Fell Into Food Podcast

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 actuall...

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...

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...

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 caree...

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...

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 15...

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 J...

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...

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....

Maddie Hamann left classified Navy submarine research and a PhD in oceanography to co-found PACHA — a regenerative, gluten-free sprouted buckwheat bread now on shelves at Whole Foods. This is how that happened. There's a version of this story where Maddie finishes the PhD, takes the nine-to-five, and spends the next forty years in academia. She was already living it. Instead, she blurted one s...

Everybody calls them headhunters. Nichole calls herself a matchmaker — and after this conversation, you'll understand why that one word change says everything about how recruiting in hospitality is supposed to work. Nichole Bajko started in an Italian deli at 15, went to NIU for hospitality (mostly for the kegs and eggs, her words), did seven years with Marriott including opening The Cosmopoli...

There's a version of being a chef that nobody teaches you in culinary school. No white coat. No ticket rail. No guest feedback at the end of the night. Just you, your palate, and the future of what a billion people are going to eat. Furquan has lived that version. He interned at Noma in 2022 — got offered a contract by week two — and ended up leaving not because of the controversy that's s...

Most people talk about sustainability from a conference stage. Chef Matthew Beaudin talks about it from a trash beach in Ghana where someone just threatened to stab him. Matthew is a VP of Culinary for Higher Education, and he's spent the last decade logging 250 to 280 days a year on the road — Vietnam, Ghana, the Mekong Delta, a barbecue joint in Texas where he got the last two sandwiches bec...

What if a mom and pop restaurant could have the same marketing firepower as a brand that dropped millions on a Super Bowl ad — without shutting down the kitchen for a day or blowing through their whole year's budget? Chris Gilmore spent years in the trenches of food service — from delivering pizzas at Pizza Ranch to running eight Noodles & Company locations across Kansas City, to learning...

The food and beverage industry has a massive blind spot — and it's hiding in plain sight. Brands spend thousands flying reps across the country to do in-store demos, while 90% of shoppers walk right past them without ever knowing the event was happening. There's no centralized place to find where samples are. Until now. This week I sit down with Al Schuster, founder and president of Polari...

In the demanding world of the food industry, many professionals struggle with mental health and self-care. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or burned out, you’re not alone. The food industry is known for its high stress and long hours, often leading to burnout among professionals. This week I welcome back Mike Messerroff. Mike is a 30-year hospitality industry veteran turned Personal Freedom Coach an...

Navigating the bustling world of bars and restaurants often presents unique challenges, especially for bartenders who juggle multiple tasks each night. But what if there was a way to simplify one of the most tedious jobs? In this weeks episode, we delve into the inspiring journey of Naoki Sonoda, a former bartender who identified a significant pain point in the industry and turned it into an innov...

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally got one of my favorite people, Chef Alvy Lima, back in the studio. Alvy has been flying all over the world lately, and he’s back to give us the download on everything from his newest business ventures to the shifts he's seeing in global food trends. We jump right into the deep end of the "tech vs. tradition" debate, specifically looking at h...

My guest today is a high-level designer and tech visionary who has spent his career at the intersection of human behavior and digital innovation. From building a music curation startup to working at tech giants like Square and Lyft, Mario Gomez-Hall has always been obsessed with one thing: Curation . Growing up with a father who consulted for fisheries, he has a deep-rooted respect for the food in...

Ian Sutherland’s background in logistics began with his wife, who had extensive experience in freight and shipping. Together, they have accumulated over 50 years in the industry, specializing in containerization and managing large-scale events. Ian's expertise led him to work on major projects, including the Sydney Olympics and the Australian Grand Prix, where he learned the importance of meti...

In the latest episode of the Fell into Food podcast, I chat with Emmanuel Laroche, a flavor explorer and author, to uncover the hidden culinary gems of Madagascar. Known for its rich biodiversity and unique food culture, Madagascar offers much more than just vanilla; it is a treasure trove of flavors waiting to be discovered. Emmanuel Laroche, with a background in organic chemistry and an MBA in m...

This week on the Fell Into Food podcast, I’m doing something I’ve never done before—a solo episode. I realized that while I’ve shared bits and pieces of my background with guests, I’ve never actually told you the full story of how I got here. This episode is just as much for me as it is for my listeners. I was scared, nervous, anxious, and everything in between deciding to hit record. My goal was...

In a world where culinary creativity often collides with traditional methods, Chef Charles Wong has carved a niche for himself in the bustling food scene of Chicago. Transitioning from a successful finance career to becoming the pit master of Umamicue, he is redefining barbecue by fusing Central Texas techniques with the rich flavors of his Vietnamese and Chinese heritage. Join us as we delve into...

In the world of hospitality, genuine passion often stems from unique personal histories. Seth Alexander, co-founder of Barrel Aged Management, exemplifies this truth through his remarkable journey from a deli in South Florida to managing high-profile restaurant ventures across the nation. Join us as we explore the insights and experiences that shaped his career in the food and beverage industry. S...

In Part 2 of my conversation with Pedrom Rejai, we pick up right at his pivotal decision to leave a secure corporate career to launch Elevate Growth Partners. We discuss the "midlife crisis" that led him to Mexico City and the corporate habits he had to unlearn to become a founder. We dive deep into the tech side of food, covering why spreadsheets are liability traps , how AI is revolution...