Podcast
Episode 7: Voyaging Foods
Brynn Foster, founder of Voyaging Foods gluten free milling company, joins Dr. Cartwright to talk indigenous plants, packaging and distribution.
Presenters
Today I’m joined by Brynn Foster, founder of Voyaging Foods based in Hawaii. Brynn founded her gluten-free, artisan milling company in 2005 and does it all...from farming to distribution, to studying and applying food science principles like water activity. Let’s learn about Brynn’s company and her desire to make indigenous plant products more accessible on Water in Food.
Transcript
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (00:00):
I'm Zachary Cartwright, this is Water and Food.
Brynn Foster (00:02):
Well, there's no value add in manufacturing, really, in Hawaii. There's not really a lot of places that you can take your products to and then they would manufacture it for you. What's the level amount that you need to know to stay in this kind of safe zone?
Brynn Foster (00:15):
So, really, having our own labs and our own system is really important.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (00:20):
Today I'm joined by Brynn Foster, founder of Voyaging Foods based in Hawaii. Brynn founded her gluten-free artesian milling company in 2005 and does it all, from farming to distribution, to studying and applying food science principles like water activity. Let's learn about Brynn's company and her desire to make indigenous plant products more accessible, on Water and Food.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (00:42):
Thank you, the listener, for tuning in. We really appreciate your continued support, and I'm excited to share with you a new guest. Today we're joined by Brynn Foster from Hawaii, so why don't you say hi, Brynn? How are things going?
Brynn Foster (00:58):
Aloha. Thank you for having me, today.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (01:01):
Yeah, of course, and what island are you on?
Brynn Foster (01:05):
I'm on Oahu. I'm on the north shore of Oahu where you would see a lot of the big waves, and probably watching a lot of those surf contests, or wishing you were there, or a lot of people always say, "Oh, I wish I was there, it looks so amazing." You know you don't need a filter over here on the north shore.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (01:22):
Yeah, I've been to Maui, and it was probably a long time ago, but it's beautiful over there. Are you from Hawaii?
Brynn Foster (01:29):
My family's from Hawaii. We have generations back from Maui and the big island, and so I was brought up in southern California, and then as soon as I could moved over to Hawaii after I graduated college. I took the chance and really wanted to get into what self-sustainability really was and what it looked like. I think Hawaii's a pretty good example of that, being in the middle of the ocean.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (01:57):
And what did you study in college? Is this related to your business now?
Brynn Foster (02:03):
I studied public relations and had a minor in business, so I think that it definitely helped kind of prepare me for some of the things that I do in my business now. Definitely, with publicity and communications and getting your branding story correctly, and then making relationships with all the different media outlets and people, I think it definitely had a huge impact. But I think my, I went to school also in Italy and France, and that's where I really got the sustainability component to making a business out of it. I just really love the idea of you went to the market every day for your food. You didn't just go to Costco and stock up for a month on things.
Brynn Foster (02:51):
You really had more of this connection to farms, and the land, and what was fresh that day, and heirloom, handmade, home made products, so I feel like that was really more about schooling than anything.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (03:07):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And when did you found Voyaging Foods, and where does that name come from?
Brynn Foster (03:13):
I founded Voyaging Foods in 2005 when my son was born. It was the idea, I sort was formulating the idea around then, but it really didn't come to fruition for a few years after that because I was so involved in my trying to raise my baby, and the name actually came several, several years, I would say like seven years, after that, so I was kind of having this baby but didn't name it, and I mean the business was the baby.
Brynn Foster (03:43):
Voyaging Foods is a term that the Polynesian use for a category or collection of plants that they brought on their open-ocean voyaging canoe, that they sailed throughout the Pacific Triangle, and they brought with them a specific set of plants that would be everything they need for medicine, or their food, for building homes, or spiritual uses, so these plants were really kind of like the emergency kit of the Polynesians, so they're like what you would bring if you're deserted on an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (04:29):
And if I understand this correctly, it's your goal to bring these foods and make them available to more people. Is that correct?
Brynn Foster (04:36):
It is. I really want to create access and availability for these foods that are kind of considered more novelty, or niche. You know, you probably wouldn't try taro or poi unless you were at a Luau in Hawaii or Tahiti, but in actuality, taro and poi is actually something that we consider a very important food, a staple food, in Hawaii. It's something that we give for our babies as a first food because it's so high in fiber, and it's one of the most hypoallergenic foods in the world due to its small starch granule size.
Brynn Foster (05:14):
There's a lot of benefits that a lot of people don't know about these canoe plants because they're under-utilized, so they're part of the, there's something called the Ark of Taste in slow foods, and so these are considered the Ark of Taste, which is like the red list for animal, where it can become extinct really easily if we don't protect biodiversity within the planet.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (05:38):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And where else are these plants being grown?
Brynn Foster (05:42):
I think in Florida. Taro is considered a weed, I think, in Florida, because it is pretty easy to grow but in a lot of places where there are swamplands. I even saw a lot of Taro in Napa, and around the lake, so wherever there's kind of, I think it can be kind of considered a swampy kind of plant, but it can be grown either dry land or wetland, but it's grown a lot in Southeast Asia, it's grown in Africa, so these plants are mostly tropical, so wherever there are tropical environments.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (06:16):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I know that you're producing in a lot of rural areas. Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of the difficulties or the challenges associated with that.
Brynn Foster (06:29):
Well, we're producing, meaning manufacturing or growing?
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (06:32):
Yeah, both are, are these both being done rurally or do you have kind of a combination?
Brynn Foster (06:37):
We want to promote regional, decentralized manufacturing, so that's how I came to meet you all, because we want to promote rural farming and manufacturing rather than having to, especially in Hawaii, there's maybe two places. Well, there's no value add in manufacturing, really, in Hawaii. There's not really a lot of places that you could take your products to, and then they would manufacture it for you, so there's either, if you're a farmer and you live 40 miles out of town on these windy, rural roads, you're not going to want to drive into town to bring in your 50 pounds of taro to make flour.
Brynn Foster (07:20):
It just isn't worth it, so we really want to promote more regional, decentralized manufacturing hubs that farmers can really be a part of the equation, and not getting the lesser amount of the farmer share, the dollar, which is normally like 14 cents. The farmers usually get about 14 cents for the dollar.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (07:44):
How many farmers are you working with right now?
Brynn Foster (07:46):
Wow. We're working with a lot. You know, we work with people indirectly and directly, like we're working with the Hawaii Lu Cooperative on the big island, and they have, gosh, they're increasing all the time but they have hundreds and hundreds of acres that they work with, so we kind of think of it in acres, and we work with small family farmers, so for us, 10 acres is big in Hawaii because a lot of the small family farms were lucky to have like one acre or two acres, so you know, right now in commercial production for taro growing, there's only 300 acres in the whole island that are in commercial production, so one of our goals is to double that with canoe plants.
Brynn Foster (08:35):
We want to see co-planting and food forests, and form a culture of things that incorporate more of taro planting and utilizing other plants so it's not just mono-cropping, so we hope to really double that number and also increase food production. We want to double our food production. Right now, we're importing 100% of our flour, and 80% of all of our food in Hawaii, which is, you know.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (09:02):
Wow.
Brynn Foster (09:05):
Really scary, and so really, having our own labs and our own systems, is really important in these regional areas, so yeah, we want to at least increase our acreage. We want to see thousands of acres in production, but that's one of our benchmarks.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (09:25):
And when are you hoping to hit that benchmark? Is this a 2021 goal, is this a 2025 goal? And what are the steps that it's going to take to reach that goal?
Brynn Foster (09:35):
Those are good questions. Hawaii's governor has, there's something called the Aloha Promise, which is based on the United Nations' sustainable development goals. We are working on sustainable cities, and we want to double our food production by I think it's 2035, but we want to make that quicker, to 2030, and we want to focus on the starch component which is these flours, these plants that we're making into flour, and so we really want to see bumping that up to 2030 and we're even thinking that we could increase doubling our food production because we only produce like 20% of our total food, so doubling it will get 40% but we think with the starch addition which gets super into the weeds here, but we think we can do a lot better. You know, we want to do it by 2025.
Brynn Foster (10:40):
But I don't know if I'd just claim that, on, obviously, I think 2030 is our goal, is the big goal, but I think we can do it by 2025.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (10:49):
I know that-
Brynn Foster (10:50):
Oh, sorry, I was going to answer the other question of what needs to happen really quick is just build these micro-units of manufacturing all around the islands, and that's what we're working on, and that's why the water meter is so important.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (11:02):
Yeah, why don't you touch on that? How are you using a water meter, and what's the process like? Are you using this in rural sites, or are you just using this on finished products? How are you using a water meter?
Brynn Foster (11:17):
We're using the water meter and rural sites so that farmers can understand what their RMD looks like, at what level they need to be food for the safety protocols, for the good manufacturing practices, all the standard operating procedures. These are terms that farmers don't really need to deal with, but when you get into value add, and manufacturing, and taking a raw product into a dried, which everybody wants to dehydrate right now, from banana chips, to flour, to whatever it is, what's the level amount that you need to know to stay in this kind of safe zone?
Brynn Foster (11:58):
And that's where we're wanting to use more of these meters to give to the farmers as, "This is part of your tool kit," to be autonomous and kind of your own boss, so that you don't have to drive in and ship things in, but you can actually have a solar dehydrator on your farm, and then use the water meter when you need to, you know, "Okay, it's been this temperature for seven hours. It should be at our level." And it's a way for them to be transparent in their manufacturing, and then when you log it, then you'll be able to just have this transparency log to give to stores, or farmer's market, or whatever it is, because the regulatory industry in Hawaii is really difficult for small farmers.
Brynn Foster (12:48):
You know, you need to think that you can't, you know, how are you going to figure any of this stuff out? So I think that's where these micro-units of dehydrating and milling and then offering the water meters with it as part of the process, and part of this guide book is really going to take our value-added and our farmers to a whole nother level.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (13:10):
And can you talk a little bit about your journey about learning about water activity, and how you started to apply it to your work? When did you have your a-ha moment, and realize that collecting water activity was important to your process?
Brynn Foster (13:25):
Well, we were hearing about CISMA for a long time, and it was kind of this big, scary, CISMA, "Oh my gosh, you need," it's great that you want to make all these fun little cookies and things, and sell them to the farmer's market, but we got approached to sell to WholeFoods and we were the first company to sell taro powder into WholeFoods with some packaged consumer goods as well, and they really kind of bumped us up from this fun kind of hobby level the having to know what all of these food safety, HACCP. There wasn't HACCP when I started, but then when we, thank God, because I probably wouldn't have wanted to go into the stores, but we had to, WholeFoods was kind of the one that really pushed us into acting like a big company when we really are still small but we had to think big.
Brynn Foster (14:24):
And that's where we started to have to understand what food safety was, so you know, I enrolled in a HACCP class, which a lot of people were saying, "Well, as a small company, you really don't need to because there's a threshold." But I think knowledge is power and I want to be small but think big, and so I joined the HACCP classes. I joined every kind of class and learning that I could be I love learning, and then I even took it further and since I enjoyed farming I was part of an accelerated program called the, well, it was for food safety, so I understood from the farming aspect and then I understood from the kitchen manufacturing aspect, so I kind of had it all down the full line of what was expected for transparency and good agricultural, good perception practices, and I kind of understand now what they're looking for.
Brynn Foster (15:19):
And how to be transparent about it, and water activity is a part of the microbial, and understanding, now I'm thankful for your videos because I was saying water the other way, there's water activity and water retention.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (15:38):
Yeah, probably water activity and moisture content.
Brynn Foster (15:41):
Yes, I was saying moisture content all the time until I really understood it from your videos. That's when I was really kind of starting to click, because sometimes when you're just trying to follow the path, and you're trying to follow what you're supposed to do, it doesn't always click, so really kind of I feel like there's a little mini university that you guys are offering, and it really started to click when I watched your videos because I was sort of just like, "Okay, yes, we're doing this, yes, we're doing that," for all of what we need to do, but I wasn't really understanding it and getting into the science.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (16:15):
Well, I'm really happy to hear that those have been helpful to you, and I think a lot of people in your shoes, and a lot of people in the food industry, do know a lot about moisture content. It's a concept that sometimes makes more sense. But water activity can add a lot of insights on safety and quality, and it seems that that's what you are now using it for. Would you say that having that water activity information allows you to work as an independent lab instead of maybe relying on someone else to get you the data?
Brynn Foster (16:46):
I think so, I mean, if I would've known you guys 10 years ago, I mean, I started in 2005 or six, and now it's 2020, I was sending samples to labs all over the nation for 10 years, I would say, a good 10 years, and I spent thousands and thousands of dollars, and a lot of waiting, a lot of time, and shelf life, these sort of things, and it was a real big barrier, especially for Hawaii businesses, when we're so rurally located, and there isn't a lot of labs we can work with here.
Brynn Foster (17:23):
But not just that, you know, I feel like that's a cost that food companies, food manufacturers, sometimes they might not have the money to do that or they feel maybe they can skimp on that. I don't know, but to be able to operate as your own lab and to understand these things, and then to pass on this knowledge is really, I think, really important because now we know, "Okay, if we dry a little longer, or if we do this, we tweak this," it's so helpful.
Brynn Foster (17:56):
And I can't wait to invest in the shelf life and just everything you guys have. I mean, I'm excited, a new kind of hobby, buying all the water meters.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (18:12):
Getting your own little collection started. But you're right, water activity goes beyond just a single measurement. If you create an isotherm you can look at shelf life, and you can look at packaging, and you can understand temperature, so these are all things that are important to your process and things that we can assist you with in the future. One thing I wanted to also ask you about was your production of breadfruit flour. I understand this is one of your biggest projects and I was wondering if you could tell us about maybe phase one, and phase two, and where that's going.
Brynn Foster (18:48):
Sure, yeah. We got a grant in collaboration with the Hawaii Ulu Cooperative, and so we pro launched a program called the 30 by 30 Initiative, which is similar to what I was talking about with doubling our food production. We want to replace 30% of the incoming flour that's imported into the state with our canoe plant flour, so whether it's Ulu, breadfruit, taro, and asking whether it's restaurants or home bakers, when they're using flour, to cut it with 30%, and it's kind of like when you're trying to use brown rice, you'll start adding a little brown rice to your white rice, and then eventually you're going to go all brown rice because you start to get that taste for it.
Brynn Foster (19:36):
We started, we launched this initiative and we just launched it, actually, a few months ago. We did a huge survey, surveying a lot of the population of Hawaii, about flour, what they know about the new canoe plant flour, it's a gluten-free flour, so we're hoping, I think they're going to process 30,000 pounds of breadfruit and then we're going to take a percentage and make flour out of it, so we'll have a few thousand pounds of flour, which has never been done in Hawaii at that scale, so it's really the first, the largest commercial-scale production of breadfruit flour, I want to say in the United States.
Brynn Foster (20:19):
They're a cooperative, so they have all the family farmers, and they also have a large facility they've bought, the structure that you need to do something like this, so we've got great giving them the money to buy the machines, buy the dehydrators, buy the mill, because they have the infrastructure, and then they will be kind of the hub that we can create a value-added manufacturer and then, so we're working on the marketing part of it where we're going to market and sell some of the smaller packages for home users under five pounds, and then they're going to take the larger processors. They're going to use 10 pounds, 25 pounds, which could, you know, the restaurant getting it pushed out that way.
Brynn Foster (21:05):
Right now in Hawaii, we have the largest, I guess over 900 companies that have been shut down permanently because of COVID and a lot of other restaurants, and we know the hotels, some of them, the restaurants and the hotels are shut down, so the larger bulk of this flour, it'll take a while for that market to come back so we're really going to focus on our homemakers and our smaller kind of bakery stores, so that's what this project is and we're really excited about it. We really want to promote selling this and getting our community to eat it first, and then the goal of the second phase, being able to kind of dip it out around the nation.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (21:51):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Brynn Foster (21:52):
And hopefully soon, but in Hawaii, we believe the Hawaiian breadfruit is, it tastes different. Hawaiian soil, the volcanic soil, is amazing, and we want to build more of these value-added manufacturing systems where we understand how to be food sovereign, because we also have control over our labs, with water activity and food safety, so we're not just being kind of these backyard programs, but we can play it globally because we know what our parameters are.
Brynn Foster (22:28):
And they'll be farmer-controlled, which I think a lot of the flour, the breadfruit flour, things like that, not globally, the small farmers are growing it but I don't think sometimes they get to control a lot of it. You know, they probably have to send it off to labs and things, and I don't know if they have things like this that give them the, you know, they can operate on their own, which is really important for island nations, to be able to operate on their own with their own tools for sustainability.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (22:58):
And how can somebody listening to this podcast find your products? I know you mentioned WholeFoods earlier, but do you have a website? Or what other ways can people find these indigenous plants or these indigenous products?
Brynn Foster (23:12):
We are online right now under voyagingfoods.com and the Hawaii Ulu Cooperative, which is also selling the flour as well. We hope to be, you know, right now we're in Hawaii because of what our ... we're important 80% of our food and 100% of our flour, so we're working on direct to consumer in Hawaii right now, and we really just, I have a lot of mentors in this industry. General Mills is one of them, Bob Breadmill was one of them, and they gave me some really great advice, and they said, "Just really be great regionally, and just focus regionally, and that's where all of the success stories happen."
Brynn Foster (24:01):
You know, "Don't always try and be globally, and nationally, and be in every store." So I've really taken that to heart and I think that's where our success story is, it's just being really focused on our region, and I think that we're doing that. For now, it's online, until you come to Hawaii, but I think there's a lot of companies that are also wanting to buy the ingredient and then make their own bases out of it, which, we're very excited for that, too, because we want to create more access and availability, and this provides that with a shelf life of a year or more shelf life, so we can extend our harvest.
Brynn Foster (24:45):
So we're excited, and we'll probably be in more online ... we were working on being on Hawaiian Airlines before COVID, so there's a lot of big opportunities. We're excited to work on creating our community right now, and there's a lot of people here so we've got our work cut out for us. On top of the tourists, when they do start to come back, we have enough here right now.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (25:16):
Well, I really like that mentality of just kind of focusing regionally or focus on what you're doing and then go from there. I think that is going to lead to a lot of success for you. I have one last question. You know, I have a lot of respect for you because you wear a lot of different hats. You know, you're not just a founder. You're a farmer, you're a manager, you look at the distribution of your products, you've trained yourself to be a food scientist on some level.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (25:43):
So, you know, somebody listening to this podcast who's in a similar situation or someone who may be like a 2005 version of you, just getting started, what advice would you give to that person?
Brynn Foster (25:57):
I would advise them to find a mentor. I was always looking for mentors. That's why I went to Bob Treadmill, and I talked to him, and he walked me around his facility, and I saw his mills, and I saw everything he was doing, and he gave me such great advice, and he was reachable, and talking to the guys at General Mills, you know, they've just come so far with all of their regenerative focus, so I think always look for the mentor, look for the people that are doing things that you want to do or that you like to do.
Brynn Foster (26:33):
And then do them on your scale, and don't worry about being small because the people that are really good at, they'll find you, and/or you'll find them, because you know, you both kind of will attract each other, is how I feel, and how I've always been able to operate as well is the people that are supposed to be with me are, and the ones I'm supposed to meet, I always do.
Brynn Foster (27:00):
I think that law of attraction sort of thing, you know, being focused and focusing, because when I started I had all these different products, and I was trying to do this and do that, but I think focusing and not thinking that you have to have so many products, but even if you come out with one and you do really good with that one, and you keep your inventory really tight, I think keeping inventory tight for whatever you're doing is the biggest advice I would have, and then finding the people that you really want to work with or admire, and being a part of, listening to whatever they're doing or, and then trying to work with them, too.
Brynn Foster (27:48):
I'm always looking for people I can mentor because I always wanted one, so call me.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (27:54):
Well, I admire your persistence and I'm really excited to watch your company grow, and I hope to have you back sometime. Maybe we can check in sometime in 2021 and see what's going on and see how your company continues to grow, so I just want to thank you again, Brynn, for being on Water and Food. We really appreciate your time.
Brynn Foster (28:14):
Thank you so much.
Dr. Zachary Cartwright (28:18):
Aloha. I'm Zachary Cartwright. This is Water and Food. Find this podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
