Ground Hog Day

Well, Michael A. and I had our meeting with the co-packer guys. It felt like every meeting we ever had with a co-packer, and there have been way too many. I'll get into the meeting later in this post.

First, a little co-packer history. When we started this adventure back in Feb. of 2010, I didnt know really what a co-packer was. I googled terms like prepare food, commercial kitchen, food bottler and other lame terms like that , expecting some measure of success. If my computer could've laughed at me it would've. The google folks were all probably gathered in some conference room, watching a big screen as I lumbered through this exercise, laughing their ass off. Another friggin moron wants to get into the food biz.

Finally, while talking to somebody about wanting to produce a line of simmer sauces, that person said, "have you found a co-packer yet?" "Uhh, no,not yet", I replied. Ta-friggin Da..... I now knew what the term was called and had learned my first of 11,000 lessons about the food biz. They are called co-packers and picking the right one is VERY important....we'll get into that as well, later.

I contacted some place in New England that I found on Google. They were all excited when I described what our sauces were. Gee, I was excited, too. Then as a week or so went by, I sent them recipes, they sent a non disclose agreement, so they wouldn't steal our precious secret recipes. I was told to contact some food business consultants, too. To learn and grow...

I talked to my next door neighbor, Michael. He's an accomplished cook and makes all kinds of fancy shit in the kitchen. He's into Gourmet Magazine type recipes. I'm into more of a Cooking Light kinda cooking. He cooks duck. I make a brisket. I also have a problem with authority, so I pretty much always ignore 50% of a recipe. Why follow theirs when I can make it better?

So Michael asks if I'd like a partner. I said, "sure how much money have you got"? He said "enough to get us going". I said, "let's do it!" He asked if I had found a company to prepare our sauces. I said, "you mean a CO-PACKER?" I told him about the place in New England and he told me he'd look at their website, blah blah. etc. After a couple of weeks. we knew shipping costs from New England would be ridiculous. So, we learned another lesson. SHIPPING COSTS MATTER. SO IT MATTERS WHERE THE CO-PACKER IS LOCATED IN RELATION TO YOUR MARKET AREA.

"Okay, Michael, so how are we going to divvy up the responsibilities within our now blossoming company"? He told me I was an impulsive, crazy creative type and that he was the calm, collected type--a former COO of a healthcare company. A detail guy. A suit. So, it was a perfect match-- a crazy guy and a not crazy guy. A visionary and a realist to throw cold water on the visionary. We sat in his kitchen during many long winter evenings, a bottle of scotch on the kitchen island, two brains full of ideas, discussing our glorious future working together. Getting all excited, like a couple of goofy girls. But... we were giving birth to a monster of a food idea.... we were a whole new niche in the sauce arena.....AND! we were now going steady!

Back to today...
Okay, so here we are, driving on th PA Turnpike, a beautiful yet scorcher of a summer day. About a one hour drive and we chatted about this food thing and that food thing. We were also being joined by a partner of another food company, who was going to join us at this co-packing company around 10:30AM. Im driving happily along when Michael A. suddenly picks up Blackberry and calls this guy, Jerry who we are to meet up with. They chat. Michael fills him in on the who is who and whatever, then Michael hangs up. I looked over to Michael and casually asked what Jerry's last name was. I mean, we didn't want to look like a couple of assholes when it came time to introduce Jerry ________huh?
"Gee, Im not 100% sure". Michael hops back on his Blackberry and calls Jerry's partner, who happens to be our chef consultant. Now, this guy's name is Dave. Dave is a f***ing nut job. But we love this guy. He's good at his job but spends his day thinking about getting laid or sending out "I hate Obama" emails and videos. Dave is a one of a kind guy. And I voted for Obama, yet I love big, crazy Dave.

Dave answers and Michael A. asks, "hey, Dave, just want to double check-- what is your partners last name?" there's this long pregnant pause.... I'm waiting and waiting. Im thinking this is one long friggin name! Michael suddenly explodes. "WTF!" Dave explained that he wasn't sure how to pronounce his partner's last name. Huh?

We learned another valuable lesson. PEOPLE IN THE FOOD BUSINESS ARE ALL COMPLETELY NUTS. And that is why Michael and I are going to do really well. Because by the time we get our sauces on some food store shelf, we'll be ready for the f***ing looney bin ourselves.

The meeting- come back this post later tonight.