The Future of Consumer Health with Nicolas McCoy

30:55And, you know, and then they're buying all the needles. And it's also all the peptides. The peptide market, well, there's not great data. We did look at trying to pull data, and what we found is the websites for these peptide companies seems to change, interestingly. So you kind of get these weird data charts where they kind of show growth for a year, and then it goes down, but it kind of is replaced by another line, which is the same probably credit card account, but a different website or something like that. We couldn't really figure it out. Clearly, there's growth, but we don't have great data behind it.

31:27but I can just tell you anecdotally, the number of peptide sites, the number of peptide manufacturers in China that show up on this one website, I can't remember the name of it right now, that literally you can send your vials to test what's in it for free. And then they basically will post it with the manufacturer, what it was, endotoxins, purity, how many milligrams are actually in the vial, all of that. So anybody buying from any of these vendors in China or whatever can go online and look at the history of the tests of the vendor and figure out if they trust them or not wow that's really it's better than the ebay it's better than ebay feedback that's that's really interesting how will what happened two weeks ago with rfk jr bringing you know i know it's not uh bringing 12 12 peptides um off off the category two lists and how will or they're not off the category two list.

32:26It's for, it's, it's for a review, right? That's happening in a few months to hopefully have them removed or maybe have them removed off category two. How will that disrupt peptides in, in your view? I think, I think one of the things that, um, RFK has done, um, without, you know, probably even somewhat indirectly here is just his vocal presence and his number of hits in the news is raising awareness around health across America. Just somebody out there saying Maha on a weekly basis, this news around these peptides, he was on a podcast with Joe Rogan, I think it was about a month, month and a half ago.

33:11He mentioned that in that podcast. There's been discussion about this in other summits and things like that that has been involved in, and it's kind of spreading the word around peptides. So just spreading the word is raising consumer awareness. So consumers, when they're going to their med spa or their doctor, are asking questions about them. Now, doctors couldn't prescribe, traditional doctors couldn't prescribe peptides when they're on category two. The fact that they're now available at compounded pharmacies is going to be able to change that. The ones that are on that list, the doctor has to be comfortable with it.

33:45It seems like med spa doctors probably are more comfortable with it. Um, you know, and concierge doctors are more comfortable. And I think it also just means that you're going to see probably prices start to drop on those peptides too. Yeah. I'm, I'm also curious if doctors are able to prescribe peptides, if what the consumer then market will become, like, will there still be a, there will be still a consumer market for peptides, but I'm just, I'm just kind of curious how much, you know, um, what the demand will be like for, what the demand will be like kind of D to C to consumer if you also have the prescription from your doctorate?

34:24Right. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, there's gray markets out there for, you know, a lot of prescription drugs now. You know, generally things that are older and, you know, less dangerous. So, you know, people get this stuff anyway right now. Totally. Well, speaking of peptides, what do you see as the future of GLP-1s and their impact on the consumer? Yeah, this is really interesting. And this is something that I know a number of thought leaders in the data companies we spend a lot of time talking about. Right now we're at 12 % officially on GLP-1s. So that's 12 % on people who are on FDA-regulated semiglutide, which is GLP-1, terzepatide, which is GLP plus GIP, some people call it GLP-2.

35:14And that's 12%. So there's some number, we don't know what it is. I mean, I've seen kind of one to 2%, and personally, I believe it could be higher, of people who are on those drugs plus redditrutide, which is kind of the next one that's coming down the pipe here through gray market or other compound pharmacy or other sources. There's a cycle where these people lose weight. I think about half of them are on for weight loss and about half are on for diabetes, metabolic, things like that. either way there's a cycle of losing weight where people eat restricted calories and then there's basically a stabilization that happens you know it's like if you take the same dose you know you might start at 200 and you're just going to kind of tick down and then as you approach like maybe like some number like 160 it's different for everybody right you kind of level off and then the only way to keep losing is to increase the dose or obviously whatever build more muscle and cut calories but you know if you're if you're on if you're on a glp you're probably going to be you know increasing dose and so you reach an equilibrium and so then you know you're going to be on this kind of stabilized level so i think 10 years from now you know what 30 40 percent of america could be even more could be on stabilized glp for metabolic you know and or weight management issues and so what does that mean well people are more conscious of protein just because they've they've you know had to worry about muscle loss um retitrutide is is supposedly better at muscle preservation.

36:44But there's this concept of people getting skinny fat, where they've lost 30 pounds, but 12 has been muscle and 18 has been fat. And so they just don't have the figure or whatever in some ways that they did. Fiber is really important. Fiber is not sexy, like protein. I imagine if I was in high school right now and I was walking around around school, I'd be flaunting my 42-gram protein drink, but I certainly wouldn't be flaunting a 20-gram fiber drink. I mean, it's just not sexy. But it is really sexy if you're on a GLP-1 because it keeps you regular, and you don't want to get up and be bound up every day.

37:26So if there's an increase, right? Right now we're at 12%. If that goes to 30 % to 40 % of people that are on GLP-1s. Do you think, because right now, for example, Blue Veneer Expo West, you see a lot of brands and protein is a huge call out, right? And they will think that we're a kind of peak protein. Do you think then that we are in kind of peak protein or think it's just kind of just getting started this whole wave because of the GLP-1s, if there is an increase that goes from 12 to 30%, if that happens? Yeah, it's an interesting question. um i don't i don't think we're at peak protein um i i do think that it is going to continue to increase and but you know we may be at peak protein growth um i think that it really depends on how much this group um and our society in general adopts weight training because i think that you know, that piece of wellness definitely gets people to be more conscious of it.

38:31And, you know, lean muscle mass is really, and strength is really correlated with longevity. So, you know, I think that that is something people pay attention to on GLP ones, definitely. But if that 30 or 40 % and even the, you know, in the remainder is, you know, doing more weight training, then I think we're going to see continued protein growth. Got it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. Um, and how are you, how are you thinking just peptides in general, maybe, maybe we'll take GLP ones and put them over here and just other peptides, right? How do you think about, um, what do you think that, that there's going to be the opera?

39:11What do you think are the opportunities for strategics and where, and where do you see those going? I know we talked a little bit about RFK and having these 12 peptides off, but how do you see the peptide market developing? Yeah, it's a great question. So there's, right now, you know, peptides are basically chains of amino acids just strung together, you know, kind of like letters and words. And, you know, if you get the right combination, it forms basically a word or a message, you know, to activate something in the body. And there's, you know, there's hundreds of them out there. There's thousands in the body.

39:49So the potential for, you know, thousands of peptides to be in the market, it's almost infinite, right? the potential of this. In some ways, it could be a good piece of the future of medicine, right? I mean, there's plenty of peptides in medicine now. The question is, how do people make money on it, on that side, when it's very difficult to patent something, which is literally a protein that, or I guess if it's less than 40, technically, it's not a protein, right? Something that's just out there, right? You have to have something innovative, essentially, to patent, or you have to, just like in GLPs, be given essentially a special, you know, mechanism to patent.

40:29So I don't know how much that's going to be on the drug side or how much of that is going to be available on, you know, the company side. But if I look at like the copper peptide right now, it's interesting, you know, GHK-CU, that is approved topically and it's in, you know, lots of serums and other, you know, creams and things like that. And it's, you know, very effective for, you know, kind of skin rejuvenation and, you know, of skin health and sold that way. And it's obviously something that's contributing to efficacy in personal care, and that's driving growth in brands. You know, most of the peptides are not bioavailable, you know, through the mouth, like in the stomach.

41:06So, you know, I think that probably is more personal care. I mean, some are, but, you know, many are not. Then the question is, well, you've got all these peptides and somebody's got to figure that out. And so you've got things like hims and hers and, you know, function, which is, you know, obviously doing all these blood tests, which are having you, you know, figuring out what's wrong with me. So, you know, maybe the peptides are something that are going to help me because there's something that came up in my function test, you know, and I'm doing something else and that's going to support it.

41:35And so I think in the kind of the service business around them, I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity. And, you know, there already is, obviously, hims, hers is a public company. um and then you know obviously med spas right again in that service side um so i think i think it's a little bit of like you know we're gonna see but as far as like kind of food and beverage and all of that i think it's basically a tailwind because everything that you're doing around all of this health care diet is so fundamental right because you can sabotage your peptide work your workouts, everything that you're doing with a lousy diet.

42:11And you can figure that out real quick because you just don't feel well, especially as you get older. Yeah, that's, that's very, very, that's very, that's really well said. That's really well said. Yeah, I think, do you, I mean, obviously, I know we, the Amazon stats when it comes to needles, but do you think, you know, injections, needles, do you think that's just going to be something that's going to be every day come in that people are not going to have a fuss about in terms of form factor? I think the number of Americans that are suddenly comfortable with injecting themselves has gone up a lot, and I think it will continue to.

42:48I think there'll always be people that elect not to. There's more and more oral versions of GLPs coming out in the pipeline. I think there will be people that will avoid it. But yeah, I think especially as people talk and And people hear from their friends, oh, well, I took whatever, BPC-157 after my knee surgery. And instead of taking 12 months to be able to be fully healed, I was healed in whatever, five or six. It's like there's this virality of society, just like with brands. Brands hit this inflection point where they suddenly don't have to spend as much marketing money to grow. And they just seem to grow.

43:25And that's kind of when they hit this critical mass of virality where people are like, hey, I love this new whatever, cracker, potato chip, whatever it might be. right and all of a sudden you see brands kind of take off when they hit this critical mass and i think you could see that too yeah that's yeah i i think it's a fascinating consumer behavior that's maybe becoming more more normalized just injections becoming a lot more uh more normalized where you know i mean even if some supplements how gummies have become more normalized when it comes to you know supplements um especially you know grooms and the apples also create and um another other brands but what's interesting about that is that gummies yeah easier right a lot easier to take than maybe um mixing a powder and doing um mix it powder water and then and then consuming that but needles it's you know quite quite quite different so i it's just it's just interesting to see how some of these are becoming more normalized, some that are easier to do like gummies and then some that are a little bit more harder to do like injections.

44:31Yeah, yeah. And I think when I'm talking about injections being more accepted, it's definitely subcutaneous leading the way. I think people still would prefer not to go into muscle. I think subcutaneous are small little needles. It's kind of quick, painless, easy. Yeah. But gummies are interesting, definitely. I think four out of five people would definitely eat a gummy over taking a shot. No, for sure, for sure. Nine out of 10. Speaking of gummies, I remember that you've said that gummies are also a pretty tough form factor because only 20 % is the active ingredient. You have to have quite a bit of sugar as well in the gummy itself.

45:11Do you think that gummies are going to become a lot more normalized? I mean, obviously, we just saw the Gruen's transaction. and like I've said, like Create, for example, just raise$20 million. But do you see gummies kind of spreading across multiple categories or do you think that it's still going to be too hard because of the amount of sugar that you have to put into it? Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, at the end of the day, so first of all, I have a family that is in the gummy formulation business. So I've learned a bit just in discussions. And it is definitely kind of humbling to hear how difficult it is.

45:53You get different batches of pectin, and that can screw up the consistency of your gummies just because of one ingredient. And so the 20 % isn't a hard, fast rule. I mean, one thing I think that really helps create is they're at 30. When you look at it, they've got basically a gram and a half of creatine in every five grams of gummy, which is 30%, which is pretty good. But I think, again, we're dealing with grams. So if the active ingredient is 300 milligrams and it's still at the 20 % level, well, that's only a gram and a half, right? So that means 1.2 grams of sugar, that's five calories. That's pretty de minimis, right?

46:33So creatine is something that people are taking traditionally five grams. And now for brain health, I've heard numbers like 10. And I've actually got one friend the other day that told me they take 20 every day. And I was like, wow, yeah, that's quite a bit. But obviously, they're blowing the doors off at Create and they're selling big bins of them. And so it works really well when you can get 30 % and make it easy on people. So I think it's always going to be an easy form factor. It's easier to eat gummies than take a pill. There's a lot of people that don't want to take medication. They don't want to take pills.

47:12Beverages have done extremely well over time and gotten a lot of growth because you can get active ingredient into beverages and that is their supplement, essentially. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I imagine your friend that's probably taking 20 grams of creatine is probably not in gummy form, I would think, just because of the eye sugar there. I mean, think about this, just to highlight the point. How much money would America spend on caffeine if they took caffeine pills versus buying beverages, right? But we don't do that. We want the beverages, right? Right. That's a very, very fair...

47:53I did meet somebody who said, if I want caffeine, I just pop a pill. I just pop a pill, and he's the only person still I've ever met that that's i was gonna say i don't know the data but i bet it's less than one in a hundred and it always will be right exactly exactly um i actually recently though had a caffeine spray company come on the podcast so you oh interesting yeah yeah yeah that's interesting so that's i thought that was an interesting four factor um tell us a little bit about testosterone therapy as well adoption what's really interesting is women is driving this trend um which is seems counterintuitive to a lot of people.

48:34What does that, what does that unlock? What are your kind of, why do you, is, is anyone actually positioned for this or like, what are your kind of thoughts on this, on this trend as well? Yeah. So, so I think hormones are really interesting because I think it's one of the kind of core fundamental, you know, again, consumer is agent of healthcare things. You know, there, there can be a lot of things that bother you in life and it's real easy to go and you find a pill or whatever it might be for it and kind of tamp it down, that can be cured with just optimizing hormones. If you're really deficient in testosterone, you're going to be more tired, you're going to be less focused.

49:16Once you kind of get yourself regulated, it can cure a lot of those ills. What's interesting about, I think women's health is an area that has got a lot of growth in it. And specifically on hormones, what's interesting is all of the testosterone clinical trials have been done with men. There's never been one done for women, and there probably never will be because we're using bioidentical hormones now. And so there's no financial incentive to do one, right? And it also means that doctors are less comfortable and have been less comfortable prescribing them. There was also a really unfortunate study done with progestin, I think it was in the late 90s, where a bunch of rats got breast cancer.

50:01And that stopped a lot of women from taking hormone therapy for a very long time until that study got debunked. I mean, I can't remember exactly the type of rats, and I'm definitely not a rat expert, but when you do these studies, there's multiple kinds of rats. And there's rats that you use that can tell you if there's a high likelihood of getting cancer or not. And then there's other rats you use to figure out what kind of cancer they're going to get, because they'll get cancer almost 90 % of the time that you run any study with them at a high level. And I don't remember what kind of rats, but I had understood at one point it was not necessarily the optimal selection.

50:35And progestin is not, it's a synthetic. And we're using bioidentical now, which are believed to be much more benign, much less risky. And so now we're kind of coming out of that. And I also think hormones are kind of like mental health. I mean, I think people didn't want to talk about them, right? I mean, you know, 10, 20 years ago, kids didn't talk about mental health in school. It would, you know, if you were the kid that had to go to the nurse's office, right? Yeah. There's some shame, right? And I think there was, you know, I think there is a little bit of that with hormones too. And, you know, now it's like my daughter goes to school and all the kids are talking about, you know, their neurodiversity and what prescriptions they on.

51:09And, you know, it's almost like a cool thing, you know? And, and, you know, I think, I think we're seeing that more with hormones and, you know, even with guys, guys don't like to talk about anything, right? I mean, women are much better, I think, at communicating with each other about vulnerabilities. But I go to the gym now. Guys are always talking about it now. It's like people are coming out of the closet almost. Totally, totally. Are there any subcategories within mental health that you think there's any white space that you don't think is touched yet? It's a great question. I think, again, with the hormones and the mental health, when we think about supplements and food and beverage, again, I think these are the things that are creating those tailwinds.

51:56So if somebody is on testosterone and they have more energy and more agency and they're going to have the ability to build more lean muscle mass just by doing the things that they're doing every day, walking up and down stairs and things like that, they are going to be starting to think about different things in their diet. um they may be more inclined to start weight training um you know when they start seeing that that result um you know they may be buying more dhea and things like that to take with their testosterone especially if they're doing something like in clomiphene and that's their building blocks to build it you know um you know for men women obviously not um so so i think mental health is you know it's a little bit of the same way it's you know you're you're doing something already here to kind of, you know, maybe it's a prescription, maybe it's, you know, hormones, maybe it's, you know, meditation or whatever it is, and you're adopting your diet because, you know, if it's just not going to work if all you eat is sugar and, you know, your sugar is going like this all day, right?

52:54That's wrecking havoc on your nervous system. Atone your whole body. Totally. That makes 100 % sense. Yeah. So I think this is the rising tide, right? The more people are kind of regulating, I think it's more of a rising tide on innovative and better for you. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. And then also as well, you then also have a lot more trust, right? With the regulation comes a lot more trust too. Yeah. How, in terms of your inbound mix, is it founders? Do you find that a founder is selling because they want to or because they have to? I think right now it's more they want to. Yeah. A couple of years ago, late 22 into 23 was a really tough time, I think.

53:46And there was definitely a slowdown in the capital cycle. And there was a kind of lack of liquidity, again, because when interest rates go up, that means that all the people that fund the venture and private equity funds, suddenly they have a choice of higher rate bonds. and if last year bonds were 4 % and this year they're 8%, you're going to allocate a little bit more in that direction. Inflation was hard of a consumer. We had this hit of a reduction in unit volume in grocery stores. That was a headwind everybody was facing. So big strategics were kind of, their stocks went down and that meant they were less aggressive in M &A.

54:30All of that just was like a perfect storm. So what you're saying is we're back. We're back. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're not frothy. I mean, we don't have whatever, 20 IPOs and SPACs like we did in 2021. But we are seeing IPOs now again, which, by the way, really before 21, we didn't see in this industry. There's very few. I mean, we had Annie's and Pets. Yeah, I mean, there was a couple, but there weren't that many. Yeah, right. Right. We haven't seen a lot of them. Fresh Pet. Lee. Skibata. Yeah, we're certainly, yeah, certainly a lot of appetite on that side. I mean, a couple of companies I know that are kind of Europe.

55:15Yeah. To IPO.

55:21Obviously, we had this jolt, you know, in 2018, 2024, that was really tough times. What's the, has we, have strategic stuff like that just kind of adjusted toward this new norm? And that's why there's been a lot more activity because interest rates are still high, right? I mean, they've gone down a little bit, but they're still high. Is it just more so that we've kind of adjusted this new normal and kind of from the ZERB era? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think the change in interest rates is the more shocking thing. And, you know, once you kind of establish a new normal, you know, even if you hold your, even if you're an insurance company and you're holding your portfolio allocations the same, well, your bonds are making money and you haven't invested in private equity in a couple of years and you start getting money back out of funds.

56:11And so now that opens up and you need more to put more there. Also, I mean, interest rates are high, but we do have some inflation right now. And I think we always have to think about interest rates relative to inflation because inflation actually is, you know, it's increasing revenue as well, right? It means you have more, a greater ability to take price, you know, so, you know, out of necessity, but, you know, there was a few years in low inflation times back in, you know, the 2010s where it was extremely difficult to take price. That's a good point. It's a very good point. How, which buyer profile you find that that's most active right now?

56:52I know that we've kind of, you know, the big ones are, you know, the strategics maybe, but do you find that PE, for example, is a lot more active or family offices? And has there been a shift within the past 12 months? Yeah, interesting question. I think there's been a shift over, you know, let's say the last 12 years, really 12 plus years. You know, I think the number of large strategics has not grown nearly as fast as the number of innovative ready-for-sale companies.

57:23And by the way, on average, they do about a deal a year, big strategics do. So PE has really kind of filled that gap. IPOs have filled it a little bit. I kind of put family offices into that PE bucket. And yeah, I think PE is definitely growing more. It's interesting. One thing that we track is we look at spins and we look at in spins, how many companies are over$100 million and are not co-ops or farms or family farms that are just never going to sell, like actually companies that will be saleable brands. And how much is that number going up? And we started tracking it a couple of years ago and their numbers were like in the 50s.

58:05And now we're up to 89. And yeah, more than half, and that's retail sales. So that doesn't necessarily mean company sales. More than half of those companies have some kind of an institutional investor and you know about three quarters of them are you know between 100 and 500 million so kind of right in that sweet spot of you know acquirable you know the index better for you you know north of two you know two times um and they're growing at you know three or four times the you know the average yeah you know the average of other companies so it is it is a group that is appealing and growing in size so we are you know we are going to see more transaction volume or we're going to see more strategics, one or the other.

58:48That's really interesting. Well, I mean, speaking of strategics,

58:59so Fernando Fernandez, who is the CEO of Unilever, last year said he's allocating 1.5 billion euros to every year for acquisitions. grooms was this year obviously are there any brands that you think will be their target for next year it's it's a great question um and uh i i don't know specifically i think grooms is really interesting because i think the most interesting thing about that deal was the time from inception to sale and a billion dollar type tag on the deal. To my knowledge, I've not seen that in food and beverage before. It was the fastest ever. Tia to a billion. In tech or whatever, I'm sure that's happened, but that's new food.

1:00:05It just shows how it's matured now i remember about 12 or 13 years ago um there was a company called rickland orchards i don't know if you remember it but they had greek yogurt bars uh and they went from inception to sale in i believe it was 20 months and but they only sold for a number like i think it was 55 or 6 million it was a public deal so you can look it up um not speaking out of turn here but at the time that was you know that was his headline grabbing is Gruen's today. So it just kind of shows you how the market is evolving and maturing into such a much bigger... Everything is much bigger now.

1:00:46It's hitting a much bigger consumer base. And so we have this much more spending power behind the potential of these brands as they just become more and more mainstream, as health becomes more and more mainstream. Do you think because of the Gruen's transaction and other M &A transactions over the years, you know poppy for example and kind of uh others that are tough uh roads do you think that there's going to be a lot more capital that kind of goes into consumer just overall as a category food and bed beauty personal care vms i i do think we're going to continue to attract capital yeah i mean i think the more that we see large headline deals the more that we see ipos then capital comes and chases it.

1:01:28I mean, capital is really dominated by, you know, is really driven by fear and greed. And, you know, I think of the two, greed can be the more powerful emotion. Yeah, that's very fair. Because I just think it's interesting, mid 2010s, right? You had a lot of tech going into CPG and kind of these categories and many of those deals didn't pan out. And I do wonder if we might get a point of with all these headlines and all these news and all these transactions that the tech money might actually come back or, or additive, it might come back, you know? Yeah. Or just more funds that are, you know, or yeah.

1:02:07Um, more multi-billion dollar, multi-strategy funds, increasing their consumer allocation. Totally. Is there a category that I know we talked a little bit about protein and fiber, but is there a category that looks hot from the outside right now that you'd actually pass on or you actually don't think is that attractive? Yeah, it's interesting. I get asked the category question a lot. And what is so fascinating to me is when you look at founders, founders have a unique eye on a consumer that you or I or the senior executives at all these large CPGs don't have. And they see this this need from a unique viewpoint.

1:02:52And then they craft their brand, you know, and drive all that passion behind growing it and satisfy it. And it, you know, I mean, for years and years and years, like Frozen was considered, you know, in 2011, 12, 13, or whatever, nobody would want to go into Frozen, right? I mean, it's like, it costs so much, the margins aren't great, whatever. And there was a tremendous amount of innovation in Frozen, right, over the 10 years that followed that. So there's a category that people would have said, you know, this is an expensive category, you know, to operate in, the margins aren't that high or whatever, you know, why would you ever go into it?

1:03:24Yet there was a lot of success, right? So I don't think there's necessarily a bad category, you know, outside of, you know, what are things that are just directly combating, you know, or directly pushing into the headwinds or combating the tailwinds of, you know, what's going on in consumer. But I mean, even like candy, I mean, there's companies in candy that are just doing fantastically right now. They've got, you know, prebiotic fibers in them, they've got less sugar, they've got, you know, they're capitalizing on like kind of that sour and sweet combination, right? I mean, like these kind of complex flavors are things that really resonate with GLP users.

1:04:03Things that are beyond just simple, salty and sweet, those are under indexing. But when you put those with, you know, sweet and salty, or, you know, sour and sweet, you know you put those together that's where you start to see them over indexing so it's interesting do you do you think for example like one that i think is kind of a hot debate in cbg circles is protein for not not necessarily saying that you know protein is um but is there a limit to protein in terms of category right like protein marinara sauce protein popcorn is there a limit to where protein actually sits, can it actually fluctuate throughout the aisle?

1:04:47Yeah, I don't know. I'm curious if you have any thoughts. It's a really good question. I think if protein can be formulated into something in a way that it is additive or not detractive of what you're buying. So if it's going into whatever, marinara sauce, and the marinara sauce still eats like any other marinara sauce, then no, right? I mean, there's going to be somebody that's going to want to buy it. I think type of protein is something people are, quality protein and type of protein are things people are going to look at more and more. But I don't think there's necessarily a limit on where it can go.

1:05:32I do think that the intensity of protein demand, meaning like what percent protein by calorie, is something that is going to level a little bit as more people go on maintenance mode in GLPs versus this intense, I'm eating 1 ,000 calories a day and I've got to get 100 grams of protein, so that's 40 % by calorie. So I'm going and drinking beverages that are 160 calories and 40 grams of protein and nothing else. Or these super high protein servings to try to get that. Because it's really difficult if you're on a GLP-1 and losing that kind of weight. Totally. It makes a lot of sense. It drops to 20 % by calorie when the 1 ,000 calories goes to two and you're in maintenance mode, you know?

1:06:25Yeah, definitely. And I think that opens up where it can go. It means that, you know, there are areas where you can't put protein because, you know, at that level, right, and have it be good. I mean, I can't imagine you could, you know, put protein in marinara sauce at 40 % by calorie, you know, and have it work. I don't know. I don't know what the numbers are in the, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I think it actually opens it up so it actually could go to more categories at 20%. yeah that's a fair you're saying yeah yeah that's yeah so protein can even go to go into more categories in terms of what what it currently is yeah like it's drying on baked goods right like I've seen protein cookies and when people try to put too much protein in they get really dry right so 40 % may not work but 20 might right right right and still obviously have the taste have it tasting great which because you know obviously taste is king um yes if um let me see uh

1:07:33uh okay i think that actually all right final question yeah this is great um what's what's one book i actually forgot the footage i think on the uh on the uh question but what's what's one book that's inspired you personally and one book that's inspired you professionally? So I actually changed that. Oh, I see. What events in your life? Okay. Let me ask yours. Let me ask your way. What events in your life have inspired you personally and professionally? It's a really good question. And there's lots of things, but I'll tell you a couple of quick stories. So one was, when I went to college, I was in a dorm that had a lot of athletes in it.

1:08:23And I was 17 years old, and I was pretty underdeveloped. I was kind of that tall, skinny kid that didn't fill out in high school. And I've got all these guys that are whatever, playing football and baseball. And we had weights in there and stuff. And so immediately, I was like very motivated to, you know, start lifting weights and, you know, fill out and try to figure that out. And, and I did, it was, you know, it was a lot of work. I, I actually, you know, started mail-oating supplements at the time, because that's what you did. And it, it really started to focus me more on nutrition and food and, and things like that.

1:09:01And, you know, I think that kind of seeded some passion around wellness, you know, early on. and you know as as kind of times went on I you know I worked in technology for a while and I really didn't like it I loved you know I really loved the uncertainty of consumer brands and the puzzle of like figuring out you know is there's a brand work and so kind of the early 2000s there was there was like the dot-com meltdown and that was kind of that was kind of the point where I was starting to really lose you know the luster of working in tech it wasn't as interesting and and I you know started doing consumer deals in 2020 you know 2003 that's when I went to my first Expo East.

1:09:37You know, over that decade, my mom got sick with Alzheimer's and died. And, you know, I think that also kind of was really tough and depressing. And it also, it kind of made me think more broadly about wellness. You know, I mean, I got her into like a phase three, you know, trial. And, you know, so I learned all about that. And of course, you know, unfortunately it didn't work because nobody's really developed a great cure for Alzheimer's. And then I had two kids, you know, around that same time around 2010 and you know obviously you want to kind of like do the best for your kids and you know figure out how to get them to you know learn and love the best foods and so i think kind of all of that has has really you know slowly and over time more and more kind of you know broadly opened my eyes around you know the breadth of this whole you know consumer kind of health and innovation movement um and i just honestly just love this puzzle of what is going to make a brand resonate with consumers?

1:10:30What's going to make consumers direct their spending some certain way versus another way? Because it's a very dynamic question. Consumers change every day. What works in 2016 would not work in 2026 necessarily. Yeah, I know. I also really appreciate the vulnerability in you sharing your story. But yes, I completely agree with you in terms of what do consumers think about today and how that will change as it does. So that's, yeah. And also, I'm so glad you made the change to consumer from tech. I think it's definitely a lot more interesting. That's so much more interesting. I do think it's very interesting.

1:11:18I agree. I agree. It is. Well, Nick, thank you so much for your time. This was loads of fun. Thank you so much. yeah thank you thanks for including me here this is great really appreciate what you do