Clay and Jeffrey Ezell

00:00Hey everybody, today we're talking about my good friend Ben Ellsworth and GigPro. After years of spending too much time and money on useless staffing software, Ben Ellsworth knew something had to change. So out of necessity, GigPro was born. GigPro is the on-demand marketplace for hospitality staffing. They're changing the way people work and hire. If you download the GigPro app today, you can get the help you need. GigPro has an exclusive promo offer for Nashville Restaurant Radio listeners. Sign up at go.gigpro.com forward slash n-r-r-b-i-z and make sure that you use that code. I want them to know that you came from Nashville Restaurant Radio. That again is go.gigpro.com forward slash n-r-r-b-i-z. That code will get you your first gig for free up to $200. Go check them out right now. So we are super excited today to welcome in a brand new sponsor.

01:02Welcome Robin's Insurance Agency to Nashville Restaurant Radio. So I'm going to start off and tell you guys that we use Robin's Insurance Company at both of our restaurants, the Green Hills Grill and Maribor, because they specialize in restaurants. It's so important. I'm telling you, if you buy insurance in anywhere that you buy insurance, it's so important that you're buying the right type of insurance. And you know, I don't think people tell you that they just sell insurance for what the cheapest is. But you know, sometimes you're paying the cheapest for insurance you don't need. So that is why Robin's Insurance specializes in restaurants. They identify exactly the type of insurance that you're going to need to run your business so that you can sleep sound at night. That's super duper important, y'all. So I would like for you, if you're curious about this, you want to learn more, give Matthew Clements a call. His number is 863-409-9372. Or you can shoot him an email at mclements, that's m-c-l-e-m-e-n-t-s at robbinsins.com.

02:11Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City. And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. We've got a cool episode for you today. Happy Earth Day to you and yours. Hope that you are doing something to celebrate Mother Earth, if it's not just putting a aluminum can in a special receptacle. What I'm doing today is I have brought on the brothers, Clay and Jeffrey Ezell. And they own a company called The Compost Company. What they do is they come to your restaurant and they collect all of your food waste and then they compost it and they sell that compost to farmers. You can buy their stuff at Whole Foods. It's pretty amazing stuff. So if you're looking for something amazing to do on Earth Day, these guys are sponsors of the show.

03:16They are sponsors of the show. They love the show. This is not a paid advertisement. This is me genuinely feeling like what these guys do is a bad ass and I want to share it with as many people as possible. And they're just they're just fantastic guys. I love their passion. I really do absolutely love their passion. So I hope that you get something out of this interview. I hope that you enjoy learning about these guys because they are some really, really cool dudes. I will also tell you that I am over allergies. I am really done with this shit. I am ready for the allergy season to be over and I'm ready to have my voice back and my nose back and my eyes back. I don't know about you out there, but damn. Ah, dying. So we are going to do an amazing weekend this weekend and we are going to be back with you on Monday and we're going to be talking to Marcy and Star from Anzie Blue. And I think you're going to love this interview. These are two women that just empower the shit out of each other and they empower the shit out of other women in this industry and they're supporting local and they are local and they're breaking all the rules and I love them.

04:28I think that they're fantastic. We had such a fun interview. I cannot wait to get that interview out to you on Monday. On the following Monday, we're going to be talking to Pat Martin. So we've got some great shows coming up for you. If you want to be in the know, if you want to know when episodes come out immediately, you need to go subscribe. So find wherever you listen to podcasts, if it's Google, if it's Spotify, if you're on Apple podcast, click that subscribe button and you will get notifications when I put out random things. On Wednesday, I put out an episode called Line Up Topics. Just a thought that I had from just some of the negativity that I see around service and I wanted to kind of voice my opinion. I'm going to try and start doing those on Wednesdays to just something fun. If you lead a restaurant and you're looking for something to talk about, maybe I can spark something. Maybe you'll go, I already do that, dude. Shut up. I get it. I totally understand that. I really appreciate you guys listening. This is a really fun show. Can't wait to get it to you. Have a wonderful Earth Day.

05:29It looks like I've got a couple of amazing days of weather. I'm going to go see Bill Burr tonight and my cousins in town are hanging out. It's good. Good times and I hope you guys get a chance to go out this weekend. Maybe I'll see you at the show tomorrow night, but y'all have fun and be safe. Enjoy this interview. Super excited today to welcome into Nashville Restaurant Radio, Clay and Jeffrey Ezell. They are brothers and they own the Compost Company. Welcome gentlemen. Thank you for having us. Glad to be here, Brandon. Okay. So let's get that. We just had something. We talked today. We had Jen on the show and Sherry and voices are different. Who's talking? Clay. Let's start with you. So you'll understand which voice is you. Tell us kind of your 90 second elevator story. Okay.

06:29My name is Clay Ezell, native Nashvilleian and brother of Jeffrey Ezell. Unicorn indeed. We both are. I understand all three of us are. I'm not. I've lived here for 33 years. I think that qualifies. Originally I was born in Southern California. I lived there for nine years. So I've. You're good. You're good. You get your car. 34 years now. I think that works. Understood. Let's see. My wife is a true unicorn. Born here. Raised here. Never let your whole life. There we go. I did spend a little time elsewhere, including New York for about a dozen years. That's awesome. And have been back in Nashville since 2014. I am a refugee of the publishing industry. I was a literary agent during my time in New York until such time as Jeffrey and I started exploring the idea of becoming hippie garbage men. And that is what we have been doing since 2015. And we engaged in this idea a long way back when Jeffrey was working in recycling in Nashville.

07:30And I being a smug New Yorker at the time was lamenting the state of sustainability in Nashville. And we got talking about the waste stream. And that's kind of what led us on on our journey. And anyway, back here, working hard, I'm kind of the guy that's in charge of the experience at the compost company, Jeffrey, you know, puts it together and is doing outreach to all of our, you know, customers. And then I'm the guy, as we like to say, you know, he lands the fish, we then clean it, cook it, serve it, and do all the things that make what's made our service really attractive to our restaurant and hotel customers. Perfect. Jeffrey? Same question. Right. Also native Nashvillean. The I studied geology in college, was very interested in environmental education, worked at a national park at Shenandoah in Virginia for a little bit, came back to Nashville and got a job as the education coordinator for Metro Beautification and Environment Commission.

08:37Yeah. Yeah. So it was a lot of education about home composting, recycling, you know, all things sort of metro services about, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle. Essentially, we did tours of the recycling facility. You know, it was it was a lot of fun. I became the recycling coordinator for Metro Public Works. All of that waste and recycling is now freshly under Metro Water Services. And when I was working there, we would do like waste reports for Davidson County and Nashville. Yeah. Because we had to report to the state, which is when I got to know our partner, Ed, who, you know, takes all of the food scraps and other compostables that we collect and makes them into compost, quality control, site efficiencies out on the farm and things like that.

09:37And in 2015, yeah, we seeing the need for there not really being much of an ability to make a significant difference in the food waste stream in Davidson County. Talking about it, decided we were going to do something about it. You're going to do something about it, which is the best way entrepreneurs, I think, if everyone's out there right now who's an entrepreneur just heard what you just said and said, I had that same thing happen where we identified there was a big problem. So we can't make a difference doing this. So let's pivot and let's make a difference. Let's do it. And so the compost company was born. Right. And so Ed had started it a couple of years before we came on board. But he's one of the hardest working people that I know. But nobody is going to be able to make a significant difference in in the waste stream. As far as if you go by EPA's estimates and the waste estimates in Davidson County, somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 to 300,000 tons of food waste are going to landfills every single year. That's just Davidson County.

10:51It's just 250,000 tons. Every year, it's it's a mind boggling thing when you pull up and look at, you know, waste numbers, generally speaking, it is it's astonishing how much waste there is in our daily activities. So I'm so excited to have you guys here today, because today is Earth Day. Today is April the 22nd. Happy Earth Day. It is Earth Day. Yeah, I'm so excited to have you guys here. It's nice when these things work out. And I'm so excited to partner with you guys here. Let's let our listeners in on some Earth Day facts. I know this is an educational day, right? So Earth Day, April 22nd. You know why Earth Day was chosen to be April 22nd? I don't. That's a heck of a question. We should probably look that one up. I just did. Oh, good. I'm going to tell you the answer right now. Thank you. We should have known that one. What a good host. Coming at you. April 22nd was chosen as the day for Earth Day because it fell between spring break and final exams.

11:53And organizers wanted to maximize student involvement. Got to get those students involved. Good thinking, organizers. Do we know who organized it originally? The Earth. The Earth. Oh, good. The Earth organized it for herself. I was going to. Mother Earth, Mother Earth. I don't know if it was Cody. It was Gaylord, Gaylord Nelson. Oh, Gaylord Nelson. He's a senator from Wisconsin. He founded Earth Day in 1970 to raise public consciousness around environmental concerns such as pollution, oil spills and vanishing wildlife. He tapped into the energy of the antiwar movement, framing Earth Day as a national teach in on the environment. Harumph. So that is what we're doing today on our episode. We're keeping it alive for Gaylord Nelson because today is Earth Day. And I want to educate everybody out there because I'll tell you what, everybody who's served, everybody who's done anything, who's worked, everybody's worked in a restaurant, has cut cantaloupes, cut pineapples, prepped food, you've cut a fillet, you take the, you know, the.

12:59The what's it called? The silver skin. And if you're a server, you pick up plates from people's table and you go and you scrape all the excess food off into a into a trash can. And it just goes into a dumpster and it fills a dumpster and it goes away. And I don't think. I know for sure I didn't think about the environmental impact that that had until I spoke to you and I went, holy shit, like we could be doing a lot better and it's a lot easy. It's a lot easier than I thought it was going to be to be able to make a difference. And that's what you guys do. So let's talk about that a little bit. We'll get some more Earth Day facts as we go along through the interview. But you had some numbers for me, like, sure. So like greenhouse gases and yeah, the EPA environmental protection agency, they study waste and every I think it's four years, they put out a nationwide waste audit, essentially they break solid waste, which is just trash, essentially.

14:02They break it into nine categories. And over the last, it's been interesting over the last decades. If you look at the numbers, how it has changed those nine categories. I mean, it used to be 50 percent of what went into people's trash cans and recycle bins was paper. And it was that was the biggest thing that was going into trash cans and recycle bins. It's not anymore. Now, 22 percent of what goes into landfills in the United States is food waste. It's the largest of the nine categories, most of anything. What if that's just because people aren't printing as many things now and prints going away and the Internet is there, I mean, you don't we don't have as much paper, but there's no way to eat. I mean, food is is always going to be there, always going to have waste. Right. And everybody has it. Not everybody uses paper, right? Everybody eats every restaurant, every venue, hospitality, homes everywhere. So it has changed over the years. I mean, they refer to it as the evolving ton. And it'll change a little bit next year.

15:04But the last time the audit came out, food waste was was the largest of the nine categories of 22 percent. So food waste, while we recognize that it's the largest category and it's going into a landfill. Big deal. Right. I mean, so we throw food away. And I mean, obviously, we'd like to be able to re I can't recycle it and give it to homeless people. I can't do anything positive with the food waste. Why does it matter if it goes to a landfill? Well, landfills are designed in such a way that it's like if you a tree falls over in the forest, it's not going to sit there and be a tree for forever. It decomposes and becomes a part of the soil and microorganisms eat it. And it turns into soil. Yeah, exactly. But landfills are designed in such a way that there's no air around there. The idea is to keep air and water out, which are one of the things that help that tree decompose. So when organic materials. And by that, I mean, you know, anything that was living that has carbon in it, when it decomposes naturally on the forest, everything's fine.

16:12That's the way that the ecosystem nature wanted to break it down. When you put it in a landfill and there's no air around, it creates lots and lots of methane. So that's exactly food waste in landfills is what makes landfills the third largest generator of greenhouse gases in the United States. Wow. Okay. So landfills food in landfills is the third largest generator of greenhouse gases in our country or in the world. Well, methane specifically. The reason that the problem is methane is up to 80 times more potent than CO2. That's the famous one that we always hear about because it's the most commonly produced by our cars, our factories, et cetera. But landfills generate a much more powerful version of that. It's also the problem that like, you know, feed lots for beef cattle livestock can be problematic because they're busily farting up a storm and generating lots and lots of methane. And methane is such a powerful gas. I'm sorry to use the F word.

17:14What cow fart? It's one of those unintended consequences that a lot of people that almost nobody ever really thinks about. But that's one of the reasons that landfills are a problem is all the organic waste that's in there. Okay. And so you guys have found a solution just to jump right into what you guys do. How do you, if I'm a restaurant and I go, I'm listening to this right now and I go, Oh damn, I, I, we have trash bags upon trash bags of stuff that's I'm throwing away. Throwing away. Do I do, what do, how do I do that? What, how do, how do you guys get that food waste and then what do you do with it? Well, we operate a service that is a lot like your average trash service. The big difference is what we collect and what we do with it once we've got it. And we collect what are called source separated organics. So we count on our customers to do a little bit of separation.

18:15We don't just take your, all of your trash and then sort it out on the backend. What we try to do knowing that restaurant tours are the busiest people on earth and are operating at phenomenally low margins and all of those things. Our whole reason for being is to give operators a clean, easy and affordable way to do this. Because if it was hideously expensive, nobody would do it. If it didn't work, nobody would do it. So we come in and we go into every kitchen that we service and we help them design a program that looks a whole lot like what they're already doing. Because generally speaking, like you said, a server is coming back with something that's food waste that's still on that plate or dropping it into a dish room. It's getting scraped somewhere. We just bring in a compost bin because we can capture not only that food, but the paper napkin and the wooden stir stick and a lot of the stuff that you wouldn't think of as organic. We capture that hopefully in a way that doesn't really disrupt what they're already doing. So it becomes kind of a quick training issue, hopefully.

19:20And then that goes out to a different bin. You just touched on something. So we think there's been a huge push to buy compostable to go materials. There's so much to go and delivery happening right now, but we, some sales rep comes in and says, you need to do your part for the environment. You need to buy these compostable boxes and you go as a responsible human being, you look at that and you go, Oh, wow, cool. We're buying compostable boxes. But if you buy a compostable box and I take it home and I put it in with my regular trash, it takes a long time for that thing to compost, right? Well, it's, you know, the trouble is, is how many people are going to, you know, there are free drop off points for Davidson County residents around Nashville where citizens can take their compostable waste and it's absolutely free. But we understand that not everybody's going to do that. It's a lot of work, you know, for, for the cool thing about what we're doing in working with restaurants and other hospitality venues is we come, we magically transform what has been a trash can into a compost bin.

20:26We line it with a compostable liner. They take it out to the bin that we have outside. We take it to our farm, probably 30 miles away from say where we're sitting right now and make it into this beautiful compost that then gets distributed to farmers, gardeners and landscapers. So it's not only that we've kept it out of the landfill. We've also made a valuable product that goes to farmers who may be supplying your fresh local produce. Holy shit. Did we just come full circle? Well, I mean, it's intensely exciting. I love what it is that we do. I'm super excited about it. I could tell. I love the 100% local. It's, it's the most environmentally sustainable thing that most people can feasibly do as the interviewee over here, the person giving the interview, I'm having to play coy. Like I don't know some of this stuff cause I'm super excited about it also, but I want our listeners to kind of feel the organic side of what you guys do and how it works because I think it is the freaking coolest thing ever you bring in.

21:32Is it a, can you just use like a Slim Jim? That's generally speaking what we do. And then you get a compostable bag and you said you have green bags. We do. Is it a green Slim Jim that they could use? Could, does it matter? Do they make green Slim Jims? I'm saying if I'm a server and I go there, I go, Oh, this is the green bin. This is the non green bin. Like which ones do I go to? I think it's, it's really easy to delineate colors, right? Right. It is. And you know, everybody kind of designs a system that works for them, but we offer a lot of help because we've seen programs that work really well, some that don't that need improvement. And so we've got, you know, a lot of sort of institutional knowledge and experience on best practices. So we love helping everybody, you know, put together an elegant system cause you know, that ultimately makes the whole thing work better. We get cleaner organics, we can make better compost with, you know, fewer pains in getting out what, you know, shouldn't be in there. You know what I thought was amazing when I heard about this, we started talking about this. I thought, man, we are in a crisis in this industry right now with labor and labor is the hardest thing to come by. And one of the things that we can all post on Facebook and we can ask for employees, we can do all of these different things, but the most important thing that we can do is to be great employers, right? We can treat our team very respectfully.

22:58We can offer them all of the benefits that they need. We can treat them as human beings. And one of the things that employees want is to know that their company does the right thing. They want to work for somebody who's doing something that's bigger than themselves. And I just imagine if I'm a millennial or I'm a generation Z coming in and I see a green trash bin right there next to the other ones, I go, man, my company actually cares about the environment. I immediately feel a sense of pride working in that place because I'm now every time I scrape food, which every time you scrape food, like, God, this is such a waste. If you knew that it was going somewhere great, that you were actually helping reduce methane gas, and then you were producing an organic product that could be sent to a local farmer that's going to grow the vegetables that you're going to be selling the next day, like, and feel like the circle of life is complete there. But I feel like that's one of those things that employees would really, really latch onto.

24:02They've done some studies about that kind of thing. It also applies to customers and customers enjoying the fact that, you know, the place that they're going into the, you know, whether it's say Ian Rose who are getting ready to start up with or Walker brothers, they, they, customers when they understand that they are shopping sustainably, do it more often and you've got a much stickier relationship with that customer. So, and, and, and it works with employees too. Absolutely. Like some of our guys had been with us for a lot of years who came in as a truck driver, wanting to do the job, didn't care. But once they really understood and bought into the mission that we have as composters, it, I've noticed a retention effect, with those guys, with, with, with, with our labor, just because they know that they could be doing it in construction. They could be, you know, just running any old dump truck with their they're having a positive impact. Right. And it's a, it's a, it's a really interesting point about the employee retention and something that we've we've been having a lot more conversations. I mean, obviously, when you think, okay, these guys are diverting food waste from landfills, restaurants, hotels, food manufacturers, places like that are going to be sort of the low hanging fruit, but we've been having a lot more conversations with offices where they want to do just that. I mean, even if it's just coffee grounds and lunch scraps and paper towels and tea bags and things like that, they want to participate because they see exactly that value. Like, uh, well, one of our, one of our customers, uh, it's a great story.

25:41And you're going to hear that story right after these words from our sponsors. We are talking about net checks today. And you know, last week we told you that net checks is your single source for all things people. We made a list recruiting onboarding performance management, human resources, uh, scheduling payroll taxes. The one thing that we want to focus on today is your biggest pain point hiring and retention. Uh, what do you use? Indeed, Facebook, Craigslist, well, net checks will post to all of those sites for you automatically. So there's no need for you to post on all these different sites and keep up with it. One source, like I said, net checks is your single source for all things people. They are always on the employee experience. What chefs want has been serving the Nashville restaurant community for over 15 years. During that time, they've worked tirelessly to be, well what chefs want seven day deliveries, no fuel charges, 24 seven customer care, unparalleled availability and they'll split almost everything they sell.

26:56If you're the kind of person that wants to see what's new when it comes in stock, you should follow them on the socials at what chefs want and sign up to be a customer at what chefs want.com. One of God's great gifts to this world was fresh baked bread. That's why Sharpier's bakery delivers six days a week to your restaurant as they've been doing for 36 years. Erin Mosso's family has been running Sharpier's bakery locally owned and operated right here in Nashville, Tennessee. Like I said, for 36 years, go check them out at sharpieres.com that's C H A R P I E R S.com or Sharpier's bakery on Instagram and Facebook. Give Erin Mosso a call at 6 1 5 3 1 9 64 53 to set up an appointment to talk about what fresh bread you'd like delivered to your restaurant today. They want to participate because they see exactly that value. Like, uh, well, one of our, one of our customers, uh, it's a great story.

28:02It's a family run business. They've been around for decades, um, and sustainability and doing what they can, uh, that's reasonable to protect the environment. Like they're going to do it. And they seek to achieve zero waste. Uh, they're not a, um, sustainability consulting office. They sell forklifts. They sell forklifts, but they're one of our collection customers because that's just how they roll. Yep. The Bailey company. They've been with us for several years and, and we're, it's not a, it's not a great deal of what they produce cause it's, they make forklifts, refurbished forklifts, but it's, I, it's my favorite 20 pounds. We pick up a week because the employees that work there are probably love doing that too. I sure hope so. We love that they do it and we love heading over there every week to grab it from them. So this is where this is going to sound like an infomercial because in all infomercial like, and what is that going to cost me $5,000 a week? Tell me what it is clay. Like, I feel like I'm like, guys, all this sounds great, but this is way too expensive. My margins are super thin.

29:08I can't, I pay so much money for my dumpster to come be picked up. Another thing, if I got to have dumpster picked up twice a week, but I've got now this food waste segregated off and I'm, somebody else is picking that up. I may have more dumpster space. Or you have to have that dumpster picked up once a week instead of twice. That's what I'm saying. And that's as we've evolved, we've been able to bring that sort of cost ratio much more in line with trash. The minute we are actually cheaper than your trash service, our job is going to get really, really easy. Um, but you know, we're not fleeted like waste management or a public services or anybody like that. But as we've grown and our routes have gotten denser, we have really brought that in line. So basically what we try to do is when we come in, we want to reduce your traditional trash service to such an extent that our service comes in at that neutral or less than what you've got so that we are not negatively impacting your overall waste cost because we don't want to penalize anybody for doing the right thing.

30:13It is a little bit of extra effort to train that those employees to do it, get those compostable service, whereas those kinds of things. So we really, we've been working relentlessly to get that cost down so that it is really appealing and we're, we're finally there. Well, is there a monthly fee that it costs to work with you guys? There is, we charge it by the pickup. Um, but we, we don't charge you, you know, a tonnage fee and an environmental fee and the taxes and the driver's cell phone bill and all the other crap that you get from, what do you charge per pickup? So right now, uh, customers who want one or two 64 gallon, like roller carts, uh, like you would see, you know, curbside style trash or recycling carts. Uh, you can have up to two of those for $30 a service. So if that's once a week, it's $30 a week. Here's what we do when we come to collect those, say like, we collected a handful of the Starbucks around town. Uh, they typically have two bins. We show up, we pick up the bins, tip them upside down over our truck. Uh, the liner and all the stuff falls into the back of our, uh, water tight, uh, food scrap collection truck.

31:26We actually spray them out with hot soapy pressure washer. You name somebody who clean them, who washes your trash can for you every time, every single time set them back down, realign them with a fresh compostable liner and put them back where they live. So the actual cart itself has a compostable liner in it also. Correct. It does. And we do that. Those are kind of the extra steps that we take because we know that nobody has to compost. It's a choice that they're making. You got to get rid of your trash in one way or shape or form, whether it's traditional trash recycling or composting. It's got to go somewhere, but we're, we're a choice that people are making. So we, we, we really do make every effort to go above and beyond what people are expecting. And 30 bucks a pickup is ridiculous. That's cheap. It's pretty cheap. Uh, but you know, some customers like, uh, you know, we, we started working with a snooze, awesome new restaurant, um, AME eatery, just dated one in Phoenix last week. Oh, excellent. Um, it was good. Yeah. Had some good breakfast tacos over there a couple of weeks ago. Um, on their opening day, they've got five carts. Wow.

32:30And, uh, we're picking up twice a week and, but some customers will have, you know, one or two carts and they're picked up, you know, once a week or the, some people were picking up three times. The point is, is it's, we, we customize it for everybody because everybody's got different needs. Everybody's got different space. Nobody designed a loading dock with like a compost slot in it. Um, so we kind of fit it in wherever we can. You know, the music city center has got large dumpsters that we're, we're using. Um, it just really depends. Wow. I bet you they go through a ton. Chef Max be on the show here pretty soon. Tell him we said hello. He's a pioneer. That man. He is amazing. Isn't he? I can't wait. So who else do you guys work with the, um, what are the restaurants are you working with in town? Audrey, uh, Mitchell's deli. Uh, we've just recently started with, uh, E and Rose wellness cafe. We're starting at their, uh, Peabody Plaza location, where they make all of their juices for the other four locations. Uh, but I think we're going to be looking to expand their program.

33:33They're really excited about it. I don't know how you can listen to this and not be excited about that. And if you're a restaurant to be able to, to do this, just, it just almost seems like you got to do it. Everybody should be doing this. It's earth day today. We're talking about it. What can you do for mother earth? This, this seems right. I mean, for people in restaurants, it seems like the thing you got to do. Given that it can represent like 60 or 70% of a restaurant's waste stream by weight. Um, that's, that is a, an important decision that a restaurant tour could make. We hope they do. So the best thing you could do on this earth day is call this man to my left, Jeffrey, and we'll get this thing rolling. Well, let's see. I'm going to look up Jeffrey's phone number right now so I can give his phone number out. I didn't memorize it. Jeffrey. I'm sorry. That's quite all right. I'm happy to speak it, but you have such a lovely voice. Well you can get ahold of Jeffrey Ezell at six one five eight six 81 52. Is that right? Did that do well on that one?

34:39That was great. Yeah. Or I want to try it again. Just, you know, okay. Well what if I want, what if I don't like to pick up my phone and call? I like to email, right? So what if I sent you an email and I said, Hey, I mentioned learning more about the compost company. Where would I send that email, Jeffrey? You could send that email to Jeffrey J E F F R E Y at compost company.com. You guys make it so difficult. We try. If that one is confusing, there's also the clay info at compost company.com and there's also clay at compost company.com. So we give you lots of ways to reach us. I'll bet you could even go on the interwebs and you could go to the Instagram and if you followed at compost company, you could probably even DM you there or whatever. There's a lot of ways to get ahold of these guys and they're ready. We would love to be gotten in touch with. So yeah, we've tried to make it easy.

35:43You could also find us at compost company.com.com compost company.com or I will give, I'm going to give that number away one more time. You can call to give the actual telephone or a cell cellular telephone and you can call Jeffrey Ezell at 6 1 5 8 6 6 8 1 5 2 2 for 2 2 for 2. I got it right both times. Swish. It's amazing. So guys, what else, what else can we learn today? Let's learn some things about earth day. What are some, you worked for Metro water. Yeah. So it used to be Metro public works. They just divided out the waste and recycling. It's now with a Metro water services. What are some other things that people can do besides just composting? Well, the, I mean, okay. For restaurants and things I will say, uh, people often ask us like, well, can you, um, are you going to donate?

36:47You should be donating more food, um, to people who need it. I'm in full support of that. Uh, there are people who do that and they'll glean things from, uh, farms or they will, um, you know, like country music hall of fame, they compost with us. They have a dumpster that we service on a regular basis, but they're like right down the street from the rescue mission. And so they will take, uh, edible food down to the rescue mission as much as they possibly can and then compost what they can't. There's a really common misconception in, uh, the restaurant and food manufacturing industry that, uh, there's a big liability in donating edible food. Uh, there really isn't unless somebody can prove negligence or something. I mean, there's a good Samaritan act that, uh, as long as you donated the food, uh, in good faith, then, you know, there's nothing anybody can do about that. But a lot of people just think like, Oh, well, I don't want to get sued if, you know, this food leaves my control and some, and something happens.

37:51So a lot of things just get tossed that otherwise could be eaten. I realize there are a lot of logistical, uh, challenges to incorporating that. And, and, you know, everybody's focused on what it is that they do and not taking on this, you know, how many people are going to send an employee off to go donating edible food all around town when, you know, their job is to be a sous chef or we don't have enough employees to do that right now. You don't, nobody does. There's not enough before mentioned glut of talent. Yeah. I mean, it's just to be in the restaurant industry. That's not a thing. St. Andrew's a society of St. Andrew's. I think they, they, they do a lot of gleaning work. Um, so it is, it is possible. What, what exactly is composting? I mean, just to be like the actual idea here, recycle versus compost, versus decompose, decompose the same thing. So decompose. Okay. So the most general definition of composting is a managed decomposition of organic materials and organic materials does not mean, uh, no herbicides, pesticides, things like that.

39:03Um, it just means that it's, it's got carbon in it. It's a little plant or an animal. It was once a lot. It was once alive. Yeah. So it's a managed decomposition, like tree rabbit falls over in the forest. It will decompose all by itself. Like you said, with the microorganisms, they're going to break it down and turn it into, um, a very valuable part of soil, right? But if you compost it, then you just create an environment where decomposition happens more quickly and you can, you know, you can control it. That's the difference between one apple falling off the tree and then returning to the soil and 10 million apples. Cause we've got lots and lots and lots of organics in a very concentrated space. So we have to manage that very actively. How do you actively, I'm now I'm intrigued. How do you manage it on your, you have a farm. Where is the farm? We refer to it as the farm. It's in Ashland city, Tennessee, about 35 minutes from where we're sitting right now. Um, how many acres do you have? We have 37 of which we're probably using about 15.

40:05So that puts us in league with some of the larger facilities in the country, at least by space, by no means are we processing the same amount of material that's going on out in California or Oregon. It's a much more mature industry out there. But generally speaking, what it looks like is our trucks come back from their route and they deposit everything that they've collected. Um, we blend all of that in the right ratios with a carbon source. Generally speaking, it's wood chips, leaves, things like that that we get from tree trimmers and landscapers. And so the first part of the job is not unlike baking. If you get it into the right ratios, it will compost a lot better. And we, our responsibility is to produce the best possible compost we can with the materials that we get. Cause it's often a moving target. Some days a truck comes in and it's got 40,000 pounds of spinach on it. Another time it's a 10,000 pounds of 50 pound sacks of oregano or, um, it'll all be the same thing like that. Cause like if you want to Taylor farms or somebody and it's all romaine lettuce heads, we work with Taylor. Yeah. So I mean, that's like, you know, romaine lettuce heads are there. Hey, I'm cutting carrots and you get carrot tops and lettuce heads for, you know, 40,000 pounds of that. Do you need more variety? Do you need some, you know, some fat from a prime rib and some of this and this the different organisms play well together in the same box.

41:30As long as we get our carbons and our nitrogens, right? Everything should break down quickly because we have to make a really good compost without kicking up a smell. One of the major major misconceptions of composting is that like by doing so we're going to create some hard stench. And if that were the case, we wouldn't have existed for very long. We've had a great relationship in our home County, Cheatham County for, you know, since 2012. And so, you know, bad smells are our first indication that something isn't going right. The conditions are right. So, but short story long, our biggest job is to make put the conditions right for the little microbes that Jeffrey was talking about the same ones that are out there in the forest. We've just got them in a lot higher numbers. We could, we create the right conditions for them and they do kind of all the, all the dirty work. How long does it take on the whole process? If you get a whole truck full of something and you dump it and then you mix it with wood chips, you add the carbon to it and you, do you just let it sit? Do you cover it? Do you do, you just let it sit out there, right?

42:33What we do is we, we blend it all into the right ratios and then we put it on an aeration system. We're actually blowing air through the material. We used to do it the old fashioned way where we had what they called windrow piles, where we were actively turning those things. And that's a, takes a while. Um, then as we grew to sort of meet demand, we had to be able to do it on a smaller footprint and do more of it more quickly. Um, so we put it on this new aeration system that we have in top to tail processes about 90 days. Um, wow, that's impressive. That's 30 days of active composting. That makes, that's how we kill off any worrisome pathogens, you know, E. Coli, that kind of stuff, the bugs. And then we cure it for a while. We are extremely picky about what that compost looks like going out the door. We want it to be gorgeous and we want it to perform well. So we, we treat it longer than most people would. A lot of, you know, large producers don't, you know, they're get it out of there as quickly as they can. And it's kind of junky.

43:33All right. So you say you sell it to some farmers. If I'm buying product from somebody and potential that they have your stuff, it's hopefully good, but let's just say I am in home farmer, right? So is, can I show it? How, where do I, could I buy like 50 pound bags of your compost somewhere? Right. Excellent question. So like, um, right now, really cool stories. Uh, you can find them in about 15 locations, uh, mostly in Nashville, Clarksville, Ashland city areas. But, um, you know, to go back to this sort of 90 days thing and just sustainability generally, one of the things that gets me really excited is like, we compost the, uh, food scraps and compostables from the Nashville farmers market from whole foods, grocery stores, all three of them. Right. We take that stuff 35 miles up to our farm. 90 days later, some of that compost goes back into a bag and is delivered to those locations for sale. So it like literally is a closed loop.

44:37So I can go to whole foods right now and I can buy your compost. We have our potting mix there this spring. It's called potluck potting mix. It's in a gorgeous green and white bag right next to your door. If you're local here in Nashville and you've got a raised bed in your backyard, or you're going to be growing anything. If you go to whole foods, you can buy the compost company, the final product. If you have a restaurant and you're doing an herb garden or whatever it might be, that's kind of a neat story to tell people to say, Hey, look, the, the basil that is in this Caprese salad with your summer Caprese salad is grown in the back of our restaurant and compost that came from our restaurant. Yeah. So I actually, uh, delivered some fun story. Yeah. So I delivered some bags of compost and potting mix to a Mitchell deli the other day. Cause they've got some sort of feed troughs and window boxes where they plant some of their fresh herbs that they use. And they're going to be using our potting mix and compost to do it. And then we come pick up their food waste and we'll bring them some more compost. Wow. I know.

45:40That's so cool. I love this. So a fun, fun earth day episode for you guys out there. If you want to know what you can do to, to help mother earth, today's a good day to be focusing on that. We're, we're not college students, but we're getting involved and, um, you get the compost company to come out every week and they will, they'll clean the bin. I think that's the most amazing thing is that you dump all this stuff, they'll come pick it up and then they clean it. So it's not just this stinky bin that sits there forever. That's amazing. Unlike your dumpster. Unlike the dumpster never gets washed. Well guys, I think that, um, I'm first of all, excited to partner with you guys. I think what you're doing is amazing. Um, I'm a big, big fan. And I thank you for the work that you're doing. And hopefully my listeners out there that, uh, make these decisions. If you're, if you're not saying it makes a decision, if you're, uh, anybody who works in a restaurant and you think that would be something you would like, go tell your, go tell the GM, go tell the chef, go tell somebody, Hey, when you're, you know, when they're cutting these cantaloupes and all the sides and you're cutting your pineapples, like let's save that stuff.

46:50Let's save that stuff and send it over to the compost company to reduce methane and let's start recycling as they'll start composting. It's awesome. We also want to help reduce trash bills. That's an important part for sure. Um, we, we really want to have that effect on you. All right. Well guys, um, thank you. Happy earth day again to you. Happy earth day. Thanks for having us. Last thing I do on these episodes is I ask our guests to take us out. I think today's going to be a really good one because you guys get to say whatever you want for as long as you want. You're talking to my whole audience. I think every listener out there waits till the very end of the episode to hear what you have to say uncensored as long as you want to do it. And, um, I'm going to put you on the spot. So take us out, Jeffrey and clay. What we're doing is really exciting for just the environment, the waste systems that we have.

47:55We're working to build this really wonderful network of, um, food scrap recyclers in the area. Um, it's very interesting that we can connect with restaurants and food manufacturers and farmers and be a part of it at, at every level. Uh, it's very, very exciting for me. Um, Clay. Yeah, I love being in this thing because we actually grew up in the restaurant industry and I, you know, know how hard that job is. It's an incredible one. And, but I, you know, a lot of people think of it's like, Oh, I'm going to go be a restaurateur and it's going to be the most glamorous thing in the world. And the next thing I know, I'm going to be on the food network and I'm going to do all these wonderful things. And it is a grind. And having grown up in that industry, we, we just not only want to do something sustainable, but we want, we see ourselves as support for people who are working their asses off all the time, trying to bring something nourishing and culturally relevant to their city.

49:01And we've got such a vibrant community of that now that we love being a part of. Um, so we, we, we, we're, we're in a support role for all of you guys out there. Um, we'd love to help. Fantastic. You guys are, um, you guys are amazing. I appreciate everything that you're doing. Sponsoring the show is amazing, but also what you guys are doing out there saving the earth. One, one truckload at a time. I think it's super cool, man. It's an honor to have you here today. Thank you, sir. I'll be here. Happy Earth Day. All right. Happy Earth Day. Big, big. Thank you out there to Clay and Jeffrey Ezell for joining us in studio for that amazing Earth Day episode. Sometimes things fall together. Hope that you guys, Hey, listen, since you made it to the very end of the episode, here's the deal. If you sign up right now, you call the compost company at the numbers I told you, or you message him, however you want to do it.

50:09He's going to give you your first two pickups for free so you can test it out. It's free. Just test it out. See if it's something that you like. See if the servers do what they say they're going to do and see if it's something that's awesome. So you got to do it before May 1st. Okay. There's a little bit of a time crunch here. You've got to do it before May 1st. Get in there and get started. Start composting. Stop, stop creating more methane and greenhouse gases at the landfill. We can do our part. If we get 50 restaurants or a hundred restaurants to sign up and do this, we can really make a change. And I'm very excited about that. So hopefully your allergies are going to be fixed. Hopefully mine are. My voice will be back sooner than you know. Big episodes coming up. Thank you guys. I hope you're being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.