Watson’s Seasoning Blends founder Lori Amos

Jim Moore 0:14

Hello, my name is Jim, this is my podcast the bloody vegans. You're very welcome to it. Each week I'll be travelling ever deeper into the world of veganism, discovering along the way a multitude of viewpoints from the political and ethical to the practical. I'll be doing this are a series of conversations, each aiming to further illuminate my understanding and hopefully yours. Of all things plant centric, and this week is no different. Before I tell you who this week's guest is, I should tell you this episode of the bloody vegans podcast is brought to you by the good folks over at veg one from the Vegan Society. Veg one is the nutritional vitamin and mineral supplement designed for vegans by vegans launched in 2005, and it was rebranded in 2021 with that completely plastic free new package, which you can repurpose for all things around your house or suggest you do and it provides you with all the nutritional support you'd expect from a vitamin designed by the Vegan Society alongside obviously your healthy and balanced vegan diet. And you get it all for an affordable price, a six month supply is gonna cost you just 12 pounds 70. So a little over two pounds a month. And it offers you all of the EU nutrient reference values and RVs of vitamins B 12, d3, iodine, selenium, b two, B six, and folic acid, many of the ones that folks will tell you you need to take a good look at if you are undertaking a plant based diet. So I recommend you head over to the vegan society.com Search for veg one and you can find out all you need to know there and pick up your supply. So this episode of the bloody vegans podcast brought to you by the good folks over at the Vegan Society and more specifically veg one. Excellent. Lastly, admin, let's get into the episode at hand. So I was lucky enough to be joined by Laurie Amos. She's the co founder of Scout 22, who is a full service marketing agency that deal with conscious brands. And she's got years of experience within marketing. And so I pick her brains about all things kind of vegan in terms of the world of plant based products and, and so on and so forth. So we have an interesting chat about marketing and the state of the sort of veganism in it in a capitalist society if you like so it's an interesting chat. I certainly learned a lot from Laurie she's got so much experience. But we also talked about Lori's latest venture alongside her partner Jim, which is Watson seasoning blends. Watson seasoning blends are a family owned artisanal food company based in LA that were founded to make it easier for people to eat fresh, healthy home cooked food. And particularly I suppose skew towards plant based options. The seasonings, work with anything I mean, if you are omnivorous, and you can use them with those, but I think they're really tuned to help folks transitioning over already in the in the plant based world in the vegan community to really kind of spice up your cooking and take it to the next level. There are so many different options on Watson seasoning blends. There's the umami, there's the California everything you name it, there are so many types Italian blends that there's there's loads in there. And they just look incredible. I can't wait to try one. They're not over in the UK just yet. I don't think so. But if you head to taste Watson's dot com, you can find out all you need to know there. The California everything one I should actually mentioned I think Laurie mentioned at the end of the episode that if you purchase the California everything seasoning blend, our portion of the proceeds goes towards the California Fire Foundation, who are supporting California firefighters, the Benevolent Fund for California firefighters who have been dealing with all kinds of impacts of climate change through forest fires and so on so forth. So well worth investing there because you get an amazing product and you can also give back through that too. So yeah, taste Watson stock calm and you can find out more. Anyway, we should get on with the episode ahead. So without further ado, here's a conversation between me and Laurier moss, the co founder of Watson's seasoning blends

excellent already, so it'd be great to get started with a little bit of your personal journey into the world of veganism what's brought you here?

Lori Amos 4:54

Yeah, you know, I'd like to say it was one defining moment and I flipped or Like a video or something, but it really started out as vanity that's pure and simple. And I honestly, I can't tell you my journey without divulging my age, because because I'm a little long in the tooth. So when I was about 15 Okay, so I ate like teenagers, the, you know, a, the McDonald's and Big Macs, and, you know, Carl's Jr. In fact, it was the Western bacon cheeseburger that I used to love that was the last hamburger or piece of meat that I ate. And I stopped growing at 15 1415. And I got chubby. And so I went on a diet too, I stopped eating the, you know, the really bad for you. meaty, fatty foods. And, and, you know, six months later, I was thin. And when I tried to eat it again, just because you know, it tasted good. Or my friends we'd be at a at a McDonald's or Burger King or something. It didn't sit well with me, I no longer had, you know, the desire, I guess. The desire wasn't as strong as, as it used to be. And so I got pretty sick when I tried to eat meat again. So it then I stopped eating chicken, maybe about six months later. So I was 16 Now at the time, and this was the 80s. So there wasn't a lot to eat, if you go vegan or vegetarian at the time was vegetarian, and. And then I saw an expo day on, I think it was like 60 minutes about chickens. And then I thought, Oh, I don't need to eat that. So long story short, what it did was it broke the cognitive dissonance. So I started out, you know, I've always loved animals, but I had the cognitive dissonance that most people have. You know, I just would make excuses to eat them. And once you break the cognitive dissonance, it's just hard to, to go back. And so I often hear people who do it for vanity reasons, and I don't poopoo that, you know, whatever brings you to that point. And then I would say about 20 years ago, I again, vanity reasons I, you know, one of my my dermatologist said, oh, you should really cut out dairy. It's really bad for your skin. It's bad for inflammation. And again, I did it for vanity reasons. And then I that's when I started to open my eyes about, you know, the horrors of dairy farming and all of the nasty ingredients in dairy. And then, so what evolved as kind of an ego you know, contention it will became really one of the love of animals and it just doesn't, I just don't want to be a part of that, you know, I think it was Jane Goodall or somebody said no, but my body will not be attune. I probably misquoting that, I don't know, whoever said that. It's true. I just, it doesn't I don't need it, I don't miss it. It was certainly hard, you know, when in the early 2000s, when I was full blown vegan to to find things to eat other than you know, the tofu and brown rice and you know, stuff like that we had very limited food back then. But I did it and of course now I you know, living in Los Angeles and having you know, these these stores that have a plethora of vegan options available to me, I don't miss it at all. And as I'm getting older, and you know, in my mid 50s I started to become more aware of the health aspect of it. So again, I don't poopoo you know, some of these like, you know, processed foods, you know, I think it's great that we're moving away from meat and that's if that's the gateway or if that's what's going to help people you know, land in a place where they become better cooks and they really pay attention to what they're eating. That's great but about two years ago, again with the inflammation and just not really feeling like I have a lot of energy I started to eat more like Whole Foods and I learned how to cook and and I have a great you know, I'm in a great area for fresh fruit and veg because you know, the

grew up like a few minutes from some of the most fertile land in the country. And so we had you know, we have year round fresh fruit and veg so, so yeah, it's all good.

Jim Moore 10:00

give back to the 20 odd years ago when you sort of decided to make the full transition to veganism. And obviously, you mentioned the options weren't so prevalent back then. But what about the reaction from from those around you? Were people around you fairly aware of what you were doing. What did you have already a bit of a ready made community around you? Or did you have to kind of find Well, no,

Lori Amos 10:24

I, frankly, never growing up at being a vegetarian. I didn't have a community, at least not a community identified with and you know, if you were a vegetarian in the 80s 90s, you typically lived in an area which I call Topanga Canyon or Ohio, you know, lovely areas, beautiful areas, but there's a lot of high propensity of, you know, earthy patchouli, you know, wearing, you know, hippies love the hippies, nope, no problem. You kind of fell into that bucket of, you know, maybe you were you spent a lot of time aligning your chakras and, you know, that type of stuff. But I really didn't have I didn't have any family members or any friends who were vegetarian, and then certainly not vegan. It was I was kind of seen as extremist and kind of, you know, a little bit of an outcast and I've always have been, so it didn't really change. You know, it didn't sway me either way, I didn't feel like oh, I've left out. I've always felt like a march, you know, to the beat of a different drummer. So I grew up in Mexican American and Mexican American I grew up in with my mom cooking, like, everything had meat in it if in fact, my dad said, you know, if it's, there's no meat at the table, it's not really a meal. We had the, you know, chilli con cognate, and the boil and everything, make a lot of Mexican food that my mom would make. And she's an excellent cook. But not a lot of, you know, vegetarian or vegan options. Certainly, in fact, my mom treated it for for many years as a fad. And every now and then she'll like be putting pouring cream into the, you know, coffee or tea and I have to remind her and so, it was it was difficult. Now, I don't mind it, because it obviously there's so many, you know, vegan veganism has is in the mainstream now. It's thankfully, you know, good or bad. It's super cool. You know, it's it's everywhere. And so now I find my siblings, uh, you know, saying things to me, like, oh, I tried, you know, Beyond Meat, or I tried an Impossible Burger, or I tried this restaurant and I ate vegan or I'm making a vegan dish. So where I was made fun of now, it's like, I kind of inside I'm like, Haha, you know, I was right.

Jim Moore 13:04

Thinking of, obviously, you know, you, as you mentioned a couple of times that the the health that certainly the these, like pivotal points in your journey was was a key motivator. Did you find people responded more favourably to you when you talked about health? And perhaps when you talked about, you know, I've seen this documentary about how the chicken industry operates or how the dairy industry operates?

Lori Amos 13:27

Yeah, for sure. So there's another cognitive bias, a confirmation bias, and people don't want to. They put up their defences and their hackles if you mentioned, you know, the way that the animals are treated, and it stems from not wanting, they don't want to believe that they're part of this. Or they think that, you know, it's coming from somebody extreme. So, yes, they know about, I'm just thinking about how I talk to my siblings, I'm close to my siblings. So I talked to my sister, for example, about, you know, how the chickens are treated and the male chicks and, and she, you know, she doesn't feel this way now. But there was a point where she would say, well, not the chickens that I get, it says clearly, it says here on the label that it's, you know, they're, they're, you know, having a good old time until their numbers up, or you see the advertising and I've been in advertising my whole life. So I get I get you know, how this happened and why it happened. But you know, the happy cows living in the California sunshine and you know, everything's rosy. I, it's just not true. So

Jim Moore 14:44

as you mentioned, that, obviously the cognitive dissonance created by advertising and so on and perpetuated by advertising, be interesting just to get your thoughts on it. How do we sort of in the quote, unquote, vegan community fight against that? I mean that there's such big, big budgets behind those kinds of that kind of advertising. And that sense of, you know, this is organic, and it's farm raised. And you know that, in fact, I saw an advert in the UK recently that was that's, it's called the eat balanced campaign. And the campaign is sponsored by the meat and dairy industry in the UK. And the whole campaign is this around this phrase of like, eat balance, essentially saying, if you're not eating meat and dairy, then you're not eating balanced. And they've put massive TV campaigns and so on into this this industry, obviously, to me in the sort of the in the community, it smacks of desperation. But a lot of people are watching that. I just wanted to get your perspective on how do how do we, when we're still so small in numbers, fight against that?

Lori Amos 15:53

Yeah, that's a tough one. Because it's it didn't happen overnight. Right. This has been going on for decades and decades of really brainwashing people into thinking what is what's healthy and what isn't, and having, you know, people, even the medical community, it's ingrained in their heads, not everyone, obviously, we have, you know, doctors who are a lot more savvy and who are, you know, who are definitely pro plant but a plant based diet. We've seen the numbers it just makes sense, right? It's, it's, it's been going on for decades. And it is the muscle it really is policy. It is the laws, it's the the the the subsidise farming industry, it's the lobbying, it's it really has to change at that level. Simultaneously, I really do believe that these plant based companies should start a kind of a coalition like the dairy industry, and, you know, got got milk, and they take those big advertising dollars, and they create campaigns and they don't just do digital ads in their campaigns that are, you know, television spots, radio, print, outdoor, experiential, I mean, they're everywhere. And it hasn't been I know that that Tesco, UK is actually a little bit more advanced than us. And maybe it's because it's a lot smaller and a lot more affordable to do. You know, a, I forget if it was Tesco, or Sainsbury's, but they there was a really beautiful television spot of a father making vegan food for her daughter for his daughter. And it was it to me, it was perfect. It's just getting in the hearts and minds. Right and right. And, and, and coming up with a narrative that, that works. And you know what, personally, I've always felt this, and this is why I got into creating my own marketing and advertising and PR agency is they're hiring the wrong people. Unfortunately, you know, vegans would a vegan business will hire either, you know, a cousin, a friend, there's like a group of people that are maybe animal rights people, and they're lovely, and they do some amazing things, but that's not their craft. Their craft is not, is not developing, you know, strategic advertising and marketing campaigns, communication campaigns. It took me I started out 30 plus years ago and advertising it, it took me a good 10 years to figure out what I was doing. And probably another 10 years to be super good at it. Right? And so I see these people that they're hiring, and they're, they're just not the right people to get to get that level of creativity, that level of strategy out. So combinate, you know, and maybe they're, you know, I know, because I've, you know, the last six years, I've had my own agency, I know that they're looking to at first it was they're looking to other vegans, right, and the pool is really small and vegans that have like deep advertising experience, and then friends, family, other vegans and animal rights people and and then they're going to big agencies and the agencies that they're going to because now they are starting to go right and they are going to big agencies, I know few. A few plant based pretty global businesses that are hiring these these agencies that I used to work at, and and they don't the agency doesn't get it so It's really hard, the agency doesn't get kind of the ethos and what you know what veganism is about and the history behind it. And so I think it's hiring the right people hiring the right, you know, hiring the right strategic senior level marketing people, at their businesses, and then hiring the right partners to bring them there. And I don't see that I really just don't I mean, there's maybe a few people in businesses that I've seen hire the right people, but for the most part, they just they don't and that's unfortunate

Jim Moore 20:38

that you say it's a difficult thing to balance, I guess, is really intrinsically understanding that ethos, what it is that makes those who are either on the verge of veganism vegan adjacent, or are vegan themselves, what makes them tick, what what is what's going on, if you're not in that world already. And, and marrying that with, you know, years of experience in advertising? I mean, that right, pretty tricky one to get.

Lori Amos 21:04

Yeah, so you see that a lot, though, they like advertising, I think I've done some Tik Tok videos, or I've, like, you know, I have, you know, however many facts, it's like, that's just as a small tactic in marketing and the big picture of marketing, bringing something to market is, has, you know, 500 different aspects of, you know, points of understanding and aspects of successfully bringing something to market and making it a product that's set up for success and is bringing in, you know, has longevity. And then I think, also, they're looking for a quick buck. Like, right now, with all of the kind of everything amped up with, let's invest in this and we're gonna go, you know, we're creating the bio that and the, you know, 3d printed that and that's great, I'm not slamming that, but it's just seems to be like, it's, it's like, it's everything is fast. And I think that's what led you know, everything's fast and throw a lot of money. And so kind of like, it's, it's all like, kind of how the tech it is marrying the tech of how it was like, let's, let's throw every let's try to break things and, you know, keep changing and moving fast and, and, and, and the older I get, the more I wax nostalgic for quality and, and thinking things through with my partner who that actually is my husband as well, we, for Watson's we, we really wanted to do something right? We're not looking to become wealthy. You know, we certainly have a mortgage and a lot of rescue animals that we have to pay for but we we don't want to do things fast. We want to do things well. We want to we want we're concerned with quality and and doing things the right way. And and yeah,

Jim Moore 23:11

let's talk Watson's as we're there, like what was the the genesis of Watson's? Where did it come from? Tell us a story.

Lori Amos 23:18

Yeah, sure. So one of one of the ways to God, there's so many places My mind is going, one of the ways to get people to eat vegan to help break the cognitive dissonance is and to to make people understand that it's not as difficult as they, you know, feel that it is and that you're, you're satisfied, you're completely satisfied. And in fact, you feel great and you're happy with you know, what you're eating is to make things taste good, right? So seasoning is, is one of the core things you know, it's not barbecue doesn't taste delicious, because it's the meat the barbecue tastes delicious, because it's the seasoning. It's the hickory smoke. It's the sweet and salty, it's the you know, the umami and it with the tomatoes. So I started to cook more during the pandemic, as most people in the world have, right, we're looking more we're not going to the restaurants we're cooking more. And what I found is I would find a recipe it would have all the spices you needed to you know, create said recipe but it would be a lot of spices. So I looked at my spice drawer, my spice cupboard, and it was just full of spices that I know I was going to use maybe once or twice and then you always had to mix it like if you're going to create that you need this. These three spices, maybe you're out of that one and I thought ah there's got to be like a better way and And the other thing was I like to keep my spices in front of me when I'm cooking, and I leave them on the on the counter, and they're, you know, it's not very attractive, I'm very much into, you know, I like I aesthetics are important to me and the home and I like midcentury modern, which is kind of clean and streamlined. And so I thought you know, it'd be really nice to have some seasoning go to seasoning blends, that I don't have to think about it, I want to whip up some lentil soup or you know, a veggie burger or some you know, barbecue, something, I just go to that seasoning, and it'd be great if they were if if it looked attractive, it was just an attractive, you know, container and and of course the ingredients I mean, we we wanted the ingredients to be clean, we wanted it to be traceable, seasoning I don't know if you know this, but seasoning is one of the dirtiest foods out there. And I say dirty meaning Yes, it could have you know, pieces of cardboard in it or dirt or, but it also is mixed with other seasonings, right you're getting, let's say you you buy a seasoning blend at the grocery store, and you think you're getting one thing, it's very much like buying fish at a restaurant, you think you're getting this fish, but you don't know and, and so most seasoning is very dirty. So we wanted a clean seasoning, we wanted the growers to be paid fairly, we wanted to source the ingredients wanted the ingredients to be organic. And you know, people pay a lot of money for food. But the seasoning is kind of an afterthought, or they'll just get any old seasoning. And it's like, well, good seasoning is important, right? It's just as important as the food itself, the ingredients that that's the main ingredients. So there was that aspect. And then also I manage, you know, the gift giving for a lot of clients for their, you know, I'm the stand in are consulted for a lot of companies and I'm always looking to, to for those companies to give gifts to their key clients. And I thought, you know, candy, plastic stuff, I don't want to do that I think you know, seasonings would be a great gift idea. It's great to have, you know, on your shelf in your house, you feel good about it. So. So that's how Watson's was born. And I'm hoping that more people learn how to cook aren't afraid of cooking, they don't think it is think of it as daunting, obviously I want them to eat ham plant based and cook my seasonings with, you know, plant based foods, but you could use it for anything really. And if they have to, you know our seasonings could be added to stir store bought burger burgers, like for example, we tried, we have a blend called umami, umami. And we did a taste test and we put the umami on, you know, impossible and beyond and a few other

of the main brands of processed burgers. And it just really made it stand out. I mean, it's so much better. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, we just, you know, I personally love the idea. I love spices, I love the history of spices. You know, I love smelling them. And I hope people love it as well. And I hope people you know, learn how to cook or don't feel as exhausted by the thought of cooking and preparing meals and hope they take pride in you know, doing that.

Jim Moore 28:56

Is that a particularly kind of personal mission for you as someone in the kind of vegan communities you know, you mentioned earlier over the last kind of couple of years been thinking more whole foods plant based, it did almost see it as a kind of a remedy or I mean, you mentioned there is kind of like a long, almost a bit of a remedy to the processed vegan foods that are out there kind of like there is another way you know, there is the whole food plus space. Do you see that as an important part of the mission?

Lori Amos 29:30

I do I do and I'm I want to be careful because I don't want it to be I guess not careful I want I don't want it to be I you know whole food plant based or nothing you know that's that's certainly not my philosophy. I think certainly the people that are ill and have type two diabetes, which there are a lot of them in this country. I think yes, it's like you know, do or die right let's let's get that under control or obesity but like I said, if somebody wants to go out for you know burgers and vegan fast food I think that's great. I think that yeah, that's what's going to you know if you need to do that or want to do that, I mean occasionally I you know, we go out and we have we have a client that we love their food and it's a vegan fast food joint and we love it and we go out and we have pizza sometimes but my personal journey is I wasn't feeling well even on a vegan diet and in my early 50s And I did this whole food plant based programme I felt fantastic but I was so bored with just putting on what were you allowed to put on? I did like a 20 day immersive it was like soy sauce a little bit of soy sauce and a little bit of balsamic right or mustard and I'm like I can't eat like this. I love Tina we live for food my husband's half Italian we like to eat we like good food too. You know that's yeah, that's where we spend our money. It's it's on our our rescue animals and food because you know, we just love to eat so

Jim Moore 31:20

this episode of the bloody vegans podcast is brought to you by veg one from the Vegan Society. Veg one is the nutritional vitamin and mineral supplement, designed for vegans by vegans launched back in 2005 and rebranded in 2021. With a fantastic new plastic free package. Veg one provides nutritional support alongside a healthy and balanced vegan diet, all for an affordable price with a six month supply available for just 12 pounds 70 vidwan will cost you little over two pounds a month and offers EU nutrient reference values or en RVs a vitamin B 12, d3 ID and selenium B to B six and folic acid base one is chewable, it's affordable and reliable. You can take it once a day. It's available in fantastic orange and black currant flavours super easy and convenient, completely plastic free. So why not head over to vegan society.com Search for veg one and take your next healthy steps into the world of veganism. But what was the process like of starting starting a business like this in terms of like the research or the product itself? Because it you know, if you said to me, you know, start a business in spice blends. I honestly I wouldn't know where to start. I mean, even if I found myself relatively proficient in the kitchen, is that's one thing coming up with you know, the right blends and so on and understanding spice in that in the in the way that you've you've, you've you've come to is a difficult thing. How how did you go about doing that?

Lori Amos 32:59

Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this, it's I've I've worked on probably about 200 brands, some of them were fortune, you know, 500 brands, and they had, they had already, you know, been established some of the like SAP and Honda worked on Sony and, you know, so So those brands, obviously, you know, unless they kick a new product, they have a new product launch, like Honda would have a new car that they would launch. That's kind of a well oiled machine. But then I as as I started working for smaller agencies, they would have new brands. So I've worked on every category imaginable healthcare, you know, finance, automotive, you know, CPG and I've started and pretty soon I became, you know, really involved in helping startups so I feel like when we came to this decision, and this was honestly it was eight months ago, maybe when I said this is this felt right, the seasoning blends felt right. It was easy for me, it was just easy. I knew exactly what to do. I am in advertising and marketing and PR so I know how to work with creatives for the design. I know how to bring things to market, you know so it just made sense for for me to do this and my partner Jim he's he's he's the PR person in and really we just needed to I had the vision and as soon as I had the vision and within a couple of months we had our spices formulated we had the packaging done we had the website built we have Yanni we had all those people in place, you know so I've done it before I guess long story short or even longer, I guess is the we've done this before for so many people it was it was time that we did it for for us and we felt there was a Need and it just it felt right, you know?

Jim Moore 35:03

How's it felt being on the other side of that that particular fence, then, you know, going from the PR the marketing of other other businesses, other people's visions to trying to exact your own vision.

Lori Amos 35:15

Ah, I love it. I love both because I love helping businesses that I care about, right. And there's, there's a certain kind of like, well, I feel responsible for their business, but ultimately, I'm not right. Yeah. You know, and it's not the money that they're spending for advertising and creating their, you know, their website and, and employees is not my money. It's, we're bootstrapping this and it is our money. But I also have a lot more control that things just move, you know, we don't need a decision by committee, I pretty much said, Okay, this is, this is, this is it. And we've had, we've had we launched officially launched January 1, it's only been a month. And we've had such great response from people and you know, people love our spices, they've heard from so many people that, you know, the, the packaging, the beautiful, you know, jars and they just love it, and they're buying them for gifts for people and, and so we know, we made the right choice, we know that there's a need for it. Look, I've helped businesses that I really, at first, I thought, I don't know, this is not gonna, you know, this isn't gonna make it and we've helped them make it. So we're pretty confident this is this is going to take off.

Jim Moore 36:42

I guess that experience is pretty reassuring, having seen so many businesses through the journey, you can sort of try and evaluate your own and where is it? And will it survive?

Lori Amos 36:52

Yeah, exactly. It's like, I guess an analogy is if you were like, you know, you've been building houses for, you know, 30 years, and then you decide you want to build a house. It's like, well, I've got this.

Jim Moore 37:06

Yeah, I can, I can imagine. So yeah. Unlike myself, you probably don't have anywhere near the same level of trepidation. I would.

Lori Amos 37:15

We, and we are our motto was, let's this let's do this. And and let's do our best and let's put out the best product for the, for the right reasons. And let's treat the all of our vendors and all of the people that are helping us thoroughly and see where it goes where we don't have any investment money. We don't have we're not cow telling to any, anyone. We're just gonna see how it goes. And we hope people will love it.

Jim Moore 37:45

I'm sure they will. No doubt. Absolutely. I'd love to pick your brains a little bit broader on sort of vegan culture, if you like over the last 20 odd years. What What for you have been the kind of the pivotal changes that you've seen? What what are the big shifts? What would you attribute them to?

Lori Amos 38:03

Um, that's a good question. big shift would be the money pouring in the I want to say celebrity, but there's so many, you know, wealthy people behind the scenes, so putting the money into, into some of the companies like beyond me, because without that it would have gone to market and if it doesn't go to market you don't have right, you just don't have those options. And we would have still been with the you know, stick your hand in the bucket and get the tofu out of the barrel. That's how the tofu used to be sold in a barrel. And so the influx of money from wealthy proponents, I would say celebrity I'm not a huge fan of you know, I have a lot of clients that that want to Oh, get us you know, Billy Eilish and you know, it does or Joaquin you know, Phoenix and yeah. We great if they're out organically doing that, but I'm not a big believer in you know, attaching celebrity to, to, to everything. But they do. People do listen, they have tonnes of followers and people listen and so I think that's one of the one of the other key pivotal things and then some of the just, we were able to get some studies done that empirically show how much better it is for your health, and some other, you know, exposes and all of these films on Netflix, and then the streaming channels that were they, the such heroes, you know, infiltrate some of these meatpacking plants and some of these you know businesses that are harming animals. And having the proof right and having that proof spread socially through social media. We didn't have that before, if I had I seen that stuff when I was, you know, a teenager that would have been the reason not ego that I had, you know, switched.

Jim Moore 40:21

If if you had to place place a bet on put your advertising revenue on if you were kind of the, you know, the chairman of veganism if you like, and you had to stick your your your money in one area, either climate, health or animals, which which message Have you found is the most effective to land with, say, like a US audience?

Lori Amos 40:46

Yeah, that's it that that question happens a lot. It comes up a lot, and it's discussed a lot. But I think it depends on generationally, you know, there's the boomers, you know, Gen X, which I'm Gen X, there's Y and Z. Right. And I think the animal rights is certainly resonates more with the younger, you know, Gen Z, Gen Y. I think health is probably the older Gen X and Boomers. Because they're feeling it, you feel it right, if you just feel like you're somebody my age, most people my age, in our country are, if not on some type of diabetes medication or, you know, blood thinning or whatever they they're on the road to it. So I think it really depends on who your core target audience is. I have seen studies that like what moves the needle what turns people veganism they've interviewed vegans they being I can't name specifically the studies, but I've read many climate is actually the last one that that moves. It's typically health, followed by animals followed by climate. Perhaps not all the studies but the certainly the few that I've read. And it doesn't really you no matter which one you're touting, I think they're all it's all part of it, right? If something if you take out all three, or maybe there's others, you one of them will stick. So it doesn't need to always be just about the climate or just about health, or just about, you know, the the animal abuse. I think it's shocking. But some people don't really care that much about animals and I don't know who I mean. I know you guys just had recently had a soccer players Zuma, who like kicked a cat and there were there are people who were mortified by it. Right. Those are my peeps, I was mortified by to have cats I've been you know, I think it's monstrous. And there were other people who were like, cat still alive, right? He's a great soccer player, football player. So you do have people who just don't you know, they see it as they're lower on the totem pole. They don't have feelings. Maybe they don't, they've never had animals. And then of course, you have a lot of right wing Christian, you know, people touting the success in the Bible, we have dominion and, you know, but yeah, it's so I don't see why you can, you know, use all three levers to to get your point across.

Jim Moore 43:52

Do you think you mentioned that about the there's almost a political connection to the divide as well, that's emerged, it was probably always been there. But as has grown, and feels very much like being vegan is something that's identified with progressive viewpoints in a number of and that, you know, nailing my own colours to the mask that's probably firmly where I sit is the standard stereotype of progressive vegan on the on the left. But I do wonder sometimes whether and I'll give you the contents you probably are aware of Dale Vince, who's just over in the UK, you might, you might have done, which is why I thought I mentioned Dale, I thought you knew Dale. But he was only yesterday, he appeared on a news channel called GB news, and he had an interview with Nigel Farage, who's thought out for Yeah,

Lori Amos 44:54

and he actually. Yeah,

Jim Moore 44:58

yeah. And it's just really interesting to To me that he's sort of he goes out of his way to reach across that political divide to places that if I'm honest, if you said to me, would you like to appear on TV news? I'd say no, I'd put the party line down. And I'd say, Well, that's the kind of the, you know, the right wing Fox News of of Britain, I don't want anything to do with it. Do you think that's an important part that we almost miss is that we we become a bit entrenched in our in our viewpoint, and then don't reach out and then therefore, don't have the capacity to spread the message as far as we could do? Or am I overthinking?

Lori Amos 45:34

No, you're not overthinking. That's, that's my, I am in your tribe, right? I am, you know, left leaning and live and let live, right. I don't care who you are, that you one sleeps with or what you know, what your pronouns are, I just, you know, I'm all about peace and love, right? It is, I can see the value in, in extending the olive branch and, and not being afraid to engage with the other side. Because we could all easily or I'd be everything is tribal now, right? We have our, we have our little group of friends that think like us, we have, you know, our things that we do we that are we don't want to venture outside and in a way that's a form of xenophobia as well. It's, it's, it's important, I think, to, to hear the perspective from the other side, because then you can at least learn how to maybe make your points to them and have them understand and not be so closed minded. I have, I have family members who are right wing and conservative, and I think misguided, and, and I know they're good people. At first, when when all of this was happening when Trump was selected, sorry to get political, but my immediate gut reaction was to just say, ah, you know, you guys are idiots and, or, you know, maybe, you know, friends who didn't think like I did, but I thought it was more important to show them that I'm not close minded, and I, I love them for even even if they're misguided, and whatever reasons, they believe in what they believe, hey, look, if I, if I even some vegans are like, kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And I'm like, me too. If I had to, like, just hang out with my tribe, I'd be super lonely and I wouldn't get the perspective of what they're thinking and they wouldn't get the person they would think they wouldn't know, you know, some of the facts that I know that I you know, so I think it's important that we all break out of our shells and and kind of try to at least try that being said, you know, Fox News and some of these other places I I don't think I could go on I don't want to be in the same room as some people you know, the whole Joe Rogan thing and the disinformation I was just like, Oh, that's so gross. It's like, I don't even want to validate you by engaging with you, I want my like, keep your name out, keep my name out of your mouth, and I just don't want to see it. It also makes my blood boil. And you know, again, I'm Latina, hot blooded. But, but I do think it's important and and I have friends who think differently, I've vegan friends who even think differently than I do. And and I tried to make points keep a cool head. Have you ever tried to convince some somebody of something I'm just gonna go back to my siblings and you're worked up and you're like, but the animals but this look, here's the video and it's it does the opposite, right? They just sort of like then they look at you as like cray cray and and you're in their face and you're telling them what you're telling them is you are fundamentally wrong and bad for doing what you do and so then they just build the wall up so that's it's not the smart way to go about it and I get it now. And

Jim Moore 49:42

yeah yeah, I share all those sentiments feel much the same of you feel the blood boiling and I've done I've done so many so many times. I've been in those arguments and then thought I've actually moved the this person any further forward on this view. Probably If anything I might have entrenched them in, in that view and drawn a battle line up and made things difficult. It's It's so difficult though, when you're passionate, and you feel like you've had the scales pulled from your eyes, and you're very driven for changes, as many of us in this in the community are, is difficult to keep a lid on that, especially when you feel like the urgency of things like climate change the urgency of, you know, the animal agriculture industry in every day, X amount of lives being lost, and so on. It's it's really difficult to keep a lid on that and keep us sort of clear perspective on what does change people's opinion. Is it this way or that way? It's very difficult to share some of those views.

Lori Amos 50:43

Yeah, yeah. It certainly is. I mean, you see things being I've had, I'm gonna go back to scout 22. Because the protagonist and To Kill a Mockingbird, The young girl was Scout, right? That's what me for vegan is the 22nd letter of the alphabet. So that's the self Scout why I named the agency Scout 22. And, yeah, so I had an earlier cut back to my train of thought I had I had an early age, I too, felt a sense of wrong and right. And I felt I wanted to help the underdog always. And I was the underdog that was absolutely I was, you know, the I grew up in an all white neighbourhood. And I was Mexican. And I'm, you know, a woman in in advertising in the 80s and 90s. It was so so I consider myself the underdog, but I also am the animals. That's why I rescue too many animals, I can't even tell you how many I have, because I don't want to knock on the door. Right? So there are people in you know, that that have come across in this space that are in it just for the money and they they they probably aren't vegan and they've just like nasty people, right? But they see the dollar signs. And I have my immediate instinct was to call them out and tell them how horrible they are. And you know, not exact revenge, but just like, I want no BS. I just want everything to be out. I wish I could just like say everything, my truth and be damned to you know, what's going to happen, right? But then we realise we need to eat and, and the animals need to eat and it's also not going to, it's not going to do that. What your what you think it's going to do, it's back to that whole like, you know, listen up everybody, you can you come across as hysterical if you're a female, crazy, whatever. You know, if you're a man or a woman, you come across as a zealot. So, so there's ways to go about, you know, making sure that things are truth. The truth is out there. I'm a truth seeker and, and I want what's good for people too. And it's not just it's the animals, but we're animals I want I want to do right by by everybody. I want the animals to have a fair shake, I want people to have a fair shake. I want to I want people to treat themselves better to take care of themselves. And so again, back to the spices that was another impetus for starting Watson's is just not a good product. So I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it myself. I want something that's, that's good. I missed the I missed like, okay, when I used to work for advertising agencies we had I sound like a grandmother, you know. But it's true. Like, okay, we're for agencies, big agencies, like grey and Deutsch and DDB and I speak global agencies. And I was starting out my career and I worked with art directors and creative directors who went to school for what for their craft, and they knew how to draw they writers who again, went to school for it, or there were, you know, they knew how to write great copy. Even the photographers, I mean, they were just beautiful photographers, the retouching the time spent on things right, the time like, everybody was just so good at their craft, and I missed that. I missed that so much. Yeah, England is known for pumping out good products. It just is. I've spent a lot of time in England and the UK and not everything but you know, you have quality you know, if you get certain things there's there's quality and there's a like history behind. You know, making sure that people know what they're doing. Maybe they were mentored by somebody or went to school for it. And there's just a lot of junk in the world. There's just junk, you know, things just flip Being on a dime and you know not caring about the ingredients or the process.

And I was watching we were watching and because it was like National Pizza Day so pizza was on everybody's mind and my my husband's from his family's from New Haven, Connecticut, and that's the best place in the country to get pizza. There's a few famous pizza places there that have been around since the 20s and Italian big Italian immigrant area and I think it was Lyle Lovett of all people the country singer he was talking about what goes like why the pizza is so good right and there's many factors it's the oven it's the tomatoes it's the but it's also the love and when mine when my mom like coming from Mexico when she would cook for family we had a big family and she was a good cook because it was the alchemy was the love and the like just everything perfectly blending right fresh ingredients and seasoning but it was just the the love that was put into it the the care the pride the you know slowness is the if that makes any sense it's it was it was all the the whole alchemy of of making a good product and I the older I get the more I want to do that the more I feel that I don't I don't need fancy cars I don't need I just I want to leave something behind and when you have kids so it's not like I'm leaving a legacy for my kids. I just want to leave something for people that that meant something to me.

Jim Moore 56:42

I love that love that point about the alchemy of those end food is one of those one of those areas, isn't it where those things are always there. You talk about it in terms of like a craft and the world generally, I totally agree. I think we we have lost something in this sort of fast paced, or whether it's tech or social media or a combination of the two but it's sort of seems to have put all of our brains on speed. And got us all on on this this crazy treadmill and it does feel like we need to slow down our Tarzan kind of like approach to things and I was very hopeful of the lock downs and the pandemic and in a sort of strange way obviously there's tonnes of negative and you know, sadly so many people lost etc but one of the one of the kind of unintended benefits of shut down was just a little read restock of your life a little stocktake of where am I? What's going on? What do I appreciate what do I value? And one of the things that I think for most people I know anyway came came out was cooking with your family eating with your family are one of those things that's just universal. we all we all enjoy. That's what we're here for. And it's sort of way so yeah, I think if you can add one of those components to that alchemy, you know, you mentioned there about the seasoning if the seasonings added in with the with everyone else who just got bring the ingredients and the love etc, then I think we're well on our way.

Lori Amos 58:12

Yeah, people are hungry to connect and and certainly food connects people you know. And, you know, our our blends, we have blends from that we have we have a Latin blend, we have two Latin blends, and then we have a Italian blends, and they mean something it's like for my husband's family, the Mexican blends the Latin blends or, you know, certain ingredients or things my mother used. And it means something it's very meaningful. And I I agree with you, I think that you know, everybody's spread so thin and you feel such I don't know if you any spend any time on LinkedIn, but you look at people's profiles, and they have like, eight different jobs. You know, I'm the guru of this and I'm the this and under this and it's like what's wrong with like, doing one or two things? Well, why do we have to be like, the, you know, the, the 30 under 30, the change maker and the disrupter and the this and that. Yeah, like just chillax. Everybody just learn how to you know, follow your passion do something well. Yeah,

Jim Moore 59:27

yeah. Joe, I had strong ambitions. During this lockdowns. I thought I did really think you know what, I might just quit everything and bigger be a carpenter. The idea of just making things in a workshop. A very slow pace, selling one chair a month or something would be joyous. I'm gonna

Lori Amos 59:45

be an expensive chair, though.

Jim Moore 59:48

Oh, it has to be it has to be don't get me wrong. I mean, I was planning on being a good carpenter. That was the intention but I'll stick with podcasting and probably further along that particular lines. So, anyway, Laurie, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Thank you for letting me bend your ear on so many different subjects. And thank you for introducing me to Watson's as well. Where would folks go about finding it? Tastes big, be great to let them know.

Lori Amos 1:00:17

Right now we're direct to consumer at taste, Watson's dot com. We are being I guess wooed by a few specialty retailers. So it looks like later this year, we'll be in a couple of specialty real retailers rather, in the States, mostly in California, but you can go direct to taste Watson's dot com and we have one other thing I wanted to say because I am a native Californian love letter to California. This is the jar. Yeah, that's the jar. This is the bag. I love California. It's my home. I grew up here. And this is pretty much like a love letter to California and proceeds for this because we have a problem with wildfires. And our firefighters are heroes here. Percentage of the proceeds go to the California firefighters Benevolent Fund to help displace firefighters who have been adversely affected and the ingredients grown, the lot of the ingredients grown, if not, most of the ingredients grown is grown here in California in our fertile land. So it truly is a love letter to California.

Jim Moore 1:01:44

Amazing. Well, I'll make sure we get links to all of that in the show notes and we'll definitely include that, that that piece are around giving back to the firefighters in California. That's such a such a great cause. Laurie, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it and I know just how busy you are. So I really appreciate you taking time out your day to chat with me. Thank you so much.

Lori Amos 1:02:02

It's been a pleasure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai