CBD and Hemp Phyto Extracts Prime, Uncategorized
Innovating the Process of Making Pure and Clean Hemp Products
Please enjoy this amazing interview between our Founder and Owner of Jeff’s Best Hemp! and Jeff’s Best Blends!, Jeffrey Von Stetten, and Sonia Gomez of Medical Secrets.
The audio and the interview is a tad bit choppy because we did the interview during a stormy day in Colorado, so our apologies that it’s a little spotty, but the overall interview really turned out fantastic. We will be offering an updated and slightly more concise audio transcription very soon, but please don’t let that deter you from enjoying this great interview right now.
In this episode, Jeff talks about his personal struggles and greatest disappointments that motivated him to innovate the process of making pure and clean hemp products. He also talks about the challenges that the industry is facing.
Everything that I wind up doing usually is out of my dissatisfaction with my choices that are in the market. – Jeffrey Von Stetten
Download The Episode Companion For This Episode
Some Topics We Discussed Include
3:24 – Jeff’s background and inspiration in creating clean and pure hemp products
6:34 – Why it took two years to launch his products
14:40 – The challenges of the industry now versus ten years ago
22:16 – Sonia talks about the Elavon Exodus and the reason why they moved a lot of education online
27:50 – The importance of chemistry for Jeff
People Mentioned / Resources
Connect with Jeffrey Von Stetten
Connect with Sonia Gomez
Transcript
Sonia Gomez: What’s up, guys? Sonia Gomez coming to you from Denver, Colorado on another rock your socks episode of the Hemp Revolution Podcast, where we are sharing and telling the real story of cannabis and hemp through the eyes of the entrepreneurs and changemakers who are pushing this incredible industry forward.
As you know, it is our mission to empower you with the truth about cannabis and other holistic remedies that you can use to transform the way that you feel and function on a daily basis. But more importantly empowering you with the choice, the choice of freedom, freedom to decide how you want to care for yourself and the people that you love, conditions that you may be suffering from, or otherwise participating in the growth of this incredible industry.
I invite you now to like and share this content. When you do you are a part of helping us transform the way that we think about and talk about cannabis and our families and communities. With your help, and by taking this one simple action, we have been able to impact hundreds of millions of people’s lives around the world, close to 300 million to be more specific, and I thank you very much for helping us transform the legalization landscape across the country but certainly around the world as we are pulling people in from all corners of this amazing planet.
Check us out at medical.secrets.com if you’re looking for products that you can depend on to deliver the results you’re looking for. And if you’re a budding entrepreneur or business owner in this space, feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear your story, sonia@medical.secrets.com and I’ll be looking forward to connecting.
You guys, today, once again me and my minions have pulled some incredible entrepreneurs out of the woodwork, and today’s guest is no different. A certified clinical nutritionist cancer survivor and vegan of over 30 years, our guest today has worked in the nutritional industry for over 15 years and has his own company Jeff’s Best with his brands of just the best hemp and Jeff’s Best Blends.
Jeff has been an innovator and leader in the hemp industry for over 10 years and we’re going to be talking about the benefits of hemp foods CBD have agriculture and how each one of these things contributes to the healthy, happy, vibrant planet but also people that are utilizing these products.
Put your hands together and help me welcome yet another incredible guest and changemaker. My good friend Jeffrey Von Stetten. How’s it going?
Jeffrey Von Stetten: It goes good. How are you?
Sonia Gomez: I’m doing amazing. So excited to have you on you’re on lockdown in California. Tell us a little bit about who you are, what your background is, and how you entered into the cannabis and hemp craze.
Jeff’s Background and Inspiration in Creating Clean and Pure Hemp Products
Jeffrey Von Stetten: Oh, so much good stuff. In addition to just anything I’ve already shared, you know, being a vegan clinical nutritionist and a cancer survivor, I love being able to help people have a better quality of life. Everything that I wind up doing usually is out of my dissatisfaction with my choices that are in the market. And, you know, being someone that’s worked in this area, and in this field, for quite some time I tend to get frustrated sometimes with different offerings. That’s always been the basis for what I do. I try to make the stuff that I want to see in the market and that I really think helps to add and add a wider variety of choices and to do it better to do it clean, And to do it right. And to make the products that I would want to find for myself.
It’s not just– I think there’s a lot of companies that are out there that just sort of do stuff and they don’t have that investment. You know, there’s sometimes you have companies that can be more fad-driven, and that’s just certainly not the case. I make products that I would want to see in the market for myself and then try to incorporate both my own personal health struggles and my family’s of, you know, a lot of loss, you know, into what we do.
I’ve lost a lot of family members to cancer. I have lost a lot of friends to various illnesses and to parkinsons and things like that. And I think I take all of that, you know, both the, you know, the happy, the sad, the drive, the innovation and I really put it into everything we do. It’s always personal with us. It’s never just business.
“It’s always personal with us. It’s never just business.” – Jeffrey Von Stetten CLICK TO TWEET
Sonia Gomez: Amazing. And you say that you’ve been a part of the hemp, I call it the hemp revolution because let’s be serious, and people have been teaching and preaching about hemp, you know, long before it was a quote-unquote craze and a sub-niche of the cannabis industry.
Back in the days of the rainbow gathering, which has been around for, you know, decades now. This was a huge point of conversation, however, not necessarily adopted by mainstream or urban communities. It was sort of like those trippy hippies over there think that we should like, you know, preserve our planet with biodiesel, but we’re not so and so that and now the urban community is like, yeah, I like to have like a hemp mask-like Don’t you have one? COVID.
Jeffrey Von Stetten:Yeah.
Sonia Gomez: So it’s a definite paradigm shift. I’m happy to see mainstream adopting it, however, can’t help it feel a little protective over the veteran. So 10 years in, I would consider you to be a veteran. Talk to me a little bit about the landscape then and the landscape now and how did you start to integrate hemp into your product line and communication with customers, or even personal use back then, you know, to bring you all the way to this point where you’re now one of the leaders in the space.
Jeffrey Von Stetten: Yeah, totally. And just to make sure I start the timeline at the right spot when you say back then like you, you are referring towards the origins to my company, correct?
Sonia Gomez: Yeah, towards the origins of your company. And when I was going through your bio and information, it spoke specifically about how you had been involved with the hemp industry for over 10 years. And I recognize that and you for sure, and I’d love to hear you speak to that. Because it was difficult to assume– it was difficult to first be a teacher and a preacher around the health benefits of hemp 10 years ago, that was a difficult conversation.
But today, it’s like, yeah, it’s like mainstream, you know, mainstream stuff. So I would love to just hear a little bit of the contrast and how you were able to bridge the gap back then, and how that’s supported you being successful now.
Why It Took Two Years to Launch His Products
Jeffrey Von Stetten: Fully. Yeah. You know, well, I mean, hemp is something that I’ve always been really passionate about, and it’s something that I come back to and revisited over and over. And as I had kind of gotten my company going, part of the moment, all led to it was, I mean, I’ve always, you know, I’ve been vegan for 30 years, there’s a quality of products that I’ve always looked for.
I’ve worked in, you know, a couple of the different top health food stores and I was never really happy some of the selections that I had found. It was some of the same, just basic, you know, just BPA laden and canisters that stuff was in the proteins were to pour grind, some of the oils had some dirt and dust in it, there wasn’t a lot of good. There wasn’t a lot of good attention.
I’m on a number of different levels I didn’t see a lot of good attention to packaging in a way that was really necessarily safe it was geared for like shipping but it wasn’t always it’s never really in the best interest of the consumers. And prior to launching my online at always had the good fortune of working with companies in the vitamin industry that I felt helped sort of steer the way to at least offer things that were really clean and pure. having things that were packaged in mass and making sure there’s no you know, estrogen problems, way the healthy fats and interacted with the packaging.
I just was not [unintelligible] I didn’t see a lot of innovation that was going right there weren’t products that fit my goals as somebody that was a health enthusiast and somebody who really just was looking for that nice clean superfood, just like hardcore, driven line. everything was sort of lackluster and I didn’t see a lot of progress. I didn’t see a lot of innovation that was there and that was what it really fueled my ability to start getting things going.
I saw that there was some opportunity but there wasn’t any “juice”. I didn’t see a lot of juice that was going and so it literally took me about two years you know, to try to save up some money to help launch my first products and you know, during that time I sought out different farms, supply companies and learned just really tried to make sure that everything was solid and it took me about two years save up cash just to get my first two products launched and I’ve always been really true blue grassroots. Not to make myself vulnerable to dancing to the tune of what shareholders do and don’t want. I’ve never tried it.
We don’t work with financial investment firms. I don’t have investing partners like that’s it. We are unattached and untethered and just ready to rock and be really independent. It’s always been really important to me. I don’t want people making any pressure or doing any of my products other than me. I’m more of the buck starts and stops. And that’s always stayed true.
And when we launched some of those products, I wanted to try to give customers and define things for myself that really fit that niche to help with some innovation. Like I’d mentioned, when I was first getting going, there just there wasn’t a lot of energy that was just getting put towards really making better like some of the proteins weren’t at a really good grind. They were a lot more coarse and would sink to the bottom of the glass and I thought there was room for improvement there, so we started doing it like doing like my first two products where the protein or cold filtered hemp seed oil just sitting on the hemp seed protein.
I’m like okay, well can we do the grind finer? Can we make it smaller fresher batches? Can we work with farms that are getting paid fair deal prices instead of having to work with a supplier that comes in and bullies farmers and lowballs them on the cost per pound of their seeds? Which had been going on at that time?
And oh, if you want to take that..[unintelligible] and so for like the protein, you know, the super contemporaries, I think had it at about 13 or 14 grams for 30 grams serving it at 16 to just kind of knocked it up a couple of grams of protein, put it in glass, make sure that there’s no xenoestrogens No BPA, no contamination nothing that’s a screw up the [unintelligible]. nothing that’s going to mean or screw up your inner gyre in the screw jar, it’s going to keep everything nice and pure. So it’s eco friendly, people friendly, dolphin friendly, everything’s cool and that’s the way I wanted it.
And then we took with like the filtered hemp seed oil that was something that I had seen you know enough room more room for improvement on there was a couple of companies that were sort of marketing stuff and these like, I don’t know how you describe it like these squeeze bottles that were done with the petroleum shale derived BPA laden, Oh, but it would hide the quality of the oil from the customer. It added another little plastic filter at the top and it was just awful. You know, if you would cut open the bottles you would see some dust you would see some dirt down there that sometimes they would try to pass off as lignin and it’s like it’s not like them.
That’s just another word for Or it just means that it was really poorly, poorly filtered and that when you’re pressing cease for oil you’re not you don’t go and rinse them off and do things you just kind of shake it through if you get wet they can, they can mold, they can go bad so what gets you don’t do any type of cold filtration to get out any dust or any of the sediment then all you wind up with is you get you know gets pressed into that oil and I thought that was also really shady and so we tried to knock that up and you know take that up a notch and so we do a call through hemp seed oil and it’s done through a proprietary process to get on any of the sediment, any of the dust any of the gunk that goes straight into a glass bottle where you can see it all the way through.
It’s an amber glass ball, of course, there’s just FDA approved. Now that keeps out semi helps to protect it as best as humanly possible. But you don’t [unintelligible] no BPA, no problems. And those were some of the first two products that I got going.
And the climate. The climate back then to be really honest with you like getting going in that industrial hemp market for those foods and for [unintelligible] offer improvement, those two areas were really right. It was, it was really good. We had a really good reception to that we had a body care section, as well. They came along a tiny little bit later that I had going for a little while and then they temporarily stopped. Just when the economy kind of went bad.
The Challenges of the Industry Now versus Ten Years Ago
The thing that’s really weird and I’ve told people this again and again and again when I first got my company going for industrial hemp, we’ve come full circle and then kind of gone another you know, 90 degrees in the wrong direction because like when I launched my company it was really easy in the sense that I could at least get good marketing goals and have good merchant processing and industrial hemp really being dealt with a little bit more responsibly like we had had that, you know, the victory that had taken place that, you know, against the Bush administration [unintelligible] industrial hemp with medical cannabis like that, that had been sorted out and, you know, trying to get just normal visibility in the way that you do things like a merchant account to just access credit cards, you know, to be able to have a nice website to do transactions.
It was all really pretty simple, pretty easy. And, you know, we were able to operate unfettered for at least seven years. The same merchant processor for seven years. I have the same It’d be nice to host our website with GoDaddy I still do and you know use one of their like prefab sites, which was easy for me. You know, I mean, we’re small like I said, you just get going, and it worked just fine.
And then later on as time kind of progress, I started seeing a lot more negativity that would start getting generated towards hemp company and within the last, there’s been this big digital freakout, which started with Wells Fargo and Wells Fargo got busted and then got busted again. And for a lot of people that don’t know about it, Wells Fargo is his primary, like honor run, credit card processing company. You have to have a sponsoring. People have two, one of them’s a primary, the other ones a secondary. So a lot of people don’t know that Wells Fargo is a huge Sponsor as an ISO, for a lot of credit card companies and when credit processing companies merging these and so when they got busted they have this big freakout. And so they tried to do to try to [inaudible] the Bush administration did years and years ago now to equate medical cannabis, industrial hemp is, you know, sort of being the same.
And then by falsely classifying them try to justify their discrimination and their handling of credit card accounts. That’s where a bunch of problems started over the last few years people couldn’t process cost per sales, they couldn’t process. You know, you’d get off by one merchant processor for another and then another and then another, like, you know, Square Stripe, PayPal Gateway. I’m like, I think we work with Innovative Gateway, which is now a part of QuickBooks. You know, and now that they are Intuit payment services, they won’t work with it. And it was because of that classification of industrial hemp and trying to say that it’s a dispensary or dispensary related company or you know, marijuana related activity and then they discriminate against it and it caused a lot of issues.
So it’s really weird because I’ve been doing this for quite some time and in terms of the climate, the climate to try although we’re finally able to grow industrial hemp in the United States for a long time. And the climate towards the hemp industry, I think is 100 times worse than it was even eight years ago or 10 years ago. You know, as when I had started my company, you know, run ads on Facebook, Pinterest, and you know, Twitter and Instagram, and then when all this big, you know the merchant prejudice, right after that followed the digital prejudice of trying to misclassify it.
And so now we’re in this freaky territory where we can grow industrial hemp. And we have these incredibly legal, incredibly amazing hemp products that are a lot more sophisticated even than it was way back then. And yet, our abilities to reach new customers talk to new customers work with new customers is grossly limited. And there’s a lot of that, like that digital kind of shadow banning of industrial hemp companies and it makes it really hard. It makes it hard, I think for the industry to thrive the way that it does, and a lot of the bodies that are out there that should be doing more.
To me, the very most important thing that a lobbying body could possibly do is to try to help small companies or help hemp companies to be successful and make sure they get paid and they there just hasn’t been a lot of focus on that and activity and then when you– for whatever reason, like if I ran the HIA, that’s exactly where all my efforts would be is making sure that hemp companies aren’t discriminated against by the digital giants and making sure that they can all run credit card processing for their business, make money and thrive and really be, you know, a viable part of the economy which they should be and instead, right now it’s the opposite. So it’s weird. It’s a weird scenario.
it’s really come full circle. And what’s hard is this time, you know, what the Bush administration did way back in? I think 2004 when they had tried to confabulate industrial hemp medical cannabis that was knocked down, you know, and, and struck down by the Supreme Court . So that was a victory. That was won on Bob Marley’s birthday, by the way.
But this time around, they’re getting away with it. Yeah. And it’s been really I think it’s really, really Weird territory where as things are sort of gaining a little bit more acceptability but this time it’s, you know, we have these really big companies and they’re getting away with it, nothing’s been done. So it’s an odd scenario. I think it’s an odd scenario where it’s come full circle, there’s this appreciation of certain things, but then we also have more discrimination.
And now especially since people really began to appreciate some of the incredible health benefits of cannabidiol and started to appreciate some of the health benefits I consider, like hulled hemp seeds, like the soft base to be really mainstream. And it’s weird to me, it’s weird to me that we wouldn’t have you know, ads for all kinds of hemp products all over the place. It’s something that should be reaching a lot of customers, companies should be able to tell their stories and offer the distinctions of what they want to focus on, and all this hard work that goes into producing good quality products to help customers connect with the right type of item to really help with their health, and… it’s weird. That’s not the case. But you know, I think we all have to just try to find our way.
Sonia talks About the Elavon Exodus and Why They Moved a Lot of Education Online
Sonia Gomez: Yeah, you know, I know very well, the challenges that you speak of, because the Elavon Exodus affected like 40,000 businesses in the space and by the way, CBD, like directly related to the plant are not the only companies that are affected, but ancillary companies are also affected. As an education and media platform, we have found it extremely challenging to find merchant processing and not so much person processing because my good friend owns a merchant processor bank, so I’m kind of like, yo, yo, and he’s like, Yeah, I got your back.
And for those of you guys who are tuning in, who are hemp businesses or hemp ancillary companies, quiverpay.com Steven Anderson, fantastic entrepreneur, and owner of this merchant solution specific for cannabis and hemp CBD definitely can help you get connected there. As I mentioned, a close friend of mine. You’re welcome, Steven. So, you know, but we found it really, really challenging to get placed with a bank and be taken seriously by a financial institution. And we were trying to get wired, you know, 5, 10, 15, $20,000 at a time because we work, you know, in an agency capacity and people are, you know, spending money to get in front of a consumer audience. But we don’t touch the plant. We don’t have a product, we’re not selling products.
We’re hardly even promoting products, but they didn’t care they association is enough for them to justify denying our business and it’s really super challenging the things that feel like they should be the most natural and easy to access have actually been the most challenging, like banking and merchant processing and, you know, registering a domain and you know, just like these random silly things that you feel like should be totally easy to get started or have actually presented themselves.
And I think while the industry is blowing forward in, you know, huge gusts of Hurricane type when’s the rest of the world doesn’t quite know. Oh, wait, we’re like the rest of the world standing by being like, Wait, hold on a second. We’re legal. I thought we were just putting people in jail for this, like, no way that, you know, like, they’re not quite sure what to do. We’re kind of in microcosms like California somewhat of a microcosm. They were like, yeah, industrial hemp, thank Jesus because now it’s not chronic.
So, I think it’s just a little bit, you know, for sure, not a little bit. It’s a very big, you know, a paradigm shift for everybody. And this is a lot of why I moved my education information online because I was making a massive impact. You know, helping people get connected to products, but how useful are products if you don’t really understand how to effectively use them.
So we moved a lot of education online so that the average Joe, you know, I’m not out to educate California or Colorado because California and Colorado have been smoking weed legally for, you know, 15 years now. So they don’t necessarily need education. The people who need education is like gramma Joe from Alabama Avenue in fucking Mississippi, and they need to figure out how to fix and work with or like, prevent or reverse chronic conditions using cannabis. Nothing else has worked, and now they’re trying to move, you know, into a more holistic practice and they’re just trying to figure out navigating, you know, their options without feeling overwhelmed or scared that they’re still breaking up. law.
The Importance of Chemistry
Jeffrey Von Stetten: That’s right. Yeah. And it’s, you know, the thing about it, like, I’m only speaking for myself, I’m just all about proper terminology and really trying to make sure that things are discussed in a way that’s, like accurate, and that’s mature, And that’s true. Like my best analogy is like, for me, like a weak spot is something of like if I’m ill-perceived, but based on something that’s false.
So like, if you and me were sitting there talking and I was like, Oh, hey, you know, you’re like, Oh, yeah, you know, Jeff, and you’re like, I don’t like Jeff because he, I don’t know, (I’m trying to think of something easy)…. because Like.. he loves mint. He loves mint essential oil. He’s always wearing that stuff. And, you know, I can’t stand mint or I found out that he loves mint. And I would be like, wait, what? Like, no, I hate mint. I don’t like mint and I never wear that essential oil, (just as a simple example but I do like mint by the way). But like, you know, if someone said that, and I’d be like, No, no, no no no.
So like, I would be… if they had an issue with me because they just didn’t, there was something else like, okay, that’d be great. But if it was based on a false perception, then that would bother me, it would bother me a lot. I’d be like, Okay, wait a minute, and like you know if I got that straightened out I’d go Okay, here, this is great. And then they decided that they still didn’t like me, and that we were eye to eye that I’m not wearing mint all over the place and you’re like, yeah, that’s cool. Okay, we got that cleared up, but I’m still not into you. It’s like, Great, okay, that’s cool. I’m fine with it.
But you know that that part of being ill perceived based on something that’s not true, is just, something that I really don’t like. And it’s exactly the same way as it is with these different, with different ingredients and different substances and aspects of, you know, hemp or cannabis or it’s all chemistry and I really like, I need accuracy in the way that that chemistry gets discussed to I you know, it needs to be done clearly and like kind of the way that you said to help people to understand and navigate and helping people to walk through you know, these different variables and just different little subsets of everything from industrial hemp all the way to medical cannabis to specialized subsets of medical cannabis like a THC-a or something in using proper words you know proper words of whatever.. like, winterization, or decarboxylyzing, or anything, just anything to have it really calmly and accurately discussed is just so important to me because it’s like some of those discussions, they take a little while.
Chemistry has a certain element of just some calm sophistication to it. And that’s why I really enjoy it. But it’s really hard to reach people and to help have those good, clear, proper, mature grown-up conversations to just walk it through, you know, from A to B to C and help people really feel anchored and educated in that good information so that they can make an informed decision, it just takes so much longer. And there’s so much more frustration in that trajectory. And people are trying to pick the things that work for them, them to be healthy, help them to do well. And to get the results that they need, when they’re not able to even you know, like when right when we’re not able to reach some of these people the way that we need to, with just even proper good, clear information. Because of, you know, because we’re however you like to phrase it, you know, this or discrimination, misinformation, disinformation, hysteria, propaganda, whatever you kind of out there
Sonia Gomez: I call it generational transmission. I mean, we’ve been at the same channel challenges for multiple decades now. And I think it’s it starts from the source, right? There’s a difference in nature and our nurture and our nurture would challenge our minds to believe that most things outside of the quote-unquote system are not to be trusted, right. So that there was holistic health and aromatherapy and Integrative Health and you know, all these different things that have come into the forefront that are do not originate in our Western culture, but in eastern medicines and have been ancient practices from you know, the Chinese and the Hindu in the Indian, you know, Native American, all of these different cultures that have been integrated into To our culture here in the western part of the world.
However, the system that we built here has been safe and trustworthy and protective, and, you know, blah, blah, blah and secure and all the things that we thought were true up until like circa 1975, maybe or post Vietnam War when we figured out like, chances are you guys are full of shit, we should probably ourselves, you know, like, serious [inaudible] man and, you know, the terrible, terrible repercussions to our families and communities of, you know, the draft and the Vietnam War and how our soldiers came back and, you know, how they’re still struggling to recover from the trauma that they endured, you know, being torn from their families and thrown into war in foreign countries.
The pattern hasn’t stopped but what has stopped is the confidence that we– There was a time–And there was a time in history in of this country where the competence that one had in our government and in our system and in our governing municipalities and the quote-unquote, pecking order of things, it was unshakable, you could, you could literally, it was tangible. You could feel that the fabric of trust that kept this country together, and now we are in a place where like the millennial generation or Generation X is like, Hmm, I wonder if climate change is actually the bigger problem here. Like, you know, like, they’re asking bigger questions, and they’re pushing the limits and boundaries for all types of freedoms, and certainly understanding the importance of asking questions, seven layers deep.
So, one thing that always trips me out and you’ll appreciate this I think because of your history as a nutritionist and working with plant-based medicines starting with food like By the way, guys, food is the number one plant-based medicine that you could be using. But because of your history and understanding of all of this, I’m sure you share the mindset in the industry of hemp that like, I’m always confused by the fact that people are asking these questions like is your hemp grown on the underbelly of a virgin goat that was kissed by Christ himself? Because if not I’m not sure that I’ll be able to take it, it could have an adverse reaction with my other supplements? Yes, I know. They’re full of iron and Mercury, but that’s okay. Because, it’s hemp, you know, so like, there’s this elitist mentality around the hemp products that people are taking, when in fact, they should be asking similar questions about their agent orange covered fuckin grain, that they’re stuffing their faces with three meals a day. You know,
Jeffrey Von Stetten: Well, you struck on a good point. And that, you know, again, that just goes back to good chemistry. And you know, and it’s funny. I mean, there’s a segment of the people. I mean, there’s a segment of shoppers that are out there who just love like, I don’t know, I’ve thought I’ve always just had this idea that there’s a segment of shoppers that’s out there who just love the more outlandish of an esoteric story. Like the more that they’ll go for it. And I don’t know why that is. And I honestly just don’t know what that’s about. And you said at exactly the right, you know, you’re like, Well, this was grown up on the top of the Himalayan Mountains.
[crosstalk]Jeffrey Von Stetten: That’s right. Yeah. Pick by picked by five, you know, virgins who, you know, voluntarily hurled themselves off the cliff right after it’s picked
Sonia Gomez: And use their belly buttons as fertilizer.
Jeffrey Von Stetten: That’s right. Yeah. And I don’t know why that is. I don’t know why that is and they still haven’t figured it out. Maybe people just feel that somehow, you know, the more elaborate of an esoteric story that it has somehow the more pristine of an item, it might be in that, unfortunately, I mean, fortunately, and unfortunately, that it’s good chemistry is what will always separate something and good practices and good formulation and good accountability. Finding that good accountability is what will separate everything.
It’s the same type of question like some people say, Oh, well, you know, do you have your own farm? Or you know, your own hemp farm? And I was like, No, absolutely not. I would never, I mean, it’s okay. It’s cool to have a hemp farm. I think that sounds fun. Like somebody who loves land and farming and growing. Sure. I mean, it sounds like super But no, that’s [crosstalk]
Sonia Gomez: It’s like sexy for a season and then you want to go home.
Jeffrey Von Stetten: It is and It doesn’t insure anybody anything, something’s more and clean because it would still come back to what you represent on your lab analyses and your certificate of analyses, following good GMP guidelines, and good supplier contracts, making sure that stuff shows up, right, it’ll always go back to what you know what your lab analyses and what your certificate of analysis look like, and make sure that you’re really being responsible and aggressive and keeping those pure and clean testing or testing for the things that keep it. That keeps things pure.
The things we test for here in my company, our standard default is we test for pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, microbial, heavy metals, and constituent and if there’s some type of something that can maybe get mushed in with a different product, I mean, you know, like or diluted then we make sure that we test for that too. Although that’s something that’s very common, it’s in there. And then you can also test for strength. You know, you’re testing for potency, purity, composition, and strain, then that’s for every ingredient on every item every single time. And I think, understand that.
You know, it’s kind of like the same, those same types of questions. Someone will say, Hey, have you gone to this particular farm? Have you gone to this particular farm where something’s grown? It’s like, Well, you know, one, I’m cruising, and they said, Hey, but it’s like that doesn’t. I’m not sure I understand the nature of the question. And the wall. Have you seen where it’s grown? It’s like, Well, I mean, have I physically seen the actual farm? It’s like, yes, but I don’t understand how that correlates to the notion that something’s pure or be what am I going to I’m going to walk up to a plant and look at it really close with my face? I’m going to touch the soil and sniff it or something? No, it’s all going to go back to those good clean lab statistics in making sure that you’re, you know, testing for those good clean stats, potency, purity composition, string, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, heavy metals, and microbial, making sure that everything checks out when you do it.
That’s what separates the men from the boys. And I think that’s what people should really pay attention to. That’s what I mean. That’s why I love chemistry, it doesn’t really care who is or isn’t looking at it. And there’s a little bit of discretion in the way that people administer or try to run certain tests. But I mean, the results will still have to be the same. And I think that if people paid a lot more attention to making sure that those good clinical statistics were being maintained and making sure that you’re getting things from people that are aware of them and following them, and really being results-driven, being science-driven.
I think you’re going to have people that have a lot better experience and the products that they try to get rather than chasing after some elaborate fairy tale that somebody constructed just to try to lure you know, to lower those more esoteric base shoppers and it’s you know, it’s not and I don’t mean to, like belittle somebody that happens to sort of default to stuff like that it’s just more of questioning Is this the best analytical method to determine that you’re getting an ingestible product that is going to get you results, there could be a lot of other things that can be really touchy-feely and cool like that. And that’s great that might actually serve them very well in a different part of life before picking a good nutritional product and getting something that is going to help your health, quantifiable results, or what is going to be something that’s a lot more reliable.
You’ll still always have a vibe about something. You’re off He’s going to have these good gut feelings. And I’m a big believer in, you know, your gut and your intuition. But in terms of picking products, I think that it’s so much better for people to spend that energy. And just to say, Hey, you know, do you guys follow GMP guidelines? Do you test for, you know, this and this and this? You know, how long have you been in? How long have you worked with these products? How long? You know, is this some, like when you’re looking for products? You say, Well, is this somebody that just showed up overnight to cash in on a fad that’s going to be here and gone and sell the company in two years and take off to Bermuda and not care about anybody? Or is this somebody who has been invested in the industry for a long time that is trying to make sure that stuff is good? Are you in it for the long haul, because there’s always bad companies? There’s always bad companies that are out there.
And as someone that’s worked in this industry for a long time, like it’s not like you say, the whole time something gets a little bit popular. You’ll see some companies that are up overnight, and they’re here and they’re gone. And that’s it happened with if you really want to go hop in the Wayback Machine if you would see that way back with ephedra. And like xenadrine, you would see that with different types of vitamin A one a was, you know, under some, you know, some different scrutiny, we saw that with 5-HTP. We saw that with Acai. We’ve seen that with different types of Mate, We’ve seen that with, I mean, I could go on and on. I mean, especially Acai, which was probably really popular in like, you know, 2009 2010 all those different types of super fruit berries were really, really popular.
And every time it’s always the same pattern. Oh, there’s a couple of really awesome companies that really get some stuff going and they have good roots in the industry good roots of producing good quality. The items, you know, and they’ll be the ones that get all the attention. And rightly so right off the bat, and you’ll see little fad companies pop up somewhere in the middle. And then usually they make unjustified claims. Usually, they say things that they shouldn’t they say a bunch of stupid shit that gets everybody gets a lot of negative attention to an industry that already can’t afford to have negative attention generated by people to say things that they shouldn’t or that aren’t aware of cautionary FDA guidelines.
And then they kind of fade out or, you know, people get burned out on some of that. These you know, they won’t produce great products and they’ll, you know, whatever and then they’ll go back to the same good backbone anchoring companies that have been there all along. And that cycle stays consistent every single time. You know, I could set my watch to it and, and I really think and that’s why I think having good clinical science and good Clinical statistics is just so important in producing things that are really clean and clear. And you want to make sure that everything is in preferably from someone who’s personally invested in making sure that they’re clear that understands that, you know, your products are a guest in somebody’s home, they’re not something that people just buy and do.
It’s like when I think of our products, I’m like, dude, we’re, we’re guests, you know, we have a responsibility to make sure that whatever is there is really clean and really clear, and really fresh and does what it’s supposed to do. And, you know, to just like the way that you should treat people the way that you would want to be treated, and you make products that you would want to take yourself with the integrity that it has. And I wish there was more people that just approached their product making like that. Regardless, I know regardless of how big or how small they are, I really people just thought about it like that. But you know, that’s this is not the world we live in, but that doesn’t mean that we have to You know, doesn’t mean we have to join in the fray we’ll, we’ll be that good backbone, totally
Sonia Gomez: well you know generally I asked like hey what are some key pieces of words you know p key pieces of wisdom that you can share with our community in regards to being in business but I think over the last like, I don’t know 35, 45 minutes all you’ve done is drop truth bombs and math value. So not sure anyone who’s listening to this entire episode is considered words of wisdom so pay heed and take note but Jeff I do you want to know where can folks find you if they want to follow along with your journey or find your products
Jeffrey Von Stetten: um, you know, well it just depends on where you live, so if you just want to hop on the digital wagons, we’re set up on you know, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. We are we have to post daily. We’re always sharing New content and jeffsbest.net is our website jeffsbest.net nice and short and sweet. And that’s our, our fancy new site that looks really spiffy if I do say so myself. And if you are here on the West Coast you know we’ve limited ourselves intentionally to a small range of wholesale you know chains and stores that we work with here. That’s always been the way that I like to do business just to try to give lots of extra love to wholesale stores that are local and to try to reach people online. farther out and that’s changing a little bit but for right now. You know, our products are carried out at Bristol farms and lazy acres, Lassens, Mother’s market and kitchen, Jimbos in San Diego. Pacific health food in Carpinteria, we kind of cover everything from the Mexican border all the way up to about Cambria. And that’s kind of where that taps out. You know, we
Sonia Gomez: love Cambria.
Jeffrey Von Stetten: Yeah, it’s super pretty, really it’s so nice up there. But yeah, that’s, that’s kind of the range of wholesale stores that we work with that are in there. And then everything else is online. And we always, you know, I’m, I’m a big believer in just really trying to be direct and connect with our customers online like that because there’s just so many things that can interfere with customers getting the products that they need, the industry has changed. You know, there’s a lot of things that make a product lamp shelf in a store that are novelty related, different than used to be, unfortunately, you know, there’s some more corporate bribery and things that happen, unfortunately.
So I try to make sure that if people just want to order online And that they don’t want to have to deal with waiting for something to show up into a store or whatever we are. We’re always running really good promotions. And you know, we have really low minimums, it’s free shipping for anything that’s 100 bucks or more. And, I mean, we’re, we just really try to connect, it’s really important to me to like try to connect with our tribe and try to connect with people that are looking for the good stuff. We’ll always bend over backward to make sure that people are really happy customers. It’s not just about making awesome products, it’s about having really happy customers. It’s their part and parcel. So we’ll always just make sure that people are treated really well and really good. It’s, it’s a big thing with me, so I make sure that that always happens.
Sonia Gomez: Love that. Well. I really appreciate you taking the time to be with me here today. And for those of you guys who are tuning in and can hear my two-year-old screaming bloody murder in the background, hashtag COVID-19 bitches, judge away. So like get back to your quarantine cookies and just know that I’m over here with screaming children and still making life happen. So anyway, I’m super grateful to have you on the show nutrition and nutrition, nutritional health plant-based diet, at least 80% of my you know, of my diet. And a lot of the supplements that go along with that are just mandatory and making sure that you are feeling good and functioning well and went in in the spirit of COVID-19. And talking about what it actually takes to either prevent illness or recover quickly from an illness. All starts in the gut, and your gut health is everything.
If you have stagnation in the gut, pretty light, you know, you are basically building a reserve for viruses bacterias or disease, to thrive in that type of environment also stress and stress is a huge, huge component. And I’ll just put it to you like this. Disease or physical disease is a physical manifestation of emotional stagnation. So I encourage each and every one of you guys to find a way to filter through the emotional body and move the stagnation that has been, you know, plaguing your physical body and use this as an opportunity to not make excuses but to, you know, really jumpstart how you are going to move into self-aware care or self-consciousness.
It really requires us to be self-conscious, so that we can in fact make the right choices to care for ourselves differently than we ever have before. And number one complaint as to why people don’t work out or get active or, you know, do the necessary preparations for proper food and nutrition is time people say it takes too much time and then the second one is too much. Money and then the third is you’re just straight lazy and don’t want to say it but I just did for you so that you get your fucking shit together excuse my language but I can cuss on here because I’m uncensored and I can tell you guys for real like I nothing changed for me and nothing would have changed for me in my life had I not done the multi-prong approach and addressing the mindset that would allow me to explore and implement, you know, things like nutritional changes and then adding in the commitment and dedication and sticktoitiveness that is necessary when you implement, you know, supplements.
I know all of you guys have bought handfuls and boxes full of supplements and they just sit collecting dust and then you’re like, oh, expired. I guess I’ll buy the next best thing. But the fact of the matter is, is that you guys have to really take you to know the time to consciously adjust your house. So that you can get different results. And that’s not comfortable and you’re probably like, Oh, fuck off Sonia. It’s COVID. But like that, you know, the real truth is, is that it could be COVID it could be cancer, that disease cannot exist in a fluid environment.
Moving water is safe to drink, just think about it like that. Okay, you don’t want to drink something that’s a stagnant pond where like your cows have been feeding and pooping, you want to drink water that’s rushing in a river. And that’s why Arrowhead mountain spring water is so popular because it says Gushing Geyser of freshwater at the top of the mountain like nothing, can contaminate it. It’s the same thing with your body as a temple and you have to create an environment where there’s fluidity and movement and not stagnation. And that’s how you can prevent and quickly overcome any of the inevitable illnesses that will introduce themselves to you and try and make friends.
Okay. Just want to lay that down on the line there. Hashtag gets it together. And don’t get into your COVID crisis mode because the fact of the matter is, is that all things aside, as scary as things are, there’s plenty of things and to look at as an opportunity and I just want to be that voice of reason and encouragement for you guys. I’m your hostess with the mostess Sonia Gomez. And this is the Hamp revolution. All of the social media channels will be posted around this episode, make sure that you check them out. Thanks so much for tuning in guys, and we’ll see you on our next show.
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