Brookfarm | Will Brook
Conversation with Will Brook
A family dream to move to the country and a passion for healthy food led the Brook family to transform a rundown dairy in Byron Bay’s hinterland into a working macadamia farm. In just over 30 years they’ve not only become one of Australia’s leading producers of premium quality macadamia products, but they’ve simultaneously planted over 35,000 trees to regenerate the onsite rainforest. Still a family run business, they’ve made some interesting additions, while holding sustainability at the core of everything they do. This is good business at it’s best.
“We’ve planted over 35000 trees to regenerate the rainforest on the farm.”
Will Brook is CEO of Brookfarm which offers a range of delicious products from breakfast muesli and porridge, to a range of snacks and more recently Gin from their Cape Byron Distillery located on Brookfarm, and run by Wills younger brother Ed.
Brookfarm is a family run business which began when Will and Ed’s parents, Martin and Pam Brook, bought a (site unseen) farm just outside of Byron Bay. When they arrived they found an absolutely barren hillside – much to their dismay.
They’ve come a long way from those early days and now the farm creates batches of sustainable products while maintaining the land and rainforest.
Their generational approach to family business, the natural farming practices and ongoing conservation work all combined make this one inspiring operation. This is good business at it’s best. We hope you enjoy!
Mentioned in conversation...
Brookfarm beginnings and what Will’s parents, Martin and Pam found when they arrived at the site over 30 years ago.
Branching out - moving from muesli to gin and what’s next on the horizon for their Brookfarm product range.
Positive impact and sustainable practices at the farm and what the future will hold.
Their generational approach to family business and what’s next on the horizon for this inspiring farm
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Brookfarm Website
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Brookfarm Facebook
Full Podcast Transcript - WILL BROOK
Pru Chapman: Welcome back to the One Wild Ride podcast. I'm your host Pru Chapman. Today's interview really has it all, adventure, carving your own path, positive impact and damn good business. Not to mention a really great tasting product. My guest today is Will Brook, CEO of Brook Farm based here in Byron Bay. Now I'm sure you've come across their delicious muesli, porridge and snacks, and perhaps even more recently a Brookie's slow gin from their Kate Byron Distillery located on Brook Farm, run by Will's brother Ed. Brook Farm is a family affair and it started with Martin and Pam Brook bought a sight unseen farm just outside of Byron Bay.
Pru Chapman: When they arrived, they found an absolutely barren hillside, much to their dismay. Today's episode takes us right from these early years to creating their first batches of muesli, regenerating the rainforest on their land, and always having sustainability in their sights. At the core of Brook Farm is a family owned business, and today I chat with Will Brook, the current CEO and the son of founders Martin and Pam Brook. This is good business at its best. Will joined me in the Byron Bay studio for a chat.
Pru Chapman: Hey Will, and welcome to the show.
Will: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Pru Chapman: An absolute pleasure. I had the absolute pleasure of going up to the distillery on the weekend and doing one of the tours, and we've just been raving about it to you just before we've gone live here. It's an incredible piece of land that the Brook family have up there. But from what I understand is, when your parents bought it quite a few years back, it didn't exactly look like it looks now. So can you tell us a little bit, rewind us to that time, where they were at and what they thought they were buying and what they got?
Will: Yeah, so mom and dad bought the farm way back in 1988. So I was two years old. I didn't have a lot of input into it at that stage, but it actually came to be two families that we used to hang out with all the time in Melbourne. It was actually a pin in the map scenario. Pru Chapman: Oh wow.
Will: To go on a dual family holiday, and it just happened to land really close to Byron Bay. Someone said, yeah I've heard of Byron Bay. We'll go check that out. Then they just fell in love with the place, and I guess from there really wanted to almost immediately put some sort of roots down so that we knew it was special, what do we do, how do we stay here. Mom and dad actually bought the farm sight unseen, and when they got up there, they were like holy moly, what have we got ourselves into. The farm was essentially a barren wasteland. It was an old unloved cattle farm or a dairy, and essentially it was mostly weeds, grass, and you might have seen a few photos of the distillery of what it used to look like. Pru Chapman: I did see a few photos.
Will: There was nothing there.
Pru Chapman: Absolutely nothing. Completely barren.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: For everyone listening, they can have that imagine their mind like old cattle trodden land. It was pretty much flattened, wasn't it? Will: Yeah, pretty much flattened. That rich volcanic soil we've got up here, you can see in the photos because everything is so barren. But no one was really utilizing that amazing land for very much. It wasn't exactly a regenerative when we got it either
Pru Chapman: It's interesting, isn't it, because it's literally five minutes outside of the town center of Byron Bay, which is-
Will: Exactly, overlooks Byron Bay. Pru Chapman: Beautiful, absolutely beautiful spot, and surprised me because I thought, when I read about this rainforest, I thought it was going to be so much further out of town, but it literally overlooks the town.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: It's incredible, but yet was so ... I guess different from what you'd expect if you were buying a sight unseen. Will: Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. I think really what happened next was I think somewhat by chance. Dad was a film producer, mom was a dentist, which is not the usually transition into farming and into food, but they got some really fantastic advice about what to do with the farm, and one of those was planting Euclid forests. One of those was planting macadamias. Macadamia is native to this area. It's a subtropical rainforest tree.
Pru Chapman: Oh, nice.
Will: A lot of people used to think it was an American tree because the Hawaiians kind of took it and took it back to Hawaii, or the Americans took it back to Hawaii, but native to this area. Then there was further advice about this little tiny miniature patch of rainforest down here. There's a few trees. We should look at regenerating that. Then I guess that's where it all just snowballed. They took it, they ran with it. They discovered a passion for, not only macadamia farming, but regenerated rainforest.
Pru Chapman: Did they have either of those intentions when they bought the farm? So they'd been on this trip to Byron Bay. They knew that they'd want a little piece of the magic. It's hard not to get swept up in the magic of Byron Bay. Did they come up here to become farmers because, as a film maker and in the dental profession, this is a pretty unusual choice.
Will: They just rolled with the punches.
Pru Chapman: I love that. It's 1988, everything is wild. Roll with the punches.
Will: You've got two kids, so me and my brother on the way. It was one of those things. I think what happens to a lot of people is you kind of just fall in love with the area. Byron's changed a lot over the years and the whole raging hands, but there's still something really special about it. Once you get into the macadamia and the farming side of things, and the rainforest regeneration, it just becomes an addiction passion, and it's really influenced us in everything we do at Brook Farm and Kate Byron Distillery. I guess mom and dad were probably a bit sustainably minded before that, but this is another step again.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, I love that. Probably, that's the really 80s mentalist I think behind ... well, it's probably the 80s mentality combined with the magic of Byron, because I know even my parents, as we were growing up, they were just so handy. Even now, it just seems like they know how to do everything just because they were willing to give everything a go at the time. My dad fixes his own surf boards. The other day, I found out that he knows how to take the starter motor out of a car, and he's a school principle. These things are crazy that they would actually know how to do.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: Then I think combined with Byron because there's not necessarily a lot work wise going on up here. Even to this day, when people come here, you have to be really creative with how you're going to make a livelihood for yourself.
Will: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's ... they had their strengths and they kept doing the things that they were doing that was their full time job. I think it was also a willingness to take advice was a big part of what became successful business, because if we went in there and started planting macadamias and said, yeah we should be fine, read a few books or something and let it go, and the same with rainforest regeneration. All of those things have to be measured, calculated and done intelligently enough. We also wanted to do it a certain way, to do it sustainably to be regenerative and not just put pesticide down and things like that, which can be that older traditional farming method, which isn't really the case so much anymore.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, particularly around here as well.
Will: Yeah. Pru Chapman: So having been to Brook Farm, and it is now absolutely beautiful out there. The beautiful eucalips.
Will: It's pretty stunning.
Pru Chapman: The rainforest, and I think it's over 35 thousand trees that your family has planted there.
Will: Yep.
Pru Chapman: So the regeneration is just absolutely incredible. And a plug for the [inaudible 00:09:06]. Guys, if anyone listening is coming up to Byron, you should really go and check it out. Like I said, it's just a few minutes out of town and it's beautiful up there. This was part of ... I guess it needed to be regenerated, not only because ... well part of the reason for farming, which goes into a deeper happening, which was the big scrub. So can you tell us a little bit abut that, because I hadn't heard about this until I went up to the farm on the weekend.
Will: Yeah, so the big scrub was ... and there's only tiny little pockets of it left now. It was a large expanse of rainforest that stretched down south of [inaudible 00:09:43] all the way just about up to Tweedheads. It was a really dense low lying subtropical rainforest, which was just a hive of flora, foreigner activity, really dense in that respect. Basically, in early 1900s, late 1800s, when we're looking to start farming this area, that essentially got mostly cleared. So there's less than one percent of that remaining. So we've got ... essentially what we advocate for, and there's a group called Big Scrub Land Care who do this exceptionally well as well, is if you have big scrub rainforest or you have the opportunity to be able to plant and regenerate, it's just such an important part of what this area used to be.
Will: Also, if you want to effectively farm, particularly with macadamia, which is a subtropical rainforest tree, you want to be regenerating the flora and foreigner that are native to the area to be able to assist that farmer. By regenerating rainforest, we were able to increase pollination. The natural management of pests was huge. So by not baiting and using the rainforest, we've got owls that look after the rats. Rats just chew through macadamias in seconds flat, which is kind of scary. Snakes, and all the other plant and bug life. It's just really an integral part of what should be happening in the area.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, and that's fascinating to think about that, that it was this huge rainforest track from the south of [inaudible 00:11:30] up to almost the coast. Talking about that on the weekend, just mentioning that it was literally in less than 10 years, it had been cleared to less than one percent of what it was, which is huge.
Will: Yeah, humans are very efficient in doing things when there's that short term goal. I think that's a perfect example of that. You can take it from 50 thousand hectors, even more, of rainforest, to less than one percent in less than a decade.
Pru Chapman: Wow.
Will: Pretty scary.
Pru Chapman: Scary and also kudos to you guys for doing something about it, which is awesome.
Will: Thank you.
Pru Chapman: Okay, so they came up here, you guys as a family. You small, your brother on the way. We're going to get into it in a minute, the whole family business side of things, because I think that's really incredible what comes across about Brook Farm as well. So they started off with macadamia, and you have a whole range of beautiful products now. What came first?
Will: So I guess, if I go back one little step, so we were macadamia farming. Mom was still doing the dentistry, dad was still doing the film stuff. When we moved up to the farm, we wanted to do something better with macadamias. So previously, macadamias were shipped off, covered in chocolate, put a little cute koala on the front, and you sold it in a tourist shop somewhere. So what we're really passionate about doing is doing something that is as delicious and showcases macadamias.
Pru Chapman: Cool.
Will: So the first, before the products that we have now, the first trial was a macadamia mayonnaise. No preservatives, so following that ethos. It didn't go that well. It was great mayonnaise. It just only lasted a day or two, so not a commercial product.
Pru Chapman: Right.
Will: Then we went back a little bit further. We came from Melbourne and what we loved about Melbourne was we could get great muesli at cafes. My mom's dad, grandpa Mick, always made his own muesli. He was a ski pioneer in Victoria, so we were like we can't get that up here, let's make our own. Through a lot of taste testing and trials, and all those things, we came up with the toasted natural and gluten free muesli. So I guess the macadamia is what we really try to showcase, but even before that it's about flavor and taste, and it's inherently healthy. The macadamia is just a ludicrously healthy nut to be eating in the oil as the nuts themselves. All those benefits that you get from coconut or avocado and things like that, the good fats, macadamia does that, except you can cook with it. You can have it straight as a dressing, everything. So pretty much everything we do, we cook with macadamia oil. It's kind of grown a little bit from there.
Pru Chapman: It really has. Things have escalated quickly. I love how you guys have done that, really utilizing something that's native to this region, which is the wonderful macadamia tree with all of the beautiful nuts and the beautiful properties. Then also brought your own heritage, which we were talking about just before we went on air as well, which was this cold climate folk and this inspiration from your grandpa Mick making his own granola.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, it's really cool. It's really cool. Okay, so where did things go from there? You started making the muesli, and then was it just trial and error with launching your products into the market? When did they give up their side hustle? This is a pretty full on side hustle they've got at the moment.
Will: Yeah, so when we officially moved up to Byron, my dad did give up his side hustle and was working on the farm pretty much as his full time gig. Mom slowly gradually sort of [inaudible 00:15:38] so there'd be a few people around Byron, she would have mended their fangs along the way. From the first genesis from those taste trials, we were test subjects, me and my brother Eddie, as well as friends and family, and things like that. They started basically in the family kitchen. So from there, it was finding a place to be able to bake the product that was more than one tray at a time, which was a local bakery, and then somewhere that we had to pack it, which was another place that we got our ingredients from that was locally. Then putting that all in the back of the truck and taking that to the markets and selling it at the Bangelo markets or the Bangelo Post Office. A lot of the retailers around this region still have people that took us on at the very start. Will: It's one of those things looking back where me and my brother helped. We were younger at that time.
Pru Chapman: Taste testing.
Will: We were taste testing. We were sticking labels on bags. We did some of the baking, some of the packing, but you're almost blissfully unaware that mom and dad were essentially doing everything they do during the day time, and then at night baking muesli and packing muesli, and then we were up for school often doing it all again. I think it was just making a great product allowed them to be able to expand the market and then create new products along the same vein.
Pru Chapman: Because you really have got such a premium product in the market and just every time I purchase it, I love it. It's so jam packed with goodness, and it feels like that's something that really underpins everything that Brook Farm puts out is this dedication to inherently healthy foods. It sounds like that might stem from your grandpa Mick.
Will: Yeah, it does. We just don't compromise on the quality of the product. So if we wanted to have a cheaper product, there are sacrifices that you have to make on either the quality of your ingredients or the quality of your recipe, the complexity, and that's just something that we're not willing to do. We really stand by it. That's the things that make it healthy. They're the things that make it taste amazing. Yeah, and I think that's ... Then going back to Mick, he was a really passionate, driven individual. So he was a pioneer of skiing in Victoria. He was an over 80s skiing champion. I think he got pit with the post at his last race by like a 90 year old who only won by handicap, which was one of those things that's just completely grated on him.
Will: He also managed sports craft, a number of other quite large business. Big shoes to fill. But certainly an inspiration for I guess being a better individual in business, that's for sure.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, I love that. It's just coming across with your story as well about how just really organically the business has grown. Literally the whole family getting in there, rolling up your sleeves, doing what needs to be done, starting at the local markets, which are amazing around here.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: Then getting taken on by retailers. Now I think is it over 300 retailers you have around the country? Will: Yeah, we have even more than that. So every state through the independent market is who we sell through, so through your IGAs, your grocery stores, your corner stores, delis. Everywhere in between from all over Australia. Pru Chapman: Amazing. Has that been quite a purposeful choice to not go with the big retailers?
Will: Yeah, definitely. Definitely an intentional choice because we didn't want to be dictated to in terms of our margin, and that's one of those things about not compromising on the quality of the Brook Farm product, because we know macadamias are an expensive product, and they're expensive they're just so good, and they're in ... it's not the easiest thing to be able to grow. So you can compromise, but we choose not to, and we've been very, very well supported by the whole independent sector in Australia in terms of retailing. So it's a strategy that's worked very well for us.
Pru Chapman: That's amazing. Interestingly, about 80% of our listeners are business owners, so I think it's really important for them to hear that about really you guys sticking to your values and what you believe in, and knowing what are non negotiables for you and being really well supported in the marketplace as a result of that.
Will: We're also really intentional. We're a family business, but a generational family business, which makes a big difference in our decision making. So we're not growing our business with the intention of selling and to have liquidity in Brook Far, that's designed to be going to the next generation, which is myself from mom and dad, but it also means that the people that work with us, so the rest of the crew at Brook Farm, are able to understand that we're making longterm decisions, that we're not making a snap decision because we need to increase our profits in the next six months so that we can sell or ... yeah, it's am important part of our thinking.
Pru Chapman: That's really really interesting, and I imagine it definitely does come across in everything that you do, and would influence every decision that you're making.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: I imagine that must be challenging. It probably has had challenging ... I don't know. Has it been challenging or does it make it easier? I'm not sure, because guess having a premium product, and I know muesli is not a cheap thing to make, and particularly yours. It's jam packed with absolutely amazing ingredients. Will: Yeah. Pru Chapman: It must be ... is it a tussle or just sticking by those values makes it easier?
Will: I think it's ensuring that the people around us understand that that's our purpose. It's actually one of those things that attracts people to work at Brook Farm is that it is a family business and that it's a longterm business. I would say that the crew, and we've got an amazing team of people at Brook Farm, they really do understand that that's what the purpose is. So when you have those conversations, we can come back to why we've made those decisions. What's the purpose behind it, what's the strategy behind it, because it's not just digging our heals in the sand and being stubborn. It's got a strategic thing to it.
Pru Chapman: Incredibly. Now talking about this generational business. So somewhat recently took over as CEO.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: Did that change much or did you just change your title, because you've been involved since you were two years old. Will: It definitely changed. I guess there's a level of responsibility that's there even if it just comes with the title, which I find I really enjoy. So I've got a strong sense of responsibility for the people that work with Brook Farm. Part of that comes with being a family business, but also comes with the job I guess. Me and mom work really closely. So mom was the CEO, but she was very, very heavily involved with the product development. By that, I mean pretty much all the products are mom's recipes. You also get to a stage where that was a massive focus for the business and we want to ... mom's time is often taken up by product development or taken away from product development by managing the business.
Will: So yeah, it was a good change. It wasn't one of those things that was really sudden and overnight, but yeah I certainly love it, that's for sure.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, amazing. And keep mom in the kitchen. She's doing a really great job.
Will: Yeah, she's doing a great job. We've got about five or six more new and amazing things that are just bubbling away.
Pru Chapman: Oh really?
Will: Yeah, it's pretty exciting.
Pru Chapman: That is exciting.
Will: Very good snacking and taste testing.
Pru Chapman: I did say that just before we jumped on air as well. I said I imagine there's a lot of good eating and drinking that happens at your house.
Will: Very good. Christmases at our place are pretty special.
Pru Chapman: I want to be in Byron for Christmas. That sounds pretty amazing.
Will: Good food, good drink.
Pru Chapman: Awesome. Now talking about drink, you launched a distillery not too long ago. Of course that's where I was on the weekend. So how does one go from muesli to gin? Will: It's a long story and it involves my brother quite a bit, my brother Eddie. So Eddie-
Pru Chapman: And he's your younger brother.
Will: He's my younger brother, yeah. Despite being taller. Pru Chapman: They always have fun the little ones, don't they? They always have the most fun. He's the one that's got to do something with the gin.
Will: Yeah, that's right. He's got the constitution for it much more than I. I'll stick to the healthier stuff.
Pru Chapman: The older child, always responsible. That's like me.
Will: Yes, very responsible. So Ed worked in the alcohol industry for quite some time, in bars, particularly in high end drinks and cocktails, and things like that for quite a bit of time. One of the jobs that he had was working for a distributor down in Sydney that handled [inaudible 00:25:52] and the botanist gin. The man responsible for the mastermind behind those is a man named Jim McCuen. He's kind of like the [inaudible 00:26:02] of the distillery world. So he's an absolute genius. Ed got the opportunity to essentially chaperone him on a tour of Australia, which that would have completely blew his mind meeting his hero, all those types of things.
Will: So they were together for these. I can't remember how many spots that they were going, but packed out venues just to hear Jim speak. As they were traveling around, they got to talk about where you grew up. He was telling about the farm. He was telling about the rainforest regeneration, about the trees that are in the rainforest. So not just the macadamia, but davidson plum, white aspen, cinnamon myrtle. All these amazing flavors that are part of the rainforest. I think the worlds that Ed uses, Jim says we were meant to meet. So from there, it's just the inspiration, these are the flavors that we could make a beautiful gin with, and it's kind of the rest is history.
Will: So we were very fortunate to take Jim on as part of the Kate Byron distillery business. Three years ago, we created our first, Brookie's dry gin, which was a pretty special little moment. That's basically foraging from the rainforest, native raspberry, davidson plum, native ginger, all these flavors that you would have tried in the gin on the weekend.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, I do, and it was so incredible to have the tour and actually be walking around the rainforest, around the edges of the rainforest, and be picking leaves and tasting them and smelling them, and making all the flavors that we're tasting in the gin not too long after. I do have to mention here as well that I went with my partner Fernando, and we went with some friends. Fernando has always said that he doesn't like gin. Gin is one of the only things that I do drink, and he's always said that he doesn't like gin. He actually realized at the tour that he just doesn't like the tonic that gin normally goes with. He was actually a big fan of the gin. It was so clean, it was so delicious. The flavors were insane.
Will: Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Also, a great thing about the distillery and the tour is you get to deconstruct how the gin is created and then try and identify that as you're tasting it. So the tonic definitely masks it a little bit. It also depends what tonic you use. I recommend using a really nice tonic. But I do just have the gin by itself, and it's a good, fun thing to do with friends where you're just trying to pick those little bits of flavors. Even the one that's the most special, you might have had it in your GNT, was the aniseed myrtle.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, we did. We had it off the tree.
Will: Yeah, beautifully soft aniseed flavor, which is native to this region. It's just one of those special little pieces of Barnaby or pieces of the big scrub.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, incredible, and really a stand out. It has to have its own mention here on the podcast, was the Brookie slow gin. So can you tell us a little bit about that because, if you're listening to this and you drink or you don't, you should be tasting this gin. It's amazing.
Will: Yeah, so the Brookie's slow gin. That's our little cheeky take on slow gin, which uses the slow berry. So slow berries are this tiny little really tart ... sort of almost grows like a little ground shrub in the UK and around sort of that northern area of Europe. They can grow them in Tazzie as well. So ours is slow, S-L-O-W because it takes a really long time to make. So rather than using slow berries, which aren't native to the area, we use davidson plums. So we take our gin and we take davidson plums. So the Davidson plum is a really unique little plum, which like the slow berry is the great, great granddaddy of the current plum. Very, very tart. It's kind of like a convergent evolution where a similar thing just developed in two completely different parts of the world, and has this beautifully tart sweet flavor.
Will: It's like a sour warhead if you bite into it when it's fresh, but did you get a little taste?
Pru Chapman: Yeah. Will: It's usually pretty surprising.
Pru Chapman: Haven't had sour warheads mentioned for a while.
Will: Yes. It's hoping back to mid 90s or something.
Pru Chapman: Childhood, yep. Will: We steep that in our gin for about 10 to 12 months. That lets all those beautiful flavors sort of come out and steep into the gin. It develops a really beautifully soft port like characteristic. Until the cure, so we back it off with a little bit of a natural sugar syrup that we get locally and you've got slow gin. Pru Chapman: Yeah, and it would be almost criminal to put anything with it other than to drink it straight. It is delicious. I was cursing everyone that I was driving on that particular day. I had to really hold back.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: What I'm sure everyone is gathering from this conversation we're having is just how passionate you are about utilizing the natural ingredients that are native to this region and really putting them on a pedestal, and infusing just the commitment to premium product that you guys are putting out. It really is ... anything that comes out of Brook Farm just has that stamp of quality all over it, and it's so interesting to talk to you and [inaudible 00:32:05] those values and hear about that real commitment on a number of different levels, committing to that sense of quality.
Will: Yeah, absolutely. It drives pretty much everything that we do. If we can take that another step further with the davidson plum, just to try and build a business and a market for that plant, which is very, very native to this area, is something special for us too. We even ... I brought you a bag there, but the davidson plum we also use in the wild berry granola. What we're trying to to is, A, create amazing products, but also create a sustainable supply chain for those as well, encourage people to farm these products that are native to the region.
Pru Chapman: Which is incredible, and it goes beyond sustainability. It really does. It goes that step further to ensure the survival, and not only to ensure it but to enhance it.
Will: Yep.
Pru Chapman: Amazing. Now, when I was on the tour and we were taking the wander through the rainforest area, we actually learned about a lot of the native ways that you're dealing with pests or your not doing that traditional motive ... I shouldn't say traditional actually, but modes of farming that have been around, which are really insecticide heavy. Will: Yep.
Pru Chapman: Pesticide heavy. So can you talk us through some of the natural things, because there are some really curious ones in there.
Will: Yeah. So I sort of touched on it before, but one of the big things that we did was actually just stop baiting. That was a massive one. So if you're a rat eating a macadamia that we don't want to have obviously, invasive species or that type of thing, and really damaging for your crop. If we bait for them, they eat the bait, they're on their last legs, and something like a snake or an owl says, oh great, there's a rat there, I will come get that. Then you've obviously got a poisoning issue for the snake, for the owl, for the bird, whatever that might be.
Pru Chapman:
Right. Will: So just by stopping baiting, the foreigner in the rainforest started to look after itself and started to look after us as part of that as well. On the macadamia side of things, we use a little tiny wasp called a [inaudible 00:34:39] wasp. You probably would have seen them in these little cups that hang from the trees.
Pru Chapman: I did, yeah.
Will: That's a really amazing little creature. So there's a bug called a nut borer. She's exceptionally damaging, can be exceptionally damaging for the macadamia industry.
Pru Chapman: Nut borer.
Will: Nut borer.
Pru Chapman: Yeah it's name gives it away. It's a disaster.
Will: It's not good news. So that little wasp that we actually get in the mail, which kind of freaks out the postman, although it's perfectly safe, looks after the nut borer for us. It's called the integrated pest management is what that is. We do that in conjunction with, whether it's the CSIRO or some people that are creating some new method of pest management. We're a smaller farm, so we're able to be a little bit more agile and test out those things. That was one of them that was exceptionally successful.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, it was interesting to see all those little cups hanging everywhere.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: Fantastic.
Will: You probably would have seen even ... it's not in pest management, but the native bee hives.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, I was just about to ask you about those. The stingless bees.
Will: Little stingless native bees. So you've got European honeybees, bumblebees, and then the amount of native bees. You just go and google Australian native bees, and there's just an incredible aray of species and colors that, if you look and you see them, there's ones with little blue stripes that are solo. They're not give bees. But those little guys, they create a honey called a sugar back honey. Only like one or two kilos a year, so we don't steel any from them, but amazing pollinators. Solo they're incredible, and they're nice and safe to have around and things like that as well. Pru Chapman: Yeah, amazing. They're cute little things.
Will: Yeah, they're cute little dudes, or girls. They'd be the girls I think.
Pru Chapman: When you know they're not going to sting you. Yeah, right. Awesome. We could talk about this all day. It's a fascinating area. I just find it so interesting as we have those conversations. A lot of the conversations we have here on the podcast are really around sustainability and using business as a force for good, and activating this kind of change. We are reverting back to were our grandparents were with these more natural modes of farming and pest management, and even as you were saying, the foods that we're creating as well.
Will: Yeah, I think that that's an important part of what we do, especially dad now, and mom, is that they're real advocates for good business and also sustainable business, or sustainable farming, particularly on dad's side of things. While it might not be 24/7 in the business, they're out there. Dad's out there advocating, these are the things that you can do in your farm, and trying to spread the word to say this is what we've done successfully. If you do this and you create a more sustainable solution, it's going to have a benefit. It's not something that we do sustainability just for the sake of sustainability. It's got a net benefit. Sometimes you just need people to realize.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, and it's commercially really powerful, I think on a number of levels. Like you say, not spending the money on the pest management, not losing the macadamias, probably increasing the crop, and then also attracting the right kind of consumers as well and having those inherent values both to your business and to the family side of business as well, insures that you attract a sticky kind of customer.
Will: Yeah.
Pru Chapman: That are prepared to pay for a product at its worth value and will buy it again and again and again.
Will: Yeah, absolutely. The thing for Brook Farm is, while it's a product that's higher priced then something you might find is a very standard product on your shelves, it's kind of like banking a little bit, not just for your taste buds, because it tastes great, but you're banking just a little bit for your health. You don't actually need to eat as much of it because it's so nutrient dense. Yeah, that's some of the message that we try to put out there, but also helps that it tastes pretty good.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, and I would put the health benefits of it and the taste on equal footing, because when you do eat it, you feel nourished eating it. You can just tell how much goodness is in there. It's not comparable to the other muesli on the shelf.
Will: Yep, exactly right.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, look, I'm on the sales team. From now on guys. I truly do love it.
Will: Yeah, throw you on the team. You sure know something.
Pru Chapman: Awesome. Okay, so you've taken over as CEO and your parents still play an active role. So mom in the kitchen and dad really out there advocating for better farming practices.
Will: Yeah, absolutely.
Pru Chapman: Is Eddie still really involved heavy in the distillery?
Will: Yeah, absolutely. So the way that it kind of works with our two businesses, which is quite fortuitous really is that we essentially just split them down the middle. So I look after the majority of the Brook Farm business, and Ed looks after the majority of the distillery side of things.
Pru Chapman: Oh perfect.
Will: Then what we do as a family is we come together and discuss strategy, maybe over a gin and tonic or something like that, maybe a little bit of a snack. It works really well. We kind of both manage either of our businesses, but then it's kind of like a family advisory board where one of the good things about family business is you can have nice open conversations. You can even get into as much as a heated argument, and then five minutes later we're all having dinner together. Pru Chapman: Right. Does that happen very often, just out of curiosity, because is the business thing- Will: The heated argument or the dinner?
Pru Chapman: Yeah, well I imagine you ate dinner fairly regularly, but because you've all been in this together right from the get go really, do you have big differences or are you all fairly aligned with where the business is going and how it should get there?
Will: We're all pretty much aligned. So when I say heated discussion, that would be exceptionally few and far between. One of the things that we decided on was a family charter so we understood where all of us were in terms of our ethics, ethos, strategy, those types of things and to put that down on paper. That meant that it puts a little bit of a framework around those discussions should we have to have them, but I would say exceptionally rare. It's more often that we're just enjoying good food, and my kids around, and to mom and dad's, and we're swimming in the pool or cooking on the barbe, or something like that. We're all very much aligned.
Pru Chapman: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Okay, now you just mentioned your kids. You've got a family of your own, and three kids, all pretty young. You're 33 yourself, so quite a young family around. There's a lot going on. Is it quite the juggle for you at the moment, or is it just part of life? Will: Well, it is just part of life. I guess three kids, it's a lot of fun. They're three of the most beautiful kids. My wife, Jess, is amazing as well. She's also got a little side business making children's clothes, so sustainable children's clothing brand as well. So we do-
Pru Chapman: Give her a shout out. What's the business?
Will: Ark and Eve. P
ru Chapman: Ark and Eve.
Will: Ark and Eve is the business.
Pru Chapman: Perfect.
Will: So if you look on the Ark and Eve website, you see these incredible clothes that she's designed.
Pru Chapman: Awesome.
Will: But I think, in terms of the juggling, you go through phases of getting used to your unsustainability of that. So you have to be quite intentional about how to manage time, how to manage family time, how to manage business, because I think in the long run, the family is the most important thing, and what's your legacy? Are you going to be the guy that's always working and is never there for his family? When you're later in years, you don't want to look back with regret. I'm confident that I won't. So quite intentional about the amount of time that I allocate between business and between family, because it's just such an important part of me and a real source of inspiration for everything else that I do as well. Pru Chapman: Yeah, amazing. Will: I think that's been a work in progress. I'd say, from a few years ago, I'm way better at doing that now.
Pru Chapman: And we learn, don't we, as we go on.
Will: We do.
Pru Chapman: I think business can be a hungry thing and also an alluring thing if you've got that style of personality, instead of the carrot and the stick that you can fall into, but making some conscious decisions about how much of a role you want it to play in life is always a good thing. Will: Yeah, exactly. I think it's the conscious decision because it's easy to just be unconscious about it and say I'm working really hard and all those things, but to really understand what impact you're having, not just on your business, but on your family, and making decisions that match both of those. It's a balance, but it's a fun balance.
Pru Chapman: Good one. What have been your big challenges to date in the business?
Will: Challenges to date. That's a really good question. I think challenges to date is ... Brook Farm, we've been going for quite a long time. I wouldn't say a really long time. We're not old world or anything like that by any means. Next year will be our 20th anniversary since the first bag was hand written and dated and stamped on the dining room table.
Pru Chapman: Wow.
Will: I think one of the challenges for us is ensuring that we, not maintain our product quality, because I think that's so inherent in what we do, is making sure that we're diversifying what we do for our customers and keeping it interesting for ourselves as much as everyone else. So we've got this amazing core range of the toasted gluten free muesli, natural granola, porridge, everything in between. If we don't diversify, you've got the risk of being same same. So I think that's one thing that we've done recently quite well. So we've recently just launched our new baby cereal.
Pru Chapman: I saw that.
Will: Which has been incredible. It's a completely different part of the supermarket shelf. It's got a different purpose around it. It's around introducing whole foods to babies to also introducing tree nuts to babies to prevent ... The goal is and the research shows to prevent anaphylaxis and allergic reactions later in life.
Pru Chapman: Wow.
Will: Yeah, I guess that's one of the challenges that we've had that we're trying to meet at the moment.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, good one. So staying true to who you are, and at the same time staying interesting and relevant and commercial in your market.
Will: Yeah, exactly. One of those other challenges is we export them. Making sure that we can tell our message in export markets is always a challenge, but we've got to ... Again, it's just finding the right partners who can represent us as well as we think that we can represent ourselves.
Pru Chapman: That sounds like something that's come out throughout your story today is, right from the get go, making sure that you're surrounded by the right people.
Will: Yeah, absolutely.
Pru Chapman: Reaching out for help. Also, so what's next for Brook Farm?
Will: What's next for Brook Farm.
Pru Chapman: Mom's in the kitchen. Sounds like she's got some big things coming out.
Will: She's got a few really good things bubbling away, but they're all very top secret at the moment.
Pru Chapman: Got it.
Will: Our focus really is around the baby cereal. It actually came about ... it was three years almost of product development and research. My daughter had eczema and still does, so it was one of those things where that was kind of the influence for what we were doing to look at how you can prevent allergies in kids. Yeah, so that's- Pru Chapman: Three years in the making and it's literally ... what was it, two weeks ago it launched. Will: Yeah, only a few weeks ago.
Pru Chapman: Incredible.
Will: It's a long process, and we wanted to make sure that it was 100% right. So there's a lot of research that's gone into it. We've partnered with clinical nutritionists and allergists to be able to get that done.
Pru Chapman: Wow. What's the vision for that?
Will: The vision for that is to ... I guess the ideal world is that we're advocating for the prevention of allergies by creating resilient kids.
Pru Chapman: Love it. Will: That's it in a nutshell. We do that with ... I try and do that with my kids, trying to promote as much resiliency as possible rather than bubble wrapping them. We need to do that nutritionally as well. A really diverse array of foods that we eat, and I think the baby cereal is part of a bit of a catalyst for that.
Pru Chapman: Awesome. I'll have to check it out. Okay, well to wrap us up, I'm going to ask you a few rapid fire questions that we ask all of our One Wild Ride guests here. So to kick us off, tea or coffee?
Will: Coffee. Espresso.
Pru Chapman: Nice. Fate or free will?
Will: I think free will. I'd like to think free will anyway.
Pru Chapman: I like it. Do you have any kick ass daily habits in place?
Will: Not kick ass ones. My daily habit is I get up with our kids first, often before first light, especially the five month old. In terms of kick ass daily habits, the most kick ass one is me and my wife Jess, we exercise together just about every evening or so, and then we have a sauna, so we do exercise in sauna together. It's a great way to just spend time and look after ourselves.
Pru Chapman: Oh, I like that. All right, if you could jump on a plane tomorrow and go anywhere in the world with anyone, where would you go and who would you go with?
Will: I would go to South America. I would love to just go into the Amazon. I would love to see Machu picchu. I've heard it can be a bit of a tourist trap sometimes, but just that part of the world is nothing that I've ever experienced before, and I'd love to do that with Jess.
Pru Chapman: Lovely. If you get to Brazil, Brazil is one of my favorite places in the world with a Brazilian partner. It's like the air is magic there. There's something just so insanely crazy wonderful about it. So I'm holding vision for you. Okay, who else would you like to see me interview on the podcast?
Will: Who'd I like to see you interview. So we just did ... Actually we supported this guy who's incredible called Jeff Wilson. He's doing the longest unsupported travers across the South Pole.
Pru Chapman: Oh, wow.
Will: If you talk about resilience and endurance and enduring hardship, that guy is just incredibly inspirational.
Pru Chapman: Is he still going across, or is he back?
Will: He's still going. He's' still going now.
Pru Chapman: Okay.
Will: So we actually supplied some product that was special product, Polar Granola, which we don't sell. It was specially made just for him so he can take in enough calories, because he's at minus 40 and down.
Pru Chapman: Wow.
Will: So all of the elements trying to kill you, and he's there by himself traveling across Antarctica. Yeah, he's a pretty inspirational incredibly guy.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, amazing. I would love to interview him. Actually, that's one of my intentions this season we're in at the moment is more wild and crazy adventures.
Will: Yeah, he's hard to get onto at the moment.
Pru Chapman: I would imagine so. I don't think the interview will be by satellite phone.
Will: Yeah, we'll wait until he's back.
Pru Chapman: I'll wait until he's back. Awesome, all right. Then finally Will, how can people connect with you?
Will: You can connect with me via LinkedIn. That would probably be the easiest way. Other than that, I'll be probably in a playground somewhere playing with the kids on the weekends. So you can just grab me.
Pru Chapman: Come and say hi. Awesome, Will. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute treat.
Will: No worries, a pleasure.