Sharing in-depth conversations between the world’s adventurers, athletes, and outdoorspeople, The GearJunkie Podcast is your inside look into the outdoors industry.
Building The Running Event: Christina Henderson on The GearJunkie Podcast
Oct 02, 2024
In this episode of the Gear Junkie podcast, host Adam interviews Christina Henderson, the Director of The Running Event (TRE). They discuss Christina’s unique living situation on a houseboat, the significance of TRE as a gathering place for the running industry, and the evolution of the event over the years.
Christina shares insights on the introduction of SwitchBack, a new initiative aimed at bridging the gap between running and outdoor brands. The conversation also touches on trends in running, the importance of inclusivity, and the upcoming move of TRE to San Antonio in 2025. Christina reflects on her journey to becoming the event’s director and her vision for its future, emphasizing the need for accessibility and community engagement in the running industry.
Gaming the First Algorithm and the State of Outdoor Media: Yoon Kim on the GearJunkie Podcast
Sep 17, 2024
In the latest episode of the GearJunkiePodcast, Yoon Kim, founder of OutdoorMediaSummit(OMS), shares his journey through the outdoor industry and discusses the evolution of the Outdoor Retailer show, the state of outdoor media, and the importance of community and collaboration.
One of Kim’s key projects, OMS has grown into a vital event for fostering collaboration, and is dedicated to bringing together media professionals and brands to share insights, predict future trends, and enhance marketing strategies.
Tin Shed Ventures Puts Patagonia’s Money Where Its Mouth Is
Apr 25, 2024
Did you know that Patagonia – yes, that Patagonia – has a venture capital arm? If you didn’t, now you do.
Tin Shed Ventures is the VC arm of Patagonia, and it invests in startups that provide, or aim to provide, systemic and globally scalable solutions for the land, water, air, and biodiversity. The fund is behind companies you may know, such as Trove, a popular e-commerce platform that many brands (including Patagonia) use for resale, and BUREO, the company that converts plastic fishnets into consumer products (like the brims of all Patagonia’s hats).
The focus of Tin Shed Ventures is to support companies that can reduce the environmental impacts of Patagonia’s core apparel business. It invests a portion of Patagonia’s profits, so the fund has no outside investors, and it provides patient capital to give the businesses the time they need to grow.
In this podcast, Asha Asha Agrawal, Managing Director of Tin Shed Ventures, provides background on the fund, including investment criteria and how it seeks to generate returns that benefit both the planet and Patagonia’s business.
You Can Use Fishing Nets To Make Rad Gear
Feb 15, 2024
Editor’s Note: In this episode of the GearJunkie Podcast, we sit down with Bureo Co-Founder & CEO David Stover. Bureo converts plastic ocean pollution into recycled fibers and consumer goods, with major partners like Patagonia, Trek Bikes, Costa Sunglasses, and more.
Whether he was surfing, free-diving, swimming, you name it — David Stover kept finding plastic trash in the ocean.
As someone who loves the water, it hit him really hard. “You might just drive by it on the road,” the Bureo Co-founder and CEO said. But as a surfer, Stover often received a daily reminder of the worsening problem. “You take it really personally,” he added.
Founded in 2013, Bureo is known for its unique approach to recycling and repurposing discarded fishing nets — a major contributor to ocean plastic — into high-quality products. The company’s proprietary material, NetPlus, is currently being leveraged by major brands like Patagonia, Trek Bikes, Costa Sunglasses, and more in a variety of product offerings.
(Photo/Bureo)
A Mission is Born
Stover grew up surrounded by water, on Block Island, Rhode Island. He never considered himself an environmentalist — Being a good steward to the land was just the right thing to do.
But as he and his co-founders noticed more and more debris in the water, they felt the need to take action. “Once you start seeing plastic in the ocean, you can’t not see it,” he emphasized.
After consulting with leading experts and absorbing many firsthand, anecdotal experiences, it became obvious to Stover that a significant percentage of waste was coming from the fishing industry — especially netting.
(Photo/Bureo)
Years later, Bureo is converting this type of waste into consumer products, like jackets, sunglasses, hats, shorts, even skateboards. In fact, the brand’s first product was the Minnow Cruiser Skateboard.
“We were building a niche skateboard company, and to us, that was exciting!” Stover remembered. “One of the biggest takeaways from our first products was that people were more on board with the mission of converting these nets into a product that they were necessarily skateboarding.”
Slow and Steady Growth
Bureo is on a much more modest growth trajectory than other successful young companies. In its first year, when the brand was just making skateboards, it converted 10 tons of material, which amounts to roughly half a shipping container of nets. A promising start, but not enough to make a serious dent in reducing global waste.
However, by 2023, the company was converting over 1650 tons of material, roughly 80 to 100 shipping containers of plastic netting. The scale of the operation is growing exponentially, but it’s still just a drop in the bucket.
(Photo/Bureo)
As Stover explained, recycling alone will not solve the plastic problem, and a multi-pronged approach is needed, including reducing plastic consumption and exploring alternative materials. “We have to stop making as much new plastic as we’ve been making every year in order to really start winning that battle,” he reiterated. “Once these producers of new plastic are really focusing their investments and facilities and equipment on regenerative materials or alternative materials, the real change will come.”
What is NetPlus?
Bureo’s focus is on collecting and recycling fishing nets, but they also aim to address the end-of-life disposal of products made from these materials.
To that end, in 2014, the fledgling company caught the eye of Patagonia, which took interest in the brand’s early technology and mission. With the investment of the much-larger outdoor apparel company, Bureo committed to a path of product-oriented R&D that has culminated in Bureo’s proprietary NetPlus material.
(Photo/Bureo)
Found in some of Patagonia’s most popular products (Baggies, anyone?), NetPlus is made from 100% post-consumer recycled fishing nets. And while that seems impressive, the company also partners directly with fishing communities to collect their end-of-life fishing net waste.
These partnerships divert a large flow of pollution away from these coastal communities, ultimately preventing substantial amounts of plastic from reaching the open ocean.
Working For Change
Stover still surfs often, and despite the overwhelming odds against his endeavor, he still feels optimistic during those sessions that he’s on the right course and others will take up the cause in the future.
Over the years, Bureo has made significant strides in achieving its mission. The company has successfully established partnerships with fishing communities, incentivizing the proper disposal of fishing nets and preventing them from becoming ocean waste.
(Photo/Bureo)
Moreover, Bureo has expanded its product line to include a variety of sustainable goods, such as skateboards, sunglasses, and other lifestyle products, all made from recycled materials.
But more than those things, Bureo’s innovative approach has positioned the company as a trailblazer in the fight against ocean plastic pollution and providing a template for other, future companies that seek to get involved in the mission.
“When it’s only doom and gloom — it’s really hard to see what difference you can make,” Stover concluded. ”But when you look at the youth … I see that generation taking [pollution] really personally. … that gives me hope that we’re inspiring the next generation to be more responsible.”
Chris Sharma and Drew Ruana Speak on the State of Climbing
Feb 01, 2024
Climbing has changed a lot since Chris Sharma came on the scene over two decades ago.
Now in his early 40s, Sharma has born witness to an entire generation of climbers come up, including his co-guest on today’s GearJunkie Podcast, 23-year-old pro climber Drew Ruana.
In a wide-ranging conversation guest-hosted by GearJunkie’sSeiji Ishii, the young buck and seasoned master discuss how the sport has grown over the last twenty years. Along the way, they touch on project poaching, drinking culture, balancing family with career, fitness, and much more.
While addressing his notable longevity, Sharma emphasized the importance of consistency in his training as he’s aged. He also credited taking breaks and devoting that time to other things to avoid burnout.
Among the first to represent the USA as an Olympic climber, Ruana offered a younger point of view. But regardless, both are among the elite of the sport and continue to push the state of climbing forward.
Athletic Brewing CEO Bill Shufelt Is Increasing Beer-Drinking Occasions
Jan 25, 2024
Editor’s Note: In this edition of the GearJunkie Podcast, we sit down with the Co-Founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing, Bill Shufelt, to learn about the brand’s early days and what led him to take an early interest in the then-dormant category.
Before Athletic Brewing Company, Bill Shufelt worked long hours at a hedge fund. He spent his days in the office, and often found himself entertaining clients and attending work-related social functions after hours. It was a work hard, play hard lifestyle that perpetuated unhealthy routines.
While entertaining clients and attending work functions, Bill noticed that it was hard for him avoid alcohol. He wanted an alternative non-alcoholic option — a drink that he could enjoy socially without the negative side effects of alcohol. At the time, it just didn’t exist.
Up to that point, the adult beverage industry had made it really hard to love non-alcoholic drinks. Over the previous decades, there’d been little to no product innovation or marketing support. According to Shufelt, “Non-alcoholic beer was the most boring, dusty part of the grocery store or bar.” Aside from the obvious market vacuum, Bill knew it from his own lived experience. “Alcohol, at the end of the day, is a ‘functional ingredient,’” the Athletic Brewing Co-Founder and CEO told the GearJunkie Podcast. “I wanted to be in all of those social settings, at all of those times, without having to deal with the side effects of that functional ingredient, whether that’s health or lost productivity, an ongoing distraction — tough to move around, tough to sleep, tough to work the next day, dietary implications, you name it.”
An avid athlete and hard-charging professional, Bill wanted to live that full, cosmopolitan, performance-driven life, without the downsides of alcohol.
(Photo/Athletic Brewing)
Building the Athletic Brewing Brand
Early on, Athletic Brewing Co. identified a stigma surrounding NA beer. For this reason, Bill and his team designed the Athletic brand to be bright, colorful, and reassuring. They wanted a can consumers could hold proud, subliminally communicating a sense of positivity.
Similarly, in those early years Shufelt was a big proponent of in-person tastings and demos, often competing in the very races he was promoting at. Bill knew that drinking NA beer made sense for a lot of people. Historically, NA beer customers skewed older, with a bent on fitness and perhaps a tad more responsibility than their younger peers.
But since its inception, Athletic Brewing has largely built out its own category, now appealing to a more generalized, all-age active lifestyle demographic.
The Impact of NA Beer on Health and Wellness
“It’s low calorie,” Shufelt said of Athletic Brewing’s beverages. “So it lends itself to busy, healthy people. We just had to let that get out into the world.”
The average adult has about four drinks a week, so it tends to be a very specific time-and-place activity, but in Bill’s words, Athletic Brewing essentially allows people to feel good about grabbing a beer any night of the week.
“When I’m having a really stressful day at work,” he continued, “if I can crack that IPA for the last hour while I work in my home office — or have a beer every night of the week with dinner — it’s game changing.”
Where in his former life, having a beer would eliminate the likelihood of a workout or continuing work, Athletic Brewing has allowed Shufelt to enjoy his appreciation for beer without it slowing down other aspects of his mental and physical life.
(Photo/Athletic Brewing)
Growing Competition in the NA Market
Moving forward, Bill feels optimistic about the NA category. Since Athletic’s inception, bigger players in the beverage space have entered. But instead of trying to kill the category’s growth, they’re looking to compete.
“This category is very positive sum,” Shufelt explained of the NA beer market. “The tide is going to be coming in for a long time. Health and wellness is one of those things where you can’t really put the toothpaste back in the tube. So I’m really glad to have more entrants into the category.”
Nowadays, there’s over 150 NA beer brands. When Athletic Brewing started, there were six. “Now, you have non-alcoholic Corona sponsoring the Olympics,” he enthused. “I think that progress is so good for the overall category, awareness, and tearing down stigmas.”
The Future of Athletic Brewing
With all of the growth, Athletic Brewing has been shortlisted as a prime target for corporate acquisition. But despite the interest from potential buyers, Shufelt insists that they aren’t building to sell.
“When there’s exciting data points, people pick up the phone to try and get involved in your business,” he explained. ”But we’re really excited about being the leader of this category and building for the very long term — I was never interested in selling.”
The rise of Athletic Brewing has been consistent and pronounced, but as Shufelt caveats, no small business survives without challenge. To maintain a growth mindset, Bill has adopted a form of mental preparation where he pre-accepts future turbulence.
“Any challenge is tackle-able with that mindset,” he said. “At the same time, all of the opportunists who come for the gold rush, the quick hit, they’re not gonna be here in 3-6 months. It’s not easy, and I like that it’s not easy.”
Hunting Big Cats: Baskin’ in Big-Cat Misinformation
Jan 11, 2024
Hunting big cats can be controversial — just ask GearJunkie Hunt & Fish Editor Rachelle Schrute.
In a recent opinion piece, Schrute took infamous big-cat hustler and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, Carole Baskin, to task over her statements and documented “fallacies” surrounding the topic.
In her open letter, Schrute attempts to correct misunderstanding and educate others that Baskin’s statements may have misinformed in an opinion piece published by The Denver Post in October of 2023. The purpose of Baskin’s article was to “shed light” on the issues surrounding big cat hunting and to support Colorado’s ballot initiative to ban trophy hunting and trapping of wild cats. Her arguments center around the idea that hunting mountain lions or bobcats are for trophy hunting and not for the consumption of meat.
We sit down with Schrute on The GearJunkie Podcast to digest her disagreements with Baskin and add greater context to the conversation.
Print Media Ain’t Dead: Reviving the Mountain Gazette
Dec 18, 2023
Spanning numerous owners, iterations, and identities, Mountain Gazette has had quite a run since its founding in the 1960s. But in recent years, it’s definitively entered its modern renaissance under the guidance and wordcraft of owner/Editor-in-Chief Mike Rogge.
Celebrating all things outdoors, the sizable magazine prioritizes art, photography, humor, and long-form editorial over plug-and-play content — notably abstaining from gear reviews and other consumer content. The long-running (off and on) mag just marked its 200th issue. And as Rogge — a ski bum turned editorial mastermind — explained recently on the GearJunkie Podcast, the publication is only gaining steam.
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