S5 Ep12: A Plant-Based Milk That Is Changing the Way We Think About Food with Jason Bronstad
“The most important thing I can do in life is to give my children a solid foundation that changes everything.” — Jason Bronstad
There's a lot of talk about the future of the food industry, and it's exciting to see how plant-based milk alternatives are making their way into the market.
So what exactly makes these plant-based options so appealing? These new products are not only good for our health—they also taste amazing! And they can be used in all kinds of recipes—from milkshakes to cream pies. In fact, plant-based milk has entered restaurants and cafes as well!
But what do we really know about the companies that make these products? How much do they care about their customers? Are their products really what they say they are?
Malk Organics started with the idea of creating something good for the family until it was able to scale and reach the masses. Their tagline: #TurnItAround. They value transparency and they want their consumers to know what ingredients were used in creating the product. They pride themselves with using only high-quality, certified organic ingredients that can be counted in just one hand.
Malk Organics’ CEO, Jason Bronstad joins Justine for a deep conversation on how high-quality ingredients are the key for people to embrace plant-based products, why companies that claim “plant-based” are using so many ingredients, why customer engagement is critical to a company’s success, how we can create a balance between our business and family, how we can manage stress, and how failure can be a catalyst for creating.
Connect with Jason:
Jason Bronstad is the CEO of Malk Organics, a company that values high-quality ingredients, transparency, and health. This reflects in their plant-based milk alternatives that are certified organic, free of fillers, and non-GMO. Their tagline: #TurnItAround- That's how confident they are that their products will genuinely benefit their consumers.
Jason has an exceptional record of achievements in business governance and operations. He excels in creating and presiding top-performing teams, managing multi-million dollar funds, and leading top CPG brands to success.
Episode Highlights:
00:54 High-Quality Ingredients- The Key to Adoption
04:23 Why Companies Put So Many Ingredients
08:02 When Companies Have the Same Goals
12:53 The Importance of Consumer Engagement
16:40 The Best Thing We Can Do Everyday
19:27 Be an Entrepreneur AND an Engaged Family Man
24:35 Turn It Around!
Tweets:
When it comes to food choices, we want only the best for our family. That’s why we do not want to fall for just “plant-based”. Join @jreichman and Malk Organics CEO, Jason Bronstad as they share a plant-based milk alternative that's changing the way we think about food. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredient #MalkOrganics #turnitaround #organicmilk #altmilk #plantbasedmilk #transparency
Inspirational Quotes:
01:24 "The choices that I was making, my children were reflecting." -Jason Bronstad
01:42 "Great-tasting, clean ingredients is the path to adoption. We're super proud to produce clean ingredient products that taste great as well, that can be adopted into someone's healthy lifestyle." -Jason Bronstad
04:33 "We want to produce what's best for our family and then scale it up for the masses." -Jason Bronstad
11:41 "If we're not open and willing to admit failure, then we're not learning." -Jason Bronstad
11:50 "We must fail to get to the next place. Failure is just part of creating." -Justine Reichman
17:46 "The most important thing I can do in life is to give my children a solid foundation that changes everything." -Jason Bronstad
19:58 "It's time to start eating healthier. It's time to do more healthy activities, it's time to prioritize what's important. The mindset shift is just so important." -Jason Bronstad
21:02 "You don't necessarily have to have two kids and et cetera to understand that you still need to prioritize, schedule, and balance. And if you do that, you can have a better quality of life and be healthier." -Justine Reichman
23:48 "What's most important is that we can ask the right questions." -Justine Reichman
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients, I'm your host, Justine Reichman. Today with me is Jason Bronstad. He is the CEO and people leader of Malk.
Welcome, Jason.
Jason Bronstad: Thank you so much, Justine, for this opportunity. I'm excited to chat with you.
Justine Reichman: I'm excited too. Even the last few minutes just chatting with you, it's been great. I'm excited for our audience and our listeners to get to know you and learn a little bit more about Malk. Malk is a plant based milk. I know there's a lot of them, but I know Malk is different and unique. I'd love for you to just talk to us a little bit about it so that our viewers or listeners know what we're talking about here and who we're talking here.
"The choices that I was making, my children were reflecting." -Jason Bronstad
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely. So I'll start a little bit with the company. We are proudly between three and five ingredients in our plant based milks. But one of the things that we're focused on is ensuring that people have access to high quality, clean ingredient products. In my personal journey, it's been an evolution over time. If you were to talk to me three or four years ago, I was 100 pounds heavier. I waited till later in life to make some healthy choices. And the moment came when I realized that the choices that I was making, my children were reflecting. I wanted to start that transition and make healthier life choices. And one of the things we found is we're trying new and different products as they just didn't taste great. There's a lot of them out there that don't taste great, they're clean. So here at Malk, we believe that great tasting, clean ingredients is really the path to adoption. So we're super proud to produce clean ingredient products that taste great as well, that can be adopted into someone's healthy lifestyle.
"Great-tasting, clean ingredients is the path to adoption. We're super proud to produce clean ingredient products that taste great as well, that can be adopted into someone's healthy lifestyle." -Jason Bronstad
Justine Reichman: And what's more empowering than that?
Jason Bronstad: Exactly.
Justine Reichman: For your consumer. There's a lot of choices out there in plant based milk, and I know that there's a lot of claims that people make. And people are told about plant based milks in general, and people grab on to the idea of a plant based milk and we don't necessarily know what's in them and why we should choose one over another. So can you talk to me a little bit about some of, I don't want to, I'm not trying to hang out anyone to dry. Hanging anyone out to dry, that's not my goal. The goal really is to better understand what people are putting in these and why you're able to put fewer ingredients in yours and make it a good product that people can have, and enjoy, and using in their cereals, or using their coffee, and how it works.
Jason Bronstad: Their malkshakes.
Justine Reichman: Oh, I like that.
Jason Bronstad: That's my daughter's favorite, malkshakes in the morning. So with Malk, we pride ourselves starting with organic ingredients. Organic is such a small portion of the overall agricultural output, and there's such high standards with organic to ensure that there's no pesticides and all the other potential chemicals that could be introduced to almonds and oats. So we start with organic, first and foremost, and we ensure we're gly phosphate free, ensuring all of the proper protocols and processes are there. So when we have the cleanest ingredient and we go to transform it into the milk, that 's something that's going to taste great. It's addition by subtraction. We'll get rid of everything else. It's just three simple ingredients in our unsweetened almond milk, and it's three simple ingredients in our original oat milk. With our vanilla, we simply add organic vanilla extract. We're excited that we just launched recently our chocolate oat as well, and that only has five ingredients. So as we expand our product offering, it's with the mindset of, it's organic, it's clean, it's simple, and it tastes good.
Justine Reichman: That sounds to me very straightforward, and it sounds like a no brainer, almost. And when I hear about all these other brands that have so many more ingredients, things that I can't pronounce, and oils, why was there a need to put all those ingredients in that product? Or why could we speculate? Because we don't know why anybody creates anything, so why can we speculate that they would do that?
"We want to produce what's best for our family and then scale it up for the masses." -Jason Bronstad
Jason Bronstad: It's economies of scale. How much can I produce? What's the cost efficiencies? With Malt, we proudly were founded and started the mindset of, we want to produce what's best for our family and then scale it up to the masses. And we've stuck with that ethos the entire time as we've grown over the last seven years as an organization. Other companies, there's a lot of companies out there, a lot of companies working to bring people into the plant based space. They might have shareholders that they have to report to. There's decisions that are made that are not based on the ethos of, I want it to be, as if I would make it for my family so I can share it with yours.
Justine Reichman: I understand that. A lot of this can be controlled by the finances behind it, the shareholders, how to make the dollar scratch, and so they lose their integrity. I know that's a strong word. As I'm saying and I'm cringing, but the integrity of the product to some extent, and it's like any company that decides to take money, you have less control over what you're doing. But I guess Malt is still private so you maintain the choice there on what you're putting in there.
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely. We have an incredibly supportive board of directors that are aligned with our mission, vision and values. And believe just like I do, that this is a brand that needs to be accessible to Americans everywhere. And that's really the mission is to expand our offerings to the grocery store nearest you. And today, it's not.
Justine Reichman: Has it cost per challenge for you to make it as well as to offer it at a reasonable price so that the masses can have access to this?
Jason Bronstad: That's the biggest challenge we have. You look at what's going on with, you can look at freight and warehousing alone, with diesel costs skyrocketing, the cost of produce within farms skyrocketing based on all the input costs, especially for organic. And one thing I don't know if consumers necessarily appreciate when a farmer plants on an organic field, the yield just will not be as high as one that he can fertilize. So the fertilizer is going to multiply the production. So the organic, the clean nature of that field is not going to produce as much. So the benefit for the farmer is they could charge a higher price. But the real benefit is when I put that inside of a bottle of milk and I sell it to you, I can say it is organic, it is clean, it is simple, and you can trust us.
Justine Reichman: And I think that that's beautiful and amazing because I myself love when I can look at whatever I'm eating or drinking. Look at the ingredients and say, okay, I know everything that's in here, there's nothing in here that I don't want. So often, I find sugar, or some sort of something, or other that it has to keep it together. And to me, I'm not interested in that. I want something that I know everything that's in it. Almost like I can make it myself, but I'm just choosing not to at the moment because I have contraction, or because I'm busy, or I wanted as clean and as healthy as if I got it myself out of the garden, or because making oat milk and have milk, and almond milk is tedious and time consuming. When I look at yours, or I look at somebody else that has a three ingredient product, as we were just talking about good milk, I'd love to hear your thoughts on comparing yourself to some of these other plant based milks that have fewer ingredients, and how you see them? How do you see yourselves together in the space?
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely. And the beautiful thing is as other brands are taking the same path we are, that's better for consumers all across the world. There's a gold standard in the European continent with labeling and simple ingredients. I think that as more brands enter into this space that provides each and every single one of our consumers, our children, the next generation, and we can start to educate them and say, hey, this is important. Why I'm going to skip the drive thru coffee this week is instead of buying the cheapest version of the plant based product, I'm gonna buy the highest quality because what we put inside of us is who we are. So we want to make sure that we're putting the highest quality products inside of us and our children. I welcome more people to come into this space. It's not easy. That's the thing that any entrepreneur or any startup company knows is there's unequivocally going to be challenges. So we are proud to be leading the way in this space.
Justine Reichman: And as an entrepreneur, and as somebody in a startup, we have lots of founders that listen to this show. You've been in the space for a while now, I know that this journey is not an easy journey, but I'm sure that you've had some experiences and maybe there's a story you could share that you look back on that was pivotal for you. Maybe it pointed you in the wrong direction, and it was the right turn. You didn't even realize it, but I'd love for you to maybe share something like that, a moment that took you to the next level.
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely. So we were working on a rebrand, and we were working on our formulation tweaks just to make sure we could deliver the best tasting and working with our R&D partners. My mantra to them is I want the absolute best tasting vanilla product out there on the market. So we developed a great tasting vanilla, and we went out and we tasted it with consumers. It scored amazingly well. When I launched it, we missed one caveat. We didn't talk to our consumers. We talked to plant based milk consumers, we didn't talk to our consumers. And the choice that I made, it was a step in the wrong direction. But we quickly pivoted as we did put organic, natural flavors in there to really enhance and drive that vanilla flavor. And our mall consumers said, that's not what we want. We want clean, simple. We don't care if it tastes more vanilla, we want to know every single thing in there. And I'm proud to say that from the day it hit retail to the day that the formulation without organic natural flavors and just a pure organic vanilla extract hit the market was less than 90 days. And that is an absolute tip of the hat to my operations team to be able to make a turn, get it approved by all of the agencies that are required to approve a new formulation and then have it out there available for consumers. And again, without the support of my board of directors, we literally made that decision within three days. And that's the beautiful thing about a startup. That was on me, it was a decision I made. I went to my board and said, hey, there's going to be some significant costs in this transition. That's the right thing to do. I messed up, I made a mistake, and we need to make this change to correct it. I'm pleased to say no wild supporters, we got the new product out into the market.
"If we're not open and willing to admit failure, then we're not learning." -Jason Bronstad
Justine Reichman: Well, that's a great learning experience, though. You quickly realize that immediately, there was no time wasted. You can't afford to in today's world. Yeah, you can't. But I think that that's a credit to you also to recognise that so quickly.
Jason Bronstad: If we're not open and willing to admit failure, then we're not learning.
"We must fail to get to the next place. Failure is just part of creating." -Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: No, I think failure is part of the journey, too. We have to fail in order to get to the next place. Failure is just part of creating.
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely. I love that.
Justine Reichman: Failure is part of creating. So you have a couple of products right now that we discussed, or do you have any other new skews coming out on the horizon?
Jason Bronstad: The chocolate oat is rolling out nationally right now. So that's the exciting one. We've got some other things that we're working on in the lab. But to your point to create something that tastes so good was, so minimal ingredients and just finding the right mixture is not that easy. So we're taking our time and doing the due diligence to make sure that what we launch is exactly what our consumers are looking for.
Justine Reichman: I think that's so important too. And especially since you had this learning experience that you went out and talked to all these other people who really weren't not necessarily your customer but it had interesting feedback, but they weren't your customer. Now, if you go and you interview people, do you interview for the next thing? Are you interviewing your customers as well as new people?
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely. So as we're talking, we're engaging with our consumers. We started in the natural channel like a lot of organic brands do, and we've had some incredible support. We've been a global partner with whole foods for four years, we just last month went nationalist sprouts, which is a huge win for us. Because that's part of our mission is to make it more easy for consumers to access Malk Organics. But as we engage with these consumers is that understanding what are you looking for, what are you seeking to understand. You'd reference earlier one of the things, binders, fillers, oils and gums that really bind products together. So that's one thing with Malk. We have it proudly on the cap, shake your Malk well because we want to make sure that you blend that up because there's natural settling. When you have three ingredients, I'm not going to put it into moles to fire in there, that makes it perfect for you. Shake it up, it's perfect. Add it to your coffee milk or milk shakes.
Justine Reichman: I like that. So who came up with the milkshakes?
Jason Bronstad: Something that's been floating around the company and we're just trying to be louder and prouder about it.
Justine Reichman: When's your daughter gonna do a video?
Jason Bronstad: You know what? She is an aspiring chef, so her passion is cooking. She's nine and a half years old, so I think it's cooking, swimming and jiu jitsu. She's got a wide variety of passions, but she should do a video for us.
Justine Reichman: I think she should do a video, something healthy that can show us how the malkshake works. What goes in the malkshake, maybe she adds something special to it, and then she can share it on the NextGen Purpose channel.
Jason Bronstad: Oh, I love that.
Justine Reichman: Because we can share what's going on at Malt and let people know how to make their malkshakes.
Jason Bronstad: Absolutely.
Justine Reichman: And it starts at nine. I mean, you can't start too early.
Jason Bronstad: Well, the great thing, her little brother, my son who turned six this month, he tried the shake this morning. He's like, that's a really good one. He's a little leery from time to time. It's like, what is his sister making now? And the coolest thing is just working to understand that whole thing. Who's gonna go into these shakes? So one time, she added some fresh spinach to her milkshake, and she's like, epics to dad. It wasn't good before the spinach.
Justine Reichman: That's so funny.
Jason Bronstad: Yeah, that was a proud dad moment. You just had a spinach and said it fixed it.
Justine Reichman: Did you ever go to this shops and you taste samplers?
Jason Bronstad: Oh, yes.
Justine Reichman: Okay. And you take your daughter?
Jason Bronstad: Yes.
Justine Reichman: Okay. So when I was her age, my father ran a non dairy creamer company 100 years ago, it was called Perk Products, it was a kosher non dairy creamer. I'm not even sure what it tasted like when you put it in coffee. I used to give out coupons. I'm like having this object moment as you're telling me this and I'm like, I remember with my dad in New York City on the corner of 23rd Street.
Jason Bronstad: That's awesome. I fear my daughter would be like, alright, dad, what's my salary? What's my pay rate for doing this?
Justine Reichman: I probably would have said something similar. Something similar, my pay rate probably would have been a Baskin Robbins, which is probably a little taboo at this moment. But back then, a little rocky road on the corner. But now, she might try to get you to make some milk cream or something.
Jason Bronstad: It sprouts up amazingly. She actually puts on the top of her ice balls. That's one of her favorite tricks.
Justine Reichman: You need to put all these tips out there so that people can now find all the different ways of using Malk.
Jason Bronstad: That's one of the things we're working on.
Justine Reichman: Okay, well, I'm just, you know?
Jason Bronstad: And that's what the best thing that we can do every day is talk to someone new. And if you talk to someone new every day, you're gonna learn something. And if you start to piece something together, think about how much you learn talking to someone new every day.
"The most important thing I can do in life is to give my children a solid foundation that changes everything." -Jason Bronstad
Justine Reichman: I do that all the time. I love it. I love talking to new people that are building new businesses and coming up with new ideas. Because really, it's changing the future of food and how we think about it. It's changing the planet, and it's changing the accessibility. And the way we think about what we're putting in our bodies, how we're giving back to the planet, what we're leaving for the future, and also our expectations around it, what we demand in terms of what we put in our body, and what you're teaching your children about what they should expect so that when they're eating, they're demanding something a little bit better, so that they can ask better questions. And so I think it's brilliant. Your kids inspired you. How brilliant is that.
Jason Bronstad: When you remove your ego, sit back and say, what is the most important thing I can do in life? It's to give my children a solid foundation that changes everything. It truly changes everything.
Justine Reichman: And I bet you're inspired every single day to do that. Work changes, work is no longer that same. You look at it a little differently.
Jason Bronstad: I'm a part of a group of men called Front Row Dads. And the motto is, Family Men With Businesses, Not Businessmen With Families. And that motto really drives my behavior to make sure I'm fully present for my wife and for my kids. And the more present I am with them, the more successful, driven and productive I am at work. My ego was fed by my success at work and I would slack at home. And when you start to flip that on its head, and all of a sudden, you prioritize your family. I used to be the guy, I had to be at work at 5:00 AM, but I would never see my kids in the morning. I would only see him after work in the evenings. And by the end of the day, they were exhausted. And my wife would always tell me, but they're such amazing kids. I'm like, they're exhausted, they're tired, they're yelling, they're screaming, I don't know who you're talking about. And that was a me problem. It wasn't a kid problem, it wasn't a wife. It was a ME problem. And shifting the mindset, now, I still get up early, but I'll do work at home. I'll spend an hour with them in the morning, before school, before camps, before whatever they're doing, and I'm engaged and fully present, and I'm back to work. And it changed my life.
Justine Reichman: How long have you been, sort of living this lifestyle?
Jason Bronstad: About three years. About three years, I've been doing my best to live the best engaged lifestyle I could.
Justine Reichman: That's so amazing. And what inspired that?
"It's time to start eating healthier. It's time to do more healthy activities, it's time to prioritize what's important. The mindset shift is just so important." -Jason Bronstad
Jason Bronstad: One of the things, when you look at pictures and you're like, oh, wait, that's me. Oh, no, I've done it again. I've always had an unhealthy relationship with food historically, and my weight would just yo-yo up and down, up and down. And then when I realized the influence that my actions and the way I treated myself had on my children, the way they were acting, I can change this or they can just become like me right now. I said it's time to change. It's time to start eating healthier. It's time to stop doing more healthy activities, it's time to prioritize what's important. And that the mindset shift is just so important.
Justine Reichman: That's beautiful. How did it impact your relationship with your family and your children?
Jason Bronstad: Melissa and I just celebrated 17 years being married last month and I can easily say that the last three have been the happiest three. She would agree with that. It's so awesome to be an engaged entrepreneur and a family man, really family man and entrepreneurs. How should I say that?
Justine Reichman: That's so wonderful. That's so wonderful. I could imagine that the message for other art fairs is so important to hear, because I'm sure you talk to other people in startups and they tell you that it's overwhelming and it's all encompassing. And to be with somebody in a startup can be really hard.
Jason Bronstad: It's incredibly stressful, and it's hard to balance. It isn't possible if you don't schedule it.
"You don't necessarily have to have two kids and et cetera to understand that you still need to prioritize, schedule, and balance. And if you do that, you can have a better quality of life and be healthier." -Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: Not everybody's a family person, but the message is still there. You don't necessarily have to have two kids and et cetera to understand that you still need to prioritize, schedule and balance. And if you do that, you can have a better quality of life and be healthier.
Jason Bronstad: 100%. I love listening to podcasts. A lot of podcasts on the health environment is, if you stress your body proactively through workouts, or heat exposure, or cold exposure, it allows your body to absorb and process stress in a regular environment. So that's one of the things that I've realized is, through workout routines, either sauna or cold exposure routines that I proactively put my body through has helped me to deal with stressors at work, things that would typically just send me over the edge. It's like, oh, my goodness. It's like, okay, take a deep breath, I need to go meditate for 10 minutes, just reflect on this and then come back. Entrepreneurs always feel like they have to have every answer, and they've got to have it on the tip of your tongue. And the reality is, you don't.
Justine Reichman: It's true. I feel that way myself. I always feel like my knee jerk reaction is I'm gonna fix it. If you tell me something, my knee jerk reaction is, how can I fix that? Whether it's personal or professional, it's my knee jerk reaction to respond like that.
Jason Bronstad: 100%. And think about the mistakes that we make because we do that without pausing to think about.
Justine Reichman: It's true. But I'm with you in the sauna. I have an infrared sauna I got a couple months ago. I got it in January. It is awesome. I love my infrared sauna. I don't share this with everyone. I do take a couple conference calls there.
Jason Bronstad: I haven't got there yet.
Justine Reichman: It's no problem. You can even do a Zoom in there, or you just don't want to sweat while you're off.
Jason Bronstad: I started sweating pretty fast, so I would not do a Zoom there.
Justine Reichman: But I don't do this anymore. I just do the calls. But Jason, this was a great call. I think you shared some amazing tips and an insight into being both an entrepreneur, a family person and your story on how you kicked off your company. I'm so excited to try Malk when it arrives.
Jason Bronstad: Oh, I'm excited. It's coming in. I was honored. So I didn't kick off. I'm not the original founder. I was brought in to help accelerate the company, so the tip of the hat to the founding members of the organization. But I'm excited to have the reins to bring Malk to the masses.
"What's most important is that we can ask the right questions." -Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: I think you guys are doing a great job. I'm excited to try it, and I think that it's just a great space to be in. And I think what really tests the space is that there's a lot going on in the space. I think what's most important is that we can ask the right questions. Because what's going on in the spaces there, there are fillers and there are other things that make these things unhealthy, unhealthier than things we were eating before. So my quest, my goal is to really bring people on so we can learn about what it is to eat in the space and cook in these spaces, and build in these spaces in a way that is more informed, better for our health and better for the environment. I'm so appreciative to you for helping us tell a little bit about that story why three ingredients or foreign greens is so important, and why you guys chose to do that.
Jason Bronstad: Justine, thank you so much. Malk is really about making sure people go and turn it around, go look at the ingredients, go look in your pantry, go look in your fridge, turn it around and see what you're actually consuming.
Justine Reichman: Thanks, Jason. If anybody wants to get in touch with you and talk further, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Jason Bronstad: I'm on LinkedIn, Jason Bronstad, the only one there. For the brand, it's Malk Organics, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. You can find us there.
Justine Reichman: Wonderful. So for those of you listening and watching, don't forget to rate and review on Essential Ingredients. We're here every Tuesday, and we want to thank you as always for joining us. Thank you, Jason.
Jason Bronstad: Thank you Justine.
