Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stanovic on Bloomberg Radio. It is still winter, although
Speaker 1: I gotta say birds were chirping this morning. It kind
Speaker 1: of felt like chrisp Yeah, it felt like it was spring, right,
Speaker 1: But in the city that never sleeps, there is still
Speaker 1: so much to do. Tim, Yeah, the question is, well,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do this weekend? All right? Well,
Speaker 1: New York uh NYC and Company. It is the official
Speaker 1: place to go for those looking to promote what's going
Speaker 1: on around the city and really a great place for
Speaker 1: all of us to check out if we are looking
Speaker 1: for something to do. So let's get to our guests. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got Tiffany Townsend with us, executive vice president for
Speaker 1: Global Communications at NYC and Co. With us on zoom
Speaker 1: right here in New York City. Okay, So before we
Speaker 1: we we get to you know, what's going on this weekend,
Speaker 1: I want to take a step back and just think
Speaker 1: about what you guys do over at NYC and Co.
Speaker 1: Because your your job is essentially to market New York
Speaker 1: City to the to the rest of the world, and
Speaker 1: it's a job that has changed a lot over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years with with the pandemic and with
Speaker 1: international travel leaving in coming back. Where are things right now? Well, um,
Speaker 1: we are certainly in rebound mode. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's always a good bet to bet on
Speaker 1: New York City. It always tends to rebound. You know.
Speaker 1: I've had the good fortune of working within my scene
Speaker 1: company for a number of years now and have seen things,
Speaker 1: you know, such as recovering from September eleventh, recovering from
Speaker 1: the financial crash, And I think what we've always seen
Speaker 1: is that New York always does rebound. And so wherey
Speaker 1: are right now is that we saw roughly fifty seven
Speaker 1: million visitors nearly fifty seven million visitors um come to
Speaker 1: New York City at the end of two and so
Speaker 1: that represents about eight of what we were in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: which is a which was a record a year just
Speaker 1: before the pandemic. And that's also a seventy one roughly
Speaker 1: increase in travel to New York City over one So
Speaker 1: we are continuing to make significant gains. Travel is coming
Speaker 1: back so etainly to New York. So okay, so almost
Speaker 1: back to normal, which is a really good thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: are people who are coming back doing kind of the
Speaker 1: same stuff that they were doing pre pandemic. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. There are certainly a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: hallmarks to visiting New York City, whether again you know
Speaker 1: it's your first time or your tent. People want to
Speaker 1: go to places like Times Square, they want to do Broadway,
Speaker 1: they want to stay in certain yars the city. We
Speaker 1: are always constantly pushing all of five burrows. And I
Speaker 1: think just as people do come back and they do return,
Speaker 1: they maybe they're actually looking for a mix of both.
Speaker 1: They are looking to explore maybe a little something new,
Speaker 1: but the hallmarks will always be there. What is the
Speaker 1: what is the best time to visit the city? There's
Speaker 1: never a bad time to visit New York. But nobody's here,
Speaker 1: nobody here, but that New York is really a place
Speaker 1: to visit all your own. I think every part of
Speaker 1: the or every season of New York has something different
Speaker 1: to offer. Being able to be outside during the summer
Speaker 1: and hang out in the park gives you certainly one
Speaker 1: feeling on one type of experience. But right now, what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in winters, there's so many wonderful experiences that
Speaker 1: you can do indoors. Certainly, I'm outdoors and that's really
Speaker 1: what our whin you're programming is all about. And so
Speaker 1: you have Broadway, which is obviously great all year round,
Speaker 1: but then you also have our attractions. You have what
Speaker 1: we're offering from Mussy Week, you have Restaurant Week, so
Speaker 1: you have all of those things. But you know, as
Speaker 1: I said, there's really never been time to visit New
Speaker 1: York City, well to that end. And we did speak
Speaker 1: with you a little over a month ago, Tiffany. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, right right around the holidays. And I remember
Speaker 1: a few days after we spoke, I was actually in
Speaker 1: Times Square for right before New Year's Eve because we're
Speaker 1: going to a show. And I was so surprised. I
Speaker 1: haven't been there in years. When was this. This was
Speaker 1: like late December, right before New Year's Eve? Okay this
Speaker 1: year this year? Yeah, And I was walking walking to
Speaker 1: a show, walking through the area, so it was right
Speaker 1: before the ball drop, you know, a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and um, I heard so many different languages, people from
Speaker 1: all over the world coming to New York City, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, why are you coming when it's
Speaker 1: like the shortest days of the year. The coldest time
Speaker 1: to be here. But I guess, you know, people want
Speaker 1: to be here year round. I live here year round,
Speaker 1: so well, it is in New York are pretty incredible, right,
Speaker 1: I love you a year around. It's you know, as
Speaker 1: I said, it's it's it's never a bad time, and
Speaker 1: there's there's just so many things to do. There's so
Speaker 1: many options that I think, you know, it never really
Speaker 1: dissuades anybody. And I think that also. You have to remember,
Speaker 1: New York City is a very aspirational destination. It is
Speaker 1: a bucket list destination for so many people, and so
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter to them whether it's raining, whether
Speaker 1: it's snowing, or whether it's what you might perceive as inclement,
Speaker 1: whether it's something that people you know, it's a place
Speaker 1: that people want to come to and there's things that
Speaker 1: they want to do here, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: it is you know, coming seeing the holiday lights, doing
Speaker 1: Time Square for New Year's even so that's that's really
Speaker 1: something that's really exciting for a lot of people, exciting
Speaker 1: for even for us who live here. Tiffany, I have
Speaker 1: to say, my daughter and I have a tradition that
Speaker 1: we come in Christmas. Even it was so cold this
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, but we do it. We want to see
Speaker 1: the tree, we want to just you know, be in
Speaker 1: New York because this city doesn't like no other. Having
Speaker 1: said that, one of the things that's really cool that
Speaker 1: we do a couple of different things is New York
Speaker 1: City UH NYC Restaurant Week. Talk to us about that
Speaker 1: and the kind of momentum, because this has been going
Speaker 1: on for a while now it has. Indeed, we're now
Speaker 1: in our thirty first year for NYC Restaurant, which is
Speaker 1: pretty incredible and so started back in the nineties and
Speaker 1: here we are thirty one years later and we have
Speaker 1: over five hundred restaurants across all five borrows that are participating,
Speaker 1: which I think is it's just so impressive. And we've
Speaker 1: probably got somewhere in your sixty cuisine, so I really
Speaker 1: feel that there's something for everybody. And we've got set
Speaker 1: price points thirty dollars, forty five dollars, sixty dollars, and
Speaker 1: that's across both lunch and dinner, so two courses for lunch,
Speaker 1: three courses for dinner, so really affordable. It just continues
Speaker 1: to be a really good deal. I know, I'm jumping
Speaker 1: all over the place. But this is New York. She
Speaker 1: can keep up with anything. You did say that you're
Speaker 1: promoting all five Burrows. So I'm curious to where people,
Speaker 1: you know, we know, we really want to go. Really
Speaker 1: are you know no, I know, well, I know where
Speaker 1: I am in Brooklyn. I see Taurus all the time.
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bridge, in South Brooklyn and then by Brooklyn Park
Speaker 1: is full of Taurus. Uh. And it's increasingly seeming like
Speaker 1: people are, you know, finally venturing past those parts of
Speaker 1: New York City that you know, people who live here
Speaker 1: don't actually visit unless they have family come and visit,
Speaker 1: and you know, they want to go to those those
Speaker 1: touristy places. Where are you seeing people go in other
Speaker 1: boroughs right now? I think they're really just getting further,
Speaker 1: you know, further, further and deeper really into Queens. People
Speaker 1: are going up to matt Hen and the Bronx. They're
Speaker 1: getting deeper into Staten Island and um exploring St. George
Speaker 1: and sort of mid Shore and south Shore, certainly throughout Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: You know, as far as what you're seeing getting deeper
Speaker 1: into Queens, going to Flushing, really exploring everything that's there,
Speaker 1: whether they were doing something in the summer, like going
Speaker 1: to the to the to the Open, or going to
Speaker 1: a baseball game, but everything that's around. They've just got
Speaker 1: some really great dining options as well. Yeah, like the
Speaker 1: best thing to do when you're going to the Open
Speaker 1: or like going to a Mets game or something, going
Speaker 1: and checking out the restaurants and flushing. They're awesome. We
Speaker 1: love the Open, we love covering, and we do shows
Speaker 1: from there. Um, what else, like, is there anything specific
Speaker 1: about this time where there are just some great offering,
Speaker 1: some great deals that are out there. We think we
Speaker 1: do this program in January and February because typically these
Speaker 1: are the slower months of tourism to New York City,
Speaker 1: and so this is really one way that we're looking
Speaker 1: to continue to attract inbound tours and really also bring
Speaker 1: a boost. You know, these programs are really um important
Speaker 1: and supportive to so many businesses across the city, certainly
Speaker 1: to so many small businesses, and so this is our
Speaker 1: way of continuing to support the local economy and ensure
Speaker 1: that tourism continues to really be an economic driver for
Speaker 1: New York City, which long has been. When people come
Speaker 1: to visit you from out of town, where do you
Speaker 1: take them. Good question. Okay, So while I live I
Speaker 1: live in Manhattan. I live on the East Side, so
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of great stuff here. I can
Speaker 1: do the hallmarks, I can do Empire State Building. Um,
Speaker 1: I've been exploring. Now, We've got the Tin Building down downtown,
Speaker 1: You've got Brookie Brookville Place. I think I kind of
Speaker 1: do the you know, is it your first time. I
Speaker 1: might give you to one thing. Are you a regular visitor?
Speaker 1: I might steer you toward, you know, something else. I
Speaker 1: really also try to just be in a medating hosts.
Speaker 1: So if there's something you really want to see, I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to make it happen for you. All right, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: what do you do in this weekend? What am I
Speaker 1: doing this weekend? I Am taking my toddler around to
Speaker 1: whatever he wants to do. So we will hit the
Speaker 1: playgrounds if it's if it's warm enough, we'll absolutely hit
Speaker 1: the playground and and and actually go out to you.
Speaker 1: You might find me a bolements this weekend. We're not
Speaker 1: taking We're not taking our toddler anywhere to eat. You
Speaker 1: guys start him young, because then they get used to
Speaker 1: the restaurant. Well, I think it's too. Absolutely, he's not
Speaker 1: used to it. He was going Toddler, Man, it's not
Speaker 1: pretty if we do that. Tiffany, really good to check
Speaker 1: in with you. It's a nice beginning to our weekend. Um,
Speaker 1: take care of Tiffty Towns and executive vice president for
Speaker 1: Global Communications at NYC and Company, joining s V and
Speaker 1: New Zoom in New York. What are you doing this weekends?
Speaker 1: I'm working on taxes. Still. That's what you did for
Speaker 1: the long weekend. It's complicated. I'm sorry, say no more.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to be implicated at anything. You know,
Speaker 1: it's all the up and up. It just you know,
Speaker 1: it's a process. It's a process. We'll find something fun
Speaker 1: to do. Ok. Pizza nights, so sorry, pizza night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm actually the place cheese on the pizza. Okay, alright.
Speaker 1: A piece of advice, don't go to the Tillamook website
Speaker 1: when you're really hungry and you still have a broadcast
Speaker 1: to do and you still have about eighteen minutes to go,
Speaker 1: because it just makes you even hungrier. Well, that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. It's our bad news. I'm sticking with
Speaker 1: the website. Uh. If you've spent any time in the
Speaker 1: dairy aisle of the supermarket. You have definitely seen cheese, yogurt, butter,
Speaker 1: and more from Tillamook. It's a dairy co ops started
Speaker 1: back in the early nineteen hundreds. Today is a one
Speaker 1: billion dollar brand that sells products everywhere from Albertson's to Target,
Speaker 1: to Walmart and so much more. And we got the
Speaker 1: CEO with us. Patrick Kreitzer, the CEO of Tillamook. He
Speaker 1: joins us now via zoom from Oregon. Okay, Patrick, We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about a lot. We're gonna talk about the business.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about inflation, We're gonna talk about what
Speaker 1: you see in the economy. But first, what the heck
Speaker 1: do you put in the ice cream? Because everyone I
Speaker 1: talked to, including you know myself, because I love to
Speaker 1: tell him, like ice cream, huge fan. Jason Kelly, our colleague,
Speaker 1: when he found out I was interviewing you, he said,
Speaker 1: you have to try the ice cream. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know, we've already talked about the ice cream. What's
Speaker 1: up with the ice cream? Well, there's lots of cream
Speaker 1: in it. We put a lot of dairy in the
Speaker 1: in every one of those ice cream cartons. A lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of love goes into making that, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad you appreciate it. So the secret is is
Speaker 1: is the dairy like it's an extra serving of dairy
Speaker 1: or something, right? It is, yeah, lots of extra cream.
Speaker 1: And when you make ice cream, uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: you determine how much cream to put in there, and
Speaker 1: almost also how much sort of how much to fluff
Speaker 1: it up. And we do a little less fluffing and
Speaker 1: a little more cream and it tastes fantastic. What's weird, though,
Speaker 1: is and this is a business question, it's not like
Speaker 1: it's much more expensive than sort of competitors right there
Speaker 1: in terms of how you how you think about how
Speaker 1: it's presented, because it comes as like a big you
Speaker 1: you get a lot for your money. It's like still
Speaker 1: a good value. How do you make that? How do
Speaker 1: you oculate that move? Because the dairy part is the
Speaker 1: expensive part. It is, you're right, the expensive part. And
Speaker 1: I'm glad you you recognize that. We we position the
Speaker 1: brand as it has been for over a century um
Speaker 1: as everyday premium, which means, yeah, you're gonna pay a
Speaker 1: little bit more for it. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: value packed into that ice cream carton or into that
Speaker 1: package of cheese and uh. And so we're trying to
Speaker 1: make it accessible enough that you're gonna pick it up
Speaker 1: every week, enjoy it every week in your home. Um,
Speaker 1: but you'll appreciate the quality that you paid a little
Speaker 1: bit more for. Hey, Patrick, you know you are in
Speaker 1: and out of I'm sure all of the stores that
Speaker 1: stuck your items. Um, there's a lot of competition out there,
Speaker 1: So how do you make sure that you do stand out?
Speaker 1: And I'd love for you to get into the relationship
Speaker 1: with your suppliers, meeting the farmers and the individuals that
Speaker 1: you work with directly. Yeah, absolutely, And um, those two
Speaker 1: things are very connected for us because it all starts
Speaker 1: with that relationship with the farmers. We are a hundred
Speaker 1: and fourteen year old farmer own cooperative. UM. And in fact,
Speaker 1: che which is our primary product, is made the same
Speaker 1: way it was a hundred and fourteen years ago. And
Speaker 1: our farmers, uh, you know, require demand that that we
Speaker 1: that we keep the recipes the same and and as
Speaker 1: we were just talking about, put uh put a bit
Speaker 1: extra value in in every product and that's important to them. UM.
Speaker 1: And that's helped to stand out on the shelf as
Speaker 1: we've expanded across the country. Up until two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: we were a much beloved Pacific Northwest brand, and then
Speaker 1: beginning in two thousand fourteen, we began expanding around the West.
Speaker 1: And now we've been very pleased with the acceptance we
Speaker 1: received around the country as we've expanded into as you
Speaker 1: said at the top of the show, here every market
Speaker 1: in the country, and we're now in one quarter of
Speaker 1: US households. But we've got a lot more people to introduced,
Speaker 1: uh introduced to the Tillamook brand. Well, I have to
Speaker 1: say just our own personal experience and I did so
Speaker 1: my husband a quick message. I'm like, guess who we
Speaker 1: have on We have the CEO of Tillamook and he's like,
Speaker 1: love their ice cream. I have to say, the search
Speaker 1: for it sometimes in this markit UM is really tough.
Speaker 1: I was to Target recently and there was like only
Speaker 1: two cartons. I mean, so are you continuing to grow?
Speaker 1: How do you like make sure that you can meet
Speaker 1: all the demand as you expand and yeah, yeah, thank you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are continuing to UM to expand. In fact, before
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, we were only west of the Rockies,
Speaker 1: So all the places that folks are are beginning to
Speaker 1: discover us. You know, there might not be quite as
Speaker 1: much on the shelf there as we'd like to like
Speaker 1: to have, and and we're we're trying to rectify that.
Speaker 1: We're bringing product out there as fast as we can. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, one thing I'll suggests is when you're
Speaker 1: in the store and you don't think there's enough Tillamo product,
Speaker 1: go talk to the store manager and that will help
Speaker 1: a little bit. Hey, Uh, do you guys only uh
Speaker 1: produce products at the headquarters in Telemaco, Rent Oregon. No,
Speaker 1: we've actually expanded a bit um since our early days
Speaker 1: of of all the production being in Tillamook. All of
Speaker 1: the dairy farmers uh that own the cooperative uh do
Speaker 1: live and farm in Tilamo County. Uh. Many people that
Speaker 1: know our brand don't know that Tillamooks a town in
Speaker 1: a place actually the high school mascot is the Cheesemaker.
Speaker 1: So we're very much integrated into that community and and
Speaker 1: owned by that community. UM. But as we've expanded around
Speaker 1: the country, we've partnered with other cooperatives and and and
Speaker 1: other manufacturing partners to make product to our very UH
Speaker 1: precise and high expectations and specifications in other places in
Speaker 1: the country, so we can make sure we're getting product
Speaker 1: into those stores where people are listen, is there any
Speaker 1: discernible difference between something they had in one facility with
Speaker 1: with UH dairy from one area versus another area, There isn't. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we do make all of our cheddar cheese,
Speaker 1: which is our core product. We do make all of
Speaker 1: that in Oregon, UH and then we moved around the country.
Speaker 1: We cut and rapid in a few different places, but
Speaker 1: it's fundamentally made all in Oregon and with our recipe.
Speaker 1: But where we do make other products for example, cream
Speaker 1: cheese or ice cream with partners where in those factories
Speaker 1: are very close partnerships. In some cases our partners will
Speaker 1: put in equipment specific to the way we make product
Speaker 1: because of you know, we're not varying the way we
Speaker 1: make it so that you can't tell any difference. If
Speaker 1: you've come visit us at our visitor center in Tila, MC, Oregon,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people do. We We've had one
Speaker 1: point three million people visit us in a single year
Speaker 1: there in our factory on the coast become busit us there.
Speaker 1: The products gonna be exactly the same as you find
Speaker 1: in Wigmans Patrick. What's the bulk of your business? Is
Speaker 1: that the ice cream or is it the cheese? As
Speaker 1: you say, your main product and where is the most growth.
Speaker 1: Most of our business is in the is cheese. Ice
Speaker 1: cream has been our fastest growing product. It's it's turned
Speaker 1: out to be, you know, as we've expanded into new
Speaker 1: regions in the US, has turned out to be sort
Speaker 1: of the easiest entry point for consumers to kind of
Speaker 1: find us that you know, hopefully that big wall of
Speaker 1: a full door of of ice cream flavors with our
Speaker 1: bright colored packaging, UM kind of draws people into the brand.
Speaker 1: And then once they find us there, they like to
Speaker 1: move and discover our cheese and our cream cheese and
Speaker 1: our other products. You know, consumer product company is always
Speaker 1: looking for a good brand. You seem like you would
Speaker 1: be ripe for UM. The taking UM, staying a coop, cooperative,
Speaker 1: staying private, still the plan and just got about five seconds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the plan. Certainly we get those calls, but
Speaker 1: our farmers are very proud to own this brand and
Speaker 1: this company and and what it's meant to our local community,
Speaker 1: well to come back soon. This is a great story
Speaker 1: and certainly something that is very relevant to our worlds.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Tim will have some ice cream to ice
Speaker 1: cream tonight, and I'm sure I will as I get
Speaker 1: the choco which at Mint that's my husband's. That's what
Speaker 1: I like to um. Patrick. Thank you so much. Patrick
Speaker 1: ritz Are, he's CEO of Telmo joining spa Zoom from Oregon.
Speaker 1: Really fun conversation. This is Bloomberg