Why we are starting Rocky Mountain Clean Scores

I grew up on the farmlands in the eastern part of the Netherlands, where goats, sheep, horses and chickens roamed on our land. As a young boy, I had my own chicken, named Spikkel, who ate from my hand. Her eggs were delicious. 

Joost and Spikkel around 1980 in the Netherlands

Now, some 40 years later, having followed life's many twists and turns, i live in Boulder, Colorado with my family. Once again, we have chickens who eat from our kids’ hands. 

Like many lucky backyard chicken owners, i always felt that raising chickens and growing  food in your own backyard was a healthy choice, in a life full of uncertainty about pollution, with health risks lurking everywhere. A treasured safe and clean spot in a dangerous world. 

When i first heard the story that backyard chicken eggs were among the most risky and possibly dangerous foods, because of PFAS accumulating in chicken and eggs, i rapidly went through the first stages of grief: denial and anger.

At first i could not believe that our treasured chickens were a possibly significant source of food hazard in our backyard. After looking into the specifics in more detail, my disbelief turned into anger. PFAS is everywhere, doesn't break down, and has been making its way into the food supply, and apparently has a narrow but strong pathway into chickens and their eggs. 

I haven't left the phase of being infuriated, and expect to be stuck there until i find a way to help fix this problem.

So what to do now? Being an entrepreneur, having started two online travel businesses, my mind started going to possible solutions. 

I contacted a number of food labs, all of whom turned me down or ghosted me. Apparently US food labs don't work with consumers, only companies. 

Victor and Buffala in Boulder Colorado, April 2025

My son Victor shared my frustration and wanted to help. 

This is why we started this company. We want to test our backyard eggs. And we want to make testing available to any backyard chicken owner who wants to know whether their eggs are safe or contaminated. Once we have a good testing solution, we want to work on fixing the problem. We have some ideas on how we can make our backyard clean and proteced. We also want to focus on the bigger problem of preventing PFAS from entering the environment in the first place, and hopefully help find ways to clean up the PFAS that's already there. And we might focus on other chemical hazards such as EDCs as well. 

We are ready to start this fight and will document our progress in this blog.