From Indigenous Partnerships to Global Impact of Power Leaves Corp. with Pat McCutcheon

Episode Overview

Episode Topic: Join us in this episode of NutraPreneur we delve into the groundbreaking world of coca-leaf extract with Patrick McCutcheon, Chairman and CEO of Power Leaves Corp. Discover the motivations behind Power Leaves Corp’s venture, aiming to revolutionize the food and beverage industry by breaking monopolies and ushering in a new Age of Coca. We explore the experiences that led to this innovative journey, the exclusive partnership with an Indigenous community, and the unique benefits coca extract brings to global markets.

Lessons You’ll Learn: Uncover the lessons learned from Patrick McCutcheon’s journey in pioneering a legal and sustainable supply chain for decocainized coca extract. Learn about the challenges faced and overcome, the obstacles in breaking industry monopolies, and how Power Leaves Corp stays ahead of evolving trends. Dive into the world of proprietary formulations, discovering how they enhance taste profiles and offer nutritional benefits as an all-natural source of protein and nutrients. Gain insights into the success stories and unique opportunities that have emerged, showcasing the positive impact of innovative approaches in the market.

About Our Guest: Meet Patrick McCutcheon, the visionary Chairman and CEO of Power Leaves Corp. Explore his experiences, motivations, and mission to introduce a new era in the food and beverage industry through coca leaf extract. Learn about his role in breaking monopolies, establishing sustainable partnerships, and manufacturing proprietary formulations that redefine taste profiles and nutritional benefits. Connect with Patrick as he shares the challenges faced, opportunities seized, and the future outlook for Power Leaves Corp in shaping the industry.

Topics Covered: Join us as we cover the challenges and opportunities encountered by Power Leaves Corp in introducing coca-leaf extract to the market. Explore the company’s strategies to stay ahead of industry trends and consumer preferences, ensuring formulations remain relevant globally. Discover the positive impact of Power Leaves Corp’s innovative approach in the market, and gain insights into the future of the food and beverage industry with coca-leaf extract. Patrick McCutcheon also shares advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in the food and beverage sector and provides a sneak peek into upcoming projects, partnerships, and expansions at Power Leaves Corp. Engage with us on social media for more enlightening discussions on NutraPreneur, where innovation meets inspiration in the realm of nutraceuticals.

Our Guest: Patrick McCutcheon, a leader in global pharmaceutical cannabis extraction

Episode Transcript:

Patrick McCutcheon: Obviously, as you can imagine, when a company comes from basically nothing and pitching an idea to now working in such a great long-term relationship with the indigenous communities of Colombia, to give them an opportunity to build infrastructure and to give their next generations of children an opportunity to use this plant that they have been using for thousands of years. But because of the stigma and because of the way that the world has looked at this, and from the abuse of the coca plant, it’s really held back those opportunities for economic development for these communities. So social impact is going to be very significant from this. And we feel that this is truly the start of an industry now.

Bethany Jolley: Welcome to NutraPreneur the Nutra Industry podcast. I’m your host, food scientist and nutraceuticals consultant, Bethany Jolley. Each episode will be exploring what it takes to thrive in the nutraceutical industry. From conversations with successful nutraceutical entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to tech executives whose innovations are reshaping the nutraceuticals industry, we explore the innovations and trends that are shaping the next generation of nutraceutical businesses. Welcome back to NutraPreneur, the hub for unveiling revolutionary insights into the nutraceutical industry. I’m your host, Bethany. Today, we’re honored to have Patrick McCutcheon, the chairman and CEO of Power Leaves Corp, a trailblazer in the food and beverage industry, revolutionizing the use of coca leaf extract with a vision to break monopolies and introduce a new age of coca. Patrick brings a wealth of experience and innovation to our conversation. Welcome, Patrick. It’s so great to have you today.

Patrick McCutcheon: Bethany, thanks so much for having me on the show. Excited to chat through this new opportunity.

Bethany Jolley: Yes, and this is something that’s new to me as well. So I’m really looking forward to our conversation.

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah. Think it’s new to a lot of people. It’s yeah, a lot of interest and very unique story behind all of this. So excited to chat through it.

Bethany Jolley: Yes. So as the CEO of Power Leaves, you are spearheading a groundbreaking venture into the food and beverage industry. Could you share with us some of the experiences and motivations that led you to explore and revolutionize the use of the coca leaf extract?

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah, this is definitely the most unique project I’ve been on in my history of my professional career. And from an entrepreneurial perspective, I’ve actually got a biology science background. And then I worked in pharmaceutical sales, marketing and strategy for almost 15 years and then had quite a foray in cannabis with founding one of the largest cannabis extraction companies that went public and took our ingredients to the world, and then took a step back from that to explore new and fresh opportunities. And this opportunity came across. My desk was introduced by a very unique and strong team from Colombia. And basically my perspective was and my excitement level was is so unique to explore a product that everyone actually knows about and has a trained palate for, and one of the most widely distributed ingredients through the vehicle of Coca-Cola to the world was a very exciting, interesting opportunity. And so fast forward just over two years now, we’ve set up one of the most unique supply chains with our incredible partners in Colombia, the NASA communities, the NASA people of Colombia that have been through a very interesting and dynamic and challenging lifetime decades. And now the opportunity for us to bring the decolonized coca extract or coca leaf extract to the world as really the second company to do this outside of Coca-Cola has has been nothing short of dynamic, exciting, challenging. And now we’re just in a phase of commercializing and bringing these products to the world with our partners. So very exciting times and very differentiated and unique disruptive product, but something that has such a well defined market already and is legal to be consumed by virtually anywhere in the world, not as a pharmaceutical, not as a nutraceutical, but as a very unique and differentiated flavor and ingredient for world consumption.

Bethany Jolley: That’s really neat. And as you said, everyone knows a Coca-Cola. I would say worldwide.

Patrick McCutcheon: Everyone knows it’s yeah, it’s when we first started pitching the opportunity and and raising funds, especially in the early days, got a lot of questions back as to Pat, do you think there’s a market for this? Do you think people are going to understand what this ingredient is and how we’re going to apply it to different commercial opportunities and applications? And basically the response always difficult not to be tongue in cheek with people, but how many bottles of Coca-Cola do you have in your house? And how well do you know the Coca-Cola Pepsi Challenge? And so the market is very well defined. And since this product is actually a grass-listed product in the US, there’s already an incredible North American and international regulatory and supply chain that we fit very nicely into. Once we execute on the extraction and then the destruction of all the illicit or drug components of our extract.

Bethany Jolley: You are ushering in a new age of coca through an exclusive agreement with an indigenous community. How does this partnership contribute to establishing a legal and sustainable supply chain for coconut cocaine ice? Coca extract?

Patrick McCutcheon: That’s always. It’s always tricky. No problem.

Bethany Jolley: Yes. And what unique benefits does this present to the global food and beverage markets.

Patrick McCutcheon: So yeah two parts. The first part there’s a Colombian decree actually, that gives the indigenous peoples of Colombia the ability to cultivate, touch and transform within their community territories. And so the relationship that we have, the 15 year exclusive deal with our community and the NASA Law Foundation is very unique and really the only way that this can work. We work hand in hand with our indigenous partners in the manufacturing facilities that we’ve now built in the community territories. The indigenous are the only ones that are able to legally touch the plant and the leaf. So we work very closely with them to support and teach our indigenous partners to cultivate at high level of quality, and then to bring the leaf into us and work together with our technology to then extract the product and then, most importantly, to decolonize the product. Obviously, there’s a threshold that we need to prove that as long as we’re under a parts per million and non-detectable of any of the alkaloids in the primary extract itself, we’re then able to legally take it outside of the community territory. So this is a really one of the most significant value propositions of the company is our relationship, and the way that we’ve now aligned to the legality and the regulatory to be able to now access the plant, extract the plant together with our partners. And then once that’s finished, we can then legally take the decolonized product off of the community territory for export and for commercialization. First part, then the second part. Coca-cola did not take advantage of so many different elements of this very unique plant that’s been used for thousands of years now in Colombia and in Latin America.

Patrick McCutcheon: The extract itself, the plant in different forms, has been used for reduction of appetite, altitude sickness, suppression and one of the most unique things that really focused on in our first launch of our extracts is the fact that the extract itself has an incredible ability to reduce bitterness and increase sweetness of products. A lot of people think that the coca extract itself, decolonized coca extract, is a replacement for sugar or a replacement for energy. In our first phase, it’s not a replacement, it’s a complement. And actually, one of the things that we’ve created recently is, is an energy drink that we’ve proven to show. We’ve actually copied a basic, well-known energy drink profile, and we’ve been able to use only the coca extracts to fully mask the caffeine, the bitterness of the energy components. And then actually, in this first run, we’ve been able to reduce the sugar by over 40% of, let’s say, a very well-known standard energy drink profile. So we think that the commercial applications are very versatile, and the fact that the world has only been able to consume cola is almost it’s a disservice to the plant itself and to the opportunity that we can actually now bring this plant to numerous commercial applications in energy drinks, functional beverages, different food applications, and really bring a health and wellness benefit perspective to the coca extract rather than a very highly colorized product that is not necessarily healthy for the world. So we’re going at this at a very different perspective.

Bethany Jolley: Yes. And I think a lot of people don’t realize just how bitter caffeine is and how you do have to try different things to mask that flavor. I know in my experience with sports nutrition products, it’s been really difficult to get the right amount of caffeine that you need, but then to mask that flavor. So I think that’s huge. To be able to mask that and also reduce the amount of sugar.

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah. My background is in pharmaceuticals. So in the background of a lot of our science team, we’ve looked at this as creating a product that has very high quality. We are not GMP or pharmaceutical standards, but we look at the highest quality of production, our manufacturing supply chain. When you look at and the research that we’ve done now in food and beverage, we really honed in on what has been determined to be the biggest gap in food and beverage. And that’s exactly what you just captured. Caffeine is used in so many different applications, as everyone knows, and the fact that so many different energy drinks and functional beverages and different applications have to deal with this major bitterness element, and then either have to have a very highly high volume of sugar and or synthetic sugars, given which. Now we’ve seen the feedback and the world’s perspective on or the show on aspartame and a number of these different elements, coca brings a totally unique angle to this. We’re actually now we’re expecting to have in the new year, an enhanced formulation of our extract that’s going to have quite a significant increase in the reduction of sugar versus our first products that I sent, that I showed you just a couple of minutes ago. But this is the real key, where we can help out the health and wellness applications with these different beverages, but keep the same performance of the product itself. And that’s the key.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah, we’ve talked about the taste profile, but are there any nutritional and health benefits from the coca extract that you can share with us?

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah. So there’s a couple of different elements here from the health and wellness benefits of Coca itself. Have such little research and development. Publicly in the world, and this is one of the most exciting things that we look at our product as we engage with a number of major CPG companies and flavor houses internationally looking to explore new relationships, formulation development, product development. We actually get a number of professionals coming back to us and saying, we actually know a fair amount more about your extract than maybe you do at this time, because we’ve been doing research. It’s just that we have not been able to access the product. So when you look at it from the indigenous standpoint and how the communities have used this, it’s been used for altitude sickness, as I said before, for sweetening for appetite satiate or reduction of appetite. Those are the natural uses and that’s what’s been communicated worldwide. And I think a lot of the time assumed from coca in our first launch of products, we really honed in, and we’re focusing on the flavors and the flavor, the aroma and then the sugar reduction and bitterness, bitterness masking in our first launch of products. But when you look at the plant itself, the plant has almost 23% protein. With the genetics.

Bethany Jolley: Very surprising to me, I didn’t I did not realize that.

Patrick McCutcheon: And a long list of different nutrients and and different elements that will be in our second phase, let’s call it, of extracts that we offer commercially. It’s a plant that’s really has not been touched, and the fact that it has that much protein in it is a very unique factor. But I’ll make sure to mention it in this first round of extracts and what we’ve launched commercially now, it’s really to hone in on the sugar reduction and the bitterness masking. And we feel that in launching into energy drink segments and then functional beverages really gives us an opportunity to totally differentiate the market we play around between disruption and differentiation with coca is not just another vegetable or fruit extract from Latin America. It’s got such a unique marketing perspective and it gives back so much to these communities. And it’s been a product that everyone knows but has not actually tasted any other application. So we’re excited to grow and to build on that as we evolve and add product segments.

Bethany Jolley: This episode is brought to you by nutrapayments.com. If your business needs credit card processing, that fully integrates with most major nutra software platforms, offers the lowest industry prices, and has built in features like recurring billing, $0 trials, and chargeback prevention. And visit us at nutrapayments.com for a free online quote. Breaking a monopoly and introducing a new product into the market, I’m sure comes with a lot of challenges. So what obstacles has power leaves encountered in pioneering the use of coca leaf extract? And how have you been able to navigate these challenges to ensure success of this venture?

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah, there’s nothing in life without challenges, let alone, let alone the mission and vision that we’ve put together and that we’re executing on. In early days, we approached this much more from a guest or visitor perspective into the regions where we we work with our communities. And now over the last two years, we’ve come to the point now where we are fully logoed and we communicate very well who we are, and we have a great level of respect now from the government and the different factions that are supporting an opportunity for the indigenous to move forward in economic development, stability. When we look at the actual structure of the commercialization of our product, we have in our contracts that 10% of the profit goes back to the indigenous people. And so to build infrastructure and to assist them in their next phase of evolution, to support their next generations and the early days, it was more difficult to really communicate the the opportunity long term and how this would work. And as we navigated the relationships in Colombia, and then the next phase was really educating and proving to the different regulatory factions of the US, Canada and internationally that our product truly was a product that is categorized as grass in the US, but one that does not contain any drug product to it. And so that stigma was definitely the more challenging to get over in the earlier days. But I think we’ve done a great job on executing on that. And that’s proven now by a number of major banking relationships and very professional top end shipping, logistics quality, expert partnership and relationships that we’ve achieved as a company.

Patrick McCutcheon: So lots of challenges, but we’ve come a long way in the last two years to now commercialize and bring this product to every continent of the world in samples. And now we’re just commercializing volumes in Canada, in the US. So we’ve achieved those points after being in in pharmaceuticals for 15 years, the highest level of GMP and quality requirements, and then working in the cannabis industry for over seven years. I think now it’s hard to remember everything as things are going so quickly. But with cannabis, one of the major challenges was were that it was still regulated in every country of the world, basically outside of Canada and in each and every country, that we would export cannabis based products containing THC or CBD, we’d have to go through a very vigorous regulatory process and be approved all the different levels with coca extract, since it’s listed as a natural food ingredient and already qualified with the customs number, and is a very well defined product that’s been sold around the world now for over 130 years to over 220 countries. It’s made this once, once we’ve executed on our supply chain. As we discussed earlier, it’s made this a lot easier to look at global distribution and at volume, because those hurdles have already been have already been jumped over and have already been cleared by obviously the major player that’s pushing us around the world.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah. And I think having that pharmaceutical background can be very beneficial because like you said, your expectations are that highest GNP standard. And so you can apply that to this industry as well. So that’s great.

Patrick McCutcheon: Absolutely. It’s it’s definitely a different regulatory and legal perspective when you look at a product that has had all of the drug destroyed to detect an undetectable level, but that’s really where we get to utilize the skill sets of the team. A number of people come from pharma, as I mentioned, from a quality efficiencies and actually how we do the extraction process and how then we qualify our product for export and looking at it from the lens of the highest quality for food and beverage. But again, since everyone can actually consume this product and it’s not required to go through a vigorous regulatory process in each different jurisdiction, that’s where the real excitement of the commercialization of this company comes.

Bethany Jolley: Yes, absolutely. And the food and beverage industry is constantly evolving. So how does power leave stay ahead of industry trends and consumer preferences to make sure that your formulations remain relevant. And there’s that global excitement that continues.

Patrick McCutcheon: Yes, that’s a great question. And the way that we have positioned as a company our value proposition and. Truly what we’ve executed on in our mission and vision has been building the long term relationships in Colombia, identifying architecting the science and technology to do this and to actually create a product that, as I said before, destroys all the alkaloid or the illicit elements of the product, and then really creating the structure and foundation of a company that can execute into international markets. So yes, one of the strong elements that we have as a company is sticking to what we do best, and our value proposition and mission and vision that is being large scale producer of an intermediary ingredient that we then bring our coca extract and the non-alcohol side, and then our essence on the alcohol side in volumes to major flavor houses, CPG companies, and manufacturing and distribution companies. And the way that we’re looking at this business model is not to get bogged down in many end products. We really feel that as we now accelerate through earlier to mid-phase commercial agreements and relationships, we want to partner with companies that will be complementary to us and then really explore different product segments and different jurisdictions to then distribute these products, execute on either high-performing brands they already have, and or new formulations and product segments that are the most highly competitive in the food and beverage industry. So it’s a long winded answer. The quick answer is we do not do end products. We stick to our large scale volume production, and then we work with our partners to enhance our formulation so it fits into their manufacturing supply chain, their distribution. And that’s where we think we can get the most value to our shareholders and the most value for new products in the international markets.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah, exactly. And are there any success stories or unique opportunities that have arisen since the inception of Power Leaves that you would be able to share with us and showcase the positive impact of this innovative approach?

Patrick McCutcheon: Oh, there’s been. There’s been a ton of early success stories and a number of heartwarming and great experiences that have come from this. Obviously, as you can imagine, when a company comes from basically nothing and pitching an idea to now working in such a great long term relationship with the communities, the indigenous communities of Colombia, to give them an opportunity to build infrastructure and to give their their next generations of children an opportunity to use this plant that they have been using for thousands of years. But because of the stigma and because of the way that the world has looked at this, and from the abuse of the coca plant, it’s really held back those opportunities for for economic development for these communities. So there’s so many unique experiences in the visits to the communities, and to see these people see the opportunity in the future and for their children has been independently one of the most heartwarming and best elements of my job. And our company’s social impact is going to be very significant from this, and we feel that this is truly the start of an industry now, an industry that has the foundation of this very unique and plant that’s been very sought after for many negative reasons for so many years. We are one of the great examples of the first steps towards reducing this stigma and to moving forward. I can’t say that things are going to be the all the different elements of this or the stigma are going to be reduced or managed overnight by any means. But we feel very confident that as a company leading in the world to deliver this and working with our indigenous communities, that things will change and that this will bring great change for the futures of these people.

Bethany Jolley: Absolutely. And looking ahead, what do you envision for the future of Power Leaves, and how do you plan to further disrupt the market with the coca leaf extract?

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah, we’ve got some we’ve got definitely lofty goals and high expectations for the company as we work through these next phases of commercialization and scale up with the interest that we’ve now that we’ve now identified with a number of major players in CPG and in flavor, both non alcohol and alcohol energy drinks, functional beverages, we feel that this opportunity is really going to change the landscape of how we can look at a totally differentiated new offering product. Again, as I said before, you see a lot of new flavors hit the shelf for energy drinks. There’s a treat of the week almost. The energy drink and the functional beverage segments are the fastest growing segments in food and beverage, and that’s an obvious place for us to start. But because this product is so versatile and can be used for different food applications, for cosmetic applications, in fact for perfume, for different alcohol and spirits applications like vodka, gin, tequila, with our ethanol based products, we think that we really will have not only a leadership position in everything outside of Cola, but also with some of the companies that we expect to sign deals with. We think that the products themselves will gain a lot of consumer support and excitement going forward to these next phases.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah, and as someone who’s embarked upon many business endeavors and as a chairman and CEO, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs that are looking into venturing into innovative sectors within the food and beverage industry, and how can they navigate all of the challenges to really bring their vision to fruition?

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah, I’ve been asked this question so many times over the years, and I think ten years ago or 12 years ago when I was really starting as an entrepreneur, as I had left Big Corp Pharma to go into businesses that we’d found with good partners to actually drive business and success and opportunity. I think the biggest thing truly is, and this is sometimes a cliche term, but do what you do best and outsource the rest. Yes, years ago it was the second page of almost every pitch deck that I created or architected or edited, and I think a lot of people, as much as they can say that line and tote that they actually do, that is not always the reality. Controlling costs and really understanding what you have in a company, as an entrepreneur, as your value proposition, and then your vision for execution to commercialization is key. To stick to a smaller list of priorities and execute on those priorities, and not to spread resources too thin and then, in essence, end up spending considerable money on things that aren’t actually going to drive the business forward. Outsourcing and working with great partners is the key to success, and it’s exactly how we’ve architected power leaves to stay in our niche of the supply chain. That doesn’t only apply to food and beverage. That applies to all industries around the world. It’s almost a tattoo that new entrepreneurs should have to go forward.

Bethany Jolley: Yes, absolutely. That’s such a great point. A lot of startups are just grinding and trying to do. It all themselves. And like you said, spreading their resources too thin when there’s actually really great resources and partners out there that they could be utilizing that can work more efficiently and really save them a lot of trouble in the end, and a lot of cost in the end.

Patrick McCutcheon: Time, money, resources. So many entrepreneurs have to wear so many hats. You have to be diverse and you have to. When you’re building a new team and trying to finance a company, you’re really forced to to wear many hats and do a number of different elements of your business as the business matures. I think from a leadership perspective, it’s very important to continually relook at where the company’s success points are, where the company is going to become profitable, and then stick to those elements in the short list and make sure that you pick the right partners to work beside you with the same vision. So that’s in line with the do what you do best and outsource. The rest is to have a very strong management team that have complementary skill sets to yourself, to be able to execute so you don’t burn yourself out. And the company as a whole can be aligned and winning is what one team all in.

Bethany Jolley: And are there any upcoming projects or partnerships or expansions that Power Leaves is going to be embarking upon that you can share with our audience?

Patrick McCutcheon: Yeah, well, we’re very actively scaling up the project as we speak. We’re expecting to show a very significant multiple in our volume output and production of our food and beverage products, as well as our fertilizer line. We didn’t touch on as much in this conversation, but all of our we use our coca leaf as well to outsource a fertilizer that then is sold to the government, and then that fertilizer is going to be given back to the indigenous to free of charge, to be used on their cocoa plantations, as well as other fruits and vegetables that they’re looking for economic development and future opportunities. But I think one of the most exciting things from a shareholder and investor perspective is the lineup of business partnerships that we have and the opportunities that we’re going to show to commercialize this plant with very significant partners in the US and internationally. And we feel that really that’s the only way to ensure that this the the coca extract and products are truly going to gain consumer adhesion from products outside of Cola, which is just so key to our business model. And also, of course, to then further educate the world International platform on the opportunity to reduce the stigma of this plant and to give these people a new, true, sustainable opportunity for their children and generations to come.

Bethany Jolley: That’s so great. And once again, just thank you so much for joining us today. As we conclude this captivating conversation, we extend our gratitude to Patrick McCutcheon for sharing all of his experiences and insights into the revolutionary initiatives of Power Leaves Corp. For more information on the company’s innovative products and ventures, we encourage you to explore the provided links. Stay tuned for more enlightening discussions on NeutraPreneur, and don’t forget to engage with us on social media. Until next time, stay informed and inspired in the realm of nutraceutical innovations. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of NutraPreneur. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and better yet, leave us a review as it really helps us grow the show.