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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
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Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 3: I want to shiftgures a little bit, talk about venture capital. What's happening in the space private equity funds of funds. Here's a stat from twenty twenty three. Less than half a percentage of all VC funding awarded in twenty twenty three went to black founders. This is according to Crunch based data. Women founded businesses accounted for two point two percent of funding that year. That's according to Pitchbook.
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Speaker 1: God, those are small numbers, heiny.
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Speaker 3: Tiny numbers. Illumin Capital is trying to change that. It's a black owned and led fund of funds that says it's quote working to achieve racial and gender equity across investing, not just VC, but also growth in private equity funds. They've got a host of themes. They include education, financial inclusion, climate and sustainability and more. We've got back with us Darren Dottson, managing partner at illumin Capital. He joins us from Oakland, California. Darren, it's been a while since we spoke. How are you it's great to be back.
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Speaker 4: Thanks for having me back.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we love talking to you. I want to talk. I just want to start. I know you have a new fund that you recently raised, so we'll talk about that. But I want to talk big picture here, because if we were having this conversation maybe twenty twenty one about representation when it comes to venture capital, I think the backdrop was a little different than it is right now. We've seen a lot of companies come out in recent months and get rid of DEI initiatives. Huge companies, small companies. They get pushback from investors. It's almost like this idea of actually talking about differences has become something that's a little taboo. Now, how do you look at it?
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Speaker 4: Well, I think one of the benefits is that we have of science is that we have an approach that's a research driven approach at a looming capital and when we look at the data, one of the things that you see is that high performing black lead funds are overlooked and underestimated at significant rates. So this is in partnership with Stanford, we look at one hundred and eighty asset allocators and found this as a consistent finding. So what that means is that companies that might back away from this area also risk looking at the important additive portfolio alpha get alpha generating characteristics of having top performing black led companies and funds part of their strategy and focus. So that's that's an important consideration for those that would shy away from this area. That's critical to help portfolios outperform.
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Speaker 1: Darren, help us out here. My understanding is that this latest Catalyst fund was maybe almost just under thirty three million dollars. I'm looking at some a story by tech Crunch. I just sway sure I've got it right that you've got into total about two hundred and eighty five million in assets under management, and then back in twenty twenty three you did one hundred and sixty eight million dollar second fund to address racial and gender bias in investing. Am I getting most of the numbers right here? Or help me out?
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Speaker 2: That's right?
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Speaker 1: So you've been doing this for a while and that's a fair amount of money, right helping out entrepreneurs. What's happening, like, where are these investments going, what's the reality of you make these investments and where they go? What kind of companies are created? Help me out tell me where this all goes.
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Speaker 2: So our new.
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Speaker 4: Fund really enables us to look at direct investing, as about thirty five percent of it goes into directs. Traditionally we've invested in funds, which is where the other sixty five percent goes towards. And we're looking specifically at first time fund managers that have been associated without performance and overlaying our thesis of addressing bias in ways that unlock impact and economic value within the underlying funds. So again, the thesis of alluming capital is that if you're a pension fund, or sovereign wealth fund, or a university endowment, all of whom we tested in our study and found systematically that they would overlook high performing black lead funds. We really want to enable them to have exposure to extraordinary entrepreneurs and extraordinary fund managers that they are most certainly, given the data of one point three percent of eighty two trillion dollars in capital managed by women and people of colored funds, they're almost certainly overlooking.
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Speaker 3: Where are you seeing the most opportunity right now? When it comes to those numbers. Is it in the venture capital side or is it in the private equity side. Where is it?
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Speaker 4: I think within the venture side, there's a lot of explosion and growth, for example within the Latin X community, leading new venture capital funds that are extraordinary in terms of being aligned with buying power trends that make up about thirty percent of the US GDP over the next ten to fifteen years. There's some wonderful data out of the Latino Action Business Network l BAN is what we call it, that's associated with Stanford and kind of founded to look at four million companies per year and survey them on the bias that some of them face in terms of raising capital, either from banks, but particularly for this conversation, from venture capital funds.
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Speaker 1: So I can I just ask you though, like, is it too early to see the impact that you guys are having when it comes to racial and gender bias, whether it's in hiring investment. Like, I'm just curious. I know sometimes it takes a while for things in terms of the payoff and I use quotation marks, but I'm just curious what impact you are actually seeing when it comes to gender bias or racial bias.
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Speaker 4: Well, we've seen the fund managers that we work with hire, promote, and retain extraordinary people. We've seen them select investments that would suggest that they're addressing bias within their overall selection process, and then finally we see them create boards that really reflect the entire world and not just a sliver of the market. So those are really important areas where we expect, over time to align with some of Charlie Munger's core thesis of compounding knowledge, which we work with all of our fund managers on the strategies to address these biases and learn and commit to learning over time, and we expect that returns will follow as a part of our core strategy. It does take time, as you know, we might learn from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger who have compounded returns turns over substantial amounts of time, and we see that also within our strategy that the learning is followed by this commitment to achieve higher returns.
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Speaker 1: So let me ask you something, because you know, I think about your mission is so clear, right and you're putting your money where your mouth is, and you know what I mean, really trying to make this difference. I am curious too about a recent story that's been in the news. You're on the board of ben and Jerry's and the Independent Board of Ben and Jerry's has accused its parent company, Unilever, of silencing it on advocating for Palestinian rights in contravention of an agreement between the two. So I'm just like, I guess we're all just trying to figure out where we are in this world. What's your thought about it?
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Speaker 4: I can't comment on an ongoing lawsuit.
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Speaker 3: Okay, Can you take us into at all the discussions that you were having ahead of the lawsuit with the board and when what you were hearing, what you were talking about. No, it's okay, next time, Darren.
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Speaker 1: No, Well, I guess you know it goes. I respect it, we do, And I guess we're trying to understand like the bigger picture because of you know, certainly coming off the pandemic of the murder of George flot Floyd and just so many big corporate companies and their executives coming out and talking to.
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Speaker 3: The reversal that we're seeing now and the reversal.
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Speaker 1: So I just is it a complicated time and we've just got about thirty seconds. I mean, you understand this, I think from a very different perspective than most and I'm just curious what you think.
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Speaker 4: Well, I think that given the political polarization right now and the increased inflation and also the real challenges with economic volatility, as a lot of folks are uncertain about the times to come. One of the things that we're sure of at Illumining Capital is its environments like this that increase overall bias within heuristics of allocation. And one of the things that we're really proud of is enabling our investors like help Ford Foundation and Ford Foundation to make even better investments to students by focusing on addressing.
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Speaker 1: But thank you so much. Always appreciate time. Darren Dodson.
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Speaker 3: There, let's talk about burgers.
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Speaker 1: Let's do that.
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Speaker 3: Okay, First up, we Americans eat a lot of them, about fifty billion burgers per year.
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Speaker 1: It's a lot.
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Speaker 3: Did you add this in?
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Speaker 5: Did you edit?
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Speaker 1: Like? Did you said read it? And I didn't. I was like, I'm just curreus. I just like sat there. I'm like, I wonder how many burgers we eat? You had a burger in the past week. I had a burger in the past week. I think it was a burger.
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Speaker 3: That's an average of two point four burgers per person per day. That doesn't make sense.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that just makes sense. Okay, my statistics are a little flawed apparently. All right, can we just stick with the fifty billion or talk about costs?
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Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to read the part that I that I wrote.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that was not tim aproove.
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Speaker 3: This is Tim approve when it comes to cost In the second quarter of twenty twenty four, the average price of a fast food restaurant burger was eight dollars and forty one cents. It's up sixteen percent from five years ago. That's according to the food consultant Technomics Ignite menu Data.
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Speaker 1: That's a lot.
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Speaker 3: It's not just McDonald's though, it's like even at McDonald's, I should say, the price of a big knack so no fries, no drink, just the sandwich. In June, Carol, that was up to five dollars and twenty nine cents, a twenty one percent increase from twenty nineteen.
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Speaker 1: That's a lot. So beef maybe what's for dinner. But it's more expensive than it used to be. I know it. I just go to the supermarket. You just get a feel or even when you order it. So we have a guest, you're probably of some thoughts about that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Pat Conlin watches beef prices closely. It's president of Wayback Burgers, the fast casual chain that yes specializes in burgers, fries, shakes.
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Speaker 2: And such.
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Speaker 3: They've got about one hundred fifty locations here in the US, another twenty in countries including South Africa, Japan, Canada and more. Pat, good to have you with us.
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Speaker 2: How are you thanks for having me?
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Speaker 3: Okay, so let's start with where Wayback fits in, because there's no shortage of burger options out there, from fast food to sort of the high end gourmet everything in between. Where do you play?
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Speaker 6: We play in the fast casual segment. Shake shat, burger shake shaft.
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Speaker 2: Guys.
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Speaker 1: Okay, we're still waiting in Manhattan.
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Speaker 5: I'm just telling you, yep, very soon.
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Speaker 2: You won't have to wait much longer.
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Speaker 6: We're going to open up our first restaurant, first way Back Restaurant in Manhattan on seventh Avenue and twenty seventh Street, should be in January, right across from f T. So then you you'll be able to get one of those two point four burgers per day.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. I'll have to double check on that. But talk fast casual because you know, we talk about Chipotle, who is often credited with really creating it many years ago. In terms of fast casual, it wasn't just the fast food places that we got in customed to. It was a little bit of an experience.
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Speaker 5: Right when I grew up, it was really fast food.
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Speaker 6: And now fast foods called QSR quick service restaurants. Yeah, fast casuals started really with Chipotle, Panera bread.
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Speaker 5: Higher quality, elevated food.
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Speaker 6: Elevated experience in the restaurant, more fresh. People wanted a better quality burger, better quality salad to go to, and they're willing to pay more for that for that quality, but also for the overall.
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Speaker 5: Experience in the atmosphere of the restaurants.
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Speaker 3: How do you replicate that atmosphere of the restaurant In New York where rent is super high, spaces are small, and crowds are plenty, you.
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Speaker 2: Have to be fast.
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Speaker 6: So even though we do the order, we don't pre cook any burgers. We make the burger when you order it at the point of sale system. But it's really nowadays the digital ordering process is a big portion of our business.
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Speaker 2: So people order ordering it on the edge on the app.
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Speaker 6: How much of your business line it's about between the app and online ordering and delivery.
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Speaker 5: It's about forty percent of our businesses digital orders.
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Speaker 1: How much is that up just in the last few wait online app and are forty percent of the business? Okay forgive me go ahead.
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Speaker 3: And when you do delivery are you doing third party delivery? Third party through Uber Eats, grubhub door.
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Speaker 1: Do you hate that and paying all those fees?
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Speaker 3: Can I just pay it out the fees we pay the both of us pay the fees.
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Speaker 6: The restaurant tour pays commissions to those services, but we don't. I mean if you had to start a delivery service of your own, there's a cost involved in that as a restaurant tour delivery guys, insurance, cars, things like that. So there is a value to having them. And they bring certain guests to maybe not to the restaurant, but they bring them.
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Speaker 2: They bring those sales into the restaurant because there are certain people that are only going to order delivery.
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Speaker 6: And when I was a kid, the only thing you can get on delivery was Chinese food a pizza.
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Speaker 5: Now you can get everything on the other sun It is so true.
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Speaker 1: Right, in terms of diversity, I have to say some excuse me as I blow my nose, sorry getting called five guys in and out way back, Burger, Smash Burger, Burgerville, Fat Burger, Johnny Rockets, what a Burger, Red Robin's, Harty's Jack in the Box.
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Speaker 3: Well, now you're getting into some fast food.
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Speaker 1: Okay, But I'm just gonna say, there are so many burger joints out there. How do you I understand fast casual and experience, but how do you stand out? Like, what's your fear about coming into a New York market when I can also go to PJ. Clark's and get a burger with brenets and be a like kind of an old speakeasy and have a really cool experience. But tell me how you do it?
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Speaker 2: Well, it has to be done.
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Speaker 6: I mean in the fast casual segment and even in the in the QS or a quick service restaurant service.
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Speaker 2: Now quality everybody has quality food.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So now everybody doesn't have quality food.
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Speaker 6: Everybody has some semblance of quality or people expect. Fact, people expect quality for the level of price they're paying.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, fair, So.
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Speaker 6: You have to have something other than just quality food. You have to have the atmosphere, you have to have that guest service. We don't call the people that come into our restaurant customers. We call them guests because we really believe that they're coming into.
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Speaker 2: Our dining room at our home.
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Speaker 6: When you order at the POS station, we don't give you a number. We take your name, So it may sound a little bit goofy, but.
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Speaker 2: It's a little bit different personalization.
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Speaker 6: So then when we walk the food out to your table, we say double cheeseburger, not number twenty one, number twenty seven.
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Speaker 2: So it just makes you feel a little bit better as a guest.
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Speaker 6: And then if you walk in and that person behind the POS system remembers your name or maybe they remember that you get a bacon double cheeseburger all the time and an Oreo milkshake, and they say that you're in with somebody and they catch your name or hey, you're getting that thing that same order, makes you feel like a king is the guest. So that's how you have to differentiate yourself today in the market.
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Speaker 2: We know we have a great burger.
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Speaker 6: We know we have great hand dipped milkshakes made the old fashioned way in a metal tin spun, not.
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Speaker 5: Pulled out of a machine. So we know we have quality of food.
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Speaker 6: It's that other atmosphere and that sense of nostalgia that's going to set us apart.
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Speaker 3: You're a franchise guy, Yes, that's all my life, your whole life, Yeah, your whole career. What's the franchise model here.
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Speaker 2: In terms of so how does it work?
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Speaker 3: I mean, are these all independently owned and operator? Are they company stores?
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Speaker 2: No, they're one hundred percent franchise.
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Speaker 3: Okay, one hundred percent franchise. So an asset light model for you on on the corporate side. How do fees work?
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Speaker 6: The fees initial franchise fee the license soumay restaurant is thirty five thousand dollars your ongoing royalties or five percent, and the advertising fee is four percent.
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Speaker 3: It's pretty typical to the industry. Correct, So all you need is thirty five thousand dollars up front in order to do it, plus the capex that you need to build out your location.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, the total investment is between five fifty to six fifty including the franchise.
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Speaker 3: How do you explain the footprint where restaurants are right now in the US? Is that because of who you found as franchisees, is that deliberate, it's it's definitely there are a lot, but they're concentrated in certain areas.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, we concentrate except for the one that we're doing in Manhattan. We really started we started in nineteen ninety one in Newark, Delaware. We've always been very successful in small towns. We are opening up the one in Manhattan, opening up one in New Orleans, so those are really our first forays into downtown areas, and that's we've been successful. But now through that downtown, through that was those small markets, now we're growing into the cities.
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Speaker 3: Who are you seeing as your typical franchisees. Are there a handful of people who have like ten of them or are they sort of one offs?
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Speaker 6: Now we're a little bit different than some other franchise companies. We look to award one franchise at a time where many other companies want you to come in and do five or ten or take down a whole county.
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Speaker 2: We want to be in.
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Speaker 6: Business with you first, see how you do, See if you're happy with us, We're happy with you.
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Speaker 2: We're all about growth, but.
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Speaker 5: We want to make sure we're growing with the right people, they do one.
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Speaker 2: Of the time.
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Speaker 1: Does that mean you do have some franchise operators who have more than one?
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Speaker 6: So now over those years since we've been franchising since two thousand and eight, we're about forty five percent of our system or multi unit franchisees. So they've reinvested in the brand and themselves. They know that it's working and they're happy and we're happy with them.
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Speaker 1: And you do stuff over internationally too, like Budi, Ireland, South Africa, Japan, Canada. Yeah, you're and you're continuing that, like, how do you like? What's that model?
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Speaker 6: And that models that model is a little bit different than the than the franchisee in the US. It's done by a master franchise and that person or that company actually becomes really the parent company in that country or that territory or that province, so they have to do everything that we do in the US.
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Speaker 1: Interesting, how quickly does somebody who sets up a restaurant a franchise and how quickly do they get their money back.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Really depends upon how they set up.
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Speaker 6: If they're an owner operator and they're taking a salary and there, or if they are multi unit owners, it's a it's a different payback and how they they set it up financially, whether they're paying all cash for it using their own money or if they're going to the SBA or a lending institution for financing.
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Speaker 3: Is the model such that the franchise e is actually in the back working getting because or her hands dirty. No, that's there's something they need a notorious for that.
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Speaker 2: They need to know.
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Speaker 6: Yes, they need when we when you become a franchise e, you're going to have to learn how to flip burgers and drop fries and make milkshakes. The reason being not that that's going to be your function as a franchise Your function is to grow your business and to get a new guest every day. But you need to know because when you walk in or when you when you look on a videotape and you see that the that the side of the floor is dirty because they've been hitting it with the mop and not cleaning, that you need to walk in and be able to catch that. So you need to go through the full training process. But no, we don't expect those franchisees to be in behind the grill every day. That would be a waste of their talent and their training.
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Speaker 1: We got about thirty four seconds and then were going to take a break and come back and talk some more. Do most franchises work out or are there a small percentage where it's just obvious because you got to worry about the brand, the reputation. One bad one can bring it down. So I'm just curious, do most of them, like ninety percent of them work out?
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Speaker 6: Most of them, Yes, they do work out, and we have a great family of franchises across the across the US and across across the world.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some times.
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Speaker 6: Where people either decide this isn't for them or it is a lot of work. The restaurant business is a lot of work, and you also have to have a personality to be in the restaurant business. You're not behind a desk. You have to be, you know, out there frontman. And if that's not for you, then then you shouldn't get into the restaurant business.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: I want to get back to our guest still with us, Pat Conlin, president of Wayback Burgers one hundred and fifty locations and counting in the United States, and I'm just going to tell you we're still talking about that two point four burgers per day. I have founded USDA data. I have never been grilled so hard.
00:21:17
Speaker 2: Oh I like what you did, a little pun that was really good. Okay.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: Pat talked to us about some of the logistics of you know, as Tim rightly pointed out, it's franchise ease, so asset light. But I am curious about food costs, labor costs, you know, building out in as you said, you're getting ready to open up and or have one location New York City. It's expensive here in New York City. Talk to us about some of these dynamics.
00:21:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, the food cost is again one of the reasons you get into a franchise model is we go out and we negotiate for one hundred and fifty restaurants, for beef, for buns, for ice cream, for soda, for all the supplies. So you're not if you were going out and just negotiating for yourself, you wouldn't get that volume discount or just It also talks to the quality of the product, because we're getting the quality the consistency, so you get that same burger. The McDonald's theory, whether you go to one in California or whether you come to one in New York or Florida. You get that same taste, same thing with way Back. It is the same products across the US, So you get the volume discount in the pricing, you get the same quality and the consistency which the guest is looking for when they walk into a way Back or any franchise model.
00:22:33
Speaker 5: And I forgot what the other part of your question was.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: Labor costs. Labor costs and even overhead of like building out, like it's not going to probably cost the same to build in New York versus maybe somewhere else across the Unity, or does it. I don't know.
00:22:45
Speaker 6: No, I mean New York City is a different animal to itself. But it was an existing restaurant. So those are some of the spaces that we look for around the country. As long as it can't compromise on the quality of the location. It has to be a number one location, triple A location. And if it was a restaurant location, great. You don't want to take a second generation restaurant that went out of business because it was a bad location, But it's going to save you fifty thousand dollars in build out costs.
00:23:11
Speaker 1: So you do research you're like, okay, who is here beforehand?
00:23:13
Speaker 4: Right?
00:23:14
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:23:14
Speaker 6: And why did they go out of business? Is it in the back end of the shopping center? Was it a bad shopping center? Can you make a left hand turn? Is there a light to get in to get out? Or are you taking your life in your hands if you have to pull your car out of that shopping center. So we do all that research along with our broker networks.
00:23:28
Speaker 2: We have a real estate.
00:23:29
Speaker 6: Platform, a modeling platform that looks at the locations that we're choosing with the franchisees and we hold their hand all the way through that. You asked earlier what type of people are coming into the system. It really spans the horizon. There are a restaurant people that come in, there are people that come out of corporate jobs, and there are people that come out of it.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: It's really all across the board.
00:23:54
Speaker 6: But we have the training programs and the systems to be able to make them successful.
00:24:00
Speaker 3: Okay, lots of questions here. You mentioned labor.
00:24:03
Speaker 2: Labor.
00:24:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to hone on that a little bit because we've seen labor costs over the last few years go up quite a bit. It's been tough in some markets, even finding the labor. What's the labor picture you're hearing from franchisees right now.
00:24:15
Speaker 6: One of our franchisees told me about six months ago that I said to you and our first franchise opened up in Utah about a year ago, and I asked him, is there a labor any labor problems, libor issues finding labor in your market? And he said, Pat, there's no labor issues.
00:24:31
Speaker 2: It's you have to pay what the what.
00:24:33
Speaker 6: The going rate is in the area. And that's really what it comes down to. If a restaurant down the street is paying twenty five cents more an hour than what you're offering, you're going to have a labor problem. Minimum wage is a is a fictitious number.
00:24:48
Speaker 3: There is no yeah, because the market determines that core found. But if let's say your franchise ee in a part of Utah where the cost of living is higher has to pay a higher wage than somebody based in let's say this a sun belt state where you have a store where the cost of living is lower, is that reflected in the actual menu price too? Do they have do they have discrepancy or do they have the ability to have discrepancies within manu pricing.
00:25:13
Speaker 6: Absolutely, we don't force them to charge X amount for a burger or a milkshake. Labor has to be taken into account, just like rent has to be taken into account. The rent in New York City is going to be much different than the rent in North Carolina. That has to go into the menu prices. The food cost goes into the menu prices. We were talking earlier about the price of beef and the price of proteins and how that has gone up over the last three four years. So that has to be accounted for, and you see that in menu prices and inflation and things of that nature.
00:25:45
Speaker 3: I was looking at the menu. The menu looks great by the way you got to It got to a part though, where it had the non meat burgers. Carolin I used to talk about these all the time. Does anyone order these anymore?
00:25:59
Speaker 6: They They still do the impossible, the impossible plant based.
00:26:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, the plant based.
00:26:05
Speaker 6: We carry the impossible burger and probably three four it's just right around the pandemic is when we brought it on. That's when it was hot, yes, and it probably went up a couple of years after that. It's funny We had it on as a limited time offer just before the pandemic hit, and we weren't sure how it was going to go. And it was also going to be an expensive menu item, because that product was an expensive item to bring into the restaurant. And it turned out to sell very well, and we took it off because we had a limited amount of supply of it and never saw so many feedbacks four or five years ago.
00:26:43
Speaker 2: When are you bringing that back?
00:26:45
Speaker 6: The only reason I came into a Burger place was I saw that you had that online. Now that that has definitely waned and the plant based meat alternatives have gone down somewhat.
00:26:55
Speaker 3: And so I don't know about you, Carol, but I went from like I love those things, and then I kind of realized what was in on and I was never a fair for me. I'm like, give me the cow.
00:27:03
Speaker 1: I was never the cow, no, because I thought the amount of salt that was in it, and I had so many conversations with folks that were in the industry, and I'm like, I should be your customer, but it isn't a healthier option.
00:27:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had.
00:27:14
Speaker 5: It's really for it's really for people who.
00:27:18
Speaker 6: Who are not They're not vegetarians. They like meat, they liked the taste to beat. They were looking to cut down their their consumption of meat and going that way, so it worked well for us.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at a sweet bacon burger that's just oozing with bacon and cheese. Looks kind of yammy cheese fries. Yep, give me.
00:27:34
Speaker 3: Some fries, bacon on the fries.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, what happened to people wanting healthy or fair?
00:27:41
Speaker 2: It's I think this is looked at. It's healthy now.
00:27:45
Speaker 1: No to be fair, like we got to ask RFK healthy, We've only got about thirty seconds.
00:27:51
Speaker 6: Like when we told people looking and they want to eat healthy in January when they get their gym membership, and when the calendar changes come.
00:27:58
Speaker 2: February, everybody's about to eating those two three burgers a week.
00:28:04
Speaker 1: Just sorry, go ahead our two point five burgers to day.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: I'll take the two point seven.
00:28:10
Speaker 1: I'm just saying really interesting stuff and fun to hear you kind of talk about your business, and we didn't really get to say how it's changed from ninety one. But come back soon.
00:28:20
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, thanks for having me, but we'll still be doing math when you get that we'll still be working on this math problem.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: It's right you get into it.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
00:00:07
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
00:00:13
Speaker 3: I want to shiftgures a little bit, talk about venture capital. What's happening in the space private equity funds of funds. Here's a stat from twenty twenty three. Less than half a percentage of all VC funding awarded in twenty twenty three went to black founders. This is according to Crunch based data. Women founded businesses accounted for two point two percent of funding that year. That's according to Pitchbook.
00:00:34
Speaker 1: God, those are small numbers, heiny.
00:00:35
Speaker 3: Tiny numbers. Illumin Capital is trying to change that. It's a black owned and led fund of funds that says it's quote working to achieve racial and gender equity across investing, not just VC, but also growth in private equity funds. They've got a host of themes. They include education, financial inclusion, climate and sustainability and more. We've got back with us Darren Dottson, managing partner at illumin Capital. He joins us from Oakland, California. Darren, it's been a while since we spoke. How are you it's great to be back.
00:01:03
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me back.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love talking to you. I want to talk. I just want to start. I know you have a new fund that you recently raised, so we'll talk about that. But I want to talk big picture here, because if we were having this conversation maybe twenty twenty one about representation when it comes to venture capital, I think the backdrop was a little different than it is right now. We've seen a lot of companies come out in recent months and get rid of DEI initiatives. Huge companies, small companies. They get pushback from investors. It's almost like this idea of actually talking about differences has become something that's a little taboo. Now, how do you look at it?
00:01:48
Speaker 4: Well, I think one of the benefits is that we have of science is that we have an approach that's a research driven approach at a looming capital and when we look at the data, one of the things that you see is that high performing black lead funds are overlooked and underestimated at significant rates. So this is in partnership with Stanford, we look at one hundred and eighty asset allocators and found this as a consistent finding. So what that means is that companies that might back away from this area also risk looking at the important additive portfolio alpha get alpha generating characteristics of having top performing black led companies and funds part of their strategy and focus. So that's that's an important consideration for those that would shy away from this area. That's critical to help portfolios outperform.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: Darren, help us out here. My understanding is that this latest Catalyst fund was maybe almost just under thirty three million dollars. I'm looking at some a story by tech Crunch. I just sway sure I've got it right that you've got into total about two hundred and eighty five million in assets under management, and then back in twenty twenty three you did one hundred and sixty eight million dollar second fund to address racial and gender bias in investing. Am I getting most of the numbers right here? Or help me out?
00:03:15
Speaker 2: That's right?
00:03:16
Speaker 1: So you've been doing this for a while and that's a fair amount of money, right helping out entrepreneurs. What's happening, like, where are these investments going, what's the reality of you make these investments and where they go? What kind of companies are created? Help me out tell me where this all goes.
00:03:34
Speaker 2: So our new.
00:03:35
Speaker 4: Fund really enables us to look at direct investing, as about thirty five percent of it goes into directs. Traditionally we've invested in funds, which is where the other sixty five percent goes towards. And we're looking specifically at first time fund managers that have been associated without performance and overlaying our thesis of addressing bias in ways that unlock impact and economic value within the underlying funds. So again, the thesis of alluming capital is that if you're a pension fund, or sovereign wealth fund, or a university endowment, all of whom we tested in our study and found systematically that they would overlook high performing black lead funds. We really want to enable them to have exposure to extraordinary entrepreneurs and extraordinary fund managers that they are most certainly, given the data of one point three percent of eighty two trillion dollars in capital managed by women and people of colored funds, they're almost certainly overlooking.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Where are you seeing the most opportunity right now? When it comes to those numbers. Is it in the venture capital side or is it in the private equity side. Where is it?
00:04:50
Speaker 4: I think within the venture side, there's a lot of explosion and growth, for example within the Latin X community, leading new venture capital funds that are extraordinary in terms of being aligned with buying power trends that make up about thirty percent of the US GDP over the next ten to fifteen years. There's some wonderful data out of the Latino Action Business Network l BAN is what we call it, that's associated with Stanford and kind of founded to look at four million companies per year and survey them on the bias that some of them face in terms of raising capital, either from banks, but particularly for this conversation, from venture capital funds.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: So I can I just ask you though, like, is it too early to see the impact that you guys are having when it comes to racial and gender bias, whether it's in hiring investment. Like, I'm just curious. I know sometimes it takes a while for things in terms of the payoff and I use quotation marks, but I'm just curious what impact you are actually seeing when it comes to gender bias or racial bias.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: Well, we've seen the fund managers that we work with hire, promote, and retain extraordinary people. We've seen them select investments that would suggest that they're addressing bias within their overall selection process, and then finally we see them create boards that really reflect the entire world and not just a sliver of the market. So those are really important areas where we expect, over time to align with some of Charlie Munger's core thesis of compounding knowledge, which we work with all of our fund managers on the strategies to address these biases and learn and commit to learning over time, and we expect that returns will follow as a part of our core strategy. It does take time, as you know, we might learn from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger who have compounded returns turns over substantial amounts of time, and we see that also within our strategy that the learning is followed by this commitment to achieve higher returns.
00:07:11
Speaker 1: So let me ask you something, because you know, I think about your mission is so clear, right and you're putting your money where your mouth is, and you know what I mean, really trying to make this difference. I am curious too about a recent story that's been in the news. You're on the board of ben and Jerry's and the Independent Board of Ben and Jerry's has accused its parent company, Unilever, of silencing it on advocating for Palestinian rights in contravention of an agreement between the two. So I'm just like, I guess we're all just trying to figure out where we are in this world. What's your thought about it?
00:07:45
Speaker 4: I can't comment on an ongoing lawsuit.
00:07:48
Speaker 3: Okay, Can you take us into at all the discussions that you were having ahead of the lawsuit with the board and when what you were hearing, what you were talking about. No, it's okay, next time, Darren.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: No, Well, I guess you know it goes. I respect it, we do, And I guess we're trying to understand like the bigger picture because of you know, certainly coming off the pandemic of the murder of George flot Floyd and just so many big corporate companies and their executives coming out and talking to.
00:08:19
Speaker 3: The reversal that we're seeing now and the reversal.
00:08:22
Speaker 1: So I just is it a complicated time and we've just got about thirty seconds. I mean, you understand this, I think from a very different perspective than most and I'm just curious what you think.
00:08:32
Speaker 4: Well, I think that given the political polarization right now and the increased inflation and also the real challenges with economic volatility, as a lot of folks are uncertain about the times to come. One of the things that we're sure of at Illumining Capital is its environments like this that increase overall bias within heuristics of allocation. And one of the things that we're really proud of is enabling our investors like help Ford Foundation and Ford Foundation to make even better investments to students by focusing on addressing.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: But thank you so much. Always appreciate time. Darren Dodson.
00:09:15
Speaker 3: There, let's talk about burgers.
00:09:17
Speaker 1: Let's do that.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: Okay, First up, we Americans eat a lot of them, about fifty billion burgers per year.
00:09:24
Speaker 1: It's a lot.
00:09:26
Speaker 3: Did you add this in?
00:09:27
Speaker 5: Did you edit?
00:09:28
Speaker 1: Like? Did you said read it? And I didn't. I was like, I'm just curreus. I just like sat there. I'm like, I wonder how many burgers we eat? You had a burger in the past week. I had a burger in the past week. I think it was a burger.
00:09:39
Speaker 3: That's an average of two point four burgers per person per day. That doesn't make sense.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: Okay, that just makes sense. Okay, my statistics are a little flawed apparently. All right, can we just stick with the fifty billion or talk about costs?
00:09:51
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to read the part that I that I wrote.
00:09:54
Speaker 1: Okay, that was not tim aproove.
00:09:57
Speaker 3: This is Tim approve when it comes to cost In the second quarter of twenty twenty four, the average price of a fast food restaurant burger was eight dollars and forty one cents. It's up sixteen percent from five years ago. That's according to the food consultant Technomics Ignite menu Data.
00:10:12
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
00:10:13
Speaker 3: It's not just McDonald's though, it's like even at McDonald's, I should say, the price of a big knack so no fries, no drink, just the sandwich. In June, Carol, that was up to five dollars and twenty nine cents, a twenty one percent increase from twenty nineteen.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: That's a lot. So beef maybe what's for dinner. But it's more expensive than it used to be. I know it. I just go to the supermarket. You just get a feel or even when you order it. So we have a guest, you're probably of some thoughts about that.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: Pat Conlin watches beef prices closely. It's president of Wayback Burgers, the fast casual chain that yes specializes in burgers, fries, shakes.
00:10:42
Speaker 2: And such.
00:10:43
Speaker 3: They've got about one hundred fifty locations here in the US, another twenty in countries including South Africa, Japan, Canada and more. Pat, good to have you with us.
00:10:52
Speaker 2: How are you thanks for having me?
00:10:53
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's start with where Wayback fits in, because there's no shortage of burger options out there, from fast food to sort of the high end gourmet everything in between. Where do you play?
00:11:04
Speaker 6: We play in the fast casual segment. Shake shat, burger shake shaft.
00:11:09
Speaker 2: Guys.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Okay, we're still waiting in Manhattan.
00:11:12
Speaker 5: I'm just telling you, yep, very soon.
00:11:14
Speaker 2: You won't have to wait much longer.
00:11:15
Speaker 6: We're going to open up our first restaurant, first way Back Restaurant in Manhattan on seventh Avenue and twenty seventh Street, should be in January, right across from f T. So then you you'll be able to get one of those two point four burgers per day.
00:11:31
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. I'll have to double check on that. But talk fast casual because you know, we talk about Chipotle, who is often credited with really creating it many years ago. In terms of fast casual, it wasn't just the fast food places that we got in customed to. It was a little bit of an experience.
00:11:48
Speaker 5: Right when I grew up, it was really fast food.
00:11:50
Speaker 6: And now fast foods called QSR quick service restaurants. Yeah, fast casuals started really with Chipotle, Panera bread.
00:11:58
Speaker 5: Higher quality, elevated food.
00:12:01
Speaker 6: Elevated experience in the restaurant, more fresh. People wanted a better quality burger, better quality salad to go to, and they're willing to pay more for that for that quality, but also for the overall.
00:12:15
Speaker 5: Experience in the atmosphere of the restaurants.
00:12:17
Speaker 3: How do you replicate that atmosphere of the restaurant In New York where rent is super high, spaces are small, and crowds are plenty, you.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: Have to be fast.
00:12:29
Speaker 6: So even though we do the order, we don't pre cook any burgers. We make the burger when you order it at the point of sale system. But it's really nowadays the digital ordering process is a big portion of our business.
00:12:45
Speaker 2: So people order ordering it on the edge on the app.
00:12:48
Speaker 6: How much of your business line it's about between the app and online ordering and delivery.
00:12:53
Speaker 5: It's about forty percent of our businesses digital orders.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: How much is that up just in the last few wait online app and are forty percent of the business? Okay forgive me go ahead.
00:13:02
Speaker 3: And when you do delivery are you doing third party delivery? Third party through Uber Eats, grubhub door.
00:13:07
Speaker 1: Do you hate that and paying all those fees?
00:13:09
Speaker 3: Can I just pay it out the fees we pay the both of us pay the fees.
00:13:12
Speaker 6: The restaurant tour pays commissions to those services, but we don't. I mean if you had to start a delivery service of your own, there's a cost involved in that as a restaurant tour delivery guys, insurance, cars, things like that. So there is a value to having them. And they bring certain guests to maybe not to the restaurant, but they bring them.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: They bring those sales into the restaurant because there are certain people that are only going to order delivery.
00:13:40
Speaker 6: And when I was a kid, the only thing you can get on delivery was Chinese food a pizza.
00:13:44
Speaker 5: Now you can get everything on the other sun It is so true.
00:13:46
Speaker 1: Right, in terms of diversity, I have to say some excuse me as I blow my nose, sorry getting called five guys in and out way back, Burger, Smash Burger, Burgerville, Fat Burger, Johnny Rockets, what a Burger, Red Robin's, Harty's Jack in the Box.
00:14:00
Speaker 3: Well, now you're getting into some fast food.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Okay, But I'm just gonna say, there are so many burger joints out there. How do you I understand fast casual and experience, but how do you stand out? Like, what's your fear about coming into a New York market when I can also go to PJ. Clark's and get a burger with brenets and be a like kind of an old speakeasy and have a really cool experience. But tell me how you do it?
00:14:23
Speaker 2: Well, it has to be done.
00:14:24
Speaker 6: I mean in the fast casual segment and even in the in the QS or a quick service restaurant service.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: Now quality everybody has quality food.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: Okay, So now everybody doesn't have quality food.
00:14:35
Speaker 6: Everybody has some semblance of quality or people expect. Fact, people expect quality for the level of price they're paying.
00:14:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, fair, So.
00:14:45
Speaker 6: You have to have something other than just quality food. You have to have the atmosphere, you have to have that guest service. We don't call the people that come into our restaurant customers. We call them guests because we really believe that they're coming into.
00:14:57
Speaker 2: Our dining room at our home.
00:14:59
Speaker 6: When you order at the POS station, we don't give you a number. We take your name, So it may sound a little bit goofy, but.
00:15:06
Speaker 2: It's a little bit different personalization.
00:15:08
Speaker 6: So then when we walk the food out to your table, we say double cheeseburger, not number twenty one, number twenty seven.
00:15:16
Speaker 2: So it just makes you feel a little bit better as a guest.
00:15:20
Speaker 6: And then if you walk in and that person behind the POS system remembers your name or maybe they remember that you get a bacon double cheeseburger all the time and an Oreo milkshake, and they say that you're in with somebody and they catch your name or hey, you're getting that thing that same order, makes you feel like a king is the guest. So that's how you have to differentiate yourself today in the market.
00:15:41
Speaker 2: We know we have a great burger.
00:15:43
Speaker 6: We know we have great hand dipped milkshakes made the old fashioned way in a metal tin spun, not.
00:15:50
Speaker 5: Pulled out of a machine. So we know we have quality of food.
00:15:53
Speaker 6: It's that other atmosphere and that sense of nostalgia that's going to set us apart.
00:15:57
Speaker 3: You're a franchise guy, Yes, that's all my life, your whole life, Yeah, your whole career. What's the franchise model here.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: In terms of so how does it work?
00:16:09
Speaker 3: I mean, are these all independently owned and operator? Are they company stores?
00:16:12
Speaker 2: No, they're one hundred percent franchise.
00:16:13
Speaker 3: Okay, one hundred percent franchise. So an asset light model for you on on the corporate side. How do fees work?
00:16:21
Speaker 6: The fees initial franchise fee the license soumay restaurant is thirty five thousand dollars your ongoing royalties or five percent, and the advertising fee is four percent.
00:16:33
Speaker 3: It's pretty typical to the industry. Correct, So all you need is thirty five thousand dollars up front in order to do it, plus the capex that you need to build out your location.
00:16:43
Speaker 6: Yeah, the total investment is between five fifty to six fifty including the franchise.
00:16:49
Speaker 3: How do you explain the footprint where restaurants are right now in the US? Is that because of who you found as franchisees, is that deliberate, it's it's definitely there are a lot, but they're concentrated in certain areas.
00:17:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, we concentrate except for the one that we're doing in Manhattan. We really started we started in nineteen ninety one in Newark, Delaware. We've always been very successful in small towns. We are opening up the one in Manhattan, opening up one in New Orleans, so those are really our first forays into downtown areas, and that's we've been successful. But now through that downtown, through that was those small markets, now we're growing into the cities.
00:17:34
Speaker 3: Who are you seeing as your typical franchisees. Are there a handful of people who have like ten of them or are they sort of one offs?
00:17:41
Speaker 6: Now we're a little bit different than some other franchise companies. We look to award one franchise at a time where many other companies want you to come in and do five or ten or take down a whole county.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: We want to be in.
00:17:55
Speaker 6: Business with you first, see how you do, See if you're happy with us, We're happy with you.
00:17:59
Speaker 2: We're all about growth, but.
00:18:00
Speaker 5: We want to make sure we're growing with the right people, they do one.
00:18:02
Speaker 2: Of the time.
00:18:03
Speaker 1: Does that mean you do have some franchise operators who have more than one?
00:18:06
Speaker 6: So now over those years since we've been franchising since two thousand and eight, we're about forty five percent of our system or multi unit franchisees. So they've reinvested in the brand and themselves. They know that it's working and they're happy and we're happy with them.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: And you do stuff over internationally too, like Budi, Ireland, South Africa, Japan, Canada. Yeah, you're and you're continuing that, like, how do you like? What's that model?
00:18:31
Speaker 6: And that models that model is a little bit different than the than the franchisee in the US. It's done by a master franchise and that person or that company actually becomes really the parent company in that country or that territory or that province, so they have to do everything that we do in the US.
00:18:50
Speaker 1: Interesting, how quickly does somebody who sets up a restaurant a franchise and how quickly do they get their money back.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Really depends upon how they set up.
00:19:02
Speaker 6: If they're an owner operator and they're taking a salary and there, or if they are multi unit owners, it's a it's a different payback and how they they set it up financially, whether they're paying all cash for it using their own money or if they're going to the SBA or a lending institution for financing.
00:19:18
Speaker 3: Is the model such that the franchise e is actually in the back working getting because or her hands dirty. No, that's there's something they need a notorious for that.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: They need to know.
00:19:29
Speaker 6: Yes, they need when we when you become a franchise e, you're going to have to learn how to flip burgers and drop fries and make milkshakes. The reason being not that that's going to be your function as a franchise Your function is to grow your business and to get a new guest every day. But you need to know because when you walk in or when you when you look on a videotape and you see that the that the side of the floor is dirty because they've been hitting it with the mop and not cleaning, that you need to walk in and be able to catch that. So you need to go through the full training process. But no, we don't expect those franchisees to be in behind the grill every day. That would be a waste of their talent and their training.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: We got about thirty four seconds and then were going to take a break and come back and talk some more. Do most franchises work out or are there a small percentage where it's just obvious because you got to worry about the brand, the reputation. One bad one can bring it down. So I'm just curious, do most of them, like ninety percent of them work out?
00:20:28
Speaker 6: Most of them, Yes, they do work out, and we have a great family of franchises across the across the US and across across the world.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some times.
00:20:38
Speaker 6: Where people either decide this isn't for them or it is a lot of work. The restaurant business is a lot of work, and you also have to have a personality to be in the restaurant business. You're not behind a desk. You have to be, you know, out there frontman. And if that's not for you, then then you shouldn't get into the restaurant business.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: I want to get back to our guest still with us, Pat Conlin, president of Wayback Burgers one hundred and fifty locations and counting in the United States, and I'm just going to tell you we're still talking about that two point four burgers per day. I have founded USDA data. I have never been grilled so hard.
00:21:17
Speaker 2: Oh I like what you did, a little pun that was really good. Okay.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: Pat talked to us about some of the logistics of you know, as Tim rightly pointed out, it's franchise ease, so asset light. But I am curious about food costs, labor costs, you know, building out in as you said, you're getting ready to open up and or have one location New York City. It's expensive here in New York City. Talk to us about some of these dynamics.
00:21:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, the food cost is again one of the reasons you get into a franchise model is we go out and we negotiate for one hundred and fifty restaurants, for beef, for buns, for ice cream, for soda, for all the supplies. So you're not if you were going out and just negotiating for yourself, you wouldn't get that volume discount or just It also talks to the quality of the product, because we're getting the quality the consistency, so you get that same burger. The McDonald's theory, whether you go to one in California or whether you come to one in New York or Florida. You get that same taste, same thing with way Back. It is the same products across the US, So you get the volume discount in the pricing, you get the same quality and the consistency which the guest is looking for when they walk into a way Back or any franchise model.
00:22:33
Speaker 5: And I forgot what the other part of your question was.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: Labor costs. Labor costs and even overhead of like building out, like it's not going to probably cost the same to build in New York versus maybe somewhere else across the Unity, or does it. I don't know.
00:22:45
Speaker 6: No, I mean New York City is a different animal to itself. But it was an existing restaurant. So those are some of the spaces that we look for around the country. As long as it can't compromise on the quality of the location. It has to be a number one location, triple A location. And if it was a restaurant location, great. You don't want to take a second generation restaurant that went out of business because it was a bad location, But it's going to save you fifty thousand dollars in build out costs.
00:23:11
Speaker 1: So you do research you're like, okay, who is here beforehand?
00:23:13
Speaker 4: Right?
00:23:14
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:23:14
Speaker 6: And why did they go out of business? Is it in the back end of the shopping center? Was it a bad shopping center? Can you make a left hand turn? Is there a light to get in to get out? Or are you taking your life in your hands if you have to pull your car out of that shopping center. So we do all that research along with our broker networks.
00:23:28
Speaker 2: We have a real estate.
00:23:29
Speaker 6: Platform, a modeling platform that looks at the locations that we're choosing with the franchisees and we hold their hand all the way through that. You asked earlier what type of people are coming into the system. It really spans the horizon. There are a restaurant people that come in, there are people that come out of corporate jobs, and there are people that come out of it.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: It's really all across the board.
00:23:54
Speaker 6: But we have the training programs and the systems to be able to make them successful.
00:24:00
Speaker 3: Okay, lots of questions here. You mentioned labor.
00:24:03
Speaker 2: Labor.
00:24:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to hone on that a little bit because we've seen labor costs over the last few years go up quite a bit. It's been tough in some markets, even finding the labor. What's the labor picture you're hearing from franchisees right now.
00:24:15
Speaker 6: One of our franchisees told me about six months ago that I said to you and our first franchise opened up in Utah about a year ago, and I asked him, is there a labor any labor problems, libor issues finding labor in your market? And he said, Pat, there's no labor issues.
00:24:31
Speaker 2: It's you have to pay what the what.
00:24:33
Speaker 6: The going rate is in the area. And that's really what it comes down to. If a restaurant down the street is paying twenty five cents more an hour than what you're offering, you're going to have a labor problem. Minimum wage is a is a fictitious number.
00:24:48
Speaker 3: There is no yeah, because the market determines that core found. But if let's say your franchise ee in a part of Utah where the cost of living is higher has to pay a higher wage than somebody based in let's say this a sun belt state where you have a store where the cost of living is lower, is that reflected in the actual menu price too? Do they have do they have discrepancy or do they have the ability to have discrepancies within manu pricing.
00:25:13
Speaker 6: Absolutely, we don't force them to charge X amount for a burger or a milkshake. Labor has to be taken into account, just like rent has to be taken into account. The rent in New York City is going to be much different than the rent in North Carolina. That has to go into the menu prices. The food cost goes into the menu prices. We were talking earlier about the price of beef and the price of proteins and how that has gone up over the last three four years. So that has to be accounted for, and you see that in menu prices and inflation and things of that nature.
00:25:45
Speaker 3: I was looking at the menu. The menu looks great by the way you got to It got to a part though, where it had the non meat burgers. Carolin I used to talk about these all the time. Does anyone order these anymore?
00:25:59
Speaker 6: They They still do the impossible, the impossible plant based.
00:26:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, the plant based.
00:26:05
Speaker 6: We carry the impossible burger and probably three four it's just right around the pandemic is when we brought it on. That's when it was hot, yes, and it probably went up a couple of years after that. It's funny We had it on as a limited time offer just before the pandemic hit, and we weren't sure how it was going to go. And it was also going to be an expensive menu item, because that product was an expensive item to bring into the restaurant. And it turned out to sell very well, and we took it off because we had a limited amount of supply of it and never saw so many feedbacks four or five years ago.
00:26:43
Speaker 2: When are you bringing that back?
00:26:45
Speaker 6: The only reason I came into a Burger place was I saw that you had that online. Now that that has definitely waned and the plant based meat alternatives have gone down somewhat.
00:26:55
Speaker 3: And so I don't know about you, Carol, but I went from like I love those things, and then I kind of realized what was in on and I was never a fair for me. I'm like, give me the cow.
00:27:03
Speaker 1: I was never the cow, no, because I thought the amount of salt that was in it, and I had so many conversations with folks that were in the industry, and I'm like, I should be your customer, but it isn't a healthier option.
00:27:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had.
00:27:14
Speaker 5: It's really for it's really for people who.
00:27:18
Speaker 6: Who are not They're not vegetarians. They like meat, they liked the taste to beat. They were looking to cut down their their consumption of meat and going that way, so it worked well for us.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at a sweet bacon burger that's just oozing with bacon and cheese. Looks kind of yammy cheese fries. Yep, give me.
00:27:34
Speaker 3: Some fries, bacon on the fries.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, what happened to people wanting healthy or fair?
00:27:41
Speaker 2: It's I think this is looked at. It's healthy now.
00:27:45
Speaker 1: No to be fair, like we got to ask RFK healthy, We've only got about thirty seconds.
00:27:51
Speaker 6: Like when we told people looking and they want to eat healthy in January when they get their gym membership, and when the calendar changes come.
00:27:58
Speaker 2: February, everybody's about to eating those two three burgers a week.
00:28:04
Speaker 1: Just sorry, go ahead our two point five burgers to day.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: I'll take the two point seven.
00:28:10
Speaker 1: I'm just saying really interesting stuff and fun to hear you kind of talk about your business, and we didn't really get to say how it's changed from ninety one. But come back soon.
00:28:20
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, thanks for having me, but we'll still be doing math when you get that we'll still be working on this math problem.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: It's right you get into it.
