From Crumbs to Kitchens: How Emerging Brands Can Break into Foodservice with Conza CEO, Alex Strauch

Nick: 00:00:02

There are a million ways to make money in the food service industry. You just have to find one.

On the Titans of Food Service podcast, I interview real life movers and shakers in the food game who cut through all the noise to get to the top. My name is Nick Portillo and welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast. Let's jump right into it.

Welcome back to welcome to Titans of Food Service. My name is Nick Portillo and this week I'm excited to welcome Alex Strock. He's the founder of Konza Konza.

It's a brand bringing crunchy sourdough breadcrumbs to menus across the country. He has a killer product, but like many emerging brands, he's trying to figure out how do I, how do I grow and build in the food service world?

So in this episode, we're going to talk about everything. Food service and food service sales, we roll up our sleeves. We are going to walk through some steps on exactly how they can do that.

I hope you're going to take some nuggets away from that yourself. We're going to define operator segments to choosing the right distribution strategy.

If you're a founder or new into food service sales or looking to break into food service, this episode is definitely for you. It's packed with actionable insights that can save you years of trial and error.

Whether you're launching your first product or scaling your reach, this episode is your blueprint for turning a great idea into a real food service business.

A lot of times I'm, I meet folks that have built a great retail business, but now how does that translate into food service and how can I build on that side? So we're going to talk a little bit about that.

If you find value in today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That would mean a lot. It helps more food service pros discover the show and it keeps the conversations going.

Without further ado, let's go ahead and welcome Alex. All right, Alex, welcome to the Titans of Foodservice podcast. Man, I appreciate you taking time to come on and meet with me.

Alex: 00:01:52

Thanks for having me, Nick. Excited to be here.

Nick: 00:01:54

Yeah. So tell me, you were a Fi Delt in college.

Alex: 00:01:58

That's right. I lasted about a year and a half in Fi Delt.

It turns out the fraternity life at Cornell University wasn't all for me, but it actually helped me start my first business, which was a granola business.

And I was making granola and selling it for through Regional distributors and to a lot of fraternities, sororities, and restaurants in upstate New York.

Nick: 00:02:23

Wow. Okay. Look at that. Okay. Turned into. Turned into something, which is pretty cool. Did you grow up in the Northeast?

Alex: 00:02:31

No. So I'm from the Bay Area. San Francisco. Bay area, yeah.

Nick: 00:02:36

Okay. Wow. What took you to Cornell?

Alex: 00:02:39

I wanted to go to the biggest university as far away from home as possible. And so I went to upstate New York, and it ended up being a great fit.

In my first few weeks, I quickly got a little homesick, and I was used to eating amazing homemade meals with my parents. And I would just start making granola and other things in the college dorm.

And soon enough, people are poking their heads in being like, what smells so good? And it got me started into the food business as I was selling granola to hungry, hangry college students.

Nick: 00:03:23

That's cool. I went to Chapman University, which is a small school here in Familiar.

Alex: 00:03:29

Yeah, a lot of friends have gone through Chapman.

Nick: 00:03:32

too. When I did, I went from: 2011

I think they won the super bowl. And I was there. The 49ers were there. They played the Ravens. I remember that the Giants were winning.

So I had all of these people that were like, big sports fans from those areas, and my teams just sucked in those time periods. This is just ruthless.

Alex: 00:04:00

My friends were all film students at Chapman.

Nick: 00:04:04

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that. It's a. That's a top program, I think, in the country there at Chapman. It's like a top five or something.

I know the people that created Stranger Things. I think it's like two brothers right there. And there's other people as well. And that. That campus was off. Off site, off of the.

The main Chapman campus. And I think they have their own separate dorms now and everything. But, yeah, that is like a crown jewel of Chapman. There is that film school.

Alex: 00:04:30

Was Fidel a big part of Chapman life for you?

Nick: 00:04:34

It was halfway through. I started as a baseball player, and the baseball coach had a strict no rushing, no fraternity policy. But he was let go my sophomore year.

And then near the end of my sophomore year because of. Well, he had all bunch of different controversies with him, and so he was let go. I was like, okay, I'm gonna try.

So I went out my second semester, my sophomore year, and I got in that. That time. And so I spent two and a half years in. In the Greek system, which I Just, I absolutely loved it.

And I'm bummed I didn't do it as a freshman and jump in early.

But you know what, it worked out in the end and we, I mean, if I look back at like my wedding, I had a few guys in my wedding party were, you know, my fraternity brothers and just created a lot of great relationships with both them and, and some of them were actually on the baseball team with me together. So we jumped in. We went from baseball to the Greek life together.

Alex: 00:05:34

Right? Yeah, that's great. No, I'm seeing a fraternity brother next month actually.

Nick: 00:05:40

Oh, that's awesome. So how so? I remember in my dorm we had, I think it was called a micro fridge. We had a microwave and a refrigerator attached to each other and.

But how would you be able to cook or bake granola?

Alex: 00:05:57

We lived in 10 story high rises and there were full kitchens on every floor. As demand grew, I had a team on every single floor making granola in every single kitchen.

But then from there we rented space at a large commercial bakery in, in Ithaca, New York. And then as the business grew further, I found a co packer to, to make it for me.

You know, at this point in, in my education, I hadn't learned cash flow. And so at, at a certain point, I basically was outgrowing the payments that were coming in.

And I realized that to keep the business growing, I needed to put money into the business. And I realized that I didn't quite have the vision that like I do for Konza now. And.

And so it was a good time to wind down the business and frankly, enter the workforce and learn from people smarter and more experienced than me for a little bit.

Nick: 00:07:01

When you were coming into college, did you expect to take an entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial route? Is that always something that's been innate in you?

Alex: 00:07:10

I thought I was going to be like a CIA agent or an architect. Those were the jobs that were interesting for me. But it turns out I don't have a design sense to be an architect.

And I'm probably too charismatic and talkative to be a CIA agent, but as you know, it's very satisfying feeding people and seeing the smile on their face. And I've always been a natural sort of business person and salesperson.

And so the satisfaction of getting to feed people healthier food is like a really simple life mission that you know how to spend the rest of your life and hopefully you can make a living doing it.

Nick: 00:07:56

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the food business is a great place to be. It was funny going into college Myself, I wanted to be in wealth management.

I wanted to be a financial advisor to help people with their money problems. My dad had been in the food business his whole career. And when we. When I graduated from school from Chapman, we started the business together.

And I never thought it'd be a career path for me to be in food or the food service industry. But, you know, it's been 10 years now, as of this week actually, or last week, and it's been pretty cool. It's a great place to hang your hat.

And it's a great career, you know, great industry to be have a career in, and very much enjoyed it myself. So what was kind of the thought process with Konza when you started that up? So you went to Cornell, right?

You got in the granola business, you took some learnings from there. You graduate, worked for some other companies. I think you worked for a Simply Mills at one point.

Alex: 00:08:50

Simple Mills, Amazon.

And then during the pandemic, I ran into this problem where I wanted to make a seafood dinner for my family, and I bought halibut and I accidentally spent $70 on fish just to cook a simple seafood dinner. And I reached into the back of the pantry for those ultra processed stale breadcrumbs that we all know we have.

And how long have they been sitting there? And it didn't feel right to spend $70 on a nice meat or fish and only use those breadcrumbs. And so I made my own.

I used real sourdough, olive oil, herbs, spices, and like, the taste, the texture, everything was better. And Konza was born out of. Out of that simple need and solution. Started selling it to meat and seafood shops where we knew the need was real.

And today we're in over 150 premium meat and seafood markets and grocery stores. And we're the number one brand in most of them. And what interests me is that as I've been selling in retail, which I know you've.

You guys have started a retail arm in your business recently, I've learned that the food service side of breadcrumbs and coatings and panko is an order of magnitude larger of a business if you just think of chicken tenders at your stadium or you think of chicken parm at every Italian restaurant. And so it's so much bigger of a business.

And I see that there's like a big problem, which is that there's very limited options in the world of breadcrumbs and panko. The quality of ingredients is subpar. There's always added sugar. Ingredients. The chefs really wouldn't want to see.

And there's zero premiumization, like no upsell opportunities for like the distributor, for restaurants and for the consumer.

And so I think Konza has a big opportunity to solve that problem because we made the first sourdough panko which can be easily interchanged with any other panko chef uses, but it has real bread and it has a really artisan country flavor. And that's why I was excited to reach out to you and learn a little bit about how we enter the food service side of this business.

Nick: 00:11:26

Where's your product being produced?

Alex: 00:11:28

So we have a whole co pact supply chain. There's less than 10 breadcrumb manufacturers in the country and we work with wonderful.

Nick: 00:11:42

Gotcha. You know, getting into food service. So there's definitely differences between food service and retail. Right.

Which I'm sure you're seeing as you get into food service. And you know, with food service, it's really working on operator demand going out to your large venue.

So if you live there in the Bay Area, think of like your large stadiums, you know, like where the warriors play or the 49ers, the Giants, you know, those types of stadiums that could use, you know, hey, I'm using a local product for my breading or whatever it may be, you know, those types of places try to get that operator demand because then they create that pull through with the distribution, getting stocked into what we call broadliners. So it'd be like your Cisco or US Foods up in Northern Cal. You have buy, right, General produce.

I mean, you've got a handful of different distribution outlets. And usually I usually tell people I kind of focus on an area and get really.

Alex: 00:12:38

Go deep, right?

Nick: 00:12:39

Exactly. Inch wide, mile deep, and really build the story.

And then from there, you know, because what you'll need to do is get the Cisco US Foods numbers, you know, those types of things, their stocking numbers set up and so finding those local customers that can help you do that. And then you can take those, it's called SUPCS for Cisco or APNs for US foods.

Then you can take those codes across anywhere in the country, you know, to any other Cisco or US Foods.

You also have pfg, which is there in the Northern Cal, which is a large broad liner nationally as well, you know, so you kind of get established in one area, then you scale out from there, kind of get your proof of concept, if you will.

Alex: 00:13:20

So it sounds like you really need to start with a couple anchor customers that can earn you these regional or broadline distributors.

Nick: 00:13:32

I mean, there's many different ways to go about doing it, but essentially that is one way, especially for a brand that like yours, where it's kind of that better for you. You know, you're trying to disrupt a category, try to build a story around it.

You get a handful of customers, you know, maybe put some social media backing behind it, you know, do some collabs with them and then you can take that story to other operators that are like them and say, hey, we've had this story, this product is doing well. Here's the numbers, you know, the trends that we see and why our product is a fit.

And then that way you can essentially you take it to others and then you tell that same story when you get the product stocked. Because that's going to be the hardest part is always getting the product stocked into distribution.

Because the distributors, they're focused on tens of thousands of different items and they're constantly, they want to sell their brand, right? So Cisco wants to sell Cisco brand. US Foods wants to sell US Foods brand. So that's their priority.

So you have to work to get, you know, work within those confines, but also say, hey, this is, should be a priority as well. This should be as an opportunity for you to make money.

And if you can get the product stocked for an operator, let's say for one of those stadiums, then they bring it in, you give them a few marketing dollars, essentially a percentage of the total sale and they can use those marketing dollars to make, to take you from closed coded to open coded. So that means essentially opening up your product to the, to the whole marketplace, not just those stadiums.

And then essentially you have a cart to sell from.

Then you can go to your mom and pop shops, you can go to your local hotels, anywhere that you feel you have product market fit, you can start going to those places because they're open coded.

Alex: 00:15:12

Yeah, that makes sense. So we have two product lines that I think could work in food service.

We have a plain sourdough panko which cooks just like any other panko but just tastes better.

And then we also have this more value added product which is toasted and seasoned and it's really taking on the breadcrumb topping trend that you can find at like sweetgreen or pretty much every nice Italian restaurants. You know, breadcrumbs are sprinkled on Caesar salad and on top of pasta.

And I'm curious, which of those, which of those product lines do you think has the bigger opportunity?

The one that you know is really interchangeable with every and substitutable with every other product on the market or one that might save a chef time, but it's a little more niche, might have slower sell through.

Nick: 00:16:09

I think, I think between them, you'd have to just go out there and test and just, you know, go to some local operators and just say, hey, I just want to pick your brain. You know, talk to people that, you know chefs and say, these are the products that I have. This is a little bit about my story.

You know, I'm on the ground floor here. I'm trying to build up and you know, what, what would be your thoughts? You know, would you be willing to try it if I just gave you a case for free?

Would you be willing to do a, you know, menu edit this like, you know, like a nightly special or something like that, just to try it out and see the product functionality. Because you want to make sure that the product, like we said, you know, saves time or saves labor. Those types of things are important.

It brings a value of them in some sort. Maybe it's, you know, cost saving or time saving, you know, the flavor is there. It's all when it, you know, for the.

If you think about a restaurant, it's all about repeat business. And people, they don't always tell you hey, this dining experience, it sucked.

They don't tell you directly, they just don't come back and then they tell their friends it sucked.

So when you go to a chef and say, hey, this product is something, it's an elevated eating experience because I want to make sure that I can help you and bring value to you and having your customers return and reorder from your restaurant or your operation and so positioning your product like that, that it's a value to them, it's an upscale or it's a value added experience goes a long way.

Alex: 00:17:36

So, so is a common sell in to a restaurant or a restaurant group is here's free product, try it out for a nightly special.

And but, but then the consumer, like you said, the, the restaurant goer might not have like that much feedback even if they loved the sourdough crunch topped Mac and cheese or crusted salmon. And so how does, how does, how do we then convert that into a more of a repeat business and for them to really pick it up as a menu item.

Nick: 00:18:07

One big difference in retail and food service is that sampling aspect.

You have to be willing, you have to put the product in the mouth of the decision maker, whether that's the owner of the place or the chef or the food and beverage director, whoever it May be they have to try it. So sampling is important.

I think when you're first starting out, providing free cases, which I know is a cost to you, you, because those, you know, your cases are not cheap. But you know, providing free cases up front and just run a test that way you want the, you want them to have some skin in the game.

But also because you know you're on the ground for trying to build traction, it's kind of, you know, giving them a little bit more than what you typically would. And as you start to build volume, then you don't have to give away as much.

But each time you will have to sample the product because they're going to want to test it and, and make sure that it fits for them. You know, a chef is not going to necessarily menu something that they haven't first tried.

Alex: 00:19:02

That's really constructive help. Thanks, that's great.

Nick: 00:19:06

Yeah, I think it's, it's in, in the food service industry, people are always trying to disrupt it and bring in new technology and whatnot, which I think is great. I think it's a compliment too. But it's still that old fashioned, old school, you know, palm pressing, getting out there and shaking hands.

And some people in an industry call it belly to belly selling. You know, being in front of someone and talking about it, getting the product in their mouth. It's incredibly important to, it's, it's.

Food service can be more profitable. Your margin could be greater than retail, but you know, it does take time. The, the time to success is slower than what it is in retail.

It could take you six months to get your first, you know, nice hit. You know, just takes a while for people to make decisions.

Think about like a menu when you walk into a restaurant or if it's like a chain of restaurants, like they have 10 units, let's say for them to change that menu. They're not doing that every day per se because there's, you know, there's operations and procedures that they have.

So it takes time and you have to stay top of mind. You have to continue to sample it. Even if they try it today, doesn't mean they'll remember it tomorrow.

So it's important to stay on top of them and, or on top of the opportunity and make sure your product's front and center.

Alex: 00:20:19

Based on a lot of the other interviews that I've listened on this podcast, it sounds like, it sounds like in the world of food service sales, you're, you're in the email and call game all day, every day.

And yeah, I'm guessing you're, you're just hoping for the 5 or 10% of responses that you might actually get because you're not, not everyone's going to respond, especially not anytime soon. And so it sounds like it's a bit of a numbers game. Patience, persistence. And you only need the one win at a time to keep the ball rolling.

Nick: 00:20:59

Correct. Some people, there's an adage in the food Service industry, numbers 10, 3, 1, 10 reach outs to get three appointments, to get one. Yes know, one sale.

Now are those numbers accurate? I don't know, but I've heard that many times throughout, you know, in my career of what it takes in food service.

It's a lot of putting your pole in the water and prospecting and trying to get to just an appointment.

And then once you, you have the appointment, you have to just maximize your time and make sure that when you, if you think about, if you're selling to a chef, a chef is busy. They're on their feet all day long. They're working with their hands, they're working with their team. They may not be checking email or phone.

Sometimes text messaging is a better way to get a hold of them. So you have to come ready to present your company. You know, you could a lot of times. Sometimes people get too caught in the story of their company.

The chef wants to talk about why is this important for me?

You know, kind of let's get the brass tax, let's try it and then take it from there, you know, kind of maximizing that time and bringing the information like pricing, know eventually where it's stocked and other pertinent information that they need to make a decision.

Alex: 00:22:10

You, you heard my sort of pitch for what I think the business opportunity is as far as, you know, helping chefs justify a premium price on like nice meat and seafood on a healthier option. Do you think those are valid? And of course like fact that sourdough is very high trending. It's one of the fastest growing bread flavors.

Like are those valid selling points that a, a chef or a restaurant purchasing manager would actually hear and agree with?

Nick: 00:22:42

Yeah, I, I think those would be, it's what you make it. I, I think, I think today where you're at currently, you know, going in with those talking points and you can always adjust it as time goes on it.

I'm sure you've heard the mvp, the minimal viable product which you probably started with when you first started your company. It's the same thing when you're making a sales presentation let's start with just the bare minimum.

What I'm going to say to you today in a sales presentation is going to be drastically different from when I, on my 100th call that I'm going to make.

You know, it's going to transform over time and by the time I get to the hundredth call, I'll be so experienced I can teach somebody else how to do it on my behalf.

Alex: 00:23:22

Yeah, that makes sense. Great. Yeah. So like the stage that we're at now is I'm trying to find the regional distributor. So we're based in Boston.

Conza C O N Z A is based in Boston and there are some regional distributors here that do meat, really nice meat, seafood, but also premium seasonings and condiments.

And so I'm trying to get meetings with them to learn what are their anchor accounts and then go with them or separately to those anchor accounts which are some of the universities up here. There's a few restaurant groups that might be a good fit and that's the process.

But as you know, it's like you said, it could be a six month process and I might have to give, give, give before I take, take, take.

Nick: 00:24:14

Correct. I apologize. You grew up in Northern Cal but you live in Boston.

Alex: 00:24:18

That's right, yeah.

Nick: 00:24:19

Got it. Okay.

So yeah, I, I don't know the Boston area as intimately as I do the California market, but I think in Boston you've got Balador, you've got, I mean you've got the Cisco, US Foods, pfg. I mean you got all the same, you know, national distributors there as well. Yeah, I, I think I like that approach.

You could, there's, you have the Cisco and US Foods again, they're pushing their private label. They're looking at, you know, how can I sell my brand?

Because as a sales rep for them, they get a commission or higher pay on what they sell that's in their brand. So like your brand is not necessarily a priority however in that, in your market.

Maybe it's Validor or somebody else they could, I think there's Ace Endico, I'm again, I'm not too sure on the distributors there in that area, but there's these smaller, more regional, more local distributors that you could reach out to and they'll partner more with you on, on an item. Well, they'll take ownership of, of it themselves. They'll, they will take out to their customers.

They will have, you know, a sense of pride and, and you know, really buy into you and your story. And sometimes you can incentivize them as well. You know, give different promotions for their distributor reps to go out and sell on your behalf.

You know, you could do that kind of a sell in, you get a, I've seen like you can, you sell in, you get a certain dollars per case, for example.

And if the customer continues to buy within three months, you get another bigger kicker from there, you know, and then just staying top of mind with those sales reps is the, is the most important part.

Alex: 00:25:50

Is it ever possible to be too persistent? I know you, you always talk about immediately follow up and, and don't be afraid to reach out.

Nick: 00:26:01

I think as long as you're bringing a value, think about yourself as you know as the CEO of your company, as you get busier and busier and as the company continues to grow and scale, like how much you'll find that people are trying to sell you something. Whether it's an accounting system or whether it's something for quality control or whatever it may be.

You're going to get all these reach outs all the time and it's kind of filtering through and the ones that bring the most value, not necessarily the most noise, gets the most attention, you know, because we're in an intention economy. Everybody's, you know, everyone's on social media. Everyone's getting hit on email and texts and phone calls, people dropping in live.

It's, I think when you can get somebody live in person, I think that's the best way to do it. Sometimes just showing up and saying, hey, I, I know you're busy, you know, maybe there's a time I can come back next week that works for you.

But I just wanted to bring some samples by, tell you my name is Alex. Say hello, this is what we do. Please just, you know, if you can, if you want to just get, you know, try the product, that'd be great.

If not, I can come back next week for a time that works for you. That's typically what I, I tried to make. When I make my sales initial sales presentation, I try to make it as easy on the other person.

I make it as hard as I possibly can for the person to say no. Yeah, making it easy and convenient isn't is the best way to do it.

Now when you first kind of start making a presentation to chefs, it's going to be rough. That's just how it goes. You know, you don't speak and you.

Alex: 00:27:35

Know, do you have any horror stories, Nick? Have you ever been chased out with a knife?

Nick: 00:27:40

I have been vehicly escorted off Of a property, one of my. So I had that because I. I was too persistent. And eventually security said, get in your car. We're going to follow you off.

The property was a nice hotel. They have a pretty large resort I have. I remember one of my first calls I was making. It was a. A large can of tuna and a.

You know, it's not like your little tuna cans you have at home. It's a big food service size. And I couldn't. The chef kept telling me the. The can cutter, the can opener is over there.

It's on the table, which is like this big apparatus that it stands up straight on a table within a kitchen. I had no idea what he's pointing to. And I was like, where? And he kept pointing to it, pointing to it.

And eventually, like, I don't know what he's talking about. So I had a little can opener in my pocket.

So I start opening up the can and I slice, because the can is a little bit thicker than the one you have at home. I slice my thumb and it went all into the tuna, you know, and everywhere. I had blood everywhere. And so it's like.

And I drove all the way down to San Diego, which I live in Orange county, which was, you know, an hour, hour and a half, one way to make this presentation. And I was like, I'm not getting the sale today. And they're like, no, not today. So, yeah, I've had plenty of different horror stories.

I think anytime when you're dealing with people, there's things that can go right, there's things that can go wrong. But I think it's just continuing to show up and chop at the tree every day.

Alex: 00:29:05

If you aren't getting yelled at now and then, are you really trying hard enough? Is something I once reminded myself.

The worst thing that's happened was as I dropped off samples, I accidentally included an invoice sheet that hadn't been filled out. But they interpreted that as I was invoicing them for samples. And I got a very angry phone call.

But fortunately, I don't think they were going to be a great customer anyways.

Nick: 00:29:33

Yeah, when you make those mistakes, a lot of times you could take the. You could take the perspective of there's thousands of food service operators in this country. I could just not go back to that one and call it a day.

You could wait, you know, give us some time, some time to pass, follow up and try again. Or you can continue to be persistent.

But sometimes it's taking a look, you know, at the opportunity taking A look at yourself and saying, this is, you know, I want to work with people that I like to work with. And if I feel uncomfortable, I'm not going to do it again.

You know, if someone called me and was upset about an invoice, hey, my bad, my apologies, you know, now imagine if they had your business and they called with that and you know, kind of held you hostage and, and get, or got mad at you. You don't want to deal with that. It's, it's too much.

Alex: 00:30:24

100%. Yeah. Well, this is great. This gives me some real tips for what I can start doing as early as tomorrow.

Nick: 00:30:34

Heck yeah, man. Yeah. Get out there, have some fun. And I never like the phrase, you know, you gotta fail. Failure is key. But it is, I mean, it is just a part of it.

You're gonna have more no's than you do yeses initially. But again, as you, you get success, you can kind of narrow in a little bit more on who exactly is the right customer.

And then when you go see that, that customer within the segment that fits your product perfectly, you're going to get frustrated. I get frustrated at least when someone says, no, not interested. When I'm like, no, no, this product is perfect for what you are doing.

And then you start to talk with conviction that I have success. I know what I'm talking about. And then, you know, you can speak with more authority.

Alex: 00:31:15

Yeah, that sounds great.

Real quick, you, the, you mentioned like the nightly special as a really easy way to sort of let a chef test something are there and that's a trick of the trade.

Any other tricks of the trade like that where like you said, it's really hard for someone to say no to a free sample that they can offer, you know, on the menu that night.

Nick: 00:31:39

You have a retail pack, right, where your, your, your product comes in, like.

Alex: 00:31:45

Almost like a salt shaker for, for our retail packs. Yeah, we have the shakers like and then we do bags and then for food service, you know, bags and boxes and large 25 pound sacks.

Nick: 00:31:58

We, we represented cholula years ago. And what one tactic that we took, you know, because it's a bottle, right, and that sits on, it's a hot sauce that sits on the table.

Our team, when we go eat at a restaurant with family or friends or by ourselves, we take a bottle everywhere we'd go and just leave it on the table when you're done, you could, because then the, the, you know, the waiter or the waitress comes around. You can even leave a little note, you know, so that way, everywhere you go, when you're eating out, like, you're always selling, right?

You're always promoting. So it's a little tip, especially if you can leave something like that that's self shelf stable and doesn't need to be refrigerated.

Alex: 00:32:38

I love that. That's a great one.

Nick: 00:32:39

Well, all right, man. Well, I hope this was helpful and I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and. And you're going to crush it out there.

You know, it's a great industry to be in. And, you know, if you ever have any questions, I'm here to help.

Alex: 00:32:53

Thank you, Nick. And so glad to be on your podcast. I listen. I listen every week.

Nick: 00:33:00

Fantastic. Thanks so much.