More Than A Mile: Ep. 5 - Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods)

Maggie Seng Sadowsky, food scientist and founder of 8 Track Foods, joins host Nick Carter to discuss plant-based foods, sustainability, giving back to help the planet, and more on this episode of More Than A Mile. 

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (00:04):

Welcome to More Than A Mile, a local food podcast from Market Wagon focused on connecting you to local food through farmer stories from across America. I'm Nick Carter, your host, a farmer and CEO, and co-founder of Market Wagon. We are your online farmer's market with a mission to enable producers to thrive in their local and regional markets. Food is so much more than just nutrients and calories. It's actually the fabric that holds us together. And I look forward to crafting a generational quilt of farmer stories and experiences, the victories and challenges of individuals, families, and teams doing their part to help democratize food in America. Thanks for joining me for this episode of More Than A Mile, and thank you for buying local food. That's one critical step in making an investment in food for future generations.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (00:53):

Welcome to More Than A Mile. My guest today is Maggie Seng Sadowski and I am really excited to talk about food because I am here with a leading expert in food. So I'm gonna brag a little bit. Maggie, say hi.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (01:09):

Hi, how are you doing today, Nick?

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (01:11):

I'm doing great. For those of you who don't know, Maggie's a vendor on Market Wagon, 8 Track Foods, and it's a line of canned beans, which we'll talk about how a leading food scientist got into a canned bean company. But you have probably eaten something created by Maggie in the past because over a hundred different products on the market today, from other food companies, involve inventions or innovations that Maggie's worked on. And then a couple of years ago, she spun off her own plant-based food company. And we're here to talk about that. So Maggie, let's just start with the beginning. How did you get involved in food science? When did you realize, I want to invent things that people eat?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (01:53):

Well, it's kind of a tricky path, but it starts with, I was always really curious as a child putting things together and making potions in the backyard. And it led me to a love of chemistry. And I ended up going to Ohio State for food, I mean, for chemistry, and then along the path found food science, and it really kind of solidified the why of how things work in food. So why does your toast brown? <Laugh> Why does, you know, cheese melt? All of those things just became incredibly fascinating to me. And so it married kind of this love of food and this love of actually, hands-on creating things and applied chemistry. So that's really where it started.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (02:37):

So it started in a kitchen. [Do] you love to cook?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (02:40):

I do love to cook, but I'll just, I like to say, I like to watch other people cook too. So I -- tinkering in the kitchen. I'm probably just a little bit more precision-based in that regard.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (02:51):

That's like the difference between baking and cooking, right? Baking is chemistry and cooking is art.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (02:56):

Exactly.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (02:57):

That's what I've always thought.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (02:58):

Yeah. It's so true.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (03:00):

So you started off in chemistry at The Ohio State University, ended up in food science. So tell me a little, so 8 Track Foods is the name of your business. And I don't think it, the title was modeled after an antiquated music delivery technology. Tell me about what 8 means.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (03:20):

No. So 8 Track Foods was really this idea that I wanted to kind of turn back the clock to a time where people, you know, gathered around the table and we were more community based and we cooked and we didn't focus so heavily on this like single-serve convenience. Everything has to be high-impact flavor. And so I felt like the food system was off track. And so I started to think about the name and decided that 8 Track Foods really worked because this 8 represented the image and the idea that I wanted to create, which was this infinite loop of sustainability. So it's one thing to focus only on the food that we create. And as a food scientist and product formulator, everyone's always like, I want it non-GMO. I want it organic. I want it plant-based. I want clean ingredients, but we, I put so much care into the food that we just eat that at the end, the day that product would be wrapped in, you know, heavily packaged, extremely plastic clamshells, you know, vacuum sealed and it kind of offset the impact that we're trying to, you know, accomplish by, you know, making an impact around climate change.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (04:40):

So the 8 Track Foods -- it's really the 8 is that infinite symbol of everything we do kind of feeds back into itself from the product, the packaging to how we source it, to how we produce it. And even the beans give nitrogen back into the soil, and our steel cans are infinitely recyclable because they're magnetic and they get picked up and most waste streams and can be reproduced over and over again, thus creating less waste.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (05:09):

Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think it's amazing that you've zeroed in on that -- that steel is the easiest product to recycle, right. Because of the magnetism of it as opposed to using plastics or other materials. So was that hard for you to find a way to use that packaging? Was that a difficult challenge when you were starting your company, if you realized steel's where you wanted to go, was that difficult?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (05:32):

I would say it wasn't necessarily a difficult challenge in getting the steel. I think communicating the benefits of steel is sometimes hard and helping consumers understand that there's a true value in using canned goods...

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (05:50):

[Do] you think some customers have an impression of what canned goods mean? Maybe it seems like -- from a post-war era and maybe we've moved beyond that, but you want to let people know that it's the future, not the past.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (06:04):

Yeah. I mean, there's so much value in [it] and there's so much food science in a can of beans, you know, the amount of technology that goes into it. I mean, it really changed our food system for everyone.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (06:17):

I mean, I can piggyback on that. I remember learning about, I don't know if this is it just kind of a little bit of lore and myth or if this is historical, but it seems like we really won the war in Europe because we could keep our boys fed on the front line because of the innovations of food canning and what that allowed our military to be able to do. And then we kind of rolled that out into the American food system after World War II. Is that accurate?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (06:44):

That's so true. I mean, there's so much that we have been able to accomplish because of canned goods and just the process behind, you know, low acid and high acid foods and keeping our food supply, you know, safe longer. And, you know, a lot of that in driving people back to the pantry, it keeps our food, you know, collectively safe for a longer period of time, thus reducing food waste. And, you know, the more we can bring people back to the pantry, I always like to equate it to you can cook fresh meals from your pantry, and we as consumers think of cans as processed and heavily processed, but they're not necessarily. Like our beans are just organic beans, water, and sea salt. And if you think about it as cooking fresh meals -- maybe spaghetti, you pull out your dried pasta and your jar of sauce and you cook them, and all of a sudden you've made dinner. You've created this beautiful, fresh dinner. And so that's the kind of messaging that I hope to create around 8 Track Foods and driving people back to the pantry and hoping that they can cook more fresh meals with -- starting with our cans of beans.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (07:54):

Well, that's really cool. So we've got in, we've got the idea of infinity in the name, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the soils and what you alluded to with nitrogen and beans. And, but also, I guess, a little undertone of harkening back to an older era of the 8 track, right? People sitting down for dinner, eating a little slower pace of life, where it doesn't require single-use, throw away the packaging for every single meal, peel and eat and throw it away, peel and eat and throw it away. So that's really cool. So tell me about beans. First of all, why beans, why did you start with beans?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (08:30):

So I think in our nation, we've really commoditized a lot of the pantry staples and products that we want to use. Those and beans are inherently this incredible powerhouse of a food. And in our society, we really just think of them as kind of the magical fruit and, you know, they have a bad rap. But when you look at what they can provide on so many levels, it's amazing. And as more consumers kind of go back to reducing meat consumption or, you know, giving up meat for a day, maybe flexitarian or "Meatless Mondays," I felt like beans were inherently the place to start around whole food, plant-based diets. And that's really what led me to start with beans. My background is in plant-based formulation, and I've done a lot of work in creating meat alternatives, like chicken nuggets, or, you know, burgers that bleed. But in reality, I think when we talk about plant-based diets, we've forgotten that whole food part of it. And that's really where beans play a critical role and their source. You know, I mean, the U.S. is a powerhouse for bean production and that's really coming back to that.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (09:53):

So one of the things that a lot of our listeners care deeply about is where their food comes from. So if, can you share a little bit about where are your beans sourced from and how did you go about finding farmers to grow beans for you?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (10:06):

So, yeah, I mean, looking around where like the best regions where things are grown, our black beans and dark red kidney beans, the Michigan area is really, you know, up in the upper peninsula is a powerhouse for growing those. And knowing that we have to, you know, manage our supply chain and we saw a lot of that working with, you know, co-ops was the best option for us. Making sure that those farmers feeding into the co-ops were the best source for our products.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (10:36):

So you work with an organic co-op, is that right, from Northern Michigan? [I'm] sprinkling in a little farmer knowledge that I don't know, this may have factored in, but Northern Michigan -- I'm a big believer in using the land for what the land is the best for. Monoculture is so ridiculous because it takes, you know, a one size fits all agriculture approach, and we go do it everywhere in the U.S., but North Michigan has a much shorter growing season. So some of the longer season grains like corn, which America is addicted to corn, we're gonna have a harder time getting a good crop in Northern Michigan because they have a shorter growing season, but it's perfect for beans and beans are much less abusive to the soil as well. So I think it's really neat that you've found that simpatico relationship there. So, tell me what the organic label means to you? As a food scientist, how do you feel about the organic label and obviously you chose to source organically? So you're a certified organic product. Tell me why?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (11:30):

So when I first started in the food industry, organic wasn't really government certified. And so I do understand kind of the detriment for smaller farmers and what that, you know, means in the, in the certification process and how lengthy it is and how it costs a lot of money. But now that we're, you know, a good 20 years into the USDA organic symbol, I feel like we've sort of pushed away from its value in some respects. So you see a lot more products right now just being like non-GMO or non-GMO project verified. And it seems to hold that same weight as organic, but the farming practices around organic are kind of lost in that mix. So it's not just that organic is non-GMO, it's that organic, you know, we're caring about the soil, we're caring about the whole farming process. And so for me, it's really important that it carries that label so that we can communicate to our consumers, that our farmers are putting in that extra level of care to the soil. It's not just, you know, putting a non-GMO claim on a bean. It is important for me to carry it. It isn't on the front of our can, but we do have it. <Laugh>

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (12:38):

It's not on the front of your can, but you guys have a certified organic. Well, I think it's very valuable. We love that we've got certified organic producers on Market Wagon, and we have also those who, who can't get over that hurdle. You've found a group of farmers who, it sounds like not only carry the stamp, but also represent the true values that began the organic movement all the way back in the sixties and seventies with the Rodale Institute and original pioneers like that. So that's great. That's great. The care for the soil, I think is something that -- it always warms my heart. That's what matters the most.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (13:12):

It is. I mean, we're not going to have, I mean, we have to feed a lot of people. You're supposed to be 9.8 billion people by 2050. And so, you know, the more ways that we can figure out how to increase, you know, the land production and our packaging and our food, it all plays into this giant ecosystem to create the solution.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (13:32):

Yeah, well, so let's talk about that. Sustainability is another, is a key thing. We talked already about the recyclability of your packaging and this whole infinite loop feedback system. Right. So what are the challenges in today's business world of creating a truly sustainable product and business, as you have?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (13:53):

Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from educated consumers. We have a lot of, especially around packaging, there's a lot of miscommunication. I think sometimes we look at a product and it's got all the flashy bulbs and it's saying non-GMO, no artificial ingredients. And so you're seeing all the, the flash, but then that's usually covering up some of less sustainable practices that are going on. And especially with packaging. I mean, there are so many things that consumers think are recyclable, that they aren't at all. Like for us in canned beans, everyone's like, oh, let's do pouch beans, but pouch beans, you know, are actually produced in a non-recyclable material. And so we think it's good for the environment and people understand that they think just because it has less waste that maybe it's less, so sustainability plays a heavy part in what we do, but I don't think people think about food as much as I do and how it's grown, how it's sourced and all the care. So explaining all of those little details that we've tried to accomplish to make this the most sustainable product is what's hard to differentiate ourselves, quote "on the shelf." You know, how, how did somebody know that right away?

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (15:16):

Well, we are here to help be a voice for you and tell your story. Connect you directly with consumers so they can understand more [about] what you do. Has it, have you found that customers on Market Wagon have engaged or, you know, you've been able to get your message out so that people really understand more about what 8 Track [Foods] is about and how sustainable the food is by having that direct connection with your customers?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (15:40):

Absolutely. We love Market Wagon. <Laugh> What you've built is phenomenal, knowing that we can connect with our consumers is primarily the reason I started this was to bring back community. You can create products for the world, but having those customer connections, knowing that food is, you know, we're all food experts, we all inherently put, you know, this into our bodies and it's really important. So Market Wagon has allowed us to engage with our consumers, you know, right away. You know, if they ask a question, we can be responsive, we can tell our story in unique ways. And the other part of it too, is just, you know, connecting with other vendors and feeling like we're all in this together, rather than this is just, "what's your competitive set? Who are you trying to destroy?" Where it's more like let's all work together to create this movement towards a sustainable food system rather than I'm gonna win and how I'm gonna have the most money. And so that's truly the value of Market Wagon.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (16:47):

Well, that's, that's great. I mean, it sounds like both you and I have a background in grocery, in very different ways, but I can remember just the zero-sum game mentality of grocery that if I was gonna get shelf space, it meant somebody else didn't. And that's just not the way that it works on Market Wagon, which has been, which was a mission of mine from the beginning, you know, is to kind of eliminate some of that zero-sum game mentality. It's a huge market out there for food and local producers right now just have a lot of blue sky ahead.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (17:14):

I absolutely agree with that. Like, there is just a tremendous -- you know, even when I started, like the natural food industry was small and it was still, you know, independent grocers and people, you know, pushing their carts, you know, their strollers through the stores and, and we've lost that element of natural food industry. And I really feel like we're, we're starting to kind of circle back and go back to what it really means to have a natural food community.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (17:42):

We love that we get to build that community with you on Market Wagon. So Maggie, one of the things I wanna touch on here, because you've talked so much about sustainability, and I don't know if a lot of our listeners know, you are a proud supporter of a nonprofit called CleanHub. And I wanted to give you an opportunity to tell me and everybody listening a little bit more about that.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (18:04):

Yeah. So CleanHub, we really wanted to focus on -- it's one thing to have a sustainable product, but there's a lot of plastics being dumped into our oceans. We only recycle about 9% of the plastics -- 91% of plastic ends up in our oceans. And by partnering with CleanHub, we wanted to make sure we weren't just saying we didn't -- our messaging is plastic sucks, but we wanted to make sure that we made a social impact as well. And so we partnered with CleanHub who works with an all-female-led recycling organization, Tridi, to collect that waste and process it in a way that we can eliminate it from our oceans. Because we have these giant plastic barges floating around our oceans and CleanHub has been able to track that clean-up amount. And so it's very precise and a portion of our proceeds goes back to eliminating that plastic. And so far we've been able to fund over a ton of plastic, clean up from our ocean and so offsetting any plastic that we would ever create. And it's a great organization to start with.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (19:17):

Maggie. I, I thank you so much for the time we spent here. I, I wanna make one observation as we've talked. You, you mentioned earlier, you know that you're not a big fan of elimination diets. When we were talking about meat, we've talked about plant-based foods in this entire time, you've not talked about any negativity about protein farmers, animal protein. And then as we talk about plastics you're focused in on the positives of steel and of recycling, but recognizing we're gonna have plastics, how do we do it positively? I think what I really appreciate about this conversation and about your messages, it's so positive about the things that we should be doing rather than simply villainizing things we feel like we should not be doing. And, and I just wanna encourage you. That's an attractive message. And it's refreshing to talk to somebody in plant-based foods that have not cast someone like me, who raises beef and pork and chicken, as a villain. And I think that going back to your conversation about just this community that we have among the producers of Market Wagon that we're in this together. I think that's so key and I hope our listeners appreciate that as well.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (20:28):

That really warms my heart to hear, but I do think that there's a sliding scale. You know, there's people that produce meat ethically, there's people that produce meat unethically. And I think it's not just about what we don't do. We have to, you know, it's too much to try to do one thing, but if you, you could make one positive change, then we can all drive towards a greater goal.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (20:53):

We're in violent agreement about that. There is a right, and a wrong way to raise animal proteins, for sure. I just love the message of doing the positive things, not simply the negative message and I think that we could all learn a lot from that. So thanks for sharing a little bit about CleanHub. I think that's really interesting. I just want to be able to wrap up with giving you the opportunity, in addition to finding 8 Track Foods on Market Wagon, customers can find 8 Track Foods, follow you and get updates from you on our platform. Where else are they able to connect with you? How else can they find 8 Track Foods out there in the marketplace?

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (21:27):

Yeah. So you can check out our website at 8trackfoods.com or we have a pretty strong -- we have a strong social media presence on Instagram, and you can follow us for recipes there and some cool food science tips <laugh> and things like that.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (21:42):

That's fantastic. So if you're looking for ways to reintroduce more plant-based proteins into your diet, and you want to learn from one of the world's leading experts on how to do it. 8TrackFoods.com and 8 Track Foods on social media, and also on Market Wagon. Maggie, this has been a delightful conversation. Thanks for joining me today.

Maggie Seng Sadowsky (8 Track Foods) (22:02):

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Nick Carter (Market Wagon) (22:10):

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than A Mile. Be sure to sign up for Market Wagon at MarketWagon.com or after downloading the Market Wagon app for iOS or Android. Follow us @MarketWagon on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook for stories, recipes, special announcements, news, and just digital handshakes from our friendly farming community. If you enjoyed More Than A Mile, please rate the podcast and write a review on iTunes, CastBox, PodChaser or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Thank you for continuing to support local food.