Latest / The Future Herd / 12: Why Culture Decides What We Eat with Raj Thandhi

Transcript

12: Why Culture Decides What We Eat with Raj Thandhi · The Future Herd

0:00
Jesse Hirsh: Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh.
0:03
Welcome to the Future Herd.
0:06
What Raj Thandi surfaces in this conversation is easy to miss if
0:11
you're only looking at AgriFood through production or policy.
0:16
She draws attention to a quieter layer of the system, the point where food
0:22
either becomes part of everyday life or remains abstract even when it's available.
0:28
And she's very clear in her own way that this is where a great deal is decided.
0:34
Not in fields or boardrooms, but in kitchens habits and confidence.
0:41
A recurring thread in what she shares in today's episode is that
0:45
the barrier is rarely supply.
0:48
It's literacy, it's comprehension.
0:51
People don't cook what they don't understand, they don't buy what they don't
0:56
recognise, and they don't integrate what doesn't feel like it belongs to them.
1:02
That gap between what exists and what is actually used, it's not a
1:07
minor inefficiency, it's structural.
1:11
And this is why her work operates directly in the spaces we should
1:16
be paying more attention to.
1:18
What becomes, what becomes apparent over the course of this conversation
1:24
is that translation between cultures, ingredients and contexts is doing
1:30
far more than we tend to acknowledge.
1:33
It is shaping demand, influencing value, and determining whether local food
1:38
systems are lived or merely discussed.
1:42
When Raj adapts or presents a recipe, she's not just sharing technique.
1:48
She's altering the conditions under which certain ingredients become viable.
1:53
There's also a more complex dynamic at play.
1:57
She is working across overlapping systems, diaspora traditions, regional
2:03
and local agriculture, digital audiences.
2:06
And instead of flattening those differences, she lets them interact.
2:11
That creates something more adaptive, but also more difficult to categorise.
2:16
It resists the tidy narratives that the sector often prefers, and instead
2:22
allows for a nuance and complexity.
2:25
That enables all sorts of opportunities for entrepreneurs and families alike.
2:32
By the end of this discussion, the usual hierarchy, production first,
2:37
culture second starts to feel inverted.
2:41
The question is no longer just what we grow, but whether people know how
2:46
to live with what's grown around them.
2:49
That shift, subtle as it is, has significant implications for how we
2:55
think about resilience markets and of course leadership in our food system.
3:01
Raj, welcome to the Future Herd.
3:05
Raj Thandhi: Thanks for having me.
3:07
Jesse Hirsh: Now, uh, as much I want to discuss with you today, partly
3:10
because you really fit my larger agenda, that leadership in the present
3:16
and in the future really comes down to communications and understanding your
3:21
audience and engaging your audience.
3:24
But the first question that I throw out now to all of our guests, uh, it's
3:28
rather abstract, it's rather sweeping.
3:30
It's meant to be very subjective.
3:33
what does the future mean to you?
3:37
Raj Thandhi: The future as in the abstract or the future of food.
3:41
Jesse Hirsh: It's for you to decide.
3:42
This is kind of meant as like a rolling of the dice.
3:46
You could talk about the future of food.
3:48
You could talk about the future of yourself.
3:50
You could talk about a collective future, or alternatively, you could talk about a
3:55
future you desire that you want everyone to see so that we can rally towards it.
4:01
Raj Thandhi: Okay, so, um, you caught me off guard with this one, but because
4:05
we live in this world right now where everywhere I go, every dinner party I'm
4:09
at, every gathering I'm at, everyone's talking about AI and all my friends,
4:13
which younger children, I have children also, but they're in university.
4:17
You know, everyone's really worried about ai and right now my biggest concern
4:22
for the future, my hope, my desire, everything wrapped in one, is that we can.
4:27
Continue as a community, as humanity like.
4:30
Maintain that our critical thinking skills, our empathy, who we are as
4:34
humans comes first and all of these things that we're, we have access to ai,
4:40
social media, all these mediums that you and I are using to spread information.
4:44
These are just tools and my kind of big picture goal for the
4:49
future or what I wanna see in the future is for my children to be.
4:53
Empathetic, kind, you know, using all the parts of their brain that
4:57
they're supposed to use, not off like outsourcing, hosted technology.
5:01
And I think in many ways that also relates to food.
5:05
You know, I want people to, when I think about how I, where I sit in the
5:10
food ecosystem and where I sit in the future of food, I think it's about
5:15
keeping people connected to the food.
5:16
You know, it's not always about the hack or the shortcut or the easiest way around.
5:21
It's about figuratively and literally touching the soil, like knowing
5:26
the food, knowing the process.
5:28
It's not.
5:29
It's not about always finding the shortest way from a and b or like
5:32
a quick way to get there, but maybe engaging with your food, being kind to
5:37
the community that's building your food.
5:39
So many people who know me in real life, they tell me, you know, I see
5:44
the world with rose tinted glasses, or I always see the best of all things.
5:48
But, um, I am always wishing for like empathy and kindness in the
5:52
future in every possible way.
5:55
Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
5:56
And in spite of it catching you off guard.
5:58
I think that may have been the best answer, uh, to that
6:02
question in our modest, uh, I believe it's 12 episodes so far.
6:06
So you're, you're off to a fantastic start and I absolutely want to talk
6:11
about empathy and food and, and culture and the way it connects us.
6:16
I also wanna indulge in a question that I'm not able to ask, uh, most
6:23
of the guests that we've had so far.
6:25
But in your case, uh, even though I suspect it's gonna catch you off guard
6:30
again, that this is a, a question you're uniquely positioned to answer, which is.
6:36
What has your relationship with the internet been like?
6:39
And, and I say this because with most people, I might ask, you know,
6:43
how did you get into the industry?
6:45
Or, you know, how did you become a farmer?
6:47
Right?
6:48
Or, you know, WWWW when did you get into policy around agriculture?
6:54
And that's a way for the guests to kinda, not so much establish their expertise,
6:59
but give a bit of an origin story.
7:02
But you have a, an expertise and a knowledge of the internet
7:05
that I want to tease out first.
7:07
So, you know, rather than give you the abstract, what's your relationship to the
7:12
internet, which you can take if you want.
7:15
did you realise that the internet was an opportunity for you?
7:19
Uh, a way for you not just to have fun, but to, to be, uh, for lack of
7:24
a better word, professional when it comes to the way you use the internet.
7:29
Raj Thandhi: Um, okay.
7:30
So I'm one of the people who I think you could consider a
7:33
dinosaur in the social media space.
7:36
I have been blogging since.
7:39
2011. So this is my 15th year blogging.
7:43
And, um, my relationship with the internet, funny enough,
7:46
also is really closely related to my relationship with food.
7:50
So without going really deeply into a backstory, um, I started a little.
7:56
Flicker page in 2011, I was between jobs.
8:00
I was figuring out kind of what I wanted to do.
8:01
My background is in pr, marketing, economic development.
8:05
So I had, you know, I, I wanna be fair and say I came to this with
8:08
a skillset and communications, but not everybody at that time I think
8:12
understood what social media could be.
8:16
And at the same time as I was going through this career shift
8:18
I was going through, my family was going through some upheaval.
8:22
My husband and I both were out of work at the same time.
8:25
The finances were crunched, our kids were little.
8:27
They were like five and eight, and I was trying to feed really fussy, picky kids.
8:33
With a limited budget, limited cooking skills, limited patience,
8:37
and trying to get them to also eat culturally relevant food.
8:41
So I started posting pictures on my flicker account of my
8:44
attempts at recreating food that my mom and grandma had made.
8:48
You know, my attempts at upgrading myself from a boxed mac and cheese cook to
8:52
somebody who could actually cook things.
8:55
And two amazing things happened for me.
8:57
One is I discovered my passion for food.
8:59
I came to food really late in later in my life.
9:02
You know, people love cooking when they're young.
9:04
I discovered it in my early thirties, but the second thing
9:07
that happened is I'd go to Twitter.
9:09
Talk about something.
9:11
And other people would say, like, say if I was talking about a traditional recipe,
9:14
they would say, oh, I always wanted to make that, but my mom never wrote it down.
9:17
I don't know how to say that herbs name in English.
9:20
I don't know what that spice is called in English.
9:22
And I think something kind of clicked for me that there was an entire
9:25
community of second gen Canadians who were living in that same space as me.
9:31
So I discovered really early on.
9:34
You know, to answer your question, that the internet had the power to
9:37
create communities from the get go.
9:40
My community has been built on people who shared similar struggles,
9:44
similar anxieties, similar kind of food histories and stories, and
9:49
then, you know, it just kind of.
9:51
Took on a life of its own.
9:53
From there, I, you know, went, I took culinary classes.
9:56
I really dug into like my, my interest in food.
10:00
But at the same time, I started realising that the recipes are
10:04
important, but more important were the conversations in DMS and the.
10:08
Things people were asking me, the level of trust people were giving my
10:12
opinion, like it would blow my mind.
10:14
You know, strangers would message me to send me a picture of something they
10:18
cooked and say, I successfully did this.
10:20
I was able to do it, or this is my question, and.
10:24
You know, my relationship with the internet has been amazing.
10:27
Um, you know, a lot of people say, you know, social media is a difficult place.
10:33
You know, social media is a mean place.
10:36
I knock on wood would say 95% of the time have great, um, experiences online.
10:42
But I also think that goes back to the fact that I'm really not
10:45
trying to sell anybody anything.
10:47
I'm always trying to build community.
10:49
So I think, you know.
10:51
It is.
10:52
I always say to people, this is really bizarre, and I'm kind of off
10:55
on a tangent, but people always find this funny that there's this old
10:58
book in business, it's called like.
11:01
How to make friends or think and grow rich or something like that.
11:04
And in that book, they're always talking about how your network
11:07
matters and the people you talk to and the people that you know.
11:10
And I think of, like, I've always thought of social media and the
11:13
internet in that way, that I wasn't ever trying to reach everybody.
11:17
I was just trying to speak to the people who needed my message.
11:20
So in that sense, the internet has been good to me.
11:24
Most of my career, most of the things I do, you know, you know whether it's
11:28
my role with IBC as Chef Ambassador, the work I do for CBC, my recipe
11:32
column in the Vancouver Sun, it all came out of this one decision to start
11:38
tweeting, which doesn't exist anymore.
11:40
I don't, I'm not even on that app anymore.
11:42
That platform doesn't exist just 'cause I started tweeting when
11:44
I was cooking for dinner, and a community was created out of that.
11:48
Jesse Hirsh: I have to push back initially and say, 'cause you're clearly
11:51
not a dinosaur, and I get that there is a kind of ageism on the internet
11:57
that once you reach a certain age, young people may not show the respect
12:02
that in your case you clearly deserve.
12:05
But you are clearly a community builder.
12:07
And, and, and I want you to kind of elaborate on the power of community
12:12
on the internet because on the one hand you're speaking from a sense
12:16
of confidence, a, a sense of not optimism, but benefit and, and.
12:21
Transparency transparently.
12:23
This is where you and I share something in common.
12:25
'cause I've also benefited tremendously from being part
12:29
of communities on the internet.
12:31
And I've often told people that the secret to my success, the secret in
12:35
fact, to my happiness, has often been the communities that I'm part of online.
12:41
And I think this is something a lot of people.
12:44
Don't understand, like if they haven't experienced it.
12:46
If they haven't been part of it.
12:48
So I, I'd love for you to unpack what you see as kind of leadership
12:55
within these communities.
12:56
And you kind of alluded to it where.
12:59
Earlier you evoked empathy and you know, you sort of suggested that part of your
13:04
success is you're not selling anything.
13:06
And and I would go even further, I would say that you're
13:08
actually actively giving, right?
13:10
You're, you're, you're giving recipes, you're giving culture, you're giving all
13:15
sorts of insights that are, you know, part and parcel of your own experience, but.
13:21
I suspect you have experienced bad or dysfunctional online communities
13:26
compared to ones that are really empowering for all the members.
13:31
So I'd love to hear your thoughts on, on why, on what works on the
13:35
role of leadership within that.
13:37
Kind of community building, either through your own experience or through people
13:42
that you've observed who maybe you've learned from, uh, in terms of watching
13:46
how they've handled, uh, either conflicts or just opportunities when it comes to
13:50
making people feel like they belong.
13:53
Raj Thandhi: Yeah, I mean obviously like I think that social media is a really great
13:57
testing ground for future leaders because that's just the world we live in now.
14:01
You know, um, at some point if you're gonna have a leadership role, it's gonna
14:06
have to be transferrable to social media.
14:09
I feel.
14:09
I just, I don't think it's gonna go away.
14:12
And, you know, leadership on social media.
14:15
It's a lot of listening.
14:16
I feel like there's this misconception that being, you know, big on social
14:21
media is about being a one-way speaker.
14:25
Because if you have, you know, it, it, it's an amazing metric to have a hundred
14:29
thousand followers, but you're, that doesn't mean that I'm on a megaphone now,
14:34
shouting at a hundred thousand people.
14:35
I'm still listening to the people taking that information, distilling it.
14:41
It's kind of like having a live feedback loop.
14:44
Right.
14:44
Like at any given time, I can put out a recipe.
14:48
I actually put out a recipe yesterday that bombed.
14:50
I really thought it would do better, but I realised something.
14:55
I put out a recipe that was based on a vegetable that right now is at Prime High.
15:00
Like it is really priced out of a lot of people's budget right now.
15:03
It's just, it's just cauliflower.
15:04
But cauliflower is so expensive right now that I didn't read the room.
15:09
And I think the reason that that recipe didn't do well is because
15:12
it's not the right time to be asking people to buy that vegetable.
15:15
So, you know, you're in a constant feedback loop every single day.
15:20
There's a trend, there's people to react to.
15:22
So I think that the community building aspect, the leadership is one.
15:27
One.
15:27
I mean, if you're gonna approach social media as I'm just doing
15:30
it because people tell me I have to do it, then don't even do it.
15:34
Like, I'm sorry.
15:34
Like, I'm just gonna say the thing.
15:36
If you don't believe in it, if you don't believe that the people whose
15:39
opinions matter are there and bringing them into your community matters,
15:43
then it's never gonna work for you.
15:45
I, you know.
15:46
While I wear many hats that are maybe more mainstream, but on my Instagram
15:51
page, my focus really is documenting, preserving heritage, Punjabi recipes,
15:57
and also making them accessible to North American cooks, particularly
16:00
people who have different ingredients.
16:02
So in that capacity, I have got to have my ears open and I have to listen
16:07
and you know, I will read comment.
16:09
Streams from people and I get some people on the internet can be kind of
16:13
irritating and you feel really compelled to tell them, you know your opinion.
16:17
But I'll read comments like on other community pages and I'll see
16:21
really defensive responses from the author or people being really upset
16:26
that someone asked for further.
16:29
Not justification.
16:30
Sometimes people wanna understand your recipe, right?
16:32
They wanna know why you suggested this step.
16:35
And people get really defensive.
16:37
And I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I feel that way, but I try
16:40
and step away and come back.
16:42
And I have really tried to, I have really tried to take the
16:45
perspective always that, um.
16:48
In this busy, busy world where people could consume a million things, if you
16:54
will give 90 seconds of your day to my reel to watch it, to ask me a question, I
17:00
will 100% give you the same respect back.
17:03
And I feel like to me, as someone who doesn't work in a traditional
17:07
leadership role, but I have worked in companies before.
17:10
I have worked in government, I have worked in an agency setting
17:14
where that's not the kind of.
17:16
Treatment I got from leadership.
17:18
You know, sometimes when you're new and you ask a question, they,
17:21
you know, it's like, really?
17:22
You had the audacity to ask me that question.
17:24
Whereas I think on social media, what I love about social media, and
17:28
if somebody's listening, who is, you could be an expert in anything.
17:32
You could be an expert in lentils, tomatoes, I don't
17:35
know, the cello, any, anything.
17:37
And you could be a thought leader in like a month because you took the
17:41
time to put your information out.
17:43
I, I just.
17:44
I love the internet and social media, and I just, I think to sum
17:49
up my very long tangent, yes, I have had some bad experiences.
17:53
There are bad apples in every industry.
17:56
You know, I watch the videos where people are like, you know, content creator did
17:59
this to me, and Influencer did that to me.
18:01
I can't believe someone said this to me, but you just gotta find your people.
18:04
Like, don't waste your time on the spaces that aren't your people.
18:09
Jesse Hirsh: I, I, I have to certainly feel.
18:11
Affirmed here in the sense that part of my desire to have you on the show,
18:15
part of my desire to pick your brain, I is that, that you're absolutely
18:20
confirming is that the journey you've taken, you are understanding a model
18:26
of leadership that it, it's something we need to be teaching people, is
18:30
something we need to be sharing.
18:31
And, and you've used a bunch of words already, like empathy and
18:35
respect and community and listening.
18:38
Which are, are all, I think to you and I as people who live on the internet,
18:43
is kind of self-evident, maybe to a lot of institutional leaders are, are,
18:48
are things that they, they still need to be wrapping their heads around.
18:52
you also, uh, describe something that I think is, is not just
18:56
brilliant, but really important when understanding Canada's AgriFood
19:01
system and, and in particular.
19:03
The way in which we as a country can live up to our potential.
19:08
'cause you hear all this talk about, you know, Canada as a superfood power,
19:12
Canada as an agricultural power, but I've always regarded Canada as,
19:18
uh, an intersection of diasporas.
19:21
if you're honest about looking at where Canada's come from, where Canada is
19:26
and where Canada's going, is a network.
19:30
Of different diasporas spanning all over the world.
19:34
what you described is not just an approach to a diaspora where on the
19:39
one hand you wanna reinforce culture, you, you want to celebrate culture.
19:44
You're doing an intergenerational pass down of culture, you're
19:49
also making it accessible.
19:50
You're inviting other people to learn about the culture, to understand the
19:55
diaspora to, you know, I, I saw a video of a a a a Rainbow Roti that I
20:01
thought was, again, a really powerful way to make these things accessible.
20:06
This might be self-evident to you, right?
20:08
You may just be doing this 'cause you're having fun and you're doing
20:11
this, but I think there's something really profound in how you're building
20:16
these bridges between cultures.
20:19
I'd love for you to unpack that.
20:20
I'd love for you to describe kind how you found yourself doing that and, and,
20:26
and the reward or, or the, the success.
20:30
I think that has come from being able to, to play that.
20:35
Raj Thandhi: You know, I never thought about this until this precise
20:37
moment because of your question.
20:39
I think being, um.
20:42
Second generation Canadian, which I think all of us are, but not
20:46
everyone identifies like that because.
20:48
Of all sorts of things that would take way too long to unpack.
20:51
But you know, my parents immigrated from India, from Punjab in the early 1970s.
20:57
So, you know, being second generation, I think you learn very young
21:02
automatically to, to balance two worlds.
21:05
You know?
21:05
'cause we had our world at school.
21:07
In our world with our parents, we have our, what we call English
21:11
food, which is the, was like the strangest bucket we put food in.
21:15
That's not our, you know, traditional foods.
21:18
So I guess for that reason, it never felt like a strategic, uh, it never felt
21:24
strategic for me to be like, how do I take a recipe and make it work with,
21:28
you know, what I can find in Canada?
21:30
What is grown here, what's in the grocery store here?
21:33
Because that's how I grew up.
21:34
You know, I grew up with my mom being like, I used to find this
21:37
at home, but I can't anymore.
21:39
So we substitute it here.
21:40
So I think in that way.
21:43
Saying, I'm gonna take something and I'm gonna make it accessible,
21:45
and then I'm gonna use language that someone who reads a Canadian cookbook
21:49
or a Canadian recipe can understand.
21:52
But I'm also gonna use traditional language.
21:54
All of that just, that's just how I am.
21:57
Like that's how me and my friends who are the same culture as me, we
21:59
behave and you know, to, to your.
22:02
Point about how that kind of fits into the AgriFood system.
22:05
I feel like that is a skill that I've never thought until this moment with
22:09
this conversation with you, that if we could rev reverse engineer it from
22:13
plate to, you know, policy versus I feel like so much works from.
22:18
Policy to plate, you know?
22:20
Then we would realise that, like you said, the plates in home
22:24
kitchens in Canada, they do not always look like meat and potatoes.
22:28
They do not always look like what we have grown and farmed for generations because.
22:35
There are so many communities and so many diaspora, and we, and we almost do
22:39
have to learn how to speak this duality.
22:42
Like we have to learn how to speak that.
22:44
Yes, a potato does go with steak and potatoes, but a potato also goes in an
22:49
aranta or a potato roasty or a biani.
22:53
You know, like we have to learn those conversations, which I
22:56
never thought before today.
22:58
A skillset, I guess it's a survival instinct for second gen kids.
23:03
You know, like the duality is a survival instinct, but it's actually, you know,
23:07
you should um, you should try and build a consulting kind of gig out of this
23:12
'cause you're onto something there.
23:14
Jesse Hirsh: Well e except you are the consultant.
23:16
This, this is, if anything I'm activating and you, your entrepreneurial
23:21
mind, uh, when it comes to this.
23:23
'cause you're absolutely right.
23:24
Survival instincts in one context are entrepreneurial innovations in another.
23:31
And you know, this is why I think the.
23:35
Insular nature of the policy world of the sectoral leadership of
23:40
AgriFood is a liability because we miss the opportunities, we miss
23:46
the values, and, and you're kind of describing it on the one hand.
23:50
You're kind of helping expand people's palate by giving them, you know,
23:55
new recipes or to your point, how to deal with picky eaters amongst
23:59
kids or amongst family members.
24:02
you're also at the same time achieving a cultural literacy where, you know, on
24:07
the one hand you're using language that matches people's frame of reference.
24:12
But not at the exclusion of Punjabi cultural references, or not at the
24:16
exclusion of ingredients that might have been traditionally in these dishes,
24:21
and that in and of itself, while you describe it as a survival instinct.
24:27
I see it as food literacy.
24:29
So instead of people thinking, oh, lentils, that's something
24:33
we export, it becomes lentils.
24:36
That's something I can make withdrawal.
24:38
That would be so great.
24:40
And it's these small steps that take.
24:43
An industry like AgriFood from something that's commodity based
24:48
to something that is much richer, much more value added, and positions
24:52
Canada within the rest of the world.
24:54
Now I am rambling and going on digressions.
24:58
Why don't we come back to the, the, the kind of responses, 'cause again,
25:03
we're, we're able in hindsight's 2020, we could look back at what you've done
25:07
and go, oh, Raj, that's so brilliant.
25:09
Look at all the things you've done.
25:11
But you have done this kind of out of passion and, and out of
25:14
your own sense of intuition.
25:16
So what has the reaction been around the ar as, as you've done it along the way?
25:21
How have the, whether it's the CBC, whether it's by bc, I'm curious to
25:27
hear about how you have been kind, uh, helping people understand the value of
25:31
food education, of food literacy, and of doing the kind of work that you do.
25:37
Raj Thandhi: You know, um.
25:39
There's a couple things in that we wanna pull off of, but to answer your,
25:42
uh, question that, you know, I, I think, um, in the last 10 years, I have
25:48
definitely seen that there is a lot more understanding for regional nuance.
25:54
Like for me, my first roadblock when I started telling my food
25:58
stories was, is that I identify as.
26:00
Punjabi, which is a state inside of India, and Indian food is generally
26:04
sort of homogenised under one bucket.
26:07
And a lot of people said, you know, it would be a lot easier if you
26:10
just said it was Indian food or you know, some people want you to call
26:13
yourself South Asian and you know.
26:15
The, that's fine for whatever framework.
26:18
Somebody decided at some point fit their understanding.
26:21
But it's not fine because being Punjabi is so distinctly different than
26:26
being from say a, you know, a state like Gura or Rajistan or Ma Russia.
26:31
Like I, you can cross 30 kilometres in India and you're in a new language,
26:35
a new culture, a new food identity.
26:37
So I think like my first battle was to really battle for the
26:42
fact that even people within my own community, other chefs.
26:45
Were frustrated with me.
26:46
You know, they were like, why are you making it harder?
26:50
So like, you know, that was my first battle and in initially it felt very
26:54
lonely because I, you know, I'm still one of the few voices in North America
26:59
that identifies as a Punjabi chef.
27:01
Most people say Indian, um, you know, and in Western, I believe, currently in
27:05
Canada, someone recently told me that I might have the largest recipe based
27:10
page of somebody who's an Indian food blogger, um, or a food content creator.
27:14
But then it always comes back to, you know.
27:17
I'm Punjabi, not Indian.
27:18
So that was a bit of a struggle and you know, and when you go into mainstream
27:21
media and you're pitching ideas and you're like, you know, I wanna call this doll
27:26
what it's called in my home, just even though on restaurant menus it's called
27:30
this, or even though it might be easier for Google search if it was in Hindi.
27:35
So, you know, those little nuances.
27:37
I think, you know, when we think about the AgriFood sector as a
27:41
whole, I think about what small producers could learn from that.
27:45
Is that.
27:46
There are cultures that, like there are hundreds of thousands
27:50
of people here in Canada and they're looking for ingredients.
27:52
They're looking for things that you might break the market and
27:56
you might make something that just that culture is looking for.
27:58
But to do that you have to stop looking at them as Southeast Asia.
28:03
And so Asia and Africa, you know, like you ha if you start looking at
28:07
regional nuance, there are so many products that are missing on shelves.
28:11
There are so many.
28:12
Or like produce items that are missing.
28:13
So for me, that was something that I always thought about, but
28:17
over the years it's gotten easier.
28:19
And people,
28:20
Jesse Hirsh: and if
28:20
Raj Thandhi: sorry, go ahead.
28:21
Jesse Hirsh: if I could just kind of reinforce your point by distinguishing,
28:25
say, Punjabi food and Punjabi culture.
28:29
You're not only your own sense of identity, your own sense of culture,
28:35
but you are then creating value in the marketplace where then I, as a consumer,
28:40
instead of going for Indian food, I'm gonna start wanting Punjabi food.
28:45
And, and the reason I, I kind of identify with this was.
28:49
You know, when I was living in Toronto for a period, I, I, I was a real big
28:53
fan of Tamil cuisine and there were a number of Tamil restaurants that I
28:58
would often go to and bring my friends to, and there were a lot of political
29:02
reasons why these Tamil restaurants were distinguishing themselves and engaging
29:08
in that level of cultural distinction.
29:11
But it fostered loyalty amongst consumers, amongst their customers because they
29:17
then understood the, the, the reason these dishes were different, the reason
29:22
the ingredients were different, and the larger culture that it existed in.
29:27
So it's not just an issue of category distinction, I think it's
29:30
also an issue of creating value, add and desire to the food itself.
29:35
Does, does that make sense?
29:37
Raj Thandhi: 100%.
29:38
So we live in a world right now where everybody's a foodie.
29:41
I don't use that word because I feel like it doesn't really mean anything anymore.
29:44
Like what does it even mean to be a foodie?
29:46
But everywhere you go, people are like, I'm, I'm a foodie.
29:49
This is my favourite hole in the wall space.
29:52
This is my fa I'm, you know, I'm trying this New Spice.
29:55
We try this new recipe.
29:56
People are watching all the cooking shows.
29:59
So there are, there is like.
30:02
And this kind of goes back a step to when you were talking
30:04
about how we treat the consumer.
30:07
When we think of when it comes to selling food in the AgriFood space, I think
30:12
it's a real miss When we think of the consumer, we have to think of the eater.
30:15
We have to think of all of the drivers that go behind why we eat what we eat.
30:20
Whether it's like the financial modification, motivations, sorry,
30:23
the health, the, the cultural drivers or, or the food adventurers.
30:28
So this, there's this giant opportunity that exists, like I'm consulting on
30:32
a project right now with someone who is working on a, I can't say because
30:36
I don't wanna say what it is, but it's an herb that is missing, that a
30:39
culture needs, and it's an herb that.
30:42
You know, can be done here in Canada, but no one's thought about it.
30:46
And I kind of feel like it's going to make people feel they're gonna walk into
30:49
this or they're gonna see this urban and they're gonna be like, ah, home.
30:52
You know, they're gonna feel so connected to it.
30:54
And imagine how many other products exist in, you know, I, I'm only
30:58
an expert kind of on my region.
31:00
I have a deep understanding of like the South Asian cuisines, but there
31:04
are probably experts everywhere in all sorts of regional cuisines that.
31:10
If we could make partnerships, you know, between the people on social media who
31:15
hear consumers every day saying, sorry, not consumers, but like people who hear
31:20
conversations every day where someone's saying, oh, you know, I'm looking for x, Y
31:25
thing, but I can't find it here in Canada.
31:27
This happens to me almost every day.
31:29
You know, I have a lot of immigrant followers.
31:31
I can't find this.
31:32
So I'll say, oh, you know what?
31:33
That's not available, especially if you don't want it imported.
31:36
But here's some.
31:37
Other items that I think have similar flavour profiles, and there
31:40
are probably people who can do this for every region of the world.
31:44
So if there was a way to create a partnership between producers, policy, you
31:49
know, retail marketers, like everything your ears to the ground are the people
31:54
that are on social media to kind of, you know, to say what we've been saying
31:58
all along, you cannot get better real time data than what content creators on
32:03
social media are making or are, you know.
32:06
Learning or hearing.
32:07
So, you know, and to go to your point about regional nuance, like imagine
32:13
how, uh, much brand loyalty and trust a food brand could create if people who
32:20
felt overlooked, who felt like their cuisine wasn't important or their culture
32:24
hasn't been recognised, suddenly saw a product in the market that spoke to them.
32:30
Um.
32:31
You can't buy that kind of brand loyalty with marketing dollars.
32:34
Like, you know, once people are loyal to something, they're loyal to it.
32:37
When it comes to food.
32:39
Jesse Hirsh: And, and not just that, but it reinforces your point about
32:42
eaters and the emotions and the psychology that goes into an eater
32:48
because you, you, you just evoke the scenario that I seem quite likely where.
32:52
know, let's say there's a particular ingredient that a community's passionate
32:56
about they can't get ahold of.
32:58
Someone produces it in in small enough quantity, let's say initially that
33:03
everyone's excited and it's that emotion on social media, which becomes infectious.
33:10
The excited that they now have access to an ingredient or a herb they wanted, but
33:16
then everyone else watching them goes.
33:18
Wow.
33:19
Look how excited they are about that ingredient.
33:22
want that ingredient.
33:23
I need to have that ingredient.
33:25
All of a sudden you got a craze going on.
33:27
'cause that's how social media works in terms of the
33:30
infectiousness o of that energy.
33:33
You know, and very briefly, 'cause again, I'm digressing again.
33:37
A couple of episodes ago, uh, we had Camden Lawrence from the
33:40
First Nations Agricultural Bank.
33:43
Uh, basically they helped finance, uh, indigenous agriculture across the country.
33:48
And he dropped this brilliant piece of knowledge, which is.
33:52
You know, people don't realise that the price of Basel is higher
33:56
than the price of cannabis.
33:58
And that if people, instead of trying to have illegal grow ops, had legal
34:04
Basel grow ops, amount of revenue for the community would be tremendous.
34:10
And you're kind of describing a similar opportunity that there's all these
34:14
communities throughout Canada that on social media, are providing signals that
34:19
growers could be tapping into that if they started growing these ingredients,
34:24
again, we get from the diasporas here in Canada then position us to start
34:31
feeding cultures around the world.
34:33
I'm rambling again, but are, are we kind of on the same page here in terms
34:36
of understanding this opportunity?
34:39
Raj Thandhi: Absolutely, and it's, this is not rambling, this is excitement.
34:42
This is us just trying to get the message out because you know
34:45
everything you said, like, think about the viral feta pasta, the Dubai
34:49
Chocolate bar, gochujang, kimchi.
34:52
These were not all mainstream items before they went viral on s. TikTok,
34:57
but we only, we generally tend to think of them as like a product.
35:01
It has to be, but you know, there's this, um.
35:05
Wild Herb used in, uh, Punjabi saag, which is kind of like a,
35:10
a stewed mustard greens dish.
35:12
It's called btu, and it grows everywhere in bc It's wild everywhere.
35:17
But last summer, a couple of BC blueberry farmers, their grandma told
35:21
them, Hey, do you know what this is?
35:23
And they put it on social media and said, you can come and get this for free.
35:26
I was one of the people that was like, I'm 100% gonna go and get.
35:30
This herb.
35:31
Right.
35:31
But it was like such a really, it was such a fun social experiment.
35:35
Like somebody who was a blueberry grower, his grandma was like, do you
35:38
know in India we used to cook with this?
35:40
And you know, obviously please follow all the rules.
35:43
Don't, I don't wanna get anyone in trouble with what you're supposed to
35:45
do and not do in terms of food safety.
35:48
But when I saw that, I thought, wow, like there are people, there's a demand
35:51
for this thing, which is growing like a weed in bc. And there are, and this then
35:56
pertains to like educating ourselves.
35:58
You know, we get into.
36:00
In any industry.
36:01
I'm not trying to dog on one industry.
36:03
We get in, we get our like, you know.
36:06
What is it called?
36:06
We, we have our blind spots.
36:08
You know, we kind of, we have our head down.
36:09
We're focused on, we're like, this is what we've always grown.
36:12
This is what we've always done.
36:13
You know, and when we, when we start talking to other people and we create
36:16
like incubator opportunities, when we have conversations, that's where I
36:21
think that this kind of real innovative, creative opportunities will come out.
36:26
And to be fair, you know, we talk a lot about the cost to the, the end
36:31
product user to the eaters, but.
36:34
Agriculture is expensive for the farmers also.
36:36
So imagine if there was a, imagine if there's a farmer out there who
36:40
has like a really amazing opportunity just there, but they don't know about
36:45
it 'cause they haven't talked to the person who can recognise what they have.
36:49
Jesse Hirsh: Well, and you know, let's use that as an opportunity to talk about what
36:53
you're doing with buy BC because it is, I think, a really smart way to take the
36:59
stuff we're talking about today and kind of close the loop and, and you alluded.
37:03
To it in the sense that there's herbs that are growing wild, uh, at parts of
37:07
Canada that we ignore, but that are of great value, uh, to certain cultures,
37:12
certain cuisines, and as people recognise either the taste or the nutritional
37:16
value, you know, attitudes change.
37:19
there is a communications piece to all of that.
37:22
'cause on the one hand, you know, the farmers have to understand
37:26
what's going on with the eaters.
37:27
The eaters have to understand, you know, to your point of cauliflower,
37:31
when crops are in season.
37:33
When they're affordable.
37:34
When they're in abundance, and then what?
37:36
To do with them.
37:38
So, you know, talk about the work you're doing, the, the kind of
37:41
ambassadorship that really helps to make these connections in, in a way
37:46
that, again, I think we're looking at a model of leadership that we should be
37:50
replicating right across the country.
37:53
Raj Thandhi: Yeah, I mean, I think first off, like, you know, kudos to the BBC
37:57
team for thinking about it this way.
37:59
You know, this is a, a rule that there was, you know, a process
38:03
for, there was a, a bid process for, I applied for this role.
38:07
And I think, you know, first off, this is a really great example of
38:11
like innovative thought leadership.
38:13
To not assume that.
38:15
You have to have, you know, a technical chef in this role.
38:19
One of the, the things that, you know, the team and I have talked about a lot is the
38:23
importance of connecting with home cooks.
38:25
I think often when we think about brands and they wanna promote something,
38:29
you know, we, we think about chefs.
38:32
And, and you know, again, this is a very like grey area where being a chef
38:37
who specialises in an ethnic cuisine is different than being a chef who
38:40
specialises in French cuisine, say, but you know, often as, as, um, content
38:45
consumers, when a brand before social media, brands often looked at things
38:49
as like, let's get a, a pro chef.
38:51
You know, a chef who's gonna.
38:53
Do a certain kind of technique or a certain kind of plating, but the
38:56
perspective with buy BC from the very beginning, from where I've started, my
39:00
role has been how can we take products that are readily available in BC that
39:04
are in season and introduce 'em to home cooks if they're not already using them or
39:09
show home cooks, how they can incorporate them into their cultural recipes,
39:13
which, you know, we've done some unique pieces where we've taken something that
39:17
wouldn't traditionally sit in a Punjabi recipe, but we've brought it in and.
39:21
You know, the idea really just is to, 'cause at the end of the day,
39:25
you know, there's all these people that are in the AgriFood system.
39:28
There's a supply chain, there's policy, there's all that.
39:31
But at the end of the day, the last mile, the.
39:35
Farm to plate is in somebody's kitchen who has 30 minutes, limited budget, limited
39:41
time, you know, and that's the people that through buy BC we're trying to talk to.
39:45
We're trying to be like, you don't need to buy 15 ingredients.
39:49
Like, let's just focus on one ingredient, do it well.
39:52
And you know, in the process we're trying to tell really cool producer stories.
39:56
You know, like I did a piece.
39:57
Uh, in November on an egg, Liz hazelnut cake, hazelnuts are not necessarily
40:03
the most, um, economical option, but a lot of people said, you know, now
40:07
that I know they're grown in bc I'm interested to try them because I didn't
40:11
know you could grow hazelnuts in bc.
40:12
So it's a fine balance, you know, because yes, we are in a time where.
40:18
Economics matters.
40:19
Like all Canadians are worried about the cost of groceries.
40:22
I am worried about the cost of groceries, like, you know, so economics matters.
40:26
But I think if you can tell a good story, people will splurge
40:29
on an ingredient and all of that kind of to come full circle is.
40:34
Are you creating community?
40:35
Are people invested in your brand or you online?
40:38
Do they trust you?
40:39
Do they wanna support you?
40:41
Then they will pay the extra $2 at the checkout if they, even if they have to
40:45
let it go from somewhere else, but they won't just 'cause you put up a flashy ad.
40:51
Jesse Hirsh: I think what you're evoking there is the power of
40:55
culture and, and culture is something we often take for granted.
40:59
The way that, you know, fish often don't think of the taste of water,
41:04
culture determines what we want to eat, how much we're willing
41:07
to pay, who we share it with.
41:09
And I think much of the AgriFood industry is kind of.
41:14
Uh, dare I say it culturally illiterate because they just kind of accept that
41:19
culture is there, versus, to your point, the, the survival instinct of a
41:24
second generation Canadian is to be very conscious of culture because you exist
41:29
in multiple cultures and you have to code switch often, uh, between cultures.
41:35
and I do wanna unpack that, but I wanna connect that to something
41:39
that you've also repeatedly evoked.
41:41
Today, and you just brought it up in terms of the chef that it used to be, they
41:46
might go to a very technically oriented or highly trained and certified chef, but
41:53
these days the credibility and authority is probably coming from a home chef.
41:58
It's probably coming from a chef who like yourself, has earned their authority,
42:03
sharing knowledge on the internet.
42:06
And so what I kind of wanna tease out and, and get you to, to riff off is this idea
42:12
that the next authority can come out of anywhere, often within just a few weeks.
42:18
And, and you've talked about that in terms of how social media works.
42:23
you also kind of talked about that in terms of, you know, maybe, uh, someone
42:28
identifies a herb that is really valuable that all of a sudden sweeps the
42:32
country that makes them an authority.
42:34
So how do we kind of reconcile this idea that anyone who's listening
42:39
to us right now could find an opportunity in the AgriFood space and
42:45
leverage that opportunity with their communication skills to become a leader?
42:52
I'm digressing again, but I'm doing so 'cause I suspect that you're gonna have
42:56
something really smart to say in response.
42:59
Raj Thandhi: Oh, okay.
42:59
Well, um, I'm gonna break that up into two parts.
43:02
So first I wanna say, um, I have the utmost respect for culinary training and
43:08
chefs who run kit commercial kitchens.
43:10
It's not that I don't respect that.
43:13
I just think we're in a shifting world today.
43:15
And, and I have some culinary training, and I am still in the process because at
43:21
one point I figured, you know, I need to understand what I'm talking about when
43:24
I'm talking about other types of cuisines.
43:27
Um, I have the utmost respect for that, but I think there's a, I do not
43:31
think that just because you can run a. Brigade in a commercial kitchen, you can
43:35
run an Instagram page where you teach food, where you connect people to food.
43:39
There, there are two different skill sets and I also think that you know, much what
43:44
we've talked about today has reminded us that ethnic foods, um, different culture.
43:50
The way we cook, the way that we learn to cook in community.
43:53
We don't all work in a brigade style kitchen, so it doesn't
43:56
resonate for everybody.
43:58
Um, and today, anybody, I mean, I literally mean anybody can take
44:03
something that they're passionate about.
44:05
If they have a little bit of, uh, communication skill online,
44:09
pre not so much presence.
44:10
But if you're comfortable on camera, if you're not comfortable on camera,
44:13
you can figure out workarounds.
44:15
But really.
44:17
I come up against this a lot and perhaps this, maybe I shouldn't even say this,
44:21
but I'm gonna say it that a lot of times I have had people who believe
44:26
that they are experts because of.
44:29
A different world told them they were an expert.
44:31
You know, there was a time when a certain certificate or a certain
44:34
training or a certain check mark meant you were more of an expert than me.
44:38
But we live in the wild, wild west of leadership and expertise now.
44:42
Like, uh, anyone could.
44:44
Take what they know.
44:46
And if you can distil that into an approachable, friendly, authentic
44:52
format, you can be the expert.
44:54
You can be the expert on tomatoes, you can be the expert on potatoes,
44:59
you can be a cheese expert.
45:00
You, you know what?
45:02
You can even choose to do it in a, um, condescending way.
45:06
Lots of people do it really well in a condescending way.
45:08
I just don't recommend that as a brand.
45:10
As a brand, I think you should be open to feedback.
45:13
There's lots of people that are like, you know, their voice online is, I
45:16
am the expert because I don't think that's what a brand should do, but
45:19
you have to find your voice and.
45:22
I also think it's a bit, I think we're in a world where
45:24
there's a lot of like reality.
45:26
Um, people are facing reality.
45:28
There's a lot of shock.
45:29
They're like, but I'm the expert, but I have less followers than this
45:33
person who's just passionately talking in their kitchen about something.
45:37
Or someone's like, I have always planted this.
45:40
It has always sold, you know, at Christmas time, this product always sells well.
45:46
Surprisingly, Christmas or another holiday now is diverse.
45:51
Not everybody is making the same bird or the same side or the same.
45:55
And you know, some of those people are actually, um, not even minorities.
46:00
It's um, Eurocentric communities who want more flavour in their food.
46:05
Now they're like, maybe we're not gonna do this.
46:08
Like, I think, you know.
46:10
You just have to open your mind.
46:12
You want, if you want your brand to stand on social media, if you wanna
46:15
stand for thought leadership, and if you wanna stand for thought leadership
46:19
in the AgriFood space, the first thing that you can do is be honest.
46:22
Do not be defensive if people tell you food is expensive.
46:26
If people tell you groceries are expensive, if they're
46:29
confused by food labels.
46:31
I see this a lot online where people get really defensive and they tow
46:34
that company line and they have these like perfectly crafted PR statements.
46:38
I don't think you build communities like that.
46:40
You build communities by being honest and saying, we're in it with Canadians.
46:45
I've gone on a rant, but the whole of this to say is like, it doesn't
46:49
matter what your degree says.
46:50
It doesn't matter what your, what your experience says today matters.
46:55
I think what you speak to people and it matters that people feel respected.
47:00
Jesse Hirsh: And I, I hope you're having a half as much fun with this
47:04
conversation as I am because I, I am certainly learning a tonne and it's
47:09
helping me really connect the dots on some of my own thinking and in particular.
47:15
think what, what you just helped me r realise is that authority now is based
47:20
more on your ability to ask questions than it is on your ability to offer answers.
47:26
And that's part of the reason why on the internet anyone can become an expert
47:31
because everything's changing so quickly that if you ask the right questions.
47:37
That could lead you to new knowledge, which then establishes your expertise.
47:43
You may not be the top expert, but you're an expert.
47:47
You're able to kind of participate, that's part of why I think diversity
47:53
is so essential to a thriving sector.
47:56
And, and we've been talking about that kind of around it and talking
48:00
about the value of culture, the, the value of understanding and
48:04
listening to communities, the.
48:06
Kind of the, the advantages that second generation Canadians have in being able
48:12
to have their feet in in both cultures.
48:15
In all cultures.
48:17
But I, I'm curious as, as we kind of wrap up and this is another crazy
48:22
abstract question, but I suspect you're gonna have an interesting answer.
48:25
How do you stay curious?
48:28
Because it's obvious to me that curiosity has been a big part of your
48:34
creativity, of your attitude, right?
48:36
You're, you're, you're, you're, you're kinda, uh, seeing the
48:40
internet as an opportunity rather than as a dysfunctional mess.
48:44
And that is something I, I wrestle with myself.
48:47
but how do you, on the assumption that you are curious, how do you maintain that?
48:52
How do you fuel that curiosity and what role do you think curiosity
48:56
plays in this, uh, model of leadership that we're kind of evoking today?
49:02
Raj Thandhi: Okay.
49:02
So I am definitely a curious person.
49:05
Um, my kids call them side quests and I usually have many, many
49:09
side quests at any given time.
49:11
Um, but I think the key about being curious and, and you're,
49:17
you're absolutely right, like being curious is the number one thing I
49:21
think that allows you to be, um.
49:25
Allows you to be a leader on social media because you have to be coming
49:27
up with new stuff all the time.
49:29
You have to come up with new ways to present it, but you
49:32
don't find that on social media.
49:33
So this is the kind of hard part I allow myself sometime
49:37
on social media just to scroll.
49:40
I don't care.
49:41
I know people say it's brain rot and stuff, but sometimes I just
49:43
scroll and I watch silly things.
49:45
But when it comes to actually being curious about the stuff that I wanna
49:48
do beyond the conversations I have in my dms and my comments, then
49:52
I like try to take it off a line.
49:54
And I think something that really helps when you are a blank slate like
49:57
I was when I started, I learned to cook on the internet with people.
50:02
I learned the internet with people.
50:05
I think coming to it as, I don't know everything.
50:08
I think sometimes with the old Guard, with people who sit in leadership positions,
50:12
your number one problem is if you think you know everything, you've already
50:15
lost a battle on social media and then.
50:19
You have to keep learning.
50:20
Like, that's the thing, like I have taken classes on pastry making.
50:24
I have taken classes on Thai cooking.
50:26
I, I took a writing workshop in London once I, you know, read a lot, I read a
50:31
lot around what, um, actually I read a lot that has nothing to do with what I do for
50:36
work, but I feel like I really try to stay connected to the written word because.
50:42
I feel like this is maybe a little off topic, but we get so caught up in social
50:46
media being about the photos, the videos, the recipes that, but at the end of the
50:49
day, it's about the, the storytelling.
50:51
So I try to constantly work on like consuming.
50:54
If I'm consuming, I try to consume good stories, but really, I think
50:59
you nailed it earlier when you said, keep your ears open and listen.
51:02
You know, like ask questions.
51:04
Ask questions of everybody and anybody you can, and.
51:08
Perhaps this is a good way to sort of sum up what I think of leadership is that
51:13
when you're in a leadership position.
51:15
You have gotta ask a question of everybody from the person that's the farm labourer.
51:21
You know who's picking the fruit to the person who's packing it
51:26
to the person who's eating it.
51:27
Like we start to think of certain people, we start to think of.
51:31
Specific people in communities as the expert, the editor that knows, the chef
51:37
that knows, you know, the taste maker that knows, and I think that world is gone.
51:42
I think we can be more curious.
51:44
We can be better thought leaders.
51:46
We can produce really amazing products here in Canada.
51:50
If we were talking to different people, like you said, diverse, unique voices
51:54
across social classes, across cultures.
51:58
And that's where the magic will come of content creation too.
52:02
Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
52:02
Uh, this has been an absolute tour de force.
52:07
Uh, we're coming to the last question and this last question, like the
52:10
first question is really meant to be a kind of curve ball, something
52:14
that catches you a little off guard.
52:17
I, I'm a big believer in the kind of each one teach one principle.
52:21
And so I like to end the episode by asking the leader that we've been talking about
52:27
and what a phenomenal leader you are, Raj.
52:30
Are there any leaders that you, uh, look up to that you follow on social media?
52:34
This is kind of the shout out, uh, part of the show.
52:37
Are there folks that, that you're paying attention to, that we should be paying
52:41
attention to in terms of, you know, either different models of leaders or just
52:46
leaders that you think are kind of cool?
52:49
Raj Thandhi: I wish I had thought about this a little more and prepared for it,
52:52
uh, because obviously, you know when you have that moment when there's so many
52:55
people, but, um, your brain goes blank.
52:58
But one person who I'm really inspired by right now is my
53:01
fellow by BBC Ambassador Michael.
53:03
He has this amazing knack for how he teaches people things that
53:07
should be inaccessible information.
53:10
It is.
53:11
Stuff that in the past would be under the guard of like you had to have
53:16
gone, you had to train in a Michelin starred restaurant to know these things.
53:19
And Michael is just making it accessible to home cooks in a
53:22
way that I find so inspiring.
53:25
Um.
53:26
There are so many other people and I'm happy to send you some for show notes, but
53:30
right now when you said it in the context of the conversation we're having right
53:34
now, like if I was in AgriFood right now, I would look at his stuff and I would see
53:38
like, this would be a great way to teach people to distil knowledge and to have
53:43
faith in people that they're smart enough to process whatever you're teaching them.
53:47
Like he has so much faith in home cooks that you know, I can
53:51
teach you something that is.
53:52
Such a, like a fine dining technique, but you can learn
53:56
it and I love that about him.
53:58
Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
53:59
And, and you, you're getting the gist of, uh, what I'm trying to achieve as
54:03
an interviewer in that I think food is very much something of the gut and
54:09
I want as many of the questions as possible to go straight to the gut
54:13
and get that instinctual response.
54:16
So again, uh, you did fantastic in that regard.
54:21
I, I have to selfishly say that I have enjoyed this conversation so much.
54:26
I would love to have you back, uh, if only because you kind of started
54:31
by evoking ai and I think the role of the algorithm has kind of been beneath
54:38
the surface of our conversation.
54:40
So I suspect we would have a lot of fun talking about that
54:44
subject amongst many others.
54:46
Um, so I would very much love to have you back and no pressure to answer now,
54:51
but the last thing we'll end on, where can people find you on the internet?
54:56
Raj Thandhi: You can find me online as Pink Chai.
54:58
I am on Instagram, TikTok not so much.
55:01
I'm trying to learn that app and YouTube and um, it's at pink, chai Pink,
55:06
like the colour chai, like the drink.
55:09
Jesse Hirsh: And to your point about consuming social media, TikTok
55:12
is very much my guilty pleasure.
55:15
Uh, if only because it, I find it really does connect me, uh, with lots
55:19
of educators, uh, uh, people making all sorts of interesting food and
55:23
doing so in a very accessible way.
55:26
So I do encourage you to, uh, check it out and lean into it further only because
55:31
I think your brilliance and expertise would play very well on that platform.
55:35
Uh.
55:36
Thanks again.
55:37
This has been absolutely fantastic.
55:40
I, I feel a little guilty in that when I have episodes as amazing as this, so early
55:46
in the arc of our show, uh, we may run into difficulty maintaining the quality
55:51
of the conversation moving forward.
55:53
But nonetheless, thank you for setting the bar so high.
55:56
Raj.
55:58
Raj Thandhi: Thank you.
55:58
Thank you for having me.
56:01
Jesse Hirsh: If there's something to carry forward from today's
56:03
conversation, it's that the food system doesn't end at production
56:08
and it doesn't fail there either.
56:10
What Raj makes visible is a layer that's often overlooked precisely
56:15
because it feels informal.
56:18
The decisions that shape demand, normalise ingredients, and ultimately
56:22
determine what becomes viable are happening in everyday practise.
56:27
And how people cook, what they feel comfortable attempting and what they pass
56:32
on to loved ones that has consequences because it suggests that many of
56:37
the challenges we talk about, market access, local adoption, even resilience,
56:44
aren't only technical or economic.
56:47
They're cultural and they require a different kind of intervention.
56:52
Not just more supply or better policy, but more translation, more
56:57
literacy, and more people doing the kind of work that Raj is doing.
57:02
It also raises a sharper question for the sector.
57:06
Who are we recognising as leaders?
57:09
If influence over taste and habit is as consequential, as influence over
57:14
production, then the map of the food system starts to look different.
57:19
And I'm sure glad we were able to have Raj on the show to demonstrate that this
57:24
conversation doesn't resolve that tension, but it does make it harder to ignore.
57:30
Raj is not alone.
57:31
She's part of a growing cohort of teachers, of learners, of influencers,
57:38
leaders who are connecting the loop when it comes to how we consume food,
57:44
how we love food, how we share food, and as the system continues to change.
57:50
You know, that might be a useful place for us to be paying attention.
57:54
And similarly, a useful place for this episode to come to a close, not
57:59
with answers, but with a clear sense of where the real leverage might be,
58:04
where the real opportunities might be.
58:08
Until then, we'll see you next time here on the Future Herd.