Andrew Z and Demetrius BONUS: Interview with Local Food Products Headed To Meijer

Several local 419 food entrepreneurs sit down with me to talk about having there products on Meijer store shelves!
Kareem Hammuda who put this opportunity together.  He's part of the CIFT and Northwest Ohio Coorporative Kitchen Companies

Craig Wagner-Stateline Sauce
Zach Baroudi-Kabob It At Home
Greg Sheppard-Stadium Salsa
Kevin Mackey-Angry Irishmen

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Everything.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Hello, Hello, good morning, good morning, good morning. It is Friday,
and we've got a super special little show that we're
doing with you guys, and I'm super excited about it.
We've been we've been planning it for a couple of
weeks and it's a it's a program with a company
called Sift and they work with different local food food
peeps and they put together a conglomerate of some of

(01:38):
the best food entrepreneurs in the Northwest Ohio area and
they are going to put feature their products in Myers
stores beginning in about a month from now. So we
have Kareem Hamouda from Sift Cift Kareem, good morning, good morning.

(01:59):
And then we've got okay, here we go. We run
down for you. Uh well, on on the on zoom.
We've got Greg Sheppard from Stadium Salsa, one of my
all time favorite sauces and he's been around for doing
it for he's one of you, one of the OG's.
You were of the grandfathers of local food. Greg Stadium
Sauces here.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Good morning, how you doing ze. Yeah, it's twentieth year.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
See it's funny because we launched the same I was
just telling the guys in the studio that two thousand
and five was when I came to town, so we
started about the same time twenty years ago.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
And then you were in the burg in the street.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, it's right. And then in the studio we've got
Craig Wagner from State Line Sauce Greg Craig, good morning,
good morning, good morning. And then we've got let's see
Kevin Mackie, who's the angry irishman. Good morning, Craig, good morning, Kevin,
good morning. Get all his names straight.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
That's right, that's my brother's name as well.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Is it really good? And then we've got Zach Zach
how do we say? Your last name is back Berudi,
Zach Barrudi from kabab It and then Kababit at Home
is the product that you're going to be putting into
myer stores. So this is awesome. I want to find
out about all your businesses. I want to start with
Kareem though, Kareem, what are you? What are you putting together?
What is this little thing that you're doing here with us?

Speaker 4 (03:14):
It's a it's been a it's been a long time coming.
So I work for a nonprofit uh locally in bowling Green.
We're actually headquartered into Little Ohio. We are the local
Manufacturer Extension Partnership here in Toledo where we help bring
solutions to challenges in the food processing, manufacture and small

(03:34):
business industries. And we actually run a kitchen called the
Northwest Sidreed Cooperative Kitchen that has over thirty five entrepreneurs
produced their favorite you know, barbecue sauce as well as
the some local food trucks use as a commissary kitchen.
You know, some of the brands that are on this

(03:55):
end cap are arranging from graduates as well as current
brands that use the kitchen. I'm actually kind of honored
to be part of a wonderful team that allows me
to hear people's challenges and serve them with some solutions.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
So so in English and in English, basically what you
do is band you help small brands succeed in the marketplace.
Number one and number two. You're getting a bunch of
small brands together, and Meyer is giving you spaces in
a bunch of them locally, and you're going to be
on the end caps for of those who don't those
who don't understand the marketing of the food industry, the

(04:31):
end caps the best spot, like that's where people get
to see you. So all these brands are going to
be featured on the end caps Admirer stores. Congratulations, man,
that is huge.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
And actually even one step further, so all eleven locations
min Store will have and it's going to be under
Ohio Favorites end cap and each one we're you know,
kind of we're selected in the Northwest higher region. A
lot of the brands that are on this call today,
as well as the ones that are not on the call,
be actually in the myerstores dem moving some of their

(05:02):
products when they do them about once a month. And
but you know that's just it's not it doesn't end there.
So every single person that's on this end kept will
have the opportunity to potentially speak with that creategory manager.
And you know, the more demand the better. I definitely
want to see more Northwest High Cooperative sorry Northwest Ohio

(05:23):
businesses in the Myer stores. Anything that would be beautiful.
You actually also have the opportunity, potentially, if you do
really well, to get into more Myer stores as well
statewide and as well as all their locations.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, kareem, we don't we don't need to get political
because we don't we don't want to do go down
that route. But also there is going to be such
a push over the next thirty sixty ninety days year
of local, of local, local, local, and that is going
to benefit you guys and your and your.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Folks definitely, I mean definitely. I mean, I'm I'm all
for Toledo as well as Ohio and beyond. So I
just like to see people kind of get their food
idea into reality. And the kind of the most exciting
part about it is when you know someone had a recipe,
maybe it's their grandma or they have a family recipe,

(06:15):
and then they actually commercialize it and they sell the
editor store. I mean, that's what excites me. It motivates
me every day.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I want to start with the old guy, Greg Stadium salsa, Greg,
Greg tell us like your elevator pitch on about stadium
salsa and how you got started.

Speaker 5 (06:32):
Sure, sure, So essentially it started in two thousand and
four is when maybe two thousand and three it started
with literally two tomato plants in our backyard. So my wife,
Hather's mother got us two tomato plants. You know, like everybody,
we love making salta and some vegetables, you know, garden sauce.
It's fantastic and we're sports enthusiasts, so we used to

(06:52):
make it, take it to games. And then, interestingly enough,
one of my contacts was a broker for another food
company when the mud Hens were really up and coming
and really bringing in fantastic food ideas, dishes and menu items,
and he introduced me to one of the buyers at
the mud Hens, and I introduced me to him and
came in and little did I know, a week later

(07:16):
he wanted me to sign a contract to actually be
the salsa for that's good Mudheens.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
And so I had to quickly ramp up my business.
And that's when I was.

Speaker 5 (07:25):
Introduced to SIFT and the Northwest Ohio Cooperative Kitchen on
five e'd two. There I'm bowling green and you know,
you get it certified. You had to get labels, you
got to get you know, your nutritional facts going. You
got to be all this stuff. And so we did
that very quickly, ramped up and because of that, you know,
of course, she get some notoriety and the Blade did

(07:45):
a story. And then now there's smaller stores wanted us
big stores. We were on the radar box stores and held.
By two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, we
were in eight stores or eight states, six hundred stores.
We were on Walmart end caps, We're in Kroger, Whole Foods.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
We're in Minnesota, clumb and you know, so just it
just extended.

Speaker 5 (08:08):
Like anything else, it grows and and you learn along
the way. Well that's what we did, and but it
takes a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
You know, what is the challenges greg to the new
to the newbies here, because I I've been you know,
around you a lot of a lot of the time,
and there are there are ups and downs.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Man.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
And I remember one time you got into hundreds and
hundreds of stores and you're like, but I got to
give them all the product, like they don't even pay
for it ahead of time. And I know it's been
a stressful journey for you up and down. And the
other thing that it seems like it could be hard
for me is, uh, not only do you have to
market to get your food in the stores, your product
in the stores, but then you have to market for

(08:43):
people to buy it, because if the stores and no
one's buying it, what's the point.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, it's there. There are challenges and and depending on
that product type. You know, we haven't even gotten into
the situation where if it's shelf stable versus the perishable
right and a parish bole has a short a short
shelf life. And when we first came out, Zee, if
you recall, we were a deli fresh Salsa, And little
did I know that, I thought you sold a story
sold to a store, but really you sell to a

(09:08):
department within a store and a category manager of this store,
and they have their own budgets, et cetera, and they
have their own they have their own percent you know,
profitability and margin.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
And with a perishable and a cold sauce, you bring
it in.

Speaker 5 (09:21):
They say, oh, I want five cases, And you go
in there, and you go back two weeks later and like,
well they're out of date now and we sold one case,
you have to replace that those other four for free.
And I'm like, whaa, wait a minute, I signed up
for this, so it's going out here. And so that
quickly changed our business strategy to well what is it

(09:41):
going to take now to change that to shelf stability?
And then I had to learn about pH levels and
keeping it all natural and selling to a different department
and meeting new people and you know, earning their trust
and developing new relationships in the grocery category versus deli
and dairy and so these are all learning things that
you have to do and learn and and network with

(10:03):
people that understand the business and and self educate and
ask a lot of questions. But it's you're right, it's
it's ups and downs. It's how you can take advantage
of marketing, advertising, share a voice, reach without a large,
you know, capital outlay.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
That's that's the key. That's the key.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
It is the key is.

Speaker 5 (10:24):
Not killing yourself because every once you become a business
and this is for everybody listening or or or my
colleagues here with me, it's it's everybody's gonna come knocking
on your door.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
I can make you the next X y Z. I
can make.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
All you gotta do is advertise with me. And then
at the end of the day, it's very difficult to
measure ROI based on that because it was it you
that did it, because you did three you know, in
store demos. Is it because one guy that's out there
is a big voice and a key opinion leader in
the community, and they told a bunch of people and
that did it instead of the advertising. There's so many variables,

(11:01):
it's very difficult. So when you're new and you're early,
just you trust everybody because you're blinded by your motivation
and your excitement in making your brand the next big thing.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Craig Craig Okay, Craig Wagner from State Line Sauce. Craig,
tell us your story how you got started in everything.

Speaker 6 (11:19):
Well, back in covid we had a kind of the
same thing, in excess of vegetables in my dad's gardens.
So we went and he wanted to make some barbecue sauce.
So we sat down and kind of planned it out,
did it. It turned out okay. But the next year
when he wanted to we planned for it, there was
no tomatoes coming in, so we shifted over to hot
sauce on his suggestion. And it was one of those

(11:43):
things where I had a lot going on at the time. Shocker,
But he wanted to do markets. He wanted to do
stuff like that, just something as a family thing, and
I basically told him that I don't have time for
a hobby like this, but if you want to do
a business we can invest in, then let's do it.
And it didn't take in but a second to say yes.

(12:04):
And then from there we added my sister to the
group carry and then it took us about a year
from there to get to be certified ready and self
ready products.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
And then with state Line and you've got now your
what A products? Nine products? Eight product A products A products?
Now and what made you? How did you differentiate yourself
from all the other hot sauces that are on the market.

Speaker 6 (12:31):
I don't know that we necessarily did that in the
sense that we just did what we like and we
made what, you know, the people that we are around,
our friends, our family, the ones that they liked, and
that's kind of how we dictated in them. As far
as what we brought to market, we have twenty six
twenty seven recipes, but what we brought to market is
kind of a diverse mix of those things.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
All right, it's state Line Sauce. Let's go over to
the angry irishman, Kevin Mackie, another hot sauce guy. How
did you get started?

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Kiv I actually had just graduated from the massive metropolis
of Okarbor.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Oh yeah, if.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Anybody knows where that's at everyone knows the crickets in
the bowl frogs, you might find it. Two months after
I graduated, I found myself living in southwest Florida. The
home we were at, you know, was completely different. Attitude
just is like culture shock. You know, you go from
small town America. The town we were living in was

(13:31):
considerably larger. Probably I think there was like one hundred
thousand people living in town where I think, well, CARB's
like two thousand, so it's a little bit bigger of
an area. But it was I didn't know anyone, and
so I'm looking around. I found some seeds, and if
you don't know anything about Florida, ninety nine percent of
the time it's a greenhouse. So I started growing some cayennes,

(13:53):
and one thing led to another. I started making sauces.
Out of boredom. In like the mid to late eighties.
I started doing it, I could say semi professionally because
I didn't have my UPC code or my nutritional panel.
And one thing led to another. I came back and
my now wife said at the time, she goes, well,

(14:16):
why do you try making hot sauce? And I'm like, no,
you know, because she had children and I want to
get to know them and you know, solify our relationship.
And I said, nah, I don't feel you know, I said,
I'd rather just concentrate on us because I knew the
ins and outs, the ups and downs from just doing
it part time. And well, push came to shove she won.

(14:37):
We started in twenty fourteen. This may makes eleven years
that we've been at the sift we now have. We
just came out with a new product that kind of
caters to the insane hair thin section of the piagraph
of the general populace. It's ridiculously hot. But we we

(14:59):
have a total of twenty.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Products, twenty products in twenty different.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
SKUs, twenty different SKUs.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Greg, how many do you have now?

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Right?

Speaker 5 (15:07):
We have nine that are active. Okay, yeah, we have
nine they're active. At one point we had like fifteen.
But as as caval Tellia, it's it's tough man to
balance that and keep that inventory.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
And well, I'm guessing too is I tell all people like,
I'm not I'm not going to get business advice. But
it's interesting is when you the way you start a
business isn't necessarily the way it is in thirty days
or sixty days or six months, the market is going
to dictate. Like if you've got a restaurant and you think, man,
my Lazani is going to kill it, and then in
a month you're throwing all kinds of Lasagnia away, well
then you know the rest of you're gonna you're changing

(15:42):
the restaurant. I'm guessing you guys change your model as
you once you get hit in the face and it's made.
You got a bob and weave a little bit right.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
I don't know about my friends here and Kevin you
you probably have done this. You know I've changed my
logo twice, changed labels twice, I've changed packaging three times.
So I think the market dictates your moves sometimes even
though you have a you have something in your mind,
you have a strategy. I think it's driven by the
customers wants and needs. There they're your boss.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Greg, Greg, do you think I'm interested that the label thing?
Because obviously you're a taste thing. But how important is
what the jar looks like? What the label looks like?
And and did you notice a difference in sales when
you changed the design? You change the logo and stuff.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
It's incredibly important really incredibly important. There's a science actually
behind food and labeling and that that people do studies on.
I was I don't really like watching Shark Tank, to
be honest, but I had it on last night and
this product that was the number one concern was how
it was currently labeled. And the lady that on the

(16:50):
on the panel Shark Tank, she was saying that you know, consumers,
at least in the US, they read top. They start
at the top first and they go left right, and
you better, you better have them like your label has
to explain what they're going to expect and what they
what they deserve with the money they're gonna spend. So

(17:12):
they need to look at it really quickly in a
second and understand what it is or they're gonna move
on to the next one, especially if it's in a
you know, on a shelf with a bunch of other choices,
and if they haven't bought it before. And food specifically
is very important. Andrew, as you know you're in a
food business, is you.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Know your taste?

Speaker 5 (17:30):
If you if you can't taste it, how is you
gonna buy it? If you don't have a sampler, you're
taking yours with your money, Your eye is your is
your is your taste buds at that point, unless it's
unless it's a customer referral, like someone that says, oh, hey, ze,
you gotta buy you know, the angry irisht it's phenomenal. Okay,
I'll try it because I trust you. Other than that man,

(17:51):
it's taste buds. And then what it looks like?

Speaker 2 (17:53):
So is it importantly on the label? Like, what's one
what's one thing that you definitely like, no matter what
label it is, no matter who I'm talking to, you
need to have this on the label. What is it?
Is it a picture of the salsa? Is it? What?
What do you what do you have to have on
the label? You think that to give yourself an upper
upper hand?

Speaker 5 (18:11):
Well, early on, I think you have to establish your branding.
I mean I learned that back in college, right you know,
got my marketing degree. Is you have to establish a brand.
And right right away, if I if I start throwing
out iconic logos, you guys would.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Know what it was, right the Tiger frosted flakes, the
Nike swish. You know exactly what every everything so mine is.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
And I think all of us on here might have
one but ours is you know, Chip, right, Chippy, that's
the guy with the foam finger, the little tortilla chip
with the with the sunglasses and the flag and the
red converse.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
That's our branding logo and so other things.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
I think, I think our mind goes to colors, right,
And so if you're talking about sauces, what color do
you think of.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
If it's a hot sauce red? Right?

Speaker 5 (18:59):
So for instance, for example, my hot sauce has a
red lid. What what if you have a mild product,
what's a soothing color?

Speaker 3 (19:09):
There's probably a couple, but.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Blue, probably blue, green, green O great, green o great?

Speaker 5 (19:15):
Yeah yeah, and then you have all the colors in between.
So even we've learned this from even from chicken wing
hot sauces too. Like you go and you see a
spectrum that starts maybe at green, and it works all
the way up to red, flaming red and everything in between, right,
and so that's kind of your mind goes there and
it equates a color to a spice level. And I
think in a store that shouts, come to me, buy me,
pick me. If you have, you know, vibrant colors on

(19:37):
your label that coincide with the product itself, So you know,
going to different foods or food food shows, like for
instance in in uh In Asian culture, apparently you don't
want red on your food. It's it's like a it's
like a bad omen And I didn't know that until
I went to a I went to a you know,
a food buyer show, and so I'm not not exporting,

(20:00):
but you know there's there's So to your point, it's
very important your branding, your logo, your your labels. And
and by the way, a lot of people don't know
that you have to get your should I don't know
if they you know, they're not checked all checked, but
you you need depending on your state department, Vegic culture
dictates your label's approval.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
And so there's got to be various font sizes.

Speaker 5 (20:21):
Your nutritional facts label has to take up so many
pixels or or square millimeters or inches on your label itself,
depending on the size of it.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
Your UPC code.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
Uh, the allergen listings, you know, there's there's eight of them,
I believe, like peanuts, milk, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
They've got to be listed.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
With the gluten free and silat craze, You've you've got
to you know that's a good marketing thing.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Is it gluten free? Put that on there.

Speaker 5 (20:45):
Your ingredients has to be listed in order of the
majority of the ingredient has to be first, going down
to the least ingredient in your in your jar or
your package. There's so many things on the label that
are are required, but also gives you the flexibility to
stay and out.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
On the show.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Let me ask you, Kareem, do you help like so,
let's say if I've got like, let's say Craig says,
he's you know, at these recipes from this family recipes
or you guys have come up with these family recipes
or even your recipes that just because you can make
a salcea make a hot sauce, make a pizza, make
a whatever, doesn't necessarily you're great at the other stuff

(21:21):
to get you from making a great pizza to getting
you in a store. Kareem, how much of that do
you help with?

Speaker 4 (21:29):
So we're kind of we're almost, I want to say,
a one stop shop, but because you know, small business
is kind of just a sliver of what we do.
We work with a lot of the food processes across
Ohio and as well as in manufacturing, so our team
is very diversified.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
Based on our offerings.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
We can help with nutritional fact labeling, so if you
don't want to kind of deal with trying to figure
out how many calories in your product, we can create
that label. We can also build shopifies if you're trying
to create something with the Knack program, we actually have
a person there that kind of tells you what is
needed for you to start a business that's outside of

(22:11):
the regulatory agencies that you're required to speak with. And
also the beauty of our kitchen is we're the only
shared kitchen in Ohio that is a third party audited
good Manufacturing Practice facility, which means we bring our own
kind of inspectors or auditors to our facility to make
sure that we're accountable to our facility standards and making

(22:34):
sure that our facility is cleaned every single time someone
uses it, as well as the tenants also know, you know,
what they need to do in order to run a
successful manufacturing company.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Well, let's go over to we haven't introduced Zach yet,
Zach from Kababit. Now, I'll just let you know that
I've my wife and I went to Bowling Green once
and we went to Kababit and the food is fantastic.
And Zach, you were in the restaurant business before you
got into what you're doing now. Yeah, and you've got
you've got locations in Bowling Green, you've got one at
the Franklin Park Mall as well. How did you get

(23:11):
started in the food business in general?

Speaker 7 (23:13):
Okay, so yeah, my dad, you know, he was actually
born over in Lebanon, came over here and so all
the recipes everything, he's been in the restaurant business. We
opened up the mall in two thousand and nine, still
there today in the food court. All recipes are from
our family, So I mean we make everything homemade. Open

(23:34):
that in two thousand and nine, ended up going down
to Beg in twenty fourteen. So we're going on here,
what eleven this year in Beg. Me and my wife
run that one down in Bowling Green. Then successful, we're
still there. We're doing that. I was actually there this morning,
shot out a catering order, came over here, small business
owner man running around. But then yeah, so then COVID

(23:59):
kind of hit. We didn't know what was going on
with restaurants and all of that kind of stuff. Luckily
we were still successful with both restaurants. The mall did
shut down for a little bit, but my wife kind
of took over bottling sauces. So we've got a couple
of marinads. Now, we've got two of our dressings, all
ones that we use in the restaurant today. And uh

(24:21):
we kind of Greg touched on it, I think earlier
about like the perishable and the shelf stable. So, uh,
you know, main goal one day is get more products
in there, but we went with it's it's new. We're
bitten restaurants forever, but you know, the stores and all
of that stuff, it's all new, so we went with
non perishable shelf stable. You know, Uh, marinades and dressings.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
How many skews do you have?

Speaker 3 (24:44):
So we have four.

Speaker 7 (24:45):
So we have two marinates and then two dressings fatuse stressing,
which a lot of people are familiar with fatus that's
like our Mediterranean dressing. And then we have a Greek
dressing that we use in store as well. And then
we do a grill marinate and a shwarma marinate.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
What listening to Greg, I mean, I think the fresh
stuff would scare me. Big clock starts, you're like, hey,
when to make sure you got this out on the
shelf right away. I need as many day as I
can to get this out there. That is scary and.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
The thing the thing in with that, and Zach will
tell you and if you get into that part, they
they mandate what they order. It's like they'll order way
too much because they don't want empty shelves.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
So the risk is on you all day long. And
that's what's so dangerous.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
But I want to give a shout out real quick
while when I'm still talking, is to Zach.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
And kender Man.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
They're they're unbelievable hard workers. They're they're my neighbors here
in Bowling Green as far as you know, as far
as they're in Bowling.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Green, meeting.

Speaker 5 (25:39):
Candra is so easy to work with and talk to.
Their restaurant is unbelievable and Bowling Green. If you guys
whoever's listening, haven't been there, it's right on Booster. It
is so they're so inviting. I just can't say enough
about them and their family. They're they're such a good
community partners and they always give. We have a I
have a volleyball nonprofit that they all give to. It's

(26:02):
just things like that matter with food entrepreneurship. They have
to be a part of the community because food is
part of the community, and they do such a great job.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
It's funny, Greg, I want a site story for you, Greg,
because when I first came to town and Greg, Greg
was one of the first people that I became friends with,
and he told me, He's like, man, you have to
try and I can't. My memory is terrible, but he's like,
you have to. We have to take you to Trotter's
and you have to try this steak. It's like they
let it sit or marinite for like days and blah
blah blah and blah blah Blah's the best take you

(26:32):
ever had. This dude. This dude was basically like I
thought he had profit in Trotter's. He would push it
so much. And we went there and the steak was amazing.
And now to this day you now own Trotters and
you didn't at the time.

Speaker 5 (26:47):
Yeah, it's very strange how things come around full circle.
And never in a million years what I thought that
I'm going to own a restaurant business for God's sake, I.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
Mean never, but yeah, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
It's and sometimes you just gravitate towards stuff and opportunities
arise and you have to take advantage of it. But
in going back to this food business, that's the same
thing too, is you know you want to make you
want to make, you know, decisions made on logic and
not emotion. Because your grandma's recipe was the best and
everyone said they love it, and everyone's telling you and

(27:18):
your family you're going to be successful. But you have
to make really rational, logical, well thought out decisions when
it comes to money and in this business. And that's
the I think everyone would agree that's on this on
this panel or on this call, because every mistake you make,
you're leaving dollar bills and big dollar bills behind you
in your trail.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
You guys, if you guys can all jump in, Like
if someone says something you want to say, you want
to add on to it. I want, I do want
to ask you a question. What is something that you
went in and you're like, man, this is the way
it is going to be blah blah, and then and
then it starts to become reality and you're like something
you had to change that you were like, I can't
believe I have to change it. I can't believe I'm
changing this because this was the whole thing, but I'm
going to change it because it makes sense when it's

(27:59):
fin for the market or whatever. Is there anything that
you guys could think of that that I thought this
was going to kill it, and I got a change
and I don't want to change it, but market has
dictated it.

Speaker 7 (28:09):
I mean, we're still relatively new in all of the
bottling and stuff like that. I think we're on year
three right now. We've already changed our labels. So the
same thing talking about the labels and everything earlier, but
that was kind of one of the things like we
made it in the beginning, like yeah, this is gonna
be it, this is gonna be awesome. But then we
switched to colors and brightness and something that where you know,

(28:33):
on our bottles it says Mediterranean big because that's what
you know they're drawing to us and stuff like that.
So some things that we changed right there right off
the bat were labels. We you know, spent money, graphic design,
printed them, did all this stuff, and then you know,
in a year, year and a half in, you're like,
we can do better than that. We need to change this.
We need to you know, talk to the customer from

(28:55):
the shelf because we can't be there every single day
sampling and doing stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Does any of you went to like the area where
you're going to be, Like, let's say it's salsa or
hot sauce or barbecue sauce or Mediterranean sauce or whatever
it is, and go there and see the other like
your competition, the other products. You're like, man, that's probably
the best lay. I gotta be better than that. Go
angry irishman coming you said, you look like you're shaking
your head.

Speaker 7 (29:19):
Yev.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, that was one thing that I noticed myself doing
a lot was literally going into grocery stores and looking.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
At other labels.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
I tried a lot of different things. Every festival or
Hot Sauce expoy I go to, I try anything new
by any companies, if I've tried their other stuff, or
if there are any companies I haven't come across, I
try all of their stuff. And what's really neat is
the Hot Sauce community is extremely tight knit and we

(29:51):
help each other out. We network like crazies, even though
we're in competition with one another, you know, like, oh,
Lyric Craig.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
I had to separate these two.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
You know, I've had through the years, I've had so
many people help me, you know, from family, friends, and
then once you start getting out and meeting other companies,
you know, I had some bigger companies, Like one of
our first times we did Jungle Gym's Weekend of Fire,
I had some of the better known companies coming up

(30:27):
to me going, hey, you know, where do you get
your bottles from for this or where do you And
I was like, you want to know where I'm getting
my stuff from? You know, you're you know you're doing this. Yeah,
you've been doing this and your name is Gigantic And
I was like, well cool, yeah. So and after that
it was just you know, you you go into a
you go into an expo, or you go into anything

(30:49):
expecting hoping for the best, expecting the worst, and then
you see how everything washes out kind of at the
end of the day.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
So let's say something great for us.

Speaker 6 (31:01):
The bar is sitting right there with Kevin. That's what
we saw here. That's what we were trying to not
necessarily emulate, but trying to get to that level that
that's been our goal with a lot of what we're
doing because he does it so well.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Is there it?

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Do you guys agree? I'm gonna say from and I'm
I've never done the packaging stuff that that would scare
the crap out of me, And what you guys are
doing is amazing. But if you guys agreed, like for me,
it's it's restaurants or food trucks, there's nothing more exhilarating
than you got a line and people and it's hopping
and you got your throwing food out and everything's great.

(31:34):
And there's nothing that makes a day longer and question
your life than sitting at a restaurant all day long
with no customers, or or for you guys, maybe sitting
at like a craft show or or or a far
farmers market and you're sitting there all day and not
selling anything. What is the what is the mental the
mental stuff going on there? When that, When something like

(31:55):
that happens, Kevin, that's kind.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Of one of those oh shiz moments where you just
kind of sit back. What's worse If you're doing an
outdoor festival and it starts to rain and then you're like, God,
where'd I put the ten sides?

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Where's the tarp to throw over the top.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Of the ten you know, I mean it's literally with everything,
it's a matter of it's a learning curve, and you
like you prepare for the worst, take what you think
you're gonna need. Now, hopefully my wife is not watching this,
because I love the woman to death and God bless her.

(32:31):
She took an entire suitcase of flip flops on a
cruise and wore three pairs, so she prepared for the
absolute worst, right, But I was the one that had
to carry it. So anyhow, you know, so and having
like you know, when you get a lot of skews
like Greg, I think we probably can you know, attest
to this when you take them to a show. That's

(32:53):
a lot of products. You know, now that we have twenty,
you know, you got to kind of beg and choose.
But then you know, pick and shoes, how much you're
going to take of each. But I also keep a
tracking sheet of all everything that we've done, so I
pack according to last year plus ten percent. Now with
this new one we got coming out, the response has

(33:13):
been gigantic. I haven't put it on the website as
of yet because there's one little catch. I need to
make sure of to make sure everything's copacetic. But I
will take it to our live our in face, you know, events,
but I will only give a sample on a toothpick.
That's as much as you're going to get.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
It's that bad, Greg, Greg, your kareem well for you?
Is there is there a sweet spot when it comes
to skews, like how many you should have or is
it just very product by product?

Speaker 3 (33:47):
I mean, it depends on what the store.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Is on, depends on what it depends on what's selling.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
And it also depends on how much hair you have,
because who knows, by the end of the skew line,
you probably won't have any hair cream.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Seriously, seriously cream you had to go with the hair really.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
So honestly, I think it depends. I think it depends on.

Speaker 5 (34:12):
The product itself, right, the product itself that you're that
you're dealing with dictates you know, you can go out
in for instance, out in the marketplace, Desert peppered is
a salsered. I think SUSA that everybody knows and at
one point they had they had, you know, a dozen
or so flavors and they were fortunate enough to be
on the shelf at some of the stores, Kroger's like
carried eight or nine of them. In some situations, like

(34:36):
right now, Kroger only said, hey, what are your three
best skews?

Speaker 3 (34:39):
I want three of them. I can't.

Speaker 5 (34:40):
I'm not gonna have all six of your sauces and
two hot sauces. I'm gonnait three Meyer, they wanted all six.
So you know, in this situation, Sift and Kareem's program
really really helps out.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
So it all depends on what they want and what
they ask for. So you can let me go back.
Let me go back. One of my friends, one of
my friends back in the day, zee, do you remember
Meg Meg's Uh? Okay, So when.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
You but a buddy of yours and you basically got
him started.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
Yeah, yeah, Well he's no longer doing that, but but
he lasted. He did very well for a while. But
he started with one. And I said, the problem with
starting with one skew this is this is all the
left side of your your question. It's way too few.
You know, your your answer from a buyer is gonna
be yes or no. But if you start adding more
skews to it, like two or three or four, Now

(35:32):
what I always say you got more shots on goal.
Now they're going to say instead of guess, you know,
they say, well, which one sell the best at other stores,
And they're gonna they're gonna be able to taste and say,
welly ranking, I like that one better than that one,
that one versus you give him one shot one product
and they're like, Nope, don't like it, see you next
to mine. So it depends on what the product line is,
what you're selling, and then you go from there. Like

(35:54):
in Zach's case, you know, my assumption is the f
a two star there there's like there's one. You can
have some deviations, you can add some things, you know,
more lemons as more this than that. But you got
to start with a with a flagship product and then
add a couple to give him a choice, and then
you expand it as the market allows and watch to Like.
Hot sauces is an example where kind I'll tell you

(36:17):
can have fifty of them. I mean, because there's so
many flavors you can add, there's so many levels of
heat you can add, there's different pepper styles. So I
think the product line and the market dictate to dictates.
I'm sorry, how many SKUs.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
You have let me ask you this, Greg when you
did the Mags beef and bean dip, and I know
you Meg are good friends and he's such a good
good dude. I love that guy, and you kind of
push him into it. But for me, I'm like, I
am I in the back of my head, I was like,
nobody wants to eat effing beef and bean dip. Like
what was there ever a point where you're like, like,
were you all in on that? Or was he all

(36:52):
in on that? Or were you not sure? Or did
you know like.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
He was he was.

Speaker 5 (36:56):
I in the back of my mind, I always thought
the exact same thing, dude, like, let let let the
consumer add whatever protein they want. How about just go
with your regular recipe with the bean part and and
it'd be great.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
But he was all in on that beef.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Man.

Speaker 5 (37:10):
You know, I'm from putting them County and I'm gonna
I'm gonna add the beef. And so he had to
get he had to go deep into certifications with the
FDA and all that because he's he's got beef and
and it really expensive him. You gotta you got a
jar back then in two thousand and six, that's that's
you know, sixteen ounces and it was eight bucks, and
you're like, you know, that's a long time ago. And

(37:32):
you're like, so he did pretty well because sampling, when
he sampled it, it was really good.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah, and it had a good shelf life.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
But it was a pricey product and it was it
was a product that you don't want to be in
this situation where you have to educate the consumer on
what it is.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Right because because I can tell you right now, the
next time I go to the store and get a
beef and bean dip off the shelf is going to
be the first time.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (37:58):
If you ever if you ever educate, if you have
to educate, it's so expensive, it's probably not the right
launching platform or product that we're dealing with right now.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
I would also kind of I would actually add on
to that. So when you're thinking of excuse or adding
onto the products, the problem is it's not like it's
the problem is having time to think of those new
ideas or new products. Because when you are becoming so big,
and when you're becoming you know, a larger of a
company and you're you know, fulfilling all the orders. Sometimes

(38:27):
as an individual it's hard to step back and actually
think of new outside ideas. And nowadays the ideas are
becoming so like some of the people that call me,
they're becoming so like you know, sometimes I say to myself, like, man,
I wish I thought of that. They're thinking so creatively
that you can't know if it's a trend or if

(38:49):
it's a stastable product. And that's kind of hard to
think about because when you have like a like I
always say to people that whenever you have the opportunity
to have like a magic wand or like a perfect buyer,
that is there for the goul injury, is there for
the organic is there for like everything that talks about
your story, and they're literally asking you what is your growth,

(39:13):
like what do you what kind of new products are
you gonna come out with? It's hard. So that's why
sometimes with me, I always just dedicate one day of
the week of just thinking outside of the box ideas
and then seeing if they're even sustainable.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
It's it's funny because you talk about Greg's favorite show,
Shark Tank, but it's like, you know, they always say,
like if someone comes in with a great product all
the time, they'll be like, oh, it's a great product,
but it's not a company, you know, so you hear
them say that all the time, and I like, for me,
I would want to come in with just like a
great product, but like and then but you look at
it differently. Now, Greg's like, well, would you rather have

(39:47):
one chance to get a consumer or three or four
chances at a consumer because you've got three or four
different products to hit them. So that makes total sense.
And now Craig with you over at State Line. So
you picked three three skews to go into Meyer when
this thing launches in a couple of weeks. Why did
you pick those skews? How did you pick them?

Speaker 6 (40:07):
Well, for me, it was, first of all, we're going
to send our best seller, which is our perfectly garlic sauce.
That's hands down. The second one was our Carolina Golden mustard,
and that was because we're kind of we're launching a
May It's grilling season. I thought having a mustard out
there would be relatively wise decision on our part. And
then the traditional salt hot sauce is we just wanted
something that's more familiar for people's in the styles, let alone,

(40:30):
not necessarily the taste. We went a little sweeter, a
little different with ours, but yeah, that was kind of
the approach we were taking.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
And where did cale Verde end up in that? Just
because like cali Verdi is one of my favorites and
we eat it around here almost like it's a salsa
because it's so good and it got so much flavored.
Was it four or was it down further?

Speaker 6 (40:50):
It was tied for third, but yeah, it was. It
was between that and the mustard. We wanted to do
two with the five bounce in one of the of
the eight ounce jars, so that we kind of just
for the aesthetic how it's going to be put up there,
we thought that would look better too, So that's kind
of it was. It was tough because that is, you know,
one of our best sellers as well, But it was
a matter of, you know, just kind of playing into
the grilling season for this first launch, see what we

(41:11):
can get the most movement on initially, whereas the very
day sometimes there's there's a little more explanation that comes
along with getting people to try that. Whereas a hot
mustard is a hot mustard, people people are gonna you
like it or you don't, right.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Uh, kareem. So how important is this opportunity to get
into these myer stores for for these products that these
companies that you're getting in there? How I mean, I
want these guys to speak on it as well. But
how important do you think it is to a company
to get this shot? I mean it seems like the
big the big leagues.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Yeah, I mean it's different on part. I mean, look,
I'm an entrepreneur myself, and you know, I've been in
the family business for my whole life, basically with my
dad and stuff. But one of the things that I've realized,
even as I mean i might sound young, but one
of the things I've I've found that as an entrepreneur
there's three different challenges. It's one one that's you know,

(42:03):
your idea, figuring out what you want to do. Number
two is access to capital, and number three distribution. If
if you can solve one of those three, you got
something going and you have some the opportunity and and
as everybody can agree on this call, is when you
are trying to sell your product. It's one thing creating

(42:26):
your products and getting the steps, it's another thing with
like selling the product. I mean, you know, Andrew even
as a food truck owner. It's one thing building the
food truck, but it's another thing getting your first sale.
So it's challenging and I appreciate our partnership with Meyer.
They have an awesome team at the supplier inclusion team there,
and they really want to emphasis on helping emerging brands

(42:49):
within their stores.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
They actually, over the last.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
You know, a few years, they were able to create
with concept stores that are that showcase emerging products. There's
like one on in Cleveland, There's a couple in Michigan,
and a couple across other states, and where it gives
you the platform and the power back to the store
director for them to actually help the emerging products select
that product to go into that store. And they really

(43:16):
want local. I mean he told me the one of
my contacts there told me that they even like when
they're building a new Meyer, they're even asking local contractors
to see if they would be able to build, like
help with some degree to their construction. So they're really
advocating local. And even if if let's say Craig or

(43:36):
Kenjo or Kevin or any of any of them.

Speaker 7 (43:43):
My wife usually I'm usually in the kitchen, I'm behind
the scenes. She's at a dance competition right now with
my daughter in Chicago.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
So any of any of the brands that want to, like,
let's say, you know, I want to get into expansion,
and let's say after this, you know, initial rollout, they
ended up getting Kroger, or they ended up getting Giant Eagle.
Meyer's not going to be like, oh man, we lost
the No, Mayer's going to be like, Man, I cannot
believe we helped this company grow. I cannot believe they

(44:13):
dedicated themselves and gave the and did the requirements for
them to do in order to get into Meyer. And
for me, you know, I can actually say that to
my kids saying like, look this is this bread here. Yeah,
I you know, I know this owner and they devoted
their time and resources to grow their brand.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Greg, you've you've been doing it again. We said twenty years.
You're the old guy in the group. Was there a
point where you said, screw it, man, this is too
much work. I can't am not doing it.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
There's been several days. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (44:50):
I mean there's going to be ups and downs in
any business. But when it comes to food, holy crap.
Because taste change, cravings changed, food shows excite people and
they want to try their own thing. Everybody thinks they
can make every food thing in their own kitchen. And
they'll tell you that I make my own sauce. Okay,
but do you make it every day? Or do you

(45:10):
have anything in your shelf? Do you have hot sauces?

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Do you make them all? Do it?

Speaker 5 (45:13):
I mean, you got to deal with that stuff. And
it's it's a mind thing. You really just have to
be tough. You know, your question earlier is when you
go into a restaurant and it's there's no one in there,
crickets you everyone's dressed up like empty seats.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
It's it's tough, and you just have to be.

Speaker 5 (45:30):
Mentally prepared for the ups and downs of any business,
not just a food business. And so yes, there's been
days and weeks and many many days over sipping on
beer and wine and.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Saying what are we doing? Why are we doing this right?

Speaker 5 (45:44):
And so it's almost become a legacy at this point
two decades doing it well and wearing shirts around I
did this one I did this one time. This is
about five years ago, and I was before COVID. I
had a shirt and it just had my my caricature
hippy on it, and I was just I just wore
it for ships and giggles.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
And I walked around. I'm like, hey, I know what
stadium sauce.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
So it doesn't it didn't say stadium sauce on it,
but that brand connected with the person and that gave
me so much motivation just forward and I'm like, oh man,
and this is this is talk about you know, o gee,
you heard that that phrase? And I'm like, I'm like,
how'd you know that? I stopped and turned around. I
was going to Bob Evans and I turned around. I said,
how do you know that?

Speaker 4 (46:23):
Oh man?

Speaker 5 (46:23):
I remember I was down at the Farmers Market back
in like twenty ten and this guy was down there.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
You know, he's given sam. I said that guy was
me and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was me.

Speaker 5 (46:38):
But but yeah, it's just ups and downs and you
got to struggle through that. And you know, I got
I'll share this one com one one story before I
have to leave in about five minutes.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
So you guys have heard of Savage and Associate.

Speaker 5 (46:49):
So I had the I had the opportunity and the
pleasure to do an internship out of college, UH with
with John Savage, who who Savage Hall is named after,
And It'slato Financial Planning all that.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
That's where I.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Started my career off and insurance and investments, and uh
so I did my preceptorship there when I was in college.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
And I asked him.

Speaker 5 (47:08):
I was a group of five of us, and I said,
what what makes you so successful?

Speaker 3 (47:11):
There's so many financial planners and insurance guys out there?
What makes you? And he said, just last?

Speaker 5 (47:16):
I outlast everybody and and and I think that brings
the trust and the value.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Like when when Kareem.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
Called me and and some of the other Meyers guys
and the buyer out out in Youngstown, like they knew
the brand and they never tried it, but they've heard
of it. And so just by lasting sometimes gives you
that street credibility and that value. But along with that
comes the service that you have to provide along the way,
and that gives that offers trust. And what I mean
by that, I'll give you an example. And I'm not

(47:45):
suggesting that you all do this, but you have to.
You know, state laws said that you have to have
a contact information name on your labels, right, so you
have to have a peel box, or an address, an
email and a phone number and or a phone number
if you if you look on any one of my
jars or any one of my bags of chips, there's
a phone number on there with a four one.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
Nine area CO. That's my cell phone.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (48:05):
So any customer in the country, we even have our
our product in Germany and Frankfurt, they'll call.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Me and say, I'm looking for sadiums.

Speaker 5 (48:13):
Also, I'm sorry because I answered the phone hat this
is Greg and like sadium Sauso said, yeah, this is Greg.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Though. How you doing? Oh?

Speaker 5 (48:18):
I just want to like and we get to talking
and they find out that I'm the owner and founder,
and like, you've got to be kidding because they think
you're bigger than you are, right right, food entrepreneurs, small
artisans and and but that's the level of service that
you have to dedicate yourself to in this business to
be successful long term.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
That's cool. All right, thank you, Greg. I know you
got to run, gregor get real quick.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
Greg.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
I'm gonna ask everybody, so, what's what's the one most
important thing that you would tell someone just getting started?
The one most part I want to ask everybody that,
But what for you Greg, you got to go.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Mine is you can never do enough.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
You can never do enough homework or research not only
what your brand is, but what your competition is U,
what what other UH customers choices are that are that
are close to your category because you're what you're fighting
for is their dollar? Right and and and along with
that is be prepared before you launch.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
People are in a hurry.

Speaker 5 (49:17):
They want to they want they see that those big
dollar signs, and they want to get in the big
box stores. And this is a great opportunity. I wouldn't
pass it down if I were anyone here. But you
have to be willing to sacrifice a lot of things
and be prepared. So even though you've gotten a Meyer,
if this falls, what your plan right? If your if
yours doesn't sell up to the to the goal that
that Meyer has or these buyers have, what's your goal? Like?

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Don't don't throw it away?

Speaker 5 (49:40):
Like do you have the right website, you have the
right support system?

Speaker 3 (49:45):
Do you have the right capital?

Speaker 5 (49:47):
All those things come with a business plan. So what
does your business plan look like?

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Do you have one? Do you know how to write one?

Speaker 5 (49:54):
And this goes back to your earlier question Zee and
and what we were talking about. We might have the
best food in the category, but that doesn't get us
to the top of the mountain. I was just talking
at the nest yesterday at goling Green State University where
they have their version of the Shark Tank, and and
they have this organization they started called fen Falcon Entrepreneurial Network,

(50:15):
and it's a fantastic idea. And what and what it
stems from is this and this this goes along with
what you're saying here is you can be good at
what you do, but if you don't know business, if
you don't know how to run that business, it will
fail no matter how good the idea or the product is.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
That happened in medicine with doctors.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
So I've been in the medical field for this is
my thirtieth year, and doctors sold out to big corporations
because they didn't know how to run a business. It's
not that they weren't good physicians, it's that they couldn't
compete with big dollars in big right, big a CEOs.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
And so be a good business person.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
As well as a good like advocate for your product itself.
That's that's my I guess my most of it and
don't make financial mistakes. Try not to limit your financial mistakes.
Everyone wants money, and we all know that. We're all
we're all think we're good at money. We all think
we can make money. You gotta have someone the cofer
because I'll tell you what, what's the first thing that
people are the most thing that people do in shart tank.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
They're there because they don't have the capital to fill orders.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
When you get that next order, right, you get an order,
you're gonna get you guys are gonna crap. When you
get an order, you have to make it and you say, oh,
I got it, I can afford this. I just got
an order from Meyer in Kareem thanks to kaream over
thirty two hundred units was my first order because we
got picked up in the Dayton market too. I mean
that's a lot. That's a lot of two hundred and
seventy cases or something like that. Plus that's not counting
the chips. That's a big that's a big bill for

(51:39):
me to have to outlay before I get my net
thirty payment back from my or from my distributor, right right,
And so think about that with the economy's scale as
you grow where's that money coming from.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
What if they love you, what if Meyer loves you,
are gonna be able to fill those orders?

Speaker 5 (51:52):
If they said, I want you in one hundred and
fifty stores and I want to start with ten cases
of each your product, do the math and find out
how much it's gonna cost for you to make so
that those are things that I would I would. I
would just prepare yourself for the best case scenario that
could shut you down or the worst case scenario, like
what's your second what's your second plan?

Speaker 3 (52:11):
What's your backup plan? All right, thank you, Thank you, Greg.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Greg Shephard of State of Stadium Salt said, thank you Greg.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
All Right, guys, you guys take care of bessel Bluck.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
As we come to the home stretch, I don want
to say to anyone in here you ever said, dude,
I'm not this is not worth it. I'm not doing
this anymore. Anyone to think about giving giving up? And
then what kept you going? Go go ahead, go ahead?
Matt Irishman angry Irishman.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
I was gonna say there was a stretch there almost
any data ended in.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Why you know?

Speaker 1 (52:41):
But unfortunately with you know, I've been doing it for
a total of about thirty years. And I'm just so
freaking stubborn that it's like until this is gonna.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Be your next brand the stubborn irish.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
So somebody goes, well, what if what if somebody comes
and they want to buy your company? And I go, well,
you know, if they were willing to, you know, fork
what I think it fork out. What I think is
a is a good a good amount, you know, and
it can go for retirement. Yeah, I mean I'm not
quite retirement age. I've got a few years yet, but

(53:19):
not many, you know. And the wear and tear of
making it all and take it, you know, it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
It's Craig Zach You ever thought about screw it? Pack
it in or no?

Speaker 7 (53:31):
I mean there's times in the moment where it's like
why are we doing this? But then you know, five
minutes later, after that problem is solved or something like that,
you're like, all right, Like it wasn't that better When
you sit down at the end of the night and
you're like, all right, like we can go ahead and
do this.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Is it easier for you because it's your you and
your wife? So because I will say I know a
lot of business owners and I call them, which is
probably very not PC. In twenty twenty five, some people
are married to spouse squass dream squashers. So we're like,
if you're fighting your spouse, if you're trying to do

(54:07):
what you can, it's hard enough to start a business,
and then you've got your spouse nay saying or just
not on board or just like every mistake you make,
You're like, I told you, it's how much harder is
it to start a business like that than it is
when you guys are both all in?

Speaker 7 (54:23):
No, yeah, I mean we're both all in, but we
both have separate things. So like, basically I'm usually behind
in the kitchen, not talking to people, not doing anything,
making the food, doing all that stuff. And I am
good with that. She does all the sausages. She's doing
a great job. But you know, I mean we piggyback
off each other. She does a lot of stuff in
the restaurant, She helps out in the restaurant every day,
she does a lot of our social media stuff, and

(54:44):
then whatever she tells me to do with these sauces. Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Craig, what about you? Do you ever think about about?

Speaker 1 (54:52):
You?

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Do'ly be doing five years. But do you ever think
about just I'm not doing this anymore. There's sitting at
a farmer's market with his raining and there's no customers that.

Speaker 6 (55:01):
There's moments like that, but then the next one comes
along and it's right, the fire is right back out,
So we're good.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Right, If you guys had one one piece of advice
for someone in your in your situation, that was something
you've learned, that the most important thing. You'd say that
you've learned that you would like to tell other people?
What would it? What would it be? We'll start with
you down there at the end there' Zach I.

Speaker 7 (55:19):
Would probably say, like consistency. I mean, uh, be consistent
in everything you do. I do the same thing with
the restaurant. I mean consistent in your drive that you
have consistency and your product, your quality, everything that you do.
If you give it one hundred percent all the time,
you know you're gonna have those moments where but it's
can you bounce back? Can you do this stuff?

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Can you?

Speaker 7 (55:40):
Can you do all of that? You know you're gonna
succeed the more effort and the more you believe in
yourself doing stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
All Right, angry irishman, Kevin, what do you think? What
would you say the one piece of advice you'd give
to somebody.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I'd say, if you if regardless of your business, you
have to you do have to enter it whole heart,
one hundred percent, not quite. You have to believe in yourself.
Try to have a good support system, whether it be spouse, family,
you know, friends behind you that may be willing to
help you out, you know, for nothing in the beginning,

(56:15):
and then as things grow, you know, you show your
appreciation those folks with you, like T shirts or sauce
or you know whatever. But you have to you have
to believe in yourself, and you have to be prepared
for the good times and the bad, and sometimes the
bad day can get bad. We had a distributor one

(56:37):
time ordered about almost twenty thousand dollars worth of product
from US, and they went bankrupt and it dard near
killed us. So you know, that was one of those
you know, kicking the gut moments where you have to
kind of check yourself. But then not too long after that,

(56:58):
we you know, we got in with a a couple
of stores. We're like, ooh, piece of candy, you know,
so it was, it's it's it's really can be hit
or mess you just you have to be I guess,
I guess it would be, for lack of better terms,
kind of like going to war. You have to be
mentally prepared to do what you need to do. And

(57:20):
you know, and pretty guy's not raining when you're outdoors.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Craig, one piece of advice should.

Speaker 6 (57:24):
Give to for me, it's always be learning. Be smart
enough to decipher what actually helps you from what you're learning,
you know, and be agile enough to be able to
apply it. You know, to shift if you need to.
But I think the amount of knowledge that's out there,
it's the accessibility is significantly higher than you know, even

(57:46):
ten fifteen years ago. You know, between Google and Chat, GPT,
you can pretty much find anything you need to know.
And there's nothing nothing like having, you know, experienced advisors,
experienced people you can turn to, and obviously, like Kevin said,
a good support base.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
All right, kaream, let's wrap up with the nuts and
bolts of this. Okay, they're gonna be in myer stores.
What do you know the date? Give me? Give what
products are gonna be there? You know which companies and
give us kind of the details.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
Yeah, definitely. So as of May second, I believe is
the kickoff date, so there's as you guys all know,
stadiums also will be their state line sauce Kababa at home.
There's a company called the Guak Shop if you're unfamiliar
with them. They've sold some guacamole and chips. She is

(58:39):
coming out with her brand new product. It's a Guak
prep seasoning where people at home can just make their
own guacam only with her seasoning. Gertie's Barbecue that you
probably know him from the Tuttle Farmers Market with his
signature of barbecue sauce. Kevin from Anger Irishman Royal Cravings.
If you guys remember back in the day at the

(59:02):
Franklin Park Mall there was this kiosk that was doing
roasted cashews and peanuts in the smell that is World Cravings.
They are actually in multiple stores and all beef Jerkey outlets,
so they're going to be showcasing their product at the
Meyer End Cap and then last but not least, Nates Nectar.
Nates Nectar is a family owned businesses that specializes and

(59:25):
honey all things honey cream honeys and they're gonna be
coming out with their own creamed honeys and blazon honey
as well. I'm actually really excited about it. We have
more we're planning with more things around it. I Andrew,
I was just gonna leave you. You asked everybody with
the wanted piece of advice, and I was I.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Shouldn't should I should I should have asked the guy
that has been with all the that's touched all these companies,
that was dumb, go ahead, cream please give it to you.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
So I guess from you know, starting a food business
is challenging, but it's also one of the most rewarding
journeys especialized, especially when it's kind of rooted in something
you're passionate about. So the key is to start small,
stay focused, and be open to learning. You know, it
only starts with a you know, one recipe, one idea,

(01:00:14):
and someone that's willing to take a chance or really
one person taking a chance to with that idea. And
you know, one of the questions that you brought up
was like, how do you have one of those bad days?
And what should really motivate you isn't about your products.
It's about what type of lifest style you want to
be in the next three, five or five years. What
do you envision to be, whether that's going to be

(01:00:36):
your voice of your customer and voice of your brand,
or someone that creates quality products for your consumers. So
continue that motivation, and I'll be honest with you. I'm
born and raised into lit Ohio, and one of the
things that growing up here that made me realize is
it takes a village. None of this, none of us

(01:00:59):
would have not happened without, you know, my community that's
surrounding me. In fact, i'll kind of give you guys
a little blurber about it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Meyer.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
Actually, how Meyer came to be was, you know, there's
a local brand called Hummus Goodness that I grew up
with her and she introduced me to Myers because she
was already in Myers. And at that point is when
I met the Meyer buyer team and we just spoke
and we thought of different ideas, and we felt that
this was going to be the best one out And

(01:01:30):
they now rolled it out across the state of Ohio
and has already made impact with all brands in different
parts of Ohio and beyond. So it literally takes a village.
No matter what your idea is, your idea is if
you're passionate about it, then it's a great idea. So
don't ever get discouraged. Food business, Andrew, you can probably agree,

(01:01:51):
is challenging, especially in Ohio, but you know what, it
gets people to smile about, and it gets people to
agree things, even if they.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Thank God, there are a lot of fat people in
Northwest Ohio, so we at least have a shot. If
we got good food, we at least have a shot.
Karemauda from Sift and Northwest Ohio Commercial Kitchen, Thank you,
Greg Shepperd Stadium Salsa, Thank you, Craig Wagner from State
Line Sauce, Zach Brouddy from kababit at Home and the
Kababbett Restaurant, and of course Kevin Mackee, the Angriss Angry Irishman.

(01:02:22):
Thank you all for being here. We appreciate you, guys.
Good luck to you. Look from the Myer stores coming soon.
May seconds see you guys.

Speaker 7 (01:02:30):
Thank you