The Meat Mafia Podcast

PART 2
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[00:00:00]

Should we hit it? Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Mafia_Cowboy: There's such a plethora amount of information and education that's just waiting to be had.

Where does it start? It starts at the processing center. By doing that, we take control of distribution, we take control of the input of where the cow came from, of that affidavit that it is a clean cow.

It is the center of the universe. It's the most important thing in the cattle industry right now is the processing center.

no one knows this. Nobody knows this stuff. screw the marketing, screw the screw the labeling,

Mafia_Cowboy: it's all here. We have the protocols, we have the collaborations, and now we're just putting it all together. You know, that's why we're talking today. ​

Do you feel like we actually have an opportunity to reconnect the American consumer with the American rancher? Like what do you think we need to do to actually [00:01:00] redesign the food system so that that relationship can then actually start to flourish again?

Because I mean, that's the, that's the key is like, we're losing so much distance between Yeah. What Brett said it before it's like the end consumer and and the food provider so that we're not just losing You know the nutrition and and the care that goes into making high quality food. We're Missing that information to like, like really understanding what goes into high quality food and the personal relationships and actually having that I think for a lot of people provides a lot of value outside of just better nutrition.

Sure. And it's a really good question because, you know, people don't, they want to do something, right? They just don't know where to start. And, and that's how I was in the very beginning, but I started with the processing center. We've got to get people because you can have the best rancher out there. Okay.

This is how this is going to work. And this is how it does work. A lot of people don't see it playing out, but you can have the best regenerative [00:02:00] rancher out there. And he doesn't have access to a processing center. That he trust in that is decentralized in a way kind of like within the beef initiative.

He can be shut down overnight He's done. It doesn't matter what he does as far as inputs to the ground to the soil to the cow to anything If he doesn't have market access clean market access through a good really nice USDA or state level processing center, he can be shut down. Yeah. So people need to understand that processing, this is a big thing.

And so to support the Beef Initiative, to support TBIAC, we've got a lot of investors out there. People that want to rebuild community if you're going to rebuild community community right now small town America and Or or feed inner cities is going to go through a microprocessing center simple as that in those Variant sizes we're not going to go for the big O You know, Cargill, [00:03:00] JBS, Tyson, National type of processing center, those things, we don't, that's what got us in trouble.

Yeah. We're gonna scale down, we're gonna invert everything that they took, uh, the power away from us. Hm. But then you say, you say, well I can't open up a processing center. Well once again. It's as simple as going through the Beef Initiative and going, we've got hundreds of producers that are waiting for those phone calls.

We have a lot of entry points. We have a lot of entry points for the producers. We have a lot of entry points for the consumers. It's up to the individual to find out what that is. You know, like, go to beef, uh, beef. index. Beef. support is everything that we've done for the producers that now have them tools, digital tools, technology tools.

You know, in, in basically monetary tools, you know, you know, the Bitcoin. Oh yeah. There's so much that's coming to the plate now, and dealing with the people I'm dealing with right now, there's a lot of big money coming into this industry. Not the multinational [00:04:00] industry, the new decentralized American cattle industry that the Beef Initiative is leading right now.

That's the amazing thing about what you're saying is like, we're not just theorizing and addressing the issue of what's gone wrong with the beef industry. Like you said, you guys have launched multiple microprocessing facilities, you're like, this is all action. This is not just telling you what's wrong.

It's it's addressing the issue and then giving you tangible solutions to pull back from the brink. Yeah. And I love what you're saying to Slim about how. You're talking about the microprocessors. This is what it was when we had 254 processors, um, in the state of Texas. It's like the secret to our food system is actually learning from the past in a lot of ways too.

And I think what you and Cole did with, uh, is it, is it hometown? Yeah, it's hometown meat. Why don't we tell that story? Because it's a man. Cause I mean, he will tell two stories. Love it. Tell Justin of panhandle meats. And then call that's a really good kind of point. Cause I have a lot of, I can speak to that because it's real time.

Like I said before the podcast, as we're sitting here, [00:05:00] five cows just got processed, man, as we were speaking, okay? They had one bad day in their whole life. Animal welfare, we got it covered through these processing centers. Truly stewardship of where that beef now goes, through a processing center, through, you know, Panhandle Meats and Hometown Meats.

Panhandle Meats is state certified. That's Justin Trammell, Trammell Cattle and Tier Bloom. Okay, they're smaller, they're micro, uh, they're feeding the Texas Panhandle. 30 mile radius, that's what they want, that's their business model. And so They had to go through the whole process. That was the very beginning of the Beef Initiative.

They, they weren't open yet. They did everything from the ground up on their own. There was no intelligence out there. This is a family run organization. Justin and his father Donnie got there and they drew up the blueprints themselves. Donnie, his father, comes from Amarillo Livestock. [00:06:00] yard, the auction house, one of the most famous auction houses in the country, very historical, you know, uh, auction house.

And so they have generational, you know, intelligence on how things used to be once again. So they borrowed from the past. They looked at the rules and the laws. You know, Justin is part of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Allowance. It's a non profit organization that is a legal arm for our independent ranchers and producers in the state of Texas.

That's something we're working to basically spread out across the United States. We want more regional representation. So there was a lot of tools that we had to put together to be able to get pan handle meats going, okay? So, but within that, okay, you get your processing center going. You get new producers coming through that aren't going to Hereford, Texas.

They're bringing their cattle now through Panhandle Meats. Well, they didn't know how to brand their beef, and so now Trammell Cattle and Panhandle Meats gives people an independent [00:07:00] producer. And now with the Beef Initiative, a way to white label their beef, take it to market, feed the people they want.

You're going to have access to half a cow, whole cow. There's so many different options that open up to you. It's up to the consumer or the producer to bring that creativity. to the table saying this is, you know, it's not a piece of cellophane, cellophane, plastic and styrofoam there at Kroger's or H E B.

And so by doing that now, Panhandle Meats has a storefront in the processing center, so they're selling beef. They're bringing the cows in the back, dry aging them, that's another big thing that's huge at the processing centers that you don't get at the supermarket is the correct aging. So you get grass finished and you get grain finished, you get natural, but they are 100 percent natural.

They use no commodity based systems, chemicals, nothing. They're clean, as I always say, clean processing center. Okay. He's just a smaller version of what Cole Bolton is doing out of Hometown Meats. [00:08:00] Now, Cole Bolton, you know, they, they can go up to, you know, I think he set a record a couple of weeks ago, 37 head in one day.

Oh my gosh. That's amazing. 37 head. Yeah. And he could, if he had the right. team. You know, labor right now is very hard. You know, our labor market is dead, but he wants to work and that's a skill set we've lost. As you, you brought up before, you know, why are we losing? We're losing skill sets of butchery. And so Cole has to really, you know, balance, you know, his supply and demand.

But what he's also done now is he's getting many, many different producers a, a, a clean market access through a processing center they didn't have. We have Short Tail Creek that's coming with the beef initiative. Sam and his wife, they worked generational farmers and ranchers, but now Cole kind of took them under his wing.

He's processing their grass finished beef. And think about the, the processing center as being the Dow. It's the center of the universe of the cow. Yeah, that's what it is. [00:09:00] And so if we can really kind of pop culture, the processing center butchery. You know, everything that I'm going to bring as far as cattleman's feast, you know, tomahawk ribeye eating contest that we're going to do, you know, everything would get to really reflect back.

This is the processing center. It's what it used to be. Look and do a Google search on the image. What is it? These guys used to represent, man. They were the ones that went and they had a half a cow hanging. What are you going to have today? You know, and you can have your tri tip. There's such a plethora amount of information and education that's just waiting to be had.

Where does it start? It starts at the processing center. Okay, by doing that, we take control of distribution, we take control of the input of where the cow came from, of that affidavit that it is a clean cow, and any nefarious bullshit that's going on from people that don't know how to be a cattle man or a cattle woman.

So that is, it is the center of the universe. It's the [00:10:00] most important thing in the cattle industry right now is the processing center. Because from that processing center creates business. It creates retail business, it creates wholesale business, it creates community building, it creates everything. It creates product design, it creates innovation, it creates distribution from a regional standpoint.

You know, you look at Hometown Meats, it's right off of I 10 right there. You know, Houston, you know, San Antonio, El Paso. I mean, think about how our nation is set up. Let's scale everything back to where you can either, like Justin, 30 mile radius, or Cole Bolton, state of Texas. So there's so many different, you know, possibilities starts with the processing center.

Yeah. When I hear you talking about the processing centers, I, I see your role in it being the emblem or like, you know, you like popularizing, like why we need to be focusing on this. Is that how you kind of see [00:11:00] your role? Yeah. Just like. Um, communicating this message, but also making it so that people realize these processing centers are where the rubber meets the road with actually being able to create the market access that you talk about.

It's a good question. It's a good reflection there, Harry, because when I first started the Beef Initiative, I wanted to just go open up a processing center. I said, can't do that yet. Let's get some awareness. And it is. I, yeah, I, Early on, I had a, uh, a small team of, you know, people only, I think Jason was on, on that team.

He's the only one left. But I said, Hey Rick, I'm gonna, I'm gonna become the Jimmy Dean of Beef Man. , I remember you saying that. Yeah. And people don't know what it means. That's kind of a, you know, whatever. But Jimmy Dean created a $1.8 billion brand out of basically taking local hogs 45 miles from where I was raised, and he fed families.

With the best hog, best bacon, best sausage that you could find in that Texas panhandle. And look [00:12:00] where it ended up. And, you know, he died in his 80s, but before he died, he tried to get his brand back, because who owns Jimmy Dean? Tyson. Tyson. Who owns Tyson? Smithfield. Think about that. Think about that. So China definitely owns, China owns Jimmy Dean?

Yeah. No one knows this. Nobody knows this stuff. And so, screw the marketing, screw the packaging, screw the labeling, I'm serious man, if you can really look at that, that's all you need. That's a good story, see, because Jimmy Dean was a character. And to your point, yes, that's, I'm a spokesperson now. You know, I am that person that's going to speak to this.

We are consulting on how to do a processing center. It's not a good old boy club. And that's what happens like in Amarillo, Texas. And I'll speak to the commodity guys right now. Once again, this is not a freaking competition and don't take this personal. But they've got a processing center that's been approved by the city of Amarillo.

All kinds of tax breaks, all [00:13:00] kinds of stuff, and it says it's producer owned and led. No, it's not. You can buy into it, and I guarantee you what happens with these big old multi million dollar, 200 million dollar processing centers, who ends up owning them in the end? Big five, yeah. You know, five years, two years, ten years down the road.

Who owns them? Big four. Yep. Who owns all of IPP? That was a big turning point in processing. I will be Packers. He did it kind of right. He regionalized, uh, packing back in the day. Who owns IBP? Tyson? I mean, they're, they're, that's all I have to say. Yeah. You know, let's not get an analysis paralysis that we seem to do now in the United States.

We get kind of academic with everything instead of just accepting. Yeah, this is kind of fucked up. Except that there's a problem. Don't try to figure it out anymore. That's our job. Go out there and basically take our recommendations. Find your entry point [00:14:00] of solution within your own family, with your own community, with your own self first.

And then you find out everything, basically, you do see the clarity of it all. Yes. You know, speaking about China. Because this is not, once again, I'm not a conspiracy guy. This is just factual. Stuff that nobody has access to. Yes, and it could be easy for the uninforming consumer to listen to what you're saying and be like, Oh, Slim is just a doomer.

And what we say is you're the opposite of a doomer, you're one of the most optimistic people we know. You're just addressing the landscape of what the hell is going on with the beef industry. That way we can build a different and better system. A hundred percent. Which is exactly what you're doing. So to Harry's point, you're part spoke per spar, part spokesperson, but you're way more than that.

'cause you guys are actually consulting and building these microprocessing facilities. Yes. Um, and I remember, I remember when we met Cole for the first time at Cooper's Barbecue in 2022. Right. They were talking about the concept of doing this processor. Yeah. And like a year later you guys had the fricking thing built.

I'm [00:15:00] like, this is. Insane. Like you're literally disrupting the beef industry by doing this. So how long did it take from start to finish to get home to home? Is it hometown meets? Yeah. Hometown meets. How, how long did it take? Okay. Yeah. Cause he was up against COVID. I mean, you know, it's still quick. Him and Clyde, you know, Clyde summer Lottie of two bar C ranch.

That's where we had the big cattleman's feast down there in Luling. And that's been already over a year and a half ago. I think it's been too long ago, but Clyde and Cole went into partnership. And, you know, Cole partly started this herd with Clyde. He does, you know, um, bulls, Angus, everything. Anyways, he's a great outfit, both great outfits.

So they, they had really kind of laid down the blueprints of everything and they were acquired some of the equipment, everything before COVID and all this hyperinflation happened. But because of COVID and everything, they got a late start. So the whole, you know, as far as breaking ground and then fully operational, it was [00:16:00] a couple of years.

A couple of years. Yeah. And it was too long. And Kohl's the first to admit that. Same with Clyde. And they, they, they ran into a lot of things that they didn't see in the beginning. Okay. And that's really what the delay was. It wasn't that it wasn't possible in a streamlined, efficient fashion. It's that they had to battle a lot of economic bullshit, a lot of societal bullshit, and just, you know, and bullshit in general as far as the cattle industry during those times.

And so it took too long, but right now, I mean, coal is, they're hitting their stride very well. They need more though. They need more. You look, you look at a processing center, and I brought it up earlier, there's a lot of processing centers that are about to go out of business right now. Okay, this is a call to action.

We've got to bring this awareness. And these are smaller pro I mean, I've got processing centers that I know about all across the United States. The independents and the multinationals. And we'll talk about the multinationals. I've got some stories. [00:17:00] But I also get stories from these local, you know, smaller processing centers of, of people doing it wrong.

And not just the multinationals, but other people that are, are fudging the laws and, and basically manipulating, um, you know, regulatory capture in organic grass fed in certain ways. And so that's my job is to truly, I'm not a loyalist. Now I get to really stand on the fucking mountaintop and say, this is what's going on, folks.

I don't give two shits. If you like me, if you hate me, you're going to remember what I say. Test me. See if I'm right. See if I'm wrong. And if I'm wrong, maybe that's a good thing. Yeah. If I'm right, thank God you listened. And so this goes to all the commodity guys out there. It goes to all the, the people, I'm not a dude.

I'm not, like you said, man, that's all I do is, you know. Optimistic. I have to be, man. Yeah. Bones. I got freaking 14 pieces of metal in me, man. I've broken my neck. [00:18:00] I got to be optimist. And we're still standing and we're still fighting. Yes. And so it sounds like with, with Cole, you, like you said, timing was tough COVID, but you learn a ton in those, those early experiences.

And I would imagine now. He could probably spin up a processing facility a lot faster, potentially even cheaper, too. For someone, because my sense is there's probably a lot of people listening to this show that are into red meat and they care about the beef industry, and maybe they've made money in tech or other industries and they want some skin in the game.

For someone that maybe would want to open up a microprocessing facility, if you had to guess, How long do you think you could, how long would it take to get it up and running? And then what do you think the capital commitment would look like for something like that? So we don't generalize, you know, because we, we, we kind of get trapped into doing that.

And I'm going to speak to Justin's first, as far as Panhandle meets. I think it's more doable and it's actually more, and Cole would tell you this. he say, I went too big. And so that was something he had to learn though. But that was a different day in time. The cattle industry was different. [00:19:00] You know, he didn't think that he's going to have to buy battle auction house prices that are at all time highs right now.

Okay. People aren't taking their cow to plate. They're taking it to the auction house because they're making the same amount of profit. So that means less throughput to that processing center. So when you have a bigger processing center, you've got to have all those, uh, hooks. You know, they got to be full.

Yeah. And so let's talk about Justin. Whenever they started, I believe Justin put a price tag that they got into panhandle meats for about 900, 000. But this was a couple of years ago, you know, material, we weren't in hyperinflation and everything, but just to generalize, to give a, you know, an entry point of thought and maybe like, hey man, we can do this.

I'd say right now, 1. 8 million for basically, uh, uh, microprocessing center where you could do about 30 beefs a week. That's, that's, that's, that's very, you know, loose, but that is something that [00:20:00] I will put my word on that you can do, for sure. So 1. 8 million for a processing facility that could do about 30, 30 holes of beef.

Yep. Not bad. Honestly. And the only reason you wouldn't do more than that is because you'd have to add on to the cooler space for the aging process. That's one of the biggest things you, it's hard to really build out as far as capacity. You just don't know. But that processing centers aren't hard, man.

They're just metal buildings. Yeah. Okay. It's the, it's the flow. You know, and you know your equipment and of course the kill space you want to do everything that is top notch That is very humane. So That engineering takes a little bit more than you was in the past So you're gonna have a little added cost and doing it right so that Cal only has one bad day But as far as them being complex, no, what's complex is basically getting around the regulatory capture that really handcuffs microprocessing centers from being able to be fully functional.

This is what [00:21:00] Panhandle Meats has done is showing that, hey, We've got precedence here. They had to go through two inspections their last inspection one of the head inspectors of the state of Texas We got him on YouTube right now Saying this is the standard for microprocessing center across the state and across the nation So we know what we're doing.

We have legal We have legislation. We have basically our fingers on the pulse of all the nefarious things that people freak out about every day as far as processing centers being, you know, shut down like Amos mill or all that kind of stuff. We don't worry about that. We are processing. We don't have to worry about what they're doing out there.

We know what's going on today inside the processing center with USDA and Texas and, you know, all the other states. And so we don't worry about anything. We're the ones that are leading. We are educating sometimes the inspectors. Because like I said, they know how to inspect the big, [00:22:00] you know, processing centers.

They don't understand. And if you look at the, yeah, everybody's against, you know, USDA, government, federal, state, all that. Most of the time, our inspectors. They're wanting to work with the community. They have the best intentions for being in that position. So let's lose everything else and let's work with what's in front of us, who's in front of us.

And so it becomes a working apparatus that really does, uh, pioneer into a new, um, industry of processing. That's where we are. And we have full confidence, you know, like I said. We usually try to talk people out of it more than we try to talk people into it. But if people can answer all the right questions, like if you go to tbiac.

org right now. That's how you get a conversation with me about processing, and I'll know your intentions. If you don't hear from me, it's like you're not there yet. And that's not a judgment. You're just not there yet. Hmm. You need to feed your community, [00:23:00] and you can make money at this, but your intentions better be to basically help save the cattle industry, help save local producers, learn how to build community, learn how to restart a small town or a small community, a suburb, whatever it is.

But your intentions better be lined up. But then you go on to Hometown Meats. Price tag around that. I would allow Cole and Clyde to kick me in the ass if I try to put a price tag on what they've achieved. But it's not saying we don't have a price tag. I know what it is. But you look at 250, 000, do your own math.

And that's what you can do. About 2 million for, you know, a micro. A regional size for Hometown Meats. It's, you know. Do your own math. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really about up to the individual what they're trying to achieve. Mm hmm How do you think you go about filling some of that skill gap that? education of like the workforce being there to actually be able to run these processing facilities, like [00:24:00] 254 processing facilities in Texas, one per county.

That's like a massive shift in how many people are actually working these facilities. So what is that component of this whole thing? Well, we have to, you know, I started the I Am Texas Slim Foundation. And that's a non profit, it's a 503, and it's approved by the R. S., you know, we've, we've raised, and this would be a good time to segue into Jason Rick, and, you know, we've raised 10, 000 for Jason Rick, and now we get to award Jason Rick with that grant.

And, you know, he's been busy doing everything that he's doing right now. And so by saying that, the I Am Texas Slim Foundation has five pillars that we lead by. And one of them is basically to create the next generation of regenerative farmer and ranchers in the United States. It's also the education that is required.

Um, Justin and Cole have talked about. And especially Justin, because he comes from, uh, good [00:25:00] internship programs and education that got him to where he is. We have to start educating the next generation of butchers. Uh, people that are really ready for that type of skill set. These young men and women. And that's who really is taking the baton right now in these processing centers.

It's people that live in the local communities that find those type of skill sets very valuable that they already have or that they're, they're wanting to make a career out of it. We got to make it a career again. And this is what we have to do together. We have to bring that awareness. And if we can bring that awareness, I've, you know, Jason's going to have an educational curriculum that he's doing two different educational curriculums with that 10, 000 grant.

So he's going to go out there and become the educator. He's not going to rely on Colorado State to teach people about regenerative farming and ranching. It's going to go through the producers and ranchers. The education is going to go [00:26:00] through the processing centers. And so I'm already working on building that type of trade school system to where we can award scholarships, internships.

Training, educational classes, it's all going to come through the pillars and basically the ethos of I Am Texas Slim Foundation. So that is going to be a very powerful non profit. And, uh, I finally, the reason we held back is because IRS, it took, they were backlogged. I mean, it took almost two years to finally get that non profit, you know, set and ready to go.

But I finally got the final approval on January 16th of 2024. Well, so here we go. That's incredible. So is it, how do you actually donate to the foundation? Well, we've got a website that we're, uh, basically finishing out right now. Uh, if you read any of our sub stacks, all that you, there's a donation page in there.

We had the old one before I went off to Australia and it was kind of a final kick to get Jason [00:27:00] his 10, 000 for that first grant. And so it's kind of old school right now, but it's still there. You can go to thebeefinitiative. com. Yeah, and we'll talk about that. I'll give y'all some links that you can put into the podcast and stuff like that.

But what I, I really, I formed the foundation a way that we're, we, we're going to go after big ass grants too, you know, cause you look at, uh, the federal government, you know, the current administration's given a billion dollars for processing centers. Guess who's on the laundry list? Will Harris read it out, I think, on Joe Rogan.

Yeah. Guess who it is? JBS. Walmart. Tyson. Yeah. All at Walmart. Yeah. And so it's all the big dogs are getting this federal money. Well, we're going to play their same games. Because there's tons of people out there that want to give back that they don't know where to give. And now that we've got, you know, the non profit.

We've got this first grant that Jason really, we're going to, you guys have him on podcast. We're going to really show the world what he's doing right there in Crawford, you know, and all, a lot of that [00:28:00] started from that, you know, for the beef initiative summit that we had in the Norfolk Valley of, you know, Crawford, Colorado.

Yeah. And so we have to work together. We have to get people, you know, I tell everybody watch the freaking bearded Bush butchers. Those guys are phenomenal, man. That's the type of stuff young men should be doing right now. You know, you learn butchery skills and you have access to a processing center. Man, you can open up your own butchery in a small town right now.

Right now, without question, you're going to hang a half a side of beef and you're going to sell it out. Just like Franklin's BBQ does. He sells out his brisket, he's gone. He's done for the day. Why aren't we doing that with butcheries? We can do that. We have a processing center. We don't have to ask JBS, can we have one of your beefs that, you know, you got at the auction house.

We're going to go down there and talk to Cole Bolton or Justin Trammell or Slim from the Beef Initiative and we're going to start creating and innovating. We're going to quit asking for permission. We know the laws better than the [00:29:00] law enforcers know themselves. So it is time for innovation. Three years ago, we couldn't say that.

Now we can say, you know, I'm saying today. I love what you said, too, Slim, about being willing to play the same game that a lot of these big guys are doing, too. Oh, yeah. I think a lot about, um, you know, the future of ranching, and I'm very inspired by a lot of these first gens that I see. that want to get in the game, but it's, it's the knowledge gap is one thing.

And then how capital intensive the business actually is to get into ranching and our buddy, Kevin at perennial pastures, who I think you got connected to maybe two years ago. I mean, he's the perfect example of he, he came from the tech space. He had some auto immune issues. He fixed it by going paleo and he decided he was like, I want to have that skin in the game and really grow food for the community and start my own ranch and do it at scale.

But it's so damn capital intensive that, luckily, he was able to raise capital. Um, the founder of this huge soap company was able to cut him a, you know, a few million dollar check, which allowed him to go buy land and expand operations. But if he didn't have access to that capital, there's no way he'd be able to do what he's doing.

So [00:30:00] to your, your point is so important because it's not just knowledge, it's the capital piece as well. Well, and you look at capital right now, you know, commodity side system and ranching, you know, you're going to go to ag credit, you know, you're going to go through all these agricultural financing, you know, apparatuses that have been created over the last 50 years, a lot of them there, the banks are owned by cargill themselves, you know, and so they're like shit.

So it brings up a good point, though, capital intensive, Let's talk about the auction house prices right now. What's going on with our beefs right now at the auction house? I keep bringing it up. Okay, our cattle inventory in the United States is the lowest it's ever been. All the numbers aren't even in yet.

Why is this happening? Well, everybody's selling their beef at the auction houses. The Wholesale Auction House. Who is that? That's the big four packers. Okay, they're independent ranchers and producers are paying down their debt. They're selling out their herds. Can't blame them for doing that. They're being responsible.

These are record prices. Take your profits when you can get them, right? That's what the bankers are [00:31:00] telling everybody. You know, clear out your debt as much as you can. These are tough times. But what's not being basically broadcast, financing is drying up. So you sell your herd, where are you going to finance that next herd?

It's not the same people that used to be in the past. Yeah. So you have a lot of new people, new players, people up on the 1 percent level. And then a little bit more down than just the one percent, but they're finding out that, hey, we're having to shift debt right now. I'm starting to see a lot of people that would not have been investing into agriculture just three to five years ago.

This is the first thing we're wanting to invest in right now is agriculture. Okay. So financing is changing the capital investment. Perennial Pasture's got money in a way that he didn't see coming. And so you're going to start seeing that, and that's what we're going to serve through the Beef Initiative.

Those NDAs that I've talked about that I'm in right now, that's part of it. I'm talking to a [00:32:00] lot of money people, but they want to make sure that they're investing in something that is not on the commodity based system of profit losses. You know, what is your price per acre for a cow? You know, the, the game is changing.

The equations are changing. And so we're basically doing new math right now. And so once that kind of goes forward, we're going to bring financing into the Beef Initiative Association Council as well, as far as, you know, processing centers, or once again, you want to create your own herd, let's get into herd share programs.

Because what I hate the most is, did y'all hear about Agridime? No. Okay. Agro Dime is a $200 million Ponzi scheme that happened on the commodity side of the cattle industry. It just came out and everybody can do the research on this. $200 million. Okay, 2100 investors lost it. Pretty much everything. SE C's doing it right now.

I know producers that basically, I know a producer up in Texas [00:33:00] panhandle that committed suicide because of the shit. A lot of people lost everything overnight. Ponzi scheme in the cattle industry. It's because everybody basically Financing, you know, money is changing. We're going through a monetary shift here and it's really hitting once again.

That's part of the producers being driven out of business. And so we've got to bring the new money guys into it, but we also have to look at cattle ranching differently than a commodity based system from a regenerative based system. And so that is a great and a wonderful opportunity right now. The people that do have that capital money to look at perennial pastures.

He hit a home run with that So it's an amazing system And it makes me think about I feel like you've really threaded the needle between all these incredible people in the Bitcoin space in the ranching space and I think back to the Crawford conference of having Ranchers downloading a Bitcoin, a digital wallet and being able to accept Bitcoin for the first time, like that's changing the game for a lot of people and I think about [00:34:00] all these amazing Bitcoiners that probably got into the space in like 2013, 2014 have done incredibly well and now it's like you almost have this obligation to be able to invest in ranches or processing facilities and really put your money in the right place too.

Well, I'll tell you what right now and you know, I can't speak of the NDAs as far as names. But this is the type of stuff that I've been approached as far as a beef initiative, Texas Slim. The five pillars of, you know, the beef initiative, Texas Slim's Cuts, which is our basically production company, giving the voice to the American ranchers, giving the short films, all the content that we produce, everything.

We're their production company, Texas Slim's Cuts, and we have the Beef Initiative Association Council. Right? And then we have the I Am Texas Slim Foundation. Okay, well, we also have some other parts of that that we're going to start talking about. But I've been, you know, what has Bill Gates been doing?

What have the billionaires been doing? What did Taylor Sheridan do with the four sixes? You know, the, the, [00:35:00] basically acquiring ranches has changed. Yes. Well, I've been asked to basically put together the new modern day ranch from people that have a lot of money. So let's look at a big ass ranch. It costs, let's say, 200 million dollars.

Well That two hundred million dollars ranch is now going to be the new modern day cattle industry and we're going to do it in ways that was not possible before. We're going to have our processing centers on the ranch. We're going to basically have our fertilizers. We're going to have our regenerative inputs.

Everything's going to be done on that ranch. We're not going to be basically outsourcing anything. It's self contained. Closed loop system. Closed loop system. That is now. We've got basically, I think, uh, right now I'm actively working on three proposals for three ranches across the United States that have price tags from 80 million all the way up to 200 million.

Wow. And these people are coming with money. They're bringing capital. And they're coming in for all the right [00:36:00] reasons. They want to save the ranching industry. They want to change the freaking narrative here. Instead of Bill Gates, we're going to say Beef Initiative. We're going to say Texas Slim. We're going to say a new branded beef line that comes out of one of these ranches.

And it's going to be a white label beef system that they stole from us. And we're going to be self contained, self sufficient, and we're going to go out there and feed people that we want to feed. We've got a new slogan right now, it's called Rappers to Ranchers. We're talking to some very prominent people in the wrapping community that have money old school guys That have grants now that they're wanting to feed the inner city.

Well, they want to learn everything about ranching They have capital money that they can invest to go get their own damn ranch Create their own food system on that ranch feed the inner cities. They're not gonna ask Bill Gates for permission They're not going to ask the multinationals for permission.

That's this opportunity that we're up right now. [00:37:00] Everybody that, whenever I first started the Beef Initiative, they said, this is impossible. Well, bullshit. We did it. And we're doing it every day. So people are going to start understanding that this is a viable option for investment, to make money, to basically Build community, to save children's lives, to change the health of a nation.

It's all here. We have the protocols, we have the collaborations, and now we're just putting it all together. You know, that's why we're talking today. What, uh, what are the next steps? Like, how do you make it all, make it all happen? Next steps for me, basically, is to continue doing what I've been doing. I've been around the world one and a half times for the last year.

Last two and a half years, 160, right about 160, 000 miles, probably, across the United States in the old pickup truck. And so, that never stops. But for me, the next steps are going to be Really articulating everything, whenever I [00:38:00] first started out, I was shotgunning everything. It was reconnaissance, you know, what's gonna stick, what's gonna stick, where's people's mentality.

Does anybody really understand what I'm saying? And very few people really did, but now people are starting to really understand. And so, the first thing that the individual has to do, along with me, is to, let's, let's act like there is not a basically a food system. Um, let's, let's look at about like where I came from.

It's, you know, the Great Plains, it's Llano Estacado, it's Kamacheria. No food systems exist right now. How are we going to build the new food system? And I think you guys are kind of hitting about that right now. It's like, you know, are we going to do something with the food systems, right? Yeah. That's what you guys have been looking at.

Next steps. Let's build the food system. Well, the food system's already been built. It's through the gates of the beef initiative. Mmm, and that's just not about beef. We had to start with beef because beef is something that [00:39:00] has not been centralized and consolidated yet. Yeah, it's a perfect model, especially now with the regenerative side now that we don't have to rely on the basically the commodity input system as far as Monsanto bear.

Uh, we can be self contained. We don't have to ask for permission. I mean, I'm having conversations with people in the Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation. We're looking at rail lines. We're looking at everything. We have it. We have these negotiations going on right now. And we have new technology coming that are giving us the raw materials to where we are creating the regenerative inputs from fertilizer.

All the way into feed. It's just not about grass finished anymore. Guys. It's about regenerative. regenerative, regenerative. That closed loop system of inputs that we can give to the cow that basically is going to make our lives healthier, our communities healthier. So everything really is going through the gates of the Beef Initiative.[00:40:00]

So next steps if you're a consumer, find a rancher through the Beef Initiative, right? That's it. Just, uh, beef. index, you know, beef, yeah, beef. beefinitiative. com. I mean, we've got them listed out here, you know. 200 plus on the website. Yeah, 200, and we have, and that, you know, it's easy to go out there and scrape the internet and get a database.

You know, I've seen people come and go in the last three years that have done that. Well, that's bullshit. That's just scraping the internet and creating a database. Say, look, I got a grass fed database. How many times has that happened? A lot. Yeah. And we grew it with one handshake at a time. It started with three producers and now it's over 200 and we haven't even tried to, you know, advertise it.

That was word of mouth. I want to get it up to a thousand. And that's, once we get that thing going, this becomes a whole new algorithm. You know, you, we talk about, you know, what are the, the tools for everybody? Well, just the beefinitiative. com, beef. support [00:41:00] is tools for the independent rancher and producer to start utilizing right now.

OSHI. We have the new OSHI plugin. And what that is, is a new decentralized value for value marketing and advertising affiliate link that nobody pays any money until the sell is done, until the value has been exchanged. Producers have never had this type of plugin. This is, you only pay for what you sell.

As far as marketing and advertising, instead of somebody like grass fed marketing, I think that's what they're called, 15, 000. You think producers have got that much money? Absolutely not. No. And so what it is, it's an application layer of middleware of marketing, and it serves no purpose. I know four producers that went out of business because they gave money to grass fed marketing.

Come on, man, if you're going to do it, do it. So what we did in the last three years is we [00:42:00] developed, you know, with Oshie, of course, uh, Michael and JP, they developed a new plugin system that is everything that I talked about from the very beginning that Adam Curry does so well, the value for value exchange.

Well now we've got technology that is automated, that becomes basically a marketing and advertising tool that is an algorithm within itself. If we, we're going to have a dashboard where we can see, let's say it's, you know, Jay, uh, Jason, Jason's using the plugin and we see that he's selling a lot of beef, we'll promote him.

It'll be a real time algorithm of marketing and advertising through these plugins. And so if you need, you know, to get a bump in your cells. All you got to do is reach out, ping us. Boom. We're going to up your marketing and advertising through the plugin. Boom. Texas Slims Cuts is putting in, you know, the advertisements out there.

We're writing stories on the sub stack. So we've got the, we've got the algorithm down now. We've got the technology, we've got the [00:43:00] plugin and it's not costing 15, 000. You only pay whenever you sell your beef. That's never been done before. No. Yeah. You've basically just taken the playbook, the old playbook, ripped it up and built an entirely new playbook.

Had to. Yeah. Absolutely. Which is amazing because when we met you I think when we met you, there was a sense of like, there was so much heart and soul behind the BEEF initiative. And you had this huge vision with it, and it was always around the concept of saving children's lives. But I think the question was always like, the vision is amazing, but it's pretty daunting to execute on this vision.

And I think a lot of people the last year have been like, I know SLIM is working really hard, but We haven't really seen him on social media. What's he doing? And it's like, you've taken all these thoughts in your head and you're actually turning it into reality right now, which is so exciting. Yeah. And it was, you know, when I first started and I have been asked that question, Harry, a thousand times, what do you do next?

Go out there and do what you did. What'd you do? You looked in the mirror. What'd you do? You looked in the mirror. What did I do? I looked in the [00:44:00] mirror. And that's all it takes. And it's not something that is hard. People change perspective about food, for one. Change perspective about what your possibilities are as far as the individual.

You know, and quit, quit. And this is a, this is a problem across the board as far as America and humanity as a whole. We're dopamine junkies. We are. That's something that has been engineered in my lifetime. I was in the labs when they were doing it. I know exactly when it happened, you know, the perfect storm of dopamine, you know, addiction.

We're not developing enough serotonin, man. Mm hmm. You gotta test, you know, this is me harping and me mentoring and advising, quit consuming 42 podcasts a week. Yeah. Get one good podcast. And this is what I learned in Thailand. I've been studying Buddhism and everything. I did a lot of philosophies. We're not testing enough.

We're consuming too much. [00:45:00] Your consumption model. What is your consumption model? Your audio, your video, and your food. They're correlated. And so if you can really understand what consuming is doing, and you should be producing more than you're consuming. Yes. And the individual needs to understand that whenever you're going to make a change in your food systems.

Go to your pantry, clean that shit out, man. Divorce the supermarket. Act like you're in the Texas panhandle. We're developing a new food system. Starts with the processing center. If you can't find that, find a guy that's out there. Find a woman out there. Find anybody. Start with butter. Start with eggs, start with milk.

You guys have talked about every one of those. It doesn't have to be the whole package, man. This ain't the supermarket. Reinvent yourself through food. Reinvent yourself. Understand what market access means. Lack thereof. Once this stuff is gone, we don't get it back. No. [00:46:00] Market access. Market access. What is your market access to life right now?

Who's in the way? Is it you? Or is it somebody else, you know, and what does market access mean to us? You know, so many times, especially when we're young, I did it from taco cabana at two 30 in the morning, man. Come on. You know, how many times have, you know, we do this every day of our lives though. But there comes a time to where you have to really create that foundation of understanding what food is and what is your metabolical health.

Why do you desire what you desire? You know, we got DSM, they changed their name, it was Rural DSM, have y'all talked about them much? No. Okay, they basically are the engineers of humanity's taste buds right now and they're very proud of it. You know, we got nanoparticle technology coming our way that basically the FDA and the USDA just love.

You go to a convenience store right now, those, every one of those flavors weren't [00:47:00] here five years ago. There's so many things that happened that people are unaware of. We're addicted to food at this time, at this point in time. You know, I spent a lot of time overseas. Food systems are different. People are behaving differently in different parts of the world.

There's a different form of spirit. In the United States, it looks pretty dire right now. I see a lot of divisiveness. I see metabolical bankruptcy that I've never seen in my life. I'm not suffering from that. I never participated into the multinational system that much. I've never really been that much of a supermarket guy.

It's because my core belief system wasn't, you know, around that. And so we have to get back to the basics. We have to get back to the source of the seed. And we have to get a form of empowerment. We have to quit saying, we can't do this. The opportunities are there. Be it, be it somebody that wants to have their own farm and ranch or how about you just make an obligation to yourself that you're going to go out there [00:48:00] and form a lifelong relationship with somebody that wants to feed you.

What an honor. Become the marketing arm of a rancher producer in the United States of America. That's easy, man. That's easy. Be proud of what you're consuming instead of not telling anybody. Our consumption model is a big ol white elephant room. Yeah, in the room. It really is. How many people tell you what they consumed on their phone every day that they're really proud about it?

They're not proud about it. They're usually talking a lot of fear. You know, the fear porn that gets circle jerked around, you know, with its algorithm of sharing and parroting every day. Well, why don't you do that in reverse and start doing it about the person that you met, that you're helping support, that you love to send Christmas cards every year.

Yes. You know, that's what it is. It's about relationships. What's your relationship with yourself, with your food systems, you know, within your community. And we've lost touch with that. I [00:49:00] love what you're saying. Um, Mostly because I think a lot of people feel powerless when it comes to what they're consuming and, um, we almost just willfully accept kind of this, this programming that's, that's put in front of us.

Like we have no agency over how to create the change. Yeah. And so much of it just comes down to you. Just saying I'm not going to participate in that model, and I'm going to, I'm just going to start doing things differently and start creating a consumption model that serves me instead of, you know, brings me down and makes me, you know, a lesser person, makes my community uh, less empowered.

So, you know, I love that about the BEEF initiative. I think it's, there's, there's a lot of teeth to it. And there's so much that I think people can take away from this conversation. Um, most of which is the fact that we have the power to create the change. We just need to buy into the right models. Yeah, we do.

Once you go, it's perspective and I tell people as man, it's so simple. It's complicated to most people right now because we're [00:50:00] so inundated with a high frequency anxiety and divisiveness and information. Man, I don't do too much consuming at all. I don't watch TV. I don't, you know, I don't listen to news.

I really do silo out this, this beautiful mind of mine. And I mean that. It's a beautiful mind. And everybody needs to start thinking the same way about themselves, man. There's a form of empowerment out there that's free. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to ask for permission. You know, and quit validating the fucking deceptions.

If you keep on continuing validating deceptions, that's lies. What does that say to you about yourself? You know, in the Bitcoin space, I always say, Hey man, what'd you eat today? And they'll say, Well, What's the big slogan in Bitcoin, man? Don't trust, verify. Yeah. Okay, did you verify everything that you consumed?

No. We need a lot of times you can't right, but if you can go out there and really make a consorted effort to start [00:51:00] verifying basically your consumption model and testing it, your life improves overnight, no matter who you are. Maybe you need to do a 48 hour bone bath fast. Maybe you need to fast for seven days.

Maybe you need to ease off of highly processed corn syrup, you know, everything out there. It's a drug, man. My dad was a counselor for 30 years. I know what addiction looks like. I know what detox is. I know what mental health is and is not. And this nation is suffering from everything right now. Why?

Because what we're consuming. You become what you think. I don't care what you say, man. You become your thoughts. You manifest this stuff, like we were talking about being in the end zone. Never been there. Get in that end zone as an individual. Say, I want to change and quit consuming all these, basically, people out there that call them nutrition experts.

You know, I divorced the medical system as much as I can, you [00:52:00] know. I've only used it whenever I've broken shit usually, right? But I will not go to, if I go to a doctor right now, I'm going to look at them and say, What do you know about nutrition? And if he has the wrong answer, I ain't gonna, first I'm gonna tell him to put down his tablet.

That it's telling them to write me a prescription and we're going to have a talk. Yes. Yes. And so that's what people can do. Go, go get your blood work done. See where you stand. Then go get some, you know, do a 48 hour bone broth fast that we did after the first summit. That I mean, I had story after story.

People wrote in, you know, I was up in Boston mass adoption last year and that happens again in May this year. Cattleman's Feast up there. I had a couple came up to me, gave me a hug, never knew them anything. They weren't going to have a child. They were listening to all the bullshit. They became Bitcoiners.

They became basically carnivores. They went in there and they engineered a new lifestyle by starting with a 48 hour bone broth [00:53:00] fast. Then their child brought, they were with their child, they brought their little girl there to the Cattleman's Feast. It was her first week on protein. She was eating beef for the first time in her life.

And it was as simple as doing a 48 hour bone broth fast. Market access to yourself again. It's simple but powerful, right? Yeah. It's like, we're in this, to your point, it's, we're really in this metabolic and moral bankruptcy. Mm hmm. But we are the ultimate agents over our own life. We're empowered by God to be able to take, be able to change your life, be able to take control.

And it's everything that you're talking about. Rip up the playbook. Build a new one. Find a rancher to connect with. Start going to church. Take an honest look in the mirror. Make out a list of the attributes of the person that you want to become. Meditate on that stuff every single night. And put in the reps and the iterations and you can look back on a year and you're not even going to recognize who you're going to be because it's going to be so incredible.

It is. It's an amazing journey, man. And what, you know, I call 2024 the year of truth. [00:54:00] Okay. And I always tell people that don't understand, you know, what Bitcoin did for me and how it helped really, you know, the Beef Initiative was founded with the ethos of Bitcoin. Decentralization, value, you know, value, store value, you know, transparency.

Honesty, everything that Bitcoin stands for, a lot of people don't understand, you know, they still think it's like a stock or something, but you know, I looked at it as a store of value for the cow, but what it is is it's got an ethos there that's easy to live by. And if you can tap into that mindset first, to decentralize mindset, decentralize your life, decentralize your thinking, quit relying on this, this media apparatus that we have, you know, basically lying to us every day that so many people are addicted to.

You know, we've got Tucker Carlson now, we've got Elon, we've got so many people saying the same things we've been saying it for years now. Now finally, I'll put them to work. And then, you know, [00:55:00] Hey, Elon, you know, come to the gates of the beef initiative. I'm going to have a story about, Oh, Elon, he should have a Tesla call, uh, Tesla called, uh, not Mustang Ford did that.

We'll call it, uh, uh, I'll figure something out. We'll call it Mustang. Now we'll call it, uh, the Tesla Maverick. I like that. There's a story. And, uh, I'm not gonna tell the story today. We'll have to wait. We gotta get going. We're gonna have to do part four. Yes. Well, Slim, we're very grateful that there's people like you that exist.

And I think that calling you a fearless trailblazer is probably a little bit of an understatement. But you're someone that we've personally learned a lot from. We're just very grateful to be able to have this conversation with you, be friends with you, have learned from you. And I'm just really excited as we enter into 2024, the year of truth, what we all go on to do.

So, thank you. And Brett, thank you. Uh, Harry, thank you. I know that everybody out there is wanting me to say a lot today, as far as different touch points. But just hear me out on this one. three NDAs. [00:56:00] You're about to see some powerful things happen through the gates of the Beef Initiative. And everybody, after you see this podcast, what you can do is share the podcast.

Get me, you too, get me on more podcasts. I'm not going to be silent anymore, and this is just kind of, uh, this was just preseason. This is the start of the storm, baby. We're just seasoning the steak right now. Yeah, we've got to put it on the grill. Exactly. This is going to get fun, folks. You know, come see us in July.

We're going to, uh, we can tell everybody right now, right? Y'all. Oh, yeah. A little time. Yeah. All right, guys. Instead of, uh, you know, they had that. Uh, hot dog eating contest. Is that at Long Island? Coney Island. Yeah. Coney Island. Coney Island. Yeah. But we're going to have, all right, everybody leave their weenies at, at the door.

We're going to have the world's first tomahawk ribeye eating contest. We're going to have 21 contestants, you, two, me, everybody in the beef initiative, or we're going to recruit the best 21. [00:57:00] Contestants, carnivore influencers, you said Sean Baker, let's get Sean. Yeah, we're going to get the biggest steak eaters, we're going to go at it.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to franchise this out. Once a year we're going to have the world's famous tomahawk ribeye eating contest. We got to get Jason Rick on there. Of course. He's got to be eating. But he might have to get like an extra few seconds with uh, the no thumb. Yeah, he does.

Oh, yeah. We'll give him a little extra handicap or something. He doesn't have a thumb. I ain't got a finger. Okay. Yeah, and, but you're right. We'll have to give him a handicap. Don't tell him that. He'll get butt hurt. But, you know, let's look at, uh, let's look at Rick Ranches, everybody. Look it up. Jason Rick, Rick Ranches.

He's got a new Airbnb that he's, uh, you know, doing. He's got a new storefront. Look up Panhandle Meats. Look up Hometown Meats. Look at, you know, K& C Cattle. Look at, uh, Holy Cow Beef. Holy Cow Beef. Look at Shirttail Creek. Oh, you can look at all those through the Beef Initiative. Yep. They're all in the index.

200 plus. Yes. All trusted, verified. This is not [00:58:00] just like Scraping, scraping data and throwing it in these are all people that you've you and the team have personally met and trusted and verified. This is it 100 percent and we're not going to play by those rules anymore. We're not going to play by the rules of what got us here.

We were playing by our own rules and that's basically following the law better than a lot of the law enforcers basically follow the law. So that's, what's going to be exciting about this. This is, I set it in the very freaking first podcast. I said, this is an international lifestyle. You just don't understand yet.

Well, you can understand it now because now we have a global mapping system that we're going to release to, and you're going to be able to find producers and places to stay all over the United States and the world right now. I went to Australia, went to Asia. We're going to be doing something in Thailand.

There's a beef initiative in Thailand now. This stuff is about to transpire into basically something that we're reinventing everything that is commodity based, we've got the program now. So we are the vertical integration that all these [00:59:00] associations talk about, Cattlemen's Associations from NCBA to U. S.

Cattlemen's Association to RCAF, a lot of them do a lot of great work. I'm not a loyalist. I'm going to say what I'm going to say, but I want to work with every one of these associations because they're going to be

adopting our policies moving forward. I love it. We'll buckle up, baby. Here we go. Yeehaw. We appreciate it, brother.

Thank you as always. You too, guys. Thanks, Len. Yep. We'll talk to you soon.