Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Clean Labels and Clear Vision: Brian Fox on Responsible Food Manufacturing | Manufacturing Series

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Clean Labels and Clear Vision: Brian Fox on Responsible Food Manufacturing | Manufacturing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today's guest is Brian Fox, CEO
0:31
of Richelieu Foods, a private brand and contract packing food
0:35
company that was founded all the way back in 1862.
0:39
It has a rich history in producing retail frozen and deli
0:43
pizza. They are widely known in the
0:45
food and supermarket industry for their superior array of
0:48
private brand products. Headquartered in Illinois with
0:52
three manufacturing facilities across the Midwest, they are an
0:55
equal opportunity employer who does not discriminate.
0:59
They also provide reasonable accommodations to disabled
1:02
individuals. Brian himself has a long and
1:05
storied career in the food business.
1:07
He's been involved in providing nourishing food at a variety of
1:10
companies going all the way back to the early 90s.
1:13
He has proven himself as a skilled operator and someone who
1:16
can turn around a struggling business.
1:18
But what really gets him excited is being able to introduce
1:21
helpful innovations and improvements to the food
1:24
industry. And we'll get to hear some
1:26
examples of that. Now before we get into all the
1:28
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
1:32
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To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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AD back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
1:59
CEO of Rishaloof Foods, Brian Fox.
2:01
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
2:05
Well, thank you for having me, Anthony.
2:07
I'm I'm looking forward to, to talking a little bit about our,
2:11
our company and, and the things that we've been able to achieve
2:14
and, and frankly my passion for the food business.
2:16
I love it. It's just it's so much fun.
2:19
It is so dynamic. I don't know anybody that has
2:25
been in the food business, which some people kind of go, that
2:28
sounds a little boring. It's not as sexy as developing a
2:31
new app or, or something else. But to me it, it touches people
2:36
every single day in every single household in in the US and
2:42
that's kind of hard to be. So that's part of what makes it
2:45
fun for me. That's really cool.
2:49
Yeah. You've had already a long and
2:51
storied career in the food manufacturing space going back
2:56
all the way to 1990. So we're looking at 34 years.
2:59
So I want to break this first question into two parts.
3:03
First of all, what drew you into the food industry in the 1st
3:07
place? And then second part is what led
3:11
you to Richelieu in particular. Great.
3:15
Great question. Thanks.
3:17
Look, I will tell you what grew me into the food business in the
3:20
1st place is really, really simple.
3:22
I needed a job and as, as I was graduating, you know, I, I grew
3:29
up in North Carolina, you know, to, to hard working parents and,
3:35
and they kind of put the, the standard for me said, OK, when
3:39
college was over, you know, the, the nest is, the nest is empty.
3:43
So you need to make sure that you're working hard to get, get
3:46
something in place for you. And the, the thought of it was,
3:50
was kind of a crazy story. And I'll tell you that.
3:53
And I was, I went to UNC Charlotte, a great school in
3:58
part of the UNC school system in Charlotte, NC.
4:03
And I got the job through an on campus interview and I was sick
4:08
as a dog. I was just, I felt terrible.
4:12
I called up the job placement. I had signed up.
4:16
I signed up for as many interviews as people would talk
4:20
to me. So I kind of was like, OK, the
4:22
more I do interviews, the better I will be at it.
4:25
So I will talk to as many people that will talk to me.
4:28
And that was kind of my mindset because I thought I can learn in
4:32
the process and and hopefully improve.
4:36
And you kind of, you know, you reflect on an interview and you
4:38
kind of go, well, we could have done that differently.
4:40
But anyway, that was kind of the mindset.
4:42
So I was terribly, terribly sick.
4:45
I called the campus interview office up and I said, look, I
4:47
cannot make the interview today. I could barely get out of bed.
4:51
And they were like, OK, well, here's the deal.
4:53
You're going to have to write a letter to the Dean.
4:55
You're going to have to apologize to the company you.
4:58
And by the way, we may pick you out of the process to where you
5:02
can't do anymore on campus interview.
5:05
And I was like, Oh my God, you have to be kidding me.
5:08
So I was like, I, I struggled, you know, to pull myself
5:12
together, put, put on a suit, went to the went to the
5:16
interview and, and, and did the interview and literally went
5:20
back to the, my apartment and went right back to bed.
5:24
And I think I ended up and missed about a week of school
5:26
because I was just, I was terribly sick.
5:30
And lo and behold, the next day they called me up and said, Hey,
5:33
we're, we're still in town. We'd like to spend another, you
5:37
know, hour or two with you. And so again, I still feel
5:39
horrible. Got up, went to the interview
5:42
and, and, and that was the start of being in the food business.
5:46
You know, it, it was a company that I'd never heard of in, in
5:50
North Carolina called Great Lakes, please.
5:52
And I kind of thought, OK, food companies, you know, as, as you
5:56
interview with them, you, you learn a little bit and just kind
5:59
of go, OK, I think, I think I can do this.
6:01
I think it can be interesting. And lo and behold, went through
6:05
the process, got a job and, and, and found out that I really
6:09
enjoy it. And, you know, I would say I was
6:13
lucky to land there and, and find something that I, you know,
6:22
you know, that clicked with my personality and, and who I am.
6:27
And So what were you really drawn to?
6:29
Was it the sales aspect of it? Was it something in particular
6:33
about food? Yeah, I would think, I think it
6:38
was the sales aspect of it. I think it was the fact that it
6:41
was a smaller company at that point in time.
6:44
And, and I kind of my point of view on a small company versus a
6:49
really large company was, hey, with a smaller company, I may
6:52
have more opportunities to do things outside of just a sales
6:58
role. And that absolutely played
7:01
itself out. So I, you know, I'm a
7:02
salesperson in the Southeast and, you know, back in 1990, we
7:08
didn't have YouTube and all those good things.
7:10
And so we said, Hey, we need, we need a video to kind of, you
7:15
know, film a video on who our company is, because we still
7:18
weren't, you know, widely known. And I kind of raised my hand and
7:23
I said, I can, I couldn't do this.
7:26
So I, I hired a, a video production company and, and we
7:30
got a scope, a scriptwriter from Coke.
7:34
We, we got a cameraman from CNN and, and a video production
7:39
company and, and for $100,000 we drove around the country for,
7:45
for two weeks filming at all of our production sites.
7:48
And we came back and after about a month and created a 8 or 9
7:53
minute video out of 100 hours of film.
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And, and we took that around to customers.
8:01
We would walk in, you know, plug it into the VCR at the customers
8:06
and in eight or 9 minutes people would kind of go, oh, OK, I
8:09
don't know who you are to oh, I kind of like what you guys
8:13
represent. And it really opened the door
8:16
and I've got a chance to do that because it was a small company.
8:20
I probably wouldn't have gotten a chance to do that in a really
8:22
large company. Nothing gets really large
8:25
companies, but you know, they tend to be more structured and
8:29
rigid in how the roles work and in the small company.
8:33
That's just fun to me because I was like, not only do I get to
8:38
kind of do my job that I like, but I kind of get the stress and
8:41
do these other things. And, and frankly, Anthony, that
8:45
was a little bit of how I built my career to get to where I am
8:50
today was raise your hand, be willing to do a little more, be
8:55
willing to stress myself into areas that I wasn't comfortable
9:00
to do and learn through that process.
9:03
And so I, you know, kind of raised my hand for a lot of
9:07
things throughout my career that allowed me to learn more and,
9:11
and be broader in, in knowledge base and not just deep in one
9:16
area. So, yeah, there's, there's a, a
9:19
theme here that I think is really fun to dive into a little
9:23
bit because, you know, I'm, I'm hearing you say, hey, you know,
9:26
I was just graduating college. I didn't know how this whole job
9:30
interview thing was going to go. I, I just, I signed up for as
9:33
many interviews as I could, figuring I'll learn from this.
9:37
Like you went in with this curiosity that says, I'm not
9:41
going to get a job offer from everybody, but how many of these
9:44
can I do so that I can learn so that I can refine my skills so I
9:48
can get better? And then what's interesting is
9:50
you got a job offer from one that, you know, you went into
9:54
just on the verge of death, so sick and still you put on it,
9:58
you know, a good enough appearance that you know, they
10:01
hey, the next day, hey, we, we want to meet with you again.
10:04
And then, you know, this is a theme that carries on into after
10:07
you, you know, got your first job.
10:09
It's like, you know, you didn't have any experience in video
10:12
production. You'd never made a commercial.
10:15
You know, this was long before the days of everybody carrying
10:18
a, you know, a camera in their pocket.
10:20
Like what you were doing required, you know, hiring a
10:22
team of professionals, coordinating everything,
10:24
traveling around the country, whittling 100 hours of content
10:28
down into the most, you know, useful 8 or 9 minutes.
10:31
You had no background in any of that.
10:34
She's like, that sounds fun. That's different.
10:35
That's interesting. Let me try call on me, put me in
10:39
coach. And so I'm curious, is this
10:43
something that you think you were just born with, or do you
10:45
think that people can develop this quest for learning, this
10:50
deep sense of curiosity? Yeah.
10:54
Look, I, I absolutely think you can develop it.
10:57
I believe it is developed by anybody.
11:01
I do. I think some people are more
11:03
naturally inclined to do that, sure.
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But I think it's developed by anybody.
11:07
I am a big believer in intellectual curiosity.
11:11
You know, we're hiring for some roles right now in the company.
11:17
And I like to say there are three characteristics that I try
11:22
to hire for. Humble, hungry and smart and
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smart. What I mean by smart is
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intellectually curious. I'm not saying that you have to
11:32
have a Mensa level IQ. No, I want you to be
11:35
intellectually curious and intellectually curious is you
11:39
kind of being willing to think differently about whatever is
11:42
there. You're being willing to open to
11:45
a new experience, your willingness to kind of, you
11:49
know, I don't know about that, but I'm going to try to learn
11:53
something here. Can I, can I go to, you know,
11:56
something online and learn about X or can I read a book and learn
12:01
about Y? I think intellectual curiosity
12:07
is one of the most powerful personal characteristics that
12:14
person can have to help them be broader and not just deep in one
12:19
area. And that's absolutely one of the
12:22
things that I've learned is to, to, to get to the level that
12:26
I've been fortunate enough to get to.
12:28
It requires breadth and not just death.
12:32
So I, I, I feel like I understand the sales processing
12:36
cycle exceptionally well because I did that for many, many years
12:40
and, and had success doing that. But I also knew that this was my
12:45
goal was to be ACEO someday. And I knew that I had to have
12:50
more breadth, that my depth in one area was not going to be
12:55
enough to get me to where I wanted to go.
12:57
It would open the door for me because they would say, look,
13:00
this person has done this job and they've succeeded at it.
13:03
So they probably have some aptitude and or willingness to
13:08
do things. But now a intellectual
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curiosity, it's just, it's a huge, huge win.
13:16
And I think I went back and got my master's at age 40.
13:23
And what I learned going back by getting my master's, you know,
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age 40 with three young kids, a new job, and I broke my leg in
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the middle of it, was AI really enjoyed learning even more as a,
13:44
you know, more mature person who has experience than I did in
13:48
college. In college, you know, I was kind
13:49
of like, hey, let's have fun. Let's do all these things.
13:52
But when I came back to it at 40I, I kind of had this, I I'm
13:57
learning things here and this is really, really fun.
14:01
And I've talked to a lot of other people that, you know,
14:05
have gone back after, you know, getting some years of experience
14:10
and then going back and getting their masters and going.
14:12
Yeah, I, I enjoyed learning so much more now that I've had some
14:18
separation. I had, you know, some career
14:21
that happened and, you know, I, I, I recommend it if it's
14:26
something, you know, you want to do.
14:28
It doesn't have to be a masters, it can be a course.
14:31
I think there's lots of way to continue that learning, continue
14:34
that intellectual curiosity. And I'm again strong believer in
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the value it delivers. Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
14:42
Every day when I drop my kids off at school, I tell them, hey,
14:45
guys, choose kindness and curiosity today.
14:48
Ask lots of good questions. Be open to learning.
14:51
I, I think that's really important.
14:53
And I, I suspect that it's that same level of that, that same,
14:57
you know, intellectual curiosity that you have that gets you so
15:02
excited about some of the different food innovations that
15:05
you've been a part of along the way.
15:07
I'd love to hear about some of those.
15:10
Yeah. It is.
15:11
It's, I like to say in the food business, we're trying to figure
15:16
out how do we solve a problem for the consumer.
15:21
So the consumer has a potential problem.
15:24
And by the way, it doesn't have to be a huge problem.
15:26
It can be a really small problem, but you're going, how
15:29
do I make life a little bit easier for the consumer in this
15:32
area? And I'll give you an example of
15:34
one. It was, it was kind of a really
15:40
super simple innovation, but spaghetti.
15:43
So to not offend the Italians in in your podcast, but there are a
15:50
lot of people in the United States who don't want to put 11
15:53
inches of spaghetti in a pot and watch it kind of absorb the
15:57
water and, and, and, and, and move down in the pot and stir.
16:00
Hey, what's the matter with that, huh?
16:04
That's the way we've always done it.
16:06
Exactly, Exactly. Yeah, the the real Italians
16:08
don't don't like this. They couldn't know.
16:10
Why would you do that? But but we looked at that, we
16:13
said, OK, how many people break their pasta before they put it
16:18
in the pot? And we probably looked around
16:22
the office and just kind of did an informal survey and, you
16:25
know, probably half the people broke the pasta before they put
16:28
it in the pot. And we were like, well, what
16:30
happens when you break pasta? Well, if you take a 11 inch
16:32
thing of pasta, hold it with your hands and break it, little
16:36
pieces of pasta shatter and go everywhere.
16:39
And it's, and it's a bit of a mess because now you got to
16:41
track it down. And we said, what if we made pot
16:46
ready spaghetti, something that would fit right into the pot
16:50
that you, you, you don't have to break it.
16:53
You drop it in and because it's now, you know, 5 to 5 1/2 inches
16:57
in in length, fit in almost any pot without kind of having to
17:01
stand there and watch it and stir it.
17:05
So that was, that was the idea. So we went out and we tested it
17:08
with people and, and again, I, I'm from the southeast, I would
17:12
say we're not, we don't have the density of Italian population in
17:18
the southeast that we do in the Northeast.
17:21
And a lot of people in the Southeast are like, Oh my God,
17:25
this is great. Who wants to stand by the pot
17:28
when it's hot in the summer already and, and stand there
17:32
when it's doing that because you got steam coming off the pot.
17:34
And of course, you know, the little dent fan never gets the,
17:38
the heat out of there as well as you would like.
17:41
So that was the idea. And, and, and we came up with a
17:44
way of, of cutting that on, on our production line, packaging
17:48
it in a smaller box. And then on the side of the box.
17:51
The other problem that people would have in pasta is how much
17:55
is enough. You know, how much of a handful
18:00
of pasta is enough for tea or is enough for four.
18:05
And so we put like a little measuring gauge on the side of
18:08
the box that you could go, hey, this much of the box equals a
18:13
serving for two. This much of the box equals a
18:15
serving for four. This much of A box equals a
18:18
serving for 8:00. And that solved another problem
18:22
because pasta kind of like rice, you often have either too much
18:28
or not enough. And nobody likes to throw it
18:31
away at the end. And everybody hates it when you
18:34
don't make enough and, and people go, I need some more rice
18:38
or I need some more pasta. So we figured out a way, how do
18:40
we get the serving sizes in a way that makes it really nice
18:44
and convenient for people to look at this and go, OK, this is
18:47
the right size. And so those two little
18:49
innovations together, you know, not a world shattering
18:54
innovation by by any means, but it, it worked really, really
18:59
well and consumers truly thought that that was a problem solved.
19:04
Yeah. And sometimes the best
19:05
innovations are, you know, don't require a, a big head, big heavy
19:09
lift or, you know, some fancy technology.
19:11
It's just tweaking things a little bit.
19:14
And I think what's what's just as cool as the idea is the name
19:18
Pot Ready Spaghetti. Like you like you, you kind of
19:22
quickly know what it is. And there's, you know, a little
19:24
bit of rhyming that goes on there too.
19:26
And I was just Googling Pot Ready Spaghetti and it looks
19:29
like it's still a thing. I see lots of different brands
19:32
using that on their packaging today.
19:37
We were, we were the first to do it, you know, many years ago.
19:40
I've been out of the positive business for a while, but I
19:42
can't say that I, I keep up with if it's still there or not for,
19:48
you know, lots of different reasons.
19:50
But you know, glad, glad to see it's still there.
19:53
And, and look, it's like we said, it doesn't have to be a
19:56
revolution. It can be an evolution.
20:00
Do you have another example for us?
20:02
You've been in the food industry a long time.
20:03
Yeah, I, I'll have another example for you that we did in
20:07
in the pasta industry too. And as we were talking to moms,
20:14
you know, moms want to get vegetables into their kids diet.
20:18
I mean, you know how many little kids love to eat vegetables?
20:21
Not a whole lot of them. They kind of go, Oh yeah, you
20:25
know what? I don't want to eat green beans
20:27
or, or whatever it is. And so as we thought about that,
20:32
we said, how do we get a serving of vegetables into every serving
20:37
of pasta? Because kids love pasta.
20:40
Let's face it, they, it's hard to find a kid that doesn't like
20:45
a, an elbow macaroni or some other fun stave or a spaghetti.
20:49
They, they all generally like it.
20:51
So we thought and, and there are vegetable pastas out there
20:54
today. You'll see them as, you know,
20:56
the tricolor pastas, 1 is spinach and one is tomato.
20:59
The kids generally look at those orange and green colors and they
21:02
kind of go, yeah, look, I don't want that.
21:04
They're used to seeing the color of pasta that they've always
21:08
gotten in their acting fees. So we started investigating how
21:12
to do that. And the way that we did it was
21:15
we, we work with ingredient companies that come up with,
21:19
with a vegetable blend, mix the lighter colored vegetables and
21:25
we could put it inside the pasta in enough to give them a serving
21:30
of vegetables with every serving of pasta.
21:33
And it's called it a hidden veggie.
21:35
And again, it appealed to mom because now I can get, you know,
21:40
some vegetables from my kids. And the kids loved it because
21:45
they just saw plain old, you know, white pasta without one of
21:52
these, you know, colors that that could have been off putting
21:55
to them. And, you know, that was another
21:59
success I like to think of. Sometimes innovation is not
22:04
about home run. It's about a single.
22:07
So if I can continue to deliver singles for my brand or my
22:12
product or my category, those singles eventually add up to
22:16
home runs. You know, you get you get a
22:19
number of singles in a row, you still score a run just like
22:23
scoring a home run. And this is another one that you
22:26
know, was another single kind of like pot ready spaghetti.
22:31
And frankly, it's, you see it in all kinds of pasta products
22:36
today with protein enhanced and Omega oil enhanced and all these
22:42
other things that still keep that color and look of regular
22:45
spaghetti. But I'm delivering on an
22:48
enhanced nutritional benefit for for families and, and that was
22:54
kind of a, a way to do that. And I'm curious, what does a
22:59
single look like from a financial perspective in the
23:02
food industry? Is it like a few percentage
23:05
points boost in sales? Is it more than that?
23:08
Can you frame it for us? Yeah, I would say, you know the
23:13
way that we try to think about singles in our business is we
23:16
try to make a margin accretive. So let's just say if your if
23:20
your base margin today is 10%, if I can come out with a with a,
23:26
a product that is going to be accretive to the margin of the
23:32
category. So I can bring these out at 12
23:34
or 14% and help pull the margin of the business up over time as
23:39
those singles get out into the market, then that's good for the
23:43
business. So that's the way that, you
23:46
know, a lot of us try to think about that is I don't need that
23:51
to make 30%. And if I put it out there at
23:54
30%, it's probably going to create a price barrier or trial
23:58
barrier that somebody's going to go, no, I don't like that.
24:02
But if I can go, hey, I'm at 10 and I could sell this at 14, I
24:07
can get it at the right price point that a family feels like,
24:11
Yeah, I haven't tried that before.
24:13
But it's only, you know, $0.20 a package more than what I already
24:18
buy. That barrier to file is lower
24:21
than if it were a dollar a package more than what you
24:25
already buy. But some of that is about that.
24:28
Some of that accretiveness is about what do you think the the
24:33
consumer is willing to try and invest without feeling bad about
24:39
the investment. And if it was a regular pasta at
24:41
a dollar and this new pasta at $2.00 and they don't like it at
24:46
$2.00, they're going to go that dollar.
24:49
I, I felt like I lost that dollar.
24:52
But if they do, if it's $0.20 more, $0.30 more, that's kind of
24:56
within this realm of, yeah, that's, that's in the zone of
25:00
being very reasonable. So I'm more willing to take a
25:04
chance on something new and, and try it and, and bring it home.
25:11
Brian, tell me if I'm thinking about this correctly.
25:13
It would seem like you've got a two-part challenge when you're
25:16
releasing a new product. The 1st is how do we get them to
25:19
try it the first time? How do we get them to pull it
25:21
off the shelf, put it in their cart that first time, take it
25:24
home and try it. And then the second one is how
25:27
do we get them to buy again? And it would seem like the
25:30
second challenge is all about the quality and the taste of the
25:34
product, right? If, if you can, if you can get
25:37
get them to try it and they like it, they're going to come back
25:39
for it. Is that sort of how you guys
25:42
think about it internally, sort of this two-part thing?
25:45
Yeah, one, 100% we, we like to think that getting trial isn't,
25:51
isn't exceptionally hard if the consumer feels like it's close
25:57
into what they would be comfortable doing.
26:00
So the the pot ready spaghetti, well, there's really no barrier
26:03
to trial on that because it's the same spaghetti that you've
26:07
already bought. The hidden veggie, hey, it looks
26:09
the same in the box. It's got vegetables in there.
26:12
It's only $0.20 more that problem.
26:16
It doesn't have the same barrier as if I'd come out something
26:21
totally revolutionary. So for new products isn't as
26:28
hard as repeat, repeat is you have to deliver on the flavor,
26:34
you have to deliver on the eating experience in a way that
26:39
the customer feels satisfied. It's it's one of the things that
26:43
I've seen in my 34 years in, in, in the food business.
26:47
And I'll give you a couple examples.
26:49
So I was in the food business when, when people were coming
26:54
out with reduced fat fees. Well, the first reduced fat,
26:57
reduced fat fees was pretty horrible.
27:00
It was not good. It was gummy and grainy rubbery.
27:04
I mean, it was, it was, it was bad.
27:07
And guess what? You've got a lot of people that
27:10
would try it because they're like reduce fat.
27:11
I need to cut fat. I'll, I'll try that.
27:13
But when it didn't deliver on the flavor experience, they're
27:17
not coming back. And, and the same thing with low
27:20
cloud and, and the same thing with, you know, some other, you
27:25
know, nutritional fads that have come and gone over the last 30
27:29
years. Sometimes first to the market is
27:33
an advantage in, in creating a brand name.
27:36
You know, and I'll, I'll, I'll say this about, you know,
27:39
vegetable based meat product or, you know, created meat products.
27:44
Maybe that's the better way to say it is if you, if you could
27:48
go back in time 18 months, it was a huge trend everywhere.
27:53
Everybody was putting them on the menus, everybody was trying
27:57
it. Here you are 18 months later and
28:00
I would say both of those businesses are struggling
28:04
because they did not deliver on the meal experience that the,
28:09
that, that the consumer believed that they were going to get.
28:14
And so they don't, they don't repeat.
28:17
And, and, and so I like to say trial is easy, repeat is hard.
28:22
You've got to design your product for.
28:24
Repeat if it doesn't taste great.
28:27
Do you guys do some kind of testing before rolling out a new
28:31
product? Yeah, we'd think that that would
28:33
be helpful in getting a better idea of it.
28:36
You know, are we likely to get repeats on this?
28:38
Yeah. Exactly.
28:39
You know, look, the food business is big on both
28:43
qualitative and quantitative, you know, testing.
28:47
And that is kind of around quantitative testing.
28:49
Let's put it out in the hands of users and get their real life
28:53
feedback. Does it taste good?
28:56
Would you buy it again? Did it deliver on your
28:58
experience? And that's kind of a, you know,
29:01
a well known marketing pathway to, to, to helping determine if
29:06
your, if your product is, is acceptable.
29:10
And, and, and frankly, it, it's as simple, it can be as simple
29:14
as, you know, when you're, when you're bootstrapping new ideas
29:19
as an organization that you're literally just kind of giving it
29:22
to 10 friends. And if your 10 friends go and
29:27
you have to go, look, be honest with me.
29:29
Don't tell me what you think I want to hear.
29:32
Would you buy this? And would you try it again?
29:35
And you got to go, Hey, if, if it's, if it's bad, tell me it's
29:39
bad. That's going to be better for me
29:41
than telling me it's good and you not buy it again.
29:44
So, you know, you can do it the, the, the full blown marketing
29:47
pathway, or you can do it the, the bootstrap pathway.
29:51
And I think, I think both of them can give you pretty, pretty
29:55
solid feedback if you're if you have consumers or people willing
29:59
to tell you what they really think as opposed to what you
30:01
want to hear. Now, what's interesting to me is
30:04
you said that the trial part is actually pretty easy if it's if
30:07
the product is similar enough to what exists and similar enough
30:11
in price that that surprises me. But maybe just the fact that
30:16
you've already got the shelf space there and you're doing
30:19
something colorful or creative on the packaging is enough to
30:22
get somebody to, you know, go from what they usually buy to,
30:26
oh, this one's got veggies hidden in it.
30:28
Is that kind of how it works? Yeah.
30:31
I, I, I like to say that consumers have a consideration
30:35
set of products that they like. So if I'm a, if I'm a pasta
30:41
eater and I walk down the pasta aisle, chances are I've probably
30:46
had something from a number of different brands in that aisle.
30:51
Or you're familiar enough with the product that you go, there's
30:54
not a whole lot of differentiation in pasta.
30:56
Frankly, you know, I'm a pasta snob because I worked in that
31:00
business for 14 years. I can probably tell you more
31:04
than the average bear, but 90% of the people are not going to
31:08
be able to tell you a a difference.
31:11
In dry pot. Other categories, it's more
31:13
dramatic. Pizza, it's more dramatic.
31:17
So crust can be different. How you make those crust, how
31:20
you make your sauce, how you top it and all those other things,
31:24
but can have difference. So they're kind of high
31:27
differentiation categories and low differentiation categories.
31:30
There are a lot of foods that are kind of in the low
31:33
differentiation category space, but in in those in, in those
31:37
foods, you say there's a consideration set of items that
31:40
I'm comfortable trying or brands that I'm comfortable trying.
31:44
And, and that's how you get a lot of trial it.
31:48
It may be that you've been a Barilla, you know, user for
31:52
many, many years. And so when Barrella comes out
31:55
with a new product, you kind of go, Oh yeah, I like that brand,
31:58
I'll try that. Or you may be a great value user
32:02
and you've like, hey, I like, I like great value.
32:05
It saves me money, It delivers quality that is in line with my
32:10
expectations. So when they come out with
32:12
something new, I'm willing to try it.
32:15
So I think that consideration set definitely works better in
32:20
in low differentiation versus high differences.
32:25
I'm curious to know how quickly a new idea can go from idea to
32:31
being on the shelf. And obviously it's a it depends,
32:34
right? Because some are relatively
32:36
simple, some take a lot more testing.
32:38
But maybe give me a range from the short end to the the longest
32:42
end that you've seen. About the shortest I've ever
32:46
seen it done is about four months.
32:49
That is. Short and that was because it
32:51
was a very, very close in idea and you know, we we kind of had
32:59
the retailer customer buying in of we like this, let's launch it
33:04
ASAP in our in our private brand.
33:07
And so we were able to do that very, very quickly.
33:10
I would say a much more normal process is going to be, you
33:16
know, in the nine months to two year range, it kind of depends.
33:22
So if you're, if you're a really big well established brand,
33:27
you're probably going to want to take more steps to be more
33:32
certain about what you think the outcome will be.
33:35
And therefore more steps and more certainty to lower your
33:40
perceived risk on a new product launch is going to take longer
33:44
to accomplish. Then if you're a startup brand
33:47
and you know, you're you're developing something and you
33:50
kind of want to run it by your friends and they kind of go,
33:53
yeah, like this, but I don't like that.
33:55
OK. Well can go back and stall for
33:57
that. So I, I, I would say nine months
34:01
is, is is quick on the, on the on one end and and two years is,
34:09
you know, somewhat typical from a branded perspective on the
34:12
higher end. I think it makes sense.
34:15
I mean, not only are you testing the food and the ingredients and
34:18
getting the texture and the flavour right, but you've got,
34:20
you know, new packaging and how do you tell the story and the,
34:24
the copy around it and, you know, the, the go to market.
34:27
So and, and everybody knows like, you know, larger
34:32
companies, sometimes it takes a little bit longer to, you know,
34:35
turn the ship in a different direction.
34:36
So, and if you're talking nine months, that that feels like a a
34:40
pretty reasonable time frame to me.
34:41
Still pretty pretty quick to make happen.
34:43
Yeah. It also depends on what
34:46
innovation you're developing there.
34:48
I worked for a period of time for for and they developed a
34:53
product called seamers in their frozen in their frozen entrees
34:57
aisle. And basically what it was was a
35:00
a microwave with the sauce at the plastic dish with the sauce
35:06
at the bottom and then a kind of another tray that sits on top of
35:10
that with the vegetables and meats on the top.
35:13
Well, it, it took a long time for them to develop, you know,
35:17
do I have the how do I make this packaging work?
35:19
Can I cooking these two things separately, does that deliver on
35:24
the flavor profile? So think that they worked on
35:27
that for more than two years, probably in the in the
35:30
three-year range. And then you have to go in and
35:33
say, hey, now I've got to develop and a piece of equipment
35:36
that can do this. Well, they were previously
35:40
mixing all those things together and you deposit it in one disc.
35:44
Now they're going, hey, I have to have two separate streams.
35:47
I've got to put one disc in here, fill the portion in the
35:50
bottom, then I got to put another disc on top of that,
35:53
fill that portion and then top it and then package it.
35:56
So some of that is just related around Brad, the definition of
36:02
your innovation is if it's a packaging innovation, it 12
36:07
months is fast on a packaging innovation because equipment
36:10
lead time, depending on what you're trying to do is 16 weeks
36:16
on the short end to 24 months on the on the high end, depending
36:20
on again, the amount of complexity, the amount of how
36:24
you're having to change things. So it it, it can vary pretty
36:28
widely on, on that standpoint, flavor innovations where you
36:32
don't have to really do it in a whole new way or.
36:37
Yeah. So we went through a period and
36:41
to some extent are still going through a period of you talked
36:44
about the different sort of nutrition fads.
36:47
You know, low fat was big for a long time.
36:51
You know, now low carb is also big and some people still into
36:55
the low fat. But now I see some foods that,
36:58
you know, talk about, you know, heart healthy fats and, you
37:01
know, I, I don't know if that means that they're adding, you
37:04
know, they're actually going to the step of trying to add more
37:06
fats to their product. And this, the answer to this may
37:08
be different in the pizza industry versus others.
37:11
But are you seeing any kind of a discussion going on at Richelieu
37:15
about, Hey, people want like good fats in products Now maybe
37:19
we should figure out a way to to come out with that innovation in
37:23
pizza? Yeah, here's what I will tell
37:26
you in, in our category right now, it is about how do we clean
37:32
up the labels? How do we, you know, get the
37:35
things off the labels that may be a perception of, of not, you
37:43
know, being on trend from a, from a clean label perspective.
37:46
So that's that's what we're working on.
37:48
So I would say, you know, our our product is, is you know,
37:54
it's somewhat simple. It's not unlike if you were
37:58
making pizza at home in your own kitchen, you're going to make a
38:02
dough, you need flour, any yeast, you need water, you might
38:06
need a oil in there to have to help protect your and different
38:11
things like that. You need a pepperoni, you need
38:14
fees, you need, you know, vegetables.
38:17
So trying to get those other, you know, preservatives and
38:25
because we do frozen pizza, we don't really use preservatives
38:29
like happening in other foods. I'm not going to say that, you
38:34
know, there isn't a preservative or something in in an ingredient
38:39
that goes into our into our products, but by and large it's
38:43
free from preservatives as compared to a self stable
38:49
product. So a self stable product
38:51
generally has preservatives because our product is frozen.
38:54
I mean, again, it's like making it in your kitchen.
38:57
We just run it through a freezer to freeze it that holds it in
39:00
stasis until you're ready to cook it.
39:03
So we kind of don't need them those preservatives in the same
39:06
way. But there's still a number of
39:09
retailers and consumers are going, hey, we don't like these
39:14
kind of fats. OK, well, let's work to get
39:16
those fats out. Maybe we don't like an
39:21
ingredient that ends up in in a lot of pepperoni.
39:24
So how do we get nitrates out of pepperoni?
39:26
OK, well that's, that's fair. We can work to get nitrates out
39:30
of pepperoni. So our business is, is maybe
39:34
different than some others in that area, but that that's what
39:38
kind of goes the big push now. And of course, our, our parent
39:41
company is in Germany and what is acceptable in ingredients in
39:48
Europe is different than what is acceptable in ingredients in the
39:50
US. You know, as an example there,
39:56
there can sometimes be what's called a dough conditioner that
40:00
may not be allowed in, in Europe, but is generally
40:04
recognized as safe in the US. So then you have to start going,
40:08
well, do our consumers understand what this ingredient
40:12
is? Do we need to take this
40:14
ingredient out there? Or our retailer partner saying
40:17
that they don't want this ingredient in because of what
40:20
they're trying to achieve with their own brand and can we get,
40:23
get some of those things out. So I would say in general, we're
40:27
working and continually finding ways to clean up that label to
40:32
make it as as additive free as we can be.
40:37
And that's kind of the big focus in in the frozen category right
40:42
now. I think in other categories, yes
40:45
they may be more intention around healthy fat or Omega
40:50
threes and and things like that then there is in pizza.
40:53
But your primary focus, like you said, is to try to clean up the
40:56
labels. Customers are saying we don't
40:58
want nitrates, we don't maybe want this dough conditioner.
41:01
And so you're responding to what that consumer demand is, which
41:04
is interesting to me because. Yeah, something I want I want to
41:09
talk about with you and get your perspective on this, You know,
41:11
30-4 years in the food industry, you know, big food
41:15
manufacturers, they sometimes they get a bad rap in the media,
41:19
right? They they talk about like, oh,
41:21
they're just, you know, they're these, you know, greedy guys
41:24
sitting, you know, behind the curtain, you know, trying to
41:26
figure out ways to put more garbage into the food.
41:30
They're trying to make it more addictive for us.
41:32
You know, they don't care about us.
41:34
They're just, you know, you know, guys on Wall Street just
41:38
pulling levers, hoping everybody, you know, gets
41:41
addicted to this stuff. And the way I'm hearing you
41:43
talk, it's, it's a, it's a very different energy, a very
41:47
different vibe. So I'm, I'm curious to hear
41:50
about how you respond to that kind of negative attention,
41:54
whether it's warranted or not. Yeah, look, I, I think the, the
42:00
misconception people have about food manufacturing production is
42:04
we're just you're kitchen writ large.
42:08
So we're trying to make things as close to the way that you do
42:12
it at home. That scale.
42:14
You know, people like to pay $4.00 for Kuka for us to, you
42:22
know, be able to sell you a, a product that retails at $4.00.
42:27
I've got to be able to make it at scale.
42:29
I've got to be able to make it quickly, but I want to do it as
42:33
as cleanly and as, as efficiently as possible.
42:37
So we're just your kitchen, like I said, in, in a large, large
42:42
scale version. Again, you know, we want to, we
42:47
want to deliver what the consumer wants.
42:51
If the consumer is OK, I don't like, you know, the, the
42:57
technical name for vitamin E, You know, there is a technical
43:00
name for vitamin EI think it's picopperols.
43:03
It's picopperols. Mix the copper oil sounds
43:05
terrible when you read that and you go, well, what is that?
43:08
Well, it's vitamin E, but that's the scientific thing for it.
43:11
But when consumers read mix the copper oils, they kind of go,
43:14
what's that? That sounds awful.
43:17
Well, that's the technical name for vitamin E.
43:20
So is that a good thing or a bad thing?
43:22
Well, consumers have generally decided, oh, we don't like the
43:26
name mix the copper oils because they don't understand what it
43:29
really is. And, and some of those things
43:32
are required by law to be in there.
43:33
Guess what? Enrich flour.
43:36
That's a regulation, you know, enrich flour means you add
43:40
niacin. Guess what is niacin?
43:44
Yeah, exactly. So it's, it's not a it's not a
43:48
pretty sounding name, but it's one of those things that's
43:51
required. And, and so there can sometimes
43:55
be a, a disconnect in, in what is required to be in there and
44:00
the clarity of what it is on the label that make people go, oh,
44:05
that doesn't make any sense. That sounds awful When you go,
44:09
I've got to put it in there because it's the regulation.
44:12
So, yeah, I, I think our industry and, and frankly,
44:19
government can do a better job of working together to explain
44:24
what those things are and why they're in there.
44:26
Well, you know, why is, why is a lot of wheat fortified or pasta
44:31
fortified? Well, it's because, you know, 80
44:35
years ago there was a deficiency in certain vitamins in, in the
44:41
American diet. So they said, OK, well, the way
44:44
that we're going to solve that is we're going to tell you got
44:46
to put iron in there, you got to put niacin in there, you got to
44:48
put, you know, vitamin E in there, mix the copper oils, and
44:52
that's going to help with whatever that deficiency was.
44:55
And, and here we are eight years later and, and clearly we don't
44:59
have the same deficiencies in our diet, but the rules and, and
45:03
regulations haven't changed to say, oh, you can do it without
45:07
fortification. So some of that legacy
45:14
regulation was actually really, really good for where the
45:19
American diet was at that point in time.
45:22
But may not be needed today because our diet has changed
45:27
significantly. So, you know, if we could work
45:30
together as a society and say we don't need these things anymore,
45:34
take them out of there, we would rather have a cleaner label.
45:38
I I can go to the FDA as long as I want and say, let's take this
45:42
out of there. And they kind of go, yeah, but
45:45
we're not here. We got clamor for consumers to
45:47
take that out of there. So it, it doesn't, you know, it
45:51
doesn't get passed and, and those rules don't get changed
45:54
and, and some of those legacy things continue to carry on.
45:58
But you know, at like I said, we're kitchen.
46:01
We're just trying to make it a scale and, and deliver it to you
46:04
as efficiently as possible. The, the American consumer
46:07
spends a lower percentage of their disposable income on food
46:13
than any other nation in the world.
46:16
Wow. And, and, and why is that?
46:19
It's because we have a highly efficient food system that has
46:24
been developed in this business over, you know, the last 100
46:28
years. And, you know, frankly, it's
46:33
been a stimulator to the economy when you're only spending around
46:37
11 percent of your food, 11% of your disposable income on food
46:41
dollars versus countries where you're spending 18 to 20% of
46:45
your disposable income on $2.00. Well, what happens to that?
46:48
It turns into other, it turns into the other, other
46:51
consumption, whether that's clothes or vacations or you
46:55
know, house payments or car payments or you know, anything,
47:02
you know. So our, our industry has been
47:05
designed extremely effectively. If if the consumer needs are
47:12
changed, this industry will change to meet the consumer
47:16
needs up until the point that it runs into some regulatory,
47:20
regulatory hurdles that have to be addressed.
47:23
There's several good things that you touched on there that I want
47:27
to highlight because I, I, I think a lot of these points get
47:30
missed by people. And this, this first one I'm
47:33
going to mention was one I never really thought about was the
47:35
government regulations. You know, you're talking about
47:38
laws that have been in place for 80 years to address diet
47:42
deficiencies that used to exist. Those deficiencies aren't the
47:46
same in most people's diets now as they were then.
47:49
But the laws haven't changed. And the FDA is like, hey, until
47:52
consumers start making noise about it, we're going to make
47:54
you guys keep doing the same thing.
47:56
And so anybody listening who's like, hey, I don't want mixed
48:00
tocopherols in my bread, like, OK, go, go tell the FDA that.
48:06
They're the ones that can change the rules.
48:09
The other thing that you mentioned here that I think is
48:11
really important is that consumer education is an
48:13
important piece of this. And it may be difficult to
48:16
achieve at times because, right, what's niacin, you know, that
48:19
sounds chemical and terrible. Well, it's one of the the many B
48:23
vitamins. It's oh, B Well, vitamins are
48:26
good, right? Or mixed to copherols.
48:28
That's vitamin E, you know, But the government requires us to to
48:32
label it a certain way. And so, yeah, that consumer
48:35
education piece is important, but the one that I, I think is
48:38
really the point to drive home with folks here is the
48:42
incredible efficiency at which you guys are able to do things
48:46
at scale, right? You're, you're just, you're
48:49
taking what I do in my kitchen and you're doing it at, at Mass
48:54
to make these things, to make these pizzas more cost effective
48:58
than I could make myself in my home.
49:00
There's no way I could make a pizza for $4.00.
49:03
Go and buy the, the bread and the cheese and the sauce and the
49:06
pepperoni. And that's before you even
49:09
factor in the value of my time. And so, right, rather than sort
49:15
of being pilloried for some things that largely can be
49:19
attached to just lack of education, it's more like let's
49:22
celebrate what some of these, you know, big food manufacturers
49:26
are able to do a $4.00 pizza. That's a big deal for a lot of
49:30
families, but especially working families that are, you know,
49:33
having a hard time making ends meet.
49:35
So yeah, thanks for for highlighting those things.
49:38
Yeah. And I, I think there's all, all
49:40
great points, Anthony and you know, to, to give you a little
49:45
bit of the concept of Dale there, you know, we have
49:48
somewhere around 700 employees and we make around 100 million
49:51
pizzas a year. So.
49:54
That's that's a lot of pizzas for not many people.
49:59
You, you have to run those at scale.
50:01
You have to run them quickly. And again, we wanted, we want to
50:06
do it in as food safe, in as nutritionally benefit, as clean
50:13
label as we can possibly do that.
50:16
And, and we're no different than anybody else in the food space.
50:21
We all want the same things. You know, unfortunately there's,
50:25
you know, a particular, you know, meat company that's in
50:29
the, in the news right now for, you know, not for a, for a food
50:34
safety issue. I can tell you that's every food
50:37
manufacturer's nightmare. So we work really, really,
50:41
really hard to not be in that position and, and deliver as
50:48
safe a product as you can make in your kitchen, if if not
50:51
better. You know, our, our people are
50:53
trained on what food safety looks like.
50:56
Not all consumers are trained on what food safety looks like.
51:00
So I, I like to think, you know, I know, I know we have the
51:06
consumers best interests at heart and, and, and people need
51:12
to understand that. Brian, I don't often like to put
51:16
my guests on the spot, but I'm going to ask you a tough
51:18
question here. I'm, I'm curious to hear 34
51:21
years in the food industry. How many meetings have you sat
51:26
in where there's a conversation around, hey, how do we make this
51:30
more addictive? How do we get people hooked and
51:32
coming back like they can't just have one?
51:37
Zero. And I would tell you if, if
51:39
somebody said that in a meeting, they would probably be fired
51:43
because that is so antithetical to what we are and what we want
51:49
to do. Never, never heard it.
51:51
And that would be, you know, that that would be, that would
51:58
stand out like such a sore thumb that those people just would not
52:02
be around. I mean, that would that that
52:04
goes against every, that goes against every fiber of every
52:08
food company I have worked for. And I've worked for small ones
52:12
and I've worked for really, really large.
52:15
That's yeah, I personally, that's disgusting to hear that.
52:21
And, and I don't know a single person in the food business that
52:25
wouldn't feel the same way. Wow, what a perspective to have
52:29
shared here. I mean, 'cause that's not, you
52:32
know, the perception that a lot of folks have.
52:34
And so to hear like I can see you physically like you're,
52:37
you're kind of riled up at the very suggestion of it.
52:41
I am. I am, because that's just that
52:44
that every fiber in my being says that is wrong.
52:50
And I don't know anybody that I've worked with in 30-4 years
52:54
that wouldn't see it the same way that I do.
52:57
And, and Brian Fox is a guy who has worked with a lot of big
53:01
food manufacturers, worked with thousands of people, been in
53:05
countless meetings and he's saying not once, not in a single
53:11
meeting that you've ever attended.
53:12
Have you ever heard anybody talk about how do we how do we make
53:16
them, you know, hooked on this? Yeah, that's that, that's a
53:19
that's a fresh perspective. That's.
53:21
Great, that makes my skin crawl just to think about.
53:24
It honestly. OK great.
53:26
Thanks for shining a flashlight on that.
53:29
No problem. Brian, I want to shift gears a
53:31
little bit. You know, people, they look at
53:33
you, maybe they, you know, they, they understand a little bit
53:36
about your background. You had a lot of, you know,
53:40
great positions at different food manufacturers, including,
53:43
you know, CEO of Richelieu Foods.
53:44
Now 700 employees makes 100 million pizzas a year.
53:49
They're like, well, I'm not that guy.
53:51
Like Brian was just destined for this level of greatness from the
53:54
beginning. And, you know, this probably
53:56
came easy to him. He, you know, smooth sailing all
53:59
the way through life. But I know having talked to lots
54:03
of folks that everybody has gone through difficult times.
54:08
And I'm kind of curious to hear about either personally or
54:11
professionally, maybe a challenge that you've gone
54:13
through and what you learn coming through the other side of
54:16
it. Yeah, that's a, that's a great
54:20
question. And here's what I'll tell you.
54:22
I, I, I think there are a couple things and, and obviously, well,
54:25
not obviously, but look, there are people that have overcome
54:29
much more significant challenges than my own.
54:32
But yes, I can, I consider a couple small things.
54:36
So if you haven't noticed it, I'm from North Carolina, so I
54:42
can have this southern accent that that dribbles out here and
54:45
there. And, and I, I would say early in
54:52
my career, I had a much more pronounced accent than I do
54:55
today. I would say I've lived around
54:57
the US for, for many years now. And so I've kind of toned it
55:02
down as I've adapted to my environment.
55:05
But I, I will never forget I was at A, at a retailer in, in
55:09
Northeast and I'm fresh out of College in North Carolina and I
55:14
still have a very, very strong southern accent.
55:18
And I was at a particular retailer in the New York, New
55:23
Jersey area. And, and this person at that
55:27
retailer, and I'm not going to tell you who you or what is all,
55:30
all this was, but who heard my accident and, and immediately
55:35
assumed that I was inferior intellectually because this
55:43
person, you know, had obviously, you know, probably gone to an
55:49
Ivy League school and, and things like this and kind of
55:52
looked down her nose at me. And, and that really just
55:56
irritated me, irritated me to no end to go.
55:59
Why would you think that I am not smart and capable just
56:03
because of my accent? And, and she literally said
56:06
that. I mean, yes, she was, she was
56:08
very bold and direct about it. And you know, you're from the
56:13
South. You, you, you don't know
56:14
anything about what we're doing up here and you're just kind of
56:17
OK, got it. So that, you know, that's a, a
56:21
super simple one. But every time that I've run
56:26
into challenges, I'm a big believer in perseverance.
56:33
All things, all things will fall, you know, eventually that
56:38
person wasn't there anymore and, and we were able to continue.
56:44
I, I continued to call on that retailer for many, many, many
56:47
years. And frankly, one of the
56:50
recommendations from that retailer is what get helped me
56:54
get my second job. So after I left the first
56:57
company, the second company that I went to work for new people at
57:01
that retailer and they were like, Oh no, he's great.
57:03
You, you could hire him. And so I, I like to say, you
57:08
know, perseverance and, and trying to overcome a, a really
57:13
stupid simple stereotype and, and, and, and in no way
57:17
comparing that discrimination to what others would have
57:21
experienced. But it was just one of those
57:24
little things just stuck in me. And I'm going to go, you know
57:26
what? I'm going to prove you wrong.
57:28
I'm going to prove to you that I can do this.
57:31
You know, I, I've been, I've kind of been, you know, laughed
57:37
out of a, a ACEOS office at an, at another retailer in the
57:41
Southeast who I came in there, this, you know, particular
57:45
retailer had a very strong point of view on, on data and
57:51
understanding consumers. And, and, and he was an older
57:55
gentleman that, you know, believed in, in being in the
57:58
stores and talking to consumers. And, and by the way, that's not
58:01
wrong, not wrong, but you know, it was in the early days of
58:05
category management where we were the, you know, the
58:08
information revolution was happening.
58:10
And, and all this data that you could get and understand
58:14
consumers and how they stop and how they make decisions gave us
58:18
so much more of a richer understanding than what we had
58:22
just by, you know, a guy walking around the stores and, and, you
58:28
know, he basically said, boy, you don't know what you're
58:32
talking about. And that was with the CEO of the
58:35
company. Guess what?
58:38
Two years later, I still got the business, still became their
58:40
supplier. And it's because I persevered
58:44
and I just kept, I was not going to let the first know Get Me Out
58:49
of there. And so I had to continually work
58:53
to bring myself back to that person and, and show that that
58:57
we really did know what we were talking about and that a new
59:01
approach would work. And, and it, and it did.
59:07
Another example, as I, I mentioned earlier, you know, I
59:10
was getting my master's. I had three kids, had a new job,
59:15
and I broke my leg all at the same time, you know, so I'm, I'm
59:20
trying to figure out how to make all these things work.
59:23
And I did, you know, and by the way, I give an enormous amount
59:29
of credit to my my wife and my family who were the support
59:36
system through each one of those things.
59:38
When you come home and you go, Oh my gosh, you're not going to
59:41
believe what happened today. Just to kind of swear and and
59:45
vent a little bit and, and, and maybe change my perspective on
59:49
a, on a situation was all incredibly helpful.
59:53
And like I said, I don't, I don't have, I, I had the fortune
59:56
last night of being at the Chicago economic hub and listen
1:00:01
to Kevin Warren, the president of the Chicago Bears, tell a
1:00:04
really impressive story of overcoming a significant
1:00:10
obstacle. And I got to look, I haven't
1:00:12
overcome that kind of an obstacle in, in my, in, in my
1:00:15
life and in my career. But I've, I've had my fair
1:00:18
share. And, and to me, it's, it's
1:00:21
perseverance. You just, you just keep pushing
1:00:24
forward and you just. Continue to follow up and so how
1:00:30
you can add value and you know, eventually you will win the
1:00:34
trust of of people over and they will see that you can do the
1:00:39
things that you say that you're going to do.
1:00:42
Never give up, you know, go back to Winston Churchill.
1:00:46
Never, ever, ever give up. I love that because I think, you
1:00:50
know, at different levels, we have all felt judged, ridiculed,
1:00:55
discounted. That's some, you know, even if
1:00:58
we haven't dealt with some of the more powerful and negative
1:01:01
stereotypes that other folks have, like we know what that's
1:01:04
like to be sort of marginalized unfairly.
1:01:08
And so your story of persevering through that and not taking, you
1:01:12
know, no for an answer on that first time, I think is, is
1:01:15
pretty powerful. Brian, I've just got one more
1:01:17
question for you before I ask that I want to do 2 things folks
1:01:21
listening today. If you like today's content,
1:01:23
please hit the like, subscribe or share button on your favorite
1:01:25
podcast app. Brian, I also want to let people
1:01:28
know the best way to get in touch with you or your company.
1:01:31
What? What is that?
1:01:34
Yeah. So look, our website
1:01:36
isrichelieufoods.com. So it's RICHEL i.e.
1:01:41
Ufoods.com and you know, you can get me there.
1:01:45
So my e-mail, you can, you can get it at, at it's really simple
1:01:50
beatbox at richloopfoods.com. I'm, I'm pretty open.
1:01:54
I, I talk to people, I'm, I'm willing to listen to good ideas
1:01:59
and, and help other people because I love seeing other
1:02:02
people succeed. I've been, you know, fortunate
1:02:06
enough in, in my career that I've been able to help put other
1:02:10
people in, in connect with other in, in other things and, and see
1:02:15
them go on to do, to do great things.
1:02:18
And, and I love to see people win.
1:02:20
I love to, you know, if, if somebody has a question or, or
1:02:26
wants something, I'm, I'm more than willing to help.
1:02:28
We're all smarter together. That's terrific.
1:02:31
I love that message. So last question for you, Brian,
1:02:34
what do you maybe just pick one? What do you see?
1:02:36
That is a big innovation that's coming in the food space in the
1:02:39
next year. Oh, that's a really great
1:02:44
question. Really.
1:02:45
Really great. Or five years if that happens.
1:02:49
Well, I I think, yeah, so good point.
1:02:53
I think the the next revolution is going to be in reducing
1:02:57
packaging. A number of states ahead of the
1:03:02
federal government are putting in place, you know, enhanced
1:03:07
producer responsibility laws, which are basically laws that
1:03:11
are, you know, being passed state by state that require us
1:03:14
as manufacturers to figure out how we own and reduce product
1:03:21
waste throughout the supply chain, which is kind of a
1:03:24
revolutionary approach. And you know, I'll give you an
1:03:29
example. So our payment company in
1:03:31
Germany doesn't use cases on pallets.
1:03:37
They literally prank wrap the individual packages themselves
1:03:41
and stack them on the pallets so they can get rid of all that
1:03:44
cardboard. I would say the distribution
1:03:47
system in Europe is significantly different than the
1:03:50
distribution system in the US We're clipping stuff a lot
1:03:54
further in general and in a much more varied climate than than
1:04:02
they have in Europe. But I think that that's going to
1:04:07
be something that comes comes to fruits and over the next 2-3
1:04:11
years is these laws are going to force us to go, OK, how do you
1:04:14
get rid of all that cardboard? That cardboard provides no value
1:04:18
after it hits the retailer and they unpack it and put it on the
1:04:21
shelf. So how do I get this out of
1:04:24
supply chain? And yeah.
1:04:26
And that's going to be an interesting set of trade-offs to
1:04:29
to make that work because you may have to actually increase
1:04:33
the size of the cartoons and stuff.
1:04:35
So the cartoons to give them more strength to offset getting
1:04:39
rid of cardboard as an example. But I think there's a lot to be
1:04:44
done in that area. You know, one of the things I'm,
1:04:49
I'm a part of the board of the American Frozen Foods Institute.
1:04:52
And one of the things that we're looking at is why do we freeze
1:04:56
products to the temperature that we do?
1:04:59
You know, can we still have it frozen but be 3° higher than how
1:05:06
we're having it frozen today? Meaning, you know, does it need
1:05:10
to be at 0 or can it be at three?
1:05:15
And the difference between 0 and three could be much as 10%
1:05:21
greenhouse gas savings across the across the supply chain.
1:05:27
So, you know, that's something that the that AFY as an
1:05:31
organization is starting studies on.
1:05:35
We're partnering with a company in the UK that's actually done
1:05:39
this study in the UK supply chain and they figured out they
1:05:42
can save 10 to 15%. It's it's much more difficult to
1:05:48
do that in Europe because they're very strictly regulated
1:05:52
on temperatures and things like that.
1:05:54
Again, somewhat legacy, somewhat legacy oriented, meaning, hey,
1:05:58
back, you know, 50 years ago there was, we didn't have the
1:06:03
technology in, in refrigerated trailers and trucks and, and you
1:06:07
were going to get more variability than you get today.
1:06:10
So let's over freeze it to make sure that it arrived safely.
1:06:15
OK, Well, you know, we're much better at that.
1:06:17
I mean, you can GPS monitor a soft and A and a trailer and the
1:06:22
temperature all the way through supply state if you want to.
1:06:25
Well, I can normal have an ability to know oh, trailer A
1:06:31
out in Phoenix, AZ has it kind of exceeded its limit.
1:06:34
We're not going to put that into distribution.
1:06:36
Whereas you know, 80 years ago when the laws were written for
1:06:40
that, you didn't know that you kind of had to design A fail
1:06:44
safe in the system and that was kind of by freezing it even more
1:06:47
deeply. So is that a way to look at
1:06:51
greenhouse gas reduction, energy usage reduction and still have
1:06:56
the same quality, still have the same level of food safety, still
1:07:01
deliver the same consumer end user experience and, and be
1:07:06
smarter about how we do it. So I think the accommodation of
1:07:08
packaging and and energy savings in, in, in the grocery industry
1:07:13
it, it's something I think they'll be a lot of progress
1:07:16
made on in the next 5 years. Super interesting, Brian.
1:07:20
I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
1:07:23
and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.
1:07:26
Well, thank you. I, I, I've enjoyed it.
1:07:28
Hopefully I I've given some information and perspectives
1:07:32
that that your listeners will will like and appreciate.
1:07:36
Absolutely, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
1:07:39
of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:07:42
today.