I have been officially making burritos (and other foods) as Phil’s Fresh Foods, for exactly 10 years. I just dug up my first invoice to the Eldorado Corner Market from 1/29/2002 for just over $50. Ahhh, the good old days. Those products were made in my 1906 Eldorado Springs Cabin on a crappy gas fired stove at 5am while my girlfriend (now wife) slept on our futon in the same room next to the wood fired stove – how romantic!
The 1906 Eldorado Springs Cabin, where the first Burritos were made
The labels were made on an old HP printer using the Jokerman font. The product was delivered in coolers with icepacks in my Grandma’s old Toyota Camry.
Of course or food safety program was a little different in those days. That original Green Chile Breakfast Burrito had big hunks of pork in it and was braised in a cast iron skillet and stirred with a wooden spoon. There was no USDA stamp or even an understanding of who the USDA was, but who cared? The cops at PDQ gas station on Table Mesa loved that product. They freaked out when the USDA shut me down (after a local competitor turned me in) and I had to pull the meat from the burritos because I wasn’t inspected by the USDA.
Oh the memories…. Which was the best? Was it the after hour kinkos sessions in the middle of the night when my buddy and I stayed up designing old Phil’s Fresh Foods packaging artwork? Was it my original delivery driver who looked just like ZZ Top and lived on land in Rollinsville without any running water or electricity ? Was it my original office next to Boulder Toyota where I kept my sleeping bag for the numerous all nighters that were pulled? Was it the time the refrigerated van was stollen off the dock at the West Colfax Vitamin Cottage by a male prostitute (I had to go testify against him in court once they caught him)? Ahhh, the glory days…
Thank you to all who supported helping to fulfill my original dream of climbing in Eldorado Canyon every day. Wait, that didn’t happen….
Thank you to all for helping to fulfill my v2 dream of creating a super-rad company, of building community and relationships, family and friends, and a great life and business.
I am by no means an accomplished baker. To say that I am an amateur baker would be a stretch, but lately, I have been baking a lot of bread – and I have been getting really into it.
Shaped baguettes move from a floured cloth to the peel prior to baking
I think I probably never gravitated to baking because with it, comes the requirement of some type of structure, organization, recipes, exact quantities, exact temperatures, etc… That’s just not the way I roll in my kitchen. I maintain very few recipes and nothing tends to be cooked or come out the same twice. I think that’s why I always shied away from baking – I saw it more as chemistry than cooking. It would make sense that now, after having spent ten years building the EVOL Manufacturing Plant into a legitimate, professional, and systematized operation, that I would finally have developed the discipline and tolerance to follow procedure, write something down, take a temperature, and try something more process oriented. In short, I am ready to learn how to bake.
My baked baguettes looked OK but lacked proper slashing and forming
I have been baking off of the very awesome book, Baking with Julia, that I acquired about 15 years ago, but have used very seldom until one month ago. This is a book that was based off of a PBS Series that was run in the mid ’90′s in which Julia Child hosted the most acclaimed bakers in the country in dozens of 30 minute episodes.
Baking with julia - an awesome text on baking and patisserie
After a number of successful loafs including basic white bread, wheat bread, and rye bread, I skipped right to one of the most challenging bread in the book – the Mixed Starter Bread. This is a bread whose taste, texture, crust and crumb is developed through a number of starters and takes nearly two full days to complete. It is a bread far stickier than anything I have ever made before. I have to say that my first attempt was relatively successful, although it lacked the real crunch of a traditional French Baguette. The flavor and crumb was awesome, but the crust needs some work. Part of the nuance of baking a bread like this lies in the final moments in which the proofed loaf is slashed, placed on a pizza peel, and thrust into a blazing hot 500 degree oven on top of a baking stone. To further complicate the matter, one needs to attempt to create steam in the oven chamber by hitting a super-heated pan with water right before the door is closed – all the while moving as quickly as possible to maintain as much heat as possible. I have to admit that this sequence of events was challenging the first time, and the loaves seemed to brown unusually fast, but the results were pretty good – not amazing.
The fresh baguettes tasted incredible with butter and jam - I ate a whole loaf myself
Being in the food manufacturing business and being highly attuned to process, costs, and systemization, my only question remaining after having completed this process was, How could anyone ever make money doing this commercially? Seriously? If you make bread for a living, I salute you. I don’t know how you do it. Wow those two baguettes were a lot of work! I could have gotten better baguettes at Whole Foods for $1.99 a piece and wouldn’t have had to look like a lunatic to my wife as I spent two whole days heating my bathroom with space heaters to double as a proofing chamber for the dough’s! She thought I was nuts!
And it’s all because I suck at making pickles. I know – sounds stupid, right? Getting this upset about a pickle? But I don’t know how else to feel considering the colossal failure of pickling that has occurred in my garage recently.
Partially fermented pickles in a crock in my garage - before the yeast came!
I am a pickle freak. My mom used to tell stories about me as a three year old escaping my crib and heading downstairs to the fridge to eat pickles in the middle of the night. I have been known to give a rant and it goes something like this: Shelf stable (ie, hot filled & pasteurized – made with Vinegar) pickles suck. A real pickle doesn’t need vinegar – only brine made from salt and water. Most shelf stable pickles aren’t even technically pickles in my book – because they’re not fermented. And that’s where taste, process, and ultimately, art, converge. Ever been to a Jewish deli? I mean, a real one? I grew up in them, and the minute you sit down, you get a plate of pickles. If it’s a good place, they give you a few Full Sours, a Few Half Sours (which taste a little bit more Cucumber-y and less brine-y), and possibly even some fresh Sauerkraut. If you’re super lucky, you might even get a pickled green tomato. Those are awesome but tough to find.
Since moving to Colorado 15 years ago, my life has been void of the sublime experience of a perfectly executed dill pickle. I finally found the Ba Tampte Brand, which is the best and most true commercialized pickle out there. But I always aspired to make my own. A dear friend and I had been ranting about the shortage of awesome pickles in the world for quite some time when he finally stepped up and showed up at my house with a brand new beautiful 10 gallon Stone Crock. It was on!
Fast-forward a few weeks and there we are chillin’ in the backyard peeling his mom’s home-grown garlic, snipping fresh grape leaves from my neighbor’s yard (they make them crunchier, supposedly), and most importantly, trimming and washing some beautiful teeny tiny crunchy locally grown Colorado Cuc’s.
Beautiful locally grown organic flowering dill and Cuc's from Isabelle Farms in Boulder
During the first week, we were feeling super confident as our brine took on a really nice flavor and the pickles started to pick up the saltiness, the dill, and a bit of sour. Then things went south – and fast! Yeast!!!! An outbreak of yeast! How could it be? We followed the instructions in Wild Fermentation (AKA the modern day Fermentation Bible) to a T. We even posted a question on the Wild Fermentation Blog about the issue. 16 reads but no responses! Wow! We really were screwed! If people who blog about fermenting cucumbers couldn’t answer our question, who could?
My son inspecting the second Crock prior to being filled with brine
After much debate (usually after a few glasses of wine) and a series of theories, we deducted that our brine strength could have been too weak, that the temperature could have been too warm, or that our sanitation could have been questionable. We dumped our beautiful yeast-ified pickles and went out to the farmers market to buy more.
The second yeast outbreak. I know, disgusting, right?
This time there was no stopping us. Or so we thought. We made our brine stronger, strictly controlled our sanitation, and had better temperature control. But by day three the yeast was back again! I was ready to lose it. How could we be defeated by yeast twice in a row. I don’t know who else to ask or where else to turn to, but I feel truly lost right now. Could we not conquer the pickle in two attempts? Let this entry serve as a plea to the pickle world: HELP!
This time there was no stopping us. Or so we thought. We made our brine stronger, strictly controlled our sanitation, and had better temperature control. But by day three the yeast was back again! I was ready to lose it. How could we be defeated by yeast twice in a row. I don’t know who else to ask or where else to turn to, but I feel truly lost right now. Could we not conquer the pickle in two attempts? Let this entry serve as a plea to the pickle world: HELP!
To all EVOL Bowl users: I’m sorry. Yes, I know. Our original compostable bowl kind of sucked. It would sometimes fall apart during heating.
EVOL's new and improved compostable bowl
Committing your business to sustainability requires compromises. Thank you for your understanding and continued support while we solved this problem and simultaneously continued and expanded our company wide commitment to sustainability. Our new and improved compostable bowl is INCREDIBLE! Not only does it not fall apart or stick to food, it supercedes the previous bowls compostability and up-stream sustainability standards. The bowl is manufactured using very little water and has a completely self-contained washing process. The forming and drying process proceeds immediately follows the Biopulping Process, substantially reducing the amount of energy and water used during processing. There are no chemicals, bleaches or binding agents introduced at any stage of the manufacturing process and the bowl has a beautiful natural brown color representative of the grasses from which it is made.
Unlike many “compostable” or “biodegradable” products that require industrial composting, this product is truly compostable and will biodegrade in your backyard compost pile or even directly in your garden.
Hope you all are as excited about the new bowl as I am!
When I first attended the Naturally Boulder Conference in 2007, I was a fledgling entrepreneur. I had no clue what I was doing, but I did have a brand that already had achieved greater than $1,000,000 / year in sales. But I needed help. Lots of help. So I participated in the (now infamous) Pitch Slam. This is a contest held annually in which Natural Products Entrepreneurs pitch their product ideas in 60 seconds or less to a panel of industry experts. I won that years pitch slam, which was the first.
Phil pitching Phil's Fresh Burritos at the first Naturally Boulder Pitch Slam Contest in 2007
Even though Naturally Boulder is a small regional organization, winning was really a big deal for me. I got the opportunity to meet with industry legends like Steve Demos (founder of Silk) and Mark Retzloff (founder of Alfalfas and many other brands). Steve and Mark both became huge mentors to me over the past years and Mark Retzloff currently serves on our Board of Directors. Fast forward four years, and EVOL is a national brand. At this years pitch slam, I was a judge, not a participant – that was really cool! What an honor! Even cooler, EVOL was awarded Company of the Year by Naturally Boulder. Steve Demos made the announcement on stage and handed me the award. Steve is so inspirational to all of us in the Natural Foods Industry – I told him that getting an award from him felt kind of like getting an award from The Pope.
Some of my EVOL Team Members celebrating our award as Company of the Year
EVOL had an outstanding year and I am very thankful to Naturally Boulder for giving us this prestigious award – but most importantly, I am thankful to my outstanding team of more than 50 employees, who work tirelessly every day to build this brand into something outstanding that we are all incredibly proud of. Thank you team! This award is yours, not mine.
Sometimes you have to die before you can be re-born – or I guess that’s what I tell myself to stomach the harder times in life and business. Growing a business is hard – really hard. After gaining control of the business and building out our team a few years ago, I started to feel like my relationship with my business would no longer be equated to trench warfare. And that was the case for a few years.
I guess you should be careful of what you wish for – because EVOL grew a TON in the past two years, and some of that wonderful infrastructure we built started to need a makeover. Welcome back: trench warfare. Here we are, the summer is nearly over, and I have spent all of the last four months waking up before the sun rises, wearing jeans, working on equipment, managing projects, and helping to build the next layer of growth at our plant. It has been incredibly fun, challenging, painful, invigorating, fulfilling, and productive. I’m starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel, but I haven’t spent any time managing my garden, riding bikes, going out on hikes, or any of those types of super-fun activities that I normally equate with summer.
The summer has looked almost entirely like this:
Self-portrait (i-phone photo) of me at the plant after a very long day
Drain and concrete work project at the EVOL Plant
And not at all like this:
Me hiking in Squaw Valley last summer (self portrait by i-phone)
Me climbing at the Freight Train Boulder in South Boulder
We have a couple of tart cherry trees in our backyard. These cherries are super tart and are really difficult to eat on their own, but they are outstanding for cooking and baking with. Once every couple of years I get the energy to go out in my backyard when they are perfectly ripe and try and pull as many as I can before the birds and squirrels have their way with them. My son joined me this year pulling them down from the tree.
Lennon enjoying his freshly picked cherries
One of my favorite ways to feature any fruit for desert is as a simple rustic crisp or crumble. Fruit, sugar, a little corn starch for thickening, and a delicious buttery streusel topping that takes about 2 minutes to prepare. Aside from picking and pitting the fruit, prep on this dish is about 5 minutes total.
Colorado Tart Cherry & Blueberry Crisp
Take your pitted, washed tart cherries (I mixed them half and half with blueberries), and mix them with a good dose of sugar. I use about 1 cup of sugar for every three cups of fruit. Throw in a tablespoon or so of corn starch and toss to coat. The corn starch will help thicken the syrup that develops into a thick caramel-like jam.
Now make your streusel. I eyeball the measurements, but it’s about equal parts sugar, flour, and oats (real oats, not instant). Stir to combine. I use about 1/3 cup each. Melt a half a stick of unsalted butter. While mixing with a fork, pour melted butter in a thin stream into the flour, sugar, oats mix and watch pea-size balls form. I like small to medium size balls of streusel topping, but you can control that and do it to your liking by adding more butter or by mixing slower and allowing larger balls to form. Spread your streusel topping on top of your fruit and bake in a 375 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes or until golden. Serve with the best vanilla ice cream you can find. Works with any fruit and it’s incredible!
I have been TV-less for a decade. That is, until a couple of months ago. It was because of my new toy that I felt compelled to watch the superbowl, even though I have only watched part of two superbowls over the past ten years and couldn’t name more than three or four players in the NFL. But for me, it’s difficult to pretend like I could actually get excited about watching the superbowl. I could, however, get excited about the superbowl serving as an excuse to cook a bunch of awesome food – and that’s where the indoor wings idea came from.
Cumin-rubbed Crispy Roasted Chicken Wings with Cucumber Mint Raita
It was just cold enough for me to be discouraged from grilling them outside on my grill as I usually do – and the old deep fried wing took a back seat to the grilled wing a few years ago after I realized that a perfectly grilled or roasted wing is just simply better than a deep fried wing (and healthier and less work). So I brought the party inside and decided to roast whole chicken wings in the oven with three separate rubs, and then dress them three different ways – three ways you’ve never had them (FYI these are even better if you cook them outdoors on a medium grill slowly flipping often for about 40 minutes):
Cumin rubbed crispy roast chicken wings with cucumber mint raita
Yucatan roasted crispy roast chicken wings with habanero avocado sauce
Crispy roast chicken wings with slow cooked pork green chile
Bombest wings ever. Period.
Habanero-rubbed Crispy Roasted Chicken Wings with Yucatan Avocado Salsa
Remove wings from fridge one hour before cooking. Same method for roasting each of the wings, regardless of the seasoning. Heat oven to 4oo F. Rub Yucatan wings with Habanero Chile Paste (my favorite is the El Yucateco brand – they make hot sauce too but I’m talking about the paste that comes in a jar) and a bit of oil. Place on roasting pan or sheet pan. For cumin rubbed chicken wings, dust chicken wings with coarse salt, fresh ground pepper, and ground (preferably freshly ground with a mortar and pestle) cumin seeds. Rub and place on roasting pan or sheet pan. For the Pork Green Chile Wings, I simply coated the wings with a bit of oil and rubbed with coarse salt and black pepper. Place on roasting pan or sheet pan. Roast your wings for approximately 45 – 55 minutes or until fully cooked and handsomely browned (think rotisserie chicken), turning once or twice during cooking to help the skin caramelize on the metal pan.
Meanwhile, make, or in the case of the pork green chile, reheat (it takes a few hours to make so you have to make it ahead of starting the actual wings) your sauces.
Crispy-roasted Chicken Wings with Pork Green Chile Stew
Pork Green Chile Sauce – See my previous Blogpost showing the full recipe. Reheat your pork green chile and spoon over warm chicken wings. Hearty, spicy and delicious.
Cucumber Mint Raita Sauce – Take 1 Cup Yogurt (you can use any type of plain yogurt but I prefer full-fat Greek Yogurt) and thin with a bit of water and lemon juice. Add a pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 cup peeled, seeded, finely diced (or grated) cucumber, and 1 tspn ground (preferably freshly ground in a mortar and pestle) cumin. Whisk together, spoon over warm chicken wings, and sprinkle finely cut fresh mint on top. Unbelievable.
Yucatan Habanero Avocado Sauce – Discovered this in Tulum, MX. Such a delicious salsa for any occasion. Great kick, creaminess from the avocado, and tartness from the tomatillos. In a blender, place 3 peeled, washed, fresh (uncooked) tomatillos, juice of 1/2 lime, 1 fresh avocado, 1 whole habanero (or jalapeno if you don’t like it quite that hot), a little bit of onion, a clove of fresh garlic, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Puree in blender until smooth. Thin with water if needed. Spoon cold / room temp salsa over your Yucatan roasted Chicken Wings. Garnish with chopped cilantro leaves. Searing hot yet refreshing at the same time.
I want to open a wing shop one day. The possibilities are endless. I love frank’s red hot and blue cheese dressing but the future of chicken wings is bigger than that.
If you told me five years ago that in 2011 we would have a concert series built around our own brand, I would have said that you were mentally ill.
And now, we have our own concert series.
The stage being prepared last saturday afternoon
This year we launched Festevol, a lifestyle concert series at Crested Butte in Colorado, Mt Sunapee in New Hampshire, and Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont, all premier ski destinations owned by our partners and friends, the Mueller family.
To date, only two concerts have been held (the third at Mt. Sunapee is scheduled for this coming Saturday), but the vibe, attendance, and music has been overwhelmingly successful. The Pete Kilpatrick Band, O.A.R., and DJ Logic bring some really meaningful music to the event, and as you can see from the images below, the opportunity to experience world class music on the side of a mountain after a beautiful day of skiing, cannot be ignored. We turned this last weeks event into a Company Wide team building event, in which the majority of our team members came to Crested Butte to experience a few days of incredible snow conditions (5-6″ each night we were there) and awesome world class music.
The EVOL Crew at Festevol in Crested Butte
Thanks to the whole gang for making Festevol a reality, and thanks so much to our partners at Triple Peaks, the musicians, the sponsors, and everybody in between that worked hard to make this a successful and fun event.
Expo West, the biggest tradeshow for the Natural & Organic Products Industry in the World, is held every March at the Anaheim Convention Center. This was my fourth year attending, and it was impossible to not notice how my perception of this event has changed over the years.
Our booth at Expo - Before the madness begins
Firstly, let me start by saying that this is an absolutely massive tradeshow. This year there were roughly 60,000 attendees and nearly 4,000 exhibitors. That alone is sensory overload. Throw in massive exhibitor spending, blinged out exhibitor booths, flat screen monitors, guerilla sampling, and every other message creation tactic you could think of, and this is one of the most over-stimulating environments you have ever been in. It’s sort of like being in Las Vegas – or maybe Bangkok. Lots of people, lots of messages, lots of shmoozing, lots of what I call, “Brand Bicep Flexing”.
The first year that I attended Expo, I felt like a kid from Kansas who had landed in Hollywood – except instead of star sightings, it was buyer sightings. ”There’s the buyer for this huge chain, that huge chain, etc…” The accessability of all these people, coupled with the hype of the tradeshow and my own naiveity as a business owner really sent my head spinning. Success seemed so possible and available at these shows. Everything and everybody you needed was right there.
Fast forward five years and we have a real brand, a real business, real volume, substantial customers, and it’s hard for me to not be a bit more cynical about the situation. This year, I arrived the day before during booth setup, and the amount of resources devoted to this event is pretty in your face. Hundreds of forklift drivers and foreman unload trucks, move booth staging, break down crates, hang signs, run electricity, setup lighting, and create tons of trash – all creating an indoor natural foods show room that will stand inside the convention center for a three day period. After that, it all gets broken down, thrown in the garbage or shipped back to where it came from. Watching all of this activity unfold, it’s hard not to notice the irony of the high and mighty save the world rhetoric of our “green” industry (myself included). Watching dozens of huge tractor trailer sized dumpsters being hauled off of the rear dock at the convention center, I can’t help but ask myself, “How could anybody who is engaged in this industry pretend that there is anything green about this event? How could all of these people, myself included, talk to the press at this event about how they are committed to saving the environment and not have everyone listening die of laughter?”
Tough question. And a real one.
And the cynicism continues from there. Lots of people coming up to you, trying to sell you something you don’t want, selling you financial services, marketing services, PR services, etc… It never ends. And knowing how hard it is to grow a business of this sort and survive in this industry, it’s impossible to not walk down the aisles of functional bottled water products, and ask questions such as “How much money do you think that company has burned through? Do you think that brand will be here next year? Does the world really need another gluten free, soy free, dairy free, fat free, taste free, inedible sprouted, cardboard tasting cracker?” There is plenty to mock in our industry. I always joke that I wish someone would make a “Best in Show” type mockumentary about the Natural and Organic Products Industry.
But then in the middle of my cynical rant, the wholesome, incredible, ultra rad side of the industry grabs me by the jugular. It was Ann Cooper and Gary Hirshberg (see the Youtube video below for Gary’s rap song) speaking on a pannel at the Fresh Ideas Center media lunch – and they both absolutely rocked my world. They were honest and authentic and inspiring. They talked about real substantial change, and about how we as industry leaders can and do make meaningful change to the world. Gary Hirschberg noted how far we have come, but how far we still must go – and he talked about how the Natural and Organic Foods Industry is currently 4% of the overall food spending in the U.S. After thirty years of hard work, we are at the starting line. He quoted Gandhi and stated that “Anyone who ever said they were too small to make a difference has never been in bed with a mosquito” – a testament to his persistent and inspiring thirty year career growing a $400 million Organic Yogurt Brand. Ann was equally inspiring giving her usual heartfelt and inarguably rational talk on how and why we must change the way we feed our children in schools.
I walked away from the talks inspired, and I was no longer walking the trade show floor mocking everything in my path. I saw opportunity. Not financial opportunity – opportunity to impact the way people live – to continue to deconstruct the old way of doing business and to continue to bring a righteous and holistic intention to the design of our brand, our company, our communication, and our products.
