Mark LaFay is the founder and owner of Old Major Market, an artisanal sausage and baking company right here in Indiana. He's a Purdue graduate, and Mark spent nearly a decade as an entrepreneur in the music and technology industries pivoting into something more local. He turned his passion for barbecue and traditional meat craft into a thriving business, rooted in community and sustainability.
Today we're gonna be talking about how a musical technology entrepreneur takes the leap and goes all in on meat. I'm really excited if you've been to. farmers markets around Central Indiana. If you've had Old Major, you know about it. It is fantastic, and I'm really excited to dive into it. Mark, welcome to Get IN.
Thank you very much. Happy to be here
for almost a decade or over a decade mm-hmm. On the music and technology space. Yeah. What were you doing there?
Yeah, so I, so I went to college for, um, I, did I change that up just for you?
Yeah. Yeah. He called it university at first, but not, he went to, I went to college.
He went to Purdue, um, to, to get into technology. Got a technology degree. While I was going to, and I went to the Indianapolis campus, my wife always gets on me. She's like, it's not Purdue, it's also about you. I'm like, no, my, my diploma is black.
Well, and now it is totally separated. Yes. From not even together.
You So Purdue,
I knew Indianapolis. What I always, yeah, yeah. Um, uh, so while I was going to, to the university, I, um, I, I got really into, uh, subculture music, folk rock, hardcore metal, that kinda stuff. Yeah. And, um, I started going to, uh, shows the Emerson Theater and, you know, different small, like little punk rock spots.
And I, I was curious about how that happened. Like how, how does the show happen? How does what, why did this band end up at this punk club on, you know, east 10th Street and, and Emerson Avenue? And, um, so I, I just started kind of jumping into that, diving into that, and, um,
started What do you mean by started diving into that?
Well, I, you know, well, I'd been going to concerts, you know, getting involved in the music scene. Um, and then I just started, you know, asking, asking the guys that were doing the shows, like, how do you do this? And, um, and then I, I, I just gave it a try. So, um, I found some bands that I was really into, started emailing them and see if I could get 'em to, to come to India, do a show and just try my again and doing some concerts.
And
so like, hosting.
So I was the promoter, like, like the Live Nation, but like the really tiny guy, you know what I mean?
Yeah. So you like book of, like, what was the first show you organized?
Uh, so the first one I did was for a, a hardcore band out of, um, Southern California called NIV. And um, and then there's this other band.
So you were emailing 'em saying, Hey, would you come play a show? Mm-hmm. And they're like, yeah, it'll be 20 grand.
Yeah. It was, um, yes. And it, well it had a right, you know, it had a route in when they were gonna be in the area, all that kinda stuff. Not like they were gonna fly in for the show. It's not like I was gonna pay for that.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, so we put together our first show and, and that was, that was really the first thing that I'd done.
How many people showed up?
Oh man, that went like 150. Yeah. I Wow. Lost like three or 400 bucks on it.
But you learned
That's
right. And you lost three or 400 bucks and then you went back for another, where'd you host it at?
Uh, that one was at real venue called the Festivilla. Oh. Um, I guess that was that Mass Ave. But where Mass Ave is industrial over by the, the central, the industrial complex. Yeah. One the building's called. Um, yeah. So it was this small, dingy place. The guy that owned that, um, he used to have a venue down in Fountain Square called Smedley Dream.
And then, um, he closed that and opened up, uh, this place in, I don't say in like 99.
Okay.
Uh, 99 or 2000. And then, um, the dude lived there, like his, he had a, the, the Green Room was his bedroom
with Ring.
That was a crazy place. Um, but yeah, I mean I did, have you heard of a band called Mastodon?
I have heard of
it, yeah.
Super big metal band. So I did, you know, I did. Lots of shows for bands like that before they were huge. So like we did Mastodon at the Festival Villa with a bunch, a handful of other bands. It was crazy. Before they were huge. Um, we did, we did all kinds of crazy shows like Paramore at the Emerson Theater, uh, My Chemical Romance at the Emerson Theater.
Why
Gym Class Heroes at, um, the Irving Theater.
How
were Irving? Is it Irving Theater? Yeah, Irving Theater over on Irving Chin.
How long were you doing shows for?
So I started doing concert promotion in, I believe it was 2000.
Well, it's like the business model of that. Like how do you make money as a promoter?
You know, everything was day of show ticket sales. We didn't know advance. Um, that evolved. We added on, um, advanced ticketing online.
Yeah. How were you getting the word out about Paramore coming to the Emerson Theater?
It was, it was all guerrilla marketing man. It was, um, you know, finding, finding kids that loved going to the shows.
And would love to go to the shows for free. And you put flyers in their hand and an expectation.
What was like the craziest show and what was the biggest flop,
I guess the wildest show that, uh, I ever did was a band called Hatebreed. A huge hardcore band, kinda legendary at this point. Um, I mean, we're all old farts now, but you know, they've been around since the nineties and, um, probably one of my favorite hardcore bands.
And, um, they were on this tour. It was with, um, I'm surprised that my brain to remember this, a band called Poison the Well, Bane, What Feeds the Fire? And then we put a local band, all local, that little band called Ery. We, uh, we oversold the venue by almost 50%
Get where was the venue
was ever. They were sitting there.
So we put 550 people or so in there, plus guest list. It was about 600 people in the venue. You know, when he got on the stage, first of all, we didn't know that they were gonna make it or not because one of their band members had gotten us some trouble in Chicago the night before and they had to get him outta jail.
Um, they, uh, they killed that man. Uh, I just, I've got pictures of. About 350 people doing like in a circle pit in the middle of that venue during their set. Just, yeah, it was, that was wild.
We were worried like, oh gosh, I hope no one gets hurt.
Totally. And we could never get insurance like we were uninsurable.
Uh, we tried to get, um, you know, an insur, but nobody like getting live concert, uh, like event insurance is insane.
So like were you just like, hopefully no one sues me.
Yeah, exactly.
Uhhuh. Yeah,
a hundred percent.
That's crazy. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then biggest flop?
I don't know that I would call it a flop, but it was before Paramore was big.
It was the last minute they had a cancellation we did. And they were out with a band, I can't remember if they were out with Huffer Hanks or somebody else who was also became massive. Um, but it was last minute show and I think we did like 130 tickets.
And how was you? Was the ticket get to see Paramore and something
that was probably 12 bucks
you're telling.
What year is this?
Uh, that would've been probably 2001 or two
in like the early two thousands. You could have seen Paramore. At the Emerson Theater. Yeah. For like 12 bucks.
Yeah. Well, so how about My Chemical Romance?
Yeah.
So we did My Chemical Romance and um, I can't remember the other band that was out with them, but um, they were blowing up so that the album that made them massive was just starting to get, um, it was starting to get play on radio and it was, it was going bananas.
So that show sold out probably within a few weeks of us doing it on sale. And we didn't really have any options for scale and they didn't really wanna scale it 'cause they were just going for, for num like sold out numbers that put on the board. But that was crazy 'cause we had probably about five or 600 people that showed up trying to get it.
I want to say the ticket was $16.
At Emerson?
Yeah, at the Emerson. Like we, so in the early two thousands, I mean, you know, doing a gig in Indianapolis, uh, with a ticket that was over $18 was like this kind of a, it was sort of a death wish because people wouldn't pay it. And so we would always, um, argue when we were buying concert.
To put together deal structures based off of low ticket prices. And agents and managers would always get, you know, pretty pissed about that. 'cause, you know, they knew what the band would be able to command in other markets and stuff. I'm like, yeah, but it's Indianapolis. And then the other thing we would always do is we would always, it was a non-starter if we couldn't have a local band on.
So it didn't matter if it was a four band bill. We were, we were gonna have five bands. We were gonna start it early because we wanted it to use it as an opportunity to, um, to try and catapult local bands.
Yeah.
Uh, in, you know, into, um, into music. So yeah, our ticket crisis were all, it was never over 20 bucks.
How long did you do this for?
Like, aggressively until about 2009. So about, about nine, almost 10 years. And then started kinda weaning myself off of it. Um, when I. When I started the concert promotion business, I started getting exposed to local bands. You know, I found some bands that were actually, that actually had a little bit of like hype and momentum.
And so, you know, I discovered my first band that actually became my first management client. It was a band called Haste the Day, started putting them on a lot of shows. They entrusted me with managing them. They didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what it meant. We were all gonna figure it out. You had booked their first tour.
They left the state as a bunch of high school kids over a Christmas break and they went down tour the South, like 11 shows came back, made a little bit of cash the following summer. Well, we booked like a 90 day tour. Like I just was on just hammering people around the country trying to book shows. And so we play almost in every single state, multiple places in each state over the course of about 90 days, probably 75 shows.
And we, we went to every, we were in every single state on that. We got into a conversion van, we went, I went with the guys and then
just 90 days on the rep.
Yeah. Didn't come back. It was wild. And then we, um. Uh, I tried to get those guys to not, to not go to college and to just like, let's just keep pursuing this.
They all went off to the university. Um, you know, a couple of those guys were in Bible college. A couple of the guys were outta college, so one went to Taylor, two went to Moody, one was out of college.
Were they, uh, were they like a Christian group?
Yeah, they're a Christian.
Oh, that's sick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And, uh,
so you're doing a nine, a 90 day tour hitting 75 shows you and a bunch of high school seniors and a Christian rock band.
Yeah. Middleman. Yeah.
Christian metal band
and metal. Hardcore. Yeah. Yeah. And um, that's wild. Oh yeah. There's lots of wild stories that come from all that stuff, but, you know, I don't want to,
that's probably like the opposite though, of like, you know, you're onto a Christian metal band and it's like you don't have to worry.
I would Oh, I guess you're not worried about them like getting arrested in Chicago for
No.
Staying out too late. Booing
no. Yeah, there was, there was none of that. No. It was good bunch of guys, you know, they just were honestly all of them wanted to tell people about Jesus and uh
yeah. That's cool.
Yeah, it was awesome.
You, my chemical romance at the Emerson Theater.
Yeah.
$16 tickets. How do you go from doing that and then really leaning into technology?
Yeah.
And then somewhere in this, we land the blood on meat.
So I worked with a bunch of different types of bands. Not all Christian, but most of them had had a faith component to it.
And the technology kind of played into that because, you know, we were doing some pretty wild things with technology to try and promote demand. So MP three.com was a thing, and uh, so we were making MP threes, we put them online and then like specifically for Haste the Day, um, you know, I went and I got, um, some software that you could run in a web browser to strip emails out of a webpage.
And so we just went off to every single Christian college in America that published their student directory, which they used to do that. And we would just grab all the emails. So we built an email list of about 200,000 emails and we just, and I built our own, um, email marketing software that would just go through and create a personalized email and would just run through a database of emails with where we had name, email address.
And then we would just, it would make it look like it was an individual email. Kinda like what, like exactly what you would do with MailChimp, but not sophisticated at all. So we started using technology for things like that to, to try and just drive traffic, build awareness, um, get the word out. And a lot of crazy things happened as a result of that.
Fast forward about 12 years, I stopped doing concert promotion 'cause it felt like professional gambling and it just required a lot of effort. I, it just was, it's a lot of stress for what you actually get out of it. Um, you know, you have to do volume and you have to do, you know, large scale. And then really as, as that's kind of changed over the last 20 years, you know, if you don't own the insides, you're really not making any money.
When you say the insides, what do you mean by
that?
Well, I think that if you were to ask somebody from Live Nation and they were, they were being honest. Um, with you about how they make their money. It's all about the insides at the venue. So beer and popcorn. Um, I had a buddy that worked at Live Nation a long time ago, and he was like, dude, we're not a concert company.
We're a beer and popcorn company. Like concerts would just help me sell beer and popcorn. But I, I mean, there was some really great self-awareness on his, on his park. 'cause he was just like, what are we gonna do to get the people inside the venue so that we can make money on the venues? Um, and that's the truth.
I mean, I bet you if you were to look at a p and l you'd see that, um, they're not making all their money on promoter profit or merch merch percentages. They're making their money on alcohol and food
service really? 'cause everyone's like, oh, that tickets are insane and it's Live Nation and Ticketmaster and all of this.
And you're like, well, at face value when you sell those tickets, then it's like getting people in the door to buy six beers that freaking brew off. And it's that's like 250 bucks.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah. They make, and you know, you know what the cost is on that. I mean, Miller Lite, does it cost. More if it's being sold at
that large can, that 24 ounce can with the big cozy.
You
sure it's a cool can. But, uh, anyway, so like to make a long story longer, I, you know, I, I got out of concert promotion. I started winding down. Um, you know, my artist management business, it just, um, for me to grow it, I had to move. I wasn't really willing to move from Indiana. Um, I had an acquisition offer, um, about eight or nine years in that would've taken me to New York and I just not interested in living in New York, or even worse Weehawken, New Jersey.
Hard talk myself.
Yeah.
And I said, what you wanna do? And I was like, well, I don't really wanna be surrounded by Peter Pan's the rest of my life. And I really don't wanna move to, you know, LA or at the time, New York City, you know, now Nashville, I could have been convinced to move to Nashville, but it just wasn't, it, it wasn't there yet.
Um, so I just decided to get out of that and I wasn't sure what I was gonna do next. So, um, I landed at a PR company in town, working with a buddy I knew from, you know, my time in music business. He had left doing PR from, uh, for Live Nation here in Indiana and started an events and entertainment PR company and went and worked with him and helped build that up.
And then moved on and went back into technology, started working on, um, some different product ideas for a small technology and marketing company downtown that's not to fund. And then from that. Um, you know, I worked on a project to create a way to control any ceiling fan, no matter when it was manufactured, uh, with an app, iPhone app or Android app.
And so we created a piece of hardware and then the corresponding software with that. I did that for, um, a fan company up in Zionsville called Fanimation, which if you haven't, um, talked to those guys and you should dough, uh, and check the routes. Pretty sweet little operation up there. But, um, so I worked with him and then
wild, wild turn of events.
Totally. You're like music marketing technology and wait, I'll like do a brief foray into the hardware space with Fanimation.
Yeah. Yeah. Which was that mean? That was very much technology. Um, and then the, the, the founder's son who is, uh, the, he was also an owner. He was, yeah. I worked on the project with him and um, he's a really neat guy.
His name's, um, Nathan Frampton. Um, really. Just a really interesting and neat guy. Um, has a lot of interest. He's very cerebral, I guess is probably the best way to sum him up. He's always thinking about stuff and asking interesting questions. Um, but he, uh, he and I, uh, had been talking about politics a lot in 2015.
That was when Trump was getting ready to announce, to run for office. And so like the political discourse in our country was on the rapid, downward decline. And so we're like, we should, we should create a place where people can have controversial conversation, which was code word for, you know, political discourse, um, in a place where, um, you kind of set the tone, like people know what they're getting into when they go there so that they can have good conversation there, and then it doesn't pollute your, your Facebook feed.
So we, we started working on this, uh, social platform for, for politics. We're talking about politics called Roust. And, um, and so Nathan asked me to, to, uh, basically to, to run with that. So. Um, we spent about two years building a platform, trying to figure out how to get it out there, blow it up, raise some capital to do it, could not raise enough capital, and then ultimately we scuttled it.
So that's where I got to my, my segue where I was like, okay, now I'm almost 30. I had a career in music, hardly that into technology and at that point I was kind of burned out 'cause I, you know, I had been doing the fundraising thing aggressively for a year and um, and I was just burned out on everything technology related.
And
I, I
literally, I said to myself, what's the exact opposite? If I were gonna choose a profession or a job or business to build, what would be the exact opposite thing it would've been doing? And I thought to myself, let's go do the passion play. Let's go pursue, um, let's go pursue meat. Had no idea what that looked like.
I had been doing, you know, um, barbecue as a hobby. I had been doing sausage and bacon making as a hobby. And
how did you get into sausage and bacon making?
So I was always really passionate about food. Um. I loved cooking. I started cooking at a very young age. Um, I almost went to the, uh, CIA in upstate New York, the Culinary Institute of America, but not the other CIA, uh, and um, you
get it.
Just checking there. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So in 2016, I was a sophomore in high school. I started off to get all the paperwork.
Wait, in 2016
and I'm sorry, now 20 16, 19 96.
1996. You were a sophomore in high school and you sent off all the paperwork to go to the Culinary
Institute, Institute of America in upstate New York.
Yeah. So I got all the paperwork in all that stuff and then, um, and then I pivoted and I was like, no, I'm gonna be able to do technology. I feel like that might be, that might pay off, pay better, better dividends than, uh, potentially, you know, being full-time food.
Funny how it comes full circle.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
So then what, what year is this when you kind of like start to wanna pursue the passion project of meat?
So that was in 2016. I didn't really know what we were gonna do, but I started dreaming about it, you know, Smoking Goose, or actually it was Goose the Market, was sort of this. Archetype that I, I had in my mind as I was just, just dreaming this thing up and, um, you know, like, what do you wanna do, mark?
Um, and I was like, I wanna do that. That seems really cool. Good food. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, and great people. And, um, and I just loved, um, you know, their story. And honestly, I think the romance of having your own place, you know, a place to, to hang your shingles, so to speak, you know, really is captivating. I mean, retail is, is like that, you know, um, a place where you can build community, a place where you can foster community, things like that.
And so those are the things that really inspired me to do it. I didn't really know how to do it. And, um,
so what's the first step? You're like, I'm gonna go all in on building a meat company. Where do you start there?
Well, I, I, I leaned into my technology background and I thought, well, what's our minimum viable product?
And um, and I thought, well, it's bacon.
Okay.
And I thought to myself, man, if I can't sell bacon. Then I probably shouldn't be in the meat business.
If you can't sell bacon, you'll never bring home the bacon.
That's right. Yeah. Well, I, and I always joked with my wife. I mean, this is the only job where my wife does not want me to bring home the bacon because she wants me to sell the bacon.
Save home the dollars.
Yes, exactly. So you're like, let's get, and you had been making bacon as a hobby. As a hobby. So talk to me, how does, how do you make bacon? Like if I wanted to be a hobbyist bacon maker, where would I go? What would I do? What are the steps?
Sure. Well, it's pretty straightforward. You get fork belly.
Okay. You can find it any number of places. Uh, I mean, heck, you and Costco's curing it now. Um, and then you just see cure it. And curing is applying a, uh, a mixture of salts and sugars.
Oh,
okay. And then you let it, and you let it age. So
where do you, like where, when you were a hobbyist
Yeah.
Where were you aging your meat
in?
In a garage. Refrigerator.
So you just let it sit in the garage, refrigerator and cure with salt and sugars on it.
That's right.
For how long?
Well, so, so three ingredients, salt, sugar, sodium, nitrate. Those are the three things you need for, to make pure bacon. Yeah. It would take roughly about eight to 10 days.
Usually it's faster. Uh, you know, you could probably get it done about two to three days. I would let it go by eight to 10 days. And then once it's done, curate, that's it. I mean, all you're doing, you're just waiting for osmosis to work. So all that water exchange, moving the salts all throughout the tissue of that pro, of that pork belly.
Yeah.
And then you just, you smoke it. So,
oh, then you smoke it,
then you smoke it.
So you were during bacon and then you smoke it like in like a Traeger.
I've never been known to do hobbies. Small.
This makes sense.
So, um, there was a, i, I got in the barbecue. Back in a long time ago, like 2002, 2003. So I started off with one of those little dorm refrigerator size electric smokers.
Yep.
And, uh, I do brisket, ribs, Porsche, all the things in that. And I did that for a couple of years. And then I was like, I want a trailer smoker. And I had no idea I anyone to buy one. It's too expensive, you know, I didn't have any money. And so I said to my buddy, bill, um, who was a, a welder, he knew how to weld and do, um, you know, manipulate metals and things like that.
I was like, Hey, let's pull the smoker. He's like, okay. So, um, I had a friend who had a house just outside of Meridian Kessler and um, and it had, um, two of those heating oil, uh, fuel tanks. They were basement, so, you know, houses around here. First they were heated by coal, then they were heated by fuel oil.
And there would be a guy that would come in and would either deliver your coal. So if you go to an old historic wooding Kessler house, you're gonna see if they have the old coal chute.
Yeah.
And they might even have the old former exit or entrance into the basement for when dad got home from working in the plan.
He could come in down there and he could shower in the basement into all that stuff. So like a lot of that's been trying to all of those houses as they get fixed up, what that, uh, original patina is sort of lost. Oh. But then once, once people stop heating their homes with coal and switched to heating oil.
So there's these 300 gallon tanks. You can still find 'em in a lot of these houses. 'cause people are like, what am I gonna do to get this outta there? It's a hazmat situation, nobody's gonna take it. 'cause how do you dispose of it all that can, so my buddy Bill and I went over there with a furniture mover and we, we cut these tanks out of her basement for her, which she was stoked.
'cause it emptied out her basement. She could actually use it.
Was it on my Craigslist or something?
No, it was a friend of mine. Oh yeah, it was a friend of mine.
Did you have to, like, were you worried about the heating oil or anything
still?
No.
No, because it's, it's kind like diesel, so it's not explosive.
Oh, okay.
Um, it'll just burn. And, um, so we, uh, uh, we took those, took them into his backyard. We may or may not have burnt them out in his backyard. Allegedly.
Allegedly,
yeah. Allegedly could have happened. And, um, and then we fa we fashioned these two, 300, uh, gallon tanks into smoke. We started with one, then we added a second, and, um, yeah, we put this thing together.
So when I started, um, making bacon at home,
that's sick.
It is.
Okay. So, but this is all happy. And then in 2016 timeframe you start to like, go, Hey, we're gonna make this a business. So then do you start just going all in on bacon? Like how much, how many pork bellies are you buying? Like what was your first batch that you actually took out to market to sell?
Sure. So I, I started by just putting it onto my neighborhood. Facebook crew just said, Hey, I'm gonna make some bacon. Um, you know, old world style, you know, take, it takes time. So if you would be interested in some bacon. Um, here's the price per pound and it'll be ready in about two and a half weeks. Just put your name in here and I'll reach out.
Just just comment that you're interested and then I'll reach out directly to get your email address to communicate. So it was super clunky, not convenient, um, but it worked. How many people orders
from the
first round? First round? Probably 30 people. Yeah, that's about 30 pounds. 30 or 40 pounds of bacon.
And then
that's just like how, what neighborhood
is this reading? Kessler,
the mk. There's just like 30 or 40 people that are like, you know what, I'd take some of this guy's old world. Bacon's
Yeah. A neighbor.
I guess I'd probably like I'd, if I saw that, I'd be like, you know what, I wanna try some of this guy Bacon.
Totally.
Yeah. So you do 30 or 40 pounds?
Yeah.
How big of an undertaking is that?
That was not much. It wasn't bad.
So like, did you do it with one refrigerator?
Uh, yeah, that time. So the first batch I did out of the house?
Yeah. Yeah.
And then I went back to do it again.
And can we get like a rough. Like your first sale at, you know, you sell 30 pounds of bacon, you make
three, four oh oh bucks.
3 0 4 bucks.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Not much.
And then you pour that back into pork belly.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, um, yeah, early on I just set very modest milestones. It's like, I'll keep doing this if, and you know, we just kind of hit, kept hitting those, those milestones
and like 300. Then in terms of that, you make a thousand bucks and how do you start in upgrading equipment and getting more pro and getting a brand?
Yeah.
And which I love this. Sometimes entrepreneurs think too much about, like, I have to have all the documents and everything started before you even know if anyone wants to bring home your bacon.
Well, there's, I think there's two different approaches to pretty much, uh, everything you do in life, um, especially in business.
You know, one is sort of the lean approach where like, I'm just gonna get started and if I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail fast. I'm gonna learn from it and I'm just gonna keep going.
Yeah.
Or there's the waterfall approach where it's, I'm gonna build this thing completely and not get anybody's input on it and just, you know.
Get it started based off of how I have it imagined in my mind, and then we'll, we'll go to market and then we will, I guess, revise from there or learn from it. Yeah. You know,
and it's like a, a healthy balance of entrepreneurship where like some people swear and die by the get feedback, you know, build and public, all this stuff.
And then there's like the Steve Jobs approach, which is like, no, the consumer is dumb and I know what they want. I will make them exactly what they want.
Totally. Well, but I think that if you look at Steve, if you're look under the hood with Steve Jobs story, I think that you'll find that there was an iterative approach to everything that they did.
It just wasn't in the public eye. Mm-hmm. So even from the iPhone, I mean, they started tinkering with that way before the iPhone and had some failures with it. Um, and then they went back to the drawing board. So I, you know, it just sort of depends. I, I think Microsoft is more of, more of like the waterfall, uh, approach.
And, and Apple's probably more the lead approach to use that analogy.
Wow.
But yeah, we, we, um, you know, we, we made the first batch of bacon. Went back, did it again.
I love that you used the royal wheat, right? Like we did it. It was, it was just you.
A good buddy of mine taught me very early on, a buddy of Vince Freeman, I worked with him after I left the care company.
He was like, we never say a, he's like, number one, we're a team. Uh, and we never want to elevate the individual above the collective, which sounds very like socialist, but in a, in a business setting, especially in a small group, a small team, um, you, you want everybody to be involved in the process because everybody is, regardless if they're the guy selling or if they're the guy that's implementing.
And you know, for me, um, my wife has not been actively involved in the business. Um, she has, you know, she has her own career path and um, but she was our number one supporter, number one cheerleader, number one, everything. And so this has never been an I thing. It's definitely always been a we, yeah. You know, 'cause we've been a team so.
Um, so I think those are the two reasons why I always say I
love it.
And it's still that with everybody that we work with, it's like, there is no, I got this done. It's like, Hey, we got this done, guys. You know, we're gonna celebrate our wins together. We're gonna, and we're gonna mortar our losses together.
Heck yeah. Okay. So you made the first batch and you go back for more and you kind of just keep snowballing that. Where was the moment where you were like, okay, this is working. People want this and maybe I should get a little more structure around it?
Well, the next batch I thought this is, I've put it out there and, and we went from probably 30 people that were interested to like, probably like a hundred.
What, what was feedback? Were people just talking about your ranking?
Totally. And they were like, this is insane. But part of it too was that it felt there was something very unique about the process.
Like, I got a meet, I got a bacon guy.
It was like Exactly. That's exactly what it,
which is kind of like a status thing I can, and not like any, you know, affluent area, neighborhood where it's like, oh yeah, like, you know, live in, it's like, yeah, I got, I got a meat guy and I got a Colombian fresh ground espresso guy.
Like, everyone wants to have a guy for something.
Well, I think, yeah. And, and even in non-affluent areas too, it's like, you know what I mean? It felt like a drug deal, you know? It's like I got a guy. You know what I mean? So go whatever branch you want to go
with that. Forget your, forget your basic Costco bacon.
I got a guy. I got a guy. Well, and people, people, so there was a, there was work, people had to work to get the bacon, and so the payoff was getting to eat the bacon, so you know, whether it was the best damn bacon in the world or not. Um, you know, the perception was that it was,
yeah.
And, and, and in our opinion, I'm biased, but like, I, I mean, we put, I put a lot of love in that, you know, when I was making that and we were very proud of it.
And, um, and so yeah, we think it's the, it's the best in make and why.
Yeah. And it's like, think about like, oh, everyone has maybe like an uncle or a grandma, an aunt that makes like the best cookies or the best brisket, or the best the, and it's the perceived value of like, oh shoot. Like when, let's say you go to a cookout.
A grad party. Mm-hmm. And it's like, instead of getting it catered, someone ordered it or someone made it themselves. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I had to wake up at 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM and buy like, and you see all this work that goes into it. Mm-hmm. It just makes it taste sweeter. 'cause you know that your Uncle Fred has put like 17 hours into this brisket and like really cares about it.
Well when did you, when can you ever think of a time that you bought bacon from the store and you cherished it? It just spread. 'cause we went from, you know, in our first, uh, year. So April to the end of the year, um, you know, we went from this idea to um, you know, $30,000 in sales, 700 names customers, like actual customers on an email list.
Yeah.
And
which like most startup businesses, like especially direct to consumer, if you can get to 30,000, like that is serious growth in less than a year.
Less than a year.
If you're rocking and rolling.
Yeah.
So you get to 30,700 customers. Mm-hmm. And the thing about bacon, it's like if you do a great job.
They should come back and be re maybe not every week, but like frequently.
Well, we were once a month.
Okay.
So it was, we were doing it once a month and so every month there'd be the bacon message that would go out,
the bacon message. Mm-hmm.
And everybody called me the bacon guy.
It was almost like subscription bacon.
Mm-hmm. Well, uh, it almost was, but without the technology behind it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we would touch people every, every month.
Yeah. Did you, did you have a name at that point?
I had a brand. Yeah. Yeah. We had, we'd established that I had done some footwork before I had actually gone to market with it.
Okay.
Um, but yeah.
So were you Old Major at that point?
Yeah.
Okay. Talk me through naming your meat company. Why old Major? Sure. And like building a brand around the Macon.
Sure. So originally, you know, you have to remember that we were, our North star was, we're gonna open up retail. And so this was to build a customer base, like how can I get to retail and de-risk it as much as possible.
Like a restaurant or like a, like
a shop? Grocery shop. Okay. Yeah. Like a little, a little neighborhood grocery store in the radio, Kessler neighborhood. You know, where we were gonna have a fresh meat case. Do you source in great charcuterie from smoking juice and other places around, you know, the world and Pembroke like anywhere we could locally, but then also the world.
Um, and then we were gonna do sandwiches, we're gonna do wine, um, we were gonna do all that kinda stuff. Yeah. So I was actively work taking steps towards that goal. And this is just our way to de-risk it, um, by building a customer base, getting, getting income, and um, and kind of getting the name out there.
So, you know, I've done a lot of thought, contemplation and even just public opinion polling just from family and friends, people that I trusted about name ideas. And I put out there about 10 different name ideas that tied back to a butcher shop, pigs, you know, whatever animal, different types of animals, things like that.
One of the names was Old Major and Old Major was the old pig that inspired the revolution against the humans, the animal farm. So my dad, when I told him. Uh, early on he got real flustered. He's like, my dad's 80 banker is 2026, he's 85 this year. And he does our wholesale deliveries for us. He's a very spry young man.
He said, mark, what's the name from? And I said, well, that was the fig that inspired the revolution against the union in payable farm. And he just looked at me. He is like, you named your company after a communist. And I just looked at him like, well, dad, I mean, if you carry that through, it means that we eat communists.
Oh, okay. I can dig. Okay, cool. That sounds good. I can get on board with that
85-year-old. He's like, what though?
Yeah, exactly.
That's crazy. Yeah. And what was like the final, the final straw that made Old Major sticks?
So I sent an alpha a bunch of people, and it was, I can't remember if it was the one, I think it was the one, it got the least amount of votes.
It got the least amount of votes.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
So you picked the one that got the least amount of love?
Yeah, I liked it.
Sometimes you're just like, Hey, you gotta go with what you feel. Yeah. And do people come up and say, is this from Animal Farm?
Do a lot of people
know
or know?
It's 50 50.
Really?
Yeah. Usually it's the kids. 'cause he still reading in school, which is a good thing.
It kind of, I
think it's kind of leaning a little bit. It's like required reading.
Yeah.
But um, yeah, I mean if you're anywhere from 12 to 25, you probably get the reference older than that. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta dive a little bit.
A little bit.
Yeah. You dive a little deeper.
Wow. Okay. So you, and did you have the name Old Major when you first started selling Underground Bacon?
Yeah, and I had the, had the name Old Major, like I registered the LLC, but I had not done the trademark search.
Yeah, yeah.
Gotcha. So yeah.
Was there a trademark?
So, uh, we were two years of three years into doing this sucker and I was like, I wanna trademark this thing. And come to find out, there was an Old Major, and it was in, um, Denver. And, um, the guy that, uh, it was a restaurant and they were a meat focused restaurant. And, um, the, um, the guy that owned that restaurant had secured the trademark on that.
And so we were just like, well, we'll just hope. That we don't get a cease and desist and or sued. And so we just ran with it and, um, he ultimately like get to the, fast forward to 2020, his restaurant shut down, uh, the second half of 2020 he sold it. And um, and then he went on and started his own meat business making sausage, bacon, bergers chops, all that stuff in Denver.
And he got a ton of funding to do it. I mean, it was wild watching this thing spin up. And uh, and so he was outta that business. The other, I I, I just assumed the other owner didn't know that they had a trademark.
Did he call it a different
name? The new business? It's Coldwell Major.
The his, oh
no, his new business.
Yeah, it was called something else. Yeah, I think it was River Bear Meats maybe, or, oh, I don't know.
So he, but he left Old Major, the name with the restaurant, but he sold
That's right. And so, um, he went off to go do that. The new guy, they ran, they changed the name of the restaurant. They never did anything with the trademarks.
So we actually waited that out for another five years. And we got, we secured the trademark on that 'cause it lapsed and then we secured it the end of last year. So it took 10 years.
And you're just kind of praying like, what if, I mean I hope this guy's not have list here. Well, it doesn't matter now, but like at the time, you know, you're like waiting on a trademark for Old Major.
Have you ever met that guy?
Uh, so yeah, it's a funny story. Well I put market on Old Major market on, because we were gonna be a market and then when I, but all of our branding just says Old Major. So when I saw that I was like, oh crap. Well at least we're DBA Old Major market so we can always just update stuff to call it Old Major market and then it would satisfy the requirements.
But um, so yeah, we did the National Restaurant Association show Food show last year as a vendor setting up, you know, tabling that thing. It was the first time new to trade show. He has since left his meat company and gone on to do a premium beef thing. So, um,
out of,
out of Colorado and I saw that he was there.
And I put my Old Major hoodie on that just says Old Major. It's just a huge red font on it. I put my hoodie on and I walked over and I said, Hey man. And he looked up and he looked at my sweatshirt and he just started laughing and he was like, he's like, are you the guy? I'm like, I'm the guy. And he is. And I was like, I'm so glad to meet you.
And I shook his hand and he just kinda laughed and I was like, and I looked at him, I was like, thank you for not suing me. And he just laughed. He's like, it's not my style, bro.
That's cool.
It's super cool. That's
really cool.
Super cool.
What a good dib.
Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah. Um, and cool that you had ends up with you with the trademark and, and then he was cool about it.
Like, I think that's awesome. So let's dive back into the story. Sure. You are growing the brand. You end up doing 30,000 year one, which is like good for a start business. Sure. But also like you're not feeding the family and like growing a business on 30 brand.
No, I was doing, uh, you know, I was doing some marketing consulting on the side.
Yeah. So like I was making, you know, uh, a salary doing something else. My wife was working, yeah. She made a salary. So, you know, we weren't dependent upon the business cash flowing for, for payroll.
So was it still kind of a side hustle? A little bit?
Yeah. I've done a lot of reflection on that this year being our 10th year.
Yeah. In April. And, um, yeah. Honestly, I would've say it was a side hustle until, until the pandemic.
Do you grow every year? Yes. Being up there. So it's like, I feel like once you, I always say it's like whether you take on outside funding or you're starting to pay people or whatever, like your side hustle becomes like, uh, it's a side business.
It, it's a real thing. Like, well how big were you guys before the pandemic?
You know, we didn't do a lot under state inspection. We were doing everything basically under retail, retail exemption.
What does that mean?
Well, so the way that the re the regulations work, if you're, if you're a neat producer and everything that you're making, you're selling direct to consumer, you can do that under what's called retail exemption, which means that the county health department is responsible for your inspection.
Um, once you go under state inspection, that's when you can actually sell wholesale, but it's limited to the confines of your state borders. So like, I can sell to a distributor and the distributor can sell restaurants, but they can't, so the distributor can't sell restaurants or other businesses outside of the state.
Oh.
Federal inspection is what gives you the, the, the key to be able to sell, uh, uh, to a wholesaler who can sell across state lines. Now there's, you can, you can sell direct to consumer over state lines if you're the producer without having federal or state inspection because you're selling direct to consumer.
So it's point to point, but you can't do distribution.
I got
you.
Okay. So were you guys selling online?
Right?
And were you just shipping it?
So we pivoted from, um, being an email only, like, Hey, send me your orders to, I built a website, so I did it myself. So bring in the technology background, right. And um, and then we started adding more products.
So first year we started with baking. I added a couple different sausage. We also added a sales channel. We were, we got into the Fisher's farmers market for the last three mark of the year, one of which I got sick, which was like, of course. Right. You know, they're like, sure, we've got a spot for you. I'm like, cool, I'll take all three.
And then we're like, you call in sick. The second one, you know, it's like,
ugh, this is a bad
look. Ugh. So then 2017 we, um, you know, we're still kind of following the once a month sort of push to get people to buy. And are you still making everything at home? No. Do you have a I got, got a, um, uh, a com rented a commissary Kansas in a church basement on the, uh, uh, the church on the quarter of 46th and Central.
Oh, nice. Okay. So you're making all of your sausage and bacon out of this church in 46th and Central,
right?
Heck yeah. And you're starting, so you get your first farmer's marketing fishers.
Yeah.
Does that go well? Like, are people interested?
Yeah. Is
R meet in like 20 17, 20 18? Like is it popular?
If you were to start a brand right now?
Like what do, what would it, what would it look like? I don't, I mean, I don't know, but you know, we've got 10 years invested in this.
Yeah.
Um,
so like, okay. You're, you're starting to do more events.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you're selling like direct shipping it though?
No, we weren't shipping, we were doing that. It was local.
Oh. You would order it online. You could pick it up at the farmer's market.
You, you'd order online. You'd pick up from our shop on Thursdays. So the way that the thing worked from, from, you know, the, from the beginning, from day one was place your order online. That changed a little bit over time. Wait. I would email you to let you know when pickup was, pickup was always on a Thursday and it was always outta the back of my pickup truck in the parking lot where we meet all the bacon.
So it felt, that's why it felt so clandestine. 'cause they're just like. People would get this bacon, they would guard it very closely. They would then share it with people when they came over. And people would be like, what is this bacon? This is really good. And they're like, I got a guy. I, what do you mean you got a guy?
Well, I got a guy. And then they tell him the story. They're like, you mean to tell me that you went, you had a dude in a parking lot who had a Yeti cooler in the back of his rig and you gave him cash and he gave you a brown paper bag of bacon. Yes.
Can I get that bacon? You know
what? So
hey, your first first pounds free.
Yeah,
first
pounds. Free
first pounds on each. So they, uh, um, so we kept that model Thursday pickups, and then the frequency picked up. So then we started, you know, I started scaling it by figuring out, you know, people are gonna buy bacon and sausage every week, so, you know, I need a reason to reach out to them.
So then we started doing more takinghe food options. It's like, oh, this is an interesting way for us to continue to, to gather more customers taking heat. Yeah. So, so I was like, what if we made a taking heat dinner? For, um, Izzy families, uh, we'll prepare it for Thursday pickup. 'cause that's, I mean, at least in our family, that's what we're running outta gas And Friday's reserved for pizza.
So Thursday's the best night of the week. And we'll use our products as ingredients as a way to expose them to our products in new and unique ways. So that's what we did. We started doing that. And honestly, like, we did that a couple of times. Uh, but we, I honestly, I started by just selling pulled pork. I was like, I mean, I'm gonna killer pull pork on this smoker grill.
Let's just do that. And the first time we did that, you know, we sold like a hundred dinners and it was wild. And then people were buying other stuff on top of that. So we, we started scaling the business by adding other products, things that we could produce, you know, in our, in our space. Stuff that would help further the brand.
You know, everything was steeped in local sustainability quality.
Where were you like getting your. Pork from, you know, you like going out and eating farmers?
No. So we started off buying everything from one farmer and then the cost started getting really high, which was driving up our, our finished goods cost.
And so, you know, we're gonna be able to scale a business on that. So then we, we expanded out to find other farmers throughout the state. And then once we got to a certain size, it's like, you can't just buy from one place. You know, you're buying from several. So we started buying from processors that were basically aggregators.
They were buying in hogs from farmers all over the state. And then we can buy in whatever our raw materials we're, be able to produce. Um, and that's just been as our, as our volume has gone up, you know, we were getting stuff from, you know, multiple different places, you know? Yeah. There's a small land producer in EY buying some pork from Northern Indiana.
Uh, we were getting some beef from a couple different places. Uh,
yeah.
You know, one up in Fairmount, one down in um, uh, Haubstadt, you know, so it just depended, you know, any, and you know, it's just. You know how we could get it and get it in.
Where in this journey did you become a full-time meat man?
You know, when you're small, you know, this is just the small business mindset.
You're just like, I just need to get revenue. We just gotta get income in the door. I mean, I'm sure you guys get this, we just gotta get money in the door. And so, um, you know, we, we got diluted in those first few years. It started off, this is what we're all about. I had a mentor who has passed, who passed away recently.
Um, you know, it is funny. I, I, uh, I ran into a mentor. I used to do all my computer work at the Hover Cravens on 49th and Penn. Oh. And so I was in the, you know, working on paperwork. This was, you know, in 2017. And, um, my buddy Bill, um, walked in and I was like, bill. And he looked over at me, he's like, mark, I am so pissed off at you.
I'm like, what did I do, bill? He's like, I had to find out that you make the best damn bacon for my wife. Why couldn't I find out that from you directly? And I was like, well, bill, you're busy. You know, he was, he was in the process, I believe of, of exiting. He was the founder of Angie's listening. He was in the process of exiting.
I was gonna ask him. This is Bill Asher. Yeah.
Yeah.
And he, uh,
which were, and I, any listener would know absolute icon, totally
across
the tech community, Indiana and just Indiana in a whole was like. I mean started by Angie's List and then worked closely with Mitch Daniels and his campaign and just an all time all star guy.
He's an all Indian and, which is funny 'cause he's an Ohio guy.
Columbus
guy. Yeah. And then he came and came over here and, um, so, so our tech startup, um, was, was the convergence of technology and politics, which was his sweet spot. So I was like, man, if there was a mentor for me to have, as I'm pursuing this, it's Bill O.
So I hoed him for months, if not a year, until I finally was able to get a meeting with him. And then we just hit it off.
Dude, that's the Indiana thing too. If you like have something you're working on and you really pursue the right mentor, they'll eventually give you the time. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And uh, he also, uh, was so I was an OR fellow.
Okay.
And he was really blended into the OR fellowship community and getting that started and bringing, you know, young talent to central Indiana. So, yeah. Awesome. So he walks into Albert Graves and he's mad at
you. Yeah.
Told him about your bacon.
Exactly. And, um, and so I was like, well, bill, you're, you're so busy. He's like, you call Jackie and you get on my calendar. I was
like, okay.
So I called his assistant and sure, I was like, literally six days later we're sitting at hovering and crs and we're just catching up on, on bacon and sausage and, you know, I told him the whole story, where you, how it started, what my vision was, all that stuff.
And he looked, I mean, just deadpan across the table. He just said, mark, don't do retail. He said, don't do retail. Retail should be the absolute last thing that you are, you know, thinking about to be able to squeeze the last cent out of the job, out of the business that you're building. He's like, don't do retail.
I was like, well, what if I don't do retail? What am I doing? He is like, just do direct to consumer. Figure out, figure out how to do a virtual butcher shop. Like, just figure it out. You don't want the overhead, you don't want the commitment, you don't want the, any of this stuff. Like you can't scale retail. I like the idea because the idea at this point, I wasn't married to this thing yet, and.
I was kind of like in the way that it was going. I didn't have a lot of stress because I didn't have bills due. I was paying all of our input costs, you know, uh, in cash. So, you know, we didn't really have any debt, but we had no debt and, and the business was growing. So I really liked that idea and so I, um, that kind of stuck.
So, um, you know, to go back to your question about when did you go full-time meat and honestly, I would say that it was three years ago and Oh, God. I know. Which is crazy. Um, but because we, you know, as we were scaling, we were, there's all this stuff that we could do and people were receptive to it
and we like adding on more farmers' markets and things like that.
Totally. Did you have employees?
Uh, I hired my first employee like two years in.
Okay.
And, um,
like someone to do
production.
Okay. So production.
Okay. Specifically, like he was, he and I were in the kitchen. We were hand cranking out sauce because we were doing all this stuff together. Um, you know, 40, he was like 40, 40 hours a week and I, you know, I've always been 80 and, uh,
he's classic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you're not a full-time meat man.
Yeah, I'm not a full-time meat man, because we were doing all kinds of other stuff and then fast forward to the pandemic. I will say that, uh, from a cash flow perspective, the pandemic benefited us in a really major way because we had no overhead, we had very little staff.
I mean, I had no staff basically. I had one guy plus. And, um, we were slowly expanding, you know, we were selling on a platform called Market Wagon.
Yeah. On the virtual farmer's market.
Yeah. We were one of the first vendors on there, and we know we were slowly growing with them. You know, our first week of, of selling the platform, I took two pounds of bacon and put it into a couple orders, and then that was it.
I was like, I can't believe I'm wasting my time doing this, but I stuck with it. Yeah. Like, well, let's just see where this thing goes. Well, pandemic happens. We had, you know, we had already grown, like at this point we were putting up goods year over year growth, you know, and sales, all that kinda stuff.
But were you all direct to consumer or were you selling to other places
all direct to consumer?
Yeah, we started, we started, like I dabbled a little bit in, um, in food service in 2019, trying to figure out like, what does that look like? And then, you know, two, two local distributors picked this up, like, yeah, we'll we will do this. And so
like, who
So Piazza Produce and Delco Foods.
Oh yeah. So those are the brands that you'll like see their trucks serving restaurants around here.
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, so I started doing, um, I, we started, we started selling to them. They brought on a handful of SKUs, um, and we shipped. And I, I took a picture of it, you know, going out in the first box truck to go off to them. And that was like November of, uh, October or November of 2019.
Well fast forward to 2020, the whole world shuts down and restaurants basically go to zero. And, um, and so these guys, um, we, you know, we weren't selling squat to restaurants, very little and direct, and these guys weren't selling anything. And so, like, we basically had a false start when we tried to get into that.
But also what happened to us is that we saw our volume though. So as soon as that first, that when they said, Hey, you guys gotta stay at home, or a volume double. So, you know, if we went from doing 200 or pieces, 200 pieces of product sold on Market Wagon, we went to a thousand and we saw our weekly meal sales.
Like we went from like maybe 50 or 60 a week to 200 to 220 week. Like, and then all this other stuff that was kind of going with it. And, you know, that slowly kind of started to, to taper off over the course of 2020 and then into 2021. And 2022 was still not pot committed to this thing until there was some grant dollars that were made available through the USDA and we were able to go get some, uh, we, we were awarded a couple greens and we were able to invest in heavy machinery for automation.
And so, um, that was the first point where we ended up taking on debt so that we could pay the cash portion, um, of the grain. 'cause it was like a 50% match
to buy like a automated meat processor.
So Bacon slicer was the, was one of the big things. And then a, a packaging machine. So, so we made those investments.
And then
was this through, uh. Oh, the advanced manufacturing grant? No. Oh, okay.
This was, these are specifically issued through, uh, USDA.
Oh, that's because I was out in, uh, the Owen Valley Winery.
Mm-hmm. Have
you heard of them? They're out in Spencer, Indiana. Yeah. They did a thing with Conexus to like advanced manufacturing setup, and they got a fancy, like Italian automated wine bottler
on her thing.
And it is crazy. And then they were like, well, it used to take like 10 people they would bring out on Sunday afternoons to like hand label bottles and pour and them do the whole thing now. Like, this machine just like cuts out, you know, like there are 10 volunteer friends that used to come in and help them bottle.
Yeah.
Crazy. Okay. So you, you guys invest in some legit machinery,
right?
Do you have your own space at this point?
Oh, we're still, we're scaling in a kitchen. That was Bills. So, so Bill owned and old church buildings, we had moved from the church building. We're in into this building, it's now the Basile Opera Center.
Oh, no way.
And so they were the, they were the master lease holder. And their, their commitment to Bill was that they would manage all the upkeep of the building, take care of it, all that kind of stuff. And then he would just let them keep it and use it. And so he, he, he felt entitled to be able to say, Hey guys, this guy's gonna take over the kitchen, which they weren't using, but I think that that probably revved them the wrong way.
Maybe a touch, I don't know. Maybe not. But, um, but he just, he told him, Hey, Mark's gonna rent this space. You guys figure it out. And so we moved in there and then we just slowly scaled our business in that space into, to the point
where, where is it at?
It's on 40, uh, 40th and Pennsylvania.
40th and Penn.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then did you end up getting another space in 2023?
So in 2022, we started building out where we are now.
Where's, where's that? It's
a off Millersville Road in the old Roberts Dairy building.
Oh
yeah. Head south on, on Keystone to King Ribs. Hang a left.
There's a BMV back there.
Right?
That's the only place I've ever
been.
Yeah, that's the meadow was BMV
Oh,
you have a y
Yeah. This is where you guys are? Yeah. Okay. And you've been there since 2020, Q 2023. So we took,
uh, we took warehouse space there in 21 and then, uh, Michael Boaz, um, who owns the building, he was like, you should, um, let me build your kitchen.
One of the most interesting dudes, I went to Michael's house to do like a breath work, cold plunge workout thing I randomly got on text chain with and he was like, come over.
And I was like, sure man. They had my fancy espresso afterwards. He was like an old historic lily house.
Yep.
Crazy cool.
Yeah. I, I love Michael. He's and I have become friends over the last four years. Yeah, he's a really neat guy. Um, has an interesting story and we have a lot of personal crossover, which is really fascinating to me.
But yeah, he and I are both, uh, in the longevity him way more so. But, um, but yeah, what we've, I've done, he got me turned on to coal plunging and
yeah, that
kind of stuff.
He's got a cool little, like little compound thing out there. That's awesome.
That's awesome.
Um, take me through, so are you, are you predominantly doing most of your work at this point in 21, 2, 20, 23?
Direct consumer, yes. Farmer's markets or through online? Are you shipping? How does it work?
Well, so we scaled everything. So, um, you know, in 20 20, 20 21 we scaled what we were doing a Market Wagon. So there was a point, I don't know if you're, how familiar you are with how that, how they work.
Very familiar.
We had Dan on the podcast and he like went through. Okay. The virtual farmers market, you come in and you put in each one of the mags for their drivers as they go out.
That's right. Yeah. So for the listeners that didn't see that podcast, they've got regional hubs and uh, those regional hubs service as a geographic area.
And, uh, they have customers that come to the website and they're automatically matched to a hub based off of where they. And then there's a market that's available to them based off of the vendors that service that hub. So they can then buy from numerous vendors like grocery shopping, and then the orders go straight to the vendor Market Wagon, does all the merchant services, and then they do the last mile.
And so it's up to the vendor to then take the product and make sure that it goes into the tow. It corresponds with the order. And so what we would do, um, in 2020, we were only selling on the indie hub, but they were doing their own hauls to like Fort Wayne and South Bend. So we were doing that as well. So we were selling through, um, the indie hub, the Fort Wayne hub and the South Bend hub.
They started adding on hubs and were able to like close a pile of investment in early 2020. 'cause everybody's like, this is the new way, you know, e-commerce, you know, grocery shopping, online, all that kind of stuff. And so they went through rapid expansion. In. So in 2021, as we saw our sales were starting to kind of decline as people were going, going back to their regular habits.
I was like, well, how can we stop the decline? We can do it by adding on additional hubs. So at our busiest with work wagon, we had scaled to physically, personally holding our own products to Cincinnati, Lexington, Columbus, south Bend, Fort Wayne, Champaign, Illinois, Louisville, and then the two market days in Indianapolis, Tuesday and Thursday.
And we were facilitating getting our own stuff to there. So we had, we had started hauling product for other vendors to try and offset the costs. We were selling other vendors product on there so that we could get our total, um, car total up so we could justify the expense. We were doing all this crazy stuff.
And the sad thing about it is that, you know, you fast forward to 2022, you know, I was so busy with. The scale of business in trying to get to a place to where, you know, we had operational efficiency and we were truly profitable. That, you know, I, I was, I was just focused on top line. And so I was looking at, um, I wasn't looking at how much all of this stuff we were doing was costing us until it was the end of the year.
I'm like, wow, we lost money and here's how we lost money. So, um, so really like, you know, I look at, um, again, to bring the, the conversation back to the original question, like, you know, when did you, when did you say that you were, you know, you, you were a full-time meat guy? It was 2023. Because what had happened was we were able to cash flow the business to a certain level of scale and, uh, and some years we were able to offset deficits with grants.
And so then we got to a place in 2023 where it was like, well, this is our make or break year. Like, we're gonna become, we're gonna become a neat business that's profitable, where we're, we're probably gonna go away. And, um, and so 2020, end of 2022, I saw the writing on the wall. There was a lot of things that I learned from a leadership perspective going into this place.
Um, you know, going into 2023, um, that I, you know, I put into a place in, in 23 and onward, I, I really started doubling down on, you know, how to, you know, how do we grow the business through wholesales, because we're a tool now specifically for being able to produce sausage and bacon and some other smoked products and, you know, value add products at scale, which means that we can do it profitably.
And so, 2023, I was like, we're kicking all of the unprofitable stuff out. As painful as it is, um, we don't get to see top line growth. You know, we're focusing on bottom line because that means sustainability for our, our customers, and also for our, our, our business and our employees.
So does that mean to you, like, what did you lean more into and why did you have to cut away?
Well, we started cutting out pretty much everything that we did on Market Wagon. We had out scaled the usefulness of that, of that platform for us. Um, we still sell on there, but just we don't do any of the stuff that we used to do.
Yeah. I mean, like, it's tough to make it make sense when you're driving to Champaign Illinois.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
They already need a mar they need an Old Major in Champagne to be the local free surveyor.
Exactly. And and they would tell you the same thing.
Yeah.
Uh, and it, and it was great that they were open to us doing that, um, because they, I think for some of them, they, they had to stretch their idea of what local meant.
You know, the USDA says that locals anything within a four oh mile radius, but that's 800 miles, that's half the country. Um, you know, I think if you ask anybody in Indianapolis, west Local, you know, they would say Grand Rapids is local. Cincinnati is more local. Louisville's local.
Really?
Muncie, Muncie Iss more local.
See, I if it's outside the state of Indiana, not local. Right.
Yeah. It just, it, it depends. Yeah. I get that. Um, but um, yeah, you know, it's like it's 90 minutes to get to. Um, yeah, to get to Cincinnati, but it's, it's three hours to get to Evansville, so you need to tell me that Cincinnati's not local.
Yeah, that's fair.
Okay. So, um, and I think that that's, that's, that's, those are the conversations that we had anyways. We, we
kicked. Yeah. Why even be smaller, you know, like you is even, you talk about getting ducks from up your Warsaw, like that kind of like, they're like the duck capital of the world or whatever at Big Leaf Farms.
Is that really, that local's not here. Like, it's not like in my immediate, like, can I go out there and pluck a chicken and put it on the dinner table tonight? That's the local, you
know? Yeah.
That's an interesting thought. I've never really considered that.
Yeah.
So you started to scale back on that Market Wagon?
Yeah.
And were you, is this like, did you have a component of like shipping refrigerated meat in boxes to people at their door?
We were, we started that when, when we moved into our new space. Oh. So, and then we had, we, we then had, and there's just the amount of square footage you needed to do the things. Uh, that we now do is pretty wild.
And, and it's funny, like we, you know, we've added a bunch of square footage and it we're, we still are constantly playing Tetris to make sure that we like, so we can get the things that we need in the spaces that we have. And in that feel cluttered and overwhelming.
What are the biggest sales drivers?
What channels?
Well, I mean, direct to consumer is probably, I mean, it's not the, it's not the majority anymore. Our wholesale business is definitely the majority, but direct to consumer is a major, major component.
That was the first one that really popped though, was people going online.
Yep.
And buying meat free.
Either pick up or delivery.
Yep.
Or pick up our shipping,
uh, pick up for delivery, local delivery only. And then we started adding in shipping and we shipped.
Was that like a whole thing to learn about shipping meat?
Yeah. Yeah, it was.
Where was the moment after you go full time? And like all in on beat you, you know, have a negative year.
Like from a cash flow perspective, obviously you're still growing top line, but mm-hmm. When you're at the old shoot, we lost money. We have this debt, we have, you know, automated bacon slicer and packaging the whole nine yards. Where was a big milestone that you hit after that, that you were like, we are on the right track.
Like, good things are coming.
Well, 20. So in 2022, um, you know, I, we started to have some success, which is with food service. You know, I spent the last half of that year just going out and just talking to chefs. I was like, we can do this and we can do it. We can do it consistently. So my biggest thing is, uh, you know, as we've scaled this, can we scale and maintain quality and consistency of a product every step of the way?
Like, we don't want there to ever be a hiccup in there. And so that's, that was my always my largest concern with going the wholesale too soon, is that now we're gonna be doing things in larger quantities. Can, will it be the same? Um, and so, you know, I felt pretty confident of that going into 23. And so we started getting after.
Um, right here we, again, we had had some, you know, wholesale customers that were very steady and very consistent. Very, it was very meaningful business. But now it's like, well now, now we can add more.
Yeah.
And so,
so was there like a restaurant or a place where you have to go in, you have to talk to the chef and say, Hey, instead of using whatever bacon, you should serve our bacon.
Or you should serve r or sausage or whatever. It's,
for me, it was always just talking about our product. I'm a terrible salesman, but if, like, people will say, you're actually a great salesman, but because it's like, I'm just passionate about what I do.
Yeah.
So like, you're never gonna get a sell job from me.
You're just gonna get the guy that makes it, that, you know, has lost lot of sleep over it. That's very passionate. Believes in it, just telling you the story about product. And so I think people connect with that. Um, because, you know, we are like, you know, it's my name on it. I remember early on, um, we were selling at, at the, it was the Bent Rail Brewery at the time.
Now it's Half Liter. Oh. And um, we were selling at the winter, farmers marching in there. And somebody gave me negative feedback on our product. I remember how gutted I felt when somebody gave me that negative feedback that I, I called up my buddy Greg, and I was like, man, I dunno if I can do this. You know, this person said X, Y, and Z and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he said, mark, that's the difference between commodity and artisan. Like, you care about what you do when somebody has a bad experience with it. You, you take it personally for better or for worse. And you, you take that back to the drawing board and then you have, you, you decide whether or not the, the feedback was valid enough to take into consideration to evaluate how you're doing something or not.
And if, and if it is, then you look at what you're doing and you figure out how to improve it. He's like, that's the difference. He's like, so you just, you're just gonna have to get used to that. I wanted to make sure that as we grew that we never lost that. Um, and we haven't. So in 2023, you know, now, you know, we had, uh, a really cool space.
Um, I wasn't bringing customers in to see a church kitchen that we had retrofitted to be a, you know, an inspected plant where we have put in our new smokehouses, you know, we were making, uh, investments and new pieces of equipment that just help us do what we do better and better.
And adding a ton of SKUs.
Right. Like, did you start packing on more, like, what were your top five reason SKUs in 2024?
Well, I tell you, well, I tell you what, we had a ton of SKUs beforehand, but it's like, because of the pandemic, we could sell, uh, we could sell bread. So like, you know, we incubated, Leviathan Bakehouse. Their bread maker, Sam Blythe, he, he would come in and use our kitchen to bake bread over night to work out his recipes.
And so like, I was selling his bread on our website because people wanted to get fresh bread.
Ugh.
It's so good. It's so good.
Make good Sarah,
bro. It's so good.
Yeah,
and he's a, like you talk about a gifted bread maker. Um, I mean he is, um, singular focus. Dialed in, like mad scientists when it comes to making, right?
I mean, you got the butcher and baker. All you need is the candle stick. Make. That's right. Line.
Well, we were in 2020 I was all would laugh because, you know, we, we, people would come pick up their product and they'd wait in line and gosh darn it, you know, bust their hearts. They were all waiting six feet apart outside.
So we would have a line of a hundred people at some points wrapped around this parking lot, six feet apart, picking up their stuff. And they're getting everything from, you know, their dinner for two, some hummus that we made, uh, bred from Sam, uh, toilet paper. Um, you know, you name it. Because like if there was a need, like people, there was a phone where people couldn't even get flour.
So like we get 50 pound bags of flour, we'll repack it. Yeah. So we were repacking, flower, whatever you need, like you tell us what you need, we get it. So we had a ton of skews and that was part of what we had kick out of bed. Whereas all this other stuff, I'm like, Hey, either we're gonna be a grocery company that's just, you know, repack, repackaging all this crap, but we're going to, we're reps to who we are.
Wow. Well, and then, but you still have like meat skews. I look on it today. You're like Wisconsin Browett and South African sausage and you know, obviously chicken and maple bake, maple bourbon, bacon and breakfast sausage. But then you also can go in here and it's like you have seafood, you know, like salmon patties.
Yeah. Brown sugar, marinated salmon, uh, sweet tide chili marinated salmon. Like that would
Whoa, that's killer.
Wild octopus and olive oil.
So we, we carry other things on our website obviously, 'cause we wanna drive up car, car tools.
Yeah.
And it's stuff that you could walk into our shop and you could buy, I mean, we don't have, I wouldn't do retail per se, but you can come into the office and we've got some stuff on there.
Yeah. That's where we pick everything for our, our orders. But.
The charcuterie looks insane.
Yeah.
The charcuterie kit,
you know, we curate stuff like that. Yeah. Cheeses and meats and sauces and dips and packers and cookies and things like that. So that we could put together fun stuff.
Oh, you mean accoutrements?
Uh, is that how you say
ACC
Bowl? Because at some point here you end up writing a book. I did,
yep.
Charcuterie For Dummies.
Yep.
What, where did this come from man? I
did a podcast on its own. Yep. Um, so when I worked in technology, um, I was one of the beta testers for Google Glass. Do you remember that? Yes. So I had signed up and it was one, I was working with my buddy Vince and Google had notified me.
I was like, the second round, I was in the first round of the second round of beta testers and they were like, you just have to get to New York and then we'll go through your old fitting, teaching, trading, all that stuff, and you, you need to get a pair of Google Glass for Dummies. I was like, I'm gonna do this.
So I went out there, I got the Google Glass, um, I brought it back and um, I can't remember what year that was, but. Um, I had friends that had written four Dummies books and I was like, I wanna write Google Glass for Dummies. So one of my buddies connected me to his acquisitions editor and I sent her an note and said, Hey, I got a pair, would love to do this.
And they're like, well, we've already got a guy signed up from Steve that's writing the book on Google Glass and um, but we need a tech editor. Would we willing to be the tech editor? I was like, sure. So I tech edited that book and then I got a call toward, they like basically close to the finish line, getting this thing printed and shipped and they're like, man, we, we need some additional photos.
Any chance, like you could bring your Google Glass up here and we could take some photos up it. I'm like, absolutely. So I went up to the Wiley offices, they had an office over off of I 69 and Fishers at the time. And um, uh, I met people in the flesh there and I said, Hey, uh, if you ever have a title, I'd love to write one of these.
And they said, the acquisitions editor, uh, editor asked me, said, dude, do you know anything about uh, Chromebooks? I'm like, what do you wanna know? I know everything about Chromebooks. Like, you wanna write the book? I'm like, yeah, I'll write The book made me an offer to write the book, and I wrote
Chromebook For Dummies.
Okay.
That one did, did well. And, um, and it, it is gone to like two or three editions now. Um, but
Chromebook For Dummies.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
How'd you know anything about Chromebooks?
Uh, figure it out, man.
That's crazy. Okay.
So I wrote a book. She was very successful. I mean, they, uh, school's raising it as string material for teachers and all kinds of, yeah, it was wild.
We sold tens of thousands of copies of that. She called me up and she said, uh, we were write a book about drones. I'm like, drones for dummies. And she's like, yeah. I'm like, sure. And so how many books did you post? Uh, three. So you, you go, do you do drones or dummies?
How does that one go?
It did terribly.
Oh
yeah, it did terribly.
It was, it was not a good book because, um, it was so early on there were, it was bleeding edge and, uh, all the laws of the country were changing pertaining to drones. And, um, there was all kinds of stuff going on. And it's, it's a hard book to write. Um, and not just be brain specific, like how to fly a drone.
And so it really, it really kind of took that angle of this is what they are, here are the types of drones that exist. Um, here's like some, you know, some details on some little legal aspects of flying a drone. Um, but like at the end of the day, the book kind of felt, it felt like more like filler than useful.
Yeah.
And it was just like, like, and I remember jumping in here and like, I don't know, man, like this is a hard topic to write about and nobody had any opinions about, you know, what angle to go with. So, so it went with more of the General West Engle and so it wasn't super popular.
And then you end up getting a
third call though.
So that was interesting. I wanted to do sausage making for dummies or something along those lines.
Making for dummies.
Yeah. And they, there was already a, a, uh, a book that they had done years ago that as well, and they reissue it periodically, whatever. So, um, it was 2020 or it's 2019 or 2020. How's 2019? And they came back and were like, Hey, what if you charcuterie for dummies?
And I'm like, okay. Um, I mean, like, I don't make charcuterie commercially, like Yeah. But, you know, having some insights and like some meat craft, like how people could make some this stuff home. But then really having an entertaining section where entertaining with charcuterie wine, all that kinda
stuff.
At this point I had gone through the, um, testing for the quarter of master sommelier.
So I was a level two sommelier and I still am little level two sommelier. So I was able to tie in wine stuff, wine pairings, things like that. And, uh, and so we wrote, wrote a book. It was scheduled to come out at the beginning of 2020, and then it got, um, it got shelved until, I wanna say 23 1.
Wow.
And so I think a lot of the marketing budget and everything kind of went away because retail really got crushed and so nobody was buying physical books.
And
so Chromebooks was the hit from an author perspective.
Yeah.
Wow. And that's still cool to be a three time publish out there.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talk to me about. 2026, what does that look like for Old Major? What can we expect coming down the pipeline?
You know, over the last couple years we've really dialed in on what we do, who we are.
We were a bacon and sausage company, like that's it. Um, there's other things that you're gonna find that we do that we like to do. Smoked turkeys at the holidays. Um, our own house baked corn beef for St. Patrick's Day in our own, um, cured and smoked hams for, um, Easter and Christmas. You know, things like that.
Uh, but at our core, you know, value added meats is what we specialize in. So if it's, you know, hams, turkeys and, uh, and corn beef, or if it's, um, marinated salmon pork loins or it's sausages and bacon and our core focus being that we make sausage and bacon. So, um, so what you can expect from us is, um, uh, in 26 is more of what we did in 25.
Yeah.
Um, consistent product stuff that's delicious, that celebrates slow bowl commitment to our staff is maintained. Um, you know, by developing a really awesome work. Uh, and a commitment to our customers and our community. Heck yeah.
So
all that stuff is, is gonna stay the same until the day I die.
If someone was trying Old Major for the first time, what would their car order be?
If let's say I have, this is gonna be a, a large meat budget, but I got like 150 bucks sure. And I wanna sample and I wanna get a, uh, assortment of different meats from Old Major, how would I spend my $150 at Old Major?
You're gonna grab our Korean sausage, oh, which has got gochujang, kimchi, pickle, garlic, green onion, and ginger in it.
Um, you're gonna grab, um, our, uh, our black pudding, um, which is a, an English Irish style, um, sausage, uh, that's got pork blood in it. You're gonna get our traditional bacon, but you're probably gonna get our Bloody Mary Bacon or maybe our Maple Bourbon bacon. You'll probably get, uh, our bros or jalapeno cheddar bros because Hello?
We live in Indiana.
Yeah.
Um, and then we've got like our 50 50 burger, which is half bacon, half beef. Um, which makes the best, the best. Smashburger delivery.
I mean, that looks pretty insane.
It's a great sausage and um, uh, it's the one that um, chefs are like, can I get a sample of that? Always? It's a hard one that, uh, uh, to go mainstream with because, um, even though Korean flavors are, are like pop culture now, um, it is, you know, kimchi is a very divisive.
Um,
yeah.
You know, ingredient, people are like, I don't know about that. It's a little weird.
What is like the most rare or expensive meat that you sell?
It's anything with beef or lamb in it. 'cause it's just so expensive.
Yeah.
Um,
like a tomahawk steak. You got one of these on there?
No, we, we don't do Cut. So our, our thing is we wanna do something that showcases our culinary prowess, not necessarily what the farmer does in the field.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
So that's why we don't, you know, anything that we sell is gonna be manipulated by us.
You're gonna like upfitting meat and you take good meat and you make it great meat.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay. We're just different. We're just different. Good meat.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Wow. Oh yeah.
So all of our, all of our recipes are, you know, formulated, formulated by by me. It's a way for us to put a thumbprint on 'em.
What's the most adventurous thing on the menu?
Morcilla.
What is morcilla?
Oh, it's a Spanish style blood sausage.
That's the thing about meat. It doesn't sound very marketable. Blood sausage.
Yeah. Black footing. I got you talking about this. British delicacy known for its rich and savory flavor made from a blend of pork, blood fat, oatmeal, and spices.
Yeah,
that's, you told me to get that.
It's awesome.
What's the biggest. Salary for you all
Our, our traditional bacon Yeah. Um, is hard to displace, um, on our web sales and our maple bourbon bacon, those two things are just huge.
And Maple bourbon, depending on the year, it may edge out the traditional bacon.
And what, what places are in Indiana might be using Old Major or like retail store selling the major.
So retail stores. Uh, Moody's Butcher Shop. Yeah. Um, they're gonna be rolling out en mass. Um, all of our brand new products, not all of our branded products, but brand new products from us.
Um, and, um, so they've got four locations, maybe five. Um, and then, let's see here. Needler's downtown.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, Needler's in, um, Carmel, Niemann's, uh, market in Carmel, Joe's Butcher Shop in Carmel Corridor, which is at Rock 56th Street. It's the old Nicole Taylor's location.
Yeah.
They carry, uh, some of our stuff in the store, uh, field to fork in Franklin, Indiana.
Hey, carry, um, our stuff, um, Mercantile 37 up in Noblesville.
Yeah,
they, that's a cool spot. If you haven't been there.
I haven't been yet, but I just was looking into it. You
got it. Yeah. You gotta check it out. And Nick's a cool guy. Um, his dad's really cool. Well, I love it. I mean that, that's, there's spaces idyllic.
Um, but yeah, they, they carry some of our stuff. Um, I'm sure that there's other retailers, but those are the ones that come to mind. Do
any like, restaurants, use your guys' product
For sure. Um, so we do a lot. Um, and that's growing for sure. Yeah. Uh, but we, yeah, lots, lots. Is
there like an iconic spot somewhere that you're like, oh yeah.
Or someone from the beginning, like, so and so has used our product since way back when.
Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, I kinda get asked, um, often, like, like when was a pinch me moment for you? Quite frankly, whenever somebody decides to use our product. Um, even if it doesn't want the money, but it's just something that they're using in their, um, you know, in their restaurant or if it's a hotel or a stadium or whatever, like, that's a pinch me moment.
Yeah. You know what I mean? The first big win for us was when we went into, uh, Patachou and, um, you know, the, the executive chef at the time, Tyler Harold brought us in and we were doing stuff at their public Greens location. Um, we were doing stuff at, uh, Napolese and then, um, they brought us in, put us on the menu, Patachou and I, that was that man where I was like, I, I think that we might be on something here.
Like that was like, you know, you look at, uh, uh, you know, from a, a producer's perspective, sort of like the, what's the thing that you, you're striving for? What's that, that goal you like? That was it. I couldn't believe that. So that was definitely. Uh, a very, and we've been working with him since we're very, like, very early on.
Yeah,
very early on.
I think I could talk about meat all day long. If someone was wanting to start, like, you know, the hobby and like cheering meat, smoking meat, or even the best place to start it,
man. He's get a couple of, um, you know, get the charcuterie book, not charcuterie for Dummies, but charcuterie. It was written by Ruhlman.
It's a great starting point. Some of the rest, some of the recipes in there are a little, uh, a little crazy and I don't think that they may be way weighed them out as well as they should have. But, um, you, there's killer recipes in there and the processes are really detailed. So that would be a good place to start.
Yeah.
Um, there's a really good site called the Sausage Maker and they've got every tool, device, contraption that you could need to get started, so that, that would be a good one too. Um, and then if you wanna do like a hands-on, uh, class, we do a sausage making class, um, once, uh, once or twice a year. Our last one for this year is actually this Saturday.
I think we've got probably two or three, um, spots left open in it. Yeah. But, um, that's very hands-on. It's about a two hour class and it's very hands-on. So you're gonna soup to nuts from how to stay safe and clean to, we're packing this stuff up and we're gonna cook some off so they get to do everything.
Um,
and then I think,
I think, uh, Smoking Goose does a whole hog, uh, class. That's, um, I've always heard that it's, I've never done it. My dad did it years and years ago. He thought it was super cool. Um, so I don't know if they still do that.
That's like such a flex. Do you know how to smoke a whole hog?
Well, they're, they're breaking down a whole hog.
Yeah. I processed my first deer
Yeah.
This past, uh, winter.
Nice.
Uh, fall and it's intense. Mm-hmm. Like breaking down like you talk about. And then we ended up turning that into like ground venison and we centered off to, uh, rims Uhhuh out in, um, east side of, uh, and they made some sausage and stuff there too, but.
That's a process. It's a process of like being a real butcher. Uh, wow. We're gonna round out talking some fun things about Indiana. This question is brought to our friends
at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, mark, why do you call Indiana home?
You know, we have a lot of family here. Um, but I've lived other places and I've definitely traveled the world.
And I will say that, um, you know, one thing that's unique to Indiana is, um, you know, there's sort of like this Midwestern vibe that people talk about. People are nice, they're kind of medium paced. There's a high, high level of trust. Um, I would say that Indiana is, is maybe a concentrated version of that.
Um, you know, I just think that people here, generally they move that medium pace. Um, they're generally very trustworthy. They're very kind, they're very, um, validated their communities, you know, they're worried about their neighbors. Yeah. You know, things like that. So, you know, that's, that's definitely one of the, the things that we love about Indiana.
Um, and one of the reasons why, uh, I think that we stayed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. If Old major were to be the presenting title sponsor of a music festival and your two passions of music. And meat came together. Who would the keynote artist be of the Old Major meat festival?
Well, I mean, all the media were having barbecue.
Yeah.
Everywhere. I mean, we're gonna have all the barbecue, right?
I mean, this guy, I think a little Old Major and 45 percents come together. A little, little barbecue. And who goes, who's the band? Like who are we listening to?
I don't listen to Metal that much anymore. My wife got
one. Everyone grows up.
I, yeah.
Yeah, they do. Some don't.
Who's on the, who's on the Frequently Played now?
Steely Dan.
Nice. Know who I think would be the gray headliner of a pork inspired music festival. Jelly Roll. So he was That's funny. I was thinking about,
I was thinking about Jelly Roll. I'm not a Jelly Roll fan.
That's, wait. I will say I was not a Jelly Roll fan and I was at a music festival where he had line and I saw him black and I was like, it's a jelly roll.
Yeah.
Fantastic performer.
Yeah.
He's just so into it. Yeah, I love it.
I, I would probably go colder wall
and you have like full hogs wipe on the spits, like roasting and then you playing like sleeping on the black top in the back. That would be five.
Alright. So if we were doing alright, let's, let's go down the rabbit hole real quick.
Yeah. Yeah. So if we were gonna do this thing and just kind of let, let's go all the way, all the way with it.
So I,
I would do, if this were gonna be like the flavor from Mark LaFay special event, um, yeah. Colter Wall would be, uh, a headliner, if not the headliner. We would definitely have, you know, lots of, lots of barbecue options for food.
We would be rocking the um, Upland Champagne Velvet. It is the best pre-prohibition style beer that you're gonna find anywhere in the us, but it is the best Dad. Beer, another thing, you get a light version, but
get
out of town. I don't even drink beer that much anymore. Um, the man upland champagne, velvet light.
Yeah.
That'd be on tap everywhere flowing like a river. Um, yes, absolutely. Um,
and what's the venue? Where is the Old Major with Colter, wall Upland, champagne, velvet. And where are we hosting this thing at?
Either, either a Garfield Park
No, I had too, I saw that where I saw like Rock the Ruins at Holliday Park.
So Rock the Ruins would be great.
Yeah. Yeah. In any of those spots you bring together like a, a sweet artist. Tons of barbecue, tons of meat. Yeah. You bring together upland.
Yeah.
Ugh, that sounds like a good time.
I like it.
All. Final three questions we ask every guest it comes on. Okay. You were, you know, you talked about.
When you were in the music space, people tried to recruit to New York, or you had to go to LA or maybe Nashville. Like if you could tell all the people in those markets something that they need to know about Indiana, what is something the world needs to know about the Hoosier state?
There's a hole in the wall, barbecue joint in Westfield called Ben's BBQ Shack.
Yes. It's just like a building.
It's a, it's a small building.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, and that dude can't hold on to brisket, you know, it's like he sells out every single time and there's a line. It's wild. And then now he's opening up a bigger, bigger restaurant there. So, um, good for
him.
Yeah.
That's, that's pretty cool. Success story. Um, so I think that that's awesome.
This is the next question where you need to share something like Ben's barbecue or another place or park across the state that everyone needs to be talking more about. What is a hidden jam in Indiana?
There is a place down in Brown County called Yellowwood State Forest.
Oh,
you've heard of this place? No. So it's a state forest. That's where I, I shot my first ear. And I have a lot of warm memories about going down there. So, um, you know, you everybody goes down to Brown County and they're like, let's go to Brown County state park. Well, this is a forest that's basically across the street.
Um, you can camp in it. Uh, there's fishing there. Um, they've got a little DNR welcome center in it. Um, you can hunt there. There's hiking trails you can bike there. Free entry
Yellowwood State Forest. Right on the banks of the Yellowwood Lake.
Yep.
That is a true hinge.
Yeah, there's
it just outside of Nashville, down by Mike's Dance Barn.
Yeah. From giving pat like a hundred times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah. It's
inch off the beaten path.
Yes, it is. And in deer season though, it's like, uh, it is a crazy family reunion. I mean, every, every camp spot is, I mean, it's because there's not a lot of public land to hunt anymore.
Visit. Can you love this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I shot, I shot my first, my first couple of deer, so I was 14 when I shot my first deer. And, um, you know, you figure, so 14, so like I'm, I'm 44. This year. So that would've been, um, a hundred ninety six, nine five, nine six. And you know, deer hunting in Indiana still wasn't that great, but still kind of like populations are still coming back up.
'cause we have pretty much no population in the seventies. Um, just over hunting and then also habitat destruction. So, so, um, so yeah, that was so, it was hard to shoot a deer. You didn't see 'em often and it was just over hunted because there was a lot of places to go. But yeah, I have a lot of warm memories there.
That is a really good in gem. The yellow wood state forest. Spectacular. Final question for you, mark. This is where we get super recommendations from new guests and learn about people doing inspiring things. Who's the Hoosier we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things
well, I think you should check out what, um, what Nick's doing up at Mercantile 37.
Um, I think that that's a, uh, um, that's a cool store. Um, it's literally, it's on a corner of a, of a, a field. Um, you know, it's at a sort of Sawyer corn. And, um, Garcia's Gardens is not far from there. And, um, you know, it's definitely off the beaten path, but they've, they've really, it's been cool to see what those guys are doing up there.
They, um, uh, you know, are pursuing the passion of furniture making and woodworking. Um, so they've got a cool, uh, country store up there. They do custom, um, furniture development, design and building. They've got a coffee shop. They do some sandwiches and things there. They've got a small, like, it's kind of like roadside grocery store and in the summertime they've got fresh produce.
It's just a neat spot.
That looks sweet. Alright, we're gonna have you go check that out. Mercin out there. Seven. His name's Nick.
Nick,
I love it, man. Mark, it's been a pleasure learning about your story from Purdue University Indianapolis, into the music biz for over a decade. Talk about technology, bringing together technology and your passion for.
For smoking meat and, and, and really just artisan craft, it is so clear and how much care and thought and perfection you put into Old Major and just like all the products that you guys sell, uh, if, if you have not been out there, whether it's at a farmer's market, whether it's at an event, uh, I got to one.
I I think I've seen you at a bunch of farmer's markets at Carmel and some other places. Mm-hmm. As well as, uh, you guys set up and didn't know that Patachou event where you were actually serving like hot meats.
Yep.
Oh my gosh. I have one of the best sausages I've had in my entire life. It was so good. So if you see Old Major out and about, make sure you check 'em out.
If people wanna follow you on social media, if they want to know and buy product from your store, how can they do that?
Sure. So, uh, you can find this on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, it's all, uh, at Old Major Market. Yeah. And, um, you can shop for, uh, nationwide Shipping except to California and uh, local pickup delivery and all that good stuff, um, at oldmajormarket.com.
Love it. Alright. Thanks for stopping by and chitchatting, and we'll see you guys next time.
Thanks for having me.
