Connecting with consumer values and understanding buying behavior.

In this episode, Land O’Lakes Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Jason Trusley joins host Kim Olson. Inside baseball? Not here. We try to break down the path forward for our cooperative system and what it will take for us to continue supporting America’s farmers, ag retailers, communities, and consumers for another 100 years.

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Transcript

 I was warned ahead of time like, Hey, a co-op is pretty different. And I think every conversation I had for probably for the first two months of joining Land O'Lakes was. Hey, remember, this place is different and one of the big things that I really appreciate about the system, it's um, its ability to think about the longevity and the need to sustain the communities that are supported by the, the, the co-ops and the co-op itself.

It's hard to understand exactly how that manifests in the work that we do at Land O'Lakes Daily. Until I got into the work that we do at Land O'Lakes Daily and realized there's such a connection.

Tomorrow. It's never a guarantee unless we take care of today. We are a cooperative, grounded in 100 years of forward thinking ever since our beginning in 1921. It's the pursuit of a reliable food supply, a sustainable future, and vibrant communities for all of us. Rooted in the promise. Of a brighter future.

This is rooted in Tomorrow, the podcast by Land O'Lakes Inc. I'm your host, Kim Olson. Join us for stories of innovators, change makers, and the modern entrepreneurs who work the land,

The health of a company. It matters for obvious reasons. The employees who work there, the shareholders, you're beholden to, or in our case, the family farmers and local retailers that own us now as a cooperative, operating a healthy and growing business has an outsized impact. Our success starts with member-owner.

And our success as a system supports vibrant communities, a sustainable future in an abundant food supply. Today, Jason Trus Lee joins me. Jason is Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Land O'Lakes. We talked to him about where we're going as a cooperative, how the business may change, and why it matters to our employees, members, and the communities and consumers we all serve.

Hey Jason, how are you? I'm great, Kim. How are you today? I'm very good. Thank you for making the time for us. We sure do appreciate it. I've been waiting for the invitation for a while, so glad that I'm finally getting the chance to chat with you about who I am and what we do and my team. Well, I I think we're gonna have a good time.

I, um, I was reading up on your background, not that I, I don't know it by heart, but, uh, I understand. University of Tennessee. Yeah. I apologize for that. I know the SEC is ruining football for everybody else, especially for, you know, the, the Big 10. Um. Community out here. But, uh, yeah, I graduated from University of Tennessee and have made my way out of Knoxville ever since then.

Well, I'll tell you, I have a, um, I'm a gopher myself, so I'm University of Minnesota, but I have a daughter down at LSU and there is nothing like SEC, it's fantastic. I, I'm a big fan and Peyton Manning, right. Anytime you guys wanna host a, you know, an event, uh, at a tailgate party at a Tennessee game, let me know.

I'm happy to show up for that. See, don't throw that out there for me. Well, let's talk a little bit, uh, about what you do here at Land O'Lakes. Um, so your official title is, uh, senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for, um, those listeners who are unfamiliar with, uh, a role like that. Um, what does a chief Strategy Officer do?

Yeah, so in our organization we're very much focused on growth, and I'll go a little bit more into that, but you know, I think the, the challenge with strategy is strategy means many different things to many different people. And so a big part of my role is defining how we use strategy inside. The co-op system and inside Land O'Lakes.

Um, but really the, the thing that I focus on is trying to understand the future of the business. You know, who our, what our marketplaces are, what our cu customers are, what the economics and trends of those, uh, different components of our, um, system look like. And ultimately, if we understand what that future is, how do we respond to it, which makes for sort of this interesting mix of hopefulness and anxiety, right?

The idea that. There's so much in front of us. There's so many opportunities, but there's also so many unknown unknowns and so much uncertainty about what that, that future means. And my job is really to help, um, you know, solidify that in the minds of our leadership team, each of the business units, the functions, our member owners, um, anybody that participates in our business.

And then ultimately, hopefully by understanding that, reduce the anxiety associated with the future. Um, fantastic. Yeah. I mean, it makes it, it makes an interesting life to, to spend a lot of time thinking about what's to come. Yeah. Rather than thinking about what's immediately in front of me. A little bit of a fortune teller it sounds like.

Hopefully it's fortune telling. Yeah, we hope so. Right. Um, you have a long list of experiences, uh, at different companies. Um, from Land O'Lakes. You've got, uh, Columbia Sportswear, you've got Nike, you've got Nordstrom. Um, I, by the way, I'm a huge Nordstrom fan. I, I, uh. I own a little bit of Nordstrom, unfortunately, asked my husband.

Um, but let's, uh, can we talk about your career path and, um, where you stopped and, and how you got there? That would be interesting. Yeah, so I, you know, I graduated from the University of Tennessee with, uh, undergraduate in science. And so I've focused on math and physics and, and, uh. Uh, rhetoric, which is sort of the art of making an argument.

Um, and so I did this thing that was sort of not a really useful, very clear career path, um, which is probably maybe the best description of my career journey. I created my own adventure and I tried to figure out what I loved and I pursued the things that I was most interested in, which led me to my MBA, um, and then led me to Deloitte Consulting, um, between MBA and Deloitte Consulting.

I tried to start a couple of businesses and, and built some really interesting technology, built some really interesting venture. Capital, um, building businesses. But Deloitte was really my first major corporation that I worked with, and that was actually how I got introduced to Land O'Lakes. Oh, really? So I started my journey in consulting on optimization.

So helping companies solve supply chain problems using math is the best way to think about it. And I worked for a company in Mexico called Gru Lala, which many of our dairy members will recognize as the largest dairy in Latin America. Um, helped them design a network and then a US market entry strategy.

And then, um, I got on a plane in October and it was 130 degrees in totally Mexico and flew to Minneapolis and started a project with Land O'Lakes Dairy. Um, and that was the, it was a network optimization and strategy project. And so I got introduced to the co-op, um, but really made my path in Deloitte around using math to solve really tough problems and operations and retail and consumer goods.

Um, spent, uh, five and a half years doing that. Moved to the Boston Consulting Group, um, spent a few years at BCG building a global supply chain and operations practice. Very focused on consumer goods and retail, um, which didn't lead me to Nike, in fact probably led me in the opposite direction. If by opposite you mean Under Armour?

Yeah. I built their 10 year growth strategy and, uh, basically finished that project and then left to go to, to Nike. Um, so Nike took me from Washington, DC to Portland, Oregon, where they're based. Um, and then from there, uh, decided I wanted to write a book. Ended up spending about six hours retired to go write that book, and got picked up by former clients of mine at Nordstrom who wanted me to come build robots in artificial intelligence for Nordstrom.

Um, which was an amazing adventure. It was, you know, working for a company like Nordstrom and solving these, you know, deeply complicated. Fashion, apparel based problems. Mm-hmm. Um, and making sure product was available to consumers wherever, whenever was a, a really interesting adventure. Um, but ultimately the, my wife, um, so I've got, we didn't start with my wife and kids story Yes.

Which is always interesting in, in ag, but my wife and two sons were ready to move back to, to Portland from Seattle and, uh, took the opportunity to go be. The Chief Consumer Officer for Columbia Sportswear, which was a brand I've known and loved since my Appalachian Trail journey back when I was a teenager.

Um, and had a portfolio of brands that are, you know, just really, really aspirational. Rell Mountain Hardware, prana, the yoga brand, and Columbia. Yeah. Um, and so the opportunity, uh, I followed complex problems and I've followed things that are at the edge of what other people are willing to take a risk to solve.

Um, and that really ultimately led me to, to land O'Lakes. Amazing. I now, what I heard was you had two, uh, two kids that wanted to move back. Um, ultimately that isn't that the, the way we, uh, we all play it. The family really plays in, yeah. How old are your kids? So Henry is 12 years old and Oliver is seven.

They're, I have a Henry too. Oh, do you? It's the best name ever. I How old is your Henry? My Henry is 25. Okay. So, um, we found that every kid in our cohort in Portland is named either Henry or Oliver. So it makes for interesting times on soccer fields when everybody's yelling Oliver, or everybody's yelling, Henry.

See, I was a trendsetter. Yeah, I was a trendsetter. I was out ahead of the curve on the Henry's awesome. It's like me, so I was, you know, I'm a. A geriatric millennial. Um, and, and, uh, everybody in my cohort is named Jason, Josh or Jacob, and, you know, so that's, it's been interesting to, to be a trend follower rather than a trend maker.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I, it sounds like a fascinating, uh, journey and we're so happy you ended up here. Um, our audience knows we're a cooperative. We talk about being a cooperative and the benefits and, um. And features of that, uh, all the time, every episode. Um, but is there anything that you've learned about our cooperative system that really intrigues you or, or piqued your interest in a different way?

You know, I think coming into this, I had my eyes wide open. You know, first of all, I, I, I have become a bit of a cultural chameleon with respect to adapting to. The places that I work in, the communities that, that I work in, and, and that comes from this idea that I, I don't want to, I don't want to drop in.

As a strategy guy, you're often seen as the person you drop in to make big changes happen. And I think you can make big changes happen while respecting. The culture, traditions, the, the values of, of those entities. And so, um, I was warned ahead of time, like, Hey, co-op is pretty different. And I think every conversation I had for probably for the first two months of joining Land O'Lakes was, Hey, remember this place is different.

And I, I think it really is different. You know, I think the, the way we make decisions in the co-op, which. I've spent a lot of time and a lot of effort in, in my years, uh, transforming companies, helping companies transform decision making. And one of the big things that I really appreciate about the system, it's, um, it's ability to think about the longevity and the need to sustain the communities that are supported by the, the, the co-ops and the co-op itself, right?

I, I think the, the I Beth's vision towards a, uh, a future. For rural America that is vibrant and, uh, and growing is one that is, um, it's hard to understand exactly how that manifests in the work that we do at Land O'Lakes Daily. Until I got into the work that we do at Land O'Lakes Daily and realized there's such a connection to the, from the decisions my team makes in setting a strategic plans, understanding the attributes and.

Components of growth to how that manifests in the, the co-op, uh, at the local level. Um, and that immediacy surprised me. Uh, you know, a lot of the things that I, I did, especially at Nike, were a year and a half, two years, three, five years away from market. And so a decision that I could make on a technology that I wanted to invest in may not.

Show up until, you know it's well past the shadow of whatever decision I've made and somebody else has to deal with it. The decisions we make here immediately show up with our, our growers and our producers, um, which I think is. A, a great attribute and one that we've gotta embrace and, and really mm-hmm.

Uh, understand how to shape and mold differently to our advantage. And I think, uh, the team has done a fantastic job of doing that over time. The opportunity for us, you know, as we, we embrace that history and that legacy. Is, how can we make sure that we're building, um, a more, uh, hardened, robust, durable business model to make sure that happens in the future, a hundred years from now, not just, you know, five years from now.

Yeah, it, it's interesting you talk like someone who, uh, has had boots on the ground. So, uh, I, I assume you have met members, work with members. How long, how long were you here before you met a member? Um, it was probably two weeks, and most of that was because the first week was a little bit in person and a little bit remote.

Um, you know, my, my, my working principle and hypothesis is the work that I do in a corporate office like Arden Hills. Is nothing compared to the work that's done in the field. And that's true of Nike. That's true of Nordstrom. Like empowerment. Mm-hmm. Of the person in the store, the person at retail. That's at the point of the, the decision being made is so impactful and so I can't design effective strategies, interventions.

Growth plans without really mm-hmm. Spending the time to obsess that. Um, you know, like I'm, I am about transparency and, and one of the things that kind of bugged me initially was realizing that a lot of my team hadn't been out in the field in a long time, and a lot of the people I talked to were not spending enough time.

Mm-hmm. Really getting to know the people that we serve and this idea that we can be effective in our. Cocoon is something we have, we have blown up. Um, but my belief is that, uh, our more effective governance, more effective strategy, more effective growth plans emerge from the places where those things will be realized.

And, um, you know, I love meeting growers. I love meeting, um, producers. I, I didn't grow up in the agriculture sector, but I grew up, you know, in a, in a. Eastern Tennessee with coal, mining family and, and, um, much more of a non-corporate life. And so I appreciate the things that, uh, that lifestyle, those choices that are really difficult to make and to sustain quality of life.

Mm-hmm. Um, mean for people. And I think we've gotta bring empathy. To the focus that we have as enterprise leaders, that starts from that person, that starts from the consumer, that starts from the grower and the producer. That starts from the retailer. Yeah. It's, um, it's interesting not to, uh, what I really admire about you is you rarely get into, um, corporate jargon and, uh, that, that's so helpful to those of us that are, you know, trying to understand our future and where we're going.

Um. You know, two things that I've heard you talk about a lot is growth. You know, easy, easy to understand, and a little bit of, um, what I would call organizational health, um, which kind of speaks to, uh, what you've been saying about the, the team needing to understand who we serve. Um, let's. Let's pull those apart a little bit.

Um, how do you define organizational health and, and what unlocks that in a business? Yeah. I think there are a lot of, um, iterations of organizational health that, that we could talk about. Um, the number one thing that I, I worry about that keeps me up at night is, does the person that is. This is a great liter or, uh, alliteration.

I think the person packing Purina pallets at the Purina plant in Portland. Right. So nice alliteration on that. Do they know why? Yeah. Right. Do they know why? Yeah. Their work impacts the communities that, that they serve. And do they know how their work is anchored to the enterprise strategy that flows through animal nutrition, but doesn't stop there.

And I think if we can. Help them know why their work, uh, serves that greater end. There is more meaning and more purpose to showing up every day that it's not clocking, you know, clocking in and clocking out. And it's not loading the pallet, but it's loading feed for an animal that is important to somebody's life.

Um, so I, I think that's number one in organizational, it's, it's purposeful clarity. Um, the second thing about. Organizational health is, and you know, this is where, uh, I try to spend more of my time, is giving people clarity in their growth opportunities as employees at the enterprise. Um, you know, you can say the, like, jargony, well, we need world-class talent.

Of course everybody wants world-class talent, but once you get the world class talent, what do you do with them to make sure that they're nurtured and sustained and they can grow effectively wherever their career may take them. And so. And Land O'Lakes as a wellspring of talent, both for ourselves as well as for the food system.

Um, in a much larger sense. It's something that we should, should, um, both as, uh, aspire to and recognize that we've done in the past. And so I think that's the other point around. Mm-hmm. Keeping a healthy organization is the people are the reason that, uh, we are successful. Now, if I can create strategy that matters and a culture.

That is going to deliver, um, sustainable, durable growth over time. Then I've hopefully done what. That the ELT and the board have asked me to do. Yeah, and I, it's interesting, I, when I think about growth, I do think more personal growth and employee growth, which is great to be thinking about that within the frame of this conversation.

But I also think about, um, growth in a business sense and. Oftentimes that's, uh, just about the dollars and, you know, it's numbers, it's finance, it's those kinds of things. And it certainly is that, but I've heard you talk about it in a different way. Um, tell me, tell me how you think about business growth.

Yeah, I, I think we have many different types of businesses in our portfolio. Like 20 some odd, different p and ls that represent many different constituencies, consumer groups, cat customers. Channels, all those things. Um, each of them has a different role to play in our portfolio. You know, first of all, to provide top line revenue growth.

Yeah. We want to be a $25 billion business at some point in the future. And so what is the thing that's gonna get durable growth? Yeah. And I'm, I keep using this word durable very intentionally because I don't want to create growth that that is easy to break apart. I wanna create growth that sticks together.

That creates a stronger engine that pulls us up a steeper hill. Oh yeah. Which we know is in the future for us, the revenue part of that story is, is, you know, how do we make sure we build a portfolio that's gonna be impactful? The other parts of that are, yeah, you can take that all the way through gross margin.

You know, how do we leverage it and a more efficiently to get more from, uh, more output from fewer resources? And then we can talk about pre-tax, which is an interesting way of talking about the health of the business. Mm-hmm. But only a piece of it really. I think our purpose is more meaningful than that, and that's really about the access to the marketplaces that we represent.

Um, whether that's, you know, product access and supply access and Winfield, whether that's great brands like Land O'Lakes and uh, and dairy and Purina and animal nutrition. Or that's inventing new markets like we are with Tru Tera. Um, all of those things are represent business growth, and we have, we'll tune up and we'll tune down each of those pieces of the portfolio at different points of time over the next five to 10 years.

But all of them have a vitally important role to play in sustaining a healthy enterprise. Yeah, I love it when you talk about growth as a mindset, um, it's, that's really, uh, powerful, um, way to think about it. And we've talked about how employees play a part in that. What about members? Is there any part that you see for them in that growth?

Yeah, I, and again, I, I think it goes back to this idea that growth is not just at, uh, you know, a p and l, but. Growth is a mindset. Growth is about understanding, um, what the next 18 months are for you and your family and for, uh, the businesses that you're running. I, I'm not, um. Trying to fool myself into believing that you're not running a business.

You are. And, and part of that is understanding what growth you can get out of that for your current state as well as whatever future generations you're trying to, to sustain your business for. And so as a member, I think a big part of what I hope the message, uh, on strategy and growth is, is that first of all, it's attainable.

Um, this is not something that is simply an aspiration that we've got clear plans on, on a way to get there. But it doesn't happen without their engagement, their participation. And ultimately they're, they're on field in, in, um, in the barn decision making. And I think that is the, the most important growth mindset that we can ask for from our, our member owners is to, to really say.

Hey, I wanna be part of a story, a bigger story. I wanna be part of that growth narrative. I wanna see my, my business reach its full potential, um, and then make the decisions that power that. Now let's, let's take just a step back. So one of the huge advantages of having you, uh, here with us at Land O'Lakes is the career path that you've, um, come along.

You've, you know, been at a lot of different kinds of companies than, uh, than Land O'Lakes and bring a lot of, um. The, um, marketplace insights that, uh, that we crave. Um, so if you were to take a look over, um, the work out there in the world, you know, maybe particularly companies you've even been part of, is there any, um, thing that you're particularly proud of out there or anything, um, that you've done that that thinking really will be valuable to us here at Land O'Lakes?

Yeah, you know, I think the, um, the phrase. Customer segmentation is overused in business, and part of the reason why is because it's such a powerful tool when wielded correctly and it can be a, um, a damaging thing when not un fully understood. So one of the things I, I spend a lot of time at Columbia was transitioning the business from a product focused business to a consumer focused business.

And the, the. This is not to say this is our path, but you know, in that path we realized that the consumer was making decisions about what they were buying and they were curating their closet. And that that feels like, yeah, no, duh. Like doesn't every business understand that? Well, the answer is undecidedly no.

Like the idea that we're going to curate for what the consumer wants is a relatively new idea in the marketplace. And the problem with that is most companies are organized around. The product that they're gonna push into the marketplace. And so in this case, when we started, um, I started looking at their segmentation.

It was this mindset based segmentation, like, are you a growth oriented, uh, outdoor, uh, enthusiast? Are you a cost Yeah. Cost conscious consumer. Um, yeah, those are great. No, super helpful. Mm-hmm. But I don't know what decisions that, that helps. We took a step back and said. Using principles from behavioral economics, which are, uh, the easiest way to describe behavioral economics is we as humans seek the easiest path to make any decision.

Whether it's recency, like, Hey, I saw this recently and so that's the thing that's gonna influence me. Or, um, it is a bias, so I've done it this way, so I'm gonna do it this way again. Um, most of these things are unconscious and most, uh, and most of these things are done with positive intent, but it's a way for us.

To conserve the limited and finite resources that we have to make all the decisions we're confronted with over the course of the day. And so if you think about that, how do you identify what those heuristics are, those short, those mental shortcuts and intervene and say, okay, well. Hey, this is the one that's most predictably irrational, which is a way of saying you make this consistently, but you don't use, yeah, the best data to make this decision.

So you're making an irrational decision, but in a very predictable way. If I can intersect that and I can say. Hey, I can influence your media consumption. The message that you hear in marketing content, the product design, so that it better solves for the problem without having to go through the mental process of decision making.

If I can make your life mm-hmm. Much more free of friction mm-hmm. Then maybe I can sell more stuff and you know, that's the objective of every enterprise. Sell more stuff. Yeah. Generally is to, at the top line, sell more stuff. And hopefully some more stuff, more profitably. And what I have found is behavioral economics are a great way of creating a frictionless or friction, less friction filled environment, um, for customers to, to, that's fascinating.

Interact with, and that's what I want to ex I, that's what I think we have an opportunity to do here, is use data, use insights to understand what those decisions are, and then with that framing. Simplify and make better decisions alongside our growers and producers. Is there a, a single consumer behavior that has changed that's been most, um, impactful?

Do you think? Just society speaking or, uh, are there a few? Well, I, I think there is. Um, there's one that has been highly noted and everybody says it's never gonna happen to me, and that's the effect of Amazon Prime. So, you know, I, I sat with Amazon, um, their CEO of Amazon fashion in 2014 when I was at Nike, and she told me, Hey, you're gonna have to figure out a same day delivery service for for footwear.

I said, you know what, no, we won't. Nobody's ever gonna buy footwear and demand footwear show up same day. And, um, man, if I had to take any statement back and, and take that outta my history, that's the one thing that I would, I would change. Because even if it starts with the small things like the, the things you need every day, the, the Tide pods, the, you know, the Cascade dishwasher soap, the hand soap, and through the pandemic, the mm-hmm.

The, uh, hand sanitizer, those are the things that we expect to show up in front of us immediately, but it primes us. And this is where like the, the, the cute pun of the, the, uh, priming effect. So Amazon Prime has primed us to believe everything should be served at the same speed and with the same expectations around service.

And the effect of that is by, in 2014 in footwear, about 1% of shoes were sold. Um, digitally mm-hmm. Via same day delivery. Hmm. And that was all within Zappos. Um, now it's more like 25. Oh my word. So in less than 10 years, consumer behavior around delivery expectations has shifted from it's fine for some variability and uncertainty to know I want it now.

And by the way. Six hours from now is not fast enough. And that has the effect of changing all of our behavior, whether it's grocery, it's, I even think we're seeing some of this in the, in um mm-hmm. In grower behavior where there's much more awareness of the risk of the broader economy today. And so they're making smaller purchases, but more frequently and.

They're responding, they're being reactive rather than being proactive and understanding how to mitigate risk. Right. And that's because it's, it's their cash, right? And it is their immediate shadow of their future. If I spend too much now and I get it wrong, what happens? Um, that is taught to us by social media.

It's taught to us by Amazon. It's taught to us by everybody that's adopting these speed based, um, business models. So you started out, um, at the beginning talking about anxiety, a little bit anxiety about the future, and that's a very human kind of thing. Um, is it also a business trait or, you know, is that a problem?

Do we mitigate that? What is, what is. Dealing with anxiety, meaning it, uh, in a business? Uh, well, most of my, um, response to that would be my doctor's increase in my Lexapro, but in all certain, in, in, in all sincerity, anxiety is an evolutionary process that we have, uh, adapted as, as humans to prepare ourselves for the future.

Anxiety is not a bad thing. It's the idea that you can become anxious about things and like. Paralyze your decision-making because of that anxiety. So I think anxiety sharpens us and it focuses us, and it helps us make better decisions if we use it strategically. If we use anxiety as a way of understanding what is controlled and what is not controllable.

If we can plan better, uh, relative to a, a range of scenarios and set of outcomes that may happen or may not happen and take probabilities of those, um, events occurring. Tighten them down to a small set of decisions that we can make quickly. And once we get through the period of anxiety, you get to performance.

And this is kind of like mm-hmm. You know, we, we talked about this a lot at Nike as a, as a runner, the anxiety you feel at the beginning of a race. And that is driven by this sort of hopefulness that you're gonna beat your new you in a personal record. Uh, you're going to, um. Be the first in your age group through the tape on a marathon.

Like those are things that, in hindsight, we would never call them negatives, but in the moment we think of anxiety as this negative thing, and I think we actually should embrace anxiety more as a, uh, a, a, a lever to help us make. Focus our energy towards an outcome, a performance focused outcome. Well, that it, that's certainly a different way to look at it.

I, I love putting a more positive spin on it, and it is kind of a road to performance. So, um, when you think about. You know, everything we do, and we've talked about this as we're, as we're wrapping up a bit, um, everything we do goes back to our members and their communities. Um, it's the why for us, uh, we talk about it all the time in the hallways.

Um, so what roles do our member owners play in making sure we're around for another a hundred years? Yeah, I, I think I'm a, a believer in emergent strategy, um, emergent coming from the grassroots rather than from the top down. And so I, I think there is a, a role in each of the owners and their, their respective boards.

And then ultimately the board here at Land O'Lakes to shape strategy, to inform strategy, to create channels of feedback and listening that allow us to better understand, um, the opportunities in front of us and the risks that we can plan around. Um, you know, again, a lesson from Nike. Days around how to respond to the consumer and create a more durable brand.

Right. The I, Nike was struggling in 2016 when this idea emerged. Um, if you listen to the people that are doing the work, in this case, 12 to 14-year-old Yeah. Kids at Foot Locker, and we gave tools for Foot Locker to tell us what those insights were and provide immediate feedback to my team at Nike that we then synthesized into design, that we turned into strategy that we then.

Executed on it within. Yeah. You know, a month of getting that insight, whether it was a product strategy or an engagement strategy or marketing strategy, um, we created an a, a hyper loop to steal a phrase of insight and the ability for us to consume that insight, make better decisions on the future direction and current direction of the business based on insight.

Was invaluable. And I, I can't think of a way we get there without our members engagement.

Well, I think that's, um, a terrific ask. And I, I imagine you're gonna have members beating down your door to, to help. Um, we end by simply asking, how do you see the future of agriculture? So I'll put that in front of you now. Well, I, I wouldn't be here if I didn't, um, feel optimistic about the future. But I'm deeply impatient and that's, that's just who I am.

Um, and so I, the reason I'm so optimistic and but also impatient is the, the world of agriculture has never been both more uncertain, you know, geopolitics and trade, um, labor, regulatory environment, but also so competitive where you have the emergence of countries like Brazil and lots of uncertainty mm-hmm.

With what's happening in Russia and China. Um, and so that, that impatience comes from wanting to take the moment of crisis that the world is in. You know, we're kind of all in the same boat, um, and push forward faster. And so my, my belief is that if we're all, uh, aligned to growth and we're excited about the potential for Land O'Lakes and each of the individual businesses that make up the co-op, um.

To grow then by transforming ourselves and becoming, you know, this new thing, um, we're gonna get there better and faster and hopefully with a lot more cash coming back to everybody. Awesome. Well thank you so much for the conversation, Jason. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, thank you for having me, Tim.

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