Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm joll Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: So Tracy recording this on February fourth. And a lot
Speaker 2: of tech stocs have been getting clobbered lately. But you
Speaker 2: know what's doing really well what companies that make consumer staples,
Speaker 2: all of like the core staples that you'd seen your pantry,
Speaker 2: et cetera, like your pepsicolas and all this stuff. Companies
Speaker 2: that might make like jarred sauces and stuff people are
Speaker 2: returning to sort of the old style basics that people
Speaker 2: buy on the stock mart.
Speaker 4: Who would have thought that food is linked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing food persist. No, but it's serious. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like the only place to hide right now on
Speaker 2: the market. Like I look at my screen and everything
Speaker 2: is bright red, and the only thing that people feel
Speaker 2: comfortable betting on right now seems to basically be food.
Speaker 2: The stuff that people pausta sauce and the stuff that
Speaker 2: people have eaten for all time and probably will be
Speaker 2: eating for as long as there are people on.
Speaker 4: Earth, right and this always So I find this business
Speaker 4: really interesting because you know, I joke that food is
Speaker 4: Lindy in many ways, but you know, like food is right,
Speaker 4: food is essential, but it's also constantly changing. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: feels like and so I'm always very curious about how
Speaker 4: consumer brands actually make pricing decisions, branding decisions, especially because
Speaker 4: it also feels like an area that's very crowded. You know,
Speaker 4: you walk into the supermarket and there's like totally twenty
Speaker 4: different brands of I don't know, flower or something.
Speaker 2: No, totally you know. One of the things. You know,
Speaker 2: we've done various CpG episodes over the years. We did
Speaker 2: some episodes about like Celsius energy drink and stuff. And
Speaker 2: one of the themes that we sort of maybe I
Speaker 2: hadn't appreciated prior, is like that competition for shelf space,
Speaker 2: the distribution aspect, getting on the shelf, getting a spot
Speaker 2: in the truck that delivers the beverages to the grocery
Speaker 2: store or to the bodega or whatever. Like, so much
Speaker 2: of the game is yes, the brand, yes the product,
Speaker 2: and then just the sort of logistical aspects of it.
Speaker 2: And I think like that sort of we don't talk
Speaker 2: about it enough, but as a theme, I love like
Speaker 2: learning about this space, how the CpG business works, especially
Speaker 2: in regards to pricing and so forth. It's so illuminatory
Speaker 2: about how the whole economy works. Is that a word illuminating?
Speaker 4: Illuminating? Very good? Well, we do have the perfect guest.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to say we do have the perfect
Speaker 2: guest today, someone who is in the tomato sauce business,
Speaker 2: but really known for so much more. One of the
Speaker 2: I would say, most famous people in the food world
Speaker 2: these days. We are going to be speaking with Alison Roman.
Speaker 2: She's a cook and the author. She has a grocery
Speaker 2: store called First Balloom that I missed when they had
Speaker 2: a pop up Manhattan location.
Speaker 5: I missed it.
Speaker 2: Hopefully that'll get reopened at some point, and tomato sauce
Speaker 2: business called a very good tomatoes sauce. So, Allison, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for coming on odd lots.
Speaker 5: Oh thank you for having me. This is a pleasure. Joe.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you a question before we start, which
Speaker 4: is I know you love fresh tomatoes. Do you also
Speaker 4: love tomato sauce?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, that's right, that's right there.
Speaker 5: One for both.
Speaker 2: I'm glad, I'm glad we got this in all right.
Speaker 2: Where to begin? So you are this a genuine celebrity
Speaker 2: of the food world. People are addicted and they love
Speaker 2: your recipes. I just at home two nights ago my
Speaker 2: wife made your I think it was like a broccoli
Speaker 2: cheddar soup that you have a recipe for.
Speaker 3: It was fantastic.
Speaker 2: It's a deep cut. I've had your famous chickpease stew
Speaker 2: that went viral. I've had multiple recipes go viral. But
Speaker 2: how did you decide to get into Why why a
Speaker 2: tomato sauce?
Speaker 1: I think I well, I got my start working in
Speaker 1: professional kitchens, and I worked an editorial and then I
Speaker 1: sort of went off on my own writing books and
Speaker 1: doing miscellaneous things. And my whole career as sort of
Speaker 1: a recipe writer cookbook author has been teaching you how
Speaker 1: to cook and being like, why would you buy anything
Speaker 1: when you can make it yourself, you know, as the
Speaker 1: person who their pantry is lined with like ingredients rather
Speaker 1: than you know things. So it's funny that I then
Speaker 1: got into tomato sauce business because I've written recipes for
Speaker 1: tomato sauce and I'm very proud of mine, and I
Speaker 1: think it's delicious and easy to make and anyone can
Speaker 1: do it. And then the older I got and I
Speaker 1: married a man who.
Speaker 5: Does not cook.
Speaker 1: I had a baby. The baby does not cook yet either.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I needed to eat more. I needed someone to
Speaker 1: cook for me. And it just became sort of this
Speaker 1: question I had of like, why am I so allergic
Speaker 1: to the tomato sauces on the market? Why am I
Speaker 1: not embracing of the things that are currently available? And
Speaker 1: I realize it's because I'm well, a very picky be
Speaker 1: probably very snobby.
Speaker 5: See, I just was sort.
Speaker 1: Of, you know, like I do want to make it myself.
Speaker 1: I do want the sort of control here. So I
Speaker 1: made it myself. And when I had opened the grocery
Speaker 1: store first Bloom, I decided to start including it as
Speaker 1: like a line of things that we would keep in
Speaker 1: the freezer, chicken broth, beans, tomato sauce, things that we
Speaker 1: would make in the store to sell to people at
Speaker 1: the market. And very soon the demand exceeded supply. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, for all the things that I do, I
Speaker 1: did not want to be full time making tomato sauce.
Speaker 5: There was just I didn't have the equipment, I didn't
Speaker 5: have the time.
Speaker 1: And so I was approached by somebody who is in
Speaker 1: the tomato sauce making business, and she was like, why
Speaker 1: don't you just outsource it and have somebody make your recipe?
Speaker 5: And I was like, well, how's that going to work?
Speaker 1: You know, like, how won't people know the difference? And
Speaker 1: how could it possibly scale? And through a lot of
Speaker 1: trial and error, I figured out we can scale it.
Speaker 4: Definitely want to ask about scaling up. But before we do,
Speaker 4: were you daunted at all by doing tomato sauce specifically?
Speaker 4: Because this seems to be an area where there is
Speaker 4: a lot of competition, especially between I can think of
Speaker 4: two like big players, which would be Roused and Carbone, Right,
Speaker 4: what are those cheap stuff?
Speaker 2: But I guess those aren't really the competitors.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I bought the Carbone things, which probably maybe says
Speaker 4: something about it. But anyway, how do you differentiate your
Speaker 4: product from you know, those names with very very strong
Speaker 4: branding and customer recognition.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting thing because sometimes often people
Speaker 1: start a business saying, what doesn't exist, there's a whole
Speaker 1: in the market, I'm going to fill it, And obviously
Speaker 1: tomato sauce, there are many brands constantly fighting for sale
Speaker 1: prices and shelf space but there wasn't a tomato sauce
Speaker 1: like mine, and there wasn't.
Speaker 5: I find that most tomato sauce is on the market.
Speaker 1: Especially the popular ones Rios Carbone, et cetera, are more
Speaker 1: marin era in style. They are you know, more uniform
Speaker 1: and texture, They are sweeter, they tend to have a
Speaker 1: regular there's just like a specific vibe that they're going for.
Speaker 1: And I think, to me, sort of modeled after the
Speaker 1: like old school progresso, which is what my mom thought
Speaker 1: growing up, and that's what I ate, and I think
Speaker 1: that that was sort of the gold standard, and people
Speaker 1: kind of went down that path. And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: we talk about Carbone as like the top two. They
Speaker 1: are not very old, yeah, and so we in our
Speaker 1: consciousness are like, oh, well that's the top two. Well
Speaker 1: they've only been the top two for as long as
Speaker 1: they've been around, which somebody can fact check, but I
Speaker 1: believe it's only a few years yea. And so it's
Speaker 1: not like this legacy brand that I'm competing with. It's
Speaker 1: just another company with name recognition, a lot of financial backing,
Speaker 1: and strong branding. And I also noticed that all the
Speaker 1: tomato sauces were sort of like chef focused and male
Speaker 1: dominated energy. It was sort of like a chef, a guy,
Speaker 1: a bro, a person's name that was a guy.
Speaker 5: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just was sort of like, I want to do
Speaker 1: something totally different, even if it's tomato sauce. I don't
Speaker 1: think they're all created equal, and so with everything I do,
Speaker 1: I genuinely try to ask myself does this already exist?
Speaker 5: And if not, then I want to make it.
Speaker 2: I have some thoughts about chef bro Energy, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to save them for after the podcast. I can't
Speaker 2: wait to save them for after the episode. I want
Speaker 2: to talk about the entire from your conception in your
Speaker 2: mind to the end consumer, the whole supply chain. So
Speaker 2: I want to really break it down and understand it.
Speaker 2: But let's start with, like, how do you scale up
Speaker 2: a recipe because quality control. You have some recipe that
Speaker 2: you make in your kitchen and you really like it,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Then making it in large batches is a
Speaker 2: totally different game, and then you're not there to supervise
Speaker 2: it all the time. Talk to us a little bit
Speaker 2: about that process, how just how that even works such
Speaker 2: that a recipe that you make at home can be
Speaker 2: done by someone else at a different facility in volume,
Speaker 2: and it's still the same recipe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that you have to consider.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of knowledge that goes into it,
Speaker 1: of like your knowledge of cooking and how ingredients.
Speaker 5: You know, they're not a one for one.
Speaker 1: You can't just multiply it by ten and be like
Speaker 1: this is going to be the same thing. Also, the
Speaker 1: equipment is different, how they're doing things are different.
Speaker 5: We have three flavors.
Speaker 1: We have a garlicy tomato which is sort of your classic,
Speaker 1: a spicy fannel which is spicy and has funnel as advertised,
Speaker 1: and then a caramelized shallatte anchovy which is modeled after
Speaker 1: the chalat pasta, which is which.
Speaker 4: Will pretty popular. I think we all at one point probably.
Speaker 1: If I if I have no fans, the chalotte pasta
Speaker 1: will still have a million like it is.
Speaker 5: It is more famous than I am, for sure.
Speaker 1: And that was the trickiest one to nail because the
Speaker 1: caramelizing of the shallets, the addition of anchovy. I ended
Speaker 1: up having to go back three times after we had
Speaker 1: jarred the first batch and adjust the recipe, which I
Speaker 1: didn't have to do with the others. But because shalots,
Speaker 1: when you caramelize it at large scale, they tend to
Speaker 1: get soft and jammy and very sweet, which increases the
Speaker 1: sweetness perception of the final product. We ended up switching
Speaker 1: to a different method of cooking the shalots. I ended
Speaker 1: up reducing the amount entirely cooking them further like it.
Speaker 1: The whole thing had to change as soon as we
Speaker 1: started getting to the batch size. And each co packer
Speaker 1: is different, so I think, you know an issue we
Speaker 1: can we'll get there. But if you talk about scaling,
Speaker 1: it's each co packer is going to handle things differently.
Speaker 1: And right now we're with a pretty small co packer,
Speaker 1: which I like because I can visit them in from
Speaker 1: my apartment. They're in Industry City, Brooklyn, and I go
Speaker 1: there and I can taste the batches.
Speaker 5: I can say, Okay, we.
Speaker 1: Multiplied the chili flake in this recipe, and now it's
Speaker 1: way too spicy, so we're actually going to cut it
Speaker 1: by half, which is it seems to stand a reason
Speaker 1: that would be not nearly as spicy, but because of
Speaker 1: the way the ingredients behave it is you know, so
Speaker 1: stuff like that where you're sort of in the lab
Speaker 1: as it were, tweaking as it goes. And I think
Speaker 1: that the more I explore the CpG world, that is
Speaker 1: the biggest challenge of You can't just send a recipe
Speaker 1: in and hope for the best, like you really have
Speaker 1: to be tweaking and adjusting at scale.
Speaker 4: How big is the tomato sauce making operation right now?
Speaker 4: Like in people, it's.
Speaker 5: Two people, two people, so it's relatively small.
Speaker 1: Yes, they have big, massive kettles, And I think that
Speaker 1: also when you think of like why tomato sauce, Like
Speaker 1: I just I kind of knew that getting there would
Speaker 1: maybe be the path of least resistance in that I'm
Speaker 1: not inventing something from scratch or not, you know, requiring
Speaker 1: equipment that nobody has, Like these are kettles that you
Speaker 1: can make many different things in, and so co packers
Speaker 1: are a bit easier to find. These particular copackers specialize
Speaker 1: in tomato sauce, and most that I've encountered do and
Speaker 1: that's like what they do, and so they are you know,
Speaker 1: well informed.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I might ask just a lot of like
Speaker 2: really remedial I love questions about this. So go deep
Speaker 2: the kitchen, the two person kitchen where they're making. That
Speaker 2: is a separate facility than the copacker or is it
Speaker 2: the same entity.
Speaker 5: It's the same entity.
Speaker 1: So we have the place, the warehouse where the tomato
Speaker 1: sauce gets made. They get the jars in, they sterilize
Speaker 1: the jars, they make the sauce, they botch the sauce,
Speaker 1: they put.
Speaker 5: Them in the boxes.
Speaker 1: The boxes then get shipped to a third party logistics warehouse,
Speaker 1: which is actually not far from where the tomato sauce
Speaker 1: is made.
Speaker 5: So we cut down on shipping a bit.
Speaker 1: And that is where the tomato sauce comes from when
Speaker 1: you order it online. Because right now we are we
Speaker 1: do have it in store up in the Upstate grocery store,
Speaker 1: but for a few reasons which we can also get into,
Speaker 1: we are just D two C.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then again maybe very obvious question when it
Speaker 2: comes to you know, maybe at some point you grow
Speaker 2: and there'll be ten people, et cetera in the food industry.
Speaker 2: Are there chefs whose job is more or less to
Speaker 2: specialize in cooking at scale? Then basically it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: someone has an idea for a tomato sauce, like you
Speaker 2: you know, you're not you can't be there every day.
Speaker 2: Are there people who like have professionalized the art of
Speaker 2: scaling up a volume.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never heard of that job specifically, but
Speaker 1: I mean the guy who makes the tomato sauce for us,
Speaker 1: like that is his primary I mean he was a chef,
Speaker 1: you know, did a lot of catering, private chefing, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And then I think to understand how to make things
Speaker 1: at scale, you do have it's a lot of trial
Speaker 1: and error.
Speaker 5: You have to like understand it from a different perspective.
Speaker 1: But even working in restaurants, I experienced this because you
Speaker 1: take recipes built for a home cook actually say baking,
Speaker 1: you're going to make biscuits for a restaurant. You take
Speaker 1: a recipe that you like from somebody's cookbook what I
Speaker 1: don't know, and you're like, Okay, well, now I have
Speaker 1: to make these biscuits for I have to make two
Speaker 1: hundred of them a day. I'm not making sixteen, and
Speaker 1: you cannot just multiply that recipe ever, And.
Speaker 5: So I had a bit of experience in the baking.
Speaker 1: World working at scale, because you're never making sixteen of
Speaker 1: something in a pastry kitchen, you're making two hundred, and
Speaker 1: so you kind of understand. And also conversely, working at
Speaker 1: the Bonapetite Test Kitchen. When I first started working there,
Speaker 1: we were doing a lot more chef driven recipes. And
Speaker 1: when you work in a professional kitchen, you're making sauce,
Speaker 1: you're making sixteen quarts of sauce. You're not making two
Speaker 1: cups of sauce. So sort of reverse engineering that understanding
Speaker 1: that it's the same thing the ingredients EBB and flow,
Speaker 1: even if you're decreasing.
Speaker 5: So it's just kind of having that knowledge ahead of time.
Speaker 1: But I think that's how those people find themselves as
Speaker 1: a co packer, and as we look into other products
Speaker 1: to make, it's like, okay, well, these guys specialize in
Speaker 1: baked goods, these guys specialize in granola. These guys you
Speaker 1: know and there that's what they do, so they know.
Speaker 4: How did you go about finding suppliers? Because you know,
Speaker 4: I imagine you have some connections with your grocery store to
Speaker 4: you know, farmers maybe, but if you're doing it at
Speaker 4: scale or a larger scale than previously, how do you
Speaker 4: actually find someone who's going to provide you with a
Speaker 4: steady supply of tomatoes or a steady supply of schallllettes
Speaker 4: and Ancho beats.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, we use canned tomatoes in the summer.
Speaker 1: We will do limit edition quantities of things like you know,
Speaker 1: brewce tomatoes, sung gold tomatoes, like more in season fresh stuff.
Speaker 1: But because tomatoes are so seasonal, and I also believe
Speaker 1: the best tomato SAUCEA does come from can tomatoes.
Speaker 5: That part isn't an issue, but it really is.
Speaker 1: I had worked with this one Isabelle, who had more
Speaker 1: experience in CpG, and we sort of figured it out
Speaker 1: together with a chief of staff Narni, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of the three of us looking at numbers and saying,
Speaker 1: like who's located where, what is the shipping going to cost,
Speaker 1: what tomatoes are they using, what tomatoes can they get?
Speaker 1: What is their capacity? Like how quickly can we grow here?
Speaker 1: And so all of those things come into factor because honestly,
Speaker 1: the type of chalots you're using at that scale, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. I think it would be my dream
Speaker 1: to always use the highest quality ingredients. I'd love to
Speaker 1: use like old ugly shalots that nobody wants and the
Speaker 1: bad tomatoes and like make something beautiful from waste. And
Speaker 1: that's my aspiration, and that business model let down a
Speaker 1: very very expensive path and I think is achievable at massive.
Speaker 5: Scale, but we're just not there yet.
Speaker 4: Wait say more about that.
Speaker 1: Basically, that is sort of the issue with CpG in general.
Speaker 1: And if you want to make a small mom and
Speaker 1: pop like locally sourced, like beautifully made, responsibly, pay your
Speaker 1: workers excellent wages, and it's going to be like a
Speaker 1: thirty eight dollars jar of tomato sauce, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be a very limited market of people that are
Speaker 1: willing to pay for that. And you know, look at
Speaker 1: my local grocery store and I the first thing I
Speaker 1: do is I go to the tomato sauce aisle.
Speaker 5: I'm just like got to know what's going on over there.
Speaker 1: But you see REOs and Carbone on the same eye
Speaker 1: level and additional merchandising behind you, and they are both
Speaker 1: on sale for eight ninety nine.
Speaker 5: And that's a thirty two ounce jar.
Speaker 1: Our jars are sixteen ounces, and you know, twelve ninety
Speaker 1: nine or twelve dollars retail.
Speaker 4: Joe, I'm going to betray my elder millennial status. But
Speaker 4: I'm thinking of that Friend's episode where Monico starts making
Speaker 4: jam and selling it, and then she realizes that, like,
Speaker 4: in order to break even, it has to be seventeen
Speaker 4: dollars per jar, which was a lot back then.
Speaker 1: But guess who else made jam and me, Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: us about I mean that was a million years ago
Speaker 1: when I first moved to New York and I was
Speaker 1: working at Milk Bar at the time and used their
Speaker 1: commissary kitchen to sort of decide I was going to
Speaker 1: make jam and sell.
Speaker 5: It at the Williamsburg Smorgesberg.
Speaker 1: And when it first launched and saying oh and you know,
Speaker 1: handwriting each label like getting beautiful wek jars which cost
Speaker 1: four dollars a piece, Like the economics were so poor,
Speaker 1: I didn't care. I wanted to do it anyway, and
Speaker 1: as long as we could make more money to buy
Speaker 1: more jars and then make more jam.
Speaker 5: Obviously that was not sustainable.
Speaker 1: Didn't last for very long, maybe a year and a half,
Speaker 1: but same concept, where okay, in order to get this
Speaker 1: actually done and to actually turn a profit, you're like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: that's why people go for the juggular immediately and seek
Speaker 1: out you know, investment, and say we need to be
Speaker 1: in targeted to launch.
Speaker 2: So we've sort of talked a little bit about, you know,
Speaker 2: just scaling up the recipelet's little about business skill.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite books I've read is the autobiography
Speaker 2: of the Nike founder Phil Nice Shoedog Shoe Doog, and
Speaker 2: he talks a lot about you know, they started small
Speaker 2: with sneakers, and then there was you know, this sort
Speaker 2: of jump where it's like he had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: get a lot bigger banks didn't really want to give
Speaker 2: him loans because it seemed dicey. It wasn't like a
Speaker 2: VC style business, but he clearly needed capital to sort
Speaker 2: of take it to the next level of like bigger factories,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Talk to us a little bit about like
Speaker 2: financial scaling and the risks that involve of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: one day, you don't want it to just be two
Speaker 2: people in a kitchen. You out to be twenty people
Speaker 2: or two hundred people in the kitchen. Well, that requires
Speaker 2: a lot of upfront costs and new warehouses. Maybe talk
Speaker 2: to us about how you're thinking about that or what
Speaker 2: you've seen on the landscape in terms of your options.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it seems like the what you're fed
Speaker 1: in terms of like the media coverage of brands and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this brand has three million dollars out
Speaker 1: of the gate and this brand has six men, And
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that brand's going to succeed.
Speaker 5: That doesn't mean that brand is going.
Speaker 2: In the hole because they have to pay that back, yes,
Speaker 2: multiple interests before the founder sees a penny.
Speaker 5: Of it, exactly.
Speaker 1: And it also means that there's a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: to increase SKUs and marketing and it's to me a
Speaker 1: very overwhelming landscape that is not rooted in authenticity or
Speaker 1: something being good, and that to me, is.
Speaker 5: Always going to be the most important thing that I do.
Speaker 1: I also want to do it intelligently and make sure
Speaker 1: that it's not like a financial crazy firestorm. But I
Speaker 1: think that right now, literally today, after this, I'm going
Speaker 1: to a few meetings, But I am right in the
Speaker 1: thick of it of figuring out that the answer to
Speaker 1: that question of like who do I hire, how do
Speaker 1: I hire them, at what level? Who's going to actually
Speaker 1: help me who? Basically my desire is to hire somebody,
Speaker 1: two people, three people who are excellent at what they do.
Speaker 1: I am not a business person. I am a tomato
Speaker 1: sauce person. I make tomato sauce, and I make really
Speaker 1: good tomato sauce. I don't know how to do these
Speaker 1: other things. And what I do know is that I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to scale up at such an intense rate
Speaker 1: that it sacrifices the quality or the integrity or puts
Speaker 1: me in a position to grow the business faster than
Speaker 1: I want to. And you know, I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: because a lot of times people start businesses, especially in
Speaker 1: the food CpG world, where the immediate thought is before
Speaker 1: they've even made.
Speaker 5: The product, how do I sell it? Like, how do
Speaker 5: I what's my exit?
Speaker 1: Okay, in six years we could make you know, it's
Speaker 1: like what happened to just making a great product that
Speaker 1: people are really into? And I think I have the
Speaker 1: luxury of having forty two other jobs and so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a writer, I do video, I make cookbooks. And
Speaker 1: I think that knowing that this isn't my primary, you know,
Speaker 1: the one thing that I'm betting on, but I do
Speaker 1: think that there's a sort of credibility that's been lost
Speaker 1: in developing products, and I think that people are going
Speaker 1: to start to want that, and I think that they're
Speaker 1: going to be like, well, why would I buy this
Speaker 1: person's tomato? So I was like, because I'm seeing it everywhere,
Speaker 1: or this one because I trust it that it comes
Speaker 1: from a good place.
Speaker 4: Well, kind of lenders or investors do you actually talk
Speaker 4: to for the sort of thing? Is it like VC?
Speaker 5: I don't yet, but that would ostensibly be it.
Speaker 1: I think that for me personally, I've self funded every
Speaker 1: project I've ever done, and I've kind of taken this
Speaker 1: to its maximum in that I'm not.
Speaker 5: That in the red and it will I will be
Speaker 5: whole probably by the end of the year, which is great.
Speaker 1: It's more that I want to be sure if I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask for money, it's I want to ask
Speaker 1: for money from people that understand me and are not
Speaker 1: expecting me to be someone else or or model my
Speaker 1: business after those other ones that they see as being successful.
Speaker 1: And I say that today, Ask me next year, and
Speaker 1: I might be in a different position. But I think
Speaker 1: it's sort of you know, a friends and family round style,
Speaker 1: or one main investor who sort of sees me, sees
Speaker 1: the goal and is like, I want to be the
Speaker 1: lead and I want to be sort of the primary.
Speaker 4: Do you have to bring like actual jars of the
Speaker 4: sauce when you meet with investors. I know you haven't
Speaker 4: done it yet, but I'm really curious if you have
Speaker 4: a food company, is that a requirement or are people
Speaker 4: just looking at the numbers and the branding and the
Speaker 4: distribution network.
Speaker 5: I don't think it could hurt.
Speaker 1: I think that if you are a lesser known quantity,
Speaker 1: that's probably a must. I would I mean, I'd want
Speaker 1: you to know what I'm selling you and why you
Speaker 1: should invest in it.
Speaker 5: It's giving shark tank.
Speaker 1: But I think for me, I've been very fortunate that
Speaker 1: I've already sort of been approached by people that are like,
Speaker 1: I like what you do, I like everything that you do.
Speaker 1: Everything you do works, and like, I have no reason
Speaker 1: to believe this would be any different, even though I
Speaker 1: do know, given the saturation of the market and how
Speaker 1: crowded it is, it is sort of, oh, why would
Speaker 1: you enter into what was effectively the most crowded, you know, market?
Speaker 1: But again, I see my contribution as being unique.
Speaker 2: This might be sort of a sensitive question. You know,
Speaker 2: there is a I think you have cult status within
Speaker 2: a certain among some people. We seem to be in
Speaker 2: an age where people with a certain level of cult status.
Speaker 2: They have these fans who like really just like they
Speaker 2: want to buy something from you. They're excited to give
Speaker 2: that the opportunity to do business with you. Yes, Taylor
Speaker 2: Swift's fans want her to make five different color vinyl
Speaker 2: versions of each album because they're really excited about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump's fans really like want him to like,
Speaker 2: you know, make a vodka brand and whatever because they're
Speaker 2: excited about God buying Trump vodka. Do you feel that, like,
Speaker 2: do you feel that you have like a base that
Speaker 2: is enthusiastic about the prospect of actually supporting you and
Speaker 2: like being part of your you know, growing your world.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that I am very fortunate to have
Speaker 1: been in this industry for as long as I have,
Speaker 1: and I think that with that comes a reputation and
Speaker 1: trust and you cannot buy that trust, and you cannot
Speaker 1: force it to happen over a short period of time.
Speaker 1: And I think that it is familiarity. But above all,
Speaker 1: people are like, I know this works, or I know
Speaker 1: when she recommends something, it is good. And so it
Speaker 1: stands to reason if I'm going to make if I'm
Speaker 1: going to put my name behind something and like put
Speaker 1: my own money behind starting a company like this isn't
Speaker 1: a money grab, you know, It's not the most lucrative
Speaker 1: thing I do. It's a definite loss leader, but it's
Speaker 1: sort of for now anyway. But I think that there
Speaker 1: is a hopefully I would imagine people would think if
Speaker 1: she's going to do this, I know it's going to
Speaker 1: be good. And I get a lot of feedback on
Speaker 1: the sauce, people saying I've never bought sauce in my life,
Speaker 1: but I am curious. Or it's people that were like
Speaker 1: me ten years ago, cooking from dining in, cooking from
Speaker 1: you know, nothing fancy well eight years ago, but you know,
Speaker 1: and thought to themselves, well, I'll never make I'll never
Speaker 1: buy tomato sauce because I make my own. And now
Speaker 1: their lives have changed and their perspectives are different, and
Speaker 1: they're like, you know what, I might buy tomato sauce.
Speaker 4: How are you thinking about distribution? Because, as Joe mentioned
Speaker 4: in the intro, one, thing we've learned from conversations with
Speaker 4: different food and drinks and snack companies is like you
Speaker 4: kind of live and die by the shelf space.
Speaker 5: That you get a high level baby.
Speaker 4: Okay, and then also like which comes first? Is it
Speaker 4: a distribution agreement or the actual scaling of the operation.
Speaker 5: This is exactly where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1: I'm like in the thick of these conversations of trying
Speaker 1: to figure that out, because do I find a new
Speaker 1: copacker that can meet the needs of potentially being in
Speaker 1: Whole Foods, Well, then without a Whole Foods contract, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of product,
Speaker 1: and where does that product go? Then I'm paying for
Speaker 1: storage for that product, So how do you move that
Speaker 1: without having that deal in place? You also, I would
Speaker 1: imagine Whole Foods is not going to give you something
Speaker 1: less they know for certain that you can produce it,
Speaker 1: and I'm assuming they want some proof of concept. But
Speaker 1: right now I'm I'm it's very chicken or the Egg,
Speaker 1: and I'm sort of like, Okay, what has to happen first?
Speaker 5: Is it the person who's going to get me that
Speaker 5: relationship with Whole Foods?
Speaker 1: Is it the Copacker that I know can fulfill and
Speaker 1: execute at the level that I want? And you know,
Speaker 1: these questions are being asked and answered very quickly, and
Speaker 1: you know, next, if we had done this meeting next week,
Speaker 1: I probably would have a better answer for you.
Speaker 3: Can come back. Yeah, I just do we just do
Speaker 3: a quick fall.
Speaker 5: Well, it's so funny.
Speaker 1: I'm sure anyone listening to this that does know a
Speaker 1: lot about CpG is like this woman has no talking
Speaker 1: about But I believe that's part of my charm and
Speaker 1: that I kind of jump into everything that I do,
Speaker 1: like really curious and excited. And I actually think that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of benefit to not knowing, because I
Speaker 1: think getting hung up on how things are done and
Speaker 1: what is the norm kind of limits you are you.
Speaker 2: Just like surrounded right now by like food industry execs
Speaker 2: that are promising they can take your business to the
Speaker 2: next level. Maybe they did a stint that will Whole
Speaker 2: Foods or something like that, and like hire me, we can.
Speaker 1: Do There's a few people, there's a few, there's yes,
Speaker 1: the inbox is very busy right now, and I will
Speaker 1: say primarily women, which is really encouraging. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's always somebody that's like, I can help you,
Speaker 1: and then some people that are like I want skin
Speaker 1: in the game. Some people are like I want to
Speaker 1: help you find the money so that I can have
Speaker 1: skin in the game.
Speaker 5: In the future. And I think that these.
Speaker 1: Companies become so hot and then often plateau or crash
Speaker 1: or people don't care anymore. Protein's no longer a thing.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to drink this type of thing. But to me,
Speaker 1: I'm such a legacy brand person and I believe so
Speaker 1: firmly in well made products that are built to last,
Speaker 1: that never go out of style, and to me, this
Speaker 1: is that. And I'd rather be successful over a really
Speaker 1: long term than like a flash in the pan, or
Speaker 1: like hot right now and then next year nobody cares,
Speaker 1: and then I'm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Tomato sauce is definitely Lindy, I think, do.
Speaker 5: You know Lindy, I don't know. Oh, I've heard it
Speaker 5: now four times.
Speaker 4: No, it's sort of a nut joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just means. It means it's lasted a long time,
Speaker 2: and therefore one can infer that it will last a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love it. I'm going to adopt that word
Speaker 1: in my pitches.
Speaker 4: It's a good word to use. What's been the most
Speaker 4: challenging aspect of building this business because you know, you're
Speaker 4: talking about a bunch of different things all at once.
Speaker 4: There's the financing, there's distribution, there's logistics, there's actually making
Speaker 4: the product, branding all of that.
Speaker 1: I will say I sort of did everything that was
Speaker 1: easiest first, which was developing the recipe, figuring out the label,
Speaker 1: like the creative fun stuff that I feel qualified to
Speaker 1: weigh in on and execute. And now we're at the
Speaker 1: hard part where it's like, Okay, we've made the sauce,
Speaker 1: we've sold it, people love it.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: That feels like the hard part for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: For me, that was the easy part. And now, you know,
Speaker 1: I was saying to someone the other day, like, what
Speaker 1: I'm really craving as an adult in the room, and
Speaker 1: I need a boss in this venture, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, I'm so okay, I have the sauce.
Speaker 1: It's it looks great, it tastes great, people want it.
Speaker 5: How do what now?
Speaker 1: And I need somebody who knows what they're doing to
Speaker 1: come into the room and say, here's the order of operations,
Speaker 1: here's how much that's going to cost, here's who's going
Speaker 1: to do that. Like, when you're starting a business like this,
Speaker 1: there's nobody to tell you, and so you do sort
Speaker 1: of feel a little vulnerable to people that are like
Speaker 1: I can help you, And so it becomes sort of
Speaker 1: this personality vetting and and who's who do we vibe with?
Speaker 1: Who do you think understands you that it doesn't just
Speaker 1: see dollar signs, And it's again built on trust and
Speaker 1: like who's going to really be in this with you
Speaker 1: to best advise what's best for you the business owner
Speaker 1: and also the product and not just sort of treat
Speaker 1: you like a mouthpiece for a thing that can make
Speaker 1: the money.
Speaker 2: You mentioned like you have the luxury of you're not
Speaker 2: betting your life on this brand, you have your thriving
Speaker 2: media empire, et cetera, and see you're in the position
Speaker 2: to self fund and so forth. It occurs to me like,
Speaker 2: you know, again, journalism is in such a difficult time,
Speaker 2: but like you know, thinking back ten years ago, like
Speaker 2: all these consumer brands trying to build out a media
Speaker 2: side and you're like, oh, we're gonna hire the editor
Speaker 2: in chief of Gillette, you know, because we want to
Speaker 2: like build a whole series of blogs that are implicitly
Speaker 2: about razors and stuff like that. People this is like right,
Speaker 2: because they think this is going to be the best
Speaker 2: marketing is we'll just buy the media brand itself. It
Speaker 2: must be really nice to not like you already have
Speaker 2: that part solved implicitly. It's so much easier to start
Speaker 2: with this media thing that everybody loves, that lots of
Speaker 2: people love, and then like add on to these various
Speaker 2: products that can be sold on top of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would obviously never call myself celebrity, but
Speaker 1: I think that's the appeal to the celebrity brand and
Speaker 1: why that is so appealing to people When they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, a pop star that launches a makeup brand
Speaker 1: and an actor who launches lingerie, it's like it's a
Speaker 1: built in excitement, it's built in buy it, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I think for me again, I take that
Speaker 1: very seriously, that responsibility very seriously, but it is great
Speaker 1: to know that most of it seems like what the
Speaker 1: money goes towards in addition to hiring, is marketing, because
Speaker 1: if you're just like a person that's like no one
Speaker 1: knows who you are, you don't have any food background,
Speaker 1: but you're like, I'm going to start a insert blank here,
Speaker 1: you know company that is food.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, if you.
Speaker 1: Come from the tech world, if you come from the
Speaker 1: business world, you're already a leg up on me in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, but I'm a leg up on
Speaker 1: you in a lot of ways, but one money unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Trump's all. So I feel like always sort of at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage without that as my thing in the back pocket,
Speaker 1: because a lot of brands that begin they begin from
Speaker 1: a guy in a best and you know, and I
Speaker 1: don't have that.
Speaker 5: Have you seen?
Speaker 2: Like I think there are some memes about it or
Speaker 2: like jokes where it's like it'll parody some guys, you know,
Speaker 2: working at Mackenzie and I realized I had to quit
Speaker 2: my job and dedicate my life to making the ultimate
Speaker 2: tortilla chip.
Speaker 3: Have you seen it? There's like all these jacks and you.
Speaker 2: See these on the labels, like we were working nine
Speaker 2: to five jobs in New York City and then we're like,
Speaker 2: why can't we just make sundry tomatoes.
Speaker 5: Exactly, like why isn't there a cream cheese for me?
Speaker 1: And you're like, yeah, I mean if you have a dream,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think that that is very inspiring
Speaker 1: when you can have a job that makes you so
Speaker 1: much money and then you're like, wait, this is solace
Speaker 1: and actually I just want to like make granola.
Speaker 5: Sure, that's great.
Speaker 1: I think that for me, I've always sort of been
Speaker 1: the inverse where I've dedicated my life to cooking and
Speaker 1: food and like the whole act of it, and knowing
Speaker 1: that those things like no one gets into the restaurant
Speaker 1: business to make money. I started working in restaurants when
Speaker 1: I was nineteen, making seven fifty an hour, and I
Speaker 1: never once thought how will I make more money? I
Speaker 1: just thought, Wow, this is great. I'm so happy. I
Speaker 1: love cooking, and so to end up here and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can like put a small amount towards this, but
Speaker 1: we've sort of reached the end of that road of
Speaker 1: the money that I was willing to bet on it,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of like I thought, pretty low stakes.
Speaker 5: I was like, I.
Speaker 1: Believe in the product. I know it's going to sell.
Speaker 1: And it did and it was great. And so now
Speaker 1: it's time to consider what's next. And how do you
Speaker 1: consider what is a middle class small business? Because it
Speaker 1: stands it feels like it's only extreme farmer's market, mom
Speaker 1: and pop, but nobody knows who you are except if
Speaker 1: you live in the town or five million dollars debut
Speaker 1: at Target.
Speaker 4: I have a slightly random question, but since we were
Speaker 4: talking food media. I think this has actually come up
Speaker 4: on the podcast before, but like a long long time ago,
Speaker 4: why do I have to read three thousand words of
Speaker 4: people's life story or like explaining what an onion is
Speaker 4: before I get to the recipe online?
Speaker 1: Well, originally, the reason that I think that where those
Speaker 1: complaints originated from are is blog culture, which predates sort
Speaker 1: of recipe database like botamtat New York Times Cooking, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Because basically, in order for those bloggers to get ad revenue,
Speaker 1: the person had to scroll a certain amount. They couldn't
Speaker 1: just go to the page and click because they wouldn't
Speaker 1: see the ad, so the ad revenue couldn't support them.
Speaker 5: That is I think like nineties sort of reasoning.
Speaker 1: For me, as a person who writes those things, it's
Speaker 1: because I think people care or it makes you a
Speaker 1: better cook and I and it provides context and riches to.
Speaker 5: The story of the recipe.
Speaker 1: That also said, I often separate the text from the recipe,
Speaker 1: so I write in such a way that often, like
Speaker 1: for my newsletter, for example, there's many many words about something.
Speaker 1: It could be a sweater or my baby or tomato sauce,
Speaker 1: and then you jump to the recipe, which has like
Speaker 1: maybe six sentences about like why you need to do
Speaker 1: what I'm asking you to do so you don't skip
Speaker 1: it and mess up the recipe, and then the recipe,
Speaker 1: but you can always jump to it. So that also said,
Speaker 1: I always felt very defensive of that complaint because I'm
Speaker 1: a writer and I part of what I do is writing,
Speaker 1: and I also think that's a huge part of my
Speaker 1: success because people are like emotionally invested in what I'm
Speaker 1: asking you to do and also selling you something. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you might not want to make lentil soup, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to write something that is so compelling that you're
Speaker 1: going to be like, oh my god, I have to
Speaker 1: make this lentil soup. And that is part of my
Speaker 1: job and so I do respect that though, and interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite things to do when I'm
Speaker 1: writing actual cookbooks. Because you're limited to the page versus
Speaker 1: the internet, you could write forever. Most people don't have
Speaker 1: good editors or editors at all. I don't know an editor,
Speaker 1: and one thing that I learned while working in magazines
Speaker 1: is you have to ask yourself who cares? And so
Speaker 1: if I find myself blabbing on about something. I think
Speaker 1: about that person being like, why do I care about this?
Speaker 1: And I have to justify it, And oftentimes I edit
Speaker 1: stuff out all the time where I'm like, that's boring
Speaker 1: or stupid, or only I think that's funny, or that's
Speaker 1: too niche, or it doesn't need to be here. I'm
Speaker 1: very cognizant of the fact that if something is too long,
Speaker 1: people's eyes glaze over, they don't care, they are going
Speaker 1: to lose interest. So you really fight for every word.
Speaker 1: That's especially true in a cookbook because you have to
Speaker 1: keep it to a certain length otherwise it doesn't get printed.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a lot that goes into that
Speaker 1: for me anyway, and I think each person that writes
Speaker 1: recipes or whatever in the food world will have a
Speaker 1: different answer.
Speaker 5: That's mine, Joe.
Speaker 4: Technology has actually solved this problem for me because there's
Speaker 4: there's a really great app called Paprika, and you just
Speaker 4: like paste in the url of a recipe.
Speaker 1: Kill but you you know that that is like the
Speaker 1: utility user and like that. I'd rather you do that
Speaker 1: than like just go on AI to like be like
Speaker 1: what you know, recipe with that I.
Speaker 4: Can't even think about AI just right now?
Speaker 5: Damn it?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 5: How often do you cook?
Speaker 4: I cook like all the time on the weekends. And
Speaker 4: I don't cook in New York because I have a
Speaker 4: tiny New York kitchen. Okay, I have a big kitchen
Speaker 4: in Connecticut where I can.
Speaker 5: Do like what the dream?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Do you find yourself reading cookbooks for pleasure? Ever? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Sometimes I have an expansive collection, and I just ordered
Speaker 4: what's that food book? It's like how to Eat a
Speaker 4: Wolf or something? Have you ever heard of that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: Apparently it was written in World War Two and it's
Speaker 4: all about, like, I guess, how to eat frugally when
Speaker 4: there's like not so much sweater.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to the rations how to Cook a
Speaker 3: Wolf by.
Speaker 5: Yes, Yeah, of course, Sorry, I thought it was more contemporary.
Speaker 4: Okay, So like I do, I do read some food stuff,
Speaker 4: but it's when I'm actually cooking. Having to scroll is
Speaker 4: really difficult because like your hands are covered in like
Speaker 4: flour or sauce or whatever, and I just find it distracted.
Speaker 1: You'll be pleased to know that on my website there's
Speaker 1: a tab at the beginning that says jump to recipe,
Speaker 1: and you can always just click on it and skip
Speaker 1: all the text.
Speaker 4: I should have said, I have your book, by the way,
Speaker 4: the fancy one, nothing you fancy speaking.
Speaker 2: Of AI and cooking, et cetera. You know, like all
Speaker 2: media is fair, perhaps even you, but like all media
Speaker 2: is very anxious about the presence of AI for various reasons,
Speaker 2: and people were in how they're going to navigate it,
Speaker 2: like traditional food media, like obviously you have an issue
Speaker 2: of a name. People really like reading your stuff, like
Speaker 2: what's the broader landscape look like these days? Or what's
Speaker 2: interesting in the broader landscape?
Speaker 5: I think the broader landscape.
Speaker 1: And we're noticing this in TV and also in newsletter culture,
Speaker 1: both in fashion, food, cultural criticism, politics, we're sort of
Speaker 1: going back to what we ran from.
Speaker 5: So it's like the streamers.
Speaker 1: Are bundling and you can watch all the things. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: that's cable, right. And then so now the newsletter people
Speaker 1: are sort of gaining employees and learning how to bundle
Speaker 1: their situation and saying, well, I've deflected and now we're
Speaker 1: starting a cooperative. I'm like, well, that's a magazine. And
Speaker 1: so it's so fascinating to me, and I think any
Speaker 1: of us that are old enough to have seen, you know,
Speaker 1: lived through the various cycles of media, and everything is
Speaker 1: returning to itself, and you know, I'm sure they'll disband
Speaker 1: again and it'll become more about the individual.
Speaker 5: And now it's you know, coming back to magazine.
Speaker 2: So you know, the move into tomato sauce maybe is
Speaker 2: like a little bit of a difference between your old self,
Speaker 2: or maybe you would have looked down on that when
Speaker 2: you think, Okay, tomato sauce like another very hot button
Speaker 2: thing in the news. There was a big viral New
Speaker 2: York Times article a couple of days ago about people
Speaker 2: spending crazy amounts of money on door dash and then
Speaker 2: people love to sneer at people who.
Speaker 4: Buy crazy though, because some people just like.
Speaker 2: Love know, like there were like some like someone would
Speaker 2: spending seven hundred.
Speaker 5: Dollars in a week for him and his husband. I believe, right,
Speaker 5: that's a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wait, how much did you say?
Speaker 5: I think it was seven?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, it was. It was a couple like
Speaker 3: they spent.
Speaker 4: Wait what were they buying? Do you remember?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: What were they getting?
Speaker 1: All I know is that if my husband and I
Speaker 1: order from our favorite Sashon restaurant, which is down the street,
Speaker 1: embarrassingly enough. Sometimes we do pick up, but if we're
Speaker 1: getting into delivered, that can be upwards of one hundred
Speaker 1: plus dollars.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 5: So say you're ordering.
Speaker 1: From a more expensive place and you're doing it seven
Speaker 1: nights a week, Yeah, seven hundred dollars plus it really
Speaker 1: I could see how you get there.
Speaker 2: The thing that I think also said people off was
Speaker 2: the guy and the photo had these really nice copper
Speaker 2: pans and things. I know, stuff like that, Why did
Speaker 2: you spend thousands of dollars to deck out your kids?
Speaker 2: But apparently he was. But would you ever you know,
Speaker 2: ten years from now, there's ever going to be an
Speaker 2: Allison Roman like ghost kitchen that I've.
Speaker 5: Been I've been approached so many times for that and.
Speaker 3: Say about that.
Speaker 2: But what's the pitch when they bring it.
Speaker 1: To the pitch is people want high quality, chef made food.
Speaker 5: You have a name.
Speaker 1: People would go crazy to have Alison Roman's shallapasta made
Speaker 1: by Alison?
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I'm not actually making that for you Tomato
Speaker 5: sauce e there, but I'm not claiming to.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, And I think that there is to me
Speaker 1: that that devalues what I actually do and having tomato
Speaker 1: sauce and then making something when that tomato sauce feels
Speaker 1: very different to me. I also understand meeting people where
Speaker 1: they're at and if they're not going to make tomato
Speaker 1: sauce scratch, at least they're cooking something at home, even
Speaker 1: if it's opening a jar and adding something to it
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: That to me is not a far cry.
Speaker 1: But the ghost kitchen, the delivery, the d it's to
Speaker 1: me very impersonal.
Speaker 5: It freaks me out. I don't care for it.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a weird licensing of your name
Speaker 1: in a way that feels really an authentic toamy.
Speaker 2: Have you've seen that thing wonder?
Speaker 3: Yes, I find it really weird.
Speaker 2: I find it very creepy.
Speaker 3: What is this?
Speaker 2: So it's like it's a sort of I think it's
Speaker 2: I don't totally know the business, but I think it's
Speaker 2: basically trying to roll up the DoorDash and the restaurant
Speaker 2: at the same time, so that they have this big
Speaker 2: facility that can make thirty different kinds of cuisines, and
Speaker 2: they have their own app and they have their own
Speaker 2: delivery drivers, so basically just vertically integrate the whole supply chain.
Speaker 2: But they have this space on not Houston, the one
Speaker 2: that starts with D down on the Lower east Side,
Speaker 2: Lancy Delancy, thank you. And on the outside it says
Speaker 2: like a new kind of food hall. And I was
Speaker 2: like curious, I like food hall. So I got walked
Speaker 2: in and there's just these kiosks screens and on the
Speaker 2: screens there's like a Mexican option, Italian, and a Chinese one,
Speaker 2: a Japanese.
Speaker 5: It's like you're at the airport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like you're.
Speaker 3: At the airport.
Speaker 2: And then so there's theory thirty kinds of restaurants.
Speaker 4: That now you guys are really selling.
Speaker 3: It to me.
Speaker 5: That is literally my personal hell.
Speaker 1: And I think also where they get you is they
Speaker 1: tell you a small business owner who's like a chef
Speaker 1: who has a restaurant, My rent's going up. I can't
Speaker 1: afford twenty thousand dollars in rent because blah blah blah
Speaker 1: door dash. Okay, so they come in and say, we
Speaker 1: can give you the space, but no.
Speaker 5: One can really eat in your restaurant.
Speaker 1: So you're basically cutting out the entire reason for a
Speaker 1: restaurant to exist. And there are so many restaurants whose
Speaker 1: business is like eighty five percent delivery and you walk
Speaker 1: in and they're empty, but they're able to stay.
Speaker 5: Alive because of delivery.
Speaker 1: So if you take away that rent and the need
Speaker 1: to stack and did it out, that's pretty appealing to
Speaker 1: a small business owner.
Speaker 5: And I think it's very predatory.
Speaker 1: I think it's very sort of like, we can help
Speaker 1: you stay alive, and it's like, well, at what costs,
Speaker 1: because you're then sort of you know, I don't. And
Speaker 1: some of these businesses never start as a brick and
Speaker 1: mortar They are only an idea. Or they do take
Speaker 1: big name chefs and say we can do like a
Speaker 1: fried chicken concept with your name on it. And when
Speaker 1: you look on door Dash or Wonder or whatever, it
Speaker 1: looks like a real restaurant. So you look like you
Speaker 1: think you're ordering from a neighborhood restaurant, right, but it's
Speaker 1: not a neighborhood restaurant.
Speaker 4: I've done that before, and then I like walked past
Speaker 4: where they were actually making the food and I was like,
Speaker 4: wait a second, I've ordered from there, speaking of hell.
Speaker 4: So one of the things that has changed in food
Speaker 4: media over the years is I think the emphasis on aesthetics.
Speaker 4: So I think everyone probably does this. I certainly am guilty.
Speaker 4: But if I make something that I'm proud of, I
Speaker 4: take a photo of it post it on social media.
Speaker 2: You didn't cook it.
Speaker 4: Otherwise I didn't cook it. There's no proof. How do
Speaker 4: you think about that particular aspect when you're coming up
Speaker 4: with recipes or you know, deciding what to do with
Speaker 4: your food empire.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I just wrote an article about this for the newly
Speaker 1: relaunched Gourmet magazine, which I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: heard about that or what they're doing, but the condeas
Speaker 1: trademark for Gourmet, the old magazine had to laugh. They
Speaker 1: let it lapse, and so this group of people, one
Speaker 1: of whom was a friend of mine, took it over
Speaker 1: and relaunched it as basically a website newsletter. So very interesting.
Speaker 1: Thing that they're doing is a very different tone of
Speaker 1: always very different five. It's sort of like pirates that
Speaker 1: took over a ship and you're like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: not the same Gourmet.
Speaker 5: But I think in a very fun and it's cool
Speaker 5: smart way.
Speaker 1: But I was thinking a lot about this recently because
Speaker 1: it feels like most people now, especially on the Internet,
Speaker 1: are making food to look good. They're reverse engineering of
Speaker 1: like what's going to look beautiful and what's going to
Speaker 1: look great? And this is going back to I worked
Speaker 1: at BuzzFeed Food for approximately eight months fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: or ten years ago, how long, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: too long ago anyway, But it was sort of like
Speaker 1: I would watch them in the way that they considered
Speaker 1: what recipes to run and what they would make videos
Speaker 1: out of, and it was always like, well, what has
Speaker 1: cheese and what has cream?
Speaker 5: And what has this?
Speaker 1: And it was always reverse engineered from a visual perspective.
Speaker 1: And I think that we're still sort of in that,
Speaker 1: even if it's a lady in her kitchen or guy
Speaker 1: in his kitchen with like a forward facing iPhone and
Speaker 1: so I as a reaction to this, I developed this
Speaker 1: recipe for pork cooked in milk, which is a very
Speaker 1: old Italian recipe.
Speaker 5: It's ugly as hell. It is just sinful.
Speaker 1: It is beige and clumpy with milk curds and soft
Speaker 1: looking and it's really disgusting, but wow, does it taste good.
Speaker 5: It's like truly incredible.
Speaker 4: Some of the best tasting things, yes, are just like
Speaker 4: a bowl of slop or they look like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it was sort of you know
Speaker 1: what about this food?
Speaker 5: Like are we going to make this food on the
Speaker 5: internet anymore?
Speaker 1: Like, because I had considered what could I develop for
Speaker 1: this magazine that I wouldn't develop for myself, And I
Speaker 1: told my friend, I was like, well, I would never
Speaker 1: put this on my own really because it's too ugly.
Speaker 1: But also I understand that part of encouraging someone to
Speaker 1: eat something is it has to look good and it
Speaker 1: also has to sound good. So the writing has to
Speaker 1: be there and the photo has to be there, and
Speaker 1: everything works in conjunction.
Speaker 5: But it was just an interesting exercise.
Speaker 1: And I think that I said something to the effect of, like,
Speaker 1: we're not developing recipes, we're designing them. And I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of people lead with aesthetics and what
Speaker 1: they think will quote perform well, versus thinking about is
Speaker 1: something like a soulful, authentically created recipe.
Speaker 5: Can we just.
Speaker 2: Return a little bit to the tomato sauce?
Speaker 3: But I'm curious.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: One another reason we like to talk about this topic
Speaker 2: is because you get a snapshot into the consumer and
Speaker 2: pricing and all the et cetera. When did you conceive
Speaker 2: of this like when when did this idea that you're
Speaker 2: going to launch a tomato.
Speaker 5: In two thoy twenty three?
Speaker 2: So like, okay, so two and a half or three
Speaker 2: years later when you look at costs of jars, the
Speaker 2: glass jars, when you look at ingredients or rent, like,
Speaker 2: how is the math working out relative to what it
Speaker 2: looked like in twenty twenty three and how volatile is
Speaker 2: it still in terms of being able to you know,
Speaker 2: get a good price on the raw ingredient, So the
Speaker 2: good price on jars, a good price on shipping and
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that hasn't fluctuated too much. Again, that's really a
Speaker 1: scale question. So the reason why D two C doesn't
Speaker 1: quite work for a business model in this way with
Speaker 1: something like tomato sauce is because jars are heavy jars
Speaker 1: of sauce or even heavier, so you're shipping will always
Speaker 1: be the thing that gets you. And so there are
Speaker 1: you know, we looked into you know, we had a
Speaker 1: copacker or a three pl in California and we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: so we're going to ship the sauce from Brooklyn to
Speaker 1: LA and then it's going to go out to the
Speaker 1: rest of the cut. We're like, no, that's going to
Speaker 1: add a dollar fifty per jar or whatever. So you
Speaker 1: look at every consideration. Okay, this might be slightly more
Speaker 1: expensive here, but we're saving here, so that's actually the
Speaker 1: better choice. But again, it's scale, so we could be
Speaker 1: jars could fluctuate within a few cents. The packing materials
Speaker 1: was something that we really considered because jars cannot explode
Speaker 1: on their way to you. The better that the packaging,
Speaker 1: the more expensive the packaging. And so we someone told
Speaker 1: me it was like, they're like, it feels like an
Speaker 1: old school election box, where like, how am I going
Speaker 1: to break into this box? She's like, but all the
Speaker 1: jars arrived intact, and that was really important to us,
Speaker 1: So we spent a little bit more money on the packaging.
Speaker 4: Wait, how do you actually evaluate the jars? Are you
Speaker 4: like tossing them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you send it to your parents, you send it
Speaker 1: to yourself.
Speaker 4: Here's a bunch of empty jars, enjoy.
Speaker 5: Now you put the saucege off. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like a few trial and error situations,
Speaker 1: and some of them were asthetic choices of like oh
Speaker 1: I don't like the way this is or how does
Speaker 1: it feel to open it?
Speaker 5: Is it complicated, is annoying? Is there too much material?
Speaker 5: Does it feel wasteful?
Speaker 1: All of those things were deeply, deeply considered, and then
Speaker 1: to say nothing of like do you put a card
Speaker 1: in there?
Speaker 5: Do you put a note?
Speaker 1: Does it come with a ribbit like the asthetic choices
Speaker 1: which also add cost? And so you know, of course,
Speaker 1: that's why the obvious choice is to be sold in
Speaker 1: the store, because you're not dealing with any of that.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of to me respectable D
Speaker 1: two C brands evolve into retail only, but at first
Speaker 1: doing the D two C model to like get people
Speaker 1: into it, to get people hooked, to get people like
Speaker 1: excited about a product sort of, then you can show
Speaker 1: those bigger retailers like, look at all the people who
Speaker 1: already love this product who are going to buy it
Speaker 1: in your store.
Speaker 2: So are you like maxed out capacity wise right now?
Speaker 2: Are you like busting at the seams in terms of
Speaker 2: how much you can move in a given week or month.
Speaker 5: With Tomato sauce?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's great.
Speaker 1: Very much so, and it's good and I think that
Speaker 1: to me, the biggest drawback there is that we launched
Speaker 1: in September and also the reason it took so long
Speaker 1: is because I had a baby. I was like about
Speaker 1: to we were going to launch it and push it,
Speaker 1: and then I became too close to the do date,
Speaker 1: which is good because I went into labor a month early,
Speaker 1: but I can't imagine having done that at the same time,
Speaker 1: so thank god I put a pause on it. I
Speaker 1: was like, we also redesigned the labels, like it was
Speaker 1: a good reset. It was almost like a false start.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we launched in September and I had these
Speaker 1: beautiful photos taken and like, I had all these ideas
Speaker 1: for campaign and marketing, and we sold out immediately and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, well.
Speaker 5: Maybe I'll do it the next week once we're back
Speaker 5: in stock.
Speaker 1: We kept selling out at such a clip that I
Speaker 1: couldn't really ever talk about it. So I feel like,
Speaker 1: in a way, we haven't like fully even launched with
Speaker 1: its pull potent. Right.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic, Allison Roman, can you come back into six
Speaker 2: months or a year and like, any after you've had
Speaker 2: all of these conversations that we could do a part
Speaker 2: two on what you've learned when you're when you.
Speaker 4: Get the whole Foods contract. I'd be super interested what
Speaker 4: those discussions are.
Speaker 5: Actually, yeah, we want.
Speaker 2: To hear about what the other half of the mountain looks.
Speaker 1: This is a perfect diary entry of following a small business.
Speaker 1: I really am and we very very start and I
Speaker 1: think it would be really fun to come back if
Speaker 1: and when things change.
Speaker 5: And this has been great. I love talking about this stuff.
Speaker 5: What a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 3: That was great.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Uh, Tracy, that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you've probably noticed this too. We've probably
Speaker 2: talked about it. You know, if you look at the
Speaker 2: business section of the Apple Podcasts, like that top podcast list,
Speaker 2: it's like dominated by like starting a business podcast like
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs And maybe we should pivot into I love these conversations.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should pivot into you know, diary of an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur type episodes. They're really fun.
Speaker 3: You learn a lot, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I want to do. Yeah, the All Thoughts
Speaker 4: cooking show. We should we do a cooking video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 4: We'll get a recipe from Alison and we'll cook it live.
Speaker 2: And bart from Butter Buttersworths and all the and the
Speaker 2: Zeno's Pizza guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we could get all of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is actually our book idea, because we never
Speaker 2: settled on a book that you and I want to
Speaker 2: write together. But we could just do a food one.
Speaker 2: We're in each recipe someone learns something about the supply
Speaker 2: chain for that business.
Speaker 4: That's a great idea.
Speaker 2: If you're listening, if.
Speaker 3: You're out there in public and you hear this, hit this.
Speaker 4: Up, that's right. No, that was a fascinating conversation. One
Speaker 4: thing I hadn't really considered that much is the difficulty
Speaker 4: of deciding when to scale before you have that big
Speaker 4: distribution contract, because, as Alison said, like it does feel
Speaker 4: like a chicken and egg problem because you have to
Speaker 4: pitch to the grocery store or whatever that you can
Speaker 4: actually produce this stuff at scale, and then you have
Speaker 4: to decide whether you want to invest at scale in
Speaker 4: order to be able to make the pitch.
Speaker 2: No, scale seems just sort of brutal in every respect. Right,
Speaker 2: If you raise VC money, then you have a lot
Speaker 2: of money to pay back before you ever see a
Speaker 2: dime of profit yourself. Same obviously for lending, and that's
Speaker 2: probably particularly hard for this.
Speaker 3: And then just you know, you.
Speaker 2: Have to get into a new facility that chicken and
Speaker 2: egg prompt. I'll say it definitely clearly doesn't hurt to
Speaker 2: have to be a celebrity. I know she's sort of
Speaker 2: hesitant about the word, but obviously a food celebrity. And
Speaker 2: the other thing it didn't come up in the conversation,
Speaker 2: but something that I thought about right after it's come
Speaker 2: up a little bit on our show is she doesn't
Speaker 2: have to pay the Facebook tax. Right, most companies that
Speaker 2: are in CpG, a big chunk of their money immediately
Speaker 2: goes to Instagram, ads mark, whatever. And when you own
Speaker 2: a distribution list, do you have a popular newsletter, et
Speaker 2: cetera that you could sell out a run without having
Speaker 2: to spend like create that's a.
Speaker 4: Huge well, as she said, like she hasn't even really
Speaker 4: been advertising it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that's sizing. That's a huge lesson and
Speaker 3: she sold out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy. All right, shall we leave it there.
Speaker 5: Let's leave it there.
Speaker 4: This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 4: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our guest Allison Roman on Instagram at Alison E. Roman,
Speaker 2: follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman armand dash Ol
Speaker 2: Bennett a Dashbot and Kele Brooks at Kelbrooks. And for
Speaker 2: more odd Laws content go to Bloomberg dot com slash
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