Julia Niro: Adaptability
In this episode, we discuss why being adaptable can literally save lives. Founder and CEO of Milkrun, Julia Niiro, is bridging the gap between small farms and local communities with tech.
Growing up, Julia moved around a lot. We discuss how this informed her outlook on life and business, a tolerance for discomfort, a love of change, and how to let go of old ideas when they're not working.
A writer by passion, Julia’s career path blossomed alongside the emergence of E-commerce; when social media was picking up as a platform and when businesses began truly listening to their consumers. In 2013, she pivoted into the food industry, where she became immersed in our local food systems. Her relationships with small farms and local chefs unearthed the need for a local distribution service that would both support farmers and keep workers safe and healthy through covid.
Learn more about Julia's innovative food technology, ways to engage with Milkrun. Let’s get passionate about our food systems! And use the code WIT30 for 30% off your first two orders!
Transcript
Intro:
Welcome to Humanizing Tech, a PDXWIT podcast. We interview people to dig below the surface of their achievements and challenges, showcasing the story behind the story. We believe that focusing on the person and humanizing their lived experiences will help us shape the future of tech.
This episode of Humanizing Tech is brought to you by First Tech Federal Credit Union. First Tech puts people over profit with personalized financial services and convenient banking solutions. To help you thrive. First tech offers individualized tools for your financial wellness, whether you're saving for college, buying a house or looking forward to retirement, when you're ready to save time and money visit first tech fed.com and see how first tech invests in you
Before we get started, I want to acknowledge the land we're on wherever we're tuning in from PDXWIT recognizes the ongoing violence, trauma and erasure indigenous Oregonians and native Americans face. Portland rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Kathhlamet, Clackamas, Chinook Tualatin, Kalapuya,, Mollala, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. We endeavor to have this acknowledgement be more than just words. The tech industry is building the future of our world, and it is up to us to ensure that it is a future for all, to find out more about how we're supporting the future of indigenous Oregonians and Native Americans, please visit our website. We'll add a link in the show notes as well.
Anusha Neelam (AM):
Welcome to another episode of Humanizing Tech. Today. We're going to be talking a little bit about the food tech industry, which I don't think we've talked about on the podcast before. So I'm super excited for this conversation. Um, but we should probably introduce ourselves first. So this is your co-host Anusha, she/her.
Rihana Mungin (RM):
This is Rihana. I am a board member for PDXWIT, and I am super excited to talk with our guests today.
AM:
Today we have the amazing Julia Niro with us. She is the founder and CEO of Milk Run, an online platform created to help people buy great local food directly from small and mid-sized farmers. Julia, thank you for being here with us today.
Julia Niro (JN):
Well, thank you so much for having me. This is quite an honor. It's a big deal. I've been a fan for a long time as a Portland entrepreneur. You all have really been helping women in this space for a long time. So I consider this a personal milestone. I'm very excited to be here.
AN:
Awesome. Well, we're excited to learn about you and your incredible journey and about how milk run is bridging the gap between farmers and local communities. But first we want to learn more about you. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
JN:
Yeah. Um, so of course, I’m a founder CEO of Milk Run because I always go into pitch mode. So, that is, that is where we're starting. But, yeah, I mean, I became a farmer. Let's see about 2013, previously out of the corporate world. And I'm a girl from, you know, outside of Detroit, Michigan. So farming was not something that I ever sat down around the dinner table and told my parents that I wanted to do. In fact, if you were to ask most people “is Julia Niro going into farming?” Uh, I think they would laugh. Um, so it's been, it's been an incredible journey and yeah, I mean, I started, I guess my career, moved around a lot. I was kind of a kid on the road, which led me to of a lot of different experiences, but it was always my dream to be a writer actually.
And then you go to college with those sorts of notions of writing, philosophy major and, yeah, I loved beat poetry and those things, and then they tell you that there's not much of a career in creative writing unless you want to be a professor. And I was like, oh, okay, well now what am I going to do? I think I was also really lucky. I mean, talk about timing just when you know, digital marketing just became a field, right. E-commerce was just starting and WordPress was just coming out. So it was a good kind of easy transition as far as what does it mean to, to kind of be a writer, when you're just kind of emerging out of college and how do you make a career out of that? And that's, that's where I start to learn a lot about content marketing and the voice that you could have on online platforms.
And I was just lucky enough to kind of be in the right place at the right time and can see the birth of that industry. So I taught myself search engine optimization, online advertising, and then e-commerce right. How do you help small businesses really list their products online? I think I, I really never really started out in the field with hopes of where it would be now, but all of those little pieces certainly help inform your journey. And then, I was recruited eventually by the largest B2B media company in the U S. So, if you really think about it, they're very traditional in print advertising, 17 different vertical markets, everything from industry week to, climber manuals, kind of you name it, HBO or HP Supercell or windows Supersite and to all these industry magazines that you're just like saw, I dunno, like my, my step dad's office all the time and it was, I, my job was to take 172 print publications digital.
So I then I got to see kind of the huge transition of the print industry. So what did it mean for, for staffs of editors and writers? Um, you mean you make a mistake in print and, it takes a lot of people to make sure you're not sending to print things that are your planned editorial calendars. So it was my job to, to build the internal digital strategy as they all went online and it was an incredible, very cool humbling experience. Then I think all of that really positioned me well to understand and see the change that was just happening in our world. As things went online, the voice of the consumer, which really empowered me. And then this is kind of all social is just even if in picking up as a platform, let alone businesses listening.
And that that ultimately kind of became my job. And what kept me in the corporate world was the opportunity to say people have opinions, needs, demands, for major corporations across every field, you know, DuPont, Monsanto, HP, Google. And that was, that was my job. I'm sitting in these big boardrooms, but I guess they have their executive meetings and their questions what are people saying? And that felt very powerful to me. And I guess that that optimism is kind of what keeps me still doing what I'm doing. I got to witness that, that attention, the people who make decisions, were, were giving their consumers and that felt pretty transformational. And I think ultimately I've just always been a storyteller, and believe in the power of listening and being heard. I guess all of that in essence is what led me to do what I do today with Milk Run.
RN:
Okay. I have so many questions for you. You gave us so much information, right at the beginning, the first thing that you said when you were talking, you, you know, you said you're a girl from Detroit, um, and that you moved around all the time. My dad was in the Navy, so I was that kid who's moving. And I went to like a bajillion different schools before I started high school and was like, always on the move. And I just, you know, just look at the world differently and maybe you're more resilient. Can you talk about how that kind of lifestyle, how that has informed your business and informed the decisions you made and like got you to where you are?
JN:
Yeah. You know, especially nowadays I'm bringing a little bit more awareness to the challenges. For me, that story really is, is my mom, you know, she was a single mom. She was married four times. So just kind of really, I was raised as witness to what it meant to be a woman, you know, in the eighties, divorced, still challenging, legal rights, still an issue, let alone, kind of the financial sacrifice that she had to make, because there just weren't laws that really protected women or enforced, you know, I guess financial support if your whole life, you know, she, she raised four kids on a salary from Nordstroms and many other jobs. She ended up graduating college at Oakland university. And I think, you know, she was definitely hippie spirit, right?
Like my mom's stories are amazing. It's like cutting the fences at Woodstock. And I think I was just raised by a lot of fierce women. My grandmother was an English professor who brought Bob Dylan to speak to her classes. She wore pants, swore all the time. And I just, I think I was literally the first, I guess, words I heard of what it meant to be a person in a world where in regards to like, it's going to be hard and this is real, but that is the, that's what we do, right. This is who we are and, and be fearless. And if life is messy, it's messy, but like, it's, it's also meant to really be lived and think about it almost like generational. Right. Um, and that awareness was always with me pretty young.
And I think that also to your point resilience, um, sometimes I even find myself teaching and kind of coaching here at the company with the, with the concept or later coined by Ray Dalio, but the idea of like tolerance for discomfort. That's what it is. It's increasing that tolerance for discomfort, which is not a small thing that doesn't mean just taking it and holding it inside. It means processing that and sharing that, and connecting. And I think also when you're exposed to so many and an awareness that life exists beyond some bubbles. There are many people going through many different things and we are merely observing our perspective. So when you were a kid going through that you have to learn to fit in, and you really do that by trying to understand where you are, who you're talking to, what that culture is, what would that be in the school or in those communities and, and just appreciating it.
So you're happy. I think ultimately it is that tolerance for discomfort and also just, just love of change. I think even within the company to ask a lot of people, especially as we're growing in size, most people say it's hard to keep up. It's hard when they do it, especially with me my mind, and is as planned as I think I am these days, especially there still is this awareness I have to have of my ability to pivot, um, you know, like old ideas if they aren't working and just, just recommitting all the time. And I think I've just, I've been doing that forever
RN:
Well, and you must have a really natural and easy way to make connections with people. That’s what I, that's what I experienced. I had to move every couple of years, you have to uproot your whole life and make a new community, and you just have to get good at making friends and making connections and, you know, doing what you need to do. So that's probably at least to me sitting over here, probably why part and why you're so successful in what you're doing.
JN:
Yeah. And I mean, you as well know, do your career and what you're doing, you just, it is. And it's a genuine interest in people. Right. I think you just learn that there's more to the world than you. And at some point, I guess if you're, if you're lucky and you adapt well. You learn to love that, like that is the juice, right? Like it is why I think, I, I love all these worlds that are not so obvious that are not covered so often. I, it's just incredible to me, just the vast array of stories, I guess I just could never know enough. I could never hear enough for or learn enough. And, uh, I guess I'm seeing, seeing the similarities in you and the quality of the content you bring to the world.
AN
Well, I, for one, am inspired by both of you and I'm sure, you know, adaptability is a huge part of what the two of you were talking about in terms of moving and having to deal with so much change. And I am definitely fascinated by people who can adapt well and quit quickly. I think it's a very, um, underestimated quality sometimes. And it's very, very important in the work that we do. So, definitely, appreciate you sharing your background on that, Julia. And, I'm curious, you mentioned that you started learning about food and you became a farmer. How did you go from becoming a farmer and switching gears into this online platform and online community going about creating that? What made you switch gears from that?
JN:
Yeah, I mean, I think, and it will say, I think I kind of consider myself more of like a farm hand or like, and I know it's like part of our story very much so like, Julia's a farmer and I, we will even just, just here in a moment of complete, vulnerability that, that always makes me nervous all the time to kind of hear it. It's a moment when I, when it's that way, or I know I have to step up to a mic and record something and I own that story just so this imposter syndrome in me very heavily and, because that's no small title, right. That's a big word. I think it really represents a level of commitment that, that I was only witnessed to, so I mean yeah, with that even just kinda feeling it it's, it's still the feeling that I had when I met farmers but like, for me, it was just totally groundbreaking. I was coming out of Penton.
I was literally like, I was either gonna land in San Francisco or Seattle friends in Portland, great. Leaving Colorado, whatever, you know, my style is pick up in the car, I'll figure it out where I go working remote anyway, consultant life. And then I met a group of chefs who were moving up from San Francisco. I don't know if you know, the company “Outstanding in the field” but very cool, very cool company, all the hip kids, chefs and, and these incredible kind of a band of, of people who drive across the country in a vintage bus and host farm dinners, to celebrate local food communities, epic company. And I met a group who were coming off tour as they called it. And it was about four chefs. Leah Scafe, one of my best friends, one of the greatest women I know.
Huge names in the Portland community. And my best friends and people women. I had just met them through a friend and they were starting this farm in Salem, Oregon. And they were going to open a restaurant. The restaurant is in Portland now it's called Renata,
So they were right when that was all being concepted. And they were just, I mean, these chefs, when I say chefs, like also broad term, but they were coming out. I mean, you know, farm to table, fine dining chefs.
And I just witnessed, I mean, you have let alone, you eat that kind of food, right. You're there preparing for all these pop-ups and I'm just sitting there in the kitchen with my computer, getting off the zoom calls, and they're just like putting food in front of me. And just all they were doing was just talking about, the roots of the food, the traditional ways of preparing it, why they made the choice, like, I mean, kind of that talk about the, kind of the, the beat notions of you only for me are the ones that are mad. I mean, that was, that was rare in my world to just see this like feverish obsession with food. And it was no joke. It was just constant constant conversation. It was a dedication. I think I just, I don't know, talk about just feeling like totally in a world of wonder.
I was just so impressed and, you know, my age, these are people my age and there's, weren't conversations about achievement and income and, and where you're going. And it was, it was just being in the moment, and their care, the care that would go in every dish, you know, you just, it just was crazy to me and felt so important that people who put a dish in front of you, that you're going to eat and it's gone like the commitment to everything on that plate. And the responsibility behind it, it was just, it was immense. And I felt kind of like, what have I been doing out here when like, this is, I dunno, you know, when you witness change or these moments where you're like, oh my gosh, all I've ever heard in the world, especially our generation is how bad it is, how much there is to that we have to fix or do something about.
And I don't know, I just feel like it's just heartbreaking some days to know what to do, but I don't know, not to be just to kind of woo about it, but it, it was happening. It just felt like good to know that there, there really is this kind of solution, right? Like if only people cared, like what if this was the way that it was, and, and fundamental. So I think anyway, I'm going totally off on a tangent, but that feeling, I don't know, I guess I just was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm out of my depth. I have no idea how to cook. I don't know a single thing about farming. I have no idea about wine. I don't know what you all are talking about.
This is not my language, but I'm here and I'm gonna hop in and I'm gonna quit my job. And I'm going to move out to this murder mountain that we're trying to make a farm out of. Actually, tangent tell us, this is a crazy, we want crazy this farm. So where they were starting this farm, talk about courage. They Googled this, farm in Salem, Oregon. And then when, one of the girls was there and she was just my friend, Andrea, and she was just Googling the address. Cause she was going to send something, didn't know the zip code. All of a sudden his five-part dateline here pops up that says the house on murder mountain. And there were like four people murdered in this home. It was property any where you will see, I mean, there's that, which is a whole story in itself. And like, yes, very, it was not, did not feel good sleep. I don't think I ever slept there at night alone. Because it was scary and like legitimately, but also when you look at photos of this, it's a big house on this very steep hill that is just mud. I mean, it is not, it's not a, it's not a farm when you Google picture as farm. Like there was not a flat section of land on this whole thing. So that also, it's a pretty critical
RN:
So you worked on a murder farm.
JN:
You know, I will say this is where I started to realize value when they were, it was like a first a pop-up farm, in McMinnville doing this winery event, let's sell some more the pickles and the beets the chefs are making. And they were like, oh cool. Yeah, we printed some Avery labels. You clipart, do a logo. And I was like, “oh cool. What'd you guys call your brand? They said “murder mountain.” That is, and I was like, oh, my word, okay. You think I could, this is a lot. I just feel like that is not what you want to read on the top of your pickup truck.
RN:
This is where your digital marketing comes in!
JN:
Oh, my word, I can be here. I can contribute!
RN:
That is very funny.
JN:
Like typewriter script to, you know, I was like, oh no, rip that up. It's just, it's just, yeah, it's not good.
RN:
Too niche of a market, like there's going to be a market for people wanting murder mountain pickles, but like very small market share.
JN:
Your target audiences, financial position here on this farm to be selling that kind of product. Yeah, that was crazy. But anywho, so that was, that was life, a very communal living and it was crazy. And we were, yeah, so then my angle was like, listen, let's tell some stories. So we started this company called “let them eat” as a little brand behind it. And then my job, essentially, Leah and I were driving around all these farmers and were profiling them, telling their stories online. And kind of my idea then was, yes, we're, let's make a living, we'll cook you for all these events and farming. And then the side side hustle, we'll be building a niche. Social network connecting the seeders feeders with food revolution. Easy! On, not easy. Wasn't a very, that was fun. And I got to learn a lot about farmers.
There are 200 different farmers and chefs and just in, just on the west coast, but there wasn't much business model. Right. Right. And farming didn't make much money. So it was pretty crazy. So then what a long story short ended up purchasing a property out in Canby, Oregon, started raising animals, trying to really figure out as most farmers do. How do you really make a living, being a small farmer? Um, who do you sell to, do you do wholesale retail? What do you sell? How do you pick a product that's going to scale? It's pretty hard to do any certified farming thing because fencing, which is what happens when you raise animals. You just spend all day fencing is very different than growing vegetables because not even remotely the same thing. And it's very hard to do both.
So all these little lessons learned and then at the time, this is kind of also he'll tell me if this gets boring, but from the food tech angle, these are the issues happening. There was a USDA meat processing facility, a fascinating story. I won't take up too much of your time. We can always follow up if you're interested, if your listeners are interested. But, in Canby, Oregon, it was a mile down the road now. And when you raise livestock as a small farmer, access to USDA processing is the bottleneck, right? You just, you just know that, you, you begin to learn that, um, there are lots of reasons why that is just, just could, could talk forever about that.
But, so for it to land this, there used to be 1200 USDA, or I guess not USDA at the time, cause there's the standards one district, but 1200, I think it was in about the seventies, facilities that would offer, offer these services, animal processing for local farmers in the state of Oregon that all served small farms. Now there are seven and there are only basically kind of one and a half, I'll call it two that even have any availability to any small farmer. So right now, to that facility, or certainly as we sat down and started to learn more, we're talking about people driving in from all over Washington, all over California, all over Idaho. I mean, 10-12 hours just to drop animals off, turn around and go home. Then they have to come pick them up and then they have to distribute them. I mean, this issue is just like, if people want to know about something that is going on, that we are a generation, this is our duty to solve in this generation is that it is incredible.
What is happening there right now? We actually saw that play out in COVID could go on and on about that awareness that's happening. But, Rebel Meat company, just look them up. They're in Portland, Oregon, what they are doing is heroic. We took that facility over my ex-husband, Jimmy, he runs that facility. Now he's partnered with Ben Meyer and, yeah, another tangent, but his father owned a meat distributor in Manhattan meatpacking. So he kind of grew up in this world. He was one of the chefs and his, we lost his father that January. And when they called in April Chris Aiken, whose family had owned this facility said, I've heard about what you all are doing. Um, we're getting older. So there's, this is the common story in food. This is what's happening. This is there. This is where we are. We're getting older. Our kids don't want to take the facility, right. They've, they've left. They all have jobs in, in tech. And if this goes 200 ranchers will lose their processing facility. So likely to go out of business. That is the regional supply chain of locally produced meat. And it's over. So we've heard that you might be able to connect us with someone who is willing to do the work on the spot. Jimmy said, I'll do it. I was like, oh my, okay.
Okay. He did. And they have just really kind of modernized that facility. Also, lots of lessons learned, right? So, an entrepreneur also married to another entrepreneur. There's lots of people listening. It's and it's not a topic that's talked about enough, but it is especially as a woman, like her life takes a hit and that's okay. Just important to talk about, we'll get into that in this conversation. But if there were obvious people, usually when I tell that story, they're like, did you say ex-husband and I'm like, yeah don't get distracted. We're talking about USDA processing.
RN:
I mean, I wasn't going to say anything. Cause it was like, oh, he said he was going to take on this meat processing plant?. Did he not talk to you? Is that why he's your ex-husband?
JN:
We were good there. I was, I don't think we knew what it meant, but yeah, no, that was not the issue, at all. Do you mean if you're listening for the record was not the issue. But yeah, so we, yeah, that, that was what he did. And then that's where distribution, that's where milk run started for me, this food, not to the best restaurants in the city, but to the neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon, but to really beat up refrigerated vans off Craigslist and then started designing a tech platform that actually solved the problem. My uncle 75 retired from, you were, he was retired from the day in his spare time. I got him to build our system that actually was micro fulfillment and distribution, that allowed farmers to pool their goods at drop points. And then we would take either the first or last mile, and it used a predictive analytics system to ensure that we're turning goods over on a weekly basis.
So we didn't have to sit on a lot of inventory in stock and that we could kind of batch deliveries by these neighborhoods and then deliver, um, that last mile for an affordable rate into Coleman coolers. And, yeah, that was kind of, that was because my mission became okay, online groceries happening, all the fancy Silicon valley companies are coming out and they're not doing anything for farmers, but they sure are selling that if you want to do something for farmers, you're going to have to get into food distribution. Like, I mean, I remember reading a tech crunch article. A guy in New York, folded in the, the CEO said we're software guys. If we'd known food was a logistics business, we wouldn't have done it. And I like, I think I threw like my, I didn't really throw my computer, but in my mind, through my computer got across the farm. And I was just like, that is what it is. Um, that, that is the complexity of it. And that is absolutely what we should be applying this funding, this, this, these engineers, this technology towards right. The hard thing. So anyway, wow.
RN:
This is so interesting. I have never thought of food in that way. You know, I know people who were obsessed with food, and Anusha, you know, people who are obsessed with food like that talk in that way.
We're obsessed with food. A lot of the people that listen to this podcast, I'm sure they're also obsessed with food, especially living in Portland where it's like, this is such a food city and there's a lot of talk about, farm to table, fresh and seasonal and this kind of talk, but the actual bottleneck and the actual issues. And it sounds like you're solving them using tech.
JN:
I'm certainly trying, you know, I'm learning, I'm learning a lot, you know, I think, the journey is never a straight line. There were ways I thought that I was going to solve it that I've learned. I don't know, you know, you just didn't work. We are testing every day and that is all like, that is what we're doing. And we're going to keep doing that. We have a very clear mission here at Milkrun. We have, have we delivered a hundred percent of the time? You know, like, I mean, yes, we've always delivered against our mission and our values and we're learning, what's hard about scaling local food systems. And what that means actually defining that and staying away from the slippery slope that got us here is not a small thing. So, um, we're learning and that's, that's what we do as entrepreneurs. Right. But that is 100% our mission. That's what we're committed to. And we will never falter from, from keep trying to ask the right question every day.
AN:
Well, Julia, it seems like you've really identified a gap and really went after it and, you know, listening to you now, and I've also listened to your Ted talk, that really got me thinking a lot about food and some of the statistics that you were sharing where it's like food is something that we all need. And we, you know, obviously eat every day, several times a day. Yet it's crazy that we don't think about where it's, you know, necessarily coming from or what is making that happen. And just hearing how little farmers make for putting in the effort and how much they do and how much of a specialty it takes to, to make that happen. It's definitely got me thinking quite a bit and, um, I'm just grateful that you're out there, you know, making this happen and that you've identified this gap and you, you talk about it so passionately. I'm curious to learn a little bit more, you know, about Milkrun, you've you've told us, you know, how, how you've come to that point. How, tell us a little bit about how the platform actually works and how, um, you're able to bridge that gap between farmers and local communities.
JN:
I mean, in its simplest form, it’s a subscription model, which is critical right then. That was talking about a huge lesson learned about that is not where I thought we'd land, but, but it is where we not, where we landed it is our foundation. And because of that replication, right? So what run does is we basically deliver to consumers, your core grocery staples. So the things that you need every week, your eggs, your milk, your vegetables, your meat, the things that you can commit to in your weekly kind of cadence, that you, that you want to just commit to buying from your local farms, but you don't want to shop for it. And you want it to show up on the same day every week and know it's awesome. And you trust us to source that directly from the small local farms in your area.
And we hold ourselves accountable because we make it our mission to constantly tell you about that, who they are, what they do, share that story, keep it in that packaging and provide you the best experience we can every single week. We're also delivering the realities of seasonal and local and helping you understand what that means for you. So Milkrun delivers core grocery staples direct from local farms every week to your house. We are a subscription service. And our job is to let you know that any small commitment that you make every single week is all that it really takes to begin to support your local food system. Even if it's just your eggs, right? Imagine if your whole neighborhood, but even just their eggs from a local farmer, your whole neighborhood could potentially support a farm. And I think that's the goal, right? Small is mighty. This is something, you know, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It is not so black and white. It is not, it is not divided. It is just, what can we do, right. It is eggs. It's as simple as eggs. It's as simple as bread. We don't have to feel bad that we can't afford maybe all of us be a farm to table, fine dining life, but what is it we could all do together?
AN:
You know, we're excited for Milk Run. And it sounds like you're on the verge of being able to, you've already expanded from Portland, to, to Austin. So,you know, congrats on that. I'm curious. I think we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but COVID, I know, has affected anywhere from small to large businesses across the board. How have things been for milk creme this last year?
JN:
Quite a story, and it's also hard, you know, kind of, kind of crazy to talk about because it was, it was a different story in a way that I know what a lot of people experience, you know, so many people I know, uh, lost their businesses or, and so to talk about growth and scale, or at that time is, has its own challenges. So I'll talk about it in a real way, because it was also not a, yes, we can talk. There is that high level lens, but we faced those challenges. We also faced a lot alongside it and the realities. And there's a lot of, kind of like I'm watching my whole team and myself were kind of shaking that, that trauma is I think the whole world is. And as a business that was built at that time out of sheer need.
So when I went into Techstars, an incredible program, Techstars accelerator and their remote accelerator, on January and I was on the flight, a flight home from Boulder, Colorado when, um, things started to really pick up steam. And I landed in the, and I got a text message and said, we were getting a lot of orders. It was me, an engineer and one other full-time person. And I was still driving trucks at this time. So there were, there were three of us and two drivers, and we're getting a lot of orders. And I think it has something to do with, with COVID 19, this is picking up steam. And I was like, okay, where are you? I'll be back. I think that day we ended up going from like 40 or verges on average, that was like a Tuesday to 300. Which for us as a small business was like, what are we going to do?
That moment that was, that was it. That was a, that was the only time that I think I took a breath, was properly hydrated, in the last, you know, 18 months, two years almost. And we, yeah, after that, it was just pure madness. We moved into what was formerly Wilder. They were kind enough to give us their building. As we were scaling, the company is now kind of 50. We have 28 people I think it was like a three, four week period that were coming that had all lost their jobs. So we said “if you just lost your job in the food and beverage industry in Portland, Oregon, please come to us.” Farmers were calling. I was on the phone with all of the farmers. Like “If you have goods, I will buy them.” We were talking to farmers, who'd lost all of their business. I mean all of the farmers, I mean, they'd lost the restaurant accounts overnight. So it was calling you and saying like, keep things in the ground. We were, we just couldn't bring in food fast enough. The tech platform was totally breaking. It was completely unprepared for all of this. My staff, like they had literally just lost their jobs and they were coming to work at milker. We had no systems. There was no training, let alone the city shut down. So we had pieces of paper and vehicles that said, like, “we are essential workers.” I think we were, I mean, I was sleeping like on the floor. There's just the mass mobilization of, of the Portland food industry to help Milk Run make it was, I mean, that, that was, that is milk that we were born then that is. I may have started an idea, but Milk Run as a company was established and COVID, and the response that this community had, which you will only find in food to my, I firmly believe was, was one of the greatest, greatest honors of my life to, to work with this team of people, who who's duty they felt it was to get food to people.
And it was crazy, you know, and we were, we were like, you know what, we're going to do it. And we're going to be the model of a food distribution company in COVID and how you keep people safe. So we were on the phone, like crazy. We were taping the floors. There was no support. There was no support, there was no hand sanitizer, but like, how do we even get that? I had bottles that my mom had given me in Denver, and I was, we were trying to get support, you know, we didn't have any money. How do you fund this, PPE gear? So my mom was making masks. She made a thousand masks for everybody. I called a friend in Techstars who somehow got me the last shipment of hand sanitizer that was like coming into the U S for like six weeks. And he's like, you're going to have to pay for it.
So, the good thing that we had experienced with USDA facility that is incredibly, I mean, that, that diligent health and safety process that we just replicated right away to make sure that we could do this right. That was number one issue is safety. And there were no guidelines. So immediately that was, that was it. Hw do we do that? And what does that mean? And, um, I mean, that, that was just amazing to see that's what we were doing. And just every day it was, it was just learning, learning, learning, learning, learning, um, and you just put your head down and then graduating Techstars in his time, we grew 15 X in an eight week period. Um, just unbelievable, um, and, and this team, they just did it.
I can't, I can't even describe it. And then Y Combinator called and, you know, I'd been, I'd been rejected from YC mere months before, and everyone's like, you gotta do it, you gotta do it. Um, and I was like, oh my gosh. So then went into YC to say, oh, you know, we were learning what didn't work also. Right. Just, just the sheer impact of this scale was like, wow, this is there's will this scale. So then, yeah, it kind of became this. We need another push if we're really going to do it, if we're really going to get there, Seattle farmers are calling, they shut down their farmer's markets. So, you know, all of our farms would, you have to go to Seattle, Seattle needs this. So the replication story, transitioning tech platforms, cause you're moving to Shopify going into subscription because there was no way to keep goods level if you had no predictability.
It was crazy and we are still riding that wave. And it wasn't that wave, the world changed, everything changed. And that's what we knew. When we sat down with you, you know, it, it was, it wasn't reactive as, as reactive as it sounds. I think it was reactive operationally, but, but we, we in food systems have been prepared for this moment because we know that the world that existed before was false, it never worked. So this became like, I don't know this incredible rally cry within food that said like, this is our moment like this, this is it. This is the system that always was strong. So be there, you know, you just be, you have to be there for it. And so people relied on small farmers. I don't even think that people realize what we are still experiencing as a country.
We are still experiencing the effects of the global supply chain. You are seeing food shortages, you are seeing prices increased, and it is all of that. And it, the world changed. And, you know, you're seeing the New York times headlines that they're dumping milk because they lost these massive accounts and there's no distribution. So the awareness that happened overnight, I mean, it just, and again, there was this weird steady world that existed that allowed us to do that, which was like, this is kind of, this has always been, how would you work and what we will do, we need to take this opportunity. So it brought a steady ground. And it was our job to pivot the model and the tech and find something that we could replicate. So we weren't trying boil the ocean so that when, when we understood the new world a little bit better Milk Run as a company would survive it, we would all have kept everybody safe and healthy. We will have established truly sound, operational guidelines and standards that I will stick to and proud of this day. We will have learned who we became and then we can look towards the next thing, right. Not trying to do too much is critical. So what could we commit to under the pressure of safety with no support then? And I think we did a good job with them. I'm proud of that. I'm just so proud of the team and how they, they made it through. it's an honor.
RN:
I mean, I feel so fortunate to be here and be able to hear you tell your story. You are, you are an incredible storyteller, like I'm here, right with you. I'm like in it, I'm getting, I'm emotional about food system distribution, which is never a sentence I thought I would say like, I'm trying to like, you know, these, my, my eyes are getting a little teary and just hearing about this passion. I mean, you're an incredible leader and it's like, you know, it's amazing that you built this out of Portland and PDXWIT, I can speak for, I feel like I can speak for Anusha and myself. We're so proud of you. And we're so happy that you're here with us. Like just incredible, listen, Julia, this has been the most fun. I have really enjoyed talking to you. Actually, I really enjoyed listening to you. You were just so amazing to listen to, and the way that you tell these stories of Portland, passionate farmers and chefs and how you've told your story and the way that you talk about your team and your successes and your failures, is incredible. I could just listen to this all day, but, I know you are a very busy person. I know Anousha is a very busy person and today I'm a very busy person, so we should probably wrap it up a little bit. So would you like to plug anything? Is there anything you want our listeners to really know, might be great to like drop some more information about Milk Run in there too?
JN:
Yes. Well, we can kind of always follow up as I would like to. I've been a little prepared so we can, we'll give a special offer, to all of the WIT community, which I know when this, when this goes live. I, I had hoped, I think we, we did confirm that we'd have the ability to make sure that that's rad, but I didn't want to use this platform for that because I, I, yeah. but the one thing I will like to plug that I think will be really cool, obviously go to localmilkrun.com. Also let us know what you liked. This is we're in the phase of just let us know if you isn't working. So I guess I'll ask that. Um, but the other thing that we're doing that is very cool, that will be coming out in October is, um, a campaign that has been in my near and dear to my heart for a long time and a vision about a long time in the making.
And it's going to be called, plant a flag for our farms and we will be going and hitting the road to bring awareness to our small farms specifically kind of how essential they've been to all of us and giving every home in America, the opportunity to honor their small farms by planting a flag and then sharing who they're planting their flag for. So that will be launching. It'll be very cool and you can follow us live on social. Literally I'll be taking all calls, meetings, and, and probably raising a round of funding from, from an RV. As we, our job will be to deliver kind of community stories of these farms and of spreading the message to them in the field from all, all of the homes who want to participate, that people are doing this for them, and we appreciate them. So a small is mighty, we are out to prove it, the plant your fat flag for your farmers is coming out in October. And we'd love for all of your listeners to participate. Looking forward to it.
AN:
Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Julia. I just want to say again, just so inspirational and this is a first for us on this podcast, talking about food and tech. I think the combination of that and what you're doing with the Milk Run, we haven't touched on a lot of these subjects before. So I think that our listeners are going to find this super interesting. And of course I know Rihana and I were just fully hooked the whole time. So just appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.
JN:
Oh, pleasure. Is mine. Thank you for the honor. Thank you for the work that you do, always, and, we'll make sure we hook your listeners up, and thanks for the support. Thanks.
RN:
Okay. And then just a last little shout out. This podcast would not be possible without the PDXWIT podcast team. They secure and prepare our guests. They edit the episodes they transcribe,and do everything they need to make this whole thing possible. It is such a team effort and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in, and we will catch you on the next episode. Bye. Now
AN:
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