Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 2: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 2: global business, finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 2: Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Wee Weekend Podcast. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: safe to say, pretty big week for investors. We got
Speaker 3: the Fed decision, the last one of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: the Fed lowering the benchmark interest rate by a quarter
Speaker 3: of a percentage point as expected, lowering it for a
Speaker 3: third consecutive time. Members also rating in the number of
Speaker 3: cuts they expect in twenty twenty five. That was a
Speaker 3: surprise to investors and brought about an immediate market reaction,
Speaker 3: with US Treasury yields shooting up and US stock selling off.
Speaker 3: The SMP five hundred had its worst FED day since
Speaker 3: two thousand and one. Vetcha and J. Powell signaled greater
Speaker 3: caution over how quickly the Federal Reserve can continue to
Speaker 3: reduce borrowing costs.
Speaker 4: But as for additional cuts, we're going to be looking
Speaker 4: for further progress on inflation as well as continued strength
Speaker 4: in the labor market. And as long as the economy
Speaker 4: in the labor market are solid, we can be cautious
Speaker 4: about as we consider further cuts.
Speaker 5: And so this hour we talked to one bank CEO
Speaker 5: who joined us right after the FED decision to get
Speaker 5: his read on the strength of the economy and another
Speaker 5: check on the US economy and the consumer That came
Speaker 5: thanks to the CEOs of two very different companies who
Speaker 5: both happen to be cutting prices. One certainly a household
Speaker 5: name and the other may be, especially if you recently
Speaker 5: had a baby.
Speaker 3: Also on our radar this week sustainable energy solutions and
Speaker 3: how geopolitics are impacting investments in sustainable energy infrastructure with
Speaker 3: an investor who has billions invested in the space.
Speaker 5: All of that to come, we start with this week's
Speaker 5: FED decision. The expected hawkish rate cut still cut investors
Speaker 5: by surprise, sparking a sell off inequities and bonds, US
Speaker 5: Treasury rates moving up. Bank stock sensitive to monetary policy
Speaker 5: moves dropped the most in months right after the FED decision.
Speaker 3: That included shares of the publicly held New Jersey based
Speaker 3: connect One Bank Corp. Which is the parent company of
Speaker 3: Connect One Bank. The bank has nearly ten billion dollars
Speaker 3: in assets and count small businesses and construction companies among
Speaker 3: its customers.
Speaker 5: Frank Sorrentino is chairman and CEO at the bank, which
Speaker 5: as a nine hundred and eleven million dollar market cap.
Speaker 5: He began by telling us what stood out to him
Speaker 5: following the Fed's decision.
Speaker 6: I find it always fascinating that good news brings negative markets, right,
Speaker 6: So a stronger economy and a place where people are
Speaker 6: doing well and strong employment and you know all the
Speaker 6: other things that define a more robust economy, and the
Speaker 6: market sells off. So certainly, I don't think there was
Speaker 6: any surprise that today's ed action interest rates being lowered
Speaker 6: by twenty five basis points some rhetoric around future cuts
Speaker 6: not being as much as the market wanted, and I
Speaker 6: think that's what really drove a lot of the sell offs.
Speaker 6: So there was a lot of enthusiasm and optimism, certainly
Speaker 6: in the banking system about much lower interest rates. Well,
Speaker 6: that's not really going to happen. On the flip side,
Speaker 6: I think we're going to start to see potentially a
Speaker 6: steepening yield curve for banks, and so ultimately, I think
Speaker 6: it will be a good thing.
Speaker 5: One reason we love talking to you. And if people
Speaker 5: were paying attention to you anytime in the last two
Speaker 5: years when you've been on our program, then they wouldn't
Speaker 5: be surprised at how good the economy has been over
Speaker 5: the last couple of years, because you repeatedly were beating
Speaker 5: that drum, saying the companies that are lending with us,
Speaker 5: the companies that are our customers, the small businesses, the
Speaker 5: construction companies, they are doing well right now. How are
Speaker 5: they doing compared to over the last two years?
Speaker 1: For you?
Speaker 6: I think I've said this before. What we are seeing today,
Speaker 6: we are still in quite a robust economy. The vast
Speaker 6: majority of our clients are reporting good news. Is there
Speaker 6: some normalization going on within the economy today? You know
Speaker 6: from all the post COVID, the monetary policy, the expansion
Speaker 6: of the FED balance sheet, liquidity in the system. Sure,
Speaker 6: is that all beginning to normalize and we're getting to
Speaker 6: a more consistent with historical norms relative to interest rates
Speaker 6: and growth rates and everything else. Yes, that's happening. Is
Speaker 6: anyone really saying that the economy is weak today? I
Speaker 6: don't see it. People are still our clients are still
Speaker 6: saying it is difficult to hire staff today. People are
Speaker 6: demanding more money, Supplies cost more. There is a little
Speaker 6: bit of inflation still within the economy, but certain things
Speaker 6: are beginning to level off. Rents are beginning to level
Speaker 6: off a bit. Potentially, Housing prices are reaching a point
Speaker 6: where they're becoming I don't want to say unaffordable, but
Speaker 6: they're certainly reaching that the edge of people's affordability spectrum.
Speaker 6: Interest rates are playing a role there. There's been a
Speaker 6: lot of desire to see interest rates come down a bit.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's going to happen. I think we
Speaker 6: are in a very strong cycle and I think it's
Speaker 6: going to continue certainly. If you if you think about
Speaker 6: everything that we're talking about doing in this next uh uh,
Speaker 6: you know, next administration, these things all have some inflationary components.
Speaker 6: So we are going to see a strong economy first
Speaker 6: so in my opinion as far as I can see.
Speaker 3: So, Frank, then why do the Fed cut rates? Which
Speaker 3: is the kind of the question I think are Mike mckeeask,
Speaker 3: I feel like this is the five year old to
Speaker 3: j pout, why so, why so? Why why cut rates?
Speaker 3: If the economy is robust.
Speaker 6: Like you say, I think the data that the FED
Speaker 6: was looking at, they're looking in longer term, you know,
Speaker 6: segments of time, and they have a what they want
Speaker 6: to get to, which is a neutral rate, and I
Speaker 6: think this is part of their program to get there.
Speaker 6: I don't serve on the FED, so I don't know
Speaker 6: for sure. I don't know exactly what data they're looking at,
Speaker 6: but clearly they're seeing signs that they can get to
Speaker 6: a certain point in the interest rate curve on the
Speaker 6: short end that meets with the program that they believe
Speaker 6: brings a full employment, low inflation, and gets the economy
Speaker 6: to continue to move on.
Speaker 5: One thing we wanted you to weigh on on is
Speaker 5: the political environment, which we know that CEOs don't love
Speaker 5: to do. But this is the world we live in.
Speaker 5: What does you know another four years of of Donald
Speaker 5: Trump mean to you? Given what we learned about him
Speaker 5: twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, how are you preparing
Speaker 5: for it.
Speaker 6: I try to look at the economy. I try to
Speaker 6: look at our clients. I try to look at how
Speaker 6: these things are going to impact them. And the only
Speaker 6: thing that concerns me is creating a level of uncertainty.
Speaker 6: And you know, the one thing that business and the
Speaker 6: economy really wants is certainty. They want to understand where
Speaker 6: things are headed. How can they make plans, and how
Speaker 6: can they run go about running their lives, running their businesses.
Speaker 6: And whenever there's any level of uncertainty, and you know,
Speaker 6: talking about the federal budget and whether we're going to
Speaker 6: fund it or not, and whether people are going to
Speaker 6: get paid you know, government employees, that creates uncertainty and
Speaker 6: that's generally just not good.
Speaker 3: So how frustrating is that for you? You've got to
Speaker 3: make decisions? How hesitant are you to do things because
Speaker 3: you're not quite sure the policy that's going to come
Speaker 3: from this White House?
Speaker 6: You know what, whether it's this administration or any other administration.
Speaker 6: I look at, you know, what's going on on the ground,
Speaker 6: and I am very bullish about what I see, certainly
Speaker 6: in our market area, certainly around what we're doing here
Speaker 6: as a nation. We are the greatest nation on the planet.
Speaker 6: We live in one of the greatest parts of the nation.
Speaker 6: I'm very bullish about our economy, and so I make
Speaker 6: those decisions, and you know, we all here connect one
Speaker 6: make those decisions based on what our clients are telling
Speaker 6: us and what their needs are, and so we feel
Speaker 6: pretty good about where things where things have been. As
Speaker 6: you said, I've been saying the same thing for the
Speaker 6: last couple of years, and where things are going.
Speaker 5: Our Thanks to Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and CEO at connect
Speaker 5: One Bank Corp.
Speaker 3: Another read on the US economy came courtesy of the
Speaker 3: Swedish home furnishing giant Akia. Last month. You might recall
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News reporting on how Akia shoppers will continue to
Speaker 3: see lower prices at its stores in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: but the company warned not to expect anything like this
Speaker 3: past year.
Speaker 5: After slashing prices for retailers by fifteen percent and twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four, which enabled Ikea stores to cut price to
Speaker 5: consumers by ten percent and was quote exceptional, more normal
Speaker 5: levels are in the cards, according to Henrik Elm, chief
Speaker 5: financial officer of inter Ikea Group, it's the worldwide franchiser
Speaker 5: for the brand.
Speaker 3: With the take on the US consumer and how IKEA's
Speaker 3: stores are doing in the United States, Bloomberg's Emily Graffeo
Speaker 3: and I checked in with the US CEO of Akia,
Speaker 3: Javier Kenyonis, who is also chief sustainability Officer.
Speaker 7: Yeah, twenty four, it's been a challenging gr I will say,
Speaker 7: from of course inflation and interest rates, and we've seen
Speaker 7: this in retail, especially in the home fournishing industry. That's why,
Speaker 7: as you said, a big part of our commitment was
Speaker 7: to bring back lower prices as we have ever been
Speaker 7: because due to inflation, we of course had during twenty
Speaker 7: three especially some increase surprises that we had to do,
Speaker 7: and by doing that, what we have seen during twenty
Speaker 7: four is that we have actually managed to sell more
Speaker 7: pieces than previous year, which is a fantastic achievement in
Speaker 7: an economy where it's not been on all the time.
Speaker 7: On our site, I would say.
Speaker 3: So cutting prices actually moved the needle and brought consumers
Speaker 3: to spend more.
Speaker 8: It did.
Speaker 7: Indeed, I wouldn't say to spend more, but I would
Speaker 7: say that this strategy was actually to be closer to
Speaker 7: many more people. And we like to say Ikia is
Speaker 7: for the many people, right, and we understand that the
Speaker 7: many has limited resources or means right. So for us,
Speaker 7: it's not about probably spending more, but it's actually to
Speaker 7: make sure that the care products are available and affordable
Speaker 7: for many more people. That's why I like to measure
Speaker 7: more number of customers during twenty four Because of the
Speaker 7: top language, you reduce prices, you can expect a drop
Speaker 7: or slightly, right, But what tells you that you're doing
Speaker 7: the right thing is when more people can afford ikea.
Speaker 3: Products successibility right, lowering the prices and really opening it
Speaker 3: up to more people.
Speaker 9: Right, And maybe that receipt is not as big as
Speaker 9: it would have been a few years ago. What are
Speaker 9: you seeing in terms of what shoppers are actually buying.
Speaker 9: Are they still going for those big ticket items or
Speaker 9: is it more a shopping cart that just has some
Speaker 9: smaller goods in there.
Speaker 7: You know, the homephouris in market goes hand in hand
Speaker 7: with the house market.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: What we see right now is the house in market
Speaker 7: at some of the lowest we've ever seen right when
Speaker 7: it comes to the month. So we see we see
Speaker 7: both sites. We see small changes through more on the
Speaker 7: accessory site that's a big demand. We see some people
Speaker 7: that are not moving selling or buying new houses that
Speaker 7: go into rebuilding or refurbishing of the existing ones. So
Speaker 7: we see a little bit of both. We don't see
Speaker 7: one taking over on the other. But as I said,
Speaker 7: I think it's been more on the price sensitivity than
Speaker 7: anything else. What we see though, is an increase on
Speaker 7: the demand for sustainable products, right, products that actually help
Speaker 7: you to save costs in your bills, like the energy
Speaker 7: bill right when you move to LED. Or food is
Speaker 7: an interesting one, right, many people ask what can I
Speaker 7: start doing well, you know, on the energy changing by
Speaker 7: LED's appliances that are efficient. Food is an important one,
Speaker 7: especially in the US when one third of what we
Speaker 7: buy those two waste food containers is I would say,
Speaker 7: one of the best friends to actually help people to
Speaker 7: save money. Or water dispensers that reduce the flow. So
Speaker 7: these are some tips and we see more and more
Speaker 7: also demand on these products, which is fantastic.
Speaker 9: Just very quickly, how is the digital business looking for Ikea?
Speaker 9: Because you guys are known for your in store experience,
Speaker 9: are you continuing to focus on that or are you
Speaker 9: seeing more people come to your website?
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, we see more people coming to the website.
Speaker 7: We see more people starting on the website and then
Speaker 7: where they finish. It's uh, I would say, not even
Speaker 7: relevant or important.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: The stores the way I see them are the I
Speaker 7: cannot imagine a most beautiful place in the world to
Speaker 7: actually get inspired about home furnishings than an AKA store.
Speaker 7: So there will be a super key in our business
Speaker 7: and we will keep investing in digital because it's where
Speaker 7: the growth or most of the growth is happening.
Speaker 5: Our thanks to Jabi er Kenyon s c U as
Speaker 5: CEO by Kia and Chief Sustainability Officer Our. Thanks to
Speaker 5: Emily Graffeo for co hosting while I was out.
Speaker 3: Coming up another CEO cutting prices thanks to a recent
Speaker 3: strategy move and acquisition. The CEO of the Baby Formula Company,
Speaker 3: Bobby is next.
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Speaker 3: Baby Formula Company Bobby recently announced to sweeping fifteen percent
Speaker 3: price reduction for its classic organic infant formula. Price reductions are,
Speaker 3: in the company's own words, an active step on behalf
Speaker 3: of the mom led company to support families who are
Speaker 3: experiencing rising costs of living, and as we heard from
Speaker 3: the FED this week, inflation still a little bit of
Speaker 3: a problem.
Speaker 5: Tim a major factor for this price reduction opening a
Speaker 5: ninety thousand square foot infant formula manufacturing facility in Ohio
Speaker 5: to produce this formula. So while many companies raise prices
Speaker 5: due to inflationary pressures, Bobby's one of those companies that's
Speaker 5: actually cutting them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are. Lura Mody is co founder and CEO Bobby,
Speaker 3: and she kicked off our conversation with why the price
Speaker 3: cuts and how they got there. She talked with Bloomberg's
Speaker 3: Emily Grifael In me it was very intentional.
Speaker 10: I'll bring you back your I mean, everyone remembers the
Speaker 10: infant formula shortage.
Speaker 3: Of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 10: We made very intentional decision to buy manufacturing at the
Speaker 10: time and to invest in the heartland of the country
Speaker 10: and really own our own production. I mean, the initial
Speaker 10: goal was really to own our own quality control, production control.
Speaker 10: Also to be in a place where we had resilient supply.
Speaker 10: God forbid, there was another shortage. We were in a
Speaker 10: position you have sub sky right here in the US market. Correct,
Speaker 10: The industry wasn't resilient enough America wasn't resilient enough. We
Speaker 10: were at a point where America wasn't able to feed babies. Now,
Speaker 10: through that investment, which has taken an entire two years,
Speaker 10: a lot of capital and a lot of time, we
Speaker 10: knew that if we did it right, we could also
Speaker 10: reduce the costs as well. And I rewind to that
Speaker 10: moment and being in a position of saying, if we
Speaker 10: got to that place, we would pass the savings over
Speaker 10: to our customers.
Speaker 3: Heather, how did you.
Speaker 10: Reduce the costs? I mean, it's its owned per so
Speaker 10: you bring it in house, you have your supply chain
Speaker 10: from a more local perspective, you know, so just not
Speaker 10: importing product has been reducing imports. And you know, but
Speaker 10: also we were manufacturing a lot through using comen through
Speaker 10: now our owned facility and opening up our own manufacturing
Speaker 10: and making those investments they're starting to pay off, just scale.
Speaker 9: And why do that instead of like using that extra
Speaker 9: money to I don't know, reinvest in the business, especially
Speaker 9: in an environment where all of your other competitors are
Speaker 9: still raising prices.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 10: I've had this debate now a few times. And you know,
Speaker 10: I'll first say, even as a mother of four, I
Speaker 10: feel the inflation.
Speaker 9: Feel it.
Speaker 10: I feel it in grocery stores you see a basic
Speaker 10: pantry products. And I think the election was a big
Speaker 10: wake up call that people were voting with their pockets.
Speaker 1: You saw it.
Speaker 10: Inflation is an issue. And I'm not making any product.
Speaker 10: We're feeding babies. We are making one of the most
Speaker 10: important products out there, and it should also be if
Speaker 10: you're able to, while not compromising on quality, also accessible.
Speaker 3: Laura, you know, based on what you are doing, and
Speaker 3: we've talked to various global architectural firms who talk about
Speaker 3: designing building in Mexico or like closer or even here
Speaker 3: in the US, like closer to Home, I'm curious. You
Speaker 3: know that you show that you can kind of do
Speaker 3: it and it does impact the cost equation. What about
Speaker 3: labor though, what about like I'm just curious about that
Speaker 3: argument which has often been against moving things back here
Speaker 3: in the United States because labor costs are so high.
Speaker 10: I mean, look, it takes having to take several steps back. Initially,
Speaker 10: the costs are high, investment needs are big, but over
Speaker 10: time you see that returned and we have I mean, yes,
Speaker 10: our investments have been substantial, but over time, being able
Speaker 10: to centralize it, keep it close to home, have fewer
Speaker 10: steps in the process. You should be able to see
Speaker 10: costs go down.
Speaker 3: Is it all automated? Forgive me, because I did talk
Speaker 3: about the cost of labor, but it's how much of
Speaker 3: the process is automated.
Speaker 12: No.
Speaker 10: I mean, we have a lot of fabulous staff at
Speaker 10: our manufacturing facility, and you know, I will say, nothing
Speaker 10: makes you feel more patriotic than seeing the manufacturing labor
Speaker 10: who is making this product one by one. It's incredible.
Speaker 9: So this fifteen percent price reduction on your classic organic
Speaker 9: infant formula. This came recently, but I'm wondering how has
Speaker 9: business been in response to that move so far.
Speaker 10: I'll first start just with the sentiment. It's the most rewarding.
Speaker 10: You know, we didn't just roll this out for new customers.
Speaker 10: We have tens and thousands of subscribers who were receiving
Speaker 10: their product every month. They signed up for a particular price,
Speaker 10: and when we made the decision, we said, well, we're
Speaker 10: not just going to do this for new customers. We're
Speaker 10: going to retroactively change the price for our existing subscribers too,
Speaker 10: and it builds loyalty love. We received, you know, ame
Speaker 10: of emails and responsing they've never seen a company do
Speaker 10: anything like this.
Speaker 3: Tell us about subscribers and subscribtion like that is your model, right,
Speaker 3: it is a model. So what have you seen in
Speaker 3: general in that kind of growth prior to the price cuts.
Speaker 3: I'm just curious since this is relatively new.
Speaker 10: Infant formula is it's repeatable, it's predictable. But because of
Speaker 10: the infant formula shortage, there's been this PTSD in fear
Speaker 10: over not being able to get totally get that and
Speaker 10: supply and you're feeding your baby. You want to know
Speaker 10: that your product is arriving to you when you need
Speaker 10: it and that there's never going to be a gap.
Speaker 10: So one of the things we implemented was guaranteed supply
Speaker 10: when you sign up for us, So as a subscriber,
Speaker 10: even if there's ups and downs in supply chain, even
Speaker 10: if you're not able to find it at Target, as
Speaker 10: a subscriber, you will always get a guarantee in your supply.
Speaker 10: We also rolled.
Speaker 12: Up right to do that.
Speaker 3: How did you do that? Because that means you had
Speaker 3: to make sure you either had stuff in a warehouse
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 10: It's modeling. It's almost okay, And I mean to put
Speaker 10: very simply, it's making sure that we're not bringing on
Speaker 10: subscribers at a race that we can for replen it.
Speaker 3: So you would have said, maybe note subscription if it
Speaker 3: meant that you couldn't keep that.
Speaker 10: Prom correct And do you know months ago we were
Speaker 10: finding that you weren't able to sign up because we
Speaker 10: were trying to catch up with supply. But if you
Speaker 10: do sign up, we will guarantee that we will.
Speaker 13: Have that supply for you for how for how long?
Speaker 10: For your entire journey? Yes, And we also implemented inflation
Speaker 10: proof pricing as well, which threw this rollout of reducing prices.
Speaker 10: Has been a promise that even if inflation goes up,
Speaker 10: and hey, we might go in another direction where the
Speaker 10: cost of or product will go up, but we will
Speaker 10: never change it on subscribe.
Speaker 3: How do you do that though? What if your price
Speaker 3: is double?
Speaker 10: Well, look, our prices may go up.
Speaker 6: They may.
Speaker 10: But for our existing subscribers who signed up one day
Speaker 10: and they said I'm signing up for a certain price
Speaker 10: and I expect it not to go up, we're going
Speaker 10: to promise them it won't. But for new customers they
Speaker 10: may see a change.
Speaker 3: Okay, interesting, Interesting, Hey, the US election out come. I
Speaker 3: don't know. You run a business, You've got to be
Speaker 3: watching very closely. Everyone we talked to is just trying
Speaker 3: to kind of game this out. What are the issues
Speaker 3: that are top of mind for you as you look
Speaker 3: and get ready for a second Trump White House?
Speaker 10: You know, I think I think in the infant formula space,
Speaker 10: we're seeing a lot of talk around making America healthy again,
Speaker 10: and I do think that there should be a bigger
Speaker 10: push on this. We've been so focused on the next
Speaker 10: election and not the next generation. What are they consuming,
Speaker 10: how we're raising standards, What is the quality of our
Speaker 10: own supply chain food nutrition? And I am watching this
Speaker 10: very closely in hopes that we're going to see a
Speaker 10: bigger shift towards a healthier country.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry, go ahead, please, Well, I was gonna say,
Speaker 9: maybe for people who aren't familiar with Bobby and your product,
Speaker 9: what makes it different than other baby food formula?
Speaker 10: Purposefully sourced? At the end of the day, infant formula
Speaker 10: needs to match breast milk, so the same carbs, proteins,
Speaker 10: and fats your baby needs to get the same nutrition.
Speaker 10: That's really important. But where those ingredients come from, the
Speaker 10: quality of both how it's produced, and it's the sourcing
Speaker 10: making sure that everything from how it's extracted to where
Speaker 10: it's farmed. And we are one of the only USDA
Speaker 10: organic infant formulas on the market.
Speaker 3: Laura, you know one thing I think about with all
Speaker 3: I feel like Emily, this may come in front of you.
Speaker 3: I know Tim and I have a lot of conversations
Speaker 3: about this. But with climate change and how that is
Speaker 3: impacting certainly farmer's food production around the globe, how has
Speaker 3: that become more complicated if it has at all, in
Speaker 3: terms of what you.
Speaker 10: Guys are doing, it has gotten more complicated, But I
Speaker 10: still think the uncertainty, the unknowns are ahead of us.
Speaker 10: So we're just watching it closely.
Speaker 3: Meaning you could get worse it could you expect it
Speaker 3: to get worse. Going back to we talked about the
Speaker 3: Trump administration, Robert F. Kennedy his nomination to lead the
Speaker 3: Department of Health and Human Services. Yes, there's vaccine skepticism
Speaker 3: by some, but there's also his concerns. As you said
Speaker 3: that you referenced earlier about our food supply and how
Speaker 3: food is made. Your knowledge and experience of going through
Speaker 3: this process, co founding this company, running this company, what
Speaker 3: have you learned about how food is produced in the
Speaker 3: United States, be it infant formula or just in general.
Speaker 3: What can you share why you know?
Speaker 10: And I'm yeah, you did actually, And you know what's
Speaker 10: interesting about this question. At the end of the day,
Speaker 10: we have to turn to food and I feel this deeply.
Speaker 10: In the world of infant formula, creating fear and fear
Speaker 10: mongering is not a game anyone should be in. I
Speaker 10: think it's really really important. Availability, affordability, just access is
Speaker 10: important to the private sector, like myself. It's our responsibility
Speaker 10: to raise the bar, but we have to be very
Speaker 10: careful in how we are growing and improving standards and
Speaker 10: at the same time not having people walking around fearing
Speaker 10: everything they're picking up. So I am very hopeful that
Speaker 10: the awareness of raising the standards is out there. And
Speaker 10: while we're doing it, let's also give each other a
Speaker 10: little bit of grace around what we're eating today.
Speaker 14: Are the standards too harsh?
Speaker 9: Then? On what goes in two baby food formulas or
Speaker 9: are they too lenient?
Speaker 10: Another big debate we could go into for hours, and
Speaker 10: it depends on what standards you're talking about. I think
Speaker 10: from a nutrition standpoint, we should be looking a lot
Speaker 10: harder at what the latest science is. We should be
Speaker 10: trying to remove regulatory hurdles to get in new and
Speaker 10: better ingredients, and at the same time we also need
Speaker 10: to raise the regulatory barrier to make sure the quality
Speaker 10: and safety of the product continues to have oversight. You
Speaker 10: want your product to be high quality and safe at
Speaker 10: the same time you should be compromising one for the other.
Speaker 3: Interesting perspective. Laura, thank you so much. Of course, are
Speaker 3: you finding all the funding you need? Can you stay private?
Speaker 3: You know, I hope so for as long as we
Speaker 3: need good stuff good stuff. Look forward to another update
Speaker 3: soon down the road. Laura Modi, co founder and CEO
Speaker 3: of the baby formula company Bobby really active and take
Speaker 3: on her industry and just fascinating to see what they
Speaker 3: were able to do in terms of pricing in an
Speaker 3: environment where it's not to be so easy.
Speaker 9: And female founded and a mom led company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, love that.
Speaker 6: Love that.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
Speaker 2: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on applecar Play
Speaker 2: and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can
Speaker 2: also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New
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Speaker 3: All right, everybody well. Our Bloomberg News team reporting that
Speaker 3: the House Judiciary Committee said it's found quote substantial evidence
Speaker 3: of collusion and anti competitive behavior by the financial industry
Speaker 3: to impose radical ESG goals on US companies. An interim
Speaker 3: report published by the Republican led committee said, quote a
Speaker 3: cartel of financial firms and climate activists soft replace X
Speaker 3: on Mobile board members in twenty twenty one after the
Speaker 3: company declined to make a series of climate pledges.
Speaker 5: Curious what Jonathan Maxwell has to say about this sort
Speaker 5: of the changing tone of ESG over the last few years.
Speaker 5: He's founder and chief executive officer of SDCL.
Speaker 1: It's short for.
Speaker 5: Sustainable Development Capital LLP. SDCL has more than two billion
Speaker 5: dollars in assets under management. He's also the author of
Speaker 5: The Edge, How competition for resources is pushing the world
Speaker 5: and its climate to the brink, and what we can
Speaker 5: do about it. Jonathan joins us here in the Bloomberg
Speaker 5: Interactive Brokers studio. Welcome, how are you?
Speaker 11: Thank you so much for having me on?
Speaker 1: Great will you.
Speaker 5: Well, we're going to talk about sort of what competition
Speaker 5: resources is doing because it's super interesting.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious about your thoughts on the way that.
Speaker 5: ESG has sort of turned into this four letter word
Speaker 5: over the last few years. You see what's happening in
Speaker 5: Texas with the Attorney general there.
Speaker 1: What do you make of it?
Speaker 11: I mean, the trend's been going on since about twenty
Speaker 11: twenty two. It's actually I'll get a whole chapter in
Speaker 11: my book about greenwash and the SG and that was
Speaker 11: I mean, this was off to a very big period
Speaker 11: of assets baying Gavid in the SG phones like a
Speaker 11: huge boom sustainability SG, and then the tide turned.
Speaker 1: But there is something.
Speaker 11: I mean, my company's will Sustainable Development Capitalist DCL. So
Speaker 11: I'm kind of in the business, but there is something
Speaker 11: there where if you're in the business of sacrificing returns
Speaker 11: on the altar of the environment, this is the sort
Speaker 11: of the financial and sort of intellectual side of the story.
Speaker 11: Then you know then that is against the fiduciary duty
Speaker 11: of the fund manager and of the pension scheme manager.
Speaker 11: And you know, I think there's a lot of noise
Speaker 11: running around this sector. But the idea that you should
Speaker 11: take capital from the capital that needs to be invested
Speaker 11: for financial return and sacrifice or compromise.
Speaker 1: The job of investing, I.
Speaker 11: Think is a very challenging area. I don't by the way,
Speaker 11: I don't think it's necessary. I don't think not only necessary,
Speaker 11: I don't think it should be done. And I think
Speaker 11: that investors will get sued and companies will get sued
Speaker 11: for doing it. And I think it's when I think
Speaker 11: a simple as that isn't it? It really is an I mean,
Speaker 11: I think about sustainable. My own company is called sustainable,
Speaker 11: but it doesn't they giving money away. It says sustainable,
Speaker 11: which means for me, commercially sustainable. In fact, if it's
Speaker 11: not commercial, it's not sustainable.
Speaker 3: Didn't we get lost? I keep thinking about this. When
Speaker 3: ESG came out, I think we all thought about was
Speaker 3: about doing good and it really was about environmental sustainability
Speaker 3: and governance issues, right that could financially impact a company.
Speaker 3: And then you have things like impact investing or something
Speaker 3: that's a whole different thing. Right, tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit about how the world is evolving and how we
Speaker 3: look at this, because if we you know, investing to
Speaker 3: do good versus I don't know it help me out
Speaker 3: here to kind of understand where this space goes.
Speaker 11: I think that I'll give you something that's not a
Speaker 11: bit optimistic because we talked about resources and the rest
Speaker 11: of it. So you know, I think we're currently in
Speaker 11: a very hardline environment, right. What do I mean by that?
Speaker 11: The political headwinds or against it. You've got let's say,
Speaker 11: a pushback against climate or woke capitalism, You've got regulators,
Speaker 11: and you've got low.
Speaker 3: Mean, mother, the world is kind of burning around us, right.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but I'm just giving you the headwork to start with.
Speaker 11: I'm not going to give you a tael a pretty
Speaker 11: substantial one. Sorry, Right, But we're also under a serious
Speaker 11: economic pressure, right, you know, we've got inflation. We were
Speaker 11: talking just before the shows started about how inflation is
Speaker 11: partly driven by energy prices. So you know, it's a
Speaker 11: difficult environment that we're working in. Okay, So what do
Speaker 11: we do about it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 11: Do you look at the problem. And here's the thing,
Speaker 11: And this is why I think that this is what
Speaker 11: I focus my investments on. When I look at what's
Speaker 11: wrong with the energy system. One of the things that
Speaker 11: stands out to me, it's the same in food and water,
Speaker 11: is that most of it's wasted I mean, it's very, very,
Speaker 11: very infrequent people actually talk about this.
Speaker 3: Actually we talk about it's a lot about food waste,
Speaker 3: and here you have people who like have no food,
Speaker 3: and then the amount of food waste, and then the
Speaker 3: impact that has in the environment. But forgive me go.
Speaker 11: Ahead, no, I mean, it's incredibly important. About half of
Speaker 11: the world's food is wasted. About a third of the
Speaker 11: world's water is wasted. So it wouldn't necessarily surprise you.
Speaker 11: I said that roughly three quarters of the world's energy
Speaker 11: gets wasted. You break it down extraction ten generation because
Speaker 11: it most of about half of the world's energy gets
Speaker 11: lost as heat in the generation process you put gas
Speaker 11: or uranium into a power.
Speaker 3: How come we're not better with that?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 11: Because we've built a centralized energy system in America and
Speaker 11: Europe over the last forty to fifty years, we've vented
Speaker 11: heat and then we build what's now old transmission and
Speaker 11: distribution lines and you put it all together, it just
Speaker 11: doesn't make the sense that it did over the last
Speaker 11: fifty sixty years. We also now, and this is the
Speaker 11: exciting part, we also have solutions to this problem. It's astonishing,
Speaker 11: but we actually have solutions to this problem. Part of
Speaker 11: the problem is you generate energy in one place and
Speaker 11: then you use it in another, and then we talk
Speaker 11: about quid good guid, transmission lines and the.
Speaker 1: Rest of it.
Speaker 11: What about you could actually generate the energy close to
Speaker 11: where you need it, or because.
Speaker 1: You don't want to power play next to your house,
Speaker 1: you don't need put a.
Speaker 3: Solar panel though you don't tap the earth.
Speaker 11: Right, So you've got solar panels, you've got ground heat,
Speaker 11: you've got heat capture, you've got underground energy plant. You
Speaker 11: actually you say you don't want one. You've got one
Speaker 11: under this building.
Speaker 1: You know, so they're gygy of them all.
Speaker 11: I'm talking about cogeneration actually, so you know, the first
Speaker 11: asset that Michael Bloomberg put in your new office when
Speaker 11: you opened it in London was a cogeneration system because
Speaker 11: he knows that you combined electrical thermal efficiency standards means
Speaker 11: you can operate buildings much more efficiently if you generate
Speaker 11: the energy where you need it. So the short answer
Speaker 11: is the world's biggest problem is that most of it's wasted.
Speaker 11: The World's biggest solution to climate change, to economic performance
Speaker 11: and competitiveness and the cheapest is by decentralizing the energy network,
Speaker 11: bringing the energy generation to the point of views. And
Speaker 11: the other thing that Michael Bloomberg did for Bloomberg was
Speaker 11: actually change the infrastructure inside the buildings so it doesn't waste.
Speaker 11: Until about thirty percent of America's buildings leak energy out
Speaker 11: of the windows through lighting, heating ventilation. Change the lights,
Speaker 11: change the heating, ventilation, conditioning, and it transforms the energy system.
Speaker 11: So to come back to the ESG. Yeah, ESG is
Speaker 11: well meaning. Impact investment is well meaning. But what if
Speaker 11: you can start to make investments that are not only
Speaker 11: more competitive, cheaper, cleaner, more reliable, but actually drive the economy.
Speaker 11: And that is what we focus on.
Speaker 5: Isn't it from a building perspective, isn't it more expensive
Speaker 5: to do those things?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 1: I give you very very quick example.
Speaker 11: The classic one is taking led lights, and it sounds
Speaker 11: a bit like everybody's done it. They haven't take a
Speaker 11: sixty What lamp you replace it with a six? What lamp?
Speaker 11: You can do the math? It's ninety percent less energy
Speaker 11: to do the same job, even if the light bulb
Speaker 11: costs you two or three times more money.
Speaker 1: And the bobs don't get hot, the.
Speaker 11: Bubbles don't get hot, and therefore you don't need the
Speaker 11: cooling to cool the room down.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 11: The payback periods two or three years. So the cost
Speaker 11: is what am I paying for what period of Jonathan?
Speaker 3: Why does it not happen.
Speaker 11: Quicker? So I write a lot about this subject. I
Speaker 11: wrote a book about it. I'd write a substacke.
Speaker 3: Of course, the establishment doesn't want it to go fast.
Speaker 11: It's my answer to the question is it's actually the
Speaker 11: perfect problem. What I mean by that, and the energy
Speaker 11: system is a fill of brilliant companies. Everybody in the
Speaker 11: supply chain is brilliant at what they do. You have
Speaker 11: an extraction firm, they do a great job. They vent
Speaker 11: gas and flare it. It gets complained about, but it's
Speaker 11: economically they figure it's the best thing that they can do.
Speaker 11: You build a power plant, a newcore, a gas power plant.
Speaker 11: They're operating as economically efficiently as they could and should do.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 11: But you have a transmission distribution line. It's economically it's
Speaker 11: perfected to it's particularly distribution line.
Speaker 3: People don't want it to go away.
Speaker 11: But you put it all together as a system, and
Speaker 11: it doesn't make any sense at all, so each component
Speaker 11: of the supply chain for value chain for energy is
Speaker 11: This is why I call it the perfect problem, perfected
Speaker 11: for its shareholders. But you knit it together and it
Speaker 11: doesn't make any system sense. And that's why decentralizing energy,
Speaker 11: bringing it to the point of view is a fundamental
Speaker 11: different approach to making energy.
Speaker 5: As we've learned here in the US with the problems
Speaker 5: that the Texas power grid faced a couple of years ago.
Speaker 5: We're on an aging infrastructure here and it's sort of
Speaker 5: this patchwork where things are different in each state and
Speaker 5: when you cross state lines things change. How do you
Speaker 5: make it work in a place like the US.
Speaker 11: So I have We've invested well over a billion dollars
Speaker 11: here in the US. I'm excited. Donald Trump says, if
Speaker 11: you invest in more than a billion dollars in the US,
Speaker 11: so you can have all sorts of good things. And
Speaker 11: I'm looking forward to that. We till January twenty that
Speaker 11: but you know, to our billion dollars has gone into
Speaker 11: exactly this, right, So we built, we own a very
Speaker 11: large energy system in upstate New York in Rochester. When
Speaker 11: it gets very cold, and it will over the next
Speaker 11: couple of months, the grid struggles to provide energy. We
Speaker 11: don't because we generate the energy on site for our customers.
Speaker 11: So you know, state by state we build resilient on
Speaker 11: site energy generation solutions. We own it through a public
Speaker 11: company that we manage. In London, we have other systems
Speaker 11: here that do rooftop solar nationwide. We own a company
Speaker 11: called Onyx which does nationwide solar and storage. Again, resilient
Speaker 11: on site clean power that's cheaper than the grid.
Speaker 3: So I mean again big step of how we get
Speaker 3: there Because I always talk about the establishment and the
Speaker 3: old systems that are in place. It's really hard to
Speaker 3: break them up. And there's also a lot of money
Speaker 3: involved that people will lose if those are broken up.
Speaker 3: So how do we get there? Is a government policy
Speaker 3: that incents people once again, are companies or like, how
Speaker 3: do we get there? Does it just evolve?
Speaker 1: Think?
Speaker 11: I think this is an evolution rather than a revolution.
Speaker 11: It sounds a bit trite, but it's because the systems
Speaker 11: that we build, for example, that are on site are
Speaker 11: of benefit to the utility. I'll give you a great
Speaker 11: example something we were talking about earlier as well. Yeah,
Speaker 11: take data centers. Data centers are a tremendous user of
Speaker 11: energy all day, all night and all year, hundreds of
Speaker 11: metal arts of power demand.
Speaker 1: Where do you get it from?
Speaker 11: You normally get it from the grid, but the grid
Speaker 11: struggles to provide the power that you need for new
Speaker 11: data centers. So we have a business which focuses on
Speaker 11: building power for data centers, but it's also providing services
Speaker 11: to the grid. So you know, we have that we're
Speaker 11: providing a solution to both the local grid so that
Speaker 11: we can provide firm grid capacity and picking up the
Speaker 11: juice requirements from the data.
Speaker 1: How's that power being generated for you?
Speaker 11: So we generate power twenty four to seven using natural
Speaker 11: gas cogeneration, but we into great renewables and storage to
Speaker 11: make sure that we can get the lowest carbon footprint,
Speaker 11: the highest level of reliability in the lowest cost.
Speaker 3: You know, I do wonder in terms of oil and renewables.
Speaker 3: We just got twenty seconds renewables. I mean, do we
Speaker 3: continue to move towards renewables?
Speaker 11: Yeah? You know, but again why build them in the
Speaker 11: middle of nowhere when you can build them on site?
Speaker 11: Do both at least, you know, and I think this
Speaker 11: is the point I make. Let's be efficient at the same.
Speaker 3: Time, like near shoring and unshoring for everything, like in
Speaker 3: our backyard.
Speaker 11: Right, you have the Department of Government Efficiency of the US.
Speaker 11: If it looked at how much energy is wasted? Do
Speaker 11: you know how much the cost of energy is in
Speaker 11: the America? Four and a half trillion dollars. Two thirds
Speaker 11: of that's wasted. You could save two trillion dollars a year.
Speaker 5: Our thanks to Jonathan Maxwell, founder and CEO of Sustainable
Speaker 5: Development Capital and the author of the book The Edge,
Speaker 5: How competition for resources is pushing the world and its
Speaker 5: climate to the brink.
Speaker 3: That wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 3: of Bloomber Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Ahead on our
Speaker 3: next hour, from what Not to Wear to building a
Speaker 3: seventy two million dollar a year beauty empire, we check
Speaker 3: in with entrepreneur Trinny Woodall.
Speaker 5: Plus she tapped her pride and influence of Harlem to
Speaker 5: become the first African American woman to launch a commercially
Speaker 5: distributed beer. The CEO of Harlem Brewing on how she
Speaker 5: did it.
Speaker 3: And Christmas and Hanukkah are this week, And if you
Speaker 3: are still mulling over gifts for friends and loved ones.
Speaker 3: Our Pursuits team has the ultimate guide everything from the
Speaker 3: simple to the sublime.
Speaker 5: And from the not so cheap to the somewhat affordable. Okay,
Speaker 5: we're talking ten dollars pump Street chocolate to a one
Speaker 5: hundred and sixty four thousand dollars eternal calendar.
Speaker 3: We're talking about a watch.
Speaker 5: Prices go up from there also lots of gifts in between.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, it's a fun list. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 2: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Easter Listen
Speaker 2: on Apple car Play and the Brout Auto with a
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Business act or waters Live on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 3: of Bloomberg Business Week, including the founder of Harlem Brewing
Speaker 3: on becoming the first African American woman to own a
Speaker 3: brewery in the United States.
Speaker 5: Plus, if you're still looking for a last minute gift
Speaker 5: this holiday season, our Bloomberg Pursuits team has you covered,
Speaker 5: from an eighty six thousand dollars Bulgari necklace to fifteen
Speaker 5: dollars worth of chocolate Martini olive almonds that are not
Speaker 5: meant to be shaken nor stirred, or a time piece
Speaker 5: that will last a lifetime. You know when I say timepiece,
Speaker 5: are you talking about a watch that just is expensive?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: We know it's pursuits or really several lifetimes.
Speaker 3: I should say exactly exactly. First up this hour though
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur and business owner, columnist and author, and before
Speaker 3: all of that, a co host of the BBC TV
Speaker 3: show very popular BBC TV show What Not to Wear,
Speaker 3: helping women all over the world discover their individual style
Speaker 3: and become more confident at the same time. Full disclosure,
Speaker 3: I've been a huge fan of Trinnywood all today.
Speaker 5: Triny is founder and CEO of the digital first beauty
Speaker 5: brand at Triny London. Since founding the business back in
Speaker 5: twenty seventeen, the business has scaled into a global brand,
Speaker 5: shipping things like skincare and makeup to customers in more
Speaker 5: than one hundred and seventy countries, as well as operating
Speaker 5: retail stores across the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she was actually in town here in New
Speaker 3: York City to work on that expansion in the United States.
Speaker 3: Trinny joined us to talk about the growth of her
Speaker 3: direct to consumer platform and the challenges of being a
Speaker 3: woman in the VC world. We started our conversation going
Speaker 3: back a few years to Triny's beginning writing a newspaper column,
Speaker 3: followed by hosting the BBC TV hit show What.
Speaker 14: Not to Wear.
Speaker 12: I think we came along into time in the nineties
Speaker 12: when we just gave some rules. We did a show
Speaker 12: which was you know, titles that TV mate, but it
Speaker 12: was based on a column call want Not to Wear,
Speaker 12: and it was just about the first time perhaps saying
Speaker 12: everyone is different. Everyone has different body shape, it doesn't
Speaker 12: matter your size, everyone has different skin care and eye
Speaker 12: and so it resonated because that language perhaps hadn't been
Speaker 12: spoken before. And interestingly, we've done a book before which
Speaker 12: sold thirteen thousand copies. We did a TV show I.
Speaker 7: Think I have the book.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be very crazed with you that first book.
Speaker 3: Nobody has maybe the second.
Speaker 12: I want to do a book deal. But then after
Speaker 12: we did that show, we sold a million copies of
Speaker 12: the first because there was and it was very basic rules.
Speaker 12: It was if you have small boobs, do this, if
Speaker 12: you have big views, and you know, don't wear au
Speaker 12: pone of neck. If you have it just people come
Speaker 12: up and say, I never do that again because of you,
Speaker 12: and so that was very interesting then, all right, But
Speaker 12: the way the story was told on TV was shock TV.
Speaker 12: You know, it was just before times of a show
Speaker 12: like The Swan, which was that extreme makeover. It was
Speaker 12: the beginning of very different TV. And when we then
Speaker 12: had done that for ten years and we stopped doing
Speaker 12: it in the UK because other people came up what
Speaker 12: I loved most. It was challenging at the time because
Speaker 12: we were suddenly not wanted. But we went to Mipcom,
Speaker 12: which is a TV conference, and can and about twelve
Speaker 12: countries brought the format, from Israel to Poland, to India,
Speaker 12: to Australia to Scandinavia. So I went from just understanding
Speaker 12: British women and America to then understanding it doesn't matter
Speaker 12: your religion, your age, the color of your skin. These
Speaker 12: emotional stages that we go through as women have a
Speaker 12: relevance on our confidence levels, on how we want to
Speaker 12: project ourselves. And that was fantastic research. Everything I've done,
Speaker 12: probably since I was six and a half, is research
Speaker 12: for where I am now.
Speaker 5: I just want to talk a little bit about the
Speaker 5: changing media landscape over that time, because a lot has
Speaker 5: happened in the last twenty five thirty years since that show,
Speaker 5: And I'm wondering when you look around the landscape today,
Speaker 5: whether you see something on streaming, whether you see what's
Speaker 5: going on on TikTok, on Instagram reels where you kind
Speaker 5: of see the influence of what you were doing on
Speaker 5: the BBC, the.
Speaker 12: Point of reference where we get our influence has changed.
Speaker 12: And love, I love evolution. I love the fact that
Speaker 12: there was a very small, controlled set of people who
Speaker 12: gave you your influence and now it's all up for
Speaker 12: grabs because I think that's an egalitarian state, and you choose.
Speaker 12: You don't have to get a subscription to Vogue magazine.
Speaker 12: You know, you can choose who you follow and what
Speaker 12: you like, so you have far more individual It's like
Speaker 12: you're choosing your meal from an Ala catte menu.
Speaker 3: It's not a set menu, right.
Speaker 12: So the benefit of that evolution has been that you
Speaker 12: can go and be influenced by somebody who is far
Speaker 12: more like you individually as a person, or somebody who
Speaker 12: aspire to be as opposed to a brand setting the
Speaker 12: tone like a magazine or a newspaper title that we've
Speaker 12: all followed for years.
Speaker 3: Well, let's get to what you're doing now, Triny London, right.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny.
Speaker 3: I brought up your name in our makeup room this morning,
Speaker 3: and I have a beloved makeup artist. She's worked with
Speaker 3: Charlotte Tillbury. She's worked with I think prescriptors, maybe Bobby Brown,
Speaker 3: like a lot of brands. She's like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: she's doing you know, she talked about your brand. It's
Speaker 3: a crowded space though you launched in twenty seventeen. When
Speaker 3: you thought about it and your journey, you talk about
Speaker 3: what you've learned. How did you think about entering the space,
Speaker 3: what you wanted to do differently because it is so competitive.
Speaker 12: I knew exactly what I wanted to do. The challenge
Speaker 12: was convincing investors it was the right choice. So I
Speaker 12: knew the biggest white space was a thirty five plus woman.
Speaker 12: I knew that she'd been talked to with companies that
Speaker 12: were represented by a twenty year old model. I knew
Speaker 12: she felt excluded from the conversation, but she was being
Speaker 12: sold something that might be relevant for her, but wasn't
Speaker 12: in a language for her, because every advertiser is going
Speaker 12: after a younger audience, even though the older audience maybe
Speaker 12: has the money. So there was this sort of dichotomy.
Speaker 12: And I felt that I had already organically understood this woman,
Speaker 12: and I knew what products she wanted. I knew her frustrations,
Speaker 12: I knew when she went up to the beauty counter,
Speaker 12: the challenges she had about thinking, is the person serving
Speaker 12: me here going to be, you know, plastering me a
Speaker 12: makeup or going to be thinking I'm younger or older?
Speaker 12: Is she going to understand me? And so I really
Speaker 12: felt that you could develop online with personalization, which I'd
Speaker 12: love since ninety nine when I started my first tech
Speaker 12: company called Ready Too, before even eComm But I loved
Speaker 12: personalization and I love data. So I thought, if I
Speaker 12: can build an algorithm where I can figure this woman
Speaker 12: out and I can say, tell me this about you,
Speaker 12: and we will tell you what suits you. And I
Speaker 12: pitched that this woman thirty five forty forty five would
Speaker 12: do that. And every investor for the first six months
Speaker 12: I saw two hundred fifty people got one investor.
Speaker 3: Sear two hundred and fifty investors.
Speaker 12: I pitched two hundred and fifty investors and I got
Speaker 12: one investment at that beginning and then people followed. But
Speaker 12: was very much loved the idea, but those old ladies
Speaker 12: will never buy it. So do it for a GenX
Speaker 12: and a Jena Jena. It wasn't even around eight years ago.
Speaker 12: Gen X okay, And I was like, but you don't
Speaker 12: get it. This woman will come online if she feels
Speaker 12: she's got something she can trust, right, and it will deliver.
Speaker 1: Have any of those investors come knocking sense?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: How did those conversations go? I mean they passed. In
Speaker 5: an earlier round, they would have gotten a better deal.
Speaker 12: I think that. I think a nice You know, there
Speaker 12: moments in your life you celebrate, and one moment was
Speaker 12: going to a tech conference where I used to get
Speaker 12: this tech conference every year, which will remain nameless, but
Speaker 12: I would always feel, you know, an outsider. I'd feel
Speaker 12: I haven't got investment yet. You know when you're really
Speaker 12: in that pitch mode and you're trying to get people
Speaker 12: interested and you bump into somebody who said no to you,
Speaker 12: and you sort of like put on the brave face
Speaker 12: and you'll still committed and you still know it's going
Speaker 12: to work. You just got to find that right person
Speaker 12: right And three years later we just had an article
Speaker 12: in Forbes and it was a very good article. It
Speaker 12: gave a value to business which we haven't given them.
Speaker 12: But and then I went to this conference again and
Speaker 12: there were like four people there who had to turn
Speaker 12: me down and they were like, we must talk, and
Speaker 12: I'm one of them.
Speaker 14: I just couldn't.
Speaker 12: And I went, oh, we're not looking for investment right
Speaker 12: now because we're a bit Dell positive. But it was
Speaker 12: just that. And I think there's moments, there's a tiny
Speaker 12: moment where you think, but truly.
Speaker 3: We talk about this a lot about women entrepreneurs, even
Speaker 3: from women venture capitalists have even a hard time getting funding,
Speaker 3: and you are a known entity, and I just why
Speaker 3: do you think that still is?
Speaker 12: I think it's a mix. I have to learn, really
Speaker 12: how to pitch. I had to learn to speak a
Speaker 12: language I wasn't used to because I am the type
Speaker 12: of woman who wants to go in and bring you
Speaker 12: into the world of what I see train New London
Speaker 12: will do and get you to know that woman. And
Speaker 12: it's so I'm not going to say it's overwhelming for
Speaker 12: a classic investor, but sometimes somebody wants to say this
Speaker 12: is A, and then from A, I'll get to B.
Speaker 12: And then once I got B, I'll get to C.
Speaker 12: And so I then realized I had to tell the
Speaker 12: journey differently. I had to I knew what they needed
Speaker 12: to know first. And you know, I was asked a
Speaker 12: lot how will you protect your downside? Not how will
Speaker 12: you optimize your upside? And I did feel if I
Speaker 12: was a man in the room, would that have been
Speaker 12: the first question or would it be man to man
Speaker 12: how you're.
Speaker 3: Going to find Do you think it would not have been?
Speaker 12: I don't know. I'm not going to judge. I think
Speaker 12: it's the tightest person, but I would you know, I
Speaker 12: did have to learn that because I'm not a you know,
Speaker 12: I've learned to be a CEO. There's two hundred fifty
Speaker 12: people in trin Eat London now, but that's been a journey.
Speaker 12: And I even got a CEO coach because I wanted
Speaker 12: to be the best CEO I could be and understand
Speaker 12: the importance of how I delegate where I'm in the weeds,
Speaker 12: you know, meeting people who say do what only you
Speaker 12: can do. You know, otherwise you will never grow because
Speaker 12: you'll always be doing too much in the weed. So
Speaker 12: that journey is a challenging journey for a founder to
Speaker 12: be a CEO and a business that's doing over fifty
Speaker 12: or one hundred million or you know, as you grow
Speaker 12: you need to have that team that is going to
Speaker 12: execute really well and you are looking at the strategic
Speaker 12: vision of where the business is going and doing less
Speaker 12: of the every day. So for me, the switch from
Speaker 12: that to this is a big challenge.
Speaker 3: No, it's a learning process, especially as you get bigger,
Speaker 3: right otherwise you get cut. Yeah, tell us about Triny London.
Speaker 3: You know how big you've gotten. Touches a back growth,
Speaker 3: we're Bloomberg. We do love numbers. Tell us what you
Speaker 3: can do or last can I tell you?
Speaker 12: I think I'll tell you what. When I started, it
Speaker 12: was the time of real growth. It was a time
Speaker 12: of you know, it didn't matter about retention. It was
Speaker 12: only about new customer numbers. And I remember we had
Speaker 12: a sort of fifty to fifty and they were saying
Speaker 12: you need to be thirty percent existing, seventy percent you
Speaker 12: And I was like, I don't agree. I want retention.
Speaker 12: I want a long term cohort. I want the customer
Speaker 12: who will buy four times a year and be with
Speaker 12: me in ten years. That's the customer I want. And
Speaker 12: that was challenging. So even all my second round, the
Speaker 12: valuation I was looking for I didn't get because they
Speaker 12: were like, you should be seventy thirty and I was like,
Speaker 12: I'm happy with fifty to fifty.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 12: And then during into COVID, we had a ton of
Speaker 12: people who were waiting for us to come to a
Speaker 12: store and because they though I'm at home for a while,
Speaker 12: they then went and bought and then they became customers.
Speaker 12: And those are longtime cohorts. So the you know reference
Speaker 12: now in the world we live in in d t
Speaker 12: C is it is about retention. It's really about retention.
Speaker 3: But it's also about retail. Like you haven't shunned away.
Speaker 3: Yes you are direct consumer, but you also embraced retail.
Speaker 12: And I think retail has a part to play. Retail
Speaker 12: for a real DC brand, like earlier DC brands would
Speaker 12: literally be just brand building. But retail needs to be
Speaker 12: profitable and brand building. It can't just be brand building
Speaker 12: because I think then you don't get to have a
Speaker 12: good ebitdart So how do you you know?
Speaker 3: We did?
Speaker 12: It's expensive and we did a flagship in the UK
Speaker 12: and we spent money on that flagship, but in three
Speaker 12: and a half months of paid for itself. So that's great.
Speaker 12: And it's you know, in the other store in London,
Speaker 12: which is a big store, weel number one in beauty.
Speaker 12: But here in Prince Street I saw it in I thought,
Speaker 12: we have to put an inroad where in sacts, we
Speaker 12: have to an inroad of our propers of what we represent,
Speaker 12: this personalization in a space so you can walk in
Speaker 12: the world of us because that visual and this is
Speaker 12: where online and offline is really interesting. If somebody's going
Speaker 12: to buy online, they need these five points of reference,
Speaker 12: their friend and Instagram they follow, maybe still a magazine,
Speaker 12: maybe listening to Bloomberg Radio, but also seeing the brand
Speaker 12: physically in their country in some form in the real
Speaker 12: world is really important. So the conversion we have online
Speaker 12: since we've got Prince Street, which I fitted out in
Speaker 12: Ikea with mirror on the top, because I thought the
Speaker 12: investment here has got to be in the buzz. It's
Speaker 12: not going to be dump paying three hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 12: in a six month pop up. It's going to be
Speaker 12: four thousand dollars at Ikea with very nice mirrors on
Speaker 12: the tech because our products are great.
Speaker 1: So you know, did that work? Did the IQ?
Speaker 3: It're so busy this weekend.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 12: It's so exciting because we did a morning show and
Speaker 12: we had and also this is interesting because you don't
Speaker 12: know how well TV works. And the next day there
Speaker 12: were people who'd watched this show coming in to the store. Right.
Speaker 12: I thought, that's interesting how media works now.
Speaker 5: So when you talk about strategy, we've talked retail, we've
Speaker 5: talked digital. What about social media and actually using the
Speaker 5: platforms to sell. Increasingly we're seeing TikTok Instagram becoming sort
Speaker 5: of centers of e commerce.
Speaker 12: TikTok shop has been interesting because in different territories it's
Speaker 12: had different premiumness. We are a premium brand, so TikTok
Speaker 12: us has a slightly different inventory of things and TikTok
Speaker 12: uk so I think they're finding their feet. I would
Speaker 12: say the US has probably more maturity, so there's more
Speaker 12: bigger brands going on there. So maybe a child at
Speaker 12: till we might be on TikTok shop now Instagram in
Speaker 12: you know they did TikTok they did a version of
Speaker 12: their shopping before do you remember, But they're bringing back
Speaker 12: now this sort of live stream shopping which Facebook had
Speaker 12: worked with a few years ago, and it is something
Speaker 12: that I find fascinating.
Speaker 1: Amazon tried this years ago.
Speaker 12: And tried it years ago, but there is it's huge.
Speaker 1: It's huge.
Speaker 12: It's huge in China and the whole concept of the
Speaker 12: success of QVC and what is the modern version of QBC.
Speaker 12: It is what social media should be.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's wild to see the stats of the
Speaker 5: people in China and how much money.
Speaker 12: I mean, that woman was fifteen million in a day
Speaker 12: or something. You'd say, but that was a ten second
Speaker 12: in a box. That's just a it's an anomaly. I
Speaker 12: don't get it. It's something that's so of that culture.
Speaker 5: So have you cracked have you cracked the TikTok in
Speaker 5: the Instagram part?
Speaker 12: Yet we do it in a way that a few
Speaker 12: people do. What we do is we don't say bye
Speaker 12: bye bye. We tell you a story, and lots of
Speaker 12: people tell the story. I tell the story. Our friends
Speaker 12: of Trinny London tell the story, right, and they tell
Speaker 12: a story. They're not saying bye this it's this much.
Speaker 12: This is what's in it.
Speaker 3: Listen. It's so much a part of your story. You know,
Speaker 3: I think it was so telling about how many people
Speaker 3: you had to pitch before somebody was interested in helping
Speaker 3: to find you. Now are helping others and tell us
Speaker 3: a little b about a minute and a half left
Speaker 3: here Elevator, Pitcher series and Instagram because you're helping others
Speaker 3: thirty seconds they make a pitch to you.
Speaker 12: Yeah, So I just felt that challenge when you're younger
Speaker 12: to get or not younger, but when you're in this
Speaker 12: much smaller stage. So they all apply and they have
Speaker 12: to be doing over one hundred and fifty thousand a
Speaker 12: year in revenue, because that's somebody who then is committed
Speaker 12: to business. Yeah, used to be less than you have
Speaker 12: to and because you're giving precious out of time and
Speaker 12: then they have that pitch and then we highlight their
Speaker 12: business and they convert. And then I also was in
Speaker 12: there's something in the UK of fifty women doing over
Speaker 12: fifty million pounds revenue a year, so we were thinking,
Speaker 12: how can we get fifty women to get over ten
Speaker 12: million pounds a year rev because that's another pick. So
Speaker 12: we're looking at that now as another concept. But it
Speaker 12: is so important to lift up other women and I
Speaker 12: think in the nineties it was challenging for women to
Speaker 12: lift up other women. It was very different. It was
Speaker 12: a really ruthless sense in business. And I think there
Speaker 12: is a responsibility as a woman, especially when you've been
Speaker 12: on that journey of entrepreneurship and you know how challenging
Speaker 12: it is. I went to Butan recently and I now
Speaker 12: mentor this Boutineese designer because I just thought she really
Speaker 12: needs help and she's fantastic, And so it's exciting to
Speaker 12: take these different women and think how can you help
Speaker 12: them to look at the challenges They have.
Speaker 3: Just got a few seconds left here? So what's next
Speaker 3: or what do you like? I don't know what you're.
Speaker 12: Throwers in the US for sure. I mean this year
Speaker 12: it's about growth in the US.
Speaker 3: This is an important market.
Speaker 12: This is such an important market. This market ultimately for me,
Speaker 12: should be double the size of the UK. So I
Speaker 12: am a UK brand coming to the US. That is
Speaker 12: in itself a big challenge. If we look at the
Speaker 12: successful UK brands sort of come here. There are not
Speaker 12: that Tilbury phenomenal success, Charles Turrets shirt company really good success. Yeah,
Speaker 12: so it's looking at you know how as a brand
Speaker 12: you make a us customer feel this is a brand
Speaker 12: that speaks to me. It doesn't matter the origination of
Speaker 12: where that run started. This is a brand emotionally for me.
Speaker 12: And that's our challenge to show America women we understand you,
Speaker 12: and this is for you, and our products are for you,
Speaker 12: and how we think about you as an individual will
Speaker 12: help you.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Come back and let us know how it's going. I
Speaker 3: see you as you settle in even more here, Triny,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Trinny Widdle.
Speaker 3: She is CEO and founder Trinny London, joining us right
Speaker 3: here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live
Speaker 2: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on applecar Play
Speaker 2: and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Ad. You can
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Speaker 2: York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: All right, Tim, You know, we love talking to entrepreneurs,
Speaker 3: those who have built a company over something often they love.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it all happens though, by accident.
Speaker 5: That's what Celes Beatty did. She fused her love for
Speaker 5: Kraft Beer and her hometown of Harlem to become the
Speaker 5: founder of the Harlem Brewing Company, created her own cookbook
Speaker 5: titled Harlem Brusoul, a beer infused soul food cookbook. She's
Speaker 5: also the first African American woman brewer to launch a
Speaker 5: commercially distributed beer. She joined me alongside Bloomberg's normal Linda
Speaker 5: to share how it all started.
Speaker 13: I did start as a home brewer in my studio
Speaker 13: apartment at the time in Harlem, and the home brewing
Speaker 13: kit was a gift that I didn't use for quite
Speaker 13: a while, so things didn't turn out that great.
Speaker 1: It kind of happens with like these type of gifts, right, it.
Speaker 13: Does, it does. But I wasn't deterred and decided to
Speaker 13: get another kit and keep trying to brew.
Speaker 5: And okay, so a lot happened in between a lot
Speaker 5: that andvoil error. What was it you you weren't even
Speaker 5: like initially attracted to It wasn't like you know, you
Speaker 5: you had been drinking beer and saw this homebrew kid
Speaker 5: and went to buy it and thought you could do
Speaker 5: it yourself. What was the moment where you realized, Hey,
Speaker 5: I actually like doing.
Speaker 13: This cooking, cooking with beer, cooking with wine. I liked
Speaker 13: the experiment with things, and infusing beer was something I
Speaker 13: fell in love with early on wine and even spirits.
Speaker 13: It just gave a whole nother layer player that I
Speaker 13: didn't know.
Speaker 1: Wait, so the cooking brought you to beer pretty much.
Speaker 13: I mean I did try a little bit of beer
Speaker 13: in college and a few other places. But anyway, but
Speaker 13: cooking what really gave me a passion. And then learning
Speaker 13: about the history.
Speaker 14: I mean, what were some of your favorite dishes? You know,
Speaker 14: of course maybe in the amateur stage of playing around
Speaker 14: with this trial and error beer, what were you cooking soups?
Speaker 13: Okay, my initial tool was my mom soup pot, and
Speaker 13: I was able to basically do soup and add the
Speaker 13: beer to the soups that I made, vegetable soups, stews.
Speaker 13: It just added so much flavor to it that I'd
Speaker 13: never experienced before that I fell in love with. And
Speaker 13: then a few of my friends said, you know, this
Speaker 13: isn't bad.
Speaker 5: I always thought you were supposed to use not good
Speaker 5: beer to cook, like the micro bruce you kind of
Speaker 5: leave for drinking. I know this is true with wine,
Speaker 5: you sort of use the junkie wine to cook.
Speaker 13: Well, I think Uh, what am.
Speaker 1: I getting wrong here?
Speaker 13: Chunky? Why might mean junkie food? I don't know, but no, no, no,
Speaker 13: I mean yeah, Well, at the time that I was
Speaker 13: cooking with beer, it was your Sam Adams, your anchor Steams.
Speaker 13: I was looking at trying to find something.
Speaker 1: This was what the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 5: Nineteen nineties, okay, and there wasn't a whole There wasn't
Speaker 5: a whole craft brewer movement at that point.
Speaker 13: There really wasn't exactly. I mean, it wasn't like now,
Speaker 13: nine thousand, five hundred brewers. I mean, there's so many
Speaker 13: different amazing beers out there, but at the time, there
Speaker 13: really weren't that many, and certainly not in a local marketplace.
Speaker 14: So how did you really get this off of its feet?
Speaker 14: I imagine you started out by having your friends try everything,
Speaker 14: and they were like, we gotta take it and show
Speaker 14: it to other people. Tell me about that origin story.
Speaker 13: Yeah, first, letting them taste it in the food dishes
Speaker 13: that I love to make, my spaghetti, sauces, my stews,
Speaker 13: my soups. I would share that. And then when I
Speaker 13: started actually home brewing, I was able to share those
Speaker 13: cans and models. Actually, at the time there were no
Speaker 13: canners with my friends restaurants. Sylvia's Restaurants that I just
Speaker 13: told the story many times is one of the restaurants
Speaker 13: I shared my home brews with, and they were also
Speaker 13: the first restaurant to give us an order. And that
Speaker 13: feedback just grew. And the other thing that happened is
Speaker 13: that the community that became my home, Harlem, the village
Speaker 13: of Harlem, was going through what some say is a
Speaker 13: second Renaissance, a lot of entrepreneurship revitalization going on. So
Speaker 13: a lot of people around me were starting businesses and
Speaker 13: I began to get feedback from them and was encouraged.
Speaker 13: After some of them not so great brewis got better,
Speaker 13: they were like, you know, this isn't bad. I think
Speaker 13: you're onto something here.
Speaker 1: So fast forward a couple of decades.
Speaker 14: Here we are a couple of decades twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: You do have a cans of beer.
Speaker 5: Now, how do you get to the point where you
Speaker 5: go from home brewing to actually opening a brewery. The
Speaker 5: infrastructure involved with that, the investment involved with that, how
Speaker 5: do you make it into a business.
Speaker 13: There's a number of ways that you can get there.
Speaker 13: As I said, contract brewing, collaboration, brewing. We took the
Speaker 13: collaboration brewer route because it was difficult to open up
Speaker 13: a brewery in the middle of a community, especially a
Speaker 13: historic community like Harlem. You really want to respect it.
Speaker 13: You want to be mindful of where you are, many
Speaker 13: beautiful churches and institutions. So I went the route of
Speaker 13: home brewing my beer first, and then establishing Harlem Brewing Company,
Speaker 13: and then going to an amazing brewer in Siaratoga Springs,
Speaker 13: New York, where we canned our first bottle and then
Speaker 13: eventually caned or our recipes.
Speaker 1: Is that still sorry? Go ahead, I was gonna.
Speaker 14: I just wanted to talk a bit more about the
Speaker 14: challenges as we've been discussing. I mean, of course, when
Speaker 14: we think about beer, I immediately think of white men. It's
Speaker 14: a white male dominated space. What is it like being
Speaker 14: a black woman in the industry.
Speaker 13: It's now it's better. At the time, I would go
Speaker 13: into places and they thought I was coming there to
Speaker 13: do a promotion. I could tell them about beer, speak
Speaker 13: about the ingredients, and talk about beer. But it kind
Speaker 13: of went over many people's heads. They were like, what
Speaker 13: are you talking about? Aren't you here to do a promotion?
Speaker 13: But it was tough, not just as a Black woman
Speaker 13: but as a woman in general. But over time, as
Speaker 13: more women through the pink Blot society, I can give
Speaker 13: them a shout out. More and more women have come
Speaker 13: into the industry, so we have more peers to talk to.
Speaker 13: So it's gotten a lot better. But I think women
Speaker 13: are only represented about seven percent of the of the
Speaker 13: brewers and probably less than twenty five percent of the teams,
Speaker 13: parts of the teams and staff of breweries.
Speaker 5: Were you surprised to find that you are the first
Speaker 5: black women to own a brewery in the US? Like
Speaker 5: when that happened, were you like that makes sense? That
Speaker 5: doesn't make sense?
Speaker 13: I said, no way, I can be the first black
Speaker 13: women in America to launch a commercially a commercial beer.
Speaker 13: I usually stated that way. But I think because the
Speaker 13: complications of our history, there are many other black women
Speaker 13: that brewed beer. I mean, you can look through the
Speaker 13: records during enslavement, priors enslavement all over the continent of Africa.
Speaker 13: There are black women, black and brown women that brew beer.
Speaker 13: So I just think, me, maybe that story hasn't been told,
Speaker 13: and there is a story that we told through a
Speaker 13: beer we made to celebrate the life of Pat's young
Speaker 13: who was an enslaved brewer who became free and brewed
Speaker 13: for free, freely for fourteen years in eastern North Carolina.
Speaker 13: Whoopy Goldberg actually lended her face to that story and
Speaker 13: we launched that beer last year. So that's one of
Speaker 13: those stories I point to because that was eighteen oh six.
Speaker 13: So there are women that are unknown. But when you
Speaker 13: uncover the history and you start talking about those stories,
Speaker 13: you discover that really pretty much everything except maybe the
Speaker 13: text stuff, somebody's done it.
Speaker 14: So well, I want to dig into back to the food.
Speaker 14: I'm a foodie, digging back into this book Harlan Brusol,
Speaker 14: a beer infused soul cookbook, Food Cookbook. What are some
Speaker 14: of your favorite dishes? Whichould we be looking for in
Speaker 14: this cookbook?
Speaker 13: Well, we celebrated our fiftieth family reunion in North Carolina
Speaker 13: in July, and there's always a competition who's going to
Speaker 13: make the best banana putting maci cheese. You know what's
Speaker 13: the dish? And the dish from my family, particularly on
Speaker 13: the desert dessert end, is banana pudding. So we make
Speaker 13: in the book, there's a recipe that honors my aunt
Speaker 13: Betty which is a brunana pudding. So we infuse our
Speaker 13: Harlem Renaissance wheat beer. It's not a hoppy beer. It's
Speaker 13: very light on the hot as coriander, cumin, grains of paradise,
Speaker 13: and orange pill So that type of beer in a
Speaker 13: banana pudding infuses those flavors, gives us a nice subtle
Speaker 13: flavors of some of the spices of the beer. So
Speaker 13: that's a brunana pudding. And then we have our beer
Speaker 13: smack and Cheese, which will be actually serving at a
Speaker 13: charitable event one hundred and nineteenth Street in Harlem to
Speaker 13: support the homeless l Refertorio. That dish is a beer
Speaker 13: mac and cheese dish infused with a beer sauce. We
Speaker 13: use one of the beers in the sauce and we
Speaker 13: layer that into all the layers of the mac and cheese.
Speaker 5: I'm hearing about this uh family reunion, and I'm wondering,
Speaker 5: is it really a competition when it comes to food?
Speaker 5: Like are there more than just one? Is there more
Speaker 5: than one person with a cookbook out? Like you have
Speaker 5: the cookbook out, You've been cooking your whole one. Is
Speaker 5: there really a competition going on here? You're explaining this
Speaker 5: food to me, and I'm like, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 5: go up against this at any family reunion.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not bringing my.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it's not an official competition, but when the lineup
Speaker 13: goes on that long tape, okay, the main courses, the
Speaker 13: side dishes, and the desserts, it becomes a competition because
Speaker 13: everybody knows who made what which dish.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to.
Speaker 13: Certainly kind of competitive either.
Speaker 5: Does every I will gladly do that. Does every every
Speaker 5: recipe in here in this book involve beer?
Speaker 13: Yeah, everything from beer cocktails to uh beer sorbet.
Speaker 1: These are all things I don't realize that you can
Speaker 1: put beer.
Speaker 13: Into absolutely more than what you can use wine for.
Speaker 1: Does the alcohol get cooked off?
Speaker 9: Most?
Speaker 1: Can I give this stuff to my kids?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 1: Well, not the beer, I don't know that, Not the
Speaker 1: beer cocktails, but.
Speaker 13: Well maybe the macks.
Speaker 1: You could.
Speaker 13: I mean, you know, Mike taste beer a little bit
Speaker 13: growing up, so I think you could. I wouldn't go
Speaker 13: overboard with it, but there are some kid friendly dishes
Speaker 13: in there I would say and put through.
Speaker 5: Can you talk a little about the recipe for this
Speaker 5: and also the idea that there are these sort of
Speaker 5: trends within the beer industry. You know, people I pas
Speaker 5: were huge for so many years. Then everybody did an
Speaker 5: I p A and they kind of went out of style,
Speaker 5: and then farmhouse.
Speaker 1: Sayson, like you know, what's what's like? What are people
Speaker 1: loving right now? Like you know a little bit about
Speaker 1: beer a little bit?
Speaker 13: Yeah, well, I know it's still very popper. I pas
Speaker 13: are still very popular. This is on the hazy side
Speaker 13: a New England cell i pa. It has about five
Speaker 13: different varieties of hops. If you're familiar with hops and
Speaker 13: mosaic cops.
Speaker 14: Get down for me, a non beer drinker, break that
Speaker 14: down fit.
Speaker 13: It's a flower, okay, it has bittering bassets to it.
Speaker 13: It also has some citrus, some spice. It layers in
Speaker 13: flavor sounds great in the i pas. It gives it
Speaker 13: a very deep, sometimes very juicy, citrusy piny flavor and aroma.
Speaker 13: So there are flavoring hops and they are also bittering
Speaker 13: hops that give hops sort of the balance of sweetness
Speaker 13: in the malt. That that's kind of the role that
Speaker 13: it plays. I love growing hops. They're amazing. They're very
Speaker 13: so many different uses beyond beer, and they're great to
Speaker 13: grow their perennials. But it's a beautiful sort of pine
Speaker 13: cone shaped flower that grows from April through August. Is
Speaker 13: a growth period takes place during that time. Harvest takes
Speaker 13: place during the flaw.
Speaker 14: So we have the beer, we have the cookbug. Yes,
Speaker 14: what is the next chapter? I mean, do you feel
Speaker 14: like I feel like you've done it all honestly, But
Speaker 14: as we're going into twenty twenty five, what are you
Speaker 14: thinking in terms of business expansion?
Speaker 13: Definitely thinking about more how do we support our communities.
Speaker 13: Rocky Mount, North Carolina. We're working on a project there
Speaker 13: that involves buring education, working with black and brown farmers
Speaker 13: in eastern North Carolina, the grow grains to getting more
Speaker 13: engaged in the industry. We have our project in Brixton
Speaker 13: in the UK that's about, you know, bonds across the
Speaker 13: bond pond. How do we sort of connect common threads
Speaker 13: and common cultures around beer and got a couple of projects.
Speaker 13: We're working on our project in the Rocky Mount and
Speaker 13: then working on something at Harlem, sort of full circle
Speaker 13: from where we started with Bloomberg ten seconds.
Speaker 5: Where can people buy the beer and where is it distributed?
Speaker 13: The beer can be purchased locally at Craft and Carry,
Speaker 13: Whole Foods, Melbourne's restaurant Bulevard Bistro, Total winy More distribution
Speaker 13: distribution primarily in the Northeast, also in the Southeast and
Speaker 13: in the UK.
Speaker 1: So it can be bought many many different plays.
Speaker 13: Many places. You can order it through Uber Eats and
Speaker 13: things of that nature as well.
Speaker 1: So let's Betty.
Speaker 5: She is the founder of Harlem Brewing Company. The new
Speaker 5: cookbook Harlem Bruce Sol a beer and fuse soul food cookbook.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg.
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Speaker 3: When you're unsure what to get a loved one for gift,
Speaker 3: your best bet is to return to tried and true treasures,
Speaker 3: say a beautiful piece of jewelry, a sought after bag,
Speaker 3: a time piece that will last a lifetime. They're all
Speaker 3: classics for a reason, guarantee to bring cheer year after year,
Speaker 3: so writes Bloomberg Pursuits contributor Kristin Shirley.
Speaker 5: It's all in the Pursuits team's best gifts of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four, currently featured in a BusinessWeek magazine, out on newstands, now,
Speaker 5: online at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg terminal
Speaker 5: A year with more. Is the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits,
Speaker 5: Chris Rouser, along with the Bloomberg contributing writer and founder
Speaker 5: of La Patiala, the luxury encyclopedia, Kristin Shirley. Chris, I
Speaker 5: want to start with you because gift guides always interesting
Speaker 5: and offer up a variety of gifts and price points.
Speaker 5: What's the approach at Bloomberg Pursuits.
Speaker 15: So what we do at Bloomberg is not a million
Speaker 15: different gift guides with lists like fifty seven Gifts for
Speaker 15: your Boyfriend's Mom. We do gifts that are appealing to
Speaker 15: everyone and hopefully our inspiration points for people to think
Speaker 15: about what they should get, maybe discover something they haven't
Speaker 15: seen before, and go out and have fun shopping. So
Speaker 15: this year, as we were brainstorming what would be the
Speaker 15: sort of organizing principle, we thought, let's do the classics.
Speaker 15: These are classics for a reason. We'll do bracelets and
Speaker 15: bags and watches and spirits and home to core stuff,
Speaker 15: beauty stuff, and we'll just new updated spins on those
Speaker 15: old time real standbys. And so Chris some went out
Speaker 15: into the world and just found all these cool new
Speaker 15: updates on the classics. And we always have a page
Speaker 15: that's like offbeat Stuff, which is my favorite too, which
Speaker 15: is just if you want surprise, if you want something strange,
Speaker 15: And then we shot it really beautifully by the photographer
Speaker 15: Joanna McLure.
Speaker 3: All Right, so christ and you're given this mission. Tell
Speaker 3: us how because I'm assuming there's a fair amount of
Speaker 3: stuff out there, So how do you read through kind
Speaker 3: of what you want to include?
Speaker 8: Well throughout the year, as I take appointments and I
Speaker 8: see what's going on in the luxury world, I'll earmark
Speaker 8: certain things. I'll think, ooh, that'd be amazing for the
Speaker 8: Bloomberg Gift Guide, and then other times I'll see what's
Speaker 8: new and fits the theme. So this one was really
Speaker 8: interesting because we were doing classics with a twist, so
Speaker 8: we got to feature some things that we wouldn't maybe
Speaker 8: ordinarily cover because they wouldn't be newsy enough, you know,
Speaker 8: But we found things that had cool new twists, like
Speaker 8: Don perennial with a beautiful label with artwork from Buskiat
Speaker 8: We found new releases from brands, and sometimes it was
Speaker 8: something as simple as updating a new Potext relief watch
Speaker 8: that wasn't I called the Ellipse and that was our
Speaker 8: twist for that watch.
Speaker 3: All right, So maybe we should go through the categories
Speaker 3: because there's a lot of stuff here, and I do
Speaker 3: like the offbeat items. There's actually something I kind of adore.
Speaker 5: You want the surfboard, No, I want the bag.
Speaker 3: I want the whale I want the whale bag.
Speaker 13: I really love it.
Speaker 3: But let's go back. Let's go back to jewelry, which
Speaker 3: is a fame I think about when my husband I
Speaker 3: first got engaged, like jewelry, like like, these are the
Speaker 3: things that you know, kind of come Chris, walk us through.
Speaker 3: And I do love that you guys have I think
Speaker 3: a variety of price poinds here.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's jewelry. What do you mean by variety, Carol,
Speaker 5: Carol needs price upon request?
Speaker 1: A variety.
Speaker 5: It's a surprise, really expensive.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean the first thing on the pages of
Speaker 15: Mickey Motto lace necklace that has seven strands of a
Speaker 15: Koya pearls with almost six and a half carrot paara
Speaker 15: shaped awk marine that is one hundred and forty one
Speaker 15: thousand dollars. That's a very it's one of a kind.
Speaker 15: It's a very very special gift. But you know there's
Speaker 15: some there's a Van Cleef and our Pel's Sweet Alambra
Speaker 15: watch which is more approachable in price at eighteen thousand,
Speaker 15: six hundred dollars, And that's like an inspiration for you
Speaker 15: to maybe your girlfriend, maybe you have some alambra stuff
Speaker 15: from Van Cleef, but you didn't think of getting a watch.
Speaker 15: That's a new way of using that style of jewelry.
Speaker 15: So we're trying to get you to think about new
Speaker 15: ways of using this kind of thing. Kristen, do you
Speaker 15: have a favorite jewelry item?
Speaker 8: Here? For me, it's the Bouche Wrong Question Market Trinity necklace.
Speaker 8: This design was first invented in eighteen seventy nine and
Speaker 8: it's just so beautiful and she doesn't have a class
Speaker 8: that opens and just wraps around your neck in such
Speaker 8: a beautiful eye. And this particular version has a pear
Speaker 8: shake staff fire that's twelve care.
Speaker 5: And this is the one that's five hundred and nine
Speaker 5: thousand dollars.
Speaker 8: Yeah, okay, do you have expensive too, it's just checking.
Speaker 15: It's the question is whether or not you can afford it.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 5: To answer my question really is how much do you
Speaker 5: love your stuff? It's so true though, all right, there's
Speaker 5: some stuff in here that's thirty nine hundred dollars the
Speaker 5: David Yeerman streamline signet ring.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and it's if you go online, there's a bunch
Speaker 15: more stuff in a wider variety of price points too,
Speaker 15: which is very helpful. But we love David German and
Speaker 15: they have a lot of great gifts for men. A
Speaker 15: lot of men are getting more into jewelry and David
Speaker 15: German it is like the place to go.
Speaker 3: All right, let's suck licker. So Kristen like, how'd you
Speaker 3: approach liquer? You talked about art on the bottle. We
Speaker 3: often on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, have
Speaker 3: various folks who are offering up new wine, and a
Speaker 3: lot of times the bottles are just gorgeous.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that's what we really wanted to focus on.
Speaker 8: Here you can see there's a bottle by the McAllen.
Speaker 8: It's called Time Space Mastery and it's actually a fear
Speaker 8: you could call it a doughnut shaped bottle, which was
Speaker 8: it's just so striking you almost don't want to drink
Speaker 8: it because you want that beautiful bottle to be sitting
Speaker 8: on your shelf with them amber liquid inside of it.
Speaker 8: And then we have some interesting art collaborations that Glenn Moranji.
Speaker 8: They collaborated with the Japanese floral artist to make this
Speaker 8: actual floral sculpture, photographed it and then put that on
Speaker 8: the bottle. So people are taking different approaches to making
Speaker 8: these really stunning bottles that are a little bit of
Speaker 8: sworks of art.
Speaker 5: I do love this hibiki forty years old, the oldest whiskey,
Speaker 5: yet it's going to set you back there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's really special. They aged it in Japanese and
Speaker 8: Spanish oak barrels for forty years. Obviously, it's I think
Speaker 8: the oldest one that they've ever done, and it's produced
Speaker 8: in such limited quantities that it is truly a collector's item.
Speaker 8: I think a lot of these bottles, unfortunately won't get
Speaker 8: open and enjoyed because people will look at them more
Speaker 8: of an asset because they cost thirty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 8: But it'll be interesting to see how Hibiki continues to
Speaker 8: progress the ultra high end version of the market.
Speaker 3: All right, Chris, where do you want to go?
Speaker 15: Well, I just want to say Beyonce's Rye Whiskey is
Speaker 15: on this list and it's eighty nine dollars and everyone
Speaker 15: says it's good.
Speaker 5: I've not had it, but it's whiskey.
Speaker 15: People like it, so that's a great it's good.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, cool, Where do you want to go?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 15: Our next page is the offbeat page, which is my favorite.
Speaker 3: He the whale bag or whatever it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about this whale bag all right.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you have a better description, Kristen.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So this's from Le Leve, which is a really beautiful
Speaker 8: Spanish leverhouse, and it's an updated version of the iconic
Speaker 8: puzzle bag. So it's strips of leather that are pieced together,
Speaker 8: kind of looking like a puzzle and here it has
Speaker 8: a painted whale design on it and it's part of
Speaker 8: a resort collection focused on under the sea and it's
Speaker 8: just so fun and playful. I'm certainly a little offbeat,
Speaker 8: but still very elegant at the same time.
Speaker 15: What is it cost?
Speaker 8: Almost four thousand dollars?
Speaker 5: Okay, it's kind of delicious. I just kind of love it.
Speaker 15: One of my favorite things from the whole section is
Speaker 15: actually this spilled spiller Martini glass, which is on the
Speaker 15: first page of the section, and it's it's literally it's
Speaker 15: a Martini glasses spilled and it looks it's glass, but
Speaker 15: it looks like it's a spills espresso martini. And I
Speaker 15: just immediately thought of five people that I could get
Speaker 15: it for, and I think that's very funny. And then
Speaker 15: my other the most surprising thing that Kristin pitched was
Speaker 15: this pair of wired Chanelle headphones. I don't know if
Speaker 15: you guys have noticed that people are wearing wired headphones.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's like a big TikTok thing for the youngs.
Speaker 15: Yes, for the youngs.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Not being a young it took me a while to
Speaker 15: catch on to it and I was like, no one's
Speaker 15: going to want this, and christ was like, no, it's
Speaker 15: a real thing. And so these are like like a
Speaker 15: very blingy Chanelle chain that you wear around your neck
Speaker 15: and then connects to your you know, listening.
Speaker 5: Fourteen seven hundred dollars for headphones.
Speaker 8: And it's a watch. Oh no, there's the necklace has
Speaker 8: a watch on it and the headphone, so it really
Speaker 8: does it all.
Speaker 3: Wait, so it's a necklace, a watch in headphones.
Speaker 5: I mean this is a bargain.
Speaker 8: I'm just gonna talk, yeah, right, basically free.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chris.
Speaker 5: The surfboards on the on the online version of the
Speaker 5: gift guide, Porsia. I didn't even know Porscha made surfboards.
Speaker 15: Porscha doesn't. But Porsia Design, which is like a sister
Speaker 15: company to Porscha, makes a lot of different things. They
Speaker 15: make sunglasses, they make skateboards, they make watches primarily, and
Speaker 15: they have Yeah, they have this special partnership where they
Speaker 15: made multiple sizes and multiple colors of surfboards that you
Speaker 15: can customize with numbers and the colors you want, and
Speaker 15: they're they're very.
Speaker 5: Cool, seven foot ten inch mid length board. So it's
Speaker 5: still an expensive surfboard at forty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Christin, I have to ask you, is their favorite item
Speaker 3: on the list that you just think is I don't know,
Speaker 3: just super yummy.
Speaker 8: Well, I think all the bags are really beautiful and
Speaker 8: there are some really special ones in here with you know,
Speaker 8: beautiful embellishment sequins. We picked metallic scene because you know,
Speaker 8: everyone likes sparkly things for the holidays, and I just
Speaker 8: love this spendy peekaboo I see you it has it's
Speaker 8: the brand signature Celerria stching on the sky, which is
Speaker 8: all done by hand. And it's been a really beautiful
Speaker 8: cold other So that's one of my favorite pieces. The
Speaker 8: it you see Portuguese or Eternal Calendar is another one
Speaker 8: of my favorite pieces. It is a moon phase that
Speaker 8: will be accurate for forty five million years and was
Speaker 8: by far one of my favorite watches to come out
Speaker 8: this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, be sure to leave it to the an sensors,
Speaker 3: you know, like forty five million years is like the watches?
Speaker 3: Is that favorite for you? We know you love watches or.
Speaker 5: I'm so, do you have a favorite piece?
Speaker 15: Sorry, they're or eternal calendars, Tomato Tomatrow time pieces. Well actually,
Speaker 15: when I asked christ And if we could get the
Speaker 15: IWC watch the Eternal Calendar, and she was like yeah,
Speaker 15: I was like really, I was super psyched to shoot it.
Speaker 15: What I love on this page is the range. There's
Speaker 15: the irmez cut watch, which is a you know, not
Speaker 15: a very expensive kind of everyday watch that's for people
Speaker 15: you could wear to work. You could wear swimming. We
Speaker 15: have this very cool new watch called the papar Aneo,
Speaker 15: which is seven hundred and fifty dollars. It's a very
Speaker 15: innovative GMT, which means attracts two time zones. It just
Speaker 15: looks very funky and you everyone would ask you about
Speaker 15: it if you wore it. And then we have some
Speaker 15: very cool, you know, more flashy watches from Otamar p
Speaker 15: Gay and basher On, Constantine and Rolex.
Speaker 3: All Right, Kristin, we've just got about thirty seconds left here.
Speaker 3: Too late for people to get stuff. I mean, this
Speaker 3: is going to be you know, it's the Christmas weekend,
Speaker 3: the Honokoh weekend. You still like, you know, thinking about
Speaker 3: what I need to get for people? Is it too
Speaker 3: late to get some of this stuff?
Speaker 8: Order today air shipping or get out this weekend and
Speaker 8: brave the crowds with them all go shopping right when
Speaker 8: they open.
Speaker 3: Totally love it, Totally love it, guys, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Some really cool stuff there, Tim.
Speaker 5: That's Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser and Kristin Shirley, Bloomberg's
Speaker 5: contributing writer and founder of La Patiala.
Speaker 3: And that wraps up our weekend edition oft Bloomberg Business
Speaker 3: Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
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Speaker 3: Have a good and save weekend. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah,
Speaker 3: Happy Kwanza, Happy holidays to everybody. Time to go shopping.
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