Épisode 26 : Kemin Industries

Transcription

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I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water and
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food earlier today I had the chance to
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meet with Dr Greg Schaefer at Chemin
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Industries we talked about his role as
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an associate scientist and some of the
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things that he's doing with his Aqua lab
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Vapor absorption analyzer let's hear
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what Greg has to say in water and food
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hi Greg welcome to water and food how
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are you doing today
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yeah I'm doing great how are you Zachary
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I'm great thank you so much for coming
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on the show I know we've tried a few
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times to get you on and you're finally
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here so we're glad to have you
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yes glad to be here uh Greg you're an
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associate scientist what does that mean
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what do you do
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yeah so I wear uh quite a few hats uh
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within Chemin uh Industries
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um primarily work with serving our pet
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food customers
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and uh one of the ways that I do that is
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helping run quite a bit of the the
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instruments so collect uh meaningful
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data so that as we present to our
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customers we can you know make business
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decisions on it and help them have a
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better product as their uh you know
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needing to make the decisions to serve
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their customers and and what's a day in
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your shoes look like are you always
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working on instruments are you designing
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experiments or is it yeah designing
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experiments and then then yeah running
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running instruments so one of the the
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instruments which brings us together is
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that uh work with a meter group with the
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vapor absorption analyzer and we've had
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the privilege to uh have this within our
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our uh assortment of uh analytical tools
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for a little over a year now and uh
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We've yeah frequently we're interested
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trying to understand how our powders our
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uh May react
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how they may adjust as as a water
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activity around them changes or
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depending on their warehouse
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so it's it's kind of a far cry from
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where I was thinking when I was first uh
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studying and and deciding to become a
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scientist and I think that happens to a
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lot of scientists you know you you start
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somewhere and you end up down a
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completely different path where did you
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start Greg what is your science
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background where did you go to school
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and how did that help you prepare for
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your job at Chemin
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yeah so I uh started off um at
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University of St Thomas up in St Paul
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Minnesota
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and uh from there decided to uh become a
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chemist
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and uh just solid take all the chemistry
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courses I could couldn't manage and uh
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they uh one of my professors convinced
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me hey
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you're pretty good with research
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instruments wants to consider graduate
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school I don't know if that's like their
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favorite thing to say I'm sure I would
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have had a fine job somewhere in the
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Twin Cities just a lot of great
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companies up there but uh decided to
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continue on to graduate school and try
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to pursue Mass spectrometry so
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um help build some uh
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special home-built Mass spectrometers
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some of the techniques are used within
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industry but they weren't that useful
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there were difficult instruments used
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certainly not as sensitive as something
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you can buy off the shelf or buy
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commercially so
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but uh with that it prepared me to work
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with with instruments and to to
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understand the value that they can that
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of the of the data that you can collect
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from it certainly
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and once you're we're done with graduate
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school how did you find Kim and what
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what stood out about this company that
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made you want to to join them
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yeah they're uh uh certainly a uh
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fast-paced uh science company based here
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in Iowa so
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um my my wife and and now kids they've
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been born here in Iowa yes uh how to say
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Iowa Roots Run pretty deep so this was
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an opportunity to be with a fast-paced
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company that is you know certainly very
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eager to to develop the best solutions
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for our customers to help them succeed
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in the marketplace
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and uh uh having a strong
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instrumentation background it was a
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natural fit it was actually a different
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group that wanted to bring me in before
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I uh joined the group that helped serve
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our pet food manufacturers and
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pet parents and what types of projects
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were you doing before pet food have you
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always just done pet food at Chemin or
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have there been other things that you've
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worked on no I I worked within a corn
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wet Milling in another part of Iowa and
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uh before that had a short stint trying
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to
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see if I fit well within the you know
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drug Discovery or some of the medical
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side but it wasn't quite the right fit
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for whatever reason I've uh kind of hit
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my
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um stride within the food industry even
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though I I don't have a food science or
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food engineering background I've kind of
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worked my way in through
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through doing it you know as as you need
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to do it with the experiments learning
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on the job sure yes and my job's kind of
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similar uh Greg I started off in pre-med
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and then looking at dentistry and wine
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making and finally food science so it's
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kind of like we both both ended up where
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we need to be I think absolutely yes
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um what are some of the challenges that
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you faced in in some of these previous
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projects and and how did that point you
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to looking at Water activity and also
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isotherms
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yeah so uh we we started to uh have some
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interesting phenomenon where we would be
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mixing two powders and you'd expect a
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powder to to flow or at least flow it
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may need a lot of pushing but at least
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the flow and as we were mixing a couple
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of these powders it formed a like
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concrete we didn't add any water and so
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that brought us down the road of trying
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to understand how could we how could we
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characterize our materials to understand
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them
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and uh early brainstorms were that we
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would need to partner with someone
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within Academia and that it might be
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someone to get their their master's
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degree or maybe a PhD as they would work
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with collecting isotherms with saturated
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Salt Solutions
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so that was some of our understanding a
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few years ago
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we were aware of instruments that would
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help um
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collect that data
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but usually the price tag or what we
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were able to determine from it wasn't as
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uh
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readily available or in intuitive to us
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so it took us a little bit to uh to make
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the decision of what was the best uh
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piece of equipment to serve our needs
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and what was the driving force behind
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that decision when did your team you
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know see the return on investment that
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that pushed you forward to looking at
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Water activity as well as isotherms
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yeah so um I think some of the research
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comes out of uh University of Illinois
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out of uh Shelley Schmitz group where
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they could
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uh Zachary as as you uh presented to us
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were one of your CL after you collected
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the absorption portion of uh of the
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moist absorption isotherm that you can
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plot oh and get that that curve fit to
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it and then understand where that curve
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fit may be making some changes and
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relate that to
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physical changes happening within a bulk
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solid
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once we were able to make those
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connections then we were able to you
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know make the decisions that we're
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interested in making
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and you mentioned the the equipment
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earlier the aqualab vapor absorption
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analyzer how would you explain that
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equipment to somebody who's never used
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it what is it and what does it do for
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your team
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yeah so we we uh as we're working with
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different ingredients you can think of
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them as as you know spices or or flour
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or sugar
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and we're able to uh take a sample we
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understand what its loss on drying value
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is
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and we can put that within the
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instrument and then we can understand as
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as the conditions around it in this case
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water activity the humidity of of air
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changes
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the moisture content of that material
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may change
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and that's what we measure
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to to get our moisture absorption
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isotherms
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and what are some of the other
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advantages of using isotherms you you
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mentioned looking at products or
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different powders and mixing them are
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you doing any types of simulations of of
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new formulations or looking at shelf
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life or anything else with these
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isotherms
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yeah and that's uh as I uh mentioned
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with some of the other um
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instruments that we're looking at
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going back some years when we're trying
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to make our decision
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it would be pretty neat we could see
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what the instrument could do and then we
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would look at it and be like well now we
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have giant Excel files full of data and
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we didn't have something that could do
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some of the calculations for us I have
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the privilege of working with some
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people that have a food science food
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engineering background whether it's a
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master's or PhD
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they'll mention to me some of the
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classes they've taken and a test maybe
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one or two or three problems and the
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problem would be something like you have
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a couple ingredients at different water
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activities calculate what their final
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water activity may be
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and that would be I don't know a couple
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hour final or something
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so to do these calculations can be
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um tricky and uh when we're able to see
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and make use of what comes with the
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vapor absorption analyzer where we can
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use the moisture analysis toolkit
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we're able to make some of these
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predictions right so we can understand
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shelf life
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and understand how
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package characteristics may affect that
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and how Warehouse conditions may affect
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that
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and that's a really good point if you
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try to do these calculations by yourself
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they they can take a really long time
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hours if you're doing it on a test and
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that's what we were doing here at meter
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we basically had Excel spreadsheets and
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we were trying to do these calculations
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but we realize there's a lot of value
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Behind these calculations and being able
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to do them very quickly and and I think
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the the VSA The Vapor absorption
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analyzer is kind of just half of the
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solution the other half is that moisture
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analysis toolkit software that that
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you're using and when you combine the
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data with the right tool and the right
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calculators I've noticed that it's
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really helped to speed up the r d
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process and and that's what it sounds
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like your team is using it for mainly in
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r d is that correct
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yeah we do we do use it within our our r
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d to inform our our uh Partners within
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manufacturing certainly yes
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and how do you plan on using the VSA for
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some of your future projects what what
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does the future look like for you and
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how do you plan to use this equipment
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well as we mentioned to to be able to
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you know as as we're discovering new
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ways of mixing materials so that as
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we're serving our our customers within
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the pet food community
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it's understanding will some of these
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materials mix well or will they have
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some challenges
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and understanding also as you mix them
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depending what packaging you put them in
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will they be free-flowing or will they
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have some sort of challenges
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so as we're able to measure water
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activity we're able to maintain the
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safety of a product right we don't want
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something to
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to Clump we don't want something to
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develop mold or anything like that so it
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provides the the framework
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to make these production predictions
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then we can run a shelf life study to
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confirm yes Iran as expected or not and
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then we can make some adjustments from
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there
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and do you see any application of this
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instrument to other departments in Kim
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and I know Kim and makes all types of of
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products now that you've worked with the
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instrument would you ever recommend a
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colleague or somebody else at Kim and
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trying out this technology for similar
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Solutions yeah certainly um this is
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something that that uh almost everyone
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within came in is aware and this is
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something that we're moving
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I
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to see to see what the the energy I
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think it's what your colleague is it
12:59
John Russell
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and as as he mentioned in a earlier
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podcast we're talking about
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understanding the energy of water
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and when you understand what that the
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energy of free water is then you can
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make
13:13
all these all these you know valuable
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decisions of is that free water going to
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help support micro growth right you
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won't want to have mold or bacteria
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growing in your sample
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or will it cause something to have
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further reactions
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so that's something that yeah most of
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most of my co-workers are are well aware
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throughout yep so we yes and and part of
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the reason I asked that Greg is because
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I see a lot of teams get this instrument
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and get a lot of value out of it but I
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don't always see the entire company
13:47
knowing about the benefit of of
13:49
isotherms for example and how a lot of
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different teams could uh benefit from it
13:54
we yeah so we um
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it's you know as as as were how to say
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as as Kevin is always moving forward and
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figuring out the best ways to serve our
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customers
14:08
we are making use of of that of the data
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that we can get from it and so that
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means it's my partners that are serving
14:16
people within the AG industry
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and and people serving within um our
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health and nutrition side
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for supplements or or material things
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for Eye Health yes certainly
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um these ingredients have been
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yeah are being characterized so that we
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can provide the best solutions for our
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customers and it sounds like your team
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has a really good communication Network
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so that if if a piece of equipment or
14:45
solution is working somewhere you know
14:47
it sounds like where everyone knows yeah
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it's it's uh
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it's a yeah a good um collaborative
14:53
campus that in in Des Moines yes
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and it's a good family within a good
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family company yes well this kind of
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leads straight into my next question is
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what drives you to continue to be part
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of the team at Chemin but it sounds like
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this is part of it is is there anything
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else that you would add to that
15:13
yeah I think for for me thinking back to
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what drove me to chemistry and what you
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know just the the The Wonder of of doing
15:24
um reactions and experiments and then
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what you know kept me going within
15:28
graduate school is being able to collect
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useful data from instruments
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so
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um there's just something I'm not saying
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if this is something that most people
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drive Joy but it's something that that
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certainly brings me joy
15:44
and uh in a previous conversation you
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mentioned the idea of maybe having your
15:49
own podcast through Chemin and I'm just
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curious if if you were to move forward
15:53
what would that podcast look like would
15:55
you be interviewing people like Chemin
15:56
would you be interviewing other other
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scientists uh what would it look like
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yeah might be something that we do
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within Chemin yeah some of my co-workers
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have continued to tease me about about
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doing something like that maybe kind of
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like how how we're doing this Zachary to
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talk about what are some of the
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opportunities of of
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how do we use this equipment and then
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just to say hey this is how we how we
16:22
make use of
16:24
this equipment of isotherms
16:26
understanding ingredients understanding
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how dynamic
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materials can be even if you can you
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know you open up maybe a bag of flour
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and you're like it's just flour and I'm
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gonna go bake some
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whatever a cake with it or something
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and it's it's truly a lot more going on
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well I just want to say thank you Greg I
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know we've been trying to get you on
16:47
here a long time and we got through some
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technical difficulties and things and I
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I really appreciate your insights about
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the vapor absorption analyzer and I uh
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look forward to continuing seeing how
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your team uses this in pet food but
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maybe also other products as well so
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thank you so much for coming on the
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podcast we really appreciate you
17:04
thank you so much Zachary I really
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appreciate this
17:08
I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water and
17:10
food
17:12
find this podcast on Apple iTunes
17:14
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17:16
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