Just A Taste

Dianna Lovett, Founder of Cocomama, discusses her lifelong love affair of chocolate and her big hearted wish for a world in which delicious treats could be enjoyed with peace of mind. Lovett wanted to create a company that would utilize only ethically responsible cocoa while supporting small-scale farmers. She traveled the world from West Africa to Central America to find the perfect beans and discovered FUNDOPO, an Organic, Fair Trade cooperative in the Dominican Republic.

Mark Tilsen President and Co-Founder of Native American Natural Foods, the innovator of the first national meat snack bar, Tanka Bar, joins our podcast. Tilsen explains how the Tanka Bar is helping break the social, economic, and political isolation of the Indian reservation where it is produced and how buffalo meat is healthier and more environmentally sustainable than beef. 

ESPN Writer Baxter Holmes joins the “Just a Taste” podcast to discuss his James Beard Award winning article titled “The NBA’s Secret Addiction”. This article explores how PB&J sandwiches became a favorite snack for players and teams across the league. It also dives into the level of devotion they had to this childhood favorite, from grilling the sandwiches to having full on buffets with multiple jams and condiments.

Washington Post Reporter, Maura Judkis, joins us to open eyes on the problem of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry and also discuss lighthearted topics like the dining habits of millennials.Judkis explains how and why sexual harassment became so prevalent in restaurants and what is being done, or unfortunately not being done, now that it has been exposed. On a very different note, she reveals how millennial dining habits are shaping the food industry. 

Celebrity chef, yoga fanatic, mom, wife and word traveler, Melissa Mayo, shares her unique experiences and beliefs on this week’s episode of Just a Taste.Mayo discusses a wide range of topics that include her journey from accountant to celebrity chef, how thoughts can sculpt your health and the excitement of opening her dream cooking school in Tuscany.

Mike Cockrell, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of Sanderson Farms – the 3rd largest poultry producer in the United States – explains how honest business practices and honest relationships has led to their success.Cockrell speaks with expertise and insight since he has experienced it all at Sanderson farms. From their humble beginnings as a small chicken hatchery in rural Mississippi to their perch atop the poultry world producing 4.5 billion pounds of chicken each year, gain valuable insight into Sanderson Farms and the poultry industry in this episode of Just a Taste.

In a world where lean, successful companies are often bought out by massive conglomerates, Beaverton Foods, a condiments business founded in 1929, has remained true to its roots of being a family-owned business with a focus on producing quality products and taking good care of its associates.The CEO of Beaverton Foods, Domonic Biggi, speaks with ChefsBest on this episode of Just a Taste about the company’s humble beginnings during the Great Depression as well as what business is like today. He also shares insights on working with family, appreciating the hard work and sacrifice of older generations, and not being afraid to fail when releasing new products. 

Stefan Gates is an author, TV presenter, and self-proclaimed “gastronaut” who is obsessed with the strange and adventurous stories behind food and digestion. His interest in food began while he was attending Oxford University. As a poor college student, he couldn’t exactly afford to take a date out to a nice place, so naturally he learned to cook. Later, he got fed up with wimpy food writing and decided to try this sort of writing out for himself, and voila! He found his passion experimenting with recipes and blowing up food for fun.From the most excited descriptions of food you may ever hear to the different ways people taste to the moral importance of playing with what’s on your plate, Gates ushers us through a fascinating and creative exploration of food in this episode of Just a Taste.

With hundreds of billions of dollars lost each year to food waste, the food system has a serious oversupply issue. Food waste continues to be a massive problem while 68% of farmers are on the verge of bankruptcy and 42 million Americans are food insecure. Notice the discrepancy here? So does FoodMaven.Lots of people have tried to solve the food waste problem, but FoodMaven’s model, which is currently running out of and will be expanding from Colorado, is different. After all, the startup was able to secure investor funding and board representation from big-names like Walter Robb, who is the former co-CEO of Whole Foods, and the Walton family. Patrick Bultema is chairman, CEO, and co-founder of FoodMaven. This startup ain’t his first rodeo though; FoodMaven is “CEO Gig #7” for him. In this episode of Just a Taste, Patrick tells us all about the causes and effects of food waste as well as FoodMaven’s innovative solutions to this pressing issue. 

Phil Lempert, cleverly known as the Supermarket Guru®, has been identifying impending trends in the food and beverage industry for over 25 years. In this episode of Just a Taste, we learn what started Phil down his path, trends such as intelligent search engines that are re-shaping the industry, and what consumers these days are really after when grocery shopping. We also discourse on the importance of taste to the consumer, how we really ought to listen to millennials instead of bashing their ideas, and even which app can help you pick out the best seafood.

Think about your oven and your refrigerator for a second. What do these items have in common? For one, they’re kitchen appliances. Less obviously, though, they often lack the ability to connect to the Internet of Things and your phone, in particular.Innit is seeking to change this reality. Speaking with Josh Sigel, Chief Operating Officer at the newly launched startup, we learn about the need for bringing digital conveniences into the kitchen through a common platform. Through the Innit app, users can receive personalized meal recommendations, grocery shopping lists, and video preparation instructions. Innit is also partnering with major manufacturers like LG and Bosch to connect its app with appliances in order to optimize the cooking process through, for instance, cutting out the need to manually preheat your oven.As the world’s first app offering a hands-free navigation experience with Google Home, Innit also allows users to place their phone on the counter and navigate through the app using Google Home wi

41 million Americans are food insecure, meaning they don’t know for sure if they’ll have their next meal. Despite its high prevalence domestically, hunger is often stigmatized and, thus, not talked about. With so many people lacking awareness of food insecurity, Cathy Davis joined Feeding America as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer to help shed light on the issue. She explains how, as the third largest nonprofit in the nation, Feeding America is a powerful and efficient food-alleviating machine. It has 60,000 food pantries and soup kitchens and boasts that about a third of the food it provides is produce. Moreover, the organization partners with companies across the food supply chain to create highly efficient distribution networks. Learn more about the issue of hunger in America and how you can help alleviate it in this podcast.

When you think of really fun store brand packaging, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? It would be no surprise if “Trader Joe’s” was your answer as the mostly private label grocer has long been a leader in creating interesting, clever designs out of packaging that could easily be very basic.In this episode, we speak with David Ziegler-Voll, who was formerly Trader Joe’s Senior Package Designer for ten years and is now Creative Director at Marketing by Design. Having designed about 150 Trader Joe’s SKUs a year, Ziegler-Voll highlights important packaging design tips from his extensive first-hand experience. Ziegler-Voll, for instance, suggests designers remember that the "brand book" (i.e., the stuff about a brand's font type, color, etc.) only tells so much about a brand, and it certainly does not convey authenticity, cleverness, or specialness to consumers. You might need a little out-of-the box thinking for that.As fresh design efforts are poured into the growing private label segment

As someone who keeps close tabs on the restaurant industry, Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor for Nation’s Restaurant News, has tried fares ranging from fermented Icelandic shark to Japanese shrimp ganglia. In this podcast, he shares his knowledge on foodservice operations and trends. We learn that being a chef is now “sexy,” that restaurants are increasingly sourcing locally, and where to find the best affordable foods when eating out.

Don Larson was once a highly successful executive at Hershey with a Porsche and a hot air balloon. But disillusioned with corporate life, he sold all his toys and, together with his wife and youngest child, moved to Mozambique to offer hope to one of the world’s poorest countries. Sunshine Nut Co was born out of a vision to help orphans, widows, and everyday people struggling in poverty through offering them the opportunity to work their way out of poverty, giving them a hand up – not a handout. Now distributed in major retailers like Whole Foods and Wegmans, Sunshine Nut Co creates dignified jobs in cashew farming and processing for Mozambican people. By the way, 90% of the company’s profits go straight back to the impoverished communities wherein it sources its premium cashews. You now have a new nut brand.

Mark Mallardi is Executive Director of Strategic Development for the NEXT Data & Insights division of New Hope Network, which combines proprietary knowledge and deep industry expertise to help brands understand and identify opportunities within the natural food and beverage landscape. In this podcast, we get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the company’s operations, as Mark describes the steps it took when creating a comprehensive blueprint for bringing one South American super fruit to the U.S. market. We also learn how the tide is turning at major CPG companies, as they acquire natural foods startups and have outposts in Silicon Valley to keep tabs on innovation in the natural space. Finally, we are reminded that, in order to be successful in the hyper-competitive space of natural products, brands need to have a strong identity and purpose that resonates with their consumers.

From meeting consumer demand to stretch dollars during the Great Recession to now helping retailers differentiate themselves, store-owned brands have seen notable growth in recent years. In this episode, Christopher Durham, private brands expert and president of My Private Brand, walks us through the evolution, current state, and possible future of private brands. We also explore such topics as how millennials affect the store brand trend and which marketing strategies work for store brands.

How do two previously competing brands come together to build off one another’s strengths? In this podcast, Adam Beane, senior brand manager of Conagra’s protein snacking group, and Erik Havlick, co-founder and VP of sales for Thanasi Foods, provide firsthand insight into this question as their category-sharing brands – Slim Jim, Duke’s Smoked Meats, DAVID Seeds, and BIGS Seeds – now fall under the same umbrella following Conagra’s acquisition of Thanasi Foods. Our guests also dive into the growth of snacking, nuances behind the category, consumer market segmentation, creating a continuum of options for consumers as they mature, and the importance of brands’ identifying and sticking to their brand story. 

Dan Klein, CEO and co-founder of Tiesta Tea, tells the story of how he and his childhood friend took a trip to Prague, discovered loose leaf tea, and decided to found Tiesta Tea. As #759 on the Inc. 5000, Tiesta is not only growing at a rapid pace; it is also giving back to the community in unique and inspiring ways.

Having come from a Korean background and held positions at Le Cordon Bleu, Chef Wook Kang shares insights into hallmarks of Korean food as well as the importance of honoring culinary traditions more broadly. The life of a chef instructor, surprising skills required of culinary students, and the persevering trend of fusion cuisines constitute just a few of the diverse topics Kang walks us through in this latest episode of Just a Taste.