The Bossticks - The Truth About Toxic Products: How Plastics Are Polluting Your Food Without You Knowing With Caraway Founder Jordan Nathan

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

#806: Join us as we sit down with Jordan Nathan – the Founder & CEO of Caraway. After experiencing Teflon poisoning firsthand, Jordan set out to create Caraway – a brand dedicated to non-toxic, thoughtfully designed kitchenware that prioritizes the health & safety of your family. In this episode, Jordan reveals the hidden dangers of toxic cookware, shares practical tips for reducing microplastic exposure, & provides actionable advice for safer cooking. Plus, we dive into the truths of what's really in your kitchenware!   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM   To connect with Caraway click HERE   To connect with Jordan Nathan click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697)   This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential   Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn's favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes.   This episode is sponsored by Caraway   Visit Carawayhome.com/theskinny or use code THESKINNY to get 20% off your next purchase for the next two weeks only.   Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

People love to say that Lauren and I fearmonger because people that I would say are ahead of the curve. many cases. And I'd like to say now after doing this for close to a decade, we've been proven right on many things. It's like had ourselves. But okay, so when you make a statement like that, explain where it's coming from and why you believe that. Nonstick cookware for decades has been made with Teflon, which is a tremendously toxic material. So Teflon was actually created back in the 1930s or 40s, actually in the Manhattan Project for the atomic bomb. Oh, great. And so as a military-grade material built to be indestructible. And the properties of Teflon that make it such a great kind of commercial material is that it's very resistant to water and liquids. And so it's

very repellent. And so I think in like the 1970s, it started to get commercialized and was used in a variety of applications on carpets, diapers, cookware, raincoats. It's pretty much in everything today. And little did they know was it was a tremendously toxic material. And so Teflon has links to pretty much every type of cancer, lower sperm counts, behavioral issues that affects your sleep, neurological disorders. The list goes on. And for decades, that's what's been used in nonstick cookware. So what you're telling me is essentially a girl's going to the farmer's market and getting fresh farm eggs that are organic pasture raised eggs. And she's bringing them home thinking she's doing so many amazing things for her family.

And she's cracking that egg on something that is literally has poison in it. That's right. And it takes two and a half minutes for Teflon to start breaking down once a flame is on. And so pretty much every time you're cooking, it's leaching into your food. It's leaching into your air. You guys may know this, but Teflon also, for me, it's through a lot of our waterways. So a lot of your drinking water has P-FAS in it. And actually when that water goes into, let's say, like a Dutchie,

oven to boil, not only can your cookware leach, but the water can also leach Teflon into your pasta or whatever you're cooking. Here's my thing. How come there's so many things that are regulated by the FDA? And this isn't one of them. Normally, a lot of the governmental agencies require years of studies. And Teflon actually initially was made with this material called PFOA, which got banned about two decades ago.

And that was like the initial material that Teflon cookware and all these products were made with. It ended up getting banned after years of studies that came in. And the thing that's dangerous in Teflon is the fluorine compound. So once PFOA was banned, every brand switched to PTFE, which is just a slight variation off of Teflon. And so there's not enough kind of data studies out there right now to ban it across materials. But you are starting to see a lot of governmental regulation. So I think in the past year, about six states have banned the use of Teflon going into effects over the next five years for cookware.

other products. So actually, Minnesota starting January 1st, so I think 20 days from now, will not be able to buy cookware or ship cookware with Teflon in it to anyone in Minnesota. So we're starting to see it come into effect. But it's fair to say that up until this point, the majority of people have been buying cookware with these materials in them. That's right. You know, I think this is such an interesting time, and I just said this to you right before we started where, you know, and I've been vocal about this. I said I was excited or enthusiastic about RFK coming into the into the administration, not because I'm picking a political side or not, but I just think for the first time in a long time, this country is starting to open their eyes

and starting to say, hey, like we have a issue here with our health system, with our food system, and with some of our medications. And there's for the first time a wide conversation that's taking place beyond shows like this where people are saying, okay, there's obviously issues that we have as a country and as a people that we need to pay attention to. People are getting sicker. There's cancers. The kids are sick. All of these different things. But I think a lot of that is focused on the pharmaceutical industry and the food supply, and very little of it is focused on what you're talking about, which is like things that we actually bring and put into the house from a materials perspective. How did you get interested in this space and start thinking about

founding a company that would solve some of these issues? I grew up in an entrepreneur with family. Both my parents were entrepreneurs, went to Colby College up in Maine. And I always knew I wanted to start something and actually straight out of college, I launched my first startup, which was a e-commerce marketplace built for all these new digitally native brands. Did that for a couple years. They didn't really know what I was doing and that one fizzled out and then ended up at this company right after that owned a bunch of brands that's sold on Amazon. So join that company and they needed someone to run their kitchen brand. And so they put me in charge. And when I first got there, they didn't really have a good suite of products to sell. And so got there like my first

week and I was like, all right, we need some products to sell that actually meet what the market needs. I taught myself sourcing, product development, and we were just selling commoditized items within the kitchen on Amazon. You said commoditized, where they were just like nothing so unique and special. Exactly. The one thing we did unique was adding colors to those products. But other than that, it was just sourcing off the shelf for manufacturers and selling them to to sell. And there were kind of three moments, I'd say, in my journey that kind of led to Carraway. So there's this big show in Asia called the Canton Fair. It's one of the largest trade shows in the world. The building is many, many football fields long. You can walk 10 to 20

miles in this building in one day, and there's just every manufacturer that you can find displaying. So first time I go, it's one of the coolest things that I've ever seen. Incredible amount of manufacturers, products, and all this. Second time I go, seeing a lot of the same stuff, a lot of plastic, a lot of stainless steel items, and then I end up going a third time. And I kind of have this out-of-body experience while I'm walking down the booths and looking at all these products where you go past all these booths and it's just plastic after plastic after plastic. And I'm kind of standing there and being like, wow, like this is really sad that all these booths are here. People are buying these products and they're all kind of in business selling these items. There's items that you didn't believe were good for us.

Exactly. And it's just a bunch of crap that exists. And so I started having this internal conflict of like, what are we actually doing? We're just selling these products on Amazon just to sell. I end up on that same trip going to a manufacturer who makes cookware. And we go into this like dark room at the back of the factory. And there's these really cool like tubs that are probably the size of shipping containers. And these really, really cool like metal holders that are shifting. cooking body is dropping it into the metal vats. And I go to take out my phone and a bunch of the factory workers come running over being like, no, no, no, you can't take photos or videos. And I asked the person who's accompanying me, like, why can't I take photos? Turns out that's where the hard annotation process happens, which is when you take cookware and you put it into sulfuric acid, which is terrible for the environment. It gets dumped after it's done being used.

And so start kind of opening my eyes to like, what is cookware and kitchenware actually made with? And so I kind of get back. I start having these internal struggles of what are we selling? Why are we selling these products that aren't good for the environment? And then about a few months later, we're looking to launch a new cookware set out the company, bring home a pan to test, which is a typical thing that I would do. It's just like bright orange pan. Get home one night, put it on my burner, turn on the flame.

when I turn on the flame, my dad calls. I'm in like a classic New York City apartment where the kitchen's walled off from the living room and go to take the call with my dad. Takes about 45 minutes. When you forgot the pan was on? Completely forgot I left the flame on. Walk past the kitchen. The kitchen is full of smoke. The pan that was bright orange is pitch black. I ended up turning off the flame and start feeling sick from the fumes. I have a headache. I'm nauseous. And my wife is like, hey, let's just call poison control and make sure everything's okay. So we call poison. control and they're like, all right, what were you cooking off of? I say, oh, just a normal nonstick pan. And they say, oh, well, you probably were likely exposed to Teflon poisoning. I didn't know what this

was. We were selling these products. And I remember going to sleep that night and turning over to my wife and being like, are we actually going to wake up in the morning? It was so fuming. We're in a tiny New York City apartment. What does Teflon poisoning feel like? It's really like flu-like symptoms. So think about painting a room in your house and standing there in the fumes. So you have a headache, you're nauseous, You're feeling lethargic for a few days. Yikes. Okay. So this is, okay, from, and at this point in time, how common is a pan like the one you're using?

Is this like the majority of households? Everywhere. It's in Marshalls. It's in Target. It's everywhere. It's 95% plus of the nonstick market and probably 75% of all cookware. Poor Michael. Michael got a wild hair and thought that he was going to become a cook.

And he went and bought every fucking pot pan, crock pot, you name it. He bought it. Well, I mean, this is what normal people do. This is my hot tip. What I just went on and bought the thing. I slowly take it out of my house and replace it with what I need to replace it with. And he was so resistant. This is a huge brand name that you bought from.

You were so resistant to me. Things started going in the garage slowly. And this is why. And you know what? Next time I'm going to say, trust your wife. What's interesting about this show for me in particular, like as somebody who's been hosting it for almost a decade now is, I've learned so many of these things that have enhanced my life on the show. I always say, like, I'm fortunate that I get to sit down with people like yourself first,

but then, like, I'm learning at the same time as the audience. We just happen to get the conversation maybe a few days or a few weeks earlier, but then it goes out. But yeah, I mean, like, this show has been a continual, like, the cleaning supplies are changed, the food supplies change, the supplements are changed, the cookware has changed, the sheet, all these things, and I would say it's led to a great improvement. But, again, if you were just looking at me as, you know, average, person at the time. Most men, I would say, too,

we're just like, we're not informed about these things. We don't think about the cookware. I saw, oh, here's a package of 14 things that I need in the kitchen. Click, bye, don't think about it. I know, but here's the thing that's hard. Most people do, right? It's hard for me. And I would love to know what you do. I know I can only

control my environment. So when I'm traveling, or I'm at grandpa and grandma's house, and they're cooking up eggs and hash browns on a pot, and we go to get room service, it's like you can't control all that. What do you do then? Because having food on toxic cookware, it says here can cause chronic health issues like cancer or hormone imbalances. So what do you personally do? Your home is as safe as it can be. And that's really the area

you can control. I think like different than maybe some, you know, taking a nutritional supplement or something where you feel the effects right away. I think the challenge with some of these product swaps that you might do in your home to not. non-toxic is you don't necessarily feel that right away. It's going to impact you later in life. And so I think you got to control what you can and, you know, make great decisions in your home. If you're going to a restaurant and they're cooking off of Teflon or you're going to your parents' house and they have it. You know, I think certain instances throughout the year a few times is, you know, going to be okay. But you definitely want to limit your use and exposure to Teflon.

Yeah, I mean, here's the argument that I make to myself in my own head when I'm rationalizing these changes. changes. If I can talk myself out logically of why I should stay with an unhealthy version of whether it's a cooking supply or it's cleaning supplies or it's better, different sheets or whatever it is, like if I can give myself a reason as to why I should not make the change to a healthier alternative, which I usually obviously can't, then fine, maybe don't. But I think we get stuck in these powers. Like this is what I've always bought. I don't want to spend the money. I don't, but then we'll go off and spend our money on dumber things. Like for me, to your point, I don't worry at all about what a hotel's

providing me or what I'm eating in a restaurant because I think 99% of the time when I'm at home is like I'm doing that. And so once in a while, if I get exposed to something in the outside environment, I don't spend a lot of time there, but I do spend a lot of time now thinking about like what is in our home. Exactly. And I think you have to think like what's the value of your your health, right? And if you go to the grocery store, there's an organic section and a non-organic section. Like if you go to organic, you know you're going to spend more, but you're willing to do it because it's better for your health, right? And I think when you're looking at these consumer products, you need to kind of ask that same question. And the reason that most non-toxic products are more expensive is because it takes more cost to, you know, use the safe materials.

And so as you look at your kitchen, it's hard to just get rid of everything at once, right? But I think doing it step by step and tackling the core areas, you know, first is important. I think the way I approached it, if this is helpful to the audience, is look at your daily habits. So to me, cookware is like a pillow. I'm laying on a pillow every single night. My pillow better be the best pillow with the best detergent because I'm laying on it for nine hours a night. With cookware, I'm cooking for my kids every single day. Let's not get crazy.

It's just eggs. Or I'm baking cookies with them or I'm using the spatula. And so when you look at those daily habits of what you use every day, instead of buying like a 20 piece set, look at where your daily habits are and start with that and start small. We were just sitting with the founder of Flamingo Estates. I don't know if you're familiar with.

And we were talking about how there's been this race to the bottom in this country like to get the cheapest most mass product out there. And as consumers, we've been conditioned that, you know, it needs to be cheap, needs to be cheap. But then fast forward by having all these cheap products that are maybe not quality that have maybe unsafe ingredients or bad chemicals in them

or materials, now we're creating all these long-term problems for ourselves. And I think as a country, we have to kind of revisit and say, like, is it the best idea to have the cheapest products available if it's going to cause problems down the line for us that are maybe irreversible in some cases? So I think, like, I know it's expensive some of the things that we talk about on the show, but if you were going to do this as a long-term investment, like, you wouldn't say, I need the the cheapest thing that's the worst thing for me so that I can have a little extra money. You know what I mean like you want you want to start investing so that you can negate some of these problems that my thing is instead of getting the 14 set of a different brand with teflon and it get one pan from

from your brand i want to go back jordan to the teflon flu when you woke up the next morning you obviously didn't die but if you had been around teflon for a long period of time and exposed to that what are some of the repercussions that would have happened probably larger health issues And I think the thing with Teflon is, like you said, it's micro exposures throughout your lifetime. I know we're talking specifically about Teflon, but one other thing that we're tackling at Carraway are microplastics. And I think the stat is like every human eats about a credit card worth of micropastics a week. Didn't they just find it in people's brains or balls or something? Everything.

It's in all organs. I saw an article that it was found in Dolphin Breath, interestingly. I heard it was found in like a dude's balls or something. right is that I swear to God Carson pull it up you'll see it I don't know if that's like listen you can't I've heard enough about your balls today I can't talk about what I'm wondering go ahead so talk to us about microplastics microplastics are found in a lot of kitchen products you might have seen articles recently on black plastic so many kitchen utensils are made with nylon which leeches into your food those ones you'd see in like Target just like exactly the cheap ones are the ones that

a lot times they come in your cookware set every time you're cooking with them they're melting it's getting into your food you're putting in boiling water it's getting in boiling water it's He got mad when I threw them away. Go ahead. Keep going. Cutting boards that are plastic every time you're cutting them. The shavings are getting into your food. Food storage. You have food sitting in there. The plastic's leaching into your food while it's sitting in your fridge, especially when you're heating it up. No one's really talking about appliances right now, but your coffee makers, your blenders, these all have plastic within them. I think we're all aware that these materials are entering our lives in ways that we didn't anticipate as we started creating. I think again to this race to the bottom,

we've been trying to find these efficient ways to mass produce things for long periods of time, and now some of those repercussions are certainly present themselves. Yeah, and we see this with the R&D process. Like, it sometimes takes us 12 months to find a factory who's willing to make our products with the materials that we ask for. Every factory we go to,

they want to make the cheapest product possible, and we're like, don't care what it costs. We want it to be safe. We want it to look great. And it's a massive challenge. They don't want to flex into new materials, Plastics really easy. It's cheap. Teflon's cheaper to create. And so I think another just root issue there is you have this whole manufacturing base that is kind of taught to make things cheaply. It creates an issue for brands like ours when we're going to create products that there's very few manufacturers willing to actually take the risk or put the time into creating something that's different from what they're trained to do. I think one thing that everyone could change just by listening to this episode that I think is impactful. And maybe you could speak to this is, is, is.

like you mentioned tepperware. So for instance, I'll make my kids macaroni and cheese. And maybe five years ago, I would have put that in those plastic tepperwares. But like you said, that heats up and gets microplastics in it. So a quick one to do that's more affordable is just getting like tepperware that's not plastic. Can you talk about what happens when it heats up? Plastics is synthetic when it heats up. It starts leaching, you know, microplastics.

And as we discussed, microplastics are in all your organs. they disrupt sleep, they cause cancer, neurological disorders, etc. And so for food storage, which we sell, we sell glass containers, which is super safe and put them in the microwave, you could put them in the oven. Obviously, the challenge with glass is they're harder to travel with, but, you know, you don't want to be keeping your food in plastic for days. What are some common mistakes that parents make with their kids with this arena? Yeah.

So we have a 10-month-old, so we're going through this right now. I think overall it's really hard to stay away from plastics with kids. You know, I think in our household, we try to use glass bottles where we can. For toys, we try to use a lot of wood toys, but, you know, they can be dangerous if, you know, our son falls and hits his head. Even touching the toys is bad? Well, our toddler, I don't know about your kids, likes to chew on stuff. And so every time he's chewing on plastic, that's ingesting microplastics. Okay.

So if my kids don't chew on it, it's okay. Correct. I mean, I think, again, like, I don't think we need to be so crazy neurotic with everything, but we also don't need to... I love it. Yeah, but you also got to be realistic. We don't need to inundate ourselves at every turn with you. Like, that's the way I think about it. I'm like, okay, listen, if they have a plastic toy once in a while, no big deal.

But if they're surrounded in the food they eat and the stuff that they're wearing and the diapers and all the... Like, at some point, you're just setting somebody up with such an uphill battle because you're just bombarding them. But once in a while, like I said, if I travel, I'm not stressing about what I eat. out on a restaurant one night. But when I'm at home, I just want it to be as clean as possible. Plastic's an incredible material. You just don't want to be ingesting it. So like if you had a plastic kitchen bin holding your utensils within your kitchen, like that's totally fine. You know, you're not, it's not touching your food. It's not going to leach into anything. Okay. So I don't have to be worrying about the touching of plastic. That was that was giving me anxiety. I don't know.

That just, I just was like, oh my God. You take everything to the extreme. I'm an extremist. I'm intense, but I am an editor. I like to edit. I'm not a crazy person in all areas. I wear like normal makeup. I probably don't wear like the best legging. That's exactly what a crazy person would say. I'm not a crazy person in all areas.

Here's what I do edit like a psycho, my daily habits. So for instance, I'll give you one. If my kids are wearing underwear every day, I want to know what's in the underwear. I don't. And by the way,

parents can go Google this. There's so many hormone disruptors in kids underwear. So that's something I care about. The pots and pans and baking and my utensils, I care about it because I'm using it every day. When you started Caraway, once you figured out that this was a problem that you wanted to take on, how did you even start and what were the first things that needed to, that you needed to qualify creating the products that you've created? Yeah, so I think first was identifying a category

and material. After my experience, cookware seemed to be the obvious place to start and is the biggest market size and so wanted to tackle cookware and there were really three options we looked at we looked at stainless steel cast iron and ceramic non-stick for me as a consumer i never liked cast iron or stainless steel because they were harder to cook with they're more meant for professional chefs cast iron's hard to clean it's heavy and so i wanted to really create something that was easy to use and not daunting and if you're also selling something that's non-stick or or non-toxic you don't want it to be daunting and so ceramic was a great material that we found where it had actually been on the market for about a decade and the brands who are

selling it, more marketed, the eco-friendly aspects of it, it releases less CO2 into the environment during production. But no one was really talking about the non-toxic properties. And so what we really did was we took a material. And why is ceramic such a great material? It's derived from, you know, sand and apply to cookware. It's a naturally, you know, or naturally created material. And so it's non-stick, it's got great properties there, releases less CO2 in production, and so it's a safer material. The downside of ceramic is it might not last as long, but, you know, I think we have to, like, retrain ourselves that if cookware does last a very long time, it's probably not safe for you. Wow. So if someone, I hope my dad's listening, has had the same pan since 1982, it's time to

retire that. Yes. And if it's a non-stick pan from 1982, it's especially dangerous. because it probably has PFOA in it. But you're saying like for a cast iron skillet that's been around, like that's a safer material obviously than the Teflon. What are some other little things in the kitchen that people wouldn't think about? And one that we've talked about a little bit is the spatula for me. What are little things that people could just upgrade really quick that's not overwhelming? So we sell a tea kettle and we actually, most tea kettles have a plastic spout.

So every time you're pouring boiling water, plastics leaching into your tea or coffee, most coffee products. As mentioned, coffee makers are really dangerous. You have hot water, you have plastic, recipe for disaster. It's in most products. And you know, you really want to lean into natural materials. Wood, glass and steel are, you know, always safe materials. Jordan, how do you feel about going and getting a nice hot cup of Joe from the local coffee store that's plastic? Don't love it. What about all those little plastics leak into it? Yeah, gives me the heck. You know what I can't handle though? I'd rather have the plastics in my balls is when they give me the paper straws. Yep. I'd rather have no, I'd rather just have no straw. I want to hear Jordan's take on the hot cup of Joe.

I don't think I would drink it. You wouldn't. Nope. Okay. So you're going without coffee if you have to drink a cup of coffee. If I had to have that cup of coffee and there's nothing else, I would probably drink it. But if I have the choice between drinking that and going to pay and get another cup somewhere else, I would go for the latter. And then what about your, what's your vibe on tea bags? I don't drink a lot of tea, but you know, we'd look for the safest. Okay. When you're shopping and you're out and about as a father, what are things that you're avoiding? What are things that are, you've mentioned a couple things, but what are like all the things you're avoiding? I mean, I think if you're looking at baby formula, even just food products, you know, you obviously want to look for products that have the least amount of ingredients typically, which typically means they're safer. But it's also important to look at the packaging that they're in. So if you have safe ingredients and then it's sitting in plastic or something unsafe, you really should question what's in it.

And so I look for more cardboard, steel, aluminum, safer materials. When it comes to, you know, in kits products as mentioned, try to stick with wood as much as we can. Silicon is better than plastic. It is in its inert state when it's not hot typically is okay. But if you're using any type of silicone and it's going to be heated or, you know, you're going to put hot food into it, that's when silicon. can actually leach into your food as well. At Caraway, do you guys have a list of materials that you just, like, that are blacklists for your company, you just won't great products with them?

Yeah, definitely like a pecking order. We try not to use plastic or silicone when we don't need to. You know, there are cases where we might be okay with it. Let's say it's a lid that's not touching food. Silicon gaskets are great for vacuum sealing products. And so we really like to try to avoid plastic, silicone, all those if it's touching your food, but we'll use them in a case, let's say like a knife handle that there's no risk really of microplastics getting into your food. And then are the materials that you lean further into

outside of the ones that we've discussed? Yeah, we prefer really wood, steel and glass, and they all have their pluses and minuses. And a lot of times what we try to do too is, you know, ceramic coat products as well. So we actually have a ceramic coated glass container set, which is really cool. You get the glass, which is non-toxic, but then you also get the non-stick element added to them. What have been some of the biggest challenges as an entrepreneur when it comes to building a company in the category that you've chosen to go into? Yeah. I think for us, it's a big piece has been education around what we're doing. I think if you go back to 2019 when we launched the business, I think a lot of folks knew Teflon was bad, but it wasn't something people really talked about.

And so I think we've had a little bit of an uphill battle on trying to educate consumers about what's in their products. And I think to combat that, we really lean into design as a core element of the brand. And I think when you typically think of non-toxic or eco-friendly, you don't think of pretty. And so for us, you know, designs a core pillar to help, you know, people get non-toxic into their home. You raised $70.4. $70 million. I'm not going to include the point four. $70 million.

You just did. $70 million. And you've launched collaboration. with Creight and Barrel and Queer Eye Star Tan France. What has that been like scaling a business and when did you know you needed to raise money? And what did that process look like? Yeah. So we raised our first round. It was kind of two rounds and one back in 2019.

Needed capital to get off the ground, buy inventory. And I'm a single founder. So it was just me kind of hitting the pavement in New York City. And it took me 10 months to raise our first fundraising round. We brought on, I think, 60 to 80 investors in that first round. Wow. A lot of angels. Good for you.

It was six to eight investor meetings a day. It was pretty crazy. And every time kind of cash came in, we put it towards building the product, doing material research, building the brand. And as a business, we always look to build the brand sustainably just like we do the products. And so, you know, a lot of the capital that we've raised has gone into R&D, building the team and marketing. What does your team look like at this point? And what are you primarily focused on? It sounds like operations to me, maybe.

I do a little bit of everything. Product development is my background. So, you know, every product we've launched, I've, you know, been in from start to finish. I work with all of our manufacturing partners. But the team today is about 75 people. We're actually remote. And we built the brand basically during the pandemic,

which was a big challenge to kind of shift from being in office at first to being remote. And that's actually a big challenge for a physical product company. You need the team to like look at the samples and understand the materials. And so we're like Ubering products back and forth across New York. We're shipping them across the country. And so that's been an interesting learning experience. But I imagine during that period of time, like I was, I always find that COVID period of time interesting.

Because it was either like some businesses were so at the mercy. And there was like, you know, especially restaurant businesses or retail. Like if you were in that space, like there's almost nothing you could have done. But then there was like some categories, I think you would fall into that where you maybe saw a little bit of a boost because people were at home more. They're cooking at home more. They're thinking about like how to prepare. They're spending more time in the home. Similar to like even the, I guess at the time, they're at home. They're listening more. I was just like I imagine that time even though challenging was also beneficial in some ways. Totally. COVID shifted consumer culture in a positive way for Caraway in that people were home. They were cooking more. cookware sales were just through the roof during that period. You couldn't keep anything in stock. With COVID going around, people were more intentional about what they were putting in their bodies. There actually was a study that showed that Teflon, more Teflon in your blood actually led to elevated risk of getting COVID.

And so people started being really more mindful about what they put in their body. And so for us, it was really a high growth period. And I think today people are spending more times in their home. they're investing more in their kitchen, their health, and it really did shift that, like, cooking culture. I think why I look to your brands, like I look up to your brand, is that I think you guys have created a better, cleaner option, but you also made it aesthetically pleasing. And I think that's so important to me, at least, because if it's going to be out in my kitchen,

I want it to be pretty. What is the top selling, like, best seller collection, but also color? Yeah, so our top sellers are cookware set, which was our launch product. So no Teflon, no lead, no cadmium, truly one of the safest products on the market. And our best sellers are cream color. So when we launched, there was just a lot of black, stainless steel, white on the market, and the colors that existed were like your bright reds or bright blues. And so when we launched the brand, we wanted to create something that was really representative

of kind of fashion and home decor and create colors that hadn't existed. And I think cream's been such a hit because traditionally I think people are nervous that your lighter colors are going to stain. And so for us, it was kind of going against the grain and taking a risk with that color way. That's the color way we have in our house. Well, you know, and I was going to say, I cooked on it this morning and yesterday morning.

What did you cook? I cooked eggs for the children, okay? Nailed the eggs. But what I love about it, and I don't know if you'd even, is it classified as non-stick? What I like is I just throw a little butter on their grasswood butter.

It's sleek. It's sleek. I don't have to, there's not some huge mess after. That's right. You know what I mean? Like, you know, again, I'm not. a super whiz in the kitchen, but I hated all the mess with all the shit that I had before. Like, this is just like super clean, consistent every time.

Yeah, and the benefits of ceramic is you can use less butter or oil. I would recommend a little bit to coat the surface. You don't need as high of heat, which is also better for your health because gas stoves emit a lot of toxic fumes. And yeah, it's just a naturally slick material. I love the sleek material. Can you imagine if Michael Bostick wasn't married to me, Jordan? He would be in his kitchen with Roundup and Wind

Dex, cleaning his Teflon pan with his creepy cookware. I would say that the majority of listeners of this show are female. I know I see the data. And I think what I would say is it's mostly been the women, Lauren particularly, in my life that have taught me how to live. Like, guys, again, like I went online. I saw 14 set whatever needed to be in my kitchen, click by. Like, that's about as much thought. So, like, when she introduces me to all this stuff, I take it seriously now because I've

seen so many things. But I think it's the, I don't know what this is sex is. It's the job of the wife to tell me this kind of stuff, right? It's the job of the wife. It's the job of the wife. I've got other shit too, bitch. I need you to take care of me. Tell me about leveraging third-party testing.

I think that's really cool about your company that you're so into that. We do. So all of our products, we leverage third-party testing. We use SGS or Intertech, which are a lot. organizations. You guys probably know this, but you know, a lot of testing is is flawed in some ways. So, you know, we do the standard kind of Cal 65 prop and FDA and LFGB. But I think where we go a little bit more in depth than other businesses and brands is we do tests specifically for PFAS, lead, cadmium, et cetera. And, you know, we test very frequently as well.

So- And competitors aren't required to do that? Cal-65 on the rest of the items? No. We always talk about this internally, but you have labels on food telling you what's in the products, but on consumer products, you don't have labels telling you what's not in it. And I think there's just a big flaw in this industry of lack of transparency. And I actually think boxes that probably have less information on them are typically the ones that are trying to hide something. Not in every case, but you know, you want to be diligent about your testing.

And I think one thing we try to do as a brand is any customer who reaches out and asks for test reports, We share them. We've got nothing to hide. And I think it's important for consumers to know as well when choosing businesses is like technology is going to evolve. Materials are going to evolve. And at Caraway, we would never put something out that we wouldn't recommend to our friends or family or that I'd have my son eat off of. And we're constantly trying to improve and use the latest and greatest technology. And so the third party compliance is really important. And we don't just do it once and we're done with it like a lot of businesses. We'll test every batch that we're producing. Do you wish that there was some kind of law or proposition where it did have to show what are in these consumer ingredients? Yeah, I think that would change the industry. I think we might get there. There is more regulation. And the fact that we're seeing states starting to ban Teflon, I think really says something.

The EU actually has a proposition out to ban Teflon over the next 10 years. It actually hasn't been fully passed yet. a lot of Teflon's actually used in like solar windmills and electric cars. And so there's kind of a tradeoff of like, if you can't use it on these products, then you might actually hurt the environment. And so I think there are certain cases where it's probably okay to use because there's a net benefit to society. But I think we do need regulation to really come in and step in and try to move these products, especially from things like cookware that are leaching into your food. There's Teflon coming out of electric cars.

They use Teflon and car motors and a lot of the batteries. Oh my gosh. I don't know about electric cars. I got to be honest. I was thinking about this and maybe you're the one to ask. Don't fucking take my test to stock, Lauren, right? No, I just want to know, like, if you have an electric car and you're sitting in the car while it's charging. So let's say the car is plugged in and you're sitting there like I've seen people on their phone while the car is charging.

That can't be good for you. I don't have scientific evidence to say, yes. or no, but it's probably not. We actually recently discovered, too, that a lot of the wires in, like, your appliances or home are coated in Teflon as well. So as electricity is going through and they're heating up, that's also likely, you know, emitting into your air. But again, like, we can be, you know, I think you could take a lot of this stuff to the extreme. And again, like, Lauren and I have had people like Ryan from Test My Home on the show, and we've talked about some of the things you can do. But I think, like, what I look for is simple, daily happen.

where you can make easy switches that don't require you completely overhauling your life. So, for example, we're all going to continue to clean our house. We've talked about switching to branch basics and just a better alternative. We're all going to continue to cook for our families and use these supplies and use cooking and cookware supplies, like switching to carry away is a good decision. You know, if you're certain sheets and materials and these things that like where you don't have to overhaul your whole life, like if I don't have to be in the walls ripping out the electric cords of my. Exactly. I don't want to do that. We hopefully are all keeping our phone away from our balls.

Actually right by my ass right now. Kitch your phone away from the balls. I mean, yes. But the point is, is like, I feel good knowing that it's like those things where I don't have to go full tin hat and rip the total.

I don't want to be like, you know, have you seen Better Call Saul? Yep. Yeah, you know, and he's like laying in. Should I be that for Halloween?

I can't be that. Great costume. Yeah, and you go and get an air purifier, right? So I think a perfectly good solution. And I think with all this, like if you're in the market and you're buying something, thing. It's important to be, you know, educate yourself on what's the safest. And, you know,

I think if you have that alternative and an option to go at the safe, the safe pick, like, that's the time to do it. And as we think about the kitchen, you know, it's, we're selling kitchenware today, but, you know, the water that you're drinking, the air that you're breathing, they're all really interrelated. What product are you working on and launching soon that you're really passionate about because I'm sure you're going into some crazy spaces. Yeah, I can't share the exact categories we're going into, but we are Caraway Home for a reason. And, you know, we are building the brand to be one that's hopefully here in 100 years from now. And, you know, I think we constantly are pushing the boundary and definition of what the word non-toxic means. And so,

we started with, you know, tackling Teflon and cookware and bakeware. We're now focused on microplastics across food storage and, you know, knives and utensils. and cutting boards. And so as we expand, we're going to look to tackle kind of other areas of the kitchen and home. And, you know, I think if you take a scan of what's in your kitchen, you could probably guess that's, you know, where we're headed. If our audience were to start with one thing, I know you're probably going to say the cookware set, but what's something else that's unexpected that you would recommend? One of our fastest growing categories are kitchen utensils and cutting boards. Plastics are such a easy thing to get rid of. And if you do have safe cookware, you want to make

sure that you're using wood for both your boards and utensils. And most wood products aren't super expensive. There are different grades of woods. And some brands do use like unsafe lacquers on the boards. And so you do need to do a little bit of diligence on what's out there. But, you know, your typical like raw wood boards don't have to be super expensive and they're easy to swap out. Sometimes I don't use a cutting board. What are you cut on? On the counter. I do that too, but you want to you got to make sure that you're not using any, you know, toxic sprays on the counter when you're cleaning. I use branch basics.

Yeah, perfect. So that's why I do that. Sometimes I'm a little lazy. But if I'm going to use a cutting board, which is such a commitment sometimes to pull out, it is wood. I think that is such a great place to start because so many people, unlike me, do use a cutting board. Michael's so grossed out. I made him dinner last night.

I cut your, your... I'm doing all this work to have non-toxic cleaning and cooking supplies in the house and you're just going and using the countertop. I do the same. And you just wipe it down. It's easy. See? I think so many people that are listening do the same.

It's relatable. We're doing a great job getting some of these cutting boards sold for you. So what I would recommend if you guys are listening is yes, the cook horse, that's amazing. I have the cream. But don't sleep on like he said, the cooking utensils because they are heated up so often. And the cutting board. But also what I really like from you guys and that I use all the time is your Tupperware. and that has really changed my life because I am cooking hot cookies or pasta or my bowl of meat.

No, we meal prep too, so we leave like, I cook like a shitload of chicken breast a other night and I just leave it in the in the Tupperware. Yeah, and it's the best of the best, in my opinion, storage. And I, I, you said it's hard to travel with. I don't give a shit. I bring it on the plane. I bring it everywhere. I love it. I'll pack like a little, a little meal for my kids in there.

I think it's such a good one. your tea kettle's amazing your products are so pretty but like I said earlier they're non-toxic and they're better so it just makes it a really easy buy I also think it's a great gift no we love it I mean listen I'm not gonna lie

I was hesitant when she got rid of all of the cooking utensils and she brought in the wood now we have the wood I use your supply but now I'm converted I'm sold on it now because the way this man kicks and screams when I change something

and then he comes around and rebrands it Like its own idea is honestly fucking crazy. Well, I just, it's probably a control thing that I have. I just hate the idea that like all of a sudden this thing is like now I'm wrong and then she's taking it. And then like, I know she's going to be right. And then I have to admit that I was wrong. There's a deeper thing I got to deal with on my own self.

Totally. But yeah, you have to be really careful with your food storage. There's so much plastic out there. And when we launched the business, it was one of the categories we were most excited to tackle. Because the whole category is plastic. And we really have the most. premium set on the market. And I remember investors asking, like, how do you know you can sell north of a $200 price point on it? And, you know, I think when we looked at the market, it was no one's ever

tried and no one's really using safe materials out there. And there's definitely a portion of the population that doesn't want to be using plastic, doesn't want to have that leaching into their food and, you know, we'll want something that's durable that lasts a very long time. Well, this is what I think the lie about the people in this country is that we just, everything needs to be cheap. and inexpensive. And I say that because I think we need cheap and inexpensive things if they're not quality, but I think people will invest in quality products that last and put their health first, right? Like this idea that like we would rather take a cheaper, unhealthy alternative as opposed of something that is quality and protects our health. I think that that's a myth. I mean,

everybody's under different financial circumstances and obviously speaking from a place of somebody that has some financial security. But I don't think any consumer goes out and actively seeks out cheap products that they know are harmful, right? Like, you know, we're trying to find affordable quality products that are going to increase the chance that we have better health. Definitely. And there are lower cost options that are safe.

You know, those typically may not look as good. They may not perform as well. But, you know, I think for anyone looking like, you know, there are great options at all price points. And, you know, I think making these decisions now just has such a huge impact on your health longer term. And I think when we think about a lot of these materials that we're ingesting today, I think in 20 years we're going to be looking back at this as like these were like the cigarettes of like our generation. And I don't think we'll, you know, our kids will probably comprehend the fact that we were eating everything out of plastic and Teflon and products that had lead in them and so on. You would also be smoking your cigarette in the house with your Teflon pants. thank God you met me. I will say something else. I used to love a good cigarette.

Yeah, I think you still would if I wasn't around. Hey, nicotine's not that bad. I mean, it's addictive, of course, but it's all the shit. Tell yourself what are you to. That's why you have a good cigar and it's just one ingredient. Go with your tepone pants. I'll get you a little apartment down the street. You know what was wild for me with the tepperware is I thought I was being so healthy with my glass tepperware before care away. And then I started examining it and I realized the glass. Tepperware that I was using has a plastic lid. I bought this off Amazon. I went on and googled glass tepperware and if you look on Amazon none of them have the kind of lid careway has. Totally. So that's why I think I'm really passionate about the tepperware because so often you you heat something up for dinner or you make something and then you have to put it away and if you're putting it away and then you have the plastic lid it's like you might as well just have the whole thing plastic. Definitely. And

And if you have a plastic lid, if you're not heating it up, it typically is safe, as long as you're not like shaving off the plastic into your food. But yeah, it's really when it goes in the microwave and it's starting to heat up, that it is, you know, breaking down. We're just putting hot food in there that's just came off the stove or the oven or whatever, and just let me sit in there. Also the baking for cookies. We baked cookies the other day on your pants.

I love your baking stuff. My whole kitchen is, you guys. Secretly our best product, I'd say. Yeah. I love baking cookies with my daughter. on that pan. And we haven't discussed that, but another issue is, you know, you have all these baking sheets that are like raw aluminum or they've got teflin on them. And then they're going in a 400 degree oven for, you know, an hour long and emitting into your food, into your air. And so you see the

classic, like, baking sheet that's just like all black. It's got all this residue on it. And it's a really dangerous category with very limited options. So you guys have obviously been a long-term partner of the show. So excited that you came on because I think like the, the, We always love to get the context behind why somebody chose to dedicate their life, just something obviously here, and the mission and the reason behind it. So love that. And I know we have a code, but you have a unique code for this particular episode, right? We have a very special code for the audience today, 20% off Carraway for the first two weeks after the episode drops.

We rarely run discounts. So definitely a special deal. Make sure you take advantage. And the code's the skinny. Carawayhome.com code the skinny for 20% off for the first two weeks. go shop your heart out perfect for the holidays. Jordan, thank you for coming on the show.

Where can everyone find the brand and you on Instagram? You could find us at carawayhome.com. And our Instagram handle is Carraway underscore home. Thank you for coming on. Thank you, Jordan.