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Welcome to the Mr. Beacon podcast. We have got a great episode for you this week. I'm speaking to the CEO of Keepit, who's also one of the... drivers behind a new group called the Smart Food Tech Coalition. And it's all about stuff that impacts us all. The use-by dates, best-by dates that are governing. whether food tastes good, whether it's safe, and the waste that affects our pocketbook. So if you're one of those people that eats food...
then this episode is definitely for you. A great way to start 2025. I'm excited to start to curate another set of episodes to guide. People like me who are trying to figure out this ambient Internet of Things ecosystem, which is such a fascinating cocktail of technology, business. human factors, regulation, systems. There's so much that we all need to learn in order to move things forward, make the world smarter, more efficient, more sustainable.
have better experiences for people and so this this show is is all about that and all it's to arm the folks that are trying to drive change create new offerings architect new solutions so i think you're going to see a lot of stuff happening in 2025 both with willyot and you know my own personal plans for the year i'm super excited And, you know, this is an important part of what I do. The podcast has been going for, gosh, best part of 10 years before I joined Williott.
if you're listening or watching then i i want to thank you we have quite a broad set of people that you use this podcast i say that advisedly A friend of mine, Elizabeth Kerr, uses the podcast because she finds it very boring and it helps her get to sleep. So Elizabeth, if you're listening or watching to this, I hope I'm... My soporific voice is lulling you into slumber as designed. Everyone else, I hope you find this interesting, amusing, helps you keep up to date.
and gives you an edge so that's it let's um let's hear what kristen has to say in this interview. Do stay to the end. Kristen's got this fascinating background with Coca-Cola and Nestle and espresso, and we get into that as well as his music taste. Most of this session is about this new coalition, which is going to change food forever. Enjoy it. The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT podcast is sponsored by Williot, bringing intelligence to every single thing.
So, Kristen, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. First one of the new year. We had a run at this at the end of last year. We wanted to get the technical quality right. So I appreciate you coming back to talk about two things. Let's start off, first things first, with the Smart Food Tech Coalition.
Can you explain a little bit about what this is? And then we'll kind of tweezer it apart and get more into it. Yeah. Thank you for having me, Steve. It's great to be on your program. Yeah. I mean, we have... You know, I work in a company that have developed a device that you can use on foods. And the primary... you know, aim that we go for is, you know, preserving the quality, but also very importantly, you know, avoid food waste. And as we all know,
A static date stamp will actually never tell you whether a product is good or not. And this is a big problem we have today. We throw away way too much food.
Otherwise, it could have been eaten, right? So this is what we've been trying to do something about. Now, when we present our product to the market and to key customers... they love you know the concept they love the product and this is keep it and we should go into more details on that later but i think it is important to mention it i'm glad you did yeah yeah but but yeah and i'm interrupting you just to
expressed some enthusiasm for this. Food is part of everyone's life, but the level of waste is huge. right throughout the supply chain. But I think one of the worst things is in the consumer's home and and just at the point when it's going to be sold when that that uh use by date sell by dates best by date which Urban legend has it that it was introduced in the United States by Al Capone, who had an interest in bottling technology.
through his main business and the ability to print on bottles. And I heard that one of his nephews or niece got sick because of... milk that was too old and he lobbied forcefully. for the introduction of used by dates to be introduced. You've got Al Capone saying, let's do this. I think it would be a good idea. Then maybe you listen a little bit more than the average person.
So this is according to the BBC, and I respect the BBC, so that's my source for this amazing anecdote. But the point is, I don't know when Al Capone did this, but... it was a very long time ago and things have really moved on haven't they with traceability technology products like keep it and why why are we throwing all this food away that's perfectly good yeah
That's the real question here. Why do we do that? And that's what we're trying to change because we know that we could save a lot of food. New technologies, smart technologies, smart food technology would be allowed to enter the market and on equal terms, at least as. as the date marking, as the date stamp, right? So this is what we're trying to do. I think, you know, there's a lot of discussion today about best before, used by, and we know through also studies that...
The general public doesn't know the difference, right? So even though you can eat a product after a best before date, very seldom people do, right? So there's a lot of... you know, uncertainty around date marking, but also use buy. I mean, if your chicken has one day left, there's a lot of consumers that will not take the chance, right?
But it might happen that it could actually last five more days in your fridge. You don't know, right? Yes. So this is what the coalition is all about. What we want to do, we have gathered... you know, stakeholders, mainly in Europe, but we're also now having participation from the US. And we want more, by the way. And we're trying to lobby the European Commission, you know, to open up that regulative for smart technology.
Because if we can get that, we know that we can save a lot of food that today are going to waste. So it's all about, you know, improving sustainability in the whole food chain, right? But on the same token, it will also prevent consumers to eat products that are bad, to prevent them getting sick, right?
So it has both the benefits. Now, the challenge that smart food technology providers have seen over the years is that when... their products and our product as well is presented to potential customers they again they love it they they think this is the right thing to do but since they have to put the date stamp on anyway and they are not allowed to sell the products beyond the date stamp date, then the value of the smart technology is diminished, right? Makes sense.
All constituencies that we have been talking to, including food authorities and national authorities and also the European Commission, they all agree to this. They all agree to it. But it's just... Basically, what they're telling us is, okay, you need to gather companies behind this, customers, organizations that want this. uh run tests um prove that this you know is is is working and then we will look at it but you know when when the commission is saying look at it basically we're talking about
How many years? Well, pick your guess. So, I mean, it's a very tough initiative. But we have to do it because we know that without these openings... This will be very difficult to bring these types of technologies to the market. And we need to get a chance to prove that they work. So that we also can get revenue so that we can further develop even better solutions, right? Yes. So it's a little bit like a standstill at the moment, at least in Europe. you know, with the smart food technologies.
you said in europe um what's the situation elsewhere in the world in particular the like united states do you have a perspective on that We know that there's been some few, let's say, testing of some type of... What we call TTIs, which is time temperature indicators. You have a wide range of them. Everything from sniffing gases inside to...
just being indicating whether a product has had too high temperature or not. So sort of like a binary indicator, you know? Our indicator is a dynamic indicator that... counts down the actual shelf life days down to zero. So we know that there's been some testing on some other devices on the consumer market, very little. Maybe a little bit more on the B2B side of the food market. But I think, again...
The way I see it, maybe Europe has come a little bit longer than other markets. I mean, when we look at Asia, for example, there's very little that we see there. I think where you see this is... predominantly in Europe and the US at the moment. So very little in what sense? In the sense that we haven't seen it on the market. Okay, the technologies. Yeah, the technologies. And not even in combination.
with DateStamp because that is, of course, also a possibility to use both the DateStamp and the device. But then again...
The date stamp is overruling, given the regulations and the laws that we have at the moment. So it seems like there's three... critical areas one is getting the supply chains the packaging the technology in place the other one is changing the regulations then the third one is actually educating the consumer because they've been saying since Al Capone got involved, at least here in the States, that this date is true.
I haven't told you it's been a while since we spoke, but we just commissioned a survey with YouGov of a thousand consumers in the UK and the US to ask them about... exactly this. And we're asking them a ton of fascinating questions, but it basically centers around, you know, what's your experience and what's your level of trust of that used by cell by date? And have you... ever found or do you feel like there's food that uh
actually wasn't good even though the sell-by date said that it was and obviously the thing that we're focusing on here is the reverse where the sell-by date is uh has passed and actually everything's fine and you know to what degree do you respect that and how do you feel about it? So I think we'll have a bit more data, hopefully within a month, that we can publish and contribute and raise the visibility of this.
You touched on this a little bit, but I want to do two things before we wrap up and move on to keep it. I want to just do a quick survey of the technologies that fall under this umbrella. And the other thing I want to talk about is that last bit of the education of the consumer. But you've got a coalition. What are the kinds of technologies that you see in the coalition today?
you might want to include in the coalition going forward? Yeah. I mean, basically, what we have in the coalition today, I would say we have three categories of technologies.
We have technology that is more a scale type of devices that, for example, will show you whether, you know... some foods let's for example frozen foods for example sometimes you will not detect on the way, let's say, they are coming from Asia, from the US or from Europe, the other way, etc. You don't necessarily know if there's been a breach in the freeze chain, right?
So these typical scale indicators will show you that because they will activate once they reach a certain temperature, right? So that's one category. Another category... It's more sensing from the degradation of the actual product inside the packaging, basically sniffing the content or... combination of the gases that will be developed inside in a way that will then set off the indicator to show that, all right, this is now expired. There's too much.
bacteria and gases being developed for this product to be eaten right and and the third that we have today is more where we are where we We have a device that detects and registers temperature over time. So what we are doing is that we are calibrating that indicator to the shelf life profile. In terms of how bacteria grow over temperature and time, right? So it basically mimics, you know, the shelf life profile.
That is set, let's say, for a fish or a hamburger, a meat or, you know, a chicken filet, right? Yes. So that's more a category of dynamic.
time temperature indicators yes and i guess is there another class where they're actually improving it i guess the temperature of the time indicators and this is where my day job comes in we we see handling errors like pallets of perishable products being left on the dock for an hour sometimes longer and not being put away so if we can alert that then then uh well we can do two things one is change the temperature over time.
digital product passport associated with all those products and the other one is hopefully preempt uh any uh lasting uh damage but there i'm advertising my company we need to advertise yours but uh but before we do um that there's another class isn't there where you're actually the packaging is is improving the situation um you know through chemistry by absorbing certain chemicals and that's true that's true you also have that i mean everything from
But that's more technology in terms of maybe a modified atmosphere, what we call MAP packaging, where you basically empty the oxygen and then you fill gas. that is harmless, of course, but that makes the product last longer, right? But this can also be calibrated into the profile of an indicator of course. And then you have, for example, on fruits, as you know, you can have a cover, you can spray them with some kind of ingredients where, you know.
both humidity and different things will not impact temperature as much. You know, so there are, I think there's, we are basically opening for all these types of smart food technologies. Today, we are more on the device part, but we are inviting other players that are...
complementary, let's say, to what we're doing as well. And I think that you pointed on that, you know, a next step for us is clearly to develop or not necessarily develop because we might have that already, but to add functionality where you can actually read it off and you can send this information and you can actually act on it.
And I think this is where, without talking about your product, but I think this is where you are very strong, you know? So, I mean, a combination of that where you can... monitor exactly the status of your food product but at the same time you can control it you know by internet of things or you can connect it you know to systems that's really where I think these types of technologies need to arrive. I think I love this idea of the coalition, Smart Food Tech Coalition, because it's clear that...
Yes, there are different competing approaches to this, but the biggest issue is legislation and education. Growing the category and making people aware that they shouldn't just accept something that was printed based on a static formula that has no bearing on the reality, which varies tremendously. tremendously on how the product was handled. And we see this. I mean, there's some great grocery stores.
wonderful stores i i won't mention names uh but uh you know beautiful shopping experiences and i i just don't buy produce from them because i know their handling is so erratic that 50 of the time I'll get this beautiful looking conker of produce. And a significant part of it is bad because of the handling issues, which they... don't have the visibility on. And the terrible thing is that a lot of companies, and I have heard this when we've been selling.
to companies. They've said, we don't want to know the truth. I think that's a line from a movie somewhere. They can't handle the truth. They don't want to have to throw stuff away. But that's just so short-sighted because... They could know that there's a shortened life due to a handling mistake. It happened. But they're so much better off expediting it, putting a discount on it, selling it whilst it's still good, than stiffing the customer with something that...
tastes bad or makes them sick, and then you're going to lose the customer. How many times is the customer going to put up with bad produce before they go somewhere else where they know how to to do this or you see some of these food terrible uh outbreaks of food hygiene where um people get
killed. And then the stock price plummets and the insurance rates go up. It just makes me so frustrated that we... I mean, it's a systemic issue. It's not bad people. It's just everyone kind of working within their own bubble and not...
thinking in a joined-up way, and I think you're putting a coalition together that will help that. Any last thoughts on how this information could be... delivered to the customer i would like to think that people are going to use their phones and digital product passports to do that but the reality is in the eu they're kind of skating past food in deep with digital product passport technology you can use it for your battery which is good yeah
But I want the strawberries, I want the salmon, I want the beef, I want the pork, all of this stuff. And I know that there's a sector of people that just don't want to use their phone with their... their food so so what what are the other alternative ways that you can communicate this Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, our product at least are presenting the consumer with a choice, very easy, readable, intuitive scale.
And this is keep it, right? Yeah, which is keep it, right, yeah. Where you basically, if you, I mean, if what you are after is security on whether the product is... edible or not and how long i can actually keep it before i have to eat it that's what we provide clearly um if you want to
add more information to the end consumer in terms of sort of like the passport, you know, where does it come from? Where has it been? What's the origin, et cetera, et cetera. I think it will be very difficult to get. you know, to that other than, let's say, the QR code, the 2D codes and things like that. I mean, one of the things that you could do, of course, is that, well, you can pre-print something.
Clearly on the label. But now... I mean, if you follow them, and you might not since you're from the US, but if you follow them in Europe, you know, some of the challenges that the European Commission has in terms of consumer information. or food information to consumer, there's a high debate, very tense debate these days on what kind of information should be on the package. And one of the things is that...
The commission wants more nutrition information on the package, right? So there will always be... As a brand person, working with the Coca-Cola company, working with Nestle and Espresso, I know that you don't want your brand to have a huge sticker on it so you can't even see your product, right? That's always been a sort of like a battle, you know, between the regulators and, you know, the food and brand owners. So there's a certain limit to that. So, I mean, getting...
you know, past that without using, let's say, the QR codes and 2D codes, I think will be very, very, very difficult. You could always, you know, there might be some push technologies, you know. But then again, you need to, I don't know, what's the limit to how much a consumer should absorb today in terms of messaging and social media and everything? So, yeah.
I think this will evolve, of course, but I think it needs to be taken step by step. I think the first thing that the consumer wants to know is, can I eat it or not? Show me that very easily in a very intuitive and smart way. Then after that, I'm ready to get more information, you know? Yeah, yeah. I've told this anecdote before, but one of my privileges is to work with Frank Yannis, who used to be at Disney, at Walmart, headed up food safety in both those places.
As a public service, he was in the FDA and headed up, he was the architect of the food safety modernization at Rule 204, which is basically this thing that's actually coming into force. january in a year's time 12 months time here in the states uh that demands requires if you're shipping foods they're high-risk foods, leafy greens and shellfish and other cheeses, you have to capture these shipping and receiving events.
So that you can do a trace back in minutes if someone gets sick rather than weeks, which can be a matter of life and death and also value to the category that's being impacted by the physical. This year, stay one step ahead of the energy price cap with Eon Next. Our next pledge tariff guarantees to keep your energy prices below the cap. So if the cap goes up or down, you're still winning. Beat the price cap and save with Eon Next. Switching is a breeze. Visit eonnext.com today.
Next pledge is a 12-month fixed-term tariff. Rates adjusted quarterly to stay below Ofgem's price cap. Your bill depends on usage. T's and C's apply. Come on now, John. Let's really feel the burn on this one. Give me five more. Okay, four, three, slow it down, two. Unlike your new fitness regime, Moneypenny does all the heavy lifting for you.
We're experts in looking after calls, chats and more for businesses just like yours. Right, same time tomorrow. Yeah. Keep your business fighting fit with happier customers and more time to focus on growth. Go on. We'll spot you. Visit moneypenny.co.uk today. Anyway, he's the architect of that brilliant guy. done a bunch of thought leadership stuff with him. And, you know, I was demonstrating this AI thing that we developed where you can talk to the food and it'll look at...
temperature over time, all that sort of stuff, and compare it with the sell-by date. And he's like, this is basically replacing my role with my friends. So what's the number one question Frank and his friends ask him?
um you know they phone him up it's a sunday night and it's like you know i've had this pork chop in the fridge and the use by date is this and i've kept it is it safe to eat and just just amuses me tremendously that you've got this titan of industry and government and his friends are asking him about whether it's safe to eat this food and there's got to be a better way and i think keep it
um has a solution so let's let's do a bit more of a clear kind of summary of what your company does that you you're uh you're leading yeah well you know we we go back Actually, we've been in the market for close to 10 years now. Our company is an outspring from the University of Life Sciences in Oslo. It was, yeah, you know, the first trials were done, you know, back in 2000.
2013 into 2014. And then it's been sort of like steadily growing the use of the indicator on the Norwegian market. So we've been in the market for a while, but, you know... The first generation of indicators have been sort of like they are not connected as such. You know, it's a standalone. It's produced according to the Shellfly profile. And the way that this has been applied on foods is that we have produced this on rolls, these indicators. We have shipped the rolls to the food producer.
They have also invested in a machine that we have developed, and this is put on the line, on the packaging line. So basically, that's the first generation where you... You put the indicator on the pack and you activate it at the same time and then it starts to register temperature over time, right? So this is the one we've been on the market with for almost 10 years now. In that, saying that, you know, it's been sort of like a standalone system, right? But it's been doing the job.
In these 10 years, we've never had a food poisoning scandal. We've never had any problems whatsoever. And we've been allowed by the government in Norway. to use both the indicator and the date stamp. So we haven't been able to replace the date stamp, but even though food retailers in Norway have seen the benefit of using it.
And when we have done, by the way, you talked about some consumer research. We've done a lot of it, you know. And so we know that close to 90% of all consumers in Norway, they don't trust date stamp, you know. That's interesting. Yeah, when we ask our customers using the Keep It indicator, more than 85% are saying that they trust it and that they eat the product past the date stamp. But...
We are not allowed to communicate that or, you know, say to consumers that you can do that because that's... then against the law right so this is the dilemma and the coalition right right so how do you communicate the meaning of so it's it's a color indicator yeah it's a it's it looks basically like a um
Like a thermometer? Is that what you call it? Yeah, thermometer. Yeah, so a thermometer. So let's say your chicken lasts for eight days in four degrees, right? Then we have a small device that... where 12 days is printed on a scale, and then there's sort of like a dark line that is diminishing over time, and you read it off nine.
you know, eight, seven, six, five, four, down to zero, and then it's expired, right? So it's very easy to understand it. And this sits on the packaging. So it, you know, it raises their... exactly the same temperature as the product itself yeah right i can see the benefits of the consumer what's the benefit to the merchant and the manufacturer yeah You touched on that in terms of some customers saying that we don't take the chance to put this on, right?
And this is the case that we've been, we've also experienced that without mentioning names. We've been at food retailers and they say, you know, we love it. It's excellent. But you know what? We don't dare to put it on because we know that our coolers are not good enough. So in other words, they're saying it's fine for us to sell bad products, which amazes me.
but anyway astonishing but you have customers like customers we've had in Norway who are thinking differently they're saying that we know that we have some issues with our cold chain and we want to fix it so what they have you know what they have used our product to keep it indicator for is to make sure that Once the product arrives at the store, they have enough and the agreed number of shelf days left on the indicator, right? Yes.
If they see that they don't have that, they can go back and say, okay, there's something wrong here. We need to find out what it is, right? Then you could, for example, start with data loggers and stuff like that if you wanted that. right yes so that's the first thing the other thing is that they they will avoid it's basically like a quality manager on top of each package right So it will tell you in-store right away if you have good cold chain merchandising routines in your store.
And sometimes it's very difficult, you know, to detect that a freezer or cooler or anything is too warm, right? But the indicator will show you that because... If the indicator goes to zero faster than the date stamp, you know there's something wrong, right? Yeah. So they have used it, you know, to improve the call chain dramatically. The third thing, very important in terms of food waste as well, is that very many, as you probably know, food retailers today, they have been starting to...
Sell out food that is close to expiry. Right? So they for example put 40% or 50% rebate on the last day. But a lot of that is not sold out anyway. Why? You cannot be sure, you know, that it's actually edible, right? Because it's just a date stamp, right? Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah. So by putting the Keep It indicator on...
It gives confidence to the consumer and their customers that it's okay to eat it. Even if the date stamp is on the last day, I can see that the indicator has two or three more days. So they buy it, right? So instead of wasting that and burdening their P&L, you know, they sell it instead and their profitability goes up. Beautiful.
I love the way you've obviously been doing this for a long time. I admire your phrasing of the value proposition. And I guess... you know as i think about it more and they're kind of the strengths and weaknesses of our own offering your the nice thing about your product is uh you can do it incrementally it's like with what we do it's a big commitment yeah you're putting all this bluetooth
infrastructure in until the nirvana of standards where everything is tapped into ambient IoT. The nice thing is you can focus on a few key problem products or weather sensitivity.
Or you can have a vendor that decides, hey, I'm going to get more sales. I'm just thinking about it from the manufacturer's perspective. I can get more trust from my consumers because it's kind of utility i'm less likely to waste this product because this manufacturer is uh is doing this um so it doesn't have to be systemic and you're basically very simple
it doesn't impact the supply chain at all other than being a benchmark to improve it you you're not putting extra infrastructure or any cost in place yeah i guess cost is i'm sure one of the biggest questions you get asked I don't want you to, I don't expect you to share your pricing and discount strategy, but presumably this is affordable, this approach. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, if you...
With our first generation, I call it first generation because I'm going to tell you a little bit about our coming generation. But our first generation, I would say... To a certain degree, there's been a pricing versus value evaluation because since it's a standalone product and we produce it ourselves and...
The customer cannot use it beyond the date stamp date, right? There's a certain equation there where the business case might be a little bit challenged. And because of that, we have now... we are at the end of developing a totally new generation of indicators where all the costs that were previously put into own production sending out manufacturing applicator machines to put it on, etc., is gone. Because what we've done now is that we have taken our technology...
basically the content of the indicator, and we print it directly into the top film of the actual packaging. Okay. So this means that we can go with partners on the industrial side and print this industrially already, you know, plug and play, ready to be delivered to the food proof. They don't have to do anything other than what they do normally, right? Because the indicator will already be inside the foil when they laminate it on.
The chicken package, for example. So this helps us clearly on the cost pricing equation. Yes. And if we can, on top of that... get the regulation open for such types of technologies, because we still will have that challenge and that hurdle, then things are starting to look a little bit more promising. Very good.
But the frustration, Steve, is that so does food authorities, you know, governments. You know, they sort of, all of them applaud this. But there is a stiffness in... in you know saying let's change this you know yeah so uh that that's that's the main main challenge and my my um my fear is that and i've seen it in the past years that Some of the technologies that are coming up, they vanish because there's not an opening in the market. They are not allowed to be tried. So that's my main concern.
Well, I think, yeah, you have to have an overwhelming benefit. That's clear. I hear the term 10x ROI. It just has to be so overwhelming. But change is hard. And I think, you know, we assume that the people at the top, the regulators, the CEOs, they have all the power, but the reality is they're responding to the masses, the market perception.
The good thing is the regulators and the decision makers, they all eat too. This is not a problem. It's not a minority problem. Every single one of us eats. And so the benefits are really broad. And so I think this work that you're doing, both your for-profit job and this coalition. Have a good outcome ahead because it's a win-win-win. And if we can organize, raise awareness and build some optimism.
and commitment then uh we we can change the way things are done and make this better and you know what better way to spend your life hey yes and now steve you talked yourself into joining the coalition so you're welcome I'm up for it. I'm definitely up for it. And we want to contribute to what you're doing because I think even when a competitor wins, it helps. raise the awareness about what what's possible and change the demand the expectations the rules um and we got to do it yeah so
Justin, how did you get your job? What's your story? Ah, well, you know, my story... is basically that I've been working within the food industry and with foods and what I would call great brands for basically my whole career. I was recruited to the Coca-Cola company as a trainee, and I worked with Coke for 10 years. Then I've also worked in the Nestle organization. I launched the Nespresso coffee capsule system in the Nordics over 11 years from start.
So, I mean, you know, I've always been fascinated by brands, by, you know, consumer brands, in particular food brands. So when, you know, this, a little bit on the side to the food industry, but anyway, where... you know related to it came up and which i think you know in terms of the challenges that we have today in terms of preserving you know good quality of foods this was very interesting for me
So basically after my Nespresso, you know, years, this came up. I was asked and I said, you know, I just love, you know, this concept and the product and here I am. So who lost you? Well, I mean, it was basically the company itself and the recruiters. I mean, I was actually just on my way out from Nespresso and then...
That I guess was caught by somebody. I was contacted. You know, I came into this meeting room. They showed me this, you know, very simple product, you know, but I just thought it was extremely smart, you know. Yeah. So that's how, you know, it reminded me a little bit about, you know, also the way that I was presented the Nespresso coffee capsule system. I never saw it before, you know, and this is.
This is almost 20 years back now, you know, and I just thought, you know, wow, such a brilliant, smart, you know, product is, you know, I really want to work with this. So that's what caught, you know, my... you know my attention and and and the passion for that product right away when it was presented to me yeah coca-cola such literally an iconic uh brand um and espresso obviously a lot more recent, but I just love and admire the way they have curated this modern, beautiful system.
The retail presentation is just amazing. Can you talk a bit more about that? And there's obviously a very conscious strategy to make this not just a... convenient way of getting great tasting beverages but um um something that was a lifestyle brand is was that the thinking yeah yeah absolutely no i mean you know in nestle As you know them and as we all know them, they've been huge in coffee for a long, long time. And I think there was an urge at...
at, you know, the Nestle company to try to do something more out of coffee than freeze-thaw coffee, you know? Sort of like powder coffees, right? And, you know, they are highly skilled, of course, in coffee. So when they went to all these coffee plantations around the world and they saw all this fantastic coffee.
It's a little bit like, you know, okay, why do we dry freeze it, you know, and put it in the bin, you know. So they said, you know, let's put a team on this and see if we cannot, you know, utilize better, you know. or not necessarily better, but utilize, in addition to our main business, something that is much more high-end, high-quality, high-scale.
So that's what it came from. And I know that, you know, the sort of like the task that this group got was sort of like, this is going to be resembling as much as it can. Sort of like the Italian coffee experience, right? But it needs to be done in a way that is extremely easy. Easy to do. And is it sort of like not to do anything wrong, meaning that the quality is assured? And this is then how they came up with this capsule system where...
Basically, you cannot do anything wrong, but anyway, it's buttons and fumes and pressure and stuff that you, you know, you have enough to sort of like feel that, you know, this is a good coffee moment. And adding to that, of course, to bring that sort of like that. um you know that experience even better is all the packaging around it you know with the Nespresso boutiques you know with the colors of the capsules with the stories from you know the um
from the coffee plantations with these special editions, you know, with the tasting in the coffees. And on top of that, you know... uh taking george clooney as as an ambassador on board you know then it was sort of like oh wait it's it's quite a nice package so No, I think the company has been brilliant in doing that. And it was really a pleasure for me to be a part of that. And we were pioneering, clearly, on coffee.
As we're trying to do, you know, we'd keep it technologies and smart tags as well. Did you find that you had to make the case to change the standard package for your market at all? Or was it a globally applicable, no localization requirement?
buy it for nespresso you mean yeah yeah no well i can tell you that and and and you know the the management team at nespresso will know this at the time that you know It was quite a challenge, actually, to bring, you know, the first version, you know, the first portfolio of coffees to the Nordics because we are a long cup.
country right so i mean like in the us we like the longer cups you know big warm big gulps and stuff not as much maybe or as big as in the us but but even though you know it's a long cup and You know, the first years, the Nespresso concept was only for espressos, very small cups. We were not used to sort of like sipping, you know, strong.
short espressos you know so we had to sort of like yeah twist that a little bit to say that you know on certain variants you could actually make a longer cup but eventually you know when It wasn't only us from the Nordics. You know, I was managing the Nordic region, but also the Germans, for example, they are also long cop, you know, and the Americans came on board. And then the pressure sort of...
you know built to say that all right we need to come out with you know a longer cup version and that's how the lungo capsule came about you know so yeah So it wasn't that easy in the beginning, but I think that the smartness and the quality and the packaging, you know, of the system sort of, yeah. overturned the actual want of a longer cup for the Norwegian, the Swedes, the Finns, and the Danes.
That was fascinating. In the early days of Williott, one of our early employees out in the field was someone who was very dear to me, Roberto. And you can tell from his name, he's Italian. And when he started working at Williott, we had to buy Italian coffee beans. And we had to buy those little espresso cups just to satisfy him. He's like this huge, very kind of athletic man, but he's drinking this tiny cup.
I really enjoyed that. Then we went on a holiday to Rome, and I'm like, yeah, that's what they do here. It's fascinating. I realize I'm taking us down. unexpected spaces so i do want to ask you about your three songs were you able to think of uh three songs one at a time um that um had some meaning for you yeah Actually, there's a lot of them, but I mean, you know, talking to you, it brings me a little bit back to, you know, some of the years that I had.
In the US, actually, we might be able to talk a little bit about that. But one of the things or one of the songs that is always sort of like in the back of my mind... is a song that I very often sort of walk up to or listen to or heard on the radio, you know, during my college days. So this was, and this is way back, of course, I'm an old guy, you know, but so this is actually Huey Lewis and the News, if you remember that band. I do.
Yeah, and they had several, but one of them that really stuck with me was Stuck With You. Oh. Yeah. So this song is sort of like, and I think... The reason why is that, you know, I was studying in the US, you know, in the 80s and the 90s, and this was really a... fun period you know and everything was sort of like up right and it was a up upbeat type of um
you know, all American, you know, pop songs that really stuck with me. So that's one of them. And every time I hear that, it brings me sort of like back. It brings me back to Oregon. Oregon. Yeah, well, I can relate to all of that 80s. What a wonderful era in music and my life as well as in college. And I ended up marrying an Oregonian.
living in Oregon for 10 years. So that rings some bells with me. So what's song number two? Yeah, so song number two. So I'm sort of like keeping in the US for the moment, right? So... Yeah, one of the songs that I very often put on with full blast, basically. It's not rock or black metal or anything like that. But... I find that sometimes, you know, if things are a little bit tough, let's say, or you feel, you know, very up and very happy and you sort of like...
come through something that was really challenging for you. And sometimes you need to reward yourself, right? Because it's not always somebody else around you will do that, right? Yeah. So I'm pretty good at that. I'm good at, you know, in the evenings, putting on a film or looking, watching some sport and bring the chips out and a beer and stuff like that and celebrate myself, right? So I don't need too much.
from my surroundings. But one of the other songs that I think gives me good vibes is actually a song from Christopher Cross. And it's called All Right. And in these lyrics, it's quite a lot about things, you know, sometimes being tough, right? And challenging, but... you know, you're going to make it. It's going to be all right, right? So that's my second song that I actually often still put on. And I have it on my playlist, my personal playlist on Spotify.
Yeah, I think developing an ethic of emotional self-sufficiency, it's a recipe for happiness, isn't it? It is. If you go into relationships and you're not needing them, but you're appreciating them. But that self-sufficiency, I think, is very good for your mental health. And it's attractive to other people as well. No, I think if you don't get it from the surroundings, you know, create it yourself. Absolutely.
and christopher cross i've got us i don't know if you've seen it uh on hbo over here there's a yacht rock documentary that explores the whole genre that he's supposed to be in and it includes a lot on like the you What's his name? Michael from the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan and just amazing, amazing genre. So if you haven't seen that Yacht Rock documentary, I would check that out. Okay.
Loved the first two. What's number three? Yeah, number three. It's a little bit in the same, but since I'm keeping to my... Sort of like my U.S. sort of part of my life. The third one is also from that period. You know, I watched... a movie when I was studying there that was called, I think it was called Running Scared. It's an old movie, but it's a movie with These two guys, you know, it's Billy Crystal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Him and Gregory Hines. Very good. And they...
You know, in this movie, I think it's fabulous. You know, there are two police cops, you know, in Chicago, I think. And there's a lot of trouble, you know. It's cold and it's, you know, it's always... They're getting, you know, the lowest end of the stick and everything is sort of like difficult, right? And then the guys say, hey, let's go on vacation. And they go to Florida, right?
And then eventually they end up, you know, and they're having an extremely nice time there and everything. And they basically, in the end, in the movie, they move over there. You know, I think they even became cops there. I'm not sure. But anyway, in that movie, and when they are sort of like playing around on the beach and having fun and they are in bars and everything, which I...
you know, resembles quite a lot how I looked at my time in the US when I was there. They played this theme song, you know, by Michael McDonald. Michael McDonald. That was the Michael I was searching his name for. Yeah, Michael McDonald, right? Yeah. And it's called the Sweet Freedom.
and it's a little bit as you can see now with these three it's a little bit like in the same song stronger you know as and so i like these up upbeat um yeah that that you know builds energy in you right so and hope and the good things so that's my third love it yeah michael mcdonald's like this uh zeleg forest gum character popping up in all these places you know he had his own solo career and he was singing for stevie dan and just in so many uh different groups to do brothers great music
Christian, thanks so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. And I hope we can stay in touch. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. So that was Kristen Hovland, who I really enjoyed talking to. There's just some people have a great vibe and a great philosophy and are fun and get things done. And Kristen...
in my mind, ticks all those boxes. Thank you for staying to the end. And Elizabeth, I hope you don't hear this because you should be off to sleep by now if this podcast is... done its job for those of you that are awake then please help me to help as many people as possible tell them about the show refer people like it, all that stuff. Yeah, looking forward to next time. I really appreciate your tuning in.
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