Change Your Brain Every Day - Saving Fisherman's Livelihoods Amid a Pandemic with Jeff Tedmori

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Dr Daniel and Tana Amen ask Jeff Tedmori about the difficulties of trying to launch a business in 2020 and how he had to radically adapt in order to save fisherman's jobs.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are here with Jeff Ted Mori. We're talking about fish in your brain and how to have a bigger brain. It's the only organ where size matters. And if you want a bigger brain, fish has just got to be part of your diet. Some people say, I don't like fish. And I wonder why that happens. Do you have any idea? It's, you know, their mom was not a good cook and didn't prepare it right they weren't exposed to it young when chloe our youngest a child she would eat was a small child no like six months old like she was like six months old she always would reach for my for sushi and i'm like she can't eat that because i'm not going to

give a six month old raw fish so i called her doctor she wouldn't eat any protein though so i called her doctor finally when she's about a year old she wouldn't eat any kind of chicken nothing not she wouldn't even eat hot dogs like i would like try to bribe her with some kind of protein because i was like freaked out that she wouldn't eat protein so i called her doctor he's like give her the sushi just make sure it's clean i was like really so but she was drawn why she had 12 word sentences maybe and why she tortures me with language yeah no she's like yeah maybe that's why she's got a 4.2 gpa who knows yeah but all she would eat was raw fish it was the she wouldn't even eat if it was cooked yeah super weird what's funny is i grew up hating

seafood oh funny i would not eat it um and and i had this interesting situation where I love to go fishing. And so I came back after a fishing trip with, with like all of this incredible fish and I would give it away to family members. I would give it away to friends and family. And my parents sat me down and said, listen, if you're going to go fishing, you have to eat the fish. You can't kill these animals and not consume them. That's just not right. And so that next fishing trip I went on, I made a dedicated effort to try it when I got home and I was shocked. It tasted nothing like what I had always known fish to be. And that's because I had grown up never actually having a good piece of fish. Interesting. I think at the end of the day,

people have bad experiences because they're not getting a fish that's truly fresh. Yeah. They're out of water for far too many weeks. Yeah. Frozen and thawed out far too many times. And, you know,

what we like to say is that the quality of seafood depends on two things. It's time out of water and consistent temperature. And the traditional supply chain relies on three to five different wholesalers moving the product between warehouses. And that extends time and it increases the risk that that product's going to stay cold. Yeah. That leads to a product that's ultimately subpar. And so I would encourage anybody who does claim that, you know, it's too fishy or I don't like it. Try a good piece of fish and you might be surprised.

That's cute. So my neighbor was from Japan. Amazing, amazing person. He was just he loved my daughter. He knew that she liked fish. And so he went fishing, got this very, very fresh piece of fish, brought it over.

He didn't speak great English. He brought it over and he said, make sure, I understood, make sure you eat it soon. And so I'm like, okay. So that night I cooked it and we took him a big piece of it and he was horrified.

He was horrified because he's like no you don't cook this you eat it raw it was like oh it was really cute because it was so fresh he's like this is sushi grade fish yeah it was great yeah that's what it was yellowtail yeah yeah it was so great yeah and i mean a lot of people get overwhelmed by what to do with it, right? Do I cook it? Do I eat it raw? Can I eat it raw? Right. And I like to say that when you're working with a fresh product, like truly fresh, like as if you're like, you went fishing and caught it yourself. It doesn't take a whole lot of prep work. It doesn't take a crazy recipe. If you're going to cook it, salt, pepper and nice

bowl all you need. Keep it. And you'll that's how bear flag made their business. And I missed the last thing you said, Jeff, just like a nice oil, like whether that's going to be a nice olive oil or just a finishing oil. Yeah, no, I like it simple. Yeah, simple. Right? Salt, pepper. I'm completely happy with it. Maybe a little lemon juice on it. When people do too much, it can sour it for them. Stuart, do you have any great stories since starting EFISH?

Yeah. So we, we had originally launched as a, as a marketplace connecting, uh, these fishermen to fine dining chefs. And we had this elaborate plan right in place. I was, I was building this out during my second year at MIT, uh, you know, about to graduate. And we had this plan to launch March 1, 2020. And we were shipping to Jean George's restaurant in New York City. We were so excited about this launch. Two weeks in, pandemic hits, New York City's the epicenter of the COVID. That's so painful. And so literally two weeks in, restaurants had shut down. And what most people don't realize is how badly it also affects

downstream, right? We heard from farmers, we heard from restaurant owners and chefs, but what people don't realize is that these fishermen were really heavily impacted. And so what we did was, you know, I remember it distinctly. It was March 18th and my fishermen out of Cape Cod called me and said, hey, all of our restaurants closed down. So we're pulling the boats out of the water and we're going to wait this thing out. So I'll call you once, you know, this is done in a few weeks and we're going to wait this thing out. So I'll call you once this is done in a few weeks and we'll get back up and running. And I'm of course at MIT and I'm a student in a class where literally an epidemiologist, as well as people who model epidemics like these are the classes that I'm in and we're modeling this thing out in real time. And we're clearly seeing that there is no end in sight,

like no matter which way we go about it. And so I went back to the fishermen and I said, listen, like, if you wait this out, this is going to be really bad. Um, so here's what we're going to do. Um, I'm going to go start knocking on doors and we're going to keep really bad. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to go start knocking on doors, and we're going to keep moving your product. And so that week, I sent messages out to all of the students at MIT, students at Harvard Business School. And I said, hey, we've got oysters, we've got mussels, you guys are stuck indoors, I'm going to teach you how to shuck them how to cook them. By the way, I had never cooked the mussel my life. And we're just going to figure this out. And so I drove down to Cape Cod. I picked up oysters. I picked up mussels and clams and delivered these boxes. And that's where

we started this entire direct to consumer model. That's brilliant. People still had to eat and we were struggling. And that was just brilliant because it's like, what are we going to do? Wait a year and a half to buy seafood? We can't do that. what a normal year would look like by any stretch of the imagination, but they were still harvesting. They were still moving forward and still able to have a positive outlook on, on what's going on rather than just sitting waiting. Wow. And did your business model then change to a direct to consumer model, or do you see it going back to selling to restaurants or both? Yeah. So we had to, we had to make a pivot to direct to consumer. Um, there were no restaurants,

um, that were operating. Obviously there was, uh, there was takeout, but I don't know the last time that you ordered oysters for takeout or any seafood item for takeout. It's just not that item for takeout. And so we moved to direct consumer and we love that side of business. I will say that we do, we're starting to see these restaurants come back, right? And whether we're shipping to, you know, three Michelin star Manresa in the San Francisco area, John George's New York City and their restaurants out there. These are the restaurants that are coming back that are ordering the exact same product that we ship to our customers.

And so we definitely see in the long term us being able to work with both of these customers. I love that you took care of those guys. Although the markup, if you learn how to cook this at home, given the restaurant markup, you know, if you learn how to cook this at home, given the restaurant markup. It's like $45 a plate in some of these places. It's like crazy.

Right. That it's a better value. And you don't, it doesn't have to be complicated. Now, let's be clear. It's fun to go to these restaurants sometimes. And I'm a huge advocate of keeping restaurants in business so sometimes i'll do it just because i'm i'm just so sad that some of my favorite restaurants went out of business so i am an advocate of also keeping restaurants in business but but so not everyone can afford to do that and we need to be conscious

of that and i love that we've got a direct consumer eat healthy on afford it right budget afford high quality absolutely it's so much more affordable if you do it at home right absolutely and and we that's one of the big and we purchased your product and it's excellent so yeah all right yeah well when we come back we're going to talk more about how fish can make you smarter. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics,

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