Speaker 1: I stood in this grocery store in Africa and I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, you know why why is looked different here?
Speaker 2: Mike Giller is the founder and CEO of Mike's Organic,
Speaker 2: the Greenwich, Connecticut based organic food market and food delivery service.
Speaker 2: Founded in two thousand and nine. Mike decided to start
Speaker 2: up his business after feeling unfulfilled in his corporate job
Speaker 2: working in advertising and event planning. He also ran a
Speaker 2: music studio, which I did not know, Mike Geller, I
Speaker 2: did not know you had a music studio.
Speaker 1: Something new every time, Aretha.
Speaker 2: Today, Mike has a thriving business which brings sustainable, healthy
Speaker 2: food to customers in store and straight to their doorsteps.
Speaker 2: Joining me at my farm to talk about sustainable, healthy
Speaker 2: food and what it takes to build a food business
Speaker 2: in a crowded and rapidly changing market is Mike Geller.
Speaker 2: Welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 1: Mike, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Finally we are sitting down to talk.
Speaker 1: Is to be here.
Speaker 2: I've known Mike for how many years, Netwig?
Speaker 1: I think like five years?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I always enjoy reading his smiling face. You're
Speaker 2: always smiling too, which is something that I know is
Speaker 2: very hard in business.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, but you know your outlook is everything right, and
Speaker 1: you try to get up, do a good job, be
Speaker 1: happy and do your best with that.
Speaker 2: Well, you are now embarking on a very big project,
Speaker 2: the News store in Greenwich, Connecticut. I know your old store,
Speaker 2: and we haven't really talked about the success of that
Speaker 2: and the leading up to the new but talk about
Speaker 2: building this new store and how big is it and
Speaker 2: what kind of customer base do you have?
Speaker 1: Sure, So, I've wanted to do this for a while,
Speaker 1: and you know, I started my business in a nine
Speaker 1: is as you mentioned, really as a home delivery service,
Speaker 1: but I always wanted to be able to interface and
Speaker 1: interact with customers. So we had the idea for a store,
Speaker 1: and this location became available that was just the perfect
Speaker 1: place to do it. It's, you know, at the corner
Speaker 1: of the busiest intersection in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: So describe the corner. What's the name of it because
Speaker 2: people are going to go there.
Speaker 1: Six hundred East Putnam Avenue and it's in the Costco
Speaker 1: area of Greenwich, you know, this big parking lot, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to create a real community place for the town,
Speaker 1: you know, place people could connect with their food meet
Speaker 1: the farmers, eat something delicious, and Greenwich really hasn't had
Speaker 1: something like that for a while since a place called Heyday,
Speaker 1: which was there. You may have been there in really
Speaker 1: the eighties and the nineties. So we really wanted to
Speaker 1: create this beautiful market that could bring people together with
Speaker 1: their food, and that's what we've done. And we're sourcing all,
Speaker 1: you know, predominantly from small local farmers artisans, but we
Speaker 1: do everything you know, produce pasture meat, grass fed dairy, etc.
Speaker 1: It's been a big lift, a big jump, and in businesses,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you have to take those it's how
Speaker 1: you move forward and do more and better things.
Speaker 2: Well, I visited there just a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: for the first time I had seen it under construction,
Speaker 2: and the store itself, bright and cheery, with very nice
Speaker 2: people working in the store, and rose and Rose and
Speaker 2: rose and Rose and refrigerators full of very interesting products,
Speaker 2: many products that are not available in the regular supermarket.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's your appeal and your attraction,
Speaker 2: that you are carrying stuff that nobody else carries, and
Speaker 2: you can also explain why it's better or different than
Speaker 2: what we can get elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Definitely, so you know, what's happened in our grocery industry
Speaker 1: in the last one hundred years is that, you know,
Speaker 1: we've kind of become a volume it's become a volume industry, right.
Speaker 1: So you walk into a twenty five thousand square foot
Speaker 1: store and there are two hundred and fifty kinds of
Speaker 1: olive oil. That's cool in one way, but it also
Speaker 1: is lacking the creation. You know, why are those products
Speaker 1: on the shelves?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So for me, my life and doing this for fourteen years,
Speaker 1: has all it's been all about sourcing. It's been finding
Speaker 1: the best things and bringing them to people. So when
Speaker 1: you walk into a store and you see a new product,
Speaker 1: you know, you need a tour guide to some degree, right, So,
Speaker 1: like we really try to do that for people too. Well.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed my tour because because I really hadn't seen
Speaker 2: some of those products before, and I do want to
Speaker 2: know about them as So I think that's the education
Speaker 2: part of it is very important in a store like yours.
Speaker 1: Without question, you know, when you're going to bring something
Speaker 1: different to people, there needs to be an explanation of
Speaker 1: what it is. We give people cooking instructions, you know,
Speaker 1: we tell people what's coming into season. You and I
Speaker 1: were talking a little bit before we went on about
Speaker 1: what's going on with fruit in the Northeast right now,
Speaker 1: and communicating that information not just about the product, but
Speaker 1: about the farmers, the people that grow the food. You know,
Speaker 1: you know so well about agriculture, and I've lived it
Speaker 1: for a long time, but not everyone knows, you know,
Speaker 1: what goes into growing that tomato or growing that peach, right,
Speaker 1: and telling that story is important. But really like getting
Speaker 1: the best things under one roof, where you can go
Speaker 1: do your whole grocery shop but find like an amazing
Speaker 1: pecan butter from Nevada or an amazing locally made granola.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what differentiates I think us and a
Speaker 1: lot of these small independent groceries from those big chains
Speaker 1: that we're very accustomed to go into it, and.
Speaker 2: They've always appealed to me. Small, small organic markets have
Speaker 2: always appealed to me. We had the organic market in Westport, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: It was right next to my yoga studios, so I
Speaker 2: always would stop in there and see what they had
Speaker 2: and try to support their business because when you buy
Speaker 2: it a place like Mike's Organic, you actually are supporting
Speaker 2: a tremendous sort of network of young, avid good gardeners everywhere.
Speaker 2: I'm involved with the main organic farmers up in Maine,
Speaker 2: and they are working so hard to spread the word
Speaker 2: about this kind of food and the availability of this
Speaker 2: kind of food, and to keep the ground alive where
Speaker 2: they are actually farming. How big is the store.
Speaker 1: The store is about thirty five hundred square feet and
Speaker 1: we have packed it. It's comfortable, it's spacious, but it
Speaker 1: is packed with incredible products. We opened up on a
Speaker 1: rainy Saturday in April and we had I think over
Speaker 1: two thousand people come through during the day. It was bananas.
Speaker 2: Is that the biggest day you ever?
Speaker 1: That was the biggest day we ever had. We all
Speaker 1: recovered and it was also our first day.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We had trained obviously some of our cashiers and stalkers,
Speaker 1: but it's like kind of going to the driving range
Speaker 1: then playing on the golf course. Training is one thing,
Speaker 1: in the games another. It went great. We had one
Speaker 1: broken jar tomato sauce to check out, which was a
Speaker 1: little bit hairy, but other than that, it was great.
Speaker 1: And the response has been incredible. You know, I was
Speaker 1: saying before you and I had a woman come in
Speaker 1: today and she ate a strawberry, a local strawberry brought
Speaker 1: a few today and she's from California, and she said,
Speaker 1: you know, this tastes like it did when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. And I hear that every week I've been
Speaker 1: open since I started the business, I've heard either this
Speaker 1: taste like I used to when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: or this tastes like it used to back home. If
Speaker 1: someone's from another country and there's a reason for that,
Speaker 1: we can get into it. But there's a real reason
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: All there is. And I have a small array of
Speaker 2: cherry tomatoes, two kinds of strawberries, the first of the
Speaker 2: cherries being cherries I love being cherries, and the apricots.
Speaker 2: I haven't tasted the apricot yet. Are they delied?
Speaker 1: They're good? They get better, you know the thing that
Speaker 1: and you know this, I'm sure too. The first picking
Speaker 1: is never the best, and they get better and better
Speaker 1: and better throughout the season.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We're so conditioned to have everything every day of the
Speaker 1: year in this country, right in terms of produce especially,
Speaker 1: but there really is a season for things, and not
Speaker 1: all of us know what it is. But like with
Speaker 1: the apricots, mid June, you know, that's the time for them.
Speaker 2: And cherries are these cherries from California.
Speaker 1: These cherries are from California. They're local ones. You know,
Speaker 1: we've gotten hit pretty bad with the frost up here.
Speaker 2: So okay, let's talk about that, because my Mike was
Speaker 2: just describing that the stone fruit, which the cherries, the plums,
Speaker 2: the peaches, the apricots, the nick dreams were very badly
Speaker 2: damaged in the frost, the late frost that we had.
Speaker 2: Even though the trees had blossomed beautifully and this is
Speaker 2: all Hudson Valley and Northeast ye had blossomed beautifully. My
Speaker 2: plum trees were incredible this year, and then we had
Speaker 2: a frost after the fruit had formed and they will
Speaker 2: fill off. Correct, there's not a plum in my plum trees.
Speaker 1: It's it's happened to a bunch of farmers. And again
Speaker 1: going back to it, right, like being able to tell
Speaker 1: people that information is so important. I have an incredible farmer.
Speaker 1: His name is Mark, and he's been doing this. He's
Speaker 1: the fourth generation fruit farmer in the Hudson Valley. His
Speaker 1: fruit is spectacular. I mean his peaches, the donut orches,
Speaker 1: everything's called Grinder Farm. It's in Middle Hope, New York.
Speaker 1: I was talking to him a few days ago. He said, Mike,
Speaker 1: you know, we had a day in February that was
Speaker 1: forty two. The next day was minus ten, and then
Speaker 1: we had this lay frost and he had the fruit
Speaker 1: actually was on the tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what happened. That's what happened.
Speaker 1: The fruitlets, the little baby fruitlets, and a blossom can withstand.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things is you know, with
Speaker 1: laate frost, right, a blossom can withstand twenty seven to
Speaker 1: twenty eight degrees for a night, but the fruit, which
Speaker 1: he found out from Cornell can't. So literally all of
Speaker 1: his fruit dropped off his trees. And if you're a
Speaker 1: fruit farmer, that's it for the year. It is not
Speaker 1: like tomatoes. There's no plants behind him.
Speaker 2: And then they start to scratch their heads and wonder,
Speaker 2: maybe a subdivision is beter than a fruit orchard. That's right,
Speaker 2: And I've seen so many fruit orchards just go the
Speaker 2: way of a development. A subdivision, it happens.
Speaker 1: And his attitude was, you know, farmers are some of
Speaker 1: the most resilient, positive people that you'll meet. I know
Speaker 1: you've met a lot and I have two. And you know,
Speaker 1: his attitude was just so incredibly. He sand you on Mike,
Speaker 1: that's farming, he said, you know you have big years
Speaker 1: the secondary cross. No, he's a fruit farmer. I mean
Speaker 1: he has apples, you know, but even his apples were hurt,
Speaker 1: which is my.
Speaker 2: Minor I have. It started off so many apples this year.
Speaker 2: I was so happy because last year was a bad year.
Speaker 2: Yes for apples, and the same thing. They're a little
Speaker 2: bit thinner than they were. But I'm keeping my fingers
Speaker 2: crossed because apples are more resilient.
Speaker 1: They are, and they blossom a bit later. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're better adapted to the cold. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: that it's it's not a great story, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a good story to tell people about what's happening with
Speaker 1: the farmers, and we always have that information.
Speaker 2: Well, how did you start? When was your interest in
Speaker 2: vegetables and fruits and locally produced stuff kindled? When did
Speaker 2: that happen.
Speaker 1: As a child? You know, I'm half Italian, half Jewish.
Speaker 1: I'm a pizza bagel and my grandma Ida lived in
Speaker 1: the Bronx with my Grandpa Vinni. She had a little
Speaker 1: vegetable garden out back, and I used to go there
Speaker 1: and we would always be harvesting egg plant together, and
Speaker 1: we'd be cooking together, all those things. And then as
Speaker 1: a child, I just was always so fascinated by nature
Speaker 1: and the outdoors. I grew up an outdoorsman and fishing
Speaker 1: and gardening and all those things. And I just always
Speaker 1: have loved food and especially how it's grown. I went
Speaker 1: off to.
Speaker 2: School, and then where'd you go to school?
Speaker 1: I went to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Speaker 1: And then I moved to Atlanta and started this hip
Speaker 1: hop studio with a partner because I've always loved music
Speaker 1: as well, and you know, from there it just did
Speaker 1: all these different interesting things. I recorded Snoop when I
Speaker 1: was down there, obviously, I know, you know Snoop really well.
Speaker 1: And then I started doing these big celebrity events, you know,
Speaker 1: with Shaquille O'Neal others, and I loved it and it
Speaker 1: was interesting advertising a few others, but I just never
Speaker 1: felt fulfilled, never loved it, you know, truly felt passionate,
Speaker 1: and never thought I was doing anything good. So I
Speaker 1: quit and I spent three and a half months living
Speaker 1: in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana in Africa.
Speaker 2: I've been there. It is one of the most beautiful
Speaker 2: places on Earth.
Speaker 1: I would agree.
Speaker 2: And what did you do there?
Speaker 1: I was building a photographic safari camp. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to get away from the world for a while. I
Speaker 1: was twenty eight years old and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: my path, and I had this burning desire to something
Speaker 1: with food, but didn't know what it was. So I
Speaker 1: went out to build this camp and I lived out there.
Speaker 1: And you know, I went to a grocery store in Mound, Botswana,
Speaker 1: which had about one hundred thousand people, and all the
Speaker 1: food looked better than here. You know, the eggs weren't
Speaker 1: refrigerated because, as you know, when the hen lay is
Speaker 1: an egg, she puts the bluem on it and it
Speaker 1: won't spoil.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The tomatoes were small and juicy, and all these things.
Speaker 1: I stood in this grocery store in Africa and I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, you know, why, why is it looked
Speaker 1: different here? Then I went into the bush. During my
Speaker 1: time there, I was charged by a leopard, almost bitten
Speaker 1: by a cobra. In a play in the lost and engine,
Speaker 1: and I fought a two thousand acre brush fire with
Speaker 1: leafy branches. We literally put out a blazing fire with branch. Never,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. I'll never forget. The fire starts and
Speaker 1: with the guys, and I'm picturing like a plane flying over,
Speaker 1: you know, like for forest fires out west, and they
Speaker 1: go and they have a machine and they're cutting branches
Speaker 1: off the tree. And I was like, what the hell
Speaker 1: you guys doing, like to put the fire out? And
Speaker 1: we fought that fire for eleven hours. It was there.
Speaker 1: I get. I never, I'll never one quick one. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. I was standing we made a fire break
Speaker 1: to prevent the fire from gettinst the camp, and the
Speaker 1: guy who was with me said, don't let the fire
Speaker 1: across us. And it's about one hundred yards long, and
Speaker 1: I'm standing on this fire break and the fire's coming
Speaker 1: towards me and it's trying to cross you know this
Speaker 1: sand I was running back and forth. It was one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty degrees. I'm running back. I thought I
Speaker 1: was genuinely just gonna have art.
Speaker 2: It's actually getting you're getting singed.
Speaker 1: I burned all over. I was coughing up black. It
Speaker 1: was absolutely crazy, but I did not let across and
Speaker 1: it was just an incredible incident really put me on
Speaker 1: the path to what I'm doing. What I'm doing now.
Speaker 2: So where did you learn about real gardening? Did you
Speaker 2: take a job anywhere else?
Speaker 1: I did, so, you know, I grew up doing it,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned. And then I went and I worked
Speaker 1: at Stone Barns, really and I worked with the head farmer,
Speaker 1: Jack Algier.
Speaker 2: What a wonderful, wonderful gardener. He is incredible, incredible, so knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: It was really it was really an eye opener for
Speaker 1: me because I knew about farming. I knew about gardening
Speaker 1: rather and a little bit about farming. But you know,
Speaker 1: sustainable agriculture in the Northeast is something that's really evolved
Speaker 1: a lot, especially over the last you know, twenty years,
Speaker 1: let's say, and just being able to be there and
Speaker 1: every single day learned something new and practically not just
Speaker 1: reading about in a book, right being out there and seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, you plant peas on Saint Patty's Day, like
Speaker 1: I didn't know that when I started, Right, so you
Speaker 1: start learning all these things. And I was pruning apple
Speaker 1: trees and it really that was my moment where I
Speaker 1: decided to start MIC's. I was sitting under an apple
Speaker 1: tree I just pruned, and I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to start a business that directly connects small, local
Speaker 1: farmers and consumers. And that was I was really one
Speaker 1: of the first people in America to start a farm
Speaker 1: to home delivery service, which is what Mike's began as
Speaker 1: and my time in Africa, my time in Stone Barns
Speaker 1: were huge factors for me.
Speaker 2: And doing that well, that is very good experience. And
Speaker 2: the delivery service especially, I mean you sort of hit
Speaker 2: it right because COVID came and you could delivered to
Speaker 2: homes and so that really helped you a lot, and
Speaker 2: you took advantage of it in the best possible way
Speaker 2: we did.
Speaker 1: It was a wild time for sure, being an essential
Speaker 1: business and all that. But you know, I probably had
Speaker 1: like thirty five or forty farmers tell me they would
Speaker 1: have lost their farm without Mike's Organic during that time.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're raising chickens for Grammercy tavern in
Speaker 1: the city, let's say, and they close overnight and they
Speaker 1: don't know when they're going to open, you still have
Speaker 1: your birds, right, right, So we stepped in and we
Speaker 1: filled that void for so many small farmers. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most gratifying parts of my time in business.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the offerings that you actually create at
Speaker 2: your own kitchen.
Speaker 1: Definitely, So as part of this whole expansion of the business,
Speaker 1: we bought a commercial kitchen. So we're making everything from
Speaker 1: you know, passion fruit chia pudding to incredible you saw
Speaker 1: the curry chicken salad when you came in, Beautiful sandwiches,
Speaker 1: I mean organic, I plant palms on you know, wonderful soups.
Speaker 1: It's really about working with the seasons and working with
Speaker 1: the ingredients you have and being able to create something
Speaker 1: delicious but that's also healthy. We're using grass fed beef,
Speaker 1: pasture turkey, all those things. It's so much fun to
Speaker 1: be able to create. And then we have a food
Speaker 1: truck in the back, so we do dinner on Wednesdays
Speaker 1: and we made like grass bed cheese steaks last week.
Speaker 1: We're doing breakfast sandwiches on the weekends. We have a
Speaker 1: dairy cow coming down for the kids to see. So
Speaker 1: the prepared foods are great and also a neat item.
Speaker 1: You know, people, not everyone cooks, and not everyone can
Speaker 1: cook every night, so it's important to have that.
Speaker 2: So what's your best selling product from the news store.
Speaker 2: What's the best selling product I'd like to know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so bananas, No, I hate to say that. It
Speaker 1: pains me so deeply to say that banana is probably
Speaker 1: number one. And then so strawberries. Blueberries os well, but
Speaker 1: on the skin less chicken breasts os well.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We actually have this really cool animal cracker from Jackson
Speaker 1: Hole called Persephone. They are delicious, like animal crackers adults.
Speaker 1: Those sell incredibly well. And then I think as you
Speaker 1: go through the seasons, right, like sweetcorn moves extremely well.
Speaker 1: And then also the dairy, like we have this incredible
Speaker 1: a two milk from Cooperstown called Family Farms Stead. The
Speaker 1: milk sells incredibly well. We're bringing chocolate milk down from
Speaker 1: a farm in Connecticut pretty soon, so I need I need.
Speaker 2: To find a really great milk because I'm making my
Speaker 2: own yogurt now and the milk milk is not the
Speaker 2: same every week from the same dairy. It's what the
Speaker 2: cows are eating, how they feel, absolutely, and so I've
Speaker 2: been noticing it, Like my last batch of yogurt was sour.
Speaker 1: Wow. Interesting. Yeah, when the color of the milk changes
Speaker 1: as the cows get out on the grass, right. It
Speaker 1: becomes more yellow when they're on the grass because of
Speaker 1: all those nutrients. And you can taste the grass. You
Speaker 1: can taste the terrible in the milk. It's like you
Speaker 1: can with wine. Right, So the milk changes throughout the season.
Speaker 1: And it's also everything does though, Like every week it
Speaker 1: feels like Christmas to me. You know, it's something new
Speaker 1: comes in and you're tasting it for the first time,
Speaker 1: and eating seasonally is not easy, right, and again we're
Speaker 1: conditioned kind of not to do it now with grocery
Speaker 1: the way it is, when you get back to it,
Speaker 1: you know, it also makes it more special when you're
Speaker 1: waiting for something as opposed to just having it every
Speaker 1: day of.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, Like I'm waiting for sour cherries.
Speaker 1: Me too.
Speaker 2: I love the Montmorency cherries and I love cherry pie,
Speaker 2: and I love everything.
Speaker 1: Cherry sour cherries are. Do you like the black or
Speaker 1: the red, the red, the really tart ones? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah for baking, those are exception so they're amazing. Sour
Speaker 1: cherry pie might be my favorite pie.
Speaker 2: It is my favorite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has to be.
Speaker 2: So I'm waiting for those. I do have several trees
Speaker 2: and they seem to have some fruit on them.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting are the birds after those few? It's incredible.
Speaker 2: I have so many birds right now too because of
Speaker 2: the climate change. So it's kind of intruing. But but
Speaker 2: you are challenged so greatly now. The small, exclusive, expensive
Speaker 2: grosser is challenged by the big, the Albertsons, the around here,
Speaker 2: the cit.
Speaker 1: The Krogers, all of them.
Speaker 2: Because they're all they're all competing with you and in
Speaker 2: many different ways, including price. So how do you deal
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 1: It's a great question. So, well, one thing is the differentiation,
Speaker 1: right is trying to have different products. You know, if
Speaker 1: you have the same exact product as a big box store,
Speaker 1: then you know, the price becomes much more of an issue. Right,
Speaker 1: It's I'll be honest with you. You know you can't compete
Speaker 1: on price with them. You just can't.
Speaker 2: Their margins and their volume is big, their margins are very.
Speaker 1: China are very small, right because they've become true volume businesses. Right,
Speaker 1: the way you compete is on incredible product selection, fantastic
Speaker 1: customer service, and creating a phenomenal experience when people come in. Right,
Speaker 1: So you have a great product, you have great service,
Speaker 1: and you have something that they can do there that
Speaker 1: they can't do elsewhere. Right, we had a sheep sharing
Speaker 1: last weekend at the store. The same farmer that used
Speaker 1: to share your sheep in Westport, his daughter used to
Speaker 1: share your sheep. So you know you have a sheep sharing.
Speaker 1: We have a fresh mozzarella maker coming on Sunday to
Speaker 1: make fresh mozzarella in the store. Right. We have the
Speaker 1: dairy cow coming with her calves. Next weekend. We have
Speaker 1: a pasta pop up. We're doing a lobster fest. You know,
Speaker 1: all those things of really getting people back to experiencing
Speaker 1: something through their food is what is what is important
Speaker 1: in it. But for the big box stores, you know,
Speaker 1: it's also killing the variety of what we have here
Speaker 1: in this country. You know, in nineteen hundred there were
Speaker 1: six thousand varieties of apples in the US. Right after
Speaker 1: prohibition there were two thousand because people cut down apple
Speaker 1: orchards they're making hard cider. And now you see the
Speaker 1: same five or ten in every grocery store in America. Right,
Speaker 1: But that you know, for us, we'll have fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty kinds of apples in the fall so it's really
Speaker 1: great customer service, awesome products set and then creating a
Speaker 1: phenomenal experience for people.
Speaker 2: And you, let's do a slater making day.
Speaker 1: I want to do that with you. I'm going to
Speaker 1: get you down there.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about these strawberries. You have local strawberries,
Speaker 2: which is it's June almost June, you're June, yeah, June. First,
Speaker 2: we have local strawberries which are small and red, and
Speaker 2: what variety are.
Speaker 1: The early glow?
Speaker 2: And then you have the Harry's berries which come from California.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to take a bite of the Harrys berry.
Speaker 2: And now they've really taken over from Driscoll, haven't they.
Speaker 1: They have their you know, just like with apples. You know,
Speaker 1: there are about six hundred varieties of strawberries.
Speaker 2: Be sure they don't inject these I with sugar. I mean,
Speaker 2: if they inject these with sugar, people.
Speaker 1: People can't believe the flavor. And there's a really good
Speaker 1: reason for that. So, you know, typically we're growing one
Speaker 1: or two varieties commercially in this country. Albion is one
Speaker 1: of the main ones, and there's actually less sugar in
Speaker 1: those strawberries because it gives them a longer shell life,
Speaker 1: so he can get from California to Hear on a truck,
Speaker 1: bounce around still look like a strawberry. The reason they're
Speaker 1: white through the middle typically is because they're picked green
Speaker 1: and either gassed or torched under a heat lamp to
Speaker 1: turn them red. So you've got a green strawberry that
Speaker 1: looks red that was bred to have less sugar.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Harry's berries, they grow two predominantly two types, seascape and Gaviota,
Speaker 1: which are ever bearing, so ever bearing strawberries produced throughout
Speaker 1: the whole season and loss of those, they're incredible. You
Speaker 1: can get them, you know, for a much longer time.
Speaker 1: Local strawberries two to three weeks, sometimes three.
Speaker 2: To four weeks or are these grown in the ground
Speaker 2: or on benches?
Speaker 1: These are grown in the ground.
Speaker 2: They are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've been out that farm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's a phenomenal family, you know, the Green family.
Speaker 1: Harry was the grandfather. And it's also micro climate for them,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the perfect conditions to grow strawberries in.
Speaker 1: They like it. Not really higher than mid seventies during
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 2: I'd say that I would say they're three times sweeter
Speaker 2: than the early glow.
Speaker 1: They are, and they have a very high price point,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's when people come in the store.
Speaker 1: How much is it a court of course, twenty dollars.
Speaker 2: Of the early glows seven ninety nine, big difference, huge,
Speaker 2: But if you are making a strawberry shortcake for your
Speaker 2: fancy dinner party, correct, you were going to want Harry's
Speaker 2: berries because they are clean, they are absolutely beautiful as
Speaker 2: they're jewel.
Speaker 1: Well, you know we do this. I've said this to
Speaker 1: people before. But you know, you go to a restaurant,
Speaker 1: right and you don't think twice about paying eighteen dollars
Speaker 1: for a cocktail, right, And when people come in the store.
Speaker 2: Some cocktails are twenty four dollars now.
Speaker 1: Twenty four, twenty five thirty, right, So it's crazy. But
Speaker 1: we but when we see strawberries, the best strawberries potentially
Speaker 1: we've ever had, we think twenty dollars is silly. And
Speaker 1: by the way, they're both fine, but that's an alignment
Speaker 1: of value, right and for us to me eating the
Speaker 1: best strawberry you've probably ever had, that's actually good for you,
Speaker 1: that'll last long than twenty minutes, and no pesticides, they're
Speaker 1: grown certified or getting there, no pesticides.
Speaker 2: Great, it's incredible because they're one of the fruits that
Speaker 2: would absorb pesticides.
Speaker 1: So the top of the dirty dozen strawberries always are.
Speaker 1: I know someone that went to a commercial I won't
Speaker 1: say which farm, but a commercial strawberry farm, and he
Speaker 1: was out there in the morning they're having breakfast and
Speaker 1: there is his mist over the whole field. Is it, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're watering the strawberries And they said, no, those are
Speaker 1: all the chemicals were used, you know, So it really
Speaker 1: is food is the surest medicine or the slowest poison, right,
Speaker 1: And you know when we eat healthy, clean food and
Speaker 1: you know this, Martha as well as anyone. You know,
Speaker 1: that is what gives us the fuel and the energy
Speaker 1: we need to sustain us. It's it's what's more important
Speaker 1: than food, right, Like there are few things that are
Speaker 1: more important. So anyways, Harris are sensational.
Speaker 2: The tomatoes where are they from? These? These are the
Speaker 2: small cherry tomatoes. Is both the golden beautiful golden ones and.
Speaker 1: The sun golds and larger.
Speaker 2: Ones, larger orange red.
Speaker 1: They're gorgeous, so tasty. So there's a really cool story
Speaker 1: about them. So greenhouses they are there, but here's the
Speaker 1: deal with them. They're from a place called long Wind
Speaker 1: Farm up and Fromont working with them for a while.
Speaker 1: They're grown in soil, they're certified organic, and they are
Speaker 1: greenhouse grown, which, of course, right another month or so,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna need greenhouse any greenhouse strawberry tomatoes. Rather,
Speaker 1: they taste like august. They taste like summer. They are
Speaker 1: so flavorful. They're one of the things when people come
Speaker 1: in I always let them try things, and those are
Speaker 1: one of the things I have them try because it
Speaker 1: truly is an incredible tomato, and we'll have all the
Speaker 1: local ones soon, but to get them a little bit
Speaker 1: earlier from a great organic farm in Vermont is something
Speaker 1: that we definitely want to support.
Speaker 2: Who's your customer.
Speaker 1: Customer is typically has been a mom between the ages
Speaker 1: of probably thirty and sixty, let's say, who cares about
Speaker 1: eating good food but also wants the convenience of getting
Speaker 1: it in one place. And the prepared foods have been
Speaker 1: really important for that as well. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just someone who is food educated but also is looking
Speaker 1: to make changes in their diet, wants to incorporate better
Speaker 1: things into their life, and also prioritizes flavor. We have
Speaker 1: the people that support local agriculture and that it's like
Speaker 1: their priority, right, But that's not the majority of the customer.
Speaker 1: It's people that want great food, that want to get
Speaker 1: it in one place, and that also want to have
Speaker 1: an experience and hear a story about it. We always say,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't sell food, We tell stories, and
Speaker 1: that really is the basis of what we do, is
Speaker 1: telling the story of the farmer and the product.
Speaker 2: Do you have an in house peaker yet?
Speaker 1: Yes and no. So we have this amazing woman. Her
Speaker 1: name is Ali. She was a pastry chef at eleven
Speaker 1: Madison Park in the city. So she is baking for us.
Speaker 1: It's mostly on the weekends right now, so come in.
Speaker 1: We have the sheep sharing. She baked these adorable little
Speaker 1: sheep cookies with amazing butter. They were butterfew and they
Speaker 1: were outrageous. She bakes strawberry bar pies from Mother's Day
Speaker 1: Harry's various cakes, So she does bake. We work with
Speaker 1: some other great local bakeries Flower Water, Salt and Dairy,
Speaker 1: n Wavehill and Norwalk and others for brad sourdough all that.
Speaker 2: On my way home from Pilates. This morning, I stopped
Speaker 2: at Elementop. Have you been there?
Speaker 1: I love that place. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And she's a sultan, single baker, Yeah, a woman. I
Speaker 2: think she has three kids. The place was packed, people
Speaker 2: are looking for and she's sour dough across so sour dough,
Speaker 2: whole weed and they are very tasty. Everything she makes
Speaker 2: now is very earthy and delicious, not too earthy, excellent,
Speaker 2: excellent technique. So it's prices of skyrocket. It all comes
Speaker 2: down the price again. I mean, I really feel for
Speaker 2: people who tell me when I give them a bag
Speaker 2: full of peas from my garden, and how how absolutely
Speaker 2: grateful they are, because peas fresh peas in the in
Speaker 2: the grocery store are they cost a fortune. And asparagus
Speaker 2: from the garden taste so different from from most other asparagus,
Speaker 2: the ones that are shipped from whose where Peru, and
Speaker 2: the shipping takes its toll on the on the taste
Speaker 2: of the of the vegetable they get. But it's very,
Speaker 2: very expensive. What are we going to do about that?
Speaker 2: This is a nationwide problem, it's a worldwide problem.
Speaker 1: It's a big problem. It's it's a it's an especially
Speaker 1: big problem here right, because of our food system. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the issues that you find is
Speaker 1: number one, small organic farms and medium organic farms are
Speaker 1: not subsidized by the government at all, right, so they're
Speaker 1: receiving no subsidies, whereas these larger industrial farms, there are
Speaker 1: many of them. I spent a lot of time in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, and I've been to a lot of these
Speaker 1: big you know, factories, yeah, factory farms or whether it's
Speaker 1: just you know, ten thousand acres of GMO corn. A
Speaker 1: lot of them are living on subsidies and they're not
Speaker 1: making almost anything on the crop because the inputs are
Speaker 1: so high. You need two million dollars five million dollars
Speaker 1: combine to pick the corn, right, and all these chemicals,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So, you know, on a national level, until
Speaker 1: we start providing real assistance to smaller organic farms, those
Speaker 1: prices can't come down, right, It's just it's not something
Speaker 1: that can happen. We can get it as low as possible,
Speaker 1: but it takes longer. You know, an average chicken from
Speaker 1: a factory farm is a twenty eight day old bird.
Speaker 1: From a chick to twenty eight days, that's how old
Speaker 1: it is. Till it's a broiler, till it's a bird
Speaker 1: you're eating, right, found, yeah, exactly. And then you have
Speaker 1: you know, these farmers raising them on the grass where
Speaker 1: it takes three or four months, so you're feeding the
Speaker 1: chicken longer, you have more labor against it, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's really it's a very complicated and difficult issue.
Speaker 1: The best way we can change it is by supporting
Speaker 1: more and more small local farmers. Right, the more support
Speaker 1: we give them. Every time you buy something at a story,
Speaker 1: you're voting, right, you're voting for a certain type of food.
Speaker 1: And the more we vote for something that's locally grown
Speaker 1: from a great farmer, et cetera, the more support they
Speaker 1: have and the more they can get their prices down. Right.
Speaker 1: But everything, by the way, just on ant, you know,
Speaker 1: just because of inflation. Everything is expensive now, I mean,
Speaker 1: even commodity food is expensive. We have tried as much
Speaker 1: as possible to keep the prices as low as we can,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to be affordable for people. But
Speaker 1: you also do pay for what you get, and that's
Speaker 1: part of life too, you know, like there's there's a
Speaker 1: balance there. We do a ton of stuff with the community,
Speaker 1: you know, we've worked with so many organizations to provide.
Speaker 1: You know, perishable food is the hardest thing for people
Speaker 1: to fine, especially people that are food insecure. Things in
Speaker 1: cans or boxes are easier. So we've done a ton
Speaker 1: of work with local charities to try and bring more
Speaker 1: food to people that don't have access or the means.
Speaker 1: Michael Colin created the first grocery store in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: in Queens and the entire principle which essentially the whole
Speaker 1: grocery industry is found that on now is pilot high,
Speaker 1: sell it low. That's what grocery has been, right, what
Speaker 1: we've been talking about.
Speaker 2: But the waste enormous, enormous. I was at a local
Speaker 2: grocery store the other morning. I wanted some fruit. I
Speaker 2: found a few other good things, but then I saw
Speaker 2: the shop one of the nice girls who works there
Speaker 2: going through all the fruits taking out what she was
Speaker 2: not saleable, and the big shopping carts full of barely
Speaker 2: bad I mean it was still edible. I said, oh,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do with that? And she said, oh, garbage.
Speaker 2: And so what is the attrition rate of food in
Speaker 2: a grocery? Fresh food in a grocery store.
Speaker 1: So it depends depends on the store. Right, for us,
Speaker 1: it's less than five percent. Now that five percent also
Speaker 1: though includes So what we would do, Mike's right, like
Speaker 1: a few things. One like we would we would have
Speaker 1: a kitchen. We have a kitchen. Yeah, so that's number one, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so when you have that kale that comes in perfect,
Speaker 1: just picked, and then it's been there for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, let's say, and it's still lovely but not
Speaker 1: as beautiful as you want it, that becomes your kale
Speaker 1: white being soup. Right, So number one and then number two.
Speaker 1: You know, we work with a place called Food Rescue
Speaker 1: and they come several times a week. If there are
Speaker 1: things that are not really salable and they're not going
Speaker 1: to go to the kitchen, we donate everything that's good.
Speaker 1: But in the grocery industry, you know, the way there
Speaker 1: are two types of waste from the big grocery industry.
Speaker 1: One is before it even gets to the store. So
Speaker 1: a green bean has to be a certain length with
Speaker 1: and color to go to one of those stores. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you look at people, you know, we're all different shapes,
Speaker 1: different sizes, right, Like, that's what life is on your
Speaker 1: plum tree out there, so they.
Speaker 2: Have to go elsewhere, they have to throw them away.
Speaker 1: They have to allow of them get to scarred, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, and that is this symptom of that
Speaker 1: industry which is promoting uniformity as opposed to diversity, And that,
Speaker 1: to me is one of the big problems with big grocery, right,
Speaker 1: is like, go to that plum tree out there, You're
Speaker 1: gonna see plums of all shapes and sizes. A couple
Speaker 1: have little spots on them, some will be perfect, They're
Speaker 1: all delicious. So that is the waste is a big
Speaker 1: issue in grocery. It's I mean, you want to remember
Speaker 1: that bread was like thirty percent or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: like it's just astronoms. And then you have people in
Speaker 1: this country that don't have access to great food.
Speaker 2: But from these big, big grocery stots, they do not
Speaker 2: go to the homeless, and they don't go to shelters.
Speaker 2: They throw them away.
Speaker 1: The vast majority goes. I remember, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, we had like a pet goat and
Speaker 1: I went to the grocery ands, like do you have
Speaker 1: any carrots or apples that you can't sell anymore? I'll
Speaker 1: buy them from you. So no, we're not allowed to
Speaker 1: sell them if we have to throw them away, That's exactly,
Speaker 1: and I mean to it defies every aspect of logic.
Speaker 1: I know, you compost here, I compost, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean big help to the environment for sure.
Speaker 2: So so margins on your prepared foods are much better
Speaker 2: than on grocery correct probably you know.
Speaker 1: Prepared foods are one of those things where you're aiming
Speaker 1: for a gross margin, you know, around forty five to
Speaker 1: fifty percent, that's your gross margin, right, because then you've
Speaker 1: all your other costs against it. You know, it ends
Speaker 1: up being a much smaller net margin, which is what
Speaker 1: we're talking about the big grocery source. Prepared foods can
Speaker 1: usually be a bit better, you know, sometimes around sixty percent,
Speaker 1: depends on what the product is. If you can use
Speaker 1: things you're at risk of losing, right, then it's a
Speaker 1: double win because a you're avoiding the waste and be
Speaker 1: you're creating a delicious product that as something on the shelves.
Speaker 1: So prepared foods are always a great driver, a margin driver,
Speaker 1: and they're just such a huge area of need for people,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with great clean organic ingredients in them,
Speaker 1: which there's not a lot of that around, not at all.
Speaker 2: So back to the beginning, how did you finance your expansion?
Speaker 1: Yes, so initially when I started the business, I financed
Speaker 1: it my my grandfather passed away and he left me
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars and that's how I started MIC's Organic
Speaker 1: and I sell fund of the business. For eleven years.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, I did everything delivered, picked up from
Speaker 1: the farms, dealt with the customers, swept the floors. It
Speaker 1: gives you such a great appreciation for what it takes
Speaker 1: to be a small business owner. And then we went
Speaker 1: through this expansion and I actually went out and I
Speaker 1: did a fundraise, which was the first time I've ever
Speaker 1: done something like that in my life. And I raised
Speaker 1: it all from private investors to build out the retail location,
Speaker 1: to buy the kitchen, to grow out the delivery business.
Speaker 1: And it was an enormous education. It went well and
Speaker 1: we were successful, but fundraising is a second full time job,
Speaker 1: and I was doing that in addition running the business.
Speaker 1: It was a great experience, it really was. Construction is
Speaker 1: another one, a really fun thing to go through. Everything
Speaker 1: they tell you twice as long and twice as much
Speaker 1: and you always laugh and say that's really funny, and then.
Speaker 2: To be true.
Speaker 1: And I went through some really hard times, you know,
Speaker 1: to get the place open. I really did. I read
Speaker 1: this great story about Walt Disney, you know, when he
Speaker 1: has had the idea for Disneyland. He was in his
Speaker 1: mid thirties living out in California, obviously, and you know,
Speaker 1: he couldn't afford to buy food. He was eating dog food,
Speaker 1: and he went to the banks to try and get
Speaker 1: a loan to open Disneyland. Have you heard the story before?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, if you had to guess how many times you
Speaker 1: think Walt Disney was turned down for a loan from.
Speaker 2: The banks, oh, one hundred.
Speaker 1: That's a very good guest. Most people say for three hundred,
Speaker 1: three hundred times. And you think to yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: on the two hundred and ninety ninth time, you know,
Speaker 1: how could he not have just quit? And it's what
Speaker 1: it teaches you about being, especially when you have a
Speaker 1: vision or a dream, right is persistence, perseverance, endurance that
Speaker 1: is And you know this as well as anyone, I'm
Speaker 1: sure like that's what itsy.
Speaker 2: They always talk about the five d's, you know, the
Speaker 2: bad things and death, and dementia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, disaster.
Speaker 2: I always talk about the five pas, which are the
Speaker 2: perseverance and persistence.
Speaker 1: And the patients picaciity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's incredible. But you do need that
Speaker 2: in business.
Speaker 1: You need it in life. Yes, right, Yes, it truly is.
Speaker 1: You know, life is a river and we're all on
Speaker 1: it and you're moving with the current and sometimes it
Speaker 1: gets bumpy and sometimes it's smooth, but you keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: And then you have this beautiful store now that you
Speaker 1: see and people see the beautiful store, right, but no
Speaker 1: one ever sees what would into getting it open.
Speaker 2: Well, your investors did. They should a lucky them because
Speaker 2: they took a calculated chance. They do one, Mike Giller,
Speaker 2: and they were going to see some very nice results.
Speaker 1: Yes, they will thank you for saying that.
Speaker 2: I really really think that's great. So you wrote a
Speaker 2: letter to customers each week when the pandemic began, and
Speaker 2: this ran for more than one hundred weeks.
Speaker 1: You were in one of them.
Speaker 2: I was, yes, So why did you do this?
Speaker 1: It started during COVID and you know we were open,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned during you know, the entire shutdown all that,
Speaker 1: and a woman came in to shop and she walked
Speaker 1: in this or and you know, her eyes were kind
Speaker 1: of darting around, and she'd are you going to have milk?
Speaker 1: Are you going to have eggs? And she was really scared.
Speaker 1: You know, this is March twelfth, right, So I went
Speaker 1: home and I wrote a letter and I just said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, listen, we're to week about you know, around
Speaker 1: ten thousand people on our newsletter, and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: we're here for you. Whether it's for a bag of
Speaker 1: rice or a good conversation, you know, we're all going
Speaker 1: to get through this together, and we are here for you.
Speaker 1: And the response was incredible. And then it just morphed
Speaker 1: into this incredible chance to talk to people every week
Speaker 1: about things completely outside the business, about my kids growing up,
Speaker 1: or about farmers, or about you know when you were
Speaker 1: on there about I think it was for National Women's Day.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's so hard to connect with people
Speaker 1: on an emotional level as a business owner, right, it's
Speaker 1: so challenging. And the response we got the people people
Speaker 1: would literally I'd see people in wherever in the street
Speaker 1: and they would say, I cried, you know when I
Speaker 1: read your letter. And we did them for over two years.
Speaker 1: It was just it became such an integral part of
Speaker 1: the business and for me personally, like we started putting
Speaker 1: together a little book of them, something that really was
Speaker 1: extraordinarily meaningful.
Speaker 2: And they will pay attention and they will come in
Speaker 2: when the first local sour cherries. I will be down
Speaker 2: in Greenwich right away.
Speaker 1: We'll be there for you.
Speaker 2: Oh yes. So the words connection and transparency are very
Speaker 2: important in your kind of business out come.
Speaker 1: Because those things are almost entirely devoid in our industrial
Speaker 1: food system.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So you're lucky to know the country of where something
Speaker 1: came from in a grocery store. Forget about the farmer,
Speaker 1: what's on it, what's in it when it was picked. Right,
Speaker 1: it's going back to what we're accustomed to when we
Speaker 1: were younger. Or certainly if you go to the market,
Speaker 1: let's say in France, right where you're talking to the
Speaker 1: person that made the bread, right, and we've just lost
Speaker 1: that in our food system. We're so divorced from food,
Speaker 1: from how it's grown, all those things. So for us.
Speaker 2: Don't have an idea what ruberb looks like.
Speaker 1: Someone thought it was salary, right, I mean, like you
Speaker 1: know or that the right you know or whatever you know,
Speaker 1: it's illegal to publish a photo of the inside of
Speaker 1: a commercial slaughterhouse in America. It's illegal because if people
Speaker 1: saw what was happening on that level, right, like, maybe
Speaker 1: they wouldn't want to eat meat. So for us, it's
Speaker 1: really important to connect people to their food, not just
Speaker 1: to their food, but to the people that grow the food.
Speaker 1: And then the transparency of again, what's on it, what's
Speaker 1: in it? When was this picked? You know? How do
Speaker 1: I cook this? Right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Those are all things that we as consumers should be
Speaker 1: entitled to and we just don't. You know, you go
Speaker 1: into a grocery store, and I would argue that it's
Speaker 1: one of the worst retail experiences in America is a
Speaker 1: grocery store. There is typically you're walking in, not talking
Speaker 1: to anyone, getting everything you can. It's like going to
Speaker 1: the NV get everything you can quickly and trying to
Speaker 1: get out. That's not how we should be shopping for fee.
Speaker 2: Do you know how I shop in a grocery store? No,
Speaker 2: tell me, Well, I like to go like at eleven
Speaker 2: o'clock at night, and I go up and down every
Speaker 2: single aisle and I look at all the prices and
Speaker 2: I compare product to product. That's the way I shop.
Speaker 2: We're lucky around here. We have one kind of local,
Speaker 2: family owned business that's really kind of Everybody talks about
Speaker 2: it how nice it is, and even the cheeses are nice.
Speaker 2: But it's I compare. And then I read things like
Speaker 2: in the New York Times they have the consumer reports
Speaker 2: there that they have wirecutter. It's called Yesterday they had
Speaker 2: olive oils, the olive oils that they talked about the
Speaker 2: five or six of the best olive oils that they
Speaker 2: have found out of two hundred they tested. I only
Speaker 2: knew one, and one of them's in a kind of
Speaker 2: a plastic squeeze bottle and that was their number one pick.
Speaker 2: And I was shocked that that's their number one. But
Speaker 2: they I'm going to get it and see what it tastes.
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, we sell that all.
Speaker 2: Which one is that it's called grosa and that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you are a z so if you have it, then
Speaker 2: it must and they said it's number one. Okay, well
Speaker 2: let's stitch. You know where is it from?
Speaker 1: Grosses from Spain and grassa means grease and Spanish, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we it's it's phenomenal. There are two sizes, ones for cooking,
Speaker 1: ones for kind of dust on.
Speaker 2: The soft bottle, because it's I think.
Speaker 1: It was just a brilliant marketing decision because a lot
Speaker 1: of people, a lot of like, if you're a chef,
Speaker 1: you're always transferring it to a squeeze bottle so you
Speaker 1: can regulate how much oil are you using. Typically of
Speaker 1: course you want it in glass, right, and they put
Speaker 1: it in plastic. It is very very good oil, and
Speaker 1: it is very convenient.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna buy some.
Speaker 1: I would have brought you some find on that I'm
Speaker 1: sure like just olive oil in general.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's so confusing, and I just want to talk
Speaker 2: about your events too, because you talk about having the
Speaker 2: cow and the calf to come. Because people don't have
Speaker 2: a clue what a milk cow looks like, do they?
Speaker 2: And and how does how to get actually get milk
Speaker 2: out of an udder? I try very hard to to
Speaker 2: educate young people in all of that, because my grandchildren
Speaker 2: love milking cows and cheap and goats. Hard hard to do,
Speaker 2: but once you know how, you know where your milk's
Speaker 2: coming from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were actually I was at that farm yesterday.
Speaker 1: It's a farm called Shaggy coos in Easton, Connecticut. Amazing
Speaker 1: female farmer named Brittany. She's so wonderful, and she has
Speaker 1: these gorgeous Jersey and Holstein cows, and I milk the
Speaker 1: cow yesterday.
Speaker 2: Aren't they beautiful jerseys?
Speaker 1: The jerseys, the eyelash.
Speaker 2: Beautiful Jersey cows are brown. Hole steins are black and white,
Speaker 2: so that you can differentiate. But the Jerseys, whole stings
Speaker 2: give more milk correct and one hole steam can give
Speaker 2: up to eighty gallons of milk a day, unbelievable. And
Speaker 2: then a Jersey cow gives less milk. I learned all
Speaker 2: of this from a farmer up in Maine who had
Speaker 2: her own dairy farm, and the only dairy farm unmountains
Speaker 2: are Island. There used to be like eighty dairy farms
Speaker 2: on Mount Dessert Island, and now there's none. If she
Speaker 2: went out, she went out of business.
Speaker 1: Dairy farming is a very very very hard, very.
Speaker 2: Hard business, and cows make a mess, they do.
Speaker 1: I was milking cows yesterday and getting pushed around by one.
Speaker 1: I wanted.
Speaker 2: I wanted so much to have two really good rich
Speaker 2: milk cows so that I could make cheese here. Sure,
Speaker 2: and I have put it off and put it off
Speaker 2: because the mess.
Speaker 1: They're they're hey, they're gigantic. You stand next to the
Speaker 1: we're huge. They do make a big mess. They are
Speaker 1: amazing animals though, And she actually has a for people
Speaker 1: at home. You know, the hole sting that's like the
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's cow, like if you think about what
Speaker 1: a whole stee looks like. And then the Jerseys make
Speaker 1: the A two milk, which has been this whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, the A two milk is actually easier for
Speaker 1: your body to digest. It only comes pretty much from
Speaker 1: Jersey cows. So yeah, this woman, Brittany's coming down on
Speaker 1: June tenth to the store. She's bringing the mom named
Speaker 1: Pearl and the two calves, and then we're going to
Speaker 1: be drinking chocolate milk that is right from her cows.
Speaker 2: Wow, what kind of chocolate does she use?
Speaker 1: She uses this gray cacow. I have to ask her
Speaker 1: what the name? What the name was? Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: was I mean it was like it was like drinking
Speaker 1: our chocolate.
Speaker 2: But again, listeners, if you have kids, what a nice
Speaker 2: opportunity to see where your milk comes from. I look
Speaker 2: at that carton of milk on my counter or the bottle,
Speaker 2: and I think, gosh, like even this morning I was
Speaker 2: opening I had one that had a little bit of
Speaker 2: milk left in it. And I make a cappuccino every morning,
Speaker 2: but the just opened carton of milk makes a better
Speaker 2: capuccino than the one that still has just a little
Speaker 2: bit in the bottom of it. Yeah, it's just weird.
Speaker 2: But I think once air hits it or something, is
Speaker 2: that what happens.
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, the air gets to it. And the
Speaker 1: other thing, you know, Brittany was telling us about was
Speaker 1: just pasturization, right, Like you know, ultra pasteurized milk, which
Speaker 1: is what you'll typically get at the grocery store, is
Speaker 1: cooked to one hundred and eighty five or one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety degrees for an hour and a half, so
Speaker 1: it's essentially boiled, right, it's just below boiling. Right, you've
Speaker 1: taken everything out of it. It'll then last over two months, right.
Speaker 1: So the way she's pasteurizing a lot of these small
Speaker 1: farmers do, probably the woman and makes that's right. It
Speaker 1: is just homogenizing exactly. And it's low temperature pasteurized one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty degrees for thirty minutes, which makes it safe,
Speaker 1: but all the amino acids, all theres are still intact.
Speaker 1: And that's a totally believable, big difference in it.
Speaker 2: And you can't make good yogurt unless you have that
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: That is exactly right.
Speaker 2: So speaking of marketing, who handles that for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know a lot of it. I have
Speaker 1: an incredible kind of social media and communications team to
Speaker 1: wonderful people named Michelle and Laura, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think it really comes down to trying to be earnest
Speaker 1: and genuine with people, especially with food. Right, people spot
Speaker 1: spot a lack of authenticity and food so quickly. So listen,
Speaker 1: when you're a small business, right, you don't have a
Speaker 1: marketing department, you know you don't have you know you
Speaker 1: have to It's always about doing as much as you
Speaker 1: can with what you have, right, and then as you grow,
Speaker 1: ideally you bring on more and more people to help
Speaker 1: you grow.
Speaker 2: Where would you like to take your business?
Speaker 1: Really and truly, you know, I see a big opportunity
Speaker 1: for something like what we're doing, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think that I'd like to start off, you know with
Speaker 1: Fairfield and Westchester County and opening more stores, growing our
Speaker 1: home delivery business I really want to expand into the
Speaker 1: consumer package good space with our products which can be
Speaker 1: sold at a larger level, and just really and truly
Speaker 1: continue to support as many small farms as possible to
Speaker 1: help this local food movement grow and be an anchor
Speaker 1: for it in this area. That's kind of one of
Speaker 1: my main priorities.
Speaker 2: To learn more about Mike's Organic, visit Micsorganic dot com,
Speaker 2: follow at Mike's Organic on Instagram, and if you happen
Speaker 2: to be in Greenwich, Connecticut, visit a store at six
Speaker 2: hundred East Putnam Avenue. You will not be disappointed and
Speaker 2: you will eat a beautiful, beauty a full court.
Speaker 1: Is this a court?
Speaker 2: A court of Harry's berries? I have eaten half of
Speaker 2: won during this podcast. Thank you so much for visiting
Speaker 2: and very very good luck with your amazing enterprise.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Martha. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you,