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Hi and welcome to the Wellness Wellness Podcast. I'm Katie and I'm really excited about today's guest.

It's a special episode and it's about a new company that is nearing dear to my heart.

I've actually been working with them, helping them try to provide real food to families on an affordable level.

I know as a mom and as a family, that's a big struggle to eat real food on a budget.

We know how important this is for our kids but it's also, it is an uphill battle sometimes to find these foods locally and to be able to find them at affordable prices.

So I'm so excited for today's guest. His name is Gunnar Lovelace and he has become a personal friend as I've gotten to work with him in the company that he's helping found, which is called Thrive Market.

And their goal is to make real food affordable for families. I'm actually so passionate about their mission that I decided to become an investor and to help get this to my readers as much as possible.

So Gunnar, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Katie, it's great to be on your show. Thank you so much. A big fan of your work and I'm really excited to be here.

Awesome. I'm so excited you are here and I'd love to just jump right in because I'm excited to get the message about you guys out to the world.

So start by telling us how did you start Thrive and how did it, what was the mission?

Well, you know, I grew up with a single mom and I saw how she worked to make healthy choices in her life.

And then when she remarried, I was an early teenager. She married a man who was running a food co-op.

So it left a very strong impression that by working together, we can access these products at much lower prices.

And I took a very different tact in my professional career early on and started a couple of software companies, one teaching children how to read through educational cartoons, and sold them but have always been interested in health and wellness my whole life.

And been studying the industry for a long time and just feeling like there's got to be a better way to make these products accessible to people at lower prices.

So we basically, we see Thrive as kind of like a 21st century co-op that takes the best of internet technology and marketing to make these products available at these prices for the first time.

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And the thing I love the most is this goal that you guys have. I know we've talked about it in person, but talk about what the goal with Thrive is and what you guys really hope to accomplish.

Yeah, I mean, I think we have we have a number of goals. And you know, our first most important goal, which everything stems from is just the overarching idea that we all connect with, which is how do we make healthy living accessible to everybody.

And we ask ourselves this question, why, why does a product with lots of processing, lots of chemicals and a lower nutritional density, why does that product cost more, I started cost less than a product with little processing, no chemicals and higher nutritional density and why does that product cost less.

It's because they've achieved economies of scale and they're subsidized by various forms of corporate welfare. So we see Thrive in terms of offering these natural non toxic products at wholesale prices.

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