The Meat Mafia Podcast

Part 1
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Chase, what has happened to my brother? Welcome to the Meme Mafia

Speaker 2: Podcast. Hey, thanks guys for having

Speaker 3: me. Good to be here. Yeah, we're, we're excited, man. We're, um, you know, number one, we're huge fans of everything that you're doing at the woolshare. One of our favorite gifts that we've ever been given is our mutual friend, Ryan Griggs, shout out Ryan Griggs at the regenescence, he gifted Harry and I pillows for Christmas, which I think is such a cool concept of like finding high quality products that you care about and then gifting them to your friends.

I think that's just a really cool transaction, but, um, that's how we initially came across you and then started following you on Twitter. And we were saying how our show talks a lot about health, the food system, nutrition, but there's a lot that you've uncovered in the fabric industry. And you think about something as important as a pillow, something that you're literally laying your head down every single night.

And most people have no idea about all these different toxins and ingredients and things that we're literally sitting on and sleeping on every single night. So we're so pumped that there are guys like you that are out there fighting the good [00:01:00] fight and really trying to revolutionize the pillow and the fabric industry, man.

Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Yeah. It was, uh, like with everything, you know, um, it's a rabbit hole to go down. You, you learn about what actually is in stuff and like with food, you know, um, you make steps and you go from, you know, hyper processed food to whole foods, not the store, the just whole in general. Um, and then you go, you know, to like regeneratively raised organic.

Um, and so. With fabric, you know, we, we try to just jump, um, with our pillows, we just try to jump the whole gamut, like, go from polyester pillows that are treated with formaldehyde, you know, flame retardants, a ton of chemicals, like hundreds of chemicals, um, I don't even know all of them, to go from that to then going to, you know, pure version wool that's grown in America and organic Texas cotton that's grown without pesticides, uh, to create just a pure, seamless jump, you know, [00:02:00] from the synthetic to the natural.

Speaker: Chase, what got you started even thinking this way about improving the quality of fabrics that people are using every day in the form of a pillow?

Speaker 2: Uh, we, we were, Sierra was pregnant with our son and, um, we just started thinking like, well, I, I've always been kind of, uh, my mom raised me organic, you know, in the organic food, mostly just like kind of granola food, though, uh, wasn't eating like a lot of grass fed liver or anything, but, um, But I've always been somewhat conscious of food, um, but never, never fabric, never, um, bedding or anything like that.

And so, um, I think it started with just learning about like polyester clothing, how it's, you know, it's not ideal. It's not optimal. It's full of just chemicals and releases microplastics and stuff like that. And when Sierra was pregnant with our son, Frederick, um, we were like, yeah, he should, he should have a mattress.

That's a [00:03:00] something clean that he can sleep on. So we started like looking of course on Amazon and, um, just searching through Google and we, we found we were pretty unsatisfied with the results. You just have to have a lot of trust, um, in the system and you have to trust that these Indian and Chinese manufacturers are.

Uh, doing the right thing and looking out for you and your family. And I just don't think that's the case. I think that's rarely the case. Um, and so we were like, you know, let's, let's build a mattress ourselves. Um, we found some people in Montana that have a wool carding mill and, um, they, we went to them to buy the wool and then they, they told us that they sell wool pillows and, uh, they, there's, there's some old timers like some, they're in their eighties and they're both hunchback and very cute and, uh, and they just taught us how to make, uh, wool pillows and so.

We changed our bedding over to wool and we made ourselves wool pillows. And we thought that's [00:04:00] like, I never thought I'd get into business or do anything like that, but twofold, having a child kind of pushed me in that direction, um, to provide for my family. And then also, um, I think it's just a great product that, You know, we can like show the whole process and there's no hidden, you know, there's no reason to have a, to cut corners.

Right. Cause we're selling a premium pillow and it's something that you should, you know, feel good about laying down on every night. So, um, so yeah, we just started with pillows and, and here we are. Love

Speaker 3: that. That's a great story. And, you know, I'm not just saying this cause you're on the podcast. I remember when we got those pillows as a gift, it's like, you can just, you can just tell, but just by seeing it, holding it, touching it, like the difference in the quality of craftsmanship of what you guys are doing.

Compared to these overseas companies that are producing these things at scale. And it's so interesting to really pull back the curtain around globalization in general, like what we've [00:05:00] sacrificed in optimization for getting these goods for a good quality price. And, you know, it seems like, you know, 50 to a hundred years ago, there was this like hyper local tradesmanship of art of high quality artisans that were making different quality goods like pillows, like denim, like meat, et cetera.

And you would trade with like your local neighbor or someone that you trusted and they would give you their hard earned money in exchange for a really good quality product. And it's interesting how we've almost lost like the heart and soul of a lot of these industries and these goods and services. Um, and I'm sure that's something that you've thought a lot about with everything that you're doing at the Wolfshire.

But when you were starting the brand, Obviously you, you had started using wool. You really liked that fabric. Were there any non negotiables that you had had from a manufacturing perspective that you wanted to make sure, like from a principal standpoint, you adhered to with the Wilshire?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And just a note on that, you know, I think we, we, um, and with industrial revolution, [00:06:00] like.

Yeah, things start off like better, right? They start off like, oh, now we can make this for way cheaper. But then like the person that makes quality shoes, like he loses his job, but we can buy these shoes that are just somewhat, uh, not as good. Um, but for like, you know, a 10th of the price. But then as that reaches, As that scales, um, you know, it basically like the quality goes down tenfold, a hundredfold.

And then it just gets shipped out to like the cheapest global competitor. And it's not a, it's not only like not an ethical system, it's just not a sustainable system, right? Like, cause it's It creates like an entire world, what we don't even see, you know, we don't see their waste. We don't see them as people, how they're living their lives.

Um, and it just, it basically is just like for the cheapest price possible. And then it tricks us thinking that, you know, you can buy a pillow for 5 at Walmart. Right. Like you, and you think like, oh, a pillow is a pillow, but it's just, [00:07:00] it's not like material wise everything. Um, so yeah. And then to answer your second question, um, yeah, so we.

We started off and, um, we were just looking into, at first we were just looking at getting the pillow manufactured, um, and so we contacted all these, like, organic bedding companies and we're reaching out to them and, um, and even in organic bedding we just found that it's just not the standard that we want, um, most of them use synthetic thread.

And this sounds like so petty, but to us, it's extremely important, but, um, like in the thread, the stitching that, um, it can be certified organic and still have, you know, synthetic thread, which means microplastic, which means, you know, flame retardant and chemicals, and basically just a petroleum plastic, you know, that you're still breathing in, even if it's minute.

Um, and then we just found like, yeah, when, when you, when you scale things to like a big level, it's hard not to, [00:08:00] um, I guess conform to the bedding world. So there's just a lot of plastic components and stuff that we didn't want. Um, and there was also like really big order minimums and we were just like, we're a really small company.

So we just thought, okay, we'll start it ourselves. Um, and we really wanted to source American fabric, uh, which was. Out of everything, it was the hardest thing to do. Um, finding American woven fabric is really difficult. Um, especially post COVID, uh, a lot of the mills have shut down. It's just really sad what's happened to this country.

Uh, we used to be a huge cotton producer and, um, not only a producer of cotton, but also of, uh, weaving cotton and, uh, knitting cotton. And there's still a lot of knit, knitwear, but as far as wovens, um, there's just not a lot. And so, um, yeah, we were lucky, luckily able to find, we got connected with some people in the industry and we were able to find a cotton for our cases and [00:09:00] that's grown in Texas, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 4: Cool. Cool.

Speaker: Yeah, the, the, I think ability to actually create a product fully made in America is so admirable and there's a few brands who are doing it so well. Like Sisu sauna, they are using American Redwood and actually using Amish labor in Ohio to create this amazing sauna. Um, I think of like Jocko's, um, Jocko's company origin, which is using American labor and, I'm not exactly sure if he's, I think he's using denim that's, that's made in America, but it's just remarkable to me to see the shift where there are actually brands who are just willing to take the risk in some ways of just bringing things back on shore and creating American made products.

But then you look back and you see the positive benefits of it. Americans getting employed and. Actually, you know, in this industry where we we've basically let it [00:10:00] die off manufacturing in the U S it's, it used to be the backbone of the country. And so I'm just curious for you, when you think about scaling, you know, I imagine obviously being us is something that's a non negotiable for you guys, but that challenge of just continuing to build the brand with this high integrity.

How do you think about that?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I, um, I dream really big, uh, when it comes to that, like I think about this all the time and I've, um, I've given some real thought as to how we can keep the woolshackle growing and support American business. Um, Either us or, uh, or somebody would like to, um, start, uh, like bring back more American manufacturing, um, and then scale it with the business.

Like I think building another mill in Texas, um, close to where the cotton's grown. Uh, would be really cool. Obviously that's a multi million dollar, uh, [00:11:00] project down the road. We're not there. We're not even any close, anything close to that. But, um, but either us or somebody else. It doesn't have to be us.

But, um, kind of like, we want to vertically integrate. And, um, keep things American. And I think that's the goal. That's the way to do it. It's possible that the company they work with now could keep up with us, um, quite a bit, but we, we'd like to get into other, other products as well. Um, comforters and other wool bedding items.

So, so we'll see. Uh, but yeah, I, I think it's crazy to dream like that big, but also I think. If you don't have that, then, you know, it's, it's, it's limiting. So,

Speaker 3: yeah, you need people like you in the industry that are willing to go after and attack difficult problems. And you're the perfect example of that.

Like this business really started out of what you wanting to provide, you know, your children with something that's non toxic that's safe, that's super high quality, and you look at what [00:12:00] you've already built in a short period of time, and it's exciting to think about what you guys are going to do five years from now.

And I, I think we can bet that. Pillows are really just the start of everything that you're doing at the wool. Sure. Um, was there anything in particular about wool compared to any other like organic clean ingredients that really attracted you to use? That is the preferred, um, sourcing for the pillow themselves.

Speaker 2: Yeah. A. I really like sheep. I've always loved, uh, been attracted to them. Uh, just think they're really beautiful animals. And, um, bee wool is very present in America. Uh, we have a lot of sheep here and we, we just use Suffolk wool, um, which is pretty much America's breed of sheep. Um, it's pretty much like the most popular sheep.

A lot of people use them for 4 H shows, but, um, but it's a nice, it's not like a fine wool. And, uh, you know, people ask us like, Oh, do you use Merino wool? But Merino wool is an extremely fine micron. [00:13:00] So it's nice for like direct on skin. It's nice for like, yeah, some really nice, um, active wear and stuff like that.

But as far as a pillow material, it would be really bad because it would just like compress, um, and felt really easily while Suffolk wool is extremely coarse. And it's kind of the stuff that your grandma used to make sweaters out of. Um, so it's pretty, it's pretty fluffy and, um, it works great from, you know, Uh, for wool, uh, wool pillows.

And then, um, thirdly, there's just, uh, wool is just like a, a super fiber. Like, if you think about wool on a sheep, you know, out in the elements, like, wool doesn't grow mildew. Uh, even if a sheep is exposed to all this, you know, hot and cold and, uh, rain and snow and sleet, it doesn't grow mildew, it's, it's, um, it's, um, immune to dust mites, and it's also just naturally flame retardant, so you don't have to, um, In the bedding industry, it's kind of weird.

Like they, [00:14:00] uh, they require you to like do flame tests on things. Um, and so some companies will actually use wool as a natural flame, uh, retardant barrier so that they don't have to like spray like avocado mattress. I think uses. Um, wool as that flame retardant barrier, but um, otherwise you have to use synthetic flame retardant, which is just chemicals that like literally off gases for its entire life because it has to continue to be a flame retardant for however long a person owns a mattress.

And so wool is just this super fiber like, um, we thought about a lot of other ideas. We thought about like buckwheat holes. We thought about, um, like goose down. Other natural things and those things are fine, but, um, but buckwheat holes can be susceptible to mildew. And it's also just susceptible to like the industrialization.

Um, and same with goose down. Like, I don't know where to source goose down in America. Most, all of that is in China and, uh, on like factory [00:15:00] farms. And so, but wool is like very present. It's very, it's easy to find and, um, and it's easy to scale. Like we could just keep making, you know, wool products and, um, and there's just.

I don't know. It's perfect fiber for, for betting.

Speaker: What have been some of the most common pieces of feedback that you've gotten since you started out the wall share? Like what sort of customer information have you collected where it's like, you know, I imagine you have a very loyal, uh, niche following that is just super passionate about the product.

So I'd love to understand like how they. Have experienced the product and what they kind of say about it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. We've got a lot of, uh, we got a lot of followers from a soul brush out to soul broth. Thank you, my friend. Uh, yeah. A lot of kind of esoteric health, um, type people, which, you know, so bra is great for, um, for bringing people into.

You know, [00:16:00] a kind of normie lifestyle of eating bad into eating, uh, healthy and, you know, finding some good avenues for, um, you know, getting sun and being a healthy person. So a soul bra type people, uh, has been great. And then like, yeah, we found ourselves kind of, um, this sounds weird, but we found ourselves with a lot of like more conservative men as, um, our customer base, which.

When I thought of building, like, an organic wool pillow, I thought it'd be, like, liberal women.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And, uh, so it's just, yeah, the kind of opposite that I expected. Um, and not to harp on, like, liberals too much here, but, uh, but I think sometimes, at least the, the kind of, like, the kind of, like, woke crowd or whatever, um, I think a lot of that is show, and I don't think that, you know, with environmental concerns and stuff, I don't know how real that really is.

Um, how authentic that it really is. I think a lot of it is kind of a, uh, [00:17:00] presentation, um, but with like, with the health movement, with people like starting to work out and like, you know, You know, put good energy into how they want to appear, how they want to, you know, be, I think that's probably primarily driven by like males and, and conservatives.

Um, so that's been something I did not expect at all.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's this incredibly interesting shift that's happened where I feel like all the old school, like independent health food stores, they were all by like Southern California. Lefties that were a very different type of liberal than what's currently in the marketplace.

And now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction where there's like, you know, Christian conservative meat loving people that support their local artists. And it's so interesting that pendulum swift that shift.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Yeah. And we live in, we live in this town, um, outside of this town called Sandpoint, Idaho.

And it's, uh, it's filled with a bunch of draft Dodgers from like the seventies. Um, [00:18:00] And, uh, it's interesting because I like these, the people here it's been, it's a nice like mix of, um, of like old school liberal and just like your standard kind of country loving conservative.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Um, but that's a really nice mix because.

With old school liberals, I'm not talking about like new, new wave liberalism or anything, but like old school liberals did actually care about, like you said, like, local foods, they cared about farmers markets, they cared about not spraying pesticides on the beach, you know. They're the kind of people that actually care about the real environmental concerns, and those are the kind of people I really respect.

So here we have like a great mix of the two, which you think North Idaho would just be a bunch of like hardcore, uh, conservatives, but we've got both. Nice.

Speaker 3: Oh, go ahead, bro. Oh, I was just going to say if, um, Chase, have you gotten to meet like the pack of sheep that are actually, um, supplying the wool?

Speaker 2: We've, [00:19:00] we've haven't met them like, uh, shook hands or anything, but we have, uh, we have seen them, um, the, the mill that processes our wool for us, um, right now it's, um, it's just east of Missoula, Montana, like an hour and that, that, uh, Ed and Sue are their names and they process like all the local Suffolk wool and then they also get wool from, um, Like the Missoula market and, uh, the Dillon market.

Mostly it's just all Montana wool that we're using. Um, with a little bit of, uh, wool that's grown in Oregon as well. Um, but when is this, when is this episode going to be aired? Um, probably three weeks. Okay, so I'll, I'll say an announcement. Uh, which is pretty cool. Um, we're actually buying the wool mill.

Um, from the Montana folks and, um, yeah, we bought some property and some, some big news is happening. We're, we're going to leak it on social media, you know, in a [00:20:00] couple of days. So I figured it'd probably be safe to say it here. Um, it's going to be pretty big. So we're, we're buying like this huge scouring station, which is.

Basically just like hot water and organic soap to clean the wool. And then, um, all this like 1960s drum Carter machines that take raw wool after you've washed it. Uh, it makes a carded into bats and, um, yeah, our, our people are retiring. And, uh, The timing just kind of worked out perfectly. And so we're making like a big step.

We, um, and, uh, yeah, we're, we're pretty excited.

Speaker: How does it feel to be able to make that type of move after having launched the brand and gone through those initial stages of taking a product from zero to one, and then being able to buy a mill and start to vertically integrate that into your business?

Like I imagine. Seeing the infrastructure coming in place makes that big vision that, Hey, maybe we can, um, [00:21:00] you know, continue to build out this thing really vertically and in the U S and along the whole line of the mission, like it's actually possible. Um, you know, I imagine that this is a huge milestone for you guys.

Speaker 2: It is. Yeah. It's, um, It's, it's like pretty, I don't know. It's, it's a big move. Like we went from. We make pillows in our basement to, uh, to like, we just bought some property on the highway, um, three and a half acres and we're building like a huge 40 by 80 shop. We're bringing in the wool mill and then we're going to be able to work like directly with, with sheep ranchers.

Um, And kind of, kind of like refine it even more, like we can get, we can get better wool, um, we can get better relations with our, with, um, the producers. And it's big, it feels, it feels crazy, like it feels great, uh, feels nerve, like I'm a little nervous about the whole thing also. [00:22:00] But, um, but, but I don't see it, uh, failing or anything, it's just kind of the process of getting there is, um, it's a lot of moving parts.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like that incredible investment that you've made to have that autonomy. That's going to allow you to be able to do everything that you want to do to really revolutionize this space. I just think it's incredible to think about the difference in your supply chain versus the supply chain of like a big pillow company that you would buy at target or something like that, where, like you just said, you literally just bought the wool mill.

You own the property, you know, the exact sheep ranchers, you can probably trace back the lineage of the sheep to the exact pillows that you're making. Like. that transparency in your supply chain versus like this mysterious overseas supply chain that we almost want to pretend like it doesn't exist. It almost reminds me of like buying meat from a local rancher where the rancher can tell you the exact lineage and the cattle and the name of where your meat is coming from versus something you're buying at the grocery store where you almost just pretend like you don't even want to know where the [00:23:00] supply chain is coming from.

You almost want to pretend like it doesn't even exist or you're just naive to it. Um, it's fascinating to think that. The, the term is pillow, but the sourcing and the origins like just couldn't be any more different.

Speaker 2: Right? Yeah. That's a great example. It's it's, there's a lot of parallels with, uh, with food and with clothing we've, we've just changed like in the past, you know, it's really only been the past hundred years, not even 80 years that we've changed into this like fast fashion culture, uh, which isn't just clothing.

It's, it's bedding, it's everything. And, and we, we buy stuff and we just cycle through it. Um, And yeah, because it's cheap, but who knows where, you know, 90 percent of that stuff comes from and we feel really privileged that we can. Like we can know, um, where everything's from and we're just, we're just purists.

And so we want to like create the best, like we want people to sleep easy, knowing like, [00:24:00] okay, I know exactly what I'm breathing in. Like, I know exactly where this is from. Um, I think as far as sleep goes anyway, I think that's probably, you know, one of the biggest, uh, like biohacks, uh, you can make.

Speaker: Yeah, it's, it's incredible to think the steps that you're taking are actually reversing a lot of what's gone wrong with globalism as, as Brett was saying.

And the, the thing too, is like, you guys are pioneering. I imagine that there's going to be a lot more people and dollars that follow. Once you guys. I mean, you guys have truly proven out that there's a market for this type of thing, which I think these big companies are generally kind of afraid of. Um, but I, I see this world where, you know, Twitter is just such an interesting ecosystem in general, but a lot of these brands on Twitter that are being launched are truly high integrity.

They have something unique about them from a sourcing supply chain standpoint, and a lot of them are trying to make American made products, um, at least on our corner of the [00:25:00] internet. So, you know, I'm curious if you're. Obviously with the Wilshire you are, but do you see other brands kind of picking this up and really running with it?

Cause you do, you know, Brett, I talk about this a lot. Like it's actually good to have some of this competition, this healthy competition to draw more of a customer base into this whole movement that it really is coming from a purist standpoint.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. No, I've, from what I've seen in the last, um, you know, two, three years on Twitter, primarily people are getting really aware of, um, of everything, like everything they use.

Soap, fabric, you know, uh, bedding, food, people are just like waking up. And I think our parents, um, You know, they kind of just for the most part, just kind of like bought into the system and it's not, everything was just marketed to them like as a pillow or as beef or whatever. Um, but [00:26:00] I think, you know, there's there's been a revolution with food that's happened over the last 10, 15 years.

I think the same thing is going to happen with fabric and I think the same thing is going to happen with, you know, care products like van man and all of that. Like I think, I think we're just at the beginning stages. And I think there's like, yeah, there's a ton of room for growth. Like, I think there's, there can be like a million companies doing all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the things that Harry and I talk a lot about Chase is, um, that classic image that's gone really viral of like the big food web of the 10 companies that monopolize like 90 percent of the, the processed foods in the interisle, the grocery store. And then the antidote to that are these base brands on Twitter, like the wool share that are.

Leaning into craftsmanship and sourcing your ingredients incredibly well and collecting, connecting with like minded customers. And that's really the antidote to this like globalized process food system. That's just kind of ravaged our metabolic [00:27:00] health and all these other industries over the last 50 plus years.

And. It's incredible to Harry's point, the tool that Twitter is. I feel like Twitter is like the epicenter of these base brands. And maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, the impact that Twitter has played into the health of your own business and the awareness around the wool. Sure.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't, uh, I don't think we'd be here if it wasn't for Twitter.

And that sounds crazy. Like anytime people ask us, like, where do we, you know, like, where do we find our customers or whatever? I'm almost like Twitter, I guess. And, uh, and it's funny cause you know, never thinks, you know, that Twitter was kind of a place to even market. Um, and so, yeah, and I, I started off with like no real following.

I really wasn't even on Twitter that much, mostly just being a troll and, uh, and so, but yeah, we, we've, we have good friends on there, um, with good, like a good following and, um, [00:28:00] like soul brawl, like raw like nationalists, like these guys have really like brought a lot of attention to us. And we did have to like bootstrap like.

From, and we don't have like a million, you know, followers or anything. We don't have only have like 5, 000, but like we had zero, uh, like a year and a half ago, you know, so we were on our way and it's, you know, it's, it's, it's something to like convince somebody. To spend 180 bucks on a pillow. Like that's a hard thing to do.

Uh, and it has to like, there has to be like a lot of education take place, but I think Twitter is the perfect kind of ecosystem for that where, where thought, um, at least I think, uh, you know, free thinking, free thinking is encouraged and, um, and you can kind of share ideas.