We were lucky to catch up with Harvey Tannenbaum recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Harvey, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

When students enter the educational system in Kindergarten they are excited to learn. Going to school and learning is fun. By the time they reach college, going to class is no longer something to look forward to. Classwork is boring and homework feels like punishment. Somewhere along the way, many students have lost the joy of learning. I am not suggesting that education should be about fun. But I am suggesting that it should be less about measuring up to artificial academic standards and more about engineering and rewarding student’s success. Positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement. Students who experience their work being acknowledged are more likely to succeed than those who are told that their work wasn’t good enough.

When I taught computer programming, students had programming assignments that were due each week. In spite of explaining the code in class, some students struggled with understanding programming concepts and completing the work. Instead of penalizing those students who were struggling, I would ask them to explain to me what they understood and I would adjust the assignment for them so they could be successful. While strict academics criticized my approach claiming I wasn’t holding students to academic standards, many of those struggling students went on to become successful programmers.

One student in particular, “John”, really struggled with programming. John seldom came to class and what work he did submit was incomplete. But he was making progress and I showed him where he was programming skills we getting better. At the end of the term, I struggled to give him a passing grade. John was not successful, by academic standards, but he had learned a lot. When I next saw John, some 10 years later, he was the lead investigator of a cybersecurity group in a large consulting firm. As we talked about how things worked out, he let me know that it was in my class that he recaptured the joy of learning and the feeling that he could succeed. That is what made the difference.

In the broader picture, academia has a rather narrow definition of intelligence. Students who are good at reading, writing, and memorization are successful in a classroom setting and labeled “smart”. Others, without that particular skill set are labeled otherwise. If I could change the educational system, I would have them understand that success is more than the world of reading, writing, and memorization. Success is different for each individual. The educational system, as a system, should help everyone figure out what success means for that individual, help that individual experience what success feels like, and help them find their individual path for success.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

When people ask me what I do, I like to tell them I am a recovering librarian just because it appeals to my sense of humor. Aside from the play on the word recovery, I was a librarian for more than 20 years and I still love going to the library. And, it also plays a role in my deciding to make hot sauce and starting Tannenbaum Foods.

As the Director of a public library when IBM came out with their first microcomputer, I developed and managed the move from a mainframe environment to a microcomputer based library system. I must have been pushing the envelope a bit because I was recruited by the software company that developed the automation system. Several years later that lead to my working for a consulting firm that provided strategic market research for the computer industry. When the consulting from where I was working became a victim of the dot-com bubble, I started teaching database administration at a local college. Twenty years later, I was Dr. Tannenbaum with a degree in Computer Science and making habanero jelly in my kitchen.

I was making habanero jelly because someone had abandoned a pile of habanero peppers on my desk. As someone who loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and hot sauce, I thought I would make some fruit and habanero jelly. This is where the library comes in. Because I had no idea of how to make jelly or the art of canning, I went to the library and took out some books on how to do it. Then, when I was giving the extra jelly to work away to people at work, people started insisting that I make more and sell it. That was the beginning of Tannenbaum Foods. And as the saying goes…go big or go home.

Knowing that it would be impossible to do it properly from a home kitchen, I went to a product development consultant to develop different flavors and a formula we would need to insure consistency. It was a lot of fun playing with different fruit and spice combinations and figuring out what did and did not work. it was also the time that we decided we wouldn’t compromise on the quality of the ingredients and that we should go from a jelly to a hot sauce.

The issue was that the more we worked with the jelly, we discovered that with the fruit and spice combinations, people were using it more creative ways. It turns out that when you get it to the right consistency it makes a great barbecue sauce and a glaze for meat and fish. The blueberry with sumac and cinnamon adds a barbecue flavor to meats and the pineapple with rosemary and turmeric makes a fantastic glaze for salmon, chicken, or ham. The combinations deliver enough heat that the hot sauce lover gets the heat they want, but it is not so hot that it ruins things for everyone else. The foodies we talked to were very enthusiastic because it made things easier. Making a routine dish into something more flavorful doesn’t require a change in the way you cook. Just add some of our “jelly” and it enhances the flavor without overpowering it with heat. We decided to make Tannenbaum’s into a hot sauce so that more people might be likely to experiment with it.

With any food product, the real bottom line is taste. If the product does not taste good, it is going to be very hard to make it successful. There are other factors, to be sure, but taste is number one. So you have to start with quality ingredients. It is a little more difficult and a bit more expensive, but it must be done that way in order to make Tannenbaum’s as good as it can be. Tannenbaum’s uses all natural products with no flavor additives or artificial ingredients. For example, xanthan gum is a widely used thickening additive in all sorts of food and beverages. It is inexpensive, readily available, and easy to work with. It also has a bit of an “oily” mouth feel. That may fine in product like salad dressing, but it is not something we wanted with Tannenbaum’s. Instead of xanthan gum, Tannenbaum’s uses pectin which is more expensive and harder to work with.

Related to taste is the idea of balance. In the world of hot sauce, you can divide most hot sauce users into three board categories. There are those that like their hot sauce as hot as possible. For those users it is not about flavor because the heat is overpowering. At the other end of the spectrum are those consumers are attracted to hot sauces with interesting, funny, or somewhat scatalogical names. In the middle are those users who are looking for the best balance of heat, flavor, and complexity. Tannenbaum’s lives in that middle category of highly crafted, quality products that is focused on providing by flavor and heat.

Sometimes overlooked, but also important, is the question of healthiness. Many may be surprised to know that chili peppers, such as habaneros are extremely healthy. In a paper presented to the American Heart Association’s Scientific Studies in 2020, researchers noted that compared to people who never or seldom consume chili peppers, those who do consume chili peppers have 23% fewer cancer deaths and 26% fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease. Chili peppers are anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and have a blood-glucose regulating effect because of the capsaicin which is the compound that gives chili peppers the sensation of heat. The more capsaicin, the more the user senses heat.

The funny thing is that there is no actual heat in chili peppers. The TRPV1 heat sensors cells on the tongue typically trigger at 109.4 degrees to send signals to the brain that something is burning. However, the capsaicin in the peppers is a perfect match for the TRPV1 heat sensors. So when the capsaicin lands on the TRPV1 cells, those cells are activated and start alerting the brain to the sensation of heat. The brain, in turn, starts thinning the mucus membranes in the sinuses, which is why your nose runs when you eat spicy foods. The great thing about a runny nose is that it helps to clean out your sinuses.

The fruit and spice combinations in Tannenbaum’s are likewise carefully selected to for both flavor and health. The cranberry hot sauce, for example, combines cranberries, which many people consider a superfood because of its high nutrient and antioxidant properties, with lemon peel and allspice. Lemon peel contains high amounts of vitamin C and calcium which is good for bone health. Lemon peel also helps reduces cholesterol in the body. The compounds in allspice provide both antifungal and antimicrobial effects.

The thing that pleases me most about Tannenbaum’s is that I know we are producing a high quality product that is both flavorful and healthy. Everyone wants food that tastes good, but not all foods have a lot of flavor. Even lobster benefits from the addition of drawn butter. Tannenbaum’s makes food taste better. You can use it like a hot sauce and sprinkle it on top of food and it will add a lot of flavor, Or, you can use it as an cooking ingredient and it will meld with you dish and enhance its flavor without overpowering it. I can add Tannenbaum’s strawberry with basil and mint hot sauce to ground meat and make a hamburger, but it is not a strawberry hamburger. It is a great tasting hamburger, but flavors blend so well that even though I know what is in there, I can’t tell pull out the individual ingredients. What Tannenbaum’s does is it lets cooks add a lot of flavor their cooking without changing the way they cook. And, it is being done in healthy way.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Tannenbaum’s is currently working with a couple of vendors to manufacture out hot sauce. When I started, I had no idea of how to manufacture the original habanero jelly or hot sauce that became the final product. As a recovering librarian, I got started by going to the library and getting books about making and canning jelly. I also used Google and YouTube for recipes and videos. When I decided to pursue the idea of making it a business, I sought the help of an experienced product development consultant and a food scientist. It was clear to me that cooking with recipes in the home kitchen is not the same as running a formula on factory equipment.

A friend of mine questioned my decision to spend valuable capital on consultants. But it is my opinion that it was money well spent. While I could have saved a lot of money by blundering through and learning as I went along, it would have taken a lot longer and I would have spent even more money correcting mistakes and backing out of dead end pursuits. With the help of my consultant and food scientist, we controlled the pace of development and I avoided a lot of mistakes I would have made thinking I could do it on my own.

We started limited production in a commercial kitchen in order to continue testing and perfecting the formula at a larger scale, and to have product to test market. Contracting with a co-packer requires certain minimum volumes for production, and in some cases, those minimums may be quite large. We could not justify bringing in a co-packer until we were confident about the formula and we know we could generate sales.

The first co-packer we worked with reinforced the importance of having the co-packer do a sample run. We co-packer adjusted the formula and the ingredients to better fit the equipment they had available. We weren’t happy with the sample and asked them to do it again with certain changes. Once again, the samples did not meet our expectations and the co-packer was unable to produce the product to our specifications because they did not have the right equipment and they did not have experience in working with some of our ingredients..

In searching for other co-packers we came directly into the problem of large minimum production runs. Many co-packers are hesitant to work with startups because startups don’t always succeed. So there is a risk to the co-packer if the start-up does not succeed and produce repeat business. Ultimately, we had to hire another consultant who specializes in matching start-ups and co-packers who have the right capabilities and willing to produce at reasonable minimums.

Having a successful run with a one co-packer opened the door to working with other co-packers. We have learned a lot about what information the co-packers need and how to communicate our specifications. We have learned about lead times and how to move product from production facilities to storage. Having seen that Tannenbaum Foods continues to operate has given other packers confidence that we could be a viable customer.

We are still a very small company and looking to grow so our work with co-packers is not over. As we grow we will need larger production runs and co-packers that capable of producing to our specifications. We have learned the importance of thoroughly understanding our formulas and how that work in order to guide the co-packer through test production and the first product run. We have learned the importance of working with co-packer to make sure they have the right equipment and experience to produce our hot sauce the what it needs to be done. And we have learned the importance of doing test runs on small batches. The theory, the same formula run on the same equipment should produce the same results. In reality, it doesn’t always work that way. In any complex system there are always variables.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Tannenbaum’s sells on its own site, through the Faire and Mable grocery platforms and on Amazon. My original objective was to sell into the larger supermarket chains. However, grocery chains are high volume-low margin operations and Tannenbaum’s is more premium product. Consumers looking for generic hot sauce are not looking for Tannenbaum’s at this point because we are not a recognized brand. We also know from our test marketing that Tannenbaum’s does well in markets where customers are looking for unique, high quality products.

Faire and Mable are grocery platforms that provide an opportunity for smaller and specialty groceries to discover and order grocery products. The advantage of these platforms for retailers that don’t attend the large trade shows is the opportunity to discover new and interesting products that may do well with their customers. The advantage of these platforms for Tannenbaum’s is the opportunity to reach a targeted audience on a larger geographic scale. While I can certainly approach those stores in my local region, I cannot be in all 50 states at once. With Faire and Mable, potential customers throughout the country can discover Tannenbaum’s The disadvantage, of course, is the cost. Faire and Mable charge a commission for a new customer with a smaller commission for any repeat orders. It is my opinion is that it is a worthwhile expense. Those platforms expose Tannenbaum’s to far more potential customers than I could. And even if I could approach them, I would still have expenses that would greatly exceed commission costs.

We have also decided to promote Tannenbaum’s on Amazon. The logic behind this decision is basically the same as that with Faire and Mable. The difference between the grocery platforms and Amazon is that Faire and Mable have a targeted audience with customers who are specifically searching for hot sauces. Amazon is more generic where people may be searching for anything and hit upon Tannenbaum’s through a recommendation. As with the grocery platforms, the eternal tradeoff is between the costs and the potential for reaching customers.

Because Tannenbaum’s is a premium product, consumers must recognize its uniqueness and the quality in order to justify their purchase. That takes brand building. The e-commerce platforms we have chosen to work with gives us the best chance to build brand recognition.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tannenbaumfoods.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tannenbaumfoods/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tannenbaumfoods

Image Credits
Tannenbaum Foods