The Future of Food with Justin Sutherland
In this episode, Don MacPherson is joined by celebrity chef and restaurant owner Justin Sutherland. When Justin isn’t in front of a camera, he can be found in one of his several Twin Cities restaurants making culinary works of art. He’s also heavily involved with the community, opening up a free food shelter to distribute food to those in need during the pandemic. Don and Justin discuss the concept of “food deserts” and how this contributes to food insecurity for disadvantaged Americans, how the food industry can help fight climate change, and the impact of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry.
Season Four of 12 Geniuses is dedicated to exploring the future and how life is sure to change over the next decade. This episode explores the future of food and where the restaurant industry is headed as the pandemic begins to wind down.
Justin Sutherland is a recent winner of Iron Chef America, has appeared on the “Rachael Ray Show” and stars in TruTV’s “Fast Foodies.” His restaurants include Handsome Hog, Chickpea Hummus Bar, and O Bachan Noodles + Chicken. He’s partners in The Gnome Craft Pub and Woodfired Cantina, and has several more projects on the way. Justin is highly respected as a talented chef, business owner and TV personality who enjoys giving back to the communities that support him.
Don MacPherson:
Hello, this is Don MacPherson, your host of 12 Geniuses. I have the incredible job of interviewing geniuses from around the world about the trends shaping the way we live and work. Today, we are very fortunate to be joined by celebrity chef Justin Sutherland. Justin is a recent winner of Iron Chef America. He has appeared on the Rachael Ray Show and stars in truTV's Fast Foodies.
When Justin isn't in front of the camera, he can be found in one of his Twin Cities restaurants making culinary works of art. Justin and I talked about the future of food. We discussed where the restaurant industry is headed as the pandemic winds down, food insecurity in America, the food industry's role in fighting climate change, and we even talked about the ethical treatment of animals.
Don MacPherson:
This episode of 12 Geniuses is brought to you by the think2perform RESEARCH INSTITUTE, an organization committed to advancing moral, purposeful, and emotionally intelligent leadership.
Don MacPherson:
Justin, welcome to 12 Geniuses.
Justin Sutherland:
Thank you for having me, Don.
Don MacPherson:
Let's start off by talking about what you do and where you do it.
Justin Sutherland:
Primarily, I'm a chef and restaurateur mostly in St. Paul and surrounding areas. Other than that, I do a lot of work with community service, with social outreach, do a lot of work with food television, and I don't know, a lot of other things I have my hands in, so.
Don MacPherson:
What are your restaurants?
Justin Sutherland:
Currently, we have Handsome Hog open, we have Chickpea Hummus Bar, Obachan Noodles and Chicken in the Rosedale food hall, partners in The Gnome Pub, and Woodfired Cantina, and a few other projects opening this summer that aren't released yet.
Don MacPherson:
We're recording this on May 5th, 2021. It's, believe it or not, almost 15 months into the pandemic. And let's talk about the restaurant industry because that's something that has been disrupted completely over these last 15 months. Could you talk about where you were in March of last year restaurant-wise? And then we'll go into how you've come out of this.
Justin Sutherland:
Yeah, March of last year was... I mean, pre-pandemic, I was in a great spot. The cities were really coming alive. I think there were nine restaurants that I was operating or a part of and looking to expand. I'm just very excited for a prosperous year. I think everybody was excited. St. Paul was booming and things were going well.
Don MacPherson:
And where are we now in May of 2021?
Justin Sutherland:
The last months of have been slowly building steam, have four restaurants that have probably shut down indefinitely, five back up and operating now, a few of the new concepts, just really trying to figure out what the new landscape of dining is going to be.
Don MacPherson:
Let's go back to before that shut down, what has happened to those entities and the employees that worked in those entities?
Justin Sutherland:
Everybody in the restaurant community has went the way of unemployment through the shutdown. But now that we're reopened, we've offered all employees within our company jobs back at either the new entities or the expansion of Handsome Hog, we tripled the capacities, we were able to absorb a lot of people in the Handsome Hog. And our main goal is always making sure people are employed when we have the capacity to do so.
Don MacPherson:
And what percentage of people were able to come back that hadn't found work elsewhere?
Justin Sutherland:
Everybody was offered to come back and who wanted to come back has come back, but where the uncertainty in the industry is right now with a lot of people leaving the industry, pursuing other passions and just really kind of hanging on to this unemployment until they know what's next, a lot of people in the service industry are choosing not to come back to work right now. And that's our biggest hurdle currently. I've never seen more now hiring and help wanted in restaurants. We are busier than we've ever been right now at Handsome Hog and the most understaffed we've ever been and not for lack of available jobs.
Don MacPherson:
And is it an issue of people are still getting unemployment and so they're able to make ends meet and they don't necessarily want to return to this industry, or what are the main factors behind that?
Justin Sutherland:
A lot of people found other passions, found other things. For most people, restaurants were all that they knew. And once that was taken away for so long, they started finding other passion projects or learning different trades at home or just finding a second job and realizing that they enjoyed that. So a lot of people just left the industry because they found something else. Then, there's another group of people who... Restaurant hours are hard and long and grueling and previously didn't really pay very well, and they're still collecting an unemployment check and realizing maybe for a couple hundred extra bucks less a month, I can sit home and be happy without working. And there's a big chunk of people who are just happy collecting the unemployment and not going back to work.
Don MacPherson:
I've heard that from other CEOs and other people who are trying to hire people. I know somebody who was in the event business for a very large professional sports franchise, and they can't fill the service positions at their stadium. And they're not even at full capacity yet in the stadiums, and they're still not able to draw people in. What's the solution there? What do you think the industry can do or governments need to stop doing or start doing?
Justin Sutherland:
I think that's three pronged to think. From a government aspect, I think the restaurant industry, I know some relief facts have passed and things are in process and restaurants are going to get some relief from the government, that's absolutely necessary. I think restaurants need to pay more, in general, and there needs to be a better quality of life for the restaurant industry.
Justin Sutherland:
In the past, it's been long hours low pay, a lot of substance abuse and mental health issues and just a lot of things surrounding that restaurant, just stigma of the restaurant community that we thought was built into it. And I think that ship has sailed. I think people need to be taken care of better, and we need to be paid better, which brings us into that next year is... It's just kind of the public perception of how restaurants operate and really letting people know what the margins really are, what it truly costs to operate.
Justin Sutherland:
People turn their nose up at a $25 cheeseburger, but you have to realize that out of that cheeseburger on that plate, the restaurant is probably taking home anywhere from 3% to 9% of that $25. So in order to pay your staff well, in order to pay your rent, everything about operating a restaurant is expensive. From the napkin on the table to the dishwasher who is washing your fork, to the trucker who brought the produce, and there's just so many facets that take that cheeseburger to getting to your plate that I think the public just kind of ignored or just wasn't privy to, so I think it's an education thing across the board to understand the difficulty and costs that goes into operating.
Don MacPherson:
You brought up something earlier around mental health and substance abuse, which I don't think anybody who knows the restaurant industry will be surprised that there are people who struggle with that, but you throw a pandemic on top of that and the level of insecurity and idle time, that's just a really, really terrible mixture. How did people deal with that?
Justin Sutherland:
For the most part, not very well. But I've read that this was the highest year for drug overdoses of people in the service industry and this year was the absolute highest for people checking in to mental health facilities and them having domestic abuse issues, and all of those things are just stemming from financial insecurity, food insecurity that coupled with some probably preexisting alcohol or substance problems and depression, and this and that, that just compounds from years in this industry puts on you anyway. So all in all, I don't think very well.
Don MacPherson:
I'm on the board of a drug and alcohol treatment facility in Colorado, and we have been expecting this just incredible wave of people seeking treatment, but the restaurant industry, you may not have the benefits in order to pay. Treatment is extraordinarily expensive for normal people, and I just can't imagine that a lot of people who are working in the restaurant industry could afford to go through treatments.
Justin Sutherland:
Absolutely not. I would say just knowing what I know without knowing any facts, I would say at least in the 75 to 80 percentile of people in the service industry do not have health insurance or it's very, very low, low-grade health insurance that wouldn't cover mental health. That's just basic if I get to ride in the ambulance kind of situation. So yeah, even when those struggles are, there's still not an outlet.
Don MacPherson:
How were you able to get five restaurants to make it through this? And I don't mean that glibly. Honestly, just financially, how was that even possible? I have some data that over a hundred thousand restaurants nationally have shut down permanently or temporarily as a result of COVID. I would have thought the number was much higher. I'm just shocked that people were able to make it through this period of time where there was reduced revenue or no revenue.
Justin Sutherland:
Very barely, which is why... like I said, four to five of them have closed and will not reopen. Before the PPP loan situation started, we had no idea. It was really a situation to situation. I think it depended on who your landlord was, what your prior financial situation was. Some landlords were super great for people I know and we're like, "Put your rent on pause and this and that until you're back up and running," and some landlords are like, "No, I need you to pay me." So I think it was very situational depending on where certain restaurants were before this, again, without support of the community, buying gift cards, and doing takeout and with the PPP loans and some government intervention, it was kind of a total package of things that needed to come together to make it through.
Don MacPherson:
How important was the PPP loan?
Justin Sutherland:
It was extremely important. I don't think it was structured very well. I don't think the people who put it together... I think there were good intentions behind it; but the first round, I don't think was structured very well, but they just needed to get something out there to at least keep people afloat.
Don MacPherson:
Was it possible to remain relevant without it?
Justin Sutherland:
Me, personally, no. I wouldn't have reopened during the shutdown for those periods of time doing take-out only or anything without it. The PPP was payroll protection. So in the first rendition, you couldn't apply it to rent or past bills or any of those things. It was just to do payroll-
Don MacPherson:
Kind of flowing through to employees?
Justin Sutherland:
It flowed through to employees, so we embraced that because I wanted to get as many people back to work as possible, especially when you're talking to servers who generally are getting cash tips on paper. Some of these servers are making $10,000 a year. So I had a server who was like, "Yeah, my unemployment check is $119 every two weeks." So it was more just to get those people back to work, but it really didn't solve the problems of all the loss of revenue though, the product that went bad when we had to shut down, and just the cost of shutting down and reopening is crazy. The first time we shut down, it cost $10,000 just to shut the restaurant down. I mean, to shut all your services off, all the product waste, the labor to do inventory and pest control and just making security and all that thing, it cost me $10,000 every time just to shut it down and open it back up.
Don MacPherson:
You talked about low wages, no health insurance, bad hours. It doesn't sound like a great industry to recruit people into. But when you look out 5 years or 10 years, what do you think the restaurant industry looks like?
Justin Sutherland:
I think it looks very different. I think we've already are slowly turning a corner. I think a lot of the frills kind of disappear. I think we really had to hone in on what it is we like about a restaurant and what is it there for? It's a space for people to get together and generally you're there because of the food and drink, all of these inflated prices come from the high price maitre d' and the hundred thousand dollars chandeliers people are hanging, all of these things in the restaurant that are not any value add, you'll never get any money back for them. So people are leaning a lot into the counter service models, to the quick service stuff, and also just realizing that you can eat really good food without having to have this crazy environment.
Justin Sutherland:
Yes, they'll always be a place for fine dining. We'll always want to get dressed up and go out and have special occasions, but I think those restaurants are going to be few and far between. We're really going to be leaning into the more local neighborhood centric. I think we're going back to more of the mom-and-pop shop kind of things because we appreciate the work of our neighbors and understand how important it is to keep money and then keep things in our community and support each other, so I think we're going to get a lot more local.
Don MacPherson:
The last 15 months have obviously exposed how much people miss the restaurant industry and what an important part of their lives it is, just in terms of the environment, the food, the conversations. So what advice would you give to guests or patrons as they're returning to restaurants?
Justin Sutherland:
At first, during the shutdown and then, we call it phase one of the pandemic or wherever we're at, I don't know if we're at phase five now who knows, at first it was order take out by gift cards, this and that. And now, I think it's... For instance, last Saturday, obviously it was a perfect storm of everything that could have happened in Minnesota. It was 82 degrees. It was the United home opener. We had a wild game, we had a twins game, it was the Kentucky Derby. It was everything to do in... Even at the minimum capacity and limited hours, it was the busiest day we've ever had in the history of Handsome Hog in six years. It was highest sales, highest guest count, it was absolutely insane. And that's how every restaurateur I talked to that day, they were just like that. It felt really good to have people in and make that money, but it was the most exhausting battle we've done.
Justin Sutherland:
So that being said, I think just being cognizant of where everybody's at in the restaurant industry from a personal and mental perspective, a lot of these people have been sitting on their couches at home, not knowing what's next for the last year and then just got called into battle, and I know every restaurant is grossly understaffed. It's just it is what it is. So be kind, understand that your food may take a little bit longer, and everybody's a little bit rusty right now. Just cut everybody a little bit of slack and maybe hold back your nasty Yelp reviews and tell people can kind of get their sea legs back because we are very, very happy to have you back. But there's just a lot of different factors affecting restaurants where you're not going to have that same experience you might've had a year ago, and that's just because the environment is different.
Don MacPherson:
Two of the things that I've tried to do is just tip very, very generously, well above 20%. And the second is just look those people in the eye and thank, that, "I've missed you. For 15 months, we've been holed up and cooking at home and it's wonderful. There's a lot of love here, but my goodness, thank you for showing up and serving us."
Justin Sutherland:
And a lot of times that goes, yeah. Yes, tip great. But that recognition and that gratitude, I think, goes even farther because we're running on skeleton crews that are doing it most. Last week, I had three guys that were on their third 15-hour day in a row. They work more hours than most people are going a week in three days, and they're burnt out, they've made decent money, but just a little recognition, a little thank you.
Don MacPherson:
We met eight months ago, nine months ago, something like that, last summer at an event, the Inner City Ducks. Now you're a board member. I'm a board member. I co-founded this organization with my little brother, Shakeel Nelson and another guy Nick Dilday. And it's 100, 150 kids last year, mostly from North Minneapolis, economically challenged neighborhood. And you and some colleagues of yours in the restaurant industry came and cooked for about 200 people, and we gave about 10,000 meals away that day. So food security and food insecurity is a topic that you're aware of, and it's really important for you to kind of bridge that. Could you talk about some of the other things you've done because I've just recently learned some of the things that you had been doing over the course of the winter to help people address food security.
Justin Sutherland:
I remember exactly where we were day one when we found out restaurants were getting shut down and it's that next day, we realized how much it was going to hit the restaurant industry. Again, like we've talked about most of our people live paycheck to paycheck and are already living insecure situations. So that day, we applied for our 501 and started a nonprofit called the North Stands with chef David Fhima, and that was just to raise money, to give direct stipends to hospitality workers, to make sure that they could continue to eat throughout the year.
Justin Sutherland:
We then realized how hard the hospital workers were getting hit, so we started a nonprofit called Chefs Feed Our Frontlines, which was a twofold initiative to bring kitchen workers back to work that would prepare meals for hospital workers that were working 24-hour shifts and not eating. So we ran with that, then partnered with Brian Ingram, one of my partners over at The Gnome. And every single Tuesday, we opened up a free food bank, started off as primarily hospitality workers but opened to anybody who wanted, and everybody in the neighborhood was donating food. And we opened up a free food shelf and just really finding where the need was and taking care of people. And I, and most of my colleagues, have done most of our life is feed people. So when we were told we couldn't do that anymore, we were like, "Well, we're still going to do it. We're just not going to get paid, but we're going to make sure we're still getting people fed because that's what we do."
Don MacPherson:
And you did that every Tuesday?
Justin Sutherland:
We did the free food shelf every single Tuesday. The first day we did it, it was supposed to start at 10:00 AM, and there was a line about six blocks long, lining up at 8:00 AM. It was crazy. We did almost a hundred thousand pounds of food in three hours on our first day. It was... Just seeing that need and then going through and seeing the people in those lines and just to see your neighbors and colleagues and people that used to work for you standing in line for hours with empty grocery bags, that shows a really big need. So that's when we really kicked it up a notch and started reaching out to other organizations, the sheriff's department, and a lot of daily food shelves, and they are bringing pallets of food over all week, and it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Don MacPherson:
And from where did the food come?
Justin Sutherland:
When we first shut down, it came from just all of the restaurants because we all... I just started calling around to all my chef buddies, and I was like, "What are you guys going to do? We got no warning for this." I remember it was a Thursday. So we had just... Everybody places their big orders Thursday to get all their food in for the weekends. And we just had coolers full of food. And at that point, we only thought we were going to be shut down for two weeks, two to three weeks, but the stuff's not going to last three weeks. So we were like, "Let's just give it away." The first rounds were just neighborhood restaurants coming and dropping. They'd just bring truckloads and drop food off because they had nothing to do with it.
After that was gone, we started reaching out to some of the larger purveyors because then once the US Foods and the Syscos realized that this wasn't ending anytime soon, they had warehouses full of stuff that was going to start going bad. So they started bringing truckloads over and then it just... People kept catching word of it, and then there would just be... just families would come by and they'd go to Cub and just say, "Hey, we were at the grocery store, just want to drop this off. So a lot of families started doing it and then larger organizations, like I said, the sheriff's department started and the fire department started doing weekly pickups. And it just became a big community thing.
Don MacPherson:
There's about 42 million people, including 13 million children, who struggle with food security. And I was doing a little bit of research before you came over today, about 30 to 40% of food gets wasted in this country. How do we fix this problem? Because it's not an issue of production, obviously, but how do we bridge this? Because the other thing with the pandemic is a lot of kids who do struggle with food security were no longer in school and, therefore, their source of food was evaporated or disappeared. What's the solution here?
Justin Sutherland:
When you see just the garbage dumpsters behind grocery stores and places that are just full of food, it's infuriating, the amount of food that we waste. I think it's so deeply rooted in how we've always done things that there needs to be a hard reset and just how we think about food and production and feeding people in general. Starting off with the understanding that food isn't... Food should be included in our basic human rights, it's not-
Don MacPherson:
It's not a luxury.
Justin Sutherland:
... it's not a luxury item. So then... And there's just a lot of politics tied up in it. We all know that a sell-by date on food in the grocery store is not because that's the date that they know the food is going to go bad, it's because they need to get that food off their shelves because they have to buy more, so they're constantly rotating product and keeping commerce going. So I think reevaluating how we do those sell-by and use-by dates because there's been plenty of times where we went to grocery stores to take food that they couldn't already have on their shelves because it was past its sell-by date and tried to bring it to different food shelves and organizations. And they're not allowed to. They're like, "No, we can't take it. We can't take anything that's past the expiration date."
We know that food is not bad but because of different government mandates and things that they have to do to qualify for their statuses, they can't accept food past certain dates and that's extremely frustrating. It happens all over the world, but the extremity of it is a very uniquely American problem. There's other countries who are passing laws, I think France or Belgium, any grocery store food has to be donated. They're not allowed to throw any food away, so we just need to start at the root of it.
Don MacPherson:
How concerned are you about climate change?
Justin Sutherland:
I think I've probably, in my 36-ish years, I've seen probably... I've seen a pretty drastic, just obvious climate change, especially living here in Minnesota. It's very, very obvious how the climate is changing, so I don't understand how you can deny it. You can look out your window and see it, and it's been very obvious so it's definitely very concerning to me.
Don MacPherson:
Agriculture contributes about 10% of the carbon footprint here in the United States or... overall emissions, and that's just the growing of crops and maintaining of livestock. When you factor in the distribution, it's about 25%. So it's a big, big contributing factor to climate change. And I'm just wondering if you... whether it's through buying local or if you could just comment on what the food industry's role is in helping to combat climate change.
Justin Sutherland:
Yeah. I think starting with... Like you said, starting there, I think doing as much as you can local, buying local and knowing where your food's coming from is huge, cutting back on as much processed and manufactured and trucked-in food helps. And as an overall, I think we keep trying to take these small steps to combat climate change, but they're always monetized or capitalized. And I don't think the solution is something that's going to be profitable for anybody. There's so many things that come into it from an economic standpoint. We want to lower the trucking and manufacturing and then you get into arguments, all right, then, are we losing jobs because of this? I think it's such a total package situation, which is why it's been so tough to tackle. But again, I think everything that we try and fix in the US, we try and fix with a solution that makes somebody money, and I think that's what it keeps steering us down the wrong path.
Don MacPherson:
One of the things that I've been thinking about is vertical farms and how those could be used to address some of the carbon that we're putting in into the atmosphere and maybe even repurposing malls and turning them into vertical farms. What do you think about the concept of vertical farms or city farms or these types of innovations around food?
Justin Sutherland:
I love them. I think that's one of the... At least as far as a first baby step into, I think that's something that's very easy to do, very economical to do. It brings everything to the forefront especially when you're living in the cities and a lot of these kids especially. We talk about North Minneapolis and urban don't really have a firm grasp of where their food comes from, what it takes to make it happen, what a farm looks like, what a tomato plant looks like, in general. So I think it fixes a lot of problems. I think it brings food to food deserts and places though there's already food insecurity, I think it brings the entire process, face to face with the consumers, and it helps with climate change issues.
Don MacPherson:
Do you think that it's financially viable or is it one of those things like solar, where there needs to be critical mass in terms of investment in infrastructure and the cost come down and then people can make money doing it?
Justin Sutherland:
I think it's a slow growth process. I don't think that there's any initial negative aspects to it. Do I think it's a huge multi-billion dollar industry? No, but we don't need it to be either. If it takes a small chunk out of climate control, if it takes a small chunk out of food insecurity, if it takes a small chunk out of food deserts, if it brings a small amount of jobs and really isn't a big cost, why not?
Don MacPherson:
You used the term food deserts, and I think I know what you mean by that, but could you describe what that is?
Justin Sutherland:
That's just areas. For me, generally inner city areas, generally low-income and generally minority sections of cities where the ability to get food is not right at your doorstep. Most of us take it for granted that we can... we'll go a mile in any direction and run into a Whole Foods or a Farmers Market or even have a garden in our backyard. And there are very distinct areas where you can't walk, and mostly people don't have transportation where you can't walk or take a bus to a grocery store and get food. And there's not a restaurant, and these were areas designed for impoverished generally minority people, and they're still active today.
Don MacPherson:
What do you think the solution is in order to address that? Because I do agree with you that that's why we've talked about before unconscionable that people without access to transportation don't have anything other than maybe a convenience store to buy chips or a frozen pizza or something like that.
Justin Sutherland:
And that's... When you say that, that's what it is. Yes, every neighborhood has a corner store that feeds into the obesity, that feeds into the heart disease, that feeds into the diabetes, that feeds into all of the health issues that are plaguing these groups of people and these neighborhoods. So it's not necessarily not able to find something to eat, but it's being able to find the right things to eat and healthy things to eat. How do you combat it? I think first step is awareness. So I think not asking that every white person in the suburb needs to go over to North Minneapolis and walk a 10-block radius and realize that there's only two liquor stores and five convenience stores and nowhere to buy an apple. But I think it needs to be put in the face of people and so some things can be changed.
Don MacPherson:
When I was a kid, we had a garden, I hunted, I can remember a relative, maybe a grandparent or a great-grandparent, beheading a chicken. And then us eating that chicken, I am so disconnected from where my food comes from. And I think most, not only Americans, but most people around the world are disconnected. And I don't think that that's to our benefit. So first of all, how can people become more connected with their food? Because I think that is important to being human.
Justin Sutherland:
The more we disconnect from things, the more we desensitize from things. It's the same thing with the food deserts in the inner cities. If it's not in our face and we don't know about it, then we can pretend it's not happening. So I think it's very important from across the board, from farming to animals, that it becomes more of our daily life to know where our food comes from. That that gives us a greater level of respect for it. And of course, I'm far from a vegetarian and the Native Americans were even the farthest from vegetarians, but there was just this level of respect of... I'm taking this life, it's here to nourish me, and then just this whole circle of life mentality that we lost somewhere where we just became the top of the food chain and everything just showed up on our tables. And there was no more understanding where it came from.
So I think it's baby steps. I think it has to start. I think it's too big of a problem across the United States to make it some just big, flip of a switch, oversight situation. I think it needs to start in neighborhoods and communities. And I think that it goes back with buying local and knowing your farmer and your butcher and where all these things are coming from. And I think it has to start locally and in small pockets around the country just kind of slowly expand. Yeah, just that knowledge of putting it back in your face because that seems to be the trend with all the things we're talking about is the farther we get disconnected from things, the easier it is to just pretend they don't exist or not even have to worry about it anymore.
Don MacPherson:
Yeah, for me, just having a garden is powerful. I lived in the condo for 10 years, and so I didn't have that luxury and even the ability to have a tomato plant out on my balcony, but there is that connection. And also, seeing the daily growth of whatever you're growing, tomatoes or beans or whatever, is really exciting. And you do feel that connection, and it does taste better. I don't know if it's mental or if it actually tastes better.
Justin Sutherland:
Both. I think both. I think it does actually taste better. A lot of these problems just needs to go back to our education system. And just with kids, I think maybe for you and I, yes, we can easily change our viewpoint. But in order to institutionalize it and get it back a part of our society, I think it needs to start with education at a very low level. So many of the programs that we've taken out of schools from home economics to shop class because out in school, we learned how to take a part at small engine and we had to learn how to use a bandsaw and we had to learn how to make an omelet. And so all these things that are slowly being taken out of education from fricking balancing a checkbook and doing taxes, just all of these life skills that allow us to be well-rounded people, I think, are getting taken out of education. And we're filling them with things that are really irrelevant to being a good human.
Don MacPherson:
When you think about the food industry as a whole, how do you see the future of food changing? We talked about the restaurant industry, but outside of the restaurant industry, just food, whether it be production or agriculture, what does it look like in the next 5 or 10 years in the US?
Justin Sutherland:
Right now, it's really hard to say. It's in such disarray right now. I think it's going to be drastic. I don't think there's any going back. I think what this last year has shown us is how far reaching the restaurant industry actually is, we let restaurants die. And because of that, now we're having... There's so many things that are connected to it, from manufacturing to butchering, to farming, to packing, to trucking, all of these industries that feed the restaurant industry are having this domino effect backlash because of letting restaurants die this year.
All of those industries are generally blue collar or below working and very low paid, and I think that all the people that gruelled through those industries from the farmers to the people in the meatpacking plants, right now there's a national chicken wing shortage and the price on them is insane. And just talking to people online the other day, and they're like, "I can't believe there's a chicken shortage," and, "There's not a chicken shortage. We have plenty of chickens, but the factories are closing down because nobody's coming back to work." They took a year off from working in these horrible conditions and they're like, "I'm not going back to do that for that."
We just had to take our catfish off the menu because our catfish farm called and they said, "We have plenty of catfish but nobody's coming back to process them." So they're closing their holes in the catfish farms, so we just had to take it off the menu. So I think it's going to take a lot more hits like that. There's trucker strikes happening and just all these things that feed the restaurant industry that are attached to the food world, a lot of these larger corporations got to figure out how to pay and treat people better because at the end of the day, it takes people to make this food happen. And the people are the ones that kind of said enough is enough.
Don MacPherson:
In my notes here, there's an asparagus farmer who had to plow under his crop. There was no labor. There was simply no labor. And it doesn't-
Justin Sutherland:
A lot of food waste there. The amount of food that's getting wasted right now. There's... Even the pigs, I talked to a lot of my pig farmers, and they want to butcher them within a certain poundage and they didn't have anybody work in the plants, and these pigs have grown to 300, 400 pounds, which are no longer at market. You can't sell them when they're that big because nobody wants a 10-foot loin. And they were just slaughtering pigs and throwing them away. It's just insane when there's so many hungry people, and this whole conversation is just a full circle.
Don MacPherson:
What's next for you? You've got the restaurants, you're involved in television, you're involved in so many different things, you've got these nonprofits, you're involved with the Inner City Ducks, what does the future look like for you?
Justin Sutherland:
A lot of the same. I've got a couple of new shows we're working on, a couple of new restaurants we're working on. We've got season two for Fast Foodies in the last show. We just got renewed for a second season, so I'll be taking off the summer to film the second season of that. And then another pilot that we just shot that I can't really talk about right now. A few new restaurant projects potentially working on and still continuing the fight for the social and racial injustice that continues to plague us. And that'll always take up a lot of my time, but I never really stopped this year. So it's just kind of continuing on.
Don MacPherson:
So let's talk just for a moment about your interest in social justice because we're in Minneapolis, obviously, and that's where George Floyd was murdered, and there've been a number of other incidents that have been tragic and awful. What has been your role over the last year or even longer in terms of social justice or...
Justin Sutherland:
It's been wherever I could be to help. At the beginning, we took when George Floyd first happened and the protests were nonstop, we took my food truck out and just parked down there, and we're feeding all of the cleanup crews and the protesters and the local businesses for free and just providing food for people because at least that's one thing that we can do is feed. I've spoke on the steps of the Capitol at a few of the different marches.
This year was very much a kind of a line-in-the-sand year for a lot of people and especially being a person of color and also being a business owner. I think as business owners, we've always kind of walk this fine line between, all right, we've got to make everybody happy because we have to represent our business and kind of keeping our personal beliefs and things separate. And this year was when that's not it anymore. If you go into my restaurant, you're going to know exactly what I stand for, what we believe in, and what I will and will not tolerate and just making that known rather than trying to please everybody.
Don MacPherson:
Yeah. That's something that I certainly noticed on your Instagram account. I follow you on Instagram and you have been very vocal there and wear that on your sleeve. And I can respect that certainly.
Justin Sutherland:
It's mostly not for me because a lot of people, I was for whatever reason, blessed with a platform and a voice, so I think it's important for other people to see that I'm using my position to stand up for what we collectively believe in.
Don MacPherson:
This seems different. I think the week after George Floyd was killed, I just noticed that this is different than the '60s. It was different than some of the other protests. It was global and it was huge here in Minneapolis and around the United States, and it just feels different. And the verdict and the Derek Chauvin, who is the officer who killed George Floyd, was read a couple of weeks ago. What was your reaction to that?
Justin Sutherland:
Unfortunately, although we all watched it happened on tape, anybody, especially being a black man in Minnesota in America, it definitely wasn't open and shut. We were like, "There's still a good possibility he's going to get away with this." And so going into it, it was terrifying. You don't want your city to burn down, you want some justice to be served, you want to feel like something is finally different. So when it happened, I think there was a collective kind of exhale. There was a moment of celebration, not necessarily just for the fact that Derek Chauvin was going to prison, but that the system finally worked the way that it was supposed to. Yeah, so it was definitely a moment of exhale. For some it lasted longer, for some it was just brief. A lot of people were like, "All right, that's-
Don MacPherson:
What's next?
Justin Sutherland:
... now the next up because, unfortunately, during that trial, it's happened again. And so I mean, it felt good that the system works the way it should have, but it also was just step one.
Don MacPherson:
Where can people learn more about you?
Justin Sutherland:
Like you said, I'm very active on Instagram. You're going to see a lot more than just food, but if you follow me on Instagram @chefjustinsutherland, please check out my website justinsutherland.com. I keep that updated with all the things I'm working on, and I'm pretty findable and out there. So I think if you type in Justin Sutherland on anything, I'll come up.
Don MacPherson:
Thanks for spending time with us today, and thank you for being a genius.
Justin Sutherland:
I appreciate it, Don. It's been fun.
Don MacPherson:
Thank you for listening to 12 Geniuses. Our next episode will explore how we can heal the political divide that plagues the United States. Our guest is Bill Doherty, one of the founders of Braver Angels, an organization that goes around the country and facilitates conversations between people with different political ideas. That episode will be available June 1st, 2021. To subscribe to 12 Geniuses, please go to 12geniuses.com. Thanks for listening, and thank you for being a genius.
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