509: Modern Grocery Going Wild with Pop Up Grocer’s Emily Schildt and Monte’s Fine Foods PJ Monte

27:32Like, yeah, I am ambitious. And I think that there's interest and demand and that that would be a huge win for these brands because, you know, launching at mass retail, as we know, is, if you're lucky enough to get in, to get accepted, is incredibly demanding from a resource perspective. Obviously, you have to pay for the inventory, but you've got slotting fees, you've got free fills, you've got mandated trade spend, you've got sampling, you've got buybacks. I mean, you know, it's messed up. No, we've talked about it on our previous episode. I'm going to link to the show notes. I should have said at the top, like we talked about how the grocery store is broken, my term, not yours, and how it's very cost prohibitive to get into a Costco or get into a Target.

28:26and like for me like the thought is always put pop-up grocer in target let you do the work let you be the capsule within the bigger brand and let you be the one that drives because they're like so thirsty to work with brands with lots of virtue in mind with lots of like diversity inclusion all great things but I don't necessarily know if they nail it I feel like I see kind of the same brands and some of it's personally not great quality wise so and ultimately it's just the display. I try to explain to all of these big guys that it's just not a lot of money. It's just design prowess and signage to make something feel special, which can make all the difference.

29:07I mean, your Nordstrom's pop-up is a great example. And just seeing, you know, your Memphis style and the way that your colors pop within kind of a staid paradigm, be it a department store or the Target grocery section, which we know. And just to see pop-up there with all of your branding and you've got such skill with that, it just seems like it's got to happen. My fingers and toes are crossed over here. Emily, and this is Taste. We ask guests about their discerning tastes. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? No. The best fruit?

29:43Persimmon. Love that choice. The worst vegetable? I love them all. You have to say one. Oh gosh. Genuinely. Fine. The worst is my favorite, Brussels sprouts. Okay, you flipped it. I will accept that as a really crafty, canny way to get out of it. The best dessert? Tiramisu. The restaurant you are most excited to visit in the world? Wallamaloo, Wallamaloo Bakery. I follow them on Instagram. They're in Thailand, basically just dying to go on a tour of bakeries and cafes and retail experiences anywhere in Asia. I know you're - Put me on a plane. I know you're thinking about formatting and the way innovation just shines in places like Korea and Japan and Thailand.

30:25It's amazing. Next level. Favorite city outside America to visit for food? London. Is there a one stop in London that you got to go to? Oh, the River Cafe. Oh, so good. What a choice. Your favorite big box grocery store? Depends how you're defining big box, but Stu Leonard's. Definitely a big box and incredible choice. If you are on the East Coast, you know if you know. So your favorite indie grocery store, I mean, these are competitors, of course, but you must be a fan of one or two. Again, depends how we're defining indie, but I'd say Rainbow Acres. Yeah, that makes sense. Explain it a little bit.

31:02I know that name. Just absolutely the best health food store, like Granola Crunchy, true California vibe and amazing discovery of products. Maybe that's just also because I'm an East Coaster. So when I go over to L.A., they just have access to products and suppliers that we don't hear. but um yeah great prepared foods love great store last one your favorite sandwich turkey i'm a sandwich simplest tomato mayo cheese whole wheat bread mayo choice honestly lately chosen foods uh avocado uh avocado oil mayonnaise something like that yeah that's always in my fridge but i love dukes too yeah dukes but chosen foods is a very cool company oh yeah i'm very Great condiments brand, per discussion earlier.

31:46Yeah. Wonderful. I love it. Emily Schilt, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you for having me.

32:00PJ Monti, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you doing, man? I'm amazing. Fresh off a little Euro trip, so I'm acclimated back, you know, back in the Bronx Riviera up in Sydney Island. between there and Montauk. I'm ready to hit the ground running. You got some nice color on your face. You were in Puglia and Greece and Napoli for 48 hours. Yes. Well, let's go back to your family's original restaurant, Monty's Venetian Room in Gowanus. Now, I lived nearby in Carroll Gardens for almost 20 years, and I used to walk through Gowanus before Gowanus was like 50 new buildings, which is insane. But I always walked by Monty's, and I was always like, what's up with that place?

32:37It always was a question. It was not open all the time. And it's your namesake. It's your family. Tell me about. And it's important, too. I must say, this is not at all negative. It's just like it's part of the fabric of this part of South Brooklyn. Tell me about it a bit. Absolutely. So here's the reason why you ask what's up with that place. We're past the heyday. It was before my time, right? I grew up on the stories, you know? Like my grandfather and his six brothers were all born in the apartment upstairs. It started in 1906 when my family came from Avelino. My great-grandmother stirring sauce in a pot belly stove in the back.

33:21My great-grandfather, he was basically forging the papers for everybody, you know, making sure everybody got, because they couldn't speak English or read or write. All the immigrants coming from Italy. And it was just kind of like a shop, and they were just cooking there. and then it turned into a restaurant and then it kind of continued to evolve as it passed on to the next generation. So my great uncle Nick, he was the only one that didn't go to World War II because he had bad eyes, which who knows if he really had bad eyes. I don't know. He had good enough eyes to sign the paper or pass the money along.

33:51Yeah, exactly. I might have bad eyes too if I had to get drafted. Indeed, tough time. But the rest of them signed up, all went to World War II and he kind of took over during that time and turned into Monty's Venetian room. Uncle Nick, God bless his soul, great marketer, you know? Yeah. And you know what? He rebranded it with Joe Carroll from Carroll Street, the namesake, painted the Venetian murals on the wall. Red banquettes in the space, tablecloths. Redid the space to make it a little bit, you know, bougie, bring it up a notch, and rebranded it as Monty's Venetian Room. This is like the 50s.

34:25We're into the 50s. This is, no, this is earlier. Oh, yeah. This is like the 40s probably, 30s, 40s, something like that. And he said, Monty's Venetian Room because the Gowanus canals remind me of the Venice canals. And let me tell you something. He'd never been to Venice in his life. I told you he's a good one. It's all the photos, Elise. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. But people ate it up. And you want to know what? That was kind of when Monty's had its hot spot. That was when it became a hot spot. That's when it had its time. It's golden era. And you had the Rat Pack hanging out there all night. And you had the wise guys at one end of the bar and the politicians on the other.

35:01and it was a little tiny spot and a hole in the wall. My family went on to Gurney's in 1956. Uncle Nick, everybody come back from the war. My grandpa, they threw him an apron the day he got back from the war. So I get to work, put him behind the bar. Uncle Nick went out to Montauk with one of the customers in 1956 in an argument about who makes the best linguine clams. He said, in Montauk, we make the best linguine clams. I'm bringing you out there. He said, we make the best linguine clams. going back and forth. They get in a Cadillac drive out, three hours, end up in Montauk. They stop at Gurney's Inn, right?

35:38Which at that point was a little restaurant with four cottages only on the bluff. Very end of Long Island. Very, very end. On the southern fork. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was like dirt roads when they got out there, you know? And at this point, they're drinking Canadian Club the whole way out. And they order a round of drinks. Mr. and Mrs. Gurney, who were the owners of the place, were Christian scientists. The waiter says, we don't serve booze here. My Uncle Nick, you know, probably had a couple too many Canadian clubs, so you ever want to sell this place, give me a call. You know, probably half a gesture, right?

36:14Yeah. And next thing you know, two weeks later, he gets a phone call, Mrs. Gurney. Oh, Mr. Gurney passed away, we'd love to sell this place. He said, how much? 200 grand. He said, sure, I'll buy it. He didn't have 200 grand. I hung up the phone, asked everybody at the bar for 20 grand. And that is how you raised capital in 1956. Yeah, it's a little different these days. So a lot of neighborhood guys, they got in on this deal. And you fast forward to 10 years ago, and Gurney's is sold by your family. But up until that point, and you grew up there, I'd love to get into that. as a young man growing up with this place, Gurney's, which has become, you know, a really legendary spot, a party spot for sure.

36:58Definitely if you're doing summers out east, you're going to a couple spots, Surf Lodge, and definitely Gurney's. You know, we talked off mic. We don't need to go into the current situation, but you referred to it as restoration hardware. That feels like maybe Gurney's isn't in the spot it was when you were young, but it must have been fun. And listen, I always say, you know, I was like the Eloise of Gurney's, but they put my ass to work. You know? I love that. I got off the school bus to park cars, to serve the sauce, to flip the burgers, to pull chairs in the summertime. It was amazing, though.

37:32You know, I met all types of characters. And what was amazing about Gurney's was the same people came over and over and over again. And they didn't come there because it was this culinary destination, you know. no michelin we don't know what a michelin star was but we were running gurney's right and it wasn't just because of the beauty of the location which by the way is phenomenal um but it was more so like they would come there to see us and we and we were excited to see them you know so growing up as a kid every summer i'd be a cabana boy valet i'd work in the kitchen i work behind the bar and you would see the same families come and their kids and you become friends with their their kids right and they stayed forever a lot of them were the people that loaned 20 grand and my great uncle back in the day you know they get grandfathered in some sort of a sweetheart deal and it was very much uh it was very enlightening uh to to experience all these types of walks of lives you know like you got your doctors that come there and they're fancy cars and you have with the guys that come from Brooklyn in their Cadillacs and shove 100 bucks in your pocket to do, bring a mice, sweep the deck, park the car, whatever.

38:48And you got to meet a lot of amazing people there. And it was a big family business. I go to the kitchen, that's my uncle Chip was the chef. That's who taught me the sauce. And my dad, he's up in the office. My grandpa's in the wine cellar. My aunt's running the spa. It was, that was home just as much as home was home for me. Was it hard to sell it as a family? I mean, it sounds like there's deep connections to it, but obviously the economics of Long Island changed dramatically in the past decade, and there had to be a moment of you had to do something. Yeah. And you know what? It needed some new life, right?

39:25It was complicated from a business perspective, right? So it wasn't just our call at the end of the day, exactly the fate of the place. But that being said, you know, Montauk, the tide had changed at this point. There was people out there, something was going to give. And the new people came in, whoever, you know, gave that final blessing right that made that deal happen came in and did their thing and that transition out of there was tough because i remember going at that point in my life i would go and sit on the beach with my friends yeah you know we'd have a little cabana zone and hang out talk about the dream yeah it was i you know then i finally really was getting the eloise experience i didn't have to work there anymore you were like you got the cabanas for like you know the house rate yeah Yeah, free.

40:15No, exactly. Well, let me ask you, PJ. You were talking off mic, but I want to bring it up. You're not a Nepo baby. No. There's no, I mean, there's no silver spoon. You're an entrepreneur, and we're going to get to the sauce now. But you're up in BFA, like, all, you got, like, 76 images on BFA, and that's, like, inside our talk. It's like a wire service, like the cool wire service. So, like, you're, like, friends with people. Is that from the Gurney's days? Tell me about how do you network and this social circle seems really cool. Sure, sure. That's a great question. Growing up in the Hamptons was such a special experience.

40:54I couldn't compare it to anything else in the world. I have friends that grew up in New York and L.A. and so on and so forth, and I'm like, wouldn't trade it, would not trade it. Because you had the best of both worlds. You had New York City came to your backyard. The summertime, you're just a local kid. You know, everybody that really lives in the Hamptons for the most part, especially when I was growing up, they're blue collar, right? They're the people who catch the fish, who cut the lawns, you know. Who set up the cabanas. Right, exactly, right? And my family is a very hardworking family. So while everybody has had the assumption, you know, and we did have a great reputation in town.

41:33as honestly we really didn't deserve to because we really kind of pioneered the space in a big way at that time but like you know people oh your family sold gurneys you must be rich kid I'm like I wish yeah it's not how it sifted out I'm not going to get into the paperwork but not to go there more so it's just in the summertime you're exposed to like the best of the best of not just New York City, but of the world, you know, a very cultured clientele. You're meeting such incredible people from all walks of lives. And so when I was in high school, some of my older friends that were growing up in the Hamptons as well, they started kind of bridging the gap of instead of the city kids coming to the Hamptons and going to the clubs out there, they kind of like were working in the clubs and brought it to the city.

42:24Yeah. And they made a name and I was like, that seems cool. I'm going to do that. And so I was DJing and hosting parties and everything else. When I was like 16, 17 years old, I was coming to the city and, you know, out at nightclubs over there. And then back in the Hamptons, I was working at nightclubs underage, you know. It's only age to work in a nightclub, I feel. Right? If you're like a local guy. Listen, I, you know, they were putting me through the back door if I had to get in. But through the nightlife world, right, which was hospitality. which is why I was pretty good at it, right? Because it's taking care of people.

43:02And that was what was drilled into my head my whole entire life. Growing up in Gurneys was like the customer first kind of service always. And when I'm in the nightclub, I'm making sure everybody has a full drink. You know, that was kind of what it was. And I was like, this is more fun than pulling chairs on the beach, you know? And I'm getting paid. Awesome, right? and bridging the gap of like New York City to the Hamptons and then meeting those people in those rooms, which it's like you put the people culturally together in the Hamptons in certain rooms. You have a very unique, very special.

43:40Influential group. Influential group, exactly. Yeah, and that's where the BFA comes from. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I'm like dwelling on that. No, that's, but that was my life before I started making the sauce. Well, good segue. We're this far in the episode, and I hope you've stuck with us because we wanted to set this up because this is a food show, and we're here to talk about food. And really, PJ, you've launched a product, and I've tasted it, and I've tasted it several times. It's a terrific sauce. It's a jarred tomato sauce. In fact, our friends at Food & Wine did a taste test and described it as the best sauce of all sauces.

44:19So for a listener, describe the Monty's sauce. What's it taste like? Why is it special? Yeah, so I'm going to tell you why it's special. And I learned the hard way. I learned the recipe from my Uncle Chip. This is post my fun time in my life, right? I died a big ego death and got thrown in the apron and put back to work by my family when I was around 27, 28 years old. After we sold Gurney's, we had a little restaurant upstate. I thought I was going up to like help them with their social media Make this place cool They've stuck me in the kitchen What spot is this? This was Monty's Tap Room Upstate Monty's local kitchen and tap room Nice, what city?

44:59It was in Amenia Yeah So like my family chose the like not cool part of the Hudson Valley I was like Hudson's over there Like that's where all the cool guys are My guy, I live in Orange County like full time So I'm in the uncool part myself And I think it is the coolest part Well there's something to be said about it being cool by not being the cool part, right? Yeah, for sure. But either way, my family doesn't know how to stop working, right? They sold gurneys. I'm like, go to Boca, you know? And what do they do? Open another restaurant, right? And they had their moment. They're trying to find a little bit of their identity upstate and going in a few different directions.

45:40And they were doing good, and they were in this little town, and they asked me to come up and help out. when I went up there one weekend thinking I was going to just help them do their website or social media, make a playlist and pop back down to the city and get back to having fun. Right. And they put me right to work, but that was the first time in like probably five years that I had the family sauce again. I remember very vividly, I had a veal parmesan at the end of the shift. And I was like, I got to get back to the city now. Like I get me out of here. And I had the the apartment i was like they're like flashback like cliche this is it tastes exactly the same as when i was five years old at gurney's and my uncle chip was in the kitchen cooking it he made exactly the same and i was like wait this is special this is really good and rao's at this point i've been watching what they were doing my family talked about making the sauce and i'll be watching what they're doing by exiting for like you know yeah a couple hundred mil yeah the 400 plus at that point I'm like yeah I see what you guys are doing Little Bronx restaurant you but I like your sauce better than Rayo's.

46:48Rayo's is great I buy Rayo's it's a cool product but I like yours better and I'll tell you why so I'll get into that after that light bulb moment I studied I dropped everything I moved upstate I apprenticed under my uncle Chip and I watched him make the recipe he wouldn't just give it to me took time and do you want to know what as he should you know He spent his whole life perfecting this recipe. That was passed on to him. That was passed, you know, so on and so forth. And I finally nailed it one day. And we make our sauce in the factory now. We drive our factory crazy because we make it exactly how we make it in the restaurant.

47:26Most people get drums of tomatoes. If you get drums of tomatoes, they're probably already crushed or pureed. And that's because they're the B, C, and D tomatoes, right? Those are the throwaways almost. Those are the uglies, let's call them, right? Ours, we're getting number 10 cans, the most expensive number 10 cans that you get in a restaurant. That's what we use in our sauce today, the same exact ones. One of every three from the harvest. Those Stanislavs from California? No comment on where they come from. Ah, we're getting to that part. I can't tell you where they come from. Come on. Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough.

47:57But I will say they are California tomatoes. And we're very proud to be American-made, American-grown domestic product, Italian-American brand. I'm really trying to bring that reputation back up a little bit. I mean, American domestic canned tomatoes are as good as any. I find them to be superior and more consistent, right? So what we get and what we use, and then on top of that, our process is really what makes it super special. So imagine this. You cook Sunday gravy once in a while, right? Yeah, for sure. I love that. So when it's sitting on the stove for three hours, right? Yeah. What color is it when it comes in?

48:37And what color is it when it comes out? It's going to be dark red and tart, and it's not going to be bright and fresh. You're not going to have that vibrancy in the flavor profile when it's sitting on the stove for three hours, right? And most people cook in 2 ,000-gallon batches. Why? Efficiency. Yeah. Most people use dried herbs or IQF. We use fresh produce, fresh garlic shallots, onions, fresh basil twice in our recipe. We do it at two different points. We bring it all together. We cook in pretty much a tenth of the size of the batches that most other brands cook in. And we only use the best tomatoes coming out of cans.

49:17We drive our factory crazy, which, by the way, makes an expensive product. You know, we pay to play for sure. It's a challenge that we've been dealing with that we're kind of overcoming that hurdle right now by finally hitting like points of volume that we have to leverage to negotiate. Well, let's talk about that because clearly this is a business that you want to scale. Absolutely. Potentially exit because, and I'm saying that you're not, but I'm thinking like looking at that Rayo's case. Sure. There's some money on the table. People love sauce. So how do you scale? Because you're telling me this process and it sounds great.

49:51Yeah. But like when you've got like 700 ShopRite orders, 700 stores, how do you do it? It was hard at first. It was really hard at first because a lot of factories were just like, no, we're not opening number 10 cans. No, we're not using fresh produce. You know, no, we're not doing small batches. And then I found a few that did, right? And I worked with some. Some come and gone. I outgrew most of them is basically really what happened. and I sit there on quality control. And it wasn't until this year where we kind of hit the tipping point of the leverage of the volume of business that they were like, okay, we need your business.

50:32We want your business. And I was like, great, because at this point, that allowed me to go to every single person along my supply chain and say, listen, I could commit to buying a lot of olive oil, which is three times the price right now, to our tomato people. Listen, who's got the best price? who could give me the best price on our tomatoes, you know, fresh produce, you know, so on and so forth. And then, you know, exploring your other options. You know, I'm not married to anybody right now, right? Except the sauce, right? Yeah, the sauce is going to speak. Okay, so I'm hearing a lot of things.

51:06I'm hearing that you haven't deviated from this ethic, but you are scaling up. Yeah. So you're at a tipping point. And so where are you available and how many channels right now? It's a great, I'm glad you asked. So right now we're in about 500 stores. And by the end of the year, we'll be in about 1 ,000. And where we kind of cracked the code is we're coming out with the big jar, the 24-ounce jar in a large national retailer. Very excited about that. What's it rhyme with? When does this drop? Right. We don't need to go there. I don't know when it's going to drop, so we won't need to go there. Yeah, but, well, actually, multiple large, you know, banners that are rolling out the 24-ounce jar.

51:52Between that, you know, working on that cost per ounce and breaking that down, working on our supply chain, working on the leverage, negotiating all that. I'm scrappy, you know. I'm not taking the sucker price. I'm going to beat you down. I got 20 people I'm calling. If you give me a price that sounds too expensive, I'm calling everybody with the vowel at the end of their name that sells peppers or tomatoes in the Northeast. I love it. And I'm finding my price. But with the volume as well, you know, it's a win-win for everybody across the board. And now we're going to be cost competitive with every other premium sauce in the space.

52:26So at 24 ounces, those are sizable jars. Those are the normal size. That's the Rayos. That's the Carbone. Michael's actually does the 36, which I like in like a family style. 36 is cool. But I liked your hand-sized pocket size. I love the 16 ounce. I mean, that was a big appeal. Yes. agreed because first off no waste right so you got that like extra you know eight ounces that tends to just sit there because like putting the whole 24 in a is a little much you're taking the words right out of i know so you but is that just because the retailers are are kind of forcing to do 24s i would say it's the retailers but it's really the customer okay you know at the end of the day like when you're shopping for your family and you're looking at sauce on the shelf and you're looking at our product, which in a 16 ounce jar is maybe the same price, if not sometimes more expensive than a 24 ounce jar, right?

53:21You have to make that decision. You're thinking about what else you have in your cart. You got the eggs, you got the butter, you got this. Okay. You ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You know, it's like, it's running up in your head and you're like, uh, I don't know. Right. I know I've never seen this brand before. Maybe I have, I heard it's good, but like I could save a, it's going to stretch a little further. I could save a buck or two and so the 16 ounce I loved it but it just at some point you have to cater to the you know the masses in a way if you really want to build a scalable business I get it I get it and it makes sense and I hope you you keep some of those small jars available and I'm gonna you know I'm going as like a novelty okay so are you in production like often with this like 500 store order going to a thousand yeah we we're like going from a little more than quarterly like in this year production to like we're probably going to be producing every month next year yeah or like actually starting q4 we're probably going to be producing every month and that it's taking a big leap right now from where we've been to where we're going you know like just in the first 60 days of this year we like lapsed last year's sales right like and we're we're hitting a nice multiplier this year and we're going to hit a nicer multiplier next year which is so pj tell me, how do you break through in this hyper competitive field?

54:43I mean, you're looking at your grocery store aisle with sauces and you've got Carbone, you've got Rayo's, you've got Meatball Shop, you've got Paul Newman staring at you, which is the one I grew up on, which is not very good for the record. That's okay. Sorry, mom. But I feel like this is a very hard category and you've already been able to crack through your great personality but you aren't you aren't there selling it at the i wish i could be in every aisle i wish i could be in every but how are you how did it happen so it's really tough right it's really tough but guess what i love it like i'm i'm stubborn i'm a monty we don't know how to stop i just keep going and you want to know what I saw the space, you know, as it stood when I entered the space, right?

55:38And I did my homework. I'm a geek low key. I'm a nerd. I listen to the podcast. I do the tutorials of this, that, and that. I taught myself how to do every single program. Yeah. You're like CRM. YouTube for six hours. Like I'm learning. I'm building the website. I'm making the label. I'm learning about nutritional facts and schedule processes and how does distribution work. before when I was still making it by hand out of the back of the restaurant, sell out of the trunk of my car, literally. And so I've set my goal on it. I focused on it and I just kept going. And people in this space will tell you all the time, if you don't have a 60 % margin or 50 % margin out the gate, like just don't do it.

56:23You're never going to get there. And I was like, no, sorry. Quality first. I'm staying true to a family recipe and I'm sticking to it. And guess what? I figured it out, right? We got to healthy margins and a competitive price point coming next month. And we did that. I fought tooth and nail to do that. Sure, it took me four years. But guess what? I stuck to it. And then I also saw the space being like very one dimensional. You had your legacy brands and bless them, Michael's, Rayo's, right? You have these guys in the space that have been around forever, car mines, and everybody's got a sauce if you had a restaurant.

57:06I was like, sure, we have the legacy too. And then you have the more creative, innovative brands that are like they're there trying to create new flavors. Yeah, like basil boba or some shit like that. Yeah, I just don't see Maria from New Jersey, that's a mother of four, picking this thing up. Like, you know, I can maybe see it moving in, you know, some of the mom and pops and the cool guy shops. Like, and that's great. God bless. That's where we built our brand. But I was like, we got both. I was like, I came into this space, you know, prior to the last five years in the food and beverage space.

57:43It wasn't very cool. Yeah. And I like was surrounded by cool people my whole life. I met you in Los Angeles at the Snackshot Andrea Hernandez event. And I want to get a sense of how do you feel about your fellow founders in this food space? I feel like you are in a really cool juncture of community. Because obviously if you got like an olive oil guy and a chocolate guy and a coffee guy, you're not competing. You're like you should be staying together. And I saw a bunch of you in that room in L.A. in the Arts District. And I was like, this is cool. Agreed. 100 % agreed. and it's super refreshing that like I dove into this and when I started it, it wasn't as cool as it is now.

58:27Now it's getting cool. I'm like, it's refreshing to see. I have a bunch of friends in the space and it's great to have people that have similar alignment both from a professional standpoint and we help each other out and make introductions or give guidance. Hey, you spoke to this person. Well, give me a pulse on them or where should we go from here? You know, like how did you crack to the next code? Like there's a lot of things that nobody teaches you in this business, right? They're like, raise money, raise money, raise money. I was like, okay, we raise money. And then nobody tells you like, raise credit, you know?

59:07Okay, you raised a million dollars. You got a 50 % margin. How much you got overhead too? How are you supposed to make any money off that, right? who's giving you a line of credit who's gonna bankroll you right who's gonna allow you to to continue to grow this company without selling your whole company by the time you oh you want an exit if you're if you don't own any of your company what's that exit man well yeah all you got is your face and and maybe like some ego but yeah and a lot of agita you know running the business it's like so i've been very particular about who i've taken as an investor and and how I've structured my company from that perspective because of these fellow founders who also appreciate the cool factor, the fun factor, the interesting, you know, what people are doing that interesting and disruptive in the space.

59:58And we just all collaborate together. Like if we're doing a block party, then we could get the wine sponsor. We could get the NA sponsor. We could get the pizza shop that's hosting us to put my sauce on their pizza. And we can put 10 brands and then we have a – it's like success in numbers, you know? And we stick together. Let's talk about food service. Is that in your future to get Monty's into, I don't know, like some of the fast casuals, maybe some restaurant spot, you know? Yes. It's definitely on the horizon. Like it's not our top priority at the moment even though I'm like – I'm always trying to do the next 10 things.

1:00:38and like I have a great team that keeps me grounded, you know. But that dreaming, you know, and then they kind of tie me down like I'm a blimp. I'm like, that's what you're paying for. Exactly. And so we got to focus at the things that are like right here that are most important. But food service, I would love to find the right partner that would justify the leap into food service, right? Margins are trickier. You know, your case pack. every Italian restaurant makes their own sauce. Yeah. So like. Yeah, it's kind of not great if you're buying jarred unless you're like a real big box place. Yeah, but also like it's not going to be jarred technically.

1:01:21And actually, matter of fact, this is where I see it, right? We sell in jars, literally in jars to restaurants. It doesn't make any sense from an economics. No, they should be in big tetra packs. They're burning cash doing it. But they get to say, we sell our mozzarella sticks at Ray's with Monty's sauce, right? And guess what? I love the guys at Ray's. This is a great collaboration. We launched it at Super Bowl a couple years back. It's on the menu still to this day. We do Uncle Paulie's all the time, chicken parm sandwiches. Oh, really in L.A.? Paulie's my man for a million years. Before either of us were really in the food business to the capacity that we are now.

1:01:59And so it's just a natural connection. We've done probably 10 pop-ups together since like the very, I think I sold my first case outside of New York to Uncle Pauly. That's exciting. Can I go on an aside right here? I heard like Future wore like a Pauly's hat or something and he like sold like. Travis Scott. Travis Scott. It was Travis Scott. He wore like the hat. Yeah. And he sold like large bands like 100K or something in merch like. Absolutely. No. Yeah. Pauly's moving merch. Yeah. And we're moving merch too. No doubt. Yeah. You have good merch, actually, of course. Thank you. That's a whole other revenue stream.

1:02:36The thing is, it's not just about, this is what was stale about the business when I saw it. You sell cereal, you sell granola, you sell pasta, you sell tomato sauce, whatever it is, right? That's all you do. I'm like, I make shirts. I do parties. I do events. We do collaborations. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to make sense. I like to create. You know, like I like to consider myself an artist of sorts that like my medium is food and like community. Yeah. You know, bringing people together really comes back to the hospitality. It's like what we sell is Sunday dinner in a jar and to boot, it's the best one.

1:03:15It's great. It's fresh. It's made with care. But what we're doing as a brand, whether it's wearing a T-shirt, hosting a block party, having people over and putting people together, introducing them over a meal, having an experience that they might not have grown up that I was so blessed to grow up with every Sunday as a tradition in my life that I carried on when I moved to the city with my friends. That was my new family. And I still do it to this day. Yeah. I still do it to this day. Your Sunday tradition. I do not miss a Sunday unless I'm, even in Italy when I was just in Italy last week, I was still doing Sunday dinner.

1:03:50I love it. I love it. I love it. Let me ask you, you expanded to pasta. Yes. We haven't even talked about it. I mean, is this like a little bit of like window dressing or are you going hard after pasta too? Because like dry pasta, talk about even more competitive field. Absolutely. You're 100 % right. Pasta on shelf is what? Two bucks? Yeah. Three bucks? This is the thing though. I personally had a journey with pasta that I was like, I'm a sauce pasta guy. I'm wearing a Rotelli made out of 24 karat gold around my neck right now for 15 years. Like, this is my life. And I'm like, I don't really eat pasta at restaurants because I got to go home afterwards.

1:04:30I feel terrible, right? And I was like, why is that? but I could go to Italy and everybody else that's gluten intolerant can go to Italy and eat pasta all of a sudden for 10 days and lose five pounds, right? And I was like, what is going on here? And so it's literally three and a half years I started, you know, how hard could it be to private label some pasta, right? We got the sauce going. Why don't we just, it's a natural line extension. It took me three and a half years to find a place that does it the way that they do it in Italy. And along that process, they understood and learned what is the difference.

1:05:05In America, most pasta, I'd say if I had to put a number on it, 90, 95 plus percent of pasta is made with the nutritional equivalent of Wonder Bread. It's bleached flour, processed flour, artificial nutrients, Teflon dye extruded, and fast baked dried, right? Efficiencies, efficiencies, efficiencies right it the pasta space right now is where ragu and classical was before rayos in america not in italy in america yeah and i i went back over there i'm going what's the difference i studied this and i came back and i found this little shop in arkansas of all places and that was buying my sauce through fare we're shipping it and i just flagged up on my email and I'm like, oh, check out the shop.

1:05:55I'm like, wait a minute. They're doing it right. Organic derm semolina and water only. The other guys, they have 10 ingredients on their label. Riboflavin, niacin, vitamin this, vitamin that. Artificial ingredients because you have to have some nutritional value. But then you fast bake it and you cook it all off. And then you're cooking your pasta before you cook your pasta, right? So I was like, organic derm semolina has all these nutrients in it already. Why are we overcomplicating the process? Sure, efficiencies, cost, make it cheaper, make it cheaper, make it cheaper. I don't believe in that, right?

1:06:28And you're right. My pasta's on shelf right now,$7.99,$8.99, right? It's expensive. That's the same price as Giuseppe Coco or Sitara, one of the imports, right? And people want to think that it's expensive like that because they had to import it and pay this. No, it's because good grain costs money. when this gets harvested where I get my pasta right now in America we're doing it the same way they do it in Italy and that's my mission and I have to lead with the education that that is why your stomach hurts because you're eating garbage it is and you gotta look at the package and see like the fewer the better for pastas I've heard that and I've said it on the show now what shapes are you doing right now?

1:07:07what are the shapes? we basically invented two new shapes damn yeah so it's Rotolini right now If you look at it one way, you can look at it like a wave, which I love. And if you look at it from the other direction, it almost looks like a little Roman pillar, love. And then there's the trebuki, which is like three holes. And it's kind of like if you had three little pennies kind of like glued together in a way. Oh, that sounds great. Surface area is important with the dried pop. Surface area is extremely important. Each shape is different for each dish. you know and so we have two right now we did a collaboration with stout about with this handbag where we did her own pasta it was more of like a gifting thing for the people but like we created the bronze die not teflon the bronze die that leaves the rough surface on the pasta in her exact font that said the s-t-a-u-d the letters in the bag i love that yeah so you're doing this as like you're definitely like planting seeds obviously sauce is your game But eventually, there's going to be a Monty's pasta line that's absolute fire, right?

1:08:15Right now, this is what I love about it too, by the way. Sauce is booming. We have the capacity to scale that for I don't see any ceiling to that, right? With the pasta, we partnered with a small manufacturer that technically is more of like a mom and pop shop that manufactures pasta. Not really a manufacturer first. but we're we partnered with them and they're amazing people making an amazing product and they're becoming more and more of a manufacturer and that's off of the support of our business where right now we're at max capacity and like i just got off the phone with them the other day they just we just bought a bigger drying a drying rack yeah that's that's the part that's the hold up because you know these other guys fast bake it it's in and out in like maybe 20 minutes one shape takes 24 hours for me one shape takes 18 hours you got to control the humidity you know there's a lot of factors that make it an art form of making pasta the right way and you taste the difference you crack the bag open you can smell the semolina and you feel better not only does it taste better you feel better so where do you sell these pastas where are we buying these we're in we sell online yeah we like we've been by design slow rolling it out into the marketplace as we continue to increase our manufacturing output.

1:09:36So in the next three months, probably top of the year, we'll be able to be in as many stores as we can because output goes up, our costs will come down a little bit, so we'll be at least at a competitive price point to the other premium pasta brands. But hey, if you want to spend$2 on Barilla and have a stomach ache, you and your family, that's your choice. Shots fired, I love that. That's actually anecdotal. Yeah. Listen to that, take it in. Do you experience something similar? You be the judge. Right. All right. All right. You mentioned in passing FAIR, and I'd love to get a sense about how this platform, which is a true Decacorn.

1:10:14Sure. That is a true mover for CPG. How does that work for you? And has it been a good experience working with FAIR? I've truly loved working with FAIR in many, many ways. I would say full transparency my product is a really hard one to sell unfair like we have to take it out of the pack repack it in a new box so we had to design this padding it might break in transit we deal with breakage all the time then you're losing money in that sale but luckily we've over time refined that process and breakage is very minimal now um the thing is it's expensive so like you know on e-commerce you know sometimes we get people oh my god you charge you$14 for shipping on$40 a sauce a six-pack and I'm like I don't make up the price talk to USPS you know I didn't I don't and matter of fact 14 bucks is our average out across the country because we're really paying 25 in California yeah like and that's where people are buying it a lot of people are buying them there because because we're in you know we might be in 350 stores in new york but we're in like 150 throughout the rest of the country right so you should the further away that you're shipping it that's what these are the customers that you're paying through the nose to ship it and so for fare when it comes down to like that being the distributor right you have to add like two bucks a jar on your cost which is either going to put us on a shelf extremely expensive and it's hard to build but that being said i love it as a means to connect to stores that we would never have access to agree i can't sell i couldn't have sold to the store in arkansas that's making my pasta right now if it wasn't for fair right i'm selling to all over the country through fair and it's a streamlined automatic process goes through my 3pl i don't have to lift a finger we hit we click we're talking about two dollars look at what we're paying for food So like I know there's price sensitivity across all of grocery, but like if you're on a shelf for like even$11 in Arkansas and it's good.

1:12:27I mean, listen, it's like cheaper than going out to most restaurants. So like there must be some frustration that people are so price sensitive to one or two dollars for a jar of pasta that is like truly the best per food and wine. And myself, a very good, very good sauce. so like how do you square that yeah i i agree with you wholeheartedly and i what i would say to that is like i wish everybody was like me and you you know and cared about quality and and paid attention to it and also maybe have the means to afford it is the reality right we live in new york city you know we go to la we go to bubbles all we live in bubbles right and like we can go and and pay$18 for a Negroni and not think twice about it or, you know, spend$150 per person on dinner on a regular basis.

1:13:21And that's regular. Yeah. It's regular. In this day and age in New York, absolutely. Yeah. But you go like two hours in almost any other direction, hopefully not towards the Hamptons, but a lot of places in between, you know, just the reality is not everybody, like it does matter that extra dollar. And you want to know what? I agree with you. I pay for quality. I happily pay for quality. Like that is what I care about. I'm a food guy. I'm a wine guy. I'm going to pay the extra couple bucks to have a good experience, to have a good product. But some people just like also got their mortgage to pay.

1:13:57Absolutely point taken and absolutely great to clarify that because we don't want to be elitist at all on the show. And like we're not trying to – you're shooting us out of our bubble. and I think my true point is that if you're going to take the time to actually make dinner wouldn't you want your jarred sauce and do a jarred sauce you might make a sauce from scratch and that's cool too wouldn't the$2 be worth it even if it was your last$2 I'm just saying in terms of just like thinking about food and thinking about having this great meal that you're making your family absolutely the thing is I feel like people don't maybe appreciate that moment as much there's convenience and this goes into a deeper problem right that goes back to like the industrialization of everything in america like i just came back from italy like the pasta that i'm making is a dollar and fifth or euro 150 euros right at 1.50 euros it's like that's two bucks right for the best pasta in the mercado right?

1:15:05I got buffalo mozzarella and some mortadella and some bread at the little corner shop right there. I'm like, it was like 4 euros. I'm going out and eating langoustines that I'll go over to Morea right now and pay $95. And I get like 2. I get 2 of those shrimps and it's half as good and these ones are fresh, right? And I pay my whole meal with the whole bottle of wine was 65 euros, you know? And so there's a disconnect, right? Everything is driven here. And then the mentality in the CPG space, when I'm talking to buyers and distributors, they're asking how low can you go? Not how good is your product.

1:15:50And that is the problem, right? That is the problem. And it's not wine where people who drink wine appreciate wine. And you could have a$10 bottle here and you could have a$10 ,000 bottle of Caymus next door. Right. And you could and have both customers in that in that store. And some people understand and appreciate the whole spectrum there when it comes to grocery and like things that people assume as like a fundamental basic household pantry item. They almost have like it's a lot more inelastic. It's not as a last. You know, I'm saying like, yeah, it's the most price sensitive items. These basic items.

1:16:32We are like conditioned that a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread are like the tent pole and like the key factors for our economy's health. It's like written into like all of our poli sci. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And you want to know what's funny? It's so ingrained in us. I think this is a very American thing, by the way. Right. Like this is why pasta is Wonder Bread. Right. This is why Wonder Bread is Wonder Bread and not a nice fresh baguette from the bakery. It's how can you make more, faster, cheaper. That's the whole mentality. And everybody's not looking to save money. They're not making enough money to afford the good things.

1:17:12It's like I'll go out and spend$250 in Negronis and snacks at a bar, but then I'll be in the grocery store and I'll be like, sometimes I put it back on the shelf because there's one buck more. and I'm like wait a minute I'm not even cheap but you've been conditioned that's exactly what it is and it's like how am I going to change that conditioning and like I do my best to remind our listeners Americans pay between 12 and 14 % of their salary towards food when you go to places like Japan and Korea where it's in the 40s you go to like Scandinavia it's in the 50s we just as a culture do not pay as much for food absolutely those are facts and like it's important and you bring it up PJ, this is an American thing.

1:17:56And you can have all the great launches and all the shiny toys and all the great social media, but when it comes down to it at the grocery store, we're talking about scaling these CPG products. The price sensitivity is ruthless. And you've articulated it well with the why here. And I think that my goal right now, and part of the ethos of our company, shifted a little bit from preserving the family heritage and legacy and recipe to, A, regaining the reputation of quality to Italian-American products. Like this isn't Chef Boyardee. This isn't Olive Garden. This isn't a chicken parm bigger than your head, right?

1:18:35A quality Italian-American brand that does it the way they do it there with simplicity, quality, without pretension though, without pretension. My goal, somebody asked me the other day, you're an Erewhon N shop, right? How does that make any sense? Why'd you decide to go into a value store? I said, because everybody deserves to have this product. It might be a slow mover over there. But you want to know what? I'm working day in and day out, like all night long. I'm making 250 phone calls trying to save a penny on my label, a penny on my tomatoes, a penny on my olive oil. I'm on vacation in Italy negotiating olive oil prices.

1:19:10I'm like, I need a whole container. I need to save five cents a liter, right? Because that way I can be in ShopRite at the price point that makes people go and buy. And I got there. I'm getting there, you know? Yeah, I know. It's real. So when you were in Puglia, were you negotiating olive oil prices when you were up in the - Of course. I couldn't stop. I was with this guy, Vito, who's an amazing guy, Vito. He's a fourth generation cheesemaker, right? Earlier that day, we were in Matera, right? Which is the second oldest caves known to civilization. And we had a seven course cheese meal, right?

1:19:48Different cheeses that he made in different ways, shapes, and forms with local wines. And the dessert wine was a cave-aged blue cheese that he made that was soaked in the local wine with the grapes on it, right? And I joked. I was like, oh, what cave did you age this in? The ones in Matera? He was like, no, but we can do this. And I was like, you didn't think of this? I'm like, dude, we need to get this going right now. That's great. I love that. PJ, in addition to all of the CPG talk, you're launching a capsule collection with Bloomingdale's. Yeah. That's cool. That's different. Yeah. What does that mean?

1:20:31What are you doing? What are the products? What's in the line? So we're dropping. They came to our booth at Fancy Food Show. They loved our merch that we've done in the past. And they were like, right, they came to us pretty much. They really kind of beelined. And we recently did the Stoud collaboration with the Tommy bag, which is sold out and resold out and is probably already pre-sold out again for the next drop. And we launched it at the restaurant in Montauk with Vogue, hosted the event. It was an amazing, beautiful event. That's where we did the pasta. We linked up with my buddy Daniel from Alimentari Flanore.

1:21:09He made beautiful. He had guys stretching mozzarella and shaving. So we dropped the bag. but we've been doing merch since the beginning of this. Like I was making t-shirts to us 16 years old. When we launched Monty's, our first collaboration was with Noah NYC. And we dropped a jar and a shirt that sold out in a day during a pandemic. We've been doing merch and it's been like Uncle Paulie's, you know, like the right people, put it on the right people or the right people are buying it. It's a great exposure for the brand, but it's just also making the brand much more dimensional, right? um and so they came to the booth they loved the merch they loved the whole booth that we had and they loved the product as well and they were like let's get together and let's talk and we have a italian capsule or italian uh carousel excuse me so they have like a building a mercado in the store for like a 10 week i believe program online and in store in the 59th street store they're like all the italian big designers are participating in it and they wanted us to carry the merch and i It's so cool.

1:22:14Yeah, I was like, I'll pump out a collection for you by tomorrow. Thank you so much for joining this is Taste. Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

1:22:31Hi, everyone. My name is Dueng Wing. I'm the chef and restaurant owner of Didi in West Hollywood and the author of the cookbook, The Ang. So coming into this busy fall season, my book really caters to those that are looking to add bold Vietnamese flavors to their dinner parties. My recipes are really approachable for home cooks of any skill levels. And two recipes that you can't skip in the book is the honey glazed shrimp and the Vietnamese coffee creme brulee. Because these recipes really show you how flavorful my recipes are without a ton of work. And my inspiration for writing this cookbook is actually my little sister because I wanted to pass down something to her that she can use to take care of herself.

1:23:23And if it's easy enough for my little sister to make, anyone can make it.

1:23:38This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.