Well, hello ladies and gents. Roberts sykesketosabs.com Today I've got me on the podcast. This is going to be a short podcast. This is not with a guess. This is just with me bringing you up to speed on what I learned in Brazil. So I went to Brazil to figure out what's going on with the cacao crisis situation for the Keto Bricks. I learned a ton and we are going to have to start changing things as a business in result of that. And I'm going to talk about that in this podcast.
But before we dive in, let's roll the intro. What is going on y'all? Robert Sykes, Keto brick.com and I got some information for you, as you may have known, may have not have known, may know, I don't know. I just came back from Brazil, spent the last week in Brazil looking for a cacao. I made an announcement earlier this year about the cacao crisis that we are now experiencing. For those of you that do not know cacao butter, this is a
cacao fruit. It is a cacao butter is our main ingredient in the Keto Bricks, main ingredient in the Keto Bricks. Cacao butter is awesome. It's got a whole host of health benefits and the extraction process is super cool and unique. I learned all about it while in Brazil. Earlier this year, I talked about the cacao crisis that we are currently experiencing. I'll throw a chart on the screen here where you can see the price change that's happened over the
past few months. It's insane and it's not good for business because again, that is our primary ingredient. So I went to Brazil just to give you some Mac story as to why that price change has occurred. Basically a lot of the cacao is produced in Africa. Africa, D Force the the the forest plants, a bunch of cacao trees, hires child labour to process that. And they have jacked up the pricing because they had experienced an El Nino rain season which decimated their entire crop.
And now there's a run on cacao everywhere globally. I've never gotten my cacao from Brazil or from Africa. I've been getting it from Peru and I went to Brazil to try and find better pricing on cacao. I had hoped in going to Brazil that I would be able to go direct to the farmer, get a better price and not have to do anything drastic with the company. That is not my reality.
That is not our reality because the pricing of COW is just here to stay for a bit longer and it will likely increase a bit more, which is scary times, scary times. So what does that mean for me? What does that mean for you? How does that affect Keto Brick as a company? Well, we're going to have to start charging shipping first and foremost. I have been in business for six years. All of our carriers have pretty much increased our shipping cost every six months in that six
year span. So for all intents and purposes, our shipping cost have increased roughly 12 times since we opened the doors of Keto Brick. I have not once charged shipping domestically because I have not wanted to pass that cost on to y'all. In light of the cacao crisis, we're going to have to start charging shipping.
That is just simply the reality of the situation and it is what it is. I don't like it any more than you do, but I would rather apologize for having to pay for shipping due to a situation outside of my control than apologize for not being able to produce the bricks at all because we go out of business. So that is what it is, ladies and gents, and that's just our reality. So going forward, starting in August, we will be charging shipping and we have never charged shipping before, as I
mentioned. So we're going to be working through some bugs, we're going to be working through some kinks. We're going to be trying different softwares, different carriers, different discounted rates, trying to get the best shipping prices that we can and do right by y'all as best we can. And that is subject to change as we learn more about charging, shipping and different platforms and carriers and softwares that we can use to streamline that process.
But expect to be charged shipping starting in the beginning of August. That is one thing that we're going to do differently. The next thing that we're going to do differently is that we are going to be focusing on diversifying our primary ingredients. So as you know, cacao butter is our current primary ingredient and we're going to be focusing on also offering tallow. So quality beef tallow as the primary fat source.
I'm super excited about it. We've been actually working on a tallow brick for four years now at least, and we have not yet released it because I've been focusing on cacao, but because of the cacao crisis, I'm going to be focusing more on tallow. I do not want y'all's first impression of the tallow bricks
to be negative. So we are not going to launch those until it cools down a little bit and we can offer tallow without the risk of it melting because tallow, while it's great, it's great from hysteric acid standpoint, it's great from lots of different standpoints. It is not quite as shelf stable and resilient to the heat as
cacao butter. So in light of the cacao crisis, in light of my increased costs and in light of my increased shipping costs and my increased ingredient cost, we're going to be charging shipping that's going to go into effect in beginning of August. We're going to be focusing on tallow bricks and offering those for you as well so that you can have another option outside of just the cacao.
And that will hopefully hedge our bets a little bit as well and diversify our ingredient sources and allow us to stay in business and going strong and offer tallow bricks for all of you all that have won in tallow bricks. So I'm super excited about that keto brick, this company of mine, this company of ours, this company that my wife and I created six years ago on a wing and a prayer for our own need that has become what it is now is something I'm incredibly
passionate about. We slept on a freaking warehouse floor for three years to make this a reality. I'm not going to go down without a fight and I'm not freaking going down because there is no Plan B in my life. There is only Plan A and I'm going to make Plan A work. I want everybody to be healthy. I want everybody to not have, you know, food cost, ingredient cost as a barrier to entry to eating healthy. But the reality of our situation is that we offer a premium product.
We offer a quality ketogenic Carnivore premier product without filler ingredients. And I'm going to keep doing that because that's who I built the product for and that's who all of y'all are. And the simple situation, the simple reality is that a lot of these companies that use Kakaum are either going out of business or they're increasing their prices drastically, or they're trying to hedge their bets by putting in subpar ingredients and fillers and seed oils and
just nonsense. And I'm not going to do that because y'all don't want that in the products that you eat. I don't want that in the products that I consume. And I certainly don't want to put my name on it. See that? That's a figure of me. That's my name. If I'm putting my name on, it's going to be the highest quality. That's why I've kept production in house from day one, so that I can oversee the quality. I'm not going to cut corners, and I promised that to y'all.
That said, I'm going to have to charge what it cost to produce and ship the bricks. I can't make money. I can't stay in business if the cost of my shipping and the cost of my ingredients exceeds the cost of what I'm charging them for. So that is a simple reality and I'm not going to waiver from that and I'm not going to apologize for things that I can't control. I can't control the cacao commodity system.
What I can control is how I run the company, what I charge for the costs to procure, produce and deliver a quality product. And I can control the quality of that part. And that quality is always going to be the most pristine quality you can give. And I promise and commit to that. That said, I, like I said, I don't want people to have cost be a barrier to entry for eating health. If you simply want to eat healthy and be as healthy as you possibly can, you can't afford
the brick, then that's fine. Eat a whole bunch of eggs. You know, eggs are great. They're cheap. They're going up in price too, but they're cheaper than anything else. So if you're trying to get healthy, eat a whole bunch of eggs, but if you want the convenience and the quality of a keto brick, you're going to have to pay for it. And that's just the reality because we're we're going to stay in business and we're going to cost what it takes to stay in business.
I'm not driving a Lamborghini. I'm not, you know, retiring on a private yacht somewhere. I'm not trying to price gouge people. I'm trying to do right by y'all and make sure you always have a quality product that I can offer. And as such, I'm going to have to increase prices to make sure it's a viable company at all times. That's the reality of our
situation. We've had some people chiming in on Facebook ads and Instagram saying that we're price gouging, saying that we charge too much for our product. And to be completely frank and honest with you, those are the people that don't value the quality ingredients. They don't value what they're putting into their body as much as we do. And for that reason, they're not my target customer. I don't want their money. I don't want their business. I don't want their headache.
That may sound brash, but that is what it is. If you want a premium product, you have to pay for the premium product. And I can't, I can't say it any other way. That is just simply our reality. I'm going to fight to stay in business. I'm going to fight to do what's right by y'all, and I'm going to always maintain the quality integrity of the product, and the chips will fall where they may. Who knows what the price of cacao is going to do in the future? It may go up, it may go down.
I don't know. I'm going to do everything in my control, which may include buying a freaking farm in Brazil and going to direct in the sense of growing my own cacao trees. I don't know what that's going to be, but I'm going to do everything in my power to do right by y'all. I trust that those of you who know me, that those of you who have been around for the long haul recognize that, believe in that and appreciate them. And I will never, ever try and
do wrong by y'all. And I'll be transparent like I have from the very beginning. So there it is ladies and gents, that's the reality. That's what I've learned in Brazil and I hope we can all be at peace with that. And I appreciate all y'all that are loyal customers and do value that premier quality of product more than you could ever know. So thank you very much. Much love to all of y'all.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day. And again, the shipping cost will be added at checkout starting August 1st. So plan accordingly there. Appreciate y'all talk to you next time.