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Cullen Gilchrist All right, well, let's get started. So, you know, here we are. We're going to go through the questions here and have a conversation. So, Luis, the first question here is, I'd like you to introduce yourself, and introduce your company and the products that you make and sell.
Luis Solis Sure, so I'm Luis. I'm originally from the Dominican Republic, and grew up there, and then moved to the US to go to college in Miami. And one of the things I really missed moving into the US was drinking fresh juice, particularly passion fruit for juice. I grew up drinking every single day. And then, I'm moving to the US had to get used to the world of processed juices and beverages. And yeah, fast forward a few years wanted to start a business and decided to, to bring in the flavors of home and, and to the United States and fresh, warm and more as fresh as possible. But I started Caribe and and the concept Caribe was bringing in tropical flavors that were popular among a lot of communities in the US, particularly like Hispanics and Asians, and people that grew into tropics and bring them in fresh, warm, and that's how Caribe was born. Today, we're kind of far, far from that. But, we have that line and the Caribe line with several tropical flavors. And we have a line that we just acquired, called watermelon water. Very long story. But we're very excited about having that brand. And then we also do some private label products for and particularly Trader Joe's, and then other smaller clients. And finally, we have another line that we launched not too long ago called the origin and which is a line of 100% fruit and vegetable juices and shots that are right now live in a distribution.
Cullen Gilchrist Gotcha. So, to clarify, and maybe we can say this part again, but so right now Caribe is producing basically four lines of product. You've got the Caribe, origin exotic watermelon water, and then you're doing private label.
Luis Solis Yes, exactly.
Cullen Gilchrist Awesome. Very cool. So, just to kind of dive into one of our themes that we talk a lot about is for business to be successful, the founder has to find the, really, the middle ground between their passion and what the market wants. And so obviously, you talked about your passion for juice. And you also talked about people like juice, but in particular, they like your juice. Have you found kind of that idea of that middle ground to be true in your business?
Luis Solis Yeah, I think that's that's something that never stops happening, right? Like you, you start with a idea. And I think our example is a perfect one, we started with our concept of Caribe. And my passion was bringing flavors from home, and you kind of find market gaps and have to be open to what the market wants. And a big part of that is learning when you start off, it's impossible to know that and you got to learn, you got to be open to opportunities, and clearly where we are today is very far from where we started. And, we've, through time, figured out the right middle, and you never kind of have the perfect answer. But, you are always trying to like figure out that middle. It's all about... it's all about them filling gaps, and in the market, and making sure that you're solving problems, you're bringing people what they want and adjusting your products and what people are looking for. Whether it's smaller, small things, like sizes or flavor, so important. And then if you don't want jobs, if you stick to what you're passionate about, and stick to just the things that you believe in without looking at what people are looking for, it's not gonna work. It's a recipe for failure. So yeah, It's something that we're constantly looking for. And I think we've, we're close, but it's a never ending, never ending struggle to find that middle between passion and market gaps and, an example is right now, we're kind of reinventing Caribe to a larger serving size at 52 ounce this week and figure out the market that we were targeting with, with that line, it's actually the consumer that is looking for multi-serving or actually have been purchasing multi-serve options. So yeah, that's why I say like, we're still figuring that out. And it's time and flexibility and openness to new ideas that help you kind of get there.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, absolutely. So I love that kind of story kind of began with a theme. You know, we start with the passion and we're trying to find where it meets the market. You had a passion for, to get different juices, and you've learned, maybe some that didn't work. I know, my favorite was the passion fruit, with the seeds in it. What's an example of something that you're passionate about that you thought was a slam dunk that, you know, the markets kind of taught you otherwise?
Luis Solis Yeah there's, there's been a lot of those. And I think the quickest example that comes to mind is just the Caribe line. I think our initial concept... so when we started, we had four flavors: it was 12 ounce, or actually, it was 16 ounce when we started and Caribe and products, it was cold pressed juice. And literally how we made it, we start with fruit, sugar. And, yeah, we started with that. And I think through time, we change that so much. First of all, first off, realize that added sugar was something that people were running away from, we switch from that to juice. And then and things like you mentioned, like we had a passion fruit with seeds. And people are not used to drinking seeds in their drink. So we got rid of that and was an operational nightmare to deal with that. And so we were adding something that people were actually not even valuing we're actually valuing negative, negatively. And then the last thing that we've kind of figured out which is, it's crazy that it it took us so long to figure out, but we didn't get the size right. Like we're targeting Hispanics, who are targeting multiculturals and you look at the juice market, 70 to 80% of juice market is multi-serve. And it's actually in the dairy aisle and people are buying, Hispanics are buying and larger sizes. Like simply, when you look at the market, or the top selling tropical juices, or Welch's passion fruit, and Naked and Mighty Mango and 32 or 64 ounce, like we didn't get the size, right. And I think a big part of that is because when you start, you're so focused on what's in front of you. We're at Whole Foods; that was who gave us an opportunity. It was a natural market, but that wasn't our target. And so yeah, I think it's, that's a biggest example, I can tell you another thousands of other examples. But that's a pretty big one because it's what we started with. And now we're kind of like, completely recreating it. And, we're in a place where we're very, we never thought we would be.
Cullen Gilchrist I think that's a really interesting thing around the multi-serve. We've seen that with a handful of other companies as they've grown, they, they find out that you know, the market is responding differently than when they thought of the product. So when you thought of it, you're like, I want to juice you know, I want like a nice bottle or cup of juice. And you know, as as the company matures, and as you mature, you realize that people are going to grocery stores, they're buying for families, they're buying, they're buying for the week. And multi-serve is a massive opportunity.
Luis Solis Exactly, exactly.
Cullen Gilchrist I'm excited you're launching that product.
Luis Solis Yeah, yeah, no, we're excited as well. I think that's looking at at data on other companies like it's a big opportunity and we were really... it's funny because we were right in the beginning. There's a gap in the market of people like myself that grew up... because when you grow up in the tropics, you don't grow up with apple and berries you grew up with passion fruit and guava, right? And there's, there's that market in there, we just had to figure out how to get it in the in front of them and into a product that they would actually buy. And we looked at data and there's a lot of opportunity there, hundreds of millions of dollars. And of those tropical flavors that are being sold right now, which is, it's very exciting for us.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, that I agree. So jumping back, and I want to get some, just details on you. What what's your current title, Luis?
Luis Solis Current title is saying, I'm CEO and co-founder.
Cullen Gilchrist Makes sense, able to maintain your position. That's good. What, uh, what do you find yourself focusing on right now?
Luis Solis That's a hard question.
Cullen Gilchrist Think like your top three, four responsibilities?
Luis Solis Yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist So, for me, it just to give you a little heads up. So I'm the CEO and founder right of union kitchen. What am I thinking about? I'm thinking about how do I double the size of the company in terms of revenue and value? And I'm thinking about how do I manage the four people that report directly to me? And that's the simplest way I think about it. Is there kind of a short version of like, the handful of things that you're most focused on as CEO?
Luis Solis Yeah. So, so I think that the number one thing for me, at this stage, and it's so interesting, and I know you've experienced same, Cullen. Like, it's, you have to adapt. If as a CEO, I'm not able to adapt, then I should be cut out. And so, yeah, I came from, from having to do a lot of the actual smaller stuff myself and like, literally like doing demos and doing production and using pictures to fill bottles and, and using ninja blenders have bled through them. And so now, I really had to focus on building the team, the leadership team. We have hired a pretty amazing team. And that we're very, very excited about. And right now, my focus, my number one focus is building that team, making sure that they're empowered, making sure that they're supported, making sure that they're, they're communicating right, that they're gluing together. And so that's number one. And then number two, one thing that as you know, Cullen, you can never get out of this and then capital, right, like you, I always have to make sure that and the company has enough financial resources to be able to meet the goals that we're, we're setting. And then the number three thing that also you can never get out, of is sales and marketing. And, I'm always like, still managing relationships, even though we have several people in our sales and marketing team and managing relationships with some of the major clients. And also working very closely with the sales and marketing team, getting involved in the strategy, and making sure that we're we're diversifying our revenue games and are looking at sales and marketing in a very aggressive way. As you know, we're trying to get to 100 million very quickly. So yeah, that's, I would say those are the major, the three main things that I'm focusing on, day in and day out. Yeah,
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, it's never a simple answer. But hopefully, you know, it becomes more simple.
Luis Solis Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist That's my goal.
Luis Solis Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. You're right. It actually sounded, after I said, it sounded more simple than I thought. So I think I'm getting there. That's quite encouraging.
Cullen Gilchrist Well, I think it's one of those important things, we did this together last year, and I did this, you know, for myself as well, it's just like, we'll draw the org chart and make a bold org chart, and you've done a nice job of that. And, you know, I've been working to do that too. I think that's critical to a growing company.
Luis Solis 100% critical. And kind of in a way where I think it's very critical to make sure that no one has 20 people or 10 people under them, right. It's it's in a way where you have a certain number of direct reports that can that you can actually manage and dedicate time to and yeah, drawn that org chart and making sure... We're in a unique opportunity, where we can fill in holes at very low prices, you know, Cullen, so so we're very fortunate to have an org chart that we can actually fill out and, and almost act like, like we're a bigger company than we actually are, which is a very, very nice luxury for a startup.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, absolutely.
Luis Solis
Yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist So I want to talk about manufacturing. So just first question. It's an easy one. Do you manufacture your own product?
Luis Solis Yes, we do manufacturing, and we also use a co-packer in Connecticut.
Cullen Gilchrist Gotcha. So you have your own factory. Tell me a little bit about that factory, like, how big is it? What do you, what can you make? And maybe, you know, how, how much capacity you have beyond what you're currently making?
Luis Solis Yeah, yeah. So so that's almost like a different parallel story to our brand story. But um, we built a very small factory in 2017. It was initially a 7000 square foot facility. And, and now we are, we are up to 25,000. And we're actually looking to, we're actually in the next couple months, we might go up to 40 something thousand, 45. We're looking to get the space right in front of us that have opened up. And yeah, that's, that's our current facility. We have the ability, it's a tricky... that capacity question is a tricky one, because it depends on what we're manufacturing. As mentioned before, we have different lines of products, so might have capacity to make hundreds of million shots, but not having 12 ounce or 52 ounces, right? But we're currently like around 60% capacity. And in any capacity, it's funny because like with a startup, you probably can relate to this, Cullen, like you have your theoretical capacity, which is like three chefs working all these hours. But clearly, like, it's really hard to get there. Like companies take years to be able to develop the structure to actually be able to be efficient with them and operating at full capacity. So, so even though we're... we have, we're probably at 30% capacity, we feel like our stage we're like 60% capacity to manufacture in a way that we can like actually control production and have the right measures and right quality measures in order to ensure product safety and quality of the product.
Cullen Gilchrist Why did you decide to build the factory? The first one? What what caused you to want to build that factory?
Luis Solis Yeah, so long story short, we couldn't figure out how to manufacture in the US. So we were a US based business, and we couldn't figure out the right co-packing partner, which is, I think one of the major struggles for startups in the food and beverage business. It's hard to find partners that will care about your product when you're so small. It's a volume business. And so when you're selling a couple $100,000, you're no one to anyone, and for us, particularly being in such a new industry, which is HPP beverage industry, it was even tougher because there weren't a lot of options. And so yeah, we were faced with a situation where we just couldn't figure out production. And when you can't figure out production, you can't even think about sales and marketing growing a brand. And so yeah, we came to the decision that if we're going to continue to do this, we got to figure out a way to own our own production. And it was a very scary decision to make. But once we started looking at the potential of owning the factory, and the fact that the cost efficiencies that we could achieve, while building our own factory, and owning our manufacturing, it wasn't hard to go that route, and that completely changed. Once you have your own factory, you're a completely different business than when you're just building a brand.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, that's great. So would you say it was a good decision to go the route of building a factory and owning your manufacturing?
Luis Solis Yeah, it's it's funny because like when I started, when I started the business, my mentor, my mentor back then, was my ops professor in University of Virginia where I got my MBA. And he had actually started a juice company and he was the one that introduced me to the HPP technology and how to maintain the freshness of the product. He is number one advice to me was: do not build a factory, like we did that, made a mistake, we're stuck with like $15,000 a month in rent, even more pieces of equipment. And it just puts so much more pressure on the brand. And so when I started, I had that in my head, and I was like, I would never go that route. So I really try not to go that route. And honestly, like, it was the best decision we could have made. And I think it goes back to our, our conversation about like adjusting and making sure that you're, you're open to opportunities, because honestly like that changed our business 100%. And with that, without that decision, we would be out of business right now.
Cullen Gilchrist So that's a good decision. I think that's awesome. I think when when you can own your manufacturing, you're creating advantages for your current business, but really, for your future business. Because someday you're going to grow. And the worst thing you'd want to be is to grow and realize that you're at a massive disadvantage to the larger brands that are making their product that can iterate and make it better fast. And if you are in fact the one with that advantage, now you have a chance to beat really everyone else who's kind of at your class. Because where you sit today, it's why you, you know, in large part why you were able to make the deal with watermelon water, and why you're poised for success from here.
Luis Solis Yeah, yeah, it's literally our business is because of the factory. Like watermelon water and Trader Joe's is 95% of our business today, and that's literally because of the factory. And but I think it's it's it's really I think it's a case by case thing. I think for us, it was a smart decision and reading a book. For them, it wasn't a smart decision for the company. Oh, my professor, it wasn't a smart decision. So it really, like you're 100% right, like in the future definitely is, is the right thing to do this ad it's like how you can compete on price. But like, it's a hard, it's a hard part of inflection point when when to realize that it's the right decision. It's case by case, it depends on what co-packers are able to offer the industry you're in, how hard it is to build a factory, how expensive it is, how easy it is to build capacity. Because like, there's pros and cons. Right? So yeah, it's good that it was the right decision for us. And I think longer term is the right decision for most players. But it's not as easy as saying that everyone should try to build their own factory, right? And you know that yeah, it's, that's hard.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, it's hard. And I think there's pros and cons of things being hard. I think the cons are obvious. When it's hard, well, it's hard. That makes it harder. But I think the pro of things being hard, is that if you figure it out, you now have this tremendous advantage and this tremendous moat around your business. Because, you know, yeah, about hard things. Is others going to have a hard time too. Yeah. You know, if they're not as tough or resilient or persistent as you are, then they might give up on that path. And so you've got this nice little kind of defense, and this moat around your business, which, which I love.
Luis Solis I 100% agree with that. And it's, it's it's such a true statement.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah. I was trying not to say the hard thing about hard things. But yeah, it's kind of it and I think it's good. Anyways, I think about that with Union Kitchen all the time. How can we find the hard things that make sense, do them, and be successful? And keep pulling it off, we'll do well. Um, do you need to go right into 11? Or do you want to go back?
Luis Solis Yeah, I'm good until... let me send a message. We'll just, let's do a couple more questions, and then we'll jump off. So maybe like five minutes. Let me see or so I'm pushing it to the 15. So we can have a little.
Cullen Gilchrist Okay. Yeah, a little buffer will see how long you talk.
Luis Solis So I pushed... I pushed it to 11.
Cullen Gilchrist Sorry about that. Thank you. Well, so I have a couple questions. I want to talk about sales when talking about capital.
Luis Solis Yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist I want to roll up with like, you know, advice for folks. But just on sales. You know, what is the... your first sale is always a hard one. That's the story we always hear. Tell us about how you got into your first store.
Luis Solis That's happened so long ago but um, and so funny with sales like it, I think sales is something that so many people starting off, I've seen it with a lot of entrepreneurs I talked to. Like, you're so nervous about your first sale. Like, you want to be so prepared and think it's like this big thing and actually our first sale was like dropping in. I dropped in at a local store. Yeah, it's called Feast. It's like a small supermarket, family owned. I was just like, "Give me a shot." And I actually came prepared, like that's how I ended up. I came prepared it with like a pitch of why to like my products better than others and this and that. And then, what it ended up being is like, give me a shot. And they were like, "Yes". And they didn't care about any of the reasoning behind and why our product is better than the others. And it's so funny because when you start, it's really about getting like sales, it's about just going to local places that are willing to give new products shot. There's a lot of those and that's how we got our first sale. Yeah, like once you scale it's a different story, right. But but that's, that's how it started. Yeah. And then, that was our first start at a small... Yeah, mom and pop shop in Virginia.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, I think that's great. And I think kind of what you were saying around sales is it's kind of scary, hard thing at first. And, of course where you are now sales is just, it's it's what you do. You know, you're you're always selling. It's a really big hurdle for a founder and entrepreneur to get over at first. To kind of have the courage to go into a store and say, Hey, you know, I'm Luis, you know, I'm Cullen, I've made this awesome thing. And you should buy it. Yeah, that's simple for you or me to say now, but five, six, you know, eight years ago, terrifying.
Luis Solis Oh, yeah, yeah you're 100% right. It's, it's so terrifying. And, and it's what I think one of the biggest hurdles, like you said, to entrepreneurs, and honestly, like, through time, you realize how, how simple it is. And but yeah, it's it's something that whenever I talk about that, it's just get out there and just get out there. Like, don't even think about it. You may not have to be that prepared. Get out there. It's it's a human that you're talking to. And especially like initial sales, like people, like want to help. People want to help. So it's, it's all about getting out there and talking to people and you'll get a shot.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, do it. You know, yeah. Just do it. And you know, what's the worst that happens? Honestly, I think the worst that happens is they say no. And they tell you why they're saying no. which just goes into your process for making a better product.
Luis Solis Yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right. 100%. Yeah. And, yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, the the worst thing that can happen is really one of the best things.
Luis Solis Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Cullen Gilchrist How many stores are you in right now, across all four of those different products you're making, including the private label.
Luis Solis Wow. And this is gonna sound scary when I say it, but over 10,000 stores.
Cullen Gilchrist There we go. You can't count those very easily.
Luis Solis Yeah, it's definitely exciting that we're in.
Cullen Gilchrist So we're in 2021. You have 10,000 stores. What was your first year? And how many did you end that first year with?
Luis Solis So first year, the story I just told you about getting into the first store was August 2014. And we were in one store then I think by year end, we were in 10 stores. And so yeah, 10 to 10,000 seems like a small job.
Cullen Gilchrist 1000x. Okay, cool. And let's we can jump into investment because I because I know experiments with that. And I think investment is similar to sales in that the first investments can be so hard because you have to ask and that, you know, yeah, might get rejected. And I think similarly, maybe the worst thing that happens is you learn why they won't invest. So, yeah, you've raised a bit of money. I think you've you've done, you know, more than one round. So, how many rounds of investment have you gone through?
Luis Solis I think four rounds.
Cullen Gilchrist Four rounds?
Luis Solis Yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist And how did you? What was kind of your first investor? And, you know, what was, what was that like? You know, did... Was it easy? Was it hard to just talk to a million people? Or did you just have to talk to one?
Luis Solis Yeah, so it's funny that you compare lessons to sales, it's very similar. It's, you talk to a lot of people, and it's a lot of nos, or a lot of no responses. And, but yeah, the first outside investor and non founder, and was the investor that we got for the VR, once we built our factory in the Dominican Republic. And that, that was, it didn't end well. It was just not the right. And it's, we're looking for money, and we took whatever money came. And we figure it out, and now we're good, but it was not the right fit. And they that they wanted something very different than what we wanted, as a company. Yeah, that was the first outside investor that we got back in 2016 actually, yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist Gotcha, so two years. Yeah, I think for Union Kitchen, our first outside investment was two years after we started. You know, we probably put more money in to encourage our growth, probably every, you know, 18 to 24 months, is kind of the program.
Luis Solis Yeah, I think one thing that I know, we thought we'd moved into investment. One thing it's important to mention, Cullen, is sales and investment both like... When we talk about 2014 10 stores, to 2021 10,000 stores wasn't I wasn't a linear growth, you know that. And there were there were years where that went down. There were years where that was zero. And so it really is a story, our story. And I think it's different for a lot of different printers, but one that you will see a lot of. It's a story of persistence, and a story of sticking through tough momentsand understanding that it's not always the same for everyone. And a lot of the cases of entrepreneurship that you see out there you only see here are the good parts of the story. But it's it's really about, like persistence and understanding that sometimes you didn't get it right. Understand same with investment understanding, sometimes you're not reaching the right investors, and you're getting a lot of no's because you're just not pitching it right or not making the right crowd so it really... and I just wanted to mention that I know it kind of the process of investment and sales, it's really about figuring it out, staying persistent, staying positive, and being open to pivot. And kind of reinvent your, your ideas and pitches through feedback and all that. It's never about being perfect, right? It's it's the opposite of that, right? So yeah. Just wanted to mention that.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, I think that's great. You know, the way I think about it, is if you are smart enough, and you have a good enough product, and you're passionate about that product and the market agrees and they want it, all of that gives you the opportunity to go through the hard part. That always gets you to the hard part where you have to be tough. Yeah, persist through whatever it is. Maybe it's bad luck. You know, maybe it's maybe it's... just that's the industry. Maybe competitors, you know, are cut into your market. That gets you to the hard part. And that's where I think an entrepreneur has to really show their medal and succeed.
Luis Solis Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Cullen Gilchrist And you've certainly done that. I mean, yeah. It's not a linear from 2014 to 21. It's been up it's been down. I think we both feel good about it right now. But there's there's still a lot of hard parts.
Luis Solis Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah, it's the same with investment, right? It's not... it it's, yeah. I got that in 2016. But it took a lot of no's and a lot of talking to do to add ambassadors in 2015. And getting almost literally all no's, or "come back later", come back when, when you're this size and to get that. So that's why I mentioned it because it's not like 2016 in January, we want to look for money. And in February, we got the money and it doesn't work like that at all. Or even even the six months that people tell you like, "oh, it should take six months", sometimes it takes a year and a half. So yeah, like it's something that... it's interesting how much... how much you hear about persistence. And then once you experience it, how much you learn that it's really about persistence and about and sticking through it. And like you said, believing in what you have and and what you can do and being open to evolving your ideas and concepts. and universe.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah. 100%, man. Well, so let's wrap up with with one last question.
Luis Solis Okay.
Cullen Gilchrist And this is, I think, an appropriate last question, because it's a big one. If you can concept, what are your... what's your goal, for Caribe? You know, do you want to sell this company this year? Do you want to build, you know, a million square feet of manufacturing? What is your goal period for Caribe?
Luis Solis So my, my goal, and that's another thing that has changed over the years. And it keeps changing, I guess it's a hard question to answer. And I'm the type of person that I'm really, I'm really living day to day and seeing things day-to-day, and I have my goals. But, my day-to-day mindset, that means that my goals are constantly changing, because as you see new opportunities, as you see, obviously opportunities to pivot, opportunities to create new products, opportunities to expand your facility opportunities to partner up with, now that you're a bigger size, partner with a co-packer, I think it all changes so. So I think overall, like the goal is to grow. And as much as we can. We do believe that we can be an over 100 million company that sells over 100 million worth of products and probably like, like, way more than that. But that's the goal that we have in our mind right now. Or three or four year goal, we're wanting to get to that range. And, honestly, like the the reason I started this, and I know I've talked about this so much is, I wanted to make an impact in developing Dominican Republic, which is where I'm from. And that's where the model that we build, it's really nice, because it's meant the more revenue growth that we have, the more impact we'll make. And the more... our big, our big mission is to help out small farmers over there. And, and the best way to help them is to buy fruit from them. And we've grown that quite a bit. And we started with several farmers and now we're all.. working with all the farmers creating employment is something that I'm always proud of. It's one of the best feelings in the world when you know, you're creating employment, especially in a place where unemployment is so high. And especially during that time, like COVID right, like where a lot of people in job so. So yeah, I think... when I think about all the small pieces of, of what drives me: helping our farmers, creating employment, developing our own employees, and having a big impact to consumer. It's all measured in a way by revenue, and the people you're reaching, the amount of product that you're buying, the amount of food that you're purchasing. So yeah, that's why I tie my goals very much with revenue and I think we can be over 100 million revenue in a few years and once I get there, I'll see what will be the next goal but I kind of have stopped myself to thinking about that goal and not wait to pass that and... but that might change in a couple months. We'll see. That's how I'm seeing our goal and what we're trying to do and and we've had pretty good growth in the past couple of years. We're hoping to continue that.
Cullen Gilchrist Yeah, I mean, I I hope you're cheaper your financial goals, which help you achieve all of those kind of social goals of creating industry and exports and jobs, supporting farmers, and you get the opportunity to expand that goal. And that's what I'm thinking is how do I take my goal now and you know, below passing kind of set of goals.
Luis Solis Exactly. Exactly.
Cullen Gilchrist Very cool. Well, we can wrap up with that. Thanks, Luis.
Luis Solis Yeah. Thank you guys, yeah. Yeah, actually have to get going now but thanks. Thanks. Thanks, man. Always good to chat with you and if you need more, like I'm happy to help help out more if you need me to so let me know.
Cullen Gilchrist Awesome. Yeah, thanks so much.
Luis Solis Yeah. Okay.
Cullen Gilchrist Well take care, bye.
Luis Solis Okay, bye.