Talking with Ben from SORTEDfood | CREATOR #007 | Digital Voices

when we set out to be sorted and I remember there's something that Barry always said was it he was like I just I don't know what this is gonna become but wouldn't it be cool if one day it could somehow have an influence on people's lives in the way they cook and we didn't know what that meant at that time it could have been a handful of people whatever but the fact that now as many people engage with the content have potentially changed their attitudes towards food their opinions of food they've tried dishes they would never normally have tried or it's forced them to get friends around to eat because they've made something that was too big just for themselves but it's just it's amazing how food is something that brings people together time and time again it is a catalyst for socializing and for friendship which is why I think sort of works hello and welcome back to you create a podcast from digital voices and today we have a very very exciting guest think you're the biggest channel we've had size isn't everything I mean but we're winning we are winning a food yeah we have been sorted food here who is I think one of the channels that has like shaped YouTube history in the UK wow that's a big that's a bold statement and I'll take it back do you want to introduce yes I've been one of the cofounders of sorted food so sorted food is a global channel all around food and cooking but it's as much about the friendship that we have on screen as it is just about the food itself you can see here we made Ben into a mad rebel and got him to spray paint and he's naturally quite good literally the first time I've ever graffitied anything in my life he's signing the camera which you'll see at the end you see these clips and if you say something that you've found interesting that then says in the podcast in the comments or something you didn't know and we will choose a lucky winner to post it he interested we both have a challenge I've got to say something interesting and they've got identify what it was so sorted food is kind of nearly ten years old does that make you feel old it does and what makes you feel even more old as when we were raised we each other even longer so as friends we've known each other for 20-plus years since we were 11 and then sort of ten years later we started doing YouTube off the back of writing a self-published cookbook and there was a reiteration before sorted food there was another channel that we should say tested our youtubing on life sorted students and so that we are literally over ten years on the platform although the channel as you see it now yeah coming up ten years back when you're kind of growing up did you love cooking when you actually worked as a chef yeah I always came from very foodie background so my parents were big into food not trained or not professional but we always had great food going up always scratch cooking I didn't know what a ready meal was until I went to university and saw these things and people are eating and so I've always loved food but it sort of became a career when I decided to go to uni into calamy arts management and yeah look where we end up okay so your friends in school did you always want to work together did you make jokes about how you're gonna work together or was that not know although we know each other for 21 years we were in very different groups at school so Jamie was very much and RAM Barry was very much football team Mike was kind of music and I was more maths and science they were obvious overlaps it wasn't really until the last couple years of school six forming a level that we began to actually hang out together and realize that we got more in common didn't perhaps we thought and and then it was as we went off to university that while we're in our second year at uni we began to format this idea that these skills could come together to create something unique and even then it wasn't a business it was just wouldn't be cool to do something and a cookbook with my recipes Barry's photography an excuse for Jamie to do like a marketing project because he was doing marketing University that wasn't fictional I can't we could bring all that together and the book was the answer so we never planned to have a business it was just something that evolved how did the idea come up we sat round halls we liked drinking late one night eating a kabob on the way home where did all all of that so we were at different universities doing different things but Christmas semester times would come home back to like hometown and we were sat on the pub recounting stories of what we were getting up to and one common theme was how terrible everybody's diets were and which surprised and shocked slightly disappointed me because I was like actually really easy and I would literally scribble down recipes in the back of a bear map and the philosophy was if it fits on a bear map it's easy enough and simple enough and cheap enough for you to give a go and you'll get great results out of it and it kind of spread from there so as your diet quite healthy you were like guys I wouldn't say it was healthy but it was definitely scratch cooking like you still you can still cook from scratch some terrible things and comfort food and they're really important like we should only enjoy food but on the whole when it wasn't so much of the frozen dona kebabs which i think was one of the worst examples that Jamie and told us and I was just like not acceptable try this okay so when you're a student what was your like go to your go to guilt recipes is that you're really hungover or say you're like come back from night out or something and I get a lot of stick for it because I keep bringing it back up again now I still love quesadillas so sick thrown together no time couple of tortilla wraps mulch and cheese in the middle and then whatever you can find a bit of chili a bit of spice a bit of fresh cook them up right a great snack and everyone loves them but for many years I kept like how many more how many more versions of quesadilla can we do on the channel cuz I I just love them yeah battle easy ultimate quesadilla battle bring it on so that was your kind of guilt food yeah simple stuff like that that was one step better than getting a takeaway on the way home one of my friends that you need to do oven chips and then he'd open a cold can of baked beans and just pour the cold baked beans on the chips and I thought its disgusting things I'd ever seen in my life tinned beans loved them baked beans cold no no exactly I think so did you realise there was a gap and you all kind of wanted to experiment with it and did you think it would just be a one-off project we started as a cookbook and we were all doing our own things that wouldn't be cool if we all graduated and had this extra thing that we could show throughout time and we did it that way and it turns out when you're self-published a book and print loads you've then got to work out how you sell them and you know not to metaphorically we had a shedload and it was I had we sell these provide ample the winter and we did a few videos basically adverts for the book and putting on YouTube because YouTube was free yeah and in our pockets and this thing that just started so we thought well let's give it a go what's the worst that can happen and who had edited who like who had any video skills at all as a Barrie was doing that at the time and was doing all the photography of the book all the design the graphic design for and a website that eventually we did as well and so at the time Barry was leading the visual identity and as still does today and and and then I was sort of meeting on the food and it kind of worked that way when you first started making these videos were they ads for the cookbook or were they recipes they they were rad I think we thought um realized I don't know whether it's accidental not be with us for a very early point if we were trying to appeal to our peers and we were already cynical back then and I think our generation are even more cynical now like hate being sold to give them something of value give them something entertaining giving something inspiring get them something useful and so but surely you'll make create more demand for it and that's what we did like recipes formed the basis of it they were recipes from the book it was going to lead to interest will if it if this is good I wonder what else in the book and that was the idea but it wasn't about hey buy our book because it's got x y&z QBC style it was very much like let's give them something that we enjoy making hopefully they'll enjoy watching yeah it's funny I think a lot of brands still struggle to understand that even on YouTube they'll make ads and put them on YouTube and it's like no one wants to no one wants to be sold to we have that conversation all the time with people approaching us and brand sponsors which we love working with different brands on the right grounds and it's how do it create something bigger and better and interesting for our audience that they want to see ideally they've asked for it rather than we've forced it upon them because you want to do this and if it's something they're interested in they'll instantly begin to find an interest in a curiosity around what you do and one thing leads to another okay so this first videos how many of them were there a half a dozen maybe or so I mean literally camera on a tripod static talking for a long time jump cuts and they went up on YouTube and that was where it started did they do well well in terms of they did better than more people watching than we had friends it was more than just our mom was watching it so we were like actually that's interesting we're getting comments from other places and although that we drew in a cookbook and they were kind of my food ideas originally what was great was the first time we're like this is better than us just preaching a load of stuff this is now this kind of two-way interaction where people are asking for stuff somebody's requesting this or let's see if we can do our version of it and that's I think when it clicked that she there was this whole demographic of people out there who needed what we had around that pub table as much as we did and they were spurring on and that's where you know over time slowly it became more and more serious and there was a period where we're doing daily video recipes seven a week and we do that for about six months huge that catalog of simple how-to recipes and each and every one was like inspired by the community in some way and that's when we realized there was a huge demand for food on the platform because at the time very few people were doing it you're one the pioneers because 10 years ago there are very few consistent food channels and then Jamie did really well and there's loads of free channels now but back then it wasn't it wasn't the done thing it wasn't that the programming as having a schedule and having a release time and a particular formatted thumb or all of that was kind of just evolving and we were kind of making up the rules we went along it's bizarre to look back and think that in some ways that's kind of help forged how it's done yeah because we had an idea and we tried it and it worked and we had another idea we tried it that didn't work so we went back to the first one but you kind of you try and test on the platform we did a lot of that you've also helped people work out that being friends sells which is going for it it must be you're like oh we've come modified our relationship in a really lovely way you know in a way that means we still get to spend you know pretty much Monday to Friday and sometimes more when we're traveling and stuff together and it is the best job in the world it's difficult to use that word and we work very hard us and the whole team it's not work it's good fun and and we literally come to work with our best friends and get to cook all day and create stuff we love and have this conversation with people all over the world that get up in the morning and allow us to do it again and again and again some of the things I love about this industry it's like you can do entrepreneur very differently and it it is starting a business and you've got to do taxes and legal contracts and all that boring but you get to actually build something of value where you feel very close to the people you're making videos for in place the people you're making these videos with and you get to do it in a different way so it's not like you're flogging stuff on a market store no you and you're kind of making the rules up and it's done in a frictionless way and I know when we started the idea of the fact that it was a production team of four of us maybe two more and it's like a tight team of maybe six they were producing videos we'd then speak to production companies and we were lucky enough we appeared on a few sort of cooking shows as guests and staff we could Food Channel and stuff like that the production team they had a huge yeah 12 15 20 25 there was a seriously with ITV and I remember just seeing the coffee and thinking there's 30 people here waiting for me to introduce the show like so much unnecessary pressure it's the way it's done it's a different industry but when you realize actually now on YouTube the reach and the engagement we can have is on par with so many of those food channels on terrestrial TV and yet we're doing it with a small team and we've got control of it did I ever give you imposter syndrome wait like oh god these huge production teams make us feel like we're not doing it properly or did it kind of cement that you knew you're doing things the right way we've always just followed what felt good but we did feel a bit so rebellious at times because it's like maybe this isn't the way it's done publishing was the sames like there's a certain way the publishing works and there's certain cycles and you have an idea in the ideas pitch and you write a book and then eight nine months later it hits the shelves sometimes it's even longer than that and we're like we've moved on to two or three four more new products by then how do we do it quicker and more simple and get it into the hands of the people who want it in another way and that's that's why we did the Kickstarter a couple years ago and we're like actually let's not rely on a publisher to Commission it and fund out front let's sell it straight to people who want it from day one and then create it for them with them in mind let them help shape it and then we can send those copies out and it's exclusive and it's what we want and what they want and by the way you'll have it by Christmas which is three months we probably going like and that's that's always way we've done it's like this I know publishing as we're like that for decades but does it still have to yeah let's shake it off I think that yeah that's really funny because the Kickstarter I didn't IndieGoGo for a charity project ones and we did say we'd deliver things by Christmas and then it came up to beginning of December and there you are writing like rapping and writing handwriting to post things and going to the post office and the post office looks at you like you're mad but like what are you doing did you have that experience we did and we had you know a thousand books which we were you know signing and wrapping and sending but the thrill was it sometimes as vast as it is on YouTube with hundreds of comments underneath the video in the first handful of hours it's very difficult sometimes to connect with that where you know this is the physical thing that's going in the physical post and somebody's gonna put it through a physical door and it's gonna sit on somebody's physical shelf or in their kitchen and they're gonna cook from it that's different and I think that it doesn't matter then at that point because you're driven from a slightly different purpose yeah I get it when people were saying like oh by the way I've got this and I'm giving it to my daughter and I was like what like this the thing we made is now our present like what and it it's nice to see how it fits in someone's life when we set out to do sorted and I remember there's something that barrier I said was it was like I just I don't know what this is gonna become but wouldn't it be cool if one day it could somehow have an influence on people's lives in the way they cook and we didn't know what that meant at that time it could have been a handful of people whatever but the fact that now as many people engage with the content have potentially changed their attitudes towards food their opinions of food they've tried dishes they would never normally have tried or it's forced them to get friends around to eat because they've made something that was too big just for themselves but it's just is amazing how food is something that brings people together time and time again it is a catalyst for socializing and for friendship which is why I think sorted works yeah I think that's one of the things you've kept really close is like community the sense of community and it's not just between the four or five view it's between your audience as well yeah and I think when we when we get the opportunity to do physical things with it meet up with them meet ups we've hosted some supper clubs and stuff and when you actually get people on a table that's when you realize that that's the value it does extrapolate on youtubes a huge scale in every country in every language and every cultural background that we could never honestly understand ourselves we have this input from them and we sit as almost conductors like we've just feel like we'd mastering the conversation and we're learning from them we're just sitting it down putting it back out hopefully and entertaining inspiring way that draws more people in and everyone learns and then off the back of that we learn again and it's kind of it's quite moving to know that that silly little thing that we get to sometimes when the camera rolls is doing something good yeah I hope we hope it's funny because food is something that it's kind of inherently I think it's very real to people but it's also not seen as like a social good but you get to bring people together and change the way they eat and make them feel more healthy and it's amazing you're doing that through like fridge crap bridge cam yeah I mean that's I don't know how many episodes of us talking into a fridge now it's almost like a comfort blanket there's nothing more silly than talking into a fridge and therefore whatever we say is gonna be better than that and it's almost like it's our wardrobe into Narnia for us it doesn't feel like that it's literally like beyond that anything's possible and we've got this direct conversation with people who are watching and choosing to spend huge amounts of time not just scrolling past but minutes and minutes and minutes of content they're engaging in and then sharing and commenting and that is our window into into that community really it's pretty it's pretty cool you've constructed a real window through a fridge yeah I mean you're not normal people well I mean you remember your time at YouTube but we did a brand cast and thing during the engine the beacons and one of the things was to have a fridge there the YouTube literally cut the back out of so that anyone could step into the fridge of the camera behind it and get their selfies taken at an event and at the end of the event they said we've now got a fridge that we've cut the back out of and it's not really much good to us would you like it was like fridge games just been upgraded because up until then we would literally put a camera in the back of the fridge we'd have to film quick enough before the lens steamed up so yeah get you cold like it was a working fridge and we'd move stuff around and put a camera in it and only net only that give you what like four minutes five minutes yeah just something quick to shoot and talking to a camera before it got too cold if we're going back to when you're first launching those six videos where was the kind of farthest almost unexpected cookbook order from remember a moment where you're like oh my god we're placing this that has by John yeah like whoa literally all over the world so off to Australia I mean English speaking was still predominately it so Australia Canada all across America but some in South America as well it was just insane and I'm watching the videos - the beauty of you chief analytics is you can see everything um and back then it was pretty obvious when certain things were popping up in different territories because we were looking at hundred views you could see whereas now broadly speaking you get a feel for which areas and but yeah you can kind of see everything it's kind of mad at 21 did you feel powerful sounds it sounds strange but like you're you're living quite a fun existence with your friends yeah but you're having this impact where you're selling a product internationally and I think in the early days I don't think any of us thought much more would come a bit the idea of it was something that was just out there wouldn't it be cool I don't think at that point none of us had committed full-time to it we all had others we were still studying and doing our degrees whatever so the early stages it was just this cool side project a bit of a hobby and it took a couple of years to become serious enough for a couple of us to take it on full-time rather than working evenings and weekends to pay for that thing we wanted to do and then bit by bit more people came on board and you know now we're a team of 15 people which is incredibly tight-knit team and everyone knows exactly what they're doing and it's a well-oiled machine and we create amazing content we think for our audience and the club and everyone involved and no point in that journey if we have a look back and go on how do we get here because each step was just a tiny little extra thing it feels like it really snowballed which because you've added on so many extra bits and every brand deal is more fun or more challenges or more people and I think like the podcast like it feels like you've added on bits that feel very natural but actually they've all kind of been transformative and added something that's the business yeah and this is I guess it is just like hopscotch you jump from one bit to another and eventually you get to the end and I think people we often talk about a zig zag approach which is like people see zero down here ten years ago where we are now and they draw a straight line and wasn't that amazing well you didn't see but we went off here and we create our own beer and then we did this bit and we did that we did this and we did cookware we tried this and they haven't all worked but you quickly learn from all of those and work out what does work and you end up in a place and then wonderful people you just draw a straight line and just say are you amazing and we say but they were all they were all opportunities to learn something and and not just from a business point of view and a strategy point of view but actually what do we want to do what do we want to create what does our audience want to see and ultimately it's not us and then with the same people it's the same audience we're the same age with the same we're peer-to-peer so we always have the same values in mind yeah I feel like you learn more from failure as well which like absolute success is great but you just keep doing the same thing and because it hasn't failed you haven't had to tweak that much but if you fail at something you're like right where did it go wrong and what we've done better and that's where I think you you you kind of yeah just become a better person yeah we've never had a physical space like a restaurant or a pub and and maybe one day that is a dream but I remember in the early days I did a lot of agency work so I would jump from day to day or week to week in two different kitchens hotels pubs and community centers like nurseries and cooking for like three-year-olds like really different jobs but it was always a chef stepping in to do a role and some of those were not great experiences but I would say I learned more from the places so that if I ever were able to set up a place I had definite not doing it that way or that way or that way and you learn more you actually write you know more about how not to do it from all those opportunities then then taking a few nuggets which you do as well but I think you know you take those experience you've logged them and they might not mean much time but several years later something else pops up another opportunity and you send ego yeah we could do that but we need to avoid that and there's like a gut reaction when you're like hang on I remember being really miserable in that situation what was the reason why okay if we have a culture it will not be like this we will not have this process that made me unhappy now you kind of get to set the rules in your own team as well new your employee people like you get to set rules for them yeah it's true and I think the team is what makes it everything kind of work easier in the sense that you're not we've never been a single creator in a bedroom with the webcam working out how to write a script or speak into a camera and then edit ourselves like we've always had each other to bounce off of and the different people editing to being on camera and basic games but rubbish will cut that whereas sometimes I but I really you know that's what I wanted but actually it's by bouncing ideas around and the brainstorming and not rushing into things too quickly let's have an idea let's just it all down get on a whiteboard scribbler a few things around see what everyone thinks sleep on it for a night for a weekend come back to your next month and we've got some time and you come back to go but because you've got the team you can kind of do that sometimes when you're on your own you're just like after that because it's we're on a treadmill of life and I've just got to get it done and you're like it's the only thing I only path you can see which is when you've got a whole group of people the ideas you come up with a so much better you'll think differently and bring something in different circumstances in our own lives between like like Jamie's Maori to kids Barry's got a childlike we're all in different places we have different demands on food on our lifestyles we don't have different tastes and preferences of what we like to eat and cook and cuisines or styles of food and so even between those of us you see on screen that's helpful but to know that there's two times as many of that off screen as well and we're all bouncing ideas around recipe labs and everyone gets to taste stuff and try stuff and pass opinion but then that's really strong as a 15 but we're still only really almost puppets to this huge global audience who actually teach us more than we can teach them in the first place I want to go back to kind of the beginning so you said you did the cookbook you had six videos started doing well and then what happened I think it was the response to some of those videos and the realization there were comments and more requests and suddenly somebody wanted a particular dish that we hadn't done and we almost felt obliged that they'd gone to the effort of watching those that we should probably find an answer for them and in a way that's what sorted was right back in the start the name came from getting something sorted just let's find a solution to get it done let's get it sorted and that was kind of it it was at the end of every title it was it doesn't it didn't translate very well because in America like she means organized to get something sorted into order and so it didn't quite translate as well as we'd wanted but that was it was like let's get it done let's find a solution so when people are writing in saying that's great but I've never been able to cook a risotto the way that we have it on holiday in Italy can you show us how it's like yeah of course again well and we should because you've asked and it was almost like a drive for it what was your life like at the time they like did you go back to uni all of you you were separate like how did you come together to make the videos to carry on so right in the early days we built a kitchen from flat back a flat-pack IKEA pretty much stuck together with Velcro in a corner of a barn of a family friend and we would just like stick it there and thanks that's great and we would film on a Saturday because that was the only time that everyone could actually get together because Jamie Mike had real jobs and so we would plan and I'd write recipes and test recipes during the week and Barry would be editing what we'd shot previously and we were sort of doing that during the week and then we'd shoot on a Saturday that I mean that was very early days and a couple of years of that kind of dipping in and out part-time in a position where it's not a at that point a career it's a dream and it's we're building something we can see it growing it was anyone working on a full-time at that point we were putting in a lot of hours but we would definitely happen to work elsewhere it's a agency work Barry's doing a wedding photography Jamie was working for a marketing agency so we had a proper job and and Mike was the one that had a proper job for the longest because he was a teacher and he was the last one to sort of the Forester to quit his job and come and join us full-time which is a serious like commitment like well when and how and I think it's when you start to see for the first time revenues coming in with a moment where you're like oh we've got this certain number of subscribers was it views was ad revenue was it brand deals what was the moment you were like hang on actually this might be able to support us I think it was it was momentum seeing an opportunity in the sense there was growth like every year it was doubling so in the first three is doubled and doubled looks like it's going somewhere but that numbers don't mean anything unless you can monetize it and it was teaming up some very early brand partners and we saw opportunity we did some stuff good food show and a bit species where we were cooking on the stage in live demos so we could see various different opportunities the book was still selling which was good so there are a lot of different avenues that collectively made it possible I think ad revenue was probably the least of all of those for a long long time standstill is you know it's not it's not the answer but it is some of the parts and so it was really all of those things and then some sort of early sort of investment kind of in terms of like somebody getting actually give it a go and a bit of mentoring and enabling us to give it a go and to play so it was actually barest that so he was just like actually if you want to go for it we can help you shape this and give it a bit of structure and play and he also admits he didn't really know where it was gonna go and sort as we started building this random set in a bond that we were a bit crazy but he had the trust and faith to go actually just just try it and just see and that's when it was a friend of a friend's barn and that's where it was kind of a lot of putting of favors and and a lot of sacrifice baths I think if you believe in something enough you can make it happen okay so when Barry's dad was first like come on give it a go was it utterly terrifying I imagine it probably was but looking back I don't remember it being so and I think it was just cuz every step was like there's a bit of success we've kind of broken the mold like that's not how it should be done and we've done it this way so maybe room for chance there was a little bit of the the underdog like when we're speaking to people people quite like the the gutsy straight-out unique giving it a go breaking a few rules but kind of getting there I think that played to our favor and I don't remember ever being terrifying there have been moments we like now we take a leap you know we're taking on professionals who are much better at what they do than we ever could and they're always been friends of friends or introductions but it wasn't like the core of us and it was like actually there's a requirement to make this work now because there's of the people I mean kids as well that's the other thing that would terrify me like paying people's rent in London I scares me and that's one the recent growing the teens fun but knowing people have kids and you're like that's a wedding to fund yeah there's a lot of pressure it's got it's got to work and it in and I goes back to thing I think we are so close as a group of friends that the moment it starts going left or right we can all sit down and work out how we fix it and there's no there's no egos there's no there's no hierarchy it's just kind of like we're in this together and there's there's too many videos out there now which means we're not gonna get proper jobs there's too many ridiculous videos of us doing silly things that we're never gonna get proper jobs so we've got to make it work their moments you've ever sat down and just someone's had like a really it's like making a really big life choice and you're all like no stop what do you do no I don't think so because we've always we've always believed in each other you're like kids right now know what you're doing how are we gonna support you it's a family decision yeah yeah this is a group decision no I don't think so and there have been times when all of us have had particularly busy times and some of that and again I think that comes down to the friendship and the trust of the if you need to leave and go for whatever reason family mental health your own wellness whatever excuse and there's an instant trust there that just means actually of course that's amazing as a business strategy cuz I think a lot of businesses you can get really annoyed with people when one person feels like they're doing more than the others and over 10 years there have been ups and downs but it all balances each other out it's like never been a fan of the people when you go to the pub or for a night out and everyone's counting on me this and this and actually should we split this this no just I'll get this one you get a next one it will work itself out and I think again pub table analogy but that's how we kind of run the business it will work itself out you trust that everyone's kind of good people and not looking to screw everyone else over it makes sense give it up we're actually supporting each other actually is going to work and there's no you know we don't the good thing is we don't always agree on everything that's a really good thing because that's where you get the actual the challenges and the things like you don't end up going down the wrong way just agreeing with it there's a cueing so we sometimes disagree but never to the point where it can't be fixed by a beer at the end of the day so there's no drama no one storms off than that okay you don't seem no hissy fits not many and so what subscriber number were you at when because I think a lot of people the reason I ask is I know people get caught up on the numbers but I think a lot of YouTube creators forget those pivotal moments or especially aspiring creators look at it in their like oh if I did they have a hundred thousand subscribers when they became full-time or did they have a million actually one of the our sort of core brand partners we've worked with for seven eight years now so Kenwood they've been we almost joke they're almost like the extra member of the team when it comes to they've been in our kitchen passive been actively in the in the kitchen for ever and ever I think that was probably a defining moment was super early on and we had five ten thousand subscribers and we were speaking to the great team that came with and which she's right there and they kind of took a bit of a punt with us and said actually this is really interesting we like what you're doing we don't know where it's going either as little as you do but actually we don't work together on something for six months and that was kind of the first time we're like okay somebody else is trusting us it's not just our own crazy idea and we got some some kit and some you know a check to help sort of be a part of that passive placement and then we create bespoke videos and then every year that would just relationship would just grow and it was with Ken were that we did a lot of the live demos of the Good Food Show and we did some stuff for their app they were in our videos and it was and always has been a very sort of two-way relationship and we still work to this day with the camera team and it's the same team it's the same people because agencies everything changes but like brands I think often you can develop those real relation it's a really good you know it's good British brand and we know whether it's base we know the people in the business and it's it just works and I think that was a defining moment it was like somebody else in a very grown-up job trusts what we do and sees value in it for their business and so maybe we aren't something I think that was that was a defining I can't remember five or ten thousand subscribers that's amazing did they find you or did you find them I think we were probably between kitchens we were like we need to we've been kicked out this barn we need to find somewhere else or whatever and that was a moment like well we could do as a some kitchen equipment I wonder if we could start a conversation that's more grown-up as opposed to just buying you in it's cheap on eBay I feel like I have to ask you you're the chef one I mean everyone cooks everyone's great but what was your favorite utensil when chem would like we're gonna give you some stuff what was the equipment you're like it still is the mini-chopper it's a tiny little thing but it it's great it's pocket it's pocket size and we use it for everything no I'd love a slow cooker I'll have a pressure cooker I love a sous-vide machine I love all the science around cooking but that was just like a little compact that's a big brand to have support you for a long time okay that's really cool and and I think it was that same year was the first time that we went to VidCon and suddenly we were like whoa we're traveling halfway around the world to go to this video conference thing with other people who are making it their jobs and meeting brands and we had a spot on the main stage even right back then superly and we're like what how something must be working and I think it was just because food does resonate with people everyone has a passion point around food everyone has an opinion on food everyone can relate to it and so whereas there's lots of pockets of stuff on YouTube and lots different categories they don't tend to cross over food was a really easy one and right back then we did some collaborations with Joe Penna mysteryGuitarMan we did some stuff with Charlie we did some stuff with DeStorm we did some stuff with Grayson Manor like right back then you're like old school you do exactly that but it's good they were in so different many genres and yet they all had an opinion on food and we could cook for all them oh okay and like really awesome old-school youtubers I'm talking yeah eight years ago with more but and Fairplay to them because they were all have a lot bigger than we were but we could cook for them and that was our gift and we and we could have a bit of fun and again it wasn't about the food really it was the fact that we could have a laugh on camera and food was just like this catalyst okay the tough thing is there's so many different avenues I want to go down now I think community is the next one we should go down because you're talking about community of creators together that's community of friends and there's community of your audience which seems to really Drive you how do you feel about the way the communities changed Knox I mean you look eight years later a lot of these creators aren't on the platform anymore and you're still there like you're like guys but yeah I feel like we're still treading water and paddling the YouTube community I think the wonderful thing about what we do and I'd love to say it was deliberate but food is evergreen if you want to know how to cook an endows piri-piri chicken recipe or a white chocolate cheesecake the recipe we did eight years ago is as relevant for you today as it is now or back then and yes back then production quality was very different format style was different haircuts were even worse than they are now but ultimately the recipe still works because it was tried and tested back then we never put out anything that wasn't tried and tested and worked it was simple and people still are cooking those so I think food is evergreen whereas sometimes music styles and comedy stars fashion they will change and as an audience changes people can come and go so in terms of creators we've been very lucky and since that we can contain a food but food is constant but in terms of our community and and some people say the platform's changed and all that we've never seen that change like we've never had any negativity under our videos I mean great trolling on videos is a thing and we've never seen it and occasionally if it creeps in we've got such an incredibly loyal audience and community now they jump in long before we can and they don't have a go they just correct the person actually I know you don't agree with the way they've done this but what's what it does is X Y and Zed and if you want the version you're looking for they did it two years ago it's here and the whole community self manage themselves and continue to grow and we don't have trolling we'll do Sumeet content on a Wednesday and some vegan content on Sunday and the two audiences are pretty similar there'll be some overlap there'll be some differences but nobody needs finds the need to have an argument against any of it and it's just rich conversation with the channels interesting because you've been so in some ways so consistent in they've done new syriza's and add new people and new videos and new formats actually you've grown quite consistently and you haven't kind of ever tried to jump on like a vegan hype just the sake of it or we've had to stick to to what we are and I don't think any of the five of us are vegan material but we all understand the need to eat less meat to eat more healthfully to provide a balanced diet when the community ask for stuff we absolutely want to give them a solution we want to get it sorted but it'll only ever be let's say 10% of our audience is vegan 10% of our content might be but that's we don't sort of go holy any one way we tried a real mix between baking and savory and different cultures and cuisines and fusion and kitchen gadgets or topical trends in the future of food we try and kind of do a little bit of everything and you've never shamed people which I really like says a lot on YouTube about shaming other craters their eating habits or shaming and it's just like it's too much drama we've got enough Shamy going on between the four or five of us we bully each other enough we bully on each other enough it's fine it's great I love it I love what are you gonna be like past two Grammys you me a super old my happy on YouTube show me the gray hairs it's done I think it's fine terrible for me too so the other thing on tasks like when you have you got your audience so you said you love how they like buy your books but do they ever send you recipes have you ever met any of them and thought like you told us a great wedding story before yeah it's like we are and there are moments where you just is super touching like we are so connected that audience there are people who there are people that talk to us YouTube Twitter Facebook Instagram more regularly than their own decade-old friends that's just a fact and and with twice a week we're there in new video but we're all across the social channels every day and we're having that constant conversation and it is more than just a chat there are recipes coming in we've done some of our books within the sorta Club they've all been inspired by community recipes we did the bucket list which is a list of what should be your on your bucket list of the 50 dishes you must do before you die morbid I know but celebratory food and why and it was a mixture of different chefs other Creators us in the studio and our team that you don't always see on camera but also huge selection of the community who have been following us for so long so their recipes become a part of it and then we get this recipe come in that's been handed down through generation of something we've never heard of from a cuisine we do barely know anything about we get the opportunity to cook it up and photograph it and put in a book and we've learned something and it's I think the bucket list book is one of my favorite for that reason because you flick through and every page is a story and it's a story that someone has shared with us and it's just really really touching that way and when you travel you said you often go and take people's recommendations you're telling us what's staying with subscribers it's been a crazy ten years but in that sense now everything we do is led by our audience so game changes is our latest sort of travel series and we've got this ambition to change the way that our generation travel when you get to a place how do you uncover the best stuff and we've come up with skylight three rules that would get you in a good position where you can actually truly experience a place you mean more than TripAdvisor it's not the top ten on a TripAdvisor at Google a timeout they're there and some of them are well worth doing and it seems silly to go to a city and not do some of those things they're iconic and you have to but how do you find what the locals do and the hidden gems and how the family is in that area are actually eating and cooking and so we always go for local recommendations and how do you source them do you say like we're going to use the community tab on YouTube Twitter Instagram we just reach out and then if people give us suggestions and sometimes we'll get back in touch them directly sometimes me above them have Skype sometimes you meet in Greece which is just and I think this is a difference between which we realized early on in in the VidCon days where we'd be in a big hall and we'd have a meet and greet session where is everyone else creators would be stood there with a line of people who want to come up and interact them and this audience would come up with their phones out and they'd want a selfie our audience come out with their phones up but they don't want to focus their want to show us what they cooked last week or where they win and they're literally showing us this great food that they've cooked or been inspired by or they want us to have a go and I feel like the relationship we have is much more than just creator influencer well it's also it's because there's something tangible it's the way you've impacted their life that they can share with you it's not like an ad like it is an admiration but it's not a blind admiration or they feel like they're they obsess over your personal life it's like you've shaped each other which is I think quite different they want to photo with you to boast about they wanted to be like what do you think my posture exactly and I think that's that's more humbling and more touching than actually anything else because that's the reason we started we started because people around the table weren't cooking and weren't inspired to cook and didn't have the skills to cook and weren't taught at school and there was we talked about this cooking gap which is a whole generation of people who are no longer taught at school because of curriculum changes and that might be taught design technology and food technology but not how to cook on a Monday night Tuesday night Wednesday night and so they were long been taught by their parents but we're now over time where the parents weren't taught so we have this cooking gap of people who are just like having to resort to the internet and a handful of idiots online who are messing around but hopefully they're able to learn elements of cooking away just a nasty favorite subscriber story time like a subscribers impacted your life we've met them or something interesting when it was oh so many M so we the project we did with Android pay a few years ago so it was a sponsored project and they came to us with a challenge which was there wasn't enough trust in contactless payment in the UK some people using Apple pay but didn't really know or trust Android paying how could we raise awareness for this function that was it that was the brief and and we thought well let's come up with a creative way of doing it and as is always the case Mike and buried sort of bash ideas around we all chip in what we ended up with was we wanted to invite ourselves to our communities celebrations and we're gonna ask them what's your celebrations coming up soon and would you want us there and if we come we'll bring some element of food we'll take the food to another level and and the best part is we will do it all with just a phone an Android contactless payment and by the way it's hooked up to androids credit card so we win and we got loads of suggestions from graduations to family barbecues to birthdays anniversaries but I think the one that stood out was a wedding and a couple who have been watching us for years and invited us to their wedding I mean that is just the most crazy situation they put on a table for us at the wedding it just insane and the lead up to it the 24 hours before we had to learn all about barfi Indian sweets and tonight 250 wedding guests and the normal thing there is you'd have like three or four pieces the birth it was like a thousand pieces of barfi we needed to make in 24 hours didn't even know what birth it was at that point so we had to do like the research and we would literally taken by the bride and along through Wembley to try different barfi and learn and the groom's mum and the groom and the best man took Barry and Mike to get dressed up and all of this happened in a 24 48 hour period and it was just insane and there was that moment we were here at the wedding and we thought yeah this is a video and this is content this is great and we've learned how to make birthday hopefully we've taught other people what barfi is and they've got a recipe they can go and create it so that's what sort it's all about right but we're also at somebody's wedding and they have opened up their special day for us like they would any of their friends or family and that was connected like there is more to this than just people you watch on YouTube there is a connection that goes deeper and I think it was that moment that we just went wow that is phenomenal and how do we get this position where somebody who watches us trusts us enough to invite us into a wedding will say for a brand deal and that's the thing that's interesting as well cuz it's like it's not just interesting that you'll turn up and you'll do a video people they know you're being paid to help as well which I think like often there's a lot of skepticism about sponsored content but if someone's like please come to our wedding don't care if androids involved come to our wedding we we get so much positivity around the brand sponsorship we do and again the influencer word and a lot of hashtag out there is a lot of negativity around there's a lot of people who don't necessarily do it too well but we've always said if we're going to work with someone they have to bring something to the table that we our audience don't already have access to facilities or experiences we can't have expertise or skills that we don't have funding yes so we can make it bigger and better and more plausible and then with that and with the brand's kind of concept or objective in mind now step back and leave it to our audience it aside because then we want our audience and we asked our audience we're going to come to a certain destination and do it or we want to invite you to a celebration or we're going to do this thing with Ford we want to cook food in the back of the car but then the control is in our audience hand so that we can give them what they want to see and then instantly everyone's on board and it works and those are the kind of collaborations that make such a difference and I think that are way more memorable as well do you um do you get sent photos of their kids so honestly we've we've done we've been involved in weddings and we've been had photo sent kids we've had people who sometimes go into long distance relationships and they connect through Skype or hang out or whatever but they've both cooked distorted recipe and they eat it together while they chat like but how amazing is that again food and this recipe can connect people across cities and possibly thousands of miles and it is the food is that connection for friendship relationships and also so the other thing that I thought well a couple of things I wanted to touch on so mission you mentioned the cooking gap and how kind of you use the whole channel started from this frustration of people not by eating ready meals rather than eating properly do you still feel like that mission drives you today yeah because I don't think anybody else has found a way of doing it yet and to fix the problem so I think food education and not necessarily just how to cook not necessarily just the basic skills of scratch cooking but where's our food coming from an understanding of the connection between farm to fork has talked about a lot but actually what does that mean and the connection of where our food is produced and the problems and the storytelling and the passion of producers behind it so much that happens behind closed doors so how can we join the dots and bridge some of those things and there is a reality that a combination of agriculture and meat consumption and you look at diets and things like obesity these are all the factors of what we eat and a system that puts things into place that enables us to eat and I don't think anyone is really addressing the education point of view in a way that our peers you and I want to engage with it yeah it's all quite um quite controversial a lot of the ways people do it it's very like the word I'm thinking of controversial it's condescending is it's that kind of like we're the experts we've done this scientific report where the politicians we have this policy where we are above you here's our dossier it's it's 200 pages long it's our plan for food after bricks it and here it is no one's going to look at it but inaccessible all very controversial very like look at how how all forward meat industry is and of course it's awful but they're doing it in a way that kind of shocks and shames people which I think you guys partly the friendship plan out it never comes across that way I think between us we have different opinions which is good so we're not always at one sided and that helps but also we we do sit on the fence quite a lot I don't think sources roly's have an opinion on left or right on any of these topics but it's great when we can just distill down the facts just built it dispel the myths and actually explain it in a way that is really easy and and mike is brilliant at that because he'll take all of the research and science and data that the rest of us were collected and I get really geeky and a lot that stuff and then distill it down and then Mike will do a 40 50 60 second animated segment that just explains everything in terms that everyone understands anything from the future of edible insects to gut biome to health flavor and aroma and taste combined to create an experience that you eat and therefore knowing that how do you cook at home and make stuff up on the spot all of that is kind of based around science but in a way that is accessible and fun and and we enjoy making the content and in theory if we enjoy it somebody else can enjoy watching it that's kind of we always hope I can tell it's the litmus test as well you like you're all very fun and you make it light hearted which i think is massively missing and I think it's something especially young people who are trying to learn to cook or change their lives they don't want it to be serious or boring oh and we desperately try to make everything we do something we want to do and sometimes it doesn't really make business sense to spend that much time or that much resource on something but if we believe in it we want to we want to do it and and we always go above and beyond and the whole team but I'd say Mike especially such a perfectionist and like everything has to be better than the time before and that's brilliant and I think if we continue to drive that and continue to let the direction be kind of steered by everybody watching engaging then it interesting and the podcasts are all great way of doing that we the podcast we've had behind the sort of Club so exclusive once a week and we just sit down and we talk about trending food topics and we can get quite passionate about that and sometimes it's led by a report or some science sometimes it's just opinion but you can go into that for 30 40 minutes more so you can on on YouTube so they're quite an interesting mechanism as well so what is the one thing you want people to take away from watching your channel good question and I think it probably is when was the last time you used food as an excuse to hang out with somebody that perhaps you haven't done for a while to have a new food experience and to whether it's inviting people in or whether it's going out for a meal and you know there's loads great places pretty much every city how'd you uncover the hidden gems in your city a city you're traveling to or how do you invite people into your home I've cooked for friends or family and when was the last time you went a little bit out of your comfort zone to try something a little bit different that created a talking point at the table so that we can make food a conversation that we should all be having and you mentioned this I don't know which angle to approach it from what he said he said don't forget to ask me about eating disorders only because that in terms of impact and I think when we were speaking before he said what's the most impact thing and it's it's always a subject that we we do not know enough about and we're not qualified in any way to to cover in a professional sense but we quite often have people and quite often but we occasionally have people write to us very very moving the stories and and opening up a huge amount and you look at some of the threads underneath some of our podcasts are we addicted sugar all these different kind of which side of the fence do you sit on when it comes to meat consumption veganism all those topics but the Ethan saw this is another one where some people have you know under stepped watching a group of friends have that much fun around food can bring a very positive look on food right quick Oh quickfire question [Music] so favorite YouTube channel that isn't yours ones we've been following for years still love grace maimry brand you actually like all the ones we're currently working with the course kenwood have work with them for years and nice people your favorite cuisine moves around a lot right now Vietnamese Southeast Asian possibly Chinese your favorite drink gin phone or text text unless you need to get a job done your dream brand ale something that an a was us to recreate the amazing experience we've had in game changers elsewhere in the world so to go to where so many of our audience are and Singapore Malaysia and cuisines that might push us out my comfort zone if you could be any animal what would you be definitely a dog they're just the happiest people best place you've ever traveled for a brand ale New Orleans was pretty cool and we've recently been to Puerto Rico loved both of those your favorite social network YouTube your least liked social network snapchat I don't get it your next holiday destination we're off to Merrick again soon and heading out to Japan the worst fad on YouTube slime I never really understood that because of we were in a rewind video the year that slime is big and we spent eight hours stood outside in the cold covered in slime because apparently it was cool your favorite ever advertising campaign I feel like all the beer adverts all the Carlsberg and yeah it's just the clever please drink responsibly and your dream video money was no object if you could do anything you wanted what the dream video you'd make me you know evolution of dance we wanted to evolution of food from caveman prehistoric man right the way through to the future of food space food and beyond oh okay a fun one the last time you cried well that sounds fun that wasn't chopping onions probably watching some pathetic reality TV thing like America's Got Talent always gets me really real people real stories Oh who's your best friend in the world you know she's one best friend in the world definitely my teddy well done well navigated well thank you very much I think you said some very insightful things actually hopefully some meaningful things that they mean something to us and then a lot of actually yeah what yeah foods is an exciting time for food right now yeah an exciting time for thought it yeah good luck conquering the world thank you if you found anything been said interesting at all anything please comment and then you can win this brilliant camera do I get to scribble on it yes he might even do I don't know draw a pie or something I doubt it you've seen my drawing skills please comment something you found insightful and remember to tune in again for another creator thank you very much for putting up with me my sweaty but least it was pretty warm in here anything you want plug to brands they don't feel they know where we are come find us come talk to us come cook with us and he didn't bring any cooking thank you I want these quesadillas right thank you and goodbye that used to be the trick just turn up with a little bit of Tupperware of something or other

Channel: Digital Voices

Views: 83,513

Rating: 4.967041 out of 5

Keywords: Podcast, Interview, Influencer Marketing, Influencer, Creator, Creator Marketing, Creative Industry, YouTube, story, Food, Food & drink, food and drink, cooking, chef, how to

Id: smmK5qI4jzY

Length: 58min 55sec (3535 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 10 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/JRS1986]

This popped up on my YouTube feed randomly and thought you guys might enjoy it.

[u/Tiszens]

Oh gosh, bennuendos xD