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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Allowitt and I'm Joe Wisenthal. Uh. The other day,
Speaker 1: I was walking home and I saw this huge line
Speaker 1: outside of a new store slash restaurant that was about
Speaker 1: a block away from me, and it was just this
Speaker 1: massive line around the block. And I was said, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's what's this line for? Uh? You know, are people
Speaker 1: as it sneakers? Is it some celebrity Inside? It turned
Speaker 1: out that everyone was buying this ice cream that was
Speaker 1: wrapped in a gigantic, fluffy waffle and they had all
Speaker 1: these sprinkles and other crazy toppings on it. And I
Speaker 1: was just certain that the only reason people were standing
Speaker 1: in line to buy it, because it just looked like
Speaker 1: ice cream and a waffle, was because it was gonna
Speaker 1: look really good on their Instagrams and they were going
Speaker 1: to rack up a bunch of Instagram likes. And that
Speaker 1: was a reason that people were lining up in a
Speaker 1: fairly chilly day for what looked like a line that
Speaker 1: I lasted about an hour Uh, yeah, well you don't
Speaker 1: need to tell me. Um. When I lived in New York,
Speaker 1: I lived right next to the Dominic and Sell Bakery,
Speaker 1: the place where they sell crow nuts, and I got
Speaker 1: to witness the craziness every morning firsthand. So I would
Speaker 1: see the people lining up at six am in the
Speaker 1: freezing cold. I would see the people that those people
Speaker 1: hired to wait in line for them and then deliver
Speaker 1: crown nuts. That was interesting. Um. But the reason we're
Speaker 1: talking about this slightly random subject is because we are
Speaker 1: actually devoting this entire episode too. I guess we could say,
Speaker 1: like the economics of Instagram. Is that a good way
Speaker 1: to put it, yeah, Or Instagram is sort of this
Speaker 1: food marketplace. You know. The other fascinating, fascinating thing about
Speaker 1: the chronut phenomenon, to me, it was not just that
Speaker 1: people that are essentially a food went viral and all
Speaker 1: these people lined up to buy them, but that it
Speaker 1: would it then it happened globally almost instantly, so all
Speaker 1: around the world, whether it's other parts of the country, London, Korea,
Speaker 1: everyone had their chron nut knockoff within a matter of
Speaker 1: days or weeks. And I really think that the sort
Speaker 1: of Instagram phenomenon is indispensable to understanding what's going on
Speaker 1: in these this new world of viral foods. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: and I mean I have so many questions. My major
Speaker 1: question is like, what makes your picture of avocado toast
Speaker 1: better than the millions of pictures of avocado toasts that
Speaker 1: have come before you? And why do human being seemed
Speaker 1: to have this like relentless interest in pictures of food
Speaker 1: on Instagram? And Joe, Before we start, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to give one big caveat, which is that this subject
Speaker 1: might make me slightly grouchy. As you know. Wait, I
Speaker 1: thought you were really I thought, well, we'll see. We'll
Speaker 1: see what part of it sets you off and makes
Speaker 1: you grouchy. But we'll leave everyone in suspense for that,
Speaker 1: all right. So we actually have two people who are
Speaker 1: joining us today to talk about the subject. We have
Speaker 1: Julie Verhage. She's a reporter at Bloomberg and she's managed
Speaker 1: to turn herself into a little bit of the hipster
Speaker 1: slash Instagram correspondent. And we also have Amanda Topper. She
Speaker 1: is a food blogger and a prolific instagrammer, so she'll
Speaker 1: be able, hopefully to tell us all about how this works.
Speaker 1: Welcome to you both, Hei there, thank you, Good morning, Julie.
Speaker 1: Why don't we start with you, Um, you've been covering
Speaker 1: this and you know, we talk about taking pictures of
Speaker 1: food as this kind of funny, amusing thing that's been
Speaker 1: happening for a while now, but you actually wrote an
Speaker 1: article the other day about how this trend is impacting
Speaker 1: physical commodities prices right, everything from color flower prices to
Speaker 1: cream cheese to vanilla even it's all skyrocketing up, some
Speaker 1: of them even hitting record highs. And it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of these what you kind of dubbed hipster foods. So
Speaker 1: everybody wants to have fancy looking avocado toast and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And because everybody is so eager to photograph
Speaker 1: themselves eating various ingredients, that's having a real world impact
Speaker 1: on commodity prices basically. Yeah. I mean when I bought
Speaker 1: avocados this past week and it was three dollars and
Speaker 1: fifty cents per avocado, which just seems outrageous, and that
Speaker 1: was on sale. Normally be like four four fifty apiece. Amanda,
Speaker 1: give us a little introduction who you are. You're a
Speaker 1: food publicist. You also are a influential food instagrammer and blogger.
Speaker 1: How did you get into this industry and how do
Speaker 1: you actually make a living? Sure? Yeah, so my life
Speaker 1: is kind of all encompassing around food. So my day job,
Speaker 1: if you will, is predicting trends in the food service industry.
Speaker 1: So I am associate director of food Service Research at
Speaker 1: Mintel and then we also have um a lot of
Speaker 1: work with agencies and brands, So at my day to
Speaker 1: day job, I'm kind of helping brands navigate some of
Speaker 1: this territory with social media, but kind of on the side,
Speaker 1: I also write a Chicago based food blog where I'm
Speaker 1: reviewing restaurants, and then i also have a food Instagram
Speaker 1: where I'm covering local dishes, local events, restaurant openings, and
Speaker 1: kind of them fully immersed in this whole Instagram world.
Speaker 1: So can you give us I realized this is probably
Speaker 1: going to be a big question, but can you give
Speaker 1: us like a sort of high level overview of how
Speaker 1: the rise of social media and Instagram in particular has
Speaker 1: changed the food industry. That's definitely a big question. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that especially over the last few years, we're
Speaker 1: really seeing Instagram take over as the social media platform
Speaker 1: to be on. So it's not relatively it's not super new.
Speaker 1: It's been around since. But I think now we're seeing
Speaker 1: more restaurants really recognize the impact that Instagram and photos
Speaker 1: of their restaurants food can have on their on their business.
Speaker 1: So I think we see the operational side of it
Speaker 1: where restaurants realized the potential here, and then we also
Speaker 1: see from the consumer perspective that really consumers, and especially
Speaker 1: younger consumers, including millennials, are seeing the impact of how
Speaker 1: fun it can be to share pictures of their food,
Speaker 1: and in general, we know that millennials especially just love
Speaker 1: sharing those experiences and being able to go on their
Speaker 1: app and search for different restaurants and look at geo
Speaker 1: tags and see exactly what they're gonna get when they
Speaker 1: order food at a restaurant is really powerful. So we
Speaker 1: have a resident millennial here in the studio who like
Speaker 1: sharing photos of food and does exactly what you describe.
Speaker 1: An addition to reporting on it, Julie explained to us
Speaker 1: the appeal of sharing food pictures as you see it,
Speaker 1: and you even mentioned this morning that your new apartment
Speaker 1: has a really great light for taking photos of toast,
Speaker 1: which I imagine is now a selling point in apartments, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this has great light for your Instagram photos, So what
Speaker 1: is the why the urge to do that? And I
Speaker 1: do it too, but I'd like you to, uh, you know, elaborate.
Speaker 1: I mean I even picked out a perfect coffee table
Speaker 1: for setting the food out and being able to style
Speaker 1: it that way too, So I really went overboard this time. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean in general, like they do really well on Instagram.
Speaker 1: You have like the right hashtags and everything. You have
Speaker 1: the right coloring, the right lighting. Um. I mean I've
Speaker 1: always taken really good photos of just scenic shots in
Speaker 1: New York too, but food photography just does so well
Speaker 1: on Instagram. It's crazy. You post French toast, you post
Speaker 1: the avocado toast with the poached egg, and then you're
Speaker 1: like cutting into the egg and seeing it all eat.
Speaker 1: That's going to do really well. I mean I think
Speaker 1: Amanda touched on a lot of it. Having the geo
Speaker 1: takes and everything to always help. Like whenever I go
Speaker 1: out to eat, I already know what I'm going to
Speaker 1: order at the restaurant before I get there because I
Speaker 1: looked on Instagram, yelp, fort Square, anything to see what
Speaker 1: the best food is, and then I just order it
Speaker 1: that way too. Yeah, I've definitely ordered food based on
Speaker 1: what I see other people having taken photos of at
Speaker 1: a restaurant, Amanda. So you know, we talked about you know,
Speaker 1: we talked avocado toast. That's pretty old hat by now
Speaker 1: this your job is to find the next big thing.
Speaker 1: So as a you know, not in your sort of
Speaker 1: professional capacity of looking at food trends, how do you
Speaker 1: figure out what's going to blow up next? How do
Speaker 1: you find the next cauliflower, the next kill or whatever
Speaker 1: ingredient restaurants need to start serving. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to look at not only what is happening
Speaker 1: in restaurants. So a big part of what we do
Speaker 1: is we look at menus and we analyze menus. But
Speaker 1: at the same time we also see a lot of
Speaker 1: trends stemming from recipes and even recipe bloggers. So I
Speaker 1: think in the beginning, we saw a lot of of
Speaker 1: these food trends really start in the fine dining restaurants
Speaker 1: of the world and kind of trickle their way down
Speaker 1: into your fast casuals and your fast food and even
Speaker 1: um retail as well. But now it's not necessarily following
Speaker 1: that same trajectory, So we kind of look at a
Speaker 1: three sixty perspective really of what's going on in food service,
Speaker 1: but also retail and also kind of just seeing what
Speaker 1: kind of pops on social media. It's definitely a big
Speaker 1: part of that. How quantitative are the techniques? So I
Speaker 1: could imagine if you're doing recipe or menus, you could
Speaker 1: theoretically just download massive word clouds or word databases and
Speaker 1: theoretically see which ingredients are rising and falling over time.
Speaker 1: Do people do any stuff like that? Yeah, So basically
Speaker 1: my day to day is we actually have a database
Speaker 1: that collects menus from restaurants across the US, So it's
Speaker 1: very quantitative. So we're looking at menu mentions of every
Speaker 1: little thing on the menu, from the ingredient to the
Speaker 1: preparation method to the flavor, so we can really get
Speaker 1: a good read on what is trending over time. How
Speaker 1: do you guys find different food bloggers or instagrammers that
Speaker 1: you want to work with? Two? How do you decide
Speaker 1: because there's so many of them out there. Well, that's
Speaker 1: kind of more falling in line with what I do
Speaker 1: outside of work, So I kind of play both roles,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of on both sides of this, so UM.
Speaker 1: I think that personally, I've worked with a lot of
Speaker 1: major brands that are really doing a good job of
Speaker 1: targeting who they're their audiences, who that core audiences at
Speaker 1: their trying to reach. Um. So, I think one great
Speaker 1: example of a brand that's doing this really well recently
Speaker 1: is Taco Bell. So when they are launching new food products,
Speaker 1: like they are really focused heavily on not only what
Speaker 1: that food is going to look like on Instagram, but
Speaker 1: also how they want to get that message across or
Speaker 1: the introduction across. So I think a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: they released the Naked Chicken Chiloopa taco and instead of
Speaker 1: doing or using traditional media, they went the Instagram route.
Speaker 1: So they specifically targeted millennial food instagrammers and a few
Speaker 1: key cities across the country and had these launch events
Speaker 1: to really create authentic buzz around this product without having
Speaker 1: to pay for a single ad spend. Okay, I have
Speaker 1: a question on that because you say authentic buzz around
Speaker 1: the food, um, but like it's it's so coordinated, Like
Speaker 1: everything about this is so um coordinated and like planned
Speaker 1: in many ways, you know, Julie just spoke about how
Speaker 1: she's picked out a coffee table that will look good.
Speaker 1: I've seen some of the setups of her food, Like
Speaker 1: clearly a lot of effort has gone into this. And
Speaker 1: I bring up the subject as well because we just
Speaker 1: had a kind of controversial thing happened with social media,
Speaker 1: which was, of course the Fire Festival, this music festival
Speaker 1: that was going to be held in the Bahamas, and
Speaker 1: that relied on getting a bunch of social media influencers
Speaker 1: to advertise that thing before it happened. It turned out
Speaker 1: to be a disaster, and now some of these influencers
Speaker 1: might be in hot water because they violated some rules
Speaker 1: on sponsored content. So how exactly does this work and
Speaker 1: how authentic can it be given that ultimately you know
Speaker 1: you're reaching out to specific people, you're targeting specific people,
Speaker 1: and you might even be paying them or at least
Speaker 1: giving them free food. I think we found what sets
Speaker 1: Tracy a sorry. Yeah, I think it definitely works in
Speaker 1: a variety of way. So there's definitely that very direct
Speaker 1: communication where a brand reaches out to an influencer and
Speaker 1: offers a certain amount of money for a post. But
Speaker 1: there's also other events like the tackle Bell event where
Speaker 1: they'll invite influencers and encourage them to post, but they
Speaker 1: won't require them to post, so really kind of relying
Speaker 1: on the instagramm er. If they like it and want
Speaker 1: to post about it, then they'll go ahead and do that.
Speaker 1: And obviously that's the end goal. Um, but it can vary,
Speaker 1: and I think there's there can be a lot of issues,
Speaker 1: as you said, with being transparent about sponsored posts. I
Speaker 1: think lately as well, there's been a lot of focus
Speaker 1: on like FTC guidelines regarding this type of thing. So
Speaker 1: I think people are kind of treading lightly in this
Speaker 1: area and knowing that there could be consequences for not
Speaker 1: fully disclosing posting a sponsored post. Let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break now for a word from our sponsor. But Knowledge
Speaker 1: to work and grow your business with ce i T
Speaker 1: from transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i T offers
Speaker 1: commercial lending, leasing, and treasury management services for small and
Speaker 1: middle market businesses. Learn more at c i T dot
Speaker 1: com put Knowledge to Work and we're back talking about
Speaker 1: the role of Instagram and social media in the modern
Speaker 1: food industry with us as Bloomberg reporter dou leever Hage
Speaker 1: as well as Amanda Topper, Associate director of food service
Speaker 1: Research at Mentel News and a food blogger and instagramm
Speaker 1: er in her own right. Amanda, in the beginning of
Speaker 1: the episode, we're talking about the Crown Nut, which I
Speaker 1: think of is sort of one of the first examples
Speaker 1: of this era of food sort of literally going viral
Speaker 1: in a way that has become more commonplace. What are
Speaker 1: some of the most extraordinary things you've seen where some
Speaker 1: restaurant introduces a new uh, a new dish or a
Speaker 1: new product and you just see it, you know, copied
Speaker 1: instantly everywhere around the world. I think one that kind
Speaker 1: of jumps to mind is the Black Craft milkshakes or
Speaker 1: Black Tap milkshakes in New York, So I think those
Speaker 1: kind of roads of popularity. And then in Chicago we
Speaker 1: saw a bunch of restaurants trying to recreate the same thing. Um.
Speaker 1: But what's really interesting is there's a similar dish called
Speaker 1: the Instagram Sunday at a restaurant here in Chicago, And
Speaker 1: I think that just shows you that restaurants aren't aren't
Speaker 1: really shying away from the fact that there's specifically creating
Speaker 1: these menu items for the sole purpose of having diners
Speaker 1: come in and take a picture of them. So that's
Speaker 1: not a very subtle name, is it? The Instagram Sunday?
Speaker 1: How fast did that happen? So after the milkshakes were
Speaker 1: introduced in New York, how quickly were similar milkshakes popping
Speaker 1: up in Chicago? I think within a matter of weeks. Um.
Speaker 1: I think people are very well traveled, especially that millennial
Speaker 1: generation and even restaurateurs, so I think they go out,
Speaker 1: they see these trends, and obviously, with the power of Instagram,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be in New York to see
Speaker 1: what's going on in the food scene in New York.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's a matter of weeks sometimes
Speaker 1: where these trends kind of evolve and emerge in different
Speaker 1: major cities. Another example of that, though, is that Starbucks
Speaker 1: just did that unicorn for appuccino, which I just looked
Speaker 1: and it has a hundred and fifty eight thousand hashtags
Speaker 1: on Instagram right now. But there's a coffee shop in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn that's been making a unicorn latte for let's see,
Speaker 1: a few months. It says December of last year it started,
Speaker 1: and they're actually suing Starbucks for copying their idea. Have
Speaker 1: you seen something like that happened before, where a smaller
Speaker 1: chain is doing something in some big conglomerate like Starbucks
Speaker 1: copies it. I did just see that article as well.
Speaker 1: Um No, No other examples really come to mind, and
Speaker 1: it'll certainly be interesting to see the outcome of that.
Speaker 1: I think the issue there was that both beverages do
Speaker 1: not contain coffee, even though one must call the latte um.
Speaker 1: But no, I haven't seen a time of other examples
Speaker 1: of that now. Okay, So here's my major question with
Speaker 1: all of us, and with um food Instagramming in particular.
Speaker 1: So you create something like an Instagram Sunday, which is
Speaker 1: clearly made to be photographed, why the endless fascination with
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over and over again. Because
Speaker 1: there are only so many variations you can have of
Speaker 1: a picture of an ice cream Sunday or a crow
Speaker 1: nut or you know, some avocado smear it on toast,
Speaker 1: why do we keep consuming that? Well? I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the types of food photos that perform very
Speaker 1: well on Instagram, or foods that are really relatable. If
Speaker 1: you post some really fancy plate from a five star
Speaker 1: restaurant that might not resonate with everyone in your audience.
Speaker 1: But something like an avocado toast or a milkshake or
Speaker 1: ice cream Sunday is something that people can relate to.
Speaker 1: And even with the Sunday for example, they do a
Speaker 1: great job of innovating constantly from month to month by
Speaker 1: just shifting that Sunday just a little bit. Um Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a matter of incorporating a seasonal element or flavor,
Speaker 1: or incorporating a holiday themed candy or cupcake on top
Speaker 1: of it. So they're kind of making it a little
Speaker 1: bit different, but still kind of riding the wave of
Speaker 1: the popularity of that particular dish. But I really think
Speaker 1: it has to do with food being relatable, and especially
Speaker 1: things like um, the agile corn, like that is something
Speaker 1: that people can relate to. It's something that they could
Speaker 1: do at home, and it's it's kind of this interactive
Speaker 1: experience that people want to look at and people want
Speaker 1: to share themselves. That reminds me my friend Derek Thompson,
Speaker 1: he's a writer at The Atlantic, and he recently wrote
Speaker 1: a book called hit Makers, which is all about what
Speaker 1: becomes popular, and he was talking about it in the
Speaker 1: context mostly of sort of music and entertainment, but one
Speaker 1: of his key ideas is that the most successful things
Speaker 1: have a high element of familiarity with them, so they
Speaker 1: don't push the bound to read too much. They innovate,
Speaker 1: they do something new, but there's a strong element of
Speaker 1: I've seen this before. So it's interesting, is you know,
Speaker 1: it's I've seen I have friends who have post images
Speaker 1: from extraordinary five star restaurants, but they clearly don't get
Speaker 1: the same level of likes as a really over the
Speaker 1: top Sunday or milkshake. And there's probably an element where
Speaker 1: the milkshake feels at the same time new and interesting
Speaker 1: but also familiar and something that I could relate to
Speaker 1: exactly as you say, Yeah, and I think, um, it's
Speaker 1: not to say that we aren't we are not adventurous eaters.
Speaker 1: I think that when it comes to trying new flavors,
Speaker 1: those flavors are really well executed in familiar formats. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, we're interested in trying something new, but
Speaker 1: not if it's completely out of out of the realm
Speaker 1: of something we've had before. So it's got to have
Speaker 1: that sense of familiarity with it. So this leads into
Speaker 1: my other pressing question on the matter which is what's
Speaker 1: the ultimate end game in instagramming all your food? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone talks about turning themselves into a personal brand,
Speaker 1: but so few of these personal brands are actually able
Speaker 1: to turn it into a money making thing. And I
Speaker 1: was actually reading some first person accounts from people who
Speaker 1: have kind of managed to do that, and they were
Speaker 1: saying that it's super difficult to monetize their social media presence,
Speaker 1: partly because people want them to be relatable and as
Speaker 1: soon as they start making money from being a social
Speaker 1: media celebrity, uh, that seems to go away a little bit.
Speaker 1: So there seems to be a catch twenty two. So
Speaker 1: maybe Julie, maybe you have some insight into this because
Speaker 1: you've been instagramming for a long time now, Like what's
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal? I mean, I think I would be
Speaker 1: more worried about traditional advertising versus advertising on social media
Speaker 1: because there's still as long as you're someone that's posting
Speaker 1: from these brands, but you still engage with your followers,
Speaker 1: such as replying to their comments on your post or
Speaker 1: going to their profile and liking different things on their page,
Speaker 1: you're always going to have that follower base, and then
Speaker 1: the brands are still going to want to continue to
Speaker 1: work with you rather than paying some traditional advertiser, like
Speaker 1: way more than what they end up paying you. But
Speaker 1: there is a struggle of like the advertising business keeps
Speaker 1: changing those people that were blogging five years ago, and
Speaker 1: blogging five years ago is way different than what it
Speaker 1: is now. There's fewer ads on the actual blogging page
Speaker 1: that you can make money from, so it is pushing
Speaker 1: more towards working with brands versus just letting the brands
Speaker 1: advertise on your profile. Amanda, where do you see all
Speaker 1: this going? What is the endgame here in terms of
Speaker 1: like are people going to burn out? Are they going
Speaker 1: to get tired? Are they eventually do people worry that
Speaker 1: they're just people are going to stop just turn their
Speaker 1: phones down when they're at the restaurant and just enjoy
Speaker 1: the food. Is sort of a backlash to all this.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we'll see that anytime soon. Um.
Speaker 1: I think we're kind of always looking at what's coming
Speaker 1: up next, And I think so I started a blogger
Speaker 1: in and so now I sort of see as Julie
Speaker 1: said that that's kind of shifting away from what it was.
Speaker 1: It's definitely more short, short form content. Now, and I
Speaker 1: think we're looking at Instagram and deciding, Okay, what's going
Speaker 1: to be next, And I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: is related to video and shorter videos. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's too early to say like what's going
Speaker 1: to be next, but I will definitely say that we're
Speaker 1: kind of looking at what's going to be the next platform.
Speaker 1: And I agree that it is really hard to monetize
Speaker 1: your Instagram page because there is so much competition. But
Speaker 1: I think the the accounts that do perform well are
Speaker 1: ones that kind of found um an interesting hook. They're
Speaker 1: very open about their personal lives and really try to
Speaker 1: form unique connections with their followers, and I think there
Speaker 1: can be a little bit of that catch twenty two
Speaker 1: when these instagrammers are working with a lot of brands
Speaker 1: and posting continuous sponsored content and makes it a little
Speaker 1: bit hard to trust them and you under if they're
Speaker 1: really supporting this brand or if they're just doing it
Speaker 1: for the compensation. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: if those people don't want to follow that person, they're
Speaker 1: not going to and we're not really seeing people drop
Speaker 1: off a ton, So I think that there's kind of
Speaker 1: that balance between maintaining a unique identity, but also working
Speaker 1: with brands to kind of help elevate yourself and push
Speaker 1: your personal brand forward. I'd say another example of that though,
Speaker 1: there's one girl I follow she's actually used with my
Speaker 1: former neighbor, but she has two followers on Instagram, Rachel Mansfield.
Speaker 1: And something that she does that I think really has
Speaker 1: helped drive her business is that she hosts different sort
Speaker 1: of meetups. So one that I went to it was
Speaker 1: like a bar class, plus you got like these amazing
Speaker 1: goodie bags with a bunch of food from the brands
Speaker 1: that she works with. There was a little Q and
Speaker 1: a afterwards, And you know, if I'm going through my
Speaker 1: profile saying that I follow too many people and I
Speaker 1: want to get rid of some, She's not going to
Speaker 1: be one. Because I've engaged with her. She takes the
Speaker 1: time to actually know who her followers are, understand what
Speaker 1: they want to see on her profile, and really she's
Speaker 1: done a great job of just turning this into a business. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have another big question, sorry, which is I mean
Speaker 1: the food trend on Instagram. Amanda, would you say that
Speaker 1: broadly it's been good for the industry or are there
Speaker 1: some people who have lost out because maybe this is
Speaker 1: kind of a loaded question, by the way, but like
Speaker 1: maybe there's some like tiny kitchen somewhere and they do
Speaker 1: amazing food, but it's not that photogenic. Like, has this
Speaker 1: changed the food industry so much that the way something
Speaker 1: looks is now more important than the way that it tastes.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Um. I think though, that restaurants
Speaker 1: are realizing the importance of what their restaurant looks like
Speaker 1: and what the food looks like, and they're taking that
Speaker 1: into account. Um. I know that Julie was saying, you know,
Speaker 1: she has this coffee table on this natural light, and
Speaker 1: I think that restaurants are doing the same thing. They
Speaker 1: know that when an influencers coming in, they want to
Speaker 1: have that table by the window reserve for them and
Speaker 1: they want to have that natural light. Um. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think the restaurants that are are
Speaker 1: doing a good job with social media are ones that
Speaker 1: are recognizing that they're able to leverage those images that
Speaker 1: they're diners are posting. It's basically in a way, free
Speaker 1: marketing for them, and so they can utilize those images
Speaker 1: and promote them and it's kind of a win win
Speaker 1: situation for the diner and for the restaurant. So I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if it's gonna necessarily go
Speaker 1: the route of food having to look better than a taste.
Speaker 1: But I think both sides of it, the diner side
Speaker 1: and the restaurant side, are seeing the impact and the
Speaker 1: potential for the business. All right, final question here, So
Speaker 1: I am really into food. I like posting into pictures
Speaker 1: of food, particularly Chinese food, which is my favorite cuisine
Speaker 1: on Instagram. So give me your top two hips two
Speaker 1: tips Amanda for becoming a Chinese food Instagram influencer. Well,
Speaker 1: I would definitely make sure you have a good a
Speaker 1: good place set up to take your images, So if
Speaker 1: it's either at home for cooking Chinese food or for
Speaker 1: in a restaurant, make sure you get that natural light
Speaker 1: and a great background. I think that's kind of the
Speaker 1: majority of the battle is really the lighting situation and
Speaker 1: the background. Um. And I also think posting maybe dishes
Speaker 1: from some of those off the beaten path Chinese restaurants
Speaker 1: that maybe your friends haven't heard about, and then they
Speaker 1: might tend to see you as an authority in kind
Speaker 1: of these off the beaten path Chinese spots. Well, I
Speaker 1: will try to do that any excuse to try new
Speaker 1: restaurants I'm into. So I really like that second tip.
Speaker 1: The first one I might be too lazy to set
Speaker 1: up good photos, but I could definitely do the second one.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you both coming on. Manda Topper, she's
Speaker 1: a associate director of food service at Mente and she's
Speaker 1: uh a social media food mayven in her own right.
Speaker 1: And Julie Verheig of Bloomberg News, who is a millennial
Speaker 1: and post Instagram of food and other things. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you both joining us. Thank you so, Tracy. I
Speaker 1: kind of have a feeling that you're anxiety about all
Speaker 1: this isn't isn't exactly a leaved well. I feel like
Speaker 1: I have a love hate relationship with all this because
Speaker 1: I do the same thing, right, Like, I have two
Speaker 1: Instagram accounts now and I do take photos of food.
Speaker 1: But I just like the whole thing strikes me as
Speaker 1: slightly ridiculous, particularly when I've been in the position that
Speaker 1: Julie was describing, where you know, I'm arranging my plate
Speaker 1: on a table trying to get the best light, and
Speaker 1: I've also been sitting in restaurants where I've seen people
Speaker 1: do nothing but take photos of their food for about
Speaker 1: an hour, and the topic seems slightly ridiculous. But sometimes
Speaker 1: I wonder, if you know, when people talk about product
Speaker 1: the productivity paradox in the economy, like sometimes I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's social media, if we're all just like spending
Speaker 1: more of our time taking photos of our food, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of where it's all going. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've definitely had moments in restaurants while I'll order something
Speaker 1: and then I'll bite into it, and then as soon
Speaker 1: as I buy it, I'm like, oh, shoot, I should
Speaker 1: have taken that photograph first, and now the plating of
Speaker 1: the dish is completely ruined and I should have taken
Speaker 1: a photograph. And then other times I'll be like wait, wait,
Speaker 1: Or if it's a family style and everyone's eating out
Speaker 1: the same dish, I'll be wait, wait, I gotta take
Speaker 1: a photo this, and everyone's just sitting there waiting for
Speaker 1: me while I stand over the dish really loomingly trying
Speaker 1: to get the perfect light and also not have the
Speaker 1: phone cast a shadow onto the food, which is referring problem. Um.
Speaker 1: I just don't think I have the discipline to really
Speaker 1: take the great photos that you have to take, because
Speaker 1: I just wanted to sort of take them for posterity
Speaker 1: more than influence. But maybe that's that's my problem. I
Speaker 1: don't want it bad enough. The other thing is like
Speaker 1: it is actually shaping tastes about food and restaurants. So,
Speaker 1: you know, you say you like Chinese food. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to tell you, Joe, but a lot of Chinese food
Speaker 1: isn't that photogenic. You should really start liking ice cream
Speaker 1: and doughnuts and cookies and cakes because people love those photos.
Speaker 1: It's also just a fascinating example of the way that
Speaker 1: the medium shapes what's conveyed over the medium. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's essential we're talking about. But it's a recurring phenomenon.
Speaker 1: You know, it's you have, you know, you take every
Speaker 1: take anything else. Take Twitter where it once you start
Speaker 1: to you know, at first it becomes this place where
Speaker 1: you sort of dash off short messages. Then everyone's doing it,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly everyone just sort of thinks in short
Speaker 1: messages and likes to make week argue mints that just
Speaker 1: fit well in a characters, but aren't that sound? And
Speaker 1: so essentially the medium starts to redefine the underlying thinger
Speaker 1: trying to get across. I think you see example after
Speaker 1: example of that. So, oh absolutely, yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating it's a fascinating phenomenon. And the fact that
Speaker 1: it literally is driving prices of avocado and vanilla and
Speaker 1: Cauliflowers certainly takes to the market store and you can
Speaker 1: see it in the broader consumer spending figures. Right. So
Speaker 1: I was actually reading a city group note before we
Speaker 1: came on the show, and they say that restaurants spending
Speaker 1: is up let's see more than thirty over the past
Speaker 1: five years, and food spending is up about ten percent.
Speaker 1: So this is the classic You know, people are spending
Speaker 1: more for experiences than for goods, but I often wonder
Speaker 1: if they're spending on experiences because a lot of those
Speaker 1: experiences allow them to take nice photos. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any question that that's a big
Speaker 1: part of it. All Right, Um, we should probably stop
Speaker 1: before or I get really worked up. I'm also getting hungry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Let's go get some crown nuts. Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know unicorn fract I don't think we have them
Speaker 1: in the Bloomberg in the Bloomberg Pantry. Unfortunately. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me on Twitter at the
Speaker 1: Stalwart and my Instagram is at the Stalwart. I'm the
Speaker 1: same name, and I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and you can follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Tracy dot Alloway. And you can follow
Speaker 1: our guest Amanda Topper on Twitter at Amanda Topper and
Speaker 1: Julie Verhig on Twitter at Julie Verhigue. Thanks for listening.
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