Retail Relates
Welcome to Retail Relates — where commerce gets personal.
Each episode brings you inside the world of global commerce — across retail, consumer services, hospitality, and brand marketing — through powerful human stories and the ever-evolving forces shaping what we buy, why we buy, and how we connect.
From entrepreneurs and icons to industry veterans and rising changemakers, we spotlight those redefining how people lead, create, and connect in a fast-moving world.
Hosted by our roundtable of industry experts, we offer a 360° view of the marketplace through honest conversations, lived experience, and practical insights that resonate.
Let’s get started — this is where the story of modern commerce comes to life.
Retail Relates
Discipline, Drive, and Doing Good: Robert Irvine on Building Purpose-Driven Brands
What happens when a chef becomes a changemaker? For Robert Irvine, transformation starts with discipline, purpose, and service.
From the Royal Navy to Restaurant: Impossible, Robert has built a career helping others overcome the impossible—whether turning around struggling restaurants or creating mission-driven brands like FitCrunch, Robert Irvine Foods, and Irvine’s Spirits.
In this episode, he shares lessons on leadership, technology, and transformation: why empathy belongs in business, how automation can enhance - not replace - human connection, and why slowing down can lead to smarter, stronger growth.
Robert also reflects on the power of teamwork, the humility of service, and the importance of authenticity in leadership. His story reminds us that business can be a force for good—and that the best leaders are those who build both profit and purpose.
🎧 Tune in for an inspiring conversation on leadership, resilience, and the future of purpose-driven business.
Robert Irvine's Bio:
Robert Irvine is a world-class chef, entrepreneur, and philanthropist dedicated to improving lives through food, fitness, and service. Best known as the host of Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible, he has spent over a decade helping struggling restaurateurs transform their businesses and their lives. Beyond television, Robert leads a portfolio of purpose-driven brands—including FitCrunch, Robert Irvine Foods, Boardroom Spirits, and Irvine’s Vodka and Gin—each built around a commitment to quality, performance, and giving back. His companies have generated hundreds of millions in sales across grocery, food service, and consumer products, all while supporting the mission of the Robert Irvine Foundation, which provides aid to service members, veterans, and first responders.
A former Royal Navy chef, Robert has carried the discipline and teamwork of military service into every venture. He has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Medal of Honor Society’s Bob Hope Award, the U.S. Department of Defense Spirit of Hope Award, and honorary designation as a U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer. Through his foundation, books, and speaking engagements, Robert continues to inspire others to lead with integrity, resilience, and purpose—building brands that serve people first.
What happens when a chef becomes a changemaker? For Robert Irvine, transformation starts with discipline, purpose, and service. Hi, I'm Rich Honiball, and I'm joined today by guest co-host Tony Wells, whose journey from Marine to C-Suite marketer we explored earlier this season. And today the two of us had the chance to sit down with Robert. A former Royal Navy chef, Robert Irvine has carried the discipline and teamwork of military service into every venture. He is a world-class chef, entrepreneur, and philanthropist dedicated to improving lives through food, fitness, and service. Best known as the host of Food Network's Restaurant Impossible, he has spent over a decade helping struggling restaurateurs transform their businesses and their lives. Beyond television, Robert leads a portfolio of purpose-driven brands, including FitCrunch, Robert Irvine Foods, Boardroom Spirits, and Irvine's Vodka Engin, each built around a commitment to quality, performance, and giving back. His companies have generated hundreds of millions in sales across grocery, food service, and consumer products, all while supporting the mission of the Robert Irvine Foundation, which provides aid to service members, veterans, and first responders. Robert has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including the Medal of Honor Society's Bob Hope Award, the U.S. Department of Defense Spirit of Hope Award, and honorary designation as a U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer. Through his foundation, books, and speaking engagements, Robert continues to inspire others to lead with integrity, resilience, and purpose, building brands that serve people first. In this episode, we dig into leadership and transformation, why empathy belongs in business, how smart systems can make work more human, and when slowing down actually accelerates growth. We also get into the power of teams, the humility of service, and the kind of authenticity that sustains brands over time. We invite you to stay tuned. There's a revealing rapid fire round with a few unexpected turns. This one's about leading with purpose, building people as well as businesses, and what it truly takes to overcome the impossible. So it is our pleasure today to have Robert Irvine on Retail Relates. Robert, welcome. How are you? I am doing fantastic, and I'm joined by Tony Wells today. I figure if I'm going to have somebody from the Royal Navy, I needed someone from the U.S. Marines to stand with me.
Tony:Glad to be here!
Robert:Good because this is what we call the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and we call them the Real Marines.
Rich:There you go. So Tony, good to see you.
Robert:Likewise.
Rich:So, Robert, we've read your we've read your bio, and we're obviously going to post it in the show notes. What we like to do to start off with is ask a question about three pivotal moments. Three pivotal moments you can go personal and professional that brought you to where you are today.
Robert:I think the first one was joining the military. Um, I was a bad kid at the age of 15 and a half years old. I was drinking dad's beer and not going to school. Um, my mother called the house and I answered like an idiot, and the demise of Robert Irvine began. Uh, one thing that that did for me, though, was um my father was an army guy, my brother was an army guy, and I was a sea cadet, R O T C kind of thing. So I would go to marine bases, naval ships every weekend, and I said, Well, good, if I'm gonna join the military, it's gonna be the Navy, and exactly what I did at the age of 15 and a half. She took me down and signed my life away. That was a pivotal moment in my youth. I s I think the second pivotal moment was probably going to work with Donald Trump at his casinos. This is the biggest job I've ever had running a casino, food and beverage, as a chef. And the third would be, you know, every company that we've ever started, and 16 of those companies, they're all been pivotal moments in my growth as from a young sailor to, you know, where I am today as 60 years old. They're pivotal moments. And there are pivotal moments every day for me.
Rich:So you mentioned the demise of Robert Irvine before that demise started. Is this the path you would have imagined? And was there a different path you had in mind?
Robert:Well, it's funny. I wanted to be a fireman for the longest time. I could run hoses and run up and down, but I wasn't so smart in the in the mathematical percentages and whatever when I took the firefighting test. Uh, I think that was by God's design, not mine. I think a divine intervention on that, I believe. Otherwise, it could hit me. I could have been a fireman living in Salisbury Wiltshire for the rest of my life instead of joining the military, doing my career, uh, going to cruise ships, starting companies, and the rest is history. So yeah, I would have been a fireman. That was my dream job at that point. Every kid's dream. I used to I used to love the fire truck. And I would, a friend of mine was the local fire chief, and I would go to run hoses and run the towers, and I was ri I mean, there's nobody could touch me physically fitness-wise. But I just wasn't smart enough. Uh, and I'm okay with that.
Rich:So you've had many successes and and you you've talked about some of the challenges. Is there a particular challenge or setback that taught you something that you've carried with you throughout your life?
Robert:Yeah, absolutely. Trying to be somebody that you strive to be. In other words, you you put somebody on a pedestal and you want to be that person. And for the longest time I tried to be a person that I wasn't. And when I became myself, that changed my trajectory of life, period.
Rich:I have a feeling I'm going to come back to that after, but I'm going to turn it over to Tony to take a couple questions. Yeah.
Tony:Is there a belief or approach that's kind of shaped uh how you lead today and the type of leader you are?
Robert:Yeah, totally. I mean, the military, no matter whether you're in the US military uh or coalition force as as Britain is, uh very close ally, I think the military teaches you loyalty, leadership, uh integrity, teamwork, all those things that seem like buzzwords when you first join, right? You know, it's let's get rah-rah, let's get whatever. But I will say all of the traits that I learned in the military have helped me be successful, organizational skills, leadership skills, empathetic leadership, ego keeping in check, the teamwork, all those things that, you know, you learn, especially as a Marine, you know, in Paris Island or the or wherever you do your basic training. I went into the military as a as a young man, and I had older guys, 20, 24, 25, that have been in college and universities, coming in to be officers, you know, and I was sleeping in the same room as these guys, but my uniform was perfect, my bed was perfect. You couldn't follow anything that I did. And as a drill instructor, they would say to me, Oh, you're perfect, but you're not a team player. So for me, the military taught me about teamwork. I literally at two o'clock in the morning tipped all those other guys out of bed. Um, much to their angst, I can tell you. I taught them how to clean their boots, how to bone their boots, how to polish their boots, how to press the uniform, how to make a bed. And I did that every night to the point that they knew it was coming at two o'clock.
unknown:Yeah.
Robert:Right. But they we all passed out or graduated together. And that taught me one thing about, you know, I was a young leader to start with, you know, at 15 and a half years old, as opposed to a 24-year-old college student. So I think the military is I say to everybody, I wish the United States would have a two-year mandatory stint in the military, non-deployable, just at home station. Hey, I love that.
Tony:That's a great, you know, and it doesn't have to be combat arms, it could be Peace Corps, uh, Teach America, Conservation Corps, this idea of working for something bigger than yourself.
Robert:So I'm a big believer in that. My kids, uh, one's almost a doctor, one's a lawyer, criminal lawyer at 27-24, and they've done uh service, they they do pro bono work, they do all these things, and they're better human beings for it. So I think the military has taught me the way I run my companies and live my life.
Tony:So hey, you you're a very public person, like, or like you know, people know your name, know your face, seeing you on TV. So when you think about uh how folks may perceive you and your area of expertise, what what's something that people probably have wrong about you?
Robert:Oh wow. Look, the the the instant thing on TV is oh, you're mean, right? Uh those people that actually know me would uh and by the way, this there's you know millions of followers that will tell you different. But here's my here's what my return answer to that. If you've got 48 hours to change somebody's life that has been doing something for 30 years and doing it wrong, they're about to lose the house, their family, their wife or husband, whichever way it goes, do you want me to say please and thank you? I don't have the time. It's a real 48 hours, and I need answers. So mean, I wouldn't say I am, but intense, I would definitely say I am.
Tony:Okay, that's good. When you think about the area of kind of hospitality and restaurant and service uh industries, how do you see it evolving right now? Where do you where do you see the big trends or what are the big takeaways that you see happening?
Robert:Well, I think you're seeing the biggest problem in a country, actually, in our country specifically, meaning the US, is we don't have the manpower in those spaces. So nobody wants to be a cook, even for $40 an hour, by the way. Because there's bigger, we don't have the the birth rate of people. We look at the immigrants, and I'm one of them, by the way, that became an American citizen. We don't have that summer flow as we used to for whatever reason. This is not political. We don't have people wanting to do the lower-end jobs, cook, clean, dishwash, right? So what's happening is technology is taking away those jobs. I know I'm part, I have a company that does it. So a couple of companies. You know, we have robotic chipmakers, we have robotic hamburger makers, because we don't have people that will take 40 hours, $40 an hour to be able to flip hamburgers or shake french fries. Now we've got machines. You see it all over. We drive through, we've got self-ordering platforms. Again, I own one of them, so I'm trying to solve that problem. And that doesn't mean changing, getting rid of people. It means taking the people and putting them in in better spots where they'll make more money and be better for the business instead of those mundane tasks, right? A humanoid can't cook. A humanoid can shoot, a dog can walk and and do what they do. And we've seen that in the military evolve. But in in our food and beverage industry, we are gonna need those people and those positions to be fulfilled by by humans. Because we all like to go to restaurants, we like the interaction, we like to say, hey, uh, hey Rich, welcome to Robert Irvine's. It's good to see you again. Do you want your normal or would you like something different? We like that interaction. And machines, no matter how good they are, and if you think of big companies, McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, all these people use machines now, and then people in lines. So they're not taking away the jobs, they're actually giving them better jobs, paying them more money instead of those mundane jobs. So I see I see that trend continuing a lot. I've just put in the Pentagon uh those self-ordering platforms that have been around for years, by the way. Um, but the Pentagon and the White House and all these other places are very difficult to use uh technology because of the buildings they're in. And you'll see Walmart. So Walmart does the self-ordering checkout, right? Or or self-uh uh register checkout, and so do a lot of places. But then in certain parts of the country, they take them out because we need this. So the whole change of industry, not just the food and beverage, although that's huge to me, but in general, you can self-check out a t-shirt now, go to Navy Exchange, go to you know, uh Marine Exchanges, go to those places, and you'll see that technology coming in because we don't necessarily have the people.
Tony:What's your take on the impact to the experience? Because I will tell you, I was recently at a theater chain. There was nobody there to help me like order popcorn and so and they actually missed out on more business for me because I couldn't figure out the kiosk how to make it work.
Robert:And there's like one person So the experience, look, experiences, experiences are like restaurants, right? You go to experience a restaurant because you walk in, you get sat, the service loves you're spash shows, you order a bottle of wine or not, you eat the food, it's it's wow, you go away and you talk about. Same with movie. But if if that operator of those movie uh theaters, just like the restaurants that I deal with, have really taught their staff how to use, and by the way, it's quicker usage. There's 28 to 35% increase in sales with a machine as against to a human being. That's a proven fact. So the experience could be good if the operator has trained his staff correctly. I'll give an example. I'm in Tampa, Florida right now. Uh, there's a there's a chain here, a very big chain, by the way. Used to have four or five different styles of restaurants. 15 years ago, they were using, 20 years ago, they were using iPads to order wine. I can order the same wine. It literally took three minutes as opposed to going through a binder of stuff. It's on the table, you order it, it's there in three minutes. So it's a good experience, and there's a bad experience. And it depends on the operator to train those people that are in the vicinity or in the restaurant or in the hotel. Look, you can go to a hotel now, you don't even go to a front desk. You use your your your your smartphone for your key to order towels. I know I I've set it up in San Diego, the very first one with Comcast. It's unbelievable. I had I had towels at my room in three minutes, and that's not an exaggeration. We actually did a whole series of posts about it because we couldn't get uh it was called the the Hotel of the Future, just like the restaurant of the future, and we're seeing a lot more of it now as Comcast started it 20 years ago. Yeah.
Rich:To take what you and Tony were talking about a little bit further, there's the potential that we give up ourselves to technology if you go by all the dystopian novels that we were forced to read in school. But what you're saying is that technology could restore us to where we're able to be more human.
Robert:I think so. I I've invested heavily in in the last five years of technology on all levels, right? From a fighting platform, from a restaurant platform, from a uh uh production platform. Again, I go back to this one thing. Take what people we have, pay them the value that they are, and put them in a position, A, that they're happy, B, they they can give the experience, and C, they walk away with a paycheck and they're not they're not foot and mouth or hand to mouth, where they don't know where the next dollar's coming from because you know we're we're doing $7 an hour or $12 an hour, $15, whatever the minimum wages on the different states. That's why people don't want to work in these jobs. And you see the big trend in AI and and and all these robotics. And think about this when you think about the civilian war. Look what the military is doing, look at drones, and that's a prime example. And I'm talking about a $180 million uh drone that a 19-year-old kid sits in a box and he uses like a like a uh a game boy and gets paid what he gets paid. But that 180 million global hawk that's up there is still run by a 19-year-old kid that gets up at five o'clock in the morning, does PT, and if he doesn't get fed or she and they fall asleep, we lose that $180 million drum because it's on a joystick. It's not a game, it's real. So technology's already taken over in in that area, and young kids today know that if I stay on this path of AI or I stay on this path of I'm gonna make more money in the end. And I think that's that's telling.
Rich:It's interesting. There's a debate in education right now, one that I won't wade into, but you have students that are using AI, they'll go into a class, they'll record the lecture, they'll transcribe the lecture, they'll use uh Google to then turn it into a podcast. Yeah, they'll create notes and a template and even a tutor. They're doing the work, but what they're doing is taking the way a particular professor may be teaching it that they may not be clicking with and finding an innovative way through technology to learn the material. Yeah.
Robert:Is that right or wrong? And I would I'm gonna throw back with a question to both of you. As a doctor that spent 20 years, maybe a heart surgeon, let's call him a heart surgeon, right? Or her. You go into the hospital, they think this is gonna happen to you. So you are 53% correct or 63% correct. Then we have AI do the same thing, and that may be 70% right. But together, the doctor and the AI can diagnose and treat 100% the problem. Which would you prefer? If it was my heart, 100%. Right. I think there's good and bad in in AI, and that's what people are worried about. But my experience has been amazing of learning as a 60-year-old. You got all these young kids that are all over it, like you just said. But I think that's the few I don't think it's going away. So we have to embrace it, we have to police it, and then we have to think of ways to use it in a better way than good or bad. I think that's the the problem, the good, bad, and the evil. And we have to figure out okay, how does it really help our business, our sales force, our our kitchen or whatever?
Rich:I'm gonna agree with that because I I do think that it can become a good or bad, and there's people that are going full bore into it, and there's people that are putting their head in the sand and avoiding it. But to look at it as a tool.
Robert:Well, look at look at today, look at what came out today. 200 million for an AI contract with the DOD government. And you you can read it, it's not it's not secret, it's out there. So we're already using it in many platforms. So I think you've got to jump on board. We do have to police it, but I also think it's great for retail too. I do.
Tony:I think it's it's gonna give and unlock a lot of consumer insight that different functions at a retail brand may have known in their silo, but when you pull it together and you can scrape and start to predict timing and weather and traffic patterns, it it could be a big unlock. I do worry about labor. We are gonna need some ways to manage job loss, but there's gonna be job gain. And I think in areas like hospitality, we kind of have to plan that out to reskill some folks potentially and and not have this turn into you know a big view that people are concerned about losing their job and it's all negative because there's a lot of positive to it.
Robert:Yeah, for the last two years, that's all I've been doing is saying, hey guys, these self-ordering platforms, they're helping you. Now, now, Johnny, Melissa, Fred, Frank, instead of making $15, $20, I'm now gonna pay you $30, but I'm gonna move you over here. You're gonna have a different. But again, it it's about the employee and the employer being one and understanding what what that change is and why it's happening. And I think if you're transparent, which you know big companies are really not transparent, but if if we're more transparent with people, our world would be a lot better placed in the workplace and environment because people would understand those changes.
Rich:So I'm gonna take you back a little bit. You joined the Royal Navy and and went into culinary arts. How did you make that connection?
Robert:It wasn't my I'll take you back a little bit earlier than that. I was 11 years old. My mother said to me, What do you want to do? And I said, Well, uh, I hated everything at school except sports, woodwork, and home economics. And the only reason I like home economics is because there was 30 girls and me. And I thought, I'm a sports, I'm a football player, I'm a sports player, I'm a, you know, I might get a girlfriend. I made my first quiche Lorraine at 11 years old. My father, a little five'eight Irish guy in the army, uh, meat and potatoes guy. I took the quiche home and I was amazed that pastry, cheese, eggs, onion, and bacon, and a little bit of milk can make this thing. I was totally amazed. And my dad was very um meat and potatoes. He's like, what is this crap kind of thing? And I would do that every week. I would bring home food to try and to try, to the point that when I did my NAMIT test, which is Navy and uh um maths and arithmetic, uh sorry, arithmetic and English tests, one being the highest, five being the lowest, I got five five. And the recruiter said, Well, you're not gonna be a pilot, you're not gonna be a brain surgeon, you're gonna be a cook. And I was very excited about that, literally. And when I went to school, HMS Pembroke, which is which is Chatham, so my brother was in the army, which was Chatham Dean, which was four miles away from me, and I was in the old naval base in Chatham, which is known for, you know, their warships and roparies and all that kind of thing, I was amazed that I could change somebody's mind in day by using food. That makes sense. So I didn't have an option, it was what they give me. Hey, congratulations, young man, you're in the Majesty's Royal Navy, and by the way, you're gonna be a cook. And I'm like, woohoo! Great. And I and I really did because I really enjoyed cooking.
Rich:So when you moved into the restaurant business, both in your businesses and then when you go into a business for 48 hours, what's the common thread that you look for that is indicative of where something has the potential to succeed or not?
Robert:So I'll give you I'll give you an example from a Fortune 500 company, because I have 16 of those that I am working with, right? For culture and leadership and and product and all that kind of stuff. But I also have my own 16 companies. So for me, the first thing I look at is leadership. What is the vision? Who's in charge? Did we give them the tools to do that vision? And do we have enough people and training to be able to do that? So if I go to a kitchen, for example, I look at the distance between the stove, the refrigeration, and the press, meaning where we put the food up in a restaurant. Is it one step, two step, three step? How's the kitchen laid out? How many people are in there? What is the menu? And how many steps to make each dish? So there's a system I use in everything, whether you're Walmart, whether you're American Airlines, whether you're I look at all those systems that are in place and I ask questions. And this is what makes people upset. And we can talk about military in a second. I ask the questions, why do we do it this way? And when somebody says to me, because that's the way we've always done it, I get so upset, then I fly off my handle. I'm gonna I'm gonna explain that in a second. So for me, I look at systems and personnel and the speed of service. How can I put that food out faster on a consistent basis for 6,000 people on aircraft carrier? And I'm gonna use an aircraft carrier as an example. I've been on every aircraft carrier there is in the United States Navy. Sailed on them, flown on them, trapped on them, done all. And it always amazes me. And I sat this week with some shipyard people and Chief of Naval Operations uh Admiral Caudle. I'm like, okay, this is how a cruise ship works. So we went to Miami and Fleet Week and we looked at a cruise ship. When it comes on, it gets done, goes straight up in elevator. Then I look at an aircraft carrier that feeds uh the new Forts 5,000, Eisenhower, et cetera, 6,000. Why do I have to go to a storeroom back aft when it should be right there into the galley? Number two, why do we have six three rack ovens when there should be six, 15 rack roll-in ovens, right? We're feeding 6,000 people. I look at every business, no matter whether it's the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, uh, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Space Force, Walmart, American. I look at the systems and then I pick the holes in the systems. And I've done that for Comcast, NBC, uh a whole bunch of people. But I start with, okay, tell me why you do this.
Tony:Well, it it's it's funny you say that because I I had an old boss that said retail is details, and it is a very precise way of doing things and having a process. And to your point, when when someone can't explain why they do it this way, it probably is not rooted in any science or six sigma analysis of how do we take the flag and the lag out of the process. So that's interesting.
Robert:Yeah, and you look at all these companies that that have uh telesales and and cable operators that you need to say, oh, by the way, my cable doesn't work today, or my credit card doesn't work in your machine, and we farm that to people when they can't answer with the original call and they pass it on to the next one, next one, next one, next one. Then you wonder why we get frustrated, right? Instead of having the ability to fix the problem right there and then, which I've done shortcut a lot of stuff. And I think that's one of my strengths. Weakness I get, I get upset when people don't change fast enough. That's a big weakness for me. When we know we can save hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, and I mean B with a B, billions with a B, because I'm doing it now.
Rich:I'm seeing it. Yeah, if I relate it to metrics, and and Tony, you've seen this. We will, and for for students that are listening to this, we will teach a lot of metrics, we'll teach a lot of reports, we'll teach how to derive them. And then if you ask the question, okay, what are you taking from that? What's the value of the metric? You can have 30 metrics. If you don't understand what they mean and what you do with them, I would rather take five or six metrics that I fully understand rather than a report with a bunch of numbers that looks good in a deck but doesn't tell me anything.
Robert:I would also uh challenge anybody that says relationships don't count in what you do. Because to me, that was a biggest learning thing about relationships and understanding whose role is what and why, and having a cup of coffee and saying, Oh, you have an issue. How can I help you solve that issue? You come to me and say, Hey Robert, I need um whatever you need, and I go away and I think about it. I say, I think we can do this. Is that what you're looking for? So I did that with Walmart on a bunch of food items, and we end up doing this amazing group of products that were a collaboration between two people, or or two groups of people, I should say. And I I think modern day we say, Oh, go away with a problem and fix it, instead of saying, Hey, Tony, I've got this problem. Rich, I got this problem. This is what I think we can do. Do you use what do you think? Tell me, does it work? Does it not work? Why doesn't it work? It's a collaboration of people that makes the end uh result better. It's not one group of people. And and when people say, Oh, we're gonna give this contract to somebody, I'm like, uh, I don't think that's a good idea.
Rich:Let me ask a question. So as you expanded from restaurant business into your brands, Terra Armin and many other brands that that you have owned and the and that you own work on, you've answered it to some extent. But what are the commonalities that you see from the food industry to retail branding and the success rate?
Robert:I think I that's really interesting to me because it's something I didn't understand when I got into my first company, which was Irvine Time, like T H Y-Me, it's just herbs, right? But I was still working at at a casino and I had this side business and whatever. I didn't understand what branding means and and what customer loyalty and turn rates and burn rates and you know, all those kind of things that I understand now. When we started Fit Crunch in 2013, and this kind of goes in the whole system of automation and things, we had in Pittsburgh three lines of 18 people. We made the cookies at night. They came in top them. We were doing 70,000 bars a day. Walmart was customer, Costco was customer, but we couldn't keep up with those. So we'd short one, we'd do this, right? Then I said, okay, how do we make more? Well, it's physically impossible to make more by hand, but machines can use faster. It took another 30, 32, 35 million to fix a line that could 400-foot line that could do 300,000 bars uh a day. Then you have a problem of, oh, how do you how do you put them bars in a in a box and that's another 20 million? So modernization of equipment helped build that brand to a mega brand. And we've taken that mentality of now what we're doing with terror armor, with the the underclothes, now uniforms. And I will tell you, everything that we put our hands in, a lot of that money goes into our foundation to take care of the men and women that wear the cloth of our nation and their families and first responders. So I'm a big believer in if we create a brand and it does well, X amount goes in a year. I think the branding piece is huge because it has to be authentic to you. We don't get into anything that doesn't surround. It's almost like having a pie. And Tony, you were understanding that. So, so my core potential here is food, but then there's alcohol, then there's clothes. Then there's fitness, then there's there's all these other folks of the wheel that have to believe be believable to a consumer. So I'll give an example. I make my own aftershave, right? It's too blended, and uh and people say to me, Oh my god, it smells amazing. Where can I get it? Who's gonna buy an aftershave off a chef? It's like Paula did, Dean did years ago. She made um scented candles like apple pie and things. It didn't last very long. You've got to know what people know you for and they're gonna follow you for. That's your retail base. And I do a lot of of what you were talking about, Tony. I do I buy a lot of uh of information, right? What aisles are going down, what's being sold, what's you know, we don't know names of people, of course we don't, but we know their shopping patterns. That's why casinos are so good at putting colors and and and maths and and things that lead you to certain machines. I go into a store with a list of stuff, and then the list goes out because I love walking up and down the aisles to see what's there. Instead of spending a hundred bucks, I'm spending 200, 300 bucks because oh, I like that. I want that. I do uh and it's understanding the patterns and you're talking about branding, colors. What are you known for in I'm known in food, I'm known in clothing. So I look, I pick the fights that I think I can win, but I don't go into a to a gunfight with a knife.
Rich:Someone has a follow-up to that, and then I'm gonna turn it over to Tony. So have you ever, I won't say ever picked a fight, and you don't have to name the brand because it may be one of yours, it may be another one, but have you ever taken on a project or started a brand that you knew deep down inside was it had the potential for success and it didn't work?
Robert:Yes, totally. So years and years ago, somebody came to me with a a healing professional iced tea type of drink. I bought into it in a big way because I really the science behind it proved that it worked. My problem was I sold it at the wrong price and the minimum run was 100,000 cases. I literally ended up giving 100,000 cases away. I didn't do my due diligence in that space on pricing. Because if I'd have put that drink in at $2.99, Coca-Cola would have been buying my company out of $3 billion. That it was that good. And it went away, actually, uh, in a deal with another company. So yeah, I mean, you're always gonna have failures. And what do you learn from failure? Uh, don't make the same mistake twice. You know, it's okay to make mistakes, just don't make the same mistake twice. And that's where if I'd have said to if I'd have said to Tony or you, Rich, you know, what do you think this is a good price to come in at? You would have said, A, and I would have said, Well, yeah, okay, you're buying it, I get it. You're gonna put the mark upon it, but I would have come to a middle ground and said, Okay, this is what I should have done. And I didn't. So, so I take responsibility for that failure. And it may just be a product that that nobody wants, you know. She can create all the products you want, but it is a consumer need for it. And I've done that. My first real product was a pizza, a frozen pizza. It was amazing, made by uh in in Michigan, the best pizza guy in the on the world. But as soon as I put into retail, a big guy came up, his 250,000 marketing money and get rid of Irvine. And you know how that works. I mean, it it's just the world. And I learned from that, okay? Don't go into those where big boys can can take you out in a minute. Interesting.
Tony:Hey, what what's the best advice you've ever received?
Robert:Slow down. I run a thousand miles a minute and I have great ideas, and I have a a book by the side of my bed that I that I write every night when I wake up and go to the restaurant, and then the morning I try and figure out what it is, and then we run it by the team now. Uh before I used to say, oh, let's go and do this pizza, let's do this drink, let's do this, and you have a thousand things going on, and then really nobody wants that. And and I've learned to slow down, listen to people that need something. And and I and I'll give you an example. I get brought to me all the time from major retailers, oh, I want to do this on a private label, whether it be alcohol, whether it be food or whatever. I want exactly this, and they'll give me a package and I'll say, okay, you want that. But you want it cheaper, you want it better, you want it faster. We can do that because we're nimble enough to do that in the manufacturing world that we live in. But I don't want to be doing that for everybody unless they can turn around and say to me, uh, Rich is ordering 100,000 units of this, then it's worth me doing it. Only if the price is right, it sells through, and you order another 100,000 units. So I think it's the biggest advice I would say, slow down. What makes you unique in the product you have and focus on the uniqueness of the product to sell it through? But make sure it's not Rich's job or your job to sell my product, it's my job to sell my product in your stores. That there has to be that going back to your experiential piece. What is the experience that I'm getting? Because if I put something on a shelf in a package and you can't touch it and feel it and look at it, and then you're not gonna buy it, even once. Yeah.
Tony:What do you wish someone had told you early in your career that you never learned that you you would pass on to a young young person today?
Robert:What makes you unique? And nobody I I never had a mentor in business. I'm a cook. I make eggs. So I had I had a mentor to teach me how to cook eggs and cook food, but manufacturing. I wish somebody had told me what the reality of going to a copacker and you know how they work and what they do and how my recipes can't be translated to machines. Even today, by the way, you have to build the machine based on what it is. Some machines can't take sugar, real sugar, it has to be a synthetic sugar. And I think when we look at the foods that we have in this country, that information never came to me. I've literally painstakingly had to learn the lessons of you don't know what you're doing in manufacturing, you've got to learn it, buddy. And again, I'm stubborn. So for me, it's like, well, why not? Why can't we do that? And and then they tell you, well, by the way, that machine's gonna cost you this to be able to do this, and it's gonna be a three-year wait to make it. So I think I would say before you open your mouth, um, learn what you don't know about what you're trying to do, whether it's going into the Walmart's American Airlines, selling liquor to uh to to bars, uh clubs, and things I've had to learn that I didn't have, you know, a Jean-Paul Mitchell or DeJiel to to show me how to build a brand like Patron, right? He started Patrona out of the back of his car, just like his hair, and sold it for $5.1 billion, you know, X amount later. He learned the hard way. He lived in his car, and that those people inspire me because I didn't have a good education at school. I had a my life education has been really good because I failed so many times, and I've had to go back and trace the steps of failure to be able to make the blueprint for success. So people like that that inspire me. Look, the tech things are way above my level. Um, I invest in them, I bring in people that are smarter than me now. Uh and before it was all about, you know, well, I'm the boss, and I'm, you know, I'm it's my way or the highway. Now I'm like, no, listen, learn, and execute what was being told if you feel good about it.
Tony:Well, what what's the skill or trait that you look for in people that you maybe want to partner with or help or bring onto your team? What's kind of one of those underrated things you you try to sniff out?
Robert:Well, I'll tell you you both would would get this. And it was a a special operations general and an admiral, by the way, that taught me this. So CEOs of Fortune 500 companies look at resumes because we look for experience, we look for all those things. If you look at our special operations guys or people in our military, it's the cohesion of the team. So if I if I talk to Rich and I really got on well with Rich, I'm like, Rich, I want you to be my CEO or CEO because we click, not because you've got experience in it. We'll learn that together. The person we hire has to click with the team. I don't, and I don't necessarily look at uh experience because I feel that I can say somebody from FitCrunch to run Terra Armor, to run the two distilleries we have that is business. Business 101. It's you make more than money than you than you waste, you put some away, and you keep producing new product. So for me, it's about the cohesion of the team, and this is what we do. I will put somebody we're gonna hire with my CO Justin and all the key players, they have an hour of conversation. Then the last one is really my wife, and because she's been way smarter than me. And and I hired three CW5s from the Army at big salaries and give big jobs, and they all failed me. And she told me, don't do that. And I end up fired them a year or two later, after losing millions of dollars, by the way. So it's really how do the people click with a team? And it's it's really fun. If you want to watch somebody put them in a room, and and you see big companies doing this now, put them in a social setting, not in an interview setting, and see how they talk to people around them when there's quote unquote nobody watching them.
Tony:I love that one. How do they treat the person that's waiting in them on the table, the hostess uh that it speaks volumes? In fact, I've always thought that that was a great final interview for like a C-suite executive was to take them to dinner and see how they you know interacted with folks around them.
Robert:I I've only I've only learned that last couple of years, and I watch people how differently they are and how they, you know, some are dismissive and and rude and right, no, that guy's not gonna work in our. We spend a lot of time on the road, 345 days a year on the road, somewhere. The teams have to work together because we spend so much time together. So for me, the cohesion of the team is more important than the resume.
Tony:If you were advising a student uh and they were just starting out, what what uh wisdom would you impart a young student coming out of school this this year when the job market's a little soft and the economy is a little crazy, and like what what advice would you give them?
Robert:I would I would say go and find the best in class that you want to be in. In other words, if you want to be an AI, you want to be in robotics, you want to be a chef, you want to the best in class, and you go and work for them for free for the first three months. And and the reason I say that is this, because if somebody knocks on my door and says, Hey Robert, I'm willing to work for you for three months for nothing, but at the end of three months, you have to decide on a contract, by the way, am I good enough to work for you? And you tutor me along that way, right? And it's hard for a lot of people to do that now because the job market and and by the way, getting no money, you've got to live with your mom and dad and all those kind of things. But I I give that advice all the time. Go and see somebody that you really think is good at what they do. Ask if I can work for a month, two months, whatever you decide. But I think three months is a great, is a great window of time because you can go and start your own companies, you've been to school, you've got the education, whatever, but it requires money, it requires relationships, and we all know what I just said about relationships. So if you work for somebody else, you get to know the systems that are in place that maybe you would change, but you get to know the relationships that these people have. So I would say always, look, I'm not saying you have to work for free, but if somebody said to me coming out of school, would you go and work with Jean-George von Ricken for three months for free? I'm like, sign me up, I'll figure it out. My mother will pay me something to live somewhere in a hostel or whatever, but for three months to work with this guy, absolutely. Because I'm gonna gain so much knowledge of firsthand that I would never see otherwise.
Rich:Hey, Rich, over to you. Yeah, I love that advice because you figure if you how much you're paying for college, why wouldn't you pay for three months to learn from somebody that or or for free?
Robert:Remember, college is this, and universities, and I've got two kids that have just finished them, two young ladies. They're great at giving you basics, but when you get in the real world, what half of it you've learned, you keep. And then you have to turn the other half into doing real business, right? Whether you're a lawyer, you're a doctor, whatever. It it's not always the straightforward line that that universities and college teaches you. And I'm I'm very thankful that I didn't go to, I wasn't smart enough in the first place, but I didn't go to college. I had to learn it on the job.
Rich:So we're gonna close with uh three rapid fire questions. I'll take the first, Tony, you queue up the second, and I will close up. And I've got a list and I'm not sure which one to ask, but I'm gonna go with if you're traveling to a new city, never been to, what's the perfect day?
Robert:Oh, I normally so when I travel, I'm coming from somewhere to somewhere always. And it could be from one country to another or one city to another. My biggest thing is a gym and the hotel. They're my two biggest luxuries because I have to work out every day. Sometimes I'll eat on a plane, sometimes I won't. Uh, I'm not worried about food as much as I am a gym and a and a clean room.
Tony:Oh man, you're you're ruining my question, which was because you're a food guy. Like, hey, what's your comfort? What's your go-to comfort food?
Robert:It's funny. I'm very simple. And my wife will tell you because she cooks when I'm home, and I love it. Like, for a chef that I am of the caliber that I am, I'm not a big uh go out of my circle and try something new. I'm set in my ways. I can cook all different things, but I like you know, roast chicken and mashed potatoes, roast chicken and sauteed broccoli, or or my wife makes these uh by the way, very I my wife's telling me liber. I love liber. But my wife makes these um ground chicken patties with some Italian hot sausage or sweet, doesn't matter, mixed into into squash but uh uh smash burgers and a cast iron, but she puts the onions and on the on the base and then pushes the meat into it and and I go nuts on them. I could eat, I could carry them all day, every day, everywhere. Because they're that good. I like comfort food, is basically what I'm saying. Mashed potatoes. When when I order DoorDash, yes, I do, and my wife's away, I'll do chicken massala and and and mashed potatoes and broccoli. And very simple.
Rich:So I'm going to close out with because I am genuinely curious. And when I when we interviewed Tony, he gave me a song that I hadn't heard of that now pops up on my playlist every three days. What's your walk-on song? Or if not a walk-on song, what's that song that when it's it playing at the gym, you hit the gym harder?
Robert:There's no such thing as hit the gym harder for me. The song that I've been doing since I started uh in this country in 1996 is The Winner Takes It All by ABBA. Because when I go into a meeting or when I start a TV show, I listen to that before I go into that meeting and that show, and it pumps me up. And just the words, the winner takes it all, the spoils to the victor, all those things. That's on my playlist, military band music when I'm working out. People think heavy metal, I'd rather the band of the Royal Marines or or Royal Air Force or something playing in my ear while I'm lifting. It's the headspace I get into when I listen to that music.
Rich:The winner takes it all. I love it. I I am uh We're gonna listen to that now every time. I'm gonna add it to the playlist. Um I'm acting I'm adding it to the to the hiking playlist.
Robert:So so here's what's what I want you to do. When you listen to it the first time, write down these thoughts afterwards.
Rich:I absolutely will. Well, and I keep actually whenever the uh whenever Tony's song comes on, I think about it, I smile. What was Tony's song?
Tony:We ready. It's uh it's a it's like a theme song if you're going into a big sporting event.
Robert:Love it. Got it. Yeah, it's the same, it's the same kind of thing. It pumps me up the words, and then you go in there and you you nail it, you know.
Rich:Well, Robert, thank you very much. This is this is phenomenal. I appreciate you sticking with us. Of course, technology isn't always our friends, but we adapt. What is it, Tony? We adapt, improvise. Yeah, there you go. That's the marine motto there. Uh simplify there, Robert.
Robert:Appreciate you both, and uh great chatting with you. And if you need anything, uh, you know where I am.
