Assertion Not publicly verifiable
O'Hayer laid off 140 employees on 9/11 before the second tower fell
“So I got on the phone right before the second tower came down, Got on phone with London and Austin and laid off a 140 people.”
Insight
O'Hayer: Scalable pasture-raised eggs require a franchise contract model
“Farmers aren't going to give you the consistency you want. You need to have consistent rules, and you need to create what I would call like a franchise model. An upside-down franchise, and I had the experience in franchise, like, how would you do it? And I sai…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Hayer: Big meat and egg companies routinely break farmer contracts
“Routinely all the big chicken companies, egg companies, beef companies, they would always break their contracts when it was economically favorable for the big producer to do so, or the big brands.”
Assertion Supported
O'Hayer: Roughly half of US laying hens are now cage-free
“I think the factory farming method, the, you know, the battery cages are still there, right? But instead of being 95, 97 or eight percent, whatever it is, it's around 50 or so today. I don't have the exact numbers, but somewhere in the half. So we've had a pre…”
Insight
O'Hayer: Founders must hire people ten times smarter to run operations
“I hadn't really learned lessons that I learned later in life, which is always hire people that are 10 times smarter than you and 10 times better than you to run every aspect of the business.”
Assertion Supported
O'Hayer: 95% to 98% of US egg-laying hens lived in cages around 2004
“What I found is that the three hundred million chickens that are out there, three hundred and thirty million chickens, even at that time, 95, 98% of them were living in cages. Four, five, six, seven, eight birds to a cage, unable to stand up, unable to turn ar…”
Disclosure
O'Hayer: Vital Farms stopped making nutritional claims on pasture eggs
“We don't make any claims in my company because every chicken on pasture can eat whatever he wants, or she wants. And so, I mean, and the yolk color can change because some chickens You know, decide to stay in all day. You know, I'm just gonna stay home and eat…”
Insight
O'Hayer: Brands that don't self-promote inspire customers to do it for them
“If you tell people how great you are, your customers aren't going to feel compelled to tell people how great you are. You're already telling everybody. But if you never pound your chest and see how great you are, the customer will look at what you're doing and…”
Disclosure
O'Hayer: John Mackey's Conscious Capitalism essay inspired his future business model
“I'd read this essay that had been written by John Mackey called Conscious Capitalism... It described that, you know, businesses need to have a deeper purpose besides just making money... What Whole Foods did is for their five stakeholders, which is the custome…”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Hayer: Hens stop laying within 48 hours without daily protein
“Well, what I found out pretty quickly through trial and error is that if they don't get four ounces of 18% protein every single day, they will stop laying eggs within 48 hours.”
Disclosure
O'Hayer: Took Whole Foods loan for strategic support, not capital
“I really got the loan because I knew that what came along with that was even more support from Whole Foods. And I wanted them as a partner.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Hayer: Whole Foods operated as 11 independent regional buyers in 2009
“And at the time, you know, they had 11 regions of Whole Foods. There's almost no national purchasing. Each region made their own decision. So you had five separate billion dollar company, I'm sorry, 11 separate one billion dollar companies in essence with thei…”
Disclosure
Vital Farms adopted the European standard of 108 sq ft per bird
“We worked with Certified Humane and other organizations to come up with a standard, and we adopted the European standard of a thousand birds per hectare, which is, again, 108 square feet per bird.”
Disclosure
O'Hayer sold a 20% stake in Vital Farms to Jason Jones for $200K
“He, ah, I sold him 20% of the business for 200,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Hayer: Vital Farms was profitable every year in its early days
“So at the very beginning, we were profitable every year.”
Disclosure
O'Hayer sold a 10% stake via secondary rounds to private equity
“And so he ran a process for us to sell 10% of the company. And came in at twice the number that he had said, wow. For the first time I had, you know, some real money. I could do something with it myself, you know, buy a house and do some things. And the compan…”
Assertion Supported
O'Hayer: Vital Farms contracted with 575 farmers at year-end
“We have 575 at the end of last year
Farmers, and we hold their feet to the fire and vice on the other way around as well.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Hayer: Vital Farms grew quarterly earnings year-over-year every single quarter
“And really, you know, the company has grown every single year, and our earnings have grown every year. I mean, just in line, straight, you know, every single quarter exceeded the previous year, same quarter.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Hayer: Blue Zone Kitchens hit $12M run rate by year two
“I mean, we started Blue Zone Kitchens a couple years ago, and then hit a twelve million dollar run rate in our second year of frozen entrees from the Blue Zones.”
