In this episode we dive into the post-harvest world with Kailan Dunn, President & CEO of H.R. Spinner - one of the largest fruit packaging companies in the United States selling over 100 million boxes every year.

Since 1916 H.R. Spinner has been an industry-leading company enabling tree fruit growers to protect, sell, and deliver their crop with smarter boxes, pads, and in-house automation with box makers, tray formers, and pad inserters. Their work is integral to keeping apples, potatoes, hops, and blueberries moving.

This is a story of packaging, people, and the future of what goes on behind the scenes in the food supply chain.

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Tyler Price is a Stanford educated CEO leading one of the largest fruit growing and packing companies in Washington State, Price Cold Storage and Packing Company. A fourth generation family business that's been in operation for nearly a century, Tyler is leading the company into the future with a state of the art facility, bold partnerships, and a relentless focus on quality. He's not just running a company, he's an industry leader, shaping the conversation around technology, food safety, and the next generation of talent through his role as Chairman of the Washington Apple Education Foundation.

This is a story about innovation, scale, family business, and the kind of leadership it takes to perform on a global scale.

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Steve Saunders has built businesses in almost every link in the horticulture chain - pre harvest, post harvest, branded produce, and innovative robotics. He's helped entrepreneurs, growers, scientists, and investors connect long before agricultural robotics even entered the picture. Now, Steve is most famed for his business, Robotics Plus, a company at the forefront in developing innovative robotics within the agriculture industry. He's helped to scale the business globally and has recently merged with Yamaha to form Yamaha Agriculture. This episode is about vision, culture, and the true grit behind turning orchard and agricultural problems into a global technology solution.

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Caine Thompson is Head of Sustainability at O'Neill Vintners and Distillers. A regenerative wine pioneer who is rewriting what sustainability looks like in viticulture, Caine is helping O'Neill steward their grapes toward a future where wine is not only world class, but also climate positive. He has become one of the most influential voices in regenerative wine. A New Zealand born viticulturist, he has also co-founded the global One Block Challenge, a program aimed at de-risking the transition to regenerative viticulture and enabling growers to implement regenerative practices in a secure way.

In this episode host Ben Bardsley and Caine dig deep into the regenerative playbook, from turning a vineyard into a living lab to measuring soil health like a balance sheet, to scaling regenerative viticulture across thousands of acres on the west coast of the United States.

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Paul Mikesell is a visionary technologist and a serial founder who has set up multiple billion dollar businesses. He is now proving that robotics, AI and farming can co-evolve and at scale.

As the founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics he has built a company that is zapping billions of weeds without the need of herbicides, retrofitting tractors to be self-driving and redefining what productivity and sustainability mean on a farm. In this episode, we dig deep from pushcart prototype to a fleet eliminating 10 billion weeds globally, from pivoting product models to securing hundreds of millions in investment.

This is not just AgTech, this is a system transformation!

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Michael (Mike) Roy is a farmer who leads a century-old hop farming business in Yakima, Washington and is one of the largest independent hop growers in the world. What started as a ten acre farm in 1907, Roy Farms is trusted among the smallest craft outfits to the largest brewery giants. This episode dives into Mike's journey in agriculture, the evolution of the hop industry, and the importance of sustainability and innovation in farming. Mike shares insights on navigating family business dynamics, partnerships in the industry, the impact of mental health in the day-to-day, leadership, and the potential future of the hop market. The discussion emphasizes the need for collaboration within the industry and the significance of community and relationships in achieving success.

Learn more about Roy Farms: http://royfarms.com/

Austin Allred runs Royal Family Farms in Washington State, a 20,000 acre operation and home to the largest worm farm in the world. His 7.5 acre bio-filtration worm system processes nearly 400,000 gallons of wastewater every day, recycling into clean irrigation water. and producing valuable worm castings that go straight back into their soils. Royal dairy produces 90,000 gallons of milk and 70,000 pounds of meat every single day. They grow hundreds of thousands of tons of apples, peas, cherries, potatoes, and corn every year. From leaf to beef, Austin and his family have built a closed-loop system designed not just to feed people, but to regenerate the land.

In this episode, we dig into how Austin is blending vision with execution, pioneering worm power treatment, designing zero waste dairy systems, applying technology for radical transparency, and leading people through cultural change. His story is about turning biology into an operating system and showing how the future of food will be built by not only visionaries, but by operators who can make it work day to day. This is not just about farming. This is the future of food production and bringing the world back into balance.

Kevin "Smitty" Smith co-founded Bale Breaker, one of the largest independent craft breweries in North America—and the only commercial brewery in the world located in the middle of his family’s hop farm, Loftus Ranches. A true product innovator, Kevin works at the intersection of farming, brewing, cannabis, and product development.

Rooted in his farming heritage, his ventures span from soil to sip, including co-founding Sun Gaze, a cannabis-infused seltzer.

In this episode, we dive into the evolution of hop farming, the future of craft beer, and the rise of the cannabis beverage sector. We also explore how the Yakima Valley is becoming one of America’s most dynamic hubs for agricultural innovation.

Whether you’re into beer, farming, cannabis, or just love a great story at the cutting edge of agriculture, this episode is for you.

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Bale Breaker

Sun Gaze

Painted Rooster

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