Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Maisie welcome to the business for good podcast.

Maisie Ganzler: Thank you, Paul. It's really exciting to be here. I'm a fan

Paul Shapiro: I am a fan of yours as you know I've been a fan of yours for probably about like 19 years here since I first heard your name cross my consciousness in 2005 And i'm eager to talk about that. But first I just got to say, you know, I read your book, which I really enjoyed And I thought it was quite not only insightful and useful but also funny And I always like it when authors actually make the book, not just informational, but also, you know, entertaining.

And you had a lot of good jokes and puns. I like when you're talking about moving away from gestation. Gracie said you drew a line in the mud. that was, that was pretty good. considering there, there, there is no mud on the factory farms, just manure. You could have even, you know, gone with drawing a line in the manure, I guess.

but it was good and it was representative of your personality too. It wasn't like you lost the Maisie personality in order to write the book. So I appreciate that very much.

Maisie Ganzler: Thank you. I really wanted the book to be readable, conversational, full of stories and a quick read rather [00:01:00] than an academic slog.

Yeah, I would

Paul Shapiro: go so far as to call it a breezy read, not just quick, but breezy because it was pleasant, not just fast. and I especially liked you, you actually had a joke in the book that I have made before. And so this is a great, this is a great, Place where I noticed that we both came to the same conclusion.

So you're talking about the Walker Hayes song fancy, which if you haven't listened to the song, that's a really good song. So go, go check it out. But, in the song, Walter Hayes is, is talking, Walker Hayes, excuse me, is talking about, where he's going to Applebee's is getting the bourbon steak with an Oreo shake and more than once.

I have karaoke'd this song, with my wife and I've converted the lyrics to be animal friendlier. So rather than the bourbon steak, I talked about getting like the plant based steak and a plant based shake and all that. And you did the same thing in the book with the impossible steak and all that. I was really, I thought, wow, you know, two great minds were thinking alike here.

Maisie Ganzler: That's so funny. actually, kind of. Insider tidbit [00:02:00] that I haven't told anybody is that

Paul Shapiro: oh, wow. Well, you can tell me it's just the two of us,

Maisie Ganzler: right? the original line in the book I was the the context as i'm talking about telling stories and to to explain things about your brand and to get customers interested and i'm talking about Using pop culture references and a conversational style and the original line in the book.

I quoted a lizzo song and My editor actually said, I don't think we can talk about Lizzo because Lizzo had gotten, there was a big lawsuit around creating a hostile work environment. And so Lizzo has been canceled from the Harvard Business Review Press. But

Paul Shapiro: wow. Okay. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. but I will tell you, I personally would be more likely to get the Walker Hayes reference than it was a reference.

So, I, I loved it and I liked the song a lot because it actually reminds me of Tony, my wife, who is extremely frugal for the most part, [00:03:00] and is the type of person who would be quite happy on our anniversary to go to Chipotle. So, that's one reason I think that we ended up Getting married since we shared a love of many things, including frugality.

And isn't

Maisie Ganzler: it amazing that we live in a time that you could get a plant based item at, at Applebee's. I mean, just 10 years ago, that wasn't really in the realm of possibility that, that at Burger King, you could get impossible that. Right through, mainstream, chicken nuggets. You could get better meat co, you know, ingredients.

It's really come a incredible distance. It's

Paul Shapiro: very kind of you. You definitely know your audience. So my hat is off to you for that. So thank you. but yeah, I routinely comment that I cannot believe that I have lived long enough to see so many of the things that we see now, both in terms of plant based advancements, but also just, you know, artificial intelligence and.

The ability to do, you know, video streaming anywhere, anytime for virtually no cost [00:04:00] with anyone on the planet. I mean, these are things that when you think about like, you know, Greek mythology, like they never dreamt of the gods being capable of the type of things that we take for granted today. It's like really, really amazing.

And they certainly weren't dreaming of, making meat without animals. So, you know, It's is really, really incredible. but I want to get to the topic and the main thrust of your book, because, you know, normally put words in your mouth, but having read the entire book, word for word, your basic argument, Maisie, is that, you know, you can change the world and you can make money while you're doing it.

And so everybody knows that it can be very profitable to do harm in the world, right? Like, you know, oil companies, tobacco companies, factory farming and so on, but you're basically making the argument that actually doing good can be profitable, right? That you don't have to make money just by doing harm, but that doing the right thing can actually not just be righteous, but also profitable.

So for some people who are listening to say, Oh, come on, that's just a ruse. All you care about is profit. So tell me, why do you think it is that doing good and making profit can go hand in hand? Right. [00:05:00]

Maisie Ganzler: I think that doing good and making profit go hand in hand when you authentically do good, where you make actual and meaningful change.

I think that the marketplace will reward you for that. You look at any study about millennials or Gen Z, and it says that they want to support companies that align with their values. And that's true. You also see studies saying about their concern about climate change. I mean, I'm sure, Paul, that you could quote a hundred studies showing that animal welfare scores very highly on any consumer research that every time that there's been a, an ability for the, The U.

S. Public to vote for better treatment of animals. It overwhelmingly has has won. So why would we think that that we won't be rewarded from a business perspective for caring for these same issues that people are saying over and over that they care about? [00:06:00] That said, you have to again, make really authentic change, make really meaningful change and tell your story well so that people can get the.

Can understand what you're doing and give you the credit for it.

Paul Shapiro: So let me ask you about that because you talk about how nobody's going to buy your food because of your manure management policy, right? Like, you're not going to sell more sandwiches because the company you're representing has mandated better manure management policies from their farmers, right?

But you are saying that you think that you can actually get more accounts, like more corporate accounts signed up because of it. So what's the difference there between the behavior of the institution and the behavior of the individual student or diner at that at that cafeteria?

Maisie Ganzler: Well, for Bon Appetit Management Company, as you're pointing out, there's.

to customers. There's what we would call the client, which is the person at an institution who's making the decision to contract with Bon Appétit. And that would be on the corporate side, somebody in [00:07:00] facilities management or in human resources, if they think of food program is an employee benefit on the school side, somebody who's in charge of student services or a CFO, they're making the decision about which company to contract with.

And then there's a secondary customer who's the person who's. eating the food on a day to day basis. That would be the corporate employee or the student. And they both care about these issues, but they care about the issues in different ways. And they have different amounts of money to spend. So something that's as complex as manure management is going to be really hard to talk about at lunchtime.

That's the title of my book. You can't market manure at lunchtime. And. So probably isn't going to be the issue that the student on a day to day basis is going to make a decision based upon. However, in the longer cell, which is the time to get, the contract, we have more time to explain what we're doing and more and [00:08:00] more institutions, be they colleges or corporations are interested in the impacts of their supply chains.

Paul Shapiro: So if that is so, let me, it's clear to me, like, you're basically making the argument. Let's say you're supplying the Google cafeteria and you're saying, like, the person in charge of buying for Google from a food service company, like Bon Appetit Management Company, they are more interested in your sustainability, animal welfare, et cetera, policies.

Then the individual diner. Is that accurate? Or am I misrepresenting that

Maisie Ganzler: they are more interested in the ins and outs and the specific details because they have the time to research and to really compare the actual Google diner. Hypothetically, Is does care about animal welfare, does care about environmental policy, but they don't have the time to wade into the details of manure [00:09:00] management, but they do want to know the broad strokes of that.

You are environmentally friendly. Any awards you win, any grades that you might earn from an organization like the Humane Society of the United States just released a scorecard on protein sustainability. If you scored well on that, if you got an A as Bon Appetit did several years ago, that you do want to tell to your day to day customer, that quick hit of information, yes.

That customer wants to know the details and the intricacies the buyer at the contract level has time to talk about.

Paul Shapiro: Got it. Okay, that's that is quite interesting. So that is a unique proposition for a food service company like Bon Appetit. What about a company that just makes consumer brand products, right?

So they only have individual consumers. How could they benefit? So let's say you're talking about a CPG brand. They only sell in grocery stores where it's only individual consumers. Obviously [00:10:00] there's a buyer for the grocery store is going to put them on the shelf, but can they benefit? Do you think from, let's say making the same type of policies relating to agricultural sustainability?

Maisie Ganzler: Absolutely. As you said, there is a buyer. And so just like there's somebody that we're contracting with at Bon Appetit for our food services, there is a buyer at, at Walmart or Kroger's or Safeway at Whole Foods. And that person knows a lot about these issues, and they probably have passion about them.

Some aspect of sustainability and animal welfare and they want to know the intricacies the ins and the outs Then for the customer that's coming in on a day to day basis You've got two options of where you present your information you've got on package and I think that on package you've got to have a Bold headline that is eye catching and simple, and then you've got your website, of course.

And a very small portion of your customers are going to [00:11:00] go and dig around your website, but those that do need to have good information available to them. I always think about the model of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program. Where they put out originally a pocket guide, which was a simple list of seafood put into three categories, best choices, good alternatives, and avoid.

Then on their website, they had a paragraph about why for each of those ratings, a seafood item was, was ranked. And then if you clicked further, you got the full list. Full scientific report. So the majority of people just want the pocket guide. Some people want the paragraph, but those who really understand these issues and really care, maybe the skeptics, the whole report is there.

And I think that's a good model for all of us.

Paul Shapiro: You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because I oftentimes think about consumer choices as similar to voting because we are voting for the type of world that we want. And I think about myself as a voter and, you know, my self perception is that I'm somebody who's interested [00:12:00] in public policy, but still.

I usually just go look at the endorsements for candidates because I figure that the organizations that are rating or endorsing or opposing candidates have done way more research than I'm going to do. They probably have way more information than I'm ever going to go seek out. And I use them like as a proxy, you know, so if like, you know, the environmental organizations are in favor of a particular candidate, I'm more likely to look favorably upon that candidate without knowing anything else that I've done on my own.

It's kind of like, you know, even though, yeah, I care about it, am I going to go research each one of these candidates and all of their policy positions? Or am I just going to say, Hey, the people I trust, Our, endorsing or opposing this particular candidate. And so that is kind of similar to what you're saying.

Basically the average consumer really just wants to know how do they score on this scorecard, right? Whether it's the human society or, you know, Sierra club or whoever it is. And so that's one of the things that you. Did masterfully and continue to do in your career at Bon Appetit was forged these [00:13:00] relationships with those trusted messengers, right?

With the NGOs and others who people are looking to. And I will remember, I never forget back in 2005, you, you tell the story in the book about working with our mutual friend, Josh Balk and how he sent you in 2005, a VHS tape about chickens and battery cages. And it's quite a trajectory. I'm sure when you.

Got that VHS tape in the mail, little would you know that more than a decade later, you would be running for the board of directors of McDonald's on a related issue. So, so the cage free campaigns that were really prominent at that time, back from like 2005 through 2015 and beyond were really spearheaded by you.

there was nobody, no big companies that had national cage free egg policies at that time. The percentage of cage free eggs in the market was like maybe around 1 percent at the most. And yet you made the decision to phase out eggs from caged hens at a time when now all these [00:14:00] companies have those policies, but at the time, nobody.

Had those policies, and we all know, like, it can look so self executing when you look in the rearview mirror. Well, of course, this is all going to happen, but needless to say, progress isn't self executing. It happens because there are pioneers and leaders who make it happen and then clear a path for others to follow, which is what you did.

So what was it? That led you to think, not only should you do this, because you talked about how, you know, you didn't really contemplate chickens that much prior to this, but what was it that led you to think not only that you should do it, but that you actually could do it?

Maisie Ganzler: There's a few things that all coalesced in 2005 around cage free eggs that told me that it was the right thing to do.

First was, as you said, Josh sent me this VHS tape and I saw these Animals crowded into these barren battery cages, unable to raise their wings, with their poop, literally falling down on the chickens below. Heads stuck in between wires, [00:15:00] unable to drink and eat. It was really horrific. And so just as a human being, I thought, I don't want to be part of this system.

I don't want to be supporting it. That's the first place, the Honest commitment to change. Then we get to making the business case about it because we are talking about for profit business. And as you've said, I'm, I'm making the argument that you can do both, that you can make money by doing good. So the second piece was, where did I find out about the issue?

It started with a question from one student at American university, David Bensequin, who we now both still know, 20 years later, 19 years later has become quite a force in the plant based world. But at that point, he was an undergrad and. He asked a question. So it started with my customer, one customer indicating to me that there was interest in this issue.

Then it was paired with a powerful NGO, the [00:16:00] Humane Society, who was launching campaigns. And I thought, this is my indication that something is brewing, that This is a going to become a trend. The Humane Society is not going to stop. They are starting. They're just gearing up. And students are not going to stop caring about this.

This is just the first one of many. So how can I be out ahead? We then connected with a certification, Humane Certified or Certified Humane. Who was also gearing up and certifying. so I knew that there were all of these indications that this was going to become a big issue. Now, have I always been right?

No, there have been issues that I've taken a stand on thinking I had all of these indicators and that I cared about that wound up not catching on to public opinion, not becoming big business benefits, but. You have to take risks. If you want to be a leader by definition, you're going to [00:17:00] be doing something that nobody has done before.

So you look at all the indicators. and see if you can make it work financially. In the case of cage free eggs at the time, the egg market was very volatile. Pricing was all over the place, but cage free eggs were very steady. So we were able to clearly predict what the cost increase was going to be. And the next question everybody asked is, did you pass that cost increase on to consumers?

Well, we didn't because we're not selling eggs. We're selling Cakes or omelets or other foods made with eggs. And it was very hard to say to a customer, this cake is five cents more because of the cage free egg. Right. but we thought that we would get enough public praise, enough praise from our customers and enough goodwill to compensate for the increase in ingredient price.

Paul Shapiro: And obviously you did. I mean, you were widely touted not just by the Humane [00:18:00] Society, but by a whole host of organizations and charities out there as the leader that helped to tip off this set of dominoes because in 2005 Bon Appetit said no more cages for laying hens. And then that led to a whole sequence of events where other food service providers started doing the same.

Other grocery chains started doing the same all the way to 2015 when McDonald's said that it was doing the same. And then that led to Burger King and Wendy's and all the other big fast food companies. And so in a very real sense, you played an extremely consequential role in getting tens or maybe even hundreds of millions of animals out of these cages.

And as you point out, it all started with one person, Dave Benzikin, Messaging you about this and then you getting a VHS tape in the mail and I'll never forget. I was sitting next to Josh when he was on the phone with you and you were describing to him that you were going to adopt this policy and he was trying to keep his cool, right?

Like he was trying to like, be on the phone and be professional with you. But this was really the first big win for the [00:19:00] campaign. And as soon as he hung up, it was like, you know, we were It was like we had just won the Superbowl, you know, like it was like this thing. Like we devoted our lives to trying to help these animals.

And now here was the actual tangible benefits of what we were doing. And it led to a lot more. Go on. Sorry.

Maisie Ganzler: Sorry. And who doesn't want to be part of winning the Superbowl? I mean, it's fun on the other side too, to be out front to. Make change to know that you're impacting millions of animals. That feels great selfishly.

So I want to be part of winning the Superbowl too.

Paul Shapiro: Well, when I, when I say we, I meant us together, cause we never viewed these companies as like the other team, right? We viewed battery cages as the other team. And so when we were, you know, talking about winning, we were talking about winning with companies to get rid of the actual other team, which was the, the battery cage system.

And absolutely we felt that way. And it led to, you know, the gestation crate policies as well. which also were in many ways initiated [00:20:00] by Bon Appetit and other companies. And I particularly appreciated your story about the difficulties of getting rid of gestation crates compared to battery cages in the book, because it's a lot harder because you're dealing not just with the battery cages.

Pigs who are being sold for food, but it's really the parent generation. And then you have this other complexity of the pork companies, saying they're going to group housing, but not necessarily going gestation crate free, which is a little sleight of hand and how you ultimately prevailed by ditching your pork supplier, which is in that case was Smithfield and moving to another company who would provide totally gestation crate free pork.

So do you want to just briefly outline the challenges that you had with that? And, then I want to move into one other issue where you also talked about some challenges.

Maisie Ganzler: Well, the gestation crate issue would be one that I'd say we had lots of wins and lots of losses along the path. every time I thought that I had made progress, it often turned out that I hadn't.

And what that was about was we had Gotten Smithfield, our pork [00:21:00] supplier, to agree to eliminate gestation crates. And then as you indicated, they asked for a change in language for us to stop saying no gestation crates and start saying group housed. And I said, what's that about? And it was then explained to me that the sows, the pregnant moms were still being kept in gestation crates till the confirmation of pregnancy.

So If a sow is pregnant for three months, three weeks, and three days, just about four months, they were spending almost a quarter of that time still in the gestation crate until pregnancy was confirmed. And that was very much not the spirit of the policy, nor the letter of the policy that I had written.

So, after I had gone out and told people publicly that we were gestation crate free, I had to then eat crow and say, turns out not really, but I wanted that message to come from me. And that's one of the big lessons in my book is that when you fall short and you [00:22:00] will fall short, there is no way if you're taking a leadership position on these issues that you're not going to stumble.

So when you do. Be honest, be transparent, and you put the message out. There's no gotcha if you're the one telling the story. So I called our old buddy Josh Balk again and said, Hey Josh, turns out that statement I made, not really true, here's what the real deal is. And he introduced me to a new pork supplier, Clemens Food Group, who was keeping the sows in gestation crates just for insemination, so about a week, as opposed to the month that Smithfield was, was keeping the cows crated, cows, the pigs crated for.

Which was a huge improvement, but still not the total win. It wasn't until Prop 12 passed in California where it really, disallowed any use of gestation crates that Clemens made the full transition to being truly [00:23:00] gestation crate free. And note that I'm saying gestation crate free because there's still farrowing crates involved, right?

So we're not saying crate free. The words matter. And that's another lesson in my book about getting your story straight, right? Making sure that everybody in your organization understands all of these terms and can speak to them with fluency or else you will not sound authentic. And that, that story of, of Smithfield.

Misleading us and of asking us to change the policy, unfortunately, has has repeated itself again and again. McDonald's had the same experience and has, actually changed their policy. Denny's has just changed their policy. There's many companies that are not standing by their original commitment to eliminate gestation crates.

And they are being called out and as they should be. They are not getting business benefit.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, so it's this is a tough thing to contemplate because [00:24:00] people work so hard, including yourself to implement these policies, right? These policies don't just happen, right? They happen because there's a lot of hard work that goes into them.

And then when companies start backing out. There has to be some consequence, right? It can't just be that they get the positive attention from adopting a policy. And then five or 10 years later, they back out of it and nothing happens. And I think that's the premise of what Josh blog's new organization, the accountability board is doing, and we'll link to their website on the show notes for this episode at business for good podcast.

com. But that brings us to the more difficult question for animal welfare. We've talked about cages and crates for laying hens and breeding sows. But you write in the book about the better chicken commitment, which is designed to try to help those chickens who are raised for food, oftentimes called broilers and what you write, I'm just going to quote, you said, you know, by your math, but you said by my math, every single one of these 200 companies is going to adopt these policies is going to be unable to fully reach their promise, including your own bon appetit.

And you said, if [00:25:00] history is an indicator of the animal welfare groups are going to go from singing our praises to pointing out our quote lies instead of a point of pride to brag. About on corporate websites. The better chicken commitment will become a black eye that company was a cover up and hope their customers don't ask about we're headed for embarrassment to say the least, and the chickens will still be growing faster than their legs can properly hold them up.

So why do you say that? Why is the better chicken commitment, actual rollout going so much worse than battery cages or even gestation crates in your view?

Maisie Ganzler: The better chicken commitment has many components to it, but I'll break them into two categories. One is about the. physical place that the chickens are kept, and that is akin to gestation crates and to battery cages.

It's about the density of the chickens, the lighting, the windows. So the physical barn, the other component of the better chicken commitment is about the genetics of the chicken, how fast the chickens grow. And one is [00:26:00] much easier to solve than the other. So the physical The physical, buildings and enrichments and windows.

That's merely a question of economics. It costs X number of dollars to have fewer chickens in the barn. It costs Y number of dollars to have enrichments and enrichments. It's a fancy word, but it's literally like boxes and ladders for the chickens to climb up. It's really simple. So it's easy to wrap your head around and either you can pay for it or you can't.

The genetics is another Bag of tricks. Let's say it involves much more research into what actually does a slower growing chicken look like? What, what, are the benefits of different breeds? We very, broadly say leg health, but when you get into the actual animal behaviorists and the studies they do, it's All kinds of things, like putting little fit bits on chickens and [00:27:00] seeing how much movement they, they make, at different stages in their development.

It's, there's a one where they put chickens and had them stand in water to see how long they would stand up because chickens don't like to sit in water. So there's this huge body of knowledge that has to be developed. And then the genetics have to be changed and There are many people erroneously think that chickens have those big breasts because they are injected with hormones or because of antibiotics used.

Those big breasts are a genetic trait that has been bred into them and it will take many years to breed it out of them. So it's a much tougher question and much more expensive. I, I, I salute compassion and world farming who has been the holder of the better chicken commitment on the NGO side for working with companies for actually changing the timelines.

So thus far, nobody is out of [00:28:00] compliance with the better chicken commitment because compassion changed the timeline. They changed the deadline, but they've been really active partners. There's something called the broiler working group that meets on a quarterly basis, and it's about 60 companies. That are actively working together to figure out this problem, with a consultant that's paid for by compassion and we are not there yet.

Paul Shapiro: So what do you think is going to happen? I mean, will they just keep on delaying the deadline until somebody gets it right? Or do you think that there will come a time when there is just going to be condemnation that the companies allegedly didn't take this seriously enough or what you called quote lies in the book is that, you know, when do you think there is less accommodation and more confrontation?

Maisie Ganzler: I think that some companies like Bon Appetit are going to make a change within the next couple years. There is now one producer of scale that [00:29:00] has a few farms. That meet the better chicken commitment guidelines. And I think that there's going to be a crush of companies that want that chicken. There's not enough on the market, but some companies are going to win.

And they'll have a percent of their supply, BCC compliant, not a hundred percent, but it'll start at 10 percent and hopefully grow. And I think that certain NGO groups will celebrate that if we look at the numbers. At past history will say great. Thank you for doing 10%. When are you going to get to 15?

And some, some groups will start condemning them and say, you promised 100. Why are you only at 10?

Paul Shapiro: Right. And this is really the way that the cage free campaigns began was by companies committing to go a certain percentage cage free by a certain date. And then eventually it was a hundred percent for everybody.

It was the goal. You write in the book, Maisie, about this, that there are trade offs for everything, right? And one of the trade offs that you note about these animal [00:30:00] welfare improvements, let's take the better chicken commitment as an example, is generally speaking, let's just say the chickens are going to need more space.

So you've got fewer chickens per barn and they're going to grow slower. So you have to keep them alive longer, which means you need more feed. So for the same amount of meat, you need basically more barns. And more feed, which basically means higher environmental footprint, right? You need to grow more acres of corn, which means more deforestation.

So how do you weigh that? Like, if you're looking at the obligation to improve animal welfare, and you're also looking at the obligation to try to reduce the footprint of the, of the food chain, how do you weigh these competing demands?

Maisie Ganzler: Well, each company is going to have to weigh it differently. And my first lesson in the book is how to pick your battles, to decide what your area of concern most importantly is.

If you look at a company like impossible and Pat Brown, when he started. [00:31:00] What's very, very focused on climate change on beefs impact on climate. So he's looking through one very specific lens. You need to decide what the lens of your company is and what's most important to you. Now. Many of these companies that have signed the BCC also have climate commitments, and the climate commitments are the only ones, if they're publicly traded, that are actually regulated by the SEC, so they're going to be harder to back away from, so there may be a trade off in not a trade off.

In not meeting your chicken commitment, but of actually purchasing less chicken of moving towards more plant based options so that you can meet both commitments, your animal welfare commitment and your climate commitment.

Paul Shapiro: Right. And it would be a double win for animal welfare in that particular case, obviously.

then, and you know, you write a little bit about this, although not as much in the book about the trade offs with organic. And you mentioned that, [00:32:00] you know, well, first of all, With organic, you, you know, it doesn't mean no pesticides, right? Like they're still using pesticides, which is a common misperception that organic means no pesticides, but they still can use pesticides.

Just not the same kinds of pesticides. but generally speaking, organic produces in in general, about 20 percent less. Food per acre than the conventional, which means 20 percent more deforestation. And I've struggled with this myself. And we had on a guest on the show, professor Robert Paul Berg from Harvard, who wrote this really insightful book called resetting the table, which I think you might be interested in.

We'll link to that in the show notes here, which he's arguing https: otter. ai You know, organic isn't as good as many people would think. And I used to be of the impression like, Oh, clearly organic is better. But now I have a more nuanced view as to what the trade offs are. Like, certainly there are some things that are better and there are some things that aren't, and I'm wondering how you personally think about this, not in terms of, you know, goals for Bon Appetit, but you write about GMOs on organic in the book, like how do [00:33:00] you.

Maisie think about this? Would you think if you're in the store and you see two products, organic or not organic, would you opt for one over the other for any reason?

Maisie Ganzler: Well, I am in a really lucky position in that I live in Santa Cruz, California, which has a higher percentage of Land in organic production than any other place in the country and has a plethora of small local farms.

So I have the opportunity to know my farmers in a way that not everybody does. And I try to support places that use organic. What I would call organic practices, which is a little bit different than certified organic. And what that means is that they're trying to reduce pesticide use as much as possible, but they still use it judiciously in extreme conditions.

If there is a, a fungal breakout, for example, and I have the ability to ask my farmers those questions and have discussions. So if you ask me personally, that is my approach, [00:34:00] which would be different than as a large purchaser or somebody who lives in. Alaska.

Paul Shapiro: Right. Okay. You talk about this really interesting story of Dan Barber in the book, where basically, you know, he's this, celebrated chef and he basically, you know, gets derided for not apparently living up to the standards that he has claimed to be setting.

And there's a term for this, you don't use it in the book, but there's a term for this called the spouting whale effect, which is that it's, you know, the spouting whale is the one who gets harpooned, right? And I've noticed this, that Companies which like to talk a big game about all their social responsibility commitments or the sustainability commitments generally get criticized more than the ones who don't talk about it because the, there's an apparent, allegation of hypocrisy, right?

Like if you think that this company says they're acting so righteously, and then in fact, it turns out they're doing something that's quite bad. it seems like more of a scandal than a company [00:35:00] that just never Pretended to be doing good in the first place. And there's no company that represents social responsibility in the food system more than Bon Appetit.

It is the leader. You talk about this in the book, but it's just indisputable, right? It is the leader when it comes to the cutting edge policies on social responsibility. So how do you navigate that? Like, how do you prevent Bon Appetit from being the spouting whale all the time? Because I don't see Bon Appetit getting that type of criticism.

Maybe it does happen, but I haven't seen it. Like why is Bon Appetit not the spouting whale in the way that Dan Harbor was. Dan Barber was

Maisie Ganzler: because I tried to be honest about our failings before anybody even asked we go back to that story about the gestation crates when it turned out that we weren't meeting our own policy and we had failed.

I put out a press release. Now in reality, nobody picked up the press release. It wasn't really a big story, but it was a risk and it still today sits on our website. If you look back in the, in the annals of the [00:36:00] website, there is something in our voice saying we failed. So nobody can harpoon me if I'm being honest, right?

The story about Dan Barber. You know, and the retelling sounds so silly. So the, the, I talk about an Eater article that exposes that Dan was serving a dish that was supposed to be made completely of this badger flame beet that he had helped develop the seeds for. And in fact, he was actually combining the badger flame beets with golden beets.

That's it, right? Like,

Paul Shapiro: what's

Maisie Ganzler: the scandal?

Paul Shapiro: This guy, this guy, it's like, there's no difference between him and Bernie Madoff. Clearly. Yeah, totally. It's so funny that you just enumerated the story because I actually didn't because I thought it was such a non issue. I thought it was just to be like, nobody will care about the beat story.

But it's funny because it's like, this is in that world, Yeah. Yeah. That was actually a scandal and it was a scandal to a journalist [00:37:00] into an editor at either right? Whether anybody actually cared that's unclear. But to somebody who thought they could get quicks by, you know, accusing Dan of being a hypocrite, they, you know, they, they thought that that would be something.

But yeah, see.

Maisie Ganzler: And in fairness, they say it's a pattern. So they also used another example about, that they used to have a compost driven oven and that they were sort of faking the eggs being cooked in it. But I think the real point is that Dan put forth this This utopian vision of perfection and people want to knock that down just like they want to knock down JLo and Ben Affleck, right?

If you put out anything saying like, I'm doing something more beautifully than you ever could, people want to harpoon that.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, yeah, that's so true. It's so true. In fact, this is what I think is happening. This goes back to a couple of episodes ago. we had on from upside foods and, you know, he's raised an enormous amount of money, like over half a billion dollars that he has raised his [00:38:00] company became a unicorn.

There's still a unicorn. Being pre revenue, essentially, and there's a lot of people who are quite envious of that. And so people are accusing him of doing something similar to what Dan was accused of, which is basically running a Potemkin village, right? Like that. This is, you know, something that's all for show, and that isn't actually what they say it is.

And, I think in, in Uma's case, you know, he's quite. Quite vociferous about the fact that he is not running a Potemkin village that he's staging a real village that will be populated with people in the coming years and be a real representation of in this case, I guess, 18th century Russia. So, to keep the Potemkin village analogy going.

but yes, I think, you know what you're saying. Resonates with me because I, you know, it's when, when people are, you know, it's a little bit different from the spouting way, but it's like the tallest tree gets cut down. You know, if you're the tallest tree, people generally don't think, Oh, I'm so glad they're tall.

Good for them. They think I want to cut them down. okay. So speaking of cutting down, actually a good [00:39:00] segue, you write in the book that you're talking about Bamco or Burnett, but team management company, you say that we haven't gone far enough. We could have been stronger. And more vocal about factory farms.

We tried, but we haven't solved the problems with chicken or beef production. So, you know, it's an interesting claim, but what more do you think that BAMCO could have, or should today do? Like you're saying we haven't done enough. We haven't solved these problems. What more could it be doing?

Maisie Ganzler: Well, Specifically, that quote is actually from Fidel Bacio, the CEO of Bon Appetit Management Company, not from me.

Paul Shapiro: Thank you. Thank you for the correction. So if you were asking Fidel and say, Okay, we haven't done enough, Fidel, what should we be doing? What would you say?

Maisie Ganzler: I think Fidel is a great example of a visionary leader who wants to go further. Fast and wants to go far. And that was a great partnership that he and I had, that he had these visions.

And then I had to figure out the details of, and so he would say, we should stop using [00:40:00] industrially raised meat altogether. And then I would say, well, where are we going to get the meat from? And, and my first reaction is always like, that's hard. We can't do it. And then I. Go back to my desk and go, okay, how do we actually do this?

So then I would start contacting farm to fork vendors, which are small local suppliers and say how much, how many more animals could you raise for us? And then I would go to Clemens food group, which is a large supplier, but With a different commitment to animal welfare than some of the other large suppliers and say, what are you working on?

What could we do more? I mentioned earlier in our conversation farrowing crates So when a sow is giving birth they're put into what's called a farrowing crate Which is larger than a gestation crate, but they are still somewhat immobilized while they're giving birth and while they care for their piglets for the first few days or weeks of their lives.

That's the next [00:41:00] issue, right? So when we get gestation crates taken care of, we don't get to just sit back and go, woohoo, everything's fine. Now we look at the next one, farrowing crates is next. When we look at food waste, there is still much more to do. so. The Bon Appetit tagline is food services for a sustainable future, and it's about a vision.

It's about a sustainable future. Sustainability is not a place that we stop and we declare done.

Paul Shapiro: Right. Yeah. You want continuous improvement. You make that very clear in the book that the whole, the whole goal is not perfection, but progress. You just want to keep on making continuous improvement for sure.

so when I think about Continuous improvement you alluded earlier in the interview to a point where maybe you would just use less chicken, right? And that to me seems like the obvious answer to so many of these problems, right? Like, you're not going to be able to supply tens of thousands of people on a daily basis with meat that.

Didn't come from industrially raised [00:42:00] meat, right? You're not just, you're just not going to be able to do it. Like the, the amount of meat that people eat in America today. And in much of the developed world is just so high that it really can't be provided without factory farming or some other animal free method of meat production, whether it's cultivated meat or plant based meat or et cetera.

And so where do you see. That going like, do you think that it's going to become more common for food service providers to have benchmarks to say, okay, we're going to reduce our meat demand by X percent by X year. And Bon Appetit did this with beef a long time ago. So we're going to reduce it. I don't remember if it was 10 or 20 percent by a certain year.

But do you think that's just going to be the norm that that's going to be one of the asks, so to speak. Of food service companies to have benchmarks for meat reduction in the same way there is for carbon reduction today.

Maisie Ganzler: Absolutely. But I think what has to happen is really a culinary revolution that we have to get better at creating craveable, delicious, satiating, plant forward meals.

And I very [00:43:00] intentionally say plant forward, not just plant based. If you have an item that is 90% Plants, but that sprinkling a little gestation crate free bacon on top of it gets the customer to buy it. That is a win. I don't think it's about purity. I think it's about moving the needle. And so a lot of culinary focus on that.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because such a thing would obviously be very upsetting to vegans, but would actually be great for animals. And there's a, you know, there's a big difference between being popular with vegans and doing something that's actually good for animals, as in the case of the Purdue chicken nuggets that you mentioned earlier.

You know, these are a 50 50 blend of Purdue chicken plus 50 percent plant based material. And, you know, that product has done quite well. It's in over 7000 supermarkets. It's been on the market for four or five years now. They keep on expanding the skews and. You know, people really like it. And the question is, you know, if Purdue just put out a [00:44:00] vegan chicken nugget, would it have done anywhere near as well?

And, I think the answer is, is clearly not. And it does lead to a pretty substantial reduction in the number of animals who are used for food in that case. And if it were to use the example that you had, which is, you know, 90%. Reduction in animal use. I mean, you know, if only we could be so, if only we could be so successful, that would be truly amazing.

Okay. so before we get to these, final part of our conversation, Maisie, I was thinking the book really is good. I do recommend people read it and I would encourage you. We'll of course link to where you can get it, but it's everywhere books are sold. So if you're interested in making a change in the food system, this is a really good book from somebody who's not just talked about it, but actually done it.

Yeah. Now, speaking of things that are being done, Maisie, what do you want to see done? There's a lot of companies that could exist out there. You've mentioned so many companies, whether they're actual animal companies, like Clemens, you mentioned impossible foods or any companies that you wish existed that would help this movement toward more sustainable food [00:45:00] system that don't yet exist, that you wish existed.

Maisie Ganzler: I don't know if I need a new company to exist. But I do wish that as many of the large meat companies have woken up to the, call it an opportunity or call it a threat of plant based meats and have invested in them, I wish that they would also invest more in the animal welfare of their existing farms.

I think we really need a wholesale change, a raising of the floor of what animal welfare is. minimum standards are, and I say the existing companies, not a new one, because the easy thing would be to say, well, let's start another chicken producer. Let's start another pork producer, but that's still going to leave millions and millions of animals in really poor conditions, both from a welfare standpoint and from an environmental impact standpoint.

So [00:46:00] we need those guys to make change, not just new companies.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. This is why when I was starting my own company, I wanted to do a B to B company to help the big meat producers use fewer animals rather than try to compete against them rather try to empower them to use fewer animals, which is really what I've devoted the last 6 or 7 years of my life toward.

okay. So. With that said, are there resources that you would recommend, Maisie, like things that you think people could benefit from? Obviously, they're going to read your book, but after they do that, what other resources should they check out that you think would be helpful for them?

Maisie Ganzler: Well, something that I read religiously is a online publication called Civil Eats, and they've got a newsletter you can sign up for.

They are on the forefront of many of the sustainability issues related to food, both environmental as well as social. We haven't talked about the human impacts of people in the supply chain in this conversation, but that's huge and animal welfare. [00:47:00] And for most companies, the things they're talking about are going to be a little too leading edge or bleeding edge, but I think it's really important that you understand where the.

The intellectual conversation around these issues is and then I would partner that with the NRA smart brief. And that's the National Restaurant Association, not the National Rifle Association. And that's a free daily email of a roundup of stories of how they see the food world. And that's going to be More your Applebee's and your mainstream supermarkets and things like that.

but I think the combination of those two is really important on a daily, if not weekly basis.

Paul Shapiro: We started the conversation with Applebee's and Walker Hayes. We are finishing the conversation with Applebee's yet again. So Maisie, it's wonderful to talk to you when we see each other next. I promise you, we will go to Applebee's and we'll get some impossible products there, together.

And thanks so much for all that you have done and are still doing to try to create [00:48:00] a better world for humans and non humans alike through your great work at Bon Appetit and now through this book.

Maisie Ganzler: Well, if I could just end by saying that I thank you for all the education that you've given me over this 19 year relationship, and I urge others to find an NGO partner that can be their teacher as you have been for me.

So thank you.

Paul Shapiro: It's very generous of you. All right, Maisie. Thank you again.