So, that comes full circle actually started with caring for the animal that cares for me, which is to put food on my plate. And I need to make sure that we take care of it so it can keep doing that for not only myself but for the whole world.
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Announcer:Value added nutrition partners trusted by cattle producers across the country. Now here are your hosts, Ty deCordova and Casey Mabry.
Ty deCordova:Welcome back to the We Live It podcast. Myself, Ty deCordova joined my cohost Casey Mabry, which finally decided to come back. He has taken a leave of hiatus there for a little while. He, was on the stock show road and we couldn't hem him down. He was chasing them girls around, showing them hogs and done a really good job out of here in the last month or so, he's won lots of banners.
Ty deCordova:Some girls have done an exceptional job of showing their animals at San Antonio and Houston, Fort Worth, and of everywhere he's went, you've kind of hit a lick and that's pretty cool. And kind of wrapping the show season up, it's getting kinda sad that we're getting all the big ones gone, but we're starting to get the little ones in the barn.
Casey:Yeah. It's not I'm not really that sad. To be honest with you, I'm kinda I'm kinda over it Yeah. For It's been fun. That's not a
Ty deCordova:long San Antonio trip. How did that how that go for you?
Casey:Yeah. San Antonio was good. I mean, Avery had a, she won a banner with spot gilt and a spot barrow, so that's pretty cool. She's she's maxed out. They give a $10,000 scholarship to those breed champions.
Casey:And so she's maxed that out. So she got 20,000 from San Antonio. And then we just went to the Houston guilt show, and that went well as well. My nine year old Brooklyn, this is her first year to show. They had this is the first year they've had Hereford, gilts at the breeding guilt show down there.
Casey:So she won a Hereford guilt banner. Yeah. I I never so here's the deal. Yeah. So we were never gonna buy one of these or show one of these or whatever.
Casey:And I had one of these pig breeders we buy them from, and we just got a great relationship with him. And he called and he's like, hey, I got I got an awesome one for Brooklyn for her first year. And I was like, what is it? And he said, a Hereford guilt. And I'm like, we're not showing Hereford guilt.
Casey:But that pig's name's S'mores, and she's done extremely well with her, and it was good for her being nine years old. So the older two have, you know, quite a few animals in the barn. And then with Brooklyn, Peter and I decided to just give her two, and that's our focus. S'mores is one of those, and S'mores fortunately won the Hereford Gill show at
Ty deCordova:So you're stuck in I Hereford
Casey:don't know we're not stuck in any. No. No. I'm pretty sure this Hereford Gill is probably raised in some trailer park in Oklahoma, you know?
Ty deCordova:Yeah, no doubt. Well, we have with us today, Ms. Lisa Norton with BioZyme. We've done quite a bit with BioZyme in the past. We enjoy the partnership.
Ty deCordova:We thank y'all for the partnership. We sell quite a few cattle that's on the products. We show quite a few animals that are on the products. As you can see, I don't think there's a day that goes by that one of the stress tubs is not on one of my runs for the show animals and all the liquid boost and all the other products. So we thank y'all for that because it does actually work and help So, out I'll just kind of get in here, kind of give us a little backstory, kind of Lisa, where you come from, where you've been, what you do now, kind of how this whole thing got started, and then just kind of fill us in there.
Lisa Norton:Well, BioZyme's been around for a really long time, 1951. It was started by a guy named Larry Alert who worked for Cargill as a feed salesman, and he got tired traveling and so decided to build a feed store in his hometown, which is St. Joseph, Missouri. So we've been there the entire history of the company. On the Stockyards Expressway, so obviously that tells you what was all around it was, they say location, location, location.
Lisa Norton:So, that was the case. In the 60s, he decided that he would rather go to higher margin products. So, he got out of the feed business and went into the supplement business. Obviously, that changed the volume significantly, but he thought it was a better decision. We're still in the same place as we were then, except for there's no, there was 400 acres of cattle and now there's zero acres of cattle.
Lisa Norton:But that's happened just in the last five years where the land was worth, you know, too much money and they sold it and they're I mean, they're just building all sorts of structures on it. It's really sad. I moved to St. Joe when I was 13, so I've lived there a really long time. So that was really sad day for me because I, you know, had fond memories of it.
Lisa Norton:But the history of BioZyme, even though the stockyards has gone away, hasn't changed from a focus on beef cattle. That's always been our primary focus. We've worked over the last few years to diversify the show livestock products, horse products, dog products, just to try to give the company, you know, that not all your eggs in one basket approach. So, think, you know, the company has always been focused on making sure that the products are amazing and that they have a fermented technology inside of them which we believe helps the animal reach its highest potential. So we actually own and run a full fermentation plant and we use everything that we make in the fermentation plant into our supplements.
Lisa Norton:So, most people would have to buy those fermented additives, but we actually manufacture them ourselves. So, I mean, it's an incredible operation.
Ty deCordova:And the one that rings the bell to me the most is Amrifera.
Lisa Norton:That's correct.
Ty deCordova:That is the one that is the big push. That's what we're delivering once we sell the product, the mineral products or any of the supplemental products. Those are just delivery systems for the
Lisa Norton:That's exactly correct.
Ty deCordova:For the product that we really want to get out there that really had been proven to work. Mean, we're not just sitting here talking about it. I've witnessed it and
Lisa Norton:seen Yeah. Tons of research behind That's always been a value of BioZyme is to have, you know, don't go to market until you have enough research to feel really confident, Not only what it does, but why it does that. And that's been really important to me since I have become the president, which was in 2018, is to make sure that when we say like we have a new additive for laying hens, obviously I know no one on this situation would be interested in it, but the technology is really interesting. And we proved in a bunch of university studies that it made the laying hens lay 3% more sellable eggs. So better egg quality, a shell quality, sorry.
Lisa Norton:And in any case, I'm like, Well, that's great. I'm really excited that we can prove that, but why is that happening? And I wouldn't let them take the product to market till they could tell me why exactly what metabolite in that fermentation is causing that to happen. No one really totally cares about that to that level of detail, but they do care that the product works. Well, that's why they work because we know why they work and we don't go to market until we know that.
Lisa Norton:I always tell people if you don't that work there, if we don't know why it does what it does, how can we make sure we make it right every time so it will do what we say it will do? Well, you couldn't it just be crapshoot, not interested in that. Right.
Ty deCordova:Well, like I said earlier, sold a lot of it there for one time there when I had had the time to do so and had, you got a really good relationship with a lot of your team members. We were talking about earlier about how this deal is structured around a relationship, but yes, you have a great product, but what's your product worth. If you don't have a great team out there selling it. We always asking earlier about the full, full circle of a care that comes full circle. And then we got talking about team and Allen Lee and his team that he's orchestrated down there that, that is second to none in our industry and in the show world industry.
Ty deCordova:Everywhere you go, you see us kids too. And a lot of the people wear the BioZyme brand are either in the show industry or in the livestock industry that, and do what we do, whether it's cow calf or show animals or stockers or whatever. They're, they're all in the industry and they'll, they'll know. Not only do they know your products, but they also know what we live through every day and why we, why we should be using your products. How do you, when you're looking at that, what do you measure on, on that of what they know and what's your product?
Ty deCordova:How do you kind of sort through that and who you're going to use and who you're not going to use?
Lisa Norton:Well, we use a lot of tools to try to help us with all of that. But I think to me, I mean, it's like I always tell people, we don't have to go ask someone what does it feel like to feed a goat and then try to develop a product to help that goat deliver the performance that it's after. Because we have someone that feeds a goat every single day and we can just and they work there, right? And you know, like I feed a horse every single day and I run the company. So, I mean, I get it.
Lisa Norton:I know, you know, when the poop changes or whatever. So, I think it's just making sure they're relevant to the market that you're in and then also listening to them,
Ty deCordova:right? So, it's good to have people that are working for you that understand the industry aspect of that person's industry. And that's what a successful person does, they surround their self with other successful people that know different aspects than they knew. And that's pretty cool to see that BioZyme as a whole, as a company has surrounded theirself with such successful people within different aspects of the And
Lisa Norton:people, I mean, success is, you know, you can probably buy success if you want to, but when it's earned success, I think that's really the difference. It
Casey:holds the difference, Because you
Lisa Norton:understand what it took to get there. And as you know, and you I'm sure know as well, it's not easy, right? It's not just like I wake up and say, I'm going to make sure my daughter's pigs win. That's just not how it works. I mean, that's true of everything, right?
Lisa Norton:Whether it's business or pleasure, you want to be really talented and good at it, you got to work at it.
Casey:Yeah, you got be an enthusiast.
Lisa Norton:Yes, you can't just
Ty deCordova:love what you're doing. We've talked a lot about showing and that is another pretty neat deal I see with BioZyme all the time is y'all really invest in the youth. You're always seeing y'all at the junior nationals and the backdrops and all that stuff with your logos and stuff. From your perspective, what does investing in the young people long term, how does that strengthen our industry?
Lisa Norton:Well, I mean, I believe those are gonna be the leaders of our industry, right? I mean, showing livestock, working livestock, whatever the right phraseology is, I mean, it teaches you a lot about a lot of things. And I see lots of leaders that don't have that same grit to work hard and to work through challenges. So, I think that the youth in agriculture, one, they're the future of our industry. My husband that passed away, his dream was for the president of The United States to be from agriculture because they would actually get it as opposed to sort of getting it.
Lisa Norton:And so, he's like, We've got to teach these young people. We've got to value them, help them become the leaders that they have the potential to be. They know what hard work looks like. They know what failure looks like. They know how to get back up and do it again day after day after day.
Lisa Norton:The discipline that you both know from your own kids, right? I mean, you don't just get up at 08:30 like everyone else does and be done by 02:30. I mean, that's just not how it works. I remember the first time I didn't know anything about showing livestock till I came to BioZyme.
Casey:Are these people Yes.
Lisa Norton:But I did show horses, so I know how crazy you know, I
Casey:know I understand crazy.
Ty deCordova:Different crazy.
Lisa Norton:That's great. But I just remember standing at the wash racks watching watching them wash them and then do that blowing out thing. And I mean, the you know, these kids were like this tall and they're doing all that by themselves.
Casey:They look like professionals. Right?
Lisa Norton:And so that's when I was first and to be honest, and I'm not just saying this to get brownie points, but one of the first kids that I personally got to learn how they worked and I don't know, I wouldn't call them their friend, but be friendly with. And they were very kind to me and taught me a lot was the Barber kids. I mean, that Riley Barber, she's the first kid I met. And I mean, love that girl. And I haven't seen her talk to her in probably, I don't know, a long time, fifteen years.
Lisa Norton:But just her work ethic, obviously, she had very nice animals, but she still had incredible work ethic and also appeared to be very humble. And I will never forget, you know, and then it was her brother and then her sister and they were all the same. And I think that that's very rewarding because in many places you go that you don't see that kind of
Casey:It's kind
Ty deCordova:of hard
Lisa Norton:to find
Ty deCordova:that orthoethic work ethic that it just seemed like it don't exist. That's set in our industry nowadays. It's kind of, kind of sad, but you can go to one of these shows and see it. Let me see it, see it through your own eyes. Oh yeah.
Ty deCordova:That was pretty, had that talking to Barry Cooper and Mary Russell with Higginbotham the day and was talking about the exact same thing. And Barry Cooper was Cooper's barbecue. He sits on a deal there at the Fort Worth syndicate and the stock show and decides and help some ladies figure out who whose animals to help and which kids to help. And he kinda, that's how they, that's what they do. Them ladies will sit there and watch the show for three or two days and see which kids you can tell that they've been really working with their animal.
Ty deCordova:And then I'll walk through them barns and see, it's a pretty, they're not just rewarding daddy's money. They're going out there and picking the kids that, that look like it's been, it's pretty neat
Casey:stuff.
Ty deCordova:Let's, let's talk about, let's move on to like some measurable results. I mean, if, as you're out there trying to sell one of your products and what kind of producers comments, VitaFirm or GainSmart program, whichever you want to, what is the difference that you're hoping to see within that product and within your product line, as far as like a stocker guy, I mean, what are the measurable products on a, on a feeder calf or a grazing calf that he's going to get out of GainSmart? Is there more gains to that? What does that look like?
Lisa Norton:Well, I mean, we have lots of research, like I mentioned earlier, but we say in the gain department, a quarter pound per head per day. Pretty much, I think we have seven published university studies to back that up. But really the secret is, as you mentioned earlier, the Amifirm because what it basically does is help the animal better utilize the nutrients that it takes in. And so, I mean, in Europe, probably back in the early 2000s, their number one time they recommended Amifirm was when the forage quality was really crappy because it could take really crappy forage and still allow the animal to deliver it. This was in dairy cows, so it was milk, right?
Lisa Norton:And so, I think, you know, what we have seen time after time after time is that the animal better utilizes, you know, whatever 2,500 parts per million of copper you give it, it gets the most it can out of that, where without the Amifirm it wouldn't be able to do that. And then also there's a resilience factor, which is I think what you guys see in the show side. I mean, they're under stress, right? We can't stop stress. All we can do is help the animal deal with that stress.
Lisa Norton:And so our product, the aspergillus lyricea, it's pretty famous for that and we have a patented process that is really the secret. So it sort of mimics stress in the fermentation process And so then, and then it recovers from that. And so when it gets in the animal and the animals, you know, having stress, it's like, this is no problem. I know how to handle this. I just do this.
Lisa Norton:And that's what it does.
Ty deCordova:Well, I've seen a big one when I've become a true believer in it, in the product, Alan tried and tried for years to get me to sell it for him. I thought I was too busy back then. Then we got to really looking into it. So I agreed about 15, it might've been twenty years ago.
Lisa Norton:Not quite that long.
Ty deCordova:Fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago when we first started selling it for him and we took a Bremer cow herd and the only thing that swapped in the whole thing was, was we swapped mineral. They went from one company's mineral to y'all's mineral. And when he come back to full year, next full year to calving season, it took his conception rate. I was, I want say his conception rate with the Bremer cows was like 81 or eighty two percent and it fully, not a 10% growth in that.
Ty deCordova:And in today's market, that's big. I mean, and that's on a Bremer cow, which is, you probably won't see that big a swing on an English cow because they breed a lot easier. But doing that on some kind of cow like that is pretty big to me.
Casey:That's probably
Ty deCordova:all day long. I mean, so that's really what sold it on me back then. And I think when I met you one day in Denver and you told me, you walked in there and you finally met me and you said, proved my point one time about how fast you can grow. Anyways, I still remember that.
Lisa Norton:You did do an amazing job.
Ty deCordova:Your CFO got a little nervous also.
Lisa Norton:Oh yes. Well, he was always a
Ty deCordova:little nervous.
Lisa Norton:All CFOs are a little nervous.
Ty deCordova:They stay a nervous. I keep ours nervous That's
Lisa Norton:why I didn't stay being an accounting professor because they're like so boring and don't take any risks.
Ty deCordova:But no, I mean, it's the conception rates and the stress products that y'all have and just all the products. I mean, we've y'all proven time and time again, they work. And like I said, you'll have a well of a sales team out there that live in the industry, breathe the industry and that know that, that are the backbone of the company.
Lisa Norton:Mean, think all of them, I keep track of all the employees that use the product. And I think last time I checked, it was 96%. So that tells you something. Right?
Ty deCordova:If you're larger, yes, ma'am.
Casey:So what do do? That whenever you you go in there and you're looking at, like, at the end of the year, you're like, okay, you're not using our product.
Lisa Norton:You might wanna rethink. No. I don't quite do that. But I actually do it for my own happiness. You know, it's like Absolutely.
Lisa Norton:They believe in it, Yeah. And even people like sometimes some of the people in the manufacturing side, I'm like, I don't know that they have animals around it, But they're buying the dog food. And so then that gives me an opportunity to go back to the back and I'm like, So, Cody, I saw you bought dog food. And he goes, Oh yeah, I have a dog. And then, you know, you're instantaneously building a relationship because usually people, if you talk about their animals, that makes them happy.
Lisa Norton:And so, it's been a great way for me because I love animals, so it gives me something to talk to them about. And I'm like, well, have you seen anything from the dog food? Oh, yeah. Okay. What'd you see?
Lisa Norton:And then I'm like, okay, well, you need to tell your neighbors and your friends. Right?
Ty deCordova:Yeah. That's how it spreads.
Lisa Norton:That's how
Ty deCordova:it spreads. Is there anything that you kind of want to go over and cover while we're here? I mean, not trying to rush us off, but we just want to keep it.
Lisa Norton:No. I think you mentioned it earlier, you know, our kind of company motto is care that comes full circle. And that begins with the animal, right? One of the hardest things for me when I came into BioZyme is that I'm a true animal lover. So, care that comes full circle actually started with caring for the animal that cares for me, which is to put food on my plate.
Lisa Norton:And I need to make sure that we take care of it so it can keep doing that for not only myself but for the whole world. And I think that's pretty important to keep in the center of your head all the time that that's really what we're doing. And then that grew into, hey, well, we need to care for our customer because in the end, right, the customer is really the one writing the checks to help this animal. And then during COVID, we expanded it into our vendors. So, if we take care of our vendors, they'll take care of us.
Lisa Norton:And I'm very proud of that during COVID, we didn't have to shut down for one day. We never had a supply chain break, not one, which is pretty amazing in my opinion. And then obviously to our own employees, because of you've so eloquently said, I mean, they're really the reason that BioZyme exists. People always ask me, know, like, What's it take to be a successful company? Good people.
Ty deCordova:Not only good people, but listening to those people. Yes. And we see it time and time again is when leadership decides that they're the know all and be all and they don't listen to their people. Right. That's when stuff gets out of kilter.
Lisa Norton:Yes, totally agree. And the whole, I mean, I'm very involved in the American Feed Industry Association. I'm on the executive board, which I love because I get to learn so much about the industry and then how can we better, as a feed industry, better serve what you guys do, right? Because if the animals don't get to get the right nutrients, you're never going to maximize their genetic potential.
Ty deCordova:We can't thank you enough for
Lisa Norton:the Yeah, partnership I'm you're coming on and visiting with very excited about it.
Ty deCordova:You bet. We thank y'all and we thank everybody out there in social media land or wherever you're watching this podcast. Once again, thank y'all for, for joining in and watching us. And I don't know why you like to watch me and Casey, but you know, we're just two hillbillies trying to get along here, but we enjoy it. And we thank y'all for your support.
Ty deCordova:If you're out there and want to be a part of it, reach out to the live ag or look at live ag or email Katie at katielive ag dot com. She can get you kind of involved and we appreciate you and God bless.