Behind the Plate - Trailer 2

Antonio Howell Interviewed shared several clips from the, Behind the Plate podcast. First, Chip Malara, of Malara Gardens discussed the financial impact of unsold Christmas trees, citing high costs due to transportation and the pricey nature of the trees. He noted that the pandemic was his best year until then. Patrick Ernst of Silver State Foods highlighted challenges with traditional noodles due to rising gluten-free and vegan diets, and mentioned the trend of spicy sauces  being bottled locally. Dagan Lynn of the Cattleman Beef Association mentioned the difficulty of appealing to Gen Z with older brands, not everyone knows the slogan, "Beef, Its What's for Dinner.  Finally Antonio Howell and Dino DeBell discussed classic steak recipes turned into had held burgers and Dino's experience in a cooking competition in Buffalo, NY.

Transcript

Antonio Howell  0:08  
Hey everyone, welcome to Behind the Plate. I'm your host, Antonio, and this is the podcast where we go behind the scenes of the restaurant world from day to day operations through challenges of running a business. We'll hear first hand stories from the people who bring the favorite meals to life. Whether you're dreaming of opening your own spot or just curious about what it takes, you're in the right place. Let's get started. 

Antonio Howell  0:19  
So like, this year you were talking about how you didn't sell enough Christmas trees. So I got a question that's like, what's your biggest expenses? And then how do you control that cost while still running a business? So with all the Christmas trees not being sold, does that really affect your business?

Chip Malara  0:38  
Oh yeah, that's a big hit for me, that's a big financial hit, you know, because right now the Christmas trees are way expensive for one thing, and then you add the expensive trucking on top of that to get them from Oregon or Wisconsin to here, you gotta add that on each tree. So the trees are super pricey, really pricey. And, you know, I, I think people lost the Christmas spirit this year.

Antonio Howell  1:24  
So, I got one more question, one more maybe it might be a two part. So going back a little bit back to the pandemic, what was that like for your business? You had to shut down, wear masks or get away from people.

Chip Malara  1:39  
It was the best year I had, up until then.

Antonio Howell  1:42  
What changed through different foods over time, like, is there other foods that are in the past now?

Patrick Ernst  1:54  
Yeah, yeah. I think a lot, a lot of it too, is the eggs and flour in the noodles are achallenge right now, because a lot of people are going gluten free or vegan, and so our noodles are the opposite of both of those things, right? They have full gluten and have the eggs in them, so you can't be either one of those things. So it has seen literally a change there. We've experimented with gluten free noodles and things like that, but it doesn't exactly. It's not the same, right? So different market, we've explored some of that. And then as far as sauces go, yeah, there's restaurants, because we do do for a lot of restaurants, so it's kind of whatever they see. So we've seen a lot of like chili crunch type things come through, and it's just kind of mostly spicy right now, everybody's trying to get everything as spicy as possible. It's kind of the newest one. Yeah,

Antonio Howell  2:49  
I've noticed that too. 

Dagan Lynn  2:50  
I heard. Have you ever heard of the Beef is, what's for Dinner? No, if you don't say, if you can be honest with me, you know, it's funny because Gen Z doesn't, doesn't know at all, and it's a really old brand, like, if you your parents know, 

Antonio Howell  3:19  
Yeah, I'm sure they do. 

Dagan Lynn  3:20  
Yeah, so, but yeah, Gen Z is the one we're trying to I'm trying to pitch everybody to get into because not even some of the millennials, they don't really know us either that well, but people that you know had bunny bunny rabbit TVs. You know, they all know.

Antonio Howell  3:38  
That makes sense. 

Dagan Lynn  3:39  
But we just, we represent the ranchers, and I get to explore beef. And you know, I do. I did lasagna today. 

Antonio Howell  3:49  
Sounds cool. 

Dagan Lynn  3:50  
Tomorrow's taco, yeah, but yeah, that's pretty much every day this week.

Antonio Howell  4:08  
I looked at your web, you look at your menu. I want to see the classic steaks that looks interesting. I like that theme that

Dino DeBell  4:20  
You can also, you can also watch me 25 years at the, doing a Nickel City Iron Chef competition. 

Antonio Howell  4:26  
Really

Dino DeBell  4:27  
Pretty funny. I haven't even, I've never even watched it because I hate seeing myself on on video and cameras and shit. It's a series. Yeah, I should have won that one.