#77 - Bryan Serwatka - Minor Figures [Coffee Community Manager]

0:00Bryan Serwatka:Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to Young Founders. Today I am joined by the brilliant Bryan Serwatka, who is the coffee community manager at Minor Figures. Now Minor Figures make absolutely delicious plant-based barista oat milk and they do it in a very, very cool way. Their branding is super simplistic but really quirky. You have definitely seen them in coffee shops and retail. It was really fun digging into Bryan's background, why he's so passionate about coffee, the nuances of sourcing coffee, what that relationship's like, working with brilliant baristas and cafes all around the world what different countries attitudes are like towards oat milk and why he loves minor figures on what they're doing there's so much in this brian is super passionate super energetic and i really love his take on the coffee scene and what he does so without further ado grab yourself a lovely oak flat white and crack on with the episode we all know that brand is important right but what if i told you it can impact growth and customer acquisition costs by up to 50 percent against ordinary are a brand agency who help founders, marketing departments, scaling teams ensure their brand is the most powerful tool for growth.

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1:31Bryan Serwatka:hello and welcome back to the unfounders today i'm joined by the brilliant brian sawatka so brian can you let everyone know where you work and what your role is there yeah so i work for the legendary minor figures the uh the coffee barista folks and my title is coffee community manager so firstly if people have never heard of minor figures what's the story like what is it about the brand you're like yep i want to work for these guys um and then we'll get into your role a bit more because I know before I started recording, you're like, it doesn't really like cut everything that I actually do. Yeah.

2:00So I'm, I guess my other thing is the vibe of it is they've been going about 10 years now. I've been there for five, but the company started as a coffee company doing cold brew and kind of a couple of Aussie founders came back to the UK and just like the cold brew scene here sucks. We need to fix that. And yet now we are, we're not doing that. We're just almost straight up barista oat and making a really cool chai concentrate. But yeah, still see

2:22Bryan Serwatka:ourselves as a coffee company i had first-hand experience of reps coming into the vegan cafe i was working in and being like hey guys like use oat milk like check this out and i just remember first time i tried it i was like wow this is really good um i like the fact it obviously foams nicely it's not too sweet which for me is a really big thing if i'm having a flat white i want to taste the coffee and i think that's a really big thing but for you with working at minor figures obviously the last few years in particular like the five years you've been there the adoption of people choosing oat and coffee, like whether you still drink dairy anyway, people are like going, actually, oat is the best thing for my coffee.

2:56Bryan Serwatka:So what's it been like for you actually working in this industry and going, yeah, you know what, people get it. I mean, I mentioned starting as a coffee company. So the whole idea of creating an alternative that doesn't ever betray what the coffee quality is about, that's always been the vibe at Minor Figures. So the fact that people are going now almost standard serve as oat is because they realize it's actually tasting more of the coffee that I'm i'm having in it especially if you're playing with something a little bit more premium or you know something a bit more nuanced you do want to still maintain that within the drink and if you've got something that's like you know too claggy too chalky too sweet you're not going to get any of that through it's almost like a it's like a waste of really good coffee yeah and so your your role at minor figures then so uh what does a typical week month year look like i feel like every day is going to be completely different across the the five years what are some of the things that you've been getting involved in?

3:44I mean, yeah, I don't even know where to start on that one. I joined the company actually as a national account manager on the sales side of things. But just after a year, they created this role, which on paper says community manager to kind of keep deep within the coffee industry, which is kind of my background. But literally now I run all B2B marketing throughout the EMEA region. Anything from our kind of cafe and roastery side of things of the partners that we work with here in the UK to all the export distribution stuff for anywhere from Ireland to Dubai. But there's a lot there. There's no such thing as a typical week.

4:19You know, for example, literally last week, I was in Amsterdam for the big Horikaba trade show, which is a beast. If you ever get a chance to go, it is one of the most bewildering things on the planet. But, you know, just there exhibiting on a stand, then flying to Krakow to do a more of a coffee community event with some of our partners there. So there is no typical week, and my partner will definitely attest to that one. There's nothing typical about my role. it's there's a lot of activations a lot of trade shows a lot of events but also then you know running things like the merch that we do as well as um planning some of the trade shows how we turn up to these things so it's it's a lot of plates spinning yeah love that and i think

4:54Bryan Serwatka:minor figures has such a distinctive brand i remember when these reps came in i just remember seeing the carton with is it penny the little figure on there i was like this is so cool and i at the time i was like i need this on merch but they didn't even have merch at the time whereas now it's like you go in it's like an indie coffee shop and there are all the hats and jackets and I was like, I need this. I was still waiting on my merch. But for you, what was it about the brand that you were like, this is great. I can see myself working there. I just, I mean, it's hard to not like something that's really kind of crisp, clean, minimalist, fun, playful, and just the packaging itself.

5:26I mean, if you've seen the cartons, there's not much on it. You've got Penny, who's the lady in the duck suit. But beyond that, because there's not much to kind of interpret. So a lot of folks, it's that negative spacing, right? You kind of project into it. And the amount of people who just they see it, there's like, oh, this is super cool. Or, man, this looks just like my best friend. And the amount of people who take pictures with similar sunglasses and send in, oh, we've got Penny here. Like that's that's incredible for a brand. That's like that's superpower stuff.

5:51Bryan Serwatka:Yeah. And I guess with the community side, you're seeing that firsthand and activating. So for you with this over the years, like are there any kind of key coffee partners, roasters, shops that you're like, this was a really fun event or I love that they're doing this? Is there anyone that kind of really stands out? I mean, I don't want you to have favorites. That's tough. Considering you work with everyone. But just top of the mind, oh, this was a really cool example of something we did. Man, that is really tough. I really can't play favorites. But there's a brand called Nomad in Barcelona, the coffee roastery, but like so much more than that as well.

6:24They do incredible merch. But it's just all quite understated and perfect. We do stuff with them all the time. And we had them on our stand at Amsterdam Coffee Festival. And they just rocked up and they brought a coffee that was co-fermented with mango. so every coffee going out tasted like a mango milkshake it was blowing folks minds but it's just i don't know man i can't pick favorites that's just one where i can kind of come to mind recently because i spoke to them earlier this week yeah no that's absolutely fair i don't want

6:49Bryan Serwatka:you to get calls from your suppliers but like oh why didn't you mention us you're gonna get me in chapel dude um now from a like a an actual like logistical perspective like where are you based you guys have an office how big is the team now because i think as as you said like nowadays oat is the go-to um and there's obviously a few brands playing in the space but i think from a minor figures perspective like your growth seems huge i've seen like hyperope coming out and all these other things kind of coming into the scene so yeah how big is the team now and what does your working setup look like so we're about 80 people worldwide which is kind of the same amount of i'm not gonna say any names but like that's that's what some of our competitors had in one country so we're tiny really in comparison and in that world so we've got maybe say 30 in north america and then the rest are here in either in the uk or some in europe but the headquarters is in london our office is in walthamstow surrounded by a bunch of really good coffee roasteries and breweries which is uppers and downers galore it's great but yeah we've got some people out in amsterdam berlin dublin just kind of remote folks that i i catch up with and is there anything like for you since working there that as a as a business and as an employee perspective that you're like i really love how they do this and this is something that is really nice whether that's your social side whether that's away days, whether that's just literally like how the culture and working environment is, because I think it's really important when a brand successful, it's these little things that all add up to actually giving people freedom or giving them flexibility or showing, rewarding them, whatever it is.

8:14Bryan Serwatka:I'd love to know if there's anything that stands out to you from that aspect. Yeah. I mean, I've worked for a few companies, right? And I'm old. I'm going to throw that out there. So I've been around the block a bit, but I think MF is really good about encouraging people just to be authentic. And we have a lot of platforms for letting that happen and not like in a kind of like the sort of corporate sense of like, hey guys, be authentic. We have every Monday morning, we've got this ridiculous call that just kind of, it aligns us all. But it's like first thing Monday morning, we start with an icebreaker.

8:41And the week before we spin a wheel to see who's going to be doing this, it's totally random. Whoever's going to chair this rather important meeting. But with the icebreaker, like I had it a couple of weeks ago and I ran a rock, paper, scissors competition, not telling them until on the day that we're doing something. And yesterday we had one and it was a random quiz about cheeses from somebody who's really into cheese. There's no right or wrong thing on it, but it's just weird. It's just silly. And that's entirely our vibe. We kind of encourage that. And we do so many social things within the team side of things.

9:10We always try to arrange something for it. Ultimately, sometimes I'll host wine tastings, often in character. It's a really weird one, but we'll have a theme. Like say we had an Italian one, right? I dressed up as a couple of different characters, trying to be quite culturally sensitive on that, not being Italian. But just to make the night fun and silly and just, you know, just to make it less, I don't know, nine to fivey. We're really good at that side, not just in terms of how we activate within the industry and throwing these crazy ass parties. But that's how we operate in the office as well.

9:42So I don't know. That just that made it when I found out more about the company operating that way. I'm like, yeah, man, I went in. Get me in.

9:49Bryan Serwatka:Yeah, no, I think that's great. Any business that allows people to be truly their authentic selves, I think is a really solid thing. If you're having to kind of shadow that or dumb that down. I think it's just you're not able to express yourself and you're not able to give 200 % when you need to. So I think that's really, really important. And people can smell whenever folks are kind of BSing. You know, like everybody's radar is pretty well attuned to this. I say BS, I was into my initials, which is really unfortunate. But that whole vibe of like if we're not this way, we're trying to sell something, say in a trade show or an activation or whatever, folks will just be like, yeah, yeah, cool.

10:21You're just another brand with some salespeople who are just saying what they need to say to make that immediate sale. Like that's not how we operate in any sense. So it's, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

10:30Bryan Serwatka:It's weird, but it's a lot of fun. Love that. And for you, like where did this passion for coffee and this community and world come from? We can dig back into your background. When you were younger, what did you go? When I grew up, I think I'm going to be doing this or this is what I want to do. Because I can't imagine it was work for an oat milk company. I mean, God, you sound like my therapist. I've got to throw that out there. I mean, weirdly, we'll go back, okay? I wanted to be a musician more than anything. I've always been playing music, playing loads of different instruments. And I did that.

10:57I got to do it through my 20s and we were successful enough. We got to play some festivals, Reading and Leeds. We got some radio play and that was really cool. And I started writing books, which was fun. But like all of that required quite a flexible schedule. So like all of my performing friends, I jumped into hospitality. I started working somewhere where I can have a flexible schedule and, you know, even doing front of house stuff, which was really great just to kind of keep that, maybe not performance, but that sort of engaging with people and finding that common ground, which was super helpful.

11:24and then of course through hospitality you end up trying really nice things i just i went deep through the rabbit hole and coffee um i was this is place in leeds this cafe that had like pour overs back in 2010 whenever i'd never seen people offering that and like oh tasting notes of pineapple like yeah right dude that's not i've been having like oh my god it's pineapple uh and since then i've just been hooked and i've kind of worked for some roasteries i've done a lot of i've run some training programs and account management programs within some roasteries and then yeah man just kind of i've stayed around particularly coffee because there's that element of it's it's a complex and premium product but there's a huge focus on things like ethics sustainability which i guess you know it makes a lot easier to sleep at night when you're working for people who are really actively trying to make a difference uh and yeah man i've been hooked ever since and so that's like i've been working in coffee properly since 2011 2012 i had a quick little stint out in beer for a little while but yeah um literally the day that i accepted another job offer from another beer brewery i had a recruiter uh i don't know how he got my number and just called me up i was just like yeah i've got this this role of this company minor figures um i tried to tell him like i literally just verbally accepted the role maybe an hour ago i was like yeah yeah but this is better hear me out and yeah and it was better It was just such a weird role and such a fun industry that I was actually dying to come back to.

12:49Bryan Serwatka:Love that. And I think what it's a, those serendipitous moments. I was saying literally today how I feel like everything happens for a reason with timing and all of that. And you would have been this fork in the road in terms of if you'd have gone, actually, I'm going to go the beer route. Who knows what you'd be doing now? You might still be on this podcast. The podcast might not exist. Who knows? I mean, yeah, let's, let's, let's go that way with like the whole kind of chaos theory stuff. But no, I had a very similar thing in terms of discovering coffee and like pour overs, probably similar-ish time.

13:16Bryan Serwatka:I think I was a little bit later, maybe like 2040. But yeah, first time having an actual pour over coffee and go, wow, I didn't know it could taste like a tea or be this gentle or have this many flavors. You grow up and I mean, I got into coffee in university days where it was just literally like instant coffee, more scoops than you should, tasted awful, loads of sugar. It was just literally because of some energy and it wasn't because I enjoyed it. It was just like a needs must. but then over time it was like no actually i do really like it and i think the more like you said you go down the rabbit hole and you get into the different complexities and you're like oh this one's ethiopian this one's ugandan like whatever it is i think there's so much variety and then the story attached to it i think is so important like again who you're supporting the farmers all these things so from you with where you were working in coffee i guess all these parts it was you're even closer because you're then roasting the beans or working with it so was there anything around any previous experiences here i really loved like learning about this farm or this relationship yeah i mean it's when you start to get to meet these people and it doesn't happen very often and there's a big thing in coffee right now where folks um you do these origin trips and a lot of people like well why are we why are we kind of just constantly sending a bunch of people out to to origin to try to tell people how to do things or is it like just a holiday or whatever but when you get coffee producers who then come over and um we had some when i was i was working for Volcano and Assembly to Coffee Roastery in Brixton.

14:38And then you have some of the producers turn up and you actually get to hear them and they get to see like, they're the beginning of the supply chain. They get to see the end of it and how like they're represented, how their story is told. I just got really fascinated by that because, you know, there's so much in selling things that of course, each brand that's doing it, you kind of have to fix things to suit your own needs, right? For your voice, for your brand to work and for these guys to kind of see it firsthand and be like sometimes quite you know incredulous but then often like oh wow this is this is how we're seen this is this is how we're we're kind of you know heard as as a farm as as a person it's it's just it's kind of amazing man and and often like really quiet heartwarming when you hear where these people come from when you you know just kind of perceived as like this this hipster serving a coffee but then when you've got you've got this person next to you as well like we had a couple on a stand at London Coffee Festival and it's just like like top that guys like we we have the full thing right here and it just I don't know since then I've just really really kind of gone even further kind of into research onto it and I mean I don't need to for the role that I'm doing necessarily like it's not a requirement but you know people are interesting and like people's true stories is really really interesting and that's I can't switch that off

15:52Bryan Serwatka:man yeah no I think I've read a quote the other day that was like people are passionate about other people being passionate and it's like that that whole thing of when someone is truly authentically passionate about something you can't help but be interested in it and it could be the most niche thing but if someone has that level of love and you can see how into it they are you can't help it like yeah i'm into it because you're into it like this is great yeah and it's also it's that thing about being authentic right these people yeah of course they're passionate but you can tell that they're they're being totally honest about it and when you're totally honest in that sense like there's there's no like wall there's no filter in terms that people are saying what they really mean.

16:27And I think it shouldn't be a rarity, but it kind of is in a lot of the spaces where we operate. So yeah, truth and honesty from all that is just, yeah, it's refreshing and get energy from it.

16:37Bryan Serwatka:And I think as you were kind of mentioning about like origin stories and all these things, I think Wycliffe who runs Blue Turacco Coffee, like his story and how he supports the farmers. It's just incredible, like these kind of social enterprises that are really about, okay, let's give back to the communities where the produce is coming from. I think it's so, so important. and nowadays I feel like the trend is people want to know what's in their food where it's coming from how's it been treated like all these things are so so important um and again when it comes to what's going into your coffee for example I guess the the trends coming with like chair and all these other things you guys are at the forefront seeing this and working with the cool cafes obviously matcha has had a massive boom over the last couple of years but from you firsthand have you seen anything that as a mama and then has gone mainstream or is there anything you're seeing at the moment you're like oh this is this is something that more and more people are talking about or doing i might be a little bit like less less interesting with this one but there's a big thing not just in terms of the product but like how people are doing stuff so there's a huge thing around automation right now in the cafe side and people are looking at equipment that's coming in that's kind of just you know make make the job of the barista a little bit easier but also much more consistent so there's this huge kind of push on on it is this this kind of erasing you know people and the necessity for it.

17:50But at the same time, it's giving a lot more room for folks to connect, to do the hospitality side. So seeing a lot of that, which is, I think it's a fascinating kind of shift in trend, but it then means that all those other cool things that are coming up, the matcha, the hojicha, the ube stuff, it just makes it a lot easier for people to actually learn what they're having to communicate onward from a barista to a customer. So, I mean, yeah, we're very lucky that we're this, this is a running joke, we're the minor figure in the cup, right we're just the thing that's that's highlighting what the real kind of quality is in there in the most transparent way possible so in a way i i'm super lucky in that i get to work with all these really really cool products companies people within it and i just i get to do so as like you know passenger princess i just just rock up and we do our thing and it's brilliant but um yeah i don't know if that's that's a decent enough answer but it's just one that i keep i talk about every single day is on the automation side because like it's coming it's coming everywhere And I kind of can't wait to see how much better that experience is going to get for everybody as a customer.

18:50Bryan Serwatka:Yeah, no, I think it's so nice when you can get that consistent serve or everything. But for me, I trained as a barista using plant-based milks. Like we would make our own almond milk. We'd make our own soy milk. We were literally doing this. This is back in 2015. So I learned to steam basically any milk other than dairy. Like I've never actually steamed dairy milk. So it was great from that perspective. But for me, the thing I love, like you said, about when you were performing and you had your band and you were then going front of house, like that kind of relationship and that like performance as such, actually connecting with people.

19:22Bryan Serwatka:These skills are so transferable into everything you do. But it's also a genuine joy when someone comes to the door and you're like, you're a coconut hot chocolate person. Oh, you're actually you're you're an oat flat white or you're like they like if I go to a local coffee shop, for example, and they know more order, that means a lot to me. and i think it's being on both sides of that knowing actually yeah we're playing a part in these little relationships i think there's so much like on a macro level like it's so much more than just a milk honestly man like that's that's that's the kind of that's the pinnacle of that sort of experience i bumped into an old customer of mine from a from a cafe and before i remembered his name i remembered espresso and sparkling water and like i just thought that's i love that years later that that's still the point and i hope in a way that like it probably would make him happy but we just ended up chatting about other stuff but um yeah in some ways i do miss the hospitality side of it and that kind of random thing of other people not necessarily just being like a more b2b sort of bit but at the same time there's so much room for it in fmcg that i do end up having these kind of weird overlapping friendship relationship sort of things with folks that it's more than compensated i do think as you said when you when you have that kind of performance and musical like my background is free running and parkour and i do shows but like you it's like it doesn't pay the bills all the time so i'm gonna do a few other things whether that was sampling whether that was working in cafes whatever it was i think it was always for me going okay i'm gonna do this but it's still okay that this is the goal so for you with the music like you said you did like reading and leeds and stuff like what what was the kind of music you played and and how did that kind of come about are you still actively doing much in that space well the music we were doing that one that was kind of kind of fun the twee indie post-rock sort of stuff so we when we weren't apologizing being too polite to folks we're then just doing big wall of sound stuff which was a lot of fun i i haven't really done that much music i've released a record a couple years back which um recorded most of it weirdly in a coffee roastery with with my friend nick from assembly coffee it was a good space man i'm i'm not going to turn out a free place to record but um also i did this it was like a six-year project i wrote this book and this album kind of together at the same time so each song is a chapter of the book all of it performed as the protagonist but i went so far through the looking glass on that one i work you know on something so geeky and niche that i kind of almost burnt out on it man haven't really done too much music stuff since just been enjoying some writing projects nice no that's that's brilliant yeah i love that like going going so deep you're like okay that's that's me done now i'm gonna take a step back i'll just enjoy these these coffee community events and everything that's going on that side of um yeah trying to enjoy what i'm doing day to day is is is so much more um sustainable instead of spending like kind of a lot of sleepless nights working on something so mental that i guess we couldn't see the couldn't see the woods for the trees for the woods woods for the trees i can't even think i need another coffee i think i heard a phrase where it's like you need to be really content on an average tuesday and it's the idea of like you're gonna have the highest highs and the lowest lows and and everything that goes through it but if day to day on a tuesday afternoon you're like i actually really love what i'm doing i think that is like a really good baseline to then be happy and move forward and i think it sounds like you're definitely very content in in what you're doing i'd love to know now when things haven't gone to plan in in one of the roles like there's obviously in the event space there's always things that go wrong but yeah if there's anything that comes to mind you're like okay across the five years i've been here this was a day where we're like oh wow this didn't quite go to plan man but the thing is it is always events you know It's trade shows when something crucial doesn't arrive or one of the really important pieces of kit isn't working.

22:55You think, oh, cool, this is the end of the world. This is how I die. But I don't know, it's that random thing of usually when I'm in these spaces, when that does go wrong, I'm usually surrounded by a lot of people who I've known for a few years because we've done the event circuits together, especially all the coffee festivals.

23:10Bryan Serwatka:You end up being like, actually, no, no, I know I can call Alex over here or I can call Ben over here and we can get it sorted. So it's not awful. but you know in the moment especially whenever like okay it's x amount of my entire marketing budget this year and things need to be perfect and yet here we are and i'm basically like putting flames up yeah it's terrifying but um i don't know it's that i could probably i'm such a bad person for anxiety and getting in my head about things and just have to remember like oh no there's a lot of really good people around me and a burden shared is a burden halved and i'd rather cut it in a quarter so let's get some more folks involved yeah love that really well said yeah straight away I was thinking we had an event where our freezer broke and it's like we're a frozen brand so all the stock you're like where's this going so yeah those those moments you're like we'll find a solution like there's always an answer whether it's necessarily a good one you'll find a way but yeah I think you you learn a lot when things go wrong that's why it's always good to bring up but now going back to the the positive side again moving into this year and looking ahead are there any big events or big milestones already in your calendar like I can't wait when we do this that you can talk about?

24:13Bryan Serwatka:Some stuff I can't say, which is totally, totally fine. We always do something big around London Coffee Festival. I'm only going to say that. I can't give anything away. This year is like, we're doing such a big push into some of our emerging markets. So there's a lot in places like, I've just come back from Poland, Spain, Italy, hopefully, Greece and the Benelux. It just means I get to travel to some really lovely places, meet some really lovely people and just get to be me in this kind of weird role that's been created for me. I'd love to pretend it's a tough gig. It's not awful. It's really not having a bad time with all of it.

24:50So the focus really for the next few months is, you know, we've got Dublin Coffee Festival coming up in April. We've never really activated there in that sort of way. And I love the coffee scene there and I love the coffee people there. So there's elements of just being able to connect in these new areas where we're starting from scratch. And even though we've been going for 10 years and we've got momentum and we're still a tiny, tiny player in the overall market in this sort of sector, which means we've got carte blanche, which is quite freeing to just rock up and kind of show people instead of like, oh, this is how I think we need to be in this area.

25:21It's like, no, no, just be us. This is how we need to turn up and just engage with people. Have some local roasters on with us to platform them. It's not, I mean, it's about us in a way, but like, you know, we want to show that we're deep in that side. We want to platform these people. And in lots of ways, it's just you get them to meet their friends and they come through and it's just, I hate to say it, But like now I've got this network through throughout Europe. I've got a lot of really cool people that I've met that I can just call up and say, hey, I'm going to be in Bratislava or wherever.

25:49Like, where should I go? Tell me the cool places, which cafes, which restaurants. And guarantee I get the list from the people in the know. It's it's bliss, man. I love it.

25:57Bryan Serwatka:Yeah. I mean, we we did Cafe Culture, so not quite as big as London Coffee Festival. But the people there were really into their coffee, really into the community. And it's just such a nice space where even though on one table there's like four brands all selling different coffees, everyone's sharing and talking and really passionate it's not like a kind of like bashing heads and i think it was yeah when i was in plant-based meat we were the same kind of view of like actually we need all ships rise tides so it's like actually together we're gonna have more impact and i think there's a lot of that so yeah as we know there's obviously other oat milks in the in the space how is it minor figures stand out or if you're speaking to someone what is it that makes minor figures special to the customer or what's your your standout kind of pitch when you're like this is why we do what we do yeah i think the big thing for us is that we innovate we innovate like nobody else does we put out products that sometimes are too crazy which is great but also you know we did the first organic barista steamable product and we did all the ready-to-drink cans and we're kind of we moved away from that sector but you know in the last year we released the four hyper oats cues which were functional drinks you know there's there's some that have a specific for like protein boosts and they're specific for immunity now we've seen know the brands start to do that we have just launched the first regeneratively farmed brista oat in in europe and that's i mean to the point where we know exactly which farm in dis and norwich that we're getting the oats and it's done with wild farmed who are another incredible brand but it also means that we can speak in a way of saying like this this is the future of farming this is the future of un effing the world and the soil that we've we've commercially farmed to doom And so that's an incredible conversation that's starting to pick up just as coffee is starting to see a huge spike in regenerative farming.

27:41It's just lucky that the timing has coincided. And then also, you know, this last year we released this, we call it atomized. It's basically like a powdered brisa oat product and not in a kind of like, you know, thinking back to the 70s of powdered milk being disgusting. It's more a matter of, well, how can we be more sustainable? We've done the B Corp thing since, you know, whenever. but like what's the next step of that how do we even become even more sustainable how do we reduce emissions even further how do we make the product even more uh sustainable when it comes to the the um the packaging itself so with that you know we've got these these big these pouches that are ldp4 fully recyclable literally anywhere with a pre-dosed amount of this powder you just add water shake and you've got two and a half liters now that can be rocked up at festivals you can be literally anywhere that you have a water source and suddenly you've got this but also taking up a fraction of the space that these cases and cases of the stuff would be so the pitch for us is always like we say that the phrase future liquids lab like that's that's now going on all the products because we're always trying to think like right what does this look like 100 years from now like screw five years from now what does 100 years from now look like so that's that's the kind of aim and that's also what kind of what drives not just the product development but how we how we want to engage with things and how we want to engage with the industry and other brands like what are we doing that is saving the planet what can we do that's that beyond buzzwords and yeah

29:05Bryan Serwatka:that's the vibe no absolutely love that yeah i remember when i saw the wild farms and collaboration come out with the regenerative oatmeal just like the w being the mohawk as it's like just absolutely nailed like just the packaging as always yeah i just thought it's it's such a cool concept and really great to see from an environmental perspective both that one and as you mentioned like the atomized i mean if i think of our cleaning products we're buying concentrates that you add to water and refill because there's so much around actually a lot of what you're shipping is water so the ways you can condense that and save weight and save space all these little things add up so i think it's it's amazing that you guys are thinking of that and i love the future liquids lab it's yeah genius i needed to catch on man i think it's one of the coolest things that we've done with it and even just some of the little assets around it just yeah that's it's cool man and i think you can probably tell like this is not me faking i actually i love this side of it and i really can't wait to see where things go in the next year or so as as we start to kind of open this up to other people and other markets because like that that needs to be the thing that sets the tone instead of yeah of course the quality is great it's always going to be great that's that's how we have to do it but like what's next yeah and from your perspective in terms of all the different countries you're working in what are the attitudes towards oat milk like in say italy or france and these kind of places because i know from a plant-based meat perspective it was very varied what the actual feedback would be like in terms of yeah okay we don't do that here or that's that's not normal whereas i feel like coffee is one of these things that when people are really into coffee they'll know about oat milk they'll know about this like they they want it so is that right across across europe across the world like what are you kind of seeing when you're going to these different regions i mean you know to be honest i could be in the uk and and get people who are just like ew oat milk you know i'm okay with my cow stuff it's that there's nothing no way you can kind of change everybody's minds but places like you mentioned it's lean france first, which is really interesting because these are places that traditionally have had such a standard of food quality and provenance and kind of culture around it that, you know, sure that there've been kind of hackles up whenever you mentioned these things.