[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: The time is near.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: You've given it hard, now get it in gear. It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome to Passage to Profit the Road to Entrepreneurship where we talk with celebrities and entrepreneurs about their stories and their business ventures.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: I am so excited to get to our next two guests. We're going to do Pete Ferrari first talking about weight loss and drugs and different things you can change. You have an amazing sugar substitute.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Interestingly enough, part of the merits of this rare sugar, which we have named JACA includes controlling appetite through activating the GLP1 enzyme upon ingestion. So it's one of the many health benefits that are afforded by this rare sugar that we're going to be bringing to America. Once again, we've named it jaka. It's got all the formulaic badges you would want. Vegan friendly, Halal certified, non gmo, diabetic friendly, FDA grass status. But it's also been proven to control appetite, inhibit the body's ability to assimilate new fat, and burn existing body fat through the enzymes and proteins that it activates in the large intestine upon ingestion. So it's a very, very dynamic and exciting time for us to have an alternative that actually is a sugar. So it tastes, cooks and bakes like the sugar we grew up with, but it doesn't have any of the hazards that are associated.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: Does it have any negative side effects?
[00:01:45] Speaker A: There have been no negative side effects. This super sugar is FODMAP friendly, meaning it's been proven not to cause gastric distress, right? Bloating, nausea. It is Proposition 65 compliant in California militant state when it comes to adhering to protocols for foods. It has got National Sanitation foundation certification. Again, NSF very difficult to obtain FDA grass status. Their stamp of approval. It's a magical ingredient from our standpoint and why have we never heard about it. This sugar was first identified in kiwi, jackfruit and figs in the 70s, but it's such a delicate and rare sugar that it couldn't be extracted without destroying it. So enter enzymes. Now we can extract it and monetize it, but while the International Food Information Council found that less than 15% of Americans have ever heard of this sugar, actually think that number is less than 5% two years later. By contrast, Japan, probably the healthiest culture in the world, they use this sugar in north of 5,000 products. They use it to the extent that we use stevia here. So it's vetted, it's tried and true. It's really going to change the game in this country as it relates to sweeteners.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: What does it taste like?
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Tastes like sugar, my friend. It's actually a sugar.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: So it tastes the same as regular table sugar.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Tastes like table sugar.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: If I put it in my tea or my coffee, I wouldn't know the difference.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: You can eat a spoonful of it and it's not going to taste like you're chewing on a wad of tin foil like all these other sweeteners out there, or chewing on a bag of nickels. It's, it's actually a sugar. So it cooks, tastes and bakes like sugar. It's a monosaccharide. The sugar we grew up with is a disaccharide. So it's got the same molecular composition, but the molecules group themselves together differently and that's what changes it dynamically.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: I can hardly wait. You said you're gonna give me some, right?
[00:03:25] Speaker A: I'm gonna send you a tub of it. Yay.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: I wish I would have had this before Christmas.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: You know, the interesting thing is you talk about trying to lose weight. We believe that this can be the catalyst to find that trajectory of good health and well being. Because of the physiological benefits of this. Sugar controls appetite, literally sends signals to the brain, the hypothalamus, the brain stem and the parietal cortex, and says, you're full, stop eating. So literally, you can use this sugar as an instrument to find better health. And that's why we're building this company as a health and well being company equal to that of a sugar company.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: I'm wondering, how did we miss this though? I mean, if the Japanese have been doing it and it has all these.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Government approvals, there's a pretty easy explanation. And I'll try to be delicate, but if you've seen RFK in the news lately and a lot of the philosophies that he's espousing, he is spot on. And so if we were having this conversation, pre Covid, folks, I'd still be a real estate developer in Nashville. I was in my middle 50s. Life was great, huge quality of life. And I stumbled onto this sugar after I was asked to be on the board of directors of another health food company. But pre Covid the big food and beverage companies still control the narrative. Television commercials, print ads, super bowl ads. Enter Covid now 80% of Americans are buying groceries online. Post Covid now people are looking for groceries online. They're researching online. Now I can talk to people one on one. They can hear me when I start to talk about this alternative and I can capture that audience. So it's one of these things where now the narrative can be in control of the few like me. I can go head to head with Coca Cola for a fraction of the price. And so that's why we find ourselves here because of the advent of the Internet. The power.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Cost wise. How does your sugar jacka compare to ordinary sugar?
[00:05:17] Speaker A: It's going to be more expensive. Our pricing is on the sweetener end of the spectrum. So you look at Stevia's plus or minus 86 cents an ounce. Monk Fruit's the most expensive alternative. It's generally about a dollar and a quarter an ounce. We thread the needle right in the middle at a dollar an ounce. That's going to be more expensive than table sugar. Table sugar is subsidized by the government. It is very difficult to combat with that pricing. But a lot of statistics and studies are showing now that consumers are paying more for healthier products. Really understanding more and more how valuable and how important biofuel is. And so they're paying more for products and they're happy that they're doing it.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: So what is your market? Are you going to supermarkets? Are you going straight to consumer?
[00:05:59] Speaker A: We are actually going to be providing Jaka powered products, the Jaka pouches of sugar and the products that we'll be developing in a direct to consumer model over the Internet. So we're basically going the way of Gymshark and Fashion Nova and Kylie Jenner and Lip Kit. I've got the ability to provide this product with great economy and scale very, very quickly and efficiently versus the shelf space play where I've got to sit on a shelf. People may or may not know what I am. Most likely they're gonna walk by from my standpoint because this is really an early adopter type of purchase. It's an archaic way to go in the shelf space play. Initially that wouldn't have worked. I've gotta teach people what this is before we can ask them to purchase it. And that wouldn't happen if I was sitting on a shelf in a 7 11.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: So.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: So that is to come. It's just not day one.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: The way I see it though is that we don't necessarily Use a lot of sugar in the food in terms of volume. And sugar is sold by weight. So even if it is more expensive, you're only putting a small portion into whatever it is you're eating. And so the cost difference probably is not a big deal. And then if you compare it to the health benefits, then it's a win.
[00:07:10] Speaker C: If it kills your appetite, it doesn't matter what it costs.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: It's a fantastic point. And the other thing, it took me a minute to do this. Obviously Jhaka is a huge part of our lives at home. I bribe my daughter with it. She hates fruit. So I'd put together a big bowl of fruit and I'd cover it with a mountaintop of jaka sugar and she'd wolf down the whole bowl. But one of the things that you've got to understand, and it took me a minute to get used to it, is you can eat as much as you want. People typically trying to regulate the amount of sweeteners or sugar that they're consuming. You can eat as much of this as you want to. No sugar crash, no sugar high, no weight gain, no lethargy. So it's really just a function of how much you like sweets. My daughter comes home from school for break. I hand her three pounds of jaka and she makes the best sugar cookies with it. Make me three dozen and I'll sit on the couch and eat three dozen sugar cookies and nothing happens to me.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Except you're happy. Except I'm happy.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Except they don't get into bed. I don't have a butter in those things. Well, we do offset, you know, instead of oil, you'll use fat free yogurt. Okay. So there are other substitutes that make it healthy versus what you would put in a standard sugar cookie otherwise. So we're able to get around that. And there will be recipes on our website, www.jakashugar.com. oh yeah. So you'll be able to go out there and create anything you want to with Jock of sugar.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Where are you making this?
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting because we did all of our marketing, asset work, logo theming, iconography, packaging with VaynerMedia. We also did our market segmentation work with them too. Gary Vaynerchuk. And one of the things that we surmised early on was that we didn't want to wait to build a manufacturing plant to then enter the market because that's a two year play. And I was a real estate developer before I did this for 15 years. It takes every bit of two years to build a plant and get it approved. So we're starting out importing it.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: From where?
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Southeast Asia. So we evaluated 30 plus suppliers in Southeast Asia. Heavy QA. Heavy QA. It's interesting because all this is technically called psychos or allulose. All alluloses are not the same. So some of them have a very waxy feel to them. It tastes like you're chewing on chapstick. Some of them actually will sting your tongue. So Heavy qa. We landed on a number of suppliers that we trust that also operate in ethical standards. We're a pending B corp benefit corporation. So we take social conscience and environmental sustainability very seriously. So starting out as importers while we're bringing the plant up.
[00:09:38] Speaker D: So how safe is it? You said like it is safe. Your daughter scoops it.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Completely safe. There's 30 years of clinical trial behind this sugar. So you've got reputable universities internationally that have done best of their kind, randomized, double blind placebo controlled human trials, not rats and mice that are saying this sugar upon ingestion decreases bmi. This sugar upon ingestion controls appetite. So it's an incredibly unique opportunity in this country to help people find better health. And we just. I couldn't be more excited. This is the fifth company I've built in 30 years. This is the one where I can't sleep.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: When will it be commercially available?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: We're launching two one February 1st. So perhaps by the time this airs you'll be able to go to Jocka Sugar and purchase.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: You're going to give me some?
[00:10:23] Speaker B: We're going to get jacked on Jacka, right?
[00:10:28] Speaker C: What's your favorite chocolate recipe?
[00:10:30] Speaker A: I am a huge sugar cookie freak. I love sugar cookies. Now my daughter can make anything with it. She'll make cakes with it, she'll make pies with it. I can't cook, obviously, so God bless her, she comes home and takes care of daddy. And so when she makes those sugar cookies, I just love them. But interestingly enough, you know, sugar is present in 80% of foods and beverages. It's in pasta sauce, it's in barbecue sauce, it's in bread, it's in waffle mixes. So we put it in everything. We put it in our pancake mixes, we put it in our waffle mixes, it sweetens everything up, makes everything taste beautiful and nothing happens to you metabolically dissipates in the large intestine. What isn't used is excreted.
[00:11:09] Speaker D: So the Jaga sugar that you're talking about is promoted in elsewhere. It is all us.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: And here it's very little known throughout the world except for Japan. So Japan's using it, as I said, in north of 4 or 5,000 products. It's used to some extent in Southeast Asia. It's starting to gain some speed here in America. We think that it's not enough just to offer this sugar as an alternative. Hey, here's another also ran. And this industry cries wolf with every sweetener that says we taste just like sugar and you can cook with it and we're good for you. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So we're out here telling the truth now, but it's kind of a crying wolf situation. So our goal is to build a health and well being company where we're espousing the benefits of leveraging the sugar to find better health. And then through that, hopefully you'll purchase Jaka sugar and you'll become, you know, a customer of ours.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: Are you using some of the products that they sell in Japan?
[00:11:59] Speaker A: We are importing it from over there. Japan is an interesting country as it relates. So Japan is currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure to build plants to produce this sugar. Not for export, only for use inside the country. That's how much they believe in the sugar. And as we all know, I mean, clearly Japan is the healthiest culture in the world. So we've got, you know, friends of theirs where we're able to procure it and we're excited about that and the quality of the product super, super high. And then naturally, soon enough we'll have a plant of our own with our own manufacturing ip, which is where attorney Gearhart comes in and his family. So it's going to be fun to watch.
[00:12:35] Speaker D: Let us switch gears. And I wanted to ask you, how are you starting up the business but how much are you involved in the technology and what is it?
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Well, it's funny, Naga, because I was holding so much when you were speaking because I have a tech background. So I built three tech companies in Atlanta and San Francisco in the 90s. And everything that you were saying was so poignant and so spot on. The importance of your company, the importance of getting consulting services that are appropriate based upon the business. So I was fighting, I wanted to jump in because everything you were saying is so true and because I have a tech background, we decided early on that we were going to embrace ERP at an enterprise level. Because what I don't want to do, I don't want to do a stutter step. We're expecting explosive growth because it's A direct to consumer model. If I get something that goes viral, I could get a million orders in two days. Right. I can't capture that data in even SQL Server. I need to have something super, super powerful on the back end. So Shopify is feeding Oracle netsuite really the best there is. Right. So from day one, the structural integrity, that data in the back offices, back office will be healthy, it will be scalable. I won't have to go to SQL Server now and then Oracle NetSuite in two years. And as Richard said, the pain of implementing ERP, especially when you have a culture that's accustomed to potentially previous versions or types of software, that could be insurmountable. I mean, that could be a culture killer. So we jump right to NetSuite and thankfully we're one of 50 companies selected to participate in their accelerator program. So we got netsuite basically for free.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: So where is your new plant going to be?
[00:14:13] Speaker A: It's all about the raw materials and the proximity to raw materials when you're putting up a plant. Because if you have to haul that material across the country, you'll blow your cost model out. You can't, you can't monetize it. So we're looking in Iowa right now, we're looking in South Carolina right now. And it's really just a function of access to the raw material and then access to 3PL, the warehousing and fulfillment centers from there so that we can distribute this economically, keep our costs down. Because one thing we don't want to do is be raising prices. I, I would actually like to lower the prices as we get scale. I'm not greedy. We're a pending B corp. We balance purpose with profit. We're not about bottom line dollars. So if I can be scaling and I can be having a situation where my cost of goods sold go through the floor, I'm going to pass some of that on to the good people that are loyal to us.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Considering the size of the sugar market, if you capture a half a percent, you know you're gonna be in like flint.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: You nailed it, Richard. $140 billion global industry, pretty big.
[00:15:11] Speaker C: Get the sugar market, the diet market.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: And I'm reading here in the show notes that JOCA does not promote tooth decay.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: How do people find you? How do they get this amazing product?
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Jockashugar.com please come and visit us. I'm on LinkedIn as well. Pete Ferrari. I'm happy to provide my email. Email me anytime. Even, even entrepreneurs out there. This is the fifth company I've built in 30 years. So if anybody's got any questions about what to do, how to do it, how do you stay alive, hit me up and I'm happy to respond directly.
[00:15:41] Speaker C: And jock A sugar is spelled J a c a sugar.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Yes ma'am. So Jaca www.jacquesugar.com passage to profit is.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: A nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 38 markets across the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer Noah Fleishman and our program coordinator, Alicia Morrissey, and our studio assistant Risa Kat Bussari. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcast. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
