeah, they're like, this is— And now all of their friends are buying it. Get your glow. Like this— exactly. The Sephora teen market is real. So, yeah, it reduces acne, all of that. So, you know, there's all this great health and wellness that we can share with the world and improving the health of people. There's nothing better that I can do with my time than do that and work on that. And the other thing I'm really excited about is a new study that found that people in ICU can safely consume kefir as well, and that you can actually literally put it down feeding tubes. We have 400,000 people on feeding tubes and they have very limited things that they can consume. This can improve their lives in a major way. So I'm excited by those kinds of studies, but I'm also excited just, you know, getting it into the hands of like the aloe teenagers and like, you know, people who just want great nutrition. Of course, everyone's talking about protein. That's the hottest thing. Protein, protein. Lifeway obviously has natural protein, but it's not just protein that we should be looking for, but high-quality bioavailable protein. Not all protein is the same.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I got to go to an event recently that the current Starbucks CEO, Brian Nichols, was speaking at, a dinner. I didn't go to that. Yeah. And he was talking about— he was basically talking about the modern grocery store and how everything in the middle right now is struggling because of GLP-1 specifically, right? So how is that trend of people looking for really high-quality stuff to put in them? Is GLP-1s— I know a lot of I've heard from other food brands it's hurting them. Like, is this— I'm sure this is like a tailwind.

For us, it's been a game changer too, because this is one of the number one things that you should be consuming if you're on a GLP-1. So the idea is, first of all, yeah, you're not as hungry, so you're not eating the proteins. You're not seeking those out. You absolutely have to get high-quality bioavailable protein.

I got to crack this open now then.

Let's do it. I'll join you.

But keep going. Keep going.

So, so here, let's cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. And I've got my lemon here.

Yes.

So we've got the lemon flavor here because she knows I'm a Greek and I know I love my lemon.

And I'm drinking our new passion fruit lychee. Oh my God, it's so good.

That's amazing.

I gave you your own big bottle, like a big boy. Get the whole thing off.

That is actually amazing. And I'm really not like a Greek— even like Greek yogurt.

So good.

But that is awesome.

It's delicious, right? I know, I love— I'm obsessed. Every time I try any one of our flavors, I'm like, that's my new And I can't pick, they're all so good. So yeah, so GLP-1s, you're losing muscle mass very quickly. Yeah. And we have to be— especially dangerous for women because we're more prone to osteoporosis, but everyone, this is, you know, we have to be very hyper-focused on the protein because what we'll have is an epidemic of osteoporosis, you know, a crisis in that and frail individuals who have dramatically bone deficiencies. So that's really important. And the other thing is that people's microbiome is suffering because they're not getting this diversity of different things, different kinds of foods, you know, fruits, vegetables, prebiotics, probiotics. So we have to be really mindful that we're consuming friendly bacteria. Foods with friendly bacteria, fermented foods. It's the number one thing that you can consume on GLP-1.

Yeah, and I was just back at Duke and they are doing some of the leading research on Alzheimer's.

Yep.

And, you know, one of the things they're, you know, just continuing to chip away at inflammation is clearly that, and it starts in the gut biome. So it just feels like you have so many of these these macro trends coming your way. You talked about some misinformation. What's the misconception of what you guys do? It feels like there's so many good tailwinds. What's the headwind that you're looking ahead and you feel like you need to continue to combat?

I think still this idea that dairy is— Dairy's bad. That dairy is bad. Dairy is inflammatory. Dairy is mucus-forming. forming. That might be true for like a regular glass of milk. By the way, I still love drinking milk. Yeah. Definitely a dairy girl. But fermented dairy reduces inflammation, and that is not getting around to people. I still have doctors, when I go into a doctor's office and they say, drink low-fat— if you're drinking milk, drink low-fat milk. Big misconception. Whole milk is as beneficial to our health and does not cause cardiovascular disease, especially fermented dairy. So there's these misconceptions. I still hear doctors saying, oh, if you're taking antibiotics, make sure you're not using any dairy. It kills me. I mean, if you're taking an antibiotic, the number one thing you should be drinking is a fermented dairy.

Yeah, because it nukes your gut.

Wipes out all of your bacteria. When you take an antibiotic, which is overprescribed in our country, it's like the first thing, you wipe out your good bacteria. for 6 months to 2 years. And then you have all these other side effects, and then they're chasing how to heal their— the side effects, when literally all they need to do is, you know, you, you just consume Lifeway Kefir.

What's the— what's the right amount to drink every day? Like, I— is there— is there too much? Is there too— obviously too little.

No, too much. But no, no such thing as too much.

So you can't have too much probiotic or too much gut biome?

No, no, not— I mean, not in a product. I mean, if you're taking like the pills and supplements, that's some— that there— yeah, you could probably overdo it on pills, probiotic pills. Oh, let's talk about probiotic pills. This is another great misconception now that we're on this topic. So people take probiotic pills, they're mostly doing nothing.

Yeah.

Uh, the gut is very acidic and it can't survive— the probiotic pills can't survive the gut. The acidic gut environment. Scientists out of UC Davis found that not all probiotics are the same and that when it's inoculated in a dairy source, like in Lifeway kefir, that dairy kind of coats the probiotic and creates an environment, a wall that survives that acidic gut and goes all the way through the process. And studies out of Chicago, actually, Dr. Goldberg and Dr. O'Meara, they wrote the diet, they studied fecal matter of people who used Lifeway kefir and people who didn't, and they found that it was still living and active in the final finish, the end, through the end. That's really important because if you want your probiotic to do anything, it needs to survive that entire digestive process. And it really starts in the mouth. As soon as you drink a little bit, it starts to coat your mouth. It's got great dental benefits, great mouth health.

I mean, you feel it.

You feel it. Yeah, down your throat, all of it. It's really important to get it through a food source, through a natural food source. That's another thing I'd love to point out. And then the prebiotics. We're all hearing about prebiotics, prebiotics. You really don't need prebiotics. Every time you have a piece of fruit or vegetable, you're getting prebiotics. You can have an apple, have a banana, some lettuce, kale, all— you don't, you know, you really don't. are a source of food for the probiotics. So it is important to have them.

What advice do you have for, you know, another immigrant coming to the US that like has that thing that's missing from their home country? Like I have a friend that's got this beauty brand. She's Indian and this has completely blown up in the last 5 years and it's taking a lot a lot of the natural types of like makeup products that Indian women would use. Same thing, like thousands of years in there. And then marketing that to the aloe generation, as you called it. Like what are some, you know, what are some piece of advice you have for somebody to go do that?

Do it, start, you know, start now. Start now, you'll be happy you did. Yeah, start and, I think looking for a natural community within your product line. So start with your Indian community, get like a little bit of, you know, support within your, your base and get, get kind of a foundation, get proof of concept, and then just continue to scale it. You know, it's literally just like that. I mean, that I think about how we started and it was by really doing it great and making a difference to our community that nobody was, you know, reaching out to. Nobody was marketing to Soviet immigrants. Like, nobody cared about us, but we marketed to ourselves. My dad literally helped media, like ethnic European media companies start so that he would have an outlet by which to do marketing and advertising. There were no, like, Russian newspapers, Russian radio stations at the time, but he helped. Right.

And today that's building your community newsletter or your fan club.

Exactly. Exactly.

And owning your audience.

Exactly. Yeah. Like Cameo. Like, we did a great collab together where we were launching these new flavors. These are like these exotic flavors like passion fruit lychee or guava. Anyways, they're very like exotic tropical flavors. So we invited the cast of Love Island to help us spread the message. And they kind of— we did like cameos with them. And that was a really cool partnership. It was the first time we tried to do something like that. And that was a really great way to spread the message. And it's things like that, you know, doing it over and over again. It's not like one thing is gonna check the box. I have people who think, like entrepreneurs come to me and they're like, oh, we got a write-up in an article in Forbes or Fortune, and they think it's gonna be the thing that changes their trajectory. It might, but it'll take like 1,000 more of those. Exactly. It's not one. It's not one thing that you check the box.

And at the same time, like the bad thing that happens, right? It's not, you know, that's not gonna kill you unless you let it.

Yes, yes, yes.

What are the brands that, like, consumer brand, what's like one consumer brand you're obsessed with and what's one consumer brand your daughters are obsessed with right now?

Oh gosh. Oh, there are so many.

And I just learned about LeBubu.

LeBubu. So we had the original, us Slavic girls, we had Chiburashka. Chiburashka looks like LeBubu. I really think that they stole the thing 'cause it looks identical. But we had Chiburashka. I still have one in my house somewhere. They are— well, they're obsessed with everything matcha right now. But I would say Erewhon as a brand— Erewhon, yeah. Is something that is like, it's a line item in my house. And their smoothies, we were one of the featured smoothies. We did a collab with Nara Smith, and that went viral. Like, everybody's like, how do we hack the Nara Smith Wellness from Scratch smoothie? So whether you're in Erewhon, you know, in LA or you're in South Dakota, you could make it by hacking the recipe. So that's a big one. I mean, they're obsessed with a lot of beauty brands right now. Lots of beverages, all the alternative beverages. But matcha, my kids make matcha from scratch. Like they do the whole whisking, everything, every day. What else? I mean, Poppi, of course. Yeah. Everyone, Poppi. They're definitely a North Star for us. Those are some of them.

Well, it's also interesting just how much healthier, like, your daughter's generation is than ours.

Oh my God. Right?

You see it in, you know, in alcohol sales. I happen to be very fortunate to, like, be an early investor in Liquid Death. And I remember when I told people about that, they're like, that's a water company. Like, what the hell are you doing? But, you know, you go see that, you go to the concerts now, And like people don't want to drink.

Right.

And, you know, as they're being more conscious about that, you know, there's the natural tailwind for everything that you're doing as well.

Yeah, people, they don't wanna be out late dancing in clubs. They wanna rave in the morning. That's a big trend, like morning day party, dance parties. We sponsor a lot of those with Daybreaker and other things like that. Like people wanna dance, have a great time, drink like healthy beverages and invest in their own health and they just feel better. I think that, yeah, I mean, there is this opportunity to reach this new generation who's already there. We don't have to convince them. They are looking for it. They're seeking it out. And, you know, they really also want brands that are not just like talking to them and like advertising. They want activation. They want community. And they're authentic. Yeah, authentic, like organic engagement. They want community. They want to feel the brand come to life. Like we, you know, partnered up with Poosh and the Kardashians at Coachella and we had like an activation at Coachella. Unexpected. Like, why would— I was there. I saw it. Oh, right. We were there. We ran into each other. Right. So, you know, you— it was— it's an unexpected, you know, place to talk to our consumers at a music festival. We started that. We— I mean, another unhinged thing I did. We— Did we get through the whole list? I mean, there's still a bunch to go, but Bonnaroo was one of the first ones we ever did before—

Love Bonnaroo. Let's talk Bonnaroo.

I love Bonnaroo. We did Bonnaroo. Oh my God. I was I signed us up for Bonnaroo. It's in Tennessee, and you have to camp. And this was one of our very first activations, probably like twenty years ago. This is really, really early. So we're camping. My it was me and the woman who now is my VP of operations, and a marketing a young man in marketing, and we pitched a tent. So we slept in a tent together. And then in the morning, it's all for the sponsors. In the morning, the bathrooms are community bathrooms. And so there's boys and girls, men and women in the bathrooms. And, you know, we're just trying to get to our sampling station to go give out Lifeway. And I get out of the shower and I just see a naked man who just woke up. I'm 5 feet tall and he was much taller. So that's a vision I'll never forget. That's an unhinged moment.

Did you give him a free sample?

I did. Of course, I give them out everywhere I go. You need this. Yeah, so things like that. But just building community authentically is, I think, something that we do really well.

Yeah, and everybody talks about that. Everybody talks about building community. You've built community. Your whole business has been built by a community and fostering that and then expanding it. That's the thing a lot of people don't do, right? You know, taking it out of the original group and like finding, you know, the next group to add to the tribe. What are some lessons that you would give a young entrepreneur about building community around their mission?

Yeah, like, well, today we spend a big chunk of that budget into like directing digital, you know, bringing users in digitally because everyone, they live, it's our third home. Is our social media and our phones. I think during the pandemic, we really invested, really doubled down on digital before anyone else did. We turned all of our in-person activations, brought them online. We hosted like 300 Instagram Live sessions with all these experts of everything. We got so many new users. We grew our consumer base by like 320,000 new users came in and we've tracked them and 70% continue to buy Lifeway every single week now. That's insane. It's insane, like unheard of. And it was because of the pandemic. So, you know, meeting—

Well, not just because of the pandemic, it's because of the community that you gave people during the pandemic.

Exactly.

Right, that's the important thing.

Yes, yes, yes. And continuing to build upon that community and inviting people into the tent. So democratizing it, making it accessible, making it understandable, finding ways to relate, finding different kinds of ambassadors, unexpected ambassadors. You know, we used to only kind of have women as our ambassadors. Women did majority of the grocery shopping back in the day. That is totally flipped on its head. You know, we are a brand that meets the moment and watching kind of what's happening in the cultural zeitgeist. And, you know, seeing the more equal balance of household chores, watching kind of demographics and seeing young people stay single longer, not necessarily living with others, you know, kind of that has all changed the entire landscape. Now we are communicating to men. We want men to sit and drink a bottle and hold it and go to the grocery store and buy it. And ask for it. talked to men before as a consumer base. They were, you know, it wasn't like something that you would spend money in.

But Julia, I did it for Pilates. I can do it for you too.

I know. You have started the entire Pilates movement, Steve. I love it. That's right. But that's true. I mean, these kinds of shifts in culture are moments of opportunity for us.

Yeah.

New users.

All right. This has been absolutely amazing. And we have one last question that we always ask Everybody. Julie, what is your death row meal and who would you share it with? And you could have up to 4 people.

Oh, I can share it with— Alive or dead. Alive or dead. Okay. Wow. Okay. So the meal would be Geno's East pizza and peanut butter. I love peanut butter.

Peanut butter is actually the funniest thing. Every year, I remember when we'd go back to Greece, That was like the one thing that everybody always asked us to bring back. It was peanut butter out of everything from America. We go to Sparta, Greece, and they want peanut butter.

It's so good.

Are you, are you chunky or smooth?

I like them both. Different times.

And what's your pizza at Gino's East?

Mushrooms and sliced tomatoes. I just, it's like my favorite. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not in Chicago all the time anymore. And, but whenever I come, I get it. I feel like it's my meal. Yeah, so Gino's caviar, black caviar. I'm a true Slavic girl, give me my black caviar.

Are you putting it on the Gino's East? Are you gonna put it on the pizza or no?

I haven't tried it, but that's a good idea, 'cause now, like, definitely I see caviar on—

I feel like at Mila and all these places, you're starting to see caviar on pizza.

In random places, like, that's having a moment, for sure. Yeah, I would definitely try it. I love our black caviar on top of our farmer's cheese with, like, a crisp, as Bethenny Frankel does it. She gave me a good idea. And then, I don't know, I guess, yeah, probably, okay, who I would have it with. Oprah, that's still, she's definitely still on my list of people to spend time with. I'd love to have a meal with my dad. That would be amazing. And then, you know, my daughters.

And I know where you're hosting it. You're hosting it in New Orleans. One of the fun facts among many about Julie is that Julie owns Lenny Kravitz's house in the French Quarter. And in fact, we threw my dad's 75th birthday party there this year during Super Bowl. And I want to thank you for that, Julie. Of course. And the one thing I didn't tell you is Mother's Day, we just went to New York to go see Denzel in Othello. And who sat right in front of my My dad,

Lenny.

Lenny Kravitz.

Oh my God, I love it. Did you tell him? Did you get a chance to talk?

My dad first go— you like, you could just tell that he— because he's got— there are people that have the aura. He looks like a rock star more than anyone I think I've ever seen in my life. Agree. So my dad had no idea who he was, but he like looked, you know, he's kind of looking at him and he's like— and then, and then my dad's like, Steven, who is that? And I go, Dad, that's Lenny Kravitz. And he He was like, it wasn't. I'm like, the house that we were at for your birthday. He's like, oh. So then he goes and taps him on the shoulder right in front, and the security's looking. He goes, Lenny, I'm not a fan. I just want to let you know, I partied in your house in New Orleans for my 75th birthday. And it was just all—

And he must have been so happy.

He was so happy. He loves the house.

He was so happy. He loves— he calls when he's in town, and he, uh, likes to show people. Um, it's so funny because if he ever hears this, so He, he reached out when he was in New Orleans to do a little walkthrough and show some of his friends. And we have cameras in the house, you know, we're not there all the time, so we have cameras there. And we're like, oh, just— we have cameras, so you know. And he goes, man, I'm not gonna steal anything. We're like, no, just for your own comfort.

Or like, or like, whatever you're gonna do.

Yeah, I just wanted him to know, like, just so you know. Yeah, yeah, we're not spying. We're not spying. But I don't think he caught on. And to this day, we still feel bad that, like, this miscommunication— like, I don't know if he thinks, man, those people thought I was gonna steal something? Like, I don't know. Hopefully he knows. But, um, he— when he was over at Jazz Fest, he headlined this year for Jazz Fest. Yeah. And he said it off the stage and gave the address. That night— this is my birthday. I was— I had a big birthday party. At 3:00 in the morning, the alarm goes off from New Orleans. Yeah. And I'm, like, not in the condition to deal with this. We're calling New Orleans police. I can't dial 911 'cause then it goes to the city that I'm in. So anyways, I— it was all this whole ordeal. Somebody like jumped the fence, tried to break in. It was an ordeal. We're like, please don't break the door down because it's really hard to get that— the material. It's really hard to build in the French Quarter, like old 200-year-old Creole material.

And this place, guys, is as epic as you imagine it is. All right, Julie, closing words of wisdom to everybody out there. that has an idea, wants to make it work, what do you tell them?

Trust your gut. Follow your gut. Trust your gut. Love your gut. Take care of yourself.

Keep your gut healthy.

Yes. Drink LifeWay Kefir. Yeah, just those— that's number one. And take care of yourself. I think as an entrepreneur, it's really hard to get into the grind, to, you know, Burnout, you know, I've definitely felt it myself. And the number one thing is put on your own oxygen mask before you can put, you know, help anyone else. You're of no good if you are burned out.

Yeah.

So take care of yourself. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Little things every day. If you, you know, if you can make one or two really good decisions every day, you've done a great job. Put the right people on the bus. You know, build a great support system around yourself. Have the best lawyers money can buy. Those are some of the things.

What would you tell 27-year-old Julie right now?

Oh, I would tell her that I'm so proud of her, that I love her, that she's amazing. And that she's already won.

Julie, thank you.

Thank you so much, Steve. This was great. Really great. I really appreciate this conversation and I love all you're doing here.

This was amazing. And go out, go get your kefir. This is actually amazing. I've probably drank half of it already, and I hope to try all the flavors. I got 200 left.

That's right. All right.

Thank you.