Episode 22: Nana Joes Granola

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guest: Michelle Pusateri Granola Master / Founder Nana Joes Granola

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host. 

Series Introduction: This episode is part of our series exploring COVID-19’s impact on nonprofits and small businesses in San Francisco. We started the series back in April 2020 during the height of the first phase of the Covid 19 pandemic and the Shelter In Place requirements. Over these past nine months, the Covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown have wiped out millions of jobs in both the nonprofit and small business sectors as well as shuttered tens of thousands of small business operations.

The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits, small businesses, and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross-section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community.  Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the global pandemic and economic depression.

Show Guest Michelle: Yes, it's a pandemic, and yes, we have to stay safe, but we have to learn how to help each other. We have to learn how to support each other's businesses. We have to learn how to support each other's families. And we have to learn again how, to grow small businesses because I think right now the government is focusing on the bottom down. And the bottom down is drowning out the small businesses where we should be focusing on the bottom up because that's where the economic recovery is going to come from

Episode Intro - Show Host George: In this episode, our featured voice is Michelle Pusateri (Puse ah teri) from Nana Joes Granola. Nana Joes Granola is a wonderful example of a local manufacturing startup that has incubated through SFMade. And who’s owner brings her passion for both healthy natural foods and putting the community before profits which is why at Nana Joes Granola every employee is making above minimum wage.

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via Zoom by Michelle, Pusateri from Nana Joe's Granola. Thanks for being here, Michelle. And I think people would love to know why you started Nana Joe's Granola and, can you tell us a little bit about the SOFI gold award as well?

Show Guest Michelle: So, I started Nana Joe's Granola back in 2010, with the hopes of bringing back whole food ingredients into packaged food world on the grocery store shelves. I noticed that a lot of the granola on the shelves had a ton of sugar, some additives, preservatives, and really it started with me surfing and wanting to really go out and, have a lot of energy and I'm hypoglycemic and I'm really sensitive to sugar.

So, I thought, you know what I'm going to just create, I'm a trained pastry chef and I didn't know why I didn't make it myself to begin with, but I started making my own granola. And as everybody's stories goes, friends and family loved it. They found that they were having energy. A lot of people told me that they didn't have to eat lunch. And that was mainly what I was going for was using whole food ingredients and not, having any additives or preservatives or a ton of cane sugar and we don't use any cane sugars.

We just won a SOFI award, it's our third SOFI awards. We won two this, year. We won the gold for one of our Paleo Orange which is my personal favorite. And then we won the bronze for Paleo Hu. So we did a collaboration with Hu Chocolate based out of New York and it’s delicious. And then we also have a silver one from 2018. So that's kind of why I started Nana Joe's Granola and why I firmly believe that if you build a business inside of a community, like the Dogpatch back in 2012, it was much different. If you build a community that way, I really feel like you have to support them. And that's where community before profit came into play too.

George: Can you talk a little bit more about that. And   the other big question is how has COVID impacted, your operation in keeping, the staff of people that you have, who help make the magic at Nana Joe's?

Michelle: So, community before profit, I started that back in, I think it was 2015, 2016. It's a website I'm, been working on it, but just haven't had a lot of time. But I was noticing that a lot of people were feeling isolated and lost in the service industry. I grew up in the service industry since I was 15. I was front of the house for a very long time. Moved from, you know, being a barista back in 1987, which barista wasn't cool laughter to being, you know, a waitress and then a bartender and just that party life, you know, and, I made a decision when I moved to San Francisco, to get sober.

And, 2015, 2016, there was about four or five people who committed suicide during that time. And I think my mentality on my business on, how to treat people and how to look at people and how to really support other people in this industry. It's hard, it's isolating, there's so many places to hide when you're in the service industry, you hide behind a smile behind the bar. Nobody knows what's happening. And I think community before profit has kind of morphed into coming more towards Nana Joe's too, and being like, during the pandemic when March 7th hit, I didn't lay off any employee. I didn't furlough any employee.

I didn't lay off any employee. A lot of my employees, family members weren't working either. So, I felt a huge responsibility to hold their jobs, to make sure that they were still getting paid, to do whatever I had to do to make sure that they were getting paid. So basically, I went from supporting families to supporting, you know, all 50 people.

Like I employ 10 people and most people have at least five people in their family. So, it made that community before profit a little bit more real to me and a little bit more like, I have a responsibility when I employ somebody, I don't just employ them just for them to get the job done. I employ them to give them the tools they need to succeed, to give them the tools they need to never have to work another entry-level job again.

And to also, make sure that their families and everything is supported. And one of the biggest things that came out of this pandemic for us was a sense of trust and a sense of loyalty from my employees, which I never even thought would happen. And that happened because I made that commitment right away.

Okay. If we do bleed an extra five, six thousand dollars a month, on payroll for them so we can keep everybody's hours so we can keep everybody on payroll. So, I don't have to lay anybody off. Then that's what we have to do. And, I said to my, staff, if the ship sinks, I go down with you. And that, meant that I wasn't just gonna drop everybody off, which some people, yes, they had to do that.

I completely understand that, but we pivoted Pierre laughter and we threw something online saying, Hey, at the end of this pandemic, who do you want to see standing? Do you want to see the big corporations, or do you want to see the small mom and pop companies and the family owned companies standing at the end of this pandemic?

And it drew in an influx of orders over 400 orders in two days after I posted a video online about, Hey, we need help. This is scary to us and we want to survive this, and I need your help to help support these families that rely on me and really want me to, make a difference in their lives. And I think that that's kind of morphing back into community before profit.

Like your bottom line is your bottom line. You have to have that to be able to support your employees, but your bottom line, shouldn't be your base decision. During a pandemic during a crisis during, you know, a family catastrophe or something happening within their families. You have to look at your bottom line and make sure that your bottom line includes everybody in your business and who you've employed and around you in your community, you don't just build and then like exclude your community and a hiring pool. You have to bring them in.   

George: That brings me to how can people who are viewing this or listening to this, support Nana Joe's? You have a membership model I noticed on your site, which gets back to your point about orders coming in. I know you're distributed through most of the major retailers. But, just like restaurants I've talked to, my guess is having people directly order from you is much more profitable versus, your small piece of the pie that you get by distributing your product into the retail. So, can you share with the audience a little bit, how can people support you? And what, are you looking forward to doing, to bridging yourself between here and the other side of our lovely pandemic?

Michelle: Laughter Is there another side? That's the first question? Laughter … I think the way that people can support pick up a bag at the stores. When you're going to the grocery store and you're picking up a bag, yes, we get a smaller piece of the pie, but we also have something called velocity. Which means that they count how many bags you're selling in Whole Foods. And if you sell well, you get to go to another region. So, supporting us no matter what, and supporting those smaller brands, when you do go into the grocery store is great.

Of course, ordering online, getting a subscription to our granola is a great way because that's income that we know that's coming in. Word of mouth spread the word. If you like our granola tag us on Facebook, tag us on Instagram, word of mouth is huge. Like telling people, hey, follow Nana, Joe's Granola on, Instagram, you know, at Nana Joe's Granola on Twitter or on Facebook and interact with us on that. Tell people to follow us. When you see stuff that you like comment on, people's posts the products that you like.  I have a lot of people who say, oh yeah, I saw your post. And half of me is kind of like, why didn't you like it? laughter because that brings you up to more, of a visual with the algorithm. So, you're playing with the algorithm.

I comment all the time on, my friends’ products, because that's the way to get us up in that algorithm to get more eyes viewing us and to get more of our communities, to look at our products and to buy our products. One of the things that happened also with the pandemic was the fact that we have higher prices on our raw ingredients now because of the demand and because our freight went up, there were so many things.

So, the more that we can get those, like you said, online sales, it's great, but also the more stores that we can get. So, it's both.

George: And Michelle, what would you like to see, or do you see coming out of, the pandemic and our economic meltdown, you mentioned a little bit about, community supporting small business and their workers, but love to hear what your thoughts are on that?

Michelle: I think one of the biggest things that I would love to see out of this pandemic is more compassion. I think more people really helping each other, like going next door, asking your neighbor if they need anything. I think we need to come back together as a community because there's been a deep wedge that's been put between people, on both sides politically.

Um, Everything. And I think we really need to come together as a community and make sure that we're taking care of each other and of taking care of each other means that I see somebody walking on the street who is got a sign for money or whatever, and handing them a bag of granola that I keep in my car, something like that, you know, or making sure that the person walking down the street that just fell over and dropped all their groceries. Don't walk past them, help them pick up. Yes, it's a pandemic, and yes, we have to stay safe, but we have to learn how to help each other. We have to learn how to support each other's businesses. We have to learn how to support each other's families.

And we have to learn again how, to grow small businesses because I think right now the government is focusing on the bottom down. And the bottom down is drowning out the small businesses where we should be focusing on the bottom up because that's where the economic recovery is going to come from.

It's not going to come from up here, it's going to come from down here. And I think the more that we support each other, the more that the big corporations and the more that the government is going to see that there is actually an uprising instead of like a down pouring.

George: Thank you, Michelle, for sharing the story of Nana Joe's and, I especially love the fact that you are supporting the entire, community around your, workers as well, appreciate everything that you guys do. I am going to make sure that, on our website and our listeners know how to contact Nana Joe's. And please stay safe out there in our new dystopian normal

Michelle: Take care.

Episode Outro - Show Host George: That’s it for this episode of voices of the community. You have been listening to the voice of Michelle Pusateri from Nana Joes Granola who named her company after her Grandma who she called Nana, and both of her Grandfathers named Joe! The name seems to exemplify Michelle’s love of family and treating her employees and their families like her own family. To shop or to find out where to buy Nana Joe’s products go to nana-joes-granola dot myshopify dot com

Series Outro: We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view, and personal stories from the voices of change-makers and their nonprofits and small businesses featured in this series. To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofits, small businesses and staff members, featured in this series please go to my web site george koster dot com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to the extended versions of these interviews and to listen to the entire series. After listening to these stories we hope that you will consider making a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada, along with Mel, Michael, and Lila at the San Francisco Public Press and KSFP. To listen to our next episode in this series and to our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, please go to george koster dot com. While you are on our website please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. Please subscribe to Voices of the Community on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts. Follow us on twitter @georgekoster and please email us with feedback and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening.

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Voices of the Community transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Descript. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of Alien Boy Productions’ Voices of the Community’s programming is the audio record.