From the day she was born, Kate Laver’s medical conditions were such that she required tube feeding to thrive and grow. But there was one problem: Kate failed to thrive and grow on the formulas she was given. What followed was a tale of parental determination, desperation, and triumph that gave rise to the company Kate Farms, which has revolutionized tube feeding for millions of people in hospitals and homes across the U.S.
Watch the video of this podcast episode on the Nemours YouTube channel.
Guest: Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms
Host/Producer: Carol Vassar
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer:
Welcome to Well Beyond Medicine, the world’s top-ranked children’s health podcast produced by Nemours Children’s Health. Subscribe on any platform at nemourswellbeyond.org or find us on YouTube.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Each week, we’re joined by innovators and experts from around the world exploring anything and everything related to the 80% of child health impacts that occur outside the doctor’s office. I’m your host, Carol Vassar. And now that you are here, let’s go.
MUSIC:
Let’s go well beyond medicine.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Our episode today begins with the story of a little girl named Kate Laver. From birth, Kate’s medical conditions were such that she required tube feeding with formula to thrive and grow. There was only one problem; Kate failed to thrive and grow on the formula she was given. What followed is a tale of parental determination, desperation, and ultimately triumph that not only benefited Kate and her health but grew into a company that revolutionized formula tube feeding for millions in hospitals and homes across the nation. Here to share the full story of the evolution of Kate Farms from kitchen creation to life-giving liquid is Brett Matthews, its chairman and CEO.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Kate Farms is a clinical nutrition company to help people with chronic illness. It was started by a little girl inspired us named Kate. Kate was born with cerebral palsy. And she’s actually fed by a feeding tube. And when she was five years old, she only weighed 16 pounds, which is what a one-year-old normally weighs. Out of desperation, their parents were at a farmer’s market, and they said, “Why can’t Katie get what we can get at a farmer’s market through her feeding tube? And why can’t it taste good so I can share a meal with her?” That’s what they set out to do. And they created this great shake, which is organic, plant-based nutrition. And Katie’s had five a day for her whole life. And she just turned 18 in July and is thriving.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Talk about why Katie needed formula or some sort of feeding that was special. The cerebral palsy, I’m sure, is part of that, but also how intense it was for Richard and Michelle Laver, who are Kate’s parents, to come up with this particular formula that they did come up with that was successful for her.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
When you are tube fed, and there’s a lot of people in the country who are fed by a feeding tube, that’s how they get all their nutrition, there are certain formulas in the marketplace when Katie was five years old that the ingredients are more corn syrup, corn maltodextrins, and not necessarily the best ingredients for Katie. And she could not tolerate that nutrition. She wasn’t absorbing it well, so what they did was they worked with dietitians and doctors and a vegan chef and went through lots of trials and tribulations to try to make that complete formula because each shake has to be a full meal. And so they worked it out to be in that specification. And that’s what we’ve been able to do is to take that formula and then create a whole line of formulas for people with a variety of chronic conditions, whether it be GI issues, going through chemotherapy, needing nutrition support for weight gain, ALS, et cetera. And it’s not only for tube feeders. It’s also for people who can drink it orally because it does taste very good. We have a lot of folks with food allergies because there’s no common allergens in it. It took a lot of work but mostly a lot of grit and passion to save their daughter.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
A lot of trial and error. I believe 71 different iterations of this shake, of this formula before they hit on something that helped her to thrive. Talk about that and that resilience that the Lavers experienced and showed.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Exactly. It was, yes, 71 tries in a blender with the right protein source, the right carbohydrate source, the right fiber source, the right vitamins and minerals, and making sure it had to pass the tests of the dietitians to make sure that the label was complete and then also add in taste because they really wanted to have taste be a big component so they could really drink it with her. And that was created.
And then I got involved with Kate Farms because my son was very sick. He had an autoimmune-related issue. And my wife and I took him to several doctors, and they couldn’t figure out his primary condition, but they actually… Some doctor’s going to put him on chemotherapy, believe it or not. And that did not make sense to my wife and I so we actually also worked with dietitians and folks who are really in the holistic approach of nutrition, both intravenous and oral. And my son, Skylar, went through that regimen and literally, in eight days, got him on a path to healing. And he’s now 29 and thriving. I met the Lavers about 10 years ago and saw how well Katie was doing. I saw the nutrition, which is very similar to what my son was eating. And we joined forces and we really went from there to try to take this to reach more and more people.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
You joined their board of directors, and now you’re their CEO.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Yes.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Talk about the formula itself. It is complete, nutritious, and organic, I believe.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Yes. Our philosophy is to have a formula that starts from the beginning with USDA organic nutrition, non-genetically modified project verified nutrition, as well as gluten certified, so it’s gluten-free. And also, the whole product is vegan because why vegan? And there’s a body of research, about 600 clinical peer-reviewed clinical studies that show that plant-based nutrition can actually reverse the chronic illness that a person has, whether it be diabetes or even kidney failure, malnutrition. It’s well absorbed, it doesn’t promote inflammation, has benefits for the microbiome. There’s high antioxidants in there, like a big bowl of blueberries, and it’s well tolerated.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
This was something that the Lavers were selling locally, local shops. You’ve taken it to the next level with a team of what you call Kate’s farmers. Who’s involved in all of this and making certain that it is as pure as possible, as nutritious as possible? What does your team look like?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Well, we have an amazing team of Kate farmers. And we hire for people who have two key core values. One is heart, people who care about something bigger than themselves, and the second is expertise, people who can really help us scale and create the nutrition and support for our families to help them through their journey towards health. On the different parts of our business, we have about a third of our staff are registered dietitians. We have a customer care group who is on the front lines talking to the people who would like Kate Farms or the healthcare professionals, and their primary skill set is empathy. We have some of the best food scientists, I’d say, in the world who really look at nutritional food science and functional ingredients and how to put together these formulas. We have, I think, some of the best folks in quality and quality management to make sure that what we put out is going to be safe and effective and the label matches what it says it does.
We have a really great group of Kate farmers who really help us. And we have a very strong clinical team as well who focus on working on the research to prove our health benefits for people and also just overall health economics in the marketplace. We work in partnership with a lot of the major healthcare universities in the country to create a body of research to really support and show why it’s working.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Talk about… This started… It sounds like the movie Lorenzo’s Oil in many ways. Watch it if you haven’t seen it, folks. It’s a really good tear-jerking movie. But it sounds a lot like the plot of Lorenzo’s Oil. How did you move it from essentially the Laver’s kitchen to this full-fledged organization now serving not only individuals but hospitals and healthcare systems?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Well, I think, first of all, it’s our team of people who have done a fantastic job. We believe in our mission. We believe that everyone should have access to quality nutrition. I’m a serial entrepreneur, and I had a business that I started with my wife years ago that did a lot of work with government and public-private partnerships. Healthcare, in essence, is a big governmental organization. It’s very complex. I love working in that complex environment.
One of the things that we did was we really want to make sure that this was covered by health insurance. Right now, we’re covered by Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, which is Women Infants and Children for the lowest safety net to help people, and women, infants, and children. And we’re in about 2,000 private insurance companies. We started there by showing our product met the criteria and showed the white papers on how our product supported it. We had to get the coverage by insurance.
And then it was a whole path to get into the hospitals and the home care, which is a whole other story. But what really fueled our growth in the early days was the patients because they would talk to each other, like something wasn’t working like for the Lavers with Katie. What parents would do or anyone who was sick is they’d go online and they try to find solutions. And we would be there. We would be there to help them and support them and give them a sample, and have them talk to their doctors and dietitians. And that really has fueled a lot of our growth, really coming from the person who benefits the most. And now we’re a lot more professional and we have contracts with 1,500 hospitals now and 350 home care companies, and so we’ve been able to really work the distribution side of that as well.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
It sounds like that word of mouth from your patients was critical to your growth over time. Are there any patient stories that stand out for you aside from your own and Kate’s?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Yeah, I think one that’s… And this is on our… We have a published case study on this one. There’s a little boy named AJ. And he was in Phoenix Children’s Hospital. And he had a bone marrow transplant. Very sick little boy. And he was in the sterile environment in the hospital for months. And he was on a feeding tube because he was malnourished and had a lot of complications. But they did finally release him, but he had to keep coming back and back and back. Finally got readmitted again. And this is the early days. And a dietitian heard about Kate Farms and convinced the doctors and dietitians to try Kate Farms on little AJ. Three days later, AJ was able to leave the hospital and now is off his feeding tree.
Those are the kinds of stories that we have. And we have thousands of stories like this among variety of conditions and people drinking it orally. A little kiddo might need to grow a little bit. And we’ve got a high-dense McCorrick shake that tastes good. And so that’s what fuels the Kate farmers are these stories. And we talk about them, and we really build a relationship with those folks that we are working with and helping.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
As we sit here today at HLTH, which is an innovation conference, food as medicine has been a real topic of interest to many, many people. How do you see Kate Farms fitting into that food-as-medicine ethos?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
I love that it’s being talked about. We’ve been talking about for years. Here’s some startling statistics. Bad food can make you sick and good food can heal you; big picture. Poor nutrition has led in the US to over $1.2 trillion in cost to the healthcare system. The US needs, unfortunately, in the amount of people who have chronic illness in the country. We have 47 million people in the US who are malnourished, and we have collectively over 100 million people with diabetes, kidney failure, gastroparesis, GI issues, et cetera, et cetera. And a lot of it is actually incited by the poor nutrition that we have. We also feel that good food can heal. And there’s a body of research from the WHO, the NIH, the Gates Foundation, the American Society of Parental Mentor, and Nutrition. We have our own research around that and also 600 peer-reviewed studies on plant-based can actually reverse that.
Where Kate Farms fits into this is really making it accessible for our people with the most chronic conditions, and whether to be tube-feeding or they need oral supplementation, that’s where we really play on it and really make sure that we can help those folks. I think the other part of our company is, and I said this with how our customer care works, is the empathy part of thing. Because we have a lot of folks who have their own personal story. And it’s hard to go through the healthcare system. It is hard to navigate insurance. It is hard to do these things, so we really want to be an ally and lean in with the people that we’re helping.
And that also translates into the healthcare professions because a lot of the doctors and dietitians, particularly those coming off of COVID, are very overworked. They need support, and they need help. How can we really be an ally for them and provide them with support that they need? And that’s a big part of who we are.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
You’re doing some innovation. In fact have opened up as of June 2024 the Kate Farms Innovation and Quality Center. Tell us about that. That’s a big endeavor.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
It is. To make one of our formulas, you start in a kitchen. These are all labs, but you start a kitchen size to mix the products and ingredients and start that way and test it. Then, before you manufacture it, which is at a million-square-foot facility, there’s a step in between that you can really use to help scale. We have an innovation quality center, which our machine is probably the size of, I don’t know, maybe 20 SUVs from a size standpoint. But what that allows us to do is fast cycle product innovation, new ingredients, taste, the mouth feel, the compliance to the ingredient and the label. It really allows us to fast cycle that innovation.
We’ve had many of our hospital partners come down with us because they have a desire to do a certain formula. We said, “Come on down.” We’ve had 20 registered dieticians and clinicians from a certain hospital who came down. And we created formulas together to meet their needs. And some of them are going to be going to the market. It’s a real great place for us to collaborate with our healthcare professionals and food scientists. And we have a tasting room, so people can come in, whether they be kiddos or whether they be adults to taste our products. It’s a really important part of who we are.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Talk about quality control. That’s a really big concern. I think when you’re giving food to your children, you want it to be good. You’re looking at it and saying, “Hey, this is plant-based and vegan.” Talk about the quality control measures that you put in place.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Well, quality control is table stakes. It just has to be. We first start with our ingredient sourcing. Everything is USDA organic, and it’s non-genetically modified. We have to go through a very stringent certification process, and we validate along the way. The next thing is after we manufacture our products, it’s called aseptic manufacturing, and there’s a very high heat kill step that doesn’t impact the nutrients. We go through that. But even once that is done, we have third-party testing, we have our own testing, and the manufacturer, co-manufacture does its testing just to make sure that each batch is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. And so we have the ability to do that and scale. And that’s been really, really important. And we have some great folks in our quality department, but it really starts at the beginning with our supply chain.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
FDA approved?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
All of our products are in FDA-manufactured facilities. And in order to get to our products, which is considered a medical food, yes, it’s part under the FDA regulations.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
What else about the innovation center is exciting you at this point? I know it’s relatively new, but I’m sure there are exciting things going on there.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
What really excited about doing is we had another office, and we had the innovation center being just where we do the testing and the product development, but we’re bringing the whole company down. Because that is really the basis for the heart of the company. The customer care team’s going to be there and the innovation’s going to be there. It’s a place for all of us to meet and gather and further our mission. I think that’s the biggest next step that we have is to bring everyone together.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
You talked about a variety of flavors. Give me some of the samples of flavors and also tell me what’s your favorite.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Okay. Yeah, flavor variety is important. We have the fundamental largest flavors. We have a chocolate and a vanilla and a strawberry. Now, I’m not necessarily a strawberry fan just in general, but oh my gosh, it’s amazing. And particularly my favorite is the new nutrition shake for kids. And it’s strawberry. And I love that one. I actually love our Peptide 1.0 Vanilla. That’s also a kid’s product. Those are my two favorites.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Do you have kids that are included in this process of saying, “Hey, this doesn’t quite taste like chocolate though you’re calling it chocolate”? Like a testing panel that consists of children?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
All my kids are a little older, so they are out of the kiddo phase, but they definitely are critiquing Dad and Kate Farms, so they definitely impact it. But what we also do, because a kiddo’s taste buds are different than adult’s taste buds, so we do bring kiddos in to do that. And we have some great Kate farmers with their kids and sending us videos of them just slurping up the chocolate with a straw. And you hear the little slurp at the end and-
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
They like it.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Yeah, they like it. Yeah. And I think, again, another reason we’ve grown, we also have an e-commerce opportunity, so if people don’t get it prescribed, they can buy it online at Amazon or katefarms.com. And what’s interesting is just, again, another reason why we grow is we have such repeat purchase, and I think that is because of the taste. We have market industry repeat purchase. And half of our people are subscribers; I think that’s because of the taste.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
When we talk about people who are consuming this, we talked a lot about people with ALS, cancer, kids on G-tubes. Who is consuming this outside of that? Is it athletes? Is it people who want to make sure that they’re nutritionally balanced with their food?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
I’d say it’s a few other populations. One is people of any kind of health condition that’s not prescribable. For instance, if you have a food allergy is a good one. For kiddos who need to grow or gain a little weight, that’s another population. But I think it’s actually for anyone who wants a meal on the go. We actually have a number of professional athletes who drink Kate Farms.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Really?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
And I asked one of them, I said, “Why do you drink Kate Farms?” And they said, “Well, it tastes great.” And I said, “But why else? Why did you choose it?” And he said, “Well, you have specially formulated this for people with health conditions and their body needs to perform and recover.” And he said, “That’s what I do. I push my body so hard, I need to perform and recover.” And it makes sense. It’s the other side of the need for your body to help it recover and heal for the next phase.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
As we’re here at HLTH, what excites you about the innovations you’re seeing around you? And how can those be applied at Kate Farms?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
This is a fantastic conference, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve been to a lot of clinical conferences, and it’s amazing there, too, because it’s a lot about research and clinical approaches to things. I think here you have actually snapshots of the whole industry. You’ve got policy makers, you have payers, insurance companies, you have hospital systems, you have home care systems, and you have basically folks who represent, you have retailers, you have folks who represent the whole ethos of healthcare. I think this is a great opportunity to collaborate around this and particularly around that theme around food as medicine because it’s a relatively low-cost item in healthcare, but it can have a massive impact on the healthcare system and obviously only because it really impacts people’s lives.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Where do you see the growth for Kate Farms a year, five years, 10 years down the line?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Well, we’re excited because when we started this adventure, there was really no plant-based options in healthcare. Now it’s about 30% of the whole market. And a big part of that is because we’ve been able to get into the hospital system by creating a special plant-based contract that allows the hospitals to buy it. And then we were able to have large systems like Kaiser, Providence, Indiana University Health System, large systems, use Kate Farms as primary nutrition formula for their whole system because they’re seeing it’s working, it’s helping get people out of the hospital sooner, it’s helping working clinically and economically for them.
I hope, and our dream is that we have… Kate Farms is available to everyone in the world that needs nutrition to help them improve their quality of life. And that’s really what we want to do. And we can’t do it alone, so we have to work with partners and continue to grow and scale and make sure quality continues to do that, and importantly, our culture of our company continues with people with hearts and people who care about something bigger than themselves and bringing that expertise and develop that expertise inside.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Taking on the world.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Well, I don’t know about that, but I think that’s a big ambition. The model out there is worldwide. And we have a lot of health needs in the US, but there’s a lot of health needs worldwide, too.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Do you have a global presence at this time?
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
We do not. We’re focused just in the US right now. And there’s a whole variety of, you can imagine, different regulations in different parts of the world and distribution and go-to-market strategies, and those kind of things, but it’s something that we get approached quite a bit.
My big thing is that we’re all in this together. I think what you’re doing to educate your audience about what’s going on out there and to help kiddos and families and healthcare professionals is amazing. And we need more of that. We need more awareness about what’s going on out there, and particularly for us around nutrition. We’re committed. We still have that grit to work stuff out, still entrepreneurial. And just we’ve got our amazing team to do that, but it does take everyone at the table. That’s very important. And I’m seeing a lot of amazing work done in the policy side, the payer side, and the overall healthcare system side.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Brett Matthews is the chairman and chief executive officer for Kate Farms. Thank you so much for being on the Well Beyond Medicine podcast.
Brett Matthews, Chairman and CEO, Kate Farms:
Great. Thank you, Carol.
MUSIC:
Well Beyond Medicine.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Thanks to Brett Matthews for shining a light on the revolutionary work that he is doing at Kate Farms and all of the Kate farmers. And thanks to you for listening. Revolutionary work benefiting patients, children, and adults alike that’s happening outside of the clinical walls: it’s what we love to talk about here on the Nemours Well Beyond Medicine podcast. Your ideas and suggestions for topics are always welcome. Just visit nemourswellbeyond.org to leave a voicemail with your podcast episode ideas. There, you’ll also find our previous podcast episodes, our video versions of podcasts, including this one. And you can subscribe to the podcast plus leave a review. That’s nemourswellbeyond.org. You can also send your topic ideas to us via email: [email protected].
Our podcast production team for this episode includes Cheryl Munn, Susan Masucci, Lauren Teta, and Sebastian Riella. Join us next time as we turn to the experts to answer the question what is whole child health? I’m Carol Vassar. Until then, remember, we can change children’s health for good well beyond medicine.
MUSIC:
Let’s go well beyond medicine.
