Fell Into Food Podcast

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

Until next time, we’ll catch you on the sunny side!

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Oct 26, 2026 44 min

Beyond Pisco: Pairing World-Class Peruvian Gastronomy with Valtierro’s Daniel Valverde

Episode 87

Show notes

Born into a poor family in Peru as the youngest of five children, Daniel Valverde’s path to winemaking began far from the vineyard. At nineteen, without a college degree, he followed his older siblings to the United States and took a job busing tables on weekends in New Jersey while juggling shifts at a local supermarket. Grinding his way across restaurant floors, he eventually made the leap to New York City to work at the historic steakhouse The Palm, rising through the ranks from server to floor manager, beverage manager, and eventually sales manager. It was there that he met fellow server Max, sparking a late-night pact to one day make wine together in Peru. Driven by an entrepreneurial streak forged in the US, Daniel later stepped away from the corporate dining world, survived a battle with thyroid cancer, and relocated to Puerto Rico on an impulse in 2021. There, he founded Green Rose Cleaners—scaling it from a solo hustle into the island’s highest-rated commercial and residential cleaning service. That venture provided the operational freedom to return home to Peru and finally fulfill his promise: founding Valtierro to prove that Peru’s heritage grapes belong on the world’s finest dining tables.

Long before Valtierro existed, Daniel and his coworker Max made an offhand promise over shift drinks in Manhattan that they would one day make wine together. Daniel walks through the forgotten history that fueled that dream: how Peru actually produced wine before Chile and Argentina in the 1500s, why Spanish Crown tariffs and natural disasters crushed the industry, and the exact phone call a decade later that convinced Max to hop on a plane to Ica.

Instead of raising millions to buy real estate, Daniel hit the road and scouted bodegas across southern Peru, landing in the high-desert valley of Tacna right on the Chilean border. He explains the art of tenant winemaking—how he convinced an independent, multigenerational grape farmer to sell him two tons of fruit and rent out cellar space so they could vinify on their own terms.

Valtierro Website: https://www.valtierro.com/

Valtierro Instagram: @valtierrowine

Episode Timestamps & Chapters

00:00 – Intro: Welcome Daniel Valverde to Fell Into Food

00:23 – Leaving Peru at 19: Busing tables and rising through NYC dining rooms

01:40 – The 15-year pact with sommelier Max at The Palm

02:20 – The lost history: Why Peru made wine before Chile and Argentina

03:53 – Ground zero: Scouting Ica and sending the text that started Valtierro

05:41 – The entrepreneurial mindset, early failures, and launching Green Rose Cleaners

12:44 – Arriving in Tacna: Renting tanks and partnering with a generational grower

14:55 – Bringing in 40 years of Argentine winemaking expertise

15:36 – The Malbec of Peru? Why bet on Negra Criolla

17:26 – Overcoming the Pisco legacy and leaning into fine dining momentum

19:50 – The NYC restaurant story: Confronting the domestic wine stigma

21:38 – The go-to-market: 1,500 bottles, allocation math, and scaling up

24:20 – Direct-to-consumer club plans vs. retail placement

25:09 – Rejecting tourist kitsch: Burgundy glass, clean labels, and wax stamps

26:15 – Cellar details: 50% whole-cluster, manual picking, and nitrogen bottling

28:44 – Pairing wine with Peruvian cuisine: What to ask your server

30:00 – Full circle: What the 19-year-old busboy would say today

31:05 – Where to find Valtierro and closing thoughts

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Oct 19, 2026 32 min

Beignets, Boudin Egg Rolls, and a Pirate Coffee Shop: My First Trip to New Orleans

Episode 86

Show notes

First time in New Orleans, and I nearly choked on powdered sugar within the first hour. Worth it.

Down for three days, so I did what I do and ate everything. I have opinions on the turtle soup (I grew up in the sticks, it's turtle soup, guys). I found a boudin egg roll that was one of my favorite thing I ate all trip. I walked Bourbon Street after everyone told me it'd be a disaster, and it wasn't.

Best meal of the trip? Lufu which is Indian food. In New Orleans. Go figure.

Go watch this one on YouTube, because me describing a plate of food with audio only gets old fast. Everything I mentioned is listed below. Tell me what I missed, because I'm going back, and next time it's crawfish season.

Catch you on the sunny side.

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Oct 6, 2026 23 min

Stephanie Noto: Fixing School Food / Beyond the Grab Bag & Mealy Apples

Episode 85

Show notes

Stephanie Noto is a Registered Dietitian, Child Nutrition Program, and School Food Expert. In partnership with school districts, Stephanie evaluates and enhances school meal programs by integrating sound nutrition principles with operational and sustainable best practices. Her career in school nutrition spans 17 years, self-employed as a consultant for the last 8 years. She brings experience as a former K12 Food Service Director, Regional Food Production Specialist, and National Support Resource for K12 operators, which has given her first hand view of the opportunities and challenges school food service teams face. Districts often struggle with staffing capacity, limited training, the complexity of institutional procurement, and the need to balance regulatory compliance with increased expectations around fresh, minimally processed ingredients.

School nutrition is one of the most complex, misunderstood sectors in the entire culinary landscape. Between federal reimbursement guidelines, strict meal pattern requirements, and tight bottom lines, serving high-quality, scratch-cooked food to students is an uphill battle.

In this episode, registered dietitian, former K-12 Food Service Director, and school food consultant Stephanie Noto (Noto Nutrition Consulting) breaks down the true state of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). We explore recent changes in USDA nutrition regulations—including added sugar limits and sodium tier targets—and unpack the execution disconnect that leads to "cop-out" meals like grab bags and mealy red delicious apples.

Stephanie Noto’s Website: https://www.notonutrition.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notonutrition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-noto-rd-cdn-sns-23410878/

0:00 Intro: Meet Stephanie Noto

1:14 State of school nutrition — what's changed in 3–5 years

2:43 NSLP, SBP, and the sodium/sugar rollout explained

6:23 The "compliant" lunch that isn't really a meal

10:31 Self-op vs. contract management: the training gap

13:49 Fixing the middle of the P&L

17:45 Writing real food into the contract

21:59 From 24-year-old regional resource to independent consultant

27:19 Do chefs belong in school kitchens?

32:01 Her fix: mandatory training before you get the job

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Sep 30, 2026 36 min

Accidental Cook to Culinary Empire: Chef Adrianne Calvo on Building Legacy

Episode 84

Show notes

Chef Adrianne Calvo is an award-winning Miami-based restaurateur, best-selling cookbook author, and Emmy-nominated, 9x Telly Award-winning media personality known for her signature "Maximum Flavor" style. Her flagship restaurant, Chef Adrianne's Vineyard, has grown from a strip-mall startup into a national "must-eat" institution, and she's built a full media presence around it — TV appearances on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay, a million-plus social following, and a newest cookbook, Maximum Flavor at Home, bringing that same cooking into everyday home kitchens.

At 22, with no investors and no real restaurant experience beyond an internship, she opened Chef Adrianne's Vineyard in a Kendall strip mall — right before the 2008 financial crash. Nineteen years later, it's a national "must-eat" institution, and she's built an entire "Maximum Flavor" world around it: an Emmy nomination, nine Telly Awards, appearances on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay, a million-plus followers, and a new book, Maximum Flavor at Home, out November 3rd.

Website: https://chefadriannes.com/

Instagram: @chefadrianne

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ChefAdrianne

Maximum Flavor at Home (out November 3, 2026)

Book Tour Dates

• November 6 — The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles
• November 12 — Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL
• November 18 — The Chopping Block, Chicago

Timestamps

01:14 — The accidental cooking class and the French toast that rerouted her life

04:56 — Opening the restaurant at 22, right before the 2008 crash, and leading a kitchen full of veterans twice her age

07:55 — Inside Dark Dining: blindfolds, heightened senses, and the champagne trick that still gets 19-year regulars

14:13 — Where AI helps in the kitchen — and where it can't touch human creativity

17:16 — Maximum Flavor at Home (out November 3): the new book, standout recipes, and the tour

30:57 — Her sister Jennifer, "Make It Count," and the difference between burnout and dedication

33:24 — 19 years as St. Jude's Culinary Ambassador, and the one standard she wants tied to her name

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Sep 21, 2026 38 min

Ken MacKenzie: Fresh Victor / Quitting Tequila To Go Fresh

Episode 83

Show notes

Ken MacKenzie is the visionary founder and CEO of Fresh Victor, a premium line of all-natural, cold pressed, refrigerated mixers for effortlessly delicious cocktails, low-alcohol and spirit-free drinks. With over 20 years of experience in the

creation, import, and distribution of spirits and craft beverages, Ken is a successful serial entrepreneur with a rich history in the industry. Before launching Fresh Victor, Ken co-founded Republic Tequila and Republic Spirit Blends. His impressive career also includes the import, development, and launch of unique spirits like Onyx Coffee Liqueurs and his highly demanded 100% agave tequila brand, Amate.

Ken's journey in the spirits industry began in 1997, when he apprenticed in Guadalajara, learning the premium pure agave tequila business from the ground up. He soon launched his consultancy, La Mission, S.A. de C.V., dedicating the next decade to pioneering the importation of high-end 100% agave tequila into the United States. After returning to the U.S., Ken founded Travesia Import Group, continuing to import, distribute, and consult on premium liquor brands. He then expanded his portfolio to include bespoke Texas spirits and mixers, distributed by Republic National Distributors. Ken is a frequent and respected speaker at high-profile industry events, educating the beverage market and hospitality

industry on 100% agave tequila. His Republic and Amate tequila brands have garnered over 15 top industry accolades, including recognition from Wine Enthusiast magazine and numerous medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and Denver International Spirits Competition.

In this conversation, I talk with Ken about what actually convinced him tequila wasn't a phase — and why he never went home. He walks through how agave tequila is really made, from an eight-to-twelve-year growing cycle to a single glass carrying over 300 distinct flavor compounds, and how that same discipline shaped everything about Fresh Victor. We get into why he refused every piece of advice to make it shelf-stable, what it cost him to spend 18 months chasing the right acid balance on one flavor, and the early stretch where the company was pouring out almost as much product as it was selling because the shelf life was too short to survive distribution.

We also get into where the non-alcoholic and zero-proof movement is really headed, and why Ken built Fresh Victor so the same drink works whether or not there's alcohol in it. Nine flavors in, he says they've barely scratched the surface of where this goes next.

Website: http://Freshvictor.com

Instagram / Facebook / Linkedin / Tiktok: @freshvictorcocktails.com

X: @freshvictormix

For being a listener Ken has decided to give everyone 20% off their next order from their website http://freshvictor.com using promo code FELL2FOOD20. No minimum purchase requirement. Can’t combine with other discounts. Active from today until Dec 31, 2026

0:00 From Tequila to Fresh Mixers — How the Pivot Started

2:23 Why Food and Drink Actually Bring People Together

5:42 Following Love to Guadalajara — and Never Leaving

8:19 How Tequila Is Actually Made, From Agave to Bottle

13:55 What You Should Actually Be Tasting For

17:24 Building Fresh Victor — Four Ingredients, No Shortcuts

19:00 Refusing to Go Shelf-Stable

24:56 The 18-Month Fight for the Right Acid Balance

28:21 The Hurdles That Almost Ended It

34:44 Zero-Proof, Connection, and What's Next for Fresh Victor

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http://www.poconomaplewater.com

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Sep 14, 2026 41 min

Nicole Bentler: Pocono Maple, Before The Syrup

Episode 82

Show notes

I sat down with Nicole Bentler this week — a health and wellness pro turned maple farmer, who bought a run-down, two-hundred-year-old farm in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania back in 2019 with no real plan beyond having a place to bring her family.

That farm is now Pocono Maple Water, a farm-to-bottle maple water and maple syrup brand, and Nicole's one of only a handful of female-owned maple farms in the country. We got into what maple water actually is before it ever becomes syrup, the finding about our water supply that made her trademark the phrase "What's In Your Water," and why she's turned down Target and Walmart more than once to stay direct-to-consumer.

Website:

Instagram: @poconomaplewater

Instagram: @poconomountainmaple

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

Timestamps pulled from raw transcript markers — confirm exact in/out points against the edited cut before publishing.

00:00 — Cold open: cracking a maple water on mic, and the question everyone asks first

00:44 — What maple water actually is, and how it's different from syrup

02:57 — Buying a run-down farm in 2019 with zero plans to build a beverage brand

05:19 — Six to eight miles a day tapping trees in the snow

06:27 — The estrogen finding behind the "What's In Your Water" trademark

09:53 — Big bottled water brands, spring-water lawsuits, and knowing where your water comes from

14:08 — Three bears, a raided bee yard, and building a team in a corner of agriculture with almost nobody under 40

18:17 — The six-week harvest, the subscription model, and turning down Target and Walmart on purpose

20:32 — The cans-vs-cartons-vs-glass packaging fight with her partner Dante

25:10 — What maple water actually does for the body, and the empty-stomach test

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Aug 31, 2026 34 min

Jason Olinik: Discernment / The Dining Room Disagrees

Episode 81

Show notes

Jason Olinik is Senior Vice President of Operations & Partnerships at Rudy's Hospitality Group, where he leads growth strategy and every client relationship across workplace dining, markets, and restaurant concepts. He's spent 23 years in hospitality — starting at sixteen scrubbing grease off the back dock of a Chili's in Brighton, Michigan, then running a limited-service hotel in Naples, building restaurant concepts inside an airport, and working luxury resorts in Florida before landing at Rudy's. He's also the author of Discernment: Seeing Through the Narrative Economy.

I sat down with him to talk about the gap between what a report says and what's actually happening on the floor — and why the leaders who stay close to the floor are the ones who catch it before it costs them. Jason talks about the meeting culture that crept in after the pandemic, the seventeen systems his teams were juggling just to load a menu, and the moment he realized he'd drifted too far from the work that built him. He also tells me about a ledge in the Jemez Mountains outside Albuquerque, and the jump that changed how he's approached every hard decision since.

Book & author site: http://jasonolinik.com

Rudy's Hospitality Group: http://rudyshospitality.com

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/jason-olinik-57355464

Instagram: @j.olinik_author

Book: Discernment: Seeing Through the Narrative Economy

TIMESTAMPED CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

0:10 The Chili's Loading Dock, Age Sixteen

2:22 What Makes a Great Operator

11:07 Why Workplace Dining Needs Restaurant Standards

16:10 Thin Center, Strong Field

18:15 AI, Automation, and Where It Actually Helps

26:41 Writing Discernment

33:41 The Meeting Culture Rant

36:06 The Jemez Mountains Jump

41:30 Where to Find Jason

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Aug 24, 2026 43 min

Jeff Tonidandel & Jamie Brown Making Charlotte the “City of Hospitality”

Episode 80

Show notes

Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown are the husband-and-wife owners of the Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group (TBRG) in Charlotte, NC — six restaurants (Supperland, Haberdish, Ever Andalo, Growlers Pourhouse, Leluia Hall, Olivelli Deli), three of them Michelin Guide American South recommended. They co-host the podcast Jeff and Jamie Feed and the national PBS series Fork & Hammer, recently nominated for a Daytime Emmy in Outstanding Culinary/Cultural Series. Jamie's first book, Eleven Tables: A Wild Ride Through Food, Failure, and Figuring It Out, is out now.

Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown left corporate jobs at the peak of the economy, backpacked across Europe and Asia for eight months with paper maps and a burner phone, and came home to the 2008 recession with an idea and no restaurant experience. They found their first space in Charlotte's NoDa neighborhood because of a pink slip taped to the door — an unpaid gas bill. That eleven-table crepe shop is now Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group: six concepts, three of them Michelin Guide American South recommended, a national PBS series (Fork & Hammer, just nominated for a Daytime Emmy), a weekly podcast, and Jamie's first book.

In this conversation, Jeff and Jamie talk about why Jeff is campaigning to brand Charlotte the "City of Hospitality," what the city's food scene was already doing right before Michelin ever showed up, and what it actually takes to turn a 100-year-old church into a working restaurant kitchen. They get honest about the harder calls too — closing a thirteen-year, still-profitable restaurant to become Ever Andalo, and retiring their doughnut shop after one too many equipment failures. Plus: running a 330-person team across six kitchens, two shows, and three kids, and what's next — dry-aged fish, a new commissary, and hotel projects on the horizon for 2029.

Website: http://tonidandel-brown.com

Podcast: Jeff and Jamie Feed

PBS series: Fork & Hammer

Book: Eleven Tables — Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Restaurants:

Supperland

Haberdish

Ever Andalo

Growlers

Pourhouse

Leluia Hall

Olivelli Deli

Wyatt's Superfine (coming soon)

Chapters

0:00 Welcome, Jeff & Jamie

1:01 The one thing they want listeners to take away

2:29 Why Jeff is campaigning for Charlotte as the "City of Hospitality"

5:03 Transplants, small-city warmth, and Bible Belt hospitality

7:48 What Charlotte's food scene was already doing right before Michelin arrived

10:02 Charlotte as a culinary crossroads — and the 200-farm network behind it

12:07 Turning churches, a clothing store, and a general store into restaurants

14:25 Supperland's 14-foot fire grill, and blending old-school with tech

17:30 Why they closed a profitable restaurant to become Ever Andalo

20:22 The 82-square-foot doughnut shop that broke one too many times

23:02 The eight-month backpacking trip — and the pink slip that found their first space

27:05 Where the entrepreneurial fortitude actually came from

29:15 Jamie's six years working a day job to fund the dream

32:56 Running six restaurants, two shows, and three kids with a 330-person team

36:26 How Fork & Hammer landed on PBS — and just picked up a Daytime Emmy nomination

42:08 Jamie's book, Eleven Tables

43:58 What's next: dry-aged fish, a new commissary, and 2029 hotel plans

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Aug 17, 2026 47 min

Matthew Cutolo: Gargiulo’s & The Last Cannoli Recipe

Episode 79

Show notes

Matthew Cutolo is the Executive Pastry Chef and third-generation chef at Gargiulo's Restaurant, a Coney Island institution since 1907. He helps oversee both front and back of house, preserving rare Italian-American dishes seldom found elsewhere. A sought-after culinary voice, Cutolo has been featured on the Today Show, CBS's The Dish, The New York Times, NBC New York, PIX11, and Fox's Good Day NY. Beyond the kitchen, he creates content championing classic Italian traditions and is now building his own digital platform dedicated to his culinary philosophy, signature recipes, and entrepreneurial ventures, establishing himself as a culinary entrepreneur for the next generation of food lovers.

Chef Matthew Cutolo was halfway through an accounting degree when his uncle called and asked one question — you coming to work when you're done? That was it. No speech, no pitch. He's been in the kitchen at Gargiulo's ever since, third generation now, running a Coney Island restaurant his family's had since 1965 in a building that's been slinging Italian food since 1907. A hundred and nineteen years in one spot.

I've had guys work under me for years before I'd actually show them anything real — call it selfish, call it survival, but you learn fast who wants to be great and who just wants the paycheck. Matthew's version of that is a guy named Mike the Bake, forty years as Gargiulo's pastry chef, the only man alive who ever had the cannoli recipe. He didn't just hand it to Matthew. Months of watching, no bowl, no measuring, nothing written down — and there's a theory on why Mike kept walking away mid-recipe for years that's got nothing to do with baking. It's about figuring out who's serious and who's just talking.

Socials

• Website
• Instagram @Matthewcutolo

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

Timestamps pulled from raw transcript paragraph-start markers — confirm exact in/out points against the edited cut before publishing.

00:00 — Cold open: a family business, a phone call, and the third generation who said yes

01:25 — Mike the Bake — the pastry chef who trained Matthew for over 40 years

06:28 — Was disappearing mid-recipe actually a test of whether Matthew really wanted it

08:57 — The pressure of running solo, and why no two written versions of the same recipe matched

12:16 — The phone call from Uncle Louie that pulled him out of an accounting degree

16:23 — Working with family — who wins the argument when the food's on the line

17:50 — Staying true to tradition while everyone else chases what's viral

20:28 — From an internship on The Chew to his first solo TV hit

27:22 — Jarring the sauce, shipping nationwide, and the real math on freight cost

29:17 — The Gargiulo wine on the way, and why he keeps building past the restaurant

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Jul 27, 2026 37 min

Rameking / The GlobalNova Growth | Michael Smith

Episode 78

Show notes

I had Michael Smith back on the podcast this week — round two with the guy behind Rameking, the only pre-filled portion cup dispenser out there, still running the whole operation with one other person out of Ohio. And yes, that jingle is still stuck in my head. It plays at the end of this episode too. You've been warned.

This episode is less about the product and more about what happens once you actually start posting. Michael went from 200 followers to a video sitting at three million views — no music, no editing, nothing polished about it, and the same thing that made people mad about it is the reason it worked. We get into that, and then into the real meat of the conversation: a private group he built called Global Nova, forty-some business owners trading warm introductions instead of competing for the same cold leads. No dues, no catch. Sounds like a nice idea in theory until you realize it's actually working for him.

Somewhere in the middle of all that we also cover why the standard sauce cup isn't cutting it anymore — blame the chicken tender for that one — and the one-word email trick that actually gets telemarketers to leave you alone. That's how these conversations go with Michael.

If you're trying to figure out what to actually do with the people already watching you, or you just want that Rameking song stuck in your head for the rest of the week — this one's for you.

Michael Smith / Rameking: http://rameking.com — available through US Foods, Sysco, and Amazon.

LinkedIn: Rameking / Michael Smith

Instagram @ramekingdom

Facebook @therameking

TikTok @ramekingdom

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Welcome back Michael Smith, and the jingle nobody can get out of their head

01:00 — What Rameking is, and the new 3.5–4oz cup coming because of chicken tender culture

02:59 — Rebuilding social media from 200 followers, and switching to an educational content style

05:20 — Recording 30–60 fifteen-second videos in a day, and the jingle sign-off on every one

06:33 — The Robopost CSV trick for scheduling a week of posts at once

09:45 — The raw, no-music TikTok video that hit 3 million views

13:25 — Why he built Global Nova instead of just growing a following

21:22 — What surprised him most about who joined — a Bar Rescue celebrity chef and Dart Containers

26:46 — Warm intros vs. cold outreach, and the trick to get telemarketers to actually leave you alone

29:03 — Audience vs. community vs. support group — the real difference

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Rameking (rameking.com) — portion cup dispenser, available through US Foods, Sysco, and Amazon

Robopost — social media scheduling app Michael uses to batch content, including CSV bulk uploads

Global Nova Group — private LinkedIn networking group Michael founded, ~42 members, free to join

George / Grill Advantage — mentor who helped shape Michael's educational content style

Brian Duffy — celebrity chef (Bar Rescue), Global Nova member

Dart Containers — sustainability lead is a Global Nova member

Levy Restaurants — Michael's former employer (GM, Ohio State) — kept as a warm-intro resource for the group

• Episode Art

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Jul 13, 2026 36 min

Oryx Desert Salt / Hydration From Ancient Underground Lake | Samantha Skyring

Episode 77

Show notes

Samantha Skyring is the founder and CEO of Oryx Desert Salt, a mineral-rich salt sourced from an ancient underground lake beneath Africa's Kalahari Desert — now stocked by Whole Foods and Woolworths, served in more than 3,500 restaurants, and supplied to JetBlue Airlines. We get into desert salt versus sea salt, the sodium and hydration science most people get backwards, and what's actually sitting in the "natural" sea salt in your pantry.

This one starts with Samantha walking 75 miles across the Skeleton Coast in Namibia in her twenties — the trip that put her face-to-face with the oryx antelope the brand is named after — and gets a lot more intense from there. Fifteen years ago, with a toddler to care for and no guarantee any of it would sell, she sold her house, bought 34 tonnes of desert salt, stored it in a garage unit, and started bottling it herself at her dining room table. That's how Oryx Desert Salt began. She'll also tell you, on tape, that table salt was invented as an industrial product around 1910 for paint and textiles, and that the chemicals added to make it "flow freely" are still in the shaker on your table today.

We cover what's actually harvested out of the ocean when a bag says "sea salt" — plastics, sewage, and in some cases radioactive waste from decades-old ocean dumping. Samantha walks through why sodium and hydration are more connected than most people realize, why she thinks "salt is bad for you" might be one of the more persistent food myths out there, and how she landed a national Whole Foods listing off three cold emails to a category buyer. We also get into the plastic-free, ceramic-mechanism grinder that kept over 894,500 plastic grinders out of landfill in 2024 alone.

Website: https://oryxdesertsalt.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oryxdesertsalt/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/oryxdesertsalt/?hl=en

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@oryxdesertsalt4081

Oryx Desert Salt can be found at

Amazon

Whole Foods

Direct on website

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Cold open: the five-month desert journey that started it all

01:18 — What Oryx Desert Salt is, and why an antelope is the logo

05:42 — She sold her house to buy 34 tons of desert salt

06:25 — Inside the Kalahari salt pan: 55 million tons, bigger than Texas

10:00 — What's actually in your sea salt (plastics, sewage, radioactive waste)

12:27 — Table salt's origin story: an industrial product from 1910

17:15 — "Salt is bad for you" — dismantling the biggest nutrition myth on the planet

26:26 — How she landed a national Whole Foods listing with three emails

32:15 — Getting on JetBlue and Amtrak

37:12 — The "tequila fist" taste test and what chefs are saying

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Jul 6, 2026 47 min

Chris Valdes: The Chef Storyteller / BAM / Smell—O-Vision

Episode 76

Show notes

Chris Valdes is a Miami-based chef and TV personality best known for Food Network Star, who's spent the last eleven years building a media career out of catering, storytelling, and refusing to let anyone else write his story for him.

This one didn't feel like a normal chef interview. We got into what it actually takes to build a brand before you have a team, how much of yourself you let a producer or a platform write for you versus protecting your own voice, and where AI actually earns a place in a professional kitchen instead of just taking over. Chris talks about grit in a way that doesn't feel like a quote on a slide — it's lived in.

We also ended up in Miami's Latin fusion food scene, the right way to cook a pot of black beans, and somehow my own Father's Day cookout. That's how these conversations go.

Connect

Website

Instagram

Youtube

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

4. CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

Timestamps pulled from the final edited transcript (with intro narration) — these supersede the earlier raw-recording chapter list.

00:00 — Cold open: how Chris built a media brand on purpose

04:17 — Starting a catering company at 19 — the -$267 first event

08:06 — Staying authentic vs. playing a character on TV

11:31 — When cooking turned into storytelling (the Le Cordon Bleu essay & Emeril's "BAM")

15:54 — Why people actually connect with his content

23:20 — Jeff's own jump from corporate to entrepreneur

26:23 — The bride who almost didn't hire him — and 11 years of loyalty since

32:12 — Miami's Latin fusion food scene + the black beans recipe

42:13 — AI, tech, and what's actually changing in food media

53:22 — What's next: the next chapter as a storyteller

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Jun 29, 2026 56 min

The Nomad Cook / The Culinary Art of Cannabis / Life Beyond The Pop-Ups | Travis Peterson

Episode 75

Show notes

Travis Petersen is the chef and founder behind Nomad Cook, a culinary cannabis brand that's hosted more than 1,200 cannabis-infused pop-up dinners in 117 cities across 37 states, and the person who helped the American Culinary Federation build its first cannabis chef certification course. He got his start on MasterChef at 31, years into a sales career in oil and gas — and built everything else from there.

He bombed his tacos and got eliminated in the second episode, three minutes of total airtime. Ten days later, a recession hit his oil and gas company and he got laid off with a year's severance. That accident of timing is the entire reason Nomad Cook exists. He calls it the stars aligning; it's also just a guy who decided to spend a free year finding out if he could actually cook.

We get into how a newspaper photo of a sold-out cannabis dinner sent him into his own backyard for his first pop-up, and how that snowballed into touring 20 days a month with 500 pounds of gear and a sous chef in tow. He breaks down what terpenes actually are — sativa and indica only describe how the plant grows, not how it makes you feel.

He's also walking away from the touring life at the height of it. His last public Nomad Cook pop-up dinner is September 5th in Miami, and after that he's moving Nomad Cook into education only while he starts a new venture helping small businesses with AI automation.

Social

Instagram: the_nomadcook

Website: https://www.thenomadcook.com/

ACF Cannabis Course

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Intro: Travis Petersen, the Nomad Cook

02:24 — The first backyard pop-up

04:48 — From oil and gas to MasterChef

09:54 — Writing the cookbook, building the ACF certification

15:02 — What a cannabis dinner actually is

19:05 — Terpenes, the entourage effect, and the mango trick

23:20 — Inside the dosing system

27:49 — Why the touring life is ending

33:25 — The Paris takeover surprise

51:23 — What's next: education and AI

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Jun 22, 2026 58 min

P!ing / The Robot Coffee Drive Thru Disrupting the $50B Business | Rob Whitten & Jane Lo

Episode 74

Show notes

Rob Whitten and Jane Lo are the co-founders and co-CEOs of p!ng — a robotics-powered coffee company building 120-square-foot autonomous pods that take your order before you arrive and hand you a finished drink in under 30 seconds, with no one behind the window. Rob is a West Point graduate and former robotics leader at Amazon and iRobot. Jane is a brand strategist and Booth MBA who spent her career inside customer experience at Forrester and SharkNinja. Together, they're going after the $50 billion coffee industry with an idea that sounds like science fiction until you realize how much of the modern drive-thru is broken.

They didn't start with the robot. Rob ran a food truck first — flipping eggs on two four-foot griddles — just to learn the food business from the inside before he ever touched automation. And in the early pilot, when customers pulled up to what looked like a fully automated pod, Rob and Jane were behind a curtain inside, making the drinks by hand, Wizard-of-Oz style, just to prove people would actually want this. The twist? When customers found out there was a person inside, they were disappointed. They wanted the magic to be real.

That tension — building real automation without losing the human side of hospitality — runs through the whole conversation. We get into how p!ng's "sensor-augmented geofencing" actually identifies which car you're sitting in before you reach the window (your phone is doing more work than you think), why they chose Cometeer flash-frozen coffee extract over brewing on-site, how a fifty-plus-ingredient menu gets built around what robots can actually do well, and what their Robotics-as-a-Service franchise model looks like for someone who wants to own a pod without ever having to learn robotics.

P!ing - Where to find

Website — https://pingthru.com/

TikTok — @pingthru

Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/pingthrucoffee/

LinkedIn (company) — https://www.linkedin.com/company/pingthru/

YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@pingthru

Instagram — @pingthrucoffee

Jane Lo — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-lo-ping/

Rob Whitten — https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-whitten-pingthru/

Wefunder — http://wefunder.com/ping

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

https://hospitalitychain.com/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:10 — Intro: Rob Whitten & Jane Lo, p!ng

01:28 — Origin story: food trucks, robot armies, and how p!ng came together

09:50 — Hand-building the first pod in a driveway

13:02 — "The guy in the box" — why customers wanted the magic to be real

14:49 — Restocking and the hub-and-spoke model

18:02 — Sensor-augmented geofencing explained

22:19 — Why p!ng uses Cometeer flash-frozen coffee

26:14 — Building a 50-ingredient menu a robot can run

30:23 — Robotics-as-a-Service: the franchise model

38:21 — What's next: 24/7 pods, WeFunder, no-tip pricing

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Jun 15, 2026 47 min

The Freight Behind Your Food / Global Supply Chains | Ian Sutherland

Episode 73

Show notes

Ian Sutherland is the co-founder of World Freight Direct — a dedicated industry platform for global freight and logistics — and brings 55 years of combined freight experience to the table with his wife and co-founder Kath. He was back on Fell Into Food this week to talk about the thing that makes everything in your restaurant, your kitchen, and your supply chain actually move: global freight.

Most people in food think about supply chains when something goes wrong. A delivery doesn't show up. A price spikes overnight. A product disappears from the shelf. Ian has spent thirty years watching what happens before that — and in this conversation, we got into it from the ground up.

We covered how international freight actually works: the four modes of transport, what a bill of lading is and why it matters, how a freight forwarder functions as the connective tissue between a seller in Australia and a buyer in Chicago, and what's physically happening inside a container when equipment travels across an ocean to land at your booth at the National Restaurant Show. I walked through his own experience unloading overseas freight for the first time this year — and yes, it looks nothing like what you'd expect.

Then things got interesting. We talked fertilizer. Not the bag you buy at a garden center — the bulk-shipped global commodity that Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., Canada, and China all export, and that the world's food bowl cannot function without. Ian broke down why ammonium nitrate that grows your crops is the same compound that leveled the port of Beirut in 2020 — one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in modern history. The connection between what's in your soil, what's in your food, and what can happen when it's handled wrong is something most people in the industry have never thought about.

We also got into World Freight Direct — the platform Ian and Kath have been building and rebuilding for eighteen years. It's a vertical industry platform that connects freight forwarders, customs agents, 3PLs, shipping lines, and specialty food and beverage companies in one place. Ian explains how it integrates with Hospitality Chain (Episode 58) so that the two industries that can't exist without each other can finally find each other on one platform. And we closed on AI, automation, the death of email, and why neither Ian nor Jeff think the relationship part of this business is going anywhere.

Find Ian

https://worldfreightdirect.com/

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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CHAPTERS / TIME00:10 — Intro: Ian Sutherland returns — World Freight Direct and 30 years in freight

01:04 — Ian's background: wife got him in, marine roots, 55 years combined with co-founder Kath

05:34 — How international freight works: 4 modes of transport, bill of lading, freight forwarders

10:12 — Unloading a container: what's actually inside and why it looks nothing like you'd expect

12:17 — Fertilizer: what it's made of and why the global food supply depends on it

14:44 — The Beirut port explosion: 2,500 tons of ammonium nitrate and what it did

18:06 — The pandemic in Melbourne: most locked down city in the world, 268 days

24:37 — The stat: freight + hospitality = over 20% of the global workforce

26:18 — World Freight Direct: 18 years to build, rebuilt 4 times, why vertical platforms matter now

37:42 — AI agents in freight: how automation will close deals faster than any email ever could

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Jun 8, 2026 51 min

Taste Events / Tong Talks / It’s Not Speed Dating | Ethan Kjesbo & Cass Burson

Episode 72

Show notes

I've known Ethan and Cass for a while now, and every time I'm around them I walk away thinking the same thing — these guys just get it. Not just the event business, but the people side of this industry. That's what Taste Events is built on.

They co-founded a curated B2B food service event company that takes everything broken about the trade show model and fixes it. We're talking 150–200 people, chain operators and suppliers who actually belong in the room together, and one-on-one meetings built around an intelligence dossier pulled from real conversations — not a generic booth pitch. The whole thing is designed so that when you sit down, it matters.

We talked about how they built it, what made them realize "anti-trade show" was the wrong framing, and how they're keeping events fresh without losing what makes them special. We also got into NRA — what's trending on the floor (clean label is in, meat analogs are fading), how they work the show, and what actually gets done at Portillo's at midnight.

Oh, and somewhere in there Ethan ate sardines on the show floor to start a conversation. Worked like a charm. He also runs a tin fish review account on TikTok called Tinnies with the Boys. I have no notes on that — just go follow it.

Find Taste Events:

• LinkedIn: @TasteEvents
• Instagram: @TasteEvents
• Website: http://thetasteevents.com

Timestamps

[00:00] Cold open — Nutter Butter on TikTok is an acid trip

[01:17] How Ethan and Cass got pulled deeper into food service

[03:25] What a Taste Event actually is — the model explained

[08:09] The intelligence dossier and why it's not speed dating

[09:21] The extracurriculars — Taste Tour, dinners, and where the real magic happens

[14:37] NRA reflections — Year 2, Portillo's at midnight, and trends on the floor

[21:36] Tong Talks origin story — Hannah Lopez, a mic, and a pair of tongs

[24:20] Good people, good times, good business — and how you protect that as you grow

[29:26] Advice for anyone at a crossroads: if it makes you nervous, lean in

[35:48] Next event info + where to find them

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

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Jun 1, 2026 37 min

STEVE MCHUGH: CURED / THE SCIENCE OF CURING, AGING & MOLD

Episode 71

Show notes

Chef Steve McHugh is a six-time James Beard Award finalist, the author of Cured, and the founder of the celebrated San Antonio charcuterie restaurant of the same name — a 12-year run built entirely around preservation, dry aging, fermentation, and the science of what happens when you take time seriously with meat.

Steve grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, trained at the CIA, and cut his teeth in John Besh's kitchens in New Orleans before a lymphoma diagnosis stopped him mid-career. He finished treatment, moved to Texas, and opened Cured at the Pearl Brewery — a restaurant centered on whole-animal butchery, handmade charcuterie, and a custom aging case that eventually became one of the most interesting preservation programs in the country.

In this conversation, we get into the real science behind curing and dry aging: what 60/60/60 actually means and when it doesn't apply, the difference between EQ curing and salt box method, why water is the enemy of every preservation technique, and how mold — the right mold — is the thing that keeps your case healthy and your flavors complex. Steve talks about how COVID wiped out twelve years of charcuterie inventory in three months, and how his wife's idea to fill the empty case with dry-aged beef turned into a second revenue engine. We also go deep on fish dry aging, wet aging, rapid aging claims, and one of my favorite moments in recent podcast memory: Steve debunking the "uncured bacon" label at the grocery store. Spoiler — they're curing it with celery. They're just not telling you.

If you're a chef trying to understand preservation, an operator thinking about a dry aging program, or just someone who wants to know what's actually in that pack of bacon be sure to listen all the way through.

Steve McHugh: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook: @ChefSteveMcHugh

Book: Cured — available anywhere books are sold

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/55qBuFe9dQh5jLLdg0KLoL?si=08455ef88e554b91

Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

• 00:00 — Introduction
• 01:17 — Farm life, work ethic & finding the kitchen
• 07:26 — CIA, New Orleans & John Besh
• 09:43 — Lymphoma, recovery & opening Cured
• 15:08 — Curing vs. dry aging: the science explained
• 22:05 — How COVID created an accidental dry aging program
• 29:03 — Mold: why it's your best employee
• 43:05 — Dry aging fish
• 48:01 — Uncured bacon: the truth
• 52:01 — Life after Cured & what's next

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May 25, 2026 57 min

CHERIE CALBOM:THE JUICE LADY ON WHAT IS MAKING US SICK

Episode 70

Show notes

Cherie Calbom — known as The Juice Lady — holds a Master of Science in Nutrition, has authored 36 books with over 3.5 million copies sold, and has spent decades studying the connection between what we eat and how we feel. Her latest book, The Truth About Seed Oils, digs into how "heart-healthy" vegetable oils became the default in the American kitchen — and what that's quietly done to our health.

The story of seed oils doesn't start in a kitchen. It starts with cotton waste rotting in piles at the turn of the 20th century. A dark, smelly oil originally used to lubricate machinery was refined, deodorized, bleached, and rebranded as a modern American cooking staple. World War II did the rest — when ships carrying coconut oil couldn't get through the waters, seed oil manufacturers filled the gap, hired cookbook authors, lobbied hard, and told home cooks this was the healthier, more modern choice. Heart disease went up anyway. It's still the number one killer.

In this episode, Cherie breaks down the lipid hypothesis, the influence of Ancel Keys, what actually happens inside a seed oil refinery (hexane, bleaching agents, degumming — not pretty), why the omega-6 to omega-3 imbalance is driving chronic inflammation, and what the research shows about seed oils' connection to anxiety, depression, and aggression. She also fields the strongest counter-argument — a 2025 JAMA study suggesting people with the highest seed oil intake were 16% less likely to die — and explains why she's skeptical.

And then there's her own story. In her 20s, Cherie was bedridden with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia — sleeping 12 hours a day, waking up exhausted, unable to walk around the block. She couldn't work. She moved back home. Five days into a juice fast, her body expelled a tumor the size of a golf ball, blood vessels attached. Three months later, she woke up feeling like someone gave her a new body in the middle of the night. That experience sent her back to school to get her master's degree so she could be a credible voice for everyone else trying to find their way out.

Socials:

Cherie Calbom, M.S. — The Juice Lady Website: http://www.juiceladyinfo.com/

Instagram: @juiceladycherie

X (Twitter): @JuiceLadyCherie

TikTok: @juiceladycherie

YouTube Shorts: TheJuiceLadyCherie

LinkedIn: Cherie Calbom Book: The Truth About Seed Oils — available on Amazon App: Seed Oil Scout (link on her site — click the book on the homepage)

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/

Chapters:

00:00 — Intro: Meet Cherie Calbom, The Juice Lady

00:40 — The Dark History of Seed Oils: From Cotton Waste to Your Kitchen

03:10 — The Lipid Hypothesis, Ancel Keys, and Why Heart Disease Never Got Better

06:00 — Inside a Seed Oil Refinery: Hexane, Bleaching, and Toxic Byproducts

07:45 — The Omega-6 to Omega-3 Imbalance Driving Chronic Inflammation

10:00 — The Counter-Argument: What Does the 2025 JAMA Study Actually Say?

13:30 — The Real Cost of Cheap Oil (And What to Do If You Can't Afford the Swap)

19:10 — Seed Oils, Anxiety, Depression, and Aggression

21:45 — Cherie's Story: Bedridden in Her 20s, Healed in Three Months, and a Tumor the Size of a Golf Ball

29:05 — What Cherie Eats, Seed-Oil-Free Swaps, and One Action to Take This Week

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May 11, 2026 40 min

RON CARDWELL: RTI / THE GREAT SEED OIL DEBATE

Episode 69

Show notes

Ron Cardwell, Director of Commodity Strategy at Restaurant Technologies (RTI), runs point on cooking oil for the company that pioneered automated oil management — the closed-loop system that delivers fresh oil and pulls used oil out of more than 40,000 restaurants. We get into the seed oil debate, allergen myths, beef tallow's comeback, and what actually happens to the used oil in your fryer.

Ron's nickname is "The Oil Nerd." He earned it. He started in soybean processing out of college, fell in love with how oil touches every corner of food and energy, and has been deep in commodity strategy ever since. RTI moves more than 700 million pounds of fresh oil into restaurants every year and pulls hundreds of millions of pounds of used oil back out — and almost all of it ends up as renewable diesel, biodiesel, or sustainable aviation fuel.

We dig into how operators should actually think about oil — flavor, function, and price, in that order, not the other way around. Why "buy the cheapest" is a trap that costs you more in turnover and bad food. The seed oil vs. beef tallow debate — what's signal and what's noise, what the real trade-offs are on flavor, supply, and price when you switch. The allergen question that comes up at every front-of-house every week — and why a fully refined and deodorized oil doesn't carry the allergen at all (Ron settles this one on tape). What pourable beef tallow actually is and why it exists. Why high-oleic crop breeding is changing what "stable frying oil" even means. The full-circle history — beef tallow → saturated fat fear → trans fats → seed oil blends → consumers asking for tallow back. And the part of Ron's job he loves most: turning used fryer oil into renewable diesel at roughly 20% the carbon intensity of conventional diesel.

Socials and Links:

Website: http://www.rti-inc.com

RTI 2025 Impact Report: https://www.rti-inc.com/blog/restaurant-technologies-recycled-more-than-390-million-lbs-of-uco-in-2025/

Ron Cardwell Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-cardwell-21a7531a6/

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Intro and welcome: Ron Cardwell, Director of Commodity Strategy at Restaurant Technologies

01:31 — How Ron earned the nickname "The Oil Nerd"

02:44 — Why oil is one of three core nutrition components — and the most functional

03:49 — What "Director of Commodity Strategy" actually means day-to-day

05:09 — Quick recap of RTI's closed-loop oil system (referencing Ep 17 with Diana)

05:24 — The most dangerous job in a kitchen — and why bulk delivery eliminates it

07:12 — Jeff's experience as a former RTI customer

08:32 — RTI's 2025 Impact Report — released Earth Day, recycling stats

09:36 — Choosing oil: the three variables operators actually need to weigh

11:24 — The trap of buying the cheapest oil

12:13 — Flavor profiles by oil type — neutral vs. flavored oils

14:39 — The allergen question — settled on tape

16:15 — How operators (and customers) can verify allergen status — the supplier statement

18:32 — The seed oil vs. beef tallow debate — what's signal, what's noise

21:03 — Switching to tallow — flavor, supply, and price reality

24:58 — Why beef tallow is a byproduct, not a planned crop — supply ceiling

27:13 — Beef tallow handling — the solid block, the cleanup, the pourable version

29:23 — Glass vs. plastic and why dark storage matters more than the bottle

30:30 — Sustainability: where the used oil actually goes

32:58 — Where the oil category goes next — high-oleic, crop breeding, consumer demand

35:59 — The full circle: tallow → saturated fat fear → trans fats → blends → tallow comeback

37:20 — The one thing every operator should change Monday morning

37:55 — How to actually monitor oil quality day-to-day — smell, taste, look

38:55 — Where to find Ron and RTI — NRA Show, rti-inc.com

39:35 — Wrap up

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.

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Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food