#59: Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil)

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:00:00]:
And so I think that what I'm most interested in is is how can how can you develop models that anticipate where we wanna be going? And I think that the work that we're doing here, both in what it is we're doing, namely the collection and diversion of food waste into products that can relocalize our food system, but also like how we're doing it demonstrates a model of of how we can be in community and work with one another to take on really hairy scary problems, because the climate crisis is certainly one of them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:35]:
Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the lay of the land podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dan Brown, who is the co founder of Rust Belt Riders and TILF Soil, both based and focused here in Cleveland. Rust Belt Riders provides businesses, organizations and individuals with a clean, timely and community benefiting alternative to landfills for their food waste, namely composting. These services produce tilth soil, a line of organic biologically active soils that help to advance regenerative agriculture. And together, these efforts demonstrate a model for advancing our circular economy that is centered around workplace democracy, climate justice, and the regenerative agriculture, all terms and concepts which we will explore much more fully in this conversation.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:45]:
While the majority of the work Dan and his partners are doing through Rust Belt Riders until soil, is focused locally here in Cleveland and the Greater North East Ohio region. We also cover how this local model works at scale and how Dan is shaping these reusable economic models and spur their development and implementation all across the country. I learned so much from this conversation and loved hearing about the important work Dan is doing across his organizations. Please enjoy my conversation with Dan Brown. So I've been looking forward to this conversation as the the topic of composting and actually specifically the work you're doing at at Rust Belt Riders has come at me from many angles. As I mentioned before, we we turned on recording here. My roommate is an avid composter and actually uses Rust Belt Riders, and and my neighbor introduced me to you for this very conversation. And there is overall something inherently local about the nature of the work you're doing, which I think matters deeply for all of us here in Cleveland and more generally for everyone in their own respective communities.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:01]:
So thank you for coming on and and looking forward to to learning more about the work you're doing. Dan,

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:03:07]:
thanks so much for having me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:08]:
So I'd love to start with just a little background on yourself and your your path to to kind of entrepreneurship.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:03:16]:
Yeah. Rather circuitous, I think is probably the best way to put it. I grew up in South Euclid on the east side of Cleveland. I went to high school at Ignatius and went away to Chicago for college. A little bit of at every step in that journey sort of became really interested in larger societal issues and how people might do something to affect those. And so, you know, this this contrast of kind of growing up in the suburbs and then going to high school in the urban center, it was pretty pretty apparent, the contrast in terms of, you know, some of the broader societal issues that that our country wrestles with. And it was really at Ignatius, and in my high school years that I began to get involved in, you know, what could be described as, like, service work projects. And so learning about issues of hunger and food access and, you know, what about our economic system is is just or questionable or might need attention.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:04:13]:
And it was because I so excelled at volunteering that I got a scholarship actually to go to DePaul University. And it was there that I was able to, like, really have a really concentrated focus on topics of community development, understanding how nonprofits function, how foundations function, the role of philanthropy, and increasingly the role of, you know, social enterprises and and how business can be used as a agent of change or a tool for good or, you know, be in a position to maybe more properly critique, an economic system. And so across the that journey or that spectrum, I was trying to figure out what topic really most resonated with me. And and oddly enough, like food became that thing. In high school, I did a lot of work feeding the houseless community of Cleveland. At home, my dad was a professional cook for quite a while and we had a family dinner every night. And so food for me at a really young age became this thing that was a tool to build community, to learn about culture and identity, history, and place. And then through my years in college, I began to understand sort of the economic impacts of food, functionings of our, like, macro food system, the environmental impacts of how it's grown.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:05:34]:
Yeah. So what I'm doing today and what I'm doing with my colleagues today is really just like an ongoing exploration of of how to work on a rather broken food system and to do it in ways that sort of stand in contrast to what our current food system looks like, what our current economic system looks like, and to try and more intentionally recenter people and our planet in how we relate to our food. So that's sort of what we're up to. To get to, like, the brass tacks of how it all got started. Right? We

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:08]:
Sure. Sure. Yeah. Where did that exploration begin?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:06:11]:
Yeah. So I I like I said, I went to school in Chicago and I piloted a food studies minor there. So I learned a lot about, like, the role of urban agriculture and food hubs and how, you know, we could really rethink our food system regionally. And so that was sort of in parallel to the height of the foreclosure crisis and emerging from the foreclosure crisis of like the, you know, 2000 tens, Cleveland's urban ag scene sort of emerged as really like cutting edge nationwide. And so I knew at a pretty early in my college career that I wanted to get back to Cleveland as soon as possible to get involved in that in any way that I could. And so after graduating, I have a degree in ethics, so, you know, very well positioned to be an entrepreneur. I, I moved back to Cleveland and helped start a community garden at East 40th in Saint Clair through a partnership with Ohio State Extension's summer sprouts program. And like every other community gardener in the city of Cleveland learned very quickly that it's very difficult to grow herbs or vegetables without healthy soil.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:07:21]:
And so when I wasn't working on the community garden or working in internships in community development, I had the great fortune of working at this kind of fancy farm to table restaurant on nights and weekends called Spice Kitchen and Bar. And it was there that, you know, I realized that even in the best intentioned, most transparent farm to table restaurant in Cleveland, The story of our food system was just that. It was just farm to table. There was no vehicle or mechanism to get the food scraps or food waste back to those farmers that were growing the food that was on that table. And that to me felt like a insufficient and incomplete system and so it was really through witnessing that firsthand and wanting an excuse to meet other restaurant owners and baristas and gardeners and farmers that myself and who would become my business partner, Michael Robinson, decided to raise a couple $100. We bought a mountain bike, and we had a trailer welded to the back of that mountain bike, and we literally started riding around the near west side picking up food scraps from restaurants and cafes and bringing them to community gardens where we would make compost and give that compost to those gardens.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:37]:
And that's the that's the MVP for Rust Belt. Right?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:08:40]:
Yeah. Very minimal. And yeah. But it it you know, I think that our story is a little, like, a little bit different than a lot of other entrepreneurs as we've seen is that, like, we didn't necessarily start out to start a business. We saw it as an opportunity and an excuse to, like, meet people and be in community with other nerds like us that kind of were interested in food systems and were adjacent to the restaurant and hospitality industry. And it was only through doing the work that we realized that there was, like, a much bigger opportunity to do a lot of really fascinating things with this, like, vehicle that we had sort of either intentionally or unintentionally created. We had sort of haphazardly started a business. And now that we're a business, you know, what kind of business do we wanna work for? Have we liked our old bosses? Do we wanna be like our old bosses? You know? And so we got to sort of ask those questions and and explore the role that an organization like this could play in a place like Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:46]:
And what what ideas did you did you come to? I mean, it seems ultimately you've landed on a mantra, a mission, if you will, of, you know, feed people, not landfills. But was that always kind of the goal from the onset, or did did that evolve through through the people you met and and those initial bike rides?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:10:05]:
Yeah. No. I mean, definitely, there was lots of conversations along the way. But I think that, you know, I've mentioned that I studied ethics. Michael studied social and political philosophy. So between the 2 of us, there wasn't like an accounting or finance class, you know, to speak of. And so I think that we, in large part, approached this through the lens of, like, how can we maximize our impact on our community? And that really manifested itself in 2 main forms. The first was to to try and build an organization that could create pathways out of poverty for people and allowed people to show up as their full selves at work.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:10:44]:
And the way that that sort of manifests itself today is that, you know, our organization is somewhat uniquely structured and that we are a worker owned cooperative. And then the other facet that we wanted to address head on is that we acknowledge the reality of the climate crisis that we're in. And to do more, to move the needle, and to provide people and businesses with tools to be responsible, you know, citizens of this planet seemed like a really noble and worthwhile thing to dedicate, you know, much of your time to. And so we really learned more about the economic and environmental impact of, food waste has on our communities and saw that there was a really massive chasm in terms of this kind of service or ecosystem or infrastructure in place. And so we really sought to develop that because if you look at the science, we we really have no good reason to be sending food to landfills. We live in a community that has access to healthy food issues. We have diet related diseases that are, you know, proliferating constantly And the food system that we have, is a significant contributor to climate change. And so what seems like a pretty small or maybe innocuous role of capturing food waste and composting, it actually has kind of a multitude of benefits.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:12:12]:
And so a new a newer mantra or maybe a a better articulated mantra that we've come to begin sharing is that, you know, we think that how we do our work is just as important as the work that it is we're doing, which is to say, obviously, and hopefully, plainly, it's important that keeping food out of landfills is important. But, we could, for example, pay minimum wage or deploy a fleet of drones to somehow pick up, you know, food scraps. But we think that it's really important that we model our business to be reflecting the kind of economic structure and societal structure that we think will allow us all to sort of live better, healthier, more equitable lives.

Jeffrey Stern [00:12:55]:
Yeah. Definitely looking forward to pulling on some of those threads and exploring the the work you're doing in a bit more detail. But before we kinda dive into specifically everything you're working on with with Rust Belt writers, I do wanna ground the the larger conversation here with a few definitions and and concepts just to to set some context, both for for myself and and also for for those listening. But I I wanna start maybe with, you know, what is composting very basically and place it in the context of the idea of a circular economy.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:13:33]:
Yeah. And I might actually just add, like, another definition, which is, like, what is food waste? Absolutely. Yeah. Because, like, without knowing what food waste is, it's hard to understand why composting would be a thing anybody would be particularly stoked about. Some fun statistics to get everybody really hopeful. So in the United States, about 40% of all of the food that is grown will end up uneaten. Much of that is sent to landfill where it will emit methane gas. Methane gas is a greenhouse gas that is roughly 80 times more potent than CO2.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:14:11]:
And so for those of us that are concerned with the health of our planet, methane gas is a greenhouse gas that we ought to be doing everything in our power to mitigate. And so in addition to the environmental impacts that food waste has as well as the scale of food waste in the United States, we spend a tremendous amount of money on on food that ends up thrown away. So in the United States, we'll spend on the range of $218,000,000,000 on the growing transportation and processing of food that goes uneaten. And this is at the exact same time when 1 in 5 children in Northeast Ohio is food insecure. The question then becomes, who are the horrible people that are wasting so much food? We should have a stern and honest conversation with them and, deploy solutions that can help mitigate this. Right? And the fact of the matter is most of the food waste occurs either at the business level or at the consumer level. And so a lot of what we do is try to provide services to those sort of sectors and the service that we provide is that of like a recycling company. So we provide bins and receptacles to our clients.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:15:24]:
They put their food scraps in said bins, And then this is where your definition of composting. What is composting? So what we do with this food is we compost it. And composting is the controlled decomposition of organic matter. And so, you know, there there can be some rather like nerdy and, you know, scientific terms that I'll try and, not get too heady about. But in short, we mix the food waste that we pick up with, like wood chips and leaves. By doing that, we're really mimicking what would happen in a forest. Right? A thing that my colleague Nathan likes to remind people of is that like compost is happening all of the time around us. So if you go to the forest, you know, it's not like trees are stacking up on themselves, right, as they die.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:16:13]:
They're breaking down over time. But because we live in communities and societies, we generate a lot more waste in smaller areas than you normally would in like a forest setting. And as a result, the act of composting is like the human intervention to manage that material. We mix food waste with yard waste and leaves and wood chips that we get from municipalities. We put that sort of into a pile and mix it evenly. We're then wanting to make sure that we're, you know, making sure that it isn't too wet because it'll get smelly, isn't too dry because what you're really trying to do is, like, ensure you are you're having microbial reproduction. So, contrary to, like, what a lot of people think, compost isn't done by, like, the heat of the sun or by putting, you know, some sort of heating mechanism in it. It's actually the microbes reproducing and eating and pooping and breaking stuff down into a form that is accessible and available to plants in the future.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:17:16]:
And so from banana peel to finished compost in our system is, you know, anywhere from 45 to 90 days. That's a little bit faster than what might take place in your backyard if you're composting at home. And then, you know, that material, that finished material can be used to apply at a garden or at a farm or in for in your favorite house plants to provide nutrients to your plants so that you don't need to apply artificial chemicals and fertilizers. And so that, you know, the food system for me is really like the perfect vehicle for this concept of the circular economy. Right? So like my favorite example of of something that is like in place in action today is that we work with like a restaurant like the Flying Fig. The Flying Fig, through the process of preparing meals, generates food waste. That food waste is collected by our service arm, Rust Belt Riders, is then composted at our facility and that compost is then turned into a potting mix which we call sprout and then is purchased by Ohio City Farm. Ohio City Farm then grows herbs and vegetables in that soil that used to be food scraps that then the flying fig buys.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:18:34]:
Right? And then they're then preparing new meals and that cycle goes on and on and on. Right? It keeps resources local. It keeps dollars local. Food travels less far and therefore has less of a negative environmental impact and more of a positive one. And it's really that, like, that is what the circular economy and food looks like. And so while we're doing that with, you know, the flying Fig in Ohio City Farm, we're really looking to do that sort of on a regional level, right? So how can we leverage our partnership, for example, with Heinen's to be supplying soil to the farmers that they're buying from, and sort of extend this to, like, northeast Ohio or maybe even the Great Lakes region.

Jeffrey Stern [00:19:17]:
Right. And that's really in in contrast to if that food waste goes to landfill, the circle is not reinforcing.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:19:28]:
It's incomplete. Yeah. So so so the circular economy is in contrast to the linear economy. Right? So it's this take make, waste model that we sort of live in. Right? There are very few examples of things that you can use or repair in perpetuity. Right? Clothing is maybe like a good example of, like, this clothing has been made. It can be mended and repaired and turned into rags or cloths or whatever. But I think food is like such a land, water, energy and labor intensive material that can and always is recycled in a natural system that is is just not in in sort of, like, this industrialized system that we we live in.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:20:15]:
And so for us, I think that like the adoption of a more circular economy is a a tool to both make more robust our local economy while combating climate change, while creating community wealth. And so it has this multitude of benefits that gets me really excited. And luckily, you know, the the city of Cleveland actually, in partnership with an organization called Cleveland Neighborhood Progress was the recipient of a Ellen MacArthur grant to explore the ways in which the City of Cleveland can more properly prioritize the role of the circular economy as we think about economic development and growth. And so we've been really engaged in those conversations and are excited to see sort of how that continues to evolve.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:04]:
Yeah. I'd love to maybe go on a brief detour there. What what do you think Cleveland would need to do to have citywide composting program going forward?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:21:14]:
So there's a couple of things to unpack there, right? I think that as your listeners or you might be aware, we we are currently the city of Cleveland doesn't have a recycling program. So Yeah. It's crazy. That's a little it's a little crazy. Right? But I think that, like, the thing I like to remind people of is that composting, unlike recycling, which deals with plastics and metals that are part of this global commodities market, may vary based on tariffs and, you know, commodities markets. Whereas food waste, the things that can be composted today could have been composted a 1000 years ago and will be able to be composted a 1000 years from now. Additionally, the environmental impacts of food going to landfill are are terrible. And so when I think about how we as a region can begin adopting and embracing like the circular economy, I think of how can the city view composting as an essential service.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:22:14]:
Right? People are up in arms that they aren't able to recycle, but I want what I want really is people to be up in arms that they can't compost or that composting isn't as basic or fundamental a a service as landfilling or recycling. Right? Like our tax dollars are going towards creating health problems when we landfill things. We should, I think, instead be investing in those services and those bits of infrastructure that can improve public health, that can improve stormwater retention and allow us to plant more trees and grow more food. So that's my like minor tangent. But what I will say is that, you know, it would not be unprecedented. I mean, you could look at, like, the city of Minnesota. Right? You don't necessarily think of Minnesota as, like, this green bastion of the world, but they've got a, like, law on the books that residents cannot throw food away. Right? They've got citywide composting.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:23:07]:
We're not all that economically or geographically dissimilar to Minnesota. So if Minnesota can do it, I think we can. You don't need to be Vermont or California or Seattle to have nice things. And I think that the other thing that I I think is kind of an obvious statement is that we have an abundance of old brownfields and old land that is dying for reinvestment. And while composting certainly isn't like Silicon Valley blow your hair back tech. It is infrastructure that will be essential for us to continue to adapt to the realities of climate change while also providing us with the opportunity to recirculate this material that is presently a waste stream and to turn it into value added goods and to to keep resources local and to sort of not squander what we view as a resource.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:02]:
What what is your sense for what the the average person needs to understand about composting that you don't think most people have have an awareness of today?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:24:13]:
It is so innocuous, right, this idea of food waste. It just sort of happens, and it's only until you confront it and, like, really begin like, if you cook at home, I just I implore you for one day or one week, set aside your food scraps for a day, for a week. Right? And you will begin to realize that most of what you throw away at home could be composted. And when you sort of see that, it's really difficult to unsee it. I think that for a lot of people, they tend to think that composting is this like smelly, yucky, difficult thing to do, which is really how we've tried to design our service is to, like, get out ahead of those things. So our clients who work with us receive a clean bucket that is self contained. It has a lid. You put your food scraps in there, and then once a week, we come by and we exchange a full bin for a clean empty bin.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:25:10]:
Another thing is that, like, when you compost in your backyard, you're a little bit more limited in terms of what kind of stuff you might be able to put in there. So you, for example, might not put meat or bones or dairy in your backyard pile, but because we're doing it at more of an industrial scale, we're actually able to accept all food. And so we're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to access this, but there's a lot of unlearning I think that needs to take place. I've just sort of said that, like, recycling is probably the hardest form of diversion that one could try and wrap their heads around. Right? There's glass, there's aluminum, there's thin plastic, there's thick plastic. 1 month to the next, the rules can change. But, like,

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:52]:
it's overwhelming.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:25:54]:
Did it grow? If it grew, you can compost it. You know, and so we try and come up with these, like, kind of simple tools, but then we also arm all of our our clients with some tech tools that allow them to so we have, like, an app that we've partnered, with organization with. So you can literally search, like, is are is a tea bag compostable? It is. Or, you know, is macaroni and cheese compostable? And you can, like, search or scan barcodes of any product to learn whether or not we can compost it in our system. And, you know, it's it's it is really new for people. Right? So if you haven't done it in the past, it's it's hard to know how to start. And I think that we've done a really good job of having a staff and a team that is there to encourage people. You know, you're allowed to make mistakes along the way and we're just there to hopefully hold your hand and help you out in answering the things that you're concerned about and supporting you when you make the right choices.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:54]:
So so let's let's tie it back to Rust Belt Riders, at this point. Maybe you can just tell us a bit about how the company evolved from from the early days where, you know, you're doing that exploration to discovering there is a business and and maybe what the business actually looks like and, just an overview of of Rust Belt Riders today.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:27:14]:
Yeah. Totally. So, yeah, like I said, we we started on bikes. That was back in 2014. That's where our name comes from. We're not some weird bike gang though. From time to time, people think we are and that's pretty cool. Yeah.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:27:27]:
So, you know, I think we're we're trying to change the narrative of what the Rust Belt can be viewed as, and we we go around town trying to do that, you know, a banana peel at a time. You know, like I said, we we started this, on bikes. We did that for maybe, like, 9 or 10 months until a Cleveland winter and pretty gnarly bike accident shifted our trajectory. In those 9 to 10 months, we, were hearing from people in Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights and Westlake and, Independence saying, I heard about your service. It sounds really cool. I'd love to pay you to pick up my food scraps. And we're like, that would be cool, but we're just on bikes. You know, can't see myself riding to Cleveland Heights, from Ohio City or something.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:28:14]:
And, you know, I think that we'd slowly began to question that. Right? Like, how do we move the needle on food waste if we're not meeting people where they're at? So as we, Michael and I, were having these conversations, we realized that, like, it would probably be a valuable lesson to build a business model around this, to really figure out what kind of opportunity there is. And so we went through that we were in the very first cohort of, a startup incubator called cChange, which stood or stands for, social enterprise accelerator. We're kind of like this red headed stepchild. Right? We're we're not a tech company. So, you know, the jump starts of the world might not know what to do with us, nor would Tech Elevator or others. We're not a nonprofit, so we can't necessarily get grant money. So So we've decidedly made a kind of more difficult path for ourselves.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:29:05]:
And so SeaChange really presented this unique opportunity to be in community with other social entrepreneurs and enterprises trying to work on hairy problems. And so we went through this, like, 16 week cohort that culminated in a pitch competition and we were fortunate enough to come out with the top prize of that. We got, I think, $25,000 to allow me to promptly quit my day job and sort of dive headfirst into this. From there, we went through a program that jumpstart initiated called the Core City Impact Program. Again, a multi week cohort based model. Again, we're fortunate to come out with a top prize from there. I think that was $20,000 My business partner, Michael, went through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program. And again, you know, like we were basically like philosophy students.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:29:58]:
So we needed to learn the language of business, but put our own spin on it. And I think that, going through those programs allowed us to learn the language of business while having this backbone and understanding of, like, how it is we wanted to sort of uniquely organize ourselves and and do the work of doing business. And so I think the the next most momentous occasion was Michael and I were named, Echoing Green Fellows. This is like a global fellowship program that lasted 2 years and provided funding for Michael and I, put us in community with social entrepreneurs from across the globe. And and really it's been sort of a combination of connections that we've made through SeaChange, through Jumpstart, through 10,000 small businesses, as well as Echoing Green that we find ourselves where we're at today. We've got a team approaching 20 people. We've got a fleet of vehicles. I think we're up to 6 or 7 vehicles that are out servicing around 250 businesses each week and then around 2,000 households across Northeast Ohio.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:31:05]:
Just last year, we diverted right around £4,000,000 of food waste that otherwise would be sent to landfills. And from that £4,000,000 of food scraps made a whole lot of amazing potting soil and raised bed fill mixes for gardeners in the Great Lakes region. And so while we've been around since 2014, we continue to, like, feel very much like a start up. We keep trying to fold aspects of our business back onto itself to to create efficiencies and and build on the things that we wanna sort of explore. So, like, our residential services, for example, didn't really exist in any meaningful way prior to COVID. We did that almost in direct response to COVID. Our soil company is 2 years old. So really for the first, you know, 6 years or so, we were just servicing businesses picking up food scraps.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:32:00]:
And then, you know, when that sort of felt like it wasn't enough, we started making compost and meeting farmers. And then we realized that people were cooking and eating at home because their office was closed. So we wanted to meet people where they were, which is where our residential program comes from. And so so, yeah, it's just been like a really interesting evolution and journey to get to where we're at

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:24]:
today. On that journey, as you kind of just discovered new opportunities, tilth soil being being one of them, And maybe you can spend a little bit of time just going a little bit deeper on on what exactly that is and and how it relates to to Rust Belt Riders. So So we can we can talk about that. But I also would just love to understand, like, what do you kind of see on the the horizon?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:32:48]:
It is right for people to if they people know about Rust Belt Riders, they know, like, that's a group of people that pick up food scraps and make compost. I think that as I think about our future, certainly from like a a revenue standpoint, we are going to be a soil manufacturing you know, franch you know, franchising our hauling services, like, much beyond the geography that we're already in. However, the soil that we're making, we've shipped as far as like Tacoma, Washington. Right? So the soil can move across boundaries that we can't profitably do with our soil collection or our compost collections company. Yeah. So when I think about, like, the future, I think like a the sort of like Goldilocks zone for us is if we can make make a a soil company that is successful, we can over time reduce the cost of collecting food waste to the point where we achieve cost parity with recycling. If we can do that, we achieve the same outcome that policy in Vermont or California achieves, but without the need for the passage of legislation, right? We're essentially a manufacturing company today that gets paid for its raw input. Our clients are pay us based on the volume of material that they're producing, and we compost that.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:34:20]:
And then from that compost, we make potting soils and and mixes that we then sell to gardeners, and farmers. So, yeah, as we look to the future, I I think that I I distinguish Rust Belt Riders provide services, and the result of Rust Belt Riders services are TILth Soil products. So TILth is the product that results from the services that Rust Belt Riders produces.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:44]:
When you think about competition, I mean, for 1, like, are there other companies you're competing with, or do you view it more as garbage is the competition?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:34:54]:
That's a good question. I think that there there are other organizations offering food waste collection services in Northeast Ohio and across Ohio. In fact, we've helped start, you know, no less than 2 other Ohio based food waste collection companies. In some ways, there's competition in the traditional sense in that, like, there are other companies providing similar services. But when I think about, like, the the need for the proliferation of this kind of service, it's a very collaborative ecosystem. And so the work that we do on a national level is considered is under this umbrella of what's called community composting. So we serve on a steering committee and an organizing committee for the Community Composting Coalition. There's about 85 other companies across the United States that we're aware of that are doing this work in their communities.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:35:48]:
Right? I mentioned earlier that, like, we're probably not gonna go far beyond Cuyahoga County's boundaries because it simply doesn't make a ton of sense economically to travel very far distances to pick up a relatively low value product like food. But if there's somebody in Akron, like there is, Rubber City Reuse is an organization serving Akron. There's organizations in Columbus serving Columbus. There's an organization called Queen City Compost in Cincinnati and we wanna see each community sort of develop and and devise a service that works and best meets their community's needs. Because the the only reason we've been able to be successful is because the relationships and partnerships that we have in Northeast Ohio. So thinking about competition, I think that there are, like, there are, on the other hand, companies that drive, you know, 16 wheelers across state boundaries and pick up food scraps. I think that the thing I'm excited about is by organizing these 85 community composters together, we could, for example, pursue contracts for every Chipotle in the country. We could take advantage of bulk purchasing power by ordering buckets or vehicles together as a unit.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:37:04]:
And so it's sort of like a a federation model that I think we could see continue to develop. We're actually playing host to the National Community Composting Coalitions conference in October. And so we're gonna welcome, you know, roughly 85 different companies that are doing work similar to ours to the city of Cleveland and see what we're up to. And so we're hoping to sort of pitch that idea that we find a way to band together, because I think it's that kind of dynamism of a a local place based organization that can compete with these larger economies of scale. So I know a previous guest you've had on on the podcast was Colin from Farm Fare, and she she get has this great phrase that is, you know, it's only, economies of collaboration that can compete with economies of scale. And I think that we're in a really great position to have economies of collaboration with our coconspirators and the world of community composting.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:06]:
Yeah. That is incredibly exciting here. You're bringing all those folks here. I want to build on that a little. You mentioned how hard it is to move the needle if you're not meeting people where they are. And I imagine to meet people where they are necessarily, it has to be local. But to to have impact at scale and take on the enormity of the psychological challenge that is is looming, that was one of the things that I was trying to, like, reconcile in my head is is how you take the model that you have and affect change at a societal level.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:38:40]:
Yeah. Well, I think that

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:41]:
yeah,

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:38:41]:
it's it's hard because I think I'll I'll be the first person to tell you that it's a bit of a myth that like individual choices and actions are necessarily going to make the difference in the climate crisis, which is, maybe not like the smartest thing to say as a person working in a business that encourages people to make really small personal changes. But I think what we're actually doing is is building a model that is replicable. So I mentioned that we've helped start a couple other community composting companies in Ohio, but since our inception, I think we've helped to start about a dozen community composting companies across the country. And by showing that there are multiple ways to go about building models and doing this work in communities as varied as there's a company in Juneau, Alaska. There's companies in Los Angeles. There's companies in Chicago and New York and Omaha and pretty much everywhere in between. And we're all operating in with different assets, different challenges. And I think that this group of currently, like, 85 community composters, no more than, you know, 5 years ago was 35.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:39:56]:
So I think that for me, we're bringing about a cultural shift that more properly centers, food to ensure that it doesn't get wasted. But then there's these compounding benefits of of our work. Right? You begin to realize, you know, where your food comes from. And so you might be a little bit more discerning with where you're buying it from. You might support different farming practices and work to ensure that people are using regenerative agriculture and storing carbon. And so I think that what I'm most interested in is is how can how can you develop models that anticipate where we wanna be going? And I think that the work that we're doing here, both in what it is we're doing, namely the collection and diversion of food waste into products that can relocalize our food system, but also like how we're doing it demonstrates a model of of how we can be in community and work with one another to take on really hairy, scary problems because the climate crisis is certainly one of them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:02]:
What has surprised you in this journey so far, whether it be in your own company or the impact you've had more at scale? What what has surprised you most?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:41:14]:
Yeah. I mean, I don't mean to be flippant, but, like, you know, the fact that it's working, I think is really surprising. Right? Like, we've talked to a number of people, very tenured people in the business community who have had successful venture capital investments. And I remember the early days, and even to this day, we still have some advisors who are like, I don't understand why people pay for your service. Right? Like, it doesn't make any sense to me that you're a business. And yet we are. Right? And so I think that we're tapping into this really deep desire to want to do better, and we provide a vehicle for people to do that. Right? And I think that what's been really surprising is, like, who has stepped up, how transformational that participation for them has been.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:42:03]:
Right? I mean, I just look at like, like, Heinen's as a grocery store chain, frankly, was composting before us. Right? They were working with another company that was national and they drove big 18 wheelers around. But this was work that Heinen's has been doing quietly for years. Right? But it was through conversations with us that we explained our ethos and our why it is that we're doing this. And even though we were a little bit more expensive than the the previous vendor, they decided to go with us. And I think that, you know, what the world kinda needs a little bit more of is, like, hope and a vision for the future that is actually inspiring and not really sad and depressing. And I think that what we're trying to paint for people is is a vision of the future that can be kind of awesome. Right? Like, these ideas that, like, we don't need fancy gizmos and gadgets that suck carbon out of the air and are patented and manufactured and, you know, we all don't need to go vegan, though certainly eating less meat would probably be good for the planet.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:43:09]:
But instead, we could like shift the way that we grow and relate to our food. And by doing that, eat tastier, better food. And that could be part of the tool that helps to sequester carbon with this really fancy tool called soil. And we all can grow it and we all can compost. Yeah, I just think that we've been sold this bill of goods that like in order to be an environmentalist, you have to drive a Tesla and you have to have solar panels and somehow erect a wind turbine. And the truth couldn't be further from that. Right? It's like, what are you doing with your banana peel? And do you know where your food's coming from? Because if we can just have answers to those things, I think we'd start to, like, learn stories about each other. We start to probably cook more and eat tastier food and give our small family farms a better chance of survival.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:44:03]:
We stop suburban sprawl. Right? Like, there's a ton of co benefits that come from this. And I think that, yeah, I think we're just trying to, to recognize the sobering reality of the climate crisis while also providing people with the tools to be hopeful.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:19]:
Yeah. Back to fundamentals. Keep it keep it simple.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:44:24]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:25]:
Not to throw, you know, pessimism on that inspiring message, but what what it what is it about what you're doing right now? What keeps you up at night?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:44:36]:
The climate crisis keeps me up at night. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I mean, I think that it is really easy to get overwhelmed and, and grow a defeatist attitude whenever you start thinking about any number of the world's challenges. Right? I mean, wealth inequity, racial injustice, limited access to health care, All of those things though are made compoundedly more complicated and problematic when the climate is unstable. And so for me, I get to put my head down every day and and work on scaling up and making replicable a tool that I know works that is scientifically proven to take on the climate crisis. And it does keep me up at night and we might not win, but if in the process we are devising tools and solutions that build resilience and provide hope, then yeah, then I feel like that's, that's a good thing. But yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't want people to be motivated by fear necessarily or become so bummed out that you don't do anything.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:45:52]:
And so I think that it's like a, it's a really fine balancing act because, yeah, like I, I am scared out of my mind about the lack of meaningful progress being made on the climate crisis. And we need to be doing a lot more, a lot faster, at a much bigger scale. But you could just sort of throw your hands up and say, like, why aren't other people doing it? Big pharma is bad. Big food is bad. Big ag is bad. But the invitation that I invite everybody to take is, like, well, let's build a model that is better, and we can do it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:31]:
Right. And you're and you're proving it, that you can do it.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:46:34]:
Yeah. We're working on it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:37]:
Working on it. Yeah. I agree. It it's a good thing objectively.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:46:42]:
Yeah. So

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:44]:
well, that's an incredible journey that

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:46:46]:
you've been on.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:47]:
Very, very cool.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:46:48]:
Like I said, circuitous, but it's been fun. And yeah, it'll be interesting to see where we are in a couple of years. Right? We might start a tree farm or farm. Who knows? I don't know.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:00]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I imagine thinking about all those stops in the circular path from food waste to soil production to food production. There's there's probably a lot of opportunities, things you could potentially do that feed that that cycle.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:47:15]:
Yeah. We we we take a lot of pride in sort of like constantly revisiting our organizational's vision and mission as a team. And we have this funny thing where it's like, you know, we're all sort of non I don't think anybody on our team sees themselves as like a traditional entrepreneur. Right? We're just kind of people that know about a problem and wanna come up with solutions that work. And so we we often joke about, like, trying to fight off shiny objects because they can be a little bit distracting, but it is absolutely a joy to work with people who have such vivid imaginations of of, like, the kind of world that they wanna live in and see how it relates to the work that we're doing. Right? So we've talked about starting, like, a food pantry and community fridges and a vinegar company and a kombucha company. Right? Like, there's so much you can do with this stuff. It's it's insane.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:48:12]:
And so it sort of helps to continually revisit what and how we can create new ways to engage with people through the activity that we're already doing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:23]:
It reminds me actually something you mentioned earlier. Maybe we could just do one more detour here before we wrap up. But I'd love to understand why and the impact that it's had becoming an employee owned company.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:48:38]:
Yeah. So as I mentioned, like when when Michael and I sort of first conceived of this, we shed sort of different but related inspirations for like, okay. This thing we started can can turn into a business. Why should we be a business and not a nonprofit? Why should we be if we're gonna be a business, what are the merits to it? Right? And I was sort of like drinking the Kool Aid of some of my favorite organizations here in town, which are, you know, Evergreen Laundry, which is an employee owned laundry service, and Green City Growers, which is an employee owned Leafy Greens hydroponic farm. You know, Michael, like many people, had had some experiences with past employees or employers that was just like really unsettling. And you have to, you know, not wanting to show up to this place that you spend, you know, 40 plus hours of your week only to be miserable, not to be able to bring your full self there and to be not earning enough really. And so I think that early on, we knew that like employee ownership and employee voice and the ability for people to share in the decisions that were that would impact their daily lives was gonna be a critical feature of of our our work. You know, I I think I've mentioned on a couple occasions, right, that we're we're trying to develop a model for the world we wanna live in.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:50:01]:
Right? And the world we wanna live in is deeply democratic. Right? It's it's egalitarian. It is equitable. It is just, and there aren't a ton of good models out there. And so we get to sort of learn from one another and with one another about our blind spots and our strengths and our weaknesses and what consensus looks like. And I think that it is a really beautiful mirror to the kind of examination I think we need to do at a broader level to meaningfully confront the climate crisis. Right? We need regenerative agriculture systems. We can't just have be sustainable.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:50:39]:
Right? And so we need to, like, repair people. We need to allow people to show up as their full selves and worker ownership for us, is the closest proxy to that. Right? It allows people to share in the decision making. People are able to have specializations and excel at things that they excel at, but we are accountable to one another. We're not really hierarchical in the traditional sense. And I think that it's that kind of model that builds resilience. Right? Because I think that a lot of companies suffer from, like, you know, the founders, you know, if the founder leaves, like, is the company gonna survive? Right? We're building resilience into everything that we're doing so that, you know, the company isn't about any one person, but and isn't a static thing. It's evolving and and shifting and mutating to best meet the needs of our community, and of the members of that organization.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:51:33]:
So, yeah, I think that, we're really excited to have formally embraced this new structure of ownership. We went from 2 owners to now 4, and then we've got another, I think, 3 or 4 current employees who qualify for ownership in the next couple of weeks or months. And so the way that we make decisions won't really change, but the the shape is now more legally in place, and we're just really excited about that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:03]:
Yeah. No. It is very exciting, and it it definitely makes sense. You know, ownership. Yeah. It aligns incentives. It gives people a stake in in what they're doing. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:13]:
Very cool.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:52:14]:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:15]:
So we'll I guess we'll we'll keep it here in Cleveland. We have the same closing question for everyone, which is not necessarily for your favorite thing in Cleveland, but for, your hidden gems, something that other folks may not may not know about here in Cleveland.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:52:35]:
I hope I hope people know about it, but it's certainly, like, one of my favorite places to just sort of walk around, and that's Rebuilders Exchange. So Rebuilders Exchange is they're part of the circular economy too, probably why I'm such a big fan, but they are an architectural salvage organization. They work with, like, construction companies and demolition companies to make sure that cool artifacts from inside historical buildings avoid going to landfill. They then, you know, refurbish them and resell them to people in the community. And so they're neighbors of ours just down the road. They're at, like, 55th and Saint Clair pretty much in Saint Clair Superior neighborhood. Got, like, a 200,000 square foot warehouse showcase room where you can get anything from, like, doors to mantles to chairs to desk to tables, light fixtures, you name it. And so yeah.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:53:27]:
So I think that, like, in a world where we're constantly sold sustainable brands, the thing I like to remind people of, like, the most sustainable thing you can get is something that's already been made. And the work that Jessica and her team over at Rebuilders Exchange are doing is is nothing short of amazing. So check them out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:45]:
Well, check them out. Well, Dan, thank you so much for your time and and and sharing your story and and the work you're doing at at Rust Belt Riders. It I personally have I know I've learned a lot from this conversation, and, it's really cool to see the the work you're doing.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:54:01]:
Yeah. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks so much. Absolutely.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:04]:
If folks have anything that they would like to to follow-up with you about, learn more about Rust Belt Riders, get involved, what what is the, the best way for them to do so?

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:54:13]:
Yeah. You could, follow us on Instagram. We are at Rust Belt Riders. And if you're interested in soil, we are at tilthsoil. You could visit rustbeltriders.comortilthsoil.com, depending on what it is you're most interested in. We'd Love to talk with you either about our services or our products.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:35]:
Awesome. Well, thank you again, Dan.

Daniel Brown (Rust Belt Riders & Tilth Soil) [00:54:37]:
Yeah. Thank you so much.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:40]:
That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or @sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast