Gaia’s Faming Co. founder Michael Kyriakou

Jim Moore 0:14

Hello, my name is Jim, this is my podcast the bloody vegans. You're very welcome to it. Each week I'll be travelling ever deeper into the world of veganism, discovering along the way a multitude of viewpoints from the political and ethical to the practical. I'll be doing this through a series of conversations, each aiming to further illuminate my understanding, and hopefully yours of all things plant centric and this week is no different. Before we get into the episode at hand, I should tell you this episode of the bloody vegans podcast is brought to you by veg one the nutritional vitamin and mineral supplement designed for vegans by the good folks over at the Vegan Society. It was launched in 2005 and rebranded in 2021. With that fantastic plastic free package, and veg one will provide you with all of the nutritional support you'd expect for something designed by the Vegan Society or obviously alongside your healthy and balanced vegan diet. All for an affordable price. A six month supply is going to set you back just 12 pounds 70 which is little over two pound a month, and you're gonna get your EU nutrient reference values of vitamins B 12, d3, iodine, selenium, b2b Six and folic acid for that Sam, what more could you ask? It's doable, affordable and reliable. You take it just once a day. It comes in two wonderful flavours are the orange or black currant, super easy and convenient. And of course plastic free, head over to vegan society.com Search for veg one and you can pick up your supply right there. So in this week's episode, I'm going to be speaking with CEO and founder of gyres farming CO that is Michael cura cow. He's a fantastic guest talks about hemp in in an incredibly articulate way. I learned so much about him about how as Michael describes it is a sustainability Gladiator. Sucking up four times the amount of carbon from the air than trees per acre is just amazing. And as we get into into hemp all of its wonderful benefits not just for the environment, but also for your health. And we also get into why hemp farming is so difficult in the UK, from a legislative point of view is difficult to do. There's a lot of red tape, a lot of questions asked, etc. It's not easy to get into the farming of hemp. And we discuss a little bit about why or I should say Michael educates me a little bit about why. So without further ado, here is a conversation between me and the founder and CEO of guys farming Co. Michel cura cow

Michael Kyriakou 2:59

I suppose is like, a multitude of things. I suppose the classic Cowspiracy too, was like many people when they saw that. I think my journey to veganism starts probably from when I was a child when I was a kid. I was just fascinated by the playing channel, on Discovery, Discovery planet. And I just would want to watch animals all day. Just maybe I think my parents thought it's kind of weird because all my friends were watching cartoons and MTV and I just fascinated by frogs to poison dart frogs, and in the jungle, so I knew I had I had an affiliation to wildlife and animals. Obviously, when you're that young, you don't really have a choice of what you eat. Then I got into my, into my late, late, late teens went to university and playing sport. And the more you the more you do into research into nutrition, the more you discover things, and even just the very basics of understanding how we process protein inside, and how whey protein just doesn't get doesn't get absorbed or used very, very efficiently by our bodies. It just makes me think and then you start looking at the way industry and thinking you're talking about the the shape of this show the dairy industry. And then in my very early 20s outside class myself as an environmentalist, but then I said to myself, I can't be environmentalists if I if I contributed to the system. So the first thing I did is I just stopped drinking dairy and products. And then within a couple of years, I think it was like three years later and said you know what? No more just said, Let me try. The funny thing is actually, I went to a cop and the fruitiness is over This is well, this would be eight years ago now. And the coat freezer that was that was a bean burger. And I was like, This must this is gonna taste like crap. But I try it. And I went home and tried it. And it was it was actually fairly pleasant for my initial expectations. And you know what, I still have never bought meat again. It's just like, it was just, it wasn't this Duran Daris a moment of like, just that was as funny as it sounds, that was it had been burger from coop. And then I just never bought me again, it just never, I don't have an addictive personality. So I can either leave it, I take it, you know, and I just And then, you know, I felt the first I suppose the first month, I just felt really healthy felt really lean, I felt when I say lean, I don't mean ski. I mean, just felt like my body was going through this phase of energy reproduction just felt great. And then just never turned back. Yeah. And that's, that is really in essence, what it is, I'd say my my journey is I would say that I'm not one of the I'm not a vegan, that's, you know, staunch in the system where I'm like, you've got to be there's got to be that for me. I've I've been, I've got friends who are vegans. And for me when I speak to people, which I think is a different interpretation, and they respect you for that. And I just tried to educate them, or inspire them. And it's just about meat reduction for me at the moment for them. I'm not gonna be like you should stop eating, or you're vegan, or you're a terrible person. And I've had people tell me that, you know, that they've insulted their friends, because they're not vegan, like, yes, not, you're not gonna win anything, you're not gonna get anywhere, right? So yeah, if interest reduces their meat intake, we're gonna get somewhere, then the ethical question of whether the meat is decided on to that individual person, as long as they're informed, as long as they know, by using a massive shift, you know, people more and more people, you know, it's and it's great to see because for the reason, if it's, if it's ethical from an animal perspective, or it's, or it's for their environment, you have varying reasons for it.

Jim Moore 7:17

Was that always your approach that sort of, you know, meet people where they are, they, you know, if they're, if they're reducing, that's great, you know, that that's the only way to get people to move forward. In you know, was that always the approach? Or or did you kind of find that approach over the course of your sort of veganism?

Michael Kyriakou 7:39

I think it's just being emotionally intelligent is really important. Whether that's in business, or whether it's in life. And I, if you're being if you feel like you're being sold something, or there's or you're being forced to do something, you're going to rebel, I know that firsthand. As a kid, you know, my, my need to my needs to be different from everyone else. So if someone says we do this, I'd wonder something else. And maybe maybe that journey to veganism was part of that maybe that's because it was so you know, people vegan now I'm like, whatever, you know, tried doing it. 50 years ago, that was when it's tough. I remember going to going my auntie in Belgium, went to go and visit her. This is only for about five, six years ago. And going to the supermarket. It's okay. Obviously vegetables and vegan as you can get vegetables, but in terms of like plant based meats, or it just didn't exist. Now you go to the same supermarket in Belgium, and they have a whole aisle of fake meats, plant based meats, all that kind of stuff. So it's Yeah, diverse slightly, but I think understanding how people work and how to engage with them. I get far, far less speaking to people about their diets in that manner than I do if I said to them, you're a terrible person because you eat meat, or you're a terrible person because your entire industry and I have conversations friends will be like, why? You know, we can talk about multitude of things. Then for me this standalone, you know, issues is environment. The byproduct of that is I do really love animals.

Jim Moore 9:22

So, did you have people come along on the journey with you? Or was it quite a solitary pursuit for you?

Michael Kyriakou 9:31

I think it was solitary at the beginning because I come from a very lot my friends rugby players weightlifting area back in the day. So it was solitary in that in that sense, but I don't feel like affected me almost gave me more reason to do it. Yeah. Rather than just following the crowd following the crowd. It was kind of like a self discovery of of it. And it's still like, you know, to this day of people We still talk to him about it, and I try and help them and you have the same misconceptions. And it's kind of like, oh, the food's expensive. Or, you know, I mean, sure your listeners have heard so many reasons, I'm sure a lot of my biggest resource, they experienced the same thing. But it's about it's about tapping into people's choices. You know, if I ever speak to someone, and they say to me, like, they have no qualms with, you know, eating animal as well, I know, personally, that person probably wouldn't kill animals. So for me that ethics is like, well, that's flawed, but I'm not going to start saying you're a bad person. But then if you can look at it from another perspective, and say, What about the environment? Do you care about the environment? Do you realise what we're doing to the planet? And then you start talking about, you know, agriculture and animal feeding and then they start exhausting tweaking? No, but this is a multi pronged approach. You know, I've maybe this has been unpopular in your in your listings, but I've seen those vegan marches and some of the language they use, it's like, I saw one that was said. What was it like? It's like all non vegans a paedophile or something like that. And it's to do with the cows drinking the coffee, slide, like, what you can achieve? Yeah, they happen. I saw the picture, or that happened was the comments in the comments on the picture. Were just absolutely bashing this person wasn't he couldn't really see the person but veganism. What does that do for the industry? What did that do for the movement? Nothing. It just sets us backwards. If you can open and engage a conversation, and I get this needs to be drastic measures, I get it. You know, I've literally built a company around that mission. But I think we can be smarter, I think we should allow us to be more stoic. Again, maybe I can go into stoicism. And that's something has changed my life as well. But mixing, practising a stoic philosophy has really helped in that. Because I feel like we can be quite emotive, when we're so passionate about things. Especially some people are so passionate about veganism and educating people, that passion become, can can almost seem aggressive sometimes, as I've taken from more stope position and acceptance of humanity, and people are going to make mistakes, or they're gathering choices, and how do we talk to them and communicate with them and, and I've got, you know, I've got friends who have gone vegetarian now, you know, I've got friends, not many, but I've got a couple of friends who have become vegan, because of the discussions we've had. But for me, the most important thing is if I can get them to reduce their meat intake, that for me is the biggest that, for me is the first step, right? I have my mum, for example, you know, working class family, like meat is on the table most days in modern era, you know, the last, you know, 10 years. And you know, she she probably eats, I'd say, once or twice a week, I'm not gonna say, Mom, you're a bad person, because you're eating meat, but I'm gonna say thank you for contributing to a better system and better society, because you're reducing your intake, you know, I'd rather have you twice a week than seven times a week. And that's going to affect the system far greater than then than her rebelling against me and saying, you know, I was not talking or she thinking that I'm sure I was some. And I get the position that, you know, stood still contributing, you know, and the ethics side, but we will have our own ways of dealing with it. Yeah, I

Jim Moore 13:29

think meeting people where they are is never is never a bad thing. And you know, I've said this many times on this show, but I always think you have to remember the day before you discovered what you discovered. Yeah. And how you how you felt and how you thought, and, you know, for most of us, who were, you know, we weren't born vegan. And so, you know, we went through a period of time where we didn't see some of the things that we see now. Yeah. And so I think it's, I do think you're right, that it's not necessarily a wise move to not see that that potential position that somebody may be in, you know, maybe their socio economic position is not, is not one that's opened them up to those particular views, or, you know, there's all kinds of different things, there's an error of why people might not be where you are. And there's an I think, also, the other challenge with taking that as kind of quite quite, that quite strong position is you're almost saying that you're, you know, you're you're you're not prepared to be challenged on other things, too, because, you know, how would you feel if somebody challenged you on something else that was that was you felt was perfectly fine that you just didn't understand yet. So I think you've got to be open and accept that you might be wrong.

Michael Kyriakou 14:48

And I feel like combat obviously, told me from a position and I suppose, in London where you know, I'm sure I'm sure you have different communities or different or different parts of the world. And also, I've also know vegans who will turn a blind eye to certain things. And maybe some people distortions will be like, they're not vegan, but I know people that are vegan, but then don't really go deep into their makeup there were, and it's like, so, you know, it's like, oh, they don't eat meat, they don't eat, you know, obviously dairy, they don't buy fur. They don't buy leather, but yet, what's it what makeup you're wearing? And they're like, Oh, it's this company? And I'm like, have you looked at their practices? And it's kind of like, where do we draw the line? You know? And obviously, there's, there's a finite level of you that are vegan, or you're not vegan, right? And it's like, where do we draw the line? Where do we just try? And? Yeah, it's kind of like, it's this de facto, you know, quasi world of what's right and wrong. And all we can do is try and try and be better. Believe me, it makes more sense to have animal cruelty free nowadays, makeup than not everybody so

Jim Moore 16:03

right, you're so right, there's, there's always something that you would have probably missed, you know, our world is so, you know, the systems we've created are so heavily reliant on the exploitation of animals in various ways that it would almost be, you'd be, you'd be a better man than me if you've figured out every single way that animals have been used in your in your life. And you can 100% hand on heart say it's been avoided. You know, I mean, one that came to mind this was this was quite a while ago now. But I remember it always being a bit of a watershed moment for me where I had that realisation actually, there's a lot, there's a lot going on in the world. And it sounds obvious, maybe now, I don't know. But it was my bank account, you know, I had I had a bank account with one of the big, the big, sort of high street banks, I'd had it since university, you know, they, they incentivize university students, because the you know, the premise is that generally you stick with the same bank forever. And so I was with this bank, and then looked into, you know, what they were, they were funding and there was all kinds of fossil fuels in there. And there was animal agriculture and all this kind of stuff. And I was talking about, you know, being vegan at the time and so on, and had to add to find an ethical alternative. And even then, it's it's very difficult to find somebody in say the, the financing industry that is completely, you know, level. Yeah. And I went with trade offs in the end. Now, I don't know if you've heard of them. There are a Bristol based Bristol in the Netherlands. I think they've got, they've got bases in and they're there. This isn't in any way sponsored by Triodos Bank, maybe Oh. But but they at least purport to invest in community projects and things that are, you know, more aligned with, with, with my ethics, whether there's absolutely every trace of animal agriculture removed, is another question. But it's very difficult to find a bank that is, and that's just one example. You know, you've got energy companies and all kinds of different things.

Michael Kyriakou 18:20

Like if you take the cabal of theory, you know, how everything is intertwined and interlinked. I think you'd struggle to find any, anything in the world that isn't linked with exploitation of animals. I think if more people including vegans take more of the, again a stoic approach, a more of a personal journey and a more personal approach to it, they will become happier, they will impact the system a lot greater and, and try to better yourself as opposed to better things that you have no, you can't impact whether you're screaming, shouting, whether you're educated when talking to people, the calmer you are, the more clearer you are. And the more you'll get done in that in that journey to being a better self because really, this is all about personal journeys. You have your own you have you an ethical choice, you have you cannot use in theory, you know, everyone should be free to make their own choices. You can you should not allow your you should not allow you to be affected emotionally, by the choice of someone else, I get it if you're let's say your partner's not big enough that this can be quite difficult. But you could do is try and be better for yourself and and you'll be a lot happier. That's a that's the way I try to live and when people want to engage with you when people want to discuss with you about veganism and or cutting down meat or going or being a vegetarian or whatever. That's a different discussion, then you can talk about those things. But you'll be a lot clearer minded and listen to people's opinions and and nine out of 10 times when people do do Let's play devil's advocate. They're talking about stuff that this misinformation, whether it's, oh, you know, I mean, there's tonnes of them, like, ordering enough protein in my diet is too expensive. We should be eating meat or we were carnivores and all this kind of stuff. It's like, okay, do some research, like, a lot of times, you know, you know, one of my investors was having a bit of a joke and here's like, some a picture of his his, you know, incisor teeth. And I said to him, I said, just go and just go and look up, go and find other animals that eat basically a plant based diet, but also the same thing as you. And he came back to me was like, Oh, wow, this is actually interesting. And as opposed to me aggressively or even just saying, No, you're wrong, you should be like, Isn't way of way of approaching it is, I think, is fundamentally key. Yeah.

Jim Moore 20:51

It's, it's quite an art, I think, to, to stay that, like you say, stays that sort of stoic in your responses. Especially because I think the thing for many vegans is it's not the necessarily the comment in isolation, is the fact that that's one of you know, 100 Yeah, they might have had in the course of the last couple of weeks, and so on. So it does take a real mastery, I think of your composure and of your ability to respond with a longer term view and think effectively about your communication to, to not respond. Just out of sheer frustration sometimes like this, you know, not like with the one person but you know, how many people are going to talk to me about incisors or

Michael Kyriakou 21:40

boring sorts of choosing where it's also choosing when like to, you only have, let's say, Why call Velocity, right, you have 100 and 100% of your velocity. And that velocity only really can be used for certain things with day whether that's for work with spending your time your kids family, do you really need to argue or even discuss with someone you don't really care about or something that doesn't really influence your life? Yeah, you got to make a choice. And and sometimes there are times where I'm just like, you know, what you do you or you can make a very simple game, do some research, you know, what I like to think what I say to a lot of people now as you will find what you want to find online, right? If someone if someone you know, is conspiracy theorists and right to question things, but if you go and type in x, y and Zed, you're gonna find x y Zed. There's enough diversity of conversation to have but it happens every day is you know, you see things like that. So misinformation is there, especially this tone on social media. If you're if you're trying to be objective, you'll find a way to filter out the noise.

Jim Moore 22:53

This episode of the bloody vegans podcast is brought to you by veg one from the Vegan Society. Bedouin is the nutritional vitamin and mineral supplement, designed for vegans by vegans, launched back in 2005, and rebranded in 2021. With a fantastic new plastic free package. Veg one provides nutritional support alongside a healthy and balanced vegan diet, all for an affordable price with a six month supply available for just 12 pound 70. Veg one will cost you little over two pounds a month and offers EU nutrient reference values or en RVs a vitamin B 12, d3, iodine, selenium, b two B six and folic acid base one is chewable, it's affordable and reliable. You can take it once a day. It's available in fantastic orange and black currant flavours super easy and convenient, completely plastic free. So why not head over to vegan society.com Search for veg one and take your next healthy steps into the world of veganism is so right you will find exactly what you want to find and it will get your your your hunch your opinion your viewpoint confirmed for you if that's the way you want to look for things. Absolutely, totally agree with that. Let's talk about a business. I'd love to get into that Where Where did the idea start? And and what is it for folks who don't know?

Michael Kyriakou 24:23

So I have a company called Gaius pharmaco. We are a biotech company that process industrial hemp for its material environments and health benefits. We launched when I started the company in end of 2020 going you know, pandemic style. And we launched with products January of this year. How I got into it. Again, I'm very into my environment. I'm very into Mother Mother. I care about the environment and I was working for a few software companies during them building their brand as such. And then I always knew I wanted to work in the environmental sector. And again, it's chance favours the prepared mind. You know, I looked at looked at him. And I was like, it's quite an interesting space and lots of the laws and the reasons he got banned and X, Y and Zed, which we can go into later but and then I just started reading science papers. I feel like you know, that's the rather than reading going and Google Wikipedia, I just went really hard into as much available research papers as possible. And the more and more I read, the more and more I was like, wow, this is incredible in ways it's not being utilised from an environmental perspective and a health perspective. And I just thought, can I make this happen and here we are. So from an environmental perspective, hemp is the most assembled plant known to man known to you know, on the planet, it's has every single part of it can be used. It's basically basically a carbon guzzling Gladiator. It's so as we all know, the biggest threat to society right now is climate change. And obviously, carbon is part of that problem. Hemp is a carbon sink, per acreage. So if you plant one acre of hemp, it really is four times more carbon dioxide than trees does. And hemp takes 100 days to grow trees takes to maturity, eight years plus. So from a just a pure basic statistic of growing more hemp, you remove more carbon. So then obviously, when that carbon is stored in the plant, and it's be utilised processing, you have the stock which can be used for hempcrete you can replace concrete huge, huge issue in system you can replace it with with hemp fibre as I called him crazy mix hemp Curd with lime and water as long as it's not structural, but you can use it in the same way that you would build on concrete, you would use steel pilings where you can stir flour for millet for medicinal reasons you can use the roots in Israel, the makeup and then obviously what we use the seeds. So then there's another thing called foetal mediation, which is how much nutrients is given back to the back to the soil, a lot of people don't realise is that you can store more carbon in our soil that we can in our atmosphere and our plants. So not looking after our soil is detrimental to us. It's more so for you know, emerging globalisation countries aka the US for example, where they use chemicals pesticides, they want to grow fast because of the demand for for the population. So they kill the topsoil. The problem with the topsoil is a lot of carbon is stored there. And when carbon stored there, you have bacteria and that live off the lid off the carbon. So most people know it as organic food right? Probably like the label of growing food it typically is more expensive. But if people understood the reason why organic samples and they would understand how, why we transitioned into more of what I'm not so sure organic way of life is right because I get it some people have different abilities from pipe prices tivity model, but we need to be thinking more about soil and plants or give some form of nutrients to the soil. But hemp has one of the highest and obviously you have farmers how farms work they typically let's say grow let's say wheat for example. Well typically a farmer needs to break that cycle to give them insurance back to the soil because if you have a monoculture is bad for the soils bashment is bad for the ash

and then they typically will put another plant in to just add different nutrients whatnot. Well hemp isn't one of the best if not the best crop cycle plants. There's obviously issues with legislation and just for your listeners, the biggest myth hemp is not cannabis. It has no THC in it. Hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant Cannabis sativa but it doesn't has less than 0.3% thc. So if you tried smoking him it'd be no different to trying to smoke oats smoking grass smoking a plant it literally just it would do nothing to you. You'd probably just get a lot of white smoke and you'll probably feel quite quite sick so that's the biggest myth I still get people saying to me can I get higher fuel products? No, you cannot different differentiates the blob So yeah, that's that's that's a really carbon guzzling add nutrients to soil. Sustainable bleeds, Nitto leads and it needs little water. Just again, What you read them were like, wow, this is incredible. It's, you know, so that's an inner from a nutritional perspective. I mean, what I can start it's from Yeah, it's so as we mentioned earlier about protein and avoid is not being able to break down and absorb protein. Well, and 65% of hemp is made out of editing dopamine, which is a perfect protein for human consumption. It has all the essential amino acids had so we can we can basically break down the protein and hemp fall greater rate than anything else. I believe it's one of the only Gnuplot that does that. Which is obviously typically where do you get protein from? Well, a good idea is whether it's beans or you can always add hemp into your diet. And then we have omega three and Omega six, which are healthy fats that we would need in our diets. And it hasn't been puffy ratio. So yeah, that is that is a nutshell. Yeah. And that's the thing. It's like, the more you read, the more you're like, Wow, this is incredible. So if you can factor in hemp into your diet, it's only going to benefit you as a superfood, it is no different to lack of flaxseed or, you know, chia seeds, or those kind of like new ancient green products. You can add him whether it's drinking out products, or whether it's spreading hemp seeds onto your cereal or just smoothies. So yeah, and there's versions of how you get that with that whole hemp seed or whether that's a de hulled hemp seed, which is a hemp part, which is how we make our milk. So yeah, so we have we, we've made two products we've made in the plant based industry, we make a hemp and oat milk, and in one litre, so your Brusa standard that similar to many other brands you probably see on the high street. And then we have a chocolate milk, which is hemp, and coconut cream, and obviously sustainable cacao. So that was our two products we launched in January, doing really well got featured in Vogue in February. And now she's about rolling that out and building that business. And for us it's keep growing more products, we have a whole list of range of products we can go into, from health bars, to ice creams, to nut butters to pesto. What we can do is endless and our job is really to get him into the mass market to knock down those barriers of misconceptions. And for us Katsuaki The reason we call it guys farming guys guys, Mother Earth, the more have we plant, the more farmers get into hemp, the more we've helped the pan out

Jim Moore 32:43

it's just this the stats just incredible. But from an environmental standpoint health whichever way you come at it, the those those stats, you just you just read off, they're just amazing. My the big question that sort of light was been floating around my mind is you blow my mind with all those different facts is why on earth is this not all over the place, given that it's got all of these climate change benefits and the health benefits and quick to grow and better for the topsoil? And like

Michael Kyriakou 33:16

yeah, why? I think it's too far, I think you've got to look at the historical context. So in the 1930s, with the birth of plastics, fossil fuels, you had a lot of lobbying going on in the market system, American cotton American government, where they saw it as a threat. If we can go back and further you know, hemp is has been traced back to 1000s of years ago being used as a fibre. You know, when America when the UK colonised the US, there was a tax in place that made the US colonies give him to grow hemp to get back to the British, so you can use it for sales we use for paper. So, so it was pretty much part of history, you know, it's been for 1000s of years. And then in the 1930s and the birth of the oil industry. You saw the shift. And you're I won't mention names because these companies still exist to this day. But certain companies are lobbied against hemp because they saw a threat to the paper industry, because you can grow because for the same acreage of land you can get you can get four times more pulp. And you can from Woods use less chemicals. And some of these companies were the biggest forest trees in the US. They did like the threat of hemp. You actually saw the birth of plastics. Hemp can be made into byproduct by polymer. So you can literally replace fossil derived hydrocarbon plastics, with hemp, you know, with hemp derived by plastics. So again, it's like many things they basically basically associated it with cannabis and the THC writing and it was banned. The only countries that are banned it globally will France and China. And guess what, they're both leading countries and hemp and culture and hemp development got legalised and I'm 23. So think how long that was that was bad for us legalise 93 In the UK, to this day, you have to have a licence to grow it in the UK, which, let's be very frank, I honest, I completely appreciate, you know, from the from the from a novices i It looks like cannabis THC varieties. So it looks the same very well, you'd see different if you go into like the meta of the groove cannabis for its for THC, you wouldn't want it to be retaught you want the flowers, you want a fast growth of flowers. As a lot of hemp farmers will grow it for the length. So you would say difference also, you'd smell the difference as well. Typically, if you're growing for THC, it would spend a lot different. But yeah, so you have to have a licence, you have to apply for it on the home office, you can't have a you have to kind of have criminal history. But all these things is barriers and a lot of things like you can't be near a school, it can't be near an airport, it has to be a certain distance from from a road. So you have these farmers who just don't want to get involved in that legislation don't want the hassle of it. And it's 500 pounds to apply for his licence. So, you know, does, like categorically From a farmer's perspective, it makes more sense to use it as a crop break or to grow in its entirety. But did they want the hassle? I know if I spoke to a farmer recently, and his insurance just cancelled his insurance with him for no other reason. They don't want to get involved in that. And it's like, so yes, it's so just the hassle, right? Do I want to go ahead and have to really be believers in it. And it needs companies that disruptive like us, that are gonna have more, we're gonna make a difference. We're gonna show what times your brand is gonna do. And once a pop up once the consumer demands it. It will affect the government it affects the legislation it affects. It has, you know, the Kabbalah theory affects everything else. For me, the problem is, is that since 2018, the US has legalised hemp to be grown. Every state 2018 the farm to farm act, Bill, I think it's called.

We've been great. We've been legalising since 2003. You see, you see the growth in America, the UK just don't don't care. It's like this from an economic perspective would be incredible. Like what you can do for farmers. What we can industry, it's it's mind blowing. So again, it needs companies to push the government to be like really adopters. Even like from an economic perspective, I was looking at some research recently. And listen to this, this your lessons are crazy for this week, farmers in the UK cannot grow hemp for CBD. So CBD is a button right? I'm sure other people have heard of CBD. My thing and a fad what not whatever the point is, it's a booming market. So in the UK, hemp farmers have to burn their flour. Right? So they they're not allowed to use the flower. We in the UK can import CBD from the rest of the world. So they last import CBD from the farmers. But we can't support our own farms in the UK. And for let's say an acre of hemp grown a farm or let's say we'll get 20,000 pounds hypothetical number 20,000 pounds for seed with fibre they can sell if they were able to grow that that flat that flour for CBD that make 120,000 pounds. And they have to watch it burn. So we're not even supporting the farmers in its own country. Imagine but yeah, I get it if it got the government saying no CBD anywhere. We're burning it across the board. Yeah. Allow us to import it. So you have these rookies building white label businesses importing CBD we don't we have no really understanding of the spectrum from China from you know, Eastern Europe from France. But yeah, we're not looking after where we can control the situation in the UK. So I'm sure you can imagine the frustrations of the UK system. But there are rumours that it is in the works. People are talking about it at home office understand there's an issue. It's just priorities right. The two bids have been parties that they are actually getting stuff done.

Jim Moore 39:24

And this is all from a misplaced fear that I don't know that we're gonna have a bunch of drug smuggling and drug dealing going on.

Michael Kyriakou 39:33

I think that if you allowed him to be unregulated, you're gonna have people take advantage of the system, for sure. Yeah, it's gonna happen. I don't have any qualms with that being a licence. I have qualms with how slow it is.

Jim Moore 39:51

Yeah, red tape,

Michael Kyriakou 39:52

red tape. Yeah, they had the home office don't have a department really. If we had they, they built a department of focus solely on Developing hemp, it would be, it would be a joy to work with a joint to watch it grow. And what that what they realise is that the economic benefit of that will be huge, both from for themselves for industry, whether that's construction industry, and also hemp is clean tech. It is a carbon guzzling machine. We had this idea of going to net zero. Well, let's use him for that, you know?

Jim Moore 40:26

Yeah, crazy. Absolutely crazy. Yeah. What needs to happen, then first, do you think do you think, you know, this? Is a sort of change at Governmental level? Or do you think that needs to be pushed by public demand? What's your view of that?

Michael Kyriakou 40:43

I think it's multi pronged, I think you need both you need you need a consumer that understands what hemp is, there's a demand for it. And that just means more hemp products in the market. And listen, I do think that hemp has had a has a history of being the hippie movement, and yeah, handbags, and hemp shoes, and they will just look crap, right? But when you have these challenger brands, when as a challenger brands, I wanted to find them as, as brands that challenge the status quo challenge, what's what's the reality of what's around us, they make an impact, they tried different things, they, they might not always get it, right. But they, they try to challenge people's perception of what's right or wrong. And when you have an even from a branding perspective, they just look good, that aesthetically pleasing, which I'd say we are, you know, we knew that we knew that we could build a brand. It's whether we can handle the operation side of working with suppliers and farming and processing machinery, which we've got we're getting we've got a great brand. So when you go to the shop floor and you see a product, you see our product, you see, you pick that over another product, because you're like, Well, this is impacting the environment. I'm I you know part of that I want to have a good contribution. And then it also by that you have a demand by that when you go to supermarket when there's let's say, if I use Whole Foods, for example, it's very easy to go there you can find him pastor, you can find him hemp hearts, you can find the hemp milks, not that they're all very good, but that's another, that's another story. But But you go to, like a Tesco or Morrison's stunning doesn't exist. I think you go to the wall, I think if you go to a wild area, you can find him parts in a very, very expensive or hempco in some areas have pressed hemp seed pressed oil, which is like an olive oil, but just without saturated fats. And once you see more on the shelves, you start seeing that shift once more demand usage. And that would just correlate back to the supply you back to the farmers back to the back to the processes. Once he gets cheaper, it gets more accessible. But then you also needed an engaged government that want to do something about it. You know, I know I know of a farmer that had land he was he went to a landowner who was an MP. And he sold the vision of hemp, an MP loved it. He bid for the land. The farmer, the land owner and principal said yes. He had many discussions, and he was he got a new person to hemp. A month later, he got notified that another farmer had outbid him for a different crop, then he got didn't really care about him anymore. So the point is, is that once you fight when you have people in power, that are engaged, that want to do something about it, that realises there's more to life than just making money. There's an ethical stance, there's a legacy stance, that you have movement, and that's not going to be overnight, but that you need companies like us that are going to you know, fight for it, you know, look, you know, early for example. Before it existed, plant based milk was a soy milk. Od came in as a challenger brand, and really disrupted the market, you know, and I only made mistakes, and there's a lot of criticism for a leak. But I find that very classic business in a very classy company and and we wouldn't be here today they've really spearheaded the plant based movement. And it's incredible. So then then from only you started seeing all these new brands. beyond me, I met the ethics of all whether you like Segula lab grown plant based meats like beyond were impossible and there's a few there's making lab grown meat secular meat, which isn't it's another world which I don't know too much about, but I find it quite weird and crazy. You know, once beyond me and impossible start doing what I've done. Guess what? Hundreds of other businesses start making start following suit. They want to they want a piece of the pie. It's just a process

Jim Moore 45:00

Thinking about the shift in public perception that's required. Like you say there's the, the old image of what hemp is associated with. It's either drug use, or it's hemp bags and hemp sandals and that kind of that kind of vibe. Thinking about that shift, although like you've said, there's a, there's a different genus, I think in the, in the, in the plant and so on. Do you think the rise of CBD is kind of helpful in a way to sort of piggyback the message off off of it? Or is it or do you not really see that there's a connection?

Michael Kyriakou 45:34

The government have said that they are looking and monitoring CBD. They've publicly said, we are looking into this. And we will do tests and we will do research and they've created a body of people in experts that say, to evaluate CBD? I don't think it's a simple answer of yes, it's helped. No, it's not helped. I think, in general, it's helped overall because it brings a product to market, but then it hasn't done very well to educate what CBD is, you know, right? Hemp has over 110 cannabinoids, CBD is one of them. Over 110 You see, you see our research in the other 100 over 110 If you see the research we've done on 12345 Every single one of those has an impact like its mother gave us this plant for a reason. You have I saw you know recently had a bit of publicity around two cannabinoids and found in the hemp because they prevent COVID. And it's mental and then what happened is, I saw VICE News, post an article on Twitter and they will face cannabis. And then all comments. Great. I'm gonna smoke more cannabis. And it's like, you're gonna have this issue, right? And it's smoking the same, just the same plant. Then you have I saw recently I stopped by thing I actually put on my LinkedIn study on a cannabinoid NFT not the crypto version, which is to processing organisms in the body and it's and it helps develop functions and flows in the body. And it's like, it's just these are the very early days of understanding cannabinoids, you know, and THC is the cannabinoid in the in the cannabis version. You know, and actually ironically, CBD does the opposite of THC it I suppose to cancel each other it's just what we know of so simple answer is yes, it's brought attention to the market. But no it's it's it's an it's kind of wishy washy, you know and there's companies that you know use it or CBD and and they don't really educate the market but no one's perfect. We're all we're all just trying to Why are you doing it right? Is it for an ethical stance is it tried or tried to make some money when the Sydney market first boomed 100% and was trying to make a quick buck no one knew what it was people were importing it from China White labelling it not there's anything wrong with the Chinese market. The point is, is that they were the first adopter to be like white label he go did you see that? Did you see the spectrum? Did you see the analysis No, bring into the country. So the you know the government said well stop this. We need to kind of like find out where this where your CBD is from the players in the market now that sell CBD reputable business that around? You know, John and Dave, you know, the father found a person's supply and just drop shipped it. That didn't help. Yeah, especially when they put the price their ethics their position is very different than what they need. Because they care about have they're in it because of trying to make money in this opportunity. And trust me many people didn't make a lot of money. But everything has maturity, just like whether it's about the Kryptos situation or we talk about plant based movement, veganism. Everything has a transitional phase. And I think hemp because if you talk to him, people know him. The cake queued up, they know what they're talking about. But the mass market though it's about educating them.

Jim Moore 49:20

Well, Michael, you've educated me. Absolutely. My mind is absolutely blown. I'll fill I'm going to rush out and get some some hemp seeds and get cracking. Milk. Yeah. And on that note where the folks go about finding guy guys farming co product, you can

Michael Kyriakou 49:41

go direct online, on our website, but you can find it in retailers like restaurants retailers like meat burger, which is like a vegan burger joint Panzers in North London. We're in discussion with all the major supermarkets so at the moment so it's gonna happen Um, obviously, as I said, we launched in January, so it's still early days, but you can get started online.

Jim Moore 50:07

So yeah, there'll be links in the show notes 100%

Michael Kyriakou 50:11

discount code for you. Oh,

Jim Moore 50:13

yeah. Awesome. Yeah, let's do that as well. That'd be nice. Yeah, we'll put the links in the show notes, the discount codes etc. And I'll just just recommend everybody check it out. Yes, sounds sounds awesome.

Michael Kyriakou 50:25

It's one of those things do your own research and you'll you'll be as bamboozled as I was when I first looked into it. You can go really matter into like I do that and then go into every single science paper or just Google it and you just see look at the Wikipedia pages. The top level stuff is all there.

Jim Moore 50:41

Love it, Michael. Thank you.

Michael Kyriakou 50:43

It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 50:44

up

Transcribed by https://otter.ai