Brand & Butter of Agriculture with Maureen Ballatori

22.329 - 40.676 Kristin Demoranville

Welcome back to another episode of the Bites and Bites podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Demarenville. Today, we're shifting gears a bit from our usual technical discussions to focus on something equally important, branding and marketing in the food and agriculture sector. Why should you as a cybersecurity professional, food expert, or OT specialist listen?

40.956 - 62.944 Kristin Demoranville

Because brand is everything in the food and agricultural industry. It's all about trust. And as Maureen will explain, that trust is foundational to our work in risk management. Her unique perspective on branding is invaluable and can enhance how we approach our responsibilities. So let's get started. Maureen, thanks so much for being here.

63.304 - 80.784 Kristin Demoranville

I'm actually super excited that you're here because this is a topic that we haven't talked about on the podcast yet. And I'm excited for the listeners to hear all of your wonderful wisdom nuggets that you're going to definitely drop on us. So let's just start off with what I always start off and I actually really do adore this question. What is your favorite food and your favorite food memory?

80.904 - 83.606 Kristin Demoranville

They do not need to be the same thing. Okay, they don't have to be the same thing.

83.746 - 111.808 Maureen Ballatori

So currently I love dairy and which is probably a controversial thing in today's day and age, but I'm discovering a sensitivity to fluid dairy, which is new and interesting, but I eat a lot of cottage cheese because it's so high protein, it's so versatile, it's great for breakfast. So I would say that that dairy in general and cheese, right? Who doesn't love that?

111.908 - 137.271 Maureen Ballatori

So dairy is currently my favorite food and my favorite food memory. You hit me with this right before we went on and I was like, oh my God, I don't know that I have one. I guess, you know, I grew up on a dairy farm And so maybe that's where some of my secret love of dairy comes from is just knowing where it comes from and being connected to that experience. So perhaps mine are connected.

137.571 - 151.183 Maureen Ballatori

And that just growing up on a dairy farm and being close to agriculture, like eating green beans out of the garden. And literally my dad had this milk jug that he would go down to the tank in the morning and like fill it up with raw milk for our breakfast.

151.363 - 179.635 Kristin Demoranville

breakfast cereal and like I distinctly remember that as well so dairy all around and unpasteurized milk or raw milk has a different flavor for sure I mean I realize that's a controversial conversation anybody from food industry is probably cringing just chill out we're talking about like a while back right the hippies will love it though because it's the new thing now is it really is yeah it tastes like liquid ice cream that's the only way to describe it to you because I've had it as well and it's amazing and but again I'm not advocating for anything so nobody think that it

180.815 - 196.263 Kristin Demoranville

I love the use of cottage cheese because I'm on a real cottage cheese kick right now too, because it's a quick snack too. And you don't feel guilty eating it. Apparently people become quite inventive with their cottage cheese. Yes. Like recipes. I saw someone add cocoa powder to it the other day, blend it up and it turned into ice cream.

196.283 - 200.184 Kristin Demoranville

And I was like, okay, I can get behind that because I don't feel guilty eating that.

200.364 - 208.128 Maureen Ballatori

Yeah. And throw a scoop of flavored protein powder in there too. And you're doubling the protein and got more flavor and then it'll taste even more like ice cream.

208.369 - 229.562 Kristin Demoranville

That's good because I thought I was the only one who threw extra protein powder in there. Because I feel like, especially as women, we just can't get enough protein. We are sneaking it into everything as much as we can. I even dump protein powder in the pancake mix I make myself. Oh, smart. And nobody knows. Well, now they do. I'm like, how are they going to know?

229.622 - 248.536 Kristin Demoranville

I'm literally like, how are they going to know? Yeah. They dump enough syrup on it. So why would they know? Right. But it's good for me because then I can have one pancake and not feel like I'm like destroying my day. Yeah. Anyways, a dairy farm. That must have been amazing. I'm sure you had your favorite cows. So I, yeah, I mean, I didn't know anything else, right?

248.576 - 263.626 Maureen Ballatori

But looking back now, I'm really grateful for that experience. And I'm sure it's one of the reasons why I landed in food, beverage and agriculture as our specialization at Agency 29. But it was a lot of like just walking through the creek and exploring.

263.746 - 286.771 Maureen Ballatori

you know visiting with the cows and the chickens and you know all of that walking through the barnyard thing that really stunk for me is I was allergic to hay so my sisters and my cousins and our friends and everybody always loved to climb the hay bales and the hay barn and I you know I'm I'm not one to be told no in life and it probably started there probably before that even

287.051 - 303.739 Maureen Ballatori

And so I would always go and just deal with the consequences later. And I would be like a sneezy, itchy mess afterward. And was it worth it? Probably. But it made for a challenging thing when all the kids were playing in the hay bales and I would come out just dripping.

304.059 - 319.649 Kristin Demoranville

Oh, I'm sorry. I feel that. I think I knew somebody who had a hay allergy, rode horses when I was a kid and obviously we were feeding them hay and things like that. I think someone said they couldn't touch it without gloves. Otherwise they'd break out into hives. And I'm like, that's really aggressive. But they still rode. They still dealt with the pain. They didn't, yeah, I wanted to be there.

319.729 - 337.445 Kristin Demoranville

So I completely understand that. But I'd never heard of a hay allergy until then. I was like, that's a weird thing to be allergic to. Yeah. Makes sense though, based on, you know, all allergies that we have now. Right. Kind of the seasonal bliss that we all deal with. Yeah. Thank you for that. Will you introduce yourself since we've already kind of gone down that road a little bit? Sure.

337.465 - 362.181 Maureen Ballatori

Yeah. So I'm Maureen Bellatori, founder and CEO of Agency29, which is a creative brand building firm for food, beverage and agriculture brands. So that means we do strategy, identity and ongoing marketing work for folks who are in those industries. So sometimes we're working directly with ag producers. Other times we're working with industry folks. Like we work a lot with Cornell University.

362.221 - 372.989 Maureen Ballatori

We just did a shoot at Cornell University's dairy research barn down in Ithaca earlier this week. And then we also work in consumer packaged goods as well.

373.07 - 389.889 Kristin Demoranville

So both food and BEV for CPG. Yeah. And I think we ended up connecting because I stalked you on LinkedIn. I'll just be honest. And because I noticed that you were working a lot with small vineyards and medium sized vineyards. And I was just like, who is this woman? I must know her now. Like, this is amazing. And the fact that you keep going on site.

389.929 - 410.787 Kristin Demoranville

And I think it was that one post that you put up and you're like, look, I got gifts because my clients are awesome. Oh, yeah. Yes. I was like, yeah. Yeah, I was like a woman after my heart and I had to talk to her. So yeah, I think it's amazing what you do with these companies. And I think also watching the community building that you've done. I know it's like online and things like that.

410.827 - 420.174 Kristin Demoranville

And obviously, you know, that's what it is. But I can tell that it's really life changing. And you can see it, you know, when what's happening. And you also work with some restaurants too, right? Like restaurant brands.

420.494 - 441.335 Maureen Ballatori

Very minimally because it just, restaurant margins are so slim that it's really hard for it to make sense for them. So we do work with a restaurant chain has like 18 locations across the Northeast. But we don't work really with any small independent restaurants just for that reason. Economics don't make sense.

441.536 - 453.404 Maureen Ballatori

But we do work with some breweries and wineries, like you mentioned, too, which when they serve food is kind of a similar space. I do want to go back to what you just mentioned about community building. That's a really important.

453.644 - 478.48 Maureen Ballatori

thing to me, not only in the grand scheme of being a member of my literal community where I live, but also like building community online and creating a supportive place where I was just talking with somebody earlier today about the new trend for building in public and sort of sharing what it means to be building a business.

478.78 - 489.743 Maureen Ballatori

and what goes on behind the scenes with that and the struggles and the wins, you know, and everything in between the mundane days, the should I do this inner dialogue that kind of tends to go through your head.

489.803 - 513.672 Maureen Ballatori

And so I last fall started posting more frequently to LinkedIn to share more about that publicly, you know, in terms of just the stuff that's going through my head, like I want to do more speaking engagements. And so that was a goal a year ago that I started and then I got really vocal about it. And Now I'm booking them left and right all over the United States, which is really, really fun.

513.993 - 533.591 Maureen Ballatori

But I'm also a what's the next thing on the horizon person that I feel like now that I've reached that goal and I'm very happy with where that sits. I'm thinking, what's the next thing? Should I write a book? I feel like I should have a book. What should the book be about? And so I go to that well of communication. community to get their opinions, you know, from the people who know me.

533.752 - 545.541 Maureen Ballatori

And so like that's and those who don't write that are like finding me and learning about me and like I can hear from them. What's resonating is just a really fun thing for me. I love it. That's that's great.

545.561 - 562.992 Kristin Demoranville

And keep doing it because we need more of that. Less of the crappy noise that we all deal with. But, you know, I like the positive vibes for sure. Mm hmm. I know that obviously everybody's like, why are you talking to a marketer like this is a technology podcast? Well, marketing is super important to technology. I don't know if anybody's caught that yet.

563.212 - 580.584 Kristin Demoranville

I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of cybersecurity marketing. Shout out to anybody who's listening from that side of the house. But branding to the food industry and the ag industry is super important. And that's why I wanted to have Maureen on because I really want to dig into that. And like what that means for us is trying to protect the brand from a different side of the house.

580.984 - 598.561 Kristin Demoranville

In today's day and age, can you give us kind of a little bit more of what branding means to the ag sector now and the food industry now? And you can even give us a little timeline if you want, because the branding really kind of took off like in the... I'm going to say the 40s, probably a little before that, but we really felt it more after that. What do brand means to these companies?

598.841 - 615.677 Kristin Demoranville

What's important about it from a food and ag standpoint? Because like, why do we need branding in food and ag? Tomato is a tomato, right? Like, why do we need to brand the tomato? In fact, I can't even name a tomato brand. Actually, that was really sad analogy. Yeah. I should have thought of something else. We'll talk about milk. We can talk about milk. There's so many brands of apples.

615.697 - 631.766 Kristin Demoranville

Well, actually we've done a lot of apples and that's an excellent example. And also what happens when a brand suffers and we can say from a cyber attack or an incident and what that does to the brand and how do people stay resilient through that? Do they stay resilient? Can they stay resilient?

631.846 - 640.311 Kristin Demoranville

And I don't want to necessarily talk about like super crisis management because that's not a world I want to get into with you. But from your standpoint where you've seen it, go ahead. Yeah.

640.671 - 667.683 Maureen Ballatori

So in terms of what a brand means, the first thing that I want to emphasize on that is that a lot of times when people hear brand, they think logo. Yeah, that's true. And there's so much more to it. That is like one minuscule part of your whole brand. It's important for your logo and your look and feel. So your visual identity, your logo is part of your visual identity.

667.703 - 692.336 Maureen Ballatori

Your visual identity is part of your brand. It's important for those things to be consistent, but they are just one piece of the puzzle. The important part of what a brand means is the story that you tell, the strategy behind what you're building and why, how you intend for that to resonate with your target audience, who your target audience is. Is there demand?

692.456 - 714.048 Maureen Ballatori

You know, those are like some external factors as well, you know, kind of mixed in there. But all of those alignments are what get to a strong brand. And so when you are consistent with that visual identity, as well as your story, as well as your strategy, that's where you have a strong, cohesive brand.

714.548 - 740.419 Maureen Ballatori

So I'll tell you a story of a client that whenever I reference them, this was from way back before I got loud with my voice of that's stupid. If somebody had a stupid idea, I don't say it in that way. Right. But, you know, it's a learning moment. We're having a learning moment. Yeah, I will. Young me used to take instruction from clients and then say, that's what you want me to do.

740.439 - 758.497 Maureen Ballatori

OK, and go do it. Whereas now we are advisors. Agency 29 is advisors, right? So like our role is to hear from you what you're looking to do or create or where you're looking to go or what you are trying to sell and who you think it's for and all that stuff and then check it, right?

758.558 - 779.315 Maureen Ballatori

And provide feedback on it and do the market research to determine if the alignment that you think is there is actually there. We had a client who we, when we talk about them, we reference them as ready, fire, aim. Why? Because they would, they pivoted their, they were, they are no longer in business. They were in business for years.

779.895 - 801.683 Maureen Ballatori

about six years and they rebrand not only rebranded multiple times in terms of changing their look and feel multiple times but they also changed their core customer their core offering like everything about it it was a food place a food business but like are we this are we that and it just it was like whiplash

802.103 - 824.541 Maureen Ballatori

So I think that whereas where you see strong brands and one of the reasons why I love agriculture is that it's frequently generational, right? It's that there's a lot of learning from one generation to another that, you know, has a lot of a lot of longevity in it in terms of the lessons that are passed on and over time, right? To strengthen that story.

824.821 - 851.306 Maureen Ballatori

So you were mentioning like, why do we need it? Why do we need a brand? And so it is in that vein of alignment that I was just talking about. So who is your customer and how are you trying to reach them? So we need branding to create that alignment and cohesion, right, with a potential customer. So we'd said apples, right? Like with something, and it's especially in commodity products, right?

851.366 - 872.005 Maureen Ballatori

So like apples, you could argue what's the true difference, right? Between this apple and that apple that you pick up at the grocery store, they're apples. They're by and large, pretty similar across the board. But a Honeycrisp, which is an apple that many people are, a variety many people are familiar with and love, tastes very different than like a Granny Smith.

872.385 - 897.411 Maureen Ballatori

or a Macintosh or an Empire, right? And so like apples, I think is a really interesting branding story where the variety name has come through as something that resonates and people look for. I like this apple. I don't like that apple. And so the branding is what helps people find that differentiation between the products and alignment with what they're looking for.

897.791 - 913.923 Maureen Ballatori

Now, one of the new things that's happened in the apple industry in particular is premium managed apple varieties. So that's your Snapdragon, Ruby Frost, Pink Lady is another one. There are licensing fees that the growers

914.503 - 933.002 Maureen Ballatori

of those apples pay to specially market them so that's where the managed part comes in and they're like an ultra premium apple they're you know they're genetically bred to meet a certain taste profile and that sort of thing all that to say that's probably more than these cyber security listeners ever wanted to know about apples

933.482 - 951.211 Kristin Demoranville

But you know what? Everybody's really curious, though. So I'm sure somebody was like, wow. And you got me thinking that it's like the opposite in wine. We know wine based on the brand name of the wine, not the grape that goes in it. So I always get sort of flustered when people ask me, well, what's your favorite wine? Because they're expecting me to name a brand. And I don't keep track of brands.

951.251 - 970.139 Kristin Demoranville

I keep track of grapes. Like I love a petite for dough. That's like, that's my jam. I love that stuff, you know, and I can't name a brand that does petite for dough. Cause it's a blending grade for dough or very good. If you're on the U S side, it's something like that. But it's so funny how apples are sort of like risen up as their, their actual name. I'm sorry.

970.179 - 972.96 Kristin Demoranville

I just find that to be really fast. That's fascinating me already.

973.32 - 996.197 Maureen Ballatori

Yeah. And wine still has that, right? Like I like a Chardonnay or I like a Shiraz, right? Those are also varieties that are agnostic to the brand. And so there may be a brand that you enjoy of Chardonnay, right? It's different. the brand is what helps people find that alignment. And I think that's I think it's a good way to explain it.

996.297 - 1021.814 Maureen Ballatori

So the other question that you asked was what happens when someone stopped when some someone suffers and how to stay resilient? So like a bad thing happens? And what do you do? How do you respond? One of the things that I think has been great about how today's founders and companies are typically conducting themselves is with an amount of transparency that didn't used to happen before, right?

1022.274 - 1046.266 Maureen Ballatori

Whereas if a company makes a mistake or something happens, it is very common to publicly say this thing happened and here's what we're going to do about it. Because what does it all come down to is trust. Your brand is building trust with your consumer that you can know me for this product or service and I will consistently deliver on that and you can trust me to

1048.287 - 1067.226 Maureen Ballatori

that the apple's gonna taste relatively the same. The wine's gonna taste relatively the same. There's gonna be, those are agricultural products. So of course there's variation, you know, from the land and the wind and the rain and the sun, you know, year over year. But by and large, you are trusting that brand to deliver a consistency to you.

1067.907 - 1090.827 Maureen Ballatori

So then when something happens that the brand falls short on that, whether that's a cybersecurity attack or that's something happened in the supply chain or whatever it is, it is common for companies to send a message out to their followers that is transparency first. This thing happened. We are sorry. We take responsibility.

1091.227 - 1108.774 Maureen Ballatori

And here's what we're going to do to make sure that it doesn't happen again. And I should also I spent five years working at a law firm, so I should also preface that by saying I shouldn't say make sure that it's not going to happen again because you can't promise that. Right. Can't guarantee anything. We here's what we're doing to protect ourselves from this in the future.

1108.854 - 1119.042 Maureen Ballatori

You know, something like that, right? From a legal perspective, I'm not an attorney. This is no legal advice, whatever, you know, but in the grand scheme of things, making sure that you're being transparent.

1119.362 - 1135.791 Kristin Demoranville

I think that that's a very optimistic viewpoint of what's happening in the industry, because a lot of times you can't talk about a cyber attack. It's like Fight Club, you know? Usually there has to be a massive investigation. They're asked, the lawyers get involved. There's possibly a privacy violation, all these things.

1135.911 - 1149.414 Kristin Demoranville

And I think the founders of the companies that are small, medium, not necessarily large, maybe a little large, are more inclined to be more transparent because they can be, because they can be more agile, right? There's less detriment.

1149.454 - 1165.303 Kristin Demoranville

So if something like a larger brand, like, I don't know, one like JBS happened or Dull Package Lettuce or any of those, that's a different conversation because that's, major, major dollars. That's major, major issues. This is why I do love our big brands. Absolutely.

1165.583 - 1186.54 Kristin Demoranville

But I love our small mediums because they need more love from us, both on a technology front and a marketing front, because they are doing this out of a major passion. Could be that they're sharing a generational recipe depending on the product that they're making. So there's a lot more personal effectiveness and you'll be affected personally more so if you're tied to the brand in that regard.

1186.78 - 1206.709 Kristin Demoranville

This is what I wish cybersecurity in general would share more across the board. We tend to keep things really close to our chest. And for those who are listening, they know I don't have to like beat them. This is a dead horse conversation, honestly. But it's hard. And I love that the food industry, especially, and I know you've seen this, Marina, is really trying to be transparent.

1207.11 - 1223.4 Kristin Demoranville

Transparent in all aspects. Food safety, food defense, the whole, they talk about it. I sit in these conferences and they talk about it. We're trying to be more transparent. They want to be so transparent that they actually go down to the exact seed that grew the product that potentially caused the problem. Yes. Which I think is brilliant.

1223.42 - 1236.276 Kristin Demoranville

And I really hope that that carries forward into technology more and more and more because we need it to. We desperately need it to. I think that how can a consumer trust a brand if they don't even understand what they're doing on a digital front?

1236.556 - 1256.981 Kristin Demoranville

right yeah so that's that's the that's the weirdness that's going to start happening more is that consumers are going to drive this hey i need you to be more transparent because look at what the company a is doing they're doing that right why aren't you doing that you're bigger than them and badder than them like what's going on um yeah i'm waiting for that moment it's happening slowly but i'm waiting

1257.981 - 1279.598 Kristin Demoranville

which makes it a unique challenge when you're building a brand right because that's that's part of it like consumer response so how how do you how do you deal with consumer response to a brand like negative or positively i suppose that's something i've always wanted to ask like how do you how do you negotiate that how do you adjust the branding based on customers because what if they didn't like your apple

1279.978 - 1306.026 Maureen Ballatori

Mmm. Well, probably depends on what it is. Because taste, you just made a taste reference. Taste is first and foremost. Yes. If someone buys your product and it tastes like crap, they're not going to buy it again. That's correct. And they'll tell their friends, don't buy this. Yeah. Because that is the number one driver of purchase and repurchase is taste. Everything else comes after that.

1313.471 - 1313.07 Unknown

100%.

1313.611 - 1330.001 Maureen Ballatori

Taste is number one. It is the, do I think this is going to taste good? Studies have shown that that is the primary driver of purchase. Now, packaging makes a difference. Sure, it can catch your attention on shelf. And so packaging may drive curiosity, which...

1330.681 - 1352.387 Maureen Ballatori

might compel the purchase right they're like oh that looks kind of cool i might want to try that but if they don't think because of the way that it's it's explained or the way that it's shot or the way that it looks in the bag if they don't think it's going to taste good they're not going to buy it because why but why would you that's the primary use case of food is to consume it

1352.907 - 1376.81 Maureen Ballatori

So you want it to taste good, you know? And then there's all sorts of other drivers that are sometimes personally motivated, right? Like if somebody's like, oh, I seek clean label or I choose vegan or I have a necessity to be gluten-free, right? Like those things are also factors, of course. What your question was more so about what do you do if...

1377.691 - 1391.029 Maureen Ballatori

something doesn't go right right and so like i think taste is a little bit of a of an outlier of a scenario if it's you screwed something up it is that transparency angle right of what what do you do to fix it

1396.564 - 1418.97 Kristin Demoranville

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Bytes & Bytes podcast. Your support means the world to me. I have some really exciting news to share. I've been nominated for the Women in Podcasting Awards in the Technology category. please vote for the show. Your vote would be a huge help in gaining visibility and raising more awareness for cybersecurity and food and agriculture.

1419.39 - 1430.363 Kristin Demoranville

Voting is open from August 1st to October 1st, and you can find the link in the show notes. Thank you in advance for all who vote, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Now back to my conversation with Maureen.

1432.438 - 1453.175 Maureen Ballatori

Now, a really interesting thing that's happening right now that I think we could talk about for a bit is the milk contamination, right? That's happening right now. I'm far from an expert on that subject. I'm far from even an amateur. I just know it's happening and I know it's bad. And so I have...

1454.096 - 1478.671 Maureen Ballatori

I've spoken with some friends at BioISAC who are working on that and they're aiming to make sure that the farmers are protected from a cybersecurity standpoint because it's a big question of where did this start and how did it scale and how big of a problem is it and how big is it going to get and where did it come from and nefarious behavior.

1479.051 - 1498.772 Kristin Demoranville

Where did that nefarious behavior start? Was it human-driven? Was it an accident of a fat finger? We don't know yet. Was it physical? Was it digital? Was it intentional? Exactly. And I believe the entire operational technology security side of this listening house just went, mm-hmm. They all went... Oh, yeah.

1498.832 - 1516.321 Kristin Demoranville

The milk contamination thing is interesting because it's in the media, but it's not really in the media. It's sort of in this like, we're not sure. Nobody wants to report yet until we have more findings. But we're all talking about it and we're all nice about it. And it's funny because in the last six months, and it's funny, not funny.

1516.661 - 1533.58 Kristin Demoranville

But I've been saying, like, what if a hacker or a bad actor decided to mess with the pH of milk? I've actually said this on air multiple times. And and here we are and build contamination. I'm not saying I'm a I'm a fortune teller and I didn't have any insider information at that point. I just use it because milk is very prevalent in everybody's life.

1533.62 - 1550.371 Kristin Demoranville

You know, we put it in tea, we have it with cereal. We make pancakes with it. Like it's just kind of one of those things that we all know what it is. And if a milk supply was damaged in any way from district and a distribution front, we're in big trouble. Like it's a problem. Think about that from the brand perspective.

1551.171 - 1576.662 Maureen Ballatori

Yes, please. Milk as a brand. So not, I'm not talking about a brand of milk, right? Like Coca-Cola owns Fairlife. I'm not talking about Fairlife. I'm talking about milk, the agricultural product. What does it mean for an attack like that for the larger landscape of the milk industry? It means exactly what we just talked about with the other issues. It means concerns of trust, right?

1576.882 - 1593.227 Maureen Ballatori

For this new issue is just begging the question for people who were already, consumption of fluid milk has been declining for a number of years. I want to say at least 10. It's been declining rapidly. Value-added product consumption is huge.

1593.607 - 1619.985 Kristin Demoranville

dramatically increasing so like people are eating more cheese more cottage cheese more butter stuff like that you know like remember the whole butter thing with like the butter boards was a whole thing that was nasty by the way like the fact that people were creating butter boards i don't know if listeners know what these are it was very popular in tick tock especially during the pandemic when they were smearing butter on a cheese board if you will and then like sprinkling various topics then a topic on it like honey salt whatever

1620.205 - 1626.248 Kristin Demoranville

And then they take crackers and eat it off the board. Now, if that was just a party of one, like a girl dinner, like no problem. I should have that.

1626.508 - 1644.419 Maureen Ballatori

But if it's like a sharing thing, that's nasty. If you think about it, that's from a food safety perspective, there's a lot of issues with that. A lot of times that board is wooden. And so a lot of contaminants can- Very porous. Exactly, exactly. So, but all that, I digress.

1644.499 - 1669.869 Maureen Ballatori

The point being people are consuming a lot more value added, but there's been a decline in consumption of fluid milk for the last 10 plus years. And so what will this mean? What will this scare mean for the consumption of dairy products? from the general public, what will this look like on the chart, right? When we look back at 2024, will we see a dip from this? Who knows?

1670.049 - 1679.117 Maureen Ballatori

And I think that that will also be determined by what happens from here because we're still new in the development of this, right? Yeah, very new. What's...

1679.878 - 1699.941 Kristin Demoranville

How is it going to develop? Don't know yet. We don't know. And also, it's not just a U.S. problem. It's a global problem. This has happened in a couple other countries, like Japan is an example with kids in school. And milk is important to that culture as well. They have milk right after they leave an onsen, a spa. I remember being a kid. I drank milk after I would go running.

1699.981 - 1713.251 Kristin Demoranville

I was a long distance runner in college and high school. And it was always milk you went after because you wanted that electrolyte sugar hit. You know, that's what you wanted. And those kind of things. So this is going to change people's routines. It could change up a lot of things.

1714.312 - 1733.096 Kristin Demoranville

I think it's scary because I remember the milk ads when I was a kid, like the milk mustache, like all the different ads about being strong. Got milk campaign. That was huge when we were kids. Yep. Huge. And that was that was the brand identity. I mean, it still is in some ways. I think they still do the gut milk in some aspects, in some places.

1733.436 - 1752.922 Kristin Demoranville

I have a good friend who lives in Wisconsin and, you know, he's going to probably be working. His next job will be in a cheese factory. I was just going to say Wisconsin cheese. They've done a remarkable job branding themselves. They really have. I mean, I think having the football team with the cheese heads probably really helped. But let's be fine. But the Midwest in general is known for cheese.

1752.982 - 1770.815 Kristin Demoranville

I mean, I lived in Minnesota for a while. I mean, cheese curds were a thing like I'm not fond of them. They just were like oversized cottage cheese to me. And I wasn't really OK with that. Cheese is an important part of everybody's lives, whether you eat it or not, because there's plenty of vegan cheese that's delicious. And there's some controversy on vegan cheese.

1770.855 - 1783.347 Kristin Demoranville

And I understand that because it did almost win like a major award this past year and then happened and it got bumped out. It was a blue cheese, actually, which is even kind of more strange. But vegan cheese actually can be quite good. Like, it just depends, right?

1783.508 - 1804.694 Maureen Ballatori

Yeah. Yeah. There's also a big controversy on milk for plant-based milk. What can be called milk? Why is plant-based? So I'm doing a talk for a dairy convention here in a few months, and I'm talking about consumer trends in the beverage industry. And one of the things I plan to reference is plant-based beverages.

1804.914 - 1812.937 Maureen Ballatori

And so when I wrote my description for that talk, I put in that we'll talk about the rising trends of plant-based milk. And they said, you cannot refer to it as milk.

1813.197 - 1836.846 Maureen Ballatori

you have to refer to it as a plant-based beverage oh okay i could see i could see where people would be upset by that and it doesn't exactly reflect because it isn't milk right it is just a plant-based beverage right but nobody wants to say plant-based beverage that's well it's one of those things that that the brand sort of got ahead of the in the branding got ahead of the industry in that interesting right yeah your plant-based milk alternatives

1837.466 - 1855.167 Maureen Ballatori

started coming into the market and no one said you couldn't call it milk. And then all of a sudden there's all these milk alternatives on the market that are plant-based beverages. And then the dairy industry was like, wait, there's, why can they call it? That's not milk. Why can they call it milk? But it was, you know, the regulation takes a while to catch up and right.

1855.567 - 1870.224 Maureen Ballatori

So there's no there's no one saying that you can't say that. And I suspect that what will happen is we'll get to a point where the government will say in order to call yourself milk, you have to come from an animal of some kind or otherwise you have to call it a

1870.604 - 1896.936 Maureen Ballatori

alternative or something like that like we have a client that has a plant-based cheese it's a plant-based parmesan and so they have to on the package we had to designate dairy-free and so it says like in small letters dairy-free and then big letters parmesan and then below that style so dairy-free parmesan style cheese it works i mean i'm sure somebody will accidentally mistake it for parmesan but that's okay you're surprised or not i don't know

1898.3 - 1912.071 Kristin Demoranville

It's very good. Most people can't tell the difference, to be honest. Sometimes the flavorings are so good, you can't tell the difference, especially the texture thing. But not everybody's palettes were fine for texture. So, you know, it's one of those things. But yeah, I never thought about it like that. Wow.

1912.151 - 1929.283 Kristin Demoranville

And to think that the branding got ahead of it, that's fascinating because that's a good way to take out a brand too. If you think about it, if you were a nefarious bad actor, because social engineering is ultimately what we deal with in cybersecurity at the core, whether it's through malware and all these other things you have to manipulate in order to get through.

1929.563 - 1947.113 Kristin Demoranville

If you manipulate the branding that far, that actually could lead to a cyber attack as well. So if you think about it, it's all sort of part and part in the long run. And I realize everybody's like, that's probably far-fetched, Kristen. No, it's not. No, it's not. Because at this point, nothing surprises me. when it comes to what we deal with on a daily basis. Yeah. Wow.

1947.153 - 1955.395 Kristin Demoranville

That's, that's fascinating. So lactose free milk is still considered milk then, right? Cause it's still a product of an animal. It's just, they took the lactose out. Yes.

1955.975 - 1980.062 Maureen Ballatori

Right. So like that was just my own understanding. That was my own understanding. Sorry, everybody. I'm just curious. A2 milk is a lactose free milk. And so yes, that is still milk. Wow. Okay. Like I'm actually learning things today. This is amazing. And again, in terms of what the regulations currently say, plant-based milks can call themselves milk. We have a sunflower milk client.

1980.542 - 1993.768 Maureen Ballatori

So it's sunflowers and water. And the way that they blend it, it is a milk, plant-based beverage. And so they call it a milk and they are allowed to. But technically it is, you know, it didn't come from an animal, it came from a sunflower.

1994.028 - 2012.915 Kristin Demoranville

I just, I'm so fascinated that we have literally taken almost every nut and seed because actually a sunflower is a seed, obviously. Yep. Most nuts are seeds actually. And we've somehow made them into these beverages like that. And that wasn't a thing we thought about 30 years ago. That was not a thing. I mean, you drank milk. That's what you did. Right.

2013.115 - 2030.72 Kristin Demoranville

You had a glass of milk with your spaghetti at night and that's what you did. Yeah. or with your, you know, uh, grilled cheese or with your, uh, other various foods. I can't totally. Yeah. That's, that's what I even still think about it when I'm having something like that. I'm like, where's a glass of milk when I need one Oreos, how Oreo branded with milk.

2031.021 - 2054.146 Kristin Demoranville

And they're now like people are, they're synonymous together. Like you have a glass of milk with Oreos, which is brilliant because that works out well. I'm not a big dunker, but I can respect it. Uh, So how did you take your living on a dairy farm as a kid and you're doing all these things? How did you stretch it all the way to where you are now with this branding moment?

2054.166 - 2072.636 Kristin Demoranville

Because you obviously live the life. So you have this great angle of looking at things. And now you've moved into this branding conversation and dare I say anything to do with like social media and all that other fun world. How did we get there? How did we... Because you even offer your own podcast, Spill Salt, right? Which I think is a brilliant name because... Spilled salts. Awesome.

2072.676 - 2089.998 Kristin Demoranville

Like, it's sort of like it's sort of like, you know, tea, like, exactly. Right now, spilled salt. It's great. How do we get here? How do we get through all this? Because the way you know, so many people to we actually have common industry friends, which is crazy, because we have this intersection here, too. So I'm just interested. Yeah.

2090.158 - 2112.012 Maureen Ballatori

So I went to school for graphic design and illustration. From the time I was a kid, I always loved art. Like I, that was my favorite subject in school. You know, I won't talk about like, you know, you asked about a memory, like a favorite food memory. I have a favorite art memory. I remember the first time my art was on the news when like that was a thing.

2112.832 - 2130.903 Maureen Ballatori

And like I had made this mask in kindergarten or first grade or something and it was on the news. And I just remember distinctly thinking this is the coolest. I was just so amazed at the art angle, but I never wanted to be a fine artist because I loved business.

2131.263 - 2146.527 Maureen Ballatori

from a young age to like not when I was in kindergarten or first grade, then I just wanted to like cut and paste things onto a piece of construction paper. And you know, it was all well and good then. But as I continued to do art through high school and college, and I just always loved the business angle.

2146.647 - 2173.861 Maureen Ballatori

And so that led me to advertising and marketing because I could apply my graphic design skills and art skills to a medium that I felt was making a difference. And so then I just really threw fuel on that and, you know, took it to a whole other level with Agency 29. So really the reason why we focus in strategy identity marketing is because the strategic direction is the most important part, right?

2173.881 - 2191.433 Maureen Ballatori

I talked about that ready, fire, aim client. You know, if they had planned first and aimed strategically, right, at who they were looking at, then they could have done the identity to align with that. And the marketing would all fall in line. And that's how you build the brand.

2191.453 - 2213.667 Maureen Ballatori

And that's how you build longevity, build strong businesses, grow top line revenue, hire more people grow more communities, right? That was what I cared about. And so after I went to school for graphic design and illustration, I started the agency 29 as a freelancing side venture and did that for 10 years while I worked full time in professional services roles.

2213.727 - 2229.734 Maureen Ballatori

I was at a law firm, I was at a scholarly publishing company. And then after my two kids were born, my daughter's eight. So my son is nine and my daughter's eight. And when my daughter was born, I just decided not to go back to work and take the freelancing side thing to a full time thing. So that was

2230.034 - 2252.526 Maureen Ballatori

eight years ago, and then we really saw the opportunity in food, beverage, and agriculture to niche down into those industries. I saw the writing on the wall, like probably five or six years ago, and then it took me some time to get convinced that there was enough volume there, right, to make sense, to support the business. Four years ago, we niched down. So that was in 2020.

2252.906 - 2276.635 Maureen Ballatori

We niched down into FoodBevAg. And the reason why we have why I'm so connected and why I know people is because I make a point of anybody that I meet in the industry because it's so it's so much of a community in FoodBevAg that when I find someone who's doing that work, I just like I call them or I email them or I DM them on LinkedIn and I reach out and like, hey, can we chat?

2276.655 - 2297.947 Maureen Ballatori

Because we both love this industry. And it's rarely a no, especially if it's agriculture. If it's food and bev, you know, and like you're really focused on like scaling a CPG, you know, and your resources are limited and like every second matters. I have had no's from CPGs on occasion. But if I ask a farmer, can I come out and see your operation?

2297.987 - 2311.574 Maureen Ballatori

Can you take me through or a manufacturer of food or a beverage? Can I come through and see what you're building? They love to show it off. And so I've built connections that way and it's a true personal joy.

2311.594 - 2330.383 Kristin Demoranville

I think it's so important to note that you realize that you needed to niche because a lot of people think I'm crazy that I niche down in cybersecurity into food and ag. A lot of people are like, oh yeah, that's important. We probably should care about that, right? And I'm like, yeah, you eat, right? Because it's the second thing you do after you're born. You scream and then you eat. So I think...

2330.703 - 2344.35 Kristin Demoranville

I think we kind of, as humans, we kind of focus off because we're too busy chasing, you know, the profit tail. And we don't realize that we need to focus on the things that matter. Keeping people fed, water. Yeah. And you can move them to electricity and all the other fun things that we deal with in our modern lives.

2344.41 - 2359.017 Kristin Demoranville

But I think that the niching down is going to happen more and more in all kinds of industries because we need to target focus. We need to have that boutique experience, if you will. Yes. In these industries because they need our help. It's not... You can't just have blanketed skills to go into some of these anymore.

2359.057 - 2375.923 Kristin Demoranville

You need to actually know what you're talking about and walk the walk and talk the talk. And I wanted you to say all that too, Maureen, and thank you, because I want people to realize that they can do that. They can come out of their own life experiences and they can move forward into what they're passionate about. They don't have to be restricted to, I'm just this and I only do this, robot mode.

2376.263 - 2412.013 Kristin Demoranville

It can be more. It can be an impassioned moment. Agency29 is the strategic and creative agency for leading food, beverage, and agricultural brands. Specializing in strategy, identity, and marketing, Agency29 elevates brands to new heights. Discover more at www.agency29.com.

2412.293 - 2431.766 Kristin Demoranville

Founder and CEO Maureen Balotori is a highly regarded speaker and workshop facilitator, bringing visionary insights to every engagement. Learn more at her website, maureenbalatori.com. So as we're winding down here, I'm going to swing it back to cybersecurity.

2431.986 - 2441.29 Kristin Demoranville

How important is cybersecurity in your opinion from what you've talked to with your clients and fellow community for food and ag brands in protecting their business identity and customer data?

2441.55 - 2464.583 Maureen Ballatori

So I will answer that first from a personal perspective, and then I will answer it from what I believe to be my, well, what is my perception of the industry from that perspective? So for Agency 29, it's really important from a risk management perspective for us to make sure that we've got our T's crossed and our I's dotted.

2464.783 - 2479.814 Maureen Ballatori

And so some of our clients, especially those that are in more regulated industries like banking, we have worked with clients that are in banking, insurance, you know, that sort of thing. They also have requirements for how we manage their data that we receive from them.

2480.094 - 2500.939 Maureen Ballatori

So from that perspective, I've learned a lot about what sort of checks and balances are necessary for us to keep in place that it's like, Oh, well, and we don't treat anybody differently. If, if the financial firm is saying our data needs to be managed in this way. Okay, great. We had an opportunity to be educated and now we treat all of our clients data in that way. Right.

2500.979 - 2519.892 Maureen Ballatori

Where we're ready to go. Yeah. More protective. And then from the industry perspective, It's funny. So we both know Andrew Rose, and I'm sure he will be delighted to hear his name mentioned on this podcast. And he and I know each other through Grow New York, which is an international food and ag competition that happens in upstate New York.

2520.112 - 2541.195 Maureen Ballatori

He was a judge in some of the early years, and I'm involved. He does an ag chat and chew every other Friday morning every which is just like an open session of industry professionals. If you're interested in agriculture, come and hang on every other Friday morning. That really, he's a cybersecurity guy and is as much as he is an agriculture guy.

2541.315 - 2562.868 Maureen Ballatori

And so it has really opened my eyes in conversations with him and BioISAC about how much cybersecurity actually permeates agriculture and food in Beth. I had no idea. I really didn't know what was possible there. And so it was blowing my mind in some of the early chats that I had in those meetings.

2563.508 - 2588.156 Maureen Ballatori

And again, especially like I keep mentioning BioISAC, but they really opened my mind to this of how cybersecurity actually is a risk for agriculture. and what that can mean. And especially for the perspective I have about the food, BEV, and ag industries, what we know is that their margins are so slim. Their risk is so high.

2588.517 - 2610.445 Maureen Ballatori

Last year in the Finger Lakes, so in upstate New York, there was a late frost that wiped out a huge amount of the grapes in the Finger Lakes region. And there was nothing the farmers could do about it. They knew it was happening. Some of them have fans that they could, you know, put on the vineyards to try and like push some warm air.

2610.665 - 2632.893 Maureen Ballatori

Some of them lit small fires in the vineyards to keep the grapes warm. There was a little bit that was mitigated from that. But by and large, there was a huge, enormous impact to the industry as a result of that frost. And so I was aware from that perspective. I was not aware from the cybersecurity perspective, how much that is a risk.

2633.133 - 2653.1 Kristin Demoranville

It's too bad that they, first of all, that happened. And I, all my hair goes out because people don't realize how difficult farming is full stop. It's a very difficult job. It's yeah. It's a lot of highs. It's a lot of lows. Sure. Some smarty pants on here are like, why don't they just make it into ice wine? Because that's not how that works. Right. Yeah, it's not.

2653.2 - 2672.693 Kristin Demoranville

So people are trying to make the best of bad situations like California with the fire and all the smoke taint that's coming off and hitting those vines. Now, some smoke taint's okay because they can still bottle it and it's sort of got that barbecue-y vibe to it. But you can't do that for a full load of like Chardonnay or for Cabernet because ultimately ruins the crop.

2672.793 - 2689.948 Kristin Demoranville

You can't remove that taint either. It's literally a taint. And I think that this is where I think the technology is going to come in a lot more. It's already in the vineyards. It's already in agriculture. It's here. It's very much here. I had a conversation actually with a reporter yesterday talking about what type of tech is in vineyards. And I was like, a lot.

2690.128 - 2706.66 Kristin Demoranville

And I asked him while off, there's going to be more tech thrown at these problems to fix it, right? With more tech, that means more internet connected. Totally. Totally. More people who are just going to connect without realizing that it's not going to be secure by design. Most products aren't secure by design because they're out to turn a profit. So they want to get it out quickly, right?

2707.26 - 2721.566 Kristin Demoranville

They're not going to spend the time to necessarily make it secure by the hardware aspect. But when it comes to these type of consumer commodity technologies, you know, they're going out the door rapidly. And it bothers me because now these farmers have to become cybersecurity experts or IT experts.

2721.766 - 2740.833 Kristin Demoranville

Sort of goes back to the John Deere tractor moment where they had to start hacking their own tractors just to fix them. Right. Thankfully, that's now been changed and they can work on their own tractors. They shouldn't have to do that. And I've heard from other type of ag companies and like soybean is very concerned about cybersecurity. I've heard from the corn, the same thing.

2740.853 - 2758.901 Kristin Demoranville

They're very concerned. Yeah. But the problem is, is that nobody's specialized enough to start working on that. And this is where Andrew's super important and why the work I do, because we're constantly trying to be like, hi, hi, we can help. Just talk to us, please. Like, we really want to help. It's difficult because I don't want people to run around and think, oh, it's a lot. We're all lost.

2758.941 - 2762.963 Kristin Demoranville

We're doomed because we're going to have another frost and everything's going to happen. We can't fix the frost problem.

2763.183 - 2778.207 Kristin Demoranville

But if we could prep people ahead of time with technology that's prepared them for it so they can potentially, I don't know, early harvest or late harvest or whatever needs to happen, the tech will help eventually to be able to get to a point where maybe this won't be as so devastating. Maybe it'll just be more of a bump in the road.

2778.407 - 2789.559 Kristin Demoranville

But again, it's that aspect of everything's going to be connected to the internet because people want to sit in their homes on their iPad and be able to eat dinner with their family, but yet still be able to monitor whatever's going on. Yeah.

2789.799 - 2814.046 Maureen Ballatori

Yeah. And I think when it comes to the frost, it was not an early harvest, late harvest scenario. It was, it happened at bud break. And so there's nothing to harvest there. You know, it was, and so I don't know. I mean, I'd love to see 20 years from now, 10 years from now, a product that exists that helps mitigate that. He heats everything around it without setting it on fire. Yeah. Who knows?

2814.086 - 2817.347 Maureen Ballatori

You know, like a little blanket that goes around every vine.

2817.667 - 2824.688 Kristin Demoranville

It'd be like a little robot shell that like hits it. Yeah. We could have like an Iron Man shield around the vineyard. Who knows? Yeah.

2824.868 - 2837.911 Maureen Ballatori

Like, yeah, exactly. But like one of the things that is commonly being developed for wineries is one of the issues that they typically deal with is powdery mildew, which is a predictive weather factor.

2838.271 - 2860.705 Maureen Ballatori

event that you know like the weather does the what the weather does and if it if the criteria meets these things then powdery mildew happens so there is some ag tech that's that's being rolled out to wineries that is helping with that which is great but going back to what you were saying about the about cyber security and kind of you're saying like hi i can help i'm here to help

2860.885 - 2884.914 Maureen Ballatori

You know what I think the issue is with that of like why the farmers are not taking you up on that by and large is because of trust. Yeah. Farmers, they're so reluctant to trust. And again, that goes back to brand. Right. That you can continue to build the brand to be like we are a trustworthy organization. Right. And the farmers can trust us. But they're very reluctant to do that.

2885.174 - 2906.705 Maureen Ballatori

So when organizations reach out and say like, I would like to help you, you know, they're like, but why? But what's in it for you? Why are you trying to help me? Yeah, yeah. What am I going to lose that I'm not, I don't know what questions to ask you to know what I'm going to miss out on by you winning whatever you is in it for you to come and try and help me with this. Right.

2906.825 - 2913.008 Maureen Ballatori

But you're really coming from a place of like, I just want to like help you still exist. Yeah. You know, so I think that that's the issue.

2913.088 - 2932.578 Maureen Ballatori

And I don't know what the answer to that is other than, you know, I think that the agricultural community in particular is you get one and then you get their neighbor and then you get their neighbor and then you've got the community and then you get the next community. You know, is that that's the way that agriculture tends to agriculture, you know, products and services tend to grow.

2932.998 - 2934.438 Maureen Ballatori

Is that way because of trust?

2934.879 - 2953.364 Kristin Demoranville

Yeah, trust is a hard one. And once it's broken, it's complicated, right? Even when cyber attacks happen, regardless of if it's a product or what it is, you'd start to distrust that brand a little bit more. I'm not going to name names because it's not worth it. You definitely are like, hmm, those people had a cyber attack. They're kind of shady. I might go with this brand instead or whatever.

2953.584 - 2970.662 Kristin Demoranville

I think we're going to we're going to see that more and more. But also kind of the running joke in the cybersecurity community is you're not really a company until you have been hacked because otherwise it's going to happen anyways. But because it's happened to everybody now. So because of that, we kind of just joke that like you're real now. You're welcome to the world. You've had. Yeah.

2971.343 - 2985.192 Maureen Ballatori

And I think that the other, sorry to interrupt, but the other thing that is complicated there too, is that you're doing risk management, right? You are helping them try to protect themselves from these attacks, but you can't guarantee.

2985.432 - 2992.536 Kristin Demoranville

Yeah, no, there's no guarantee. There's never going to be a guarantee. You can't guarantee in this business. And if anybody says otherwise, please come find me. Right.

2994.057 - 3003.383 Maureen Ballatori

Yeah. So I think that that's that's another factor of like, OK, well, if you can't if you can't guarantee to me that you're going to make it not happen, then why should I?

3003.643 - 3019.994 Kristin Demoranville

I mean, there's even a term in cybersecurity called zero trust, which is basically not allowing anything to come into your network. That's ultimately what it means. But that's such negative branding, if you think about it, because zero trust to people who don't understand what that is. So what what does that mean? You know, and I could see people getting really upset by that.

3020.374 - 3040.758 Kristin Demoranville

I don't like the term. I don't use it if I don't need to. But I think that in general, cybersecurity needs a rebrand in itself when it comes to food and ag. And I'm so glad that we talked today because you definitely echoed that for me. How are we going to do that? We need to come in maybe with more peace offering. Like, hi, we come here as friends to be your farmer.

3044.081 - 3062.837 Kristin Demoranville

And I have met a lot of resistance, but I'm also meeting a lot of people that are really interested in helping and want to be supportive. Like the food protection teams are all about this. They're like, anything we can do to help food safety. And we understand cybersecurity is part of it now. So we want to help you get there. That is such a great community that I've started with.

3062.937 - 3067.781 Kristin Demoranville

And that's actually given me a lot of hope that eventually food and ag in general will break down a little bit better.

3068.081 - 3080.088 Maureen Ballatori

Let me just make one other point too about that trust and like how you come in from the top, right? And like how you come into a community and build trust. I was at World Agrotech in San Francisco in March.

3080.548 - 3103.539 Maureen Ballatori

And one of the suggestions that somebody had made was making sure that you have a great relationship with the local Farm Bureau and extension agents because they're the ones that are in the community that are trusted. that are the responsible for bringing the new innovative ideas to the community in a trusted way. So I thought that that was a really interesting way to avoid, right?

3103.579 - 3118.503 Maureen Ballatori

It's not feasible to go farmer to farmer to farmer, take me to your farmer, right? But it is, it is possible to go through channels like that, like the local farm bureaus and extension agents to get a baseline of trust.

3118.843 - 3131.95 Kristin Demoranville

I think that's brilliant advice for anybody who's listening, who's trying to break into that area there with getting to know your FBI field office so you can report these things as well. Anyways, thank you so much for being here, Marina. Like I've learned a lot.

3132.03 - 3146.338 Kristin Demoranville

So I hope the listeners have too because this has been a fascinating episode and I definitely think we're going to have to have you back probably with Andrew so we can like completely geek out about all the things in ag tech for sure. We'll need a translator for that one, but thank you for having me. It'll be all right.

3147.078 - 3161.669 Kristin Demoranville

And I will make sure that all of Maureen's information is in the show notes so you can reach out to her and her company. And if you have questions, obviously she loves to meet people. So don't feel shy about reaching out to her on LinkedIn and beyond. Thank you so much for anything you want to say before we go. No, thank you for the opportunity. This was wonderful. I appreciate it. Great.

3161.789 - 3193.544 Kristin Demoranville

Thanks so much. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Bites and Bites podcast. A big thank you to Maureen for sharing her incredible wisdom and insights. Don't forget to like, follow, and share this episode. And remember from August 1st to October 1st, vote for Bites and Bites podcast for the Women in Podcasting Awards. Link is in the show notes and on the website.

3193.864 - 3205.53 Kristin Demoranville

Also check out the show notes for the links to today's conversation and hop on over to the website for even more details on today's episode and more. Stay safe, stay curious, and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.