833 Bryan Boches: Co-Founder & CEO of Safe Catch

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business.

0:44Kara Goldin:Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have. It's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. AT &T business is a reliable provider for small business owners.

1:26Kara Goldin:For Small Business Month, we celebrate small businesses by helping them run better. This means reliable uptime, easy switching, and smart communications. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing.

2:13Kara Goldin:Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings.

2:59Kara Goldin:Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show. Today, I'm joined by Brian Beauches, who is the co-founder and CEO of SafeCatch. And if you have not heard about Safe Catch, get ready.

3:44Kara Goldin:This is such a cool company. I've known Brian for a while, and we've been trying to get this scheduled, and I'm super, super excited that we could finally do it. So he is taking on the seafood industry, and I'll let him talk all about it. But Brian didn't set out to disrupt seafood initially. He got pulled into it when his pregnant wife was told to stop eating tuna because of mercury. and then a few other things happened alongside that. But instead of shrugging and moving on, he did something most people and frankly, most big companies won't do. He asked, why is this still a problem and why is no one taking the time to fix it?

4:25Kara Goldin:So he built the solution. Brian and his co-founder and team developed technology to test fish for mercury and not batches, not samples, every fish. And when the big seafood players didn't want anything to do with it, what did he do? He just kept going. So today we're going to talk all about safe catch and all of the distribution that they've already gotten, but the new standard that they're setting for transparency in an industry that really should be much more caring about health, because I think a lot of people have really been caught off guard by mercury poisoning. And maybe some people don't even really understand it.

5:10But Brian is here to shed some light on this and talk to us all about SafeCatch.

5:16Kara Goldin:So Brian, welcome. So excited you're here. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here as well. And yes, it's been a long journey for SafeCatch. We're going with companies after 10 years, you know, you're the overnight success. It always takes longer than you think. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Bombas. Let's be honest, this time of year just hits different. The weather finally turns, you're outside more, moving more, and suddenly the little things you wear every day actually matter. That's why I've been reaching for Bombas. I've been getting back into walking and hiking again, and their sport socks are a total game changer.

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6:39Kara Goldin:They've donated over 150 million items and counting. That's impact. Head over to bombas.com slash Kara and use code Kara for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash Kara. Code Kara at checkout. out. It's pretty wild that in 2026, so many small business owners are still running to the post office or overpaying for outdated postage meters. It's 2026, not 1926. That's why I use stamps.com. With stamps.com, you can mail and ship anytime you want, right from your computer or phone, 24-7. No long lines, no running out of supplies, just print postage on demand and get access to discounts of up to 90 % off carrier rates from USPS, UPS, and FedEx.

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9:19Sure. So we're the only company in the world in the seafood space that addresses the mercury problem in fish. So there's this high variance of mercury in fish, whether the fish is large or whether the fish is small, the mercury can vary widely. So big fish tend to have more, small fish tend to have less, but we see big fish that test low and we see small fish that test high. And so the consumer has no way to protect themselves because all things like tuna and salmon, for what we sell, they're all wild. Every tuna is a wild fish. And so they travel a thousand miles. There's no way for us to predict based on their size or location how much mercury they have.

9:59So if you want to protect women, kids, women who are going to get pregnant from mercury and fish, the only way to do it is to test the actual fish that you're going to either can or serve to the consumer. And so that's what we did. We created a technology that can screen individual fish rapidly. We're talking in seconds. And then give you a result to parts per million. And so by doing that, and our equipment is equivalent to a lab, a U.S. lab-based equipment that's been certified. So we thought, okay, initially the company thought, hey, we're just going to go out and do this for all the big seafood companies.

10:38So we went to all of them and said, we can solve this mercury problem for you. And they said, there's no problem. You're the problem. Do not talk about this. Go away. The last thing we want to do is test our food. And so, you know, so that we we then we started certifying for some restaurants. But then nobody wanted a fish not to pass. So if you didn't pass a fish, everybody's mad because the fish have already arrived at the dock and they want to have them all served. So then it was we can't set the kind of standards we want. So in the end, we just said we have to be our own brand with our own standard.

11:14Kara Goldin:This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Bombas. Let's be honest. This time of year just hits different. The weather finally turns, you're outside more, moving more, and suddenly the little things you wear every day actually matter. That's why I've been reaching for Bombas. I've been getting back into walking and hiking again, and their sport socks are a total game changer. They're cushioned exactly where you need it, super breathable, and they just stay put. So I'm not thinking about my socks. I'm enjoying the movement. And once the hikes go away, their warm weather footwear is honestly my go-to.

11:51Kara Goldin:The slides are lightweight, waterproof, and incredibly comfortable. Perfect for running around Marin, traveling, or just relaxing at home. But it's not just socks and shoes. Their underwear and tees are next level. Soft, breathable, and actually built to last. It's one of those upgrades you don't realize you need until you try it. And here's the part I really love. For every item you purchase, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. They've donated over 150 million items and counting. That's impact. Head over to bombas.com slash Kara and use code Kara for 20 % off your first purchase.

12:32Kara Goldin:That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash Kara. Code Kara at checkout. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey everyone, Kira here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. and you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have. It's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity.

13:17Kara Goldin:You just need it to work every time. AT &T Business is a reliable provider for small business owners. For Small Business Month, we celebrate small businesses by helping them run better. This means reliable uptime, easy switching, and smart communications. powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. So what we do is we test the fish before we ever buy the fish. So every fish we look at has to have sustainability. It has to meet that. It has to meet assault content. And it has to meet our test for mercury. We're the only ones in the world screening individual fish to a mercury limit.

14:02Sometimes one out of two fish don't pass. and we're not buying them in a certain lot. And so that's how we just eliminate that problem for people who are at risk. And so we really focused on pregnant women and young kids. And the big problem you have during pregnancy is you're told basically, eat fish. So my wife's told like, you got to eat fish. All these studies show higher IQ for your baby if you eat fish, and you can, the fish pills don't work. And if you take the pills, you don't get the benefits from the studies, but then they tell you at the same time, oh, don't eat the fish because high mercury could cause lower IQ.

14:38And you're like, wait, what do I do? And they're like, eat fish, don't eat fish. And so everybody's confused. And so our OB was like, maybe just don't eat the fish. And so you get all these people who stop eating fish, which is, even if it's untested, the best thing you could be eating. And because they just don't know what to do. like your risk, all your risk things are on. And so we eliminate that because we go in, and we're basically taking out that whole bell curve of high mercury that could happen in a fish. So when you look at, say, tuna, for example, where people get about 40 % of their mercury exposure from just eating canned tuna.

15:17In canned tuna, you can go from, so our average is about 40 times below what the fish could have in it. And so you buy another can of wild tuna, and we just did a test of competing brands, and we're finding fish that are 30 times higher than our average. So that means at one can, you've got 30 weeks of mercury. And you don't want that kind of spike because that's where the problems come up. Our bodies naturally process heavy metals like mercury, so we get rid of about half of it in three months and the other half in a year. But if you're bioaccumulating or you get a spike, that's where you can cause problems.

16:00And so we just eliminate that so that you're never getting exposed to these higher levels. I think part of the reason this has come about is that since coal-fired power plants got introduced, we've seen a 2 to 3x rise in mercury levels in the ocean. And then it bites the plankton and goes up the food chain to the fish.

16:19Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey everyone, Kira here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day. The friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have. It's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

17:01Kara Goldin:AT &T Business is a reliable provider for small business owners. For Small Business Month, we celebrate small businesses by helping them run better. This means reliable uptime, easy switching, and smart communications. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Bombas. Let's be honest, this time of year just hits different. The weather finally turns, you're outside more, moving more, and suddenly the little things you wear every day actually matter. That's why I've been reaching for Bombas. I've been getting back into walking and hiking again, and their sport socks are a total game changer.

17:46Kara Goldin:They're cushioned exactly where you need it, super breathable, and they just stay put. So I'm not thinking about my socks. I'm enjoying the movement. And once the hikes go away, their warm weather footwear is honestly my go-to. The slides are lightweight, waterproof, and incredibly comfortable. Perfect for running around Marin, traveling, or just relaxing at home. But it's not just socks and shoes. Their underwear and tees are next level. Soft, breathable, and actually built to last. It's one of those upgrades you don't realize you need until you try it. And here's the part I really love. For every item you purchase, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity.

18:30Kara Goldin:They've donated over 150 million items and counting. That's impact. Head over to Bombas.com slash Cara and use code Cara for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash Cara. Code Cara at checkout. So, so interesting. So I'm going to back up a little bit and even ask you a little bit more. So mercury poisoning sounds really bad, right? I think everybody would agree, but I don't think many people really understand it. And you touched on it a little bit, but how do you know if you have it, right? I mean, so many people probably are walking around with it and functioning, but don't really know what the signs are.

19:16I mean, what - You're 100 % right. And unfortunately, mercury poisoning doesn't, or just too much mercury, it doesn't show up in an acute way. So unless you've gotten so much that your hair's falling out or you can't remember anything, it doesn't show up. And so what the effects are is it's a tax on your immune system. It's a tax on your recovery. So if you're an athlete and you've got, and you're accumulating heavy metals, you're not going to recover as fast. And if you can't recover fast as an athlete, you can't build muscle. So like elite athletes know this. And so they get concerned. If you're a parent, like if you're a developing child or a fetus, it affects your brain development.

19:58And so that's why they're really worried about mercury spikes. And that's why the EPA and the FDA warn women who are going to get pregnant in the future, who are pregnant or young kids, because for a developing brain, high mercury can really impact. Generally speaking, like mercury is a thing that just, or heavy metals themselves, they can lead to cancers, they can lead to other problems. So when we got, this all got started because my next door neighbor's wife had mercury poisoning from eating a diet that is giving you points for eating clean things like fish. And she was eating a tuna salad every day, or not every day, but most days, and thinking she was eating really clean.

20:40And she started to have neurological problems. And they had no idea back then what it was. They weren't testing for things like mercury. And the funny thing is she was cutting everything out of her diet but the fish because she felt like, well, the fish can't be the problem. And then they figured it out. they tested for mercury figured out it was just the fish and that's when we thought we can solve this problem this is not a hard problem to solve and and we've solved it the hard problem is to get the information out to consumer you know so like we don't you know we don't charge more because we're doing this basically the same price fish same price and so a lot of people get confused because it'd be like you go to the store and you could buy organic or conventional and you look at the two raspberry tins and they're both the same price you're like wait what's the trick you know almost everybody would pick up the organic.

21:27We can prove that we're lower than the other brands, that they're the only one. We say we're the lowest mercury, we're the lowest mercury limit, we're the only brand to test every fish. And trust me, we've been tested on those claims.

21:40Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day. The friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have. It's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

22:22Kara Goldin:AT &T Business is a reliable provider for small business owners. For Small Business Month, we celebrate small businesses by helping them run better. This means reliable uptime, easy switching, and smart communications. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Bombas. Let's be honest, this time of year just hits different. The weather finally turns, you're outside more, moving more, and suddenly the little things you wear every day actually matter. That's why I've been reaching for Bombas. I've been getting back into walking and hiking again, and their sport socks are a total game changer.

23:07Kara Goldin:They're cushioned exactly where you need it, super breathable, and they just stay put. So I'm not thinking about my socks. I'm enjoying the movement. And once the hikes go away, their warm weather footwear is honestly my go-to. The slides are lightweight, waterproof, and incredibly comfortable. Perfect for running around Marin, traveling, or just relaxing at home. But it's not just socks and shoes. Their underwear and tees are next level. Soft, breathable, and actually built to last. It's one of those upgrades you don't realize you need until you try it. And here's the part I really love. For every item you purchase, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity.

23:51Kara Goldin:They've donated over 150 million items and counting. That's impact. Head over to Bombas.com slash Kara and use code Kara for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash Kara. Code Kara at checkout. And I know you have, and I want to get into that too. But so you start out as a technology company, and you mentioned you went around and talked to all the big guys out there, and then you decide to build the brand. So that's a big step. right? I mean, you're not the B2B company anymore. You go into a B2C and you're going to build this consumer product and do it yourself. I mean, it sounds easy, but insane, right?

24:41Kara Goldin:And so what were those first steps that you took? And did you think it was going to be a short-term thing that you could just go and build this brand and then maybe others would jump on instead of actually building it as you have today. I remember going to the first people around investment and saying, you know, in pitching, they're like, so what do you know about fishing? Nothing. What do you know about food? Have you ever sold food before? No. Do you know who the co-packers are or the boats? No, don't know any of that. So it was laughable because it was like, I don't know anything. I just know that we can test the fish and we've built a technology that doesn't exist in the world today.

25:26And so my thought process was, look, this tech is really, really difficult to build. We basically are now addressing heavy metals in the food supply. Most people think about pesticides. Heavy metals are much more dangerous. And so that's the goal of our company. And we started out in seafood. But to answer your question, it was, you know, and then I would go to people who are in food companies, like yourself, actually, in food and beverage, and I'd say, tell me all the mistakes you made. And nobody can remember all their mistakes. So then you would make a huge mistake, right? You just make a really dumb error.

26:02The first major error we made is we bought used UPC codes. And so we had UPC codes that we could just put right on, seemed so great at the time. It's great until you get to one of the majors and they say, oh, you can't do that. You have to go to clean UPC codes. You can't use something that's been repurposed. And to change all your UPC codes overnight, absolute nightmare. But then you go back to somebody who then you ask those questions of and they go, oh, yeah, that happened to me. And you're just like, what did you tell me? There's no way to tell you all the pitfalls. You just have to go through them.

26:40Kara Goldin:That's hysterical. So today you're in over 19 ,000 stores. And is that right? That's right. They're selling multiple countries now. And most importantly, we're profitable. And we're standing on our own. We don't need more money for people to build a company. And we're growing at well over 50 % CAGR. So it's starting to take off. Um, but we, you know, we went through COVID supply chain gaps, you know, just, just everything you can imagine, uh, competitors trying to, trying to stop us from being able to, to manufacture somewhere or copac or take our boats away. You know, we've elicited a lot of interest.