Podcast

Transcript

Josh (00:14)

All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Five in 20 podcast by Remarkable Academic Foods. I'm your host, Joshua Miller, where we have at least another five questions in 20 something minutes. Definitely going to hit past that five. The reason why is because we have not one, but two topics to discuss. Our special guest is Davin Wickstrom, and we will get into what he has to do with both of these organizations. But those two to mention, the first one is SHFM, the Society of Hospitality and Food Service Management. And the second one is VIVREAU Advanced Water Systems. And you might be thinking, I'm not sure if these are going to be for me. Well, make sure you stick around because number one, you're here because I haven't disappointed you yet. Number two, if you're looking for or interested in one of the coolest, sleekest, sexy, sophisticated water systems that also helps with your sustainability efforts, then you're in the right place. And number three, Davin's just a really cool guy, really great friend. So make sure you stick around for the value to be dropped here.

All right, everyone. Welcome. And correction on my part is Davin. And of course, we have a funny story. We might get into that on how I even learned about that. But there's plenty of people that have been doing that along with myself. I apologize for that. But Davin, thank you for not only joining, but crashing the party that you're crashing the podcast. And we can let everyone know about that as well. But thank you and welcome to the show.

Davin Wickstrom (01:43)

Joshua, thank you for having me. And yes, I'll get the cat out of the bag now. I IM'ed you on LinkedIn and said, Josh, I know we're friends. I totally want to come on your podcast. And as I send it, I'm like, that's like me giving myself a nickname or like things you're not supposed to do, like just invite yourself to a party. But since we're friends, I know you would have taken it in the context that I had it, which is.

Josh (01:47)

Hehehehe.

Davin Wickstrom (02:10)

I totally just wanted to talk to you about the industry and all things we find interesting. So thank you for having me.

Josh (02:17)

Awesome, thank you for joining in. And icebreaker question to start off, this one is meant just for you because this is something I don't know too much about. So actually I'm intrigued myself. So the question is, what is your favorite type of music?

Davin Wickstrom (02:33)

yeah, that's easy. Mine is early 90s punk rock. So I'll go back to the pistols and the clash and we're like up to face to face me first in the gimme gimme's even some green days. So that that kind of period. I like overarching guitars. I like faster beat and I like the punk rock ethos of something's not working.

Josh (02:42)

huh.

Davin Wickstrom (03:00)

you shift and change it. So the idea that punk is to break everything, kind of that, but it's not anarchy, it's about change. And I love punk music, so that all day, every day, I'd listen to it.

Josh (03:06)

Hehehehehe

Gotcha. I got little nuggets here and there, like a quote, music is life and like soundtrack. I was like, he's got something to do with music here. So I got to find out more about that. Awesome. Well, let's talk about the first organization, SHFM, which is the Society of Hospitality and Food Service Management. And I know that they have a foundation as well, but let's just start with that, the organization in itself.

Davin Wickstrom (03:19)

Yep.

Yeah, for sure.

Josh (03:42)

What is SHFM for anyone that doesn't know about?

Davin Wickstrom (03:45)

Yeah, you bet. SHFM is specifically for the corporate dining space. So you have your higher education, you have senior dining, you have healthcare. This is specifically for corporate dining. So picture companies like JPMorgan Chase, Google, LinkedIn, any of these large campuses where they need to feed their employees. SHFM is the, so really, no, it is the only association to support that. And you have groups from clients, such as, as I mentioned before, World Bank, manufacturers, dealers, everyone in the food service ecosystem is involved supporting corporate dining.

Josh (04:27)

Awesome, awesome. And congratulations. I see that you got the 2024 Leadership Award from that organization. Much congratulations on earning that from SHFM. And let's kick into the foundation. So you are also the foundation chair for the organization. So let's talk about what the foundation is doing and what you're doing with them.

Davin Wickstrom (04:50)

Yeah, you bet. Thanks, Joshua. So the foundation itself is a 501C3, which is great. It gives us wiggle room to really create programs that are designed to not only help the corporate dining industry, but other industries. Most, well, I would say every person who's either on the board or volunteer has a story that brought them to the foundation.

Josh (05:06)

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (05:15)

All unique, but we all land in it's about education, networking, mentorship, etc. We have key pillars within the foundation, one being our partnership with the military and we do that in a couple ways. Real -time training while they're enlisted and that's through opportunities through our critical issues conference or national conference, local events, as well as when these military men and women leave, the military and they're involved in food service, they're looking for jobs, we're assisting with them. Working with groups like the NRAEF and other groups to assist in that transition, we know that can be, you know, certainly a, I guess an eye -opening experience leaving the military, getting into civilian life. Also working with college age students who are studying groups like Johnson and Wales, CIA, where culinary arts, culinary management is part of their curriculum and their major. We're also helping them obtain jobs, internships, etc. through opportunity, mentorship, access to people that have been doing it for a while. So at the end of the day, it's creating space and place for people to join our industry and make it a lot easier.

On a side note, I know I'm just totally talking, but I'm super proud, Joshua. We partnered with Virginia State, which is an HBCU college and university at the end of last year, which is something we had never done before. And I'm super proud of as a group having that partnership. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh (06:38)

Yeah.

That's amazing. And what are you doing with that partnership? Any major milestones that have been hit with that? Any yet?

Davin Wickstrom (07:06)

A couple things we supported a couple kids when they graduated and I'm old enough I can call them kids now like when they graduated we gave them stoles on the set SHFM so they're they're part of our community through our mentorship program we had we were able to send I think two students from Virginia State to the critical issues conference so they were able to see in real time like networking and and what like a show looks like and then we follow them.

Josh (07:13)

Yeah

Wow, I love that.

Davin Wickstrom (07:35)

Yeah, we follow them after they graduate. So it's not like you graduated great, everyone's happy. It's like now you're part of us, which is great.

Josh (07:40)

I'm sorry.

So true, so true. So it's definitely got that family feel for it, it sounds like. So.

Davin Wickstrom (07:50)

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Any family, like you can pick your family. Maybe that's your it sounded like that was you, Joshua, growing up. I know it's my family. It's like the door is always open. It's loud. Somebody's cooking. Somebody's playing music. Somebody's yelling. That's us. Like, yeah, come, come. We'll feed you. We're happier here.

Love it. That's the reason why I'm in this industry to begin with, I guess, right? It seems to be the theme everywhere you go. So let's dive into the beverage side of things. You've been in the beverage business for like, is it like two decades now or something like that?

Davin Wickstrom (08:15)

Yep. Yep.

Something like that. Yeah, I have a degree in social work of all degrees from Western Illinois. Yeah, my mother's a psychotherapist and I was gonna follow in those steps.

Josh (08:41)

And you're today, it seems like half of that split, you know, of that experience and beverages like on the water side of things, which obviously that just speaks to the, the volume of passion you have for it. And

Josh (08:54)

you are the director of industry relations for VIVREAU Advanced Water Systems in North America. So first question is, what is VIVREAU And the second is, what is the mission and the vision for the company?

Davin Wickstrom (09:10)

So VIVREAU you know, I'll, I'll, we're many things. I'll start where we are aspirationally as a company. And our ultimate goal is to reduce single use plastics that end up in the oceans and waterways. Fun fact, Josh, I always like to drop facts that every minute 1 million single use plastic bottles are sold in the world. Every minute of those 1 million only about 8 % actually get recycled.

Josh (09:19)

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (09:40)

And the remaining ends up in our drinking water and our food, everything. So aspirationally for us at VIVREAU yeah, it's to be part of that change. Yeah, It's crazy. So yeah.

Josh (09:53)

I can't even wrap my head around that number. So that's the mission and the vision.

Davin Wickstrom (09:57)

Well, and oftentimes, that's aspirationally who we are in it's our mission and vision is to change the way people drink water sustainably. That's what we do by education by partnership, by enabling them to bottle their own water from their own source. So if you live in Dallas and you want to get water in Dallas with the right filtration, you can bottle your own water and not have it shipped across the country. And that goes back to people deciding their health, like having an active role in their health. And we have systems that absolutely meet all those needs from front of house, back of house, you name it. So it's to hydrate the masses. That's what we do and who we are.

Josh (10:33)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah. And the health aspect of it is very cool. And the fact that your systems, you have so many different solutions out there and they all look really cool. And it kind of reminds me of the concept of like architects, when you're designing a building for people and to promote health, you like, for example, you design a staircase so that it's appealing and that people actually want to take the stairs instead of the elevator. And it's kind of like the same thing with this. It's like, okay, do you want water from, you know the fountain that's bringing your soda or do you want to drink from the regular water fountain or do you want something that's really cool looking and sleek, stylish to get your water from, which is probably promoting more and more traffic to that. I would absolutely assume that.

Davin Wickstrom (11:29)

Yeah, absolutely, Josh. And Brita, the global company is our parent company, which is fantastic. So we have that arm and that support of a global leader in hydration. It's funny you bring up architects. VIVREAU our position is we want to work with architects and food service consultants early on to educate them so they can understand the... We're not...

Josh (11:52)

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (11:55)

You never sell to consultants, food service consultants, FYI, I know you know this. You don't sell to them. You educate and you offer options how to elevate the industry. And we've been really mindful to do just that. It's about education. We want to bring people along for the ride. And we know how important and the value of it for sure.

Josh (11:59)

Hehehehehe

Yeah. And so speaking of products, what are some of the products that would pertain mostly to, I think, the higher ed space more so than anything else for this episode? What are some of the products that would absolutely appeal to them? Anyone that hasn't heard of the company before?

Davin Wickstrom (12:32)

Yeah, yeah. So there's two. So we have our Vi Tap and soon our I-Shape which is coming soon. That's going to be front of house where you have options. It could be the front of the tray line. It could be break rooms, et cetera, where it's on demand, water sparkling still, sparkling light, and then room temperature water that people can access throughout the day.

Josh (12:48)

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (12:58)

even tied that to meal plans in college and university. So instead of paying a dollar for a sugary beverage, you can add the water to the meal plan where you're actually, you're saving money. So our Vi Tap, our I-Shape are great features. Then if you think back of house for larger catering events, you have our Top Pro. You have our mini bottler that fill that same spot for you. So if you have larger groups, you can actually pre -fill bottles for more of a sit down event. So we try to meet people wherever their dining. If it's grab and go, QSR, we can do that. If it's something more elevated, you name it, we can meet them there. We just want them to drink our water.

Josh (13:41)

Yeah, light sparkling, that's getting fancy there. That actually would probably appeal to me the most.

Davin Wickstrom (13:45)

I didn't even know that was a thing. I didn't, this is where bread is so amazing. I had no idea that was a thing. And it's great, people want choices.

Josh (13:53)

That.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I said higher ed, but, you know, really even the K -12 space, they're starting to pop up all these cafes and we talked about it on a couple of podcasts. I mean, if you have a cafe, there's no reason you can't offer this too. And for your students as a premium product that's within that space and, you know, touching on the environmental impact, you know, it's not just competing with the plastic, right? Because you have the plastic water bottles, obviously, but even the boxed one.

And this is like a solution where it's like, let's not necessarily go for those if we have a space for reusable, where again, you're not throwing anything in the trash after you're done drinking it and going into that reuse option. Obviously, box is better than plastic, but why throw any of it out at the end of the day if you don't have to? I got my reusable right here with me. And so let's talk about cost.

Davin Wickstrom (14:47)

Josh, I love it man, I love it.

Josh (14:54)

Yeah, obviously cost is top of the mind for any decision maker. You know, how much is it going to cost? Is it a return on investment? What's the proof in the pudding when it comes to that kind of stuff?

Davin Wickstrom (15:04)

So I'm going to talk 30,000 foot just because. So if you look at a partnership with VIVREAU as bottling your own water, we can do an ROI calculator and walk you through that. If you incorporate that into a meal plan that students, we're just talking college and university, where they have a meal plan they pay for annual. If you incorporate that in there, you can look at an actual return on your investment that's actually

Josh (15:15)

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (15:34)

you can either make or save money depending on that. And I'll just frame it up that where let's say hypothetically, the cost for one cup of VIVREAU water is eight cents, something maybe a more sugary beverage costs a dollar. There's a huge discrepancy there. At that point, now you're controlling where your spend goes. Did that answer your question? I know it was kind of up there and.

Josh (15:57)

Yeah, yeah, you got the ROI there for me and the cost of, you know, the cost difference between the two that absolutely works for me. Do you have any success stories that you want to share any organizations that this system was implemented, you know, full force and, you know, really just wild testimonial of what it can do for an organization.

Davin Wickstrom (16:22)

Absolutely. I'm so glad you asked, Josh. My dear friend Sharon Eliatamby who's the food service director for World Bank in D .C., came to me and said, David, we're getting rid of all single -use plastic in our dining space on campus. I need your help. And to that point, we hadn't...We've always thought about retail space or that position. But at that point when Sharon came to us, we were making our own roadmap as we did it. So what we did, and this is a perfect example of partnering with clients or end users, we met her where need was. She needed cost savings, she needed reduced single use. And through her bottling her own water, and again, she was with us the whole process. She was able to save. It was a lot of money. I'm not gonna share how much, but it was about a 39% cost savings for them just by bottling that. And they're checking the sustainability box. Yeah. And they've been great partners. And the reason they were so great is it was a partnership from the onset.

Josh (17:18)

I can imagine. Yeah, yeah.

Davin Wickstrom (17:36)

It's never transactional for us and it certainly isn't for World Bank. So like when you find people like that, that get it and you get it, it made it so much easier. And now they can talk about what they're doing. Yeah, like now they can share that sustainability story because they're, because we're providing the system, they're telling the stories. This is their story telling. I just love that story. And Sharon had the guts to raise her hand and say, you know what?

Josh (17:48)

This is exactly what I was gonna say.

Davin Wickstrom (18:04)

I go back to punk rock music like I'm going to change the way things have been have been done and I'm going to do them different.

Josh (18:11)

Yes, I love it. And in terms of organizations that are doing it, that's not even the first one that I've heard of where they're thinking about, you know, they made it. We're not selling single use bottled anything. And, you know, all you had was the cans and they had, you know, some like water fountain style things. But again, I think the look, the stylish look of what your systems have definitely helps to contribute to making it so that people don't necessarily miss it, right? If you just, let's be real, if I just put a regular water fountain that I drank from grade school into a facility and say, yep, that's your water, how many people are going to drink that? I can't tell you the last time I drank from one of those for multiple reasons, and I probably never will, as long as I can help myself.

Davin Wickstrom (18:48)

All right.

Yeah, yeah, it's right. Yeah, Arkansas is back to, you know, grade school and like, no, I don't want to do that. And we're mindful to like, be elegant in our approach and functional. You got to look good and you need to deliver and we we we work with that. And we actually have an antimicrobial film that goes on all touch points. So we have safety features involved, too, that ensure that our Hygiene Plus that will clean the nozzles up on touch. So you're not transferring any germs to as well. We're super proud of that. Yeah.

Josh (19:35)

What?

It's all great. And the water bottle, I got one from you from an event a few months ago. And let me tell you, I brought it home and it's been gone. My wife instantly started using it. I barely touched it. So it is sleek looking and very cool, the water bottles itself. And in terms of innovation, so you talked about some or any other latest innovations or trends that people should be conscious of.

Davin Wickstrom (20:01)

I just think, you know, I think it's an overarching that sustainability years ago used to mean your chickens gonna cost 20% more and you're gonna have to let go of 15 staff members so you can afford to have decomposable whatever. That's not the case anymore. Like innovation has met aspiration. So you can have sustainability and you can run a profit now. Like those days are gone where it's either or you can have your cake.

Josh (20:17)

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (20:30)

and you can eat it too. See, we're talking food service, I'm using cake there, but like you really can. And I'm gonna go on a little bit, Josh, but a big difference is you have Gen Z, you have Gen Y in the marketplace. A huge difference between those groups, I'm Gen X, but the huge difference between those groups is they've had the internet since they were,

Josh (20:34)

Yeah.

Go for it.

Mm Yep.

Davin Wickstrom (20:55)

you know, young children or even infants. So they know, they know all the health factors much more so than Gen X and boomers did. So that is when hiring people, that's not even a nice to have that is essential to what they're going with companies. So you could, I would argue in a roundabout way, sustainability could be a retention factor for companies because kids, people younger than myself,

Josh (20:58)

Mm -hmm.

Davin Wickstrom (21:24)

are educated on these things, much more so than generations ahead of them. So it's part of what they expect.

Josh (21:25)

Hehehe

Yes, so true. And I keep hearing that over and over and over again. It may not be overwhelmingly in our face today, but it's becoming more and more important for these younger generations to be behind what the values are of an organization that they're working for. So that is absolutely true. And the point on the costs where you can have sustainability and saving costs, that is definitely so true. And that perception is not out there.

Davin Wickstrom (21:47)

Yep.

Josh (22:02)

throughout the entire space yet, because just not long ago I was speaking with someone and I asked if on campus they were doing anything related to sustainability and the first thing that came at me was we don't have the budget for that. And it's like, but you can save costs in some instances, so that shouldn't be the perception anymore. There's definitely some cost saving factors with regard to this. Cool.

Davin Wickstrom (22:21)

Yeah.

Josh (22:28)

So I actually want to go in. So this is a video podcast. I know not everyone is able to tune into the video, but maybe you will someday. And maybe you will for this episode, because I'm going to try something new here and actually do a screen share because I love this virtual showroom that you guys have on your website. So if you go on a website, you want to give them the spelling here while I pull up this, this,

Davin Wickstrom (22:51)

Yeah.

Josh (22:57)

Pager.

Davin Wickstrom (22:58)

Yeah, so you can go to VIVREAU Water, V -I -V -R -E -A -U, water, and that'll get you to our main website. Yeah, there you go. And I'm not recalling exactly what page, but you can find our virtual showroom. So as I talked to you about before, Josh, we've been working with architects and consultants. We wanna get that visual space so people can see their water in real time. And we've broken it down between, senior dining, healthcare, corporate dining, higher ed, because all those places look different. So if you want to click on a button, I can walk you through kind of what it looks like.

Josh (23:36)

Yeah. Yeah, and everyone, it was very simple on the homepage. It was front and center for me at the top there. You could click on virtual showroom and it would take you right to it. And I'm going to click on boom.

Davin Wickstrom (23:51)

Yeah, so there you go. Yeah, so that's our 205 countertop bottler that gives you the space requirements, types of water it does, gallons per hour. And we really tried to think, too, what is it ideal for? Josh, you asked earlier, what systems go where? Well, we try to give them a direction where we've seen success with those systems.

Josh (24:18)

Love it. And you're giving some under counter space requirements. So I mean, I'm a visual person. A lot of people are visual. So being able to go in here and it's like Google Maps, except it's designed for your water systems in a building and environments. And, you know, it's like giving you, I mean, I can even click there and it's giving me a visual of what the under counter space actually looks like. And I'm going to move over to the left here because.

On this hydration station, we have premium flavor collection. Tell us about that.

Davin Wickstrom (24:53)

Yeah, a couple things. So for our culinarians, which Josh, I know you are, all of our bottles have the health facts on the back. So you know what's actually going into your body. So you have that in real time. We made a conscious decision not to have it tied into the water machine. We wanted it to be a standalone. And really, that's cross -contamination for us. And we wanted to be mindful in sustainability, not extra packing.

And as you can see the flavors we have are all natural. So orange tangerine you're getting orange and you're getting tangerine

So you know what's going into your body. And we also made another decision instead of drinking a, you know, kind of, well, let me backtrack. Of these flavors, you can add as much essence as you want to your drink. So if you just want a hint of orange tangerine, that's a measured pour spot. If you want it a little more robust, you can add a couple.

pores on the spot, but they're measured, for each drink that you have there.

Josh (25:56)

with the cost control mindset, the measured is key there, right? So you don't have to worry about the people coming up and taking five ounces of it. They're going to have to work hard to get that five ounces. So it's going to discourage that. But orange tangerine, blueberry, raspberry is another flavor.

Davin Wickstrom (26:10)

Right.

Josh (26:16)

Mango passion fruit sounds really cool. Pink grapefruit, I would definitely try that. And key lime mojito, all singing my song of flavor Awesome. So again, everyone, make sure you check out the website and give this virtual tour because listening to the podcast is great. But being able to actually go into a mock environment and see what it's going to look like for you is a whole nother level of value. And...

Do you have anything else to add for our audience here before we break away?

Davin Wickstrom (26:50)

Josh, once again, let me thank you again for letting me totally fanboy you on LinkedIn saying I wanted to talk to you selfishly. It's because I think you're awesome. You're a friend of mine and I would talk with you without us being recorded. So I and I appreciate that we get to do both keep doing the great work you're doing. You are making a difference and you're one of the good ones, man. So thank you for being you dude

Josh (27:18)

I appreciate the kind words very much. And thank you, thank you to not only yourself, but the organizations you are involved with. These are nothing short but remarkable accomplishments happening all around. And that's what this podcast is all about is all the remarkable solutions, the remarkable people that are making it happen. So thank you to all of you. You're all what I consider remarkable academic food ambassadors for the industry and just remarkable ambassadors in general. So thank you and everyone.

Thank you for tuning in for another episode. I hope you got lots of value here, and you're going to check out these organizations that we spoke about even more. And until next time, I'm your host, signing off.