00:00I think the consumer is scared. I think the consumer is confused. I think the consumer is trying to grab
00:05onto some form of an idea of what they can plan for, and they can't find it.
00:14So being more discretionary in spending, do you see that?
00:17Well, in my exact world, I find consumers are not going out to eat to restaurants as much. They are
00:26cooking at home, so they're coming to us, but they certainly want unbelievably high quality, and they also want value
00:33for their money.
00:34You know, I see that, too. People aren't ordering food as much here in New York City. They're not getting
00:40delivery as much.
00:40We're definitely not doing that.
00:42I've talked to some folks about this for a couple reasons. One, the prices have, with all the fees added
00:46on, have become incredibly high.
00:48So, yeah, I think people are cooking more at home.
00:51How is this moment different from other moments that you've sort of experienced being in this space?
00:55I know that your business has grown a lot in recent years, but you've had a good eye on the
00:59consumer for quite a long time.
01:00You know, I started my business in 1992. We participate in up to 800 farm markets a year.
01:07That's outdoors, underneath tents, on the street, face-to-face with our consumers.
01:15In 2001, you know, we were there during 9-11. Then during the recession, we went through that.
01:23This feels kind of like a combination of both.
01:28Not just confusion, but fear.
01:30This is such a different message than we're getting from the executives of big companies.
01:35Yeah, who seem to be still upbeat about a lot of things.
01:37Well, I mean, if you're an investor, that's great.
01:40But if you're trying to feed your family, and you're not going to restaurants anymore, and you're going to supermarkets,
01:46and if not supermarkets, farm markets.
01:48Brad, you know, it's so interesting because I think about some of the things that we spend headlines talking about.
01:53And today's the day where we talked a lot about the Federal Reserve.
01:54I'm not going to ask for your view on that, but it's justā¦
01:56One of the Kevins.
01:58Nice.
01:58Well done, well done.
02:00But this is why I've loved talking to you over the years.
02:03You've also been a real estate investor.
02:04You've sold businesses.
02:06But it's what really matters when it comes to small businesses.
02:10Is it changes in the administration?
02:12Is it any of that stuff?
02:13Far be it for me to be able to say what matters.
02:16But what matters to me is stability.
02:20If I'm going to plan for next month, next year, I have to be able to have an understanding of
02:26what it is I'm planning for.
02:27I mean, for instance, our pasta sauce is, you know, popping up on shelves across the supermarkets of America.
02:36Tariffs hit.
02:37Our ingredients, our cogs go up.
02:40What do you do about that?
02:41So as a small business, you know, it is something that hits our pocketbook.
02:46Last night, I just read a posting from a really well-known restaurant that is closing its doors.
02:52And it was really like, I cannot do this anymore.
02:55It is just a horrendous place in the country to be able to do, you know.
03:05We saw that during COVID.
03:06We were shocked by how many even like very well-known chefs and restauranteurs who were struggling.
03:11And we thought they would be good.
03:13We want to get to your story.
03:14Because Farmer's Market is where you began.
03:16You have tons of farmer's markets and you're doing it in crazy weather and even this weekend in the cold.
03:21How do you get to where you've got multiple brands, not brands, but jars of sauces, different things, and you've
03:29become a much bigger business?
03:30You're in a ton of stores around the country.
03:33Now, tell me if I'm wrong, because my daughter said, I think I bought them in London?
03:38We do have a couple of places in London that you can buy it at.
03:42Smaller, independent.
03:43In fact, you know, we just got an order from Ireland today.
03:47And the tariffs affected.
03:49Now, all of a sudden, there's a lot more hoops that we have to jump through.
03:53So, I was a teenager living in Hoboken, New Jersey, playing bass in a band, in a van, touring from,
04:02you know, Hoboken to Maine, down to Virginia, to Memphis, to Nashville, into Austin, Texas.
04:10And as you could imagine, that is not a great plan for financial stability.
04:16So, I was going to Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey, up Route 17, and I would meet these nice
04:22kids who aren't from Hoboken, and they would say, would you like to come over from my house?
04:26And I said, yes, and then I would get a phone call.
04:28Hey, my mother wants to know, could you bring some mozzarella?
04:30Sure.
04:31My father wants to know, could you bring a baguette, some baguettes from Dom's Bakery at $16,000?
04:37Absolutely.
04:37And this kept on happening, and I said to my grandmother, do they not have bread and cheese where they
04:42live?
04:44But what it was in my sociology class that I heard about was the gentrification in Hoboken had started.
04:51These were ex-Hobokenites who had moved to the suburbs, and I started a home delivery service.
04:56Literally, if you called me and left a message on my old cassette answering machine on Monday, I delivered to
05:03you on Tuesday.
05:03If you called on Thursday, I delivered to you on Friday, and I ended up with a couple of hundred
05:08customers.
05:09One of those customers was a gentleman named Peter Baronio.
05:11Peter Baronio became the economic development director for Englewood, New Jersey, called me up and said, we're having a farm
05:17market.
05:17Would you like to come?
05:18I said, what's a farm market?
05:20And he said, I don't know, but we're having one.
05:23Isn't that crazy?
05:24Because they're everywhere now.
05:26Well, now they are, but it kind of started as a side hustle.
05:28Well, I made a marinara sauce, and that marinara sauce really took off.
05:35Now, that's kind of the short story.
05:38People would stand online and buy it by the case.
05:43A very important buyer from Whole Foods saw that line of people, tried our sauce, and called me up on
05:50a cell phone and said, we'd love to have you in our stores.
05:52And I said, which one?
05:53They said, all of them across the Northeast.
05:55So that started my journey from farm market to supermarkets across America.
06:01We're speaking to Brad Finkel, founder and CEO of Hoboken Farms.
06:03Here in the studio, you brought a selection of what you do offer, includes pasta and sauces.
06:09How have you been able to keep the taste and the ingredients consistent as you've scaled and gotten bigger?
06:15Oh, wow.
06:18Were you able to do that?
06:20Well, yes.
06:20We go to every run.
06:23We are there.
06:24So we're tasting tests.
06:25We're tasting color.
06:26We're tasting viscosity.
06:27We have sugar content.
06:31So if it does not meet those expectations, it gets donated to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey.
06:38But I want to go back, because I know this.
06:40You had mentioned to me that one of the reasons you got into sauces, your customers started asking for it.
06:44Because I bought your ravioli, and people were like, can I get some sauce?
06:48Right.
06:49So all day, every day, we sell now hundreds of thousands of loaves of bread and tons of mozzarella and
06:55burrata, countless coolers of ravioli.
06:58And people would come to us and say, do you have any sauce to go with that ravioli?
07:02Nope.
07:03Do you have any sauce to go with the pasta?
07:04I do not.
07:05Finally, a guy, a very Jersey guy, came over and said, hey, dummy, who are you standing next to?
07:10And I looked to my right, and it was Kurt Alstead from Alstead Farm.
07:13There was Dale from Stony Hill Farms.
07:15There was Matt from Sherry Grove Farms.
07:16There was Doug from Race Farms.
07:18Fellas got to get some tomatoes and some basil, and we started making some sauce.
07:22But you also mentioned that you have to get some ingredients from outside of the U.S.
07:26Well, olive oil.
07:27Yeah, I mean.
07:27Okay.
07:28So is that it?
07:29Is that everything else is from Jersey?
07:31We do our very best.
07:33You know, our original ingredients came directly from the farm markets.
07:39We are, we have to make sure that we have the best tomatoes, the best basil, the best onions.
07:46What I think is so-
07:47We sell a lot of sauce now.
07:47What is so cool is though, it's like you listen to the community or the community says, do this.
07:52And then when you go to make sauce, you look around you and you embrace the community to do it.
07:57Well, a farm market is both an ecosystem and an incubator, right?
08:00So as an ecosystem, you know, I need tomatoes and basil and there's tomatoes and basil.
08:05Okay.
08:06Now I want to go to the community because there's a point where you're growing the business and you got
08:11to think about financing and capital and raising capital.
08:14And again, I feel like the community kind of came to you.
08:18Yeah.
08:19So we kind of have a one in a million raise story.
08:22Um, it became obvious that, uh, the opportunities that were coming our way meant that I needed a bigger boat.
08:34So I was ready to kind of start going to institutional investors and, you know, the banks of America and
08:40telling my story.
08:41When word got out to our customers kind of through the grapevine that we were contemplating this, some, uh, very,
08:49uh, savvy real, uh, some very savvy investors said, wait, we want to be part of this.
08:54They've invested in CPG products before and I didn't have to do any of that.
08:59Um, I got it.
09:00We've only got about a minute left here, unfortunately.
09:02And you raised $4 million in series A funding.
09:04We have.
09:04Okay.
09:05So where do you go with this IPO?
09:07Sell it?
09:07What do you want to do?
09:08No, no, no, no.
09:08We are, we are building our business, uh, straight down 95, down South to the Midwest.
09:16We have, uh, pavilions and Lassen's in California.
09:19We have Jewel, uh, and, uh, uh, uh, Tony's and Pete's in, uh, uh, Midwest, Central Market in Texas.
09:28We are growing our distribution, certainly also online as well.
09:33Uh, you know, direct to consumer.
09:34Do you plan to expand the products?
09:36Yeah, we have a pizza sauce coming.
09:38We have, uh, we have a couple of other things, but we are a small but mighty group of experts.
09:44Uh, so I was able to get those economics to bring on expertise and better execution.
09:50And that's allowing us to scale across America.
09:52That's why we like talking.
09:53It is the backbone of the U.S. economy.
09:55Brad Finkel, thank you so much.
09:56Thank you so much.
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