From Farm to 'Shark Tank:' One East Coast Dairy’s Eco-Friendly Pitch

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:58:58 GMT

In an unconventional yet charming spectacle, Amanda Freund, a Connecticut dairy farmer, packed her innovative spirit and two crucial items — a shovel and an inflatable cow costume — before heading west to make her vision a reality. Her destination: “Shark Tank,” where she aims to propel her creation, CowPots, into the mainstream.

Canaan View Dairy: The Beating Heart of Sustainability
Freund’s Farm, a diversified farm, with three farming enterprises, is not your average farm. Located on the bustling East Coast, their operation thrives on cutting-edge sustainability practices. Currently decked with 1,200 solar panels, the farm matches its own electricity needs through renewable energy. In fact, it boasts the longest continuously running methane digester in the country, turning biogas into another source of eco-friendly power.

(Amanda Freund)

Beyond merely generating power, manure from Canaan View Dairy serves multiple roles including transforming into fresh cow bedding and nutrient-rich fertilizer to sustainably grow crops. Perhaps its most innovative transformation, however, is into CowPots, biodegradable, plantable pots crafted from digested and composted manure, forming the backbone of Freund’s “Shark Tank” pitch.

A Revolution in Planting: The CowPots Story
CowPots emerged as a significant leap forward in eco-friendly innovation. These biodegradable staples are designed to turn composted manure into a planter for flowers and produce. This innovation ensures a sustainable cycle that supports the farm’s operations and enriches the community.

“We have been marketing CowPots for 18 years now, so we’re not a startup or new business like a lot of the entrepreneurs on the show,” she shares with Dairy Herd Management. “But as a small business, we have relied heavily on grassroots marketing. There have been a few exciting opportunities over the years, including features on “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe and a spotlight on the “Martha Stewart Show.” As with any product and all marketing, it’s an ongoing and continuous endeavor to have our product in front of prospective customers.”

(Amanda Freund)

Not just stopping at innovation, the CowPots are employed at Freund’s family retail store, Freund’s Farm Market & Bakery, where they foster the produce and flowers enjoyed by both the family farm and surrounding community through the vibrant summer months. This synergy embodies the sustainability ethos propelling Freund’s pitch on the national stage.

All Eyes on “Shark Tank”
Freund’s journey culminates on an episode of “Shark Tank” airing Friday, April 4, at 8 p.m. on ABC. The Sharks, renowned for offering entrepreneurial hopefuls like Freund an avenue to exponential growth, wield the power to elevate CowPots into a household name.

Believing strongly in her family’s dedication to environmentally sound farming, Freund steps into the tank with an unwavering goal: to secure a deal that could transform her family’s sustainable dream into national success. Freund shares that nothing was guaranteed from initial casting to filming, and whether her pitch would make it on the air was uncertain, but the potential of getting on that stage in the “Shark Tank” was an exciting new opportunity to showcase their products.

“In the two months leading up to filming, it was very time-consuming providing all the required details, financials, graphics and pitches needed for the show,” she shares. “And so, now that I’ve done all the work, and on April 4, all I have to do is sit back and watch as everyone else gets to see whether or not I made a deal. I’m really excited about that. I’m proud to be able to showcase the ingenuity and sustainability of dairy farms on a national stage.”

(Amanda Freund)

As Freund takes center stage on “Shark Tank,” her journey underscores the transformative power of ingenuity and farming rooted in sustainability. CowPots are more than a pitch, they are a testament to what the future of farming could embody. As this Connecticut dairy farmer makes her case, viewers nationwide will bear witness to an inspiring eco-friendly narrative unfurling in front of the Sharks. And who knows, perhaps by the end of the episode, they too will become part of this sustainable story.

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California Man Sentenced: An Unbelievable Multimillion-Dollar Cow Manure Scheme

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 20:54:41 GMT

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office, a California man has been sentenced to more than six years in prison due to his involvement in a nearly $9 million cow manure Ponzi scheme.

Ray Brewer, 66, of Porterville, and Sheridan, Montana, will serve prison time for running a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme where he claimed to turn cow manure into green energy, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

From 2014 through 2019, Brewer ran a scheme in which he claimed to be building anaerobic digesters at dairies in Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties in California, as well as in Idaho, prosecutors said.

Brewer’s investors were promised to receive 66% of all net profits, as well as tax incentives from Renewable Energy Credits. Brewer even took investors on tours of dairies where he said he was going to build the digesters and sent dairy owners forged lease agreements. The press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office shared that he also sent the investors altered agreements with banks that made it appear as though he had obtained millions of dollars in loans to build the digesters. He also sent fake pictures of the digesters under construction.

After doing all of that, the investor’s money went into several bank accounts, and Brewer spent it on himself, purchasing two 10-acre-plus plots of land, a 3,700 sq. ft. custom home and new Dodge Ram pickup trucks, authorities said.

Authorities shared that Brewer also kept his investors up to date on the non-existent construction with fake schedules, invoices, power generation reports and pictures.

Some investors received refunded money from Brewer, which he used from other investors’ money. Once Brewer’s investors realized the fraud and obtained civil judgments against him, he then moved to Montana and assumed a new identity.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General.

Brewer was indicted on 24 counts, which included wire fraud, money laundering and identity theft.

Digesters

From Farm to 'Shark Tank:' One East Coast Dairy’s Eco-Friendly Pitch

California Man Sentenced: An Unbelievable Multimillion-Dollar Cow Manure Scheme