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Surfer Laird Hamilton's Laird Superfood surges in public debut

Plant-based food company Laird Superfood surged in its public debut. Laird Superfood Co-Founder Laird Hamilton and Laird Superfood Co-Founder and CEO Paul Hodge join the On the Move panel to discuss.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: We have another IPO for you right now. It's called Laird Superfood, and the company makes plant-based foods, different kinds of foods-- creamer, for example. They sold 2.65 million shares at $22 a share, so raised about $58 million in the initial public offering.

And joining us now from the New York Stock Exchange is Laird Hamilton, surfer and founder of Laird Superfood, and Paul Hodge, who is the Laird Superfood co-founder and CEO. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Congrats on the IPO.

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Laird, I want to start with you, because as I have read it, this company came out of you just kind of tinkering around and making stuff yourself and seeing a lot of demand from your friends for it. How do you then transition that into a business of this size?

LAIRD HAMILTON: Well, it had an organic start, like you said. And Paul and I had been working on another project together. And his experience at starting businesses and just all the stuff that he had learned over the years made it easy to initially start the business, to get it off the ground.

And because the product is amazing and people's-- we say the proof's in the pudding. So when you try it and experience the product, that's where it really hits the floor. And Paul-- like I said, his experience really got that initial fire burning. And we've continued to just pursue that growth.

PAUL HODGE: And that's how I got passionate about the product. Laird shared the product with me in Hawaii on the Hanalei River. And I used the product and went out surfing and felt the difference, that energy. And came back, and was like hey, Laird and Gabbie, can you explain to me what's going on here? They explained their philosophies around nutrition, and it just got me really excited. And we decided at that point that we wanted to share the product with the world and bring these high-quality ingredients to as many people as we possibly can.

- Hey, Paul. I was noticing on the web page when you look at the ingredients, it makes you hungry. It's a beautiful layout, all of that, the natural stuff. But I got to ask you-- one of the ingredients is coconut oil. And I don't know anything about nutrition, but I know that coconut oil has a lot of saturated fat. Do you do something to remove the fat? Isn't coconut oil supposed be bad for you?

PAUL HODGE: Well, there's always a lot of controversy over coconut oil. But the fact is coconut oil is primarily comprised of NCT fats. This is a medium-chain triglyceride, and it's a great source of fuel. So you hear a lot about NCT oils and whatnot. Those are extracted concentrates of the part of that chain. We believe in whole food ingredients, and coconut oil is the truest form of that where you get the complete chain of that NCT.

And it's a very efficient fuel. You can read about it. It has about twice the energy density of a carb. And it has great effects. And that's really the effect I felt and still feel.

LAIRD HAMILTON: Yeah. And the combination of the way it reacts with coffee is incredible as well. And I think the opportunity-- for me, I felt like I had experienced the benefits of using other nutrients within daily habits. That's been a real focus of ours, is what are people doing on a regular basis that we can get them the nutrients that they need.

We put a calcified sea algae into a lot of our products. It gets people all of the minerals that they need that they're actually lacking in a lot of their diets. It's just our food doesn't have the mineral content that it used to. So these are places where we're trying to get people things they need.

PAUL HODGE: But to be clear, what we're building here is we're building a brand platform. So yeah, there are some products with coconut. There's products with other ingredients. Our goal in this company is to really build this brand platform that eventually crosses all the aisles of the grocery store. So we're just getting started.

JULIE HYMAN: The commonality besides what you're talking about in terms of building this platform and having these ingredients is it's plant-based, which is a buzzword right now. We've seen demand for that in the market. Beyond Meat has been a crazy stock, as you know. Danone is an investor in your company.

Where do you think we are in the plant-based food market evolution? Do you think it's still early days? Do you think that there is a fad risk or fad component also here?

PAUL HODGE: I mean, listen, people have been eating plant-based foods forever. And we're not saying, hey, we're plant-based, and you can only eat plant-based foods. Our products supplement every diet. Maybe you eat meat, but you still eat plants in various different ways.

LAIRD HAMILTON: Yeah. And we are early stage. I believe that we are early stage in the plant-based food-- I wouldn't say revolution, but part of it is because we know that people benefit from eating more plants in general, no matter what they're eating. We know that the environment is better-- the environment's better--

PAUL HODGE: Plus the environmental impact.

LAIRD HAMILTON: --when we do plant-based manufacturing. The truth is just because you're plant-based doesn't make you better. And I think that's something that people will learn along the way. Like you said, we are early stage in the plant-based food evolution. And we're going to have to start learning actually what plant-based foods are good and what plant-based foods are bad, because it's not just all plant-based foods are better for you.

PAUL HODGE: Yeah. Ultimately, the goal is to get the highest-quality ingredients. And it just so happens that plant-based is really the area of focus for us.

LAIRD HAMILTON: And it came-- and I think-- I think--

JULIE HYMAN: Go ahead, please.

LAIRD HAMILTON: No, I was-- I think we also-- because it seems like a trend, and people are-- it's on trend, so people are getting in on it. The truth for us is that we were naturally there. And it happened to be that that's in trend. And I think in my career over the years, I've experienced not being on trend. I've been in places where things weren't in trend, and then I was done with them when they became in trend, or I got into them after they were done being in trend.

The truth is that we are in this position naturally. This is the natural evolution of our product and our company. And timing of being in a good position for an IPO, the timing of our products really reflecting what the customer wants-- it happens to be a very organic process. I mean, that's one of the things that I think gives us a lot of excitement.

Because we're with the wave, as we like to say. Sometimes the wave hits you, and sometimes you're riding the wave. And we're riding this wave. And the timing is good.

JULIE HYMAN: Right. Serendipity-- that's what I would call it. Laird Hamilton, thank you so much, Laird Superfood co-founder, and Paul Hodge, Laird Superfood co-founder and CEO. Gentlemen, thank you again, and congratulations again.