The Shocking Truth About Produce Waste In America & Fixing The Broken Food Supply Chain Ft. Melissa Ackerman of Planet Harvest

She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire and he's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart company.

And now Lauren Everett's in Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for the major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Melissa Ackerman is the founder and CEO of Planet Harvest. A profit for purchase company redefining how the country

sources, distributes, and consumes fresh produce. So on this episode, we learned all about whole harvest, a model that delivers scalable, sustainable solutions to reduce food waste, support the farmers, and increase access to nourishing produce. I found this episode fascinating with that, let's welcome Melissa, a Planet Harvest to the show.

“Melissa, what would shock everyone about the produce in America?”

I think a lot of people don't even know where their produce comes from. They don't realize that it's not from a local farmer or from somebody that's really close to them. It's grown 60% of our lettuce is grown in California, about an hour from San Francisco.

And I think the second thing that would shock them is also how much produce is left in the fields.

30% of produce is grown and left in the fields because it's not the right size for the grocery store of the food service industry. To just give you a number, that's 400 million pounds of strawberries that are left in the fields every year in the USA because they're just not the right size, not because they don't taste good. So when there's food shortages in certain areas, and you have all this produce left over, why are we not connecting those two things? So that's like really what

started this whole thing for me. I was on the floor during the pandemic, we're trying to figure out what I'm doing in my bathroom, writing a mom's group, and somebody outraged me just because they

“said, I don't want to understand there's all this access. There's pictures of, you know,”

milk being spilled into the rivers and onions being torn under, why can't we take that and

bring it to the food banks? And the answer is the supply chain. It's how does it get out of the fields

and moved to places that need access? And because that supply chain just doesn't exist in a way that is coherent and needs to be rebuilt, it just can't move that easily from what is left to being able to get to the people that need it most. And this may be a great comment, but I'm assuming when you say it's not the right size for the grocery chains, is that the buyers looking and saying this doesn't look right and we know the consumer won't buy it because they're looking for something that

looks bigger or more robust or whatever, and so they just they don't purchase it because they can't move it. Is that what the reason is? Yeah, it goes a little deeper so the farmers actually don't even pick it. So when they're picking strawberries, they are having the the pickers in the field and they're picking and they're deciding, and they know if it's going to fit because they have the exact sizes that the grocery store wants, it has to fit a certain amount of strawberries in one pound

of a pack. And so they won't pick it. They'll either pick it and they throw it right down into the ground or on some products they literally leave it on the tree like a cherry because it's just not the right size. So if it's a little big or a little small, it has no way of leaving the field to be a part of the fresh market. Why do you think that, I mean, I do this, I don't know if everyone does this, that people romanticize that are crops are grown by farmers and it's this

whimsical magical. If you could see what's in my head, it's so romantic and it sounds like it's nothing like that. Why do we have that perception? Well, I love that you have that perception because one of the biggest things I hear from farmers all at time is that they don't feel like appreciated or that people really value what they do to bring food into this world. And so I love that

“that's what you think. And that's part of what we want to do is tell the stories of the farmers,”

tell the stories of the generations that are bringing in this product. It's hard for farmers to even get the next generation to want to be a part of it. So I think people think about small farmers like one acre, but the farmers that are really making a lot of this, they can be one to five acres of farmers, but they're also people that have 300 acres to 3,000 acres. And they're growing this in it's backed by private equity in it's backed by venture capital. And it's a business. It's a

commodity business that's growing this product. And so it's I don't know that people have been there. If you have been on a farm that's a large scale farm, you'll see these crews that come in and the labor and all that, but it's a big business. And it travels depending on the time of year down the coast of California to Arizona and from Florida up the east coast. And then in the summer you're getting a lot of stuff grown throughout the country for your for your more local tomatoes and

squashes and stuff of that nature. When you yourself knowing everything that you know about produce, go grocery shopping. What is your mentality? How do you grocery shop? I grocery shop. One of my favorite things to do, and I love teaching my kids about this too, is like bananas, for example. I'll buy stages of bananas. So I'll buy like three or four or one weed a lot of bananas in my house.

those are called stages of bananas. I try to buy produce for when I'm going to eat it so that I

“don't over buy from my own home. That's where I think a lot of people think about excess or extra”

is like what you buy in your home. But I mean for me, where the blue ocean opportunity is what's on the farms and how we can change the consumer's idea of buying this product that might not look perfect. Or they're not exactly the same size. It's kind of more like the European markets. Where you'll go in and you see that there are a little bit of different sizes. And that would be such a big change if the consumers pushed for products that were tasteless, looked delicious,

but maybe weren't uniform in size. Am I weird to think that I want a Charlie Brown like Apple and a Charlie Brown tree like strawberry? I don't want the perfect one because the perfect one looks like it was genetically modified. Like when I get this huge blueberry that's bigger than my hand, I don't want that. I want the one that's kind of a Charlie Brown tree. I think you're unique. I think there are no people don't want that. I think people want

if they're looking at their strawberries, they're looking for those big ones that are perfectly red and look like sweet. They're not looking for the ones that are smaller and bigger

“and all different mix sizes within the pack. I think if they look at that, they'd be like”

this is super ununiformed and what happened here and they would ask more of those kind of questions. Is this as big of a problem in Europe? You just you mentioned Europe or in is there as much waste over there or do they use more of the vegetables and produce there? It's a global problem for sure, but every country has their own unique and like we're working on a tool, the world wildlife fun global loss tool and that's able to measure throughout the world. But for us, one of the biggest

core tenants that we're trying to in fact is like how do we bring more products back to the U.S. So for example, peaches, a lot of peaches that are brought in that are canned and frozen, are brought in from Spain and Greece. And so the peach growers in the U.S. are like looking for the U.S. market to try to support them more so that they don't have to throw away. I spoke to a peach grower the other day. It's 20% of his fields are being thrown away because the use the demand

is not there for the U.S. peaches and they're being it's being brought in from Spain and from Greece. If you could like raise a wand and just say I want everything to be like this tomorrow with the produce industry, what would be your goals for that? A perfect world would be a little bit more like Australia. They have this thing called the odd bunch that's in the grocery stores where they have a section of the grocery store that has a table that allows for based on what's happening because

this is all product that's growing from the time and picked and it's changing constantly within the marketplace that could house on this table what's available in excess at that moment. If there's a big surge in potatoes that are being grown or apples or strawberries, how can we bring that so that the American consumer just like if they want organic or just like if they want fair trade

would come in and go to those tables first, see what's available, what's excess, see what's delicious

and taste it and have you know all the sampling and start buying with increasing the price access for people but that would be available there and they could decide that week okay I'm going to use squash because it's an excess in my dinner this week or I'm going to use a zucchini because it's on that excess table and so I want to world in which this excess produce just becomes part of like the tradition of the American buyer that they they don't think about it as much as like

what is conventional and what had the specs that have been you know out there already. So we got introduced the Ivanka Trump of all people who we really admire and we're hanging out down in my amy and she said hey you got to talk and because she's a co-founder and I wonder how did you guys

even get into business in the first place and what were you doing before? Sure so I ran one of the

largest produce management and produce transportation companies what does that mean? We bought the produce that went to large restaurants like Panera Starbucks, Jamadjuice, Buffalo Islands, different wings companies and hospitals and schools and in that time right before the pandemic we had just tried to decide okay where was our path going? The pandemic hit hit and overnight our customers all shut their doors and I had one note next to me was saved the supply chain because it was

family businesses these distributors across the countries and farmers that were growing specifically for restaurants and they had nowhere to bring their products so as I mentioned it was

“the first time that I think a lot of Americans were exposed to access in the supply chain they saw”

the milk being dumped in the carrots being put back into the ground and they were like why where do we go with us? So there was a program that Ivanka actually championed and led for the government called a farmers to family food box program the USDA's program. That program was

a six billion dollar program that was part of the Trump administration then carried over into

the Biden administration and sunsetted when the COVID funds ended and I held one of the larger

there was dairy, there was cheese and we connected the farmers, the businesses to 501C charity

organizations so my company in four months moved 9.2 million in boxes and we did these big

events where we handed them out and so Ivanka would come to those events because she was leading in and overseeing it and I got the opportunity to meet with her and talk to her and we bonded over the idea that like yes there's all this access and there's all this need but this is not just a pandemic program. This is a program that really a problem that exists throughout the ages that we

“you know the modern ages and so she really I think fell in love with the farmers and the stories”

and the availability to really make massive change and that's where we met and we started this idea of how do we turn this either into a nonprofit or a tool business and we decided to turn it into an impact business. She's a very curious person and I think you know we had her on the show and what I personally think about her as it relates to when she was in the administration. I don't think she gets enough credit for a lot of the things like this that she was doing. There's you know there's

all the big media headlines in the political biases that people have but as it relates to her there was a lot of things that I think were like straight down the line and just beneficial for the country and people in general that I just don't there's enough awareness around her with that stuff. Right? She doesn't get as much accolades I think she should for that kind of stuff. 100% I mean this program you could ask distributors produce distributors so just because I don't

know that everyone knows what that means it's like a large Costco warehouse if you've been there where there's just all different types of fruits and vegetables sometimes dairy and they get you don't bring

“a whole truckload of produce from California to the back of a jamad juice. You have to have”

a distributor that's able to pick a box of this and a box of that and then make an order to send it over to the back of a restaurant. These distributors companies were saved because of this farmers to family food box program. They had nowhere to be able to do the business and I mean I've had companies literally to this day think that program for saving them and now they had no or they the restaurants were closed. I mean they were closed as you all remember for so long. I mean some

restaurants did really well like the quick service restaurants but the big white table cloth and the big mop and like the bigger restaurants weren't in business schools weren't in business airports were in business and so these growers that grow for that along with the distributors that service them along with the trucking companies that service them they had nowhere to do their business and so if this program by the USDA that Ivanka really shepherd and brought forward was life-saving to them.

I also think people don't realize what amazing business woman she is. Are there some tips that she

has shared with you that you've learned throughout working with her? Yeah she's quite frankly amazing. So I ran this business and it had you know hundreds of employees, a huge P&L department. When you start as an entrepreneur and you start at the beginning it's a different game. So her advice and her ability to help me stay focused and really keep on the topics that we're trying to do were amazing and top of the fact that I just think her vision and her visionary

sense to think so much bigger and to be able to help is just something that people maybe know about her but I can speak from how she built this business with me that she thinks about things I might think about hitting 10 cities and she's thinking about hitting 200 cities within a year. She just

“wants something that scales. I think the other thing that like sits with me the most is that when we”

talk about our monthly meetings and anyone that runs a business knows you you know you look at

your forecasting you look at your budgeting that's important to her but what's most important to her is

who are we impacting how many farmers are we impacting how many pounds are we bringing in to the system and how many people are we putting fresh fruits and vegetables and those impact numbers are what drive her to me like there's no better partner and co-founder that makes you think big dream big and then act big I think those are big deals. All right something that's so nostalgic to me an old school social media is how I started with LTK. If you're looking to shot my entire life my

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incredible offer what is the risk to the public and the population if these supply chains and

where their food comes from and I think we take for granted that we can just walk into a store and there's this abundance of things on ourselves in other countries and places in the world it's

not always like that like what are some of the things that maybe the public's just unaware of when

“it comes to the dangers of having these things disrupted. I think the disruption is I mean how much”

isn't America like I think that that's part of it if we talk about local but local can be you know 100 miles to 250 miles if you think about how big a state is and stuff like that so I think it's how much is coming in from other countries and again this is a global issue and if we're trying to do things with greenhouse gases and water emissions like we need this on a global scale but for us it's like helping the American farmer first so I think that's the first thing the second thing

is with the supply I mean we all could agree that food is medicine and food should be what is helping cure a lot of these issues so like we want to have as many options as possible if we have certain farmers that can't produce that food then you're not going to have those those those products in the supply chain to be able to eat and to be able to use as what you are helping your body or children those flavors all of those things so I think if we can use all of it it just

gives more access to people and it gives more options to people and it keeps things close to home

“which I think is super important and why are they at risk of potentially not being able to produce”

anywhere you mentioned earlier is like maybe the generations following these farmers aren't going into farming is often or supply chain issues or waste like what would be the reasons they could stop producing if they can't afford it I mean if they can't afford to pick the products like so that's another really big reason why it's not picked it's like if it costs more for them to pick it packet and ship it then it would to leave it on the ground that's what they're going to do

and they don't want to they've already put in the water they've already put in the labor they've already put in all of those things but ultimately if it doesn't make sense financially they are businesses after all would you buy every single thing on the shelf is there anything that you're

never touching with a ten-foot pull a fresh produce yes I'm buying it all you're buying it all

yeah I'm just wanting to know if you're like oh this one is like really nasty there's no there's nothing I mean there's I love fresh fruits and vegetables I think that they are delicious I'm trying to think if there's one that I would stay away from because of my own preferences I love trying different things new things the introductions of things yeah I love all of the different fruits and vegetables do you know why they have those little numbers on the stickers on the

produce yeah so the PLU's yeah so that helps to track and trace where it's from so you can find out like where it was shipped from so the biggest thing for fresh produce industry is to be able to find where like the place before it came so that you're able to figure out exactly what products and where what farm it came from if there's ever an issue that they need to be able to pull something from the shelf you are a mom of three boys yeah how are you balancing everything you're doing

you have all these amazing headlines with Ivanka you guys are everywhere how are you balancing

“that with three boys the amazing team at home and the organization I think is super important”

for me and my family on Sunday nights we have a meeting we use an old-time work document with chat with a different chart with every person's name what we're going to eat for the week any tasks that have to be done even for the pets and we organize and we divide and conquer my husband's an orthopedic surgeon so he's busy too and he's out there fixing knees and hips but I think ultimately I love when my kids are asked what is it that your mom does and she says

like she fights to help farmers and bring food to your table and they're with me they're with me when we do these events and hand out boxes to fresh fruits and vegetables to people they're they're packing them they're they're going to the farms and seeing where it's all built so it's uh it's being present at the moment where you are it's about you can't be in two places at one so I don't pretend to be and far one and putting my head 100% into what I'm doing in

trusting that what I've built at home with preparation and a good team can help there how do you think about leadership bringing people around me that I think could be the next step in the leadership process I have an incredible team right now of all women and it's been amazing actually I have a few men but not on the day-to-day stuff that I'm working on and it's just incredible to bring passionate people that are skilled in their area and letting them in trusting them to be able to

accomplish what they can accomplish. If you could tell our audience one thing and you could have them take away one thing from this episode about produce what would it be? Eat produce love produce asked for produce and stop only eating with your eyes think about when you see something that might be a little bigger small think about where it came from and the route it took to get there and don't be so superficial when it comes to produce totally. You know,

don't be so vapid about it. I mean think about it like you know a dove commercial you know it's like

that we get more of that harvest that full harvest approach that whole harvest so that we can help the farmers and we can enjoy nutrient dense delicious food. What is the response from the

farmers now with you now that you guys have gotten this project underway? It's amazing like the

phone calls and the meetings that we can have where people believe in it where we get to hear their stories where they they bring in their trade associations and all the different people from big to small size farmers and they're like you really think you can do this. I mean we had the CEO of Chibani in the fields with us that's one of our partners in our projects and he I mean he was stepping over the rows his hands were in the strawberries he was holding his like this is going to be

“discarded this is going to be discarded how is that possible this is beautiful so I think seeing it”

firsthand and having and you know he's calling for others to join us in this in this change of trying to ask for all of the produce asking for excess and bringing back American buying so when I

get to see people like that that I find incredible leaders incredible CEOs that have visions it

it's just it's exciting that I think we're on the right track and it's something that I think the consumers want to learn more about it it's in that bucket of sustainability it's in that bucket of healthy eating it's a win all across the board. So if you guys are able to kind of get rid of the waste what are you then going to do with that excess or is it for charities is it to feed people is it to put in shell like what how does it go yeah where's it go so for example the bottom of the fruit what you

have on the Chibani yogurt like that's a project that we're working on we work we create these food boxes which ultimately are either going for impact work into communities that need it or in food as medicine boxes so there's a movement to be able to use food as a way to treat any like diabetes hypertension, high-risk pregnancies we create these boxes that can include the fresh the excess produce they have in them we partner with thrive very on a helpington's company so that we have

that data the data the science behind it to say what kind of recipes what kind of product should be in it for each of these different ailments and then we have the products delivered directly to patient stores and then the doctors look back at it and see what are the the numbers and

“the things that are changing from having access to fresh fruits and vegetables so I think there's a”

big movement out there to eat healthier and it's how do we get the products you know to food insecure areas that don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables I think like the average American if I was you know listening or watching this show we see headlines all the time about you know people struggling to put food on the table if the economy's down or whatever in other places in the in the world people not having access certain food and then now you're

hearing there's a ton of food here that is just sitting and being wasted while at the same time and again like I'm an entrepreneur so I start to think well there's all these programs that are setting people up to go and buy maybe things that are not nutritious and not healthy but we have all this great nutrition that comes from the earth sitting over here so like why is that not? So there are some government programs like section 32 which will buy if there's a huge amount

of extras but again the specs that are there are usually and I could be wrong on this US number one grade so again it's like how do we change the grading system to allow for more

“of this product to get into schools to get into and I think that ultimately that's something”

that hopefully will happen over time but nothing that we're working on directly with the government. Yeah I mean like we'll go sometimes Lauren and I will go to our kids school for lunch and we pack her lunch and mostly because that's some of the foods that they're serving in these schools like it's not the most nutritious meals and I start to hear this and like why is some of this food and vegetables and produce not in the food you know what I mean exactly that it's it's just

I think it's kind of like it's probably much more difficult than I'm describing it and that's the world that's your in but from from what I hear it's like common sense like well we have this food and supply chain like why is that not here yeah it's a grading test to change the specs have to change and the allowance and tolerance has to change and that I mean it's innovation like we're

working with an incredible lettuce grower right now that makes those bad pack lettuce is that you

buy and we're thinking about new ways to use broccoli leaves like you take the broccoli off the stock but then you leave all the leaves in the field how can we use that as like you know with the right dressings it would be like a kale a little bitter but really nutrient dense how do we continue to expand and what push the boundaries of what's popular within the diets of the American people. In researching for this podcast we text Ivanka and she wrote back a very very thoughtful

response and so I was gonna hit some of the points and see how you felt about what she said. Something that she brought up was and I want to know how come no one has found a solution for this. Why is this the first moment that this is happening? I think that there was so much momentum on just getting the right product to the shelf and getting people to purchase that there was no one that

Ivanka it knows so many people and I have a long history in the produce industry to be able to talk

“about this and bring this together. Feeding America for example does do a little bit of this which”

is the largest you know food banking network so they do something where they buy from growers that have access but even with what they're doing there's so much more out there and so much opportunity to be able to do more. Give us a detailed impact of what this has done to the livelihood of the farmers you mentioned earlier there was a lot of emotion in the fields give us some examples of that. Yeah so again like I we met with in the fields of Ivanka myself and Hamdi met with the

strawberry growers that had three generations with them standing in the fields and just talked about like we kept asking why why do you leave this here help us understand and all came down to they are not paid enough money to make sure that it comes out that they need to make 10 cents more five cents more whatever it is to make sure that it can come out of the fields and when we talked about what we're thinking about we talked about long-term contracts we talked about the idea that we would be

able to put a three-year contract in place that we would guarantee the purchasing of this product and hopefully their whole harvest their number one product too they were just like tears like tears

in their eyes they talked about how amazing it was and how you know they've never had anybody

that was the other big thing nobody asked them nobody asked them nobody asked them why and this goes back to the respect and like the goodness that we want from our farmers they don't ask them for their stories and how they get there so there's so much like you know pain sweat tears and

“unbelievable labor from our American farmers and I think they feel respected having”

her out in the fields having Hamdi out in the fields and asking why goes along with that story telling of this beautiful product that should get it make its way out of those farm gates tell us about the world wildlife fund yeah so as I mentioned the world wildlife and we're working with one of their tools to be able to measure the product that's left in the field how much extra product is there of you able to actually measure exact exact and then figure out what we can do to target with it

we worked on a pilot program with them already where we took strawberries right now in the US market there's only a number one strawberry so there's no number two fresh strawberry that people sell so we worked with different organizations like Stanford's you know Stanford's cafe Google's cafe different places in California where the chefs were able to taste and try these products that wouldn't have made it to the number one market but could make it to the number

two and they were trying to figure out interesting ways to use it for fruit salad smooth these desserts cut it chop it do different things with it and keep it fresh we can pair farmers the most when we keep the products fresh so we were trying to figure that out so through that partnership and through working with different distributors and different food service companies we were able to test this and the chefs loved it so now it's a matter how do you make it mainstream and how

do you push it so that you can use more of the non perfect stuff within cafeterias and different restaurants throughout the country what is one of the main reasons that these farmers are starting to not be able to afford to either ship or pick or produce these products or these it's all the different input costs of you know water you can imagine labor it's the competition again from other countries where they either have subsidies from their government to be able to move the

product it's less money for labor in those countries and it's less for all different inputs so it's the competition internationally it's the sheer amount of volume that's being grown I mean you

“would think right now and I believe that with GOP ones and the in the entire movement people want”

healthier choices and I think we'll start seeing as a data comes out people are going to start eating more fresh fruits and vegetables along with protein fiber all those things so we just as that movement continues to happen this I think that the fruits and vegetables are going to see their day let's quickly talk about experience and specifically experience subscription canceling service I love experience I've used it for over a decade now mostly for credit monitoring making sure that

I can get my credit in the right place they have an incredible tool that basically provides you with

all the information you need on how to improve your credit and make sure that you're maximizing the most of your credit many people are familiar with experience because of their credit monitoring service but did you know they also have a subscription cancellation service that is incredible I talk a lot on this podcast about how important it is to save that extra dollar reinvest make sure you're putting more money in your pocket make sure that you're not working and wasting

and spending all that money on things you don't need and what I love about experience platform is they can help put more money back in your pockets so that you can spend on things that you actually care about and most importantly make sure that your money is going to places you actually want it to go to. Experience can take the pain out of canceling subscriptions by handling it for you just keep the ones you want and put money back in your pocket this is a no brainer imagine you're

sitting there at the end of every month like many of us do going through your budget wondering

save for your future and you realize that you have a bunch of unwanted subscription service fees that are going out the door wasting your money taking money directly out of your pocket for things that you're not even using anymore with experience cancellation service you no longer have to worry about that because it takes care of all of it puts in one place it makes it easy to cancel they have over 200 subscriptions that are canceled on the platform and you can also save money by letting

explain to go shape your best rate though keep an eye out for new deals and savings opportunities and when to go shape directly with your provider so maybe even paying for subscription and they've offered a new rate since you've signed up and maybe a better deal well experience can make sure that you get that and take advantage of that deal so that even if you are using a service you're getting the best possible rate again there's nothing that drives me more crazy knowing that I'm

wasting money that my loved ones are wasting money it's such a let down when you see your hard earned dollars go to places that aren't being used that can't be beneficial to you and again in a time when it's hard to save in every dollar counts and the best part is you keep 100% of your savings this is one of my favorite features of experience cancellation service they put 100% of the savings back in your pocket you could save $631 on average per year imagine right now if you just put

an extra $631 back in your pocket what you could do with it how you could have fun with it who you

“could help with it that's how I like to think about this it's not only potentially helpful for you”

but for your loved ones and people that you care about don't just take it from me over 25 million dollars has been saved using both bill negotiation and subscription cancellation from experience so clearly there's a ton of people saving money and putting it right back into their own pockets because again you keep a hundred percent of your savings so again get started in the experience app now and save that money put it right back in your pocket quick break to talk about free nicotine some of you saw

my social posts the other day on Instagram where I was talking about free nicotine and to say I

got a lot of questions about it is an understatement so here's the thing a lot of people have

concerns questions qualms around nicotine and nicotine use I've always personally been a fan of nicotine and yes I know it can be addictive it's a chemical there's you definitely have to be careful with it but it also has so many potential benefits that aren't talked about nearly enough which I think could potentially outweigh some of the concerns that people have around obviously nicotine being addictive there's other substances that we use and we take for performance that

are not looked at in the same lens and people have been using nicotine for generations I personally love it and I love that with free nicotine you don't have to smoke it what I also love about free nicotine it's really for somebody that's ready to lock in when you really need to focus when you

“get stuff done that's how I use it and what I love about their brand is that you can control the”

dosage so if you're new to nicotine and you're thinking about experimenting with it you obviously don't want to go and take super high doses if you're not used to it they have these three milligram pouches six milligram nine milligram twelve and fifteen so you can kind of like ease and do it and figure out which right for you I take very little and then I take it only in moments when I really want to lock in and focus some people may not be aware of the potential benefits

when it comes to nicotine first you can potentially increase your alertness because nicotine

stimulates a seed of coaline and dopamine signaling which can increase wakefulness and mental alertness that's how I like to use it it can also like I said earlier improve attention and focus because nicotine activates a seed of coaline receptors in the body so again when I need to do a podcast when I have a lot of work going on when I need to really lock in and focus this is the tool that I use in order to do so it's also been said that nicotine potentially helps working

memory and short-term memory recall as well as also potentially being a neuroprotective agent it can potentially help guard against things like Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease again this does not mean nicotine prevents these diseases but there is a potential that you can protect against these diseases there's also appetite suppression mood regulation enhance reaction time so many different things and like I said I like nicotine as a tool to perform to be on

my best to make sure that when I need to focus I'm focused when I need to be paying attention I'm paying attention and when I need that extra edge to perform I get it I like the powertures I like free nicotine because it's predictable it's easy and like I said I can control the dosage the flavors that I've really been leaning into lately are the watermelon flavor and the mint flavor I think those are the best but they also have a wide assortment of different ones I think the watermelon's a new

flavor so if you've been seeing me post about free nicotine here's why again I'm always looking for

the edge and I'm always looking to perform and free nicotine helps me do that and again I know

“that you have to be careful with nicotine it's addictive it's a chemical but it also could be potentially”

a great tool for those that use it responsibly so if you've been thinking about experimenting with nicotine check free nicotine out try free nicotine pouches today at free pouch.com and use code skinny for 25% off for new customers only that's frp pouch.com and then use code skinny for 25% for new customers introducing the skinny confidential ice roller we imagined think sleeker lines a softer pink a custom buttery dust bag and a silver roller not pink anymore that is ice

codes. I wanted to do a judge on the iconic ice roller I wanted to update it this ice roller for me

in a way that feels intentional and I wanted the ice roller to feel evolved it's changed you've

changed so yes the new gorgeous stunning beautiful ice roller is still gonna do the same things it reduces puffiness and redness in your face I used it this morning before I put on my makeup it definitely helps with the under eye bags of course it helps boost circulation and radiance I just feel like it really helps stimulate blood flow and gives me that tighter more radiance skin and then it also is known to give you a smoother tighter looking skin so what I like to do is I like to combine

facial massage with cold therapy and this really helps give you a really nice foundation before you

“even apply your skin care this ice roller for me is a full circle moment I think that a lot of”

you bought the ice roller you know five six years ago when we launched it and now I am launching something that feels more an alignment with where you're at it's so beautiful you guys like it's just softer and more effortless in every way and I really put my own touches on every single little step from the packaging to the colors to how it feels to even the roller it's all been elevated just for you so the ritual the Lauren ritual is you do cold therapy to help fight inflammation you roll it you

glided across your face I put it on my jawline my neck I roll it down your skin is just going to appear smoother and tighter before you go in for the kill with the skin care and the makeup don't skip the cold therapy the new ice roller is an upgrade designed to meet the standards of today and I hope you guys love it as much as I do this is the beauty tool that started at all redesigned to evolve

“with you I'm showing it on YouTube too if you're on YouTube if you're seeing me visually get it”

why it's hot at shop skinny confidential dot com that's shop skinny confidential dot com we're a former California residents we live out here grew up in California but when I hear 80% of the lettuce is grown in California and again being an employer understanding the cost to do business over there now I worry it's like a 80% of the lettuce is concentrated there and it becomes too expensive for these farmers to produce there what happens then if it just becomes unsustainable to run that

business but if I was running that lettuce business and all of a sudden I couldn't make money running at an 80% of the world supplies there like is that of vulnerability that people need to be aware of or think about yeah I mean it's it's you know if they when they grow the lettuce you know it's like around 60% so 60% on the lettuce and it grows in Selena's California and then it

“moves to the desert and then it moves to Arizona and as things happen and it gets pulled that”

it just won't be on the shelf I mean they've tried hydroponics and building inside and then having it and they're trying to find new microclimates to grow they'll do a lot in Mexico as well but it's a vulnerability and it's something that like we continue to lobby as an industry to make sure that these input costs stay at a place where we can afford to grow in the U.S., but ultimately it's it's that's it's called the sale of all of the world. I approach it from I guess more

looking analytical P and L perspective and I just hear that amount of concentration from that particular product and then the difficulty of being able to sustain a business to produce that

product and I just think you know it sounds nice like raise minimum wage and never pay

everybody more but like if if if all of a sudden a massive supply chain gets ripped off when it's in businesses start to go under because they don't have it it's all connected. Yeah I'm about an expert on all of the different things but I mean for sure like if people are interested the international fresh produce this issue association has like all of that information about what the causes are and the different things that the industry is

looking to. Then what again? What do I know? I'm just a podcaster. I know that you and Ivanka and your partnership have also spent a lot of time volunteering in Miami after the fires in

Maui and California. What did that look like for you? Yeah she's been incredible. I mean it's

unbelievable that she's out there. She's handling the boxes. We pack boxes. We've done all different things but part of what our business is is emergency relief and so we have the ability to respond within two days to be able to get boxes and we usually put in 10 to 12 pounds of fresh produce, beans, rice, milk, shelf stable milk and so it's amazing and we buy from where it is so like with the stuff in Hawaii we would build the boxes with fresh produce from Hawaii and help the

local farmers. We did it. We sent stuff actually during Jamaica. We sent stuff with world vision. So we partner with different 501C3s to get that product quickly to where it needs to be and

be culturally relevant to what we're sending. Make sure that the product is something that

the neighbors there will want and then we also are very careful to make sure like if there's no electricity like what happens in Texas like when things shut down with the ice and you know stuff like that we'll make sure that it's like stuff that can be eaten without cooking without a big kitchen to make it happen. So we try really hard to be mindful with what we're doing when we do any of this volunteering and having her out there is just like a shock to some people that

drive with their car and then they open their backs and a vanka's there asking them how they are and how things are doing and you know it comes with wraparound services of other diapers that

“might be available and things of that nature. I think that's amazing. My last question before you go”

is what drives you absolutely nuts that you see on Instagram when it comes to produce. There's gotta be things that you see that you're like no. It's that idea of like that it's just so easy to get something from the farm. The idyllic farm to your table and that it doesn't take you know all these people harvesting it. The trucks that drive it there. The sales arm that has to make it happen. The distribution centers. All of those things are against a clock. This isn't toilet paper.

You know from the minute it's cut to the minute it gets to your plate there's you know maybe seven days, ten days to get it there and so it takes a lot to get there and there should be a appreciation I think of how we get our food on our plate. So you just think if we you couldn't fuse more appreciation from everyone when it comes to how long it actually takes for us to actually be eating it. It's not like snap your fingers. I also think that there's listen like there's like the

podcast circuits and the people and we've you know we've had some of these people come on the show and it's fine to talk but I think there's this ideal like version where like everything is in these

“local small farmers markets and grow these small farms and like that's how you should eat and”

you shouldn't ever shop anywhere else and you got to watch out for this and that and I think sometimes like yeah in a perfect world if that actually exists in that way great but how does the entire population get access to this kind of food and is that realistic for everyone I don't know? You're so right and I think that's probably something that bothers me more. I think local is

amazing when available but putting up like a road that like you'll only eat local. I mean I live in

Chicago. You're not getting local all year. You might be able to get some things that are growing in greenhouses or you might be able to buy something in hydropanics but outside of that like we need the supply chain and if we break this bigger system that is coming from all these different places it you won't be able to have the variety and the things that you want to be able to have

“the nutrient dense that you need for your bodies. Yeah and I think sometimes it's not fair to the”

farmers as a lot of these farmers are trying to mass produce in order to supply this supply chain that is required and there's a little bit of like a hello they're doing it like they shouldn't be doing it that way but if again if all of these supply chains start to crumble and go away are these farmers stop producing the world is going to be met with a much bigger problem. Totally and I think it's about bringing silos together. I think we can have local when available.

I think we could support local farmers but let's think about how do we bring these different things together so we have a holistic healthy supply chain. How can everyone support you and plant at harvest? Plant at harvest on Instagram and if you have any ideas that you have fruits and vegetables in your products you can reach out to us to be able to look at how can you source how can we look at your supply chain to get more access into that and if you do anything

for like impact work or any way of getting boxes out there we would love to talk to you about

getting fresh fruits and vegetables into what you do to give to communities. Amazing. Melissa thank you

So much for coming on the show. Thank you guys