On this episode, our guests are Jennifer Zimmermann and Amy Bronstetter, co-founders of Epic Tofu and winners of SIAL Canada's Start-Up Pitch Competition, and Colleen Martin from Caddle, who shares exclusive BBQ trends research. The episode also covers SIAL highlights, inflation, H5N1-dairy hearings behind closed doors in Ottawa, and Red Lobster's demise.
In this episode, presented by Caddle, Michael LeBlanc brings fresh insights from the action-packed SIAL food innovation show in Montreal. Michael & Sylvain share their experiences and interviews, highlighting the energy and innovations at the event. The episode's special guests, Jennifer Zimmermann and Amy Bronstetter, co-founders of Epic Tofu, discuss their victory in SIAL Canada's food and beverage Start-Up Pitch Competition. They impressed the judges with their innovative frozen tofu, which offers superior texture and flavour, triples shelf-life, reduces food waste, and has replaced over 250,000 meat-based meals.
The episode also features Colleen Martin from Caddle, who presents exclusive research on BBQ trends. She delves into what people are cooking, their equipment, and their preferences, providing invaluable insights for BBQ enthusiasts and the food industry and helping them stay ahead of the curve.
Michael and his co-host delve into a post-analysis of the SIAL show, reflecting on the sessions, key takeaways, and overall vibe. They also delve into pressing issues such as inflation, engaging in detailed discussions on recent inflation numbers and their profound impact on the food industry, providing the audience with a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
Additionally, the podcast covers the recent House of Commons agriculture committee meeting on H5N1, which was unexpectedly held in-camera, and Loblaw's new public relations strategy featuring Dufresne on BNN and a new Code of Conduct.
The episode concludes with a look at Red Lobster's fate and ownership structure, noting its decline in Canada and the U.S. and its ownership structure with only 30 remaining restaurants, humorously dubbed "Dead Lobster."
BBQ Ideas for Fish
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcsOZjlDuxxKtifO3YVhOTHoGgUSLb-T7
About Epic Tofu
We met 6 years ago after our 2nd babies were born—in a mommy-group encounter that feels like a life time ago. We chatted about babies, breastfeeding, bottles, and business. But, with young kids underfoot and existing careers in progress, starting a business together was always just a passing comment.
As the years went by we raised kids (lots of girls), worked together, and became friends. Then a global pandemic hit—everything slowed down. No time for ourselves as parents without child care, but funny enough, lots of time to think. And thought we did until the right idea finally came to us!
Food became scarce for a while in the early months of the pandemic. Tofu was nearly impossible to get our hands on; in particular, Jenn's favourite brick of smoked tofu. And just like that, an idea was born; if we can't buy flavoured tofu, we'll make our own! And we'll make it even better than ever.
So here we are, putting ourselves (and our recipes) out there for the world to judge! We love what we do, we love tofu and we hope you will too!
About Amy
My dream has always been to start a business... with 18 years of experience and the most passionate "work spouse" anyone could ask for, Epic Tofu is finally here! I have had the privilege of working with some of the worlds finest entrepreneurs and I have done every "job in the building". Thanks to these experiences (and of course a ridiculous amount of hard work) Epic Tofu will become synonymous in Canada with "the best natural, marinated plant based protein on the market"... Bold I know, but there's no other way to dream!
About Jennifer
Jenn is a Marketing and Communications nerd whose experience spans the consumer packaged goods, retail and government industries. A communicator at heart, Jenn spent her career helping companies build better relationships with their customers by telling the stories that make their brands truly unique.
Now, Jenn is building her own brand as co-founder of Epic Tofu—a self-funded plant-based food start up. They’re challenging the plant-based industry with full-flavour marinated tofu products that are so epic, even tofu haters love them.
About Colleen
Colleen has been working in the Retail industry for close to 25 years with a proven track record in growing businesses by providing strategic direction and leadership to merchandising and marketing teams.
At Caddle, Colleen is responsible for driving revenue growth and maximizing profitability within the organization. She leads cross-functional teams, aligning sales, marketing, customer success to ensure a unified and customer-centric approach to revenue generation. Colleen is adept at fostering a high-performance culture, emphasizing collaboration, innovation, and customer satisfaction as core values within the revenue-generating functions of the company.
Specialties: Creation & implementation of winning store-level programs, brand development, team development, communication, project management, marketing strategies & communication, retail assortment, insights from data analysis, category management, profit and loss management, negotiation, digital and social media retail strategies, advertising strategy and execution, SEO/SEM.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Food Professor podcast, presented by Caddle, season 4, episode 34. I'm Michael LeBlanc.
Sylvain Charlebois 00:10
And I am the Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 00:13
We are back from an action-packed SIAL Food Innovation show in Montreal with a memory card or two full of fantastic interviews. Our guests for this episode won gold in the SIAL Canada's Food and Beverage Startup Pitch Competition. Jennifer Zimmermann and Amy Bronstetter, co-founders of Epic Tofu, had three minutes to woo the judges with their story of innovation, perseverance, and tofu vision and the winning tofu comes to you from the freezer, you'll hear all about that.
Michael LeBlanc 00:43
It's got epic texture, flavor gains, they were telling us about their barbecue flavor. So that was super interesting. Triples the shelf life and according to them already, they have replaced 250,000 meat-based meals with their tofu. So that's our-, our special guests coming to us from SIAL, we have a lot more, a great set of interviews. We'll talk about that in a minute. I want to get your impressions of SIAL. We also-, in this action-packed episode, we have Colleen Martin from Caddle back with some exclusive research on one of the singularly most important in my mind anyway, category, it's a trend, barbecue what folks are cooking, more or less. What are they cooking their food on, why they like cooking outside, why they don't like it, what would it take to get them to cook more. All exclusive research to The Food Professor podcast?
Sylvain Charlebois 01:34
Yeah, no, it's great. Going back to the Epic Tofu company winning, winning the pitch competition, they actually won the whole thing. So, for people who have never been to SIAL there are two divisions, Ag tech and Food and Beverage and they want the entire thing. So very dynamic. I actually really enjoyed that interview.
Michael LeBlanc 01:56
And in fact, we have a couple of winners coming up on the show over the summer and let's talk about SIAL. So yeah, how many SIALs is this for you? I mean, it's-, it's probably close to two dozen. So, you've-, you've experienced the show. What was your impression of this year's show, what's your top five-
Sylvain Charlebois 02:11
Yeah, I mean, my first show was-, I was just like a walker. I was just in the audience really and never thought that one day I would actually be on stage several times during-, during the audition and it was great. Honestly, it was so busy. I couldn't keep up. I felt-, you couldn't keep up. I mean, it was just stuff and what was really nice is that Nyel brought us some really interesting interviews to-, complementary interviews that we actually had. This was our third year with the podcast and the first couple of years, let's admit it, we were just fetching. We were actually going out to get interviews. This year, I covered maybe a third of the floor, maybe I don't know. I didn't just-, I didn't-, I sampled once like I sampled one product, and I was with you.
Michael LeBlanc 03:06
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 03:06
That’s it.
Michael LeBlanc 03:07
I'm not a newbie, it is my third I thought it was a very vibrant show back in Montreal, which has got its own dynamic, a little different than then being in Toronto, you've still got the course the international component and listen, we got a raft of great interviews, we'll be playing a couple of them, at least as we kind of wrap this up Season Four up in this format and then all summer we're going to do like we did last year, we're going to roll bonus episodes with all the interviews that we did. Over the course of the time and this year you and I probably were together for I think the majority of them. So, it's great.
Michael LeBlanc 03:43
We got lots of great-, I-, the one you missed, you missed two great ones, as you had to step out and do a bit of media one was with the ambassador, Canadian ambassador to Morocco, which was,
Sylvain Charlebois 03:54
I saw the pictures.
Michael LeBlanc 03:55
It was fantastic and just so enthusiastic, I learned a lot about Morocco, as well as listeners and then the one and only chef, Chuck Hughes pops back in and you know, he just jumps off the mic and he's so dynamic and this we've got him on the show before and then we went to-, we went to dinner in his in his great restaurant, Garde Manger.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:13
Yeah, it was a nice meal.
Michael LeBlanc 04:15
Beautiful meal.
Sylvain Charlebois 04:15
Great date.
Michael LeBlanc 04:16
It was a great date. So, we had a great time and he's talking about his product line and one of which was a finalist in the innovation show itself and-
Sylvain Charlebois 04:25
But for this SIAL, it was your first time on stage. I mean, congratulations. No, it's-, and how did it feel interacting with the SIAL public, it's a very different public, you got-, it's a-, it's a mixture of different things.
Michael LeBlanc 04:37
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's an epic panel. So fantastic content and you know, went-, it went great. All my panelists were-
Sylvain Charlebois 04:46
And who were on your-, who were on your panel.
Michael LeBlanc 04:49
Diane Brisebois from the Retail Council of Canada, we had Stewart Samuel from IGD which is an analyst, grocery analyst. We had Michael Graydon from FHCP and by the way, we have one of his counterparts who looks after policy as one of our guests coming up for a longer form interview, you know, what is she, what is she, or what are they working on from a policy perspective, packaging legislation comes up quite often as a bottleneck in terms of innovation for-, for the brand, so we cover that and last but not least, Jamie Nelson, Pattison Food Group, which is just a behemoth, a fantastically well run multi, multi banner operation on the West Coast and he's the COO there and, you know, tons of insight and also, you know, working alongside everybody try to figure out what does-, what does innovation look like, how they ingest innovation and you know, it was interesting, he's got so many different banners he talked about, you know, the top of the-, top of the banner is-, is-, is the Save On Foods group. Great SIAL, it's in Toronto next year.
Sylvain Charlebois 05:51
Yes, that's right.
Michael LeBlanc 05:51
We'll touch back before, between Montreal and Toronto, so we'll look forward to that. Once again, we'll be posting interviews, pretty much straight through straight until Season Five in September, so
Sylvain Charlebois 06:01
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 06:02
Get ready for that. All right. Well, let's jump into the news, inflation numbers posted, and you had a bunch of insights around that. Some other people in the media had different insights about that, I think it feels like it comes down to the inflation is definitely cooling, but the-, the counter argument, if I can frame it that way is that people say well, it might be cooling, but between shrink-flation and it's not- you know, prices aren't going materially down. So, we're still paying way more for food than we were a year ago or two years ago. So, to talk about these two arguments, and first of all, talk about the numbers and let's talk about that argument, or that discussion, amongst the numbers in some of your postings.
Sylvain Charlebois 06:41
I don't know if you saw my written comment today that I released and I actually did a couple of interviews about this today. I mean, the title of the-, of my op ed today was food prices are dropping, and no one seem-, seems to care, basically, because the focus is always on inflation being a bad thing being a hurtful thing and I mean, there's a lot of emotions locked, lots of hate, even with food inflation, political parties, both the NDP and the conservatives have actually weaponized food inflation in their own way the last several years. So, we've been hearing about food inflation as really a bad thing. So as soon as you talk about inflation, and people are saying, well, prices are still higher than last year, which is true, at 1.4%. It's-, year to year it's 1.4% higher than last year, absolutely.
Sylvain Charlebois 07:40
But when you start digging into the data, month to month changes, you get a totally different story. So from February to March, there's a -0.3% and again, in April, we got a -0.3%, which actually confirms what we knew as a lab, because we actually look at some of the prices out there and that's exactly what we saw and I can tell you right now, for the month of May, we're likely going to be the same-, we're gonna see the same scenario, which, so I thought it was important to at least acknowledge that prices have actually stabilized, but not only that, we are looking at a group of grocers struggling to get their business, they want our business back, we're spending less on food that's clearly there and so they want our business back, and they want more traffic and so the only way to do it is to offer good deals and so what's going on right now is exactly what we were expecting a while back, but it's actually happening sooner. If you remember in December, we published the Canada Food Price report. We did talk about, you know, August, September seeing lower prices. You remember that?
Michael LeBlanc 08:50
My recollection was you thought it would be more back half of the year than the first half of the year.
Sylvain Charlebois 08:55
That's right, exactly. Now, it's actually happening already, man. So-, and I think it's just because there's a bunch of things happening, I think, I think it's just consumers are just spending elsewhere, they're being more careful not to spend more to cover their mortgages, debt, et cetera. It's the-, it's the ensemble that really is impacting a consumer's ability to spend more at the grocery store. So, people are feeling frustrated, they're feeling angry, and I feel that the media's feeding that crowd, they just want to say, it's not cool to say that things are getting better. They just want to say well, you know if inflation is at 1.4%, we don't want to talk about positive things but and today I actually tweeted my texts on X and Diane Brisebois was one of the first to retweet my message because that's the kind of message I think we need. It's a positive one and it shows that markets are working. Markets are working. We don't need any sort of group social groups to influence market conditions that would actually channel hatred towards someone, or some companies and I know exactly-, I know that you know what I'm talking about here.
Michael LeBlanc 10:13
How does-, and I think I've asked you this question before, and maybe this is kind of a data analysis question, but I mean, one of the objections, and it's not, I think there's some validity to it is-, is the whole shrink-flation and the different packaging that I see, I mean, I see when I buy a box pasta, that costs the same, but there's materially, you know, there's less in it. It was 450 grams, and now it's 434. So does that-, how does that factor into your model as you see things because you are getting less for the same amount of money, which is kind of inflationary in-, in one regard? How does that factor into your modeling?
Sylvain Charlebois 10:47
Well, I mean, last year was a big year for shrink-flation. This year, not so much, because we're past that cycle. Shrink-flation will go into cycles. We saw a big cycle back in 2008 and 2009. It's the same thing with Ukraine, and last year, and so we're kind of-, we're not seeing any cases. In fact, today, I was looking at oil, olive oil prices and we're-, we are expecting some shrink-flation cases in olive oil, but we haven't seen any yet.
Michael LeBlanc 11:20
There's lots of noise in the media about the olive oil crisis, that they had a bad harvest in Greece and in Spain. I mean, we've talked about that before on the show.
Michael LeBlanc 11:29
And Portugal, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 11:30
And Portugal. So, it must be-, it must be coming because we see this climate impact.
Sylvain Charlebois 11:35
Oil has gone up 26% since January 1.
Michael LeBlanc 11:38
26%. So, people are definitely paying-, paying more and there doesn't seem to be that that climate kind of goes up, down or sideways, but it seems to be going sideways on a lot of people just went sideways. Apparently, in BC they lost a ton of their harvest.
Sylvain Charlebois 11:53
With olive oil, I mean, we were expecting and that's why I mean, today I was talking to some-, some, some reporters that say well, Sylvain, and prices may be dropping according to Stats Can, but I'm looking at the price of beef. Well, of course, don't look at the price of beef, beef is going up in price. Same for olive oil. Those two stories are about climate change, droughts.
Michael LeBlanc 12:15
Coffee, coffee as well.
Sylvain Charlebois 12:17
Coffee as well, absolutely and cocoa. I mean, those are things you want to be careful about. It's not like everything is dropping. If you, I did post a list of ingredients list of products that are cheaper compared to March, and there's probably 60 items there, but not all of them are cheaper. Of course, some of them are more expensive than meat counters, dairy proteins again, you see-, in dairy, eggs, meat, you're seeing really some prices, being stubborn a little bit. Olive oil, same story. So, if you're-, if you're careful, you can be-, you can do fine. Yeah, you got to be careful out there.
Michael LeBlanc 12:56
Okay. Well, listen, let's-, let's take a quick break from the news. We just got into it. We'll get back into it. I want to hear what our exclusive survey you just got. You just got me curious about how people are switching different proteins, what they're doing on the barbecue, barbecue season. So let's hear from Colleen Martin from Caddle and our latest-, our latest research. Colleen, welcome back for your regular monthly visit. So great to have you back on the mic. How are you?
Colleen Martin 13:24
Hello. Hello. I'm fabulous. Thanks for having me again.
Michael LeBlanc 13:28
Back with your regular, now, feature. We did some exclusive research on a topic that's near and dear to my heart barbecue and we thought hey, you know, we're just past the long weekend and many, many places around the country and people are starting to turn the barbecues on and-
Sylvain Charlebois 13:44
For this conversation, I feel like a chaperone. So, I'm with the queen of data with the king of-, of the grill.
Colleen Martin 13:51
On the grill. Did you guys know this about me? So, I started my career at a company called Fiesta barbecues and I did all sorts of things there including master barbecue assembler. So, I called on Home Depot for three years and traveled store to store and assembled barbecues. So, this is also very near and dear.
Michael LeBlanc 14:16
Very near and dear, well, fantastic. Well kick us off. Give us a-, tell us. You know, we, like I said, we wanted to know from a number of-, given the sample results. What is it, over 9000 people, so these are great sample sizes across the country, right, kind of equalized or normalized to represent the population.
Colleen Martin 14:34
It is Canadian representative.
Sylvain Charlebois 14:35
9000, that's the number of barbecues that Michael has in his backyard.
Colleen Martin 14:40
I wish. Tell us what we found out and take us through the survey.
Colleen Martin 14:43
Absolutely. We ran two surveys, May-, last week, May 10 and 11 and the sample size was around 9000 for each. We're just probing on behaviors and preferences, and we also dabbled in, has the inflation really affected what you're barbecuing, and we found out some interesting data on that. So, we first wanted to understand how many Canadians have barbecues and around three quarters about 72% have some kind of barbecue at their home.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:12
That's more than I expected to be honest.
Colleen Martin 15:12
Did you? I thought, I thought it was low, I thought it was low. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 15:14
Well, it's kind of hard to have them in a condo. So, I'm kind of with Sylvain there because that, you know, think about urban settings, and it's a little hard to have in a condo or retirement homes or any-
Michael LeBlanc 15:30
Just thought a percentage of the population would get knocked out of contention there, but that's interesting.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:30
Yeah.
Colleen Martin 15:35
Yes, and we asked, you know, the most important question, like how often do you use it? So, we're looking at frequency and based on the summer months, we asked, how often do you plan to use your barbecue and the majority of people cook multiple times a week and that's 42% of people multiple times a week.
Sylvain Charlebois 15:56
So, if you have a barbecue you're pretty committed to it.
Colleen Martin 15:58
I think once-, you tend to get the bug that Michael has, you know, you enjoy the flavor, you enjoy the versatility, you enjoy how it removes the heat from your home in the summer months.
Sylvain Charlebois 16:08
You want to befriend your neighbors with the smell.
Colleen Martin 16:13
There is really nothing better.
Michael LeBlanc 16:14
Everything tastes better cooked outside. Everything tastes better cooked outside.
Colleen Martin 16:16
We asked them what type of barbecue or outdoor cooking equipment do you have and the majority of Canadians, not surprisingly, 87% owned a gas or propane grill.
Michael LeBlanc 16:27
It was interesting to me how things that I take kind of for granted like a pellet smoker, pizza ovens have been on the rise, are really small, like it's less than 5%. So, I think it-
Sylvain Charlebois 16:37
You know, Mike, actually I was expecting higher percentages for both pizza oven at 4.4% and pellet smoker at 7.9%, I was expecting higher percentages just because you go into a store, and you see smokers everywhere.
Michael LeBlanc 16:54
Yeah, yeah, I guess that's I guess that's a two-sided coin right, Colleen, on the one hand-, on the one hand, you know we wish there were more on the other hand, there's great opportunity to grow the category which everybody looks for, to try saturate the category.
Colleen Martin 17:07
Indeed, yeah, like this reflects very accurately the penetration of the assortment mix in store, 87%, The majority of those 87% they used to be around 80/20 propane to gas when I was in the business and when I was at Home Depot buying those categories, but you've see-, you've seen gas definitely increase just based on convenience, but you do give up a little bit of heat BTUs, overall BTUs when you do move to natural gas, but charcoal is still hanging on it's very versatile. The flavor you get from charcoal, 18% of people own one most likely in addition to their, their primary grill and pellet and pizza probably additional-
Sylvain Charlebois 17:51
That's almost 1 in 5, that's pretty incredible, eh.
Michael LeBlanc 17:52
I think it is making a comeback. I bet you if we did this, you know if we could turn back time as the great Cher would say, you know, to four years ago, I would think that charcoal grills were-, were kind of on the outs right everybody was like this is way too convenient and but now people kind of read rediscover these things. What I was surprised about-, I was surprised how many people cook like the percentage of people that cook one kind of set of things that are pretty traditional. Tell us about that.
Colleen Martin 18:18
Oh, we asked-, we had to ask the question. What are you cooking the most on your barbecue and of course very North American, hamburgers and hot dogs with a bullet 36.9% of people love cooking that on the barbecue. Followed by beef steaks, which is around 29.1%, then Chicken, Pork chops. Nobody's cooking veggies, guys. We need to really revolutionize.
Sylvain Charlebois 18:41
We need to work on that one, asparagus. We had asparagus last night.
Colleen Martin 18:45
It was 3.1%.
Michael LeBlanc 18:46
3.1%.
Sylvain Charlebois 18:46
It's not much.
Michael LeBlanc 18:47
Do you have-, Sylvain, do you have the asparagus gene, does your pee smell weird after you have asparagus?
Sylvain Charlebois 18:53
Too much information man, that's for another podcast.
Colleen Martin 18:57
I would-, I would guess we're batting 1000 on this call for that.
Sylvain Charlebois 19:01
Yeah, exactly, but the fish and salmon, 1.2% I gotta tell you, I was surprised. I mean salmon is not getting any love there when it comes to the grill. 1.2% That's very low.
Colleen Martin 19:15
It's gotta be skill. Like it's not easy. It's very easy to ruin a good filet of salmon on a grind you know, speaking from a vegetarian of course, but-
Michael LeBlanc 19:26
My-, my tip to anyone listening to cook a piece of salmon is two things, two tips. One lay it on a bed of good aluminum foil.
Sylvain Charlebois 19:35
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 19:36
Because that just makes it easier to-, easier to do and then the second is to use a great thermometer like a meter which is like automate-, you know, you put it in, and you can measure it on your phone, and it lets you know when it's ready. So it's-, it is as close to fool proof as it gets and it's a bit of an investment for a thermometer, like it's 150 bucks but you'll change your-, it's life changing because you'll never, even for me after cooking a lot, you know, it's hard to time salmon it just-, if it goes a couple minutes too long it dries out and it's not that good. So, there you go.
Colleen Martin 20:08
With food costing what it does lately, you know you can't throw it away-, you don't want to ruin something for sure.
Sylvain Charlebois 20:13
Perhaps Michael, I mean, how many shows have you done with salmon with Last Request Barbecue?
Michael LeBlanc 20:17
Oh, I've done six or seven. Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 20:20
So maybe you want to add your links to the show notes?
Michael LeBlanc 20:23
Yeah, I'll do that. Thank you. Thank you for the reminder.
Colleen Martin 20:26
Bump up that 1% For sure.
Michael LeBlanc 20:28
There you go.
Sylvain Charlebois 20:28
Exactly.
Colleen Martin 20:29
We asked people then why do you enjoy cooking on a barbecue and you know, 54.5% of people, so they love different flavors and I'm like, you know, that barbecue flavor. Even when you're doing vegetables, smokey and maumy, it's really, it's really special, especially, you know, outside in the heat. That was the second one actually, keeping the heat out of the home during the summer, 48.8%. And then, you know, there is, like you said, Michael, a real passion and love for cooking outdoors and wind blowing in your hair and all that stuff.
Sylvain Charlebois 21:00
The answer I just didn't understand Colleen is the mastery of fire at 12.5%, what does that mean?
Colleen Martin 21:08
It's a skill. You know, it's you know, in the in the ever increasing time crunch of you know, running a household microwaves, air fryers things to compress time and speed up delivery, there is a-, there's a there's a real art to cooking with fire and you know, having to be present and not being distracted and not having your phone in your hand and watching process and it's-, I think there's, you know, mastery of anything requires patience and an awareness and I think, you know, this is just another thing that people really love. I'm sure Michael is nodding his head vigorously as I'm speaking about this.
Michael LeBlanc 21:44
I still haven't got it right. It's still a work in progress. I mean, the bet-, the I was in Texas, so week and a half ago and the best pitmasters are managing the heat and the, you know, and this is this is what makes the difference between, you know, two different pitmasters is and even at that level, managing the fire and the live fire and the heat. It's the art and the science, I think, as many as many of them might say. So, you know my supposition going into this from an equipment perspective is a lot of people basically bought forward barbecues during the pandemic, you know, we bought-, we all bought a lot of stuff. Your-, your survey was interesting that it said 64% of Canadians haven't purchased a new barbecue in the last four years. Do you think that-, are we lapping COVID there because my perception was barbecues were pretty popular. So, did they buy them the first year, I've lost track, how many years ago was COVID now?
Colleen Martin 22:35
I know, what day is it? I think this is saying that 64% of Canadians have not purchased since the start of 2020. Meaning perhaps they didn't like-, when-, when the number one driver of purchasing a barbecue a 59-, 60% of people said they're replacing old equipment, right, so if if they didn't need one, they're not buying it and especially probably year two of COVID when the prices went crazy, and the containers were 20x what they normally cost. They weren't-, they weren't going out just to replace it because they're spending more time outside which is the case with you know, gardening really, you know, blew up because of that.
Michael LeBlanc 23:14
Yeah.
Colleen Martin 23:14
But, you know, the-, I think the supplementary appliances that we talked about were pellet stoves and pizza ovens and charcoal. I think the number two reason why they wanted to buy, what was the motivation was to try new cooking methods, 25% of people. So that's addressing, you know, maybe those supplementary appliances were the thing, 36% have purchased in the last four years and perhaps it was in those categories.
Michael LeBlanc 23:41
Now. Sylvain, this-, this result caught your eye specifically that has-, and this was a question we thought about has the cost of food changed what you cook on the barbecue, what have we learned?
Colleen Martin 23:51
54% of Canadians have changed their barbecue cooking preferences due to inflation, which is a big deal, and perhaps it's-, we could follow that up with another question. We probably should have put that in there, but understanding what they went from to, we know it's not vegetables, but it could be from beef into chicken or pork, you know, types of meats and cuts of meats that were not as affected.
Michael LeBlanc 24:17
Steak was like number 2.
Sylvain Charlebois 24:18
I honestly think that most people may have forgotten the filet and went for that hotdog or that hamburger instead. Salmon is expensive. So, 1.2% is not surprising. Veggies I mean overtime veggies, if you're careful. You can actually, you know, save-, save-, save a little but with vegetable proteins in general made vegetable proteins. I know that there are shows out there, how to-, showing people how to barbecue vegetable proteins, but it's not necessarily natural in Canada, at least not yet.
Michael LeBlanc 24:19
Yeah, I agree with that.
Sylvain Charlebois 24:28
What do you think Colleen, I mean, you're a vegetarian. So, do you, how do you actually work with your grill as a vegetarian?
Colleen Martin 25:00
We do not. And this is going to be a big statement. We do not own a barbecue. I cook everything in our woodfired pizza oven that we built last summer.
Sylvain Charlebois 25:10
And I saw that-
Colleen Martin 25:12
I prepare my pizza, I am obsessed-, obsessed with pizza, but after the pizza goes in, when the when the oven is around 600 degrees, 500 degrees Fahrenheit, I will throw in cast iron pans and cast iron griddles full of every single vegetable and we will cook them and then use them all week in our lunches and dinners and the vegetables in a woodfired oven is next level, is absolutely fabulous.
Sylvain Charlebois 25:43
I suspect, so yeah, pizzas are perfect like poutine. You know, it's just you can do whatever you want with that dish.
Colleen Martin 25:51
Exactly.
Sylvain Charlebois 25:52
Three ingredients, three basic ingredients, and then you can add on whatever you want.
Michael LeBlanc 25:57
Last question to bring us to bring us home for this session. We wanted to know okay, yeah, knowing everything we know and asking everything we asked, what do people or what would people, what would encourage people to use the barbecue more often, so what do you find out?
Colleen Martin 26:12
I was surprised and slightly disappointed in-, in this trio of top three, better weather 32.4%. Come on, people put on jackets.
Michael LeBlanc 26:23
Gut it out, gut it out.
Sylvain Charlebois 26:24
You don't live in Nova Scotia, do you?
Colleen Martin 26:26
Like people, we're getting into this comfort zone, people need to experience a little bit more discomfort, but number two was 'nothing, I am happy with how I use it today' and they like it, they're good to go and then more time at home, meaning they're spending a lot of time either working or away from home, vacations, whatever that may be and what-, number four was interesting, and which I have always been, you know, talking to barbecue manufacturers and as a-, as a-, as a retailer and then also not Fiesta was recipes and techniques and tricks and tips from the manufacturers because some people just don't-, aren't aware of how to do things or wouldn't know to try something. So, they need a little bit of inspiration.
Michael LeBlanc 27:07
I found that super interesting, because, you know, Sylvain, in the in the days of who's credible, it's interesting that the brands still retain credibility, because it's farther down the list, you know, into the twelves and sevens and eights where, you know, food brands and TikTok Instagramers. People like myself, who make food shows, but-, but number one was people were turning to the brands who make the product. So, I thought that was super interesting.
Sylvain Charlebois 27:32
It is, I mean, there's lots of brands out there encouraging people to feel more confident with the grill, including yours, Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 27:40
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 27:41
So, it makes it-, makes the grill more accessible, friendlier, less intimidating. There's lots of that going on, but we are in Canada. I mean, to be honest, the biggest problem we have in our region is the weather. I mean, who wants because the weather it may not be minus 30 in Nova Scotia, but it's super windy, it's typically quite humid. There's stuff coming down whether it's drizzle, or there's, there's, there's, you know, there's fog. So, it's not necessarily pleasant to be out and grilling from, say December to even like right now-, right now we're experiencing our first real warm day of the year on May 22 and plus 23 and so before that it was pretty miserable.
Colleen Martin 28:31
I don't know about you but we're 35 out here. Hollywood. It's-, it's really really hot in the Hamilton area.
Michael LeBlanc 28:37
Yeah. It's super-hot here.
Sylvain Charlebois 28:39
I was talking to you. I felt like I was really a good salesperson for Nova Scotia there.
Michael LeBlanc 28:45
Fresh clean air with their fresh clean vibes and, and the mediocre barbecuing, but there you go. You can't have it all, but listen, Colleen, thanks so much for joining us. Once again, and for always, for all your generous support.
Sylvain Charlebois 28:59
Barbecue-less Colleen did a great job.
Michael LeBlanc 29:02
Fantastic. We'll put a link to this in the show notes and you can go learn about this yourself, great research proprietary to The Food Professor. So, keep tuning in and Colleen keeps bringing in the great taste in data.
Colleen Martin 29:16
Thank you, guys.
Sylvain Charlebois 29:17
Thanks Colleen.
Michael LeBlanc 29:18
All right. Well, super interesting and you can see real-, in real time how people are different-, making different decisions and switching out some of the-, as we said during the interview some super interesting stuff. Let's bounce back and revisit this whole H5N1 issue in our dairy now. You-, you wrote me this note that there was supposed to be a House of Commons Agriculture Committee study, one time study and it went from being a public study to an in camera. In other words, private study, is that a common occurrence in your experience or is something, why would they do a thing like that?
Sylvain Charlebois 29:53
So, first of all, I got a hint from a reporter in Ottawa. I won't name that person but the person could actually call me yesterday or today and tell me about this meeting. I don't think it was a study, it was more like a meeting. So fine with that committee. I've actually testified before that committee many times.
Michael LeBlanc 30:12
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 30:12
But I thought it was interesting. It was an in-camera session, and nothing is mentioned on the website. So, so the-, the reporter basically asked me, ‘Why do you think they actually made this an in camera session?’ Well, I don't know for sure. But you're talking about two very sensitive issues here. Avian Flu and dairy.
Michael LeBlanc 30:37
And dairy. Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 30:38
So, my guess is that the Ag Committee just didn't want to instill fear.
Michael LeBlanc 30:43
Is this forecasting bad news for Canadians or for the dairy industry.
Sylvain Charlebois 30:47
They were consulting with a lot of bureaucrats. There was one expert in animal science from the-, from the University of Saskatchewan, I can't remember her name, but it was mainly bureaucrats showing up. So I think it was a bit of an emergency meeting, but also they want to get to the facts and see what-, what else Canada should be doing about this avian flu because, I mean, the sacred cow of Canada, no pun is dairy and so you want to protect that herd as much as possible and the data showing that older cows do get the disease but no cows have actually been-, have died as a result, the avian flu. But the problem is perception. As soon as you get something like this into your own backyard, what's going to happen to demand?
Sylvain Charlebois 31:38
Are consumers going to start retreating, are they going to stop buying, and that's certainly the big concern that I think that the dairy sector has right now, and they just didn't want to increase any chances of panic or our consumer reaction of some sort. That would be my guess and frankly, and I think you probably would agree with that, Michael, when it comes to risk communication nowadays, especially in 2004, you want to be ahead of the game. Let's say that something comes out of that meeting, and someone leaks some information whatsoever and I-, and frankly, based on what I'm reading about what's going on in the, I actually think that the Americans are handling this situation pretty well. They're testing and consumers in Canada shouldn't fear this at all. I mean, I don't think there are significant risks here.
Michael LeBlanc 32:31
Right.
Sylvain Charlebois 32:31
But at the same time as a risk regulator, as a food safety risk regulator, you want to be out there you want to communicate to Canadians, what exactly you're doing, including testifying before a committee talking about-, sharing information about what's going on. That would be my-, my-, my take on this, but I don't know are you reassured by all this?
Michael LeBlanc 32:54
No. You know, maybe we should file our first Freedom of Information Act application to find out what went on in-, in-camera because it's all recorded.
Sylvain Charlebois 33:04
It's all recorded, and they would actually be-
Michael LeBlanc 33:07
We're paying for it. It's all recorded. It's our-, it's our tax dollars at work, so.
Sylvain Charlebois 33:10
But I-, but I did get confirmation that dairy farmers of Canada did not testify.
Michael LeBlanc 33:15
All right. By the way, speaking of dairy, one of our interviews was with a gentleman, and we'll get to it later. That educated me and brought us some amazing butter that was goldenrod gold, made in Ontario. Shout out to St. Brigid's.
Sylvain Charlebois 33:30
I forgot how yellow looked.
Michael LeBlanc 33:31
He opened the package and I'm like holy jumping, like, and he educated me on the Jersey versus the Holstein, and you know so anyways fascinating stuff. We'll get that later, but we love dairy and talking about dairy and they love-, they love us when we talk about-
Sylvain Charlebois 33:48
Don't tell the dairy farmer that the jersey is better by the way. You do not want to do that.
Michael LeBlanc 33:53
I had some on Uncle Bob's popcorn by the way this week-, this past weekend. Oh my God the-, the white-, white bespoke popcorn with the golden butter. You know, it brought me back to my childhood. Yeah, it was fantastic. Let's talk about Loblaws for a second. It’s not like we don't talk about them, or you don't talk about them one way or the other, but there's a fairly material development last week with them agreeing to come on board to the Code of Conduct if I think, I can fairly say if and only if everyone does. I mean, that was the caveat.
Sylvain Charlebois 34:26
Well, that was-, it's the same condition for Empire and Metro to be honest, they were saying-, they're saying the same thing.
Michael LeBlanc 34:31
Yeah. So you know, they kind of swung from we-, we're not liking it to you know, whatever happened we-, we can sign on assuming everybody's gonna play by the same rules. I guess basically, if I-, if I paraphrase now, I saw their CFO Dufresne on BNN and he was asked, not a question really about the code, but about all this stuff that's circulating around the brand and where are people shopping.
Sylvain Charlebois 34:52
Did you watch the video?
Michael LeBlanc 34:53
I did. I've seen him on-, he's been on BNN before.
Sylvain Charlebois 34:56
I thought it was great.
Michael LeBlanc 34:57
Yeah, I thought he's clear. He's-, he's a very polished and very sophisticated-
Sylvain Charlebois 35:02
But for the CFO to come on BNN it's kind of interesting, though like most-, most of the time on BNN, you'll-, you'll hear from the CEO, not the CFO. So, I thought-, I think that Per Bank is really-
Michael LeBlanc 35:15
That varies because Canadian Tire does the same thing. It's-, it's typically their CFO. It does vary on that channel, but you're right, you see a real mix. I would say you see a real mix, right?
Sylvain Charlebois 35:25
I mean, based on issues that Richard was asked to address. Typically, you would see the CEO. I mean, it's about public image, about it wasn't just about numbers here.
Michael LeBlanc 35:34
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 35:35
You go to the CEO, because financial results were-, were out on May 1. So, it wasn't-, the CFO wasn't out like Canadian Tire the CFO was actually on BNN, went to talk about financial results. Richard was not there to talk about financial results. He did talk about the financial performance of the company.
Michael LeBlanc 35:54
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 35:54
But he did talk about a lot of-, a bunch, a lot of really sensitive issues here.
Michael LeBlanc 35:59
And speaking of financial performance, they've been lightened it up from a stock market perspective and they've-, right, they've done very well in the past the past month,
Sylvain Charlebois 36:08
This afternoon, I actually looked at the stock market and since the start of the alleged boycott, Galen Weston is 691 million, I sorry, no, sorry, $961 million richer, almost a billion dollars now. So, if you actually consider his stocks and Loblaw, and stocks in George Weston, that is, and I've always said it and-, and people can boycott whoever they want.
Michael LeBlanc 36:45
Of course, free country.
Sylvain Charlebois 36:46
At the end of the day, I've always believed that the boycott towards one major employer, one major company will hurt a lot of people except the intended target.
Michael LeBlanc 36:59
And achieve a lot of things but not the intended, whatever the intended outcome.
Sylvain Charlebois 37:05
So, I'm hoping that this-, this silliness will end, but we just heard today that the boycott will-, will be extended, and this group will continue to-, to make noise on getting together. So, I'd love to-, I'd love to as a teacher, as a professor, I'd love to sit down with the members of this group, and explain to them what they're actually doing, and what are the implications and I mean, last week, the one thing that did dry it is that they did support the code of conduct. So at least they actually did celebrate the fact that Loblaw has endorsed the Code of Conduct so at least it's-, there are signs that they want to learn a little bit. But yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 37:44
I don't know summer of discontent, perhaps when it comes to that.
Sylvain Charlebois 37:47
Summer of discontent. That's right.
Michael LeBlanc 37:49
Well, then from positive to positive. Let's talk about these two amazing entrepreneurs behind Epic Tofu now first, we're going to hear a few words from our presenting sponsor, then you're going to meet in person these two, end of a long week for them, but they-, they brought it. It was a great interview, but let's first hear from our presenting sponsor Caddle.
Michael LeBlanc 38:08
Ever feel like the world of ratings reviews needed a superhero? Well, enter Caddle, the Caped Crusader with Canada's largest most diverse and daily active consumer panels. That's right, Caddle is not your average podcast sponsor. So why choose Caddle? Because Caddle excels in consumer insights from your consumer while also blazing trails in the realm of ratings and reviews, pioneering the future landscape of user generated content. Beyond the valuable syndicated receipt data, they stand as unparalleled collector of reviews at scale, irrespective of category or price point, a testament to their impact partnerships with giants like Walmart, Canadian Tire, and more. Visit askcaddle.com now for an exclusive The Food Professor podcast listener discount on your first review or research campaign today. That's askcaddle.com.
Sylvain Charlebois 38:57
So, we're back at SIAL 2024 in Montreal, and we have some more guests.
Michael LeBlanc 39:04
Epic, epic guests. We are finishing with an epic interview after three fantastic days.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:09
With more hardware. It's just amazing.
Michael LeBlanc 39:12
More hardware, more award-winning products.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:15
Exactly. So, we have in our studio, Jennifer Zimmermann, co-founder of Epic Tofu, welcome and also Amy, Amy Bronstetter, also co-founder of Epic Tofu. Welcome.
Amy Bronstetter 39:27
Thank you for having us.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:28
And I heard, we heard through the grapevine that you won an award of some sort yesterday was pretty exciting.
Amy Bronstetter 39:37
We did. It was very exciting, yeah. Lots of people showed up.
Sylvain Charlebois 39:41
So, tell us about the competition. So, you actually won the beverage of food and beverage division and the overall prize of the pitch competition, right, so tell us about your experience.
Amy Bronstetter 39:53
Competition, experience or life experience?
Michael LeBlanc 39:56
Well, life experiences-, life experiences isn't a bad place to start, but very quickly, what to get to the experience of what-, what did-, how did you get into this and where did you start? What-, have you always been into food? You know that kind of stuff. Tell us about yourself.
Amy Bronstetter 40:08
So, Jennifer and I met in a mommy group, but nine years ago, we had little babies and we both had existing careers. I was actually in the fashion industry for the better part of 15 years and Jennifer was a consultant, branding and marketing specialist and we just thought, oh, well, we'll joke around all the time, we'll start a company together. And,
Amy Bronstetter 40:23
And then you decided to start a company when?
Amy Bronstetter 40:31
Okay, so let me go back in time.
Sylvain Charlebois 40:34
Because it's like everything happened all at once. Which it probably felt that way.
Amy Bronstetter 40:39
It was a bit of a blur. Yeah, so, we-, we Oh, my God, Jen, you take over.
Jennifer Zimmermann 40:44
And this is what we do. We throw it back and forth at each other, it's great. A true partnership. Yeah, you know, it's all good fun and games until you actually make it a reality. So, the pandemic hit, and Amy and I were both ready to make a switch. We do not come from a food background then yeah, we said, you know, what, never a good time to quit your day job, but I guess now is as good a time as any. So, we started our company Epic Tofu and really, our vision was to create a business that did more good than harm for the planet and we really wanted to do something that could be made locally here and that was improving our lifestyles. So as busy moms, who, you know, wanted to be able to feed our families in a healthy way, but didn't always have the time to, you know, cook from scratch. We actually thought that, hey, you know, we eat mostly plant-based in our houses, what if there was an option that you could, you know, feed your family on a daily basis that could come together quickly, and Epic tofu was born from there.
Amy Bronstetter 41:58
We had no idea what we wanted to do. We just sat down with this criteria.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:02
That's it. Okay and so, you clearly zoned in on tofu specifically, which is a plant-based bestseller in Canada, a lot of people know what tofu is and so why tofu in general?
Amy Bronstetter 42:15
There was a reckoning coming. The plant-based industry was putting out a lot of new products and they were mostly fake meat and they were highly processed.
Michael LeBlanc 42:25
Big labels. A lot of labels.
Amy Bronstetter 42:27
Exactly. Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 42:28
Big ingredient decks.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:29
Because you were, I mean, when you were starting and launching you were right in the middle of the Beyond Meat invasion.
Amy Bronstetter 42:34
Exactly and we said that's going to come to a halt because consumers want something they can eat every day. They don't want a fast-food replacement. They want a daily quick healthy plant-based protein option.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:47
That's-, so what's-, so we're holding a box here. Tofu is very light.
Michael LeBlanc 42:53
See, I was gonna say fantastic packaging.
Jennifer Zimmermann 42:57
They are indeed empty boxes.
Sylvain Charlebois 42:59
I would ask you, so if there is something in the box though what would you find?
Amy Bronstetter 43:03
Okay, so all of our products are chopped, marinated, and they are vacuum sealed, and they're sold frozen. They are sold frozen and that is our innovation, that is what makes us unique and that is what makes our product so delicious because it allows all the marinates to sink into the tofu and it also gives a great texture to the tofu.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:23
So how many-, how many kinds do you have so you have General Tao here, I see. What do you have Michael?
Michael LeBlanc 43:30
Shish Taouk, am I saying that correctly.
Jennifer Zimmermann 43:33
It is a Montreal classic with great Mediterranean flavors in it.
Michael LeBlanc 43:39
Nice, am I saying it right?
Jennifer Zimmermann 43:40
Shish Taouk.
Michael LeBlanc 43:41
Okay, I was close. All right.
Jennifer Zimmermann 43:44
And then we've got a barbecue flavor that comes in four generous slabs and like a classic American barbecue sauce and all of these are super simple. You just throw them in the pan and in five minutes you've got dinner.
Sylvain Charlebois 43:59
And you don't have, like, regular tofu, just three-, these three flavors?
Amy Bronstetter 44:04
We actually have 12 flavors.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:05
12 flavors okay, wow.
Amy Bronstetter 44:06
We do, so when start-
Michael LeBlanc 44:08
That sounds like a lot.
Amy Bronstetter 44:09
It's too many.
Jennifer Zimmermann 44:13
When we started the-
Michael LeBlanc 44:14
So, you know, we typically hear with, you know, folks starting up they're like one or two, but you guys have got 12. So, you're overachievers clearly.
Amy Bronstetter 44:21
We're really good product developers.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:23
Yeah. So, what's your favorite?
Amy Bronstetter 44:26
I love all my kids.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:30
Ah I knew that, what about you?
Jennifer Zimmermann 44:32
You know, I am such a product development junkie. The Shish Taouk is so perfect for me because I find it just slides into anything from like a Greek salad.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:43
Right.
Jennifer Zimmermann 44:44
To a pita sandwich to even like a Caesar salad. So, I find them quite versatile. You know when it comes to feeding my family. My kids love the barbecue or doing vegan BLTs with that-, that every week.
Sylvain Charlebois 44:57
Do you both have one child or-, or do you have like a few kids?
Amy Bronstetter 45:01
We have a lot of girls.
Sylvain Charlebois 45:04
Join the club, I have three, but are kids really loving this? So how do they react to the product?
Jennifer Zimmermann 45:11
Mine grew up, you know, my kids didn't have any meat until after their first birthday. So, I've been vegetarian for almost 20 years and now I'd say I'm mostly plant based.
Sylvain Charlebois 45:22
Okay.
Michael LeBlanc 45:24
I'm just kind of curious. Was that a lifestyle choice, were you concerned about the processing that went into meat or was that a Health Choice, I mean, there's all people coming from different places, right?
Jennifer Zimmermann 45:36
Absolutely. You know, sometimes it's a loaded question, right, why are you vegetarian or vegan?
Michael LeBlanc 45:42
Why aren't you asking me why I eat meat, in other words? Why are you an omnivore?
Jennifer Zimmermann 45:47
Right, I think we're trying to de-stigmatize that. Like, we're just trying to say that there's room for more plant-based in everyone's diet, you don't need to be an omnivore. You don't need to be a vegan. You can, you know, there's-, just giving us more options. We're not saying, don't eat meat, far from it. We're saying, hey, there's an opportunity to work more plants into your life and that's cool. That's good for your health, that's good for the planet.
Sylvain Charlebois 46:09
In our house we eat meat all the time, but we eat tofu probably at least once a week.
Michael LeBlanc 46:14
You know, our problem is we'd eat-, our family, we'd eat more tofu, if we could find good tofu, like my-, like my wife hates spongy, textured products and she finds-, I haven't been able to find the right one. So, I'm definitely going to try this because I bet you guys kind of nailed that idea.
Amy Bronstetter 46:29
I sure hope so.
Jennifer Zimmermann 46:30
The answer, actually, to your-, your wife’s conundrum is frozen tofu, so we didn't get into it, but frozen tofu is our innovation. So, when you freeze tofu, it totally changes the structure of the tofu itself. It becomes meatier in texture and then through that texture transformation it leaves all this space for the marinade to go, like, deep inside each morsel. So you get a great texture and a great flavored product.
Sylvain Charlebois 46:59
It's true because when we prepare tofu at home, we put sauces and because tofu will taste whatever you put with it.
Michael LeBlanc 47:06
It's a good vector, I think scientists call it a good vector.
Sylvain Charlebois 47:08
When you prepare it for the-, for the-, for dinner, or whatever it is, you can feel that there's-, the flavor is kind of not done, the work of the flavor is not done yet, but with the marinated like that, a lengthy marination.
Jennifer Zimmermann 47:24
Exactly.
Sylvain Charlebois 47:25
It probably makes the tofu taste really, really good.
Jennifer Zimmermann 47:28
Well, we've done some cool experiments. So if we take our exact same recipes, our marinade recipes, and we take tofu from the fridge, and we marinate it for four days, let's say like a really, really long time and if we do the same thing with tofu that's come from the freezer, you will see a huge difference visually in the tofu, the marinade goes all the way through the cube, if it comes from the freezer, on the fridge, still mostly on the surface.
Michael LeBlanc 47:55
So, I got a question for the two of you. So, you know, we've talked to people who've spent their entire lives in the food business, we've talked to other people who are new to the food business and it's really interesting when I talk to innovators, because some people come to a business that's complicated like ours with such a fresh set of eyes, that they're almost not held back by whatever paradigms have been holding the back. They've been in an industry for a while. Is that how you feel like you guys approach your innovation process, listen, we don't know anything about this, we're gonna go learn a lot and we there's a need, and we're gonna go fill it. We don't know how hard it is. Maybe you guys do now.
Jennifer Zimmermann 48:31
You know there is a benefit to being an outsider to the industry. Like you said that fresh perspective. Before we jumped into it. We did hire a consultant who told us all the reasons not to do it.
Michael LeBlanc 48:44
All the reasons why it won't work, all the reasons why it won't work.
Sylvain Charlebois 48:46
Are you serious?
Jennifer Zimmermann 48:47
But he was-, he was right. All of the difficulties that he said we were going to encounter in this industry. Each and every one of them was true, but we weren't deterred.
Amy Bronstetter 48:58
I think we were tired of hearing that's gonna be really hard and we just said, everything's hard. Everything we're having is hard.
Michael LeBlanc 49:03
Everything's hard, right, everything, it's-, it's so interesting, because I love the-, you know, you've got the-, the Chris-, Clayton Christensen Innovator's Dilemma folks, where innovative companies have a hard time innovating because they just have, they've succeeded. They're hard to get past and then again, you folks sound like you've come to it from-, from a different place. Now, just before off mic you were saying you're exhausted, you're tired. It's day three. You guys have probably been on speed dial kind of talking for three days. How's it been? Yeah. How's it been? Like was-, has the show been good for you? I mean, obviously it's been great for you because you won an award, but you know, one thing to win an award, it's another thing you're here to introduce yourself to some folks, do some business. How's that been?
Amy Bronstetter 49:10
In my career in fashion, I never had so many buyers come to me, and we really did meet everyone this week. It was really validating that we have a product that buyers are looking for and I'm not Talking about buyers for large, you know, retail chains. The energy's been amazing. The pitch competition of course is so nerve racking, you know, we're up at four o'clock in the morning pacing in our rooms and practicing.
Sylvain Charlebois 50:12
Were you surprised to win? Because you want the whole thing.
Amy Bronstetter 50:16
We're really hard on ourselves. And I'm-, I'm also very competitive. So I really.
Sylvain Charlebois 50:23
That's good thing in business,
Amy Bronstetter 50:25
But I didn't want to do it, but we had some really, really awesome competition, which is really nice to see, too. So yeah, we were surprised. We were surprised, but we feel very validated, and we do think we earned it.
Sylvain Charlebois 50:37
That's great. Are you-, are you motivated to enter other competitions in the future?
Amy Bronstetter 50:42
I mean, everyone tells us to go to Dragon's Den.
Jennifer Zimmermann 50:45
It might be in our Horizon, we'll find out.
Amy Bronstetter 50:47
Yeah.
Sylvain Charlebois 50:48
Who knows. Actually, I-, a couple of, many, many companies on our podcast, have been to Dragon's Den.
Michael LeBlanc 50:53
Yeah, some-, some go just for the, for the publicity. Right, you guys know, the drill, right, some go for the money, some go for the publicity. It's not a bad thing to do. It's kind of fun. I mean, both of you have a great story to tell and, and, you know, storytelling, very important and brands, right, both good brands and, and storytelling. So,
Sylvain Charlebois 51:11
The creation of your business is really-
Michael LeBlanc 51:13
Well, it's a-, it's a great story, right, I mean, it comes from a whole bunch of directions, that it's a great story. So what is next? So first of all, you're probably gonna sleep for about 72 hours.
Amy Bronstetter 51:23
As if our kids will let us do that.
Michael LeBlanc 51:26
It's all relative, it's all relative. So, what's next? Have you made enough connections, like if you got a broker and I just want to take the practical stuff now you gotta take it to market, so talk about that.
Jennifer Zimmermann 51:35
Absolutely. I mean we're, we're here to put it all out there. So we've found some success at least in-, in Quebec. That's our hometown, Montreal is our home town, that's where we started.
Sylvain Charlebois 51:43
Where can you find the product, like, right now?
Jennifer Zimmermann 51:45
So right now, you'll find us at Avril, Rachelle Béry, Les Marchés TAU, lots of independent retailers. We are-, we're entering Metro as we speak,
Sylvain Charlebois 51:59
Actually, we were talking I was touring there, DC in Terrebonne on Tuesday, and
Michael LeBlanc 52:06
It's got frozen in it, right? It's got frozen.
Sylvain Charlebois 52:08
It's got frozen, I'm gonna see your product and they have plenty of space.
Jennifer Zimmermann 52:11
Excellent,
Sylvain Charlebois 52:12
Plenty of space for you guys.
Jennifer Zimmermann 52:13
Good timing.
Sylvain Charlebois 52:15
And they can accommodate 7000 SKUs. So, lots of-, lots of capacity there for sure.
Michael LeBlanc 52:20
At least one of those 12.
Sylvain Charlebois 52:21
Metro-, Metro's a really good retailer. So,
Jennifer Zimmermann 52:24
We are thrilled. So, I think that, you know, that's a good, great new beginning for us and then the rest of Canada is a huge opportunity just waiting for, you know, our tofu innovation. So, we are-, we are seeking to do business there.
Michael LeBlanc 52:41
And I guess from your format of business given its in frozen, you're mostly going to be a wholesale business. It's a hard direct-to-consumer business too, and a very expensive one and if you-, even if you try it, right, so your success will be in really getting into wholesale distribution and Canada first America later the world next kind of thing.
Sylvain Charlebois 53:00
Well, you're-, you're, you're talking about product development, you got 12 different flavors. Are you looking at other verticals, are you looking at other types of flavors now, are you still, like, thinking about it?
Amy Bronstetter 53:12
We have an endless number of innovations we want to bring to the market. In the snack category in the fresh category, our brain is full of them, we need to focus on this and get this off the ground so that consumers recognize our brand, and then we can just go crazy.
Sylvain Charlebois 53:30
That's good.
Amy Bronstetter 53:31
That's the plan.
Sylvain Charlebois 53:32
That's great. So you procure all your ingredients from within the province.
Amy Bronstetter 53:38
We do. With-, with small exceptions to things that are just unavailable here, exactly.
Sylvain Charlebois 53:44
That's great. So, the tofu is from the province and all the major inputs are from the province. That's great.
Michael LeBlanc 53:50
Well, it's an epic story, where do folks go to learn more? What website or social media, just share some links?
Jennifer Zimmermann 53:57
I'd say on our website, epictofu.com. You'll find us there and then our social handles are @epictofuco. You'll find us on Instagram. You'll find us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Sylvain Charlebois 54:11
And why epic tofu?
Michael LeBlanc 54:13
Because it's pretty epic.
Amy Bronstetter 54:16
We just wanted to have a lot of fun with it.
Sylvain Charlebois 54:18
It's easy to remember because I heard it once yesterday, and I remembered it.
Michael LeBlanc 54:25
No, the packaging I mean, you nailed it with the package. It's very fun, it's very approachable. Jumps off the shelf. It's great. It's great. Now if there's some buyers who might not have been at the show, who might want to get in touch and maybe see if it fits with their format. Are you both on LinkedIn, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Jennifer Zimmermann 54:42
LinkedIn is a great way to reach us. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 54:44
Well, fantastic. Well, fantastic. So, thanks for joining us. It's been a long, long couple of days.
Sylvain Charlebois 54:51
Enjoy your sleep.
Michael LeBlanc 54:53
No, it doesn't actually, you do, or you look like you're just so excited and fresh and you’ve got a great idea, and people are loving it.
Sylvain Charlebois 54:58
Do you guys live on the island?
Amy Bronstetter 55:00
Yeah, we do.
Sylvain Charlebois 55:01
Okay, so you're not too far from home?
Amy Bronstetter 55:03
No. Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 55:04
All right, well, fantastic
Sylvain Charlebois 55:05
He's in Toronto, I'm in Halifax.
Michael LeBlanc 55:06
Because I'd like to-, I'd like to bring all the haul back, I drive up with-, you know, bring-, bring some stuff back. Well, listen, thank you both for joining us on The Food Professor podcast real treat to meet you both. Congratulations on your success so far and wishing you much continued success and, you know, we'll look forward to catching you up and seeing you on the shelves and Metro and beyond.
Amy Bronstetter 55:24
Great. Thank you so much.
Sylvain Charlebois 55:25
All right.
Michael LeBlanc 55:27
All right. We're coming to the end of a fairly lengthy episode, lots going on in the industry and lots going on with you and me and I wanted to end with we talked about this Red Lobster, now officially dead lobster, 30 restaurants in Canada at risk, they're closing them faster and they're you know, they're-, the restaurant contents.
Sylvain Charlebois 55:45
Is there one close to you, I think there is one close to you, isn't there?
Michael LeBlanc 55:49
Yeah, there is one close to us. I mean, doesn't surprise you to live in-
Sylvain Charlebois 55:51
Why don't you make an offer?
Michael LeBlanc 55:53
Make an offer? Uh, you know, and you know what I didn't under appreciate, by the way, so-, so the-, the-, they're going so fast. The equipment is already up for sale on auction sites. Like they-, they're liquidating. They're not messing around here. You know what I didn't appreciate about Red Lobster. Do you know who owns Red Lobster?
Sylvain Charlebois 56:10
I don't know.
Michael LeBlanc 56:11
Did you know red lobster is owned by the Thais. The Thai Union Group plc, Thailand based producer of seafood, bought Red Lobster out of private equity. And they-
Sylvain Charlebois 56:23
I did not know that.
Michael LeBlanc 56:24
And they own 49% of it. I think they bought them because they're like, we better buy these folks because they're big buyers.
Sylvain Charlebois 56:30
We need the client; we need to actually make sure we have a client.
Michael LeBlanc 56:34
Right. We-, we're worried and you know, it's funny because you and I were talking to the chef Chuck Hughes,
Sylvain Charlebois 56:38
Vertical integration.
Michael LeBlanc 56:40
Well, didn't work. I mean, at the end of the day, it's tough to fight the market dynamics of the cost of,
Sylvain Charlebois 56:46
it's like anything like I talked to processors while grocery Loblaws uh, you know, tough to deal with Walmart's tough to deal, well, why don't you start your own grocery chain, it's kind of the same thing. It's-, vertical integration is hard. Hard.
Michael LeBlanc 57:03
Listen, running restaurants are-, running restaurants, running retailers. These are-, these are hard things to do.
Sylvain Charlebois 57:09
I know.
Michael LeBlanc 57:10
You know, we wish everybody the best and but yeah, I was just saying, you know, we-, we went to dinner at Chuck Hughes restaurant in the early days. When I first started going there. He was serving lobster poutine, and it was just a delight and he said I had to take it off the menu. I mean, I couldn't charge that much, we got little lobster popsicles, which were a delicious bite.
Sylvain Charlebois 57:28
Nice. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 57:29
You remember we had that as our first thing, but, you know, listen, it's just, it's, you know, good news. I listen, it's good news.
Sylvain Charlebois 57:34
You should buy the one in Mississauga and-, and convert it into the last-, the first Last Request Barbecue restaurant. I mean, Last Request Barbecue. I mean, can you imagine branding a restaurant chain, based on the last meal you ever want to eat?
Michael LeBlanc 57:54
You know what I'd have all the waiters dress up as like prison guards. That would be my vibe.
Sylvain Charlebois 58:01
As Tom Hanks.
Michael LeBlanc 58:02
Yeah, you all dress up and you get a tin cup and whatever meal you want it as your-, you know, anyway, there you go.
Sylvain Charlebois 58:08
So, what would be-, what would be your last meal?
Michael LeBlanc 58:12
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I could have anything I mean a tip-, I bet you that we should run this-, that in a survey. Okay, that's a survey for Caddle. What would be your last meal? I would bet things like steak, you know, real nice steak probably up there pretty-, pretty high. People love their steak, not everybody, not vegetarians, of course, but you know, I think I'd enjoy a lovely piece of-, I had a lovely piece of fish last night, lovely the piece of salmon with some great pasta alongside I mean, it'd be a hard choice for me because, you know, I like a lot of different foods. So what about you, do you have any, poutine, I suppose would jump to my mind?
Sylvain Charlebois 58:47
Of course, of course. Yeah. I mean, because as you get older you get to hate poutine, but if you're dying the next day.
Michael LeBlanc 58:56
Not worried about-, you're not worried about the calories then?
Sylvain Charlebois 58:59
Exactly. I'll still be digesting my poutine after 20 years in heaven.
Michael LeBlanc 59:06
Oh, my goodness, where are we going with this podcast? All right. Well, listen, let's-, let's-, leave it there. Like I said we've got lots of great interviews coming up in the weeks and months to come and but for now, I'm Michael LeBlanc, media entrepreneur, consumer growth advisor and consultant and keynote speaker and a bunch of other things and you are?
Sylvain Charlebois 59:30
I'm the Food Professor, Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 59:33
Alright, everybody safe travels. Enjoy the week ahead and we'll talk to you next week.
Sylvain Charlebois 59:39
Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
barbecue, people, tofu, year, great, talk, Canada, Colleen, cooking, consumer, food, meat, interviews, dairy, product, thought, inflation, innovation, love, brands