From Carpenter To Cattle Rancher, Johnny Fagundes Of Full Circle Ranches

DANO WEIR: I dusted off my pearl snap for you today, Johnny. So here we go. This is not, I wouldn't say that the brand's famous, but, you know, I work in wealth management now. I have prior life in country radio, and I got a rep to maintain that if I'm coming out to West Petaluma to talk about beef, I got to at least look the part. So you ready to do this?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I'll tell you what, I got one just almost the same way. It's a short sleeve, though. Almost identical pearl snap. So I'm ready. I fit in. I'm ready, and you fit in just fine.

DANO WEIR: Welcome to It's All Money. Hosts are right here in front of you.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: We're checking out It's All Money.

DANO WEIR: We are live today in West Petaluma with a entrepreneur, with a innovator, a Sonoma County native, a carpenter when he feels like it, and also the founder of Full Circle Ranches. Welcome to It's All Money, Johnny Fagundes.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: That's me. Yep. Thank you.

DANO WEIR: Thanks for coming on the show.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Thanks for having me. I mean, I'm excited. Excited.

DANO WEIR: So for our listeners and viewers, we do have people who just listened to the show. Describe where we are right now and tell me what Full Circle Ranches is.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So right now we're on Bodega Avenue as you're headed out of town. As you're headed out of town, you'll be about 10 minutes out of town headed towards the coast. So we're not too far from the coast and we're not too far from the amenities of town.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: We're on a little 10 acre piece that i call kind of home base that's where we do most of the sorting and and doctoring and and kind of paying attention to our cattle on the on the on the short term and.

DANO WEIR: And yeah so there's a mouse right behind us and we are surrounded if you can't see the video we are surrounded by a 20 foot high wall of hay in your hay barn yep It's just a mouse. It just crawled out.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: We're feeding the local mice around here. That's awesome. I got a good cat, but he must be sleeping right now.

DANO WEIR: So we are on your, this is your brand, your company, Full Circle Ranches.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: What do you do? My wife and I, we started this. I've always been in the cattle with my grandfather. He kind of taught me as a little kid to be around cows and what they were. And, you know, slowly I... Became very intrigued with it. We grew up in Roanoke Park. I was a city boy. My mom and dad kind of weren't in that game or in that area of work. He was a carpenter.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: But my grandfather, I spent a lot of time there, and he taught me pretty much everything I know about cattle today, along with my uncle. So as a little kid, it always intrigued me. I'd spend a lot of time there through high school and middle school. I'd always have a little project steer or project cow. And, it kind of stayed with me. I've always liked it. I've always done it as a hobby for more than a business.

DANO WEIR: Like 4-H FFA that time?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Barely, no.

DANO WEIR: Just on the side for fun.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: On the side for fun. You know, we raised replacement springers like dairy cattle. So it wasn't even in beef. That's where I got my learning from. But then as I got older and out of high school, I kind of liked the beef more than the dairy.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And people would call and I'd sell, you know, one beef. Two beef, three beef a year, just as a little project, nothing really crazy. And that lasted for a while, all the way up through COVID, really.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Once COVID happened, I kind of switched gears.

DANO WEIR: Switched gears from what? Because when you get out of high school, you go and do what job?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So when I get out of high school, I became a union carpenter. I was commuting to the city.

DANO WEIR: Solid choice.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Great benefits, great job, good money, you know, Monday through Friday. Holidays off, holiday pay, you know, the whole nine yards.

DANO WEIR: Working for the union retirement, right?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Working for the man, just doing that, right? And when COVID happened, I kind of sat down and, you know, during the first lockdown, just looked at the...

DANO WEIR: And you're here, you're where? You're here in town?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I'm in Santa Rosa, actually. This is prior to us buying this place. This is a new place for us to own.

DANO WEIR: So you're living in Santa Rosa, you're locked down from COVID.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Locked down from COVID.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Kind of watching tv seeing the meat shortage right and they show you the pictures of all the meat that's missing in the stores and and i just bored you know me being me looking out the window looking at the grass and all the animals i have why how can we turn this in to where people can go buy it you know how can we make this a business and then i realized there wasn't really there's people doing it but there was nobody harvesting animals around this area nobody processing animals so mobile a mobile or a fixed facility, you know.

DANO WEIR: Where, where is it getting processed?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: At the time it was getting processed either in the central Valley or up North in Fortuna. Right. So for us, that's three and a half, four hour, five hour drive, depending on where you're going.

DANO WEIR: So if you're at that time, if you're a Petaluma rancher, you've got some cattle and you need to get them processed, you're going to Fortuna.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Yeah. You're moving them. Yeah. You're going far away, far, far away. And then having to bring them back to get them processed and then sell them at your local farmer's markets.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So that intrigued me. It really did. I didn't just me being me. I got online and started looking at different options. Just being bored, you know, we couldn't go anywhere during COVID.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And I came across these mobile harvesting plants that you can bring right to the ranch and process your cattle USDA. And that's when it like all happened. I mean, from that moment, once I decided like, wow, there, we could do this. We need this. The ranchers need it. I potentially need it to, you know. Distribute our product.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: It was turnkey. I mean, man, it moved so fast from the idea to the first harvest of our first animal with a USDA grant. It was about a year. It was like 12 months and two weeks. I mean, it was just over a year. So we started processing our own cattle and cattle for other people in March 25th, 2021. And then from there, it just snowballed.

DANO WEIR: What was the reaction like from the community?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Thankful. Thankful. A lot of people didn't believe it, for one. Like, who's this guy? Where'd he come from? Right? You know, I wasn't really born and bred into the business.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Who is this guy? What is he doing? Is he for real? You know, there's always a speculation. Anytime there's somebody new in the industry or doing something on that level, right? We're working with the federal government every day, so it's a tough... It's a tough business, really.

DANO WEIR: Working with the federal government every day?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So yeah, USDA, United States Department Of Ag, right? So I have a federal inspector that watches us process our cattle, from live cattle to protein in the cooler.

DANO WEIR: And they're looking for what?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Just general health, animal health, animal cleanliness, and just making sure we're following HACCP program, which is Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. It's pretty much a... Basic level of security when you're food processing, right?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Any food processor, any packaged food is either a state level or a federal level on inspections to make sure that that product is wholesome and, you know, legit. So yeah, we, we work with them.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I say they work with us, but, but yeah, that was probably the biggest question, when it came to the other people or other customers starting. To use us as a business to process their animals.

DANO WEIR: Are you USDA?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Yes, yes, we're USDA. Or being USDA.

DANO WEIR: That's their biggest question. Correct, correct.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Are we USDA? Yes, we are. Okay, let's do this. And that's just snowballed from there.

DANO WEIR: And that's a healthy skepticism too because you have so many legacy businesses, not just in this space, but in Petaluma and Sonoma County in general. And, you know... There have been new people who show up and, oh, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do a different, right?

DANO WEIR: And there's maybe the behind the scenes of that particular business didn't go so well or, you know, you want to make sure who this person is. So you have really probably had to work through a number of barriers to really kind of establish yourself and get a reputation. You start with a reputation of basically zero.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Yeah, I mean, the biggest concern probably for them, and I'm just kind of taking what I've heard and understand, is once you lose your spot in those other plants. They were so full. They wouldn't take them back. So, right. So it's just like, well, if you leave and you didn't like it.

DANO WEIR: And I had to go with Johnny.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: They're going to be like, no, you're gone. You're like, you know, I think that was the biggest issue because there was tons of work here. Tons and tons of work. It came eventually, but it just trickled in slowly. And it was actually for the better because I was new, you know, up until COVID, I never harvested or processed an animal. This is all self-taught.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: You know YouTube and and just doing it I had an old-timer kind of just show me the ropes and kind of show me the basic steps but otherwise it was trial and error and figure it out how'd you get him to show it to you he was more he was interested you know he it was a love of his life and he was working for the county and he's retired now but he was doing this back in the 70s and just just loves doing it so he he was open he approached me and heard about me and kind of wanted to take me under his wing and Dave calderali he kind of showed me the way and and the basics of how to butcher and how to process ham.

DANO WEIR: He said he was doing it back in the 70s. So do you have kind of an older school skill set when it comes to it? Or has it changed much?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I think, and I learned this from my dad in carpentry, as an apprentice, you always do what the journeyman tells you to do. Whether you like it, whether you think it's better, you just do it and you take 10 points. And if you could take one good point out of those 10, You can make your own brand.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: You can make your own skill set. You can make your own technique or own something. So I took a lot from Dave. I think I've changed most of it just based on today's standards and how I work. Because it is a very custom style.

DANO WEIR: But probably your foundation.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: But my foundation was 100%. But I grew into what I am today. But definitely the foundation was from him.

DANO WEIR: Okay, so we really got two. Different businesses going on. Correct. So what you're talking about, your mobile USDA certified processing. Yep. That business is JMF Slaughter.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: JMF Slaughter is our business. Okay.

DANO WEIR: Correct. So as if one business wasn't enough, now we've got to make it two.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Yeah.

ANNOUNCER: So like I said.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I've always raised cattle, right? I've always loved it selling the beef and we need the USDA plant. So that's why I kind of built that and did it that way. But really what we're building is Full Circle Ranches. Right? And I say that it's not just a name, but it's kind of what we live by.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: My wife and I, we, we, we pick the bulls. We breed the cows.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: We calf out the cows. We raise the calves. We wean them. We feed them and we bring them to the processing plant. You know, from there, you're the second hand to touch that beef. You're the second person. If you put it on your plate, yeah, if you're buying it or if a grocery store, you know, as a consumer, you might be the third person. But really, when I drop that off, I'm the only person that's touched that animal.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So that's kind of why we call it Full Circle Ranches. You know, it's all the way around. And this is a, you know, a three-year process by the time we decide. Our breeding schedule or breeding strategy.

DANO WEIR: The fly just got me in the eye.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: It's December, but they're still around.

DANO WEIR: That's right. So what you're saying is that it's a much shorter path between where the beef started, where the cow started, and the person who's consuming it versus, say, growing it in an entirely different continent and then putting it on a boat and then all the different people, the hands that might touch it for some of those other suppliers.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I wouldn't say it's a shorter process. I think the process is about the same.

DANO WEIR: But I mean, I mean, I mean like the length of the, the length of like the, the distance, literally the distance.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: 100%. Right.

DANO WEIR: I mean, that's going to affect the end quality.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: My wife always talks about, micro local, right? Our cattle don't leave Sonoma County. Well, I take that back.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: The backside of Marin County, you know, but between Marin County and Sonoma County, I'm trying to think, no, not Navajo County. But. The greater North Bay area, the cattle don't leave the greater Bay Area. And my processing plant is 12 minutes down the road. So their trailer ride is 12 minutes long to get there to our home base.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Like I said, I breed cows specifically for protein, right? For animal protein. So there's certain qualities when we go to pick, you'd be shocked. What genetics can do to a piece of beef throughout. I mean, just quality-wise and growth-wise.

DANO WEIR: Well, like what? Can you give me a couple of details?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So everybody wants what we call intermuscular marbling, right? Intermuscular fat.

DANO WEIR: That ribeye steak.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: That ribeye steak that's speckled with fat.

DANO WEIR: Market steak, whatever that was.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: That's it.

DANO WEIR: So my mom went to Petaluma Market one time. This was back in the 80s. And she came back and she's like, this is a market steak. And it was the greatest steak I've ever had in my life, right? And I thought that it came from Petaluma Market. Gotcha. That's why they called it. I was like, Petaluma Market's just got these market steaks, right? But no, that's another name for a ribeye, right?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Market steak, yeah. I mean, just ribeye New York's fillets, right? That's what everybody knows. I would say a market steak.

DANO WEIR: Yeah, so that's what everybody's after, that marbling.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Of course, of course. So that's flavor. That's tenderness. It's the whole nine yards. So when we pick bulls, because it starts with your bull, obviously your cow herd. Depends on what they're doing genetically wise too. But you want to have a balance between maternal, in my opinion, this is just me.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: You want to have a balance between maternal so you can retain heifers and keep your breeding program, you know, expanding, but also taking into consideration that these animals are going to end up... In a protein form, right? So we want to be able to produce the most amount of weight and the least amount of time and efficiency, but also bring the highest quality of product.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So it's a balance between growth, but also quality. And we look for that in different EPDs, which are genetic outliers for bulls when we go to breed. And I'll tell you what, I didn't really, I'm not saying I didn't believe in it, but...

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I've got to witness it over the years. You know, bulls I've picked three, four years ago are now showing me what's showing up in the protein.

DANO WEIR: I know a hot button for a lot of people is what kind of space are animals in. So we have our cameras pointed at us here in the hay palace.

DANO WEIR: Palace of hay. But just over yonder is where you can see some of the animals. So what kind of space are we looking at for these animals?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So generally, cow-calf pairs are always outside on pasture.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Right so we're talking over 100 acres plus for 30 40 50 animals depending on the time of the year they got trees they got place to take cover in winter and they're kind of just your typical cows you see laying around Sonoma County if you see black cows around Sonoma County i guess i'd say black cows as angus cattle compared to like dairy cattle if you see those around the county that's kind of the same idea with the space so who are your clients for Full Circle Ranches clients for Full Circle Ranches so Since the beginning, we've been selling product to Panazera Meat Company at an Occidental.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: They're pretty regular every week. That's where you can find our product on the shelf almost all the time. Grass-fed and grain-fed.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: With lamb as well, we do lamb there. I sublease the lamb. It's another ranch that kind of does their whole process.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: But anyway, butcher shops, grocery stores, and then people who just want to buy. A quarter beef, half a beef, put it in their freezer rather than go to the grocery store and buy single steaks at a time. So Full Circle Ranches, those are our customers.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: The ones and twos and the bulk beef buyers. Kind of like where I started, right? Because where I started was friends and family who wanted to put a half a beef in their freezer.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So those are my clients on that end.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Hopefully restaurants one day, you know. Right. I think we're small enough to where it's a little bit difficult right now.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Cause everybody wants the ribeye and the New York and the filet.

DANO WEIR: So much.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And there's only a handful of those per, per animal, right? So you got to find avenues for the rest of the animal.

DANO WEIR: Interesting.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: But it'll come slowly. Yeah. We're baby steps. It's been just one step in front of the other one. And then the harvest going back to your question, the other business is more of like, customers who are already selling their product at farmer's markets or wherever. So that's the difference between Full Circle Ranches. It's more of our protein sales rather than working for somebody else, if that makes sense.

DANO WEIR: New guy in the industry. Have you pissed anybody off doing what you're doing?

DANO WEIR: Is anybody not so happy that you feel the need?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: No, I don't think so.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: There's a lot of people in this area. And there's only so much ground. There's only so many animals that we can raise here. And there's way more demand for protein eaters than there is people doing this. So there's tons of space. I wouldn't say tons of space in the industry, but there's space enough.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I think we all work together. We all want to have the same goal. I don't think we piss anybody off or vice versa. I don't think I'm pissed with anybody.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Like I said, I think there's plenty of...

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Space in the industry to where we can all do our thing sell our product and find find your niche find what works for you right mine specifically i'm very proud of our finished beef i want to hit prime every time i want prime beef hit prime what do you mean so i can guess but so USDA excuse me USDA has a grading system right you've been to the grocery store you've seen choice prime or unlabeled right so unlabeled just usually doesn't hit the choice or they didn't have the opportunity to get it graded.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And that's just a scale that we use to kind of judge the quality of beef. So when I say I want to hit prime, that means I want to hit the top of the class. I want to hit, I want my animals to be in that five percentile, in that 10 percentile of quality.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: That's very hard to do, right?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: If somebody out there is telling you to hit prime every time, they're lying. You know, if they're telling you they're hitting it. Half the time, yeah, that's great. That's awesome. That's what we strive to do. That's what we want to do.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Watch that calf grow up.

DANO WEIR: Get fed and become just a high super high quality product on your table you took a huge leap of faith in your career and in your life you're now how many years into it five years in four years ago you said 2019.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Raising cattle yeah you're five forever but like getting serious turning it into like my livelihood was 2021.

DANO WEIR: Okay so four years in basically yep are you happy yeah i mean.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I'm living the dream, you know?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I don't work. Don't get me wrong. I work. But I don't...

DANO WEIR: He told me he was up at 4.30 doing CrossFit. We were talking before the show. He's like, I was up at 4.30 today loading up this truck and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, man, I don't know about that, dude.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: But, like, I guess people's definition of work is, okay, I got to wake up and I got to drag myself to work. And I show up at, you know, 6.59 when you work at 7. That's work. When I was, what I was doing in the city, that's what I call work. You know, I don't want to be there.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I'm just dreading every minute ready to leave when the bell rings in the car, go home. It's a job. It's work. I, I mean, I work, but I don't feel like I'm working. It's, it's fun, you know, and even in the hard days and even in the frustrating days where things don't work, things break, plans change. I mean, there's, you know, everything.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: When you deal with live animals, I swear, nothing's predictable. Nothing is predictable. So you got to make quick decisions. You got to just be ready for the worst and then know what to do and just handle it. Problem solve. So, yeah, I do not regret it. And I am. I'm happy. I'm very happy.

DANO WEIR: The reason why I ask you is we'll have someone watching this show right now.

DANO WEIR: And they will have their own version of what you've done in their head and they'll wonder.

DANO WEIR: And some people will act on it. Some people will always wonder. And if you had to give one piece of advice to someone who's wondering, what would you say?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Make sure you love it and don't do it for the money.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: It can be profitable, but if I were to count all my hours and did that back in the union, I'd be financially more able than I am today. If I were to count my hours and my labor and the time I spend Christmas morning, you know, you get the phone call, you got to go feed, you know. You don't have to do that. That's happened. I've been at dinner, you get the phone call, there's a cow on the road.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: You got to go, you know, whether you like it or not. So make sure you're ready to commit because every mouth out there depends on you. So anybody with kids kind of knows they depend on you, right? Without you, they don't survive.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Just kind of the way it is. Don't get me wrong. I mean, it's not like every day you have to go there and hold their hand or, you know, push them around. But when things come up. You need to take care of it. Right.

DANO WEIR: And that's what you're signing up for.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: That's it.

DANO WEIR: Yeah. So when you're stuck and feel like you're stuck in a job that's very predictable and you're, you know, asking, dreaming, whatever it is, you know, know that you're signing up for crazy.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: You're signing up for crazy. That's right. That's a good way to look at it.

DANO WEIR: Well, you're not, you're not a single operation though. Cause you, you, you're married and expecting a kid. So I know your wife, Lena, who I know through my days in country radio, that's how we got connected.

DANO WEIR: What would this business be without her? What would you be without her? I mean, I, I'm guessing you didn't do this alone.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So she's always been there, right? So when I started the business, we weren't married yet. Long time girlfriend. We lived together. We pretty much were married.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: We did our jobs, and she took care of all the stuff I don't want to do, right? All the book work and, God, you got to have a permit for this. You got to have this with the county. I mean, all the behind-the-scenes paperwork, that's not me, right? I don't want to do that.

DANO WEIR: Did she want to do that? She likes doing that?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I don't think anybody likes doing that. But she did it, you know, signed up for. And EDD and do all the stuff with payroll, with the employees, you know, that was a huge help. Huge, huge, huge help. There's many nights where I come home, she's like, hey, we need to take care of this. We need to do this. We need to look into this.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And full circle, she pretty much led the charge on logo design, putting all the right stuff in order. Because at the time, I was just so busy with the other business. I didn't have time to do it. When people call and want to make an order, call Lena. Call Lena.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: She'll, okay, then, oh, so-and-so's coming up to pick up beef. Well, they didn't call me. Well, they just, they know, just talk to her, right? So she's definitely a huge part in the Full Circle Ranch's side. And obviously she helps me out on the other side too. But she's the one who kind of.

DANO WEIR: On the JMF Slaughter side.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: On the JMF Slaughter side, yeah. She helps me out when it comes to like, you know, end of the year stuff and when I need help. When I ask for it. But for Full Circle Ranches, she's kind of like the main contact. When someone's out there, we're meeting them together, I'm like, ah, take her card. You know, she's kind of the head honcho when it comes to that.

DANO WEIR: She hand-delivered me. Because you also, with Full Circle Ranches, you make a beef tallow hand cream, which is a thing.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: It is a thing.

DANO WEIR: It is a thing. Look it up.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I was a little skeptical.

DANO WEIR: Look it up. Beef towel hand cream. It's supposedly very good. I'm enjoying it. I don't know about the science and I don't care.

DANO WEIR: She delivered it to me. I don't know if they were advertising that or not, but I mean, that's the level of, you know, how much she's willing to stump for you for the brand.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And you're not the only one. I mean, she delivers to anybody who was sounding like, you know, for it or if they're in the area, you know, sometimes they'll stop by if they're in the area, but she'll generally go out and drop it off. So.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: That's a whole other project she wanted to take on. And I was like, really? You're going to do what with this? Like, we throw away most of this. Okay, let's try it out. And sure enough, man, it's fun.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: It's cool to see her kind of just break everything down, put it in packaging. I mean, from the start of where it comes from to, like, the final product, I was like, wow, that was kind of cool. Kind of crazy. Kind of crazy. Kind of cool. Kind of crazy.

DANO WEIR: But he's right in line with the brand too, which is using the entire animal. This is not, you know, just taking the parts.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And that was her. That's why she took that on. She goes, look, you're throwing this away? That's what she told me. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's essentially a byproduct. So now we get to make a byproduct that's beneficial for people that get to use it. Yeah. So, I mean, I definitely use it, but I'm so already touching so much product.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: They're already like soft. I call them butcher hands. I got to puff it up when it comes to move hay. But yeah, that's awesome. And now we started cooking with it, which I love. If you've ever fried a pan-fried steak with beef tallow instead of any other oil, it'll change your life. It'll change your life.

DANO WEIR: Well, I mentioned at the start of the episode, we've been talking about it the whole time. You're a Sonoma County native. You're from the area. What do you think makes Sonoma County special?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Where do you want to start? I mean, look, it's December what? 8th? 12th?

DANO WEIR: 11th.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: 11th. It's December 11th and it's 68 degrees maybe. And I mean, it's gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: The ground is beautiful for the animals.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: We have so many different industries and I always, I know we had talked about like wine earlier and Sonoma County is probably really more known for wine or production of wine i don't want to go too off track but when i look at like what we're doing and what we're growing i want to have people understand or look into when they taste beef they should approach it as if they were sipping a new wine right so when you sip wine is it okay is it is it fruity Is it dry?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Look at the legs. Look at the legs. You know, is it creamy? Is it buttery? Does it have tannins? Does it make you want to take another sip? Does it make you want to spit it out? Right? If you approach eating any protein for a matter the same way, you'll start to understand there's different levels and there's different qualities and there's different flavor profiles and there's different textures out there.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So anyway, that's kind of like my little spiel on.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Connecting the wine industry because it's very heavily imprinted in Sonoma County, in my opinion, I guess, use that kind of approach when looking at beef. And we have it here. I mean, we have the ground to produce tons and tons of animals. Most of the animals produced in Sonoma County, they're shipped off to Nebraska, whether you like it or not. I mean, it's just the cold, hard truth.

DANO WEIR: To do what?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Go to feedlot. Go to feedlot. So off their mothers on the beautiful ground that we have.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Put in a truck and shipped across the country because the feet is a lot cheaper. And then it's processed there and shipped back to California. So when you, we don't do that, right? That's like the whole spiel.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And, and it's, I'm going to get a little kind of in depth on something here.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: So When you do that, I, I, I weaned all my calves this year, right?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I'd have been better off doing what everybody else does, putting them on a truck, selling them. I'd be more profitable per calf than I will raising it up and going through this process. Right.

DANO WEIR: And, and the quality would be different.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: The quality would be the call. You know, you got to look at it as a financial thing, right? This is a lot of work and we have a lot of overhead and there's a lot of risk we take growing animals, weather, hay price, lease prices, you know, anything and everything.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: And at the end of the day, you got to make a financial decision. What are we going to do?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I believe, and I want to stay to this, is I want that animal. I put all that effort. I pulled out a lot of work. I want to get that product to somebody's plate here. I truly believe in it. I think it'll catch. Traction and, and it'll compete with, you know, the guys that are doing it on the larger level and nothing wrong with that.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Right. Nothing wrong at all. Shipping your calves and selling them to the open market. That's, that's business. Right. But if you're selling beef, I want to be able to grow it here, keep it here, process it here and, and, and consume it here. That's the, that's the whole goal.

DANO WEIR: Well, for someone watching right now, how do they get it? How do they learn more about it? How can they find your beef?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Lena. We've got to talk to Lena. No, so Panazera Meat Company, they're usually having it on the shelf. Panazera Meat Company out of Occidental. Okay. So they buy it whole carcass. They break it down. They put it on their shelf, and they sell it as Full Circle Ranch's product. Okay.

DANO WEIR: And they have a store?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: They have a storefront in downtown Occidental. Okay. Right? Then we do direct-to-consumer as well. Lena kind of is the boss about that.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Fullcircle ranchers.com or a hashtag full circle ranchers on Instagram, Facebook, you know, we have a, social media presence and Lena will be the contact for that. And ideally it's, it's holes and halves and quarters, but we do individual cuts. You kind of just got to sit on a waiting list, you know, as it comes in, the demand for the ribeyes, the New York's and the fillets is always high.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: Right. So, we try not to process too many animals without selling. The entire thing before we get another one going. Now it's the holidays and everybody's calling for a rib roast. So trying to make that work. So yeah, yeah, that'll be her. She'll be the one to take care of you.

DANO WEIR: Fullcircleranches.com. If you're new to the show, this is your first time watching our show. This has been It's All Money from our firm, which is Sonoma Wealth Advisors.

DANO WEIR: Goal of the show is to try to find the through line between money finance and life and bring bring to life the real stories of the people who are making things happen either right here or across the country and if you're new to our channel make sure you subscribe and he is Johnny Fagundes i am thank you i appreciate it i really do thanks for the time and and coming out and doing all this it's means a lot The acoustics in here have been phenomenal.

DANO WEIR: This is awesome. This is our new studio, I think.

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: I'll bring a truck of hay over. We'll make a little blog, a little beer. Well, you know.

DANO WEIR: What gives?

JOHNNY FAGUNDES: It's not five, is it?

DANO WEIR: This content was produced by Fermata Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. DBA, Sonoma Wealth Advisors. The opinions expressed by Fermata Advisors, LLC, on this show are their own. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable, although it should not be relied upon as such.

DANO WEIR: Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

DANO WEIR: Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Viewers and listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment advisor to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.