Beyond the Shelf

Dianna Lovett, Founder of Cocomama, discusses her lifelong love affair of chocolate and her big hearted wish for a world in which delicious treats could be enjoyed with peace of mind. Lovett wanted to create a company that would utilize only ethically responsible cocoa while supporting small-scale farmers. She traveled the world from West Africa to Central America to find the perfect beans and discovered FUNDOPO, an Organic, Fair Trade cooperative in the Dominican Republic.

Mark Tilsen President and Co-Founder of Native American Natural Foods, the innovator of the first national meat snack bar, Tanka Bar, joins our podcast. Tilsen explains how the Tanka Bar is helping break the social, economic, and political isolation of the Indian reservation where it is produced and how buffalo meat is healthier and more environmentally sustainable than beef. 

ESPN Writer Baxter Holmes joins the “Just a Taste” podcast to discuss his James Beard Award winning article titled “The NBA’s Secret Addiction”. This article explores how PB&J sandwiches became a favorite snack for players and teams across the league. It also dives into the level of devotion they had to this childhood favorite, from grilling the sandwiches to having full on buffets with multiple jams and condiments.

Washington Post Reporter, Maura Judkis, joins us to open eyes on the problem of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry and also discuss lighthearted topics like the dining habits of millennials.Judkis explains how and why sexual harassment became so prevalent in restaurants and what is being done, or unfortunately not being done, now that it has been exposed. On a very different note, she reveals how millennial dining habits are shaping the food industry. 

Celebrity chef, yoga fanatic, mom, wife and word traveler, Melissa Mayo, shares her unique experiences and beliefs on this week’s episode of Just a Taste.Mayo discusses a wide range of topics that include her journey from accountant to celebrity chef, how thoughts can sculpt your health and the excitement of opening her dream cooking school in Tuscany.

Mike Cockrell, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of Sanderson Farms – the 3rd largest poultry producer in the United States – explains how honest business practices and honest relationships has led to their success.Cockrell speaks with expertise and insight since he has experienced it all at Sanderson farms. From their humble beginnings as a small chicken hatchery in rural Mississippi to their perch atop the poultry world producing 4.5 billion pounds of chicken each year, gain valuable insight into Sanderson Farms and the poultry industry in this episode of Just a Taste.

In a world where lean, successful companies are often bought out by massive conglomerates, Beaverton Foods, a condiments business founded in 1929, has remained true to its roots of being a family-owned business with a focus on producing quality products and taking good care of its associates.The CEO of Beaverton Foods, Domonic Biggi, speaks with ChefsBest on this episode of Just a Taste about the company’s humble beginnings during the Great Depression as well as what business is like today. He also shares insights on working with family, appreciating the hard work and sacrifice of older generations, and not being afraid to fail when releasing new products. 

Stefan Gates is an author, TV presenter, and self-proclaimed “gastronaut” who is obsessed with the strange and adventurous stories behind food and digestion. His interest in food began while he was attending Oxford University. As a poor college student, he couldn’t exactly afford to take a date out to a nice place, so naturally he learned to cook. Later, he got fed up with wimpy food writing and decided to try this sort of writing out for himself, and voila! He found his passion experimenting with recipes and blowing up food for fun.From the most excited descriptions of food you may ever hear to the different ways people taste to the moral importance of playing with what’s on your plate, Gates ushers us through a fascinating and creative exploration of food in this episode of Just a Taste.

With hundreds of billions of dollars lost each year to food waste, the food system has a serious oversupply issue. Food waste continues to be a massive problem while 68% of farmers are on the verge of bankruptcy and 42 million Americans are food insecure. Notice the discrepancy here? So does FoodMaven.Lots of people have tried to solve the food waste problem, but FoodMaven’s model, which is currently running out of and will be expanding from Colorado, is different. After all, the startup was able to secure investor funding and board representation from big-names like Walter Robb, who is the former co-CEO of Whole Foods, and the Walton family. Patrick Bultema is chairman, CEO, and co-founder of FoodMaven. This startup ain’t his first rodeo though; FoodMaven is “CEO Gig #7” for him. In this episode of Just a Taste, Patrick tells us all about the causes and effects of food waste as well as FoodMaven’s innovative solutions to this pressing issue. 

Phil Lempert, cleverly known as the Supermarket Guru®, has been identifying impending trends in the food and beverage industry for over 25 years. In this episode of Just a Taste, we learn what started Phil down his path, trends such as intelligent search engines that are re-shaping the industry, and what consumers these days are really after when grocery shopping. We also discourse on the importance of taste to the consumer, how we really ought to listen to millennials instead of bashing their ideas, and even which app can help you pick out the best seafood.