This transcript is AI-generated and [lightly] edited by a human.

Karina Inkster:

You're listening to the No Bullshit Vegan Podcast, episode 165. Rey Ortega has over 30 years of experience in the plant-based sector. He founded one of the first vegan cookie brands on the market in the nineties. We discussed that journey, his other plant-based brands, and the trend of big corporations jumping on the plant-based bandwagon.

Karina Inkster:

Hey, welcome to the show. I'm Karina, your go-to no BSS vegan fitness and nutrition coach. Happy 2024. Hope the first week or so has been great for you. On January 1st, I celebrated my 21st vegan anniversary on January 1st, 2003, I made the switch from vegetarian, which I'd been for five years at that point. Two full vegan, definitely one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Now I'm planning to do an a MA podcast episode soon, and that is ask me anything for the uninitiated. You can ask me anything you'd like and I will answer as many questions as I can on the show. Send in your question via my website, contact form karinainkster.com/contact, or on Facebook or Instagram. You can ask me about veganism, strength training, anything you want to know about me, accordion or did do playing. Pretty much anything goes. So send me your question by Friday, January 19th, so I can answer it on an upcoming episode.

My guest today is a pioneer in the plant-based sector with over 30 years of experience. Rey Ortega. In 1994, Rey founded the alternative baking company, one of the first vegan cookie brands on the market, which generated $1 million in sales in 1995. In 1997, he founded Sunflour Baking Company to create new flavors, tastes, textures, and nutrition products with a longer shelf life and higher profit margins. Sunflour Baking produces raw and baked gluten-free cookies, free of animal products. It also provides co-packing, product development, consulting, testing, nutrition facts, graphic design, and wrapping in small batches. Clients include Continental Airlines, Sodexo, Marriott Food Service, and Whole Foods. The company supports Farm Sanctuary, the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Indef Defense of Animals. Rey owned Garden to Grill a vegan restaurant for five years with extensive knowledge across the entire product lifecycle. He's an experienced formulator within the industry, has designed three facilities and has sold millions of vegan cookies, keeping eggs and dairy out of the mouths of many besides owning five plant-based brands. He's also published two children's books and is an expert at Cannabis Infusion for topical and edible products. His favorite vegan meal is pizza. Fully loaded. Here's our discussion. Hi Rey. Welcome to the show. Thanks for speaking with me today.

Rey Ortega:

Hey, thank you for having me, Karina.

Karina Inkster:

Now, you're pretty much an OG vegan. I need to hear about your vegan story because we're going to talk about your business that you founded in the nineties, which was already vegan back then, but how did you come to veganism yourself? Why is Rey vegan?

Rey Ortega:

First of all, it's OV, not OG. OV original vegan!

Karina Inkster:

Good point! I stand corrected.

Rey Ortega:

I'm starting to correct everybody. I just made it up today, by the way, that OV.

So basically, I did it for health reasons. I weighed about 295. I was extremely sick and I had always been a sick child, and then it just caught up to me. I stopped eating eggs when I was about 16. I had studied about it, oddly enough, as strange as it sounds, and I think it's almost hard to believe that a 14-year-old would've gotten ahold of some medical books and started reading about why he was sick. I was so sick as a child, just oddly enough, I went and decided to read about it and why, but it was a complete accident as to how I found these medical books. It was in an old shed that I used to grow up as a kid that I used to crawl around in, and it was all the black and white kind with just the black text and black pictures, just everything was black and white, and then I was so fascinated over it and I couldn't understand.

I was 14, 13. I couldn't understand. I only understood some of it, and I really tried hard to understand it, but my dad recognized on my 14th birthday, I believe he got me some layman's terms, the ones that I could actually read and understand. So I did it really for health reasons to try to understand why this was happening to me, and I don't know how much you want to hear the beginning, but it's actually, I've been talking about it. I actually think about it all the time, which is strange, but it is for myself, a weird issue because I was scared of the dark. I was angry when I first became, I was actually an angry child because I think I was so unhealthy. It made me angry. The doctors tried to put me on Ritalin or pills to calm me down, and I know now why I was so angry, and it was because I was sick all the time.

I think when you're sick, as a child especially, and I see it all the time now these days, it's really super sad. I always want to give people advice who have angry children to possibly try changing their diet because I think that's the best advice I can give anyone. I have a 14-year-old, but the best advice I can give anybody with angry kids is try changing that diet. Even though it is impossible to try to get a child to change things, I don't think I would've been open to it because the way that I grew up was I was filled with all the foods, sausage and bacon, and the eggs and sausage McMuffin with eggs came out, and I was a huge McDonald's fan, and I grew up with McDonald's and thinking back about it, it's so strange that I decided to stop eating eggs at 16.

Then, hey, that was kind of not a big deal, right? You're thinking, oh, you're just going to quit eating eggs, but no, no, no, no. Eggs is in everything. Eggs are in my favorite thing, which was cookies. Eggs was in cakes and muffins and some breads. It was in pasta, and it was everywhere, and I thought then you had to grasp in your mind what is going on. You're thinking, man, this is weird. How could this be possible? So I started reading a little bit more about it. I cut out eggs entirely and hid eggs when I was 16, and I did it partly because I constantly had headaches, headaches, and it just wasn't feeling good. But I probably was about 220 at the time, too. I was a big kid. I was about 220 pounds gradually as it's not accepted in my neighborhood to be vegetarian, first of all.

So I never told anybody other than when I was anywhere. I didn't want to eat eggs, and I was just really quiet about it. I was just like, I can't have that. I think that's when I started to use the word, I was allergic to eggs, because for myself, understanding now know, knowing what I know, the chemicals, the food, chemistry of how it works, and your body decomposes. I knew in my mind as a 16-year-old what it was, but nobody takes you seriously. Nobody will take you seriously as a child in this way, especially a Mexican child, a Mexicans, well, I'll tell you, they're hard on me. I would get my butt kicked if I told somebody I stopped eating eggs in my neighborhood. It was completely almost, it was coming out of the closet, but I couldn't tell anybody. I stopped eating eggs, and then when I got a little older to start to realize what was really happening, it became clear that I had to become vegetarian, which I was completely against. You're vegan, right? Are you Karina?

Karina Inkster:

Of course, yeah! 21 years almost.

Rey Ortega:

Been 30 for me. Solid 30. I always like to brag about that until I hear Moby. I know Moby and I hear Moby. He's like, I'm 40 years, 35 years.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, yeah.

Rey Ortega:

So I always feel like I was ahead of the game man in 1994, and it was a very lonely thing, you know what I mean? But what happens is when I got to my twenties, I hadn't had a cookie in seven years, so one of my goals in life wasn't necessarily finding out about cookies, having eggs. I wasn't sure in my mind. It just happened to be a fluke that I found this cookie. I found this cookie at a co-op, never thinking I had completely given up eggs in everything, but not an understanding and being in complete denial of being a vegetarian. Number one, I was in denial about the whole thing because I had a girlfriend who this, which is a funny story. When I was 16, she took me outside. She says, I have to tell you a couple of things. I was like, what is it?

She says, first of all, I'm gay. I was like, okay. And then I said, okay, that's great. She says, I'm also a vegetarian, and I lost my mind. I was like, you're never going to take meat away from me. I had gotten so angry, never. So it was such a personal choice. I think being vegan is kind of a personal choice. For the most part. I have no choice now because it would make me sick, but I was so angry at the time because I didn't want my meat taken away. I didn't want my chicken and my steak and my prime rib and my cheese. I didn't want that taken away, but I had given up eggs like nobody's business like, Hey, no problem. You can give up eggs. But I didn't want the rest of it to be taken away from me, and so you have to come to a realization as a person that these things happen.

It's a process of elimination. You have to figure these things out. But I had stopped eating eggs, but there was something still wrong with me. So as I cruised up to about my twenties 22, then I kind of had to come to the realization. I got a job at the sec. I had to come to the realization that I was going to at least be vegetarian. I became vegetarian. I lost 60 pounds when I was a vegetarian, and without lifting a finger, I did not exercise. It just fell off. Within six months. I was, wow, this is weird. So I decided, oh, it can't be so bad being vegan if this happens. So it became vegan during the course of the time when I got a job at the Sac Co-op learning to bake vegan, never thinking that this was going to be my life.

Like I said, I was embarrassed to be, I didn't even want to use the word, I didn't know what vegan was until I was 22, 23. I was embarrassed about the whole thing. I was sad. It was almost like a death in the family. Like, oh, there goes your food, your love of food. It's just all gone. It goes away. That's it. But then when I lost all the weight, I was convinced and I started feeling better. I was completely convinced that this was the way to go, and a few other things inspired me, which was two of the things. One was my doctor telling me I had Addison's disease and Cushing's disease, and she also said that I could possibly have a tumor on my adrenal glands. And I said, how do you know that? Just looking at me and how do you, because at the time, I don't have 'em anymore.

I had purple stretch marks on my body, and I didn't ever knew why. I thought it was just normal for people to have this weird stripe. It's literally stripes on my body and on my stomach area, and I was like, wow. I go, what does that mean? She says, you have an immune deficiency disease. You have something wrong with your immune system. And I'm like, well, how do you fix the tumor on the adrenal glands? She says, well, you have to cut your back open and pick out a rib. I'll never forget that day and take the tumor off. I was like, no way. That's not going to happen. Yikes. I says, there's no way. That's the last time I saw the doctor, because I hit the books hard at that time, and I went and realized. I said, that's it. I said, I have to be vegan.

I just couldn't bear to think somebody cutting into my body to take out something that was supposed to be there, so to speak. You know what I mean? Or whatever reason it was. So I was pretty much inspired by trying to be healthier, wanting to be healthier, realizing my spirituality was trying to tell me something. I think you have the division of your spirit and your body. My body was doing one thing. My spirit was telling me something else, so I had to come to a conclusion that I had to do this. I didn't have a choice. I was like, well, I mean, we have choices, but if I was going to get any better, I had to do this. If that answers your question in a nutshell.

Karina Inkster:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, most people, it's a trajectory. I started with vegetarianism not really knowing what veganism was back then in the nineties as well, and it took five years, I think it was around five years, to figure out like, oh, right. The meat and the egg and the dairy industries are all connected. They're one and the same. They're morally indistinguishable from each other, and my reasoning for being vegetarian was ethics. So not so much the health piece, although that is factored in now, but if you're a vegetarian for ethical reasons, you need to be vegan because you're still supporting the meat industry by eating eggs. You're still supporting the veal industry by drinking milk. I mean, this preaching to the choir here, but it took five years for me to figure that out.

Rey Ortega:

What? Oh, my gosh. That is so fascinating to me. Because see, I hear those stories about the ethics of, I'm like, I didn't give two craps about animals. I was so worried about myself. I was so, so worried about my own colon, so to speak, that I was like, who cares? You know what I mean? And I grew up, grew up with animals being killed in my backyard from my grandmother trying to feed their family. So I had chickens. I had that whole thing, and it was just one of those weird things. In fact, one interesting thing about what happened to me for some reason when I became vegan was I became angry. I became mad at the world. The world that was trying to fool us about dairy and eggs and all that stuff was I felt fooled. I felt I was fooled by this huge corporations that were shoving this stuff down our throats.

I was so mad. I remember just throwing, basically, I sold all my leather. I think the next weekend I made a yard sale. I was like, I'm getting rid of everything that had anything to do with animal product. I didn't want anything to do with it. I was so angry because they shove it down your throat from the time that you're in elementary school. And then it wasn't until two years later that the ethics of the animals, somebody, I had a friend of mine, Linda Middlesworth, who I always like to tell this story. She shoved it down my throat because I didn't care. I was like, Linda, I don't care. I don't just leave me alone. I'm so worried about myself. But then my spirit became more open because my mind started becoming more clear of what the connections of, and then she started showing me the videos. I had really not even seen the videos. Trying to show people these videos at any time in your life is, nobody wants to see these videos. Nobody wants to see these cows getting slaughtered. These chickens getting their heads cut off. Nobody. I was shown that, and then I put, it just got worse for me. I was even more mad. I think I just didn't want anybody. I thought, I'm not going to allow anyone to eat eggs and anything that I ever make again for the rest of my life, that's how pissed I was.

Karina Inkster:

Well, you used anger productively though, presumably, because around that time you started a company that did exceptionally well and sold a million dollars in 1995, which was actually, wasn't that just the year after you started the company? That's craziness.

Rey Ortega:

A couple years. It just took a couple of years. Yeah, it just took a, yeah, it was really strange. You know what? Considering the uphill battle that I had with people thinking things taste like cardboard at the time, I don't know if you remember. Oh yeah. You look maybe 30 years old yourself.

Karina Inkster:

Thanks. I'm 37!

Rey Ortega:

Okay. Wow. Lemme see. So you were seven years old and I was pounding the pavement to try to sell my cookies off to these people trying to convince them that, Hey, does it taste like cardboard? I swear. And I remember one of my marketing practices, I couldn't convince anybody to buy a vegan cookie at the time. There's no way only at the health food stores, but you can't convince a gas station to say, Hey, my cookie is vegan, but they don't care. They want it to taste great. So I ended up realizing, and I've literally have given away millions and millions of cookies over the years, and it was because I had to show people that it was cardboard days were over. I sent you cookies. Did I think I sent you cookies? Did you get the cookies?

Karina Inkster:

No, I did not. Maybe it's because I'm in Canada, but if they're on their way, I'm excited.

Rey Ortega:

Oh my gosh. No. I'm going to have to send a whole bulk thing to Canada because I forgot you're in Canada. You got to have some of these cookies. I'm working on that stuff.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, I would love to try them. So was this called the Alternative Baking Company? Was that what it's called? I think you have a different company now, but this is the one that you started in '94.

Rey Ortega:

Yes. Sunflour Baking Company is my new company, and I just acquired Mic's vegan cookie company about two years ago. Yeah, alternative big company. I was pretty much my pride and joy for the most part until I just couldn't stand working with people who didn't have, weren't on the same path as I was. And the other guy that I got into business was started eating fish and started eating eggs, and I was like, this is not where I want it to be. I was completely against it, and I was naive. Even then. I was just so excited to be healthy. I was just glad to be healthy. Then I realized these people who were around me weren't on the same path. I was like, I'm out of here. I can't stand it anymore. I'm leaving. So I started Sunflour Baking Company, and because they just didn't have the same ethics as I was, just completely not on the same path.

Karina Inkster:

That's fair. I can see that. So with the new company then, this is branching out. It's baking ingredients. You do labeling. There's a whole bunch of things within that umbrella, right?

Rey Ortega:

So one of the things I decided to do was I realized what I had had, but I didn't think it was enough. So I kind of put myself out there to open up myself to other people's products. So I make other people's vegan products, and it all has to be vegan specific. I mean, I don't dabble in anything. I've been offered a lot of money to do cookies with eggs and butter and dairy. Knowing what I know now, I could not bring myself to put anything like that in anything that I make. So it is far and few between that people are making vegan products, especially back then or over the years. There's been some that come and go, and some of them make it, some don't. It's just one of those things. So I do do private labeling and backing as well.

Karina Inkster:

Very cool. So what's it been distributing these millions of cookies? I mean, honestly, one of my most successful teaching-the-world-about-veganism methods is making insanely delicious foods. Usually cookies or cinnamon rolls or pretzels or some kind of traditional treat foods, chocolate cupcakes, not all the time. Sometimes it's shepherd's pie, sometimes it's something else, but for the most part, it's dessert, and it just brings people to the positive side of like, oh shit. Veganism can actually taste amazing, and it tastes exactly like the A, B, and C cinnamon bun or cookie that I've eaten elsewhere that didn't happen to be vegan. So is that kind of the response you're going for? Hey, try these. We need to further the truth, not the stereotype that everything tastes like cardboard.

Rey Ortega:

That's been my uphill battle now. I think that now it's very different than it's ever been. Believe me, if I had had a lot of these resources today, it would be more successful sooner, I think, in trying to pitch what I'm doing because it's just more accepted now. I would go in 1994, I think there was only maybe one or two soy milks at the time, rice milk baby at the time of 1994 here in the United States. I don't know about Canada because Canada is so weird. I think I'm not saying weird in a bad way. I'm saying it's just like nobody understands Canada. It's just like it's so nice and so calm and so neutral.

Karina Inkster:

Well, we're not perfect, but I'll take that description.

We had TVP. Remember the old-school TVP was the basic protein source that wasn't like beans, right? The granulated stuff or the chunks way back when. Yeah, yeah. All the classics.

Rey Ortega:

Oh, that's funny that that's good. I know we're only really seven years apart. It's a lot of time though. Seven years is a lot of time, believe it or not for sure. To have, I can't believe. I actually at one time got on the airlines. I was doing a million cookies a year for about 15 years until 9-11 for the airlines. Wow.

Karina Inkster:

So how did that work? Were they actually looking specifically for plant-based cookie options, or are they looking to you just because damn good cookies?

Rey Ortega:

No, believe it or not, I had a friend of mine who knew someone, a buyer at Continental Airlines at the time, and she said, continental Airlines is looking for vegetarian meals. It's their number one requested meal, and this is, gosh, I don't remember what year it was, but I was like, really? She said, yeah, I'll hook you up with them. So she hooked me up with them. You guys are Canadian, so it's called Pangea. They used to be an online web store. Her name was Sherry. She was a great person. I don't think they're around anymore, but it was one of the first mail orders, and she knew someone at Continental Airlines, and she hooked me up and it was about a nine month process, but the first order was like 200,000 cookies.

Karina Inkster:

Amazing.

Rey Ortega:

And I was like, oh my gosh, this is serious. This is not a joke.

Karina Inkster:

Right? Amazing.

Rey Ortega:

So then they just kept ordering over and over. I was completely dumbfounded by that size of an order, not ever depending on it. It went on so long. I have to admit, part of me was depending on it until 9-11 hit, it literally cut everything. They said, we're shrinking it down to we're taking three quarters away from your orders. I'm like, oh, no. And then it eventually just vanished because of all the regulations, but I'd like to get back in. There's other companies now, thankfully, that are doing it, but I'd like to get back in eventually.

Karina Inkster:

That's really cool. I was on a flight the other day from Vancouver to Toronto in Ontario, and the main snack that they were giving out was crispy fava beans with a plant-based cheesy seasoning thing. And sure, it has the little tiny vegan, the vegan V to just denote that it's a vegan product, but it doesn't have vegan and giant words over the packaging. It just happens to be plant-based. And I'm like, if this is the way that airplane food or airline food is moving, this is great. It just becomes the default. It's not the weird thing that you have to ask for.

Rey Ortega:

Right. Well see. I know that's good and bad for me because there's a lot of corporations now who are making junk by accident. You know what I mean? There's a lot of stuff. When I first started, people were telling me, don't put vegan on your package. I'm not kidding. They were. Don't put it on. It's going to ruin sales. And I was like, I don't care now. I'm not alone anymore. There's a lot of companies out there that are making a lot of mainstream companies who are jumping on the bandwagon in a big way, and I think, I don't mind in some ways, but other ways it's good for us as vegans, so to speak.

Karina Inkster:

Well, so let's talk about that a little bit. So I feel like there's a lot of companies who feel like they have to have plant-based offerings because if they didn't, it would be a bad business move. I'm thinking about the fast food chains offering impossible burgers and beyond burgers and whatnot. If they didn't have those things, they're probably limiting themselves in customer numbers these days based on how many people are plant curious or vegetarian or vegan or whatever. So do you think part of it is just looking at the market?

Rey Ortega:

I call it v-curious. Well, lemme tell you. We've just started. This is only phase one or maybe phase negative zero still, because we can go into a place and sure, you can get the burger, but it's probably cooked on the same grill, which is very annoying. They're still probably cooking. They're deep fried chicken with our fries, the only fries we can ever eat anywhere. Corporations now are abusing the word, and I'm finding products. I'm grabbing them from the shelf, and I'm looking at the package now because I was fooled once. It was a Swanson's or no, Mary Calendars, I think it was. It says Plant-based really big in front, and then I turned it around. I'm like, there's some milk. There's milk and some other junk in there.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, that's so annoying.

Rey Ortega:

Yeah. I was like, what are they doing? These people, they're like, they don't get it. They still don't get it. I mean, it's still like why? It's like I would totally buy that product if it was a hundred percent. And you know what? There should be a law now that I think about it. It should say a percentage of plant-based.

Karina Inkster:

There really should. Well, there are for things like the kosher stamp and the vegan stamp and all of those. There's regulations about those, but things like natural, plant-based, a whole bunch of other ones that don't actually have any regulations, it's kind of scary.

Rey Ortega:

Yes, I know. It's fast becoming something. It's the top eight allergies, for example. I'll tell you one thing also that I thought was funny is how fast gluten-free passed up vegan by billion miles. You know what I mean? I was like, shit. I always felt like, gosh, darn it. What is wrong with these people? They understand that vegan is, I go into a restaurant and I say, Hey, can I have no cheese? Oh, do you want no tomatoes either? I'm like, no, I didn't say that. Didn't say, I didn't want no tomatoes. I said, I just didn't want cheese on my stuff. Right. Do you want onions? Are onions okay? I'm like, so you're getting the rundown when you go out to eat these restaurants. They're giving you the rundown. They're like, come on, man. I mean, you go to these people, they still don't get it.

Karina Inkster:

No, this is why I really like going back to Vancouver. The town I live in is very small. Not a lot of vegan options if I'm eating out here. But if I go back to Vancouver, I mean, there's like 30 restaurants that are completely 100% vegan. You just walk in there. You can have anything off the menu you want, and I like having that experience. So whenever I'm in Vancouver, it's basically just feasting for 48 hours nonstop at places that I want to support. They get it because they're all vegan already. Why not support them? I think it's genius.

Rey Ortega:

Completely. And the sad part about those vegan restaurants is we can't order one of everything. That's the sad part about it.

Karina Inkster:

I wish.

Rey Ortega:

I'm like, I want one of everything. I mean, it's like you got to calm down. I get food coma easily.

Karina Inkster:

Me too. Oh, there's amazing places like vegan dim sum, vegan ramen. There's a Thai place. There's a Vietnamese place. It's a hundred percent vegan. It's just amazing. Yeah. So now I'm getting hungry and I want to go to Vancouver.

Rey Ortega:

It's that time. That's feeding time. I'm on an intermittent fast right now. I haven't eaten in 24 hours, so I'm doing that right now. I lost 16 pounds. I'll tell you something funny. So when I changed my diet, I lost all that weight. I was so incredible. I was like, I don't know, 185, something like that. I was so like, wow, this is amazing. And then of course, once I get into the cookie business, then I get into the cakes and I get into the muffins. I start making all kinds of stuff and tasting, and I think I gained about 30 pounds. I'm not kidding. Because of the sugar and the starches and of course the flour. And I tell this to everybody, and you don't know anybody who's eaten more cookies than me. You don't know anybody. Trust me.

Karina Inkster:

I believe it, Rey. I believe it.

Rey Ortega:

Can anybody you will ever meet. I mean, I started calculating it in my head. I was like, Hmm, let me see the calculation that I eat two a day, 306, 700 cookies a year. As I ended up being some ridiculous number, then I realized I had to stop using wheat so much. I had to stop eating wheat. So much wheat was a culprit in, I wouldn't say my decline in health, but it was a sidestep of the way that my body would process wheat even though it was enriched wheat. I think that we have to, I started to learn more and more and more, and I realized I had to start eating more nutrient dense food to keep me full longer. I think that is such a plus. I think that's something everybody should teach is nutrient dense foods.

Karina Inkster:

Nutrient dense foods, but not necessarily to the exclusion of treat foods, unless you're having a reaction to them or you're allergic to them or whatever. But yeah, I mean, for the most part definitely. Is your current company Sunflour? Is it gluten-free?

Rey Ortega:

Part of it is, so I got sucked in to gluten-free because it became a demand. It started becoming demand in my path. I was like, I would go to the Natural Products expo. Have you ever been to a Natural Products Expo before?

Karina Inkster:

A couple times. Yeah. There's big ones in Vancouver.

Rey Ortega:

Oh, yeah. I was probably the first to come out with a gluten-free cookie, and I was using pinto bean flour because it was the only thing that I thought would be a familiar and taste along with rice flour combination to make up the full protein. And so it would taste okay because pinto beans are terrible in flour. It was horrible. But then I graduated to oat flour, which took a long time because oat flour is technically not, I don't know if you knew that or not.

Karina Inkster:

Yeah. I actually used to bake a lot for my grandma who had celiac, and I had to make sure if I ever used oats, they had to be certified gluten-free oats, no contamination, no cross-contamination with wheat. So yes.

Rey Ortega:

Do you know why?

Karina Inkster:

No.

Rey Ortega:

They're grown in the same fields. That's number one. And then the second process would be of the processing of it itself. When I was around, when I first started the gluten, it didn't exist. That type of thing did not exist. I waited. I had to wait and wait for oats because I love oats. Oats was one of my favorites. In fact, when I became vegan, my go-to was Top Ramen, oats, and bread. Nice. I was just like, that's all I could eat. I think I ate that for two years. Goodness. Ridiculous.

Karina Inkster:

But see, this is kind of similar to what we were talking about with the general larger corporations offering plant-based products. So you noticed that there was a need for gluten-free items. You brought it because your customers wanted it. So I think that's happening with these large scale corporations, but there's also a lot of food that is accidentally vegan. We like using that term when it's a food that isn't specifically made to be plant-based on purpose, but it just happens to be. Oreos are accidentally vegan in air quotes, stuff like that. So I think there's two streams maybe. There's products people are making specifically to be vegan for that market, but then there's other ones that just happen to be plant-based and they're not labeled as anything.

Rey Ortega:

Well, the restaurants are still doing that now. Taco Bell here in the United States just decided to come out with or test vegan cheese with fries. Panda Panda decided to do a test for a year for vegan orange chicken, and we have the Burger King had the impossible burger. Carl Jr had the Beyond Burger, but it's sadly only a temporary thing. That's the sad part.

Karina Inkster:

Now, was this temporary because the test didn't give them the results they wanted? Or was it temporary from the beginning that that was just planned?

Rey Ortega:

I'm certain as a business owner, what I would do that I would be like, let's do the test. And I think when I did my gluten-free, I had to do a test, so to speak, figure out who was going to buy it and who wasn't going to buy it, see if it was going to work. In fact, oddly enough, I have this one cookie. One of my favorite cookies is a chocolate chip with walnuts, and I could not sell a chocolate chip with walnuts for the life of me. And for some weird reason, it never sold well at all, and it's my favorite cookie, and I base everything that I make off of some things that I like, and that's just one of those things that never worked out. So these corporations are making decisions, but they're all mediating corporation thinkers. You know what I mean? That's part of the problem, and it's kind of a weird thing. I'm getting hungry talking about this, especially after being a fast, it's like, oh my gosh, Karina, you're making me hungry.

Karina Inkster:

I can imagine.

Rey Ortega:

And I’m around cookies all day.

Karina Inkster:

Yeah, you are around cookies all day! I don't know if I could handle myself around cookies all day. There are companies like Big Mountain Foods that come to mind. They are women owned, relatively new on the scene, I think, and completely vegan. So they make whole foods based vegan ground round from cauliflower and veggies and soy curls and stuff.

Rey Ortega:

Is that a Canada thing?

Karina Inkster:

It is in Canada, yeah. I don't know if they've expanded, but it is. Yeah, we have it here. It's really good product from a completely vegan business. So I feel like there's more. Like Gardein's a vegan company. I'm sure you've got those.

Rey Ortega:

Yes. But guess what? They're made in Canada.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, is that right? I did not know that.

Rey Ortega:

Yes, I know a ton of manufacturers I've become friends with who just happen to know these people. You run into them or whatever, but they make it in Canada, which is good or bad. I don't know. I don't know how expensive Canada is. Yes, they make it in Canada.

Karina Inkster:

Intriguing. Hey, so I saw that you have a website called Startaveganbusiness.com. What's the deal with this? Is this kind of like the next evolution of what you're doing in your business career?

Rey Ortega:

Yes. Other than trying to raise money to build the biggest vegan facility I can in the United States, I thought I would put myself out there to challenge others to say, if you have a good idea and you think it's viable and it's workable and it's vegan, then I'd like to know and I'd like to help. I want to help because this is why I'm doing these things. I need people to be inspired not to give up, not to keep trying to find something that you like. I don't care what it is, believe it or not, I can do cosmetics. I have textiles. I can do, of course, the baked goods of foods I can do. It's like limitless of the things that I know how to create and start. So I figured I'm going to put myself out there, see what happens. I've had a few inquiries, but the reality is of the costs of these things are going up.

Everything here in the United States at least is going up. The costs of things are going up, and it's a discouragement, to be honest with you. People are discouraged when they find out how much they have to spend. I started with 5,000, less than $5,000 with my cookie company, but I was on my own, and so I encourage people to please contact me. I'll help them in some way or another. Even just a short consult. I've consulted a lot of people. I used to consult free, and then it just became too much. Then it's just too much because it used to be a time where I think it was more up and coming and figured, you know what? I have all this knowledge. I might as well people who are serious will pay for your time. People who are not serious will just come and waste your time.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, I've seen that over and over.

Rey Ortega:

Just one of those things. So that's where I'm at with that. It is new. It's only about a month old.

Karina Inkster:

That's exciting. Didn't you own a vegan restaurant too? I mean, that could be something you could consult about potentially.

Rey Ortega:

Yeah. Vegan restaurants, well, they're different beasts. I just happened to be lucky. I inherited 13 employees, and when I did that, I did it for five years and it was probably one of the most interesting times in my life. Yes, I know. Restaurant business like nobody's business now. Not just that, but vegan restaurant business. It's sort of a different beast. You're, you're fighting up against all the mainstream distributors who carries chicken and eggs and mayonnaise and all that stuff. You have to order special stuff, so to speak, but you have to buy minimums.

Karina Inkster:

Right.

Rey Ortega:

So I learned a lot in the restaurant business. It was just really about margins and the profit of it, and I was doing my bakery simultaneously with a restaurant, and it was just sort of a challenge, and I am okay with it. I was happy I got out. I had to sell because it wasn't making me enough money to be happy, because I was dealing with a lot of, when you get into the restaurant business, you have to deal with customers and employees, and it was hard. That was the hardest part. Otherwise, the food, I was eating like a king.

Karina Inkster:

I can imagine.

Rey Ortega:

Eating like a vegan king.

Karina Inkster:

Was that also in Sacramento?

Rey Ortega:

Yeah, it's also in Sacramento.

Karina Inkster:

What's the scene there now? I mean, are there restaurants that you can go to that are completely vegan? Are there lots of different options? What's the scene now?

Rey Ortega:

The scene is better than it's ever been. In fact, always comes at a time where I'm trying to lose weight. Okay. That's the bad part.

Karina Inkster:

Of course. That's always how it works.

Rey Ortega:

It's like really another Mexican restaurant, another Thai restaurant, another burger restaurant. Please stop. Why? Where were you 20 years ago? Okay, 25 years ago. Where were you when I was a little more free, but now I'm getting older. I'm 56 and I have to be more careful about my weight. Gain is the biggest issue at this point, at this age, because everything changes in your body. The hormones change. I'm not as carefree as I used to be. I prefer cookies.

Karina Inkster:

Well, you mentioned Mexican background. Do you do traditional cooking? Have you veganized meals? What's the deal?

Rey Ortega:

No. No, never. God, no. Are you kidding me? I'm not a great cook.

Karina Inkster:

This surprises me.

Rey Ortega:

Yeah. Listen, I don't want, it's just too much. Too much to do. It's too much preparation. My favorite things are tamales and oh my God. Have you ever made tamales before?

Karina Inkster:

Made them? No. Eaten them? Yes.

Rey Ortega:

They're very difficult and very time consuming. It's not like plopping a tortilla on the burner and putting some beans on it. It's not like that at all. It's very difficult. So for myself, I love eating out. I'm not going to lie.This is so hard, dude, and I'm always thinking, that's what I'll do. I'm going to go to Burger King. I want to support them. I, I'm trying to put a positive spin on these things. It doesn't always work out. I've only had the Burger King Burger a few times, and then I realize shouldn't be because then I end up getting fries too, and I know they can't be vegan. I will tell you one thing, I went to Disneyland. Have Canadians ever heard of Disneyland before?

Karina Inkster:

Of course, Disneyland is huge. And also what I know about Disneyland (I realize you're joking). I have heard that they have a crazy vegan scene with lots of vegan options. It's crazy. There's like these entire websites out there dedicated to your vegan tour of Disneyland.

Rey Ortega:

I was shocked. I was walking around with friends, Just Foods they ate Just Egg. Have you ever heard of Just Egg?

Karina Inkster:

Oh, yeah, yeah. I use that quite a bit actually.

Rey Ortega:

Yeah, yeah. So I was just cruising around. It was like, I don't know, 11 in the morning or something like that. And they have kiosks of Just Egg and Beyond sausage breakfast burritos, something. I was floored.

Karina Inkster:

Amazing.

Rey Ortega:

I think I bought five of them.

Karina Inkster:

As one does.

Rey Ortega:

They were like $20 a piece. I was like, I didn't care. That's another thing we do. We don't, I think that because we get so excited, we don't care about the cost of these things.

Karina Inkster:

Well, that's an interesting point. It's an interesting point because we're lucky to have that privilege to not care about how much something costs, right. I mean, I went through a drive-through one time in my town after a late night rehearsal. Not a lot of things were open still. So I'm like, I'll just get a Beyond Burger, and realized it was literally twice the cost, twice the cost of a regular burger. So for folks who are on limited budgets, is the Beyond Burger going to be their first choice? Definitely not. It never will be.

Rey Ortega:

I’ll tell you a little secret tip that you may have read that's in an article. Actually, I got it from our article and I didn't find it out from those guys, but Just Foods, they're having some issues with, problems with the amount of money they've raised. They have decided to cut the Just Eggs back to $4 retail, which means they're, well, they've been losing money. You're still trying to convince the mainstream public to try this fake, I guess fake egg. I don't even know what to call it. I hate calling it fake foods or I mean alternative foods.

Karina Inkster:

I know. I'm with you on that.

Rey Ortega:

So that's one thing that's happening here in the United States. Those are made here, I think. But I was sad to hear that they're having problems and I was like, oh no, please don't take, that's the one thing I love. This is probably one of my favorite products of all time, is the Just Egg of all time.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, it's brilliant.

Rey Ortega:

So I'm sad about that. I hope they make it, whatever happens, they raised like a hundred million dollars. I just want to raise $3 million.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, wow.

Rey Ortega:

Okay. I don't even want that much, man.

Karina Inkster:

Is that too much to ask for?

Rey Ortega:

I know. It's like somebody's giving out a hundred million. Give me 3 million. I'll make your day. I have good margins.

Karina Inkster:

There you go. Yeah. That's brilliant. Well, Rey, is there anything that we have missed? We talked about both the baking related businesses. Anything else that you want to leave our listeners with before I let you go?

Rey Ortega:

No, but you work out, right? See, that's why I was excited to talk to you because I needed you to whip me.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, really?

Rey Ortega:

Whip me into shape. Tell me something.

Karina Inkster:

You need a little kick in the ass. Is that what you need?

Rey Ortega:

Yes, I do. I'm going to say it. Yes. Yeah, I'm glad you said it.

Karina Inkster:

Oh, I'll say it. My whole job is kicking people in their asses, so it's fair. I know actually, not only that, the job is kicking people in the ass, but then creeping on them to make sure they actually do it. That's the second part.

Rey Ortega:

You need to move the United States. I need to hire you.

Karina Inkster:

Oh man. Well, it's all online! I can creep on you from right over here. This is how we can keep eyeballs on everyone. Right. It's me and two other coaches, and we make workouts for people, and then we make sure they do 'em right. We're getting little notifications. Rey did his day one workout, and it took him 21 minutes and here's blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it works really well. Oh my gosh. So offer’s open. If you want to get your butt kicked and creeped on in a positive manner, the door is open.

Rey Ortega:

That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. I'm almost there. I'm almost ready. I got to get through this. Intermittent fasting has been rough and it's easier than exercising.

Karina Inkster:

Well, that's true. That's true. But you're not going to build muscle intermittent fasting, just saying.

Rey Ortega:

I know. I'm trying though.

Karina Inkster:

But yeah, intermittent fasting, I mean, it has a time and a place for sure, and it works really well for some folks from a structure perspective, but it doesn't pair super well with working out for obvious reasons.

Rey Ortega:

Well, don't pop my bubble. Okay.

Karina Inkster:

I'm saying you can finish your intermittent fasting streak and then find some other type of eating pattern that works for you, and then go kick some ass with strength training. Then you'll be set.

Rey Ortega:

Oh, no, I need to be set because I need to be a good example.

Karina Inkster:

Yep, absolutely.

Rey Ortega:

Well, thank you for having me though. I really do appreciate it.

Karina Inkster:

Of course. Thanks so much for speaking with me, Rey. It's been fantastic. I can't wait to put our episode out into the world.

Rey Ortega:

Can't wait to see what happens. It'll be interesting.

Karina Inkster:

Rey, thank you again for joining me. Head to our show notes at nobullshitvegan.com/165, and don't forget to send in a question for me to answer on an upcoming AMA episode. Get in touch at karinainkster.com/contact. Thanks for tuning in.