Foodservice for Thought: Josh Allen of Companion Baking: How restaurant brands can tell their story through bread!

In today's episode, Karey and Justin are excited to talk with Josh Allen of Companion Baking. He is the owner and founder of a successful and growing company offering quality, custom bread programs for restaurants, stores and businesses since 1993. Companion Baking also owns and operates a Cafe. If you are in the St. Louis area...check it out.  

We discuss the pivot his company made during the pandemic and of course, we Fire the Board.

Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Allen was immersed in the food and baking industry from an early age. His great-grandfather founded Allen Foods, a well-known broadline food distributor with a large customer base across the Midwest. Allen spend much of his childhood delivering groceries to various foodservice operations, cleaning the freezers and sweeping the trucks for his family's business.

In 1991, Allen earned his degree in American Studies from Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Following graduation, Allen remained in the Bay Area working for various artisan bakers and grocery stores including Whole Foods Market and the Oakville Grocery Co., where he gained valuable baking experience and learned what it took to operate a business. 

With a dream of opening a baking facility of his own, Allen returned home to St. Louis in 1993 and  leased a small  corner of a manufacturing facility operated by his family to  create Companion Baking. He started with just six breads in Companion’s production line but gradually expanded the business, partnering with local and regional restaurants and grocery chains to build the customized bread programs Companion has become known for.

Today,  Companion’s award-winning bread is served in more than 400 restaurants, grocery stores, and businesses around the Midwest and  across the country. Allen credits his success to listening and nimbly adapting to his customers’ wants and needs.  In addition to their baking operations, Companion has two cafes in the St. Louis area and has expanded to offer a small line of pastries. 

Josh looks forward to continuing develop curated bread programs for regional and national multi-unit operators by helping them tell their story through bread. Outside Companion, Josh enjoys cycling, running and spending time with his five kids.

Companion Baking:
www.companionbaking.com
Instagram   https://www.instagram.com/companionbaker/
Facebook       https://www.facebook.com/Companionstl 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What does people plus food service plus conversation equal the food service for thought podcast produced by Forbes, heaver, and Wallace, and hosted by Carrie Clemens and Justin Alverez. The bimonthly podcast connects the food service industry through in-depth conversations with chefs, restaurant, equipment, suppliers, food service, establishment owners, and so many others that make up our wonderful industry. If you like food people and great conversation, we think you will enjoy the food service for thought podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Today's guest is Josh Allen, founder and owner of companion baking in St. Louis, Missouri starting in 1993 with just six breads and a small factory. Josh and his team have successfully grown companion baking into a company that serves more than 400 restaurants, stores and businesses across the country. Please join us in welcoming Josh to the food service for thought podcast. Let's chat with them.

Speaker 3: 1:14

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 1:14

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the food service for thought podcast. Justin here, along with Carrie, Carrie, despite our sincerest efforts to play defense on ourselves, we are up and recording with Josh. So Carrie, hello and Josh. Welcome. And thank you for being a guest with us.

Speaker 3: 1:31

Happy to be here. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 2: 1:33

All right, so we'll jump right into it. Not wasting any time. We're going to start the proceedings here with our removes Boosh segment, where we sort of wet the appetite, wake up the palette, if you will, with a couple of fun questions. So question number one, Josh, what is the dish that you most often cook for the people that you love?

Speaker 3: 1:53

Well, I have five kids that range in age from, uh, uh, eight to 23. So generally speaking, it's Mac and cheese. Okay. Cause that seems to hit everybody's pallet. Okay. Nobody complains. Um, and I, you know, I I'm a Baker, not a, not a chef. So it works out well for me too.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So if you were a food,

Speaker 3: 2:16

What would you be? Well as a Baker? And I gave some thought to this in advance because thankfully you gave me a little warning on that question. I think it would be a baguette. So as a Baker, we come to work every day trying to try to make the perfect baguette. And it's been a chase for 27 years now here, and we're still not there yet. And the baguette is perfectly imperfect. So, um, simple, honest, clean made with integrity. And that's what I try to do on a daily basis.

Speaker 2: 2:48

And along those lines, what is your go-to food? If you're sad, mad, not having a good day, or maybe you're having a great day and you want to celebrate, what's your go-to food,

Speaker 3: 3:00

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. So that's me. I like the hardiness of it, but I still love the chocolate. So that would be me on a, on a rough day here. I'm going to go for the oatmeal chocolate chip. All right. That's pretty good

Speaker 2: 3:14

Like that. So, um, now that we've done that and everybody is, uh, easily aware that you're basically the coolest person in the world. Cause you can rock the Mac and cheese. You want to be a baguette when you grow up and when you're having a good or bad day, it's oatmeal, chocolate chip cookie, you are the founder of companion baking. So can you explain to our audience what that is? Kind of walk us through a little bit, how you got started and what the day to day is for you. And we'll dive into some more questions.

Speaker 3: 3:45

Well, I could go all the way back to stealing my sister's easy bake oven in the early 1970s. Um, and being fascinated by the idea that you could bake a brownie with a light bulb. So it probably started there. Um, you all are in food service. I grew up in the food service business. My family had a broadline institutional distributor here in St. Louis called Allen foods. That was when they sold the business to us foods in 2002, they had just celebrated their hundredth anniversary. So, um, multi-generational, you know, really an incredible family of food people and just grew up in the business of, of making a delivery on the way to a soccer game. And in high school driving the, you know, the, the van for hot shot deliveries and answering the phone and customer service and unloading frozen railroad cars of white castle, French fries, um, 30,000 pounds at a time. Um, so it kind of did it all and had a chance and really always loved the food business. Didn't necessarily love the distribution business. Um, didn't like the idea of wearing a tie and, and, and really enjoyed the manufacturing side of things. Um, went to college in the San Francisco Bay area, but food was always a draw for me, ended up working in some restaurants during school and, and after I graduated and ended up meeting a Baker and getting a job in whole foods in Palo Alto, California, which was the third or fifth whole foods, I think this was very early. This would, this would have been 90, 91. Um, so this would have been pretty early in the whole foods game and was working in the basement, um, baking bread, you know, early in the morning and, and really fell in love with it. Anybody that's baked bread, you either run screaming first couple of days into it, or, or I think it kind of captivates you and, and knock on wood. It captivated me. Um, and I baked, continued to bake in the Bay area, did some work in some specialty grocery stores. Um, but in the end ended up moving back home to St. Louis and, and leasing some space from my family in South St. Louis and, and opening up a tiny little wholesale, uh, bread company. So that would have been in 93. Um, and I was 24 and it was probably probably blessing and a curse, right? To be 24. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I, you know, we were making six things and I would bake bread all night and go knock on the back door of a, of a restaurant tours shop and say, Hey, this is what we're doing. And, and slowly sort of piece by piece built the business. Um, and my grandfather told me when, when I first borrowed money from him and, and open the door, as he said, you know, shut up and let your customers tell you how to run your business, because generally speaking, they know what they need and they know what they're expecting, and I've taken that to heart kind of all the way through. And that's what we did. So while we were making a handful of items, when we started, um, you know, a chef would say, look, we're, we love your sourdough bread for the table, but we need a hamburger bun for lunch. And so we would go back and figure out how to make a hamburger button that they would be happy with. And then we were selling the Ritz-Carlton bread for the table and they're in their grill. And they said, look, we also do banquets. We need banquet dinner rolls, or we need breakfast pastry for things in the morning. And so sort of built the business that way over time, one item at a time, built it up at the, at the height, we were probably making 350 or 400 different items on a daily basis. Um, and then we ended up kind of converting some of the business to frozen, uh, partly because my family was in that business and could help us extend our reach and, and extend our distribution. And then also, because we always said yes to folks, we actually ended up saying yes to, uh, a grocery store chain that was opening in the middle of Missouri. They had opened a store and they were having some supply chain issues. And they said, look, can you get us some product, you know, tomorrow? And we said, sure, we'll figure it out. You know, we, we always kind of said yes, and then figured out if it was a good decision, not later. And we said, yes. And we started, and it turns out they had some stores in Colorado and some other stores, they were opening. So we converted that business to frozen, kind of grew with them across the country. Um, and then five years ago built a new facility that, that, that was designed to produce frozen product. And actually just last year, right as COVID was kind of taking hold, we converted the whole business to frozen. So now everything, everything we produce is, is frozen and shipped a fair bit still in St. Louis, but regionally. And then some nationally, really, I think our range and our reach is kind of the Rocky mountains to the Appalachian mountains. Once we go over those ranges, it starts to get pretty expensive to ship bread. It's, you know, it's big and it's full of air and it doesn't ship all that well. So much West of Colorado, we're not particularly successful, or we don't have much foothold and much East of the Appalachian. So Pennsylvania, Ohio, the upper Midwest, um, a little bit down in, in the Southeast, and then also a little bit West of us, but still, you know, primarily the West in the Rockies. And that's really who we are. So we're a 27 year old frozen bread manufacturer with most of our business. And I know that's what we're going to talk about today. And most of it's focused on custom curated programs for small multiunit operators. And when we say multiunit operators, it's really five to 150 units. That's sort the sweet spot for us. So they're, they're big enough to want and need special attention and, and to have some scale for us, but they're really too small to grab the attention of a, of a large scale manufacturer who can't stop a line or who can't make special products, um, for somebody with, with so few units.

Speaker 4: 9:13

I was thinking Justin about like, when I talked to Josh originally, what that meant for customers. Um, I honestly, until probably 10 years ago, I just assumed if they had bread and their operation, they were making bread there, you know? Um, and, uh, well actually it's been longer than that. I guess when we, when we shared offices with the food broker and they represented a frozen bread manufacturer. Um, but it, it seems like some of that can all be the same and with what you guys can do, you can really, you can really offer bread products that, um, still allow the operator to differentiate themselves from other, other people, whereas restaurants that are buying kind of the same brand X, they're going to get the same baguette, or they're going to get the same dinner roll, or what have you. And you can do, you can offer them some real customization.

Speaker 3: 10:20

Yeah. And I think that's the whole thing for us is that we want to help our customers tell, tell their story on the plate. And it's not our story to tell. And, and we've, we believe strongly and passionately, um, that that's how it's gonna work. And, and candidly, there's two reasons for that one. It's, it's what we really enjoy doing. We like those relationships we've always been in the relationship business. It was my family's way of teaching me there, you know, as a, as a regional and as a, as a, as a local food service distributor, that's how they competed against the larger players. Um, so the, the, the passion and the enjoyment is there, but at the same time, it's our point of differentiation. So we ship five to 7,000 cases of bread a week where a, um, a larger and, and still are artisan bread manufacturer. Some of the larger brands LaBrea, you may have heard of those kinds of, those kinds of bakeries are shipping 200,000 cases of bread a week. So, but they're driving brand awareness there. They're doing it generally speaking with a smaller, um, product mix. You know, it includes packaging. It's a whole program that will go in there and, and, and we're not doing that. We can't compete at that scale. So the way to, to not compete at that scale list is to, is to offer differentiation and, and so that you can tell whatever story it is that, that you want to tell on the plate and it's, and we get a kick out of it. And, and it gives people a point of difference. So that even if a 30 chain deli or a a hundred unit pizzeria can have something very unique to them. And, and, and it's not our determination of what unique is, right? It's their determination. Sometimes it's cross, sometimes it's crumbs, sometimes it's texture, sometimes it's inclusions or things that we're adding to the dose. Sometimes it's shape sometimes it's pack size or the size of the box, because they have a relationship with a distributor that that could be a different, and maybe it's not cost. Plus maybe it's a fixed dollar mark-up. So Packsize becomes more of a question. And so we can bring special to any one of those aspects. And, and, and that, I think part of it is because I grew up in the business. I understand that sometimes that's just as important as the flavor and, you know, I, we take quality for granted and we expect that our customers do so, you know, we, we're not making bad product, but, but, but good product is what the, what the customer expects that to be. It's, it's their expectation that we're trying to meet. Um, we have a James Beard winning chefs here in St. Louis who has, uh, has a couple of, uh, uh, restaurants and, and they sell Po'Boys and he had a very specific desire for that. And it took a long time to make that. And if you looked at that product, you wouldn't necessarily say, well, that's an artisanal bread product. It isn't super crusty. It's, it's not darkly baked. It's not a Tartine style sourdough bread, but it, but it's equally as challenging. And it hits all of the marks that he wanted to, because his story with that sandwich is his story to tell. And so, um, we really enjoyed that process and we've done that with any number of folks and, and that's really, you know, that's, that's how we would define what a customized or a curated bread program looks like. It's doing that in conjunction, and then it's really listening and, and you guys are in the business as well. Our job is to listen, right? And our job isn't to solve their problem and throw bread on the table and say, here's all the features and benefits with the things that we do our job is to listen to what their challenges are, and then come up with some solutions to that. We happened to do it with flour, water, salt, and yeast, um, and some folks do it with other things, but, uh, you know, that's really the, that's the difference that we bring to the table is kind of a willingness and an openness to that process. And we really enjoy it,

Speaker 4: 13:51

Justin. I, I, I'm sorry, it's your turn, but I had another question I shocker. Uh, so, um, ha have, have you had the conversation with somebody like, who maybe didn't even understand the possibilities didn't even understand that this was an Avenue they could or should go down and you were starting from scratch, um, you know, w with them and walking them through like every bit of the puzzle to get a customized bread program. Has that been something you've been able to do with someone?

Speaker 3: 14:33

Absolutely. Cause I think, I mean, we're, we're not unique in what we do, but there's not that many of us that can produce the scale, but that are still small enough and interested in, in doing these custom things for, you know, the multiunit folks in the, in that range of, of, uh, of size. Um, and some of it is that they're surprised to there's somebody that does it, and they're surprised, you know, usually they've had to pick stock items out of the distributor either they'll go to the restaurant show and they'll walk the aisles and they'll see a bread that they want. And then they'll go to the distributor and say, Hey, can you bring in bread X from, from brand Z? Um, or they'll just be picking out of stock and they'll go to their, their sales rep and they'll bring in seven baguettes that might be in the warehouse. And here's what you get to choose from. Pick one. Um, so the biggest challenge for us is awareness, right? Is, is letting folks know that we're out there is meeting them, you know, opening the door to the conversation and then opening the, uh, kind of giving them the sense of, Hey, if, if, if, if, if there's something that you're looking for that you can't find we're here for you, I will also tell you that, especially in COVID in the last, you know, in this period in the last 12 months, there's been any number of situations where a multiunit operator has been producing something for themselves for many, many, many years. And all of a sudden they're challenged by labor. They're challenged by space, as you mentioned, with social distancing or whatever it is in the kitchen bread takes a lot of room. Bread takes up a lot of space. It takes a lot of time to make, and maybe they just want to stop doing it. So we have a pizzeria, a chain that had a hundred units that have been making their own bread for garlic bread for 40 years. And they made all their crusts, they made all their sauces and they made all their bread at a commissary and they couldn't keep up with demand for the pizza. Uh, and they came to us and they said, look, the bread, isn't a big enough part for us to be that concerned about, can you take on this aspect of our manufacturing so that we can really ramp up what we're doing with crust and with sauce. And so that opportunity probably never would have presented itself without this huge spike in demand for that particular chain within the pandemic. Um, and we've done that for small grocery stores that used to make things, but labor has become an issue or, or, or absenteeism, whatever they were kind of up against. So it's been a combination. So sometimes it's taken in those instances, it's making a very specific product. Here's our formula, here's the characteristics that we're looking for. You know, we have to make it work with an art equipment and with our system, but we're generally speaking. We can do that. Can we do it for a price that, that, that makes sense for them. And then we'll take on that manufacturing. So now that burden is off their plate and they can start to grow their business and do other things and not be so concerned about the bread side.

Speaker 2: 17:11

That's great. And it seems like you were already uniquely positioned to be able to help customers during that because you're so focused on helping tell them, helping them tell their story, as opposed to come on in and pick from one of the seven choices that we have, and hopefully it'll fit your, what you're looking for. So that's pretty neat to hear that, that you were able to help customers in that way specifically, especially with a pandemic, because yeah, if there's ever been a food that was anything proof, right. It's pizza and all the accoutrements that go with that. One thing I was curious, you mentioned you, how you grew, you started from very, very small and you've grown, um, to scale, to work with the type of customers as you transitioned from growing from small to large, and then from fresh to frozen, what challenges did you run into meeting that demand for scale while keeping your product consistent?

Speaker 3: 18:04

Interestingly enough, I, I, I answered this question the other day for somebody and for me personally, and for our business, we found the challenges much greater from oven to customer than from mixer to oven. So in other words, making more and more and more and more bread. I don't want to say that it was easy, but look, if that's all we had to do, that would be easy, figuring out how to get it in the right bag or the right box with the right sticker to the right distributor at the right time on the right truck, that has been a significantly greater challenge for us. So the logistics aspect of the business of distribution, as I mentioned, that, you know, that wasn't a piece that I loved about my family's business and it, it, isn't a piece that most bakers when they go into the business, you know, then most of them are passionate about driving a truck around and delivering bread. They're passionate about making it. So, um, it was easier to find people to help me make more bread than it has been to figure out how to get it from our oven into the right such, you know, into the right packaging and to the customer. And that really continues to be a problem. Especially as the supply chain, challenges have really escalated in the last 12 months, getting trucks has been a challenge, you know, how can we get somebody from LTL to FTL? How can we fit? You know, where is the best place? What are the minimums? What's the pack size, you know, um, the physical requirements for traceability and for all of those things, as, as the world continues to evolve for a small Baker, those challenges have been far greater for us. Then how do we make, you know, a thousand baguettes instead of a hundred baguettes, um, and that, and that candidly continues to be a challenge. And, and we get new things every day that kind of throw hurdles into that. But, um, you know, that's, that's part of it and, and knock on wood. I have been equally as, as interested and challenged by that as I was about how to make more bread. So, so we're focused on it and we're bringing in the right people to help us do it. And, and we're, we've been somewhat successful in making that work, but it's also been a, it's been an opportunity for us, um, because supply chain has been an issue. So we have picked up some business because some other bakeries haven't been able to figure that out in, in the S in the scale of what's happening

Speaker 4: 20:15

During the pandemic, you have a pretty good size team. And I like how you, um, your website has, has those folks on there during the pandemic. What have you guys, as a team done, that's made you the proudest or even your whole team, the proudest, what, you know, I guess

Speaker 3: 20:35

I think that we're still here every day. You know, we, we, we never stopped. Um, we operate the wholesale factory and we have two cafes. We did close one of the cafes based on its location, and it's still closed. I'm still hoping to reopen eventually, but we're in an industrial park where our factory is, and we had a cafe inside of the facility and not everybody has come back to work in the area. So it's still, um, it's still shut down, but we brought all of those folks into the factory to, to help. Um, we did have to scale back a little bit in April and may in terms of the total number of people. Um, but we, we baked every day through that process. And our other cafe has been open the whole time and has been going from, you know, 50% capacity to 25 to no seats to take out only to from side only to every, every iteration. And we've kind of kept going and we've kept our folks safe. So we've had some folks that are sick, but, you know, we've been wearing masks since, since the middle of March. Um, we've been, you know, doing everything we can in corn training and taking care of our people and making sure they're taken care of and their family is. And so we're most proud of just surviving. Um, and, and I think that's a, that's a big piece of it. We are proud of taking on that little bit of, you know, some new business that we were able to take on and, and alleviate some stress from some of our customers, some of which are new, some of which were existing. Um, and that's been, that's been, uh, something to be proud of. And, and we've had, you know, some wins in terms of performance, you know, we've, we've been able to maintain gross margin percentage during the whole thing. So even though, even though our sales revenues have been down substantially and in the end, we're not making money. Or in some instances we've had some really challenging months, we've been able to maintain the efficiencies we were focused on. Look, if we're going to do it, let's continue to do it right. Um, and, and figure out how to kind of get through this and, and limp along and, and see if we can't come out the other side, still operating, uh, a super efficient bakery. So that's important. So we've had some wins in, in terms of that, in terms of some of the metrics and KPIs that we pay attention to. Some of them, we stopped measuring because it's no fun to look at at, at negative numbers all the time. But, um, you know, we're, we're, we're proud of, and I'm proud of all the people, because honestly, as we cut back our C you know, folks were working a lot more hours folks that, that weren't on the floor are, had been on the floor. Um, you know, I've baked more bread in the last 12 months than I had probably baked in the 10 years previous to that. Um, but it's been a great re-introduction to a lot of things. We're doing things better for those reasons. And, and, and it will continue to find the silver linings, but it's been, it's certainly been challenging

Speaker 2: 23:03

If I'm a restaurant goer, Carrie and I are going out for a business lunch, power lunch, and we're going to talk business, uh, what would us as restaurant goers, maybe be surprised to learn about the bread on our tables and the bread holding our sandwiches together as it comes from you. Okay.

Speaker 3: 23:21

Um, well, I, I certainly think the fact that it's frozen is something that, that folks aren't expecting. I think the technology, um, and, and just our ability to use freezing as a way to not only extend shelf life, but extend the distribution model or the scope of distribution is a surprise to people. I mean, there's, there's no question about it. Um, the bread that we have transitioned, the bread that we, you know, we we're, uh, we've been delivering fresh bread St. Louis for, for 27 years. And in many instances we've converted that product because of delivery minimum minimums with food service distributors going up, they need a few more things to put on the back of the truck to make a, to make a delivery, make sense. Um, and our minimums have gone up because cost of distribution has gone higher. So in some instances, Justin's restaurant that used to get fresh baguettes for me now gets three cases of baguettes a week from, from me frozen. Um, but because the bread's par baked and frozen within, you know, 60 to 90 minutes of coming out of the oven, it's probably fresher, um, through that frozen model. And because he bakes it off before he puts it on the table, um, you know, there, there's no way the customer would know that product had been frozen in process.

Speaker 2: 24:29

So I've been looking at your, your website over the last couple of days and just checking it out. I'm a huge fan of that. Um, of all the bread stuff. Do you, is there, you have, obviously have a lot of products. Is there one that you sort of have a, a special place in your heart for?

Speaker 3: 24:42

No. I mean, look, they're all your kids, right? Like, you can't really say that, but, um, no, I mean, I, I think that's the part I really do believe in this idea of, of, of letting our customers tell their story. And we make some things without question that folks would just not define as, as artisanal or specialty or whatever it is, but there are, but, but they've been just as fun and intriguing to produce. Um, maybe it's for a group of restaurants that we have a lot of respect for, maybe it's for it. You know, there's maybe it's an iconic brand that we got to service that we didn't expect to be able to serve us. And so, no, I mean, I, I mean the bag, that's still my favorite piece of bread. Like I, I say that because I really enjoy eating it. I enjoy making it. We never are going to get to the point where we make the perfect baguette. There's just, there's always something that you could, that you could point out. Um, so, but outside of that, I mean, there isn't anything in particular and we're just we're, we don't have any one item that's greater than like 5% of what we do. So we're not, you know, I wish I had an item that was 80% of my sales that I could just really drive the heck out of, but we didn't, that's just not our business. So, um, you know, we're still looking for that elusive kind of golden ticket. Um, but we don't have that right now.

Speaker 2: 25:58

So far, the board is a little segment that we do if you've spent any time in kitchens, which I'm sure you have, you've heard that term. It's a kitchen term that refers to the outstanding tickets that are left the tables that need to have their food prepared. Uh, you say fire the board and off you go, uh, your hair's on fire for about five, 10 minutes in the kitchen, and then everything is quiet again. So in that spirit, we'll ask you some of these rapid fire questions, and we'll start with the first one here. What was your first car?

Speaker 3: 26:24

My first car was a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme that my grandmother in 11 years had put 9,000 miles on it. And she gave it to me before I went to college and I'm white leather interior, and the doors probably weighed 3000 pounds, but I loved it was terrific.

Speaker 2: 26:44

I've got seven miles to the gallon, right? Yeah. Uh, what was the last good book that you read or listened to?

Speaker 3: 26:51

I just finished the Andre Agassi autobiography open. Yes, sir. Now that being said it was 18 hours long on the audio, you know, I like to listen to regular speed. Um, but, uh, I really enjoyed it. It was true. I didn't know anything about him and hello.

Speaker 2: 27:07

I always enjoyed watching the black. I heard that book, uh, was outstanding and really kind of got in there on some of the drug addiction. And some of those things that really kind of tell some of that story that maybe people weren't as, uh, as dated remember as well when it happened.

Speaker 3: 27:22

He was certainly open. I mean, there's no question about that.

Speaker 2: 27:25

What is the, uh, what song is the soundtrack to your life?

Speaker 3: 27:31

I, you know, that's a, that's not an easy question to ask, but I'm going to throw a van Morrison Moondance at

Speaker 2: 27:36

You. Okay. I'll take it. I

Speaker 3: 27:38

Don't work with it. That's what I got for you as somebody who worked at night for many, many, many years,

Speaker 2: 27:44

Very upper fault. If they were making a movie about you, which actor would play you?

Speaker 3: 27:51

No good answer to this question. So I went with who my kids thought would be super cool. And my two boys and my boys are the youngest. And so I'm going to say Tom Holland, because if Spider-Man played their dad, like how cool would that be?

Speaker 2: 28:05

That would be pretty cool. Uh, last question here, and then we'll wrap up. What would be your dream job if money or anything else that there's no issues at all? Just you could pick your dream job. What would you do?

Speaker 3: 28:17

I mean, the cliche answer is that I already have it. And then I really get a kick out of what I do. If, if I couldn't be a Baker, I think I'd like to direct a soccer team and the English premier league. Wow. So like a GM, I don't know, there is a term over there and I don't know what it is, but, uh, director sportif of, uh, of, uh, of man you or something.

Speaker 2: 28:38

I think that, that I think is the most unique answer that we've ever had. That's a pretty good one. I like that. I like that. All right, Josh. Well, I can't thank you enough. Uh, thank you so much for working with us here with the technology issues and Carrie, and I really had a fun, a lot of fun talking with you. I know that we were excited on the front end and we had plenty of conversations behind the scenes. Kind of like, what are we going to ask and how are we going to talk and all this. So we were really excited and very, very grateful for you and congratulations on the success of your business, your growth and the sustained success during the, probably the most challenging year that you and your business have faced. And we wish you nothing but the best for the future. And hopefully we can chat with you down the road again and, uh, and learn more about, about the new products that you have and the new territories you're expanding into and all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 29:22

All right. Well, I really appreciate it, Justin and Carrie, we it's been great. So thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Thank you for listening to the food service for thought podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. And a big shout out to Forbes, heaver, and Wallace, and everyone on the team for producing the first ever food service rep driven podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. Oh, and go eat out at your local restaurant or grab some takeout or delivery. Even if you are just in the mood for some apps or dessert, every bite helps.