IAN SUTHERLAND: HOSPITALITYCHAIN.COM / AN ARABIAN NIGHT IN DUBAI

HospitalityChain.com, the world's first online hub designed for the hospitality, culinary, and catering industry. From leading food and beverage brands to professional food service equipment, HospitalityChain.com makes sourcing simple. Search, select, buy direct, and save all in one global marketplace. Let's just start with your background. I want to know a bit about the logistics, where that all started, because ultimately what we want to lead into is the Dubai conversation and how that really sparked hospitality change. And I guess I should mention before we even truly start is letting the guests and audience know that, you know, hospitalitychain.com is the first official partner of the Fell into Food podcast. So you've probably been hearing it. We had answered today. I was thinking the same thing. What are we waiting for, right? What are we waiting for? So it's out there. If you've been listening to episodes, you're hearing at the beginning, you're hearing at the end. You know, we've officially got that partnership. So it's a really exciting time as we both of us grow and people are going to get to learn all about hospitalitychain.com. A lot about you, Ian, and your wife, who I know she's watching in the background, which is exciting. So, yeah, so I'm just super excited for this. So let's touch on your logistical background of kind of what that looked like. I think, you know, you look at now and soon to be the world's number one food podcast. but we're gonna we're gonna put you on that platform because now you're on 104 pages and you're on the main pages on the right hand side which takes you to the world every category yeah yes and we're gonna get into that and people are like what is he even talking about exactly go let's go through your quick logistics background and then i really want to tie that in and jump right into the dubai the into dubai yeah okay well my wife and i um And when we got married, she was in freight and logistics, all facets of the industry, air freight, seed freight, freight forwarding, shipping. And then she actually got me into containerization. So the company she worked for needed somebody. She said, I got the perfect man. And so I do have a marine background through my ancestry. I'm the only one that didn't go to sea. But as a kid, I went to sea with my father, and it wasn't for me, just like it wasn't for you in farming. So it was second nature to me, containers. And between my wife and I, we've had 50 years collectively in the freight logistics industry. and today our oldest boy, he's also in the supply chains managing a very big region of a sports brand. And so that's the background. And so we know all the facets of it and how we tie in a lot with, I suppose, the hospitality, culinary industries. I was doing domestic container leasing and sales, and I went after big projects of all types, all on gas, mining, civil, but big events. So I specialised in all the equipment types, refrigerated containers, tank containers. I said tank containers, and you think, what's he talking about? I say tank containers carried everything from Tile to fine, the finest wines and spirits and that all over the world. So I travelled. I specialised in leasing a lot of these tanks for bulk alcohol, waters, things of that nature, and a lot of food processing stuff as well and pneumatic tanks and things of that nature. And then I basically introduced an easier way to open refrigerated container doors and introduced them to the industry for extra food on big events. So in short, I supply all the refrigerated containers and dry containers to the Sydney Olympics, the Australian Grand Prix. and I dealt with all the caterers, the big chefs. So when you're talking big events, you're doing everything, especially the Melbourne Cups and things like that. They had well over 100,000 people through in four days of racing. Logistically, a nightmare that we all worked together and put this whole project together. Yeah, tell everyone too, because you're talking Melbourne Warren, you're talking to Sydney. Where are you at? Where are you at in the world so everyone knows? Where am I at right now? Yeah. Yeah, location-wise. Well, we live in a place called the Macedon Ranges, 40 kilometers out of the Melbourne GPO, and it's a wine district. It's got a lot of great, mainly boutique wines, but some of the best in Australia are in our region. and one of the best renowned wineries is on a 20-acre straight over the top of the hill from us. We go down to his place. He's known as Bindi. It's a great label, very expensive label, but he doesn't sell in commercial places. Everybody in the food service, the big restaurants and hotels, they buy everything from him. I can't even get a box off in the States. It's that popular. So that's the region we live in. And it's a real, well, again, hospitality is brought in this location and area, you know, because with all good wineries, there's good entertainment and, of course, lodgment, you know, a place to dine, sleep, you know, visit just out of the city. And that happens all around the world. You know, Europe, America, I'm sure, you know, plays a very big part. You know, the wineries and the hospitality industry is the biggest consumer, without doubt, of alcohol. Let's face it, you know, wine, spirits, it doesn't matter. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. We're going to take it back to 2005, a 50th birthday. Well, you end up going to Dubai, right? Correct. For your 50th. Kath got that for your 50th birthday. Talk about what that was like, one, finding out you're going to go to Dubai, and then how, I guess, kind of how today, you know, and our partnership has kind of started with hospitality chain coming out of that. So maybe tell that story. Yeah, well, that's probably one of the most fascinating parts of the whole thing. My wife said, you come out for your 50th birthday, you're going to do something special. I said, look, I'm too busy working. And she said, well, that's just there. So I said, no, I don't want to party. It's an expensive one night and it's all over. She said, no, you always wanted to go to the Dubai World Cup. It's a racing. They're mad on their races over there, like racing camels and racehorses. And I've always had a fascination and I've never been to the medalist. And I said, you know what? I've known two guys that have gone on this trip over there said it was the best thing they ever did. So six mates and I, we journeyed over there to celebrate my 50th birthday. And the experience was there. It was more than what I expected, far greater. So like I said, as a kid growing up, I used to be fascinated with these black and white movies out in the desert and the desert tents and everything else. And now I'm going to actually see this. So, you know, to experience that, it was amazing. But to cut things short, like when we got into Dubai, then a small trip around the place and I thought, it's very ritzy, you know. They are planning for when the oil's gone to make it a tourism centre of the world. You could see it. And the commercial side. So I dealt with a lot with expats in my time in containers and so did Kat. And when expats come over, a lot of them stayed, people are still business with, stayed at our place. And we took them around. And it brings you back to what hospitality is. And when you think about the history of that, we actually got it on our main page now. We've changed it. I love the history. It dates back 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. And right back to the Greeks, the Romans, and, of course, the Middle East, the Beguin traders and camps. So it's a place of travel, meet, eat, greet, and have a place to sleep. And they're the principals. So I was looking at this trip different to the other people that was actually on the tour. Even my friends. I'm looking at them from a logistic point, from what's going on, and, wow, the vibe here is amazing. But one night in particular is the third night. We went out to dine. It was a, what was it? It was a, to dine under the stars with the sheets, the sheet that was there. as part of the 10th anniversary of this whole thing, this was their big event. And what an event. When we were leaving, we all got on buses, and there's 24 in our tour, so we were on one bus. There was a fertilla of buses coming out of Dubai, and we were stuck in this traffic, and I thought, where's everyone going? And there was stretch limos and everything. And they're all heading out to the desert to this great event in the desert. We got out there and I couldn't believe how many buses were there. I can't get a stat on how many people were there, but it would have been in the thousands. Now, you've been a chef, Jeff. Picture this. How are we going to feed everybody? This is the one thing. The logistics to set up. these amazing tents, you know, with the tradition and the culture of the Middle East, like a big, big Bedwin camp. And when we went through, the culture struck you straight away. There was a line of Bedwin tribal ladies there all in a row, all decked out and they had like a long stick, like a bandit stick and they were waving the stick and on the end of it was a dry day and that's a real cultural thing in the Middle West. So it was a bit like if you looked at the old movies and the women are yodeling, you know, out in the desert, they were doing that and from the facial masks, there was even four metal masks on. And it was pretty sort of spooky. They're waving these things and they're passing you the date to take it. Our guide was telling us this is a welcoming thing and it was an amazing way to enter into the tents. That's where you go for a scream. So when we got into the tents, our guide said straight away, when we leave here you follow me to find the bus otherwise you're going to be stuck in the desert all night you would never find your way back this is what it was like the logistics are going through my mind straight away through you know from a logistics point and this is the biggest event i've ever seen in my life so out there you can imagine there's no pollution uh you know there's no lights, there's just stars. A beautiful night and just, you know, they always have referred to an Iranian breeze. So we go into where we're stationed and once you're in the tent, you look down and all the other tents had an open wall where you can see right through. It's like being at a massive expo and you can see from one tent all the way through to the others. This is how well it was structured. And, of course, they had to have flooring down because you can't go spilling, drinking food out in the desert. Just pack up a leaf. It would be a tip, you know. And, of course, toilet arrangements and everything else that I'm looking at, I'm thinking, this is amazing. So we're sitting down on cushions, like being in a Bedwin tent back in the old days. and all of a sudden I thought, wow, what an amazing experience until it was time to eat. And it was so military, we just went out to the back of the tent and each major tent had these long tables and there was a heap of you guys, chefs in Chef's Jackets. There was a helpers and that behind them and without a word of a lie, They had all the cards along what the food was. It was things like hemp, you know, and all the exquisite stuff. This was not just chips and pies and stuff like this. This catering was to a level. As a chef, it was five-star catering. and you just walked along the table, took what you want and just brought it back and you could keep going. It was just amazing. And from there, you know, these tents were wrapping at the front and at the front was an old fork. And in that fork, up the top, all of a sudden this laser show started and there was dancers going to this music. We're sitting there and we thought, this is beyond belief. I've never seen a laser show back in 205. This blew my mind until the fireworks went off. And I thought, this is, and the stars are out. But the big thing was, is that the main shag, and just trying to think of his name at the moment, he's passed away now, but he set up a Dolphin racer. You know, that was Al McToon. He was present. So he'd come on the day to just walk through the tents, just walk through the tents. And the one thing I noticed, there was nothing there of guns shown or anything like that or security or police with batons, for a minute. And I thought, wow, there'd be a lot of security in here that you're not seeing anything confrontational. And I thought, that's amazing. So there was a lot of bodyguards, including women. They were all dressed the same way, pretty floppy gear, so no doubt they've got, you know, weapons if they need them, hidden. And they were walking with him through the tents. And you wouldn't believe it. One of our people's, an older woman, he stopped and spoke to her. She'd pushed her way to the front as he was going past. She got quite emotional about it. and I thought this is an incredible experience. So when you're looking at travel, tourism, and the culinary world, and fine dining and hospitality and you guys all in the one place in the desert, this blew my mind. I thought this is something else I'll never experience. So from a container point of view, logistical point of view, I'm thinking, my goodness, the amount of work that's gone into this and I've seen it from the Grand Prix's and you know the Melbourne Cup putting all this stuff together putting it in refrigerator containers and working with the catering guys it's a big job it's a massive job and at the end of the night they had this amazing show on so being part of the whole experience you walk out the tent you can sit down and at the time we all smoke them back in them days We were smoking shisha They were walking people around on tables The experience was just they didn miss one thing And I thought they're planning to deliver something like this. And then we all just got back on the buses. And thank God we had a guide to get there because you need a GPS to find your bus. as a bit of a wait to get out and to get back into the city. But believe me, once we got back in the city, the party didn't stop there. Dubai was alive with a lot of media. It's the 10th anniversary of this great race. There was one by an American horse too, by the way. At the time, and an Australian horse won on the same night. A horse called Elstrom. I think it was the American Horseman's Roses in May or something like that. I'll never forget it. But you can't bet. At the first racetrack I've been to, you can't bet. And saying that, there was a lot of Emiratis and a lot of other people walking around with mobile phones just before the race. I'm sure if they wanted a bet, they would get a bet on. But the same experience on the race night, the hospitality side, the logistics, the food, the beverage. You know, they had some of the finest wines from Europe. And it's a fallacy you can't drink in Dubai. Of course you can. You just don't go out into the street and you respect the culture and you behave yourself. If you don't, you know, you would soon be shunned the door. it was a it was an amazing uh place to meet new people so at all the venues we different venues we went to leading up and during and after the race we met so many people that we was still in contact with them afterwards it was um you know we stayed within a group and it's just uh a fascinating times so that's how things started and from this whole experience there's so many expats over there um it i couldn't stop thinking about the whole experience and the logistics and the different variation of food there various foods and the cultures i'm starting to think already how do you bring all this stuff together you know it's hard to even explain this let alone and walk away from it and think, oh, my God, you know, what have I just experienced? The last day, you know, the friends all went to this hamburger chain. I didn't want to get another hamburger chain in Dubai. So I went off and do what I do. I love to walk. So everywhere I've traveled, down in the container industry and remote places, I walked that town in the morning when I was the safest, and I knew how to walk it overnight. I knew where not to walk and where to to walk, and I know the terrain. So I found a pretty nice little place and having a shush of pipe. Loved the coffee over there. The dry dates and a small bowl. And I was just listening to two English gentlemen that was just sitting below me. And we're down at a great heart where the great hotel is. And fascinating place to sit and just have a look what's going on in the hospitality and logistics and the tourism. And one of these English guys is, well, it's your turn now. I've spent two years here as an engineer. I think with a company with Kinhill or one of those companies who were building all these buildings, like a lot of these buildings weren't finished yet. And he said, I'm handing it over to you. And he said, yeah, he said, one thing, he said, what are you going to miss here? And he said, I'm going to miss a lot of the food, the culture, just great coffee, dried fruits. I'm going to miss a lot of that. So I'd like to take a lot of these experienced Middle Eastern experiences back to England with me. And the other guy said, yeah, and I bet you'll miss a lot of the food and experiences from the old English pubs. I said, oh, for sure, without doubt. And Dubai tried to create that too because there was Irish pubs there and they're catering for all the expats. so when I got home I said to the wife there's a gold bangle from the gold sook what did we add myrrh and the other thing is the frankincense so you've got gold sooks in one part and there's gold everywhere and then there's the old spice market and I got into a lot of trouble because we were supposed to meet one night at the point where we were all coming back on the bus together and I got tied up in this spice market and I could not leave. It's just the time ran away. The other guys were in there buying gold and knock-off watches, bagless, all that stuff went on. So the spice markets took me back hundreds of years ago, like I said, hospitality, 1,000 to 7,000 years old, and it sort of almost took me into that place. Frankincense, myrrh and gob, the three wise men, that was their presence to Jesus at birth, right? So I bought all that stuff. So when we got back home, I couldn't sleep on the plane. I think I walked from Dubai. back to mullet. And what I mean is I've got some spinal issues lower back. And we're up the back, of course. We weren't sitting flat up the front. I just kept walking around that plane to the point where one of the hostess says, have you got a condition? This is late. I said, yeah, I need to be up the front. I know there's, I need the light horizontal. It won't happen. and, you know, people in business class, it won't happen. I said, I won't be noisy. I just keep walking around and stretching and everything else, but my mind was still back in that desert. My mind was still back sitting there and walking through that spice market, and I had this food in one mind. I had logistics in another. Actually, my mind blew up. You know, I just couldn't stop thinking about the experience. So as far as her 50th birthday went, I thank my wife for that. It started a whole lot of things happening, and that was the birth of where we are today. When we first come back, I got her a presence, and I said, I've got another gift for you. She said, what is it? I said, expat telling. She goes, what the hell is that? What is it? I said, I don't know yet. I don't know yet. But we're going to start something. Maybe it might be a franchise. of specialty foods and specialty stores in high expat areas around the world. And a lot of them, a lot of expat, go to communities and protect it, especially in the Middle East. But the specialty stores are at rent. But I thought Expat Delo is a great name. So the next morning I said, we've got to register this. She said, you're jet lagged. Don't do a thing. So then I started drawing up a drawing of a palm tree with the sun. She said, what is it? I said, that is neutral to every culture. It's a feel-good thing, palm tree, sunbearing down. Draw it up and got it trademarked not long after. It took us a long time because the word expat, it's like trademarking royalty. it is very difficult and to put it into a place like it was uh specialty foods and things like that like the food and hospitality industry so we're able to get so we still got it and it's the company today um and i still love that logo it it reminds me of everything that um that would go back to all those years in hospitality you know palm tree and uh and the sun So it doesn't matter what culture you are, what country you come from. It's just neutral and it makes you feel good. So that becomes – so we didn't go into the franchise. Trading was the next thing. And we had done a little bit of trading, my wife and I, overseas with another friend of ours. And we got very clever and we were bringing in products for the food industry. We knew for the pizza industry. We knew a girl there that was working in a major distributor, so she said, look, can you do this? So we brought a container of crushed pineapple in and the tomato toppings for pizzas out of Thailand. We had the logistical background. We'd done the training. And we were a bit cheaper than the other producers. Next minute, we get a call from some pretty heavy speaking Italian guy that said if you keep bringing this in, you'll end up in the crushed pineapple tin. So there's our train experience right there, right? So I said we've got to build, I said back in them days, a website to put everything in so people can get on it. Because I was on the website all the time, online. I couldn't find. I couldn't learn. I couldn't find a website. There was a lot of websites, but oh, my goodness. It's like being in a butcher shop or a supermarket, and it was ugly. They're just ugly things. I had bipolar. I thought, I can't look at these sites, and they weren't around. They no longer. They wanted to be everything, selling shoes and toys and sausages. You know, we need to develop something now that people could go to, but I didn't want to put any commercial food, let's call it junk. I did not want to put junk food on there. I wanted it to be a specialised platform, you know, of just the finest premium foods, the hard to get, the artisan. and blew me like in the Middle East, you know, the chocolates, the artisan chocolates over there, it's a real skill and it's a big thing over there. And I thought, wow. And she said, look, you're mad. And I said, I know, but it's up here and I've got to unpack it and it's going to take a long time. We've got to trademark these things. We've got to copyright. So you wouldn't believe it. When we first started putting it together, four years later, five years later, we were back in Dubai at Golf Food as expat deli exhibiting at probably the biggest expo in the world. It was just simply amazing the size of this expo. I got lost there. I said, look, I'm going to get out and walk the floor. Six hours later, I come back and the wife said, I'm starving. We're just in a little thing. with a couple of brushes up the back of the thing. It's Beth Delling. But the one thing that really sold things to us, there was a big chef, Chef Codon. He was just walking around, and he was doing a lot of speaking and that apparently, and he's either, I think, Dutch or German. He's a big guy, but on his chef's jacket, He had a lot of badges on that. And he wanted to tell us how good he was in the world as a chef, as a decorated chef. I wish I had remembered his name. Because he's looking at the brochure off the back. He said, Expat Daly, what is it? And I said, that's a good question. And what is it? I said, the simplest way to explain it, this whole expo. every exhibitor the fine food all the equipment the beverages but only the top end not the commercial style we're going to put it in a laptop you're going to what? I said we're going to put it in a laptop he said listen my friend keep going with that because one day I don't want to come to any more expos he said Quite frankly, I'm over them. They're hard work. It's just too hard and the travel and everything. So you're telling me one day I'm going to sit down in my lens room or my office at home drinking a red, sitting on my computer on your site, and I'll be able to buy or bring in any specialty foods from around the world. And I said, well, yeah, that's the concept. Good luck. I hope you're successful. So that's where it sort of started from. So, you know, that was the foundation and the story. And then when I started getting into the history of how old hospitality is, at the end of the day, Jeff, the principles are still the same. They're simple. The principles are simple. But naturally, you know, online and everything else now, it's survived. It's probably one of the most durable industries in the history of life. That go to a place, traders go to a place and they're greeted with a smile. And they're given a place, a safe place to sleep. place to eat. They'd like to entertain them at the same time and look after them. And that's basically hospitality today. It's changed, as we know, but the principles are pretty much the same. You know, the various foods and, of course, the innovation of equipment, that all changes. And the hotel networks throughout the world, they change, But the principles are there. They're still pretty similar. Yeah, well, when you go to another country or most people when they're wanting to have their vacation, if you will, that what are the things they want to see? They want to usually go somewhere where the weather is to their liking. And or they want to enjoy the food. Right. How many it was for me, the big reason going to Italy was not. Yes, I was lucky enough to go for work, but I wanted to experience the culture and the food and see what it was all about. Right. Even if I did nothing else. I've said time and time again, if I just get to eat the food and experience that because you can understand culture through food. Right. Because you you see the experiences, you you go into the restaurants or the home cooking, whatever it may be. You get to experience, you get to feel what that country is about. And that has always been the case in the hospitality industry. And that's what we emulate, right? In the restaurant, we want to emulate a location and environment in which is inviting. And you want to come in and you want to, you want to be there. You want to converse. You want to be what humans were meant to do to socialize. And that's what hospitality is all about. So you had this amazing trip out in Dubai, had your brain thinking you start a website and again not too i mean 2005 you're coming out of the maybe the dot-com bubble you know five years earlier and websites and people you know they weren't really probably where they they're nowhere where they are today however you still had that idea in in the back of your head and you said you had to unpack it and you had to kind of figure out what it was and it's evolved you know over the years and you know as we met and and have been going through it i mean there's been an evolution over the past even six months. So I think it's good to let people know, too, you know, we're going to dig more into the website. And so we know it's a connector of different brands. I mean, everything. I mean, there's so much on the website. We could spend another three hours going through all the sectors and everything easily, right? But maybe just the, I don't know, call it, I believe in divine intervention, but kind of how we our paths intertwined you know what what made you it all happened through LinkedIn Maybe just uh on you know what what made you spark that conversation And then you know I you know on the flip side, tell, tell my side of it as well. Look, that's an easy one. And I, I, I hate this comment all the time. That's a good question. I'm sick of hearing it. That's a bloody good point. LinkedIn, I wasn't a great user of LinkedIn in the container industry because, quite frankly, I didn't want other people in the container industry to know what I was doing. I used to fly in under the radar and go after big projects. And, you know, so I did that silently. But what we're doing now, we have to be out there, right, in all the socials, and that's a big part of it. But the one thing is, and this is way back and this is where, you know, I drive my wife mad sometimes, my co-founder. She does the operations side of things, always has. I said, you do all the, when I think of a .com, I want you to register it. You're like, you didn't go, Daddy. I don't know how to even get onto it. Go, Daddy. so we've got about 40 uh domains and urls and i woke her up one night at three o'clock in the morning i'm a mac i'm an insomniac i'm my mind's ticking all the time you're gonna end up that way now because you're an entrepreneur no no the best the best ideas come when you're like it's the worst i'll be in the shower and and an idea hits and you're like oh my god i need my i need to write this down. It happens all the time. It's in the worst timing possible where I'm doing something, the light bulb goes off and it's nothing related, but I know what you mean. You're in trouble now. You better start seeing somebody to do some meditation so you don't end up in some act. Most entrepreneurs, I call them visionaries because we knew nothing about tech at all, right? My wife not, but I'm not going to get off the topic. How we met on LinkedIn is that When I wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, I said, I've got a light bulb moment. I want you to get on GoDaddy. She said, it's 3.30 in the morning. I said, I know. But what happens if it goes? She said, what is it? Chefsbiography.com. She said, you are totally mad, you know that. I said, I'll be mad if I don't get it. She talks to me. She comes back. She says, I'm up to sleep. Check the spelling. I said, you know I can't spell. So I checked it on the iPad. I said, hey, it's there. So we got it. And she said, well, what's chef's biography.com? I said, I want to get specialty chefs. I want to tell their story because I find them really interesting people. And I mean that because I've known a few chefs myself. They remind me of guys, and I've had these friends too, that transport truck drivers drive big rigs and they're doing long haul. From one side of the country to the other, it's painstaking. They don't get to get out and have leisure time every weekend and just do what other people do. I've found chefs and people in hospitality don't get a lot of sun. It's a hard point. It's hard work. And I find they have to have a lot of passion, and it's slow pain, as we know, for the general people that work in hospitality, that they have a passion for food. I have a passion for food. I cook when I'm in the mood. And my wife's exceptional cook being a Greek. It's part of Greek culture. They love to cook, right? So, you know, but I wanted to put the chef's biography together and see their stories, how they start. They're all different, you know. You have a look at the experiences that they go through and no doubt it's a very, very hard game. Not everybody stays in it and others stay in it all their life. but they were starting to, chefs were starting to back then jump out of the kitchen into the fire of doing something outside the kitchen. They were becoming all of a sudden, you know, they were becoming the new stars on TV and they did. And books and interesting stories and, you know, I used to love watching those shows where they'd tour around the world, you know, and just going to places and we'd know who those guys are, you know, and showing real food and cultured food. And I wanted to – I didn't want to have all Michelin Hatter chefs. So at the start, a lot of the chefs we had on there, everybody knew. So I thought, you know, things are changing at hyperspeed in this industry, in the hospitality industry, and the speed of online. And I wanted to look and find interesting chefs, younger chefs as well, you know, male and female, all cultures, all cultures. And some would stand out to me, that person's got a point of difference. Now, then I contact them. Not all of them wanted to come on. Others, oh, I'd love to be on there. So for some reason, I love authentic brands. And I was on LinkedIn. It was back in October, I remember. So we're into the third quarter of last year. So we've only known each other in a very short period of time. Yep, yep. And I've seen you on LinkedIn. I've seen a couple of times you're on LinkedIn. and this is serious. This is not trying to make a story here. Jeff Fell. I went to school with Jeff Fell. I've never told you that. I didn't know that. No, where I grew up, there was a family of nine, the Fell family, and they lived not far from me. I played football with them in sports. Actually, Jeff Fell was in my grave right back then. and I thought, Jeff, well, for some reason, I just looked at it and then it said, fell into food. And I thought, you know what? I love brands, authentic brands. I don't like big commercial brands. They remind me of junk and it's all about the dollar. It's all about the margin. It's not about people. To me, it doesn't represent much. Big commercial brands, I'm not going to name them. I thought, duh, we'd be there all day. So that stood out and I thought, here's a young chef. I'm going to get on a route about it. And I read that you had a farmer background and you were pretty raw with, you know, where you come from, what you've done. And the letdown in the corporate industry, I know what that's all about. You know, probably a lot of people that are going to be listening to this will know what that's about. And it's all about the dollar. It's not about the person. How much can I get out of them? It's like a lemon. They'll cut it up. They'll squeeze it, juice it as they can, and then I'll throw it on the floor. Stamp on it to get that last bit of juice out. Some people say, I've had enough. I'm jumping out of the pan into the fire, and I thought I was going to contact this guy. And I seen you had a podcast, and you were just starting. Yeah, Brad, I love the microphone in a corncob. I thought, this has got a point of difference there. This guy's interesting, and he's at the right age group, and everything else, I contacted him and said, I'm sure we can collaborate, and that's what you do on LinkedIn. Not all collaborations are good. We found a few that aren't. Without going into too much, we put a few equipments up and not equipment, so food's up and a few things. They've got about three months' advertising and quite a few hundred things. I thought enough's enough. They're not paid, so they move on. Now the collaborations are great, you know, especially with the chefs. So now we've got quite a few chefs, and this has only been in the last 12 months, which actually is submitting articles of interest of the culinary industry to the point that we've got another dot com called I think it's culinarynews.com. It's one of those, but it's a good dot com. And it's on the chef's biography. So chefs and the culinary world can post articles up on that. It's chefsarticles.com. so those articles they're actually bringing a fair bit of traffic because they're interesting stories and some of these chefs and especially the younger ones they're right into nutrition and we can see a seismic shift now in food, I think we're starting to see it to get back to real food right and it's driven by chefs and it's driven by passionate people that want to make people healthier through food and nutrition. And there are many chefs now just starting to branch out and do different things. And then there's still those wonderful chefs that, you know, we've got chefs on there that are so creative in their artistry and what they do as a chef. And we've got a few of them on there. And we've got chefs from all around the world from different cultures that actually are giving us recipes now. You've got one up there. you're on Chess Biography as well because at that point of difference I thought I'd like to have you up on there so you're on Chess Biography tell your story and when you become the world's number one podcast which you're fast becoming for the hospitality industry and client food and everything else or the industry itself I'm going to say well he's on Chess Biography that guy and we're also partnership in what we do Yeah, I want to touch on LinkedIn just briefly and the power that it can be if it's used properly. I see so many people on that platform that it's become another social network where they just try to sell. It's sleazy. It's just not a good place to be, whereas before it was very prestigious. That's the place you go if you want to do business. and what I have found is like to your point I I'm I'm constantly on there I'm looking seeing who's on there if I see a dish that a chef has done or I see someone writes an article and it's really well I connect with them I want to see more of that that's why I'm connecting but what's interesting and I found through connecting with some people is that a lot will instantly say what do you want And I simply reply back, I don't want anything. I like what you're doing. I want to see more of it. So can I connect with you? Now, that may lead to something in the future because they see something I do or I see something they do. And again, the hospitality industry is all about connections and who you know and how you can connect people. And there may not be that immediate return on investment of your time. But you don't know what's going to happen in a year or two years or three years or somebody that you've worked with or something that happened. And all of a sudden the paths align. And that's exactly what you said is you reached out and I was like, all right, let me look at his website, see what he's got. And I said, what does it hurt to have a conversation? And I know people value their time. But at the same time, I was like, you know what? I'm going to have to explore all doors, explore all possibilities and see, you know, if somebody's willing to have that kind of level of depth. of interest, let's have a conversation. And then just progress and just you and your wife, good people. And you can tell good people when you find good people, you want to do things with them. Again, whether that's right up front, whether it's in the future, whether it's just staying connected, you don't know where it's going to lead. And I had no idea that this kind of partnership was going to happen. I had no idea, no clue, no nothing. you know i told my whole story on episode 56 and you know now now we're in a stage where i think 2026 is like the year where things start to happen things are clicking you know and all that hard work that people talk about of you work your butt off and you you see nothing for years and then all of a sudden it clicks and then and then it just happened so it was just interesting and plus Plus, like, I love the accents. I mean, it's just hard not to want it. Oh, yeah. I absolutely love the accents. So it's like, yes, I get to talk with people that have, you know, the accent. And so now here we are today, you know, partnering up. And, you know, yeah, you've got so many facets to the website. We've got the chef's biographies. There's equipment. There's food. There's a whole lot. And, again, I think the goal today was really to kind of tell that back story of who you were. because I'm sure we'll have more conversations because there's so many pieces to the website. There's so much to unpack and what the website has to offer. You know, maybe talk just a little bit about the website and how one does interact with it, right? With all the facets, you know, button it up the best. I don't know. It's hard to put it in simple terms. I can basically simplify it. Our friend, as we all know, AI, you know, has told us basically to super fire. And this is what we set out to do right from the start. Okay, the search engines, you get on a search engine, you get out of that, you get into this, you get into that. I want to decentralize everything, every facet of hospitality, everything. and then interact with the logistics on another platform. You can click from one to the other. And it becomes a one-stop marketplace to be an asset to the worldwide work. Now, to make it easy, it is that it can't be just a bunch of websites. Okay? It's boring. Okay? It's simply boring. You need to have people come on and start searching through that they're actually in the game. And right now we've made a lot of changes, but we've got so much, I suppose, gold prospectus, and I love watching those shows. Parker's one of my favourite people in that gold sector. He's young, he's vibrant, and he's out there, he's innovating. But they all look for virgin ground to mine, that it hasn't been mined before. And that's where probably the big payloads are that they're looking for. So it's a bit like our site. So the more raw data we have on those platforms, the more traffic you're going to get coming to you now. I've been told many times, hey, it's the end of year, there's a death now. I said, no, it's not. It actually is a good friend of mine, and we're a good friend of AI, is over our platforms virtually every minute of the day because it's looking for data. We've got about 60,000 products and services and equipment alone. we got close to 5,000 culinary and hospitality equipment on there. Now, if you picked up 5,000 of that equipment and put it into an expo, you wouldn't get it in there. It'd be too much, you know. So we put it, like I said to that chef, I put it into an iPad. But we're moving at hyperspeed now, the whole world. and we need dedicated industry platforms. It's a must. So when bots go in, right from the start, what we wanted to do is have the main categories of hospitality, the subcategories that come off that. Before you know it things were just blowing up like wow we got to add this like vegan and other things like biodynamic Now if I had a hero subcategory on the side if you ask me what your hero subcategory or category, it'd be biodynamic. Those farmers, I've got to take my head off. The world should go back. And that's the old way of farming, right? The biodynamic way. and that's where, you know, that food and everything is going to improve people's health. You know, if they went back eating like that, you know, we wouldn't have, you know, problems today. But, you know, so things, as they unwind in front of you, you know, like you said, like moments, you know, you're building something. Then I'm thinking of, you know, the charities, food. shelters. And there's a lot of, like a lot of industries, but the people I knew in hospitality, they really struggled during the pandemic. So the wellness part of things, you've got to take great respect of that. So we built hospitality charities and it's a worldwide platform or or website, scottstown.com, but it's just around food banks, shelters, homelessness, and wellness, but no advertising or anything on that side at all. It's a genuine non-for-profit, and we only try to put non-for-profits on that particular side. So off topic a little bit, but, you know, it's not just a site to be out there to say, ah, this is going to be our money side or whatever. We want to be serious about what we do. And the charitable side, I think, you know, philanthropy, like people that have got money can go on there and actually see the brand. And there's one out there now we spoke about, the Burnt Chef. I've sent them an email. I haven't had a reply back, but I'd like to put them up there and hopefully people with money that they want to spend it can get on there and start donating to those charities, especially homeless and people that food banks that are really struggling to feed themselves in this day and age. So that's one facet there that we really want to grow. But like I said, there's no commercial or ads on that. It's purely we host it and we want to put it out there again as a platform where people can go and search. Or if they're in need of help, they might be able to go to the wellness department and think, who can help us? My wife is actually on the board that gets pretty cancelling to help people with addictions, not the addicts, but the mums and dads and the, you know, brothers and sisters that are struggling and can't afford counselling. So I suppose that thing started there where we said, you know, we've got to do something there to be a one-stop platform there to give awareness to the non-for-profits side of things there. So, yeah, there's a lot to digest. and it can get off topic pretty quick when you're going through the whole platform. But for it to work, the bots, because it's categorized, main category, subcategory, and it's very readable for bots, good bots. There's bad bots in the world, but I do not have a problem with good bots coming across scraping our platforms at all because we work together. Now, if they're finding us, then we know that the world's buying on us. We're actually getting weekly visits now. We'd done the stats last night. The country's up to over 220 countries now, 195 countries in the world. Here's a stat for you. there's 380 million websites in the world. Now, just think of this for the moment. The stat is that there's about 33,000, I'm just reading that stat off my sheet as we go because I don't want to mark it up, that are registered per day. But outside of that, new websites per day is 250,000 new websites per day. Why is there more websites per day than actually registering for a domain name? Because a lot of domains are actually parked. Someone knows that, well, I need to get a domain. Jeff fell in the food. I better get that .com. And it's no good having .net, .org, .whatever. It's .com. It's the most frequently used around the world rather than country. That's where it starts. How is your business, how does Jeff Fell into Food or Fell into Food podcast get itself out there straight away to be known and recognized? And believe me, from your first podcast to now, I just see how much it's grown where, you know, I love listening to them because you've got the confidence, you've got some great people in there, and you grow with it. It's as simple as that. And you know your background. You know where you come from, the farm. And that's a growing. You got the passion as a chef. You've done all that. You've done all the management. Now you're out there. And the first thing I said to you, sir, when we got together, what are you going to do, Jeff? She says, I don't really know. Throw a ball up in the air and I said, here you go, it's the life of an entrepreneur, you know, and a visionary. You might have a vision, but your wife will say, how do we make money? I don't know yet. But we've got to work a way that we try to get to make a monetary, right? So, or monetize it, I should say. Yeah, it goes back to the mantra, and I guess first, thank you for all those kind words. I appreciate it. No, it's true. And I go back to it. I look at some of the first stuff to where I am now. It's all practice, right? Everything you do is practice and you have to do it. But what I was going to originally say is that I always had this mantra and I kind of got away from it for a little while. I don't know why. It was always in the back of my mind is that if you chase money, you're going to constantly chase money. When you stop worrying about it as much and you do the right thing, whatever that might be it finds you and then it comes to you and it's ironic how how that happens and sometimes it may feel like despair where you're like well i'm scraping by i don't know what i'm going to do and then all of a sudden out of nowhere it comes but that's if you're doing consistently the right thing that those things happen to you and so that's where i feel is kind of on that journey on that roller coaster of trying to get there and to your point it's a different as an entrepreneur some people hey i'm gonna do this i'm gonna sell that whatever it might be but for me it was all about like you i i feel like i like connecting people i've always had a knack for like hey i know somebody let me connect you no benefit to me except that i want to help the people that i know that need whatever support services products etc hey i know somebody and it still happens to today is somebody will say yeah i'm looking for this and i'm like i know somebody that i mean i'm happy to make an introduction to email and if it works out great if it doesn't okay that's okay too but it doesn't hurt to explore um so kind of being that can can do it and i feel that hospitality chain i think that's what made me levitate towards it was that it's a giant connector and we're talking like you said hundreds of countries thousands of cities So I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're a chef, if you're a buyer, if you are looking for products and you don't know where to start, this is a great place. This is where you can start to go there, dig into a country, and it's very granular. If you're looking for a specific region and a specific producer, you can find all that in a credible source. And that's the other thing. It's a credible source because as much as we love AI, I was actually using it today and it pulled up something and told me something. I go, you're not right. This is wrong. Like flat out, I was like, you are wrong. And it came back and it was like, actually, you're right. I am wrong. And I was like, yeah, I know. I know that you're wrong. So I need the right information where you have a credible website with credible information that allows you to know that what you're going to pull or what you're looking for. You don't have to worry about, okay, this is some knockoff. And to your point, especially with the food stuff, it's more artesian. It's not the big brands. It's not mass producers. This is the small guys that are trying to put their products out, and they have a finite amount of time and resources to do marketing and put stuff out, and especially from a global standpoint. I know a lot of stuff is coming hyper-local and regional. However, you still need the world in order to make things happen. Exports are just a part of it. So I wanted to say all that. We're coming up on time. I'll give you the last point, which I missed, and it's a big point. And I'm glad we've got to this point. And we are hitting time like this won't be our last episode because we've got so much more to discuss about a whole lot of topics, of course. but it's the producers, the growers and everything else. I don't believe that online advertising has to be expensive. That's what it is. It's just too expensive. Now, these smaller people, they can't go into supermarkets. One, they don't want to. They want the food service industry. They can't afford supermarkets. They're taking too much profit out of them. So what's left for them? Okay. for the small people and especially in the wine industry, you know, I'd love to stick all the wine, great wineries around the world. We could put a premier listing in their category, their region, everything about them, give them a premier listing, thousand words, freak photos, and it would cost them about one glass of wine a week. we could do that the bigger the companies are the more commercial they want prominent positions it's a different different cost area of course but they'd be commercial companies with equipment and all that I'm talking about the small artisan people we're there to support the industry biodynamic farming and all the good stuff that you know back to the food that's important for people's health and everything. And we like to put them all on at a rate that they can afford without being ridiculous. So at times, you know, it takes us five to six hours to do the work to put a premium listing on. And they've got their logo. And you know yourself, your brand and your logo is who you are and what your product is. We can get their logo out there to the world on a world market. and we don't take commissions. If anybody's buying off the site, we know plenty of people are buying off the site. We know a few people that, and all they just say, where do you find us? Online. A couple of people, you know, have said, hey, they actually found us on your site, which is good. Good feedback. So we don't click the till. It's between the producer and the buyer. They connect. They decide whether I like your product, send it over to me, let me have a look at it. That's how it's a hell of a lot of time and energy. We know that they're going to get traffic. And we thank AI for that too because I'm not going to mention our page, weekly page searches, but they're extremely high. And each week as we've been doing our SEO, more we're doing that ourselves because we paid a lot for our SEO and I get in there and I think that is pretty ordinary. And it's only about Ed Belight. So good enough will do. So, you know, we've learned the hard way, paying a fortune for all this stuff. So we've invested and done it ourselves and done it properly. And we're nearly at the completion of the back end of hospitality and we can sort of see that the bot activity has just taken our search now to another level and the amount of cities that are, to be honest. So it's a cheap way to get out there. You're on there every minute of the day. You're not there sometimes, not another time. Every minute of the day you've got exposure. You tell us what market, so you're not going through a bot. So I don't know how to get my hat up there. You're actually talking to real people. So we're designing that ad around you. What do you want? I only want a local market here. And this is the market I'm looking for, right? Just in my state, my province, or my country, I want international exposure. I want to expand my brand. So that's how flexible you can be. And like I said, we're not taking 10% out of this or whatever. They're selling the product. So we're connecting manufacturer to the buyer, the producer to the buyer. So as you know, a cliche we use, you know, select, buy, direct, say. It's up to you. Yeah. I was going to say, where do people? Oh, yeah, for sure. I was going to say, normally I close it out with the where do you find them, but all you got to do is just listen to this podcast and you're going to know exactly where to find them at hospitalitychain.com. 100%. So you can always go there, or if you want to know more information, guess what? You go to hospitalitychain.com, and you can get more information, and you can find more information. Exactly. So that's where you're going to go. Ian, I know we've had so many conversations, and again, there are so many things to unpack. I know I want to do logistics. I know I want to do specialty stuff and charities. I mean, there's just so much with what you guys do. And this is really the last one that we should think about too. And it's going to play an amazing part of everything now because the world's changing. The banks are going to get left behind if they don't do something about it. And the fintech, you'll be able to buy things from the sites, say, like equipment, container, wine or whatever. Three clicks of a button, bang, bang. Letter of credit in front. if you want to go down the bank you've got to get a bank guarantee and this and that climate gateways you know those things can all plug into this and then it becomes more than a directory side you are buying and and and the buy now pay later thing is just massive in that sector and that's coming quick so there's a lot of things and to talk on the podcast. It's going to be a very interesting session there on those things alone, what actually drives and makes it, and what takes us into the next five years. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Couldn't have said it better. Ian, love having our chats. Love seeing you, buddy. Have a great day. You know, it's an evening for me. You're just getting the day rocking and rolling and started. It's been a good start for the day, Jeff. I appreciate it. This is our first podcast. Won't be the last. I love what you do. And it's not just plugging you. I just think it's well needed. But I love that brand. I know you didn't design it. Your wife did. Don't ever sack her. I can't sack mine. I'd be lost. So, yeah, well done, mate. So keep going, eh? Love it. Appreciate it. Appreciate you. appreciate, Cap. And until next time, we'll catch you on the sunny side. Hospitalitychain.com, the world's first online hub designed for the hospitality, culinary, and catering industry. From leading food and beverage brands to professional food service equipment, hospitalitychain.com makes sourcing simple. Search, select, buy direct, and save All in one global marketplace.