Fell Into Food Podcast

Everybody calls them headhunters. Nichole calls herself a matchmaker — and after this conversation, you'll understand why that one word change says everything about how recruiting in hospitality is supposed to work.

Nichole Bajko started in an Italian deli at 15, went to NIU for hospitality (mostly for the kegs and eggs, her words), did seven years with Marriott including opening The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas at 25, ran a restaurant and brewery in South Barrington, and is now about to start her fifth year at Source One Hospitality — a grassroots, referral-driven recruiting agency that doesn't use ads or AI to find people. Just conversations, a real network, and the belief that this industry is the biggest industry in the smallest world.

We get into why Chicago is pretentious about outside talent, why the job you see on Indeed has 500 applicants AND is still open, the salary compression happening right now in the city, what actually gets someone from cook to sous chef (hint: it's not a better resume), and the impossible balance of being a mom in restaurant operations. She also drops her three Chicago picks and the story about meeting José Andrés in an elevator at 25.

If you've ever felt stuck in your career, burned by a bad hire, or wondered whether working with a recruiter is even worth it — well call Nichole!

Find Nichole:
Instagram: @findyourniche
LinkedIn: Nicole Bajko
Agency: sourceonehospitality.com
Newsletter: twice-monthly jobs + content: https://mailchi.mp/sourceonehospitality/social?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Welcome + is "headhunter" a dirty word?
02:27 From an Italian deli at 15 to Marriott
04:16 Networking: the biggest industry in the smallest world
10:07 Resumes, AI, and what a recruiter actually costs you
17:15 Why Chicago won't hire outside talent
22:39 Tenure, salary compression, and the state of the industry
30:37 Mental health, moms in ops, and the "always on" problem
38:54 The real path from cook to management
48:46 What the industry gets wrong about leaders and training
54:16 Year five, The Cosmopolitan, and meeting José Andrés
01:02:14 Where to find Nichole + three Chicago picks

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast. 
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YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood 
Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food 
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood 
FellintoFood.com

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There's a version of being a chef that nobody teaches you in culinary school. No white coat. No ticket rail. No guest feedback at the end of the night. Just you, your palate, and the future of what a billion people are going to eat.

Furquan has lived that version. He interned at Noma in 2022 — got offered a contract by week two — and ended up leaving not because of the controversy that's since gone viral, but because of a visa limbo triggered by the Ukraine war. Noma paid him two months' salary on the way out. He landed in Spain, found his way to the Basque Culinary Center's R&D arm, spent four years tracking spicy food across Jamaica, Korea, Mexico, India, and Nigeria — and is now the Senior Innovation Chef at Kraft Heinz, head of ketchup for every market outside North America.
He also runs the Fugitive Chefs podcast, a platform and community built for chefs who are done with the linear path — restaurant to restaurant to restaurant — and want to know what else is out there.

In this conversation, we get into his personal account of Noma and why the controversy is more complicated than the Instagram posts make it look. We talk about growing up in India, going through hotel management with zero formal culinary training, figuring out ADHD in a pastry kitchen, and why chaos is actually a competitive advantage in R&D. We dig into the real mental block chefs face when they try to leave the kitchen, why culinary schools are selling a dream they're not delivering on, and the 8-hour punch-in punch-out law quietly reshaping restaurant labor in Europe. And we close on something that stuck with me: always choose the option you'd regret NOT choosing. Don't let somebody else drive the car.

Socials
Fugitive Chefs Podcast: fugitivechefs.com
Fugitive Chefs on Apple Podcasts
Fugitive Chefs on Spotify
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fugitivechefspodcast/

CHAPTERS

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00:00 Furqan's personal account of Noma — was it really that bad?

01:07 Interning at Noma, getting offered a contract by week two

03:27 The Ukraine war, Danish visa freeze, and how he left Noma

05:08 Jeff's take: there are always three sides to every story

06:39 Growing up in India, hotel management, zero formal culinary training

07:39 Why he left pastry — ADHD, chaos, and precision being the wrong fit

09:47 R&D seeming counterintuitive for someone who thrives on chaos

10:16 What a Senior Innovation Chef at Kraft Heinz actually does

13:42 How his definition of "being a chef" has changed

16:20 Why food companies don't hire chefs — and why they should

17:45 Jeff's own path through contract management and the "chef" identity

19:23 Real-world skills that got him the job without a food science degree

22:31 Why he started the Fugitive Chefs podcast

26:53 The biggest mental block chefs face when leaving the kitchen

29:20 The gap between what culinary schools sell and what they deliver

31:32 Advice for someone starting from zero — no kitchen, no degree, no experience

36:10 Why NOT following the classic path is actually how you stand out

36:37 Europe's 8-hour punch-in punch-out law and what it's doing to restaurants

40:19 Long hours in the kitchen: necessary grind or just normalized abuse?

43:53 Food company profit margins vs. who always eats the cost

46:46 Tech in the kitchen: what's actually moving the needle

50:58 Will AI replace chefs? (Short answer: we'll be the last ones)

53:39 Biggest untapped opportunities for transitioning chefs in the next 5 years

56:53 The one move that gets you inside a food company with no connections

57:17 Final advice: be sincere with yourself and pick what you'd regret NOT doing

01:00:38 Enjoying the journey vs. just grinding toward the goal

01:01:31 The North Star: always choose the option you'd regret not taking

01:02:57 Wrap up + Fugitive Chefs plug

LISTEN ON ALL PLATFORMS
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FOLLOW FELL INTO FOOD
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YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
Website: https://FellintoFood.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Most people talk about sustainability from a conference stage. Chef Matthew Beaudin talks about it from a trash beach in Ghana where someone just threatened to stab him.

Matthew is a VP of Culinary for Higher Education, and he's spent the last decade logging 250 to 280 days a year on the road — Vietnam, Ghana, the Mekong Delta, a barbecue joint in Texas where he got the last two sandwiches because he happened to be wearing his chef coat. He didn't set out to become a food journalist or a culinary advocate. He set out to see it for himself. And somewhere between going blind in a hotel room in Vietnam, coughing up blood, and making a connecting flight through South Korea while running a full-body infection — he decided that's exactly where he belongs.

This conversation goes everywhere. We talk about why he went all-in on higher ed dining, what a room full of CIA chef students taught him about Gen Z, and why sustainability isn't expensive — your restaurant is just greedy. We also get into the Cocoa Research Institute in Ghana, the first one ever built, and what it means that a group of scientists are racing to preserve the integrity of cocoa before we engineer it into something unrecognizable — the same way we did with corn and tomatoes.

Two small-town kids who had the same itch to get out. This one goes deep.

Socials
Matthew Beaudin Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-beaudin-83424b14/

Time Stamps
0:00 — Intro: Why Matthew Beaudin's Work Hits Different
0:47 — Two Small Town Kids: Kansas, IL and Lincoln, NH
2:52 — VP Culinary Higher Ed — Why Now
7:10 — The CIA Speech He Thought Was Bombing (It Wasn't)
10:05 — Why Gen Z Actually Wants to Make a Difference
13:35 — How to Inject Real Change Through Contract Management
16:53 — Surge, Red Dye #40, and What We Actually Ate Growing Up
18:47 — The Last Brisket Sandwich in Texas
19:35 — LinkedIn and the Art of Sharing Real Moments
22:42 — AI Saturation and Betting on Being Real
24:31 — The Mekong Delta Boat That Almost Capsized
26:43 — Going Blind and Coughing Blood in a Vietnam Hotel at 3AM
28:12 — The Trash Beach in Ghana and Nearly Getting Stabbed
32:08 — Why He Uses His Platform for Voices That Can't Get Out
32:42 — "There's Something Broken in Me"
37:29 — Inside Ghana's Cocoa Research Institute with Cho Chocolate
42:09 — Sustainability Isn't Expensive — Your Restaurant Is Just Greedy
43:10 — Jeff's University Beef Program: What Actually Worked
45:32 — How Do You Actually Tell the Story to Diners?
48:15 — Fear of Doing Nothing
50:42 — What Matthew Eats When No One's Watching
52:40 — Advice for the Next Generation: Believe in the Power of One
54:19 — Where to Find Chef Matthew Beaudin

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
YouTube - https://lnkd.in/gQM3S5mr 
Spotify - https://lnkd.in/g_5kFXie
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4
Pandora - https://lnkd.in/gS-wu_YJ

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What if a mom and pop restaurant could have the same marketing firepower as a brand that dropped millions on a Super Bowl ad — without shutting down the kitchen for a day or blowing through their whole year's budget?

Chris Gilmore spent years in the trenches of food service — from delivering pizzas at Pizza Ranch to running eight Noodles & Company locations across Kansas City, to learning the culture-first operating philosophy at Raising Cane's. Then he started Amplio AI, and everything he knew about building brands, training teams, and understanding operators got pointed at a new problem: how do small and mid-sized companies compete in a world where video content is everything, but production costs are brutal?

Amplio takes AI-generated video clips, stitches them together, and builds professional marketing and training content for brands that couldn't afford a traditional production crew. Chris sat down in the IDM Content Kitchen to walk through the full process — from storyboarding with Imagen Pro to iterating video in Kling 3.0, building music in Suno, and why the resolution of a clip matters more than which model you used. He also broke down how Amplio went from unknown to trending on LinkedIn after a hundred "anti-AI Andys" dogpiled a six-second clip — without any of them reading the post.

This one's for the operator who's too busy running the restaurant to think about marketing. And the chef who's shot amazing content but couldn't find a good angle on one ingredient. And anyone who still thinks AI video is just someone typing a prompt and calling it done.

It's not. And this episode proves it.

**Connect with Chris:**
Website: http://amplioai.net
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Chris Gilmore

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Welcome — Chef Jeff in the IDM Content Kitchen
00:47 What is Amplio AI?
02:44 How the process works: from consultation to campaign
05:53 Tackling "AI slop" — why it exists and how to get rid of it
07:58 The models Jeff is watching: Seedance, Cdream 5.0, Kling, Gemini
08:44 Chris's food service background: Pizza Ranch → Noodles & Company → Raising Cane's
10:15 The Raising Cane's culture lesson and the "one love" philosophy
14:18 AI vs. creativity — is it killing the art? The CGI argument
16:26 Why slop is a knowledge problem, not a technology problem
20:00 The democratization of ideas: AI and the next Star Wars
22:21 Big brands using AI — Coca-Cola, Super Bowl ads, and all press is brand press
26:55 How do you keep up when the models change every two weeks?
28:15 Specialization strategy: stay in your lane and build a partner network
32:42 NotebookLM breakdown — upload a book, get a podcast back
35:41 The full production workflow: storyboarding → images → video → music (Suno) → edit
39:37 Which model for what: Kling vs. Runway vs. VO vs. Seedance
45:03 Stitching clips from different models: resolution is the key
49:05 Changing one ingredient in a training video — 10 minutes vs. a full reshoot
54:14 Organic content strategy: find what works, then put money behind it
57:22 Why AI changes the math for small businesses with one shot at a marketing budget
01:00:17 Where to find Chris and Amplio AI
01:01:08 Real-world use for chefs: menus, food photography, animated menu boards, training videos

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
YouTube - https://lnkd.in/gQM3S5mr
Spotify - https://lnkd.in/g_5kFXie
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4
Pandora - https://lnkd.in/gS-wu_YJ

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The food and beverage industry has a massive blind spot — and it's hiding in plain sight. Brands spend thousands flying reps across the country to do in-store demos, while 90% of shoppers walk right past them without ever knowing the event was happening. There's no centralized place to find where samples are. Until now.

This week I sit down with Al Schuster, founder and president of Polaris Brand Promotions, and Heather Johnson, the agency's marketing director and co-founder of a brand new app called Sample Finder. Al has been running one of the country's leading experiential marketing and promo staffing agencies for nearly nine years, with over 9,600 brand ambassadors in their nationwide database. Heather brings 15+ years as a brand ambassador and a background in graphic design — and as Al puts it, "I just came up with the idea. Everything else you see? That's Heather."

The conversation covers how promotional staffing actually works (and why almost nobody knows this industry exists), the frustrating DC grocery store demo that sparked the idea for Sample Finder, how the app bridges the gap between brands and consumers through gamification, rewards, and real feedback — and why they built it nothing like Yelp. We also get into the grocery delivery vs. in-store debate, the pay-to-play problem killing small brand visibility on delivery apps, and some wild brand ambassador horror stories from the field.

Sample Finder is targeting a public launch in April 2026. Get on the list now at samplefinder.com.

Follow Al & Heather:
Sample Finder: samplefinder.com | @samplefinderapp
Polaris Brand Promotions: polarisbrandpromotions.com

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
YouTube - https://lnkd.in/gQM3S5mr 
Spotify - https://lnkd.in/g_5kFXie
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4
Pandora - https://lnkd.in/gS-wu_YJ

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy