Bone Broth 101: Collagen, Simple Ingredients & the Fascinating Story Behind Butcher’s Bone Broth with Thomas Odermatt
#22 Bone Broth 101: Collagen, Simple Ingredients & the Fascinating Story Behind Butcher’s Bone Broth with Thomas Odermatt
Today, we’re joined by a true craftsman of flavor, nutrition, and tradition - Thomas Odermatt. Known for his dedication to simple ingredients and time-honored cooking techniques, Thomas has built a reputation for transforming humble bones into some of the most nourishing bone broth on the market.
In this episode, we dive into the story behind Butcher’s Bone Broth, Thomas’s passion for clean ingredients, his philosophy on nourishment, and how he’s bringing old-world cooking into modern kitchens.
We’re also giving some tip s& tricks on how to incorporate bone broth into your meals and into kids meals too. Whether you’re a foodie, a health-conscious parent, or someone who simply loves a good origin story, you’re going to love this conversation!
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Thomas Odermatt
08:20 Growing Up in a Butchery Family
11:05 Transitioning to Organic Farming
13:57 The Journey to the US and Education
16:15 The Food Truck Experience
19:40 Building a Business from Adversity
22:16 Community and Farmers Markets
25:27 The Evolution to Bone Broth Manufacturing
28:27 Creating a Unique Product
31:32 Health Benefits of Bone Broth
34:39 Understanding Nutritional Value
37:18 The Importance of Collagen
42:45 The Power of Collagen and Bone Broth
45:29 Natural vs. Synthetic Collagen
48:01 Incorporating Bone Broth into Daily Life
53:06 The Importance of Sourcing and Quality
58:58 Taste and Quality of Bone Broth
01:04:38 Creative Uses for Bone Broth
Mentions
We didn’t mention these in the episode, but if you’re looking for some resources, these are great books to check out!
Nourishing Broth: An Old Fashioned Remedy for the Modern World
Transcript
Marguerite (05:31) Thank you so much for coming on our show today. Thomas Odermatt (05:35) welcome. Thank you both. Marguerite (05:37) We're excited to have you thrilled to have you on. you have a very interesting story. You're a third generation Swiss butcher and you have a master's degree in organic farming. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what it was like growing up in a traditional Swiss Swiss butchery family? Thomas Odermatt (05:54) Yeah, boy boy, when people ask me, well, are you really a farmer? I say, yep. And I can always prove it. My hands are really like farmer's Marguerite (06:04) Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (06:11) ⁓ So yeah, I worked all my life ⁓ with the hands and I love it. I like it. ⁓ Marguerite (06:11) You Thomas Odermatt (06:24) ⁓ I'm a hands-on kind of business person so to speak so not not really in the office that often it's not my favorite thing to do but it has to be in the size of my company but going back yeah I grew up in Switzerland had to tell you a little bit more about the perspectives of geographical perspective so about an hour and 15, an hour and a half to Milano, Italy, and about an hour and 15 to Zurich. So right in the middle, basically, I'm a citizen of a little town in, it's called Dallenville, that's on the, close to the San Gortardo area, but on the German side. Marguerite (06:59) Yeah. You've been there. Thomas Odermatt (07:20) So before you go through the big long tunnel, down to Italy, to Ticino, the Swiss Italian part and then into Italy. Grew up very simple. Give you a little stats. I have four brothers and four sisters. So we are a big family and that really shaped my upbringing. it's family is very, very important for me, very critical. And the food for feeding a big family is really not convenient food. It's really food that you have to make because you can get broke very quickly feeding 11 mouths. And the good thing is my parents were in the food business so therefore food was always around. But we never really, I mean, I've never eaten filet mignon or things like that. We ate simple, straightforward food, homemade, cooked. And really, you know, my business mantra to today is less is more. And that's how I grew up with not eating. You know, I never went to McDonald's. we didn't have clothes by McDonald's, we didn't have fast food, but I guess everything changed over time, but I grew up in a simple ⁓ household. in the butcher shop. We had a farm as well, a dairy farm. So we know how it tastes to drink raw milk. We never thought raw milk is bad until I learned that you have to have a pasteurized and I still think not really. Marguerite (09:17) Love that. Yeah, we agree. Thomas Odermatt (09:32) So not to be politically correct or incorrect, but you know, my grandfather said, and my grandmother used to say something I would say today, I almost cannot use it to say, but she said, you know, once a week, it's okay to eat your bread without washed hands. So, you know, in other words, we're eating way too sterile food. And that's what she kind of wanted to bring across. But not to go off topic, food has to be clean. That's when you make it. you know, as kids we were out in the field, we were out in everywhere and, you know, we probably didn't have the cleanest hands and I was barely sick. Marguerite (10:28) Because your body's just getting used to all those antibodies and germs creating antibodies to help protect you. Thomas Odermatt (10:29) So. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And so, yeah, so that's my background, my story. I love to be a farmer. And why is that? Because I really like to grow stuff. I like to experiment with growing, being on the field. It's to me, it's a daily experimentation. ⁓ Whether you're a daily farmer. whether you're a grain farmer or a vegetable farmer. It's an experiment. And yes, you learn out of the experiment and you building up your farming systems. you know, one of the thing that I really, I studied actually regular farming, I call it full speed farming, where you have fertilizer, chemical fertilizer and so on. And I saw that that's... really not going in the right direction, especially for a small dairy farm. So I wanted to really change it into organic. But in order to learn organic, I went back to school and I really studied the organic farming, organic movement in early 90s was just about to start and... Our town was a really unique town. We had a lot of dairy farmers and we had a lot of organic farmers. I think they are, so if you're working in an organic farm, it is very important that you have, you know, like, it's almost like an ecosystem. You need to, you alone cannot survive to make organic food. You need to have, your neighbor should be participating or at least he shouldn't come close with the fertilizer to your fields. it's farming is not only like what you pull out of the ground. It's also how you communicate with your neighbors, how you get along with your neighbors. And that's exactly what I learned in a big family. You kind of need to get along with everyone around you. And that's... when the food becomes actually better and good. So if you have a farm and next to you guys are really like Monsanto farmers, so to speak, doesn't work. You have to have an ecosystem with your neighboring farmer. Marguerite (13:19) That makes sense. So it's about community as well. Yeah. I think we've lost sight of that just a little bit here. Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (13:28) It is about community. so it's, you know, the question always becomes is why is Thomas in the US? What on earth is he doing that he left Switzerland? You know, I didn't leave Switzerland because I was fed up with Switzerland. I left Switzerland with the best memory I've ever had. It was great. It was perfect. But somehow... The family, my family, we are entrepreneurs and sometimes you're gonna have to branch out. And I'm the youngest, so I'm the most crazy as the gas and I branched out. I left the family and I came here to basically study English because I was working back home, You know, honestly, farming wasn't really making money. It was just a hobby and it was a hobby for my father and it was a good-sized farm. We could probably make money with it, but boy, boy, was it tough. And working in the butcher shop was also, I appreciated that, I liked it, but I'm not, you know, I... I'm not a shoebox kind of guy. I need to be outside. And so I felt like, man, what I'm gonna do? So I came into US and studied English and I was kind of bored. I needed something a little bit more challenging. So I kind of sneaked myself into UC Berkeley and the professor said, well, technically you're not allowed to be here. But. But I gave you a chance. So you just enroll yourself and UC Berkeley extension and then you can just sneak into my class because then we don't have a problem. It's UC, UC. So it's fine. So Marguerite (15:36) Awesome! Thomas Odermatt (15:37) so at UC Berkeley he said, you know, there's conditions that you can work with us. My class is all about entrepreneurship and that means you need to write a business plan. And the business plan has to be really professionally done and I will grade it, but only for you and not grading it to put them on the computers for everyone. So we went through that motion and I wrote a business plan about food truck because I saw that food trucks, unfortunately, they're always called road coaches. and I was wondering why are they roach coaches? So it happens to be that the law was actually making them roach coaches. The law didn't allow those immigrants, mostly immigrants who run those food trucks, to basically flourish within the food truck system, within the food system. So basically the truck could not park longer than... ⁓ 15 minutes they had to roll so therefore the truck was not able to cook nobody can cook in 15 minutes so what was it and they had to basically think out of the box and say okay we're gonna serve sandwiches on ice and you you probably have all seen those old food truck that just it's not that they wanted to serve bad food it's just the law allowed them only 15 minutes so And I remind you this is in 2002, 2001 when I studied that almost 25 years ago when I studied the food truck systems in the US and so it didn't I thought you know what there is there is a way to get around with all this thing. I took a lot of time to study the laws and the regulations and that's all. going back to the professor, he liked where I went with this food truck. He was disrupting the food truck industry, he was different. And so he said, well, the business plan looks actually really good and I hope you stay and I hope you're gonna open one. So that was the next challenge. So how do you fund a food truck out of ⁓ basically not a lot of money? Well. I asked my family to help me invest in a food truck. I made a deal with a German manufacturer to build me a food truck and we partnered on that and I got a food truck here. But a weeks in it, the darn truck got stolen for toy ride. Yeah. So no money, no debt. All of a sudden, got stolen. Marguerite (18:30) kidding. Thomas Odermatt (18:40) And I had a friend at that time and I said, hey, I'm out of business. said, cannot be. Yep. I got no truck. have nothing to do. So obviously I didn't write this in the business plan, but so he said, yeah, well, we have to call the media. We need to involve the media. So he reached out to San Francisco Chronicle. and they picked up that story. Chicken truck got stolen. So the chicken truck got stolen. Overnight, I basically, my little tiny student apartment became like a media center. Like cameras came and everybody was excited about that food truck and so on, but I still didn't have a food truck. 24 hours passed ⁓ later, the... The police officer from Richmond says, we found your food truck somewhere in Richmond. said, okay. So I went there and San Francisco Chronicle the second time on the front page said food truck found. So that food truck became that chicken truck became that Bay Area sensation. ⁓ so I went. Marguerite (19:58) Yeah, right. Yeah. The good thing is the press that you got in it. Thomas Odermatt (20:09) And so I went to pick up the truck and the truck was absolutely destroyed. It was not able to drive. The engine was basically taken out. But the grill, the cooking device was still good. So we loaded it up ⁓ on a flatbed, on a towing truck and pulled it into the kitchen, washed it up. And I had an event that night, scheduled. So in good old Swiss fashion, You never give up. You just go for it. So I told the towing truck company, you wait for an hour. I cleaned the truck, put new chickens in it, and you bring me down to Santana Row and I pay you for wait and I bring you back. And when we showed up in Santana Row, there was a long line. People waiting for that food truck. I'm like, this is insane. This is crazy. So anyway. fast forward, I built the business out of a tragedy and ⁓ I just kept on going. I built the business to six food trucks and every so often I had to ask myself, is it really scalable? Can I grow this business? Where do I want to go with this business? Marguerite (21:14) Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (21:34) A lot of consultants would say, go a restaurant, open a restaurant. I'm not a restaurant guy. I'm not. I'm... I'm a farmer, I'm a butcher. And my food truck was, until today, I still have those six food trucks. They're going only to farmers market. So, the 15 minute, I bypassed the 15 minutes by the regulation at the farmers market. The regulation says you have to be there from start to finish. So, and the farmers markets are, in the old days, regulated under the Ag commissioning. So, because I bought all ⁓ chickens from farmers locally, so I was becoming an Ag business basically. And so therefore at the farmers market, I was able to stay for five hours and didn't have to move the food truck every 15 minutes. So, so. Marguerite (22:44) That's great. That's awesome. Thomas Odermatt (22:46) Yeah. Marguerite (22:48) you know what I love about that too is not only did you build that on a tragedy, but also kind of what you spoke about earlier about your upbringing is also community that came out to support you when they were seeing in the newspapers all of that about what happened with your food truck. So that's really cool. Thomas Odermatt (23:04) Yeah, so that's, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, with that regulation in mind, I built the business on food, on farmers market and I'm very, very loyal. I'm still at the farmers market. In the best days, I did about 40 farmers market a week with just logistics and whatever. But again, Is this a concept I wanted to put into a fast casual? Not really. And here is the reason why. So I cook those chickens at the farmer's market and I only have four items on my food truck. So four menu items. I don't do more. And I consider those chickens as you take it home. Yes, it's convenience. but you can do whatever you wish to do. You can shred it apart, make a salad. You can make a quesadilla. You can make anything and it lasts you four, five, six meals. And it gives you also that bones. You can cook down those bones. You can make soup. So out of this one chicken, you can make a lot of meals. And that's my philosophy. Less is more. Use everything, use leftovers, use everything to make it really perfectly a meal for your family. And it's fun to shop at the farmers market with your family. gives you a lot of different creative ideas how to cook, to eat seasonal. because you're forced to buy seasonal at a farmer's market. And when you look at throughout the year, did a lot of studies on that, I don't spend a lot of money because I buy at the farmer's market. I spent the same as if I would go to a retail store. But I have... that farmer's connection, my produce lasts much longer, I cut out the middleman, I go straight to the source. So that's my business ideas and has always been. But now, of course, fast forward today, I'm a manufacturer. And why I'm a manufacturer is Again, I was not able to think the food truck as a scalability. So let's forget about the food truck. But with the food truck, there came additional businesses. Like I was catering a lot of time at Google, at Facebook. And they asked me, hey, can you cut us chicken the same as you do? Can you provide us really good chicken? Sure, I have a kitchen, I have a USDA kitchen, I built one for myself. And I started to cut them, you know, like little fresh chicken breasts and what have you. But at the end of the week, I was sitting sometimes at five, 10, 15,000 pounds of bones. Marguerite (26:54) Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (26:55) had no idea where to go with those bones. And so, because my upbringing, we don't throw things away, we're butchers. We use nose to tails. And we know what we can use and we know what we can utilize. So I called my brother and said, hey, you got an old tank, an old cooking tanks I can get. So we found one and we found actually three and I said, okay, take all three. And I started to cook bone broth. But the major difference to me and anybody else is I needed to get rid of those bones. And so my formula was never, never skimpy. The more I can pack into the tank, the better it is because then I don't need to worry about. leftovers again. So I reminded myself how my mother made the bone broth, how my mother cooked the bones from what we had leftover and she sold it in the store and we also ate every day a soup. That part of our meal, whether it's at 30 degrees Celsius outside or minus 30 degrees, we ate soup, no matter what. Part of our meal was a soup. and And so I started to make that bone broth in the beginning. I called it the stock. I had no idea that it's called bone broth. And I made that bone broth and the first one I packed in an old... in milk chocks that had a handle on it like the gallon chock in plastic, but they were only 32 ounces or like the juice chock that you can see. And I packed them in there and I brought it to Berkeley Ball and he says, well, I would like to try to sell it at the butcher counter. And I'm like, aha, that's like the old days. So. Marguerite (28:55) Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (29:17) A few days later he calls me up and says, you got more of that stuff? And I said, yeah, sure. How much more? Well, I wanted like about 200 bottles. I'm like, no. So I thought, hey, this is something different. So he wants that product. Maybe somebody else wants that product. So I started to think, you know, what's next? How can I grow? Marguerite (29:29) you. Thomas Odermatt (29:48) And what's next was very critical is that I started to... I learned to understand what customers want with my product and what is it good for. So I said, okay, it starts with the packaging. So I came up with the idea of a small, almost Italian milk bottle from the fifties. So I kind of copied that, made a little tweaks. And that's the bottle you see today. It's unique. It's different. ⁓ Marguerite (30:31) I like it. Me too. Yeah, it's nice. Thomas Odermatt (30:33) Thank you. The major point here is that I am very, very consistent in what I do because I always remember that we had a little salt on our table to season ourselves. So I said, my bone broth cannot have any single ⁓ salt. So how do I do that? Well, long cooking, very clean process and really less ingredients. So just water, bones and carrot. A lot of bones, of course. Yes, and over time I also learned or I knew that all day long, I have allergens, various allergens. Marguerite (31:17) very simple. Thomas Odermatt (31:32) And I said to myself, well, if I have allergens, most likely a lot of other people do have allergens. So I did most likely the hardest thing for a food manufacturer to do. I said to myself, I want to have a facility with zero allergens. Out of the nine allergens, I want to have nothing to do with those allergens. Marguerite (32:00) I love it. Thomas Odermatt (32:02) So today I can say my product is made in an allergen free facility and therefore I'm very proud to be able to continue that journey because it's intentional. It's intentional for me. It's intentional for other customers out there who are suffering certain things and quite frankly when people say well Thomas you're so big yes I am became a little bit bigger than I was before but my baseline are remain the same lots of bones absolutely no allergens in my facility and no salt ever ever in the base product So I'm just very intentional of what I do with always the layer of never forget where you come from. Marguerite (33:16) That's wonderful. I think everything you're saying is perfect. love less is more, right? Don't waste anything, nose to tail. That's perfect. I think it's really interesting how you came up with and started the bone broth business, you know, based off your previous business. I myself just recently found out I had a pretty severe celiac allergy. So my label reading and looking at ingredients and process and cooking when I'm out and about, ⁓ looking at all of that has become a paramount to me and it is just a breath of fresh air to see companies like yours. They're out there, no allergens, clean cooking services, know, using the right materials and keeping everything safe and you've got all nine covered. So that's, that's wonderful. Did you, were you always aware of the health benefits of bone broth? It sounds like your family was either from just knowing that there's extra nutrients that you might need, but did you always know the science of it? Thomas Odermatt (34:16) You know, as kids, sometimes I was a rebellious kid. Why do we need to eat soup every day? And my mother said the same thing every day. Well, if you don't want to eat it, you will suffer later on. So it's up to you. And I'm like, that's a pretty Marguerite (34:39) Yeah, she's pointing at me. That's what we tell our kids too, right? It's not gonna, you're not gonna feel good immediately, but long-term you're gonna be in a lot better shape. Thomas Odermatt (34:47) So I think it's awesome, Margaret. Go for it. So, you know, I thought, you know, I mean, yeah, okay, we just eat that soup. Same as yesterday or maybe same as last week, but it's... Marguerite (34:52) Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (35:08) I think I was not aware, but today I am fully aware. I am extremely aware. I do eat soup, bone broth every day. I typically make myself a bone broth tea at night. So like I sip a cup of broth with, you know, chamomile. Marguerite (35:15) Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (35:37) put a little bit of chamomile in it and I kind of like it. I do add a little salt. You know, I think salt is one of those things that is overused, but we do need it. And I think, again, a very good salt comes a long way and you don't need a lot, like a gray sea salt or any of those. really good high quality salts are essential, crucial and important but driven by the individual not the generalization of the food manufacturing beliefs. I want to add flavor because so that you don't recognize my product is not flavorful, salt is flavorful. So I don't I don't believe in telling stories to people that are not true. The story of a product has to be reality, has to be quality, has to be driven forward. And to your point, yes, I'm aware of bone broth. It does help me in a way that... have a much healthier gut nowadays. I am much more agile. I'm just more aware of my surrounding. Is it the bone broth? Not necessarily. It's just cautious how I eat. I really don't like takeout food. I don't. I don't eat out that often. I eat... There is nothing wrong with biting into an apple in the afternoon ⁓ or a fruit just as a snack. Sometimes also good to have a little bit of chocolate. That's perfectly fine as long as it's, you know, like a dark chocolate, something like that. So indulge yourself, but just eat less. Marguerite (38:02) Mm. Thomas Odermatt (38:13) And just the... You know, we just... We all eat too much. We all eat too much crap. We all eat too much because we're all in hurry. We're all in this sogoff. He told me convenience food is good. not necessarily. It's not necessarily always good. ⁓ Marguerite (38:39) Yeah. Well, the good thing about bone broth is it's so nutrient dense. So you can get so many nutrients just from like one serving. do you think, would you be able to, for someone who's new to bone broth, would you be able to break down how it supports gut health and immunity from a holistic nutrient standpoint? Thomas Odermatt (39:01) absolutely, absolutely. So again, there are a lot of bone broths out there. And let's start with the three ⁓ known factors of bone broth. So there is the aseptic packaged ⁓ bone broth in the middle of the store, which is typically in a brick tetrapack, ⁓ highly ⁓ industrialized, a lot of sugar, a lot of salt or sugar, you know, depends on the brand. And then the second one is the frozen one. Frozen is good, it's okay, it's just when you look under the microscope it never comes back together. And then there is the one that you make at home. That is the best bone broth there is. So I cut myself out because I'm like you. My bone broth is like a homemade bone broth. But I want everyone, every listener of you both to know that they should make their own bone broth at home. It's the best you can make. It's very, very emotional. And it actually creates a smell in the house. ⁓ that your kids, my kids, will remember for the rest of their lives. It's that really good, deep, roasted smell that's almost... I don't like the word umami, but it's this... It's such a soothing, great flavor. So... I make a bone broth that is highly in protein, high in collagen. I cook it for a long, long time. Now, bone broth, when it's broken down, has a lot of amino acids. Amino acids are extremely important for us. Amino acids are proteins. Usually we say the foremost, there's a lot of amino acids in the bone broth, but we're talking about the foremost prevalent amino acids. So breaking them down will actually help your gut as a leaky gut or your lining because collagen is our elastomer. We all produce collagen. So when you have a teenager or whatever, they falling off the bike on the road, they stand up and they just shake themselves and they're good to go. If you and I falling down on the bike, different story. Correct. We might hurt ourselves more with the same impact. Marguerite (42:07) Hmm, different story. Thomas Odermatt (42:16) Why is that? Because our body as a younger age reproduces a lot more collagen that we are needing. So we are a collagen producing machine in the youth. However, when we get older, we're no longer. So how do we get away with that? Well, we either change our lifestyle and not going to be on that skateboard any longer, or we're going to get additional help with collagen. So there are synthetic collagens, which I won't talk about it because this exceeds my capacity of knowledge, but I can talk about the bones, the bone broth. So how do we get collagen into a bone broth? It's very simple. We talked earlier on in the butcher shop, you have a lot of leftover. You have wing tips in the chicken. You got knuckles. Knuckles are a high source of collagen. Chicken skin, extremely a lot of collagen. And then we got the feet, the paws. collagen. So all those elements create collagen, create that gut health, create those amino acids that you need. And of course drinking every day a cup of Pombra will not help you to run down the street with a skateboard. But at least in as we get older, we are creating additional movements with collagen. So we are not as pain, it's not as painful when we fall down. We might break something, but still not. So that's the magic of collagen. And bone broth is one of the natural source that we have nowadays that will create that for us. Marguerite (44:28) Yeah. I always say that, ⁓ sorry. I always say like too, when people are talking about collagen, I'm like, a collagen supplement, I'm like really bone broth is the best way to get collagen. It's the most natural and best way for that to happen over than a processed powder. Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (44:43) That is all. Go ahead, please. 100 % and again, process powder. Collagen has one thing that we don't know. It's highly heat sensitive. So when we are packing bone broth in that brick, we're heating it over the boiling point. Collagen does not like the boiling point below. Has to be below. So... Marguerite (45:29) Okay. That explains why it's not jelly. Yeah, I was just thinking with all the, you know, the, the growing research and gut health, right. And all the wellness influencers out there promoting it and people are much more interested in there's tons of products now that you can find that are promoting, you know, that bone broth and collagen is so good for you, which I think is great, but there's probably a lot to look out for too in that regard. ⁓ so that was going to be one of my questions was, what do you tell somebody who's living still in that convenient world, right? They want the fast food and fast results, so they're taking the collagen supplements. How would you explain to them the difference between those supplements and bone broth as the delivery system for collagen? I suppose it would be that it's more of a whole food, but are there also toxins that are added in the supplements or they're prevalent there that wouldn't be in a bone broth? Thomas Odermatt (46:28) Yeah, you know, there's a lot of saying out there. Well, bones bones do have heavy metals and stuff like that. It all depends. Look, I think in a real bone broth, if it's sourced organically, if it's source regeneratively formed, or if it's organic and cross-fac, cross-finish or free range, the Marguerite (46:40) Okay. Thomas Odermatt (46:58) likelihood to have heavy metals in bone broth absolutely zero. We test every two months for heavy metal because that's what we have to do or I personally wanted to know it but for a person who believes in synthetic or powders or like other things I would say his product is probably better than nothing. So I would say continue with what you know, but do maybe a little research around collagen and wait for me please until I have full distribution around the United States. Marguerite (47:52) Yeah, perfect. Hey, you were around our area. I actually saw your bone broth and sprouts. Yeah, it's wonderful. For people who are new to bone broth, what are some simple ways to incorporate it into their everyday routine? Thomas Odermatt (48:01) So, good. Well, so, maybe a few words of not so nice language, but... Pombra around the world is your health elixir. In Italy, they call it Italian Benicillin. The old nun says, it's Italian Benicillin. My grandmother says, my, it's Swiss medicine. It's the real medicine. A Jewish person says it's Jewish penicillin. Filipino says it's tinalo medicine. I think there's truth to be said about bone broth's health. Especially chicken. Beef is okay, but it's tough. I have to fix my beef broth. I don't like... to drink beef broth. It's too strong, it's too grassy, it's too grass fed. But if I add a little bit salt to it or a little bit of jalapenos or whatever, it tastes good. And it definitely beef has humongous health benefits, the beef bone broth. And I think, look, for people who are new to the bone broth, I go back, look. When I scale my bone broth, what would you rate your bone broth? I would say I'm probably nine in overall. But I'm still probably one of the best there because I really don't shortcut on the bone broth. But the one that gets 10 is the one you make yourself. Your biggest challenge unfortunately is where do you get those feet? Where do you get the skin? Where you get the wing tips and all these things that make a really good bone broth. That is the distribution's challenge. We have forgotten that the buyers of any store, retail store, forgot you. He doesn't understand. the intention of his customer. And I am here. I think if you cannot make your bone broth, I'm helping you. I got it. And when you look at bone broth, I think if you make it yourself, it's jiggly. It's full of collagen. Marguerite (50:43) Well said. You got us. Thomas Odermatt (51:08) Mine is the same. has collagen, it's jiggly. And as I say, a good bone broth, you just look at it and it says, judge it by the jiggle. So it's like the proof is in the Correct. And, and, that's exactly what I want. I want that jiggle rating. And because your bone broth at home. Marguerite (51:23) Yeah, I saw you have a have a jiggle rating on some of your products, right? Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (51:36) Chickles. Look at that turkey soup. That once you take those turkey bones and you make that turkey, it jiggles because you used everything. You used the knuckle bones, everything, the whole carcass. And so you can add a little bit chicken feet to it. It gets really, really collagen rich and jiggly. And I think what consumers should look for, they should. you know, experiment whether bone broth is for them or not. And I think what you both are doing is exactly what we need to do. We need to talk consciously about our food, our food intake. We need to fully be aware of allergens. We need to be aware of less is more. We need to be aware of not only food, but talk about food. I, for instance, in no matter how busy I am, I have one principle, dinner with family. No cell phone, no TV. I don't have a TV, but just no distraction. 50 % of our health comes through communication. comes through socializing. And what's better than socializing over great homemade food? Nothing. That's the best. Marguerite (53:15) I at all. food is medicine. So I do have a question about sourcing. So for listeners who are new to bone broth, could you explain what makes the source of the bone so important? If they're grass fed, sustainable, humanely raised animals, those types of things. Thomas Odermatt (53:35) Yeah, so ⁓ very, very good question. ⁓ We only source organic because I know a thing or two about organic farming. Marguerite (53:48) Does that mean that the chickens or anything, cattle, anything, are they ⁓ fed organic feed? And then obviously grass fed. Thomas Odermatt (53:55) Yes, absolutely. So they are typically from smaller family farms. They're not humongous industrial farms out there. They're not the four big ones in the meat business. ⁓ For the chicken, organic. ⁓ Absolutely no animal byproducts. So grain, fat, and then access to outdoors. is very important. It gives healthier bones, stronger bones, more robust bones. The chickens are also lived a longer life. Beef, the same thing. What you really want is grass-fed, grass-finished. That is important. So organic grass-fed, grass-finished is critical. So I have relationships with the Sierra farming community from the California Sierra Nevada, the range where rangeland is from the from the central valley going up into the into the mountains. It's rangeland. Those cattle are grazing out there. And what's very important to me personally is also those animals are grass finished and not grained finish. So what they have eaten all their life will never change. It will be grass and grass. And that's critical. And again. Marguerite (55:36) glad that you mentioned that. I'm glad you mentioned that because I feel like a lot of people are like, yes, grass fed. ⁓ but a lot of people don't realize grass finished is really important too. Thomas Odermatt (55:50) very very important. So it's an emotional subject but the animals should have a really good life at the time they are around us and they should be treated with respect. They should be treated with craftsmanship because I expect my farmer to be a craftsman because I believe I'm a craftsman. I am not your industrial manufacturer. want really to be, I have huge integrity, product integrity. have, and I'm not just saying that, I rather not fill a kettle with bones if I cannot stand behind my bones. So what is it? It's the... relationship I build, the trust, the value we have, the integrity the product has, the integrity I have, my hands have integrity because I've worked all my life with the hands and I don't want to shortcut a product that just does not have any more this nutritional value that I promised and I wanted to deliver to all of us. Marguerite (57:26) Agreed. I think it's really important too for ⁓ even like harvesting and everything needs to be respectful because energy passes. It stays in that food. And if an animal is very stressed when they're harvested, that energy can transfer into you when you're eating their food, in my opinion at least. ⁓ Yeah. Thomas Odermatt (57:43) You are 100 % right. I personally also, because I have relationship, I don't buy meat in grocery stores any longer. I'm buying it direct from the farmer. I prefer to have a ranch harvest as the stress in the animal and less stressful. Marguerite (57:55) Yeah, same here. Thomas Odermatt (58:13) and more just, gosh, I really want to support my food source, my food community. And yeah, maybe I'm a little selfish, but I think it's important that we are going back to eat less, talk more about food, have a good time on the dinner table and really enjoy. the moment of food, even when we are talking to the farmer. Marguerite (58:48) Yes. I wanted to know if there's a difference with taste between, bones or if it was just conventional? the differences with the taste? Thomas Odermatt (58:58) Oh, you put me on the spot. I think I could. I am pretty confident that I could. How so? I think a good, dense pomegranate has a mouthfeel. It's full of... It just feels full. It has a mouthfeel, has a good bite. It lingers. And a really good palm breath with high collagen is... It almost sticks your lip together and when you touch it with your finger, it glues. I mean, they make glue out of collagen. So you know that company, but it should glue you almost together. That's the mouth feel. That's what is that. Boy, boy, is it rich. Boy, boy, is it healthy. And that's when you can say, if it's... a regular bone broth, and you heat it up and it immediately kind of feels colder in the back of your mouth, you know that's more water because collagen remains the heat. It doesn't like the boiling, but it consistently, so you have a much more density. Water is not as dense, so water can get colder quicker or it feels colder versus a bone broth lingers back and it's warm and it also comes down warm. That's a quality that I'm looking for when I taste bone broth. And quite frankly, every batch we do, we do cupping. Like in the coffee industry, we sip. Marguerite (1:01:04) Okay. To test and make sure. Okay. I love that. Okay. So yes, we do have a game and it's called, it's called the five second flavor challenge butchers bone broth edition. And so we're going to name five real life food scenarios and you have five seconds to answer how you would use butcher's bone broth in that moment. Thomas Odermatt (1:01:10) Alright. Marguerite (1:01:27) All right. So the first one is make a boring chicken breast exciting. Thomas Odermatt (1:01:33) ⁓ pan sauce with bone broth. So, and then go back and add a little butter to it. Marguerite (1:01:42) That actually sounds really good. Yeah, it does. Great answer. Good answer. A cozy movie night snack. What's quickest way to sneak in some bone broth? Thomas Odermatt (1:01:52) Alright, heat it up in a pan, put it in a cup, in a mug, your most favorite mug, add a little bit of cinnamon or chamomile and just make sure when you drink it, hold your hand around it because it's really good. Marguerite (1:02:07) I love it. Make it cozy. All right. It's 11 o'clock PM at night and you're starving. What do you make with bone broth? Thomas Odermatt (1:02:10) You ⁓ good. Bone broth and a little bit of salt and a little bit of jalapeno, but not too much. Marguerite (1:02:29) Nice. Sounds good. How about a post-workout recovery meal? Thomas Odermatt (1:02:35) I take beef broth, ⁓ as beef broth has more density, has a higher protein, and I need to ⁓ recover that one feels to me the best. Marguerite (1:02:48) Good one. And serve someone who says they don't like bone broth. What's your dish? Thomas Odermatt (1:02:56) Get out of the house. Marguerite (1:02:57) Yeah, I love it. Get out of here. I love it. You know what's a good recipe is my daughter, my three-year-old daughter. loves, ⁓ it's a hot cocoa made with bone broth. really good. You can't even tell. Thomas Odermatt (1:03:13) ⁓ so. You are the first who got to know it. I'm working around bone broths with flavour. And again, you have heard me saying, ⁓ it's not too bad to eat a little bit of chocolate as long as it has no sugar and so Marguerite (1:03:22) Nice! Thomas Odermatt (1:03:34) Your daughter and me, we're best friends. Marguerite (1:03:39) ⁓ She can be your taste tester. ⁓ Thomas Odermatt (1:03:43) And you know, that's exactly what it is. Bone broth is a base. It's a base for good food, ⁓ just for nourishing and for, you know, sneaking some flavors in it that, you know, we think hot chocolate just has to have water. No, no, no, no, no. She's on the way to become like something special. And we need that. We absolutely need that. Marguerite (1:04:15) Yes. And a little bit of raw milk doesn't hurt either. glass of hot cocoa, right? Thomas Odermatt (1:04:20) No, no, my lord. Marguerite (1:04:26) Well, that's idea. You want to learn or teach them how to incorporate little things like that here and there with just the normal food that they might be having or even having with friends one night or something like that later in life. Yeah, exactly. It's perfect. Thomas Odermatt (1:04:26) Thanks. Yeah, and you know, speaking about milk, it's also very important that you're looking for a grass-fed grass-finished milk so that yellow butter, it's really, really good for you. It's really healthy. And milk, a little bit of yellow butter and, you know, a good salt on it into a beef broth. It's extremely good, extremely good. And... And that's Health Pure. Marguerite (1:05:12) Yeah. So as you experiment with different flavors or however with any recipe, are there any that you've come up with that are just no good? Thomas Odermatt (1:05:24) Yeah, you know, I tried a lot of recipes with, you know, citrus based, like lemon, vervina, and so on. And it's just, they're good when they're hot, but when the tea gets a little bit colder, it just gets a little bit funky mouth feel. ⁓ One of, it's a classic in my world. I think one of the best pairing, is turmeric and ginger. That is really, really a pleasant taste, a pleasant pairing. You know, also like Japanese seven spice, like shishimi, that really nice beautiful that they put over rice in a Japanese restaurant. That one goes very, very well with bone broth. It just kicks in flavor that's... very unique, very exotic in a way and I like that. Marguerite (1:06:25) That's a great idea. It is. Yeah, that's a good idea. So where can everybody find you on social media, your website, any stores that you're in around the country? Thomas Odermatt (1:06:42) Yeah, so on social media, we are now going by the name butchers.co. So we are trying to be active there. In fact, for the first time, we hired a marketing person. We never had a person. We grew the business out of nothing because again, I'm a butcher. I'm a farmer. We don't have investors. We... Marguerite (1:06:57) ⁓ wow, congrats. Thomas Odermatt (1:07:11) invest everything I make, I invest back in the business. I grow it organically. And I am became the number one bone broth manufacturer in the fresh segment in the United States. I can, and what that means is, is really, I think it's a testament to the quality to what we do and Marguerite (1:07:26) It's so awesome. Thomas Odermatt (1:07:35) It's a difficult thing to hire the people who believe in the vision and mission I have, but once they understand it, it's interesting. I had one guy who was not so healthy physically, and he had never heard of bonbrave. He never drunk bonbrave. And today I think he takes the most bonbrave home. Perfectly fine with me. So where can you find us? You can find us in sprouts whole foods nationwide in the East Coast ⁓ Publix and Now for the first time as of next week. We are in all eight Costco's around the nation and As you all know Costco provides you value It is a financial value. It's Marguerite (1:08:03) Good for him. Wow, that's great. So giant bottles. ⁓ Thomas Odermatt (1:08:32) No, no, bottles, two bottles and I don't know how they do it. ⁓ Marguerite (1:08:44) I love it. That's great. That's very good to know too for people because a lot of people love their Costco. It's definitely true. Yeah. No. Thomas Odermatt (1:08:50) There's nothing wrong with it. I think they serve a very, very good purpose. And they're a good partner to us. They're a phenomenal partner and it's beautiful. And everybody else is a good partner. One of my favorite partner is AGB in Texas and Publix in Florida. They're just... Marguerite (1:08:58) I do too, I love Costco. Thomas Odermatt (1:09:18) They're somewhat family owned and they're just plugging along and they really know their community and that's what's important. It's a retailer who knows its community and Costco knows the community they serve to. Marguerite (1:09:36) Right. ⁓ that's good. Well, we want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Yes. Thomas Odermatt (1:09:42) Thank you both.
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Thomas Odermatt is a farmer, butcher, and entrepreneur dedicated to honoring the land, the animals, and time-tested traditions. Raised in his family’s award-winning butcher shop in San Gottardo, Switzerland, he learned the craft of rotisserie from his parents and the importance of sourcing select, free-range meats from trusted family farms.
After earning a master’s degree in organic farming in Zürich and continuing his studies at UC Berkeley, Thomas launched Roli Roti in 2002, America’s first gourmet rotisserie food truck. Guided by a nose-to-tail philosophy, he later created Butcher’s Bone Broth, an organic, fresh bone broth made with care, patience, and integrity. Today, his broth is available in over 10,000 stores nationwide, including Costco, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Publix.
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