S9 Ep8: Rethinking the Grain: Regenerative Approach to Sustainable Rice with Caryl Levine and Ken Lee
“If your soil is nutritious, all those micronutrients are now being born into your food.”—Caryl Levine
“There's no standing still. You're moving forward or you're moving backwards. To regenerate is to actually restore or bring to health, or bring to life, the living systems that sustain us.” —Ken Lee
Rice is the staple food for over half the world's population, providing essential nutrients and sustaining livelihoods. Yet, the true potential of this ancient grain remains largely untapped. From heirloom varieties to regenerative farming practices, the story of rice is one of resilience, innovation, and global impact.
As the co-founders of Lotus Foods, Caryl Levine and Ken Lee have dedicated over three decades to promoting rice biodiversity, empowering smallholder farmers, and championing sustainable agriculture. Their unwavering commitment to transforming the rice industry has positioned them as trailblazers in the realm of conscious consumerism and regenerative food systems.
Tune in to this captivating conversation as Caryl and Ken share their journey, from uncovering hidden rice treasures to spearheading the regenerative organic certification movement. Discover how Lotus Foods is addressing misconceptions, educating stakeholders, and navigating challenges to drive innovation and create a more nourishing and equitable future for rice.
Connect with Ken and Caryl:
Ken Lee and Caryl Levine are the co-founders of Lotus Foods, an organic heirloom rice company they started in 1995. With a shared passion for promoting rice biodiversity and supporting smallholder farmers, Caryl and Ken have dedicated over 30 years to building a purpose-driven business that creates positive social and environmental impact.
As pioneers in the organic and regenerative food movement, Caryl and Ken have led Lotus Foods to become the first rice company to achieve Regenerative Organic Certification. They have championed innovative farming practices like the System of Rice Intensification, which reduces water usage and labor-intensive work, particularly for women farmers.
Through their commitment to education and advocacy, Caryl and Ken have worked tirelessly to address misconceptions about rice cultivation and elevate the voices of smallholder farmers in the global food system. Their vision for a more sustainable and equitable food future continues to inspire and guide the evolution of Lotus Foods.
Connect with Lotus Foods:
Episode Highlights:
03:59 The Road to Entrepreneurship
09:32 Smallholder Farmers
20:53 Education and Consumer Perception
29:35 The Importance of Maintaining Company Culture
33:32 Staying True to Company Values
Tweets:
Unearth rice’s hidden superpower. Tune in as @jreichman and Lotus Foods Co-Founders Caryl Levine and Ken Lee dish the dirt on busting rice myths, navigating entrepreneurial challenges, and cooking up a greener future one grain at a time. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season9 #RiceRevolution #SustainableAgriculture #RiceBiodiversity #FemaleEmpowerment #RegenerativeOrganic #SmallholderFarmers #RiceInnovation #FoodSystems #EthicalEntrepreneurship #ConsciousConsumption
Inspirational Quotes:
04:09 “We come to the things that we ultimately do. It's based on passion. It's based on experiences. It's based on a void that we see.” —Justine Reichman
05:47 “When you want to do something different, there'll be a thousand people to tell you you can't do that.” —Ken Lee
07:59 “Just by changing how rice is grown, we could actually have social, environmental, and economic impacts.” —Caryl Levine
09:35 “There's more to this ecosystem— it really is a system.” —Ken Lee
10:05 “We need to improve these systems instead of going by the same old way that we've been doing things.” —Ken Lee
12:36 “Seventy percent of all food is produced by smallholders. And so it's essential that we can create the type of circumstances where smallholders can thrive.” —Ken Lee
14:04 “Our number one job and challenge is to educate the consumer, educate the retailer, the distributor, the broker, our team, everybody, and ourselves.” —Caryl Levine
14:52 “Rice learned to survive in water. It doesn't thrive in water.” —Caryl Levine
19:06 “There's no standing still. You're moving forward or you're moving backwards. To regenerate is to actually restore or bring to health, or bring to life, the living systems that sustain us.” —Ken Lee
20:23 “If your soil is nutritious, all those micronutrients are now being born into your food.”—Caryl Levine
21:54 “Somehow people expect that their food should be pristine, but we haven't been pristine to the planet.” —Ken Lee
22:24 “The idea of having to do everything could be overwhelming.” —Justine Reichman
27:21 “With the wrong investors, you can potentially lose your company.” —Caryl Levine
29:54 “If you don't have a good value proposition in terms of why an investor would be interested, they're probably not going to be interested.” —Ken Lee
30:39 “You have to find investors who are willing to give you the time and the resources to do what you've set out to do because it takes time.” —Caryl Levine
35:04 “If you ask the right questions, hopefully you can find the right answers.” —Ken Lee
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good morning, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Caryl and Ken. They are the Co-Founders of Lotus Foods, and they're joining us today from the Adirondack. I'm excited to have you guys here.
Welcome Caryl, welcome Ken.
Caryl Levine: Thanks, Justine. We're excited to be with you today too.
Ken Lee: Thanks for having us.
Justine Reichman: It's my pleasure. So for those not familiar with Lotus Foods, because as the Co-Founders of Lotus Foods, excited to hear your story and a little bit about that. But first, if you would just tell us, what is Lotus Foods?
Caryl Levine: Lotus Foods is an organic heirloom rice company that was started in 1995 to actually promote rice biodiversity, working with smallholder farmers from around the world who were actually growing rice more sustainably, and giving them access to a global marketplace at a fair trade price.
Justine Reichman: What inspired you guys to start this business to be able to make that available and accessible?
Ken Lee: Well, many years ago, back in 1993, we took a market research trip to China looking for a business idea. And of course, while you travel, you need to eat. And we just discovered that there was a treasure trove of heirloom varieties of rice that pretty much did not exist in the West because of the forces of agribusiness that limited what people could buy in stores. And so that was the one out of, say 90 ideas that we took back with us after two months of traveling and having just relocated to the Bay Area. Arguably one of the nation's food types of meccas, we thought this black rice that we discovered in China would really be successful, and so we started introducing it to high end chefs in the Bay Area. And that gave us the indication that perhaps this is a good idea.
Justine Reichman: It's a great place to start. But I'm curious, as you're building this business, and as you come up with all these 90 ideas, and really, all you need is one, right? Is this something that you guys had done before? Were you a serial entrepreneur? Or is this your first time at the wheel as an entrepreneur?
Caryl Levine: This was the first time. We were actually a young couple, just together for three years, and we started creating these house parties together. We made a jazz club in Hartford, Connecticut, and we just had a lot of fun and did really work well together. So we just basically thought, let's go into business together. That's crazy, but that's what we did. And then we needed to find something purposeful to do. And so when we discovered the rice and also the lack of biodiversity, as Ken said, accessibility, the plight of the small farmer and all these incredible heirloom varieties that could potentially go extinct, we just kind of found our niche. And so we became the pioneers in pigmented rice. We were the first ones to introduce to the US the black rice that we trademarked Forbidden Rice. And then there was a really beautiful heirloom variety of red rice from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan that was still to this day, my very favorite rice in the world.
Justine Reichman: Is that your favorite rice too?
Ken Lee: I'll just have to add, I did have experience eating rice every day growing up in a Chinese American family, but that certainly is not the credentials for starting a business.
Justine Reichman: No, but it does talk to our experiences in life and how we come to the things that we ultimately do. It's based on passion. It's based on experiences. It's based on a void that we see.
Ken Lee: Yeah, I agree. I'll have to say also, my dad after putting five kids through college and I said, hey, Carol and I are starting a business, and it's rice. And all he could think of was the 28 years of restaurant business he was in where some guy would come lugging 100 pound bags of rice into the restaurant and dump it on a big pile of other 100 pound bags of rice. And I think he didn't understand then. But I think before he passed, he understood that this was a totally different thing. So that was a good thing.
Justine Reichman: It's funny that you say that, because I equally had the same challenge with my dad. When I started a long time ago, I owned a gaming company, and my dad's like, what is this? It's like a dollhouse. He did not understand at all what I did. And then a few years later, he figures, oh, virtual world. He's starting to hear about it. He knows about it now. He gets it. Well, I don't do that anymore. But my point is, it's oftentimes that parents don't see it initially. But when it comes to fruition and you have something to show them, all of a sudden, it comes to light with the excitement, the passion, the joy and the pride for what you've created.
Ken Lee: I'll say that I remember talking to someone about this thinking that we could start a rice business and work with high end chefs. And this person who I took to pick their brain said, Ken, that's a crazy idea. You're like nobody, and you're gonna go see high end chefs who are like the top of the pile. But that just goes to show you that when you want to do something different, there'll be thousands of people to tell you that you can't do that.
Caryl Levine: Yeah. First of all, the forbidden rice became forbidden to us for two years. We couldn't find how to work in China to export it. But once we did get it here, chefs like Roland Paso, Thomas Keller and Alice Waters, they all wanted to meet with us and to taste it, because who wouldn't want to add another colorful and yet delicious and nutritious rice to their palate and to the center of the plate, which is also one of the things that we really felt that we have accomplished. We put rice at the center of the plate instead of just a carbohydrate or starch, two ounces on the side of a plate.
Justine Reichman: Yeah. I'm curious, because when you were talking about this, you were talking about all the challenges that were around the farmers, etcetera, and the biodiversity. So why is that so meaningful to you? And why was that something you chose to build on and work to create a solution around?
“Just by changing how rice is grown, we could actually have social, environmental, and economic impacts.” —Caryl Levine
Caryl Levine: Well, for me, livelihood is really, really important. What's happening also in the farming community in the last 25 years is something that we call the feminization of agriculture. And so many of the men have to leave the farm and go to the city to make income, to make a livelihood for the families. And so it basically leaves the women to not only do the child rearing, the households, the kitchen gardens and all that, but actually the farming. So a lot of the backbreaking work of rice farming actually went to the women. And so in 2007, Olivia Vent from Cornell University introduced us to something called the system of rice intensification that we market as more crop per drop, but it was a new methodology. An agroecological methodology for changing how rice is grown, that actually saved women's labor, saved seeds and saved 50% water. So we learned very quickly that just by changing how rice has grown, we could actually have social, environmental and economic impacts, which is really what got us excited, and changed the trajectory of Lotus Foods as well.
Justine Reichman: That would get me excited too. I'd be curious to even go a step further and say, okay, we saw the impact back then, and we continue to see the impact. What impact do you hope to see going forward?
Ken Lee: Well, it's interesting. I'll just say that when we first started, we were on that kind of a biodiversity journey, exploring, discovering new, they were actually ancient varieties, but they were new for who would be our customers. And so from there, the arc of our evolution was that we would work with farmers to move them from conventional practices to organic. And then when Caryl mentioned Olivia Vent introducing this new way of growing rice, which was kind of a less is more paradigm, we realized that it was that kind of a light bulb moment where we said, oh, it's not good enough just to be organic where you don't use a lot of chemicals in the field, synthetic fertilizers and that type of thing. But there's issues about water because rice uses a tremendous amount of water in flooded fields, and when you can grow rice without flooding the fields in an aerobic environment, you mitigate methane emissions. And of course, methane is a real density greenhouse gas. It's 25 times more deleterious than CO2, and it also has a short half life. And when it dies off, it turns into CO2, which is around for another 100 years. So we've realized, well, there's more to this ecosystem, that it really is a system. And when we have bad practices, it's not only bad for farmers because they can't grow as much in flooded fields, because there aren't any crops that are designed to be grown in flooded fields. It's just they learn to survive. And then of course, if there's methane emissions and there's more backbreaking work, it came to us as something that was like a moral imperative that we need to improve these systems, instead of just going by the same old way that we've been doing things which is getting--
Caryl Levine: From that evolution came the next evolution, which was regenerative organic certification. So again, as Ken said, we went from conventional rice farming to organic rice farming. Then when we learned from Dr. Bronner's and Rodale about regenerative organic certification going beyond organic, we also then realized that we have to evolve as well. So we actually became the first rice in the world to be ROC certified, and this is with our organic basmati rice out of India. And also, we were fortunate to get the highest standard of gold status as well.
So when we first asked to become a pilot project with the ROC standard, we were kind of on the fence because we said, wow, do we need another bug on our label, because it's already with Non GMO Project verification, Whole Grain Council and gluten free. It gets very confusing for Organic Fair Trade. We also knew that out of the 17 pilot projects, there were only about four or five of us who were working outside of the US. So we knew we needed to be the voice of the smallholder farmer living in a developing country. Because what might be a $100 soil test to an American farmer is still expensive. But for a small farmer in India, it could potentially be prohibitive, and that they couldn't afford that three or four times a year. So we wanted to be the voice of the smallholder farmer, plus we knew that system of rice intensification. This agro ecological methodology that we were committed to was inherently regenerative, but this was a way to prove, and to satisfy that third party standard. So we decided to do it, and we're now totally committed to ROC as well, and eventually changing our supply chain over to ROC certification as well.
“Seventy percent of all food is produced by smallholders. And so it's essential that we can create the type of circumstances where smallholders can thrive.” —Ken Lee
Ken Lee: Caryl mentioned smallholder farmers. And so one might think that most food is produced by big ag, but it's not. Probably depends on whose numbers you're looking at. About 70% of all food is produced by smallholders, and so it's essential that we can create the type of circumstances where small holders can thrive. Instead of like Caryl mentioned, the men have left the farms to go to cities to find other forms of employment because farming is just not happening. It's not sustainable for so many people. And in terms of rice, more people derive their livelihood from rice than anything else that human beings do on planet Earth. And so it's a place that, although we named it Lotus Foods, we are committed to rice and the evolution of rice that helps people and the planet because it's so impactful. More than half the world derived most of their caloric intake from rice. And yet in flooded fields, it's the third largest emitter of methane right behind fossil fuel extraction is number one, and cows is number two, and flooded rice fields is number three. So it's a great way to feel with our company and what we've been able to start to feel like we can really do something of value in the world. So it's our goal to catalyze a change in how rice has grown. Not that we'll deliver the whole message, but getting it started is kind of creating that tipping point that will be really important.
Justine Reichman: What does education play in this for you?
Caryl Levine: Huge amount. That's actually our number one job and challenge is to educate the consumer, educate the retailer, the distributor, the broker, our team, everybody, and ourselves. It's been a constant journey of education for ourselves as well. We knew none of this going into this 30 plus years ago.
Justine Reichman: When you are educating people and you are bringing this up, what are some of the greatest misnomers that people think or challenges that you come across that you really have to educate people on and reinform them?
Ken Lee: I think it's interesting. When I talk about it, you don't have to flood a rice field. Everyone's like, that's how rice is grown, isn't it? Everyone's seen all those beautiful pictures of rice paddies.
Caryl Levine: I think most people don't understand, as Ken said, that rice learned to survive in water. It doesn't thrive in water. So like this year, everybody knows that. When you flood your roots of a vegetable, like in the vegetable garden this summer in the Adirondack, we've had a very, very rainy summer. And so there were times where some of my stream beans and onions were underwater and they rotted, and they can't survive in water. But rice learned how to survive in water. It doesn't thrive in water. That's one major hurdle. I think people don't understand about methane emissions. They don't really understand how rice impacts women. You see these photos of women who are bent over in rice fields and they can't actually straighten up at the pain points in growing rice. If you have to sit in a flooded field sorting rice seedlings out for eight hours a day, you've got a malaria disease vector. You've got infections from water. It's not pleasant. And so by creating a tool that our farmers use to actually mitigate the weeds, it also creates aeration, but they're standing up. So we have this iconic photo of a woman pushing this rotary leader through the fields while they're standing up. And it's such a fun tool that the men want to use it as well, which is great. It just also shows that we've learned that the women who are doing all this farming become true leaders in their community, and true people who basically pass it on to their neighbor and basically say, hey, I can help you to have a better life as well just by changing how you grow this rice. So it's a very grassroots movement as well, from one rice farmer to the other.
Justine Reichman: Sounds like it's real community driven.
Ken Lee: Certainly it's Farmer to Farmer type of learning that happens. But I just wanted to point out also, there's a big misunderstanding in terms of arsenic in rice. It's a concern because I think it was a Consumer Reports Article that tested a bunch of baby food and found high levels of arsenic, and I traced it to rice syrup. And so there's a misconception, I think, that rice has a problem with arsenic. And actually, rice doesn't have a problem so much as we as human beings have polluted the earth. So whether it's over industrialization, which has polluted that soil, or whether it's mining activity or some way that the soil gets infected with arsenic. And then when you flood a field, that acts as a way to transmit the arsenic from the ground into the rice plant. And so if you've got polluted soil to start with, and I bet if you test a whole bunch of other foods, you'll find other heavy metals in there that are part of what's on the earth. It's in the air, it's in the water. But I think it's something of concern by people, but it's not necessarily that it's inherent to rice.
Justine Reichman: And so what is the role that you think regenerative, or you believe regenerative agriculture plays in sort of dealing with and addressing some of those issues?
Ken Lee: Well, I think Caryl touched on it when she talked about this SRI system of rice intensification, which we market as more crop per drop. This idea of whether we wanted to be ROC certified. But I think because there is certification, there's organic certification, there's fair trade certification involved with being a regenerative organic certified product, so with all that scrutiny, we felt like if we could be ROC certified, we could show that SRI, or more crop per drop is inherently regenerative because it's looking at the whole system. It's improving soil health, increasing yields, minimizing women's labor, and mitigating methane emissions. I think there's a lot of confusion like, what is regenerative? What is regenerative? Everybody's saying regenerative. So I think there's no standing still. You're moving forward, or you're moving backwards. And regenerate is to actually restore or bring to health, or bring to life the living systems that sustain us.
Caryl Levine: For me, the tenant of regenerative is really based on soil. But there's also two important benchmarks that really resonate with ROC. First of all, it has to be organic. Because if you're actually putting chemicals in your soil, then we don't think we're moving beyond where we need to be. So organic is really to us and in a very important benchmark premise. And then fair trade is also important too, and that's one of the things that we really like about ROC, and that are the two tenants that are must have before you can go further. And crop rotation is really important keeping your soil covered. Food is really important. It's really about improving the soil, because when you improve the nutrients in your soil, then you're going to get that uptake of those micronutrients into the food itself. So they're basically saying that your food, in organic and in regenerative, actually is more nutritious because you're getting, if your soil is nutritious, all those micronutrients are being now born into your food itself.
Justine Reichman: I couldn't agree more. There's oftentimes questions about organic and regenerative, and there's so many different, I think, lenses that people look through when they're doing that, whether it's around upcycling or a soil from the farmer's perspective, from the consumer's perspective, how people deal with things in the end. I appreciate you guys sharing that, because I think that the more we can hear from different people what that means, the more people can make it their own too using those tenants from within that and do what I always like, to make things accessible for people so that they don't have to do everything. But if something that you're saying resonates with them and they feel like it's easy for them to do, they can do it. If it seems so difficult and there's so many things that they have to do, oftentimes, it can be overwhelming. So for me, this is super important. I love to be able to share that through this platform.
Ken Lee: I think to simplify it, I remember we went to a conference and the phrase was, what we do to the land, we do to the people. And so this, I think, speaks to what Caryl was talking about in terms of soil, the importance of it. And look what happens when we pollute the soil. Whether it's arsenic or dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, just name these negative effects as a result of what we've done to our own land. Somehow, people expect that their food should be pristine, but we haven't been pristine to the planet. And so how do you separate the two?
“The idea of having to do everything could be overwhelming.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: I often say it's better for me, better for you, better for the planet whenever I'm thinking about these things. And if we all sort of think about it like that, it might change the way we do things, the way we think about things. How we leverage different things, and just maybe live our lives a little bit differently without having to do everything, because I do see that the idea of having to do everything could be really overwhelming.
Caryl Levine: No, I think as long as people really try to do as much as possible. If everybody did a little bit, we'd all be in a lot better shape.
Justine Reichman: I totally agree. So I want to go back a little bit to when you guys started this company to share a little bit about your journey, because we have a lot of different founders that often tune in and want to hear what that journey was like for you. So in the beginning, when we talked about you guys came together, you did your research, and you're building out this company. Were you guys self funded? Or were you hustling and doing two different jobs? Was this a side hustle? What was that journey like? How did it start out for you guys?
Ken Lee: Well, when we started, when we moved from Connecticut to California to start a Pacific Rim business, we figured it would be good to be in the Pacific Rim if we're going to have a Pacific Rim business. And so Caryl took a job at UC Berkeley, and did that job for seven years while we started Lotus Foods. And so we didn't have any money. Basically, it's a bootstrap company. And I wish I still had it, but I have about, I don't know, a big jar of chopped up credit cards. And I think I used to manage about 20 or 30 of those at once, and I'd get 5,000 from this card at 0% interest. And when the time ran out, I would roll it over to another card because no banks were gonna bank a small startup food company. It's too risky for them. We were really scrappy, and we still have retained some of that scrappiness even today. Although it's not really the same circumstances, that's how we got started. I used to deliver rice to retail stores and to chefs. And in the stores, I would go grab the price gun, and I would price all my stuff. I would merchandise it on the shelf, and then I put up a shelf talker, and then I go in my car and get the demo table, the tablecloth and the rice cookers, and then I do demos and talk about educating people. That's the way to put it in their mouths. And they would like, wow, that's not rice like. Then you start talking about the health benefits and where it comes from because nobody knew about these things like Bhutanese red rice, or black rice from China, forbidden rice. It was a lot of that going on, and it took us a long, long time that really kind of laid the foundation.
Caryl Levine: I think it was in 2007 that we did our first angel investor pitch.
Justine Reichman: Were you still working at that time at UC Berkeley?
Caryl Levine: I stopped in 2000 and joined Lotus Foods full time.
Justine Reichman: So what happened there that allowed you to make that leap?
Caryl Levine: We were making some money, and we could afford for me to just stop working. And that was great, because we were growing and we needed the full time body here instead of the halftime. And so that was great. And I remember in 2007, that's when we decided that you really need cash to really grow to market the business. I think we were not spending any money on marketing things like that, except for us doing demos. I remember when we were in an investor circle, that's when we heard about the 3P's that we're already doing, planet, profit, people. I always added the fourth, purpose. And we didn't know that there was something called3P's. We were just doing it. And then we got our first angel investor, I think soon after that. The only thing that I really would like to share with your audience is how important it is to really carefully choose your investment partners. It's like another marriage, and you really have to know who you're taking money from, and we were very fortunate in that respect for over 30 years.
Justine Reichman: Are there any questions that you might share with our listeners that they should consider asking when they're going to take investment?
Caryl Levine: Asking the questions to ensure whether your mission is aligned or not. People in due diligence, if all they're asking is the financial returns and what they're going to get out of it, and they're not really interested in what you're actually doing, then you know that it's just a transaction. It's not really being a part of the growth of the company. And so it's not an easy enterprise, especially when companies really need the money and you don't have a lot to choose from. But it could also be the end game for you. With the wrong investors, you can potentially lose your company.
Justine Reichman: And so you took investment in what year was that?
Caryl Levine: I think it was 2008 or 9, but we hadn't taken an investment in over 12 years.
Ken Lee: Well, I think it was actually like 07 before the 08 economic crash. Because this investor, actually, we'd been asking him for a while, and it wasn't until this whole introduction of SRI, the System of Rights Intensification, that was really interesting to this investor because it was a kind of a game changer for him. And so that's when he came in and provided us with the capital, and then 08 hit the subprime mortgage debacle where the whole international economic system nearly crashed. And so to the point about who you take money from, not just investment on the equity side, but also on the lending side. In terms of debt, we had debt from several holders that gave us money, and some of them were getting, because the financials weren't doing that well in 2008 because of the world crisis. And we were banking with a green bank in San Francisco. It was called a new resource bank at the time, and they were telling the other lenders like, hey, just cool it. Let these guys have a moment to let their plan go to work. They were going to sell off the assets of the company, and they were doing all that kind of analysis. And so that brought us the time to actually, because we had the investment money and we did what we did with it, what we said we would do in terms of rebranding the company, the packaging, the messaging and the promotions and stuff like that, and that the bank saying, hey everybody, let's just settle down. Give them time to work it out. And then we actually did ourselves out of that hole. And if that didn't happen, then we wouldn't have gotten ever to this point where we have all these added value products with a whole line of noodle products that are very successful for us now. But that would have never happened if they called the line and would have just sold off the business.
Justine Reichman: So what would you tell new entrepreneurs that are building a new CPG company or new food company about your experience, that they maybe can have some takeaways.
Ken Lee: I think because of what we were trying to do, I think it set us apart that's why that investor first came on board. So if you don't really have a good value proposition in terms of why an investor would be interested, they're probably not going to be interested. But I can only speak for ourselves through this journey which we never envisioned where we would be. Now, it certainly wasn't a straight line. It was this kind of meandering path, but I think it's because we were out there experiencing things, taking ideas in and making connections.
Caryl Levine: And building relationships. We have a supply chain partner in China who was with us from the very beginning, that's been over 25 years. And those kinds of relationships and trust building, you can't put a value to that. It's just so valuable. But I just think you have to find investors who are willing to give you the time and the resources to do what you've set out to do, because it takes time. People think trying to do this in five to seven years is not that tough, and it depends upon the economic environment. Look where we are today. We're just coming out of covid, and it's a tough environment out there right now.
Justine Reichman: A lot of people are having a lot of challenges. So let's talk about covid for a minute. How did that impact your journey? What was going on with Lotus Foods and the packaged foods?
Caryl Levine: So many things happened for Lotus Food during covid. We were very fortunate that rice is a staple. So there was a tremendous need for rice, and our suppliers could fulfill that need where others couldn't. We actually doubled our revenue in that period of time, and with the same staff. I think it was really tough on the staff. Because first of all, we were working all remotely, and we were fulfilling pipelines that we've never filled before. It was very gratifying, but it was tough. We mainly are now continuing to work remotely. That's what gave Ken and I an opportunity to move from California to the Adirondack. But I think we lost a lot. It's so much more challenging keeping the culture of an organization like ours, which was pretty tight with working remotely. So I think that's something our new CEO, we actually stepped down as CEO's last July. We brought in Andrew Burke who was our first C suite hire five years ago. We brought him in as President COO for the first four years, and he proved to be such an asset that we made him CEO. Something that he's grappling with now is, how do we work the next few years trying to continue our culture and maybe start bringing people back to the office? We still keep an office in Richmond.
Justine Reichman: I'm curious, and I know we got to wrap this up soon. But as you look forward, and you look 3, 5, 10 years, are we going to see any other products you think that you will make with rice?
Caryl Levine: Oh, you're going to see a lot of new products. Absolutely. We're actually working on a five year pipeline right now of innovation. So we took our first investment in over 12 years this past spring, and that investment is really to grow the company in new ways that we haven't been able to do before. So we're really, really excited, actually, for the next 30 years.
Justine Reichman: Amazing, amazing. So are there any products that maybe you could share, or is it too premature?
Caryl Levine: Too premature. It will definitely be rice based, delicious and nutritious, and something that will really, really be a solution for the consumer and how to feed themselves and their family nutritious and delicious foods.
Justine Reichman: Ken, Caryl, thank you guys so much for joining me today on the podcast. I really appreciate it. If folks wanted to connect with you because they love what you're doing, what would be the best way for them to connect with you?
Caryl Levine: Through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great platform, or professional platform that we really try to keep up to date, so I think that's one of the best ways to contact us.
Justine Reichman: And if people are interested in getting a product?
Caryl Levine: The Lotus Foods website. We often have a lot of promotions on the website as well. And of course, in stores. Go visit your Natural Food stores and your independent stores, and really use your pocketbook to shop your values too. We really do appreciate all our consumers who really get what we're trying to do.
Ken Lee: Justine, just to go back on your advice for people that are just looking for how to move forward, or how to discover that next thing. I just think, remaining curious. That was our curiosity, and that market research trip a long time ago to discover varieties of rice. And it's the same curiosity that's kind of gotten us to evolve the way we have staying open asking the right questions and being asked the right questions. And hopefully, you can find the right answers.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you guys so much for joining me today.
Caryl Levine: Justine, thank you.
