If you love green chile, you’re REALLY going to love this episode! Bunny talks to Rob Holland of 505 Southwestern Chile. Stay tuned for the end for some great recipes too.
Links and Resources
505 Southwestern Brands
Follow 505 on Instagram
Bunny’s website
Buy Bunny’s book on Amazon
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook
Original Music by: Kene Terry
Featuring:
Rob Holland
“Rob Holland is the Founding Managing Partner of CREO Capital Partners, having launched the firm in 2005. CREO Capital Partners is the principal owner of Flagship Food Group. Mr. Holland has over 20 years of experience in private equity, finance, investment banking and operations. At CREO, he helped steer the firm toward its focus on food and consumer products companies.
Prior to launching CREO, Mr. Holland worked at Trust Company of the West and its subsidiary, Crescent Capital. Prior to that, he was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers.
He graduated Magnum Cum Laude from Wake Forest University where he attended as a Presidential Scholar.”
Episode Transcript
Bunny: (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native new Mexican, who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico stories, Talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where are you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico. Today our special guest is Rob Holland, who is connected with something. All of us know if you’re a New Mexican or you’re in love with New Mexicos, that’s very near and dear to all of our hearts. Rob, I don’t think anything says New Mexico and, and sets us apart quite as much as Green Chile. And yeah, you’re, you’re sort of one of the kings of Green Chile in New Mexico, but rather than me, it sort of regurgitating what I’ve read about you. I wanna hear your story, what’s Sure, how are you connected to this and, and why is it important To you?
Rob: (01:28)
Yeah. Well, I run a business called Flagship Food Group, and flagship in turn owns, uh, two great brands, two great New Mexico brands, 5 0 5 Southwestern and Young Guns. And, as I wanna share with you, uh, between those two brands, I believe that no one, uh, no other company is as invested in the state of New Mexico and in Green Chile peppers as we are. Um, you know, I did not grow up loving Green Chile. I did not grow up in New Mexico. I grew up in Florida and then lived in California, and I came across this little brand called 5 0 5 Southwestern Roy Solomon had started that brand, and, um, he was looking for capital to kind of grow. And, um, this was back, gosh, over 10 years ago. And, uh, we got connected. I was living in LA at the time, and, um, uh, I made the decision to invest in this little brand called 5 0 5 Southwestern, really thinking it was a salsa brand.
Rob: (02:30)
I didn’t even know what Green Chile really was until after we owned it. And, um, after owning the brand for a few years, though, I started doing my research. I started eating the product, I started spending more time in New Mexico. Um, and I sort of, uh, sort of re fell in love with the 5 0 5, but this time for the Real Reason, which is that it is a Green Chile brand, a brand that focuses on the wonderful flavor ofHatch Valley, New Mexico Green Chile. And, uh, since those humble beginnings and acquiring that brand when it was just a couple million dollars in sales, um, you know, I have, uh, gone full throttle to support this brand and to grow it internationally. And today, 5 0 5, together with this Young Guns brand that we acquired last year, we are today the world’s largest seller of Hatch Valley Greenlee Peppers. And every single jar that we sell, every single container that we sell speaks about the Hatch Valley and speaks about New Mexico. And for our fans that take the time to, uh, click on the QR codes or go to our website, um, what we talk about is that, uh, we process, we procure over 40 million pounds of Hatch Valley Green. She peppers every year. We are one of the very few companies, if not the only company that is truly farm to table, meaning that we have our own farms. We have two fire roasting plants down in, in the Hatch Valley region, uh, where we fire roast and flame roast our green chile peppers. Uh, we then have our own warehousing and distribution facilities. We have, uh, over 200,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space in the state of New Mexico. And of course, we get that product out all over the world. So, uh, no one is as invested and as in love with, uh, New Mexico to green chile peppers as we are. And we’re helping folks in, in, uh, all over the world and in Europe and in Florida, in and, and in, uh, New York and California all sort of fall in love with the flavors that, uh, folks like ourselves that know New Mexico. So well have already, you know, fall in love with. So that’s our story. And, and those are our brands.
Bunny: (05:02)
Well, I gotta tell you, you’re providing an incredible service because on the I love New Mexico blog. We, you know, I post a lot of, um, recipes and people will get in touch with me. And this was, this was certainly true, you know, 10, 12 years ago when I started the blog, um, people would say, Where do I buy that? Because really the alternative at the time was those old El Paso cans of chile mm-hmm. , if you didn’t live here and you couldn’t get it fresh, you basically had to buy canned green chile that was just like eating green mush. And, um, and people would say, But how do I get it? I mean, there, there were a few brands, you know, you could, at an exorbitant cost, you could go online and buy something that was frozen and shipped overnight, but it was really cost prohibitive. So I think you’re providing a really important service out there in the world, world, and, um, I’m sorry that we can’t do this interview, um, on the ground because you have, and I hope that video that I saw is out there in the world. We wanna link to it. But you, you have, um, you, you’re, the harvest is in a beautiful space. Um, I’d love to see the fire roasting process because it looks like it’s perfect for, for the way that those of us who, um, have always bought our chile roasted in a barrel on the side of the road. Um, I, I’m, I’m, I’m impressed with what you’re doing and I’m curious, um, I saw in the video, do you have four farms? Is that,
Rob: (06:41)
Well, we have multiple farms that we both operate ourselves and that our partner farmers grow for us. Um, in fact, across the board, there’s, there’s seven different farmers that we work with, um, all here in New Mexico. Right. So, um, uh, and then yes, you’re right. We have two fire roasting facilities that we operate, um, where we have these beautiful, and you see ’em on the side of the roads, but think about, you know, the industrial size, right, a lot bigger. And, uh, we are fire roasting, uh, green chile peppers. And then we, we diced that green chile. Um, we had a very, very simple secret ingredient, blend all a hundred percent non gmo. And then we put that, that that product into a glass jar. You mentioned the tin, the stuff that you buy in the tin cans.
Bunny: (07:34)
Listen, um, we love all green chile but I will say there’s something special about about 5 0 5. And what is that? So we sell our product in a glass jar. We’re one of the few brands, really the only scaled brand that sells, uh, Dice Green Chile in a glass jar instead of a tin can that allows our fans, and I’ll just grab one that allows our fans to really sort of see the texture, see the char mark, you’ll see the quality of the green chile that they’re buying versus in a tin can where you can’t see anything. Um, another big differentiator for us is we don’t add any water, and our, our competitors do. So typically, if you look at the tin can, that second ingredient is gonna be water. We don’t add any water to our product. That’s why our product, when you, when you look at it, almost looks like a salsa.
Rob: (08:25)
It’s so thick and chunky. It’s got that texture and that, and that and that, uh, consistency of a product that hasn’t had any water added. And then in terms of the other ingredients and our flavors of green chile, you know, they always say you wanna buy products, so you can pronounce all the words. Well, we have Hatch Valley Green Chile, peppers, garlic salt, and lime juice, and that’s it all a hundred percent non gmo. So when you’re, when you’re trying to get that sort of taste of home and taste of New Mexico, and you want the, the product that most, uh, most accurately reflects what a fresh green chile pepper is going to to be like, you know, compared to buying it on the side of the road, you know, it’s our product. The other thing that’s very unique about 5 0 5 is that we do fire roast our green chile peppers over an open flame. And not a lot of other groups do that with you get that char mark, you get that, that smoky feeling. I always say, Would you rather, you know, cook a burger on the grill over an open flame or in a microwave, or what’s gonna, which one’s gonna taste better? Obviously cooking those, those chile barrels over a real open flame is something that sets us apart as a brand.
Bunny: (09:38)
Well, and that’s the way we grew up with it. I mean, before, um, before the, the roasting barrels were created, we always did ours over the grill where there was a flame where we could char them. And, um, there was always this big argument, or do you do your chiles in the oven? Do you do ’em on the grill? I was like, What, what is this roasting in, in the oven part? Um, so I’m, I’m curious to know, you said all over the world, I mean, do you, is do you think it’s really worldwide? Is your distribution worldwide? Are you introducing people to Green Chile everywhere?
Rob: (10:11)
Yeah, I mean, listen, we get stories of people that, you know, have ordered online and they live in Europe, or they live all over the world, or live, they live in Asia. I had a story yesterday from a, a guy that used to, um, buy our product in bulk and then, uh, sort of resell it, if you will, to, to, uh, fans in Asia. So the product does end up all over the world. Um, we’ve been featured at Wimbley Stadium in London, as an ingredient for their nacho plates. Um, and so listen, I think that the world still has a lot to learn, and it’s our job to sort of increase that awareness all over, all over the world and even domestically. Uh, but there’s no question that 5 0 5 is carrying the New Mexico banner, um, all across the globe.
Bunny: (10:57)
So, um, tell me about Young Guns, because you just is, is it, I mean, the product seems to me almost exactly the same. I know that you said you just, they became one of the products that you have in your line recently. Yeah, those guys have been around, right?
Rob: (11:12)
Yeah. Young Guns has been a wonderful partner and supplier of ours for as long as I can remember. And so really Young Guns has always been part of our family. Um, and we just sort of, uh, maybe we went from dating to getting married, but we, we sort of took that partnership a step further by actually bringing the brand and the facilities into our, into our business. Young Guns is, is, you’re right, you said it that the project is, is really identical. It’s the, it’s the same wonderful Green Chile, It’s one of the differences with young guns is through young guns, we’re able to provide the fresh Green Chile peppers to the retailers. So if you, if you see the fresh peppers and the produce section of the store, um, young Guns, more than likely, more than any other brand, is more than likely the, the vendor there. So that got us into the produce side. And then, um, Young Guns has developed a line of, um, uh, jugs, so I’ll show you that as well. The Young Guns Jugs are, um, sort of a, uh, similar, similar form factor in that you can see the product, right? So you can see through, you can see that char mark, you can see the texture, you can see the great product, um, and these jugs sell in the produce section of the store. So we sort of moved from being, um, just sold in the, in the, uh, Hispanic or, or, or international set, uh, or the green chile set all the way through to including, uh, sales in the produce section.
Bunny: (12:41)
Well, and I’ll tell you a young gun story, I was, um, in like February of this year, I was at my son’s in, my son’s who grew up in Albuquerque. I was at his house in San Jose, and I make gypsy stew from the pink adobe in Albuquerque from their cookbook, I’m sorry, in Santa Fe from their cookbook. And it requires four cups of green chile along with, you know, 14 clothes of garlic and seven onions. And I sort of had this panic moment when I thought, I can’t make, I cannot make gypsy stew because I can’t find young guns. And I looked it up on Google, and there was a Walmart across town that had young guns chile in the freezer section. So I’m telling you, if you, if you’re despairing, just Google young guns or 5 0 5 Southwestern, and, and you’re gonna figure out where you can buy it in town, because it seems to me that now after traveling a lot, you can get it anywhere. I don’t know, are you, are you at a mar Are you not in a market yet that you wanna be in?
Rob: (13:48)
No, we’re in every market and we’re in all 50 states. Now listen, there are, uh, markets where we’re in some stores and not others. We’re lucky that in the southwest, sort of West Texas all the way to California, generally speaking, you know, every single grocery store is gonna have either 5 0 5 or young guns. And, usually both. Um, as you get a little bit further, you know, Midwest and East Coast, um, the distribution’s a little bit more underdeveloped. However, we are, uh, generally speaking in every Walmart nationwide. Um, most Costco, uh, regions carry 5 0 5, um, most Sams carry 5 0 5. And then of course, we’re available, um, anywhere in the world through, um, both our own online store and through Amazon. So if you want 5 0 5 green chile, uh, you can get it no matter where you live. Lucky, luckily, if you, if you’re kind of on the western half of the United States all the way to the West, um, you kind of can’t miss it. Now what’s funny is people don’t always know where to look in the store, so, uh, typically the green chile is sold in the, we call it Mexican food aisle. So of course, we’re not Mexican, we’re New Mexican, but nevertheless, um, our product lands in that sort of salsa, green chile flavoring, uh, aisle that is typically kind of the international or the Latin foods or the Mexican food aisle. And then in our, in our larger markets, like in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and Denver and Phoenix, um, boy, uh, kind of, we’re usually all over the store, so sometimes we’ll be in the produce section. Sometimes we’ll be in the meat section. They’ll be, you know, they’ll do a good job of, of having a display of 5 0 5, um, throughout the store.
Bunny: (15:29)
Well, let’s talk, I wanna talk personally for just a minute because, um, I know that you are getting to spend, um, some time in the Hatch Valley. What’s your favorite thing about that other than the chile growing?
Rob: (15:44)
Oh my gosh, the people, you know, is that right? The people down in Hatch? Um, the passion they have for the Pepper, you know, um, peppers are grown all over the world. Um, and we can talk about peppers from different regions with different flavor profiles. And what makes the Hatch Chile Pepper special? Um, yeah, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the hot days, cold nights, It’s the altitude, it’s the Rio Grande River, it’s the soil, but ultimately it’s the people. And you don’t have to spend much time and hatch or really that whole community down in Southern New Mexico. And you realize that, um, the passion for growing a wonderful green chile pepper sort of oozes through everyone, whether you are in the, in the industry or not. You know, when I was in LA they talked about, are you in the industry talking about Hollywood and movie making? And whether you are an actor or in the industry or not. If you lived in LA you, you understood it, you respected it. You are, you are a part of the industry. Even only if I sort of association that same level of kind of, uh, passion is there in silly New Mexico for the Chile Pepper. Everyone’s talking about chile peppers. How do you grow them? Where do you grow them? What’s the best way, What’s the best way to roast them? What’s the best, the best way to peel them? What’s the best way to utilize them in food? Is red better? Is green better? And so when you get down and hatch, you just can’t walk down the street or, or have a conversation with someone without the conversation migrating to, uh, chile peppers. And we love that because we are, as I say, you know, we procure 40 million pounds every year of green chile peppers. We live in. We live and breathe and die by, uh, folks falling in love with green chile. And, for us, it’s, it’s fun to see, uh, an area of the world that is just so centered around the one thing that to us is our whole livelihood.
Bunny: (17:38)
And this is kind of a, this is a big year for 5 0 5, right? I mean, I got invited to a party recently to celebrate.
Rob: (17:43)
Yeah, we had our 25 years of flavor celebration just last month in Albuquerque. Uh, Roy Solomon, who’s the founder of 5 0 5, he has a phenomenal, uh, food hall called Tin Can Alley. If you haven’t been, you’ve gotta go. Um, they’ve got great food that ranges from Mexican to, to pizza to, uh, barbecue, you name it. And 5 0 5 is a key ingredient. And, um, used in, uh, most of the different, uh, food, food outlets there, uh, we had over 600 people come celebrate with us. We had the world’s largest portable chile roaster in the parking lot. Wow. We had, of course, as Albuquerque, we had a hot air balloon in the parking lot. Of course, we would, um, with our 5 0 5 banner glowing. Um, and we were able to celebrate the, uh, success and growth of 5 0 5 over the last 25 years with our fans and with the media and with our investors, and with all of our employees that have made it possible along the way. And yeah, it was, uh, it was quite a, quite a great event. But the, the year’s not over, even though that event has come and gone, this whole year is about celebrating 25 years of flavor. So we’re doing recipe contests, you know, send in your best recipe for 5 0 5. We’re doing events, we’re doing marketing, we’re doing, we, we brought our, our, our chile roaster up to Denver. We did, two chile roasting events at the Denver Brongo’s games at the beginning of the season. So we’re bringing that celebration of 25 years, um, not just in New Mexico, but, but, but as many places as we can.
Bunny: (19:18)
Wow. Well, congratulations. So I have to ask this, and of course, if I get it wrong, we can edit it, but did 5 0 5 start as a restaurant on Uptown Street? Am I crazy?
Rob: (19:30)
No. Yeah. So 5 0 5 Southwestern was a restaurant first started by Roy Solomon. Yes. And couple different locations. It kind of evolved into Bailey’s on the beach right there by campus. Yes. And, um, and 5 0 5 started as a restaurant and, um, all of Roy Solomon’s fans and, and, and guests would say, Hey, this, this is such great food, Can you, can you bottle up some of that green chile and sell it to me? And so he started, you know, as many entrepreneurs do, making the, the product in his, in his, in his kitchen and, and bottling up the old fashioned way. And finally, um, he invested in a very small plant, uh, on 500 Broadway right there in downtown Albuquerque. And, um, that’s when we came along. So we, we invested alongside Roy and then ultimately bought a brand. And, uh, today, uh, we have operations both in Albuquerque and in southern New Mexico. So we span the state.
Bunny: (20:24)
Well, I used to live, I was a paralegal for a law firm back before the crust cooled. Um, and, and that’s, and 5 0 5 was the restaurant was like two blocks from our office. Yeah. So it seems like I ate there two or three times a week. So, Congratulations because it was a great restaurant and I’m, I’m glad it, even though the restaurant’s not not there anymore, it continues to be a really viable part of the economy. I mean, I, Can you tell us, how many people do you employ in New Mexico?
Rob: (20:58)
Well, before I get there, I wanna talk about the restaurant again. So the rest, the five for tho, for those new Mexicans that remember and love, the 5 0 5 Southwestern Restaurant or Bailey’s on the beach, the, this all been reincarnated and it’s been reincarnated at Tin Can Alley. And so you get to have that same experience, although bigger and better. Uh, Santa Fe Brewery is there. So you’ve got a whole brewery. You’ve got, um, a wider selection of products. You’ve got barbecue, you’ve got, you’ve got, um, pizza, you’ve got, uh, you know, Mexican food or Hispanic food, or Southwestern Food. And, um, and the 5 0 5 Green Chile sort of is, is everywhere there. So for those of you that remember the 5 0 5 Southwestern Restaurant or BES on the Beach, definitely go check out, uh, Tin Can Alley. Um, you know, we, we get asked the question, you know, how many people do we employ? Well, it’s such a hard question to answer because we have all of our direct employees, and then we have all of our partners and our farmers. And so, um, you know, we touched through our business, thousands and thousands of lives, both directly and indirectly. Our company as a combined entity, has about 700 direct employees, and we have, uh, several hundred in the state of New Mexico.
Bunny: (22:09)
Wow. Wow. Thank you so much for that. We talked to, Bosque Brewing recently, and they were talking about how they had gone from four employees to 400 employees over time. And I thought, is it p I don’t know. I mean, I’ve lived elsewhere and, you know, I’ve lived where people didn’t know that New Mexico was a state, but I don’t know if our listeners who are not here and who are not familiar with New Mexico are aware of what a vibrant economy we have, especially a food economy. I mean, uh, that’s, that’s the perfect place to invest because this is, we have such an amazing food culture in New Mexico. So that’s, that gets me to my next question is, what’s your favorite recipe? Um, or, or maybe not favorite, because I know that’s like asking like, who’s your favorite child, but tell me what you like to cook with with Green chile.
Rob: (23:10)
. Well, you know, we do a lot of TV appearances and we take that New Mexico story and we talk about it on national television and regional television all over the country in Texas and California and Colorado, and of course New Mexico. So, um, I always like to say, uh, you know, let’s talk about some simple recipes and then let’s talk about some complex recipes. And the simple ones are the ones that sometimes resonate. So, um, I would, I would say a couple things. First of all, let’s just keep it real simple. 5 0 5 green chile or young gun screen chile just goes great on anything as a condiment, as a, as anything to add flavor. So the simplest recipe is take your favorite meal, I don’t care what it is, even if it’s a dessert or a salad, and just, you know, put a spoonful of green chile on it and give it a try. Pizzas, burgers, salads, barbecue, you name it. That’s the easiest of them all. But if we wanna kind of get and have some fun, um, you know, if you’re, if you’re doing a sort of a football party or any kind of tailgate party, you know, Hatch Valley Green Chile Queso is a favorite, right? So just get your favorite, you know, your multiple cheese, maybe a little bit of sour cream, and then go heavy on the green chile, blend it all together, put the microwave a couple times, get that together, that really creamy, that really creamy, uh, queso. And then I like to add just one more sort of spoonful of green show in the top. Makes it look real pretty. And then if you have a, a football party, everyone’s gonna be racing for that. Um, here’s another one that’s really easy. Crock pot, you know, crock pots are in right now. You turn ’em in the morning, you put in your favorite protein, can be chicken, could be pork. Um, you can do a pork tenderloin, You can do a chicken breast. And then pouring a whole jar, a whole jar of 5 0 5. And you can use our, our 5 0 5 green chile or the green chile sauce. Either way, it’s gonna be great. You let it, you let it, you know, cook on low, you know, for a couple of hours. You come back after work, um, and you’ve got a great green chile stew or shredded pork or shredded chicken. You could eat that on its own. You can put that at the tacos for, for a taco. You can make a stew out of it. So those are some easier ones. Um, now some ones that are a little more creative, but really, really good. And I’m gonna point to our website here, our chiney cherry sauce, if you know about Chimi Cheerios and Argentinian steak sauce. And it’s got a lot of fresh ingredients. And, um, go to our website, website 5 0 5 southwestern.com and go to the recipes tab and look for the 5 0 5 green chile chiney cherry. And I won’t, I mean, basically you’ve gotta, you gotta get your blender out and you’ve gotta kind of chop up some ingredients. But it makes this steak sauce that is fresh and bright, but it has that green chile, you know, heat level and flavor and then the other. And while you’re there, the other recipe that I think is a little more complex, but um, is a fun twist, especially this time of year for kind of football season, is, uh, chicken wings. And they can be either, um, boneless, you know, buffalo chicken wings that you, you know, buy at the store that are frozen and you air fry ’em. Or you can do, you know, a proper chicken wing. But you take our green chile our flavors are green chile, You put it in a blender to kind of blend it into a, a, a more of a, a smooth consistency. Um, we add some more flavors. We had pineapple and mango and some other sort of, uh, fun sort of sweet spicy flavors, uh, that makes a a, a chicken wing that you know, is, is, you know, to die for. But let me come back to what I said, just try it on anything. Whatever you love, add more green chile. It really, it, it’s just like a hot sauce or anything else that just adds flavor. Just take a, a spoonful, 5 0 5 green chile and just add it to salsa, add it to whatever you eat. It goes great on it.
Bunny: (27:07)
And, I almost have no words cuz it’s so true. I mean, it’s eggs for breakfast, whatever meat you’re having at lunch, whatever soup you’re cooking, a spoonful of green chile makes everything better. Um, and I, you know the cool thing is, um, it’s also an incredibly healthy way to eat, right?
Rob: (27:34)
Absolutely no sugar added, you know, it’s all natural ingredients. A hundred percent non gmo. You know, if you think about, uh, you know, I’ll tell you, a great way to use 5 0 5 is, is is used as as your steak sauce. I love walking into a fancy steakhouse. You know, one of the national chains or one of the local spots where everyone you know is, is really proud of their, their cuts to meat. And I get out my 5 0 5 jar and I, and I kind of smother the steak with green chile. And now listen, the New Mexico people are gonna say that makes sense. You do that and, and some other places in the, in the, in the, in the, in the country. And people look at you funny, but they’re curious and listen, 5 0 5 flavors, green chile on top of a steak. And if you think about what you’re not using there, you’re not using all that processed steak sauce stuff that, that, you know, it’s got all those, you know, ingredients and high fructose corn syrup and all this, all these added ingredients we’re just talking about one, you know, one key flavor ingredient, which is flame roasted green chile peppers.
Bunny: (28:31)
Now, am I crazy or do you have little, little smaller serving containers as well? Have I seen that somewhere?
Rob: (28:38)
We have, we do have, you know, for sampling and such, we do have smaller packets and, um, we don’t sell those at retail. So that’s a special giveaway when you’re at a an event and we’re, and we’re trying to sort of sample, listen, we, um, here’s our saying, you gotta have more than, that’s not enough, right? No matter, no matter what you’re doing, you gotta have 16 ounces or eight ounces of green chile. And so our jars come in 16 ounces and it’s amazing if you, once you fall in love with this product, how many jars you go through every week. Well, it seems to me like this is, um, this is a perfect time to order a case at Green Chile for, um, holiday cooking and for gift giving. I mean, I, it really is something that I send to my kids who live away, um, all the time.
Rob: (29:22)
Yeah. Well, for holidays, let me give you another recipe for holidays cuz we’re all, we’re all gonna be thinking about holiday, uh, appetizers. And, um, one of the favorites that my wife and I do is a candied green chile bacon. Um, and this one’s really simple. Um, you either, you either start with our sweet and spicy green chile, which already has that, sweetness blended into the jar, or you just use our flame roaster, green chile. And then you add, you know, people can, you honey is pretty popular, honey, or, or even a syrup or anything sweet that you like. And, and again, put in a blender and create kind of a puree that with that sweet heat you’re looking for the heat from the green chile and the sweetness and based thick cut bacon with that puree and then put it in an air fryer or, or, or any kind of oven. But really air fryers were great. And then when it comes outta the oven, cut it into little bite sized pieces and serve that on a platter at your next sort of either holiday party or Thanksgiving party or any kind of party. And that, that sweet and spicy green chile candy, bacon people love it.
Bunny: (30:35)
Well, it’s two of my favorite ingredients. Bacon and green chile.
Rob: (30:38)
Exactly right. Bacon, you can’t go wrong. Chile. What can go wrong there?
Bunny: (30:42)
Right, Right, right. So we are going to, um, are we, we have with this episode posted a link to your website and to some of the rep recipes that you talked about. Um, what, what have we not talked about that you want folks to know?
Rob: (30:59)
I think what I want to share with everyone in New Mexico that, you know, I want you to be really proud of this brand. You know, the 5 0 5 is your brand. This is your brand. I mean, uh, your telephone probably says five oh five would make a phone call. Five oh five is the, uh, is is a number that at its core represents New Mexico. And, um, what we are, we’re very proud that when you go into a store in New York or Chicago and you see that line of 5 0 5 products, it’s, it’s really saying New Mexico, you know, we’re not hiding the New Mexico, it’s the opposite. New Mexico is embedded in the very brand name. And so this is your brand. This is your brand to love and cherish and promote and, and enjoy. We love our, our fan feedback. We have some great feedback that we get from people from New Mexico that have moved all over the world and they post on social media or on our Amazon reviews and they say, I’m so glad that I landed in Chicago or New York and I had that taste of home through 5 0 5 Green Chile. This is your brand. This is a brand that you should be passionate about, that you should love. And, um, you know, let, let’s help, help us take this story of New Mexico all over the world. And again, the, um, it’s not like we call this brand, you know, Rob’s favorite Green Chile or Roy Solomon’s favorite green, we call it five oh five. Five oh five is the area code in New Mexico. This is New Mexico’s own brand and we’re really proud of that.
Bunny: (32:36)
And it’s a great product. Thank you. Thank you so much for bringing it to the world. Um, I, well Rob, we gotta get together. I wanna let’s next time you’re in New Mexico, I’ll meet you at 10 Ken Alley and we’ll, we’ll have some, we’ll have something covered in Green Chile. Good. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you so much for being here. And um, as I said before, to everybody who’s listening, be sure and check out the links and then go out and cook something with some green chile because it’s, it’s gonna change your life if you haven’t already done it, . And that’s not a big claim at all. No,. Thanks for being here, Robin.
(33:18)
Okay. Thank you Bunny.