CropLife Retail Week: Get to Know HELLO NATURE

Eric Sfiligoj invites Jon Leman to the program to talk about HELLO NATURE, the company, its products, and plans for the future.

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*Below is a partial and edited transcript:

Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to a special edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj, editor of CropLife. I’m here this week was a special guest John Lehman from Hello Nature. John, welcome to the program.

John Leman: Thank you Eric. Good to be with you today. Good to see you again.

ES: Yeah. Good to see you. I know, you know, as we recorded this, of course, we’re in the middle of April, and spring is finally sprung in Ohio.

Actually, mowed lawn this weekend. That was the first time, as always, of fun. Sure, because there’s always those wet patches in your grass that you don’t notice until the last minute. And then it gets to be fun. But, hopefully, hopefully, in Indiana things are going as well.

JL: Yeah. It’s been a little, cooler. In fact, the other day I was looking at my weather, app map and it said, we were averaging 12 degrees below normal, for our little Yorktown area for the month of April.

ES: Wow. And I assume that’s probably, relative to most of northern Indiana, at least. So haven’t seen anything in the field yet and still drying out. We’ve had plenty of moisture, but, it’s feeling more warm. There are some blooms and flowers on some of the early blooming trees, and we’re excited for spring to be here. Yes.

So again, we’ve got you on the program with our viewers here for Retail Week. So if you could share with them a little bit about Hello Nature, the company, its history, you know what you’re all about in the marketplace here are so.

JL: Well, we were founded in 1971, Eric and northern Italy by, Lucio Bonini.

And we are still, wholly owned by the Bonini family. We’re and, third generation is Luca Bonini is our current CEO, for the group globally. And, so we were pleased to celebrate we were founded as Itau Paulaner, S.p.A. And to celebrate, 50th year of business, we modified our name to hello nature, around the globe.

So that was quite a fun project. As those 50 years brought a lot of change in the types of products that we bring to market. And, we felt it better represented, the diversity of products and our passion for, finding solutions, in a sustainable way. So, we do business today in 80 countries around the world, and we have manufacturing in the USA, a couple of locations in Italy and, Argentina.

And I think we’re looking at a few more as the years come along.

ES: So good John. Thanks for the history. You know, I know I visited the facilities in Indiana, for Hello Nature a couple of times. And I’m leading into my second question to you and of course, one of the, one of the landmarks I’ve seen at the facility is, of course, the Lego chicken or rooster.

And I guess that ties into the company’s product line. So if you could enlighten us a little bit about, what Hello Nature offers in the way of products.

JL: Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. Eric. So, well, as I mentioned, founded in 1971, and that was the, idea, for our founder was to take Chicken Letter and turn it into a really a viable fertilizer.

And he developed a process to pasteurize it and make it a homogeneous pellet. And that became the basis of the company and of course, working with Chicken litter, us to have a rooster as our, as our logo. And, the look of that roosters evolved, over the course of the time and with the generations.

But it’s still at the still at the heartbeat, of the company. And we work with over northern Italy over 500 different, broiler farms to help them manage their, their manure and, get it into the plant, get it pellet die. So, and we recently added, I’m sure you’ll ask me about it here in a bit of the Wabash facility that, to do that in the US.

ES: All right, well, before we get to that, yes, you get a little ahead of me on the questions. The pellets, products that you’re offering to the agricultural marketplace. Me? Why are they important? Why are they special? Why are they unique? Why are they needed?

JL: Yeah. So well, first of all, managing our livestock and egg producers and different types of producers has always been an important issue.

And, sometimes challenging. And we want to help them manage that by turning it into a value added solution and not just a challenge to manage. Our process is always been a little unique. We have a way of pasture raising our leather and keeping the beneficial microbial thermo resistant microbes, alive in the litter while still pasteurized.

And it provides a really value add to the grower from a soil amendment standpoint, phosphate solublizing bacillus and different things that are native to the litter. But in many processes are sterilized and wiped out. And we developed a way to do that and keep those, beneficial alive and active for the end user on a consistent basis.

ES: All right. Very good. And as you mentioned, of course, you mentioned a new facility that you were building. And I know last fall I actually came to Indiana, visited you in Wabash and, got to see the facility sort of in its being constructed phase. But I guess based on what I’ve read online, I guess it’s gone on stream as of, like late in December last year or early this year.

JL: Yeah. We started commissioning the plan in late last fall. Early, late November or early December and, finished the commissioning process, late January this year. We are up and running and we’re excited about that. And so far we’ve primarily produced, straight letter, for three two product, pretty standard offering for the marketplace, but we’re expanding into some blends that will be, give us a variety of, of, analysis, both organic and then something we do there that is a little different is we actually in our process, we grind or hammer mail the letter, to a powder so that this is a part of being able to make a homogeneous pellet. But it also allows us to add other ingredients. And we’re really excited about that. We’ve been doing it in Europe for a number of years, and we’re we brought that technology here so we could take a traditional or synthetic fertilizer and grind it to a powder as well, and put it through the ribbon blender to get a homogeneous mix.

And so you end up with a pellet, that is both synthetic and, organic. So it’s a nice soil amendment, kind of a green fertilizer additive that can, be beneficial for soils as well as providing, fertility for the grower. All right. And if you could, the specs on the facility itself, its size and what its production capacity, annual is expected to be.

ES: So. Well, total square footage on the roof is close to seven acres. It’s quite a large facility. And it has some unique features to it. One of those is, the, we’re next door to a, facility that’s being built, now, as we speak, that is going to recycle tires, the revive crew.

JL: Right. And they the building is there. They’re starting to work on the inside. But, in the process of, recycling tires and burning the rubber down, they produce a thin gas that’s very similar to methane, which will be piped over and be using that to, fuel our dryer, which also runs on natural gas. So that is kind of a neat feature.

And then we have a, system where the raw materials can come in and they drop underground and move through an underground system or through a channel. U channel system, drag, drag chain system that, it keeps it out of the air. So you really reduce odor, reduce dust. In the process. And, protects the integrity of the letter.

We can keep the specs on it as we take it through the system.

ES: Yeah. I’m glad you mentioned that. I had forgotten that you had showed us the, the facility that was sort of being built next to you with the tire recycling. Who who’s the who’s the company that’s doing that? I want to give them recognition.

JL: Yeah, it’s called Revive. And I’m not 100% who all the owners are. I know we, by rule and regulation to move energy. Our co-sponsors, co-owners of it. Hello Nature and PSA. But, the majority. I’m not even sure to be honest with you about that, but.

ES: Okay. All right. Very good. Well, hey, again, we started at the top of the program. You’re talking a little bit about. Of course, we’re in the spring. This is planting season or will be very, very shortly across most of the Midwest. I know down south. I’ve got my coworker Lara. So when she was just at a cotton meeting and she said, in the Mid-South, the, cotton plantings are going gung ho. So I know that corn and soybean will be going into the ground shortly.

Tell me, John, based on what you’ve heard so far, I mean, what what’s the biggest challenge, biggest hurdle for the, ag community as we go into the 25 growing season? And with that in mind, how might Hello Nature and its products help out?

ES: Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, some common feedback is you spent a little bit of that volatility in the marketplace with tariff talks and trade battles and especially, on fertilizer with our friends to the north and Canada.

And so just as folks, maybe a little apprehensive, wanting to see how things play out a little bit and then which would be normal and, things off to a little bit of a slow start. Growers just seem to, just a little slower to engage in their purchases and kind of want to see how things play out, which then, of course, challenges the supply chain to be ready because it’ll compress it and make it difficult to have all the product in the right places at the right time.

So these are I don’t know if they’re uncommon challenges year over year, but they’re maybe a little more pronounced this year. And we’re of course, just trying to work hard with our customers to make sure we have supply, have some inventory and, managing more than anything, managing costs were, thankful that we are US base production for our primary products that we sell in the US.

So we’re not as affected by the tariff on a direct basis. We do export around the country a little bit out of here. And some of those markets are, we’re working through, but we are just trying to keep our our costs down and work with growers and be ready for this compressed season. That’s come. Okay. Well, then, looking to the future, John.

ES: Of course. You know, everybody anticipates what’s going to happen next. And, you know, the plans you have at Hello Nature. As you pointed out, this new Wabash facility, it’s on seven acres. I remember visiting it. It looked like there was plenty of room for expansion and growth as you move forward. But tell me the Hello nature plans as we move through 2025 on into 2627.

And towards the end of the decade here, moving into 2030. Yeah. Well, so we’re very focused on, kind of, green fertilize or initiative through different mechanisms. One, of course, is nitrogen use efficiency, which is, that’s a common word today. People like to claim to be nitrogen use efficiency.

JL: We have some, technology that we’re producing here at the Anderson facility based off, plant based proteins that actually help the plant itself to assimilate.

We don’t actually treat nitrogen. We actually treat the plant. We are, certified, by, the fertilizer Institute, as opposed to land on all crops, improving nutrient use efficiency, particularly nitrogen use efficiency. And also in Europe. So we are very focused on, helping manage nitrogen, manage, fertility. And then also that plays into the Wabash facility.

We will be working on blends that will, enhance efficiency, putting carbon back and putting organic matter back into the soil while also delivering, fertility. And this is this is key to us as we go forward. We’ve had some nice success in Europe. We launched, in 2023, a product, line of soluble fertilizer, sculpture, barrow grain, where we’re actually reducing use rates by 15%.

And that’s been received real well by the market. And many are taking advantage of that. Some are just enjoying more efficiency by maintaining rates and and utilizing it better. But, we’ve we have a lot of data behind being able to reduce the rate a little. And, that way is save some cost and, and is more environmentally friendly, if you will.