Clean Labels and Clear Vision: Brian Fox on Responsible Food Manufacturing

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (14:16.62)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Brian Fox, CEO of Richelieu foods, a private brand and contract packing food company that was founded all the way back in 1862. It has a rich history in producing retail, frozen and deli pizza.

They are widely known in the food and supermarket industry for their superior array of private brand products. Headquartered in Illinois with three manufacturing facilities across the Midwest, they are an equal opportunity employer who does not discriminate. They also provide reasonable accommodations to disabled individuals. Brian himself has a long and storied career in the food business. He’s been involved in providing nourishing food at a variety of companies going all the way back to the early 90s.

He has proven himself as a skilled operator and someone who can turn around a struggling business. But what really gets him excited is being able to introduce helpful innovations and improvements to the food industry. And we’ll get to hear some examples of that. Now, before we get into all the good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line.

One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency .com. Now back to our guest today, the CEO of Richelieu Foods, Brian Fox. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Brian Fox (16:05.794)
Thank you for having me, Anthony. I’m looking forward to talking a little bit about our company and the things we’ve been able to achieve and frankly, my passion for the food business. I love it. It’s just, it’s so much fun. It is so dynamic. I don’t know anybody that has been in the food business, which some people kind of go, food business? That sounds a little boring. It’s not as sexy as developing a new app or something else, but to me, it’s…

It touches people every single day in every single household in the US and that’s kind of hard to beat. So that’s part of what makes it fun.

Anthony Codispoti (16:48.332)
That’s really cool. Yeah, you’ve had already a long and storied career in the food manufacturing space, going back all the way to 1990. So we’re looking at 34 years. So I want to break this first question into two parts. First of all, what drew you into the food industry in the first place? And then second part is what led you to Richelieu in particular?

Brian Fox (16:56.449)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (17:15.124)
Okay, great, great questions. Thanks. Look, I will tell you what drew me into the food business in the first place is really, really simple. I needed a job. And as I was graduating, you know, I grew up in North Carolina, you know, to hardworking parents. And, and they kind of set the standard for me said, Okay, when college is over, you know, the nest is

The nest is empty, so you need to make sure that you’re working hard to get something in place for you. And the story of it was kind of a crazy story, and I’ll tell you that. I went to UNC Charlotte, a great school in part of the UNC school system in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I got the job through an on -campus interview. And I was sick as a dog. I was just a

felt terrible, I called up the job placement, I had signed up for as many interviews as people would talk to me. So I kind of was like, okay, the more I do interviews, the better I will be at it. So I will talk to as many people that will talk to me. And that was kind of my mindset because I thought I can learn in the process and hopefully improve.

And you kind of, you you reflect on an interview and kind of go, well, we should have done that differently. But anyway, that was kind of the mindset. So I was terribly, terribly sick. I called the campus interview office up and I said, look, I cannot make the interview today. I can barely get out of it. And they were like, OK, well, here’s the deal. You’re going to have to write a letter to the dean. You’re going to have to apologize to the company. And by the way, we may kick you out of the process where you can’t do any more on campus interviews.

And I was like, my gosh, you have to be kidding me. So I was like, struggled to pull myself together, put on a suit, went to the interview and did the interview and literally went back to my apartment and went right back to bed. And I think I ended up in missed about a week of school because I was just, I was terribly sick. And lo and behold, the next day they called me up and said,

Brian Fox (19:33.43)
hey, we’re still in town. We’d like to spend another hour or two with you. And so again, I still felt horrible. Got up, went to the interview, and that was the start of being in the food business. It was a company that I’d never heard of in North Carolina called Great Lakes Cheese. And I kind of thought, okay, food companies, as you interview with them, you learn a little bit. And I kind of go, okay, I think I can do this. I think it can be interesting.

lo and behold went through the process, got a job and found out that I really enjoy it. I would say I was lucky to land there and find something that I, know, that clicked with my personality and who I am.

Anthony Codispoti (20:27.582)
And so what were you really drawn to? Was it the sales aspect of it? Was it something in particular about food?

Brian Fox (20:36.854)
Yeah, I would think, I think it was the sales aspect of it. I think it was the fact that it was a smaller company at that point in time. And I kind of, my point of view on a small company versus a really large company was, hey, with a smaller company, I may have more opportunity to do things outside of just a sales role. And that absolutely played itself out. So I, you know, I’m a sales person in the Southeast.

And back in 1990, we didn’t have YouTube and all those good things. And so we said, hey, we need a video to kind of film a video on who our company is, because we still weren’t widely known. And I kind of raised my hand and I said, I can do this. So I hired a video production company. And we got a script writer from Coke.

We got a cameraman from CNN and a video production company. And for $100 ,000, we drove around the country for two weeks filming at all of our production sites. And we came back after about a month and created an eight or nine minute video out of 100 hours of film. And we took that around the customers. We would walk in, plug it into the

VCR at the customers and in eight or nine minutes people would kind of go, okay, I don’t know who you are to I kind of like what you guys represent and it really opened the doors and I got a chance to do that because it was a small company. I probably wouldn’t have gotten a chance to do that in a really large company. Nothing gets really large companies, but you know, they tend to be more structured and rigid in how the roles work and in the small company,

That was just fun to me because I was like, not only do I get to kind of do my job that I like, but I kind of get to stretch and do these other things. And frankly, Anthony, that was a little bit of how I built my career to get to where I am today was, raise your hand, be willing to do a little more, be willing to stretch myself into areas that I wasn’t comfortable to do.

Brian Fox (23:01.218)
and learn through that process. And so I, you know, kind of raised my hand for a lot of things throughout my career that allowed me to learn more and be broader in knowledge base and not just deep in one area.

Anthony Codispoti (23:18.624)
So yeah, there’s there’s a theme here that I think is really fun to dive into a little bit because you know I’m I’m hearing you say hey, you know, I was just graduating college I didn’t know how this whole job interview thing was gonna go I just I signed up for as many interviews as I could figuring I’ll learn from this like you went in with this Curiosity that says I’m not gonna get a job offer from everybody. But how many of these can I do?

Brian Fox (23:38.465)
Mm -hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (23:46.08)
so that I can learn, so that I can refine my skills so I can get better. And then what’s interesting is you got a job offer from one that you went into just on the verge of death, so sick. And still you put on a good enough appearance that, hey, the next day we wanna meet with you again. And then this is a theme that carries on into after you got your first job. It’s like, you didn’t have any experience in video production. You’d never made…

Brian Fox (23:58.416)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (24:14.75)
commercial. You this was long before the days of everybody carrying a camera in their pocket. Like what you were doing required, you know, hiring a team of professionals, coordinating everything, traveling around the country, whittling a hundred hours of content down into the most useful eight or nine minutes. You had no background in any of that. You’re like, that sounds fun. That’s different. That’s interesting. Let me try calling me. I put me in coach. And so I’m curious.

Brian Fox (24:20.929)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (24:33.728)
Hmm.

Brian Fox (24:38.369)
Mm -hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (24:42.91)
Is this something that you think you were just born with or do you think that people can develop this quest for learning, this deep sense of curiosity?

Brian Fox (24:53.996)
Yeah, look, I absolutely think you can develop it. I believe it is developed by anybody. Do I think some people are more naturally inclined to do that? Sure. But I think it’s developed by anybody. I am a big believer in intellectual curiosity. know, it’s, we’re hiring for some roles right now in the company. And I like to say there are three characteristics that I try to hire for.

Humble, hungry, and smart. And smart, what I mean by smart is intellectually curious. I’m not saying that you have to have a Mensa level IQ. No, I want you to be intellectually curious. And intellectually curious is you kind of being willing to think differently about whatever is there. You’re being willing to open to a new experience. Your willingness to kind of, gosh, you know.

I don’t know about that, but I’m going to try to learn something here. Can I go to something online and learn about X? Or can I read a book and learn about Y? I think intellectual curiosity is one of the most powerful personal characteristics that a person can have to help them be broader and not just deep in one area.

And that’s absolutely one of the things that I’ve learned is to get to the level that I’ve been fortunate enough to get to, it requires breadth and not just depth. So I feel like I understand the sales process and cycle exceptionally well, because I did that for many, many years and had success doing that. But I also knew that this was my goal was to be a CEO someday.

And I knew that I had to have more breadth, that my depth in one area was not going to be enough to get me to where I wanted to go. It would open some doors for me because they would say, look, this person has done this job and they’ve succeeded at it. So they probably have some aptitude and or willingness to do things. no, intellectual curiosity, it’s just it’s a huge, huge win. And I think

Brian Fox (27:18.754)
I went back and got my masters at age 40.

And what I learned going back, getting my master’s, you know, at age 40 with three young kids, a new job, and I broke my leg in the middle of it was A, I really enjoyed learning even more as a, you know, more mature person who has experience than I did in college. In college, you know, I was kind of like, hey, let’s have fun. Let’s do all these things.

But when I came back to it at 40, I kind of had this, wow, I’m learning things here and this is really, really fun. And I’ve talked to a lot of other people that have gone back after getting some years of experience and then going back and getting their masters and going, yeah, I enjoyed learning so much more now that I’ve had some separation. had

some career that happened. I recommend it if it’s something you want to do. It doesn’t have to be a master’s. It can be a course. I think there’s lots of ways to continue that learning, continue that intellectual curiosity. I’m, a strong believer in the value it delivers.

Anthony Codispoti (28:40.812)
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Every day when I drop my kids off at school, I tell them, hey guys, choose kindness and curiosity today. Ask lots of good questions, be open to learning. I think that’s really important. And I suspect that it’s that same level of that same, you know, intellectual curiosity that you have that gets you so excited about some of the different food innovations that you’ve been a part of along the way. I’d love to hear about some of those.

Brian Fox (28:49.953)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (29:07.979)
It is.

Yeah, it is. I like to say in the food business, we’re trying to figure out how do we solve a problem for the consumer. So the consumer has a potential problem. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be a huge problem. It can be a really small problem. But you’re going, how do I make life a little bit easier for the consumer in this area? And I’ll give you an example of one. It was kind of a really

super simple innovation, but spaghetti. So, do not offend the Italians in your podcast, but there are a lot of people in the United States who don’t wanna put 11 inches of spaghetti in a pot and watch it kind of absorb the water and move down in the pot and stir it.

Anthony Codispoti (30:01.373)
Hey, what’s the matter with that, huh? That’s the way we’ve always done it.

Brian Fox (30:05.934)
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, the real Italians don’t like this. kind of go, why would you do that? But we looked at that. We said, OK, how many people break their pasta before they put it in the pot?

And we kind of looked around the office and just kind of did an informal survey. And you know, probably half the people broke the pasta before they put it in the pot. And we’re like, well, what happens when you break pasta? Well, if you take an 11 -inch thing of pasta, hold it in your two hands and break it. Little pieces of pasta shatter and go everywhere. And it’s a bit of a mess, because now you got to track it down. And we said, hmm, what if we made pot -ready spaghetti, something that would fit right into the pot?

that you don’t have to break it. You drop it in and because it’s now, you know, five to five and a half inches in length, fits in almost any pot without kind of having to stand there and watch it and stir it. So that was the idea. So we went out and we tested it with people. And again, I’m from the Southeast. I would say we’re not, we don’t have the density of Italian population in the Southeast that we do in the Northeast.

And a lot of people in the southeast are like, my gosh, this is great. Who wants to stand by the pot when it’s hot in the summer already and stand there when it’s doing that because you got steam coming off the pot. And of course, know, the little vent fan never gets the heat out of there as well as you would like. So that was the idea. And we came up with a way of cutting that on our production line, packaging it in a smaller box.

And then on the side of the box, the other problem that people would have in pasta is how much is enough? You know, how much of a handful of pasta is enough for two or is enough for four? And so we put like a little measuring gauge on the side of the box that you could go, hey, this much of the box equals a serving for two. This much of the box equals a serving for four. This much of a box equals a serving for eight.

Brian Fox (32:20.366)
And that solved another problem because pasta kind of like rice. You often have either too much or not enough. And nobody likes to throw it away at the end. And everybody hates it when you don’t make enough. And people go, I need some more rice or I need some more pasta. So we figured out a way, how do we get the serving sizes in a way that makes it really nice and convenient for people to look at this and go, OK, this is the right size.

And so those two little innovations together, not a world -shattering innovation by any means, but it worked really, really well. And consumers truly thought that that was a problem solved.

Anthony Codispoti (33:04.362)
Yeah. And sometimes the best innovations are, you know, don’t require a big, heavy lift or, you know, some fancy technology. It’s just tweaking things a little bit. And I think what’s, what’s just as cool as the idea is the name pot ready spaghetti. Like you, like you, kind of quickly know what it is. And there’s, you know, a little bit of rhyming that goes on there too. And I was just Googling pot ready spaghetti and it looks like it’s still a thing. I see lots of different brands.

Brian Fox (33:19.818)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (33:31.936)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Well, we were the first to do it, you know, many years ago. I’ve been out of the pasta business for a while, so I can’t say that I keep up with if it’s still there or not for, you know, lots of different reasons. But, you know, glad to see it’s still there. And look, it’s like you said, it doesn’t have to be a revolution. It can be an evolution.

Anthony Codispoti (33:32.627)
using that on their packaging today.

Anthony Codispoti (34:00.577)
Do you have another example for us? You’ve been in the food industry a long time.

Brian Fox (34:02.198)
Yeah, look, I’ll have another example for you that we did in the pasta industry too. And as we were talking to moms, moms want to get vegetables into their kids’ diets. mean, how many little kids love to eat vegetables? Not a whole lot of them. They kind of go, yeah, ugh. I don’t want to eat green beans or whatever it is.

Anthony Codispoti (34:22.336)
many.

Brian Fox (34:29.926)
And so as we thought about that, said, hmm, how do we get a serving of vegetables into every serving of pasta? Because kids love pasta. Let’s face it. It’s hard to find a kid that doesn’t like an elbow macaroni or some other fun shape or a spaghetti. They all generally like it. So we thought, and there are vegetable pastas out there today. You’ll see them as the tri -color pastas. One is spinach and one is tomato.

The kids generally look at those orange and green colors and they kind of go, yeah, look, I don’t want that. They’re used to seeing the color of pasta that they’ve always gotten in their mac and cheese. So we started investigating how to do that. And the way that we did it was we worked with ingredient companies to come up with a vegetable blend mix of lighter colored vegetables. And we could put it inside the pasta.

enough to give them a serving of vegetables with every serving of pasta and we call it a hidden veggie and again it appealed to moms because now I can get you know some vegetables to my kids and the kids Loved it because they just saw plain old, you know White pasta without one of these, you know colors that that could have been off putting to them

And that was another success. I like to think of sometimes innovation is not about home run, it’s about a single. So if I can continue to deliver singles for my brand or my product or my category, those singles eventually add up to home runs. You get a number of singles in a row, you still score a run, just like scoring a home run. And this is another one that

Anthony Codispoti (36:07.211)
Hmm.

Brian Fox (36:26.274)
you know, was another single, kind of like pot ready spaghetti. And frankly, it’s, you see it in all kinds of pasta products today with protein enhanced and omega oil enhanced and all these other things that still keep that color and look of regular spaghetti, but I’m delivering on an enhanced nutritional benefit for families.

and that was kind of a way to do that.

Anthony Codispoti (36:57.917)
And I’m curious, what does a single look like from a financial perspective in the food industry? Is it like a few percentage points boost in sales? Is it more than that? Can you frame it for us?

Brian Fox (37:08.354)
Yeah, I would say, you know, the way that we try to think about singles in our business is we try to make a margin accretive. So let’s just say if your base margin today is 10%, if I can come out with a product that is going to be accretive to the margin of the category, so I can bring these out at 12 or 14 % and help

pull the margin of the business up over time as those singles get out into the market, then that’s good for the business. So that’s the way that, you know, a lot of us try to think about that is I don’t need that to make 30%. And if I put it out there at 30%, it’s probably going to create a price barrier or trial barrier that somebody’s going to go, no, I don’t like that. But if I can go, hey, I’m at 10,

I can sell this at 14. I can get it at the right price point that a family feels like yeah I haven’t tried that before but it’s only You know 20 cents a package more than what I already buy That barrier to trial is lower than if it were a dollar a package more Than what you already buy. So some of that is about that some of that a creativeness It is about

What do you think the consumer is willing to try and invest without feeling bad about the investment? And if it was a regular pasta at a dollar and this new pasta at $2 and they don’t like it at $2, they’re going to go, that dollar, I felt like I lost that dollar. But if it’s 20 cents more, 30 cents more, that’s kind of within this realm of, yeah, that’s in the zone of being very reasonable.

So I’m more willing to take a chance on something new and try it and bring it home.

Anthony Codispoti (39:11.372)
Ryan, tell me if I’m thinking about this correctly, it would seem like you’ve got a two -part challenge when you’re releasing a new product. The first is, how do we get them to try it the first time? How do we get them to pull it off the shelf, put it in their cart that first time, take it home and try it? And then the second one is, how do we get them to buy again? And it would seem like the second challenge is all about the quality and the taste of the product, right? If you can get them to try it and they like it, they’re gonna come back for it.

Brian Fox (39:20.77)
Mm

Brian Fox (39:29.153)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (39:41.217)
Is that sort of how you guys think about it internally, sort of this two part thing?

Brian Fox (39:45.09)
Yeah, 100%. We like to think that getting trial isn’t exceptionally hard if the consumer feels like it’s close in to what they would be comfortable doing. So the pot ready spaghetti. Well, there’s really no barrier to trial on that because it’s the same spaghetti that you’ve already bought. The hidden veggie. Hey, it looks the same in the box. It’s got vegetables in there. It’s only 20 cents more.

that trial doesn’t have the same barrier as if I’d come out something totally revolutionary. trial for new products isn’t as hard as repeat. Repeat is you have to deliver on the flavor, you have to deliver on the eating experience in a way that the customer feels satisfied. It’s one of the things that I’ve seen

in my 34 years in the food business and I’ll give you a couple examples. So was in the cheese business when people were coming out with reduced fat cheese. Well, the first reduced fat cheese was pretty horrible. It was not good. It was gummy and grainy, rubbery. I mean, it was bad. And guess what? You’ve got a lot of people that would try it because they’re like, reduce fat, I need to cut fat. I’ll try that.

But when it didn’t deliver on the flavor experience, they’re not coming back. And the same thing with low carb and the same thing with some other nutritional fads that have come and gone over the last 30 years. Sometimes first to the market is an advantage in creating a brand name. I’ll say this about vegetable -based meat products or

created meat products, maybe that’s a better way to say it, is if you could go back in time 18 months, it was a huge trend everywhere. Everybody was putting them on the menus. Everybody was trying it. Here you are 18 months later, and I would say both of those businesses are struggling because they did not deliver on the meal experience that the…

Brian Fox (42:11.062)
that the consumer believed that they were going to get. And so they don’t repeat. And so I like to say trial is easy, repeat is hard. You’ve got to design your product for repeat. If it doesn’t taste great.

Anthony Codispoti (42:28.214)
Do you guys do some kind of testing before rolling out a new product? We think that that would be helpful in getting a better idea of, are we likely to get repeats on this?

Brian Fox (42:33.248)
Yeah, we do. Yeah, exactly. You know, look, you know, the food business is big on both qualitative and quantitative, you know, testing. And that is kind of around quantitative testing. Let’s put it out in the hands of users and get their real life feedback. Does it taste good? Would you buy it again? Did it deliver on your experience? And that’s kind of a…

you know, a well -known marketing pathway to helping determine if your product is acceptable. And frankly, it’s as simple, it can be as simple as, you know, when you’re bootstrapping new ideas as an organization that you’re literally just kind of giving it to 10 friends. And if your 10 friends go, and you have to go, look, be honest with me, don’t.

Tell me what you think I want to hear. Would you buy this? And would you try it again? And you’ve got to go, hey, if it’s bad, tell me it’s bad. That’s going to be better for me than telling me it’s good and you not buy it again. So you can do it. The full -blown marketing pathway, or you can do it the bootstrap pathway. I think both of them can give you pretty solid feedback if you have consumers.

or people willing to tell you what they really think as opposed to what you want to hear.

Anthony Codispoti (44:03.104)
Now what’s interesting to me is you said that the trial part is actually pretty easy if the product is similar enough to what exists and similar enough in price. That surprises me, but maybe just the fact that you’ve already got the shelf space there and you’re doing something colorful or creative on the packaging is enough to get somebody to go from what they usually buy to, this one’s got veggies hidden in it. Is that kind of how it works?

Brian Fox (44:11.106)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (44:23.157)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (44:29.034)
Yeah, yeah, I like to say that consumers have a consideration set of products that they like. So if I’m a pasta eater and I walk down the pasta aisle, chances are I’ve probably had something from a number of different brands in that aisle. Or you’re familiar enough with a product that you go, there’s not whole lot of differentiation in pasta, frankly.

I’m a pasta snob because I worked in that business for 14 years. I can probably tell you more than the average bear, but 90 % of the people are not going to be able to tell you a difference in dry pasta. Other categories, it’s more dramatic. Pizza, it’s more dramatic. So crust can be different, how you make those crust, how you make your sauce, how you pop it and all those other things, but can have difference.

So there’s kind high differentiation categories and low differentiation categories. There are a lot of foods that are kind of in the low differentiation category space. And in those foods you say, there’s a consideration set of items that I’m comfortable trying or brands that I’m comfortable trying. And that’s how you get a lot of trial. It may be that you’ve been a Borilla user for many, many years.

When Borella comes out with a new product, you kind of go, yeah, I like that brand, I’ll try that. Or you may be a great value user. And you’re like, hey, I like great value. It saves me money. It delivers quality that is in line with my expectations. So when they come out with something new, I’m willing to try it. So I think that consideration set definitely works better in low differentiation versus high differentiation.

Anthony Codispoti (46:25.208)
I’m curious to know how quickly a new idea can go from idea to being on the shelf. Obviously it depends, right? Because some are relatively simple, some take a lot more testing, but maybe give me a range from the short end to the longest end that you’ve seen.

Brian Fox (46:44.83)
About the shortest I’ve ever seen it done is about four months. And that was because it was a very, very close in idea. And we kind of had the retailer customer buy in of we like this, let’s launch it ASAP in our private brand. And so we were able to do that very, very quickly. I would say a much more normal process

Anthony Codispoti (46:49.942)
That is short.

Brian Fox (47:15.234)
is going to be in the nine months to two year range. It kind of depends. So if you’re a really big, well -established brand, you’re probably going to want to take more steps to be more certain about what you think the outcome will be, and therefore more steps and more certainty to lower your perceived risk on a new product launch.

is going to take longer to accomplish. Then if you’re a startup brand and you’re developing something and you kind of want to run it by your friends and they kind of go, yeah, I like this, but I don’t like that. OK, well, kind of go back and solve for that. So I would say nine months is quick on one end and two years is, you

somewhat typical from a branded perspective on the hire.

Anthony Codispoti (48:14.486)
And that makes sense. mean, not only are you testing the food and the ingredients and getting the texture and the flavor right, but you’ve got, you know, new packaging and how do you tell the story and the copy around it and, you know, the go -to -market. So, and everybody knows like, you know, larger companies, sometimes it takes a little bit longer to, you know, turn the ship in a different direction. So, and if you’re talking nine months, that feels like a pretty reasonable timeframe to me. It’s still pretty quick to make happen.

Brian Fox (48:42.528)
Yeah, yeah, and it also depends on what kind of innovation you’re developing there. So I worked for a period of time for ConAgra and they developed a product called steamers in their frozen entrees aisle. And basically what it was was a microwave dish with the sauce at the plastic dish with the sauce at the bottom.

and then a kind of another tray that sits on top of that with the vegetables and meats on the top. Well, it took a long time for them to develop, know, do I have the, how do I make this packaging work? Can I, cooking these two things separately, does that deliver on the flavor profile? And I actually think that they worked on that for more than two years, probably in the three year range. And then you have to go in and say, now I’ve got to develop a piece of equipment that can do this.

So where they were previously mixing all those things together and you’d deposit it in one dish, now they’re going, hey, I have to have two separate streams. I’ve got to put one dish in here, fill the portion in the bottom, then I’ve got to put another dish on top of that, fill that portion, and then top it, and then package it. So some of that is just related around how broad the definition of your innovation is. If it’s a packaging innovation, it’s

12 months is fast on a packaging innovation because equipment lead time, depending on what you’re trying to do is 16 weeks on the short end to 24 months on the high end, depending again, the amount of complexity, the amount of how you’re having to change things. So it can vary pretty widely on that standpoint. Flavor innovations where you don’t have to really do it.

in a whole new way are fast.

Anthony Codispoti (50:38.248)
You so we went through a period and to some extent are still going through a period. You talked about the different sort of nutrition fads, you know, low fat was big for a long time. You know, now, low carb is also big and some people still into the low fat. But now I see some foods that, you know, talk about, you know, heart healthy fats and, you know, I don’t know if that means that they’re adding

Brian Fox (50:56.578)
Mm

Brian Fox (51:02.242)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (51:04.512)
you know, they’re actually going to the step of trying to add more fats to their product. And this, answer to this may be different in the pizza industry versus others, but are you seeing any kind of a discussion going on at Richelieu about, people want like good fats in products now. Maybe we should figure out a way to, to come out with that innovation in pizza.

Brian Fox (51:24.95)
Yeah, here’s what I will tell you. In our category right now, it is about how do we clean up the labels? How do we get the things off the labels that may be a perception of not being on trend from a clean label perspective? So that’s what we’re working on. So I would say our product is

You know, it’s somewhat simple. It’s not unlike if you were making pizza at home in your own kitchen. You’re gonna make a dough. You need flour, any yeast, you need water. You might need an oil in there to have, to help for texture and different things like that. You need a pepperoni, you need cheese, you need, you know, vegetables. So, trying to get those other,

know, preservatives. And because we do frozen pizza, we don’t really use preservatives like happen in other foods. I’m not going to say that, you know, there isn’t a preservative or something in an ingredient that goes into our products, but by and large, it’s free from preservatives as compared to a shelf stable product. So a shelf stable product generally has preservatives.

Because our product is frozen, I mean, again, it’s like making it in your kitchen. We just run it through a freezer to freeze it. That holds it in stasis until you’re ready to cook it. So we kind of don’t need those preservatives in the same way. But there’s still a number of retailers and consumers are going, hey, we don’t like these kind of fats. OK, well, let’s work to get those fats out. Maybe we don’t like.

an ingredient that ends up in a lot of pepperoni. So how do we get nitrates out of pepperoni? Okay, well that’s fair. We can work to get nitrates out of pepperoni. So our business is maybe different than some others in that area, but that’s what kind of is the big push now. And of course, our parent company is in Germany and what is acceptable

Brian Fox (53:46.69)
in ingredients in Europe is different than what is acceptable in ingredients in the US. As an example, there can sometimes be what’s called a dough conditioner that may not be allowed in Europe, but is generally recognized as safe in the US. So then you have to start going, well, do our consumers understand what this ingredient is? Do we need to take this ingredient out?

Are our retailer partners saying that they don’t want this ingredient in because of what they’re trying to achieve with their own brand? And can we get some of those things out? And so I would say in general, we’re working and continually finding ways to clean up that label to make it as additive free as we can be. And that’s kind of the big focus in the frozen category right now. I think in other categories, yes, they may be

more intention around healthy fats or omega -3s and things like that than there is in pizza.

Anthony Codispoti (54:54.092)
But your primary focus, like you said, is to try to clean up the labels. Customers are saying, we don’t want nitrates. We don’t maybe want this dough conditioner. And so you’re responding to what that consumer demand is, which is interesting to me because, yeah, something I want to talk about with you and get your perspective on this, know, 34 years in the food industry. know, big food manufacturers, sometimes they get a bad rap in the media, right? They talk about like, they’re just, you know,

Brian Fox (54:58.688)
Yeah.

Brian Fox (55:05.91)
Absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (55:23.244)
There are these greedy guys sitting behind the curtain, trying to figure out ways to put more garbage into the food. They’re trying to make it more addictive for us. They don’t care about us. They’re guys on Wall Street just pulling levers, hoping everybody gets addicted to this stuff. And the way I’m hearing you talk, it’s a very different energy, a very different vibe. So I’m curious to hear about.

Brian Fox (55:36.322)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (55:49.057)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (55:51.577)
How you respond to that kind of negative attention whether it’s warranted or not

Brian Fox (55:57.57)
Yeah, look, I think the misconception people have about food manufacturing production is we’re just your kitchen writ large. So we’re trying to make things as close to the way that you do it at home, just at scale. You know, people like to pay $4 for a pizza. Awesome. For us to, you know, be able to sell you a product that retails at $4.

I’ve got to be able to make it at scale. I’ve got to be able to make it quickly. But I want to do it as cleanly and as efficiently as possible. So we’re just your kitchen, like I said, in a large, large scale version. Again, we want to deliver what the consumer wants. If the consumer is, OK, I don’t like

You know the the technical name for vitamin E, you know, there is a technical name for vitamin E I think it’s to tocopherols mixed tocopherols. Well mixed tocopherols sounds terrible when you read that and you go Well, what is that? Well, it’s vitamin E, but that’s the scientific name for it But when consumers read mixed tocopherols, they kind of go what’s that that sounds awful Well, that’s the technical name for vitamin E. So

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, consumers have generally decided, we don’t like the name mixed acoparols because they don’t understand what it really is. And some of those things are required by law to be in there. Guess what? Enriched flour. That’s a regulation. Enriched flour means you add niacin. OK, guess what is niacin? Niacin, yeah, exactly. So it’s not a pretty sounding name.

Anthony Codispoti (57:43.326)
one of the B vitamins.

Brian Fox (57:49.622)
but it’s one of those things that’s required. And so there can sometimes be a disconnect in what is required to be in there and the clarity of what it is on the label that make people go, Niacin, that doesn’t make any sense, that sounds awful. When you go, well, I’ve got to put it in there because it’s the regulation. So yeah, I think.

our industry and frankly government can do a better job of working together to explain what those things are and why they’re in there. Well, you know, why is a lot of wheat fortified or pasta is fortified? Well, it’s because, you know, 80 years ago, there was a deficiency in certain vitamins in the American diet. So they said, okay, well, the way that we’re going to solve that is we’re going to

You got to put iron in there, you got to put niacin in there, you got to put, you know, vitamin E in there, mixed with coprols, and that’s going to help with whatever that deficiency was. And here we are 80 years later, and clearly we don’t have those same deficiencies in our diets, but the rules and regulations haven’t changed to say, you can do it without fortification. So some of that legacy regulation

was actually really, really good for where the American diet was at that point in time, but may not be needed today because our diet has changed significantly. So, you know, if we could work together as a society and say, don’t need these things anymore, take them out of there, we would rather have a cleaner label. I can go to the FDA as long as I want and say, let’s take this out of there. And they kind of go, yeah, but

We’re not hearing a clamor for consumers to take that out of there. So it doesn’t get passed and those rules don’t get changed and some of those legacy things continue to carry on. like I said, we’re a kitchen. We’re just trying to make it at scale and deliver it to you as efficiently as possible. The American consumer spends a lower percentage of their disposable income on food.

Brian Fox (01:00:13.89)
than any other nation in the world. And why is that? It’s because we have a highly efficient food system that has been developed in this business over the last 100 years. And frankly, it’s been a stimulator to the economy when you’re only spending around 11 % of your food, 11 % of your disposable income on food dollars.

versus countries where you’re spending 18 to 20 % of your disposable income on food dollars. Well, what happens to that? turns into other consumption, whether that’s clothes or vacations or house payments or car payments or anything. So our industry has been designed extremely effectively.

If the consumer needs are changed, this industry will change to meet the consumer needs up until the point that it runs into some regulatory hurdles that have to be addressed.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:23.852)
There’s several good things that you touched on there that I want to highlight. Because I think a lot of these points get missed by people. And this first one I’m going to mention was one I never really thought about was the government regulations. You you’re talking about laws that been in place for 80 years to address diet deficiencies that used to exist. Those deficiencies aren’t the same in most people’s diets now as they were then, but the laws haven’t changed and the FDA is like

Brian Fox (01:01:37.74)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:01:45.654)
Mm -hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:51.734)
hey, until consumers start making noise about it, we’re going to make you guys keep doing the same thing. so anybody listening who’s like, hey, I don’t want mixed tocopherols in my bread. okay, go tell the FDA that they’re the ones that can change the rules. The other thing that you mentioned here, I think is really important is that consumer education is important piece of this and maybe difficult to achieve at times. Because right, what’s niacin? that sounds chemical and terrible. Well,

Brian Fox (01:01:54.658)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:01:59.136)
Mm

Brian Fox (01:02:07.074)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:02:19.074)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:21.898)
It’s one of the many B vitamins. B vitamins, well, vitamins are good, right? Or mixed to cough, that’s vitamin E, you know, but the government requires us to label it a certain way. And so, yeah, that consumer education piece is important. But the one that I think is really the point to drive home with folks here is the incredible efficiency at which you guys are able to do things at scale, right? You’re just, you’re taking what I do in my kitchen,

Brian Fox (01:02:24.866)
Mm

Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:02:30.85)
Mm

Brian Fox (01:02:34.658)
Mm

Brian Fox (01:02:46.718)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:51.692)
and you’re doing it at mass to make these things, to make these pizzas more cost effective than I could make myself in my home. There’s no way I could make a pizza for $4 going by the bread and the cheese and the sauce and the pepperoni. And that’s before you even factor in the value of my time. so, right, rather than sort of being pilloried for some things that…

Brian Fox (01:03:06.868)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:03:12.738)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:19.244)
largely can be attached to just lack of education. It’s more like, let’s celebrate what some of these, you know, big food manufacturers are able to do. A $4 pizza, that’s a big deal for a lot of families, but especially working families that are having a hard time making ends meet. So yeah, thanks for highlighting those things.

Brian Fox (01:03:28.3)
Mm

Brian Fox (01:03:33.292)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think those are all great points, Anthony. you know, to give you a little bit of the concept of scale there, you know, we have somewhere around 700 employees and we make around 100 million pizzas a year. So that’s that’s a lot of pizzas for not many people. So you have to run those at scale, you have to run them.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:53.59)
Wow.

Brian Fox (01:04:04.556)
quickly and again, we wanna do it in as food safe, in as nutritionally benefit and as a clean label as we can possibly do that. And we’re no different than anybody else in the food space. We all want the same things. Unfortunately, there’s a particular meat company that’s in the news right now for not.

for a food safety issue, I can tell you that’s every food manufacturer’s nightmare. So we work really, really, really hard to not be in that position and deliver as safe a product as you could make in your kitchen, if not better. Our people are trained on what food safety looks like. Not all consumers are trained on what food safety looks like.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:40.054)
Hmm.

Brian Fox (01:05:00.716)
So I like to think, I know, I know we have the consumer’s best interests at heart. And people need to understand that.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:14.828)
Brian, I don’t often like to put my guests on the spot, but I’m gonna ask you a tough question here. I’m curious to hear, 34 years in the food industry, how many meetings have you sat in where there’s a conversation around, hey, how do we make this more addictive? How do we get people hooked and coming back? Like they can’t just have one.

Brian Fox (01:05:19.745)
Okay.

Brian Fox (01:05:36.812)
Zero. And I would tell you, if somebody said that in a meeting, they would probably be fired. Because that is so antithetical to what we are and what we want to do. Never heard it. that you know, that would stand out like such a sore thumb that those people just would not be around. I mean, that goes against every

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:44.171)
Okay.

Brian Fox (01:06:06.23)
That goes against every fiber of every food company I have worked for. And I’ve worked for small ones, and I’ve worked for really, really large ones. That’s, yeah. Personally, that’s disgusting to hear that. And I don’t know a single person in the food business that wouldn’t feel the same way.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:22.73)
right.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:27.306)
Wow, what a perspective to have shared here. I mean, because that’s not, you know, the perception that a lot of folks have. And so to hear you, like I can see you physically, like you’re, you’re kind of riled up at the very suggestion of it.

Brian Fox (01:06:34.742)
Now.

yeah, I am, I am, because that’s just, every fiber in my being says that is wrong. And I don’t know anybody that I’ve worked with in 34 years that wouldn’t see it the same way that I

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:57.612)
And Brian Fox is a guy who has worked with a lot of big food manufacturers, worked with thousands of people, been in countless meetings. And he’s saying, not once, not in a single meeting that you’ve ever attended. Have you ever heard anybody talk about how do we make them hooked on this? That’s a fresh perspective. That’s great.

Brian Fox (01:07:03.009)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:07:07.744)
Mm -hmm.

Not once.

Brian Fox (01:07:16.194)
Yeah, no, yeah, that’s… That makes my skin crawl just to think about it. Honestly.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:24.908)
Wow. Okay. Great. Thanks for shining a flashlight on that. Brian, I want to shift gears a little bit. know, people, they look at you, maybe they, you know, they understand a little bit about your background. You had a lot of, you know, great positions at different food manufacturers, including, you know, CEO of Richelieu Foods now, 700 employees makes 100 million pizzas a year. They’re like, well, I’m not.

Brian Fox (01:07:29.067)
No problem.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:51.136)
Like Brian was just destined for this level of greatness from the beginning. And, you know, this probably came easy to him. you know, smooth sailing all the way through life. But I know having talked to lots of folks that everybody has gone through difficult times. And I’m kind of curious to hear about either personally or professionally, maybe a challenge that you’ve gone through and what you learned coming through the other side.

Brian Fox (01:08:19.222)
Yeah, that’s great question. And here’s what I’ll tell you. I think there are a couple things and obviously, well, not obviously, but look, there are people that have overcome much more significant challenges than my own. But yes, I can share a couple small things. So if you haven’t noticed it, I’m from North Carolina. So I kind of have this Southern accent that dribbles out here and there.

And I would say early in my career, I had a much more pronounced accent than I do today. I would say I’ve lived around the US for many years now, and so I’ve kind of toned it down as I’ve adapted to my environment. But I will never forget I was at a retailer in Northeast, and I’m fresh out of college in North Carolina, and I still have a very, very strong Southern accent.

And I was at a particular retailer in the New York, New Jersey area. And this person at that retailer, and I’m not going to tell you or what all this was, but she heard my accent and immediately assumed that I inferior intellectually. Because this person had obviously

probably gone to an Ivy League school and things like this, and kind of looked down her nose at me. And that really just irritated me. Irritated me to no end to go, why would you think that I am not smart and capable just because of my accent? And she literally said that. mean, she was very bold and direct about it. And well, you’re from the South. You don’t know anything about.

what we’re doing up here and you’re just kind of like, okay, got it. So that’s a super simple one, but every time that I’ve run into challenges, I’m a big believer in perseverance. All things will pass. Eventually that person wasn’t there.

Brian Fox (01:10:40.93)
And we were able to continue. I continued to call on that retailer for many, many, years. And frankly, one of the recommendations from that retailer is what helped me get my second job. So after I left the first company, the second company that I went to work for, new people at that retailer, and they were like, no, he’s great. You should hire him. And so I like to say,

in trying to overcome a really stupid, simple stereotype and in no way comparing that discrimination to what others would have experienced. But it was just one of those little things just stuck in me and I’m gonna go, you know what? I’m gonna prove you wrong. I’m gonna prove to you that I can do this. You know, I’ve been, I’ve kind of been,

know, laughed out of a CEO’s office at another retailer in the Southeast. Who I came in there, you know, particular retailer had a very strong point of view on data and understanding consumers. And he was an older gentleman that, you know, believed in being in the stores and talking to consumers. And by the way, that’s not wrong, not wrong.

But it was in the early days of category management where we were the information revolution was happening and all this data that you could get and understand consumers and how they shop and how they make decisions gave us so much more of a richer understanding than what we had just by a guy walking around the stores. And he basically said, boy, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

And that was with the CEO of the company. Guess what? Two years later, I still got the business, still became their supplier. And it’s because I persevered. I just kept, I was not going to let the first no get me out of there. And so I had to continually work to bring myself back to that person and show that we really did know what we were talking about and that a new approach would work.

Brian Fox (01:13:03.202)
And it did. Another example, as I mentioned earlier, I was getting my masters, had three kids, had a new job, and I broke my leg all at the same time. So I’m trying to figure out how to make all these things work. And I did. And by the way, I give an enormous amount of credit to

my wife and my family who were the support system through each one of those things. When you come home and you go, my gosh, you’re not going to believe what happened today. Just to kind of share and invent a little bit and maybe change my perspective on a situation was all incredibly helpful. And like I said, I had the fortune last night of being at the Chicago Economic Club.

and listen to Kevin Warren, the president of the Chicago Bears, tell a really impressive story of overcoming a significant obstacle. And I gotta look, I haven’t overcome that kind of an obstacle in my life and in my career, but I’ve had my fair share. And to me, it’s perseverance. You just keep pushing forward and you just…

Continue to follow up and show how you can add value and you know eventually you will win the trust of people over and they will see that you can do the things that you say that you’re going to do. Never give up. know go back to Winston Churchill. Never ever ever give up.

Anthony Codispoti (01:14:48.574)
I love that. Because I think, you know, at different levels, we have all felt judged, ridiculed, discounted. That’s some, you know, even if we haven’t dealt with some of the more powerful and negative stereotypes that other folks have, like we know what that’s like to be sort of marginalized, unfairly. And so your story of persevering through that and not taking, you know, no for an answer on that first time, I think is, is pretty powerful.

Brian Fox (01:14:55.19)
Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Fox (01:15:07.106)
Mm -hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (01:15:16.832)
Brian, I’ve just got one more question for you. And before I ask it, I want to do two things. Folks listening today, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, subscribe, or share button on your favorite podcast app. Brian, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you or your company. What is that?

Brian Fox (01:15:20.919)
Mm -hmm.

Brian Fox (01:15:33.952)
Yeah, so look, our website is richeliefoods .com. So it’s R -I -C -H -E -L -I -E -U foods .com. And you you can get me there. So my email you can you can get it at it’s really simple bfox at richeliefoods .com. I’m I’m pretty open. I, I talk to people I’m willing to listen to good ideas and help other people because I love seeing other people succeed.

I’ve been, you know, fortunate enough in my career that I’ve been able to help put other people in, connect with other, in other things and see them go on to do great things. And I love to see people win. love to, you know, if somebody has a question or wants something, I’m more than willing to help. We’re all smarter together.

Anthony Codispoti (01:16:29.218)
that’s terrific. That’s terrific. I love that message. So last question for you, Brian, what do you maybe just pick one? What do you see that is a big innovation that’s coming in the food space in the next year?

Brian Fox (01:16:43.195)
that’s a really great question. Really, really great question.

Anthony Codispoti (01:16:46.324)
or five years if that helps.

Brian Fox (01:16:48.982)
Well, think, yeah, so good point. I think the next revolution is going to be in reducing packaging. So a number of states ahead of the federal government are putting in place enhanced producer responsibility laws, which are basically laws that are being passed state by state that require us as manufacturers

to figure out how we own and reduce product waste throughout the supply chain, which is kind of a revolutionary approach. And I’ll give you an example. So our parent company in Germany doesn’t use cases on pallets. They literally shrink wrap the individual packages themselves and stack them on the pallets so they can get rid of all that cardboard.

I would say the distribution system in Europe is significantly different than the distribution system in the US. We’re shipping stuff a lot further in general and in a much more varied climate than they have in Europe. But I think that that’s going to be something that comes to fruition over the next two, three years is these laws are going to force us to go, okay, how do you get rid of all that cardboard?

That cardboard provides no value after it hits the retailer and they unpack it and put it on the shelf. So how do I get this out of the supply chain? And that’s going to be an interesting set of trade -offs to make that work because you may have to actually increase the size of the cartons and stuff, the thickness of the cartons to give them more strength to offset getting rid of cardboard as an example. But I think there’s a lot to be done

in that area. You know, one of the things I’m a part of the board of the American Frozen Foods Institute, and one of things that we’re looking at is why do we freeze products to the temperature that we do? You know, can we still have it frozen, but be three degrees higher than how we’re having it frozen today? Meaning, you know, does it need to be at zero or can it be at three?

Brian Fox (01:19:15.458)
And the difference between zero and three could be much as 10 % greenhouse gas savings across the supply chain. So that’s something that AFI as an organization is starting studies on. We’re partnering with a company in the UK that’s actually done this study in the UK supply chain. And they figured out they can save 10 to 15%.

Anthony Codispoti (01:19:23.894)
Wow.

Brian Fox (01:19:45.282)
It’s much more difficult to do that in Europe because they’re very strictly regulated on temperatures and things like that. Again, somewhat legacy, somewhat legacy oriented. Meaning, hey, back 50 years ago, we didn’t have the technology in refrigerated trailers and trucks and you were going to get more variability than you get today. So let’s over freeze it to make sure that it arrives safely.

Okay, well, you know, we’re much better at that. I mean, you can GPS monitor a truck and a trailer and the temperature all the way through supply chain if you want to. Well, I can now have an ability to know, trailer A out in Phoenix, Arizona has kind of exceeded its limit. We’re not going to put that into distribution. Whereas, you know, 80 years ago when laws were written for that, you didn’t know that. You kind of had to…

design a fail -safe end -to -system, and that was kind of by freezing it even more deeply. So is that a way to look at greenhouse gas reduction, energy usage reduction, and still have the same quality, still have the same level of food safety, still deliver the same consumer in -user experience, and be smarter about how we do it? So think the combination of packaging and energy savings in

in the grocery industry is something I think there’ll be a lot of progress made on it.

Anthony Codispoti (01:21:19.052)
Super interesting. Brian, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Brian Fox (01:21:26.422)
Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it. Hopefully, I’ve given some information and perspectives that your listeners will like and appreciate.

Anthony Codispoti (01:21:36.94)
Absolutely. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.