A New Digital Chef Community Brings Excitement to Recipes

Brad Sive is a media marketing executive who has a passion for learning about new foods, not just the enjoyment of food, but how food cooking and recipes intersect and bring people together. This passion led him to start Public Market with a team of longtime friends, a place where food, people and culture have become one. The core belief behind Public Market is that life's most meaningful moments happen when humans and food intersect. 

Transcript

Phil: 0:14

Welcome to Lost in the Supermarket. Brad Sive is a media marketing executive who has a passion for learning about new foods, not just the enjoyment of food, but how food cooking and recipes intersect and bring people together. This passion led him to start public market with a team of longtime friends, a place where food, people and culture have become one. The core belief behind public market is that life's most meaningful moments happen when humans and food intersect. Brad, welcome to Lost in the Supermarket.

Brad: 0:49

Thanks. I'm really happy to be here to share Public Market with you today.

Phil: 0:54

So let's start, where did, where did the idea come from to create Public Market?

Brad: 1:00

Yeah, itstarted during Covid. you know, I think everyone had a lot of free time. I was thinking about the things that I'd missed, hanging out with friends, sharing food, you know, traveling. And a big part of traveling was food experiences, going to public markets, you know, learning about the culture. So obviously for two plus years you couldn't do that. And then also, you know, I live by the original Farmer's market here in Los Angeles, and I would walk around and it would be empty. The store fronts would be closed. Restaurants were shutting down. So, you know, with my group of friends that, you know, do love food and culinary experiences, we started a conversation about what would we wanna create around food that's authentic. You know, what you would feel would be important? And we landed on storytelling and the stories behind the food, and really took a look at what's out there in the marketplace on the digital, media landscape. And there wasn't a lot of, you know, storytelling about the food experience and the people that make the food.

Phil: 2:05

So what's the most, I, I don't wanna say important, but what's the most interesting story that you've got about some of the foods and some of the recipes?

Brad: 2:17

Well, I, you know, I think there's a lot of different interesting stories. We, you know, highlight the San Pedro Fish Market, which is an institution here in Los Angeles that has a cult like following. But I think one of the most interesting insights, and stories is I was at a friend's house, Beverly, and she was having us over for dinner for one of the breaks in Covid and where you can interact with, people. And she was, you know, grew up in South Korea. And she's saying during Covid, she made Korean comfort food for her family because it made her feel good. It reminded her growing up in Korea. And, you know, it really brought joy to her and her family. And I said, that's a beautiful story. We should tell it. Beverly is a concert pianist. She is not someone who's been on camera before talking about food. She's a home cook, but a very good home cook that knows how to cook traditional Korean food. And we thought that was really interesting. So we filmed her going to the little book Korean Market here in Los Angeles, and creating this dish and talking about the passion and love behind it in history, that, you know, from her grandmother to her mother that was passed down over generations. That's one of my favorite stories, you know, and it's not a, you know, it's not a big restaurant. We can tell those stories and those are very interesting, but it's also about the home cook. And so that to me, talks about the community and every recipe is a history lesson. And, you know, it's an interesting history lesson.

Phil: 3:41

So when we look at Public Market, in particular, what do you hope, the takeaways are gonna be for those people who log on?

Brad: 3:52

Yeah, I think the first thing that we want to build is a place where, you know, people are interested in food pecan and enjoy culture, enjoy human stories, spend time and build a relationship with us. That's what we want to take away, from. And it, we also want it to be something different than they're currently seeing right now in the digital landscape. and so it's, it's really about deep high quality storytelling, but then also inviting them to tell their stories. So I think there's multiple different things that we're doing with the Public Market. One is telling the stories of you know, of chefs out there, whose stories can't be told or aren't being told cuz they're really interested in running a business, or, you know, just telling the food stories of our community. Because I know there's a lot of people out there that have interesting stories, and we'd like to tell those as well.

Phil: 4:41

So let's switch to the business side. How do you make money at Public Market?

Brad: 4:47

I think there's multiple ways. There's a standard of, you know, programmatic advertising, you know, affiliate marketing, you know, we're doing some, you know, branded content for brands that will be rolling out as well. And I think, you know, in phase two of what we're trying to do is build a connection point where people can come and share and learn and teach, you know, their skillset with our community. So that we'll be rolling that out in phase two. you know, but first we want to, we wanna build a community. And I think, you know, initially, you know, I come from a marketing advertising background and so to some of our co-founders. And what we found is that there's a lack of high quality, shorter form content, for brands engaging. And I went out and talked to some of my friends who are running brands in this space, and they said, that is true. You know, we would like to place more advertising non quality content that's aligned, with our brand. And so what we felt is, from a business side of it, what we wanted to do also fits the needs of a lot of brands. And so, you know, we are doing branded content a little bit differently in the sense of going out and talking about the story behind the brand and the what and the why in curating that and then sharing that with our community, which is a little different than just running an ad, or, you know, the brands' video. We're trying to really merge it with what public market is about, which is storytelling, you know, and the what and the why behind the brand and then curate that as well for our community.

Phil: 6:21

So when I think about your timing, it's either, you know, brilliant or lucky that, you know, what we've seen over the past couple years is TikTok becoming huge as it relates to food and restaurants and brands. The stories from, you know, bakeries, for example, that have been featured on TikTok, their sales double and triple, and now with the discussion that TikTok may be not allowed in the US you're in in a perfect position to take over for those people.

Brad: 7:00

Well, I don't know about brilliant. I'll take lucky. So, you know, I, you know, TikTok is a platform that my previous companies, you know, we had influencers that were very successful on TikTok and made a lot of money in careers. I think there's a place for TikTok and there'll be a place for Public Market. you know, if someday we would even be fractioning as successful as TikTok, that would be great. But I think we're doing different things in the sense of, we want to tell a little bit more of the story behind. It's more short form, small clips. You know, a lot of the content out there is,"Hey, this is a recipe for the day," or Isn't this a cool, you know, for instance, the hot thing right now is this lasagna soup, quick, easy, may get, you know, we're doing a little bit different, you know, type of content. So I think we fit in a white space, that hasn't really been, you know, developed yet. And I think we wanna focus in on that. I think for our business, being very focused on what our mission is and what we're trying to do is paramount, but using TikTok to help grow our audience so people understand what we're doing. But, yeah, I, you know, what's gonna happen with TikTok in the future, I think will be really interesting for a lot of the creators, in the food community, chefs and restaurants, you know, that could negatively impact their business.

Phil: 8:24

So, you know, Brad, when we look at Public Market today, it's digital. Is there ever gonna be a time where I'm gonna be able to go into a storefront and purchase, whether it's the foods themselves or purchase online, to get these recipes, so it makes it easier for me?

Brad: 8:43

Yeah, there's a part of what we wanna do, which is we face two or three of our plan, that we go talk to people that are investing in Public Market. We believe that there are spaces, virtual spaces that we can e ngage. I don't w anna get into Metaverse or Web 3.0. I think a lot of that is hyped up. I think a lot of that is long t erm down the road, but I do think there's opportunities where we can create Public Market's, t hat do not exist. And we are working f ast and furious on that as part of a longer t erm plan t hat you gotta build t he community first and make sure that everything starts with o ur content a nd our storytelling. But, you know, you can go to places in the country that have absolutely amazing wines, food culture, t hat there's no public market that brings it all together. People can't discover that, right? So we want to in phase two, phase three of our company bring that together and provide that inside our marketplace, you know, to the greater community here in the US and globally as well. You know, we're starting to see those ideas and tests, with a partner of Versace wine, n Italy, and some other people that will be rolling out, you know, in the next three or four months, some different kind of opportunities, through Public Market. So that is something that, to your point, I think will be a core focus of us down the road once we build a community and people understand kind of our storytelling.

Phil: 10:10

Well, Brad, I'm gonna say that I don't think you're just lucky. I think you're, you know, kind of smart about this whole thing too. And really as you point out, there is a white space that exists in the food world, that brings it to a much higher level than we're seeing on social media today. So congratulations. I think it's a great opportunity for the food world, not only you and your partners and investors, but to really be able to have that voice and see through the lens of qualified people that can really talk about food. So thanks so much for launching it. A great look at it. And you know, thanks for joining us on Lost in the Supermarket.

Brad: 10:55

Thanks, Phil. I appreciate it. And excited to see where it goes.