Bread’s Out. Avocado’s In

The ‘AvoWich’ Is Here To Replace Your Sandwich Bread With Straight-Up Avocado. Cross with Tiffany and Andrew's last day with The Fork Report. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Niel Sevedra. You're listening to kfi EM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
How do you do? Thanks for hanging out. Man. It's
an overcasty Saturday, but I still love it. I'll take
it a little cool, maybe a little snuggle time. Know
what I'm saying. It's perfect because when it's cold, but

(00:21):
it's not rainy, at least not here right now. Maybe
in your area that these are great times to be
grilling because that grill can get up to seven hundred
degrees and change and you get a little warm there.
I can still do it in my shorts. Get out there,
do some grilling and enjoy yourself this wonderful, overcasty Saturday.

(00:44):
All right, So a lot of issues going on with
restaurants and fast food. Still, if you're fast food, you
have a fast food location, whether it's franchise or what
have you out in Southern California or California at you
got kicked in the scrot another time with the minimum

(01:06):
wage hike. Now, listen, I'm all for people making more money.
I just think there are certain jobs out there that
are the demand is different. You don't have to have
an education per se, and anytime that's where you land,
the demand is not going to be much. I don't

(01:28):
care if you're unionized. I don't care if you're not.
It doesn't matter. Eventually, if they can replace you with
something else, they will. That's robotics, that's with the Kiosk.
Whatever it is, it's going to happen. In addition to that,
there's other things that get expensive. The ingredients get expensive.
But for one particular fast food restaurant that was the biggest,

(01:53):
it continues to shrink. Now, this shrinking started long before
the twenty dollars, you know, minim wage. But those things
don't help, and it continues to compound compound rather So
Subway just shut down over six hundred stores, and this
has been going on for a while. They were the

(02:14):
biggest fast food chain in the US by number of locations,
and I don't know a lot of people know that.
I think if you were to guess, you probably would
have said McDonald's, but that's not the truth. So by
number of locations, they were the king for a long time.
So they shut down a ton of their restaurants last year.

(02:36):
That's sick, about six hundred and thirty one restaurants that
they shut down last year alone, so that could very
well have been affected by, you know, the rays of
minimum wage. Back in twenty fifteen, Subway had around twenty
seven thousand stores across the country. It's not internationally or

(02:57):
anything like that, just in the US. By the end
of twenty twenty four, that number has fallen below twenty
thousand for the first time in decades. Now it's at
about nineteen to five something like that. Some of the
closures hit hard were in Oregon, and they had twenty

(03:20):
three Subway locations shut down suddenly, leaving over two hundred
employees jobless without warning. One store manager, Joanne Kennedy, said
she and her team were completely blindsided. That happens now.
That obviously doesn't tie into that. But the overall juggling

(03:42):
of this is the cost of product along with serving
it to you is a battle with fast food because
by definition definition fast food is to be quickly served inexpensively. Now,
we were told by Subway that a five dollars foot long,

(04:08):
even if it was a discount or pick you a
particular day of the week, whatever it was, that was
kind of the norm. Well, now they're somewhere between thirteen
and fifteen bucks. I think so even in your mind,
you always still have the song playing in your head
that it's a five dollars foot long and it's not anymore.
It can be very expensive. I walked out of a

(04:28):
subway with three foot long sandwiches, one soda, two bags
of chips, and it was thirty seven dollars almost forty bucks. Right,
So the battle's going to continue with these fast food

(04:50):
places in getting you what it can for the best
price possible. And there's just a point where we won't.
It's hard. Sandwiches are great, man. I love sandwiches. I
love Subway, among others. I think you are great sandwich
places out there, and you've got Jersey Mics, which is wonderful.

(05:11):
You've got these places, but to have good ingredients is
expensive and it's hard to wrap your brain around a
fifteen dollars sandwich at a quick stop. Now, as far
as making money, McDonald's is still the king. McDonald's has
fewer US stores in you know, in the past year

(05:33):
or so, about thirteen to five, but it does make
the most revenue. Starbucks was in second place, if you
can believe it. It seems like they have four on every
corner with just over sixteen thousand, So things are slowing
down in the US. Subway has been expanding, They're doing

(05:53):
more international stuff, updating restaurants with new looks, a different
vibe in some of them. They tend to be very
clean places. That's been my experience. Focusing on what they
refer to as smart growth, That means they're very strategic
about where they're putting stores. They're going to put them

(06:14):
in the best spots, run by the right people and
with a better customer experience. Their hope is, you know,
even if they have to close some locations or move
some locations, that they're going to make more in the
long run by doing that. Nearly thirty percent of subway

(06:35):
locations in the US have shut down in less than
ten years. So this is a battle that is not
going to be one or lost by one particular decision.
But as we look at the wars going on with
fast food and our dollars, those of us that spend

(06:57):
money going to fast food restare runts. Our dollars are
being uh, you know, battling if they're going to be
you know, battling for your dollars. They have to find
ways to, you know, take care of us. The battle

(07:24):
continues for your fast food dollars. And here in California
we have the extra edition of the higher minimum wage.
And I know, listen, it sounds horrible. I know, we get,
we've gotten so emotional in the US. We can't. We

(07:44):
don't like reason anymore. Oh great, my wife, former producer
at KFI by the way, is now texting me what
have you done? Thanks Kayla in front of my wife
of these seventeen years. Well yeah, Tracy, Tracy really gets
you to listen.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
So I love when she When she backs me up,
it makes me makes me super happy.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
I feel supported. Thank you, Tracy. I don't need you
guys to team up on me. It's my favorite thing.
One wife is fine, thank you. I don't need a
harem of people telling me when I do wrong AnyWho
as I would. I don't even care now, I don't.
I mean, I've complete I seriously, I did something similar

(08:29):
recently and I don't know why. Yeah, is it that time?
Oh my gosh, I think the beachfest thing just threw
us through a loop. But it's just been a crazy week.
It did, But I don't. That's not an Okay, I
tried it. Yeah, we thought we were going to be
out somewhere. That's not an excuse anyway. Okay, I was

(08:50):
talking about being way too overly emotional. The point is
this that we're looking at things through our heart, and
I get it. It's you want people to be able
to make more money, but the system breaks down. It
can only handle so much. I mean literally, it's like, Oh,
this person's hungry, why don't you dump four hundred pounds

(09:12):
of food on them. Well, then they'll be crushed and dead.
But I just want to feed them. And we're looking
at a breakdown in a system that can only work
if the food is quickly served and inexpensive. And when
you're at the point of paying fourteen dollars for i'll

(09:34):
say two sandwiches, I think that's more fair. I guess
because a foot long sandwich is a big sandwich. You know,
I can go for a foot long, no problem, But
your average person. I don't think Kayla's going in there
and throwing back a foot long. I don't think Andrew's
doing that or Robin's doing that. You know, you put
half away in the fridge, so let's say that still

(09:58):
it's getting expensive, and when you're to do it with
the best ingredients possible, and especially when you see it
put together right in front of you, I think that
that's going to be a difficult path for Subway to
get over. I think the things that they've tried, I
think they're doing the nachos, the foot long nachos right
now with Dorito's. They did the foot long specials with

(10:22):
the pretzel, with the chocolate chip cookie, the churo, which
none of those I liked. I didn't think any of
them were very good. Quite frankly, they just weren't that tasting. Now,
the wraps that they do with the cheese and chicken
and stuff, those are very tasty. But that battle is

(10:43):
going to continue for them and for other fast food restaurants.
And we're going to be seeing this now. This may
have started, you know, within the last decade and is
being topped off now for Subway, but ultimately across the board,
this is happening. We're seeing more closures, we're seeing more
tech getting involved, and we're going to be looking at

(11:03):
restaurants with very few people in them at all running
them soon. I'm telling you that's just what it's going
to come down to.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Jack in the Box is tying into our last discussion
announced Jack on Track, which is what their clever name
I guess for this long term financial goal. So they're
going to be mixing things around as well. It includes
closing one hundred and fifty to two hundred underperforming restaurants.
And this is the other thing. A lot of these
places own more than one chain. They're potentially looking at

(11:41):
selling Del Taco off as well. So the chain currently
working with Bank of America Securities and they want to
lower their debt, create some sort of strategy, and look
around as what they need to do. Now. The reason
why I'm telling you these things is because I am

(12:03):
a big believer that the entirety of the food ecosystem
is having issues. I have said that. One of the
reasons that my very first show over a decade ago
on the Fork Report was telling you that the local
economy rises and falls on hospitality, on going out to eat,

(12:29):
even fast food, so fast food chain restaurants, mom and
pop shops, little towns with different cultures, and foods where
they're bringing foods from countries that they used to live in,
or their heritage restaurant, chefy forward places, whatever it may be.

(12:53):
All you know, vendors, street vendors. We don't want to
forget them because all of that food, this is all
part of the very important ecosystem that is creates the
protection of the economy locally. It just is. And so

(13:17):
these things may not seem like they're that big of
a deal, or it's like, oh, well people aren't just
aren't eating in as much or whatever it is, or
big deal. This This is predicting something, pointing to something,
shining a light on something that I feel we should

(13:39):
be looking at. That's why I don't know exactly what
it means at this point. But all these kind of
rolling of the eyes saying oh, this won't matter much,
or this won't matter, or from shutting down the state
for COVID, all these things are not political. It's not

(14:01):
about the politics of it. It's about about the actual
tangible repercussions of it. And again we've gotten so emotional
that you know, it's the if you're not with me,
you're against me thing, And that's not true. If you're
part of a political party. I'm not anymore. I am independent,
completely judge everything independently based on its merits. I've said

(14:26):
this before. If the devil told me two plus two
equals for it, he'd be right. So to kind of
look at these things and say, how is this ultimately
going to end up? Instead of going It's almost like
we're spending someone else's money and sometimes that's the way
it works and we think it'll just work out. Well, yeah,
but it might not work out in your favor, might

(14:47):
not work out the way you think, and there are
unintended consequences.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
How do you do? Thanks for hanging it out today.
Don't forget Tiffany Hobbes coming up at five o'clock, so
go know where. We were supposed to be at Beach
Live Festival today but had some technical issues or something
and put us back in studio. So for those of
you who have never been, man, what an amazing event.

(15:18):
They referred to it as Southern California's premier live music,
art and culinary event, and they aren't kidding. It really
is a wonderful experience. If you haven't been in the
lineup has been insane. So this is a sixth year
taken over Redondo Beach's picturesque waterfront, the second through the fourth,

(15:39):
so it goes through tomorrow, and you know that it's
just it's on the sand. We were there last year
and it was my son's first concert and he got
to see Devo, So I was thrilled about that, as
was his mom, and it was just cool. They have reggae,
and you know that just is one of those things, reggae.

(16:01):
If you're not smiling and enjoying it, then there's something
wrong with you. At pop, indie rock, everything all mixed together.
This year. They got Letting Kravitz out there, Sublime out there,
Alanis Morris set, you have the Pretender's Cake, Jackson Brown,
just tons of great performers out there. Beachlifefestival dot com,

(16:22):
Beachliffestival dot com if you're interested. All right. So, more
and more we're reading about things going on in the
food industry, and as I said, people are coming up,
whether it's fast food or anything else, just to get
you in there, come up with creative ways to do that.

(16:44):
I wonder if we're at the point where maybe we've
peaked when it comes to avocados, because it's always, oh,
avocado on this, avocado on that, and you think, oh, well,
what else are they going to do with avocado? Well,
this one sounded like an April Fool's joke, but it
is not. Apparently. Food Beast talks about the new combination

(17:10):
of and partnership between avocados from Mexico, which I used
to be a spokesman for. The great Product by the way,
has partnered with witch Witch, which if you haven't tried
their sandwiches, they're bombed. They're just I think they're excellent.
So now they have something called the avo Witch. Okay,

(17:32):
so what does this mean? Where are they putting it?
They're using it as the bread, so instead of bread,
they're avocado slices. I know, right, But I'm trying to
put that in my flavor bank. I got it. Okay,
I'm with Young Flavor Bank. I get it. They cover,

(17:52):
they put the top on the top. There they have
this ava witch seasoning that looks great, you know, so
I know that's going to give you this texture and
a little bit of crunch on the top. Of the avocado.
But they're using ripe avocados, and the only thought that
comes to mind is that texture. I don't know that

(18:14):
that's the first texture I want to experience on the
outside of something. I mean, maybe i'd cut it with
a fork or mash it up and just have it
as a salady thing, because it essentially is their classic
Turkey club. So you've got turkey, ham, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes,
cheddar cheese, mayo, and honey mustard. I mean, all of

(18:36):
that sounds excellent. And like I said, which Witch has
great sandwiches, But you wrap your hands around that and
you've got ripe, creamy avocado. I'm curious what kind of
doesn't say if it's like forte or it's has or

(19:02):
hass avocados. It doesn't say because some are a little
more dense and fleshy than others. And I'm thinking, right right, avocado.
You know, I love bananas. I don't know that i'd
want to eat a sandwich between two bananas, especially ripe ones.

(19:26):
You know what I'm saying, Like.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
A peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Oh yeah, a little bit of Elvis Presley throws some
bacon on there. Not bad. Are you familiar with that? Yeah,
that was Elvis's jam. Well, yeah, that a horrible amount
of copious amounts of drugs that. Yeah, that backed up

(19:51):
his backside. Unfortunately, those appetizers will do that. Yeah, that'll
do it. But you know, Andrew, like, when you think
about that, does that speak to you? Avocado part is
a bun. I'm down to try it because I like avocado.

(20:11):
It's good. I love avocados. But they're you know, as
as we've said many times before, toxicity is in the dose.
And sometimes there are foods that I like that too
much of them would would freak me out. Like have
you ever seen someone crack open an ostrich egg?

Speaker 3 (20:34):
No.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
I love eggs, but they're so big that when I
see them, the thought of someone cooking that like sunnyside
up and piercing that yoke creeps me out. It's just
like too much of the yolk. I don't know, it's
just they're like sometimes the size or the amount of
something you know, can change its experience, Like ratio are

(21:00):
super important food to me, and when a chef balances
them or hits them right, like the right amount of
protein to the vegetables on a sandwich makes a perfect sandwich.
I mean, some people go, you just keep putting more
protein on it. That doesn't necessarily make it better to me,
because the dances with the crunch of the lettuce, you know,

(21:23):
a little bit of the acid from the tomato, whatever
it is that you're putting in there, spinachs that herbaceous
kind of that green is how I refer to it.
It's not grassy, but just brighten or base. That all
makes for a great sandwich. And then you you that
bread that gives you that toothy deliverily delivery, you know

(21:48):
it just I don't know. I don't want to bite
into something and have it go. So I'm gonna have
to try it because I do like witch witch. And
we'll have to see if the avo, which removes the
bread and uses two slices of avocado as the bread,
is any good. We'll just have to find that out.
All right, we come back, we're gonna chat with Andrew

(22:10):
Caravella a bit. He didn't even know that, but this
is his last day with us. He'll be leaving KFI
and just want to chat with him before he goes.
And of course Tiffany will come aboard as says, she
is going to be taking things over at five o'clock.
So go no where.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
How do you do? Thanks for hanging with us today.
I invite you to join me on social media at
fork Reporter. At fork Reporter where I put on goofy
stuff and fun food things occasionally go live there and
if you like the arts or making or anything like that.
I have a new social media on Instagram and that

(22:56):
is at Savco Industry. That's s A A v COO
Industries and that's just me making stuff three D printing.
Some of my drawings are on there too, just all
kinds of things that deal with that love for sci fi,

(23:17):
pop culture, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, things that I make.
It was originally for my small business where I make
promotional items, but that's not really open. I don't sell
to the general public right now at least, so so
really just started using that as a place to put
art stuff. So check that out Savco Industries on Instagram.

(23:43):
So I brought Tiffany in because we want to talk
about what's going on with her. But I thought Tiffany
and I could ask Andrew some questions because Andrew Caravella
this is our last show with him. So I'll start
and we'll have Tiffany jump in. But so let's find out,

(24:04):
first of all, how you got into radio.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
How I got into radio? Oh my gosh, which casting
couch was that that I was on?

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Oh my lord, I don't know where to be again?

Speaker 3 (24:16):
No.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
I I got started in radio actually out in the
Inland Empire through a little station called k c A A.
They did like NBC news affiliation. It was suic talk station,
and the GM out there had like his own oldies
station called KQLH, and they had Rick D's who had
a syndicated show on there. And I started doing like

(24:38):
entertainment news for for the morning drive. And from there
I ended up staying for a few years and then
moving into like the NPR type of world and moved
over into San Bernardino over at KVCR. Had a had
a news director position a little after that at a

(24:58):
string of radio stations up in the High Desert and
in Arizona, because they had they were like a franchise.
And during that time, it was during the pandemic, I
auditioned my second time for KFI, and former news director
Chris Little thought I was decent enough to give me

(25:18):
a shot at KFI, and the rest is history. I've
I've been covering news in TV and in radio in
southern California now for ten years, in my fifth year
now with KFI here in La though, and it's been
a fantastic ride.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Well, we certainly will miss you, tiff Any thoughts.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Oh, I'm a little glassy eyed over here because you
saw me when I came into the booth. Andrew, I
just I'm replete, but I'm so proud of you. And
my question would be, who would you say are your
biggest inspirations in this field?

Speaker 4 (25:56):
In this field?

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
You know he's never gonna hear this because he's famous now,
But there was a time when I first started in
radio that I had friends in the in the acting
world that said they wanted me to replace Ryan Seacrest.
I can see that, so who knows, maybe he'll retire
one day, right, you know. Michael Krozier was my mentor

(26:20):
when I when I first got here to KFI, and
I really grew under under his wing and it really
kind of helped show me how to grow not just
as a a sound, you know, as a as a
personality on the radio, but as a journalist. Stephen Gregory
and also Chris Little, like they really kind of honed
helped me, hone in my skills. And I was working

(26:43):
at other radio places while I was at KFI, and
I became an award winning personality. I have my own
golden mic from some of the news documentary stuff that
I've done. But it was because of the skills that
I built here at KFI. So I'm gonna be forever
grateful for that because it was what I learned here
that made me an award winning journalist.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
So it was Steve Gregory, Michael Krozier, and of course
Chris Little not no slouches in that list. Good for you,
thank you. Well, that's very good and I love what
you do and you will be missed big time.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
But you know it's radio, right, so who knows. You
may you may see me in another year, who knows?

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, or I may call you for a job. Yeah,
well okay, And that's the funny thing.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
And people that are listening that that you know, have
been listening to radio forever They say, when you get
fired in radio, you must be doing something right. I've
never been fired from radio, so I must be failing
completely in How I do.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Still have forty five minutes before you have to go?
That's true. Still, Yes, I've been in it since I
was nineteen. I haven't been fired yet. Okay, but yeah,
one never knows. You never know. Well, we wish you
nothing but the best.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from a f I a M six forty