Jeffery: Welcome to Impact Investing, brought to you by the Supporters Fund. The home of the 28 kilometer underground pedestrian trails. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I’m your host, Jeffrey JP Potvin. Let’s please welcome from the capital of Upper Canada. York 1793. Name change to Toronto in 1834 James Rickert, founding partner of power Sustainable Loss. Welcome, James. Real pleasure having you join us today.

James: Thanks, JP. It’s a pleasure to be here with you.

Jeffery: Well, James, I’m pretty excited to have you. And, I guess it’s probably odd because we haven’t had. I don’t remember the last time we had someone in Toronto while I’m in Toronto doing a podcast between two Toronto people. So that’s kind of exciting. Hence why I had to find something that was mutually on the intro side, by throwing in York and, Toronto at the same time. But, you know, I’m excited because what we got to meet at a startup event and two, you’re doing some pretty crazy and amazing things in the food space, which is dear to my heart, being that I came from Loblaws some 20 plus years ago, working in the big corporate world and, big fan. And I think there’s so much room and growth in this area and it’s pretty amazing what, what you guys are doing. So I’m excited to kind of dive into the whole M&A process and how you guys are really starting to make a mark in this, the food industry. But before we do that, we want to know one thing about you. And we’d love to hear all about your background and history, all the way back from your law days, because you’ve made quite the leap from being a lawyer to what you’re doing today. So we’re excited to hear about that. But let’s start with one thing about you that nobody would know.

James: Well, JP, as you rapidly hear or learn about me, is, I have a tendency to be an overshare. And so, you know, I own that. And, you know, so one thing that nobody would know is probably pretty difficult, but I’ll tell you something that, puts me in a lot of awkward social situations, which might be marginally amusing. And that is, aside from a real long haul flight. Or I throw a movie on where my brain just needs to shut off, or, I have a seven year old daughter. We’re based Steve Toronto. We’re based in Toronto. And so aside from maybe the odd movie with her, I really don’t watch any TV or movies other than sports. And so, you know, at the cocktail party or at the event when someone’s inevitably talking about, you know, the show that they’re binge watching on Netflix or whatever, I clam right up. So I have nothing to add to that conversation. I’m not a a TV or movie guy at all. And that sometimes puts me in awkward social situations.

Jeffery: That’s awesome. It’s kind of funny, but I was very much similar to that. I only watched documentaries for the longest time, and then, I felt that I could never well, I was already bad at having discussions with people about small topics, so I’d always go deep dive into things that interested me, which probably didn’t interest others. So I had to start watching more things like sports and and of course, some TV. I still haven’t watched a lot of it, but I find little things that aren’t just documentaries that I’m learning something. But you’re right, it it becomes a little socially awkward when you’re people are like, oh my God, Game of Thrones. And you’re like, nope, never watch it.

James: Yeah, I got nothing. But you’re a man after my own heart shaped because I’m the same. And I’ll give you a funny quote from my wife, because sports is a bit of an exception for me. And I was watching a hockey game once and she said, and I was yelling at the TV, of course. And she says, this year she was she should make T-shirts with this. But she said, I don’t know why you care so much about guys you don’t know in cities you don’t live in, playing a sport you no longer play.

Jeffery: That’s good. That could be a t shirt that long. But I think it’s, well worth it. Yeah. It’s good. Right on the back. So have people have time to walk behind you and read the whole thing? But that was a great quote. It’s so true. You know what I think it is? It’s that social side to it. It’s, I can go and sit at a sports match or, music and just enjoy it and just sit there and not have to say a thing for 3 or 4 hours, or just enjoy and take all of that in. Right. So I think the, the sports side of it is just that raw emotion that’s driven to a success. And I think that kind of gets us all excited and wound up. So maybe it’s just all about the energy, who knows. But, it’s still pretty exciting and, great. Share. Yeah. But I guess to move right forward, let’s hear about the great things that you’ve done. And I’m really, really excited to hear about this legacy, because it seems like it was the short lived, and one of my favorite podcasters is Jordan Harbinger, and he’s also a lawyer that then switched over to podcasting. And just decided, hey, I’ve got this learning. It’s been great. I’m going to move on to some other things in life that are, a little bit more compelling. So, can’t wait to hear more about the the journey.

James: Yeah. Happy to share, JP. And I think before I go into the journey, I do want to say that that law to me, you know, I looked around and I still have many, many friends in the profession, and it’s one of those professions that for those, for those it suits. It’s an excellent profession. And, you know, I used to joke, although it’s not really a joke, that, you know, your your success in law, as in many things, is really tied to the, the energy you bring to it, but also the, you know, that the time you put to it and in law, you’ve got sort of almost a perfect synergy between the amount of time you’re working, i.e. your billable hours are directly correlated with your success in the profession. And, I remember very early on in my career, I started my career at Goodmans, in Toronto, wonderful firm. Still have many, many friends, there. And I remember, I’ll tell you, the exact day I knew that law wasn’t for me. And this is the first time I’ve shared this publicly, I think, I was sitting in my office, and, I was on the phone with a senior partner. I’ll give a shout out. His name is Lawrence Chernin. It’s phenomenal. Lawyer retired. Now, Lawrence, if you happen to hear this, big shout out to you because he’s he was very, influential, helpful early on my career, taking me under his wing as a young, as a young guy just coming out of school. And we were sitting, talking about our a clause in a contract, and it was a, I think it was a Saturday afternoon. We had to get it to the client by the Monday. And I literally walked out of the room. I was in my office and I said, I can’t listen to this anymore. And I just remember thinking there were at least five, if not ten colleagues of mine in and around my vintage that would absolutely die to be sitting in that room listening to him and some other partners deconstruct this clause, and I, I want to jump out the window. So I thought, you know, I know this is a big, big red flag for this guy. And, you know, I’m just not going to be able to put the energy and the time and the effort and the mental space into this as compared to my colleagues who actually love this. And I guess there’s nothing wrong with loving it. It’s, if it’s suited for you, then I think it’s a wonderful profession. I think there’s tons of opportunity there. One thing I will say about my time at Goodmans is they really taught me. My colleagues did, very entrepreneurial firm, very transactional firm by design. And they really taught me how to, you know, put a deal together and execute on things and deal with people. And it was something I really appreciated early on that I was, you know, I was put in front of clients early on, and I enjoyed the problem solving and the execution aspect of it. What I didn’t enjoy was the actual law, and, but I did have a, have a thesis which, which, you know, thankfully for me, kind of bore out, as my career unfolded, where I could, I could leverage that skillset and that knowledge into something else and, maybe go into the next chapter. I, quickly through my own network, actually. And Brookfield had happy to be a big client of Goodmans. I was made aware of a position that opened up, which I think allowed me to, transition out of pure private practice, go into a legal role, but very much a legal role focused on, M&A and transactional activity, investing activity in the infrastructure space. So I was very fortunate to be a very early hire in the Toronto office for Brookfield Infrastructure, where it was headquartered, and to, to be sort of go right into the, the private equity world, if you will, with, with a very strong foundation. And I think in an environment that allowed me to leverage those legal skills in a way that I knew how to do right away while learning the, the rest of the business.

Jeffery: Now. And I think that’s pretty exciting. And I think if you go back and just to unpack some of the, kind of the Goodman side, and they are a great firm, and they’ve worked with lots of the startup companies over the years that, we’ve invested in or worked with is that there’s also and I almost believe that, you know, early education should also have some emphasis on legal, like, you learn mathematics, you learn sciences. You have all of these things to learn that they should be adding in a lot more around how to legally structure things, how to make sure you’re protecting yourself, because today it’s more important than it ever has been. And that’s not just from a startup perspective. This is personally, if you’re buying a car or a home, whatever that might be, there’s such a lack of understanding and knowledge that’s geared around this, and it sounds like the minutia. Or is maybe the boring part to you is you’re just like, all right, this really isn’t going to work for me anymore. I’ve, you know, I understand how all this operates. I’ve got to move forward faster and more productive than than sticking in the guardrails that are being put in front of me. And, and law really is guardrails, right? It’s it’s how do you determine and define something? If I put the guardrails on and I keep putting the blocks together, and this is how I’m going to make sure that this is defined. So do you feel that some of this learning that you took from your legal days and working early on at Goodmans, that it’s created enough context for you that when you’re starting to do these M&A processes and you start to start in your next role, that it really actually helps you more than you probably if you just came in as an analyst that didn’t have a lot of background, that it is very much structural and that it actually helps you define where you’re trying to go and help those targets and help you achieve them.

James: I mean, you said it better than I could, JP. I mean, I think I think that’s spot on. I think, you know, as I was as I was saying, I felt very comfortable going into an environment like Brookfield, which is full of really smart, accomplished, hardworking people, extraordinarily smart on the financial accounting side in particular. And then to come in with a little bit of a different angle to understand those structures, to understand how that actually gets implemented, I think definitely gave me a leg up. And as I, you know, I spent my I spent ten years of my career there, at Brookfield Infrastructure. I saw wonderful growth in the, in the platform from one fund. And these these numbers were eye popping to me when I joined in. The first fund when I joined was at $2.4 billion. And by the time I left, there were five there, five different investment products. Pardon me, there are five different vintages of that infrastructure fund. They were then on to fund five, and then there were further debt funds and then open ended infrastructure fund, which took a slightly different bent on it. Which is all to say, I saw this tremendous growth. And when I looked around me and I saw colleagues being elevated and moving forward with that growth and taking on leadership positions, I always admired and you could see a different trajectory with someone who, let’s say I’ll pick on investment because for a moment you start as an investment banker, very financially savvy. Those are the could pick up the structuring element, understand the risk, things that kind of I already knew coming out of a legal background, those that could marry to those two elements, the financial with the structuring and the risk element. We’re on the rocket ship and became the chief investment officer is in the leaders in the group, the ones you couldn’t sort of get out of the Excel sheet and look. It’s the same with lawyers. The ones you can’t get out of the agreement are going to be on a different path naturally. So when you were describing that element to it, that to me made me think of colleagues of mine and still friends of mine at Brookfield who really were able to get both sides of it and leverage that in quite a powerful way.

Jeffery: And it kind of makes sense that as your career progresses or anybody’s career progresses, and from that matter is that, you know, once you start to tie in other elements of expertise or start to learn them, you become more valuable. You become able to assess things quicker, faster, overview things, but then you start to tie in other individuals and grow them. So I think there is certain people that are meant for the minutia. They’re they’re really good on the detail and they’ll be the best out of forever. And they’re the ones that are going to find that, that quick resolve that you need in order to move a case forward or solve a problem. And they are, you know, invaluable for, for anything you’re working on. But it’s the ones that start to, you know, really build the toolbelt, of expertise that are going to offset them from the rest of the group. But they’re also going to start becoming and shaping. And hopefully people see this, start shaping them into leaders. And it sounds like that’s kind of the process that you took as you went in as an analyst, left as, managing partner, I think that obviously attest to the growth and how you were able to tie a lot of these, processes together. Are there a few things that you would say that really stood out on the M&A side? Because now, obviously today, it’s your number one tool in the tool belt, for what you guys are doing. Was there, you know, some learnings that you took that really kind of shocked you throughout the process. But you would say if you’re going to be strong in M&A, you need to know these five things. Like are there a couple of things that you could pull out of your hat that said, really defined how and what you’re doing today?

James: Yeah, yeah. And before I get to those, maybe a couple of elements on the M&A side is something you said, reminded me of the great saying that, an old mentor, Goodmans at first first gave to me. I think this applies across industries. I think it ties into your question, which is in in most cases, you need finders, minders and grinders, right? You need those grinders who know the minutia, and you also need the minders who are really good at execution, relationship building, etc. and then you also need the finders who are going to actually go out and bring in the business. And I think in the startup context, to me, that also means creators, you know, the visionaries, those who can actually create the idea, put it into force and really, attract the, the minders and the grinders that you need. I think that that that saying applies in law. It applies in finance and banking. It applies everywhere and in the M&A context. Going back to your question, JP, you need you need all three, right? And so, you know, learnings for me, I don’t think there was anything that necessarily shocked me because again, Goodmans prepared me very, very well in this regard. I think, you know, just being very detailed with the real challenge being very detail oriented without being lost in the details. And so you have to remember, you know, you’re in a forest, you’re not just counting trees or in the worst case scenario, looking at notches on tree bark. You do have to keep the big picture in mind, but at the same time, you need to reserve a part of your brain for the detail. And a lot of M&A, on the execution side is about that detail is about, having the discipline to do things in an organized fashion and, and in many ways, sometimes over communicating with counterparts, advisors, etc., all the various humans that you need as part of a successful, successful process. And I think that does extend whether you’re doing a $10 billion infrastructure deal as part of Brookfield Infrastructure or a $20 million food deal in the growth, in the growth market as part of Leo’s, that sort of discipline needs to, to always be at the forefront. I think, you know, as I’ve learned over my now probably 15 plus years doing M&A, there is a lot of creativity and relationship building that’s involved on the front end when you’re actually structuring a deal, as you pointed out earlier, conversation or as you’re coming up with the framework, under which you’re going to execute a transaction and trying to, you know, find ways where, you know, the Venn diagram overlaps, where you have two counterparties or more who have a common interest finding what that common interest is. And then really, making a judgment call on whether the parties themselves are the right parties to get together and transact, because that that, to me, remains probably one of the singular, most impactful factors in any transaction process is, is the people involved. And, you know, can you get on the same page and work towards that, that common goal? It’s a little bit of a puppy dogs and ice cream, rosy view of corporate and M&A work, but I’ve never viewed it as a zero sum. I’ve always viewed it as a collaborative process where if everyone’s doing their job, whether you’re a legal advisor or a financial advisor or one of the buy side principles, you know, you have to work together with the other side. And especially going back to Toronto with your comments that start the podcast. I mean, Toronto, the world is a small place, let alone Toronto. So what I did and I still do counsel to my younger colleagues who are looking for advice is, if you want to play an asshole card, play it, go for it. But you got a limited amount of times you can play that hand, because then all of a sudden, you know, you you get, you get boxed into into that. If that’s the only if that’s the only, strategy that you have. So, you know, you have to be creative. And I think, if everyone does their jobs well and in an M&A context, you can have every party coming away, getting what they needed to and happy with the outcome for.

Jeffery: That’s awesome. And it sounds very much, not that you’re providing legal jargon on this, but it provides that just like as a lawyer, you spend a lot of time intaking emotion, direction, communication. There’s a lot of that that occurs in the legal front. So you do have to be very, I guess, calming in a sense. Most lawyers I that I know and friends with, etc. and work with that they’re very, very good at, receiving information and they have to be because that information is crucial for them to organize, build out a case or build forward on what they’re trying to achieve. So it sounds like in this M&A process, there’s a lot of things. And you can unpack the whole idea around over communicating, being very organized. A lot of people involved. How do you keep those relations? Building relations, all of these things are really strategic in anything you do. But I think we tend to forget how much the other side and how much there is going on with other people and how this actually makes all of this operate and work, in that ecosystem that you’re in. And that M&A process only gets a success based off of taking that input from everybody, organizing it correctly and making sure that both parties are going to benefit from this final outcome. And if you’re not in there being receptive to all taking all that information and and being detail oriented, you’re going to end up getting lost and screwing up the deal. And like you said, then you’ve got to start pulling, the asshole card or whatever it might be. And all of those things can either benefit or cause and effect, blow up that deal. So it’s very fascinating that, I think that there’s a lot of learning that we tend to forget and overly communicating and taking that background that you’ve built has really define who you are and how you operate inside of business. And to your point, you have colleagues that are still coming back, even though you’ve moved on to completely different things. They still want to understand how you envision, and you’re seeing the world, because you’ve taken this small learning and worked it all the way through your and your, entire career.

James: Well, I mean, I appreciate that. And I think it it it highlights to me, again, something I already have learned about myself now that I’m, you know, in my 40s and have, you know, drained my beard. But, I mean, I’m, I’m a people oriented person, and I always have been and I think all of these different, you know, whether, again, whether it’s law, whether it’s finance, whether it’s M&A, private equity, I mean, there’s there’s roles for every kind of personality. And I think, you know, for me, what’s benefited is just, you know, having that orientation and just being able to to, you know, try to work towards those common grounds. And, and it is the way I’ve described it is probably in a way overly complex. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all in people, businesses and, and you have to deal with, you know, counterparts when you’re doing M&A activity, whether you’re buying or selling a company, there’s someone who’s buying, there’s someone who’s selling. They have advisors. You have advisors. Right. And how do you, how do you manage that playing field when you’ve got divergent people, and personalities? But, you know, at the end of the day and, and again, unless it’s distressed, I mean, you could do another podcast on bankruptcy restructurings in distressed situations. I’m talking about, you know, private M&A, particularly at Leo’s, which I can get into. We only partner, we don’t do leveraged buyouts or 100% buy it. So we’re only taking majority stakes or minority stakes with with governance influences where we can be a part a partner to the existing management team, and ownership group. So that resonated for me. Just given, you know, what I just said about being sort of people focused and oriented. And I think, you know, when you’re in that situation especially, but even in a situation 100% buy it where you have to be a buyer or seller and you have the advisors on both sides. Everyone’s working toward that common goal of a successful transaction. And to keep that in mind, I think allows you to to your point, which is a really good one as a lawyer, kind of be dispassionate about it. You know, for the most part, there’s always an exception. No one’s trying to sink a deal. If someone’s trying to sink a deal, there’s a misalignment there that you’ve got to identify and deal with. Right? So if you go from that premise that everyone’s kind of, you know, has a common goal in mind, and look, if you can’t reach a common goal, then there’s no deal that usually dies before you even get into this. So, you know, keeping that in mind, I think is helpful and, and sort of taking in that information and dealing with it dispassionately and then communicating it appropriately and in a way that, you know, these diverse teams of folks can knock and get something done that that hopefully, at the end of the day is a really good outcome for.

Jeffery: Agreed. And I love the idea that you emphasize on over communication. I think we tend to forget that that is such a crucial part in any transaction is that you’re building comfort for all parties and being open ended and transactional. You have to be overly communicative, make sure everybody has all insights and information. It kind of reminds me of, when you’re talking about how this, the process worked and how you kind of have to be disconnected emotionally from it. But passionately the fact that you’re trying to drive something to final execution. When I ran a lot of, digital transformation projects, you know, decades ago for, for Loblaws, I remember an individual came up to me and said, how do you manage this? And I said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, you have projects that get killed halfway through or at the very end, like you’re pitching the final outcome and everybody’s excited, and then they kill the project and they don’t move forward. How do you not emotionally drained from that? They said, well, there’s 30 other projects that are lined up. I’m excited about them. I said, we drove the best result that we could finally come up with. And, you know, you pitched it through and it didn’t work. So let’s get on to the next one. The excitement level is there is for the next one. And I know that’s pretty much how M&A works, is that your excitement goes until you’ve close the deal. And if it doesn’t close, you’ve already got 12 other ones in the hopper. So you’re already working on how that next one is going to benefit the outcome. And I kind of this kind of transition us to this space that you’re in today, which is, you’ve built a tremendously massive Canadian fund, which is super exciting. And maybe you can share a bit more of the details on, the size of the fund and what you guys are working on and how that’s going to operate. But what I love about what you’re doing is that it’s focused around something that we all need, we all live and have to eat food, and we all have to be part of this, ecosystem that’s been built up operationally across Canada, North America and globally. That enables us to have, the products, the food, everything else that comes into our space. And you guys were able to kind of build up a whole thesis model, raise, a significant, portfolio and start to go out and look at how do we drive into this space and start to actually support these large and mid-tier companies so they can scale their operations, scale their business, and start to actually ensure that they can deliver? You know, they didn’t think about this when they got into the, traffic issue when we have, massive migration going on, they didn’t think, how can we solve that problem? But they are thinking, hey, how can we solve the problem? We’ve got to feed all of these people that are coming in and how, we’ve got such a boom. We need to do something about that. And you guys came up with a kind of like that perfect middle fit for it, and it seems to be doing a great job in flourishing. So maybe we can share a bit more of the details on how this fund is, operating and the types of things you’re going after.

James: Yeah, absolutely. JP happy to. And and first off, I’ll also credit and mention my two, business partners at Power Sustainable Leo’s. Jonathan Belair and Greg Hanna. This is another, you know, sort of a not to go off on a tangent, but, this is another one where, you know, a lesson from my career is, you know, when I was a good way back when I was at Goodmans, Jonathan was an investment banker at Scotia, and we did a deal together, and we got on really well. And I decided, you know, let’s go for a coffee with Jonathan. And it meant, you know, it meant that our during the day was an hour that I tacked on at night. So instead of going home at 9:00, I went home at 10:00. But, struck up a friendship with Jonathan. And then he fast forward 15 years, and I literally bumped into him in my neighborhood. JP he was coming with the coffee. I was going to get one. We decided next time let’s coordinate better and get one together. And he had just left McKane foods to, to start Leo’s. And I just left Brookfield, which was a difficult decision for me. And it was one where, you know, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I had such a wonderful ten year run there. I left as one of the managing partners in the group. I feel like I’m doing a lot of shout outs today, but I’m going to shout out my old boss, Sam Pollock, phenomenal leader, of Brookfield Infrastructure really built that group. And I got a front row seat to him for ten years. And literally because we had an open concept bullpen at Brookfield, where even all the CEOs at the same desk that, the rest of us footsoldiers do it. And I got to learn so much from Sam over the years about his dealing with people and his communication. A lot of the themes I mentioned are formative things I learned over there, so it’s a tough call for me to leave Brookfield. But, I was desiring to do something a little different and frankly, kind of missed the days of us scrambling around and trying to figure out our first fund. And then when I, when I reconnected with Jonathan, he had asked he asked me to become an advisor to his business. And I started learning about the food system. And I think you perfectly described the challenge we’re facing. It is the food system structurally, is not set up to continue to scale and grow in a sustainable and resilient fashion in order to feed everyone and not just feed everyone, but feed everyone, in a nutritious and sustainable way. And so Jonathan had a front row seat to that at McCain foods, and we’re doing a lot of things in innovation to try to look at this problem. And then completely separately, Craig and our third partner, who know Jonathan for about nine years or so, frankly, had an advisory business where he was seeing the same thing and he was advising the exact type of companies that we’re now investing in. And so it was really a perfect match of the three of us. And it didn’t take very long. Call it three, four months of working in an advisory capacity before I, you know, John and I started talking about me joining full time and really being, really having my interests captured by the just the magnitude of the problem. And so, you know, we found who it was then Leo’s partners and we and subsequent to that, we struck up a wonderful partnership with Power Sustainable, which is a large, alternative asset management platform that’s a subsidiary of Power Corp. of Canada. And their thesis is really building investment teams and platforms that are addressing sustainability challenges in the world. So it’s a wonderful team. They have other platforms, infrastructure, de carb, etc. that, that are, you know, I would say in a way complementary to what we’re doing in this, in the sense that we’re we’re all investing in different verticals but against the same theme. So they’ve been a wonderful partner to us and really helped us get going. But at the time, you know, Craig, Jonathan and I looked off the edge of the cliff and decided to jump in and see if we could raise a fund on our own. So we’ve subsequently, you know, fast forward to the gory details. We’re very fortunate. We raised the $285 million debut fund, 95% of our target in what was a brutal capital raising environment. So we’re very proud of that, and we’re very proud of the, amazing, supportive institutional partners, that are predominantly the investors in our fund. We also have some some high net worth and family office investors. But we’re predominantly, managing Canadian institutional capital with a little bit from Europe and the United States as well. So ours is a North American strategy, as you pointed out, we’re focused on targeting food companies, that are at a growth or scale up stage. And so we’re looking to invest between 20 to $50 million, in each opportunity to really help companies go from point B or C to point to, to the next level. And what we’re really excited about, JP, is that in this segment of the food industry, there’s a lot of really great sustainability innovations that are coming out of the lower to mid market suit, and that’s that’s really exciting to us. When we look at the big food companies, not to pick on anyone, but just to name some names, listeners might be familiar with even a McCain, but, you know, like a Kraft Heinz or a mars or.

Jeffery: Some of the big.

James: Big food companies, they’re not structurally set up to innovate necessarily. Someone do a really good job of supporting innovation through VC divisions, etc. but themselves, they’re structurally set up to really mass produce, with complex supply chains at them at the lowest price. Let’s let’s be honest. And so from a sustainability standpoint, they’re actually really looking to, partner or acquire solutions from or with the companies that we’re looking to invest in. So we’re really excited about the innovation that’s coming out of the space and our ability as a, really a growth capital provider to to come in with real food experience, with real infrastructure experience, which I think is a really interesting theme within food, is just literally food infrastructure, whether that’s distribution, logistics, production, etc. I think there’s some real interesting crossover there. We’re really excited to, to partner with these types of businesses.

Jeffery: Well, that’s amazing, and certainly to your point needed. And I like the idea that you’re not just going into, create another cattle call and just kind of push things through and, not worry too much about all of the other metrics that, the world needs to be focused on, which is obviously sustainable and those types of goals and targets. So that’s pretty exciting. Now, when you’re looking at these companies, what are what are your thoughts around, the M&A processes that strong piece into how you’re going to grow with these companies in your investments? Is it just cash in and supporting their existing infrastructure and in trying to help them maintain their sustainability goals? Is it imposing new regulations for them? If we invest, you have to support this, format and change your ways. Like, how are you guys looking at these companies when you start to, deep dive on them?

James: Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say the easy one to dismiss is the latter, where we’re not imposing. So, what part of our underwriting process is to actually look at their, their product or their process or whatever it is that they’ve brought to market assess the product market fit, and really assess that from a sustainability standpoint. So we’re we’re quite front leaning when it comes to that. What we’re not doing is coming with an ESG checklist, which I think is, is rightfully, frankly, undergoing a lot of scrutiny right now, greenwashing or treating, sustainability as a matter of compliance. I think maybe it was a phase or a blip. But, you know, for us, it’s it’s really inherent in our whole thesis. If that’s wrong, we’re going to be completely wrong, which I don’t think we are. And so what we do is even in the early stages is we look at what the company is doing. If they’re a company that doesn’t really believe in sustainability or thinks a glossy report is enough, then we’re just not going to be for them. And that’s actually fine because, you know, that’s okay. And then for some companies, depending on the business, depending on the stage of company, perhaps they have other priorities that that’s fine. That just means that that that Leos is not going to be for them. And that’s not a problem for us. Who we are looking for is a company that understands that they have a sustainability value proposition that’s inherent in what they’re doing, and they may not know how to deal with that yet. And that’s where we can immediately add some value as a thought partner, leveraging our network and bringing in others as needed to really, put an emphasis on that and not in a way that changes what they’re doing. So we’re very much trying to support businesses in what they’re doing well already and doubling down in those areas from an M&A standpoint, there are certainly and there are at least two. It’s not the third, if not all three probably too. But we have with three portfolio companies right now and M&A could very well factor into the strategy as a way to grow as a way to talk in complementary businesses, or or otherwise support what the, what the businesses are doing as they evolve. It’s not necessarily a must have, but it’s certainly a, a factor or a tool in our toolbox, if you will. But it’s really sort of those two fold things. It’s, it’s looking at how can we grow the business and how can we, you know, how can we leverage what they’re already doing? Well, from day one, we’re big. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it kind of, guys. And again, if you if you’re a business, you might be listening to this and thinking, hey, you know, this sounds interesting. If you want a partner that’s not going to, you know, be in your business day to day but wants to be updated, involved, have a board seat and have it input into the strategy of the business and perhaps have specific, areas where we can we can really lean in and add value that. Then we’re then we’re for you. If you’re looking for cheap capital, if you’re looking for, you know, a set it and forget it type of approach that that it’s also not going to be that’s not going to. Yes.

Jeffery: No that’s great. And a great way to kind of define where you guys are fitting into the market. If you take kind of the the companies that you have worked with and invested in, is there are some criteria where you look at it and kind of share that they have to be, you know, at least four years old. They have to be, 25 million runway, run rate, or 25 million just in revenue or like, do you have certain criteria that you’re looking for? No debt, you know, how do you guys ensure that, you know, you got a portfolio of numbers you got ahead and KPIs you’re trying to, ensure you work through? Are there anything that kind of stands out for the audience?

James: Yeah. Here’s our rough guidelines at JP. So it has to be North America because we sometimes get asked about that too. And, you know, we’re a debut fund. So we’re going to try to take care of, you know, our own backyard and our neighbors first. We as a rough guideline, we say 150 in sales or revenue and below I that’s rough though. I mean, it’s not a hard and fast rule. And if you look at different we invest all across the food value chain. So I suppose I should have also said it has to be food. And we generally break those down into production, manufacturing, ingredients distribution, CPG and services and equipment. So has to be relating back to food. But within those same segments, sometimes you get, you know, you could have a distribution business with really high top line and skinnier margins. And that’s just the nature of the business which which we understand. So it’s sort of depends on the, you know, the segment that we’re looking at. The one thing I will say is that this tends to distinguish us a little bit, because when we looked at the landscape, particularly in Canada, but this, this, this bears out in the United States as well. So there is actually a lot of skilled, knowledgeable capital that focuses on venture ag tech, food science, pre-commercial, etc. there’s lots of smart people doing that. There’s also a lot of support for larger, more well-established food companies. We try to play in that mushy middle of scale up. So what we say is we’re looking for companies that are have hit profitability or are on a near-term path to profitability. I’ll be honest that most of the companies in our pipeline, as we’ve actually gone out to implement the strategy, have been profitable, even even if it’s at a small level, as we’re looking for that profitability, that EBITDA positivity as an indicator, indicator that, you know, there’s a good product market fit and the companies kind of on to something because then then we’re able to come in and leverage our toolkit to actually help grow, grow market share. Maybe it’s expand by building, you know, to to your question earlier, maybe it’s expand by building a new facility, maybe it’s expanding by tucking in a really complimentary business that helps support the whole, so that that’s when we can really get to thinking about how do we help that business scale. I mean, if there was a really interesting business that was pre profitable, but like right on the cusp, we would certainly look at that as well.

Jeffery: Amazing. Now those are those are great details. Can you I guess lastly on this, can you share some of the we’ll call them wins, but some of the exciting parts of the industry. And has the government been really supportive of this? I’m kind of guessing, yes, because they probably see that there is a problem here as well, and that they need as many, players to jump in and start start supporting this sector. Is there are you finding that there’s a lot of exciting pieces ahead? The road ahead has been pretty open ended. Or are you finding you’re hitting a lot of guardrails because it’s being pushed up against there’s not enough companies that are operating in Canada in this facility. So you’re going to end up investing more in the US. Like what are kind of the landscape dynamics that you’re coming across now?

James: That’s a great question. And maybe I’ll I’ll use the question to be a bit of a commercial. So in terms of the wins, I mean, we’re we’re just ordinarily happy. We’re happy with our partners in power, sustainable. We’re happy with our team that we’ve assembled. We’re happy with the broader organization and how we’re really set up to execute the strategy. And it could have gone any better in my view. From there, we have successfully made three investments to date. The first was in Goodly Farms, which is Canada’s largest, vertical farming operation. Our capital came in alongside McCain foods, which is an existing investor. We took a commercial facility in Guelph, and the team actually was able to build it successfully in Calgary and Montreal. Both those farms are largely pre-sold, having been in operation for roughly a year each. So we’re we’re ordinarily excited for good life and, and what it brings to the market and what it makes in these vertical farms that are, pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide, completely chemical free, leafy greens. So think salad greens as well as microgreens, microgreens being these little sort of shooted things that are like extraordinarily dense in nutrient value and so the company will will make both of those as separate products. They also have some really exciting salad mixes that combine the two that, that have gone to market. And when I again, I’m being a commercial for our company, but I truly mean this that, two things you can almost eat the salad is that dressing. It’s not flavorful. And all of us, I think, have the experience of buying a bag of salad, only to throw out half of that when it’s become green and mushy. Because it here in Toronto, we’re buying from Guelph. You’re getting a salad mix that’s days or weeks old and it’s had no chemical exposure. And so you can eat half here box of salad. You can stick it back in the fridge for a week and then you can finish it. Which is really, really amazing. And for our little family, we start buying salads again because we’re not throwing three quarters of it out. And so we’re really excited by that potential. In terms of government support, government has been incredibly supportive, for, for the new sites in particular, that occurred during our ownership both in Calgary and in Montreal. And so we do maybe to just jump in with to answer that question, we, we do see a lot of support coming, mainly at the portfolio company level. Two of our LPs, which are public, which are affiliated, with the government are Farm Credit Canada and Export Development canon. And both have been wonderfully supportive, limited, limited partners in our effort. The other two portfolio companies we’ve close to date, one is called Private Brands Consortium. They are a value add supplier and distributor. That’s, of private label products to retail. And they primarily specialize in baby and toddler food and snacks. Better for you. Ethically sourced. Nutrient dense, snacks for, for the little ones. They also have some adjacent product categories. Again, they’re they’re probably they’re products. That’s probably about 5050 organic to non. They also field non organics important because given economic times you know having a having an affordable nutritious option. And folks often go to private label for that affordable option is really important. So that’s the space that the PVC plays in. And then last but not least, most recently we closed an investment in food cycle science, which makes an electronic, in-home food waste composter. So really excited about all of our businesses. But this one, they have actually garnered quite a bit of, of government support because food waste is just an enormous problem. And they have embarked on a really interesting program where they partnered with municipalities that don’t have organic, waste infrastructure. So in Toronto, we’re all used to the green bin. There are communities out there that don’t have a green bin and have real issues with food waste. My favorite example of this, especially when I talk to, folks in America who in these in the States who might not know where Nelson BK is. I see the problem with Nelson DC is when you compost, which is really their only option, you get theirs because you’re in northern BC and bears live up there. So a lot of anecdotes like that which point to the need for a more effective food waste solution. And in this company, Food Cycle Science, based in Ottawa, was really at the forefront of technologies that address food waste in the home. So we’re really excited about that one to JP and, and, and all of those businesses. But but especially the latter one have done a lot with government, in terms of supporting the innovation that’s had to go on to develop that, that piece of equipment.

Jeffery: I love it. And, I like the variety, too. They’re not, you know, they’re not all the same business, which I think, allows everybody to have that innovative mindset to keep working and hustling and being different. So that’s pretty cool. And, sounds like some, pretty amazing businesses. And I think the underlying part of the support from the government and from other bodies and, including partners and cities, obviously is fantastic. And even if it is at the ground level with the founders, it’s still huge because it helps them build their business and they see the value behind it.

James: Absolutely. Well, I know we’re really excited about it. I mean, I think from here, you know, we’re focused on seeing us opportunities. There’s plenty of opportunities in Canada. Canada is actually really strong in food. And we’re seeing a lot of really good things. And, and we’re very, very happy and, and I appreciate you pointing that out. You know, we’re happy with the diversity of the portfolio. We’re going to target 6 to 8 investments for this debut fund. And they’ll all continue to be run as freestanding businesses. But our hope is as we bring in more companies that we can actually leverage knowledge sharing across the businesses, because you never know. You know, what points and points of connectivity can can arise. There. And we’re excited. At the end of the month, we’re actually getting our three CEOs together socially again so they can meet and greet and have an open forum for, for collaboration going forward.

Jeffery: Awesome. Yeah, this is, this is great. So I think, we’re going to kind of transition now into, our 62nd rant. So the way this works is that you’ve got 60s to rant about, obviously anything and everything that’s in excites you about, what’s going on in the world today? I’m going to set the timer. And of course, nobody’s ever, made the 60s. So let’s, let’s jump in. I’m going to, start the timer and you’re ready to go when you are.

James: Okay. Well, I love a good rant, JP. So hopefully this is interesting for our listeners here, but I’m going to keep it topical. I mean, there’s so much there’s so much in the world I feel we could rant about these days, including what happened last night at the presidential debates. I guess you’re clear on that one. And I’m going to rant about food system. Our food system, if it is not, broken, it is close to it, and it’s close to home for me because my little one, when she eats bread or anything with wheat gluten in it in North America, she gets an upset tummy. But we went to Europe this summer as a family, and she was eating French croissant and all sorts of bread, and anything was completely fine. And, you know, it’s my my rant is, is a few as any good rant is. There’s many elements from around. The one is, is our education system doesn’t teach nutrition or anything really about true health. So we grow up and, we have a bunch of misconceptions about the food we eat, how it’s prepared, how it’s made that just continues to perpetuate. And so, as you know, as we grow, we wonder why that our health starts to fail. Sadly, around every corner, you know, you hear people with with cancers and other chronic illnesses and, and we wonder why that is. And then we just go to the medical system which, which could be a separate 62nd rant. You know, and I would say before a daughter, my wife had a successful naturopathic practice, and that’s something that my family and I believe in very, very strongly. But, you know, there’s been many a conversation over it, over our years together where, you know, people’s eyes glaze over whenever you talk about some sort of alternative to what is traditional health care. And I think, you know, that sort of feeds back into my rant about the food system, because we don’t actually appreciate, nor are we ever taught about real nutrition. I mean, I don’t even know if they still teach the Canada Food Guide, which I was taught about. And so as my diets now evolved, you know, well into my 40s and into ensure that I’m performing at work being, not being sluggish, being energetic, being mentally aware, I’ve complete like, I don’t eat anything close to the food because I think it’s bullshit. And, I think there’s, there’s, there’s things that have come out that have shown that, you know, what was, you know, thought of as healthy previously is is completely opposite. Hands up. If you had margarine in your house growing up, that’s what I eat growing up and it’s, it’s interesting. So we, you know, we we found a less in large part not to be focused on nutrition, but to be, focused on ensuring that we are fixing a food system to provide more healthy and nutritious food. I’ll give you a quick stat. Is that right now, agriculture uses up about 50% of the world’s habitable land and about 75% of its fresh water withdrawals. Not only are those absolutely crazy numbers, they’re just not sustainable as the population continues to grow. So we need a healthier source of food, we need a healthier supply of food, and we need healthier access to food. And I would say going back to that mention of government earlier, our our governments are failing absolutely miserably at, at supporting that, food transition and making sure that we all get access to healthier, nutritious food.

Jeffery: I love it. Fantastic. Grant, I’ll I’ll say that it was just over two minutes. No, it was it was the best 60s. It was a great 62nd round, you know, and my job is, of course, to rebuttal against all of these and, and fight against you. But I 100% agree with you and support that. And it goes back to our earlier conversation that there is a form of this that needs to be educated more in schools. Just like having the law course and whatnot in early to help people better understand how they can fight for rights, etc. but there certainly is a need for this. And, you know, back in the 60s when they created the Food Guide, the food guide was created for one and only reason, which was we have an overabundance of grains that we need to sell. So we’re going to create this food list, and then we’re going to stick to it and say that these are the things that you need. And the unfortunate part is that they haven’t migrated away from that because it’s all about job protection and industry creation, which is the same reason why milk is still, you know, pushed in schools when we know that it’s, obviously,

James: Not.

Jeffery: Something the human body requires, which is drinking, cows milk, which, you know, a baby calf will weigh more than a human at any point in time. And, how that works in our own digestive systems is, pretty ludicrous. But if you’re going to that extent, there is also to the other point you made, which is mass production. What can we produce quickly, fast. It doesn’t matter if it’s good for you, it’s food, and your brain is going to get what it needs. So there is a bit of a disconnect between what’s healthy, what we can produce, and move along the food chain quickly and get into the hands of the consumers. Regardless if it’s good or bad for you, the outcomes are obviously proving themselves over time. So how do you go about changing the system so that you can punch out healthy products that can be replicated quickly and pushed at mass scale, versus the niche that’s occurring in most of the markets where you have a lot of niche players. Is there a way to do this? Because you’re right, food needs to change the way people need to eat changes. Just like your diets changed in the last 20 years, as mine has. And the same is, in the next 10 to 15 years, you’re going to see the same changes that have occurred in North America that are going to happen in Europe, where you’ll go and have that croissant. And because they’re using the fast dough rise, which is, with gluten and it cuts it out within 60s 60s, you can rise a raise a loaf of bread versus the six hours that is supposed to be used. All cutting corners to make things faster, cheaper, better. Hopefully they don’t go that direction. To your point, where in Europe the food isn’t killing you. So how do we go about changing that? And, I’m sure you’ve got some thoughts on it, but, as much as I want to, rant against, I think I’m all for your rant and think that there is a lot of room for change and how do we change? That would be my last stance.

James: Now, I think, and probably how do we change it needs another podcast, you know, and I think despite my rant, I mean, there is an appreciation that, and this is something we think a lot about here at Power Sustainable is, which is, you know, some of these products, while better for you, are more expensive. There’s just no two ways about it. And how do we how do we make that product more affordable and available to, to people who are struggling, particularly in an inflationary and and economic challenging economic environment that we’re in and and we’re not unsympathetic to that, you know, and it is unfortunate that in a lot of cases, the healthier, better option is only available to us. A subset of the population.

Jeffery: Agreed. And then, of course, you got to figure out how to make it affordable. So I think there’s going to be some, there’s going to be some hurdles along the way. But hopefully the world is kind of shifting in that direction. We’re going to kind of shift over to some more of the business side questions. But, fantastic. On the rent side and, these questions, you know, maybe as we jump through them, some of them will go into rapid fire in a second. But is there a, you know, during the the last, few years that you’ve been doing M&A and, of course, now, on the investor side, can you share possibly what’s the toughest lesson you’ve learned as an investor?

James: That’s a great question. The toughest lesson I’ve learned as an investor? It’s a great question. I think you kind of stumped me. Not not that I don’t have tough lessons. I think I’ve taken a lot of lumps in my career, and I’m just trying to think of what, maybe what the toughest one is. I mean, I’ve been, as you might be able to tell, I’m a bit of a half glass, half full kind of guy. So, I mean, I think, first of all, I think I went into it knowing that it was it’s it’s a sacrifice, you know, especially when you go into M&A. You know, I had a friend and a mentor of mine, he’s in finance and he’s, he’s he’s now older. But, you know, he said, I hate M&A because it’s just life consuming. Which it is. But, I mean, I, I did go in a little bit, eyes wide open to that. So I can’t say that’s necessarily a tough lesson, but I think, you know, one thing, I will say it, it sort of picks up on what I said earlier about the asshole card. Pardon my pardon, my, language, but, you know, it’s there’s people who play that card a lot. And then, you know, I just think that, it wasn’t a tough lesson because thankfully, I’ve had mentors around, and I’ve never. I don’t feel like I’ve ever, threat, you know, risk this myself, but I’ve seen it where, you know, like, your credibility is your most valuable thing. I think in business and, you know, I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been situations. I’m like, I wish I had a do over. You sort of feel bad, like, you know, but but, you know, I, I can, I can say I’ve never I’ve never lied. And I think doing things like that and, and keeping that credibility is very important because it, it takes a, it takes, you know, a ten, 15 year career to build and it takes one really bad decision to destroy. And, and I’m a fortunately, I have, I have seen it with others and, you know, thankfully never, you know, one of these big sort of nuclear situations. But, you know, I think there’s maybe a tendency sometimes in business you want to be successful. You’re super ambitious, there are opportunities to take shortcuts, and maybe it’s not even untoward things, but shortcuts. And you got to be really careful with those. And I think, again, it’s if you’re going to play a card like that, be very judicious and careful. If you play it at all, and if you do decide to play sort of a short cutting kind of card, and how often you do it.

Jeffery: No, that’s a great share. And, I, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Avoid shortcuts. I think shortcuts or peer pressure or high pressure, leads to, mistakes, scams and everything else. So I think there’s some, that’s a very valuable, share. What are what are, you know, what piece of advice would you give nine out of ten founders?

James: Nine out of ten founders, I would say, well, here’s this could have been around two. I think when you’re founder or even this, this is the same advice I’d give to to a young person starting their career, which is be present, and, and that can be a real challenge. But when you’re building something up, you know, building up a team and culture and commonality and working towards that alignment and common goal is, is really going to be worth the effort. And, and I think that, you know, again, and maybe there’s an exception that you tell me about more and sort of, you know, a tech space or whatnot. But I truly believe in people being together. And that means being in an office together, being in a space together, being around each other. And I think that my advice to nine out of ten founders would be, as you pick your team and as you bring people into your venture, get together, maybe when you’re starting up, it’s not every day because you can’t afford a big fancy office, but go to a Starbucks, go to a we were at, go to some of these backyard hang out together, get to know your team. Get to know them as people. Get to know what makes them to get together. Do not sit, you know, in an office by yourself with the door closed and doing all these zoom calls. It’s my advice.

Jeffery: Great advice. Very valuable. I love it. If you could change one thing about venture, what would it be?

James: The nomenclature. Because as a non sort of venture guy, I still don’t know what series ABCd or whatever. I mean.

Jeffery: Fair, fair. All right. All right, we’re going to go into the rapid fire questions. So it’s A or B. Here we go. Founder or co-founder.

James: Co-Founder.

Jeffery: Unicorn or a four year ten ex exit.

James: Four year ten ex.

Jeffery: I think you’re going to crush this one CPG or tech.

James: That CPG AI or blockchain.

J; Like I first money in and because of the the structure series they will say scale up.

James: Well, I have to say scale up 100%. Personally, I might say first money in the fair.

Jeffery: Board. Cedar observer.

James: 40.

Jeffery: Leader. Follow.

James: Agnostic. But I guess if I have to pick one to lead.

Jeffery: Okay. What do you look for when making an investment?

James: Honestly, team number one, team alignment. You know, are these are these folks that we want to partner with?

Jeffery: Okay. Love it. Favorite part of investing?

James: These are part of investing. Well, I’ll answer this in maybe a funny way. I’m very happy with my decision to. And again, no, no, no slight on anyone who stays in service. Progressions are wonderful progressions for the right person. I love seeing something go from soup to nuts like term sheet sourcing term sheet. Not just the M&A execution, but guess what? Great successful execution. Go for a closing dinner. Now you own it. Now you own the asset. What are you going to do with it? And then working with someone after. So seeing the whole seeing the whole life cycle of investment from start to finish.

Jeffery: I love that and beyond. Agreed. And we’re going to go to next. That’s great. Okay. We’re going to shift into actually no last one number of companies invested per year.

James: Oh to okay.

Jeffery: Perfect. All right. The last segment, on the personal side, same A or B, favorite movie and what character would you play?

James: Wow, this is going to be super weird. I think, I grew up in the a, I’m a child of the 80s, the Star Wars. But the real Star Wars is not the remakes or the or the prequels or whatever. And, Oh, a character, what I play, I mean, I should say Luke Skywalker, but I will say Vader.

Jeffery: Nice. Very cool. I was always, for some reason, I was, Han Solo or, or, Oh, man. What’s the other guy’s name? Were the, had the missile on the back? Why am I forgetting his name?

James: Oh, yeah.

Jeffery: Boba fett. Boba Fett? Yeah, those are my two favorite characters.

James: So what’s funny? My comment earlier about not watching movies doesn’t extend to my childhood, and there’s just so much like childhood nostalgia around that franchise. But, you know, like I as a geek from that area, the one where I would break my no movie rule again unless I’m playing it, my perfect scenario would be that this movie comes out on a plane, is I would like a real zoom in on like, take the what? What was it called, the revenge of the Sith? I think I would like I would like a zoom in adult movie on Vader’s internal conflict. I think that’d be pretty cool for a nerd like myself.

Jeffery: Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. So much there. Done. Pact. All right. Favorite book?

James: Oh, none. I don’t really read, to be honest.

Jeffery: All right.

James: Too much reading in law school and as a lawyer. So I don’t have.

Jeffery: No make sense. All right. Favorite sports team?

James: Pittsburgh Penguins.

Jeffery: Oh, nice. They need to extend, a contract for, Oh, my God be. Yeah.

James: I grew up idolizing Lemieux, so I just, I stayed with them.

Jeffery: Yeah. He’ll be the longest tenure, I think after this 100 goals or points. And then he will become the largest point getter for the team. That’s pretty cool.

James: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. He’s going to take over if you can take over Mario spot at the top.

Jeffery: Yep. Cake or fortune cookie.

James: Who cake.

Jeffery: Superman or Batman? Batman DC or Marvel?

James: Oh, I don’t know the difference.

Jeffery: There. That was my self geeking out. All right. Football or football?

James: Ooh. American flag. American football.

Jeffery: All right. Elon Musk or Oprah Winfrey?

James: Elon Musk.

Jeffery: Big Mac or chicken McNuggets. Oh.

James: So hard. Probably nuggets, actually.

Jeffery: I like it. All right, man, we’re out. We’re near the end. So the last question to get close to the wrap up is what is your superpower?

James: Ooh. What’s my superpower? Well, one of my best friends who who also speaking in the loft, and he’s he’s, he’s a he’s one of the top M&A lawyers in the country. Like a brother to me. He once told me that I’m one of the most disarming people he’s ever met. So I’ll, I’ll call my good friend, Jonathan C and say, disarming.

Jeffery: I think that’s, that’s a great superpower. I also add in that you’re a very good people person, so you’re very, it’s, getting people to, I guess, open up and share, which is fantastic. So I want to say that, James, it’s been fantastic to have you on today. We’ve learned a lot. I take a lot of notes, and I want to say, thank you very much for all of your time. And the way we like to end our show is like. We like to give you the last word. So anything you want to say to investors, founders, and anyone else that listens, you know, we turn it over to you and please share how people can get Ahold of you as well. And again, thank you for your time today. I love it well shared. And thank you again. Oh, that was awesome. A great discussion with James. Really a big fan of, what they’re doing in the food space and love the idea that they’re trying to tackle all of the shortcomings that would be happening throughout the food chain, across Canada and North America. And he shared some really valuable insights, of course, overly communicating, being organized, relationship building, really focusing it on the people side and the collaboration side. I like the, the quote he used on finders, grinders and minders. You need all of them. And that’s really how that business structure will function and how you can build your startup. So really a fantastic set up. And he’s invested in some great companies, to date, which is really exciting. They are in the scale up space. So taking companies into that larger, growth sector, which is really exciting. And outside of that, I think he just shared a lot around how to support and help and bring in healthy food across Canada in his rant. Certainly something that, we all need to focus on and how we can correct this, in our ecosystems and provide, more nutritious and better value for our family and, for the country. So thank you for joining us today. If you’ve enjoyed this conversation, please feel free to share with your friends, subscribe to our YouTube channel, or please follow us on Spotify, Amazon or Apple. You can find us on all social platforms, including LinkedIn at supporters Fun. Your support and comments are truly appreciated. Please visit us at Supporters fun.com or startup events and open people now Rev.com. Thank you and have a fantastic day!