April 4, 2024 • 36 mins
Cauliflower . . . more like CAULIPOWER!
CAULIPOWER founder Gail Becker joins Tyler and Wells to discuss bringing cauliflower chicken tenders and pizza to the masses, why she started her business, their most popular product, new CAULIPOWER food hitting your freezer aisles, and tips on how to start your own business if you have a million-dollar idea!
Plus, 'cauling' all queso fans! Tyler has step-by-step instructions on how to make Cauli Queso at home.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And Wells Adams and iHeartRadio podcast. All right, welcome into
another episode of Two Dudes in a Kitchen. Tyler Florence
is in sunny Hawaii, whereas I am just in regular
old Smoggie studio City. Excited about the episode today, Tyler,
how you doing, Bud great man?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm here in Hawaii
for a week. Miller and Locks. Of the four seasons
I opened in December. If you guys remember if you
listened to the shows before, because we actually broadcasted like
right before we open. And now it's kind of been
that cycle thing where I'm here at least once a quarter,
if not twice a quarter. So I'm here this week
and I'm back. I'm back in two weeks. That's fun.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
When you go there, do you like make sure all
the line cooks and your executive chefs that everyone are
doing what you want? Or are you kind of just
getting a vacation every three months?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
A little bit of both, to be honest with you, right,
because it's hard to not come here and just kind
of fall in love with it. Right. So the restaurant's
kind of like ripe on. I'm shoulder here and then
they're here. This is the and you're gonna love this,
two brother. That's the eighteenth hole of the golf course.
And I'm staying in one of the fabulous condos here
at the four seasons, and and so I'm on the
line every night in the kitchen when I'm here, and
(01:14):
you get a chance to you know, connect with all
the cooks. We usually start working on new dishes while
I'm here too and start connecting with people. So we
have a bunch of like table side stuff. We do
a fabulous bananas fosters here. We also have our you know,
dover Soul that we finished table side. So that's kind
of like a lot of the showy stuff that I
end up doing on the floor like when I'm here,
(01:34):
just because like a lot of people love it and
you get a chance to connect with people and say hi.
A lot of like table touching, you know, a lot
of kind of going by into staying hi and checking
on folks, a lot of super VIP members because part
of the hotel is like a private club as well,
so a lot of connecting with those folks and then
you get a chance to you know, connect with ownership
of the hotel and also the Four Seasons management. So
we have a bunch of meetings and stuff. WHI we're
(01:55):
here too, which is kind of fun, but I mean
it's it's paradise, my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
With all the on stuff on your new menu at
the uh Hualleye restaurant, I was wondering, do you have
any cauliflower recipes on there?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Well, cauliflower, we also have brassicas, right, Like, cauliflower is
one of my favorite things in the world, right, And
and I think the cauliflower steak that a lot of
people just seemingly, you know, without a lot of inspirations,
kind of slap on the menu for a vegetarian or
vegan option. I think that's a little played out. But
I think cauliflower is so neutral. It's one of my
(02:29):
favorite flavors on planet Earth. And then it blends in
so wonderful and in ways that it just that feel
just like nostalgic. I think pure a cauliflower or roasta
cauliflower has like the flavor profile of chowder, right, So
like to me, it starts it starts to taste like
really kind of wonderful, yummy clam chowder, and and there's
(02:49):
so many different things you can do with it. So
our one of our favorite side dishes here also in
San Francisco are roast of brosicas, so which is sort
of a fancy word for BROCCOLI's right. So it's uh,
purple cauliflower, white cauliflower, and then a few different other broccolis.
And we will trim the heads of it off, blanch them,
and then we'll take the stems and then we'll make
(03:11):
a broccoli pesto out of that and just pure it
instead of adding you know, basil. We have blanched broccoli
stems and it pures beautifully. And what that will fold
in good parmesan, cheese, pine nuts, a little bit of garlic,
limbons us and touch a chili and you have this
vibrant broccoli pesto that we smear in the bottom of
these beautiful polished copper pots. And then we top it
off with the roasta broskas, a little bit of myer
(03:33):
lemonaoli for like nice little pop toasted pineuts, some parmesan,
and it flies out the door and like people just
love it, I think, other than the mashed potatoes and
our cream kale which is super popular. And I think
the third one is our roastabroskis it's a hit.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The reason why I asked about cauliflowers because today on
the episode we have Kail Becker and she's the founder
of Cola Power and is the reason why I basically
can buy frozen caulflower pizza at the grocery store to
She started this mission after both of her sons were
diagnosed with celiac and she needed to find an alternative,
healthy way to feed them. So we're ready to dive
(04:10):
in with her interview today and figure out what's going
on with this crazy current trend of cauliflower popularity. It's everywhere,
it seems. We're going to take a quick break when
we come back Gail Becker, the founder of Call of
Power right here on Two Dude in the Kitchen. All right,
(04:33):
welcome back to Two Dudes in the Kitchen, now joined
by a very lovely lady in Gail Becker, the founder
of Colleague Power.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
On the show, Gil, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I was telling Tyler before we got you on the
show that I have had your product many times. I
even sold some of it on Instagram, and I love
it so much. And we were talking about my favorite thing.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You guys make.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
You make a lot of like really great stuff, like
the the.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Call our pizza, I believe is.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah yeah, but I love the cauliflower chicken tenders coupled
with a good air fryer, easy quick, really nutritious meal,
and I just absolutely love it. So thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Wow, that's I couldn't ask for better inter than that.
Thank you for Thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Tell us how this all started because Cauliflower, I feel like,
wasn't the cool kid in high school, but then like
somehow got a glow up or something or like hit
puberty and like then all of a sudden, it was everywhere.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yeah yeah, she was the one that didn't get asked
the prop and now she's being asked a lot.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
So I think it was really.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
The convergence of three things that were happening in my
life at the same time. So one, I was working
in Corporate America. I climbed my way to the top
of the ladder and realized once I got there that
they didn't like the view very much. The second, my
father passed away, and I think when someone's parent dies,
(06:10):
you you sort of take stock of life, and you
realize the fragility of it. You realize that you want
to do something more meaningful. And my father, I'm a
first generation American. Both my parents were immigrants here, and
you know, he sort of lived the American dream, and
I thought I would to honor his entrepreneurial journey somewhere
(06:31):
he started a small business. And then third, I'm the
mom of two boys with Celiac disease and they were
diagnosed at such a young age, but there was really
no gluten free food in the store, so everything that
they needed I would.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Have to make from scratch.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
And it gave me a really good perch from which
to watch the gluten free industry evolve. And what I
began to notice was how much junk the industry was
putting in free food.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
I sort of that someone would.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Come along and do something about it, someone from the industry,
but no one ever did. So I put all of
those three things in a roverbial blender, and what.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I came out with was, I know, I'm going.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
To put my job and start a company called Coffee Power.
And that's what I did in May of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Is there anything that's been more costco fabulous than cauliflower
crustal pizza. I think it's kind of one of those
things that people bought and drove still do. But walk
us through the success of that. When did that really
become a thing? Because I remember it was it was
not you, You never heard of it, and then call
(07:40):
flier crustal pizza was everywhere.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
I like to say that it was an idea hiding
and playing sight. So you know, the day I made
my first cauliflywer crust pizza, there were five hundred and
sixty nine thousand recipes on the internet.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
So consumers were so frustrated by what they were finding
and your freeze rial that they were resorting to spend
ninety minutes to make a piece of.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Cress from scratch. I tried it one time.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
I've only ever made collier because we don't want from scratch,
and it was okay.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
It took ninety minutes, and I thought, well, I'm never
doing that again.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
And so when my son asked if I was making it,
I said, no, I'll find it for you. And I
looked everywhere and I couldn't find it. So, you know,
I think Collie Power is a company that.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Is really good at listening to our consumers.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
And what I heard was we're desperate. We don't want
to sacrifice nutrition for taste. We want something that tastes great,
that's easy, and that isn't going to make me feel
like crap after And so that's what I heard. And
so what I did was I just brought that meal
(08:51):
hack to life. And that really is the sort of
essence of.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
What Colleipower is. Wells, you talked about the chicken tender.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
That's another meal that was hiding and playing sights that
people were taking chicken and coating it and cauliflower, I'm sorry,
encoding it and everything from tortilla chips to cereal.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Uh and then and then and then air frying you.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
So, I like to think the best ideas they come
from people who eat, which is all of us. And
and and so that's what we've been pretty good at
listening to. And then once we brought it to market,
there was obviously a lot of pedub demand and and.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
You know, I think we changed we changed the look
of the freezer.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
Asle and and and we've.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Been trying to do it ever since as well.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I'm going over kind of all the stuff that you
guys have and it's it's kind of mind blowing, Like
I didn't even think of nachos, and now I'm looking
at the first thing game day chicken, you know, tender nachos,
and then like pizza dip and bagel and locks pizza,
(09:59):
Like it's you've gone.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
So far outside the box?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Have you hit a wall in like your innovation or
like does it never end? Like can you just make
everything with Caulflower?
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Well, first I'm going to say, take a look at
my hair, so I am definitely outside the box.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
That is one.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I I love your hair. And for people that are
listening versus watching this little buff right now, you have
you have the curliest hair.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Fantastic, thank you, thank you. That came along with Gollie Power.
I started my hair with Draven.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
But I guess the point is we're just getting started,
and uh we are. We We watch how just like
you guys, We look at how people eat, We see
what they want, we see where their frustrations are.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
They're so generous with their thoughts they share them.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
With us, and you know, we're really good listeners, and
we ring those those things to a lot, so sure
was it was it was it unexpected that the company
that you know created the Collie player Chris Pizza is also.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
The one that's going to make chicken tenders not that
long after. Ye, it's a little un it unexpected.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
But when you think about how people eat and what
they want to eat, and what are people's comfort foods
and why can't we have comfort foods that actually are
not filled with junk? You know, it's twenty twenty four.
I don't think that's so much to ask.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
What has been like the most popular thing that you
guys have been selling.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Our margarite to pizza is and has been number one
for quite some time. And our pizzas obviously are what.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Or what sort of put us on the on the map,
if you will.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Uh, And we you know, we have certainly introduced a
lot of news few since then. We have a white
pizza which is just you know, exploding in retail. But
we also have a lot of new products that are
that when people are discovering, are really growing quite rapidly.
We have our new pizza bites, which are baked instead
(12:15):
of fried.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
The first baked pizza bite on.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
The market, and and our dial chicken bytes, which are
if you I won't see in the company, but if
you like a certain company chicken, you know, dill is
the secret ingredient there.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
So we like to say these are the chicken bites
you can eat on Sunday. But it is it is,
you know, really it's it's sort of limitless.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
But but those products are definitely generating a lot of excitement.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Can we talk a little bit about the nutritional value
in comparison to like typical flower based recipes, I guess so,
Like for me, the reason why I worked with you
guys originally was because I do have a gluten allergy,
and so I was like, I literally want to try
this to see that if it helps my stomach. But
(13:06):
I was concerned that, you know, one of the things
one of the problems with like meatless products is it's
full of so much soy and and so Yes, it's
great because you're not you know, you're not eating meat,
but then you're you're kind of supplementing with something that
like might be really really high in sodium or something.
So I'm wondering what kind of the comparisons are between
(13:27):
your recipes and the recipes you're kind of replacing with
call Flower.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Absolutely. So you know, everything that we make has to
hit on three elements. One, Uh, it has to be convenient, right,
it has to be easy for people to make. Two
it has to have some nutritional advantage, right, otherwise what
are we doing? And Three it has to taste great.
(13:56):
And so we've left a lot of products in the cutting.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Rooms because it didn't hit on all of those three.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
So having some nutritional advantage to what else is in
the market is really important to us. I'll give you
a couple of examples, because I don't just think it's
the ingredients.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Although obviously we don't use any artificial ingredients.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
We don't use toy, we don't use a lot of
ingredients that people are looking for. Although I will say
most people who buy us are not gluten free. We
make great tasting, better for you products that happened to
be gluten free. But we are not a gluten free company.
We're just a company that makes great tasting.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Food that happens to be gluten free. Okay, So, but
I think that for a lot of people.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
When I started, you know, it's funny, I looked at
a lot of the pizzas in the category, and not
only were they filled with sugar and solved in all
of those things, but the serving size was ridiculous because
it was one slice was a serving size, or two spices.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
We're serving size.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
So it's not just it's not just the food itself,
it's how much are people realistically eating. We were the
first company to actually put a serving size as half a.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Pizza, because that's what people eat. And by the way,
sometimes they eat the whole pizza, myself included. So you know,
I think it's.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
It is being real about ingredients and real about communicating that,
but also.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Real about how people want to eat, cheese, to eat,
do eat, And I think that's really important.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
And we do use we do use real ingredients, We
do use real cheese, we do use real meat.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Something for everybody, no matter how you like to eat, whether.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
You're a carnivore, whether you're a vegetarian, whether you're everybody
can live under that colleague power umbrella.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
You know, there's so many different types of cauliflower.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
You've got white, you've got green, You've got the romanesco,
which is like caulflower on LSD, orange, purple.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Which is my favorite, by the way, I love that.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Which one purple or Romanesco.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Well, actually all of them. We have a really kind
of fabulous like roasted Brassica's side dish at Miller and
Luck to San Francisco, which is just amazing. We actually
take the stem, when we trim it all down, we
make a pasto out of that, make a broccoli stem pasto. Yeah,
so we take it. It's it's cauliflower, broccoli, Romanesco, beautiful
purple cauliflower, and then we will trim the tops off
(16:35):
of them roast them because I think roasted broccoli and
roasted cauliflower is my favorite. I think that's just it's
simple stal pepper, olive ohale in the oven three hundred
and fifty degrees for you know, fifteen twenty minutes until
the sugars beginning to caramelize. It's one of my favorite
flavors of it's really really nice. And then we take
all the trim and then we literally blanch it and
(16:55):
then we make a Instead of adding basil, we just
make a puree out of all of the trail, all
the stem, and then we make and then we add
everything else. It's the pine nuts, it's the cheese, it's
the garlic, uh you know, and so you kind of
really get this luscious pesto vibe, but that deep Braska
flavor profile, which is just amazing.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I'm coming over love it.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to know, like, can we
get these two great mindes together and come up with
a dish that can can Tyler Florence create a dish
for COULI power real quick for you guys.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
One hundred percent. I would be honored for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Let's go. Okay, So, as a matter of fact, what
I literally just came up with one I was making
notes right here, and I came up with cauliflower cauliflower caeso.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yes, yes, love it because the viscosity of the cauliflower
rig can easily hold a melted cheese and may have
that really beautiful string you stretch to, which is really
really nice.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Right, I love it?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So do you want to make this with chicken socker?
Make with suck? Where do you want to go?
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Let's make it with veg stock so that people who
are vegetarian can eat it as well.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Love it a great Okay, So what you gotta do
is you got. You gotta take like two heads of cauliflower,
and you're gonna chop off the florettes and chop up
the stems, because I love the stems are really nice.
They eat really really well if you slice them nice
and thin and and chop everything about the same size.
And then you're gonna pop all of it into the
oven a little bit of extra version, olive, little salt
and pepper, three fifty twenty minutes, twenty five minutes until
(18:28):
it's nice and crusty, take it out, set it on
the side, and then and then we're gonna build everything else. Right,
So I literally just made this up. So in a pot,
we're gonna add chopped onion, We're gonnadd chopped garlic. Uh,
we're gonna add chili powder. We're gonna add kumen. We're
gonna sautee this down right. Then we're gonna add veg
stock on top of this. And then probably two thirds
(18:50):
of the cauliflower is gonna go into the pot and
you're gonna simmer this flavor profile and then uh, and
then we could probably finish up a little bit of
cream if you want to. But I think the creamy
consistency of the onion pure match with the silky pure
which I love. Of the cauliflower, I think you could
probably leave that out, although we are going to add
dairy to this. We're gonna add real cheese, okay. So
(19:11):
so this liquid goes into a high speed blender divided prep.
So with this baby food smooth dure, put it back
into the pot, and then you have basically sort of
a chili flavored cauliflower soup, which would be really really nice,
and what else that will fit into your soup category
in a lovely way. And then and then what you
(19:31):
want to do is you want to add just straight
from the bag, handfuls of shredded Monterey Jack cheese into
the liquid base ofness. Now that's going to start to
melt with the heat, and then you're gonna have this
really kind of luscious uh cheese pull out of it.
So I would pour that into a dish. I would
take the last one. I can't third or one fourth
(19:52):
or whatever whatever I use, So the rest of what's
going to go on top is a really really nice garnish.
And then I would I would slice paper thin slice
the Halloween garnish sat on top of that nice pool
plumes of cilantro and uh and then serve that with
some tortilla chips, And I think that would be fantastic
and it's just a really great way to use that
in a very inventive way. But I also think has
(20:12):
a very catchy catchphrase to it, like cauliflower caso sounds bomb.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, it does sound bomb. I think it would be
bomb on a pizza crust.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Just say okay, So so walk me through this. Because
I'm in the food business just like yourself, and I
have manufactured quite a few things. I've never done anything frozen.
So I think a lot of people that are listening
to this because we have a lot of like pro
sumer fans, like people that have that multimillion dollar idea
(20:42):
that just really don't know how to take it to
the next step. If you want to manufacture a frozen
product to take the scale, where do you start? Because
this is what I'm fascinating.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Well, the first thing that I would say is that
ignorance is really uh is really going to help you
because if I had known how hard it was, I
probably never would have done it.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Frozen is the most pressured space in the grocery store.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It's the most limited, so in many ways, it's the
hardest to break into. Of course, nobody told me that,
so you do hate a little bit of ignorance.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
To go into this crazy business.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
But you know, I started, and I had to find
a manufacturer to help me make it, and that's really
the first step.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
I will tell you that a lot of people turn
me down.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
A lot of people said, you can't make up the
crust that a collie flower?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Are you crazy, lady? What do you know about pizza?
And I think I.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Cried about seven home manufacturers and all of them turned
me down. And the very last one I literally begged
like I've never been before and finally got them to,
you know, arrive at a place where.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
We could both be happy, and they took a bet
on me.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
It's hard when you're starting out because your volume is
so low, nobody really.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Wants to take you on.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
So I would say the first step is to find
someone to make your product. And you know, frozen manufacturing
is somewhere limited, so I think that that is I
think that's the first step.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
And also but the good thing is there's lots of
people to help you.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
There's lots of people to help you find co manufacturers,
and so I just hired someone to help me.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
And on a capital race standpoint, did like what was
your first couple of big capital raises like that? That
walking into this particular category prepared and ready to like
I'm going to say, do battle, because like, that's kind
of what the grocery store space feels like sometimes because
we've launched things in grocery and it is block and
(23:02):
tackle all day long. What kind of capital raise are
you talking about to jump into something like this, because again,
this is the kind of stuff I find fasting.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Yeah, it is. Uh that in many ways.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
The trickiest part of the business for me. I didn't
know much about that world. In some ways it was
an advantage. In many ways it was a disadvantage. I
self funded it to begin with. I maxed out all
my credit cards, I sold everything I had, used up
(23:36):
my savings.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Do you name it? Uh?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
And then and then it came time to raise and
it was hard.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It was hard. I think it's particular.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
I mean, this isn't me saying it, but you know
the facts will show you that, you know, less than
two percent of VC dollars goes to female entrepreneurs. So
I you know, that made it even more hard difficult.
We had about I talked to I called the Summer
of Self. I talked to about thirty five potential investors
(24:11):
in Collie Power. We were already in the market and
killing it in just in some detailers, and so I
took one of those.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
And as the company.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Grew, it certainly became easier in many ways, but it
also became harder because you know, look, you guys love food.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
I love food.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
The big reason I went into this crazy business. I
wanted to help people. I wanted to help feed people.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Food was always.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Because my parents had literally nothing growing up. Food was
always their way of showing people.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
That they loved them.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
And that's why I went into this business. But that's
not why everybody goes into this business.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
And so it's.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Really important to find like minded partners who are going
to support you on this crazy journey. And it is
one crazy, wonderful but one crazy journey.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Like I've taken I don't know, maybe like ten ten
eleven products to market and everything from Like I invented
a baby food company from my apartment in New York
City in the early two thousands. We sold that I've
had wine brands, wine labels. You know, we've made things
in jars and like simmer sauces and spice pouches and
(25:38):
all kinds of stuff. So we've done We've had products
at Costco. We had a very very successful run with
a company in LA that manufactured meatballs for us, which
is just awesome. So I think that fearlessness. I think
you definitely want to educate yourself for sure. And this
is kind of a cross message to all the folks
that are listening, because I know a lot of people,
(26:00):
like I said, that multimillion dollar ID in their head
and they just need some sort of advice, some sort
of roadmap, some way to get started. And I think
you have to just kind of lay out the best
path for you in steps and stages. If you've got
a really great name, I think that's the most important thing,
and then you got to lock it all up. You've
got to make sure that you've got the trademark application
(26:23):
file for that. That's really really important. You've got to
make sure that you have all the social media handles
because and this sounds simplistic, but a lot of people
never google this stuff to make sure it's even available.
You've got all the social media handles locked up, and then,
like I said, the most important thing is that you
have the trademark application, because that's IP protection. That is
(26:44):
IP protection, Your idea is protected. Right. And then I
think the first first step if you can kind of
get like sample products of this same manufactured make it
out of your house, and then go to the farmer's market.
I think selling stuff and small quantities in a farmer's
market to just get the name brand out there. Let's
just say you launch your Instagram page with whatever you
(27:07):
know widget product you want to make, right, you're incredibly
passionate about it. And then starting with a farmer's market
out of coolers, you're there at five o'clock in the morning.
You you know, at ten o'clock in the morning, you
got a line off the door, and you're collecting data, right,
You're collecting email addresses. You you have the sort of
insta fabulous moment that people want to take pictures of
your products. And then do be your broadcast on you
(27:31):
want all of these people to like be your evangelists
and start talking about this product in a really great way, right,
and then you have proof of product, so then you've
got I'm popular. Let me show you my Instagram stats.
You know, I've got all this stuff locked up, and
now we're kind of ready for the next level. And
then so that proof thing like find one grocery store,
(27:53):
because you have to have two relationships. You have to
have the grocery store acceptance and then you have to
have the commercial application to be able to take it
and make it at scale. So the commercial application that
make it scale, which is going to be your food
manufacturing partner, it probably won't accept the deal unless you've
already got a contract at a grocery store. So just
get one grocery store. That's all you need. You need
(28:14):
one grocery store. When we launch products, we love a
just big shout out to chib hib In Texas is
a great company to launch any kind of product out
of because in the Houston area, Dallas area, San Antonio, Austin.
You know, we've done every product launch we usually HGB
is always game to play with us, and they have
(28:34):
really great distribution, you know, the really great saturation in markets.
And then they in a different like like zip codes, right,
so you could say this product works in an expensive neighborhood,
and this product works in a in other neighborhoods. Right,
So you've got really really great demographics to show this stuff.
Then you're ready for the scale part. Then you're ready
for the big raise then, so to take it from
(28:57):
those and this could take five years, you got to
be super patient, right, yeah, yeah, You've got to be
super patient with the process. Right, then you're ready for
the big rays. Right. And then and then with the
big rays that that could be twenty million bucks sometimes, right,
that could be like really ten million, twenty million, that's
could be really really big numbers. And then because like
(29:19):
then then you you're gonna want to raise money for
the products to kind of get into a competition level.
And sometimes you got to buy your way in. There's
there's a mid level distribution people that will take a
piece of the of the the wholesale margin. And then
and then you you have to buy shelf space inside
of a grocery store. So you got to walk into
those situations incredibly well funded to be able to kind
(29:42):
of compete at that at that freezer level. And then
and I've never done it, and so I'm super I'm
excited about this story because like that's where my brain
goes and like, I like, how do you get there? Right? Because, like,
like I said, a lot of our folks that listen
to this stuff, they they're like they they they're they're
budding cookbook authors, they're they're they're folks that really, you know,
wanted to have like a television persona and cook on television,
(30:06):
and they want to manufacture products. Most folks that we
talked to, I've liked that manufacturing story, and these I
think are the back end, like nuts and bolts that
I think what makes two dudes in the kitchen really
successful because when people listen, this is the advice that
moves the needle and they'll carry this with them forever,
like somebody's listening to them and somebody's given them a roadmap.
(30:28):
So I love what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah, oh good, No, I mean, I think I think
the great.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
Thing about entrepreneurialism is there's so many different paths, right,
and so you know that what you just outlined is
a brilliant path. And I know lots of people that
have been very successful in that way. I took a
slightly different path, you know, I was a slightly older
entrepreneur a lot of times away, so I sort of
(30:54):
bypass the farmers market roofs and I just went straight
to my manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
It was like go big or go home?
Speaker 5 (31:03):
And I think, what what what entrepreneurs or people with
an idea, I give two pieces of advice.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
One is, you've got to figure out what you're going
to do, Like what rules are you going to follow?
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Right to your point, there's so many different rules and
processes and regulations that you need to follow when you
have to.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Because that's how you launch a food business for the
most part. But there's also a lot of rules you
need to break. How are you going to do it differently?
How are you going to do it better?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
How are you going to make bring people joy? How
are you going to are you going to be cheaper,
are you going to be tastier? Are you going to
be more prolific? Like what are you going to do?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
What are you going to do the same? And what
are you going to do different?
Speaker 5 (31:49):
And then I would say the second piece of advice
that I usually give is I think sometimes we sort of.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Wait for a sign.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
Right to your point, we have a great idea and
waiting for that perfect moment and waiting for that time
to sort of jump in and realize is like having kids.
There is no good time. There is no good time.
So you know, at execution is ninety eight percent of
(32:19):
being an entrepreneur. Great ideas are a dime a dozen,
but execution is the difference maker. And it doesn't have
to be perfect. You don't have to wait till it's perfect.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
You just have to do it.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
You can sort of you know, morph as you as
you get in market, as you hear feedback, because you
hear feedback from retailers or consumers, which you.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Just got to get it out there. That's the first step.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, don't let great get in the way.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Of good exactly, and evolve.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Your product as you go. And I like what you
just said as having a differential between you and whatever
the competition is in that particular space either, you know,
the the rarity of having something that has never existed before,
it's kind of hard to find. So it's never you know,
it's always these moments where it's not a it's not
(33:12):
a revolution, but it's an evolution of an idea or product, right,
So you know, like it's hard to invent the new
light bulb, but it's it's it's easy, it's easy to make,
or the thought about having a light bulb that does
something different, right that you can plug into an app
or it has more of it, or it lasts three
times longer, or whatever the process is, especially in the
food space, So you really got to think through how
(33:33):
am I different, how am I special? How am I
going to stand out in the marketplace? And then what
I like about you is that I think companies have
to have a face to the brand. There has to
be somebody because like sometimes I think companies will launch
a product with a logo and a name and they
never take that opportunity to really lean into the founder
(33:54):
and the founder's story or the founders really don't think
that they're like television worthy or whatever it is. But
I think it's so important for them to have that
story because that's the believability part, that's the authenticity part
of us. Right. So when you specifically say that the
reason I did this because I like my children and
I'm a mom, and I couldn't find anything in the marketplace,
(34:14):
so I jumped in and plugged a hole that I
couldn't find. And my success story is now your success story,
and people are going to love that because you did
it for them.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
That's a nice thing to say. I sure, hope, So
that's nice.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Thank you, Gail.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Thank you so much for coming on to Dudes in
a kitchen. For everyone out there, you go try Call
of Power. You can go online it's eat call of
Power dot com. But you can obviously get it at
your local grocery store or anywhere they sell food.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Yes, And I actually have a little incentive anybody who
direct messages us on any of our social channel channels
at callipower.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
All they have to say is two dudes in the
kitchen and we will give them a coupon good for
a free any free products.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Wow, look at that, right, I'm excited about the cupon. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
You know, I've given free pizza to billionaires and they
still take the coupon and they love it.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
I don't know if they use it, but they love
that some one game.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, well, Gil, thank you so much for coming on.
Two Dudes in the kitchen. Big fan of your products.
So cool to have you on the show. And yeah,
I can vouch for the call power product. I've had it.
I've got some of my freezer right now. Ever, out there,
run don't walk to your grocery store and get you
some call power. Thank you so much for coming on
the show.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Gil, Thanks so much you guys. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Take care, great to meet you. Fantastic story. I love
your story.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Thank you, thank you. And let's make that pizza together.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
That's do it for sure. I would love that fantastic.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I would love it too.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Okay, you're on, Okay, and you gotta make the casa
deip Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
The caso on top of the pizza.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Cauliflower caso for the win. No bo's good.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Okay, stay tuned, thank you, Thanks so all right, everyone,
thank you so much for listening. If there are any
guests that you'd like to see us have on the show,
let us know by sending us a DM at Two
Dudes in a Kitchen And as always, you can follow
us at two Dudes in a Kitchen on Instagram and
on TikTok. Don't forget to subscribe where you get your podcasts,
and we'll be back next week with two new episodes
(36:18):
of Two Dudes. See you then, Tyler enjoy Sonny Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Thank you so much. It's been a fabulous week here.
I want to give you just a quick shout out
to my entire team at Miller Lux in the four
seasons Wallight Exceptional Week. Everyone's killing it here. We'd love
to see you.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
So all right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on
Instagram at two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to
write us a review and leave us five stars.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
We'll take that and we'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
See you next time.
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And Wells Adams and iHeartRadio podcast. All right, welcome into
another episode of Two Dudes in a Kitchen. Tyler Florence
is in sunny Hawaii, whereas I am just in regular
old Smoggie studio City. Excited about the episode today, Tyler,
how you doing, Bud great man?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm here in Hawaii
for a week. Miller and Locks. Of the four seasons
I opened in December. If you guys remember if you
listened to the shows before, because we actually broadcasted like
right before we open. And now it's kind of been
that cycle thing where I'm here at least once a quarter,
if not twice a quarter. So I'm here this week
and I'm back. I'm back in two weeks. That's fun.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
When you go there, do you like make sure all
the line cooks and your executive chefs that everyone are
doing what you want? Or are you kind of just
getting a vacation every three months?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
A little bit of both, to be honest with you, right,
because it's hard to not come here and just kind
of fall in love with it. Right. So the restaurant's
kind of like ripe on. I'm shoulder here and then
they're here. This is the and you're gonna love this,
two brother. That's the eighteenth hole of the golf course.
And I'm staying in one of the fabulous condos here
at the four seasons, and and so I'm on the
line every night in the kitchen when I'm here, and
(01:14):
you get a chance to you know, connect with all
the cooks. We usually start working on new dishes while
I'm here too and start connecting with people. So we
have a bunch of like table side stuff. We do
a fabulous bananas fosters here. We also have our you know,
dover Soul that we finished table side. So that's kind
of like a lot of the showy stuff that I
end up doing on the floor like when I'm here,
(01:34):
just because like a lot of people love it and
you get a chance to connect with people and say hi.
A lot of like table touching, you know, a lot
of kind of going by into staying hi and checking
on folks, a lot of super VIP members because part
of the hotel is like a private club as well,
so a lot of connecting with those folks and then
you get a chance to you know, connect with ownership
of the hotel and also the Four Seasons management. So
we have a bunch of meetings and stuff. WHI we're
(01:55):
here too, which is kind of fun, but I mean
it's it's paradise, my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
With all the on stuff on your new menu at
the uh Hualleye restaurant, I was wondering, do you have
any cauliflower recipes on there?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Well, cauliflower, we also have brassicas, right, Like, cauliflower is
one of my favorite things in the world, right, And
and I think the cauliflower steak that a lot of
people just seemingly, you know, without a lot of inspirations,
kind of slap on the menu for a vegetarian or
vegan option. I think that's a little played out. But
I think cauliflower is so neutral. It's one of my
(02:29):
favorite flavors on planet Earth. And then it blends in
so wonderful and in ways that it just that feel
just like nostalgic. I think pure a cauliflower or roasta
cauliflower has like the flavor profile of chowder, right, So
like to me, it starts it starts to taste like
really kind of wonderful, yummy clam chowder, and and there's
(02:49):
so many different things you can do with it. So
our one of our favorite side dishes here also in
San Francisco are roast of brosicas, so which is sort
of a fancy word for BROCCOLI's right. So it's uh,
purple cauliflower, white cauliflower, and then a few different other broccolis.
And we will trim the heads of it off, blanch them,
and then we'll take the stems and then we'll make
(03:11):
a broccoli pesto out of that and just pure it
instead of adding you know, basil. We have blanched broccoli
stems and it pures beautifully. And what that will fold
in good parmesan, cheese, pine nuts, a little bit of garlic,
limbons us and touch a chili and you have this
vibrant broccoli pesto that we smear in the bottom of
these beautiful polished copper pots. And then we top it
off with the roasta broskas, a little bit of myer
(03:33):
lemonaoli for like nice little pop toasted pineuts, some parmesan,
and it flies out the door and like people just
love it, I think, other than the mashed potatoes and
our cream kale which is super popular. And I think
the third one is our roastabroskis it's a hit.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The reason why I asked about cauliflowers because today on
the episode we have Kail Becker and she's the founder
of Cola Power and is the reason why I basically
can buy frozen caulflower pizza at the grocery store to
She started this mission after both of her sons were
diagnosed with celiac and she needed to find an alternative,
healthy way to feed them. So we're ready to dive
(04:10):
in with her interview today and figure out what's going
on with this crazy current trend of cauliflower popularity. It's everywhere,
it seems. We're going to take a quick break when
we come back Gail Becker, the founder of Call of
Power right here on Two Dude in the Kitchen. All right,
(04:33):
welcome back to Two Dudes in the Kitchen, now joined
by a very lovely lady in Gail Becker, the founder
of Colleague Power.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
On the show, Gil, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I was telling Tyler before we got you on the
show that I have had your product many times. I
even sold some of it on Instagram, and I love
it so much. And we were talking about my favorite thing.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You guys make.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
You make a lot of like really great stuff, like
the the.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Call our pizza, I believe is.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah yeah, but I love the cauliflower chicken tenders coupled
with a good air fryer, easy quick, really nutritious meal,
and I just absolutely love it. So thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Wow, that's I couldn't ask for better inter than that.
Thank you for Thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Tell us how this all started because Cauliflower, I feel like,
wasn't the cool kid in high school, but then like
somehow got a glow up or something or like hit
puberty and like then all of a sudden, it was everywhere.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yeah yeah, she was the one that didn't get asked
the prop and now she's being asked a lot.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
So I think it was really.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
The convergence of three things that were happening in my
life at the same time. So one, I was working
in Corporate America. I climbed my way to the top
of the ladder and realized once I got there that
they didn't like the view very much. The second, my
father passed away, and I think when someone's parent dies,
(06:10):
you you sort of take stock of life, and you
realize the fragility of it. You realize that you want
to do something more meaningful. And my father, I'm a
first generation American. Both my parents were immigrants here, and
you know, he sort of lived the American dream, and
I thought I would to honor his entrepreneurial journey somewhere
(06:31):
he started a small business. And then third, I'm the
mom of two boys with Celiac disease and they were
diagnosed at such a young age, but there was really
no gluten free food in the store, so everything that
they needed I would.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Have to make from scratch.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
And it gave me a really good perch from which
to watch the gluten free industry evolve. And what I
began to notice was how much junk the industry was
putting in free food.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
I sort of that someone would.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Come along and do something about it, someone from the industry,
but no one ever did. So I put all of
those three things in a roverbial blender, and what.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I came out with was, I know, I'm going.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
To put my job and start a company called Coffee Power.
And that's what I did in May of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Is there anything that's been more costco fabulous than cauliflower
crustal pizza. I think it's kind of one of those
things that people bought and drove still do. But walk
us through the success of that. When did that really
become a thing? Because I remember it was it was
not you, You never heard of it, and then call
(07:40):
flier crustal pizza was everywhere.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
I like to say that it was an idea hiding
and playing sight. So you know, the day I made
my first cauliflywer crust pizza, there were five hundred and
sixty nine thousand recipes on the internet.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
So consumers were so frustrated by what they were finding
and your freeze rial that they were resorting to spend
ninety minutes to make a piece of.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Cress from scratch. I tried it one time.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
I've only ever made collier because we don't want from scratch,
and it was okay.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
It took ninety minutes, and I thought, well, I'm never
doing that again.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
And so when my son asked if I was making it,
I said, no, I'll find it for you. And I
looked everywhere and I couldn't find it. So, you know,
I think Collie Power is a company that.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Is really good at listening to our consumers.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
And what I heard was we're desperate. We don't want
to sacrifice nutrition for taste. We want something that tastes great,
that's easy, and that isn't going to make me feel
like crap after And so that's what I heard. And
so what I did was I just brought that meal
(08:51):
hack to life. And that really is the sort of
essence of.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
What Colleipower is. Wells, you talked about the chicken tender.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
That's another meal that was hiding and playing sights that
people were taking chicken and coating it and cauliflower, I'm sorry,
encoding it and everything from tortilla chips to cereal.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Uh and then and then and then air frying you.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
So, I like to think the best ideas they come
from people who eat, which is all of us. And
and and so that's what we've been pretty good at
listening to. And then once we brought it to market,
there was obviously a lot of pedub demand and and.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
You know, I think we changed we changed the look
of the freezer.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
Asle and and and we've.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Been trying to do it ever since as well.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I'm going over kind of all the stuff that you
guys have and it's it's kind of mind blowing, Like
I didn't even think of nachos, and now I'm looking
at the first thing game day chicken, you know, tender nachos,
and then like pizza dip and bagel and locks pizza,
(09:59):
Like it's you've gone.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
So far outside the box?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Have you hit a wall in like your innovation or
like does it never end? Like can you just make
everything with Caulflower?
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Well, first I'm going to say, take a look at
my hair, so I am definitely outside the box.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
That is one.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I I love your hair. And for people that are
listening versus watching this little buff right now, you have
you have the curliest hair.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Fantastic, thank you, thank you. That came along with Gollie Power.
I started my hair with Draven.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
But I guess the point is we're just getting started,
and uh we are. We We watch how just like
you guys, We look at how people eat, We see
what they want, we see where their frustrations are.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
They're so generous with their thoughts they share them.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
With us, and you know, we're really good listeners, and
we ring those those things to a lot, so sure
was it was it was it unexpected that the company
that you know created the Collie player Chris Pizza is also.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
The one that's going to make chicken tenders not that
long after. Ye, it's a little un it unexpected.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
But when you think about how people eat and what
they want to eat, and what are people's comfort foods
and why can't we have comfort foods that actually are
not filled with junk? You know, it's twenty twenty four.
I don't think that's so much to ask.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
What has been like the most popular thing that you
guys have been selling.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Our margarite to pizza is and has been number one
for quite some time. And our pizzas obviously are what.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Or what sort of put us on the on the map,
if you will.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Uh, And we you know, we have certainly introduced a
lot of news few since then. We have a white
pizza which is just you know, exploding in retail. But
we also have a lot of new products that are
that when people are discovering, are really growing quite rapidly.
We have our new pizza bites, which are baked instead
(12:15):
of fried.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
The first baked pizza bite on.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
The market, and and our dial chicken bytes, which are
if you I won't see in the company, but if
you like a certain company chicken, you know, dill is
the secret ingredient there.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
So we like to say these are the chicken bites
you can eat on Sunday. But it is it is,
you know, really it's it's sort of limitless.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
But but those products are definitely generating a lot of excitement.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Can we talk a little bit about the nutritional value
in comparison to like typical flower based recipes, I guess so,
Like for me, the reason why I worked with you
guys originally was because I do have a gluten allergy,
and so I was like, I literally want to try
this to see that if it helps my stomach. But
(13:06):
I was concerned that, you know, one of the things
one of the problems with like meatless products is it's
full of so much soy and and so Yes, it's
great because you're not you know, you're not eating meat,
but then you're you're kind of supplementing with something that
like might be really really high in sodium or something.
So I'm wondering what kind of the comparisons are between
(13:27):
your recipes and the recipes you're kind of replacing with
call Flower.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Absolutely. So you know, everything that we make has to
hit on three elements. One, Uh, it has to be convenient, right,
it has to be easy for people to make. Two
it has to have some nutritional advantage, right, otherwise what
are we doing? And Three it has to taste great.
(13:56):
And so we've left a lot of products in the cutting.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Rooms because it didn't hit on all of those three.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
So having some nutritional advantage to what else is in
the market is really important to us. I'll give you
a couple of examples, because I don't just think it's
the ingredients.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Although obviously we don't use any artificial ingredients.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
We don't use toy, we don't use a lot of
ingredients that people are looking for. Although I will say
most people who buy us are not gluten free. We
make great tasting, better for you products that happened to
be gluten free. But we are not a gluten free company.
We're just a company that makes great tasting.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Food that happens to be gluten free. Okay, So, but
I think that for a lot of people.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
When I started, you know, it's funny, I looked at
a lot of the pizzas in the category, and not
only were they filled with sugar and solved in all
of those things, but the serving size was ridiculous because
it was one slice was a serving size, or two spices.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
We're serving size.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
So it's not just it's not just the food itself,
it's how much are people realistically eating. We were the
first company to actually put a serving size as half a.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Pizza, because that's what people eat. And by the way,
sometimes they eat the whole pizza, myself included. So you know,
I think it's.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
It is being real about ingredients and real about communicating that,
but also.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Real about how people want to eat, cheese, to eat,
do eat, And I think that's really important.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
And we do use we do use real ingredients, We
do use real cheese, we do use real meat.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Something for everybody, no matter how you like to eat, whether.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
You're a carnivore, whether you're a vegetarian, whether you're everybody
can live under that colleague power umbrella.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
You know, there's so many different types of cauliflower.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
You've got white, you've got green, You've got the romanesco,
which is like caulflower on LSD, orange, purple.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Which is my favorite, by the way, I love that.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Which one purple or Romanesco.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Well, actually all of them. We have a really kind
of fabulous like roasted Brassica's side dish at Miller and
Luck to San Francisco, which is just amazing. We actually
take the stem, when we trim it all down, we
make a pasto out of that, make a broccoli stem pasto. Yeah,
so we take it. It's it's cauliflower, broccoli, Romanesco, beautiful
purple cauliflower, and then we will trim the tops off
(16:35):
of them roast them because I think roasted broccoli and
roasted cauliflower is my favorite. I think that's just it's
simple stal pepper, olive ohale in the oven three hundred
and fifty degrees for you know, fifteen twenty minutes until
the sugars beginning to caramelize. It's one of my favorite
flavors of it's really really nice. And then we take
all the trim and then we literally blanch it and
(16:55):
then we make a Instead of adding basil, we just
make a puree out of all of the trail, all
the stem, and then we make and then we add
everything else. It's the pine nuts, it's the cheese, it's
the garlic, uh you know, and so you kind of
really get this luscious pesto vibe, but that deep Braska
flavor profile, which is just amazing.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I'm coming over love it.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to know, like, can we
get these two great mindes together and come up with
a dish that can can Tyler Florence create a dish
for COULI power real quick for you guys.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
One hundred percent. I would be honored for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Let's go. Okay, So, as a matter of fact, what
I literally just came up with one I was making
notes right here, and I came up with cauliflower cauliflower caeso.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yes, yes, love it because the viscosity of the cauliflower
rig can easily hold a melted cheese and may have
that really beautiful string you stretch to, which is really
really nice.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Right, I love it?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So do you want to make this with chicken socker?
Make with suck? Where do you want to go?
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Let's make it with veg stock so that people who
are vegetarian can eat it as well.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Love it a great Okay, So what you gotta do
is you got. You gotta take like two heads of cauliflower,
and you're gonna chop off the florettes and chop up
the stems, because I love the stems are really nice.
They eat really really well if you slice them nice
and thin and and chop everything about the same size.
And then you're gonna pop all of it into the
oven a little bit of extra version, olive, little salt
and pepper, three fifty twenty minutes, twenty five minutes until
(18:28):
it's nice and crusty, take it out, set it on
the side, and then and then we're gonna build everything else. Right,
So I literally just made this up. So in a pot,
we're gonna add chopped onion, We're gonnadd chopped garlic. Uh,
we're gonna add chili powder. We're gonna add kumen. We're
gonna sautee this down right. Then we're gonna add veg
stock on top of this. And then probably two thirds
(18:50):
of the cauliflower is gonna go into the pot and
you're gonna simmer this flavor profile and then uh, and
then we could probably finish up a little bit of
cream if you want to. But I think the creamy
consistency of the onion pure match with the silky pure
which I love. Of the cauliflower, I think you could
probably leave that out, although we are going to add
dairy to this. We're gonna add real cheese, okay. So
(19:11):
so this liquid goes into a high speed blender divided prep.
So with this baby food smooth dure, put it back
into the pot, and then you have basically sort of
a chili flavored cauliflower soup, which would be really really nice,
and what else that will fit into your soup category
in a lovely way. And then and then what you
(19:31):
want to do is you want to add just straight
from the bag, handfuls of shredded Monterey Jack cheese into
the liquid base ofness. Now that's going to start to
melt with the heat, and then you're gonna have this
really kind of luscious uh cheese pull out of it.
So I would pour that into a dish. I would
take the last one. I can't third or one fourth
(19:52):
or whatever whatever I use, So the rest of what's
going to go on top is a really really nice garnish.
And then I would I would slice paper thin slice
the Halloween garnish sat on top of that nice pool
plumes of cilantro and uh and then serve that with
some tortilla chips, And I think that would be fantastic
and it's just a really great way to use that
in a very inventive way. But I also think has
(20:12):
a very catchy catchphrase to it, like cauliflower caso sounds bomb.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, it does sound bomb. I think it would be
bomb on a pizza crust.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Just say okay, So so walk me through this. Because
I'm in the food business just like yourself, and I
have manufactured quite a few things. I've never done anything frozen.
So I think a lot of people that are listening
to this because we have a lot of like pro
sumer fans, like people that have that multimillion dollar idea
(20:42):
that just really don't know how to take it to
the next step. If you want to manufacture a frozen
product to take the scale, where do you start? Because
this is what I'm fascinating.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Well, the first thing that I would say is that
ignorance is really uh is really going to help you
because if I had known how hard it was, I
probably never would have done it.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Frozen is the most pressured space in the grocery store.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It's the most limited, so in many ways, it's the
hardest to break into. Of course, nobody told me that,
so you do hate a little bit of ignorance.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
To go into this crazy business.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
But you know, I started, and I had to find
a manufacturer to help me make it, and that's really
the first step.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
I will tell you that a lot of people turn
me down.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
A lot of people said, you can't make up the
crust that a collie flower?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Are you crazy, lady? What do you know about pizza?
And I think I.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Cried about seven home manufacturers and all of them turned
me down. And the very last one I literally begged
like I've never been before and finally got them to,
you know, arrive at a place where.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
We could both be happy, and they took a bet
on me.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
It's hard when you're starting out because your volume is
so low, nobody really.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Wants to take you on.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
So I would say the first step is to find
someone to make your product. And you know, frozen manufacturing
is somewhere limited, so I think that that is I
think that's the first step.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
And also but the good thing is there's lots of
people to help you.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
There's lots of people to help you find co manufacturers,
and so I just hired someone to help me.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
And on a capital race standpoint, did like what was
your first couple of big capital raises like that? That
walking into this particular category prepared and ready to like
I'm going to say, do battle, because like, that's kind
of what the grocery store space feels like sometimes because
we've launched things in grocery and it is block and
(23:02):
tackle all day long. What kind of capital raise are
you talking about to jump into something like this, because again,
this is the kind of stuff I find fasting.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Yeah, it is. Uh that in many ways.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
The trickiest part of the business for me. I didn't
know much about that world. In some ways it was
an advantage. In many ways it was a disadvantage. I
self funded it to begin with. I maxed out all
my credit cards, I sold everything I had, used up
(23:36):
my savings.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Do you name it? Uh?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
And then and then it came time to raise and
it was hard.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It was hard. I think it's particular.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
I mean, this isn't me saying it, but you know
the facts will show you that, you know, less than
two percent of VC dollars goes to female entrepreneurs. So
I you know, that made it even more hard difficult.
We had about I talked to I called the Summer
of Self. I talked to about thirty five potential investors
(24:11):
in Collie Power. We were already in the market and
killing it in just in some detailers, and so I
took one of those.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
And as the company.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Grew, it certainly became easier in many ways, but it
also became harder because you know, look, you guys love food.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
I love food.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
The big reason I went into this crazy business. I
wanted to help people. I wanted to help feed people.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Food was always.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Because my parents had literally nothing growing up. Food was
always their way of showing people.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
That they loved them.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
And that's why I went into this business. But that's
not why everybody goes into this business.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
And so it's.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Really important to find like minded partners who are going
to support you on this crazy journey. And it is
one crazy, wonderful but one crazy journey.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Like I've taken I don't know, maybe like ten ten
eleven products to market and everything from Like I invented
a baby food company from my apartment in New York
City in the early two thousands. We sold that I've
had wine brands, wine labels. You know, we've made things
in jars and like simmer sauces and spice pouches and
(25:38):
all kinds of stuff. So we've done We've had products
at Costco. We had a very very successful run with
a company in LA that manufactured meatballs for us, which
is just awesome. So I think that fearlessness. I think
you definitely want to educate yourself for sure. And this
is kind of a cross message to all the folks
that are listening, because I know a lot of people,
(26:00):
like I said, that multimillion dollar ID in their head
and they just need some sort of advice, some sort
of roadmap, some way to get started. And I think
you have to just kind of lay out the best
path for you in steps and stages. If you've got
a really great name, I think that's the most important thing,
and then you got to lock it all up. You've
got to make sure that you've got the trademark application
(26:23):
file for that. That's really really important. You've got to
make sure that you have all the social media handles
because and this sounds simplistic, but a lot of people
never google this stuff to make sure it's even available.
You've got all the social media handles locked up, and then,
like I said, the most important thing is that you
have the trademark application, because that's IP protection. That is
(26:44):
IP protection, Your idea is protected. Right. And then I
think the first first step if you can kind of
get like sample products of this same manufactured make it
out of your house, and then go to the farmer's market.
I think selling stuff and small quantities in a farmer's
market to just get the name brand out there. Let's
just say you launch your Instagram page with whatever you
(27:07):
know widget product you want to make, right, you're incredibly
passionate about it. And then starting with a farmer's market
out of coolers, you're there at five o'clock in the morning.
You you know, at ten o'clock in the morning, you
got a line off the door, and you're collecting data, right,
You're collecting email addresses. You you have the sort of
insta fabulous moment that people want to take pictures of
your products. And then do be your broadcast on you
(27:31):
want all of these people to like be your evangelists
and start talking about this product in a really great way, right,
and then you have proof of product, so then you've
got I'm popular. Let me show you my Instagram stats.
You know, I've got all this stuff locked up, and
now we're kind of ready for the next level. And
then so that proof thing like find one grocery store,
(27:53):
because you have to have two relationships. You have to
have the grocery store acceptance and then you have to
have the commercial application to be able to take it
and make it at scale. So the commercial application that
make it scale, which is going to be your food
manufacturing partner, it probably won't accept the deal unless you've
already got a contract at a grocery store. So just
get one grocery store. That's all you need. You need
(28:14):
one grocery store. When we launch products, we love a
just big shout out to chib hib In Texas is
a great company to launch any kind of product out
of because in the Houston area, Dallas area, San Antonio, Austin.
You know, we've done every product launch we usually HGB
is always game to play with us, and they have
(28:34):
really great distribution, you know, the really great saturation in markets.
And then they in a different like like zip codes, right,
so you could say this product works in an expensive neighborhood,
and this product works in a in other neighborhoods. Right,
So you've got really really great demographics to show this stuff.
Then you're ready for the scale part. Then you're ready
for the big raise then, so to take it from
(28:57):
those and this could take five years, you got to
be super patient, right, yeah, yeah, You've got to be
super patient with the process. Right, then you're ready for
the big rays. Right. And then and then with the
big rays that that could be twenty million bucks sometimes, right,
that could be like really ten million, twenty million, that's
could be really really big numbers. And then because like
(29:19):
then then you you're gonna want to raise money for
the products to kind of get into a competition level.
And sometimes you got to buy your way in. There's
there's a mid level distribution people that will take a
piece of the of the the wholesale margin. And then
and then you you have to buy shelf space inside
of a grocery store. So you got to walk into
those situations incredibly well funded to be able to kind
(29:42):
of compete at that at that freezer level. And then
and I've never done it, and so I'm super I'm
excited about this story because like that's where my brain
goes and like, I like, how do you get there? Right? Because, like,
like I said, a lot of our folks that listen
to this stuff, they they're like they they they're they're
budding cookbook authors, they're they're they're folks that really, you know,
wanted to have like a television persona and cook on television,
(30:06):
and they want to manufacture products. Most folks that we
talked to, I've liked that manufacturing story, and these I
think are the back end, like nuts and bolts that
I think what makes two dudes in the kitchen really
successful because when people listen, this is the advice that
moves the needle and they'll carry this with them forever,
like somebody's listening to them and somebody's given them a roadmap.
(30:28):
So I love what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah, oh good, No, I mean, I think I think
the great.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
Thing about entrepreneurialism is there's so many different paths, right,
and so you know that what you just outlined is
a brilliant path. And I know lots of people that
have been very successful in that way. I took a
slightly different path, you know, I was a slightly older
entrepreneur a lot of times away, so I sort of
(30:54):
bypass the farmers market roofs and I just went straight
to my manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
It was like go big or go home?
Speaker 5 (31:03):
And I think, what what what entrepreneurs or people with
an idea, I give two pieces of advice.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
One is, you've got to figure out what you're going
to do, Like what rules are you going to follow?
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Right to your point, there's so many different rules and
processes and regulations that you need to follow when you
have to.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Because that's how you launch a food business for the
most part. But there's also a lot of rules you
need to break. How are you going to do it differently?
How are you going to do it better?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
How are you going to make bring people joy? How
are you going to are you going to be cheaper,
are you going to be tastier? Are you going to
be more prolific? Like what are you going to do?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
What are you going to do the same? And what
are you going to do different?
Speaker 5 (31:49):
And then I would say the second piece of advice
that I usually give is I think sometimes we sort of.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Wait for a sign.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
Right to your point, we have a great idea and
waiting for that perfect moment and waiting for that time
to sort of jump in and realize is like having kids.
There is no good time. There is no good time.
So you know, at execution is ninety eight percent of
(32:19):
being an entrepreneur. Great ideas are a dime a dozen,
but execution is the difference maker. And it doesn't have
to be perfect. You don't have to wait till it's perfect.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
You just have to do it.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
You can sort of you know, morph as you as
you get in market, as you hear feedback, because you
hear feedback from retailers or consumers, which you.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Just got to get it out there. That's the first step.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, don't let great get in the way.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Of good exactly, and evolve.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Your product as you go. And I like what you
just said as having a differential between you and whatever
the competition is in that particular space either, you know,
the the rarity of having something that has never existed before,
it's kind of hard to find. So it's never you know,
it's always these moments where it's not a it's not
(33:12):
a revolution, but it's an evolution of an idea or product, right,
So you know, like it's hard to invent the new
light bulb, but it's it's it's easy, it's easy to make,
or the thought about having a light bulb that does
something different, right that you can plug into an app
or it has more of it, or it lasts three
times longer, or whatever the process is, especially in the
food space, So you really got to think through how
(33:33):
am I different, how am I special? How am I
going to stand out in the marketplace? And then what
I like about you is that I think companies have
to have a face to the brand. There has to
be somebody because like sometimes I think companies will launch
a product with a logo and a name and they
never take that opportunity to really lean into the founder
(33:54):
and the founder's story or the founders really don't think
that they're like television worthy or whatever it is. But
I think it's so important for them to have that
story because that's the believability part, that's the authenticity part
of us. Right. So when you specifically say that the
reason I did this because I like my children and
I'm a mom, and I couldn't find anything in the marketplace,
(34:14):
so I jumped in and plugged a hole that I
couldn't find. And my success story is now your success story,
and people are going to love that because you did
it for them.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
That's a nice thing to say. I sure, hope, So
that's nice.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Thank you, Gail.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Thank you so much for coming on to Dudes in
a kitchen. For everyone out there, you go try Call
of Power. You can go online it's eat call of
Power dot com. But you can obviously get it at
your local grocery store or anywhere they sell food.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Yes, And I actually have a little incentive anybody who
direct messages us on any of our social channel channels
at callipower.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
All they have to say is two dudes in the
kitchen and we will give them a coupon good for
a free any free products.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Wow, look at that, right, I'm excited about the cupon. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
You know, I've given free pizza to billionaires and they
still take the coupon and they love it.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
I don't know if they use it, but they love
that some one game.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, well, Gil, thank you so much for coming on.
Two Dudes in the kitchen. Big fan of your products.
So cool to have you on the show. And yeah,
I can vouch for the call power product. I've had it.
I've got some of my freezer right now. Ever, out there,
run don't walk to your grocery store and get you
some call power. Thank you so much for coming on
the show.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Gil, Thanks so much you guys. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Take care, great to meet you. Fantastic story. I love
your story.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Thank you, thank you. And let's make that pizza together.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
That's do it for sure. I would love that fantastic.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I would love it too.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Okay, you're on, Okay, and you gotta make the casa
deip Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
The caso on top of the pizza.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Cauliflower caso for the win. No bo's good.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Okay, stay tuned, thank you, Thanks so all right, everyone,
thank you so much for listening. If there are any
guests that you'd like to see us have on the show,
let us know by sending us a DM at Two
Dudes in a Kitchen And as always, you can follow
us at two Dudes in a Kitchen on Instagram and
on TikTok. Don't forget to subscribe where you get your podcasts,
and we'll be back next week with two new episodes
(36:18):
of Two Dudes. See you then, Tyler enjoy Sonny Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Thank you so much. It's been a fabulous week here.
I want to give you just a quick shout out
to my entire team at Miller Lux in the four
seasons Wallight Exceptional Week. Everyone's killing it here. We'd love
to see you.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
So all right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on
Instagram at two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to
write us a review and leave us five stars.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
We'll take that and we'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
See you next time.
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