S9E113: Tinia Pina / Re-Nuble - Cultivating Resilience: From NYC Streets to Sustainable Vertical Farms

0:00:03 - Harry Duran
It's tied to recording, though, because it's as soon as they hit recording. Yeah, just start again. Okay, I feel better about that. It's definitely poor messaging if that's. Yeah, okay, alright, I'm good to start it. So, tanya Pina, founder and CEO of Renewable, thank you so much for joining me on the Verlacle Farming Podcast. 

0:00:38 - Tinia Pina
Anytime. Thanks for having me, Harry. 

0:00:41 - Harry Duran
We're going through the ups and downs and the ins and outs of security and privacy online. Prior to hit and record, we were having some issues with this platform, which I think we got resolved, but this idea of like passage floating around and security online it's not something we needed to concern ourselves with Like 20 years ago. I grew up in the 80s and it's really weird to have to think about all the things we need to take care of now to protect our privacy. 

0:01:12 - Tinia Pina
Totally, and it changes the way we do business now too. 

0:01:15 - Harry Duran
Yes, yeah, you were sharing a story that was pretty scary with someone that had their privacy or their information hacked and it didn't turn out well for them. I saw a post recently someone posted I think it was on Slate about this is what life used to be for people who worked in my generation, and people were just posting these vignettes of like as soon as I was done with work at five, I would just leave and go like hang out with my friends at the bar and I never have to think about work. And like I didn't have an email. And like I had one awkward sounding email for work that I never used. Or like I would get up in the morning, hang out with my friends and we watch friends must see TV and that's all we would do and that's all we had. That was all that was on TV. 

And it was this weird moment in time that I think about it now and I mean mostly everyone, myself included like the phones at the bedside and I catch myself. I'm like this is not the first thing I want to be doing. So I have to like train myself and I'm wondering if it's sort of I don't know if insidious is too heavy a word, but it's just this, slowly over time, this creeping in of like technology into our world to the point where people feel like they can't do without it. Yet we did do without it, like a decade ago, and I'm wondering what that experience has been like for you. 

0:02:35 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, I mean that's a great question. I think it's very existential because I think the main thing that it's triggered by is fear of missing out, so a lot of FOMO and the fear of not being relevant. And I think if people can just remove a lot of that attachment to those two fears then, yes, you can become centered, you can just create a lot more boundaries. I think that has also kind of caused a lot of, perhaps, the hype in our industry that we've been hearing about and seeing. And if really people just focus on the core competency, their core mission, despite how challenging, and especially when you're creating a new category, it really removes that what seems to be just a very just negative kind of energy that none of us want to be attached to. 

0:03:26 - Harry Duran
Yeah, how have you found that has changed your behavior or your relationship to tech? 

0:03:33 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, that's a good question. We've been tech enabled, but not tech in the sense of there is a sophisticated software algorithm or tech hardware that really makes us who we are and differentiates us, and I think that gave us a lot more flexibility with how we raise money, and really just doubling down on what we're doing has always been hard, but thankfully and I'm so glad that we don't rely on having to focus on tech and just the IP of it it does really allow us to take and innovate on existing kind of processes and using off the shelf commercial equipment, for example, and just hone in on where can we be more cost efficient so that we can provide something more affordable, more responsibly sustainable and, ideally, more resource efficient, because that's that's our core focus. We want to differentiate ourselves with our services and our products based on that. I think when you get distracted by tech and the features of it, then it really just makes it that much more challenging in what you really wanted to focus on at the beginning of your mission. 

0:04:45 - Harry Duran
Home is New York City for you. 

0:04:47 - Tinia Pina
Good point. Home is originally from Virginia, but I've lived and worked in New York City for almost 17 years now. 

0:04:54 - Harry Duran
Okay, and where did you grow up? 

0:04:58 - Tinia Pina
Woodbridge, virginia, so right outside of Fairfax. 

0:05:00 - Harry Duran
Okay, and what was that like? 

0:05:03 - Tinia Pina
Good suburban family. Both my parents didn't go to school. I was the first oldest child to go through college, majored in information technology from Virginia Tech, and you know just really had a very diverse, non deterministic path to what I do now. But you know, I think I've just always been grounded with hard work. You know, things have always been hard in the sense of what I pursued and when you, when you add manufacturing on top of agriculture, you really need to have thick skin to just stay focused on it. So I think a lot of people didn't think I would last this long, but I'm here to prove others wrong. 

0:05:43 - Harry Duran
What was your first experience with New York, or your most memorable? 

0:05:48 - Tinia Pina
I would say my first experience was I had my first panic attack in the city, oh really, and it was putting too much money down for an apartment that was about to get swept underneath my feet, and I think you know New York City and I'm sure there's other cities similar to it. It definitely hardens you, yeah, but it hardens you in a way that, like you, are so much more respective of other people's time. So I'm that much more efficient with phone calls and I appreciate community because you can get really lost in a numbers game rat race here. 

0:06:24 - Harry Duran
What do you do to keep yourself centered? 

0:06:28 - Tinia Pina
I'm a very you know I like to go around the city, take photographs with a camera. I like to be around nature so I try to go out and farm. You know we're starting a very, very, very DIY farm on some land in Massachusetts and that's my first foray. I don't, you know, I own that. I don't have a farming background, maybe my ancestors did right. But that's where I also really appreciate it more, because I can be that much more experimental. I am removed of all ego, so I want to learn as much as possible, try as much as possible and just know that there's hope to be experimental with it. 

0:07:09 - Harry Duran
We were talking a little bit before we got started. I just got back from indoor tech NYC and I grew up in New York, grew up in Yonkers, just outside New York City. I've lived up inside in East Village, as regular listeners will know, and I think what was striking for me is how different I responded to the energy. The event was in Times Square, mary Marquis, and, as anyone knows, you step into Times Square and it's like the energy of Las Vegas, but instead of a strip it's like a four block radius of just like I don't even know how to describe that just chaotic, frenetic, like all of the above. And I think in the past I had more of an appetite for that, even though I preferred that downtown in terms of that energy. But I think as I get older you sort of have less patience for it or you have to find different ways to cope with it. Or New Yorkers. 

I used to have a friend. He said I don't go, I don't hang out above 14th Street. I think I said that's all right. He lived on town. This was like in the 90s or something like that. I thought it was hilarious. He's like nope, don't go above 14th Street. So I think everyone responds in a different case in time. But do you find like there's certain pockets of the city that you resonate with and you turn kind of stay in those areas? 

0:08:18 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, absolutely, and it's a thing getting friends from Queens, the Bronx, brooklyn. It's hard to get them out of their own borough because we like to host a lot. But for me, I'm fortunate to live close to the Hudson. As soon as I go to the water I feel zapped of stress. 

0:08:35 - Harry Duran
Oh yeah. 

0:08:37 - Tinia Pina
And it's the same thing with Central Park. So once you find your routine, and that routine helps, centers you, grounds you, removes you of the stress, it's possible. 

0:08:46 - Harry Duran
Yeah, it's great to have that. And then you mentioned you were working on some land as well. So do you find or do you notice a difference that when you leave New York and then when you come back, what that shift is like for you? 

0:08:57 - Tinia Pina
Good question. I think for me it's like you. So this land is not, it's cleared but it's not developed, so no utilities. And for me I'm able to kind of it's just like really kind of create my own blueprint by really working with permaculture principles. So when I come back to the city I'm that much more excited to just do and create. So it's very much restorative in that sense. 

0:09:24 - Harry Duran
I was looking at some of the experiences you've had from your LinkedIn profile, did you? I saw that you worked at New York Cares and I was familiar with that organization as well for my time in college, during fraternity. We would do code drives for them and stuff like that. So is that something that's always been a part of you in terms of this ability to do volunteer work, give back to the community, and where did that start for you, and who inspired that? 

0:09:51 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, you know for me and I appreciate you asking that For me I've always needed to align my personal values with my with whatever kind of professional work that I do. Yeah, I used to work in finance. I learned that very quickly, did what I did to need to adapt, but at the end of the day, I spent a lot of my time doing a lot of volunteer work through urban rooftop gardens At the time it was Brooklyn Bridge on a volunteer basis, taught through New York Cares, through a prep SAT program in Harlem, and that just really instilled that the work that I needed to do needed to have just a social mission, which is why we're a social enterprise, so that it's very easy and without any question, we need to have something that's going to directly give back in ways that the business can. But also I can feel good that we're creating this shift for society, whether it's rethinking on how things are used or how food is produced, and so that's what allowed me to kind of go this long. 

You know, there were many points in the business where I should have given it up and I had like a negative 666 as much as that's indicative of things that you would not think are good Balance in the business. I had a negative balance in my personal account and there were many obstacles like that where it's like damn, like I need to really rethink things. But I think just that core mission and my personal values and because I knew what we were working on is so impactful for the industry and just society, that's what helped me keep the grit, to keep the persistence. If I didn't have that or if it was just a quick exit type situation, I wouldn't have stayed this long. 

0:11:34 - Harry Duran
Where do you think you learned that from? 

0:11:37 - Tinia Pina
Good question. I don't know. You know, I think it could be something that you know. Just I was kind of have by birth those traits, but I also think that, you know, I didn't my my, my parents, I didn't really have like a security net to be able to experiment. So anything that I started with this much risk, I had to really fully commit for more than just the opportunity itself, and I think that's what really perhaps did it for me. 

0:12:18 - Harry Duran
When did you start to become more interested in the world of agriculture? I saw you know there was a collective you joined, and even Oregon TILV. So how did that get on your radar and how did you start to start to peak your interest and get moving towards that direction? 

0:12:31 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, New York City Agriculture Collective, which really kind of the founding members, Henry, Gordon Smith and several from AeroFarms and a number of other small hold others I, you know, I really kind of give credit to Henry to creating the community and all of us really just wanting to create what we felt was needed but also create this culture that you know sensationalize and really made a proud sense of wanting to grow food in New York City. 

And so that's what was one kind of seed and at first I didn't know what to expect but I knew I wanted to be a part of it with a totally different perspective, and so that was New York City Agriculture Collective still exists, still runs very well and I think they're doing a New York City Ag Tech Week this upcoming September, separately with Oregon TILV. They actually reached out because they were looking for board members with diverse representation and diverse kind of perspectives and what I felt I brought to the board was, you know, really looking at just more kind of fragmented agricultural markets, especially related to urban agriculture, smallholder farms and especially CEA and they even though organic is definitely value of mine personally, but not limiting ourselves to organic or just organic food, not just produce grown, it's also food that's processed, and so it wasn't hard to get the interest of their board, given the, I think, the diverse outlook that I bring. So I was fortunate in that way. 

0:14:12 - Harry Duran
So talk about where you were as you were learning. You get influences from the collective working with Oregon TILTH and talk a little bit about the story of how this idea starts to formulate for renewable and who, if anyone, you're having conversations with at that time. 

0:14:28 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, so renewable actually was really conceived before then, when I was working in finance, I took I just had this random idea because it was totally unrelated to what we do and I always wanted to do work with recycling to the point where I was looking at MAC trucks these expensive crazy looking trucks no budget for it whatsoever, but just really understanding the infrastructure and how you know material resource transfer stations are handled. And so I took two personal weeks off when I was working in finance. Take vacation, go to Des Moines, iowa, and learn what anaerobic digesters are. 

The huge municipally owned behemoths that manage organic waste, and I've always felt, if we can take the same benefits that food waste as a compost material can provide for soil ecosystems, why can't we mimic that similarly for hydroponic or soilless? Because I see the benefits of bacteria providing in reduced fertilizer inputs, amongst other properties, and so I've always been a huge fan of biomimicry, always been a huge fan of like how can we really look at how things react and the synergies within the ecosystems to do that? In another scenario and that really was what started for us we were focusing on food waste, vegetative waste specifically and using a bio-conversion process that allows it to be sterilized and turned into a homogenous. So same kind of pH and just nutrient composition, so that hydroponic farms could first start working with it as a replacement to synthetic mineral salts. And it was a rocky experience. 

We gave out the product to several farms in the industry. 

They were fortunate, we were fortunate to get feedback from them had some deficiencies, quite transparently with basal in particular at the beginning, and then we worked through. 

We had a lot of constraints right that really limited us to a vegetative waste only product, and so when we realized, okay, how much time are we putting into this and it doesn't mean we're gonna abandon it. 

But now that we kind of picked up this Renew Terra, which is the focus on using sorry crop residue fibers to choose it as a replacement to Rockwell Peat and Cocoa Core, that really got a lot of interest and gave us more diverse markets than just the US, where a liquid organic hydroponic nutrient product is really gonna be severely impacted based on shipping costs, whereas a fiber product not so much. So we put that production on hold and really doubled down on the Renew Terra product line purely because of that. But to go to your point, I think the mindset of really looking at cities, how to close the loop on what inputs are, how they're consumed and how to really turn that byproduct or waste stream or residual into materials that are used on a pretty frequent and high volume basis, that still remains and the good thing is it gives us flexibility to work with different waste types irrespective of the geography and the different kind of food production economies elsewhere. 

0:17:52 - Harry Duran
So for folks that are not familiar with Renewable and the product line, how it's evolved since you started and who your customers are, can you talk a little bit about that? 

0:18:05 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, absolutely so. 

We're essentially a social enterprise that focuses on a for-profit social enterprise. 

So a lot of people mistaken that as a non-profit, but we are for-profit in the sense that we sell, or I should say we develop and commercialize nutrients, a platform of sustainable technology, such as nutrients as well as fiber products that are meant to use byproducts from the food production industry, as well as crop residues, to turn them into organic, renewable materials to replace mineral salts on the nutrient side and, separately, rockwool, peat and cocoa core on the input side, as it relates to grow medias or horticultural substrates. 

And so our platform for Renew Terra, especially given that's what we've been honing in on it, is anywhere from plugs of different dimensions to blocks, slabs and mats. But we also have loose fibers and the intention is to. Right now, we use a proprietary fiber that allows us to adhere with other existing residual fibers, such as jute. We're also experimenting with other materials that allows us to really bind these two fibers together, and the fibers allow for more water retention but also more air porosity, the pockets, without creating too much density and too much what I would say inconsistency in the fibers, shape and size that you often see with wood substrates. So that's the main thing that we've been focusing on. 

0:19:45 - Harry Duran
Where are you seeing most of the application or interest in terms of the product lines? 

0:19:51 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, so recently we launched a mat. The Renew Terra mat comes in various shapes and sizes and that mat is more so grown for are used for microgreen mats, but they're also used in NFT gutters and other really different dimensions that I think some farms have more customized. You asked earlier in terms of the farms that we're working with. 

So, they're both here in the US and Canada, as well as abroad in Germany, France, et cetera. So what? The reason why they sought us out is for a couple of reasons, so the biggest one is the sustainability. We can speak with truth and confidence that we can reduce the emissions, However transparently. You know, right now our LCA is being updated, so the way we calculate our emissions what's the LCA? 

LCA is um, lifecycle assessment or lifecycle analysis. So that would be looking at, okay, all of the inputs going in, all the raw materials and renewables production process, as well as the um, the processes and activities to for the customer to receive that finish Good, what are the emissions involved? And so that's not finished yet, but what we're able to provide is here's the emissions you're reducing by using our product, um that has been upcycled, and so sustainability has been the first and foremost, followed by affordability. And given that we have flexibility with not only the material density but also the um dimensionality, we can be able to uh provide more flexibility on the pricing. And then, lastly, the resource efficiency, so how the product can be irrigated. We optimize for less water and less irrigation, which indirectly would also reduce um energy costs. So those three things took us a while to hone in on, but now, with the mats, and very soon in August, the plugs, followed by the slabs and the blocks, people will be able to see the benefits that we're seeing on the mats translated across those use cases. 

0:21:58 - Harry Duran
And do you see that growing faster than the nutrient side? 

0:22:03 - Tinia Pina
Good question. We get asked that all the time. I do purely for the reason that right now, you know, it's very cheap to ship the, the fiber product, or our renew tarot line all across the world because it's a light product, whereas the nutrients were really limited to North America, just based on shipping costs. However, the, the production process which right now is in upstate New York, is designed so that can be very cost effectively, um, replicated in a distributed fashion. So our goal is not to ship all over the world. That certainly would be counterproductive to our mission. Um, we want to be able to replicate it with the strategic partners in other markets where they can take their localized vegetative waste stream or crop residue as a fiber source and turn it into materials that would best be used for farms in that area. 

0:22:56 - Harry Duran
What's an example of a crop residue? 

0:22:58 - Tinia Pina
Good point. So in this case it would be due. Due is used as a fiber in many industries, but the um due fibers is a byproduct, often for the first, like primary industry that uh, it sold for. 

0:23:13 - Harry Duran
Okay, so then the um, when you're creating the nutrients, was there a challenge in standardizing, like the levels of all the nutrients you would have? Because I was thinking if, if you can't control the, the distribution or the mix of the vegetation that makes its way into the waste? Um, I'm curious, just curious, from a, without giving away any secret sauce like how you, how you determine or or how you modify it so that you're ensuring a, a even distribution of uh, on a consistent basis with every batch that you make. 

0:23:49 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, no fair question. So right now in our upstate New York facility we do work with a select few of produce byproduct suppliers. 

Okay, and the reason why they give away is just if they're unable to give it to a farm as livestock feed, then they donate it to us. Yeah, um, and we. It's a standardized, you know, waste makeup. Right now that's broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas. Okay, sometime that ratio does vary based on the day Um, but the good thing is that we now have an average baseline of what we can anticipate and we do, you know, add in amendments um that are Omri certified to allow us to be able to dial in a very consistent um macro micro percentage. 

0:24:35 - Harry Duran
And how big is the the team? Now, Good point. 

0:24:37 - Tinia Pina
So there is 10 of us, okay, um, by the end of this year we plan to grow by at least five to six more, okay. 

0:24:44 - Harry Duran
And how has the what have been your challenges? Cause you started it looks like you started in in 2015,. You've talked about a little bit about the highs and lows blacks one, events like COVID, I'm sure, three for a loop and so can you talk a little bit, uh, maybe a couple of the the highs and lows, that that that got to this point and, and obviously there's some stuff that you had to get through to make it here. So I'm interested, um, in a bit of those stories. 

0:25:09 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Um, we first, right before COVID, we were about to go to market with a pellet nutrient, um a nutrient dispenser. Essentially, what that meant, or what it entailed, was taking the food waste, pelletizing it, putting it into a digester, if you will, that would be co located at a farm and that digester turning it into a, a fluent, that would be, um, done at the side of the farm in real time and at the time that they would actually need the nutrients to be available. Because the problem with organics oftentimes is you can release it or irrigated in a farm system and that nutrient composition sometimes, depending on how shelf stable and consistent the nutrient composition is, it can have variability. 

So we wanted to mitigate for that and, because of COVID, it did require a much more, uh, complicated supply chain in order to make that product happen. So we had to completely abolish that, which meant we had to completely change our production process and our manufacturing stack, um, and that put us behind by 12 months, of which we had raised capital to go to market with that. It also siphoned $500,000 and alone that was meant to go towards that. So we were challenging a number of ways, but I really give credit to the team just on how resilient, creative and that's what current strengths do for you, right. It really makes you be more flexible. 

0:26:43 - Harry Duran
And how have you grown as a leader you found yourself now? Obviously, hindsight is 20 tone and you can look back at the experiences that got you to this point and made you more resilient. But and it's hard to do that when you're when you're still got a lot on your plate. But I'm just wondering if you have time to sort of pause and reflect how you've grown as a leader over these years. 

0:27:06 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, a lot. You know I've always had leadership positions, but nothing to the, I would say, extent of a CEO, and I think for me the biggest advantage has been for me of just removing any ego, any attachment, and I think that makes me a lot more lean. I lean in to the team. I definitely create an environment and I try to, I would say to where people feel like they're co-creating, they're contributing just as much as I in the sense of this is part of their vision as well, where possible, and I think that makes you know all of us are partners on the company, so there's an equity component to it as well, and with that everyone, I feel from my, my opinion is that they know that they can bring mistakes, they can bring failures, but they know that you know there's a healthy environment, that they can give opinions to change things without there being any criticism or anything negative that would be retracted from that. 

0:28:11 - Harry Duran
And how that? How have you like, personally, like, do you feel like you've had to either change or evolve in terms of like your, your personal growth? 

0:28:22 - Tinia Pina
Um, that's a good question, I mean. I think for me I've had to just remind myself that it's business and I think sometimes that's the hardest part. It's like you know people mean well, um, but ultimately it's just business and you just want to do right by your customers, do right by people that you're working with and just move the hell on. Um, and you know there have been several times where we have needed to make a quick change, that if something was communicated sooner we would have, we would have made that change sooner and missed that 10,000 or $15,000 mistake, right. But I think people really appreciate when you can talk to them as a regular person and acknowledging that mistake. Um, rather than creating an environment where it's hostile and all the stress, like no one needs to pass on stress, I'm happy with absorbing it. 

0:29:20 - Harry Duran
So how do you personally manage that Cause? That would be a lot to take on for any one person. 

0:29:26 - Tinia Pina
It is, and you know, I, I, I, it is, uh, and I still am not really at a point where, uh, truthfully, I am scaled quite yet right, and I do that because I want to. If, if God forbid, you know, there were a situation where crap hits the fan and I need to step in, I want to know how to do that person's job too, so I can quickly resolve it and move on. And I think all of us have had that similar experience and we have that much more respect for people that we're supported by. So I think, having that mindset, you're a lot more, um adaptable, you're a lot more empathetic and you're just a lot more, um more respectful to there being efficiencies with processes, cause no one wants to be bogged down by things that just aren't working. 

0:30:15 - Harry Duran
Yeah, where do you draw inspiration from in terms of your management style? 

0:30:20 - Tinia Pina
You know um good question. I from others in the sense like your podcast is amazing and understanding how other people navigate things. 

And I think that's huge, and I hope people will be more transparent with failures, right Um, cause that's the really the source of learning. Um, but I do try to focus on a lot of just what other industries are doing too. I think that is really insightful. Um, when I look at commodities, or when I look at, you know, it could be even the precious rare earth metal mining industry. There's a lot of bottlenecks related to supply chain and in the manufacturing business we have to be aware of things that are similar too. So I just try to take myself out of the context of CEA or agriculture and think of where else are there similarities or patterns we can kind of be more aware of? 

0:31:13 - Harry Duran
To the extent that you're willing to share what would have been some of the challenges for you as a both minority and female owned business owner in this industry. 

0:31:21 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, I think um appreciate you asking. You know, I think sometimes there is some bias on. You know just people that look like others in this industry and maybe not given seriousness or credit to. And I don't take that personally I'm. I just always focus on how do we prove people wrong? 

0:31:41 - Harry Duran
right. 

0:31:41 - Tinia Pina
Cause I know there is legitimacy to what we're doing. The market is already telling us. We're getting the feedback. I'm not concerned, um, but I do think that you know where it it is hurting others is. If there is a need for collaboration right, I'm super collaborative it's better that we develop that relationship sooner rather than later, and I think that's where sometimes people in industry go wrong. There's too many finger pointing, and instead let's work together to get over this and add more strengths and advantages to create your own moat. That be it or not, um, and I think that's that's a really big hindrance. So, you know, I not for me to educate, though. 

0:32:28 - Harry Duran
That's just someone else's uh flag to fly. What, uh? What has been the experience in in the industry? I know that we met at indoor ad con earlier this year. Was that your first conference and is that something that's part of, uh going to be part of your marketing strategy going forward? 

0:32:42 - Tinia Pina
Oh, good point. No, no, not the first conference. You know we try to be selective because I am I've been such a huge fan of the trader Joe's model whereby you spend little on marketing right and just pass all the savings to the customers and or your team or employees. That's what I'm focused on. So I really, if we show up, it's like we're we're trying to be celebrities because we are being super selective on show and um, there's other ways that we'll be testing this year Don't want to give it out yet of how, whether you know, that marketing way or campaign is more effective than other, more traditional styles. I just am more interested in listening to customers, understanding where gaps are and really focusing on where can we create savings? Uh, so that we can transfer it as much as possible, because the farmers and the growers are doing the harder work and I'd rather just make their lives as easy as possible and try to understand where we can come in better. Again, on three maintenance, uh, more responsibly sustainable, more affordable and more resource efficient. 

0:33:51 - Harry Duran
What was the response to the folks set in direct con? 

0:33:55 - Tinia Pina
Good question, very good, um, I think there was. What was interesting is we had this one comparison table that did use referenceable sources of here's. How you know, Renew Terra matches up against Rockwell, cocoa Core, et cetera, in the plug dimension right. So that form factor, a lot of people were taking pictures of it and it was a good conversation starter. That's the whole intent of it to be a conversation starter, to really share how we're approaching this industry differently. And I think what people realized is when you give them flexibility of irrigation, when you give them flexibility of material type or how big the um particle size is, then it just gives them the uh, the want to have more kind of ownership as part of this, not ownership in the sense of actual ownership and possession, but more of be a part of something that can make a difference in their farm. Um, I find it to be really hard when you're just putting out a commodity and it's not really moving the needle besides a pricing differentiation. 

0:35:04 - Harry Duran
And I'm so guessing you had a lot of follow up conversations. 

0:35:07 - Tinia Pina
We did. Yeah, okay, yeah, we did. 

0:35:11 - Harry Duran
Who's who's an ideal uh partner for you? Is it when I think about like uh, whether they're in a specific aspect of the business or a specific size of farm? 

0:35:21 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, good point Um. So a great case point is so we've worked with there used to be called 100, um, I'm sorry, planets of plate. They're now 100 acres. That's a great model of a small size farm. We're testing with a number of farms um that are also larger in vertical farm size uh, to not put out names yet until we've gotten their consent, but some of them you know may use we have. I didn't speak to this more widely, but we do have a sprout sheet and it's very interesting from some of the feedback of the farms where they're using the sprout sheet to instead kind of grow their, their baby greens from, and so it's a very different take on how they're using that as opposed to a traditional microgreen mat. Um, that's one example. Another example would be uh, your typical greenhouse farm in Texas that uses an NFT channel and they want to just replace the uh floral foam plugs um with our Renew Terra plugs. So very soon we'll have those um testimonials, but I don't want to give it out just yet without that. 

0:36:32 - Harry Duran
So you did post the experience you had with the farm in in Glen's Falls. Can you talk a little bit about what the experience was like working with them? 

0:36:39 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they are operating, but not operating at scale yet. Okay, so their intention with Glen's Falls has always been to use our products in their farm, tested against current comparatives, and really see how much more we're moving the needle on sustainability and resource optimization. Um, because the farm has had a number of just infrastructure challenges on the, you know, energy sourcing and just sizing of the equipment. We're soon going to be considering a new location to replicate the R and D and the data that we wanted to make available to the industry. Um, and so what we're going to do is we're going to be looking at the, the, the, the, the, the new, the new, and so we'll we'll be releasing an announcement on that soon. But Glen's Falls we still co-manage and the intention of it is to show for New York State a grow box 480 square foot grow box within a third floor of a downtown commercial building or commercial office space. 

Um, how this grow box can be kind of retrofitted to expand within the third third floor. 

0:37:40 - Harry Duran
Are you finding more and more people in your orbit that we're not aware of vertical farming because of their relationship to you, because of what they see you do? Do you find yourself a lot in that educational chair, you know, showing people what's what's possible? 

0:37:55 - Tinia Pina
I do. But I also think, um, it depends on which community. So I would say, you know, if I were only speaking to New York State, they're, they're familiar, I think at Glen's Falls it's really understanding how hyper local and how we can help augment the produce production through the limited six months or seven months in New York State to really help extend the the production of conventional farms and open field in New. 

0:38:23 - Harry Duran
York. 

0:38:24 - Tinia Pina
State, Um, but beyond that, yeah, I mean I think it's still a little abstract. It doesn't help that, um, there there are certainly small farms that are doing it very well at scale. Farm one is a great example in Brooklyn, amongst others. But I think just even kind of removing it outside of the city to places like Glen's Falls, Hopefully we can really show just a very viable. This can exist in peri urban or rural areas as well, and that was always the focus for Glen's Falls vertical farm. 

0:38:56 - Harry Duran
I was able to tour farm one. I got there on Friday, so Rob was kind enough to take me on a tour and give us tastes of the plants, and I went with some other folks from the conference as well, and you know they were. Everyone was just blown away by the amount of flavor packed into some of these herbs that most people are not familiar with. That were, you know, they hit your, your tongue and you're just like you weren't expecting that hit a flavor it's whether it's a niece or citrus or all these wild flavors. And he gave us his book, which I just finished yesterday. So, like I'm now on the seeing my opportunities to grow some microgreens at home, it just kind of kicks off because I've always been interested in and just looking at the different models that are available for for home farming as well. As I think it and this is probably what happens that people get a taste of it or they experience it firsthand, and then they start to get excited about the possibilities of it. 

0:39:46 - Tinia Pina
I think so too, and they've done a really good job of connecting even street side, like your view of the produce or the flowers, and then having experience, experiential experiences there. That's a I think it's a solid example. 

0:40:01 - Harry Duran
Yeah, by the time this episode goes live, I'll have posted some stuff on the Instagram channel, which is really exciting. So what's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently? 

0:40:10 - Tinia Pina
That's a good question, you know. Actually I'll kind of one tough question. Let me kind of see real quick. One tough question that we're often asked is so, and it goes back to our Renew Tera. I think a lot of their the technicalities of okay, well, why does this mat allow for, let's say, higher? We're seeing, on average, anywhere between 21% to roughly 26,. Almost 30% just increase in yield. So across radish, cabbage, kale and arugula, specifically on the mats. So what's allowing for that if there's no increase in dissolved oxygen? 

where there's no, you know really nutrients being applied and we like to say even though there's more precision and data being gathered on it is it's really how the fibers lay onto each other so they're being molded together using heat, which is one pathogen kill step for us, but how it allows for more air pockets without creating too much water saturation or too much density as a result of that and while still allowing for the roots to have quicker kind of root rooting, I should say, and I think it just really comes down to the fiber selection and how our production process molds those fibers together. However, I think we are not. I think we are experimenting with other fibers beyond you, because you is pretty biodegradable. It does come with that as a raw material and so you know, sometimes the biology on jute for longer maturing plants is something we're still kind of measuring and having analyzed by labs just to make sure that the efficacy that we're seeing really exceptional on the plug side for slabs and longer maturity plants are also a strength and not a disadvantage. 

0:42:10 - Harry Duran
What's something that you know, being an entrepreneur myself. Obviously, there's no shortage of days when you wake up in the middle of the night, or you get up and you're the first thing you're thinking about is your business, and so is there something that's been top of mind for you with regards to you know where your business is headed, or you know something that you think about personally in terms of questions you ask yourself? 

0:42:33 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, good point. You know, I think pricing is always the hardest game to play and for us we really just try to cap our costs as much as possible. But I also think the hardest thing for us is okay, we know we're adding a lot more value based on the average yields faster growth. How do we price for that, knowing that the farmer is going to have that value realized in their grow or production space but also not priced at a premium? That has always been a challenge. 

0:43:04 - Harry Duran
Yeah, so as we wrap up, I'd like to leave some space at the end of these conversations for any thoughts you have, messages you have or anything that's top of mind for you as it relates to your colleagues in this space. As you know, like a lot of folks your peers they listen to this podcast, and so I've been sort of forming this informal dialogue and let people talk about what's on their mind as it relates to the industry, or message that you have that's top of mind for you. Anything come to mind. 

0:43:36 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean we try to de-risk as much as possible from the heavy metals we had in our Renutera product line analyze from food safety pathogen. Now we can provide guarantee that that is not an issue for us. We are open to all questions and, irrespective of how technical it can be, to help us better understand how to de-risk the product line for growers, and so if there's any questions, we're open. Please let us know. I'm on LinkedIn. You can email us at info at Renewable re-nublecom. We'll send a sample and share our case studies to date Right now. Their mats plugs will be released in August. So, yeah, we're pretty open just to make sure that we're serving and focusing on the right problem, which I think we definitely are. 

0:44:27 - Harry Duran
Okay, we'll make sure we include all those links in the show notes as well. So, as we wrap up, what's your thoughts about where we're headed? You know there's been so much happening in this space. I've been in it for three years now. It's just been exciting to see the ups and downs and obviously you see all the news that makes the headlines is obviously the closings and people saying you know what's happening with the vertical farming. But from where you're at, and especially having been in this and riding your own ups and downs throughout the years, like, what's your take on where we are and where we're headed? 

0:44:59 - Tinia Pina
Yeah, I mean I think I don't fault anyone for what has happened to date. I think that's just part of the maturity or maturation of an industry, right, but I do think that if we remove the hyper ego, the hyper growth and the hyper money, then we can scale back and really focus on modularized and small and just really well-branded and more specialty perhaps products to get that premium. I think that's where our focus should be and I also think that if you know, I think we would do we would be better served if, as a community, as an industry being how niche we are we're just a lot more collaborative. And, you know, I think that helps everyone. Just like there was all this, because there are certainly investors. We know that there are investors, especially given the scarcities that we're seeing, especially in Europe and outside of the US with produce security, that the people just want to invest in what is reliable and consistent from a sustainability perspective financial, environmental, social and we just needed to focus. 

0:46:12 - Harry Duran
Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing your inspiring story and I think I love the range of guests that we've been getting on the show, and I'm always happy to attend these conferences to see who's out there and people that I haven't met yet, and obviously you've been in the space for a long time. So I appreciate your perspective and I appreciate you coming on, and I'm sorry we didn't get to connect in New York City. It was a lot going on, as you might imagine, but I definitely look forward to connect with you at an upcoming conference pretty soon. 

0:46:40 - Tinia Pina
Thank you so much for your time, Harry. I really appreciate it. 

0:46:43 - Harry Duran
And so for folks to connect with you. It's renewable RE-NUBLEcom and you're active on LinkedIn. You shared that email as well. Anywhere else you want to have listeners connect with you. 

0:46:53 - Tinia Pina
You know our website. I look at all the emails that come through and so yeah, best way to reach is website as well. 

0:46:59 - Harry Duran
Okay, I appreciate your time. Thanks, harry. 

0:47:00 - Tinia Pina
Of course.