Ep. #13 Packaging Giant - Kailan Dunn

In this special episode the host of Dirt Smart sits in the interview chair and is interviewed by Dirt Smart Producer, Ty Paxton.Ben’s story begins on his family’s 130-year-old tree fruit farm in Kent, southeast of London. It’s where he learned the rhythm of farming — the grit, the rewards, and the relentless work — from his father and grandfather. After university, he served as a decorated veteran in Afghanistan, where his life changed forever after being ambushed and shot through the torso by the Taliban.Following a remarkable recovery, Ben returned to the family fruit business, becoming CEO and scaling it by an astonishing 1,400%. Today, he’s the founder and CEO of BX — a farm intelligence platform helping farms transform fragmented data into powerful, actionable insights.This episode isn’t just about business success. It’s about survival, resilience, and purpose — how near-death shaped Ben’s mission to create lasting, positive impact through farming. It’s a story of grit, perseverance, and vision.Learn more about BenLearn more about BX

Jason Tarry spent more than three decades inside Tesco, UK's largest retailer. He rose from graduate trainee to the CEO and he's shaped how Britain shops, eats, and thinks about value. Few leaders understand the full chain from field to fork like Jason. He knows farming, he knows food, and he knows how the smallest supply chain can ripple across an entire nation. Jason is now the Chairman of UK's most principled institution - the John Lewis Partnership - which own the UK's largest premium retailer, Waitrose; a business built on purpose, quality, and trust. In this episode we explore Jason's journey and how he rose to become the retail titan he is today. Learn more about John Lewis PartnershipLearn more about WaitroseLearn more about our Sponsor, BX

Imagine scanning every tree in your orchard - blossom to harvest - and knowing with confidence what you will grow, harvest, the amount to sell, and where to send labor. In this episode we meet the founder making this crystal ball a reality for farmers across four continents. Jenny Lemieux is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vivid Machines - a Toronto-based Ag Tech company turning orchards and vineyards into living data sets. Their Vivid X Vision System mounts onto farm equipment to scan trees at tractor speed, delivering up to 90% accuracy on forecasts - transforming how growers plan labor, thinning, spraying, and ultimately the sales they make to their customers. Since launching in 2020, Vivid Machines has raised $10 million in seed funding, won recognition from global ag tech awards, and earned strong grower feedback for reducing inputs, saving on labor costs, and delivering more predictable harvests. Jenny's unique path from chemical engineering and product design to AI leadership, she has shaped her mission to bring precision, transparency, and profitability to the specialty crop world. Learn more about Vivid Machines Learn more about our Sponsor, BX

In this episode we dive into the post-harvest world with Kailan Dunn, President & CEO of H.R. Spinner - one of the largest fruit packaging companies in the United States selling over 100 million boxes every year. Since 1916 H.R. Spinner has been an industry-leading company enabling tree fruit growers to protect, sell, and deliver their crop with smarter boxes, pads, and in-house automation with box makers, tray formers, and pad inserters. Their work is integral to keeping apples, potatoes, hops, and blueberries moving. This is a story of packaging, people, and the future of what goes on behind the scenes in the food supply chain. Learn more about H.R. SpinnerLearn more about our Sponsor, BX

Tyler Price is a Stanford educated CEO leading one of the largest fruit growing and packing companies in Washington State, Price Cold Storage and Packing Company. A fourth generation family business that's been in operation for nearly a century, Tyler is leading the company into the future with a state of the art facility, bold partnerships, and a relentless focus on quality. He's not just running a company, he's an industry leader, shaping the conversation around technology, food safety, and the next generation of talent through his role as Chairman of the Washington Apple Education Foundation. This is a story about innovation, scale, family business, and the kind of leadership it takes to perform on a global scale.Learn more about Price Cold Storage & Packing CompanyLearn more about Washington Apple Education Foundation Learn more about our Sponsor, BX

Steve Saunders has built businesses in almost every link in the horticulture chain - pre harvest, post harvest, branded produce, and innovative robotics. He's helped entrepreneurs, growers, scientists, and investors connect long before agricultural robotics even entered the picture. Now, Steve is most famed for his business, Robotics Plus, a company at the forefront in developing innovative robotics within the agriculture industry. He's helped to scale the business globally and has recently merged with Yamaha to form Yamaha Agriculture. This episode is about vision, culture, and the true grit behind turning orchard and agricultural problems into a global technology solution.More about Robotics PlusMore about our Sponsor, BX

Caine Thompson is Head of Sustainability at O'Neill Vintners and Distillers. A regenerative wine pioneer who is rewriting what sustainability looks like in viticulture, Caine is helping O'Neill steward their grapes toward a future where wine is not only world class, but also climate positive. He has become one of the most influential voices in regenerative wine. A New Zealand born viticulturist, he has also co-founded the global One Block Challenge, a program aimed at de-risking the transition to regenerative viticulture and enabling growers to implement regenerative practices in a secure way.In this episode host Ben Bardsley and Caine dig deep into the regenerative playbook, from turning a vineyard into a living lab to measuring soil health like a balance sheet, to scaling regenerative viticulture across thousands of acres on the west coast of the United States. Learn more about O'Neill Vintners & DistillersLearn more about O'Neill's Sustainability InitiativesLearn more about the One Block ChallengeLearn more about our Sponsor, BX

Paul Mikesell is a visionary technologist and a serial founder who has set up multiple billion dollar businesses. He is now proving that robotics, AI and farming can co-evolve and at scale. As the founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics he has built a company that is zapping billions of weeds without the need of herbicides, retrofitting tractors to be self-driving and redefining what productivity and sustainability mean on a farm. In this episode, we dig deep from pushcart prototype to a fleet eliminating 10 billion weeds globally, from pivoting product models to securing hundreds of millions in investment.This is not just AgTech, this is a system transformation!Learn more about Carbon RoboticsLearn more about our sponsor, BX

Michael (Mike) Roy is a farmer who leads a century-old hop farming business in Yakima, Washington and is one of the largest independent hop growers in the world. What started as a ten acre farm in 1907, Roy Farms is trusted among the smallest craft outfits to the largest brewery giants. This episode dives into Mike's journey in agriculture, the evolution of the hop industry, and the importance of sustainability and innovation in farming. Mike shares insights on navigating family business dynamics, partnerships in the industry, the impact of mental health in the day-to-day, leadership, and the potential future of the hop market. The discussion emphasizes the need for collaboration within the industry and the significance of community and relationships in achieving success.Learn more about Roy Farms: http://royfarms.com/

Austin Allred runs Royal Family Farms in Washington State, a 20,000 acre operation and home to the largest worm farm in the world. His 7.5 acre bio-filtration worm system processes nearly 400,000 gallons of wastewater every day, recycling into clean irrigation water. and producing valuable worm castings that go straight back into their soils. Royal dairy produces 90,000 gallons of milk and 70,000 pounds of meat every single day. They grow hundreds of thousands of tons of apples, peas, cherries, potatoes, and corn every year. From leaf to beef, Austin and his family have built a closed-loop system designed not just to feed people, but to regenerate the land.In this episode, we dig into how Austin is blending vision with execution, pioneering worm power treatment, designing zero waste dairy systems, applying technology for radical transparency, and leading people through cultural change. His story is about turning biology into an operating system and showing how the future of food will be built by not only visionaries, but by operators who can make it work day to day. This is not just about farming. This is the future of food production and bringing the world back into balance.