jobTopia with Tony Moore

Season 3 Episode 1 ~ Boxed Water: The Rise of Lifestyle Brands and The Fall of Plastic ~ Connect with Rob Koenen https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-koenen-6550017/ Connect with Matt Kovacs https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjkovacs/ Connect with Tony Moore https://www.linkedin.com/in/differentbetterspecialbrands/ ATTRACT the hidden candidate market with a novel candidate attraction program ( DEMO ) Matt...

Anirudh "Ani" Mamtora is a classically trained pastry chef who studied and trained in France and traveled the world perfecting his love of sweet pastries. Ani represents every food entrepreneur that has a fantastic-tasting product and dreams of turning their baked treat into a brand. Ani has much to tell us about his journey. There are still many more summits to climb and as he scales, we will be...

Sara Delaney suffered through a difficult personal trauma. How would she pick up the pieces of her life? Could she? Pulling herself up, she looked for healing and found her inspiration in the women of Rwanda who survived the horrific genocide in 1994.  From her personal experiences and the life-saving gift she found in East Africa, she vowed to pay it forward and bless those that helped her. Disco...

With a reach of 180 restaurants across 22 states and 150 more planned, Steve's Schulze's mission to reinvent the food experience is flourishing. Consumers want delicious AND "Good for You." Steve's vision and strategic planning enabled Nekter to flourish, and he shares his wisdom and key learnings with us in this episode of Winning at Work. Reinventing the Food Experience Origin story Small menus...

Whether you manage a single person or an organization of over 10,000, you each have the same responsibility! How do you connect a company's mission and vision to an employee's purpose in life? Folks the HR game has changed! Employees have the power now. They want an experience, not just a paycheck.   Today I bring you a great storyteller who has helped his organization stay on trend - Michael Fiat...

It's so simple it's brilliant! Ask 100 food or beverage entrepreneurs how or why they started their businesses. For some, they knew they had a great product and they expanded from the family kitchen outward. Some find whitespaces - niche areas that are underserved.  Others start with a mission and are purpose-driven first. Andre and his co-founder started with a global mission and built a business...

Happy Thanksgiving all!   Here are a few other famous Quotes from our Founding Fathers (from www. Wallbuilders.org) About five weeks into the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when they were attempting to draft the U. S. Constitution, their efforts were a signal failure. As things were beginning to break up and delegates return home to their states, (Benjamin) Franklin challenged them and called t...

We're No Evil Foods, and we can hear your stomachs rumbling. We know you're hungry for our Plant Meat and that you've had a hard time getting your hands on them in local stores. We're tired of bumming you out, so we're taking matters into our own hands and bringing our meats back to the masses, via your front door! Help us relaunch our online Butcher Shop so we can ship our Plant Meat to hungry mo...

2019 was known as the year of White Claw. And as beverage manufacturers scrambled to profit from the new spiked seltzer category, one group of beverage pioneers asked the more important question. What gave rise to this trend and what will the good for you revolution bring next? Chris Allen and Vicente Surraco believe Osena Spiked Coconut Water is the next evolution in "Good for You" alcohol. Chris...

Manuka honey is a premium, functional honey from New Zealand, and not the ordinary honey in a plastic bear!  Did you know bees are nearly extinct in 8 US states? Crazy but true. Learn about the world's most unique honey and how it is sold and marketed as a "challenger" brand.  Connect with Corey Blick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corey-blick-781a9b4/ Connect with Matt Kovacs: https://w...

Jay-Z’s corporate catering platform, Hungry, acquired Nature Box, the tech-enabled healthy snack business in 2022. Why? What is the business rationale? What corporate trends is Hungry addressing? What can we learn from this? Hint – every CEO is pondering this question as people come back to the office!  Joining me today to answer these important questions is the brain behind the business, John Occ...

Kun Yang and his co-founder Mohammed Hassoun are on a journey to create the greatest cactus company in the world. Mo rediscovered a delightful childhood drink made from the prickly pear cactus. Kun recognized the health benefits. They knew the drink would "check the functional boxes", but that wasn't the essence behind the beverage. Sustainability and 'Good for You' are major benefits of the cactu...

The meal kit delivery industry is estimated to be worth $11.6 billion! Lockdowns accelerated adoption, but with those authoritarian policies in the rear-view mirror, customers are back to eating out more.  Unphased by this trend, one brand continues to surge and has scaled from a single farmers market and a garage distribution center into every zip code in America - meet Sunbasket!  Mike Wargocki,...

Continuing our theme of Costco brands, Jeremy Smith shares his unique perspective on why Costco is the King of Club. His brokerage is dedicated to helping brands get fitted and prepared to enter Costco. Stick around for the trends he expects in 2023, too. Connect with Jeremy Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-smith-8aa3281/ Connect with Matt Kovacs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjkovacs/...

I had a great time catching up with my foodservice buddy, Thaddeus Thorne, the new VP at My/Mochi. Foodservice has changed - it's tougher to get in! Listen in as Thaddeus explains the new reality of Foodservice distribution.  We touch on sustainable packing and why it's damn tough for recycling solutions to take off. But there is hope with the rising generation of college students. Connect with Th...

How does a beef lover and self-titled ‘meat head’ become the leader of a plant-based protein company? God has a sense of humor! Rody Hawkins, with his Ph. D. in Meat Science, worked for two of the world’s largest food manufacturers as a food scientist, head of R&D, and new product development where he learned firsthand, what new ideas will work, and which ones won't.  Rody is personally responsibl...

They saw the KETO trend coming. Consumers are moving away from high-sugar snacks. They want great tasting, low sugar, low carb food with extra protein.  Brand expert Peter Vas Das, President of Genius Gourmet, and his team used the Amazon DTC platform to incubate and innovate what is now one of the fastest growing KETO brands on the market! Launched in 2019, Genius Gourmet is now over $20 million...

With nearly 300 SKUs of ice cream competing for limited freezer space, you have to boot a brand out to get in! So the questions are how do you build a brand in the freezer? What brings the consumer into the grocery store? How do you find new customers to try your brand?  Vedant Saboo and Mike Webber, co-founders of Frutero Ice Cream, join Winning at Work to share their start-up story and key learn...

The #1 channel for beverages, especially impulse purchases, is none other than your local convenience store. With 155,000 points of distribution around the country and annualized revenue of ~ $650 billion, C-Stores are hyper-local innovation hubs for testing new designs and flavors.  These aren't your grandfather's gas stations! Yes, you still find candy bars, gum, and sugary sodas, but the good-f...

Your totally different, better, and special brand is killing it in the local marketplace. Everyone loves it! Now what? Get it into distribution!    Richard Byers, the Divison President of Cash-Wa joins me to discuss how to get your totally awesome brand into a distributor. Discover the strategies established and start-up brands use to grow revenue through a distributor partnership.  What's in a na...

In the uber-competitive QSR marketplace, restaurant owners face labor shortages, rising expenses, shrinking supply chains, and customers that expect the brand to "give back" to the community. Jeff Kiesel, the CEO of Restaurant Technologies, a QSR veteran, joins the Winning at Work podcast to discuss these trends and his mission to make safer, smarter sustainable kitchens. Oil is the heart of any s...

Challenger brands must be different, better, and special and hold that perception with the consumer. Commodities are in a race to the bottom, according to Daniel Doll, COO of SoapBox Soaps and Bushwick Kitchen. Daniel is a DTC expert and has built an infrastructure allowing their organization the flexibility to acquire brands and integrate them into a proven, successful DTC model (direct to consum...

Innovation for innovation's sake? Science for science's sake? When it comes to food and beverages, we answer these questions with a resounding NO! Advancements must be made practical and accessible for everyone.  Caroline Beckman is passionate about meeting the consumer where they are and loving them too much to leave them there.  Origin story Proud college dropout She began her career early withi...

Influencers can drive retail sales, but a brand needs a sophisticated and coordinated marketing campaign to make retailers take notice. Today I am joined by the President and CEO of Stanmar International and the dessert brand, Simply Delish. Martin Pamensky built a successful brand through strategic partnerships and influencer marketing, and they are fighting childhood hunger by donating quality f...

40% of food is wasted resulting in a $7 billion dollar loss each year. Meanwhile, Consumer brands are leading the effort to make sustainability a requirement within the supply chain. Farmers are adopting better practices such as regenerative agriculture, and companies like FruitSmart are upcycling food that isn't suited for retail. Combined, these efforts create a more sustainable food supply chai...