updates

April 2024

Purple house, mini-me

Hello friends.

I am stuck. Here is our now seven month old baby, Louis “Louie” Sage. He’s swinging in the front yard of our house. We live in a city smaller than I had planned, with all challenges that come with that. Startup scene is non existent. Yoga, food, culture, all tough. Working for Banza (still). No progress on any projects. It’s strange to say we have a healthy baby, can afford a home, and yet so aimless. I have struggled with fitness, time, habits, and joy. I do my best to reach out, but contact is increasingly rare. Let’s hope I can change this up soon.

All the best,

Derrick

December, 2022

Montana, 2 years in

Hello friends

Money stuff. As it turns out, being broke is not fun. I quit my job in 2011 and spent my savings moving around and not working. To recover I chose the generally non lucrative path of working at startups since.

Although I have some “banza bucks” in equity, I am unable to access these until the company goes through a financial event. This year I decided to focus on paying down debt. To support this effort, I took a second job sourcing US products for KoRo (a Berlin based food company.) As of a month ago, I am free.

if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man – then you are ready for a walk…

HD Thoreau

Food stuff. Since 2019 I’ve been working to determine what my next move in food would be. I drafted an outline of what I think is most important and started sharing it recently. What types of meaningful projects need to happen in food? I landed on three themes.

• Facilitating farm to consumer sales: Can we build a new infrastructure outside of traditional retail outlets? I believe a consignment style system may work and I’ve started to explore the idea in Helena.
• Farmland ownership: I believe a fund leasing land to progressive farm owners will alleviate their capital requirements and provide revenue to investors outside of traditional markets. These actions can drive climate action and modern growing practices faster than they are happening today. I have large farmers lined up for this idea and would love to discuss further with anyone interested to support.
• Nutrition based consumer purchases: Why do we purchase food by weight and not nutritional content? There are various groups supporting this research and testing. Although a big idea, I don’t think this is the concept for me at the moment.

Other stuff. Moving to Montana was a big change. The landscapes are beautiful and the access to nature is unprecedented. But there are struggles to be this remote. However, I’m digging in and starting to connect with the community here. I’ve also been cultivating a relationship with a wonderful woman who I hope will stick with me as I regain my footing.

I miss you all and hope to see you all soon.

Derrick

July, 2021

WTF are you even doing mate?

In a strange way, the pandemic summer of 2020 was much easier than the fall and winter to come. Summer 2020 was garden, garden, chickpeas, garden. Connecting with friends, family, and volunteers was fulfilling.

In the fall, without a real plan and with the world mostly closed, I decided to spend some time outside, attempt to get healthy, and spend time thinking about food. Off to rural Maine and Texas I trekked.

Major lesson learned here: 30 days is not enough for me to get settled and develop a good routine. I was able to explore and get outside, but I was not able to really accomplish my goals of figuring out what to do next.

In January 2021, I returned to Michigan and spent a few months trying to sort myself out there. Similar issue – no routine, no quiet place to work, the ongoing distraction of uncertainty.

I decided to head out again. This time the mission was different though: find a city to stay in for a while. There were a few cities I had not seen in the the US that I thought may be a good fit for me: Boise, Bend, Denver, Oahu.

Oahu (Kailua) came really close to winning. But in the end I headed back to one of my mainstay favorite cities: Bozeman, Montana.

I’ve been traveling to Montana for years for chickpea work. Bozeman is a walk-able city, has a land grant university, and is about 10 minutes from a national forest in any direction.

The balance of freedom and stability is something that I’ve struggled with for over ten years now. As much as the nomadic lifestyle is romanticized, you rarely hear the downsides. When you are traveling through a community, you are very often “taking” what others have built. What are you “giving” to them?

I think it’s my time to start contributing in a more concrete way. I’m not certain Bozeman is my final stop, but at least for now I’ll have some stability to sort things out.

I’m a stone’s throw from Yellowstone, a few hours from Glacier and have plenty of space to host if you find yourself in the Mountain West.

I hope to see you all soon.

DQ

September, 2020

Hello everyone! If you’ve been wondering, here’s what I’ve been up to:

Hawai’i: After lining up a handful of potential visitors, it turned out spring 2020 was not a stellar time for travel. With an empty house and most local businesses closed, I had a lot of time on my hands. I went trail running (a lot) and hung out with a cat. I was still able to obtain pickled mangoes on my route to the dump. I read a lot, explored a little, and adjusted to mask wearing during my weekly runs to Costco.

The food industry in Hawai’i appears to be a mess. Despite great weather and fertile soil, over 80% of Hawaiian food is imported. This mostly fits in to the “every grocery store sells the same shit” supply chain mantra. Given the cost and time to ship, if anyone has incentive to figure out local ag, it’s Hawai’i.

Major plantations of sugarcane and pineapple had relocated to cheaper regions of the globe by the mid 1990s. Tourism drives up land prices, so primarily high value crops thrive (coffee, macadamia nuts, beef.) To some extent, there is a resurgence of local agriculture but the impact remains minimal. Bummer.

Pandemic Food

Without restaurants open, many produce farmers were faced with the tough decision to leave the unpicked food in the field. Why pay labor to harvest, when you don’t have a customer to buy it? A big part of the difficulty here is that we eat different things when we are home vs. when we are out. Think ketchup on fries and tomato slices on burgers. 70% of seafood is consumed while eating out.

So, things got out of whack in a hurry. And you can’t really just move tomatoes to farmers markets or grocery stores. These are big moving pieces that couldn’t happen soon enough.

At the same time, food bank demand skyrocketed due to massive job losses. So maybe we could send the tomatoes there? To some extent, this is what many people (including the USDA) attempted to do. Massive coordination and funding would be required.

By the late summer, there was so much produce around that people without food insecurity were receiving donated food boxes in Detroit. A box left on someone’s porch (not needed) still counts for $ in your USDA food box contract. Further, I received some feedback from local shelters that their problem was not obtaining produce. Rather, they were short on cooking and prep staff to serve meals due to volunteers dropping.

Will the supply chain fundamentally change based on covid-19? I think there are two potential impacts:

1) Restaurant retailers discovered direct to consumer food may be a viable business option. So you may see meat or produce from restaurant suppliers with more accessibility for online ordering. Based on input from a couple chefs I know, this produce is generally fresher and bred for taste than grocers with a priority on shelf life.

2) Some food companies may re-configure and tighten their global supply chains. (to some extent) The cost savings of $0.02/bushel using cheaper imports, may be offset by risk reduction with domestic supply.

The big battle to transition to regional and seasonal produce may have gained some momentum. Home cooking, gardening, and food preservation (canning, pickling, etc) all spiked in 2020. However, “big food” craves uniformity. Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) broke out in the 1970s as the desire for local, organic produce grew. You can pre-pay a farm to obtain a portion of their harvest throughout the year. However, CSAs have been in decline since. Until 2020. I am relatively pessimistic that this situation will make a dent in the overall system. On demand D2C produce boxes are rarely regional and only a small percent of restaurants have a shifting seasonal menu.

The Victory Garden

With the pandemic in full force, I returned to Michigan in May. I’ll save the backstory, but I essentially became the caretaker of a 10 acre “Victory Garden.” For years, my friend has been converting empty and abandoned lots into gardens. This year we decided to donate all produce grown to Detroiters in need.

I spent my summer weeding, cutting grass, “rescuing” plants, and eventually harvesting. I spent most mornings and evenings in the field. Having this outdoor labor to do probably preserved my sanity (even though it didn’t feel like it at the time.) I was glad to provide a safe and tangible volunteer opportunity to many who may not have had a chance to help otherwise.

Ultimately, in a few city blocks we were able to raise over 8,000 lb of produce. Through various partners in the city, we were able to hand more than 600 family “kits” to young mothers, seniors, and other groups with tools to distribute fresh, organic food.

People rarely think about the labor that goes into food production. Most often this work is outsourced to low wage immigrants, with only half of them working in the US legally. Another tricky food issue – would consumers pay more to know the livelihood of these workers would be better? Probably not. (just glance at Aldi’s growth in the US.) What about the people living in poverty and can’t pay more for food? This is a big problem, and could use some attention. Given the amount of $ poured into the corn industrial complex … there probably is a bit of cash available to make this happen.

What I am optimistic about in food – is that the consumer drives the market. “In 2010, 4% of the households surveyed used organic milk,” the report says. “By 2018, that had more than tripled to 13%. (link)” Although still a small percentage, that rate of change is incredible. People paid more for what they believed to be better for them food.

Now what DQ?

I’ve been living the ‘work remote’ life for over a year now. What I actually need to do is pick a city for my home base and be done with it , no more jumping around?

It is difficult to contribute in a meaningful way when you don’t really have skin in the game anywhere. (both as a career ‘generalist’ and without a firm city to live in.)

So I’ll head to Maine for a month to try to figure it all out. Open to suggestions.

Here is a song for you to enjoy. I hope to see you all soon.

DQ

January, 2020

Family / friends / historic acquaintances –

It has been a minute! I’ve missed you. Four years in a startup black hole can really set you back with connecting!

In case I didn’t spam you about it, I spent those years heading operations for Banza, a chickpea pasta company. Luckily, the company has grown we’ve achieved some stability (link). As you can imagine, startup operations can be a touch exasperating. It’s been a ride.

Last summer I was completely burned out. I decided to stop back from the core of Banza’s operations and instead focus solely on procurement. Chickpeas are interesting business and we’re managing some novel projects at the moment.

So, great, but what’s the point here?!

Let’s catch up. I’d love to hear what you’re up to. (including baby / dog photos) Strive / MBA days feel historic at this point. Hit me up! (+1 347-744-5732).

Come visit? In Feb, Mar, April I’ll be living in Hawai’i (Big Island). There is plenty of space (3-bdr) and I’ll have a car so please consider this a sincere invitation. I’m not certain where I’ll head next, but I’d love to see anyone I can. Unfortunately I’m still equity heavy and cash poor so I’ve got to stay a bit grounded for now (aka no world tour)

Are you interested in food / startups / nutrition / farming / soil / etc? I’ve started digging through a backlog of research and articles and have started thinking forward about what giant problems could use some attention. I’m putting together a presentation of my findings that I’ll send your way once I have it together. The food industry is ripe for disruption on a few hundred fronts, and I don’t think Amazon’s version of 7-11 has our best intentions at heart. 

Does anyone want to run or do some crazy race? Two Ironman races in and various other 30-50 mile run races seemed like enough. However, I haven’t participated in an event since last March so I’m starting to get the itch again. I’d be happy to consider joining you for a bike / run / swim / other event.

Take care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Derrick Quandt