May 8, 2020 • 39 mins
In this episode co-founder and CEO Mike Winik of OurHarvest an online farmers market joins host Marc Murphy. Hear how Mike quit his job in finance and followed his passion for cooking to turn it into something good for the world. Ever wonder how your food reaches the grocery store from a farm? And how long its journey actually is? Listen as they discuss how his business really helps farmers as well as the food system and translates unto the customer. Learn about how it has grown during Covid-19 and how grocery shopping could look like in the future. Last but not least get the inside scoop on the popularity of a very particular strawberry that is all the rage!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Food three sixty, the podcast that serves up
some serious food for thought. I'm your host, Mark Murphy.
In this episode, I'm excited to welcome Mike Winnick, co
founder and CEO of Our Harvest and Online Farmers Market.
Thanks for joining me, Mike, Well, I'm glad to be here.
Thanks so much for having me. Well, I gotta say
right now, there are so many things going on obviously
(00:24):
in the world, and uh, first, I guess i'd want
you to explain to my people that are listening, what
is our harvest and why am I so excited so
so Our mission is at our Harvest is actually build
a better, more sustainable food system. And that sounds like
very lofty, especially if you're you're a customer kind of
just trying to get your groceries right now. But the
(00:44):
easiest way to think about what we do is that
we have gone directly to a group of the very
best farmers in the world, farmers that were supplying some
of the very best restaurants in the world back a
couple of weeks ago, in addition to some of the
best beakers and food artisans that are out there, and
we go directly to the as farms and producers and
bring that food directly to our customers. So you at
home would be able to shop on our website and
(01:05):
we deliver directly to your door. Um. So the whole
idea is to bring farm to table truly into your
own your own table. And can I ask you what
you used to do something completely different before this? Why
did you all of a sudden jump into this world
of food. Yeah, so I was on the dark side before.
I was actually an investment banker for eight and a
half years and I actually really liked what I did
(01:27):
and was sitting in my actual my review and the
my bosses were like, hey, you're on the partner track.
You're gonna everything's going really well. And I'm like, actually,
I'm not going to be on the partner track. And
they're like, why why would you ever leave this? And
I was like, Well, they woke up every single day
and they thought about the next deal they were going
to do, the next project that they were going to
(01:47):
be working on. And I woke up every day and
thought about what I was going to be eating and
what I would be cooking that night. And so for
me personally, the whole idea was to be able to
start something, to be part of something that I woke
up every day excited to be part of. So that
was kind of what shifted me from being you know,
back in the sort of the dark days of investment
banking to entering the food spaces. It's what I always
(02:08):
seemed of doing. And you you started this in two
thousand fourteen, is that correct? Yeah? So I I quit
my job in the summer that was like July, and
we launched the company our first delivery with July on Wow. Okay,
I mean, And it's so funny because I can I
can still remember. You had somebody working for you who
(02:29):
was also doing a podcast that I used to listen to.
I still listen to a lot um and she was
your marketing person and I heard about you through this.
I ended up contacting her on Instagram and saying, Hey,
I want to talk to you. I want to have lunch,
and I still remember she didn't answer me for like
three weeks, She's like, who is this creep? Probably like
trying to get in touch with me, d m ng
(02:50):
me on Instagram, and then finally ended up having lunch
with her and then ended up finally getting to meet you.
And I was just I was so excited what you're doing,
because I mean, to me, you're not only I mean
for me, I'm being very selfish. You're giving me really
you're getting me really really good food. But you're also
trying to put more money in the pockets of these
farmers who there. You're sort of cutting out the middleman
in a certain sense, which is what I love about it. Yeah,
(03:11):
and I think that's the whole thing that a lot
of people don't really understand about our business and sort
of when I say fixing the food system, typically when
a farmer is selling to whole foods or a grocery store,
there could be five to ten people that actually lay
their hands on a product between the farm and you,
and so each of those people is taking margin, they're
marking the product up, and so a farmer might only
(03:32):
get ten cents on the dollar of what sells it
what sells a typical grocery store with us the farmers
getting between you know, fifty and six pc typically sometimes
more of the retail price. And so by a farmer
being able to actually make more money, it creates a
win win situation. Because most farmers could barely feed their
own families. It's kind of one of those those weird
(03:52):
situations where the people feeding us could barely feed themselves.
It's so funny to talk about the the sort of
progression of food and what happens and where it goes,
and and you're cutting out the middleman, where I'm still
now looking at it from a very selfish angle. I
can still remember the first time I ordered kale from you.
And I mean, I work in restaurants in my whole life,
so I know what things ms to be happening. But
when I go to a grocery store in New York
(04:14):
City and I buy kale and I put it in
the fridge, it's got like a two or three or
maybe four days shelf life. But when you're buying it
from our harvest, it's literally like a week and a
half later, it's two weeks later. It's still good. You
can still cook it because it's still and it's because
it hasn't sat in a grocery store for the week
before it came to my house. This is gonna sound
like a whole like our Harvest commercial, this whole thing,
(04:35):
but it's truly I love what you're doing for the
planet that I know what you're doing for the planet
and for my belly right now. And that's that's the
thing also that people don't realize. We get a lot
of questions about this from customers, like you know your
shelf life on your chicken or your meat or whatever.
Like when you get something at a grocery store, it's
already a week or more old. But there's apples that
you're getting that could be six months old that have
been stored. It's part of the reason I selled on
(04:57):
this idea was I've been in to an apple at
Whole Foods and the apple had no taste. And the
week before I was sitting at a farm on the
east end of Long Island eating apples and talking to
the farmer, and I was like, this is the most
delicious apple for a dollar ninety nine I've ever had.
And literally the next week for three nine for an
organic apple that had a sticker from New Zealand's what
I was getting. And I was like, there's no way
this farmer on the north Fork of Long Island is
(05:19):
not you know, is selling all of his apples and
he always sells through his farm stand, and so it
kind of set off like a whole year of like
exploring understanding how food gets from the farm to the
end customer. But because we're getting it literally the day
it's harvested or the day before, you're getting food that
has in some cases much longer shelf lipe than you'd
ever expected, Like our chicken could be good for a
week in your fridge. It's crazy people like expect to
(05:42):
go bad the next day. What what? What? What did
farmers say when you showed up? You know this this
guy who used to be in on the dark side,
as you explained it, and all of a sudden wanting
to buy their chickens and buy their kale and buy
their vegetables. And you're proposing all this. What do they
look at you and go, wait, do you what? Do
you not smart? What are you now? You're coming into this? Yeah,
so I think the very quick answer as hell knows
what they said to me um pretty much consistently, which
(06:05):
was you know, you call farm They're like farmers understandably
have been screwed so often, especially by banks. They know
someone who's farm, they lost their farm, they have you know,
just everyone always tells them a great story and then
doesn't deliver and so I spoke to hundreds of farmers,
and when I launched, we only have five farms and
twenty products. That was it. That was all I can
(06:26):
get to sign up. And then and then literally within
two or three weeks, I guess, our check started clearing
and they started seeing, you know, how they had the
business really really worked, and how we operated and the
respect that we built our business to help those farmers, right,
So the respect that we showed showed them and what
they were doing in our excitement about it. And within
a couple of weeks we started having all their neighbors
(06:47):
call us, and so very quickly we're able to ramp
up our farmers and now it's like absolutely out of control.
I think we have three fifty different farmers and producers
on our site and we can't we you know, we
have so many people reaching out to us, especially now
that it's hard to just keep up with everybody want
to add everyone we possibly can, um but you know,
one of the things that's important is curating the right
the right farms. But yeah, nobody trusts an ex investment
(07:08):
banker who comes to them. It's like I'm going to
save your business. I'm gonna make you, you you know, so
much money, but it ended up working really well for
them in the end. So I remember you telling me
a story and I can't remember what a product it was.
But you have very strict guidelines to be able to
sell their food, right, I mean you're like, no preservatives.
This thing's got to be true. It's got to be honest,
really really good food. And I think that that's something
(07:29):
that's incredibly commendable. Obviously, you're you're going for really healthy
not just from the farms, but you also sell products
like jams and pickles and things like that. There are
obviously you know, you have to do something to them, right,
They're not just brout of that out of the dirt.
So what what are your parameters when you work with
these farmers and these I guess food producers as well.
Very simply, it has to be something that I would
feed my four year old. That's that's literally the like
(07:52):
the ultimate thing. So really what we look for is
the label that we can understand. Um that there isn't
anything that's got seven seven letters in it and you know,
causes cancer, you know, mactaking, it's like the extreme, but
it's got to be something that's like five seven ingredients
something that we really understand. Um. And by the way,
it has to be delicious too. It can't just be
clean and healthy. It has to have flavor profile that
(08:12):
that fits. But you know, there's no chemicals, preservatives, and
we talked about we talked about like this, like are
if we're carrying a product that's like a dip that
uses a cream cheese, it can't be like Philadelphia cream
cheese because that has a chemical in it that we
wouldn't sell. So we literally get down to the ingredient
level and understand what they're using in their product to
make sure that it fits with our whole ecosystem, like
no hormones, no antibox, all that stuff obviously, but again
(08:34):
it's it's even more than that. And are you finding
people are now trying to produce things and giving them
to you and be like, please carry this. I am
making this really really healthy and and you know, are
you are you getting people now coming to you? And
you know, are you people you were? You were seeking
out these people before? Are they seeking you out now?
I guess yeah? So you know, for the for for
quite a while, people started seeking us out and actually
(08:55):
we're really we're really easy to work with UM in
that we can help brands that have never sold anywhere
before get their start UM. So from that perspective, we
try to be like on the discovery side because it's
what I love most, is like discovering new delicious just
like you do, like new delicious, amazing foods. And so
we get pitched a lot of new products, especially now
with people that kind of lost their core wholesale business
(09:16):
and they're coming to us now UM and pitching us,
uh you know, all all day, all night. Uh you know,
carry my product, Cary Eye product. And and the thing
that I always advise people that come to us is
everyone has like they're they're kind of like their can pitch,
which is like we're plant based, we're vegan, where gluten
free or where you know, we're not any of those things,
like we're sustainable. But like, ultimately the product has to
(09:38):
be delicious, like we're not if if like we taste it,
it's not gonna make a smile and not make our
customers smile and want to reorder it, it's not gonna
be a product that we carry. They have to fit
all the ingredients and all that side of it too.
But it's that I think that a lot of times
people with products come and they're like, our product like
solves this, and it's like, what does it taste good?
Ultimately like what it comes down to too, So it's
(09:58):
both those things. I've had those products where somebody brings
you something like this is the best thing for you.
I'm like, but I can't follow it. It's so gross.
It's like, yeah, it's all natural, it says it, but
it tastes like chalk. So that's the problem, right that
that's that's exactly good for you stuff, which is I'm
very very happy to hear about that. Yeah, we we
curate everything like there's it's not like you're gonna come
(10:20):
on our site and see seventy five different varieties of yogurt.
We're gonna pick the three best varieties that one Greek,
one regular style, whatever, and that's what we're going to carry,
so a customer isn't going to be confused. Like the
other thing that we do with our farmers is if
someone grows the very best tomatoes, that's the farm whose
tomatoes we're gonna carry. We're not going to carry six
other farms tomatoes The whole idea is that when a
customers shopping on our site, they're gonna get the best
(10:42):
and breed across every farm, every product. So it's an
easier experience from a customer. That's amazing. And I gotta
tell I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a testimonial because I I
tell everybody about this. But I gotta tell you, the
food that you you bring me is fantastic, and I
love that. Are you still doing the two you if
it's over a certain amount, you can bring into their home,
or you can you park a truck somewhere and you
(11:03):
set it up like a farm stand and people come
and pick up their orders. Are you still doing both
of those right now? In the in the COVID world,
we stopped our pickup sites just to protect our employees.
But we were doing that up until a couple of
weeks ago. And and and how I mean, I I
can't even imagine. I mean, every every day we were
everybody was hit by this, uh and that the book's
(11:23):
going on right now with obviously the COVID nineteen and
but your business you were like, wait a minute, I
am built for this. So I'm built for this speed
and did you did your business skyrocket? Did you where
you had, did you have enough employees? What was the experience,
what was it like? And and for a businessman to
all of a sudden find your business in this situation, yea.
So for us, you know, we've we've always believed in
(11:44):
our mission and our business and what we were doing,
and we've grown very steadily since we launched, you know,
years ago, and it's been really exciting, exciting kind of ride.
And then we kind of started seeing in early March
this like uh what I call like a little bit
of panic buying, which was like very early March. You
saw customers like very you know, we see where customers
(12:05):
are buying very weird shopping behavior where someone bought like
twelve pennies right, and eighteen tomato sauces, and all of
our beans, which turned at a normal clip, disappeared, and
you're like, Okay, something weird is happening. So we started
we started prepping a little bit more for for things
like the weird purchasing. And then the day the shelter
in place happened, we had fifty times normal order volume
(12:28):
we've been running it, you know, five to ten times
normal volume. We have a wait list now about fifteen
thousand people who are like wanting to shop with us
that every week we're turning away, and we're turning away
few or fewer every week because you know, we were
doing everything we can to increase capacity. So you have
this like this like moment of oh my god, people
want like everyone wants this now, and we're in the
(12:49):
right place. We're doing the right thing. We don't have
supply issues because we know our farmers and our butchers
and all of that, like there's no shortages, like we
we don't have those problems. Um, and you're like so excited,
and then like the next morning you wake up and
you're like, okay, there's two things we got to solve.
One is our farmers actually just lost percent of their
(13:09):
business because they were selling to restaurants to other people.
And so for us, we're sitting here, were like, oh
my god, we need to save our farms. That was
the first reaction, was like excitement, and then like this
feeling of dread where it's like, oh my god, what
happens to my farmers go out of business? So we
spent the first two weeks of this just doing everything
we can to keep our farms alive, and amazingly, maybe
(13:33):
it's not too amazing you kind of your initial instinct
be like, it's kind of like every man for themselves.
And one thing that was really special that started happening
is a lot of our farmers started recommending their neighbors
who grew something special. They're like, look, don't buy my
carrots by this guy's carrots because his character the absolute best.
And if he doesn't have these carrots purchase, he's done.
And so very quickly we added, you know, five to
ten farms that neighbored our existing farmers and we're able
(13:56):
to add add some new vendors and help them out
and you know, make sure we paid our farmers in
a way that got them the cash they needed to
not go out of business. So we work with our
farmers very close to those first couple of weeks, there
was a day where the green market was closed and
so we sent our farms. We sent our truck to
every our truck one to all the farms that needed
it and so and help them get through the day.
And so for us, that was kind of like the
first the first like oh crap moments to keep the
(14:18):
farms alive. And then the second was, Okay, now that
you're at ten times order volume, go hire, go hire
a bunch of employees in an environment where you know,
people aren't aren't really looking to work right now because
it's kind of scary up there. So that was like
the double dynamic of like actually the trying to fulfill
the orders properly. And you know, we, as you probably experienced,
(14:39):
we had a couple of days delivery. I think we're
over like the worst of it. Now we've built a
really amazing strong team. The team really is stepped up
very it's it's it's been overwhelmingly the response from our team,
knowing that we're an essential service that we're serving people
were bringing food to people who can otherwise go out.
People really rallied around that, and it's been very exciting
to see. It's it's, it's it's amazing. I mean, I
(15:00):
think that you know, all of a sudden, I guess no, uh,
as as as as I was talking to somebody else,
or there's no business school that I have taught you
that your business is going to go from X to
like ten times or fifty times X overnight and be like, Okay,
we got to hang on and we need this business
and we want to do this, we want to grow,
and we're gonna make this happen, of course, and you plan,
you like we plan for like an event, Like it's
(15:21):
not not like this. This is a whole different world.
But like you have like your kind of your backup
plan of like, okay, what happens tomorrow if like we're
you know, on some Food Network show and a hundred
you know, hundred people want to show hundred hundred times
where people in a shop with us, and if you
have your plan, but my plan like involved people that
you know would be able to come help out in
the warehouse and and showing up. And you know, when
(15:43):
your whole family and your aunts and uncles and cousins
who are all very strong can't show up to work
because they're sheltering in place, it changes the dynamic of like,
you know, that support system that you built, that those
kind of backups to come help out when you're an entrepreneur,
like that that didn't exist, And so that was a
whole different level of just like crazy. So besides what
(16:16):
you've you know, experienced, all the things you've learned about
getting the business up and running more, what's been the
most surprising thing that somebody would want to hear about
what you've learned over the past couple of weeks. But
since all this has been going on, you know, I
the thing is, maybe this isn't surprising. I don't know.
I think everyone in their own quarantine shelter in place
has this like emotional uh and mental like volatility. Like
(16:40):
the ups and downs are just like you're so excited
your home and then you're like really stressed, you're worried
about getting sick, and then you it's just like this
like emotional like roller coaster that everyone's on. And I
think that for us that that feeling has been just
like like intensely intensely amplified, Like we haven't slept in
like six weeks, Like I don't see my family, and
you know, right now it's like one of those things
(17:01):
that we know what we're trying to do and what
we're trying to accomplish, but you have this moment of
oh my god, we sold out of delivery slots in
forty five minutes, and you're like, this is the greatest
thing ever. And then the next day, you know, three
people call in, call in, they don't have coverage for
their their kids who are supposed to be in school,
and so you're like, oh wait, how am I can
get now all this record number of orders out with
three less people in the warehouse because understandably they're dealing
(17:22):
with all sorts of stressors and having that that emotional
volatili at home. And so I think that there's like
these like very very intense intra day ups and downs
that you know when you see like a business and
like for us, we're blessed and lucky that we're at
ten times when we know so many of our friends
are struggling, Like we know we had that, but we
still have these just very intense like ups and downs
(17:43):
even within the same within the same hour, you're like,
oh my god, we did it. And then like then
the next second you're like, oh man, we got to
solve this problem. So it's been a very emotional and
weird time. But it also shows human resilience, I think,
and what everybody's going through and people are still able
to you know, footing for one of the other and
get get it going and helping you. People helping you
get get they gonna get the food to people that
(18:04):
really needed. I think it's really I think it's very
commendable in that sense, and ultimately it's left that left me,
you know, very optimistic about about a lot of things.
That people can come together and support our farms, that
we can come together and support a better food system,
that our employees are rallying around the mission and the
goal and the cause that you know, and that that
(18:25):
I think that that people when they try to do
right by each other, like you know, in and this
is like kind of like cheesy, but like when they
tried to do right by each other, we actually all
can like succeed and get through this as opposed to
like an environment we're all just like fighting, you know,
fighting and trying to like survive. It's like it's it's
been different. It's been a very different sense here. So
what's the weirdest thing? You think people have been hoarding
or buying a lot of? Um? We sold the bizarre
(18:49):
amount of like like like squid and oil, like canned
like canned like like shellfish that we had. It was
like it was like an like it's like there's like
a lot of products like that. We're like there're the
like super niche super niche products where it's like we
sell them because they're delicious and they're sustainable, they do
good things for like our farmers whatever, and you're like,
(19:11):
you know, we sell the shelf. Life is like infinics,
like canned fish, and it sells like every so often.
Well all of a sudden, like boom gone like stuff
like that. Well, you know it's interesting because I I
used to before, back then, when I was back in
the you know, in the city going out and having lunch.
You know, one of my favorite places are going to
Pestis and one of my favorite dishes there are the
(19:32):
canned sardines. They literally bring the can of sardine, they
splash a little vinegar and it. They bring you a
pad of butter and some toasted bread. And by the way,
when I this last week, I had two cans of
sardines and I was like, this is great. It reminds
me of being at Pesti's. And then I realized, Wait,
I don't have any more, and that's what I'm gonna have.
Do you have any sardines? This is what I'm asking
(19:53):
we do. The answers, yes, yes we do. Actually I
think we're sold out now, but we'll get you. I'll
get you more for monday. We'll have them all right.
It's actually it's the same maker as the squid and oil,
so it shouldn't be a problem. But anything that like
is shelf stable, Like like there was like a rare
bean variety we carried that like was extremely expensive and
it was a very cool, cool story, and we sold
(20:13):
like one every month and then literally like the shelter
in place happens and like sold out like in six seconds,
and you're like, it's a different world. It's just a
different world. People different. Well, you know everywhere on Instagram
the food all the all the chefs and all these
food apps. Everybody was showing everybody had to cook beans
all of a sudden that week. And now people have
stepped off a little bit, but yeah, everybody has. I
(20:35):
think everybody in America's learned how to cook a dry bean.
And something people do said before they know now exactly
but the pressure beans you don't need to soak exactly. Well,
I was gonna ask you, you know, a long time ago,
you were looking for I think were you trying to
expand the business, looking for investors. I don't remember what
you were talking about and where you are you m
a one? Are you still trying to grow your business?
(20:57):
And and in that sense, and are you going to
take it outside of New York or the Tri state area?
Are you gonna are you thinking of trying to expand
around the country. Yes, so we're we're absolutely looking for
some some investors right now, especially because with a wait
list of fifteen thousand people, we very quickly can go
from where we are to you know, thirty or forty
(21:19):
times literally that that volume within like a month. So
there's like a near term need for just like the
capital in to be able to just tap the customers
that already want to shop with us. UM And then
you know, right now, I think our focus in terms
of like where we're looking to grow, we definitely want
to grow beyond beyond New York regionally. You know, I
think the logical way to do it is up towards Boston,
(21:40):
down towards d C. Is how we would regionally expand.
But uh, you know, from an investor of perspective, multi
billion dollar grocery business have built just in New York City. UM,
so we understand that that's a huge opportunities in the
New York area, so we understand that's a huge opportunity
as well. So for us, it's really for us, it's
it's right now immediately focusing on that really large number
of people that really IBB we want to shop with
(22:00):
us and doing everything we can to serve them all
while providing our customers the very best experience they can get.
And so we definitely need some capital in the near term.
Deal that's happened to those customers well. And I also
think that I mean this, you know this, obviously, this
is lasting a while, that it's gonna last a little longer,
hopefully not too much longer. But I think even though
I think a lot of people are talking about what
people are learning now certain like using technologies like zoom
(22:24):
or FaceTime or whatever, these meeting things, people are like, oh,
that's gonna last. Or people are gonna be like, oh,
we don't need an office, we can just work from home.
I think shopping is something that people are getting reconditioned
to doing in a different way as well, because you know, yes,
everybody loves to go to the store, and I mean
to do things and but but like all of a sudden,
now after let's say two or three or four months
(22:46):
of people shopping online and getting their groceries delivered. Somebody
who never did that before is gonna be like, wait,
why didn't I do this earlier? Like I think that
the you know, the knee jerk reaction, and even when
this is over, I think you're not going to lose
these customers. They're still gonna be there. That's that's the
that's the point that I'm making to everybody, which is,
before this happened, the estimate was like one to three
percent of people shopped online for groceries. Now it's like,
(23:10):
so even if it goes down to seventy you know,
we're seventy five times the market, seventy five times bigger
than where it was before. And so you know, we're
we're in a world where people are shopping online. And
I think, like your your story about like you're getting
the food from us, and how delicious it is. Like
people are always worried or were worried when they shopped
online for grocery. They want to see their produce, They
want to know what their steak looks like, they want
(23:30):
to see the quality of what they're getting. And for us,
when when you deliver something and it's really really delicious
and beautiful and last in your fridge for two weeks.
People are overwhelmed by that and are going to continue
to shop once they once they taste our salmon or
clams or our you know, anything that we're selling pretty
much are beautiful. Ramps right now are gretty. We've got
like all this like weird things you've never even heard of.
(23:52):
Once you try it, once it's over, well, I want
to I want to talk about one product in particular,
because you you you do try to use local farms,
understand that, and but every once in a while, you
you you will reach out and go somewhere very very
not very far away, but pretty far away. And we're
talking about right now Harry's berries because those first time
I had ever been introduced to them. There's two points
(24:14):
of the story. One, they're the best strawberry in the world,
I think right now. Uh. And last year you had
the guy from you were he was making ice cream
with this stuff. My house went crazy. I mean they
were like, you gotta buy more, fill the freezer. This
stuff is so good. So you are importing. And now
Harry's Berries has an amazing story themselves. I think from
(24:35):
I remember there. The father was Japanese and he's a
he's he was a farmer and he immigrated to America
and there in California, and they grow these berries which
are stupid. They're just they're just deliciate. My my, my kid,
who doesn't really pay much attention to certain things. He's thirteen.
He was eating them last year and he goes, these
are really good. These are really good. And all of
a sudden, we got some from somewhere else. Somebody brought
(24:55):
them from someone other place, and he's like, these things
are terrible. What the where's the whether we're the good one?
You know. I was like, well, those are special. And
last year, I remember correctly, you had a hard time
keeping up because restaurants were buying a lot of their
product because Harry's berries were in the in the chef world.
They are very chefy ingredient, and all the pastry chefs
were using them, and all the fancy restaurants A Lablada
(25:17):
and all the places. Um. But now those restaurants are closed,
So now you're gonna be the only guy selling Harry's berries.
It's gonna be great for me. It's it's awesome. It's awesome.
We have, we do have. We do get a lot
more of them when they when they come in the
and they are absolutely amazing. They're they're they're the best. Um.
I think just going back to our harvest, of what
we sell comes from within two miles of New York
(25:38):
and then the rest of it, we carry very very specialty,
amazing products that are delicious, and that's that's one of
the amazing ones. And we're going to bring back the gelato,
I promise, so your family can rest assured. I think
my mother in law is like our number one product
that she wants back. But but you know, the thing
with with the strawberries in particular is that actually the
weather they're they're so impacted by other and the weather
(26:01):
in California has been strange in that there's been a
lot more rain than usual this time of year, and
so the berries are coming in at different rate than
they normally with this time you're May is kind of
like for us the Pico when we have Harry's berries.
So we're gonna start to see a lot more of them,
but the weather has to cooperate first. It's it's a weird,
It's like one of those things when you think about food,
(26:21):
you used to go into the grocery store and eating
the commodity junk you get at a store, like those
berries that have no taste, that look beautiful, like those
berries were picked like way before they should have been picked,
because they were picked and grown to sit on a
store shelf for two weeks before they get to you.
And so for us, like you might not see those
strawberries available because it's raining or the farmer couldn't harvest
(26:42):
it that day. Because if you've been into what you'd
be disappointed like that, that like sense of disappointment is
something that we never would give our customer, Like you're
gonna bite into that berry and it's gonna be amazing.
That's the whole point. One of my other favorite ingredients
(27:11):
is that spinach that you have and that would you
call it? Is it called winter spinach? It's over. It's
an awesome it's a really awesome product. Overwintered spinach is
my favorite. Is actually my favorite product all year long.
It's wonder it's absolutely can you can you can you
give us a little? This is the other thing about
this website. I'm getting schooled on stuff because I look
things up. I'm on Wikipedia, like what is this? I'm
looking it up, But tell me all about it. I
know the two of us can geek out all day
(27:32):
long on all these crazy ingredients. So over overwintered spinach
is like my favorite thing all year long. And so
what the farmers do is they take spinach and they
plant it actually, uh like in the fall, and then
right before the first frost hits, they cover it in
like a tarp kind of thing. And the idea is
that when the spinach freezes, it actually builds really really
high sugar content and starch, and it concentrates the flavor,
(27:54):
kind of dries it out, makes it look a little ugly,
but it just concentrates this intense sweetness. And so what
happens is like when the weather starts to warm up,
the ground thaws, they pull the they pull the tarps
off and let the let the spinach starts like regenerate
and grow, and then as soon as it's ready, they
cut it and it is like the most intense sweet,
delicious speak. My son cased it and he's like, this
(28:17):
thing is like candy um. So I like by by
like the poundful and just saute it quickly like very late,
just like a little olive oil and salt, and it's
like the most delicious thing you've ever had. Well, I
have some of my fridge right now that I got
from you the other day. And I then all of
a sudden, I saw my good friend Melissa Clark over
at the New York Times sauteg spinach with bottarga or no,
no spinach, no no, she saw tee spinach with with ramps,
(28:40):
and I was like, I've got both of those in
my fridge. That's what I'm having for dinner tonight. I
was another Harbor customer, another our Harbor customer, by the way,
Absolutely I think I might have. I think I pretty
sure you were. I'm pretty sure you referred her. Pretty sure? Um.
Are there any other vegetables that they do like that
over the winter that they plant? And then what else
is like that? Eight? Yeah, the two more common ones,
(29:04):
uh you see overwinter broccoli rob And that's amazing because
it doesn't have that really intense bite that kind of
scares people away from broccli rob. But that bitterness kind
of like is tamed by sweetness. Although that just I
think that season is just winding down. Um. And then
actually there's spring Doug Doug parsnips. They overwinter parsnips and parsons.
You think is like like a fall product that you
(29:24):
know with like your Thanksgiving meal whatever, but they overwinter
it and it's just like intensely sweet parsnip flavor, which
is really good. There's a couple of juicialm artichokes, a
lot of those, like like funkier vegetables. They overwinter. But
the two biggest and that we sell are the are
the spinach and the broccoli rob And what's the number
one best selling product on your on your side before?
Now what it would be was? Has that changed over time? No,
(29:47):
it's been fairly fairly consistent. Uh. The you know, eggs
always are a big seller. We have amazing eggs from
Norwich Meadows and another amazing set of eggs from Noel
Crust farn Ms and so those always sell in quantity.
We see a lot of people by our fish. Our
fish has been an unbelievable seller because it's so so
(30:09):
damn good. Our salmon in particular, it's one of those
things that we're proud of. Um, you know that it's
not a local product, it's one of that like one
to two percent of our product, but it sells really well.
We know if someone orders our seafood, they're gonna be
re order because it's just I mean, it's so much better.
It's interesting. I was reading the other day that you know, like,
for example, um must uh know us oysters and and lobster.
(30:32):
I heard that the farmers, the fishermen that that fish
that are actually having a hard time because those are
two ingredients that when you think of lobster, it's you
go to a lot of people go to restaurants seed lobster.
A lot of people go to restaurant seed oysters because
schucking oysters is not is not that easy. And I'm
I'm you know, in another sense, you're also helping farmers
out by selling food that restaurants would buy. But now
(30:55):
people are starting to learn how to use them at
home because it's you know, even if you don't know
how to shuck an oyster, if you put them on
a grill, they'll pop open and you pour a little
hot sauce on there. A nice grilled oyster is just delicious.
And we can do like little oyster Rockefeller recipe. Mark
I I I think I'm serious good because what you
said is actually really true. That it's it's like kind
(31:15):
of like everyone's talking about chicken or like the weird
things going on in the meat markets and everything with
you know, like they're not they're being like productions down
all of that. And actually the hardest hit group, especially
in locally, Um, there are a bunch of farms that
were hard hit. But but we're we're fishermen because most
people don't it's not people cook fish at home, but
it's not like you know, they'll cook salmon, they'll cook
(31:37):
plain things, but even like a swordfish, like not a
lot of people are just buying like swordfisher sashimi grade
tuna to cook at home. And so those fishermen like
actually stopped going out to fish because it didn't make
sense for them. Um. I think they're like you know,
debating with a close certain fisheries just because there was
no market for lobster was one of them. Um. And
so it's one of those things where yeah, we're selling
a lot. We're actually selling like a lot of lobster. Um.
(32:00):
I think prices were like they came down and we
try to you know, our prices. I think a whole
pre steam lobster is like fifteen dollars, will be selling
it for right now. You're selling them steam as well, seamed.
We sell them. We're not selling them live right now.
Uh we we we've tried that before. It's one of
those like challenges in terms of delivery to make sure
(32:21):
that customers they I think the general feed that with
the customers before them steamed, um want to do the
work that did you do the work for me? Yeah? Yeah, no,
I think there's some prices that they enjoy doing the work.
I think that was one where like no one likes
dropping the lobster in the pot um but yeah, you know,
uh but yeah, so that that, but we sold a lot.
We sell a lot of lobster like stuff that you
(32:42):
wouldn't necessarily think would be like a home ingredient. Uh,
they're sellingly crazy. I mean, if if somebody can't just
crack the lobster, but if it's already steamed for them
and you know, put a little mayonnaise in and put
it in a put in a Martin's potato role, I
don't know what. What's always a lot of sterl is
easy to make, looked for and it's delicious and it's delicious,
and it's and it's good for well, you're not suppos
(33:02):
to eat them all the time, but you're supposed to
eat them every once in a while. Absolutely exactly. What
what do you think you're the biggest misconception around around food?
Do you think that you've you've sort of helped educate
some of your clients about I mean, yeah, I don't
know and to me and now I have my stories,
But what do you have any that you can do?
There's a whole bunch of them. One of the things
(33:23):
that I used to get from people who you know,
don't order frequently from us or don't order from us,
was I don't know how to cook, or like I'm
afraid to cook, like I don't understand, or I wasn't
probably taught at shop for groceries. It's kind of like
like refrain. And one of the things that we always
like to tell people and kind of surprise them with
is like, how do I cook your your salmon? I'm like,
(33:44):
I'll tell you you cook cook my sald Put a
little olive oil, salt and pepper on it, put in
the oven for fourteen minutes and take it out and
then taste it, and if you're not like, oh my god,
that's amazing, then you don't like to eat. So it's
like the oven on right exactly like literally, but you
know what, it's a sheeny grade. It's all delicies raw.
Like it's like one of those things where like like
you know that that we try to teach people that
(34:06):
cooking doesn't have to be a seventy And but one
of the things I love at that season with authority
with like your book is that it's just it's simple,
easy recipes like how to cook in a way that
it's like that that it's simple and anyone could do
at home, because like the idea like you need like
to have like some twenty seven ingredient like pasta dish
like no take like that overwintered spinach and like tossing
(34:26):
pasta with like a little bit of barad, like RiPP
the barada up and you've got the best pots you've
ever had in your life, and like like that's not hard.
And so trying to trying to teach people to like
use the best ingredients to make the best meal in
a very simple way is I think like one of
the big challenges you expect and then you know. I
think the second big challenge is that people don't really
(34:49):
understand how messed up the food system is, and so
like trying to explain to them that it's so much
better to buy spinach from your neighboring farm than just
wherever it comes from the grocery store. Is it was like,
at first an uphill battle that now has gained a
lot of traction. So we started that was more of
a challenge, and now I think more and more people
understand that not just the benefits of eating locally, but
(35:11):
the benefits your palette, Like it's just so good. Um yeah,
I mean, if you if you, if you know, if
you think about it, you're really you know, supporting Literally,
I wore this shirt today. I wear support Loving your
shirt that says support your local farmer because obviously I
was talking to you today and I think you're, like,
you know, the doing an amazing job supporting all these farmers.
But I mean, to me, it's just this whole concept
(35:32):
about it. It's difficult or people. When people tell me
they don't know how to cook, I want to I
just want to get upset and smack. I mean, it's like,
come on, like you could put salt and pepper on
a chicken and put it in the oven. You know
what I mean. It's just uh sorry and and used
used to hear ye sorry, um no, it's just um
it's it's one of those things. It's like, just learn
how to cook. It's not that hard. I mean, I've
(35:54):
been I've been doing these great Instagram videos where I'm
teaching Emily, who I work with obviously you you know her, well,
you know, just cutting an onion. It's and it's it's
so funny because I find that when people tell me
they don't know how to cook, I say, go take
a knife skills class, because once you're comfortable with a knife,
I think from there you can do anything. And I
see that because if you don't know how to cut
(36:15):
an onion, I understand it's hard to cook for ten
people because it takes you twenty minutes to cut an onion.
But once you get good at cutting an onion and
it takes your thirty seconds, you know what, then you've
got all this other free time to be able to
mess around with the food another way. So I would say,
what you should maybe put on your website and put
it on your side is like some knife skill classes.
Maybe we should do this would be like a little
a little class section because I'm learning down to hold
(36:38):
the knife. And I think the other thing that that
stresses people out is like with the recipe, it has
to be perfect. It has to be spot on, like
when you're cooking, when you're cutting an onion at home,
it does not have to be exactly a half inch
dice like. It can be like a little off, like
you know, you know, it's like there are certain recipes
that require perfection, but you're cooking at home, you're like
saw taying something like. It doesn't really matter if your
(36:58):
garlic is like how many your garlic is, like, it
just needs to like be fine tossing in. The tastes
just the same exactly. I mean, it's so funny because
I was brought up and raised in French kitchens, so
for me, I remember the first time I worked in
a one star whistl On restaurant in Paris and I'm
dicing up lar dun pieces of bacon and they had
to be all exactly the same size, and the sus
chef came by and he goes, that's no good, do
(37:19):
it over. I'm like why. He goes, well, they're not
exactly all perfect. And I'm sitting there, going, now, this
is bacon. It's all gonna shrivel up and be a
different size by the end of the day anyway. But
but but in in professional kitchens were taught to do that.
But I always find it funny. I have a friend
of mine, Jeff, who was at our house a lot,
and he's he's just a home cook. He's a very
good cook, but he sees me do things sometimes and
he goes, wow, they really really drilled it into your
(37:43):
lining up the carrots like their soldiers. And I'm like, oh,
I forgot, Yeah, you're right. Just you know, you don't
have to have everything exactly the same size. It's actually
you know, it's it's product that grows in the air,
in in in the ground. You know, a carrots thinner
on one end and thicker on the other. So if
you're cooking at the same time, one's gonna be a
little more cooked, the others not. Who cares. It's gonna
taste good if you cooked it right and seasoned it properly, exactly.
(38:03):
And if I'm going to a restaurant, I wanted to
be perfect, But when I'm at home, it's you know,
it's it's not as important and it probably still taste
the same. And so I think it's trying to take
away like the intimidation factor with cooking. That that is
like one of those things that kind of surprised me
of someone who loves to cook, um, you know, running
our business, because it's like just by really good ingredients
and start there. Well, I gotta say, Mike, you know,
(38:26):
thanks so much for what you're doing. Thanks so much
for cutting people fed down. They're all quarantined at home,
and and your your people and your staff. I'm always
very very appreciative when I see them show up and
dropping off the bags with what's how do that? What's
it called now? Contact less drop off, the contactless delivery. Yeah,
there's all these new terms out there now that I
never knew or but now I've got to try to
(38:46):
start recalling them and understanding them, because they're definitely out there.
And you gotta, you know, where everybody's adapting. We're humans
and we we we can adapt, and and you're out
there helping the farmers, helping the people get food, and
it's good food. And I gotta tell you. When I
was thinking about this podcast during this during this quarantine time,
you were one of the first ones on my list
because I think that, of course, people that don't live
(39:09):
in the New York area are the ones that are
on your waiting lists are going to be upset when
they hear this podcast. But be patient. He's he's Mike's
getting it done. We're doing everything we can to serve
as many people as possible, and we really appreciate your support,
both on the podcast and just you know, shopping with
us every week. We will we love having you as
a customer and seeing all the amazing stuff that you're cooking. Awesome, man,
Thank you so much. That's my plan. I'm going right
(39:32):
back to the warehouse alright. Cool. Thanks so much for
taking today
Welcome to Food three sixty, the podcast that serves up
some serious food for thought. I'm your host, Mark Murphy.
In this episode, I'm excited to welcome Mike Winnick, co
founder and CEO of Our Harvest and Online Farmers Market.
Thanks for joining me, Mike, Well, I'm glad to be here.
Thanks so much for having me. Well, I gotta say
right now, there are so many things going on obviously
(00:24):
in the world, and uh, first, I guess i'd want
you to explain to my people that are listening, what
is our harvest and why am I so excited so
so Our mission is at our Harvest is actually build
a better, more sustainable food system. And that sounds like
very lofty, especially if you're you're a customer kind of
just trying to get your groceries right now. But the
(00:44):
easiest way to think about what we do is that
we have gone directly to a group of the very
best farmers in the world, farmers that were supplying some
of the very best restaurants in the world back a
couple of weeks ago, in addition to some of the
best beakers and food artisans that are out there, and
we go directly to the as farms and producers and
bring that food directly to our customers. So you at
home would be able to shop on our website and
(01:05):
we deliver directly to your door. Um. So the whole
idea is to bring farm to table truly into your
own your own table. And can I ask you what
you used to do something completely different before this? Why
did you all of a sudden jump into this world
of food. Yeah, so I was on the dark side before.
I was actually an investment banker for eight and a
half years and I actually really liked what I did
(01:27):
and was sitting in my actual my review and the
my bosses were like, hey, you're on the partner track.
You're gonna everything's going really well. And I'm like, actually,
I'm not going to be on the partner track. And
they're like, why why would you ever leave this? And
I was like, Well, they woke up every single day
and they thought about the next deal they were going
to do, the next project that they were going to
(01:47):
be working on. And I woke up every day and
thought about what I was going to be eating and
what I would be cooking that night. And so for
me personally, the whole idea was to be able to
start something, to be part of something that I woke
up every day excited to be part of. So that
was kind of what shifted me from being you know,
back in the sort of the dark days of investment
banking to entering the food spaces. It's what I always
(02:08):
seemed of doing. And you you started this in two
thousand fourteen, is that correct? Yeah? So I I quit
my job in the summer that was like July, and
we launched the company our first delivery with July on Wow. Okay,
I mean, And it's so funny because I can I
can still remember. You had somebody working for you who
(02:29):
was also doing a podcast that I used to listen to.
I still listen to a lot um and she was
your marketing person and I heard about you through this.
I ended up contacting her on Instagram and saying, Hey,
I want to talk to you. I want to have lunch,
and I still remember she didn't answer me for like
three weeks, She's like, who is this creep? Probably like
trying to get in touch with me, d m ng
(02:50):
me on Instagram, and then finally ended up having lunch
with her and then ended up finally getting to meet you.
And I was just I was so excited what you're doing,
because I mean, to me, you're not only I mean
for me, I'm being very selfish. You're giving me really
you're getting me really really good food. But you're also
trying to put more money in the pockets of these
farmers who there. You're sort of cutting out the middleman
in a certain sense, which is what I love about it. Yeah,
(03:11):
and I think that's the whole thing that a lot
of people don't really understand about our business and sort
of when I say fixing the food system, typically when
a farmer is selling to whole foods or a grocery store,
there could be five to ten people that actually lay
their hands on a product between the farm and you,
and so each of those people is taking margin, they're
marking the product up, and so a farmer might only
(03:32):
get ten cents on the dollar of what sells it
what sells a typical grocery store with us the farmers
getting between you know, fifty and six pc typically sometimes
more of the retail price. And so by a farmer
being able to actually make more money, it creates a
win win situation. Because most farmers could barely feed their
own families. It's kind of one of those those weird
(03:52):
situations where the people feeding us could barely feed themselves.
It's so funny to talk about the the sort of
progression of food and what happens and where it goes,
and and you're cutting out the middleman, where I'm still
now looking at it from a very selfish angle. I
can still remember the first time I ordered kale from you.
And I mean, I work in restaurants in my whole life,
so I know what things ms to be happening. But
when I go to a grocery store in New York
(04:14):
City and I buy kale and I put it in
the fridge, it's got like a two or three or
maybe four days shelf life. But when you're buying it
from our harvest, it's literally like a week and a
half later, it's two weeks later. It's still good. You
can still cook it because it's still and it's because
it hasn't sat in a grocery store for the week
before it came to my house. This is gonna sound
like a whole like our Harvest commercial, this whole thing,
(04:35):
but it's truly I love what you're doing for the
planet that I know what you're doing for the planet
and for my belly right now. And that's that's the
thing also that people don't realize. We get a lot
of questions about this from customers, like you know your
shelf life on your chicken or your meat or whatever.
Like when you get something at a grocery store, it's
already a week or more old. But there's apples that
you're getting that could be six months old that have
been stored. It's part of the reason I selled on
(04:57):
this idea was I've been in to an apple at
Whole Foods and the apple had no taste. And the
week before I was sitting at a farm on the
east end of Long Island eating apples and talking to
the farmer, and I was like, this is the most
delicious apple for a dollar ninety nine I've ever had.
And literally the next week for three nine for an
organic apple that had a sticker from New Zealand's what
I was getting. And I was like, there's no way
this farmer on the north Fork of Long Island is
(05:19):
not you know, is selling all of his apples and
he always sells through his farm stand, and so it
kind of set off like a whole year of like
exploring understanding how food gets from the farm to the
end customer. But because we're getting it literally the day
it's harvested or the day before, you're getting food that
has in some cases much longer shelf lipe than you'd
ever expected, Like our chicken could be good for a
week in your fridge. It's crazy people like expect to
(05:42):
go bad the next day. What what? What? What did
farmers say when you showed up? You know this this
guy who used to be in on the dark side,
as you explained it, and all of a sudden wanting
to buy their chickens and buy their kale and buy
their vegetables. And you're proposing all this. What do they
look at you and go, wait, do you what? Do
you not smart? What are you now? You're coming into this? Yeah,
so I think the very quick answer as hell knows
what they said to me um pretty much consistently, which
(06:05):
was you know, you call farm They're like farmers understandably
have been screwed so often, especially by banks. They know
someone who's farm, they lost their farm, they have you know,
just everyone always tells them a great story and then
doesn't deliver and so I spoke to hundreds of farmers,
and when I launched, we only have five farms and
twenty products. That was it. That was all I can
(06:26):
get to sign up. And then and then literally within
two or three weeks, I guess, our check started clearing
and they started seeing, you know, how they had the
business really really worked, and how we operated and the
respect that we built our business to help those farmers, right,
So the respect that we showed showed them and what
they were doing in our excitement about it. And within
a couple of weeks we started having all their neighbors
(06:47):
call us, and so very quickly we're able to ramp
up our farmers and now it's like absolutely out of control.
I think we have three fifty different farmers and producers
on our site and we can't we you know, we
have so many people reaching out to us, especially now
that it's hard to just keep up with everybody want
to add everyone we possibly can, um but you know,
one of the things that's important is curating the right
the right farms. But yeah, nobody trusts an ex investment
(07:08):
banker who comes to them. It's like I'm going to
save your business. I'm gonna make you, you you know, so
much money, but it ended up working really well for
them in the end. So I remember you telling me
a story and I can't remember what a product it was.
But you have very strict guidelines to be able to
sell their food, right, I mean you're like, no preservatives.
This thing's got to be true. It's got to be honest,
really really good food. And I think that that's something
(07:29):
that's incredibly commendable. Obviously, you're you're going for really healthy
not just from the farms, but you also sell products
like jams and pickles and things like that. There are
obviously you know, you have to do something to them, right,
They're not just brout of that out of the dirt.
So what what are your parameters when you work with
these farmers and these I guess food producers as well.
Very simply, it has to be something that I would
feed my four year old. That's that's literally the like
(07:52):
the ultimate thing. So really what we look for is
the label that we can understand. Um that there isn't
anything that's got seven seven letters in it and you know,
causes cancer, you know, mactaking, it's like the extreme, but
it's got to be something that's like five seven ingredients
something that we really understand. Um. And by the way,
it has to be delicious too. It can't just be
clean and healthy. It has to have flavor profile that
(08:12):
that fits. But you know, there's no chemicals, preservatives, and
we talked about we talked about like this, like are
if we're carrying a product that's like a dip that
uses a cream cheese, it can't be like Philadelphia cream
cheese because that has a chemical in it that we
wouldn't sell. So we literally get down to the ingredient
level and understand what they're using in their product to
make sure that it fits with our whole ecosystem, like
no hormones, no antibox, all that stuff obviously, but again
(08:34):
it's it's even more than that. And are you finding
people are now trying to produce things and giving them
to you and be like, please carry this. I am
making this really really healthy and and you know, are
you are you getting people now coming to you? And
you know, are you people you were? You were seeking
out these people before? Are they seeking you out now?
I guess yeah? So you know, for the for for
quite a while, people started seeking us out and actually
(08:55):
we're really we're really easy to work with UM in
that we can help brands that have never sold anywhere
before get their start UM. So from that perspective, we
try to be like on the discovery side because it's
what I love most, is like discovering new delicious just
like you do, like new delicious, amazing foods. And so
we get pitched a lot of new products, especially now
with people that kind of lost their core wholesale business
(09:16):
and they're coming to us now UM and pitching us,
uh you know, all all day, all night. Uh you know,
carry my product, Cary Eye product. And and the thing
that I always advise people that come to us is
everyone has like they're they're kind of like their can pitch,
which is like we're plant based, we're vegan, where gluten
free or where you know, we're not any of those things,
like we're sustainable. But like, ultimately the product has to
(09:38):
be delicious, like we're not if if like we taste it,
it's not gonna make a smile and not make our
customers smile and want to reorder it, it's not gonna
be a product that we carry. They have to fit
all the ingredients and all that side of it too.
But it's that I think that a lot of times
people with products come and they're like, our product like
solves this, and it's like, what does it taste good?
Ultimately like what it comes down to too, So it's
(09:58):
both those things. I've had those products where somebody brings
you something like this is the best thing for you.
I'm like, but I can't follow it. It's so gross.
It's like, yeah, it's all natural, it says it, but
it tastes like chalk. So that's the problem, right that
that's that's exactly good for you stuff, which is I'm
very very happy to hear about that. Yeah, we we
curate everything like there's it's not like you're gonna come
(10:20):
on our site and see seventy five different varieties of yogurt.
We're gonna pick the three best varieties that one Greek,
one regular style, whatever, and that's what we're going to carry,
so a customer isn't going to be confused. Like the
other thing that we do with our farmers is if
someone grows the very best tomatoes, that's the farm whose
tomatoes we're gonna carry. We're not going to carry six
other farms tomatoes The whole idea is that when a
customers shopping on our site, they're gonna get the best
(10:42):
and breed across every farm, every product. So it's an
easier experience from a customer. That's amazing. And I gotta
tell I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a testimonial because I I
tell everybody about this. But I gotta tell you, the
food that you you bring me is fantastic, and I
love that. Are you still doing the two you if
it's over a certain amount, you can bring into their home,
or you can you park a truck somewhere and you
(11:03):
set it up like a farm stand and people come
and pick up their orders. Are you still doing both
of those right now? In the in the COVID world,
we stopped our pickup sites just to protect our employees.
But we were doing that up until a couple of
weeks ago. And and and how I mean, I I
can't even imagine. I mean, every every day we were
everybody was hit by this, uh and that the book's
(11:23):
going on right now with obviously the COVID nineteen and
but your business you were like, wait a minute, I
am built for this. So I'm built for this speed
and did you did your business skyrocket? Did you where
you had, did you have enough employees? What was the experience,
what was it like? And and for a businessman to
all of a sudden find your business in this situation, yea.
So for us, you know, we've we've always believed in
(11:44):
our mission and our business and what we were doing,
and we've grown very steadily since we launched, you know,
years ago, and it's been really exciting, exciting kind of ride.
And then we kind of started seeing in early March
this like uh what I call like a little bit
of panic buying, which was like very early March. You
saw customers like very you know, we see where customers
(12:05):
are buying very weird shopping behavior where someone bought like
twelve pennies right, and eighteen tomato sauces, and all of
our beans, which turned at a normal clip, disappeared, and
you're like, Okay, something weird is happening. So we started
we started prepping a little bit more for for things
like the weird purchasing. And then the day the shelter
in place happened, we had fifty times normal order volume
(12:28):
we've been running it, you know, five to ten times
normal volume. We have a wait list now about fifteen
thousand people who are like wanting to shop with us
that every week we're turning away, and we're turning away
few or fewer every week because you know, we were
doing everything we can to increase capacity. So you have
this like this like moment of oh my god, people
want like everyone wants this now, and we're in the
(12:49):
right place. We're doing the right thing. We don't have
supply issues because we know our farmers and our butchers
and all of that, like there's no shortages, like we
we don't have those problems. Um, and you're like so excited,
and then like the next morning you wake up and
you're like, okay, there's two things we got to solve.
One is our farmers actually just lost percent of their
(13:09):
business because they were selling to restaurants to other people.
And so for us, we're sitting here, were like, oh
my god, we need to save our farms. That was
the first reaction, was like excitement, and then like this
feeling of dread where it's like, oh my god, what
happens to my farmers go out of business? So we
spent the first two weeks of this just doing everything
we can to keep our farms alive, and amazingly, maybe
(13:33):
it's not too amazing you kind of your initial instinct
be like, it's kind of like every man for themselves.
And one thing that was really special that started happening
is a lot of our farmers started recommending their neighbors
who grew something special. They're like, look, don't buy my
carrots by this guy's carrots because his character the absolute best.
And if he doesn't have these carrots purchase, he's done.
And so very quickly we added, you know, five to
ten farms that neighbored our existing farmers and we're able
(13:56):
to add add some new vendors and help them out
and you know, make sure we paid our farmers in
a way that got them the cash they needed to
not go out of business. So we work with our
farmers very close to those first couple of weeks, there
was a day where the green market was closed and
so we sent our farms. We sent our truck to
every our truck one to all the farms that needed
it and so and help them get through the day.
And so for us, that was kind of like the
first the first like oh crap moments to keep the
(14:18):
farms alive. And then the second was, Okay, now that
you're at ten times order volume, go hire, go hire
a bunch of employees in an environment where you know,
people aren't aren't really looking to work right now because
it's kind of scary up there. So that was like
the double dynamic of like actually the trying to fulfill
the orders properly. And you know, we, as you probably experienced,
(14:39):
we had a couple of days delivery. I think we're
over like the worst of it. Now we've built a
really amazing strong team. The team really is stepped up
very it's it's it's been overwhelmingly the response from our team,
knowing that we're an essential service that we're serving people
were bringing food to people who can otherwise go out.
People really rallied around that, and it's been very exciting
to see. It's it's, it's it's amazing. I mean, I
(15:00):
think that you know, all of a sudden, I guess no, uh,
as as as as I was talking to somebody else,
or there's no business school that I have taught you
that your business is going to go from X to
like ten times or fifty times X overnight and be like, Okay,
we got to hang on and we need this business
and we want to do this, we want to grow,
and we're gonna make this happen, of course, and you plan,
you like we plan for like an event, Like it's
(15:21):
not not like this. This is a whole different world.
But like you have like your kind of your backup
plan of like, okay, what happens tomorrow if like we're
you know, on some Food Network show and a hundred
you know, hundred people want to show hundred hundred times
where people in a shop with us, and if you
have your plan, but my plan like involved people that
you know would be able to come help out in
the warehouse and and showing up. And you know, when
(15:43):
your whole family and your aunts and uncles and cousins
who are all very strong can't show up to work
because they're sheltering in place, it changes the dynamic of like,
you know, that support system that you built, that those
kind of backups to come help out when you're an entrepreneur,
like that that didn't exist, And so that was a
whole different level of just like crazy. So besides what
(16:16):
you've you know, experienced, all the things you've learned about
getting the business up and running more, what's been the
most surprising thing that somebody would want to hear about
what you've learned over the past couple of weeks. But
since all this has been going on, you know, I
the thing is, maybe this isn't surprising. I don't know.
I think everyone in their own quarantine shelter in place
has this like emotional uh and mental like volatility. Like
(16:40):
the ups and downs are just like you're so excited
your home and then you're like really stressed, you're worried
about getting sick, and then you it's just like this
like emotional like roller coaster that everyone's on. And I
think that for us that that feeling has been just
like like intensely intensely amplified, Like we haven't slept in
like six weeks, Like I don't see my family, and
you know, right now it's like one of those things
(17:01):
that we know what we're trying to do and what
we're trying to accomplish, but you have this moment of
oh my god, we sold out of delivery slots in
forty five minutes, and you're like, this is the greatest
thing ever. And then the next day, you know, three
people call in, call in, they don't have coverage for
their their kids who are supposed to be in school,
and so you're like, oh wait, how am I can
get now all this record number of orders out with
three less people in the warehouse because understandably they're dealing
(17:22):
with all sorts of stressors and having that that emotional
volatili at home. And so I think that there's like
these like very very intense intra day ups and downs
that you know when you see like a business and
like for us, we're blessed and lucky that we're at
ten times when we know so many of our friends
are struggling, Like we know we had that, but we
still have these just very intense like ups and downs
(17:43):
even within the same within the same hour, you're like,
oh my god, we did it. And then like then
the next second you're like, oh man, we got to
solve this problem. So it's been a very emotional and
weird time. But it also shows human resilience, I think,
and what everybody's going through and people are still able
to you know, footing for one of the other and
get get it going and helping you. People helping you
get get they gonna get the food to people that
(18:04):
really needed. I think it's really I think it's very
commendable in that sense, and ultimately it's left that left me,
you know, very optimistic about about a lot of things.
That people can come together and support our farms, that
we can come together and support a better food system,
that our employees are rallying around the mission and the
goal and the cause that you know, and that that
(18:25):
I think that that people when they try to do
right by each other, like you know, in and this
is like kind of like cheesy, but like when they
tried to do right by each other, we actually all
can like succeed and get through this as opposed to
like an environment we're all just like fighting, you know,
fighting and trying to like survive. It's like it's it's
been different. It's been a very different sense here. So
what's the weirdest thing? You think people have been hoarding
or buying a lot of? Um? We sold the bizarre
(18:49):
amount of like like like squid and oil, like canned
like canned like like shellfish that we had. It was
like it was like an like it's like there's like
a lot of products like that. We're like there're the
like super niche super niche products where it's like we
sell them because they're delicious and they're sustainable, they do
good things for like our farmers whatever, and you're like,
(19:11):
you know, we sell the shelf. Life is like infinics,
like canned fish, and it sells like every so often.
Well all of a sudden, like boom gone like stuff
like that. Well, you know it's interesting because I I
used to before, back then, when I was back in
the you know, in the city going out and having lunch.
You know, one of my favorite places are going to
Pestis and one of my favorite dishes there are the
(19:32):
canned sardines. They literally bring the can of sardine, they
splash a little vinegar and it. They bring you a
pad of butter and some toasted bread. And by the way,
when I this last week, I had two cans of
sardines and I was like, this is great. It reminds
me of being at Pesti's. And then I realized, Wait,
I don't have any more, and that's what I'm gonna have.
Do you have any sardines? This is what I'm asking
(19:53):
we do. The answers, yes, yes we do. Actually I
think we're sold out now, but we'll get you. I'll
get you more for monday. We'll have them all right.
It's actually it's the same maker as the squid and oil,
so it shouldn't be a problem. But anything that like
is shelf stable, Like like there was like a rare
bean variety we carried that like was extremely expensive and
it was a very cool, cool story, and we sold
(20:13):
like one every month and then literally like the shelter
in place happens and like sold out like in six seconds,
and you're like, it's a different world. It's just a
different world. People different. Well, you know everywhere on Instagram
the food all the all the chefs and all these
food apps. Everybody was showing everybody had to cook beans
all of a sudden that week. And now people have
stepped off a little bit, but yeah, everybody has. I
(20:35):
think everybody in America's learned how to cook a dry bean.
And something people do said before they know now exactly
but the pressure beans you don't need to soak exactly. Well,
I was gonna ask you, you know, a long time ago,
you were looking for I think were you trying to
expand the business, looking for investors. I don't remember what
you were talking about and where you are you m
a one? Are you still trying to grow your business?
(20:57):
And and in that sense, and are you going to
take it outside of New York or the Tri state area?
Are you gonna are you thinking of trying to expand
around the country. Yes, so we're we're absolutely looking for
some some investors right now, especially because with a wait
list of fifteen thousand people, we very quickly can go
from where we are to you know, thirty or forty
(21:19):
times literally that that volume within like a month. So
there's like a near term need for just like the
capital in to be able to just tap the customers
that already want to shop with us. UM And then
you know, right now, I think our focus in terms
of like where we're looking to grow, we definitely want
to grow beyond beyond New York regionally. You know, I
think the logical way to do it is up towards Boston,
(21:40):
down towards d C. Is how we would regionally expand.
But uh, you know, from an investor of perspective, multi
billion dollar grocery business have built just in New York City. UM,
so we understand that that's a huge opportunities in the
New York area, so we understand that's a huge opportunity
as well. So for us, it's really for us, it's
it's right now immediately focusing on that really large number
of people that really IBB we want to shop with
(22:00):
us and doing everything we can to serve them all
while providing our customers the very best experience they can get.
And so we definitely need some capital in the near term.
Deal that's happened to those customers well. And I also
think that I mean this, you know this, obviously, this
is lasting a while, that it's gonna last a little longer,
hopefully not too much longer. But I think even though
I think a lot of people are talking about what
people are learning now certain like using technologies like zoom
(22:24):
or FaceTime or whatever, these meeting things, people are like, oh,
that's gonna last. Or people are gonna be like, oh,
we don't need an office, we can just work from home.
I think shopping is something that people are getting reconditioned
to doing in a different way as well, because you know, yes,
everybody loves to go to the store, and I mean
to do things and but but like all of a sudden,
now after let's say two or three or four months
(22:46):
of people shopping online and getting their groceries delivered. Somebody
who never did that before is gonna be like, wait,
why didn't I do this earlier? Like I think that
the you know, the knee jerk reaction, and even when
this is over, I think you're not going to lose
these customers. They're still gonna be there. That's that's the
that's the point that I'm making to everybody, which is,
before this happened, the estimate was like one to three
percent of people shopped online for groceries. Now it's like,
(23:10):
so even if it goes down to seventy you know,
we're seventy five times the market, seventy five times bigger
than where it was before. And so you know, we're
we're in a world where people are shopping online. And
I think, like your your story about like you're getting
the food from us, and how delicious it is. Like
people are always worried or were worried when they shopped
online for grocery. They want to see their produce, They
want to know what their steak looks like, they want
(23:30):
to see the quality of what they're getting. And for us,
when when you deliver something and it's really really delicious
and beautiful and last in your fridge for two weeks.
People are overwhelmed by that and are going to continue
to shop once they once they taste our salmon or
clams or our you know, anything that we're selling pretty
much are beautiful. Ramps right now are gretty. We've got
like all this like weird things you've never even heard of.
(23:52):
Once you try it, once it's over, well, I want
to I want to talk about one product in particular,
because you you you do try to use local farms,
understand that, and but every once in a while, you
you you will reach out and go somewhere very very
not very far away, but pretty far away. And we're
talking about right now Harry's berries because those first time
I had ever been introduced to them. There's two points
(24:14):
of the story. One, they're the best strawberry in the world,
I think right now. Uh. And last year you had
the guy from you were he was making ice cream
with this stuff. My house went crazy. I mean they
were like, you gotta buy more, fill the freezer. This
stuff is so good. So you are importing. And now
Harry's Berries has an amazing story themselves. I think from
(24:35):
I remember there. The father was Japanese and he's a
he's he was a farmer and he immigrated to America
and there in California, and they grow these berries which
are stupid. They're just they're just deliciate. My my, my kid,
who doesn't really pay much attention to certain things. He's thirteen.
He was eating them last year and he goes, these
are really good. These are really good. And all of
a sudden, we got some from somewhere else. Somebody brought
(24:55):
them from someone other place, and he's like, these things
are terrible. What the where's the whether we're the good one?
You know. I was like, well, those are special. And
last year, I remember correctly, you had a hard time
keeping up because restaurants were buying a lot of their
product because Harry's berries were in the in the chef world.
They are very chefy ingredient, and all the pastry chefs
were using them, and all the fancy restaurants A Lablada
(25:17):
and all the places. Um. But now those restaurants are closed,
So now you're gonna be the only guy selling Harry's berries.
It's gonna be great for me. It's it's awesome. It's awesome.
We have, we do have. We do get a lot
more of them when they when they come in the
and they are absolutely amazing. They're they're they're the best. Um.
I think just going back to our harvest, of what
we sell comes from within two miles of New York
(25:38):
and then the rest of it, we carry very very specialty,
amazing products that are delicious, and that's that's one of
the amazing ones. And we're going to bring back the gelato,
I promise, so your family can rest assured. I think
my mother in law is like our number one product
that she wants back. But but you know, the thing
with with the strawberries in particular is that actually the
weather they're they're so impacted by other and the weather
(26:01):
in California has been strange in that there's been a
lot more rain than usual this time of year, and
so the berries are coming in at different rate than
they normally with this time you're May is kind of
like for us the Pico when we have Harry's berries.
So we're gonna start to see a lot more of them,
but the weather has to cooperate first. It's it's a weird,
It's like one of those things when you think about food,
(26:21):
you used to go into the grocery store and eating
the commodity junk you get at a store, like those
berries that have no taste, that look beautiful, like those
berries were picked like way before they should have been picked,
because they were picked and grown to sit on a
store shelf for two weeks before they get to you.
And so for us, like you might not see those
strawberries available because it's raining or the farmer couldn't harvest
(26:42):
it that day. Because if you've been into what you'd
be disappointed like that, that like sense of disappointment is
something that we never would give our customer, Like you're
gonna bite into that berry and it's gonna be amazing.
That's the whole point. One of my other favorite ingredients
(27:11):
is that spinach that you have and that would you
call it? Is it called winter spinach? It's over. It's
an awesome it's a really awesome product. Overwintered spinach is
my favorite. Is actually my favorite product all year long.
It's wonder it's absolutely can you can you can you
give us a little? This is the other thing about
this website. I'm getting schooled on stuff because I look
things up. I'm on Wikipedia, like what is this? I'm
looking it up, But tell me all about it. I
know the two of us can geek out all day
(27:32):
long on all these crazy ingredients. So over overwintered spinach
is like my favorite thing all year long. And so
what the farmers do is they take spinach and they
plant it actually, uh like in the fall, and then
right before the first frost hits, they cover it in
like a tarp kind of thing. And the idea is
that when the spinach freezes, it actually builds really really
high sugar content and starch, and it concentrates the flavor,
(27:54):
kind of dries it out, makes it look a little ugly,
but it just concentrates this intense sweetness. And so what
happens is like when the weather starts to warm up,
the ground thaws, they pull the they pull the tarps
off and let the let the spinach starts like regenerate
and grow, and then as soon as it's ready, they
cut it and it is like the most intense sweet,
delicious speak. My son cased it and he's like, this
(28:17):
thing is like candy um. So I like by by
like the poundful and just saute it quickly like very late,
just like a little olive oil and salt, and it's
like the most delicious thing you've ever had. Well, I
have some of my fridge right now that I got
from you the other day. And I then all of
a sudden, I saw my good friend Melissa Clark over
at the New York Times sauteg spinach with bottarga or no,
no spinach, no no, she saw tee spinach with with ramps,
(28:40):
and I was like, I've got both of those in
my fridge. That's what I'm having for dinner tonight. I
was another Harbor customer, another our Harbor customer, by the way,
Absolutely I think I might have. I think I pretty
sure you were. I'm pretty sure you referred her. Pretty sure? Um.
Are there any other vegetables that they do like that
over the winter that they plant? And then what else
is like that? Eight? Yeah, the two more common ones,
(29:04):
uh you see overwinter broccoli rob And that's amazing because
it doesn't have that really intense bite that kind of
scares people away from broccli rob. But that bitterness kind
of like is tamed by sweetness. Although that just I
think that season is just winding down. Um. And then
actually there's spring Doug Doug parsnips. They overwinter parsnips and parsons.
You think is like like a fall product that you
(29:24):
know with like your Thanksgiving meal whatever, but they overwinter
it and it's just like intensely sweet parsnip flavor, which
is really good. There's a couple of juicialm artichokes, a
lot of those, like like funkier vegetables. They overwinter. But
the two biggest and that we sell are the are
the spinach and the broccoli rob And what's the number
one best selling product on your on your side before?
Now what it would be was? Has that changed over time? No,
(29:47):
it's been fairly fairly consistent. Uh. The you know, eggs
always are a big seller. We have amazing eggs from
Norwich Meadows and another amazing set of eggs from Noel
Crust farn Ms and so those always sell in quantity.
We see a lot of people by our fish. Our
fish has been an unbelievable seller because it's so so
(30:09):
damn good. Our salmon in particular, it's one of those
things that we're proud of. Um, you know that it's
not a local product, it's one of that like one
to two percent of our product, but it sells really well.
We know if someone orders our seafood, they're gonna be
re order because it's just I mean, it's so much better.
It's interesting. I was reading the other day that you know, like,
for example, um must uh know us oysters and and lobster.
(30:32):
I heard that the farmers, the fishermen that that fish
that are actually having a hard time because those are
two ingredients that when you think of lobster, it's you
go to a lot of people go to restaurants seed lobster.
A lot of people go to restaurant seed oysters because
schucking oysters is not is not that easy. And I'm
I'm you know, in another sense, you're also helping farmers
out by selling food that restaurants would buy. But now
(30:55):
people are starting to learn how to use them at
home because it's you know, even if you don't know
how to shuck an oyster, if you put them on
a grill, they'll pop open and you pour a little
hot sauce on there. A nice grilled oyster is just delicious.
And we can do like little oyster Rockefeller recipe. Mark
I I I think I'm serious good because what you
said is actually really true. That it's it's like kind
(31:15):
of like everyone's talking about chicken or like the weird
things going on in the meat markets and everything with
you know, like they're not they're being like productions down
all of that. And actually the hardest hit group, especially
in locally, Um, there are a bunch of farms that
were hard hit. But but we're we're fishermen because most
people don't it's not people cook fish at home, but
it's not like you know, they'll cook salmon, they'll cook
(31:37):
plain things, but even like a swordfish, like not a
lot of people are just buying like swordfisher sashimi grade
tuna to cook at home. And so those fishermen like
actually stopped going out to fish because it didn't make
sense for them. Um. I think they're like you know,
debating with a close certain fisheries just because there was
no market for lobster was one of them. Um. And
so it's one of those things where yeah, we're selling
a lot. We're actually selling like a lot of lobster. Um.
(32:00):
I think prices were like they came down and we
try to you know, our prices. I think a whole
pre steam lobster is like fifteen dollars, will be selling
it for right now. You're selling them steam as well, seamed.
We sell them. We're not selling them live right now.
Uh we we we've tried that before. It's one of
those like challenges in terms of delivery to make sure
(32:21):
that customers they I think the general feed that with
the customers before them steamed, um want to do the
work that did you do the work for me? Yeah? Yeah, no,
I think there's some prices that they enjoy doing the work.
I think that was one where like no one likes
dropping the lobster in the pot um but yeah, you know,
uh but yeah, so that that, but we sold a lot.
We sell a lot of lobster like stuff that you
(32:42):
wouldn't necessarily think would be like a home ingredient. Uh,
they're sellingly crazy. I mean, if if somebody can't just
crack the lobster, but if it's already steamed for them
and you know, put a little mayonnaise in and put
it in a put in a Martin's potato role, I
don't know what. What's always a lot of sterl is
easy to make, looked for and it's delicious and it's delicious,
and it's and it's good for well, you're not suppos
(33:02):
to eat them all the time, but you're supposed to
eat them every once in a while. Absolutely exactly. What
what do you think you're the biggest misconception around around food?
Do you think that you've you've sort of helped educate
some of your clients about I mean, yeah, I don't
know and to me and now I have my stories,
But what do you have any that you can do?
There's a whole bunch of them. One of the things
(33:23):
that I used to get from people who you know,
don't order frequently from us or don't order from us,
was I don't know how to cook, or like I'm
afraid to cook, like I don't understand, or I wasn't
probably taught at shop for groceries. It's kind of like
like refrain. And one of the things that we always
like to tell people and kind of surprise them with
is like, how do I cook your your salmon? I'm like,
(33:44):
I'll tell you you cook cook my sald Put a
little olive oil, salt and pepper on it, put in
the oven for fourteen minutes and take it out and
then taste it, and if you're not like, oh my god,
that's amazing, then you don't like to eat. So it's
like the oven on right exactly like literally, but you
know what, it's a sheeny grade. It's all delicies raw.
Like it's like one of those things where like like
you know that that we try to teach people that
(34:06):
cooking doesn't have to be a seventy And but one
of the things I love at that season with authority
with like your book is that it's just it's simple,
easy recipes like how to cook in a way that
it's like that that it's simple and anyone could do
at home, because like the idea like you need like
to have like some twenty seven ingredient like pasta dish
like no take like that overwintered spinach and like tossing
(34:26):
pasta with like a little bit of barad, like RiPP
the barada up and you've got the best pots you've
ever had in your life, and like like that's not hard.
And so trying to trying to teach people to like
use the best ingredients to make the best meal in
a very simple way is I think like one of
the big challenges you expect and then you know. I
think the second big challenge is that people don't really
(34:49):
understand how messed up the food system is, and so
like trying to explain to them that it's so much
better to buy spinach from your neighboring farm than just
wherever it comes from the grocery store. Is it was like,
at first an uphill battle that now has gained a
lot of traction. So we started that was more of
a challenge, and now I think more and more people
understand that not just the benefits of eating locally, but
(35:11):
the benefits your palette, Like it's just so good. Um yeah,
I mean, if you if you, if you know, if
you think about it, you're really you know, supporting Literally,
I wore this shirt today. I wear support Loving your
shirt that says support your local farmer because obviously I
was talking to you today and I think you're, like,
you know, the doing an amazing job supporting all these farmers.
But I mean, to me, it's just this whole concept
(35:32):
about it. It's difficult or people. When people tell me
they don't know how to cook, I want to I
just want to get upset and smack. I mean, it's like,
come on, like you could put salt and pepper on
a chicken and put it in the oven. You know
what I mean. It's just uh sorry and and used
used to hear ye sorry, um no, it's just um
it's it's one of those things. It's like, just learn
how to cook. It's not that hard. I mean, I've
(35:54):
been I've been doing these great Instagram videos where I'm
teaching Emily, who I work with obviously you you know her, well,
you know, just cutting an onion. It's and it's it's
so funny because I find that when people tell me
they don't know how to cook, I say, go take
a knife skills class, because once you're comfortable with a knife,
I think from there you can do anything. And I
see that because if you don't know how to cut
(36:15):
an onion, I understand it's hard to cook for ten
people because it takes you twenty minutes to cut an onion.
But once you get good at cutting an onion and
it takes your thirty seconds, you know what, then you've
got all this other free time to be able to
mess around with the food another way. So I would say,
what you should maybe put on your website and put
it on your side is like some knife skill classes.
Maybe we should do this would be like a little
a little class section because I'm learning down to hold
(36:38):
the knife. And I think the other thing that that
stresses people out is like with the recipe, it has
to be perfect. It has to be spot on, like
when you're cooking, when you're cutting an onion at home,
it does not have to be exactly a half inch
dice like. It can be like a little off, like
you know, you know, it's like there are certain recipes
that require perfection, but you're cooking at home, you're like
saw taying something like. It doesn't really matter if your
(36:58):
garlic is like how many your garlic is, like, it
just needs to like be fine tossing in. The tastes
just the same exactly. I mean, it's so funny because
I was brought up and raised in French kitchens, so
for me, I remember the first time I worked in
a one star whistl On restaurant in Paris and I'm
dicing up lar dun pieces of bacon and they had
to be all exactly the same size, and the sus
chef came by and he goes, that's no good, do
(37:19):
it over. I'm like why. He goes, well, they're not
exactly all perfect. And I'm sitting there, going, now, this
is bacon. It's all gonna shrivel up and be a
different size by the end of the day anyway. But
but but in in professional kitchens were taught to do that.
But I always find it funny. I have a friend
of mine, Jeff, who was at our house a lot,
and he's he's just a home cook. He's a very
good cook, but he sees me do things sometimes and
he goes, wow, they really really drilled it into your
(37:43):
lining up the carrots like their soldiers. And I'm like, oh,
I forgot, Yeah, you're right. Just you know, you don't
have to have everything exactly the same size. It's actually
you know, it's it's product that grows in the air,
in in in the ground. You know, a carrots thinner
on one end and thicker on the other. So if
you're cooking at the same time, one's gonna be a
little more cooked, the others not. Who cares. It's gonna
taste good if you cooked it right and seasoned it properly, exactly.
(38:03):
And if I'm going to a restaurant, I wanted to
be perfect, But when I'm at home, it's you know,
it's it's not as important and it probably still taste
the same. And so I think it's trying to take
away like the intimidation factor with cooking. That that is
like one of those things that kind of surprised me
of someone who loves to cook, um, you know, running
our business, because it's like just by really good ingredients
and start there. Well, I gotta say, Mike, you know,
(38:26):
thanks so much for what you're doing. Thanks so much
for cutting people fed down. They're all quarantined at home,
and and your your people and your staff. I'm always
very very appreciative when I see them show up and
dropping off the bags with what's how do that? What's
it called now? Contact less drop off, the contactless delivery. Yeah,
there's all these new terms out there now that I
never knew or but now I've got to try to
(38:46):
start recalling them and understanding them, because they're definitely out there.
And you gotta, you know, where everybody's adapting. We're humans
and we we we can adapt, and and you're out
there helping the farmers, helping the people get food, and
it's good food. And I gotta tell you. When I
was thinking about this podcast during this during this quarantine time,
you were one of the first ones on my list
because I think that, of course, people that don't live
(39:09):
in the New York area are the ones that are
on your waiting lists are going to be upset when
they hear this podcast. But be patient. He's he's Mike's
getting it done. We're doing everything we can to serve
as many people as possible, and we really appreciate your support,
both on the podcast and just you know, shopping with
us every week. We will we love having you as
a customer and seeing all the amazing stuff that you're cooking. Awesome, man,
Thank you so much. That's my plan. I'm going right
(39:32):
back to the warehouse alright. Cool. Thanks so much for
taking today
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