Soil Punk: with Krista Schultz

28:20So you've been holding it on camera. But yes, that is sort of the sort of finished product, which is very exciting because it's now in the world and it's in Sprouts. And, uh, yeah, talk to us about sort of like initial, uh, reception, reaction, people, cause it's delicious too. Um, that's also another, uh, yeah. Did you guys get your, your care package? It's on my shelf right there. Yeah. I mean, that's everyone here knows that's my absolute favorite product. It leaded to the shelf of fame. Oh my God. Of course. Yeah, of course. It's right there. It's right there. So yeah. One to stop, one to drink and one to one for the wall.

29:00so but yeah it's great it's great to see it in person it's great to have it on the wall it's also great to drink it we tried it early on through the before it had a designed package so yeah i remember we all sat around and tried it but yeah talk to us great people are yeah the reception has been fantastic you know the i mean ag you know the venues and the guests and such that have tried it have raved about it i mean i myself i mean we're a small company right like i myself went out to some of these sampling events. You know, I went to a few venues in Denver and got to see some different shows and sample Haymaker and see the reaction firsthand, which was really special.

29:41And people love it. You know, like they basically say like, oh, great. It's like a kind of like a wake me up, like refresh or like reset without the caffeine and without the alcohol. Right. So like in that environment, people were super stoked on it because they're like, I don't want to drink alcohol, but I want something that's going to kind of like perk me up. But I also don't want any caffeine because I want to go to sleep tonight after this. Yeah. True. So that's Kevin. That's you just described Kevin. That's what he's looking for. That's exactly it's what I'm looking for. No, it really is.

30:18And I'm like, I'll have the caffeine at four o 'clock and we'll we'll see how it goes now. But no, it's true. I mean, in a concert venue or sort of like a setting, like, you know, of course, like there's there's beer, there's now non-alcoholic beers, there's water. And I do feel like there is sort of like a big gap in terms of like just drinks that and, you know, as many drinks and options there are out there. But a drink that sort of like has good ingredients, makes you feel good and also like gives you a little bit of boost, which you would assume would come from caffeine. but sometimes that caffeine is not what people are looking for in that moment, especially at, you know, 10 o 'clock on a Saturday night.

30:56Yeah. I think it's the apple cider vinegar. That's right. Ginger that does that for you, you know? And I mean, apple cider vinegar has its own like associated health benefits to it. But I mean, on the other hand, I mean, it's just invigorating, right? Like I used to be one of those people, especially in my CrossFit days, where I would like wake up in the morning and just like, you know, just. you're knocking you're knocking back some acv yeah yeah that's right that's coming back around people are people are into that uh to this day yeah so i mean this kind of gives you a you know a way back into that in a delicious manner that you can enjoy you know that's right so you're saying it's better for you than celsius potentially i'm not saying anything like that neither should i uh that's right celsius uh big clients big clients in the energy drink space but yeah i mean moments yeah different different moments yeah i never understand how people yes there's things and drinks that they sort of put into their body before they go to work out it's like i i don't know it's yeah crossfit specifically and like there's a community there and you're like i don't know how you guys just don't explode well i mean if you think um this is something i've been looking at recently is like it's cool these little like microcosm communities and like the brands that got started off of them or like springboarded from them like rx bar right like they i remember those back in those days right where like it was almost like you had your like independent seller they'd come around your gym and then you'd get your rx bars And like it had this like cult following kind of based off of that.

32:44So I think there's, there's something similar in the realm of like, you know, our mad farmers and the soil punks and like this kind of community that we're building, or this is kind of a similar, almost a cult favorite in that, in that way of looking at it. Yeah. And I mean, it makes, it makes a ton of sense. And like, I do feel like that's, it's so interesting to bring that. Now I see the connection from your background in fitness and CrossFit and sort of, yeah, in the gym world to this new world, the farmer, you know, the connection. They're working hard. No, they're both working hard. They're both working hard.

33:22There's a lot of crossover. There's a lot of stuff involved. And it's just people that are like-minded individuals and that care about, you know, each other, right? There's a lot of community and sort of a team feeling, especially, you know, sort of I imagine sort of the farming community of these people that like they love what they do and they sort of, you know, it's a means for their family and they care about the earth. And, you know, the people in the CrossFit community, they care about their traps, you know, right? Like, what do they care about, Kevin? Like, I've clearly never done CrossFit a day.

33:55Kevin, why is he asking you? I did a little CrossFit back in the day. Yeah. Just a little bit. I think they want to hit their PRs. They want to set... What do you measure there? Time? Time to complete certain workouts? Is that the measuring thing there? Yeah. Is it weight? Or rounds? Yeah, rounds. How much are you lifting today, Kevin? What are you lifting? What are you doing? I'm not talking about this on mic. Kristen, how much are you lifting? Zero. Really? Really? You left the game completely? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I went back to ballet, ironically. And then, you know, now I do like yoga running.

34:41Yoga running. I lifted a baby for long enough. I feel like I'm good. That's just like an increasing in size kettlebell. That's right. Right. Except I don't really swing her around that much. Could if you wanted to. Yeah, she'd probably, she'd enjoy that. She would have a lot of fun, I would imagine. Yeah, ballet is actually very hot. I actually saw today that, you know, sort of Skims and Nike are doing like a ballet sneaker and like ballet shoes are very popular. And again, it's all these like micro communities and these sort of lifestyles that become elevated to sort of mainstream. And then we take a lot of aesthetics from them.

35:19Like we take a lot of sort of visual, you know, things from them, fashion, like the influence is big. And so it's interesting to think about, you know, farmers, right? Because, you know, there's some cool stuff. I mean, obviously through our work and some of the research, we talked a lot about like merch and sort of materials and airstreams and things you can do that you can bring that mentality. And again, to the workers of Brooklyn, you know, so performative farmers here. Speaking of that, our airstream is having offspring. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Children. Wow. In the form of little smaller sampling vans that are like a little more nimble.

36:04Okay, cool. And, and funny enough, like, you know, there was a lot of those concepts, like those kind of like supporting, you know, activations and things that could go along with the concepts. And you had like a little van, you know, I think a lot of what, a lot of what you all had proposed, like, it's, it's cool to see it come to life. So thank you. And like those little offspring vans now, like you're going to see when I'm driving down the road, you're gonna be like, what? That's awesome. Shout out to you guys for taking that. You know, we love, we love pitching rigs. So, you know, you might, you might be the first client ever, you know, run with it.

36:39Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. We'd love to see. Yeah. We love, we were talking about this the other day. We love suggesting new revenue streams for clients or sort of way, you know, thing, ideas and things that 90 % of them, never get made and it's a it's a fun exercise i think again as a studio that like again we're brought in for for packaging a lot of times our identity work but like yeah you know once we start building out the world and you start thinking about the people and all the sort of uh points of inspiration and things you you just start throwing some of it into into mock-ups and decks and uh starting to visualize it in the hopes that some someone on the client's like yeah see it and be like you know what we should do that and uh that's that's how a a copper airstream uh it comes to life as a brand uh symbol and now is is coming uh to brooklyn is that what you're telling me uh no uh where are the offsprings what long long island is the sprouts is that what you said fuck yeah so yeah my hometown you're trying to tell me that there we go where i'm from the the great island uh where on long island is the sprouts i should know this i'm as someone that's like we're let's all go on we're all on our computers so yeah yeah we gotta find it long island this is big news for my my parents really okay let me look that up we are gonna have kind of more like a regional approach for the mad farmer tour next year and so okay one of those regions is is new york area so all right nice nice it's going to a town called center reach and I did not make that up.

38:16That is the true story. It's a town on Long Island by yeah, called Center Reach. I've actually never been there. So is bigger than people think but yeah, Kismet is right. Yeah. Center Reach, Long Island. Shocking. Center reached Long Island. That's it. That's it. Right back. Yeah, it's about like an hour from where my parents live so I doubt they'll go there to see this Airstream. for me. But maybe, you know, my mom's a big listener of the pod and she loves a shout out, so hi mom. Come on, mom. Come on. Well, I'll take a trip out to Center Reach with you to go to the new Sprouts. I mean, come on.

38:58Who doesn't love that? Yeah, who doesn't love a trip to Sprouts? Yeah, we got to be boots on the ground for the pod. That's right, we got to get out there. Yeah, we got to get out there. There you go. You can do that at the time of the timestamp. Yeah, it's actually, it's interesting. They're calling it Sprouts Farmer's Market. So it's got a bit of a tractor-ish energy. And so they're kind of, yeah, it's definitely going to bring some sort of, yeah, some tractor. To be honest, the design, at least what I'm looking at, it's got an aesthetic that I'm not saying is not Cracker Barrel-alegy. You know, it's got some like overhanging porch.

39:41Yeah. Which is cool. we still got crates but you know it's like they're elevated crates you know yeah well shout out to sprouts and shout out i mean this is all coming together and so yeah i guess like um you know kind of to round out the tractor conversation in terms of like you know the work that we did my one of my favorite parts of of all the things that we did was and it's not even something we did it's just something that like all of a sudden i mean you guys did and we felt very excited about which was the website for Attractor, which is, yeah, when we saw that it was sort of brought all this sort of like, you know, sort of handwriting and sort of this worm that's kind of flying through the website.

40:21Yeah. Talk to me about just like kind of all these like little things that the brand is doing now and sort of all the moments in which like you guys are excited about sort of moving forward. Should we talk about the handwriting? We can talk about the handwriting. Are you writing? Are you writing all that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the designers on our team was like, you know, we had her heavily sort of doing a lot of handwriting stuff for some of the branding work. And then you guys took the handwriting and were like, oh, we're going to we're going to fold this into this overall. And then it became a bit of a like, who's going to write all this stuff?

40:58So how much are you writing on a day to day basis here for this brand system? not so much anymore okay while i was but we have this gigantic master file of all of the vector objects now that have been like turned in for my handwriting sorry and also like thank you no thank you like it's just such a cool thing like it was the same they were like i was like what you guys do to me but like i love it like we love it it's become such a part like you said like you kind of came in like towards like the end of this like re-brand we were doing and like there was it's just become like a core element now that we spread across everything and it's just it's fantastic and like endlessly grateful for that um it's it's a pleasure honestly like and And I'm just grateful that I was able to emulate it.

41:58And I just love how much you guys took it and ran with it. You know, it's funny, like thinking, you know, pulling out a big picture for a second. Like we, you know, we work on branding projects all the time. And like our hope and like the coolest thing is when we pitch something or we design something and then clients and partners, they take it and then they run with it and they make it better or they sort of, you know, bring their own ideas. And it's not just like taking what we did and just printing it like that. Sure. That's great when people do that as well. I'm not going to ever criticize that, but I think there's something really special truly that happens.

42:35And I think every designer knows this when you see something that the client made that was only made possible by the things that you had kind of thrown at them. You didn't exactly make it one-to-one, but it just kind of like is born from the sort of collaboration that you did. And I just think that is our hope and goal for every project. And you guys are like a shining sort of A plus example of that happening. It's like, oh, we had all these ideas. We pitched all this kind of stuff. And you guys are just like, cool, we'll take this. We'll take this. We'll take this. We're going to integrate this.

43:08We're going to make that airstream. We're going to run. And then we're just going to keep running. I think you guys just saw us though from the start. like man this is a love fest i know i know but seriously though like you you did see where we were at and like just the even going beyond into the like you know a lot of people do this but how does it come to life like the van designs and like the different you know like it was evident through that that that you kind of got where we were at and like what we were trying to do and so um and just the i mean i i will toot the horn a little bit more but just like in in the realm of doing something make it original right like there's only so much originality to be had in this world right and like um i i think you guys do that really well and so it was it was it just felt natural to be like okay here's these things and like those just like fit right in they click and um yeah i mean like the the handwriting file it's funny like i've now written so many words that like you have this like kind of like small in-house design team like they just go to this file and find the words and then craft sentences from it um but yeah no that and the copper were really kind of two of those things that sort of lived on and created a life of their own i think that's i mean again it's in in service of how unique and real and sort of earnest everything that the brand is doing and sort of like wanting to bring that to the people, right?

44:44Because there's a certain energy of making something from hand and there's a certain feeling of, you know, handwriting that just will never, you know, again, no typeface or any, you know, sort of anything made by a computer will never sort of get across that warmth and that sort of, yeah, that sort of humanity to it. And I think that was so clear from day one, And just like, these are real people working on a real brand, making this real, all these amazing things, all these initiatives. And how do we get that across to people? Because that's a hard thing to get, you know, for people to understand because so much of all that's made is sort of just like venture capital, like matcha, you know, places.

45:23And it's just like trying to just sell you a lot of shit and sell out. But none of that is happening here. And so how do we communicate that? And also how do we give you guys things that are unique? And like you said, like stand out from the crowd because beverage is so crowded. And I think you guys, we talked about that from day one. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to stand out. This is an analogy we make a lot is the youth soccer game where like the ball's going in the corner and they all go in the corner. It's like you got to play in the open space, you know? We love a sports metaphor around here.

45:57Yeah. There we go. Oh my gosh, I did it. full circle yeah we did it i didn't even mean to okay um but if you look at like the beverage you know aisle right like it's so easy to get lost there and like huge props to our our ops team by the way what's up guys because hell yeah they're all listening yeah shout out to ops they're like they're like copper can what you know what i mean like it's like this whole thing that like Like, you know, even Ball was like, what are you trying to do? And like, it's like pressure label. Like you said it earlier with the beer cans. Like it's so often just like beer can with the label wrap, you know, or like, you know, it's the same thing, you know, and there's limitations associated with that in terms of the print process and everything.

46:43Right. And so then you wind up with something like everything looks the same because they're all beholden to the same limitations. And so I just love how you guys like broke free of that and then gave us like these pieces to work with. And I saw, you know, I've seen this on shelves next to like, you know, all of the different beverages and you are drawn to it with the copper and the label itself, which has like, you know, it's textured, you know, like again, like, thanks for indulging us. Well, you guys figured out how to do it. You know, again, that and you're right, like speaking to the sort of like complexities of doing original things like it's hard to do that.

47:24And that's why people often are just like, oh, we'll use the same sort of can. We use the same structure. We'll just get it from the same facility. We'll do the same, you know, and that's why things start to look the same. So it's hard to do things that are original. And, you know, for us to like pitch original things, of course. And then it's like I remember there was one meeting where you guys were like, yeah, this is really great. But like going to be really hard for us to do. you know, again, a lot of people, clients will be like, Oh, we want to be different. We don't want to do what everyone else is doing.

47:50We want something original. We want something unique, one new form factor, we want to do this. And then all of a sudden, like six months in, it's like, okay, we're actually going to use the same one. And it's going to be the same printer as the next facility. And it's just like, yeah, I think, and a lot of that is because of constraints. Like, that's what you were saying. Like, there's, there's a reason why most cans look the way they do or most bottles or most things like it's because that's um yeah facilities are set up to make them that way but you guys uh didn't didn't didn't take a sort of no for an answer it seemed like and i thank you guys because you guys did that on your side we had nothing to do with it so shout out to the ops team well thanks for being willing to go down that road even knowing you know that potentially it might not come to fruition you know but um i mean a lot of the credit and thanks goes to our CEO, Kevin, who's, you know, his push is always just make it original.

48:44Right. And so that's kind of, you know, that's spread across as a spirit across the company. Right. And so everyone has this kind of shared intention to do something that's unique in the marketplace, you know, like just starting in the food service, you know, space first before going to retail, you know, in and of itself was, you know, kind of pushing the boundaries of what we know is familiar so um yeah i think that it just wound up being a really you know again kismet partnership and worked out and i'm so glad i did well what a what a great victory lap we got to take care of today on the podcast oh my god for all the listeners they're like oh my god center has never glazed themselves uh harder than than this podcast but oh no i don't think we really we really know we've we've certainly we've certainly glazed ourselves harder that's Possibly.

49:34That's true. That is true. But I guess before we get you out of here, what's next for the brand? Anything exciting that you can tease? um yeah i mean i guess as far as what's next you know we're really gearing up for mad farmer tour 2.0 for this year you know like we're we've got the offspring coming you know in the form of these like little sampling buses you know um the airstream which you know we lovingly call dolores um in that they're dolores huerta is um also going to be making appearances as well um so and then we've also got this kind of you know we've got different regions that we're going to be just like really amping up our, what we're going to call our co-op program.

50:16That's just an array of individuals that are ambassadors to, you know, our mission and what we're going after with the Soil Punk movement and the Mad Farmers and kind of working on some sort of spotlights of our Mad Farmer community that will be coming soon as well. So lots of exciting stuff. Yeah. And keep your eye out for Tractor Beam 2 just launched a new issue. Sick. Going to read some speculative fiction. Yeah. Also, Elizabeth Goodspeed, friend of the studio, is jumping in on doing some Art Direction. She's the best. Yeah, it's the coolest thing ever. I just love Tractor Beam. And yeah, you guys were well, you know, just like that was all happening before we ever even got there.

51:01So we're just like, oh, let's follow this incredible lead that they're doing with all this cool sort of design at the intersection of like soil and yeah the graphic design and it's art direction and sort of typography and web is so it's so fascinating and so cool uh cans and hands it sounds like that's the 2026 uh plans and hands all right chris before you go actually we have to we have to talk to you about something okay kevin do you know what i need to talk about this i think i know yeah so kevin uh for every guest he does a lot of research a lot of producing He makes his big, giant documents about you and your history and your CrossFit gym and the Hope Gap and the farm, you know, Mad Farmer, everything that we could possibly talk about.

51:47And one of the things on here, apparently he found this on LinkedIn. There's a thing under interests, which I was not familiar with. And it says top voices. And do you know that your top voice is enemy of the podcast, Ryan Ruddle? he is a part-time actor and business owner and um i don't know if you know that because i'm sure you don't know that but i don't ryan reynolds is is there multiple top voices kevin is it only one top voice or is that like and i guess my question is what's ryan reynolds doing on linkedin that's uh what what what is what is he uh what's he talk about over there he has well i think it's under your interest it's under your interest so at some point i think at some point you had mark that you were interested in to some extent really sorry not this is news to me put you on the spot uh or try to embarrass you oh sorry i don't have a but better uh content fodder here but i think that was i don't know that was is he are you a ryan reynolds fan yeah that's a good question i mean sure you know i'm not in any particular way i don't know i think i think when you like when i signed up for linkedin like i think it gives you those oh sure what do you like i don't know i don't have any recollection of specifically choosing i do not i do not recall kind of um a hesitant linkediner i don't really subscribe to it very well okay to be quite honest with you i know that you guys are skeptical of this but it's true we believe no we believe you I'm sure it's just like, what are you into?

53:25Fitness, design. Well, Ryan Reynolds, you know, who knows? Click a bunch of buttons. Yeah, who knows? I don't know where that came from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not because he's your top voice. I didn't even know that that was part of LinkedIn. I didn't know there was a top of voices. Top voice? Like that's what I see the most? Kevin, is that what it is? It's hard to say. It's hard to say. I don't know LinkedIn that well. I think maybe just somewhere along the line, you might have accidentally liked a post or clicked follow or something. Interesting. Something in that vein. So this was like the hard-hitting research, huh?

54:01This is it. You're a hard person to research. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn't really find a lot. She scrubbed it. She scrubbed it. She followed us before. She's been scrubbing it. I mean, I just like, from the design standpoint, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I have a pretty interesting background and stuff. My kid was born in Montenegro. I've done a lot of various things. All of which are not on the internet for us. Right. It's just like, how did those things... Someday I'll write a book. Okay. You should. People tell me that all the time. Someday it'll happen. Then there'll be plenty of research fodder.

54:44Okay. Well, we look forward to it and we thank you for coming on the show. We apologize about the Ryan Reynolds sort of fodder. You know, he's got 3.6 million followers. Maybe he's just the most followed person that you are connected with or have a connection with. But listen, Ryan Reynolds, you coward, come on the show and defend yourself against all of our hatred. Oh, is that what this is? Or just like, hey, what's up? You've been mentioned in. I don't want to end this podcast on a tough note, but Kevin and I, it's a longstanding, one-sided beef. It's more Alex. I don't really care. Yeah, Kevin's too cool to care, but it's a one-sided beef between me and Ryan Reynolds.

55:30And yeah, it's longstanding. Oh, I see. And it's mostly fueled from jealousy. That's really the truth of it. And if I want to look in the mirror and sort of admit something, it's because, you know what, I just wish I had 3.6 million followers on LinkedIn because, oh, my God, could you imagine the influence on such an important platform like that? It would be sick. You're on your way. I'm on my way. But Krista, no, seriously, thank you so much. And thank you for all the kind words of working together. Like, honestly, like I said, first time we have ever done this. I think it should be a new tradition.

56:03but uh no you working with you and duke and griffin and the whole team it's just been like i feel like every meeting we had there was like a moment where just be like we love you guys we're just so grateful for this partnership and like we're so thankful for all these fun meetings all these things that we get to do together so it should all be like that it should all hopefully yeah it's rare it's it's rare when you get to have that like you know there's a lot of interactions you have with different agencies and studios and stuff that are very transactional right and i think you know we were able to just have fun and and kind of try out crazy things and i hope there's more to come in the future i know there will be same well thank you so much krista for doing the show and yeah thank you krista you know such a blast yeah super fun thank you uh stay stay warm by the fire that doesn't uh you know again but uh we'll see absolutely yeah we hope to see you soon and get back to new york so we can uh sort of uh yeah we can we can have some some haymakers together in center reach long island sounds great awesome thank you all righty have a good one guys